Dragon Ball Z: The Beast Within - CH48

[Escarot – POV]

This girl was… strange.

There wasn’t another word for it. Or if there was, I hadn’t learned it yet.

I’d met a lot of weirdos since all this started. But this girl? Different breed entirely.

Not in a power sense—though her energy was suspiciously clean, like unnaturally refined; but in the way she acted.

She asked too many questions. Talked like she’d never had a conversation before. Had the attention span of a fruit fly on caffeine. And for someone supposedly from this planet, she didn’t walk, talk, or smell like any Saiyan I’d ever met.

In fact, she behaved like a tourist. Not that Planet Vegeta had any, but still.

“So… what are we doing?” she asked, walking beside me like we’d been lifelong friends. “Any world-altering plans you might or might not have?”

I stopped mid-step.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she hummed, smiling like she hadn’t just asked the most suspicious question in the history of suspicious questions. “Just checking.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, finally turning to look at her head-on.

“Potato,” she said, with a perfectly straight face.

“…Right.”

I kept walking.

She followed, skipping now. Actually skipping. Like she was in a field of daisies instead of a planet where buildings exploded weekly and children fought to the death as a way of learning.

She honestly looked like she had never interacted with anyone before. Like she read a guide on how to make friends but skipped most of it.

“Well,” I said, shrugging, frowning at the thought of my plans. “I plan to visit my little… brother. Then I’ll eat. In that order.”

I wasn’t sure what I would find in the nursery, but I needed to see it for myself, that much I knew.

“Visiting family?” she echoed, tilting her head. “Wholesome. Very non-destructive. That doesn’t seem like something that would change the course of history itself though.”

I squinted at her.

“You say weird things.”

“Do I?” she asked, blinking innocently.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Silence fell between us. Not awkward, just… odd. Like she was letting me process the fact that she had definitely, without question, said something weird, and was absolutely not planning on explaining it.

I wasn’t sure what to make of her. But at the very least, she was entertaining.

Weird? Absolutely. Probably not even a real Saiyan? Strong maybe at this point. But entertaining? Absolutely.

“Are you going to follow me all day?” I asked finally, not stopping this time. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

She stopped.

Body language said she was insulted. Arms crossed. Shoulders stiff. But she waved it off like it wasn’t a big deal or at least tried to. “As a matter of fact,” she replied, one finger on her chin, “you’re right. I do have this thing that’s very important and requires my absolute attention.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“So…”

She smiled, spun on her heel, and began walking away with the grace of someone pretending she had something better to do. “See ya later! Bye bye~”

I watched her disappear around the corner, skipping again.

She was lying, obviously.

She’d follow me again within the hour. I could feel it in my bones.

Not that I cared honestly, Okara had built my tolerance to weirdness.

I looked up at the sky, blood red, and exhaled. Planet Vegeta’s air was dry, stale. Not the worst place to breathe, but not the best either. Kind of like everything else about this place.

“Broly,” I muttered under my breath.

What to do… what to do…

Was he destined to become that psychopath I had seen in the movies, or was that just a result of his environment?

I had no idea what I should do or what to say. What was there to say? Hey there, little psycho, I’m sorry but there’s a big chance I might have to kill you, but hey, I’m saving you from an eternity in hell, so there’s that.

Sighing, I adjusted my armor as I walked. I was close to the nursery sector. The same one that had sent that brief but massive pulse earlier.

The power spike that had nearly made me trip mid-walk.

That energy was still on my mind. Still lingering in the back of my skull like a whisper. Shit had become overly complicated in a matter of moments.

I had to make a decision, and I had to make it now.

I didn’t like being unsure of my choices, nor the fact I was considering killing a baby, but if I wanted to deal with this situation before it completely escalated out of my control, I had to act now. Broly would soon become too powerful for me to deal with, and once that happened, I would enter a point of no return.

I had to be sure of my decision.

The funny thing is… that like with Frieza, I hated the thought of killing someone at their weakest, it made me feel like a fucking coward.

Saiyan pride was a strange thing. Part stupidity, part instinct, part ancestral shit. We didn’t like feeling weaker. We didn’t like being second. And we definitely didn’t like slopping seconds when it came to fighting.

“Just a quick visit,” I said to myself, pushing open the doors to the nursery. “And I’ll see.”

Easy.

Right?

Right.

—----------------------------------------------------

[At the Nursery.]

The nursery was quieter than I remembered. Maybe because I’d never really been inside it, not in sometime at least. Most low-class Saiyan kids didn’t get fancy glass pods and isolated climate-controlled chambers. You got born, they slapped a number on you, and you were sent off to die gloriously on some rock in the ass-end of the galaxy.

And as I walked towards the top, passing each and every single tier, I eventually reached the Elite area, a white, clean, quiet place. Eerily quiet.

There were only two incubator pods in the room.

Just two.

I walked in slowly, boots echoing against the metallic floor.

The first pod caught my eye. Because inside that bubbling fluid, floated a very familiar face—one that looked like it was ready to punch someone in the jaw just because, despite being the size of a roasted turkey.

“Vegeta,” I muttered. This gave me a general idea of where in the timeline I was exactly.

Yep. That scowl was unmistakable. Even as a baby, he looked pissed off at the universe. And the hairline? Brutal.

“Tough, start with that hairline, little prince,” I chuckled. “But you’ll be fine.”

I kept walking.

The second pod belonged to...

Broly.

My little brother.

The reason I came.

I stopped in front of the pod and let my hand fall to my side. The inside of the tank glowed softly, illuminating the infant floating in the center. His eyes were closed, breathing slow and even. His little fists were relaxed, and for a moment, I could almost convince myself he was just… normal.

But he wasn’t.

I could feel it again.

That power—still buried deep inside him—kept rising and falling in erratic pulses. Like a heart with no rhythm. One second, it spiked. The next, it dipped so low you’d think he was your average low class warrior.

There was no pattern.

That said… this wasn’t the same energy I had felt when I landed back on the planet. That power I had felt… it didn’t come from him. What I was sensing now was completely different. Wilder. More natural, in a way.

Like his power was a living thing.

I narrowed my eyes.

Was there someone else on this planet… hiding their power? If so, for what motives, with that kind of power, killing everyone here was rather easy, meaning whoever was hiding their presence wanted something else.

That said, I had to focus on my current dilemma. Broly…

I was stronger than him. Much stronger.

I could… end this now. Before he outgrew me in power.

One ki blast. Quick. Efficient. No one would question it. Say it was a malfunction. Saiyan tech breaks all the time.

No more Broly. No future monster. No threat to anyone.

But…

I sighed and leaned against the side of the pod. He wasn’t even crying. Just floating there with this peaceful look on his face.

Peaceful… adorable even.

Two words I never thought I’d put in the same sentence, describing him.

I stared at him for a while, arms crossed, just… thinking.

This was supposed to be the legendary berserker. The freak of nature. The timebomb.

And yet, all I saw was a baby. One that probably didn’t even know what a punch was yet.

Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was suicidal.

But…

Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be what the timeline said he would be.

Maybe all he needed was a better shot. A different starting point. Someone to actually talk to him instead of what Paragus did in the movies.

Wasn’t that why I was here? To fuck with the canon?

The tiniest movement made me glance down.

Broly’s eyes opened.

Wide and round, pupils dilated with the kind of wonder only a baby could have. He blinked once. Twice.

Then he smiled.

Not a baby smirk. Not a gas-bubble face. A real, honest-to-god smile.

And then he reached for me.

Tiny fingers brushed the glass, slow and clumsy, like he was trying to understand who—or what—I was, or perhaps he did understand. His hand flattened against the inside of the pod.

Right over where my own rested.

I swallowed hard.

“Well, that’s fucking adorable…” I muttered, jaw tightening. “I might regret this later on, and you might very well end up killing me…”

I leaned down just a bit, staring into those big eyes.

“…But fuck it. I’m on this whole big brother bullshit.”

Broly let out a tiny giggle that made bubbles in his incubator. A sound that echoed softly inside the pod, muffled by the liquid, but still distinct enough to punch me square in the heart.

He knew.

He knew who I was.

And despite everything, despite knowing what I did and my survival instincts telling this was stupid and everything else…

I found myself smiling back.

“Well, I was already fucking with the canon,” I muttered, raising my hand and pressing it to the glass, matching where his tiny palm rested. “I might as well wine and dine it.”

I exhaled slowly.

“Hi there, Broly. I’m your older brother, Escarot.”

And just like that, I was changing shit once more.

I didn’t know if I’d made the right call. I didn’t know if one day I’d look back at this moment and hate myself for not doing the smart thing.

But I knew one thing.

The moment I saw him reach out for me, all logic went out the damn window.

Guess being Saiyan really does mean choosing the hardest road possible. With a smile.

God damn, we Saiyans are dumb as fuck. But what can you do about it?