The skies over Planet Viltrum burned gold with the light of its twin suns, casting sharp reflections off the towering spires that pierced the heavens like obsidian spears. The capital city gleamed beneath the sky, a monument to power, efficiency, and conquest. Great ships carved through the clouds like daggers. Soldiers flew in tight formations between skyscrapers, their crimson capes trailing behind them.
The beauty was only surface-deep.
Beneath the shimmering towers, tension gripped the air like a noose. Broadcast towers blared messages across the empire—proclamations from the Council declaring the beginning of the Great Cleansing. The weak, the dissenters, the "impure"—all were to be removed in a single generation. No resistance would be tolerated. Survival would be earned by strength alone.
In the shadows of a fortress nestled deep in the mountains, two Viltrumites stood over a small child.
Commander Vael was a mountain of a man—silver-haired, broad-shouldered, with a stern expression chiseled into his face like stone. His armor was scratched, scorched, and stained—a warrior's uniform seasoned in war. Standing beside him was Serra, lean and sharp-eyed, her long black hair braided tightly behind her. Her expression was harder to read—calculating, but not cold.
Their son lay quietly on a table nearby, wrapped in a thin metallic sheet lined with energy-absorbing threads. The stasis pod behind them hissed with preparation, soft light pulsing from its core.
"They're coming sooner than expected," Serra said, her voice low.
Vael didn't turn. "Let them. We only need minutes."
Serra typed quickly into the pod's interface, her fingers dancing across the holographic controls. "We're not going to get another chance at this. Once he's gone… we can't protect him anymore."
"We shouldn't have to." Vael's voice was hard. "He's Viltrumite. He will survive."
Serra glanced at him. "He's still a child."
"He'll grow. That's what we do."
There was a beat of silence. Vael stepped closer to the pod, resting one massive hand on its sleek surface. His eyes, once unshakable, flickered with doubt. Not fear—never fear. But something close.
"We could go with him," Serra said quietly.
"No." Vael clenched his jaw. "If we run, we become prey. If we fight—and survive—we remain Viltrumite."
A soft chime interrupted them. The pod was ready.
But Serra hesitated. Her eyes lingered on her son's sleeping face. "Remember when he first flew?" she asked.
Vael's brow twitched. "Straight through the roof. I thought he'd brained himself."
She gave a small laugh. "He circled the spire twice before crash-landing into the garden."
"He was laughing the whole way down."
For a moment, they stood in silence, the memory holding them still. Serra stepped closer to the pod, brushing her fingers along its edge.
"I used to think we'd raise him to be better than this," she whispered. "To be something more."
Vael picked the boy up gently and laid him in the pod. The moment his body touched the interior, blue light wrapped around him like a blanket, scanning, stabilizing, and freezing him in place.
The pod sealed with a hiss.
They stood there in silence for a moment longer, watching the pod as it hummed quietly. Serra's fingers brushed over the outer casing, as though trying to memorize the shape of it.
Alarms blared across the mountain stronghold. Serra turned to the console. "Multiple signatures incoming—Purge Squad. Estimated strength: Alpha-grade. Ten combatants."
Vael cracked his knuckles, his lips curling into a grim smile. "That's nine more than we need."
She smirked. "Let's give them a proper welcome."
The launch platform opened above them. The mountain split as ancient machinery roared to life. The stasis pod rose into place, bathed in the twin suns' fading light.
"Coordinates?" Vael asked.
"Randomized trajectory. Somewhere far. Somewhere alive."
He nodded.
With a thunderous boom, the pod launched into the sky, vanishing into the upper atmosphere in seconds.
The moment it disappeared, the doors behind them exploded.
Viltrumites in red and white attire poured in—loyalists to the Council, eyes filled with fervor. Vael met the first wave head-on, colliding with bone-shattering force. Fists broke walls. Beams of energy scorched the air. Serra moved like a blade, precise and lethal, weaving through the chaos.
Their names were called out in the loyalist comms: General Tahr, Commander Silen, Blade-Twin Vosk and Verra—each elite in their own right.
The battle that followed was more than a skirmish—it was a war compressed into minutes.
Vael tore through enemies like a battering ram, smashing through a stone column to suplex one into a crater. Serra spiraled skyward, cutting arcs through the air and firing pinpoint blasts that collapsed entire hallways.
Commander Silen struck her from behind, and Serra roared, catching him midair and driving him through the mountain wall. She emerged moments later, cloak in tatters, eyes blazing.
Vael and Tahr locked fists in the sky, their impact sending shockwaves across the cliffs.
But they weren't invincible. Serra took a glancing beam to the side, spinning midair and slamming into a pillar. Vael stepped in front of her, catching an incoming energy spear with his bare hand and snapping it in half.
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Several Minutes Later
Finally, it was done. The mountain was rubble. Smoke rose from broken stone and shattered steel. Vael stood bleeding but upright, a crater beneath his feet. Serra landed beside him, limping slightly, one gauntlet shattered.
From the smoke emerged a new figure—massive, imposing, and unmistakably dangerous. His armor was splattered with blood—not his own—and his eyes gleamed with cold satisfaction. A long gray mustache framed a brutal, weathered face. Even among Viltrumites, this one radiated fear.
Conquest.
Serra stiffened. Vael's fists instinctively clenched.
"You've made quite the mess," Conquest said, his voice gravelly, amused. "And yet, here you stand."
He walked toward them slowly, blood dripping from his gauntlets, heavy boots crushing rubble beneath them.
"I came expecting corpses," he continued. "Instead, I found two warriors who earned their place in this empire."
He stopped just short of them, gaze sharp as a blade. "The cleansing is about more than survival. It's about proving who deserves to remain. Today, you proved it."
Vael straightened, breathing hard but unbroken. "We don't need your approval."
Conquest chuckled. "No, but you have it. Whether you want it or not." He glanced up toward the sky, as if sensing the fading trail of the stasis pod. "And what was it you were so desperate to launch into the stars?"
Neither answered.
Conquest's smile thinned. "Secrets rarely stay buried. Especially when they shine that bright."
He turned to leave, then paused. "Raise your son well… or don't. Either way, if he survives long enough to catch my attention, I'll be the one to test him next."
And with that, he vanished into the smoke.
Serra exhaled slowly. "They'll never stop testing us."
"Let them," Vael said, gazing toward the sky.
Far above, their son's pod drifted beyond the atmosphere.
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Across the galaxy, time stretched. The pod drifted through storms of plasma, past derelict warships, beyond the shattered remains of planets lost to history. It passed through the gravitational fields of forgotten battlefields, grazing the icy rings of worlds that once teemed with life.
It passed the rise of tyrants. The destruction of worlds. The age of Saiyans. The Rise of the Freeza Force.
And then, finally…
One blue and green planet caught it in its pull.
The pod streaked across the atmosphere like a falling star, crashing with thunderous force into the frozen wilderness of Earth's southern pole.
There, it remained.
Buried. Silent. Waiting.
Until the world was ready to awaken him.