The rising suns of Planet Vegeta spilled fractured amber light over the arid plains, dust rising in curling ghosts between cratered training fields. The war-hardened surface bore scars of countless battles, but within a secluded canyon—tucked away from the scouters of the Elite—something far more dangerous than destruction was being cultivated: purpose.
Kakarot stood barefoot in the rusted gravel, biotic energy pulsing subtly beneath his skin. He was shirtless, his lean young frame defined by hours of unyielding training, his breath deep and measured. Around him, the weak gathered—not slaves, not fodder, but discarded soldiers, exiles, and born-weak Saiyans who had been tossed aside like the trash of a warrior race obsessed with strength.
He didn't just see them. He saw through them. And more importantly, he saw what they could become.
> "Power isn't born," he said, his voice calm but carried by his controlled ki. "It's nurtured. Broken. Forged."
Their eyes followed him, even as they remained cautious. To them, he was still a paradox—just a boy, younger than most of them, and yet he bore something they had never felt before. Authority. Not the brutal kind the Elites used, but the kind that seeped into your bones and made you want to stand straighter.
—The Biotic Edge—
With a whisper of thought, Kakarot extended his right palm. A soft blue shimmer crawled over the skin, crackling with unseen force—biotic kinetic energy, wrapped tightly in his command.
> "Try again," he said to the trembling Saiyan in front of him. Tulo. Age twenty-six. Banished after failing his first battle. Beaten more by shame than by any real enemy.
The man hesitated, holding his hand out. His aura flickered—a pathetic spark. But Kakarot didn't look away.
> "Focus. Let your doubt burn. Pull from that place just behind fear. That's where you'll find it."
Tulo's brow clenched. Sweat dropped. His jaw trembled.
Then—
A flicker.
A pulse.
The gravel lifted in a slow swirl around his feet. A dome of air shimmered as biotic energy stirred from deep inside him, warping reality like ripples across liquid metal.
He fell to his knees, gasping, as the energy vanished.
But Kakarot nodded.
> "Good."
The outcasts broke into murmurs. A success. Even if small, it was real. It wasn't just Kakarot—they could do it. He was proving that even the weak could move the world.
—The Mother and the Scholar—
From the cliffside, Gine watched, arms folded over her modest armor. She was quiet, but her eyes didn't miss a detail. Not Kakarot's movements. Not the change in his posture. And not the way Taroa, the dark-haired scientist, lingered a little too long when she brought out the scanner to measure fluctuations in the biotic field.
Taroa wasn't like the rest of the tech caste. She was hungry—for knowledge, yes—but more than that. She watched Kakarot with wide, calculating eyes. Admiration colored with something else. Fascination. Maybe more.
Gine's jaw tensed.
She wasn't sure what she was becoming. She was Kakarot's mother, yes. But that identity felt like a tattered memory worn thin by the heat of his evolution. He was becoming something else. Something more. And the more she saw him lead, the more she felt torn between maternal instinct and… something shamefully primal.
That night, in the bunker built from scrap and stolen materials, Gine and Taroa sat across from each other. A silence pulsed between them, made heavier by the air thick with Kakarot's growing power just meters away.
> "You feel it too, don't you?" Taroa asked without looking up.
Gine didn't reply.
> "He's changing them. All of them. Faster than anything I've seen in genetic shifts. He's accelerating evolution."
Gine closed her eyes.
> "He's becoming dangerous."
> "He's becoming inevitable."
—The Father Returns—
Dust swirled outside the encampment gates as Bardock arrived. Scouter cracked, armor smeared with plasma burns. He looked like death itself on two feet.
And yet his eyes—when they landed on Kakarot—didn't show relief.
They showed suspicion.
> "What the hell are you building here, boy?" Bardock growled as Kakarot walked to meet him.
> "A future."
> "We already have one."
> "Then why are you always trying to change it?"
The words hit harder than any punch. Bardock stared at him in silence.
He knew.
He knew Bardock had seen it—flashes of timelines not yet written, possibilities spiraling out like shattered glass.
> "You saw me, didn't you?" Kakarot said, stepping closer.
> "I don't know what I saw."
> "Yes, you do. You saw a king born in chains. But I don't want the throne, Father."
> "Then what do you want?"
Kakarot turned, gazing at the campfires lit across the canyon below.
> "Freedom."
---
—The Whisper of Flesh and Will—
Later that night, Gine sat at the edge of the stream, water lapping against her knees. The moonlight turned her dark hair silver. Kakarot approached in silence, his presence a warm pull in the air.
She didn't look up.
> "He doesn't understand you," she whispered.
> "Neither do you."
She turned her face. Her eyes were wet. Not with tears. With something more dangerous.
> "I try to. But you... you're not just my son anymore."
He sat beside her, closer than necessary.
> "Do you want me to stop?"
The question lingered, burning between them.
> "No," she breathed.
Their lips never touched.
But their breath did.
And the current of biotic energy flickered between their skins like phantom electricity, neither moving nor retreating.
—
To Be Continued in Part 2…