Chapter 32: The Devil's Audience
The trip from the backwater rock to the heart of the Frieza Empire was a week-long journey, and Kakarot milked it for everything it was worth. The Lodestar's crew, once they got over the shock of his reappearance, saw him as a novelty, a legendary Saiyan warrior, back from the dead with a hell of a story.
He held court in the ship's mess hall, a large, grimy tankard of the strongest synthetic ale they had in his fist. He was surrounded by a rotating audience of lower-level engineers and junior techs, their eyes wide.
"…so there I was," Kakarot slurred, slamming the tankard down, sending froth sloshing over the side. "No fucking scouter, no comms, half my goddamn armor melted to my skin. And these blue-skinned bitches think they can keep me in a fucking cage? Like some kind of pet?"
He laughed, a loud, harsh bark that made a few of the younger techs jump. "They learned. Oh, they fucking learned. Took me a week to get my strength back, just eating their shitty raw vermin and licking water off rocks. But once I did…" He made a crushing motion with his fist. "I started with the loud one. The one who thought she was in charge. Snapped her neck like a twig. The others… well, they lasted a bit longer. Gave me something to do."
A hulking mechanic with grease-stained coveralls grinned. "So you just… hunted 'em all? For a whole cycle?"
"What the fuck else was I gonna do?" Kakarot retorted, taking a long swallow. "Stare at the fucking sky? They were pests. Annoying, squeaky little things. But some of the females… before I broke 'em… they weren't entirely useless." He leered, a crude, ugly expression. "Had to pass the time somehow. Even the ugliest one looks good after a month with only your own fist for company, you know what I mean?"
The men around him roared with laughter, a chorus of crude agreement. Kakarot played the part perfectly, the crude, simple, battle-hardened Saiyan grunt, all bravado and base instincts. He complained incessantly. About the food. The weather. The "shit-stained caves" he'd been forced to sleep in. He never once mentioned the Namekian. He never spoke of the flowing fist or the spiral hammer. That part of him remained buried, a cold, dark secret beneath the bluster.
He even found a partner for the latter half of the trip. A Zendarian female from the comms department, drawn to the dangerous, exotic aura of a Saiyan. She was all shimmering scales and suggestive curves. He took her to his borrowed quarters with zero ceremony, fucking her with a brutal, dispassionate efficiency against the cold metal wall. It was a release of tension, a reaffirmation of his own power, and a perfect piece of his cover. The great Kakarot, thinking with his dick, just like any other low-class Saiyan brute.
He was deep inside her, her scales cool against his heated skin, when the ship-wide comm chimed.
"Priority message for Passenger Kakarot. Report to the comms center immediately."
He grunted, finishing with a final, powerful thrust before pulling away, leaving her panting against the wall. He pulled on his pants without a word and strode out, not bothering to look back.
In the comms center, a pale-faced officer handed him a datapad. The message was brief and terrifying in its implications.
***---***
FROM: THE OFFICE OF LORD FRIEZA
TO: TRANSPORT VESSEL LODESTAR-7
MESSAGE: UPON YOUR ARRIVAL AT PLANET FRIEZA, THE SAIYAN DESIGNATED KAKAROT IS TO BE BROUGHT DIRECTLY TO THE THRONE ROOM. LORD FRIEZA WISHES AN AUDIENCE. PRIORITY: ABSOLUTE.
***---***
Kakarot's blood ran cold, but his face showed nothing. He tossed the datapad back to the officer. "Fine. Whatever."
Inside, his mind was racing. Frieza himself. This was not part of the plan. He'd expected to be processed by some mid-level bureaucrat, maybe even run into his old team. But the Emperor? This was a variable he hadn't accounted for. The most dangerous variable in the universe.
---
Planet Frieza was a monument to cold, polished opulence. The air was thin and artificially scented. The sky was crisscrossed with silent, gleaming traffic. The Lodestar was directed to a private landing bay near the pinnacle of the central spire, a place usually reserved for Frieza's personal attendants.
Kakarot was met by a pair of Frieza's red-colored soldier drones. They didn't speak, only gestured for him to follow. They led him through corridors of shimmering black obsidian and polished chrome, so clean he could see his own grim reflection. He was still in his battered armor, a stark, filthy contrast to the sterile perfection around him.
The doors to the throne room slid open without a sound.
The room was vast, the ceiling lost in darkness. The floor was a single, seamless sheet of black stone that reflected the distant, twinkling lights of the galaxy projected on the walls. And there, in the center, lounging on his floating hover-throne, was Frieza.
He was smaller than Kakarot remembered, but his presence filled the immense space, a crushing weight of absolute, casual power. He was sipping from a delicate crystal glass, his tail twitching in a lazy, hypnotic rhythm. To his left stood Zarbon, tall, elegant, and impossibly handsome, a look of mild distaste on his face as he took in Kakarot's disheveled appearance. To his right was Dodoria, a mountain of pink, quivering flesh, his tiny eyes gleaming with simple, brutish curiosity.
The doors hissed shut behind Kakarot, the sound final.
Frieza lowered his glass, a tiny, cruel smile playing on his lips. "Well, well, well," he purred, his voice a silken, venomous thing that seemed to crawl inside Kakarot's skull. "Look what the cat dragged in. Or should I say, look what the vacuum of space failed to dispose of."
Kakarot said nothing. He stood at a rough approximation of attention, his heart hammering against his ribs. He kept his power level suppressed, a pathetic 850. Though it was the same as his regular power level before his training with Mooti.
"We received a truly fascinating report," Frieza continued, gesturing with a delicate hand. "A Saiyan, declared dead, his body jettisoned into the void, somehow manages to not only survive catastrophic neural failure but also pilot his dead pod back to the very planet he helped… clean. It defies belief, doesn't it, Zarbon?"
"It is… highly improbable, Lord Frieza," Zarbon said, his voice a smooth, oily baritone.
"Improbable!" Frieza chuckled, a sound like grinding glass. "It's a fucking miracle! Or a lie." His eyes, crimson and reptilian, locked onto Kakarot. "So. Let's hear it from the source. No second-hand reports from terrified technicians. Tell me, monkey. Tell me how you cheated death."
This was it. The ultimate test. Kakarot met Frieza's gaze, letting a flash of Saiyan defiance show, carefully mixed with a healthy dose of fear.
"I didn't cheat anything, Lord Frieza," he said, his voice rougher than he intended. "I just didn't die when I was supposed to. Woke up in the dark. Pod was dead. Systems were fucked. Don't know how it got back to the planet. Maybe the gods of shit luck were feeling funny."
Dodoria let out a wet, gurgling laugh. "Gods of shit luck! I like that!"
Frieza's smile didn't reach his eyes. "And the natives? The report says you were… 'keeping busy'."
A wave of pure, primal terror washed over Kakarot. It was the same feeling he'd learned to savor in the cavern, but this was a thousand times more intense. This was the terror of prey standing before the apex predator of the galaxy. He used it, let it show in his face, let it make his voice tight.
"They were there. Hiding. Like cockroaches. They found my pod. Thought they had a new toy." He clenched his jaw, the memory of the cage, while a lie, serving him perfectly. "I showed them what happens when you play with Saiyans."
"You killed them all?" Frieza asked, his head tilted.
"Every last one," Kakarot growled. "Took my fucking time with some of them. They were a distraction. A way to pass the days until someone with a functioning ship finally showed up."
Frieza was silent for a long, agonizing moment, his tail-tip twitching. He looked from Kakarot to Zarbon and back again. The silence stretched, becoming a physical pressure.
"You know," Frieza said softly, almost conversationally, "your Prince was quite certain you were dead. He filed the report himself. He was… insistent. It would be a terrible embarrassment for him, wouldn't it, if it turned out he was wrong? If a mere Third Class warrior proved too tough for him to kill?"
Kakarot's blood went cold. He saw it now. This wasn't about him. This was about Frieza. This was about power and humiliation. He was a pawn in Frieza's eternal game of fucking with Vegeta.
"I wouldn't know, my Lord," Kakarot said carefully. "I just follow orders."
Frieza's cruel smile returned, wider this time. "Oh, I'm sure you do. And I have a new order for you." He took a final sip from his glass. "You are to be reinstated. Immediately. You will rejoin Prince Vegeta's team. I want you to report to him personally. I want to see the look on his arrogant little face when his failure walks back into the room."
The sheer, beautiful, terrifying genius of it hit Kakarot. Frieza was sending him back as a living, breathing insult. A constant reminder of Vegeta's fallibility.
"It will be my… pleasure, Lord Frieza," Kakarot said, the words tasting like ash and opportunity.
"I'm sure it will," Frieza purred. "Now get out of my sight. You're tracking filth on my floor."
The red guards moved to escort him out. As the throne room doors closed behind him, Kakarot let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He had passed through the fire. He was back in the game. And he was holding a live thermal detonator meant for Vegeta.
He couldn't have planned it better himself.
[A/N: Can't wait to see what happens next? Get exclusive early access on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels. If you enjoyed this chapter and want to see more, don't forget to drop a power stone! Your support helps this story reach more readers!]