The transition wasn't a scream. It wasn't the roar of an atmospheric entry or the screeching of metal against heat-shielding that his father, Bardock, had told him about. For Zorn, the end of one world and the beginning of another was a sickening, silent pull.
One moment, he was in a stone chamber filled with the stench of sulfur and the chanting of red-skinned monsters demons who looked at him like he was a stray dog to be discarded, and the next, the air simply vanished.
Then came the light.
It was a jagged, violet tear in the fabric of nothingness. It spat him out like a piece of unwanted gristle.
Zorn hit the ground hard. Not a crater-making impact, but a dull thud against sun-baked clay and sand. He tumbled, his small, six-year-old limbs flailing, until he came to a stop face-down in the dust.
Silence.
In the the place he had just left, there was always noise. The hum of scouters, the distant rumble of pod engines, the rowdy laughter of Saiyan warriors over vats of ale. But here? This place felt dead.
Zorn pushed himself up, his small hands shaking. His palms were raw, stung by the heat of the dry earth. He spat out a mouthful of grit and looked up.
The sky was the wrong color. It wasn't the bruised purple of Planet Vegeta. It was a vast, shimmering blue that seemed to go on forever, clear and mocking. He reached back instinctively, his fingers brushing against the brown fur of the tail wrapped tightly around his waist. It was still there. He was still whole.
But he was alone.
"Mother..." he whispered. The word felt like a sin. Saiyans weren't supposed to be soft. Kakarot was just a baby, crying in his nursery, oblivious to the fact that their parents had been looking at them with a strange, desperate grief. Zorn remembered his father's hand on his shoulder, a grip that had been too tight. "Don't look back, Zorn. Just survive."
Then the demons had come. Not Frieza's men. Real demons. They had snatched him before his father could reach his pod. They had talked about "correcting the timeline," about "removing the secondary branch."
Zorn growled, a low, animalistic sound vibrating in his chest. He didn't know where he was, but the hunger was already starting to gnaw at his stomach. A Saiyan's hunger was a physical weight, a beast that lived inside the ribs.
He stood up, wiping blood from a small cut on his neck, a souvenir from the dimensional rift. He looked around. This planet was a wasteland of jagged rocks and heat haze.
He started walking.
He had been walking for hours when he saw it. A massive, lizard-like creature, its scales the color of rusted iron, was picking at the carcass of a desert goat. It was easily three times Zorn's size, with a jaw that could snap a boulder.
In any other world, a six-year-old would have run. But Zorn felt a spark of something familiar. Combat.
He was really hungry and that creature was good as dead. What he had was the heat in his blood. He crouched low, his tail uncoiling from his waist and twitching behind him for balance. He felt the energy pulsing in his center. It was a tiny flame compared to his father's sun, but it was hot.
With a burst of speed that kicked up a cloud of dust, Zorn lunged.
The lizard roared, swinging its heavy tail. Zorn leaped, flipping over the strike. He slammed his small fist into the creature's snout. There was a sickening crack. The lizard hissed, retreating, confused by the sheer physical pressure coming from such a small creature.
Zorn didn't stop. He was a blur of tan skin and dark hair. He climbed the beast's back, digging his fingers into the gaps in its scales, and delivered a double-axe handle to the base of its skull. The ground beneath the lizard shattered as it was driven into the dirt.
Breathless, Zorn stood over his kill. He was covered in sand and yellow ichor. He didn't feel like a hero. He just felt hungry.
"Impressive."
The voice didn't come from behind him. It seemed to come from the air itself.
Zorn spun around, his hands glowing with a faint, flickering white light, the desperate, unrefined Ki of a child who didn't want to die.
Standing a few yards away was an old man. He wore long, flowing robes that looked as heavy as the history of the world. In his hand was a gnarled staff topped with an orb that seemed to swallow the sunlight. His beard was long and white, but his eyes... they were the eyes of someone who had seen the beginning and end of everything.
Zorn bared his teeth. "Stay back."
The old man didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his staff. He simply stood there, observing. "You have no Ethernano in your lungs," the man mused, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. "No magical gate in your soul. And yet, the life force radiating from you is... staggering. It is like looking at a star trapped in the body of a boy."
"I said stay back!" Zorn shouted. He threw a punch into the air, sending a small shockwave of pressure toward the stranger.
The old man moved his staff an inch. A golden barrier appeared, the shockwave dissipating against it like a wave against a cliff.
"A physical manifestation of vital energy," the man said, more to himself than to Zorn. "Not magic. Something older. Something... special
."
Zorn felt a cold sweat break out on his skin. He had seen powerful warriors on Planet Vegeta, but this man felt different. He didn't feel "strong" in the way of a Saiyan, he was not even close to the Elites. But he can't see through this guy at all.
"Who are you?" Zorn demanded, his childish voice cracking.
"I am August," the old man replied. "The King of Magic. And you, little star, are a long way from home."
August took a step forward. Zorn tried to move, but his legs felt like lead. It wasn't a spell; it was the sheer weight of August's presence. The old man reached out, his hand hovering near Zorn's face. Zorn flinched, but August only touched the scar on the boy's neck.
"Mmh," August whispered. His eyes softened, a flicker of something resembling pity, or perhaps curiosity, crossing his face. "Tell me, child. Do you have a name?"
Zorn hesitated. He had to swallow his pride reluctantly and just reply. "Zorn," he finally said.
"My name is Zorn."
"Zorn," August repeated, testing the weight of the name. "An angry name for an angry boy. Tell me, Zorn, why are you here?"
"I am just lost," Zorn said, his pride fighting back the urge to cry. "I am trying to survive, that's all and I happened to be here." He clearly knew he was talking nonsense, but he couldn't possibly reveal his background. Who knows if these people knew about Saiyans? He'd be dead before he even knew. This planet is too high level for him...
August looked up at the clear blue sky of Alakitasia. "Then the heavens have given the Empire a gift. Or perhaps a curse. My Emperor would find you... fascinating."
Zorn finally found his voice. "I am hungry. Is there good food in your Empire?"
August actually smiled—a small, thin pull of his lips. "More than you can eat in a thousand lifetimes. But it comes with a price. You have a power that this world does not understand. You would be hunted. Feared. Or worse... studied."
August leaned on his staff. "I can teach you to hide. I can teach you to be a shadow in a world of bright lights. I can teach you to master that fire in your blood so that no one, not even the gods of this world, can see you coming."
Zorn looked at the lizard he had killed. He looked at his own blood-stained hands. He thought of Bardock's final command: Survive.
"Why help me?" Zorn asked.
"Because," August said, his gaze turning toward the distant horizon where the capital of Vistarion lay, "I have spent my life mastering every magic in existence. And yet, you are the first thing I have seen in decades that I do not already know the ending to."
August turned, his robes billowing in the dry wind. "Follow me, Zorn. The desert is no place for a prince of nothing."
Zorn hesitated for only a second. He took a final look at the spot where he had fallen from the sky, then turned his back on it. He followed the old man, his tail twitching as he walked, a small shadow following a king across the burning sands.
The walk across the shifting dunes of Alakitasia was silent, save for the rhythmic thud of August's staff against the dry earth. Zorn tramped behind him, his small boots sinking into the sand. Despite his exhaustion, his eyes remained sharp.
August stopped abruptly, his gaze fixed on the brown, furry limb twitching behind the boy. It wasn't a static appendage; it moved with a life of its own, reacting to Zorn's mood like a restless predator.
"That limb," August began, his voice resonant and calm. "It is not a product of Take Over magic. It is biological. A part of your very spine."
Zorn instinctively wrapped the tail tighter around his waist, tucking the tip under his belt. "It's mine. My father has one. My mother too. It's... what we are."
"In this world," August said, turning to face the boy, "man fears what he cannot categorize. To the mages of Ishgar or the soldiers of our own Empire, a tail is the mark of a beast. A Vulcan, perhaps, or a cursed soul."
August stepped closer, the orb on his staff glowing with a faint, discerning light. He could sense the flow of energy, not the external Ethernano that fueled the spells of this world, but a raw, internal heat that seemed to coil within the tail itself.
"I can feel it," August murmured. "The energy in your body... it culminates there. It acts as a stabilizer for your power, but also a gateway. I never saw that..
August nodded slowly, his ancient eyes filled with a terrifying level of understanding. "It is a primal magic, older than the books I have mastered. But here, such a power is a beacon. If you wish to survive among humans, you must learn to command it, or it will eventually command you."
He reached out, not with his hand, but with a thread of golden energy that gently brushed against the fur of the tail. Zorn let out a small gasp, feeling a strange chill run up his spine.
"The tail is your strength, but it is also your greatest vulnerability," August warned. "To the world, you will be a boy with a deformity. To me, you are a puzzle with a missing piece. Hide it for now. Wear your cloak long. Until you can mask your presence entirely, that tail is a confession of your origin."
Zorn looked down at the brown fur. To him, it was the last link to a family lost across the stars. To the King of Magic, it was a liability.
"I won't cut it off," Zorn snapped, his Saiyan pride flaring.
"I am not asking you to," August replied, starting to walk again. "I am asking you to master it. A king does not cut off his crown because it is heavy; he learns to carry the weight."
"Tsk..." Zorn can only be docile with this man, plus he seems to know the area so that's a good point for him.
He's going to see what this planet has in store for him.