The most insulting part of dying wasn't the pain. It wasn't the fear. It was the fact that I died over a spicy chicken bun and a receipt for a limited edition figure.
I was twenty-two years old. I had a job I tolerated, an apartment that smelled vaguely of laundry detergent, and a backlog of anime I planned to binge that weekend. I was walking home, the plastic bag crinkling in the cool night air. The streetlights buzzed overhead, casting long, orange shadows against the brick walls of the alleyway I used as a shortcut.
"Hey."
The voice was shaky. I turned around, expecting a neighbor or maybe a drunk tourist. instead, I saw a ski mask. Cheap fabric, pilled at the edges. The eyes behind the holes were wide, terrified. The gun in his hand shook so hard I thought he might drop it.
"Give me the wallet," the mugger stammered.
"Whoa, okay. Chill," I said, my heart hammering a sudden, violent rhythm against my ribs. "Take it. It's in my back pocket. I'm moving slow."
I reached back. Maybe I moved too fast. Maybe he flinched. Maybe the universe just decided my subscription to life had expired.
BANG.
The sound was deafening in the narrow alley. I felt a punch to my stomach, hard and hot. I looked down. The white plastic bag in my hand was splattered with red. My spicy chicken bun… ruined.
"I… I didn't mean to!" the guy screamed, panic cracking his voice. He turned and ran, his footsteps echoing into the night.
I fell to my knees. The pavement was cold. The heat in my gut was spreading, turning into a numbness that crept up my spine.
"Seriously?" I wheezed, falling onto my side. I stared at the spilled soda foaming in the gutter. "I didn't even clear my browser history."
My vision tunneled. The sounds of the city—distant sirens, a car horn, a dog barking—faded into a dull roar. I felt heavy. Then, I felt nothing.
darkness took me. It wasn't empty, though. It felt like falling asleep after a long shift, that heavy, dragging sensation where you can't lift your arms.
Is this it? I thought, my consciousness drifting in a void. No heaven? No hell? Just… static?
Then came the sensation of fluid. Warm, thick, viscous fluid.
I tried to gasp, but liquid filled my lungs. I didn't choke. It felt… right. Oxygenated. My eyes snapped open.
Green. Everything was a murky, bubbling green.
I tried to thrash, to swim upward, but my limbs refused to coordinate. They felt stubby. Weak. I looked down at myself.
My hands were tiny. Brown skin. Pudgy fingers. I flexed them, staring in horror as tiny bubbles escaped my knuckles. I turned my head—a motion that felt exhausting—and caught my reflection in the curved glass surrounding me.
A baby.
A dark-skinned infant with wide, sharp eyes and a head full of thick, short black coils floating in the suspension fluid. And behind me, swishing lazily like a murky eel… a tail. A brown, furry tail.
Okay, my mind raced, panic warring with logic. Reincarnation. It's real. I'm a baby. I have a tail. I'm in a tank.
I pressed my tiny palm against the glass. Beyond the green tint, I saw a room straight out of a sci-fi nightmare. Cold metal walls, blinking control panels, and other tanks lined up in rows.
I saw men walking past. They wore white armor with flared shoulder pads and scouters over their eyes.
My heart—my tiny, rapid-fire bird heart—nearly exploded. The Frieza Force. Armor. Tails. I'm a Saiyan.
I was in Dragon Ball.
A thrill shot through me, so intense it almost hurt. I was a Saiyan! I could fly! I could blow up moons! I was—
Suddenly, the fluid around me began to vibrate.
A deep, primal heat erupted in my chest. It wasn't excitement anymore. It was power. Raw, unfiltered, terrifying power. I didn't know how to control it. It felt like trying to hold back a tsunami with a paper cup.
Beep. Beep. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
Outside the tank, a console exploded in a shower of sparks. The glass of my incubator groaned, a spiderweb fracture appearing right in front of my face.
"Stabilize Unit 9!" a voice shouted.
Two scientists rushed over, their faces pale. One was tapping furiously on a datapad.
"I can't get a reading!" the scientist yelled. "The scouter is cycling too fast! It hits zero, then spikes to… it's impossible!"
The door to the nursery hissed open. The room fell silent. Even as a baby, I felt the pressure in the air change. Heavy steps echoed on the metal floor.
A tall man walked into my field of vision. He wore a red cape and the crest of the royal family. He had a goatee that looked sharp enough to cut glass.
King Vegeta.
He stopped in front of my tank, his arms crossed. He didn't look impressed. He looked annoyed.
"Is this the one causing the power surges?" he asked, his voice deep and devoid of warmth.
"Yes, Sire," the scientist stammered, bowing low. "The child… there is something wrong with him. His latent energy is volatile. It's damaging the equipment."
King Vegeta peered at me through the glass. I tried to look tough. I tried to glare. But I was three days old, so I probably just looked constipated.
"A defect," the King sneered. "A genetic aberration. If he cannot control his own ki as an infant, he will likely self-destruct before he can walk. Or worse, he'll lose control and damage the city."
Hey! I'm right here! I can hear you! I wanted to scream, but all that came out was a stream of bubbles.
"What shall we do, Sire? Euthanize him?"
My blood ran cold.
King Vegeta considered it for a second. "No. That is a waste of a pod. We have uncharted worlds on the fringe. Send him to… let's see… Planet Vampa."
Vampa? The name hit me like a physical blow. Vampa was the hellhole where Broly was sent. A wasteland of storms and giant bugs. If I went there, I would die. I wasn't Broly. I didn't have his plot armor.
"Prepare a pod immediately," the King ordered, turning on his heel. "Get this garbage out of my nursery."
The transition was brutal.
I was pulled from the warm tank by rough hands. The air outside was freezing. I gasped, my lungs burning as I took my first breath of real air. It smelled sterile and metallic.
I was wrapped in a thin cloth and carried down a long corridor. I tried to struggle, but my body was useless. I was a sack of potatoes with a high IQ.
They dumped me into a spherical space pod. The seat was hard leather, designed for a toddler, not a newborn. I slumped into it, the oversized straps barely holding me in place.
"Coordinates set for Vampa," a technician muttered, punching buttons on the side of the pod. "Launch in T-minus sixty seconds."
The hatch hissed, beginning to close.
No. No, no, no.
Panic gave me a surge of adrenaline. I couldn't go to Vampa. I needed to go somewhere safe. Somewhere with food. Somewhere I knew.
Earth.
I needed to change the coordinates.
I threw my tiny body forward, straining against the straps. My hand, clumsy and shaking, slapped the control panel.
"Hey! The brat is moving!" the technician shouted, reaching for the closing door.
I ignored him. I didn't know how to read the alien text, but I saw a scrolling map on the screen. I saw a cluster of stars. I mashed the keypad with my fist, drool flying from my mouth as I screamed in frustration.
Change! Change, damn you!
My knuckles hit a blue button. The screen flashed red, then blue.
The hatch slammed shut, sealing me in darkness.
"Launch!"
The engines ignited with a roar that vibrated through my bones. I was slammed back into the seat as the pod shot out of the launch bay. Through the porthole, I saw the red curvature of Planet Vegeta shrinking away.
I was safe. I wasn't dead.
Then, the G-force hit me, and I passed out.
I don't know how long I was asleep. The ship kept me in stasis, a dreamless, frozen slumber.
I woke up to fire.
The pod was shaking violently. Alarm sirens were blaring inside the tiny cockpit. Through the red-tinted window, I saw clouds whipping past at impossible speeds. Snow. Mountains.
Crash landing. Brace for impact.
I curled into a ball as best I could.
The impact was earth-shattering.
BOOM.
Metal screamed. The world spun. I felt the pod tumbling, smashing through rock and ice, rolling, rolling, rolling… until it hit something solid with a final, bone-jarring crunch.
Silence.
The hiss of steam. The crackle of cooling metal.
I lay there for a moment, waiting for the pain. It didn't come. My body… this Saiyan body… was incredibly durable. I was bruised, sure, but nothing felt broken.
The pod door blew open with an explosive hiss.
Wind. Biting, freezing wind instantly rushed into the capsule.
I shivered, my teeth chattering immediately. I crawled out of the wreckage, tumbling into the snow. It was deep, burying me up to my chest.
I looked around.
White. Everything was white. jagged grey peaks pierced the sky, looming over me like giants. A blizzard was raging, visibility near zero.
"G-g-great," I stuttered, my baby voice high and weak. "N-not Vampa. B-but… cold."
I dragged myself out of the snowdrift. I was naked except for the thin cloth from the nursery, which was rapidly freezing stiff. I needed shelter. Now.
I looked at my hands. They were trembling, but they felt heavy. Stronger than they should be.
Check status, my gamer brain whispered. Hunger: Critical. Temperature: Critical. Defense: High.
A shadow fell over me.
I froze.
Emerging from the whiteout was a shape. Massive. Four legs. White fur that blended perfectly with the snow. It was a wolf, but not an Earth wolf. This thing was the size of a minivan, with saber-teeth that dripped saliva.
It growled, a low rumble that vibrated in my chest. It had found an easy meal. A fleshy, brown morsel sitting in the snow.
I stared up at it. I should have been terrified. I was terrified. But beneath the fear, something else clicked. A switch in the back of my brain.
The Saiyan instinct.
The wolf lunged, jaws wide.
I didn't think. I couldn't run. I just reacted.
I thrust my tiny hand forward, screaming—not in fear, but in anger.
"NO!"
I didn't fire a ki blast. I didn't know how. But as the wolf's jaws clamped down on my arm, two things happened.
First, CRACK. The wolf's teeth shattered against my skin like it had bitten a steel beam. The beast yelped in confusion, recoiling.
Second, my hand found the wolf's snout. I squeezed. I felt bone give way under my grip.
The wolf howled in pain and scrambled backward, shaking its head, blood dripping from its mouth where its teeth used to be. It looked at me with pure, primal fear. It turned and ran, disappearing into the blizzard.
I sat there in the snow, panting. I looked at my arm. Not a scratch. Just a little wolf slobber.
I grinned, a feral, baby-toothed grin.
"Okay," I whispered to the storm. "I can work with this."
I turned back to the space pod. It was wrecked, but the engine block was still radiating heat. I crawled back inside the metal shell, curling up next to the warm machinery.
I was alone. I was hungry. I was stuck in a frozen wasteland. But I was alive.
And I was the strongest thing on this mountain.