"My lady, his power level is...1." His voice was as quiet as a whisper, yet it seemed to boom across the room.
If someone had dropped a needle on the floor at that moment, everyone would've heard it, it was that silent. The heavy atmosphere continued for a few minutes until the Doctor couldn't take it anymore and spoke hesitantly.
"M-my lady...?"
Something told Kaley that 1 was not a very high power level to have, meaning he had practically no chance of getting his eyes fixed. A chill crept up Kaley's spine as his mother spoke in a very flat tone. This whole conversation was giving him a very bad feeling.
"You mean to say, that the child between a super elite like me, and the strongest Saiyan on the planet, has the measly power level of... 1?"
'Wait a minute. Saiyan? Like from Dragon Ball? What the h*ll was going on here.'
"Y-yes, my lady. I've checked and double checked the machine, and there are no problems with it."
'BANG'
Kaley flinched as the sound of something being smashed rang out. The building shook from the force and dust fell from the ceiling. The Doctor seemed frantic as he spoke.
"C-calm yourself, my lady, you are still weak from giving birth."
However, the Doctor's words seemed to have the opposite of the desired effect as her anger only grew and her voice boomed across the room.
"Weak?! Did you call ME weak? How dare a low-level trash like you, call me, a super elite, weak?!"
'BOOM'
A loud explosion shook the room and Kaley couldn't help but start to wail again. He could hear gurgling sounds and something that sounded like a hand clapping against something.
The sound of the gurgles and claps grew weaker over the course of half a minute. Then came the sound of a body falling to the ground, probably the Doctor's, followed by gasping noises as he drew in fresh air.
Kaley's mother spoke once more, now in a very cold tone.
"I'll forgive your transgression this once. Be sure to not repeat your mistake."
Kaley picked up the sound of rustling clothes. He guessed his mother was getting dressed in her own attire.
"Fuu haa. Fuu haa... M-my lady, you should take more care of yourself. And what about...him?"
The rustling stopped momentarily, then resumed.
"I'm perfectly fine, Doctor. And take that... thing, to the incubation chambers for the growth period, then send it to a low-level planet, like the others."
Her footsteps rang out as she walked out of the room. A familiar pain spread in Kaley's chest after those words. It was a dull ache, like of an old wound starting to hurt once more. A familiar depression settled over him.
'Ahh, guess my fate never changes..'
At least those words confirmed his previous suspicion. He had been reborn into the DBZ Universe. As a Saiyan, child to King freaking Vegeta and this Ms. Steel. Kaley knew what kind of person King Vegeta was, and he was not thrilled at the prospect of having him as a father. And from what he could tell from the conversation earlier, his mother was not a very nice person either. Figures for someone willing to be King Vegeta's mistress.
'Wait a freaking minute! I'm the brother of Vegeta. Holy sh*it! What year is it currently? I hope it's before Vegeta was born because otherwise, I'm probably going to become space debris when the planet blows up.'
"Haaaa"
The Doctor let out a big sigh as he walked over to the scouter crib. He picked Kaley up and settled him in his arms.
"Let's go, little guy. We got to settle you in the incubation chamber, so you can grow big and strong. Let's show your mom your fighting spirit."
And with those words, he walked out of the room with Kaley in his arms.
A five-minute walk later, they arrived in a big room filled with five rows of twenty incubation chambers, most of them occupied. They walked down one of the rows and arrived before an empty one.
"Here we are, little guy, your very own chamber. It's the highest grade, elite-class chamber. It was pre-booked by King Vegeta himself. He either hasn't gotten the news, or he simply didn't care enough to downgrade you to the low-class chamber."
The child was silent in his arms, with his eyes closed. Well, it wasn't like he had expected him to respond to his words. No, he was simply trying to forget what had happened in that room and calm his frazzled nerves. But really, such a poor, unfortunate child this was. Born of two powerhouses with immense talent while his own talent was the worst the planet had ever seen.
Shaking his head, he pressed a few buttons that opened the chamber. He removed the cover and unwrapped the child, placing him in the chamber. After closing the lid, he powered the machine up. From the bottom of the chamber, a greenish liquid started seeping out.
Stolen novel; please report.
"Now, little guy, you're going to have to breathe the incubation liquid that will soon fill your chamber to the brink. It will help you grow faster and make you big and strong."
To his surprise, the child opened his beautiful, silver eyes and looked straight at him, and nodded. He was flabbergasted. Was this really an infant no older than an hour? As the liquid filled the chamber fully, the child just opened his mouth and took a deep breath, inhaling the liquid then closing his eyes as if to go to sleep.
He observed the child for a few minutes, but after seeing no movements, he gave up and walked down the row to check on the others. He checked on the other children before leaving the room, shutting the light off in the process.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaley hewed a sigh of relief as he opened his eyes once more. He still couldn't see anything, but it felt better to have them open. Especially in this tank-like thing. The liquid was cooling on his skin and felt really good.
Finally, the Doctor had left. He seemed to have been staring at Kaley after he inhaled the liquid and closed his eyes. Kaley could feel his gaze. Maybe nodding wasn't the smartest thing he could have done. I mean, an infant nodding in affirmation to a question? Sounds creepy as hell. But seriously, that Doctor was a real chatterbox. He still had a penchant to speak the obvious, though.
'Okay, introspection time!'
'I am currently in the DBZ Universe, on planet Vegeta. The year is currently unknown. I have reincarnated as the son of an elite Saiyan and King Vegeta with the power level of 1. It is unknown if I swapped soul with the rightful inhabitant or if I'm an anomaly. It is also unknown if some kind of God had a hand in this. If there was, I'd really wanna kick his ass just about now!'
Out of nowhere, Kaley got goosebumps and a chill went up his spine. He wondered if someone was cursing him or something. He shrugged the feeling off.
'Hmm, back to the topic. Assuming the planet doesn't explode in the next 3 years, I'm going to be sent to a low-level planet somewhere in the North Galaxy, the territory of Frieza. As a low-level planet, it means the highest BP of the strongest organism there, will not be over 1000. If I remember correctly, a medium-level planet is 1000-2500BP. A high-level planet is 2500-7500BP and an elite planet is 7500-15.000BP.'
'Seeing as my own BP is a measly 1, it would be very difficult to complete my mission and return to Planet Vegeta. Even more so if I happen to land on an outlier.'
An outlier is when the planet exceeds the rating given to it for one reason or another.
'Not that I want to complete the mission or anything. I'm just speculating. I've never killed anything, so I don't know if I even COULD finish it, given I had the power to do so...'
Kaley's introspection was interrupted by a loud 'ding' that went off in his mind. Following that was an emotionless voice, with no discernable gender, that spoke in his mind.
[ System booting up. 10%...25%...45%...70%...100%...Initializing ]
His head felt like it would explode as a massive amount of information flooded his mind. He let out a groan as an innumerable amount of calculations and diagrams flashed through it. Then the voice spoke once more.
[ Heads Up Display, Activating... 10%... 25%... ]
'What the hell is this some sort of game? Am I dreaming or something?'
While still incredulous at this turn of events, Kaley waited as the progress bar advanced.
[ 100%... Initializing ]
Then there suddenly was a bunch of bars and icons in his vision. He could almost cry as that was the first thing, except for blackness, that he'd seen in this entire life. In his upper left corner, there was a small Nendoroid-esque picture of what he assumed was himself. Frankly, it was just a baby face with silver eyes and a tuft of white hair.
Under the picture, there were 3 bars. One red, one green and one blue. There was a place for a numerical value on each bar, but currently, it only had illegible symbols instead of numbers. Maybe because it was initializing.
At the bottom of his vision, there were currently 5 small icons, out of which only 2 weren't greyed out. One was 'Inventory', and the other one was 'Quests'. The quest icon was also currently flashing. As an experiment, he clicked on it. Might as well roll with it, he thought. Nothing happened as he did, so he tried pressing it with his mind. This time he managed to open it. Four options appeared in his view: 'New Quests', 'Current Quests', 'Failed Quests' and 'Completed Quests'. The option for new quests was flashing so he clicked it.
[ Tutorial Quest 1/? - What's this, can I eat it? ]
[ Condition for Completion: Learn ??? before ??? ]
[ Condition for Failure: Death, ??? ]
[ Reward: ??? ]
[ Penalty: ??? ]
[ Accept Y/N? ]
'A nonsensical quest popped up. What's with that quest name? It gives way too little information. What a sh*tty game this is. Well, setting that aside, calculating the risk to this quest wasn't very hard. I mean, it did say 'Tutorial Quest', so it can't be THAT hard. So I'll boldly choose Y.'
And just like that, the window disappeared. Kind of anticlimactic, really.
Shifting his view to the 2nd icon that was available, Kaley clicked it.
A window with gridlines came into view. It looked to have around 100 slots and there was also a slowly spinning 3d figure of himself on the left side of the screen. He guessed he could just drag equipment or the sort to the 3d figure and he'd automatically equip them.
In his inventory, only 2 of the slots were occupied. One was called 'Shop bundle' and the other one was called 'Welcome Gift'.
He opened the shop bundle and was once again greeted by the voice.
[ Purchased abilities activating... Integrating... 10%... ]
A pain, unlike anything he'd ever felt before, coursed through his mind, as a flood of memories entered.
"WAHHH!" He could do nothing but wail in pain.
[ 25%... ]
Scenes of his death flashed before his eyes, along with the respective emotions. His conversation with Claire, the cheerful mood he was in after they made the promise to study together. His nonchalance as he crossed the road. The despair at seeing the oncoming truck. The feeling of the rain as it plastered his battered body. He felt it all.
[ 50%... ]
Memories of his time in the void entered his head. The calm contentment of that embrace. The feeling of just drifting for what seemed like ages. The abrupt awakening as he was tormented by the soul-erosion. He relived them all.
[ 75%... ]
And last but not least, the knowledge of his conversation with the Goddess(?) and his own irresponsible wish. All up until the time the light consumed him and he was sent... here. He knew it all.
[ 100%... Initializing ]
He could barely get out one sentence that fully represented how he currently felt:
"F*ck you, ⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛!"
Then he lost consciousness.
----------------------------------------
In the dark of the incubation room, a light sprung to life, illuminating the row upon row of incubation chambers. The light, a small white orb could be seen floating next to Kaley's chamber.
[ Really, what an ungrateful kid. To think he was this dense, I feel sorry for that one. Hmph! ]
Suddenly, the light burst and scattered into particles, once again flooding the room in darkness. And with that, he was alone again.