Did you know that dying hurts?

I didn’t—I mean, I assumed it did, but I had no confirmation.

Well, it hurts.

And not in a ‘Being hit by a truck hurts’ or ‘being stabbed hurts’, I meant that as I lay there, dying of old age like an old man does, my organs failing one by one because the dystopian future of our world didn’t mean my squishy human bits couldn’t decide to just not work, leaving me bedridden until my brain tapped out.

I think you could probably guess that the lightning gelatin inside your cranium sends out lots of signals when you’re dying?

Like: ‘DO NOT DIE! WAKE UP!’.

It feels kind of like being pricked by a hundred-thousand needles at once everywhere, all the time for about five seconds, and you can’t scream because your vocal cords depend on your lungs working, and when they don’t you kinda just make a gurgling hacking noise.

And then you die.

At least being dead doesn’t hurt, because otherwise I’d find a way to file a complaint, ‘cause by then it would just be asshole design.

…

It’s super boring, though, just floating around in nothing with no sensation other than existing.

Makes one miss their family, even the members you hate.

But enough about that, because while I contemplated my stay at wherever-the-hell—Maybe I was in Hell?—I was, something shifted, and I started feeling like I was in an almost goop, as in, something watery that was just sticky enough to barely feel like goop.

Unpleasant, to say the least.

But hey, it didn’t last super long, I think… Time is hard to tell, unless you feel like counting the seconds, and at some point you just zone out, forget at what number you were, and have to start again.

Yes, I’m speaking from experience.

Oh, and there were people talking in a language I couldn’t quite understand—It sounded Asian, with the lack of Vs and the general intonation of Korean, while simultaneously having the more ‘sha’ , ‘ushka’ and similar things from Russian.

It was quite fascinating, especially when I was finally able to understand it.

It wasn’t a gradual thing, though, one moment of conscience, I couldn’t understand the language, and the other, I could, and it made things really quite jarring, especially considering the infodump I got.

“What in Yamoshi’s name is wrong with you, Pakcho?!” A woman angrily exclaimed. “You used experimental learning tech on our daughter?!”

Gee, Pak-man, that’s one dumb move if I’ve ever heard one. Though, the name ‘Yamoshi’ rings a faint bell from my younger years.

“Calm down, Avoca,” The scratchy voice of a man tries to reassure, probably trying to tone down his fuck up. “Cetulla’s signs are still normal besides an increase in brain activity,” From the growl coming from the irate woman, I can easily assume that did little to lessen her worries. “And the AKI has been mostly approved—”

“Mostly?!” 

Avoca, I feel your pain, I nod in sympathy, God knows I had to deal with people using barely approved tech to do things and almost always having to deal with the fallout.

Granted, my ‘dealing with it’ was watching the news and not knowing what the people were talking about.

I was an actor, not a rocket scientist, or biologist, as the case may be, or… Whatever type of doctor deals with shoving knowledge into children’s brains.

“Cetulla is fine,” Pakcho signs, tapping on something that sends vibrations around me, as if I were in an aquarium. “Seriously, I wouldn’t put our daughter at too high a risk.”

“One, go fuck yourself, you reckless bastard!” Avoa fumed, “Second, stop tapping the glass, you dumb fuck!” Guess I am a fish-thing, huh? “Third—Oh Yamoshi’s ballsack, she’s waking up!”

Huh, my eyes work again, that’s neat.

…Huh, that’s a rather monkey-like person, very hairy, though most of it is on the back of the hands, arms and probably the body itself, which is covered by armor of some sort.

Very familiar armor, though I couldn’t quite place it.

“Hi, my tiny fuzzball, momma won’t let your dumbass of a father mess with you again, okay?” The Japanese-looking monkey-woman gushed, pressing her face against the glass of whatever I was inside off, her tail swishing around behind her. “Are you okay, can you understand me? Your old man didn’t break you, did he? ‘Cause if he did, I’m gonna become single real fucking soon!”

Well, talking doesn’t seem like an immediate ability, considering whatever the hell is strapped to my face, so I do my best to nod at the woman.

…Wait a second.

“Oh, that’s good, the AKI worked—” The Indian looking man tried to speak, tail fluffing in surprise once he got interrupted by whom I assume to be his wife.

“Shut up, Pak!” Avoca snarled, whirling around to glare at the man before marching towards him and grabbing the rather frightened looking man by the front of his lab coat. “You pissed me the fuck off so I’m dragging you to a Match!”

“Avoca—”

“Shut it!”

…Well, mother of the year, that one.

And father too.

…They were talking to me…

Oh… Oh, oh! Where my dick at?!

____________________________________

One might think I’d kick up a bigger fuss over being a girl after a hundred and twenty-seven years of being a man, but during my long life, I learned to take things in stride.

Besides, you lose any real attachment to your genitals when you’re older than some countries, and more so than that, my dick—Or lack thereof—became a much lesser problem in my mind when I found out I’m a Saiyan.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

As in, space-monkeys that can turn into the world’s best glow-in-the-dark action toy, and are general menaces to everything around them, including themselves, who live in small huts in a dirt-world with an asshole king whose ancestor named the planet they invaded after himself.

Or so I thought, because so far, planet Sadala looked like a very run of the mill sci-fi world, with the buildings my new mother showed me in something similar to a phone looking almost comically smooth and pristine when put against what I know of Saiyans, which doesn’t seem to apply a lot here.

After I woke up, I spent another week inside that pod, ‘just to make sure I was finished cooking’, my father in this unrequested new life had joked, earning him the stink-eye from my mother.

When I was placed outside the pod, onto the cold floor, I really wished I could figure out how to fly on the spot.

Alas, all I could do was flail a bit and need my mother to catch me by the tail to keep me from falling and hurting myself, because apparently Saiyans can just jump several times their height like it’s nothing.

Guess this is how you figure out to fly around here, jump until you make it.

Well, I’m ground bound for now, unless I wanna pull a Hulk and leap to my objectives.

“Hey kid,” My mother called after I adjusted to the horribly cold floor, “How do you feel?” She knelt down to my level, running her hands over my head in search of something. “What’s with this dip?” Her voice took a dark edge, a glare forming on her face, which she quickly directed towards my father.

“Calm down, Avo.” The dark-skinned man rolled his eyes, picking up some sort of device from a table before approaching and pointing it at my forehead. “Normal temperature—The dip is just her skull having a gap between the bones,” He explained after checking a few other things in the thermometer, “It’ll close within a year, this is normal for children.”

Yeah, kids under two years old, which makes me wonder just how old I am, exactly.

Of course, I’m a Saiyan now, so what does my random trivia knowledge of the human body matter here?

“Ho-w…” I rasp, frowning at my high-pitched, scratchy voice, the words in this language sounding somewhat strange to me while simultaneously sounding correct, if choppy. “O-ld?” I point at myself, unwilling to put my throat under strain for now, after all, this isn’t my old body, so who knows how much it can take before tapping out?

“Well…” My father’s eyebrows raise, the man reaching his free hand down to grab one of mine whilst my mother grabs the other. “The AKI worked better than expected!” He half-cheered, his celebration dampened by a strange look in his eyes. “How do you feel?”

I blink, brows furrowing as I roll my tongue around my mouth. “O-ka-y.” Ugh, gonna have to get used to speaking.

“That’s good.” The man sighed, shoulders dropping in relief, a warm smile spreading over his face. “You’re just two months past a year.” He informs, holding me steady alongside my mother as I take a few steps forward.

Balancing with a tail is very weird, but it helps a lot, it turns out.

They had let me get used to walking before deciding to take me anywhere, and I was only so glad to have some time for myself, to get used to the whole doomed world thing.

I lived through the near-end of the world back on my Earth, thanks to World War III, and I wasn’t looking forward to one day look up and see Freeza shoving his balls in our faces.

Or whatever the hell caused Sadala to get screwed up in the first place.

I didn’t get much done the week I was given, mostly sitting on the sofa or my bed, staring at nothing to let my brain process everything.

That led to a lot of stress for my mom, and actual fear for my father.

I sort of forgot Pakcho had used experimental tech on me, and that Avoca really cared about me.

I think it nearly broke them apart.

So, one regular Thursday, after finally parsing through my panic and sorting my thoughts, I made a decision.

“Can I explore?”

It was a simple question, really, but one I thought very carefully about, because see, I love sci-fi, and now I’m in a world where Saiyans are a thing, and I want a ship to get as far away from this place before the people decided to murder each other, invade the planet of the Tuffles and then get killed by Freeza.

And I really don’t wanna see if this place becomes GT or Super, so I want out of this planet—Hell, I’ll take some Saiyans with me and make a colony somewhere no one can find us.

“Explore… how?” My mother asked, keeping her expression carefully neutral as she knelt down in front of me.

“Go out in the stars,” I pointed at the open window. “I wanna know what’s out there.”

“...That may prove difficult,” My father is the one to speak up, my mother’s face going through several emotions while that happens. “The Vega System is dangerous, and even though we managed to secure our solar system, things outside are still very bleak.”

Pardon? “The Vega System?” Surely I misheard, because I was in Sadala, home of the Saiyans, which were not at all part of DC.

“That is the name we came to learn the sector we live in is called,” Pakcho nods to himself, sinking into the cushions of his seat. “There are quite a number of other sentient species out there.”

What the hell… “Like what?” I can’t help but ask, feeling several emotions roil within me, such as annoyance, some desperation, and a myriad of others until I finally reached resignation.

For the most part.

Because seriously, of course my life can’t be simple, no-no, I have to live in a warzone of a place in DC while being a Saiyan, I couldn’t just hope to live a normal-ish life and repeat what happened in my last one but from a different perspective, no.

I just had to exist in a crossover world, and I already started this by having some new tech used on me—Was that what brought me here?—So it absolutely means there’s more stuff I don’t wanna deal with that I’ll have to deal with.

“Where do I even begin?” My mother sighed, hoisting me up on her arms in one fluid movement. “Do you wanna hear about the Citadelians trying to kill us all, or the Arcosians trying to enslave us all, or how about the Psions trying to kill us all but even worse than the Citadelians?”

What in the name of—

“Avoca, she’s barely a year old.” My father complained.

“You drove a spike into her skull!” The Saiyan woman snapped

Say what now?

“It wasn’t a spike!” The man glared, crossing his arms in annoyance. “It was a very small needle that entered the soft gap in her skull to establish contact with—”

“Doesn’t matter.” My mother grunted, looking back at me. “There’s also Tretamands the next solar system over, they’re fun.”

What, what, what, what.

How big is this crossover?!

“Speaking of ‘next system over’,” My father piped up. “Did you hear about the Viltrumites?”

Of fucking course.

“Yeah,” My mother snorted, half in disdain and half in amusement. “Their whole spiel about perfect strength and tearing the weakness out of their society,” She shakes her head. “Taking themselves out along the way only made sense.”

…Hey God, it’s me, ya boy. Look, I don’t know what I did to deserve a second life, but I never signed any contracts, so I’d appreciate it if you stopped this bullshit.

…Really? Nothing?

Fine.

Well, at least I got good parents this time around.

Oh, they’re still talking.

“—Would think that Kryptonians would be any better, but no, turns out they’re as stupid as they come,” Your father scoffed, shaking his head in disappointment. “Honestly, how did they even make their own planet blow up?”

This is coming from a Saiyan.

“Well, let’s not find out, eh?” Oh great, mom is Canadian now.

“How are we alive?” The words slipped past my lips before I could really think about it. “It sounds like we have a lot of enemies.” I added, pursing my lips as my mother glared at my father once more.

“Well, it all began when Bardock the Liberator, well, liberated us,” The Saiyan woman sighs, setting me down on a high chair at the table. “About a hundred years ago, us Saiyans were under the control of the Arcosians, who were led by King Cold the Cruel,” She started to explain, taking a seat next to my father.

 Oh goodie, guess my outsider knowledge is next to useless here. 

“Things were awful, we had to carry heavy things, had to build their shit for them, had to fight and die in their wars,” Avoca counted each thing on her fingers, brows furrowed in seriousness. “And sometimes we were just chained to their thrones, barely clothed, just to look pretty,” She rolled her eyes. “Until one day, they messed with the wrong slave.”

“Bardock?” I wagered, because it seemed pretty obvious.

“His mate, Gine,” My mother corrects, “See, she was pregnant with their first child, and Cold the Cruel decided to show how sadistic he was by nabbing her and beating her for the fun of it.”

Jesus, Freeza’s father, what the shit.

“Bardock snapped,” My father picked up the explanation once my mother went silent, reaching over to grab me from the seat she had just put me in to hold me close. “And thus he achieved something we only believed to be legend at the time,” A far-away look entered his eyes, his fists clenching. “The Super Saiyan, a golden warrior with unparalleled power.”

Whew, that’s some fervor in his voice.

“Hey, I’m the one from the religious sect here!” Avoca huffs into my hair.

The what now?

“Bardock killed Cold on the spot,” Pakcho continued unabated, a small smile pulling at his lips. “And then he proceeded to completely tear apart all the Arcosian forces within our world…” He trailed off for a moment, tapping the table twice. “To skip over a few things, this all led to the real first Saiyan-Arcosian war, in which Cold’s son, Freeza the Immortal, tried to take revenge for his father’s death, and Bardock stood against them, the fights only manageable in our own planet, due to the damned lizards hitting the self-destruct on all the tech they left here, which didn’t give us much to work with,” The Saiyan man waved a hand around. “We only just secured our solar system a few years ago.”

“Then came the next generation,” Avoca picked the explanation back up, almost muttering into my hair, with me only being able to hear her because, well, she’s literally holding me. “Bardock’s second son, Kakarot the Savior, King Vegeta the Third’s son, the now late King Vegeta the Proud, and Broly the Legend.”

This is so vastly different from what I know, it’s just…

“Fascinating…!”

“Ha!”

“Damn it.”

Huh?

“And you owe me fifty Zeni,” My father gave my mother a smug smirk, extending one hand in a ‘give’ motion. “Pay up.”

“Whatever.” My mother audibly pouted, one of her hands letting go of me to rummage through one of her pockets before a handful of crumbled up notes were thrown onto the table. “So she took after you, big deal!”

“What’s happening?” I can’t help but inquire, curious as to what was happening.

“Your father cheated.”

“I did not!”

“You gave her a smart injection—”

“It’s much more complicated than that.”

“—Who’s to say you didn’t alter how she’d turn out?” I can’t quite tell, but I’m mostly certain that Avoca’s glaring at Pakcho.

“Not how the AKI works,” My father huffed in amusement. “But back to the subject at hand,”

“This is not over.” My mother warned.

“Kakarot was everything Bardock was, but better, and he was the one to kill Freeza after the bastard killed Bardock.” Pakcho tapped the table again, thinking.

“Not very immortal was he?” I snark, earning a bark of laughter from my mother and a raised eyebrow from my father.

“Guess she takes after both of us,” The man hummed in amusement. “Truly fascinating.”

“Give me back my money.” My mother demands.

“No.” Pakcho chuckled, waving the Zeni bills in his hand, just within my reach.

So I took the money myself.

“...Might as well call her Avoca the Second.”

“Shut it, lab-boy!”

It took some time for me to get the rest of that history lesson.