Golden lightning crawled across the sky like living fire.
Vegeta hovered at the eye of the storm, hair a blazing crown, eyes twin emerald suns.
He laughed.
Not the old, bitter snarl of the prince who had knelt too many times.
This was something new: cold, triumphant, and utterly free.
All the chains snapped at once.
Planet Vegeta's destruction.
Frieza's leash.
The endless years of second place.
Gone.
One hundred and fifty million.
Maybe one-eighty.
The number didn't matter anymore.
It was enough.
More than enough.
"Frieza," he said to the empty sky, voice calm and terrible. "Enjoy your last few hours of sleep. When I come for you, there won't be a corpse left to bury."
He inhaled once, slow and deliberate, tasting the pure, electric rush of Super Saiyan ki.
The boost was obscene.
Every heartbeat felt like it could crack continents.
But he forced himself still.
Control first.
Mastery second.
Slaughter third.
He had seen what happened to Saiyans who let the gold rush to their heads. Rage made you strong. Uncontrolled rage made you dead.
Vegeta closed his eyes and sank into the new ocean inside him, mapping every current, every whirlpool.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
The storm quieted. The golden aura shrank until it hugged his skin like a second armor, steady, obedient.
Only then did he open his eyes again.
Perfect.
He could hold it now. Drop it. Reignite it. No lag. No surge.
The transformation was his.
His gaze turned distant, toward the future.
Frieza? A warm-up.
King Cold? A footnote.
His real targets stood years ahead: androids that made Frieza look like a child's toy, a pink demon that absorbed gods for breakfast, a time-travelling brat with a sword and his face.
Ten billion.
A hundred billion.
That was the new floor.
Anything less and he'd be the one kneeling again.
Vegeta's lips curved into the old princely smirk, now edged with something divine and merciless.
"Let the androids come. Let the demon come. Let the gods themselves descend."
He flexed his fingers. Golden sparks danced between them.
"I'll be waiting."
A thousand kilometers away, inside the cold metal womb of his flagship.
Frieza set down his wine glass.
The liquid inside trembled without being touched.
A pressure he had never felt before pressed against his mind like a boot on the throat.
His tail froze mid-curl.
For the first time since he was a child, Frieza felt something crawl up his spine that might have been fear.
He stared out the viewport at the innocent green planet below.
And whispered a single name.
"…Vegeta?"
The golden age had begun.
And the old emperor's reign was already over.
He just didn't know it yet.