The stars over the desert city blink like dying embers as Cody lies back on the rooftop, arms crossed behind his head. The cool night air brushes over his smooth, pale skin, reflecting the faint light like polished ivory.
His body is sleek now—tail coiled beside him, horns curved back, energy sealed tight within a compact, efficient form. The transformation had been jarring at first. But now, lying still, Cody let his mind slip inward.
"Entering Training Void..."
A pulse. The world falls away.
[Training Void – Time Dilation: 365:1]
Cody opens his eyes into nothingness. A white void stretches endlessly, lit by an invisible sun. He tightens his fists. Power hums in his veins like a live wire.
He doesn't waste a second.
He trains with versions of himself—past lives, past powers. Ki, magic, instinct, muscle memory. He fights an older Saiyan version of himself in one-on-one battles. He spars a clone with his divine body. He adapts every trick, merges every lesson. Punches that once shattered planets now ripple space itself. Techniques are refined until they break the training void itself—and he rebuilds it.
By the end of the year, Cody stands alone in the void, floating calmly. His final form hasn't changed. But now… he doesn't need to.
[Exit Training Void – 1 night passed in real world]
Cody's eyes snap open. Dawn is rising over the dunes.
He breathes in—and the sand across the city trembles.
Zelle is asleep beside the rooftop, curled up in a blanket, still wary from the night before. She stirs, sensing the shift.
Cody stands.
His body radiates something new. Not just power—but purpose. The desert air bends around him. His aura, once frigid and faint, now pulses with controlled force, flickering with hints of his old chaos and warmth.
Zelle sits up, rubbing her eyes. "Cody…?"
He turns to her, his voice calm but unmistakably familiar. "Morning."
She blinks. "Something's different. You feel... like you again."
He steps closer and offers a hand. "One year of training. One night here. I needed it. I didn't want you to just see this body—I wanted you to see me."
She grabs his hand and rises to her feet, her eyes locked onto his.
"You idiot," she whispers, tears brimming. "You could've just said something."
"I thought maybe you wouldn't believe me. Or worse… you'd think I was gone."
Zelle shakes her head, smiling. "I don't care what you look like. Saiyan, god, lizard... you're still the same Cody who drives me crazy and keeps me alive."
He wraps an arm around her. For the first time in this new form, he lets the warmth through—controlled, focused, but real.
They don't kiss yet. But they don't need to.
Far off in the desert, something senses the shift. Something ancient. A power slumbering in the ruins now stirs… because someone just shook the planet awake.
"So let me get this straight," Cody said, arms crossed and tail flicking lazily behind him as he hovered above the city square. "This planet's ruled by… a bug?"
The roach crowd below him buzzed in horror. The city, built out of sun-bleached metal and giant sand-blasted hive towers, had gathered in full. Thousands of green, upright roach people with compound eyes and twitching antennae stared up at the pale demon floating above them like an angel of death with attitude.
Zelle stood off to the side, chewing on something that looked like fried cactus and watching the spectacle with bored amusement.
The current "king" of the roaches—a towering insectoid with a golden crown made of scrap metal and an overinflated ego—stepped forward with six arms raised.
"You dare mock Great Krizzorr, Supreme King of the Sand Brood?!"
Cody tilted his head. "Krizzorr?" He gave a slow blink. "Did your mom sneeze during labor or what?"
Gasps and screeches rose from the crowd. The king hissed in fury.
"I will have your head, alien scum!"
Cody yawned. "Okay. Bet."
The king lunged with shocking speed, mandibles wide, all six arms glowing with acidic energy. He struck—
—and Cody vanished.
Then reappeared behind him with one finger glowing.
"Tch."
He tapped the king's back lightly.
The next moment, an entire section of hive tower behind them exploded in a geyser of molten stone and green ooze.
The king fell face-first, smoking, twitching.
Cody floated down and landed on the now-cratered stage, brushing invisible dust off his shoulder.
"Well," he said, stretching, "unless anyone else here thinks they can bench-press a moon, I hereby declare myself your new emperor."
The crowd stared.
One roach in the front slowly raised its claw and said, "Hail Emperor... uh, what was your name again?"
Cody gave them a grin that screamed trouble. "Emperor Cody the Magnificent." He struck a ridiculous pose, fists on his hips, tail curled behind him like a cape.
The roaches all bowed at once, thousands of voices echoing:
"HAIL EMPEROR CODY THE MAGNIFICENT!"
Zelle nearly choked on her food laughing.
Later That Day…
Cody now sat on a throne made of fused scrap metal and bug bones, one leg over the armrest, sipping some glowing green drink from a coconut with a straw.
"So, what's the tax rate here?" he asked lazily.
One of his new roach ministers—an anxious little thing with one eye larger than the other—fidgeted. "We… uh… don't have one?"
Cody snapped his fingers. "We do now. Ten percent to me. Ten percent to Zelle. Ten percent to the rebuilding fund. The rest you can keep. I'm generous like that."
Zelle leaned on the throne's side, eyebrow raised. "Didn't know you were going full space dictator."
Cody smirked. "Listen. If I'm gonna be stuck in a Frieza body, I'm gonna live a little. Conquer some stuff. Maybe start an empire. You know. Casual goals."
Zelle sighed and sipped his drink without asking. "Just don't blow up the planet."
"No promises," Cody replied with a grin. "But I'll at least wait until the weekend."