The worst wish in history, that is the beginning of despair.
Satan City, District 666, Satan Residence
It's been nearly a year since the God of Destruction, Lord Beerus, and his attendant, Whis, had visited Earth in search of the Super Saiyan God. Goku, in a desperate bid to stop the mad deity, had amassed the powers of five pure-hearted Saiyans, and arose to take the mantle of Super Saiyan God. Throwing away his pride as a warrior and accepting help from his comrades, the Saiyan deity was able to fight on par with Lord Beerus for awhile, and gave the God of Destruction a fight the likes of which he had never seen.
Satisfied with meeting a man of limitless potential who could someday prove to be a potential rival, and seeing the Prince of Saiyans, Vegeta, as a mortal with just as much promise, Lord Beerus and Whis departed from Earth. Upon returning to the God of Destruction's temple, Beerus planned to take a three year nap, after which he planned upon returning to Earth again.
And so, on Earth, peace had returned at last. Gohan, and Videl, with their newborn daughter, Pan, were visiting Mr. Satan, for the first time since the two-month old child had been born. Piccolo, at Gohan's request, had accompanied them, but he was beginning to regret the decision.
"Why not hold her, Piccolo?" Gohan pressured, holding the sleeping infant towards his former teacher. "She should get to know you."
"Gohan, I don't think I'm going to be the best with children," Piccolo replied dryly, extending a green, clawed hand for emphasis as to why Gohan should keep his newborn daughter, Pan, as far away from those arms as he could.
"Don't force it on him, Gohan," Videl chided, her hands on a vivid pink stroller, "I'm sure Piccolo will get to know Pan in due time. She may be just as rambunctious as I was when I was a kid. Maybe she'll want to be trained by him, you never know."
"You have a point there," Gohan agreed and he couldn't help notice a sly smile from Piccolo. He knew both of them missed the old days when Gohan was a child, and Piccolo was his teacher. The bond between a student and their first teacher was unique and hardly every broken, as Piccolo and Gohan were living proof of. Still friends well into Gohan's early adulthood, as well as being the first friend either of them ever had. Gohan, while he knew his mother would disapprove, wanted his daughter to have a bond like that.
"I'd appreciate the chance," Piccolo replied, and while delight wasn't an emotion that was expressed very often by the Namekian, Gohan knew he was excited at the prospect of taking on a new student.
Yes, peace had truly returned to the Earth.
And yet, all peace does not last forever.
In the midst of this blissful reunion, the sun faded from the sky, casting it into true and complete darkness. To a normal human, it looked as if night had suddenly arrived without warning, or perhaps a solar eclipse. But to the Z-fighters, all of whom looked up at the sky, regardless of where they were on Earth, knew this could only mean one thing.
"It's Shénlóng..." Piccolo growled in realization, "but where!?"
Paprika Wasteland
Little did they know — though Krillin correctly hazarded a guess at the half-truth — that in the middle of the Paprika Wasteland, the once Emperor Pilaf and his band of misfits had collected the seven Dragon Balls and summoned the Eternal Dragon, Shénlóng. Not for themselves, as they had done so many times before — in fact, not even a full year ago, they'd blundered an attempt to use the Balls, wishing for 'youth', and had been reduced to children, before Shénlóng left the vicinity — but for two others.
And now, the serpentine Dragon God stood before them, and Pilaf, terrified, ushered forth one of the two, who claimed to be from another planet. While this would be an insane claim for anyone to make, Pilaf had since learned that anything was possible after meeting Goku. And thus, in order to avoid being killed, he abided by the request of the two aliens, and gathered for them the Dragon Balls they were seeking.
The shorter one, a blue alien with a bulbous black nose, who called himself 'Sorbet', stepped forward, walking towards Shénlóng, who spoke in a deep, booming voice that intimidated all present.
"YOU, WHO HAVE GATHERED THE SEVEN DRAGON BALLS," The serpentine Dragon bellowed, "NAME YOUR WISH! I SHALL GRANT ANY SINGLE REQUEST YOU ASK OF ME!"
"Lord Freeza..." Sorbet muttered quietly, before raising his voice loudly so that the Dragon God would not miss a word. "I want you to bring Lord Freeza back to life!"
The Dragon reacted in silence, as if the request had been odd. Sorbet looked around briefly, to see if their Lord would be standing next to them, perhaps. When nothing happened, he realized the wish had not been granted, and looked back up at Shénlóng. "W-What's wrong? You said you could grant any wish, didn't you? Why haven't you revived Lord Freeza!?"
"I CAN GRANT THIS WISH, YES," Shénlóng replied, "BUT THE ONE CALLED FREEZA WAS REDUCED TO SUCH SMALL FRAGMENTS MANY YEARS AGO. TO FULLY REVIVE HIM IS IMPOSSIBLE, AND RETURNING A SOUL TO A DISMEMBERED BODY WOULD BE POINTLESS."
"Oh!" Sorbet gasped in shock. "I hadn't considered that at all! If he's in pieces...what do we do...? Wait! Can you restore his body first, and then revive Lord Freeza!?"
"THAT I CANNOT DO," Shénlóng's refusal was blunt, "AS I HAVE GRANTED A WISH NOT A FULL YEAR AGO, AND WAS RECENTLY SUMMONED ONLY NINE MONTHS PRIOR TO THIS. MY POWERS WANE, AND I HAVE THE CAPACITY TO GRANT A SINGLE REQUEST. IS YOUR WISH TO RETURN HIS BODY TO WORKING ORDER? IF YOU DO NOT MAKE A WISH SOON, I WILL BE FORCED TO LEAVE."
"W-why you...!"
"Lord Sorbet, if I may?" The taller, lankier alien stepped forward. "Even if Lord Freeza is reduced to mere pieces, with our technology and the Lord's immense life force, we can regenerate his body with our latest models of the medical machinery. With our upgraded models, a full regeneration of Lord Freeza's physical form should be possible, even if we have only his tail."
"Yes! Excellent, Tagoma!" Sorbet complimented his second-in-command, before turning back towards Shénlóng, whose patience seemed to be waning far more than his capacities. "I don't care what state his body is in, I asked for a revival, so hurry and revive Lord Freeza!"
"...AWFULLY ARROGOANT," Shénlóng mused in mild irritation, but he said nothing other than this. "NO MATTER. THE REPERCUSSIONS ARE OF NO CONSEQUENCE TO ME. YOUR WISH IS GRANTED." The serpentine God's eyes flashed bright red, and with a thumping noise, sliced pieces of flesh and machinery fell to the ground in front of Sorbet and Togoma, as the Dragon Balls rose into air and vanished. At once, Sorbet knew; these pieces of flesh were Lord Freeza.
Without warning, the body began to attempt to reassemble itself; the wires from the machinery slithered like snakes as they began to latch onto the limbs, pulling in on each other. Within moments, however, the attempt failed, and the crouched and damaged figure of Freeza fell apart again. But the remains still twitched, and Sorbet knew. With this kind of vitality, reviving their Emperor would be a simple task.
The empire of Freeza would reign again.
Satan City, District 666, Satan Residence
"This presence..." Gohan growled, his bespectacled stare facing off into the distance.
"Yes...it's Freeza," Piccolo replied, sensing the same foul energy as Gohan. "The signature is weak, and it's fading, but that was definitely Freeza's energy I felt. If he's returned..."
"Someone will have to inform Dad and Vegeta," Gohan agreed with Piccolo's unfinished thought. He was confident they could handle Freeza as he was now. He'd undergone quite a bit of training since the events of Namek so many years ago. And yet, if Freeza was fleeing — and it truly seemed he had, his power had vanished as quickly as it had come — then what was to stop him from preparing? And if Freeza would do that, Gohan felt they would need to have his father, and Vegeta, on their side.
"I'll have to contact the North Kaiō, and see if he can make further contact with Goku and Vegeta," Piccolo replied, preparing to head towards the Lookout, where the connection to Other World was strongest. "Your father and Vegeta are, after all, training with the God of Destruction. Contacting them right now won't be any easy task."
"Alright. Good luck, Piccolo," Gohan said, nodding his teacher off. While Piccolo went to find his father and Vegeta, Gohan would instead go inform the rest of the Z-Fighters.
If Freeza was truly returning, they would need everyone.
God of Destruction's Temple, Beerus' Planet
Two battle cries filled the beautiful planet that served as the home to Lord Beerus and his attendant, Whis. Moving along the surface were three blurs of motion to the naked eye; one orange, one black, and one purple. However, closer inspection towards anyone with the eyes to track their movements — and the only one of this level was currently asleep — would see that these were not tricks of the light, but instead, Son Goku, Vegeta, and Whis, having a sparring match along the surface of the planet.
After the battle with Beerus, both Vegeta and Goku had agreed to be taken under the the wing of Whis, and have been his students for several months since the encounter with Lord Beerus. And if Goku and Vegeta had never seen eye to eye before, they could agree on one thing now.
Whis was the toughest teacher they'd ever trained under.
With a shout from each of them, they began to level blows. Goku unleashed a physical assault through punches, with Vegeta coordinating a flurry of violent kicks, both aiming for opposite sides of Whis. And yet, without effort, the effeminate God parried each and every blow with the palm of his hands, not even bothering to look in the direction of his combatants.
"Kakarot, don't you dare lose your focus!" Vegeta growled, frustrated as his attacks proved ineffective. And yet, in the irony of his outburst, he himself lost his focus, a mistake which cost him dearly.
"My my, where are you looking?" Whis had vanished without Goku or Vegeta even noticing, appearing behind Vegeta as if he'd been there all along. "You shouldn't get so easily distracted, my prince." And with the simple flick of a finger that caused Vegeta to reel, Whis sent the Prince of Saiyans hurtling away from his at breakneck speeds, before turning his attention to Goku.
"Are you surprised, Goku?" Whis inquired, reading the look on his student's face.
"You could say that, yeah," Goku replied, casting an aside glance to Vegeta's hurtling form. The air pressure from that simple blow was strong enough that Vegeta wasn't able to properly recover yet. Such terrifying strength...and yet Goku would be lying to himself if he said the prospect of fighting Whis didn't excite him. "I wasn't able to process it entirely at first, when Lord Beerus told me you were even stronger than he was — his teacher, even! — and yet you're so strong it's almost intimidating."
Whis smiled, a wise, knowing smile, quite unlike the smug one his superior and former student possessed. At that time, Vegeta finally managed to regain his bearings, and a giant plume of smoke suggested he'd crashed into something very large and dusty that had finally broken his fall. Returning to the battlefield, the Saiyan prince looked both battered and furious. "Since you're both present, I'll give you some advice. Both of you are incredible fighters, and I can say that with the utmost honesty."
Goku couldn't help but chuckle at the praise, and even Vegeta, disgruntled nonetheless, found the compliment fed his ego.
"But you telegraph your movements far too much," Whis immediately followed with this assessment, missing no beat at all and his smile faded as he became stern, "you waste too much movement in showy and flashy executions of your techniques. If your attacks give off the aura of strength, if they look powerful, your opponent will make the preparations to block or dodge your techniques. Decrease your movement without losing power behind your techniques; even Lord Beerus learned this while training under me."
Reduce the movement while retaining power; for Goku, whose signature style of fighting was the Turtle School of Martial Arts, and for Vegeta, who had grown up refining a ruthless style of fighting on the battlefield, what Whis asked was a tall order indeed. And yet Goku knew from experience that revealing too much about one's attack style could lead to a fatal encounter. A very extreme example of this was the Ginyu Force, whose actions made their movements so obvious Goku hadn't needed much effort to beat them.
"Why don't we give it one more try, gentlemen?" Whis suggested, making a sweeping gesture that indicated the two Saiyans were to come at him without holding back. "Before we call it a day, at least?"
"Alright, follow me, Kakarot!" Vegeta ordered, glowing with bright blue energy as he dashed forward towards Whis. Unleashing a flurry of quick-timed physical blows, he swung his left leg quickly towards Whis. Goku, aiming to fight in concert with Vegeta, followed up with a quick and sharp elbow jab. Each and every one of these attacks were, without effort or even attention, blocked by a disapproving Whis. The speed of his arms, even to Goku, was a blur; he responded to their efforts robotically.
With the simple twitch of the wrist, Whis flipped Vegeta in mid-air, and sent him crashing into the ground with a sound akin to an exploding bomb, creating a crater of surprisingly small proportions despite the force behind the impact, and then quickly rounded on Goku, finally making the effort to restore to a swift physical attack; a kick directly into the Saiyan's gut, dazing him. before crashing Goku down into the same crater as Vegeta.
"Tsk..." Whis sounded truly disappointed as he descended onto the ground. "That didn't even make for a decent warm-up." And yet, in spite of saying this, the planet itself was littered with craters of varying sizes, objects destroyed, the lake itself had flooded into these new cracks and crevices. Whatever Whis' idea of a true 'warm-up was would be frightening indeed, if vandalizing a planet was not enough.
"We're going to give it another try," Goku replied, denying Whis' attempts at belittling them.
"Don't start to underestimate us!" Vegeta added, getting to his feet.
A smile crossed Whis' face again; the sight of fighting spirit was always invigorating. "Splendid! By all means, let's continue!"
With vigor, Vegeta and Goku resumed their training. It was Goku who led their assault this time, and following Whis' instructions, he tried his best to minimize wasted action by utilizing speed over force and allowing his muscles to pick up the rest. Goku and Whis exchanged a flurry of thunder blows as they moved across the surface of the planet, but Goku could not find an inch given in Whis' firm defence.
"Hah!" With a simple shout, Whis threw Goku off his balance, a kiai of such proportions that Goku might have argued it felt far more like a hurricane. Vanishing, Whis reappeared, thrusting his palm up against Goku's chin, stunning the man, before he grabbed him by the arm, and threw the Saiyan behind him...directly into an oncoming Vegeta.
"Not this time, Kakarot!" Vegeta, instead of stopping to help or even being distracted, pushed off of Goku's falling form like a stepping stone, boosting himself towards Whis. Vegeta released a flurry of punches at Whis the moment he reached him, and every single blow, Whis simply sidestepped as if it was nothing. Using the air as if it were ground, Vegeta pushed upwards to perform a double kick at the deity. Whis, however, vanished, and Vegeta's technique hit naught but air.
"What the...where did he!?" Vegeta looked around frantically, unable to sense Whis' presence due to the man's holy status. Deciding the ground was safer than the air, Vegeta made for a quick landing, his feet meeting the ground where Goku was regaining his bearings.
"It's hard to believe he's merely toying with us," Vegeta growled, and Goku's weak chuckle confirmed he was of a similar mindset. "This is just a simple training exercise...and yet I've never felt so powerless."
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Whis appeared with a pop, sitting on top of the rod he typically carried. "You're both doing a fantastic job, if I do say so myself. But you're both looking quite worn. Do you intend to push yourself further today?"
The truth of the matter was, they looked about as much as they felt. Goku, having adopted a new uniform adopting his old colors but with a few modifications wore a sleeveless, orange top and bottom. Lacking an undershirt, his scraped and bruised chest matched the sporadic discolored skin covering his arms up to his swollen knuckles. His telltale wristbands and obi were frayed, having been torn through mere contact of Goku's body and uniform tanking each blow after subsequent blow. His scuffed face, while smiling brightly at the start of the day's training, struggled not to grimace at the large bruise formed over his left jaw and several scrapes over his right eye.
Vegeta faired no better. Despite his garments being akin to his old battle armor and bodysuit, with the only real change being a black material substituting the blue and the same insignia that Goku's own kosode sported on the upper left spot. An intricate near full circle wrapping around what looked like a sickle shaped line, giving it the impression of an incomplete moon or partially formed eye. This was partially obscured by the large indentation placed over his armor, having been added to the number of strikes Whis indiscriminately marked upon his person. Tears stretched from head to toe over his black linen covered body, sporting gashes and bruises galore. His lower lip split constantly blared a viscous red hue, driving his ire further into frustration as his face sported a pair of identical bruises on either of his cheeks.
Before either Vegeta or Goku could answer, in spite of their conditions, there was a rumble from the gnarled, dead tree that housed the God of Destruction himself. With this rumbling came a blinding flash that caused Goku and Vegeta to shield their eyes, and a very angry bellow from the temple itself. "WHIS! WILL YOU THREE KEEP QUIET OUT THERE!? I CAN'T STAY ASLEEP!"
"Ho ho ho...!" Whis laughed elegantly, before turning to Goku and Vegeta. "Gentlemen, it looks like we're going to have to stay our hands at training until tomorrow. We're interrupting Lord Beerus' slumber and you've both seen him get angry."
Vegeta, who had been about to protest, immediately closed his mouth. He'd experienced the anger and wrath of the God of Destruction before, and was quite keen to have passed that point in his life and didn't feel the need to revisit it anytime soon.
"I guess we'll go lick our wounds then," Goku replied, chuckling. Despite saying this, he truly felt too beaten to get up from the ground. "At least that's what I'd like to do if I could get myself to move...!"
"Goku! Goku, can you hear me!?"
Immediately, Goku looked up at the sky. "Kaiō!? Is that you!?"
"Yes, it's me Goku, and I'm sorry to say I'm not calling you for a friendly chat!" There was an edge to the North Kaiō's voice that Goku hadn't heard in quite some time, and it made him interested to hear what he was going to say. "I've received urgent news from Piccolo, and he told me I absolutely had to relay it to you and Vegeta. Freeza has been wished back to life by Earth's Dragon Balls!"
"What!?" Vegeta was the first to react to this bit of information. "Freeza has returned!? You're sure!?"
"I don't joke, Vegeta — okay, that's a lie, I actually have quite a brilliant sense of humour, but I don't joke in situations like this!"
Goku, however, didn't see the gravity of the situation. "Freeza's returned? To be honest, at the level we're at now, I don't think he'll be half as much trouble as he was on Namek. We should just leave the likes of Freeza to Gohan or Piccolo; they can handle it, surely!"
"This isn't a time to talk lightly, Goku!" The North Kaiō stressed, sounding exasperated at his student's naïveté. "I have a bad feeling about this, Goku. My intuition tells me something big is coming. Don't let your guard down now, simply because you're going to underestimate Freeza!"
With this cryptic warning, the North Kaiō cut off his contact with Goku and Vegeta, leaving them to their thoughts.
"Did I hear that correctly?" Whis inquired; naturally, he'd been able to hear the telepathy, despite it not being directed at him. One of the perks of Godhood. "Freeza has been brought back to life?"
"It seems so." Goku replied, standing up and tightening the obi on his belt. "I always knew he was the type to never learn from his mistakes!"
"Freeza..." Vegeta murmured the name of the tyrannical space pirate under his breath. "You're truly a blight on my existence, aren't you? Just when I thought you were finally gone — a dark, bitter memory forced into the recesses of my head...you return!" Turning to Goku, Vegeta gripped his fists, anger surging through his being. "Come on, Kakarot! We're redoubling our efforts! If Freeza has truly returned to the world of the living, I'll see to it that he's sent straight back to Hell!"
A/N: So, in light of the recent trailer and tie-in-manga for Revival of F, I felt compelled to write this. It's nothing much, just a small one-shot that I won't be going anywhere with after this chapter, so I hope you all don't expect too much. To my Erased Chronicles audience, I'll be back in the writing spirit for that story soon; I just got Dragon Ball Xenoverse and I've been absolutely addicted to it. It's gonna be a little while before I can put it down and not come back to it.
So, when it comes to this little story, I'm actually not pleased with how I portrayed Whis' skills. Purely because I think I could have done better, and something about the fighting scene just felt so hollow to me. But at the same time, this is a small little one-shot, so I'm not going to stress over it too much. Toriyama will do us justice in the actual film. Well, I hope you all enjoyed this small little experiment. Let's also give thanks to my friend Demod20 who helped proofread it.