The Galactic Capital, King's palace, grand assembly hall
While Gohan and Piccolo were crossing snake way and the seven new guardians were being taught by King Yemma, Piccolo's two remaining offspring faced a different sort of challenge. Both of them didn't want anything to do with this entire affair, but had agreed to help their brothers and elder. After a pleasant year of growing up and training on New Namek and Earth, Piccolo's offspring were brought to the galactic capital by spaceship piloted by their elder and Gohan himself.
Now, a few days later, the galactic king burbled to himself in the grand assembly hall. It was his species' way of sighing. After being revived and getting briefed by the galactic patrol, the galactic government returned to normal operation extremely quickly. They just chose to ignore what happened for the most part. Now, however, during the first assembly after the revival, the galactic council was in chaos.
The assembly hall was massive, with hundreds of seats, all arranged in a semi-circular fashion in front of a slightly raised, open podium, itself made of rich wood and lined with platinum and gold. Gold and silver statues stood guard over the many entrances, ornate carpets covered the floor and diamond chandeliers dangled from the ceiling – it was a place of power and riches, and its members were not accustomed to getting threatened by what appeared to be two green-skinned young aliens.
The two aliens in question just finished talking, telling the council members what happened to their world after Gohan met Freeza in battle, and how the new guardians of the galaxy will soon arrive to make sure they abide by Gohan's instructions. Behind the aliens, on the podium, stood Jaco the galactic patrolman and the galactic King. Jaco was attempting to hide in plain sight as the aliens' blunt way of speaking seemed to enrage the council members, and the king was considering calling for a recess to let the council members calm down.
Cthon was Piccolo's second offspring. He was also the largest, most physically powerful and warrior-like of them all. Having a mindset closer to that of a much younger Piccolo, he had no interest in being a guardian, preferring to improve his fighting skills and meditate alone. The entitled attitude of these soft weaklings angered him, but there would be no honor in lashing out at them. All he said was the truth – destroy your weapons of mass destruction and identify those who bought planets from Freeza, or face Gohan's wrath.
Being close to Piccolo's height, Cthon towered over his much shorter brother, Corun. Corun was Piccolo's youngest offspring, and the smallest. He had no fighting spirit at all, being mostly interested in knowledge and scholarly pursuits, but his love of esoteric ki techniques drove him to train his body as mind at least as well as his brothers. While the blunt Cthon drew the council members' anger, Corun concentrated on scanning the assembly both mentally and using ki-amplified hearing. He couldn't resist a telepathic jab, however, before resuming his scan. Well said, brother, Corun thought with a mental smile, you're a natural diplomat. Cthon, as usual, didn't respond.
Aha! I found something, brother! Corun transmitted after a few moments. His excited mental voice drew Chton's attention, as the shorter namekian was usually calm and collected. That big, round council member right there, he's in communication with a fleet of Freeza force ships! They're set to fly into the system and attack the capital! It's a coup!
Relax, brother, Cthon transmitted while looking around the hall, we're more than enough to handle anything these weaklings have to throw at us.
As if on cue, a stream of guards carrying blaster rifles began entering the hall, teams of them rushing to stand between the rows of seats and block the exits. Noticing the new arrivals, the council members immediately stopped shouting, looking around with alarm. The tentacled king slid in front of the large namekian and spoke through the podium's voice amplifier. "Guards? What is the meaning of this? What are you doing here?"
A huge council member stood up from his seat and addressed the gathering. His body was wide, round and flexible, terminating in a relatively small head with a surprisingly humanoid face. His bloated, white form and two massive, flipper-like arms gave him the appearance of a giant balloon shaped like a sea lion, although his body was actually quite heavy.
"Council members, we are clearly under the threat of an alien conquering force. These two aliens are here to intimidate us, but never fear! I, Minister of Security Glubbar, have taken steps to remedy our failing defenses while our king's inaction failed us."
Glubbar paused, allowing his words to sink in. For some reason the big green alien just stood there, while the smaller one looked right into his eyes and smiled! Such nerve!
"Unfortunately," Glubbar continued, "I'm forced to assume control of the government until this emergency is resolved." He now turned towards his guard captain and pointed at the podium. "Captain! Arrest these interlopers and their allies in the council immediately!"
The captain and a team of elite guards approached the podium, put prisoner collars on the king, Jaco and Corun, and began to take them away. Cthon, however, ignored the soldiers. He nodded wordlessly at his smaller brother and simply flew away, too fast for the shocked guards to try and block him.
Jaco, while being led out of the hall, turned to Corun angrily. "What are you doing? Why aren't you stopping them?"
Corun secretly enjoyed taunting the short, slim patrolman. He also found the prisoner collars interesting, they were obviously booby trapped. "Oh? And why would I do that?"
Jaco's normally frozen expression changed slightly, indicating that Corun's jab worked. "Why?! What do you mean why? They're going to put us in prison and take over the galactic government! Aren't you people supposed to stop them?!"
Corun shrugged. "My only job is to prevent people from dying. I don't really care who is in charge." He considered this a bit more, and added "Actually, I think it will be easier to deal with a single despot than a entire council of people."
Jaco's shoulders slumped and he sighed in defeat. Looks like he was trapped with this indifferent and annoying namekian for now.
Galactic Capital, upper atmosphere
The Freeza force fleet approached the planet warily, but no one challenged them. On the bridge of the leading ship, commander Balee crouched in her seat and smiled in satisfaction. All they had to do was follow the instructions of their employer from the council, and they were going to get paid a lot of money. The deceptively short and slim woman appeared too small and fragile for her role, but her body was composed of a rocky, gray material and she weighed almost a thousand pounds. In fact, she was munching on some particularly tasty gemstones as the fleet headed into the atmosphere of the galactic capital.
Suddenly, a multitude of energy blasts exploded ahead, forcing them to stop. On the view screens they could see a lone figure wearing a purple outfit with a white cape, obviously a powerful warrior. He just floated there, watching the ships with arms crossed.
Balee sighed. "Just shoot him down already."
"Yes, commander," responded the round-headed helmsman. "Firing now."
A cannon homed in on Cthon and fired a volley of gigantic blasts towards him. He dodged effortlessly, flying up while sending a barrage of tiny blasts downwards to nullify the ones fired by the ship. A few moments later explosions lit up the ships from below as the cannon blasts were annihilated in midair, causing the warrior's cape to billow upwards before settling back down.
Balee ground her teeth in annoyance, emitting a crushing, screeching sound that caused the entire bridge crew to cringe uncontrollably. Some of them honestly missed the more sadistic commanders they used to have in the past, before most of them were destroyed on Earth. At least those killed you cleanly.
"Gabbu," Balee turned to the helmsman again, "what's his power level?"
"Err, hard to tell, commander." He pointed at the power scanner console, and Balee could see the machine crashing while it read the warrior's power. A few sparks, a burst of smoke and a dead display, that's all they got.
For some reason the warrior wasn't firing back. They could, theoretically, open fire with all their combined weapons, but that may force the warrior to start destroying ships instead of merely countering individual energy blasts. No, Balee thought to herself, here was an elite warrior, like the ones killed when Freeza went to Earth. Planetary-level threats, not something ship weaponry can deal with. She'd have to take him down personally. That, and any errant blasts that hit the city below might cause their employer to cut their pay.
She flew outside the ship along with dozens of her crew, all seasoned warriors under Freeza and his elite underlings. They survived everything the universe threw at them and now here they were, about to conquer the galactic capital itself. Only this upstart green nobody stood in their way.
Balee faced the warrior, both opponents hovering miles about the planet's surface. The clouds below were sparse, allowing them to see the gleaming metal sprawl of the galactic capital city. All was quiet except for the hum of engines and the howls of the wind.
"Warrior, do not interfere, you don't look like a galactic citizen and this isn't your fight," Balee said, ending with a more ominous "leave now or be destroyed."
She barely saw him move. Suddenly he was right next to her, delivering a powerful kick to her stomach that sent her backwards, straight into the flank of another ship. With a huge metallic roar she found herself embedded in the side plate of the other ship. However, she suffered no damage at all, her dense body easily absorbing the impacts.
Growling in anger, she extracted herself from the ship and ordered the fleet to move back. "Give us room to fight, right now." Her escort went back into the command ship, and the entire fleet rose up out of the atmosphere, leaving two flying figures behind.
She was much more durable than her power level implied, thought Cthon. She didn't feel like she was suppressing her power, either. Something strange was going on here.
He was proven right when two energy beams blasted from her eyes without warning, slicing through his leg and severing it from the knee down. A moment later she charged with a gravelly roar, colliding with the stunned Cthon in midair and unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks.
She wasn't very strong, so her blows weren't doing much damage, but coupled with the damage from her beam attack they were slowly wearing the namekian warrior down.
Unlike the rest of his brothers, Cthon had very little interest in New Namek. When Piccolo took them there to teach them their heritage, Cthon spent a couple of days meditating before asking Goku to return him to Earth. Other than those few days, he tried to spend as much time sparring with the only person on Earth who seemed to take their fighting seriously enough, and that was Vegeta.
The powerful older saiyan didn't hold back. While Piccolo taught them ways to overcome pain and Goku stunned them or threw them around with clever maneuvers and energy techniques, Vegeta went all out. He actually damaged the young namekians, inflicting terrible wounds. Corun didn't even finish one fighting session with the prince, and the rest preferred more balanced training sessions with their elder, Goku or Gohan… but Cthon always wanted more sparring with Vegeta. Piccolo understood, and allowed it.
Vegeta was fighting them like a real opponent would, knowing they had regenerative abilities that also needed to be trained. By hurting them he was actually showing them respect as powerful warriors. The others never understood this, they just assumed the prince was sadistic. In the end, before they left for the galactic capital, Vegeta proclaimed Cthon to be "adequate", and Cthon considered it to be his greatest achievement so far. Right now Vegeta's painful lessons served Cthon well.
The young warrior regenerated his severed limb while defending from the rock woman's blows as best as he could in his slightly stunned state. With a roar of anger he unleashed a kiai blast that pushed her away, and the two opponents hovered for a moment, observing each other.
Cthon knew it was the calm before the storm, and he was right. Another blast from her eyes, taking him almost completely by surprise. He nearly managed to dodge it, but the beams sliced his right forearm almost to the bone. Again, she charged immediately after the beam attack and attempted to wear him down with lightning-fast kicks and punches.
It wasn't a ki blast! Cthon realized that's why he couldn't sense it, it must be some natural ability of her race. Extremely concentrated, piercing beams of... of what? Was it lasers? He didn't know. She couldn't use it constantly, otherwise she would have cut him into pieces already, and was there a little flash of light from her eyes right before it became usable?
He blocked most of her attacks and some of his strikes connected, but she was too powerfully armored to take any damage.
Again, a flash of light from her eyes! This time he was ready. He could see her head begin to turn in a slicing movement as she was setting up her attack. Knowing he had a moment when the positioning of her head could be predicted, he dived to the side and blasted her with a powerful energy attack from point blank range, right into the side of her head!
The massive explosion sent cracks all along her skull, flinging her back and causing her to almost black out. With a final shout he intercepted her flying form, catching her with a powerful spinning kick to the side of the head, where the cracks formed. A shattering, sickening noise could be heard, and she lost consciousness.
King's palace, prison cells
The palace dungeon had been empty for a very long time. It was dusty, and the cell doors were difficult to open and close. Still, Jaco, the King and Corun found themselves trapped in a locked cell.
"Look," Jaco turned to the young namekian, who simply sat there serenely, "you really have to get us out of here. You know what Grubbar is going to do next? He's going to force the council to use the weapons of mass destruction against Earth, that's what. Standard protocol whenever another race threatens the capital."
"Hmm…" Corun considered this. It made sense, and that meant he had to act fast. "Fine."
Corun stood up and reached for his collar. Jaco and the King immediately jumped up and tried to stop him.
"Stop!" Jaco shouted, "Don't touch the co…"
Too late, Corun's hands grabbed the metallic band and triggered its electric charge. Corun's body spasmed in pain and shock, and the namekian crashed to the floor, smoke rising from his neck.
He wasn't moving. Jaco crept closer to Corun's fallen form, and to his horror discovered the namekian was dead. The collar had killed him. "How can this happen" Jaco whispered, "the collars are only supposed to shock you…"
Jako and the King looked down at the body, now completely terrified. They realized that his death meant their doom, either by Grubbar's tender justice or by Gohan and Piccolo's wrath. Ever so slowly, Corun's body began to disintegrate, turning to dust and vanishing completely. The collar fell to the floor and rolled around for a while, before settling down with a final, metallic din.
Both of them sank to the floor again in despair.
I'm just joking, that was a clone, a smug disembodied voice told them telepathically. I'm already in the assembly hall, don't worry.
The king began making strange burbling noises and Jaco just stared into the air, not knowing what to feel. The only namekians he met in the past were stoic and honorable, but this one was completely insane.
