Otherworld, King Yemma's palace
The seven namekians listened with unwavering attention as the huge ogre explained about their new duties and privileges.
"Guardians," Yemma elaborated in his usual powerful voice, reading out of an ancient scroll, "receive three gifts from the gods, to allow them to carry out their duties. The first is the gift of sight, so that they may know what occurs within their domain. The second is the gift of travel, so that they may reach anywhere within their domain when the need arises. The third, and most precious of all, is the gift of healing, so that they may alleviate pain and suffering."
"But know this, guardians," Yemma's voice grew lower and more ominous, and the young namekians leaned forward in anticipation, fascinated by Yemma's theatrics. "These gifts are not to be wasted frivolously. The gift of sight requires you to know yourself, or you may delude yourself into blindness, thinking all is well when all is not. The gift of travel may lead you to seclude yourself, thinking you can be anywhere at any moment but choosing to delay, trapping yourself in a prison of your own creation. And the gift of healing, alone among the three gifts, may be lost forever if you lose your purity. Never take a life or hurt your charges with malice in your heart, or the healing gift will vanish like it was never yours."
Yemma stopped reciting for a moment, then coughed and grinned at the seven wide-eyed younglings sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Well, we're done for now. Have a little break in one of the side rooms, and then I'll teach you about escorting souls from your domain to my palace, or the other way around, and crossing the barrier between the mortal world and the world of the gods."
Galactic capital, King's palace, grand assembly hall
From his hiding place in the shadows, high up between the ceiling arches, Corun observed four council members who seemed to be the conspirators. Although adept at concealing their thoughts, Corun's skill at telepathy was almost as good as his father's, and with some effort he managed to sneak into their minds through cracks of arrogance, greed, fear and cruelty. His brothers didn't know how well he understood these emotions, but his elder did.
Corun remembered Piccolo's words as the young sorcerer scanned the minds of the council members below.
"Don't hide from these things, Corun," Piccolo had said, "accept them and overcome their attraction, don't let them control and define you. This is what my own elder failed to understand. One part of him, my father, thought these impulses lead to greater power, but in the end all they did was limit him, make him smaller. The other part, Kami, denied these impulses completely, and by doing that he lost an essential part of himself."
Accept and overcome, thought Corun, and used these impulses to identify with the ministers, essentially fooling their minds' defenses into believing he wasn't a different entity at all, just a part of themselves.
The gigantic, seal-like Glubbar was their leader, the minister of security. All the guards and police forces were under his control, and so were many of the high-ranking officers in the galactic patrol.
Next to him stood the very tall, gray and spindly form of Gazid, minister of finance. Gazid controlled the banks and treasuries, and without his support a coup such as this could not have taken place.
Next to Gazid stood Yommi, minister of the planetary registry. Her domain was the permits, legislation and various authorities that allowed the galaxy to function — travel, shipping, trade, production, everything had to go through her ministry first.
And the last of the conspirators, Biko, was a member of Jaco's race. He was the minister of taxation, and one of the most hated figures in this room. In addition to that, annoyingly enough, his eyesight was so good that it forced Corun to change positions once in a while. He had to remain out of the minister's line of sight, or risk being discovered even far above between the ceiling arches.
The ministers were annoyed, their coup not progressing according to plan. Apparently the Freeza fleet ships and soldiers, their main source of power and intimidation, weren't responding to hails. The fleet was hovering just above the atmosphere, doing nothing.
The four conspirators were getting more and more nervous, since they had a fixed window of time before the planetary defenses would engage the intruders. Again and again Glubbar hailed the fleet, demanding to know what was going on, but no one answered.
Galactic capital, Freeza fleet remnants
Gabbu the helmsman found himself in charge of dealing with the green warrior. He wasn't the most senior or the most talented soldier, but the others who had higher ranking seemed to melt away in fear, leaving him almost alone on the bridge.
Currently the green warrior, who introduced himself as Cthon, second offspring of Piccolo (whatever that meant), was sitting in the captain's chair, one leg slung over the wide armrests. Minutes earlier he barged into the ship through the airlock, carrying the unconscious commander Balee with him. Gabbu liked Balee, despite the horrible noises her grinding teeth made sometimes, and was happily surprised to see her brought back on board. She was probably the last powerful Freeza soldier left, and she barely paid any attention to the others at all — which meant no one got destroyed in random fits of rage. She was safe to be around.
Balee was currently lying on a side bench near the entrance to the bridge. The entire left side of her head was cracked, and that was the first time Gabbu saw the commander take any kind of damage. She told him once that the healing tanks they had didn't do anything for her, so Gabbu had no idea how she was supposed to heal from that. Right now, though, there were more pressing concerns.
"So," the large namekian warrior addressed Gabbu, "I'm the commander now, right?"
Gabbu shook his head. "No, sir, Balee is the commander."
Cthon frowned, causing the much smaller alien to take a step back. "I defeated her, so that means her command is mine," Cthon stated simply. "I'm the commander."
Gabbu sighed and decided to play along for now. It was better than dying. "Yes, commander."
Cthon nodded. "Good." He looked around for a few moments before focusing back on Gabbu. "So, why exactly are we here?"
"Err," Gabbu looked at the unconscious Balee, then back at Cthon. "We were commissioned by a council member to come here and take over the capital."
Cthon frowned again. Gabbu swallowed in fear, but in fact Cthon frowned because intrigue and politics bored him completely. He simply didn't care, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with the entire thing. As far as he was concerned his part in all of this was complete, and he was free to do whatever he wanted. Now he had a spaceship, or several of them, so he didn't even have to rely on Gohan or his father for transportation.
"Where were you earlier, before you came here?"
Gabbu swallowed again. Did this powerful warrior want to destroy their base? "Umm… Meku, si… I mean, commander."
"What is Meku?" Cthon asked.
"It's a mining asteroid in the Hub system, commander. It used to be a Freeza station so it has a large spaceport."
"Are there fighters there?" Cthon asked again, impatiently.
Gabbu raised an eyebrow ridge and tilted his head in confusion. "Excuse me, commander?"
"Fighters. I'm looking for strong fighters to fight. Are there any on Meku?"
"Well…" Gabbu hesitated, "most of the technicians there were Freeza soldiers, so I guess they can fight."
When he sensed Cthon getting annoyed, Gabbu hurriedly added "but there's the arena on Hub, commander."
Cthon's mood seemed to improve considerably, and he leaned forward in the captain's chair. "Arena? Isn't that like a tournament? A fighting tournament?"
Gabbu nodded. "Yes, commander, although it doesn't have any fixed beginning or end, it's just constant fights almost every night."
"What?!" Cthon had never heard of such a thing. "Why are we still here, then?! Set a course for Hub, right now. We're going to fight in the Arena."
Gabbu thought he misheard. "We, commander?
Cthon nodded. "Of course."
"Commander…" Gabbu hesitated "none of us are fighters, we're soldiers and spacers, but not arena fighters."
Cthon looked around, sensing the dozens of soldiers on board the various ships. The weakest of them was ten times stronger than the mightiest martial artist on Earth, other than prodigies like Tien or Krillin. The strongest, Balee, was much stronger than that, and that's without taking her strange abilities into account.
The namekian looked back at Gabbu and frowned. "Fool, why pretend you're a weakling? You're thirty times stronger than my father was at my age. A few decades ago you could have come to Earth and overcome all its strongest fighters by yourself."
"But commander," Gabbu was almost crying at this point, "what about Freeza? We can't just pick up and leave the fleet, he'll hunt us down and torture us to death when he comes back!"
"Bah!" Cthon spat in disgust, "He's gone forever. His soul was wiped clean and reincarnated by the judge of souls himself, Freeza is never coming back."
Galactic capital, King's palace, grand assembly hall
"Enough of this nonsense, then," the angry Glubbar muttered, pocketing his communication device. Damn Freeza raiders, can't rely on these fools to follow even basic instructions. "Before we continue," he looked around at the other three council members, "there's the issue of the earthling threat."
"No time, no time," said planetary minister Yommi. "Just scramble the hyperspace drones already. Load them with apocalypse weapons and send them off, right now."
"Agreed," whispered Gazid in his usual, hushed tone. "We have to take care of the King immediately, before the rest of the galactic security catches on."
"Too bad about patrolman Jaco," said Biko, "but sacrifices must be made. Send the drones, Glubbar, and lets move forward."
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that," said someone right next to them.
The four turned around and looked at the source of the voice. It was that shorter green alien from before, the one who stared into Glubbar's eyes! He was right there, barely five feet away!
"You!" Glubbar said angrily as the four conspirators took a few steps back and away from this new threat. "I thought they took you away already. Guards! Apprehend this intruder… again!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Corun smiled. His aura flared, forcing the council members to step even further back and causing any guard who came close to stop in his tracks.
"You see, the gods are angry, and they sent me and my brothers to deal with you." Horrifyingly, his body rippled, shifted and began growing and stretching, his voice growing deeper and more menacing as the process continued.
"My brothers are all angels of the gods, but me…" Huge, black claws extended from his monstrously large hands, rippling muscles grew and settled on his colossal frame, massive horns curled out from the sides of his head, and a snake's tongue lashed out from between twin fangs, dripping with poison. "I'm no angel."
Shrieking in terror, most of the council members and guards simply turned and ran. A few brave guards fired at the nightmarish monster, but their shots had no effect. It ignored them completely, focusing only on the four council members who spoke out against the king.
With a sickening sound of tearing flesh, six gigantic arms grew from the demon's back, brandishing the same deadly, black claws. With lightning quick movements, the council members found themselves enveloped by massive, clawed paws and slowly raised towards the creature's wide, fanged mouth. When it spoke next, there was no trace of the short, green alien left. The voice was deep, booming and terrible, and it spelled their doom.
"For the four of you, the gods sent their demon of death"
There was a flash of light, a sound of distant thunder, and a new voice called out "Corun! Stop!"
The monster holding them in its paws turned its head back towards the podium, one of its horns hitting a chandelier and raising a chiming sound that filled the hall for a few moments.
A newcomer had appeared in the center of the podium. He was a tall, heroic-looking green alien, wearing a white robe and surrounded by a soft aura of white light.
The monster gently put the council members back on the ground. A moment later and the colossal demon was gone, replaced again by the short, smiling green alien.
"Hello, Chell," Corun smiled at his brother, the newly appointed Guardian of the Galactic Capital. "Don't worry, I wasn't really going to hurt them, just wanted to scare them a little bit."
Beerus' world, bed chamber
The god of destruction was trapped in a nightmare for quite a while now. Something was slipping away between his fingers, and try as he might he just couldn't catch it. He worked so hard for it, for eons and eons, millions of years of careful balancing, but it just slipped away.
He fell into a looming darkness that spread underneath him, still trying to catch that ephemeral thing. The darkness was full of angry eyes, blaming him, chastising him, telling him to…
"Wake up, Lord Beerus! Please!"
Whis finally managed to shake Beerus awake. "Wha…" Beerus looked around until he finally recognized Whis. "Whis? What happened? Why did you wake me?"
The angel sighed. "You were having a terrible nightmare, my lord, and it was time for you to wake up anyway. In your sleep you were starting to destroy the palace itself with random energy blasts, I woke you up so you'd still have a bed to sleep in next time you were tired."
Beerus rubbed his eyes. "Fine, fine…"
His ears suddenly perked up. "Whis, something feels different. Something's wrong. How long was my nap?"
"About a year or so, my lord," Whis answered calmly.
"Alright," Beerus nodded and spent a few moments stretching his limbs. "Let's have some breakfast, and while I'm eating you can tell me what happened."
