Wind rushed through a barren landscape, kicking up dust. A spaceship resembling a saucer descended, metallic legs emerging from ports all around its underside and folding out.
It landed, sending the noise of creaking metal rolling across the plain.
Miles away, several people watched with growing dread. They were a highly varied group, from numerous walks of life. They had all been brought together by one man, a strange and often foolish warrior who still stood out as a beacon of hope and kindness. All except one of them considered Goku to be one of their best friends.
But he was not here right now, and that was why they were all shaking with terror.
"Krillin," a young boy dressed in a purple gi spoke to a bald man who was only slightly taller than him, "can you feel that? That other presence might be even stronger than Frieza."
"I can tell, Gohan." He swallowed, sweat rolling down his face. "I can tell."
There was a growl behind them, drawing their eyes and everyone else's to the spiky haired man in a pink shirt. They wanted to laugh and crack jokes at his expense, but none of them could look at Vegeta and see anything other than someone almost as terrifying as the menace about to set foot on Earth.
"That must be Frieza's father, King Cold. The fact that he's stronger than his brat must mean we can't sense Frieza's full power. He's probably been put back together and given prosthetics after Kakarot failed to kill him." Hatred dripped off every word.
"Did a better job of it than you did." Krillin thought to himself.
His mind flashed back to their time on another world, a distant one of blue grass and green skies. Vegeta, the prince of a warrior race of aliens known as the Saiyans, had come to Earth over a year ago on a mission of death and destruction. He and his allies had caused the Dragon Team much pain and anguish, the prince's lackeys having killed most of the ones gathered here.
A journey to that other world, Namek, had then been conducted by Krillin, Gohan, and a blue-haired woman named Bulma after Vegeta was driven off.
Back in the present, the diminutive monk turned, seeing Bulma present as well. She currently had the arm of Yamcha, the most normal looking guy here minus the scars adorning his face, around her shoulder. The former bandit wanted to make sure Bulma was safe, or at least as safe as she could be in a scenario like this.
"Why did you demand to come out here, anyway?" Questioned a tall, bulky man who lacked hair atop his head. A third eye rested on his forehead, unblinking. Tien had been one of the ones to die to the Saiyans, which meant he did not go to Namek with them.
"Because I didn't get to see this guy on Namek, and I'm tired of missing all the action!" Bulma angrily responded.
"Tien, don't bother trying to talk her out of this, you know how Bulma is." Yamcha laughed a bit, a nervous chuckle that was moreso to disguise the terror creeping through him.
The trip to Namek had been free of issue, but once the trio had arrived, things had been horrifying. A tyrant had arrived with numerous soldiers seeking the same wish-granting orbs they had been seeking. The Earthlings had wanted the Dragon Balls of Namek in order to revive their friends, and the tyrant Frieza had wanted them to attain immortality. Vegeta had become their ally through teeth-clenched teamwork against a common enemy, and Goku had arrived near the end to save them as he always had.
It had all culminated in a brutal, drawn out battle with the despot. Eventually, through the unlocking of an ancient power resting within his genetics, Son Goku had defeated Frieza. He was also a Saiyan, and though he was raised on Earth and knew not of his true heritage until the arrival of his brother, Goku had attained a legendary power who's tale was passed down through Saiyan history.
Another port on the saucer opened, and a ramp descended. Alien soldiers of various races stepped out, all dressed in the same battle armor. They were all quite powerful, most denizens of the universe would be crushed by any of them. But to the Dragon Team, they would have been nothing, easily crushed by even their weaker fighters.
But the soldiers were tiny dots next to the dual seas of malevolent might that stepped out next.
Goku had defeated Frieza, left him brutalized and helpless. But the tyrant had survived. And to a man who had gotten everything he wanted in life handed to him, such a defeat could not stand.
Bleach-white skin as smooth as a pearl was joined to advanced machinery. Half of a bulbous head was dark and silver metal, piercing eyes nestled within both organic mass and metallic casing. A mechanical tail waved behind him, a facsimile of a limb he once had before it was lost in the roaring explosion of a planet.
Frieza was not a tall figure, which Bulma wanted to comment on as she looked at him through a set of binoculars, but one glance at her friends told her that size did not matter here.
Even Piccolo, who was normally unshakable, was horrified. The imposing, green humanoid from Namek looked on the tyrant like he was seeing a living nightmare.
"How could he still be alive? Goku left him for dead on a planet that exploded, how can anything have survived that!?"
Vegeta scoffed. "Frieza's race is one of the hardiest species in the universe. They don't need oxygen, they barely need food or water, and they can survive for a time without most of their organs. You need to be thorough to kill one of them."
A second figure stepped out of the ship. In stark contrast to the first, this one was a giant, almost clipping the top of the doorway with the set of horns jutting from his head. He had an imposing, muscular build. A tail as long and thick as a python swung behind him, tipped with a black point. A bluish orb like a gem rested on his forehead.
Krillin instinctively rubbed his gut, agonizing memories of the fight with Frieza being rekindled by the sight of King Cold.
"So this is the planet, son? Nothing remarkable, would probably fetch a nice price on the market after we're done."
Frieza did not respond to his father's words, his eyes just scanning the environment. "You!" He barked towards one of the soldiers. "Start scanning for life."
"Yes Lord Frieza!" The alien replied, before touching the side of the device on his face. The glass panel over his eye began to glow, showing flashing symbols of extraterrestrial language.
As the space invaders waited, and the defenders of Earth hurriedly planned and panicked, a third party watched in the shadows. He had no fear. He had spent his whole life locked in conflict with foes that would slaughter Frieza with no issue. He would just have to kill the two dictators, and the demonstration of power would show the people he needed to speak to that he was on their side and that what he had to say would be taken seriously. It would all be simple as—
There was a sound of rushing wind as a sphere descended from the skies in a streak of fire.
"What the hell…" he muttered, heartbeat quickening ever so slightly.
"Is that Goku?" Bulma asked her friends, only to be met with the same scared expressions they all wore.
"I don't know what that is, but it's not Goku. It's hiding its power, but what I can sense feels…" Piccolo replied, unsure of what to say.
"Feels like Frieza." Vegeta stated, his eyes narrowed. "The hell is he doing here?" He thought to himself.
The space pod crashed into the ground, leaving a sizable crater.
Frieza's eye twitched. "What does your scouter say about that?"
"Power level of… 5." He chuckled. "Let me deal with this, my lord."
The soldier, who looked oddly like a human only with a skin tone that could never be found on Earth, flew towards the crater. Pointing his arm-mounted cannon down at the pod, a grey sphere with a red window on its front, he grinned. "Show yourself, or we identify your corpse!" He shouted.
Suddenly, his scouter began beeping madly, the number climbing rapidly. The scouter exploded, causing him to shout in shock and fear.
The pod exploded, and the soldier suddenly felt a warmth in his chest. He looked down, seeing a hole burned into his torso. A small, precise wound that went cleanly through his heart.
He dropped dead, as something leaped out of the smoke cloud. It landed at the rim of the crater, a few hundred feet away from the two tyrants.
Frieza grit his teeth as King Cold smirked and let out a slight laugh.
"Cooler! How lovely that you could make it to this mission of clearing our family name!" He spoke with all the pompousness of a true royal.
The new figure resembled Frieza before his mechanization, only he looked more masculine. Taller and broader, the alien was mostly purple with only some white on his torso, arms, and legs. The sides of his head had a red outline from the eye's down the cheeks, and the gemstone-like objects on his body were blue.
"Cooler?" Krillin asked Vegeta, knowing that the prince had to know something about this.
"Frieza's older brother. He's always gotten the short end of the stick, picking up the scraps Frieza leaves behind."
"Then I have a feeling this won't be a happy family reunion." Tien replied.
Frieza snarled at his brother, making no attempt to hide his disdain. "Why are you here? Surely if you wanted to join and make a fool of yourself, you would have asked us! I would have said no anyway, this is none of your buisness!"
Cooler finally spoke, revealing a baritone voice unlike his brother's shrill one. "I think it is my buisness. You, the supposed head of our empire and the so-called emperor of the universe, defeated by a monkey? How pathetic."
Frieza's fists clenched, nails digging into skin and metal. "Like you would have done a better job of it? Don't make me laugh, your power pales in comparison to mine! What do you even wish to accomplish with this?"
King Cold chimed in. "Yes, are you here to help us kill the Saiyan or are you here to bicker with your brother?"
Cooler smiled, letting out a dark laugh. "Oh, I'm here to kill the Super Saiyan. But after I deal with you two failures."
Frieza nearly doubled over with laughter. "Come now brother, do you not remember what happened the last time we traded blows? Father's endless mercy is the only reason you still have a head."
The father of the two was more restrained with his chuckling, but it was still apparent. "Indeed, but Cooler, I must say that if you intend to attack your brother during this mission of vengeance, you should realize you've always been my least favorite child."
"Yeesh, talk about a screwed up family." Yamcha quipped. The rest of the Dragon Team did not disagree with him, even Vegeta muttered in agreement.
If the mockery thrown his way had any effect, Cooler did not show it. He continued speaking, words slowly growing more venomous.
"Yes, you are both correct. But for so long, ever since you came into existence, dear brother, I have been training. I was born so much weaker than both of you, but I have attained something neither of you had ever dreamed of. Behold, as I take my rightful place as this universe's ruler, all through my own will and effort!"
Cooler screamed as his aura flared around him, kicking up rocks and sending clouds of dust billowing away. His family just watched in anticipation, both looking ever so smug as they awaited whatever this was.
Suddenly, to everyone's shock, the alien's chest bulged outward with increased musculature. The armor on his shoulders extended to form larger protectors. His limbs began to follow suit, rippling with an immense physique. His yell turned into a guttural, monstrous growl. The earth beneath his feet cratered from the sheer power gathering. His head morphed, the eyes becoming solid red. Ivory armor formed on his face, four spikes emerging from the top to form a crown.
He stopped, now smiling with a mouth filled with sharp teeth. "Gaze upon it, brother and father! Witness the grandest being in the universe before I tear you both apart!" Bio-armor emerged over his face, forming a mask that covered all but his glowing eyes.
The Earthlings present had thought they were as scared as they could ever be. This, however, had only made it worse. Cooler was the most powerful thing any of them had ever felt.
Gohan only made it worse with his next words, stammered out as the child tried to avoid having a breakdown.
"He's stronger than… my dad was on Namek. When he went Super Saiyan."
The mysterious watcher was just as scared. "That thing… can I even stop that?" He mumbled to himself, mind racing to come up with a solution. He brushed a hand over his coat pocket, feeling the vial inside. He also inadvertently felt his heart thundering in his chest. "Even a Super Saiyan may not be enough."
King Cold's eyes were wide, his jaw dropped. Tales of ancient warriors of his race utilizing a form beyond their true form had been passed down, but he had never thought it to be real. And for such a form to be in the hands of a mutant of his lineage, even one as weak as Cooler had been, it was a horrifying thought. If a fraction of what the legends said was true, than this could easily be his final fight.
There was only one who was not shaken by the development.
Frieza's laugh echoed across the wasteland. "You look ridiculous! The monkeys and their idiotic transformation in the full moon looked less hideous than that joke of a form! Can you even move in that bulky state, or are you just going to trip over yourself?" He continued laughing and cackling like someone had just told him an amazing joke.
He stopped laughing when in the blink of an eye, Cooler's fist had smashed into his gut. Bile and blood spewed from the cyborg tyrant's mouth in a wheezing cough.
"How could you, what is this!?" Frieza demanded as he doubled over.
"What has been awaiting you for so many decades." Cooler replied, before slamming another punch into his brother's side, sending him flying. The cyborg's body slammed into a distant mountain, carving a massive hole into it. The transformed despot turned to face his father, who was swinging a sucker punch towards his elder son.
He caught his patriarch's fist like he was stopping the punch of a child. King Cold met his son's hateful gaze.
"Son, please—"
"No amount of begging or apologizing will make up for all that you did to me. Treating me like trash and Frieza like the perfect being. I was alive for how long before Frieza was born?"
"I think, I—"
"Over a decade! And it was never the Cooler Force! It was always you, then Frieza! But that changes today."
King Cold swung another punch, but Cooler just thrust a hand out and let loose a stream of glowing, purple energy. The elder despot screamed in agony as he was sent flying. He crashed into the dirt, carving a massive trench into the earth as he skid through it.
The mountain Frieza had been sent into exploded, a scream of hatred echoing out.
Cooler just grinned beneath his mask. He was going to enjoy this for all it was worth.