Chapter 48: The Demon Awakens
Shortly after deciding on Earth as their next destination, the newly reconstructed emperor Coola and his henchmen were closing in on the blue planet at last.
"So, this is the sensation of having my own body… I am still unused to the feeling," thought Coola, "but this is no time to bask in sentimentality. I must unlock the depths of my hidden power… The potential of my clan, the mightiest in the universe, cannot be limited to just this…"
As they closed in on the planet, Coola then said, "Shisami! I shall entrust you to be the one to procure the Choshinsui, you are the only one whose battle power would slip the detection of the pesky Saiyans on Earth, being an artificially reconstructed being!"
"Yes, my emperor. I shall obtain it at once," said Shisami as Coola smiled lightly and used his telekinesis to open out of a large shaft a collection of Attack Balls.
"Set out, now!"
"Yes! I shall return shortly!"
Coola then entered a meditative stance and calmed his senses, bent on wasting not even a moment of the time he and the others had to catch up to the power of the enemies on Earth. Soon after, Shisami returned with the trinket, saying "Here is the trinket that you requested, Coola-sama. It was quite the difficult task to slip in unnoticed and procure this prize without the pesky Earth cat noticing that his jar had gone missing."
"Only a few ounces of this material is available in this container, is it…? Very well. Sorbet! I order you to duplicate the properties of this drug at once, and create much larger masses of it! Gallons, if possible!"
"G-Gallons?! Sir, with all due respect, a single cup of this material very nearly killed Son Goku before his potential was unlocked! I fear that not even you would survive ingesting this material in such a hefty – "
"I said, produce gallons of this! At once! My life was forfeit to begin with, and only through bothering to take immense risks can I hope to draw out the power yet to be unleashed within this body…! In me lies power greater than anyone can fathom still…! And I will rise to claim it! Reproduce the material, at once!" yelled Coola as he shot a finger beam at the floor of the spaceship the rebuilt Freeza Force was occupying, missing Sorbet by a hair.
"Y-Yes, sire!"
Within days, analysis and reproduction of the material was complete. Coola has before him entire barrels of the Choshinsui.
"I-I still believe this is much too great a risk to take…" muttered Sorbet silently, prompting Tagoma to reply, "Silence, Sorbet. The mighty emperor knows best."
"A miracle must be stirring in the depths… My scanners sense that Coola-sama has within him potential we can scarcely even imagine," said Shisami.
"Now! It's time, for my new and latest rebirth! The hidden potential of this body, you shall make yourself available to me at once!" yelled Coola as he psionically uncapped each and every one of the barrels that his minions presented before him, and then had the Choshinsui pour out of the containers and enter his mouth in a large, steady stream that he promptly swallowed.
"G-Grr…. GRWAAAAAAARGH!" yelled Coola as he began convulsing and shaking, collapsing onto the floor and spasming uncontrollably in pain. He nearly threw up the water that he swallowed, only to manipulate bony cartilage around his mouth to form a biological mask of sorts to prevent the material from overflowing out of his mouth. He then forced himself to stand with all of his might and said, "N-None of you… I repeat, none of you…shall prevent me from remaining still in this position, is that clear?! The emperor of all the universe must not be forced on his knees, not from trifling pain such as this…! G-GRWAAAAAAARGH!"
Coola continued to struggle on the razor's edge between life and death for the next twelve hours, forcing with his elastic and lengthy tail his body into an upright position. Suddenly, the pain subsided, and the deafening screams he had been releasing out of his masked mouth went silent.
"C-Coola-sama…! H-Has he done it?! Unlocked the depths of his powers?!"
"L-Let us see!" yelled Sorbet as he entered the passcode to open the doorway leading to Coola's chamber, at which point he was immediately overcome by a vast maelstrom of power that erupted from his master.
"HUWAAAAAAAARGGGH!" yelled Coola as he released the power he had now gained, causing blue jewel-like ornaments to appear on his shins, a spiky white appendage to grow from his tail, and his natural shoulder pads to elongate and protrude in ring-shaped form as he grew horns on his head and similar spiked appendages appeared on his forearms, and his eyes went red and bloodshot. Afterwards, he grew to the size of a giant – his transformation boisterously complete.
"Finally, I have obtained the greatest of powers… for a mortal, that is."
"F-For a mortal?! Whatever else do you have in mind to venture to next, sir?! Y-Your power is absolutely unfathomable! My newest-model Scouter, which has no trouble measuring even the powers of Machine Mutants, cannot calculate your power at all!"
"What I mean is that if this material was able to alter the volume of my battle energy, it must be possible still for its very properties to be altered…! After all, beyond pure and untainted energy there lies a greater source of potent energy still, power like that of the Kaioshin who fought Majin Boo, is there not?!"
"Y-You mean to unlock the power of the Gods?!"
"That is precisely what I mean! For now I have reached the limit of mortal strength, and I must ascend farther still…! Sorbet, I order you to have your scientists research the Ki-altering properties of the Choshinsui, and discover how to alter the very nature of a being's energy… The power of the Gods is necessary for me to have a firm and unshakable grasp over the kind of power it takes to rule all of existence!"
"H-He's a madman…!" thought Sorbet, "But if we are successful, the Freeza Force, no, the Coola Squadron – will be virtually invincible!"
"Yes, sire! I request that you give us just six months to undertake the kind of research it would take to produce the energy altering drugs you desire, Coola-sama!"
"Four months. And that time limit starts now."
"Y-Yes, sire! I will get on it at once!"
"Soon, soon…! The ultimate power of the Gods shall be mine!"
Meanwhile, on Kami's Palace Dende and Piccolo were sensing the disturbance on Earth.
"Do you feel that, Dende?" asked Piccolo.
"Y-Yes… This is a feeling unlike anything which I've sensed in years. An ominous premonition of doom, similar to that which I felt prior to the conflict with Baby! And it's quite disastrous that somehow… Somehow, I'm getting vibes from it similar to Freeza, the killer of much of our race…!"
"Yes. However, with all of the Dragon Balls destroyed, it certainly cannot be that Freeza has been revived… Is it perhaps an unknown member of his clan? Or that a being with similar physiology to his has usurped control over the remnants of his empire…?"
"But Piccolo-san! It was told by the Machine Mutants on M2 that remnants of Freeza's army were absorbed into the empire of Dr. Mu!"
"Yes. And with the Galactic Patrol receiving funding from Trunks' Capsule Corp., it does seem far-fetched that any surviving remnants of his army could have garnered the power and resources to bring forth a fighter of such caliber that the Earth with all her strong fighters would be threatened…"
"However, the unthinkable has occurred multiple times throughout my career as Earth's Kami, that much is certain," said Dende, "we can't let our guard down, Piccolo-san! I will have to contend this ominous feeling by mobilizing all of the warriors of Earth through telepathy, and having them train! After all, without the training everyone did for the arrival of the Saiyans or the androids, this planet would not even be here right now at this juncture!"
"Let's hope that is enough…" muttered Piccolo.
As these developments were taking place on Earth, Coola was looking out the window of the mother ship into the vast recesses of outer space, where he could not help but be mesmerized by the faint visage of his own reflection melding in with a seemingly infinite blackness, with as many stars in the sky as there were atoms on his ship.
"Sir, if I may ask…" said Tagoma as he made his presence known to his lord, "why are you so preoccupied with gaining more power? Is it to avenge the deaths of the previous King Cold and Freeza-sama?"
"Revenge?" scoffed Coola, "My desire for ultimate power goes above and beyond the concept of something as bland as revenge, Tagoma."
"S-Sir, I am having trouble comprehending…"
"What I desire is to prove my own supremacy! To validate my existence that my father Cold denied… I was born into this world in a perceived parasitic state and incised from my brother's body, yet the two fools who denied the worth and validity of my existence were the ones felled by the Saiyans they considered their inferiors and slaves… And I have risen from the depths of an icy, hellish scrapyard which should have been the last thing to foster life."
"A-Ah…"
"And to the ends of supremely proving my own valid existence, the shame of my clan having been defeated by the Saiyans must be cleansed… Freeza may have been capable of such a thing had he lived and continued to rise higher in power, yet he proved indolent, utterly incapable of seeking further personal growth and progress. And for that, I thank him! For in my hands, the Coola Force will grow mightier than it ever was under Cold or Freeza, and I will rise to claim the power of the Gods, erase the shame of my family's defeat, and stand alone at the top! My body may be synthetic and the substances used to nurture my growth in power may have untold consequences and side effects… But nothing will deter me from proving that I alone deserve to stand at the absolute pinnacle of all existence! And to that end, I will gain the power to defeat even the Gods, and expand this empire beyond this universe! This is nothing so simple as revenge for my fallen brother, but a test that I am undertaking… to prove that destiny has chosen me, regenerated body and all, to rule over all that exists and draws breath!"
"I… I see. I apologize, Coola-sama. I had no idea that your conviction ran as deep as that," replied Tagoma.
"And now, I must leave my chamber once again, to urge our scientists to develop the means to alter my Ki to match that of the Gods themselves! And once I have mastered such a power, my mission of stamping out the existence of the Saiyans and achieving utter dominance over the Multiverse will be at hand, once and for all!"
As the man that is Coola was envisioning his grand vision of multiversal conquest, Dende had succeeded in assembling the Earth's mightiest warriors in his palace in the Heavenly Realm.
"So, what is all this fuss for, interrupting my training to get us to gather in a dump like this?" said Vegeta.
"Vegeta-san, Dende-kun may be young, but he is still the God of this planet… Whatever the reason for him getting us to assemble, I'm sure he has the keenest of intuition and reason," said Gohan.
"Yes, let's not go disrespecting divinity, now," said Piccolo, "so… we have here, Gohan?"
"Yes, Piccolo-san. Anytime you need me, I'm at your beck and call."
"Goten?"
"Yes, Piccolo-san. To be honest, I'm pretty sure I know what this meeting is about… I've been feeling uneasy as of late, too."
"Trunks?"
"That's me, Piccolo-san."
"Pan?"
"Whatever this is about, it better be important, Piccolo-san!" replied Pan.
"That's Pan for you… And we also have Oob?"
"Yes, Piccolo-san. Anytime the Earth needs a defender, I'm always ready," said Oob.
"Kuririn?"
"That's me, Piccolo. I may be getting up there in years, but I'm still ready to fight," said Kuririn.
"Tenshinhan? Yamcha?"
"I had a feeling that for you to call me, it wasn't for something as simple as trying to get me to join another Tenkaichi Budokai," said Tenshinhan.
"I-I honestly don't know what I'm even doing here, I retired from the front lines a long time ago!" said Yamcha.
"Bra?"
"She didn't feel like coming, Piccolo-san. She just figured you wanted to yell at her for not training hard enough or for some other petty reason," said Trunks.
"*sigh*… So I guess the gang is all here, other than her and #18."
"I'm here in her stead, Piccolo," said #17, "she'd never be up for a group conference like this unless there was money to be made."
"Alright then, listen up! For the past several weeks, Dende and I have been feeling a great disturbance in the od of this planet… The entire galaxy, actually. We strongly suspect from the alignment of the stars and our own perturbations that a new foe has risen somehow, and is gathering great power as we speak… I fear that it won't be long now before we face another invasion on Earth. And without Dragon Balls to repair the damage, as you no doubt know that we have sworn not to produce Dragon Balls again out of the risk of something akin to the Evil Dragons – no, any organization, individual or force that may abuse Dragon Balls for their heinous desires, coming in contact with them… The necessity of complete and utter preparation cannot be overstated. And it is for that that I urge you all to spend the next few months training here!"
"So after all the time and effort you put into getting us to gather here, you're grasping at thin straws? Or, rather… chasing some phantom of your own premonitions? How laughable! You've wasted my time, Namekian!" yelled Vegeta.
"I-It's true, Vegeta-san! Truth is, I've had a similar feeling of unease as of late! And on our way here, we saw that Karin-sama's tower had recently been raided by unknown thieves!"
"That fat cat? Please… Allow me to demonstrate what I have been toiling away for, for the past three years! My true power!" yelled Vegeta as he suddenly began to concentrate his Ki as a large, yellow aura burst from within him and enveloped him in a golden glow. As speckles of light flickered away, Vegeta emerged in a shirtless form with scarlet red fur and a tail, and his hair having turned a dark brown and growing to his shoulders as red lines resembling mascara emerged under his eyelids, and his eyes had turned a cyan blue.
"Super Saiyan 4! Y-You can tap into that power, Vegeta-san?!" yelled Goten.
"Yes. Once I had figured out the process of turning into a golden variation of the Oozaru form and repeated the process of using Bruits Waves generators to enter that state and repeatedly cycle into the Super Saiyan 4 form, it no longer became a necessity for me to keep a Saiyan tail on me. I can skip the process of going into the Golden Oozaru state by allowing the transformation process to cycle through that in my mind, and go directly into Super Saiyan 4 as if I had naturally grown out my tail!"
"A truly impressive accomplishment as it may be, Vegeta," said Piccolo, "is it not also true that an unfused Super Saiyan 4 wasn't enough to defeat Yi Xing Long three years ago? The form has already shown its limits."
"Bah! Try gaining the power to defeat me on your own before you mouth off on me like that, Namekian! You've completely wasted my time! I'm heading back home!" yelled Vegeta as he flared up a flight aura and instantly flew back to Capsule Corp.
"And there he goes… To be honest, he's never been the type to shy away from constantly bettering himself, so he'll no doubt continue to train even harder, even if his ego prevents him from admitting the validity of the threat we are currently facing. Gohan! Pan! Trunks! Goten! Kuririn! Tenshinhan! Yamcha! #17! I urge you all to take the time to train here, for no shorter than the next four months!"
"Why four months, Piccolo? Is that some kind of magic number?" replied #17.
"Let's just say it is a hunch. It is a time short enough for a quick but intense training session, but long enough to formulate a plan to prepare for oncoming threats."
"Something tells me it's really your intuition as the former God of Earth… Your fusion with the previous Kami really has afforded you many of his characteristics, Piccolo-san," thought Gohan to himself.
As this event was transpiring on the planet Earth, four months passed in an ominous, foreboding sense of doom abundant across the atmosphere of all the universe. By this time, Coola's scientists had successfully concocted a serum that was able to introduce Godly Ki not unlike that of Super Saiyan God into a test subject, before his body was torn asunder by such an explosion of power days later.
"So without a sufficiently powerful body to harness this energy, the new form of energy only destroys the body of the user…" said Sorbet in frustration, "Damn it! And after we went through the trouble of fitting him with an advanced pacemaker and other cybernetic enhancements to make sure he lived at all costs!"
"So the serum, at least, has been successful in introducing Godly energy into the recipient?" said Coola as he quickly teleported into the room in which the experiment had been conducted.
"C-Coola-sama! Y-Yes, it indeed has been successful in changing the properties of his Ki, but we are embarrassed to admit that we've not yet found a way to minimize the risks of the procedure! The test subject's body was torn asunder from the huge influx of godly energy within days!"
"And? All that proves is that your test subject, with its measly power level, could not withstand the transfusion of Godly Ki… But I -shall- prove different! For even during these past four months, I have not shied away from personal training, as well as enlisting the tutelage of new techniques… Through which I've slaughtered the Yardratan populace that hesitated to afford me their secrets!"
"S-Sire! Y-You cannot mean… You want to undergo the transfusion NOW?! I-It is much too dangerous, sire! Y-You are not even a cybernetic being, it may be too difficult for your organic body to withstand!"
"Silence! Give me a shot of that, this instant!" yelled Coola as he thought to himself, "Freeza and Cold were cowards who shied away from risk-taking and self-development, and it was for that reason that they feared the Super Saiyan so…! To not repeat their mistake, I must pursue power at all costs… Even if it may kill me! My life to begin with is a borrowed one, yet with its artificial constructs I shall rise to the greatest realm of the Gods yet!"
Coola pieced a hole through a vein on the opposite side of his elbow joint and administered the drug right away. After convulsing for several hours, he released an eruption of power from within himself that seemed to destroy him utterly. He nearly vomited the substance from his body, which was registering it as a foreign attack, only to then grab onto the head of a nearby servant who tried to come to his aid, and crush his head in his grip.
"I-I-I… AM COOLA! I shall not be deterred by mere pain such as this!"
As Coola made this bold declaration, he immediately grew larger and entered his "fifth" and "final" state, at which point his body began to flicker from white and purple to a deep shade of gold, and swallowed back into his esophagus the dangerous, Ki-altering substance. Brimming to the core with Godly Ki, Coola's form finally stabilized and his body attained a golden, shimmering shine as some of the blade-like appendages growing from his tail and biological armbands took a different shape. Flaring up his aura, he dubbed himself…
"GOLDEN COOLA! I now stand at the apex of creation! I have attained at last, the power of the Gods!"
"O-Ohhhh…. This is magnificent indeed, sire!" said Sorbet, Tagoma and Shisami in awe.
"Now! The first order of business is to gather myself minions befitting of my shimmering shine and grandeur! I order you all to scour the depths of the universe for warriors befitting of serving under my glory and mission!"
"YES, SIRE!" yelled all three as they went to relay this order to the rest of the army.
As Coola said this, in a distant planet called Vampa, an elderly man with a tail emerged from his shelter and called to another man, "Broly… It is time yet again for our training session. The sandstorm has passed."
"…"
To be continued…