An infinite spackle of white sat against a backdrop of equally unending black. Infinite stars stretched out in front of the ship as the purple skinned Arcosian stood before the viewport, staring out at them with his arms crossed behind his back. Tightly.

His tail beat against the ground unconsciously while his heart leapt into his throat, no amount of breathing seeming able to stem the flow of nervousness overtaking his body. Moments ago, he had finished speaking with his father, informing him that Frieza had perished in Planet Namek's explosion, the only recoverable item they had found being an emergency transmission he'd sent out just before the eruption.

That, of course, had been a lie.

The supposed transmission had been cut together by Salza directly following Cooler's interview with his younger sibling, taking audio samples from Frieza's sleep induced terrors as well as from the interview. It was a simple, yet ingenious, trick to pull off for a man of his talents. Using his brother's words against him, if the fates had aligned differently, such would not have been possible... And now all that remained was to follow through with the rest of their plan.

Cooler's heart thudded in increasing volume. His mind raced with thoughts, fears, worries. Yet most of all, it soared with doubt. A doubt in his own abilities, a horrifying question that sank into the bottom of his heart and buried itself within the folds of his mind...

Could he really... Go through with it?

He breathed a sigh through his nose, forcing steel into his voice as he looked over to the lizard-like man sitting at the console which controlled the ship's navigation. His third in command, Neiz, was an orange-skinned Zaltian with a head similar to a snake and a body of a humanoid. He looked intently upon the screen in front of him, scanning around for any planet matching the exact specifications Cooler had demanded him to find. One barren of life, a desert in the truest sense of the word.
The orange-skinned alien's brow was coated with sweat, showing an equal sense of nervousness to his Lord. He, like the rest of the Armored Squadron, had been made aware of the plan from the moment that they'd brought Frieza aboard, and he was aware that Cooler had just finished lying to the King of the Universe.

He knew well the punishment for treason, and the stale air which formed around him made his nervousness all the more palpable.

Cooler shut his eyes. Neiz had every right to fear what would happen if their lies were unveiled.

"So." Cooler stated loudly, and the Zaltian jumped up, startled by his Master's commanding voice, and quickly locking his eyes onto him, wiping his sweat away as he did so to hide his own nervousness. "Have you found a planet matching my description yet, Neiz? Or are we still far off from the nearest system?" He questioned him, not looking at him directly anymore. No, his gaze had refocused onto the endless sea of stars before him, onto the future. His heart began to pound for a new reason at those thoughts, excitement welling up and fighting nervousness, forcing a feeling into his chest that was like a thousand insects fluttering within.

The future.
He couldn't help but to smirk a little. After today was finished, there would be no doubt...

"Y-Yes Lord Cooler." He managed to say, his voice was high pitched, if a little raspy, like a snake's might be. His fingers quickly began moving across the datascreen in front of him, tapping holographic buttons quickly, bringing up information onto the small screen in front of him. "I have identified a planet in this system which is suitable for your needs. Although... If I may speak out of turn..."

Cooler side-eyed the alien, who froze in fear. But... He shrugged. After all, he was feeling wonderful at the moment, Neiz may be able to provide him a bit of well-needed... Perspective. "You may."

"The reports of this system are showing that it is not entirely uninhabited. Recent scans indicate the movement of Pirate Vessels to one of the planets in the area, my Lord. It is possible that the Tree of-"

"They are of little concern to us then." Cooler decided, cutting off his minion with a cold shrug. "You have identified a desert world?"

"Yes, My Lord." He answered automatically.

"Then we have no need to be concerned. If those pirates are still wielding that ridiculous Tree then they will be on the hunt for planets with high counts of life on them, a world that is entirely desert will be of no concern to them. Bring us into orbit of it." He ordered, and yet again his heart beat with excitement, his nerves completely gone now.

"Its time we finish our business in this part of the universe."

Yes, he could just imagine it.

The day that he would be coronated Emperor...

Frieza sighed.
Loudly.

One would think that the never-ending nightmares, the occasional phantom pains, and the crippling anger that coursed through his body whenever he thought back to that dreaded planet would be enough to stave off the all-consuming numbness that was boredom...

And yet, here he was.

Staring up at a blank ceiling, desperately wishing he had something to do other than stare, sleep or ruminate on his failings. Yet without legs, he could not get up and go for a walk, without his arm he was reduced to relying on his sole remaining hand to do everything.
And worse, without a long-range transmitter, he lacked the ability to access Intergalactic Television or any other form of entertainment that might be on Cooler's vessel, leaving him entirely bored out of his mind.

The only thing he could do to keep himself entertained now was to listen to the quiet hiss of the lights above...

Maybe Cooler could send in one of his minions? After all, it wasn't like they were doing anything at the moment. He could afford to let Frieza torture one for a few days.
Oh, wishful thinking, Cooler was too soft on his men to allow something like that, as unfortunate as that was for Frieza.

He sighed again and shifted around restlessly, using his one remaining arm to do so by gripping the bed and pulling him onto his side. "This is unbearable..." He muttered to himself, shutting his eyes tightly. "The time cannot pass fast enough." He adds, and slowly he feels his eyes beginning to drift down. His mind moves to focus on the future, towards brighter horizons. Beautiful, clean cybernetics were in his future, and oh how he couldn't wait to be able to move on his own again...

Suddenly he snaps his eyes awake, remembering that even if he went to sleep thinking of those brighter days he would not dream of them, and even his crippling boredom was superior to the ceaseless nightmares that awaited his unconsciousness. But despite his efforts, Frieza finds it... much... more difficult than... usual... to keep... His eyes.. drift down... Down...

He suddenly jolts himself awake, tossing himself to the other side of the bed using the arm he was laying on and turning the other way before quickly returning to the less than comfortable position that was laying on his back. Due to his species' tails, back sleeping was completely out of the question for them, which meant that this was the best way to stay up...

He focused on the fluorescent light above him and narrowed his eyes at it, focusing on little more than the brightness, filtering out all sounds and other, unnecessary, sights as he held his eyes on the light, uncaring if he would damage them. After all, if they were injured, he would simply be gifted new cybernetic ones, so it mattered little to the Emperor. An, more importantly, it would keep him awake as long as he burned his retinas on the brightness of the light, that miniature sun sitting in the sky...

He focused on the light intently, and his eyes narrowed hatefully as memories began to flash within it. The white light reminding him of that orb, that bright blue thing with... White on the interior. A harsh, mocking, light...
He narrowed his eyes hatefully, and turned his body away from it. Even here, in the world of the conscious mind, he was drowned out by nightmares of that wretched planet.

As he turned away to focus on the wall now, he began to hear it again, that strange low noise, like a buzzing. Initially he assumed it was the light, but that couldn't be true because it was coming from in front of him now that he'd turned over. He then assumed that it might be his head, buzzing to him and demanding rest. It was, after all, a bad idea to be sleep deprived for weeks or months or... However long it had been since Namek, and his body had been very against going through that pain again in spite of his conscious mind's own protests.

But even that did not answer the question of what the buzzing was. After all, he had been sleeping recently, albeit not peacefully. His dreams marred by the Super Saiyan, or of some other horrible tragedy suffered by him on Namek. Or even, more recently, night terrors of space itself had begun to plague the Emperor of the Universe. The very thought of returning to that void had become food on which his nightmares fed.

So then... what was that... Noise..?

His eyes began to drift again, even his intense focus on the light could not spare him from his need, and now that he was looking away from it... "Damn it all..." He muttered, and simply chose to give in, allowing the gentle buzz of whatever that was to lull him... Pull him into a quiet... mercifully dreamless... sleep...
Or so he hoped, at least...

It was not with a yawn, or with a slow opening of his eyes, or even the jolt of his night-terrors which wrenched Frieza from the warmth of sleep.

Rather, it was the distinct feeling of ivory flesh being met with cold, metallic flooring as he was roughly and unceremoniously dumped from his place in the hospital bed onto the frigid floor.

The blanket of warmth that had been his rest pulled from him, Frieza opened his pink eyes and shot up, propping himself up on one singular arm. "What-!? Who dare-" His groggy eyes widened as sleep was immediately replaced with adrenaline. As tiredness was replaced with burning fury...
Only to turn to placid ice as he realized who had "dared" to throw him from his bed.

Standing above him was Cooler, the older and taller Arcosian looking down at his little brother with his head tilted up, as if showing his superiority against the younger Arcosian. Cooler's eyes were intense, filled with a raw, uncontained malice that seared Frieza as he looked into them- a hatred so vile that even Frieza was unable to say anything in the face of it.
It was as though all of the other times he had seen his brother's eyes he had been glancing into a shallow sea of placid disdain, and now the entire ocean bared itself down upon him.

Around him were three other beings. Dore, the stocky bruiser of his Armored Squadron, Neiz the lizard-like second in command, and Salza, his insubordinate blue-skinned first.
In an instant, Frieza's meekness vanished as he filled with an inconsolable indignance. "What is the meaning of this, Cooler!?" He demanded, looking up at his older brother, facing down those disdainful eyes with his own rage. "If this is your idea of a prank, then it's not funny! I will be certain that Father hears about this if you do not put me back into bed right this instant!" He shouted with irritation; his eyes blazing with fury. How dare they do this- to him of all people?! The Emperor of the Universe! His presence alone should demand respect! Even in such a sorry state as he was, they should fear his wrath!

Yet... No one moved an inch, and though some of the Squadron appeared to grow nervous at the sight of an enraged Frieza, Cooler simply continued shooting him that glare, not speaking a word to his younger brother.

"W-Well!?" Frieza snarled, taken aback by Cooler's silence yet refusing to back down. "Speak, damn you! Or better yet, put me-!"

"No." Like the sound of a blaster shot, Cooler's voice boomed without any effort, silencing Frieza. "Why would I take orders from a dead Emperor?" He questioned him, his voice dripping with frozen steel.

"Dead? I'm not dead, Cooler." Frieza said, his teeth gritting tightly as he spoke. "You aren't funny!"

"I don't think I was joking." Cooler continued. "But I do think that you've died, dear brother." Cooler stated calmly, folding his hands behind his back. "Indeed, you perished on the same day Planet Namek was destroyed. Your death was a tragedy, and the entire Empire is mourning you as we speak while father prepares to go and take vengeance against the Super Saiyan that has dared to end the life of his favored son."

Frieza furrowed his brow for a moment, not grasping what Cooler was saying until at last it came to him, her understood. Ice once again found its way into his chest, piercing his heart as easily as a blade, stopping his ability to speak or even breath for a moment as he came to the realization...
That his brother was going to fake his death.

He stared for a moment longer before his fear... Transformed into mirth.

A cruel smile took over his lips and Frieza laughed. "And let me guess, now that the younger brother has unfortunately passed, the elder one has been selected to rule over the Empire in his stead?" He mocked him, showing no fear of his older brother as he moved himself to prop against the wall behind him. A newfound confidence had filled Frieza. Surely Cooler knew that his plan was ludicrous. Their father would simply assume-

"Actually I'm certain that our father will take over the Empire in your place, and I'll have to wait for him to meet his demise in old age..." Cooler stated, looking at his fingernails before dusting them off on his white carapace. "Or at the hands of a Super Saiyan."

Frieza's mirth died and his face turned into a glare. "You think our Father would perish to such a being? If that Saiyan filth could not bring himself to kill me, then what makes you think he will decide to end the life of Father?" He shot back, rebelliously trying to wipe the almost smug attitude off of Cooler's face.

Ye, Cooler merely smirked more, his eyes closing as he saw something Frieza could not. In response, Frieza's chest flared up again with rage, his wrath melting away the spike that had drilled its way in. Before he could speak however, Cooler moved first. "Oh, that's a simple fix..." He then reopened his eyes and Frieza waited for him to elaborate, but instead he simply shrugged. "But why would I tell you that fix? After all, a dead man can't do very much with information."

Frieza let out an infuriated snarl. "And what makes you think that you'd have ANY CHANCE at managing OUR EMPIRE?! You're far weaker than either myself or our Father, brother." His tone ended in a hiss, and Frieza got a new idea. He'd fall back on his own hateful feelings towards his failure of an older brother, and reopen Cooler's insecurities. Certain that would be able to wipe away the delusions of grandeur Cooler was currently suffering under. "Do you not remember what I told you all that time ago, Cooler? You are not fit to rule." He snapped at him, now leaning forward again, desperately wishing he still had legs so that his words did not have to carry themselves alone. Yet they served their purpose without them, as the Armored Squadron took a step back, fear of Frieza managing to overcome their logic. "You are a weak, and foolish Prince who lacks the power to do what is necessary to rule an Empire. But in this case, I think we should put more emphasis on WEAK!" Frieza finished with a roar, his eyes boring into Cooler's as he struck deeply within his brother's soul.

Cooler was silent for a moment. His face contorted in contemplation, and for an instant Frieza felt mirth return to his chest. 'Weak.' Came the thought. 'Go ahead, realize how worthless you are and rethink your actions. I assure you, the instant I am healed again I will torment you endlessly for...'

At last, he spoke.

"You were right." At once, Cooler's face reverted from his contemplative look, returning to the emotionless and unconcerned look that he'd had before. "When you were crowned Emperor... I was weak. I believed in the values instilled in me by my mother. I believed that you and I would be able to rule side-by-side, as brothers, by blood and by arms." His face twisted into a scowl as he spoke, unable to repress those emotions any longer. That look of mixed sadness and hate sickened Frieza.

How, even now, could he still feel some kind of sadness for their relationship? The infinite weakness of his elder brother knew no bounds.

It was sickening.

"I was wrong, of course." At last, his scowl settled upon grieving, as he turned back to face his younger brother. "You were not the kind of person to share the throne. I understand that now, but then... Then I had held out hope that perhaps you were not quite as wicked as I, as mother believed you to be." At this, that look transformed into hate... Before he shut his eyes.

And smiled.

It was a cruel look, one that betrayed to Frieza that Cooler was about to go on a shift in perspective. He'd been expecting this eventually, such monologues always went this way. 'Weak no longer, is that right, brother?' Frieza thought mockingly, though he didn't voice it, not yet. He would allow Cooler to embarrass himself more.

"But I'm not weak any longer, brother." Cooler said, playing into Frieza's thoughts about him as he opened his eyes to observe his younger brother. "Allow me to show you what I mean. After all, words are worthless without action to back them up..." Cooler's voice suddenly took on a change, though it was already deep, the sound that emanated from Cooler's throat was darker than normal, louder.

The ship shook with violent energy as suddenly the walls of the cabin they were in began to depress outward and the Armored Squadron and even Frieza were blown back, the latter managing to hold his eyes open as a terrible transformation began to overtake his elder brother, forced to bear witness to a terrible metamorphosis unlike any he'd seen before..

His slender figure suddenly bulged with muscle, his torso, his arms, his legs- even his neck- all suddenly taking on a new, more monstrous, look as his body grew by several inches. His head, where his Bio-gem sat suddenly began to morph and shift as well, bone and sinew snapping and re-aligning itself into a new, more horrific visage... Into a crown, Frieza realized, one befitting a King.

His back, which thanks to his hunched position had become visible to all, spiked out with new, painful looking spines that scraped against the wall and dug themselves easily through the metal as Cooler at last righted himself, his transformation completed as his eyes now filled with pure crimson. Even though Frieza had no way of gauging his power, he recognized that Cooler was no longer the weaker of the two brothers.

This new form of his radiated with it.
The Divine right to rule.
Power.

"Do you see now, brother?" He asked, extending his hands out, unveiling his new form for the younger sibling to see. "I am more than merely speaking my manifesto to you. I am demonstrating the results of your teachings." The pleasure in his voice knows no bounds as he plays, accidentally or not, into Frieza's insecurities. Once again, he has crafted his own downfall... And never even saw it coming. As his newfound red eyes bore into Frieza's pinkish ones, Cooler takes a step forward, and Frieza finds himself trembling in fear.

But why? Was he not the Emperor of the Universe? Was he not the most powerful being to ever exist?
No... It was not that he was merely afraid of Cooler's growth in power.

It was that this wretched form had taken on a resemblance to that which Frieza feared most. The crown upon his head had become like the hair which stood up, and the red of his eyes mimicked the blue as they stared into the depths of the darkness that was Frieza's soul.
If Goku had become the Super Saiyan, then Cooler had become a Super Arcosian.

"I was weak. But I am no longer!" He bellowed, his very words shaking the room as he powered up, a brilliant aura of deep purple kicking up around him. "And I have you to thank for it." Cooler smiled a wicked smile, a look that turned into a grin as he continued. "And now that I have ascended... It is time I claim my birthright."

Frieza fell silent for a moment before at last speaking. "You are still weak."

Shock overtakes Cooler's eyes as Frieza returns that cruel look, a sneer falling over his face as he continues. "It is not power that makes you weak though, dear Cooler." He grins wider, not seeing but knowing that he is getting under Cooler's skin. "You are weak because even now, with all the power in the world, you cannot do what I would do in your position." His voice falls into a gentle hiss, and even though Cooler holds all of the cards, Frieza can see that subtle look of uncertainty form in his eyes.

"You're a sentimental fool."
He knew his brother well enough. He was someone who put his family so highly that he allowed Frieza to stomp on his pride for decades without saying a word. He didn't have it in him. "You lack the power to kill me, your own baby brother."

Silence came over the room for what must have been the fifth time, yet it was entirely warranted as Cooler shook, uncertainty painting his face.
But then a resolve came over his visage, and a mask formed over his lips, shielding his lips from view just as he scowled. "On the contrary, Frieza."

Ice formed within his chest once more, as Cooler's tone grew into a confident one.

"I brought you here to die."

The Emperor had barely the time to look up to see his Brother's finger extended outwards, pointing at almost point-blank range directly at his face.

In the next nanosecond, Frieza's head went backwards as the entire world shook pure white.

Muffled voices spoke, and a foot was planted firmly on Frieza's chest as Cooler looked him in his final remaining eye. A dull pain caught Frieza's attention as he felt Cooler's hand appear on the stub that was his missing arm, blistering Ki reopening the wound.

He screamed, or so he thought. He couldn't hear over the white noise.

More pain erupted as Cooler dragged his other foot- his left one still planted firmly on Frieza's chest, ribs threatening to crack beneath his scale- against Frieza's abdomen, drawing open the wound along his waist with all the ease of a blade through flesh. His flesh, ivory spilling red with blood which gushed from the wounds now opened again.

Cooler spoke, or so Frieza thought. His body drifted against his will into shock to give his mind a chance to think of a way out, but the brain damage he had suffered caused only his thoughts to race, and a white noise to consume him, dragging him into a flurry of fuzz.

And then he felt a pull
And the world returned to sound.

And pain.

He was made aware of the sensation of falling from a very young age.

That weightlessness that came over you when you dropped from the sky, your power no longer holding you up, granting you the strength to float above the world, to stand above all as you were made to, as was your right by birth.
That transforming sensation as you went from a weightless bird, a God mastering the skies themselves, to a mere stone, a subject to the whims of the world below, pulled by forces you once defied.

That feeling of freefall that lasted but only for a fraction of an instant before you met the ground.

When he was a boy, training with his father, he had been made well aware of the sensation of falling.

His ivory skin stood out against the void behind, illuminated by a cherry red star shining against him, casting a shadow against the very world below him. With one eye he stared up at an infinite expanse, finding the ability to look upon his older brother. Catching a final glimpse of that new form that granted him the strength to overthrow his brother before the airlock shut tight, and all that Frieza was left with... Was the brilliance of falling, from God to stone.

That feeling reached a crescendo and came cascading down upon his form, pulling him into the atmosphere. He could neither move nor think, or even focus, his mind was blinded with a dullness which pounded upon him every few seconds.
Vaguely, he was made aware of the sensation of his body speeding up, but that feeling was pushed away by the dull, thudding pain that shook his mind with every instant which passed. Cooler's attack, he understood, must have pierced his brain through his iris, causing him some kind of brain damage. However severe it was was a question Frieza did not know the answer to. What he did know was that a wound like that would not be one that he could survive without treatment, his people were durable- strong, but their brains were as vulnerable as any other's.

In his mind addled state, he could not think of the rest of Cooler's scheme to kill him. All that he could focus on was that droning noise, that dull hammer against his head... And now, the new sensations of his eye burning, his torso burning, his arm melting.

In an instant, the galactic tyrant had been transformed as he began entering the planet's atmosphere. Heat seared at his flesh, and he was made aware of the pain but for a second. His body had gone into shock after the blast from Cooler that had pierced his mind, only briefly managing to remind him of the dull suffering of his wounds as blood rushed from them, pulled by the vacuum of space. With no energy shield to protect him, his wounds had bled profusely in the infinite expanse around him.

Specks.

Like he was.
Specks of red flowed from his body and into the air for a final viewing before they too burned away, vaporized by the same uncaring universe that had decided to be rid of him today.

In that instant, Frieza was transformed. A tyrant no more, now a meteor, golden-orange in color, a fading red behind him, he was an asteroid heading for the world below, a vessel of destruction for the final time.

Eventually blood red skies with yellow tainting the sunset filled his vision, small clouds covering him as his body warmed, burned, melted in the apex of his fall.

His head turned against his will and the tyrant's sole remaining eye fell upon ivory skin that had turned golden brown, a sign that his skin was being blistered and burnt yet again... Before he was then met with a scorched black. Purple bio-gems being the only thing left of the original color of his final remaining limb as it was consumed by the blistering heat.
In some, small, fragment of his mind, Frieza was made aware of the fact that this was his last organic limb, that the nerve endings in it were melting away, and soon he would be but less than a torso.

That fragment panicked, and tried to draw in his arm, pull it to his torso which had reflectively covered itself in a barrier of energy at some stage of his fall, an unconscious effort not done by the Emperor on purpose, but done to save his center and head.

He found it impossible to move, and it dangled there lifelessly, its skin a scorched black, the remaining flecks of white within only barely visible against gristled skin.

He turned his head away and faced the sky once more, his mind was coming back into focus, that fragment of panic having asserted itself at last over the rush of white and noncomprehending noise.
He could bare to look upon it no longer. A single thought began to occupy his mind as he stared blankly ahead into the empty sky.

Was this his time to die?

To think he would survive a Super Saiyan, the thing that he had feared would terminate his rule... Only to perish at the hands of the brother he had always seen...
As weak.

His head tilted back.

Weightlessness.

Subject to the whims of gravity.

It would not be much longer until he met the ground.

His eye closed.

This planet was a peaceful world. Barren and devoid of life, it had not seen the horrors of war or the pain of destruction or the endless, ceaseless horror that came with those who sought after greed or death.

It was a world at peace, infinite sand dunes for as far as the world itself could stretch, dotted with empty plains of rock and shattered, broken ground.
No forests nor oceans, no jungles or arctic poles. Merely desert, sand and rock with but a few, small, bushes that made up plant life. Only the harshest, strongest beings could survive.
Yet in spite of this, it was a peaceful world.

Once, it had been an ocean world, an endless sea of blue that stretched out across the whole of this world's apparent infinity, with only the tallest of mountains holding the most beautiful of plants at the top of it all.

And then that ocean boiled away when its star, Gekyo, turned red and expanded in scale, turning the very world below it into the sand covered wastes you see now.

This world was Gaanyo, and it had never seen an explosion, not a true one.

Some of the grains of sand had sat there since the seas has boiled, forming this great empty dune. Life was so few and far between on this world that some places had gone undisturbed for millions upon millions of years.

It was with a great clap of thunder and a flash of brilliant fire that the meteor came down, bringing with it a strike that shook the world to its core.
In a single instant, sand that had gone undisturbed since the dawn of this era was blown high into the air and scattered around.

For a hundred miles, sand was blasted from its perch and thrown into violent, short-lived dust bowls which covered anything and everything for miles on end...

And in the case of the Beast which had scales like a lizard in the form of a bird's plumage with a beak as sharp as obsidian and just as black as volcanic ash, with the body of a snake and wings like a dragon, who's skin was tanned so that it faded into the sand below...
It's resting place was blown away, and it was disturbed, waking up to find ash and dust had come over its air, blotting out the sun with brown clouds of dust. Its eye was like a sliver as it traced the ash to its point of origin.

With a roar that threatened the heavens it took off, burrowing into the ground below and shooting towards that which had dared to disturb it, throwing up its own bowl of dust as it chased after the cause of this event.

After all, it had seen something like this but once before, though not quite as violent. It had lived for almost a thousand years, and it recalled the time when it was but a chick. A time when those who bound their flesh to metal had come here, grinding the sand with their automata, kicking dust up just as this one did.

And it knew those who bound their flesh with metal to be one thing.
Food.

'I hope you do something more with your life from now on.'

Breathe!

Suddenly, Frieza's eye shot open and his mouth followed suit, choking and gasping on the scorched desert air, inhaling who knows how much sand and dust as he did so, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that. Even as he began to cough and sputter to get the dust out of his lungs, he was starting to feel better than he had been a second ago. Though his kind could go for quite some time without oxygen, Frieza was not keen on holding his breath again, especially not after his experiences earlier that year.

Gasping and sputtering, Frieza's remaining eye flicked around him as he barely managed to sit up, wincing in pain as he did so. Everything hurt and as he moved, his less fortunate skin cracked and made ungodly sounds as he used his energy to propel himself into something of a sitting position. Well, at the least the wound on his waist had been cauterized in the fall, he wouldn't have to worry about immediate infection... From the sand at least, there was no telling how his body would react to the burns. The same went for his other reopened wounds...
All aside from the eye that Cooler had blasted apart in an effort to kill him, of course. That had the luxury of being protected when his body went into shock, leaving him with a still profusely bleeding eye that he was pretty sure had been blasted out...

He winced at the thought.

Oddly, as he coughed and hacked, spitting up blood and sand as he did, he felt a strange sensation in his right arm. He took a look at it as his coughing fit began to subside and almost immediately, he regretted his choice.
A sickness washed over Freiza's stomach, and he clamped down on his jaw to keep himself from vomiting.

Whereas other parts of his body had sustained only minor burns, his flesh turning that damned golden-brownish color that signified that he'd been burnt, his arm had taken on an entirely new color; scorched black. Which, for his kind, was the equivalent of completely charring a limb... Leaving it worthless.

It was charred and blistered, and there was more to it... But Frieza turned his head away from it to spare himself the sight, unable to stand it anymore and knowing that if he continued to look he would throw up. The only saving grace for the tyrant was that it didn't smell, or at least that the dust in the air had blocked his nose's receptors for scent.

It hung there, against his side now, like a limp chunk of wood that had been splintered from the tree, burned and blackened by wretched flames...

Well, at least he couldn't feel it any longer, from the shoulder down it might as well have been gone...
His last remaining organic limb...
Gone...

Frieza turned his head up to face the sky, a wave of...
Anger?
Fear?
Sadness?

No, none of those words captured his state, this loathesome, abhorrent feeling that had slunk into his very core, ripping him out from the inside.
No, only one word described him.

Despair.

After all...
What could he hope to do in this situation?

He was alone.

He was wounded

He was trapped here, on a desert world with no one who even knew he was alive...
No one who was coming for him.

Despair took root and like a horrible bush it grew, thorns and spines along its poisonous form, all leading towards an empty flower of grey at the very top, choking him from within.

Tormenting him were his thoughts, memories of all that had led him to this moment. Of his failure on Planet Namek all the way back to how he'd treated Cooler. He didn't regret the latter, but he couldn't help but to think that if he had handled things differently, perhaps he wouldn't have ended up the weaker brother.
But it was worse than that, he was also tortured by the crushing crippling understanding that no one was coming for him. To his entire empire, he was likely already dead, and this entire planet was probably a barren wasteland.

He was on his own.

His face scrunched into agony, eyes shutting tight and teeth baring against the world, desperately holding back an endless ocean of emotions. The scream that shouldn't come, the roar of outrage and hate and shame that he had reached this low, he repressed it for his own sake- but why? Why did he bother? It wasn't like wasting energy would matter, he didn't have a chance at surviving.

And then, the tears that couldn't come, those remnants of his anxiety and dread and terror, those things which knew, knew how weak Frieza was in this intance.
Knew that he had no hope.

Both held back by this, his look of pure agony.

His look of Despair.

What was he going to do?
What was there to do?

Despair clutched at his heart and Frieza almost felt his knees buckle for a moment before realizing that they were only phantom pains. He was nothing more than a cripple now.
A crippled former emperor on an abandoned world. He could not even bring himself to stand on his own, let alone find some way to survive...

What was he to do but to simply give up and die?

After all, he didn't have the power to get anywhere.
Even if he did return to space, he wouldn't have any idea where to even start looking to find his way back to a civilized world, for all he knew this was some world at the edge of the known universe...

And what of this world? What could he even do to survive here? From what he could tell by the surrounding area, he was trapped in an empty rocky plain with mounds of sand surrounding that.
Not to mention the unbearable heat.

His kind was resilient, yes, but against the scorching flames of the desert? Even the tropical periods where Arcose was warm were not nearly this warm.
And those periods brought with them food and water, which were both missing here as far as he knew. The scorching desert was an unfamiliar place, and it was likely going to kill him.

His situation had grown hopeless, what point was there in persisting..?

And yet...

He felt it. For a brief moment, through all of his suffering, his fingers twitched.
Trying to clench.

Goku.

His words rang in his mind, ordering and commanding him...

But... he didn't mind them in this instance.

In some way, they were... Rousing him.

'Do something with my life...' The tyrant thought, and those words of Goku's began to beat back the Despair. Goku had been right, Frieza did intend to do something with his life! What was he doing?

He was Lord Frieza!

'For me to survive a Super Saiyan only to- to GIVE UP against a mere desert?!' He demanded to himself, and the Despair clutching him began to vanish, the flower which had filled his throat finding itself cut at the stem, with the rest of its foul bush being burned from there down. 'My situation might be hopeless... But...' He lifted his head up and glared out, staring at the bleating red sun that shone down onto this desert world. It was not his time to die, not here. 'I am still Lord Frieza. There is nothing in this entire universe that can defeat me.'

His memories returned him to that time, when he was floating in the expanse of space. How he held on tightly to the Super Saiyan, to his goal.
To his version of something more.

Then, his thought turned back to his brother, and Frieza imagined him, sitting smugly on his ship's command bridge, eagerly heading for home so that he may end Father's life and take the throne for himself.

In a way, Frieza was almost proud... Or he would be, if it weren't for all of this unyielding rage!

"Cooler has no idea the enemy he has made!" Frieza continued, looking at his hand. His resolve waivered for a moment, but he shut his eyes and focused. He couldn't allow himself to fall back into that despair.

This planet would not be his grave.

"And once I find a way to leave this dustball... I will kill him...
And then you, Son Goku."

Bendez was what one would call a simple man, in spite of his job amongst the community. He enjoyed waking up in the morning, having a hearty breakfast with all of the others in the village, and getting onto the day's work of making sure that the others did their jobs before he headed out for his own work that day. Maybe he'd go on a hunting party with Merce, or go search for water with Hoda and her children, or even on the days when he wasn't interested in doing too much thanks to his old age- take up guard duty to keep a look out for a herd of Dunemakers or the Sand Walker.

On this fine day, he was out with Merce, hunting down one such herd of Dunemakers, the massive lumbering creatures with a hundred skittering legs and soft, quite tasty, flesh buried underneath their hard sand-colored carapace. They acted in herds, and their namesake was for good reason. Since they fed off of sand, it was often that in their wake they'd leave behind large dunes, having eaten all of the richer soil.

In his old age, he'd lived to kill what must have been hundreds of these insect-like creatures, if not more. He was well versed in how they worked, their patterns and the way they acted.

Bendez was a tall man for his kind, being right around 4 feet and 8 inches tall, his eyes were a glittering sand-color much like all the rest of his kind, and most of his features were hidden beneath the crimson red robes they wore to give themselves some protection from the sun, although one particular feature stood out against all of the rest.

Bendez was quicker than the Dunemaker he was hunting, and mechanical whirring could be heard as he shot into the air before his hand shot out and a brownish gold colored limb erupted from within his cloak. It was metallic in nature, and extremely low-tech... At least from an outside perspective, but it was an arm with four sharpened didgits extending from it, these razor sharp blades working to easily burrow into the body of the Dunemaker, causing it to let out a monstrous screech that was followed up by another as his younger colleague, Merce, followed Bendez's lead and leapt onto the body of his own Dunemaker.

The two men were then taken for a ride as the long-bodied creatures began to scurry through the sand hills, trying to use the sand to buck the pair off.

Merce's stopped first as his other arm shot out from his cloak, this one being a much newer color since Merce was much younger- his cybernetics had not begun to rust or tan from the sun quite yet- and it glimmered a vibrant sand-colored gold. It's shine was saturated however as he drove it into the head of the Dunemaker, causing it to cease movement immediately and go tumbling end over end, coming to a stop just before it would have plowed through the nearest sand hill.

As for Bendez, he was older than Merce, and thus wasn't fast enough to stop his Dunewalker before it plowed into the sand hill and began to race through it, its legs skittering through the sand was far greater ease than it had on land.

Bendez grit his teeth and dug his hand in, but he was unable to lift his other hand with all of the sand currently slamming into his face and body. He was certain his prey would be lost, but just as he had begun accepting his fate, something extraordinary happened.

With a massive crack of thunder- a sound heard very few times in Bendez's long life- the sand was blown off of him and both he and his quarry were sent shooting high into the sky! They spiraled through the air like Desert Fliers on their way back down, spinning and spinning in a mad aerial dance that would have made any fully organic member of his species sick, but Bendez's mind worked differently than theirs would have, and his despite his shock his mind focused intently on the beast below.

With a final crushing stab, the Dunewalker would not live long enough to hit the ground, and its body was used to safely allow the older humanoid to come to a landing, skidding to a stop a few yards away from where his ally was, Merce having managed to save his catch by digging his own Hunting Claw into it while the Killing Spear, a device which extended from his shoulder before sharply turning like a talon downwards, burrowed into the more rocky floor that the Sand had been hiding underneath it.

The two men looked up to see the massive mushroom cloud appear in the air, staring in stunned silence. In all of his years, Bendez had never seen anything like what he had just witnessed, and the much younger man hadn't either.

With all of the youthful arrogance that Bendez had long since grown out of, Merce spoke up first, calling out to his elder. "Bendez! I'm going to go check it out!" He shouts at him, his voice easily carrying over the sand dunes.

Bendez meanwhile shook his head fervently. "Don't you dare! Worry about getting these kills back to the camp first! I'll call Hoda, she'll pick us up and take the kills back while we go see what that was." Ordered the elder, who felt a light breeze rush through his hair...

His hair? Oh, his hood must have been down.
He was a short, stocky looking man with short and well-kept hair and a long beard which extended down to his chin, both a stark grey color. His face was patched and marred with age, wrinkles went up his mouth and crow's feet up his eyes- signs of a long, happy life... If not a difficult one.

Pulling his hood back over his head to better hide himself from the sun, the village elder's eyes sparkled brightly and suddenly a projection came from his retinas, showing off a similarly dressed being, although her hair was longer and her suit was a bit smaller, more fitting to her form...
Hoda, the town's water collector.

"Ah, Elder Bendez!" She greets with a worried, if not cheerful, voice. "I assume this is about that... Massive explosion I just witnessed? Are you hurt? Do you need me to come take you back to the village?" She questioned, and the older man simply smiled.

That was Hoda, after all, his adopted daughter. Always looking out for him, though he couldn't say the same for anyone else other than her children.
Although, he did wish she'd call him 'dad', he understood why she didn't given that they weren't... Related.

"We're fine, we do need a ride though, would you please come to our location as soon as you can with the Strider and come collect our kills? We have enough to feed the village for at least the next few weeks with these two."

"Of course! I can be over in a few minutes once I get my kids. They're just about finished getting the village some water..." She trailed off, her tone carrying a much stronger hint of worry. Bendez knew exactly what it was she was concerned about, and didn't address it here.

"Thank you, collect what you can." He smiles. "I'll see you soon, Hoda."

With that, he looked over to see Merce approaching him, dragging behind him his kill. Upon arrival, he looked out towards the massive mushroom cloud.
"You think its the Sand Walker?" He asks him with a serious expression. "I don't know anything else that can do something like that."

The older man shook his head. "I'm not sure what it is, but I know we're going to find out. Either now... Or later."

A/N: Alright gentlemen and ladies, the prologue is finished. No more long scenes of Frieza doing fuck all, excuse my French. Now we're really going to get into the meat of things and start on the path of becoming a better person.
From here on out, we're going into what I'm going to call The Desert Saga.

So that'll be fun.

So, in order to drive up some engagement with my readers, I have a tiny challenge for all of you. Try to guess the puns I used for naming my OCs above, some of them are a bit more obvious than others, I admit.
Oh, and for anyone having trouble imagining these OCs, I sort of created a hybrid of Jawas from Star Wars and Tech Priests from Warhammer 40k, so feel free to look those up and you should get the general idea of what I was going for.

Now, review time!

(FFN) KingdomDone: Really enjoying the dynamic you've set up here involving the Cold family. That ending though, hmm. I wonder what reason Cooler lied to his father about Frieza's death? Perhaps its to have Frieza under his control and deny him the cybernetic implants. Anyways, looking forward to see how this story plays out!

Oh, I think we both know the answer to that now, but I can see why you'd think Cooler would be going that route. Unfortunately for Frieza, keeping him trapped on his ship as a paraplegic, while he would probably find it hilarious, is too much effort and too high risk for Cooler to try it.
So, desert planet it is.

(Ao3) charizard91: This is awesome! Keep up the great work!

I'm really glad you're liking it so far! I hope I can continue to impress as time goes on!

Well that's all from both places for now, so with that all said...

Until Next Time, True Readers!