Frieza let out a sigh and ceased his internal rumination. With his resolve at least somewhat restored, the Tyrant now needed to think. If there was a way off of this world, he would definitely need to find it before he dies of dehydration which was by far his most pressing concern at the moment. Were he in space- a climate more... accommodating to his people- he would have months to consider his options, but here in the desert he had maybe a week... Perhaps less depending on whether this planet had a suitable night cycle to cool him off.
For all he knew, this world could be akin to Planet Namek, and he'd be bathing in the sun for the rest of his existence, drying out like a sponge left out of water...
No, he couldn't think like that. He had to remain optimistic, even if it went against his nature. If he allowed himself to fall back into negative thinking, he'd never manage to free himself.
He shut his eyes as irritation came over him, the phantom pains had returned and his remaining arm's deadness had begun to weigh him down, pulling him towards the ground, and worse- causing him pain whenever he forced his shoulder to pull himself back into balance. For anyone else this would be rather terrifying, but for Frieza he simply grew in annoyance. He'd been suffering the phantom pains for the last few months, so those he could mostly ignore. It was the arm that irritated him more...
Yet the biggest irritation of was that he couldn't do anything to assist himself. When his arm was fully functional, he could at least grasp at the empty space that made up that section of his body, giving his brain some relief from the suffering albeit quite little, but now he was left entirely helpless to fight against the pains, and it only served to aggravate the Emperor of the Universe.
Letting out a defeated sigh, Frieza forced himself to ignore the phantom pains and glanced around his immediate surroundings. The first thing to do was to try and survey the area, search for sources of food, water, and perhaps even civilization, although he had his doubts that Cooler would be so foolish as to pick an inhabited world to leave him to die. After all, Frieza would easily dominate any local inhabitants, even in his present state he was confident of that ability.
From his position in this sand crater he had made from landing, Frieza could only see more sand surrounding him. At first he had simply assumed it was dust that he'd kicked up, but now that had long since begun to waver, revealing the crumbling granules coming down upon the former Emperor, slowly filling the crater he'd made during his crash in waves of falling sand. For a brief moment, he was struck with how... Waterfall-like the sand looked in this instance. But he quickly shrugged that off, there was no time to be admiring the scenery.
Frieza takes a breath in and focuses, pooling his energy underneath him and slowly raising into the sky slowly...
Something was... Wrong. He felt a strange sensation, a... resistance. As though his own power had formed a mutiny against him, fighting against him. It wasn't long, and it wasn't difficult to force the energy to move, but it was sluggish and almost unwilling to pass through his body.
Confusion and concern crossed his face, but his brushed it aside. As of now, his power was serving him, and that was all that mattered. Besides, it was likely that he was just off balance after losing his limbs and having his wounds reopened. Not to mention that he had yet to power up.
Yes, of course! He was simply off his game for now, once he managed to get some working cybernetics and a warm bath he'd be good as new! He'd always had trouble controlling his power, it was simply being hard to control in a... Different direction! It was nothing to concern himself with.
Taking to the sky, he was met with clean and fresh air unburdened by the choking smog that had been below him, allowing him to at last breathe freely, a sensation that he'd missed in the few short minutes between being thrown from the ship and landing in that crater. Even if the air was hot and dry, it was still better than not breathing.
From his vantage point, he was able to see for miles...
And for miles he saw emptiness.
A lifeless and barren desert surrounded him, golden sand reflecting the red sunlight back up at it for an eternity, endlessly filling his vision. For a moment, Frieza grew in concern... Was he... Alone?
But then he spotted it!
He squinted off into the distance, focusing on it.
A dust storm had managed to kick up, yet something was... off about it...
He felt no wind coming this way...
And worse, the storm itself was moving directly towards him, as if making a straight line for the Arcosian... As if with purpose... As if...
Alive...
"Well, that's disconcerting..." Frieza muttered dryly, a small chuckle managing to choke its way out of his dust coated throat at his remark. It was important to keep oneself in high spirits during times of crisis, and a bit of levity never hurt anyone. And besides even though it was a bit concerning, Frieza was more than confident that he could handle any threat on this tiny little dirtball of a planet which dared to make itself known to him. He might have been effectively a cripple, but he was still Lord Frieza.
He was still the most powerful being to ever exist.
Thus, he chose to ignore the incoming smoke for now and continued to survey the area, looking for anything else that might be of interest.
"Desert... Desert... Odd mountain... Wait... What is.." He narrows his eyes towards the source of his shift in mood, focusing on it.
He had spotted a much smaller cloud of dust coming his way, this one with a much more discernable source- some sort of small vehicle!
Frieza was taken aback! Had Cooler honestly been so foolish as to dump him onto an inhabited world? Even if the locals were dangerous- even in Frieza's current state! He was more than capable of easily wiping out anyone he met- barring some of the people on Namek...
And Cooler...
Or even... the Armored Squadron..
If that's the case, even Frieza wasn't sure if he could handle them all at once in his current state. Sure, he could still manifest energy attacks through his eyes or mouth, but his ability to defend against them if they got into close quarters was severely limited, and all it would take would be one swipe of his second's Salza Blade to cleave his head off, and that's to speak nothing of the other's strange abilities. Were they to attack him at once, they might have a chance at defeating him as he is now.0
But as the thing kicking up sand grew closer, Frieza frowned a bit before a more relaxed smile came over his lips.
His fears had been unfounded.
Although he didn't know who exactly was coming towards him, friend or foe, he did know that the Armored Squadron would have no use for vehicles which traversed the land since they could fly- and these individuals were using some kind of land speeder.
They must have been natives.
'What wonderful luck!' Thought Frieza as he began shooting out his aura, propelling him towards the speeder. 'To think that I've already encountered the locals! Cooler either failed to run all of his scans or is more of a fool than I believed!' A black smile formed on the Tyrant's face as he approached the speeder, which had begun to slow down on seeing the Arcosian make his own approach.
As he came to "land" in front of the now fully stopped speeder Frieza was delighted. To think that he'd already managed to make contact with the locals! At this rate, he'd be able to contact father and return back to civilized space within the day! And who knows, maybe they had access to healing pod technology, perhaps his arm would come out of this mostly unscathed...
...
...
The Arcosian had come to float just in front of them, getting a clearer picture of the vehicle they were using to transport themselves... And his heart sank into the pits of his stomach. Not out of despair, but out of a sudden sense of dread which flooded his system, turning his blood frigid even in the sweltering heat of the desert. The reason for this was simple- their "speeder" was unlike anything that the Arcosian had ever seen before. Whereas on other worlds he'd see sleek things made out of solid steel or some other fancy chrome metal, this thing seemed to be almost cobbled together! It was formed out of long-rusted iron, which had been welded together haphazardly to form a series of octagonal shaped bars which when put together made a "cage" of similar shape in the center which acted as some kind of cockpit. With four wheels sitting below it, it could technically be counted as a speeder. Oh, and behind it was some kind of carrying device that floated just a bit off the ground using some kind of hovering technology, two large Centipede things sat on these carrying devices, thankfully dead.
This... Did not bode well for Frieza's ability to contact someone from civilized space, and the rust only served to worry him further. If they were comfortable using technology old enough to have rusted then its possible that these were some equivalent to country bumpkins! What if they were some kind of savages who wanted to... Eat him or something?
Sure, he wasn't afraid of that possibility...
He was afraid that these were the only people for lightyears! If that was the case, then...
The galactic Emperor pushed past his building dread and forced himself to hide away his cold demeanor, instead opting to feign friendliness at least for now. That would be the best way to get them on his side for the time being. He took in the beings riding within the vehicle. They were short and wore red cloaks of some kind, with odd golden colored eyes shining from behind the cloaks. As one of them stepped out of the... "Speeder", Frieza heard an odd sound- like mechanical whirring of some kind, and soft clanking noises as the being approached.
He shrugged that off though, assuming it to just be the vehicle they'd come in. As the creature came up to him, Frieza took its appearence in. It stood only a few inches shorter than what Frieza would have been had he had his entire body still, possibly at shoulder height or around as tall as his Final Reduction Form. At their current height, the being stood at right around Frieza's chest due to the Emperor floating in the air. It looked up to him with those oddly colored eyes, and suddenly the Arcosian was struck with an odd feeling.
Although Frieza didn't quite respect the being, he could see the age present in its gaze- it was old for its kind, and age had begot it wisdom.
Not that Frieza cared. After all, its wisdom was worthless to him and even if it was... Frieza wasn't certain he'd allow these beings to continue living for much longer. Stealing their craft would be easier than bargaining with them after all, but first he needed be certain that they could lead him somewhere he could call for assistance. "You there, you must be the one in charge then I take it." He states calmly, fully in control of the situation in spite of his injuries. "You will take me back to the nearest city using that... Vehicle you have there." He gestured towards the Speeder with a nod to his head before continuing. "And then you will assist me in contacting the Frieza Force. I am Lord Frieza, the Emperor of the Univ-"
The entity cut him off by releasing a strange set of vocalizations which Frieza was vaguely able to recognize as a language...
A language Frieza did not understand even slightly.
His eye twitched with a new kind of anger, a boiling irritation that Frieza had to force back. Under normal circumstances he would have a Scouter, which would have been able to translate for him automatically. But these weren't normal circumstances.
Without one of those devices, a new barrier had been erected between Frieza and returning home. Without the ability to communicate, Frieza had no idea if they were taking him to a city or back to some- some ramshackle farm!
And this fact irritated him to no bounds, the mountain of stress that had been starting to form in his mind ever since he lost his wish to those wretches on Namek was beginning to reach heights that Frieza could hardly contain.
His anger starting to spike, Frieza let out an enraged scoff, and pain momentarily cut through his mind as he went to motion with his damaged arm. "Come now, surely you don't mean to tell me that you can't speak Galactic Common!" He demanded, his voice shuddering with a kind of hysterical anger and carrying with it a threat. Desperately, he tried to resist the urge to blast this one into oblivion. The stress had officially began to boil over, and he was sure that if he still had a functioning arm, he would have extended it outwards towards this beast and prepared to annihilate it for showing such insolence, even if it didn't know any better!
Galactic Common was the language that had been established by his great grandfather across the entire universe as the "standard" language for all races, even between Galaxies, in order to allow things to flow more smoothly when it came to making deals with other lifeforms. Even those Earthlings were able to speak some barbaric mockery of it!
Needless to say, Frieza had been certain that even backwater worlds such as these were able to speak Common!
Yet the small creature cocked his head and looked up at Frieza was uncomprehending eyes, and Frieza was yet again stricken with now ironic understanding. All the wisdom in the universe yet none of the intelligence.
He then glanced behind the Elder as another one of the beings began chittering, this one being a higher pitched voice and speaking in a wild and almost frightened tone. He looked over to find the speaker, this one a female. She was even smaller than the first and had odd, long brown hair which flowed out of her red cloak like two opposing rivers of stringy brown, and her eyes glimmered with an almost surreal beauty, hers being less like gold and more like glittering sand.
He ignored all of that though and tried to focus on what she was saying. Even without a translator, he was able to surmise what she was talking about through visual and auditory cues alone. She seemed to be shouting something rather frantically, hurriedly waving and pointing her gold-colored hands at something behind the pair, and another male joined her, pointing a finger behind both of them and shouting in a deeper, younger voice than the Elder.
At this, the Elder also turned to look, prompting Frieza to follow-
"What are they-"
His eyes widened as suddenly it was upon him, buffeting him with motes of dust that he couldn't hope to shield his eyes from, causing him to turn away and shut his eyes tightly. The dust storm that he'd been watching only a few short seconds ago had managed to catch up with him! But how?! Only a moment ago the storm had been at least a mile away and didn't seem to be picking up in speed at all! How could it have caught up with him already?!
In any case, at its current velocity, the storm would fully enshroud them all within a few more minutes, they were thankfully at the very start of the wretched storm for now.
He heard the chittering grow more frantic and suddenly a sharp pain sliced up his arm, causing the tyrant to wince and gasp before whirling his head around and wrenching his arm free of whatever was causing him such pain. This... Only served to cause him even more agony, but he allowed the sensation to fuel his anger as he looked down at the short being responsible for it. His eyes glimmered with scalding red as the Tyrant considered firing an eye-beam into the frantic being's chest, yet he held off, his anger being tempered for now by the little beings worried look.
He was chittering as well, although his voice was a much lower and older pitch- which confirmed Frieza's assumptions about his age- and he frantically pointed towards the Speeder, pleading with Frieza to hop on, something Frieza understood without needing to understand the language.
This thing was... Afraid...
He looked down at the being quizzically, a puzzled expression crossing his face, finding it quite odd that a mere dust storm was causing them all such distress. Surely dust storms were native to this world, such things should have been perfectly common for them to face, and yet they were all so... Terrified of it.
He would be lying if he said it didn't somewhat unnerve him, to see such natives so deathly afraid of mere dust on a desert world...
But... Frieza didn't have a reason not to follow the being, after all if they were natives and this storm was causing them this much panic than it was only logical that they knew something he didn't- a fact that he was loathe to admit, but one that he could not deny.
Besides, potentially they had the ability to get him back to his Empire.. and Frieza loathed the idea of allowing sand to batter his wound any further. Just this much had already embedded dozens of horrible feeling grains deep into his burn scars, and the irritation from them was causing him such immense pain that he felt as though he would amputate his arm just to be rid of it!
Of course, he had no intention of doing so. A healing tank would be able to rejuvenate a wound such as this, easiliy.
Thus, he nodded and followed the being after taking a quick breath to stimy his anger/ He flew up and then back down into the Speeder, slotting himself in back seat through a hole in the roof- although he only allowed himself to sit in the back because arguing with them would simply be a waste of effort since the language barrier prevented them from having any meaningful discussion. Not to mention that Frieza didn't want to accidentally kill off someone if they could possibly be of some importance to him. He wouldn't say he's necessarily learned restraint since Namek, but his brash actions when it came to the Namekians had costed him greatly and it wasn't a mistake he was keen on repeating so soon...
The Speeder took off just as soon as the older creature hopped on as well, with the two creatures Frieza had been slotted between chittering nervously...
Well... Actually, one of them was simply staring up at Frieza- the female- and chittering excitedly about something while the other one he was sat between shifted from chittering to her and to the Elder, who was silent but quick as he began to floor the Speeder, clearly desperate to escape the storm.
He glanced down at the Female's excited look and offered her a sneer in response, neither knowing nor caring what she was on about in that wretched tongue of hers.
However...
The sneer faded and turned into a smirk.
Perhaps she was simply awestruck by his abilities! After all, if these beings were weaklings then they likely have never seen anyone quite as astoundingly powerful as him! And though the ability to fly was common amongst his soldiers, the average civilian in Empire territory usually lacked the skill. It wasn't uncommon for people to be enamored with basic abilities such as that and basic energy blasts.
He sighed a bit as the Speeder began racing through the sand dunes- that thought had brought him some modicum of peace. Perhaps, he imagined, if they were so astonished by his power they would simply worship him as their God.
Ah, what heaven that would be! It would be like nothing had happened! Surrounded by mewling sycophants desperate to do exactly as he asked for fear of his wrath! The very thought elicited a chuckle from the Emperor. He would simply be back right where he left and just as soon as he returned to the wider universe, he wouldn't even need to pick up- he never would have set the feeling of ruling over others down. If that ended up being the case, maybe he'd take them with him when he left this world, a group of eager to please servants would certainly be appreciated.
Sadly, his pleasant thoughts were gone just as soon as they came. Stolen from him just as everything else had been.
With pain.
The sand below them shifted violently, and the four of them were thrown from the Speeder, cast into a blood red sky as a crippling roar echoed below them, and Frieza had just enough time to feel surprise set in before a set of jaws clasped over his torso and caused him to cry out in pain, purple blood spraying from his wounds and mouth as his ribs bent beneath the force and a pair of hooks dug into his back and front, piercing his skin.
And then he hit the ground.
He's not entirely sure when he woke up.
But he knows that it hadn't been more than a few minutes.
A crippling roar rattled through his bones, causing the Former Tyrant to jolt awake- which resulted in him to be starkly reminded of the relentless pain that had gripped his ribcage earlier. As he brought his hand up to hold his ribs, the mere thought of doing that caused him to wince in utter agony.
Not to mention the new feeling- a dull thud that pounded his head intermittently in time with his heartbeat. He felt the urge to hold his head, but shook that feeling off. He didn't need to hold it- he could feel the blood drizzling down the side of his face.
"What the hell..." He managed to mutter, shaking himself out of his stupor.
He took a moment to recover before looking around, finding that he was at least still on the surface, although the mountains of dust which obscured his vision were definitely trying to convince him otherwise.
"What... Did this to..?"
A rush of air swooped by him, and Frieza was sent away by the sheer wind pressure as something came crashing back out of the sand to his side and took off high into the air.
'It has a beak.' Was one of the first thoughts Frieza had when he recovered from being thrown from his position, looking up to witness this massive behemoth of a creature that had come rushing out of the sand below. Its massive wormlike body twisted and curled into a writhing mass as it hunched down, scanning the world below it. Yet to it looked without eyes, searching with some other force. Blindly, it's head turned and swiveled around, hunting aimlessly. Its skin was scaled like a snake, but the scales all poked out around its body like millions of small knives, allowing the beast an easier time swimming through the sand no doubt.
And then there were the wings.
Massive things the size of skyscrapers, scaley and powerful looking- and they flapped with such ferocity that they blew away the dust cloud and erupted another to take its place just as soon as the first had blown away. The beast's roar erupted across the sand, shaking Frieza to his very core. It was an unpleasant thing, like a thousand Speeder crashes melding with the sounds of battle and amplified to the sound of a space ship taking off. It caused Frieza to wince, yet it seemed blind to him even now as it searched and hunted for something.
For him...
And yet, Frieza couldn't bring himself to care about the display of its might. No, as his shock faded away, a new feeling erupted from within his chest and head- where pressure had built up from a combination of his wounds... And his stress.
The stress that had been building, building, building ever since he arrived on that wretched world!
Vegeta
The Super Saiyan
Cooler!
And now... This thing has decided that it was worthy to touch him?!
No, this could not be allowed to stand!
Blood trickled from his eye and his teeth bared against the beast, a guttural growl forming on his lips as he looked up at it.
He had had enough disrespect!
"How... dare... you..." Frieza hissed, and suddenly the dust storm was blown away as the Emperor himself powered up, at last unveiling a luminous purple aura which whipped up winds that dwarfed even the Beast's massive wings' efforts. At once, the monster snapped its head towards Frieza, locking onto him, though Frieza couldn't bring himself to care. This beast would pay. "HOW DARE YOU?!" He roared at the beast and shot into the air, fist clenching in spite of the pain. "HOW DARE YOU TOUCH ME? ME, THE EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE, FRIEZA?!" He demanded the monster, and though it did not understand him- or so he thought- it did hear him. And though it lacked eyes, it was almost like it could see him as he flew right up towards it's face, where the monstrous beak sat, a thunderous growl of its own escaping the slit between the beak's top and bottom.
At once, the building anger and emotion that had begun to form in Frieza's chest ever since he'd been blasted by Cooler shot to the surface, causing the Emperor to snap with vitriolic fury.
The tenseness that formed in his head had caused a vein to form below his bio-gem, causing his blasted-out eye to drip with purple blood, yet he couldn't bring himself to care as he shot towards the thing now, changing his direction entirely as a purple aura appeared around him-
Nova Strike, albeit a far weakened version of it, was one of his most powerful moves, and with its protective aura enveloping him, the Emperor shot into the behemoth's chest, feeling its odd and scaley flesh crunch under his power. The beast reared back at the force of Frieza's attack and released a bellowing roar that shook the sand, but Frieza paid it no mind as he shot across its underbelly, dragging dozens of scales out of their place as he did so, and shot out behind the beast.
Even though he lacked hands, he was able to attack the monstrosity using a mixture of his telekinesis and the bubble of power that he'd formed around himself. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have congratulated himself on his ingenuity.
But as he was now, the Tyrant was far too lost in his own anger and seething rage to even consider the thought as he shot high into the air before looping around, leaving a trail of light behind him as he came back down to once again batter the monster- this time striking an odd bit of scaley-plumage just underneath its beak, whereabouts he suspected its chin would have been.
A sonic boom rang out and the entity was thrown backwards and into the sand below, where it kicked up a gigantic cloud of dust. It writhed in shock and pain, its cries acting like music to Frieza's ears as it tried uselessly to recover from his attack.
He smirked and powered up even more, a building mirth in his chest as he looked down at the beast below him. "Ohohohohoho... You have no idea how much I needed this." Frieza says softly as the beast begins to right itself, slithering its way back onto its belly and using its wings to begin kicking up an even more grandiose sandstorm as it began to take to the air. "I've been in such low spirits for so very long." His words were laced with a toxin, dripping with a malice and blackened delight. "I've been in dire need of someone to come along and give me the relief that would be ending their life."
At last, the beast had reared back up into the air and for a moment, Frieza thought it intended to run away.
But rather than to run, its upper half suddenly coiled around its lower half, and the snakelike thing was upon him, shooting out towards him and opening its jaws wide! Its speed was immense- far more than Frieza had been expecting- and it took him entirely into its jaws, where the beaklike maw began to crunch down onto his aura.
Yet despite his surprise at is speed, Frieza felt no concern even as his energy bubble began to crack and buckle beneath the beast's jaws. Rather, he simply grinned with a cruel idea in mind.
Letting out a shout, Frieza's aura expanded, filling with more and more energy- and forcing the beast's mouth open wider and wider, while it desperately tried to crack down on the energy. Its talon-like upper and lower jaws continued to clench down on the energy, and Frieza, to his disgust, noticed some kind of wormlike appendage now licking around the outside of his energy field.
But his disgust faded back into cruelty when he realized it was the behemoth's tongue.
"Well now, if you want a meal so badly, allow me to mash it up first." He partially joked before shutting his eyes and grimacing with effort. Pain shot from his arm and his eye leaked even more purple blood, however the Arcosian pushed through it and puffed his chest out-
A shot of pain nearly wrenched his focus away from the task as suddenly his head began to pound. The amount of focus needed to keep up the energy field and telekinesis at once was immense and a vein had begun to pop out over his damaged eye, causing another surge of blood to run down his face, staining his sight purple. He gritted his teeth through this though. Even if he was exerting himself too much, this would be the conclusion of this thing, he was certain of it.
A flash of purple lightning filled the air for but an instant, and like thunder following the lightning, the creature's mouth erupted.
Smoke billowed from it, followed by a gut-wrenching shriek and a splatter of orange colored blood from the beast's insides. Yet, flying from the smoke and completely untouched by the wretched liquid came Frieza, shooting away from the monster and high into the sky.
The dragonlike worm writhed in pain for a moment before slamming into the ground and burrowing to escape.
The tyrant hissed at the being and moved to shoot his hand out and try to blast it but seethed in pain as he remembered that his organic limb had been damaged beyond repair.
In an instant, the creature vanished from sight anyway, leaving behind only another massive hole in the sand.
"Tch..." He gritted his teeth in irritation. "I'm hardly satisfied." He growled to himself before sighing and glancing around. 'Wonderful.' He thought, not spotting any survivors. 'Well, I suppose they can't be too far from home. If I look around enough I should find-'
A rush of air swept him, and sand came raining down like bullets around the Tyrant as the sun above him was blotted out, causing Frieza to look behind him and up towards the beast in horror. "WHAT-?!" But before he could say anything more, the beast had made its move, swiping at Frieza with its wing and batting him across the desert, sending him flying with a single attack.
He shot across the desert but managed to stop himself in time, gritting his teeth and feeling nauseated as he floated suspended in the air, only just barely managing to hold his grip on his power.
Caught off guard, the Arcosian gritted his teeth even more and formed another Nova Strike around him- but he gasped in pain as the vein in his head at last burst open, causing a new flood of blood to rush from his head, which pounded even more so.
Damn it! He must have pushed himself too hard! In his current state, using so much energy had been a mistake- and a horrendously costly one at that as when Frieza opened his only remaining eye it widened in terror before suddenly showing him only stars as the beast's mighty tail thwipped at him and slammed him down into the desert sand, causing an eruption of the golden granules to come all around him.
And to make matters worse, he'd landed on his bad arm.
Gritting his teeth and trying his best not to scream in utter agony as the rough dirt rubbed into his burn wound, Frieza managed to sit up and coughed loudly. His vision swam, a mixture of purple blood and vague shapes. He felt something wet attached to his throat and coughed again, sputtering up purple colored blood and spitting it out onto the sand.
He swooned as soon as he tried to fly up, and a wave of nausea overcame him, causing him to gently sit back down onto the ground while shaking his head, trying to shake off the dizziness. It wouldn't be long until that monster re-
A light chittering sound reached his ears. It was oddly familiar, and also faint. Could it be possible that the beasts had managed to survive that as well?
Looking over, he spotted nothing until he looked up, sighting three beings moving along the edge of his crater.
'The Natives...' He thought absentmindedly before pausing. His mind worked in overdrive, trying to connect that thought with something he could use to help himself.
Maybe he could use one of them as a distraction? Or maybe they could call of the creature somehow?
While he thought about that, he heard a terrified scream and felt the air above him rush and turn cold for a moment as the dragon passed above them. He looked up to catch a glimpse of the beast's body, as well as three small beings come crashing down into his crater of sand.
They quickly helped each other up and the chittering entities looked between themselves and then at Frieza, trying to make some kind of plan.
In the end, they decided to come over to him and began pointing towards the sky, and Frieza scoffed.
Even now, injured and pained as he was, he chuckled at them.
"Please." He rolled his remaining eye at them- which caused his other eye to starting pulsating with pain. "What, do you expect me to carry you to safety?" He asked them, cruelly mocking their excited chittering as the woman and Elder continued trying to barter with him in their barbaric tongue. "Tch. I don't even know what you're asking..." He scoffed to himself. "For all I know you're trying to tell me its weakness, you might as well be speaking in tongues for all that your backwards words mean to me." He hissed at them, which at last seemed to silence the creatures, who seemed to pick up on his tone at the very least.
He sighed... And once he did, he immediately regretted it.
The behemoth hadn't shown its face in a while, and his adrenaline had started to wane, leaving Frieza tired. His injuries pulsed absently now, and... He... Felt so...
Eye starting to drift shut, Frieza almost gave in to the sudden need for rest and the black peace that sleep would give to his injuries, were it not for a sudden horrified scream...
And the sudden jolt of wretched pain as the woman grabbed onto Frieza's arm.
"DAMN YOU, WOMAN I'LL-!"
His roar was drowned out by a much greater roar as the beast suddenly appeared overhead again, letting out its own bellow and twisting its wretched body down to face the quartet, its jaws opening wider than they had before as his arched body began to shake.
Frieza cursed under his breath, a wretched look of terror and rage on his face.
It charged them.
The beast shot down towards the Emperor and the Natives, and Frieza found that time had begun to slow as his brain kicked into overdrive.
The creature was far weaker than him, true, and if he had his full power, he would have been more than a match for this entity. Yet it had shown the ability to injure him before- the pair of wounds that Frieza hadn't been addressing since their battle began had been proof enough of that. So it wasn't impossible for the being to... Kill him, as he stood now.
No.
He had no intention of dying like that.
Staring down the creature's black maw, Frieza's power surged into his chest and formed in the one place left for the Tyrant to shoot energy.
His own purple stained lips opened wide and he let out a scream in the face of death, though his was of defiance.
In an instant, a gargantuan beam shot out of his mouth, filling the entire cavern above them with purple and tapering off at the very apex of its being, shooting directly into the monster's snakelike body, filling it with energy and vaporizing it from the inside out, sending the monstrosity into the air and across the desert, far from the four survivors.
For a moment, he was proud of himself. Even now, battered and bruised and at his objective lowest point...
He still had the power to eradicate even the mightiest of beings.
But then a wave of nausea struck his chest and stomach as he lurched forward. Faintly feeling a trickle of blood down his face and chest, Frieza swayed and once again felt a pulse of pain rock through his head has the burst vein dripped.
Another one struck him, though it had been numbed, as the woman yet again took hold of his arm to steady him.
He glowered at this, but even making that expression felt like all too much for him.
Words spilled out of his mouth, but he could not hear them, his ears were a rush of blood and falling sand- and the echoes of his roar.
Exhaustion came over him and Frieza shut his eye, falling into the black.
A haze filled his vision when he next came to. The world around him swam with a mixture of shapes and colors. He caught glimpses of yellow, flashes of red and glancing looks at brown. His eyes glanced between these figures, hearing their odd chittering yet being unable to make out a single word in all of it.
His head felt cold.
That was the last thought Frieza had before he slipped back underneath the peace of sleep.
"I need to get off of this planet while there's still time..." Frieza muttered, barely able to hear himself over the roaring wind. Thunder clapped and lightning illuminated the world around him, briefly turning the planet's strange night into day. "If I'm caught in the explosion I'll lose even more of my strength..."
A glimmer caught his eye, and as he panted he turned to look, chasing the vibrant color to its source-
His mouth hang agape and fear spread like a toxin through his face, chilling his blood as his eyes widened in a hopeless- helpless- terror.
The Super Saiyan rose from the water, drifting out of the grave that Frieza had been so certain he'd put him in.
His body was frozen in that position for a moment, only able to look on in horror as the Saiyan rose. His hair was a brazen, vibrant gold. It stood in defiance- as he stood against everything- against the very laws of gravity themselves.
His eyes were a burning, blazing turquoise that burned themselves into Frieza's own stark red ones, staring him down with such... Such...
Hatred.
In that instant Frieza understood.
He denied it, he rebelled against it, he shouted and he thrashed and he battered but it was useless.
He was helpless.
The Super Saiyan was just as the Legends had foretold.
Unconquerable.
"Why..." The word spilled out of his mouth as he reignited his Nova Strike. "Why won't you stay dead?!"
He exploded forward in one final enraged assault, his hands outstretched in front of him, intent on battering on the wall that was the Super Saiyan once more.
But even as fear turned to rage, he couldn't shake that feeling.
Unconquerable...
He shot up as soon as his eyes opened, drenched in a cold sweat and breathing heavily.
The room was hot and pitch dark, and his surroundings were entirely foreign to the Arcosian. On one side, there was some kind of figure sitting in what he guessed was a chair, and on the other Frieza heard the faint hum of medical equipment.
Just as his eyes began to adjust, a light came on to his right, and his head whipped around to find another figure.
However...
His heart pounded in his chest.
Vibrant blonde hair and horrible, terrible blue eyes stared into him.
'You?! The Super Saiyan?!' He thought as adrenaline shot through his body, and Frieza sprung into action, moving before the Super Saiyan could and shooting his arm up, feeling his hand clasp around his neck and hoist the Saiyan up while he himself also stood from the bed, holding the man by his throat.
"You thought you could surprise attack me, is that right?" He hissed into the Saiyan's face, bringing those awful eyes closer so they could peer into Frieza's red ones, just as they had on Namek. "Well Super Saiyan, you lost your chance to kill me on that wretched world!" A maddened grin spread across his face as his hand began to crush down, closing the Saiyan's windpipe, choking him out. "Yes Monkey, that's right! I'll kill you this way! Even if you survived Namek's destruction, you'll still die to asphyxiation!"
"Stop! You're going to kill him!" A female voice rang out after a moment, and Frieza found a familiar set of hands gripping his arm.
He sneered and looked down with a loathsome expression, the hatred and annoyance mixing both in his eyes and in his expression as he stared daggers into the female from earlier. "You! How many times must I wince in pain before you stop grabbing my-!" He stopped himself.
"Arm?" Even though he'd been staring daggers into the woman, his eyes had caught sight of his arm. No longer was it a blackened scorched thing, but a long- almost skeletal- metallic limb. It was new, made of shiny white metal that reflected the coppery color of the lightbulb which lit up the room.
And that wasn't all that was different either, he felt...
His legs.
He looked down, seeing that his lower body had also been repaired. A waist had been built for him out of the metal, and though the legs were that similar "unfinished" looking skeleton, he couldn't deny that he was... Elated to be able to stand again.
After so long, it felt strange to be able to move on his own power, and this fact caught up with him as the adrenaline began to waver, causing him to grow unsteady. The knee joints buckled and in his moment of shock his hand released the golden-haired man, stumbling backwards to sit on the bed.
His other hand touched the soft blankets of the medical bed as he leaned against it for support, a stunned expression on his face. The sensation was dulled, as though he was touching something when his arm was asleep and yet...
He brought his arms up to look at them.
They were hideous.
Thin and wiry, like some facsimile of bones and gears, with wires making up sinew and muscle, with some awful battery pack sitting just below his shoulder-gem, which the entire thing stuck out of like a pair of rods jammed into a crater. At about where the elbow would have been, another set of rods was connected to the first by a gear.
And then of course were the hands.
They were three fingered with a palm set in the middle of each of the razer-sharp digits. He looked down at this with the most disgust, yet some part of him felt overjoyed at having limbs again! Even if they were patchwork and disgusting.
Yet that joy would not spare them his wrath.
"What... Have you done to me?" Frieza demanded, looking over at the pair. Now that he was seeing better- something he chalked up to having a cybernetic eye- he could see that the blonde one was not a Super Saiyan, but rather just an old man born with the unfortunate defect that was blonde hair.
He loathed that color now that he thought about it.
"We..." The older man coughed, holding his throat. Even though he was standing, markings from where Frieza had gripped his throat remained, and small incisions were visible at the edges of those markings. "We saved your life. When Hoda and Bendez brought you in here, you were dying." The old man explained. "I had to strip off that... organic stuff from your wounds, they were getting infected."
A thought struck Frieza and his face hardened back into hate again as he stared daggers into the old man. "My arm! You took off my last remaining organic limb?!" He roared at him, standing back up and storming over-
Only to lose his balance midway through and stumble over, grabbing onto the medical table for support. "Damn it..." He hissed. Not only was walking without his tail to balance him a challenge, but Frieza hadn't walked in ages. The feeling of putting one foot in front of the other was something his brain knew, but his body found woefully unfamiliar.
To his surprise, he felt the old man's hands come up and help him up, stunning him so much that he couldn't even complain... Not until he was standing back up at least. "Don't touch me!" He hissed at the old man, wrenching himself away from him.
"Don't try to walk without having support." The old man said stubbornly, and Frieza scowled at him.
Old people.
How he loathed them.
For some reason, they always seemed to think that they were wiser than him, always feeling the need to impart their wisdom and always being so stubborn.
Always trying to tell him their moral philosophies or go on about life experience as if it mattered at all.
They were by far the worst part of any population to subjugate.
So fragile, yet so irritating.
He was glad he'd never met either of his grandfathers or grandmothers. He would have hated them most.
"Tch." In response to the old man's command, Frieza raised into the air, slipping out of his grip and taking a seat back onto the bed. "You're lucky that I was in need of cybernetics, old man." He stated coldly. "Under ordinary circumstances I would simply have vaporized you, but given that you or the woman saved my life, I suppose I can grant you the same in return."
"Hey! Show a bit of gratitude! If we hadn't taken off those organics, you'd be dead right now!" The woman retorted, glaring over at Frieza. "Merce wanted to leave you in the desert... Maybe he was right to think that."
"Bite your tongue woman! You don't know who you're speaking to!" Frieza replied, turning his dark glare onto her.
"I don't take kindly to people taking such a tone with me, and I think I recall you causing me quite a lot of pain earlier." Frieza extended his finger outwards towards her, though the woman stood unflinching.
"Well, you're not the most ungrateful person I've ever seen." A new voice said, catching all of their attention and causing everyone to turn towards a darker corner of the room, where another older man- who Frieza recognized as The Elder- was speaking. Seeing him now in comparison to the other old man, he was hardly what Frieza would consider "an Elder"... However, his eyes shined with a kind of wisdom that the older man lacked.
Something even Frieza recognized.
At the time, he had assumed it was because of this one's age, but looking at him now...
A laugh escaped Frieza's throat as he looked towards the man.
"So... You're the leader of this little band."
A/N: Sorry that took so much longer than normal. Some stuff came up over the last few weeks and I kinda got hit with writers block for this chapter, so sorry if some of it doesn't flow as well as it usually would.
So, lets talk a bit about this chapter. Sadly its still going a lot slower than I would have hoped in terms of how much time is passing between each scene, so hopefully we'll pick up the pace soon. Aside from that, I hope you're all still with me so far.
It was a lot of fun to write about Frieza vs The Beast, though admittedly that was one of the parts where writers block was hitting me the hardest.
Oh and on that subject, I should probably talk about how I'm running power levels for this story. As some of you might know, I'm taking a lot of inspiration from Bringer of Death with the writing of this fic, so I'm intending to also borrow its power level system as well.
Some of you might not understand what exactly that's going to entail so I'll quickly break it down here.
(ALL credit goes to Npberryhill and Davidstarlingam for creating this system, please check out BoD if you feel so inclined)
Frieza's Full Power is 120 million.
With most of his body torn apart, the power levels we've seen him at have been fluctuating from 900,000 (when Cooler found him) to 1 Million (after healing tank) and lastly at 3 Million (vs The Beast). The reason for the fluctuation in power is due to the fact that Frieza is so heavily injured. Ki is effectively life energy, so it flows best through organic material and the more you have to work with the easier its going to be. Frieza's life energy had been literally decreased by his injuries on Namek, and the loss of his limbs also meant that he couldn't exert as much power as he usually would have been able to even though they've been healed.
Now this doesn't mean that Frieza has experienced a permanent loss in power. His life energy is still within him its just being tapered off and held within his center mass, unable to escape to let him power up.
This is where his cybernetics come in. Ki flows easier through living beings, but as we see with Android 17 in Super there's nothing saying that Ki can't flow through non-organic parts, only that it has a harder time than it usually would be able to.
So there's also no reason why Frieza won't be able to access more of his power than he was able to as a cripple now that he has limbs.
Additionally, Frieza's bulked up form also has an effect on his power output. Due to his muscles expanding, his Ki is able to leak out more freely, effectively allowing him to unleash up to twice as much power as he was able to beforehand.
As a result, the power levels for Frieza are as follows
100% Frieza (Namek): 120 million
100% Frieza (injured, Namek): 60 million and dropping
Frieza (Cooler arrival): 900,000
100% Frieza (Cooler arrival, hypothetical): 1.8 million
Frieza (injured, vs Beast): 3 Million
Frieza (Cybernetics, full output): 5 Million
Frieza (Cybernetics, damaged): 10 Million
Notice that I don't say "100%" in that last one, this is because even though Frieza would be using his bulked up state, his Cybernetics are not designed to output much more energy than 5 Million units, and by using his bulked up state he will be slowly but surely destroying his Cybernetic limbs.
Oh and if you're curious
The Beast: 1 Million
The Beast (post-Nova Bomb): 4 Million
Why is this? Ohohohoho, wouldn't you like to know?
In any case, its time for reviews, and BOY do we got some big ones today.
(FFN) God Emperor Of GAR-halla: So, if Cooler foguth Goku as a Super Saiyan on Namek, would he have won where Freiza failed?
Based on the BoD power levels for Cooler vs Cooler's 5th form (80 Million and then 150 million respectively), which are both canon to this story as well, Cooler would have been much more of a match for Goku than Frieza was. Would he have won?
Well its possible, since I'm taking the BoD system I'm also going to be taking its negatives, such as the way they handle Super Saiyan (with it being +145 million instead of a flat multiplier), which makes Goku's Super Saiyan only 148 million to Cooler's 150.
It would definitely be a pretty close match. I can't tell you who would win to be fully honest.
(FFN) Doctor Snake Eater: I can only imagine the complete and utter catharsis Cooler felt when he transformed and just tossed Frieza out that airlock. Not an undeserved action, Frieza has a lot to redeem himself for after all, though starting off quadriplegic with no access to his empire and its funds sure is one hell of a start. He's got his work cut out for him!
Oh for sure, Frieza is gonna have a hard road ahead of him. Life doesn't tend to pull its punches, but maybe it'll hit him extra hard for all he's done.
But hey, at least he's not a quadriplegic anymore!
For this next one, I've decided to break it down into more of a conversation format between me and MLPSU/Zoey, because they have posted multiple long comments. I love that, thank you, but also this means that there are a lot of points to address and I don't want a reader to get lost.
(FFN) ZoeyCares: I always find it a shame that splendid stories are often overlooked... It seems most people want a quick and cheap thrill of a copy/paste meme rather than an introspective, well though out story. They seems to despise indulging or considering a story that is "Too Long Didn't Read" or that hasn't been sitting around for years where everyone who read it has already vouched for it...
I personally agree very heavily with this statement, a lot of fanfics that I've read or gone through have often been jumping from action scene to action scene without a lot of introspection. For a character like Goku or Vegeta this is mostly fine, getting them to shift over to a certain mindset or belief is relatively easy, but for a character like Frieza... It definitely requires a much more thoughtful and introspective approach to get him over to being a slightly better person- nevermind an entirely good guy.
I really love the story even if it is artfully convoluted (Cooler could just kill Frieza, or blow up the Planet, or wait for Frieza to die in space, but perhaps he did want to show his little brother his new abilities and such... Hope he had a better reason that that though).
I wonder why Cooler allowed Frieza to live. I'm sure he knew Frieza would most likely survive the fall... It's completely obvious that allowing your adversary to survive is a way for things to backfire for you.
Actually, Cooler did indeed expect Frieza to die there. It makes more sense when you think about it logically. Frieza has been starving to death for the last few months, he's weak, missing almost all of his limbs and you've just reopened all of his wounds and then you shot him in the face and threw him out into reentry. If the fall, burning up on reentry or his wounds didn't kill him, then the desert absolutely would have. Frieza's people need a lot of water to survive, so the desert is effectively a death sentence for someone like Frieza- who doesn't know how to thrive out there and is, again, absurdly injured.
Cooler was certain that Frieza's death was assured regardless of what happened... But he also wanted his brother to suffer a bit in death. He wanted to have Frieza die of thirst, alone and forgotten on an alien planet to make up for all of the suffering he brought Cooler during their child and adulthood.
So if you want, you can rationalize it as him choosing to let Frieza live in the belief that the planet was otherwise abandoned.
Sadly for Cooler, Salza's scans didn't account for a group of Cyborg people who's Ki signatures would be difficult to find.
So... Will the story be SPLIT between Cooler, Cold, and Frieza now or just FOCUS on Frieza?
We will have time with Cooler and Cold, but it will mostly be Frieza's story from here on.
I don't see how Frieza will change though... I don't see how it's possible. Hope you can make sense of it for me?
Heh. Change is a process, and a gradual one at that. Its going to take a lot out of him, but I think its entirely possible for Frieza to become a better person.
Redemption doesn't necessarily mean you become a good guy, after all.
I will say that I HOPE that there are MORE differences. Changing ONE thing and keeping the rest of the story the same ALWAYS ruins it for me... ESPECIALLY the same LINEAR PATH Frieza - Cell - Buu. Consider Changing it up a bit?
OH MY GOD YES, WE ARE DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO BE GOING THROUGH THE SAME FRIEZA - CELL - BUU BULLSHIT THAT EVERYONE ELSE DOES!
It is a personal pet peeve of mine whenever I read fanfics or watch What-Ifs when we don't seriously veer off from the main story. What-If YouTube has this the worst out of them all (looking at you Masako), with the characters always going down the same preset path with very little to NO variation to what happens! I have no intention of spoiling any of you on my plans, but we are NOT going to follow that same path, I have some pretty impressive twists I'm working on, and I hope you'll all enjoy them...
I PERSONALLY just assume King Cold is around 1,000,000 power level OR can NOT transform past his second form. I WANT Frieza to have been the most powerful being at that time... Take out GT and SUPER and such things, you know? I'm tired of meeting a new "Most Powerful In The Universe" Every Week.
I have my own thoughts about King Cold that we'll get to at a later time, but as for Super and GT I will admit that I have plans to incorporate elements of Super into this story. Admittedly I don't know if I intend to follow any of Super or GT's major plotlines, but elements from both will be explored here.
I don't know if my second review went in but this is a second question I had after reading chapter 3:
It did. Due to you being a guest it just didn't auto approve. I had to go in and manually choose which one to add in and I selected this one.
Did Frieza ever hit or attack Cooler? I think it would be a good idea to establish that so we know because if Frieza only used mean words it would mean that ironically Cooler cause physical pain to Frieza that Frieza may never have done to Cooler...
Frieza mostly aired on the side of emotional and mental abuse, but he has struck his brother on occasion, though its not his preferred method of hurting Cooler
You did mention that Cold did hit Cooler but you didn't establish at what degree he hit or what violence was used on Frieza and Cooler if any at all (The anime said Frieza was "Caused Pain" by both parents but your story may differ if you chose it to)...
Cold is explicitly more abusive towards Cooler than Frieza, and there's a reason for that. One we shall get to in the future.
And how exactly did Frieza start killing his subordinates so easily and yet Cooler as far as I know hasn't killed any of his subordinates? Cold did seem like an in between version of Cooler and Frieza... Did he maybe establish that it was okay but to use restraint and Cooler chose restraint and Frieza choose killing whoever looked at him wrong?
Frieza picked it up from his Father (who, yes, was a bit more restrained than his sons), and in addition was just never reprimanded for not doing it so he got used to terminating certain subordinates for their failures.
Cooler was similar for a bit, but he learned that having your men's honest respect tended to make them work better than when they were afraid of him, although the Armored Squadron do still have a healthy fear for their boss. Plus, since his army was smaller it was more cost effective to use restraint.
Bendez and Merce is a Mercedes Benz? They did the fusion dance...?
Hoda is an Honda Accord...
Is Bendez Hoda Merce your actual name?
HA
no
But you are correct that they are cars/car brands.
Mercedes, Benz and Honda to be exact.
And the Doctor's name is Ford.
That is the official name pun for all of these OCs going forward, I will name them after cars/manufacturers/brands.
Phew
Alright that's everyone so I'm just gonna post this one raw. Usually I'd do a bit more editing but we're kinda extra late on the deadline I set for myself, so we can take a small hit to quality for the very end.
So with that all said
Until Next Time True Readers!