The sunlight filters down through a canopy of infinitesimal holes, its red glow barely managing to illuminate more than a few feet in front of him. Granules of long since eroded rock pelt his ivory skin- transforming it into a filthy brown in places- and it batters against his metallic limbs. Those were native to this planet, designed for this kind of weather- the 'paint' being more resistant to accumulating dirt than his skin was, leaving it a glimmering shiny silverish white.
A scarf is pulled in front of him, obscuring his nose and lower face to protect it from the dust and allow him to breathe easier. A shawl was pulled over his head and shoulders, and a baggy set of clothes clung loosely to the rest of his torso and legs, meant to assist him in keeping the heat out. At first, he had refused to wear it, believing that his body which could survive any climate would suffer no ill effects from the desert soon. He chose, instead, to go in the nude as his people were accustomed to doing on their home planet. An hour later, when it felt as though he was cooking alive due to the blistering red sun that was bearing down upon him, Frieza made the decision to listen to the native leader and quickly dressed himself in the clothes. He found the outfit to look almost ridiculous on him, but it was significantly less painful than allowing his skin to broil beneath the planet's blood red sun. In addition, it was definitely helping him to breathe easier under these conditions.
Conditions that were rapidly becoming less and less acceptable as the sandstorm went on.
Of course, he could have easily wiped away the sandstorm or flown above it, but the power needed to do either would make him lose sight of the old fool in front of him, a fact that he simply could not abide given the circumstances. Without him, the chances of Frieza finding his way through the barren desert were slim. Whether or not he liked this situation, or liked the man, it was the case that he needed him for the time being.
Then again...
He was their leader. The man in charge of the settlement that Frieza had been brought to a week earlier. Perhaps if he had an... Accident while out here, Frieza could use the ensuing power vacuum and his prior credentials as Lord of The Universe to take control over the settlement and then force all of the poor fools there to rebuild the spaceship for him without him having to hold up any kind of deal...
He sighed through his scarf. No, he couldn't get away with something like that, as much as he wished he could. It would be far too suspicious, and even though he could easily wipe out anyone who dared to question him... His eyes glanced down towards the silver cybernetics attached to him. Even though he was grateful for them, Frieza was no fool. They posed a particular threat, if he ever got out of hand it would take only a push of a button to reduce him to a quadriplegic again. And worse, this time he would be without any organic limbs, a far worse position than what he was in after his battle on Namek...
And even if that wasn't true- if he could in some way prevent them from shutting down his limbs- forcing them to build his ship could have disastrous results. If they believed he'd killed off their village elder, or if they simply resented him for taking control by force, they could purposely design the ship to malfunction at a crucial juncture or build it so poorly that it exploded on takeoff! And while neither of those would prove fatal to him, he couldn't afford to lose access to a means of escaping this wretched dust ball of a planet.
Therefore, for the time being at least, Bendez- their leader- had to live...
And worse, he had to hold up his end of their bargain...
'Bargain...' Frieza thought with a sneer, recalling the damned deal that he had agreed to make with the natives of this planet. It was really a fair deal all things considered... But the fact that he'd had to barter with these cretins at all was a desecration of his rights as the Lord of the Universe...
One week ago, after Frieza had awoken from his exhaustion as well as the... Surgery that was performed on him to give him his cybernetic limbs, the Emperor of the Universe had begun to discuss with Bendez.
He'd rapidly explained his situation to him, as well as introduced himself as the Emperor of the Universe, to which Bendez had responded in kind, introducing himself as the village's leader. It was amusing how he'd done it; it was almost like he believed the two to be equals in his mind, as if the Emperor of the Universe was somehow an equal to the equivalent of a mayor.
Once their introductions were finished, Frieza wasted no time in asking him for one thing and one thing only:
"Is there any way that your people can provide me with a ship to leave this planet? Are there any spaceports that you are aware of or is this village in any way spacefaring?" It was a longshot, admittedly, but Frieza knew that it was better to at least check first. Even one such as he can be pleasantly surprised on occasion. After all, it would hardly have been the most shocking thing to have happened in the past year.
But of course, his worries had been confirmed- as if their Speeder hadn't been indication enough. "Unfortunately, this world isn't particularly advanced, and my people haven't been able to traverse space for many generations." Bendez said. "To be entirely honest, I don't think my people have interacted with an outsider since we arrived on this world, although its possible that older records just weren't kept..."
At first, Frieza was dejected- and then swiftly filled with irritation... And fury... But then... Then his head perked up, having caught on to the hidden message behind the man's words, why, even though it was "unfortunate", he was speaking with a pleasant tone. "I see. So you aren't native to this planet? Given your tone, I'm willing to bet that that isn't all there is to the story."
Bendez shook his head, a wry smile forming on his face. One that Frieza instinctively disliked- it was reminiscent of one that his father would give just before making an offer. "No, in fact we are not. As far back as the records go, we've only been on this world for a thousand years or so, although the records don't cover everything so it could be longer or shorter give or take. What I do know for certain however, is that we were at one time spacefaring. And I know that because we are currently inside of the vessel my ancestors used to arrive." He gestured around, and Frieza found that it did make sense. The structure felt unbearably humid and hot despite being so dark, so it wasn't a cave system they were in- and when the other's walked their feet clanked against the ground like metal on top of metal...
But that begged another question; why? Why hadn't they left the planet if they were capable of doing so?
Yet Frieza perked up even more now, not willing to allow that question to perturb him for the moment and simply focusing on the optimisitc side of things. A ship already? Truly Cooler had made a severe oversight! Or perhaps something about these beings made it difficult for the Scouters to detect them... In either case, Frieza couldn't help but to smugly look upon the other being, his own wry smile appearing... But this one morphed into a dark smirk. He'd simply kill them all and take the ship for himself! Sure, piloting could be difficult but he could simply keep the old man alive long enough to tell him how it worked and-
"Unfortunately, it isn't what I or anyone else would consider space worthy anymore. Much of it has rusted away over the centuries, there are holes all over the outside from rust. Although the engine still runs, its what provides the entire settlement enough power to keep going. In any case, this means that most of the ship's systems should still be accessible if we brought the computer online, although that would take time... As well as the effort of Doc Ford's engineering skills..." As if he had picked up on what Frieza was thinking, the other man spoke up. Immediately, Frieza's spark of joy had been dashed, as though sand had been thrown on it, and he looked over at the other man with contempt.
Yet, the other man simply continued on, not paying the Emperor's annoyed look any heed. "But... If we had the resources and if we had somewhere else to live once you took our ship, as well as power to continue our lifestyle since you'd be taking the generators..." He trailed off, looking over and into Frieza's eyes. Frieza's irritation only increased, he knew precisely where the other leader was going with this. It was a simple kind of deal... A trade off.
A bargain.
"I could be convinced to part with our ancestral home, and I suppose a number of our men would be willing to assist Doctor Ford in having it all repaired and ready to take on space travel again by the end of the year..."
Frieza growled, hating where this was going and wanting desperately to protest... Yet even as he did, he searched his mind for a counteroffer... and came up blank. His cybernetics almost certainly were connected to some kind of deactivation switch so enslaving the encampment wasn't an option- not until he figured out how to avoid having them shut down- and he himself couldn't begin to fix the ship. He wouldn't even know where to start, or how even to solve the rusting problem! Not to mention that he'd need to somehow bring the computer controlling the ship back online? Damn it!
His hands were tied.
"Of course, someone would have to take up the slack left behind by those workers as well. I can't afford to take twenty men off of water collecting, hunting and perimeter defense to work on a project without taking massive hits to all of the above..." He trailed off, and went to continue when at least Frieza let out an exasperated shout-
"Alright! I get the point!" He snarled at him, baring his teeth and scrunching his face up, as well as jutting a finger towards the other man, who licked his lips nervously and watched his finger before glancing outside to where the Doctor- Ford was his name- had been waiting. Frieza could see his silhouette through the glass window. He was faced towards Frieza, and he felt his fear come to life as, indeed, his Cybernetic hand locked up, although the rest of his cybernetics remained functional... For the time being at least.
'Clever...' He thought, begrudgingly giving them praise. 'Hiding the fact that I can't move from me as to not immediately arouse my anger. Well, A for effort, but the result leaves something to be desired.' He thought scornfully, glaring at the window for another instant before refocusing back onto Bendez, not trying to move his hand yet. That had been his test to see if they could shut down his Cybernetics...
His hypothesis had been proven correct.
"You want me to assist you in exchange for a functional ship." He said in a much calmer tone, sitting back. He looked at his metallic limb, feigning confusion as it refused to move.
"A precaution." Bendez explained at his look, although his tone told Frieza that he'd seen through the Emperor's ploy. "A person of your power requires us to take some extra security measures, although Hoda was exceedingly against it, if that endears you to her at all."
It didn't.
His arm came back online a moment later, and Frieza retracted it while rubbing the limb with his other hand, irritated that he was technically at their mercy for the time being. Certainly, he could still kill them all with ease even without his limbs, so it didn't cause him rage... Although he certainly detested them for doing this and was already considering nuking the planet when he left as punishment for their 'precautions'.
"But..." Bendez sighed, sitting up straighter now. Frieza hadn't noticed it before, but the man looked as though he'd been ready to move at a moment's notice as soon as the Emperor lifted his hand. An admirable, if not completely useless, effort. "Getting back on track, you're right. It's a simple deal, we oil your cybernetics, you oil ours."
Frieza looked at him in bewilderment, previous rage vanishing entirely and being replaced on his face.
"You... Don't have the expression?" He frowned. "Well, in essence... You help us and we'll help you. We both stand to gain quite a lot from this partnership, Emperor." He stands up and takes a few steps forward before offering his hand to Frieza, a universal gesture of agreement, one even Frieza was familiar with and engaged in quite often.
Frieza stood up as well, and crosse his arms over his chest for a moment, still considering rejecting the offer...
Ultimately though, he understood.
This wasn't something he could refuse.
Or rather, something he couldn't afford to refuse. He absolutely needed them to repair the ship for him.
He stood there for a moment, thinking hard about his next move. If he wanted, he could blitz this one and shoot a beam through the Doctor's chest before he could shut him down... But then a realization struck him.
The Doctor had been the one to install his, and presumably everyone else's, cybernetics. He was likely the most intelligent one here, and he was the one who shut his cybernetics down with a mere thought.
They had trapped him.
He needed the Doctor to repair the ship, that much was an absolute and irrefutable fact of the situation. And that very same doctor is the one who can deactivate his cybernetic parts at a moment's notice, making him the perfect means of keeping Frieza in check. Even if he managed to kill off Bendez, there was no chance that he'd be able to force the Doctor to work with him. Even holding hostages would be improbable as without his cybernetics he would have quite a lot of trouble holding enough of the village hostage to convince the rest to obey him in the long term. And even if he managed that, he would be putting his faith into people who wanted him dead to build him a ship that wouldn't simply explode upon breaching the atmosphere.
His best option would be to accept the deal and play his cards right. A chance to take over the village may pop up later...
And if not, he could always destroy the planet before he left.
"...Fine." He reached his own cybernetic limb out and accepted Bendez', wincing as the metal limbs grated against one another. "Deal."
Of course, Frieza was starting to regret his choice to accept their terms.
The first thing he'd done after their conversation was relearning the basics of movement. The fact that his cybernetics were hooked directly into his nervous system (he didn't question how they'd managed that without killing him, and part of him didn't want to know.) made the process of relearning how to walk and do more complex tasks with his hands easier, but these natives had failed to realize that Frieza's species balanced on a tail- and the lack of one was throwing him off.
At least, it had been when he'd first started out, but by now he'd managed to get used to walking without the extra appendage. It was difficult, for certain, but he'd eventually managed to get the hang of it after a few days. Of course, he requested that a tail be designed for him after explaining the situation of his species to Doctor Ford. Unfortunately, the doctor had informed him that without anything to base it off of, he would need time to design and then build a cybernetic tail attachment. Frieza was... Irritated... but understanding. In this case, he knew better than to expect an immediate resolve to this issue- although he desperately wished that wasn't the case.
Once he had deemed him ready to begin, Bendez wasted no time in forcing Frieza to begin holding up his side of their deal. He'd come to the tyrant about a week later, after he'd settled in and begun to understand life around the village, with an idea.
"There's a place a few clicks east of our ship, it's a plateau of sorts that myself and Merce had discovered while out hunting." He had explained, and Frieza quickly rolled his eyes and told him to hurry it along. "Right, that's not really important... Basically, at the time I didn't think much of it. It wasn't like we could do anything with it. But now that I've seen what you can do... I have an idea for how you can fulfil at least one part of your bargain." He'd said, his golden eyes glistening with a clear excitement.
He hadn't said much else, only that Frieza could be able to do something to the plateau to make it into some kind of livable location. Frieza had accepted, obviously. At the time he was simply overjoyed to know that a portion of the deal he'd made with Bendez and these creatures could be fulfilled, which would allow him the time needed to begin working on what he was going to do to Cooler as soon as he left this forsaken world. Plus, he had assumed that the walk there wouldn't be too terribly long- a day maybe.
Naturally, as if the universe itself was out to get him, Frieza had been incorrect.
It had been a day.
Yesterday.
And today, much like the day before it, was more endless walking through barren desert and scalding sun and wretched sandstorms!
Somehow, the tyrant had come to loathe the sandstorms more than the sun. Sure, the sun was all encompassing- he was frankly surprised these savages didn't worship it with how... oppressive it was- but the sandstorms...
Those had long since managed to get on his nerves. From the moment he'd arrived on this barren world to this very instant, sandstorms had followed him. When he'd crashed earlier in the week, the first thing he saw was dust from a storm he himself had formed on impact. Then, first thing that had tried to kill him on this planet had announced its presence with more dust and now that very same wretched irritating dust had yet again billowed up by the force of the winds from hell to torment him further! Sand battered at his once pristine skin, turning it a molted, ugly brown. It dug in between the small crevices where his servos met with his flesh, irritating his wounds with every movement, causing horrendous pain as tiny granules met with whatever remained of the charred skin beneath his Bio-Gems. His only saving grace was that his arms had mostly healed by now. Sharp stings were all that they were, unable to reopen his scars.
By comparison, the sun was almost welcomed by the tyrant.
It beat down on the world like a God on top of his throne, looking upon his dominion and passing judgement on all which he saw. Casting on them blistering boiling skin... Or granting them the energy needed to move.
Frieza could relate to that, although he loathed being subject to this tyrannical deity's whims.
Indeed, Frieza knew both sides of the sun, and though he loathed the first, he was amicable to the latter, and due to it was... Forgiving. For the time being at least, after all, he lacked the ability to wipe out a star.
At least for now.
So he might as well accept what little charity this one was willing to give.
Frieza had noticed the night before that his cybernetics were much more lethargic than they were under ordinary circumstances. After a bit of prodding he'd come to the conclusion that, indeed, there were tiny solar panels imbedded on the cybernetics. Running up the length of his arms and then on the back of his hands- places that were exposed to the sun more than any other part on his body, even the clothing given to him by Bendez left these areas out in the sun for the most part. And he was sure that there were some on his leg prosthetics, although he had yet to locate those one's exactly- probably they were on the back of his legs.
But more importantly than any of that, seeing the sun meant that he wasn't buried within these godforsaken sandstorms!
Frieza marched forward a few more yards, gritting his teeth beneath his scarf and glaring directly ahead through his shawl at the man leading him. Bendez.
Again, the thought to kill him crossed the Emperor's mind, but he refused it. Even if it had been his idea to go through the sandstorm, killing Bendez was still doing more harm than good for Frieza's ultimate goals. He shuddered at himself in spite of the heat. Showing mercy like this was unbecoming of him, especially given the fact that Bendez was the reason for all this in the first place...
An hour earlier, the two men had spotted the sandstorm coming in, Frieza had, understandably, assumed it was one of those creatures that he'd killed the week prior and told Bendez that they should go around it. Not because Frieza was afraid of it- he was certain that he could easily kill another should the need arise- but because he didn't want to be walking through the desert longer than he had to be and assumed that walking through the sandstorm and fighting one of those beasts would slow them down dramatically. In response, Bendez had told him that it would be faster to just go through the storm, as well as something else of interest...
"There's only one Sandflier." He'd said when Frieza had brought up the concerns regarding the beast. "And you killed it last week." He'd finished with a grin... A look that Frieza decided he didn't like.
It was a... weird look to see in this context for Frieza. Usually, grins were reserved for cruelly tormenting villagers or after a long day's work of conquest while congratulating one another. Frieza had never seen such a... Genuine version of the look. Even his father and brother, and even himself, only ever grinned while doing something cruel or finding something amusing. And hardly ever at one another...
Well, there was... One time where they all grinned like Bendez was at that moment, but Frieza didn't like to think about that part of his life. He didn't like to think about his mother at all, really.
Unaware of what to do, he had simply taken the compliment and smirked in reply. "It was easy for one such as myself! I'm surprised no one had done it sooner."
Of course, his previous bravado had vanished following their entrance into this-
"Blasted sandstorm." Frieza hissed out, fed up with the entire bloody thing. He usually tried to avoid using such language, but in this case, he was more than willing to make an exception. He was tired of holding his hand up and squinting, tired of getting sand in his eyes in spite of that, tired of covered in coarse, rough, and irritating SAND! And he was tired of trudging along getting nowhere fast!
He was done with this.
"Bendez!" He shouted over the wind, causing the native to stop and look back at him.
"What?" He called back, and Frieza could just about make out his golden eyes locked with his own magenta ones.
Frieza didn't answer immediately. Instead, he quickly made his way over to the other man. "I'm done with this! You said it would only last a few minutes!" Yes, that had been why he'd put up with this one for so long, Bendez had told him that it wouldn't take very long before it dissipated. Of course, he probably should have guessed that had been a lie, the ones that battered the ship at home could last hours.
'No, not "home"' He corrected himself quickly, irritated that he'd even made that slip up in his mind. 'Temporary residence.' He reminded himself before continuing on with the words that he was dreading to say.
"Grab... onto... me..." He managed to grit out. Frieza hated the idea of being touched by the hands of someone he viewed as an inferior, even with his permission, but he knew he couldn't abandon him, so there was only one reasonable path forward to take... As much as he hated it.
Bendez wasn't sure what he was doing, but he put his faith into Frieza in that moment and reached out with his own golden colored cybernetics, gripping Frieza's arm. Thankfully, the sound of metal grating metal didn't manage to pass over the sound of the wind roaring in their ears. In spite of it, he still gritted his teeth. He was able to feel sensations like these thanks to the fact that the cybernetics were hooked into his nervous system, and he hated the idea of being held in such an undignified manner, but he had no other choice.
Once his guide was locked in, Frieza let out a shout and powered up his energy, releasing a counterforce of gale wind from his person which whipped out and blew away the sandstorm around them! In a single moment, Frieza had established himself over the nature of this planet and the world reacted like an animal which had been wounded, retracting itself away from him, leaving the two men to bask in the glorious red shine above.
"We're done walking." Frieza told him. "We're flying the rest of the way." He added, completely prepared to ignore the man's protests. "A day or so..." He added under his breath, kicking himself for being so arrogant as to assume that walking anywhere on this miserable planet would take less than a day.
Bendez didn't protest. "Well you'll have to carry me, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to tell where it is from the air..." He said and grew increasingly more uncertain of this idea. "And I've never been..." He swallows. "In the sky before..." He had rapidly switched to protesting the idea.
Frieza smirked. The older man had never flown? It made sense he supposed, but... He didn't care. "Well then, this should prove to be enlightening." Frieza said, choosing to disregard his pride if only to get Bendez back for dragging him out here in the first place. Grabbing the shorter old man, glad for their substantial size difference, he took to the air without a second thought, listening to Bendez's worried scream all the way up.
'Like music.'
Some few hours later, the two men had returned to the ground. In spite of Frieza's effort to get there as quickly as possible, the sun had already started to set by the time they'd arrived at the plateau- a fact that Frieza blamed on Bendez. Apparently he needed to be able to see where they were going in order to lead them there and back. He could do this from the air but moving at the speed of light or even at the speed of sound was too much for Bendez to keep up with, so the pair ended up flying for a solid few hours. Something Frieza was less than pleased about.
In the end they'd made it to the plateau and had decided to set up camp on top of the massive rock structure, since this was more well-guarded than sleeping on the sand below. They'd spent their last hours of daylight setting up a pair of tents that they'd secured from the ship before leaving. At one point, Bendez had asked Frieza to make him a firepit in the ground. Frieza wasn't inclined to oblige him at first until the old man brought up that they'd need something to cook their meals.
Frieza loathed having to eat like these savages- they ate bugs! Bugs!
Hundred legged insects as large as a man! And what was worse- they dig out of the sand! Frieza found it completely repulsive, and on his first day of living on this barren rock he'd shuddered and handed off the food they'd offered him to the first person who wanted it. His kind were able to go quite a long time without food, so Frieza had spent most of the week subsisting off of water, however he couldn't deny that he was a tad hungrier than normal- probably had to do with the effects of the desert. His kind were used to being in frigid or tropical environments, and while the desert was akin to at least one of those, Frieza would be lying if he said that this place was anything close to tropical. The effects of dehydration on his body weren't something Frieza was well studied on since, well, it had never been a problem before, but he assumed that it probably meant he would need to gain nutrients from two places.
Besides, after trying one he found that the insect that they ate was... Like a crustacean. Or at least close enough that he hardly noticed- it was a bit... He grimaces at this thought... Juicer than a crab or lobster would have been.
But, given how long he'd been out in the hot sun, burning away and growing steadily more dehydrated, Frieza relented and shot his hand out, creating a small five foot across firepit.
Bendez had gathered some nearby plantlife and tossed it in before striking a black rock with his metallic limb. A glorious yellow spark- one that even surprised Frieza when he'd first seen it- leapt from his hand and onto the plants. After that, it started to smoke and Bendez leaned his entire body down, blowing hard on it. After a minute, one lit up and began to spread the flames to the others, causing each dead plant to combine into one roaring fire.
Frieza knew, obviously, how fire worked, he had just never seen one started in such a primitive manner. Had his own ancestors, thousands and thousands of years ago, used this method for starting their own fires when they moved onto whatever landmasses there were during the tropical season? He searched his mind for answers and found that... He didn't know. They were far stronger than this man by several orders of magnitude, so it was unlikely... But Frieza couldn't rule it out. Primitive peoples had surprised him before...
Their ingenuity certainly couldn't be matched. As the Emperor takes a seat on a rock nearby to the fire, he calls back to a time when he, Zarbon and Dodoria were wiping out a civilization not unlike Bendez'. He remembers how weak they were, how their greatest weapons were of no match against even the lowest Frieza soldier. It was a campaign that lasted perhaps a week or so, and yet...
And yet he was struck by the memory of one man, a bit older than that standoffish Merce, who had set an ambush for his men while they were heading through the forest. He'd slaughtered an entire platoon of people by laying out a simple rope trap, convincing them all to be strung up in the rope, and dousing them with blankets infected with some kind of pathogen native to the world. A few of the men found these ones a day later, and they too fell ill. Eventually, the entire encampment was slaughtered. Frieza had survived of course, but Zarbon had to be moved off world and taken to a medical center. Dodoria had proved immune to the effects.
But those details weren't what caused this moment to stick out to Frieza. No, what he found so interesting that he'd carried the memory with him for all this time was... That man had weaponized his own native disease against a fighting force infinitely more powerful and well trained than he could ever hope to be.
And he'd almost succeeded in wiping them out.
Really, Frieza was almost sad to have him executed. He would have made a fine tactician. But a man like that never would have submitted to being his general, he almost certainly would have tried to kill him in his sleep had he been allowed to live.
And seeing Bendez now, how he used tools in place of raw power, he was reminded of that young man and just how adaptive primitive civilizations can really be.
'Adaptive...' He thought to himself, furrowing his brows. He remembers the other terms of their deal now, how they need something to replace the power that the generator is using. His brows furrowing further, tightening into a well-knit knot of focus as he ponders on this. An idea wriggles in the back of his mind as he does, like a worm burrowing through his brain and offering him new ways to look at things.
And then at last the tension built in his brow lessons and a smirk appears on his face- he's got it!
'The Solar Panels!' He looks at the tiny devices on his arm. 'The doctor builds all of these from scratch! Which means he knows, in some ways, how to build small ones!' A chuckle escapes his lips and Bendez looks over at him with expectant eyes. Once the sun had gone down, the old man had stopped wearing his hood and his usually vibrant eyes were much duller shade now- yet they still glimmered like sparkling gold in the low light gifted to him by the fire, reflecting the orangish yellow flame.
"You seem in high spirits." Bendez said, with a nod towards his look. "Thinking about home?" It was no secret that Frieza wasn't usually the happiest man around the ship, and would often glare or glower at anyone who tried to talk to him- or worse, actively threaten bodily harm. That was unless, of course, he was thinking about home. It was just about the only time that anyone in the village saw him happy, and it was usually the best time to ask him for... Anything really.
Once, earlier in the week, one of the children had approached him at dinner and asked him why he was smiling like that when he never normally smiled. Frieza had answered honestly and told the girl he was thinking about a delicious lobster dinner he'd had once on Anaxus Prime.
Which of course spiraled into the girl asking what a lobster and an "Anaxus Prime" were.
Ordinarily Frieza wouldn't entertain the child, but at the time he desperately wanted to relive old memories, something to get him away from his current present. So he sat down for a bit and begrudgingly regaled those gathered at the table of tales of the planet and the lobster. It lasted for only a few minutes, just long enough for their incessant questions to tire the Emperor out, but it was enough to start to thaw the icy wall that seemed to separate him from the villagers.
Not that Frieza had noticed any difference. From his perspective, it was still the same odd glances and quiet murmurings from everyone he passed. He hated them, but he reassured himself that eventually he would have the chance to take revenge on the ones who looked upon him in such a manner, which placated the Emperor's temper for the time being.
Of course, he never noticed how those he had spoken with had stopped glancing at him like an outsider, or whispering about him when they believed he couldn't see them.
"No." He answered the question without a drop in his excitement. "I have just solved the energy crisis portion of our bargain."
"Is that so?"
"Indeed!" Frieza was elated! At this rate, leaving this planet would come even sooner than he'd hoped. "The solar panels." He said as though it explained everything.
"The what?"
Frieza glared at him and Bendez quickly chuckled, holding up his hands. "I know what you mean! I'm just joking around with you. Don't they have jokes where you're from?" He asks, changing the subject. Frieza huffed in response but decided to let it go for now. After all, it wasn't Bendez he had to inform about this idea, the Doctor would surely know more about his own technology.
"Not with me." Frieza replied coldly. "I tend to command a bit more respect when I am spoken to by others. I only allow you to get away with it because we still have an outstanding bargain."
"Ah yes, I had forgotten." The older man says with mirth in his voice, although it contains hints of seriousness. "You're an Emperor where you're from... And no one ever jokes with you?" He asks, looking at him with a look that Frieza at first mistook for confusion, but as he looked it morphed into... Curiosity? Melancholy? He couldn't tell.
"Of course not!" Regardless, he was insulted by the mere idea. "I am their ruler! They treat me with the adequate amount of respect I command." He smirks darkly, his magenta eyes glinting into the other man's golden ones. "And should they fail to treat me as such, I make examples of them." His dark look only grows as he speaks, but the older man's look doesn't change to fear or disgust. Rather, he remains serious, his eyes continuing to bore into Frieza's with an intensity that he's never seen before. Nonetheless, he continues on. "And whoever's left leaves with a healthy amount of fear." The callous tone in his voice was mismatched by his smirk, which wavered in the face of the old man's look, which hadn't changed since he'd began speaking.
"That is the natural state of a ruler, feared and respected by those they deem their inferiors." He took a sip from his waterskin, listening to the crackle of the fire and allowing it to punctuate his next words. "You could stand to learn a thing or two about ruling." He smirked as soon as he finished the sentence. The man's look had been unwavering before, but now he seemed surprised, although his face fell back into neutrality soon enough.
"And why is that?" Bendez asked, his tone neutral. Now it was Frieza's turn to be surprised, no anger or pain or even indignation at his accusation?
He scoffed, not allowing himself to be put off. "Well, it should be obvious. Those you rule over don't see you as a force to be reckoned with! They're so comfortable around you that they make jokes in your presence! They criticize your rulings! I've heard innumerable times how the men you set to work on the ship mutter about how they find their new positions to be a waste of time. I've heard Merce and the woman complain about their respective jobs- I've seen them question your leadership to both each other and then to your face! I personally wouldn't have tolerated any of that insubordination, they all would have died for their transgressions had it been my ship." Frieza explained, crossing his arms at the man. "They simply don't respect you." For once, Frieza thought he was being helpful. It wasn't often he could impart wisdom onto the lower races, especially wisdom about leadership, so he took this rare opportunity to make someone into an improved version of what they had started as.
But it didn't seem like he wanted to be improved... Or maybe, he thought that he didn't need improvement. "They respect me just fine." The old man replied coolly, taking his own drink from the waterskin before tossing a bit of food onto the fire, letting its sizzle accentuate his own point. "They just don't fear me. And you seem to have the two conflated."
"Oh, I very much know that there is a difference." Frieza countered with a glare. "Respect is following orders without question, serving dutifully and completing goals in a timely manner. Respect is what happens when they fear you. Fear is the vessel that leads them to that point."
"You described fear twice." Bendez replied, his face and tone still neutral. "You make your men fear you- they'll follow orders, they'll serve, and they'll move quickly not because they respect what you do, but because they're afraid of what you'll do if they don't." He plucks a metal bar from one of their camping supplies and begins to prod the fire, keeping it alive. "Respect..." Bendez trails off, contemplating the fire as if remembering some long-forgotten memory. "Respect isn't something you can take, it's something you have to be given- something you have to earn. A man who respects you follows your orders because of what you've done to make yourself worthy of following."
Frieza laughs, a cold, sharp laugh that splits the hot air around the fire and sends shivers down the back of the man in front of him, and yet he remains unwavering. "What a foolish notion." He smirks back at Bendez. "I earned their respect through their fear. They saw what I have done, what I could do, and they chose to serve me."
"Because they're afraid of you." He shakes his head. "That isn't their respect. You're leading them by the throat, they aren't coming by choice."
"Tch, I think they respected me just fine. My power at least." Frieza scoffs, his smirk reverting back into a glare. How dare this wretch question him!?
"Is that why you came here without limbs?" He asked pointedly. "Because your men respected you so much that they threw you out of your own ship?"
Frieza growls at him, his cold glare turning into hot malice in an instant. "Those weren't my men, they belonged to my brother, they didn't know respect because he failed to instill it in them." He snapped at the man, venom spitting from his lips as he spoke. 'How dare he?!' Frieza thought, purely insulted by his words. 'How dare he remind me of that horrendous day?! Is he trying to get himself killed?!' Frieza's fist shook, and he grabbed his dominant hand with his other one, clenching them together to prevent him from shooting his hand out and blasting Bendez into oblivion. It was taking all of his willpower to do so, but he managed to hold it back just barely.
"And is your brother an Emperor too?" Bendez asks, noticing Frieza's fury but somehow remaining calm in the face of it. This only served to infuriated him further, but the Emperor was able to keep himself from exploding at him. Reminding himself that he needed this man... And he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little curious about where this was all going.
And... Now that he was thinking about where he could be going, he was starting to calm down. He might not be able to kill him just yet, but instead he could deconstruct him with words. Yes, that would be a fitting end to this little conversation, wouldn't it?
"No..." Frieza lets out a sigh, letting his rage flow out of him as he does. "My brother is ranked far below me in the hierarchy."
"And these men know how powerful and deadly you are?"
"Well... Yes?" Now he was confused, of course they knew how powerful he was! Why did that matter?
"And your brother, they don't fear him?"
"No, he tends to be far too lenient with his men than he should be..." He trailed off, a hateful memory of the Brench appearing in his mind. "It tends to create insubordination."
Bendez went silent for a moment and jabbed his stick into the flames, stabbing it into the now blackened steak before pulling out his bit of bug flesh and setting it onto a metal plate next to him.
Then, a smirk formed on his face.
"It sounds to me like they respected your brother's leadership more than they feared your power."
Sunlight cascaded down onto Frieza's back as he observed the rock in front of him, causing him to sweat even in the low light of the morning sun. He'd almost missed the pleasant chill of the night before, but shrugged that thought away for now, focusing instead on the job at hand.
Focusing on it so that he wouldn't kill the man behind him.
Last night had been a difficult enough task for Frieza. Especially after what had been said at the end of their... civil debate.
He calls it that because the rest of the debate had rapidly devolved into something very uncivil, into a series of messy insults and death threats from the tyrant, ones that the old man had either laughed off or refused to respond to. Frieza had wanted to argue more... but found himself cornered at every turn by the older man...
Finding himself... unable to attack his final point.
Cooler's men hadn't feared him... But they were willing to follow his orders- to treat someone like Frieza of all people as nothing more than trash to be disposed of! This was in spite of how much they feared him... It didn't make any sense! Did they fear Cooler more than Frieza? It didn't seem that way when he was on the ship. They only flinched away from Cooler when he was angry with them, an understandable reaction from any species weaker than the Arcosian Royals, but they could hardly make eye contact with the Emperor!
Eventually, Frieza had to accept that Bendez might have had a point. Perhaps there were other ways to earn respect than through fear...
Perhaps these ways were... superior, in some ways...
After all, in that moment just before Cooler threw Frieza out of the airlock it was clear that the men weren't afraid of Frieza at all. Rather, they'd respected Cooler enough to protect them from his wrath.
"Bah..." Frieza grumbled and shook his head. Surely that couldn't be true! He was living proof of it, his own men had served him faithfully for decades without showing a sign of rebellion, and they all feared him! They shook when he called upon them, spoke meekly when his eyes turned to face them, and only began to relax just as soon as Frieza was far from their sight! There must have been something else at work when it came to Cooler's men! Maybe his reputation alone wasn't enough to cow them...
He sighed. It didn't matter now, what was done was done, and Frieza was left to clean up the mess left behind. Placing a metallic hand on the ridged, rough rock he craned his neck around to look back at the man who had incited his irritation and called out to him. "Here?"
Bendez paused for a moment, just as he had a dozen times before, and surveyed the area.
Frieza let out another exasperated sigh. 'Hurry up with it you wretched old fool. I can't stand being out here any longer!' He might have been more forgiving if the pair of them hadn't been slowly moving left ever since early that morning, well before the first embers of twilight dawn had even begun to breach the sky, searching for "the perfect place to start" as Bendez had so eloquently put it.
But then, Frieza heard the words he was hoping for.
"Yeah, here's good!"
"Finally." He grumbled. Without a second thought, Frieza shot out a burst of white light from his palm, shooting a cave into the rock lining. It was massively taller than himself, at least a good eight feet in height and maybe six or seven in diameter. "Alright, let's get on with it." He remarked, glancing back towards Bendez before heading into the hole, his metallic feet clanking against the freshly dug rock layer as he did.
The next few minutes went by far faster than the hours before them had, as Frieza and Bendez entered the hole and began to blast free an entire cave network within the rock, careful to place the caverns in such a way where they wouldn't cave in on the pair while still leaving more than enough space to move in the entire civilization. It was lucky that Bendez had picked a spot so large, the network of caves might have been slightly inconvenient for the massive structure, but they wouldn't be enough to throw the mile long rock formation off balance. Plus, it left the civilization with plenty of room to expand over the next few centuries if they wanted, assuming they had enough mining equipment.
Once the cave network had been finished, Frieza blasted a few holes to the top of the plateau for setting up and hooking in the Solar Panels (which would undoubtedly take an incredible amount of time) and the project was finished a half an hour later.
"Alright, we're good to go." Bendez announced, having packed up the last of their stuff. "Now, we came from..." He trailed off for a moment, looking in the direction of the rising sun. "This way so the village home is..." He pointed directly towards the rising sun, and Frieza nodded. That had made sense, they were traveling in the direction of the setting sun the previous two days, so following the sun back was only logical. Of course, there were a few twists on their journey out here, but Bendez would be able to point those out as they came across them.
From the air, that is.
Bendez had taken a step forward when the Emperor grabbed his shoulder, a grin on his face.
Even though he couldn't see it due to the shadows covering his face, Frieza was certain that his color had drained. "Oh no..."
"Oh... Yes." He was going to get him back for earlier, one way or another.
In the next few minutes, the men were traveling by air once again, and were making infinitely better time than they had made the last few days. Although, much to Frieza's chagrin, they did need to fly at a slower speed than he would have liked in order to let Bendez keep track of the direction they were heading in. At this rate it would still be a few hours, but that was far more acceptable than walking over the next few days.
Which had resulted in them spotting something as they flew, something that made Frieza let out a chuckle, of course his way was superior... "Well, aren't we lucky?" Frieza called down to his passenger over the wind. "It looks like we managed to avoid another sandstorm." He sneered, a smarmy look playing across his face.
Below the pair was a massive sandstorm, closer to a sand hurricane really, it whipped the world around it into a frenzy of dust and dirt and seemed to be moving a bit faster than the one they had gone through the day earlier, heading in the opposite direction of the pair.
"I suppose so." Bendez let out a chuckle that Frieza was barely able to make out. "Although its kind of strange..."
"What is?" Frieza asks, looking down at the man and wanting a bit of company to keep himself busy on their flight.
"Well when you blew away all the sand yesterday we left a pretty big dune, I didn't think that a storm would be able to form there for a little while at least..."
"Well obviously the wind must have picked up somewhere ahead of us and dragged the sand back down here." Frieza rolled his eyes, did these people not know how wind worked or something?
"I suppose that makes sense... Although doesn't it look kind of... Weird to you?"
"In what regard?"
"It looks..." Bendez trailed off, sparing one more glance down it as the tornado of wind passed the pair by. "Really fast..."
Frieza rolled his eyes. "That's less unusual than you'd think. Other planets get tornados like that all of the time."
Bendez chuckled. "Well, you'd know more than me about that, so I guess you're right."
"As always."
The village's exterior was made of smooth, black metal that glinted the bleary red rays of sun back towards the sky, creating an almost luminous effect that made it highly visible from the air- from any point in a mile radius really, as long as you were paying attention. In many ways, it stuck out in the desert, a massive black blot of ink buried in a sea of golden sand. A tiny black dot contrasting against a luxurious red sky, sticking out as though it were a target made to be struck.
And it was massive indeed, even from the sky, a towering thing that had, at one time, been designed to take thousands of colonists across the stars and off towards distant worlds, where they would set up new colonies and begin what would have been an amazing space faring empire.
Or that had been what his father had told him, what his father had learned from his grandfather, and his grandfather from his father, and so on and so on. Bendez himself had never doubted the stories, although he did have to question why his ancestor's had decided on here of all places to send them. He'd heard once that it had something to do with the mineral deposits underneath the sand, although that was from Ford who, despite being much older than him, wasn't there during the first days, so that was pure speculation.
In spite of the ship's crashed state, they had indeed apparently intended to arrive here, the crashing came later- some grand catastrophe that had gone on when they entered the atmosphere or something. Records from that time were scarce, the only surviving one being a journal from his ancestor- Sadies- who had claimed that the ship had been brought down by the same creature that hunted their people for generations. The Sand Strider, the Sandflier, the Sand Dragon- the names had changed generation after generation, but they all referred to the same monster.
But that creature had been the bane of his people since they'd arrived- before it, if you believed Sadies' account of the crash. How it had leapt from the air and struck the ship, tearing its beak into the hull and wrenching it apart before bucking its head down and sending the entire crew of almost five thousand colonists into the sand below, where the ship had remained ever since.
Of course, evidence for that had been scarce as well, the ship was worse for wear sure, but there wasn't anything that lent credence to the idea that the Sand Strider had attacked it. The fact that the beast had, for the most part, never found their ship afterwards was amongst the largest bit of evidence against Sadies' account. They'd lived in and around the area for more than ten generations- a thousand years- and the Strider had yet to kill them off...
Although...
It had come very close, not too many months ago.
And for the last thousand years, it had been the main factor dwindling their numbers. Once, they were five thousand, then they were three, then two, then one, and then at last they were five hundred.
Five hundred by the time his grandfather had taken power. Their population was dying then, it wasn't hard to see. Incest was still avoidable, and for the most part there wasn't any- or there were very few- cases of it happening... But it wouldn't have taken much longer for it to become a problem, even if the events of the year prior hadn't happened.
But of course, it was dead now. Frieza had seen to that. Though he didn't know it, he'd done Bendez a great service that day... And more than that, he'd done something that Bendez had wanted to do ever since he was a boy... But was something he should have done a year ago.
Bendez pushed those thoughts away as they crossed the border into the ship, entering through the hanger bay into the gentle shade of the ship. In spite of the ship's black coloring, it provided decent enough shade from the sun. Which when coupled with the ship's internal power supply keeping the outside elements out, it wasn't hard to keep cool when you were deeper in.
Merce and Hoda were waiting for the pair of them when they arrived, and Hoda rushed over to him, wrapping him in a tight hug.
Bendez smiled and hugged her back, careful not to let the sharper bits of his cybernetics dig into her back. She was always sweet, ever since she'd been a little girl.
He'd known her father back in the day, treated Rolait like he was his brother, which of course made her like his niece.
It wasn't an easy transition from "uncle" to "father" for either of them, but he considered her a daughter, and loved her like she was his own. Whether or not she felt the same, he didn't know, and hadn't asked, choosing to leave the uncomfortable subject unbroached- unspoken.
He himself had never had kids, never found a woman who suited him. He supposed that was since he was basically raised alongside them all, even if they weren't technically related, they were like his sisters. Or worse, his daughters in the cases of the younger women around the ship.
He just never saw the reason to have kids of his own, not like Hoda. She'd loved kids, even as a teenager, and had immediately taken to rearing the kids when she was old enough. Then, she and her husband had a pair of kids of their own to add to the pile when she was only twenty or so...
And then in the last year, she'd also taken up water collection.
Taken up the job that her husband had done.
She was good at it... But it wasn't a job that should have been on her, she shouldn't have had to make up for what happened...
It should have been on him.
While he hugged and greeted his daughter, his traveling companion scoffed and rolled his eyes, disgusted. His heavy silver-colored cybernetics clanked against the metal floor heavily as he stormed up to Merce, immediately irritated by the man, who responded in kind.
Bendez couldn't really blame Frieza for that, or Merce for his response. They were both abrasive men, just in different ways. Whereas Frieza was arrogant and authoritative, Merce was a hardass who didn't seem to particularly like anyone. Frieza wanted to be treated like a superior, and Merce hardly even treated Bendez as one. They were destined to grate one another, but that fact didn't make it any easier to watch.
"Alright, where is Doctor Ford?" Frieza demanded quickly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I have something that needs immediate verification."
"Why don't you go find him?" Bendez replied snidely, crossing his arms back. "I don't keep track of everyone in the ship."
That was a lie, Merce, as head of security and the best warrior on the ship- for all intents and purposes the law of the place- was always acutely aware of where people were. It was freaky, to be honest, and Bendez would have suspected him of having some kind of deal with Ford to put tracking devices in people's cybernetics, but Ford had denied it up and down. And Ford had never been a liar, not to Bendez and not to anyone else for that matter.
"Oh please." Frieza hissed back in reply. "Spare me, I don't have time for this. If you don't intend on telling me where he is then I'll find someone more amenable." He gave Hoda a side eye, intended as a threat. However...
It was odd, for some reason Bendez didn't feel it. That same level of malice that had been dripping off of him during their argument the previous night. His threats were credible then, Bendez had been almost certain that he wouldn't end up making it through the night, but now... Now that malice was missing, replaced with mild irritation at best.
Hoda took it differently though, accepting the threat as such and quickly shot a glare back. First at Frieza and then at Merce.
"You don't scare me." She told him, storming up to the former Emperor and getting into his face. "I remember what you looked like when you got here, no arms and legs. Its kinda hard to be scared of someone after that." Her voice was elevated, but she wasn't shouting. Moreso asserting her dominance, which was rather comical given the fact that she was a full foot shorter than Frieza.
Bendez chuckled when the tyrant seemed taken aback, as if he'd never been spoken to in such a way before! The offense on his face, it was like she'd attacked some deep part of his character! He couldn't help but to laugh, at least a little bit.
But before Frieza could respond to either of them (although he certainly was going to, if the glare sent his way was any indication), another sound cut through the momentary silence, a snort coming from the man to his left. In response, the woman rounded onto Merce, this time actively grabbing him by the ear. "And you're not getting out of this either! Don't be such an aratokle to everyone! Even him! He's helping us out here, you know!"
This caused an amused smirk to form on Frieza's face, but she lunged her other hand out to grab his ear. Unlike Merce, he was far faster than her and quickly avoided it, deftly moving his head to his right before dancing around her arm gracefully, as if waltzing. As for Merce, he had fallen into a never-ending sea of "ow"s since the moment she'd latched her hand onto his ear. He should consider himself lucky- if it had been anyone else's hand, he'd probably need a new piercing. But since Hoda handled the children mostly, her cybernetics were soft fingered and made for the careful handling of children and babies.
However, the tyrant was not entirely free just yet as she suddenly tightened her grip on Merce's ear and pulled him around her before tossing him into Frieza, who was so surprised that she would even conceptualize this move that he was unable to react fast enough! Instead, he could only shoot his hands up to catch the incoming attack grabbing onto Merce as he smacks into him, just about being able to keep them both from tumbling over, although his knees did buckle a bit since he had been taken so aback, a fact that Hoda capitalized on.
"Now both of you stop acting like children! It's been this way since we brought you onto the ship-" She points at Frieza. "-And you've been this way since we were kids." Her accusatory finger finds its way to Merce's face before the woman pulls her arms back and crosses them in front of her chest, looking like an irritated mother in front of two spoiled children. Which, Bendez realized with a growing grin, wasn't entirely innaccurate given Frieza's life as a tyrant and Merce's life as the famed "strongest in the village". Both men had experienced privilege without really earning it, one born into the title and the other trained by his father and naturally gifted.
Frieza hissed and pushed Merce off of him, who stumbled back into a standing position and glared at the pair of them. "Alright alright fine!" Merce held his hands up, giving in. "Doctor Ford, last I checked, was upstairs in the workroom putting together some new cybernetics for Chev's birthday."
Hoda glanced at him. "Its coming up soon? When?"
"Next month, Ford has to make new cybernetics way in advance." Merce answered with a shrug.
"Huh, I didn't know Chev was that old. Thirty-two cycles right?"
"Mmhm." He nodded.
"Riveting." Frieza said dryly before clapping his hands together. "Well its been fun but I have more important things to do with my life than busy myself with yours! If you'll excuse me." Frieza quickly took off, vanishing from few in only a few seconds and leaving the trio alone again.
"I really don't like that guy..." Merce muttered as soon as he was gone, turning to look at Bendez.
"I'm inclined to agree." Hoda says, also turning to look back at her surrogate father. "He's so- arrogant!"
"Not to mention untrustworthy. You saw how he acted when he first woke up. If you weren't there I don't think he would have stopped." Merce adds with a nod. "And then there was the time he was alone with you..." He looks back at Bendez before continuing on. "Speaking of, how was the trip? Did you find it? You're back a little earlier than we expected."
"It was alright, had a few sandstorms that set us back a little but we made up for that and then some thanks to Frieza." Bendez admitted. "He wasn't much help carrying the stuff, but he was able to fly us the rest of our journey and then the way back."
"I'm surprised he didn't just leave you out there." Merce replied with a scoff, glancing back to where Frieza had vanished. "Or worse... He doesn't seem like the type to take well to manual labor like that."
"Yeah... We only flew because he got fed up with the sandstorms." Bendez admitted. "And I think he was kind of mad at me for calling his leadership style out..." He didn't show it, but the subtle change in his tone of voice caused his daughter to immediately perk up with worry in her eyes.
"He didn't hurt you did he?" She asked, placing her hand on her father figure's arm, her eyes searching his clothes for signs of wear or tear. It was funny in a way, how she was doting on him for once.
"It wouldn't surprise me if he did. Like I said, I fully expected him to come back without you. Whether that means you were walking back alone or..." Merce trailed off as Hoda shot him a glare. "Well, its not unreasonable! The first day he was here he almost killed one of your children for godsake!"
It was true, Frieza had a very poor adjustment period in the first few days. People would come to gawk at him or mutter about him as an outsider, they'd avoid him or ignore him- or worse, treat him like a threat.
On his first day, a child had been what pushed him over the edge. First, he stared at the alien being- aggravating enough on its own, but later on while playing with the other children in the atrium while Frieza was keeping to himself and trying to relearn how to walk, he'd struck him in the head with his ball.
Frieza's response had not been tact. A glimmering purple beam of energy shot from his finger before the kid had even understood what he had done, but it had been aimed for the boy's shoulder, and sailed by him and several other children completely harmlessly, a threat. Bendez was sure that he wanted to blast the child into oblivion, but something must have stopped him at the last second. A moral compass? Probably not, more than likely it was because he was still on the ground when it had happened, and couldn't aim properly, or so the kids had said. Afterwards, he'd shouted at them to leave and they'd scattered. Minutes later, a terrified boy ran up to Hoda and told her the situation.
It had tainted his reputation around the ship even more, and now people were actively avoiding him all over. And those that weren't, would threaten him with violence instead. He'd laughed it off of course, but that much isolation isn't good for anyone, not even a tyrant like Frieza, and Bendez could feel the growing animosity coming off of him.
But then something changed a few days later.
A girl who had been present during the incident with the ball had timidly approached him one night and managed to squeak out a question, asking him about his smile and telling him that she'd never seen him look so happy before.
And then, instead of growing annoyed or telling the child off, he opened up. It wasn't much, and it definitely wasn't enough for Bendez to say that Frieza wasn't a danger to others, but it... Humanized him in the eyes of the village, if only just a little bit, and mostly to those who's children hadn't almost been blasted.
People didn't have short memories, but some folks were more forgiving than others in Bendez's experience, and that day was enough for some of them to stop looking at him like a freak. He was still an outsider, but he was more than that to some people now. He was a person, a person with experiences and his own life just like them.
He smirked a bit. Of course, Frieza chased them off shortly after. He was a bit of an isolationist and preferred to be alone with his thoughts and memories, but the little bit of social interaction had managed to temper some of his building animosity, at least it prevented him from shooting at any kids for the next few days while Bendez prepared to take him to the Plateau.
And he didn't object when that girl started taking a seat across from him during dinner the next day, under the condition that she not bother him for more stories... Which came after she attempted to do exactly that.
"That's true..." Hoda muttered, remembering the same incident. "I still have kids coming to me about nightmares from it..." She scowled, no doubt wondering how such a person can exist.
"And what about Yota?" Bendez interjected. "Is she still going on about how amazing "lobsters" are?" He smiles at the pair.
"Yeah." Hoda chuckles. "And she won't stop talking about how she wants to join "Mr. Frieza" and visit "Anaxus Prime"." She lets out a little giggle as she recounts the little girl's enthusiasm. "Its actually a little cute in a way. I hope she doesn't antagonize him too much more..."
"If she does I'm sure she'll find out fast that's not a good idea." Merce interjects with his usual cynicism. "As if almost getting shot didn't already fill her in on that. That blast of his put a hole through seven walls and then the hull." He shakes his head. "I can't believe we're still letting him live here after that. I get that you want him to help with the move and that we owe him our ship to get out of here, but he's dangerous, Bendez."
Bendez nods. "You're right but give it some time. I was out there with him, and he had plenty of opportunities to let me die, or even kill me himself. Hell, I even antagonized him last night... But he didn't." He chuckles. "And yeah he made us fly back here... But... Let's give it some time. He's spent his entire life as a tyrant, this is the first time he's ever not been surrounded by people who're afraid of him..." Bendez wasn't an optimistic man, but he had some hopes.
Hopes that maybe, Frieza might learn a thing or two while he was with them...
A/N: This took a lot longer than it should have probably. Sorry about that, but pumping out 10kish words a chapter is more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm mostly surprised I can actually reach 10k words in a week if I put my mind to it. Actually to be clear this one is closer to 12k words.
Anyyyway, lets talk about that chapter. I know it was a little slower than most people care for when it comes to DBZ fanfics, but its all important to set up the themes and characters for this arc going forward. With that all said, I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that if the desert stuff isn't your forte, it won't be here for too much longer. I suspect another 2 to 3 more chapters spent here and then we're moving on to something more... Familiar to you all. Ahaha
BUT make sure to tune in next time because we are going to be taking a break from Frieza's shenanigans to instead have a look at what his brother is up to. After all, Frieza is "dead" and someone needs to pay for it. And who better than the Super Saiyan...
Reviews!
ZoeyCares: I really hope your aren't going to make every new character have an absurd power level. Most beings in the universe are far below 5,000... So I am kinda disappointed to see a fight between a monster and Frieza and have the monster actually give a decent fight.
In super even Yamcha is pretty much more powerful than final form Frieza from DBZ and he is treated like he is weak (Which he isn't)... And I hate power scaling honestly.
I'm at work so short review.
Like everything else.
I promise you that it won't become a running theme. The Sand Dragon is more powerful than average for a myriad of reasons that should hopefully be clear (living for a thousand years), but other creatures and people that Frieza encounters will be, for the most part, very weak to start out. For example, Hoda and Bendez have power levels in the low 10s and 20s due to their cybernetics, and even Merce who is the greatest warrior in the village only has a power level of 130, a match for Roshi but hardly anything special.
I really, honestly, legitimately hate how DBS handled its power scaling. I like DBS, I enjoy the God Forms, the GODs, the films and most of the arcs, but I really loathe how they broke power scaling. And for anyone who wants to assume that I like GT more for this reason, GT's scaling was arguably less coherent, just take another look through the Goku vs Baby battles for reference, or talk to the people who assume GT Goku is 5D when Omega Shenron can only destroy a universe over time.
Sorry, I got a little ranty. Power Scaling in this series is a mess and I promise you I plan to have an actually functional system.
Glad you're enjoying it otherwise!
SuperSaiyajin4Vegeta: Golden rays of the glorious sunshine...
Ah! You caught me! I am naming all of my chapters after music, be it song lyrics or song names. If you look back, Chapter 2 is named Hey, Brother and Chapter 3 is The Bloodstained Sand, named after the songs Hey Brother and It Has to Be This Way respectively, and each one has some relation to the plot of the chapter, with 2 being about Cooler and Frieza while 3 is literally about bloodstained sand.
Since you figured me out, I'll tell you now that the rest of what I'm calling "The Desert Saga" will be named after Red Sun Over Paradise from MGSR:R, aside from the next two chapters which will have a different and more obvious naming convention...
Well, that's all of it so
Until Next Time True Readers!
Oh, and if you need something to tide you over until that next time, consider checking out one of my other works. Monitale recently got an update, and if you enjoyed my character work here then I'm sure you'll enjoy it over there just as much.
Seeya!