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Frieza has beat him to Earth. But there’s another power there as well, one equal to Frieza in both strength and evil.
…Maybe he’s got a brother? Or is it his dad or mom?
It doesn’t matter. What does is that Frieza’s thrown away his second chance.
(Pillars of lava. Clouds of ash and smoke. The planet is dying, he doesn’t have much time left.
A voice in the distance.
“-you must DIE BY MY HAND! ”
Shock.
The form of legend assumed once again.
Rage.
Why would he throw it all away?!
“YOU FOOL! ”
Gold punching through violet. A scream. An explosion.
The signature vanishes.
Sorrow. Regret.
He’s “won”.
…This isn’t what he wanted.)
…A chance he’d thought he’d stolen.
Goku raises his middle and index finger to his forehead. Amidst the nine kis present, he locks onto Krillin, standing in front of those two kis, Gohan placed behind him. His best friend is terrified, and yet he still stands strong against these two evils and Goku’s son.
He’s always such a reliable guy.
And suddenly Goku is there, shifting to Super Saiyan in an instant. The scouters of Frieza’s soldiers explode, his friends make shocked exclamations about his power, and Vegeta makes a sound that reminds Goku of an angry dog.
The anger which accompanies the transformation is still there, but lessened. No longer threatening to consume him, to drive him to destroy whoever has earned his wrath.
(If he ever has to kill again, it will be in a proper state of mind. No accidents. No loss of control.)
His time spent on Yardrat has paid off in more ways than one.
“Goku?”
(“GOKUUU!” A deafening detonation. He’s gone.)
He doesn’t take his eyes off Frieza, who is currently gritting his teeth and staring off into the distance, and the tyrant’s…dad(?).
“Hey Krillin, it’s good to see you again.” Alive and whole and here.
Goku can’t see his friend’s face, but his mind reading and ki sensing tell him that Krillin is relaxed- well, no, relaxing. Terror is now simply fear, as well as concern for him.
“Everyone. Please leave this to me.” He’s not sure if his friends could survive being near a battle between him, Frieza (who has a lot of metal bits sticking out of him for some reason???), and that other guy. Probably for the best that there’s no risk.
“Goku, are you-”
Krillin is cut off by an inarticulate screech of rage from Frieza. The galactic dictator rises into the air, his finger pointed to the sky as a supernova forms atop it.
“Don’t worry Krillin-”
Goku gets into the basic turtle school stance. Left arm up to block, left foot in front, right foot back, and right hand chambered for a punch.
“-I’ve got this.”
Frieza brings his arm down, launching the miniature sun at Goku and his friends. The earth-raised Super Saiyan simply waits, fist chambered for a punch. And when the attack is a little less than an arm’s length away, he steps forward, and counters .
The punch he throws is simple, textbook even, a right cross at a 45 degree angle aimed at the sphere in front of him. The type of punch his grandpa Gohan had taught him when he was just a kid learning the basics.
(He’d been real small at the time, and his grandpa realized he would need to literally punch upwards sometimes because of that.)
The surface of the attack noticeably bends around a fist clad in golden flames. The blazing ball of death is launched back towards its creator at a speed so great, only three of the people present can even track it.
Goku can sense Frieza catch the blast, though just barely. But Frieza only manages to slow it down a bit, the blast carrying him up, up, and away, the madman screaming all the while.
And then, there is a (metaphorically) planet shattering KABOOM.
As Krillin looks at the truly humongous explosion of red and orange above him, and notices Goku move back into the turtle school stance, he only has two words on his mind.
Holy crap.
At this point, he isn’t even sure why he’s surprised. Leave it to Goku to pull off another miraculous dramatic entrance and end up saving their butts just in the nick of time. Again.
And this time, no one was hurt before he got here! Honestly, a guy couldn’t ask for a better friend.
It’s as he’s thinking this that Frieza unceremoniously crashes to the ground, directly behind the guy Vegeta said was the monster’s father.
Frieza rises from the ground, fury painted on his face and mechanical limbs sparking from the strain of the tyrant's power, and all Krillin can do is marvel at how his best, his greatest, his first friend changes the world around him. He’d been almost paralyzed by fear , by the near certainty that he was going to die for the third, and final, time. The only thing that had kept him ready to move or run or anything was the fact that Gohan was behind him, and Krillin would die a thousand times over before he failed Goku or his son.
(The kid had suffered so much as is. The fact that the kid was even remotely stable was nothing short of a miracle.)
But as he turns to the other assembled fighters, leading Gohan away with him, he feels nothing but relief, because Goku is here now. The Super Saiyan’s ki like the rays of the sun shining through a glass window. Warm and comforting and safe.
And as long as Son Goku is here, safe is all that they will be.
“I must say, you certainly live up to the legend. Seemingly deflecting my son’s attack like it was nothing is quite the accomplishment.”
Oh, so the person in front of him is Frieza’s parent. Neat.
“Seemingly?” Goku questions.
“Oh yes, you are doing an admirable job of hiding it, but I know that physically pushing back such a blast strained you quite a bit.” There’s a smug smile on his? their face. It reminds him of people he’s fought before who talked a lot but didn’t really… do, much.
“But…it wasn’t tough at all? Honestly, it was a lot easier to bounce back than a couple of the attacks Frieza hit me with back on Namek. Probably because he isn’t usin’ his full power…or cus’ I’m stronger than I was then.” Goku responded, tacking on the last bit as an afterthought. He was definitely beat up enough at the end there to get a boost from almost dying.
“Perhaps, perhaps.” They don’t look like they believe him. “But no matter, whatever strength you’ve gained won’t be enough to face me and my son at our full power.”
Goku gives a little grin. “Nah. I think I’ll do just fine.”
…Wow. If Frieza keeps gritting his teeth like that they're going to shatter.
“...Men. Take my ship away from here. Me and my son are going to be making an example of this monkey. If a single scratch ends up on my ship, you will all pay dearly. ”
“YES KING COLD!”
“So he is a guy.” Goku mumbles, watching his foes closely.
As Cold’s ship leaves the rocky wastes, Frieza moves to stand beside his father. As one, their muscles bulge and their ki rises, climbing higher and higher from their resting state.
The ground beneath them rumbles and ruptures, entire spires of rock climbing into the sky and defying gravity due to the sheer, world-bending, power the cold patriarch and son produce. Goku can feel the malice, the evil, which seems to permeate the area around him. All of it pouring forth from the individuals before him.
When Cold finishes, his body has gained at least 20 pounds of muscle mass, and his already intimidating stature has increased moreso. And as for Frieza…
The first word that would likely come to mind is grotesque or simply even wrong.
His muscles have bulged and swollen in a manner similar to what they were like on Namek, but his artificial parts have clearly not. The mechanical parts of his chest, arm, and skull visibly spark and strain under power and mass that they can just barely manage. Not to even mention the fact that his torso is significantly larger than his lower half.
It might be the grossest thing Goku has ever seen, and in that moment, it’s extremely obvious even to him that King Cold had more than one reason for sending his soldiers off with his ship.
“My mistake was not using all of my strength to eradicate you from the start you stupid monkey!” Frieza rages . Goku’s pretty sure if he was standing closer Frieza would be spitting on him. “Together with my father, you really will die by my hand! ”
He takes in Frieza and Cold’s power, sky blue eyes betraying nothing.
“…You still can’t sense energy, can you.”
That single statement pushes Frieza over the edge.
“GRRRRAAAAAAHHH!”
What little composure Frieza still had shatters under the weight of his anger. The now cyborg shoots forward, body shining a malevolent purple as he rockets towards Goku with absolute hatred.
Just as the tyrant’s fists are about to make contact, the Super Saiyan vanishes. He reappears above Frieza, slamming both of his feet into the purple gem-like surface of Frieza’s head and using it as a platform to front flip forwards, a cheeky smile on his face all the while.
As his son crashes to the ground and is made to eat dirt, King Cold blurs into view below Goku. The 12 foot frost demon is crouched on the ground, left foot forward and right arm tucked into his side. The former emperor of the universe shoots upwards, intent on tearing Goku’s head off with an uppercut. Purple lightning sparks across his fist as it rips through the Saiyan’s grinning visage like it isn’t even there, the extra force punching a hole in several clouds above him.
For a brief moment, King Cold believes he has won.
And then, what should be the corpse impaled on his fist fades out of existence before his eyes.
He has lost his balance, his punch having made him overextend. Suddenly, an unexpected force is painfully sweeping the giant’s feet out from under him, and then a firm grip is pulling on his cape to accelerate his descent to the ground.
Cold has no time to catch himself with his flight, and hits the ground with a less than dignified “ Guh! ”
A small distance away, Goku watches as, for just a moment, the king just sort of...lays there. Staring at the sky uncomprehendingly.
…And then Cold raises his person sized arms, and slams them down at his sides, the force launching him off his back and into a standing position. As the tremors pass through the ground, Goku finds himself becoming increasingly thankful that Frieza and his dad decided to land in an area with no people or animals.
“You should leave, now.”
He sees Cold’s head snap to him in surprise, shock and indignation plain to see on the monarch’s face. Out of the corner of his eyes he spots Frieza on his hands and knees, looking noticeably nauseous as he struggles to get up.
Goku doesn’t know if it’s because he stomped on the guy’s head, or because of how serious he knows he looks right now.
“Do you really believe your little display of speed has frightened me at all?” The Cold patriarch responds.
Goku knows it hasn’t. To make him genuinely think about leavin’, to truly make him afraid, he would have to make Cold hurt.
But…that’s not what he wants, and it ain’t something he would enjoy. Or, well…
(“You’ll pay for this! FRIEZAAAA!”)
Not under normal circumstances.
“Leave this planet, and never bother anyone again. I’m giving you one chance, don’t waste it like your son.”
Frieza… freezes. The implication of the statement not passing him by. For just a moment, so fast Goku almost misses it, he sees Frieza's eyes flicker to Cold in genuine fear.
The silence which has followed his offer only serves to enhance the feeling.
Pupils like beads of blood ask a silent question, one that Goku knows his foe fears to say out loud, and is terrified to have answered.
“Is he going to leave me?”
He watches King Cold visibly school his face, his gaze turning cool and calculating. And in the deafening silence, Goku realizes something.
He doesn’t know what answer he wants.
If King Cold leaves, Goku doesn’t have to kill him. But more importantly, he would have the chance to change, to become better. However…
…It would be so cruel for Frieza to be abandoned by his father. Left to die at Goku’s hands.
Despite what Frieza and his father may think, Cold has been put in a no win situation. He either dies with his son, or he leaves without him.
Goku knows what his answer would be, were he put in Cold’s position. And as he stretches his more… psychic abilities, he finds that Cold has made the same decision. And in that instance, despite the awful emotional devastation Frieza has only just barely avoided, all he can feel for the monster that killed Krillin is a new kind of pity. Because even though Cold has chosen to stand with, to die beside , his son…
“I refuse. This . Will. Not. Stand. The reputation of my family, the reputation of myself, will be stained no longer by some barbaric monkey who believes they’ve fulfilled some moronic myth. ”
It is not for the same reason Goku would have.
“It is just as my son said. Today, you will die by our hands!”
The declaration acts like a starting gun, father and son propelling themselves towards him as their ki carves furrows in the ground. As they close in, Frieza chambering a roundhouse aimed at his back and Cold cocking a gigantic purple arm to punch his skull in, Goku’s boots begin emitting a faint yellow light.
“Hup!”
He jumps over the kick and slams his left palm into the side of the oncoming fist, dodging both in the process. A little nudge of flight, combined with the momentum of his palm strike, lets him twist to position the soles of his feet towards Frieza and his head towards Cold.
“Ha!”
Twin golden orbs launch from the bottoms of his feet and explode against Frieza’s face, drawing blood from his flesh and exposing circuitry from his cybernetics. The recoil serves to let Goku headbutt Cold’s chest hard enough to shatter the man’s armor with his skull, all while driving him back several dozen meters.
The mountain of a man hacks and coughs as he digs his heels in, desperately trying to halt his momentum, but he only succeeds in tripping backwards. On the bright side, this results in Goku passing over him as he falls over. On the not-so-bright side, he’s once again made to look like a fool as he tumbles ass over teakettle across the ground.
Goku’s recovery is much more graceful, reorienting himself to face the somersaulting King as he digs his feet into the ground. He drives a powerful roundhouse into Cold’s side as the man rolls close, and the BOOM Cold makes as he is driven through several nearby hills echoes for miles. He places his leg down, spins, and throws a glowing back kick with his other leg, a foot sized ki blast launching itself in the direction of Cold.
He places the leg back onto the ground, and watches as a dome of explosive golden energy lights up in the distance.
And then in an incredible display of flexibility, the Super Saiyan suddenly drops into the splits, comfortably placing himself below the two violet destructo disks (and how dare he steal the technique of Goku’s best friend, the man he’d killed ) he’d sensed coming from behind. As the purple buzzsaws pass through the air which his neck and torso used to occupy, he brings his legs together and his knees to his chest, puts his back on the ground, his palms against the dirt next to his head, and then extends his arms as he smashes his boots through the flat undersides of the disks.
He springs off the impromptu handstand and back onto his feet, a neutral expression on his face. Predictably, this manages to enrage Frieza even more.
His foe screams again, charging him despite the fact that he should know by now that it won’t do any good. Normally, Goku would treat a rematch like this as an opportunity to see how his opponent has improved. To see if they’ve gotten more skilled, made a new technique, or learned how to make better plans. Normally , he would be ecstatic to have a round 2 with a fighter.
But as machinery and muscle alike try, and fail, to slam into him, all he can feel is disappointment.
“Over halfa year, and you haven’t changed a single bit.”
Frieza’s prosthetic arm visibly begins to buckle as he forms a ball of violet ki in the corresponding palm, intent on shoving it into, and through, Goku’s stomach. The Super Saiyan counters easily, his right palm meeting Frieza’s left as he crushes the blast against the mechanical appendage.
He forces their hands into a game of mercy, establishes a firm grip, and tears the prosthetic off at the elbow. All in the span of a single second.
“You haven’t improved your body”
He takes off towards the sky, and Frieza follows. In his nigh-unyielding rage, the maddened tyrant springs off the rocky floor with all his might, the only thing echoing within his psyche the desire to see Goku eviscerated by his hands.
His mechanical legs fracture and implode under power they simply cannot withstand.
“Your mind.”
They almost clash again, but Frieza’s once again a triple amputee, and the situation he’s in finally sets in for him.
Goku sees his opponent weigh his options.
Watches as Frieza raises his remaining hand, index finger pointed skywards as an obsidian ball encaged by purple lightning forms above it.
Sees his eyes flicker towards the Earth below.
“Or your spirit.”
He grabs Frieza’s last wrist, locking the Frost Demon’s hand and attack in place. His opponent's eyes snap to his, not even having seen him move. He watches as Frieza registers the genuine sadness in his gaze, and can feel the way the man’s rage pushes him to focus his rapidly dwindling ki into his eyes in an attempt to burn out Goku’s own.
A metallic eye hisses and burns, and then the eye beams are slapped away with the same amount of effort one would use to casually swat at a fly.
“I hope you’re reborn as someone good some day.”
He slams a palm full of ki upwards and into Frieza’s chest, a brilliant sphere of azure shoving the tyrant into the pitch black orb of death above.
For the third and final time in his life, he watches as, for but a brief moment, Frieza’s eyes widen in all-encompassing fear.
And then Frieza is gone, consumed within his own attack with no time to even scream. The ball pushes up, up, up. Reaching higher and higher into the sky until finally, it exits Earth’s atmosphere entirely.
Goku clenches his open hand, and watches from his position in the sky as a blue explosion outlined in purple spreads across the void of space. Frieza’s energy vanishes.
It’s done.
…It doesn’t feel good. But it's not as bad as last time.
He lets out a sigh, slowly floating back towards the ground. There’s still one more thing he has to do.
Turning around, he locks eyes with the only other person he’d been tracking the entire fight.
Cold is gasping and panting, unable to hide how he flinches and shudders with every breath. The monarch is slightly hunched over and holding his side, blisters and burns covering his chest. The cape he was wearing is gone, along with his armor, both having likely been vaporized by the blast he’d endured.
Goku can read Cold’s emotions plain as day, and they fan the flame of a fury he has never felt before.
Because there is anger and offense and so many other things whirling in the mind of Frieza’s father. Thoughts of impossible or inconsequential things like escape or reputation.
But not a single thought, not one, is connected to his own son.
“You brought him-you brought your son-here .”
His speaking is stilted. Starting and stopping and starting again as he tries to rein in the rage igniting in his chest, in his soul.
Tries, and fails, despite the effort he put in on Yardrat to harness this power.
“You were his father, and you did nothing to prepare him!”
Clouds converge and blacken overhead, almost as if the skies themselves share his emotions.
He advances on the father the monster in front of him.
“Over halfa year. And you didn’t help him with control, teach him how to fight with his metal parts, nothin’.”
He can see Cold taking slow, painful steps backwards. But as Goku gets closer and closer, the backpedaling becomes sluggish. Becomes a struggle.
“His new body couldn’t even handle his own power! Your son hurt himself again and again and again!”
The suddenly darkened sky roars and flashes, Son Goku is The Super Saiyan is melting the ground he treads, and his The Warrior of Legend’s body is nothing more than a burning golden figure in the shape of a person.
“Your son is gone!”
Reality itself is tinted gold, and oh how it presses and crushes the patriarch of the Cold family. A being who could truthfully declare himself as one of the strongest in the universe.
And he is on his knees.
As Cold just barely manages to raise his head, to look a Legend in the eyes, he finds sea green irises and pupils pinning him in place. Within them is a wrath that could boil the oceans…
“And you don’t even care.”
…but also pity, for the son of the man they see.
The figure settles into a stance, wrists touching as its hands are cupped and facing outwards. A bluish-white orb forms in between its palms. Beams of light shine outwards from the building technique and lightning pulses from a warrior that only appears once every thousand years. A golden pyre stretches up into the sky, and nearby structures flatten from the incredible pressure being exerted upon the world.
Throughout it all, King Cold can do nothing but watch.
That isn’t to say the monarch doesn’t try, that he doesn’t rack his terror-addled brain for some sort of solution, bargain, anything, that can get him out of this situation. He wants oh so desperately to plead, trick, or beg , but his muscles are all locked in place.
He can barely even breathe.
“I’ll say the same thing to you I said to him.”
The Super Saiyan brings its cupped hands to its side, the radiant blue between its palms melding with the gold permeating the air around them.
“I hope you’re reborn as someone good in your next life.”
And with a deafening “HAAAA!” the legend before him throws its hands forward, a torrent of energy several times his size rushing towards him.
For a brief moment, King Cold is reminded of a tsunami, a wave of destruction hell bent on obliterating all that stands in its path.
Then the wave hits him, and all he sees is a blinding azure before everything goes dark.
There isn’t a trace of Cold left. It’s over.
The Super Saiyan Son Goku lets out a soft exhale as his blond hair turns back to its natural black. He feels his muscles relax, and decides to stretch his arms as he turns and turns towards his friends and family (and Vegeta). A small use of Instant Transmission is all he needs to place himself right in front of everyone.
Gohan is the first to respond, rocketing into his chest to give Goku probably the tightest hug he’s ever gotten.
He makes sure to respond in kind.
Yamcha, Chiaotzu, and Krillin aren’t too far behind, laughing and patting him on the back, ribbing him on always makin’ a dramatic entrance to save everyone in the nick of time. Tien an’ Piccolo are more calm about it, just a simple nod of their heads and small “Good job.”, though Tien actually does give a little smile.
Vegeta is already leaving, flying off back towards…somewhere.
Ah, but that doesn’t matter. Because right here and now, hugging his son and surrounded by his friends (though Piccolo might still deny it) Goku is happy to finally be home.
And as long as he’s here, he’ll protect them all.