Ch. 195: Cooler and the King (2)
"I won't let you anywhere near Hanna! I'll end you right here, brother of Frieza! SUPREME KAMEHAMEHA!" A huge wave of energy erupted from Pigero's outstretched hands, flowing over the landscape like an unstoppable force, simply eradicating everything in its path before continuing off into the atmosphere.
Panting, Pigero released the wave and collapsed to the ground. 'surely,,, he must be...' Pigero's new Spirit King form had one massive downside to it. By pouring his energy into a 'battery,' it allowed him to access it whenever he wanted to, but that excess energy didn't magically 'recharge' itself. It was a temporary boost, with a hard limit to the amount of energy it gave him. Once the energy was gone, he'd need a week to recharge it, if he really pushed himself. Realizing that, Cooler had done his best to force Pigero to waste his energy. As soon as that had become clear, Cooler's victory had been basically assured, so Pigero had been forced to place all of his bets on one final, maximum effort blast.
"Too bad. Even I would've been injured by a blast like that." Pigero's blood went cold as he heard a cold voice behind him. Cooler had dodged his Supreme Kamehameha.
In the next moment, a white claw grabbed Pigero by the neck, lifting him off the ground. Energy completely depleted, all he could do was struggle in vain, grasping desperately at Cooler's wrist as his ability to breathe was restricted by Cooler's claw.
"Uh, uh, uhh. Come one step closer and I snap his neck like a twig." Cooler declared, looking over his shoulder.
Tien hadn't been idle while Pigero's fight had raged on. Masking his energy, he'd used Pigero's distraction to look for an opportunity to catch Cooler off guard, and when Cooler had caught Pigero by the neck, Tien had made his decision, but Cooler had spotted him anyway.
"Let him go. He's not a threat to you anymore." Tien tried to negotiate with Cooler. At that, Cooler nodded.
"Neither are you, but here we are. Even bugs can be rather annoying if you don't sprinkle a little... pesticide." Cooler replied to Tien, not dropping the barely conscious Pigero, "Perhaps I'll begin with him... and cleanse this entire, worthless, planet."
"Don't! Don't... kill him. How about I make you a deal, instead?" Tien asked.
"Tien... Don't...!" Pigero barely managed to breathe out, but neither Cooler nor Tien were listening to him at this point.
"I'm listening...?" Cooler asked, intrigued.
"If you let him go, I'll tell you exactly how to find Hanna. The person who killed your brother, and humiliated your father." Tien said.
Cooler's eyes glinted. "But you'll still be free to try to stop me, won't you?" He realized what Tien was after.
"I'm just an insect, right? Wouldn't that still save you time, in the long run?" Tien prodded. Cooler went silent for a moment, mulling the offer over.
"Tien...!" Pigero gave a strangled cry. It was clear what he was trying to say. Tien knew that he'd rather die than give Hanna up, but Tien knew just as well as anyone that Hanna could take care of herself in the event of his failing. All he needed to do was get Pigero away from Cooler and safe.
After another moment, Cooler made his decision. Reaching out with his free hand, he crushed Pigero's left wrist, then his right, before dropping him to the ground. "Can't have him interfering. I'm feeling generous... Where is the Saiyan?"
Without batting an eye, Tien gave Cooler step-by-step instructions on how to get to the main Legacy complex, eliciting a pained groan from Pigero's barely-conscious body. There was almost always a Captain inside the main complex, and while most Captains wouldn't be able to defeat Cooler, they'd at least be able to hold him off for a few minutes.
"Why thank you. I should get going now." Cooler said once Tien was finished, completely ignoring the three-eyed man. Now that he knew where to go, he didn't want to waste any more time, but Tien wasn't about to let that happen.
"You're forgetting something, brother of Frieza!" Tien shouted as Cooler's feet left the ground, causing the Frost Demon to pause in mid-air for a moment.
"My name... is COOLER!" Angered at being called 'brother of Frieza' for the second time in a row, a vein on Cooler's forehead began throbbing. He hated being compared to his brother more than anything else in the galaxy, so, shouting his real name at the insect who dared to stand in his way, Cooler unleashed a massive burst of energy at Tien.
"RELEASE!" With a loud roar, a massive wave of energy erupted from Tien's body in response to Cooler's blast, more than cancelling it out. This was on a whole other level from Tien's Silver Mode times thirty, buffeting Cooler's body with enough force to knock him backwards a couple feet.
A bit of background:
It's a fact that humans have basically zero potential. They don't have the healing capabilities of Namekians, and their cells don't have the ability to ramp up their energy generation several dozens of times over like Saiyans. In the original canon, the only two non-Saiyans who continued to devote themselves wholly to getting strong enough to protect the planet in Goku's absence were Piccolo and Tien. While Piccolo, due to his nature as a Namekian, managed somewhat, Tien simply drifted into obscurity, the wall between his abilities and those of the Saiyans simply too high to cross.
By the time Dragon Ball Super came around, Tien had ended up starting a dojo, his life of isolation and solitary training moved on to a new chapter. He still kept up his training whenever possible, but it was clear that he'd accepted the fact that he'd never be stronger than a Super Saiyan.
But in this timeline, Hanna had changed things. For starters, Legacy existed, so Tien wasn't training in isolation anymore, and he'd even learned Silver Mode, allowing him to, at least partially, close the gap between him and the Saiyans.