Ch. 137: Goku vs. Frieza (2)

"I don't get it. Why do you hurt innocent people? Don't you see the destruction we're bringing to this world with this meaningless fight!?" Goku couldn't help but ask Frieza. Goku knew that evil... pure, dark evil existed in this universe. He'd seen it firsthand, but most of the time, evil was nurtured, not born. Tien, Piccolo, Vegeta, even Yamcha, all had reasons for their actions when he'd originally met them, and now they were all good allies and great friends. 

"Why should I care about this world and the meaningless, inferior beings that live upon it? Before the emperor Frieza, all other beings are inferior, weak and useless. Don't you mow your front lawn when it becomes an eyesore?" Frieza asked Goku, shrugging once again. 

"Just being strong doesn't make you better, Frieza. Every life has value, and even the most awful, evil ones still deserve to live! You don't have the right to take that away from them!" Goku shouted. He could understand where Frieza was coming from, to an extent, though. The phrase 'it's lonely at the top' came to mind. Being overwhelmingly more powerful than someone was a burden in itself, one that Goku knew well. Constantly carrying that burden was incredibly tiring.

But while Goku had other people around him who he could talk to and learn from, Frieza didn't have that. The sanctity of life meant nothing to him, and he was a child who saw all other life as something akin to prey, because he'd only had experience to learn from, and his experiences told him that inferiors didn't matter. He'd even learned to find a sadistic pleasure from watching 'inferiors' in pain. Honestly, Goku felt sorry for him. He'd always be alone so long as he refused to grow.

"Perhaps I'm just on another level from you. I take pleasure in watching faces despair as they writhe in agony. That's the only valuable thing that 'good' imbeciles like you can offer to one that shines as brilliantly as I." Frieza told Goku.

"I feel sorry for you." Goku told Frieza. Nothing else to say, Frieza charged forward, leaving an afterimage in his place before kicking Goku down as hard as he could using his 25% power. To his surprise, as soon as Goku hit the ground, it crumbled under his form, exposing a lake of lava that had come to the surface when the earlier fighting had destabilized the planet's crust. As Goku disappeared into the hole, Frieza fired a wave of energy into it for good measure.

"I suppose he was an imbecile after all. All bark and no bite. Time to go looking for the others, then." Frieza began to fly off, but after flying only a few feet, he stopped and turned around. "Just for good measure, I should probably bury the remains." 

Looking down at the lake of lava that Goku had disappeared into, Frieza had a terrible idea. With an evil grin, he raised his hands, grabbing at the ground around the hole. Slowly but surely, an entire island's worth of dirt slowly began to move towards the hole, eventually closing it up with a crash. 

"And that's two fools." Finished with the burial, Frieza turned on his heels, having lost interest in the now surely dead Goku already. But as he began to fly away, a cry pierced the landscape, causing him to stop in his tracks.

"GOKU!!!" Even after Goku'd fallen into the lava, Krillin had kept up hope that his best friend was alive. He wouldn't get done in that easily, but as the tyrant lizard closed up the hole, the reality that Goku was probably dead hit Krillin like a freight train. The scream had come unbidden from his lips, to the bald man's horror.

Immediately after yelling for his best friend, Krillin'd realized his mistake and clapped a hand over his mouth, squatting down in terror, but it'd been too late. Frieza, with his enhanced senses, had already figured out exactly where Krillin was.

"You're the one that cut off my tail, right? Come out now!" Frieza shouted toward the rock that Krillin was hiding behind. Naturally, Krillin didn't respond, so Frieza destroyed the ground to the left of the rock he was hiding behind. "I won't miss next time." He threatened.

"Alright, Krillin! This is your only chance! Destructo-Disk!" Realizing that Frieza was serious, Krillin was quick to act. His only useful attack against Frieza was the cutting disk, after all, so he tossed one at the Frost demon as he emerged from the rock as a distractive measure, but knowing that wasn't going to be enough, Krillin didn't stop there. "And split! Kaio-ken!" The disk split into three different parts as it headed toward Frieza, and Krillin used the opportunity to use the Kaio-ken to give himself a burst of speed to help him run away. He'd not mastered the technique yet. His control was worse than Goku's had been during the battle with Vegeta, in fact, but he'd managed to figure it out at least a little bit after using it against Captain Ginyu, so he did manage to pump his power level up from 110,000 to around 170,000 for a short burst. 

But unfortunately for the bald Z-fighter, he was simply outmatched. Now that Frieza had seen the destructo-disk in action and knew the raw cutting power behind the technique, he wasn't going to allow it to hit him again, and his 25% power level was over 30 million. Easily flying past the disks, Frieza stopped in front of Krillin with crossed arms. To the Z-fighter, it'd seemed like the tyrant had teleported directly in front of him, though.

"Aahh!" shouting in surprise and terror, Krillin immediately changed direction, but it was a waste of his time. Frieza simply appeared in front of him no matter where he'd go.

"No need to be so alarmed. I simply want to play a little game with you. Would you be so kind as to play with me?" Frieza asked Krillin, a sadistic glint in his eye.