After delivering his false report to Salza, Zarbon hurried back to Frieza's spaceship. His objective was simple: steal the Dragon Balls stored within.
However, he was met with an unexpected obstacle. He had assumed the entire Ginyu Force had moved out to support Frieza, but one member had been left behind to guard the cargo: Guldo.
"You... Guldo!"
"Oh, it's just Zarbon," Guldo grunted, his four eyes blinking in annoyance. "Don't scare me like that, you weakling."
Among the elite Ginyu Force, Guldo was the only member whose combat power was lower than Zarbon's. He earned his spot through his unique psychic abilities, specifically his power to freeze time. Being called a "weakling" by someone he considered a freak was a stinging insult to Zarbon's pride.
Sneering, Zarbon fired back with a venomous insult of his own. "Keep your mouth shut, you slab of raw meat. The stench alone is enough to make me retch."
"W-What?! You... how dare you mention my biggest insecurity!"
"It seems you're all alone here," Zarbon noted, his eyes narrowing.
Finding a guard was a miscalculation, but finding only Guldo was a stroke of luck. Had any of the other four members been here, Zarbon wouldn't have stood a chance. But Guldo was a different story.
Certainly, his time-freezing and psychic binds were troublesome. In a team battle, Guldo was a force multiplier, able to paralyze enemies so his stronger teammates could finish them off. But in a one-on-one fight, he was far less intimidating.
Zarbon lunged, moving at a speed Guldo couldn't hope to track. He buried a kick deep into the small alien's gut.
"Gah...!"
"Die, you hideous lump of flesh!"
Zarbon followed up with a brutal elbow drop to the top of Guldo's head, slamming him into the floor. Without giving him a moment to recover or use his powers, Zarbon unleashed a barrage of energy blasts. The explosions ripped through the fallen guard, silencing him instantly.
Guldo's power level hovered around 10,000. Against someone of Zarbon's caliber, there was no contest. His only hope would have been to freeze time before the first blow landed, but Zarbon had ensured the ambush was too fast for him to react.
"Hmph... You and Dodoria are both such bottomlessly ugly creatures. I cannot tolerate those more beautiful than I, but I despise the hideous even more. Looking at you is like looking at the parts of myself I hate most."
Zarbon lived with the duality of his beauty and his beastly hidden form. It was his greatest complex—a hatred for anything that reminded him of his own "ugliness." This was why he could never truly tolerate Dodoria, Guldo, or even Lisette, whom he viewed as a threat to his own vanity.
"Now, that makes five Dragon Balls... The remaining two must be with those strange interlopers. I can't take them by force, so I'll wait for Frieza to kill them, then snatch the balls in the confusion."
Gathering the five large spheres, Zarbon began to move. His priority now was to find a place to hide his prize where no one would think to look.
***
Elsewhere, Goku and his allies were facing a crisis unlike any they had ever known.
Their group had swelled to eleven—Goku, his friends, Turles, and even Vegeta. Normally, a combined force including former enemies of that caliber would feel invincible.
But that confidence had vanished the moment they encountered Frieza. Compared to his current form, numbers were a meaningless comfort.
In his Final Form, Frieza looked deceptively simple—a short, sleek alien with a minimalist design. Based on looks alone, he appeared less threatening than any enemy they had fought before.
But his power... it was terrifying beyond measure.
"This is bad... the old God was right," Goku muttered, his teeth gritted. "We should have never let him transform."
Deep down, Goku had underestimated Frieza. Perhaps it was Saiyan arrogance. When Frieza first appeared with a power level of 530,000, Goku could have handled him without even needing the Kaioken.
Even when Frieza began to radiate a dark aura and spoke of showing them his "final form," Goku hadn't tried to stop him with everything he had. It was the Saiyan curse: the desire to see how strong an opponent could truly get, the craving for a challenge.
It was a fatal mistake. As Lisette had warned, he should have finished Frieza while the tyrant was still overconfident in his weaker forms.
"I-It's too much..." Gohan stammered, his body trembling.
"How can one person have this much pressure?" Krillin whispered, his voice cracking.
Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, and even the eccentric Boss Rabbit were frozen in fear. Even battle-hardened Saiyans like Nappa and Vegeta were shaking, while Piccolo and Turles looked on with grim, hardened expressions.
"Now then," Frieza said, slowly spreading his arms. "Let me show you a terror worse than hell itself."
Goku and Piccolo lunged forward simultaneously as if triggered by a single spark. They didn't hold back, immediately jumping to Kaioken x10. Cloaked in a crimson aura, their power levels soared above 6.5 million as they threw themselves at the tyrant.
Frieza didn't even bother to counterattack. He danced through their strikes with casual grace, parrying their relentless blows as if he were playing with children.
"Spirit Ball!" Yamcha cried.
"Destructo Disk Barrage!" Krillin shouted.
The moment Goku and Piccolo backed away to create an opening, Yamcha and Krillin launched their best techniques. A massive sphere of guided energy zipped through the air on a complex trajectory while a series of razor-sharp energy disks flew in a straight line.
Frieza casually ducked under the disks and slapped the Spirit Ball out of the air as if swatting a fly.
"Tri-Beam!" Tien roared.
He unleashed his life-risking blast, hitting Frieza dead-on. It was a technique that punched far above his weight class, but as the smoke cleared, Frieza emerged without a single mark on his white skin.
"Kill Driver!" Turles roared, throwing a ring of electricity.
"Galick Gun!" Vegeta screamed, unleashing his purple beam.
Nappa added his own Mouth Cannon to the fray. Three torrents of destructive energy converged on Frieza. With a single flick of his wrist, Frieza swatted the beams aside, standing amidst the resulting explosions as if nothing had happened.
Chiaotzu focused every ounce of his psychic power on Frieza, but the tyrant didn't even flinch.
"Let's shake hands!" Boss Rabbit chirped, stepping forward.
Frieza didn't even look at him. With a bored expression, he whipped his tail around, cracking it against Boss Rabbit's head and knocking him unconscious instantly.
"Is that all? If so, I think it's my turn."
"Dammit! Everyone, attack together!" Piccolo commanded.
The group responded in unison.
"Kamehameha!" Goku, Krillin, and Yamcha fired their blue beams at once.
"Masenko!" "Special Beam Cannon!" Gohan and Piccolo fired their master-and-student combination.
"Dodon Ray!" Tien and Chiaotzu added their golden beams, followed by Vegeta's Galick Gun, Turles's Kill Driver, and Nappa's Break Cannon.
Ten massive energy attacks collided in a localized sun of destruction. Yet Frieza's smile never wavered. He didn't even brace himself; he simply walked forward into the heart of the blast.
He emerged from the smoke completely unharmed.
"Guys... I was thinking," Krillin gulped. "Maybe we should run and find Lisette? If she's the one I felt earlier, she might actually be able to take him..."
It was a cowardly suggestion, but it was the only logical one left. Lisette had been taken by those two demons, but the sheer scale of her power had been felt across the planet. Even accounting for Frieza's hidden strength, Lisette's energy felt like it might actually stand a chance.
"Fool. Look for yourself," Piccolo snapped, though his voice was strained. "She's already heading this way. But... there's another terrifying energy approaching from the other side. One that feels just like Frieza."
The situation wasn't getting better. It was getting exponentially worse.
"Well, my turn," Frieza said.
"He's coming!"
Frieza leveled his finger, firing a rapid-fire succession of Death Beams.
Only Goku, Piccolo, and Turles could even perceive the movement. Goku grabbed Krillin, Piccolo snatched Gohan, and Turles yanked Vegeta out of the way, barely avoiding the lethal needles of light.
But Tien, Yamcha, Chiaotzu, and Nappa weren't fast enough. All four were pierced through the chest before they could blink, falling lifelessly to the ground. It was unclear if they were dead or just incapacitated, but they weren't getting back up.
"Oh? You avoided that? Impressive."
"I... I couldn't see it," Gohan whispered. "It was just a flash of light..."
In a single move, their numbers were halved. Vegeta stared in total despair. The gap in power was a chasm they couldn't cross.
Frieza decided Goku was the biggest threat. In a blur of speed, he appeared in front of Goku and delivered a devastating kick to the side of his neck. A sickening crack echoed as the fiery aura surrounding Goku vanished. The Saiyan crumpled to the ground, his body limp.
"Goku!" Krillin screamed.
"Dad!"
"Now, who's next?" Frieza asked calmly.
Gohan and Krillin were paralyzed by the suddenness of it. One moment Goku was there, and the next he was gone.
"Like I'll let you!" Turles roared, throwing himself into a desperate melee with Frieza.
Despite the fierce exchange of blows, Frieza's composure remained intact. To show off the difference in their strength, he tucked his arms behind his back and parried every one of Turles's attacks using only his legs before kicking him away.
Turles tumbled through the air and skidded across the ground, gasping for breath after only seconds of fighting.
"Dammit!"
Piccolo joined the fray, and the two of them double-teamed Frieza. It didn't matter. Frieza kept his arms crossed, a mocking smirk on his face as he enjoyed their futile resistance.
Realizing they couldn't win this way, Turles managed to slip behind Frieza during a brief opening. He locked the tyrant in a full nelson and screamed at Krillin.
"Earthling! Use that energy disk! Cut us both down!"
"W-What?! I can't do that to you!"
"You idiot! We're all going to die anyway! Do it now!"
But Krillin's hesitation was all Frieza needed. The tyrant drove his elbow back into Turles's ribs, shattering the hold and sending him flying. Turles managed to stand, but the damage was severe.
"How pathetic," Frieza sighed, pointing a finger at Krillin. He decided to eliminate the one with the most dangerous technique first.
It looked like the end—until a massive white fist of energy tore through the air at supersonic speeds, punching Frieza across the landscape.
"Gah...!"
Krillin and the others recognized that fist. It was the technique Lisette called the "God Hand."
They looked up and saw Lisette floating in the sky, her expression solemn.
"Lisette!"
"My apologies for the delay," she said, descending to stand beside Krillin.
She looked at her fallen allies. They were alive, but barely. If they weren't treated immediately, they wouldn't survive. Lisette reached into a rift in space—a pocket dimension she had created—and pulled out a bag of Senzu Beans.
She tossed six beans into the air, using her telekinesis to guide them into the mouths of her unconscious friends. Their wounds healed instantly, and their breathing stabilized.
"Thank God... I thought we were done for," Krillin sighed.
"Don't relax just yet, Krillin," Lisette warned, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
Krillin followed her gaze. Standing on a nearby rock formation was an alien who looked remarkably like Frieza, but carried an even more oppressive aura.
"I've found you, you pathetic excuse for a brother," the newcomer sneered.
"Ah, my dear brother Cooler," Frieza replied, his voice dripping with venom. "You must be very bored to travel all this way just to see me."
The two brothers stared each other down, their mutual hatred radiating like heat. For a moment, Lisette hoped they might just kill each other and save her the trouble.
But Cooler turned his cold gaze toward Lisette and the Z-Fighters.
"I'll hear your excuses after I've dealt with these pests," Cooler decided. "Assuming you have any."
"Always looking down on me," Frieza spat. "Fine. Once I've erased them, you're next."
"Are you truly prepared to kill your own brother?"
"Hmph. Don't make me laugh."
It seemed fate wasn't going to be that kind. Cooler and Frieza had reached a silent agreement: eliminate the eyesore that was Lisette's group before settling their family business.
The situation had officially reached its worst possible conclusion.
***
📖 Worldbuilding & Lore Notes
The Ultimate Strongest vs. Strongest (Cooler's Revenge)
The 5th Dragon Ball Z movie (8th overall). While it clearly takes place after Namek (since Frieza's defeat is mentioned), Goku oddly struggles to turn Super Saiyan, as if it were his first time. Many fans consider this a timeline where Goku defeated Frieza with a Spirit Bomb rather than awakening his legendary power on Namek.
Cooler
Frieza's older brother. Unlike Frieza, who stays in his weaker forms to conserve energy, Cooler is always in a form equivalent to Frieza's Final Form. He is far more professional and pragmatic than his brother, though strangely, he is overwhelmed by a base-form Goku in the movie (perhaps that version of Goku ate the Fruit of the Tree of Might?). Official sources place his final form's power level at 470 million.
Salza
(Note: The author is making a joke here referencing 'Souther' from Fist of the North Star, as they share the same name/pronunciation in Japanese). The leader of Cooler's Armored Squadron. In this story's notes, the author jokes about him being the "Holy Emperor" who establish an idol group called "NANTO DE 5MEN." In reality, he is a cool-headed commander whose power level is roughly 170,000. He even enjoys curry on the weekends!
Dore
A member of the Armored Squadron and a former galactic wrestler. He comes from a planet where continents float in magma, giving him an incredibly tough body. His power level is 185,000. He's known for his "Saturday Night Fever" pose.
Neiz
A member of the Armored Squadron from Planet Cooler No. 6. He can retract his head into his torso. Despite appearing to be an aquatic type, he uses electrical attacks. His power level is 163,000.
***
10 Advanced Chapters Available on my Patreon!
https://patreon.com/Well_being