Dragon Ball Alternative

~ At the Same Time: Frieza Force Ship ~

The med-tank bubbled softly and rhythmically, its glass enclosure casting an eerie glow against the dim interior of the ship. Inside, suspended in a thick, green liquid, lay a figure—an unconscious man clad in an orange gi floating weightlessly in the viscous fluid.

A slow beep echoed through the chamber as the timer on the machine ticked down to its final seconds. The display console flashed bright green, and within the tank, the man's body began to respond—his arm muscles tensed, his fingers twitched, and his brow slowly furrowed.

The ship began to tremble.

At first, the vibrations were barely perceptible—just a mere shift in the ship's metal frame. However, it quickly intensified, and soon, the entire ship quaked under the pressure, every bolt groaning as if it were falling apart at the seams.

But the med-tank wasn't spared either. It shook violently as the liquid within boiled and hissed, as if recoiling from the man's overwhelming power.

Suddenly, Goku's eyes flew open, blazing with unrestrained fury. His chest heaved as raw, explosive Ki ignited within him.

His eyes snapped toward the direction of the battlefield.

It had taken the others five whole minutes to reach it, and they had been flying at speeds greatly enhanced by Ajax's ability to reduce air resistance. But even then, five minutes.

Goku was certain he could make it in just two.

With a deafening boom, the entire chamber was obliterated from within. The machine, the room, and a significant portion of the ship were instantly vaporized by the shockwave of Goku's explosive departure. His figure tore through the wreckage and quickly shrank into a small red blur on the horizon as he raced toward the others at full speed.

The countdown for the recovery has ended, but his battle has just begun.

Because Son Goku was going to war.

***

In Goku's wake, the abandoned mothership groaned, finally settling after the violent disturbance. What remained was an eerie, hollow silence, and for a moment, it felt as though tranquility had returned to the ship.

But of course, that tranquility was fleeting.

Just a few rooms away, Jeice stood motionless, pressed against the cold metallic wall, his red skin slick with a fine sheen of sweat. He had stood absolutely still for so long that he could have been mistaken for a statue. And it was only now, when the presence of that monster had finally left the ship, did he dare to move.

His body trembled as he let out a shaky breath. Each deep inhale slowly unraveled the oppressive fear that had coiled around him like a serpent.

Slowly and cautiously, he loosened the suffocating hold he had kept on his energy, allowing it to gradually creep back into existence and register as something more than zero.

A little while ago, after narrowly surviving his near-fatal encounter with Ajax, Jeice had wandered across Namek, vaguely following the direction Ajax had gone. During his search, he had accidentally stumbled upon the aftermath of a recent battle. It was there that he found Guldo's lifeless corpse.

Jeice had crouched there for what felt like an eternity, staring at his fallen teammate. The loss hit him harder than he had anticipated because, despite their drastically different backgrounds, the Ginyu Force had always been a team.

And Guldo had been one of them.

With a heavy heart, Jeice laid Guldo to rest, giving him a proper burial and farewell. Afterward, he retrieved Guldo's scouter and fitted it over his ear—it was needed to contact the nearest HQ.

As he adjusted Guldo's device and entered his credentials, it suddenly beeped. But it wasn't a reading of nearby power levels; it was a recorded message, in a garbled voice, to Jeice himself—not Guldo.

That wasn't creepy at all.

But that message had briefed him on everything—including things he wished he didn't know: the near-total annihilation of his team, the enemies' current location, Lord Frieza's status, and, crucially, the whereabouts of his captain.

It turned out his captain was alive but urgently needed rescue.

Finally, the message assigned him a mission: he was to locate and retrieve Captain Ginyu, then withdraw from Namek effective immediately.

Jeice vividly recalled staring at the screen at the official signature of the person who had left the message.

He had always thought of this figure as nothing more than a rumor, a conspiracy that theorists peddle to others in the shadowy corners of King Cold's empire—a phantom who held authority beyond any elites in the Empire, including even the Ginyu Force. A ghost in the chain of command, never seen and only whispered of.

And yet, there it was, laid out in plain scouter text. The message was undeniably real.

A myth, it was not.

Suddenly, a lot of things started to click into place.

Unfortunately, though he was near death, barely clinging to life, he was still compelled to obey the orders of a superior higher-up in the command hierarchy.

Thus, a bit later, he found himself standing in a vacant supply room, trying to steady the thunderous beating of his heart while suppressing his energy to absolute zero. In that supply closet, he had sensed the presence of Vegeta and Nappa executing someone within the medbay before departing.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. The true horror had struck not long after, when the energy signature in the medbay swelled to unimaginable levels. It wasn't just powerful—it was monstrous. The sheer magnitude of it was staggering, dwarfing even Lord Frieza, and not just in his initial form either.

Jeice was fucking terrified. He stood no chance against Lord Frieza in his first form, and now he was in the presence of something that far outclassed his Lord's second form by a significant margin.

His body trembled at the terrible knowledge that whoever—or whatever—this was could easily swat him like a bug. Even if he unleashed every ounce of his power and bombarded this figure with everything he had for a minute straight, they likely wouldn't bat an eye. Hell, they probably wouldn't even have a single strand of hair out of place.

Maybe Ajax hadn't been full of shit when he talked about killing Lord Frieza.

So, in the end, all Jeice could do was stay hidden, suppress his power until it was undetectable, and pray that whatever was in the medbay had no interest in hunting down a weakling like him.

It was only once he was certain the coast was clear—when the oppressive energy had vanished—did he staggered through the now-abandoned Frieza Force ship. As he walked, his hand was pressed against his chest while blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Both were grim reminders of just how perilously close to death he still was.

Gasping for breath, Jeice paused and leaned against the wall to steady himself. He shut his eyes briefly, concentrating on staying upright. After a moment, he pushed off the wall and stood tall, using his energy sense to guide him through the ship's cold, metallic halls.

He turned into a side room and almost collapsed against the doorframe. However, the sight that greeted him within made his lips twitch upward. Amusement flickered across his face, momentarily breaking through the exhaustion and pain.

Against the back wall of the room, on a simple table, rested a crude cage—hastily cobbled together from whatever materials had been available.

Inside that cage was a single, angry frog.

To anyone else, it looked like an ordinary frog—a curiously misplaced creature easily overlooked.

But Jeice knew better.

After years of fighting alongside his squad, he could recognize his team's energy signatures anywhere, no matter the form. The energy of the tiny amphibian in front of him may be minuscule and barely perceptible from the ambient energy of the planet, but it was absolutely unmistakable.

Captain Ginyu.

Jeice just couldn't help but marvel at the absurdity of this situation. His captain, one of the galaxy's most feared warriors, was reduced to hopping around helplessly in a cage barely large enough to hold a rodent. It was silly—but also kind of strangely brilliant.

A low chuckle slipped out of Jeice's mouth, but it quickly turned into a rough cough.

"Creative... I'll give 'em that," he muttered to himself, wiping the blood from his lips. Whoever was behind this clearly understood Ginyu's Body Change technique and had come up with a rather unconventional way to contain it.

Meanwhile, the frog's eyes widened when it spotted Jeice in the doorway, and it let out a loud croak, almost like it was trying to speak.

"Oi, Cap'! That croak a g'day or a 'what the bloody hell took ya so long?'" Jeice called out as he limped toward the cage.

The frog—Captain Ginyu—just sat there, staring at Jeice like it couldn't believe its eyes. Its mouth hung open, and its eyes glimmered with what appeared to be tears. However, given its physiology, it looked more like it was keeping its eyeballs moisturized than actually crying.

Regardless, tears or not, it wasn't exactly a dignified moment for one of the most feared warriors in the Cold Empire.

"We've been ordered by the higher-ups to pull out of Namek, Cap'n. So yeah, I'm here to rescue ya, in case that wasn't obvious." Jeice said as he spat some blood to the side, trying to act casual despite everything.

The frog responded with an angry croak, hopping about furiously inside the cage.

Jeice stared back blankly as he tried to make sense of what it was trying to convey. He didn't understand crap, of course, but the tone was enough for him to make an educated guess.

"Yeah, I hear ya, Cap. I know what went down with the team." Jeice's tone hardened. "And yeah, I get that you're bloody pissed. Hell, I'm with ya on that. I want a crack at those flamin' wankers too, but we've got to bail, Cap. Lord Frieza's takin' matters into his own hands, and I just personally saw someone strong enough to give our Lord a run for his buck. If we stick around, we'll just end up as space dust. Trust in Lord Frieza. He'll get our vengeance; I know it."

The frog fell silent at his words.

"Cap', it looks like you'll have to stay as a frog a bit longer. I'll sort ya out with a proper body later, but right now? Mate, I'm hangin' on by a thread meself. I'm in no shape for a scrap or any bloody power play. Hell, a pack of our grunts could gang up on me right now and give me a wallopin'. So, just stay a frog for now, yeah? At least then we can bugger off in the same pod."

Jeice glanced down at the cage, where Captain Ginyu's amphibian form seemed to hesitate. The frog shifted slightly, then—almost comically—nodded, as best as a frog could.

"Righto, we'll work out the rest of them details once we're off this bloody hell of a planet and patched up at the nearest Frieza base."

Without waiting for another croak, Jeice scooped up the frog, cage and all, and stumbled away. They had to get the fuck off this death trap of a planet because anywhere was better than here.

Code Black Anomaly, indeed.

A short time later, an attack pod landed nearby, and not even half a minute after that, it took off once more, leaving the surface of Namek for destination unknown.

***

Power Level:

Goku (Base): 3,500,000