The ship slept under dim lights. Even the hum of the engines felt subdued, as if the machines themselves knew their emperor wanted silence.
Frieza sat alone in his chamber, the force field shimmering faintly around him. He could feel the tension in the air—the empire shifting beneath his new commands, stretching to accommodate a ruler who suddenly had a plan instead of a temper.
But all of that was noise compared to what he needed to do now.
He pressed a small recessed button on the armrest.
A soldier appeared almost instantly, bowing so sharply his forehead nearly hit the floor. "L-Lord Frieza, your command?"
"Send a platoon to locate a planet called Yadrat," Frieza said, voice calm and razor-thin. "Their natives possess… techniques. Techniques I may find useful. I want the planet found quietly. No destruction. No theatrics. Just results."
The soldier did not dare breathe until Frieza finished.
"As you command, my lord," he said, scrambling away with the sort of terror that kept an empire efficient.
The door closed.
Silence reclaimed the room.
Frieza exhaled, lowering himself into a seated position. His tail wrapped loosely around him as he inhaled—slow, deliberate, controlled.
Then he drew his ki inward.
At first it surged violently, raw and overwhelming, filling the chamber with invisible weight. This body had power to spare, but finesse was another matter. His breath hitched as he forced the flood back into its cage, compressing it, shaping it.
"Again."
He pushed it down.
Held it.
Let it simmer beneath the skin without leaking.
This was harder than the transformations—much harder. The body wanted to explode outward, not quiet itself down. But he wasn't here to explode.
He was here to sharpen.
After an hour, the chamber lights flickered. The ship's sensors trembled, confused by a power signature that kept vanishing and reappearing. Frieza smirked at the readout.
He was getting better.
He shifted his ki to his fingertips, then to his spine, then to the tip of his tail. Each movement felt like dragging molten iron through narrow tubes, but the control… the control was intoxicating.
Ki suppression followed next.
He forced his aura to collapse inward until the room felt empty.
Another minute.
Another breath.
Then he erased his presence entirely.
Not even a scouter would pick up a flicker.
The absurdity made him laugh quietly.
"This is what they've been relying on? No wonder they die so easily."
He closed his eyes and reached outward—not with eyes, not with instruments, but with intent.
At first there was nothing.
Then, slowly, he felt it—life. Tiny sparks throughout the ship. The faint burn of Zarbon's refined power. The heavy, sluggish presence of Dodoria. The disciplined rhythm of the Ginyu Force training several decks below.
Ki sensing.
Crude, faint, but real.
Each time he felt a new spark, he sharpened the sensation until the shapes became clearer, the textures more defined. Strength, weakness, fear, tension—he could feel them all in the currents of life around him.
Calming.
Predictable.
Practical.
This was the first thing in days that brought him something akin to peace.
He slipped into his third form and repeated the entire process.
And everything grew sharper.
The ki he suppressed became lighter, cleaner. The sensing range doubled. Control came easier. Pain faded into focus. His thoughts aligned.
It was as if the monstrous body finally understood what its new occupant demanded from it—not rage, not screams, not mindless power, but discipline.
Hours turned into a day.
A day bled into two.
By the third day, Frieza could make his power vanish completely, flicker it like a candle, or compress it so tightly it felt like a blade drawn across the air.
He opened his eyes.
Three days.
Three forms mastered in absolute control.
"At this rate," he said softly to himself, "I may surpass every ki user in this universe without even transforming."
The thought didn't spark arrogance—it sparked hunger.
Not the hunger for destruction.
Not the hunger for blood.
The hunger for control.
Control over himself.
Control over this body.
Control over a galaxy that had no idea what kind of emperor now sat upon its throne.
He closed his eyes again, sinking deeper into meditation.
There was still the final suppression form.
There was still the full release beyond it.
And there was still far more power waiting behind the door he had not yet dared to open.
But when he opened it, he wanted to be ready.
Frieza rose from his seat, tail curling behind him with an almost imperceptible twitch. He walked over to the nearest console and pressed a few buttons, bringing up the fleet's logs and planetary projections. Then he turned to the soldier who had been quietly standing nearby.
"How long until my father arrives?" he asked, voice calm, measured, but carrying the weight of expectation.
The soldier's voice trembled slightly. "Six hours, Lord Frieza."
"Perfect," he said, and allowed a brief moment of satisfaction to creep into his posture. Not pride, exactly—more like the rare acknowledgment that preparation was complete.
He turned his attention back to the soldier. "I am going to the training room. Do not disturb me unless it is King Cold himself." The command left no room for hesitation, no margin for error, and the soldier retreated instantly, bowing so low it was nearly comical if not for the fear behind it.
Frieza's mind drifted briefly, revisiting the past six days. The third form, once an awkward cage of raw energy and muscle, now responded effortlessly. He let himself acknowledge a faint twinge of regret—he had wasted time in the previous two forms, practicing ki clumsily, struggling against limitations he had no need to endure. If he had started here, at this level, mastery might have taken only a single day instead of six. But regrets were meaningless. The universe did not grant second chances, only lessons disguised as frustration.
He entered the training room. Empty, silent, vast enough to contain the force he now commanded—barely. He placed his arms in a precise T-pose and held them for a few seconds, feeling the subtle tension in his shoulders, the coiled energy in every muscle fiber.
Then he released.
The ki he had been holding back, the subtle weight of raw potential he had restrained for control and practice, surged outward like a tidal wave. The ship shook violently beneath it. If this had happened before his training in the third form, the pain would have been unbearable, the strain tearing at sinew and bone alike. But now… now the sensation was something else entirely. It was pure pleasure—a rush of power, intoxicating and exhilarating, the release of a burden he had carried unknowingly.
The floor vibrated. Bulkheads groaned. Lights flickered. Sensors beeped warnings that were immediately ignored. Somewhere in the ship, soldiers continued their work, trained to disregard these disturbances, just as they had over the last six days. The flagship had become accustomed to shaking—from minor tremors to violent convulsions—and the crew had long since stopped questioning it. This was Frieza's presence, his will made manifest, and they obeyed whether they wanted to or not.
He allowed the power to flow fully through him, pushing it into the fibers of his body, into the tip of his tail, across every muscle, every joint, every nerve. For the first time, he felt the true magnitude of what he carried. The ability to crush planets, to annihilate fleets, to bend the cosmos with nothing more than thought, and yet… it no longer overwhelmed him. It no longer resisted him.
Instead, it was an extension of himself. The T-pose became unnecessary not that it wasn't from the begining, energy moving as if the room itself responded to his will. Walls and floors trembled, as if whispering in awe, while he moved his focus outward, letting the vibrations and shockwaves spread across the deck. He had become the storm contained within the ship.
A small, satisfied smirk spread across his face. The training had paid off. The ki practice, the meditation, the hours of disciplined patience—it had all culminated in this moment. No longer confined by restraint, no longer bound by the awkwardness of untamed forms, he could finally wield the full extent of his power without hesitation.
This was not just strength. This was freedom.
And the timing could not have been more perfect. Six hours remained until King Cold arrived. Six hours to solidify, to refine, to feel every nuance of what he now possessed. Every step he took, every motion of his tail, every heartbeat carried the weight of an emperor who had outgrown the limitations of his body and embraced what it was always meant to contain.
Frieza exhaled slowly, letting the energy settle around him like a second skin. Pleasure and satisfaction lingered beneath the calm exterior. The ship would creak and groan, the soldiers would whisper, the galaxy would continue its endless turning—but here, in this chamber, he was absolute.
He could already imagine the look on his father's face when he arrived. Not shock. Not fear. Respect, yes. And something else. Recognition. That the being now seated in this body, wearing this form, was no longer merely a child of Cold. He was an emperor reborn.
And the universe, whether it knew it or not, had just become immeasurably smaller.