Tiniest Fluffiest Eternal Dragon

The next planet has a pretty higher power leveled guy... actually, they've switched to always making sure at least one high powered mook is on planet in these conquering sprees, they've realized the low powered ones never manage it but I often avoid the higher power levels. I thought with annoyance before teleporting back to Earth for another sparring session with Piccolo. Smart, but annoying. Still, could try risking it on the lower end, and if Goku dies I can just bring him back - wait...

Ah fork. I'd forgotten, there was some stupid rule about bringing a person back only once with the Earth dragon balls, wasn't there? I couldn't just frivolously throw Goku's life away then simply because I could bring him back, that needed to be kept in reserve for absolute emergencies.

Guess I wasn't going to cheat on this year of training and genuinely stick to just Earth for the most part, then. That sucked. The time might make them take the heat off a bit, however.

I actually genuinely would have enjoyed giving Guldo a scouter that fit him, even if he was 'evil', I did actually rather like granting wishes for the sake of granting wishes. I wasn't really motivated by fighting and destroying things the way most people in the DBZ universe were, and the task of creating a slightly differently shaped scouter had interested me a great deal. Since it would have been a waste to actually use the dragon ball's magic on such a thing and 'brute force' create such a thing, I instead used my own personal pool of energies and my knowledge of science, plus some help from Bulma, who was more than happy to take apart scouters and get to pour over alien technology with all me asking in return was a sketch-up of a simple modification. I was 90% sure on my own that the part of the scouter that needed to be modified didn't even have anything important in it beyond wiring and that simply modifying the shape of the frame would do the trick, but it was nice to have someone with hands to look it over and make sure.

In short, despite how it looked (I had tried to make it seem completely spontaneous, though I am not sure I actually completely fooled them considering the exactness of my timing implied I had to be spying if I could not outright sense people wanting wishes), I'd actually spent quite a bit of time and effort on that stupid little wish, as I had many others that I classed as 'unofficial wishes' because I avoided tugging on the dragon ball's energies if at all possible. The results had been pretty predictable, but I was still kind of angry at how Guldo had tried to tie me down. Seriously, I could teleport, did he really think any kind of hold was actually going to work on me?

Another kind of unofficial wish I'd spent a lot of effort on was simple healing of random people across the galaxy in need. In hindsight, it was pretty weird a series so fixated on fighting never had anyone except Dende who was specialized in healing, and we didn't even have Dende on our side yet. As I trained with Piccolo this year, I also trained my mind heavily, pouring over medical texts. My natural abilities as a dragon giving me pin-point detection and fine-grain energy manipulation meant that even without much energy, I was heavily advantaged when it came to manipulating delicate parts of the body back into place. Hell, I actually had a few ideas about how to indirectly kill a few more troublesome opponents if they pissed me off - if I could find that heart-breaker virus that was destined to reach Goku, I would only have to scratch them to infect them with it, hypothetically.

I might not be into fighting, but if I did, I would fight mean and underhanded. You did not want to piss off the wish granting dragon who could manifest just about any object or teleport, even if that dragon couldn't directly kill or teleport you due to your higher energies, they could easily fuck up your spaceship and kaboom, dead soldiers of your army everywhere in the cold vacuum of space, or, if you were on planet, they could simply teleport the planet you were on somewhere else and leave you stranded in space. Or, like I mentioned before, they could flood the air around you with terrible diseases or transmit it into your blood with a single bite.

That I had so far mostly refrained from destroying anyone (except indirectly from my allies doing the deed) was not a measure of inability, but of my neutrality. I preferred people alive, certainly; dead people generally can't enjoy making and getting granted wishes. But this wasn't out of some great noble sense of good or evil. I just liked having people alive, and didn't quite fully get people who didn't. Wouldn't the universe get awfully dull with only a few people in it?

"Mushu! I have great news! Oh, hey Piccolo, how's it going? I hope you aren't still on about that conquering the world thing, but if you're hanging out with Mushu I guess you can't be completely bad. Or, does that mean Mushu is a little bit evil instead?"

Piccolo scowled as Goku approached, interrupting our session of me mostly dodging, occasionally mock-biting and grappling with my claws, since I was disinterested in actually hurting the Namekian, although Piccolo seemed oddly displeased by this for reasons I didn't really comprehend. I guess I just didn't have the right fighter's spirit or enough masochism.

"What is it, Goku?" I asked, hoping this wasn't going to turn into a real fight with how pissy Piccolo was looking.

"I'm going to be a father!"

Oh, wow. Was it time for that already? Well, they did get married very young, and I suppose one wouldn't expect Chi-Chi to wait, so in the end I guess this wasn't very surprising. "Congratulations, Goku." I looked at Piccolo. "Be polite."

"...congratulations, I feel sorry for the child being stuck with you for a father," Piccolo said, starting to be polite but, it seemed the act was simply too much for him and he spun it off into an insult not a second later. Eh. Baby steps?

"Hey, if you guys are training, can I join you?" Goku should not be capable of making such puppy eyes at his fully adult age, but somehow, he was doing it. It was mildly disturbing to me, and extremely so to Piccolo.

"I dunno," I said, trying to let him down more gently than Piccolo would who I knew definitely wouldn't be pinky keen on it. "I don't think Piccolo wants you learning his techniques until he's ready to show them off, and you should probably be focused on being a dad right now?"

Piccolo might not like Goku, but he also enjoyed being contrary to me, just to fluster me. "Actually, while it is true I don't want Goku around long enough to see my techniques in action, I think a single session would do you some good. Maybe Goku can talk some sense into you where I haven't and correct your fighting style."

"What's the problem?" Goku asked.

"This!" Piccolo moved so fast he seemed to almost vanish, kicking at me, and I simply dodged. "Mushu doesn't have a fighting style! They do nothing but dodge! It's really annoying!"

"Hey, it works for me," I huffed. "You don't want to see me when I get really mad, anyway."

"I gotta agree with Piccolo here." Goku folded his arms and looked stern. Seriously? He was going take Piccolo's side over mine? Piccolo wanted to kill him! "You can't just dodge all the time. If nothing else, is it really fair to Piccolo if you agree to spar with him and then all you do is run away all the time? That's not a fight."

"I guess I hadn't thought of it like that," I said with surprise, this whole 'fighting ethic' thing not really being instinctive to me it hadn't occurred to me I might actually be offending him by doing this. And Piccolo was oh so easy to offend, it was best not to if you could avoid it. "I thought for sure you were going to lecture me about what if I needed to fight for real? In which case I thought I'd answer that I'd just toss a baby sun at them or something. Well, okay, that's a bit too big, maybe a neutron star, they're very dense and compact so you might be able to find one smaller than the Earth without too much trouble."

Goku looked a little taken back by that and Piccolo looked astonished. "Yeah, I wasn't going to argue you that point because I thought you would have something up your sleeve if you really needed it, but, wow, remind me to never make you mad? Although I hope you have something that would be a little less destructive to the planet." Try 'completely destructive to the planet', but point taken. "It might be good to do this just to have a backup. Or something less... lethal, if all your tricks are like that. I guess it's nice to know we have such a powerful fighter if we really need it though."

"We may eventually meet opponents to whom that would be survivable," I warned. "Don't forget Earth is very small fry to the Universe as a whole at the moment. I might technically be the most powerful of the group simply from sheer creativity, but if you keep training you both should be able to out-scale me, I think. Well, technically I scale with Piccolo since I can draw on his energy, but that's just for wishes I think." Didn't Cooler survive being scorched by a sun? And future Goku killed him. So there was no guarantee even at my most creative that I could even kill Frieza right now. I doubted Earth diseases would do shit to the alien immune systems of Arcosians / Frost Demons, and stranding him in space would just be an inconvenience to him. "You also don't have the handicap of turning to stone for a year if you use your most powerful technique." That, by far, was my biggest issue. "So I'm fully expecting you both to be our biggest defenders, and I'm more useful on the sidelines ready to revive the dead. Though do try not to die more than once if you can help it, please?"

"Hold on," Piccolo said, holding out his hand with palm showing in a 'stop' gesture. "What's this about me being a defender? I don't even like Goku. I would laugh and spit on your corpse," he directed the last sentence at Goku, "if you died right now. Mushu I merely tolerate for potential usefulness. Everyone else could just die for all I care."

Goku winced. "That's a bit harsh for somebody who is willing to fight on your side to protect the Earth, don't you think? Although I admit I'm not exactly fully trusting of you either, Piccolo, there are some really nasty people out there, and if it means saving the Earth I'd work with just about anyone. I do respect your strength as a fighter, and I know you'd make a really good defender!" He outstretched his hand. "What do you say? Bygones be bygones?"

"Tch," Piccolo turned away, and flew off, leaving us in the dust.

"I'm sorry. He's not quite ready yet for this sort of thing," I apologized on Piccolo's behalf, since one of us had to do it. "His father King Piccolo did a real whammy on his mind, but he's not him. You understand?"

"I don't know that I do," said Goku slowly, confused. "But he's got to defend the Earth if he's at risk of being destroyed with us all or if he wants to rule it, doesn't he? So I know he must be mostly talk right now."

"Piccolo is more bark than bite," I agreed. "But don't let him know I said that, he can still bite pretty hard." Mind, I couldn't feel his energy right now, he was clearly suppressing it, so it was entirely possible he was eaves-dropping on us right now.

"Piccolo bites?" Goku asked with interest.

"Uh... never-mind," I said, embarrassed. "It's just a saying. I guess growing up in the woods you wouldn't have heard it much if ever." I had to remind myself ignorance was not always the same as stupidity.

"But would he bite if provoked?" Goku asked, one track mind focused on fighting.

"Uh," I said less than gracefully,honestly not sure how to answer that. "Maybe if he absolutely had to? I know I'd bite, but I've got sharp teeth." Speaking of, did Namekians even have teeth? I hadn't exactly paid attention, but could have sworn I'd seen rather omnivorous looking ones; that seemed strange for a species that didn't eat. Dentition reflected food habits, the only other purpose was defensive, so you'd expect a solo pair of sharp tusks or the like if that was the case, and he pretty clearly didn't have those. Did Namekians have a more omnivorous evolutionary past before becoming green, perhaps gaining symbiosis with some photosynthetic organism? Or, since even plants needed to absorb nutrients that they didn't just get from water and air sometimes, did they actually eat on very rare occasions, perhaps when producing a large number of eggs? That would make some sense.

Ignorance aside, Goku could still come off as kind of dim sometimes.

I was happy to greet Gohan shortly after his birth, but babies too young to crawl aren't exceptionally interesting, and his birth meant the clock was definitely ticking. This year would be safe, from my knowledge of the time line, but once he could walk all bets were off.

Alright, it was time, I decided, to waste a year as stone and grant a wish to create another planet to make up for some of the destroyed ones. But who to get to grant that wish?

I had spent a bit of time stalking Vegeta actually, but he simply wasn't the type to mutter something like 'I wish Planet Vegeta was still around!' so that was a lost cause, no matter how funny it would be to see his expression it just wasn't happening. As a bonus, the location would actually be pretty perfect to 'hide' a planet by because everyone knew it was destroyed, just an orbiting mass of rubble, so no one would be looking there for any reason! But if I went to Prince Vegeta, he would certainly just ask for immortality no matter how I nudged him.

Maybe another time I'd harass him when he was a little more on side good, or at least side 'not totally evil'. No, right now, I was better off just asking some ally to make the wish for me.

I did. It wasn't too hard, I had many thankful people who praised my name or wanted their own planet. So I set about re-making Planet Vegeta, because hey, why not? Perfect location and all.

Only to suddenly have a flash of purple go by and destroy it with a single blast before disappearing again! "Motherfucker!" I swore, completely forgetting the manners Kami had tried to instill into me. The vacuum of space swallowed up the sound, which might have been for the best, considering if that being was so powerful I likely didn't want them to actually hear me.

What the hell was that? Why did they interfere with my planet remaking business? This sucked! And who would have had the capacity to sense the destruction had been undone, to ensure it stayed that way?

I sensed something menacing and massive in energy turning its attention toward me, and got the fuck out of dodge, teleporting.

The foreign energy started to build up at my new location not a second later, and I teleported again, quick enough to once again just catch sight of an omnious purple blur and nothing more.

Whatever it was, it followed repeatedly, and we danced across what had to be the whole galaxy. I eventually managed to throw them, or perhaps they simply got bored, by throwing myself straight into the afterlife and hiding in Hell for awhile, energy dampened down as low as I could manage. Nobody, I guessed, really likes spending much time in any form of hell, and the malice there swamped over everything, including, I hoped, myself.

There weren't a lot of things that scared me, but this?

This thing terrified me.

It took a lot time before I got the courage to teleport home, and I didn't go straight there, choosing instead to hide on a heavily populated Planetary Trade Organization station, hoping if it suddenly reappeared maybe it and Frieza would get into a fight and forget about me. Was hiding in a space closet shivering completely undignified for a great and mighty Eternal Dragon? You bet. Did I care? Fork no.

I found myself deeply wishing that I had more power. That nothing could threaten me. Hell, I had gotten cocky: I had thought with my teleporting that nothing could do so, except through Piccolo. But that clearly wasn't the case.

Unable to put it off any longer, I went home (well, to my solar system, anyway) and went into a stone slumber on Mars, for once slightly glad to: in this form I was probably even less likely to be sensed, if I even came off as the same thing at all after the transformation. Rocks aren't exactly rare in the universe, and one would, if they managed to find one, even a funny shaped one, probably conclude they'd lost the energy trail and just take off. Or so I hoped.

Lord Frieza was extremely surprised and dismayed at the sudden appearance of a purple cat-like being and more angelic companion in his throne-room, delivering an ominous message: "Frieza, when I order a planet destroyed, I expect it to STAY destroyed. I don't know if you had anything to do with this, but if you did, this is your last warning not to reign on our deal again. I barely tolerate your existence as it is."

"I swear I know nothing of this! What planet?" The dragon, Frieza realized. It had to be that pesky dragon!

"It doesn't matter, I've smashed it to pieces now. I'm going to take a nap."

Then the duo vanished as quickly as they came.

Frieza seethed. He hated being given orders, and he hated being weaker than anyone else. If his father hadn't made it explicitly clear he was never to mess with Lord Beerus, he'd have attacked the being on the spot, so called god of destruction or not. When Beerus had made it clear he was going to have Planet Vegeta destroyed that fateful day years ago, whether Frieza wanted to keep it or not, Frieza had barely managed to keep his dignity by destroying it himself. It gave him some satisfaction to rob Beerus of the opportunity, but the lazy cat hadn't really cared, seeing it just as good to have Frieza destroy some planets on his behalf as to do it himself. That was their deal, in fact. Frieza destroyed any planet Beerus told him to... even if it was one that Frieza wanted to keep for his own.

Was this a fair deal? No, not at all. The only thing he got out of it was his life. If the opportunity ever came to leave it, the despot would take it in a second. The Emperor of the Universe should answer to no one, in his opinion. A cunning idea fermented and boiled in his horned skull as how to accomplish this.

If the dragon had caused this latest trouble, perhaps the dragon could get him out as well?

Author's note: So, there's the appearance, possibly one-off, of Lord Beerus. I'm not super-familiar with Dragon Ball Super to be honest beyond a couple of episodes I've watched, and to my understanding Beerus isn't portrayed as particularly evil there, but I'm not one to sniff my nose up at setting up a powerful enemy or a reminder that bigger fish exist out there. I figure if you're a destroyer, you like to destroy things (or have your minions do so) and have them STAY destroyed, and that puts him at odds with Mushu pretty strongly. I put some thought into it and decided this was the most useful thing I could do with the character, even if I end up using literately nothing else from dbs.

And oddly enough that gives Mushu something in common with Frieza/Freeza.