Kilmar's Blood

By Moonraker One

A/N: Can one decision, one seemingly insignificant decision, when made differently, affect everything? Can a truly evil being be cleansed by a defeat that would usually cause only more hatred to brew? These questions will be answered (hopefully) by the end of this story.

PROLOGUE – The Demise of the Tyrant

Over ten million hearts beat slowly, captured in the moment by a mixture of fear and hope, with excitement building with every passing moment. One gigantic screen onto which the scene of battle was projected by a somewhat old holographic television projector displayed for everyone to see the happenings of one of the most difficult battles ever. Two superpowers tangled in deadly combat, with the winner winning only the chance to live the rest of his life, for this was a fight to the finish. Only to kill your foe would be the end of it. Fists and feet struck their intended targets with impossible force, doing their necessary damage to the opponent of the attacker. The residents of Saiyan Colony S117-Sigma had left their homes to watch the battle of the century unfold between two of the most powerful beings in existence: Frieza, tyrant son of King Cold, the Cardarian who had conquered most of the known universe, and Son Goku, a Saiyan from a humble home on a backwater rim-star planet called Earth. One held the future of the Saiyan people's hopes and dreams on his shoulders, the other, wanted only to continue his lifelong goal of conquering all that was in existence. From the safety of hundreds of parsecs away, on a colony protected from Cold's empire by intergalactic law, male, female, and children Saiyans of all ages watched and silently prayed to Romthaon, the Saiyan king of Gods, that their savior would win.

A great distance away, on a small planet called Namek, the battle that would inevitably decide the fate of the universe had been going on for a very long time now. The better part of fourteen hours had been spent on one of the most violent combats ever, and the final part of the five remaining minutes that the planet had left before inevitable destruction the final blows were traded back and forth with incalculable speed and force beyond what anyone had seen. Goku, with blood trickling from him, saw his opponent gathering two discs of energy on his hands and calibrating them to hone in on his foe's precise energy pattern. Frieza grinned wickedly and tossed them with tremendous force, Goku barely having enough time to move out of the way of them, only to find that they began to follow his every move.

"It's useless trying to run, Saiyan monkey!" Frieza shouted, his insults cascading from his mouth as he watched his opponent attempt to flee from the discs of power. "They will track you no matter where you go!" As Goku fled, he began to realize slowly that he could not escape them. However, something of an idea struck him at the last moment before he would have been sliced in two.

With a last minute desperation dive out of the way, he began to fly at maximum speed directly at his evil opponent. The discs held tightly on his trail as he whooshed through the sky directly at Frieza. The tyrant drew back his fist in wait for Goku to be close enough to strike at. The Saiyan hero grinned assuredly as he stopped immediately in front of the tyrant just for a brief moment, then instantly flew away. Frieza's eyes widened as he realized too late what his foe's plan was. The entire universe seemed to hold still for a brief moment; the air stilled, the ground quieted, even the raging storm that was going on within the planet itself seemed to cool only for a brief few microseconds…before white-hot energy sliced painfully through layers of flesh and bone.

The tyrant that had killed so many found himself sliced cleanly in two with his lower body and his left hand gone. Goku began to walk away. Wiping blood from his forehead, and using the illumination of his Super Saiyan form, the mythical form that only once in a thousand years could be reached, he began to look around for a way off Namek. He glanced only a moment at the enemy he'd just dealt with; thinking of a life wasted killing others, and the broken, beaten tyrant lying on the ground with fear of death painted all over his face, he shook his head in sorrow and continued to walk on. He hardly thought of his position as he slowly left the battle scene one step at a time; he had become what Frieza had been for so long; he was the most powerful being in the universe. But, for some reason, it didn't bring him pride, it merely reminded him of his responsibility to the less fortunate.

"W…wait, Saiyan!"

Goku turned around only slightly, twisting his head around instead of his entire body. He did not have the intention of listening very long. He coughed one time to clear his throat and frowned angrily at the tyrant. "What do you want, Frieza?" he demanded. This tyrant would soon meet his deserved fate; couldn't he just spare Goku the sob story and die in peace? "You realize you brought this upon yourself."

The evil being began to beg for his life. "Please…please spare me…"

Goku's eyes widened; he wasn't serious, was he?

Unfortunately, Goku couldn't chalk it up to a last few words of a dying person, as Frieza continued. "Please, Saiyan! Spare me!" Goku turned completely around to face the tyrant.

"WHY SHOULD I GIVE YOU MERCY? You spared no one! All you did your entire life is destroy!" his angry words of hatred towards Frieza came as such a stark contrast to what he usually displayed.

"P…please, Saiyan, I'll change, just spare me!"

Goku weighed the options; it was possible, the evil one could change…

No. Goku shook his head as he thought of it. Why would someone who's been evil their entire life change? Why would an evil being, one that had ended so many lives without a thought ever consider doing something good? It was not possible. Goku realized slowly he was only fooling himself to think of such a possibility. And Frieza, for the first time in his life, began to cry as he saw the Saiyan who held his fate in his hands weigh the options. It was the first time that he had ever genuinely wanted to change; it would be better than death. He had at least a very basic idea of what hell would have to be like, and he'd rather swear off his evil than suffer forever.

"PLEASE, SAIYAN!" tears came from Frieza's cold eyes as he begged for forgiveness as he lay in a spreading pool of his own blood. He thought of what he would do; he would denounce his father's ways, and go live on some planet where no one would bother him, and he'd never do another bad deed again. He just prayed that he would be spared. He brought his gaze directly into the Saiyan's eyes. There was genuine warmth and compassion in his regretful eyes, unlike their normal state. "PLEASE save me!"

Goku could sense that there was no ki left within Frieza, save for his necessary life force, which was diminishing. He knew that the threat of Frieza attacking him from behind was over, since he had not the ki to fly, much less throw an energy beam. Therefore, he lifted his eyes skyward. "God," he shouted, "my job here is done." His face, borrowing an almost infinitesimal amount of Frieza's evil, turned his usually compassionate eyes into a cold stare directly at the tyrant, whose tears were falling down. "Do with this monster as you will." With the finishing of his statement to the heavenly father, he turned and flew away, leaving the tyrant on a lifeless plain to die alone; the worst kind of death of all.

Frieza, second son of King Cold, mightiest warlord in the universe, knew he had only a few minutes left to live, before he died of blood loss. He knew better than to fear the planet's demise; Cardarians were mostly immune. He would die in the vacuum of space all alone, and the damned monkey would find the Ginyu force pods and escape. He clenched his right fist as his blood began to boil in anger at his defeat at the hands of such a lowly life form. As he thought of the cruel ways he should have been able to kill this monkey, his thoughts began to slowly turn to the truth.

It HAD been his evil ways that would doom him; that's what he'd always heard from the beings he heartlessly killed. They'd always told him that sooner or later, someone would come down from heaven that even he could not beat, that would strike him down with the same mercy he'd shown everyone else: none. At this point, his tears began to fall like rain as he screamed out his pained cries for forgiveness.

Goku searched as far as his eyes would allow across the plains of Namek, searching for anything that could get him off the planet. He began to lose hope after a few seconds, and then he saw the tyrant's space ship. All right! I'm home free! he thought, flying towards the ship. He was just about there when he heard something.

Don't be stupid,a voice cried out in his head. It surprised him to know that it was Frieza, giving him advice! My ship is defunct; Vegeta blew up the engines. The damned thing won't work. Find the Ginyu force pods and get off this rock.

He was at a loss for what to say. Frieza… he mentally replied, desperately thinking of an answer to give to the tyrant. …thank you. Flying at top speed, he found the pods right before they would have fallen into a sea of magma. Having no time to enter a course, he simply tapped buttons at a furious pace, doing nothing at first but inevitably activating the engine of the pod and taking off into space. He thought of the way he'd left the tyrant to die, all alone, but then again the evil Frieza had never given anyone else any mercy, so he didn't deserve to get any in his final moments.

On a deserted plain on the surface of Namek, where one of the most feared evils in the universe lay in an ever-spreading pool of thick purple blood, a thought of prayer got converted to a verbal one, in the mere moments before a single, final tear of regret fell from his face and onto the ground. Please forgive me, he thought. Closing his eyes, he lay his head back and fell unconscious. Not a second later, a violent explosion tore the once peaceful planet to shreds.