One-Shot 1: Correcting a Mistake
[spoiler]To instantly destroy a world was a trivial thing for a being of his power. With a simple wave of his hand, he could unleash a single attack without enough force to split the whole planet asunder, leaving nothing but debris and fire in the cold void of space. The mortals of this world and every world he'd visited prior and every world he will visit after certainly deserve such a fate.
The world itself didn't.
Indeed, his current hunting ground, a planet called Earth from the Northern Quadrant, was already a wounded thing. It's sentient species, humanity, ensured that when they performed experiments on their own kind, creating almost unstoppable engines of destruction that annihilated everything in their path for decades. If it wasn't for the meddlesome Saiyan attacking him at every turn, they would most certainly be his main adversaries at this moment.
Such was the case with every sentient mortal species he'd encountered thus far. All of them were given the gift of knowledge, that creative spark enabling them to rise from the primordial muck and attain a true understanding of themselves and their surroundings. A blessing which, when used responsibly, would elevate these selected species to a higher level.
Instead, they simply used it to find new ways to destroy one another in an endless cycle of self-destruction. The city he walked through, or rather the ruins of one, stood as a fine example of this. The buildings created with advanced machinery and through centuries of learning and study stood broken, if they stood at all. Whatever paint was used to give them a more appealing look vanished long ago, leaving nothing but massive chunks of grey and black rock as the city's sole remnants.
Vehicles of every sort littered the empty street ahead of him, more examples of how humanity was no different from every other horrible child of the Gods. If they weren't, the pathetic state of what was once amongst their greatest places of living wouldn't be in this state.
But even amongst the wreckage, he spotted things that validated his method of controlled cleansing instead of pure annihilation. With ilk of mankind gone from this place, nature was reclaiming what belonged to it. Through the cracks of concrete and steel, flowers and other greenery bloomed, creating patches of color and life in the drab dreariness of the overall surroundings. From the corner of his eye, he noticed packs of animals hunting together, something resembling a family unit if the two larger ones and the several smaller children following them were any indication. The four-legged hounds paid no attention to him as they pursued another, much smaller animal through the city.
He bore no ill will to these lesser creatures, they were lead by animal instincts. Simple creatures sometimes capable of more complex thought and emotion but overall simple still. They didn't truly possess the gift of sentience and thus couldn't be judged as harshly as their dominant counterparts, humans. He could no more blame them for their actions than an exploding volcano or a tsunami, they simply did what they did.
His brief examination of the pack was quickly cut short when the ground beneath one of the pups exploded into a million pieces, sending fire, rock and ash blasting into the air. Such attacks had no effect on him, if the Saiyan couldn't hurt him such conventional traps and weaponry certainly wouldn't. With a flick of his hand, he blasted the wind away and narrowed his eyes at the remnants of the pack.
The older ones lived still, horribly mutilated as they were from the mine. Their children were not so lucky, their tiny bodies didn't survive the blast, all that was left of them were strands of bloody flesh. Hearing the survivors whines of misery prompted him to end their suffering with a quick energy wave, vaporizing them and their children to a place where mankind couldn't hurt them anymore.
Bullets were the next attack to come, but not from many directions as they usually did. No, this was a lone gunman firing down on him from one of the few buildings still left standing. He ignored the metal projectiles, letting them harmlessly smash against his skin and clothes as he took off into the air towards the shooter. A black stream of energy surrounded him and left a plane like trail in the sky as he quickly closed the distance between himself and his would-be assassin.
To his surprise, he found an older man wielding the gun trained at him this time around. Usually, the younger ones were responsible for setting up tracks or attacking him. Usually sporting a Capsule Corp jacket of some description as a rallying symbol of sorts, no doubt from a desire to mimic their so-called Saiyan savior. This old man with his balding head, grey mustache, and haunted expression was no different. Perhaps a bit more fanatical in his devotion.
For as he ignored the hail of bullets fired at him, he noticed several pictures placed near his firing position, some of him with his mortal family while others of Trunks and him at some kind of Earthling celebration. No doubt one made in honor of Trunks killing the mechanical monstrosities spawned by one of Earth's "geniuses".
With a swift motion of his hand, he snatched the rifle out of the old human's hand and promptly smashed it against a nearby wall. The elder didn't even know he was being choked until he found himself levitated off the ground with a firm grip placed tightly around his aging neck.
This was the other reason he chose a more personal way of elimination. To see just how low the mortals would sink when their time of reckoning was at hand. In many of their cultures, elders such as these were revered for their tempered minds and experience, yet this one fought with the same fervour and brutality as the younger examples of his kind. Doing whatever it took to perpetuate his own, worthless existence to continue his species cycle of violence. If he was smart, he'd know he deserved what was about to happen to him.
Grabbing the man by the head with his other hand, he used his telepathic abilities to pry into the man's mind. To his surprise, the man wasn't part of Trunks' little resistance force, just a man inspired by it. His obsession with the Saiyan became clear, Trunks saved him from the so-called Androids just when one of them was about to blow his brains out with one of their Earthling firearms.
He thought of Trunks as a hero. A pretty name for just another being who's caused or escalated more senseless conflict elsewhere to resolve his own.
Upon finding the exact locations of the various mines and traps positioned around the place, the man's head was crushed with a deliberately slow movement of the fingers digging into his bones and flesh. His scream echoed throughout the empty building but was quickly silenced when there was nothing left of his skull to scream from.
The display brought a smile to his face.
He was ready to leave when he spotted a small pot containing a flower nearby, one of the few things the old man had left of his deceased wife if his memories rung true. Taking the pot with him, he levitated over the city and with his free hand, telekinetically forced the various explosives made to harm him out of their hiding spots and flung them into the ground. With another loud boom, the devices all smashed into one another and exploded, ensuring the old man's machinations wouldn't cause any more damage from beyond the grave.
He landed at the spot where the first trap killed the family of hounds and blasted a small hole in the ground with a kiai. With care, he took the flower out of the pot and put it in the ground where it could grow free from the interference of mortals. This part of the world was now cleared, the old man was the only one left for a great many miles. But there was more work to do, more humans to eliminate before the Gods mistake was corrected on this world too.
No one was going to stop him from accomplishing this, and with the power of Son Goku's body at his disposal, he doubted anyone really could.
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And there you have it! A little closer look into the motivations/psyche of Goku Black! This can honestly take place anywhere in the Super timeline but for fans of my Resurrection F remake, The Vicious Gods Wrath, don't be surprised if this ends up being in-continuity with that too at some point
[/spoiler]Chapter 2: "Civilized" People
[spoiler]The sounds of gunfire rang for miles in the distance, echoing through another in an ever growing list of demolished cities littering the surface of planet Earth. Another collection of ruined gray buildings and vehicles lying smashed on top of or right next to one another. The places where their windows used to be leading into equally demolished hallways or homes long since abandoned.
To his surprise, however, none of these gunshots are meant for him as they usually are. They aren't even close by, relatively speaking. If his instincts were right, and they always were, from their frequency and sources of origin, they were the result of humans fighting humans.
Always intrigued by the cause of such in-fighting, one of the many reasons for why he despises mortals so, he decided to descend to ground level so as not to disturb them. Using his superior speed with a little bit of stealth for once, he traversed the vast, aforementioned hallways of the abandoned structures while the gunfire continues to reverberate through them.
He caught glimpses of lives once spent in these places. Front doors decorated with various things meant to distinguish them from the rest, rooms where humans once sat down and ate, others where children spent their days and nights judging by the toys he tramples on. The mark of a "civilized" society here and on many other worlds, the appearance of peaceful routine.
Nothing but a facade as far as he was concerned. A series of constantly evolving masks and lies to make mortals believe they're improving, to make them think they're rising above their base natures. But he knew otherwise, he knew better. Whenever these facades become too inconvenient for them to uphold, they all show their true faces.
As he approached the source of the gunfire, now accompanied by the shouts of men and one woman, he knew this would simply be another example of this.
He slowed his approach, taking extra care to make sure they could neither see or hear him, opting to use a nearby pillar as cover. Peeking over it, he noticed several humans in a standoff. Three men, all seemingly on the same side pointing their guns at a duo hiding behind a crashed vehicle situated down in the lobby for some reason. One a grown human of comparable age to his opponents with his companion considerably younger, one of their teenagers he guessed.
"Look!" The man covering behind the counter proclaimed. "I'm sorry we stole from you! But our sisters need this medicine! They won't survive another week without it!"
"And you think our people will?!" One of the three opposing them barked back, cocking his rifle-type firearm, a shotgun he thought, in their direction. "We've got sick people to take care of too! You think our kids are gonna get better just because you're sorry for stealing their meds?!"
And so it went for a little while longer with both sides trying to rationalize how their needs were far greater than those of the other. What little attempt at diplomacy faltered quickly, just as he knew it would. Pleas of understanding were replaced with more threats which were replaced by mutual cursing until it all culminated into the logical conclusion for any mortal being once the facade became too much of a hindrance to keep up: violence.
The younger of the two was the first to spring into action, the one he immediately noticed was constantly twitching in cover, ready and eager to fight in comparison to his companion. He peaked over their cover and fired his gun wildly at the trio with his older compatriot joining him soon after. A third of the opposing trio fell immediately, his torso and head littered with the projectiles, leaving the corpse in a mess of blood. Another of them was injured but not killed with their leader emerging unscathed.
They darted from cover to cover, both trying to thin out the ranks of the other. The injured one from the stolen party failed to compensate for his wounded shoulder, it made his entire limb shake and threw his aim off. An advantage used by the younger, more violent of the thieves to put him down as well.
His leader witnessed his companion fall and with an animalistic roar went on the offensive. The boy, failing to reload his weapon, was left vulnerable and died as the shotgun blasted him in the chest. Knocking him to the ground, unmoving. In their mutual, self-perceived righteous fits of rage, they devolved fully into barbarians. Using their previously advanced technology as mere clubs to smash one another with.
When those either failed or were discarded, they grabbed rocks and used them to bash away at one another. Ultimately, they devolved into using their fists to punch and claw at their opponents, growling like the monstrous savages they all were deep down with "civilizations" illusion no longer there to keep them in check. Upon transforming the thief leader's face into a mess of gnarled flesh and bones with his bare hands, the battle is concluded.
And with it, another aspect of mortal behavior ended up as the truth once more.
Seeing little point in hiding anymore, he levitated quietly from the upper floor and landed behind the leader as he kneeled on the floor, panting over the corpse of the thief. Intentionally, he let his footsteps grow louder and louder. When the leader of the trio snapped his head to look at him, the look of stone-faced horror on his face made him smirk.
Taking hold of his head, he invaded the man's mind, revealing all the secrets of their little group, its hideout, the layout of it, the guards, and most importantly, the man's primal joy as he destroyed the thief. With a casual flick of his wrist, he made the man's head and neck snap to an unnatural position, killing him instantly.
He prepared to leave when he noticed a coughed gasp for air nearby, prompting him to cast one more look at the younger thief. Bleeding on the ground from his chest wound and choking on the liquid gushing out of his mouth, he pointed towards the bag containing the stolen medicine. A plea for help.
To the young man's dismay, he blasted the bag into nothingness and turning whatever contents it had within to dust. With a pleased smirk still gracing his features, he approached the teenager and knelt next to him, allowing his hand to hover mere inches from his face.
"Don't worry," He told him in a quiet, unsympathetic voice at odds with his smirk. "I'll end them quickly. It will be a far kinder fate than whatever disease they have or," His smirk grows into a full grin while the boy's terrified look increases along with it. "What someone else will do if they find them."
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A bit too dark? Even for Goku Black? Ehh, I don't know. This guys been to places and likely seen things so... yeah... Anywho, I didn't expect to make this more than a one shot but if I ever feel like pointing out humanity kind of sucks, I'll be sure to use this as a venting method
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