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// Life is Forfeit 
// Story: Frieza goes to Friendship School 
// by Thought Prism 
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Frieza slammed the door open and stormed into Starlight's office, his fury and indignation plainly visible. Starlight was still in the process of preparing for the day ahead when his arrival caused her to jump in surprise. 

She whirled to face him. "Freezer! You scared me a bit there. What are you doing here so early?" During a brief pause, she noticed his rage-filled expression. Now she stood at full alertness. "Ok, never mind. Better question: what happened to you since yesterday?"

"That is not of your concern," said Freiza. "Now then—" 

"Of course I'm concerned!" interrupted Starlight. "You're clearly very upset and in need of my hopefully-sufficient guidance! And you just came in here. Why else would you—" 

It was Frieza's turn to interject. "Oh, spare me the pointless prattle, maggot; your superior is speaking." He glared up at her in contempt. "Haven't I suffered enough?"

Starlight's jaw dropped and she gasped, stunned. Once she fully registered what had been said, her brow lowered. "Excuse me? Your superior? In case you haven't noticed, you're a student, and barely a teenager by the looks of things. Good ponies show respect to their elders."

Frieza scoffed at that. "Well, if you had listened to me and kept your useless, ugly face shut, you would know by now that I am actually neither of those things!"

"Ok, rude. Also, what?" Starlight asked. "Freezer, explain."

Frieza groaned loudly at her utter lack of intelligence. "It's what I've been trying to tell you!" he exclaimed, gesturing to himself. "I've been a pony for less that a week, and before that I was Lord Frieza, the mightiest scourge the universe had ever seen! Not Freezer, Frieza!"

Starlight stared, uncomprehending.

Frieza's eye twitched. Then, he screamed, stepping forward until he was inches from her. His blood boiled. "Oh, I see, you don't believe me. I guess I'll have to explain myself like you wanted!" he said, the volume of his voice nearing a shout as he continued. "I have committed atrocities the likes of which your disgusting society has never seen! On a regular basis, I enslave, torture, obliterate, murder en masse, and deeply enjoy every second of it! With nothing but my own power, I committed xenocide by blowing up a whole planet. My favorite hobby is turning children into orphans! I am a tyrant of the highest order, to whom even the galaxy's most fearsome warriors will cower before and bow!"

When he saw that Starlight had gone pale, Frieza found a bit of malicious glee. "So, no, I am not good, and I am not a pony," he added, his volume barely above a whisper.

"That's... unsettling," Starlight managed. She stared at Frieza like he had just escaped from an insane asylum and slowly backed away. Reaching into a glass cabinet, she pulled out a bottle and downed its contents in one gulp, then exhaled before continuing. "Even if I believed you, why tell me all this?"

Frieza thought back to the events of the past few days and sighed dejectedly. "Because I can't deal with this anymore!" he proclaimed, gesturing all around before dropping to his knees. "I tried so damn hard to get through this, I really did. To keep up hope that, somehow, I could return to my former glory and then rip you all apart into little, terrified pieces. But all of my avenues for salvation have crumbled, and now I've simply given up. It's not worth it, especially when I'm stuck in this school. Oh Kai, this school. It's all my worst nightmares come to life! Being forced to act friendly to everyone. Having a roommate, let alone one as obnoxious as Gallus! Being forced to learn kindness and honesty and EEEAAAHHH!"

Starlight looked on in dismay as Frieza screamed again. "Uh..."

"I'm getting there. Patience, worm," said Frieza once he had calmed back down, relatively speaking. That rant had been building for a while. I very much needed to vent. "Now then, what I need from you, Starlight, is simple. I want you to banish me to Tartarus."

Now Starlight stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

"Don't act so surprised," said Frieza groaning. "As far as schemes go, this one's not nefarious at all. It's win-win. I get to spend the rest of eternity sitting in a nice, dark cave free from this world's many annoyances and you get to keep the horrible space criminal locked up in a secure location. I've heard that you're fairly liberal with your 'magic', hence why I've come to you with this task."

Starlight, after stammering incoherent gibberish for a few seconds, grabbed a second, much larger bottle and started drinking. Frieza tried to continue speaking, but Starlight held up a hoof to silence him until she was done.

After a quick eye roll, Frieza finished his piece. "Please do not disappoint me, Starlight. That is, unless you want to find out what lines I'll cross to convince you. Spoilers: all of them."

Taking a deep breath, Starlight suddenly grabbed Frieza with her magic and levitated him into the air. "Ok yeah you're crazy. I'm just gonna take you to Twilight now. This sort of nonsense is totally her jam."

"What? No! Put me down!" Frieza exclaimed, trying and failing to flail out of her grasp as Starlight dragged him away.





"... And now here we are," said Starlight, her explanation of recent events concluded.

Twilight blinked at Starlight, then at Frieza, who seemed to be trying to melt her with his glare, then back at Starlight. Her wings ruffled by her sides. "That... is certainly something."

"So what do we do?" Starlight asked.

"Honestly, I'm not sure either, Starlight," Twilight admitted as she levelled a critical gaze at Frieza. "We'd have to get Applejack to see if he's telling the truth, first. And even then..."

"No need for that, Twi."

Frieza, Twilight, and Starlight all turned to face the source of the new voice: Pinkie Pie. Her characterizing cheerfulness was not on display, replaced by nervousness and a cold sweat. Only her head was visible from around the corner.

"Pinkie? What are you doing here?" asked Twilight.

"Yeah, we're in the middle of some grade-A horseapples at the moment," added Starlight.

At this, Pinkie chuckled mirthlessly. "Hey, same here! Funny story... my class was kinda-sorta interrupted when a demon poofed in out of nowhere."

"What!?" exclaimed Twilight.

Pinkie nodded. "Once my students finished cowering in the corner, I noticed that he was acting super scared too. So I asked him what was wrong, and apparently this demon fellow came to warn me. Because, get this, we're distantly related! I had no idea!"

"WHAT!?" exclaimed Twilight.

"Anyway, that's not the important part. The important part is that the thing he came to warn me about... was him," Pinkie said, sliding carefully into the room and pointing a hoof at Frieza.

Finally, my reputation has caught up with me, he thought.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the other two mares turned to face Frieza.

"So, like, he's actually a tyrant from outer space stuck in a pony body?" asked Starlight.

Pinkie reluctantly nodded. "A really, really mean one."

Frieza smirked. "I'd say that's a vast understatement."

Twilight squeaked, adrenaline visibly kicking in. Starlight, meanwhile, was too drunk for her self-preservation instincts to function properly.

Seeing her friend in distress, and that Frieza hadn't done anything threatening yet, Pinkie trotted over to Twilight in an effort to calm her down with her presence. "So. What's the plan? You usually have one of those." 

Snorting, Frieza answered for her. "The plan was to get me banished to Tartarus."

"That's a good plan," agreed Pinkie. "Let's do that, Twilight."

"But that's what he wants," said Starlight. "When was the last time we gave a villain exactly what they wanted? Never, that's when, because we punish villains. Or redeem them, I guess. Is that an option?"

"Oh, no, that's not happening," stated Frieza. "I assure you, I am blackhearted to the core. One hundred percent evil. I would literally rather die a third time than continue attending this school."

"See, punishment," said Starlight, sagely.

"He's evil, though!" insisted Pinkie. "If we try to force him to change, he might hurt someone!"

"That is true; I certainly would," confirmed Frieza. "Ideally multiple someones."

"Exactly! Just banish him," said Pinkie, insistent.

Twilight, caught in the middle, furrowed her brow in thought as she weighed the two options. Frieza knew that she knew the others would give her final say.

He held his breath as she started to pace, hooves clicking on the floor. Come on, come on...

For a minute, Frieza was afraid they had reached an impasse. But finally, after it seemed like an eon had elapsed, Twilight stopped, her expression resolute. "Alright. Pinkie, Frieza, you win. Tartarus it is."

Yes! Free at last! Not as good as vengeance would have been, but still! "A wise choice. Simply work your magic, and I'll be out of your hair forever," Frieza said. And you'll be out of mine. Good riddance.

Twilight sighed. "Don't mistake my decision for compassion, 'Lord' Frieza.  I put compassion over reason when I enrolled you at my school in the first place, but not again. Believe me, I am loathe to comply with your request. This is simply a princess electing to put the certain safety of those under her care above justice in this particular instance. Do you understand?"

Frieza drank in the look on her face, meeting her imperious gaze with a sly one. "Completely, Ms. Sparkle." 

"Well, alrighty then," said Starlight. "I'm out, peace." She then unceremoniously walked out, waving farewell.

After Starlight left, Twilight began charging power, her horn alight. "Any parting words, Frieza?"

As a matter of fact, he did. "Of course. Tell everyone I've always hated them."

"I most certainly will not," said Pinkie. She giggled at his audacity.

Twilight, meanwhile, rolled her eyes. "Sure." 

Then, she cast her spell, opening a one-way planar portal straight to Tartarus, the hellish shadows bleeding from its edges. She watched nonplussed as Frieza spiraled backwards into the rift. "Enjoy, I guess?" 





"Well, it sure sounds like you had fun while it lasted," said Frieza. His voice easily carried through the still air to the occupant of the adjacent enchanted cell.

The emaciated centaur within its bars let out a dry chuckle in reply.

"Seriously, the ability to suck out and absorb all the energy from your victims sounds rather exhilarating," Frieza added.

"Oh, it is," Tirek confirmed. "But even then, at my peak, I couldn't perform any feats of destruction close to what you've described."

Frieza waved a hoof. "Stop, you're making me blush."

At this, Tirek smirked. "Yeah right. We're a couple of ruthless fiends, you and I, despite appearances. We have no shame."

"Ok, you got me," replied Frieza with a wink before smiling himself. 

Tirek's wrinkled face carried layers of cruelty. "Although, if you did, I'd think you'd be embarrassed that it only took one goodie-two-shoes to put you down as opposed to six."  

Frieza shook his head. "Even after hearing your story, I still doubt a handful of ponies could have taken down a Saiyan, those specific ones especially. I honestly had no idea my one-time schoolmarms had in in them."

Tirek snorted. "You and me both. At least this Son Goku of yours was a thoroughbred combatant."

"Indeed, our battles were the stuff of legends. Yours was probably over far more quickly than five minutes," Frieza quipped.

The centaur's sunken eyes narrowed. "Jackass."

"Cretin."

They both glared angrily at eachother until their composure broke and the pair of them burst into laughter.  

Afterwards, Frieza found himself sitting on the cold, rough stone a little bit straighter. See, this is the sort of company I've been missing. Maybe friendship isn't quite so idiotic after all.


- THE END -
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