Beerus vs Galactus

The Arena

Beerus woke from a decades-long nap feeling hungry and irritable, which is always bad news for someone. Whis informed him that in a neighbouring universe, a giant was eating planets, and Beerus took it as a professional insult. Destroying planets was his job.

He found Galactus feeding on a barren world between two dying stars, a colossal figure in purple armor, siphoning the planet’s energy into himself. Beerus floated up to the giant’s face, a tiny cat-like god next to a titan. “You there. Stop eating my job.”

Round One

Galactus looked down at him with ancient, indifferent eyes. “I am Galactus. I hunger. You are an insect.” He fired a blast of the Power Cosmic that could have vaporised a star. Beerus raised one finger and deflected it, the blast sailing off into empty space and destroying a distant nebula.

Beerus moved faster than light, striking Galactus in the chest with a blow that cracked his armor. Galactus staggered, astonished. Nothing so small had ever hurt him. He struck back with a fist the size of a mountain, and Beerus flew away into the darkness.

Beerus returned in a flash of purple light and the two of them fought across the dark between the stars, the tiny god a blur of strikes, the giant a slow and patient storm. Planets on the edge of the system shook loose from their orbits. Whis watched from a safe distance, eating a snack.

The Turn

Beerus returned, annoyed, and used his ultimate technique: Hakai, the destruction that erases anything it touches. The energy wrapped around Galactus and began to unmake him.

But Galactus is not merely a being. He is a force of the universe itself, older than the stars, the last survivor of the universe that came before. The Power Cosmic surged through him and he absorbed the Hakai, drinking it in the way he drinks the energy of planets. His eyes blazed brighter. He grew larger.

The Finish

Beerus felt fear for the first time in a very long time. He threw everything he had at the giant, sphere after sphere of destruction, each one big enough to erase a galaxy. Galactus absorbed them all, growing stronger with every blast.

Then Galactus raised a single hand and drained the energy from Beerus himself, pulling the God of Destruction’s power out of his body like a meal. Beerus fell to his knees in empty space, weakened, exhausted, shocked.

Whis appeared beside him, unbothered, sipping a smoothie. “Perhaps we should be going, my lord.” Beerus, for once, did not argue. Galactus watched them leave, then returned to his meal. Somewhere far away, Beerus vowed never to tell anyone about this, and immediately went back to sleep.

Galactus did not pursue. He had no interest in the God of Destruction beyond the energy he had already taken. He turned back to the barren world below him and resumed his meal, the way the tide resumes its rhythm after a storm.