Going Native: Healing Touch (ch.32) (Patreon)

“Do you think we can win?” I asked, turning to Vegeta. King Vegeta-...Dad only had so much time that he could spare us. Perhaps unsurprisingly, over three million saiyan children were proving to be handfuls. Which left me and Vegeta along to digest all that we had learned. It was nearing dusk as we stood at the top of the palace, my feet dangling off the edge of a spire that had a convenient ring around it to serve as a seat. 

Both of us looked out at the sunset, the sky darkening as the stars were revealed above. After spending so much time on heavily developed planets, I had almost forgotten what it was like to look up at the sky and see billions of stars twinkling in the distance. A perk of having so low population density, I guess. 

Vegeta leaned back against the spire, thinking about my question. Though, I suppose I didn’t really need to ask. He was with me at Sereall, after all. “As we are now? We don’t stand a chance,” he admitted with some frustration. Our scouters were still where we left them, letting us speak freely. And it was nice not seeing everything with a red tint to it. “Frieza is simply too strong for us to hope to defeat in combat yet.”

I glanced at Vegeta, a grin tugging at my lips, “yet?” I echoed, earning a sharp smirk from my older brother. 

“Yet,” Vegeta agreed. “I still have two growth spurts left, and you haven’t had your first. No saiyans before has ever been as strong as us before they hit their majority, much less at all.” That much was true, I thought with a nod. 

Looking back at the sunset, I admitted a worry that I’ve harbored since I became an elite-class. “My biggest worry is that the Reach doesn’t have anything that can push us to get even stronger. The Champion scarab was their ace in the hole, and they might as well be vanguards now. Maybe if they put one of those support scarabs on them, that could change, but I haven’t seen them do it yet.” I told him, taking a moment to look down. 

The palace was massive, and we were in the center of it, so it was hard to judge how far we were up. Given that below was the ocean, I’m guessing a couple of thousand feet. 

“Neither have I. I suppose they don’t have the resources to spare, and an enhanced scarab is almost as strong as a champion…” Vegeta gave a small shrug, “I’m hoping that they’re developing something to kill us specifically. But, it could be a while before they send it at us.” 

I nodded, “I hope it’s not another scarab. They all fight the same,” I muttered more to myself than to Vegeta, but I heard him let out a huff of laughter. 

“I think you’ll be disappointed in that case. It’s like that’s all they know how to make,” Vegeta pointed out, making me lean back against the spire with some frustration. I knew he was right -- the scarabs worked for the most part. The Ginyu squad, my team, and Vegeta were the outliers. Asking for an entirely new design was probably too much to ask for. Though, at the very least they would create something that would be a challenge again eventually. 

“Until then, the closet thing we’re going to get in variety would be in the Thangarian empire,” Vegeta pointed out. He glanced down at me for a moment before he decided to sit down next to me, his legs dangling off the edge like mine. 

I perked up at that, “I heard that tensions were rising, but are we going to war?” I questioned, figuring that Vegeta would know better than me given that he traveled with Lord Frieza.

“It’s inevitable,” Vegeta answered with a shrug. “Frieza demanded several vassal races from them along with their inhabitants -- the Thangarian empire gave them to him, but I was there when they did it. They feared Frieza’s power too much to do anything about it then, so they’re biding their time, just as we are. Only now that they have, their vassals are acting up and Frieza is continuing to push them for more.”

I didn’t know how the whole mess started, but apparently the Thanguar empire tried to steal a planet from the Frieza-force, which gave us the justification to push them around diplomatically. So, for the past two years, Lord Frieza punished them for the transgression. 

“If they’re going to attack, then they’ll do it soon while we’re still preoccupied with the Reach,” I commented, idly swinging my feet back and forth as I enjoyed the moment. “Are they massing their fleets or anything?” I asked, trying to picture what the war would look like when the Thangar empire joined in. 

I didn’t know as much about them as I did the Reach. What I did know was that their home planet was the largest source of Nth metal in the galaxy, and they used it extensively. It was in their weapons, giving them metaphysical properties that I didn’t really understand beyond that they could hit a lot harder than their species should be able to. The empire was expansive, but the bulk of it came from vassal kingdoms. 

Dozens of vassal races and a rigid caste system that kept everyone in check. Their actual strength had an asterisk attached to it because it relied on all of their vassals honoring the call, and given that there was a major breach in trust on the ruling casts behalf, I wouldn’t count on that happening. Even still, the Thanguarian empire was powerful, not as powerful as the Reach, but they could be a dagger in the side rather than an annoyance if left unchecked. 

“They’ve increased their border patrols and there have been standoffs between our fleets. I can’t say when they’ll attack, but it should be soon. Hopefully. I want my throne to be made of Nth metal,” Vegeta commented, earning a laugh from me. 

“I want to figure out how it works,” I admitted, tugging on the necklace of the stuff around my neck. “Apparently, if there’s enough of it, then you can breathe in space. I think it does something by oxygenating blood cells, but I’m not sure yet. Or I could figure out why it can hit so much harder than it should,” I tacked on when Vegeta gave me an odd look. 

“Is creating techniques all you do?” He asked, making me think about it for a moment. In the end, I shrugged. 

“For the most part, yeah,” I admitted. “Ki can be used in so many ways beyond attacks. Bardock proved that with the Power Ball technique. I want to explore all the things it could be used for,” I told him honestly. My interest in the subject had been piqued back when I made that giant Destructo Disk, then when I used it as a shield, or when I repurposed Solar Flare to be a flashlight. 

Then, as I began to study various subjects simply because I couldn’t afford to be ignorant, I began to have ideas. As I eased into my role as a leader, I realized what my soldiers needed or could use, which gave me more ideas. And that, in turn, gave me more subjects that I needed to study. They fed into each other until my list of ideas was miles long and I was spreading my attention between a dozen subjects. 

“Well, whatever you enjoy, I suppose...though, speaking of techniques, you need to learn the Galick Gun,” Vegeta informed. The technique that belonged to the royal bloodline. Not even Mom knew it, much to her displeasure. I looked at Vegeta, which prompted him to continue. “I’ll see to it that Father teaches it to you. But, this technique can’t be passed down to anyone. I didn’t approve of your decision to teach the lower class, but with what we’ve learned...I think it’s for the best.”

“I won’t teach the Galick Gun to anyone,” I promised. It wasn’t my technique to decide. One of our ancestors, Galick, created it centuries ago. It was important to the royal family, enough so that I hadn’t tried to figure it out since it felt wrong to. 

“Good. Are you still going to teach whatever techniques you end up creating to the lower classes?” Vegeta asked, his tone telling me that he wanted the answer to be no. But, if I said that, then it would be a lie. 

“I am. Especially now that our population is so weak right now and we need to make sure that as many as possible survive,” I told him with a nod. “I’m figuring out how to create a lesser Wrath State so they can learn it in stages because it’ll take forever for them to learn it as it is. And there are a couple of other techniques that I’ve created that’ll be necessary for them to learn.”

“How many is a couple?” Vegeta asked, mulling what I said over. I was glad that he wasn’t dismissing it out of hand like I worried. 

“About six ones that they’ll need to learn, but I have a bunch of others that could be useful in a pinch,” I said, glancing at my brother. “If you want, I can teach you them then you can teach your troops. Though, it’ll probably be easier if we do something like teach a handful of them, then have that handful teach the rest.” I was about to command twenty-five thousand saiyans…

Except that I wasn’t just going to command them, was I? The twenty-five thousand were akin to a personal army, completely separate from the 501st. I would likely end up combining the two, but it was time for the 501st to return to full strength. I’ve given a lot of thought to how I wanted the 501st to function, but given the large number of child saiyans, that plan would likely have to change a bit. 

Regardless, at the very least, I would personally be in charge of forty thousand people. Except not really because Matillo was still a part of my team and that wasn’t likely to change. Not to mention that Mom wasn’t the type that would look after her soldiers like I did, so I would likely end up helping her take care of her army as well. 

So, in practice, I would be in charge of...ninety thousand soldiers. 

That number was a lot bigger than four thousand. 

“Hm,” Vegeta grunted with a small nod, “sounds easy enough." Then he looked at me with a challenging smirk. "You can show me them when we spar now that you're finally strong enough," he said. I smiled wildly, getting excited at the idea. Not only was Vegeta the most powerful Saiyan in our history, but I would also finally spar with my older brother. 

"Sounds good...but we should go tell Mom the news and send her to Dad so they can talk first," I said, glad to see that Vegeta was as excited to fight me as I was him. He nodded as we both went to her up, only for me to pause as Vegeta floated upwards. I had one last thing to say before the moment passed. 

"Hey, Vegeta?" I started, making Vegeta stop to look at me. 

"What?" 

"Thank you," I told him, saying two words that had rested heavily on my chest since way back when I was fighting saibamen. He looked confused for a moment, prompting me to explain. "For believing in me since the very beginning. No one else did. Neither did I, to be honest. But because you believed that I was going to join the elite-class, that gave me the drive to keep going even when I thought I would never get here. So, thank you." 

And with that, I saw the most amazing thing. I thought I was the only Saiyan that could blush, but evidently I was mistaken. Heat rose to Vegeta's cheeks as he quickly looked away in embarrassment. "You- of course I believed. You are my little brother. It was inevitable," Vegeta stated, earning a smile from me as I gently floated up. I felt light as a feather, and not just because I was flying. 

Vegeta brought the moment to a swift end by blasting away towards one of the few occupied cities on the planet. I quickly gave chase, blasting through the air as we left the palace behind. Without our scouters, we couldn’t communicate, but that was fine. As we neared a hollowed husk of a grand city, I stretched my awareness out to its absolute limit. 

I was hit with hundreds of thousands of presences, making it impossible to distinguish between them. However, I was able to pick out one familiar presence -- Elery. My gaze darted down to where she was, slowing to a stop just over the city. She was just outside of it, far enough that I could make out nearly a dozen other presences. 

The only issue was that Elery was weaker than normal. Hoping that Vegeta would notice my departure, I blasted downwards towards her. As I did, the cliff that was blocking my vision of her panned away, revealing her and the other saiyan children. 

Elery was standing between a group of children and a boy. She was covered in scrapes, her lip bloodied while a cut above her eye dripped blood into it while she clutched on of her arms as she panted for breath. Her enemies got as good as they gave -- all of them were just as bloodied, some more so than others, with the ringleader of the dozen kids being the least damaged of all. 

The leader was a girl with short hair that looked like she tried to comb a case of alien bedhead, only to give up after a few tries. Her skin was tanned, her tail dangling to one side as she wore Frieza-force armor, along with everyone else, only her undersuit was a deep purple that left her thighs and biceps exposed halfway. It was difficult to tell with sensing their ki, but if I had to guess, she was roughly as strong as Elery was.

“I’m gonna kick your butt,” Elery announced. She was bloodied, but far from defeated, it seemed. 

“Bring it on, you big baby!” The girl shouted back as I floated down. I didn’t move to intercept the exchange, letting the clash in the middle. None of the others did either. There was something instinctual about it. You didn’t get involved in someone else’s fight, not unless you absolutely had to. That’s just how it was. 

Elery dodged underneath a jab, twisting as to deliver a kick to her stomach, only for the other girl to catch her foot. By now, Elery was used to that and reacted instantly. She lashed out with her other foot, slamming it into the side of the girl’s head as she reached down with her good arm to build up some more momentum. It had the intended effect of knocking the girl to the side, but she recovered just as quickly. 

She rolled with the momentum, breaking into a back handspring and when she landed, she launched a knee at Elery’s face. My little sister dodged out of the way, ducking when the flying knee became a roundhouse kick. She rolled underneath the girl, so when both of them were at the ready, their positions had changed. 

On some unspoken signal, both threw themselves at one another. The other girl had the edge in freshness, but Elery was undoubtedly the better fighter. Elery still fought too aggressively, relying too heavily on counters to set up her next move, but she was winning. They clashed in a flurry of blows, the other girl forced on the defensive simply because of how aggressive Elery fought. 

However, that was going to change soon enough. 

As if to confirm my thoughts, the other girl grabbed Elery’s leg and shifted before Elery could counter. Pivoting, the other girl slammed Elery into the ground hard enough that the hard stone of Planet Vegeta cracked, a pained gasp escaping Elery. I tensed, wanting to interfere, but I couldn’t. This was Elery’s fight. Whether if she won or lost depended on her. I would only help if her life was in danger. 

Elery snarled, lashing out with a foot that caught the girl by surprise. Her nose was flattened in a spray of blood, but it wasn’t enough to make her let go. Instead, as she recoiled from the blow, the girl pivoted, picking Elery back up and slamming her into the ground again. Even as Elery hit the ground, I heard her snarl in pain and frustration, the same as ever when she was losing. So, it was hardly a surprise when she responded. 

My little sister was no stranger to pain. Since she could walk, we spared with her. I wouldn’t say that she had my tolerance, but hers was better than most. 

Elery barely hesitated before she broke her leg to lunge at the other girl, going for her throat. She punched her in the throat, making the other girl gasp for air before Elery grabbed her by the chest plate and started wailing on her face, her face twisted in pain and rage as she rained blow upon blow upon blow onto the girl. The other girl fell, landing on her back and she was a half dozen blows in before she remembered to block. 

By then, it was clear who had won the fight. 

“What’s going on here?” I asked, stepping forward and feeling all eyes on me. Elery looked up, her face twisted into a snarl for an entire second before her lips stretched into a broad smile. The rage vanished like smoke in the wind as she got up, flying because of her leg before she rushed over to me. 

“I won a fight!” Elery cheered, flying over to me. Her leg dangled at an odd angle, and it was clear that she was trying really hard to not show the pain that she was in, but I’m doubting that the tears in her eyes were tears of joy. “All by myself! I won!” 

“I saw,” I said, crouching down as I placed my hands on her leg. It wasn’t broken, it seemed, merely dislocated. “You did a great job Elery. I’m proud of you,” I told her with a smile. She preened at the compliment, lighting up as she beamed pure joy out of every pore. 

“I did- OUUUUUCCCHHH!” Elery wailed as I slipped her knee back into place. She lashed out instinctively, punching me in the side of the head. I let the blow fall, though it was more likely that she hurt her hand more than me. “That hurt,” she whined even as she tested her weight on her leg. It seemed that she adapted to the higher gravity rather quickly. 

“What’s going on here,” I asked, standing as I turned my gaze to everyone else. The other girl picked herself off the ground, wiping away blood on the back of her forearm. The group shuffled around, looking at me warily, but ready to fight. Then I turned my attention to the boy that was struggling to push himself up. 

He looked at me and I instantly knew who he was. After all, there was no mistaking that hairdo. 

Kakarot looked back at me, one of his eyes swollen shut, his face bloodied while the rest of him was covered in injuries. It was clear that he lost whatever fight he was just in, but even still, as he pushed himself up, he gazed evenly at me, waiting for the fight to continue. 

“I was being a hero like Prince Tarble,” Elery explained. “They were beating up that weak kid, and I saved him!” 

Her words made the other girl narrow her eyes in suspicion, “wait, he’s not Prince Tarble?” She questioned, looking at Elery. 

“I-”

“He’s not,” Elery talked over me before I could begin. I just looked at her blankly, feeling a little piece of myself die inside each time she said that. “He just likes to pretend that he is. And he’s a big jerk about tricking people into thinking he is -- like, everyone in his unit calls themselves the 501st. They’re really big fans.” 

You know what? If anything, I’m more impressed with the mental gymnastics Elery is going through to deny that I’m the Low-Class Hero than I am disappointed. I looked down at her as she faced the others as she continued. 

“But not as big of a fan as me! I have his collector editions toys! I don’t really know what that means, but one of my alien friends said that they’re really expensive!” Also, given that Elery didn’t know what money was, that probably didn’t mean anything to her. And what’s a toy? “I even have a scouter that looks like his!”

However, the others didn’t seem to care about that. Well, some of them clearly did judging by the jealous glances they exchanged. The others, however, eyed me dangerously. I had to swallow a huff of laughter -- they thought I was on their level. That was hilarious. 

The other girl proved as much as she settled into a fighting stance, “if he’s not the real Prince Tarble then we can win. Let’s kick their butts-”

As much fun as it would be to entertain that silly notion, I didn’t have time for it. So, I flexed my ki. The air stirred, blasting them in the face as broken rocks began to rise a few inches before they fell, clattering against the ground. I didn’t bother entering the Wrath State, but even that minor display of power was more than enough to stop them in their tracks. They gazed at me stupified, frozen in place while Elery looked at them, then at me, tilting her head in confusion. 

Kakarot had the most surprising reaction by far. He looked at me the same way Vegeta had minutes earlier. Like a challenge. 

I filed that away for later in favor of turning my attention to the group. “What is going on here? I’m not going to ask again,” I warned, making the other girl gulp before she jabbed a finger at Kakarot, swallowing thickly before she spoke. 

“He wanted to fight us, so we beat him up. Then she came out of nowhere and started beating us up, so we took turns fighting her,” the other girl looked at Elery. “You’re pretty strong,” she admitted with begrudging respect. 

Elery smiled at her, “I know.” She said, not returning the compliment. 

I turned my attention to Kakarot, who was standing now, even if he was swaying dangerously. He didn’t try to protest, so I’m guessing that she was telling the truth. Which was odd given that he was a lot weaker than them. It was hard to tell with ki sensing, and he was pretty beat up, but he felt pretty weak.

“What are you lot doing?” Vegeta asked, announcing his presence after realizing that I wasn’t following. My attention was more on the other than him. The group flinched so badly it was like they flinched into a bow, dropping to a knee as he floated above. Kakarot, on the other hands, looked more scared than surprised. 

I wonder what the story was there. If I had to guess, Kakarot knew that Vegeta didn’t exactly...care for his dad. I didn’t think Vegeta would kill Kakarot since he couldn’t kill his father, but there was that chance. I would have to keep an eye on both of them just in case. 

“What are you doing, you big jerk?!” Elery shouted up at him, prompting a sigh from me. 

“I was just picking Elery up,” I answered before the situation could escalate. “And since Mom and the others are at Gine’s house, I figured Kakarot would be able to lead us there,” I continued, pointing at Kakarot. 

“H-how do you know my name?” Kakarot blurted, displaying something other than a challenging look. Above me, I heard Vegeta scoff. 

“As if anyone else could have that ridiculous hairstyle,” Vegeta commented, thankfully not making any moves to blast him.

I answered with, “I was on your dad’s team until recently. He told me a bit about you,” I told Kakarot, and that seemed to mollify him. Admittedly, I did think that he was dead for years because I figured he failed his infiltration mission, but apparently not. I would have to get the whole story from him when I got a chance. 

Then Vegeta turned his attention to Elery, “did you at least win?”

“Of course I did,” Elery shot back hotly, outraged that he doubted her. 

“Good, now hurry up. I grow tired of waiting,” Vegeta said, making us drift upwards. Kakarot flew up after a moment of thought while the group watched us fly with wide eyes, torn between looking at Vegeta and me. All except for the other girl that Elery had fought with. She jabbed a finger in Elery’s direction -- at first, I thought it was an attack. Little did I know, it was something much, much, much worse. 

“What’s your name?!” She demanded, her voice slightly muffled from her broken nose.

“Elery!” Elery shouted right back, likely because the girl was shouting at her. 

“My name is Olave,” Olave introduced herself aggressively. “And from this day, you’re my rival!” She declared, making Elery suck in a sharp breath. 

“Like Prince Tarble and the Super Scarab?!” She questioned, sounding excited. I blinked -- when did I become rivals with a Super Scarab? Did the Reach even have Super Scarabs? If they did, then I wanted to fight one- wait, didn’t my agent tell me that the show about me was about real events?! Did she lie to me?!

Vegeta looked at me, demanding an explanation, a faintly jealous look on his face. I could only shrug as I shook my head, his jealousy turning into disappointment. 

“Yeah!” Olave nodded, making Elery smile. And, despite myself, I smiled lightly as well. If you replace the word, then Elery made a friend. Her first one outside of the 501st and the only one that was around her age. 

“Then you’re my rival too. By rival, I’ll fight you again later!” She said with a wave and a happy smile as the four of us broke off. Olave waved back, looking like she didn’t really understand the gesture but was copying Elery. Who had copied it from me. With that, we blasted off, following Kakarot as he took us to his house. 

Elery smiled the whole way over. 

…

Gine lived a fair bit away outside of the city, her house built into the cliffside of a steep cliff. I never would have found it without Kakarot guiding us here. I might have founded it using ki sense, but I’m sure I would have assumed that anything that I found would have been an animal of some sort. After all, our species had ventured further out than ever before and they brought back countless species from the Reach frontier worlds. 

I hadn’t encountered many since the Reach made sure to get rid of the dangerous species on their inner worlds, but others were far luckier. Thousands of invasive species had been sent back, and more than a few of them had managed to adapt to Planet Vegeta’s intense gravity. Making Planet Vegeta far more dangerous in the outlands. For other saiyans, at least. 

We touched down at a small jumping-off point before I realized something. I looked over at Vegeta as Kakarot grabbed the door handle, “Hey, when was the last time that you saw Mom-”

“Vegeta!” Mom shouted the moment that Kakarot threw open the door, nearly barreling over the smaller saiyan to grab Vegeta. Vegeta was so stunned, he had the same reaction that I did years ago -- he froze up in confusion, letting himself be picked up as Mom crushed him with a hug. “Oh, you’ve gotten so big! And strong! You’re the strongest saiyan that’s ever lived, and I’m so proud of you!” 

“Wh-what?” Vegeta stammered out, and I wonder if it had been as funny for the others to see this done to me years ago before I got used to it. “What are you doing?” He forced out, looking panicked. 

“Yeah, what are you doing Mom? I don’t acknowledge him as my big brother,” Elery pointed out as if that should change everything. If anything, it made Mom hug that much tighter and I’m pretty sure I just heard Vegeta’s spine crack. I watched them for a second, but I noticed that Vegeta didn’t push her away. He could, easily, but he didn’t. And that said a lot, I think. 

Instead, I turned to Matillo, who watched the scene with more than his fair share of amusement and a soft expression that almost looked out of place on his face. “Dad wants to see you and Mom. It...pretty important stuff,” I said, crossing my fingers that Mom didn’t expect me to pass that message along that she wanted. 

Matillo looked at me, the gentle expression falling. I’m guessing that he had an idea what this was about. “The current generation of saiyans are rather powerful, aren’t they?” He said, confirming that he did know what it was about. If anything, I guess this was something he was more used to than not. 

“They will be,” I admitted. 

“Hmph. If I have to see your dad, then Vegeta is coming with me. I haven’t seen you in ages! I want you to tell me all about the fights you’ve been in. I bet some of them were great for you to get so big and strong,” Mom said, making Vegeta look at me in panic. We both might be stronger than her, but both of us knew we wouldn’t win that fight. 

“We should be off, my queen. It wouldn’t do to keep him waiting,” Matillo said, offering me a nod that I returned. Mom turned to me, still clutching Vegeta in her arms. She opened her mouth to say something, only to cut herself off when her eyes landed on Elery. Then there was murder in her eyes. 

“What happened?” She bit out, her gaze flicking between Elery’s wounds. However, Elery was all too happy to show them off proudly. 

“I got in a fight,” She informed proudly. 

“Did you win?” Mom asked, relaxing ever so slightly, just not enough to let Vegeta escape, even if he wanted to. She smiled back at Elery when her smile grew until it practically consumed her face. 

“I did! I beat up a bunch of other kids that were beating up that guy, didn’t I?” Elery said, turning to Kakarot to back her up. The younger saiyan look put out for a second, looking like he wanted to argue, but decided against it in favor of nodding in agreement. “And I have a rival now,” Elery informed, puffing out her chest proudly. Mom flashed a grin as she nodded, accepting that. 

“Good. Stay with your brother until I’m done dealing with the king...unless you want to- ah,” Mom cut herself off when Elery started shaking her head. “Well, stay with your brother until we get back.” She said, before she took off flying, Matillo quickly following after her. All the while, she began to pepper Vegeta with questions, and he was too stunned to think to escape. 

“Um,” a soft voice began. Looking over, I saw a saiyan woman with shaggy black hair, wearing light blue Frieza-force armor that formed a cone around her hips that spread out, going down to her knees. A hesitant smile was on her face as she looked between me, Elery and Kakarot. “You must be Prince Tarble. It’s an honor to meet you, Bardock and Fasha have told me a lot about you.”

“Eh, there’s no need to be so formal Gine, Tarble couldn’t care less about the prince stuff,” Fasha spoke up from her chair. Gine looked at me for confirmation and got it. I never really cared about being a prince in the first place. 

Looking back at her, I recalled the few snippets that heard about her. How she used to be on the team but quit because she was too soft-hearted and that she was Bardock's woman. Honestly, looking at her, that last part surprised me the most. 

"Just call me Tarble," I said with a shrug before I turned my attention back to Elery and Kakarot. "Both of you, come over here. I'm going to fix you up," I told them. Elery walked over, but Kakarot waited for his mom to nod before he obeyed. 

"I've been working on this technique for a while now, and while it's not complete just yet, it's more than enough to heal some scratches and bruises," I said before I held out a hand, the fingers curled, as I formed a ball of ki. Much like with the Power Ball, it emitted lightwaves, only instead of Blutz Waves, it sent out healing light. The modest home was bathed in faint purple light as I held the ball in front of them. 

As if someone was turning the time backward, their injuries began to heal. The swelling faded, the cuts smoothed over and the bruises vanished. Elery and Kakarot marveled at their wounds as they steadily disappeared until the only traces of them could be seen in the damage to their clothing and bloodstains. 

"Whoa!" Elery gushed, stretching out to find that her injuries were gone. 

"How did you do that?" Kakarot asked, smiling as he jumped up and down, waving his arms around. It seemed that's all it took to get into his good graces because I could practically see him taking his walls down. 

"I studied biology for a couple of years and discovered a light wavelength that accelerates healing. The body has these instructions called DNA, and it heals according to those instructions," I explained with some excitement. "In theory, I could use this to regenerate limbs if you expose it to a wound long enough at an intense enough level. The real issue is that healing drains stamina pretty badly, so it doesn't have much use during a fight. Yet."

Healing a fatal wound would leave the person being healed pretty much useless until they got some food and rest. Not only that, since the body only had so much to work with, the saiyan would be weakened for a time as well. They were kinks I was trying to work out, and I would, but the Medicine Ball was still a useful technique that did what I wanted -- it was perfect for emergency first aid. 

"Huh. You finally figured it out?" Faha asked, looking at the Medicine Ball until I ended the technique. 

"For the most part. It isn’t perfect. And I'm not sure if it would heal a broken bone, or try to regrow it, which would be bad. I wouldn't say it's complete yet, but I'm getting there," I answered with a lopsided grin. "But when I do...I'm going to make sure that everyone learns it. It's going to save a lot of lives on the frontlines." 

Fasha let out a huff of laughter, "I guess our team is getting employees of the year for the twelfth year in a row." She said with some amazement, looking at her own hand to puzzle out the technique. 

"Prince Tarble," Gine spoke up, gazing at me seriously, killing a response of she didn't need to call me prince. Her gaze shifted over to Kakarot, softening in a way that I've ever only seen Mom do before she looked back at me. "I know it's a sudden request, but it's almost time for this generation to leave Planet Vegeta to fight in the war...and I beg of you, please allow my son and I to accompany you." 

Fasha was more surprised by the request than I was, "you want to go to war Gine? Are you sure? It's a lot worse than what we saw when we were kids," she warned but Gine didn't seem to hear her. She dropped into a bow, lowering her head as she awaited my answer. 

I glanced over at Kakarot to see he was surprised and excited in equal measures. 

Well...I guess I would be in command of ninety thousand and two soldiers.