Going Native: Desires Unknown (ch. 65) (Patreon)

My hands curled into fists, and veins bulged in my neck and arms, expanding with blood to keep me from passing out. The air stirred around me, responding to the power that swelled within me. I pulled at my ki, dragging it up no matter how heavy it seemed. The process was slow. Painfully slow. Far too slow for a fight, so I pulled harder. Force was necessary now.

"Ah...Ahhhhh!" A low shout rose from my chest, escaping through my mouth. Every muscle was so taut that they felt like they could snap from the strain, with my fists trembling at my sides. Despite the difficulty, I felt the ki rise to obey my commands like a surging tide that would crush anything that it washed over.

My teeth nearly cracked from the pressure as I ground them together, commanding the ocean of ki that seemed to want to settle in my stomach. As I continued to pull, the training room around me stirred. It was a large area, one that had been designed for my needs -- it was made for high level sparring deep within the Warworld. Even still, the resilient metal underfoot began to warp and bend. Air and dust stirred, and before long, pieces of metal as well.

I forced my hands to unclench before cupping them together. Glaring at the empty air, I willed my ki to move. It fought the command, kicking and screaming the entire way as it moved towards my palms like molasses. Even still, it obeyed. A blue ball of ki flickered to life above my palms. At first, it flickered and waned, so weak that it was little more than a candle flame. Then it grew in strength as more of my power was fed into it.

The ki ball was heavy. There was no other word to describe it. Before, the same ki ball would have weighed less than a feather. I could make a hundred of them before I noticed the weight. The one that floated above my hands felt like it weighed a million pounds. The ki was just so dense and heavy -- a problem that only got worse as I poured more power into it.

It was a double-edged sword. That much I proved, when I thrust the ball at a wall. There was a flash of bright light, and when it faded, the destruction could only be called devastation. The wall was gone, practically atomized. Before, a ki ball would have just ripped right through it, now…

Calling my ki a tidal wave was a fitting metaphor. It crashed through everything, leaving destruction in its wake. Only when the wave washed over something, there was nothing left of it. The weight made it hit harder and the power was denser, so the attacks were more effective.

At the cost that I needed several minutes to make a single one.

"Six months… and that's all I can do," I muttered to myself. Six months of constant effort. Of constantly pushing myself to reclaim what I had lost. What I had broken. It was… maddening. Six months and it took everything that I had to make a simple ki ball. At the rate I was going, it would be decades before I managed to do a single one of my techniques. And a century before I was able to continue experimentation. It was too long. I wasn't making anywhere near the progress that I needed to make.

Sweat dripped from me as I lost my grip on the sea of ki and it seemed to retreat back to my core. It was a terrible feeling. To put so much effort into something, only for it to…

Shaking my head, I cast the thoughts to the side. I had two and a half years to work on the problem. It was time. I had time. I just needed to make the absolute most of it. By that, I meant I couldn't stand around and whine about my progress. I had let it motivate me to do better, to try harder, rather than let it discourage me.

Taking in a deep breath, and with that thought in mind, I pulled at the sea of ki again. I felt a presence approach, and given that there were only two other people on the planet, it was easy enough to tell who it was. I paid them no mind and focused on the task at hand -- summoning my ki and condensing it into a ball above my hands. Growing exhaustion made the task more difficult each time, but I forced through it. I had to. Being exhausted wasn't an excuse.

The ball of ki flickered to life above my hands once again, only this time I didn't throw it. Instead, I tried to control the flow of the ki that was pouring into the slowly expanding ball. An infinitely more difficult task. It was like carrying a bucket of water -- tipping it over and dumping its contents was simple and easy. Tipping it ever so slightly to control the flow was more challenging to a maddening degree.

After so many years of options and control, to be stripped of all of them until only two remained -- nothing or everything…

But I would reclaim those options. I would regain my control. One way or the other. No matter how long it took. If I had to, I would spend the next millennia in slip space.

"You are making progress, my prince," Matillo offered, almost as if he sensed my growing frustrations when the ki ball winked out of existence because I couldn't tapper the amount of power that went into it. "It wasn't long ago when you couldn't even power up at all." It was a cold comfort, but he was right. It had taken me a month to manage to use my ki at all. Still, it meant in the past five months, the extent of my progress was making a ki ball.

"I don't suppose you have any advice to give?" I muttered, my hands dropping to my sides. A growl echoed in the room, my stomach telling me that it was past time to eat. The situation was bad enough that I skipped the occasional meal. I was probably the first Saiyan to do so in history. A hand dipped down to my capsule case while I spared Matillo a glance over my shoulder.

He stood at attention, still carrying himself with an air of formality. He never dropped it, no matter how many years went by. "Nothing that I haven't already told you, Prince Tarble. Power comes first, then control. Once you take the first steps, all the ones that came after are easier."

"Theoretically," I added to myself, my voice a low whisper. Matillo was the one that created what I wanted to learn, but there was a fundamental issue -- the extent of Matillo's mastery went to being able to use ki attacks in the Oozaru form that didn't come out of his mouth. By virtue of mastering such dense and resilient ki, his control in his base form skyrocketed. The issue was that what we were attempting simply might not be possible.

There could be a ceiling for my control. It might not be a matter of how much I wanted to do it or how hard I tried. It might not be something that I could ever do anything about. What I did to myself had never been done before, or at least that seemed to be the case in our limited recorded history. That mostly came from Matillo.

More than anything else I had experienced in my life, that thought frightened me. The idea that I would forever be stuck a cripple, unable to even fly under my own power. It was a thought that I resolved to push to the side, but each time it came, and the paltry results of my training made themselves known… it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Tossing a capsule down, a neatly stacked pile of nutrition bars appeared. Grabbing a handful, I tossed them into my mouth, wrapper and all since it was edible too. They didn't taste good. Actually, they tasted pretty bad, but they didn't spoil and gave the nutrition needed. That, and I had them in bulk to begin with so I had a supply lasting the three of us fifty years if it came down to it. And that was without rationing.

I felt Matillo's gaze on me and I could only describe it as disapproving. "Self-pity does not suit you, my prince," he remarked lightly.

Another handful of nutrition bars paused on their way to my mouth, "It's not self-pity. It's being realistic," I argued. "It's possible that I'm stuck like this. I have to accept that."

Matillo's eyes narrowed, "Can you?" He questioned, cutting right to the heart of the matter. Despite my bold words, I knew the truth. In another six months, if I was still stuck with ki balls… or in three years and I was still unable to fly? When my pathetic progress truly did grind to a halt and I hit a physical limit that I couldn't overcome? No matter how desperately I wanted to?

Would I really be willing to accept that?

I didn't answer. I didn't need to. The answer was obvious.

Matillo sighed before he approached me as I thoughtfully chewed my nutrition bars. "You wished for advice, my prince?" He started, his tone sounding almost pitying. I hated it. "Then do not allow this to defeat you. You have made yourself a man that overcomes all adversity. No matter the odds, you find a path to victory. It is why people follow you. It is why so many are willing to die for you… because not only do you win, but everyone that serves you knows that none fight harder than you. None try harder."

I swallowed thickly, grabbing another nutrition bar. "If I don't, then people die. That's always how it's been," I replied, looking down at the bar. "But if I can't beat this, then how can I protect them?"

Ever since I assumed responsibility for the 501st, that was what drove me. No, even before that. Way back on my first mission to Rockoroad -- if I wasn't strong enough, smart enough… good enough, then people would die. My team would die. In the thirteen years since my first mission, a lot had changed. The stakes… were so much higher now. Now failure didn't just mean the death of my team. Now it meant death for countless millions. For armies. For my empire. For so much more.

And never in my life had I ever felt so weak. Not even when I was a bleeding heap on the ground getting stomped on by Saibamen. I hadn't even been able to use ki at the time, but the difference between then and now was back then, the possibility of flight and ki were just a matter of learning how. And… now, it might not be.

"There is technology," Matillo pointed out. A possibility I had brought up at the start when failure had felt like a distant possibility. Technology was on the table. It might not grant me ki, but I could fly again. There was technology that could mimic ki.

A sigh escaped me, "Yeah, there is. And if I have to, then I'll use it." I didn't have to explain my reluctance. I was one of the few that would freely use technology when the situation arose. But, I was like most Saiyans in the regard that I hated the idea of being reliant on technology. There was a difference between using a teleporter because it was faster and using a teleporter because you couldn't move without one. The former was easier to accept. I could accept it -- my pride as a general outweighed my pride as a warrior.

Technology could be subverted. I had seen it happen first hand with Kaylark. The power that I had from technology wouldn't replace the power that I had lost. It wouldn't be my power. Not ever.

Matillo seemed to catch on that his little pep talk wasn't having the intended effect. He let out a quiet sigh before he took a seat against a wall, bringing himself down to my level. "I cannot claim to know what you are experiencing, my prince. No one can. But you are not the first Saiyan to ever taste defeat. Far from it, in fact."

Part of me wanted to snap at him for that. This was different than losing a fight. A part of me wasn't working anymore. A piece of me that was so intrinsically a part of who I was that losing my arms and legs would be easier to deal with. I swallowed that sharp retort, letting Matillo continue. He seemed grateful for it.

"My first taste was after I failed to take over Planet Plant," Matillo started, the story not starting where I thought it would. His gaze was far away as if he wasn't even in the same time as me anymore. "It wasn't the defeat that I hated so much. Not really. I had been young and foolish -- I had been defeated countless times before but I had always survived to try again… no, what had been so bitter about that defeat was that my tribe had all but disbanded with my defeat."

I… "You never mentioned that before," I remarked. Matillo always spoke with such pride about the war with the Truffles… but… just about my ancestor. To that, Matillo simply shrugged.

“It is not a time that I recall fondly, my prince. For… possibly a century, I challenged the leaders of every tribe. Some I defeated with ease. Others became lifelong rivals… but I defeated them all the same. I did not unify our race like your ancestor did. At the time, my tribe was without a doubt the largest… and it was for that reason that the Truffles took notice.” Matillo sighed as he scratched at the X shaped scar at the top of his head.

My lips thinned, knowing where the story was leading even if he had already mentioned it in passing. “I led my tribe into a slaughter. There had been no plan. Not really. I approached the problem like I did everything else at the time -- if I used enough force then the problem would go away.” Matillo shook his head, “Instead, I made it all too easy for the Truffles to lead us into a trap. The battle was short and there was no glory to be found there. I barely escaped with my life… most were not so fortunate.”

I said nothing. Matillo had said that he had been defeated when he attempted to take on the Truffles. He hadn’t been ashamed of it then like he was now, but… then he had spoken about King Vegeta the First’s success rather than his personal failures.

“The few others that managed to escape went their own ways. Fewer decided to still follow me,” Matillo said with a shake of his head. “In truth, I would have preferred it if I had died with the others. Living with failure is a truly difficult thing… and I did not carry the burden well.” He admitted before his lips quirked upwards as he glanced at me. “Then, one of the women brought your ancestor back to what was left of my tribe. A little sniveling brat that was so weak that when he crawled, he had to drag his head across the ground.”

Matillo rested his head against the wall and for the first time since I’ve known him, Matillo looked every bit of the thousand years old, or more, that he was. “I thought nothing of him at first. I was content in wallowing in my own failures… but that boy grew into a man before I knew it. Then one day, that sniveling brat challenged me to lead the tribe.” A small laugh escaped Matillo, “I was furious. Livid. I might have been a failure, but I was still strong. At least, I was compared to back then. Yet, for all of my strength, King Vegeta ran circles around me. All I needed was one clean hit to defeat him, but he made sure that I never came close.”

“In the end, I was defeated. By all rights, your ancestor should have killed me… and when he didn’t, I had never hated anyone like I did before then,” Matillo admitted and that was a punch to the gut. “He denied me my right to die by choosing to spare me. At first, I thought I was to be some kind of trophy to show his power. He had said that since I had fought the Truffles before, I had valuable experience, but I thought that was a lie for the longest time.”

There was a small lull where Matillo seemed to gather his thoughts. I spoke up, curious. “What changed?” I asked, unable to stop myself. How did he go from hating King Vegeta the First to talking about him like he was more than a Saiyan?

“I did. I waited for my chance to strike back as he went through the same steps that I had so long ago -- only he didn’t stop until all of our people were unified. I watched how he did things, how he fought… and what he believed in. He didn’t become king out of ambition. He did it because he wanted more for our people.” Matillo sighed, “I realized there was no lie. He wanted me to help him destroy the Truffles, to get revenge, and to take our people out of the badlands.”

Then he offered me a small smile. “That is why I follow you, Prince Tarble. Personality-wise… you couldn’t be more different than your ancestor. When he wasn’t practicing his cape flair, he was giving dramatic speeches. Your values are what make you similar. Your determination.” He was right. He had made the comparison more than once.

I never really gave it any thought. It was nice to be compared to a legend of our people, but… it had never really meant anything to me. King Vegeta the First was an inspiration when it came to tactics. Little else. Yet, it clearly meant a great deal to Matillo. More so than I could have expected.

I sighed, “You’ve made your point.” It was easy enough to guess the moral of the story.

“Not yet, my prince,” Matillo corrected, his tone soft. “Your ancestor was my friend and my king. With him, I found purpose after I lost my tribe… and when I lost him, I lost my purpose. For three hundred years after his son murdered him, I wasted away. I did nothing. I achieved nothing. I let defeat and loss define me. It is not a fate befitting you, my prince. So, don’t let it.”

“... I won’t.”

…

It felt like my stomach was a bottomless black hole that nothing could fill. The hunger pains came and went, but no matter how much I seemed to eat, I always seemed to have room for another nutrition bar. It was having a noticeable effect on our food reserves -- I brought enough for fifty years. For three Saiyans. In the past month, I shaved off one of those years alone.

Bardock looked at me with an amused expression as I shoved yet another nutrition bar in my mouth. I narrowed my eyes at him, "You can't have any so don't ask," I told him, speaking with my mouth full before swallowing. They had their own food supplies. I had mine. Mine was the just in case supply that I was rapidly burning through.

"Wasn't gonna. How old are you now?" He asked, making me blink at the question. It seemed to come out of left field.

I did some math in my head. "I'm… fourteen, I think. Counting the year and a half we've spent here," I answered. A year and a half in slipspace. In that time, the Warworld had undergone significant reconstruction with the drones. For the most part it was an automated system, so there was rarely any input needed from me. My mind was always passively connected to the Warworld, but with most of the planet shut down and the drones automated, it was something that was almost easy to forget.

A frown tugged at my lips, "Are the years here going to count, or is it going to be a gestation tank situation?" I asked, doing some more math in my head. Another year and a half would put me at just over sixteen. The number didn't mean much to me, but I knew that the number had meant something back when I was human even if I couldn't entirely remember why.

Bardock shrugged, "No clue. I was asking because you might be closing in on your next growth spurt," he pointed out, making my eyes widen. "I'm surprised. With how long it took you to get your first one, I figured you'd be in your twenties before you officially entered adolescence."

I looked down at myself, half expecting to see myself grow into an adult any second now. Bardock chuckled, "The signs are all there. The eating gives it away -- most grow entire feet overnight, so the body needs something to work with. If you aren't careful you could end up like Shugesh."

"Huh?" I started, barely paying attention until the end. "What about Shugesh?"

Bardock stood up and cracked his neck, "Shugesh had his growth spurt while on a mission, but that was way before he joined the team. He was with a few other low-class with Shugesh being the weakest of them. Surprise surprise, they didn't feel like giving him the amount of food that he wanted. Actually, I think they might have beaten him up and taken his food too." Bardock mused before he offered a shrug, "Either way, when Shugesh hit his growth spurt, his body didn't have enough to work with."

So Shugesh ended up really short. I hadn't known that. I mean, he was still taller than me, but he was shorter than Fasha. And Fasha was a head and shoulders shorter than Borgos and Tora.

"Huh," I muttered. I looked down at my dwindling supply of ration bars. "I think I've had enough of being an ankle biter, Bardock," I remarked, wondering how tall I'd end up being. I'm sure genetics also played a part, so I couldn't be too unrealistic. Vegeta had been around five-tenish. King Vegeta was around six feet as well. Mom was on the shorter side at five-six, so I could expect that range.

I couldn't become a near seven-foot-tall giant like Borgos, which was a little disappointing, but that was life in a nutshell.

"Everyone does," Bardock agreed before he jerked his head at me, gesturing to the training room that we were in. "Are you ready for another round?"

I swallowed as I nodded, wiping a few crumbs from my face. Sealing the bars away, I took in the room. It was one of the few alterations I've made to the Warworld -- a training room designed for Saiyans. Spacious, self-repairing, and durable. I could also increase the gravity with a thought, but I refrained for the most part. It wasn't a priority.

Turning to Bardock, our gazes met and I was struck by a sense of nostalgia. An out of place feeling since it was hardly the first time we've sparred in the past year and a half. And, despite my cripplment, Bardock got more out of the sparring than I did. His power level soared over the months, each time bouncing back stronger than before.

Bardock made the first move. His foot dug into the ground, alerting me that he was about to lunge. He threw himself at me like a speeding bullet, moving in a blur. I was ready for him. A fist that was aimed at my face slammed into my palm with explosive force, forcing me to dig my heels into the ground. Shifting my arm, I forced Bardock's momentum to go up, making him flip over my head while I went to counter.

The moment his feet touch down on solid ground, I lashed out with a foot that caught him in the gut -- a hand tried to block the blow, but it had been too close to do anything. Bardock folded around the kick trying to lessen the impact while also gripping down on my foot and flinging it to the side. I spun in the air. Controlling my own momentum, I stuck out my other leg and slammed it into Bardock when he went to attack.

The top of my foot smacked into the side of his head. I sent him into the ground, the floor warping upon impact. Bardock recovered near instantly while I landed, and launched myself into a back handspring to put some distance between us. Taking in a deep breath, I settled into a familiar stance -- my legs wide apart, slightly crouched, with one hand set slightly above my head while the other was outstretched. The fighting stance of the royal family.

I had seen the basics when I fought against Vegeta, but Matillo had been there when it was created.

Bardock settled into his own stance -- his body turned to the side, enough so that one fist was obscured as it was tightly pressed against his body, while the other settled into a boxing stance. I smirked, feeling a familiar hum in my veins. "It never gets less weird being on the other end," I told Bardock.

He scowled, clearly not enjoying the moment as much as I was. "Enjoy it while you can, punk," Bardock bantered back. I didn't even want to count the number of times that Bardock had nearly beaten me to death when I was a kid. Before I had been placed in charge of the 501st and he left the team. That had mostly been my fault, but at the time, Bardock had seemed utterly invincible. Especially to me.

I knew better now. At the time, Bardock hadn't been particularly strong. I just had been exceptionally weak. Now, all these years later, Bardock and I fought once again and the results couldn't be more different.

Bardock launched himself at me, his fists raining down upon me. I moved in tandem, dodging and blocking his fists -- there was still a height difference, and being small had its own advantages. Smaller target for one, but it also made me awkward to attack when I was standing on the ground. I never really noticed it since I spent so much time flying.

There was a rhythm in the fight -- after so long, both of us learned how the other fought. More than that, how I fought had been defined by fighting Bardock growing up, so our styles were similar. Surprise, misdirection, and force. Only it didn't work like that because there was nothing Bardock could do to surprise or mislead me, just like there was nothing I could do to surprise or mislead him.

That much was proven when I easily foresaw the kick that Bardock threw into the mix as he pushed me back. I dipped underneath it, sending my own kick to his knee, only for Bardock to avoid it by jumping up. He didn't touch back down, but instead chose to escalate the spar as twin ki blasts formed in his hands as he sailed overhead.

I threw myself back a split second before the ki blasts hit the ground with an explosion that shook the room. Taking in a deep breath, I reached inside and willed myself to fly. I felt a pull in my stomach before I started to ascend.

It was different than it had been. Not better or worse, just different. It had taken me eight months to finally reclaim my ability to fly. Eight months of constant practice and learning to control my ki. Even ten months later, I wasn't as good as I had been. The first time I flew, it had been instinctual. A true do or die situation. The second time I learned how to fly, it was more… deliberate. Less natural and instinctual.

But I was getting better. Little by little. The instincts and habits that had been ingrained by years of experience were slowly being overwritten and relearned. It would just take time.

I stuck close to the floor while I formed my own ki blasts in my hands. They were smaller than Bardock's, barely bigger than a golf ball, but when I launched them at his, my ki blasts tore through his with an explosion. Something I had learned over time -- normal ki was like water, while mine was now like a rock. Denser, heavier, and more potent. As such, my attacks hit harder by default.

Bardock flew to the side, pivoted, then flew directly at me while firing ki blasts all the way. I jerked out of the way of the ki blasts -- the action wasn't smooth or graceful, but effective. All the while, I flew straight at him to meet him in the middle. He threw a punch that I effortlessly caught, twisting the arm before I went to punch the back of his elbow. Bardock broke my grip by doing a flip, and launching a knee at my head as he did so. Unwilling to back off, I accepted the blow by catching it on my forehead, and made him pay for it by grabbing the ankle of the offending leg. Bardock realized his mistake, but it was too late to do anything about it.

A ki blast formed in his hands, intent on blasting me away, only to miss when I whipped him to the side and sent him flying into the ground at speeds his flight couldn't counter. Bardock hit the ground hard, and likely would have gone through the floor if there wasn't about a quarter-mile of solid metal that encased the room.

When the dust cleared, Bardock was still stuck in the floor, winded and bleeding, but not defeated.

I smiled. It really was different on the other side of things.