Gone Native: Killing because I'm Hungry (ch. 44) (Patreon)

Even as I absorbed the power into myself, I could already feel it fading. Much like a flickering candle in the wind that slowly ran out of wick to burn, but it remained lit with stubborn defiance. With my expanded senses and the ability to feel the cosmos brushing against my skin, I could feel the power vanishing. It was so alarming that it took me a second to register everything else about the power.

My spirit, my soul, suddenly felt so much vaster. The only thing I could compare it to was the feeling of the Wrath State when my body felt like it was too small to house the power I harnessed. It was almost like that, except there wasn’t a physical aspect to it. There was no pain. There was no discomfort. If there wasn’t a shimmering aura of red that clung to my skin, I wouldn’t feel any different physically at all. All the changes were housed in my soul and how immense it had become.

I looked down at my hand, clenching and unclenching my hand a few times while Elery and Mom vibrated with excitement. I heard Elery whisper, ‘He transformed…!’ under her breath, but I paid her no mind as I tried to acclimatize to the new feeling. Divine power felt like I had a dozen new senses that I needed to sort through. My eyesight was probably the hardest to deal with -- if I gazed at anything too hard, then my vision rippled with different layers of sight -- infrared, X-ray, microscopic, and I could see my soul based on the engravings I recognized.

Taking in a slow breath, instead of focusing on my senses, I turned my attention inward to the foreign ki that was within me. All living things generated ki because ki was life itself. You couldn’t have one without the other -- at least, not biologically. The ki that Yamoshi gave me, however, felt fundamentally different. If the ki that I had used up until now was normal fuel, then this was enriched uranium. In only the broadest of strokes by the supremely ignorant could anyone call them remotely the same thing.

Yet, I couldn’t manipulate it like normal ki. I had mastered ki manipulation like no other Saiyan alive -- I was forced to when I crippled myself and made my ki as dense as it was in the oozaru transformation and I felt exactly how I did back then. The difference being that instead of the ki being sluggish and dense, the god ki felt… floaty. Light. As if it were made of cotton candy and your fingers were wet, making it fundamentally different than shaping the wet clay that my normal ki was comparatively.

“That,” I heard Yamoshi inform me and when I turned to him, I nearly had to close my eyes. The aura that surrounded him was what was visible to the naked eye. Now, it felt like I was seeing all of Yamoshi. I had completely misunderstood what a god was. I suspected that they would be tricky opponents, but I fundamentally didn’t understand how much more a god was than a mortal. If Trigon was but a fraction of Yamoshi, and I suspected that he was several times more, then I had vastly underestimated the task that I had undertaken. “Is a little taste of god ki to get you used to it.”

Yamoshi smirked, “It’s a lot. I know. It helps if you have an immediate target at hand, though. I’ve already got Ares cornered, so you go finish him off for me.” He instructed and when I turned to Ares, it felt like I was staring into the sun.

Ares felt old. Ancient. As old if not older than the Guardians that I met in the Vega system. More than just seeing him, I felt Ares. I felt his savagery. His anger. His humiliation. All of it could be found in the malevolent aura that I had been blind to until now -- a deep and volcanic red that simmered with rage and was waiting to boil over. Ares also felt powerful in a way that I wasn’t used to. With Frieza or foes like Superman, their presence felt bright and powerful to convey how strong they were. With Ares, it was trying to gauge the powerlevel of a sun that was about to become a supernova.

It was a good thing that Yamoshi was giving me this taste of godhood. If I had to fight someone like Trigon now, even if I was on the same level as he was, then I’d undoubtedly lose because I struggled to get a grasp on this newfound power.

“This is an unmitigated disaster,” I heard Queen Hippolyta mutter to herself, much to the amusement of Mom while I began to float upwards, trying to not accidentally drift into another universe. I never realized how flimsy the barriers between them were before. I thought they were solid, near-insurmountable walls, but they struck me more as separation lines found on a road. All it would take is a lack of focus and I’d drift over them without even realizing it.

As a diplomatic meeting? Queen Hippolyta was absolutely correct. However, I had certainly gained something out of this.

Ares waited for me until I met him in the sky before he leveled his burning blade wreathed in fire. I thought it was a simple weapon. Now, I understood how ignorant I had been mere seconds ago. “You should have knelt to me, Tarble. You stand at a level that is not deserved. A level that is reserved for gods. How dare you stand against me with the makeshift divinity that doesn’t even belong to you?” He hissed, sounding absolutely furious.

I narrowed my eyes, seeing his emotions reflected in his aura. I saw the depths of how unhappy he was with me. The raw rage. And fear. My gaze lifted upwards to the sky and I witnessed its churning power. I already suspected that it had been Zeus, and I knew he was powerful, but I hadn’t been able to see his presence within the storm over Themyscira. The thick heavy clouds blotted out any trace of light from the sun while they swirled dangerously, betraying Zeus’ growing anger that Ares was losing this fight.

“I told you,” I said, my voice reverberating through the cluster of dimensions, almost as if I were shouting. Even my voice had more of a presence. An innate power that couldn’t be denied. Lowering my gaze to Ares, I continued speaking to Zeus as much as I was Ares. “I will never kneel to anyone again.”

“Willingly,” Ares snarled in response while I took in a slow and even breath, focusing on the power within. I didn’t know how to channel it. Or use it. But Yamoshi felt confident that even with this flickering flame of divinity that I was a match for Ares. I needed to stop thinking about it so much and just do it. I’d figure out how to use it during the fight.

Ares’ aura betrayed his intentions for a thrust even before he made it, and I was moving to dodge. There was a slight flicker of surprise in his aura that was matched as he adjusted his thrust to hit me anyway. When he jabbed out with the tip of his sword, while the blade itself didn’t grow, the thrust itself was projected across the distance between us, and I felt the heat of the fire as it passed by me. In that same moment, I channeled ki to my hands and it felt… different.

My ki was always blue, but the ki blast that condensed in the palm of my hand while I spun out of the way of a fire slash, was a swirling blend of blue and red that just barely intermingled to create purple. Flicking my wrist, I sent the ki blast at Ares, only to realize my mistake then. While I was reading Ares’ movements, he seemed to be doing the same to me because long before the ki blast reached him, Ares dodged and darted towards me. It was different than just predicting where he was going to be. That was simple.

It was clairvoyance. A type of it, at least. I could see, feel, and sense Ares’ next move before he made it and I imagine he could do the same. Meaning that if I wanted to hit him, and he me, then I needed to either trick his clairvoyance or outpace it.

I closed the distance between me and Ares, my ki spears forming in my hands. They were different. The same intermingling of god ki with normal ki giving the spears a mesmerizing pattern. Throwing them into an X, I caught the edge of Ares’ blade, the air trembling from the force. My muscles strained to keep the blade at bay but I was able to, even as the blade bit in deeply to my spears. My normal ki was too weak. The only reason why they weren’t cleaved through was because of the god ki swirling inside of them.

Ares’ next move would be to disengage, prompting me to lash out with a foot that caught him in the stomach. Despite catching him in the gut, hitting him with all of my strength, I didn’t get the reaction that I expected. When I hit things and people with all of my strength, they felt it. Even Superman, with his ridiculous durability, had admitted to that fact. However, Ares accepted the blow with a mocking laugh and swiping at me with his sword. My hands clapped around the blade and the skin on my hands instantly began to blacken as my flesh burned.

“Weak,” Ares snarled at me, backing off and taking a swipe at me with his sword, projecting the swing so wide that it became impossible to dodge.

I was. Comparatively, at least.

“Spiral,” I started, ignoring the pain in my hands with practiced ease as I funneled ki to the palm of my hand. Again, it was a blend of red and blue, but this time I tried to channel the god ki within me. I could feel it moving from deep in my gut, up my chest, down my arm, and into my palm, making the compressed ki more red than blue. “Buster!” I shouted, thrusting my hand out and meeting the slash halfway.

Ares was strong. Powerful in ways that I was only starting to understand, but he wasn’t unbeatable. An attack that Ares sent at me should be something I could easily handle, only to find myself locked into a struggle with him. The answer as to why became increasingly clear as I was forced to use my other hand to channel power into the attack that caused electrical discharge to lash out at random across Themyscira.

I was in my base form. Worse, even when I grasped for the innate power of the Super Saiyan or Wrath State transformations, I felt nothing. Or, rather, the god ki was smothering them. If I pulled at their power, then the god ki became elusive. More so than it already was. It was far too soon to say that both god ki and the Super Saiyan transformation were mutually exclusive, but it was clear that if it was possible, then I didn’t have the skill or experience to manage it.

My base state wasn’t weak. Not remotely. However, I could admit that I needed my transformations if I wanted a chance against foes like Superman. Even the Wrath State was beyond me, the transformation that allowed me to defeat foes that I had no right to defeat. If I was stuck with my base power with no multipliers, then this got… interesting.

I took in a slow breath and channeled my ki to a deadly point, focusing on a precise point even at the cost of letting the tail ends of the fiery slash curl inwards towards me. Instead of overwhelming it, I burrowed through it while flying forward. Using the spiral buster to drill a hole through the fire, I sailed through it as the fire collapsed in on itself. I couldn’t see Ares’ face, but his aura betrayed his annoyance and his glee.

“You Saiyans value strength above all else, is that it? Your people will bend to me with your defeat,” Ares snarled at me, closing the distance and we traded a flurry of blows. Given that Ares had the edge in strength, I focused on the odd clairvoyance that I now possessed to predict his moves before he could make them. There was a hard limit, I quickly found -- I was dependent on him deciding the next move he would make. Meaning I couldn’t learn what they would be beforehand. A minor inconvenience.

I didn’t respond to his taunting, giving the battle my full attention to better grasp god ki. Ares was a savage fighter, but he did have excellent swordsmanship. His attacks and counters to my twin spears were instant and fluid, made all the more deadly because of the gap in speed. I was getting a handle on it, learning to expect what his next move would be. The clairvoyance aided in the endeavor, allowing me to rapidly learn how he wielded his burning sword and where the holes in his defense were.

Sparks emerged from each blow, my arms and body moving in blurs while I found myself forced on the defensive even as I delivered just as many counters to his attacks. The fight took us flying through the air, over the ocean that recoiled from the force of them, and sending up a spray of water. A counter sent Ares flying into the destroyed skull of the Sea King I delivered, its thick skull shattering with ease when Ares in turn sent me flying through the other side with a slash that began to reduce the skull to ash.

Ares dove in, intent to spike me down to the bottom of the ocean with a powerful slash. “You’re getting weaker, Tarble,” he told me, earning a frown as I effortlessly kicked him up so our positions were reversed.

I only had so much god ki given to me by Yamoshi. He claimed it would be enough to defeat Ares, but I was having my doubts. Ares was faster, stronger, and more experienced than me in this fight. While that wasn’t alarming in itself, the fact that this was a very different kind of fight where I had to learn my own abilities as I used them. That made victory a far less sure thing than Yamoshi presented it as.

My first instinct was to channel my ki and try to convert it into god ki, only to find that I couldn’t. Was that because I was using Yamoshi’s god ki to fight? Would it be different if I was using my own god ki? I didn’t know. That was the worst part of this fight -- I felt like I had no clue what I was doing and relying on what I did know wasn’t really helping.

“I understand your reasons for refusing me,” Ares continued the onslaught, forcing me to rapidly dodge or counter with my spears. I did see that he meant that. “Which is why I will allow you to beg for forgiveness.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m good,” I dismissed it out of hand, before narrowing my eyes ever so slightly at my own refusal. That… didn’t exactly sound like how I would normally refuse that offer. I would have gone with a flat no. That sounded… like something Yamoshi would say. I really, really, really hope that there aren’t any negative side effects to using his god ki. I liked him, but I would be very annoyed if I got brainwashed into being more casual.

“Then DIE!” Ares demanded of me, going for a thrust that he projected. I caught the tip of the thrust in the X of my spears, letting it send me flying to get some distance between us.

If converting my ki into god ki wasn’t the answer to getting more, then I either needed to use the little that I had left more sparingly or… or I needed to get more. Yamoshi would likely understand if I requested more, but the idea of asking for a handout in the middle of a fight galled at my pride. Though, without going to Yamoshi, it wasn’t like I had a lot of other sources of god ki to pick from. There was only Zeus, who wouldn’t give me any for obvious reasons, and there was…

There was Ares.

My back slammed through a monument to one of the gods before impacting heavily against the ground, Ares thrust never losing momentum with his intent to skewer me clear by his actions and aura. Jerking my spears up, I sent the thrust over my head with a quick motion before my foot dug into the soft dirt and stone. Ares was still pressing the attack, rushing at me and blinded by fury. I think I saw the presence of something else -- Zeus, maybe -- urging him to end the fight now.

I rushed to meet him, my mind blank as we clashed once again. This time, I matched him blow for blow, earring a harsh laugh from Ares. “You are a fool to try to match me in strength. You are powerful for a mortal, but I. Am. A. God,” Ares snarled, his sword moving in a harsh blur, emboldened by my willingness to try overwhelming him and force him on the defensive. My eyes narrowed, looking for an opening that I could exploit even as his blows came in faster and faster.

There wasn’t one. So, I chose to make an opening.

I batted his flaming blade to the side, the angle of it just a little bit askew, and Ares seized the opportunity without hesitation. My lips thinned the moment I felt a sharp pain in my side when Ares thrusted his blade through me, my skin and organs being charred to ash. The pain felt different than normal pain. The fire felt like it was scorching against my soul, but the engravings acted as some kind of fireproof sealing, and instead of being burnt my soul was being cooked. “Now do you-”

Everyone let their guard down the moment that they thought that they won. Mom and Elery shouted down below, the others seemingly shocked by the injury. I think Yamoshi was the only one that understood what was about to happen next.

I hadn’t heard it myself, but Elery had relayed what Child had said. That was then verified by Raven, who, I will admit, I  trusted a lot more as a source of information.

The Ancient Saiyans had feasted upon gods for their divinity.

I jerked forward, leaning in and my mouth grabbed hold of Ares by the neck, cutting him off. His armor offered some level of protection, but not enough. My teeth cracked around it, but all the same, Ares’ armor tore like clay and let me bite into the much softer flesh of his neck and with a savage pull, I ripped Ares’ throat out with my teeth. Golden ichor dripped down my chin while I tasted the sun upon my tongue. Ares howled in a maddened rage, a hand going to his throat, golden ichor spilling between his fingers.

“What… did you just do to me?!” He screamed and beyond the rage and anger, I saw fear. A deep fear that I imagine was wholly unfamiliar to him. He existed all of this time as a god… and now he was in very real danger of death.

I swallowed the divinity that I tore out of Ares, blood dripping from my lips. I felt the divinity land heavily in my gut before something began to awaken inside of me. It was something faint but undeniably familiar.

God ki. Not Yamoshi’s.

Mine.

“You ruined a celebration before we got to eat, Ares,” I told him, using a finger to wipe off the ichor from my chin before licking the digit clean. My shimmering red aura strengthened, the wound on my side burning brightly with god ki to counteract whatever he did to me with his sword. “So, you really have no right to complain…” I continued, a savage smile on my face that grew in proportion with Ares’ growing horror.

“If you get eaten instead.”

…

And people were saying that Tarble lost his edge.