Going Native: Rewritten: Wilds 1.2 (ch. 2) (Patreon)

Turns out that salt wasn't the only delicious rock. Planet Vegeta had a variety to work with as it so happened -- one was a pinkish color that, when you cooked food on it, gave it a sweet taste, and another was green that you could crumble for an intensely sour taste. I had no idea if they were poisonous or not, but so far, no one had died. So if they were poisonous, they couldn't beat the robust Saiyan stomach.

We didn't have any herbs to speak of, but even with the basic seasoning that we had… if showing them how to cook food was a religious experience for the eighteen starving children, then finding out about seasoning made me their god. Or Boss, as they had taken to calling me over the past three days that I had spent amongst them. 

It was three days longer than I wanted, but I couldn't call the experience a bad one as I watched Caulifla and Cabba fight mid-air, exchanging a flurry of blows back and forth as they both wore mirrored grins. 

It was probably a bad idea, but I had kept my promise to teach them how to use ki. Not that the lessons were particularly involved -- most of them just needed to become aware of their ki to utilize it. It was almost instinctual for a Saiyan, so it was only a matter of time before they figured it out. So, it hardly felt like I had lost any leverage over the group. If anything, me knowing the basics of cooking was far more valuable a skill. 

That being said, I still had plenty more to teach- and, as if to agree with me, I heard a familiar explosion off in the distance as I flipped a steak that was about as thick as my arm. Glancing over, I saw that one of the training areas that I set up had suffered another incident. A cooking slab had exploded into pieces when the Saiyan using it put too much ki into it. 

It was a problem I had inadvertently side stepped -- Ki control. They struggled to get the vast ocean of ki within them to obey their commands, and when they channeled it, it was easy for them to use far too much or far too little. That control would come with time and experience, but given that they were Saiyans, and when they weren't eating or sleeping, they were fighting? That experience would come fast enough. 

“We're ready to take on the forest! I'd like to see the Forest King take us on now!” Caulifla exclaimed before Cabba seized on her lapse in focus to knee her in the gut before double hammer fisting the back of her skull to send her flying into the ground. She struck dirt with the force of a bomb, sending up dust and rubble that I had to wave away from the steaks. 

She was already on her feet to catch an axe-kick from overhead, and she used it to fling Cabba across the canyon and he slammed into the far wall. “They're no match for us now!” 

I didn't disagree. I would never accuse the Saiyan race of being structured, but there was something of a natural hierarchy out here. The weakest of the Saiyans were cast out into the Badlands, where they would either survive or die. Meanwhile the forest had more prey, but the competition was fiercer, and the ones that were forced to live on the edge of the forest fought desperately to keep from being forced out of it. 

The inner forest felt different. I could only base it off what I could sense, but the so-called ‘King of the Forest’ was the strongest, and he pretty much went wherever he wanted. Usually fighting the strongest of the other kids, who squabbled amongst themselves over particularly strong or tasty prey. 

The King of the Forest was the strongest within the forest. And if my power level was 200, and the cut-off was 1,000, then he was around 950. Several times stronger than everyone else, and that was enough to rule over the forest as a little fiefdom for about six years, according to everyone. 

“Boss! What do you think? We should move on the forest, right?” Cabba questioned, extracting himself from a him shaped hole in the wall. Caulifla immediately scowled a pout -- the only one less happy than me about my being called Boss was her. Yet, all the same, she cast a glance in my direction to see my reaction. 

I pursed my lips, considering it for a moment. There was a certain hunger in my gut that couldn't be satisfied by food. The forest was full of potential enemies. A lot of them were stronger than us, some several times over. And as much as reasoning tempered my thinking, the driving force behind my thinking was that hunger -- powerful enemies were good. They were something to be embraced and overcome rather than shy away from. 

That instinct had to be tempered by caution, but I found myself nodding. “Yeah. We're ready,” I agreed, making Caulifla fist pump before she crossed her arms. 

“I agree! We're ready- hey! Listen to me!” She shouted when everyone else was already celebrating the fights to come. Before she could start a fight before the fight, I grabbed a roughly forged metal bell to ring. In a split second, everyone immediately abandoned whatever they were doing and fell upon the stacks of meat like a pack of feral wolves. 

“Eat up,” I said, wiping blood and grease on my undersuit leg. “You’ll need your strength. Some of the tribes are as large as ours. They're stronger too.” I added, earning grins even as they chowed down. 

I still wasn't sure what I was doing as I thoughtfully chewed on a bone, snapping some off a rib before chewing it up. It was hard not to feel a little responsible for the brats when they called me Boss, and they were masters at tugging at the heartstrings without even being aware of it. But I had no idea how this was going to end. 

My plan was still to bail on Planet Vegeta and the Saiyan race the first chance I got. I doubted that I could convince most of them to come with me. And even if I did, it wasn't like I would know what to do with them. 

I was helping them, but I didn't know to what end. No, that was a lie. Odds are, they were going to be killed by Frieza when he blew up the planet. And I couldn't imagine that I, or they, could do anything to change that. The only chance for survival was to get out of dodge, then come back as a Super Saiyan. 

Munching on the bone like a carrot, I tossed the rest in my mouth and chewed. Mentally, I shrugged my shoulders once more -- I still didn't have an answer, and I doubt I would find one. Until the ends became relevant, I'd keep on carrying on. 

“Boss, do you know who we'll be attacking?” Cabba questioned, his face smeared with grease but the swelling had gone down so he looked like his canon self. 

“They better be strong! I don't wanna waste my time with weaklings,” Caulifla demanded. Or, that's what I think she said. It was kinda hard to tell when her mouth was stuffed with so much food that her cheeks were puffed out like a squirrel’s. 

There were a couple of options for our introduction to the forest. The tribes on the fringe were smaller, even though food was more plentiful. All with the exception of one, which had about sixteen members, and the majority of them were around my power level or a bit higher. The strongest of them felt around… 500, I think. More than twice my current strength. 

Yet, I couldn't keep the smile off my face as I spoke, “Yeah. I know exactly who we should attack.” 

They weren't the smart enemy, but they were the best enemy. As much as I understood the impulse to seek out strong foes was pretty foolish, I wasn't immune to it. Just as I could rationalize fighting someone weaker for certain victory, there was a devil on my shoulder whispering other justifications. Like the sooner I hit 1,000pl, the faster I could leave the planet. It was a justification to do something I wanted to do, and as much as I might recognize that…

I couldn't stop myself. 

…

“If you're going to do something stupid, then be smart about it,” I told myself in a low whisper as I flew through the air, serving as the point of the formation alongside Caulifla and Cabba. We navigated by the light of the stars, and it was actually kinda alarming how many there were. With no light pollution to speak of, the stars seemed endless. 

The moon was out, but only a sliver of it. Planet Vegeta's moon was small as it was, so even with a half-moon, you had to stare up at it for a solid five minutes or so to get enough moonlight to trigger the Oozaru transformation. With a sliver, you couldn't get enough even if you stared at it all night. 

I could sense our target tribe sleeping in the home they had created for themselves some miles away. The rough mountainous region didn't really smooth out; it was just covered in forest. Along a cliffside, in a network of caves and tree houses, they were entirely unaware of what was coming their way. I had to half-bluff the others to convince them to wait until night by saying that they needed to rest up so they would be at full strength. 

It was an ambush, plain and simple. Almost textbook in theory and, hopefully, execution. We blast in past the sentries, then hammer them before they knew what was happening. 

Now that we were closer, even through the darkness, I could see that the forest was more of a jungle. The trees were tall, hundreds of feet tall, and incredibly thick. The branches that filled the space between them almost looked like a wall of greenery, while the shrubbery below was an outright impenetrable barrier. It looked like the Amazon rainforest on steroids. 

‘That’s pretty weird, isn’t it?’ I thought to myself as I flew low, barely fifteen feet from the ground, as we entered the forest. The transition was instant- one moment, there was dry, barren badlands, and the next, we were flying between trees and dense foliage. It felt like the conditions to create the badlands were at odds with the conditions needed to create a rainforest. But I was on an alien planet, so what did I know?

I brushed away the errant thought as the distraction that it was. We weaved between trees at high speeds, proving that our reflexes were as superhuman as the rest of us. The forest was full of noise, from wildlife to Saiyans off in the distance who were fighting it out. It was in that direction the sentries were looking, leaving our approach completely unnoticed. 

Two jade green ki balls formed in the palms of my hands, the signal for those behind me to get ready, before I flung them both in the direction of the sentries above us. Two Saiyans that won the game of rock-paper-siccors immediately followed the ki blasts, shooting up towards the tree tops. As discussed the ki blasts didn’t actually strike the sentries, as that was evidently a step too far for their Saiyan Pride -- they didn’t want me to weaken their enemies. But, a second later, I heard the clash from above while the rest of us banked upward at the cliff. 

“Hey, we’re under attack-oof!” One of them managed to shout out, but it was far too late as we had arrived at the mouth of the cave. 

I saw a handful of Saiyans that were sleepily rising up from their leaf-stuffed jawbone beds, unsure what was going on. I ignored them in favor of rushing forward, ki gathering in the palm of my hand as I raced towards the strongest ki-signature that I could find. It was hidden behind a door in the back of the cave that I smashed right through, reducing it to splinters, before I saw my target. 

Even as a bright flash enveloped the room, shaking the cliffside and making some rubble fall from the ceiling -- I saw him. He was lying on his bed, wiping sleep out of his eyes before they widened dramatically when he saw me. Dust filled the room, but I felt it in my gut as I pressed the attack, punching with all of my strength into the face of the Saiyan, snapping him to the side and carving a line through the cave. 

We both emerged from the dust and I nearly faltered when I realized I had recognized him. 

“R-Raditz?” I blurted, my assault hitching. There was no mistaking that hairline or hair. It was long, going all the way to the back of his knees. His face was generally the same shape as well, though youthful and currently bleeding from a split lip. It was Raditz. Goku’s brother. The one who died then was generally forgotten about. 

What was he doing here? That made absolutely no sense. As it was revealed in Minus, Raditz had a power level at birth impressive enough that he was recruited to Vegeta’s team. He didn’t become anything impressive by the time of DBZ, but he was noted to have the potential to become Elite-Class, so that’s why he was recruited. So, what was he doing here?

Was this part of canon that got glossed over? Did he not go straight to Vegeta’s team?

I only realized that I spoke out loud when Raditz reacted by flinching back with an alarmed expression, “You know who I am?” He blurted, sounding afraid before he caught himself. Then he puffed out his chest, “O-Of course you know who I am! I’m sure you’ve heard all about how strong I am, so you don’t stand a chance!” He boasted, putting on airs. As much as I’d like to think the display was pathetic on account that he was apparently half as strong as he would become as an adult, he was still twice as strong as me, and my surprise attack didn't do as much damage as I’d hoped. 

I didn't respond as I dove at him, more than a dozen fights already starting around us as the cave was being smashed to pieces, or the trees were being shattered. Despite his bravado, I saw Raditz lock in and get ready to fight -- he blocked a punch as he flew back before retaliating with punch of his own.

Something like ‘twice as strong as me’ felt a little vague on what that actually meant right up until I tasted blood in my mouth with my head snapping to the side. I saw the punch coming, but I wasn't able to react to it fast enough. Even the unclean hit felt like it rattled every tooth in my mouth. Gritting my teeth, I snarled at him, launching a flurry of blows in retaliation. 

“Pathetic! You'll have to do better than that if you want to defeat me!” He boasted, a grin finding its way onto his face as we exchanged blows. He was faster and stronger. More than that, while he possessed the same savagery in his fighting style that Caulifla did, it was… refined. Honed to a deadly edge that made my basic boxing fundamentals feel useless. 

So, I threw them to the side. 

My body moved of its own accord, tapping into instincts that humans just didn't have. The instinct to fight. My blood felt like it was singing in my veins even as every trace of air in my lungs left in a ragged gasp when Raditz folded me like a piece of paper around his fist. And, in retaliation, I grabbed the sides of his head and slammed my forehead against his nose, flattening it in a spray of blood that made Raditz howl in pain. 

Our fight drifted away, the others winning and losing in their own clashes. I could hear Caulifla in the distance laughing uproariously as she fought against her foe just as I could hear the wood creaking as the trees around us gave way to crash to the ground. All the while, I traded blows with Raditz. He hit me more and harder, but I punished him for it every time. 

A punch to my ribs connected and it felt like they snapped underneath it, but I ignored the pain to slam my elbow into his temple, snapping his head to the side. He flew back, slamming into the trunk of a tree and snapping it like a toothpick when he jumped off of it. I knew the blow was coming, I could almost follow it with my eyes, but I just couldn't move fast enough. 

All I could do was tilt my head to the side, lessening the impact to my jaw, so I was only spitting out a spray of blood and not my teeth. Yet, even as I took the blow, I was responding -- a hand latched on to Raditz's wrist before I yanked back as I slammed my fist into his elbow, bending it until it gave. 

“Ahhhh!” Raditz cried out, clutching his arm as the confidence faded in his eyes. The confident smirk he wore fled to my face, revealing blood stained teeth. 

I had thought it odd at the time -- why would a Saiyan with the power level of 500 be on the edge of the forest? Why not deeper, where he could fight against his peers? Why have such a large tribe gathered around him? The answer was simple. 

Raditz was a coward. 

There was nothing wrong with it, really. I wasn’t throwing stones either. The guy got saddled with a pre-domesticated Vegeta, who could and would kill him for literally any reason despite being one of the few remaining Saiyans left. I don't think I'd be any different in his shoes. And there was nothing wrong with wanting to live. 

However, because he was a coward, I could anticipate what he would do next. He’d built a tribe around himself that he didn't really need for the sake of having meat shields between him and what he perceived as danger. He stayed on the forest edge because he was comfortable here -- they were stronger than most that were coming to the forest, and those that were stronger than him would naturally move on beyond the edge for better fights and food. It wasn't a bad set up, honestly. And there was nothing wrong with knowing your limits and accepting them.

With this sudden attack and the fact that I was hurting him? That familiar comfort was in danger of being ripped away. From there, Raditz would take one of two options. 

He would cut his losses and run. 

Or… 

“I'll kill you!” Raditz roared at me, anger blazing in his eyes as his face twisted into an enraged snarl. He blasted towards me, crossing the distance between us in a fraction of a second before kicking me in the side so hard I slammed through what felt like a half dozen trees before I hit the ground. A ragged gasp escaped me, my side feeling more numb than hurt, but I was still able to react in time to dodge the diabolical double knee drop he tried to land on my neck. 

I barely had time to flip to my feet before Raditz was on me, utterly enraged. No one fought harder than someone who stood to lose it all. And that was exactly the reaction that I had hoped to provoke in him. 

“I'll kill you! I'll kill you!” Raditz shouted, attacking me rapidly. And he was kicking the seven shades of shit right out of me. It felt like I was fighting the pissed off result of Mike Tyson in his prime and Bruce Lee doing the Fusion Dance. I abandoned all thought of offense, curling up and biding my time with pure defense. For all the good that it did, as I found his fists breaking through my guard, pounding away at my face and torso. 

All of it was waiting for the opening that I knew was coming. I had patience, even as he kicked me so hard in the stomach that I was blasted into the air. Then Rock Lee'd me by appearing behind me and hammer fisting my poor spine to send me plummeting back down to the ground. I felt a spike in the ki behind me as he raced to follow me down with a roar cry spilling from his lips, “Now, DIE!” 

There it was. 

Raditz raced down, a ki blast cupped between his fingers that he got ready to unleash in my direction as the killing move. His guard was down, so sure that he had won. 

“Solar Flare!” I shouted, unleashing a blinding wave of light. 

“Guh!” Raditz cried, blinded by it. Good ol’ Solar Flare. It wasn't the perfect technique, especially when ki sense entered the picture, but blinding your enemy was a great way to suddenly turn the tables of a fight. Functionally, it was pretty simple. Ki was just energy that could be channeled -- and just as I could channel ki into a stone slate to heat it up, I could channel it to emit light. 

To Raditz, who had been fighting in near pitch black darkness, it had the same effect as being flashbanged. 

“Finally!” I shouted, using his own momentum against him to kick him in the face hard enough that his head snapped back. Spinning sharply, I planted a fist into his stomach that drove him into the ground with explosive force. Raditz cried out, lashing out blindly to hit me, but I was already flying up into the air with blasts in my palms. 

Circling around, I unleashed a flurry of them in his general direction. Some struck him, but they didn't do much damage -- I just wanted to disorient him further so he wouldn't notice my approach until it was too late. I darted towards him before I flipped back, grabbing my feet with my hands so my knees were pointed at him. 

I drove them into his stomach, blood erupting from his mouth, as I used his body to carve a line through the forest ground. Raditz gasped weakly when the momentum bled off, his eyes flickering for a moment before he slumped over in unconsciousness. I gave it a second to make sure it wasn't a trick before I groaned. 

“Ow…” I complained, rolling to my back. “My… everything hurts.” It was a good pain, though. Like the kind you got from working out. There was a vicious satisfaction that filled me too -- I had defeated someone stronger than me. Someone that I probably had no business being able to defeat, but I did it anyway because I was awesome. 

Even with the taste of blood in my mouth and a face feeling like a giant bruise, I found myself smiling.

But, while I won the fight, the battle was still ongoing. Around me and above, I could hear the clashes between Saiyans. I could follow them with my ki sense, and things were a lot more even than I would prefer. While we outnumbered Raditz tribe, on average, we had weaker members and some of them had been defeated. 

So, I took in a slow breath and closed my eyes. 

I’d had a lot of time to think about things in the incubation pod. Too much time, really. I gave a lot of thought to what advantages I could exploit, harnessing my Saiyan heritage -- and there was no better example than the Zenkai Boost. It made Saiyans one of the most busted alien species. Period. The ability to heal back stronger in response to getting your ass kicked, especially if you did it while sensing something more powerful than you? 

Absurdly broken. So broken that the Zenkai Boost was quickly booted from relevance and swept under the rug in DBZ because otherwise the Zenkai Boost was the answer to all life's problems. So long as you didn't die, you could come back stronger and stronger and stronger until you could kill an enemy who had been outrageously outside your weight class three zenkai’s ago. However, the Zenkai Boost did have one issue -- the whole, not dying part. 

To get the best zenkai, you needed to be on the verge of death. The closer the better. Which naturally gave rise to a glaring problem -- how does one heal themselves when they are on the cusp of death, likely close to the enemy that had nearly killed them? 

The answer was Ki. Life energy. 

“I hope I don't give myself cancer or something,” I muttered to myself as I looked inward. I was ripping the idea off from… pretty much every cultivation novel ever, but the idea itself seemed pretty solid. In theory. If ki was life energy, then if I shoved enough life energy in the face of a life threatening injury, then it would be healed. Probably. Honestly, I was almost entirely basing the idea on that one scene where Goku gives a bisected Frieza some ki to stop him from dying. 

The influx of ki didn’t heal Frieza, but it helped him survive. Probably. I think. It was kinda hard to tell given that Cooler had apparently survived being reduced to an eyeball floating through space, so… Oh! Hadn’t Goku healed a bird in the Cooler movie? It wasn’t canon, but…

Inwardly, I could sense where the damage was done. My fractured ribs, the bruising, the broken bones, and cracked teeth. I directed my ki to the injuries with the vague hope to heal them. If ki could make a person fly, read minds, and clone themselves, then healing didn't seem so far fetched. At first, nothing happened, so I steadily increased the ki I was channeling to specific points in my body, and I kept increasing until a sweat started to form on my brow.

But I felt it. 

My split lip felt like it was getting poked with pins and needles, and that same sensation was there for the rest of my injuries. Reaching up, I felt my lip scab over while my bruises felt less painful. 

I had managed to heal myself slightly, but not completely. And not without cost. The pain was replaced with exhaustion as my broken bones were healed to fractures, but I didn't have the strength to do any more than that. Honestly, it was more exhausting than the fight itself and I could feel my plans of healing while I fought for a constant zenkai going right out the window. 

While I still felt like a giant bruise, I managed to sit up without too much difficulty. And beneath the exhaustion and pain… 

I felt stronger. And hungry.

“I have a little gas left in the tank,” I muttered to myself, standing up and cracking my neck. It might be enough to swing the scales our way. I started to fly up before I heard a low whimper behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw it came from Raditz. He was starting to wake up, and he immediately curled into himself with a whimper. And I… 

I’m so not cut out for being a Saiyan. 

A sigh escaped me, “Come on,” I said to Raditz, dropping down to the ground. “We’ll get you patched up, so just grit your teeth for now, okay?” I said, taking his uninjured arm and bringing it over my shoulder. I’m not sure if he was even conscious, but he sounded like a kid that was in pain that was trying really hard not to show it, but couldn’t stop some of it from leaking through. That splashed cold water right over any satisfaction I had at winning. 

Shit. I was proud that I beat up a kid. Maybe I am cut out to be a Siayan, because I was clearly a total asshole. 

Another sigh escaped me as I flew up into the air, clearing the tree line. In the time since my fight and the odd ten or fifteen minutes I spent trying to heal myself, the two tribes had whittled each other down. No one was dead, thankfully, but some were certainly closer to it than others. I also saw that I probably didn’t need to rush things as Caulifla defeated her opponent with a punch that had him slamming into the cliff before falling unconscious in the hole shaped like his body. 

“Who's next?!” Caulifla shouted the challenge, looking around for her next fight with a blood-thirsty grin. However, it fell a bit when she saw that all the other enemy tribe members were currently engaged in fights of their own. It was quite the sight to see her bloodthirsty grin become an adorable pout. The thought of jumping someone didn’t even cross her mind as she went to the ruined cave, taking a seat as she waited for one of the other tribe members to win. I think she was even hoping for it. 

She noticed my approach, her eyes widening a bit, “Tarble! You won too, huh?” She noted, her gaze flickering over me and then to Raditz, who I set on what was left of a bed. He immediately curled up, and I placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to sense what was wrong with him. The answer was some broken ribs and internal bleeding. Not a lot. If he'd been human, he’d be utterly screwed, but for a Saiyan…

He just needed some bed rest. Kinda wild. 

“Did ya’ have fun? Was he strong?” Caulifla questioned, swinging her legs back and forth. One eye was swollen shut, and her face was smeared with blood, but I don’t think she could seem happier. 

“Hmm… yeah,” I decided to answer. My victory was tinged with guilt, but I couldn’t deny that it was fun. Glancing back at the fights, I saw Cabba win his bout, even if it was more of a mutual defeat with him barely remaining up from a dual punch. I watched his opponent fall, landing and laying limp on one of the branches of a tree while Cabba weakly flew over to the cave. He was absolutely battered, but even he was grinning from ear to ear. 

I gave him a small nod, and he half collapsed the moment he touched down on the ground. Together, the three of us watched the remaining fights. I was a bit worried that our intervention would be needed, but they established their own little gauntlet. When one of our guys was defeated, the victor would wait for the outcome of another fight, and if one of our guys won that one, they would attack them. 

It was a case of the last one standing, and that was us, with the final warrior throwing up his arms into the air and shouting a war cry just before his eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and he fell unconscious. 

“Alright, lets gather everyone up,” I decided, darting forward and catching the Siayan and his opponent. “All of ‘em,” I decided, heading back to the cave to be greeted with a puzzled look from Caulifla. 

“Why? Let’s just toss the losers into the Badlands-” Caulifla said, giving a dismissive shrug of her shoulders.

She was cut off by Raditz abandoning his ploy of pretending that he was still out cold. “You can’t!” He interjected, and he couldn’t keep the fear out of his voice. He didn’t need to be so afraid. He was fairly strong, so he’d be just fine. Only fear wasn’t something that was so easily reasoned with. I’m guessing he had a rough go of it when he was in the Badlands. 

He stiffened when everyone’s attention shifted to him, and I saw him swallow a lump in his throat. “I- we’re strong! I’m strong! You don’t need to throw me into the Badlands,” he protested, forcing himself to sit up despite the pain. 

To my relief, Cabba nodded his head, “That could be smart. It’s what you did with us, right?” He remarked, glancing at me. 

Caulifla let out an explosive sigh. “Sure, I can see taking the strong ones with us, but what about the dead weight? We don’t need ‘em.” As she spoke, I saw the other Saiyans who could still move retrieving the defeated and bringing them back to the cave. They lined up on the floor, all battered, most in various stages of unconsciousness, but a few had stirred. 

In their eyes, I saw the same fear that lurked in Raditz. That they would be cast back out into the Badlands, where they would either find a way back into the forest, or they would starve. 

I take it back. I’m definitely not cut out to be a Saiyan. 

“They’ll join us,” I decided, making everyone look at me. “All of them.”

Caulifla frowned in my direction while Raditz seemed close to crying with relief. “We don’t need ‘em. The food is better here, but thirty-four mouths to feed is a lot,” she pointed out, and I couldn’t argue with that. She wasn’t wrong. In the past few days, I had learned that a group of eighteen Saiyans could eat up to five tons a day. Doubling that wasn’t something we should do on a whim. 

“You’re right,” I conceded that point. “But you’re wrong about something, Caulifla. There’s no such thing as deadweight when it comes to Saiyans -- in all of us, there is infinite potential. We have no limitations. That potential just needs to be realized, and we’ll help each other do it.” I said, and there was bit of a stirring from my words. “We’ll form squads to constantly go out hunting. And recruiting other Saiyans from the forest and the Badlands alike.”

I was biting off more than I could chew. Way more. Like, I was outright delusional if I had any expectations that this was going to work. It wasn’t. It couldn’t. And, worse of all, it probably wouldn’t mean a damn thing because Frieza was going to blow us up. Possibly soon if Raditz was up and about. If Goku had already been conceived, then for all I knew, Frieza was already on his way. 

But I was doing it anyway. 

This shit pissed me the fuck off. All the way off. I wasn’t going to beat the crap out of some kids, take their home, and send them out to starve. Fuck that. 

I didn’t like it, so I was going to do something about it. No matter how objectively stupid or ill-considered it might be. 

“We form a network. Hunting teams hunt for the group, while everyone else will spend their time training. We make each other stronger until, as a united force, we move into the forest and we conquer it so we can do the same there,” I said with confidence that I didn’t really feel, but with a resolve I felt all the way down to the marrow of my bones. It was going to be made all the harder because I could see it in their eyes. 

These people- these kids had never experienced empathy. Not in feeling it or receiving it from someone else. All they knew was brutality and survival and violence. Even if they agreed now, I knew I would be fighting them as much as I would our enemies. And that was fine. I accepted that for what it was -- I was going to have to beat basic decency into them. But one thing would make it easier, I knew. A carrot at the end of the stick. 

“It won’t be easy. It’ll take months of effort, but if you do what I say, then by the end of the year, every single one of us will be stronger than you can imagine.”

The promise of strength. Even if they didn’t understand, even if they disagreed, if it meant getting stronger…

Cabba was first to pledge his support, and there were stars in his eyes. “I’m with you, Boss! All the way!” He declared, throwing up a fist. That was a crack in the damn, the others swiftly delcaring their support. Raiditz and his defeated tribe were far more uncertain and hesitant to join in, but they did all the same because it meant that they weren’t getting tossed into the Badlands. 

The most interesting reaction, however, was Caulifla. 

“Are you a genius?” Caulifla asked, looking at me like she was seeing me for the first time. There was a stunned awe in her voice as she visibly staggered a half foot back as if the revelation struck her. 

I held her gaze for a moment, my lips parting but no words would come. Seriously? Basic teamwork was that unthinkable, huh?

“...” 

“...”

“... Y-yeah. I'm… I'm a genius…”

“Then why do you sound so sad about it?! And why are you looking at me like that?!” Caulifla snapped, ready to resume the fight. 

I opened my mouth to respond, only for it to snap shut with a click as the presence I kept my eye on at all times suddenly burst into action. That wasn't unusual in itself, but the Forest King had never moved at such speeds before, crossing the great forest rapidly and… he seemed to be coming straight for us. My reaction didn't go unnoticed as I sharply looked in the direction of the Forest King. 

Caulifla was quick to pounce, “Who are we fightin’ now? That was way too fast!” She said, but I didn't reply with words. Instead, I immediately flew up, matching the Forest King's elevation and, sure enough, the moment that he saw that, he immediately banked towards me. 

And in the distance, I saw who the Forest King was. 

“Yeah… we're in AU territory,” I muttered underneath my breath before Caulifla and Cabba followed me up. There was no mistaking that iconic hairstyle -- a hairstyle that, to my knowledge, only three Saiyans possessed. Bardock. Goku. And, lastly…

Turles. 

He was basically evil Goku from what I could remember of the one movie that he starred in -- the Tree of Might. In the movie, he found a seed of the Tree of Might, and he came to Earth with the intention of planting it. The tree would then consume all life on Earth to produce a fruit that would make him vastly stronger. He spent the movie being a general dick before Goku killed him. As far as I was aware, that movie wasn't canon, but I was looking right at him. 

And based on that nasty smirk he wore, Turles wasn't going to be beating those Evil Goku allegations. 

I didn’t intend to be rude, so I met him halfway. 

Neither of us slowed down as we were on a collision course, and at the very last possible second, Turles lashed out with a kick that would have taken my head off if I hadn't slipped underneath it. As I did, a ki blast formed in the palm of my hand that I flicked at him, only for Turles to bat it away. With that same nasty grin on his face, he formed a ki blast of his own with a dark purplish hue before it came flying right at me. 

Fast. 

I barely had time to think the thought before I reacted more on instinct than anything else, detonating the ki blast in the air with one of my own. My vision was obscured for a moment as a shockwave rang out, and through the smoke, Turles pressed the attack. 

He's fast. 

I had already been fighting well outside of my weight class against Raditz, but Turles was playing a completely different game. I sensed him coming, but I just couldn't move my body fast enough before I felt a punch to the gut so deep that the only thing stopping his fist from tearing through me was my spine and a lack of effort. A hand grabbed me by the hair and I felt an impact as he used me as a club against a roaring Caulifa. She shot off to the ground, smashing through a tree, before falling still. 

I pivoted in Turles grip, uncaring if he tore some hair, to deliver a knee to his face that he caught with his forehead. A split second later, I felt an iron grip around my ankle before he yanked it down while flying up sharply to deliver a knee to my face. My head snapped back and some of the teeth that Raditz rattled flew free in a spray of blood. 

I must have blacked out for a second because the next thing I knew, I was slamming into the ground with enough force that dirt was upheaved with my body acting as a plow as Turles pressed his foot into my face. Cabba's neck was in his grip with Turles carrying the unconscious Saiyan just for a moment before tossing him to the side. 

“That should serve as an introduction to you,” Turles said, speaking for the first time and he even sounded like an evil Goku. “My name is Turles, and this forest is mine. Everything in it is mine. I'm impressed you managed to beat Raditz, but make no mistake, if you're going to dwell in my forest, then it won't be for free.” 

He took his foot off my face and I spat blood to the side before I looked up at him. I ran my tongue over my missing teeth to find that they weren't the important ones. Hopefully they'll grow back. I doubt Saiyans had a dental plan. “What do you want?” 

“Tribute. For as long as you dwell in my forest, I get half of everything you hunt or find. When I tell you I want something in particular, you get it for me. Failure will be punished by death,” Turles said, his grin growing a fraction. 

Yeah, that's about what I expected. Honestly, I wasn't entirely averse to the idea of just paying him to go away, but… I kinda wanted to beat him up as a matter of principle. So, I spat more blood out of my mouth before jerking my head in a nod. 

“Smart. Bring the tribute to me every seven days,” he said, floating up before he blasted straight into the air with a burst of speed and flying back to wherever he came from. The jerk didn't even say where to bring it. 

I allowed myself a moment to rest in the crater I found myself in before I sensed Caulifla crawling over to me and Cabba. “Either of you dead?” 

“We're alive,” I answered for myself and Cabba, who was still unconscious. “You good?” 

“I think he broke my… everything,” Caulifla admitted, reaching the edge of my crater before her strength faltered. She gazed at me with eyes full of fire, proving that she was beaten but not defeated. “We're going to kick his butt, right?”

“Oh, absolutely. They're going to have to make up a new word to describe the level of ass kicking we're going to deliver on him.” I said and Caulifla offered a sharp smile before her head became too heavy for her and she slumped over, either asleep or unconscious. Leaving me alone with my thoughts. 

I replayed the fight over in my head and one thing stood out to me. The entire time that we fought, not once did Turles’ power level fluctuate. Meaning that he defeated the three of us without any effort once so ever, which was possible. Or… 

Or 950 wasn't Turles’ real power level. It's what he lowered it to. 

Despite it all, I found myself grinning as I looked up at the stars above -- I had set myself on an impossible course and I was immediately faced with an enemy that I couldn't hope to beat with my current ability. If I was still a human, I think I'd be tearing my hair out and weeping from the stress. 

But I wasn't human anymore, and this Saiyan body had a very different reaction to finding such an overwhelming obstacle in my way. 

Excitement. Anticipation. Joy. 

I could hardly call myself a Saiyan if I backed down from a challenge, after all.