Going Native: Smell of the Calm (ch.22) (Patreon)

We were put under siege after we managed to ferry down the troops. The team did a rather good job of sealing the other entrances, but I gave the order to kick down the base to the last ventilation shaft just in case there was another way in that we didn't know about. The odds were slim considering we were in the center of the planet, but there were already too many disasters for this campaign already. 

"How much food and water do we have?" I asked the black and white alien. From what I gathered, it was in charge of the 501st and, for some reason, decided that it was going to do whatever I said. Which meant I was in charge of not just my team, but just under five thousand lives. Despite the fact, I was responsible in the first place for the company losing over ten thousand of their men. 

"Not a lot," the alien said with a grimace. "We're still sorting through everything, but I'm guessing that we don't have more than a day's worth of food, two or three days if we ration it. Less for water -- this place just wasn't made to handle so many people. And, uh, no offense but you saiyans eat a lot." The alien looked like it regretted tacking on the last bit judging by the nervous expression it wore, but in this situation, I couldn't help but agree with it. 

"We do…" I trailed off, frowning. I glanced at the datapad that it had given to me, a catalog of all that we had found so far. If we could eat experimental prototypes, then we could feast like kings every day, but we couldn't. This place was a research facility manned by what we're likely some of the brightest minds the Reach had to…

A thought struck me. A thought that my stomach flip, my guts tie themselves together into knots, but even still, I considered the option. The idea of it disgusted me, gnawing at the parts of me that still clung to human sensibilities, but...I was a Saiyan. More than that, I was the leader. What I felt didn't matter. I had to do what was best for those under my care. 

"Start butchering the corpses of the Reach scientist and soldiers," I said with a heavy sense of finality. "My people will eat it. At least that should buy us a few more days," I said, pointedly not looking at the alien, but my datapad caught it's reflection anyway. It's expression displaced a naked disgust and horror, but to my surprise, both quickly faded to be replaced with resigned acceptance.

"At once sir. I'll...ask around who else would be willing if it means stretching out our reserves a little more. Though, that does still leave the issue with our water reserves, sir." It pointed out as I nodded in agreement. 

"I'll conduct raids to get some. How are we on medical supplies? I saw a lot of wounded when I was bringing you all down," I questioned, scrolling through the catalog with no success. I...wasn't used to using technology. The only time I had touched a datapad before was when I bought Earth, and it already had everything pulled up. Now that I thought about it, outside of my scouter and healing pod, I hadn't interacted with technology at all. 

It never bothered me before when I was staring at holograms on the deck of a ship, but now, when so much was riding on my shoulders, and the answers to my questions could be staring me in the face...I felt ignorant. I had absolutely no idea what a terragram of balticnick was, much less what I could do with it. Was it useful? Was it dangerous? Was it our salvation or could it be our doom? Or was it completely useless? I didn't have the faintest clue. 

And that was a problem. 

"...We're going to lose another hundred men, at least. Internal injuries and we don't have enough biofoam to go around." It answered and I had to remind myself not to crush the datapad in frustration. What I was frustrated at was anyone's pick -- at my inadequacies, at the Reach...but there wasn't anything I could do about it now. "Should...I give the order to use the bodies...?" 

Damnit… "Preserve them for now. They're last resort only." I had to be practical about it. No one would like eating their dead, but we had to assume we were going to be down here for the long haul. Three days at least, or weeks at most. “I’ll talk to…” I had absolutely no idea what anyone’s names were, “whoever’s in charge of sorting through the data we found. Maybe they’ll have something for us.”

“I know they’ll appreciate the thought, sir,” the alien said, reminding me that I didn’t know its name either. Asking now would be pretty rude, and despite the fact that it was asking me what to do, the alien seemed like it had a handle on what was going on. I guess I could only hope it wasn’t faking it like I was. 

I simply nodded, “I’ll go do that now. Keep going through this place with a fine-toothed comb. Just because we took it doesn’t mean it’s ours,” I said, my mind all too helpful to think of ways that they could kill us without bothering to send down a single scarab. The fact that they hadn’t attacked our position yet told me either they had another way in, or they were aware of our position. 

Eventually, we were going to have to come to them. Either to escape, out of desperation for food and water or to die a warrior’s death. It was only a matter of time and time, unfortunately, was on the Reach’s side. 

The alien nodded, snapping off a salute before we walked in opposite directions. The base was rather sizable, there was enough space for all kinds of things, and thankfully it could produce enough air that we didn’t have to worry about it. I haven’t gotten a chance to truly explore the place yet, but if some of the things I saw were here, then I would put this place roughly at the same size as Queen Teach’s flagship. 

Meaning, there was a significant chance there was an alien or two hidden away somewhere because I know my team hadn’t killed every single alien in the base, only those that got in the way. 

My feet carried me to where I knew the tech orientated aliens set up shop, the place where the Reach aliens worked on the wink-drive. On the way, there were all kinds of different inventions. This place was more tech and machine-oriented, I noticed as I headed towards a large room at the end of the hall. Like before, I had absolutely no idea what any of it did. I saw hundreds of wires, all of them in various stages of completion, and someone of them looked like they had been picked apart. Even if they were complete, I still wouldn’t know what any of them did. 

That ignorance never really bothered me before but now...if-...when we got through this, I promised myself I would at least try to learn something about tech. A master inventor, I wasn’t, but if it could be used to save lives then it was worth the effort. Though I would have to put up with some odd looks from my team...and if Queen Teach ever found out...Maybe if I sold it as a way to help bring better fights in my direction? I would think of something later. I had far more important things to deal with at the moment. 

It didn’t take me long to reach the workshop. The doors slip open for me as I approached, revealing a wide-open hanger. It was a lot bigger than the one on Queen Teach’s flagship because it was large enough to fit a spaceship inside of it. The soldiers had stumbled upon it when they were combing through the place -- apparently, it was a new kind of ship that the Reach wanted to start sending out.

Instead, we were going to use it to escape this place. Our technicians were working on installing the wink-drive, and performing the finishing touches on the ship itself so that it would be spaceworthy. When I first saw it, it was a mess of holes, wires, and so on, clearly half-built but now it was coming together. There were hints of the scarab design that the Reach seemed to love -- the sleek curves that marked where the head, torso, and back would be, but it seemed that the technicians went with practicality over aesthetics. 

They smoothed over the segmented marks, making them flow into each other while getting rid of the antenna markings that served as weapons or pincer jaws. I still didn’t know a lot about ships, but I guess it looked nice enough. Though, I was far more worried about how it would handle our escape. I didn’t see any obvious weapons on it beyond some slots that looked like they could slide open to reveal a defensive turret, but other than that it didn’t seem like it could hit hard. 

I guess it didn't need to. We just needed to get out of dodge, if we got into a position that we were fighting against the Reach fleet, then having a little extra firepower wouldn't save us. Technician, I dubbed the alien that had made my scouter, noticed my entrance fist. It waved me over, it's expression displaying excitement so I'm guessing that it had good news.

"We're ahead of schedule," it informed as it gestured to a graph covered in squiggly lines. "We found a prototype power source that we were able to cannibalize for the ship, and that helped a great deal. The only problem is going to be fuel, but with the wink-drive, we should be able to make it back to Frieza-force controlled space and send out an SOS." It explained, gesturing to the squiggly lines. It seemed pretty happy about that, so I'm guessing that the lines were really good. 

"And the wink-drive?" I asked, taking the edge off of Technician's good cheer. It nodded, the graphs changing with a flick of its wrists. This time, I'm going to say that the squiggly lines were bad. There were two, one red and one blue -- the latter was just below the former at every point. Only barely, but it was noticeable. 

"We're slightly behind," it admitted after a moment. "The wink-drive wasn't quite done in either theory or mechanically, so we're having to put on the finishing touches. We're making good progress with it, it's just not as fast as we would like." 

I nodded slowly, "will it affect when we leave?" I questioned for clarity. The wink-drive was our ticket out of here. Even if we did find something else in the data we stole, we already invested time into the drive. Any delay could kill us. 

"It shouldn't unless there's a serious unforeseen issue. In truth, my biggest concern is that we won't be able to test it before we escape. If we make a mistake...there is a not inconsiderable chance we'll simply be deleted from reality." It muttered quietly to me, and I'm guessing that tidbit of information wasn't common knowledge. 

…"Then make sure we get it right the first time. I can't make any promises, but I'll do all that I can to buy you enough time to make sure that it works." Food and water were the biggest concerns and we would have to do something about them soon. Because every moment the Reach wasn't attacking us, they were building up their strength, securing their defenses and calling for reinforcements. Time wasn't on our side, not in the slightest. 

"I hope we won't need you too," Technician said quietly and I took it as the conversation was over. I left them to their work, my mind trying to conjure up more ways all of this could go wrong or second-guessing every decision I just made. Were there better ways? Was there a solution that I wasn’t seeing because of my ignorance and inexperience? Then there were the countless what-ifs -- what if the Reach attacked? Could we hold them off? What if they decided to drop a massive bomb down here to take us all out at once?

I was all too aware that the Reach only stayed their hand because of the fear of collateral damage. If they weren’t careful, then they could make the planet inhospitable if they damaged the thick shielding that covered the planet’s surface. Especially when we were in the center of the planet -- like a lot of things, I couldn’t tell for sure, but I’m guessing that blowing up the planet core was a bad idea.

If they found a way around that limitation before we were ready…

It all came down to time.

“Everyone, meet me in here,” I said, sending them some coordinates of a hanger that was big enough to serve our purposes. I got confirmation from my team before I took in a deep breath and switched to general coms. It was time to get started on what I could do. “All saiyans, come to this location for training.”

I took my finger off the scouter and flew the remainder of the distance. I was the first to arrive at the hanger that was shaped much like the one I was in before. It was a lot bigger than the one on Queen Teach’s flagship, easily large enough to for several oozaru’s to duke it out without having to worry about the fight expanding beyond the ring. So long as no one got off a ki breath attack, and considering there would be several oozarus to keep them pinned, it should be fine. 

All the while, I would be training the first other saiyan to master the Wrath State. 

My team were the first to arrive with Matillo and Parslee in tow. It was clear to see who didn’t like the decision and those that didn’t care. Tora wore a deep scowl on his face, and Fasha looked unhappy with the decision as well. Shugesh, Borgos, and Parslee looked like they couldn’t have cared less, while Matillo was the only one that expressed any kind of approval judging by his firm nod in my direction. 

I took in a breath, meeting Tora’s gaze, and chose to ignore the obvious displeasure that he displayed in favor of paying attention to the saiyans that began to fly through the door, wearing expressions of confusion. I didn’t know any of their names, but it was impossible to mistake them for anything but saiyans with their hairstyles. They shared looks as they flew down to the floor where we were out, eyeing my team and me warily. 

I waited until it was clear that there were no other saiyans coming. I looked up at the group of thirty saiyans, or so, that were standing in a disorganized crowd and a thought struck me. The black and white alien was right -- all together, just under forty saiyans were enough to make a dent in our food reserves. Our species really did eat a crazy amount, didn’t we? 

There was a small silence before I realized everyone was waiting for me to start. Luckily, I came prepared. Saiyans wouldn't care for flowery speeches or hopeful messages. They would want the truth, no matter how brutal. So, that's what I would give them. 

"We're in a bad spot," I started, stepping forward to make it clear that I was in charge. "and if we don't do something about it soon, then we're probably all going to die." I informed, the saiyans before me sharing looks and frowns but before any of them could say anything, I continued. "We're building our exit out of here now, but it's going to take time. The Reach is going to use that time to make it impossible for us to leave."

I knew what I would do. Place traps and mines on every level that the planet went down that was connected to this base, put every scarab that they could at the four entrances while positioning the fleet above them as well. When we left, we could be facing down a wall of plasma and black holes missiles.

"My team isn’t strong enough to carve a path for us through the defenses they're going to set up, much less defeat them all. I can't do it either," I admitted. At that, the saiyans before me looked nervous. My power level was on display for all to see. A whopping 85,000. At this moment...I was likely one of the most powerful saiyans in history without going into our oozaru form. "We can't do this alone. We're going to need all of your help." 

I heard one let out a scoff, a...whoa...that was one incredible hairdo, I thought, spotting the Saiyan with a flattop that added an extra foot to his height. "We're low-class. What can we do?" 

I expected that question. "You're going to learn how to control your oozaru forms,” I stated, carefully watching their reactions. There were too many for me to notice them all, but the general consensus was shock. Which was fair, I suppose. Learning how to control the oozaru form was a mid-class skill, and the highest power level amongst them was 3000. None of them likely ever thought they would learn how to do it, much less be taught. 

“What?” One of them blurted, a female saiyan with half of her head left bare because of a nasty burn scar while the other half of her hair was shoulder-length locks. Her eyebrows drew together, and it seemed she was speaking what was on everyone’s minds. “Why would you teach us that?” 

Tora, Fasha and Parslee had brought up that same point. This time, I made sure that I was far more prepared to answer it. 

“Because, even if we were strong enough,” I started gesturing to my team. “There’s only seven of us. This is a highly valued planet in the middle of Reach territory -- I’ve already had to kill one special-class scarab already, and I doubt that it was the only one on the planet. If there’s another one? Or another ten? Or a hundred of them?” I questioned, trying to make eye contact with all the saiyans before me but it was a little difficult since they all had to look down at me. 

“We don’t have the numbers. It’s not even a matter of strength. We just can’t completely stall the number of forces that the Reach will be throwing at us. They only have to get one strike in at the ship, and we’re all dead.” I explained, “but that’s where all of you come in. After you master your oozaru forms, you’ll be able to help us keep the enemy at bay long enough for us to escape.” 

A few saiyans grimaced at that, making me pause. What was wrong? Weren’t they happy to be taught how to control their-

“So, we’re a meatshield for the ship so you can get away?” One saiyan said in a low mummer, but it was so quiet that we all heard it. My gaze snapped to the saiyan, who was showing the barest hints that he was leaving his prime with a few wrinkles gathering around his eyes and a few gray hairs that stood out. His lips thinned as we made eye contact, but he didn’t back down or take back what he said. 

I took a moment to gather my thoughts as I shook my head. Unfortunately, I was also prepared for this because Tora brought up that point as well when I told my team the plan. Only he thought that it was the plan. I walked over to a small workbench that would undoubtedly be flattened once the training began and picked up a metal pipe. 

“No,” I answered shortly, holding the metal pipe up for the group of saiyans to see. “This is about us working together to achieve what we couldn’t achieve alone. For example,” I said, breaking the pipe with ease, “alone, my team would break easily. Our ship destroyed, and eventually, we would be picked off one by one even if it’s only through attrition.”

Then I grabbed several other pipes, “but if we work together, if we cover our weaknesses and support our strengths, then we can win.” I said, slowly bending the pipes, only this time they didn’t break. I hoped that clarified my point. “Together, working as a team, we can get out of here. But we can only do it if we work together.” I stressed that point, my gaze sweeping over the crowd of saiyans. There was more that I wanted to say, all of them settling heavily on my tongue but I didn’t say any of them. 

Asking them to trust me wouldn’t do anything. Asking them to set aside their pride to work together wouldn’t do anything either. If anything, it would ruin whatever credibility that I had. All I could do was make them understand that we would all die if we didn’t play our role. I had to hope that they would obey out of self-interest rather than belief or selflessness. 

“So, who wants to learn how to control their oozaru form first?” I asked, and this time I received far more support. The saiyans, almost as one stepped forward, and when they realized it, they started posturing, determined to be the first one. It almost turned into a brawl, if it wasn’t for Fasha stepping forward, the deep frown on her face gone. 

“Strongest to weakest,” she informed, and I realized that I should have went with that to start with. Bardock did say something about it was easier to learn the form when you were stronger in your base state. Which sounded a little backward to me, but what did I know about saiyan biology?

Five saiyans stepped forward, one with the flattop, the scarred woman, the elderly saiyan, and two others. Only the woman had a power level above 3000, though the others weren’t too far behind. The rest, on the other hand, I noticed with some worry, were barely above 2000. That would be enough to keep some scout scarabs occupied, but not much else. 

It was still better than nothing, I reminded myself. My gaze drifted over to my team, all of them following through with what we had planned. All but one of them would help train the saiyans to control their oozaru form, while the one leftover would learn the Wrath State from me. My gaze landed on Tora, who met it evenly before he gave me a sharp nod. Right. It was time. 

“Make sure that you don’t wreck the place,” I told the team as Tora stepped forward. I floated off the ground while the rest of the saiyans fell back to safe distances. I got nods all around while Fasha gave me a lopsided smirk. 

“Right back at you. Don’t let stuffy wreck the place,” she said, making Tora roll his eyes and getting a weak smile back from me. She waved us away before she turned her attention to her first student, and I could only hope that the saiyans were quick learners. We would need all of them when the time came, and if they couldn’t master it...then I didn’t know what plan B was. 

Tora and I flew through the hallways in heavy silence, going to another end of the base that was far away enough from everyone. Originally, I wanted to teach the weakest, then work our way up to the strongest, but Tora had stepped forward before I could bring the idea up. I didn’t overrule him simply because this was what we needed. 

Since I was put in charge, we hadn’t had an actual conversation about it. It just became a pissing contest. This was a chance to clear the air before we found ourselves neck-deep in the shit again. 

We entered another hanger some distance away, the sound of the door closing behind us echoed out through the large hanger, or testing area, though it was smaller than the one that could fit ten oozarus. In silence, we flew down to the center of the room, Tora landing some feet behind me. Taking in a bracing breath, I turned around to face Tora, the man who should be the one in charge, and met his hard gaze. 

“We need to talk,” I said, getting a nod from Tora. He let out a soft sigh as his lips turned down into a frown, and he was all too quick to start things off. 

“Tarble, there’s no point in trying to save the 501st,” he stated bluntly. My hands curled into fists, mostly because I was expecting him to start off with training the other saiyans to control their oozaru form. “We could have gotten off the planet if you hadn’t gone back to rescue them, and now that we’re stuck here, most of them are dead weight.” 

“The technicians aren’t. They’re our ticket out of here. There’s no guarantee that we could have escaped in the first place. We don’t know where that fleet came from, or how big it is. Even if we managed to steal a ship, odds were we would have been shot down. Or we would have eventually hit one of their FTL blockers, so we would be dead in space deep in Reach territory.” 

Tora, surprisingly, nodded, “yeah, you’re right. There are no guarantees in battle. But there also wasn’t any guarantee that those technicians would have found anything useful. Or they would be able to understand any of it. Or they would be able to do anything with it if they did find something. It was a risk that paid off.” He was agreeing with me. Why didn’t I like that?

“But, the issue is why you went back to save them. Unless you’re telling me that you saw this coming?” Tora asked, his tone telling me that he already knew the answer. 

“I…” A lie rested heavily on my tongue, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Lying that I did see it coming, that I knew that there was valuable information on my scouter and that I knew the 501st would be able to do something with it just seemed...something that a human would do. To save face. “No, I didn’t.” 

I quickly continued before Tora could press on and roll over me to win the argument. “But just because a lot of them can’t do much now, doesn’t mean that they won’t be useful down the line,” I argued. Admitting that they deserved to be saved wouldn’t help me here. I had to argue with logic, not sentiment. “I was deadweight too when I first joined-”

“No, Tarble, you weren’t,” Tora interjected, his tone serious. I looked up at him, caught completely off guard by the...compliment? I thought we were going to argue, then use the training exercise as an excuse to beat the shit out of each other. “We covered you, sure, and we handled the most difficult tasks until you were ready, but any task we gave you, you got done. You were never once deadweight on any mission we’ve been on together.”

I...I wasn’t prepared for compliments. Of any kind. Much less right now when I was ready to argue and fight.

“But you’re arguing around the issue,” Tora was quick to reprimand, firmly staring into my yellow eyes. I tensed, knowing that much was true. “You went back to save them because you wanted to,” he stated, hammering the nail right on the head. “Why?”

Still caught flatfooted, I hesitated to answer, wanting to think of a way to frame the truth that would make me appear less...me. The saiyan that couldn’t kill civilians, that cared what other aliens thought of me, that saved the 501st because I felt guilty about them being here in the first place. I’ve managed to keep most of my shortcomings a secret, but now I had to admit their existence. 

“I…” I trailed off before my shoulders lumped ever so slightly in defeat. “Because they’re part of the team now. I’m the leader. It’s my job to make sure that they come back from the mission. My calls got over two-thirds of them killed already,” I admitted, my hands uncurling from the white-knuckled fists that they had been.  

I heard Tora sigh, “Tarble, do you remember what Bardock said during your first mission?” He asked, earning a slow nod from me. 

“The mission, the team, then pride,” I quoted, wondering where he was going with this. How could I forget those words?

“You’re putting pride over the mission and the team,” he told me. I frowned at that. How was I putting pride in front of the mission and the team? I was trying to save the team and the 501st-

“The thing is, those aliens? They’re generic trash,” he continued coldly, but not cruelly. “Just like how we were generic trash back when we were low-class warriors. The mission was a failure. We couldn’t take the world, and we can’t inflict enough damage to halt production. Our priority should have been retreating out of the system.”

“Instead, you chose to save the 501st. Maybe that was the right call in hindsight, there’s no telling at this point. But you didn’t do it out of practicality, you did it because you wanted to save everyone,” Tora said and my lips thinned, his words containing a little too much truth in them for comfort. “Tarble, the thing is, you’re misunderstanding what your role as a leader is.”

Tora took a few steps forward before taking a knee, and even then he still towered over me. “Your goal isn’t to make sure that everyone returns from a mission. It’s to make sure that the mission is completed,” he told me, making me shift uncomfortably. “The mission, then the team, then your pride.”

It...he wasn’t...entirely wrong...I guess…

As if sensing that he was winning the argument, he swiftly followed it up with, “You can’t do it all Tarble. You can’t accomplish every mission and make sure no one dies. Bardock only managed it because he was working with a small team, not with an entire company in enemy territory. Thinking that you can is nothing but pride talking. The mission comes before the team -- you have to be able to make sacrifices to accomplish the mission. The team part of it is to make those sacrifices as few as possible.”

Even as my brain rebelled at the idea, I couldn’t deny a certain amount of truth in his words. In a way, I did put my pride over the mission. I dressed it up differently, but I saved the 501st because I wanted to. Because I didn’t want to be responsible for any more of their deaths. It had worked out so far, but what if there hadn’t been a technician that could work on the wink-drive? Then where would we be?

“The 501st was Queen Teach’s best troops,” I argued back. Just because he had a point didn’t mean I had to accept that he was right. I had my own points to make. “Aliens that can survive in ten Gs are rare, in the first place. And some of them are fairly strong. Throwing them all away would impact the war effort.” 

Tora looked slightly annoyed, “Tarble, who cares about the war effort?” He asked, bringing me up short.

I simply blinked, looking at Tora with a bewildered expression while he looked back at me with an equally confused expression. What did he mean, ‘who cares about the war effort?’ “I...what? You don’t care about winning the war?” I asked, struggling to wrap my head around what he was implying.

“Of course I want to win, but I couldn’t care less about if Frieza wins,” Tora explained, his eyebrows drawing together. “Tarble, we’re living underneath Frieza’s boot. For the longest time, we were one bad day away from being wiped out by Frieza. He hated us and we hated him. It was never a secret. Bardock and I talked about it for a long time -- we thought that he would use the war as an excuse to drive our species into extinction.” 

I shifted ever so slightly, several memories coming to mind. The first and foremost was the ease that Lord Frieza destroyed Sereall...but another quickly followed of a lesser form of Lord Frieza destroying Planet Vegeta. Of a beaten and bloodied Bardock trying to stop the Death Ball, only to fail. As discomforting as it was, I don’t think that Tora was wrong on the account that Lord Frieza could wipe us out if he wanted to. 

Any argument that I could make was undercut by uncertainty. The lifting of our species cap for the war could only be during the war. Once we won, if Lord Frieza decided to reinstitute the population cap of three thousand, then millions, possibly billions of saiyans...would be killed. Mercilessly. Tora seemed to realize he made a point, so he quickly followed it up. 

“We knew that, so we decided to do something about it. Bardock started taking more dangerous missions and completed them in the hopes that he would gain Frieza’s favor. And he did. He did it to secure the saiyan races place in the Frieza-force so Frieza wouldn’t kill us all whenever he felt like it.” Tora continued, his tone tired. That...made a degree of sense, I had to admit. The lengths that Bardock would have to go to in order to be the employee of the year for a decade straight would have been extreme if his only goal was to seek greater challenges. 

But that explanation didn’t make sense. “Then how can you not care about if we win or not? If Lord Frieza loses then I doubt that the Reach would treat us any better.”

Tora frowned at me, “do you really think Bardock would only have one plan for this? We can still win even if Frieza loses because the only way the Frieza-force loses is if they manage to kill Frieza and Cooler. Then the boot that King Cold put us under will be gone. We’ll be free.” 

That...sounded like the best-case scenario. Only the best-case scenario never happens. “The Reach will come after us,” I pointed out with a frown. “And so will plenty of other races. We might live underneath Frieza’s boot but no one can strike at us without striking him by extension.” 

I could almost see the future that he was trying to paint for me. It looked nice, right up until I paid attention to the gritty details. The saiyan race had a lot of enemies, and we would only make more once the leash was taken off. If the Green Lanterns showed up in force, we would be done for. If the Reach targeted us specifically, we were done for.

Tora nodded, “probably, but that hardly matters. We have options. Each of us has a planet -- well, Shugesh doesn’t unless Fasha feels like giving one up. We can go to one of them with whatever saiyans want to go with us, then start over with the saiyan race while the others are enslaved or killed. The point is that the outcome of the war doesn’t affect us. The war effort doesn’t matter -- our only concern should be growing stronger. Let that other crap be dealt with by the ones who actually care about it.”

I thought about it for the briefest of seconds before I realized the issue. It wasn’t just a matter of a difference in opinion, but a difference in priorities. Tora...was prioritizing the team -- me, Fasha, Shugesh, and Borgos. By extension Matillo and Parslee. He was willing to sacrifice fifteen thousand soldiers if it meant that we escaped. 

And I wasn’t. And...I...think he might be right, to a degree. 

I took in a slow breath and shook my head. “No,” I refused flatly. I knew I wasn’t a normal saiyan, even compared to Tora and the others, who were also weren’t normal. I couldn’t do it. It was a weakness, and I knew it, but I just couldn’t write off thousands of lives when I was responsible for them. I couldn’t look at the war and decide that whoever lost, I would win by abandoning the rest of my race to suffer whatever fate befell them. 

“No?” Tora echoed, looking faintly surprised. 

I nodded, “No,” I repeated, trying to put my thoughts into words. I wasn’t very good at it, I never was. “I...think you might be right that I was putting my pride above the mission. I know I can’t make sure no one dies, especially with so many weaker aliens, but I’m not going to throw lives away because it’s convenient. I’ll make sure the mission is completed, and I’ll do it with as few casualties as I can manage.” 

I wasn’t supposed to care about their lives, I knew. Those other five thousand aliens...if I was a true saiyan, I wouldn’t just not hesitate about leaving them all to die if it saved my life, but I was supposed to be able to kill them with my bare hands if it meant my survival. Even to Tora, who went out of his way to save the others so many times, to risk his own life for another, couldn’t understand extending that to thousands of others. Much less aliens. 

“And if it comes down to your life or the 501st?” Tora pressed, cutting to the heart of the matter. 

Then...as the leader… “Then I make sure I don’t die alone,” I said, feeling surprisingly...light after the declaration. It felt...good. I struggled to put the feeling into words, but it felt like I finally had something called conviction. Like I had taken a step forward, just like I had when I had a jump in power level that inched me closer to becoming elite-class. It felt like I made progress even though I wasn’t physically stronger. 

“I don’t get it,” Tora admitted, telling me what I already knew. I didn’t blame him. I don’t think there was a saiyan in our history that felt what I felt. The human memories tainted my thinking too much, making me different than any other saiyan. “But...I understand,” he continued after a moment, a small grin on his face as he reached out to thump me on the head. 

“Seriously, where were you hiding this personality for the past four years?” Tora said, standing. I let the blow fall, too stunned to even think of swatting it away as his knuckles thumped lightly on the top of my head. Something that Bardock used to do. 

He understood? He...was accepting that?

“You’re okay with me being the leader?” I heard myself ask quietly, unable to meet Tora’s gaze, a fear lurking beneath the surface of what I would find in his gaze.

Tora was silent for a moment, and it was telling. “I still have some worries,” Tora admitted after that long moment. “But you’ve proved me wrong about the bulk of them.” And that was enough, I guess. It wasn’t a perfect solution where both of us were happy, and there were still issues between us that were unresolved. 

But that was okay for now. We would have time to sort that out later. For now? It was enough. 

“Are you ready to learn how to use the Wrath State?” I asked, moving on from our differences, meeting Tora's gaze to see determination. He gave a small nod, trying to show that he was ready...but he wasn't. Not really. 

Now, how to put this into words. 

"First, look deep inside of yourself and find that feeling of your power growing when you transform like this; hnnn!" I said, clenching my fists at my side and closing my eyes, adopting an expression of contemplation. I cracked open an eye to see that Tora’s brow was furrowed deeply. He stood there in silence for a few minutes before his furrowed brow deepened. 

"I think I found it," Tora said, and it really wasn't that much of a shock that he was able to find it so easily. I had to spend about three days transforming nonstop to find it, but outside of a few rare occurrences, I rarely ever used my oozaru form while Tora has for nearly three decades at this point. 

Alright. Here comes the fun part. "You pull up on the power, and let it flow through you like; woosh!" I explained but quickly followed it up with, "the pain is going to hit you immediately and so will the rage. The pain feeds into the rage, making it nearly unbearable, and you're going to be tempted to just sink into the rage to avoid the pain but you have to resist it like; HNNNNN!" I said, my expression shifting to one of extreme willpower. 

To help complete the image, I let some of my power leak out, my necklace floating upwards as I displayed the kind of will power it took to not let yourself be driven insane by the pain of the Wrath State. 

"Find a balance between the pain, rage and your sanity like; hmmmm," I hummed, Tora nodded slowly, showing that he understood but he didn't. But he was about to. 

Tora took in a slow breath, finding the well of power inside of him. Instantly, my scouter shot upwards as he let the power of the oozaru channel through him -- 65,000. 

"RAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" A scream ripped from Tora's throat, veins bulging on his neck and face, his yellow eyes meeting mine for a split second. I saw veins rupture in them, dying his scales a deep red as he clenched his hands into fists so tightly that blood seeped through his fingers. The full force of his power washed over me like a wave as Tora trembled, his fists shaking as he fought against the pain and rage. To his credit, he lasted a couple of seconds before he launched himself at me. 

I jerked my head out of the way of the fist that came flying my way as I reared back my own fist. I still could only barely recall my first time entering the Wrath State, but I remembered what I tried to do. I was willing to cut and chew off limbs if it meant that I could attack the enemy. Nothing else mattered than destroying whatever challenged my strength. If Kaylark hadn't arrived when she did, I would have wiped that city off the map, regardless of the hundreds of thousands of Frieza-force soldiers stationed there. 

And we couldn't afford the kind of injuries that would impact our combat performance. Not when we didn't have any healing pods or that biofoam stuff. 

Tora mindlessly swiped at me, no form in his attacks. Like this, he was little more than a small oozaru. The only benefits were that he wasn't as slow. I dodged the attack with ease before I went in close and planted my fist deep in his diaphragm. The Frieza-force force armor had a weakness -- because it was so malleable, it couldn't block kinetic force very well. Not sure if conventional weapons were a worry, but it meant that his armor did nothing to protect Tora from me burying a fist just underneath his ribcage. 

Tora stumbled, his lungs empty of air as he practically folded over my fist. As his head went down, I flipped in mid-air, a foot raised that I brought down in an axe kick to the back of his head. Tora slammed into the ground hard enough that the metal planting gave way to him, a Tora shaped crater forming, though the deepest point was where his head impacted. The air in the testing room stirred, whipped up before settling back down quickly. 

I touched down next to Tora, looking down at his unmoving form for a moment. "Did you come to your senses yet?" I asked, figuring if I got another roar of senseless rage then that would be a no. I would just have to keep hitting him until he was knocked unconscious, which was how I was forced to leave the Wrath State last time. Only it was because I nearly ran out of blood. 

Tora shifted, his hands going out to push himself out of the crater. Once his head was free he rolled out of it, settling heavily on his back. His face was sorting a few cuts and bruises, while his eyes were completely bloodshot but other than that he looked okay. Yet he wasn't getting up. 

"Tarble…" Tora spoke in a quiet voice, his gaze drifting over to me, and it settled unusually heavily on me as our eyes met. "Is the pain… are you feeling it right now?" 

I gave a slow nod. The pain never left. All that power was just shoved in a too-small container. I couldn't imagine that the pain would fade until I grew larger, and even then it was only going to be by a fraction. 

"You get used to it," I reassured. 

Strangely, I don't think it helped.