Arlic:
In the past couple of days I learned two things that would dominate my near future:
The first being that my team leader's name was Mayze.
The second thing being that she was an absolute raging bitch.
"Why in the hell are you such a technical fighter at 5 damn years old?!" My strike team leader snarled as she put another fist into my sternum. Forcing blood and bile to surge up my throat while my ribcage splintered and cracked from the hit, "Stop overthinking. You're nowhere near fast or strong enough to do that with opponents yet."
Her fist pulled away from my chest and I folded over immediately, landing face-first into the puddle of fluids on the ground that had just come out of my stomach. I couldn't even groan in pain before a foot connected with my jaw from a kick and sent me flying into the reinforced training wall.
"Blame this on whatever dumbass must've tried training you before me." She growled out while walking towards me, "I don't know why they thought that training you to not follow your natural battle instincts was a good thing, but they better pray I never find them."
A hand reached down and grabbed my short spiky hair from where I was prone on the ground and lifted me up. Through bleary eyes, I saw a fist shoot down and squash my nose into pasted cartilage and blood while the force of it slammed me back down into the ground.
"Because this is just annoying." The Strike Team leader huffed, "But I suppose that I'll eventually beat some sense into you."
"J-jusht wai til I ammm stwonq enagh bitcshhh." I tried to slur out through a broken jaw and a muddled mind. I didn't know if it was possible since I wasn't the best at medical knowledge, but I'm pretty sure I had just suffered multiple concussions within the span of the last half an hour. Because even what I just said took nearly all my focus to do.
I thought I saw the faintest bit of amusement flash in Mayze's eyes at my attempt at words.
"Well, you have the spirit of a saiyan at least." She snorted as she lifted me up again and readied another fist, "Too bad you just can't fight like one. How the fuck did a genetic waste like you even get into the gene pool? Seriously, what loser did your whore of a mother mate with to produce you?"
She was talking about my saiyan parents of course, but my fuzzy and concussed mind couldn't differentiate that between them and the human parents I did remember at the moment.
So as the adrenaline and rage surged through me, I didn't even try and fight the saiyan instinct as I normally did without a second thought.
I heard both our scouters beep as my leg lashed out and connected with her stomach. While it didn't even remotely hurt her, it did loosen the weak grip she had on my shirt enough for me to move forward and throw a jab at her face that impacted with a force that would have vaporized a human's skull into a fine red mist.
With Mayze, it didn't even budge her cheek.
Said female saiyan blinked at me with genuine surprise, "Well, would you look at that. That combo was faster than anything you've thrown at me so far and your power even spiked by over 200 points. Keep doing that and we might make a saiyan warrior out of you yet!"
I couldn't even attempt to respond as her offhand came around and smashed me in the temple. Sending me into the realm of unconsciousness.
I hated not being fully in control.
But as I dodged another punch from Mayze that would have broken my shoulder I admitted that it was something I was going to have to just compromise on. A week ago I really hadn't been able to dodge anything and every attack I launched at her was easily blocked and evaded as I tried to pick apart and get inside her defense.
Not much had changed, but at least now I could evade hits sometimes and even rarely land a blow that slipped past her guard. It was a win in my book even if none of my punches ever even did anything to her.
I liked the concept of the saying that "power levels are bullshit", but the fact of the matter was that it didn't matter how refined or skilled you were. If someone was exponentially more powerful than you, all the skill in the world wouldn't help you if you couldn't even harm them. Well, unless you had some sort of trump skill that could ignore sheer durability and power.
But saiyans being the broken species they where had an answer for that though. They had inborn battle instincts that let them adapt to dangerous situations and enemies that were stronger than them.
Every saiyan could access it naturally, including me. I was just unique in that I hated doing so.
Letting the instincts take over and making my mind drift into its battle mode was absolutely crucial in being able to effectively fight and train with someone like Mayze. The drawback was that the bloodlust and sheer excitement that came with it was almost mentally blinding.
"Less thinking! More fighting brat! I can practically see you trying to drift into thought." Mayze growled as struck at me with blinding speed.
My body rotated itself almost automatically out of the way of a kick that would have collapsed my thigh and positioned itself in a way that would have been perfect for me to retaliate with a kidney shot. A perfect example of the battle instincts doing their job.
Unfortunately, my blood was running so hot at the sheer excitement that I instead focused on just trying to lay her out with punches to her gut. A forward assault she punished by kneeing my shorter form in the face. I felt the warm blood rush down my face as I once again found myself getting my nose broken. An injury that had become incredibly common as of late.
A perfect example of the instincts blinding any tactical movement in combat I wanted to employ.
I was doing better using it than I was by not using it, but it was still something that I didn't enjoy despite my body saying that I did.
Perhaps I had shot myself in the foot after years of suppressing it rather than working with it. Now I was trying to play catch up by learning how to use it effectively. Something that I could tell was going to take a while, judging by how much it seemingly wanted to fight me on even the smallest bits of control.
I thought the hardest part of being a saiyan was trying to suppress and smother their urges and instincts. But now I was thinking the hardest part might just be trying to work with and control them instead.
Well, at least progress was progress.
"You haven't used any energy attacks yet. C'mon already, I didn't teach you those things just for show. They're incredibly useful for killing opponents and causing large amounts of destruction. It's the easiest way to clear cities on planets instead of having to do the work physically," Mayze critiqued as she stalked forward.
Not wanting to disappoint, I pushed my energy toward my hands and pooled it into large masses before shoving it outside of my body. Doing so caused two large orbs of pale blue energy to form from my outstretched hands and I gave the mental command form them to launch toward her.
I didn't have the Ki control yet to make them stay as orbs or condense them into streams of flowing plasma-like charged energy blasts. So the energy unleashed itself almost formlessly and briefly swallowed Mayze's body as it raged forward.
Still not used to unleashing that much power at once, I quickly cut it off and let out a ragged breath as my entire body started to sag. I still just didn't have the power reserves to unleash such things carelessly.
"Hm, not bad." The female saiyan intoned as the steam the attack had caused dissipated and showed her standing there without a single scratch or burn, "But we'll definitely need to continue to work on your control and power output. Now, let's continue to work on your battle instincts."
I attempted to keep fighting her, I really did. But I had used up almost all my remaining energy in that blast. Whereas before I could somewhat keep up with her as she held back most her strength, now any attempt to block or dodge was done far too slow to truly be any use and I paid for it dearly. Mutiple blows crushed my ribs into dust as a kick took my legs out from under me and sent me crashing down to the floor.
Instincts or not, there was no avoiding the next incoming punch that once again introduced me to a world of blackness.
I woke up to the sound of beeping and fluid being drained.
My eyes slowly opened just as the fluid went below my waistline and I saw Mayze standing outside it waiting for me. When the fluid finally completely drained I hit the open button from inside the healing pod and took my mask off as I stepped out.
Looking up at the older woman I gave a sigh as I asked what I already knew, "Is it time for you to beat the shit out of me again already?"
The female captain tilted her head at my words and looked at me oddly, "Has anyone ever told you that you're strangely sarcastic and well-spoken for a little brat."
"Yep." I replied simply.
Mayze narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, but either she didn't really care or what she was going to say was more important because she just shrugged and continued on.
"Well anyway, I just received word from the quadrant's commander. We've been assigned a mission and are leaving immediately." She informed me, "I wanted more time to train you since I'd rather you not be a liability to any of us, but we aren't getting that luxury." She informed me, "But on the bright side the planet's average power level is only 500. With your recent surge in power, it shouldn't be too hard."
She wasn't entirely wrong. The last few weeks my power had grown more than it ever had before. A self-scan had put me at 675. Not quite double what it was before and was still slightly below average for my age, but for me, that was incredible progress.
Almost what had been 5 years of progress was now achieved in a little over a month. I knew saiyans got stronger when they fought powerful opponents and healed from injuries, but I hadn't thought it would be this effective at such low levels of power like mine.
Zenkais and saiyan genetics were truly broken.
"Ya know, I don't think I've asked. But can you fly?" Mayze asked, "Because you're definitely gonna need to know how to fly. There's no way in hell you'll be able to cross the planet and get to our objectives if you can't."
"Well, I can't. So I guess that's a problem." I said sullenly.
Flying had been something I had wanted to learn ever since I'd been able to walk and somewhat form Ki. Unfortunately, I'd never figured it out. Both because of my lack of Ki until relatively recently and because I just didn't know how to go about it.
I had asked some of the adult caretakers, but they usually just laughed and told me that I'd figure it out eventually. The older kids who could fly weren't much better. Some of them tried to explain it, but all it amounted to was just saying it was a feeling you had to pull on with your energy.
"Yeah, it is." Mayze frowned as she snapped forward and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and lifted me. Something she had become accustomed to doing when she needed to take me somewhere, "C'mon then. Seems I have to teach you that as well before we go meet the squad."
"Really!?" I asked with a bit of excitement shining through at the thought of finally learning how to fly.
"Of course. In fact, I think I saw a rather large mountain that should be usable for flight training." She said as if it was the most normal thing in the world as she continued to carry me out of the training center we had been in.
Wait. Mountain?
That confused me for a few seconds until I applied saiyan logic to her casual mention.
I was about to get thrown off a mountain multiple times until I learned how to fly wasn't I?
"Oh perk up. You didn't even break anything." Mayze said as she guided us through the hallways of this planet's small military command center. One that was primarily used for guard units and played host to fleets that would pass through on their way to their destinations, "I shattered my entire right side when I tried to learn when I was younger. Didn't see me grunting and groaning in pain."
"Yeah? I'm sure you made your trips to high school uphill and through snow both ways as well." I muttered sarcastically as I massaged my sore ribs.
"High school?" Mayze cocked her head at me in confusion as she tested the foreign word on her tongue, "Also I just told you I learned how to fly when young. Why would I walk uphill and through the snow to places when I could just fly there?"
I resisted the urge to facepalm. No one in my new life understood my brand of sarcasm. Years of perfectly crafted snark were basically flushed down the drain and wasted on these people. Oh sure saiyans understood and even used sarcasm themselves, but all my Earth-based references were practically null and void when used amongst them.
"Never mind." I sighed as we stopped at what was apparently our destination. The door slid open and I was greeted with a room that looked like a hybrid bastardization of a cafeteria, training room, and crew quarters if the open doors at the other end showed some beds where any indication, all tucked into one.
I almost made mention of who in their right mind would combine such rooms together and do it in such a haphazardly way. But once again I just applied saiyan logic to it and suddenly it made sense.
"So, is this the new kid you went and picked up? He's kinda a runt don't ya think boss lady?" A male saiyan called out from the side of the room the cafeteria was on.
Looking over to where the voice came from I saw two male and two female saiyans lounging about at the same table. They all looked like what you would expect out of any Sayian you met. Spiky black and brown hair, tails wrapped around their armor, and mountains of food sitting in front of them.
Honestly, the only thing of note was the fact that, like Mayze, they were all on the younger side. I'd probably peg the youngest being about 14 while Mayze seemed to be the oldest at maybe 17 or 18 if I was to compare them to how humans age.
Which was a little difficult to do since saiyans seemed to grow in massive spurts without warning. Kinda like how Goku did when he went from a munchkin to suddenly a young adult in the original series. Or how Vegeta suddenly got older and taller post saiyan Saga.
"Yeah, and his power is pretty pathetic." One of the female saiyans said in distaste as she used her scouter on me, "He looks pretty young as well. What did you pick this kid up from one of the orphanage tryouts? Because there's no way he graduated from any of the academies that young or like that."
My eyes narrowed at the girl who said that. Not only did she have far shorter hair than the other female saiyan and Mayze, but she had ice-blue eyes that I didn't think I had ever really seen on any of our species before. Though I suppose it wasn't too weird?. I think the Broly movie canonized that even saiyans could have different hair and eye colors like blue sometimes.
Also, she might have been right and all, but I didn't exactly like to be insulted even if it seemed to be the default mode of greeting for my new race.
"You'd be right on the money Selera. That's exactly where I got him." Mayze answered flippantly before noticing her team's suddenly questioning expressions, "What? You really thought I'd be spending as much time as I have the past couple of weeks training someone who was right out of an academy? Not even the lowest-ranked battle course would produce any brat as weak as this."
Again, ouch.
"We thought you were gone the past couple of weeks because you were visiting a system that has a battle academy. Not training an orphan kid." The saiyan I now knew as Selera huffed, "What's the deal with this anyway? You pass by and just happen to feel bad?"
Mayze shook her head, "Believe it or not, no. I just figured I'd save myself the trouble of spending weeks in FTL and see if the local population had anyone to recruit and fill our empty slot and luckily the orphanage here was having tryouts for Strike Teams. Believe it or not, Arlic here actually did finish in the top five of the battle royale they held to see who made it into the spots to be picked. He even took out two kids who had a higher combat power than him."
Hey, that's the first amount of true praise I'd gotten in years!
The other saiyan female who had hair that cascaded down her backside in spikes, a lot like Mayze's but without the tuft that drifted over her face, hummed in thought, "So you saw potential in the brat and chose him?"
"Oh no. I got the last pick and all the other teams skipped over him." Mayze crossed her arms and scoffed, "So I got him as leftovers. But beggars can't be choosers I suppose."
Well, I guess the moment of praise was nice while it lasted.
A hand impacted the back of my head rather sharply and I stumbled forward as I grabbed the pack of my skull in slight pain.
"Introduce yourself brat." Mayze ordered.
Still rubbing my head I turned around and gave her a slight glare, "You already did by telling them my name and where I'm from already. You want me to tell them my favorite color as well or something!?"
I heard snorts and bits of laughter echo from the table behind me.
"Well, at least he's not some sniveling little shit." I heard one of the guys say through a laugh, "Come over and get some grub Arlic, the name's Negi. The prick next to me is Ruco, and the other two are Falfa and Selera."
I nodded and came up to the table and took a seat next to Negi, who helpfully threw a slab of meat and what I assumed was some sort of vegetable in front of me.
"Eat up little guy, we have a mission from what I hear. Until we're done it'll probably be nutrient bars and whatever we scrounge up." Negi said with a wink.
You know what, I kinda like this guy.
"You heard right, Negi." Mayze confirmed as she walked up and took her spot at the head of the table, "As you know the war with the Zentradi is winding down with the conquest of their capital world. We've already sent terraformers there to begin the process of making it habitable for us and our client races, but there are still some holdout worlds a few systems away that could threaten it with a counterattack. As such we're going to some planet named Varme."
I almost raised my hand to ask about the war, since I didn't know anything about it or that it was even going on, but I figured it wasn't that important if we were already just going in to sweep up the final bastions of resistance.
Honestly, I found it kinda funny in a morbid way that I didn't know we were fighting these Zentradi before today. As a human, it was generally big news when your country got into a war, but from what the caretakers and laborers I've met had told me, the saiyan Empire was in constant wars with other small empires in its bid for expansion and wealth. At any given point we were at war with at least half a dozen nations at the same time either directly or as contracted mercenaries.
From sheer curiosity, I would have loved to keep up to date on these things, but saiyans as a whole didn't really keep personal computers around since most weren't interested in those sorts of devices unless they were in the science guilds. Along with no news networks, I'd never been able to get on any sort of galactic web for info.
Instead, I had been stuck with word of mouth or publishings like the ones on saiyan biology I had mentioned finding with the technical personnel.
"Aww, not the Zentradi again." Ruco groaned through a mouth full of food, "The only thing fun about them is those mech things they field. Otherwise, they die way too easily!"
The others shared nods of agreement and Mayze just rolled her eyes, "Yeah I know, but I received this personally from the higher-ups. Plus it'll be good practice for our little tyke right here."
"I'll be taller and stronger than all of you one day." I grumbled as I bit into the surprisingly salty meat in front of me and began chewing.
"I bet you will champ." Negi chuckled and punched my much smaller arm in gest.
"We leave in an hour in Attack Balls." Mayze informed, "I know normally we'd take a ship, but since this a former farming colony that got quickly converted into a garrison, they have no orbital defense to speak of."
"So standard mop up and planet wipe then." Negi nodded in thought, "Are we all going in together or are we splitting up into groups?"
Mayze must've already pre-planned everything, because she answered almost instantly, "I'll be dropping onto the northernmost continent by myself. There's an extra objective I was told to take care of that I'll handle personally. Ruco, Falfa, and Selera will insert into the western hemisphere and handle that side of the planet as it has the most military presence and cities. Negi, since you seem to have taken a shine to him, you'll be showing Arlic the ropes on the eastern side of the planet. Feel free to throw up a power ball and have him go to Oozaru while you're at it. Rather he learns how to control himself on a weak planet as practice than in a situation where we can't afford to have him raging about."
"Sounds good." Negi agreed, "Don't worry, by the time I'm done with him he'll be a planet-cleansing machine."
I'll admit. Kinda had mixed feelings about that.
"Alright then, get your shit ready to move out." Mayze ordered, "Falfa come with me to the hangers to make sure the techs didn't fuck up getting our transports ready. Arlic, go and jump in a healing pod for ten minutes to heal those ribs and bruises. Everyone else meets up in an hour at the hangers as I said."
