Ok, this chapter is dedicated solely too Matt and his adventures in the wilderness.  Consequently, the entire chapter was written by Matt, so any reviews I get will go straight to him.

Disclaimer:  I don't care anymore. Look at any other chapter.

Chapter 14:  Yin and Yang

            The rock was there. Then it wasn't. It started out as a nice big piece of solid granite. Then it was nothing but air. And it might be a good time to point out that there was no explosion in between. The rock was there. Then it wasn't. It had been about a month since Matt had come out into the wilderness to begin experiment/ training. The later had been coming along quite nicely.

            It hadn't occurred to Matt before now that maybe the reason the reason he and Liz couldn't use Z-powers, was because they didn't have them. He had thought a lot about this since coming out into the wilderness. When there was no one to talk to, you thought a lot. Though like everyone, they had ki, and unlike everyone, they had strong ki, there was still the simple fact that this wasn't their universe. And every comic book, video game, and sci-fi/ fantasy work had taught him one thing: Different realities don't mix. He wasn't born in a universe where people could utilize their ki; why should his body suddenly operate differently, even though they were suddenly in the Z-universe? The simple rule was, it couldn't.

            But now there was the business of what he could do. In the past month, Matt had taught himself how to break the sound barrier, lift boulders, turn wind into fire, and even change his body. He could only think of one thing to explain it: magic. Not the blood and runes magic, or the wand and tome magic, or any kind of magic you could find in a novel or movie. This was something different. This was will work. He and Liz could have any power they wanted, just so long as the believed they did. Of course, their powers manifested in different ways. Liz was always more violent, and aggressive. Therefore, her initial power stemmed from that desire to be physically stronger, and thus she was. Matt on the other hand, had always wanted energy powers, and was often more of the contemplative nature. So his magic took the guise of energy manipulation. And this revelation made sense to him. Energy always resulted from a change. The suns light and heat came from the conversion of hydrogen to helium. Nuclear power from the splitting of one atom into two. And his magic was the changing of things into others; Virtually manipulating things on an atomic level, when you really got down to it.  He wasn't about to use it as a crutch though. He may have been discovering things about it, and using it, and developing his magic, but the other goal of this excursion was to become more independent. He'd also learn how to survive. 

            Matt's body had changed according to his desire. He was stronger. His muscles were not huge and bulky, but tight and more suitable to his frame. He looked like one of those small wiry Chinese monks. Today he was training his legs. By springing from tree to tree. After about an hour, he had gone 10 miles from his camp and back. He could see his rock up ahead. Though much more powerful, he wasn't cocky. He knew the strange creatures that prowled the forest floor could rip him apart in his sleep if they wanted. With a final spring, he broke the branch, thick as a tree trunk, and landed with a plant to make a Romanian gymnast proud. The branch crashed through the canopy for a hundred feet, and the hit the forest floor with a crunch. 

            After being out for nearly six hours of training. Matt was starving. Luckily, he had run into one of those terrible lizards right before noon ( yup he was up at 6 am) and had made it into a nice steak. Matt smiled as he reminisced about the tussle. The beast had come upon him in the forest, while he had been trying to life boulders with sheer will. It tried to charge him, but Matt maneuvered the rock in between himself and the dinosaur. The horn of the beast jammed into the boulder, which Matt then broke into hundreds of smaller rocks, and pummeled the beast . To finish it off, Matt intensified the beams of light filtering through the tree tops ten fold, and cooked it then and there. He then carved out his lunch. He cut up some fruit he had found on the forest floor and ate that with the beast steak. To top it all down, cool water from a stream. After a short nap, Matt when out to train some more. A storm was brewing, and Matt would try to see how well he could harness lighting.

~***~

            Although he had started a small brush fire he accidentally redirected a bolt to hit a large tree instead of a mountain top, Matt deemed his experiment a success. Each day he was learning more and more about what he could do. God was he tired though. While waiting for the storm, he had done some work trying to cause things to grow out of a cliff face, which was a bit hard. There hadn't been much to work with. A tree into a different tree was easy, granite into daisies was not. Being too tired to be hungry, Matt crawled under the bearskin blanket he had made for himself, which was placed under a small over cropping on the plateau top. He barely had time to wonder if Lindsey was missing him before he feel into a deep sleep.

~***~

            Several hours later, a gruff voice roused him from a wonderful dream he'd been having involving him, a Jacuzzi and two cheerleaders from his high school back home.

            " Amazing that I would find you here"

            Matt stammered awake, " P..Piccolo?"

            " Indeed" replied the Namek.

            " How did you find me?"
            " This is Gohan's old rock, although the landscape has changed a bit over the years. I come to visit it every once and a while. I never suspected that anyone else would find and use this place for their training."

            " How did you know?"
            The Namek sort of smiled. " Its rather obvious. You run off to be alone without a word. That and your ki levels several million times higher than it was before. Oh, and you don't look like a pip squeak anymore either."

            " Damn straight I'm not a pipsqueak anymore" Matt replied " I can do things that probably even you can only dream of."

            The Namek's face darkened again " You know, a month is probably long enough for you to be out here. You've survived. You've gotten stronger. You have nothing else left to prove. Now why don't you come back with me, people are worried about you."

            Matt hopped up. He was wearing torn blue jean shorts that may have actually been jeans at one point. He was topless, and around his neck swung his Celtic cross.

" Like hell they're worried about me." Matt yelled, "Liz's probably having the time of her life without me, hanging out with everyone. Bet she's bagged Mirai Trunks or something by this time. Maybe Yamcha, though he is a bit older. Point is, I don't feel like going back." Then his manner softened, and he gave quiet, single laugh in his throat. He closed his eyes, and smirked to make Vegita proud. " I'll tell you what…" He slid into a stance, his right leg bent, left leg straight, with his left arm drawn back into a guard position, and his right in a forward guard position. " I'll come back if you can beat me Piccolo.  And if I beat you….. well, then I'll just do as I please."