The rich leafage of Planet Beiko rustled when Chayote's spaceship hurried like a crashing comet through the thick forests, shredding through wood and ripping man-sized leaves off with the ship correcting its course at the very end with a hard steer upward and releasing a quartet of puny landing support legs that dug into the dirt and halted the landing orb enough for the bouncy limbs to retract and for the ship to position its bottom onto the surface.
The ship that Chayote traveled in didn't allow any of Planet Beiko's intense heat inside though the Saiyan was well aware that she'd still need to deal with it the moment she'd open the hatch. When she did, the young Saiyan woman felt surprised to feel that while the contrast of an infernal heatwave striking her head-on was forceful, she could handle the heat of Planet Beiko far better than before.
Of course, since that time Chayote had improved her power level and experienced surroundings of intense heat inside the Room of Spirit and Time. Either one of those could have been the reason why Chayote felt far more functional this time around though the fact that she had spent some time on this planet before and possibly had begun adapting to its conditions might have played a part too.
The Saiyan looked around, taking a brief moment to take a few sniffs of the boiling air that burnt deep into her nostrils and appeared to make one shorter of breath after drawing more of it in. She could sense a handful of different power levels moving around, though the fact that she could sense the signatures suggested that they did not belong to a giant robot that she'd encountered on this planet before.
"So, you've changed your mind about the heat?" a low-pitched voice came from the trees, helping Chayote by directing her eyes toward the nearest warrior of Planet Beiko, one amongst a dozen others. All of them looked rather similar which was understandable given how the locals lacked that many features besides the shape and color of their eyes and the thick lips on their faces.
"Shunabehan told me that you guys would feel honored by training me. Figured that I wouldn't tease you guys for too long…" Chayote breathed out and pocketed her hands. She could feel her power level having drained substantially already and it was likely to continue dipping the more time she spent here.
As much as the Saiyan wanted to play it cool, the moment that one of the Beiko warriors gestured for her to follow and most of them turned around to lead her to their establishment, Chayote zipped off her tracksuit and tossed it into her spaceship before pressing a button on the remote to close it and send it off to space so that it could orbit around the planet on standby.
How the warriors of Planet Beiko could move around and fight as efficiently as they did with so many clothes on was beyond the Saiyan. They wore a number of clothes that seemed excessive even for the northern regions of Earth, adopting turbans, long and baggy attires, and multiple layers of clothes. The locals didn't hurry back, it let Chayote follow them comfortably in her own pace.
"Ah, Chayote, I figured that it was you after seeing the spaceship. We see very few visitors otherwise…" Shunabehan welcomed the Saiyan with a cheerful yet composed smile. The lips of the locals were so thick that they could generally tilt them upward or downward, leaving it to the rest of their face to relay the exact emotion.
"I wonder why…" Chayote shrugged, trying to mirror the behavior and the general vibe of the locals. Her strategy of acting cool as Tenshinhan would have only worked on Earth, where such behavior would have appeared natural. The warriors of Planet Beiko appeared to be a superior temporary replacement, seeing how they resided in a planet of infernal heatwaves. Plus, Chayote would spend a bit more time around them and have them beside her more often, making them a more accessible source for imitation.
"It's because of our legendary warrior prowess!" a warrior with red and blue decorations over his baggy white attire declared while smacking his chest with open palms to demonstrate his hardness. His delighted facial expression suggested a jest though he likely did feel pride in his abilities as a warrior as well as the skill of his people.
"This is Gyumenpuhan, you haven't met him the last time though he fought the invader alongside us," Shunabehan extended his hand toward the colorful warrior who just nodded with his fist by his open palm, not too different from how Earthling martial artists from certain locations bowed as well.
"Well, I came here to train and I'd rather get to it. I wouldn't mind one of those fruits you guys use to cool off before breaking something though…" Chayote stretched out, feeling her soaked top sticking to her body. Shunabehan disappeared in his hut, gesturing for his guest to follow while the rest of the warriors returned to their duties.
"You should put this on. It might not be what you're used to wearing but it will help…" Shunabehan pointed at a stack of clothes beside a Maihaku fruit.
"How will wearing more clothes help? I'm already feeling vexed in here which is the exact thing I came here to learn to avoid…" Chayote grumbled, grabbing the fruit and digging her teeth into it through the shell, ignoring the fact that she had to crack it and crumble the hard shell off of the soft and cool insides.
"You're losing more liquids by wearing fewer clothes. Wearing our attire helps to preserve your liquids and prevents you from blacking out fast. Our turbans are made from the shell of the Maihaku fruit, it is second to none in protecting against heat so it will keep your head cool," Shunabehan explained with patience unbefitting someone who lived in such a torrid planet.
"Fine… Just give me something to smash!" Chayote grumbled, slipping the turban on and sliding inside the baggy man-dress that held itself together on a pair of incredibly loose straps. It felt like she'd slide right out if she wasn't aware of this top at all times.
The edges of vision were black, like veins overflowing with corruption the darkness seeped further and further toward the center of the eye, threatening to black everything out while Chayote moved around fueled by instinct and the primal desire to hit something rather than planned and controlled sensory input. Something rock-hard hit her head though it wasn't tough to tell that it caved due to that collision, Chayote blitzed onward, moving behind whatever she was hitting and kicked them in the back. A deafening rumble followed by audible outcries broke the Saiyan out of her battle trance.
"That's incredible, you've knocked out fifteen of our warriors already!" Mekishihan whom Chayote had met during her previous visit to Planet Beiko exclaimed. "It is hard to believe that you are the same person that struggled with the Colossal Sky-Manta…"
"Indeed, though you'd better drink some milk of Maihaku and cool your head off before you pass out…" Shachanabehan whom Chayote met during her current training session said while wiping the blood off of his face and dusting himself off of the dirt he gathered while being manhandled by the rampaging Saiyan.
"We may as well call it quits for today. Chayote is not used to training for prolonged periods of time and she can't manipulate her Ki in a way that cools her off, it seems…" Shunabehan panted, his legs looked wobbly and barely supported his leaning body anymore. The locals called off the training session feeling pitiful for their own bodies as much as they felt merciful for the newbie.
"This is pointless…" Chayote grumbled by the fire. She hated the fact that the planet barely cooled off during the night as well, turning out temperatures that would have been considered tropical extremes on Earth even during the coolest nocturnal periods when the locals assured her she'd feel thankful for all the clothes Shunabehan lent her.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Shunabehan wondered. "Don't tell me that our warriors aren't up to your standards, that is just impossible, especially with you still not being used to this planet's conditions."
"All I'm doing is fighting, it helps to grow a little bit stronger but that's not what I'm looking for. If anything, it makes my problem worse. I feel like I'm about to blackout and explode every time I attack…" Chayote complained to the Beiko warrior while he was chopping up the tail of some tree-chomping mammal that smelled of overcooked grease when Shunabehan exposed the body fat stored up inside the tail to the outside.
"Ah, that's right, your fits of rage you've told me about…" Shunabehan closed his eyes, not losing a speck of his chopping ability and showing himself to be an even more impressive cook than the Saiyan took him to be. "Your frustration is understandable, given how irritable and impatient you are."
"Excuse me?" Chayote raised an eyebrow, having not expected that she'd be slapped in the face with her personality flaws like that.
"Children of Beiko possess the same qualities you value and rely on in battle and wish to be rid of at the same time. They whine, they rage and try to use their natural strength to rampage. You do not learn a technique of Ki manipulation that cools your head off, a cool head manifests a method of Ki control. Right now there is no reason why you shouldn't be able of using Nova Mode," Shunabehan stated with his eyes still closed and his lips in a neutral stretch over his face while his arm movements blurred his limb from his wrist to the tip of his fingers.
"Nova Mode? You mean the whole surrounded in flames when you unleash your Ki in an aura thing? We call it the Hot-Red Mode on Earth…" Chayote relaxed in the chair while waving one of the few sheets of dried out leaves on the table to ventilate herself a bit.
"Call it whatever you will, that method of Ki control is called for when you feel profound anger and pride, the desperate need to complete your goal and utter dismissal of any outcome other than your total domination over the enemy," Shunabehan shrugged after putting the chopping tool beside him and serving the sliced tail beside a pile of the pulp of the Dainucho fruit which served a type of staple food complementing the main dish on Beiko.
"I feel that all the time…" Chayote shrugged. "I've never used that mode once though…"
"That's because you feel a myriad of other things. Those emotions do not consume you, you do not let them do so. You resist, instead of riding them like a wave, you let it wash you away and drag you under. You need to let those feelings fill you to the brink, you need to submit to that aggression," Shunabehan shook his head, his lips arced with the tips looking downward which made him seem like he disapproved of Chayote's complaint.
"Yeah but… That's why I came here, to learn how to not lose control. I can't just rage out and catch ablaze, that's exactly what I'm trying to prevent here," Chayote shrugged. "Can't I just learn the opposite, the Cold-White Mode or whatever you guys call it?"
"You're far too rash to prioritize that method," Shunabehan stopped eating for a second to give Chayote a strict glare.
"I'm not… Rash…" Chayote looked away, embarrassed for the parental-type scolding she was receiving.
"If you weren't, you'd have listened when I told you that you do not become cool-headed by mastering the "Cold-White Mode", it is once you get in control over your emotions and reach that state yourself, let it define you one-hundred percent that you enter the "Cold-White Mode"," Shunabehan got Chayote good with that last one, the Saiyan looked down with a flush of heat pumping through her face. Had it not been for the fact that she was sweating and constantly beaming blood-red from her skin all over, she'd have made that sick burn she took even more apparent.
"Then I'd better take off in the morning. One of the planets out there has the answer to helping me control my emotions…" Chayote looked away after leaning back in her chair like a disobedient child who just didn't want to eat her greens, even though the local food was luscious and nippy, just what she needed at any given point in time on this planet.
"Hmph… You will not become less rash by running away from the struggle. In fact, that's exactly how most define being rash," Shunabehan continued to roast the Saiyan even when planet Beiko didn't appear to employ any methods of heating their food.
"I've come here to learn to get in control of my emotions, stop myself from raging out and losing control, getting my friends into trouble because of my rash decisions. If I cannot do this here, there's no point in staying here any longer…" Chayote stood up, acting like she was denouncing this planet's usefulness as she stared right at Shunabehan. The Saiyan slipped a pair of tail chops into her mouth while the Beiko warrior sulked with his eyes closed even if she wanted to pout and act capriciously.
"Are you saying that there is nothing of use that this planet can teach you? Because to say that is to be too misguided for anyone to hammer that nonsense out of your head. Just because this planet cannot teach you this one thing you're looking for doesn't mean that you have to destroy and rush past everything in your path to that goal. Who knows, maybe our training will serve useful when you would have fallen short while your goal was within your reach?" Shunabehan shrugged, speaking with a lax tone that made it feel like Chayote was as free to go anytime she wanted as she was to come here.
"Tsk…" Chayote clicked her tongue and dragged the chair back, planting her behind back down and stuffing her face full of food. "Whatever the deal with this "your whole body and spirit behind it" stuff… Martial arts training back on Earth was exactly the same…" she grumbled.
"If you don't do something with all of your focus, all of your skill and dedication then there is no point in doing that thing at all. Of course, the principles of finer Ki control would demand identical things to the Ki control principles you've learned on Earth," Shunabehan replied with a calmer and softer tone while eating with small bites and pacing himself to where, Chayote thought, he'd go hungry again long before finishing his share of food.
"Yeah well… Maybe Kakarot knows for sure the kind of person he is, maybe Krillin knows a hundred percent that he's a scaredy-cat who's in over his head with all his body and mind… What if… What if I'm not sure?" Chayote sighed, she's never lost appetite before but she was beginning to. In the end, she didn't choose to reject the Frieza Army, she kept on lying to herself that serving Lord Frieza was what she truly wanted up until the point she blacked out and let the rage seal that path for her forever.
Her rage… She acted just like what she wanted back then when she blacked out on the planet of giant animals and slain those Frieza Army soldiers. Lying was a method of deeper thought, just like becoming a human supernova was a method of more complex Ki control. Ironically enough, she had the possibility to be fully genuine with herself if she just let go though that was exactly what she couldn't allow. There had to be a different method of controlling her emotions and being honest with herself without becoming a mindless shell for her instinct to drive.
"Wait… You said that Hot-Red requires one to feel a surge of power, aggression, and pride, an absolute dismissal of loss as a viable option?" Chayote wondered.
"So you can sometimes listen then…" Shunabehan let the tips of his lips move up a bit.
"Krillin could pull it off, Yamcha too… Holy crap, I never realized those guys could feel those kinds of emotions…" Chayote looked up at the ceiling, having cleaned her wooden bowl of food and waiting for Shunabehan to finish as well.
"It appears your friends are much more emotionally mature than you. Perhaps you should have stayed back on Earth and asked them for help?" Shunabehan brought up the possibility.
"Yeah right… Even if they knew a magic word that just stopped me flipping out instantly, I'd never ask them for that word," Chayote smirked with an energetic grin.
"Such pointless pride, it is difficult to imagine such as yourself struggling with Nova Mode…" Shunabehan continued to maul at Chayote's pride.
Despite not having found an immediate answer to her problems, Chayote lingered on Planet Beiko for a few more weeks, training with the locals every day even when it didn't seem like the training was beneficial to her. The Saiyan tried to see whatever invisible use Shunabehan saw in such training but besides just common fighting practice and the valuable experience of fighting someone from another planet with a wholly different fighting style, Chayote couldn't make it out.
"Please set a course for your next destination…" the robotic voice requested when Chayote planted her bottom on the soft driving seat, having called her ship back from orbiting around Planet Beiko on the day when she felt like she was beginning to feel bored. Much to her surprise, Shunabehan encouraged her to leave and seek her answers when she brought her boredom up with him.
"Planet Sando," Chayote declared, recalling the odd method of Ki manipulation that the locals used in long-range projectiles of sheer water pressure that they performed underwater and the things they could do with seaweed through forming fields of Ki to shape them and lock them into place. Plus, there was always the dread of the challenge lurking in the depths of that planet too.
Even if Sando proved to be a bust as well, at the very least the sleeping dread in the planet's core would prove an entertaining nightmare to explore.