Screaming as loud as his ambulance-volume voice allowed him, Navy rushed at Chayote with a flurry of fists. A simple defensive posture let Chayote swat the incoming storm of thoughtless blows aside while impeccable footwork prevented from her balance being compromised in the slightest. At first, Chayote was content merely defending just to see where Navy was going with this. Then, when it became painfully aware that he was just throwing hands, Chayote caught his wrist after one of his repetitive strikes and gently flipped the boy over. This left him skidding across the white floor of the Room of Spirit and Time in complete loss of balance.
Putting his lungs to work instead of using his head again, Navy changed up his approach from throwing fists to using his head like a human missile. His favorite go-to brawling strategy before Gohan, Goku, and Videl showed him a few martial arts moves and taught him to throw a proper punch. Vexed, Chayote put up her arm and bolstered her body with flawless Ki circulation. Alongside her excellent balance, this made Chayote an immovable wall. Navy cried out in pain after smacking his head against his mother's open palm. Just to prevent any neck or head trauma, Chayote expelled a gentle Kiai pulse from her hand to deflect Navy instead of letting the shock of impact against Chayote's block reverberate through Navy's body.
The boy skipped across the floor on his rear end, his back, and then his upper back before skidding wide open like a human shuriken, leaving him stretched and exhausted in the end. Chayote crossed her hands and squeezed her sides to try to vent her frustration at her ribs instead of letting them build up. If she began to lose it, her Ki control would suffer greatly and she may have hurt Navy by accident. Right now, both Navy and his opponent needed to work together to keep the boy safe in battle. He was far more reckless than Chayote ever was, even at his age. Then again, in his years, Chayote was probably a bit too much of a slacker to care about fighting enough to go quite this hard.
"That's enough!" Chayote cut their training short. "Go back to the palace, wash yourself, and find something to occupy yourself with. I'll make you something after I'm done training."
"B-But…!" Navy gasped in objection, temporarily postponing rubbing his aching head to complain to his mother.
"If you don't intend to follow my instructions and practice what I'm teaching you, we're wasting time here. From now on, we'll be training by ourselves. Next time I'll go to the Room of Spirit and Time with Videl," Chayote cut it down, sprinkling enough strictness in her tone to imply that she would not accept any further arguments about this.
"That's not fair! I was going to help you control your Legendary Super Saiyan form!" Navy jumped to his feet.
"No, to say that you were going to do that implies that you thought about anything when you dashed at me. You never do! You just run straight at danger and start swinging fists without skill, thought, or reason. Even when Gohan and Videl teach you martial arts, you don't apply any of those teachings and attack using your own primitive understanding. If you dismissed Gohan and Videl's training entirely, you'll remember nothing I teach you either," Chayote scolded her son. "I asked you to perform the Solar Plexus Bullet Punch. That's what you were meant to be training now."
"But that technique won't help you beat Cell! Controlling the Legendary Super Saiyan will!" Navy exclaimed.
"This isn't about Cell, it never was!" Chayote raised her voice. "I… I just wanted to spend some time with my son, after so much time fighting for those sweet few moments we get to spend together, after being petrified for what felt like forever, I just…"
Chayote grabbed her forehead and stumbled, feeling pounding from inside her skull. Something was wrong! So many voices in her head. Screaming. Once the initial shock of pain settled down, Chayote heard some of those pain-ridden voices beginning to laugh maniacally. No. Not here, not now! She needed to… Breathe. Control her anger. Navy was right here, if she lost control, she'd hurt him, or… "Damn it…!" Chayote grumbled, becoming enveloped in a violent emerald aura as her body bulked up. Unlike her office or casual clothes, the Saiyan battle armor stretched to accommodate Chayote's bulk effortlessly. Her hair slipped out from their rubbery string restraint and spiked up as the shimmering luster of Chayote's aura made them appear brown rather than black.
"M-Mom…?" Navy sniffed, wiping his tears with his sleeve, looking scared and confused.
"NAVY… RUN!" Chayote begged her son, stretching her arm out at him while her eyes made a desperate final plight before whiting out. Chayote's face became riddled with popping veins as the overflowing sadistic tendencies from inside forced the facial muscles to twist her expression to that of ecstasy. Clawing at her own skin, Chayote revealed a bright emerald shine underneath that exploded with so much brightness and intensity that it made the Room of Spirit and Time look bleak in contrast. Navy grunted as the violent shockwave sent him hurling back into the palace and smashing through the wall and the furniture.
"Ugh…" Navy grunted, slowly peeling his eyes open. Just a tiny peek at first, just something to let the needles pierce his eyeballs and, once he got used to the pain of being awake, Navy opened them wide and even scanned the mess that he lay knocked out in. Grumbling in pain and weary, Navy rolled and exposed all the numbed muscles to some blood flow as he pushed himself off the wooden wreckage and stumbled out into the open.
"Mom…?" Navy called out. Quietly at first, then, as no response came back his way, louder. Then louder still. Navy poured an entire package of the sum of his worries in the last cry, before collapsing to his knees and breaking into tears. His mother was gone. She was nowhere to be seen or heard, which, given the fact that she was in her Legendary Super Saiyan form, the last Navy remembered her, meant that Chayote must have been lost far beyond the horizon of the Room of Spirit and Time. She may not have had a clue of how to get back to him even if she was of sound mind. As her hysterical berserker self, there was no chance of Chayote finding her way back to him.
Navy was all alone. The boy scrambled to his feet and ran toward the door of the Room of Spirit and Time. Through miraculous luck, Chayote's initial outburst of violence toward everything around her after transforming didn't wreck the entire palace, just most of it. As he ran past the wobbly and caved palace, Navy realized that the door to the God Temple was still intact. He could still escape and call for help! Videl, whom Navy had come to see as a big sister by now, would have helped. Son Goku would have been strong enough to subdue Chayote while everyone made her come back to her senses.
A rowdy roar resonated through the Room of Spirit and Time, terrifying Navy and making him tuck his head in, cowering in fear. The panting boy crawled to a piece of wreckage he hid behind and peeked from the edge, seeing nothing but infinite white all around him. By now he'd spent more than enough time training with his mother to have heard rumblings and roars of whirling flames, and the grunge of shifting ice even though he couldn't even see the calamities that were causing all those things. Those noises were haunting phantoms of horrific phenomena occurring far beyond the reaches of that white void. Because of how utterly devoid of anything the Room of Spirit and Time was, those noises from far beyond the reaches of how far human mind could imagine, echoed all the way back in the palace.
In the same way, Navy's mother was out there, all alone, beyond the scope of where Navy could see. Much too far for that, however… She was screaming, she was angry, she was suffering. She was lonely. With tearful eyes and whimpering lips, clutching his shaking hands to his chest, Navy ran out of the cover and ran in the opposite direction from the door.
Navy wouldn't run for help. Even if Mom would have wanted him to do that. Gohan, Videl, or Son Goku, they would have hurt Chayote. They'd attack and try to subdue her. Navy felt like he could have reached his mother without having to resort to violence. When mother was like that, there was no reaching out to her by just speaking to her. And yet, she also kept on growing stronger, skyrocketing her way to any ceiling of power present in the world and breaking it with her head, then shooting off beyond over and over again. Against power like that, someone would have gotten hurt, everyone would have had to use their full strength, and they'd have to make mom hurt really bad to make her stop.
But he wouldn't. Mom said she loved him more than anything and would do anything to protect him. Even as she struggled to stay in control, Mom called out to make sure Navy was safe as opposed to focusing on staying in control. Navy was her biggest weakness, but also mom's greatest strength, and Navy wouldn't dare leave her to face her demons alone without it. He'd be there, and he'd inspire the strength in her mom to keep fighting, to wrestle back control.
If only… If only he could reach her. Somehow. With tensions running as high as they are, with mom spending who knew how much time rampaging and yearning for things to destroy, roaming vast infinite space with a thirst for wanton annihilation and things to inflict grievous violence upon, who knew how many layers of madness Chayote's cradled remnants of her consciousness were surrounded by. Then there was the matter of reaching her… The Room of Spirit and Time was infinite, however, the platform of the warrior class that Mom proudly stood on scoffed at such distances. Their speed has long since left the realm of finite calculations behind. Though even if Chayote spent years traveling beyond infinite speeds, thirsting for destruction, she'd still have an infinite layer of infinities of space to roam.
There was no way Navy could keep up with that! Even now, as the palace wreckage disappeared on the horizon and Navy followed his Ki sense, following a Ki signature so terrifyingly massive that Navy could feel it all the way from the palace, Navy wasn't sure how he'd reach his mother. Snap! Navy's look blanked out as terror robbed him of all senses. The swollen, massive frame of a twisted image of his mother as a mound of muscle and hair, beaming a sadistic smirk, appeared before him. The lone living being still left in this infinite times infinity void.
Navy tried gasping in fright, but his lungs felt completely paralyzed by fear, like the breath of a meek forest animal when confronted by a vicious beast that would surely maul him whenever it was done playing with its food. Here Chayote stood before the only living creature she could still live out the most twisted thoughts spurred by her limitless sadistic bloodlust on. Stomp him, beat him, churn his limbs, and pull them apart. Smash. Smash! So much smashing! Navy felt the ground under his shaking hands. Before he could notice–he flopped on his rear end on the ground before the hovering goliath of destructive fury.
"You've been a very bad boy, Navy!" Chayote rolled her knuckles, hissing while descending on the ground close to him. "Mommy's got to punish you for it, or else you will keep spoiled and grow up rotten!"
"M-Mom… Please, stop!" Navy cried out, desperately burrowing with his hands and skittering on his back as far away as possible. Just when it seemed like he'd get away and the twisted visage of his loving mother's face twisted by bloodlust and violent intentions disappeared on the horizon, Navy bumped into something solid and rough. With an ironclad grip, his mother lifted him off the ground and pulled him in closer to whiff her son and sneer at him.
"So many ways I could punish you, although… I should be careful. I wouldn't want to break you or anything…" Chayote teased the boy she held up by his collar in the air. Wriggling, Navy desperately tried slipping away from the Saiyan battle armor he wore, but Mom was right. That thing was so incredibly tight and flexible that slipping out of it was impossible, even with his mother suspending him in the air over the collar. Chayote struck Navy with the back of her hand. Even though it felt like just humiliating teasing, Navy thought he'd died for a second.
He had to whip and drag himself back to life for the second time that day. Writhing on the ground as Navy tried crawling away. Why was he such a coward? Why was he trying to wriggle out and run away when he was face-to-face with his mom!? Navy was such a fool! What was the point of coming here and chasing after his mother if he wouldn't even try to help her and instead worry about his own life? Shaking and wearing a bruise all across his busted forehead, Navy stood up and clenched himself stiff, declaring that he wouldn't move one step back.
"What's that? Are you resisting my authority?" Chayote leaned her head like a curious puppy, sneering with her teeth and jittering with excitement over something so small and fragile for her to break appearing before her and refusing to run away. "If I allowed that to go unpunished, I'd be a lousy mom, wasn't I?" the Legendary Super Saiyan cracked her knuckles.
"You were right, Mom…" Navy wiped his sleeve across his nose, wiping the blood and snot off his whiny nose and bruised forehead. "You were right about this room, you were right about these clothes, and… Who knows, maybe you were right about this lousy punch too?"
Navy looked at his clenched fist and mirrored his mother's movements from way back. Chayote's face became muddled with confusion as the giantess wondered why this meek little thing adopted a fighting stance like it intended to attack her. What possible thing could such a little bug do to a titan of power like her? Chayote's pride wouldn't allow her to dodge or intercept this attack, it was a matter of her honor as the peerless tormentor and annihilator to see to it that this attack hits dead-on and breaks the boy's spirit when it fails.
"Haaah!" Navy brought his arms to the sides, erupting with a crystal-clear aura and taking off in a mad dash at his mother. A youthful barrage of kicks and blows erupted from the vanishing pre-schooler as he tried attacking from various levels of elevation and angles just to prepare for the decisive strike. "Solar Plexus…" he chanted out. "Bullet Punch!" Navy screamed out, appearing directly in front of Chayote's expanded and beefed-out abdomen area near the diaphragm. The boy threw his best right straight, channeling all the Ki he built up and shooting it in a concussive force beam, a shockwave that left the boy's fist and washed through the vital spot in Chayote's solar plexus, booming out from the other end, almost as if it had penetrated the Legendary Super Saiyan's body.
"Huh?" Chayote's right eye winked. "Wh… What was… That?"
Navy's eyes whited out in despair. The most amazing, greatest technique that was supposed to be able to put down any enemy, regardless of battle power differences, just failed against Chayote. The boy went pale as he staggered back and flopped on his rear end, too scared to even crawl away.
"M-Mom! I did it! I did the Solar Plexus Bullet Punch, but it didn't work! Please…! I know you're in there, please tell me what to do to reach you!" Navy closed his eyes, denying the cruel reality that the flinched powerhouse would soon recover, walk up to him, and trample him like some cockroach she found abhorrent. However, nothing of the sort seemed to be happening. Navy opened his eyes, seeing tears forming in the corners of Chayote's eyes. This sight even left the Legendary Super Saiyan herself baffled, as she reached out to the corners of her eyes to touch them and feel their moistness.
"Am I… Crying?" Chayote grumbled. "N-Na… Navy…" she stuttered as if learning to say her son's name for the first time.
"Yeah, that's right, it's me, mom!" Navy exclaimed with tears of joy, kicking up to his feet and running up to the hysterical goliath, eager to help her consciousness transition and resume control. "Fight, fight, and break through until you're back to me!"
"Na… vy!" Chayote muttered over and over again until she screamed out in pain and staggered back, grabbing hold of her head and curling up in mid-air. Bulking up and overflowing with power, riddled with rage and strain, Chayote screamed out, letting her energy unfurl while Navy jumped back and braced himself, eager to see the results of the inner struggle inside of her mother's mind. Chayote's resounding Ki colored the whole Room of Spirit and Time dimension salad-green as her emerald aura boomed and threatened to rip the room asunder.
Cerulean thunderbolts sparked out and shot off in wildly random directions, bursting into lightning storms wherever they hit and dissolved into a field of static discharge. Waves of compressed air erupted in crescent gusts that expanded into rampant emerald tornadoes as they reached their peak. The Room of Spirit and Time shook so violently that it was impossible to tell up from down, even more so than ever before. Navy looked around in awe, realizing as he hovered above ground that his mother's outstanding power summoned quakes that made vision blurry and unstable. As if the dimension itself was quaking, not just the ground. Miasma, reflections, and whiffs of Chayote's aura leaked all the way to the furthest regions of the Room of Spirit and Time, shrouding the dimension in an emerald mist.
Chayote's strained expression no longer looked psychotic and reveling in the pain she caused to herself and those around her. This time, while strained and pushed to the edges of how much power she could withstand without passing out or surrendering control, Chayote's discipline necessary to fight and claw her way back to her son won over. Destructive beams of energy radiated from Chayote's aura, prompting Navy to retreat as they beamed rips through the dimensional fabric and made the very ground underneath their feet crack open with interdimensional fissures that opened up to different interdimensional voids.
Pulsating radiance emanating with different colors, green, red, and yellow, surged back to the source of this power until Chayote exploded with a vicious rip, coloring everything white and obliterating all around her. Bit by bit, the limitless Room of Spirit and Time dimension began to unravel, reduced to mere white, fluffy debris floating in the interdimensional bleed. As all this chaos unfolded before him, Navy observed with deep anticipation as to what it would be that would come out on top. His mother, or a different breed of monster entirely.
Gleaming from the smoke and dust were spiky and wild chartreuse hair, radiating with power, as well as bright white, glowing eyes that peered clearly through the obtrusion of the dust. Navy gasped in worry, as those eyes still looked mindless to him and he worried that his mother may have lost the fight against her demons and ended up sealed even further inside.
"Hmph…" Chayote murmured, swiping her hand and creating a lashing shockwave where it stopped that dispelled the smoke and the dust and made the collapsing Room of Spirit and Time dimension halt in space-time. "Not a bad punch, Navy. I felt it all the way down there. It might not have beaten me, but it sure snapped me back."
Navy stared with an open jaw as his mother became enveloped in a vivid green aura that had a golden spiral surrounding it and beamed off into the heavens. When the outrage cleared out, Chayote's teal Super Saiyan eyes returned to the boundless whites and her expression no longer showed any craving for violence. "Mom!" he exclaimed in joy and hurled himself off of the levitating dimensional debris chunk, closer to Chayote as the Legendary Super Saiyan who learned to assume control over her boundless wrath wrapped her arms around her son and turned around, raising him over her head and squeezing him playfully with glee.
They finally accomplished it together. They grew heaps and bounds, both of them! And just like that day, when they became better versions of themselves with each other's help, they'd keep on walking together to a better tomorrow, just a mother and her son.
Author's Note: This Friday morning I found out about the unfortunate passing of Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, and the character designer for Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon. Honestly, it's a fruitless venture to try and list all the things he's worked on and I probably haven't even experienced a fraction of all the different ways in which this brilliant man has touched all of our lives. I've only read all the way through Dr. Slump last year and I've been putting off trying out Dragon Quest for years now. It was one heck of a way to start out a working day and I couldn't keep my tears in all throughout the weekend, to be honest.
Akira Toriyama's unquestionable talent and skill led to him more than succeeding in what he set out to accomplish when he first picked up the pencil - to provide entertainment. He's made so many people laugh out, cheer, feel excited, and cry, but one thing he's never failed to do is entertain. No matter what you picked up which his hand has touched, his undeniable talent and the unmistakable heart that translated through his work never failed to shine through. It is impossible to experience something written or drawn by Akira Toriyama without realizing that it is his work. The world lost a generational talent at his craft and a brilliant man far too soon. What he leaves behind is a wonderful family, many close friends and associates and countless fans around the world united over their love for what this man had created and whose lives were without a doubt touched and made better by this dazzling creator and his phenomenal work.
I don't think can say much that hasn't already been said. However, even if I'm just one of countless fans around the world mourning the loss of Akira Toriyama with a bleeding heart, I feel like brushing past this monumental loss would have been far more disrespectful than expressing my honest feelings. I can only offer sympathies to those whom Akira Toriyama left behind, his close friends, and join the rest of the world in grief.
Goodbye, Toriyama-san… Until the Day We Meet Again!