Going Native: Rewritten: Namek 3.6 (ch. 17) (Patreon)

Month One

“So. On a scale of one to ten, how bad is eating a Dragonball? With ten being something like turbo mega death,” I asked inside of a round building, seated on the floor as I had to crane my head all the way up at Elder Guru. I was crossing my fingers that I'd grow up to be that tall one day, but given what I knew of canon Vegeta and Tarble, I had being a manlet in my future. 

“An eight, I would say,” Elder Guru answered, a number of texts and scrolls floating around that he perused as if he were looking for something. “Eating three of them… that should have had disastrous consequences for you, child. It still might, even if they are not the… ‘turbo megadeath’ variety, as you put it.” So, I cheated death again, huh? Lucky me. 

“What variety would the consequences be?” I asked, wanting to know what exactly I had done to myself on accident. I figured it'd be fine. Goku did it in GT. He even had the Dragonball pop out his forehead like I did, totally fine. 

To that, Elder Guru hummed. “I suppose it is tied to the basics…” His obvious hesitation in telling me what could happen was starting to freak me out a little bit. “Very well. This shall be your first lesson of magic, and it is the danger of eating powerful artifacts.” I ignored the little poke at my expense and leaned forward, listening intently. Magic. I was about to learn magic. 

“Magic is something that all living creatures can use, even if they can no longer use it as naturally as before the Maltusians restrained magic.” He couldn't quite restrain the low growl in the back of his throat as he spoke of it. “Now, it is an art that requires the highest discipline to learn, much less master, and one where the smallest mistakes can lead to disaster. As such, in this era, it is wise to only learn from what my people call a Calling.” 

“A Calling?” I echoed, leaning forward. 

“It is far less glamorous than it sounds, I’m afraid,” Elder Guru replied. “A Calling is a specific school of magic or a unique magical ability that a hopeful practitioner of magic has a talent in, whether it be Alchemy, Elementalism, Divination, Order, or Chaos magics. The practitioner will largely only find success within their Calling, with attempts to explore beyond it being discouraged due to the inherent dangers. While it is possible to learn, even master several schools of magic… that is something that requires decades, if not centuries, of dedication and a wellspring of natural talent.”

Damn. The Maltusians kinda sucked then, huh? I wanted complete, unfettered access to all magic. What a bunch of jerks. 

“Now, even starting the road of learning magic has certain… requirements. Obstacles must be overcome, whereas, in the era before, magic could be used and shaped as naturally as breathing,” He said, reaching out and poking me in the forehead. “By consuming the Dragonballs, you have already inadvertently taken the first step. There are several pathways that magic naturally flows through within the body, and you have opened them all on accident.”

Whoops?

“The proper order is from your center, and the flow goes upward -- your stomach, your heart, and then your third eye, which will allow you to perceive magic. These doors can be born open by natural practitioners, opened deliberately by a sufficiently powerful being, or doing as you did and forcing them open,” Elder Guru answered my unspoken question. “Also, by eating the Dragonballs, intensely powerful artifacts even in their reduced state, if you had a Calling to begin with then you have very likely overwritten it with Creation magics.”

“That sounds like it could be a good thing, though?” I ventured, tilting my head. Creation magic sounded like exactly what I wanted. 

“Perhaps it is. Or, perhaps, you possessed a truly unique magical gift that has been lost to you. As it is, you have no way of knowing,” Elder Guru pointed out. And that was true. I mulled it over for a moment before I offered a shrug of my shoulders. 

“No point crying about it now. Ignorance is bliss, I guess,” I said with a dismissive shrug of my shoulders. I meant it to be an idle remark, but Elder Guru just kinda… looked at me weirdly. Like I said something that truly caught him off guard. Was a Calling that big of a deal? 

If it was, he recovered quickly. “I suppose it is,” he muttered before collecting himself. “In any case, as you have done the process backwards, we must revise the traditional methods of granting you awareness of magic itself.” He said before he held a hand out then, I watched in awe as a small silver ring appeared in the palm of his hand. Materialization magic. The same magic that Piccolo used to create clothes for Gohan. 

That was exactly the magic that I wanted to use. 

I took the ring from his gigantic palm and found that it was a perfect fit for my ring finger- “Ugh,” I grunted, recoiling as I put the ring on. 

My ki. The endless sea that I felt within me at all times. The energy that I had honed since I was in the incubation tank… it had vanished. I couldn't feel it anymore. And that left me feeling… empty. Hollow. Like there was a sudden void inside of my body, almost like someone had suddenly removed my skeleton. It was a wonder I didn't just collapse in on myself. 

“The energy that you use -- ki, as you call it -- is your life force. While it is a vast well of power to draw from, ki in itself is not magic. Ki is life, but magic stems from your soul.” Elder Guru said while I took a deep breath, letting the panic of suddenly being cut off from my ki wash over me. It was still there. I didn't actually feel any weaker. I just couldn't perceive it. 

“Can I use them both? Or use them interchangeably?” I asked, crossing my legs and closing my eyes. Elder Guru said that I had already opened my third eye, and while I knew next to nothing about magic, I did know the meaning of the whole ‘opening your third eye’ stuff. I just needed to look inward, just as I did with ki. 

“I would believe so,” Elder Guru said, sounding like he was pondering the idea himself. “There are many spells and rituals that can be fueled with life force, though most often that life force is harvested from others. However, I cannot recommend that you go down this path. At least not without care. Depending on the cost of these spells, you could very well be trading centuries off of your lifespan.” 

My eyes opened, “Centuries?” I echoed, caught a little off guard. 

Elder Guru seemed amused by my surprise. “Child, what did you think it meant to be powered by life force?” He said like it should have been obvious. “While similar in nature, you do not use energy granted to you by the yellow sun as Kryptonians do. Nor ultraviolet light as young Koriand’r does. Nor the accumulated experience and energy that the Warrior Clan Namekians do. You use ki, your very life force. It is only natural that you would extend your lifespan the more life force you accumulate.” 

Huh. I… huh. “Seriously?” I asked, mulling it over. I guess it really shouldn't be a surprise. The whole cultivation novel stuff was all about gaining enough ki, or chi, to gain immortality and to refine your body enough that it just… stopped aging. But it wasn't something mentioned in Dragonball. Maybe it was a DC thing? 

“Seriously,” Elder Guru replied with dry amusement. “As you are now, I would expect for you to live for… at least three or four centuries. However, should you use ki to power certain spells, that would diminish considerably as you would not regain that lost ki with rest. Though perhaps you could regain it with sufficient training.” 

So, magic powered with ki would result in a permanent loss of power? Yeah, I could see that. Seemed like something to keep in my back pocket and reserve for emergencies. My focus should be on developing my magical abilities to the point that I didn't need to burn my life force to bolster them. I needed to focus. 

Though, I had to admit, learning that I was apparently going to live for centuries was kinda distracting. And that number was only going to go up the stronger I got? 

It didn't really change any of my plans in the short term, but I apparently had a lot more room for long-term plans than I expected. I kinda figured that I had about… eighty years or so. Maybe a hundred. 

But that was a distraction, so I shook my head to free it from the stray thoughts and I focused. Without the sea of ki within me, I could focus on what it overshadowed. A well of potential that I never would have noticed otherwise. 

Magic. My soul. 

“You discovered it quickly,” Elder Guru noted as I felt that ethereal feeling fill me. It was different from ki, but it was no less filling. It was… softer than ki. Gentler. Fragile, even. “I expected it to take weeks. Perhaps even months, despite your premature awakening.” 

I cupped my hands without opening my eyes, channeling that feeling to my palms, much like I would with ki. My soul, my magic, disobeyed the instruction, so I changed my approach. I focused on moving it from my gut, to my chest, then down my arms, and to my palms. I imagined what shape it would take. What it would look like. How it would feel. 

And when I opened my eyes, I saw a bead of white light above my palms. 

Cool. 

“It would seem your training with ki has carried over to magic,” Elder Guru remarked, a note of fascination in his voice. 

Way back when I first got ejected from Castle Vegeta, when I was teaching a bunch of kids about ki, a subject that I barely knew anything about, I had speculated about the overlap between it and magic. It was speculation rooted from Daima, where those in the Demon Realm used magic, but everything they did could be achieved with ki. I had theorized that they were functionally one and the same. 

I was wrong. And right at the same time. There was a lot of overlap in how ki and magic expressed itself, and even how I could use them, but they were two entirely separate wells of power. I was also correct in the assumption that I didn’t know anything about ki or magic. 

Magic felt weird. If ki was water, then magic was sand. Something loose and formless, yet it had a certain kind of weight to it. It could be shaped and channeled how I wanted, but I had to do it completely differently than how I approached ki. Yet, at the same time, the same broad principles applied -- a clear mind, absolute focus, and understanding of what I was trying to do and what the end result would be. 

“In that case, your second lesson shall be how to safely channel it and exercise control. I do believe I have some of the basic exercises somewhere…” Elder Guru began, waving over a number of texts and scrolls and I immediately brightened. 

I couldn’t wait to learn magic and master it. 

…

Month Five

I kinda understood why the Guardians of the Universe feared magic now. It was stupidly dangerous. On a low level, a screw-up would probably just spaghettify your soul. On a higher level? You could impact the entire planet and everyone on it. Or even beyond. The worst part was that magic was so weird that what was and wasn't a potential screw-up wasn’t always immediately obvious. 

Like… ‘Oh, you stirred the potion seven times because seven is an inherently magical number? Well, you added three eyes of the newt, and that makes ten, and ten is an even number, so the odd number of callow leaves you added is out of balance,’ and the whole thing blows up in your face. Magic had its own logic, and that logic was, ‘fuck you, I do what I want.’

There were so many little things that could affect the result of a spell. The time of day, the day it was cast, the ingredients used, the symbolic meaning of the ingredients, where they were located, how they were collected… and that was without factoring in stuff like your own perception and skill with magic. 

That being said? When things worked how you wanted them to? And your efforts paid off and you succeeded despite what felt like incredibly long odds?

The feeling was… magical. 

“Try this,” I said, handing Kori the hundred-and-thirty-eighth iteration of my first real magical project. It was small, made out of silver with three words etched into the surface written in the Namekian language -- ‘mind,’ ‘ear,’ and ‘communication.’ I used the Namekian language largely because I perceived it as a magical language, and thus it was. As far as I could tell, it was the same reason why people used Latin to convey something that was esoteric. It was a dead language, it was weird, and thus not mundane like English or Saiyango. 

“Thank you,” Kori said as we loitered around the quarters that we were given outside of the city. Largely because we needed the space because the others kept sparring and they cared little about collateral damage. With what was becoming practiced ease, Kori brought the cuff earring to her upper ear and closed it. 

‘Can you hear me?’ I thought at her with telepathy, making Kori nod. ‘Alright. Try thinking something ba-’ 

‘Can you hear me?’ I heard Kori’s voice interject in my head. I flinched a little, more surprised than anything that it actually worked. And that told Kori all that she needed to know because a bright smile lit up on her face. ‘It worked! We can now communicate with our minds! I will no longer be left out! Thank you, Friend Tarble!’ She said in my mind before lunging with a hug so fierce that I’m pretty sure a couple of ribs gave out. 

‘Sorry that it took me this long to get it down. I was using the wrong material for the base -- I thought it needed to be bronze to symbolize connections, but silver for the purity of the connection was the way to go.’ I replied, patting her on the back as I realized it had bothered her more than she had admitted, not being able to talk to us telepathically. And there went another one of my ribs. ‘Kori… you’re crushing me…’

“Oh! I am-” she started, her grip relaxing before cutting herself off. ‘Sorry! I am still getting accustomed to my new strength,’ Kori continued with telepathy just for the sake of it. And I could tell that she wasn’t quite used to the idea that I was fragile. At least comparatively. 

Just as I’d predicted, Kori’s awakened potential was a bit different than the others. While she’d had a burst of strength like them, the real change was it felt like a limiter had been removed with her intake of UV light. By the end of the first day, she had reached a power level of 500,000. In the months since, while the rate slowed considerably, she now had a power level of 700,000 just from passive absorption. Every day, she gained something like 2,500pl. And she could gain more if she was exposed to the UV Power Balls. 

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I reassured her. ‘I’m glad that you like it. Now I just need to figure out how to maintain the connection despite the anti-telepathy items I’m planning to make.’ 

Easier said than done. When creating magic items, I discovered that it was… relatively easy to create something by mimicking a technique. They functionally acted as a blueprint for me to recreate with magic. And I was sincerely hoping that it worked the same way with my ki based techniques.

‘I am certain that you will succeed!’ Kori said with absolute confidence in my abilities. And it was hard not to have a little faith in the face of such certainty. 

…

Month Nine

Namek was a beautiful planet, one almost entirely untouched by industrialization. There just wasn't a need, really. They had magic and the Dragonballs. There were no roads because everyone could fly. There was no disease or poverty. I'm not sure if I would call it a utopia exactly, but it was the closest thing to a true utopia that I had ever seen. 

“This is kinda fun,” Cabba remarked next to me as we squatted before a garden that I had been cultivating since our arrival. 

“Right?” I agreed, digging a little hole with my finger before dropping a seed in. “It's useful too. There's a lot of empty space in the botanical gardens on the Rebel Moon that I'm planning to fill with plants like these.” As I spoke, I covered the little seed with some soil before I grabbed a knife. 

“Can we take them with us?” Cabba questioned, watching me prick my finger and pinch it so a single drop of blood welled up. 

I held the blood drop above the planted seed, causing it to fall. “Elder Guru said that I can have any plant I prove that I can take care of,” I replied with a grin. Withdrawing my hand, I sat back and watched the effects that my ki and magic infused blood would have on the little seed. 

I was ripping the idea off from a story called Beware of Chicken, a deconstruction of the cultivation genre. The idea just made perfect sense to me, and my expanding knowledge of ki and magic more or less confirmed that it could work. By infusing the soil with ki and magic, I would be giving the seed all the nutrients it could possibly want to grow big and strong. Which, in turn, would make it taste better and more plentiful. I'm not sure if it would make us stronger after eating it, but I wasn’t really concerned about that. 

The soil began to shift as the seed already began to sprout, sending up a thin stalk with budding green leaves. Cabba made a sound of amazement as it continued to grow but my attention was stolen by the sound of a door opening. Looking over, I saw a familiar face -- small, light green with blood red eyes, and in his clawed hands was a platter with two cups of steaming tea. 

“Thanks, Elion,” I said, taking one of the offered cups from the Saibaman. 

“Kahhh!” Elion replied, presenting the tray to Cabba. 

“Ah, thank you,” He said, blowing on his cup to cool it even though I'm pretty sure we could eat lava without being burned at this point. I took a sip, and while it was piping hot, I could still taste the flavors without being burned. 

It was pretty good. A month ago, a Saibaman serving me tea would have been a lot more surprising. The Saibamen were one of the races that I had searched for when we initially left the Vega System, but I hadn't found a trace of their existence. And that was because they were apparently here, on Namek, hidden away. They were also the reason for this little experiment. 

A Saibaman’s power was determined by the quality of the soil that they were planted in. Which got me thinking about ways to improve the soil quality in general, both for the Saibamen and for my plants. 

“Kahh!” Elion hissed, pointing at the plant and bringing my attention to it once more. Already, it was fully grown, but it looked kinda weird. The leaves had changed color, becoming a dark purple while the stalk darkened to a crimson red. In response, I looked at the picture on the seed pamphlet -- green leaves with a blue stalk. And there didn't seem to be a pomegranate looking fruit growing out of the top? 

“Hm. I think this one might be a dud,” I ventured with a shrug of my shoulders. It was probably the magic in the mix. Magic was chaotic by nature, but it was also oddly consistent in some ways. Variables could be introduced and controlled or accounted for. In some ways, it wasn't that much different than science. 

“Are you going to throw it out? It kinda looks nice?” Cabba asked, poking it with a finger. We both blinked as the stalk split apart into fours, revealing the pomegranate looking seeds that I had expected lining the interior in rows, almost like corn. “Huh.” 

I plucked a few seeds, dropping one in Cabba and Elion's hands. As one, we popped them into our mouths and chewed. It was a little chewy, a bit dry, and it kinda tasted like a doorknob. 

“Do you think it's poisonous?” Cabba asked, making a face. He wasn't a fan. Elion was, though. I thought the little guy was about to swoon. 

“I guess we'll find out? Did you feel anything?” I asked, reaching for my notepad to record the latest… I guess it was a success? 

“Not really? But, it'd probably help if I knew what I was supposed to feel?” True, but I didn't want confirmation bias. 

“They're supposed to embody gravity,” I answered, making Cabba blink. Doorknobs were made of brass, right? And brass was heavy. So… eh, I'll put it in the maybe pile. “Getting specific ingredients is a huge pain in the butt. Especially since a lot of them only have any metaphysical oompth because they're like ‘the last star flower plucked under the full moon on top of the highest mountain.’ I don't have the time or patience for that, so I'm trying to create replacements for general use.” 

Apparently, Piccolo cheated like a dirty cheater when it came to Magic Materialization. Kami gave him the skill necessary to make a full outfit, which I now understood was a crazy advanced technique. Making something from pure magical energy was kinda absurd. Which is why I had to enchant materials I had to harvest or collect. 

“Oh. Well… I don't know what gravity tastes like,” Cabba admitted. 

“Neither do I,” I agreed, watching as Elion helped himself to my plant, popping the seeds like they were chips. Seemed like he had his favorite snack, so I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time. 

As Elder Guru had said, my Calling was Creation. Stuff like Alchemy and Alteration just clicked with me in ways that the other schools of magic didn't. Like I had dabbled a bit with necromancy for an idea I had, but all the information went in one ear and out the other. My brain was simply too aerodynamic, so the knowledge slid right off it. And, according to Elder Guru, I was wildly talented, especially for a beginner. But that just shortened my path to mastery from centuries to a couple of decades. 

What I was trying to accomplish was a stopgap of sorts. I was trying to create magical plants by shaping them with techniques. I already had some success already as the light that illuminated my garden was from a vine with bulbs of light from the Solar Flare technique. But that took over six hundred generations by selectively breeding the vines with the best results. The trick was to find a base plant that fit your overall goal.

Honestly, the whole thing seemed pretty simple. I'm not sure why everyone else bothered with that ultra rare ingredients crap like a ‘ginseng root aged for a bazillion years.’ Like, yeah, okay -- I'm sure that it had some serious oompth to it. No doubt about that. But good luck finding one, and then only getting to use it once. 

“Boss?” 

“Hm?” 

“If the seeds are supposed to be gravity, then shouldn't we weigh them instead of eating them?” Cabba asked, and I smiled lightly before taking a sip of my tea. 

“... yeah, that probably would have been a good idea.” 

Year One, Month Two

“I'm gonna make you eat your words, Tarble- wait, no! I'm gonna make you eat ‘em, then spit them out before I make you eat ‘em again!” Caulifla roared, powering up. She didn't use the Kaioken, but the blue grass around her began to get ripped up in chunks. 

“Yeah! I don't know where the weakling is getting such big ideas from, but there's no way you have a chance against the three of us!” Raditz joined in, a vein throbbing at his temple. 

I had to admire my handwork. When it came to pissing people off, no one could do it better than me. The only one who wasn't frothing at the mouth furious was Cabba, who was about as even keeled as I was, if not more so. He settled in a fighting stance, his ki spear forming in his hands. He wore a sly little smirk that told me he knew exactly what I planned. 

“That so? How about you put your money where your mouth is? Losers have to do the winner's chores!” I shot back, confidence dripping from my tone. 

“Yeah?! You bet- oh, what is this?!” Caulifla immediately lost her bluster as she tried to shoot straight for me at speeds that would have shattered the sound barrier to splinters, which probably would have gotten us another noise complaint. Instead, she flew at the speed of a particularly slow snail for about half a second before face planting in the dirt. 

In doing so, she revealed the source of her troubles. A ring that sat at the base of her tail. Rings on the fingers and toes made them liable to break in a fight, and you could only have so many piercings in your ears before they became a liability. So, rings on the tail were my solution for my latest training tool. 

“I’m gonna- oh, I don’t like this…” Radtiz groaned out, making to move only to catch himself. Testingly, he waved his arms back and forth, throwing a punch and his expression became increasingly perplexed on how difficult the simple action was. 

Which made me slide my gaze to Cabba to see that he was smirking at me. “Figured it out already?” I asked, settling into my own fighting stance. 

“I noticed that the rings had settings, and the others were set to max,” Cabba admitted, twirling his staff effortlessly. Which also told me that he had listened to me when I harped on and on about ki control. 

The tail rings were ripped straight out of Naruto fanon -- the Resistance Seal. A unique piece of fanon that persisted because the idea was just too good not to use. I combined it with another training exercise inspired by Whis, the ki control dimension he put Vegeta and Goku in. While creating dimensions was well beyond me, I could make a knockoff version of the effect on a ring. 

The ring had ten stages, each one requiring a precise amount of ki channeled through the ring, while each stage offered a steeper incline of difficulty. However, if too much or too little ki was channeled, then the challenge increased dramatically. The final challenge, however, started at max difficulty and you had to match a constantly fluxing yet precise demand of ki. That was why the two seemed like they were moving through tar. 

“I'll get you! Tarble!” Caulifla shouted while I laughed, dodging back with ease as Cabba dove in with a thrust of his ki spear. A similar ring rested at the base of my own tail, and it wasn't easy to deal with. Especially on stage three. More than gravity, it felt like something was actively trying to stop me from moving my body. There was this resistance that I had to push through. 

It made for great training, even if I couldn't rely on it fully. It'd throw off my timing if I just left it on all the time. However, being so weighed down forced me to anticipate moves with far more precision, else I wouldn't be able to dodge them in the first place. 

I barely dodged Cabba's attacks, his ki spear taking a few hairs with a particularly narrow dodge. Caulifla and Raditz put the pieces together and dialed down the resistance ring before they pounced. We flew through the air, the three of them closing in to take their pound of flesh. 

So much of Namek was uninhabited, even if they had cities. I couldn't sense anyone around for thousands of miles. Only plants and animals, with our little homestead house smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Something that felt increasingly more deliberate the longer that we stayed. 

Their blows came fast, quickly adapting to the new resistance they encountered, and their teamwork was increasingly flawless. I felt the pressure as I found my dodges were getting closer, and every counter attack was met with a counter. Our blows made the air tremble and the ground quake, as solid stone was shattered whenever we impacted it -- either by punching it or getting smashed through it. 

Despite the banter, all four of us wore easy smiles. We enjoyed the violence. It was fun. And I was going to enjoy it all the more when I got to kick my feet up and relax when everyone else was doing the weekly cleanup since five unsupervised children proved to be filthy little monsters. 

However, even discounting their numbers advantage, they also had the edge in strength and speed. The resistance rings could only do so much to keep that in check. Bursts of the Kaioken allowed me to keep up, but I wasn't so good with it yet that I could use it and maintain the accurate ki control needed to satisfy the ring. 

Instead, I clenched a fist and drove it into Cabba's gut with what I had taken to calling a Critical Strike. Cabba may have a couple hundred thousand PL on me, but the punch folded him like a shirt, sending him flying back. Tsunade's super strength had finally become an ace up my sleeve once more. The biggest hurdle was getting my ki control back to the necessary levels after my jumps in power. 

“Cabba!” Raditz shouted as I leaned out of the way of his ambush ki blast. Caulifla was already blitzing to me with Cabba recovering. “Try this! Double Sunday Surprise!” Raditz shouted, two ki balls forming in his hands before he lobbed them at me. 

I knew his tricks, though, so it was no surprise when the two ki balls split in half to become four. Two continued to race for me while the others flanked around- 

“Ah!” I grunted as the two ki balls before me exploded into pure light. I tried to close my eyes, but the flashes were so bright I'm pretty sure I could see sun spots through my eyelids. He put the Solar Flare into a ki ball. Clever. Very clever. 

But that wasn't the end of his tricks. The other two ki blasts exploded without hitting anything and I felt Cabba, Caulifla, and Raditz's ki signatures vanish. No, not vanish. Hiding. They were lowering their ki signatures so they'd be lost in the ambient ki in the air. Huh. I wonder how long they had been planning that trick? 

I only had a split second to react -- I couldn't see, or sense them, but I could still hear their approach. Especially with Caulifla giving herself away with a cry of, "I'mma mop the floor with your face, Tarble!” And as much as I would like to dismiss that as her not understanding what a sneak attack was, I knew it was a distraction- 

There. Both Raditz and Cabba's ki flared sharply as they ambushed me. Caulifla from the front, Raditz from behind, and Cabba from above. 

“Multi-Form!” I shouted, lashing out with my ki. The second and third body emerged from my back, but I knew they weren't complete. Raditz let out a shout of surprise when his attack was blocked while I countered Caulifla. The third body, however, went to block Cabba's downward swing and I could sense how his ki spear cut right through it with the body barely offering resistance. 

Pain blossomed in my head as I found myself flung to the ground with the force of a missile, a large crater firming around me that made the ground tremble. “Ah! That hurt!” I complained, clutching my head and nursing the goose egg that swelled up. 

“What was that technique! It looked awesome!” Caulifla shouted as I rubbed the top of my head. 

“It's the Multi-Form technique,” I answered, blinking away the bright spots in my eyes. “That was probably the most success I've had with it,” I admitted. 

The Multi-Form technique was fighting me like no other technique was. Part of that was I was trying to turn the Multi-Form technique into something that it wasn't in Dragonball. When Tien first unveiled it, it was a gimmick. Useful, had a lot of potential, but it wasn't the discount Shadow Clone technique that I wanted. 

“You mean that's not the completed version?” Caulifla asked, floating down to my level. “It seemed pretty complete to me. Do it again,” she instructed and I swallowed a sigh. 

Taking a deep breath, I expelled a portion of my ki and I saw another failure of the Multi-Form. It was a body that was in my general shape, but it was vaguely translucent and entirely made out of light green ki. “I'm aiming for a completely autonomous clone,” I admitted. And I was really starting to understand why only Tien used the technique -- it was beyond frustrating to figure out. “This only does what I wanted it to do the moment I created it, and as soon as that's done, it fades away.” And, true to form, after about ten seconds, the ki clone faded away. 

I wanted my years of training in a single afternoon. I coveted it. But, as it was, I had only managed to create these short lived clones that didn't even look like me. I wasn't even close to the base version of the Multi-Form technique, much less the upgraded version I was trying to create. 

“Isn't that fine, though?” Caulifla asked, tilting her head at me like she wasn't sure what the problem was. 

“Whaddaya’ mean? That's not even close to what I'm aiming for,” I pointed out, cocking an eyebrow in her direction. 

“Sure -- sounds like you have a ways to go for a complete version of the whatever, but the clones can still save you in a pinch as they are now, right? Do you think they could use ki attacks?” Caulifla asked me, crossing her arms. I opened my mouth to reply, but no sound came out. “It feels like you're throwing out a pretty good technique just because it's not the one you wanted.” 

Huh. 

Huh. 

“Caulifla… are you… actually smart or something?” I muttered, realizing that she was right. I was throwing out the baby with the bathwater, wasn't I? While I still coveted my idea for fully autonomous clones that could help me train, she wasn't wrong. A single-use short-lived clone could be very useful in a fight. It would be an expensive technique to use, especially if I did something like make a clone and have it perform the Kamehameha, but… hm. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself. Even for something like blocking an attack, it had a lot of potential if I used it correctly.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that I missed the growing storm on Caulifla's face, “What do you mean ‘actually,’ HUH?” She shouted, cocking back a fist. “I'll show you smart!” 

With a grin tugging at my lips, I dodged her attempt to knock some sense into me. 

I had a new technique to master and to add to my ever-growing arsenal.

…

Year One Month Six

The Namekians were keeping us isolated. I had already recognized that much pretty early on. It was why we were given a house in the middle of nowhere. It was why Elion was assigned to us, so if we ever needed anything, he could just fly to a Namekian city. It was why I was under the personal tutelage of Elder Guru instead of attending a more general class with younger Namekians belonging to the magic caste. 

I figured it was just caution. Elder Guru didn't like to talk about the near extinction of his race for rather obvious reasons, so I never got the full story. I did get enough of it, though, to get a very clear idea of what happened. So, while I couldn't say it felt great to be treated like a dirty little secret and be discriminated against… I got it. I wasn't okay with it, but I accepted it for what it was.   

But, I was starting to think there might be a little more to it. 

“You're… from outer space? You mean… there's stuff out there beyond Namek?” A Namekian asked, sounding stunned at the mere thought of it. I wasn’t that familiar with the whole Namekian life cycle, which got complicated when there were some of them still kicking around after billions of years, but he seemed like a teenager. That awkward phase between child and young adult. 

I was pretty surprised that he approached me. I was sitting on the roof of the building I got my lessons in, taking a small break from my current lesson on the relation between magic and blood and why it is the preferred medium for text-based magic, like contracts. It was something of a personal spot, though on occasion there were other Namekians that came up to relax between lessons. But, when they did, they usually left when I arrived. 

So, the Namekian approaching me after seemingly waiting for me to arrive was new. And I was very surprised with what his first blurted question was. 

“Yeah? There’s a whole lot of stuff beyond Namek,” I said, tilting my head at him as he looked up to the sky. “What did you think I was?”

To that, the Namekian seemed a little sheepish, “I don’t really know? I mean… there are rumors going around and… well, the ones with you being aliens are some of the more believable ones.” He admitted and I snorted in amusement. “But I knew that there were other planets out there because of the Guardians, but I figured once they left…” He trailed off, increasingly sheepish. 

“When they left, everyone else up and died?” I finished for him. That had been an interesting little history lesson. I learned more about it by grilling Dendan -- back in the olden days, members of the magic caste had a duty. They’d learn the lessons required of them, and then they’d prove their mastery by creating a set of Dragonballs. 

From there, they would be sent out across the universe to planets that had early forms of life to nurture and guide them. They would be protected with a member from the warrior caste. While Elder Guru was pretty tight lipped about the cataclysm that nearly rendered the Namekian species extinct for rather understandable reasons, he had confirmed that there were many Guardians that decided to remain at their posts. 

While the Dragonballs had been hit with the nerf stick, they were still extremely powerful. While they couldn’t wish back a planet after it had been destroyed, terraforming or restoring a landmass was perfectly within their capability. Meaning that there were thousands of ‘minor’ Dragonballs out there, potentially. And, a step above them were cases like the Namekian Dragonballs, seven balls that were much larger and much more powerful. Naturally, the most powerful of them were the Super Dragonballs. 

“So, what are you?” The Namekian asked, and the question was so genuine that I couldn’t even laugh at the absurdity. “What is your planet like?”

“I’m a Saiyan,” I answered the first question easily enough. “And…” I started to answer the second before I found myself trailing off. I pursed my lips before offering a shrug, “I don’t really know.”

“You don’t know?” He asked, trying his best not to let his disappointment show, but he didn’t quite manage it. 

“I’ve spent more time on Namek than I did my own home planet. Planet Vegeta,” I said, offering a small shrug as I thought about that for a moment. Not counting the time I was either in the incubator or in a healing pod, I spent a grand total of a month on Planet Vegeta. When I went to pick up some healing pods for the Rebel Moon, I spent all three hours on the planet, even refusing to install them immediately because I wanted to leave as soon as possible. 

The Saiyan race probably deserved every negative thing I had ever thought about them. They were absolutely guilty of everything I accused them of. But… it had been a couple of years since our departure. Enough time for me to wonder a bit if I’d given them a fair shake -- all I really saw of Planet Vegeta was the Wilds. Their child-rearing practices were still the stupidest thing I had ever seen, and I found that I still hated King Vegeta, but… 

I dunno. It felt like I had decided that I disliked the Saiyan Empire without sticking around for evidence to prove me right, even if I did know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was. 

“Oh,” the Namekian muttered, seemingly a bit put out. “That’s kinda sad. I spent my whole life on Namek. I’ve never thought about leaving,” he admitted.

“Has anyone tried to leave?” I asked him and the Namekian thought about it for a moment before shrugging. 

“I don’t think so? I mean… why would we?” He replied, and I guess that was a fair enough point. “It’s weird to think about. I never thought I’d meet an alien,” he said, sounding like he just appreciated the experience as he continued to look up at the sky. I never thought about it -- both in this life, and the last one, I was born into an age when I knew what the stars were. I knew about the planets that revolved around them. While I had ended up becoming the alien in this life, as a human, I had always been convinced that there had to be more than humanity out there. 

“You should probably talk to Kori -- she’s another race of alien called a Tamaranean, from Tamaran,” I offered. While the Tamaraneans didn’t exactly have a happy history, they were a better point to start from when it came to learning about the wider galaxy. Much better than the Saiyans, at least. 

“There are more aliens on Namek?!” The Namekian blurted with naked shock and at that, I could only laugh. A grin made its way to his face as he shook his head in disbelief. “Wow… hey… do you think I could see it one day? Planet Vegeta? Or Tamaran?” He asked, and I don’t think he really expected an answer. 

I shrugged, “I don’t see why not. The galaxy is a big place, you know? It’s got its good parts and its bad parts, and the optimist in me likes to think that there's more good than bad.” Though, the realist in me knew that there was way more bad than good. “You could live for a billion years and not see everything in the galaxy, much less all the other ones out there.”

“Is that how you ended up here? You’re exploring the galaxy?” The Namekian asked, turning to me with excitement shining in his eyes. 

“Ah, something like that? Our trip here was mostly by accident, but for the past couple of years, we’ve been going planet to planet in our spaceship, the Rebel Moon,” I answered, and I could see the excitement building inside of him. He looked like a kid who was just told Santa was real and he was going to meet him at the North Pole.

“... Hey, do you think that one day… I could go to other planets? Meet aliens like you do?” He asked, and I offered a shrug. 

“Don’t see why you couldn’t? Ask the Dragonballs for a spaceship or something,” I ventured, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Hm? Oh, I didn’t introduce myself,” he realized before offering a bow of his head. “My name is Dende,” Dende introduced himself… 

And would you look at that? White mage acquired.