Hammering Out A Plan
You sit, carefully adding to a long list of ideas for how to talk to
that woman and convince her to let her son have the training he needs in order to stay safe with the aliens coming.
There are always people around in the Hall. But in this large chamber, deeper down than most of the rest, there aren't very many. It's reserved for high-energy training. The walls are heavily reinforced, on top of the wards, with sorcery and the strongest materials your people know how to make. People don't even enter this chamber unless they've powered up into the high tens of thousands- for safety. And that's a minimum.
You, naturally, have used this chamber a lot. And you've noticed that nobody ever bothers anyone else down here. Because if you see someone sitting quietly down here, preparing something, and you poke them or break their concentration... you never know
what kind of kaboom might happen next.
Quite a few people are scattered around, in ones and twos. Practicing hand-to-hand, aiming ki blasts on the fly, things like that. But they don't bother each other.
At the far end of the cavern, two figures are providing ample light- bright, flickering, purple light. The pair of Vegetans are having a Galick Gun-wrestling match. You've mostly stopped paying attention to them. You can hear their faint "HAAAs" and "YAAAs" all the way over here. If they weren't both silly, they'd probably have called it a tie by now. They've just been clenching their neck muscles and growling for like
twenty minutes. In that time, you've added six new ideas to your list.
Once in a while, you look up to watch them, or someone else. The distractions are helpful, and everyone's ki looks just a little different when they're actually exerting themselves. The fine differences are kind of interesting to watch.
You even planned for watching the distractions. Dandeer makes you
so angry, parts of your brain just
GRRR and even the rest of it can't bear to think about her for more than a few minutes at a time. But this way, that's not a problem! Every time you can't stand thinking about Dandeer anymore, you just take a couple of minutes to watch something blow up. Then you go back to thinking about Dandeer.
These chambers have more, and bigger, explosions per day than any other place on Garenhuld. And you're here to
think. And it's
working.
Well, people call you an oddball. You've stopped arguing with them.
Wait I technically owe Dandeer an apology wait APOLOGIZE TO THAT- AAAAAGH!
You force yourself to finish writing "APOLOGY" on your list, then
carefully fold it up so you don't accidentally crumple it or something.
You need to think about something else besides apologizing to Dandeer. You really need to. You look around for the highest power levels in the chamber. Getting
this burst of angry out of your system is going to take a really, really big explosion.
You reflexively turn your head to look as you sense a new presence in the room. She flew in with her power level well into seven digits, and you're pretty sure she can go higher. Maybe all the way to fifteen million, maybe not quite.
Then your eyes focus. Instead of the traditional orange Gokun gi or the various training clothes of the Vegetans, the new arrival wears a ceremonial cloak and reinforced shoulderpads. An expert user of Demon Style, then, come to practice the special techniques of her art.
After a moment to remember dad's lessons about the noted warriors among the Gokun houses, you recognize her. It's Mitsuba- a frequent tournament fighter, enough so that when you think about it, even you can sort of remember her, despite never having been big on watching tournaments. Didn't she make the semi-finals one time last year? No, it was the year before that, and the quarter-finals.
Your mom doesn't like Demon Style, but even though you're
definitely liking Tien Style yourself, you don't think it's
quite as dumb as she says. You probably wouldn't have wound up studying it yourself, even if you didn't
love being in three places at once. But it's still... interesting. Demon Style fighters have to be careful about battlefield control, and that's important in Tien Style too. Especially if you don't want anyone to get killed accidentally.
You flex your jaw. You're going to have to do a certain amount of fighting in your life. You don't like it, but it's true. Even so, you
know you don't want anyone to get killed.
Someone you don't recognize is helping Mitsuba stack up a loose pile of boulders, nothing
too exceptional for a saiyan who wants a fair-sized target to practice on. Not as big as a house. Well, okay, maybe a
small house.
The helper hastily and crudely melts a hole in a large slab of rock, and Mitsuba helps push a metal plate into the improvised holding frame. You recognize it as a training plate, made and specially reinforced using a cheaper version the same techniques as saiyan armor or Fennela's sword. They're good practice tools for testing out powerful attacks at full energy. Ordinary rocks and steel are
squishy; practicing on them can be like practicing on a punching bag filled with cotton candy.
Suddenly, your saiyan blood sings in your veins.
Mmm... cotton candy!
Your brain has to exercise its veto.
Ultima ratio regina, the only thing powerful enough to make you truly ignore your stomach.
Snacks later! Finish list now! SCHEDULE!
Paying attention to distractions is part of the plan, though. You wonder what she's setting up to practice.
As you watch Mitsuba gather her energy, you realize what she's doing. This isn't one of the usual techniques, this is original research! She's trying to reinvent a lost technique! You remember reading about this in your studies a few years.
"
This lost attack is attested by Rakkyo, grandson of Mato the Foremost, who heard of it from the Ancestor Gohan, who heard of it from Piccolo. However, the authenticity of the technique is disputed by savants of the Demon Style. Many argue that it is incompatible with Piccolo's signature combat techniques for close-range fighting. Furthermore, Rakkyo admitted that Mato could not remember personally witnessing the technique in use, nor could he recall asking Ancestor Gohan whether he had witnessed it either."
Looking at the patterns of ki spiraling around Mitsuba's fist, you're pretty sure the critics are right. The way she's shaping her energy looks
something like the Makankosappo. It looks
something like the traditional two-fisted blasts favored by Piccolo stylists at short to medium range, the ones whose authenticity is uniformly accepted. But it doesn't look
enough like either.
On the other hand, the master in front of you seems determined to invent the attack, as it was described in the attestation of Rakkyo- whether it ever existed before or not. Her energy forms into a spike, crackling around her forearm like a spearhead. She jabs her fist forward in a sudden, sharp punch, screaming the name of this controversial, possibly-ancient technique.
As she releases her energy, Mitsuba screams.
"NAIL GUN!"
Mitsuba is among the top five percent of the Exiles in power level. She's a widely respected master of Demon Style. Even by that standard, the attack travels
fast. Even at fifteen million, the spike's motion would be a blur. Hard to dodge, especially at the short range the attack was meant for.
But you're in a position to cheat. As Mitsuba gathers her ki, you quickly boost your power level to several times the maximum of an ordinary saiyan. Easy enough for you, even without touching the transformation. Time stretches out like molasses. You can watch the javelin of energy move in slow motion. Your eyes narrow a bit. The spike wavers with instability as it hisses downrange. You don't expect it to matter against the target plates- they're tough, but not
that tough.
And yet. and yet...
With barely a shower of sparks scattering to the sides, the bolt slams through the plate, leaving a neat circular hole, then passes. Wavering and shimmering more obviously now, the attack detonates inside the heap of boulders like an armor-piercing shell. The mass of stone scatters far and wide, adding a few hundred tons' more gravel to the masses littering the floor of the chamber. The custodians will probably be coming down to re-vitrify it soon; it's getting messy in here.
Hm.
Now that you see it in action, you see the logic of the attack. Formed up into a spike, Mitsuba's ki gains the 'piercing' effect of high-density rays and beams, but then expends all its remaining energy on the target rather than simply burning through it.
Efficient at short range, packing a punch but wasting no energy on overpenetration. Powerful, hard to dodge, with relatively little collateral damage outside the immediate vicinity of the target. And ideally suited for gathering all one's remaining energy against a superior opponent to cause the maximum possible damage. Precisely as Rakkyo's tale claimed that Piccolo was said to have intended, on the one occasion when he actually attempted the attack in battle.
A very clever attack style, entirely typical of Demon Style's tricky, precise maneuvers...
...Aaaand unlikely to actually work.
Not with that instability you saw in the shaping of the spike. The attack would just
pop, like a water balloon hitting a wall, if it ever hit anything strong enough to stop it. Against an enemy powerful enough to need such a tricky technique, Mitsuba's new attack would fail. Against something fragile enough for the spike to punch through, a normal ki blast would work better anyway.
Maybe the attack will do what it's supposed to someday. Eventually. But it needs work. A lot of work.
Mitsuba sags, looking dismayed; she seems to share your opinion.
Then, without warning, the entire chamber is wrapped in a blinding flash of purple light, Taiyoken-bright. A thunderous detonation washes over you. Your power level is still somewhere around seventy million, so you ride out the blast wave gracefully and look towards the source of the disturbance.
The Galick Gun duel is over. From the way that both the combatants are sprawled on their butts, gasping, with curls of smoke rising from their hair, it looks like they both lost. You can't help but think, in the habits of generation after generation of Gokun before you:
Stupid crazy Vegetans!
Hey, that gives you an idea! You take out your list again.
"TALK TO VALENTINE?"
You underline that and circle it a few times. It may be a good idea, or a really bad one, but either way you're going to need some extra thinking time to figure out which...
