Late Night Therapy [Solo, *30 Gravity]

Late into the night, Ginge lie awake in bed in her small apartment. The sounds of the Vegetan night wafted in through the open window, carrying the voices of Saiyans and non-Saiyans alike from the busy street several blocks over. The cool breeze tickled at her bare skin, as she'd never pulled the blanket up and over herself in the first place. Even though the reddened splotches and dead skin was gone, she could still feel her flesh crawling. Her fresh face and lips still felt cracked and frozen, and she refused to trust her dark eyes when they told her what she was seeing.

No, despite her new skin, she still felt cold. Despite her recovered eyes, she still saw only the male and his determined stare. Sounds? Ha! There was no sound to be heard in the bleakness of space! There was only the void, and nothing else...

The Saiyan woman bolted upright in her bed, reaching for her throat where she could still feel his hands. What the fuck was wrong with her, she thought. She had had many brushes with death before then, and many more would follow. It was the inevitability of being a soldier, so what had made this time any different? She took in one loud breath after another, as she looked at her hands, shaking with a strange intensity. Even her tail was wrapped haphazardly around her own waist and stomach, as though the limb sought comfort of its own.

With a hefty sigh, she stood abruptly and stepped quickly to the window. The cool wind helped to calm her some, as she bent over to let it hit her in the face and shoulders. She couldn't sleep, not now. How could she do such a thing after spending days in a healing tank? It was the last thing that her body wanted right now, and her eyes continued to swim towards the unseen Dojo off in the distance.

Lightly biting into her lip, she made up her mind. If she couldn't sleep, then she would certainly train. It took her only minutes to make herself ready, pulling on her uniform and armor and grabbing a water bottle on her way to the door. Her tail writhed in quiet anticipation as she made her way to the street outside, then an anxious explosion of ki rocketed her into the calm night's air above.

Minutes later, she'd arrived at the training grounds of the Saiyan military that was quickly growing in infamy. The Dojo towered above her, with just a few lights announcing that several of her comrades were still training inside. She stepped in with a determined aura, holding her tail aloft intentionally. Yes, she thought to herself as she made her way to the gravity controls. This was already making her feel better. The familiarity of the large building was... good. Better than good; it was great!

The computer booted up at its own pace, and pulled a look of annoyance and contempt from the young woman. Finally, the screen lit up, and she dialed up the artificial gravity in the room, passing ten times the Vegetan gravity, then twenty...

[Gravity: x30]

Perfect, she grinned at the screen as she made her way to the nearby bench to leave her things. Scouter and bottle of water were set underneath the seat before she turned her attention to the training dummies in the corner, and only a few moments later, she'd maneuvered one of the heavier dolls to the center of the room. With a controlled breath, she brought her hands up to guard...

The time passed by quickly in the training room. The sounds of her fists hitting the padded doll never seemed to cease, and her breathy grunts soon began to follow. With no restraint or control, she unleashed all of her aggression and worries on the inanimate thing. Cries of anger and hatred filled the room while she continued, as the lifeless dummy grew hair in her eyes, and adorned itself in red battle armor similar to her own. Before she was finished, the face of the male from Beppa leered at her, and she exploded with a burgundy aura as her fist sent the thing flying against the far wall.

"Ahh!" She screamed at the empty room, so loudly that her voice nearly broke. "FUCK!" As the air settled, she seethed through clenched teeth and stared at the toppled dummy in the corner. No, she told herself. It wasn't him. He was... He was dead. He was dead, and he wasn't coming back.

Nearly a minute later, she walked over to retrieve the thrown dummy and return it to the center of the room. Her hand still shook, as though it were anxious about starting again. To be honest, she couldn't blame it. She swore that, sometimes, her body knew better than she did. After all, she had made the decision to follow Pin's orders and bring the male back to Vegeta, and she had opened the airlock out of anger. If it hadn't been for the healing fluid she'd had with her, something so astronomically simple, she would be dead right now.

Her own power hadn't been enough. She'd survived due to sheer, dumb luck, and the self-harming actions of her opponent.

As she grit her teeth, Ginge's fists hit the soft body of the training dummy again. Again and again, she struck it with all of her might, but her blows grew slow over time. Eventually, she fell back into her routine, ducking and dodging around imaginary attacks while she returned them in kind. As she did, her mind swam with thoughts she hadn't considered before. It was her own fault that she'd been put in such a situation. It was for her own weakness that she felt such a kind of fear. It was... It was...

"RaaaAAAGH!" With another loud shout, she kicked the dummy with a leg wrapped in her burgundy energy, and sent it flying into the far wall again. Her dark eyes focused in anger on the immobile opponent, and she breathed deeply to reign in her surging emotions. No, actually, she didn't. Instead, she continued to fight her imaginary foes, throwing punch after kick after punch into the emptied space in front of her as her muscles ached underneath the weight of her training gear and the artificial gravity.

Yes, it was all her own fault, she thought. It was because she'd been unable to react! She'd been unable to counter him! She had thought that, because of the full moon, she could just become the Mighty Oozaru if she were ever in trouble, but that wasn't it at all! Her opponent -another Saiyan, no less- had proven that to her! She couldn't... She couldn't rely on anything but herself, not even the moon. She had to be stronger, much stronger, or it would only happen to her again.

As her mind raged behind her eyes, she growled against the pain setting into her joints and muscles. Her limbs moved faster, far more than before, and the aura of burgundy energy around her grew smaller. Around her fists and legs, the power licked like a flame as she pushed herself further. She jumped, rotating her body to bring the back of her ankle against the invisible foe in front of her, and he fell to the ground with her.

Then, her eyes turned to the dummy- No, her eyes turned to the male curled up against the wall. Anger and hatred came to a broil in her dark eyes, and a strong light exuded from between her teeth. The floor and wall were both washed in burgundy, but then, the color faded. She turned all of her focus to the energy building in her mouth, concentrating it further and further, rather than simply unleashing it as her instincts demanded. Instead, she watched as the thick burgundy dye was rinsed away, replaced by a pale light, like that of the moon itself.

With the sound of air breaking between her and her target, the Saiyan woman unleashed her attack, and it crashed heavily into the body set against the far wall. Bits and pieces of the dummy exploded outward, raining down around the empty room's perimeter as the dust settled.

When she could finally see again, Ginge smiled a greatly satisfied grin at the large dent she'd put into the wall. It was almost funny, her realization. How had she been so wrong before? Yes, her own biology had greatly enhanced her power, and the zenkai she'd received in the past few months had brought her this far, but she couldn't rely on them forever. She had to train herself in other ways, too.

For a few minutes, she took a break to rest her tired body. She sat, she drank and she contemplated, but in the end, she returned to the center of the room with several more of the sturdy targets. At first, she'd lined them up in an orderly row, but after some thinking, she'd decided that spacing them out would serve her better. Now, in the middle of the three dummies, she brought her guard back into place.

Quickly, she began her practice anew. Fists flew against one dummy like bolts of lightning, then she turned her attention to the one behind herself. With a swift kick, she disabled the foe to her right, and continued on in a circle for some time. They were fast, but she was faster. They could hit, but she could hit harder! For several minutes, this continued, until finally, her burgundy aura returned and darkened around her leg. Over the seconds, she refrained from kicking while the power built, and her aura shrunk in against her body once more while the pressure ached her knee and ankle. More and more, she gathered energy into her leg, doing so faster and faster until she was satisfied with the result, then she pivoted her body and brought her leg to bear against the head of the dummy!

With an excessively loud crash, the training tool was sent flying away, where it smashed into the wall and crumbled to the ground, its base and support bent beyond useful recognition. Without pausing, the woman's aura shifted its focus to her dominant hand, and it shrunk and clung to the limb much more quickly than before. As she turned herself to face her next opponent, the ache manifested in the fragile bones of her hand, just before the massive force collided with another dummy and sent it flying, just like the first.

However, she wasn't satisfied. Baring her teeth with an excited grin, she focused her energy again, this time, into the opposite leg. Faster and more quickly, with much more power than before, she spun around and brought the back of her ankle to the last remaining foe. The crash bounced endlessly off of the circular walls of the room, almost covering the noise that came from the twisting metal as it collided with the metal barrier. Within it all, she stood in the center of the room, breathing deeply and enjoying the new ache that pervaded her body.

Now, she was satisfied. With a wide grin, Ginge reached up to wipe the sweat from her brow. Her tail stood tall, fighting against the increased gravity with all its might while she looked around at the destruction she'd caused. The room itself was fine, but she'd destroyed four of the training dummies, and those would have to be replaced.

Well, that wasn't exactly her problem, now was it?

For the first time since returning from Beppa, she felt like her again. The crawling in her skin had been replaced by the pleasant ache that came from the harshest of training sessions, and it was all that she could see to look at the building around her. Bringing her guard back into place, she resumed her ghostly practice, fighting with imagined foes that grew stronger as she did grow tired.

I had never occurred to her that daylight was beginning to shine through the doors.