Polishing the skills

It had been a day since Natto was appointed the Commander-in-chief of the Saiyan Empire’s Stationary Defense Army and, much to his displease, Kaula wasn’t kind enough to actually tell everyone he was left in charge. I mean, yes, she told some high officials so that he would have enough autonomy to rule, and access to the palace’s computer data base and some privileged scouter frequencies, but still he was pretty much landing by parachute on the position. He had already done some things as to organize the army, forming squads from all the ranks and even applying for an elite squad of his own, that was still a three-man cell at the moment. He knew he needed more, but he had to distribute the other members of the elite, otherwise the army would be in a tight spot. He also had to buy a spaceship with his own resources, since Kaula didn’t inform the financial department of his new position, which made him quite pissed off since he was saving up some money to finally buy himself a house. He was tired of living on that freaking dormitory room. But there was no use on crying over spilled milk, the spaceship was more of a necessity than his house, so he would do it for the empire without hesitating.

He still had things to do and get informed about much others. He already had a meeting with some counselors and it was complicated and boring as hell; Natto wasn’t fit for having such a position. He could be a good leader, there was no doubt about that, but he was still too young to burden such a responsibility as ruling the Saiyan Solar Empire, even if only temporarily. He was still too young and inexperienced on that area, as he had never commanded anything beforehand. ”Gheez… This is tough… Tougher than I would have expected… How does the Queen do it? Now I kind of understand why that asshole Kaula left… Well… Other than being a treacherous jerk, she couldn’t handle it as much as I can’t!” he frowned his eyebrows as he walked through the halls of the palace. Some soldiers didn’t recognize him as the commander, and others didn’t even know who he was, and would stop him to ask for his identification. – Hey, you! What are you doing here?! Show me your ID! – the soldier would demand, in a harsh tone. The first couple times it happened, Natto didn’t get angry with that and explained patiently, but it was starting to get on his nerves. He glared at the soldier with an infuriating look on his face. – I’m the commander-in-chief of the army now! Kaula left! – he said in an even harsher tone to the soldier, who seemed quite distrustful as he approached with a furrowed eyebrow. – I didn’t hear about another commander! – He inquired somehow showing that he was about to jump into a fight with Natto, to which the young saiyan sighed, folding his arms before losing his temper. – Because she FREAKING ABANDONED THE POSTION, YOU MORON!!! – his shout and burst of power made the soldier to back step a little bit, feeling a little scared of the power level that was indicated on his scouter, being over thirty thousand. – I s-see… W-well then… C-commander, I guess… - he said in an uncertain tone and then Natto continued his way to the hangar: he wanted to see his new spaceship.

As he got into the imperial hangar, there she was! It was completely amazing! Much more than he could have ever expected. The only possession Natto had so far was his repaired spacepod that accompanied him since he was a baby. He was completely awestruck as it truly rivaled the mighty of the Imperator, the queen’s Royal Spaceship. The Star Javalin was quite an amazing ship: she – and Natto was already calling it a “she” – had an incredible saucer-shaped hull and starboard-mounted command pod. It was huge, with over 60 ft (18.65 meters) in length, being completely able to accommodate a topnotch gravity chamber in it, he just have to save more money in order to require for its installation inside the ship. It only required one pilot to function properly, but it required two pilots to be able to harvest its full potential.

It was equipped with a double-armored hull plating and bulky engines too, making it quite easy for it to handle the strains of deep-space, being able to engage into space combat too, even though it still lacked weaponry, but Natto didn’t think it was useful at all, since there wasn’t any available beam weapon on the planet that could be as strong as he was now, so they would be pretty much useless. The vessel had power to spare and it was quite noticeable, as it had an oversized hull begging for the hot-rodded engines that came with it.

The Star Javelin was configured with a pair of starboard bracing arms that connected to the cockpit compartment, essentially a long tube. The aft section of the cockpit tube contained space for a primary and secondary escape spacepods with maximum capacity for three people each, but it didn’t came with the spacepods, making Natto think about it. ”Hmm…. After the gravity chamber, I should enhance my spacepod, putting some mad engine on it and increasing its capacity… That way he can use it as the primary escape pod of the Star Javelin… Maybe Aspa could enhance his pod too… That way we would have enough escape pod for all the available crew… But, for now, if I can manage to pimp my own pod, it will be enough for the squad’s personeel…” he thought, touching his chin, as he studied the possibilities.

The bracing arm’s interior space was used for the crew quarters and, even though it could be further expanded, as of yet it could shelter six people, but it had enough space to be further upgraded up until nine people, which was a quite interesting perspective. ”But, for now, six seems good enough!” he thought, as he walked through the incredible spaceship. Finally, as he approached the rounded hull area he felt as if he just arrived in heaven! It was incredibly large and it already had the space for the installment of the gravity chamber, and he was already dreaming with that. Below the hull space, there was a tighter one entirely occupied by the engines, power generators and barrier generator. And finally a third escape pod space, as well was the airlock, was located on the far side of the cargo compartment, directly opposite to the bracing arms.

The young saiyan was completely satisfied with that and wanted to test it right away, but he knew he couldn’t leave the planet and that made him sighed, as he felt like a kid that had just acquired a new toy, but wasn’t able to play with it. ”Unless…” a idea snapped inside his head, making his smirk to the corner of his mouth. ”Unless I don’t test it’s engine, but it’s training space! Hahaha… That’s a great idea!” he thought, laughing a bit as he had just came up with such an idea. ”And, on top of that… I can order some soldiers to come here and help me finish training my fighting style! I only have to adjust the blocks and parrings, so it shouldn’t take more than half a day of training to perfect it!” he decided as he went to the piloting room and, as he sit on the main pilot’s chair, he used his scouter to summon some mid-class saiyans. – Commander-in-chief Natto here. I summon 5 mid-class soldiers to present themselves for a training session on the new Royal Spaceship that is on the palace’s hangar, the Star Javelin. You have five minutes. – he said, almost unable to contain his excitement, as he waited for the soldiers to present themselves.

As he couldn’t wait much, he went for the rounded hull area that was pretty much empty and seated on the middle of it, with crossed legs, as he waited. They didn’t take long to arrive and there were five of them, which made Natto satisfied. The young saiyan took a good look at them as they introduced themselves.

The first one was a thin saiyan with an irritating grin on his face that sort or reminded him of Kaula’s, making him frown his eyebrows a little bit. He had a very long spiky dark brown hair and a widow peak. – I’m Gorlick…. Fancy ship you got here… - he said with a rather irritating tone. As Natto scanned through him his scouter detected a power level of 3.500.

The other one was very tall, almost 7 feet tall, bald and muscular. He had a more serious feature and a colder tone. – Tatopo here. – he said, as Natto scanned his power level. His scouter indicated a power level of 4.100, making him the strongest of the bunch, catching his attention and interest.

The other one had a chestnut brown Mohawk and an anxious expression on his face. He were a blue jumpsuit underneath his battle suit. – Tarube sir! Thank you for the invitation!! – he said, gulping discretely. His power level was 2.300 which was quite disappointing, making him just a little above a low-class warrior tier. ”Beggars can’t be choosers…” Natto thought to himself, looking for the next one.

That one was rather curious one. He was really short and fat. He had a very straight hair for a saiyan, making Natto wonder if he was a hybrid, but other than that he dresses and acted like any other full-fledged saiyan, so Natto shrugged, since he didn’t actually care if someone was a hybrid or not, as long as they had some saiyan in them and embraced their heritage with pride. – I’m Tokaro. Going to show you what I’ve got! – he said, feeling all fired up. His power level was an average 3.000, making Natto nod to him.

Finally, the last one was a saiyan woman, that was the second stronger of the bunch. She had a long unkempt hair with a widow peak and a cocky smile on her face. She was staring at Natto with that conceited feature, making him smirk back at her. – I’m Lettis. I’m going to kick your ass, commander! Hehehe… - she said, feeling rather cocky for her 4.000 power level mark. Since they had all introduced themselves, Natto got back to his feet, folding his arms as he stared at them.

– Very well… I’m here to train you all, as you must already know from the orders I ensued a while ago. – he said, telling a half truth, since his main goal this time wasn’t to train those saiyans, but to train himself. – Therefore… I want you all to come at me with all you’ve got! But damage my ship… And you will face the fury of a super saiyan! – he warned them with a threatening tone that made them understand his point: they should come at him mostly on a melee basis, instead of relying too much on ki attacks, since they could easily get out of hand and end up damaging the spaceship a little bit, and Natto was being careful with it, since it was the first real awesome thing he acquired by himself.

His warning seemed to have some effect, since every single one of them, even Lettis seemed to be quite frightened with the thought of facing a super saiyan, but at the same time some of them may have thought it was a bluff, since they didn’t get as scared as they should get if they really knew what they are up against. – What the heck are you waiting for?! Come at me! – he roared, assuming his battle stance by sliding his left foot forward and bending his knees. His left hand was raised in front of his body, while the right arm was by the side of his body, fist clenched and ready to fight. From the five middle class saiyans, only two of them charged against Natto: they were Lettis and Tatopo.

They both came quite synchronized, making Natto wonder if all of them were part of the same squad. He should have remembered since he was organizing them earlier this day, but there were just too many for him to remember, and now it wasn’t the time to think about that, he had to train. ”Okay! Here they come!” he smirked as they got into close quarters. The two saiyans started attacking him with a rain of punches to the face and upper torso, but he wasn’t going to let them hit him.

First of all it was about time to try some inside blocks, deflecting the strike away from Natto and away from his attackers. When Lettis threw a punch to his face, Natto used the inside forearm block to meet the inside forearm of Lettis’ arm, pushing her punch outwards, leaving her to face Natto, helpless, making her back step before trying again. Natto did the same thing to Tatopo, and kept on doing that more and more, as they kept on trying to hit him with punches, to no avail. The sequences made Natto get quite confident about his inside block, as it was getting swifter with every successful block. They kept on trying but to the same and so, with a quick movement, the flew away backwards, to tag team with Gorlick and Tarube, who came dashing from the sides, trying to flank Natto.

– Trying to flank me! Good idea, but it’s not going to work! Hahaha! – he laughed a bit, as they approached, getting ready to attack. Gorlick chose to try and kick Natto’s left lower side, while Tarube trying tried to land his punches on his face and upper half. ”Okay… How about some outside blocks now?!” he decided as they started their attacks. Natto aimed to deflect the strikes away from him and across his attackers. When Tarube came with a punch straight to his face, Natto used the outside of his forearm to block by meeting the outside of his forearm, pushing it outward, leaving him slightly to the side of the strike, causing it to miss the target. Due to the angle, it was even easier to apply such blocks to attacks aimed at the torso, and Natto didn’t have trouble with avoiding Tarube’s blows. Gorlicks attacks weren’t that hard either, just a little bit more, and Natto almost missed a couple outside blocks against the spiked haired saiyan, which boosted his confidence to keep on trying, but the more he attacked, the better Natto became at blocking his attacks, and it made him rather angry, as he jumped backwards.

Gorlick had given up, but Tarube was a stubborn one, and, after another deflected blow, Natto countered with a weak punch to his face, that was still strong enough to break his nose, making the saiyan cry in pain, touching his face with both hands as the blood ran down his face like there was no tomorror. – Argh!!! The pain!!! – he complained, as he clumsy back stepped away from Natto, giving space for the last one of them and likely their leader to challenge the young saiyan commander. – Finally decided to try your luck?! – he teased the middle class saiyan, but he didn’t seem to be affected by that and just charged against Natto. ”Hmm… He seems experienced!”. The bigger bald saiyan came with a straight punch to Natto’s face and the saiyan was already ready to block it when he found out that it was a feint. – What?! – Tatopo somersaulted coming down with a heel drop to hammer Natto down on his face. That was a tough one to block, and Natto had to immediately split to his high block. The high block was used to deflect a downward strike such as that. The chamber stared low with the hand in a relaxed fist across the abdomen with the pal facing inward, before twisting and be raised, using the rotation of the wrist and movement of the arm to block the heel drop. After that, Tatopo started to attack Natto with a quick sequence of punches, that came from a higher height, making him use another high blocks to keep on defending against the big saiyan warrior. After the initial surprise, the rest of the attacks were blocked as a walk in the park, must to the frustration of the saiyan squad, as Lettis let it out verbally.

– This guy is untouchable! – she complained, making Natto smirk again, feeling really cocky now, but as soon as he felt that way he made a grimace. ”If I let myself get cocky due to being able to fend off these middle class soldiers attacks, I’m going to be heading down a path that can destroy me in the future… I have to be proud, but I cannot become cocky as that little shit Kaula!” he reprehended himself, frowning his brow into a more serious expression, before using another high block and countering it with a front kick to Tatopo’s stomach, sending him rolling through the floor, growling in pain.

The five saiyans assumed a fighting stance but seemed rather reticent about attacking Natto right away. – Why don’t you all charge at me at once?! – he challenged them, as he returned to his battle stance, waiting for them. After a couple seconds of silence, they agreed that it was a good idea and charged against Natto from all directions. ”Now for the real test!” he thought to himself, focusing entirely on the fight.

The first one to attack was Tatopo, with a sledgehammer to his head, coming right in front of Natto. The young saiyan used a high block to stop his attack and the impact made him kick back a little, to each the saiyan countered with his other hand with a strong palm strike to his chest, sending him sailing through the air. One down, four to go.

Then, at the exact same time, Gorlick tried to land a roundhouse kick to his lower hip and Lettis tried to punch him to the face. Against the male saiyan he used a low block, using the outside of the forearm, moving his hand to intercept the inside of his leg, with the palm facing inward. The moment he blocked, he immediately countered by pulling his hand back to his chest height and twisting his arm to attack with the back of his fist, hammering his chest, sending him to the ground, falling on top of his butt, completely winded due to the attack. At the same time, he avoided Lettis attack with an outside block, leaving her slightly to the side, missing the target, only to be countered with the knife of his hand to the side of her rib, making her fall to the ground, screaming in pain. Three down, two to go.

Tarube came from behind trying to land a flying kick to his kidneys, but as his leg came near him, Natto’s tail unwrapped itself and grappled his leg in a tight grip. Then, the saiyan waved his tail, throwing him to the side, making him keel over the floor, completely out of balance, as he was sent away from Natto. And with that there was only one saiyan left standing, Tokaro, the only one that didn’t attack as of yet. He came running and then, when he got into melee range, he slid to try and land a scissor sweep on Natto, but the young saiyan was too fast and had a lot of reflexes, as he jumped in the air at the exact moment his attack was about to land. Tokaro glared at Natto, impressed. – Not good! – he exclaimed, to which Natto responded with a smirk. – Indeed! – he answered as he landed on Tokaro with a stomp to the chest, making him spit blood. That made Natto grimace, feeling bad for having use too much strength on the poor guy. ”Damn… Didn’t want to crack his ribcage… Well… Gotta control my strength further…” he reprehended himself again, as he somersaulted backwards, staring at the five saiyans, that were recovering from his counters. Tokaro was pretty badly injured, but he had guts, since he stood up, even though he was panting heavily and some blood was coming out of his mouth.

– Fuck this guy! I’ll fire my ki blast at him!!! – Gorlick screamed, feeling completely mad at Natto. He seemed to be supported by Lettis and Tokaro, who nodded and started charging their energy spheres on their hands. Natto furrowed his eyebrows quite a lot as he saw them charging. ”Dammit! I can’t deflect it, otherwise they will damage my freaking ship!” he analyzed the situation, and the only thing he could do was to block the attack and try to withstand it with his body. But then, he had an idea. Natto glared at them, spreading his legs to the side while banding his knees slightly. He spread both his arms wide open, showing his chest to them, like he was teasing them to attack him straight on.

– The bastard is asking us to fire! – Lettis gritt her teeth, making Tokaro a little wary of that stance. – It seems like a trap, guys… - he said, gulping, to which Gorlick answered with a roar. – Don’t chicken out! He won’t allow us to damage the ship! He is going to block it! And we are going to hurt that asshole! Hihihihi! – said the spiky haired saiyan, getting rather cocky. The only ones that didn’t join were Tatopo and Tarube, who stood there, watching the scene. Convinced by Gorlick, the three of them fired the energy spheres that mingled into a really large one. Natto’s scouter beeped alerting for its power level of 10.500, which was quite considerable and would hurt if it managed to hit, but the young saiyan commander was determined not to be injured, nor allow his ship to suffer any damage. He concentrated his power on both of his palms and waited for the energy sphere to get closed to him.

When it was about to hit, Natto intercepted it with a strong bell clap, making the energy sphere to be dissipated with only his palms. He was way too strong for them. Even if all of the were to fire a sole energy sphere at Natto, he would still be able to null it, the only difference being how much of his strength it would be necessary for such a feat. On this specific situation, he only needed one third of his full strength to easily overcome their combined power level during that attack.

– I… I c-can’t… B-believe it! – Tokaro was completely scared by Natto’s power and started to take another steps backwards. He was the only one that had withstood severe damage and now all of his hopes were shattered to pieces by that bell clap. – He is a beast… - Lettis said, frowning her eyebrows as she slid back into her fighting stance, refusing to give up. Gorlick, on the other hand, shook his head in shock, being completely depleted of any fighting spirit. – I… I didn’t come here for that! I’m out! – he screeched as he tried to leave the spaceship running as fast as he could. Natto got angry by that. He didn’t like cowards and, with all of his absurd speed, he vanished, reappearing right in front of a fleeing Gorlick, that gasped in fear as Natto hit him with the knife of the hand to the neck, making him faint immediately. After that, he stared back at the other saiyans with an angry feature. – We have orders from the queen herself to train! And I’m not done! So, either you guys come at me with all you’ve got! Or I’m going to beat you all to the pulp right here and right now!! – he shouted at them, giving them enough motivation to charge against him, even though Tokaro was quite scared and Tarube wasn’t so sure himself. The only ones who kept some fighting spirit were Lettis and Tatopo, who came towards Natto without fear. They were proud saiyan warriors, and Natto already liked them.

The four of them started attacking him at the same time, and Natto seized that opportunity to keep on training and perfecting his blocks. He used his inside blocks, outside blocks, high blocks and low blocks, using both his hands and his legs to avoid the attacks to the best of his capabilities. Little by little, as they kept on pushing forward, Natto became more comfortable with his own defensive techniques, managing to make them swifter and more effective. When he finally became satisfied with his defensive techniques, it was about time to try the last thing left for perfecting his fighting style: dodges.

Suddenly, Natto stopped blocking the attacks and was solely focused on avoiding getting hit by them altogether. At first it was quite hard, since there were attacks coming from all sides. Some of them managed to graze beside him, almost hitting him, white a couple punches from Tatopo and Lettis managed to hit him, but did little damage. However, as he got used to spinning his body, rotating his hips, upper torso and head, side stepping too, and also some quick hops to avoid the lowest attacks, he started to become untouchable by the likes of Tatopo’s squad. ”It’s easy to see their movements… And it’s even easier to react to them, since they are all crystal clear to me… I just have to wait for the moment they can no longer change the attack and then react… That’s a principle Sugoro told me back when I was still living in Felucia… The Go no Sen…” he remembered about the time his Raccoon-like foster father taught him martial arts, that focused on more circular moves, dodges and parrying. It was quite swift and soft, and quite efficient and only now he was being able to replicate those movements. It made him proud of himself, but not in a rotten disgusting away. He was really happy for being able to overcome his own limits, and improve as a warrior. With that, he could perfect his fighting style and become a full-fledged fighter.

He would still have things to improve, though, such as his dodging ability, as he wanted to take it to the other level, as well as other important techniques for an elite warrior to have, but he still had time for that. Finally, he was about to try the one last thing he wanted to do for this training session, and for that he would have to be able to focus on only one opponent, and that would be Tatopo. ”Time to finish them off!” he decided.

The first one was Tokaro, who was already injured and his attacks were the easiest to avoid and, as he tried to land a haymaker to Natto’s face, the young saiyan dodged to the side, landing a circular motion elbow strike to his face, sending him keeling over the floor, fainted with the attack. The second one was Lettis, who, in response to that, tried to land a hook to Natto’s stomach, but he blocked it with his hand, holding her fist and pulling her body towards him, landing a powerful head-butt to her nose, breaking it and making her faint too, with the sheer power of the attack. Tarube got startled and gave up on his attack. A terrible mistake!

When the short saiyan hesitated, Natto quickly roundhouse kicked him to the face, sending him sailing through the air, completely and utterly defeated as he also fainted when he hit the floor, leaving only Tatopo and Natto. The big bald saiyan assumed his fighting stance. – Saving me for last? – he asked, as he tried to analyze Natto’s thinking to no result. Natto answered by also sliding into his fighting stance. – I think you are the only one who has a chance of hitting me. – he smirked, teasing Tatopo to attack him, but the bald saiyan wasn’t a fool. – Cut the crap, Commander. I know I have no chance, but it is not in my nature to give up. – he said, making Natto chuckle as he felt really proud of that soldier. Then, the young saiyan commander nodded to him, telling him to come forward and attack, and so he did. The big saiyan came like a bullet, preparing to throw a strong punch right at Natto’s face. ”Now! Focus! Wait until the last available moment. Concentrate you ki energy and dodge in a burst of sheer speed! I’ve got to do better than simply vanishing! It has to be flawless!” he thought to himself, as he concentrated on the moment and on his own body movement.

When he was about to hit him, Natto moved so fast, using most of his available speed to create the illusion of a teleportation, as he completely vanished from the spot he was in. – T-teleport?! – it was the first time that Tatopo lost his cool, as he was completely startled with Natto’s vanishing. The young saiyan reappeared behind him and readied a strike with the knife of his hand, but before taking out the big bald saiyan, he answered. – No… I’m just too fast for you. – and, before Tatopo could do anything, he hit the back of his neck, making the last middle class saiyan warrior to faint. Natto was successful on both perfecting his fighting style and being able to use the Rapid Movement efficiently. ”Perfect! That was exactly what I needed!” he thought to himself, quite satisfied with the training session.

Now he had to take those guys to some healing facility. Luckily they had one nearby and there were plenty of soldiers who could transport them. – Commander-in-chief Natto here. Send a medical unit to the Star Javelin. I have five middle class saiyans needing post-training medical care… One of them needs some intensive care, he has a cracked ribcage. Over. – he said by the scouter and then walked towards the crew quarters where he would take a nap. ”Damn! I loved this crew quarters! It is much bigger than my dorm room!” he thought quite excited. ”I may very well move in here! Yeah, perfect! I’ll just go back to the dorms later to grab my stuff!!” he chuckled excited with the thought of moving out of the dorm.

Another training session was over, and he was growing even stronger.