I
was once taught by Elder Muri that at one point or another in every beings
life, there is a distinct moment of realization, an epiphany unlike any other
that, if only for a brief moment, brings an unequalled level of clarity to
that beings mind. This moment, I
believe, occurred to me a week after Nikita’s incident.
My
transformation into a “Super Namek” (for lack of a better word) was
something I had been nearly craving for over a few months.
As only the second Namek to ever grow powerful enough to reach the
stage, I felt a sort of pride in what I’d accomplished; so much so that
actually reaching the stage seemed almost secondary to me.
But
about a month after I understood that I was nearing this newfound level of
power, I began to doubt as to whether I would reach this level at all.
Simple Namekian biology dictated that when a Namek reached a certain
height of power, their body would metamorphoses into a different version, a
different model, one more able to handle large amounts of muscle and ki
energy. During this process, a
huge boost in power would be given to the Namek, like Piccolo was given when
he fused with Nail on planet Namek; but no such increase in power seemed to
even be coming on the horizon.
So
when Yush and the other Caprians landed early, I found myself without the
ability to battle with them as I wished too.
If I had transformed before Yush’s arrival, there would’ve been no
need for Crono to be wished into creation, and by all accounts, Cris would
still be a single being. Not only
that though, but we would also have another pure-blooded saiyan left alive in
Triono.
But
for some reason, I had not transformed by their arrival, and so I was left in
the cold; unable to be of any help against even Blanka, Yush’s
highest-ranking assistant. Though
almost none of my fellow Z Warriors knew of my failed transformation, or of
the power it yielded, I felt as though it had been my fault for our poor
showing against Yush and his men; and also felt that I had to make up for it,
to right a mistake I’d made at one of the Earth’s most important periods
of time.
Accordingly,
I trained the absolute hardest I ever would in my life in the month following
Yush’s arrival. For almost four
weeks, I pushed myself to my limits and beyond, using a gravity level almost
twice that which I’d been utilizing before Yush’s arrival, all the while
just praying that I would break through a barrier that had held me back for
far too long. So with a
blind vigilance befitting of a warrior, my life was arbitrarily transformed
into a living hell until I reached my “Super Namek” form.
The
actual revolution of my body took place almost without my knowledge.
One early morning, I was practicing my ki attacks by firing them into
the sky from a small balcony of rock near my training zone, when a sudden and
irrational tingling came up within my stomach, almost like I was anxious or
something. I paused in my
exercising for a moment, and pondered what could be causing the feeling.
The sensation slowly passed, and I went back to training.
Before a dozen seconds had passed however, the emotion returned,
stronger and much farther-reaching, almost nearing my head and the contents
within it. Almost as soon as the
feeling reached me though, it had passed, and I felt as normal as ever.
A bit mystified, I continued on with my training, unbeknown of the
change that I had just undergone.
It
wasn’t until much later that day that I realized just what had happened.
I stood in the open, and utterly crushed field that served as my
training grounds, and slowly prepared myself to perform my Split Form
technique. The technique itself
usually wasn’t that hard to do, since Namekians naturally had a penchant for
splitting apart bodies and minds, but on that day, I found it difficult to
perform, almost like something within me wanted to hold myself together.
With a small amount of effort, I pulled off the manuever, and felt with
a mix of terror and pain as my body ripped itself into two.
To
portray the sensation of looking into one’s own eyes, knowing that across
from you is… you, is not a thing that can be described, nor even consciously
thought, but to say the least, it is strange.
I gazed across through my own eyes, into my own eyes, and my
match of selves began in earnest.
Since
both versions of me thought so much alike, the opening assault was evenly
matched. Both bodies rushed
headfirst at the other, a nearly invisible exchange of fists occurring as both
neared each other. Almost
immediately after that first exchange, I noticed a distinct and noticeable
difference in the rate of my attacks, in fact, both of me did.
Even
so, I merely put the tidbit of information in the back of my mind, and quickly
returned my attention to my sparring match.
This time one of my bodies took the role of aggressor and rushed the
other with a small dynamite-kick, along with a small ball of ki energy that
was badly aimed, and merely exploded on the ground behind the defending body.
Once the short offensive proved fruitless, the other body of mine
attempted to take control over the other, by zanzokening behind it, and then
powering up a double-handed ki beam. This
tactic also established itself as useless after the shielding body easily
thwarted the attack with a well-timed reverse kick to my body.
With
that kick, I was hurled much farther than I’d anticipated, going nearly five
hundred metres through the air before crashing into the ground; almost beyond
the gravity field. Somewhat
amazed at my own strength, neither body did much other than collect themselves
for a few seconds, as both dropped into fighting stances and squared off
against one another.
Both
bodies quickly shot towards the other, attempting to nail one another with a
flurry of Renzoku energy blasts. Both
of me coped with the attacks, weaving their way through the flood of ki
energy, all the while managing to keep their own stream of the attacks going,
and nearing the other in an attempt to more easily nail the other body.
Each missed ki blast struck the ground near the battling warriors,
exploding with an impact far more powerful than that of any man-made bomb.
Before long, the two became so close to one another that dodging the
blasts were all but impossible, and soon one unlucky form was struck twice,
and was sent soaring into the air.
Before
that body even had a chance to orient itself, the other had zanzokened in
front of it, and begun punching it mercilessly with fist after fist, impaling
the body with green-skinned muscle and bone.
Within a few seconds, over fifty punches had been dealt to the weakened
body, which was by then out of breath and extremely disadvantaged.
The attacking body was relentless, punching with extreme brutality, and
almost wishing to kill the body with which it was psychically attuned.
The
ferocity with which I attacked was almost frightening; I had never before
wished harm upon myself when sparring through my Split Form technique, yet
this time I felt an almost unquenchable need to draw purple blood from
this body, which was in essence my own. Yet
even as I recognized this strange change of desire within myself, and realized
just how sickening it was, the bloodlust within me grew stronger, calling upon
me to punch with even more vigour, to cause as much pain as I could to this
being which held the same heart as I.
The
beauty of the Split Form manuever though, was that no matter what thoughts,
emotions or strategies arose within the mind of one body, were almost certain
to arise in the other. So it
wasn’t long before the body that had been taking the beating for most of the
bout suddenly acquired the same yearning for pain as the other one.
In one fluid motion, the defending body swept away a pair of punches
from the attacking one, and then pounded its opponent towards the ground with
a double-handed axe-hammer smash. I
struck with such power and anger that my other body crashed into the ground
with enough force to shatter the entire training ground into one huge impact
crater.
The
floored body lay in agony, its desire for pain suddenly overshadowed by its
own agony. But while one of me
had lost its sudden craving to inflict pain, the other had its only magnified
ten-fold. My uppermost body
powered up slightly, calling forth powers from deep within itself, and then
fired its way straight towards the grounded body.
The
now wounded Namekian form barely managed a defence against the onslaught of
its twin, narrowly zanzokening away from its speedy counterpart, just as I was
moving in for the kill. It
reappeared where its opponent had previously resided, high in the air.
With the two’s positions switched, both turned hastily towards the
other, and powered up.
The
air began to crackle under the immense power of the two bodies, as
white-yellow wisps of ki energy spread forth from both bodies, illuminating
the morning sky in dull wan light. Suddenly
the two whipped a single hand out, and shot a huge beam of ki energy at the
other. The two rays met in the
epicentre of the battle, and set the skies ablaze as each body pushed with all
its might.
Both
of my bodies began to feel the strain of the ki clash, as my muscles began to
tense up, and then grow tired as energy reserves were depleted and the
conflict intensified. I flew
towards myself, pushing both upwards and downwards, two opposite forces both
pushing towards the same goal. My
arms began to burn, and I knew that holding onto this ki interaction would be
impossible, without the loss of a large chunk of the Earth.
With a huge explosion of energy, both ki beams were halted, and almost
instantly both bodies flew towards one another, and began an intense bout of
hand-to-hand combat.
A
volley of fists and kicks were quickly thrown by each body, with neither
landing a single blow. Despite
the apparent futility of the combat though, both continued to swing at one
another. Both of my ki’s flared
out at full strength, both increasing with an apparently unending source of
power.
With
both bodies attacking all-out, a stalemate soon grew apparent, and both minds
began to search for a way to outmatch the other; both finding that doing so
was impossible. When it seemed
like I would inevitably become tired and the pace of the battle would slow
down, only the exact opposite occurred; both bodies began to increase the
tempo of their attacks, drawing upon forces I didn’t even know I had within
me. Finally after what seemed
like an infinity of useless attacks, one body took a chance, and attempted to
fire a small ki blast at the other.
The
shot barely nicked the torso of the other body, but it had enough power within
it to cause an explosion and send the body hurling down towards the ground.
It connected with the floor, emitting a soft “thud” that rang
through the air. Not content to
merely wound myself, my uppermost body rocketed down towards the grounded
Namek, my lustrous aura of white energy sending itself out in all directions.
Mere
thousandths of a second before my bodies were to meet, the floored one sprung
away with a surge of ki energy, causing the attacking body to collide with the
ground, and disperse large portions of grass and dirt out in all directions,
again creating an impact crater in the ground.
The
apparent failure of my attack didn’t even reach my mind before the urge to
spring again was lit within me. I
shot after myself, again coming within an inch of making contact, only to have
my defending self shoot away in a blaze of ki, and leaving me to make a
sizeable hole in the earth.
My
two bodies continued to play the game of cat and mouse, chasing from one spot
to the next, each time leaving one more hole in the earth, one more fissure of
devastation for the planet to heal upon itself.
The match continued for mere minutes, but in that time the already
decimated battleground was torn even more asunder, leaving only the scarred
remains of a field that had seen things far beyond its time.
Finally,
both bodies stopped, their energy hopelessly sapped from a test of endurance
unlike any they’d previously experienced.
I stared at myself, across the barren wasteland I had created, and I
was suddenly embowered in the realization of what I had done.
Pits of dirt lay in flaming heaps, nary a speck of grass remaining
within ten kilometres of my two positions, all signs of wildlife non-existent,
as any unfortunate being that was within the vicinity was undoubtedly
destroyed by wayward attacks of mine. I
could feel newfound ki rising up within both of me, as an aura of white energy
was expelling itself from my body; yet even as I felt this pristine energy
emerge, I felt no need for its use, saw no point in its utilization.
It suddenly seemed to me as if all I had done in that day had been for
not, since instead of using my newfound strength to protect the planet that I
so dearly loved, I had in fact only neared it closer to destruction.
My
two pairs of eyes gaped down at the ruined floor beneath me, and I suddenly
felt a very strong longing to remerge with myself, to again become whole and
feel complete. All four eyes
gradually drifted upwards, until they met in a sea of shimmering white light.
I looked into my own eyes, and for the first time, realized just how
vacant, just how apart they were, and as I pushed both bodies towards one
another with my mind, even more power came rushing from within me, unlocking
itself from some hidden cave in my body.
My two bodies collided, and I was instantly reformed into a whole
being; and that’s when I realized it.
The
knowledge that I had finally achieved my “Super Namek” form was only
secondary to the epiphany that came to me at the same time.
I apprehended that within the completeness I felt upon my two bodies
becoming one, lay Earth’s only chance for victory against the Caprians.
Absolute and complete unity between all those fighting for the
Universe’s salvation would be our only hope in just under seventeen months.
Without some sort of seamless bond between those of us who called
ourselves “Z Warriors”, the Caprians would win, and we would die.
I
had fear in my heart not that this bond didn’t exist yet, but that it may
never exist, and that we would only grow farther apart as the time between now
and the Caprians arrival passed by. These
last months would be a time of change, a time of transformation, and my only
prayer was that our revolution as a group would not produce as many disastrous
results as mine did as an individual that day.
With
a scream to shake the heavens, I cried out to my friends, and hoped that
within my yell of completion, that they could find something within themselves
to unite with, and something within each other as well.