I ate the whole squid. Like, it wasn't in a single sitting, thankfully, but it was a strange fugue state. Eat sleep, eat sleep. So now I have a new problem. I had planned to get the hell out as soon as I ate my fill, but I guess that fight kicked my ass harder than I realized. Down to its bones and all, I didn't even know squid had bones.
Well, now the squidizens were surrounding me. Their beady eyes watching me and following my every move. It's strange that they hadn't tried killing me in my strange state, except I could probably stomp them with little effort. So then, what were they up to?
They noticed me focusing on them and they… danced. They raised their stubby hands into the air and swayed around, their squat bowed legs stamping in a nice rhythm. Then the noise. Their blurbles coming together into a near symphonic version, somehow.
Ignoring my confusion, they split, allowing large cauldrons filled with food as they continued to dance. They left the food and bowed and retreated only to rejoin the line of dancers. I sniffed the food inside the pot, the smell making me think of more squid… Should be fine. When I ate some, I could feel their gazes burning into me. I looked at them all and just gave them a thumbs up. They froze, only to speed up as their song picked up in pace and sound as they grew more enthusiastic.
Well… alright? I just settled to eat and next thing I know their swarming around the bones… Eh, I can leave if this gets too sketch. After finishing my meal, I stretched out my body while figuring out what I was going to do now. I didn't feel a strong need to go rushing to the next fight just yet. I could train my ki control more. Could always use more ki control if I plan to go higher on the Kaio-ken or whatevs. I think I only did it because of Saiyan bullshit, all my previous attempts to do that, and the mouth blast ended poorly.
I do feel energetic though, maybe a bit of spelunking, or more specifically diving. The lake here doesn't give me the, STAY AWAY! Vibes like the other lakes. So, after stretching and making sure I won't die of a muscle cramp I leap into the water. The water was, well it was water, but we were so deep underground that as I went deeper it became almost more, solid? Like gelatin.
At the halfway point there seemed to be a pool of water within the lake. I stopped right before it as the limited light refracted weirdly on the divides surface. A ki ball helped but it only gave a clear view into another body of water. So, like any adventurer I stuck my hand in and as expected something happened. It slurped me into it, the new water crashing into me and pushing into me. Everything cracked and popped as my body adjusted to the drastic increase in pressure.
I took some time circulating my ki and adjusting myself before I even tried to move. Further down I saw yet another body of water, one that led to a small hole going even deeper. It was small, too small for the large tentacles. Had a small baby squid gotten trapped here? How did it… Ah. It fed off the villagers. Why would they keep it then? Was it to prevent the big tentacles from coming from the tunnel?
Regardless, if it was then I had even more of a reason to train down here, beyond the absurd pressure. It felt like I was trying to swim through liquid concrete. To get back up I had to smash through the divide. It was all topsy turvy like a reverse dive! The momentum carried me through allowing me to leap out of the water with incredible ease. After my 10/10 landing I noticed what it was the squidizens were doing. They were building me a throne out of the squid's bones. How incredibly barbaric! As I think that I was also squee'ing at just how badass that was!
One of the squid people came up to me groveling and stuff, so much I even turned back on the nifty scouter translation feature. Are these things secretly McGuffins? Is that why they tend to explode so often? Or why people break them? Well, I don't plan to break my McGuffin anytime soon, no thank you.
I read the read out of the rough, rough, rough translation of the weird language.
"GREAT ONE! We build you your new god throne on the bones of our old god! It shall be done soon!"
Lots of yelling apparently. I gave him a thumbs up and reached my hand out for his head. It froze as I tested out his ki and like flipping a switch awakened him. Are all these squid people natural ki users? Odd and exciting. The squidizen froze. Statue still then proceeded to bang his squishy head on the ground as he screamed and gargled it was total gibberish, but the other squidizens stared and began another round of dancing.
I had good feelings about this.
Those feelings proved to be true. About a month is how long I've spent here. I focused on increasing my ki control and occasionally slapping away wandering tentacles. TENTACLES! They made good eating if I manage to cut them, even if it pissed off whoever their owner was. The squidizens rejoiced at every victory, making statues of me and writing legends after every time I beat back the tentacle!
I awakened, or to these squidizens, anointed them. Fancy name. So, now I found myself idly flipping around a soft ball sized energy ball like a hacky sack with my fingers. A dangerous hacky sack that would likely kill all these bunched up squidizens for every other day deathmatch to prove their worth. Or more specifically to gain the attention of the new god of death and fire!!!
Seeing as how gung-ho they were about this I decided to go full-on uplifting on them. They might prove useful in slowing down Frieza when he/she? Comes for me. Maybe… Or it might just be that I loved the absolute adoration they bathed me in. Squidizens flocked to our cavern. I had filling meals. Even helped them work out how to fry food using squid people oils… I'm not sure if encouraging cannibalism would be a good idea…
Either way, THE ACTION!
Two squidizens. One is notably older as he has larger mouth tentacles than the other. The younger spryer squidizen has thicker limbs and surety of step. The youngster circles, the elder moves only as much as they need to. The youngster charges forward! A daring maneuver! He gets tripped up and slapped aside by the elder as they redirect their charge.
The youngster rages and rolls up and charges again. This time stopping short and unleashing a flurry of stabbing pokes with his bejeweled spear! The elder struggled under the flurry of blows, but manages to find an opening, sliding through the flurry of blows the elder stabs a blow right into the youngster's leg. HE RAISES THE SPEAR TO STAB!
I nearly fumble the ki ball as the elder reverses the stick and slams the youngster in the head with the blunt end. The crowd goes silent. He then proceeds to bow and lay down his weapon.
"I ask you spare the youngster."
He says… I think. I turned off the translator function again as I found my guesstimates were usually close enough. Or totally off like a questionable dub. I stare at the elder… I should just kill him, but… why? He gave his all from what I saw. The youngster was also trying to kill him, so it's not like this was a setup.
Granted the whole death tournament to get my attention sounds… bad no matter how you spin it. But is it my problem that they came up with this method to get my attention? Randomly begging and groveling does little for me. Hanging on my feet like a leech is more likely to get your head smashed in. Sure, I could try stopping them, but then I'd have to leave, and those tentacles would show up… Which is another reason I've stayed this long.
I've had to give those I've awakened basic ki control so that they could defend themselves. I focused on the buzzsaw… DESTRUCTO DISC! THAT'S WHAT IT WAS! Right, I focused on teaching them that particular skill to deal with the tentacles if they appear. There were… accidents… but anything could happen when playing with grenades and power tools. Right? So, it's clearly not my fault.
Wasn't this a good time to leave? I tap my nicely made bone throne. They even found nice cushion like objects for me to sit on. I look at the frozen crowd. I could see them steadily growing more and more afraid. Not one of them dared to speak. I wouldn't either if your boss was juggling around armed explosives, especially when they might be pissed.
I crushed the energy ball, I reabsorbed the ki and kept the explosion from going beyond my own clenched fist. I push my fist forward. Thumb to the side. The showmanship! They were totally eating this up. I looked around at the crowd. My natural facial expression doing all the work for me. I look to the elder now soaked in their equivalent of sweat. They had kept up the bow this whole time. Not even daring to meet me in the eyes.
I smiled and gave him a thumbs up. The crowd seemed to inhale, then explode into cheers as the youngster was dragged off and mended. A few minutes later I'm awakening the winner and the crowd around me slowly disperses, minus my honor guard. I stand and I can see them shuffle as they prepare to follow me.
Right, let's ditch. They should be fine now. I wave them down and they simply resettle as I make my way to an exit tunnel. Only to be stopped by the first anointed. His station has massively improved. A troupe of anointed following him, noticeably armed. I give him strange looks as he blurbles and glurgles.
Did he know I was escaping? No. can't be… He seems to want me to follow him. I nod and he and the troupe go into one of the tunnels. I decided to follow him, already planning to ditch if this wasn't impressive. I follow for a few hours the anointed dealing with any nuisances on the route. I felt my curiosity burn as we continued, especially with how serious they looked.
Was it an ambush? That would be fun. Annoying, but fun. Soon enough I found out why they were so on edge. A large tunnel and a familiar gate, followed by a crowd of squidizens and guards.
Another town then? My anointed shoved squidizens out of the way allowing me to get closer and closer to the gate. I could almost feel the aura of another big squid inside the cavern. Oh, I could get behind this. The squidizens were helping me find fights! How thoughtful!
When my anointed met up with the gate guard there was… a lot of posturing. Stick jabbing, glubles and blubles and the occasional spear raised and twirled. It was fine and all, but… I was hungry for a fight. So, ignoring any possibly diplomacy I decided to just waltz right in. My anointed cleared the way and a single poor fool blocked my progress with a series of spear jabs. So, I vaporized him and having saw my amazing ability to murder. They go silent and let me by.
I challenged the squid, and we duke it out! This time my barrages blow up its tentacles, forcing it to split big tentacles into smaller tentacles. My punches and kicks force its whole body to shift and move. I eventually finish it off with a burst of Kaio-ken and bum rush its face and blast it over and over in the face until it dies.
I ignore everything as I chow down. Ignoring the screams and total shock from the new squidizens. I eat, I drink, and I train some more. Then before long I anoint more poor fools and the cycle of life continues. Each new city I take down becomes easier, even if the squids seem to have varying sizes and strengths. Eventually it became so easy that I could just vaporize them, which also meant I got bored of continuing to hunt squids.
By that point my anointed were more than capable of handling them and spreading the word, so to speak. So, I lazed around and continued my qi control as they continued to search the tunnels, probably for a way deeper. It was bound to happen. I mean, it seems like I've given them the taste for conquest.
As such I find myself witnessing more fights, and even holding squid court occasionally. Not sure why exactly, and its somewhat fun to try and do it while guessing what the problems are. Occasionally a squidizen would pull the whole, spare them please oh, great one! It usually wasn't a problem.
Until one pair of Jackasses. They were obviously friends. The fight was more a choreographed joke than anything else. Watching it really did piss me off. So, when one of them 'won' I gave him the thumbs down. They just kind of looked at each other unsure.
It took a bit of prodding. Mainly the circle of people bearing spears and slowly closing in, but I must say, the resulting fight was absolutely delicious to watch. They tore into each other like rabid animals as they insulted one another and tried to one up one another! It really got me going watching their suffering and the finish!
Seeing the winner stab through his friend, the lost look in his eyes the HATE he looked at me with! NNNnnnn… That wasn't enough, no it couldn't be enough! So, I had his friend's corpse brought up and a pot. They were quick on the uptake, and I ripped out his friend's heart and poured out his friends' brains right before his eyes. Right into the pot and shoved it to him. All the while miming for him to eat it. It took everything I had not to start curling up as the poor thing ate it!
It was well after they all left, and I was left alone with my thoughts that I considered something. That was actually really sick. Like demented kind of sick. I also totally did get off on that, so there is that… I had the power to enforce my will on these sentient beings. And I was abusing it to its fullest potential.
I almost felt like I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone at this point. The ki running through my veins was always so hot. My whole body seemed to thrum with violence like how a high-end muscle car demanded you to put your pedal to the metal. Back in my old life I would have liked to believe I would be above such petty acts. That I would have been a decent person.
Well, I had been thinking it was just a fluke. Or perhaps it was just the way my body was wired. Now, now I was certain. This power was corrupting me. this ability to kill without consequence. To enforce my will onto others and not be reprimanded by the law or others. And even if they did come for me a single vaporizing beam was enough of a retort to solve any problem so far. No, it wasnt corrupting me. It was revealing who I truly was underneath the veneer of hospitality. That mask I had worn for so many years was now stripped away.
I ate and lived, I fought and slept. Worse, I was worshipped for it. And that part of me, that itty bitty piece of conscience from my previous life? It was already slamming the pedal down, listening to that engine purr. There were no angels or devils. There was only me, and I was loving every minute of it.
Hail god queen Rettas! Long may she reign!