"Get up, weakling!" Before the shout even registered in my ears, I felt someone pick me up out of bed, and found myself flying into the wall, leaving a crack. "A soldier is always aware of their surroundings! You need to be ready to fight at a moments' notice!"
"Mr. Asper…" I rubbed my head, pulling myself to my feet. Even though everything hurt right now, it was still not the worst wake up I'd gotten in the last three months. At least I'd gotten to spend the night in my bed, instead of a healing tank.
"If it weren't for the king's orders, nobody would even waste their time with a weak snot-rag like you, kid! Appreciate how lucky you are to have an elite warrior like me to train you!"
Asper was a Saiyan elite. Power level of eight thousand, and brain of a turd to match. If he had half a brain, he'd be the commander of the entire Saiyan Army, but that honor went to my brother's personal trainer, Nappa, instead.
But to be honest, it didn't matter who my trainer was. None of them actually knew anything about technique. It was just constant combat training until I inevitably dropped.
Unfortunately for me, my body didn't respond well to that kind of brute force approach. During my time in the incubator, my power level had jumped from 85 to 155. A jump of seventy over three years. During the last three months of training under Asper, my power level had jumped from 155… to 160. If you do the math (which I actually could, a mark against me, apparently), I'd literally grown faster in the incubator.
According to the rumors, I was going to be banished if, by my fifth birthday, my power level didn't surpass 500.
For a normal Saiyan in my situation, that was impossible.
For me?
Well, if Yamcha could do it in canon, in the less-than year between Raditz's fight and the fight with Nappa and Vegeta, then I honestly believed that I was capable of it, too, even without instruction.
The only problem was, if these idiots insisted on wasting my time with pointless beatings like this, then there wasn't a chance in hell of me making it. The Saibamen that they kept pitting me against were so much stronger than me right now that I couldn't even honestly say that I was getting combat experience. It was just being knocked around by punches too fast for me to react to in any way, shape, or form.
As I followed Asper to my to-training session, lost in thought, I accidentally bumped into someone.
"Gah!" The shoulder check slammed me into the wall. Bile rose in my throat, but I pushed it back down.
"Watch it!" My brother exclaimed gruffly, barely stopping a moment before vanishing down the hallway, Nappa in tow.
Brotherly affection.
I gripped my shoulder, idly wondering whether he'd dislocated it or not. I honestly wasn't sure. With power level differences as big as the one between Vegeta and me, it was completely possible for him to straight up kill me with a single breath. A power level of 2650 wasn't just over 16 times stronger than mine, but closer to around two hundred or so times stronger than me, give or take. One Vegeta was probably stronger than two hundred mes'. That's how weak I was.
"Isn't his training room in the other direction?" I wondered aloud as Vegeta and Nappa disappeared around a corner.
"Don't worry about your brother, weakling. Unlike you, he's a prodigy." Asper told me, gesturing for me to keep walking.
"I'm not worried about Vegeta. Just wondering."
"His power level passed 3,000 last week. Your brother's up for Oozaru training." Asper explained, "Something that you'll never be strong enough for, at this rate. Hurry up, kid."
Oozaru training. Where a Saiyan went to a special planet, where they transformed into the great ape form every night until they could keep their sanity while in it. He wasn't even six, but already, Vegeta was qualified for that kind of training. He really was a genius.
I wasn't jealous of my older brother. Not exactly. I thought it was amazing that he was actually that talented, but it didn't really change anything.
The Saiyan Race as a whole was doomed whether I was talented or not. Talented or not, I had a ninety percent chance of survival when, in somewhere around four years or so, Frieza blew up the planet. If I was weak, my father would have banished me by then, and if I was strong, Frieza himself would ensure my survival, just like he would my brother's.
So, realistically, it was probably better for me to stay weak, like the original Tarble. At least until I got banished. Then, I'd be able to go off the grid. In fact, I'd be completely free by that point. Frieza wouldn't be my problem at all, and I'd be able to do whatever I wanted, so long as I didn't go to Namek, or interfere with Goku before he became a Super Saiyan.
He'd deal with everything, and I could live completely freely, if I felt like it.
But something in me… just rejected that. Maybe it was that Saiyan Pride that Vegeta kept going on about in the original work, but I just didn't want to stay weak. I wanted to meet my father's expectations.
I wanted to surpass them. Surpass my brother.
And create my own destiny.
First, though, I needed a better training regiment. Something that addressed the problem at hand, rather than wasting time trying to fix my weakness by relying on instincts that I didn't have, when compared to other Saiyans.. I needed strength and combat experience. Not strength through combat experience.
I wasn't Goku or Vegeta, I couldn't bust through my limits on a daily basis just by getting punched in the face. Maybe one day, when I was strong enough to actually learn something from getting punched in the face, but I was probably the most 'human' Saiyan on Planet Vegeta.
I needed to take a different approach.
That day, in my training, I had a different goal. I wasn't going to try to learn from these pointless beatings anymore. Asper didn't seem to notice, but I managed to fulfill my goal.
I stayed out of the medical chambers that night. Instead, I stayed awake late into the night, focusing on my energy, despite the fact that I was so tired that my consciousness kept fading. I wasn't entirely sure when I collapsed that night.
The next morning, I was barely capable of standing, and my power level had dropped from 160 to 140. Naturally, that meant that I got beaten up. Badly. And spent the next night in the medical tank, healing. After resting in the healing tank, my power level had risen to 163.