A Chess Metaphor (Taori)

The Saiba Wastes weren't a place Taori frequented often, but every now and then, even as a King, you did need to go out on the front lines and inspire the troops. Or so he'd been told. It wasn't like they were actively fighting a war against the Tuffles anymore, but they did still need some soldiers stationed out in the wastelands between the two civilizations of Plant. Largely, their jobs were just to cull the Saibamen population and keep them from getting too close to anywhere Saiyans lived, but of course, their underlying purpose in remaining stationed out in these places was, well, just in case things didn't always remain so peaceful on Plant.

Taori trusted Cheri not to try anything, but he couldn't trust every Tuffle not to try anything, and some were wont to act without the approval of their leaders at times. 

The purposes of this visit weren't anything so cynical, though. He'd made his appearance at the guard station, boosted some morale, had been challenged to a few arm-wrestling contests he'd pretended to struggle to win, and just before he was due to head back to Sadala, one of the scouts spotted some Saiba activity nearby. Though the soldiers were more than willing to go deal with the beasts themselves, Taori stopped them - surely he could handle a few of them himself. It'd been ages since he'd been a soldier assigned to Saiba duty.

Besides - he was the strongest man on the planet. Some Saibamen weren't about to give him any trouble. And it'd be good for the troops to see their King wasn't one to sit on his ass all day, either. Taori left the station, his scouter locking in on the herd of Saibas, and as he neared, he noticed something peculiar. They weren't just moving on their own: they were chasing someone! "Hm," Taori snorted slightly at the predicament this traveler had found themselves in, but he quickly swooped in from up above, landing squarely between the alien and the ravenous Saibas. 

"You alright, there?" he asked the man, before turning towards the Saiba herd and, with a single, low effort blast, expelled them all from both the area and from the mortal realm.

Once the Saibamen had been dispatched, Taori moved to turn back towards this stranger he had just helped out, though he paused when the fellow ordered him no to. Well, wasn't he a suspicious one? Taori had already turned enough before the order to get a glimpse of the stranger out the corner of his eye, and could see they now had a sword pointed at him. Hmm, maybe he shouldn't have bothered with saving this one if they were capable enough to feel they could fend him off. His scouter beeped, and, sure enough, the stranger had managed to power themselves up beyond even Taori's base power level. That was impressive for most people.

"Name and business, huh?" he replied, his tone indicating he didn't feel all too threatened even after the stranger had powered up. "Well, sure. I'm Taori, a... Saiyan warrior. I'm on Saibaman duty today, and happened across you and your little predicament." He didn't quite feel the need to flex his kingly status on this traveler. Frankly, he rather preferred how people acted around him when they didn't know he was King. Or didn't care.

"With all due respect, even though I'm sure you had that completely under control, I did just save your life. No need to be so hostile." He slowly kept his hands up at shoulder height and turned around to properly face the traveler, his lack of concern clear on his face. "Not that you'd really be able to do me any harm with that stick of yours. What brings you to Plant, stranger?"

Alright, good - the traveler had successfully been convinced to lower their guard, if only slightly. They put down their sword, at least. Taori hardly feared the blade, though he'd rather the traveler be able to avoid finding a new one if they struck him, as their blade would, in all likelihood, snap in half upon coming into contact with Taori's skin. That'd just make them angrier at him, so if that could be avoided, it was in everyone here's best interest. 

"Never heard of Saibamen? You must not have done your research before coming here, then," Taori replied with a small chuckle. "These things sort of rule the world in between the two major civilizations - the Tuffles and Saiyans, respectively." The traveler also inquired why, if he was on 'Saiba duty,' that the Saiyans had not conducted a wide scale effort to wipe out the entire population of little green menaces. 

Taori shrugged. "Well... They make for pretty good training dummies for some of the lower power level folk, so we just cull their numbers back whenever they get a little too aggressive and leave 'em be so long as they don't cause us any big problems. That being said, they breed so quickly that I'm not even sure we could wipe them out entirely if we tried - not without destroying the planet even more than we already have, anyway." All it took was some scattered seeds to grow several dozen more Saibamen in mere moments, so wiping them all out before they could repopulate would be a Herculean task.

"Though, you still didn't answer my own question. Most people don't wander the wastelands just to sightsee. You looking for something out here?"

Shorter, weaker neighbors? ...Ah, right, the Tuffles. Well, fighting them directly was never all that much of an issue; it was more the technology the Tuffles were capable of deploying that made them a threat to be reckoned with. Er, not that Taori had any real desire to battle a Tuffle again regardless. Not unless it was some deranged one like Yangcong, trying to sow chaos again. Taori also detected a hint of a sly smirk on the traveler's face as they made that remark, though he wouldn't read too much into that. sure, maybe the wider universe viewed the conflict as little more than Saiyans bullying their frail neighbors into a state of submission, but he knew that wasn't really the full picture.

Finally, the stranger explained they were, more or less, just sightseeing. They can't have done much research ahead of time if their first choice of location to look around was here, but they did at least know generally about the situation between the Tuffles and Saiyans. "Other than Sadala or Hatchi?" Taori rhetorically asked before raising his eyebrows and blowing a raspberry. "Well, there's the mercenary outpost a good few miles South of here. Then... There's the ruined metropolis, though that's sort of, well, ruined. Other than that, you'll find the odd Saiyan or Tuffle military outpost here and there, but uh... Mostly just fields. And Saibamen. And acidic pits."

Their planet really was kind of a dump, wasn't it? Taori hadn't seen many other planets in his time - hell, the only other planet he'd ever actually visited was Arcose for the recent tournament - but he knew planets tended to have a bit more... Nature. This whole restoration thing wouldn't be easy. Taori clasped his hands together. "So, unless you need to hire a mercenary band, or want to get into some fights with those Saibamen, I recommend just heading for either Tuffle or Saiyan territory. Granted, I don't think either part of the planet is especially open to tourists, but you'll be safe in either one, more or less."

He paused for a moment, then jabbed his thumb over his shoulder behind him. "If the Saiyan side of things sounds appealing to you, I can give you a lift - or at least an escort. I'll be heading that way myself soon enough."

"From what I hear, it used to be in pretty decent shape," Taori replied as the stranger commented on the lack of biodiversity on Plant. "But, you know, several generations of massive warfare and chemical attacks tends to ruin a planet's shine. Any other planet, no matter how green and lush it is right now, would end up looking about the same if it had to suffer a similar amount of abuse." Honestly, it was a miracle Plant was even still possible to live on. But it was true that the quality of life on the planet had diminished significantly since the days before the war began, and if the Saiyans had come across it in the state it currently was, it was doubtful they'd have ever tried to conquer it.

He then let out a snort at the traveler's insistence that, if Taori attempted to escort them by force, he would swiftly lose a hand. "Sure," he replied, "I won't touch you. But, and all due respect to that weapon you've got there, if you try and take off my hand with it, you're just going to snap that weapon in half." It was a minor threat, if even one at all, but Taori did want to make sure this traveler knew his patience was only so deep of a well. If they continued to make threats against him, he had no qualms leaving them to their own devices out here in the wastes.

As a stream of water was drawn from the ground, and further self-important comments were made about hoping the Tuffles had managed to learn what irrigation was, Taori rolled his eyes. "You know, the Tuffles are probably a fair bit more advanced than wherever it is you've come from," he stated. "You might actually learn a thing or two from them, if you can get past the size of your own ego. Which, to be fair, does seem to be larger than Plant itself." The niceties Taori had been offering had clearly been worn down a fair bit by this stranger's unflinchingly snobbish attitude towards his planet, and the smile had disappeared from Taori's lips. 

Well, the two of them at least seemed to have it in common that they didn't have much of a mind for science. Taori knew how to operate his scouter and fly most basic kinds of spaceships and other vehicles, but that was more or less the full extent of his technological prowess. "Well, maybe they could whip up a cybernetic eye for you, there," Taori commented, gesturing towards the wanderer's eyepatch as he did so. "I've seen them put together crazier robotic implants." K414, rest his soul, was basically one giant cybernetic fellow. Taori had to wonder, was he whole and organic once again in the afterlife?

And, speaking of the mystical... "As I understand it in comparison to other planets... No, we're rather barren of anything teetering towards magic, here." He knew Namek was supposedly a highly spiritual planet, and the woman he'd met from Earth was also some sort of mystical guardian, not to mention the fact that Konats was, apparently, being tormented by demons from beyond the void. Plant was, more or less, just a basic but war-torn planet.

"The Tuffles are, as you seem to know, very high tech. Us Saiyans are probably a good few decades or so behind them in our general technology, but I'd still call us a mostly technology-based society. We get around in ships, live in cities, communicate with scouters... The works." Most Saiyans had more of a mind to improve their physical shape though, rather than devoting themselves to the study of greater technologies. Though perhaps that was for the best, if the sorts of things Tuffle technologies were capable of was an indication of what leaning too heavily on that end of things could lead to...

"And, you? I don't think I've so much as gotten your name," Taori stated. "I take it that, wherever you're from, it's an awful lot more rustic and spiritual. Namek? Konats, maybe? You do have the ears for it."

Taori raised an eyebrow as the stranger said their name was Taori as well - which was about as believable as the idea that the sword they were carrying was anywhere nearly as threatening as they seemed to think it was. The charade only lasted for as long as they could hold in their laughter, though, which was only a few moments. Imugi, they then finally introduced themself as. "Imugi," Taori echoed with a nod. "As good a name as any." It didn't ring a bell or hold any sort of meaning to him, but it was nice to finally have something to call the wanderer. If it even was their real name - with how cagey they were about everything else, Taori figured there was roughly a fifty-fifty shot about it being fake or legitimate.

Imugi was, at it turned out, neither Konatsian nor Namekian, although they were a frequent occupant of Konats, so they may as well have been one of those pointy-eared fellows. "Been to Namek?" Taori replied as they inquired about his travel habits. "Well, no, I don't think I know anyone who's been there aside from the odd Namekian here and there. Those come to Plant for various reasons every now and then - that's generally how most Saiyans learn about the rest of the galaxy." That and the brief amount of schooling Saiyans received. It may not have been a very book-heavy education, but knowing the lay of the galaxy was important for potential future conflicts.

Now that he had a name and no real reason to suspect anything particularly malicious from the traveler, Taori figured that, unless Imugi was going to be receptive to being escorted somewhere, which they didn't seem to be, there was only so much reason for him to be sticking around the wastes, here. "Well, Imugi. As long as you aren't planning on causing any grief for the people of Plant, I suppose I'll let you be on your way - seeing as you've insisted on attempting to remove my hand if I try and show you the way." Taori let out a light snort and smirked as he briefly added, "Not that you could so much as scratch me, but I'll spare you the snapping of your sword or the breaking of your knuckles that would occur if you tried."