Post by Captain Kabe on Sept 15, 2023 4:32:31 GMT -5
Kabe sat alone in his quarters, laying back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were puffed from crying, his skin was thick with sweat from him training to try and keep his thoughts out of his head, and he hadn't slept in two days. It had been two days since he visited Zhalla on Namek, to speak with her about her engagement. It had been very emotional.
And he wasn't doing well.
There was a knock on the door to his room. "Bosss? Can I come in?" A voice hissed, a note of worry in his tone. It was Nyaku. Kabe turned away from the door, not wanting to look at him. They had been... avoiding eachother lately. Things were ugly between them. "What do you want, Nyaku?" Kabe spat, gripping his hands together.
The door opened, and in walked the scar-faced Nitran. Kabe kept looking away, but in the warped reflection of his disconnected TV he could see Nyaku had taken off his glasses, and looked worried. "I'm jussst, I'm worried-" Nyaku began, but Kabe cut him off. "Don't pretend like you care about me, Nyaku. Not now, please. I... I can't do this right now." Kabe spoke quickly, each syllable spiking like he was losing breath. "Listen, I know we're not..." Nyaku tried to continue, but he stopped himself. Kabe whinced, thankful for that, and hoped that he would go away. He wasn't ready to confront all of this mess between the two of them. "You can talk to me, Kabe. What'ssss happened?" He asked.
Kabe sighed. Nyaku wasn't going to leave until he got some kind of answer, Kabe could tell that. "I went and saw her, okay? She said some things, I learned some things, and I said some things. It was a lot, okay? And I'm still trying to figure it all out. So please, just leave."
Kabe waited a few seconds with his breath held, but there were no footsteps. Nyaku was still firmly planted in his room, with no sign he'd leave with Kabe trying to palm him off. He sat down on the bed next to Kabe, and placed a hand on his leg. "Kabe-" he started, and Kabe pulled away. "Don't touch me." Kabe said, his voice shaking. Nyaku paused, and moved to the end of the bed. "Sssorry, old habitsss... I won't..." Nyaku said, his hands up in surrender. "Jussst... talk to me, Kabe. What'sss going on in that head of yoursss?"
Kabe pressed his face into his hands, before snapping his head toward Nyaku, looking at him for the first time he'd been in the room. "Nothing. Nothing! Just GO AWAY!" he shouted, and for a moment there were sparks of gold in the air and the room trembled. Nyaku stepped up from the bed, inching back, his arms raised as though Kabe might punch a hole straight through him any second. "Woah, woah, okay, okay. I'm leaving. What'sss gotten you so angry?" he stammered, and as he was leaving, Kabe sighed.
"I'm not angry." Kabe said, not quite feeling it was true. "I'm... not an angry person." he repeated, and he thought long and hard about how history proved those words to be a lie. Nyaku turned back around, looking at Kabe with that same worried expression that made Kabe feel sick. Kabe looked at his hands, they were trembling. "You want to know what's gotten me like this?" Kabe asked, though he had already decided he needed to share it, to get it off his chest. Even if it was Nyaku. Nyaku nodded, and sat down on a stool by the door, not wanting to come any closer.
"I realized that I need to talk to Nero. I need to suss him out, and make sure Zhalla is going to be okay." Kabe said, and Nyaku looked confused. "That'sss all?" he asked, and Kabe groaned. "No. I... I'm just. I'm worried. I need to speak with him to get rid of those worries, but I'm not ready to do that." he replied, and Nyaku cocked a brow. "Why'sss that, bosss? Jussst... go asssk him? Sssay, 'are you an asssshole?'."
Kabe looked at his trembling hand again and curled it into into a fist, staring at it. "I'm not ready because I don't know what I'm going to do when I talk to him. I feel like I can't control myself... I know Nero's a good person. I know he is. He helped me save Bee. He's the guardian of a planet. Every time I've spoken with him, he's been so kind, even when he was kicking my ass." Kabe said, a confusing mix of a smile and his fierce eyes on his face.
Nyaku still didn't understand, and it was clear, and that fact that he didn't just understand Kabe's problem made Kabe grip his fist tighter. "Okay, ssso he's too nice?" Nyaku asked. Kabe smacked his fist against the wall, living a dent in it. He looked at the dent in the wall for a moment, looking even more upset with himself for losing his cool and then stared at his shaking fist once again. "The problem is that Zhalla trusts him. But I know... that she isn't the best judge of character..." Kabe said, his eyes full of sorrow. All he could think about was how much of an imposter he felt when she'd told him she wanted him to be her man of honour. If she thought Kabe was someone she could trust, when he knew he himself that he was the worst kind of person...
"I just. You know how I am. All these feelings, all this anger. I care about her so much, thinking about what might happen if he hurt her..." his blood boiled at the thought, and that ugly feeling he knew so well swelled up from his heart, and it began to drum in a furious rhythym. Kabe gripped his fist tight enough that it drew blood. "I can't control myself. When I get emotional, I get angry. When I get angry, I hurt people... I'm not a good person. I just want to make sure she'll be okay with him, not... hurt him. But this feeling... it's like something else is inside of me. Something bubbles up. I used to take pride in it, it kept me alive. But now..."
Kabe sighed, releasing his gripped fist and staring at it again, thinking about all of the damage it's done through his life to others. "When I'm pushed to my limit, or I get too emotional, this anger appears. Anger that isn't mine. It crawls up my body, fills me up, urges me to fight. To eat. To devour. But I don't feel full, I never feel full. It's like I'm hollow. An empty shell. It's like I'm not me, anymore. I don't... I don't understand it. I never have. But now that I have... people in my life I need to keep safe... it really scares me."
Kabe looked up at Nyaku, lost for words. But finally, it looked like Nyaku understood. "Kabe... there'sss... sssomething I haven't told you." Nyaku said, looking very guilty and very nervous. Kabe didn't understand, but with how emotional he was, that just made him frustrated. He said he couldn't do this right now. "Nyaku, don't. I can't— I can't talk about us right now." Kabe said, but Nyaku shook his head. "No, no. It's... older than that. It's about Mayen."
Kabe froze in place as Nyaku said her name. They very rarely spoke of Mayen. It was a sore subject for the both of them. So he knew whatever this was, it was important. Kabe managed to get a breath in, and silently nodded to Nyaku for him to explain.
Nyaku took a wheezy breath in through the hole in his cheek. "When we firssst found you on that asssteroid moon, you were feral. You'd eaten everything that planet had on it. All the people. All the animalsss. All the plantsss. Everything. And anytime we tried to feed you, you went on a rampage through the ship. It didn't... take long for usss to figure out you weren't normal. We knew sssaiyans were hungry buggersss, but thisss... thisss was a curssse, or something."
Kabe sighed. He already knew about his origins. He knew that Baq, a very strange shinjin, had visited him as a child on Duria and mutated him to give him his strange powers. He didn't need to hear this again. But Nyaku shook his head as Kabe went to protest, and Kabe kept his mouth shut. "Ssso, ssshe and I, we did sssome lookin' around. Mayen, ssshe knew this wizard on Namek named Bard. Went and sssaw him, brought you." Kabe cut in. "I don't remember that." he said, and Nyaku shook his head. "You wouldn't have. Firssst year on the crew, it wasss like you were... possssesssed by this thing, all the time. You'd get hungry, go nutsss, it'd take an army of ussss to get you down."
"It'sss called Hossshikui." Nyaku said. "Hoshikui? What is?" Kabe replied, and Nyaku nodded. "It meansss... the Devourer." Nyaku continued, and Kabe looked at him in horror. He'd always called himself that. Always. Every time he lost himself in a fight, let this ugly heart crawl up and take over... he'd been the Devourer. He'd said it by name when he fought Dion, pushed into extremes when Bee had been hurt. How long had this thing been in his brain? Had the name been his idea, or was it all this Hoshikui? "The wizard, he sssaid it was sssome ancient evil in ssspace. Sssomething old, older than demonsss. And whatever had happened to you on that planet, it was usssing you."
Kabe didn't know what to say. This was all too much. Just seconds ago, he was grappling with this problem he'd always grappled with, without a proper name or proper understanding of it. And now he was finding out that Nyaku had known this much about it the entire time. It made him angry. So angry he couldn't breathe again. He stood up from the bed, and shoved Nyaku off of the stool. "You know all of this? What else do you know?" Kabe spat, trying to calm down, kicking the stool into the wall. "I can't do this with you— you need to tell me all of it, right now. Why is this about Mayen? Why doesn't this thing possess me like that now?"
Nyaku looked scared, but he was too far in to back off and leave things unsaid now. He stood up from the ground, clutched the swelling bruise across his chest beneath his battle armor, and looked Kabe in the eyes. "I'm... really sssorry. Mayen made me promissse... never to tell you any of thisss. Sshe wanted you to grow up normal. Sshe..." Nyaku looked pained even thinking about what he was having to say. "When you were around fifteen, it ssstarted getting worssse. You probably don't remember much, sssince you'd lossse so much time. But... Mayen couldn't let thisss thing take hold of you. I don't know how ssshe did it, but ssshe told me on the lassst night ssshe was around, that ssshe found it. The Devourer. Out in ssspace. And ssshe sssaid ssshe wasss going to ssstop it. I thought ssshe did, becaussse after ssshe disssapeared, you ssstarted acting more in control of yourssself. I... I didn't realissse you were ssstill..."
Kabe stood up and punched Nyaku square in the jaw, almost hard enough to give him another hole in his face, and tears started to flow from his eyes. "You asshole! You fucking asshole!" he shouted, stomping around the room. His eyes were burning, the whites brighter, his iris turning red. "You're telling me all this time, that the thing Mayen disappeared to do that killed her, was because of me? That she died for me?" Kabe couldn't contain himself. He gripped the metal of the wall, crinkling it up like a sheet and head butted straight through. Blood leaked from a cut on his cheek, mixing with the tears. "I can't do this, Nyaku. I fucking— I need to clear my head. I can't have you around me right now. I... Whatever we were, whatever that was— I don't want to kill you. But with this— with you keeping this from me, you don't understand how much I want to rip your head off of your shoulders right now."
"When I get back I don't want to see you. I don't care where you are but it better not be here." Kabe opened his door, and ran down the hallway. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. He felt more confused and more out of control than he ever had before. He wasn't even himself, he was this thing. This Devourer. It lived in his skin, and it had been the thing that killed the woman who saved him from starvation on Duria. The woman who'd given him a home and a purpose, and set him on the path that helped him to find who he was.
Who he thought he was, at least. Until recently, he hadn't questioned that.
He threw himself from the ship and blasted off into the air, leaving Bee behind to be watched by the crew. He couldn't look after someone right now. He couldn't look after himself. He flew, and he would keep flying, until he couldn't anymore. And after that, he didn't know what he'd do. He couldn't think. He was a monster, and people died around him. His mother had died for him. Mayen had died for him. Countless members of his crew had died in his name, and he had killed people. So many people. And he worried that one day, Zhalla might die for him to.
And that feeling was ugly.
/KABE [104,000 | DMG 0 | KP 6 MP 0]
/WC 2321
//ITEMS[ [Senzu Bean, Hetap]
//ABILITIES [Saiyan Pride, Tactician, Mimicry]