If Viral could suss out what was going on here he’d either feel a lot better or a lot worse depending on the outcome. It was hard to judge what others had been ordered sometimes when it came to watching over him, but this was too suspicious for his mind to be settled. It was not fair on him to be given this kind of stress, but then again everyone had thought it was fun to poke him to see how far he’d take things before he snapped. Sometimes it’s a wonder that these people are even real with how they orchestrate events around his life. He did wonder if Aito was driving himself up the wall by not being there, not that he probably wanted to be around him anyway. It had been because of him that Aito was even alive again in the first place, but the moment things had calmed down with him the quicker he had completely abandoned him for other matters and shenanigans. He had to be patient and find out what was doing on, maybe there was a chance he’d feel better.

Sasha was fairly straight forward to fight against, he was not having a difficult time guarding against her attacks so everything seemed to be going okay. Despite his concerns he was still able to focus. Catching her attacks he kept his eyes fixated on her, simply wanting to know what she was wanting from him. He wasn’t buying the whole ‘you’re good so I want to fight you’, at least. Hearing her reasons being indeed Korian telling her to watch over him he was very quickly brought down in mood, despite the fact he suspected it all along. It was probably seen as no big deal to anyone else, but when it was something that primarily happened to him all the time with no change it just emotionally drained him. It wasn’t Sasha’s fault, she was just the middleman, but the fact that it was happening was what upset him so much.

Sasha wanting to watch over him and battle against him didn’t bite with him, instead it lingered behind all the negativity that was clouding his mind. It would be good if he was going to be able to focus at all beyond that, but he hadn’t learned to clear his mind properly beyond these negative emotions. Seeing Sasha come at him again he barely had the reaction time overall nor was he able to think clearly. As he was simply brought back in to battle he tried hard to stop Sasha’s attacks, going on mostly automatic reactions before he was suddenly grabbed and brought down rather quickly. He was barely able to catch himself if at all, his eyes simply staring up blankly before looking to her after she got off him.

He wasn’t impressed by her or curious as to where that all came from, rather he was lost in thought. What was all this for, anyway? Shouldn’t he show he was capable of teaching instead of taking part in standard training? Was this all just so Korian could say he inspected him just so he could deny him later? He was feeling more confused than he should had. He should probably get back up to his feet, he was never in a good state of mind and often acted like a confused cat staring at nothing when like this. He couldn’t handle being in such a vulnerable place all the time, but he didn’t know how he was supposed to overcome it when he was given no breathing room to try and recover. Staring at her for a moment as he got back to his feet he soon looked to the other rebels, watching them as they continued on their training. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do when everything felt like it was all pointless anyway. Nobody here had anything at stake, they were just continuing on with their usual routine. There was nothing to worry them, maybe feeling sore after it all but they had everything to gain while he had effectively nothing.

“…What does Korian want from me”, he spoke quite plainly, looking back at her, “The man will keep going out of his way to watch over me one way or another. Why does he bother with that? It’s a waste of time and resources…” Growling lowly he moved in to a stance, raising his fists as he stared her down. “Fine then. You got me down once, nothing matters anymore with Korian so enthusiastically trying to ruin me…” he spoke, raising a fist a little higher, “I’ll come at you then…” Immediately after announcing it he went straight for Sasha, throwing wild punches at her with little strength but plenty of speed. He had just about given up at this point and simply wanted to get it over with, knowing full well what the final verdict was going to turn out to be.

Sasha had admittedly been excited when given this task. She could care less about reporting back on Viral - she saw no reason to. The fact that this was even being allowed showed Korian trusted him enough. Though perhaps not enough for Viral's liking, not if she was being asked to keep an eye on him. The frustration as they sparred then was mutual, Viral's for being observed and Sasha, selfishly she recognized, for not getting the proper opportunity. There was nothing really on the line today and yet she'd hoped Viral would retaliate somehow other than just blocking and dodging. Once she'd wrestled him to the ground with ease it was apparent he wasn't going to fight back whatsoever. Backing off then Sasha allowed herself a moment to catch her breath, dusting herself down as well.

"You're asking the wrong person, I don't know what he thinks half the time," said Sasha with a shake of her head, "But it seems like he's testing you, if you're asking me. He needs to know if you're okay to do this. And like I said, I'm not here to report on you, I don't care what his orders on that were. I don't want to ruin this." Seeing Viral finally lift his fists there was an excited twinkle in her eye, a smile spreading across her face as she did the same. Finally, she'd been worried they'd go through the entire session without so much as a single punch from Viral. Ruin him? With the dire straits they were in and how poorly trained some of their troops were? No, she would argue he needed Viral's help, he knew Viral was the best fit, and was just too proud to admit it. Saiyans and their pride... Bouncing on the balls of her feet in anticipation, Sasha was quick to throw blocks as Viral's flurry of strikes began. She hadn't thought he'd be this quick - then again there was no reason not to believe so. Searching for an opening she narrowly blocked a punch that caught her cheek, but she used the momentum and leaned to the side, throwing a punch at Viral's side.

Viral didn’t understand why Sasha wanted to fight him so badly, especially after so long of ignoring him. It didn’t help that she was not often wanting to talk to him about anything or go anywhere near him, she only ever went near him when she had to be like just now. He couldn’t work out if she was actually excited to fight him or if she was just putting up an act, either way though he felt like he was just a spectacle. What was he to these people? Just the ex-Commander of the Saiyans? A Beastman or a spectacle? This desire she had to fight him was not one he shared, he didn’t know her at all nor had any interest in fighting her, he just didn’t like how she was associated with Korian. It was a little trickier with Sasha too, if it was instead Ricken then at least he would have an excuse to beat him up and everyone would be fine with that. He just had to go along with it and fight her as planned, even if he didn’t particularly want to go through with it.

“Even without you he will find a way to ruin this. If he wanted to test me then he should had done it himself…” Even if it would had been stressful for the other people here to have Korian ‘train’ with him, he would had welcomed his company to evaluate him himself. Now willing to fight Sasha he wasn’t entirely willing to put too much strength in to it, he knew he could do serious damage if he let his frustration over this situation get the better of him. Throwing fast punches at her he watched her movements carefully, watching her come at him low and towards his side. Before Sasha could make contact with his body he had taken a step back, grabbed her incoming fist before pulling her with quite a tug, aiming to take her right off her feet and send her to the floor.

“You get one lucky toss on me and you immediately think of me as unable to see that coming a mile away? Your movements are so terribly predictable…” That was the thing about these rebels and Saiyans, they always fought so stiffly and in patterns like they read it from a book. This was a reason why he didn’t like training partners, there was no real challenge. “If you want to beat me for real then fight not like you're reading the moves from a book! I don’t care if this is just a training session…I’m sick of fighting against the same moves and routines…”

"Why would he let you do it only to immediately ruin it?" Sasha pushed back, not entirely following Viral's thought process. If Korian was so against it he never would have given the green light for this. Why the leader himself hadn't shown up was an easy one too. "He's kind of leading all of us, he can't just walk away to fight whenever he pleases," she pointed out, bracing and deflecting the blows coming her way. Trying to use Viral's momentum against him she ducked beneath a strike and swung up at his sides, hoping to wind him and stagger him both. When her hand was caught she promptly attempted to switch it up and kick him in the opposite side, gasping as she was lifted up and slammed over onto her back. Freeing her hand she rolled on her shoulders and shot back up to her feet, eyes wide but a smile on her face.

"Sorry, but that's kind of how we were trained. How everyone was trained," admitted Sasha with a sheepish smile, "That might explain why so many of our troops are out-dueled. And why Korian's letting you train people now. Obviously we need it." Lowering her hands and taking a measured breath she closed her eyes, slowly raising and lowering her hands in front of herself before looking at Viral mischievously. "I'll try something different, I hope it makes things a bit more interesting for you." Taking a jump back Sasha held her hands out at her sides, slowly moving them through the air as she closed her eyes. The air around her shimmered, dirt pulled from the ground and air slowly clumped together and solidified into small projectiles. With a flash several of them ignited, and with a sly smile she looked at Viral, throwing one hand forward and sending a volley in his direction.

“He’s already tried to kill me once, I see no reason why he wouldn’t try to ruin me some other way…” It was probably pointless trying to talk to her about this sort of thing, she was probably in the camp of thinking he was amazing and flawless and a worthy leader. It definitely made him feel like it wasn’t going to work, all this attempting to get on Korian’s good side while simultaneously knowing it was impossible to please him. Battling against Sasha was hardly bringing him much pleasure like she might be feeling fighting him, considering what she said before. He was still going to put some effort in to his little training bout, she was still pretty enthusiastic. Having his focus on keeping her attacks from hitting him his goal to topple her came second, coming in and successfully doing so with her predictable moves. That was just the thing with those rebels, but maybe Korian would finally get a clue and understand having everyone learn the same things was going to have the enemy know exactly what was going to happen and be able to counter it pretty successfully.

“Tch! Yeah…how convenient that I am here…” This was a waste of his time, he was close to just quitting. Watching her as she decided she was still going to carry on he was suspicious when she decided to switch things up again, giving her a slight glaring at. She was going to use Ki or something, he just knew it. Preparing for an attack from her he growled lowly when it seemed to be some sort of Ki attack, watching as the dirt gathered before becoming tiny fireballs. What was this supposed to prove? Some sort of show off moment? Holding up his arms he was pelted by the projectiles, the rocks either bouncing or exploding against him. Her attacking him like this was not only unusual to do, it made him angry.

“You think showing off is what will make this interesting to me??” he growled, lowering his arms, “You want to use your little Ki abilities against me? Can’t resist showing off around me…is that it?” If she wanted to be completely daring and start assaulting him with her powers, then he was just going to come down harder on him. Not giving her a chance to explain herself he immediately moved in again, going in low at first before throwing his weight at her in one punch. He wasn’t going to let her do that again, besides it did hurt a fair bit to be pelted by fiery projectiles. He knew if he was going to be showing off his own abilities he might as well just kill her and destroy everything, they often involved stabbing or blowing everything up so that wasn’t an option. After his one punch he swung around again, his weight shifting again as his frustration was playing a part in his battle style.

Sasha was... Confident? Viral had asked for something different, something that the rebels didn't normally show in combat. So she'd thought to indulge him and use her ability: magic. In her limited experience her people - Ricken included - were only a handful of hundreds of races capable of such a feat. And unlike races which all seemed to share a similar magic, her people's tended to reflect some aspect of themselves. She gathered material and lit it aflame, using it as miniature projectiles and striking at Viral with them. It worked, perhaps too well, as Viral grew furious with her. She tried to defend herself - it wasn't Ki she was using, but he was too enraged to listen. She lifted her arms and threw up a block, absorbing the hit but topping over backwards from the sheer force. Catching herself on a hand she lifted and spun at the same time, narrowly avoiding being crushed into the ground. Why was he so angry?

"It's not Ki!" she finally managed to get out, having to duck to avoid another bone-shattering punch, "It's not! It's magic!" Hard to say if that did anything to assuage his anger, he seemed no less furious than a moment before. So she'd cut back on its use, clearly going all out with magic was only going to make things worse. She side-stepped another punch and pushed the arm, stepping in and trying to drive an elbow into Viral's chest. If it hit, she'd lift her fist and strike him in the jaw with the back of her hand: if not, she'd try to get distance between them and throw a burst of projectiles at him. She couldn't keep too close to him now, not with how powerful each individual attack was. She'd be beaten in the blink of an eye if she took a punch in the wrong place.

Even though it was a rather simple thing, Viral was acting quite vicious about it ever happening to him. It wasn’t because it hit him, it was because it was something that had been used against him that reminded him of all the times he had been pelted with attacks after being given encouragement that they would never be used against him. There were other reasons too, like the number of times they had been used on him to make a mockery out of him because he had no way to fight back, losing in the process. He had enough of losing, he couldn’t keep losing and put up with the fact that all these people were able to do things he couldn’t only to be mocked by it. Just who did they think they are? He was going easy on her yet she decided to show off what she could do and use him in the process as a way to show off to the other trainees. They all knew they were superior to him when it came to battle, they all knew they could simply fly around throwing attacks at him while he struggled to keep up. It angered him greatly, he fought hard throughout his entire life to gain power enough to fight against such attacks and yet he stilled lagged behind.

Throwing bone-crunching attacks Sasha’s way he was lost in his rage, or rather the emotions that continued to build up with no outlet for him to blow off steam. Sasha was really struggling against him, if mostly to try and explain herself. Throwing in his series of strikes he didn’t make any effort to block her attacks, taking her elbow with full force before being smacked in the jaw. That seemed to had done it as he staggered back a bit, his expression softening a bit but his stare looking right through everything as he raised a paw to his chest. What was he doing? He could had severely injured her or maimed her if he decided to use his claws instead. Growling in anger at himself he backed off, looking away from her. “…My apologies…I did not mean to be so rough with you…” he spoke lowly, keeping his eyes off her. He should be punished for lashing out in such a way, he would had been before Aito and Vegeta got so passive. “Don’t throw up handicaps for yourself just for me…I can take a hit!”

Sasha gasped softly as her fist smacked Viral's jaw, watching him stumble away. From livid and aggressive now he was... Remorseful? She'd seen him grow angry plenty of times - the troops were all well aware of his penchant for lashing out. It was why Aito didn't seem to trust Viral, why she'd been asked to come here and gauge him. What she had never seen, however, was him back down. Her commanding officer would be furious that she wasn't going to report exact details - she was doing everything she could to respect the fact Viral was even agreeing with this, but this was a very distinct, and very good sign things were changing.

"No, no, I provoked you!" Sasha responded, holding up her hands with a bashful smile, "Most people don't know we can do that, and you're not the first to assume it's Ki. It's an unfair advantage though, and not something I should be throwing around in a simple sparring match. So I'm sorry, for even using it on you." She folded her hands together and bowed her head slightly, hopeful not to ruin this moment. "And really nothing happened, I might have a bruise but that's nothing. Don't even worry about it!" It was almost more than a bruise - she swore her bones were going to snap under that single strike. But then that was just as telling as Viral's stepping away and calming down: he'd been holding back his strength to try and not harm her, showing, again, he was far more than the wild animal Korian dubbed him to be. Now she almost did want to tell the man just to see his reaction, how he'd come to terms with being so terribly wrong.

"I'm almost disappointed Korian isn't here right now, in a way. He wouldn't know what to do seeing you like this." Speaking aloud without thinking about it, Sasha smiled apologetically. "A lot of people are willing to follow you, but everyone was... Scared, I guess? It hasn't helped that Korian has treated you as a threat, but there was some of us, people who have fought with you, that knew you'd be able to do this. Even Ricken did, even if he won't ever say as much," she added with a short laugh. "I'm sorry, you probably don't want to be hearing all of this. But I'm sure you're going to do great, training everyone. Obviously you're ready for it, no matter what anyone else says."

Viral knew he shouldn’t had lost his cool, it was just a training session but something just wanted to come out and see her destroyed for trying to show off. Maybe it was because the interaction he got the most from people was them teasing him and mocking him for being lesser than they were, maybe it was for some other unexplained reason he couldn’t bring his mind to grasp. He was having to do what he needed to which was apologise properly for his lack of control and perception between a training round and an actual battle. It was hard getting used to such training sessions when they were all incredibly rare to happen to him. Maybe this was all a bad idea, he shouldn’t be training with others when he wasn’t right in the head still.

Not looking up as she gave her own excuses he kept pretty silent, not feeling that was any excuse to go off on her like that. He knew his strength and could tell that was barely going to be a ‘possible bruise’ on her arm in the morning. Everyone else may had Ki or magic or whatever, but he had strength while the rest of his abilities were borrowed power. “That’s no excuse. I have not trained in so long”. She shouldn’t let him get away with it. She was allowed to hit him if she wanted to, he was practically offering it to her and yet she continued to prattle on and excuse him for his bad behaviour.

Korian would’ve seen him to the prison pretty quickly and disposed of if he was the one training with him, no excuses there. Anything to show how terrible he was, luckily for him there wasn’t many who took notice over what he had done. Of course everyone was scared of him though, even without Korian’s meddling. He was some strange combination of human and beast which many would see as an abomination or affront against nature, something they’d have trouble understanding. It wasn’t something he was unfamiliar with, so he didn’t dwell on those thoughts too much anymore. “I was always familiar with how Korian felt about me, how much he wanted me dead. It’s not surprising nor is it something new to me…” Just how was he supposed to handle whole groups of people, anyway? He was mostly a reclusive, so many people probably spelled trouble for him; however, he was the only one who was trained in weapons while all these guys were all used to using Ki and whatever magic came under. “I’ll be training people to use weapons they’ll be unfamiliar with. It will matter whether people trust me teaching them how to use traditional weapons…or even if they’ll want to. Korian will be happy enough sending me and the others out whenever there’s trouble; besides, we’re disposable to him…”

"I don't think he will, not at first anyway," Sasha observed with a thoughtful smile. She looked at Viral knowingly, placing her hands upon her hips and chuckling. "He's not going to admit it to you, but... Being honest? Most of our forces are pretty lousy. More and more people are joining now and there's not a whole lot of us to train them." She nodded her head back in Ricken and Leto's directions, each of whom were carrying on with their own fights... That being each other. A lot of angry banter from her brother and nonsensical, pseudo-philosophical wisdom from Leto. Shrugging her shoulders with an exasperated smile, Sasha laughed and shook her head. "You're already way better than they are, one's full of himself and the other's a clod. You're the best teacher we can hope for with the new recruits. Well... I'll be helping too, though I can't do weapons training, just basic martial arts."

Placing her fists together, knuckles pressed together, Sasha bowed again to Viral. "If it's alright... May we continue? I won't use magic anymore, and I can certainly change how I'm fighting if its boring you. Korian's teaching weren't the first lessons Ricken and I had, we know more than that." He agreed, thank goodness, she'd hate to leave their lesson on such a poor note. Rolling her wrists she slowly approached Viral, staring up at his face. Faking a thrown punch she ducked beneath his own, grabbing his back and pulling herself around him, throwing an arm around his chest and using herself as a point of leverage, lifting him and flipping him over herself. As soon as his feet touched the ground again she kicked high, stopping centimeters from his face, smiling at him excitedly. Definitely different from Korian's standard fare. "There's more to it than that, of course, but most of it involves twisting and striking rather... Painfully. And if it's all the same I don't want to accidentally hurt you."

Viral growled lowly, looking to the other recruits. It wasn’t so much that Korian’s teaching methods were failing them or the methods of Leto, it was more that they were mostly trainees when they left the Saiyan army so many of them received only the most basic of training while Korian seemed to mostly assume that they were expert soldiers due to them being there in the first place. He wasn’t even sure if it was their inability to let go of their fate as rebel soldiers and were just fighting because it was the only thing they knew how or if they just weren’t being taught properly if at all with Korian simply assuming they knew how to fight and improve by themselves. Looking to Let and Ricken he growled lowly, not impressed by how they acted. Leto constantly acted like battles were a stage play while Ricken never bothered to learn anything because he was overly confident. “I was made for battle. Being better than they are isn’t much of an achievement”.

He wasn’t entirely sure whether he should try and fight back against her or just see what she’s able to do, if she was going to show off anything new at least. He probably should, he hadn’t done much good for her other than make her panic. Letting her have that moment to show him what she could do he simply put up short reactions, watching her as she moved around him. She wasn’t doing the usual like before, she was getting a bit too close for his liking in a training session. Throwing a punch to see what she was going to do he grunted when she saw fit to take his body and toss it over her own, landing on his feet only to be left staring at her foot. Narrowing his gaze a little, he looked up to her and frowned lightly. “I don’t care if you accidentally hurt me, but that was mostly just tossing around a ground opponent”, he spoke, not sounding particularly impressed either way by her moves, “Is any of that even suitable for when you’re flying around? Most of the Saiyan army rather like flying and hovering over ground combat. You’ll need to put more weight behind it than that, it felt like a strange sort of dance to me…”

It was a little strange to be tossed around, but he was willing to follow through with it if it helped her get just a little bit of confidence back in him; however, she was doing it all wrong in his eyes. He would rather she threw him with force rather than showing off what she was capable of and expecting him to land on his feet. “You want to dance around your opponent and play this all out like a play, you’re going to have to reverse those actions…” Without waiting, Viral immediately went in and grabbed her clothing with one hand, pulling her in to knee her gut but stopped short, his other arm moving in to elbow her back but stopping short again before he twisted it to grab on to her back clothing, moving to throw her aggressively to the side but instead dropped her off on the opposite side of him. “I’m not tossing you over me, but you get the idea…” he spoke, moving away from her, “I prefer to cause the most damage in a short amount of time…”

"Well sure, most of our people are able to use Ki, or magic to fly. But uh... You don't fly," Sasha pointed out with a shrug, "Seems like a little overkill to show that off." If this were a legitimate fight against an opponent then she'd definitely make use of it; Viral was no opponent, and after how he'd reacted to her using magic - even if he had calmed down, she'd rather not press her luck. He didn't seem impressed from that little display, and to be fair, she couldn't blame him. It was a simple series of moves most learned in their first few years, the equivalent of a friendly sparring session. Putting up her fists again, Sasha lowered her stance and immediately tried to throw a block when Viral came at her again. She expected a punch, some kind of strike, and was caught off guard instead when he grabbed her shirt. He stopped mercifully short of driving his knee into her stomach; nearly being knocked to the ground then and being thrown was just icing on the cake.

"I do too, but I tend to do it a little bit differently than you might. You rely on blunt force, right?" Trying to correct herself and make sure no misunderstanding was had, Sasha quickly amended that. "I mean you use powerful strikes to overwhelm your opponent. It works, obviously, but there's other ways to take someone down too. Here, I'll show you." From a first glance, Viral's physical self was mostly identical to that of her and Ricken. So, in theory, the same kind of strikes should work on him. Stepping in again after Viral she started with a simple chop at his neck, which he blocked as she'd hoped. Sasha smirked and grabbed Viral's arm, pulling herself closer and turning as if to flip him again; she reached back instead, using his shoulders to lift herself up, grabbing hold of him and flipping herself over, pulling him with her. Once she had him on the ground she grabbed his arm again, extending her index and middle fingers together, striking three times along his arm, hitting where she presumed there to be pressure points. She then rolled off of him to the side, spinning around on her hand and bringing her leg down in an axe kick, managing to stop inches above Viral's head. "Making your limbs jelly can make a fight a lot easier too!"

Despite how Viral was treating this, he didn’t really like training like this. It offered no improvement to his own abilities or gave him the opportunity to practice, instead it was just him seeing what his opponent could do and just kind of playing the combat dummy. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do about that, he was too physically strong for most of these people with how Sasha acted after he hit her proving his point. He was kind of bored with how things were going, but he had to put up with it. Trying to show Sasha how he’d handle her moveset for actual opponents was the most he could do for now, but he didn’t exactly see her as the type who would want to pick up on it. People only wanted to practice and not learn anything they didn’t want to learn or be told they were wrong in what they were doing, which Sasha was. She was treating him like it was just training so she could show off if she wanted to and not have to cause harm, but he would rather she tried to cause harm to him instead of treating him as someone who just wanted to see what she could do.

Despite her efforts to not insult him by effectively calling him a brute, he glared at her in response to the assumption on his fighting style. He didn’t rely on blunt force at all, that was like saying all he did was swing his strength around and hope that something might hit. He was not that type, is that all everyone saw him as? They just saw him as a savage wildly swinging around hoping something would land. What was the point in trying? Growling lowly, he just decided to keep following up and let her have her fun even if he wasn’t having any. Making a quick block at his neck he figured it would turn in to a grab, but she had decided to toss him around this time. Being flipped on to the ground he landed with a grunt, feeling already like he wanted to give up on this by the time she decided to push her fingers in to his arm several times. Not making much of an effort to try to move he let out a grunting sigh as she brought a foot down near his head, looking to her when she stopped.

This was all well and good for her, she was getting practice out of using him to show off; however, he wasn’t exactly having the best of times and now his arm hurt. “…Right. You figure if I use my arms the most, you should disable them”, he spoke, twisting his body slightly before sitting up without using his arms, “Tch, you think I rely on blunt force? You don’t know me well enough to start judging my method of fighting! I just want to get the fight over with as soon as possible without my opponent showing off how much bravado they have…” Getting to his feet fairly easily without much effort he turned to look at Sasha, giving her a rather sharp look. “Now, are you about done with showing me your throwing skills and assuming I’m a top-heavy brute? You don’t know half the stuff I’m capable of and I don’t need my arms to pull them off. How would you deal with knowing that I can blow you out of existence without the use of my arms? Tch, it probably doesn’t matter for this, anyway. If that’s how you all see me when I fight then there’s no reason for me to destroy that illusion if Korian decides it’s worth having me dead if I get too aggressive with people. Just fix my arm before I have to myself…”

"That wasn't my intent..." She'd spoken poorly and Viral was upset. 'Blunt force' made him seem brutish; Sasha tried to imply that Viral's method of attack was direct. Taking Viral's arm she carefully pressed down, relieving tension along the limb. "I'm thinking of how to fight you based on what we've been told. Not as an enemy," she clarified quickly, looking up to meet Viral's gaze, "As an ally, for sparring. The way some of the people describe your and your fighting style... Well, it makes you seem like a top-heavy brute." Saying it aloud made her cringe and she shook her head. She'd been an idiot to rely on clearly biased information, but then it was all she'd been given.

Sasha pat Viral's arm before letting it go. "I think we can be finished with our sparring. Sorry I ruined it for you," she said, glancing at her brother and smiling, exasperated. "Besides, Ricken's going to try and show off until he collapses, remind you of anyone?" Kids wanting to prove themselves as the greatest seemed to pop up everywhere. It was no small wonder her brother and the Prince always knocked heads. By now Vegeta had finished his session, leaving only Ricken and his partner, stubbornly trying to outlast one another.

"Maybe it's not my place to say this, but... Just keep trying to prove Korian wrong. Once you stop trying you let people label you, and that's that. Nothing you can do will change it." Sasha smiled in amusement and glanced at Viral from the corner of her eye. "On our home world I was considered a bit of a bully. Though I only ever fought kids who were mean to Ricken. They called me all kinds of things and I let them, because if they were afraid of me, they wouldn't mess with him." She sighed and shook her head, watching as her brother finally won his match. The way he grinned and loomed over his partner you would think he'd just climbed the tallest mountain on Uuonoe. "I let it stick because it's what I wanted, and it worked for me. But you clearly don't want that... So just keep proving him wrong. He can say whatever he wants, but it only means anything if you let him be right."

Sasha returned to join Ricken - a good swat to the back of his head stopped his bickering. Vegeta took that opportunity to return to Viral, shaking his head and rubbing at his shoulder. "I figured I was out of practice, but hell that was a mess. How did your session with Sasha go?" Not great from the looks of things. Was it wrong he was secretly glad she'd been paired against Viral instead? He'd lost to the alien, and he was positive Viral was leagues more dangerous than the alien was. Ignoring Leto as he began some triumphant speech on a job well done, Vegeta turned to Viral and smiled faintly. "Be honest with me: do you even want to train the troops? I feel like you're again being forced into a role you may not want."

That was all that he was to these people, wasn’t it? Just a brute, swinging his arms with no thought or reason put behind his movements as he acted like a barbarian. It didn’t matter if she meant it with good intention to his strength, it still made him sound like a thug rather than a proud warrior. It always ticked him off, that way of thinking towards him, especially when his enemies only saw him as such. Just what was he supposed to do to not look like a brute in battle? He didn’t have any of those fancy attacks, all they saw was his big paws and immediately thought of clubs for fists. Just what would it be like for when he was supposed to train them? They would all be afraid of him, absolutely. They wouldn’t want to be hit by the brute and have their bones crushed, would they? That’s all that it meant, in the end; they were nervous around him because he was just a brute.

Looking down at his arm he gave it a rub around his shoulder, sighing under his breath before looking in Ricken’s direction. “You mean all of the recruits? Because that’s all that he’s doing: acting like a poser, like the rest of them”. People always seemed to get a big head and try to be the big man when they became something that is fighting for a cause or ‘rebelling’, they always acted big and made sure others knew they were the lesser creature. It was pathetic, none of them could act like a proud warrior, instead acting like a kid who won best in class.

Rolling his shoulders he gave them a rub, sighing through the relief before he looked to Sasha. Her trying to find encouragement through her little story certainly made him wonder: just what was she trying to say? Was he also being seen as a bully just because of what he was? He didn’t understand her reasoning behind giving this little story. It was understandable that people would see someone else as a bully for beating up others just because things were said, but he had issues with everyone looking at him and seeing him as some sort of wild animal. “Tch, of course I don’t want that. I’m not a brute or an abomination…”

Watching her head off to her brother he narrowed his gaze before moving to leave, only to be stopped by Vegeta approaching him. Glancing over to him he sighed, looking away as he rubbed his shoulder some more. “I nearly shattered her arm. I knew I could break her if I tried to train properly, so I was nothing more than a punching bag”, he spoke, not wanting to mention what she told him about Korian or what the others thought of him. He was too proud to be complaining about those things, just so long as he knew those problems existed in the first place. Keeping quiet, he stared at the rebels before looking to Vegeta as he asked a question, frowning momentarily before sighing a growl, looking back at the rebels. “I don’t know what I want anymore. They’re all afraid of me, that’s all anyone’s going to be of me”, he spoke calmly, not showing much emotion, “To train them in something they all would consider primitive, it would only reinforce their ideas of me. What do I want? I want something yet I have no clue. I don’t want to exist for nothing, with no purpose…”

"Or maybe they're trying to act brave, when the reality is they're scared." Sasha smiled thoughtfully, throwing Viral a glance over her shoulder. "I think it's annoying too, but people tend to mellow out after they see combat for the first time. Usually." Ricken never quite grew out if it and she'd come to accept that just as the person he was. Not everyone was humble and quiet, there were plenty of abrasive, arrogant and cocky people in the universe. "Then prove to them you're not, instead of hanging your head and accepting it." She left it at that, it was not her place to lecture Viral. Besides, Ricken was getting into it again with Leto and they were making a scene.

Vegeta frowned, folding his arms and looking back to the rebels. "Are they? Sasha didn't seem afraid, and Ricken looked like he wanted to fight you. But then he's just as bull-headed as Takeshi..." Viral was internalizing too much and reading into the wrong things. Who was afraid of him, exactly? The only one who showed any real sign of fear was, ironically, Korian.

"Is it primitive to know the basics of combat? I got my butt handed to me today, but the way the rebel fought was... I don't know, stiff." He was out of practice himself but Vegeta could have won handily had he been keeping up with training. "Their movements are predictable, it's like they go through a list of moves in their heads. That's no way to fight; that's how you get yourself killed." Maybe it was a product of having so many troops. It would be logistically impossible to train everyone individually, so they needed a way to get as many people prepared as quickly as possible. On paper it worked - everyone would emerge with the same skill set, but not everyone could use those skills equally. "We should probably get back, I think we're done here. Let's grab some lunch, I bet mom has something ready for us." His stomach growled on cue, making Vegeta flush slightly. "Unless you'd like to get something in town...?"

Viral didn’t see the point in acting brave when you had nothing to back it up with, all it did was waste your time and your opponent’s time. To be yelling a bravado when you could be fighting and potentially saving other people’s lives was just a waste of energy and would only further annoy your opponent. His opponents already knew how to annoy him without a bravado anyway, all they had to do was fly around him and pelt him with long ranged attacks and he wouldn’t be able to do much about it. Even though he didn’t like losing or helping the enemy, he had experienced way too many moments where he could had easily lost if his enemy didn’t bother allowing him to get in such close range all while taking their time to hit him because they decided to talk about how great they are and how he’s going to die. He wouldn’t be surprised if most of these rebels would do the same to him if they were up against him. He couldn’t remember much about the previous time the rebels fought against him, they eventually turned in to a number once he had been released under control, but a fair many of his opponents often bragged about their abilities without actually demonstrating it.

Having a general dislike for the rebels was probably not helping him think that these people might end up doing something spectacular in battle or be able to follow his instructions if he did train them. Grunting, he looked to Vegeta in mild annoyance before away again. “Put any of them in front of me to fight against and they’ll be stinking of nerves…” As much as he wanted his opponent to fear him, he’d rather it not be when there’s no danger and is purely for training. He didn’t care if his opponents feared him, but when he was clearly supposed to be an ally he just had the same problem he had with the Saiyans.

“Tch! You rarely fight so of course you lost to someone who was reciting moves from a book…” It certainly showed that Vegeta was a pretty bad fighter simply using his Saiyan heritage when he had the strength but none of the technique. “At least they won’t have to worry about you killing them, seeing as how you got beat by them…” If this was going to be the entire class then he didn’t know if he truly wanted to do it, especially if there was going to be people who were going to be thinking all sorts of rather horrible things about him. He didn’t know if he would be able to handle the mental pressure of knowing there was many people around him all staring at him, all thinking those opinions of theirs. He knew he shouldn’t care about what others thought about him, but it was a matter of having to work with them that made it get to him. If they were only caring about avoiding his eyes and feeling worried that he was going to lash out at them, then he was going to have a hard time concentrating on the task at hand.

Looking briefly around at the rebels as he watched them all start talking amongst each other with some still training, he grunted a sigh before looking to Vegeta at the suggestion for lunch. He really didn’t feel like eating much nor did he feel like going to see June and possibly Aito. He didn’t want to, even though he’d feel a little guilty knowing June went through the trouble of making Vegeta something only for Vegeta to follow him elsewhere like everyone did. None of them were going to let him go alone, at least not until they knew he wasn’t going to leave them all; it wasn’t as if he could be tracked, after all. “I do not want to go to that house…I’d rather go to the city…” he sighed as he turned, heading out, “I highly doubt I’ll run in to anyone there, after all…”

She had done a lot of difficult things in life. Learn a dozen and a half martial arts styles, help defend Earth from Saiyans, travel the galaxy and fight. Yumi was no stranger to struggling and rising above the occasion. It seemed like, however, she had finally met her match: trees. Rose she did, swinging from branch to branch, only to plummet and nearly hit the ground each time. Swinging yourself was the easy part - it was no different than bars at a gym. No, the hard part was swinging from branch to branch and managing not to propel yourself into a tree. Shu made it easy and had the benefit of the tail to help him.

Pinwheeling her arms and reaching for a branch, Yumi yelped. Her fingertips scraped against the branch and she fell towards the ground only to stop herself with her Ki. A sigh escaped her lips and she looked up at Shu, smiling as she floated up to meet him.

"You make this look so easy! I mean it makes sense - you do this all the time, but wow." Yumi laughed, settling down on the branch beside Shu and exhaling. She looked down at the gloves on her hands and clapped them twice, wiping away wood chips and bits of moss and dirt. Perhaps she'd been too optimistic when she'd told Shu she would be swinging through the forest with him today. An hour later and the most Yumi had managed were three branches in a row, and that had been at the start of the afternoon.

"It's fun though! I can't wait until I can do what you do." From her bag she took out two containers of juice, handing one to Shu before breaking open her own. "Flying is fun, but it's mindless. You just go, it's almost like floating down a lazy river. Swinging though..." Yumi took a long drink and sighed, smiling at Shu. "Thanks for letting me come with you. This has been really great." Tucking away her drink she hooked her legs about the branch, smiling and falling back, swinging and hanging upside-down. "So any tips, special instructor Shu? Anything you think I could try better?"

Shu was fair excited to be able to get out and about without any real stress like having to worry about training or being beaten to try and do something he didn’t want to do. It was about time that he was let out to go and do what he wanted rather than having to work, especially with Yumi. Yumi didn’t ask him to do things that scared him or caused him pain, so it was always nice to know when he was going out with Yumi it was going to be a pretty relaxing time. Being out and about meant he could have some fun, which meant doing whatever he wanted which mostly consisted of swinging around in the trees and stretching his limbs. He didn’t get to go out and be himself too often, everyone preferred to be on the ground and doing whatever they wanted to do, but it seemed Yumi was more than willing to try and do what he did to have fun.

He did enjoy swinging around. It helped his balance and exercise, not to mention it helped strengthen his arms when he felt he hardly used them anymore other than fighting. Walking around on only his feet was all fine, but it felt like his arms were missing out. He could have a balance rather than simply upright and only using his arms for throwing punches or lifting things. He was having plenty of fun, but it didn’t appear that Yumi was having quite as much fun as he was. “Ooh! It easy when you know how do!” he squeaked, swinging around happily in one place, “Need to reach more! Reach and swing and fun!”

He was definitely having a fair bit of fun, at least. Even if they hadn’t really moved he didn’t need to travel far to do what he wanted to do. It was no race through the trees like Takeshi might make it out to be. Pulling himself up on to the branch he was hanging from he sat quite happily, kicking his feet out a little bit as Yumi joined him. He did wonder if she was enjoying her time swinging around, she seemed to be but he could never be sure. He wasn’t great at reading people’s voices over watching how they acted and moved, especially their expressions.

Staring up at Yumi he smiled happily, squeaking a little when he was given a juice. Watching how Yumi opened hers he slowly opened his in the same way, having a little drink from it. “…Ooh? Fly like floating on river? That dangerous…” he spoke, trying to imagine the similarity but he didn’t swim. Staring down at his juice for a moment before looking back to Yumi, staring at her as she decided to have a little swing at the same time. “You like? Ooh! Tips? Tips…” he spoke, trying to think of something that Yumi might be able to do. She didn’t have a tail so talking about that that wasn’t going to help. “…You…like umm…you swing with legs! Arms just there to hold, but legs make big swings when you swing legs! If legs go near branch instead of arms, grab with legs! No need for tail…maybe…oooohhh…maybe…?”

"How else would you explain it? It's the only thing I can think of." Flight had a weightlessness to it that Yumi could only compare to floating down a river. If it wasn't for having to mind your speed and elevation she could easily lose herself in it. Just like she could lose herself in swinging, if she managed to get it down. Having gone into the day expecting to master the art in mere minutes she was humbled, and embarrassed, to be struggling two hours later. It was nothing like gymnastics - which she had only a year's experience of, and for all her strength she didn't have the flexibility to do what Shu did.

But that could change. "So... It's like kicking on a swing?" Her question was rhetorical: Shu wouldn't have any idea what she was talking about. Yumi smiled and nodded her head. And grabbing with your legs? That made sense too. Instead of contorting yourself to make sure your hands got the branch, use what else you had. "That's a good idea! Doesn't sound easy." She mused, pulling herself back up to sit. "But then nothing worthwhile is, right? And I don't plan on stopping until I get this!"

And she was going to get this. Shu was having a blast and he needed someone to play with. Takeshi didn't want to learn, Vegeta didn't have time to learn - not that she expected him to even if he did, and Viral... Was Viral. She doubted any of the others would want to play, so she hadn't considered them much. "You better watch out, before long I'm going to be swinging circles around you!" Yumi teased, winking at Shu. She carefully stood up on their branch and tested it, eyeing the nearest one. Crouching low, she sprung off the branch and grabbed onto the next, swinging back before kicking her legs, hard, and propelling herself forward.

Catch with your legs. Yumi let herself flip around and glanced backwards, seeing the branch fast approaching. She stretched out her legs and prepared to clamp down on the limb. She could do this! When her tailbone struck the branch and a pain raced down her back she yelped, flopping and catching herself on the way down, grabbing onto another branch. Hanging from one hand she nursed at her backside, blinking back tears. "I don't suppose you have any more tips?" She called up to Shu, smiling while pulling herself back up. She wasn't going to be sitting down for the rest of the day now.