"Tater, are you really sure about this? I don't want to fight you." Tater and I were hovering above the sea, our feet barely above the water.
"You don't want to do anything, Tarble. You're a coward, born with a bit of luck, a bit of cheat knowledge, and a bit of power, and you're going to spend your entire life resting and coasting on it! I followed you! I believed in you! That you were the best chance my family and I had to finally become worth something, something more than trash!" By the end, Tater was screaming, spittle flying and everything.
It hurt.
Back on Celatus, when we'd just begun living freely, and the shadow of death had been right behind us the whole time, Tater had been my best friend. Someone who believed in me, trusted me, was someone who I could really trust, rely on.
He'd been the first one to overcome his base instincts with the Oozaru transformation. The only one who'd been able to instant recognize the gap in skill between our team, Dodoria, and the team that my father'd sent after us, and the lead voice in convincing the rest of the team to trust in my own discretion back then…
I didn't know what had happened. Even though he'd just been a kid back then, he hadn't been this… Stupidly stubborn.
It was like this last year and a half of peace, while helping everyone else grow into the best versions of themselves, had only nurtured the worst, most pridefully, horribly Saiyan… Vegeta Saiyan parts of Tater.
Like he'd lost the ability to see the terrifying, heaven-and-earth difference between our power levels, or the fact that, while everyone else, taking those breaks that he looked down on me for, had far surpassed him.
"You're not trash, Tater. Just… you need to figure out who you want to become. Everyone else has. That's why they're all stronger than you now."
"I believed that for the longest time, Tarble. But I don't believe in you anymore. I can't live with you as my leader anymore. So shut up and FIGHT ME!" With that declaration, Tater suddenly lunged at me at maximum speed, his body positioned for a kick.
But I was currently in my Super Saiyan Primal form, which I'd been using since early morning. Power level of over five million, at least. In other words, I was literally over three thousand times stronger than him numerically, and in real life, that manifested itself as an exponential curve that affected everything. Even at his highest speed, Tater's kick felt like a snail slowly slinking its way over to my location.
I waited until he was close enough to nearly brush his foot against my loose shirt, then I dropped out of my Super Saiyan Primal form and slipped away, my muscles vanishing like the wind that I slipped through.
Tater wasn't particularly surprised when his foot slipped through nothing but air, but he still grimaced as his eyes met mine again. "You're going to hold back against me?"
"...I'm not going to hurt you, Tater. I still want to talk things out, but-"
"The time for talk is over! You don't get to look down on me!" Tater dashed at me again. Naturally, I dodged once more, only for his body to spin around on a dime and nearly slam into my back.
Once again, I dodged. And again, he spun around for another pass, even faster than the first two times as he apparently got into the swing of it. "Pinball Technique!" He shouted out, his body a flipping blur by this point, flying toward me like a real three-dimensional pinball.
With every single pass dodged, Tater's speed increased. And increased. And increased, as his body instantaneously flipped around and spun back toward me without a single moment's hesitation.
Naturally, though, it still wasn't enough. It was a cute technique. By now, I probably looked like I was dancing in the sky by myself, he was going so fast. But no matter how fast he went, my senses never lost track of the older Saiyan, my reaction time never slowing, not for a moment. No matter how many times he tried with his 'pinball technique,' Tater would never hit me.
But he never gave up, either. By the time I decided to do something about it, I could literally feel the sweat flying off of Tater's body as he exploded through the air at his maximum speed, desperate to land a blow, even though he knew that his pinball technique wasn't going to be enough against me.
"I thought you these pointless games, Tater!?" I called out, "Let me show you what came before pinball! It's called Pong!" And without further ado, I slammed my leg into Tater's gut, sending him flying into the clouds.
Then, my form below flickered, vanishing and reappearing above Tater's, before he'd even stopped flying upward from the force of my first kick.
My second kick was slightly more powerful than my first, with gravity and momentum working in my favor, my leg hit a perfect arc, sending Tater's body plummeting back down, even faster than terminal velocity.
I battered Tater around a few more times before I ended my series of attacks, kicking him at an angle that allowed his body to skip across the ocean for a little while before he went under.
I didn't bother going down under the sea to follow him. One of my kicks had knocked him unconscious for a short time, but he'd been roused by the next kick, so he was conscious.
And sure enough, he burst from the water, spluttering and clutching his side in obvious pain.
"You should've killed me there, Tarble! This is why you're so weak! You're not willing to fight for what you believe in! Saiyan pride… it's just a phrase to you!" Tater shouted.
I shook my head. He still just didn't get what I'd been telling him, over and over again. "My pride won't let me kill a friend, Tater. Even if you don't want to understand, if you can't accept it, that's where my pride comes into play. But I'm done being naive. You won't understand anything until I beat it into you, until I force you to grow the hell up, Tater, so that's what I'll do! COME AT ME!"
Tater didn't need any more goading.