"You got lucky, Tater. The boy looks like his mother." I teased, gently ruffling the hair of the baby boy that Tater was holding in his arms.
The bedroom looked like a war zone. Cynthia was unconscious on the bed from giving birth, and Tater looked like he was half-dead. His face was even bleeding, not that he seemed to care. Shortly after the delivery finished, Pepper and Lynn had gone off to take a shower, asking Tommy, Zeck and I to look after Tater and make sure that he didn't fall unconscious while holding the baby or something.
"Ha, ha, Tarble. He's my kid, that's all I care about." Tater told me.
The tail flopping out from the baby's backside was proof positive of that, at least, but anyone who saw the boy could instantly tell that he was definitely a half-Saiyan. His skin was the same dark, golden shade as his mother's, and his hair was the same color as Cynthia's, too, a brown rather than the normal Saiyan black. His eyes might've been Tater's, but both parents had the same brown eye color, so it was impossible to tell.
But Tater was clearly just happy that the kid had a tail. That shouldn't have been in doubt, but clearly, it was something that Tater had feared.
"Does my nephew have a name now, or are we just gonna keep calling him 'Tater's kid' for the rest of his life?" Tommy asked, poking the child's face curiously.
Tater made a face for a moment, before answering "...Cynder."
"Not a traditional Saiyan name?" I blinked, a bit surprised.
"Cynthia's family has the tradition. The names of their kids, at least the first one, always start with 'Cyn'. Our next kid's gonna get a Saiyan name for sure, though." Tater explained.
"Would you survive a second child, Tater?" Zeck wondered aloud.
"I'd have to survive convincing Cyn to agree to having a second kid first… So probably not." Tater agreed with a snort, "Luckily, Saiyans don't shy away from danger."
Tommy laughed, "More like certain doom."
"Hey, Tarble, what's the number? For Cynder's power level? You did bring the scout device with you, right?" Tater asked me.
"Oh," I patted my pockets. Empty. "I think I forgot." I admitted. Though Tater had asked me to bring one, it'd been an offhand request at best. I never carried scouting devices with me, anyway, so it had slipped my mind.
"Don't worry. I always keep one with me." Pulling a pair of glasses out of his pocket, Zeck settled them over his nose and pressed a button on the top. "Whoa!"
"What's it at?" I asked, curious.
"Twenty…eight thousand." Zeck read, his eyes wide with surprise.
"Wait, my baby boy is technically stronger than you and Tommy?" Tater realized.
"Hey!"
"You're still at around 25,000, right, Tom?" I asked.
"...Yeah…" He admitted.
"Sounds like you'll be a great warrior one day, huh, Cynder?" Tater smiled down at his little boy.
"Tater…" I started, but trailed off.
"What, Tarble?" Tater asked.
"Tater, don't forget. He's a half-Saiyan. He might not grow up to want to be a warrior. Don't… decide that for him." I reminded my old teammate.
"I won't decide anything for him." Tater agreed, "But he'll still be a strong fighter one day. One of the greatest warriors us Saiyans have ever seen, you just watch!"
In other words, Tater was going to force the kid to be a fighter whether he wanted to or not, completely ignoring my advice.
Oh, well.
I shrugged. Nothing I said would change Tater's mind. He was way too stubborn for that. I only hoped that his son would grow up to share that particular personality trait.
Given who the kid's mother was, there was a fairly good chance of that, at least. Even if little Cynder didn't grow up wanting to be a warrior like his father, a bit of training would do any kid good.
"Here, Tater. I made it for the kid." Reaching over my back, I pulled out a staff and leaned it against the wall. It wavered and bowed a little bit before returning to its original shape, a long, red-colored pole.
"It doesn't look very strong." He noted, "Too bendy."
"Looks can be deceiving. It's a lot tougher than it looks. Cynder will love it." I assured Tater.
I wasn't lying. I'd based the staff's design off of the Power Pole I'd caught glimpses of in Kakarot's bag during the 20th World Martial Arts tournament.
Basically, the staff in question was made out of a resin, developed from a combination of sap from the rubber tree and spit from the Fire Eater, which I'd cooled with snow from the strange, ever-freezing mountain. It was basically one of my various attempts to create something that functioned like the Bansho Fan that I couldn't seem to recreate no matter what I did.
I was starting to suspect that it required Fire Eater organs or something, which was currently impossible to obtain, as I wasn't willing to kill any of my Fire Eaters off, and they were nearly incapable of dying from natural causes.
Interestingly enough, the resin that the staff was made of was completely impervious to temperature fluctuations, and though it was fairly flexible, even Pepper and I needed to seriously exert ourselves to break it, making it ridiculously tough by normal standards.
For a normal child, a weapon as powerful as that staff would've been one of the worst gifts one could've given as a birthday present.
But for a half-Saiyan, it felt rather fitting. Especially a half-Saiyan child of Tater. He'd grow up in this mansion in the middle of nowhere, and he'd spend all of his time either fighting or in the woods like a true Saiyan would.
When she woke up, Cynthia immediately grabbed her baby and explained to Tater that if he ever made her go through something like that again, she'd squash his head like a blueberry.
Since, during labor, her power level had temporarily jumped from single digits to around 30,000 or so, I personally believed the woman.
According to Pepper, death threats were apparently the purest expressions of true love that anyone could ever offer. Lynn didn't comment, only saying that she was happy for her brother, and her nephew was cute, and lucky that he didn't take after his father in the looks department.