An Existential Crisis (Ermine/ask)

What she had done still drove her mad with guilt. She knew she had hurt a lot of people by doing what she had done.. But at the same time, where would she be now if she had simply done nothing? Clearly she had inspired others actions by being an idiot, which ultimately led to that mark being removed. Hotato, though.. That little ass kisser. The very thought of him made Kohlrabi feel anger. But stacking such feelings on top of the negativity she presently felt was doing no good for her, but she didn't care. Right now she just felt like wallowing in her own self-loathing. The hybrid was jealous, too. In a way. Hotato would most likely get off easy just because he had a blood relation to the general. 'They claim they aren't anything like the empire, but then they would show bias like that.. I hope the little shit at least gets a beating.' Kohlrabi thought to herself with an irritated sigh, just before she sensed someone not too far down the street from her.

Her time living on the streets of Natto had taught her how to react when facing down an older male alone. The first reaction should've been to run.. cowardly, sure. But back then, Kohlrabi hadn't been anywhere near strong enough to defend herself like she could now. But Earth was different- Earth wasn't a saiyan planet. Earth didn't chew you up and spit you out if you had a power level below three thousand. She froze in place and stared at the stranger. As cautious as she seemed, she was definitely in no condition to be hostile. With how beaten up she looked it was probably impossible to look like anything other than broken, anyway.

Kohlrabi would remain cautious as the.. saiyan approached her? It felt like a saiyan, it kinda looked like a saiyan too.. with that dark hair, at least. But he didn't have a tail and he wasn't beating her up or yelling at her- not yet, anyway. Her view of saiyans was quite dramatically altered after what had went down out in the wastes. But that wasn't important right now. Right now, a stranger was asking her what had happened.

"I.." Kohlrabi would begin to say, but shook her head- thinking about it wasn't going to be very good for her. She felt so horrible for what she had done despite her good intentions, and thus with those good intentions in mind, she would not take it back. Not for anything. If you took her back in time to the very moment she had done it, she would do it again- every time. The risks had outweighed the rewards, but there had been a greater good at stake. "I-I don't know.." She forced herself to finish. This would be her first attempt at trying to erase all those memories- trying to forget about that old life she once led. As she had said before- or thought, rather. She no longer wanted to be a saiyan. Kohlrabi wanted to forget that old name, forget about Natto and anything that had happened there.. Except, there were just some memories she couldn't let go of. Good memories that she would most likely carry with her, but still. That was a different life, now. The trouble would be creating a new one to lead.

Having been lost in her thoughts, Kohlrabi hadn't even noticed Ermine approach her. At around the same time she had come back to reality, the stranger had once again asked her what happened.. This time sounding confused, or shocked even? She didn't really know. What she did know is that he seemed at least somewhat concerned.. and rightfully so. She was just some random teenager without a name or really anything to call her own that wandered into town covered in burn marks with a nasty wound on her chest. It had definitely been inflicted by blunt force, but luckily it had only barely broken the skin. Still, it made for a really dark bruise on her pale skin.

The bruise was a dark sort of red around the center, with a dark purple surrounding it. It looked pretty bad.. and it was. It was messing with Kohlrabi's breathing. As the damage was more internal rather than external- especially when you consider her emotional and mental states. "I don't know.." She responded with the same answer as before. She didn't want to think about it, anymore. She wanted to completely erase it for good. Still, despite her unwillingness to say exactly what had happened, the man offered her.. a bean? 'This is what Nasu used to restore his health..' The confused saiyaness thought to herself as she popped the bean into her mouth rather willingly. Considering what she had seen the bean do before, she trusted it.

Within seconds all of her wounds had been completely healed. The physical ones, anyway. She still felt like shit regardless. The saiyaness would sit down on the curb next to Ermine- she couldn't just take all that healing and then run off. Besides, he probably had more questions.. Not that she was very likely to have any answers. Which probably made her seem like an amnesiac or something- boy, she would've loved it if she where. It would be an easy way of forgetting old stuff. "Thanks.." She muttered as the last of her burns seemed to heal up. The very last thing to heal was her bruise. Even when it had cleared up, it had left a large scar behind. One that would most likely stay on Kohlrabi for a long, long time.

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Total WC: 1,474
Kohlrabi's wounds are healed. Though she's got quite a 'trophy' on her chest~
This is all for flavor, of course.

Kohlrabi had forgot her tail had even existed, honestly. So when Ermine had pointed it out she had to turn around to make sure he wasn't crazy or something. But there it was, that blue monkey tail.. staring her in the face. A cruel reminder of what she truly was. Her expression changed to that of genuine sadness- she just wanted to forget the saiyans.. all of them. Everything about them."I'm.. I don't know what I am. Definitely not a saiyan." She muttered, talking about as low as her mood was. Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she hadn't used it in forever. But in reality it was just that her chest really, really hurt. Not physically, but emotionally. Heart broken would be an underestimation of what sort of condition she was in. "I.. I don't want to be a saiyan anymore. I never wanted to be one, in the first place. I hate saiyans." Kohlrabi shook her head and looked away from the dreadful reminder.  She would have to get rid of it. But that would be incredibly painful.. like cutting off an arm or a leg- or so she had heard. She remembered seeing Cress in agonizing pain when Miso had torn his tail off- the image still clear within her mind. It was a traumatizing experience, one she would never wish upon someone else.. but on her, yes. She definitely wished for it. More than anything, Kohlrabi wanted the fuzzy appendage to be gone.

Kohlrabi looked towards Ermine once he started to speak again. When he asked her if she was in the empire, she wasn't sure if the appropriate response should be to nod or shake her head.. all things considered. "No.. My dad was, but he moved to planet Natto with the 'so-called alliance' once he got together with my mother. She was human.. from this planet. This is my first time here.." She responded, sighing and shaking her head. To talk of her parents did nothing to help her forget about her 'old life', but for some reason she was compelled to give both honest and detailed answer. "I.. I messed up really badly, and I.." Shaking her head once more she brushed the subject off. "I don't want to think about it anymore. I know what I did was right, but.. ugh."

As far as she had been concerned, she didn't have a name. She had to forget about everything from before- all of it. Even that old name. A name so very soiled by her own idiocy and traumatizing events. "I.." The lost hybrid didn't know what to respond with. She didn't want to use that 'old name'. "...I don't know." She shook her head, doing everything she possibly could right now to shove the name out of her mind. So on top of her existential crisis, it seemed like she was having an identity crisis just as well. She was so horribly disgusted by the thought of being a saiyan that she couldn't even handle using her own name. Clearly it was a saiyan name, though. Her father had been the one to name her and he was on the saiyan side of things. His saiyan genes were the ones dominant inside Kohlrabi and she absolutely hated it, now.

"The burns are my fault.. What happened to my chest was made in an attempt to stop me from being an idiot. It was meant to hit me over the head and knock me out, but I tried to dodge and got hit in the chest instead. Though.. judging by this scar, they were going to hit me way too hard. A blow like this to my head might've killed me, or left me in such a condition that I wouldn't care to live anyway.." This wasn't to say she already didn't care to live, but stating such a thing would be insensitive and selfish. "You're still right, though.. Someone is definitely after me. And fighting them won't be an option." She added on with a nod. "There are a lot of things I need.. But I guess I should take care of the necessary stuff first." Originally, she planned to just steal food and drink, but if Ermine would rather give it to her then she couldn't say no. Luckily, she hadn't inherited the bottomless stomach saiyans were known to have.

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Total WC: 2,205

"Mhm. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a human." Kohlrabi stated with a nod. This meant she would have to forsake the super saiyan state if she really wanted to stick to her word.. But that was a sacrifice she was quite willing to make. Her innate hybrid power would just have to do until she could learn to master something other than super saiyan to further increase her power. Not that she knew of any.. Perhaps she could take her mastered power even further to compete with even that of a super saiyan? Honestly, she would just have to figure it out later. There were more important things to be thinking about and handling.

She accepted the help up to her feet. If she hadn't healed her wounds, getting up would've been a complete pain in the ass- maybe even impossible, but Ermine had given her that senzu bean thing. Physically she was back in mint condition- though that didn't dictate the condition of her mental or emotional states. Ermine's next words had helped her out, though. It was one thing that she had definitely needed to be told. She knew she was right, but she had felt like so much shit for being right that she wished she were wrong. She would shake her head when Ermine claimed he wasn't helping her much. "You're not beating me, yelling at me, or trying to make the 'perfect soldier' out of me, and that on it's own is very helpful." At least the hybrid knew the yelling was more directed at no one in particular and not specifically at her.

"Intelligence has never been my strong suit.. I'm what the kids call 'a fucking retard'. I'm not exactly sure what sort of career someone as young as me could pick up, either.. The only two things I'm good at are stealing and fighting." Though she wouldn't admit it, if she were truly an idiot she would not be able to pull of all the stealing she had in the passed. After her parents had died, Jicama taught her the 'tricks of the trade' before she had been drafted into the alliance to pay off her and Kohlrabi's.. expenses, so to say.  "I don't like doing either of them.. But from what I've been taught, violence is usually the best way to solve my problems and protect those I care for. And stealing is the best way for a street urchin like me to get by." Not that there was anyone that she could care for to protect, anyway. Other than Earth, of course. But that was more of a thing and not a person, and to protect it was more of an obligation and respect for her dead mother rather than actual caring.

She didn't have any reason to object to being lead somewhere by the stranger. If she could get food, drink, and sleep without having to steal it from someone else, then she was more than willing. As for what she thought about Ermine's office.. well, she didn't really have much to say. She remained impartial, as more important things were on her mind. She would blink twice and squint her eyes for a moment as the lights suddenly came on. Evidently, she enjoyed the dark just as well. Not that she had had much of a choice, there. Back on Natto she basically lived in the abandoned home her parents had left behind and was never able to pay for utilities.

The nameless hybrid didn't think much about Ermine basically living in his own office. Money was a hard thing to come by, so.. if anything, it was an amazing way to reduce costs. She would find a good section of wall to sit on the floor and lean back against.

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Total WC: 2,839

"Fifteen.. but I'm going to be sixteen soon, I think." The nameless hybrid muttered as she took the cup of water and quickly downed it. Evidently, she had not realized how both hungry and thirsty she was. Honestly, she had forgotten what her real birth date was a long time ago.. All she had was a general idea, and Jicama was the one who had given her a specific day. All that she knew for sure was that she was in her teens. When she was nine, Jicama gave her a specific date to keep track of has her 'birth day', and she had been careful to do so. For all she knew, she could've been sixteen.. But that could've been a stretch, too. Considering how under developed the young girl was. Puberty had yet to fork over the inevitable saiyan growth spurt. It couldn't be long now, though.. Unless she had some where condition that made her stop growing at the age of thirteen or fourteen.

"A P.I.?" The hybrid repeated. That was most definitely something they didn't have on Natto.. It was a miracle she even knew what such a thing was. It was sad that she had a better idea of what a P.I. was than she had of the food in her hand. As far as she had seen, saiyans ate meat, meat and.. more meat. It kind of got old, after awhile. She seemed to perk up at the idea of having a job. "I haven't had a job since before I was with the alliance.. I doubt you could pay worse than what they could. And as long as I've got a roof over my head and food, I'll be perfectly fine." Kloe nodded her head. She really did have no room to be a picky person. Her life style for the past six or so years was more about surviving and not so much so about thriving.

"Like I said, as long as I've got a place to sleep and enough food to keep from going hungry.. I'll pretty much do anything if for the sake of not having to do some shady stuff." Kloe stated once more. If she were working for a private investigator, it would be the complete opposite of what she would normally have to do. Assuming a private investigator was still within the boundaries that anyone else working for the law on Earth was. This wasn't to say that morally ambiguous actions wouldn't bother her, though. Just as long as they didn't lean too far towards being bad or evil.

"Kloe, huh.. I like that. It's short and simple." Kloe nodded her head. She didn't much care for what it could be short for, as she would most likely go with the shortened variation at all times just as she did with her old name anyway. However, this one wasn't a saiyan name.. and thus it didn't make her feel uncomfortable or disgusted.

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"Watch and wait.. Sounds simple enough. Could get boring though." Kloe stated with a shrug. "Relaxing, though. It's a much needed break from being a soldier.." She would be quick to add on as she moved onto the couch Ermine mentioned she could use to sleep on.  The hybrid would lounge back, letting out a relieved sigh. "Having an actual home here on Earth seems far easier to achieve than one back on Natto.. I just hope I don't piss enough people to get ran off of this planet, too. When I was younger my mom would talk about coming back here once I got older, but.. As you can see, that couldn't happen." Kloe's mother had been that of a classic sword and shield fighter.. armor and everything, at times. It was incredibly fun to train with her when she was little. Fighting with only mere fists trying to find a way passed all that thick defense. But of course, it hadn't done her any good. The small amount of training she was allowed to do with her parents had hardly paid off.. leaving her at the level of a low-class warrior. It was with Komatsu's help that she had achieved the strength she had now, but she was expected to do things she found to be wrong and evil with that power and thus she would have to find another means of training.

Right now though, it was gonna be all about rest and relaxation. Later on, once she had gotten settled, she could venture out to find Atsuko or Chris.. One of them could certainly train her. "My dad's name? Huh.." Kloe thought it over for a moment.. obviously, it was another silly vegetable pun, but unlike her original birth date Kloe could not simply forget her parents names. "Articho was my father's name. My mother was Clementine." Kloe informed with a self-approving nod. "He was a low-class saiyan in the empire. And if you were with them, you know exactly what he would have to go through to be accepted. He may have been willing to put up with it, but he didn't want to put me through the same, as I was born with only a power level of a thousand and two hundred. I'm not really sure what had made him go to earth originally where he met my mom, but it happened.. and so once she got pregnant with me, they moved to Natto hoping the alliance could provide a better future for me. Little did they know that I was in for a world of shit. As dominant as my saiyan genes are, I feel more human than I do saiyan." Kloe rambled on about her parents. Once she started, it was hard to make her stop. "My mother was something of a knight, though she wasn't any stronger than my dad.. It really didn't make for a fitting breeding partner in the eyes of the empire, so it wasn't like they had been given any choice in moving to Natto, anyway. I think I was just the motivation my father needed to get the hell out of there at last."

The young human then began to chuckle. "Wasn't worth it at all.. I bet they'd be damned pissed at me for all the trouble I've caused thus far.. I ruined the one home I had just because I wanna be some copy paste hero. I want everyone to be happy, and to never have gone through or continue going through the same sort of abuse the Empire had dished out to anyone they deemed inferior. I've never even had the strength to defend myself, so I'm not sure how I could even begin to protect another person." Kloe would sigh, closing her eyes and allowing them to rest. "Sorry.. you only asked for my dad's name, not for both my mom and my dad's life story and my sad little aspirations."

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Total WC: 3,996

Kloe was clearly confused by Ermine's reaction to what she had said. 'Did.. Did I say something wrong?' She thought to herself before Ermine began to speak. Pretty much naming off her relatives in one fell swoop. It made her skin crawl and her heart start to thump against the front of her rib cage. Her eyes wide, Kloe bent forward a bit and hid her face in her hands. What was even happening? She didn't know. She was honestly scared. It was all so confusing that she was beginning to panic very badly. "T..Those are my aunts and uncles.. I never got to meet them because we never had money. We were always so poor." Kloe's breathing became heavier in some way as the memories came flooding in. Like a damn had been broken inside her skull.



She wanted nothing more than to shove those painful memories away, to completely forget them.. But she couldn't. They made her who she was, and she wasn't too sure she was even happy with that. "T..They're gone.." She muttered quietly, hiding her face in her hands and lap and trying not to cry. "They left me all alone with those saiyans when I was just fucking nine! FUCKING NINE!" Kloe yelled just before she would start to break down. It only took one tear forcing its way out for the entire dam to break down. "They died, dammit.. They fucking died and left me all alone. Just some helpless kid left with those monsters. THOSE MONSTERS! ALL THEY DO IS KILL AND DESTROY!" Her voice would only break before her yelling could turn into outright screaming. The whole situation that had occurred in the wastelands outside east city had left her in such a fragile emotional state that it didn't take very much at all for her to begin bawling.

"I don't even know how they died.. they just, came and told me.. then they tried to take me to an orphanage but I got away! I got away and I had only myself to fend for! A kid shouldn't have to grow up that quickly, dammit.. I.." Kloe shook her head, she couldn't speak anymore. Her voice was breaking and now all she wanted to do was curl up and cry like a small child. She detested the idea of crying in front of a stranger, but the memories were nightmares. She couldn't simply ignore the pain they brought her. "Its my fault they died.. You're right, I am no copy paste hero. I'm not a hero at all. I'm a failure.. That's all I ever will be. The people I care for will just continue to die and there will be nothing I can do about it.. I'm such a weak piece of shit. All the saiyans wanted to do with me was make me a soldier. A soldier that followed orders without question. One that wasn't allowed to love or feel anything but pride and loyalty to some.. tyrannical overseer. Anything I have ever loved has been taken away from me."

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Total WC: 4,510