Muddy Waters

Blood thundered in Iyre's ears. She could tell that her attack hadn't destroyed the monk; she could feel the surge of protective energy that came rushing up to meet her. And as Jackie complemented her, the woman's lip curled back in an angry snarl. It wasn't fair on the monk, really; Jackie had likely meant it in all earnestness, but to Iyre's ears in her enraged state 'Come up with it on your own?' just sounded like another insult. Was she implying that she was stupid? That she couldn't do anything right?!

All she wanted to do in that instant was to rip Jackie's head clean from her shoulders, spar be damned. She'd claim this woman's skull and add it to her trophy belt! She'd find the Master that she'd spoken of and deliver the corpse to them personally! She'd -- wait, was she coming in again?

By all rights the attack should have caught Iyre completely off guard. The woman was so lost in her frenzy in those moments that she was far gone. But as the monk disappeared and came in from below with her flame-wreathed fist leading the way, Iyre bellowed her defiance.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

The wordless shout was her rebellion; her refusal to back down in the face of this moment. This should be the instant where Jackie won their little spar. Iyre had been comprehensively outplayed in terms of tactics and there was simply no way for her to defend.

Except, suddenly, there was.

In that instant where Iyre gave herself over entirely to the confrontation her instincts showed her the way. It was so clear, so obvious, that it just came pouring out of her as naturally and freely as the shout which now echoed throughout the makeshift arena.

Green fire burned around her body, a cascading shell of rippling emerald flame which intercepted the punch, and as Jackie kept pushing forwards, the flame pushed back. Waves of heat and energy clashed against one another as Iyre's fury gave her the path she needed; that brief moment of technical mastery to steal an echo of the power that Jackie had herself used to survive the Heran's explosive attack.

When the dazzling blast of light from the collision of the attack and the shield of light passed, Iyre was left breathless and panting. Her body was bathed in sweat, but at the very least the moment of incoherent bloodlust seemed to have cleared her mind enough that she could regain control over herself. That was always the risk with her. The strength she held came from her anger; she was at her best when she reached that mindless state of instinct and revolt. In those moments, she could challenge anyone and anything without fear.

But she also couldn't stop herself from taking things too far.

There was no reason for her to want this woman dead. No reason other than imagined injuries to a pride that was determined to be her master. But she was no Saiyan. She was a Heran warrior, and a proud one at that. She would accept no master, not even her own ego.

"Well. There you got it." She said, reaching down to pat the scorch mark on her armour where the blow had punched through to bare tough blue skin beneath. Then, she reached out to offer her hand to clasp. "That's about as good as it gets fer me. I ain't got a damn clue how I did that. Couldn't do it again if you offered me a million zeni. But I did do it. Fer a second."

More's the pity, too, because that was a damn fine defense. When she said she wanted to learn how to make her energy go 'hard', that was more or less everything she had wanted. She's seen a lot of other warriors on a lot of battlefields pull similar tricks out. But she just couldn't reach that instinctive, no-mind state where using her energy like that just clicked, and now that she'd fallen out of it and the life-or-death surge was past her, she knew she wouldn't be able to reach it again. 

Iyre was definitely tired. She could still hold her Unbound form, though, and using that to energise herself, she wasn't in danger of keeling over. The little mock I-could-finish-you motion from Jackie definitely had her clenching her jaw and did a lot to sour the good that the rest of her words would have done. Iyre knew when she was beaten, sure, she'd been beaten many times over the years. But she still had her pride. Turning it into a joke made her fingers itch with the desire to wring the Earthling's throat.

Luckily, the monk did backtrack pretty quickly, or things may have returned back to the world of fury pretty quickly. Instead, the Heran's nostrils flared and she blew out a hard huff, cracked her neck, and swallowed her irritation. She briefly considered using the thorn that rested amidst her trophy collection, but that would be an admission of weakness. She didn't need help calming herself down. She could deal with this perfectly well on her own. If there was one lesson she had successfully internalised from her time amidst the Namekians, it was that she wasn't any kind of big deal and she really needed to get over herself. As though a lifetime struggling for recognition amongst her insane people hadn't done enough to beat that into her before.

"It's a good trick." She rumbled, trying to push through her irritation - she was getting better at doing that these days. "I've fought a lot of people who did similar things. It helps. With yours it felt ... hot." She was groping around to find the right words to try and articulate it, and she wasn't having much luck. Once again, she was failed by her inability to clearly articulate her thoughts. There was one thing that she did want, though.

"Before I go and find some food." She said, "Show me how strong you really are." She jabbed her finger, accusingly, at the Earthling. "I want to know how far beyond me you really are right now. That'll give me something to strive for. Getting your ass handed to you by an Arcosian is one thing, but an Earthling? Tch. You better believe that I'm coming after you once I figure all this shit out."

She waved her hand to encompass 'all of Namek'. So it's probably fair to say that Jackie has some time. And despite the sincerity of her words, there was no indication that she meant she was going to 'come after' Jackie in some kind of life-or-death sense. Just repair her wounded pride.

Iyre absolutely is a bully. Power and the ability to project one's own strength was a prerequisite to being taken seriously in her mind. If someone couldn't protect their own belongings, be it through social power or their own force, then they weren't really theirs to begin with. It was an integral part of her Heran upbringing; all that mattered was what one could grasp with their own hands.

But she wasn't only a bully. If someone had power, that was enough to earn respect, and Jackie had certainly passed that bar. It was unlikely that either of them would ever see eye to eye with the other, but Iyre didn't need to agree with everyone she met to find something worthwhile in them.

When Jackie floated away to transform, Iyre at first thought that this was probably an affectation; there was no way that she actually needed to do that, right? But a bit of showboating was only to be expected. She was still thinking that the power wouldn't be so much greater than her own, though. She wasn't at all prepared for what actually turned out to be the case.

The level of strength that Jackie burned into the world was not just beyond what Iyre could muster; it was beyond anything that Iyre had sensed. Not on any battlefield, anywhere in the galaxy where she had thought. The power at Jackie's disposal was enough to shake worlds. More than enough to eclipse even the Arcosians that Iyre had been unfortunate enough to cross paths with over the years.

There aren't many people that Iyre has stood before that she doesn't want to fight. But this is one of them. Jackie's power felt like an insult. It flew in the face of everything Iyre understood about the world. Power like that just wasn't supposed to belong to people who didn't flaunt it; power like that was supposed to be used to conquer, to rule, to shatter the weak and humble the merely strong. In Iyre's mind, the power that Jackie held just wasn't the province of people as carefree and cheerful as the Earthling had proven herself to be.

It threw into question everything that Iyre thought she knew about the way the universe worked. In some ways, it was even more foundation-shattering than the brief trip into the afterlife that she had taken. That had her questioning what the purpose of life was. This, though, had her questioning the very core of how power functioned.

Her muscles shrank back down and she withdrew into herself as her power fell away. With Jackie's power rising, Iyre's plunged, and the blue-skinned woman ran a hand back through her star-shaped locks.

"Yeah. Impressive."

And with that, Iyre just flew off - carving a bright green trail across the sky. She needed something to eat. She needed to think. Nothing on this damned planet made a lick of sense, and that apparently included her fellow visitors!

(Wordcount: 494 / 4435)