The Return

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Sometimes, in the quiet moments, the headaches could get really bad.

When there was nobody to distract him, no quips to groan at or plans to formulate, the influx of information rattled his brain far harder than usual. Learning how to sense Ki in such a violent way had been putting him on edge lately, and it was starting to affect his mood more and more frequently.

Being a Saiyan, it wasn’t hard to disguise the anger as just simple, stereotypical bloodlust, but having such little control over his rage was annoying him in an overarching way.

So, with little to do besides try and find a place without people, he took off for the ruins. Desolate and toxic, it was the perfect locale to get away… Or at least, he thought it was. Instead, a litany of energies throbbed at his brain again. Power surged left and right. A battle? Here? Of all the times to come to the ruins he’d apparently picked the worst. Lucky him.

Without much care or thought put into it, he launched a Power Ball into the air, allowing the Oozaru to take over. In the depths of the ape’s muddled mind, his senses would dull.

Even so, he now faced a new problem; the rage of being an Oozaru…

As the trio battled, they’d find that a new problem arose. On the horizon soared a mighty ape, his power full to bursting. Roaring mightily, he opened his maw wide, and loosed a massive beam through the battlefield. It cracked across the expanse, aiming to burn through both Blizzard and Zerori!

”I’ll call all three of you CORPSES if you don’t QUIET THE HELL DOWN!!!”

---

Her strike had landed true, but due to the Arcosian's natural defenses and well trained abilities, the impact had been significantly lessened. Now upon the ground, Zuqetta's previously flared up energy would die down. Her hit had landed, and now she was drained; as she stood straight however, a jolt would rush down her spine. The Arcosian, Blizzard, had become enraged and was now barreling down towards her with an incredible ferocity. This wasn't all however, as in the distance, another booming power with an equaling booming voice had suddenly charged the scene.

"Zerori, focu-!!"

Before Zuqetta could even finish her simply statement; Blizzard was already upon her. Lifting her sword as quickly as she could, she would attempt to block or at least mitigate the oncoming attacks; however the attempt seemed nigh impossible. Not only was she drained from her own attack, but the one she fought eclipsed her in power. With each strike, her massive blade would be chipped away, until finally the blade was knocked from her hand entirely.

"Da- tch!"

Zuqetta would do her best to dash away, flying backwards from the assault as quickly as she could; however Blizzard proved to be much faster. She would use her energy to reinforce her guard; but would still incur, cut after cut and slash after slash. The assault was far more than she expected to bear in this fight and finally, her guard would break.

"GAHH!!"

Her body would be beset upon by the onslaught of strikes, with the hooded vestment she wore being ripped apart significantly. With a final slash across her sternum, Zuqetta would be sent careening off; skidding across the ruined grounds, before falling limply in the distance.

It hurts... Zuqetta would think, It hurts... a lot... She continued, lying motionless upon the ground; unaware of the assault that the Oozaru, Vocado had just begun. Damn it... it hurts too damn much!

As she lay, her power would gradually begin to wane; as it did, she would think back on the training she'd had with Azoth. He had proven to be significantly more powerful than her, but he had never struck her with such intensity or ferocity. Azoth was too kind; he may have been willing to kill if needed, but he constantly held back during their training. Thinking back further, she would remember her training with Zriracha and Zerori; Zriracha focused more on verbal teaching than fighting, and Zerori always seemed to be falling behind. It always felt too difficult to ever get any proper training done with them either.

When she thought even further back however, another face would come to mind; the face of someone who was strict, but fair. The face of someone who never held back against her, someone who would be disappointed to give up so easily right now just because 'it hurt'. She would see the face of Vennel, her big sister; and through gritted teeth, Zuqetta's power would quickly begin to flare up once more around her form.

"D-damn... it..." Zuqetta would cough as she opened her eyes; bring her right arm up and slamming it into the ground before beginning to force herself up, "Not... done yet..."

With an intense pain surging through her every fiber, Zuqetta would force herself back to her feet. She would hear Zerori's shout, but had since lost track of Blizzard after his assault against her. Throwing her left hand out and flexing her grip, Zuqetta would quickly re-materialize her previously lost sword in a brief flash of light. With her waning energy, the blade seemed a bit smaller now, but would still be able to fulfill it's purpose. Though as Zuqetta attempted to take a step forward, she would nearly trip; thus making the first purpose of the sword, a makeshift crutch to hold herself upright.

"Geh- whatever..." Zuqetta would state before taking a deep breath, "Come at me, Major Loser!!" Zuqetta would shout, standing straight as she brandished her blade before her, "I ain't down yet!!"

Zerori was handling the new arrival; Zuqetta would simply need to have faith in her friend. Though, judging by how indiscriminately he had attacked, she would need to stay on guard against him as well just in case.

---

A wicked, toothy grin tried to appear on the Oozaru’s face, but his extended maw made it out more like a vicious and bloodthirsty sneer. His power was immense now, and that damn headache was finally gone— no, no it was still there. Dulled and harmless, but that buzzing sensation wouldn’t go away until the pests were buried.

Smoke and rubble rumbled, though it seemed none of the combatants were down for the count quite yet. One of them even seemed eager to face him! The girl, her blades a strange hue, challenged him.

”Wolfman? Wolfman!? BWAAAHAHAH!!! I think I quite like that name. When I make your bones into a necklace, I’ll be sure to carve that name into them!”

Vocado cracked his neck, and with a leap he soared through the air at breakneck speeds. His goal was to bash his shoulder into her impossibly tiny body, sending her through yet another building.

Strike completed, he reached down and unearthed a huge chunk of debris. Bits of rebar and concrete rained from his hands, some of which even fell toward Zuqetta and Blizzard! It’d interrupt their clash rather abruptly, but the Oozaru itself would pay them no mind.

Grunting fiercely, he tossed the trash ball, which was roughly the size of a motel, toward Zerori, hoping to turn her to a red smear between the buildings.

---

Just as she had requested, Major Blizzard was quick to set upon her once more with a powerful six way strike. As quickly as she could, Zuqetta would raise her blade up to intercept the strike. With her sword as her shield, she would feel the force of Blizzards power come down upon her; pushing her down to a knee as the concrete beneath her began to crack and shatter.

"Damned... bug... man!!!"

With all the might she could muster, she would hold the Arcosian back; her strength was giving way however as her energy waned.

"Heh, like.. you could teach-"

Before she could continue, the fight the two shared would be momentarily interrupted by the oncoming fall of debris. Falling directly atop the two, Zuqetta would use this as an opportunity to break away from her clash with Blizzard and gain some distance. Breaking off, Zuqetta would burst backwards before immediately taking off vertically into the sky. Her face would distort with pain as she did so, with the many cuts and bruises upon her now beginning to pulse with sharp pain.

"Damn it, Z!" Zuqetta would shout out upon reaching a well enough elevated height, "Keep your PET under control, I'm busy tending to the elderly over here!" She exclaim before returning her attention to Major Blizzard.

With that, Zuqetta would attempt once more to overwhelm her opponent with an onslaught of ki from above. Lifting her blade above her head, it would begin to shine with energy momentarily; energy that would immediately be released as a blade beam upon being swung downward towards Blizzard. She would continue, sending wave after wave of blade beams; this time however, the beams would appear much thinner, and would become weaker and weaker with each consecutive usage. The fight had already drained her greatly, but she wasn't about to quit!

---

Zerori cringed a little upon hearing Zuqetta yell over the heat of battle, no doubt having caught the tail end of the trash ball that had exploded with the rubble and debris falling and crashing everywhere. Ignoring Vocado for a moment, which was likely a VERY stupid thing to do, Zerori called back over to Zuqetta, “I’m TRYING. It’s not like you’re helping me!” She whipped her head back around to Vocado, a bead of sweat rolling down her face as she tried to refocus herself in battle. However, in spite of leaving herself open, the attack she’d launched at Vocado had apparently hit him square in the face - right between his eyes, even, prompting him to stagger a bit. While she was unaware of the headache that had prompted the giant Oozaru to join their melee, Zerori wasn’t going to ignore her luck!

Instead of pressing the offensive against Vocado, however, Zerori turned tail and raced toward Zuqetta with enthusiasm that befitted a teen of her power. She’d noticed with every slash of her attacks against the Blizzard that Zuqetta was in desperate need of a reprieve, “TAG OUT!” She declared, racing through the various slashes as they collided against the ground (or Blizzard) before she attempted to supplement Zuqetta’s flurry of gradually weakening slashes of energy with wide well-timed swings and below-the-belt kicks aimed at the glowing parts of Blizzard’s body.

She didn’t know if that was a weakness but it certainly looked like it! “Didn’t anyone teach you not to underestimate the current generations' youth?!” Zerori arrogantly hissed with a grin, throwing swing after swing towards his bio-gems in tandem with her words, ending her (hopefully) crushing combination with single fiery blast at his face to possibly blind him for a moment and gain some distance and breathing room.

She wasn’t sure how well her and Zuq would do against this guy, but if they could take him down before the Oozaru got his second wind, they could stand a chance at victory!

Blizzard looked around after doing that amount of damage to her. Seeing Zerori now coming to rush at him, the ape appeared to be stunned by whatever Zerori had done to him. Perhaps Blizzard should be wary of this one. Though his scouter had indicated that she was far less stronger than Zuqetta was and this was quite strange.

She had tried her attempts at doing some serious damage to him and Blizzard just stood there taking it.

“I don’t underestimate the youth, in fact, I encourage their growth and the youth of every generation only get stronger from the previous.

That girl right there has potential to change this planet for the better. With proper sword training she could very well be a dangerous threat for those that want to cause harm.”

Blizzard would now fix his arms up and placing them back to their original spots as he still had the grip of his six swords as he attempted to slice and dice Zerori like she was meat.

“Arcosians can’t be easily defeated. We have power that others can only dream of.”

He would ignore Zuqetta for now, since she was in a weaken state and couldn’t do much of anything right now.

4/6 Kp


3/6 Mp

80/270

Zerori had successfully distracted the massive previously Arcosian, but there was no telling how long that would last for. Blizzard was leagues above both Zerori and herself in terms of power, and the interruption of the rampaging Oozaru from prior certainly hadn't helped. It was now or never; Zuqetta would need to act fact in order to assist Zerori in any way, and so she would pull upon the most powerful technique in her arsenal.

"Stay strong, Z..." Zuqetta would whisper as she watched Zerori charge upon Blizzard.

Rising further into the air, Zuqetta's energy would begin to gather into a mass upon her form as she lifted her hands above her head. A brilliant white light would begin to emit from her form as a ball of unstable energy formed from her palms. Hr muscles would begin to pulsate violently as the energy gathered, threatening to unleash itself without reservation; but this was merely the build up. The energy was wild, with streaks and tendrils of light firing off haphazardly in all directions, but Zuqetta would maintain the form as she continued to rise. This was not a technique Zuqetta had been able to train much with, but it was the only technique that she could imagine to be helpful at the time.

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