Clash Of Frost And Flame

As far as Budoshi was concerned, if Flambréra really didn’t want any reassurance, she would have swatted his hand away or even punched him. Still, he knew better than to push it, all he wanted her to know was that he was here for her. What sort of rival would he be if he wasn’t? A pretty shit one, by his own metrics. “I know. No way you’ll be down for long, but sometimes it helps to hear it from someone else.”

The food was the primary focus as soon as it had arrived though. Flambréra was curious as to why Budoshi snapped a photo too. “Hm? Oh, I figured Illuma might wanna see this. Odds are she could probably recreate it with just an image alone.” The thought of having this meal pretty much readily available— who wouldn’t want that? A silly person, that’s who!

Flambréra’s eagerness to dig in cost her dearly, as she suffered a nasty brain freeze from her drink. Budoshi snorted, but he ultimately decided to make it fun. With a calculated act of throwing caution to the wind, Budoshi also took a hearty chug of his own drink as his face radiated heat and steam blasted from his ears. He also countered with his own powers to the point that his brow froze over. Once he put the drink down and the hit of heat and spice subsided, the ice dissipated from Budoshi’s face as he let out a triumphant cheer. “Whoo! HELL YEAH!”

Since he willingly joined in on shenanigans, he didn’t make any comments and instead grasped a hefty handful of spare corn chips, stuffing them down his mouth, and while doing so he decided to drink a portion of his cheese sauce. While chewing on it all, he tried his best to give Flambréra a smile since he noticed that she was actually doing alright now, even enjoying herself more openly.

“Why a polaroid camera? Well, why not?” Evidently, Budoshi thought this method had something over using a phone, scouter or 3D holographic imaging. “I just think it’s fun, I have a folder of pictures taken with this kind of camera.”

Flambréra had a hilarious reaction to Budoshi’s antics, she seemed pretty confused as to why he even bothered to do something so wild and silly. The Tuffle snickered a little in response. “It’s only fair that I match up. Plus, it was funny.” He didn’t deny that he was possibly out of his mind though.

After chewing through the spare chips, Budoshi momentarily examined his burger before politely picking it up and taking a few bites. He spoke no words as he ate, and only gave a response when he didn’t have any food in his mouth. “Hmm.” From what he could tell, Dahlia didn’t outwardly portray that she was in pain, it was quite possible that it was a trivial injury since there were quite a few races among the cosmos that had high pain tolerance without the ability to regenerate. “I don’t think so. I feel like I just caught her off guard a bit. If it did hurt, I can imagine that the pain was negligible— especially after she regenerated.” Budoshi took another sip of his drink, considering that Flambréra could be a bit more worried about it than she let on. “But that’s just my perspective, you could always ask her yourself, right?”

“Chunky? Well, some of them, sure.” Budoshi shrugged, retrieving his own camera once more, showing it off to Flambréra. It was a streamlined sort of thing; not small in comparison to a scouter lens or a handheld phone, but it wasn’t a difficult device to carry around. “See, this one isn’t one you can buy, it’s a custom build— I made it actually, for some school project, second year of intermediate. It was super easy and pretty fun too; everyone was tasked to repurpose some old stuff. So, I made something anyone could use, none of that extra dorky shit some of the others did.” Truthfully, Budoshi didn’t hate on all things tech related, certain things had the purpose of quality of life improvement, or were just generally useful for all people. “My marks were mid, but who gives a shit, I still use what I made unlike most of the others.”

Budoshi shrugged, if Flambréra didn’t feel comfortable asking Dahlia for whatever reason, he wasn’t going to push it. “Maybe she wouldn’t mind generally asking, but fair enough.” Of course, Flambréra also had some concerns regarding the way Dahlia happened to be. “Because only a sick freak would do that.” Whoever cursed Dahlia like this wasn’t someone that Budoshi had a high opinion of either to be fair.

“Hmm.” Budoshi’s brow furrowed. “Person. I think she was a person beforehand.” He was convinced of this, and sounded like he could not be convinced otherwise. “That warning I saw has something to do with it, no doubt about it.”

As for Dahlia looking for something, Budoshi shrugged. He had nothing concrete or reasonably convincing for that one. “Maybe it has something to do with the planet she came from? That battle from the first vision, maybe?”

“Yeah, super mid, the most average grade you’ve ever seen.” Budoshi snorted, it was funny to him just how much his peers cared about something as meaningless as a grade on a test. Flambréra seemed to understand that well enough; Budoshi’s camera still found use; it had a continued purpose. “Exactly, this camera kicks ass.” He agreed, putting the camera away again.

Budoshi didn’t entirely disagree with Flambréra’s input, it was a possibility. “Maybe they were desperate for help, but still doesn’t make doing that to someone any better, or even the right thing to have done.” Whether or not any supposed culprit was alive, Budoshi made no comment. If of course he found them alive, and they were just as awful as he thought they were... Well, he wouldn’t exactly mind burying them himself.

There was something more important to consider anyway— Dahlia herself, and potentially returning her to her organic form if she indeed ever had one at all. “No, I don’t think it’s too late.” Budoshi looked back at Flambréra, an unwavering look in his eyes. “We just need more information. Everything has an answer. The difference in ever doing anything in life is the will to find it.” He spoke in a way that such a phrase had been near enough beaten into his body, mind and spirit— no doubt a bit of wisdom from his first master.

Thankfully, Flambréra was far more level headed now about things concerning the medallion, she didn’t even say it was nothing to worry about which was a bit of a surprise. “Yeah, it was a vision with you in it, but the state you were in wasn’t all that different. Similar flowing lines, similar material, similar sort of uncannily realistic look. The only difference is you were dormant with a terrified expression on your face.” As grim as it was to think about, at least now he could actually give details to Flambréra. “So I think you can understand why I said what I said.”

Continuing his meal, Budoshi listened to Flambréra go over what she knew about the world she had found Dahlia on. Standard stuff for the most part at first. It was a world returned to nature, looters and raiders from beyond the stars doing stupid shit as usual. From what Flambréra could guess, Dahlia was potentially still in shock from whatever happened the last time she was ‘awake’. Budoshi raised a brow when the name of the world was mentioned. “‘Kryysta’?” The Tuffle thought for a moment, he had heard that name at least once in passing. “Hm. I think Prophos and Nervan know something about it. Maybe they’ve been there before? I could ask ‘em.”

Upon the mention of Dahlia having a distaste for Saiyans, Budoshi let out a long annoyed sigh. Just how many specifically engineered, magically converted or created individuals had some sort of hatred for another group? “Of course, it’s always hatred for Saiyans. Granted, yeah, Plant is pretty cringe but it’s the Tuffles there too— a lot of them are complete maniacs.” Guara at least didn’t have every single screw loose since he gave a shit about Bane having a chance to live. Plus, Iondu and Monci seemed alright for the most part but that was about it, almost everyone else on that front actively annoyed Budoshi.

“Yeah, I get it.” Budoshi nodded, it was nice to be on exactly the same page and also the same paragraph on something with Flambréra for once. Budoshi hit an open palm with a fist. “They’re gonna get these hands if I ever find ‘em.” Which was an exceedingly light way to put it.

Budoshi smiled when Flambréra’s mood improved on the topic. His old master’s words really did have that lasting effect that transcends all boundaries. It was something that Budoshi had immense pride in. “Exactly. We’ll get it done.”

When it came to the visions that they were shown, Flambréra wasn’t entirely convinced, and while Budoshi understood where she was coming from— as in this case it was entirely her own opinion from what he could tell— his expression became just as serious as it was earlier when he showed he wasn’t simply messing around. “You’re right, because I’m pretty sure neither one of is is going to let it happen.”

Dahlia’s apparent mission to find Kryysta drew a fair bit of the Tuffle’s interest. He had a few theories of course, but theories weren’t exactly answers. “If where you found her is the exact place she’s looking for, how long do you think she was dormant for? It doesn’t take much for nature to overgrow if not kept in check, but to be completely different it must’ve been a long time unless the foliage is particularly active.” Or maybe even magically assisted? It was hard to say with the limited information from the visions.

Budoshi groaned as Flambréra further explained the situation with Dahlia and Saiyans. “Fuckin’— that’s even worse.” It was pretty similar to Bane’s situation actually— though the big lug did seem responsive to being told not all Saiyans were idiotic or an enemy to simply punch out. Flambréra looked like she figured something out while sipping on her drink. After Budoshi finished his own drink, he chose to comment on that. “Any bright ideas there?”

If it wasn’t Plant Saiyans specifically, the issue was something similar to them. Saiyans raised on Earth probably weren’t an issue as for the most part they were more mellow. Speaking of Saiyans though, Budoshi did have a bit of a warning to give. “If she has a go at Illuma like that I’m gonna kick her ass, just so you know. I doubt it’ll happen though, Illuma’s cool.” He said casually, before continuing to eat his burger.

“Magic and curses are fickle and bizarre things. I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever pulled this shit is alive somehow, or if they put something extra into that medallion since it seems to be connected to Dahlia and the whole statue-esque thing. You never know with people that’re willing to do what they did.” When it came to caring about Flambréra’s wellbeing, Budoshi gave her a look that asked a more heavy ‘bitch are you serious’ instead of ‘are you kidding me’ like before. “Because you matter, and you’re my rival. I’ll tell you that as many times as it takes for you to believe it.” She was stubborn, so was he. A perfect match, some would say. Ultimately, even without saying it, the both of them would look out for each other.

“I guess we won’t know if that’s the place until I run it by Nervan and Prophos. Tell you what, I’ll ask them what they know sometime before we meet up next. How does that sound?” There was also a chance that more information beyond what they knew could be found too, and that would be a big win.

“Makes sense, she’s pretty tall.” What better build to combat a Saiyan than a similar one? “Could be.. Both? Like, a place and a person? A person from that place, or something? Sounds unlikely, especially if we don’t know what time frame we’re working with. If it’s a shorter stretch of time I guess I could believe it?”

Budoshi continued with his meal until Flambréra’s demeanour turned fierce about Dahlia once more. “Hey I said if she has a go at Illuma. I’m sure Dahlia won’t just suddenly do that even if you didn’t ask her not to, and I’m not gonna start shit with her for no reason.” It wasn’t as though Illuma would be unable to defend herself if she had to anyway.

“Hm?” Flambréra finally mentioned the signing from earlier, and she did so of her own accord. “Oh, look, don’t worry about it. I think I may have gone a bit too fancy with it, and thats my bad. I know you well enough to guess that you probably wanted to do something as impressive. I probably should’ve gone with a pen, huh? Such is the gift of hindsight.” There was a small positive to this though. “Anyway, I told them they could ask you some other time, and that you’d approach it on your terms. All the more reason to train some more fiery finesse into your skills. You can’t let me have all the glory now can you?” Usually this would be said in a jovial and sort of annoying way to rile Flambréra up for the sake of competition, but this time it said as normal words of encouragement in good faith. “I’m sure that you can make something beautiful with your abilities if you try hard enough.”

It was a miracle that Budoshi hadn’t lost his mind at this point with just how dense Flambréra was about certain things, him caring about her wellbeing in particular. Still, he found her antics endearing as he had said before.

“Of course, shouldn’t be an issue to keep it between us for as long as we need to.” It wasn’t as though his friend were the type to pry into anything— at least if it didn’t happen to be some measure of dire situation that required intervention.

“I mean... Do you see many Saiyans decked out in armor similar to Dahlia’s? It wouldn’t even be obvious if you can’t see a tail either. That’d make things harder, but hey yeah I’ll try and keep an eye out.” Budoshi figured that he could always start looking on planets with similar fashions or close enough cultures.

“Neither of us know the extent of how she sees Saiyans, it’s more a precaution than anything, but I seriously think she won’t. There are some things you understand when you clash in battle with someone, and because of that I don’t think she’s a bad person.” It was a common thing for seasoned, disciplined or even passionate fighters to examine their opponents in such a way, and Budoshi was no exception to this.

“Well, it certainly felt like it. Do you think I enjoy it when I can just... Best you uncontested like that? Even if it’s with something pretty benign?” Budoshi asked, sounding really torn about even the thought; because her continued rivalry was something he desired with all that he was. “Because I don’t. It sucks.” He sighed. “But you’re right, I wouldn’t have just settled for a pen.” He smirked afterward, a tad mischievous. “You really do know me well.”

Though when Flambréra insisted that the kids were just being polite to her by association to him. She sounded annoyed, but now, so was he. Some of his hair seemed to outright solidify as his expression became a bit of a scowl. “You’re right. You’re nothing like me. But I can tell you for damn sure you are not a loser. I really do let you get away with saying a bunch of shit but something that stupid won’t be a part of it.” He once again spoke with the same ferocity as he did earlier, so it was clear that he was well and truly serious about this too. “That may be what fire does, but you aren’t just fire. You are Flambréra. You can grow, you can improve— that’s what I’m getting at.” Speaking with confidence, Budoshi remained by Flambréra’s side, and waited for her to calm down.

“Look, it wasn’t a problem. Anyway, no pressure. It’d be in your hands if they ask, just understand that they really do think you’re amazing. Of course, I agree with them.” Which was probably not even remotely surprising coming from him.