The Trial of Peace Take Two

All things considered, even if most of his matches ended with a time-out and the final was a ring-out, Nero had a lot of fun during the Trial of Peace. It allowed him to gauge how strong others were, both those that were local to Namek and those abroad. For the most part, it was an enlightening experience.

Though, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want a certain match up. So he didn’t say that, because Nero was no liar. The truth was, he wanted to face Zhalla in the finals, wanted to see exactly what she was made of now that things were looking better for Namek, where they could train properly without something interrupting them at the last minute.

So, Nero got in contact with some friends, namely Xaphoon and Tenoroon, to help him construct a secret arena that was a lot like the ones used at Trial of Peace— power limiter and protection barrier included! Xaphoon and Tenoroon were eccentric, yet they were still masters of their craft, they weren’t called the Master Trial Crafters for nothing after all!

While observing their work, Zhalla had arrived, not that she needed any convincing! Xaphoon and Tenoroon were actually fans of hers at this point, and the two elders scurried over to the Saiyan woman with wide grins and gleeful little laughs. “Ahaha, yeah, she’s awesome, isn’t she?” Nero snickered as he finished up the final touches of this arena before taking his place in the middle across from Zhalla where he also did a few exercises. With a sharp exhale, his power rose a fair bit. “You say you’re ready, but, are you though?”

Xaphoon and Tenoroon stood aside at a raised platform and gave the signal to begin the bout by firing off a red, followed by yellow then finally a green blast of harmless ki waves!

Right as the green blast faded, Nero began to rapidly spin on the spot before hopping towards Zhalla, aiming to whip her with his tail!

“Obviously, and everyone should know how awesome you are.” Nero twirled his staff around idly, allowing it to whirl around his forearm. “Why, got somethin’ to say about that fact?” He smirked, having a feeling that Zhalla would say similarly in return— she wasn’t going to let him get away with compliments that easily.

Nero snickered, that nickname that Zhalla came up with all that time ago was still funny. Good thing he had much more than that in his arsenal at this point. “Oh really? You reckon you’re gonna win this time? Well then lemme axe you a question...”

The fight would then begin in earnest, their opening moves would soon be made. During his clean spiralling spin, Nero had been charging Ki through his body, ready to use at a moment’s notice. As he tried to whip at Zhalla with his tail, she spun her axes around. Nero abruptly stopped spinning and called his energy into a large orb in one of his hands and he brought it down on Zhalla’s empowered axe swing. Their energies clashed brilliantly, equally matched, a glittering blue and burning green struck each other.

Afterward, Nero hopped backwards a bit. “Are you ready to really fight for that win?” He finally asked, giving Zhalla a wink. “You know I won’t make it easy.”

“Listen, you’re lucky I can’t just magically conjure anything or else you could be covered in butter!” It was funny, for all of the magical prowess that Nero had, conjuring and creating material items wasn’t something he felt the need to bother with.

“Nuh uh,” Nero countered with his own defiant finger waggling. “It’s a provisional licence. But you’re welcome to try and get me for that anyway~!” With a big grin as the fight began to pick up in pace, Nero held out a hand and gestured for Zhalla to bring it on! “I know you won’t make it easy either. That’s just how we roll.”

As for any callbacks, Nero considered indulging in the bit, though only briefly. “What, and willingly choose not to have eyes on you? Don’t be silly.” As much as he could still effectively fight with his eyes closed, he chose to be charming instead. “Plus, giving you the first move is polite isn’t it?” He teased right back.

Nero tapped his feet rhythmically and whistled a little tune to himself that he started dancing to as a soft blue glow flowed around him. “Let’s dance, shall we?” He leaned forward and seemingly charged into Zhalla’s advance, but at the last possible moment he started swerving around her barrage of attacks with grace. “Nice. I do so love dancing with you~!” With yet more playful banter, Nero ended up backflipping into a single-armed handstand, where he seemingly flailed his legs around until a ball of energy formed as he bounced it around with his feet before he gave it a swift kick that turned it into a laser beam heading straight towards Zhalla! “Masen-kick~! Haha!”

“It’s just not really my style, I guess you could say.” Nero had other talents that suited him better; less to do with conjuring physical objects or matter and more to do with metaphorical or metaphysical concepts. Nero snorted and gave Zhalla a cheery smirk, he hadn’t forgotten where they were, he just enjoyed being goofy. “Pfft, what? Like you wouldn’t try the same thing if you could? It’d be funny!”

Having a good laugh at Zhalla’s reaction to his preliminary dad-joking. “Really, then why are you laughing?” This was about what he had expected for now though. He wasn’t using all of his best comedy material at the moment anyway, the really silly stuff would be best used some other time.

Since only Xaphoon and Tenoroon were present, the pair of them started giggling when Zhalla asked for a referee to make a ruling. The pair of them simply shrugged, it wasn’t against the rules unfortunately for Zhalla.

“Not that good of a dancer? Psh, yeah right. If you still think so, I can always teach you!” Nero smiled as he continued his combat manoeuvres fluidly all the way even through conversation.

He struck Zhalla dead on, much to her surprise. Twirling around on his hands, Nero eventually changed to spinning around on his elbow, then a knee, then his tail before kicking himself upright. “And did you just get hit by my announced attack~?” Nero winked at Zhalla and settled into a fighting stance again. “It was pretty slick though, right?”

“Not really, or if I ever do, it’s a fleeting thought.” Nero gave a shrug. Even if it was a ‘creative’ sort of ability, and that there was indeed value in it, Nero always felt like doing things the classic way fit him best— he wouldn’t be so good at woodcarving as a skill if he could just create sculptures by thinking about them.

Nero smiled, he got her on that one. He knew that she wasn’t actually having a go at his sense of humor. “Yeah, but I’ve not seen a movie recently. Wanna go sometime?” There were quite a few that he had been hearing about that sounded interesting too.

Looking over to Xaphoon and Tenoroon, Nero put his hands on his hips. “Really? C’mon, let her be. I’m already teasing her enough.” He snickered, and the Namekians agreed, choosing to bow to both warriors politely and leave them to their match.

Ah, of course. Music would have been helpful if they wanted to dance. “Damn, if I knew, I would have asked for a jukebox or something.” Nero joked. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time!”

Nero raised a brow at Zhalla, the thought of going easy on her hadn’t even crossed his mind— and he should know, he had mastered it. “Nah, I was just being silly. If anything, it’s more distracting to you~!” It did catch her off guard, after all.

“Then you should always be expecting a surprise!” Nero grinned, closing his eyes as he ran forward at Zhalla, aiming to almost have his nose touch hers before he opened his eyes again. “Boo!” He gleefully exclaimed before hitting the ground with his staff as he ducked down to push himself under Zhalla’s legs to a standing position behind her, where he tried to whack her in the back with a flurry of fists!