Honeyed Words

[Blyzar]

He heard the impact before he saw her.

A fist hitting stone at this gravity wasn't subtle. The sound carried flat across the shelf, no echo, just the clean crack of something hard meeting something harder, and Blyzar turned toward it. Forty meters, maybe fifty. He adjusted the scouter and walked.

The readout registered nothing. Ki Suppression, then. Practiced enough to hold even under exertion.

He kept walking.

She came into view at the cliff's edge: a half-Saiyan by the build and the hair, working a striking sequence against the rock face with a focus that didn't look like someone who'd just arrived on Zoon. That kind of tolerance got drilled in over months. Maybe longer.

He stopped twenty meters out and did a slow quarter-circle to the right. Just enough to creep into the edge of her vision rather than a silent approach from behind.

A Void Clan research facility had been torn apart fourteen months ago. A half-Saiyan subject, Oozaru transformation, violent breakout. The Void Clan were still circling the search outward from the last confirmed sighting, and the last confirmed sighting wasn't Zoon. But Blyzar had put himself somewhere out of the search radius on purpose, and here she was.

The tail was the first thing that confirmed it, long and brown and distinctly Saiyan. Second was the bright red hair that no full-blooded Saiyan would have. Third was the scar on her forearm, branding that marked those labeled for conversion.

He let his Ki Suppression drop.

The signature came up at full read, 1,168, climbing toward the ceiling of his base as he stopped compressing it. The scouter caught the shift and recalibrated with a soft click. If she had any passive read on the area at all, she would feel it: a Void Clan Changeling, standing in the open, twenty meters away.

He watched her process it for only a moment. Then, his feet carried him forward again, an easy saunter that pulled him two meters closer, then two more.

Will she turn those punches on me the moment she realizes? Or does she have more control than the rumors imply?

He stayed where he was, hands at his sides, facing her. The Zoon gravity was oppressive on them both, but she wore it better. He wasn't in the Changeling forms, none of them. Base PL, no posturing, no weapons drawn. Just the open air between them.

"That last jab was impressive. Accurate and not dampened by the weight of this planet," he said. Not a challenge. An observation, plain as it was warm, as a coach might give to a promising student. "You've been here for quite some time."

He took one step forward and stopped.

"How many times have you been found so far?"

 

[Corsetta]

It was nearing this region's equivalent of spring. Winds, once dry and arid, were thicker with moisture. Recently, it had rained for an entire day and now the craggy surface was partially quenched, a few shades darker than normal. Clumps of yellow foliage dotted the landscape and even a few trees had begun to bear greener. Though, in a world where the very air bore down so heavily, their "leaves" were nothing like earth's. More like razor plates of steel that happened to function like leaves.

Corsetta had found a somewhat shaded area near a cliffside. A cluster of those trees formed a small canopy overhead, blocking out the blazing sun. Before her was a boulder no less than twice its size. From it, drag marks indicated where it had been originally resting before Corsetta shoved it into the shade.

She had been there long enough for the sun to now burn against her left side. Sweat dripped from her, but most of it came from the side now subject to the heat. She felt an uneven tan beginning to form as well.

But she refused to leave. Not until it was perfect.

Her fist cracked at the center of the rock. A new thread was added to the spiderweb of cracks that all gathered from a single spot. The exact spot Corsetta had been punching for hours now.

Again, she felt it: the gravity tugging at her body and demanding more of her muscles. Again, it took conscious effort to correct. An effort that, in a life or death fight, could be all it took for her story to end.

If Veston hadn't been there when that Changeling arrived, would she have--

Her hairs stood on end and her blood went cold. The physical reaction happened before conscious thought.

Someone was behind her.

She twisted around while maintaining her fighting form. One fist raised, the other low and relaxed, ready to defend. When her brain finally caught up and she saw him, her eyes widened. The other fist clenched and both trembled from being held too tightly. Whether the tension was out of fear or fury, even Corsetta didn't know.

It was another Changeling. The dark ones.

He spoke to her. Complimented her form. Took a few more steps forward. Spoke again.

Corsetta stepped back. The shade covered her entire body now.

1,200 or so, she noted his power level, but dismissed it just as quickly. Changelings were deceptive with their power. She knew better than to trust her senses when it came to them.

She, too, knew better than to trust his words. The implied ignorance registered as a cheap tactic to get her to lower her guard.

"Three times," she answered. Her tone was flat, tense. "Counting you."

Her tail twitched and she felt it brush against the boulder behind her.

"You one of the grunts they didn't bother fillin' in before sending you out to come find me? The other two weren't ever recovered, you know.

"If you have any good sense, you'll turn your ass around and tell your higher ups that you didn't find anything."

 

[Blyzar]

The laugh came out short and real.

Not at the threat. At "three times." She'd answered. He'd asked a genuine question and she'd given him the number, flat and direct, before following it with the warning. That told him something the warning didn't.

He walked a slow arc to the left, each step long and relaxed, closing the gap by another three meters.

He looked her over openly and took in the detail of her stance, the tension in her face, and the twitch of her tail. She'd stepped back and now had her back all but pressed against the boulder. Purposeful? Or was fear doing the steering, not the fighter? The fighter was still in the hands and the eyes, both of which hadn't moved off him.

Afraid of being snuck up on again?

"You killed two Void Clan searchers on a planet with a hundred times standard gravity," he said. His tone was lighter and carried the lingering amusement of his laughter. "And your first move when you found a third one behind you was to answer his question? How polite."

He stopped at fourteen meters. A wind cut across the cliffside and kicked up the loose dust from his footprints.

"I'm not a grunt." He returned her honesty with some of his own. "If I were, do you think I would waste such a perfect opportunity a mere moment ago? You only noticed me because I let you."

He looked at her hands. Both clenched. He looked at her eyes. Sharp, focused and never once searching for an out. He had her full attention. That was a real answer about where she was right now, months after the facility, still training alone on a gravity world with her fists against a rock.

"You're not running anymore." It wasn't a question. "You killed the other two, but choose to humor a conversation with me." A glance at her fists. "Have you decided to finish what you started at the Z05 R&D Facility?"

He took one more step forward.

"Or was what happened nearly half a year ago just a fluke?"

 

[Corsetta]

He just kept coming closer.

The arc he took had them both parallel to the edge of the cliff. In following him, she had turned enough that the boulder was to her right and her back free again.

So, he wasn't necessarily trying to back her into a corner. He gave up the ground blocking a potential retreat into mainland, away from the cliff's edge. He gave up putting her back, quite literally, against a wall.

Why?

He could have jumped her, like he said, and she never would have known. He was the first of these hunters to know how to hide himself in the same way that she could. By the time she would have heard him, he could have shot her in the back of the head.

So why didn't he?

Then he said it: Z05 R&D Facility.

She couldn't stop how her eyes widened or the sharp breath that followed. A drop of sweat that had been clinging to her jaw finally broke free and fell to the ground between her feet.

If he wasn't apart of them, then how did he know that name? Was it a well-known location among Changelings? She never got that impression. Had he just guessed and got lucky?

Her mind spun with questions and theory too quick for her to even keep up.

She clenched her teeth. Her tail lashed out just once, furious. She lowered her posture, bent knees ready to spring at a moment's notice.

But she didn't step away. Not this time.

"Your buddies are proof that it wasn't no fluke," she barked. "And my patience is wearin' quite thin. I was kind enough to give you a chance to leave.

"So you either tell me what the fuck you want, leave, or I'll finish crackin' open that shiny dome of yours."

 

[Blyzar]

He stopped.

Thirteen meters. He'd taken one more step before she dropped her stance, and now he let her finish.

The crest caught the light when he tilted his head. The crack ran clean across the polycarbonate from the left side to just past center, old and unhealed in the way Changeling crest damage wasn't supposed to be.

"What I want." He said it back to her without the question mark, tasting the shape of it. "You destroyed a Void Clan R&D facility. You killed the two searchers they sent after you. You trained alone on a planet with a hundred times standard gravity for months without anyone pushing you." He took his hands off his sides and crossed them loosely at his chest. "You did all of that because their methods were wrong and you knew it before anyone told you."

The scouter gave a near-silent chirp in response to the shift of her power signature. It was only a small flicker, no more than 50, but his scouter caught it all the same. Her emotions were finally beginning to leak out beyond what she had learned to conceal.

"I left Z05 before you did. Different reasons, same conclusion." He didn't move. "The Void Clan believes power can be engineered. You and I are both evidence that it can't."

Will she hear that as a deflection? Or does she already know it's true?

"I'm not here to bring you in." Flat, no softening. "I'm here because you're the strongest argument I have. And you're wasting it punching a rock."

One step forward. Final distance: twelve meters.

"Train with me. Three months. You set the terms for what happens at the end of them." He paused only long enough to note any changes in her expression. "Or take the shot at the dome. Your call — but you've already decided I'm not a grunt, or you'd have thrown it before I finished talking."

 

[Corsetta]

...And you're wasting it punching a rock.

In that moment, this strange Changeling wasn't there. Instead, it was another of his kind. Thinner, taller. Deeper, aged voice delivered with the warmth of a father.

Imagine how much more you would be capable of by now if you would just listen to what I'm trying to tell you!

In reality, the Changeling had said something else. Something about training. Corsetta didn't really register any of it. Even when the ghost of Fridgt passed, the only sound was the beating of her heart. Faster. Harder. Faster.

Without warning, energy flared up around Corsetta, orange wind whipped around her clothes and lifted her long, messy hair. The emptiness of her soul now bloomed to reveal its true might: over 3,800 power level.

The ground beneath her feet cracked. The boulder to her left split diagonally. Corsetta vanished in a burst of speed and then reappeared mere inches from the Changeling with her fist already reeled back.

5,000 power level.

Wide, Saiyan-black eyes were like the slits of a wild animal and she bared her teeth. The thinly veiled hatred had come loose and spilled out in a way only a Saiyan could ever even hope to replicate. Primal fury meant to destroy.

7,500 power level.

The wind caught up to Corsetta and buffeted against her and the Changeling just in time for her fist to crack forward like a whip aimed right where she said she would: the center of his polycarbonate head.

 

[Blyzar]

A fist hitting something at this gravity wasn't subtle. The sound carried flat across the shelf, no echo, just the clean crack of something hard meeting something harder.

He'd started moving when her PL crossed 5,000 — not fast enough, not even close, but enough to roll with the impact rather than absorb it flat. The crack of her fist against the side of his crest was hard and real, the polycarbonate taking the blow where his skull would have if he'd stayed planted. His body carried the force sideways and he let it, spinning out and away from the cliff's edge, Horned Form cracking open mid-rotation as his frame surged taller and the bio-armor reshaped across his shoulders.

He came down twelve meters away. One knee. Hands forward. Still upright. Upward pointing black horns now came from either side of his head, thin and honed to a razor-sharp point at the end. Behind him, his tail was thicker and now had layers of hardened plates atop it. They, too, grew thinner and sharper until forming an all-black stinger.

3,800. Then 5,000. Then 7,500 on contact. He could feel the readout climbing on the scouter's lens even from here. Three jumps. She wasn't holding back a transformation — she was holding back a reaction.

What else has she been hiding from me?

He pushed to his feet.

The crack in his crest ran a little further now. Purple blood dripped over his left eye from beneath the bio-armor encasing the polycarbonate.

"Whoever you just hit," he said, "I'm not him."

He didn't raise his hands. Didn't charge his Ki. He stood at twelve meters in a transformation just strong enough to endure her attack and let her have the next move.

"You went from nothing to 7,500 in under three seconds."

One step toward her. Slow.

"What did he tell you that you were wasting?"

 

[Corsetta]

The sheer force behind her punch had left her airborne and she maintained the hover just a few inches from the ground. She watched as the Changeling's body was hurled across the plateau, twisting just once before he caught himself on a knee.

Now, with horns and a scorpion-like tail.

Disgusting.

She stayed where she was, braced for his counter-attack — because that's what happened next. She struck him and struck him hard enough that not only did he reveal one of the many forms she knew he had, but he was now bleeding from it. She proved she was dangerous enough to warrant retaliation.

But when he rose to his feet, it wasn't a fist or an energy blast that answered her. It was words.

His posture remained loose. Open. Completely unguarded and the exact state he had been in a moment ago that allowed her to get a solid strike on him. Despite the blood dripping from his head, he didn't so much as power up his Ki.

'I'm not him.'

Her brows pulled down and she could hear her teeth grinding inside of her own skull. The fur on her tail bristled and it whipped behind her a few times.

He stepped forward. Again.

She stayed still. Again.

"Awful lot of blood there."

She didn't answer him. Her eyes lingered on the now-larger crack on his skull. Beneath the rage and quiet thought wondered if she had deepened a wound that would never heal against a man who didn't even swing back at her.

The orange aura around her grew thicker and gave off a distinct buzzing sound.

She still didn't move. Only the slight tremble of too-tight fists and the occasional flick of her tail.

 

[Blyzar]

"It does that sometimes."

He touched the side of his crest with two fingers, felt the blood there, looked at his hand for only a moment. By the time his eyes lifted, the streak of purple along his face looked just as it did before his touch.

He took another step. Unhurried. The horns caught the light and the stinger at the end of his tail sat loose, not raised.

The aura was thicker than ten seconds ago and giving off that buzzing sound, but her feet hadn't moved. How much of that is rage and how much is she holding it back on purpose? The fists were trembling. The tail was moving. Everything at the edge of another charge — except the feet.

He stopped at nine meters. Close enough that he could feel the aura's heat just as clearly as he could see the hatred in her Saiyan-black eyes. He smiled. His arms were still at his sides. His posture was no different than when he had first approached her.

One more step and she decides.

"Put it down for ten minutes. I'll answer whatever you want to ask about Z05." He didn't move. "After that, you can decide what you do with me."