Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Shadow in the Twilight ❯ Chapter 38 ( Chapter 38 )

Chapter 38

Standing next to the king, Apio had been carefully monitoring the bout below. His scouter had kept track of the two combatants' ki levels and, up to this point, he had not expected anything out of the ordinary. He certainly had to hand it to her, though. The tricky female had nearly affected her improvised escape gambit, but the astute prince thwarted it just in time.

Prince Vegeta's energy readout was consistent, sitting somewhere around the 15,250 mark, give or take a few points. In comparison, the ningen female's power last measured only around 5,700-a pathetic level. It really was a shame. This match was decided before either of them had stepped into the ring. The prince was very skilled and strong, the pride of the Saiya-jin race, and her? The captain almost felt a little sorry for her. She didn't stand a snowball's chance…

…SQUEEEEE!!!!...

"Ouch!" Captain Apio shouted, as the strident screeching assailed his recently tormented left ear.

What in the name of…? he thought, wincing from the sound. Bloody piece of junk! That's what we get for awarding the manufacture of these things to the lowest bidder…

…SQUEEEEEE!!!!…

Hoping to spare his hearing from any additional damage, he quickly ripped off the scouter and noticed that everyone else who'd been wearing one was doing the same. All around the observation deck, scouter units were squealing in high-pitched, alarmed tones. Some were starting to shake and smoke, smelling as if their inner circuitries were overheating.

Using his right hand to muffle the inside of the left earpiece, Apio carefully re-positioned the tinted display back over his left eye. The captain of the palace guard stared in incredulity at the numbers, hardly registering what his own eyes were telling him. The digital readout, which had been honed in to the ningen dancer just before he'd removed it, had gone through the roof!

Prince Vegeta had felt quite smug and assured of his victory, when he suddenly found himself holding a crazed, armful of trouble.

When she realized what he had done, the refined veneer Lluvia had established under Master Masaki's careful tutelage went totally out of the window. The wild-child persona, who had made up the better part of her life, came bursting to the surface like a rogue volcano.

Several things happened as a result. She screamed her fury at the top of her lungs, as she brought both feet down to the floor in an angry stomp. Her left foot braced itself with a second forceful stomp, while at the same time, her right knee bent upwards, bringing the heel of her right foot up and between the prince's slightly opened legs. The kick roughly smashed the Saiya-jin prince's right testicle into his groin.

For her adversary, the pain was beyond description, traveling like a single-stage rocket, blasting from the point of impact through his torso and up to his brain. As a result, the gasping Prince Vegeta's hold loosened just enough for Lluvia to quickly pull her head forward and whip it backwards into the space between his nose and cheek with a precise head-butt. This newest pain made the prince's arms release further and Lluvia followed up the head-butt with a strong jab with her left elbow into his ribcage, which caused him to expel a surprised cough. With the three rapidly delivered strikes, his arms were now totally off of her, allowing her to whirl around and backhand him with her closed right fist into the side of his face. The last blow had enough power behind it to send the prince flying end-over-end towards the far wall. Everyone watched as he adroitly spun around in mid-air, using his hands and feet to rebound off the curved surface and affect a forward flip into a two-footed landing.

No one noticed Lluvia popping her shoulders back into their sockets. She was in a fair amount of pain herself, but at that moment, she was not in the mood to waste time worrying about it.

What the hell had just happened? he asked himself as he took a few moments to recover. He had her dead-to-rights! She was securely in his grasp one moment and then…all hell had broken loose!

For the prince, the situation wouldn't have been so bad, except that his poor scrotum was throbbing like nobody's business and he could sense a small warm drip starting to seep out of his right nostril. After curtly brushing it away with the back of his glove, he stared down in disbelief at the formerly pristine, white leather cuff, now stained with a bright-red smear.

"She has drawn first blood," observed King Vegeta to Apio. "Had I not seen it with my own two eyes, I would not have believed it possible!"

"I'll wager that the king's grandchildren felt that one," muttered Cebolla in a conspiratorial aside to Puerro, who nodded his head.

"Not to mention, his great-grandchildren," agreed the sergeant, as he winced sympathetically at the imagined pain.

Once he straightened up, the incensed prince brought his glaring gaze up to Lluvia, who was roughly scrubbing the back of her ear with the heel of her right hand in an effort to rid herself of the disgusting wetness there. Catching her equally furious eye, he shouted, "Congratulations, dancer! You have done what countless others could not! Savor your miniscule victory, female, because I promise you, it will be the last one you will have today!"

Lluvia's brow furrowed in response, not from hearing his threatening jibes, but because she suddenly realized that she couldn't hear anything except a kind of low whine. She could see his lips moving, but the sound of his voice didn't register. Her ears had not recovered from the ringing din that she and the Dragon's Kiss had earlier created.

Wait a second, she thought. If my hearing has been compromised, perhaps Veggie's has been as well. After all, a Saiya-jin's sense of hearing is far superior and a lot more sensitive than many other species'. I guess there's only one way to test out my theory…

"Hey, Vegeta!" she shouted back at the top of her voice, while pointing her finger at him. "You fen-sucked, rump-fed, clay-brained canker-blossom! Don't you ever put your slimy tongue on me again, or I'll rip it out of that be-slubbering puke-hole of yours and jam it straight down your craw!"

Huh? thought the bewildered prince as he watched her yell at him. I can see her mouth moving, but all I'm hearing is this stupid buzzing sound…

As if his befuddled expression wasn't enough to confirm Lluvia's suspicions, Prince Vegeta stuck his index fingers into his ears and shook them around inside a couple of times, as if to dislodge an imaginary blockage.

"It appears as if both of them have somehow been rendered deaf, your majesty," whispered an amazed Captain Apio to his monarch. "Perhaps the situation is only temporary."

"It matters not," replied the Saiya-jin king. "They are both impaired equally at present. In battle, a warrior relies greatly upon the acuity of all the senses, so it remains to be seen how quickly either will compensate for this sensory loss."

The prince realized that having a non-hearing opponent would mean that he'd be losing out on one of his most favorite aspects of a fight. He always enjoyed verbally psyching-out and mentally unnerving his challengers in between rounds. Now, even that small pleasure had been denied him, thanks to her!

"Enough dawdling around," snarled the angry prince, resuming his offensive with a leap towards Lluvia. "It's hammer time!"

She didn't need to hear his words. The raging-bull look on his face as he flew at her told her volumes.

"So, you want to waltz with me some more, princey-poo?" she growled the question under her breath. "You've just moved the top of my dance card!"

All around King Vegeta, Apio, and Zarbon, the crowd waved and yelled out vociferous encouragements and colorful taunts to the two fighting below them, which neither one could hear. Initially, it appeared like Lluvia could barely fend off the prince's furious blows or dodge his vicious kicks. A few of the strikes looked as if they actually made contact or glanced off of her, but she took them all without flinching once, much to Prince Vegeta's surprise and annoyance.

The action came to an abrupt halt when the twosome stood unmoving with the backs of their left wrists crossed and pressed tightly against each other, with neither giving way. Almost as if they'd choreographed it, they quickly lowered their arms, taking a couple of steps backwards before double-flipping back into their corners to stare each other down.

All throughout his initial attack run, Lluvia had been strategically filing away visual observations about his individual fighting style. During his frenzied assault, Prince Vegeta's ingrained battle quirks repeatedly revealed themselves to her: a tiny twitch of the shoulder, a quick flair of the nostrils, a couple of blinks, or a tic of the cheek--all physical harbingers, signaling which types of punches and kicks were heading her way. Master Masaki taught her that all experienced fighters, as they established their signature battle styles over the years, would form these nearly imperceptible gestures. Most would go blithely through their lives not ever knowing that these precursory twitches would unconsciously betray their upcoming moves. During her next go-around with the prince, the Masaki-trained Lluvia was going to put this little-known fact to her advantage.

As she narrowed her gaze, the corner of her slightly bruised mouth curled up. Prince Vegeta's stormy gaze turned even darker as he watched a smirking Lluvia bring up her nearest hand towards him and waggle her fingers in a teasing "come-on" gesture.

Zarbon continued to silently grip the handrail in front of him, while the excited Saiya-jins hooted and shouted around him. He'd remained agonizingly still, even after the din had died down somewhat, staring intently at the developing action. After Prince Vegeta's initial assault run, it was obvious to the blue-skinned alien that the prince clearly had the upper hand over Lluvia. That foolish female! She was doomed for sure!

From his own vantage point, the king couldn't help thinking along those same lines; that is, right until the moment when he caught her peculiar little grin and the near-contemptuous beckoning gesture she'd made to the prince.

By the sun and the moon, he thought, awash with an imminent sense of foreshadowing, as he watched her egg on his son. Judging by that reckless gleam in her eyes, she's not about to surrender anytime soon!