"I've been looking for a good punching bag for a while. Will you keep jabbering, or will we fight?" Lazuli's question finally brought Blue out of his stupor. He focused his will and strengthened the psychic energy emanating from his body again.
"Yeah, I guess we'll fight." Blue's body shot out toward Lazuli, causing the blonde to squint cautiously because the man was swift.
'Let's see how strong I've become,' Lazuli mused before throwing a punch, which crashed into Blue's counterpunch.
This wasn't a tournament, so neither of them held back for fear of killing the other. This fight would probably end with one of them killing the other.
It was inevitable. They had been on opposite sides from the beginning, and there seemed to be no basis for reconciliation. Blue considered Lazuli a traitor to the RR. The blonde, however, believed that she had given everything to the army and was no longer bound to it.
The collision of their bodies shook the environment and caused an impact wave that shook the surrounding trees hard and made them lose leaves. Even though their forces were relatively balanced, Blue smiled.
"Paralysis," he said, triggering one of his most impressive techniques.
Blue energy climbed Lazuli's arm. She backed up and used her Ki to fight off the psychic intrusion, but her movements gradually slowed to the point that she seemed to be moving in slow motion.
"I didn't just train my psychic powers. We have a lot of good stuff in the RR, you know? Like stimulants capable of giving us greater power! The best thing is that you can make permanent gains if you're talented enough—and I am." Blue walked toward Lazuli and punched her in the abdomen.
The blow arched the blonde's body and sent a shockwave through her back. However, her body barely reacted, completely frozen under General Blue's powerful psychic abilities.
Only Lazuli's slightly unfocused blue eyes showed that she could control them, but that didn't matter with a martial artist like Blue in front of her.
"Previously, I needed to channel my abilities, like my ability to paralyze. But a while ago, things changed. I have finer control of my exuberant psychic power." To tease Lazuli, Blue patted her cheek disdainfully.
"Bulma, are you sure your friend can challenge me? She's too weak!" Blue turned his attention to the blue-haired girl, prying close to the android who had accompanied him on his journey.
"She can. Why don't you pay attention to your fight?" Bulma said without turning around. She focused all her attention on Sergeant Metallic, trying to figure out how to disarm him without provoking Doctor Gero too much.
Blue followed Bulma's warning and turned to see a fist enlarging in his field of vision. After that, all he knew was that his body was flying through the air, feeling terrible pain in his face.
Blue's body slammed into a tree and broke it, slowing his momentum. He started to stand up, touching his nose and feeling it a little wet.
"Looks like the side effects of a large amount of psychic power can't be solved so easily," muttered the man, already standing and looking at his blood-covered palm.
He smiled because he felt the jumble of thoughts in his head calm down as he fought. This was what he needed: to strive to master his power so that he could grow stronger. He looked at Lazuli with more desire to fight and took her seriously.
Lazuli shook her body, feeling that remnants of the annoying paralysis still lingered. However, she was able to free herself using a technique she and her older brother, Lapis, had created.
A bolt of yellow electricity splashed through her body, and the world seemed to slow down as the current stimulated her nerves. She felt as if time had stopped and she could do whatever she wanted, but this was merely an illusion.
She didn't have the power to move at a speed that would make her feel like the world was standing still. It was just her perception of the world accelerating.
Her twin brother, Lapis, demonstrated the usefulness of this nerve stimulation technique using electricity in the tournament. At the time, it was in a very nascent state, but it had been perfected over the following months.
As twins, they had the same affinities, and the ki in their bodies converted to electricity relatively easily. They did not allow their energy to undergo a full elemental transformation, but they did give it electrical properties.
This way, the Ki would maintain its destructibility while gaining versatility. When she saw Blue looking at her, wanting more, Lazuli responded by pointing her palm at him and firing a stream of yellow energy.
Blue simply covered his arm with Ki and deflected the attack into a nearby tree, which burst into flames. Neither of them cared, though. The blond man then responded with his energy attack.
"Psychic Beam Alpha!" A thin beam of pure psychic energy pierced the air, heading straight for Lazuli's head. She luckily avoided the attack by simply tilting her head, but beads of cold sweat fell from her forehead.
She was only able to evade that attack because her nerves were stimulated by her ki, giving her better reflexes. She knew that if she were injured by something like that, she could suffer serious damage or even die, especially if she were hit in vital areas like her head or heart.
However, a strange rivalry grew between them, and they gradually began throwing energy attacks at each other as they moved away from the combat zone. The fight that should have been to the death had become a stage to test and demonstrate their technical capabilities.
Then, standing in a secluded clearing in the forest near a small stream, Blue looked up at the night sky. With a nostalgic expression, he spoke.
"Now that we're away from the bugs, can you tell me why you left the RR?" Blue asked, causing Lazuli to stop. Lazuli had been about to launch a huge ball of energy surrounded by constant electric sparks.
The blonde never expected her enemy to start chatting with such a strange question, especially because of the tone she used; it was as if she wanted to find answers in her next words.
Understanding that it was best to keep this interaction hidden from prying eyes, Lazuli launched her attack toward Blue—or rather, to the side of him. The ki ball flew through the air, two meters away from the general, and hit a large rock before exploding.
"The RR's actions seem morally wrong to me. But joining that army was the only way for someone poor like me to pay for school," Lazuli replied. Blue looked down and nodded before launching a misguided energy attack that hit the ground near the blonde.
All of this contributed to the spectacle of their hard-fought battle. At one point during their fight, they seemed to understand each other much better, and the desire to kill each other disappeared.
Was this the goodness of confrontation? Blue found this situation particularly interesting because it was the first time he had felt something like this. While "exchanging" attacks with his supposed enemy, he decided to continue chatting with her.
"Do you know the purpose behind so many of the RR's wild and reprehensible actions?" The supposed Dragon Ball! But, unlike in that movie, they're not just one big orange ball.
There are supposedly seven of them, each with a certain number of stars inside." Blue didn't mind revealing his superior's supposed great purpose, since he knew the real motive behind those mystical objects. He lost a lot of respect for the organization because of them.
Do you just want to grow five centimeters so no one will notice? When you're so short, any difference is noticeable! Blue complained mentally. He never expected to hear Lazuli's answer.
"Oh, they're real. What does Commander Red want to wish for?" Lazuli blurted out, revealing information that, as far as she knew, wasn't valuable.
Not when Bulma herself had collected several spheres using her great strength and kept them in safekeeping, leaving only a few scattered around the world to keep the 'legend' alive.
"What? Are they really real? You know what? Ever since that app revealed that aliens exist, almost nothing can surprise me anymore!" Blue was so resigned that he wasn't paying attention to his psychic attacks. He was just wasting energy by throwing it anywhere on the battlefield, tearing himself apart even more.
The place they had chosen to fight was now littered with potholes, debris, scattered dirt, and the occasional animal carcass, left behind by creatures sleeping peacefully in their burrows until an energy attack broke through their homes.
"Red's purpose... never mind. I thought he wanted to be the King of the World, as someone supposedly did long ago. However, his wish is a waste.
"If I could make a wish... perhaps I would ask for knowledge of psychic techniques and abilities. I think that would be a good idea. What would you wish for?" The general, devoid of his initial aggressiveness, sat on the charred throne of a tree that had been felled during his earlier fight with Lazuli.
"I... wish to remain with those I have come to love and those I will love in the future. I don't know how many people that will be, but I hope none of them will leave me, except for natural death," Lazuli said after pondering for a while. He then sat down next to Blue, not concerned about a sneak attack.
"By the way, it seems that your psychic energy has calmed down," the blonde remarked. He had noticed the man's mental power fluctuating earlier, but now he seemed at peace.
No, rather, he seemed to be and not be at the same time. Blue seemed to have a great ability to suppress his power. Lazuli felt, however, that there was something special about it.
It reminded her of Bulma, albeit slightly, but it seemed that Blue had a certain attunement to nature. Bulma had told her about this, especially the philosophy of her martial path, Sora.
It was a school founded by Son Gohan and an evolution of the Turtle School of Muten Roshi. Muten Roshi, in turn, had learned from the last recorded hero, Mutaito. Mutaito had given his life 200 years ago to defeat a great evil.
It was strange to know that Bulma was not only rich and powerful but also had an ancient "Sect" background. Those terms are now only seen in entertainment, but Lazuli sometimes jokes with the blue-haired girl, calling her a 'Young Master.'
"Blue, what will you do now?" Lazuli asked suddenly. The general turned to give her a wink before touching his face with one hand.
"I've been interested in biology for a long time. While I can't directly change my DNA like the legendary psychics in the universe, I can change my appearance completely.
At least for a while, until the RR inevitably falls under the unified forces of the world. Red only operates in uncivilized lands. But I know he'll make a mistake someday and attract undue attention. This may be the turning point I'm looking for," Blue replied with a big smile that made Lazuli dedicate a short prayer to Commander Red.
Psychics were not to be trifled with! They could take drastic measures due to their high emotionality as mental power users.
What surprise did General Blue have in store for Commander Red and his army?
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AN: This wasn't the typicall fight, is just character development in both sides. Blue and Lazuli. Blue is just a side character, but Lazuli...! In this fight we learned about her desire, and then, how she thinks.
Canon C-18 would desire something like this, in my opinion.
Also, there are IA pictures about Bulma in this paragraph with the protagonist of one of my original novels, Séraphine Rohan, lol.