Proud & Powerful (Goku OR Vegeta x FOC)

Chapter Sixteen

Vegeta's leg swings in full force to her midsection, simultaneously Xylias subtly raises her arm and grazes his foot with her fingertips while gently pushing outward— redirecting it away from her body. The Prince recovers instantly, using the extra momentum to finish the full swing, and ducks low to catch the ground below him, he leans his weight onto his hands to do a full circular sweep of his legs in an attempt to throw Xylias's legs out from under her.

She feels the sudden weight shift in the ground from the change in his technique, and instinctively throws her body backwards into a back spring to avoid Vegeta's leg sweep.

"There's no fun in running away!" The Prince growls while thrusting himself towards her once more. He stops in front of her again, his arms looking hazy as he picks up the pace and begins to throw calculated punches at her, aiming both high and low— trying to find a weak point in her guard.

Xylias feels exhilaration, reveling in the feeling of having a worthwhile opponent, she moves ever so slightly to dodge his attacks. Through the eyes of normal people, the two would look like blurs, they're moving too fast for regular eyes to catch the full resolution of their movements.

Determined to win this match, Vegeta suddenly jumps up and back, simultaneously shooting a ball of Ki towards Xylias. She barely crosses her arms in an 'X' in front of her body in time to block the blast, the ball explodes and pushes her back a few feet. At the same time, Vegeta launches towards her and delivers a guard-breaking punch to the center of her arms.

The hit is powerful, and the bones in her forearms ring from the impact. She takes an unsteady step back and the Prince uses this moment to take his shot, using his entire body's momentum to swing his arm at her midsection, and his fist collides with her chest.

The breath is knocked out of her momentarily as she flies back a few feet, but when she first hits the ground she unconsciously channels her Ki to her hands as they touch the Earth, simultaneously willing the solid ground to hold her in place. Her hands instantly dig into the Earth, the dirt comes out of the ground and encases her hands, gripping her to the Earth. She redirects her body's force from the attack to push her body up and uses her momentum to swing her legs upright to handspring backward, then releases her Ki from the Earth's hold. The dirt crumbles back into the ground while she lands gracefully back on her feet.

Xylias realizes in those brief seconds, that it seems there's a possibility that she can use her Ki to manipulate the solid Earth and various forms of rock to her will if she could master precise energy dispersal and learn to better navigate through the countless channels of Ki embedded deep within the earth, and the prospect of expanding her Ki-reading/control abilities excites her further. As Vegeta comes at her again she quickly decides to test her geokinesis theory out.

Xylias gets into her stance again, her eyes still closed— making out the outline of Vegeta's figure from the illuminated Ki pulsing from his body. She slams her foot on the ground, following the path of the vibrations and estimating the point at which she wants to attack, and abruptly swings her fist across her body.

To Xylias's amazement, an instantaneous chain reaction happens. A large rectangular prism of solid Earth shoots out of the ground in the Prince's path. Her aim had been slightly off, but this had still caught Vegeta by surprise, he was so absorbed in looking for an opening in Xylias's movements that he didn't think to be aware of his surroundings too. His inability to read her Ki made it more difficult to detect or estimate her attacks. Vegeta narrowly catches the motion of the Earthly slab in time, throwing his left arm up to block the mass of dirt, he smashes completely through the rock.

Vegeta was physically unfazed by the attack for the most part, barely missing a beat after busting through the rock. But for a second he thinks about how unusual the move was. He had to give it to her, he would have never thought to use his surroundings in such a way as she did, but it seemed too juvenile. Her delayed reaction after performing the move told the Prince that she was now distracted, possibly by what she had just done. Trying out new moves on me huh? And now your guard is down! Hah! How foolish can you be?! He laughs to himself, while a smirk spreads across his face.