Proud & Powerful (Goku OR Vegeta x FOC)

Chapter Sixteen

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A warm breeze blows across the rocky, dense landscape. The two Saiyans stand facing one another, Prince Vegeta scowls at Xylias as they both begin to gauge each other carefully.

Although Vegeta would never admit it out loud, he's interested in seeing what Xylias is capable of.

"Don't expect me to go easy on you!" He thunders at her, masking his curiosity.

Xylias's mouth twitches, "Never. I want to have fun, you know.." She counters, enjoying the look of agitation that appears across Vegeta's face. The Prince immediately gets into his fighting stance.

Vegeta has his left arm in front, with the length of it (ready to be) covering some of his vital areas; while his right arm is behind, leaving his body open.

Similarly, he has his left leg in front, with his right leg behind and open.

She guesses that his left arm and leg are in front to defend most of his body from attacks, while his right arm and leg are free to attack. And since the left arm and leg alone can't defend the entire body, Vegeta inclines the left side of his body towards her while having the right side away from her. This allows an extra fraction of a second to react to attacks headed towards the right side of his body.

This is the stance of an experienced warrior. She muses, tucking away her observations for later while she gets into her stance.

Taking a deep breath, Xylias turns her right foot outward and draws her left knee up to her chest, hooking her right arm behind her back while she raises her left arm and extends it outward towards Vegeta, her left palm facing up with her fingers pointing towards the sky.

Narrowing her eyes at her now-opponent, Xylias opens and closes her palm in a beckoning motion to The Prince, urging him to make the first move. Then she lowers her leg to the ground and moves her arms in front and close to her body, keeping her palms up and open. She plants her feet a smidge wider than her shoulders and bends her knees slightly, keeping her toes pointed outward, showcasing a solid— yet open stance.

Vegeta evaluates her posture, noting the similarity between Xylias's and Kakarot's openness in their stances, but sees that the Woman's open-palmed poise indicates an inclination for close combat. Her waist is set firm, and he assumes her focus will be on heavier forearms to emphasize short and quick hand strikes over kicks. He smirks at this revelation and begins to calculate his strategy.

He doesn't want to go in based on observations though, and decides to start with a direct assault to see how she initially handles herself.

Vegeta launches forward instantly with immense speed, kicking up dust and spraying rocks around the area, although time seems to go more slowly to the powerful Saiyans. In the brief moment of Vegeta closing the distance between them, he notices Xylias closing her eyes while exhaling a deep breath. Before he flies through her, he stops himself short just in front of Xylias, clamping his left foot to the ground while using his momentum to swing his right leg around his body, intending to deliver a devastating kick.

The moment his foot touches the ground, time stops for a split second for Xylias. A shockwave of vibrations reverberates throughout the Earth around him, she feels his precise position and movement through the bottoms of her sensitive feet that are picking up these signals. The glowing channels of his Ki are illuminated behind her closed eyes, making out the outline of his form as well.

All the years' spent image training by herself made her unconsciously close her eyes in the face of a fight. She relies on her sharp senses, her Ki reading abilities, and her instincts to decipher and predict her opponent's movements instead of using her vision, similar to fighting with a blindfold.