Negi demanded the scruffy haired disappointment to pull her original target out of his mini coma. The 455th reject did not need another command as he rushed off to his corner of the prison. Using his careful pathing to avoid everyone on the way to his destination. When he got there at 456, the boy with spikey hair was sitting on the edge of a bed. One of the only half dozen beds set up for temporary lodging for the injured.
The boy was nursing his chin as it was marked by a gash that was slowly healing. Sipping water carefully from a cup būdo provided.
"Back already?" The purple alien greets her student, her tone a soft contrast compared to Negi's sharp one.
Gesturing for the boy to walk forward, Būdo knelt down. Carefully cleaning the dark red cheeks painting his otherwise naturally pale complexion. Minding the winces of stinging pain as the wet cloth dabbed at the gravel stuck to his lightly wounded area.
"She gone?" 456 speaks up from his spot.
"No and she's waiting for you to go back" 455 responds immediately, but he wouldn't urge his friend to go.
Būdo turns while standing up and faces the boy.
"You should go see her" the nurse shows a complicated expression that ultimately doesn't take away from her suggestion.
455 naturally feels some apprehension as he looks up at the woman. "Teacher.." so he calls to her for an explanation as his friend was already picking himself back up.
"Shhh" she quietly shushed her student with a gentle ruffle of his hair that is much more stiff to the touch. "Can you put the cup on the sink counter on the way out?" She asks a simple request that the boy nearly mindlessly follows.
456 left his cup on the counter next to the faucet before exiting the room.
"Teacher.. shouldn't you have told him to stay here?" He asks, as if it were as simple as just denying what a saiyan wants would stop them.
"Young one I don't make the rules here. Now that we have a warden, we'll be following her rules. I may only ask questions at the risk of my own life.." she looks at the door as if peering into the yard far outside.
"So even if you have better rules.. or know how to teach…"
"It doesn't matter."
The two of them lament the fact that they are both not strong enough to change the rules. Būdo hesitates more to announce that "might makes right"; still wanting to have her student understand what is right before caring about his own ability to fight for it. What she doesn't fully understand is that the fact that fighting is a part of their biology whether they understand it or not.
***
When 456 returned he was dead set on trying again. Since she waited and that he could fight her again. Usually she was off doing her own thing and wouldn't return to the same place until the very next day.
"Welcome back, stay on your feet longer this time. Now come on!" She demands, sounding as though her patience was as thin as it could be.
She clenched her fists loosely, actually taking some kind of stance that feels natural to her. Negi half a*ses her stance with her right foot back. Pushing gravel back as her root slightly pivoted and dragged. Her pelvis wasn't moving away on purpose, but she expected him to go for a better attack target.
456 noticed her change in posturing, but just accepted his current goal and role a little mindlessly. Bring his opposite fist back this time.
A sloppy inexperienced left hook came her way and landed on her…pelvic area again.
Pat!
Another pat in an undesirable spot for a fight. Negi almost felt offended, but she sees his closed eyes and sighs before letting it go. If letting it go meant lifting him up with one hand and driving her own fist into his midsection.
Wham!
456 coughed up some spit as he clenched his stomach. The feeling of pain traveled through his nerves in a throbbing sensation that left him fully aware of the pain.
Negi flung him back by simply extending her arm out and releasing her old armour. Tumbling through the gravel he held his stomach.
"Get back up!" She demands and doesn't have the patience anymore to wait for him to raise fully.
Wham!
Before his eyes fully opened he felt a foot come crashing into his side while he was on all fours. The pain shot right through him as he got launched to the side.
456 wasn't nearly scrappy, resilient, or motivated enough to push down the pain. It became his focus, the progress and change turning out to just be painful.
Slowly Negi lost her reason and became bored with humoring a kid who wouldn't display more than he's worth. This fight had her blood running cold and that just wouldn't be tolerated enough. After knocking the reject known as 456 around for a while, she didn't pull one of her attacks and sent his head face first into the gravel.
456's head was a quarter buried in the small pinkish rocks. His body bruised more and scuffed harsher than ever. A mark that he was actually taking damage and not losing in one fell swoop.
Negi didn't bring him back nor did she request a replacement, the warden left him there on the sixth day since the real saiyan child had left her instruction.
After sometime 456 had groaned, waking up with his face in the ground. With just one hand and all his strength he flipped over to face the sky. As he tried to move he winced back up into the sprawled position.
For once he felt just like Zukki, at least this is what he thought she felt. Because it was hard to move. The effort in moving against the pain was coming at him with such resistance, he wondered what the point of moving was at all.
"She would be.. moving..hmm" he mutters to himself and begins curling his fingers in the gravel.
455 would apologize immediately the next time they met, 456 barely registered that any harm was done, and they shared a meal. The 777 Gang oddly spared him that day, something had preoccupied them apparently. Thus the long week came to an end.
***
Zukki had returned a full seven days after she had left, dropped off by one of the Royal guards. The man with a chilly disposition and twin peaked hair plopping her down on a random spot in the morning. The sheer coincidence that Jagger saw this felt like a shot straight in the head, further cracking his psyche since the day he last saw his father.
Aldera hardly even noticed the boy when he turned to fly away. Zukki didn't notice him at first, that is until Jagger started to act out.
"F-father" a child-like cold whisper eked out before he grew to the shriek of ripping wind. "Father!"
He ran to the fence to follow. Clenching it and preparing to climb is way out after the figure that had already found its way into the distance. Out of sight, but closer to the kid's mind than anyone else.
The girl could understand the desire to see her family, but cruelly enough she found his externalized pain bothersome. Mostly her dislike of the man this boy claimed to be his father. The moment of sympathy churned an awkward halt before she turned to focus on herself.
The silence after Jagger's whining was followed by the crunch of gravel.
"Hey! Hey! hey!" the boy complained with sleepless eyes, soft, but with bags underneath. The off-putting contrast to his uncharacteristically gentle eyes had now held a tired frazzled feel to them. "What are you doing with my father?"
His anger targeted at Zukki is near irrational.
"That man!?" She asks back just as sharply, feeling defensive all of the sudden.
"Yeah, that man. Why did he do that? Why would he be with you?" His questions become incoherent and that's what fully brings Zukki on guard.
Zukki clenched her fists at her sides. The best fighting form she knew currently. His whole demeanor was unreadable to her eyes. Jagger's eyes moved rapidly over her body and face, something disgusting crossed his mind.
"You won't replace her..or me" he declared which was far off the mark.
His whole expression didn't give off any intention until it started to scrunch up in anger. Even when it did, he was already scrambling into a dash. Moving with his hands in front of him.
Zukki remained mostly calm, putting her momentary confusion aside to pivot her body out of the way. They were essentially the same height and she realized this especially when their eye lines crossed.
Jagger stopped right in front of her, his eyes moving to the side before his arm did. One of his hands grabs at her armor, digging into her collar so he could hold her down.
"Replace, I don't care who that guy is. He's just–"
Jagger's left fist flew towards her gut, just to cause her pain, to hear the answers he wanted.
Smack!
His fist collided with her palm as she reacted to defend herself. Zukki retaliated by digging her free fist into his cheek, a nasty right hook.
Wham!
The boy with twin peaks for a hairstyle has his head rocked to the side, his face turning away from the place he was struck. Jagger let her go at the sudden sharp pain, stumbling back just a step. When he looked back at her his cheek was swelling up and his eyes were filled with hatred.
"I'm done with this.. I don't know who that guy is or who your father is." She tried to reason with him, finding the random hostility to be as gross as the arrogance of the king and the prince Vegeta had. "He was forcing me to return back here"
Jagger shook his head and the damage off. Now his fists were clenched tightly, just like his teeth as he resisted grinding them.
"You are lying!" He says with little to no rationale behind it.
"What!? Why would I lie? I am not a liar!" Zukki felt offended by it now. It stopped her from just walking away.
Not that jagger would let her just walk away now. He came after her with a vengeance this time. Swinging his fists in wild arcs, garbage hooks that only work due to the vicious effort behind them. They came in threes.
Zukki lifted her guard up high to block two of them, and dodge the last by the skin of her teeth–not that last one grazed her nose. She backs up after that, not used to being a peer combatant.
Jagger just follows through with his next set of swings. Weight that could be heard by his active and audible breaths.
Forearm block.
Zukki reacts just barely to stop the following hook with her elbow. The attacks barely shit with the knuckle, they end up being stopped at the wrist.
The third attack was fully dodged and Zukki responded by throwing a quick left jab. Her instincts pulled her right first to follow up with a right straight after.
Wham! Wham!
Jagger received two strikes to the face in quick succession. The pain caused him to step back again while Zukki didn't press to continue.
"Ahhrg!" He growls painfully while holding his face. Covering all but one eye that locks back onto the girl with wildly spikey hair.
Zukki studied his reaction to her attack, not invested deeply in this fight. She wanted to know if he was done attacking her.
"If you don't stop attacking me I'm going to beat you down" she declared sounding a tad bit arrogant.
Jagger didn't like that at all. Once he could bear the stinging residue pain of being struck in the face he pulled his hands down his face. Not raking it, but pulling the skin down like a mad man before letting it go.
"You are? Going to beat me down? My father..my mother, because of them I can't be getting beaten down by some random girl in a prison!"
He was already back into the ugly flurry of his limbs. Fists literally flying from both sides much faster than before. Unlike Zukki, Jagger was the very type to attack more than just vital spots, mainly not just the head like she does.
Upper right swing, blocked by a forearm.
Upper left swing, dodged back a step.
Lower right swing, improperly blocked.
Upper left swing, fist collided with the side of her face.
She blocked and dodged the first two, but a lower swing had a snuck through, tapping her ribs before a fourth attack struck her cheek. Zukki recoiled while tightening her guard. She briefly considered retaliating by igniting her flames, but chose not to attack with the intention of killing him. Instead she perceived the attacks coming at her. Watching them and realizing they were repetitive enough to be predicted; this happened unconsciously like she was in fact a fighting machine.
"Hrrrraa!" through rough gasps Jagger continued swinging. Feeling two satisfying strikes he was emboldened to continue.
Two swings came lower this time.
Smack! Smack!
The punches collided with her upper firearms, intercepted, yet the boy was raging and didn't think anything of it. Instead of recognizing the failure in his strings he was tripped up by Zukki as he rushed forward.
Before he could fall and slam his chin into the ground his palms crashed into the gravel. Shoving his body back into Zukki's. He used his own body as a weapon, attempting to dig his shoulder into her chest.
Catching his shoulder Zukki used the strength in her lower body to stop him in his tracks. Yet she was pushed back by his sheer unrestrained effort. Her feet making trenches in the gravel while being pushed back.
"Grrrr" his breath is ragged, but the boy was shoving her back with no real plan. His last true gasp of effort.
Wham!
Zukki's knee rose up to rock Jagger's head. His head snapped back and like his brain had been bouncing in his skull, the kid with twin peaked hair was out like a light. Crumpling down her body before resting on the ground.
Zukki was starting to breathe just a bit heavier after that exchange. Looking down at his body fully surprised that there were genuine fighters here in the prison that weren't adults.
"Bastard..you should have..just left me alone. Geez..i get, missing your father, but I have nothing to do with that!"
Zukki stands there complaining with a huff of her breath. Never expecting the first moment back to be so eventful.