General Blue didn't hesitate.
A sharp scoff, and he closed the gap with a burst of speed that shouldn't have been possible.
He was inside her guard instantly, launching a ruthless, technical offensive.
A knife-hand chopped at her windpipe, followed by a snap kick driving for the ribs and a spinning backfist whipping toward her temple.
It was flawless execution, designed to shut her down cold.
Chi-Chi didn't flinch.
She dismantled the assault with insulting economy.
She slipped the knife-hand by a fraction of an inch, letting it cut dead air.
When the kick came, she checked it with a rigid forearm, a dead stop that didn't even vibrate her stance.
And the backfist?
She didn't dodge.
She just reached out and snatched his wrist mid-swing.
Smack.
The sharp crack of the impact split the silence.
Blue froze.
He tried to retract his arm, engaging his shoulder to yank it free, but he was rooted.
Her grip was absolute, an iron clamp around his wrist.
For the first time, that mask of his slipped.
He stared down at the small fingers crushing his hands, then snapped his gaze up to meet hers.
"Let go of me, you filth!" Blue hissed.
Blue torqued his body, wrenching his wrist free and spinning the momentum into a vicious high kick.
It was aimed to take her head off.
Chi-Chi didn't panic.
She simply dropped under the arc of his boot and drove a heavy palm strike straight into his sternum.
Blue threw up a desperate cross-block at the last second.
It saved his ribs, but the impact rattled him to the bone.
He skidded backward, boots plowing deep furrows in the earth as he fought for friction.
When he finally ground to a halt—a good thirty feet away—his forearms were screaming, and that uniform was ruined by dust.
"Impossible..." Blue muttered, shaking the numbness from his forearms.
He stared at her.
She's just a child, but her physical strength is far beyond a normal human's.
Chi-Chi stood her ground, brushing a speck of dust off her blue dress.
She beckoned him with two fingers.
"Come on, General." She taunted, a confident smirk playing on her lips.
"I thought you were going to teach me a lesson."
General Blue brushed the dirt from his sleeve, his face twisting into a scowl.
"Hahahaha... I'm going to make this painful."
Blue surged back in, abandoning the feints for a full-throttle assault.
He became a kinetic blur, circling the perimeter, snapping strikes from her blind spots—left, right, rear.
Chi-Chi locked her frame.
Thud.
Crack.
Thud.
She slapped a knife-hand away from her carotid.
She drove her knee up to check a roundhouse meant for her ribs.
Every block was granite-hard and precise, bleeding his stamina while she barely spent a drop of her own.
Her silence was making him sloppy.
Blue snapped a jab at her eyes—a distraction—then dropped his level, whipping a vicious low sweep meant to pulverize her ankles.
Chi-Chi tracked the weight transfer before the strike even launched.
She cleared the sweep with a vertical leap, hanging suspended for a split second. On the descent, she didn't waste breath.
She drove her heel down like a piston.
Blue spiraled away, barely clearing the impact zone.
Her heel crunched into the soil where his skull had been, blowing a crater in the hard-packed earth. He scrambled to his feet, chest heaving, sweat breaking through his perfect composure.
He glared at her, bracing for it—the jeer, the laugh, the childish insult.
Chi-Chi didn't offer a word.
She simply anchored herself, sinking back into the Ox-Style stance—low, rooted, immovable.
That silence was heavier, more unnerving, than any insult she could have thrown.
"Tch!" Blue spat, his composure fracturing.
Chi-Chi just waited.
Blue broke.
Unable to process the chasm in their strength, he abandoned his discipline for blind rage. He snarled, winding up a wild, desperate haymaker aimed at her skull.
Chi-Chi didn't flinch.
She stepped into the pocket, slipping inside the wide arc of his arm with terrifying efficiency.
She planted her feet and drove a double-palm strike straight into his sternum.
THUD.
The impact lifted General Blue clean off his feet.
Air and saliva sprayed from his lips as his diaphragm collapsed under the force.
His eyes bulged, capillaries nearly bursting, before gravity reclaimed him and he slammed spine-first into the dirt.
He lay there gasping, fingers clawing uselessly at his chest, his uniform now little more than a stained, crumpled rag.
Chi-Chi lowered her hands.
The fight was effectively over.
She stopped a few feet away, looking down at him with cold indifference.
"Give me the coordinates for Muscle Tower, and I will let you go."
Blue lay in the dirt, wheezing.
But as he looked up at the girl who had humiliated him, his expression shifted from pain to a sinister, desperate cunning.
He realized physical force wouldn't work.
"You... you really are impatient." Blue whispered, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple.
Chi-Chi stepped closer, raising a fist to end it.
"I don't have time for games."
Blue suddenly grinned, his teeth gritted in pain.
"Then look closely."
Chi-Chi met his gaze.
It was a mistake.
Blue's eyes suddenly flared with a piercing, unnatural light. A high-pitched psychic frequency whined through the air, vibrating against Chi-Chi's skull.
Freeze.
Chi-Chi's body locked up instantly.
"What the—"
An invisible, psychic vice clamped down on every muscle, every nerve, and every bone. Her raised fist stopped mid-air.
Her legs, which felt like tree trunks a moment ago, were now statues rooted to the spot.
She tried to force her arm down.
She tried to blink.
Nothing happened.
She was a prisoner in her own skin.
General Blue chuckled, a low, wet sound as he slowly pushed himself up from the dirt.
He dusted off his knees, his confidence returning as he watched the powerful girl struggle futilely against the invisible chains.
"Strength alone won't save you. Against my psychic abilities… you're simply a doll waiting to be broken."
Blue sneered, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his glove. He walked around her, inspecting his paralyzed captive like a piece of art.
General Blue rose to his full height. He smoothed the creases in his uniform with maddening, deliberate slowness.
He didn't look at her yet. Instead, he peered into a shard of glass at his feet, fussing over a stray lock of blonde hair until it was perfectly in place.
Only then did he turn his gaze back to her.
His eyes were no longer just cold—they were glowing.
"Struggling only makes you look more foolish."
Blue said smoothly, walking toward her. He stopped just inches away, invading her personal space.
"Such crude behavior. Breaking things, making a mess… like a wild animal."
He looked at her paralyzed fist, suspended uselessly in the air, and let out a scoff of disgust.
"And like an animal, you must be broken."
Blue pulled his arm back.
He drove his fist straight into her face.
CRACK.
The sound was sickeningly loud.
She took the full force of the blow.
Her head snapped violently to the side, a spray of saliva and blood flying from her lip.
Her body didn't fall.
The paralysis held her legs locked in place, making her a statue that couldn't even crumble.
Blue shook his hand, grimacing slightly as if touching her had contaminated it.
"That, was for my uniform."
Chi-Chi's mind raced as the blows rained down on her.
What kind of trick is this?
She thought, wincing internally as Blue drove a knee into her stomach. The pain was sharp, immediate, and inescapable.
This isn't physical. He's not holding me with force. It's his spirit—directly interfering with my nervous system, jamming my signals.
Another backhand snapped her head to the side.
General Blue finally paused.
His breathing was audible now—a rhythmic hitch in the silence—as he stepped back to admire his handiwork.
He produced a handkerchief, dabbing a single, bright speck of crimson from his knuckles with practiced delicacy.
He looked down at her then, his expression twisting into a grotesque blend of mock pity and sadistic delight.
"Well? Usually, this is the part where the tears start flowing. Where the pleading begins."
He leaned in close, his blue eyes searching hers for fear.
"Why aren't you begging for your life, little girl?"
Chi-Chi's head was still turned to the side from the last strike.
Blood trickled from a cut on her lip, running down her chin. But slowly, terrifyingly, the corner of her mouth twitched upward.
She was smiling.
She slowly moved her eyes—the only thing she could control—to lock gaze with him again.
"I have to admit... your technique is actually quite impressive."
General Blue blinked, his arrogance faltering for a second.
"What?"
"But..." Chi-Chi continued, her smile widening into something feral.
"This paralysis... it only locks my muscles, doesn't it? It only stops my body from moving."
"That is all I need to kill you, if your body can't move, you are powerless."
"Wrong." Chi-Chi whispered.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped wide open. The dark irises vanished, replaced by a blinding, electric azure glow.
General Blue froze.
"What—?"
"HA!"
A massive, invisible cannonball of pure spirit pressure—a Kiai—exploded outward from her glare.
The air between them shrieked as it was displaced.
General Blue didn't even have time to scream.
The shockwave slammed into his chest with the force of a speeding truck, lifting him off his feet and launching him backward at high velocity.
He flew across the clearing, his arms flailing helplessly, before crashing violently into the side of the wooden barracks.
CRASH!
The impact obliterated the wall.
General Blue was sent rag-dolling back into the structure, disappearing into a chaotic plume of splinters and dust.
The instant his concentration snapped, the invisible chains binding her shattered.
She collapsed to one knee, sucking in greedy lungfuls of air, her hand going instinctively to the dark bruising forming on her throat.
"You picked the wrong opponent. I'm a master of kiai, General." She muttered, wiping the blood from her lip and glaring at the hole in the wall.
The dust from the collapsed wall swirled in the heavy air.
General Blue kicked a piece of broken wall aside, emerging from the ruins like a vengeful ghost.
His hair was a mess, hanging limply over his forehead, and blood trickled freely from his nose.
"You..."
Blue trembled, his face turning a shade of purple with pure, unadulterated rage. He pointed a shaking finger at her.
"You filthy little brat! No one humiliates General Blue! I'll make you regret the day you were born— I'll—"
Suddenly, a small, gray shape scurried out from under a broken plank near his feet.
It was a field mouse.
Just a tiny, twitching rodent, disturbed by the crash. It ran right over the toe of Blue's polished black boot.
Blue froze mid-sentence.
His eyes bulged out of his head.
The terrifying psychic pressure vanished instantly, replaced by a high-pitched, blood-curdling shriek that cracked his voice.
"AAAAIIIIIEEE! A MOUSE! A MOUSE!"
Blue scrambled backward, tripping over his own feet in a panic. He flailed his arms wildly, as if he were on fire.
"GET IT AWAY! GET IT AWAY! IT TOUCHED ME! IT'S DISGUSTING! VERMIN! VERMIN!"
Chi-Chi stood there, her fists raised, completely baffled.
She looked at the terrified General—a man who could paralyze people with his mind and crush rocks with his bare hands—cowering before a creature smaller than her thumb.
He's afraid...
Chi-Chi blinked, watching him hyperventilate.
...of a mouse?
It was pathetic. It was absurd. It was an opening.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Chi-Chi didn't hesitate. While Blue was busy screaming and brushing phantom germs off his pants, she launched herself forward.
"HAAA!"
She slammed a double-kick into his chest, the impact sounding like a gunshot.
Blue was sent flying back into the debris, the wind knocked out of him so hard his scream cut off abruptly.
Before he could even think about recovering, she was on him.
Wham!
She delivered a sharp elbow to his gut.
Smack!
A backhand across his face that sent a tooth flying.
"This!"
Punch.
"Is!"
Kick.
"For!"
Elbow.
"The!"
Knee.
"Paralysis!"
Blue tried to raise his hands to defend himself, but he was too rattled, too broken, and too slow.
Chi-Chi was unleashing all her frustration from the fight in a merciless barrage.
She snatched the collar of his ruined uniform, jerking him violently into her range. She pivoted hard on her lead foot, torquing her hips to unleash a final, spinning roundhouse.
Her shin whipped around like a steel bat, connecting flush with the hinge of his jaw.
The impact was sickeningly solid—a decisive, lights-out blow that finally silenced him.
CRACK.
General Blue spun in the air like a ragdoll and face-planted into the dirt, unconscious before he even hit the ground.
Chi-Chi landed gracefully, dusting off her hands. The clearing was silent, save for the distant sound of the ocean. She looked down at the defeated General, who was now twitching slightly in the dirt, and then at the little mouse that was calmly washing its face near a rock.
"Thanks for the assist." she told the rodent, bowing slightly.
"I guess even monsters have stupid weaknesses."
Bzzt... krhhhk...
"General Blue? Come in, General Blue. This is Red Ribbon HQ. Respond immediately."
The voice came from a heavy-duty field radio sitting on a crate that had miraculously survived the destruction of the barracks. The red light on the console was blinking urgently.
Chi-Chi walked over, stepping over the debris. She looked at the radio, then back at Blue, who was currently drooling into the dirt.
She pressed the transmit button.
"He can't come to the phone right now." She said, her voice calm and clear.
There was a pause on the other end.
"Who is this? This is a secure military frequency! Why is a female voice answering? Did Blue hire a maid against regulations?"
Chi-Chi's eyebrow twitched. A vein popped on her forehead.
A maid...
She took a deep breath, forcing down the urge to scream.
Instead, she leaned into the microphone, pitching her voice a little higher, playing the part.
"Oh, yes, sir! So sorry, sir! The General is just... terribly busy at the moment. He insisted on stepping out to fetch a fresh cup of herbal tea. You know how fussy he gets about his hydration!"
"Tch. Typical." the operator scoffed, buying the lie completely.
"Fine. Listen closely, girl. Write this down and give it to him the second he returns."
Chi-Chi leaned in, her expression sharpening.
"I'm listening."
"We have a Code Red. We've just lost contact with the Northern Command. Muscle Tower has fallen. General White has been defeated."
Chi-Chi's eyes widened slightly.
He beat White already?
"The target, Son Goku, has secured the Dragon Ball from the North, our radar indicates he is moving at high speed towards your sector. He is coming for General Blue. Tell the General to prepare the submarine fleet and ambush the boy the moment he arrives. Do you understand?"
A slow, competitive smile spread across Chi-Chi's face.
So, he wasn't freezing in the North anymore. He was coming here. To her.
"Oh, I understand perfectly." Chi-Chi said, dropping the maid persona. Her voice dropped to its natural, confident register.
"Good. Now, what is your name, personnel? I need to log who took the—"
CRUNCH.
Chi-Chi crushed the radio receiver in her hand, silencing the voice mid-sentence. She tossed the sparking remains over her shoulder and looked up at the sky.
"Great. He saved me the trip."