The sky bore witness to their clash, its muted red hues fractured by streaks of energy as they blurred through the air, colliding again and again. The battlefield below, once jagged and sprawling, had been reduced to uneven craters and fractured terrain.
Knox vanished, reappearing behind his opponent in a blur of speed, driving his knee into her back.
Marzette twisted just in time, spinning to deflect the blow with one braced forearm.
The impact reverberated across the battlefield, shattering nearby rocks into dust. Marzette retaliated instantly, her claws slashing upward in a blur of motion. Knox leaned back just enough to avoid the swipe, using that moment to jump out of range.
Skill [Dodging] Rank increased!
+1 BODY multiplier for increasing from E to D.
Knox's mind flickered with the notification, but he shoved it aside. 'Focus.'
Marzette didn't give him much time to think as she lunged forward once more.
Knox raised his arms to guard, her claws slashing relentlessly at his forearms. The sheer precision of every strike forced him to step back, each blow calculated to exploit the smallest gaps in his defenses.
Skill [Blocking] Rank increased!
+1 BODY multiplier for increasing from F to E.
Her next strike came faster than the last. A feint, followed by a vicious flying spin-kick he barely dodged.
Knox countered with a sudden burst of energy, slamming a ki-charged fist toward her midsection.
It landed.
For the briefest of moments, time seemed to slow as his fist connected with Marzette's torso, sending shockwaves rippling through her chitin.
Skill [Striking] Rank increased!
+1 BODY multiplier for increasing from F to E.
But she didn't fold.
Instead, Marzette absorbed the blow, using the momentum to spin mid-air and deliver a punishing elbow to Knox's jaw. The impact sent stars bursting through his vision as he stumbled back, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth.
"That should've put you down," Knox growled, his voice tinged with frustration.
"Wrong. Since I was airborne, most of the punch's energy bled into the air," Marzette replied evenly, taking a slow step forward to press her advantage.
The battle surged into a brutal rhythm, the exchanges growing faster and more destructive with every passing moment. The rocky terrain was obliterated piece by piece as blows landed, dodged, or were countered.
It wasn't long before the tide turned once more.
Knox's breathing was ragged, his movements slower now as the cumulative weight of the battle bore down on him.
Meanwhile, Marzette seemed was completely unshaken.
Her black exoskeleton was battered, cracks spidering along her frame, but she moved with the same calculated grace she had at the start of their battle. Despite his pain being suppressed, she was far more experienced in fighting while fatigued.
"Why do you never end it yourself?" She asked. "Every time we do this you just accept your fate with a smile."
Knox smirked faintly, dragging himself upright. "Because one of these days I'll win, and it'll feel really good when it's your turn to get erased."
Marzette tilted her head slightly. "That's not gonna happen. Not because you'll never win, but because..."
Before she even finished her sentence, she vanished.
It wasn't instant transmission, nor was it his own brand of brute force speed. It was an application of propulsion, a technique she'd refined to perfection built off of Ki flight as a base.
In the blink of an eye, Marzette closed the distance between them, her claws raised.
Knox barely reacted in time, raising his arms to block, but she wasn't aiming for his guard.
Her clawed hand simply opened up in front of him, her palm aimed at his face.
Knox's eyes went wide, and in that fleeting moment, he realized just how thoroughly she'd checked him. Even with the power balance tipped in neither of their favors, her skill had outmatched him at every turn.
"...I'm not a masochist like you."
Her claws flared with ki, the energy crackling and expanding in a wave that overtook him completely, reducing him to nothing but ash.
The world shattered.
Knox's body jolted violently as he snapped awake, coughing harshly as their session of meditation came to an end. Across from him in the same cross-legged position, Marzette's claws rested calmly on her knees.
"Letting yourself die like that can't be good for your health," she remarked, concerned.
Knox leaned back, wiping sweat from his forehead as his breathing slowed. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, still catching his breath.
In truth, Knox was impressed.
Over the past week of travelling through space, he'd not only taught her how to tap into the mental side of her Ki, but together they'd discovered how to suppress one's Ki to a minimum.
Weirdly enough, his Ki suppression didn't give him a skill.
But with Ki suppression on his belt, he had an idea of what sort of training they could do without accidentally blowing up the ship. And then he remembered the same sort of training Gohan and Krillin did during their time travelling to Namek.
Training inside one's mind.
[Image Training (F)] skill acquired!
Through matching one's Ki and intertwining your mental energy with another, you enter battles that exist only in your mind but feel as real as flesh and blood. Experienced users can even fight past versions of enemies they've already faced.
+1 MIND multiplier for acquiring a mental skill.
The upside to this skill was that even though he was far above her in power level, they were forced to fight with equalized stats. Thus, refining his combat skills became easier.
The downside was that Marzette's raw power didn't actually increase that much. This method of training mostly benefitted himself.
Due to that fact, Marzette usually enjoyed meditating alone, as she'd figured out how to access her mental world and was using it to create and refine Ki techniques. Most of the things she shared were useless, like when she showed him how to make a thousand little harmless lights with Ki, but he suspected that would change soon enough.
Knox stretched his arms overhead, cracking his neck as he stood. "I'll even the score soon enough. You've only killed me, what, eight times?"
"Thirteen," Marzette corrected flatly.
"Right." Knox rubbed the back of his neck, still grinning. "Gotta admit, I didn't think you'd be this good a fighter. I thought I'd have already surpassed you by now. Not sure why."
"Probably because you adapt past all your shortcomings," Marzette said simply.
Knox snorted. "Fair. I guess getting stronger makes it harder to see my own flaws."
Marzette tilted her head slightly, her eyes gleaming as she studied him. "Perhaps. But there are some things you can't adapt to."
Knox raised a brow, leaning against the wall as he waved for her to elaborate. "Oh? Like what?"
"Your mental shortcomings."
Knox blinked, caught off guard, before throwing his head back and laughing. "Woah! Did you just make an actual joke, Marzette? I mean, it wasn't that funny, but I'm proud of you for trying."
Marzette stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean? I-I can make jokes! And it was funnier than-"
Before she could properly reply, the door hissed open.
A short crocodilian crewmember poked his head through. "Uh, hope I'm not interruptin', but..." He hesitated, eyeing Knox nervously. "It's just… there's somethin' goin' on in the control room, and, well, uh… I wasn't sure what to do about it, so…"
Knox waved dismissively, already moving toward the door. "Relax, it's fine. We were wrapping up anyway. Lead the way, Croc."
The alien narrowed his eyes slightly at the nickname but he nodded quickly, turning and waddling off down the corridor, Marzette falling in step beside Knox.
What waited for them there was far from a laughing matter.
As they neared the central control room, the faint sound of a high-pitched beeping grew louder. It was quiet, but it was very annoying.
Marzette tilted her head slightly. "What is that?"
The alien glanced back nervously. "It's uh… well, that's what I was hopin' you'd know. Here." He reached the control panel and, after a brief moment of hesitation, pressed a blinking yellow button.
The beeping abruptly cut off, replaced by a grainy static that crackled for a few seconds before a voice broke through.
The speaker was clearly panicked, their voice trembling and words tumbling over each other in barely coherent fragments.
"-there's been some kind of attack or plague on our world. Or maybe it's…"
The man's voice cracked, his breathing harsh as he clearly fought to get the words out.
"W-we don't know! S-some of us have just... dropped dead! It's affecting the plants a-and the animals and f-fuck man, I think I can feel it sometimes. It's like th-this draining feeling, and..."
The crew exchanged uneasy glances, but the recording kept rambling.
"And then this tree appeared! A-a massive tree! It just-it wasn't there, and then it was, and it started growing and nobody could stop it and- We tried, but then these men appeared and-" The voice broke with a sharp gasp, the static swallowing his words for a moment.
"Oh fuck, man. One of the c-civilians! They said they saw a light and-" He stumbled over himself, his fear overtaking reason as his words dissolved into fragmented muttering.
The static cut off abruptly, replaced by a deafening silence before the recording ended with a loud click.
It was Marzette who finally broke the silence, glancing toward the crocodilian alien. "That was a distress call, right?"
The alien nodded nervously. "Uh… yeah. Definitely. It got flagged as emergency priority, but I… uh… I don't know if we're, like, equipped for this kinda situation, ya know…"
Knox stepped forward slightly, his eyes scanning the control panel. "Can we locate the source of the signal?"
Before he could respond, Marzette raised a hand, her tone calm but firm. "Hold on. Doesn't this sound like a trap to you?"
Knox's thoughts screeched to a halt. "...Yeah," he muttered. "That's true. Nothing's stopping someone from faking desperation to set us up."
The crocodilian crewmember folded his scaly arms, shaking his head. "I mean… it didn't sound fake. Like I could be wrong but that guy? He wasn't just making stuff up; he was scrambling. Talkin' so fast he couldn't even finish a sentence."
Marzette tilted her head slightly but didn't immediately counter. The crocodilian shifted uncomfortably before adding, "I've heard fake distress calls, you know? They're always a bit more... scripted, than that. That one was just nonsensical rambling."
The room fell into silence again. Knox rubbed his jaw absentmindedly, his eyes narrowing as static-filled fragments of the audio played over and over in his head.
Marzette eventually broke the silence. "We don't have to help." Her compound eyes fixed on him, unreadable. "It feels like we should, I know. But we have no obligation to help them. We're not heroes."
Knox... didn't disagree. It was a bit hypocritical of her to be saying that considering how her own planet almost ended up, but she wasn't wrong.
But there was something about the message, something gnawing at the edges of his thoughts he couldn't quite get a grasp on.
Then it hit him.
"I've decided," he announced suddenly, tone steady.
Marzette's antennae twitched ever so slightly. "On what?"
"We're going," he said with finality.
The crocodilian crewmember blinked, his large yellow eyes wobbling nervously in their sockets. "Uh, boss… I don't-shouldn't we, y'know, think this through a bit? I mean, what if-"
"You can keep the ship in orbit, but we are going," Knox cut him off, his voice an iron command that allowed no space for rebuttal. "That's final."
The crocodilian closed his mouth sharply, his scales ruffling in agitation, but he didn't dare press further.
__________
Knox stood just a few feet away from the observation window in silence, his hands resting lightly behind his back. The streaking lines of hyperspace faded into velvet blackness, speckled with pinprick stars, before the planet reeled into view.
And there it was.
Even from orbit, its shadow stretched endlessly across the land below: a gnarled, massive titan of a tree. Its unnervingly symmetrical canopy seemed to pulse faintly, almost like a living thing, as energy surely coursed through its bark.
A wild, almost vicious smile overtook his face, his teeth bared in something between exhilaration and anticipation.
"I knew it," His gaze locked onto the tree, his excitement palpable. "The Tree of Might."