[01] Forest Sector FIGHT

[DA 2009]

MAL NOVA VS. XENIA

Xenia peppered the tree line with bullets, riddling holes everywhere. Her demeanor was calm, cold, detached. If the namek was thinking anything right now, she figured, it wasn’t going to be her previously exposed chest.

Maleficus darted through the trees, seeking protection from the stray bullets and using his elemental ki to ward away any that were lucky enough to get through. Obviously, the princess hadn’t figured out that an AK-47 didn’t mean anything against an opponent who could simply deflect anything fired upon him. Still, the namek realized that as long as she kept up the spray, he wasn’t going to be able to get anywhere near her; it may not have been a good offensive tactic, but it was a decent defensive maneuver. The woman was a classically trained fighter, and Mal knew that he could trip her up using his fighting style; she couldn’t fight against what she wasn’t trained in. He hid behind a tree, something he knew his father would never have done, but his father also wouldn’t have been as crafty as him.

Xenia concentrated the full spray towards the tree, aiming approximately neck-height. She moved in a little closer, trying to get the full advantage of close-ranged combat. All she had to do was separate the head, dispose of the rest of the body, and he’d be done for. Then she could move on to finish what she’d started with Orion, wherever he may be on this godforsaken island.

Mal winced as a bullet made it through the tree and erupted from his shoulder; that was going to hurt in the morning. He turned around, pushing a full concentration of his wind ki towards the tree. The might of the gale uprooted the natural structure, rending it from its perch of soil. Xenia looked up as the tree fell directly into her path. Her finger released the trigger and she reacted by stopping the timber with her psychokinesis. With a grunt, she mentally heaved the wood to one side. She glanced around, looking for the elusive namekian, but he was nowhere to be found. Methodically, she eliminated a possible venue of attack one by one.

She couldn’t see the namekian slowly creeping up on her. She couldn’t see him, because she had no way to sense ki, and that was the only way the stealthed namek could be detected. Mal grinned. With a ferocious roar, he materialized into view and embraced Xenia from behind in an inescapable chokehold, pushing the collar up against her chin as he suffocated her throat.

“That’s right…go to sleep,” Mal whispered in a mixture of soothing and sinister.

Xenia gasped, and tried frantically to get the namek off of her—dropping her gun in the process—but he moved in time with each step, each struggle; she wasn’t going anywhere. Just before she completely blacked out, she activated her combat teleportation, slipping from his grasp. As he wildly looked around, he felt himself being lifted up and thrown into a tree. He slammed hard into the timber, breaking it in half, and he crumpled to the ground.

Xenia raised her gun to finish him off, and then thought the better of it. This namek was beneath her. She gave a cold, half-smile, snorted, and began to walk away. He wasn’t who she wanted to die.