Zeck hovered far above the arena, catching his breath. From this high, he couldn't even hear the announcer, not really, but that didn't matter. His eyes stayed locked on the little boy inside the arena, as he gathered his power in preparation.
It took Kakarot a little while to figure out what happened, but eventually, people started pointing upward, and he craned his neck to the sky, and immediately began yelling.
"HEY! THAT'S NOT FAIR! I CAN'T FLY! GET DOWN FROM THERE AND FIGHT ME FAIR!"
Zeck was shocked for a moment. Flying was the first trick he'd learned, even easier than normal ki blasts, sometimes. For someone as strong as that boy… a Saiyan as strong as that boy, especially, it should've been completely natural.
But a smile broke across his face as the fact sank in. "He's… just a kid." Kakarot… he wasn't part of Tarble's team. He wasn't like Lynn, Pepper, or me.
Zeck stood a chance.
"Alright. I'll come down."
BOOOM!
A fairly large shockwave erupted from somewhere near the center of the arena. Kakarot was sent flying backward, as Zeck flew back into the sky, fast as a jet engine.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! But Zeck wasn't done yet. Three more times, he smashed his body into the stage at an incredible speed, generating shockwaves that destroyed the stage and blew Kakarot around like a leaf in the breeze.
Zeck had come down, but he was not fighting fair.
But, unfortunately for Zeck, a few shockwaves weren't going to knock Kakarot off of that stage. The boy'd been born unfair.
Closing his eyes, Kakarot's movements changed, as he sensed out Zeck's energy, allowing his body to naturally respond to the random shockwaves before Zeck even made them.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"There! HA!" Using his senses, Kakarot perfectly read the trajectory of Zeck's latest strafing, and unleashed a ki blast directly upward, right at Zeck's face at the last minute.
Then, there was another explosion, as a black figure's body flew through the smoke. There was so much smoke that nobody other than me could tell who it was.
Had Kakarot's blast worked, sending Zeck spiraling off course? Or had Zeck simply managed to ignore the blast? The announcer couldn't tell.
But in the crowd, I caught Pepper grinning. She'd seen it, too.
As the smoke cleared, Kakarot unsteadily peeled himself out of the wall where he'd been buried for the second time this fight. By now, he was very clearly beyond annoyed, as Zeck had already shot back up to the sky, and this time, he was already charging a ki attack, which clearly meant that the Celatian wasn't going to come down himself again, this time.
"You're pretty fast, but you aren't that strong, huh?!" Kakarot's voice boomed across the stadium. He wasn't completely wrong. So far, none of Zeck's attacks had done anything to halt his Saiyan physique's ability to grow stronger, the more excited he got.
And boy, he was excited. By now, his power level even more notably overshadowed Zeck. He simply couldn't get to the guy.
Even predicting Zeck's trajectory had simply led to the Celatian catching the ki blast in his hand and slamming it into the boy's own chest, thanks to Zeck's experience with fighting people like Pepper and I, who tended to use strange, underhanded and sometimes completely unfair tactics when we weren't taking a fight seriously.
Not to say that Lynn had a habit of fighting fair, either. Honestly, the way Lynn moved in combat was a crime in itself.
Charging his ki blast, Zeck watched the boy in silence as he prepared his final blow. It was a terrible strategy, but one perfectly tailored to what he knew about Kakarot. Since the boy couldn't fly, there was little he could do to stop the Celatian.
Jump? Zeck would simply fly out of the way, and he'd fall to the ground. Rinse and repeat. Without the ability to shift in midair, it was pointless for the boy to even try anything at all. Ki blasts would be dodged easily, too, from that range.
Kakarot was screwed.
Then, he wasn't. "If you can fly, I can, too! YAAH!"
With nobody to tell him just how stupid it was to try and replicate a technique that you couldn't even really sense in action, like flight, nothing stopped Kakarot from attempting it.
He didn't exactly do it right, but with a loud thunderclap-like shockwave, his feel left the arena floor, and the boy's body zoomed into the air at a breathtakingly impressive speed.
Almost faster than the average eye could see. Definitely faster than Zeck could move.
But, unfortunately, Kakarot had further to go. By the time his body made it to Zeck's height, the Celatian was far away, his ki charging mostly complete. Now, the Celatian was simply waiting for the right moment to take the shot.
Likely, Zeck was planning on blowing the entire arena away, the moment that Kakarot landed. After all, the kid's technique was clearly something closer to aided jumping than anything else.
Then, something happened that surprised both Zeck and myself.
THOOM!
A ring of compressed air shot out of Kakarot's feet as, with a graceful flip, his midair trajectory suddenly flipped ninety degrees. Suddenly, he was shooting straight toward Zeck like a rocket.
Instantly dissecting Kakarot's technique, Zeck realized the same thing that I did.
Though it wasn't a technique meant for hovering, Kakarot's technique allowed the boy to move in midair at incredible speeds!
Like Tater's old 'Pinball' technique, Kakarot's 'air hops' could theoretically allow the boy to come after him forever.
And in a battle of stamina, Zeck likely wouldn't stand a chance against the boy. Even if he dodged the initial tackle, he wouldn't be able to do so forever.
So, at the last minute, when he knew that Kakarot wouldn't be able to avoid it, Zeck let loose with his massive energy blast.
FWATHOOM OOM!
The smoke cloud that enveloped both of the fighters obscured all, the energy from it even interfering minorly with my own ki sense. The only sounds audible were strange, muffled.
For a moment.
Then, "YAH!"
BOOM!
Zeck's body was catapulted to the ground, creating a crater right outside the arena. He wasn't unconscious, but I could tell that he was pretty heavily injured, and he'd lost the match.
Oh, well. He'd put up a good fight, but Kakarot's natural talent was just as bullshitty as Pepper's.
The fact that he'd managed to exhaust the boy to that extent, and force him to create an entirely new move to simulate flight was something that the Celatian should've been proud of.
Zeck'd managed to force more innovation out of Kakarot than Goku had ever needed. He'd actually created a unique technique!