Café Nascita
"Hey! Let go! What are you doing?!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Urgh... Ouch! Shit!"
Ryuga was thrown down the stairs into the secret lab by an angry Sento.
Misora was startled out of her sleep. She had been napping in the lab to avoid any noises her father might be making upstairs.
Her eyes went wide as Ryuga hit the floor one final time and ended up beside the bed she was perched on.
Sento jumped down the stairs and kicked Ryuga in the sole of one sneaker.
"If I don't take the Smash essence from Tatsuya, he'll be in danger! He may even be dead already, you idiot!"
Sento dropped down onto Ryuga's chest with his knees. He grabbed the collar of his shirt with both hands and started shaking him violently.
Ryuga's head bounced back and forth like a bobblehead under the hard shaking until the boxer tightened his neck muscles and steadied himself.
He glared up at Sento and shoved him off of himself as hard as he could, sending him into the side of the bed and causing Misora to be knocked onto her back from the force. "Hey! What the hell, man?!"
She glared daggers at Ryuga while he rose to his feet. Ryuga ignored Misora and showed Sento his middle finger. "If I hadn't done what I did, we would never have found their base!" Ryuga scowled deeply, turned around, and started storming away after shouting at Sento.
"So you don't care if Tatsuya dies?!" Sento pushed himself up with the help of the bed and chased after Ryuga, reaching out with his right hand and grabbing Ryuga's left shoulder. He pulled back hard to spin him around.
As soon as they were face to face, Sento grabbed Ryuga with both hands again, this time by his leather jacket collar, and shoved him against the wall hard enough to make a little dust fall from the ceiling.
Boom!
"Screw that, man!" Sento glared at Ryuga while grinding his teeth in frustration.
Ryuga fought back against Sento, struggling as hard as he could to pull himself off the wall. He reached out with his arms and grabbed onto Sento's, trying to twist his way out of the firm grip.
"Well then, who the hell is gonna prove I'm innocent?!"
Sento narrowed his eyes at Ryuga and slapped his arms down while backing off. "Why do you only think about yourself, Ryuga?"
Ryuga sneered, "Well, my bad! Guess I'm not a goody-two-shoes like some people!"
He walked a distance from Sento and smacked the wall with his palm.
All three people sat there in silence for ten seconds.
Sento leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and asked Ryuga, "If you had entered their base, then what?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Ryuga snapped quickly. "I would capture Rouge and make him prove my innocence."
Sento scoffed, "With your power? Don't make me laugh."
Ryuga cocked his head back slightly and began to turn around to face Sento. The latter had struck a nerve.
"You wanna test it?"
He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and retrieved the dragon bottle he carried around.
Ryuga narrowed his eyes and started shaking the bottle. "It's gonna be different this time!"
Before Sento could lower his crossed arms, Ryuga dashed towards him and delivered a right straight shot to his gut. Ryuga's clenched hand glowed purple, resembling a burning meteor striking Earth as it connected.
Bang!
Sento doubled over in pain but managed to block the low blow when Ryuga swung next. He tried to bring his arm up to stop the hook coming his way, but Ryuga managed to slip it past his guarding arm.
Bang!
Sento fell to the ground and rolled a few times before coming to a stop.
Misora grabbed a large stuffed animal from beside her on the bed and hid behind it, peeking at the skirmish from behind the plush toy.
"Ugh... Looks like that Dragon bottle is a bit unusual..." Sento muttered to himself as he slowly picked himself up off the floor.
"It's synchronizing with you and causing some kind of chemical reaction."
Ryuga got into his stance and tilted his head slightly.
"Huh? What are you blabbing about?" Ryuga had only caught the tail end of what Sento had said.
He rushed over and intended to punch Sento before he was halfway risen.
Sento suddenly snapped into motion and lashed out with a punch of his own, causing a mixed look of pain and surprise to flash across Ryuga's face.
Sento's hands flashed with a red light as he hit Ryuga in the same spot where the boxer had punched him earlier, right in the stomach. Sento followed up with a jab and a right cross, hitting Ryuga in the side of the head.
Ryuga hit the floor, clutching his head and his stomach at the same time, while Sento stood in a relaxed pose, looking at the bottle in his hand. "Too bad for you, I know how to use these bottles way better."
Misora hopped off the bed with her stuffed doll in hand. She walked up to Sento and started bopping him with it. "Sento, you coward!"
Sento squinted at Misora while raising an arm to ward off the big plush toy. "What? He's the one who did it first. He started it!"
Sento's driver and a few bottles had spilled out of his trench coat when he went down earlier; they happened to be right in front of where Ryuga had fallen.
Ryuga noticed them lying on the ground and decided to give Sento a taste of his own medicine. "Well then..."
"I'll use this!" He shouted as he stood up, lifting the driver to his waist and looping the belt around him.
Misora and Sento's eyes both went wide in shock when they saw what Ryuga was doing.
Sento instinctively stepped toward Ryuga with his hand stretched out to try and stop him, yelling, "Don't do it, idiot!"
RABBIT! TANK!
Sento was a step too slow. Ryuga had slotted two bottles and was starting to turn the wheel.
BEST MATCH!
"HENSHIN!"
ARE YOU READY?!
Ryuga looked smug as the tubes and runners extended from the driver, but the look turned to confusion and then pain when instead of a suit being formed, smoke and large, purple bolts of electricity and energy erupted from the driver instead.
"Arrrrgghh!"
Remnants of purple charges danced across the now-smoking Ryuga's body as he crumpled to the floor while moaning.
"Why?.." Ryuga winced, moving his arm weakly toward the driver and bottles that had scattered onto the ground beside him after his failed transformation.
Sento crouched beside Ryuga and chuckled. "It's not one-size-fits-all, you dummy."
Ryuga's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and then he was motionless on the floor.
Sento rose to his feet and walked away, giving Misora room to move in and attack Ryuga with her stuffed toy, bouncing it off his head repeatedly for startling her with all the smoke and energy discharges from the failed transformation.
Misora stopped beating Ryuga for a moment and glanced up at Sento.
"Is he dead?"
"...Nah, he'll be awake soon enough."
"Oh, okay." Misora started hitting him again, smacking Ryuga with the toy twice as fast as she had before.
Sento watched the soft beating for a few seconds before drifting into thought.
'It must be the bottle... He's growing in strength at an unexpected rate. I hate to think about it, but he could become a problem...'