Chapter Text
Training wasn't difficult, as a matter of fact, it was one of the easiest things for Zanka. It was a routine he was glad to follow, it helped him clear his mind and, most importantly, get stronger.
No, the problem wasn't training, it was what came afterwards. The endless feeling of not improving, of his goal getting further as he isn't able to keep the pace and the frustration that comes with seeing himself in the mirror making the same weak man, the same mistakes that keep coming no matter how much he tries to correct them. And this last week it just got much worse.
He hadn't been good enough, that genius of a raider had had him dancing in the palm of his hand. Mocking him by holding back when he was giving all of him just to get "real" when he finally thought he was gonna beat him.
Compared to him, all his training seemed futile.
Even though that, Zanka wasn't stupid, he knew that those thoughts came from seeing himself so overwhelmed by the sheer strength of Jabber, the difference in level. And he knew that he could overcome him by working his ass off. His efforts would beat talent.
He didn't know what to do if they wouldn't.
He didn't let himself think about that.
So he made the decision to finish training and see if team Akuta was having breakfast in the mess hall. To his relief, as soon as he entered through the doof he saw Rudo and Riyo at their usual table. He decided to get a cup of coffee before sitting with them, praying that the caffeine will keep him alert and not drifting through his thoughts.
"Ooh, the oh-so-diligent Zanka has woken up early to train again?" Said Riyo as greetings and even if it came out as a taunt, he did notice the underlying worry in her tone. Just as Riyo had noticed that Zanka was training much more than usual since their fight with the raiders, and even if she wouldn't say anything directly until Zanka spoke first, she still didn't want him overworking himself.
Of course, Zanka would never admit out loud how much he appreciated that Riyo kept an eye on him but in this situation he couldn't help but feel like he was making her worry for nothing, for he could still train a lot more.
Instead, he simply rolled his eyes and said " At least it isn't my lazy ass who needs a loud as fuck alarm to wake up"
"Not my fault you don't know the pleasure of sleeping" replied Riyo with a grin while she took a biscuit from Rudos plate, who was distracted by adding far too much sugar into his drink. Really, too much even for him.
"Damn Rudo, don't ya think you're going overboard with that?" Asked Zanka, staring incredulously and snatching a sugar cube from Rudo to add to his coffee.
"Hey! I need that, it's really not that much, it's not been tasting as sweet as I like it lately."
"Probably because you have fried your taste buds by eating sweets on a daily basis" said Riyo just as she took Rudo's cup with one hand and kept him away with the other other by helding his head. "YUCK. Yeah sweet-beast, you're the problem, because this is sweet as hell. Just as how those crazy people that poison themselves on a daily basis, you've built up a tolerance"
Rudo stared wide eyed at Riyo, shock and annoyance plastered on his face as he screamed "What!? How's that even possible!? You're just..."
But Zanka didn't hear the rest of their conversation. That was it, the thing he needed.
He had replayed his fight with Jabber again and again in his head and had always come to the same conclusion, he was done with only one hit. Those poisons of his, whether it was the one that kind of left him paralyzed or the one that made him hallucinate, were just too damn strong. He had only been able to fight that much trough sheer willpower and even then he didn't last long. Not against those ridiculously big claws that required him to be perfect.
Just like what his sister had expected of him back at Hellguard, just like what he had come to believe he always needed to be. Only that Jabber looked at him like he knew he *could* be perfect. Not just expecting like his sister.Jabber seemed to have seen some kind of potential inside of him. That motherfucker really had believed he was holding back just as him.
Yeah, "had believed", because after not seeing anything more he was going to feed him to a trash beast. Disappointed.
Was he really sad about not meeting Jabber's expectations?
No. That wasn't it. He was just mad about how easily he got beaten, it's got nothing to do with how Jabber had recognised him, how-
Before he went deeper into that thought, a spoon hit his head and left a stinging sensation, just as an "ow.." escaped trough his mouth. Zanka gritted his theet and glared at an almost laughing their asses off Rudo and Riyo.
"That's what you get for being distracted. What were you so hard thinking about?" Said Riyo in between giggles, not being able to stop smiling. At least it wasn't the contorted face Rudo was making that really pissed him off.
"Nothing really... I think I'm gonna ask the boss for a day off, yesterday i went on a really long job" Zanka stood upas he said that, not giving the other two a chance to ask about his sudden change from not wanting to stop training to suddenly taking a whole day off. "Good luck with the Information Broker, do your best"
And with that he run away without even looking at their stunned expressions.
~
Four hours later, Zanka was sitting at the library in some casual clothes with a lot of really heavy toxicology books in front of him.
He hadn't been able to talk to the boss about his day off, apparently because he was talking to Enjin about their trip to see the Information Broker, but Semiu told him that there weren't a lot of jobs that day and he didn't have to take one if he didn't want to. Whether she said that because it was true or because she wanted Zanka to rest he didn't know, but she probably did know something was up with him thanks to her vital instrument.
Well, it wasn't like he was doing something bad. He was just going to intoxicate himself in order to get stronger.
It sounded bad, but he found out that what Riyo was talking about is a technic called mithridatism and it actually isn't as dangerous and more effective than he thought. Jabber himself had said after their first fight that while the effects of his poison on Zanka had a duration of 30min, on him they only lasted 10min because of how used to it his body was.
Zanka couldn't begin to imagine all the shit that raider must have put his body trough just to get like that, and he started wondering how much he will have to go through to catch up. Because he was going to catch up, and when he resists that fuckers poison making him lower his guard, he was going to take advantage of that split second and crush his bones with Lovely Assistaff.
Oh, how will he enjoy that.
The satisfaction of winning, not of causing Jabber pain. Of course.
For now, he had to start by taking that poison on a daily basis, wich was the first problem of this plan. He didn't know what poison Jabber uses.
It was such a headache, but he wasn't going to give up just because of that. He took all the notes he had made and started walking the long way it took to get to the only market he could think of that would sell that kind of thing.
All he could do was work with the experience he had, sadly. One of the poisons was clearly an hallucinogen, it was hard to forget something like that, and he had learnt that the paralysis one was from a type called neurotoxins. He wasn't really sure how any of them really worked but knowing Jabbe -he hated the use of the word "know"- he would use the strongests one of each type. So he was going to go for those first and pray that that maniac doesn't use any kind of weird mix that will completely make his efforts useless.
There was a little voice screaming at the back of his head. Saying that he shouldn't use this methods in order to beat him, he should just be perfect and beat him without taking any hits. But if there's something that Zanka has learnt frome getting out of that pit, is that average Joes sometimes have to do everything they can in order to surpass talent. It wasn't like he was betting it all on this though, he still was gonna work his ass off. This was just kind of an insurance, and after all, it could also count as a form of training his body, as fair as lifting weights to get stronger.
The flea market at the deepest part of town was a creepie dark place. It was also full of people and very much illegal, but nobody really cared about that, all they could think about was survival.
At this time of the day there were only a few shops open and all of them had a facade business that wasn't relate to the illegal stuff they did later in the day. Nobody would think anything strange right now, but Zanka knew that they would still offer their illegal services if you asked a certain way. Growing up in the Hellguard and then having to avoid them at the Cleaners had its advantages.
Still, he didn't want to take too long, maybe it was because of how crowded that street was or how morally wrong to him what he was going to do was but he had the feeling that someone was watching him.
The seller was quite the strange woman. From the moment that she laid eyes on Zanka she started looking everywhere else, not really avoiding his gaze but more like she was searching for something. It wasn't that strange, he wanted to think, assuming her attitude was that way only because he was asking for something illegal at a rare time while carrying a stick around. Not many people liked givers, he understood that and he didn't want to talk much either, so he just told her the unnecessarily long names of the poisons and run out of the shop with two vials that cost way too much.
He was definitely being watched.
Anxiety creeped up over him as he serpented trough the crowd, trying not to bump into anyone, not to think of how little escapes there were with so much people and trying to seem as normal as possible as he went into alleys in no specific order until he found one with two big cages he could use to climb into a balcony and wait for his stalker.
He waited there, focused on the alley, gripping Lovely Assistaff with one hand and using the other to stabilised himself while crouching down.
He didn't have to wait long.
Suddenly he heard something being thrown at him while, meowing!? His body reacted faster than his mind could process the sound coming from above and not from the alley, standing up and swinging Assistaff upwards in a swift movement that ended up with... a cat landing onto her.
Of course, it was just a cat.
He had gotten his hopes up thinking that Jabber could have been following him-
To fight. To fight him.
But it was only the stress he had been building up this past week. He let out a deep sight before putting down the cat and petting it as a way to say "sorry". It was really cute, with a dark brown fur with some spots of a lighter brown here and there, really light blue eyes and a purple collar. A purple collar, huh.
He felt that creeping sensation again, surely that feeling of being watch couldn't have been the cat, but nobody else showed up and he didn't want those thoughts to get to him, so he decided to get the fuck out of there.
After all he still had a long day ahead of him, the dials now weighing him down in the pocket he had putted them in.
Oh it was gonna be a long day.