Sythius seemed to be breathing oddly heavily, even for a lizard's standards, but Shadic did not think much of it. He assumed that, since he was an unordinary creature in general, it was just a regular event in his everyday life.
The lizard seemed like he wanted to get stonger himself, but his methods themselves just were not doing the trick. Shadic responded, "Training every day and beating the gunk outta people? Uh, y'know, that's a good start. When I train, and also sometimes when I'm beating the baddies up, I push myself to my limits and imagine I can go further. The key to succeeding is optimism and dedication, I think, which I know can be hard," Shadic was not sure whether or not his advice was true, but it always seemed that way. Hopefully Sythius could understand that.
To avoid hurting the alien's feelings, somehow, Shadic added, "Everybody gets stronger at a different pace. Don't let other people demotivate you."
A glowing ball of ki formed in Sythius' hand. "They die when I hit them with this!" he said, waving the blast around. He talked over the first sentence of Shadic's response, but he was able to follow along with the important parts. "Optim...ism?" he recited, with his brow furrowed. "What's that mean?"
Sythius puffed his chest out at Shadic's soothing words. He didn't know what 'demotivate' meant but he inferred that it meant something bad. "I won't let anyone hurt me!" his affirmation was hollow. How could he protect himself if he was so weak? Sure, he was way stronger than the normie criminals he was killing, but he was an insect compared to Shadic. The lizard considered his own strength for a while before coming to a conclusion.
Sythius didn't quite understand everything Shadic said, but he got the gist of it. "Oh, uh, optimism means to stay positive. To look at the good side of things rather than the bad side. It takes effort to be optimistic, but I guarantee it can make your life a lot better in general."
After seeing Sythius' weapon of choice, a ki blast that he kills them with, and hearing the lizard suspect he was fighting too weak of criminals, Shadic realized that was definitely the case. "Yeah, if the people you are, er, dealing with die when you hit em with that; they are probably too weak to really matter. Like I said, you have to push yourself to get stronger, you have to want it. If the only people you fight can be taken out by one ki blast, you probably should upgrade to some people more around your level."
Obviously the little street thugs did slightly increase his power, but Shadic found it a lot better to fight other beings who could fly and use ki like him. It not only gave him a challenge, sometimes, but it also was a lot more fun!
Sythius' eyes narrowed. "I can do it! I can be optimistic!" his words were filled with determination. "No I can't..." he thought as the words came out of his mouth. "I will be the most optimistic optimist ever!" he roared, fighting his thoughts. 'Looking on the bright side' was such a foreign concept to him. His short life started with being attacked. His only accomplishment was twisted into violence by his own hand. By accepting that protection contract so long ago, Shadic became a symbol of safety to the immature monster. Following the advice of a stranger made from that warped standpoint.
After listening to Shadic on his blast, Sythius was confused. "I don't really know anyone around my level..." Sythius answered. "Everyone is so strong! They'd squash me!"
Sythius seemed to accept the idea of being positive until he didn't; then he was optimistic once again. Confusing, to say the least. The lizard creature seemed to think he would get squashed by 'everyone' because they were so strong. Shadic shook his head and answered, "They would squash you if you think like that. You're a big, lizard, man, uh... thing? You should strike fear into the hearts of people - preferably evil people, might I add. Your physical presence alone could win you many fights before they even start! If you go into a fight thinking you can win, there is a better chance that you will. Within reason of course, there are obviously some people you cannot beat."
Shadic wished he could help the lizard alien creature find a sparring partner or something of the like, but he did not know anybody who would be of assistance. It was strange giving advice to the councilman of a city, but it was the right thing to do.
Shadic's words made sense. He was a massive reptile man! When he walked down the street, people stared at him. Why would people stare at him unless they were afraid of him? A toothy (or... fangy?) smile spread across Sythius' face. Sythius didn't really understand "evil", but he didn't say anything about that to the heroic Saiyan. As far as he was concerned, "good" was making him feel good, and "evil" was anything that made him feel bad.
Sythius didn't interact much with others. He knew of Reku, Sonnelion, Shadic, and Skylar... they were all much stronger than him. Sythius sensed ki as a form of pressure. When someone's power level was too much higher than his, it could feel very uncomfortable. Normally, he only felt this way when he was already irritated, for some reason that he didn't understand.
"I couldn't beat you... could I?" Sythius asked, unsure.
Sythius seemed to understand, and like, the idea of being an intimidating lizard monster that foes would not want to challenge. He was finally figuring something out that might work for him. Then he asked if he could defeat Shadic in a fight, to which the hybrid laughed, "Oh no, I don't take L's. People tend to think I'm weaker than I actually am because I trained my body to not emit any ki energy at all, or at least to the point where nobody can detect it. I don't know if you're aware how ki sensing works, but you can usually judge whether or not something is stronger than you, kind of like a gut feeling. That can be tricked and taken advantage of, but for the most part it's pretty accurate. Definitely use that to gauge somebody's strength before fighting them. And like I said, it is not always accurate."
The lizard councilman clearly was not very good at the fighting thing, which is probably why he became a politician. Still, Shadic was going to help him as best he could.
"Well... how strong are you?" Sythius asked. He sensed the strange terrorist with the insane power level, and Shadic was confident that he could beat him... so he had to be powerful... right? He opened his mouth to try to explain his hypothesis that Shadic was massively powerful, but he wasn't good at the whole 'thinking' thing. The words just didn't come. Of course, he really didn't try that hard to articulate his thoughts. Sythius didn't tell anybody what he thinks!
"How did you even come up with that?"
Sythius had many weaknesses... too many to list, and one of them was that he feels ki signatures as unique 'throbs'. He doesn't know how to tell them apart right now, but when he was dealing with someone hostile who was much more powerful than him, it hurt to sense them. "Really? That's not how I feel power!" he remarked.
"How strong am I?" Shadic repeated, making sure he heard the question correctly. It was hard for him to put into words, especially since his power was untraceable now. He just sort of knew what his limits were and when a challenge might be too much for him, which hadn't happened in a long while, "I think I'm able to count the number of people who could give me a challenge on one hand. Of course, those are people I've met, and I'm sure space has billions of beings that could squash me. But here on Earth, as far as I know, I'm easily top 5 and maybe even top 3 (I mean, personally I think I."
Sythius seemed baffled by Shadic's method of sensing power, which was another tough subject to explain. It was something he'd been doing for years, and once he had it down, it just came naturally. Almost like riding a bike or tying his shoes. He didn't think about it, it just happened. "It's not easy to explain, by any means. Like, how do you sense ki?"
Sythius thought about it for a second. How did he sense power? Sythius didn't know how to explain it either... but he gave it a shot.
"I think it's like... pressure, sometimes pain." He spoke hesitantly, unsure of how much he should tell... even to a good guy. "I feel pressure, especially when powerful people close to me are close to my power level or stronger. Sometimes, for some reason it can become painful," Sythius paused before adding "I can sense a few power levels far away. If they're sense-able from a long distance, I'm sure they're really strong!"
He was glad that the Earth's formerly secret government had his back.