Chapter 23:  Chapter 23 – Preliminaries

 

…

"Go and find another man! There's plenty of fish in the sea!" Bulma yelled at Launch. 

 

"Humph, why don't you take some of your own advice then? Strong men need strong women like me," the blonde criminal pulls out a machine gun and points it at Bulma. 

 

Yamcha saw this was getting out of hand and was about to stop the fight. Obviously, he was going to side with Bulma, she was one of his best friends and an intelligent scientist. 

 

But before Yamcha could intervene, Bulma pulled out a remote and, with a confident smirk, pointed it at Launch. "Try me, you blonde bimbo! I have a laser satellite just ready to atomize you to microscopic bits!"

 

'Wait, what? How did this go to space lasers all of a sudden?!' Yamcha stopped in his tracks. Usually, he was calm and could think through things rationally, but he didn't know what to do right now. How does he stop this fight? Because even he wasn't sure if Bulma was about to shoot down a laser beam from space. 

 

Also, when the hell did she build that? Where did things go so sideways from the original timeline? 

 

He missed the simpler times. 

 

Yamcha didn’t know what was the right choice here. Because if he got involved and took Bulma’s side, Launch might shoot, which would then cause Bulma to press that button he was smothering with her thumb. If he took Launch’s side, Bulma would probably press that button she had smothered a dozen times. 

 

How strong was the laser she was talking about? Yamcha got a little nervous as he imagined the laser might be something that could level the whole island. 

 

During this whole argument, Goku had a finger up his nose and looked utterly confused. Yamcha was jealous of his younger friend. He suddenly got an idea, and with a smile that belonged on the face of a clueless anime protagonist, he got in between the women. “Sorry, but guys, everyone is looking at us. Why can’t we all be friends? I like both of you. Bulma is one of my best friends, and Launch, you also look like someone who would be a good friend, too; let’s get along.”

 

‘Clueless Harem Protagonist Technique!’ 

 

The girls looked at each other and sighed simultaneously, then immediately got angry at each other for acting like mirrors. 

 

“Sure, sure, let’s just go to the tournament grounds. We don’t want to be the reason you’re late, Yamcha,” Bulma said while giving a side glance to Launch as if to say: ‘Look at me; instead of fighting, I do what’s better for Yamcha!’

 

Contrary to Bulma, Launch only pulled a strand of her long blonde hair and pulled it up to her nose. “”*Hatchu!*”

 

One sneeze later, she returned to the dark blue-haired gentle girl, who looked around cluelessly. “Huh? What happened?”

 

Not wanting to be involved in any more shenanigans, Yamcha walked off with Krillin and Goku. He did not want to be involved in this any longer than needed. However, he stopped by Carrot and whispered to him. “Keep an eye on Bulma and the others. Someone is lurking nearby. You will have Puar to help you too.”

 

“Yes,” Carrot nodded resolutely. “I will defend the others with my life.”

 

Yamcha stopped and looked at Carrot. He had changed a lot during the time they had been apart. From a cruel gangster to this. Was this the famous villain redemption Dragon Ball is known for? Yamcha used Observe on the humanoid rabbit to check it out. 

[Emotional State: Nervous. On edge. He doesn't want to lose his luxury life and payday by having Dr Brief's daughters die. He hopes Dr Brief will finish building those sexy robots by the timer he returns.]

 

“...” 

 

Yamcha walks off. Making sure to keep an eye on Bulma and the others. 

 

"Sir, if you're a participant, you need to enter now," one of the tournament workers told him. Yamcha nodded and entered. 

 

Goku and Krillin were talking amongst themselves and laughing. 

 

They arrived at the fighting building, and Yamcha made sure not to enter without first Tao being in there. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Tao was in there, and even though the building was filled to the brim, no one dared approach him within even an arm's length. 

 

Despite being weak in the general gist of things, Yamcha couldn't deny that Tao seemed to have quite the reputation. It was something built over hundreds of years, and he likely is something like the bogeyman. 

 

Yamcha made sure not to stare at Tao longer than a brief look. He made sure to stare at him, like someone who knew about him but not someone who noticed his play. 

"Okay, everyone, let's start the fights. There are over two hundred contestants, so we will have a couple of preliminary fights," the blonde hair announcer said. He was wearing sunglasses, and it was hard to read his thoughts. Yamcha wondered how he felt about having a well-known assassin in their tournament.

 

Many other referees came, one for each ring. Yamcha heard his name calling and noticed that none of the strong fighters were facing each other.

Yamcha's first opponent was a humanoid wolf. The announcer introduced them by name and their fidgeting number. Yamcha wasn't concerned with his opponent and kept his eyes on Tao.

 

Tao fought against some mook that looked like a wrestler twice the size of a normal human being. The master assassin quickly dispatched his opponent.

 

"Look at me, damn it!" Yelled out the humanoid wolf as it charged at Yamcha. 

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He turned toward his opponent and quickly dispatched him with a soft karate chop to the neck, which knocked him out cleanly. 

 

There was almost no time to rest as the fight continued. The only noteworthy thing was Krillin fighting against a bully from his temple. 

 

Fights continued happening, and Yamcha kept an eye out for everyone; nothing too big or different from the original happened. Even with Tao’s addition, it seemed like the referees had gotten a feel for who was stronger and were pairing them against weaker people. They wanted the strong ones to fight in the tournament; having the finalists meet up here, where there’s not even an audience, was boring. 

“Yamcha vs Bacterian!” Called out by one of the announcers and opposite of Yamcha, a big fat man with yellow crusted teeth, messy hair with flies around it, and a horrible, disgusting smell stepped on the ring. 

“Hahaha,” the opponent laughed and approached Yamcha. Who used Observe on the man and saw very descriptive but disgusting information about him. Like how he had never showered once in his life, and he used his stench to give him an advantage during fights. “Take this! Bad breath!”

He breathes toward Yamcha, who gathers a small Ki ball in his hand, softly shoots it at the man, and slams him against the wall. Knowing the beast, Yamcha also slaps the air and drives away the disgusting breath of smell that is about to come at him.

 

‘I had forgotten that during these days of Dragon Ball, people had bizarre techniques during fights.’

 

Yamcha steps off the stage. He could see Tao looking at him with a smirk, but Yamcha ignored that and watched Goku defeat a Bruce Lee impersonator. 

 

“Okay, everyone, the preliminaries are finished, and now only the top eight will advance to the quarter-finals, where you will fight in front of the eyes of hundreds of people,” the announcer said well… announced.

 

Yamcha checked out the announcer’s name, and it was Johnny. He was the same guy who always refereed Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z tournaments. 

 

“We will rest for a bit as I decide the fights in the Quarter Finals. 

***

 

Johnny knew he had to be a professional in this industry. He had to continue his family's legacy of being a World Tournament announcer. Three generations of the family have already been doing it.

 

But if he said he didn't want to run away from this place, he would be lying. There was one thing to have powerful martial artists and another to have straight-up killers in here.

 

Tournaments like this weren't for killers like Tao Pai Pai. Well, it wasn't like he could do anything about it. 

 

'The best I can do is fix the matches, so people don't end up killed.' 

Jackie Chun, Ranfan, Giran, Krillin, Tao, Nam, Goku and Yamcha. Those were the people who had passed to the quarter-finals. 

 

'Ranfan, the attractive woman who uses her body to get an advantage in fights. If she fights against someone like Tao, she could end up dead.'

So instead, he put her to fight against the oldest-looking fighter. Who likely had more experience with women and would be wiser. So he could take her out of the tournament fast. 

 

‘Also, the old guy probably isn't in the best shape, so I will have his next fight against the two most kind-looking fighters.’

 

In the end, Johnny puts Tao against the person who looks most likely to be able to put up a good fight against him. He had wanted to put Girian, the dinosaur humanoid monster, against him. But despite his intimidating appearance, Girian didn't seem too strong in the preliminaries. 

 

In the end, Girian would fight Tao next, as the bald kid was unlikely to win.

 

Essentially, the whole matching tree he built was in order not to have the good people fighting against Tao. While the killing was forbidden in the tournament, with Tao, those rules were like asking a cat not to eat a mouse. 

"Okay, now here are the fights," Johnny backed off and let the fighters see their matchups. He was proud of this and had done the best he could. Hopefully, no people would die from this. "The first fight will start in two minutes."

After that, Johnny walked out to get a breather. 

 

“Sorry, can you tell me where the betting rooms are? I want to bet on a fighter.” He was pulled out of his thoughts by a rabbit humanoid wearing sunglasses that had a stack of money on hand. 

 

“Who’re you betting on?” Johnny nodded and decided to help the rabbit to get rid of these awful thoughts. The best he could do was hope that this tournament didn’t end up in a blood bath.

If he were to bet on Tao, his winnings would be minuscule as no one would bet against him once the fighters are announced. Betting on anyone else was essentially just throwing away money. 

 

“There’s this friend of mine,” the humanoid rabbit’s sunglasses shone with a dishonest light. “He is super strong and is gonna win this. He is young, but I have never seen him lose.”

‘Poor guy, he will lose a lot of money. Oh well, it isn’t my place to tell others what to do.’

******

A/N: I was going to end the chapter without changing Yamcha's POV. But I added a little on how the matches were decided from the Announcer's perspective as extra. 

 

P.S: Can anyone guess the matchups just from those descriptions? 

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