Authors note:
The main character in my story is Celly, my DBZ insert character. I made her past a mystery because everything I came up with sounded either egotistical, or just plain stupid. Her past may be reviled later in the fic if I can come up with a good idea. Also, I made her physical design back 3 years ago when I was a semi dubbie, getting into the Japanese version, so and I'm sticking with it, so nya! Comments are welcome, and enjoy the fic!
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She did not know where she came from. She looked up at the night sky and all its vastness, wondering where she was from. She had a memory, no doubt about that. She could remember far back into her childhood, but what about before then? Surely she had parents at sometime. But that was all a blur.
She felt so alone here… There were millions of people on this planet, but she felt so secluded. She lived among people, of course, but she only watched as couples cuddled together under the sakura trees, as friends walked and talked together after a hard day at school, as mothers held their children by the hand while they did their afternoon shopping… She only watched, and wished she had what they had.
Her physical attributes were that of other humans (i.e. two eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears, all her limbs). Her golden blonde hair reached her waist, and a few strands were held back with a pink clip on the left side of her head. She had dark blue, almost black, almond shaped eyes. There was one thing, though, that made her different…
She was 16, she guessed, judging on the other teenagers that she shared a planet with.
Unbeknownst to her, the next day would be the start of her new life. She opened the door that lead from her balcony to inside her modest little one bedroom apartment. She locked the glass sliding door behind her, and closed the blinds.
The blonde headed straight for her room, and crawled into her plush bed, falling asleep almost instantly.
"Will that be all for you, Celly?" A kind faced that belonged to an old woman asked. She was standing behind the counter of a small grocery store. The blonde girl, who was uncouthly named Celly, nodded.
"Hai, Nasunei-san, that's all I need for today."
Nasunei smiled at Celly and leaned over the counter. "See that young man over there?" she whispered quietly, while pointing in the general direction of a teenage boy standing only a few feet away. "He keeps looking over here. I know his name; I can introduce you two if you want."
A hint of pink could be detected in Celly's cheeks. "No thanks, Nasunei-san… He doesn't look like my type…" She picked up her bag of food. "Ja ne. See you tomorrow."
The young man walked over to Nasunei as Celly left. "Well? How did it go?"
Nasunei shook her head, sighing slightly, as she dusted off the counter. "Poor dear, she's so alone and shy. She said that you didn't look like her type… She doesn't have lots of friends you know, Seishi."
Seishi ran a hand through his dark red hair. "I really want to get to know her."
"I tried, dear."
"Hai, obaasan. Arigatou gozaimasu." He walked around the store glumly. His attention soon turned toward a group of two teenage boys about his age that had just walked in.
"Ha, I can't wait to enter the Tenkaichi Budokai. Too bad there isn't going to be any competition besides you."
"Yeah, too bad. This time you're not going to beat me though with your dirty tricks like you did last time. I never did get those toys that you promised me."
The first boy, who's purple hair was in the style of a mushroom cup, laughed at his brunette friend. "I had other things on my mind, okay? If you want, we can go to my house right now and I'll give you some of Bra's old things."
"That's alright, I think I'll live without them. Now what did we come in here for again?"
"We need munchies!" The two began wandering around the store, grabbing anything that looked good.
Outside, Celly began her trip home, grocery bag in her arms. She hummed a soft tune to herself to keep from becoming too bored as she walked down the seemingly endless streets filled with hundreds of people. Celly was soon in a daze, ignoring the world around her. It was not until she felt a harsh tug on her purse did she snap out of her dazed faze. Looking up, she saw three teenage boys were gathered around her. One, who had black eyes and light blue hair, had his hands on her purse. He grinned broadly, revealing his grin (where he had a tooth missing in the front). He looked slightly older then Celly, perhaps 20 or 21.
"Hey there sweet cheeks. Whatcha got in that bag of yours? Any money?"
"Obaasan, I'm going to go get a paper, okay?" Seishi informed his aunt, who merely nodded as she rang up the total cost of all the boys "munchies".
He stepped outside, and nearly fell over in shock. He saw the three men gathered around Celly. Surely she wouldn't be able to handle them herself… And was that a knife that he saw in the hands of the brown haired one? He rushed inside.
"Hey! You two! Can you fight?"
The two teenage boys exchanged glances, smirking slightly.
"Yeah… We can fight, why?"
Celly glared at the one with the missing tooth, who was most likely the leader, being that he was the biggest (and the most stupid). "Let go of my purse so I can go home," she said with as much sternness as she could muster.
All three males burst into laughter. "That's a good one! Look honey, just give me the purse and nothing bads gonna happen." He pointed to the brown haired guy on his right, who was holding up a knife.
"Can I use it yet, Tosuto?"
Tosuto keep his grin, and shook his head. "Wes only gonna use it if she don't wanna cooperate." She reached over and touched her cheek with his right hand. She quickly slapped it away.
"We gotta fiesty one here," Tosuto signaled the others to come in closer.
"Over there!" Seishi pointed at Tosuto and the others, who were closing in on the young blonde. "She can't fight them all off."
Celly dropped her bag, causing some of its contents to break. Her eyes were closed as she slowly turned her head in Tosuto's direction. Her eyes opened quickly.
Tosuto fell over, gasping for breath.
"Whaa… What happened?" Seishi asked in awe. He and the two other teenagers just stood around in trepidation. But while Seishi was trying to pick his jaw up from off the ground, the other two looked very curious.
"It's obvious…" said Goten. (Authors note: I'm getting tired of calling them the two boys. If you haven't figured out that it's them, then I question your intellect). "It happened really fast."
Trunks nodded. "She kicked him in the gut. Oh man, he's coughing up blood, that's gotta hurt."
The guy with the knife and the other thug sprang for her at the same time. She ducked, and their heads collided, causing them to stumble back.
"Kurito!" the nameless thug barked at the one with the knife. "Get her!"
"I'm trying Sidi! I don't see you doing anything!"
Sidi grabbed her arms and put them behind her back, squeezing a sensitive pressure point in Celly's wrist while doing so. "Hand me the knife! I'm going to teach this gal some manners."
Kurito looked down in his hand, surprised to see that the knife was not there. He slowly turned to Celly, who was smiling broadly, holding the knife in her right hand.
"H… how d-did she get out of…of… your grip?" Kurito stuttered, fear present in his voice. He became very pale. Sidi backed away slowly.
"I say we get out of here…"
Kurito nodded, and the two grabbed Tosuto by the arms, running away as fast as they could.
Celly's face now sported a satisfied grin. She picked up her bag, and walked off as though nothing had happened.
Seishi looked even more shocked then before. He was speechless, in fact. "Wow, that was pretty amazing, huh guys? Um, guys?" Goten and Trunks were nowhere to be found. Seishi reached up and touched his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Ehh… Maybe I'm seeing things…"
It was a very windy day. And like all windy days, things were being blown around through the city. Bits of newspaper and other forms of trash littered the air, thanks to the unusually strong breezes. Trees swayed to and fro, looking as though they were likely to snap in half.
It had been two days since the three punks had tried to rob Celly. She was once again returning to the little store to buy some food. The wind was now blowing harder than before. Celly quickly pulled opened the door to the small grocery store. Trash that had been blowing around rushed inside and floated onto the floor.
"Great," Seishi muttered quiet loudly, grabbing for his broom. "The fifth time this mo-" He looked up to see who had walked in. He smiled slightly seeing that it was Celly, and looked down at the floor, cleaning up the trash.
There, amongst the McDonalds bag and an empty Styrofoam cup, lay a flyer. Curiosity got the best of Seishi; he bent down and picked up the piece of paper with bright, bold letters across the top. In an eager and rushed voice he said to himself, "Tenkaichi Budokai…"
A grin spread across Seishi's young face. Dropping the broom, he ran through the small store, quickly finding Celly. Nasunei raised an eyebrow, curious as to what was going on in her nephews mind.
"Celly! Um… miss…" He looked at the floor in an embarrassed manner, handing her the flyer.
"Hmm? What's this?" She read the flyer over. Seishi didn't quite get the reaction from her that he expected. He thought that she would get excited over it. Quite the contrary; she seemed very uninterested. "I… see… Why are you giving this to me?"
"I saw what you did yesterday- the way that you handled those 3 thugs on your own. You have talent, Celly-san, I think you should enter this martial arts competition." She looked up at him. He was serious.
"I'll think about it…"
The wind had long since died down, and Celly was now back at her apartment. Sitting on her sofa, she was eating an apple while looking over the flyer for about the hundredth time. She was unsure of what to do.
"I'm not strong, there's no way that I stand a chance against some of these people," she though to herself, taking another bite of the delicious red fruit. "I mean, I've heard of people who train all there lives for this competition and that's sometimes not enough. But… it's free to enter… and look at that prize money! 50,000,000 yen! I could move out of this crummy apartment! Not that I'll win, though."
She kept debating this with herself long into the night. And three days later, she still hadn't made up her mind. She had agreed to meet Seishi later that day. The red haired boy was in one of the city's many parks, sitting on a bench under the unblossomed sakura trees. Celly wondered why he wanted to talk to her.
"Konnichi wa," he greeted her as he saw her approach.
"Oyaho," she responded, clutching the now slightly wrinkled flyer in her right hand. He saw it.
"So, did you think about the Budokai at all?" Seishi tried to strike up some form of conversation.
She nodded vaguely. "Hai… But I'm not so sure, Seishi." Seishi stood up.
"Let's go for a walk and we can talk about it. Now, why on Earth would you not want to enter this thing? It's the chance of a life time and you're a natural."
"But I've never fought before in a real competition. I never even punched someone… Well, before that little incident that happened last week at least."
"You have real talent, then," Seishi told her reassuringly. "For someone who's never fought before, you could sure kick their butts. I wouldn't want to run into you in a dark alley." He smiled.
Celly fiddled with a strand of her blonde hair rather nervously. "But some of these people have been fighting in tournaments all of their lives!"
He didn't say anything at first. The two teens passes a couple holding hands and walking with each other into a store. There was a water fountain up ahead of them; they sat down on the edge of it. "You don't have anything to lose. Come on, please?"
I have a fan boy, she thought to herself, holding back a chuckle. "Alright, alright," she sighed, "I'll enter the Budokai."
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The Tenkaichi Budokai was now only days away. Celly had spent the past few weeks training alone. She practiced basic punches, kicks, worked on her speed, and other things to help work up her strength, such as stomach crunches and push ups. She hoped that it would be enough. She even gave meditation a shot.
The young teenager was nervous as she reached the island, a bag in hand. She had agreed to meet Seishi weeks ago. He told her to meet him by the registration area. Sure enough, he was there, pacing around in a rather nervous manner.
"Oi, Seishi!" she called out to him.
"There you are!" he "greeted" her. I've been waiting for a half an hour! Where were you?"
"Well, Mom, the ferry was late. I just got here."
Running a hand through his hair, as was his nervous tendency, he kept up his pacing. "I already registered you, so you need to go wait in line to see if you qualify." Seishi pointed to a large crowd of people, lined up single file in front of some odd machine.
"Alright, I see you later." She handed him her bag and walked to the line. Her heart was now racing with a mix of excitement and nervousness. All around her were pumped up guys who looked like they could crush her with their bare hands, and women who looked like they could easily beat him.
The bigger they are, they harder they fall, Celly told herself, trying to calm her nerves. It wasn't working. A couple more people lined up behind her.
Well ahead of her in line were Goten and Trunks, who were talking amongst themselves.
"This is pitiful," Trunks muttered, looking around at the vast crowd. "It looks like we're not going to have any competition at all. I was so right. I wish that someone strong enough would enter, but no." He rolled his eyes at a man twice his size, which was practicing his punches. "Man, that guy is so big that his size his going to slow him down and make him really easy to beat."
Goten nodded, and turned around in the crowd. He spotted a blonde haired girl (der… guess who) and pointed to her. "She could probably beat him. I don't know why those people thinking that all the muscle is going to help them in the long run."
Trunks looked at the girl with a confused look on his face. "Do we know her? She looks familiar."
"She probably just has one of those faces, Trunks."
"I guess you're right. Hey look, it's almost our turn!"
Celly was growing tenser by the second. Her chance was approaching more rapidly than she had hoped.
"Miss? Move up, please." She looked up at the gap in the line, and nodded. After what seemed like an eternity and yet no time at all, her turn was finally up. A pleasantly plump man said, "See this? Punch it as hard as you can. It tests the strength of your punch, and shows the score here." He pointed. "And the 10 people who score the highest will qualify." He sounded as though he had said it a hundred times before, and he probably had.
Celly gulped. She hopped that her punch would be strong enough. Taking a breath in, she pulled her arm back, and then snapped it forward. Looking up at where her score should be, she saw that there was nothing. Is it possible that that was so weak that I didn't even get a score? Cell thought anxiously to herself. The next thing that happened surprised her and everyone around her. Springs and other parts of the machine shot off from inside of it until it was nothing but a pile of crumbled up junk. Her eyes grew wide, and one of the men quickly wrote something down on a clipboard.
"I'm so sorry! I bet that happens all the time!" she apologized with a slight bow. "You guys should really get these things looked at. They're not that strong. I didn't even punch my hardest."
The man who instructed her on what to do had found another machine. "Yeah… All the time…"
"Name?" The man with the clipboard whispered hoarsely.
"Celly." She walked back over to Seishi, who was reading a magazine. He didn't see her at first. Celly stood there long enough to read the front of the magazine, which said KYOTO MAN MONTHLY: How to get your woman and keep her.
"Whatcha reading?" she giggled.
Seishi turned very pale, tossing the magazine over his shoulder and into the bushes. He chuckled very nervously. "Heh... nothing, nothing at all… So, how did you do?"
"Um… Probably not too good." She took a seat on the bench next to him. "I broke the punching machine…"
A grin spread widely across Seishi's face. "You broke it?" excitement was present, as well as noticeable, in his voice. He quickly wrapped his arms tightly around her. "Man! No one ever breaks the machine! You're in for sure!"
"Really?" She smiled weakly, not sure if she quiet believe what he said. Seishi let go over her and nodded.
"All those big buff guys went before you, and they punched there hardest, but they didn't even leave a dent. You come, punch it, and break it. Oh man, you're going to win!"
"I hope so," she muttered, looking back at the line, which was noticeably shorter than it was 20 minutes ago. Maybe he's right; maybe I do have a chance… After all, all those big guys that went before me didn't damage it at all. She broke out into a smile, as a man in orange robes approached them.
"Miss…" he looked down at his clipboard, "Celly?"
"Hai?" she nodded, curious as to what the man wanted.
"You have been selected as one of the finalists. Please follow me, and I'll show you to where you can get some food before the tournament begins."
Celly and Seishi both stood up from their seat on the bench, but the man held his hand up. "Uh uh, only finalists can come," he said to Seishi.
"But… I'm her manager! Her trainer! You gotta let me in!"
The man caved in. "Fine. You can come. But this isn't a free all-you-can-eat buffet, buddy. Follow me."
*End of Chapter 1. Stay tuned for Chapter 2, coming soon*