Chapter 2

"Okay everyone, these are the rules for the preliminary rounds." Said the blond haired announcer.

"There are five rounds for each fighter, in each round the contenders will battle on this two hundred foot long battle ring." He said pointing to the unusually small ring.

Almost everyone who was participating started to complain about how small the ring was. "What the heck is that? A playground?" Said one man.

"That ain't no ring, that's a play-pen." Yelled one girl from the crowd.

The announcer, who was getting quite agitated at all the murmuring, let the fighters know what they could do "Okay if it's that much of a problem, I can always disqualify everyone here for disgruntle behavior!"

Silence immediately followed. The announcer straightened his sunglasses and continued explaining the rules.

"Each one of you 30 fighters will fight five different other contestants in the preliminary rounds. Unlike the tournament rounds, the contestants will be chosen by name. And that chosen fighter will fight another chosen fighter, until we have our twelve fighters that will go on to the tournament rounds."

"Is that clear? Any questions? Alright, lets get your names."

A man came from the side holding a small green box with paper in it. The announcer then placed his hand in it and pulled out a name. "The first name is: Shirou." He looked around. "Will Shirou, please come to the ring?"

A young rugged black haired woman came from the crowd. She cracked her neck before jumping onto the ring.

"Her opponent will be, Draken." The announcer called in a loud clear voice

Draken was completely filled with excitement at the fact that he was the second person to be called. He was so excited that he unknowingly jumped from his spot directly onto the ring.

Shirou raised her eyebrow at the young boy and said, "Well, you sure got some springy legs. But that's not going to help you at all, kid. I hope you can take a punch without balling like an infant."

Draken who was completely unaffected at Shirou's attempt to anger him, he bowed respectively towards the older person saying, "No, I won't cry if you hit me. I've been hit too many times before. I'm use to it by now." Shirou was completely surprised that the boy didn't react to her harsh words the way she planned; in fact he reacted completely opposite to what she thought he would. She then caught on to what he said, "What do you mean IF I hit you? I've squashed plenty of pip-squeaks like you at high school."

Draken's face had hardened, if it was one thing that he hated more then anything else, it was a bully. And Shirou definitely sounded like a bully.

The announcer started to speak, "Fighters! Are you ready?"

Both Draken and Shirou replied with a loud, yes.

"Okay, ready? Fight!"

Shirou made the first move, she ran towards Draken at an incredible rate of speed hoping to catch him off guard. Seeing that Draken only stood in a fighting stance she thought that she could take him out easily, she was wrong. She threw her fist towards his face planning on knocking him out with one blow, but instead of colliding with his face, her fist only caught air. She slid on the ground to a stop then looked around for the disappearing boy.

All of a sudden she heard a voice come from behind her, "You missed me!"

Quickly turning her body towards the boy, she lunged at him again. But this time instead disappearing he slightly moved his head to avoid the blow. "Missed again!"

Shirou was filled with anger and frustration simply because she could not hit the small boy. "Come on! Hold still you little brat!" She yelled.

She lunged at Draken again throwing a fast barrage of fists towards his face. He effortlessly blocked each blow with his one hand, while holding the other hand around his back. Taking his eyes off Shirou he caught a glimpse of Pan. "Wow, Pan's actually watching me!" He said to himself. "I'll be sure to make this look good!"

Shirou who was still throwing her fists at Draken noticed that he wasn't even paying attention to her, so she stopped and jumped back, "Hey kid! We're still fighting here! Unless you haven't noticed!" She yelled angrily.

Draken turned his head towards her and started to blush, "Oh I'm sorry I kinda forgot."

This angered Shirou even more, "FORGOT! What do you mean you forgot! You think this is some kind of game?"

"No…"

"Well you sure are acting like it is! Now if you don't mind, can you actually do something? Instead of just standing ther…" All of sudden Shirou felt Draken's hands slam into her mid-chest area sending her flying out of the ring and crashing onto the floor rolling head over heels then stopping on her back.

The announcer was astonished at the strength of the small boy; he shook his head and yelled, "Ring out! Draken moves on."

The men in the room were in awe, one of the men actually fainted.

Goku made a large grin when he saw what happened, "Looks like I found the other one. I wonder how strong he really is?" He looked at Pan and smiled even more, "I also wonder how he'd do against Pan."

Pan was as animated as her grandfather. Not only was this boy cute, he was stronger then most of the adults in the room. Out of pure excitement, she yelled out, "Alright Draken!"

Draken, who was not used to someone cheering him (especially not a girl), started to gain bright red spots on his small cheeks. He raised his hand and waved at the person who gave a standing ovation towards him. He also detected that the crowd was still dumbfounded.

They couldn't believe it; this pint-sized, cerulean haired toddler-like boy had just knocked out one of the toughest people in the whole room. And he did it effortlessly, without even making a sweat. To one man's surprise this boy was more then just an abnormally strong youngster, he seemed like he could pose a challenge. And that was a hard feat to accomplish in the eyes of this man. A man named Vegeta, a prince of an endangered race called Saiyans. Vegeta was a man who defined pride, heck, if you looked pride up in the dictionary you'd see his picture. Vegeta wasn't the only one who saw the reenactment of David and Goliath, Goten and Trunks were also in the area when it happened.

Trunks walked over to his father Vegeta, "Whoa, did you see that father?"

Vegeta answered cynically, "Yes, I saw." Taking his little attention off of Trunks, he turned towards Goku and yelled, "Hey, Kakarot, come over here!"

Goku turned towards the only person, who calls him by his Saiyan name. Walking towards him he wondered what he did this time to make Vegeta mad at him. "What's up Vegeta?"

"I thought you told me that there was only one person that was special. But there are clearly two. Explain!"

"I don't know why your getting upset Vegeta. Okay, so I didn't tell you that there was another person who was incredibly strong. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that I couldn't sense that little squirt's power level. I could have underestimated him in battle like that girl over there did." Vegeta said pointing to Shirou, who was staggering towards the exit. Then he yelled, "Can you imagine how embarrassing that would have been for me?"

Goku crossed his arms and started to think of the scenario. He imagined Draken flying toward Vegeta at full speed and slamming his fist into his stomach as he buckled and exploded into dust. Suddenly Goku's face puffed up as he tried to contain his laugher, but failed as he fell to the ground laughing uncontrollably.

Vegeta was now infuriated; he glared at Goku with a menacing look. This made Goku stop almost instantly, "Look Kakarot, the only reason that I'm not going to punch your face in for laughing like that, is because I don't want to be disqualified." He brought his face closer to Goku, "But when we fight, you're a dead man." He walked away leaving Goku behind him.

Goku was sweating, he may be a more powerful fighter then Vegeta was, but Vegeta still was a lot more scarier then he would ever be. He stood up and saw Trunks walking towards him. "Hey Trunks, you seen the fight I assume?"

"Yeah, I did. It wasn't really much of a fight if you think about it." Trunks laughed to himself, as he looked Goku up and down. He continued, "Well, that's new look." He said pointing at Goku's clothes.

Goku placed his hand behind his head, "Yeah I wanted to wear something different for the tournament besides the usual red shirt and pants." Taking his eyes off Trunks he looked around, "Hey Trunks have you seen Pan?"

"No, I haven't. I think she was gone when you and dad were talking."

"Oh? I guess she must have gone over to congratulate Draken."

Trunks made a confused look. "Why would she want to congratulate him?"

Goku chuckled, "I don't think you've noticed, but Pan has grown a liking toward him."

Trunks eyes widened, "But she's only five. How can she grow a liking to someone, when she's only five?"

Goku let out a chuckle, "I don't know, but she likes him."

Trunks was beyond perplexed, he was about to say something when he noticed Pan on top of the ring. "Hey Goku, isn't that Pan up there, knocking that large man out of the ring?" He said indicating where she was.

Goku spun around only to see Pan winning her first match. He started pouting, "Aww…I can't believe I missed her first match. It must have started at the same time Vegeta started his yelling fest."

Trunks gave Goku a reassuring pat on the shoulder, "Hey don't worry Goku, it's not like she's not going to win the rest of her fights." Then he thought for a second, and continued, "Unless she fights Vegeta, or Buu, or…lets just see how she does."

Meanwhile, Draken was sitting on a chair completely bored. After taking a few breaths of tedium he said, "I can't believe that girl was so…so easy."

He leaned into the chair with his arms around his head. "If all the fighters are gonna be as easy as she was, then I might as well just stop. Uub can take over for all I care."

Draken was actually about to walk out of the area, until he saw Pan skipping towards him.

She stood on the side of him smiling brightly, "Hey, that was a awesome battle? How are you doing now?"

"I guess I'm doing fine. Why do you ask?" He said bluntly.

Pan leaned her stubby elbows on the chair, "You don't sound fine to me."

Draken turned his head towards the cheerful girl, "That's because I'm incredibly weary of this tournament."

Pan made a puzzled facial expression, "But you only fought one person."

"I'm aware of that. But that girl I fought wasn't even worth my time. And I heard that she was one of the toughest people in the tourney. I can't believe I had to fight a girl anyway." He exhaled.

Pan's face clearly hardened, "What do you mean; you can't believe you had to fight a girl?"

Unable to see Pan sudden facial change because his eyes were closed, he answered, "I mean, girls aren't supposed to fight. They're supposed to stay home and clean like they do back at home."

Pan's cringed angrily at the boy's remark, to show her anger she grabbed his chair, lifted it up, and slammed it on the ground with him on it.

The shocked Draken poked his head from the shattered pieces to focus on a very angry Pan. Drops of sweat covered his face, "Um, why did you do that?"

She didn't reply. She simply stuck her tongue at him and casually sauntered away, leaving him to rethink his views about girls.

Two hours later

"I can't believe that I let dad bring Pan into this tournament." Gohan said completely worried about his daughter.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that girl. It's the people she fights that I'm worried about." Said Videl.

Gohan curved his head towards his wife, "I guess so, but still, there are some really strong fighters this year." He turned he head towards the window to look out of it. "I can sense them."

Back in the preliminary room.

"Alright everyone. Please walk through this door in the single file line that you're standing." Said the announcer. "When I start to announcer the fighters, you'll walk out this doorway." He walked towards the door opening and turned towards the fighters. "And thank you for entering, please enjoy the rest of the tournament." Finally he exited the preliminary room, walked out on the arena.

The fighters were anxiously waiting the time when they would enter the arena ground, and prove that one of them were the strongest warrior in the world. Finally they heard the voice of the announcer that gave them the signal to come out. They walked out calmly in a single file. They heard the scream of the crowd cheering them on. The announcer raised his microphone then brought it back down to his face, "Alllllright! Is everyone ready for the 15th world martial arts tournament?" The crowd roared in reply. He continued, "Okay! Then lets get this tournament underway!"