I wish I owned DBZ, but I don't. I own DVD's and tapes, but it just isn't the same. I also don't own the right to Starcraft or any of the music pieces you see selected, just copies of merchandise, such a shame. The artists that created them are geniuses and we all must bow to them.

Chapter 7: The Quarter finals

"I hope everyone has made it back from our first intermission, because the quarter-finals are beginning right now!" the mushroom man called out. Instantly there were swarms and even a few fights in the stands between spectators trying to get back to their seats.

"First up with have the very young rookie Verto taking on the strongman from South quadrant, Papoi! Get back to your seats people, this looks to be a showdown in the making!" he announced again. He kept a weird and excited grin on his face while I just stared back at him with a frown.

"All right Papoi, pound that kid into dust!" South Kai called out as his big man entered the ring. King Kai was struggling not to hold his laughter while motioning me to go to the ring.

"I'm going to say - the kid wins," West Kai said, startling just about everyone.

"You are?" King Kai stuttered a bit as even I looked over in surprise.

"Yes I am, South Kai has been bragging forever about how Papoi was going to beat everyone at this tournament. Besides, I want Pikkon to beat the kid later!" he said as if he had planned it out. I stopped listening to the Kai tirades going on and entered the ring, staring down my opponent, or in this case, staring up.

"Yeah!" he shouted out, flexing a bit. Ugh, a Mr. Satan wannabe. I dropped into a slight stance, ready for whatever this big guy had and ready to send it back at him. The clang sounded once the crowd quieted down, they seemed eager for a good fight. I let a little of my power flow, just enough to be cautious just in case this guy wasn't the pushover I took him for. I felt a tiny amount of ki being emitted from him, but it seemed more like he was simply preparing to charge forward, he didn't have that much focused energy around him. Is this it? Is that all that I have to fight around here other than Dabura? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, there can't be that many bad guys left! Oh well, it's not like I have to use everything in the arsenal on these weaklings. He did charge me as I expected, the ring shook a bit as he ran at nearly full speed. I waited until he was five feet away before I did anything. His huge fist nudged my leg when I phased out, so he was a bit faster than I expected. It didn't throw me off course though, and I power kicked the big man in the back of the shoulders. He stumbled forward before twisting around and flying right at me, more power surging from him this time as I moved at his same clip through the air. Once he started using energy, I got a better feel of his potential. Flying and maybe low power ki blasts seemed to be what was in store, the only real threat was his physical nature, as I had expected. I let him get closer before phasing out from another knife hand that nearly took my head off of my neck. I landed on the ground behind him as he did the same, grunting a bit in an alien language.

"That your max speed, big man? If it is, you better just quit now! I haven't even started yet!" I boasted as he gathered himself. He brought his arms up higher and seemed to flex a bit, uttering a low battle cry.

"Ground Shaker!" he shouted as he brought his arms down. The whole ring took the impact, but a sudden rush of energy came from his feet and tore up the ground in a straight line coming right at me. I hovered into the air cautiously, until I saw what was happening. I dodged out of the way at the last moment and watched the energy attack fly out of the ground in the form of a wide beam. It wouldn't have hurt me by any means, but it certainly could have stung. Just as I turned back towards Papoi, all I saw was a huge fist in my face. As I was knocked back by the unexpected attack, I mentally cursed for letting myself stay so wide open.

"Verto, watch out!" I heard Videl call out. My self-disgust caused me to almost make another mistake when I realized I was no longer in the ring, but hovering outside of it. I felt some blood trickle from my nose and ran down to my lip. I stopped the momentum with a quick burst of ki, pissed that I had allowed all of that to happen. A Psionic lightning bolt or two streaked out of me as result, and I had to get my emotions back under control, a result of anger. It more than scared King Kai, but most of the stadium didn't react to this as much of a threat. I took a calming breath and suppressed my Psi even more, allowing King Kai to gasp in relief. I rushed at Papoi, who cranked back for a big punch. I put both hands forward and stopped his own punch as I arrived. Grabbing his huge arm, I threw him over my head and charged when he landed. He was up just as fast, but couldn't block the quick blows that followed as I ducked in and out of his attacks to strike with my own. Three punches and two power kicks later, he was airborne and eating dirt when he landed in the grass.

"Well, that's that folks! after a close call of clearly underestimating his opponent, young Verto wins the match easily!" the mushroom MC announced - that first line got my anger going again. I kept it somewhat hidden this time, landing and stepping out of the ring with a slightly discouraged frown.

"What's wrong, Verto? What happened out there?" Fasha asked.

"I'm not sure. I guess I'm just not very focused today. I'm not used to peaceful times again I guess. There's always been some sort of enemy on the horizon for a while and now there doesn't seem to be. I'm just not that eager when there isn't any sort of bad guy to defeat. I just went through a big string of them and now with none left, I just kinda got bored, bad time for it. Guess I nearly blew it there didn't I?"

"Sometimes I wonder about you, kid," Fasha said, ruffling my hair a bit.

"You need to control your power better Verto," King Kai warned.

"Yeah, sorry about that. I don't think that little burst would have harmed anyone badly since everyone here is dead, but maybe that will get the point across when I tell them to stay away during training," I said, rubbing the back of my head like a former student of his.

"Well, while you were busy with that gorilla, that moth thing I'm fighting was watching you pretty carefully. He seems almost confident that he's going to face you later and win or something. Well I'll give him a few things to worry about first!" Videl declared. I glanced at Caterpy, who was indeed staring at me. The grin on his face seemed familiar from somewhere, but I couldn't place it. I didn't bother to either, because my next opponent was going to be the winner of the next match, not him.

"It's time to get Pikkon and Fasha up to the ring please!"

The aforementioned fighters took their places in the ring and both of them silently powered up. Pikkon didn't hold much back as he released his strength, and thus Fasha had to transform to the first level to even think about fighting him right away. He also did not take off his training robes, but judging by the look he had been giving me, I would indeed see them come off before the day was done. They didn't go at it until the bell sounded, but then the ring lit up with a gold and blue light that danced around one other. The crowd let out their oh's and ah's in the early warm-ups before they really got going, as they were probably not going to see what would transpire until it was over. The fight didn't really get interesting for five minutes, a lot of ki blasting and a ton of dodging and flying around. Although they were pretty even power-wise, they were still holding back, no doubt either testing each other, or trying to save something for me. Fasha was pretty much at her maximum without ascending further, which would end the fight in a heartbeat. I wasn't sure what Pikkon was waiting for, though. I had heard he never really took off his heavy robes and I knew he was stronger than he was letting on. When Fasha finally beat Pikkon to the punch and bashed him into the ring, things turned up a bit when the gloves came off.

"Uh oh, there goes Pikkon's training robes! Get ready to take cover folks, this fight is about to get nasty!" the MC said, pointing out the obvious. Pikkon's power suddenly jumped up quite a notch, overtaking Fasha at Super Saiyan 1 pretty easily when he finally let it all out. A flash of blue went by Fasha's golden form not a moment later, leaving a few cuts across her sleeves and telling me that indeed Pikkon was much stronger than he seemed. She scowled and turned towards his direction, finding he was no longer there. She barely dodged a ki blast explosion an instant later and she floated in the air and tried to track her opponent. I was able to follow Pikkon without much trouble, though his current level was almost on par with my maximum Mystic state without a transformation. I watched as he zipped around the ring a few dozen times, letting her fire off blasts to no avail, leaving nice holes in the ring that South Kai complained about. She lost him completely soon after, not seeing that he had elected to stand on an asteroid directly above. She cursed when she realized she hadn't been able to keep up and glared up at him. He fired a big blast straight at her once she found him. She dodged aside and got clobbered in the face by his fist when the blast exploded. Uh oh. The surprise attack was successful, and allowed Pikkon to pummel her body with dozens of fast punches and kicks. I scowled when he nearly broke her nose and sent her flying toward the wall.

"Fasha, look out!" Videl shouted. Fasha woke from her slight stupor and shook the cobwebs from her head a bit. She was floating ten feet off the ground, just on the outside of the ring. She glanced down as she realized this, and made a cardinal mistake of taking her eyes off of Pikkon. I wanted to help her telepathically through our partial bond, but I knew that she would not be happy about it. Pikkon's energy shot up once Fasha stopped, and his movements shifted into a bit of a ritual dance, spinning around with one hell of a bomb in his hands. I caught a sense of his massive attack coming, but noticed that some of it didn't come directly from him.

"THUNDER - FLASH - ATTACK!" I took note of the attack name as a huge flame wave poured from his hands with the intensity of most of my more potent attacks. Fasha was able to jump and phase out of the way before it hit her. I sensed the attack would have definitely stung if she had stuck around, and probably would have ended the match. The crowd wasn't so lucky, and several partially charred aliens were trying to brush themselves off a moment later once the attack was done. Luckily for them, the most dangerous part of the attack seemed to be closer to Pikkon, and the attack lost a majority of its power once it was a certain distance from him, something that didn't make much sense all of a sudden. Once Fasha was clear of the fiery blast, she rose up to the skies in a big hurry. Pikkon spotted her right away and blazed up after her. She gathered her energy and powered up further, pushing the barrier and ascending to Super Saiyan 2 quickly. She didn't take a chance and took it all the way up this time, stopping Pikkon in his tracks. Her power shot past his pretty quickly, leaving a similar difference in their power levels on the flipside. Pikkon cautiously lowered himself to the ground, apparently not the first time he had crossed paths with an ascended Super Saiyan. He remained very calm though, which got my attention since his power was considerably lower than her's.

"She's got this thing won now," Videl said with confidence.

King Kai was nodding as well, "Chalk up another win for the North side!"

"Oh man, Fasha's new form has just gotten even brighter and more powerful than before, sure looks like Pikkon could be in for trouble now!" the MC announced. Fasha landed in front of Pikkon with a bright and cocky grin, one that she probably got from training with Vegeta so much.

"You might as well give up now!" she warned, raising a hand to charge a blast. Fasha, don't underestimate him. He's hiding something! I thought out of instinct, not intentionally trying to help her. I doubted it would matter though, it would be like King Kai giving her the advice that he should have been right now, he didn't sense what I sensed. Fasha seemed to be laughing a bit in the back of her mind, thoughts of "gimme a break" and "this guy has no chance now" were flowing quite nicely.

"What's wrong, afraid you'll have to face her next round?" Videl asked, slugging my shoulder gently.

"No, I'm not afraid of either of them, she is doing what I just did, underestimating her opponent. There's no way he could look that calm and not be hiding something from us, and I think were about to find out what it is!" I said, not taking my eye off of Pikkon. He was relaxed to be honest, but he also looked very focused right now, his energy flowing sharply. I suddenly felt a surge of power from him that wasn't there before, and I was sure it wasn't anything hidden as I had been scanning him quite actively. His arms dropped to the sides for a moment before his battle cry hit the air. A bright flash of red went off as his aura activated, it too was red. So that's what it is.

"Kaio-ken!" Pikkon shouted, indeed showing he was capable of something more. His power soared and topped out quickly, having Fasha instantly worried. She barely dodged his first charge and flipped over gracefully. She directly blocked his punch when he came flying in, and a scuffle of punches ensued. Fasha barely kept up with his new speed, and about lost it when she overextended her fist. Her quick recovery time wasn't quick enough as Pikkon nailed an uppercut on the very next attack, sending saliva flying and her body across the arena. She stopped short of the edge, wiping the blood trail from her mouth and growling. Pikkon lined up across from her, Kaio-ken aura still going. Looks like he can maintain it for a long time. Guess it's a good thing that at this level it takes a huge amount of energy to use it, so there's probably not going to be any doubles or triples going off here. It looked like Fasha had lost it and she started charging something similar to a Galic gun behind her, ready to fire.

"Let's go!" she shouted. Pikkon went through his thunder flash movements again, looking intent to accept her challenge.

"Galic Cannon...Fire!" she shouted, giving a slight change to the move, and firing a golden beam this time. The flame wave from Pikkon smashed into her beam and the two struggled momentarily while tearing up the center of the ring. I saw right away that her beam was swallowed by the Thunder Flash wave, but I sensed more energy coming from Fasha than I did from Pikkon. I sensed her send a massive amount of her power down the beam in order to win it all, but Pikkon's thunder flash seemed to feed off of it and issue its own rebuttal.

"You got her Pikkon, finish the job!" West Kai cheered. I narrowed my eyes slightly and got a better scan of Pikkon's finishing move. That wave...is feeding off the power sent against it, almost like my feedback technique - well, not quite, but close. Goku never mentioned that, but then again he may not have known. Fasha must have been hearing my thoughts or had figured this out on her own, because she shut her beam down and got the hell out of the way as the beam smashed into the stadium. This time I felt Pikkon let up and the attack lost a lot of its power before giving another portion of the crowd more than a tan, telling me what I wanted to know. I sensed the energy evaporate into the air almost right away, on command from Pikkon. A lot of the energy for his move came from the surrounding area, not just within himself, so any added energy against it would be a waste and almost a countered effect. I had noticed it in the first attempt, but now I had the answer to that question. Pikkon's Kaio-ken aura blazed in front of Fasha when she reappeared in the ring, mowing her over now that she had burned up so much power. That's it. She lost, I thought, trying to keep it contained, though I'm sure she knew already. Only a few hits more landed before she was knocked out of the ring, landing on her rear just a few feet behind me.

"Oh man, that hurt!" she said as she got up slowly.

"Pikkon is the winner!" the MC shouted as the crowd cheered.

"You ok?" I asked, checking her over.

"I need to listen to you more often. I didn't see that coming!" she said, trying to figure it out.

"You're not the only one," I said as Pikkon jumped down from the ring. He picked up his robes but tossed them over next to the stadium wall, seemingly content to leave them off as he stared at me now.

"You better tear him up, or no one will save you from me!" Fasha warned with an odd sound of encouragement.

"I'll cross that road soon enough," I said, returning Pikkon's stare as he smirked slightly.

The next match took about as much time as it took to announce it. Dragonetti had no prayer against Dabura and the whole crowd knew it. He valiantly attacked for about five seconds, four and a half of them spent running at Dabura from behind, and was knocked out of the stadium by Dabura's no-look-backhand. I still couldn't sense where he landed when Dabura left the ring two minutes later. Videl stretched a bit, as she got ready for her match with Caterpy.

"Videl, be careful against this guy," I warned, watching the butterfly creature intently. I slid a little closer to the ring as they took their positions. Caterpy had a smirk that I had only seen on a select few bad guys, one that I was sure I had seen before. Fasha couldn't figure out what I was thinking about so she asked directly, only to walk away confused when I said that I had seen that smile before. She walked back towards the wall, muttering about damage from head blows being passed through a telepathic bond.

"So, I hear you're the famed daughter of a world champion, is that correct?" Caterpy announced, his voice sounded extremely ragged.

"Yeah, that's right," Videl said quickly, sinking lower in her stance.

"What a shame, I thought you might actually have potential then!" he said in a mocking tone. Now how would he know about Videl or her dad? Surely the gossip grapevine is a little more detached up here? Videl didn't hear my thoughts, only her own angry ones as she charged at Caterpy. Her first blow was dodged very easily, and the butterfly's energy barely budged from where it was. Whoever this guy is, he sure has a handle on his power. Her next kick was blocked instantly, and Videl began to try a little harder.

"Triple Kaio-ken!" The red aura came up and her power tripled, but didn't do a whole lot of good in the flurry of punches and kicks that followed. All of her attacks were easily blocked or dodged by Caterpy, who's smile never waned a bit. She backed off once she realized that it was doing nothing, catching her breath for a moment. Caterpy had yet to even take a step, and Videl was already worn down.

"Is that all? Then again I suppose your father wasn't much to look at either, at least you can provide a small amount of entertainment while I start warming up!" he teased. Where have I heard that before? I asked myself, not finding the answer. Videl didn't seem to care and powered up further, dropped back for a big blast.

"Kaio-ken times ten!" she shouted, as the rocks began hitting us from the powerup.

"Be careful Videl!" King Kai warned.

"I'll get you! Kame...hame...HAAA!" she uttered, ignoring King Kai for the most part. The beam charged Caterpy and actually caused his smile to fade just a bit. His energy shot up from nowhere and he batted the beam into the skies, destroying a few asteroids far above before dissipating. Videl gasped for breath in shock, but it didn't last when Caterpy instantly appeared next to her and gave her a more than vicious backhand. She landed and skidded till her head was draped over the side right in front of me.

"Hey Videl, I know you don't want to, but you better give up," I whispered.

"Ugh...! No way, I haven't trained so hard for nothing!" she rasped back while holding the side of her head.

"Yeah, but it's just a tournament, and this guy hasn't shown us any of his potential yet. Trust me, I know what I'm sensing," I said cautiously as Caterpy stalked up. He directed his grin towards me as he bent down to pick her up by the scruff of her shirt.

"You had better end it now, unless you want to deal with me that is! You know full well that she doesn't stand a chance against you right now, you had better not toy with her!" I warned.

He glanced at me and gave off a curious look, "Are you in that much of a hurry to get beaten, boy?" he asked smugly.

"Are you in that much of a hurry to find out? I can sense that you're holding a ton back and are just playing around right now. Rest assured that if you face me, you'd need everything you've got! I suggest you don't waste it and end the match now, otherwise this could get ugly!" I threatened, cracking my knuckles audibly.

"You would be disqualified from the tournament, I don't think you're that foolish, runt! Besides, she's already dead, a few broken bones will put her back in her place," he chuckled.

"If it means protecting my friends, then I don't care about the match! I'm not like Goku. If you cross the line, you will pay the price in spades! Keep going - you'll have more than a few broken bones when I'm done with you," I said with a subtle growl, bringing up Goku to remind this bug as to what he might expect. He seemed to think that over for a few minutes while the Kais finally figured out what was going on and were heading our way. Just as King Kai was shouting at me to back down, Caterpy lightly tossed Videl from the ring and to the ground.

"And here I thought you would actually go down that road," I scoffed as I checked Videl over.

"Perhaps a later time, boy! We'll see if you can make it that far to be worthy of my time!" he said with a sudden change of tone as he walked off. I shot a stare at him as he said that, knowing I had heard that tone before. I ignored it for the moment, seeing if Videl needed anything for extreme medical attention. Other than some pretty decent bruises from skidding across the ring and taking that nasty hit, she was fine, but a little woozy. King Kai walked her over to a bench to help her clear up what had to be a stinging headache, but I kept my glare on Caterpy, or so he was pretending to be. Dabura caught my glance and nodded slightly, he apparently knew that I had figured out who it was, or that I was going to tear him apart one way or another.

"Man, who is that guy? I didn't think he was that strong! He took my beam at full power and sent it into the sky!" Videl moaned as her head cleared a bit.

"He's obviously stronger than we thought, but Dabura is probably going to punch him into the next century," King Kai said, getting a scowl out of South Kai. Judging by the feel of South Kai's energy, he wasn't sincere or even that certain about Caterpy at all. I was, however, very sure of who and what he was. I didn't announce it aloud so not to start a panic, and frankly I had too many questions as to why and how he was even up here. But now I didn't care. My drive for a good fight had just kicked on, and "Caterpy" would do nicely. Oh yeah, I'll make sure we have the match that you backed out on, Friezell!

Power levels:

Pikkon (w/o robes): 280,000,000; Kaioken: 420,000,000

Fasha: 75,000,000; SS1: 190,000,000; SS2: 390,000,000

Videl: 7,500,000; Kaioken X3: 22,500,000; Kaioken X10: 75,000,000

Caterpy (Friezell): 340,000,000

A/n: I would think that it was obvious by now ( Rodaiogin - If it isn't, you're all pathetic. ) that Caterpy was Friezell, it won't be revealed to the whole crowd till next chapter though.