The General

Chapter 9 – It all begins

Edit: Erm, guys? Seems like my MS Word got corrupted again. I have no idea if I have spelling mistakes in this chapter, how much I have written and whether stuff makes sense or not. Well, at least you can see my writing in the most raw form without any editing from anything else.

A/N: Seems like I lost a lot of readers, that's what I get for not updating for so long. Well, let's do this, the real story begins now. The story is really choppy, but please remember this is my first. First of many, I hope.

Hmmm, some people seem to dislike the use of weaponry. Well, I have found a perfect use for them. To mask Gohan's true strength, he shall be using sword mastery rather than his vast reserves of martial arts strength in front of the public.

(This is awkward, I have to keep pulling up previous chapters to know what is going on and what the names of the contestants were.)

On with the story!

"Since you are going to the tournament too, do you mind coming with me? Thanks, I'll wait for you at the school entrance!" Without bothering to see if Videl gave her consent on the trip, she walked off towards the school gates.

"That ditsy girl, she never thinks before she starts doing something weird. Oh well, I'm participating so I'll have to go anyway, might as well humour her." With a huff, Videl followed her reckless friend.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Walking through the large arch of pure white marble, she felt really tiny. Sure, she had been made fun of for her height, for her small physique but never in her life had Videl Satan felt so tiny in her life.

A walkway of venomous green carpet followed, as she made her way towards the arena she would be fighting in that day. She looked up and drank in the scenery as if it was the last time she would see daylight.

The arena was of Ancient Roman architecture, a perfect replica of a restored arena where gladiators fought to the death, in similar fashion to the martial artists on this day. They were fighting, but not quite to the death, just until one of them either passed out or gave up, whichever comes first.

She tore her eyes away from the sight, convincing herself that her sudden feeling of doom was only a figment of her imagination and not something that was related to the tournament. She was hoping against hope that nothing bad would happen to her or one of the fighters.

She became overcome with a sense of panic. Why she abruptly started being pessimistic about a fight, when she was always so confident, she did not know. All she knew that something bad was going to happen to her in this tournament, something really, really bad.

A warm hand fell upon her shoulder. The light weight startled her and she slowly fell to her knees.

"Sorry, did I startle you?" Gohan's voice came from behind her, "You looked really helpless, so I thought I would help you out a little."

Her heart beat fast, her mind became blank and her limbs refused to listen as her fear slowly crept back into her. Her face became gaunt, her eyes glazed and her lips started to quiver.

Gohan placed his other hand on the opposite shoulder of the azure eyed girl and gave her a firm shake, jerking her back to reality. Whether that reality was pleasant was another story.

"Hey, is everything alright? What happened?" Gohan was alarmed, he saw people act strangely on the day of their first tournament, but surely the daughter of a veteran martial artist was no stranger to competition?

She stood up slowly, shakily at first but got her balance back soon after. As soon as she stood, the haunted look on her face vanished, replaced by her normal confident, smug look with an underlying hint of suspiciousness at the sight of Gohan.

"What are you doing here?" Videl decided to ignore the questions Gohan posed and asked one of her own. She didn't want to answer any questions asked by him.

"I'm here to fight in the tournament, what else?" he replied, unaware of the doubtful look Videl was giving him. Apparently, she hadn't believed the announcement on the TV with the list of competitors and still had her doubts about him competing.

"Well, are you alright? What happened to you right there? You looked kind of scared." Gohan asked, still not having been answered by the other teen. He was determined to get answered this time, it seemed.

Videl didn't want to admit it, but she was scared. Scared that is, until Gohan snapped her out of her miseries. It was her first ever tournament in front of a live audience and she was afraid of what was going to happen to her when she tried to fight against martial artists renowned throughout the whole world for mastering their own styles of martial arts.

"If you are worried about what is going to happen to you when you try to fight all of those martial arts masters, don't worry. You won't get permanently injured." Gohan smiled, perfectly replicating the smile on Goku's face when he tried to consolate someone with a lie.

Hearing Gohan's reassurances, she relaxed.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The competitors for the Royal Tournament, as they called it, lined up in the arena. They were getting ready to draw the lots to decide who fought who in the opening round of the tournament. Well, everyone except Hercule Satan. He was automatically given the #1 slot to fight first, ahead of all other combatants, to give him a chance to raise the bar.

Everyone that knew the truth behind his façade tried to hide mirthful smirks.

"Raise the bar, yeah right!" Krillen scoffed, already imagining the massive beating the imposter was going to get within the next hour. Thankfully, nobody heard the near silent remark from the bald man, [1] other than Gohan (who was standing next to him) and Tien Shinhan (he was standing on the other side of Krillen).

"Now then, shall we get this tournament underway?" The Announcer announced, followed by an earth shattering cheer from the crowd. "Well then, will the first competitor, Tien Shinhan, please step up to the box?"

Tien responded almost instantaneously to his name being called. He marched over to the box containing the balls with the numbers on them. The number decided where you went in the tournament bracket.

Tien pushed his hand into the opening and removed it with a ball clutched in his grasp, flashing the number 12. He threw the ball over to the Announcer, already on his way back to his place in the line.

"Number 12. That is Tien Shinhan's number, let's hope, for his sake, that it's his lucky number." The Announcer announced to the crowd, for the sake of those that couldn't see Tien flashing the small, green ball. The assistants next to the tournament bracket board wrote down Tien's name next to the number 12.

Tien grinned as he heard the Announcer wishing him luck in his weird way. Tien was usually impartial to tournament Announcers, but it was only this one that he didn't hate. He knew that this was one of the select few Announcers that had seen real martial arts duels, not the ridiculous nonsense they called a fight in these times. This Announcer was not a phony, he had the thirst to see true death matches.

"Now, on to the next contestant. Krillen, will you come over and pick out your number?" The Announcer called on the next fighter, who happened to be another member of the Z Fighters.

Krillen approached the box in a hurry, wanting to get started with the fighting rather than carry on with the mundane task of watching people picking out balls from a box. This wasn't his first tournament, so he was used to the boredom of going through the process. He still, however, hated going through the whole ordeal. In his opinion, they should just let everyone loose in the arena and just let them fight it out.

Imitating Tien, Krillen quickly pulled out a green ball with the number 7 written in large, bold print. He also quickly flashed it to the crowd before throwing the ball over to the Announcer, who caught it with a flourish. Krillen ran back to his place in line, rather than waste time walking. He really was starting to get twitchy.

"Well, well. Seems like our second veteran has drawn the number 7. A lucky number, I must say." The Announcer announced, while his assistants scrambled to quickly write down Krillen's name next to his appointed number.

"Now, our next warrior is a young one. I believe this is her first time taking part in a tournament with a live audience, so will you give her a warm welcome? She is the daughter of our favourite hero, Mr Hercule Satan. Please welcome: Videl Satan." The Announcer was building up hype for this one. He was expecting great things from the young lady, not as much as another young man present, but great things nonetheless.

Videl walked over to the container. She stumbled a little on her way, but she got back up on her feet. It was obvious, she was nervous, she had good reason to be. She was the daughter of the world champion, everyone expected her to give a good display on her first public tournament.

As soon as she pulled out the ball and looked at the number, her face morphed into one of shock and horror. A thousand thoughts raced through her head as she looked at the dreaded number. She had always wanted to fight that person, but never did she think she would face him so soon.

The crowd fell silent as she held up the offending ball, a few gasps ensuing from here and there.

Her number? 2. Her opponent: Hercule Satan, her own father.

A/N: Evil cliffy. Don't worry guys, I am getting on writing chapter 10 right away. I mean it this time.

That's another chapter down. I think it's about time I got a beta. Anyone feel like volunteering?

[1] : I like bald Krillen, his hair makes him look stupid.