Chapter 10 - Tails of the Tenka'ichi Budo'kai Part 5
Fortunately, Goku didn't have to hit the concession stands. Papaya Island Take-out Beef-bowl and Ramen Emporium did a 15 minute door-to-door delivery delivery service. Goku did an even more impressive, '5 minute consume 8 deluxe beef-bowls and 8 super-size bowls of special ramen service.' Fortunately, 20000 zeni from the unused 'Tails Clothing fund' paid for the food and a decent tip.
Tails had other things on his mind. First he sat with Namu, finding out just how many people and how much acreage they had to provide water for, and where his village actually was. Fortunately, there were geography books among the files loaded into Bulma's old pocket computer.
It was also fortunate that Tails had been part of the dull but vital task of keeping Knothole fed. One of the problems of having a secret base in a gorge in the forest, was that growing area was very limited, which meant irrigation, supplemented by gathering from the forest, fishing, and a creaky carni-culture synthesiser, kept powered originally by Swat-bot power cells and now the new water wheel.
A population as small as that of Knothole also couldn't support drones. Everybody worked, which probably explained why Antoinne, despite his omni-phobia, was on the combat roster. As if the great son of noble military parents would stoop to 'the labour manuel'. Even occasionally having to risk his precious tail on missions was better than that. Tails, of course, would have jumped at the chance to switch places.
The up-shot was that when Rotor had planned upgrading the irrigation system, Tails had done a lot of the mental grunt work, research using Nicole, measuring the water flow of the river that ran through Knothole and tabulating the size of the fields to be irrigated. As a result, he now could make some fairly intelligent estimates of how much water Namu's village needed.
Some factors differed, evaporation rates, irrigation methods, crop types and such, but Bulma's grade school text-book files had a lot of dull statistics. Of course, teasing the necessary answers out of them by pulling the scattered data together would require a genius... so that wasn't a problem. By the time the take-out had arrived, Tails had arrived at some answers, and Namu had finally accepted that Tails hadn't just been spinning tails... sorry tales, about helping.
"I had no idea how much would be needed!" The turbaned martial artist exclaimed. "Can even the prize buy that much water?"
Tails shook his head. "Getting the water isn't a problem." he pulled up a world map on the pocket computer and zoomed in on Namu's region. "You're less than 500 kilometres away from that mountain range to the east. There's at least a dozen lakes we can use. Or the ocean coast to the west, give me free run of a junk yard and I'll build you a desalination machine. The one thing you guys have plenty of is solar power."
While the lion's share of the food had gone to Goku, Tails and Kurillin had ordered themselves some too. Kurilin brought Tails' order over, a deluxe ramen.
"Thanks Kurillin! As I said, getting the water isn't the problem, storing and transporting it is. I'm almost certain there must be flying tankers or capsule storage units available... I'll have to ask Bulma, she may not know herself, but she'll know who can tell me. Even hiring them is going to be expensive, I guess, but Goku will handle that."
"You're really into that." Kurilin commented.
Tails was taking a sip from his ramen bowl, and slurped up some noodles before answering. "Yup. I'm learning to fight because I _have_ to, to help my friends, and defeat Robotnik. But what I _want_ to do is invent things, things that can help people. This is an engineering problem, maybe not my usual line, but something I know how to solve."
"Each to his own, I guess." The young monk shrugged.
Tails, while not trained in the Lina Inverse/Ranma Saotome school of Martial Arts High Speed eating, he had become fairly fast on the chopsticks when he needed to be, and quickly consumed the rest of his late lunch, though he wished he had a chilli-dog too.
"Speaking of Bulma, I should have just enough time to go ask her before the final. I'll see you all soon!"
He put his bowl by the stack that Goku was leaving, dashed out of one of the side entrances, and took to the air, overflying the crowd until he spotted, Bulma, Puar, and Oolong. Master Roshi was nowhere to be seen. He auto-rotated down, waving. "Miss Bulma! I need to ask you something!"
"Tails? You're really okay?" Bulma exclaimed, as he landed on the parapet in front of her. There was a lot of surprised muttering and exclamations from the other spectators.
"Sure, why wouldn't I be?" The young fox dropped down, landing in a sitting position on the retaining wall of the bleachers, facing the teenage inventor.
"Because being slammed through a solid stone floor generally hurts?" The wrench wench of Capsule Corps responded.
"Oh, that." Tails said dismissively, and pulled out his pocket computer. "I've toughened up a lot while I was training with Master Roshi. Sparring with Goku and Kurilin helped too. Besides, it wasn't solid stone. The paving was only a couple of inches thick, underneath it was loose fill and a concrete retaining wall. If it had been solid, I probably wouldn't have ringed out."
He handed the computer to her. "It really needs dura-steel reinforcing, and possibly some force field generators to protect the crowd. If one of those Kamehameha's had gone the wrong way... But that's not what I want to talk to you about. I've worked out the water requirements for Namu's village, and I was hoping you could tell me what sort of storage units Capsule Corp make, either flying water tankers, or just capsulised tanks with pumping systems. You can see from the map where we can get water, the problem is carrying it. I need to figure out the costs too."
Bulma was fascinated by Tails' off-hand comment about force fields, but applied herself to the task at hand. She flicked through the calculations and notes on the screen. "You worked all this out yourself?"
"I had almost a quarter hour before the take-out arrived, and your computer had all the info I needed. Does it look okay to you?"
Bulma reckoned she could have done it faster, but not much. Well reasoned out too. Besides, she could detect a distinct note of a plea for approval. It wasn't something she'd had directed at her often, and it brought back to her that Tails, grown up as he might act most of the time, was still very much a kid in some ways. And this was clearly important to him in a way the Strongest Under the Heavens title wasn't.
"Uh huh, this is good work." The way Tails beamed in response made her feel like she'd done a good deed. "I've got a Capsule Corps catalogue on my computer, I'll find what you're after." She pulled her own computer, a bigger, shinier and slimmer model, out of her handbag, and got to work.
As she worked away, one of the braver, or more inquisitive spectators, a young tiger-striped cat, not much older than Tails himself, managed to make her way up to him.
"M... Mister Tails, sir? Could I have your autograph?" She held out a souvenir brochure, and a pen.
Tails looked around at her. "What? Oh sorry, I don't think I have one."
Oolong smirked. "She wants you to sign your name on that brochure!"
"Well, okay..." Somewhat bemused, Tails took the brochure, and wrote "Miles 'Tails' Prower" on it. He still preferred just 'Tails', but he guessed this was another case where his full name would be appreciated. He thought of something. "And no need to call me 'Mister', even if I am trying to water some plants."
The cat-girl giggled, and added, "Could you make it out to Mei?"
He added it and clutched it to her chest as he handed it back, and practically bounced up and down with glee. "This is so great! All the guys at the dojo back home will flip out!"
Bulma was still working away at her research, so he asked. "You do martial arts too?"
"A bit, well for a couple of years now. One day I want to come here as a competitor!" She looked a bit downcast. "But the other students say I'll never do it, that it's impossible."
"Kurillin had similar trouble back at the temple where he trained before he came to Master Roshi. In fact the two main culprits were here in the preliminaries. His first match, he took the one guy out in a single kick, and he pulled that to avoid hurting the guy too badly. Seems _they_ were the ones who weren't up to the challenge."
He knew the feelings she must have, he'd felt the same way often enough. This was time for Bunnie-style thinking again.
"If it's important to you, then _go_ for it, full speed and don't look back. You may not succeed, heck, I've proved that, but if you don't try, you're guaranteed to fail. Like when I invent something, I don't throw it away if it doesn't work first time, or someone else says it won't. I keep trying, re-building, testing until it does work. Gosh, I'm rambling..."
"No, I understand." She gave him a brilliant smile. "I'll do it! Thank you!"
Some of the other spectators had noticed Mei getting his autograph. "Hey! I want one too!" "Me too!" Some of them started to push their way round to where he was. Tails saw people getting shoved, and sprang up into the air, hovering in tail-copter mode.
"Hey! Stop that! If you're all pushing, someone's going to get hurt! Look, I'll come to you. Everyone wanting an autograph, hold you paper or whatever up, and I'll sign it! But if you try to jump the queue, I'll miss you out."
He dropped down. "Uh, Mei, could I borrow your pen?" The next few minutes had him doing a hummingbird impression, vectoring from upraised brochure to autograph pad, armed with that which is mightier than the sword. It was easier and faster to stay hovering as he wrote. Before the Turtle school training, he'd have been exhausted after a couple of minutes of it, but now it was little more effort than walking.
He returned to Bulma as the monks who'd been fixing the arena started packing up. He was about to hand the pen back to Mei, when he had a thought. "Look, shall I see if I can get the others to sign your brochure too? It's the least I can do after borrowing your pen. Mei nodded eagerly, and gave him the brochure again.
Bulma smirked as handed him his pocket computer. "Looks like you're a big hit!"
Tails shrugged. "I didn't expect anyone would be that interested in the guy who _lost_."
"Okay, I've loaded some options across. I've also given you my private phone number. Don't let anyone else have it! I figure it'll be easier for me to arrange what you need, once you've decided how you want to work this. Sorry I can't help on the financial end, but I already spent this month and next month's allowance coming here, and getting a new structural deformation analyser for my home workshop."
Tails looked interested. "Oh? What kind of spacial and spectral resolution?"
"Twenty nanometres, and 3 deci-hertz!" Bulma said proudly.
"Wow! Rotor's one only has a 50 nanometre resolution, though we have 2 deci-hertz frequency, but we only get that by using a poly-plex modal emitter array."
Bulma frowned. "Wait, a poly-plex array? That close a frequency spacing would disrupt the phase harmonics."
There was a look of sudden realisation on the fox's face. "Oh, you must be using a linear frequency function. Our's compands the frequency pattern with a tertiary anti-phase mode and shoves each harmonic through a different line."
"But that means..." Bulma slapped her forehead. "So obvious! Orthogonal patterns in each line, so they don't interfere! If we can apply it to Capsule Corps models, we could double, maybe even triple the resolution! That's brilliant!"
The young fox shrugged. "Can't take credit for it, I came across it while reading an old data file on scanning techniques back on Mobius."
The announcer was coming out onto the partially repaired stage. Rubble had been removed, the craters had been filled in (usually with the rubble), and new stones had been laid over them.
"Ladies and Gentlemen! Now for the event you've all been waiting for! The moment of truth! The championship final of the Tenka'ichi Budo'kai!"
Tails looked up. "Uh oh! Gotta juice! Have to be there for Goku. I'll see you later, Mei!"
Bulma called after him as he dusted off. "Come talk to me some time! I want to hear more about some of those other bits of Mobian tech you were talking about!"
Tails veered enough to look behind him and nod, then landed behind the barrier at the training hall side of the arena. Puar, the floating cat... possum... whatever, shape-shifter, and Yamcha's faithful companion, trailed after him, eager to rejoin his master. Meanwhile, the announcer was talking.
"It's a classic showdown of age versus youth! Experience versus strength! Normal size versus teeny-weeniness! Who will win!" The announcer was getting so hyped, he was starting to talk in multiple exclamation marks. Back behind the barrier, Kurilin met the young fox, he shot a look past the kit to where the tiger-girl was, staring after him. Then she turned and started talking to Bulma.
"Did you get her phone number?" He chuckled, and drained the last of his beef-bowl.
"Yes. But it's private, so I'm not to tell anyone else!" Tails replied, and required all his speed to avoid being hit by slightly used broth as Kurilin did a classic spit take.
"But... you're nine!" Kurilin exclaimed.
Tails frowned. "Nearly ten, and that doesn't mean I don't know how to use a phone! Gosh, I could build one from scratch, given a couple of minutes and some gear."
"That's not what I meant!" Kurilin replied. He was wondering how anyone exposed to Master Roshi's taste in fine literature during their mid-day school sessions could remain that innocent.
"Then what did you mean?" Tails looked genuinely puzzled. "We kinda got side-tracked talking about her equipment. She liked some of my suggestions about it. She wants me to meet up later with her and show her some things I learned about back on Mobius."
"Buh... buh..." Kurilin's mouth was trying to re-connect to his brain, but was pretty much getting a busy signal.
"Anyway, the real reason I got Bulma's the number is that she's going to help get some Capsule Corps gear to transport the water. So I need to have a way to contact her. Explaining Mobian technology is really just an extra."
"Oh... OH! Yes, of course." Kurilin finally caught up with the rest of the universe. Fortunately, Goku was just heading out the door, having put down his last bowl, thus providing a distraction. "Hey! Goku! Good luck!"
Tails turned to face him. "Yeah, We're both rooting for you!"
"Thanks!" Goku was practically bouncing up and down, beaming as if he'd just won an free pass to an all you can eat buffet. "It's gonna be awesome, having a chance to fight someone this good!"
The two fighters faced off outside as the announcer checked they were both ready.
Jackie Chun took a modified crane stance. "No holds barred lad!"
"You said it!" Goku responded eagerly.
"Ready..." The announcer bounded back off the flagstones. "Let the championship... Begin!"
Jackie Chun powered forward, catching the very last syllable of the announcer's words in his teeth, it seemed, but Goku had already jumped high. But the old master simply landed and jumped after him, overtaking the youngster and catching him with a rising flying kick before he could turn to block.
Goku went flying out of the arena as the older man rebounded and landed back inside the ring, however before he'd gone at all far, his tail spun up, and he tail-coptered back. He landed opposite the old master with a cocky grin.
"Forgot about that, didn'tcha! I ain't gonna be that easy! I was wonderin' I could use a Kamehameha blast to fly, but I figured since I only just got it back, my tail needs the exercise."
That got the old man riled up. They ended up trading Kamehamehas, which met in the middle of the arena, and blew each other out. Jackie Chun looked gob-smacked, while Kurilin and Tails were cheering wildly, along with the part of the crowd that hadn't dived for cover.
"What's your next attack! This is fun!" exclaimed Goku happily.
"Rrrr! Just for that I'm going give you a taste of... this!" Jackie Chun shimmered in the characteristic flicker of a shadow attack.
"C'mon old timer! I've seen this one!" Goku spun and struck where the old master should appear. "You gotta be... here!" The blow smashed into the place where the old master had re-appeared... only to have that figure flicker too.
"Sorry son!" Jackie Chun had appeared at Goku's back, and now kicked him full force into the training hall retaining wall's one remaining pillar (try saying that three times fast). It fell on Goku, burying him in rubble. Kurilin freaked, but Tails seemed quite calm.
Jackie Chun made a victory sign. "Ni-ju-san-zoo-ken! Double Shadow Attack! Tell the fat lady she's on!" He turned to the announcer. "Well, start the count!"
As the announcer got to three, the rubble stirred, and Goku exploded from it, landing and brushing himself off as the crowd once again cheered and applauded. "My turn!"
Tails nodded, looking pleased. "Considering the density of the stone, and the mass of the pillar, there was no way that was going to even slow him down!"
Goku shimmered, and reappeared, and reappeared again.
"Monkey see, monkey do, ehh? You'll have to do better than just copy my moves!" He struck at the third image, only to have it flicker out, as Goku descended from above and lamped a double fist strike into the back of his head. The old master's eyes bugged out, and he went flat on his face.
"Triple shadow attack!" Goku exclaimed, fists raised as if holding a banner. "You like it?"
"You little ingrate, clobbering your old master's head..."
Goku looked confused, "But my master's the turtle guy..."
"Ack! You must have hit me harder than I thought..." The older guy back-pedalled frantically. "But enough wacky misunderstandings, boy. You've got a great master, clearly a paragon of martial arts! But this move you won't be able to copy..."
He suddenly slumped slightly and staggered. He waltzed over to Goku, hiccuping and giggling, as the announcer speculated that maybe he'd been at the sake before the match. His progress ended in a sway that came out of no-where, and ended up in an elbow smacking down on Goku's head.
"It's the Sui-ken! The phony drunk attack!" called out Yamcha. "Don't get fooled!"
Goku tried to strike back, but the older martial artist's movements were totally unpredictable, with him swaying or stumbling out of the way of Goku's attacks, and seemingly accidentally into ones against the young sai-jin. They took their toll, leaving Goku wobbling and clearly the worse for wear.
'Hmm... Let's see a kid who never been drunk copy this...' Jackie Chun was thinking, as he went in for the final assault, slurring out, "Now le's seddle this 'ere fight, huh?"
Goku turned and ran, whining. It turned into a growl, and he turned round, teeth bared and drooling. He charged forward like a wild animal, tail lashing, giving off the vibes of a rabid predator, and even the old master had to flinch as he leapt.
That was enough for Goku to turn his leap into a somersault over his head, and drive a full power kick into the back of it, sending the old guy into the retaining wall, pretty much demolishing the remains. Jackie Chun staggered out, holding his head, and ground out. "What the heck was that?"
"Kyu ken, Mad Fury attack!" beamed Goku, making a V sign. The bearded guy face-faulted, then flipped back up when he realised how vulnerable he was.
"That means Mad Dog! You've got your martial arts words all wrong!"
The ding-dong battle had turned into more of a cuckoo one, as the sun started to set, and the moon started to rise... both semi-finals had taken considerable time, as had the repairs to the ring. However, from the crowd who were chanting Goku's name, and the announcer praising his skills, Jackie was clearly the only one who cared about correct names.
"No-one guessed this youngster had a chance when he entered the 'Strongest Under the Heavens tournament! But not only has he heroically battled and beaten friend and foe, he now seems to have an upper hand on the older, bigger, and more experienced Jackie Chun!" With exclamation marks like that, it had to be the announcer.
Goku continued his animal impressions, with a monkey act. And it certainly made a monkey out of Jackie Chun as he found himself on the end of wacky, unpredictable attacks with clawed hands and tail.
As Goku jumped back, grinning, the old master took a stance and started waving his hands in the air. "Getting a little cocky? Okay then, this time for sure..."
Tails was as mystified as everyone else what Jackie Chun was up to, until he started chanting, "Rock-a-bye baby... On the tree top..." Goku, who was looking right at the other, started blinking and yawning. Tails caught the edge of whatever it was Jackie Chun was doing, and felt a wave of dizziness pass over him. "... when the wind blows the cradle will rock..." Goku's eyes closed, and he slumped, face first on the floor.
"Hah! Min-min-ken, the nighty night attack!" Jackie preened.
"But... I'm not sure that counts! Hypnosis isn't really a martial art!" The announcer said.
"It has a fancy name, doesn't it?" exclaimed Jackie. "Just count!"
As the count started, Tails was yelling, along with half the audience, for Goku to get up. But nothing seemed to work. Tails knew from experience how heavy a sleeper the sai-jin could be, in fact the only thing that could wake him... He glanced at the empty bowl Goku had left behind. Kurilin caught his glance and his eyes widened in sudden surmise. Tails grinned and nodded.
As the count reached four, they yelled out, "Goku! Dinner time!" beating out Bulma, who had just started to have the same idea.
The sleeping martial artist sprung up, looking around himself. "Huh, what where? Where's dinner!"
"You have a match to win first!"called out Tails. Jackie Chun was fuming.
"Oh yeah... better finish fast..." As he spoke, Goku finally looked in the direction of the rising moon, and stopped speaking. His eyes glazed over and fur started to sprout.
"Gahh! I forgot!" cried out Yamcha. "His tail..."
(I think it's time for some more mood music 'Sonic 2 Boss Music Orchestra Remix' youtube(dot)com/watch?v=QJumqm9_jz4)
Tails's eyes widened as Goku transformed into his Osaru (giant monkey) form. He didn't _need_ to be a genius to pull the pieces together from Goku's Dragonball quest tale, and Yamcha's reaction. "He was the one that destroyed Pilaf's castle? He turns into a giant monkey when he has a tail and sees the full moon? Oh no, he was the one that destroyed his grandfather's home?"
Kurilin gulped. "What!"
Yamcha nodded, "Yeah! He doesn't remember who he is in this state, when he sees a full moon, he's just a a raging monster! Puar! Turn into a sword and I'll try to remove his tail!"
"Uh huh!" The little floating cat... possum... shape-shifter, started to change.
"That'll fix him?" Tails asked. The monster had finished roaring defiance at the skies, and started moving. He ripped the peak off the training hall, and flung it off into the distance, debris scattering down on the stands.
Tails reacted without thinking, going into Tail-propeller mode and zipping up to intercept each piece of stone and flick it away from the vulnerable crowd, who were panicking. But the monster saw him, and started to step forward, reaching out, his giant foot about to come down on the stands where Bulma, Mei, and Oolong were.
Tails dived under it, and Tailspin attacked upwards at full power into the sole, unable to hurt it, but stinging it enough that the monster stepped back instead. Unfortunately it stepped on Jackie Chun in the process. He'd just removed his shirt, maybe to fight it, but the massive foot pounded him face first into the floor before he could act.
Tails worried about that for a second, then realised that assuming Goku's Osaru body was anything like normal flesh, and Jackie Chun was at least as tough as Goku, he'd probably be embedded in the flagstones, but not suffer anything more than bruises. Besides he had his own worries.
The crowd was frozen in shock, but any second now they were going to panic and run for the exits. People were going to get trampled. And the announcer wasn't being any help, instead diving for cover.
"Wahhh! You're not going to win by crushing the referee!"
Someone had to act, and he was possibly the only person in position to do so. The whole train of thought had been a high speed mag-lev, so he was still rebounding from his Tail-spin attack as he went into action. He zipped past the announcer, snatching the microphone. "Sorryi'llreturnitsoon!"
As he zoomed up into it's face, he spiralled and jinked close to the beast's body, accelerating his perceptions the way he instinctively did when he sped up physically. But he made an effort to keep his voice normal as he spoke into the microphone. "Don't worry, we'll stop him from stepping outside the ring! But just to be safe, will people move out of the stands to the exits, front rows first..."
He couldn't spare the attention to look, but the lack of screaming suggested it might have worked. Something he'd learned from watching Aunt Sally, in a crisis, people will tend to obey someone who sounds like they know what they're doing. He wished he had a bi-plane, a fragmented ancient human record indicated you should fight giant monkeys in a bi-plane. Or be a plumber.
The monster was swinging at him, and only by flying right up to Osaru-Goku's face and buzzing around like a furry wasp could he manoeuvre and change position fast enough to evade the massive paws. His twin goals were to keep the monster in one place, and distracted, so that Yamcha could chop off the tail. The thought made him sick to the stomach, the idea of loosing one of his own tails was horrifying, but he couldn't see any other choice.
The sky was clear, and there was nothing to block the moonlight, nor any banners big enough to wrap around the monster's head and blind him. The only other method of blinding him made chopping off Goku's tail mild by comparison. But at low power... He dived in and kicked the monster in the eye, making him wince and slap his hands to his face as the flying fox flitted away.
"Yamcha! If you're going to take your shot, do it now!" Tails called into the microphone.
With the monster distracted, he risked flying around the back and seeing for himself. Kurilin was carrying Jackie Chun to the sidelines, as the Osaru had changed position, and Yamcha was already leaping up, Puar-sword raised high... Only to be lashed away by the random wild whipping of Goku's tree-trunk sized tail.
Tails started to dive on the tail himself, but the monster had clearly felt the impact and rounded on them, and Tails was suddenly face to face with it once more, but this time he was holding a straight line course for a second too long. Even with his reactions he barely saw the slap coming. He was sent flying out of the arena by the impact, to land spread-eagled in a tree.
Not only was Osaru Goku insanely strong, it was equally fast. The only thing that might cut off that tail was a Tail-spin attack, at maximum power and with the sharpest, most ki focussed possible edge. But based on it's reactions, even in a power dive, Tails just wouldn't be fast enough. There were fundamental limits to the top speed of a propeller driven aircraft...
Suddenly he had a radical notion. Theoretically it would work, and it didn't require any new abilities, just old ones applied in new ways... if he had a run-up, which would require it being distracted. Then he realised he was in a banana tree. He chopped off a giant bunch of bananas, and dusted off, flying back towards the stadium with the bananas hanging from one hand, and the microphone in the other.
Once again his train of thought had been an express, so in absolute terms only a few seconds had passed. However, there were already a lot of people outside the stands, and they cheered as he overflew them. The rest depended on, "Kurilin! I need you to keep him pinned, distract him! I've got a shot at fixing this, but I need a run-up!"
Thankfully as he overflew the upper stands, he could see the young monk was still up, and moving around, as was Namu and Yamcha, though Puar was nowhere to be seen. Between the three of them, they'd managed to keep it's attention away from the stands. Tails threw down the bunch of bananas to Kurilin. "This'll help!"
(Time for a change of pace... 'Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) - Unused Adventure Theme' - youtube(dot)com/watch?v=NyqR6f5Wz-I)
Then he took off, boosting up to his best tail-propeller sprint speed, cranking his tails as hard as possible, away from the arena. It got hard to see due to the airflow, and he decided he would buy or make himself a decent pair of goggles as soon as possible, while diverting a small amount of ki into forming a fairing in front of his head to deflect it to either side, a tweak of his Tail-spin attack's saw edge.
He ran over the calculations in his head, the geometry... it had to work. He was at his limit, propeller blades would drive him no faster, which was why he untwisted his tails, stretched them out behind him, and braced them, while forcing the ki flowing through and around them into new shapes. "It's juice and jam time!" He muttered, unaware the microphone was still picking him up, protected by the ki fairing. "Let's do it, to it!"
Wham! He suddenly felt the acceleration as he powered forward. The shift almost made him loose focus, but he recovered barely in time to sustain the boost. Looping in a wide turn, he headed back towards the arena, now almost a kilometre away. He concentrated as he never had before on wringing every measure of speed out of his new technique, adjusting the geometry on the fly in line with what his senses and engineering intuition were telling him.
He could feel the ki energy flowing out of him, the new technique had been energy intensive, and was leaking power like a sieve, but he'd only need to sustain it for a few seconds... The stadium exploded in front of him, thankfully from a rapid approach rather than Osaru Goku wrecking it, and he narrowed his perceptions, focussing on his target.
Those people who were looking up saw a golden comet blaze across the stadium from the direction of the training hall, trailing twin contrails of gold washed vapour. Those with fast enough perceptions would have seen it turn into a golden disk as it sliced across the rear of the giant monkey with an unpleasantly organic sound. However this was drowned a fraction of a second later by the thunderclap as the sonic boom it was generating caught up with it.
The Osaru reached for the heavens with one final roar, but it was already shrinking and losing hair. It reduced down to a naked kid with spiky hair, curled up and asleep on the ravaged arena floor. As audience members started to filter back into the stadium, an orange furred figure dropped down towards the ring in tail-copter mode.
However, if his previous motions had the precision of a hummingbird, this was more like a shot up bomber making an emergency landing. He veered from side to side, dropped, staggered and finally landed on the arena edge at a fast walk, stumbling several steps before coming to a halt.
The microphone picked up his first words."Did anyone get hurt?"
Kurilin was checking the slumbering form of Goku, and looked up. "No, the stands weren't touched. And Jackie Chun's just unconscious."
"And Goku?"
"He's fine, sleeping like a baby..." The youngster made a liar of Kurilin by yawning and stretching."Well he was."
Tails exhaled a massive sigh of relief and sagged. "Thank goodness! You guys were awesome, you kept him right where I wanted him."
"You weren't too bad yourself! What the heck was that technique, and why didn't you use it before?"
Oddly enough, the audience was fairly quiet. It was clear most of them wanted to know the same thing. The young fox smiled, though he was looking rather glassy eyed. "Just made it up. Needs a lot of work still. A basic application of aerodynamic theory, applied to the ability of my tails to manipulate air flows via ki energy. I used them as jet engines, twin highly dirigible, high-bypass, aero-spike ram-jets to be precise. Gave me enough speed to approach for a maximum power Tail-spin attack."
Kurilin shook his head. "Well however you did it, it worked!"
Tails noticed the announcer approaching them, and held out the miraculously undamaged microphone. "I guess this is yours. Sorry, but people were about to panic. Someone would have gotten hurt."
Yamcha and Namu were approaching, and that reminded Tails of something else. He pulled the souvenir brochure from inside his jacket, swaying slightly. "Could you all sign this, and make sure it gets back to Mei. I did promise."
"I'll take care of it." responded Kurilin, kindly.
"Ah... good... that seems to be everything..." and with that Miles 'Tails' Prower, Tenka'ichi Budo'kai semi-finalist, genius engineer and all around big darned hero, slumped forward into Kurilin's arms in a dead faint.
Authors Notes: Hopefully people enjoyed that. I know I did, even if the aftermath was a bugger to write. Hopefully people won't be too mad about the divergence in the middle to describe the final, or the fact I haven't resolved it. The story is about Tails after all, but I felt I needed to lead up to the Osaru transformation.
In the Dragonball canon, Master Roshi resolves things by taking out the moon with a Kamehameha blast. Here, things worked differently, and it's going to have a knock on effect. Next time, we find out who won, and if Namu's village gets their water. Please review and tell me if you're enjoying this version of Tails.