Sorry that this took a while... Had writer's block, but I'm glad it's resolved!

Chapter 21
Game Girl

That night, at the hotel Mario and co. were staying at, Franchouchou were in their hotel room, enjoying themselves. However, for Sakura, Junko, and Yuugiri, they had to busy themselves with practicing for the Golden WarioWare Tournament tomorrow, and said practice consisted of playing games on a handheld device they bought from Wario's company.

Watching Junko play the various microgames on the handheld device, Sakura said to her, "You can do it! Be careful! Quick! Press the button now! Quick! Move to the side!"

Junko, not being used to video games, was having a hard time trying to catch up with the fast-paced actions going on in the game. It didn't take long for her to lose all her lives. Lowering the handheld device and letting out a sigh, she said, "I can't... I'm just not good at this sort of thing..."

Petting her in the back, Sakura said to her, "Don't worry; everyone has her first times. It's understandable for someone like you. Practice makes perfect!"

Junko then looked at Yuugiri and asked her, "Do you want to try it?"

"If it is for the sake of getting better, then I have no choice," said the courtesan as she took the handheld device from her. Sakura then moved over to her side to guide her.

"Okay, pay attention to the instructions, Yuugiri," Sakura said to her. "You press this and this, and..."

For several minutes, Yuugiri played the games, and using the instructions Sakura taught her, the courtesan was able to put up quite a performance, more so than Junko. The latter was amazed that she was doing a great job progressing through the game, even if she didn't have many lives left.

"Wow... You're good at this, Yuugiri!" Junko said in disbelief.

"I am surprised too!" said Sakura.

Yuugiri kept on playing, but as the difficulty increased, she was getting more and more overwhelmed until she finally lost all her lives. Taking a sigh, she said, "I did my best." She then looked at Sakura. "How did I do, Lady Sakura?"

"Wow! You did a lot better than I thought you would!" Sakura said in surprise. "I didn't expect someone from an era where TVs don't even exist to be able to play this well!"

When Junko heard this, she felt ashamed, as she was born in an era where TVs were a thing, and yet she couldn't get acquainted to using modern day appliances, but someone like Yuugiri could.

"I guess I have a talent for learning new things!" said Yuugiri, sounding a bit proud. She turned to Junko and noticed her embarrassed look. Wanting to comfort her, she said the white-haired zombie, "Don't worry, Lady Junko. Everyone has her own strengths, but so long as you practice it like how you practice your idol duties, I am sure you will improve as well!"

"Thanks, but I still feel like I shouldn't have played that lottery..." said a still embarrassed Junko. "It was bad enough that I made myself a laughing stock at the Wet-O-Lympics... I don't think I've ever felt so ashamed to go on stage before, and this coming from someone who made her living on one..."

"Don't be so down, will ya?" Saki, who heard everything, said to her. The yellow-haired zombie was watching TV while seated on the bed. "You have to take on everything with guts and determination! Like Yuugiri said, practice video games like you're practicing your idol stuff, and you will surely get better! When you get on stage to play for everyone, do it as if you are singing and dancing!"

"Right, Junko! Everyone here is rooting for you! We know you can do it!" Sakura said to Junko.

"Lily believes in you, Sister Junko!" Lily said to her.

"It will be all right! You can do it!" Ai said to her.

Seeing everyone rooting for her made Junko feel better, though there was still a bit of uneasiness. "Thank... Thank you all... I will try my best!" She then took the handheld device from Yuugiri to continue practicing.

On the afternoon of the next day, the Golden WarioWare Tournament had finally arrived. Several people had gathered at the Diamond City Stadium for this special event.

Mario and co. were all seated among the audiences, close to Peach, who was given a special seat due to being a royalty.

At the center of the field was a stage with TV screens and game controllers placed on tables, and at the back part of the stadium was a tower of sorts, and Wario could be seen seated at the balcony close to the top of it. Looking at the audience all around him, he said while rubbing his hands, "Look at all the people who paid money to come here! Heeheehee! This is indeed a great idea after all!"

Saki, Ai, Lily, and Tae were among the audiences, obviously, sitting close to Mario. "Don't you find this sort of setting for a video game company to be weird?" asked Lily. "I mean... playing underneath the bright sun can make it hard for the things on the screen to be seen... When they hold video game tournaments, they always do it indoors."

As soon as he finished saying this, everyone heard a loud sound similar to that of an engine. Looking up, they saw that a ceiling was starting to form from the sides of the stadium walls. The parts of the ceilings eventually converged at the center, turning the place pitch dark, but then a large amount of lights turned on to brighten the place.

"Good enough?" Ai asked Lily, and the latter nodded.

Seeing that the playing field was ready, Wario took out a microphone and spoke into it, "Welcome, everyone, to the Golden WarioWare Tournament! I hope you happily dished out your money to come here! I guarantee that you will not be wasting your money by coming here to see the tournament in person! To those who are watching this live at home, please don't be so stingy next time and instead fork over your money to come here! Trust me; the experience is much better!"

"That's a typical speech coming from him..." commented Luigi.

"So now, let us introduce the eight lucky contestants who will be participating in this tournament!" said Wario.

Spotlights shined at a door at the side of the stadium, and eight people came out of it, most of them waving happily and proudly at the cheering audience. "There they are!" said Lily excitedly as he pointed at the three familiar zombies among those people.

Other than Sakura, Junko, and Yuugiri, and the other five contestants consisted of a bespectacled chameleon in a yellow shirt named Francis; a bespectacled dog in a white shirt and red pants named Joe; a tall guy wearing 3D glasses and a green track suit named 18-Volt; a man with a yellow Afro wearing shades, a blue shirt, and white trousers named Jimmy P.; and Koopert.

The eight contestants stepped to the center of the area, in front of the tower, and waved at the audience, while the spotlight continued to focus on them. A large screen attached in front of the tower and on one side of the stadium also showed a close up view on them.

As Sakura was waving at the audiences, she noticed Peach sitting on her special throne-like seat, waving at them, and through that, she was able to notice her fellow idols close by. She told Junko, "I can see our friends over there!" Junko looked at where Sakura was pointing and waved at them as well.

Looking at her friends there, Saki shouted, "You can do it! Give it your best! Show them your undead power!"

"I think I can hear them rooting for us," Sakura said to Junko and Yuugiri. "Let's try our best and not let them down!"

"I'll try my best. I practiced all night yesterday!" said Junko, sounding more confident than before.

"These eight people are the lucky winners of my company's lottery!" said Wario. "Because of this, they may or may not have actual video gaming skills. Where's the fun if you only watch pros duke it out with each other? Wouldn't it be more fun to see newbies duke it out as well? I'm sure they will be able to learn a thing or two about video games after this and become pro gamers in the future! Let's all give them another round of applause to liven up their spirits!"

The crowd cheered for the contestants again, and after they were done, Wario told everyone to be quiet before beginning to explain the rules. "All right, let's get the rules down with. You eight contestants will be competing against each other one on one, and the winner will go on to compete against each other in the same manner!"

"Just like the Wet-O-Lympics," pointed out Yuugiri.

"The games you will be playing is different all the time. You will never know what you're going to be playing, so bad luck for you if you get a game genre you're bad at! Wahaha!" continued Wario.

Hearing this, Francis adjusted his eyeglasses and said with a confident smile, "No game genre is too hard for me! I've been waiting for this day to come! When I heard about this contest, I grabbed every chance with every single lottery here every day until I finally won an admittance! Now that I'm here..." He then pointed at the other contestants and said, "...I'm going to beat the heck out of all of you!"

Most of the contestants looked at him with unimpressed looks, but some, like Junko and Joe, looked a bit nervous.

Francis then looked at the three zombies and rushed up to them, much to their surprises. "By the way, it's an honor to meet you, Franchouchou!" he happily said to them. "I've saw your performance at the Mushroom Kingdom about a month ago and completely fell in love with you at first sight! When you revealed yourself as zombies, I was shocked and then realized that this is even better! I've known the fandom of zombie waifu for a long time and admit that undead women can be cute if drawn correctly, but never would I thought I would actually run into real life zombie waifu that look as attractive as they do in pictures!"

The three zombies were freaked out by his personality, but Sakura, wanting to leave behind a good impression said to him with a smile, "We're glad that you loved our performance! We hope to see you more in our future concerts!"

Francis then threw his arms into the air and exclaimed, "Yes! A zombie idol talked to me and even invited me to her concert! This is the greatest day of my life! Just you wait! i will win first prize in this contest and then use the cash money to buy all your goodies!"

Even from the audience area, Ai could hear what Francis was saying, and she was all too familiar with that kind of person. "That's what a call a hardcore fan boy..." she said.

"Ever met someone like that when you were with Iron Frill?" Saki asked her, and the latter nodded in response.

"All right, let us introduce each of the contestants! Surely you'll want to know who these nobodies are, right?" said Wario. "Can each of you grab a microphone and say something about yourselves?"

Mona appeared on stage with a microphone and handed it to the contestants. Francis snatched it from her and said loudly to the audience, "My name is Francis, and it's one that you better etch deep into your mind, because I'm going to win this contest no matter what! I'm the greatest gamer and otaku the world has ever seen! If any of you beg to differ, then feel free to challenge me! Or not, because you're going to lose horribly and ruin your reputation forever!"

Suddenly, 18-Volt snatched the microphone from him and said, "Hello, everyone, I'm 18-Volt! I'm the true greatest gamer the world has ever seen, not him! Clearly he is a visitor to Diamond City, because anyone who lives here knows that I am the best gamer the world has ever seen!"

"Aha, so a challenger has appeared!" said Francis, snatching the microphone away from him and pointing at him. "If you think you have the guts to prove to me that you are the better gamer, then let us have a duel to the death today!"

18-Volt snatched back the microphone and said, "Very well! A duel to the death it is! We shall see who the better gamer is!"

"Whoa... Looks like this is going to be very competitive..." commented Sakura as she watched them both bicker.

"I hope I don't compete against either of them... They both look like they might be experts..." said a worried Junko.

The rest of the contestants introduced themselves as well. Joe was a humble store owner boutique, and apparently, he has no gaming skills, so he lacked confident about his performance here.

Jimmy P. was the self-proclaimed greatest dancer in Diamond City and also made note the fact that he was not related to Jimmy T. in any way, even saying that their similar appearances and choices in attire are completely coincidental.

After Junko, Yuugiri, and Koopert introduced themselves as well, Wario then showed on the big screens the match-ups for the tournament.

Sakura vs. Jimmy P.
Junko vs. Joe
Yuugiri vs. Koopert
Francis vs. 18-Volt

When Francis and 18-Volt saw that they were going to compete against each other, they stared at each other with large grins. When Junko saw her opponent, she remembered Joe saying he wasn't a gamer, so she felt relieved, thinking that this would be easy for her.

Koopert turned to Yuugiri and said to her, "We meet again, zombie! I may not have competed directly against you back on Isle Delfino, but I'm still going to carry the rivalry from there all the way here!"

Yuugiri asked him, "I'm sorry, but... who are you?"

Soon afterwards, Sakur and Jimmy P. were the only contestants on the stage, both of them standing in front of their respective TVs and holding controllers in their hands.

"I can do it! I know I can!" said Sakura with a confident smirk.

As Wario watched from the tower's balcony, he took out a silver helmet that was also designed to resemble a crown and put it onto his head. The size of the helmet changed slightly so that it could fit around his head. "Let's get the game started!" he said. "The both of you are going to play... Super Wario Brothers!"

Their TV screens then turned on to show a parody of the original Super Mario Bros., except they were both playing as Wario. The graphics were even 8-bit.

The large screen on the stadium wall and tower showed a split screen, each of them representing the two contestants.

"This doesn't look like anything I've practiced yesterday..." though Sakura when she saw the game. "Either way, I'm not going to lose so easily!"

"You can do it, Sakura!" Saki shouted from the audience area. The other zombies also cheered for her, including Mario and his friends.

When Wario gave the signal to began, Sakura and Jimmy P. began playing. Both players wasted no time moving their playable characters across the screen and avoiding enemies that came in the form of disembodied Mario heads with feet.

Mario and Luigi stared at the screen with weird expressions when they saw the enemy designs. "Why am I not-a surprised...?" wondered Mario.

"This is just like a game I played when I was the kid! I've still got it!" Sakura said to herself while reminiscing her childhood. She rushed through the stage as fast as she could but accidentally fell into a pit. "Oh no!" Because of this, she had to restart at a checkpoint.

Luckily for her, Jimmy P. was killed by an enemy shortly afterwards and went back to the same checkpoint at her, and by this time, she was already quite far ahead.

The two players continued pressing on through the stage, and Jimmy P. was slowly catching up to her. After going through the lengthy stage for a few more minutes, they came across the boss of the stage, a giant Luigi with an evil face and sharp fangs.

Again, Mario and Luigi had weird and unimpressed looks on their faces when they saw this. Toad turned to them and asked, "You guys all right with this?" They didn't give any response, however.

"You can do it! Beat that boss and then win this match!" Saki shouted at her fellow zombie.

In order to defeat the boss, one had to pick up bombs to spawned from a pipe and throw it at the giant Luigi, all the while avoiding the green fireballs he was shooting out of his mouth and nostrils.

Sakura was able to get a few hits before dying and going back to a checkpoint, and Jimmy P. joined her in death afterwards. The two players went back to the boss and continued bombing him.

"I mustn't lose!" Sakura told herself, only to die again afterwards. "Darn it!"

She went back to the fight and continued bombing him as fast as she could, as Jimmy P. hadn't died a second time and was therefore close to defeating the boss. The latter was able to beat the boss. The giant Luigi exploded while slowly fading away.

Jimmy P. shouted with joy at the thought of winning the match, much to Sakura's disappointment. Unfortunately, his celebration was short-lived, as he still had to jump over a pit located in the next screen in order to get to the goal, and he fell into, as he didn't see it coming. He cried in despair upon seeing that he had to fight the boss again.

Sakura saw this as the opportunity and kept on fighting the boss until she defeated him. She then rushed forward, making sure to jump over the pit, and reached the goal. She threw her arms into the air and shouted, "I DID IT!"

The match was over. Mona pointed her hand at Sakura and declared her the winner of this match. The audience cheered for her loudly, especially her friends.

"Way to go, Sakura! I knew you can do it!" exclaimed Saki.

"You're awesome, Sister Sakura!" shouted Lily. Tae also made excited-sounding cries.

"You did-a well!" Mario said to her.

"Well, looks like Miss Sakura won the first match, but can she make it all the way to the end?" said Wario.

Sakura and Jimmy P. then shook hands with each other.

"Congratulations!" the latter said to her.

"You're a great player too!" Sakura told him.

"I got careless, so I wouldn't say so. I'm more into dancing and music. Gaming isn't exactly my forte," Jimmy P. said to her.

"I'm also into dancing as well! Maybe we can learn dance moves from each other some time!" Sakura said to her.

"Good idea! Hope to see you at a dance club some day!" Jimmy P. said to her.

Next up was Junko versus Joe. Sakura told Junko to do her best as the latter walked up the stage. Similarly, her fellow idols at the audience area were cheering for her.

The two contestants got in front of their TV screens and picked up their game controllers. "I must do my best! I won't become a laughing stock!" Junko thought to herself.

"The game they will be playing is... Dog Fight!" said Wario loudly.

Their screens turned on, showing them that they were in control of a jet whose goal was to shoot down other jets. A stunned look appeared on Junko's face when she saw this, and she was at a lost of words as the mental image of her plane crashing down in flames flashed in her head over and over. "No... No...!" she quietly said to herself while trembling violently.

TO BE CONTINUED

Francis is from Super Paper Mario and Joe, 18-Volt, and Jimmy P. are all from the WarioWare series (the latter is specifically from Smooth Moves).