Chapter 12: Quarterfinals, The Wolf vs the Monkey
Yamcha completely blanked out everything being said by the announcer, and looked dead at Goku, who in return gave Yamcha a playful grin. It hasn't been since their first meeting that Yamcha had direct combat with Goku, and in that time, Yamcha knew the difference between them had admittedly become larger.
If anything, Yamcha's saving grace in this fight was the no Super Saiyan handicap, this restriction being the only thing that would keep this fight at least somewhat competitive.
"BEGIN!"
Yamcha wasted no time in unleashing the Kaioken and sent a kick right in Goku's direction. Goku returned the action by unleashing the Kaioken as well, and raised both of his arms in an x formation to block the incoming kick. Yamcha likewise had purposely telegraphed the move, following up by shifting his weight upon contact, and going over Goku's head.
Goku was at first taken aback by the maneuver, but regained his focus when he sensed another kick in coming from behind, and ducked underneath it.
Even at this moment, Yamcha wasn't letting up, and used the momentum he had from the kick and came down on the ducked Goku with both of his hands.
Goku took the blow on both of his shoulder blades and winced in pain, but soon grabbed onto both of Yamcha's extended arms and threw him across the arena.
Yamcha's body rolled for a good second before he got back onto one knee and blocked Goku's incoming punch.
What followed was a series of motions that the audience could barely follow.
Yamcha tries to go for a punch of his own; Goku blocks it. Goku tries to deliver a kick to Yamcha's midsection; Yamcha sidesteps it. Yamcha grabs Goku's extended arm and attempts a take down; Goku goes with the pulling and circles his body around for an elbow strike. Yamcha narrowly dodges the elbow and attempts a front kick; Goku bends back and contorts his spine just enough to dodge and sweeps Yamcha's previously broken leg.
The action slowed down shortly as Goku landed a punch to Yamcha's abdomen as he was falling. The punch planted Yamcha into the arena's floor, and for a brief moment, it appeared the fight was over.
Getting over the pain quickly, Yamcha kicked Goku with a stiff shot to the chin, sending Goku flying in the air about 50 feet.
Just as he was reorienting his body Goku saw Yamcha had already made it to his position, and had one of his fists pulled back. Goku prepared for an incoming blow, but Yamcha had already begun the attack as he was coming up, perfectly timing it for when he'd be at Goku's level.
What followed was another shot to Goku's chin, this time as an uppercut.
Taking the blow in stride as Yamcha had done with his own punch earlier, Goku went straight for a double forearm attack to Yamcha's head, only to find himself hitting air.
Not expecting this to happen, Goku was forced by his momentum into doing a 225 degree flip, and when he managed to stop himself Yamcha had positioned himself right above Goku, and for a split second they glared at each other.
Goku was about to land another punch but once again Yamcha had planned this out ahead of time, and had already begun another attack.
"WOLF FANG FIST!"
As both fighters fell farther and farther to the ground Yamcha kept unloading on Goku, who in turn tried to keep up and to his credit managed to block a few, but the technique was coming at a rate much too fast.
Yamcha finally ended the attack with a doublepalm heel to the chest, which took Goku's breath away, and sent him crashing into the arena tile.
Goku stirred for a moment, but Yamcha made one last attack, a cross arm dive.
On contact Yamcha preformed a series of midair back flips and landed on his feet. Once again, the fight seemed like it was over.
"Well I guess it'd be pointless to hope you'll be out for ten seconds huh?"
"Yeah," Goku said as he stood up rubbed the back of his head, "but still, Yamcha, that really hurt."
"Well maybe it wouldn't have hurt so much if you'd stop holding back."
"But I can't go Super Saiyan and-"
"I don't care if you can't go Super Saiyan, I still know you're holding back, even if it is only a little."
"Okay fine Yamcha," Goku said with a small frown. "But remember, you asked for it."
What followed was still a competitive match, but the fight had become much more one sided. Yamcha knew he wasn't going to beat Goku, but he needed to prove something to himself. It had a been a while since he had felt useful.
Yamcha felt far from weak; after all, his own power was enough to destroy Earth several times over, but he ultimately felt left behind.
When he fought one of the Cell Juniors, he was quite literally helpless, and Goku and Gohan were the only two able to put up any kind of fight.
When he and Tien fought Cell in his second form, the both of them were only powerful enough to continually push him into the ground, and while he was tiring out, he watched as Tien was slowly killing himself, and with the situation there was nothing he could do. Tien lived, but Yamcha still felt the blow.
When the Androids attacked, he fended off Dr. Gero, but just barely. In the end Goku was the one who was needed to turn the tide of the fight, and Vegeta of all people ended up saving the day.
Before that, he had begun to feel his own mortality when he feared fighting the then cybernetic Freiza. Perhaps Freiza would have been enough, but with him having just been revived he was visibly showing his fear more than his comrades.
This was ironically right after he bested Recoome in other world. While it was something to be proud of and showed that his time in other world meant something, it was too little too late. Recoome was already dead, and while beating him was great for Yamcha, it didn't go far when Freiza arrived, invalidating him again.
Right before he was killed by Nappa: that was when he last felt useful. He spent a year training with with Tien, Chaiotzu, and Krillin, and when it came time to fight the Saiyans, he was confident. He saw the Saibamen, he said he was going to take on all of them at the same time, and he did. All 6 of them, supposedly just as strong as Radditz, and Yamcha beat all of them.
Just one last time, Yamcha needed to show the world he hadn't lost it when he went to baseball. Even in a world where he didn't have the genetic advantage of saiyan genes, he still had the drive for fighting that any saiyan would. Yamcha's fighting skills alone still made him one of the best in the universe. Time to prove it.
Goku had quite obviously sped up and once again Yamcha was outclassed, but this time he was completely ready for it. He couldn't go against Goku in a straight fight at full power in his base form, so he needed to be smart.
Employing some misdirection, Yamcha stayed on the defensive. If anything Yamcha's style employed a lot of quick hand movements, so keeping up with Goku's strikes, while difficult, was manageable.
It kept up this way for a long time. Yamcha just kept blocking what Goku sent his way, having barely any opportunity to counter attack in-between.
Without even realizing, both fighters found themselves fighting in the air all over again, and after blocking for about 5 minutes straight, Yamcha instead dodged.
The sudden change in tactic caught Goku off guard as he was expecting to make contact with at least something.
"Hey Goku!"
Turning around Goku saw Yamcha's arm was now sparking, and what emerged was a spirit ball larger than any other Goku had ever seen: at least twice the size of what Yamcha had dubbed his extra large spirit ball.
"READYSETGO!"
Yamcha's hands flew across the sky as Goku made several attempts to get a bead on Yamcha, who kept the pressure on.
Coming to a complete stop Goku just let the spirit ball hit him as he braced it with his arms.
Yamcha tried as hard as he could, but Goku's ki was starting to overpower his own.
One last shot, Yamcha thought as he gave up all efforts that he was putting into the Spirit Ball, and began to power up a Kamehameha wave.
"KAME-"
Goku meanwhile caught on quickly was what going on.
"KAME-"
"-HAME-"
"-HAME-"
"-HA!"
"-HA!"
Having put his out just after Yamcha, Goku just barely intercepted the blast coming toward him, and had to fight it as hard as he possibly could given his disadvantage.
On the other end Yamcha was putting every bit of energy he had into making sure Goku stayed in this disadvantaged spot.
More and more they struggled, neither budging an inch. Even so Yamcha was clearly feeling the effects more than Goku was, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to keep this up much longer.
With nothing left to lose, Yamcha literally took everything he had, and charged at Goku keeping his wave strong, expecting it to give him the slight edge he needed to win.
Instead, what resulted was that the energy caused of both of their beams to implode in on themselves, and eventually expand into an explosion that rocked both of them.
For a long time no one could see what exactly had happened, but it was no mystery to the rest of the Z fighters. Goku had absorbed the impact, still airborne, and Yamcha was plummeting toward the ground until he landed on the grass outside the ring.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN YAMCHA HAD BEEN ELIMINATED, THE WINNER IS SON GOKU!"
Going down to Yamcha's level, Goku extended his hand to Yamcha, who weakly raised it so he could be pulled up.
"Look like you could use a senzu bean," Goku said with that strangely peaceful smile that was always on his face even after a fight.
"Yeah, I can barely-"
"Stand" was the word he was going to say, but Yamcha sensed something small flying toward him, and extended his free arm to snatch it from the air.
Opening his hand Yamcha found a bag of senzu beans sitting in his hands. Looking up he was expecting to see Krillin, but instead found Vegeta, arms crossed with the same scowl he usually wore.
Yamcha's look of confusion turned into a more serious glare, and he gave Vegeta the slightest nod.
Vegeta, having seen that, turned around and disappeared out of view.
Goku, having just been watching the whole time, finally opened his mouth. "Did I miss something?"
"No Goku. No you didn't."
AN: And now for something completely different, a chapter focused on Yamcha that DOESN'T mock or belittle him. *glares at chapter 57 of Bringer of Death* It's also different in terms of it's overall construction writing wise, because I didn't write this one, a good friend of mine by the name of Doctor Black was kind enough to do the writing for this chapter. Thanks Doc!
And it seems that this week, we have a total of four reviews. I mean, four reviews guys! What's next, FIVE reviews? Perish the thought. But in all seriousness, thanks to everyone who reviewed, even if the story wasn't completely to their liking. Now onto individual reviewers:
Panxo: Something you have to remember is as much training as Piccolo has done over the past seven years (not as if he's got a thriving social life or anything to distract him) Vegeta's done just as much training as he has, with the added bonus of having access to a gravity room machine. So the gap between them is still pretty large even with just Vegeta's base state.
Black Ace: Fair enough of a point on not many of the chapters being 'plot' heavy, though that's mostly just how the story itself turned out when I finished it. Think of this whole fic as a sort of first act of a play (not that I've ever written one admittedly), where the ground work is laid down and the reader gets a sense of the characters. The second story will start off intense and eventually act as a sort of deconstruction of sorts for the Z Fighters as a whole, while the third major story will act as a reconstruction with a newly established status quo.
Jredd: Now you're's is the kind of review I've been waiting for. While I like the Buu saga fine, I have to admit that I didn't like it enough to rehash it just for the sake of rehashing things. And to be sure the lack of Buu will be seen later on, though admittedly not for this fic and not for a long while.
As for Chi herself, I created her for two reasons: 1. I felt there weren't enough girl fighters in Z and 2. I wanted to examine just how a child like Chi or Goten would react to being the spitting image of a father they've never met before. I could have done this with Goten, sure, but at that point it wouldn't really be Goten, would it? Goten (as far as I can tell) is a very happy go lucky innocent child, while Chi is more... grounded? Realistic? Not sure what the right phrase I'm looking for here is, but it's something like that. Which isn't to say that I think that Goten's a bad character or anything, I just didn't feel like his type of character would fit the type of story I was trying to tell.
And the threat is a lot bigger then just mere androids my friend ;D. Let me put it this way, think of Black as a poor man's version of Grand Admiral Thrawn, at least from a thematic point of view.
InfinityGohan: Fair enough, and I'll try to keep the bracket thing in mind for the future.