Chapter 14: Semifinal match, Videl vs. 18
Videl's heart was pumping fiercely as she bent down into a fighting stance. The short haired blond woman with icy blue eye before her was, if Gohan was to be believed (and considering he had taught her to fly, Videl was willing to believe just about anything the young man told her by this point), a cyborg that never ran out of energy or tired down.
He, of course, had insisted that she give up the match and save herself the embarrassment, but she was a Satan and that meant that giving up was NEVER an option.
Still, now that Videl was in the same ring as her, she had the sinking feeling that, just as she had beaten those Spopovich and Jewel jerks, this number 18 could easily do the same to her. And given the fact that she wasn't even taking a fighting stance of her own, Videl could see that this distant indifferent woman didn't even see her as a threat.
"You saw the score I got on that dumb machine, didn't you?" 18 asked her, her voice remaining as level and collected as always. "You should know full well that you can't hope to beat me, just save yourself the humiliation and give up kid."
Videl could feel her right hand clench into a first as her whole arm shook, and a bead of sweat began running down the side of her face over a throbbing vein.
She shook her head violently. "No way, I don't care how much stronger you are than me or how hopeless fighting you is, I'm not going down without a fight!"
18 couldn't help but sigh as she took a very sloppy and careless fighting pose. Why is it just my bad luck to fight against nothing but weaklings, my husband, and then either Vegeta or Goku in the next round?
Was it Karma's way of paying her back for her selfish reasons for entering the tournament in the first place? So what if she was just doing this for the money, was using her modified cyborg body for less then altruistic purposes really SUCH a bad thing in the end?
18 dismissed her musings as her shoulders rolled over in a small shrug. "Let's get this over with then kid I, after all I-"
WHAM!
"-have a tournament to win," 18 finished, her expression just as disinterested and unfazed by the kick that had just been delivered straight to her head, even though Videl's foot was still resting there.
Sweat was starting to pick up in speed as a few droplets fell down Videl's chin in rapid succession. This wasn't good, she had put everything she had into that kick, and this woman didn't even so much as flinch at it!
Even Gohan and Chichi Jr had flinched at her blows when they were spar- Something then clicked in her mind. Gohan, when this match is over, we are SO going to have a talk! Videl thought as she brought her leg back down and began a series of furious jabs and punches at number 18 instead.
But as quick as Videl was, 18 was faster. MUCH faster. The short-haired blond woman dodged and weaved out of every single punch that Videl sent her way, and when the daughter of the Champ mixed in a few kicks, 18 simply dodged them as well.
Along with being completely humiliating, it was tiring as well, and after a good minute and a half of a seemingly endless stream of kicks and punches, Videl began to slow down, until finally she stopped to catch her breath and allowed her arms to drop as if they were weighed down by kiloton armbands.
"Out of gas already?" 18 asked her, a small smirk resting on her lips as she spoke. "Guess it's time to end this then."
18 vanished for a brief second, only to reappear less than a nanosecond later in front of Videl, her fist already aiming for the black haired teenager's stomach for a momentary knockout punch.
But Videl had seen that sort of move before in her sparring sessions with Gohan and Chi, so by a mixture of experience and just having enough dumb luck, she managed to dodge in time. Videl Satan miraculously survived the match ending punch, though the sheer force of the wind that resulted from 18's punch did send Videl flying backwards toward the ring's edge.
This is not good at all, Videl thought as 18 casually walked towards her. The black haired teen adjusted herself by taking a step of her own away from the ring's edge. There has to be SOMETHING I can do.
Frantic, Videl racked and searched her previous sessions with Gohan for something, ANYTHING, which might be of some help to her dire situation.
Then, a sort of desperate, insane inspiration struck her like a person lighting a match. She remembered what Gohan had told her when she had started flying, about how to summon forth her ki and use it to surround her body and fly.
And if those energy attacks of Gohan and his friends were anything to go by, it was probably the same principle right? Now what's the name of that one move that Gohan and his friends used so often?
Isn't it called the Kamahama or something? All I have to do is summon my ki to the palm of my hands and then release it as a beam of energy. Seems simple enough, I just hope that it's as simple in practice as it sounds in theory.
With an expression of doubt spread across her face, Videl shifted her body's position down slightly as she twisted her waist to the side. Bending her knees as she moved her arms back, Videl cupped her hands so that her two palms were touching one another, and began concentrating on bringing forth her ki as best she could, an extra vein throbbing as she did so.
"Ka...Me...Ha...Me-"
" LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT SEEMS THAT VIDEL HAS A SURPRISE FOR MISS 18, IT LOOKS AS IF THAT IN BETWEEN TOURNAMENTS, THE YOUNG MISS SATAN HAS SOMEHOW LEARNED THE LEGENDARY KAMEHAMEHA WAVE! HOW WILL THE MYSTERIOUS CHALLENGER 18 COUNTER SUCH A FAMOUS MOVE?"
Elsewhere in the stands, the Special Forces of Earth looked on in interest.
"Didn't know you had taught that Videl girl my signature attack Gohan," Roshi commented to the 17 year old as he rubbed his long white beard in thought and grinned impishly. "Maybe I should make you pay me a bit of money, seeing as how it's my technique and-"
"I never taught her," Gohan said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"What was that son?" Goku asked with a somewhat puzzled look on his face.
"I never taught Videl how to summon even a basic ki ball to attack someone with, let alone something like the Kamehameha Wave! All I've had time to teach her is how to fly, that's it."
Yamcha stared at Gohan with a flabbergasted expression. "So you're saying that girl's going to try to do a technique she's never even used until today just from watching it done in front of her? Is she completely crazy?"
"Hey, I'm sure it's not that bad Yamcha," Goku said with his typical Goku-like cheerfulness and optimism. "After all, it worked for us, didn't it?"
Yamcha looked back at to his spiky haired, halo crowned friend and opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and then opened it a second later starting with a small sigh. "Fair point I guess," he grumbled at the admittedly very good point that his long time friend had raised.
"Well, whatever she has planned," 17 commented, bringing everyone's focus back on Videl, "it looks like she's about to bring it into fruition."
Back in the ring there was a pregnant pause as Videl squeezed out the last of her body's ki. The light blue ball of energy that rested warmly in between her palms was small and sickly when compared to the ones that Gohan or any of his other friends could bring forth, but for a first timer, it wasn't a bad effort all things told.
18 had since stopped moving, an eyebrow arched in interest, which, given 18's normal attitude to everything around her that didn't relate to either Krillin or Marron, was a Herculean feat in and of itself.
"Must say that I didn't see that coming. Didn't know that your boyfriend had taught you that move, kid."
"He didn't," Videl said with a grunt, her blue eyes locked onto her blond opponent. "And we are NOT. A. COUPLE!"
She threw both her hands forward and the blue beam of energy shot forth from her palms like a cannon round. The beam traveled straight and true as it hit 18 dead center, and bluish white energy swept over her whole body, engulfing her from view.
Videl gritted her teeth as she did her damnedest to keep the beam going for as long and as powerfully as she could, but she found her ki draining quickly from her body. Not a mere 20 seconds later, the beam ceased, and she dropped her hands and arms, too tired and drained to move so much as a pinkie finger.
The light from Videl's first ever Kamehameha was still dying down when 18's voice rang out. "Not bad, for an amateur. Can't say that I honestly saw you pulling something like that girl, considering who your father is and everything."
Out stepped 18, same as she had been before Videl's desperate gambit. Not even her clothes had been singed by the attack.
Videl's jaw dropped unhinged, her eyes bulged, and her arms dropped to her sides like wet noodles. "H-How did you survive without so much as a scratch? I put EVERYTHING I had into that attack, EVERYTHING!"
"I know you did. And for that, for what it's worth, you have my respect."
Videl glared at her, and, figuring that 18 was still mocking her, re-balled her hands into fists and brought them shakily up into a fighting stance.
This simply caused a small smile to grace 18's lips. "Even now you don't give up and I can see a burring fire in your eyes. I like that in a fighter. Because of that, I'll end this match as respectfully I can."
The cyborg woman rushed at Videl with such a speed that even if she had had the energy to lift up her arms, she would not have been able to block the light but powerful jab to her stomach that sent Videl Satan falling off of the ring and onto the grass below.
"IT LOOKS AS IF THAT THE MYSTERIOUS NEWCOMER NUMBER 18 AS MADE IT ALL THE WAY TO THE FINAL ROUND! BUT WILL SHE BE ABLE TO OVERCOME VEGETA AND GET A CHANCE TO FACE OFF AGAINST THE MIGHTY HERCULE'S STRENGTH AND SKILL!?"
Wanting to get away from the booming amplified voice of the announcer, Videl tried to pick herself up off the ground, doing her best to ignore her body's screams of pain and exhaustion as she did so. For a moment, she was unsure of what to do with herself next, outside of the obvious of getting away from the ring to make way for the next fight. She had lost, and badly at that. She had been completely and utterly outclassed to an embarrassing amount.
And yet... And yet, some part of her didn't feel too badly about it in the end. After all, it's not like she had gotten herself beaten to near death or anything absurd like that.
She had lost, outclassed or not, and now she had an idea of where she really stood in comparison to Gohan and his group of strange friends. Thinking about him again, and how when sparring against one another in preparation for the tournament he had always recoiled at her punches and kicks, got Videl's brain reorganized with a new goal in mind. With that, she went off to find Gohan Son and give that pretending prick a piece of her mind.
AN: Ah, this chapter. Particular proud of this chapter, this was the point where I really grew fond of Videl's character, and thus gave her a boost in character importance, so expect her to be playing a more active role then she did in canon for the future. Another week, another update. Something I meant to bring up in the Yamcha/Goku fight was my friend's (aka the guy who actually wrote that fight) youtube channel, Fighterworksfactory, which can be found here user/FighterWorksFactory
As for reviews this week, we just have one, glad you liked the Vegeta fight Avatar Eddy! While I'm not crazy about Vegeta as a rule of thumb, I figured that the dude did finally deserve to win against Goku, even if Goku was holding back (yes, he can still go SS3 people, but given that this isn't a Goku fic the odds of it impacting the rest of the cast are slim to none).