Arriving at Papaya Island the day that the World Martial Arts Tournament began was the first time that the Saiyan saw this many Earthlings in one place. During the time-off she had to travel the world and learn a bit about this planet she's stuck on Chayote had seen cities before. She had also seen large temples that, from the first sight, looked like perfect fighting arenas but they seemed to attract the Earthlings for religious reasons and because of how excited the locals were about fighting.
Over her time away Chayote figured that Earthlings did not care too much about fighting. Nothing in this strange culture was solved through fighting, judging from what little she's seen of the King, he was not even that much of a fighter. While the Saiyan was not entirely sure about that conclusion but it seemed like power was not acquired through being the most powerful on this planet. The jury was still out on just how one became the King of this planet. Perhaps while she's waiting about for the Frieza Army to find her Chayote could try being a King for a little while, just for fun.
"Are you a contestant?" a chubby man with a traditional outfit not too much different from the outfits that the monks in the temples Chayote's seen wore asked. The man with the rich mustache line sat by a shoddy table with a massive pile of papers stacked in front of him.
"I suppose so. I'm here to fight." Chayote raised her fist. She spared the man of any excitement in her expression, saving it for someone who was the more correct witness to it.
"In that case, what's your name, I'll sign you up." The man revealed his purpose to Chayote.
"I'm Chayote. Say, did a kid, similar to me in a way, sign up? A guy with spiky black hair and a tail?" the Saiyan asked the monk in charge of registrations.
"A kid… Yeah, two kids signed up. Weird, huh? Some old guy signed them up, what kind of a grandpa would do this to their grandsons? You think it's some sort of a cruel prank? Must be some sick old geezer!" the monk rubbed his hair while struggling to keep his little hat from falling off of his head.
"Hey, hey! What's the hold-up!?" a boar-man hybrid walked out of the line and brandished a knife at the two conversing in front of the registration.
"Sir, sir, weapons are forbidden at the tournament!" the monk stood up and began frantically shaking his hands in front of himself in an attempt to calm the rogue down.
Even the gust of wind that picked up after Chayote's blitzing movement failed to keep up with the Saiyan as she approached the bandit and smacked him right in the face with a careless, backhanded slam. Even when she barely put any effort into it, choosing to preserve her stamina for the tournament, the Saiyan killed the rabble-rouser effortlessly.
"K-Killing is also forbidden at the tournament!" the monk pointed at the lifeless man with a snapped neck. "It's okay, that guy was coming at us with a knife, it was self-defense!" the monk explained to a pair of law enforcement officers approaching the scene.
Chayote had seen those men and women in blue doing their thing on her trips. While the sentiment of well-trained rule enforcement order was a novel idea that the Saiyans may have considered instead of leaving all that to fun albeit constant power struggling, the young Saiyan found those police officers to look awfully weak. How could they possibly uphold the law when they could not even kill those breaking the rules.
"It's okay, I'm a police too." Chayote raised her thumb pointing up.
"H-Huh?" the police officers leaned forward in confusion. "Aren't you a contestant at the tournament?"
"That too, yes." Chayote nodded.
"But then you can't be a police officer because you'd have to be patrolling instead of fighting." An officer with side-split, spiky, grey hair pointed out with a smug face made so due to what he deemed infallible logic. "Plus, you're not wearing a uniform, I'll let you know, young lady, that impersonating a police officer is a misdemeanor. You won't be able to fight from inside the slammer, huh?"
The two officers chuckled to one another. While they looked to be threatening Chayote with something the Saiyan could not entirely understand, they did not look to be all too serious about it.
"Slammer? That sounds like a fun place. Maybe I'll check it out after the tournament." Chayote shrugged. "So you must be wearing the uniform to be a police?"
"Why did you claim to be a police officer if you don't even know what one is!?" the younger and more fit-looking officer flipped out at Chayote.
"I assumed that killing bad people was all there was to it. I do like your uniforms though. Might give it a whirl after the tournament…" the Saiyan shrugged with childish innocence gleaming from her eyes as she followed where the monk pointed her to. A place where something called "the Preliminaries" would be taking place.
"Attention! All contestants participating in the tournament! Qualifying rounds will soon begin in the competition hall!" a dark-skinned man that reminded Chayote of that one brave Red Ribbon officer that confronted her despite being an utter weakling declared. For a short spark of a moment, the Saiyan wondered if this man belonged to a warrior tribe of some sorts but he looked far too puny to have that much alike with Staff Officer Black.
A loud grunt made the Saiyan freeze in bemusement. A short and frail old man in a monkey suit was staring over at Chayote from the other side of the large square, bustling with people. The Saiyan looked back at the old man. It was tough to tell what he was thinking through his large, sacramento-green shades although Chayote was the one to speak. She wore her primitive scouter shades for the longest time before they got busted three weeks ago.
"Got a problem, old man?" Chayote yelled at the geezer staring at her from the other side of the hall. She wondered if the old-timer even heard her over the number of bustling people and his likely impaired hearing.
"Come on, master, this is no time to stare at pretty girls!" a baldy in a cute, blue monkey suit of his own and a stockman hat pulled on the clothes of the gawking old man. The baldy stood beside another kid about his size but Chayote failed to make out too many details since the second was standing with his back turned against her and was partly covered up by sightseers and people waiting around for the fighting to begin.
"I see… So the Earthlings do find enjoyment in fighting but just as a sport…" Chayote observed, losing attention in the curious three. It was only then that the idea popped into her head that the trio was comprised of an old man and two younglings, just like the monk by the registration told her. This had to be the Saiyan she's been so excited to meet but why was he hanging around a bunch of Earthlings and hadn't killed them yet?
Maybe he was handicapping himself like Chayote was? After all, Saiyans did think in a somewhat predictable manner given their simple minds. Even if she disliked species profiling, Chayote had to admit that some of the stereotypes had more truth to them than one could dismiss. Namekians were creepy weirdos, Gelboians were all girly folk with admittedly fabulous hair, Saiyans liked fighting…
It was not that Chayote liked thinking in these offensive ways but she had never met a Saiyan that disliked fighting of a bald Gelboian and that was all that she was saying to herself by that.
"Damn it, lost the three over my stereotype sensitivity!" Chayote snapped her fingers trying to locate where the three may have gone. Given how the qualifying matches were where the tournament fighters were all supposed to be, the Saiyan figured that her chances at finding the three would be the greatest there.
For such an impressive location, brimming with tradition and epic feel, the location where the qualifying matches took place looked like a pathetic straw shack. Chayote felt hesitant to even power up in such a measly stage or else she'd have blown the entire thing down like a stack of untied hay in a hurricane. The novelty of seeing this many martial artists all around her did not disappoint the Saiyan however. Even if very few of them looked worth her time, even the weaker looking ones made Chayote skip a few breaths and blush a bit when imagining the fun times she would be having around these parts.
"This is not where I've seen meeting the Saiyan boy. That means that he would be proceeding through the qualifying matches. May as well not waste my time looking for the needle in a haystack and just have some fun…" Chayote pondered to herself.
Another monk who looked like was going to die of old age if allowed to finish his speech walked up on one of the multiple rings where the qualifying matches were to take place. A metallic stand with a gadget of some sorts on top stood in front of him, the purpose of which was a mystery to the Saiyan, though when the monk opened his mouth to speak up, it became much clearer for the Saiyan. She liked the idea of a volume enhancing gadget though she'd never had such a problem, her lungs were simply much more powerful than those of this geezer.
"This year we have a total of 137 masters from around the world, from whom only eight will be allowed to enter the final rounds. This year we will truly be honored by a very fierce competition indeed. For five years contestants have trained and waited for this opportunity to compete for the title of "Strongest Under the Heavens". You have journeyed here from all corners of the Earth. I will explain the competition's rules so listen well…" luckily for his future lifespan, it did not appear like the old-timer was planning on concluding his speech anytime soon. Not so luckily, he had lost Chayote at "listen well", the Saiyan just hoped that she had gathered the necessary basics from the scared monk outside by the registration.
Prompted by the outright ancient monk to do so, Chayote drew her number from the box and stared at it. She was not entirely sure what drawing "32" meant but by checking the massive board of numbers and drawn lines and brackets she was able to piece together the fundamentals of how this competition worked. Things were much more simple when displayed on brackets and lines instead of being explained by a man whom nobody had yet told he had died of old age forty years ago.
"32 and 28, please make the way into the ring!" a new announcer in a light blue shirt and a bow tie yelled out. He had to try his hardest to outdo all the noise in the place as multiple blocks had their qualifiers at the same time.
"Well, guess I'm up…" Chayote got onto the ring. In front of her stood a half-bare and relatively strong-looking man in about his forties. He did not look like much of a warrior since he had not earned the right to wear any ceremonial clothes. Then again, maybe he just abandoned his ceremonial uniform because of how much of a badass rogue he was?
"This just feels cruel. I'll give you a chance to give up." The man declared before entering a wide fighting pose. His stance made sense, he was a large man in both size and thickness. He had the height and the girth to own a wide-guard stance and utilize it well.
"Begin!" the announcer allowed the two to take shots at each other. The man lunged at Chayote, possibly infuriated by how she did not take his advice and run away. Number 28 threw a palm strike at the Saiyan that threw the teen's face back. In a rather unnatural manner, the Saiyan collapsed on her back right where she stood, without taking a step back.
"Heh, she's done! Poor kid should have run away when she had a chance!" a brawler spectating the fight with a mohawk pumped his fist into the air.
"No." an old man with a full white beard and mustache and a ridiculous hairdo that did not quite match the color of his facial hair. And yet, the man had the serious and analyzing eyes of a true warrior that seemed the most in touch of the truth in the heart of battle. "She is a scary monster in a tight body."
"Huh?" the mohawk fellow turned at the old man. "A frail-looking woman, an old man, I've heard that Block 3 has a bunch of actual children fighting. The World Martial Arts Tournament simply isn't what it used to be anymore…" the man joked.
"Kids?" Chayote's head popped back before the young woman returned to her standing position. "So that's where the Saiyan boy is… Block 3."
Something about the old man attracted Chayote's attention. The grim seriousness in his eyes and the brimming power inside of him, the technical prowess, the maturity, everything remarkable about this individual leaked out right in front of the Saiyan. It called out the same kind of challenge inside the Saiyan as well. She knew what this old timer was doing – he was calling on every ounce of his Ki, brimming with the most serious deadly intent to bring her down just to see how he stacked up to where Chayote was in her playing stage so Chayote answered the man's challenge while the two waged a mental battle with one another, their gazes clashing like two waves at the opposite side of a stone, each desperate to wash it the other's way and push it out of its way.
"Mercy!" the martial artist that Chayote was fighting surrendered with red, broken and swollen arms. The Saiyan had not noticed when she built up her power level to remarkable enough stages where the punches and kicks of her opponent no longer even registered. Somehow she's stared down at the old man through her qualifier battle. That wasn't good, if her opponent was less of a pathetic weakling, she'd have been in trouble for letting her attention wander off like that.
"Just who are you?" Chayote heard a mental signal inside her mind. It was the old-timer, there was no doubt about it.
"You're Muten Roshi, right?" the Saiyan turned at the only martial artist in her block worth a damn, as much as her premonition could tell her.
"Be quiet, in this guise, I am Jackie Chun. I am surprised I have never heard of you yet you are able of raising the hairs on my back without even trying. You had to force yourself to lower yourself to the level where these martial artists would be able to hurt you and where you would not be able to kill them outright. There cannot be such a person in this world that I have not heard of!" Muten Roshi, or Jackie Chun, kept on talking in Chayote's mind.
"Damn, I kind of wish that Korin taught me this trick, it's kind of cool!" Chayote smirked while watching the first round of the qualifiers transpiring.
"K-Korin, you say?" Jackie Chun lost his guise of cool as he turned at Chayote while he sent her the mental message. "So, you've been trained by Korin, that explains it…"
"56… Could you please make your way onto the ring already!?" the announcer lost his voice trying to yell it loud enough for Jackie Chun to hear it. The old-timer smiled with a goofy façade while stumbling his way onto the ring, in front of his bestial opponent that looked not too much different from the one Chayote had faced except for the fact that he was the type of Earthling that looked like a humanoid animal. This one was somewhere in the middle between a fox and a bear.
"Sorry, sorry…" Jackie Chun rubbed his ridiculous hairdo. Chayote was not quite ready to declare it was a wig but all she was saying to herself was that it in no way matched the rest of the man's body hair. "Hearing really just gives up at my age…" the old man chuckled, playing a weak fool when in fact he was just about the only notable martial artist around.
"What was that trick there, girly? One second you were getting kicked around, the other your skin got all hard and you broke the guy's hands without even trying!" the mohawk fighter in a pink dogi harassed the Saiyan. It really played up on the innate desire to kill the man within Chayote but he was not particularly evil, over the last couple of years, the Saiyan had learned that there was a bit of a difference between annoying and evil.
"I didn't do anything. The real trick was before that. When I weakened myself to where that weakling could hit me." Chayote closed her eyes and decided to just breeze through this vexing conversation with a person barely worth teaching about Ki to.
"Huh? Why would you do that? I feel a fancy, made-up story coming!" the mohawk guy laughed to himself.
"If you must know. I'm not sure which ones of you can even survive a single punch from me. I can't tell if a punch from me will make you explode or if it will just tickle you. I just adjust my strength as I go along, according to the strength my enemy shows me. Truthfully, this tournament seems like a joke, playing by its rules is the only real challenge here, frankly, it's a little fun." Chayote smirked to herself.
"56! You can stop punching your opponent now, he's beaten! You've won, I repeat, 56 won!" the announcer tried pulling Jackie Chun off of the whited out opponent.
Chayote opened her eyes and looked up at Jackie Chun's sweating and frustrated expression. He was visualizing what he sensed of Chayote's strength inside the man he was facing and he did not like the outcome with the image sparring session partner that he decided to visualize instead of fighting the enemy at hand.
The rest of the qualifiers were a breeze. Chayote faced a blind man with an interesting style of boxing that emphasized clever use of his limbs. Had the man been of twenty times his power level, Chayote would have truly enjoyed fighting him but with his current strength, the Saiyan just let him punch and kick her about just to see some more of his amusing style in action before dispatching of the man with a knee strike that she mirrored from his style.
That was just about the only use of these qualifying matches. Korin trained her in the basics of martial arts, the breathing, the movement. This was just like a supermarket of different martial arts styles, various strikes and submissions to choose from. It did not appear that anybody here knew any remarkable techniques but they had excellent fundamentals that dwarfed Chayote's. While she breezed through the qualifiers, it had been a humbling experience. One of adoption and self-reflection. It did not strengthen the Saiyan in terms of power level, it did not teach her much new of skills or challenge her nearly enough to grow that much but it gave her plenty of polish as well as some new moves to her own style.
"You don't look like a bad person." Jackie Chun spoke using his voice now. Saying it once Chayote walked off the ring having just downed an eight-meter tall rikishi. The man took great pride in his flabby skin and endurance and while any normal martial artist would not have generated enough force to bust through it, Chayote could juggle the man like an apple if she wanted to.
"How do you know? Maybe I'm the worst?" Chayote turned at the old timer with a smirk. She could not wait to fight this man. Even though no matter how many matches she went through, he did not come that much closer from the other end of the block.
"A bad person would not study this much, they would not assume that there is something they can still learn at your level. You're green, don't get me wrong, but you know that." Jackie Chun turned his glance at Chayote with a much more prominent sense of calm. His eyes before almost felt like the geezer considered Chayote a threat to his entire world and perhaps rightfully so.
"I've only learned martial arts exist a short while ago. Before I could have never guessed there's an entire art this deep to what seemed as clear-cut as fighting. Seeing all these guys do their best, it's exciting. If they were as strong as me too, I'd never win against them in a thousand years!" Chayote clenched her shaking fists in excitement. "And you… You're the most exciting one of them all. You've got decent enough power and speed, I can sense it from you. But you're also a genius of martial arts too."
"Hmmm…" Jackie Chun hummed on while he looked ahead.
"56, 56, could you please make your way into the ring!?" the announcer kept on yelling into his megaphone.
Because Chayote was looking on ahead, she missed out on Jackie Chun disappearing on her. For someone weaker than her, the man certainly had light feet. Why would he just up and leave before his match? What sort of a martial artist's trick was that?
"I guess he's off to take a nap or something… This can't go on… 56 is disqualified. The winner is 41!" the announcer ruled.
Chayote's eyes shot wide open as she turned behind her, her tail mirrored the frantic movements of her head in reverse directions to keep the proper balance. That was necessary since the shock of the old timer just leaving and getting himself disqualified nearly pulled the ground from under Chayote's feet.
"32, 32! I know you can hear me because I'm yelling right at your face with a megaphone!" the announcer leaned up to Chayote, just inches shy to where his voice-enhancing gadget rubbed against her face. "Please make your way to the ring before you're disqualified as well!"
That crafty old coot!