Season 1, Episode 6: Red Ribbon Attention Part 1
10th of May/Age: 749
Fry Pan Mountain/Diablo Desert
"So, let me get this straight. You are looking for the, Dragon Balls to wish for the perfect boyfriend?" Tia asked Bulma as the group was all riding together in a smallish hovercar that floated a few inches above the paved road.
"When you say it like that it makes me sound shallow." Bulma complained behind the steering wheel while Tia avoided looking at the blue haired genius after she made that statement.
"That's because it is." Oolong said in the passenger seat with his arms crossed.
"Hush, you. You're lucky you're even joining us on this adventure. I should have had Goku beat the stuffing out of you back in that village and be done with it." Bulma replied with annoyance while Oolong simply huffed.
"What happened at the village?" Tia asked Goku while they were both in the back seats of the car.
"Oolong had a bunch of girls in a cave and wanted to marry them. Whatever that means." Goku said innocently while Tia quickly looked in Oolong's direction who also turned to look at the girl before he quickly spoke up.
"It's not what it sounds like. Those girls were a pain in my backside, so I let them all go, and I didn't even kidnap them or anything." Oolong quickly replied before Bulma spoke up again.
"After you transformed into monsters to threaten the villagers into letting you take their daughters."
Oolong practically squeaked in fear as he saw Tia's angry face that was practically covered with shadows while her eyes glowed red.
"Oolong…You're gross." Tia said before crossing her arms and turning her head away from the shapeshifting anthropomorphic pig.
Oolong grumbled something under his breath before he turned back around in his seat and started messing with the radio stations to put on some good music to hopefully make the drive less awkward since he could still somehow in some way feel Tia staring a hole into the back of his head.
"Oh, crap." Bulma said when the hovercar's engine started smoking and forced the group to stop on the literal side of the road while Bulma lifted the hood of the car to inspect the damage.
"What happened?" Tia asked while Bulma waved away some smoke from the engine that wafted into the air.
"The engine overheated. Typical." Bulma groaned while Oolong, Goku and Tia exited the car soon after and allowed Bulma to try and think of a work around to this problem they faced.
"I guess I could use this free time to get some training done." Tia said with a stretch of her arms over her head.
"Can I train too?" Goku asked with excited eyes that practically sparkled at the idea of training with Tia.
"Sure. We can make it into a sparring match." Tia said before she and Goku distanced themselves from the broken-down car and the two people near it before they entered their respective fighting stances while Tia noticed a new quest appear before her eyes with the familiar audio ding of her powers.
[Quest Alert!
Name: Sparring Session
You have decided to spare against Son Goku who can be a monster in combat despite his young age. Try to win.
Objective: Defeat Goku in a sparring match.
Rewards: 500 XP! Increased Reputation with Goku!
Failure: 150 XP!
Do you accept this quest? Y/N?]
Tia mentally accepted the quest before Goku sprang into action with a fast dash of speed while he attempted to land a firm punch to Tia's torso.
Tia saw the attack coming despite barely being able to keep up with Goku's speed and raised both her arms to block the punch which had quite a bit of power behind it and in response; Tia hit Goku in the chest with a frontal kick that sent him back a few steps before Tia took the time to attack with a flurry of rapid jabs towards the small monkey boy.
Goku dodged the blows or countered with his own focused strikes to Tia's exposed gaps in her combat which made her wince a bit before she brought her hand back and with focused Ki, she used her Power Strike technique in the form of a punch that countered Goku's Rock-Paper-Scissors technique. Goku used the rock variant which was a Ki infused punch, and the result was both fists connecting with one another with impressive force that caused both fighters to recoil and shake their hands in pain.
"Ow." Tia and Goku both cried before looking at one another again.
"That punch was really strong. Let's fight more." Goku said with a bright smile before he jumped towards Tia with a sweeping kick aimed at her head that se ducked under before delivering an uppercut to Goku's stomach which knocked the wind out of him as he fell to the ground before quickly recovering and sweeping Tia's legs from under her which knocked her off balance and onto the ground.
She rolled backwards to get to a crouched position and was quickly taken off-guard when Goku hit her in the face with a powerful slap of his tail that hurt like hell and made Tia fall onto her back and hold her nose that she swore was broken even though it wasn't.
"Alright, I'll give you that one." Tia said behind her hands as she held her hands over her nose and mouth before lowering them and showing that her nose and upper lip had started to swell, and some water started forming in her eyes.
The tears weren't from being hit as a girl and instead was from the impact and area that she was hit that caused them. No matter how strong a person is or how tough, a nose injury or face injury always generates a teary bodily response.
Goku simply smiled and innocent smile while his tail swished back, and forth which proved he was happy, and Tia simply wiped her eyes and nose before she once again got into a ready stance.
"Let's keep going." Tia said before the sparring session continued for a bit with Tia and Goku exchanging blows and through the sparring session, Tia noticed that Goku's endurance surpassed her own and soon the spar ended after Tia admitted defeat.
[Quest Failed!]
Tia ignored the skill alert while also discovering that she still gained more reputation with Goku even if the reward had been higher had she won.
Tia smiled while sitting in a mediative position while Goku lay down on his back. She began to restore her lost Ki while thinking about other ways to help enhance her training and improve to hopefully reach the same level of strength that Goku had gained.
'Goku is something else. He learns martial arts so easily that he copied my Ki technique just by seeing it and during this spare he was basically in control of the entire fight. How did I boy like him get so strong so fast without the same powers that I have?' Tia wondered to herself while she meditated and maintained a steady amount of control over her breathing as well as flexing the Ki energy within her as the muscle that it was.
After a short while, Tia opened her eyes and decided to look at the Ki technique she had developed during her fight with the wood monster.
[Skill!
Name: Ki Blast
Tier: 2
Level: 1
Range: 10 Meters
You have learned to weaponize your inner energy, Chakra or Ki to create a ball of energy that can be fired at enemies or used as a template to create more powerful Ki Techniques.
Damage: 300 [Physical] damage!
Size: Soccer Ball!
The size and power of this technique can be enhanced by pumping more Ki into it but be warned that the more Ki you add, the slower the attack will be.
Cost: 300 Ki
Requirements: Ki Manipulation skill: Level: 10!]
Tia looked at the game screen and was careful to commit what she read to memory. The attack was simplistic at best; however, it gave her more than enough information to work with as well as informing her that the Tier categories skill and magic spell costs can reach insanely high. Either way, the Ki Blast technique would be useful in helping her defend herself, practice her control over her Ki and even develop her own techniques like Roshi's Kamehameha.
[The skill [Meditation] has leveled up! Level: 14-15!]
[The skill [Ki Manipulation] has leveled up! Level: 12-13!]
"Even with bonus experience points, it is still getting harder to level up skills past level ten. Which means that I need to step up the training instead of purely focusing only on meditation and sparring matches with people." Tia said to herself before another screen made itself known.
[You have gained 1 WIS point!]
Tia glared at the screen before dismissing it and deciding that she wanted to check out her stats.
[Statistics!
Name: Tia Munkin, Age: 16, Race: Human
Title: The Player, Alignment: Good, Level: 11 [450/5,900 XP!]
HP: 520/850, Ki: 763/1,150, MP: 700/700
Strength: 40, Constitution: 41
Dexterity: 40, Intelligence: 39
Wisdom: 36, Charisma: 26
BP: 32.1
Stat Points: 5
Perk Points: 1
Perks: [Players Mind-MAX, [Players Body-MAX, [Toughness-Rank 3, [Fleet Footed-Rank 1, [HP Boost-Rank 2, [Iron Fist-Rank 2]
End!]
"I'm better off, saving those points." Tia mused before reaching into her inventory and took out a ration bar to eat and give her a nice boost to her health regen before she went back to meditating until her Ki reserves filled back up.
The moment her Ki was restored, she stood across a nearby sand dune that didn't have any animals near it and decided that this was the perfect spot for her to train.
Tia assumed a balanced stance while taking a deep breath before focusing on her Ki and summoned her Ki Blast in front of her outstretched hands. Instead of firing the blast right away, she focused intensely and held the blast in place.
She could feel the energy within the object. The Ki within the blast was primed and ready to be released as if it was a gun cocked and ready to fire. Tia focused on the connection she had with the skill itself and how it felt like she was tethered to the technique.
Her Ki inside her body was connected with the Ki outside her body and it was a strange sensation. She chose to ignore the game alerts she heard and maintained her focus on the Ki energy she had begun toying with. She made the Ki spin in place or stop dead in its tracks. Rotate vertically, horizontally, diagonally and even made it shrink or expand with her breathing.
She didn't noticed until it was too late that this exercise itself drained her Ki energy and she felt the connection waver before it snapped like a twig and the ball of Ki energy launched itself into the sand dune and caused a small explosion of sand to erupt from the target location as sand flew into the air before falling down like snow in a snow globe.
[The skill [Ki Manipulation] has leveled up! Level: 13-17!]
[You have gained the [Ki Exhaustion] Debuff!]
"Damn…That took everything I had." Tia said to herself before falling onto her butt. She noticed that she was sweating hard and had trouble maintaining a steady breathing rhythm which clued her in on how intensive Ki abilities were.
She used Ki for special techniques, but she also used it while she fought normally which means that if she were to fight right now, she wouldn't stand a chance.
"I guess this makes sense. Ki is internal energy and if I use up energy, I'll get tired." Tia said before taking out another ration bar and sports drink to snack on before she looked up at the sky and how pretty the clouds seemed to be.
"Let's check out my new skill scroll and weapon." Tia said before diving into her inventory and getting a full description of said items.
[Item
Skill Book/Scroll
Name: Fireball
Within this scroll is the magical knowledge needed for you to harness your magical power and generate a small fire ball to throw at your enemies.
Would you like to learn this skill? Y/N]
[Item
Weapon
Name: Radiant Bokken
This is a wooden Bokken enhanced by magic to be stronger and more durable than a normal wooden sword. It is also enchanted, to deliver a blinding, flash of light to enemies.
Enchantment: [Shine]
Activation Cost: 100 MP!
Shine Effect Distance: 5 Meter Cone
Damage: 12-14!
Requirements: 6 STR and 5 DEX
Durability: 30/30!]
"This weapon isn't as powerful as I thought it would be." Tia admitted with a sad sigh before she decided to learn the fireball spell.
[Skill
Name: Fireball
Tier: 1
Class: Evocation
You have learned how to harness your magical powers into forming a small fireball that you can throw at your enemies to deal minor fire damage.
Range: 7 Meters
Damage: 20 Fire Damage
Effect: Can cause minor burn damage over time.
Cost: 30 MP!]
"Wow." Tia said with a heavy breath as the skill scroll burst into golden flower pedals and flowed into her.
1
"Is there any saving the car?" Tia asked after she and Goku returned to the broken-down car while Oolong was sitting on a large rock and Bulma had black oil stands on her shirt and hands with a smudge or two on her face.
"The engine is deep fried. I can't even get it to spark, so the car isn't going anywhere. We need to find a whole new set of wheels." Bulma replied with a frustrated groan of exhaustion.
"Here." Tia said while offering Bulma a bottle of cold mineral water from her inventory. Bulma gratefully accepted before speaking again.
"So, what's it like to have real life magic?" Bulma asked after taking a long sip while Tia shrugged.
"It's both weird and natural. Plus, it can come in handy since I have a way to shield myself and throw fire at people. Plus, with my martial arts training I feel like I'm becoming a powerful sorcerer or wizard from a fantasy game. They usually deal with mystic energies with various skills and combat or support options."
"You sound like you've played a few dozen videogames before making your way out here." Oolong said bluntly while Tia couldn't help but let out an awkward chuckle while scratching the back of her head a bit as the whole group was unaware that they were being watched, but unlike last time. They weren't being watched by a hidden Red Ribbon soldier and instead were being watched by a lone bandit and his shapeshifting cat friend.
"Looks like we found some prime targets Puar." The bandit said while looking at the group through his binoculars while laying down atop a far away sand dune for cover.
"You think they'll have a lot of Zeni, Yamcha?" Puar asked. Puar was a blue cat hovering in the air or more specifically hovering near Yamcha and remaining low to the ground in order to remain hidden from sight.
"Of course, they will. That girl is Bulma from the Capsule Corp zaibatsu. She's worth her weight in gold…But I don't think I can handle kidnapping anyone." Yamcha admitted.
Yamcha would willingly admit to his bandit behavior, but he usually stuck to robbing people of their goods and leaving them maps to nearby cities to help after he was done. He'd never willingly kidnap or even kill a person he just wanted to get Zeni from and something like kidnapping didn't sit right with him either.
"So, what do we do?" Puar asked before Yamcha rolled onto his back and put his binoculars onto the sandy ground before he sat up.
"We wait until their asleep and take their valuables. Hopefully, we do it without having to fight any of them." Yamcha said before he and Puar played the waiting game while following Bulma, Goku, Oolong and Tia who used a Hoi-Poi capsule to enter an RV that Oolong 'mysteriously' forgot about during the time Bulma spent trying to fix an unfixable car.
Apparently, he had more than one RV.
Nighttime
"Why didn't you let us use this RV sooner? This is awesome." Tia said while sitting at a table, where the entire group decided to eat dinner.
Bulma didn't pack traditional rations and instead brought a surplus of various foods on her journey that were now being eaten by the group. Tia herself was eating a nice steak with mashed potatoes and peas.
"Because this RV isn't cheap, and I don't need any of you jerks breaking anything." Oolong said back while eating his own food.
"Danks, Gulba." Goku said with a mouth full of cooked fish.
"Goku don't talk with your mouth full." Bulma quickly scolded before Goku quickly grabbed another plate of food to scarf down.
The dinner was nice and when the group noticed how dark it was getting, they started to get settled in for some sleep. Bulma and Tia took the upstairs part of the RV since it had two floors while Oolong and Goku took the bottom.
"Tia was laying down on her side of the large bed while Bulma took up the other. Bulma was just in an oversized T-shirt and panties just like Tia and just when Tia's eyes started to get heavy, she noticed that something felt strange.
[Warning! You have been inflicted with the [Poison] Debuff!]
"W-wha?" Tia asked while trying to get up but noticed that her body was unresponsive, and her eyes felt too heavy to stay open.
11th of May/Age: 749
Undisclosed Location!
"What the hell?" Tia asked when she woke up and noticed that she wasn't in the RV anymore and instead she was in some strange kind of jail cell.
Tia quickly got up to her feet and ran up to the bars and saw that there were other various jail cells near her and across from her and in the corner of the room she was in. She saw Bulma still sleeping and on the walls outside the cell was the insignia of the infamous Red Ribbon Army.
[Quest Alert!
Name: Escape the Red Ribbon
You have been drugged and imprisoned by the Red Ribbon Army along with your newfound friends for some unknown reason. You've got to escape.
Objective 1: Escape the prison cell and this location alive.
Objective 2: Rescue all your traveling companions before escaping.
Objective 3: Rescue the other victims of this place before escaping.
Rewards: 6,000 XP! Increased Reputation with all your friends. Increased Reputation with the people of the Ox Kingdom. Increased Reputation with Chi-Chi and Ox! Massively decreased Reputation with the Red Ribbon Army.
Do you accept this quest? Y/N?]
"Why the hell would I say no?!" Tia practically shouted before accepting the quest and followed up with running over to Bulma and shook her awake. "Bulma, get up! Were in trouble here!"
"Wha?" Bulma asked in a sleepy voice.
"Come on. We've been kidnapped." Tia said and despite her tiredness, Bulma's eyes widened when she realized the seriousness of the situation.
"What the fuck?!" Bulma shouted before running towards the bars of the jail cell. "Hey! Let us out you assholes!"
"Quiet down!" An angry voice said, causing Bulma to backup while a big burly man in a Red Ribbon uniform came up to the cells with a rifle in hand.
"What do you want with us you creep?" Tia asked while the man chuckled.
"We got what we wanted from your RV and now you girls are going to be our prisoners. Capsule Corp will pay huge for its heiress and her bodyguards. So, be good girls and keep your pretty, mouths shut while we put the Dragon Balls to use." The man said before walking away with a cruel laugh.
"Bastard! They've got the Dragon Balls!" Bulma shouted before Tia narrowed her eyes and quickly jumped into action as she equipped some spare pants from her inventory before throwing a pair towards Bulma.
So, with their private parts covered, Tia made her way to the cell bars and took a deep breath before trying to pull them apart.
"Come on. My strength stat can't just be for show." Tia said while straining her muscles as hard as she could and slowly felt the cell bars starting to bend before she focused on using her Ki or more specifically her Power Strike skill, but instead of a quick burst of power, she focused on the principals of the technique and used it to reinforce her strength and sure enough, Tia was able to break two of the cell bars apart before she did the same with another four and made a proper doorway for her and Bulma to walk through.
[Due to your quick thinking and clever use of the [Power Strike] skill, you have created the skill [Power Reinforcement]!]
[Skill
Name: Power Reinforcement
Tier: 2
You have learned how to harness your Ki to reinforce your physical status and improve your abilities beyond the norm.
Attributes Available to Increase: STR, DEX, CON!
Attributes increase limit: 1 Stat
You can increase the number of attributes you can buff at higher levels to a maximum of three!
Increase the chosen attribute by 30% while active!
Cost: 50 Ki per minute!]
Tia dismissed the screen before stepping out into the open hallway where she saw the burly man from earlier jumping up from his seated position near the end of the hall with his gun ready.
Tia quickly activated her Mana Shield and Bronze Skin spells which allowed her to survive a few of the rifle bullets that hit her while she dashed towards the man. Her shield broke and she staggered a bit from a round to her knee, but she quickly activated her shield again and this time made two more copies of them before finally closing the distance and with a focused breath, she hit the man in the gut with her Gale Force Palm attack which knocked all the air out of the man's lungs and sent him crashing into the wall with a loud crack of moist flesh that told Tia that the man had a bone or two break on impact.
Tia took a moment to look down at her hand as she saw the grown and physically imposing man knocked prone due to a single strike. Her perks and strength scaled with her skills which meant that the damage she just did could have caused serious organ damage, but Tia couldn't find much empathy for the guy willing to kill her.
"Hey! Get us out of here!" A voice cried out from another cell before other voices joined in. Tia quickly tossed Bulma one of the two sets of keys that the guard had before Bulma and Tia started unlocking the various cells.
"Chi-Chi?" Tia asked in shock when she came up to the last cell and saw that Chi-Chi had been locked up with a guy with long black hair and a floating cat.
"Tia, I thought it was you, but I wasn't sure. How did these bad guys catch you?" Chi-Chi asked after Tia unlocked the cell.
"I'm not one hundred percent sure about how they caught us, but right now we need to focus on getting everyone out and stopping these Red Ribbon guys from using the Dragon Balls." Tia explained before the guy spoke up.
"The Dragon Balls are real? I thought they were a myth." The guy said in shock. "I can help you guys stop the Red Ribbon thugs here, but you need to know that this army isn't going to like us breaking free."
"I'll take the help but frankly I don't care about what the Red Ribbon likes or dislikes. I'm Tia by the way." Tia said before the guy spoke.
"I'm Yamcha and this is my partner Puar." Yamcha said a bit awkwardly while avoiding telling the girl that he was originally going to rob her.
"Goku." Bulma quickly said after waking up the sleeping monkey boy in the next cell over.
"Huh?" Goku asked with a yawn.
"Okay everybody! We all need to work together to get out of here! So, grab any weapons you can and stick with Goku and Bulma! They can lead you out!" Tia said loudly to the small crowd.
"They can lead us out?" An old man asked with clear skepticism in his voice, while Tia looked over at Bulma who had a Hoi-Poi capsule case in her hands which made Tia wonder where exactly the girl had been hiding it, before she quickly suppressed a small blush at the slightly lewd thoughts after having a moment to think about where Bulma could hide things.
"Don't worry everybody! I have a special satellite radar that shows the interior of any building, and it can get us out with no problem." Bulma said with a smile before using two capsules to not only bring out said radar in her left hand while she had summoned her small uzi in her right hand.
"Are you going to fight some strong guys?" Goku asked while rubbing his eyes a bit.
"Probably and I know you want to fight too, but I need you to be super strong and lead these guys out of this place. Okay." Tia said while ruffling Goku's hair.
"Okay. I'll show you that I'm really strong." Goku said with a bright smile while brandishing his power pole.
"You don't need to come with me if you don't want to. I'm expecting a serious fight against these Red Ribbon guys and I'm not sure how things will turn out." Tia said to Yamcha while Bulma and Goku lead the group of prisoners out of the holding cells.
"I wouldn't be a real man if I let a girl like you handle all the heavy lifting. Besides, the Red Ribbon Army having the Dragon Balls means that I can't make my own wish." Yamcha said with a raised fist towards the air.
"Alright then. Let's go." Tia said brightly before she and Yamcha went the opposite way that the prisoners went as they headed deeper into the facility.
END!
Narrator: Tia and her friends have been kidnapped by the nefarious Red Ribbon Army who have now gathered the Dragon Balls for dangerous goals that could affect the entire world. Can Tia and her newfound ally reclaim the Dragon Balls and put a stop to the Red Ribbon Army, or will they fail and have the game end tragically? Stay tuned for the next episode of Dragon Gamer Z.
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Moo.