I Wasn't Fooled

By: Light-Eco-Sage

Rated: Teen for violence and stupidity among most of the human characters.

Summary: Sometimes, it seemed like he was the only person in the world who didn't think that Hercule Satan was the best thing that ever happened to martial arts. Sometimes it's hard being the only intelligent human in the world.

Disclaimer: "Dragon Ball Z" is owned by Akira Toriyama, definitely not me. Otherwise Hercule Satan would have gotten his comeuppance.

LES: Well, here's my big return to the world of fanfiction! As my fans might have noticed, I've been... absent for quite a while now. The only explanation is that my muse must have gone on vacation... to Mars. I just couldn't get a good story idea to come no matter how hard I tried! But, finally this one came to me. So, here it is! There are a number of changes from the canon. The first one is that I'm going to speculate about the identity about a background character from the manga Dragon Ball. The second is that there is no "Gohan goes to high School" plot and, thus, no Saiyaman. I can hear the cheers all ready...

Chapter 1: The Announcer Knows

The job of an announcer is not an easy one. But this job has been particularly demanding since the final good Strongest-Under-The-Heavens martial arts tournament.

I faked my excitement as Hercule Satan threw his opponent out of the ring and thus became the Champion of the tournament... again. I screamed the results in the microphone as if I didn't expect this to happen. As if I didn't know that Hercule hadn't paid his opponent to take a dive in the final match.

Yes, the state of martial arts these days were pretty abysmal.

Thankfully, I didn't have to continue faking my excitement for too long because no sooner had I finished the announcement did Hercule snatch the microphone out of my hand and begin hamming up the audience, who were practically screaming themselves catatonic at this point.

If there was only one good thing about Hercule winning, it was that I wasn't needed to keep the audience's attention. Hercule was the perfect rodeo clown in that regard. I could slip away from the idiot crowd without notice or care. In fact, I didn't even have to hide the fact as I ducked out of the ring and away from the insulting circus of a tournament.

I walked far enough away from the ring until the sound of the cheers died down, which meant I had to walk for quite a distance. But, finally, I found some peace and quiet around the memorial for old winners.

I sighed heavily as I gazed at the name of the last great Champion of the tournament. Son Goku had been the pinnacle of what a great martial artist was. Exceedingly powerful, but never arrogant. He never would have joined in with the farce that matches have become: ninety percent insulting each other, ten percent actual combat.

But, still, the announcer couldn't help but love and hate Son Goku at the same time. As much as Son Goku exemplified what martial arts were about, he also couldn't help but resent the fact that he had stopped coming to the tournaments... which in turn allowed Hercule Satan to take the top spot.

Hercule Satan becoming the tournament Champion had been the beginning of the end of true martial arts, because no sooner had he become the champion did he start a massive smear campaign against any and all martial artists who used ki to fight.

Most people didn't even understand why he hated ki use so much, but the announcer had his own ideas. He remembered the 22nd World's Martial Arts tournament and Son Goku's opponent in the first seed. Panpoot was considered a martial arts prodigy at the time, a winner of two world-class martial arts tournaments. He had entered the Strongest-Under-The-Heavens in order to gain the legendary Triple Crown victory. He was also arrogant, a show-off, and needlessly wasted his energy showing off. And, in the end, Goku had defeated him with a single blow.

After that, Panpoot disappeared and was never heard from again within martial arts circles. But when Hercule Satan showed up two tournaments later, the announcer knew that he was really Panpoot with a different name right away. He acted exactly the same and even had the same afro. He had obviously changed his name to distance himself from his embarrassing defeat at Goku's hands and, once he was Champion, wasted no time in vilifying him and his fellow fighters far and wide.

What shocked the announcer so much was how quickly people ate up his words. Just before the tournament, ki fighting was perfectly acceptable if not exceedingly difficult to master. Now the wisdom of a thousand years, the secret of mastering yourself both inside and out, was within days written off as a mere trick.

It soon became clear that exceptional martial artists would no longer be welcome at the tournament. The last ki-user had been viciously boo'ed off the stage because of his 'cheating'. After that, most of the real martial arts masters stayed away from the tournament. Not long after, they replaced the preliminary rounds with the punch machine, and that sealed the final nail in the coffin of all excitement the tournament had. No longer was the tournament about skill, but just brute force. It stopped being about martial arts and more about artless brawls. A majority of the people coming to fight were no more than street brawlers, thugs, and people who thought they were martial arts masters because they paid their way up to a black belt in a strip-mall dojo.

And every tournament just got worse and worse, more and more painful to watch.

Because the announcer loved martial arts. He couldn't really master it himself, although he did know a little, so he filled the void by watching the great masters face each other in the ring of combat and prove themselves equals in integrity.

After every tournament he considered quitting his job. As much as he loved martial arts, he could hardly bare to see it tortured like this. But he never did leave, and he doubted he ever would. Because he had never really lost hope that the true Masters would return and show the world once again that martial arts wasn't just about brute force: it was about technique, being aware of how your body moves, and also gaining inner strength.

He just really wished that Goku would come back...

LES: There's the first chapter! We will pick up next chapter at the 25th Strongest-Under-The-Heavens tournament.