Dragon Ball: Paradise Lost

The Entrancing Deadlock

"What was that, old man?" Tenshinhan's face shriveled like a dried out prune. So far the martial artist has only been working his matches out of professionalism. He had a goal to clash with the pair of Saiyans and defeat them, the goal he trained so hard and abandoned so much of what previously defined him for. Anything else was just stepping toward that goal. This was beginning to get personal, however.

"You've heard me. The reason why you are as strong as you are now is not that you've abandoned everyone and sought power on your own. It is because you've had a friend by your side and stayed true to your spirit and pride as a martial artist." Jackie Chun declared, taking a brief moment to glance at Chiaotzu who was observing the brawl from the sidelines.

Tenshinhan placed his hands by the center of his face, fingers spread out toward his eyes. "Solar Fist!" he yelled out, forcing bright light flash and reach as far as the rays of light could, blinding everyone present within its range with its unmatched brightness. Chayote and Goku grabbed their eyes and grunted in pain, they could only assume that Jackie Chun and everyone in the audience would have been similarly distracted by the technique.

Tenshinhan's battle cry, followed by Jackie Chun's grunt of pain relayed the message just fine, utilizing the advantage that his Solar Fist technique provided him with, Tenshinhan drove a brutal elbow strike to Jackie Chun's solar plexus, knocking the seasoned veteran off his feet and turning off all of his defenses. Tenshinhan proceeded with a relentless flurry of blows, which Jackie had to cover his head to shrug off, taking only minimal damage as the blows failed to penetrate his broadened defenses.

Despite limited success to his rapid attacks, Tenshinhan had scored a notable achievement of having forced Jackie's defenses to falter, his raised arms kept on slipping down from time to time and Tenshinhan had timed these openings just right for a cross chop headed for Jackie's neck. A hit like that would have turned off not only just Jackie's defenses but put the old man out for the count, no matter how lively and powerful, how experienced or skilled he was.

Jackie's hands seemed to erupt with girth, overflowing with power that resulted in awesome muscular growth as the old-timer, with his eyes still closed and suffering from the irritation of the Solar Fist, reached out to the sides and caught Tenshinhan by the three-eyed warrior's wrists, locking the arms in place.

"An impressive technique, but it does little to prevent me from sensing your Ki after the initial flash," Jackie explained why he was able to defend himself after the first series of onslaughts to his bodily integrity. "Are you sure that you wish to challenge me to a battle of techniques, for my techniques are nothing short from magnificent."

"Interesting..." Tenshinhan smirked while the two struggled in close proximity, each trying to overpower the other to deliver a finishing strike of this particular engagement. "Nothing would be more pleasing than to prove a know-it-all old-timer wrong, I would know, for I've done the same to Tsuru Sen'nin."

The two stopped their struggle by forcefully pulling each other's limbs apart from one another and disengaging to catch their breaths. Jackie wiped the slobber and traces of blood from his lip, his body canceled out the excessive muscular growth that had overcome his upper half temporarily during the clash to preserve strength during times when it was not needed.

"Oh! What a breathtaking engagement, ladies and gentlemen! Contestant Tenshinhan has employed the might of the sun itself to attack his opponent, striking with a blinding flash of light, luckily for you, yours truly was equipped with this pair of shades which helped him keep track of the battle! Well... As much of it as I can normally..." the announcer looked excited over his successful way of defeating Tenshinhan's technique before letting his embarrassment consume him and scratching his cheek.