Day One: Early Morning

[Tobias]

Garlic was sneering at Raditzu?s long spiked tresses, gods he wished he had hair like that, when his head jerked backwards as if someone had grabbed onto the locks he didn?t have and pulled. A chill passed over him and was gone even before his melon of a head was brought back forward. It was fast, but biting, the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and makes a home there even while warmth comes back to your flesh. And all the sudden it was warm. For some reason Garlic?s eyes had slid out of focus, and he blinked wildly to bring back sight. The blur around him was far too brown and green for the VIP Lounge. The gnawing suspicion that he was teleported was confirmed at the sight of a tree directly in front of him.

?Son of a bitch. They could have warned us.? By now he was used to suddenly appearing places, after all the times it happened. It still pissed him off.

Garlic shrugged the dufflebag of items off his shoulder and looked around. Grass and trees were sparse it seemed. There would be little cover here. The goblin knelt down to his bag and attached the basic scouter to his ear. Immediately it lit up with a power signature.

?Dammit. It?s too early for this. Hmm.? He watched the numbers scroll across its glassy surface, his mind pulling all the data it could offer and trying to form some sort of plan. He wouldn?t run: even if he could stomach it the invisible eye of the crowd was ever present. He couldn?t disappoint the people. But the fact remained; he needed cover. Garlic lowered his ki to the bare minimum and darted off in a stalking run. Mid stride he withdrew the neck and body of his guitar and connected them with a snap. Finally his short legs came to a stop behind an old shack. The scouter told him whoever it was was getting closer and fast. One halfhearted leap catapulted him on top of the abandoned building. Like a shadowy predator he crawled across the grimy shingles one hand griped firmly on the neck of his guitar. Then he saw him, and without a second thought leapt into battle.

When all was said and done Garlic was rising from the ground in a cloud of dust. A sharp succession of coughs followed him inhaling some, but wedged in between each one was a new curse.

?Well,? he even managed a dry tone while hacking away, ?That was less than satisfactory.? He noticed the Konat scrambling over the edge, and willed himself into flight before remembering he couldn?t. They would both walk away it seemed, and how the goblin hated those types of fights. But one good thing came out of it, he noted, swinging the brown instrument back and forth, this handles nearly as well as my ki blade!

Garlic jogged for a while, away from the buildings in the east, hoping to meet one of the mismatched crew he had joined in the lounge. This whole damned tournament would crumble if he didn?t. Luckily he broke through a patch of trees right on top of nearly the whole lot of them.

?Hotdog. That was easy.? He had a feeling the rest of the tournament wouldn?t.