The Yamucha Chronicle

ooxoo

Part 25: Fall from grace

It's a bit hard to write about the years when not much really happened. After the Cell Games were over, we had seven years that were mostly peaceful. The Earth wasn't endangered or anything. Everyone was just recovering.

And when I say everyone, I do mean everyone. We had made the wish to undo the damage left by Cell. That fixed a lot but it didn't fix everything. South Capital City was still a bloody mess. All the people that the androids had killed stayed dead. Androids 16, 19 and 20 also stayed dead. Android 19 had been killed by Vegeta, Android 20 had been killed by Android 17 and actually I'm not sure exactly why Android 16 wasn't revived.

The reason that Androids 17 and 18 had been brought back to life was because they had been killed by Cell. We didn't necessarily want them back. We had just wished for everyone that Cell had killed to be revived and poof - there they were. We hoped that 17 and 18 would be less evil now that the Cell Games were over. But we were all still wary of these two since they're the ones that future Trunks had gone out of his way to warn us about.

During the next couple years, Gohan started to hang around Krillen a LOT. Even Vegeta was visiting the Kame House on a regular basis. I know this because Krillen sometimes came to my house when he wanted to get away from them. He appreciated the Saiyans being protective of him but he also felt that he could defend himself if he had to. I figured that Krillen knew what he was doing so I left him alone for the most part. Krillen was age 31. He could make his own choices. He knows his limits.

Honestly, during those years Krillen and Android 18 were probably at my place more often than I was.

I was still age 34 after the Cell Games, going on age 35. Which isn't all that old but the media was starting to talk bad about me - saying I should retire. Apparently 35 is old in professional baseball. There was a lot of pressure both ways. Fans wanted me to stay but other baseball players were telling me that it was time to quit. They felt I should step down and let some of the younger kids have a chance. Said I should leave a couple records for other people to break.

Thus during these seven years, I started exploring other sports. I tried some other jobs. Not because I needed the money - I didn't - but just for something to do. Cause I'm one of those types of people that has to have something to do. I'd probably go insane if I was stuck around the house all the time. It's good to get out.

I was offered the traditional jobs. Most professional baseball players when they retire, they become coaches or announcers. Something that's related to sports but that is administrative. You don't play the game anymore, you do the paperwork. What I learned very quickly was that I'm not into paperwork. It just can't hold my interest. How do you people who work in cubicles all day stand it? I'm serious. I think offices are enough to make anyone claustrophobic. And office politics... Don't even get me started. Bleh.

Guess some people do like paperwork though. Oolong and Puar were our accountants at the time. Between them, the shapeshifters handled investments for Krillen, Master Roshi, ChiChi and I. They might have double checked things for Uranai Baba (she doesn't NEED anything double-checked, psychic as she is, but she does business this way just to prove how accurate she really is) and Capsule Corp as well. They helped us do our taxes - stuff like that. We paid them for their work. They earned it. Believe me, it was well worth it. Having an accountant that you can trust is always well worth it.

Puar used her wages to go to a human college. So I didn't see her quite as much because she was in school. She started out by taking classes that interested her - art, philosophy, criminal justice. Then she got serious and started working towards a degree in law. Yep. Puar was on her way to becoming a lawyer. Truthfully I'm proud of Puar and she knows that but it's all a bit weird. Then again - in my life, what isn't?

On a personal note, this was a difficult time for Puar. Attending a mostly human college... There was a lot of social pressure and debate. People weren't always nice to her. People didn't always treat her like she had a right to be there. Plus with working and school and study... The boyfriend that she'd been happily dating for the past several years, they began to drift apart. It's not my place to discuss the reasons but anything that upsets Puar is gonna upset me, by extension.

Just to be obnoxious, I remained a professional baseball player until I was 36. If the media hadn't given me so much crud about needing to retire then I probably wouldn't have made a point of staying around specifically to annoy them.

Trunks was age 3 at by the time I retired from baseball and Goten was age 2. The boys were too strong to be left with average people and their various guardians needed a break. Sometimes Puar and I were babysitters. Krillen or ChiChi would bring the kids over and Gohan would usually pick them up after school was out.

After Gotens birth, ChiChi just plain couldn't stand to be at her house. The kitchen being remodeled was likely a factor. Mostly though, all the stuff in the house reminded her of Goku and she didn't cope well with the loss. She moved in with Ox King at the family castle and she joined some social clubs to try to get her mind off things. It wasn't a bad plan, quite the opposite in fact, but ChiChi didn't always want to take Goten along to her club meetings and Ox King wasn't up to watching him.

Gohan was slowly adapting to being without his father again. Gohan was age 13 by then. He was attending public schools for the first time since he didn't like being around the house full of memories either. Bulma was - as always - busy with Capsule Corp stuff. Vegeta was perpetually training because Gohan could reach Super Saiyan level 2 and he couldn't. Vegeta seems to figure that it's his responsibility to be the strongest Saiyan in existence. I'd hear from the others occasionally. Oolong, Yajirobe and Master Roshi each visited a few times. Piccolo would sometimes show up. Tenshinhan, Lunch and Chaozu - they had mostly dropped out of contact, they moved a lot for some reason - but even they stopped by a couple times to see how things were going.

Honestly, there were days when my mansion seemed more like a hotel. It was awesome to put the space to good use and nice to have everyone around. The thing with mansions is that you feel so isolated sometimes. The desert where I grew up, I'd expected to be alone out there so it didn't bother me as much. A mansion in a city... It's weird how you can be surrounded by people yet still feel so profoundly cut off from everything.

Seems that at least Piccolo and Tenshinhan remained distrustful of the androids. From what I've been told, they each spent part of their free time keeping tabs on Android 17. Also Piccolo had started to spar with Vegeta because Goku was dead and nobody else really wanted to spar that much.

The most amazing thing though was Android 18. Aside from being nice to Krillen and fairly civil towards me, she became good friends with Puar and actually got along really well with the kids. Uhm. Not right away. She hated the kids at first but they kinda grew on her. Trunks thought she was cool because she had beaten up Vegeta once. Goten started calling her 'Auntie 18'.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is thinking about babysitting Saiyan kids is that you have to outnumber them. Then they'll listen to you. Young Trunks and Goten were typically havoc to be around when it was just Puar and I. When Krillen and 18 were there as well though, that made it easier. Sometimes all of us would go out together - we'd watch a baseball game or take the kids to an amusement park. It wasn't always fun so we didn't go out much, we usually just hung around the mansion and watched a video or played a board game. Because there were people who hated Android 18. Regular people who'd just walk up and start yelling at her, threatening her and getting all bent out of shape. Then there was the media, they came up with some insulting things too. We were even featured in a few tabloid headlines. Some people started assuming that Android 18 and I were a couple. Some took it a step further, they said that Goten and Trunks were our sons.

Gaaaah...

On days like that I'd wonder why I had ever bothered to save 'average' people. Sheesh. I mean, I can understand that people had reasons to be upset with 18 but yelling at her in public places wasn't going to change anything. And I'm not sure how the tabloids always seemed to ignore Krillen but those stupid headlines nearly got me killed on a few occasions. I had to convince 18 that I hadn't endorsed any of this - at first she thought I was the one that had given the media the impression we were a couple. Even Krillen sort of slipped away in terms of trusting me for a while.

My good celebrity reputation was more or less flushed down the toilet by all this 'scandal'. They went so far as to kick me out of the baseball hall of fame. I don't think they've ever done that to any other player before or since.

Yea. It was about as much fun as dental appointment some days. Sorry if I sound bitter but guess that I am. Once upon a time I thought the world was fair. Now I know better. Saving the world isn't enough to make you a hero anymore. You have to become something else, I don't really know what. I guess that's what the general public decides. And if they like you... Well, it's a trade off. You can either be what the world wants and have a ton of fans or be yourself and have a few good friends.

I fell off the hero list as far as the world was concerned. I didn't really care. I'd basically retired from that aspect of life anyway. Guess I'll never understand the general public. Apparently though, what the world wanted in a hero was a divorced guy that couldn't fight. Strange, eh? Ah well.

Mr. Satan had taken credit for killing Cell and saving the world. People believed him. Go figure. All of us were appalled by Mr. Satans claims. However it's safe to say that no one could have been more affected than Gohan.

By age 13, Gohan had been retired from fighting for two solid years. As far as we know, he didn't even spar anymore after the Cell Games. Yet while Gohan hadn't enjoyed the battle against Cell... He was even less fond of being overlooked. Gohan never said much about it but you could tell that the situation got on his nerves.

More than once, we offered various solutions. We could have gotten Gohan on television to make an announcement of his own. We could have arranged all kinds of humiliations for Mr. Satan. But Gohan refused our help. He just wanted to drop the subject, try to forget the past and move on with his life - or so he claimed. His attitude was very dark and sullen for a while. Gohan's entitled to have moods, of course, but it was always a little nerve-wracking to be around him. Because we'd seen what Gohan could do if he just snapped. And with as much as he seemed to internalize things... We couldn't be sure how close he was to snapping at any given moment. Android 18 flat out avoided Gohan. Young Goten and Trunks were afraid of him sometimes.

Things were generally a bit awkward between friends for a while. We hadn't split in the way we usually did. Most of us had kept in touch. Or rather, we could have kept in touch if we'd wanted to. I dunno if this bugs anyone else but it bugs me.

It was the summer of 770 A.D. when Krillen and Android 18 decided to get married. They had a nice little semi-informal outdoor ceremony that they were both nervous about. Krillen was age 34 at his wedding and he'd let his hair grow back for the occasion. At first it was sort of odd to see him with hair because he'd always been bald before but hey, whatever works. I suspect that after the wedding, he decided to keep his hair since 18 thought it was cute. At the time though Krillen just said that it meant he'd retired from fighting.

I was there and age 37. I'd brought Trunks, he was age 4. Master Roshi was age 340. Puar and Oolong were both 29ish but closing on 30 fast. Puar...age 30...jeez. You have no idea how old that makes me I feel. To think I've known Puar since she was 7. Anyway. ChiChi was only 33 but she looked older - stress had done that to her. She brought Goten along, he was age 3 by then. Ox King and Umigame were each there but I'm not sure of their ages. The kids behaved, so did Roshi and on the day of the ceremony the weather was beautiful. We'd been worried a bit about the weather since the wedding was being held outside and the previous days had been stormy but Dende took care of that. Yea, Dende was there as well. I don't know who had explained the concept of marriage to Dende but he was remarkably well informed about human traditions by then. Dende gave his blessing to the couple. The main ceremony itself was performed by a monk from Orinji Temple, some elderly fellow that had been one of Krillens very first senseis.

Overall it was...well... Bittersweet, I suppose. Not a bad experience. I just don't know where everyone else was. Except for Goku, he was dead. I knew that. But everyone else... I kind of feel that we let Krillen down. Believe me, I understand what it's like to be busy. But after everything this group has been through, that they couldn't even show up... Hope Krillen doesn't resent the rest of us too much because of this. I do sort of get the impression that certain absences offended him.

Moving on... Most newly-wed couples would probably look into getting their own house. Krillen and 18 didn't need to. They already had four sets of house keys: the Kame House, my place, Android 17s home and the Son house. ChiChi had entrusted them with keys to her home since she was living with Ox King. While none of the homes were truly theirs, Krillen and 18 took care of at least the Kame House. That had made them realize how much work owning a home was. Besides, the group that lives at the Kame House is essentially family. Roshi considers Krillen a son and Krillen feels like he should take care of the guy that he has basically accepted as a foster father. I really think that if Krillen and 18 had moved out then Roshi would have eventually moved into their house.

Homes aside, the couple had also helped to take care of other peoples kids for the past three years. Goten and Trunks. Don't get me wrong. Krillen and 18 love each other tons but I think they might have put off getting married if they hadn't wanted their own child. And for the record - because 18 is an android - they had been expecting that they'd have to adopt a kid. It was something they'd talked about before they were married.

A few weeks after the honeymoon, we were all kind of startled to learn that they wouldn't have to adopt after all. I don't think Krillens ever been so proud in his entire life. Android 18 was as surprised as the rest of us.

Initially 18 acted like she hated the attention but that's just because she probably didn't know how else to act. ChiChi is the mother of two, she knows about these things and gave some advice. ChiChi is the stubborn type that says what she means and doesn't sugarcoat the facts. 18 appreciated that. Those two are about like sisters now.

The hardest part, from what I've heard, was finding a doctor that was willing to accept 18 as a patient. There are many different species and humanoids in our world but pregnant androids are apparently a minority. The doctors were reluctant to accept a patient that they weren't certain how to care for. Hospitals - who didn't like 18 anyway, since all her internal computers tended to mess up their equipment if they tried to do an ultrasound or any other type of scan - felt that having an android around would just upset the other patients. One place actually told 18 to just go to a car mechanic. Other places decided that an android would only be able to deliver a stillborn so there wasn't any point in trying to offer care. Needless to say, those hospitals have had some staff changes since then. We wouldn't tolerate anything else. ChiChi fixed this situation by taking 18 to a well-respected but difficult to track down doctor. We should mention that in order to get this appointment, ChiChi had dusted off one of the gigantic battleaxes that she inherited from her family. She carried this massive sinister looking weapon casually, slung over one shoulder and was completely polite to everyone as she determinedly marched 18 into care. After this, ChiChi and her axe were in attendance at all of 18s appointments. The doctor, a woman, turned out to be a kind enough person that she might have accepted 18 as a patient anyway but ChiChi and the axe certainly kept all the medical assistants from trying to challenge 18s right to be there.

Krillen was not invited to most of those appointments, by the way. Android 18 was nervous about how her insides would look - because they weren't going to look like a normal humans insides - and so when it came to her appointments, she usually wanted some space where no guys were allowed. Krillen respected her request. He spent a lot of time reading parenting books and wandering around in gift stores. He was torn between spoiling his wife rotten and abruptly wanting to get a job. We reminded him that he was a 34 year old millionaire because of tournament prize money and good investments. He said the money wasn't the point, he just wanted to be a good role model for the kid. Eesh. That's Krillen for you. Oolong, Puar and I all told him to relax. We promised him that if he still wanted a job after the kid was born then we'd find him something.

Speaking of jobs... By age 37, I had tried and walked away from the professional team sports. Baseball had been fun while it lasted but I didn't want be on a team anymore. It's generally my experience that the less people you're responsible for, the better. After all the only way to really find and test your limits is to get out there by yourself.

There are hundreds of independent sports. Running is technically a sport - but how many professional runners can you name? No, I didn't care about fame or anyones opinion anymore. It's just that if a sport is semi-popular then it is also better developed.

I tried a few more things and decided to eliminate opponents, I didn't want a sport that required a human opponent anymore. Which meant that all the racing-type sports were out. People who play sports for a living, most of them tend to take things too seriously for my tastes. I've had enough enemies in my lifetime. I didn't care to make more.

Further experiments revealed that being capable of flying basically takes the thrill out of most the 'extreme' sports. And I crossed hunting and fishing off the list because those types of things can never really be a sport to anyone who has ever had to do them for survival.

What I was left with in the end was one sport that, in my opinion anyway, is perfect. Golf.

There's a lot of appeal to the sport. Golf has got a lot of things going for it. You get out there and there are no teams, no weird looking mascots or perky cheerleaders. You don't have to deal with multiple coaches or referees. The commercial sponsors of golf aren't anywhere near as pushy as they are in other sports and the media doesn't pay as much attention to you. There is a dress code for professional golfers but a dress code is a step up from a required uniform. At least with a dress code there's still some room for individual expression and so forth. The crowds at golf tournaments are small compared to other sports. The fans are not quite as likely to start a riot - which is a nice change. You don't feel like you're trapped in a stadium. You don't feel rushed. None of those distractions. No slippery artificial turf either, the grass on the ground is always real. And even if there are other players, your main opponent is always the golf course. Thus golf manages to be a challenging game without losing its more mellow attitude. Just the change of pace I was looking for.

Plus I couldn't help but notice that professional golfers are all ages. You don't have to retire by a certain age, there really isn't a cutoff. If you're still playing pro golf when you're truly old then they just stick you on the seniors tour.

Keep in mind that in our world, some people - like Master Roshi - live to be over 400 years old. I doubt that I'll still be around in 400 years but if I stay in good shape then I probably could live past 100. I mention this because in our world, you have to be at least age 85 to get on the pro golf seniors tour. I've been told that in your world, the people age differently. That the average lifespan is only around age 70 in some of the better developed countries. So in your world, if you wanted to, you could probably try to get on the seniors golf tour before you were 85.

I was nearly 38 when I started playing golf. Like baseball and most the other sports, there's a season for golf. So you only get invited to play the game at a professional level for a few weeks out of the year. Although if you're really ambitious and qualify for some of the bigger tournaments then you can travel the world and follow the seasons. It's always summer somewhere, that's the theory. So you can work as much as you want. You spend the rest of the time practicing. Since golf is an independent sport, it's up to each player to decide when and if they want to practice. You are your own boss. If you want a coach then you can hire one - but you can choose to be your own coach, as well. The option is at least there. You don't have to have anyone else scheduling things or making all the decisions for you.

Which means that you can still have free time. I've enjoyed getting back to a more relaxed pace because it's hard to enjoy things when you always feel hurried. Did you notice? I mentioned an important word: invited. Yeah. In professional golf, you get invited to the events. That's how different golf is. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for baseball. Baseball has been good to me. But all those years that I had played baseball - we were just told where we were going next and who we would be playing against. It was like being given orders. The team might be officially welcomed, sometimes and expected, at other times or chased out of town by the fans of a rival team, once in awhile... But we were never really invited. And it's one of those little things that maybe doesn't seem like it should make a difference - but it did. Wouldn't you enjoy your work more - and perhaps even feel more appreciated there - if you got a personalized invitation to come to work? Even just once in awhile, wouldn't that be nice?

Honestly though, I think the worst thing about being a pro baseball player was the way that job ate my schedule. That sport had more or less owned me for about ten years. I hadn't gotten many chances to just be myself, hang out with friends or develop hobbies. It was great to finally be able to do all that. I was able to help Puar study for her tests. I was able to get the whole house cleaned up. I even made it back to check on the condition of the desert hideout.

That first time I went back to the hideout, I was up to my knees in sand. The place had been ignored for a few years so the sand had gotten into everything. A real mess. Restoring the hideout became a hobby for me.

Trunks was still being left in my care a lot and so was Goten. Neither of them could fly yet but they'd run all over the place. They made sand forts in the desert and played catch if I took them to a golf course. The boys thought it was fun to catch the golf balls and then return the balls to people. The golfers didn't usually agree.

In an attempt to distract the boys, I introduced them to miniature golf. For those of you who don't know - miniature golf is accurately named. It's just regular golf on a much smaller course. Since the golf course is so small, there are more traps and obstacles added to increase the difficulty of each shot. You have to hit the golf ball a certain way to get it to go through a windmill or something like that. At first, the kids were okay with this. Because of their abnormal strength... The main challenge for the boys was to hit the golf ball gently. Just hitting the ball so that it remained intact and on the course took practice. Hence it was a while before the actual obstacles posed any serious threat. Eventually, though, the boys got the hang of the game. But there were one or two obstacles that they just could not get past.

Once, Trunks became really frustrated. So he hit the golf ball too hard and at a bad angle. The golf ball - with the way he swatted that ball, it's a miracle the thing didn't split into pieces - bounced off something, came flying back at him and decked Trunks upside the head.

Trunks was age 5 by then. He went ballistic. He also went Super Saiyan. He'd probably done it before but that was the first time I'd ever seen him transform. Goten was nearly age 4 and he considered Trunks an older brother. So he had to imitate everything Trunks did. Sure enough, Goten transformed as well.

It was kinda scary that these two kids could have already learned to transform. But at the same time, they weren't as dangerous as I'd expected. The only way to explain this is to say that Super Saiyan multiples a warriors power. The more power you have before the transformation, the more power you gain because of the transformation - it's one of those deals. Thankfully, Trunks and Goten didn't have huge power levels at the time. So even after they went Super Saiyan, I was still a match for them powerwise. Besides they didn't have any fighting experience or much reason to fight. After Trunks had destroyed the obstacle that had been the source of his frustration, he calmed down and dropped out of Super Saiyan mode. Goten followed suit.

I didn't mind covering the repair bill for the golf course since it had been my idea to bring the kids. What got on my nerves was how easily Trunks and Goten could have injured other people. They aren't bad kids - I don't think they would have attacked anyone without having a reason to fight - but even just accidentally, they could have really hurt someone. They had gone Super Saiyan over something as petty as a miniature golf score. It just seemed wrong. There are better ways of dealing with frustration.

We had a talk. What I realized was that the boys had probably only transformed because they didn't have any attacks. No one had explained personal energy to them. They didn't know the kamehameha or anything like that. All that Trunks and Goten had were regular punches and kicks. And the boys had to power up to Super Saiyan to make those basic attacks strong enough to damage things like golf courses.

Goten and Trunks promised to be more careful in the future. They confided that they weren't sure how long they'd been able to transform. I was left with the impression that the boys had needed to defend themselves from a wild animal at some point and that was probably the first time each of them had gone Super Saiyan. Maybe they had been left outside to play and had wandered off. I'm not sure.

Anyway. I didn't feel that it was my place to teach the boys any attacks. I was hoping that they'd never need to fight. The world had been fairly peaceful for the past four years. Even if a threat had come, there were still enough adult warriors to hopefully spare the kids from joining the battle.

Later that same year, 771 A.D., Marron was born. Her parents had found out ahead of time that they were having a girl but everyone had been curious about what species the baby would be. Would Marron be an android like her mother? On the other hand, androids are technically human. So maybe the kid would be fully human? As it turns out, Marron is half android. It's not something you can tell by looking at her though. Guess she has robot DNA. Between that and being Krillens kid, Marron inherited the potential to be as dangerous as a demi-saiyan. The key word here is potential. As in, if you don't encourage the skill then it won't happen. 18 and Krillen didn't plan to encourage Marrons warrior potential.

Krillen and 18 settled down at the Kame House in order to raise Marron peacefully. They still visited ChiChis home, Android 17s home and my place but not as often. They were preoccupied with the new addition to their family. Plus they were afraid that Trunks and Goten were too rough for Marron to be safe around.

For anyone wondering - the only job that Krillen got after Marrons birth was being a full time dad. Next to that, other jobs just didn't seem important.

I admire that. A lot. In fact, I envy it a little bit. Kinda wish that my parents had been that way. I don't remember my parents much but I figure that they didn't exactly have their priorities straight - how else could I have ended up alone in the desert? I wish everyone in the world could afford to stay home with their kids. All the lives that would be different if only people could just value their time with each other... Eh. I suppose that's too idealistic to ever become a reality. You've got to take the good with the bad to keep things balanced, right?

ooxoo