Pretend

By BearFrog

What is real? What is unreal? How does one tell the difference between fantasy and reality? How does one know if an extraordinary adventure is real, or an entire lifetime is a dream? When does that line between fiction and nonfiction begin to blur into a swirling vortex of chaos?

It was Halloween, many years ago. It has been so long that I have forgotten my age at the time of the adventure, but luckily I looked through my archives and got to read my adventure from my past perspective. It was amazing how immature I was, and it was amazing how poor my writing was compared to now.

Anyway, like I was saying, it was the Halloween of 1999. I was dressed up as Frieza, a villain from the television show "Dragonball Z". Frieza was a haughty, malicious fiend with transformation abilities and an empire of super-warriors under his control. The small, white alien was able to destroy a planet by just lifting one of his white fingers.

Frieza had two major enemies in the show, named Goku and Vegeta. Vegeta and Goku were both Saiyans (an alien race similar to humans, only stronger and having tails), who had their home planet destroyed by Frieza after he betrayed them. Goku did not learn of this until he was in his early thirties, while Vegeta struggled his entire life to get revenge.

In the end, it was a climatic final duel between Frieza and Goku that would decide the fate of the universe. The two battled on the exploding planet Namek, and in the end Frieza was the one left on the planet and Goku escaped safely. Frieza survived and was rebuilt in an android-like fashion (even with a robotic tail to replace the old one) , and he traveled to Earth with a small army and his evil father, King Cold. His goal was to get revenge on Goku by destroying the planet he called home.

Then came Trunks, a time traveling Saiyan from the future. He defeated Frieza, the army, and King Cold single handedly. Then a bunch of other adventures occurred after that, but that information is not required for any further knowledge in the story.

So, like I was saying before all that information, I was Frieza for Halloween. At school, we were allowed to dress up in our costumes that day, and I was anxious for recess. Every Halloween we would have great fun and misadventures in our Halloween costumes, pretending to be the characters we masquerade as. Dragonball Z, being primarily a kung fu show, would probably lead to good hearted fighting.

There is quite a big difference between my current school (Kenston High) and my old school (Royalview Elementary). Even in a post-Columbine America, we still had kids fighting all the time. It was part of our daily life. Nobody brought weapons or guns, it was just good ol' clean fists and feet, with elbows and knees too. I get nostalgic as I think of the good ol' days, fighting alongside my friends in events such as "The Great Third Grade War". They were good times.

I remember stepping out onto the playground that day and taking a clear overview of my surroundings. Over on the left were the two jungle-gyms, one old and one new. Once on the new one, a girl had kicked me right in the nuts for no apparent reason. It hurt.

Then there were the two baseball diamonds with a huge chunk of grass separating them. Oh yes, that was where the final battle of the war was held, and so many fights after that. It was vast and seemingly endless until we reached the ivy covered chain-link fences.

I began by greeting a kid dressed in a Vegeta outfit, and challenged him to a friendly "pretend" duel. He called me dork and ignored me. I paid him no mind and then went up to greet a good comrade of mine, Joe Pickering, who was dressed up as Trunks. We shook our hands and patted each-other on the back, that is, until we were attacked.

A large kid dressed as the yellow ninja "Scorpion" (from Mortal Kombat) and a kid dressed as a soldier attacked us out of nowhere. Whoosh! Scorpion swung at my head and I ducked down. I turned to face him with a nice uppercut to the jaw, but he jumped backwards. He leaped forward with a punch, but I blocked it with my elbow. I threw a kick at his gut, but he grabbed my leg and swung me to the ground.

As I hit the soft grass, I got a smudge of green on my costume. However, my opponent soon was equally green when I tripped him with a swirling kick. He fell on his back, and I stood over him, in a position of halfway throwing a punch. He removed the lower half of his mask, and it was revealed to me that this was just my good friend Anthony.

We laughed and I extended my arm to pick him up. The soldier, whose name escapes my memory, was a chum of Anthony and Joe, who I had then just met. We conversed for a bit and then each headed our separate ways for more adventures. I only walked a few feet when a trio of trouble stood waiting for me.

"Halt, fiend!!" yelled the tallest of the group.

I obeyed and crossed my arms. Standing before me was a kid dressed as Goku, and behind him was a really short kid dressed as Goku. Just for reference to the non-DBZ fan, Goku dresses in orange pants, blue boots, blue karate belt, orange sleeveless shirt, blue short sleeve shirt, and wrist bands. Next to the short kid was a bit more of an average sized kid, and he was dressed up as Superman.

"What do you dirty little monkeys want?" I asked, in my best impression of Frieza's voice.

"We have come to stop your reign of terror!" yelled the lead Goku.

"Oh really?" I chuckled with the mask over my face. I could tell this would be fun. "I would like to see you try."

"Fine!" yelled the lead Goku as he charged forward. His two comrades each went to the side and charged toward me from that direction. An excellent tactic, indeed, but I was able to block their blows with my knees and elbows, and of course dodging them entirely was useful too.

The battle was a good one, as they too were good at blocking my attacks. However, my battle experience was much greater than theirs. On the playground, these three were mere amateurs. I decided it was time to begin ending the battle, and thus I decided to take out the small and agile Goku first. I went to punch him, but he got away and the other two grabbed me.

"Aw, poop." I said to myself as the little Goku prepared to ram me like a bull in Spain.

I quickly struggled my way out of their grasp and then did a spinning kick to get them to the ground. Little Goku charged at the wrong moment and got caught in the spin. The battle was over, and I had conquered yet again.

"Good match." I said to the strangers with a smirk under the mask. I crossed my arms and began to walk into the baseball field onto the right when I heard a new voice.

"Frieza!!" yelled the high voice behind me.

I turned around to see my final opponent. His corn yellow hair gleamed in the sunlight, his giant green eyes staring at me. He was dressed in a Goku costume as well. This was going to be it. The final battle: Super Saiyan Goku versus Frieza.

In the show, after Frieza murders Goku's best friend Krillin, Goku goes berserk and transforms into the legendary Super Saiyan, which looks exactly the same as normal except for straighter blonde hair and green eyes.

"Another little monkey?" I said to him with a hint of malice in my voice. "What is it you want?"

"I've come to stop you Frieza!"

"A noble cause, but ultimately futile!" I said as I extended my arms and crossed my legs, just like the villain himself. "I've yet to be defeated, and you think that you alone can stop me? Ha!"

Angered, he charged forward toward the pitcher's mound I was standing on. His attacks were swift, but I was swifter. He was the weakest opponent I had faced all day, but his determination was much greater than the others. He too had entered the world of make-believe, and he deeper inside of it than I.

I began to try and throw some punches at him as well, but I slowed my attacks down. I was having fun toying with the child, as does Frieza when dueling his opponents. Then, with my arms crossed, I began to walk backward as he attacked me.

All of his attacks missed as we moved across the field and into the other baseball diamond. The wind was picking up and dust was flying everywhere. My friends had come back and were enjoying the show I was in. The show was about to get better.

We arrived in the other field, which was obviously Goku's turf as he seemed to all of a sudden gain a home-field advantage. Suddenly he was much more of an adversary. He became much more of a rival. It was shocking at first, but like Frieza, I kept my cool and did not worry. I was still much stronger.

That same ideal was what led to Frieza's downfall.

The battle intensified, and it seemed as if it could go either way. His blows were hitting me, and mine him. My friends watched anxiously to see who would be the first to fall into the sand. Swish! Goku attempted an uppercut, but ended up getting my mask, which fell to the ground.

"This is it…" he said to himself.

I walked over to get my mask but stopped to see what my opponent was doing. His legs were bent and both of his arms were parallel, touching only at the ends of his hands/

"Ka…"

"What the-?" I said to myself.

"Me…"

"You've gotta be kidding me."

"Ha…"

I picked up my mask and wiped the sand off of it, which was surprisingly very minimal.

"Me…"

I put the mask on over my head, so it stayed on but did not cover my face. I then stood and faced T.J., the kid dressed as Goku.

"Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" he yelled as he turned his hands to face me.

Had we actually be in a fantasy realm, a blue beam of energy would blast out of his hands and defeat me. But this was no fantasy. I stood there, standing motionless. After a few seconds of no motion from either of us, I punched him in the face and he fell hard to the ground.

Then the sniffles began from him as my friends laughed. I myself laughed with them, at how ridiculous it was for him to try a Kamehameha wave on me. But it wasn't so ridiculous now that I think about it. He was just playing, just having fun. He understood the difference between reality and fantasy. I was the one who forgot that this was all pretend.