"Wow, Jeice, you're so big, strong, and cool!" a short, red-skinned boy with fluffy, white hair roleplayed with both hands full of figurines that surrounded that of a local baseball player. One that little Jeice loved to identify himself with. It wasn't because he liked baseball, though. It was just that it was the only figurine of somebody from his race that he had, and he had more similarities with a grown-up baseball star from Planet Brench than any of his other figurines.
It didn't matter that several of the toys from his box looked crustacean; it didn't matter that some of them were legitimate monsters that prevented their home planets from seeing a flourishing industry of space tourism. They all liked him, they all saw him, even when they were in a band of flashy weirdos that could have stood out in any crowd. Despite all of those easy to note and admire gimmicks, they noticed him–Jeice.
"Oh, you're here…" Jeice's mother opened the door, peeking inside. "Your friends came and asked if you're going to come outside to play."
"I'm not home!" Jeice shook both of his arms over his head, reacting angrily as he didn't enjoy being seen holding action figures and playing around with them, but it wasn't like he had much choice. After a sigh, the short, red-skinned woman went to the door and told the kids off, telling them her son wasn't feeling well.
A tall and broad-shouldered, red-skinned man with a bowl-cut of white hair sat down by Jeice's side. The boy didn't speak up while his father was in the room, but he continued playing. The man observed his son for a few seconds, trying to figure out if he could figure out his boy's quirk in a snap just by watching him do his thing, but he came to a different conclusion.
"Why didn't you go out to play? You know, nobody came up to my house and called me out to play. I had to find my own friends." Jeice's father asked.
"They're annoying. They'll call me up, but it's like I don't matter. It's not like they talk to me or listen to me. It's like I'm there just for the numbers, to fill a crowd or to make the teams even." Jeice dropped his action figures by his sides, yelling out in frustration. The tips of his father's lips tilted to the side a bit. This was it. He hit the nail on the head, though if he wanted to see his son happy identifying the problem wasn't enough–he had to correct it too.
"You know, I was a bit like you too as a kid. Nobody wanted to play or talk to me, but you know what I did?" Jeice's father ran his hand over his white hair, looking mighty proud of what he was about to say.
"What?" Jeice looked to his father with an open mouth.
"I made them notice. I worked out until I had a buff enough body for them to notice. It's impossible to not notice someone that's lifting you off the ground and holding you over their head." Jeice's father flexed his arm.
"Wow! I've got to do something like that too!" Jeice jumped off the bed, staring at his clenched fists. "But I don't think I'm good at anything…" the boy's lips quivered with despair.
"That's what being good is all about–you have to be terrible at it for a long time before you get good. I found out that it's really easy to mess up when nobody notices you there." Jeice's father laughed out, posing with his arms over his hips.
"I'm going to join a sports club and practice until everybody knows who I am. Until nobody can ignore me and I am the first person they notice in the group!" Jeice proclaimed to himself with eyes of burning resolution that etched his promise into his shaking fists.
"Don't let the fame get into your head, ace." Jeice's father laughed out and stroked his son's hair before leaving. "Notice us, little folks, too from time to time once you make it into the big leagues."
"Well, that's how you pitch a ball, alright…" a chubby old-timer of red skin and balding head of white hair and a mustache that hung over his upper lip like a stuck hairbrush fixed his baseball cap. He approached the perplexed boy in front of him and examined his pose. Jeice froze in place. He wasn't sure what the school coach was doing, but he seemed to prefer Jeice standing still and letting him scrutinize things.
"I assume you've played a bunch of games out with your friends?" the coach wondered with a low-pitched grumble as he examined Jeice's stance, occasionally pushing a muscle or correctly positioning the boy. The man ran off to pick the ball up and hand it back to Jeice.
"No. This is the first time I'm trying it." Jeice shook his head, wondering if the geezer would believe him and let him play. If he got rejected–people would never notice him ever again.
"Really? You're a real natural with the posing and shifting the balance and pitching the ball. I could have sworn…" the coach blew hot air out, filtering it through his mustache as he turned his cap around over on his head a bunch of times.
"So, I'm on the team?" Jeice broke his stance to clench his fists and pump them underneath with an ecstatic grin.
"Hold your horses, kid. I will definitely coach you on the baseball club and maybe you'll be team material in a couple of years, but I won't let you onto the team until you make at least forty thousand pitches." The coach laughed out with a sweaty brow, trying to defuse the infectious energy of the rascal knocking on the club door out of the blue in the middle of a season.
"I'll do whatever it takes, pitch as many times as I need to so I can become an ace!" Jeice nodded with great determination. This passion almost frightened the old coach as he took off his cap to wipe his forehead with a towel off of the futuristic, plastic bench.
"Alright. We meet on Chilldays and Cooldays so you can start tomorrow, kid. You've got the chutzpah, if nothing else, I'll give you that." The chubby man laughed out before taking a sip off of the water bottle. "Still, we'll need to iron you out before you can make it on the school team unless you're good serving people water bottles."
"Definitely not, I'll be the ace of the team!" Jeice nodded with vigor.
"Well then, see you tomorrow. You can fix the place up, turn off the electricity and lock the doors behind you. That'll be your first homework, if you will, until tomorrow." The coach laughed out, walking off the floating arena through an extending corridor that joined into the main school building. Jeice looked down at the glistening ball flashing with patterns of neon lights that he clutched in his right hand. "Don't mess up and I'll forget that tragedy you call batting."
Forty thousand pitches until he could become an ace! Until people knew who he was and respected what he could do.
"Huh, you! What the heck did I tell you yesterday?! The headmaster yelled my head off you ran the electricity bill so high!" coach almost lost his voice screaming from the bottom of his chunky belly at Jeice in front of the whole baseball club.
"B-But… Coach… I did it." Jeice's whimpering lips formed an innocent, childish smile as he shrugged, showing off ball-sized holes in his gloves that might have been shredded off by power tools if one was to make an educated guess. "I did exactly forty-four thousand pitches since yesterday. I lost count once, so I started over but then I found that the ball tracks the pitches on this panel right here so I ended up doing four thousand pitches more until I realized it."
"What on…" the coach took off his hat, his left eye twitched as he stared at the little rapscallion.
"Anyway, you said that I can pitch for the school team when I do forty-thousand pitches, right? I'm on the team now, right?" Jeice pumped his fists while nodding with his exhausted and bruised face. It looked like the boy had gone through extensive survival exercise last night if his dirty and torn up, reeking of sweat uniform, was of any indication. Though he likely just slept on the bench and that was why he smelled like that and had dirt all over.
"Now… Wait a second…" the coach was about to object before Jeice snagged the ball right out of his hands before the chubby man could even notice and wind it back with the boy's tongue sticking out.
"I got pretty good at it yesterday, if I can say so myself. I'm not in the best shape today but… Here goes!" Jeice yelled out, flinging the motherlode of all pitches as the ball became engulfed in a red flash that expanded in a translucent, red bubble around it. The ball flew off into the atmosphere with no signs of ever planning to come down until the return mechanisms worked up a storm and the ball floated back into the hands of the coach who stared down at it like a living signifier of a miracle he had just witnessed.
"Wh-What was that!? You threw it out of the park, kid!" the coach screamed out so loud he lost his voice. "I've seen nothing like that! It takes an actual player from the pro leagues to pitch that good! You and me, we'll take this school to the stars, boy!"
"So, I'm on the team?" Jeice's eyes glistened like two lovely little stars.
"Not only are you on the team, but you're definitely on the team! You're pitching, ace!" the coach flipped out, throwing his hands about as if he had just drunk from the wrong bottle and gotten plastered. The only thing inebriating the man at that moment was the illusion of untold fame he'd get as a teacher if he brings the Galactic Little League cup home.
"And with Jeice the Ace's hand fully rested, it seems like the coach is putting him back on the field. It's a risky shot as Jeice had never been put in charge of pitching so soon after absolutely washing the opponent team away," a commentator with tiger-colored skin and shoulder-length, white hair and a matching, lively mustache to boot slammed his fist down into the commentating table.
"That's right, Breku, and while plenty of people questioned the coach of the Red Magmas putting an absolute nobody in charge of pitching the ball just a couple of months back, nobody's asking questions now. With Jeice's signature Crusher Ball pitch doing just that–absolutely crushing the competition!" another, similar-looking commentator with a much laxer and squinting look of his eyes proclaimed with a happy-go-lucky smile on his face the entire time.
"You're right, Fasto, though soon enough we'll get to answer the question that's been on all of our minds–can Jeice the Ace of Magma High and pride of the entire Frieza Planet No. 62 overcome the stalwart challenge of Salza's batting technique? With the Red Magmas from Frieza Planet No. 62 scheduled to meet the sweeper of the Galactic Little League cup four seasons in a row–Fuchsia Blades of Cooler Planet No. 98 in the Galactic Little League finals!" the first commentator yelled out.
"That's right, Breku, and knowing how cruel Lord Frieza, the unquestionable supreme emperor of all space, is regarding competition with his brother Cooler, even in matters as inconsequential as Galactic Baseball–a game he's never seen one game of, what do you think is running through young Jeice's mind right now and on his off-time?" Fasto the commentator inquired, turning with his whole chair toward his fellow commentator without even bothering to report on Jeice's crushing pitch.
"I've absolutely no idea. One thing's for sure–come Galactic Little Coldday, the fate of the entire Frieza Planet No. 62 might be on the line. Even if we're talking about the children pro league, Lord Frieza will absolutely throw out the trash if his brother's planet can get one up on him! That's not exposition–that's a promise!" commentator Breku pointed his index right at the camera before it switched to the scoreboard. The results didn't quite matter–the Magma High had won handily, and that much would have been obvious to anyone paying any attention to the game. The only other team capable of winning such decisive victories was the Fuchsia Blades with their immovable batter–Salza.
"Listen, Jeice…" Jeice's mother looked at her father with a shaking glare. There was something heavy pressing against the woman's mind. Something that made inner peace impossible, and even someone as distracted by his own fame and skills as Jeice could see it. "Maybe you should take a vacation, miss out on the finals. Let someone else pitch on Coldday's game?"
"Are you even listening to yourself, woman!?" Jeice gasped, leaning back at first before objecting to his mother's suggestion violently. "The Red Magmas might lose without me. I'm their Jeice the Ace!"
"Got a lot riding on that next game, boy. Even the coach is missing out on that game…" Jeice's father chuckled to himself. Despite his cheerful facade, he got worked up about something and it's been gnawing at him deep down.
"Please, he just had a little belly ache, so he's off to Cooler Planet No. 98 for some treatment. He said he'll stay on the communicator the whole time, no need to worry…" Jeice waved his hand in careless dismissal.
"Or… Some might say… He's getting to safety if, by any chance, the Red Magmas lose and Lord Frieza… Well… Decides he doesn't like Frieza Planet No. 62 all that much…" Jeice's mother pulled on her collar awkwardly.
"Oh, please…" Jeice laughed out, crossing his arms over his chest confidently. "I'm Jeice the Ace, as far as baseball is concerned, I am the Red Magma! With me, the team basically can't ever lose!"
"You know, son… Baseball is a team sport. Even if you do your best, many things can happen. Your coach getting an unexpected belly-ache, for one." Jeice's father brought it up.
"Plus, that Salza boy from the Fuchsia Blades… He's older than you by 90 minutes, technically, and everyone says he's really tough. I heard he's applying to the military even." Jeice's mother pressed her fist to her chest, expressing her worry through her body language.
"That's enough of that!" Jeice cut the topic off. "You guys are embarrassing! Even when I'm having a time of my life, even after I became an ace of baseball after pitching forty-thousand balls and counting, all that you guys are talking about is that nobody Salza! Why can't people just realize that I'm the ace, not Salza, not anybody else? I'm the most important, I'm the best!"
"O-Of course, you are, sonny… It's just…" Jeice's father looked away while scratching the back of his head in discomfort. "Well…"
"Enough squirming!" Jeice crossed his arms with teary eyes. "You're the worst parents ever if you can't even acknowledge my skills and trust in them when it counts! I'm off, I don't need parents like that! Don't even try calling me after Coldday. No matter how hard I wreck that Salza jerk with my Crusher Ball, I ain't ever coming back here!"
"Ace, wait!" Jeice's father tried calling out to his son, but his boy had gotten quite speedy after taking up children pro league baseball, having vanished from the house in a sonic boom.
"Wow, what an absolute disappointment!" Breku yelled out into the microphone. "Jeice the Ace takes it away with his Crusher Ball, and the immovable Salza is nowhere to be seen. That military draft of Salza into the Cooler's Armored Squadron sure wrecked everything for the Fuchsia Blades!"
"You can say that again, Breku," Fasto replied, reflecting on the rather boring finale. "Even though Jeice the Ace just pranced out there and proceeded to win the whole thing from that point on, I just can't help but wonder how much tighter this finale would have been if Jeice had come up against Salza from the Fuchsia Blades. Now, of course, of the Cooler's Armored Squadron renown."
"Well, I'm sure that the denizens of Frieza Planet No. 62 are wiping sweat off their pale faces in relief. Those guys must be the only ones overjoyed by this anti-climactic finale to what was an unbelievable Galactic Little League competition this year!" Breku winked at his colleague. "Given this recent development, I feel inclined to wonder–just who will be the MVP of this season? It would be most unusual to award the player that leaves the League entirely."
"It sure would. What a drastic disappointment it would be for a rival of such a player to lose the award. I'd say that it would cause a deep-seated wound that would define a life-lasting rivalry for years to come!" Fasto agreed with his colleague.
"Those losers!" Jeice slammed his fists onto a bunch of shut down panels, bending them up as he looked down at his precious pitching hands bleeding from the careless slam with the expression of hurt seeping out from his eyes. "Even when that nobody is gone, he's all that they are talking about! They even gave him the stupid award! He's not even here to accept it!"
Jeice straightened his back and looked back at the settling field. He didn't much care to join the rest of the Red Magmas in receiving the cup. What did it matter? That doofus Salza would be all that everyone would talk about. Even now, even when he led the Red Magmas to the Galactic Little League cup, he wasn't the ace. Those bastards were talking about some worthless, blue-skinned loser who turned his tail and ran to avoid testing his bat against Jeice's Crusher Ball.
As a child Jeice constantly sought attention, to make sure that people spoke of him as the most important person even though that was always somebody else. His father was wrong. Jeice had lived his entire life wrong. This was not the way to become an ace. Not really. In this past year of crushing the Little League with his Crusher Ball, what did Jeice accomplish really? It worked out just fine in the beginning when he surprised people and came at them out of the blue. Now he was losing the position of the ace to a guy that wasn't even in the room–even worse off than he started out as when he was just a kid.
"The military, huh? Cooler's Armored Squadron…" Jeice grit his teeth. Something that the commentators kept babbling on and on about before the finals caught up to him. Lord Frieza hated his brother's guts. The two competed against each other constantly. Whatever was the reason, whether it was mere sibling rivalry or Frieza thinking that his brother would take his empire away for himself one day. The reason didn't matter, but those two brothers competing against one another served Jeice's goals just fine.
There might have been a way to one day run into the Cooler's Armored Squadron as an enemy without becoming a galactic criminal. Then. Then he would settle this ridiculous matter with that asshole Salza! After all, Lord Frieza had his own elite military squadron that was constantly recruiting–the Ginyu Special Squadron.