Over the next several days, Yamcha found himself going back to see Piccolo more and more. It wasn't out of any sense of obligation, like he still owed him one or anything. He genuinely began to enjoy spending time with the stoic old alien. He even became comfortable enough to tell Puar about his daily excursions. She was predictably concerned at first, but he'd managed to assure her that Piccolo had changed significantly from the Demon King she knew him as. He wasn't sure how true that sentiment was, if he was being honest. Perhaps he was just learning about the person Piccolo had always been, which naturally made him empathize with the guy a little more.
Today, the two warriors found themselves so far into their project that they were starting on the tiling of the last portion of roof to be finished. Yamcha was sure that doing such mundane construction work for a living would have bored him to tears, but somehow it didn't seem bad at all with Piccolo there to accompany him. Sure, it was a little awkward trying to talk to him at first, but after a while he started getting a feel for his personality – most crucially, his sense of humor. He even managed to pull a genuine laugh out of him every now and then. Yamcha always knew when he got him good if Piccolo was too distracted to remember to try to hide his truly intimidating-looking fangs.
Of course, he should have known that good times couldn't last long when he was involved. The day had hardly begun when his phone started going ballistic on him. Reluctantly, he pulled his phone from his pocket, letting out an aggravated sigh when he saw what all the fuss was about.
"Something wrong?" Piccolo asked. Yamcha replied with a shake of his head, putting on a bitter smile.
"It's my team's coach. He bitching at me to go to practice today."
"I see. I take it you don't plan on going?"
'I dunno…" he grumbled out half-heartedly, "Truth be told, I'm pretty over this whole 'star baseball player' thing… It's just boring now, and even showing up to games just feels tedious. I might not be anywhere close to as strong as you, or Goku, or Vegeta, but compared to normal people… I'm so much stronger and faster than all the other players that it feels like I'm playing with five-year-olds, y'know? It's just… Just…"
"Not satisfying?" Piccolo completed the thought for him. Yamcha nodded in emphatic agreement.
"Not in the slightest," he admitted somewhat sadly, "I thought having an easy job would make it better, but there's just no challenge to it."
"Is there anything you'd rather be doing?"
"I… I guess I haven't really thought about it. I'd always figured I'd have a family by now, and I'd be able to retire on the money I made from playing baseball and just enjoy the rest of my life, but… I mean, money's not a problem, but I really don't know what else to do with my life…"
"Well…" Piccolo began slowly, taking a moment to think through it all thoroughly, "How about this: finish off this season and announce your retirement at the end. You've only got one more game to finish off the season, correct?"
"Yeah, that's right," Yamcha replied, a little surprised that he knew that. "Heh. I didn't take you for a big baseball fan."
"Truth be told, I'm not really into sports. Of course, when you have ears like mine, it's almost impossible not to overhear certain things."
"I see… Yeah, I guess you're right. My current contract is up at the end of the season, so I could just not renew it after this last game," he thought aloud, getting back to the subject at hand. "I guess that settles it. Sorry to leave so soon, but I'd better get to practice before my coach has an aneurism."
"Don't worry about it. We're practically done anyway. I can finish the rest of this up in no time."
Yamcha gave Piccolo a quick wave goodbye before taking off into the air towards West City.
As expected, when Yamcha arrived at the stadium for practice he was immediately buried under an avalanche of angry screaming from the West City Titans' head coach. He endured everything from being lectured on the importance of responsibility to the sort of vulgar insults that would make a sailor blush, all the while he could do little more than apologize over and over again. Of course, the only thing he got out of the entire interaction was confirmation that getting the hell out of professional baseball was definitely what he needed to do.
Practice itself was uneventful to the point of being a waste of time. It was the same old drills, the same old exercises, none of which were enough to even get Yamcha warmed up. He went through the day on autopilot, letting his body carry through the motions while his mind was miles away from the baseball diamond. He was starting to wonder if coming out here was worth it, if he wouldn't have been better off just hanging out with Piccolo for the rest of the day. Certainly, it would have been more entertaining than this, at the very least.
"Alright boys, wrap it up! The losers are here for their turn on the field!"
Yamcha looked up when he heard the coach call out after a few hours of practice. The Satan City Devils were gathering in the visiting team's dugout, looking on with distain at him in particular. He let out a sigh. That's always how it went. He was always viewed as the primary threat – which was entirely justified – and he was always the main focus of his opponents' plan of attack. Of course, their plans never came to fruition. No one could quite fathom how or why Yamcha was so much better than them, and this fundamental lack of understanding was always their downfall. He didn't like it. It almost felt like he was cheating, but all he was doing was playing the game to the best of his abilities.
Yamcha didn't let himself linger on his opponents very long. He made his way off the field, dropping his bat in the dugout and not bothering to change out of his uniform before heading home.
The Satan City Devils all found themselves glaring at Yamcha's back as he wandered off the field with the rest of his team, some staring more fearfully than others. The Devils' coach was particularly aggrieved – due in no small part to the Titans' own coach making taunting gestures and snide comments at his team's expense.
"Man, the nerve of that guy! He's acting like they've already won the damn game!"
"Haven't they, though?"
The coach looked back towards his players, searching for whoever might have said such a thing. It was impossible to tell, as they all looked equally dejected by the current matchup. Morale was at an all-time low, and he wasn't entirely sure how to remedy that.
"L-look, the scores ain't written in stone until the actual game is over! We still got a chance to win this if we try our damnedest!"
"Oh, c'mon, coach. Don't try blowing smoke up our asses. You know who that is, right?" one of the players retorted, gesturing towards Yamcha as he disappeared into the home team's dugout, "That's Yamcha fucking Rekishiyoma! The guy's never lost a game! Hell, I don't think he's ever even struck out once! How are we supposed to compete with that?!"
The coach opened his mouth to argue, but the rest of the team was already mumbling in agreement about how hopeless it all was. Finally, he let out a sigh of defeat, his shoulders slumping in resignation. Who was he trying to fool? Of course they couldn't win, not when their opponents had a monster like that on their team…
"It sounds to me like you gentlemen could use a bit of an ace in the hole, so to speak."
The whole team looked up when the unfamiliar voice chimed in on their conversation. They all spotted a man sitting in the stands behind their dugout, his hands folded neatly over his knees and a serene look on his face, as though nothing in the world could ever go wrong. He wore a suit as black as the darkest night, and his wavy blond hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. The coach arched an eyebrow at this strange intruder. Had he been sitting there the whole time?
"Yeah, what's it to ya, bud? You here to spy for another team or something?" he grumbled out. That would just be his luck. Not only would they face a humiliating defeat, but another team would take that opportunity to snipe their best strategies out from under them. However, the man merely shook his head, his gentle smile never leaving his lips.
"Oh, you needn't worry about that. My interest here lies solely with Mr. Rekishiyoma."
"Tch… Of course…"
"Ah, perhaps I haven't worded that properly," the man replied, bowing his head apologetically, "My interest here lies solely in seeing Mr. Rekishiyoma lose."
There was a murmur of surprise among the gathered players at that statement. Then, after a moment, the coach let out a hearty laugh.
"Yeah, well when ya figure out how the hell to do that, let me know," he retorted, giving the man a dismissive wave of his hand.
"But that's exactly what I'm offering you."
The coach turned back to the mysterious man, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Was this guy for real? Did he really know how to take out that unbeatable monster?
"How?"
"By letting me play on your team for just one game."
"You?!" the whole team seemed to reply in unison. Then, the coach burst out laughing once more.
"Yeah right! The only way you'd be a match for someone like that is if you were the same kind of monster as he is, and I ain't never heard of another player like that!"
The man let out a small chuckle at that.
"While it's true I'm not a professional baseball player in any capacity, I can assure you that I am a far greater monster than he will ever be."
The coach felt a chill run up his spine at that last bit. The man's cheery disposition seemed to evaporate in an instant, a cold and intimidating expression taking its place. The air seemed to grow heavy all around, and suddenly he felt as though he were staring up into the calculating eyes of the Devil himself, the demon's hand outstretched and presenting him an offer he wouldn't be allowed to refuse. He swallowed hard at the lump that had gathered in his throat.
"A-alright, I'll give you a shot. I've got nothing to lose by it, right? I wanna see what you can do first, though! If you're such a 'monster,' then let's see it!"
The man's serene smile returned at that, and he calmly rose from his seat. He hopped elegantly over the dugout, landing on one foot on the field before making his way out towards the pitcher's mound.
"Oi, Yamada! Toss the guy a ball, would ya?" the coach ordered, to which one of the players immediately complied. However, just as Yamada was about to gently toss a ball out towards the mystery man, he caught the coach's eye. The older man made a small hand gesture down by his side, to which the Devils' pitcher raised his eyebrows as if to ask if he was sure. The coach nodded, and Yamada wound up for a fastball aimed squarely at the mystery man's head.
What came next happened so fast that it took the lot of them a moment to figure out just what had transpired. The mystery man hadn't even turned around – hell, he hadn't even stopped walking forward – when he simply reached behind him and caught the ball just before it would have hit the back of his head. Only when he reached the mound at the center of the field did he turn to face them once more, that same carefree smile still plastered across his lips.
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Yamada," he commented casually as though he'd just been handed the ball normally. The coach couldn't help but stare in utter shock, his mouth hanging agape. Yamada was his best pitcher! His fastball clocked in at just over a hundred miles an hour! There was no way someone could catch it like that with their bare hand, and without even looking!
That, however, seemed like a parlor trick compared to what happened next. The man faced towards home base and wound up for a pitch of his own. As soon as it left his hand, the ball seemed to disappear, and a loud boom rang out through the field, shaking the stands and setting the stadium lights swaying. The coach's eyes widened to the point that his eyes threatened to bulge right out of his skull. He didn't need to ask how fast that pitch was. It had been fast enough to break through the sound barrier and create a sonic boom, meaning it had to have been going well over seven hundred and sixty miles an hour.
The coach scrambled out of the dugout and onto the field, sprinting over towards home plate to see where the ball had gone. What he found was a baseball-sized hole in the fencing meant to protect the spectators in the stands from getting hit by stray balls, but he couldn't see where it had landed after that. After a bit of searching, he found something a bit further to the left. There was an oval-shaped hole in one of the concrete steps that ran between the seats in the stands, a small portion of a baseball just barely visible from one side. It had penetrated the concrete at an angle. That was no fastball. That was a fucking curveball.
The coach turned back towards the man, who was simply standing at the pitcher's mound with his hands folded neatly behind his back, awaiting his assessment. Either he was dreaming, or this guy really was what he claimed he was. Slowly, a giddy grin spread across the coach's face. They might just be able to win this one yet!
