New Year's Resolutions from Dragon Ball Universe!

- a Dragon Ball Z Collection -

Resolution Five: Eighteen

Disclaimer: Dragon Ball, the glorious franchise it is, is not in any way a property I control. I can only wish to supplement its mystique with stories such as the one herein. The same is in regards to related characters, symbols, plot elements, etc.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the story!

First of all, I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year's Day. I hope you'll have a better New Year's Day that Krillin is having, although he keeps on insisting that the hangover is totally worth it after the intense and epic drinking battle he had with Goku at the big New Year's Eve party a lot of us attended at Capsule Corporation.

Before I go further, let me just say that if you're under your current location's legal age for buying and consuming alcohol and you do either of those things anyway, you're letting those commies loyal to the Red Ribbon Army win. Also, please be responsible when drinking alcohol, unlike how Krillin and Goku were yesterday.

Everyone other than Krillin and Goku who joined that particular drunken festivity had to bow out quite some time before the final round, as they just couldn't handle the intensity. I'm sure that the vast quantity of food Goku consumed before the contest helped him out, although I wouldn't be surprised if that big lug was able to drink as much as he did because he's already been smashed so many times in the head from fighting that this has improved his ability to get more and more smashed from alcohol. Unfortunately for Vegeta, who to my great surprise couldn't even make it as long as Mr. Satan did, this is yet another aspect of life in which Goku seems to have him beat.

When it got to the final round, referring to Krillin and Goku as "inebriated" would have been putting it lightly. Seriously, I'm somewhat shocked that Krillin is still alive, as he probably drank at least his own volume in alcohol. When it got to the final drink to decide it all, Krillin valiantly and wildly said, in between all the slurs and hiccups, "I'm going to drink this all for my hot-ass wife!" The alcohol also clearly got to Goku's head, as he said, in somewhat of a placid tone, "Consuming this particular beverage would be of a most gratifying and effervescent experience, and I shall, with intensified alacrity, derive great joviality from this delectable brew!"

After they each took their final drink, they were both still "standing," and the match was called a draw. It's needless to say that when we were flying home, I held Krillin's left hand the entire time so that he wouldn't do something reckless. After all, drunken flying can be just as dangerous as drunken driving, and neither are good ideas.

Still, just like many things I've learned over the years about Krillin, I had no idea he was able to apply so much stamina and ability to that activity.

Marron was quite thankfully playing a board game with Trunks and Goten in another room while all this was happening, and so she merely thinks her daddy has been acting a bit silly. Truth be told, her laughs and giggles at Krillin's ridiculousness yesterday evening on the way home were well worth it. I was holding her left hand in a way that I was able to let her see the funny faces Krillin was making while we were flying home, and quite thankfully – remarkably, actually – none of Krillin's faces were interrupted by anything that might have resulted from Krillin's queasiness.

As much fun as this all was, I still couldn't help but feel that it would have all been better had something, or rather, someone, been there.

It's been so long since I've seen him, and I hope he's alright.

This all brings me to my new year's resolution, and I wonder if he has ever had a similar resolution himself. I earnestly want to find Seventeen and enable him to be a part of the wonderful family I have come to love and cherish more than anything else.

He was a victim of that bastard Doctor Gero just like I was, and apparently, in the time before we became brother and sister by design, we really were siblings, back in the long-forgotten days when we were anatomically fully human. I'd like to think I've regained a lot of my spiritual humanity since then, and I sincerely hope he has too.

It would surprise me greatly if he wasn't out there, somewhere. He was killed because of Cell, after all, and I at least assume he came back all those years ago when the wish was made to revive that diabolic murderer's victims.

If Seventeen could only see how happy I've become, and how wonderful my husband and daughter are, I think he would be overjoyed.

Or would he?

Truth be told, I'm very unsure of how he would react to learning that I'm a wife and mother. He was corrupted by Doctor Gero like I was, if not even more. While I've changed a lot since the day in which we escaped Gero's Laboratory and blasted that horrific place apart, I'm not sure how much he has changed. In particular, I don't know if he ever overcame the self-centered aggression and arrogance that was quite prominent after he became an android. At the very least, I haven't heard of any cities being randomly destroyed in the past seven years by someone whom none of us could sense.

For all I know, he would despise Krillin and Marron, and despise me even more.

But maybe, just maybe, he would enjoy being an uncle and a brother-in-law.

There's only one way to find out for sure.

I need to find you, Seventeen. I need to make sure that you can regain your humanity just like I have.

Life should never be about taking life away, and if you haven't already discovered this for yourself, I'm looking forward to helping you see the truth.

May this be not only a Happy New Year, but one in which you will truly cherish those you care about, helping them become the best they can be.

Sincerely,

Eighteen

Thanks so much for reading Eighteen's New Year's Resolution!

Up next: Cooler!

In fun and fanfiction,

American Vigor