Back to Normality
                                by Ken Arromdee


    It was 7.  The mall wasn't going to close for two more hours.  Plenty of
time for Chichi to shop... and she had a strong man and boy with her to help
carry everything.  At this point, nine year old Gohan was carrying about
ten bags, and Gokuu a stack of boxes as high as he was tall.  They looked very
unsteady.

    There were some things in the mall that interested Gohan.  Toy stores,
ice cream stores, that pet shop with that dragon he always wanted... but not
clothes.  Of course he didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.  There was
nobody to fight, not now...  there were bad things about fighting, but one
thing Gohan loved was that it gave him a chance to do something, to get away
from his studies for once.  To do something important, no matter how much his
mother thought that exams were more important than anything else.  Who thought
up this school system anyway?

    Gohan looked around the mall.  There.  That spot near the escalator would be
a great place for someone to attack.  He imagined it, a monster coming out.
Maybe two.  They would fire energy from their hands, and they would miss him,
but it would hit the boxes and the bags.  All of his mother's careful planning
would go up in an explosion of ki...

    "Dad?"

    "Yes, Gohan?"

    "Tell me two colors..."

    "Colors?  What for?  I don't know...  Chichi, can you tell me two colors?"

    "Purple and blue" replied his wife.

    Gokuu turned to his son and said "purple and blue."

    "It's all right, I heard."

    There would be two monsters coming out and destroying everything around
them.  One purple, one blue.  They'd destroy the bags and then go on to blow up
everything until he could help his dad get rid of them for good.  Everything
would be gone from here to the ice cream store...  no, he liked the ice cream
store!

    "Now tell me", said Chichi.  "Does this look good on me?"  Gohan looked up,
but she was speaking to his father.  Gohan guessed that there would be at
least another half hour of this.  Shopping for clothes was so boring...  now
what was he thinking about?  Oh yeah.  The monsters would come and they'd try
to destroy the mall but they'd miss the ice cream store.  Dad and everyone else
would lead them away and save it and nobody would even be hurt.  If nobody got
hurt fighting might even be sort of fun.  It wasn't homework, anyway.

    Gohan knew where the monsters would come from.  He remembered that Kuririn
had helped completely destroy Dr. Gero's lab...  but what if he didn't?  There
could be more artificial humans.  He knew that Cell had taken years to
grow--somehow that kind of stuff was a lot easier to remember than math and
science--but it was a computer that made him.  What if the computer got
really really smart and didn't need to wait years any more?

    "Now, you need something.  You shouldn't be like your Dad and wear the same
thing all the time.  Gohan, are you listening to me?"

    The sound registered on Gohan's ears just in time to keep him out of
serious trouble.  "I'm listening, Mom.  You don't want me to wear things like
Dad's."

    "Gohan!"

    Almost in time, anyway.  Chichi dumped a stack of clothes in front of
Gohan and pointed to the dressing room.  "You had better try those on now."
Gohan dropped the bags and dejectedly walked into the room.  He hated this.
It was bo--ring.  He bet that if any artificial humans ever attacked the mall,
they would never have to worry about trying on clothes.  The computer probably
grew them with clothes already on.

    Then his Dad and Vegita and Piccolo and Trunks from the future and Kuririn
and anyone else he hadn't thought of could fight the artificial humans.  These
would have to be evil artificial humans, because they wouldn't want to destroy
ones that weren't evil, and then they could be acclaimed throughout the world.
His dad was so great....

    Gohan walked out of the dressing room wearing one of those things that some
men wore...  what was it called?  That's right, a "soot" or "suit".

    "You look good in that", said Chichi.

    "What do you think Dad?" asked Gohan.  Gokuu seemed about to reply to that,
but one glare from Gohan's mother shut him up fast.  "Can we get some ice
cream after the next one, Dad?"

    "Well, that's up to your mother", replied Gokuu.

    "I can tell you the story I made up, Dad!"

    Chichi yelled at him, "You shouldn't be making up stories!  You should be
concentrating more on your schoolwork!  After we make sure you're properly
dressed."

    It was a long day.  Every shirt or sweater or pair of pants gave Gohan
another moment of contemplation to imagine another punch or kick.  By the
time Gohan's mother was satisfied that her son would be smartly dressed and
could go home and study, Gohan had enough punches and kicks in his head to
fill an entire Tenkaichi Budokai.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "So, Dad, then you did a Genki-Dama and destroyed everything and you got
hurt but you got better."

    "That's some story", replied Gokuu.  "And what happened to Vegita and
Piccolo?  You didn't say that."

    "Oh, they were, um, sitting on a piece of ice grunting a lot.  Lost, I
guess."

    "That's silly...  can't they fly?"

    Gohan thought about it a minute.  "I guess you're right, Dad...  do you
think I can do a better story when I get older?"

    "Don't worry, Gohan.  Maybe you will, but it's a pretty good story for a
nine-year-old writing it."