"So, how do you know Yamcha?" a blonde in a glittery champagne-colored dress wondered. Chayote had no clue where she came from or who she was. Then again, she could've been a friend or family of the bride's.
"We're... Well, we were colleagues for a while, we tried dating for a bit but that was a hilarious disaster..." Chayote grumbled, lamenting each second interacting with this airhead who reminded her what a mistake it was to come here. It'd have probably been pretty awkward if both Satan and Videl attended Yamcha's wedding but not Chayote, a longtime friend of the guy's, especially given that the three lived under one tall and wide roof.
"Oh my gosh, you're a superhero too!?" the woman gasped. "That's crazy! You know, Yamcha and I used to date too. It's just that he took off to save the world and never called me back... When did you two start dating?"
"Look... Ma'am..." Chayote tried to behave. Against her better judgment, she did her best to restrain herself and her wrathful tendencies so that she didn't rip her dress apart out of respect to Satan who insisted to pay for every inconvenience Chayote would have just so she attended the wedding and didn't grump her way out of it. "I don't even know who you are."
"Oh, my name's Crystal, did Yamcha ever mention me to you? I wonder why he never called me back. Could it have been my job? I knew that telling him I sell car insurance on the first date was too soon. You don't just drop that on people without softening the blow first..." Crystal got all up and over Chayote's personal space before backing up herself and snapping her fingers with a frustrated expression.
"Huh? What was that about insurance?" Krillin's sharp and easily distinguishable voice made Chayote turn her head back. Even if her friend approached her in the company of a cybernetically augmented human assassin and infiltrator he called his girlfriend nowadays, Chayote easily preferred this company over being a part of Yamcha's leftovers club. "I happen to be looking for a way to get my old job back. A man's gotta earn his bread if he's to feed a wife and a kid, after all..."
"Oh? You used to sell car insurance too?" Crystal clapped her hands. "And you seemed to have struck so high up and above your league too! How did you do it?"
"I don't like her. Somehow she complimented me and degraded me by suggesting my taste in men sucks in one sentence..." Lazuli leaned to Chayote's side with a half-handed mutter.
"Car insurance, nah. I used to sell life insurance," Krillin chuckled after taking his hat off and fondling it awkwardly in his hands. "Since then, I took up a more nomadic lifestyle looking for Lazuli, I became a police assistant, which paid almost nothing. I guess you could say it crossed out my own life expectancy..."
Krillin and Crystal both burst into laughter with the blond bombshell curling up in laughter and having to place her champagne glass back onto the nearby table so that she didn't end up showering in it after losing her balance this badly. Chayote and Lazuli both shared weirded-out looks before turning back to Crystal and Krillin.
"You guys wouldn't get it, it's an insurance people in-joke..." Krillin waved it off.
"You haven't sold people insurance for around two years now," Chayote squinted.
"Even when you did, you sold people different kind of insurance..." Lazuli crossed her arms with a capricious pout before grabbing Krillin's elbow and dragging him a bit further away.
"So, have you met the bride yet? She seemed so hardcore and scary. I'm worried she'll abuse poor Yamcha," Crystal scanned the room before fixing her suspicious look on the woman in a puffy and extravagant white dress that didn't suit her almost tomboyish short red hair.
"Sorry, the last girlfriend I've seen him with wasn't even invited to this wedding and that was a couple of years ago, so I'm not bothering getting to know them anymore. In any case, my only purpose at this wedding is to be seen so that I don't have to bother with annoying questions about where I was when we have to fight some alien or demon or cyborg or whatever..." Chayote flipped the champagne glass and held the sizzling liquid bubbling in her mouth so that the fizz can distract her from the need to smash her way out of here.
"Now you've gotten me even more worried about him..." Crystal wrapped herself in the embrace of her exposed arms and rubbed her sides to warm herself up and calm down. "I just don't understand why he never called me back..."
A handful of familiar energy signatures made Chayote settle on rather rolling the dice than continuing this conversation. "Honestly, you're better off without this oaf. What did you say you do? Sell car insurance? Lady, that's pretty badass. You've got a job of Krillin's dreams so you can score way higher than a guy who's so good at running away he styled his entire fighting style around it."
Crystal blinked a few times in confusion. A single lock of hair stood up on her head, breaking out of a perfectly curled and put-together formation. Goku, Gohan, and Chi-Chi arrived incredibly early, given that they lived halfway across the world and, judging from the looks of it, traveled here in an actual car. In the middle of her casual pacing toward the new arrivals, Chayote noticed Videl butting out from a crowd of teen-aged baseball fans and approaching the group, having gotten the same idea as Chayote. Probably because talking to these airheads annoyed Videl as much as it irked Chayote to be here.
"Hello, Gohan-kun," Videl bowed politely, seeing how she was greeting her martial arts instructor in the presence of his parents. Her not knowing the kind of simple people they were and acting so intimidated by them made Chayote smirk and forget all about her menial frustrations.
"Yo, Chayote!" Goku saluted the approaching Saiyan, completely ignoring Videl. This made the teen's eye twitch and her jaw drop as the grown man just waltzed off of his family and approached the fellow Saiyan to talk to her. He must've felt as out of water here as Chayote did, though being brought up by Bulma, Chayote was probably a lot more used to formal events such as these. "Did you come here all by yourself?"
"No, Satan dragged me here. Sometimes I wonder who it was that truly knew Yamcha from all the way back, huh?" Chayote groaned, feeling happy to see someone feeling as out of their element as she was.
"So, Gohan... Who's this nice and well-mannered young lady?" Chi-Chi ground her teeth at Goku's back, trying to salvage the incredibly rude walkaway of her husband's. Though, because of her emotional overreaction, she looked much more frightening and inviting awkwardness than the stunt her husband pulled as Videl appeared distraught and unsure what exactly she did wrong.
"W-Well... This is Videl. I'm teaching her martial arts. With her help, I may end up getting into Orange Star Primary School and then–Orange Star High School! That's one of the best high schools in the entire world!" Gohan tried to excuse himself and his pastime activity to Chi-Chi.
"Huh? How would teaching this girl martial arts get you into a fancy school?" Chi-Chi placed her hands on her hips, looking genuinely too confused and curious to be angry about the fact that his son's been teaching a girl his age martial arts on the side.
"My father is Mark Satan," Videl crossed her arms and made a proud expression with brief peeks to see if her instructor's mother was in awe of this revelation. "He's a mighty hero of humanity and a soon-to-be King of the World. If he as much as pats Gohan-kun's shoulder on the camera, he'll get into any school imaginable."
"I don't get what the big deal about this is..." Chi-Chi scratched her head. "Why'd you need to teach this young lady martial arts and waste your time when Chayote can wink his way and get you into any school, anyway?"
"What the heck, Chi-Chi!?" Chayote flipped out. "Just what kind of relationship do you think I and Mark Satan have?"
"Wait... You mean... You're not..." Chi-Chi pointed at Chayote with grand perplexity, making her face go pale.
"Come on, Chi-Chi!" Chayote grabbed her head, feeling blood accelerating with rapid pumps through her veins, which made her clothes feel especially tight around her as her bodily mass threatened to bulk up from anxiety-induced stress. "Just because we live in the same mansion and raise our children together doesn't mean we're next in line to get married! We live our own lives, it's just that Mark Satan insists I live in his estate. Sometimes his servants help take care of Navy, sometimes I help him out with Videl's troubles. That's all it is."
"Oh... I'm sorry..." Chi-Chi scratched her elbow, looking baffled and embarrassed for her mistake at the same time.
"Huh? Hey, look... Piccolo's here too. How come he gets to wear his fighting clothes and I have to wear this monkey suit? That's no fair..." Goku crossed his arms, pouting at Chi-Chi.
"Of course, I wear my usual clothes. They're my native clothes," Piccolo approached the bundle of old-time friends, having overheard Goku because of his unusually sensitive Namekian hearing. "You know, you probably could've gotten a pass wearing your Saiyan armor..."
"Really!?" Goku leaned back, exclaiming in a high-pitched yell.
"Over my dead body!" Chi-Chi clacked her heel down and stepped in between the two old-time rivals, stepping up to stare Piccolo right in the eyes. "Neither my Gohan nor Goku will get affiliated with that no-good troublemaker Vegeta and his barbarian goons!"
Chi-Chi's eyes widened. She turned around as if scolded with hot water. It was just a feeling she got from her Ki, sensing that a familiar Ki signature entered the building. The luxury of being able to beam oneself anywhere in a split-instant offered Bulma the advantage of leaving home at the last minute before the events and Bulma with young Trunks stood right behind Chi-Chi with blank looks focused on the loudmouthed woman.
"Sorry, Bulma..." Chi-Chi apologized before Bulma's face soured and she snapped her fingers.
"Troublemaker? I'd give you a whole thesaurus of cusses to describe that worthless, immoderate, diffident, incensed, and indignant numskull!" Bulma crossed her arms and seemed to seethe on her heels. "It's not like coming to that insufferable dolt's wedding is a ruined and wasted day for me already. On top of that, I have to also deal with his frivolous impulses too."
"Dad insisted on not coming to the wedding..." Trunks explained to everybody bluntly.
"Insisted is putting it mildly, dear. Then again, I don't want to hear that kind of language like he used coming from your mouth, or I'll tell the Star to shut you out of video games," Bulma waggled her finger as a warning to her son.
"But that was so badass..." Trunks looked away with his arms crossed, muttering under his own nose so that very few could hear him.
"So, anyway, Piccolo," Goku turned to the Ultimate Namekian warrior. "We had some trouble a few weeks back with a new Artificial Human. We could have really used your help, but Yamcha said he couldn't find you with his Ki sense."
"Sorry, Kami Upa, and I could sense you were in for it seriously, but I was busy with an errand I'm running for him. Kami Upa insists that it's far more important and potentially way more dangerous than a rogue surviving Artificial Human. I'm suspecting that guy Upa's looking for knows how to sense Ki, so I try to be suppressed at all times," Piccolo replied.
"Really? You're looking for something that strong?" Goku got pumped. "You better let us know when you find them!"
"Ugh..." Chi-Chi rolled her eyes, turning away from the blockheads that were inevitably about to talk about fighting. "Man, Bulma, I'm so jealous of your little Trunks. He's just almost five, and he's so mature. It must be wonderful not having to break your back wondering where to leave your kids to have them taken care of while you're off. My dad's got to be sick of pitching in on babysitting duty with Goten by now."
"Actually, not at all..." Bulma made a boastful and proud face. "Vegeta may be a prick sometimes, but he's been keeping Trunks engaged. I guess he can really use a training partner and he's too stuck-up to ask someone older and stronger. Still, Trunks really needs a teacher, so it's not all bad. He's been begging me for a couple of years now. Must be around that age that young Saiyans start training..."
The two turned to Chayote with inquisitive looks. It took her a few blinks to realize that they were referring to Chayote's upbringing as a Saiyan.
"Yeah, they usually start at around three or four years old," Chayote shrugged. "The brain of a Saiyan toddler jumpstarts to where it needs to be to comprehend some of the gravity of physical violence and then just takes a break for a while until they learn to scrap right and can start picking up other things. From the ages of three to six, eating and fighting is all they can wrap their heads around."
Even though the noise of Yamcha's suit rustling against the air as he rolled through the air like a human cannonball right before taking a stand atop of an empty table to address the guests was rather meek, the gasps and cheers for the ace athlete immediately after he successfully executed the move did the job of reaching everyone.
"Hey everyone! I and Ruby are really glad to see all of you making it to our wedding. I know all of you are really eager to see me kiss the bride already, but first, we're gonna do the whole boring, formal wedding stuff. Not to worry, you guys. To make it up to all of my adoring fans, I promise to hit one for the stars immediately after the big kiss. I've pulled some strings with my old friends in Capsule Corps and they helped hook me up with a space cam. That baby will feature the entire trip and you'll get to see the sucker leave the solar system and that's a personal promise from the Titans' Ace himself!" Yamcha pointed to himself with a confident grin.
His bride started hiding her blushing face in her white gloves at first before getting sick of her groom's antics and stepping up with the bonus of her heels. Chayote was pleasantly surprised to see the bowl-cut step up and pull her man down by his tie and off the table despite the roaring wave of clapping and cheering.
"He pulled some strings... I swear... The dolt pretty much begged me on his knees. Even though "It'll be really cool" is a lousy argument, he must've used it at least a dozen times. I don't know who's the sadder case, him for pulling this or me for buying into it and wasting corporate funds on his baseball space-cam..." Bulma hid her own embarrassed face behind her palm as well.
"You've got to hand it to him though," Chayote spoke up with all the frustrations vanishing away after seeing the oaf step onto a table and speak to a filled-up party hall. "The guy's got so much confidence nowadays. The Yamcha I remember would've squeezed his lunch out all over that table and quivered at the thought of getting married. This almost makes me feel... Happy for him."
"Hey, Krillin! There's my bud!" Yamcha ran up to the group and wrapped Krillin's bald head in his grip playfully. He'd have probably play-wrestled with the guy a bit longer, but a deadpan look from Lazuli made him freeze in terror and let the baldy go immediately as his shoulders stiffened up and he rushed to the next topic. "So... I guess I'll be getting married before you, huh? It's all your fault, we offered you two to pull a double marriage."
"Yeah, right..." Lazuli carefully fixed Krillin's suit to hang right before crossing her arms in objection. "As if I'm sharing my big day with some other pair. Besides, you two just had to buy the most extravagant hall in Central City. How's Krillin supposed to keep up with an unemployed guy's salary?"
"Seriously, Krillin? You're a tough guy, I can talk to Mark Satan about finding you a post on Satan Security..." Chayote was about to make her pitch before the ground rumbled and began tossing the guests around like sunny pancakes. Those that could fly had no other option but to levitate or else they'd be forced to rag doll all over the place like sacks of veggies too.
"What is that?" Trunks wondered, having grabbed his mother by the belt tied around the waist of her dress and lifted her up in the air to prevent her from getting tossed around like a salad leaf.
"Ugh, that noise!" Videl covered her ears, reacting to a deafening hum that sounded similar to when a planetoid or a massive asteroid threatened to crash into another planet and wrought havoc in its combusting atmosphere. Most of the Dragon Team were qualified to make that comparison since they've encountered this exact type of thing before.
"There's a Ki signature coming right at us outside!" Goku's face turned serious for a second as he turned in the exact direction where the spaceship was landing from. "It ain't all that great. Must be one of Vegeta's Saiyan goons causing trouble again."
"Yamcha, you better do something about it before that racket ruins our wedding!" Ruby shook her fist over her head. All the careless flying about made her short hair stand up with wild spikes and curls, and the poor lady had a sample of most of the food and even some cake smeared over her.
"On it, dear!" Yamcha nodded. "Sorry for not catching you!" he excused himself with a pathetic stretch of a face.
*****
It wasn't just the Dragon Team that rushed outside. It was the entire congregation that gathered to see Yamcha and Ruby get married. Since the Dragon Team could fly, they swooped out and in front of the crowd to be in a perfect position to cover for them in case the interlopers attacked and tried to hurt any of the civilians.
"T-That spaceship!" Piccolo gasped, though less out of fear and more out of surprise that someone would have had the gall to show themselves and cause trouble inside such a vessel. "It's Namekian technology!"
"Yes, though it looks older than even the one Nameless Namekian came to Earth with," Bulma nodded, with the scientist in her instantly booting out the proud mother and frustrated wife she acted like before.
"Could be one of the vessels that older Namekians used to roam the galaxy before the cataclysm that befell Planet Namek and stopped their exploration. Maybe one of them got caught by pirates or left their vessel behind on an alien planet after running out of fuel?" Chayote shrugged.
"Heh heh..." Goku chuckled, loosening up his tie before ripping it off and tossing it to the wind entirely. The overjoyed Saiyan began stretching out to test his mobility in his unsuitable clothing as he prepared for a brief workout. "Vegeta's sure going to be mad he missed this."
"Serves him right for refusing to come," Bulma nodded to herself.
Not wasting much time, the egg-shaped bone-white spaceship touched down on twelve support spikes, releasing a powerful halo of dust that made the civilians grunt and howl as they clutched tightly and grabbed hold of anything rooted into the ground to prevent getting tossed about again. The front of the spaceship opened up, letting a handful of armored, masked soldiers strutting out and making a tight formation to make way for the commander of the spaceship.
An average-height, fit Saiyan with spiky black hair appeared from the shadows of the ship's interior, adopting a firm, militaristic stance. The man wore a heavily modified model of Saiyan battle armor that seemed to have been cracked and torn many times and patched up using pieces of battle armors from many different races all over the universe. The man wore a long white cape that had a downed hood hanging at the back.
The stout, white-caped Saiyan began slowly strutting down the walkway through the line made by the stiffened and battle-ready soldiers and approached the Dragon Team that lined up ready for battle. Once the man approached closer, the scars decorating his wrinkly face well past his prime and the bushy mustache over his upper lip could be made out more clearly.
"This doesn't look like a Saiyan working for Vegeta. Then again, plenty of them have the guts to try to act like rebellious commanders. Those guys don't take too well to being asked to play nice on Earth..." Chayote said in reaction to the rather disappointing-looking warrior with an unimpressive battle power approaching them boldly like he had something important to say.
Expected by no one, the older Saiyan dropped to one knee and pressed his fist to his chest, honoring Chayote as some sort of royalty with the traditional Saiyan way of submitting to one's military commander. This made Chayote's jaw drop on the right side and made it difficult for her to contain her drool from leaking.
"My queen, we have come to collect you and bring you to your rightful throne on Planet Vegeta!" the spiky-haired Saiyan with a bushy mustache and a scarred face reported after looking up as if he was still waiting for Chayote's permission to stand up.
"H-Huh...?" Chayote scratched her lower eyelid with a long face of utter bewilderment. She honestly had the impression that this guy knew her from somewhere, even though she couldn't say the same about him.