Revenge of the Babysat

Part 1

"No! Please! You guys can't do this to me! It's too cruel!"

"Do it, brat."

"Dad! Tell them they can't do this to me!"

"Gohan, you really should do it."

"Mom!"

"Gohan-chan............please?"

"Krillen?"

"Ya gotta do it, Gohan."

"........Radditz?"

"Heh, don't ask me."

Gohan sank to his knees before the group of elders, "Oh for the love of all we hold dear, don't make me do it! Any other form of torture, please! Pour hot wax in my ears! Dowse my pillow in vinegar and tie it to my face! Put a pack of starving mice down my pants! But I'm begging you! Please don't ask me to do it! Not again!"

Bardock, arms crossed, muttered quietly, "I don't see the big deal. It's not a major thing."

"Gohan," Chichi said, the steele trap sterness in her voice, "You're not getting out of this. Your watching the kids and THAT is THAT."

Gohan groaned in anguish but knew better than to argue with his mother.

He was babysitting......again.

****

"Ya know, I can't help but feel sorry for the kid," Turles said thoughtfully, working a blade of grass between his teeth, "Considering what happened last time."

"What DID happen last time?" Bardock asked, his back leaned up agenst a tree with his hands folded comfortably over his stomach, "He seemed to feel having to watch the kids was just one step away from the firing squad."

"It's worse!" Turles exclamed.

The two Saiyan were sitting in the lawn outside of the newly added capsule houses in the Capsule Corps. front lawn. After much deliberation and frustration, Radditz had moved out of the shared house he had occupied with Turles and Nappa and moved into a more permanent home in the Son's yard. Bardock had refused to share his home, so he was given a seperate capsule house to stay in, and he delegated to set up shop next door to Turles and Nappa.

"Last time, the kids totalled half the building! I'm sure Vegita's yell could be heard all over the planet. He chased Gohan off the property and wouldn't let him back on for three weeks, and he still won't allow him to feel comfortable."

"Heh, somehow that doesn't surprise me," Bardock chuckled, closing his eyes as a warm breeze tousled his hair. He was quickly getting used to a life of ease.

"Here comes the poor doomed fellow now-Heya, kid, what's happenin'?"

Gohan sat down and started moodily plucking up the grass, angry handful by angry handful, "Ungh, such a happy greeting for a shell of a person. I'm considering hijacking a space ship and vanishing for a while."

"Your going to run from a pack of munchins?" Bardock asked amused, leaning forward from the tree and resting his head on his hands.

"A pack of DEMONS you mean. You don't know hell 'til you've been forced to keep THEM under control."

"I'm sure I've been in hell before," Bardock said, rubbing the scar along his jaw subconsciously.

"Me too," Turles said, smiling, "I doubt it's that bad."

Gohan began to give them a dirty look, then stopped, "Well, then. I could always use help, and three heads are better than one. Care to join me in the dirty deed?"

"You mean watch the kids?" Turles asked, and started laughing, "I'd rather rot!"

"C'mon, please help me out here? I'll pay ya back, I promise!"

"What could you possibly do for me that would make it worth it?"

"Um.......well.......... I don't know. Anything you can think of. I'm desperate here! What do you need?"

"I dunno.........," Turles exchanged evil glanced with Bardock, "You'll have to let me think about it."

"But I'll be sitting tomarrow! That's not much time to think. C'mon, you can take a rain check! I'll OWE you. Big time."

"Well.............," Turles deliberated even as he savored the pleading look on Gohan's face, "Okay."

"Sure, it could be fun," Bardock said, stretching and leaning back agenst the tree again.

"Betcha I can convince Nappa and Radditz to help out too," Turles said, grinning like a cat, "It'll be us five adults agenst those two kids! Easy pickings."

"Accually, it'll be our five heads agenst their six. We're not JUST watching Trunks and Goten, we also gotta watch little Vegita, Pan, Bra and Marron," Gohan said miserably.

Turles and Bardock both flinched. Little Vegita?

"Well, guess you'll owe us a whole lot more than before," Bardock said, and he drifted off in a Saiyan cat-nap.

"Thanks, you guys, I mean it. I. OWE. YOU."

****

D-day came a lot sooner than Gohan would have liked. It seemed he had hardly been able to rest his head on his pillow for sleep when his alarm went hay-wire, informing him that he only had three hours to get dressed, shower, and come up with a good plan to keep the kids from getting killed or killing him. It was all he could to just resisting the urge to blast the damn thing to hell and roll over for a few more good hours of shut eye.

He got up with a vicious grunt that only managed to stir Videl for a moment before she was allowed to fall back into her sleep, snoring gently. Gohan was envious. But, he got ready as fast as he could and started planning. And a small, workable plan did form.

****

"Okay, guys, here's the plan," Gohan said, military fasion. He was wearing his dark sunglasses in the hot afternoon sun, and they glinted brightly. He paced in front of Turles, Bardock, Radditz and Nappa, all lined up side by side as they watched Gohan stalk back and forth as he spoke, arms clasped firmly behind his back, "We are going to play hard, and we are going to play fast. Have you guys got that?"

"Yep."

"Uhuh."

"Sure."

"Yeah, but.......," Nappa paused, "What exactly are we going to play?"

Gohan's sunglasses gleamed and he said with a wide, wicked grin, "Tag."

"Tag?" Radditz asked.

"What the hell is 'tag'?" Turles asked, squinting his eyes as though it may awaken some memory of this word.

Gohan glanced over his shoulder at the kids in their charge. He had deemed going to Satan City Park might be a pleasant environment for the activites he had thought up, so he schedualed for all the parents to drop off their kids there. At the moment, Trunks and Goten seemed content trying to show Marron a large bug they had found, her squeals of terror fueling their mischievious nature and egging the on. Little Vegita sat high up in a tree, throwing pine cones on the other kids everyonce in a while, laughing at his own deviousness.

Gohan grinned, they had no clue about the rigorious game he had planned out.

"Tag, gentlemen, is a game," Gohan stated, carefully adjusting his sunglasses before continuing, "It's where one person is 'It'-"

"What?" Nappa asked.

"It. Ya know, It," Gohan said, "It's the person who-"

"Whose WHAT, though? What are they?"

"They're just It, and if you'll just give me a chance to explain-"

"But what ARE they?"

"It, now let me-" Gohan didn't get a chance to finish as at that moment a pine cone came crashing out of the trees and smacked into the back of his neck bouncing off onto the ground. Devious laughter followed, but it's source could not be found.

Gohan sighed and said, "Guess I should explain this to everyone at once.--ALRIGHT GUYS, FILE OVER HERE, I GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU TO DO!......Since you all obviously need something more productive......"

The eldest halfling waited patiently as all the kids came prancing over, little Vegita being the last as he had to contemplate giving up his keep hiding place in the trees. He finally decided and hopped down to join them all.

"Okay, we're going to play tag," Gohan started talking again, and raised both hands, "But keep all the questions until AFTER I'm done talking. Got it?"

They all nodded.

"Okay, the point of the game is for one person to be It-" Gohan gave Nappa the evil eye to keep him from continuing his previous question, "The person that is It is supposed to chase after everyone else and try to tag them."

Little Vegita instantly raised his hand and said, "I wanna be It!" and he followed his exclaimation by smacking Goten in the back of the head, chuckling and saying, "I getta hit people cause I'M It!"

Goten, familiar with the game, quickly smacked Vegita in the forehead and said, "Well, now I'M It!"

"You can't hit ME!!" Vegita quickly yelled, "Only *I* can hit people, cause I called being It first!"

"But ya hit me and that means I'M It!" Goten argued.

"Nuh uh! Ask Gohan, he said the rules clear as day!"

"BOTH OF YOU KNOCK IT OFF!" Gohan said, biting his lip to avoid following his yell with some more colorful language. The kids always seemed to bring the worst out of him........, "As Goten so kindly demonstrated, once the person whose It tags someone else, the person tagged is then It."

"Aww, that's no fun! What's the point of the game, then?" Vegita asked, "How do you win?"

"Um.....well, there is no winner-"

"Then what's the point of the game?!"

"To have fun," Trunks snapped.

"..............," Vegita could find no answer.

"So do we all have the rules now?" Gohan asked, studying them through his sunglasses.

Marron slowly raised a hand as though she were asking a question in school, "What about bases?"

"Bases? Oh yeah, I forgot about those," Gohan started looking around.

"What's a base?" Radditz asked.

"A safe place or object where ther person whose It can't tag you."

"Lets make this fun," Bardock said, "Lets have some moving bases."

"Moving bases?" Gohan asked, looking curious.

"Yeah. Why don't.....say......us Saiyans be bases? We run and they have to catch us to be safe."

Gohan grinned widly at this prospect, "So you, Radditz, Nappa and Turles are going to be base?"

Radditz and Turles nodded, Nappa said, "Could be fun!"

"Alright then..........," Gohan paused, "Who will be It first?"

Vegita quickly raised a hand, "I still wanna be It first!"

"Okay, but I'm going to set a few rules right now," Gohan said, ignoring the groans, "First, no flying. This is a public area and we don't want to scare the other people here. No transforming, for goodness sake. We don't want little Super Saiyans tearing up the landscape after all, this IS public property. Lastly, the word is TAG. NOT hit. Not punch. Not kick. T-A-G. I don't want any bloody noses or split lips. Got it?"

They all nodded their heads.

"Alright--Vegita, count to five to give everyone a chance to get away."

Vegita gave him a dirty look but sat down and started counting quickly.

"One."

Trunks slowly walked about five feet away and stopped, his back purposely to Vegita.

"Two."

Goten scurried up a tree, ready to jump if pursued.

"Three."

Radditz felt Marron wrap her little arms round his leg, hugging her 'base' tightly.

"Four."

Bardock, Turles and Nappa spread out to make access to the open bases more difficult.

"FIVE!!"

Vegita hopped to his feet and charged.

To be continued...............