Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Another Time ❯ Chapter 12 ( Chapter 12 )

Another Time

By Karete-chan

Chapter 12: Tiptoeing Around

Orientation Day.

The day when you meet a whole bunch of strangers and try to make instant friends with them so that you don't wander around on your own for the first few weeks.

Trunks thanked Dende that he already had somebody he knew. Having grown up in a world where a group larger than twenty was a target for the androids, the huge crowd gathered on the common lawn of West City University was a little daunting.

Booths lined the walkways heading toward a large podium, promoting all the different clubs that students were able to join. Beside him Kat was diligently collecting every flier that was thrust under her nose, her eyes gleaming with excitement. His eyes travelled sideways to look into a certain booth that had caught his eye and stopped dead in the middle of the crowded walkway. A booth two up from the one he wanted to look at had a girl on a soapbox trying to shout over the din of the crowd. What made it hard for her was, one, she was short and even on the box could hardly see over the crowd and two, there were a number of extremely angry people gathered around her and shouting back.

Trunks nudged Kat in the ribs and gestured over at the booth. Slowly they forced their way through the crowd to hear what was happening.

Kat's eyes narrowed as they got closer. "I can't believe this…" she muttered.

The sign hanging inside the booth, that the girl had been standing in front of, said, in large bold lettering: `Equal Rights for all: Androids are People too!'

"You have got to be kidding me," Trunks snarled, pushing his way the front.

One thing can be said about a crowd; when someone is pissed off they can't get out of the way fast enough.

Trunks reached up and grabbed the megaphone from the girl's hands.

"Hey!" she shouted indignantly. "Haven't you ever heard of freedom of speech?"

"I'm all for it," he replied scathingly. "But this is ridiculous."

The girl's face went red in fury. "Ridiculous?" she hissed. "Supporting the misunderstood is ridiculous?"

"It is when the so-called `misunderstood' are ruthless killers," Kat said from Trunks' side.

"It was a desperate cry for attention," the girl called, now addressing the crowd. "If only we had listened…"

"They could've cried for attention without killing my parents!" someone yelled, as they hurled what looked like fruit salad from the food court at the girl. It missed and slid down the inside of the tent.

The girl looked at it in disgust. "It's narrow mindedness like that that caused these misunderstood souls to rebel the way they do."

Kat noticed that Trunks had crushed the megaphone in his fist.

"They could've rebelled by egging the mayors house like any normal person," another voice called. The crowd muttered in agreement. "Mass murder is on the insane part of the criminal scale."

"We forced them into it. We isolated them and ostracized them! We…"

"Didn't do anything, you idiot!" Trunks yelled. "They were robots, programmed to do what they did! They were having fun!"

"There's no account for how they really were," the girl replied haughtily. "I bet they wouldn't have been so destructive if only someone had listened."

"No-one was stupid enough to!" Trunks yelled.

"Yeah," someone else added, "you wouldn't have been able to get close enough."

"What about the Briefs boy?" the girl retorted. "He could get close and he didn't even try, did he?"

"Like I would have wanted to," Trunks said, finally starting to calm himself down.

The people in the crowd near him all went silent at his words. Kat could hear the mutterings of his words passed back through the crowd.

The girl on the soapbox laughed. "Are you claiming to be Trunks Briefs, destroyer of the misunderstood?"

Trunks levelled his blue-eyed gaze at her. "Yes."

The girls face went as pale as it had been red. Kat tried to stifle a snort of laughter as she realised that despite the girl's amazing ability to convince herself that the androids could have been reformed, she still had enough wits about her to realise that if Trunks had beaten them then he was really strong. And really dangerous.

The girl gave a small `eep' and took off through the crowd.

"Nice to see you're a people person," Kat said beside Trunks.

He turned to her, his eyes still full of anger. "You expected me to be nice to an idiot like that?" he practically yelled.

Kat frowned. "Chill, Trunks. It was a joke." She eyed him warily; her frown deepening and then stomped off through the crowd.

He watched her departing back through the lingering haze of anger at the soapbox girl before his eyes widened in sudden realisation. Kat had the campus map!

Trunks moved to follow her but the crowd of students gathered around eagerly, looking at him expectantly. Trunks tried backing away only to find that they had come around behind him as well.

"What?" he asked hesitantly.

" The Trunks Briefs?" a dark haired girl close to him asked, her eyes shining with adoration.

He nodded before he thought, his cheeks going pink. He was immediately flooded with questions. What was he doing here? Was it really him who defeated the androids? How did he do it? What classes was he taking? Did he have a girlfriend?

The young man sighed, hoping that this wouldn't be what greeted him every day of university. His eyes drifted sideways and found Kat on the edge of the crowd heading toward an old grey, stone building. He frowned.

The crowd gasped as the source of their interest suddenly disappeared into thin air.

Trunks reappeared next to Kat as she turned down a side alley. Wordlessly, she handed him the map.

*****

The day was overcast and threatened to rain but the backyard of Capsule Corp. was busy anyway. People scurried back and forth, yelling orders or moving equipment, and from amidst the chaos a gravity room was slowly beginning to form.

Vegeta sat silently, watching them from the roof of a partly collapsed building. He was extremely bored. Gokou was unable to spar because ChiChi had him doing repairs to their house, something Vegeta couldn't begrudge him after seeing the condition it was in. Gohan too, was unavailable as he was tied up all day at his dojo. His son was tied up in some project that was counting toward much of his final mark. Vegeta sighed; he wanted to spar.

"Hey!"

He lent over and looked down at the girl standing on the grass below him. "Something you wanted brat?" Vegeta asked, leaning back again.

"Yes," she answered, floating up next to him and landing without a sound.

"Well?"

She paused. "Well what? Aren't you going to rant and rave about me being `not worth it' first?"

"No," he answered simply.

Crouching down, she eyed him. "Why not?" she asked suspiciously.

"Why should I?" he asked raising an eyebrow and turning to face her. "Do you want me to?"

The question seemed to take her by surprise. "I…no. You're very different from the other you," she stated sitting down.

"That would be because I'm me, not him," he answered. "Now, what do you want?"

The girl glanced out at the scurrying humans. "Uh…I was wondering…Gokou doesn't know much about it…" she looked down at her lap.

"Kakarott doesn't know much of anything," he retorted.

A small smile tugged at her mouth. "Yeah, well, could you teach me about us? You know? Vegeta-sei and all that?"

Vegeta was dumbstruck. "You want to know about our people?"

She nodded. "History, customs, even language. Everything really."

Vegeta fell silent and turned to look at the humans again. "Brat, you do realise that I was a child when our world was destroyed? That most of what I know comes from Nappa?"

"Which means that you still know more than I do."

"Kakarott never wanted to know."

"I'm not my brother."

"That is obvious." They lapsed into silence. "What's your name brat?" he asked turning to her once more.

She turned her dark eyes to his. "It's Kat. Son Kat."

He smirked. "Yes, Ms. Bond."

She smiled slightly. "I never knew you had a sense of humour."

"It's decidedly dark most of the time."

She looked at him thoughtfully a moment. "My parents named me Karete," she ventured.

Vegeta nodded. "A good name."

"Does it mean something?"

He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "In Saiya-go, the origin of your name meant something like Child of the Season."

"Season?" she asked. "You mean like winter and spring?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "We didn't follow the weather patterns as diligently as they do here. They would have meant either the moon season or the season of passing."

"Passing?"

Vegeta looked at the young girl. Her eyes were wide open and eager, her emotions showing clearly on her face. Once again he was struck by how different she was from her twin and from himself, while still being so much the same. Her dark eyes and spiky hair and the subtly hidden muscle in her arms spoke worlds about her heritage but her mannerisms defied all that she should have been. While quick to temper like any Saiya-jin, afterwards she would find a reason why the person pissed her off in the first place. Any normal Saiya-jin would just have held a grudge for the rest of their life and Kakarott would have forgotten about it.

Her eyes were also full of questions and for some reason that made him extremely uneasy.

"What do you know about us already?" he asked.

She shrugged. "That we were a race of blood thirsty killers who purged planets for a living. We worked under Frieza for years and when we tried to break away he destroyed everyone except for the few that escaped. Piccolo and Gohan told me a little of what happened on Namek and Trunks filled me in on the android stuff I missed. Oh, and all the Super Saiya-jin stuff of course."

Vegeta nodded. "Radditz?" he asked.

She frowned slightly. "Yeah. I'd like to have a word with him too."

He couldn't stop the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I bet you would."

They sat in silence again for a moment.

"What time do you finish with those classes of yours tomorrow?"

"Er…hang on." She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a small black book. She flipped it open and scanned a page. "Um…two o'clock, no, wait, three. Three o'clock. We'll be back by ten past."

We? he thought. Trunks… "Fine. Be here at quarter past. If you're late, the deal's off."

"Done." She grinned at him.

"What?"

"Can I call you sensei?"

He nearly fell of the roof.

*****

While Vegeta and Kat were discussing the lessons in Saiya-jin etiquette, Bulma was inside her kitchen enjoying a quiet cup of tea. She wasn't needed around to supervise the construction of the gravity room as most of her employees had, at one time or another, pieced the destroyed room back together from scratch. Most of them could do it with their eyes shut but she'd kill them if they did. So she was quietly enjoying some time to herself, contemplating how she could coax her friends over for a barbeque next week and coax Vegeta into some extra curricular activities tonight. She smiled. He probably wouldn't need all that much coaxing.

Her peace was shattered as Trunks burst into the room and made a beeline for the window. Bulma sighed. Every time. You'd think the girl needed a bodyguard. Pushing back from the table she went to the counter and poured another cup. Trunks was still standing at the window so she poured one for him too.

"Here," she said holding the cup under his nose. "It's camomile. It'll calm you down."

Trunks screwed up his nose at it but drank it anyway. He went back to staring out the window.

"Kat's looking nice today," Bulma commented.

Trunks blanched, the comment catching him off guard. "I…I'm not…she…" His cheeks were slowly going red.

"You know, sometimes I'd really love to know what goes on in that head of yours."

The blush spread down to his neck. "Kassan!"

Bulma grinned. It was so easy to rile him. She pushed him out of the way so she could look out the window. "Do you stalk her wherever she goes?"

"I'm not stalking her," her muttered darkly.

"No, of course not. You only follow her around every time she comes over."

"That's not…I…look, do you see what I do?" he asked grabbing her shoulders before pointing at the two figures sitting on roof.

"They're sitting on a roof."

"They're talking to each other!"

"So?"

"They aren't fighting!"

"My question hasn't changed."

"Tousan, the tousan from the other time hated her. They never got along."

"That's what's been worrying you? That Vegeta and Kat will start punching into each other?"

"In the other time, before I went back, when they sparred she ended up in the tank almost every day. He never spoke to her, just beat the crap out of her. He never even gave her a chance."

"Looks like she's getting one now. Besides, she's Saiya-jin, did you ever ask her if she hated getting beaten up?"

"No, but she used to complain all the time."

"Did she ever say, `I wish Vegeta wouldn't do that'?"

Trunks walked away from the window and sat down at the kitchen table. "No."

"Remember the part about Saiya-jins getting stronger when they're beaten up?"

Trunks' head snapped around to look at her.

"Never thought of that, did you?" Bulma grinned.

"Gohan said she was strong when they first met but only as strong as Yamcha or Krillen. But when I met her she was already gaining on the level Vegeta was at when I first met him. She still had a way to go but she was much stronger than Gohan had described." He put his head in his hands. "I'm an idiot."

Bulma patted his shoulder. "No. You're a boy who likes a girl. There's a fine line but still a difference."

"She's only sixteen."

"She'll grow up eventually."

"By the time it'd be legal I'll be twenty-two. That's ancient!"

Bulma whacked him on the back of the head. "Hey!"

Trunks turned around and grinned at her. "Sorry. I suppose ancient is the right word for you. Maybe antique?"

He ducked before she could hit him again.

*****

Gohan sighed with contentedness as he watched his students practise their moves. He wandered around the group, some of whom were as young as four or five, correcting mistakes and giving encouragement.

He liked teaching, he found. Passing on what he knew brought a sense of satisfaction to him. He remembered when he was young and Gokou and Piccolo had been taught him. His happy countenance faded as grief for his long dead mentor flashed through him. Still, it felt right that he should pass on the knowledge of the great fighter.

A grin tugged at his mouth as he thought of what the parents might say if he tried to teach the kids ki attacks.

His thoughts were broken as Kat entered through the back door. The class chanted a hello and she waved before disappearing into the change rooms. Gohan looked at his watch. Stunned at how fast the time had flown, he dismissed the class, who chanted hello again as Trunks entered.

Gohan smiled at his first student as Kat reappeared.

"Ready to practice those meditative techniques?"

The two younger Saiya-jins nodded.

After an hour and a half of practice, they stopped for food. Kat was had half swallowed an orange when she suddenly choked and started coughing. Gohan patted her on the back.

After recovering from her coughing fit and pulling herself out of the wall, "Don't know my own strength," Gohan had said sheepishly, she had scrambled around the room, shoving her things back into her bag.

"Oh shit, oh shit, I forgot!"

Trunks looked at her in amusement. "What?"

"I made a deal with Vegeta!" she cried, stuffing a towel half in, half out of the bag. "We're supposed to be there in three minutes."

"We?" Trunks asked incredulously.

"Just shut up and hurry! I'll explain on the way!" She took off out the door.

Trunks looked at Gohan.

"You'd better get going," the dark haired Saiya-jin said. "Heaven forbid if anyone should keep Vegeta waiting."

"She's never cared what he thought before," Trunks said.

"Must be important to her then." He looked Trunks directly in the eye. "Seemed it was important that you be there too," he added pointedly.

Trunks looked back at him for a moment. "Shit," he said and raced out the door.

Gohan grinned to himself. Looks like things were finally returning to normal.