Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.
Eight-year-old Goten sat in the large, clean kitchen at Capsule Corp, waiting for Bulma to bring him and nine-year-old Trunks their lunch. Bulma finally came in, and right away grabbed four cans from a cupboard to make lunch. She had long ago learned never to keep saiyans, even half-saiyans, hungry.
"Hey mom!" Trunks whined, "We're hungry!"
Bulma rolled her eyes at the obvious statement. "I know Trunks, and I'm sorry boys but I can't spend too much time making lunch because Gohan's coming over and we have work to do." Bulma filled her two largest pots half full with water and set the stove as high as it could go. Goten sat up straighter in his seat at the mention of his older brother.
"Why is Gohan coming over Aunt Bulma?" Goten asked.
"Well I have documents of all the adventures, villains, and discoveries my family and yours have made since I was sixteen and your dad was just a little kid. Today I'm finally getting around to adding the information about what happened to Gohan after Buu nearly killed him and he went to the world of the Kai's," Bulma explained to the boys. Trunks tapped his chin and had a thoughtful look on his face.
"So you just need to know what happened to Gohan when we all thought he was dead."
"That's right Trunks," Bulma said, lifting one of the lids on the pots and checking on whatever she was making.
"Well I know what happened!" Goten yelled, "The Supreme Kai and that big pink guy found him and brought him to their world and gave him weird clothes and brother pulled out the Z Sword and he and dad broke it and an old Kai popped out and danced around Gohan until he got super strong and then he came and saved me and Trunks from Majin Buu and he didn't even have to go super saiyan!" Goten has nearly out of breath as he finished his tale. Bulma caught Trunks's eye, then looked back at the black-haired ball of energy.
"The Z Sword? I wasn't told about that," she poured the contents of the two huge pots into four bowls and set them on the table, running off to her lab before the boys could thank her for the food, mumbling something that sounded like, "mumble mumbles word mumble idiot mumble mumble mumble withholding information." Goten and Trunks shared a look before shrugging and starting their lunch.
"Trunks?"
"Yeah Goten?" Trunks replied between slurps.
"Why is does my soup say a-d-h-u-p-z-r?" Goten asked. Trunks put his spoon down and sighed at his clueless friend.
"It's alphabet soup dummy. Instead of long noodles, they're shaped like letters." Trunks said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"It's not my fault I didn't know that!" Goten challenged.
"Whatever," Trunks went back to eating. Goten looked down into his soup, trying to find real words. It was more of a game to him than lunch now.
"Hey Trunks?" Goten called, swirling his spoon around in the bowl.
"What now Goten?" Trunks asked, becoming annoyed at not being able to eat in peace.
"How many letters are there?"
"Twenty-six, why? You should know that."
Goten had a look on his face that suggested he was deep in thought.
"Trunks?"
"WHAT?"
Goten didn't even flinch at Trunk's yelling, he was used to it.
"Why do you think it was called the 'Z' Sword?"
"Whaddya mean?" Trunks asked, now really confused.
"Well if there are twenty-six letters, why did they choose 'Z' to be the sword's name?" Goten wondered aloud.
"There is no reason," said a voice from the hallway. Goten and Trunks looked up to see Gohan standing there, in all his unnecessary glasses glory.
"Brother!" Goten jumped on Gohan. "I haven't seen you in forever!"
"You saw me yesterday before you left to sleep over here squirt," Gohan replied, peeling Goten off of him. "Why are you guys talking about the Z Sword?"
Instead of answering Goten just jumped on top of Gohan's head and tried to unscrew the light bulb above them.
"You said an old geezer came out of the Z Sword right?" Trunks asked. Gohan nodded while trying to pry Goten off of him. "Well does he have any brothers or sisters?" Gohan look at the younger boy with a confused face.
"I don't know, why do you ask?"
"Well," Trunks started, "There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, and the old kai popped out of the sword whose name starts with the last letter. So we were thinking that maybe the guy had twenty-five brothers or sisters whose names start with the other letters." Trunks said, proud that he figured out a way to put his logic into words.
Gohan stumbled a bit. Twenty-six old Kais? One was crazy enough, but twenty-six…
Goten finally leaped off of his brother's head and stood beside Trunks. They both looked at Gohan while he stumbled to Bulma's main office, mumbling something about too many senile old Kais taking over the world with their crazy tribe dances. Trunks glanced at Goten.
"Your brother's crazy."
Goten turned to Trunks.
"What does senile mean?"