BWA-hahahahaha! Special surprise for all those that read my stories at the now nonexistent (hooray!) fanfic.net! The Pluto Chronicles are being revised, recycled, and re-posted. This is the beginning of something new and wondrous... and hopefully funny, but I'll let ya'll be the judge of that! ^.~
DragonballZ and Sailormoon don't belong to me, and I'm sick of making disclaimer jokes. So... just don't sue me, okay?
centerAn Otaku's Guide/center
Chapter One: The Teenyboppers
bTeenybopper (n.)/b
i"A teenager, usually female, who is always following the next fad or craze in clothes, music, etc. It is wise to avoid these creatures at all cost, for they can prove to be both dangerous and exasperating.
"Teenyboppers come in many shapes and sizes, but the most common are the ones who latch themselves onto the local celebrity and won't let go. If you find one doing this to, for example, Ricky Martin, run for your life and don't look back to see the fallen. Out on the teeny battlefield, it's every otaku for his or herself."/i
--uAn Otaku's Guide to Non-Anime Persons and Other Annoyances/u
It was a fairly normal day in the Son household. The usual sounds: the grunt of Piccolo as he meditated, the snarf of Goku as he sneaked a doughnut while sparring with Vegeta, the occasional beep from Gohan's new Gameboy; old sounds, good sounds, familiar sounds. Sounds that had accompanied the group of friends ever since Bulma almost ran over Goku when he was six years old.
Oh yes; and Vegeta's screaming. That was a little more recent.
"Take ithis,/i Kakarott!" Vegeta panted, executing his Big Bang attack.
Nimbly, Goku leaped out of the ki attack's way and landed onto the roof of Bulma's brand new car. "Vegeta, just admit it," Goku said, not unkindly, "You'll never defeat me. Why can't we spar iwithout/i an intent to kill?"
"Never!" Another attack was aimed at the rooster-haired warrior. Goku easily dodged it; the car had no such luck.
"Vegeta!" Bulma wailed, coming out with a lemonade pitcher. "This has gone too far! I don't have insurance on that car!"
"Oh, shut your mouth, woman!" Vegeta was now running from Goku's kamehameha. He paused, then turned to face it, arms outstretched.
"I mean it!" Bulma shouted over the din, "Maybe you two should take a bre-"
Bulma was abruptly cut off as Vegeta blocked Goku's kamehameha in a flash of light. It whirled around and hit Bulma's new crystal pitcher, splattering lemonade all over her face. Throughout this she stood stock still in absolute boredom.
She sighed. "I guess not."
Meanwhile, Gohan was whispering encouraging comments to his Gameboy, his fingers moving rapidly between the A and B buttons. Piccolo opened one eye and said, "Gohan, will you shut that racket off?"
Gohan didn't answer.
Louder, "Shut that annoying jumble of notes off, will you?"
Gohan glanced up momentarily, then immediately turned back to his Gameboy. Still playing, he said, "But Piccolo-san, I'm right in the middle of a battle with a dangerous Staryu!"
"So?"
"So, I can't my eyes off it for a second. If I left my Charmeleon's guard down, and reached all the way over to the little volume thing..." he shuddered. "I'll ilose./i"
"So what?"
"But then I'd have to start all over again! And then I could inever/i get my Charmeleon to evolve into a Charazard."
Piccolo blinked. "Nani?"
"Well, you see, Mr. Piccolo, this game's called Pokemon. What you have to do-"
"No, I wasn't nani-ing at your stupid video game. I was nani-ing at that power rating."
"What do you mean?"
Piccolo nodded toward a spot a few feet away. As they looked at it, a hole began to form in the air.
Bulma came out with a new pitcher of lemonade. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Hmm?" Vegeta looked up from his headlock on Goku. "What is it, green bean?"
Piccolo said nothing except, "Look."
Slowly, the hole expanded. Goku walked over curiously, asking, "Hey guys, what's going on? What's that hole doing there?"
Vegeta sneered at Goku in contempt. "If we knew, do you think we'd just be standing here? Baka."
Gohan hadn't gotten up. He was still sitting on the grass, playing his Pokemon game. Piccolo looked disgusted.
"Look at that kid," he said, "I'm telling you, that game is evil."
Chichi came out of the house, waved aside the fact that a tear in the space-time continuum was forming in her backyard, and said, "It is not! Gohan's just exercising his computer skills, aren't you, sweetie?"
"Uh-huh."
Piccolo stopped in mid-snort -- which, might I add, is a peculiar sight -- as someone stepped out of the hole, to reveal...
"A... a igirl?/i" Bulma stammered.
The girl in question blinked her eyes, trying to get used to the sunlight. "Hello there," she said brightly. Three other girls stepped out of the hole.
"Day so soon?" one asked.
"I thought it was night," the third one said.
"At a concert," the first put in.
"A Backstreet Boys concert, to be precise," added the fourth.
"Backstreet Boys?" Goku asked the girls. "What's that?"
Vegeta eyed the girls warily. "I don't think I want to know."
While the girls talked happily about the concert, more stepped out of the hole, all chatting in high, cheerful voices. The hole began to shrink.
"What in the name of Kami is Ricky Martin?" Goku asked after trying to talk to one particularly frustrating girl. He received no answer.
Piccolo, who had been silent and unnoticed through all the excitement, now said, "Whoever you are, get back to where you came from. The hole's shrinking."
"What?" a girl (who to simplify matters we will call Number Thirteen) asked. "Who's there?"
Still blinking from the sudden light, the girl looked at Piccolo. Her eyes widened and she began to gape.
Dramatically, she called to the others, "It's... it's iHim./i"
The other girls turned to react the same way.
"I... I can't believe it..." Number Ten stammered. "It really is iHim.../i"
The way the girls said iHim/i made you want to see the first letter in capitals, it being the right and proper thing to do, somehow.
The girls all stared at the Namek with equal expressions of shock. Then suddenly Number Twenty recovered.
"PICCOLO!" she cried, and ran toward him. Piccolo cringed.
"N-nani? I --"
Piccolo stopped in mid-sentence as a stampede of crazed female girls almost crushed Vegeta in an insane attempt to get to him. Bulma rushed over to the Saiyan prince and grabbed his arm. "Vegeta! Are you hurt?"
Vegeta scowled. "Just my pride. Help me up, woman!"
Piccolo now was running for his life around the Son's backyard, trying to shake off the teenage girls who apparently ate one too many tons of sugar for breakfast.
"What the hell are you doing?" Piccolo shouted over his shoulder.
And the girls cried, "Oh, Piccolo! You're so handsome when you sweat! Don't be afraid: we LOVE you!"
"WHAT?!"
Piccolo screeched to a halt. He began to fly away, but Number Eight, a brunette who looks suspiciously like our author, grabbed his cape.
"Get off of me NOW!" Piccolo shouted, but in vain. He tried to shake her off, and this triggered a fierce battle. It was a tug-of-war -- twenty teenyboppers (if you didn't know that's what they were) versus one very ruffled Namek.
"Piccolo, what's wrong?"
"We just want a souvenir!"
"At this rate I'll have nothing left! Let go of my cloak, you idiots!"
It continued like this for a while. Presently Bulma made a new batch of lemonade, and all of them, even Vegeta, settled down to watch the show. Bets were placed; Goku was positive Piccolo would make it, but Vegeta felt he underestimated the power of girls in fits of passion; look at Bulma. Whereupon Bulma shattered her second lemonade pitcher on Vegeta's head.
It ended up as a tie. The group of teenyboppers gave Piccolo's cloak a hard tug just as Piccolo went into overdrive. His cloak tore in half, but he escaped. He settled down just above their reach, sitting Indian-style in midair.
"Well, who won the bet?" Yamcha asked lazily.
"Depends," Vegeta said. "Which end of the cloak is bigger, Piccolo's or the girls'?"
"Hey!" Piccolo yelled. "In case you haven't noticed, iI'm/i the one with the problems at the moment. Will you chowderheads quit arguing over a few measly yen and help me over here?"
"That's telling 'em, Piccolo-san," Gohan called, still sitting and playing his Gameboy.
"Proper grammar, Gohan," Chichi warned. "We will use words in their full form, understand me? No slang talk from my son! Nuh-uh!"
"Whaddya reckon 'nuh-uh' is, 'Kaasan?"
"Don't talk back to your elders."
"Well," said Piccolo in desperation, "If you won't stop sidetracking with your arguments, will you at least tell me what the hell just happened? Not that I want to bother your lovely conversations, of course. I was just a bit busy at the time."
Vegeta favored Piccolo with the classic 'amused-and-evil' smirk. "Don't ask me. I figured a green bean like you would be single for ever."
Piccolo now looked like he was about to kill somebody. "Nameks are isupposed/i to stay single! It's their ijob!/i Why-"
He broke off abruptly as he observed with evident distaste that all twenty of the girls were in a free-for-all over who got to keep the other half of his cape.
"Looks like you've got some admirers, buddy!" Goku called, winking.
Piccolo made a mental note to kill Goku as soon as he had a chance.
"But I don't iwant/i admirers! I'm a Namek! I'm asexual, for Kami's sake!"
"Looks like you don't have much of a choice," Vegeta snickered. "I doubt they'll back down that easy."
"Vegeta," Piccolo said coaxingly, "You've got a bigger ego than any of us. A group of admirers should feed it nicely. YOU take them.
Vegeta looked... intrigued, but Bulma slapped him on the head. "Er," he said hastily, "One of these human females is about all I can take. Besides, it looks like it'll be more entertaining if I leave them to you."
"Yamcha..." Piccolo said helplessly.
Bulma said quickly, "Yamcha has a girlfriend already. Looks like he was able to replace me just fine. Of all the -- hey, I see you!"
This last comment was directed to Yamcha, who, hearing a familiar trap being set, was wisely backing away.
"Um," Yamcha said, "Mieko and I have a date planned, gotta run. Too bad about the girls, though." With that, he ran for his life.
"Would you believe it!" Bulma exploded. "The coward!"
"Quiet, woman."
"No, Vegeta, I will not be quiet! I'm having a tough time here, if you all won't mind!"
Piccolo stared at her. "No, we don't mind. You'd think she was the one who was being chased by twenty... ithings.../i"
Number Twelve said helpfully, "My name's Ruth."
"Oh, Ruth?" Piccolo scratched his head. "What a boring name."
"Woman, I'm warning you... the High Prince..."
"Wake up, Vegeta. Your stupid planet's gone. There is no more kingdom."
Meanwhile, Gohan was doggedly working at his game. At the sound of a very well known and not really cherished argument, he lifted his head.
"Hey, guys," he called. "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to -- hey, Piccolo-san, what are those girls doing to your cloak?"
"Tearing it to pieces." Piccolo heaved an exasperated sigh that shut everyone up, at least for the moment. "Can someone tell me how those girls got here, and why they're in love with me?"
Then Gohan asked a perfectly innocent question that caused the explosion. "All of them?" he inquired. "Well, which one are you going to marry?"
At the sound of this, as I said before, perfectly innocent question, the teenyboppers looked up. They stood before Piccolo, a huddled group, looking at him expectantly.
Piccolo turned pale. "I'm not gonna marry iany/i of 'em! They're all inuts!/i"
Chichi clicked her tongue. "Proper grammar, proper grammar," she said to no one in particular.
Gohan now asked a safer, yet equally innocent question. "Is that why they love you?"
"Exactly," Bulma said, now a little more composed.
"No one in their right minds would love Piccolo," said Chichi. "No offense."
"None taken."
"Hey, I resent that remark very strongly," said Number Five.
"You," Piccolo said, standing at his full height of six feet and nine inches, still floating in midair, "Stay out of this."
Number Five blushed and stared at him with shining eyes. Seeing "the look," he backed away several feet. Number Five giggled, waved, and ran back to the rest of the group, squealing quietly. Occasionally you heard snatches like, "He talked to me!" or "Can you believe it?" and "I've never seen him up close, he's so blasé, don't you think?"
By now, not surprisingly, Piccolo gave up on talking sense with any of them.
Bulma rubbed her temples. "We need to get to the bottom of this. I'll get a reading on that black hole."
Vegeta settled himself underneath the car, which was now in the middle of a cherry tree. "I'm afraid you're going to have some trouble, girl. It's gone."
Bulma shot him an annoyed look he didn't see, nor would care if he saw it. "I know that, you dolt. But my father's not the CEO and sole founder of Capsule Corp for nothing. His genius is hereditary, you know."
"Then hurry up."
She hurried up. Quicker than you can say, "hurt pride," Bulma had all the equipment out and ready.
Goku curious poked something that looked like a sundial made out of toothpicks in neon colors. "Now what, Bulma?" he asked.
Bulma rubbed her temples again distractedly. "I'll measure the area where the region of space-time occurred. Once I particularize the location of the ingress, I'll measure the capacity of the gateway, and descry where these ignoramuses originated."
Goku, as can be expected, was hopelessly overwhelmed. "Which means...?"
Eyes almost closed, Vegeta called, "A whole lot of bull."
"Exactly what I was thinking," Number Five said, quite intent in her celebrity's conversation.
Piccolo glared at her. "Shaddup."
"Okay!"
Piccolo mumbled something inaudible and probably improper. Goku looked very much like he was about to say something, but Vegeta drawled, "Don't even bother. She's impossible when she gets technical."
"Don't worry, guys, keep heart," Bulma said cheerily. "I'll have you out of this in about ten minutes!"
"Make it five." Vegeta grumbled. "Or ten seconds. Ten seconds would be great."
The girls were now arguing over who was the prettiest. "Tell me, Kakarott."
"Yeah, Vegeta?"
"My woman excluded, is there anything inside your human female's brains besides..."
Gohan, not looking up for a second, said, "Vanity."
"Backstreet Boys," Goku suggested.
"Me," Piccolo said, at his wit's end.
"Exactly."
Goku paused in deep thought. "Yes," he said finally. There's also..."
Everyone leaned forward, Piccolo especially.
"... Food."
They fell over.
"Cooking, to be exact."
"Yes, that's all well and good," said Piccolo impatiently. "But how much longer will I have to fly?"
"You know," a Voice said thoughtfully. "I almost regret it. Poor Piccolo."
The teenyboppers squealed, Vegeta jumped and hit his head against the car, and Piccolo fell back on the ground. "Who's there?" All but Gohan called. "Nani?"
Quietly, a head popped out of the car that was now in the cherry tree. "Hello," the girl said cheerily. "And no, I'm not one of ithem./i I say, I would be pretty unhappy if I was in their situation."
Vegeta leaped from under the car to on top of it, and stared at the head. "Hey," he said loudly. "You're nothing more than a girl!"
The girl frowned. " 'Nothing more' isn't the right way to put it." She stuck out her chin. "My name, by the way, is Setsuna."
"Do we care?"
Her frown deepened. "You aren't very friendly, are you? Well, I am in an especially good mood today, myself; I haven't left the Time Gate in ages..."
Piccolo snapped to attention. "The what?"
The girl, Setsuna, waved her hand impatiently. "The Time Gate, the Time Gate. The place I guard. But I'm on leave now to do some research for my book, you see. It's a very interesting book." She jumped off the car next to Piccolo. "But then, I don't suppose you'd like to hear about it."
Piccolo blinked. "You're right, I don't."
"Ah, well." she shrugged her shoulders. "No matter." She suddenly took out a small notebook, removed a pen from her green bun, and began to scribble.
Piccolo peered over her shoulder curiously. "What's that?"
"Nothing," Setsuna said hastily. "Nothing at all."
Vegeta, however, was curious. He jumped from the car and grabbed the notebook from her hands.
"Hey!" she yelled. "Give that back!"
Coolly, Vegeta levitated until he was just out of her reach. He waved the notebook in the air. "What, this?" he asked. "You want this? I don't know, let's see what you want to hide so badly first."
"No! Please!"
Vegeta opened the notebook. His eyes widened. " 'The subject reacted with terror toward his admirers...' What in the little tailed Saiyan does that mean? Isn't this supposed to be a book?"
Setsuna turned red. "It's an experiment. It'll be summarized so that layman can read it, but for now..."
"Hey!" Vegeta said loudly. " 'The subject's admirers grabbed his cloak and tore it in half...' "
They all slowly turned to Setsuna, who tried to put on the most innocent expression she could muster.
"Hey, Setsuna," Piccolo said, stepping forward. "I get the feeling you know more than you're letting on."
Setsuna backed away. "D-don't step any closer!" she said loudly, pulling out some sort of pen and waving it wildly. "I'm not afraid to use this!"
Vegeta sneered. "We're not scared of pens. Let's move on, shall we?" he flipped a couple more pages threateningly.
"That's enough!" she cried, holding up the pen. "Pluto planet power make up!"
In a flash of light, there stood Setsuna... in the shortest skirt imaginable. "Evil beware! For I am the guardian of space and time, Sailor Pluto! Evil will tremble before..."
She broke off when she realized that no one was paying attention to her. Instead, they were all crouched around her notebook, Vegeta reading aloud.
"Hey! Pay attention!"
Vegeta looked up. "Oh. You've changed," he said in mild interest. "Do all women change their clothes that fast?"
Before she could answer, Vegeta collected energy in his palm. "You're the witness to my newest attack!" he yelled. "Crimson fireball!"
With a roar, a huge jet of flame shot from his palms. Sailor Pluto deftly blocked it with her staff. It changed its course and destroyed Bulma's third lemonade pitcher.
Bulma sighed. "This is inot/i my day."
Piccolo let out a low groan. "I don't think it's anyone's day."
Vegeta snickered, failure of his attack forgotten. "Besides the green-bean lovers."
Sailor Pluto bowed politely, but at the same time creeping toward Vegeta. "Let me introduce myself."
"But you just did," Goku said hesitantly. "Twice."
Sailor Pluto shrugged. "Well, I will again. I am Sailor Pluto, guardian of space and time.
"And Pluto, right miss?" Gohan put in.
"Yes," Sailor Pluto said solemnly.
Bulma frowned. "I thought you were Setsuna. I don't -- what are you iwearing?/i"
Sailor Pluto looked down at her fuku. Bulma didn't know whether to be impressed or disgusted.
Gohan squinted doubtfully. "Isn't it... kind of short?" he asked.
Chichi walked over and pushed Gohan's head toward his Gameboy. "And tight?" she added.
"Perfect for Master Roshi." Bulma put in.
"Oh, Kami," Piccolo exclaimed. "Am I glad he didn't show up. I've got a feeling those poor girls in those ridiculous tank tops should be thankful, too."
"I am sorry if I offend you," Sailor Pluto said, grabbing her notebook from Vegeta's hands. "This is my warrior uniform. It is mandatory to wear it."
Vegeta snorted. "Warrior indeed," he muttered.
Piccolo said, "Please explain why you are not Setsuna but Sailor Pluto, and why you are writing a book on this insane misadventure."
Sailor Pluto stuck out her chin, dropping all cryptic dignity. "Because I can, that's why. It's all in my book."
"What book?" Chichi inquired.
"iAn Otaku's Guide to Non-Anime Persons and Other Annoyances./i I'm off leave from guarding until I finish it. With any luck, I'll write a sequel."
"But why ime?/i"
"Well, that wasn't my original goal..."
"I suppose you caused the black hole that let in these dopes as well," Bulma said.
The teenyboppers were now professing love to Piccolo through weird poems that they considered elegant and romantic.
"Piccolo, Piccolo," Number Six cried, letting out a fake sob. "Why art thou a Namek? Why can't thee be... heterosexual?"
Piccolo backed away. "Don't they iever/i give up?"
"Yes," Sailor Pluto said.
"Yes what?" Vegeta asked suspiciously.
"Yes," Sailor Pluto said. "I caused the black hole. There was a convenient tear in the space-time continuum, you see. It led from itheir/i dimension," she nodded at the teenyboppers, "to ithis/i dimension. And, well, where they come from, Piccolo's a celebrity. In fact," she added, "he's the most wanted guy in all Japan."
"What?!" Piccolo yelped in pure horror.
Bulma suppressed a giggle. Barely. Vegeta flashed Piccolo a wicked grin.
"But," Piccolo faltered. "I'm... I mean... I can't even... I..." he finally settled on a comment he could understand. "What?!"
Sailor Pluto smiled. "You heard me. As your inability to love, it makes it even better. The media uses it to your advantage. The media knows its psychology, I'll give it that."
"It may be impossible," Number Thirteen admitted. "But I'll make the impossible possible."
Goku scratched his head and ate his doughnut to no avail. "How do you know all this?" he asked the sailored senshi.
She smirked. "I am not called the guardian of space and time--"
"And Pluto-" Gohan put in.
"-And Pluto, sure, for nothing."
"But..." Piccolo stammered. "How..." he let his words hang helplessly.
"That's enough, human!" Vegeta said to Sailor Pluto. "I, for one, don't want to know."
"Thank you," Piccolo said weakly.
"Who's thanking me?" Vegeta demanded. "I just don't want to know the gruesome details as to why girls should find you remotely attractive."
"He just... iis,/i" Number Nine said. "And don't insult my Piccolo!"
Goku decided to take control. "All right, girls," he said to the teenyboppers. "Calm down. You don't want to get the Prince of Vegeta angry."
Vegeta said, "Unless, of course, you want your body parts strewn across the globe." The teenyboppers cringed.
"Sailor Pluto," Goku said. "Will you get rid of these..."
"Mindless morons?" Vegeta finished.
Sailor Pluto hesitated. "Can't they stay a little longer? I could use some more research."
Piccolo picked at the shortened hem of his cloak. "Now would be better."
"But Piccolo," Number Fourteen begged. "I've been waiting forever to see you!"
"Then wait a little longer. Like forever."
"Gee, you're not as nice as YM says you are."
"What's YM? ... Never mind, don't answer that. Think of someone else to love. I'm trying to be nice."
"It's too late," Fourteen said theatrically. "I'll always love you, Piccolo, no matter what you say or do." She tilted her head and screwed her eyes shut as if expecting to get hit.
Piccolo blinked. "What the hell are you doing?"
Number Seventeen, who had been watching the affair quietly, said in surprised tones, "That's the line in your movie."
"Oh, I see -- wait a minute. My what?!"
Scribbling madly, Sailor Pluto muttered, "The subject has been saying the same phrase a lot. 'My what' 'What?' 'What's going on...' "
"Well, I still don't know what's going on!"
"You're funny," Number Twenty giggled.
The last of Piccolo's patience vanished. "Do you want me to kill you?"
"B-but," Number Twenty stammered, surprised and nervous. "YM says-"
"Forget YM!"
Piccolo unleashed a massive Devil's Corkscrew. Poor Number Twenty's hairline got shortened by several inches. Sailor Pluto continued to scribble.
"Aaaaieeeee!"
Piccolo began powering up. "I don't even know what in the Little Green Namek a YM iis!/i I'm not the same Piccolo you know! Can't that penetrate through your thick skulls?"
Goku followed the suit, ki level rising. "Piccolo!" he shouted over the din. "Calm down!"
Vegeta threw back his head and laughed maniacally. "All iright/i!" he cackled. "Now this looks like fun! Scaring little teenage girls could be just what I've been missing!"
Sailor Pluto pocketed the notebook and stuck her pencil in her bun. Trying to be heard over the terrified screams, she said, "Will everyone iplease calm down!/i"
Unfortunately, no one was about to listen to her.
The energy being released from all of the angry warriors began to form into air currents. From that, the air currents began to push against other air currents, causing many miniature tornadoes. Soon the whole group was engulfed in a whirlwind.
Spinning around, the twenty girls desperately waved their arms, trying to swim in the air to avoid the pursuing Piccolo. Bulma, on her part, was desperately trying to reach her fourth lemonade pitcher. Goku, one the third hand, was trying to use his ki to fly through the wind so he could reach Piccolo before he killed someone. Chichi, on the fourth, was calling out for Gohan to get the heck out of there. Gohan, engulfed in the wind, was floating lazily upside down, still working on his Gameboy. And as for Vegeta...
Vegeta was flying, oblivious of the tornado/hurricane, swooping low over the girls like an overgrown owl, hairline and all. The girls were screaming like there was no tomorrow and Vegeta was having the time of his life. Maniacal laughter was heard on both Vegeta and Piccolo's part. Piccolo began to look like he had a few screws loose.
Goku crept behind Piccolo, who had just cornered Number Eight.
"Think you can take my cloak, do you?" Piccolo said wickedly. "Look who's laughing now!"
Number Eight blinked very quickly, and her eyes filled with tears. "You really hate me so much, Piccolo-san?" she whispered.
Piccolo suddenly froze. "Uh, well," he stammered. "I don't ihate/i you, but-"
"Oh, GOODY!" she exclaimed.
Piccolo didn't know quite what to say, especially since he wanted to kill her. Goku used this to his advantage and quickly grabbed Piccolo.
"Hey! Let me go!" Piccolo struggled admirably -- so admirably that Goku could barely hold him.
Sailor Pluto was safely outside the carnage. The wind was dying down, so she could begin to see the forms. Gohan, hanging upside down in a tree, muttering something about Clefairy. Vegeta had two teenyboppers under each arm, floating precariously at the edge of the roof. Bulma sat dejectedly underneath the tree Gohan was residing in, fingering the remains of her fourth lemonade pitcher. Goku was on the ground, feet first, holding Piccolo in a tight grip, the latter struggling with all his might.
Noting that Piccolo was going bonkers, Sailor Pluto decided enough was enough.
"Dead... Scream!"
But instead of the usual attack (as seen in certain subtitled movies -Ed.), a screeching emits that is just about equivalent to one thousand chalkboards being scraped simultaneously by one thousand hands - and each nail on each hand had been recently manicured.
"Aaaaaieee! Stop!" they all cried, covering their ears. When she saw that girls were unharmed and everyone's potential power level had been lowered decisively, she stopped the mind melting noise.
There was a moment of empty and fully appreciated silence.
Rubbing his ears, Vegeta shot, "Next time you try that, Sailor Sap, I'll make sure you'll wish you've never been born."
Sailor Pluto was about to answer when Piccolo yelled, "Sailor Pluto, quick! Book or not, get rid of these humans before they drive me insane!"
"I think they already have," Goku said.
Chichi, Bulma and Gohan nodded wisely. Chichi gave the tree Gohan hung from a massive kick. Gohan landed neatly on the ground, the rhythm of the Gameboy unbroken.
Sailor Pluto checked her notes, gave a little nod, and waved her staff. The teenyboppers immediately disappeared. You could hear one call as if from very far away, "Wait... an autograph..."
Vegeta nodded. "Very good. Now leave before I kill you."
Sailor Pluto quirked him an un-awed grin and clutched at the middle of her bow. Suddenly she was back in her normal clothes.
"Wow," Chichi and Bulma breathed.
"Care to teach us that little trick?" Chichi asked hopefully.
Setsuna shrugged. "It's just the way my uniform works," she said.
Vegeta tapped his foot impatiently. "Well?" he demanded. "You've helped us. You can leave now."
"Vegeta!" Bulma said, shocked. "You just admitted that you needed help!"
Vegeta deadpanned. "What? It's not that... I mean..."
Goku shot Vegeta another one of those friendly winks and said, "You old softie!"
"Don't make me kill you, Kakarott."
Sailor Pluto laughed a little nervously and put her hand behind her head. "Well... actually..."
They looked at her inquisitively.
"The fan girls were only the first chapter. I need to, er, experiment some more..."
There was a muffled *thump* as everyone fell over.
"Come on, it's not that bad!"
Piccolo's eye glinted as he asked, "Oh, really?"
Vegeta cracked his knuckles. "You will promise to stop these twisted experiments."
"No! How else am I supposed to finish my book without experiments?"
Piccolo joined Vegeta in the cracking knuckles game. "Well, I guess you won't finish your book, will you?"
"What? And ruin all that work for nothing? Don't you know the only reason I get time off is because of that book?!" Setsuna glared. "I won't let you take my only chance of freedom away from me."
Coolly, but shaking slightly, Setsuna marched up to Gohan, who didn't even look up.
"What's up, Miss Pluto?" Gohan asked.
Setsuna responded by grabbing Gohan's Gameboy and leaping away.
"What? Hey, Miss Pluto, wait! My Charmeleon was gonna evolve!"
Setsuna took a running jump and landed in the car in the cherry tree.
"My Gameboy!" Gohan yelled, flying after her.
Setsuna dangled the Gameboy at the edge of the car. "You want this? Come and get it."
Gohan let out a yelp and lunged toward it, but it was too late; she had dropped it. With a sickening crack, the Gameboy landed on the ground. Gohan rushed after it.
"Hey!" Goku said. "What'd you do that for?"
Setsuna smirked slightly.
Holding the now dead (in a manner of speaking) Gameboy in his hands, Gohan looked up at Setsuna with true hate in his eyes.
"It shall be avenged!" he screamed.
Piccolo winced. "I am neutral. I am Switzerland." he opened his eyes. "Oh damn."
Gohan was glowing red as he began the temper tantrum thing. With a mighty roar, he launched an awe-inspiring ki attack at Setsuna. The latter laughed, and in a flash of light, both the car and herself vanished. The cherry tree was destroyed.
Bulma sighed and turned to go back inside. "Well, that's the end of that."
Vegeta snorted. "Like Saiyan it's the end of that. She'll be back, you can count on it."
Chichi clucked over her son. "Oh, poor Gohan. We'll buy you a new Gameboy."
"We will?" Goku asked, remembering the price.
Chichi said firmly, "We will."
Note: Piccolo swore that the next time he saw a teenybopper he was going to blast her to smithereens. Of course, those weren't his exact words. He said, "to kingdom come" instead of "smithereens". Vegeta and Goku were thankful to go down to the pub, have a stiff drink, and re-enter the wonderful world of middle age.
iComing up next: Feminists/i
"The Angry Feminists Division Gets... Angry" will be taken down, recycled, and republished as Chapter Two. If you would like to read the original (which will not be nearly as good) email me.
DragonballZ and Sailormoon don't belong to me, and I'm sick of making disclaimer jokes. So... just don't sue me, okay?
centerAn Otaku's Guide/center
Chapter One: The Teenyboppers
bTeenybopper (n.)/b
i"A teenager, usually female, who is always following the next fad or craze in clothes, music, etc. It is wise to avoid these creatures at all cost, for they can prove to be both dangerous and exasperating.
"Teenyboppers come in many shapes and sizes, but the most common are the ones who latch themselves onto the local celebrity and won't let go. If you find one doing this to, for example, Ricky Martin, run for your life and don't look back to see the fallen. Out on the teeny battlefield, it's every otaku for his or herself."/i
--uAn Otaku's Guide to Non-Anime Persons and Other Annoyances/u
It was a fairly normal day in the Son household. The usual sounds: the grunt of Piccolo as he meditated, the snarf of Goku as he sneaked a doughnut while sparring with Vegeta, the occasional beep from Gohan's new Gameboy; old sounds, good sounds, familiar sounds. Sounds that had accompanied the group of friends ever since Bulma almost ran over Goku when he was six years old.
Oh yes; and Vegeta's screaming. That was a little more recent.
"Take ithis,/i Kakarott!" Vegeta panted, executing his Big Bang attack.
Nimbly, Goku leaped out of the ki attack's way and landed onto the roof of Bulma's brand new car. "Vegeta, just admit it," Goku said, not unkindly, "You'll never defeat me. Why can't we spar iwithout/i an intent to kill?"
"Never!" Another attack was aimed at the rooster-haired warrior. Goku easily dodged it; the car had no such luck.
"Vegeta!" Bulma wailed, coming out with a lemonade pitcher. "This has gone too far! I don't have insurance on that car!"
"Oh, shut your mouth, woman!" Vegeta was now running from Goku's kamehameha. He paused, then turned to face it, arms outstretched.
"I mean it!" Bulma shouted over the din, "Maybe you two should take a bre-"
Bulma was abruptly cut off as Vegeta blocked Goku's kamehameha in a flash of light. It whirled around and hit Bulma's new crystal pitcher, splattering lemonade all over her face. Throughout this she stood stock still in absolute boredom.
She sighed. "I guess not."
Meanwhile, Gohan was whispering encouraging comments to his Gameboy, his fingers moving rapidly between the A and B buttons. Piccolo opened one eye and said, "Gohan, will you shut that racket off?"
Gohan didn't answer.
Louder, "Shut that annoying jumble of notes off, will you?"
Gohan glanced up momentarily, then immediately turned back to his Gameboy. Still playing, he said, "But Piccolo-san, I'm right in the middle of a battle with a dangerous Staryu!"
"So?"
"So, I can't my eyes off it for a second. If I left my Charmeleon's guard down, and reached all the way over to the little volume thing..." he shuddered. "I'll ilose./i"
"So what?"
"But then I'd have to start all over again! And then I could inever/i get my Charmeleon to evolve into a Charazard."
Piccolo blinked. "Nani?"
"Well, you see, Mr. Piccolo, this game's called Pokemon. What you have to do-"
"No, I wasn't nani-ing at your stupid video game. I was nani-ing at that power rating."
"What do you mean?"
Piccolo nodded toward a spot a few feet away. As they looked at it, a hole began to form in the air.
Bulma came out with a new pitcher of lemonade. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Hmm?" Vegeta looked up from his headlock on Goku. "What is it, green bean?"
Piccolo said nothing except, "Look."
Slowly, the hole expanded. Goku walked over curiously, asking, "Hey guys, what's going on? What's that hole doing there?"
Vegeta sneered at Goku in contempt. "If we knew, do you think we'd just be standing here? Baka."
Gohan hadn't gotten up. He was still sitting on the grass, playing his Pokemon game. Piccolo looked disgusted.
"Look at that kid," he said, "I'm telling you, that game is evil."
Chichi came out of the house, waved aside the fact that a tear in the space-time continuum was forming in her backyard, and said, "It is not! Gohan's just exercising his computer skills, aren't you, sweetie?"
"Uh-huh."
Piccolo stopped in mid-snort -- which, might I add, is a peculiar sight -- as someone stepped out of the hole, to reveal...
"A... a igirl?/i" Bulma stammered.
The girl in question blinked her eyes, trying to get used to the sunlight. "Hello there," she said brightly. Three other girls stepped out of the hole.
"Day so soon?" one asked.
"I thought it was night," the third one said.
"At a concert," the first put in.
"A Backstreet Boys concert, to be precise," added the fourth.
"Backstreet Boys?" Goku asked the girls. "What's that?"
Vegeta eyed the girls warily. "I don't think I want to know."
While the girls talked happily about the concert, more stepped out of the hole, all chatting in high, cheerful voices. The hole began to shrink.
"What in the name of Kami is Ricky Martin?" Goku asked after trying to talk to one particularly frustrating girl. He received no answer.
Piccolo, who had been silent and unnoticed through all the excitement, now said, "Whoever you are, get back to where you came from. The hole's shrinking."
"What?" a girl (who to simplify matters we will call Number Thirteen) asked. "Who's there?"
Still blinking from the sudden light, the girl looked at Piccolo. Her eyes widened and she began to gape.
Dramatically, she called to the others, "It's... it's iHim./i"
The other girls turned to react the same way.
"I... I can't believe it..." Number Ten stammered. "It really is iHim.../i"
The way the girls said iHim/i made you want to see the first letter in capitals, it being the right and proper thing to do, somehow.
The girls all stared at the Namek with equal expressions of shock. Then suddenly Number Twenty recovered.
"PICCOLO!" she cried, and ran toward him. Piccolo cringed.
"N-nani? I --"
Piccolo stopped in mid-sentence as a stampede of crazed female girls almost crushed Vegeta in an insane attempt to get to him. Bulma rushed over to the Saiyan prince and grabbed his arm. "Vegeta! Are you hurt?"
Vegeta scowled. "Just my pride. Help me up, woman!"
Piccolo now was running for his life around the Son's backyard, trying to shake off the teenage girls who apparently ate one too many tons of sugar for breakfast.
"What the hell are you doing?" Piccolo shouted over his shoulder.
And the girls cried, "Oh, Piccolo! You're so handsome when you sweat! Don't be afraid: we LOVE you!"
"WHAT?!"
Piccolo screeched to a halt. He began to fly away, but Number Eight, a brunette who looks suspiciously like our author, grabbed his cape.
"Get off of me NOW!" Piccolo shouted, but in vain. He tried to shake her off, and this triggered a fierce battle. It was a tug-of-war -- twenty teenyboppers (if you didn't know that's what they were) versus one very ruffled Namek.
"Piccolo, what's wrong?"
"We just want a souvenir!"
"At this rate I'll have nothing left! Let go of my cloak, you idiots!"
It continued like this for a while. Presently Bulma made a new batch of lemonade, and all of them, even Vegeta, settled down to watch the show. Bets were placed; Goku was positive Piccolo would make it, but Vegeta felt he underestimated the power of girls in fits of passion; look at Bulma. Whereupon Bulma shattered her second lemonade pitcher on Vegeta's head.
It ended up as a tie. The group of teenyboppers gave Piccolo's cloak a hard tug just as Piccolo went into overdrive. His cloak tore in half, but he escaped. He settled down just above their reach, sitting Indian-style in midair.
"Well, who won the bet?" Yamcha asked lazily.
"Depends," Vegeta said. "Which end of the cloak is bigger, Piccolo's or the girls'?"
"Hey!" Piccolo yelled. "In case you haven't noticed, iI'm/i the one with the problems at the moment. Will you chowderheads quit arguing over a few measly yen and help me over here?"
"That's telling 'em, Piccolo-san," Gohan called, still sitting and playing his Gameboy.
"Proper grammar, Gohan," Chichi warned. "We will use words in their full form, understand me? No slang talk from my son! Nuh-uh!"
"Whaddya reckon 'nuh-uh' is, 'Kaasan?"
"Don't talk back to your elders."
"Well," said Piccolo in desperation, "If you won't stop sidetracking with your arguments, will you at least tell me what the hell just happened? Not that I want to bother your lovely conversations, of course. I was just a bit busy at the time."
Vegeta favored Piccolo with the classic 'amused-and-evil' smirk. "Don't ask me. I figured a green bean like you would be single for ever."
Piccolo now looked like he was about to kill somebody. "Nameks are isupposed/i to stay single! It's their ijob!/i Why-"
He broke off abruptly as he observed with evident distaste that all twenty of the girls were in a free-for-all over who got to keep the other half of his cape.
"Looks like you've got some admirers, buddy!" Goku called, winking.
Piccolo made a mental note to kill Goku as soon as he had a chance.
"But I don't iwant/i admirers! I'm a Namek! I'm asexual, for Kami's sake!"
"Looks like you don't have much of a choice," Vegeta snickered. "I doubt they'll back down that easy."
"Vegeta," Piccolo said coaxingly, "You've got a bigger ego than any of us. A group of admirers should feed it nicely. YOU take them.
Vegeta looked... intrigued, but Bulma slapped him on the head. "Er," he said hastily, "One of these human females is about all I can take. Besides, it looks like it'll be more entertaining if I leave them to you."
"Yamcha..." Piccolo said helplessly.
Bulma said quickly, "Yamcha has a girlfriend already. Looks like he was able to replace me just fine. Of all the -- hey, I see you!"
This last comment was directed to Yamcha, who, hearing a familiar trap being set, was wisely backing away.
"Um," Yamcha said, "Mieko and I have a date planned, gotta run. Too bad about the girls, though." With that, he ran for his life.
"Would you believe it!" Bulma exploded. "The coward!"
"Quiet, woman."
"No, Vegeta, I will not be quiet! I'm having a tough time here, if you all won't mind!"
Piccolo stared at her. "No, we don't mind. You'd think she was the one who was being chased by twenty... ithings.../i"
Number Twelve said helpfully, "My name's Ruth."
"Oh, Ruth?" Piccolo scratched his head. "What a boring name."
"Woman, I'm warning you... the High Prince..."
"Wake up, Vegeta. Your stupid planet's gone. There is no more kingdom."
Meanwhile, Gohan was doggedly working at his game. At the sound of a very well known and not really cherished argument, he lifted his head.
"Hey, guys," he called. "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to -- hey, Piccolo-san, what are those girls doing to your cloak?"
"Tearing it to pieces." Piccolo heaved an exasperated sigh that shut everyone up, at least for the moment. "Can someone tell me how those girls got here, and why they're in love with me?"
Then Gohan asked a perfectly innocent question that caused the explosion. "All of them?" he inquired. "Well, which one are you going to marry?"
At the sound of this, as I said before, perfectly innocent question, the teenyboppers looked up. They stood before Piccolo, a huddled group, looking at him expectantly.
Piccolo turned pale. "I'm not gonna marry iany/i of 'em! They're all inuts!/i"
Chichi clicked her tongue. "Proper grammar, proper grammar," she said to no one in particular.
Gohan now asked a safer, yet equally innocent question. "Is that why they love you?"
"Exactly," Bulma said, now a little more composed.
"No one in their right minds would love Piccolo," said Chichi. "No offense."
"None taken."
"Hey, I resent that remark very strongly," said Number Five.
"You," Piccolo said, standing at his full height of six feet and nine inches, still floating in midair, "Stay out of this."
Number Five blushed and stared at him with shining eyes. Seeing "the look," he backed away several feet. Number Five giggled, waved, and ran back to the rest of the group, squealing quietly. Occasionally you heard snatches like, "He talked to me!" or "Can you believe it?" and "I've never seen him up close, he's so blasé, don't you think?"
By now, not surprisingly, Piccolo gave up on talking sense with any of them.
Bulma rubbed her temples. "We need to get to the bottom of this. I'll get a reading on that black hole."
Vegeta settled himself underneath the car, which was now in the middle of a cherry tree. "I'm afraid you're going to have some trouble, girl. It's gone."
Bulma shot him an annoyed look he didn't see, nor would care if he saw it. "I know that, you dolt. But my father's not the CEO and sole founder of Capsule Corp for nothing. His genius is hereditary, you know."
"Then hurry up."
She hurried up. Quicker than you can say, "hurt pride," Bulma had all the equipment out and ready.
Goku curious poked something that looked like a sundial made out of toothpicks in neon colors. "Now what, Bulma?" he asked.
Bulma rubbed her temples again distractedly. "I'll measure the area where the region of space-time occurred. Once I particularize the location of the ingress, I'll measure the capacity of the gateway, and descry where these ignoramuses originated."
Goku, as can be expected, was hopelessly overwhelmed. "Which means...?"
Eyes almost closed, Vegeta called, "A whole lot of bull."
"Exactly what I was thinking," Number Five said, quite intent in her celebrity's conversation.
Piccolo glared at her. "Shaddup."
"Okay!"
Piccolo mumbled something inaudible and probably improper. Goku looked very much like he was about to say something, but Vegeta drawled, "Don't even bother. She's impossible when she gets technical."
"Don't worry, guys, keep heart," Bulma said cheerily. "I'll have you out of this in about ten minutes!"
"Make it five." Vegeta grumbled. "Or ten seconds. Ten seconds would be great."
The girls were now arguing over who was the prettiest. "Tell me, Kakarott."
"Yeah, Vegeta?"
"My woman excluded, is there anything inside your human female's brains besides..."
Gohan, not looking up for a second, said, "Vanity."
"Backstreet Boys," Goku suggested.
"Me," Piccolo said, at his wit's end.
"Exactly."
Goku paused in deep thought. "Yes," he said finally. There's also..."
Everyone leaned forward, Piccolo especially.
"... Food."
They fell over.
"Cooking, to be exact."
"Yes, that's all well and good," said Piccolo impatiently. "But how much longer will I have to fly?"
"You know," a Voice said thoughtfully. "I almost regret it. Poor Piccolo."
The teenyboppers squealed, Vegeta jumped and hit his head against the car, and Piccolo fell back on the ground. "Who's there?" All but Gohan called. "Nani?"
Quietly, a head popped out of the car that was now in the cherry tree. "Hello," the girl said cheerily. "And no, I'm not one of ithem./i I say, I would be pretty unhappy if I was in their situation."
Vegeta leaped from under the car to on top of it, and stared at the head. "Hey," he said loudly. "You're nothing more than a girl!"
The girl frowned. " 'Nothing more' isn't the right way to put it." She stuck out her chin. "My name, by the way, is Setsuna."
"Do we care?"
Her frown deepened. "You aren't very friendly, are you? Well, I am in an especially good mood today, myself; I haven't left the Time Gate in ages..."
Piccolo snapped to attention. "The what?"
The girl, Setsuna, waved her hand impatiently. "The Time Gate, the Time Gate. The place I guard. But I'm on leave now to do some research for my book, you see. It's a very interesting book." She jumped off the car next to Piccolo. "But then, I don't suppose you'd like to hear about it."
Piccolo blinked. "You're right, I don't."
"Ah, well." she shrugged her shoulders. "No matter." She suddenly took out a small notebook, removed a pen from her green bun, and began to scribble.
Piccolo peered over her shoulder curiously. "What's that?"
"Nothing," Setsuna said hastily. "Nothing at all."
Vegeta, however, was curious. He jumped from the car and grabbed the notebook from her hands.
"Hey!" she yelled. "Give that back!"
Coolly, Vegeta levitated until he was just out of her reach. He waved the notebook in the air. "What, this?" he asked. "You want this? I don't know, let's see what you want to hide so badly first."
"No! Please!"
Vegeta opened the notebook. His eyes widened. " 'The subject reacted with terror toward his admirers...' What in the little tailed Saiyan does that mean? Isn't this supposed to be a book?"
Setsuna turned red. "It's an experiment. It'll be summarized so that layman can read it, but for now..."
"Hey!" Vegeta said loudly. " 'The subject's admirers grabbed his cloak and tore it in half...' "
They all slowly turned to Setsuna, who tried to put on the most innocent expression she could muster.
"Hey, Setsuna," Piccolo said, stepping forward. "I get the feeling you know more than you're letting on."
Setsuna backed away. "D-don't step any closer!" she said loudly, pulling out some sort of pen and waving it wildly. "I'm not afraid to use this!"
Vegeta sneered. "We're not scared of pens. Let's move on, shall we?" he flipped a couple more pages threateningly.
"That's enough!" she cried, holding up the pen. "Pluto planet power make up!"
In a flash of light, there stood Setsuna... in the shortest skirt imaginable. "Evil beware! For I am the guardian of space and time, Sailor Pluto! Evil will tremble before..."
She broke off when she realized that no one was paying attention to her. Instead, they were all crouched around her notebook, Vegeta reading aloud.
"Hey! Pay attention!"
Vegeta looked up. "Oh. You've changed," he said in mild interest. "Do all women change their clothes that fast?"
Before she could answer, Vegeta collected energy in his palm. "You're the witness to my newest attack!" he yelled. "Crimson fireball!"
With a roar, a huge jet of flame shot from his palms. Sailor Pluto deftly blocked it with her staff. It changed its course and destroyed Bulma's third lemonade pitcher.
Bulma sighed. "This is inot/i my day."
Piccolo let out a low groan. "I don't think it's anyone's day."
Vegeta snickered, failure of his attack forgotten. "Besides the green-bean lovers."
Sailor Pluto bowed politely, but at the same time creeping toward Vegeta. "Let me introduce myself."
"But you just did," Goku said hesitantly. "Twice."
Sailor Pluto shrugged. "Well, I will again. I am Sailor Pluto, guardian of space and time.
"And Pluto, right miss?" Gohan put in.
"Yes," Sailor Pluto said solemnly.
Bulma frowned. "I thought you were Setsuna. I don't -- what are you iwearing?/i"
Sailor Pluto looked down at her fuku. Bulma didn't know whether to be impressed or disgusted.
Gohan squinted doubtfully. "Isn't it... kind of short?" he asked.
Chichi walked over and pushed Gohan's head toward his Gameboy. "And tight?" she added.
"Perfect for Master Roshi." Bulma put in.
"Oh, Kami," Piccolo exclaimed. "Am I glad he didn't show up. I've got a feeling those poor girls in those ridiculous tank tops should be thankful, too."
"I am sorry if I offend you," Sailor Pluto said, grabbing her notebook from Vegeta's hands. "This is my warrior uniform. It is mandatory to wear it."
Vegeta snorted. "Warrior indeed," he muttered.
Piccolo said, "Please explain why you are not Setsuna but Sailor Pluto, and why you are writing a book on this insane misadventure."
Sailor Pluto stuck out her chin, dropping all cryptic dignity. "Because I can, that's why. It's all in my book."
"What book?" Chichi inquired.
"iAn Otaku's Guide to Non-Anime Persons and Other Annoyances./i I'm off leave from guarding until I finish it. With any luck, I'll write a sequel."
"But why ime?/i"
"Well, that wasn't my original goal..."
"I suppose you caused the black hole that let in these dopes as well," Bulma said.
The teenyboppers were now professing love to Piccolo through weird poems that they considered elegant and romantic.
"Piccolo, Piccolo," Number Six cried, letting out a fake sob. "Why art thou a Namek? Why can't thee be... heterosexual?"
Piccolo backed away. "Don't they iever/i give up?"
"Yes," Sailor Pluto said.
"Yes what?" Vegeta asked suspiciously.
"Yes," Sailor Pluto said. "I caused the black hole. There was a convenient tear in the space-time continuum, you see. It led from itheir/i dimension," she nodded at the teenyboppers, "to ithis/i dimension. And, well, where they come from, Piccolo's a celebrity. In fact," she added, "he's the most wanted guy in all Japan."
"What?!" Piccolo yelped in pure horror.
Bulma suppressed a giggle. Barely. Vegeta flashed Piccolo a wicked grin.
"But," Piccolo faltered. "I'm... I mean... I can't even... I..." he finally settled on a comment he could understand. "What?!"
Sailor Pluto smiled. "You heard me. As your inability to love, it makes it even better. The media uses it to your advantage. The media knows its psychology, I'll give it that."
"It may be impossible," Number Thirteen admitted. "But I'll make the impossible possible."
Goku scratched his head and ate his doughnut to no avail. "How do you know all this?" he asked the sailored senshi.
She smirked. "I am not called the guardian of space and time--"
"And Pluto-" Gohan put in.
"-And Pluto, sure, for nothing."
"But..." Piccolo stammered. "How..." he let his words hang helplessly.
"That's enough, human!" Vegeta said to Sailor Pluto. "I, for one, don't want to know."
"Thank you," Piccolo said weakly.
"Who's thanking me?" Vegeta demanded. "I just don't want to know the gruesome details as to why girls should find you remotely attractive."
"He just... iis,/i" Number Nine said. "And don't insult my Piccolo!"
Goku decided to take control. "All right, girls," he said to the teenyboppers. "Calm down. You don't want to get the Prince of Vegeta angry."
Vegeta said, "Unless, of course, you want your body parts strewn across the globe." The teenyboppers cringed.
"Sailor Pluto," Goku said. "Will you get rid of these..."
"Mindless morons?" Vegeta finished.
Sailor Pluto hesitated. "Can't they stay a little longer? I could use some more research."
Piccolo picked at the shortened hem of his cloak. "Now would be better."
"But Piccolo," Number Fourteen begged. "I've been waiting forever to see you!"
"Then wait a little longer. Like forever."
"Gee, you're not as nice as YM says you are."
"What's YM? ... Never mind, don't answer that. Think of someone else to love. I'm trying to be nice."
"It's too late," Fourteen said theatrically. "I'll always love you, Piccolo, no matter what you say or do." She tilted her head and screwed her eyes shut as if expecting to get hit.
Piccolo blinked. "What the hell are you doing?"
Number Seventeen, who had been watching the affair quietly, said in surprised tones, "That's the line in your movie."
"Oh, I see -- wait a minute. My what?!"
Scribbling madly, Sailor Pluto muttered, "The subject has been saying the same phrase a lot. 'My what' 'What?' 'What's going on...' "
"Well, I still don't know what's going on!"
"You're funny," Number Twenty giggled.
The last of Piccolo's patience vanished. "Do you want me to kill you?"
"B-but," Number Twenty stammered, surprised and nervous. "YM says-"
"Forget YM!"
Piccolo unleashed a massive Devil's Corkscrew. Poor Number Twenty's hairline got shortened by several inches. Sailor Pluto continued to scribble.
"Aaaaieeeee!"
Piccolo began powering up. "I don't even know what in the Little Green Namek a YM iis!/i I'm not the same Piccolo you know! Can't that penetrate through your thick skulls?"
Goku followed the suit, ki level rising. "Piccolo!" he shouted over the din. "Calm down!"
Vegeta threw back his head and laughed maniacally. "All iright/i!" he cackled. "Now this looks like fun! Scaring little teenage girls could be just what I've been missing!"
Sailor Pluto pocketed the notebook and stuck her pencil in her bun. Trying to be heard over the terrified screams, she said, "Will everyone iplease calm down!/i"
Unfortunately, no one was about to listen to her.
The energy being released from all of the angry warriors began to form into air currents. From that, the air currents began to push against other air currents, causing many miniature tornadoes. Soon the whole group was engulfed in a whirlwind.
Spinning around, the twenty girls desperately waved their arms, trying to swim in the air to avoid the pursuing Piccolo. Bulma, on her part, was desperately trying to reach her fourth lemonade pitcher. Goku, one the third hand, was trying to use his ki to fly through the wind so he could reach Piccolo before he killed someone. Chichi, on the fourth, was calling out for Gohan to get the heck out of there. Gohan, engulfed in the wind, was floating lazily upside down, still working on his Gameboy. And as for Vegeta...
Vegeta was flying, oblivious of the tornado/hurricane, swooping low over the girls like an overgrown owl, hairline and all. The girls were screaming like there was no tomorrow and Vegeta was having the time of his life. Maniacal laughter was heard on both Vegeta and Piccolo's part. Piccolo began to look like he had a few screws loose.
Goku crept behind Piccolo, who had just cornered Number Eight.
"Think you can take my cloak, do you?" Piccolo said wickedly. "Look who's laughing now!"
Number Eight blinked very quickly, and her eyes filled with tears. "You really hate me so much, Piccolo-san?" she whispered.
Piccolo suddenly froze. "Uh, well," he stammered. "I don't ihate/i you, but-"
"Oh, GOODY!" she exclaimed.
Piccolo didn't know quite what to say, especially since he wanted to kill her. Goku used this to his advantage and quickly grabbed Piccolo.
"Hey! Let me go!" Piccolo struggled admirably -- so admirably that Goku could barely hold him.
Sailor Pluto was safely outside the carnage. The wind was dying down, so she could begin to see the forms. Gohan, hanging upside down in a tree, muttering something about Clefairy. Vegeta had two teenyboppers under each arm, floating precariously at the edge of the roof. Bulma sat dejectedly underneath the tree Gohan was residing in, fingering the remains of her fourth lemonade pitcher. Goku was on the ground, feet first, holding Piccolo in a tight grip, the latter struggling with all his might.
Noting that Piccolo was going bonkers, Sailor Pluto decided enough was enough.
"Dead... Scream!"
But instead of the usual attack (as seen in certain subtitled movies -Ed.), a screeching emits that is just about equivalent to one thousand chalkboards being scraped simultaneously by one thousand hands - and each nail on each hand had been recently manicured.
"Aaaaaieee! Stop!" they all cried, covering their ears. When she saw that girls were unharmed and everyone's potential power level had been lowered decisively, she stopped the mind melting noise.
There was a moment of empty and fully appreciated silence.
Rubbing his ears, Vegeta shot, "Next time you try that, Sailor Sap, I'll make sure you'll wish you've never been born."
Sailor Pluto was about to answer when Piccolo yelled, "Sailor Pluto, quick! Book or not, get rid of these humans before they drive me insane!"
"I think they already have," Goku said.
Chichi, Bulma and Gohan nodded wisely. Chichi gave the tree Gohan hung from a massive kick. Gohan landed neatly on the ground, the rhythm of the Gameboy unbroken.
Sailor Pluto checked her notes, gave a little nod, and waved her staff. The teenyboppers immediately disappeared. You could hear one call as if from very far away, "Wait... an autograph..."
Vegeta nodded. "Very good. Now leave before I kill you."
Sailor Pluto quirked him an un-awed grin and clutched at the middle of her bow. Suddenly she was back in her normal clothes.
"Wow," Chichi and Bulma breathed.
"Care to teach us that little trick?" Chichi asked hopefully.
Setsuna shrugged. "It's just the way my uniform works," she said.
Vegeta tapped his foot impatiently. "Well?" he demanded. "You've helped us. You can leave now."
"Vegeta!" Bulma said, shocked. "You just admitted that you needed help!"
Vegeta deadpanned. "What? It's not that... I mean..."
Goku shot Vegeta another one of those friendly winks and said, "You old softie!"
"Don't make me kill you, Kakarott."
Sailor Pluto laughed a little nervously and put her hand behind her head. "Well... actually..."
They looked at her inquisitively.
"The fan girls were only the first chapter. I need to, er, experiment some more..."
There was a muffled *thump* as everyone fell over.
"Come on, it's not that bad!"
Piccolo's eye glinted as he asked, "Oh, really?"
Vegeta cracked his knuckles. "You will promise to stop these twisted experiments."
"No! How else am I supposed to finish my book without experiments?"
Piccolo joined Vegeta in the cracking knuckles game. "Well, I guess you won't finish your book, will you?"
"What? And ruin all that work for nothing? Don't you know the only reason I get time off is because of that book?!" Setsuna glared. "I won't let you take my only chance of freedom away from me."
Coolly, but shaking slightly, Setsuna marched up to Gohan, who didn't even look up.
"What's up, Miss Pluto?" Gohan asked.
Setsuna responded by grabbing Gohan's Gameboy and leaping away.
"What? Hey, Miss Pluto, wait! My Charmeleon was gonna evolve!"
Setsuna took a running jump and landed in the car in the cherry tree.
"My Gameboy!" Gohan yelled, flying after her.
Setsuna dangled the Gameboy at the edge of the car. "You want this? Come and get it."
Gohan let out a yelp and lunged toward it, but it was too late; she had dropped it. With a sickening crack, the Gameboy landed on the ground. Gohan rushed after it.
"Hey!" Goku said. "What'd you do that for?"
Setsuna smirked slightly.
Holding the now dead (in a manner of speaking) Gameboy in his hands, Gohan looked up at Setsuna with true hate in his eyes.
"It shall be avenged!" he screamed.
Piccolo winced. "I am neutral. I am Switzerland." he opened his eyes. "Oh damn."
Gohan was glowing red as he began the temper tantrum thing. With a mighty roar, he launched an awe-inspiring ki attack at Setsuna. The latter laughed, and in a flash of light, both the car and herself vanished. The cherry tree was destroyed.
Bulma sighed and turned to go back inside. "Well, that's the end of that."
Vegeta snorted. "Like Saiyan it's the end of that. She'll be back, you can count on it."
Chichi clucked over her son. "Oh, poor Gohan. We'll buy you a new Gameboy."
"We will?" Goku asked, remembering the price.
Chichi said firmly, "We will."
Note: Piccolo swore that the next time he saw a teenybopper he was going to blast her to smithereens. Of course, those weren't his exact words. He said, "to kingdom come" instead of "smithereens". Vegeta and Goku were thankful to go down to the pub, have a stiff drink, and re-enter the wonderful world of middle age.
iComing up next: Feminists/i
"The Angry Feminists Division Gets... Angry" will be taken down, recycled, and republished as Chapter Two. If you would like to read the original (which will not be nearly as good) email me.