Innocent Beginnings

Videl Satan was on the hunt.

Blue eyes scanned over all the surrounding bushes and glanced up at low hanging tree branches as she searched for her elusive quarry, a determined frown set on her young face that never wavered even as each potential hiding spot came up short.

Her target was smart, but he didn't play this game with anyone except for other her and Videl was the best hide-and-seeker in her class. She NEVER lost. Not even when Sharpner tried to hide by climbing up a tree to get on the roof of their preschool, a move that backfired since he was too scared to climb back down after she found him and the teacher had to call a fire truck so he could be rescued.

She didn't have to worry about anything like that today though. Her current target wasn't as reckless as the trouble-making blond boy at her preschool. He wouldn't do anything that could hurt someone just to win a game, so if she stayed patient and kept her eyes peeled she was bound to see him sooner or later.

Sure enough after a few more minutes of searching her playmate was betrayed by a furry brown tail sticking out from the hollow log that had fallen from a downed tree. Grinning in triumph, Videl crept around to the other end of the log, silent and careful to keep out of sight, before peering upside down into the opening into her friend's startled eyes.

"BOO!" She shouted, making the boy yelp and jump straight up, which lead to him banging the top of his head loudly against the log he was hiding in. Videl toppled over, cackling loudly as the boy crawled out of his hiding spot, pouting as he nursed the now tender bump on his skull.

"That was mean," he whined as he sat down on the dirt next to Videl while she struggled to regain her breath. It had taken her ages to get her friend to the point where he wasn't scared of messing up his clothes and making his mom mad, but she was glad she got through to him and got him to loosen up a little because he was way more fun to play with when he wasn't worrying all the time.

Though honestly, even his worrying could be kinda funny from time to time, like when he panicked and squirmed over Videl doing something dangerous or scary like climbing large trees or jumping off a big cliff into the water fully clothed until she managed to entice him into joining her. He was so expressive in his own, timid sort of way, and she always welcomes the chance to get him to come out of his shell a little.

"S-sorry," Videl giggled, grinning at her friend in a shameless and unapologetic sort of way as his pouting got even more pronounced, "it was kinda funny though."

"Was not," was the reply grumbled at her. Videl just bit back more giggles in response.

"Come on, don't be mad Gohan. Tell you what, you can pick the next game we play," she relented by way of compromise. Gohan brightened at the offering before thinking hard about his options.

"Can we do riddles?" He asked at last with a shy sort of excitement, his tail wagging excitedly behind him. Videl wrinkled her nose a little at the suggestion. She was terrible at riddles. Seeing her expression, Gohan deflated, tail drooping like a wilting flower, "w-we don't have to if you don't want to!" he assured her, "I can think of something else to do," for a second, Videl was tempted to push him to do just that, but she had told him that he could pick the next game, and he hardly ever asked to play riddles with her since he knew she didn't like them.

"No, It's fine. We can do riddles," Videl agreed, smiling when her friend cheered happily at her agreement. It was kinda frustrating but really riddles weren't so bad, if it was just every once in a while to make her strange friend happy.

"You go first!" Gohan urged her, crossing his legs and leaning forward a bit as he waited eagerly for Videl's response. By their normal rules, he should have been the one to start their game since it was the one he wanted to play, but Videl wasn't going to complain if he wanted to let her have the first turn. Telling a riddle was the easy part, after all, the one who had to guess the answer had the hard job.

"What can you catch, but never throw?" she asked, remembering a rather good riddle she'd heard from her teacher a week ago in school and held onto for this occasion. She didn't think the riddle would actually stump him very long, but she'd liked it and thought it was rather clever when she heard it.

"A cold," Gohan answered confidently, grinning when Videl blew him a raspberry at his quick answer, "alright, my turn. There's only one letter that's never been on the Periodic Table of Elements. Which letter is it?"

"The what?" Videl asked, gaping at her friend in confusion.

"The Periodic Table of Elements," he repeated, "it's a table for the chemical elements that's organized by atomic numbers, electrons, and chemical properties," as he explained this to her, Gohan picked up a nearby stick and began to draw boxes into the dirt as Videl watched on curiously, "there are 118 elements, and each one has one or two letters that symbolize each specific element. But there's one letter that has never appeared on the Periodic Table at all. Which one is it?"

"Uuuuh… 'V?" Videl guessed. She knew from experience that the first letter of her name was rarely used for anything.

"Nope. Vanadium's symbol is 'V' and Livermortium is 'Lv,' so it's on there twice," Gohan said, smiling as he wrote a V and Lv in two of the boxes he had drawn, "this is a hard one, so I'll let you have five guesses this time instead of the usual three, if you want."

"Gee, thanks," Videl muttered grumpily before sighing and examining her friend's hand drawn table again, "okay, so how about 'Q' then?" She grinned a little as Gohan frowned thoughtfully at her answer.

"That one's a little trickier," he admitted, "see, technically 'Q' isn't on the table anymore, but at one point the element Flerovium was called Ununquadium, and used the symbol 'Uuq' before they switched it to 'Fl.'"

"Hey, that's cheating!" Videl pouted indignantly, "if it's name was changed and the letter 'Q' isn't there anymore, then it shouldn't count!"

"The riddle is that the letter is the only one that's never EVER been on the periodic table, not the ones that aren't on it now," Gohan countered, oddly bold. But then, it was always that way for him, when it came to stuff like book smarts and science, "but since you technically got that one right, I'll give you a hint. It's one of the first 10 letters of the alphabet."

"Alright, so A's gotta be there somewhere..." Videl said, frowning hard in concentration as she thought through the rest of her options. 'B' was a maybe, but she wasn't gonna bet on it. 'C,' 'D,' and 'E' were probably there too. 'F' was for sure, since he's just said something about that Fler-whatchamacallit. 'G'… another maybe. 'H' and 'I' had to be there, too. And all that left was "...'J?'"

"Yep! You got it!" Gohan said, giving her a proud grin. "And you did it in three guesses too! You didn't need any of the extras at all!"

"Yeah, because you gave me a hint," she grumbled. But despite that, she still felt pretty proud of herself. She didn't do all the extra reading and studying her friend did all day, so it felt good when she didn't get completely stumped by one of his brainiac questions.

Now it only she could stump HIM for a change.

"How many seconds are in a year?" Videl asked, grinning in confidence. She felt a little more cocky about this one. Her friend, however, frowned at her suspiciously.

"Well… normally, the answer would be 31,557,600, but you don't like math like that, so I don't think you mean it that way…" He said, looking thoughtful. Videl pouted a little, disappointed that he didn't fall for her trap and give her the obvious answer he clearly knew so she could claim the victory, "oh, I get it! It's not 'seconds!' it's 2nds! The answer's 12, isn't it?"

"Yep. You got it," Videl admitted unenthusiastically with a slight groan as her companion gave a cheer before grinning at her and throwing her his next riddle.

"I have a little house in which I live all alone. It has no doors or windows, and if I want to go out I must break through the wall. What am I?"

"An ant?" Videl guessed with a frown.

"Nope!" Gohan replied, shaking his head, "actually, ant colonies can be really big. There is one recorded Supercolony that's over 6,000 km long."

"Seriously?" Videl asked, equal parts fascinated and horrified at imagining that many ants in one place. While she wasn't quite as squirmish about insects as many other girls in her class, even she had her limitations when it came to that sort of thing, "bugs are so freaky."

"They're not so bad all the time. My mother keeps some beehives for honey and to pollinate the fields, and we have some really pretty swallowtail butterflies that live around my home. Like the Birdwing Butterfly, that one's over 25 cm long!" Gohan told her happily as he held his hands out to emphasise the size of the insect in question.

"Wow, that big?" Videl said, perking up with a look of awe, "I wanna see! Show me, show me!" Gohan grinned at her excitement before closing his eyes tightly. A few seconds later, the scenery around them began to ripple, shifting and changing as the forest around them melted away like mist. Suddenly Videl found herself in a meadow, surrounded by beautiful flowers she'd never seen before with butterflies of all shapes, size, and color all around her. Some were just tiny white insects as big as her thumbnail, but the largest ones were massive, with flashy black wings that had blue-green markings on them. Videl gasped in awe at the incredible sight around her.

"That's one right there," Gohan told her pointing at the large butterfly with the blue-green markings that Videl had been admiring as it took to the sky, "it's a boy, you can tell because it has the pretty colors. Girl butterflies are usually brown so they blend in with their surroundings better, that way they're safe to lay eggs and stuff without getting eaten by their predators," grinning, Videl jumped to her feet and grabbed her friend by the wrist, ignoring his yelp of surprise as she hauled him behind her while she chased down the fleeing insect.

"Come on!" Videl urged him excitedly, "let's catch it! Hurry, before it flies away!" caught up in her enthusiasm, Gohan eagerly picked up his pace to run alongside her. Their mad dash through the field surprised all the other butterflies in the meadow into taking flight as well, resulting in a chaotic swarm of color all around them, which just thrilled Videl even more. Laughing wildly, the girl spun in place as she took in the sight around her while her friend giggled happily right alongside her.

"Hey, I see it!" Gohan exclaimed suddenly, grabbing her arm much like she had done to him earlier, "this way, Videl! Hurry!" Videl didn't know how he could make out anything specific in all the color and movement that surrounded them, but trusted her friend enough to follow him nonetheless, staying close to his heels as the two of them ran through the swarming insects until they broke free from the mess and made their way into the surrounding forest.

"Oooh! I see it now too!" Videl said, brightening when she caught a glimpse of the butterfly as it darted through the leaves. Grinning deviously, Videl darted ahead of Gohan, calling over her shoulder, "betcha I catch it first!"

"Hey! That's not fair!" The boy protested as she raced off, giggling wickedly to herself. It was WAY too much fun to tease Gohan sometimes. He always had the best reactions. Already she could hear him flustering around behind her to try to catch up, but Videl was nothing if not competitive. Quickening her pace, Videl tried to put some distance between her and her friend. She glanced behind her after she broke past the tree lines, grinning when she saw she'd gained a massive lead on him. Gohan was smart, sure, but he'd told her that he spent most of his time inside reading, while she was always running around the local park, and was faster even than the ten year olds who played soccer. There was no way he'd be able to beat her in a foot race.

"Come on! Keep up, why don'tcha!" Videl taunted back to him, turning around to run backwards just to further annoy her friend. Unfortunately, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going since she was busy trying to to goad him into racing and too late she registered the look of alarm on her friend's face. Before she could turn back around and see what had frightened Gohan, though, her foot slipped on a fallen tree branch and sent her falling-

-over the edge of a ravine that overlooked a fast flowing river.

Videl's heart stopped and her world seemed to slow down for a moment as she began to plummet towards what was almost certainly going to be her death. Then, suddenly, someone grabbed her arm and pulled her back to safety. She tumbled and rolled across the ground for a moment, caught in the momentum of a force that almost sent her flying straight back into the trees. Her heart hammered loudly in her ribcage as she finally came to a stop, lying spread out flat on her back on the cool mountain grass and the trying desperately to catch her breath after the scare she had just had.

"A-Are you alright?!" Gohan asked worriedly, kneeling on the ground beside her with the fur on his tail puffed out like a frightened cat. His already pale skin looked ghost white in terror, and he was trembling almost as badly as she was.

"Yeah… I think so…" Videl replied, breathing deeply a few times to try and center herself before turning to the boy beside her with wide eyes, "how'd you catch me? You were over by the trees just a second ago!" Gohan gave her a blank look at that question, before glancing back at the tree line about ten meters away from where the two of them sat now.

"I dunno. I wasn't thinking about it," he admitted, sounding just as confused as Videl felt, "I just got really scared when I saw you fall. I didn't want you to get hurt, so I ran as fast as I could to catch you."

"Well that's weird..." Videl said as she sat up, grabbing Gohan's hand to give it a reassuring squeeze to let him know she was alright. While it was true that the two of them could change their surroundings in The Dream, they could really only recreate things they were familiar with, and only if they focused really hard. They couldn't make fake or imaginary stuff real, and they couldn't change what they were physically capable of doing. They'd figured that out when Gohan tried to fly for her, like he'd told her his dad could, but couldn't do much except hop around on the spot for a minute before he gave up with a pout and just showed her his memories of his dad flying him all around.

"Maybe I was just closer than you thought?" Gohan guessed, calming down a little now that Videl was safe and thinking logically once more. Videl frowned a little at that. She was almost sure that Gohan was way too far to reach her, but unless he suddenly developed teleportation powers or something there was no other possible way he could have reached her in time.

"Yeah, that's probably it," Videl finally decided. Just then, the butterfly the two of them had been chasing after suddenly came down and landed on Gohan's nose, making him go cross-eyed as he stared at it in surprise. Videl snorted as she tried to hold in her amusement at the sight, before quickly giving up and doubling over in laugher. Gohan quickly joined her, disturbing the butterfly and causing it to take flight again.

"Guess you win, Gohan," Videl said once she could breathe again.

"We'll call it a draw, okay?" Gohan bargained with a grin before looking down at his hand, "I don't think we have too much time left before we wake up, anyways."

"Already?" Videl whined in disappointment, groaning when she realized he was right and she could just barely see through her hand. Pretty soon, the two of them would fade away entirely and wake up back home in their own beds, "but we were having so much fun!"

"Don't be upset, Videl. Remember my Daddy's taking me to see his old friends today? I bet I'll have lots of fun new stories to tell you when we see each other tomorrow night!" Gohan reminded her in an attempt to cheer his friend back up before they parted ways. Videl grinned a little at that. She did like hearing all the cool stuff Gohan's dad did with all his friends, like finding the Dragonballs and beating up the Red Ribbon Army and fighting the evil King Piccolo.

"You better!" Videl mock growled as she tackled the boy, making him laugh and she began to play wrestle with him, taking care not to mess with his tail or do anything else that might hurt him. "I'll make you sorry if you don't have something cool to tell me!"

"I will! I will!" Gohan agreed breathlessly between giggles.

"And I'll try and find a science book you'll like for story time today, so I can show it to you," Videl promised by way of exchange, smiling warmly at her friend. Gohan liked science books, but didn't have the resources to read nearly as many as he'd like, since his home was pretty far from the cities and towns. He only had the books his grandfather bought for him, and while his personal library was nothing to sneeze at, it was nothing compared to a public library, and Videl had learned early on in their strange friendship that she could easily bribe Gohan into doing what she wanted by offering to find him a book.

"How about a Dinosaur book?" Gohan suggested, grinning, "you'd probably like something like that, and I can see how many of the Dinosaurs the book talks about live by my house!"

"Okay, that sounds like fun," Videl nodded. She would like to know more about the Dinosaurs that lived around Gohan, but Gohan's mother never let him get too close to them because she said it was too dangerous for children, so Gohan was nervous about conjuring the beasts into their dream world. She'd seen them a little in Gohan's memories, but Videl had never seen Dinosaurs for real before since they only lived in places where there weren't many people.

Maybe if she helped Gohan be less scared of Dinosaurs, he'd feel brave enough to dream one up for her and finally let her see them for herself, like he did with the butterflies.

"Just don't forget your promise! I want another cool adventure story about your dad beating up bad guys!" Videl urged Gohan as he faded more and more. "You better not just hide behind your Dad the whole time and not talk to anyone else like a baby!"

"I won't! Really, Videl, I'm not a baby!" Gohan pouted childishly as Videl smirked back in reply, "I'll have a cool story for you, promise!"

"Good," Videl said, giving a satisfied nod once she was certain that Gohan would honor his word as the two of them began to fade more and more rapidly. "I'll see you tomorrow night then, okay?"

"You too! Bye-bye, Videl!" Gohan said, his voice faint and far away as the world around them went black and everything disappeared.

"Videl? You awake yet, sweetpea?"

Videl groaned softly as she opened her eyes, slowly sitting up with a yawn as the knock came at her bedroom door once more.

"I'm awake, Daddy!" Videl called back groggily, swinging her feet over the side of her bed and hopping down to the ground. After shedding her pajamas, Videl dressed herself in black shorts and a red T-shirt with the words LITTLE DEVIL printed on the back in black. Padding over to the door, Videl opened it to find her father standing on the other side, muttering to himself as he juggled both his gym bag and her backpack.

"Good, good, you're up!" Mark Satan said, grinning down at his daughter in relief, "sleep well, pumpkin?"

"Uh-huh," Videl said, grabbing her backpack from her father and hugging it close before he dropped it, "my dream friend showed me some butterflies last night!"

"Butterflies, huh?" Satan said, chuckling, "and your little monkey friend showed them to you? Were they pretty?"

"The boy ones are. The girl ones are brown, so they aren't eaten," Videl informed her father with a grin as she held her hands apart to demonstrate the size of the butterfly she'd seen, "but they were soooo big, Daddy! Like, THIS big!"

"Wow, that's one big bug," Satan laughed, "is that what your friend eats for dinner of something?"

"No, Daddy," Videl said, pulling a face at the thought of eating bugs, "his mommy cooks him real food, in his house!"

"I see, I see," Satan said, nodding sagely, "Mommy Monkey cooks. That makes perfect sense."

"She's not a monkey Dad, she's a normal person!" Videl said, exasperated. She'd told her father this many times before, but he always seemed to forget, "she's kinda scary sometimes though, especially when she yells."

"Oh? Does she yell a lot?" Satan asked absently as he set a bowl of cereal in front of his daughter.

"No, she's okay most of the time. But she gets mad when my friend goes off to play with his Dad instead of studying. That's why he's so smart, because he reads books and learns stuff all day," Videl explained.

"I see!" Satan chuckled as he took a sip of his coffee, "well that's not healthy, if you ask me! Boys need to get out and exercise too! Play some sports! Get a little dirty!"

"Yeah, that what my friend's Daddy says too, but his Mommy says the most important muscle a boy can exercise is his brain," Videl sighed, "but he plays Tag and Hide-And-Seek and goes on adventures with me, so I guess it's okay if he has to study when we're awake."

"Yeah, I suppose that evens out," Satan agreed readily, smiling a little in amusement. It was always cute to hear the way his daughter talked so seriously about her little monkey-tailed imaginary friend, like he was actually a real person instead of make believe. And she certainly had a vivid imagination, to dream up such an extraordinary playmate. Satan would probably always enjoy hearing her stories about the boy, especially knowing that she was going to grow out of this little phase once she was too old to play pretend anymore, which would probably be too soon for his liking. After all, his daughter was an active girl who loved running around who would jump at the opportunity to try out for sports once she was big enough for the little league teams next year after she turned six. With real friends and hobbies to distract her, she wouldn't need her little monkey-tailed boy to entertain her for much longer. It was better to savor this time while it lasted.

And speaking of time...

"Better hurry up and finish your breakfast, pumpkin. We only have twenty minutes before we gotta start heading to your school, and Daddy's gotta go to the Gym for his training," Satan said, draining the last of his coffee and setting the mug in the sink.

"Can we stop by the library on the way?" Videl asked eagerly, leaning forward as she spoke to her father, "I wanna find a book about Dinosaurs, so I can show it to my friend when I see him again tonight."

"Sure thing, sweetheart," Satan chuckled. He had to admit, he liked the way this imaginary monkey boy got his daughter so enthusiastic about learning. At this rate, she was going to be top of her class, "but we'll have to leave soon if we don't wanna be late."

"Okay!" Videl said, downing the rest of her cereal in record time and then running to the door to get her coat and shoes. Satan grinned as he watched her get ready to leave, blissfully oblivious to the fact that a space pod had just crashed on a farm in the Northern Wilderness, carrying in it an alien who had come to Earth in search of his brother. And that the brother in question was currently atop a magical flying cloud near Mount Paozu, happily heading towards a tiny island on Southern Seas with the very real monkey-tailed boy that Satan thought his daughter had made up. He had no idea then how these events and everything that would follow as a result of it would change the lives of his daughter and himself.