Disclaimer: I do not own DB/Z/GT

Note: Welcome to the revised version of DWMW! I wrote this story when I was THIRTEEN, and throughout the years I have re-written parts to try to make it a bit better. Years later, it means just as much to me now as it did back then, because at this point, I grew up with these characters. If you're an old friend, I thank you for sticking around, if you're a new reader, I hope you enjoy it.

Important: You can skip to chapter 2 to get right to the DBZ Characters, but you'll be missing out!

Dude Where's My World?

Revised

Chapter 1: The Strangers

There was no ground anymore — why was there ground anymore? Nothing but fast-moving air and a sensation of…falling? Josie supposed that it really didn't matter anymore because they were probably dead anyway, and they were probably going to have to live with this constant sensation of falling; they would just stay this way and never reach any—

"OOF!"

Ground.

"Son of a bitch!" Josie gritted her teeth, lying face first in what appeared to be grass. Valerie's response somewhere to her left was only to groan in agreement.

Hours Earlier…

Running through the open half of her school, a girl pushed her legs to pump faster and skidded, almost loosing her footing as she rounded a corner. She waved her arms erratically in an attempt to keep herself balanced, muttering curses, as she glared at the school bell that shrilled nearby. "So friggin much for being on—" She gasped when she felt the side of her face slam against a shoulder. "—Sorry!" She groaned in pain, pulling away from the other person, her palm attached to her throbbing cheek. She eyed the person she'd crashed into through her watering and squinted left eye, with considerable surprise. "Josie, hey!"

The other female, taller than her and rubbing her shoulder, smiled back at her and waved her hand from right to left once in greeting. "Isn't this a coincidence," the taller girl murmured with amusement, "I was waiting for you," Josie's amusement evaporated into annoyance as the second bell rung; this secondary bell indicated that they were no longer: tripping over and knocking down your chair, in your desperate last ditch effort to get to your seat before your teacher turned around to greet the class kind of late; they were instead: open the door and the classroom becomes deadly silent, as everyone turns to stare at you — teacher included — while you complete the walk of shame to your seat, late. This kind of late included a detention slip being placed on your desk at some point during the class, along with a disappointed look from the teacher.

Josie's eyes narrowed on her smaller friend because their next class was one of the few she actually didn't mind attending due to their super cute teacher, but now they'd be in trouble with him; knowing this, the smaller girl, named Valerie — but called Val for short — chuckled with embarrassment and gave the taller girl a helpless shrug. "We're late now so…"

Josie nodded with a raised eye-brow at the needlessly obvious statement, then looked around the empty hallways, trying to formulate a plan as to how they could talk their way out of the inevitable detention. "So," She continued Valerie's sentence for her with a sigh. "Let's…let's just go to the office and get a pass, maybe we can come up with something to tell them." Noticing Valerie's expression souring, Josie tilted her head. "What, I'm not that mad — oh." She finished flatly, distaste evident in the singular word, when she spotted the person standing behind her that was responsible for Valerie's expression.

A tall, muscular guy with strawberry-blonde spiky hair was a couple steps behind her, with his arms crossed and looking as cocky as only one overconfident teenage male seemed capable of looking. Josie moved towards Valerie and turned around to face the guy, noting that he didn't even register her movement, as he was solely focused on the tense Valerie. "What's up, punk rocker?" He asked her, his head tilted slightly to the right.

Valerie's frown deepened, eyes rolling at his predictable insult. Valerie had the misfortune of growing up in a small town, in which the majority of the school population grew up together. This jerk in front of her, Shannon, was unfortunately an old bully from Valerie's sand box days. "Get out of the way, Shannon." Valerie said his name with as much mocking as she could put into it, reminding him with her tone that he had a girl's name.

Shannon's grin disappeared for a moment, before it came back, albeit a bit forced, his eyes narrowing with irritation. "Make me." He said simply.

"Let's go." Valerie told Josie, making to go around the ridiculous boy, but Shannon stepped in front of her to block her. Valerie backed up in disgust at having nearly made physical contact with him, almost bumping into her friend in her haste to create distance between them. "…I'm only going to ask you one more time, Shannon: Move."

"Or what?" Shannon laughed, "You'll hurt me?" That concept made him laugh even harder, but after a few moments of receiving no answer, his laughter died and he stared at her with disbelief. "You…you really think you could hurt me, don't you?" Receiving no answer but a stare, Shannon rubbed his palms in front of him eagerly. "This should be real good! Alright, boot-camp." He called her by a nickname that really got under her skin. "I'll give you a freebie." He offered with a stupid grin plastered on his face, as he opened up his arms wide in an invitation to punch him.

Valerie felt Josie grab the sleeve of her jacket, and she turned her head slightly to look at her, but her own body remaining tense, and peripheral keeping Shannon in sight, just incase he tried anything. "Val, please don't." Josie pleaded on mostly deaf ears; seeing that her pleas where falling on deaf ears, she looked around with irritation fluttering amidst the concern, wondering why no school staff was seeing this and interfering yet.

Shannon's grin disappeared at the interruption, "Shut up, flat chest." He practically growled out. An indignant noise emitted from Josie's throat at the insult, but Shannon didn't pay her any more attention, as his eyes came back to Valerie's. "So?"

"I just want to pass and go to class," Valerie said flatly. "Will you move, Shannon?" The question came out devoid of the anger she felt at her perpetrator of years; the question calm and slowed down, knowing this would be it for them two.

Shannon crossed his arms on his chest and shook his head slowly, a big smile on his face, ecstatic that she was stupid enough to keep asking the same question after all these years. "Nope." Ever since she was six years old, with the same silly baggy dark clothes, and that much too large bag on her back. This would always end the same, he'd either make her cry, she'd run a different route, or just walk away dejected, as he'd holler the cruelest names he could think of on the spot towards her retreating back. Things never changed, he thought with a smile.

Today had felt different from the moment Valerie had startled awake with the horrifying realization that her phone was off and she was late … and as soon as the word was out of his mouth, he failed to notice Valerie's eyebrows twitch, and her mouth turn down briefly, before her fist connected, hard. His upper body came forward, the blow hitting him in the solar plexus and rendering him unable to catch anything more than a shallow breathes, his face draining of color in moments. He stumbled back a few steps, his arms protectively, holding on his core, with Valerie only a blurry profile in front of him. Valerie sighed with displeasure, looking around to make sure that no one else had seen the hit, when the sound of a high-pitched scream startled her attention back to Shannon, who now kneeled where he'd previously stood hunched over, his hands protectively cupping his groin. Valerie's eyes widened, her mouth opening in question, turning her head to ask Josie, whose hands were in her jeans pockets, shoulders hunched and purposely looking anywhere but at the mysteriously injured boy in front of them. "DUDE!" Valerie exclaimed in surprise, putting the pieces together.

Josie jumped slightly, turning back to her friend, her eyes showing guilt, and yes, concern, but it seemed to be overshadowed by simmering outrage too. "Did you hear what he called me?" She asked, crossing her arms over her chest, self-consciously. Josie looked back at Shannon's slightly purple face with more concern now. "You think he's okay? I've never bullied anyone before."

"We didn't bully him, baka, he—"

"YOU TWO!" Both girl's froze when they heard the hurried steps of a woman in high heels approaching the scene. The woman with an armful of paperwork, went right to Shannon, kneeling down. "You two should be ashamed of yourselves!" The teacher reprimanded, turning her attention back to the boy, placing a concerned hand on his shoulder. Before she even realized what happened, the woman was two feet away from the teenager, papers scattered, her palms scraped from attempting to cushion the fall; the fall that she'd taken due to Shannon pushing her viciously away from him. It took the woman a few seconds to recover from the shock, but as soon as she did, her eyes began to narrow dangerously on the wide-eyed boy.

Valerie quickly pushed Josie's shoulder towards the woman and she hurried to her other side, both girls hoisting her up back on her feet. As soon as she was vertical, the woman shook them away, her glare temporarily directed at them. "You both go home right now, I will be personally calling your parents tonight to tell them of your inexcusable behavior here today." She said through clenched teeth.

"But-" Valerie flinched, cutting herself off when she saw the woman's expression and what was causing it; the woman's right eye began to twitch, as the movement of a crouched down Josie beneath her, picked up a few scattered papers and held them up in a shy offering. "You have nice hand writing…" Josie gently tapped the piece of paper to the woman's resistant and clenched fist a few times, in an attempt to get her to take the papers. Valerie yanked Josie away from the woman just in time to avoid being made deaf by the woman's furious shouts, both girls cringing. "NOW, YOU TWO! NOW, NOW, NOW! GO!" Flabbergasted, Shannon watched the two speed walk away from them, Valerie reaching up on her toes to slap the back of Josie's head, able to make out her reprimand:

"Nice handwriting?! Are you stupid?"

"It WAS nice! And I was trying to make up for my slip to the dark side that you lured me into!" Josie hissed back, rubbing the sore spot on the back of her head.

"SHANNON!" The boy's eyes immediately snapped up to the angry woman who stepped into his field of vision, encasing him in her shadow and blocking the girls from his confused gaze. When his eyes met her narrowed ones, her tightly drawn mouth barely opened to spit out, "My office. Now." She didn't even wait for a response or offer any help to the boy, who grimaced to his feet and limped after her.

…

Valerie and Josie remained silent as they exited the school grounds, walking on the sidewalk of a barely busy street in their small home town. Once the school was fully out of sight, Valerie turned back to look at her equally sullen friend with a frown. "We're dead, you know that, right? My mom is actually going to kill me." Josie grimaced, eyes still fixed on the cracks on the pavement ahead of her.

"My parents aren't going to be super stoked either, you know. I've never gotten in trouble like this before. What do you want to do?" She asked, her thumb nail making its way to her mouth, where she anxiously nibbled on the digit, as she tried to think of a way out for them. "What do you normally do when you're in trouble like this?" Josie asked, finally lifting her eyes to stare curiously at her friend who slouched unhappily, shoulders somehow still tense and hands stuffed in her black cargo shorts.

"Normally…?" Valerie looked back at her with confusion, until she replayed the question and realized she was referring to her boot camp history; annoyed with the implication she often got in trouble, Valerie rolled her eyes. "It was one time and it was three years ago." She snapped, ignoring Josie's apologetic smile.

"I don't think my parents will be home, maybe my dad but I'm sure he'll leave soon if he is." Josie figured aloud, shrugging lightly as she distractedly picked up a leaf-less branch and absently twirled it with one hand. "If you want, you can stay at my house till school is over. Then you can go home and talk to both of your parents at the same time to avoid your moms wrath." Valerie thought over the suggestion while they crossed a street light and made their way into some wheat fields.

"Yeah, I think I'll do that." Valerie replied, shooting her a grateful nod. Valerie bent down to pick up a rock, her black mid-length hair down and in the way, as it usually was. She moved it out of the way with an impatient push of her finger-tips, straightening her four-foot ten inch frame back up-right. She toyed with the rock in her hand for a moment, before she lifted her other hand to hold and press on the back of her head, quickly cracking her head to the side, the snapping sound producing as much comfort, as the feeling of tension loosening in her shoulders from the abrupt motion. She sighed with relief, moving the rock through her fingers, thoughtfully considering the last hour she'd just experienced. She could never explain Shannon's problem with her to anyone, because she frankly didn't understand it herself; ever since the two were kids, he'd constantly made fun of her light brown skin and her "muddy" eyes as he'd called them. Whenever she'd brought the subject up to Josie she'd chalked it up to a crush on his part, but Valerie had always immediately dismissed the notion, though she did have her doubts.

Valerie had matured early as a girl, her chest developing when she was only thirteen in a way that most eighteen year-old's would have envied, but she'd always hated it. Those years always made her frown when she remembered what it was like to be envied and bullied by girl's, teased and harassed by boys, and how all of her relatives could never help but comment on what that apparently meant for her virtue and future. She was sixteen now though, and luckily in an age range where her body was no longer a topic of such constant speculation. In high school, every student was too involved in their own lives to pick apart her body, though the unwelcome attention of those former years still stuck with her in her sense of fashion. Valerie usually wore baggy black shorts that reached her knees, and a loose white t-shirt and her usual green jacket thrown over it to add an extra baggy layer.

Josie, unaware that her friend was having such dour thoughts, began to get ahead of her friend down the dirt path, still focused on her small tree branch. She would throw the branch lazily into the air and would catch it by clasping her hands over it; on the last throw she froze when the branch went up in the air and bonked Valerie over the head, before falling harmless to the side of her body.

Valerie blinked at the branch and stared at Josie who grinned sheepishly. "Whoop…"

Josie herself stood at five feet and three inches, with dark brown tresses that reached the middle of her back. Unlike Valerie's more straight hair, Josies' had a natural 's' wave to it that she had a hard time trying to style, so instead of messing with it, she usually kept it up in a lazy pony tail behind her. She still did, however, constantly battle the rounded bangs on the sides of her face, which were always long enough to be a pest and tickle the sides of her cheek and chin, but rarely long enough to sweep behind her ear to keep it fully out of her face. She had a light tan skin, an oval shaped face with two large dark brown expressive eyes. Her body was thin, modest in bust, with softly shaped hips that contrasted Valerie's more developed curves. She was less self-conscious than her friend had always been, and kept her style casual and simple; today, she wore light blue jeans, a faded form-fitting red shirt with the numbers '01' on the chest in black, the collar and tips of the short sleeves lined in black, finishing it all off with a blue light zip-up hoodie that had white draw-strings.

Valerie had picked up Josie's stick and tossed it to her, looking around for her own. When she found one, Valerie very quickly snatched it up and held it like a rapier-style sword, holding a basic traditional fencing position that made Josie grin and shake her head in refusal of the challenge, before taking off in a run. "You went to boot camp!" Josie reminded in a shout over her shoulder. "I don't know what kind of malarkey they taught you in there!"

"What?" Valerie asked, too affronted by the ridiculous suggestion to immediately give chase to her ridiculous friend. "You didn't even use the word right! What you said is malarkey!" Valerie shouted, her hands cupped around her mouth so that her friend would hear her correction.

"YOU'RE MALARKEY!" Josie childishly retorted back to the correction, lightly jogging backwards, a distance away.

"Trip, trip, trip…" Valerie quietly chanted with a grin, fists pumping at her sides in time with her chant. "Damn." She muttered when Josie turned in time to jump over the train tracks she'd been fast approaching.

Only a few minutes later the girls stepped into the familiar neighborhoods of their small town and walked only a block before going up a bridge that overlooked their highway that divided the town in two. When they approached the bottom of the other side towards Josie's side of the town, Josie began to slow down. "Ho." Josie mumbled — more a noise than a human word — stopping entirely and planting her branch straight outside her to stop Valerie mid-step. Josie's eyes remained trained on their target: her house, that was just past the large church structure at the corner of the street. "Dad's van." Josie explained the sudden stop, looking around for cover nervously, well aware of the fact that they were out in perfect view if her father came out then.

Josie brought up her hood over her head and gestured to the bushes in front of the church, before crouching down and quickly half-running that way. Valerie sighed, running a hand down her face in exasperation, looking around to make sure that no one was witnessing this embarrassment, she followed after Josie, unhurried and refusing to make them look even more suspicious by sneaking. When she made her way next to Josie who'd been glaring daggers at her and gesturing offensive looking — and equally confusing — gestures, Valerie lifted a brow in question.

"Oh shut up." Josie muttered angrily to the already silent girl, yanking her down with a gasp when she heard her front door close. They waited a minute without daring to move and barely breathe, before Valerie started to twitch, the movement causing the shrubs to sway noisily. "What is your problem?" Josie hissed.

"I kind of have to take a leak," Valerie argued, shifting uncomfortably, and trying to peak over the bush, but not allowed to by Josie's hand keeping her firmly down.

"Clearly you grew up in a barn." Josie muttered, mortified at the girl's coarse language.

"Two older brothers," Valerie explained with a mild shrug of no ill-offense, because the two were comparable in her eyes, after all.

"Your fidgeting is not conducive to sneaking," Josie reminded. "SHH," Josie demanded when Valerie started to ask what the hell conducive was. Josie's father had come around the corner of the house and went straight to his van, unlocked his door, got in and drove away a minute later. "See?" Josie asked rhetorically, standing up and clapping her hands free of dirt with self-satisfaction.

"Yeah, yeah, lets hurry up and get inside before someone sees us and calls the cops—will you take that ridiculous thing off." Valerie pulled off Josie's hoodie, ignoring the glare, and going around Josie's driveway and garage and to the path that lead to her front door. Josie followed after her a moment later and stopped at the step, a frown of concentration on her face while she dug around her front pockets first, then her back-pockets, then re-checked her front pockets all over again. She lifted her eyes to Valerie's — whose own began to narrow suspiciously — and smiled at her sheepishly.

"I…may have forgotten to bring my key to school with me today…" Josie admitted, scratching her arm absently. "Sometimes I lose it so I don't always bring it—but don't panic!" Josie held up her hands to ward off the verbal onslaught that was sure to come. "This happens to me all the time and there's a sophisticated back-up plan in place for this kinda thing." She quickly made her way back to the church side of the house where a fencer blocked off her property. Josie gave a cursory glance around the area, before planting her left hand on the iron wire fence of the church and hooking a foot into a hole, and placing her other hand atop her own wooden fence, using the leverage and extra boost in height to jump over it and landing with a small thud.

Double checking the area, Valerie quickly followed suit, landing beside Josie who was dusting off her shirt in an attempt to clear off the dirt paw-prints on the stomach of her shirt. "Good dog…" Valerie said, weary of the German Shepard who only gave her a brief sniff and focused its attention on following after Josie, who swiftly moved in to the backyard and began dragging the dog house towards a window, gauging the distance and promptly readjusting.

"THAT window?" Valerie asked incredulously, immediately recognizing the bathroom window that was no more than two feet high and seemed no wider than a ruler.

"Most of our other windows are usually locked," Josie answered Valerie's unasked question that hid underneath the stupefied inquiry. "And no sane person would try to come in through this tiny window so-"

"So since you'd be considered clinically insane in most states, you do this often then?" In the time it had taken Valerie to ask the rhetorical question with a smirk, Josie had already climbed up the dog house, pushed the window to the side, and did her best to keep her balance as she placed a foot inside the house. She turned her head over to Valerie when she made the remark and smirked back.

"Bingo," She agreed, hoisting her body further in with a grimace when she straddled the inside and outside of the house evenly. "See? No problem—" Valerie saw Josie's grin disappear a moment before the rest of her did as well. Valerie flinched at the noise of something breaking and immediately got on the dog house, ignoring the dog barking at the commotion and standing up on the tips of her toes in an attempt to see inside.

"You ok?" A stream of curses answered back, making her grin come back. "Real smooth, baka." Josie got back on her feet, rubbing her back-side and studying the mess left from a broken vase.

"Yeah…if I wasn't dead before, I so am now…" She sighed, imagining all the things she could have had to look forward to if she'd gotten to have a longer life. "Could have traveled the world…" Josie muttered to herself wistfully, as she exited the bathroom and went down the hall towards the dining room where she opened the sliding glass door for Valerie. "A stranger from a different land could have fallen head over heels in love with me…" She continued, unperturbed, as Valerie side-stepped her day-dream and went right for the bathroom down the hall, slamming the door after herself. "Could have camped in an African rain forest…used fly-boards over the ocean…watched the stars late at night on some remote mountaintop…" Josie went to the fridge and retrieved two water bottles, tucking one under her arm and opening up the other and leaning on the kitchen counter while she continued to speculate on her tragically cut short life. "Maybe visited the Eiffel tower…"

"Are you still talking?" Valerie asked her with amusement as she turned the corner, catching the end of her ranting. Josie lazily looked over at her — apparently already mourning her impending death — and extended the unopened water bottle in offering. "Thanks." Valerie said, amusement still evident in her voice at Josie's lethargic movements. "What do you want to do for our last moments on this earth?" Valerie asked with a teasing grin. "'For as you said, we are not long for this world—"

"Oh shut up." Josie glared at her, considering what options they had available to them: did they want to jump on this and call their parents beforehand? It wasn't a bad option, for her at least. Josie's mother was still at work so there wouldn't be much she'd be able to do when she found out, other than abuse her ear a little; calling her dad was out of the question because he'd just turn right back and then he'd likely drag her back to school and yell at her there or the school staff — or both! "…Wanna just watch TV?"

"Why the hell not," Valerie laughed, turning around and leading them down the hallway towards her friend's familiar bedroom. "Do you think I could borrow a screw-driver? My CD has been acting stupid, I think the sensor is fried but I want to take a look inside anyway incase its fixable." She heard Josie scoff behind her as they entered the bedroom.

"Why don't you get normal like the rest of the world and get an iPod or a smartphone?" Josie asked, gesturing towards the computer desk in the corner of the room as she entered the room and dropped backward onto her twin-sized bed. "In the drawer," She mumbled, taking a deep breath and studying her white ceiling, hands clasped on her stomach, uncaring that her dirty shoes were on the bed, because she was dead anyway, right?

Valerie watched her, her amusement a bit better tempered down for Josie's sake; she instead, focused on the room she hadn't been in for a few weeks. Josie liked to constantly change her room up, a nervous tick of hers, Valerie would almost call it. One week she'd come to visit and Josie's L-shaped desk in the corner would have posters plastered from ceiling to floor of her favorite actors and TV shows. Her bed would move, bookshelf and whatever else was light enough for her to handle herself. Her bookshelf seemed to have made itself back to the immediate right upon entering the room, right past the doors reach, and it was filled to capacity with books and knick-knacks she'd acquired throughout the years; a waste basket was directly after that and then the L-shaped dark desk that Valerie was sitting at now rifling through her desk drawer for the screwdriver she'd been promised.

"Move a sec." Josie asked with a tired yawn. Valerie looked from Josie to the 32'' TV sitting on the last section of the desk and she tilted her head away from it so that the signal from the TV remote Josie held up in her hand would work. That turned on in a moment, along with the DVD player underneath it, a dragon ball Z DVD menu popping up a minute later. Valerie raised a brow at Josie in question and she merely shrugged in response. "What else could we both possibly agree to watch together?" She asked smiling at Valerie's laugh of agreement. "Not finding it?" Josie asked, realizing Valerie had her CD player on her desk but hadn't yet produced a screwdriver from her desk.

"I don't think there's a screwdriver here, man."

"You're looking for phillips, right? Not a flathead?" Valerie tilted her head in surprise at her friend, but Josie ignored the look and got up to look over her shoulder down at the mess in her drawer, "You forget, I'm in stupid auto-shop this semester, Bakayaro." She repeated back Valerie's favorite insult back at her, adding to it like she'd taught her. Josie reached over Valerie's shoulder to sort through the mess in her drawer trying to find the tool, with no success. "Huh…oh!" Confusion disappeared, as she remembered where she'd left it last, but as she looked at her closed closet door, her clarity became apprehension.

"What?" Valerie asked curiously, having caught the shift in her expression.

"Nothing," Josie answered with a forced casual shrug. "Do you mind finding an episode for us to watch?" She asked, grabbing the remote from off the bed and handing it to her friend. "Phillips, you said, right?" Valerie nodded, keeping an eye on Josie through her peripheral, as she lifted up the remote control to pretend to search through the main menu.

When Josie opened the closet door, there was a mess of parts on the ground and something she couldn't quite identify that reached up to Josie's thigh. "What is that…?" Valerie asked curiously, turning her chair and leaning to the side to look past her friend. Josie glared back at her. "What?" Valerie asked, "I found an episode, see?" She asked, pressing the play button on whatever episode it had been hovering over. "Will you just show me already? What is that?" Josie only glared, but Valerie took comfort in the fact that she didn't close the door back up, nor stop her when she stood up and went to stand beside her. "Whoa," She mumbled with surprise, reaching down to pull the contraption out.

"Careful…" Josie murmured, helping her roll it gently out. The device they pulled out was nearly three feet in height, and a foot and a half in width. Different colors and shapes decorated different levels, layers, and lengths on the device they let rest in the center of the room.

"What is this? What does it do?" Valerie asked in awe of the thing, looking at her blushing friend who was frowning down at the machine, then looking at her helplessly with a shrug.

"Nothing, as far as I know." Josie kneeled beside the machine. "The lights along this side here-" She indicated with her hand the part of the machine that she was referring to as she spoke. "-Have flickered on for a few seconds before, and the whole thing hummed when the batteries were connected sometimes-" She gestured underneath for that. Valerie not only kneeling down but putting her hands on the ground and bending down to see for herself. "But it doesn't really ever turn on even like that anymore, I think the batteries are dead now so…" She scratched her cheek, embarrassed by the attention on a heap of junk.

"You really made this?" Valerie asked, sitting back on her calves, studying the thing, impressed, regardless of whether the device did anything or not.

"Mhmm," Josie cleared her throat and put a hand on the ground to extend her reach as she leaned back towards the closet and yanked out a tool bag towards her. "I found most of what I used in that at the back of the store my mom and dad work at. Their boss dumps a bunch of parts from machines that no longer work. Some are registers, some are computers, some are dryers and washers from his all his businesses." She unzipped it and immediately found the phillips screw driver, presenting it to Valerie, who appeared too busy and fascinated with her device to focus on her reason for wanting this tool. "Anyway," Josie rolled her eyes, and stood up to grab the now abandoned CD player still on the desk, "I spend so much time there that I just got bored and started picking through some of the parts and bringing them home in my backpack." That finally got Valerie's attention, in the form of a glare of disapproval of the petty theft.

"He didn't care." Josie waved off the concern over her criminal record, pulling open the curtains and the window for a breeze. She sat down across from Valerie with her legs crossed under her and opened up the back of her friend's CD player to take a look for herself, though she didn't know at all what she was looking at. "Tinkering with it, building it up has been a little hobby since. Seeing what I can make connect to what." She figured that as long as she didn't overtly touch the already broken device, Valerie wouldn't terribly mind her looking inside it. It looked pretty neat in there. "So what's going to be the verdict on this old heap of junk?" Josie asked, gesturing towards the CD Player in her hand.

Valerie finally looked away from the machine Josie had built, to her own music playing device with a sigh, reaching out a hand for it. When Josie placed it there, Valerie disassembled the top and studied the sensor for a moment with a grimace. "Yeah, this is done." She confirmed. "Its fine really, I have another one, but I was just hoping this one would last a little longer." Josie requested it back and studied the more complicated looking part of the board with various tiny pieces of circuitry. There were red cables connected to a circular piece that looked like a shiny blue battery.

"Do you mind if I…?" She gestured towards the piece and gestured pulling it out. Valerie raised a brow, surprised, but nodded. Josie took out the batteries first, then reached into her black tool bag and as carefully as she could, extracted the part, ignoring Valerie's curious gaze. Once she had it out, she studied her own machine for the perfect place and knew it as soon her as eyes surveyed the top area. She leaned forward and carefully put the new part in, grinning at the fact that it fit. This was the last piece of her machine, she silently decided with mild satisfaction.

She wasn't lying when she told Valerie that this was just a hobby she'd stumbled upon. The truth of the matter was that Josie had never really been a very motivated person in any aspect of her life, but with this she'd felt an unexplainable need to see it through. She had no idea why, but now that it was done, she felt a bit stupid for thinking about it as often as she did. She swallowed down the acidic feeling and reached silently for her tweezers. Why was she surprised that she spent so much time on such an unimportant and useless thing? She had always been like this, in fact, this was the very epitome of who she was! She was someone who wasted time on ideas, and day dreamed as often as she could pull it off throughout the day. Josie had always seemed to be an expert at finding ways to avoid reality, whether that was through her huge collection of books — that piled not just in her bookshelf, but the other side of her closet as well — through games, TV and crazy projects, like this one. She knew she needed to get back to focusing on the real world and focus on what she wanted to do with her future; as her family liked to remind her constantly, she was a junior now, and a lifetime of C's and D's decorating all of her report cards were not necessarily paving the way for prominent college acceptance letters.

She could practically hear her voice echoing, "Would you like fries with that?" through a menu speaker. Silently, Josie worked on connecting the wires extending from the piece she'd just added to the existing wires protruding from the machine. Valerie noticed her friend's change of mood immediately, but decided not to comment on it; instead, she grabbed her bag from the bed and pulled it down to the floor with her. She rummaged through the contents for something to distract Josie from whatever dark thoughts she was swimming in and finally smiled when she got a hold of a Goku figurine she had in there. She tended to mostly carry drawings and sketching materials so she was surprised to find her little figure had been traveling with her, but she happily took it out now and made it waddle towards Josie over her machine. Josie's fingers paused as Valerie quickly caught her attention, and she was glad to see the dark thoughtful look become one of irresolute amusement in seconds.

"What are you doing?" Josie asked dryly.

"Nothing," Valerie said with a shrug. "Goku's just checking out your odd machine here, man." Valerie explained, walking the miniature Goku all over her invention, making her grin.

"I didn't know you still played with dolls, Val." Josie teased.

"This is an action figure!" Valerie defended, holding Goku protectively towards her chest, causing Josie to burst out laughing. She knew she was being made fun of but not finding she minded all that much, Valerie made a show of rolling her eyes, but couldn't keep a small smile off her face.

Knowing what her friend was up to, Josie exhaled strongly to get rid of the negativity she was feeling and gave her friend a bright smile. "What else you got with you?" She asked, nodding towards Valerie's bag. Valerie dutifully rummaged through her pack, explaining as she sorted.

"Looks like…a few anime comics — mostly DBZ — a ton of drawings and Goku and Gohan I've been working on, I guess a couple of my ACTION FIGURES," She emphasized the words with a glare, showing Josie anime characters from unfamiliar series. "And that's pretty much it other than a couple stories I printed out to read when I get a chance."

"Of DBZ?" Josie asked knowingly, receiving a grin back that told her she didn't need to bother to ask such a silly question. "Of course dbz…" Josie agreed with a fond smile towards the TV that silently played some episode during the cell saga silently in the background. "Don't worry pal, you're not the only sad freak here." She laid down towards the closet and reached around to yank a duffel out, using both hands to get the thing dragging across the carpet towards her, when she sat up. She opened it wide and let Valerie's eyes feast on, the girl whistling, impressed by the array.

"Laptop, dbz pictures, stickers, cards, dbz movies, a poster, flash-drives, notebook, and a manila folder with…?" Valerie asked, though she had an idea.

"Lots of dbz facts, biographies and other info, duh." Josie replied, making Valerie groan at the shame of it all.

"We are twisted and pathetic individuals, you know this, right?" Valerie asked as Josie placed it all neatly back in the bag and zipped it back up.

"Oh yeah, there's no denying we have issues." Josie agreed, patting the bag lovingly that pressed against her thigh. She picked up the forgotten tweezers and went back to fiddling with the part atop her machine.

"Problem?" Valerie asked, noticing the look of concentration on her friend's features.

"Not really, it fits—" Josie's tongue stuck out just a little at the edge of her mouth, frown on her face as she continued to try to get access to a stubborn cable out of reach to connect them. "—Just having a hard time connecting that last wire that wraps around the back. Assistance?" She asked hopefully, looking over at Valerie who was leaning forward to inspect, but hesitated.

"You sure this thing is safe?" She asked with concern. Josie lowered her tweezers down and gave the question thoughtful consideration. It definitely could be dangerous — seeing as the thing did have a power supply — but it seemed to have died so long ago, and there had been no activity whatsoever from this thing in well over two months, which gave her no major cause to worry.

"It hasn't reacted badly to all the different things I've put in it. No big or small booms… but if you're worried then it's probably better if you don't, because I couldn't promise it's safe." Josie reasoned honestly, reaching around herself to try to slip her own cable down to the other. "I just…need to get this one thing done." She mumbled quietly in explanation to herself.

Valerie heard beneath the words themselves, and her friend sounded dejected and so self-disparaging that she had no choice, so she automatically reached forward to help. "What's the worse that could happen anyway, right?" Valerie asked quietly, smiling when together, they finally got the cables to connect.

Both their upper bodies pulled back from the machine instantly when they heard a click, then a low buzzing sound started. Before either of them could fully pull away, or ask what the noise was, both felt a debilitating shock through their entire bodies. A constant flow of electricity kept them in place as they lost all feeling in their bodies, then they lost their form; their shape, skin, bone; even their awareness, as they disappeared entirely from this world:

And appeared in another.

Note: I realize this doesn't all make an overabundance of sense (I wrote this when I was thirteen for crying out loud, but I'm fond of the memory of how this all played out in my young brain. I promise that if you choose to stick around, it gets so much better (or so they tell me lol). Thanks to all of those who seem to want to see this to the end 500 years later!