--- When Worlds Collide ---

Chapter 4 - The End of a Long Day

Disclaimer: see chapter 1

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He sighed as he silently flew home; he was utterly exhausted. Why in Kami's name did he have to be assigned to train the prince? Wasn't there someone else who would do it better? Apparently not; it seemed that not only was he the strongest in his age bracket, he was the strongest, period, that wasn't a member of either the royal family or the super-elite, and maybe even the strongest there, which made him obviously the most qualified to train the next ruler in the ways of fighting.

He sped up a little; these frequent training sessions the young prince demanded were murder on his social life, although said 'social life' was little more than spending time with his mate of 3, going on 4, standard years. They'd been friends for a lot longer than that, but it wasn't until she'd turned 3, or 15 in the standard calendar, that the two had mated for life.

He could feel her relaxation, the omni-present awareness of her bringing him comfort; not that he'd ever admit it out loud though. Tonight, however, there was... something else, niggling at the back of his senses. It was almost like a feeling that danger was on the horizon, but that couldn't be true. There had been nothing even resembling danger ever since the... accident.

He smiled to himself unconsciously; Frieza, and the rest of the Cold family, had all been wiped out in a tragic 'accident' when performing a test-fire of their prototype weapon, the 'Hyperspace Cannon'. The structural integrity of the weapon had failed mid-charge, and the freed collected hyperspace had erased Planet Frieza No.79 from existence. Absently, he wondered if anyone had worked out yet what really happened. The weapon was built to break from day one; he should know, it was his father that built it, and who was 'suddenly recalled' before the test, and thus was 'unable to make it due to unforseen circumstances'.

The niggle soon became a roar, and now he felt what could only be fear, panic, and pain from his bond mate. Feeding off the adrenaline he raced forward, blowing the front of the house clean off in his hurry, and kicking her assailant in the side of the head, sending him through the back wall. She fell to the ground, but he caught her before she hit, saying worriedly, "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"

She rubbed her throat, which until a few second ago had been in the iron grip of her attacker, before she opened her eyes and looked at him, panicking for a moment and exclaiming, "Don't hurt me!" before she realised that this was her mate, and throwing herself at him, sobbing and babbling.

He was confused for a moment, but it all became clear as her attacker climbed out of the rubble; the guy looked exactly the same as he did, bar the occasional scar. He growled, "Hurt my mate will you?" before flinging blast after blast at the intruder, each of them dissipating harmlessly less than a centimetre from his body by a transparent blue field. His energy left him, and the salvo ended, as he collapsed to his knees and held his mate close; he had failed.

The man wasted no energy with words, simply raising both his hands and smirking, pointing one at each of them as ki began to gather into 2 red balls. With a very familiar cry, the couple knew no more.

"Twin Blaze!"

o-o-o

Videl stalked out to the playing field, noticing that Kaen and co. had already met up with Gohan, who was leaning against a nearby tree as they conversed. Noticing her arrival out of the corner of his eye, Kaen turned around partially and grinned at her, waving sarcastically. The girls giggled to themselves, Pi playfully elbowing him in the stomach, again, and Gohan... Gohan had the gall to grin along with them!

She stopped abruptly, leaning against a tree herself, and casting an eye over the motley group. Out of the four of them, only the girls had bothered to change into the uniform, consisting of an orange t-shirt with black shorts (it was, after all, Orange Star High). Kaen still wore his black pants and red sleeveless shirt, baring his muscled arms to the general populace.

Her gaze lingered a bit on Gohan; he certainly looked much better in what he had on now than what he'd worn on his first day. Gone were the orange pants and black vest his mother had obviously bought (she had no idea how right she was), and in their place he wore black loose pants - or were they dark blue? - and a similarly baggy long-sleeved blue shirt, with the top couple of buttons undone. She found her gaze lingering there a moment too long, as her face began to get hot, and she forcibly turned away so fast she could've sworn she heard the joints in her neck crack.

With her head as it was now, she could hear their conversation.

Kaen: "So what the hell happens now?"

Gohan: "Well, we wait for the teacher to show up obviously, but after that we're playing baseball."

Pi: "How do you play that?"

Gohan: "It's pretty simple really. There are two teams; one fields, one bats. The batting team take turns hitting the ball, thrown by the pitcher of the fielding team, and running to the bases; those white mats you can see. If the ball makes it to the base, or rather the fielding team player stationed on the base, before you do, you're out. If you're not out, you stay there until the next player hits the ball, and the ball is once again in motion. Make it back to the home plate - the one at the start - to score a run. If someone catches the ball when you bat, or gets the ball to a base before you, or gets a ball past you when you're batting 3 times, you're out. When 3 players get out, the teams switch. Whoever scores the most runs wins."

Kat: "You have a very weird definition of 'simple' Gohan."

The others started laughing, but Videl tuned them out; she didn't need another reminder that he now had some good friends around. As her gaze found it's way back to Gohan, she found herself wishing that she had friends that close; the only real friend she had was Erasa, and even then the two weren't always on the same wavelength, but she'd known her since first grade, and she was still her best friend to this day. Sharpner, however, was now just a drooling idiot who had once been a friend before both her father defeated Cell, and he got hormones.

Said best friend sidled up to her without her noticing, whispering in her ear, "Looks like someone's got a little crush on the new boy." She then giggled, and added, "I 'spose I should say the old new guy now huh?"

She spun around, glaring at Erasa in embarrassment as she exclaimed, "What!"

Erasa just smirked in reply, "I saw how you were looking at Gohan; come on, tell me the truth. If you can't tell your best friend, who can you tell?"

She just shook her head as she blushed faintly, "There's nothing going on Erasa." Glancing at Gohan once more, as if to re-affirm herself, she nodded once and added, "Nothing at all."

Erasa opened her mouth to continue teasing her best friend, but before she could their gym teacher arrived, a fairly old teacher by the name of Mr. Jones; he looked about 50 or so, but was still in better shape than almost every student in the school, bar Videl and Sharpner. Gathering the class, he said in a loud voice, so as to be heard by everyone, "Alright people, as you know we're playing baseball today, and you know the drill; two captains each select their team, and we go from there. Now, I notice we have some new students today. Do you three know how to play?"

The three in question nodded their heads, Pi speaking for all of them, "Yes sir, Gohan told us everything we need to know."

The teacher raised an eyebrow, "That so? Well, in that case, Mr. Son, you get to be one of the captains; after your past performance, I don't doubt you'll do well. Ms. Satan, you'll be the other. Now, both of you come up here and start pickin'."

They did as told, walking silently to the front of the class. Like a true gentleman, Gohan nodded his head to Videl, indicating she could pick first, but she just shook her head, "No, you pick first."

He just shrugged, "Kaen, you're up here."

She raised an eyebrow curiously. 'So, he's gonna take his new friends onto his team huh? Well, I guess I'll get to see how good they are then.' "Sharpner."

"Pi."

They went on like this until the whole class had been chosen. Sure enough, all three new kids were on Gohan's team, and had been the first he'd chosen, despite the fact that Kat girl looked about as athletic as Erasa; that was to say, not much. Pi looked about as fit as she herself was, which tied in with Kaen's claim of training them, but Kat didn't look the part; if she knew Kat was able to control how her body looked with fluid precision, she might have changed her mind on that point. She also would have wondered why Kat didn't bother to hide the scars on her back, not realising they were badges of honour.

Turning towards Videl, Gohan said good-naturedly, "Well, since you let me pick first, you can choose who bats first."

She wasted no time in answering, "We're batting first, you're fielding."

Shrugging, he took his team out to the field, assigning positions. When he came to the new group, he said, "Alright, Pi, take right field, Kat, take left, Kaen, you're the catcher."

"What? Why?" he exclaimed angrily; well, for him it wasn't really angry, but it sounded that way to the rest of the 'normals'.

"Because this is a school, not a shooting range," Gohan replied wryly.

A grin tugged at the edges of his mouth, "Am I that easy to read?"

"Like a book honey," Pi replied, grabbing a glove and starting to walk to right field.

"Besides," Gohan added, "I'm going to be pitcher, so someone's gotta be able to catch them without hurting themselves. But if you don't feel like you can handle the job, I can always switch you and Pi around..."

Kaen just scowled at him, grabbed the glove and catchers mask, and walked off muttering, "Thin line half-breed."

Videl looked at the two half suspicious, half shocked. Again, the two traded insults without any acid in their tones. And what was it Kaen meant by 'half-breed'? She narrowed her eyes and glared at Gohan; the boy was more secret than he was flesh and blood, and dammit if that didn't piss her right off. She was yet to work out what it was that kept her thoughts coming back to him, but she'd work that out after she unravelled the mystery that is Son Gohan.

She failed to notice Pi, who even in right field could see her face clearly (thanks to her enhanced vision), laughing to herself at the look on her face. So out of it was Videl that it wasn't until Gohan himself looked at her and smiled nervously that she broke her glare off, embarrassment staining her cheeks slightly at having been caught. Gohan, however, wasn't nervous because Videl had been glaring at him - Kami knew she did that enough - but because of how she was glaring; it stirred up memories of something Vegeta had said, but he couldn't remember exactly what it meant yet. He shook his head to clear away such erroneous thoughts; he'd work it out later, for now they had a game to play.

To Gohan's amusement, Sharpner was the first batter on Videl's team, and the blonde jock instantly began his usual jeering as soon as he took position, "Come on Nerd Boy, let's see what you've got." For whatever reason, Sharpner had continued to use that colourful name despite the fact Gohan now looked nothing like a nerd; apparently, anyone who did well on a test was a nerd, unless that person happened to be one Videl Satan.

Kaen just raised his mask and mouthed 'Nerd boy?' to Gohan, one eyebrow raised in confusion, but Gohan just shrugged; he didn't understand either. Shrugging himself, and lowering the mask again, he got into position. With a quick wind up, Gohan threw the ball, sending it sailing straight past Sharpner and into Kaen's glove, much to the jock's shock. That shock wasn't helped as Kaen stood, removing his mask as he exclaimed, "Oh come on, what the hell was that?" The students thought for a minute that Gohan had thrown too hard, but that thought was dashed to pieces as he continued, "My little brother could've thrown harder than that. Hell, your little brother could've thrown harder than that!"

Gohan just shrugged, so Kaen threw the ball back absently; Gohan caught it flawlessly. Getting into position again, Kaen grinned and nodded his head towards the blonde; he had a plan. Gohan caught on instantly, grinning back for a moment and nodding slightly once, the time spent around both Kaen and Vegeta teaching him their silent language, or much of it, very quickly; said silent language was actually a Saiyan warrior thing, that much Gohan assumed.

With another quick wind up, Gohan again sent the ball straight past Sharpner; strike 2. Again Kaen stood up, exclaiming, "That was a pathetic throw! Come on Gohan, I know you can do better than that!"

"Why don't you try it then smart-ass?" Gohan called back.

"Alright then, I will." The two switched places with a quick grin, Gohan settling into place behind Sharpner, and Kaen taking his position on the pitcher's mound. With a smirk, Kaen wound up and hurled the ball, and there was a sickening crack as bat met ball; however, that was soon met with the sound of ball hitting glove. Looking down at his bat, the blonde jock's jaw almost hit the dirt as he saw it snapped almost cleanly in half by the throw. As Kaen and Gohan switched places again, for the safety of the other students, Kaen just grinned at him, "Strike 3 Bitch Boy."

After the shock had worn off the game continued, the sides eventually switching as Videl's would-be home run was caught by Pi, in a similar athletic feat to what Gohan had pulled in the first game. Sharpner practically demanded to be pitcher, to 'teach that new kid a lesson' as he put it, so Videl settled in as catcher. The game continued normally, Pi and Kat proving to be decent players, Pi making it to second on her hit, and Kat getting them both another base. Now it was Kaen's turn at bat.

The flame-haired young man grabbed one of the metal bats, a smirk on his face. Sharpner glared maliciously at him as he took his spot at the plate (well, in his mind it was malicious, but Kaen had seen worse glares after taking the last drumstick at dinner); Oh yes, he was going to make that Kaen pay! He would make him pay for making him, the Great and Magnificent Sharpner, look like an idiot!

Lowering his bat, Kaen closed his eyes, searching for a particular ki over in the 438, then working out the force and angle needed for what he planned to do; of all maths, Kaen excelled at vectors. Satisfied with his work, he opened his eyes again and raised his bat to the fore, beginning to coat the bat with ki; to Videl's trained eyes, as well as the eyes of his friends, the bat could be seen glowing a faint red, but Videl passed it off as her eyes playing tricks on her.

Smirking, Sharpner wound up and lobbed a fastball directly at Kaen's head, figuring he'd duck before it hit; no such luck. As far as Kaen was concerned, the ball might as well have been going in slow motion, and at the last possible second Kaen took a step back and swung, a resonating 'clang' signalling he'd made contact, and the ball went flying, zooming so close over Sharpner's head it left faint burn marks on his hat, and punching a hole straight through the old scoreboard as it left the school, and then the city.

o-o-o

Over in the 438, near the home where Kaen and Pi lived, Lime was currently trying to talk some sense into her twin brother, "Come on Oran, this isn't a good idea. Big brother will know..."

"How will he find out?" Oran shot back, "Are you gonna tell him? He's gonna be at school for a while longer yet, so we'll be all set up by the time they get back. Besides, we can always blame Goten and Trunks." He finished with a grin.

Lime was just about to reply when she noticed something small and round heading their way, and was just about to say something when Oran turned around, to see what she'd been staring at, and got cracked right on the forehead by it. He fell on his butt, holding his head and whining, "Ow ow ow," before looking to see what hit him.

It was a baseball, still glowing a faint red, and reeking of their brother's ki so strongly they could practically smell it. The twins looked into each other's eyes, and Lime remarked sagely, and well beyond her years, "Big brother knows everything." With a slow nod they got back to work on the exercises he'd set them earlier that morning, planned prank all but forgotten.

o-o-o

"Damn, I missed!"

Sharpner stared at Kaen in shock; what did he mean miss! That ball could've taken his head clean off! Turning to the teacher, Kaen asked, "So, do I still have to run the bases or not?"

Shaking himself from his stupor, Mr. Jones just replied numbly, "Um... no, no you don't." Recovering slightly, he added in his normal voice, "Well son, that was almost as good as Mr. Son's first attempt; I didn't even see where that ball went!"

"Dryd'c palyica E tacdnuoat ed..." Gohan replied as he moved up to take his turn.

With a grin and a nod Kaen tossed him his bat, moving off to sit with Pi and Kat, who'd just returned to their seat; Gohan dropped the bat moments later. Not only was that bat ruined, as the finger grooves and massive dent (from the ball) attested to, but it almost burnt his hands to touch. So weakened was the bat that when he dropped it, the handle actually cleanly broke off.

Recovering slightly, as he noticed that 'Nerd Boy' was now up to bat, Sharpner thought he'd try again, seeing if he could bean Gohan in the head, but, like Kaen before him, Gohan hit the ball with a mighty wallop, causing another burn mark over Sharpner's hat, creating another hole in the scoreboard, and hitting another small child on the head; this time, his own brother Goten, over near their home in the 439, who, along with Trunks, had been about to set up a prank Gohan would later have fallen victim to.

Gohan just growled, "Damn, we both missed!"

The game resumed normally from there, Gohan's team winning by a large margin, but Videl couldn't help but think to herself, 'What the hell are these people!'

o-o-o

Videl stormed off in search of Gohan and co. The bell had rung, school was now over, and she was determined to get some answers from him! Kat and Pi had changed quickly, and the four had left before Videl could see where they went; she just hoped she was going the right way.

Her prayers were answered as she heard Kaen say, "Hey Gohan, need a lift?

Exiting the building, she saw her quarry shake his head, "Nah, I've gotta meet up with Vegeta 'safternoon."

"Your loss," Kaen replied with a shrug, as both he and Kat threw a capsule absently. Videl was just about to round on Gohan, who now had no excuse for leaving with them, when she saw what came out of those capsules.

A pair of black racing bikes, highly customised, with intricate decals; Kaen's had a bird of fire, Kat's a black panther on a dark grey background. Glaring at them, and not noticing Gohan slink off, she barked, "Are those things street legal?"

Kaen just smirked on her, waiting until he'd capsulated he and Pi's bags, and decapsulated their helmets, that he replied, "Probably not. What are you gonna do about it?"

Her glare darkened, but if he noticed he made no sign, "I'm gonna confiscate them and take you in, that's what!"

"That a fact?" He asked arrogantly. Climbing aboard the bike, Pi getting on behind him, he put his helmet on, looked to his left to see Kat on hers, before turning back to her, smirking, and saying, "Then catch me if you can!" as he flipped the visor down, gunned the bike into life, and sped off, Kat following close behind.

With a curse, both at having to chase him, and that, as she noticed now, Gohan had fled, she decapsulated her copter, climbing in and chasing after them. She had to admit, from the safety of her copter at least, that the pair of them were good drivers, weaving in and around traffic at easily 200 kph; good drivers, but breaking the law. She chased them for a good half hour through the city, as they weaved this way and that way; either they were trying to lose her, or they were merely wasting time to piss her off. But she was having none of it!

When a clear patch came up she lowered her copter so she was flying along side them, calling out, "Give up! You can't get away from me!"

Kaen just turned to look at her, and she would have put money on the fact he was smirking inside that helmet as he replied, "We've been doing a good job so far!"

Growling to herself, she barked, "Stop playing games with me!"

Again, she would've sworn he was smirking as he said, "If you insist girl. I guess this is goodbye then." Saying this, he flicked a switch on the bike hidden from her view, and what she could only describe as turbo thrusters activated. Kat followed suit a second later, and Videl could only watch as the bikes easily reached 300 and kept going. By the time they'd left her sight, and the city with it, they had to be going 400.

With a frustrated sigh, Videl disengaged her chase, not that she could've chased them anymore anyway, and headed for home. It had been a long day, a long trying day, and she now had more questions about the enigmatic Son Gohan than ever before. And that Kaen... there were no words she knew to describe the depth of hate she felt for him. He had constantly made a fool out of her all day, always showing her up at everything she could do. But she'd get him back. She didn't care how long it took to accomplish, Kaen Avarrdo was going down!

To be continued...

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Author's notes:

Dryd'c palyica E tacdnuoat ed... That's because I destroyed it...

And so day one draws to a close. I promise that the rest of the days won't be this long, it's just that this one was a monumental train-wreck from start to finish.

I'd now like to take a moment both to thank those people who've reviewed, and those people who've simply just read, this story thusfar, as well as to respond to a couple of them:

not-me-i-am, you've brought up a very interesting point: it's not possible to please everything. I do mean this in the nicest possibe way though. I mean, thus far I've had one reviewer saying they liked me using the different language, and one that didn't, so I'll explain why I've done what I've done. As is in the story, the conversations are as an outsider like Videl would hear, because, while I try to stick to third person, the early chapters are more-or-less from her point of view. Also, I have no intention of holding full conversations coded, not just because it's annoying to read, but it's annoying to write to, so by the time they're full conversations, it's in bold font instead.

And Trahmada, don't be so quick to doubt the classifications of this story :) Keep in mind that, up to this point, you've only seen the happenings of a single school day. I promise you you'll see more romance stuff as the plot develops.