Estate Planner: So IP, who would you like to have the rights and future earnings of DB/Z/GT after death.

IP: huh? What are you talking about?

Estate Planner: You know. Everything you own can be distributed to any persons of your choosing after your passing.

IP: But I don't even own DB/Z/GT, you idiot! As a matter of fact, I don't even own that much to be talking with an estate planner…*grabs coat* I'm outta here!

A Change in Time

Chapter 9

The Briefs Family ate quietly the next morning at the breakfast table. The awkward silence was due to the prior night's arguments. Husband and wife glanced at each other occasionally as some tension still lingered between them. All the while, Trunks subconsciously avoided eye contact with Mirai out of sheer embarrassment. Bra proved to be a ray of light amidst the dark atmosphere as she happily hand-fed nice brother pieces of fruit every now and then, and he could not help but to receive her sisterly love with a warm smile.

Bulma rolled her eyes at her husband once again and turned to notice Trunks' behavior towards Mirai. Curiosity got the best of her, and she craved the direct reason of their dispute, an exclusive from the participants themselves.

"So what did guys do yesterday?" She started, looking at her very own Trunks on the left side of her. Since Mirai came to the current time, he occupied the seat across from his mother out of habit formed in his own time. But that seat actually belonged to Trunks as he always at the right of the head, his father. Although it seemed this Trunks really didn't mind because this also meant he was not being pestered by Bra who always sat next to him.

"Nothing special." Trunks stated after a premature swallow of the bite of toast he chewed previously. "…just picked up a few identical outfits at the mall."

"Oh?" Bulma questioned her son now eying him with faint dissatisfied look upon her face. She knew he was not giving the 'whole' truth. "No dates or anything?" She went on.

"Well sure, but nothing other than the usual." Trunks answered calmly. He cared not to inform his mother of the small fight he had with himself. The little matter dissipated with just a mature exchange of words and not fists. There was no reason for her to get involved after the fact.

"So no special girls?" Bulma winked bumping her son on the forearm with her elbow. "Nothing you want to talk about?"

Finishing off his drink of O.J., Vegeta grew irritated with his wife's quirky interrogation and lightly slammed his empty glass on the table, getting everyone's attention. He raised a brow as he edgily glanced over to Mirai then back to Trunks.

"What your mother is really asking is why were you two fighting last night?" He frankly inquired as he began tapping his index finger impatiently, waiting for either to answer. The dumbstruck boys nervously stared at each other.

"You guys were fighting?" Bra asked after a brief moment of shock herself, grabbing Mirai's attention as she pulled on his shirt. "I bet you kicked mean brother's b-u-t-t, huh?" She smirked across the table at Trunks as he growled in response at her.

"Uh, no actually." Mirai chuckled lightly, looking down at his sister. Her speculation was half right, though.

"But you were going to, right?" She continued her questioning as she taunted Trunks with wicked smiles. He brought a fist down to the table heavily, annoyed by her evil gestures.

"Why don't you mind your little nosey nuisance business!" He spat across the table at her, leaning forward a bit as he fixed his angry eyes on her.

"Now was that really necessary, Trunks?" Mirai hissed at his other self, coming to his sister's rescue. His mood shifted drastically as he was reminded by Trunks' outburst towards Bra that he had yet another issue he needed to…discuss with himself.

Trunks sat back in his seat sensing the abrupt spark in Mirai's power to avoid another conflict with his stronger version. He had no intention of reliving last night's events.

Feeling the jolt of energy as well, Vegeta smirked while he watched the friction rise between his sons and remained quiet as it all seemed rather interesting to him. He actually didn't mind witnessing a Trunks vs. Trunks battle. Although, he perceived that he would have to play a fatherly role and escort the two to the gravity room to duke it out if they got out of hand at the table. But for now he preferred to sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

His wife saw the twisted look upon his face and kicked him under the table, and the couple began, to some extent, telepathically arguing with each other by exchanging fierce facial expressions.

Meanwhile, Bra also detected the change in Mirai as she was occasionally trained by her father on ki control. From her experience as a novice, she suspected nice brother may just be stronger than mean brother, and decided to test her theory by further provoking Trunks.

"So he did he beat you up! Nah ha!" She sang mockingly at Trunks. He spring up from his seat, and slam his spread palms in front of her, shaking the tableware. "Nah ha! Nah…"

"Shut up!" He angrily shouted as he leaned over the table, glaring only five inches from her face.

Trunks flinched when Bra's small face was instantly replaced by a replica of his own reddened by anger face, as Mirai calmly moved her to the side. And after what seemed like a minute stare down, Trunks slowly slid backwards as he retreated to his side of the table and took a seat.

Bra then stuck a tongue at Trunks as she possessively clang to Mirai's arm. Closing his eyes to avoid her taunts, Trunks took a deep breath as he checked the sweltering anger.

Bulma turned her attention back to her now peaceful children as she averted her husband's own childish behavior.

"Now…" She began again, this time looking over to Mirai. Trunks appeared to be meditating at the moment. "What was all the fuss about last night?"

"Well if you guys really must know…" Mirai sighed lightly, keeping an eye on Trunks.

"It was about a girl." Trunks insipidly interrupted as he slowly re-opened his eyes, meeting Mirai's gaze.

"So it seems you guys resolved everything without physically hurting each other…" Bulma concluded, getting up from her seat and pushed her chair in. Already dressed in coveralls, she was prepared for another day of working to fix at least one of the time machines so Mirai could get back to where he belonged. They both nodded a 'yes' back to her. "…so did you two learn anything important yesterday?"

"Well, I learned not to judge a book by its cover." Trunks asserted in a very low voice.

"Are you referring to that particular girl?" Bulma put a hand on Trunks shoulder, smiling down at him.

"Uh, yeah…" He looked up at his mother with an estranged expression. She smirked as she walked off to refill her cup of coffee.

"I see…" She then said filling up her mug and returned to her seat. "…you stole Future's cute girlfriend that you thought was not so cute at first until he liked her." She let out a light laugh, causing Trunks to frown. His mother always guessed everything without being given all the details, and he was just like her in that aspect he supposed.

"Back stabbing Meanie!" Bra name-called across the table. Trunks clenched a fist at her apparent accusation.

"That's not how it was!" he yelled back. He realized he was close to losing his temper again and rolled his eyes. "I didn't steal her…" He then mumbled. "…he…he gave her to me."

"Yeah after you stole her!" Bra replied angrily.

"Shut…" Trunks almost lost it until Mirai casually held up his palm to calm him.

Mirai empathically surmised shortly after their most recent argument that Bra purposely irked Trunks and made sure to a play more neutral role this time as he mediated.

"Bra..." He softly frowned down at her while he kept up the hand, signaling to Trunks that it was okay and he would handle their sister. "He's right. I let him have her. So let's just finish breakfast, and I'll take you to school...anyway, isn't it your show and tell today?"

"Oh yeah…" Bra raised a brow in recollection and then hugged Mirai. "You remembered!"

"Yeah." Mirai forced out as he was being tightly squeezed. Bra released her grip and he patted her on the head as she quickly finished off her bowl of cereal. They headed out shortly after to the elementary school, and Mirai dropped his sister off, promising he would return for the show and tell portion at the end of the day.

****************

It was now nearly the end of the school day and instead of show and tell as he promised Bra, Mirai acted as an assistant to his mother and watched as she continued her efforts to restore both time machines. It seemed that both the same vital parts for the machines were strangely damaged also in identical places. The mystifying damage was not visible by the naked eye and was discovered after Bulma decided to take each part out to examine them under magnification.

'Was lying for a good purpose necessarily wrong?" Mirai thought as he continued staring at his mother work her magic. He was swelling with feelings of guilt as he pondered his reasoning for deceiving his other self and breaking his promise to his little sister.

After recalling his conversation with Bra last night, he was determined to leave this time comfortably, knowing Bra had Trunks to be a good brother to her. And feeling it was his responsibility to make that happen, he set his other self up again; this time he had purposely and gladly switched places with him, but only after telling a little white lie.

***Earlier that day***

"Hey Trunks?" Mirai casually entered Trunks' room after he tapped lightly on the opened door, with his hands behind his back. He had just returned from Bra's school.

"What's up?" Trunks never faced his other self as he rambled through his closet searching his wardrobe for something in accordance with his plans for today.

"Do you mind taking my place and appearing for Bra's 'show and tell'?" Mirai nicely requested, walking over to the closet opening.

"Uh, I sorta told Angie I would pick her up for the tour today. So…" Trunks informed his other self as he pulled out the chosen attire for the occasion.

"Well, I'm sure if you explained that something came up with your sister, Angie wouldn't mind. She's a very understanding person." Mirai kindly suggested patting Trunks on the back with one hand as the other tugged away the name-branded outfit to coolly switch it with his tattered time travelling garbs.

Trunks frowned and let out a rather lengthy huff. "Well, I guess I do owe you, so I'll go…" He complied, and then eyed Mirai suspiciously. "…but can I ask why 'you' can't do it?"

"Oh, uh…um…" Mirai conjured up some false truths that his other self would believe."…I guess my head's been killing me since yesterday, so I'm going to rest today. "He lied. He did have a small headache yesterday, and not to mention the small nose bleed, but the pain subsided after their little bout and a night's rest.

"Riiiiight." Trunks sarcastically replied. He didn't fully believe Mirai's excuse, but then Trunks couldn't quite tell if he was lying. He reluctantly changed into the ragged clothes while something caught Mirai's attention in the closet.

"Oh and don't forget the sword…" Mirai pulled one of the sheathed identical swords from its resting place and handed to Trunks. "…and you have to escort her home afterwards and remember to act just like me or she'll know the difference."

"Yeah, yeah…I got you." Trunks strapped on the sheath and they head out the room.

Trunks called Angie as they strolled down the hall to inform her of the obligation he had to his sister. She thoughtfully understood and rescheduled for the next day.

"I'm serious, Trunks. You have to be extra nice to her!" Mirai called out to him as he was then departing.

"I know!" Trunks irately yelled back as he went out the door.

***Back to Present***

Mirai sighed as he handed his mother the requested tool and hoped all would go smoothly. And as a result, Trunks would see the brighter and innocent side of Bra.

****************

"Alright! Enough of this future crap!" A classmate of Bra's anxiously shouted at Trunks from the front row. He couldn't tolerate more stories about the alleged incidents in a so-called alternate timeline.

"Tony! Watch your mouth young man!" Their teacher scolded the boy.

"Sorry, Mrs. Rowan…" The boy sang halfheartedly and turned back to Trunks. "…but can you show us that sword now?" He pointed behind Trunks to the handle of the sword sticking out.

"Yeah! That thing looks cool!" Another boy agreed.

"Yeah…" The rest of the class began voicing one after the other.

Trunks noted the disinterest in his speech at his second sentence, so he figured it wouldn't be a problem to show them something more to their liking.

"Well sure." He slowly drew the sharp weapon from its sheath and held it out in front of him.

"Woah! Can I touch it?" Tony lifted out of his chair and slowly brought a hand forward as he leaned over his desk.

"Uh…" Trunks pulled back a little as he deciphered maybe it wasn't such a great idea to let a kindergartener touch such a sharp object and looked over to Mrs. Rowan.

"It's alright, Mr. Briefs." She assured with a faint smile.

"Okay, just be careful." He warned as the boy hesitantly placed a hand on the reverse side of the sword, being that Trunks faced the blade away from him.

"Wow! I wanna touch too!" Another student cried from the next row and got up from his seat.

"Me too!" All of Bra's classmates began crowding around Trunks in an instant.

"Okay, one at a time." Mrs. Rowan cautioned as Trunks forced a worried smile. Bra stared proudly at her brother from her desk in the middle of the class room and thought 'nice brother' looked much cooler with the sword than 'mean brother'; he would be the talk of the class for a while after this.

Trunks noticed Bra was not crowed with the rest of the children and looked up for her, briefly noting her infatuated stare.

"Can you show us some moves?" Tony nicely requested.

"Yeah!" The other children agree.

"Alright class, I'm sure Mr. Briefs would love to show you all his talent, but it's time to go home, now." Mrs. Rowan announced walking to the crowd.

"Aw man!" They all griped.

"Can you come back next week?" Tony then suggested.

"Yeah!" The class concurred with Tony once again.

"I'm afraid I have to return to school myself next week, so…" Trunks stated apologetically.

"And remember the show and tell rules, class: bring something different each time. If Bra had her brother come back she would be breaking the rules, right class?" Mrs. Rowan reminded the class as they dejectedly headed back to their desks and prepared their things to leave.

"Yes, Ms. Rowan." They sadly replied to her.

"Good. Class dismissed!" She announced and opened the door for them. "And don't forget your homework!" She then called as they rushed from the class room down the hall.

Trunks helped Bra with her things after putting his sword back in the proper place, and they headed towards the exit as well.

"Thank you for coming Mr. Briefs, and thank you Bra. That was a very interesting show and tell." Mrs. Rowan shook hands with Trunks when they came before her. "Although…that future story sounds very scary. Imagine, some androids taking over the world…" She frowned after recalling Trunks' future fable.

"But it's true!" Bra pouted at her teacher.

"That's okay Bra, let's go home now." Trunks grabbed her hand and bowed to the teacher. "You're welcome, Mrs. Rowan, and have a nice day."

"Bye Mrs. Rowan." Bra said sweetly, following the kind gesture of 'nice brother' as she idolized him.

"See you tomorrow, dear." Mrs. Rowan bid goodbye and exhaled after they departed the class. She chuckled lightly as she thought Bra has been the smartest student she has ever had the privilege to teach. And her mother and brother most certainly shared the same characteristics. But then her eyes widened with fear as she flashed back to an incident dealing with another immediate family member, the father. "I think I'll retire after this year. I can't possibly have another near death experience caused by another angry parent."

Trunks subconsciously held his sister's hand as they slowly walked home. He forgot to bring a capsule vehicle as he had stealthily flown to the school earlier.

"I want to fly home!" Bra pouted to who she thought to be nice brother. Coming to realization, Trunks quickly dropped her hand and stopped walking to scold her. It would be much harder for them to evade speculation since Bra was an amateur flyer.

"Are you out of your freak…" He stopped himself from yelling at his sister, remembering his assignment to act just like Mirai. "…uh…I don't think we can Bra." He forced a smile. "There are too many people around; somebody might see us."

"Pretty please nice brother!" She continued her sugar-coated whining as she ignored his admonition. He gritted agitatedly at her annoying cries.

"Didn't I say…" He abruptly calmed and gently took her hand as they started on their little journey again. "I mean…maybe next time okay?"

"But there probably won't be a next time…" She sadly stared down at the ground. Trunks heard the shakiness of her voice and wondered why she sounded so distressed.

"Why won't there be?" He asked looking down at her, keeping his steady pace.

"Because you have to leave here soon." She replied never lifting her focus on the ground.

"Oh…uh…that is true." Trunks agreed as he figured Mirai would have to depart for his timeline once the machines were working properly.

"I wish you didn't have to go…I wish…I wish mean brother was going instead!" Bra looked up at him as tears were forming in the ducts of her blue eyes.

"Wh…why do you wish something like that?" He tenderly inquired a little hurt by the blunt wish.

"Because I hate him!" She angrily shouted up at him as the abrupt rush of blood flow caused her face to redden.

"Why…why do you hate me…I mean me as in the other me?" He stopped again and looked into her eyes.

"Because he hates me first!" She claimed and yanked him forward to continue their walk.

"No I…he doesn't!" He said to the back of her head, tagging along as she stomped ahead of him.

"Then why is so mean to me?" She suddenly halted and turned to face him for his point of view.

His facial expression showed anger as he thought of all the infuriating things she ever did to him.

"Maybe because you're such a nos…" He paused noting the baffled look that began to form upon her face. "…nice little girl why would he do such things?" He walked ahead nervously.

"See!" She called behind him.

"But I'm sure he has a very good reasons…say like…do you not plunder through his personal belongings and sometimes even break things…things that are…very important to him." He sighed observing the blue sky.

"Yeah…but…" She paused again. He came to a stop himself feeling the jerk of his arm.

"But what?" He turned to look at her. His complacency faded when he saw the tears break through to stream down her red cheeks and soft sniffles transformed to loud whimpering as she began pouring her heart out to him.

"But that's because he's never home! He's never around when I need him, like you are! He…He's always chasing stupid girls and talking on that stupid phone with them…I was glad you broke it…I wished I broke it! Like I broke that new iPod…like I broke all the other things because….cause he was going to ignore me with it!"

"Bra…" He muttered softly as her two-edged words pierced his through his very heart.

"I missed him when I thought he was gone forever…but when he came back it was the same…he was still mean…and then…then he started chasing those…those dummies again and took you with him! When…when I was a baby he loved me…but now…now he loves them more than me…I hate him!" She roughly wiped her face with sleeve and stifled a sob.

"I…I don't know what to say…" Trunks stumbled out, subconsciously squatting down to her level.

"Say you're going to stay here with me forever and ever…" She forced her arms around his neck and hugged him close. "…please…please don't go." She sniffled in his ear.

"I'm…I'm sorry…" He apologized as he hesitantly brought his arms around her to return the hug. "…I didn't know you felt this way…and I'm sorry if I hurt you…uh…when I go back…" He leaned back a bit to look at her face and reached a finger to gently wipe a single tear drop that remained. He then used the same finger to softly tilt her chin up. "…but our mom in my time is alone and waiting for me to come home and protect her from those androids."

"But daddy can protect her." Bra smiled innocently looking into his eyes.

"But daddy isn't there with her either…and that's also why you are not there…" His heart skipped upon discerning the insufferable conclusion. "…because…because without daddy…you…you weren't…you weren't even…born…" He held back tears and stood up to hide his disheartened composure from her view.

"Oh…then mommy must be really afraid…" She said coming to her own understanding.

"…eh…exactly." He took a deep breath and looked down at her. "…so I have to go, but…but now I ha…shoot…I mean…mean brother…" He changed his uncertain stuttering to sweet convincing words. "…has a nice new girlfriend now, so he won't chase after those…dummies anymore. And now…he'll have more time for you."

"No he won't…he'll just give all the attention to the new girlfriend, now." She pouted back at him, and mimicked her father's infamous crossed-arms pose.

"Oh, I don't think he'll do that." He sighed and patted her head.

"Are you sure?" She suspiciously queried his too-good-to-be-true statement.

"Very sure…" He smiled genuinely. "In fact, I think he's inviting her over tomorrow, and he just might introduce you to her."

"Really?" She asked gleefully.

"Of course!" Trunks boldly asserted and received a rather unexpected hug from his sister, catching him off guard as he stumbled a bit from the half-saiyan strength.

"I love you so much, nice brother!" She cheered still holding his stiff body tight.

"And I…" He loosened under her hold and hugged her back. "…I love you too, little sister."


Sorry to all those who wanted a fight scene. I really tried to think of something and therefore, even delayed this chapter a bit in the process. I figured this to be more family oriented when it came to me, so there's no actual antagonist or much physical fights. But even so, I tried. So I do hope you'll continue to enjoy the fic despite my shortcomings. Thank you. Reviews are so appreciated.