"Several strings of isolated earthquakes have been reported all over the world in the past month, and they have all progressively increased in intensity since the initial Satan City quake that brought down the historic luxury hotel..."
Trunks yawned. His mother still refused to remove the parental controls and so when he wasn't holed up in the gravity room with his father, he was stuck with ZTV blaring all day, every day. He decided that when he inherited Capsule Corp, his first order of business would be to create a news channel that only featured interesting stories rather than the boring drivel today's reporters fed to their viewers.
A commercial advertising diapers for adults came on. "I'll bet my dad had to wear those when his lower body was shattered from training and he couldn't make it to the restroom by himself that one time," he said to the empty seat next to him. "And mom probably had to change him." Trunks's immature giggles rang hollow off the walls of the empty living room and died.
He wished Goten were there to keep them alive.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Lucky Egg marked where the commercialized area of Satan City began and where the residential ended. Sevoya was decently sure that it had been an apartment building before her father had renovated the place, but she had never cared enough to ask.
She walked into the kitchen through the back door and smiled at her father and the sous chef Earl.
"Did you and your friends enjoy lunch?" Her father asked.
"Yeah, Papa. Thank you," she said, pulling out the storage capsule and leaving it in a little box with its brethren. "I already emptied the leftovers out so just the table and dishes are left in there. I'll get them out and clean them after we close."
Her father nodded. "You know, you can bring your friends home if you like." His eyes darkened. "Unless they are boys. Are they boys?"
Sevoya considered the whole truth, but decided an almost-truth would be better. "Videl and Erasa are girls." Videl and Erasa were also not quite Sevoya's friends. Of course, neither were Gohan or that one buff asshole with the blonde hair.
"Sevoya," her father warned.
"They are!"
Earl snickered over the sauce he was stirring.
Sevoya's father turned his broad face away from her and smacked Earl on his back with a thick hand. "Don't just stand there grinning like an idiot! Check on the soup!"
"That's a minestrone! I'm a carnivore, Hass. I don't do too well with vegetable bases." the young lion adjusted the bun he'd pulled his mane into and straightened his hairnet over it.
"Then go make more beef broth! Geez! Do I have to do everything?"
"If by "everything", you mean "a whole lotta nothin'", then I guess so, boss!" Earl shot back.
Sevoya left her father and his favorite employee to their day job and zipped up the stairs in the back to her family's living area.
Once she made it to the living room couch, she flopped down and grabbed the remote before pointing it at the tiny television in front of her. Then, she assaulted the power button.
The stupid battery was dead. "Awesome," she said. Idly, she let her eyes travel over the photographs cramped together on the wall behind the television- her father Hass, back when he was forty pounds thinner, proudly standing in front of The Lucky Egg at its grand opening, a wedding photo, Sevoya as a newborn, her little sister as a baby eating watermelon, the extended family, a framed pamphlet and ticket stub from the movie Sevoya's parents saw on their first date, Sevoya, her sister, and Hass in matching Halloween costumes, Sevoya's mother in her favorite dress, Sevoya's eleventh birthday party with her family... the rows of outdated gold frames all held more of the same, but without Sevoya's mother or sister as the images grew more recent. The only exception was the picture squeezed in the corner beneath Sevoya's most recent yearbook snapshot. It was her father's prized autographed photo of the Anonymous Female Fighter from the Twenty-Third Annual World Martial Arts Tournament, fierce and poised, and with her foot aimed squarely at the face of another contestant with the messiest hair Sevoya had ever seen.
"She's the most beautiful woman to ever exist, besides your mother," her dad would say.
Sevoya looked from her dad's fantasy crush to her mother's portrait. They were not alike in any way. The Anonymous woman gave the impression that a tornado stripping a village down to its foundations sends to an incoming airplane while Sevoya's mother sat politely, smiling, and as docile and fragile as the day she left this world.
Sevoya escaped from her mother's immortal gaze for fear that she would rub off on her daughter.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Gohan arrived home well before the curfew his mother had saddled him with as punishment for failing to come home on Sunday or Monday. He stepped into the kitchen and tossed the tiny blue capsule his family used for groceries onto the ground. When the yellow and pink smoke cleared away, he began to put away the contents of the bags left in their wake. "Hi, mom! I had some time so I picked up a few things from the store," he called.
Chi Chi emerged from her bedroom and crossed her arms. "Thank you, Gohan." She smiled sweetly. "But I still want you home by five thirty every day."
"Don't I know it," Gohan said, stuffing a bag of rice twice his size into the pantry. "Do you want me to make dinner tonight since I am home so early?" He did not care to inform her that he had abused Orange Star's fire safety system and cut class yesterday. And that he was going out on another date with a girl Chi Chi probably did not approve of. And that he was taking Dende to the surface this weekend. Gohan realized that he had also bruised the apples when packing them into the storage capsule and added that to his list of sins.
Chi Chi leaned against the doorway. "No, thank you. I was planning on making dumplings tonight and you never manage to make those come out quite right when you try. Besides, I should be rewarding you! I snuck into your book bag last night and saw the results of your first quizzes. Perfect scores!"
"Oh, uh, well, you know." She was not aware that he had failed to complete a different test when he missed school on Monday.
Gohan decided he was a horrible disappointment and sent himself to his room the moment he finished stocking the kitchen. He slumped onto his bed and pulled out his modern history textbook. The thought of reading about the Red Ribbon Army filled him with dread.
Suddenly, a purple dragon stuck its head into the window. "Hello, Gohan!" Goten's face squeezed in next to it.
"Oh. Icarus," Gohan said. "And Goten. Hey."
Goten scooted his entire body past Icarus and into the window. "You don't sound very happy to see us. Are you still mad at me for asking about dad?"
Gohan closed his textbook and pulled himself up. His body felt heavy. "No. And I was never mad at you." He stroked Icarus' head and the dragon purred. "I am sorry that you thought I was. I should have just talked to you instead of moping around about it and leaving. The person I am mad at is myself."
"I really don't think you killed him," Goten babbled, shaken. "It was because Trunks said that his dad said that you did that I asked, but I should have never believed Trunks because he was just trying to make me mad because he likes to do that sometimes, and-"
Gohan knelt down and cut off his little brother's tirade. "It's okay. How about you and I go talk about it in Great Grandpa's little house?" He looked up at the purple dragon peeking in the window. "We'll grab a snack for Icarus to take back to his forest with him, too."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Dende sat cross-legged in midair next to Piccolo, but instead of focusing on his inner life energy like his mentor, the Guardian's attention rested on the pages of a giant tome in his lap.
Only Piccolo's mouth betrayed that he was not a statue planted in the sky. "Does it bother you to know that Gohan's human lineage was bloodthirsty as well?"
Dende conjured his memory of Gohan, screaming, six, and slamming his foot into Dodoria's head. It lingered in his mind's eye for Piccolo to see. "It should not. It was obvious from the beginning."
"I asked you if it did, not if it should."
"I am unfit to be the Guardian of this planet if I cannot accept it," Dende said, slowly turning the page of Gohan's history book.
"That is not an answer."
"It troubles me," Dende admitted. "It troubles me to know that rage and hatred and war can exist in someone who is pure of heart."
Piccolo kept his eyes closed and his posture unchanged. "Do you also know of those things?"
"Yes," said Dende.
"Are you pure of heart?"
"I could not say. I wish to be, but few mortals ever truly know their own heart."
"You are not mortal. You are God." Piccolo breathed deeply. "Learn it."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Gohan sat his brother down on the edge of the bed in Great Grandpa Gohan's house and kneeled at the little boy's side like a repentant sinner to a saint. Goten's wide, dark eyes blinked down at him.
"Goten, before I explain this to you, I need to see how much you already know. So bear with me. I promise I am going somewhere with this." Gohan squeezed his eyes shut and then braved looking into his brother's familiar face again. "Do you know what dad and I were doing when he died?"
"You were fighting a bad guy."
"Yes. Do you know who he was or why we were fighting him?"
Goten shook his head. "Mom just said he was a bad guy. And you and dad fought him because he was bad and you are good and somebody good had to stop him because he was bad."
Gohan could not tell if the expression on his face was a grimace or a smile. "But do you know why dad and I were fighting him rather than letting somebody else?"
"No."
"Do you know why Mom makes you practice martial arts while I study?" Gohan tried a different approach.
"No," Goten repeated.
"Do you know why we don't talk to people about how you and me and Trunks and his father can fly and shoot light from our hands?"
"Because most other people can't? I mean, I don't know how to fly yet, but is that it?" Goten tried.
"Yes. But do you know why we can and other people can't?"
Goten frowned. "Um, is it because of that Saiyan thing Trunks's dad always talks about?"
"Yes." Gohan hesitated. "Do you know what a Saiyan is?"
"Not really."
Gohan licked his lips and reached for his brother's tiny hands. "Goten, I want you to know," he collected himself, "that mom and I love you, and Bulma loves you, and Trunks does too even though he said mean things to you. And there are others- I will take you to meet them, soon- but they love you, too, and they will always accept you no matter what. They will always stand by you because they know you are and always will be their friend and their family, and they will help you when you are in trouble or feel lost. You are important to them, and they want you to be happy and safe. I need you to promise me you will remember that. Even if you forget everything else I am about to tell you, please, please remember that. It is what will save you in your darkest hour."
Goten nodded, quiet and slow.
"Okay." The air in the tiny house stood still, like the building itself was holding its breath. Gohan felt like something was constricting around his lungs. "Goten, a long time ago, there was a race of warriors that lived on a planet very, very far from here. They called themselves Saiyans."
Goten stared back. "Like... aliens? Are you playing a trick on me?"
Gohan willed himself to look at his brother, hard, and not start shaking. "Like aliens. Dad was one. Vegeta is one. That is why they can do things like fly and fight bad guys that nobody else can even touch." His hands surrendered and trembled softly. "That is why we can do things like that."
Goten's fingers wrapped around his brother's, tightly.
"Goten, you and I are not totally human."
The doors of the old house dared not creak as the wind gently pushed at them to let it eavesdrop on the two boys's secret. The dying daylight cast dark specters back and forth across the room until the wind finally gave up.
All traces of Son Goku left Goten's face as the little boy turned white as a sheet. He gripped his brother's hands like letting go meant the Earth itself would swallow him up in blackness forever. "Gohan," he whispered, "I am scared."
"I know. But you don't have to be," Gohan said, and wished he had the confidence to make it sound like the truth.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Chi Chi called out the front door for her boys to come eat dinner. They emerged into the kitchen a few minutes later and sat down quietly.
She served the meal and watched as Goten ate his food uncharacteristically slowly and Gohan barely ate anything at all.
"Are you feeling sick?" She asked, looking between the two when they both set their utensils down.
Goten shook his head. "No."
Chi Chi stood and began to gather up the leftovers. Gohan followed and took the dirty plates to the kitchen sink to wash them. Behind them, Goten snagged a washcloth and wiped down the table.
Their mother watched them help her from the corner of her eye. It was not unusual for Gohan to lend a hand, but Goten had to be reminded if he stayed put long enough to do any cleaning.
They were both so quiet. Chi Chi packaged the last of the rice and opened her mouth to ask about it when her oldest suddenly pulled her into a hug. His hands were still wet from the dishes.
Goten, finished with the table, dropped the rag and scurried over to grab his mother's waist with his arms, too.
Chi Chi placed a hand on the back of Goten's head and arm around Gohan's back. Her unspoken questions died in her throat. "I have such good, loving boys," she said instead.
Gohan and Goten held her tighter.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Author's notes:
Chi Chi is great. Well, I think she is great. But who is your favorite character to tag along with? If you haven't noticed, each little section follows the bias of a particular character. Do you have a favorite? Do you have a least favorite? It won't change the story any, but would be interesting to know!
As always, thank you for reading and to those of you who reviewed!
