"I swear, we didn't do anything wrong!" Trunks insisted.

But Bulma placed her hands on her hips and glared at the boys before her. "Now why would I think that you two might have done something wrong?" she challenged. "Because I've met you two before? Because I know what happens to common sense when the two of you are anywhere near each other? Or maybe it's because I got a phone call from your principal this afternoon?"

Trunks refused to back down in the face of his mother's agitation. "It wasn't his fault!" he shouted. "And even if it was, the other kid had it coming, so it was justification through provocation!"

"His?" the mother asked, shifting her gaze to Goten.

Realizing his mistake too late, Trunks took a protective step in front of his best friend. "Mom, listen, I can explain the whole thing…"

"I'm sure you can," Bulma interrupted, holding her hand up to emphasize her control. "But I don't want to hear it from you. I want to hear it from the one the principal called about."

"But Mom…"

"No 'buts', mister," she cut off once more. "You may be great at double talking, and we all know that you want to take on every major challenge in Goten's life as your own, but you can't protect him this time. What's done is done, and I want to hear, from Goten, what, exactly, happened today."

Trunks opened his mouth once more, still not ready to resign his station as Goten's protector, but a soft hand on his shoulder halted him. "Come on, man," Goten said with a crooked smile, "you've got to let me answer for my own crimes at some point."

"No, I don't," Trunks insisted.

But Goten simply continued to smile. "Yeah, actually, you do. And I'll be okay." Steadying his shoulders, he faced his guardian and drew a calming breath. "Look, I know I shouldn't have done it, and I'm really sorry that I crossed the line. I won't let it be an issue again."

Bulma hardly seemed appeased by the response, though. "If you think this one warrants just an apology to be dropped forever, you've got another thing coming, mister. Now sit down on the couch and tell me, from the beginning, what happened."

Goten nodded, obliging his legal guardian. He had always been a fairly laid back young man, and unless in serious, serious trouble, he had never particularly had an issue talking about anything to anyone. "Okay, so here's what happened…"

/

"Heads up, the sharks are circling," Trunks bitterly mumbled.

Goten glanced over his shoulder. There was a group of seniors watching them, studying them, looking like predators moving in for the kill. "Eh, whatever," he shrugged it off. "I mean, what's the worst they can do to us anyway? It's not like they can beat us up or anything."

But Trunks still seemed on edge. "I know damn well they can't beat us up," he muttered. "Hell, they'll break their fists if they take a swing. We wouldn't even have to move."

"So what's the problem?" his younger friend asked.

"The problem," Trunks tensely explained, "is that they are looking for something to do to us."

"And?"

Trunks shot his best friend a glare. "And if they are planning something, then we have to consider them a threat, no matter how unlikely it is that they'll actually be able to pull anything off."

Goten laughed and clapped a hand on Trunks' shoulder. "Oh, man, if you could hear yourself now," he teased. "You sound just like your dad!"

"It's not paranoia when they're actually out to get you," the young prince defended. "Look, I'm not saying that they're going to actually pull anything off, and even if they try, they're not going to win. But we're being targeted, and that needs to be taken seriously!"

The younger of the pair shook his head. "You know, ever since they skipped you ahead, you've gotten totally on edge. Just relax a little, man!"

True enough, Trunks had been struggling over the past academic year. Academically, the fourteen year old was able to handle the curriculum of eleventh grade easily. However, he was significantly younger than his peers, and as such was much earlier in adolescence than the others in his grade. In spite of his intelligence, and the fact that he carried himself as though he were much older than he actually was, it was obvious that he was still a child next to them. On top of that, he bested them in every arena, from schoolwork to sports. Being shown up by a much younger boy did not lead for high levels of acceptance by the older teens.

It also did not help that he continued to hang out with Goten, two full grades behind. The school year had barely started, and even Goten was on the younger side of his class. High school was already proving to be a force neither of them had been prepared to deal with. In elementary school, it had been easy enough to get by socially. They were still considered a little odd by their peers, mostly due to the almost unnatural bond that they shared, but when considered children, more people had been willing to let it go. Four weeks of being together in high school had already gotten them mocked fairly mercilessly. It mostly seemed to roll off Goten, but Trunks, who had already been fighting for acceptance among the ranks of the teenagers for two years, was certainly cut deeper.

"Look, let them be assholes," Goten assured his best friend. "They'll talk trash, and that's it. There's nothing else they can do to us. And if we don't let it bother us, they'll get frustrated and give up."

"Or they'll get mad and try something big," Trunks pointed out. "I don't know what they might try, but they'll try something, I just know it."

"Yep, you're paranoid."

Trunks did not seem to relax at all, but he did stop talking about the subject. After all, to a certain extent, his best friend was right. There was only so much that the older students could do to him. Resigning himself to his thoughts, the young prince led the way to the cafeteria. Perhaps after getting some food in his stomach, he would feel slightly better.

Goten began a much more lighthearted conversation, hoping to get Trunks to relax, but even he was starting to feel slightly on edge. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the group of seniors following them closely. No matter how laid back he normally was, even he had to admit that such behavior was not a good sign.

They made their way in to the cafeteria and took their seats, starting in on their nutrient dense lunches. Slowly, Trunks was starting to relax a little, and they began to talk about miscellaneous adventures they planned to have as soon as they were old enough to live on their own. Trunks had already found the place he was sure they would move into as soon as high school was behind both of them. Large square footage, a game room they could customize, and, what the selling point had been for Goten, three large refrigerators and freezers in the garage. The two boys enjoyed coming up with how exactly the would make it the coolest place ever.

That day, however, it was hard to get completely absorbed into it. The seniors were clearly stalking them, hunting for an opportunity. Even Goten could no longer ignore their presence. Despite knowing full well that there was virtually nothing they could do to hurt them, it was still intimidating to be watched like prey. Several tense minutes passed as the boys pretended not to notice the pack of older students, both of them hoping that they would choose to walk away. But luck, as usual, was not with them, and the older boys approached with malice in their eyes.

They started out with verbal taunts, but Trunks and Goten ignored them. It would have been too easy for things to spiral out of control quickly if they fought back, and they knew it. A handful of incidents when they were children had trained them that when dealing with humans, the best solution was to not engage. When the taunts were not enough to get a rise out of the younger pair, the seniors sat down on the bench with them, crowding their space. Again, the younger pair tried to ignore them, but it was starting to get difficult. Instinct told both of them to respond physically, but logic won out and they simply got to their feet, set on walking away. As soon as they were up, though, someone took it a step too far.

He verbally attacked Goten's mother.

Everyone in the cafeteria paused as something shifted in the room. There was no sound, no movement to tell them what was going on. But something had shifted in the air, and it was powerful enough to make every human in the room stop what they were doing. Something was definitely off.

"What did you say?" Goten softly demanded.

As the senior repeated his offense, Trunks put a hand on Goten's shoulders. "Calm down," he firmly but quietly commanded. But Goten did not acknowledge him, and turned to square off against the larger boy. Trunks watched in horror as he saw Goten's eyes grow lighter in color, threatening to flicker into teal. "Goten," he tried again, his voice slightly louder than before, "he's not worth it."

Slowly Goten glanced over at his best friend. The message had gotten through clearly, but he was not satisfied with walking away any longer. No one slandered his family like that and got away with it. Something needed to be done, but he was just barely calm enough to reason out that violence was not going to solve anything. He stood quietly for a few seconds before a wicked smirk crossed his face.

"You know what?" he loudly informed Trunks. "I think that's the problem right there. And we should fix that." Before anyone else could react he reached out and grabbed the senior by the shoulders and hauled him to the front of the room.

"Excuse me," he called out, "can I have everyone's attention?" The other students, who were still trying to figure out what the earlier disturbance was, looked to the freshman manhandling a senior. "Thank you," the boy went on. "My fellow students, something has come to my attention recently that I feel needs to be addressed immediately."

The senior used a few choice phrases as he struggled to escape Goten's grasp, but there was nothing he could do to release himself from that grip. It was humiliating, but in spite of being several inches larger than the freshman, the senior seemed absolutely powerless.

"This young man," Goten loudly explained, "is a troubled soul. See, he feels so bad about himself, and so insecure with the way his own life is going, that the only way for him to feel better about his own failures is to take it out on someone else. Now I know, I know, we should probably not give him attention for this, since that's clearly what he's after. But you see, he is so hard on himself that he felt the need to come to me, a small, lowly, unknown freshman, and mock my mother. Now for those of you who don't know me well, and let's face it, that's most of you, my mother passed away when I was just a little kid."

There was a collective murmur spreading through the room as the students whispered about how sad it was that the unknown freshmen had lost his mother as a child, and how disgusting it was that someone would give him grief over it. The senior who had made those comments felt his face heat up with embarrassment, and he shot his buddies a desperate glance for help. But they were suddenly very aware of how much trouble they were in, and were slowly making their way for the double doors.

"This fact," Goten continued, "was likely not known to him, and I do not hold it against him. For you see, it is not the slandering of my poor, deceased mother that bothers me." It was a lie, but other than Trunks, no one could tell that Goten was still seething over the insults made to his mother. The senior had no idea how lucky he was that Goten was not out for blood. "What bothers me is that this poor, poor senior felt he had nowhere else to turn to feel good about himself. So I ask of you, all of you, to stop by whenever you see him or his friends. Reach out to them. Tell them exactly what you think of them. Because in the end, isn't acceptance what we all need? Please, reach out to him. Thank you."

With a slightly aggressive shove, he finally let the older boy go and returned to his seat. All around him students talked, and some even applauded and cheered. He did not say another word as he grabbed his things, and he and Trunks left the cafeteria.

Once they were clear of the rest of the student body, Trunks grinned from ear to ear. "Holy crap," he laughed, "could you see the look on that guys face while you were talking?"

"No, but I could feel him squirming to get away like that frog you and I caught when we were, like, nine," Goten smugly answered.

"That was awesome!" his best friend praised. "How did you come up with that so fast?"

With a slight chuckle, Goten shook his head. "Honestly?" he confessed. "I asked myself what could be said to a crowd of peers that would piss your dad off like no tomorrow, and I ran with it. Anyone who's going to do something over what I said is either going to tell him he's the jackass that he is, or they're going to do that 'Oh, bless your heart, let me give you a hug you poor, broken bird' thing. Either way, he loses."

Sharing a laugh, they heard the bell ring for the end of lunch and knew that had to head to their respective classes. They parted ways, promising they would talk about it more the next time they got to meet up.

Little did they know it would be thirty minutes later, sitting in the principal's office…

/

"…so that pretty much sums it up," Goten finished. "I know I probably shouldn't have humiliated the guy in front of everyone, but come on, I had to do something, and at least I didn't get in trouble for fighting or anything."

Slowly, Bulma nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much what the principal said."

"What?" both boys asked in unison.

The heiress gave them a smile. "Apparently he was as harsh as he was on you guys because he found himself blindsided by two hundred simultaneous student complaints about the other guy, along with various versions of what you just told me. He was still trying to figure out what happened when he called the both of you in, and someone I know decided to open his big mouth and get aggressive with him."

Trunks' cheeks turned red and he looked down. True enough, at the first sign that Goten had been in trouble, the young prince had shot his mouth off and tried to draw fire to himself.

"Anyway," the mother went on, "when he called me this afternoon, he was able to give me a pretty good version of the story as well as a personal apology that Goten had been treated in such a manner. He also wanted to express how proud he was that Goten's reaction to such a thing was limited to what it was, and to let me know that our young Goten has managed to become something of a folk hero on campus. He's not mad." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she shifted her glance specifically to her son. "Well, he's not mad at one of you."

"Mom, I was just…"

"Doing what you always do," his mother interrupted. Her glare softened into a smirk. "You were protecting him however you could." With a shake of her head, she actually chuckled lightly. "Listen, I'm not mad at either of you. I just wanted to let you guys know that if stuff like this comes up, I'm happy to know that you're there for each other, and that you can get through it just fine. I'm proud of you guys."

That said, she gave each of them a small hug, got up, and left. Still slightly confused, the boys exchanged a look. "Is it just me, or did it seem like we were in big trouble when this started?" Goten asked.

Trunks rolled his eyes. "Mom sounds mad when she does just about anything. Same with Dad, for that matter. It makes it really hard to tell when we're actually in trouble."

"Yeah, it's really weird."

The elder of the pair shook his head and stood up. "All the years you've known my parents, and you still don't get that they're nuts?"

"Oh, no," Goten quickly assured. "I had that one pegged early on. Like, from the day I met them."

With a laugh, Trunks led them from the room. "Come on, we're going out for food, my treat. Today, my friend, you earned it."