Marron had a habit of yelling the stupidest things when startled. It was like some weird evolution on a scream, her animal brain knowing it needed to make noise - any noise - in pitiful defence, so her mouth got a direct line to whatever disastrous thought was swimming through her mind at that very moment. Like the time the cutest guy she'd ever laid eyes on joined the line at the bakery - a guy so gorgeous she dismissed him as out of her league - then smiled and asked for her name. She'd completed her disbelieving internal monologue with a shout of "surely not?" and he'd promptly turned on his heels and fled the establishment in his dejection, leaving Marron to hide her reddening face in her shawl.
Then there was the time she and a school friend were texting about a secret house party, both scheming over how to get away with attending, when her mother crept behind her and asked what was up. Marron's squeak of "not alcohol!" invited far more questions than it answered.
Or when Marron's mentor called her over for her one-on-one, drawing an inordinate amount of attention to that morning's front-page news of her friends' niece playing Hero as though to pique her journalistic interest, and laid a very big hint that the envelope he was dangling before her contained something far worse.
"You can't say 'no thank you'," Red said. "That's not how this works."
"I was only being honest," Marron said, cursing her quick mouth.
"And I'm telling you, your honesty is inappropriate. Particularly for an intern."
The open office bustled around them, full of murmuring journalists with phones tucked between ear and shoulder, the air filled with late morning coffee and the clacking of keyboards. Marron usually found this a meditative time of day to work. Sitting face to face with her secret life was not her idea of relaxation. Papayaman plastered on the front page wasn't unusual for the local papers ZPress owned, but The Orange Herald circulated throughout the entire south-east.
This was all too close for comfort. When Marron had heard the news of Pan's interference from Uub's group message, she'd felt pity for him and concern for whatever sense of ineptitude Pan harboured to drive her to live incidents. Now Marron, desperately scrambling backwards to untangle herself from this, thought only of cold, bloodied murder.
Red's tone had made it clear he thought her petulance childish, but if she was to have a hope in hell of not getting caught atop a teetering house of cards, Marron had to dodge this story. She tried again.
"There's rumours of militia near North City. I could look into who they are -"
"No."
"-Or if you're trying to keep me local there's the lack of preparedness for this drought, money being diverted maybe-?"
"Quiet." Unusual for a sub-editor, Red didn't shout. He was a bear type, and bears as a rule didn't have to shout. His claws rapped on the desk in thought, a deep sigh threatening the buttons on his shirt. "Is there something I should know?"
"In what regard?" Marron answered delicately.
He stared her down in return, the light from the windows behind framing him with a sinister glow. "I was under the impression a chance to solve a mystery as huge as this would be grabbed from my paw now and on my desk three hours ago." He swung the envelope in front of her. She ignored both the hypnotic pendulum and the growing realisation that maybe she was the only person left who could stop whatever this was from escalating. "Now you're telling me 'no thank you' to something this big," he said. "I don't buy it."
Marron decided to shrug. "The public may have a fascination with Heroes but ultimately it's a fluff piece." The package was small but thicker than paper. Photos? "I'll find them, end up harassing some nice people, they'll get the kind of fame they're not seeking and what about the world has changed?" Maybe she should take the job, get the envelope then mysteriously not find anything. But that could be a risk too if the contents were damning. "I'd prefer to investigate stories that have meaning, some real political implication."
"I don't care about publishing their identities." Red smirked, and Marron held back a grimace. She'd fallen for his trap. "I care about their motivation. Who are they really working for. Can they be bought? What is that new Hero to them? That all has meaning to this city and the world at large. And this -" he handed her the envelope and she had no choice but to take it "- is a lead." She tried not to glare at him over her predicament, knowing any more arguing would truly make him suspicious. Marron did the only thing she could do, and opened the envelope.
Judging by the flap's torn edge Red had already seen the contents, so Marron arranged her face into one of impassivity. Even so, he leant across the desk to watch (not difficult for someone his size), and her hope of reprieve with something unrelated died.
The envelope contained three high-quality monochrome photos and a note - 'Red: I'll be at Paozu Place Café by the fire, 3pm'. Marron used every ounce of training she had to steady herself, her earlier irritation giving way to a primal fear. Crap was all she could think, so she kept her silence.
Red took her surprise as a positive. "I trust Papayaman will remember you?"
"Undoubtedly." She was his first rescue. Or 'rescue', but Red didn't need to know that.
"And you can get a statement from him before eight PM?"
She nodded. Red didn't care how. He never cared.
"So he'll trust us when you say we won't out them, and we won't." Red smiled, all warmth and teeth, the mix of fatherly and terrifying only he could achieve. "Still, the public needs answers, Marron."
The streets weren't as crowded as they should be mid-afternoon; they'd been near-deserted all week with the heat. Most people stuck with the air con in buildings or cars, dashing between the two environments, and everyone was miserable. The walk to Goten's café was a good fifteen minutes - a forever in the city and twice-over in the weather - and by the time Marron had turned into the side street her feet were burning through her pumps' thin soles. She paused in the shade of the bank on the corner, peering down to the picturesque plaza beyond.
Marron had made sure she was a good ten minutes early, partly so she could case the joint and mostly because she hadn't been able to work anyway. She'd stared at her screen, typing and backspacing nonsense for supposed research summaries, the photographs flashing through her mind. Pan japing at Heroing was problematic enough, but these photos had sent Marron reeling. They were taken either with a camera phone or a very strained telephoto lens, the quality of the print making her think the latter. The first photo showed two people on a rooftop - one shorter, face obscured, dressed in heavy black clothes and the other in the unmistakably bright uniform of Papayaman. Pan and Uub. By itself that wasn't a problem. What was was the second photo, showing Pan's face and gesticulating in what looked like anger, and the third Uub on his own, slumped, defeated and helmetless in the shade of the roof access building. Their faces were blurred by the poor resolution, but to Marron they were perfectly recognisable. If the photographer had any better shots and any intel on her family and friends she needed to know and quickly. "The public needs answers, Marron." By her ass did it. With the full story and a rudimentary plan she could ping the others.
Paozu Place Café inhabited a plaza tucked just off the Old Town's Victory Street, all cobbles and cute central fountain now dry in the drought. Before the café the building - originally a bakery - had laid mostly torched and derelict since the 750s. A passing menagerie of businesses opened then failed within weeks due to fires; so predictable was the pattern that real estate agents deemed the building cursed. Which meant it came to market cheap, and in turn became attractive to a very optimistic and poor Goten. Of course there was no curse, only a ghost, a surprise the gang took in his stride. Granny, the bakery's original owner until her untimely death at the hand of a demon, manifested twice a week to ensure Goten was looking after 'her' place and inevitably finding reason to complain. At first she belly-ached at Goten's choice of white external walls with red wood beams ("too south-eastern"), and then about Goten's conversion of the four apartments above the café into one ("too luxurious"), then went apoplectic over his keeping of the hole in the flat roof to work as the perfect secluded take off and landing point ("too unnatural, all of you"). Now she entertained herself by insulting his baking. Not even Dende could shift her - an honourable visit Marron felt Granny neither understood nor deserved.
Thankfully today the café appeared quiet at this distance. With amusement Marron noted Goten had optimistically drawn the slate blue awnings out as far as he could to cover the tables outside. Normally the building's older architecture meant it cooled well with open windows and a little breeze, but not with today's still air.
Marron braved the last stretch of sunlight, almost skipping across the hot cobbles, and entered blinking into the relatively darker, but still off-white and pale wood café. Marron guessed right; they only had five customers - an older couple sharing a sundae and a group of three twenty-somethings giggling over cake and iced coffee near the railing up top - no one yet by the imposing white marble fireplace and no visit from Granny. Hasa, starved for work and conversation behind the counter with only the quiet Eshi for company, beamed upon seeing a friendly face.
"Oh thank God, hi!" She jumped from her stool, phone tossed to the side, greeting Marron as though she'd brought an early birthday present. "Please save us from going crazy and order something complicated. I'm contemplating killing Eshi just to do something." She clapped her hands together in prayer.
Eshi shot her a look over his glasses, but otherwise went back to his phone, scrolling and frowning over some new puzzle he was immersed in today.
Marron checked over her shoulder, finding no one new. "Well, it is pretty warm for my usual, and I'll be taking it to go, so maybe -"
"Want a recc?" Evidently sensing her enter the café Goten had strolled from out back, drying his hands on a towel and grinning. She was hoping he'd be stuck in the accounts or busy in the kitchen but he'd always find time to at least surreptitiously greet her. Now though, with the mysterious photographer choosing the home of his subject's uncle no less to meet her…
"I'll let Hasa choose. Thank you," Marron said. [Danger, away], she projected, praying he'd pick up the unexpected telepathic attempt.
Thankfully he heard, his bewilderment lasting a mere moment before returning to the placid smile of an acquaintance. [Next?] he asked, their universal word in battle requesting the next move, or in this case 'what's going on?' - though he remembered to voice a platitude for the sake of appearances. "Alright, I'd trust their judgement over me, today at least."
[Busy], Marron replied. This was too complicated to explain and he'd have to trust her. That battle message was clear to him and he sent a warm response, an affirmation, before ducking out back again without complaint. He'd probably message the others in the meanwhile to see if they knew. With everyone aware trouble was afoot she'd have to manage this situation as soon as she could. Great.
Whilst Marron and Goten's true conversation passed in silence, Hasa wasn't completely fooled. "Did Boss do something when we were off shift?" she asked. She'd watched him leave with great confusion.
"No," Marron said, "just thought you might like to try something on me." Hasa didn't quite believe her, and even Eshi looked up with suspicion. "Why, did I sound mad?" Marron certainly felt the agitation.
"A little..." Hasa grabbed a large paper cup. "Summer Berry for you, definitely, to counteract that frazzled vibe you've got going. Always sets me right."
"Want to get back at him?" Eshi said, passing Hasa yogurt and berries from the under-counter fridge for her to blitz.
"Honestly, there's nothing to get back at," Marron said, and for once there wasn't, "how could there be, I barely know him." She added the lie easily, like she had for years. But she couldn't help wondering what Eshi's plans were, and whether there was yet another looming disaster. They always came in threes, this might as well be the second. She checked over her shoulder again. No one, yet. "Okay then, what's going on?"
"We can't find any record of Boss," Eshi said, confirming Marron's suspicions.
"Two weeks ago," butted in Hasa, yelling over the roar of the blender, "we spent nearly all our tip-jar points to be told that Boss' real name was Goten all along, but outside of anything to do with the café, we can't find him anywhere."
"I even went to the library." Eshi shook his head, like that was the ultimate insult to his technical talent. "We can't keep spending points to get told dead ends. You're a journalist, what would you ask next?"
Marron knew all this and knew this question would come. Aggrieved that they had worked full-time for and alongside Goten for three years but knew nothing of his personal life, Hasa and Eshi had demanded tit-for-tat information, the kind that could lead to Goten's secret life unravelling. Recognising the unevenness but not wanting to spill all just yet, Goten compromised, awarding points for good work that they could spend asking him questions. They'd never been so productive. Or so close to truths. Hasa knew celebrity gossip inside and out and Eshi had a voracious knowledge of anything with numbers and dates, including martial arts tournaments. Soon enough they'd be brought into the fold, the drip feed of information numbing them to the shock.
Goten had mentioned that, blessedly, their latest sticking point was because neither remembered that kanji existed, evidently using the standardised but incorrect katakana spelling of Goten's name.
Marron could leave them to their stumble in the dark, but their eyes pleaded and their growing determination meant Marron couldn't help but try and nudge them away.
"I'd narrow down where I was looking," Marron said. "Do you know where he went to school? They keep records there."
"Orange Star High." Eshi said.
"And they wouldn't help." Hasa rolled her eyes, as though creeping on her boss was the most natural thing to do.
"No Goten at his supposed college, either." Eshi added. Marron bit the inside of her cheek. She'd hoped to suggest Goten's college, knowing they'd 'helpfully' translated his name to katakana as 'Mago Satoshi Takashi', a similar gaff the world tournament monks repeatedly made for his and his father's names. Goten had gone by Satoshi throughout college for the sheer fun of it.
"Then what about elementary?" Marron said. "They have smaller classes."
Hasa eased up on the blending of Marron's drink. "Boss!" she called, making the final decision. Goten obliged the summon, cautiously peeping through bead curtain after Marron's warning, then looking to his staff.
"What's up?"
"Where did you go to school before high school?" Eshi had his phone at the ready to record the conversation and pick apart later. They'd already learnt Goten could be tricky.
"Thirty points," Goten said, and both baristas checked the scribble of white chalk in the corner of the board reading fifty four hard-won points. They nodded, and Goten rubbled out the five and redrew a two.
"I was homeschooled by my Mom," he said, "then got tutors for the junior high years, and sometimes met with other local kids for high school exam cramming."
"Not a kindergarten? Or a real cram school?" Eshi asked, eyes narrowed.
"Nope. Not enough folk in the mountains for anything official."
Hasa clawed at her face with a groan. "No fair. Not even the journalist could help. Are you positive you exist?"
"Pretty sure." Goten winked his thanks to Marron, but his expression darkened at something behind her. Marron sensed it too, the arrival of a nervous energy and her brief reverie broke. It must be who she needed to see. Goten retreated to the kitchen without further word, taking Marron's earlier instruction to heart.
The presence stood patiently in line behind her and Eshi broke from his and Hasa's bickering over their next investigative move to take Marron's payment. She waved her card and snatched up the drink and a fat straw with a quick thank you, her own nerves finally overriding her irritation and shorting her tone. She made straight for the fireplace - a bread-baking hearth once-upon-a-time - and tried to settle into her corner spot on the seafoam green couches, finding the cushions lumpy and unfamiliar with danger so close.
The climate in Satan City was mild enough that the fire was rarely lit - sometimes in the dry season to entertain the customers in the cooler mornings before the heat hit, or those very late nights the gang gathered - but today they'd wisely left the logs alone. Marron watched the cold grating regardless, her true attention feeling out the person at the counter. They mumbled their order in a deep voice, and mercifully didn't ask for Goten, but perhaps was waiting for a better moment. Hasa made polite chit-chat and Marron sucked on her drink, not as refreshing as promised given the situation. Fat lot of good the delicate points game would be if this person blew Goten's life wide open.
Marron felt them dither, then circle to the couches. She swallowed.
"Excuse me." Nervous as this man was, outwardly he passed as calm. "Are you a friend of Red's, by any chance?" The mysterious photographer was a kindly-looking older gentleman of some teratoidal description, wearing a flat cap to likely save his bald head from sunburn. He was shorter than Marron by a head, and scales ran from his bare forearms underneath a short-sleeved white linen shirt to his neck, his skin tinged blue-green around the scaled patches but otherwise pale. He had a lizard's third eyelid, and narrow pupils with wide, amber eyes. He held some kind of lurid green smoothie in a web-fingered hand.
"Marron." Marron stood, and they shook and bowed - he pressing his hat to his head with the hand holding the lidded cup. They sat together, and Marron returned to awkwardly flicking the straw of her drink with her nail. "I'm an intern working under Red," she said, "he gave me the photos and your note. Are they your photos?"
"Yes. The name's Snap," he said. "Forgive the mystery. I used to work as a photographer with ZPress many moons ago. The only name I recognised from your team was Red's."
"He sent me because I've met your subject," she said, sensing his disappointment at not meeting with a more senior figure. Snap must think this important. She couldn't hold it back. "Can I ask why you wanted to meet here?"
"Oh," he frowned, peering round the near empty café at the shelves of plants and photos. "My apartment's close and it seemed far enough away that ZPressers I knew wouldn't be here. Why?"
"Just it's my regular haunt, for that second reason." And Papayaman's. And Pan's. God, this was all a huge coincidence. Marron could have laughed at her paranoia. There wouldn't be a third disaster today, afterall. "I thought this venue was an interesting coincidence is all."
"Coffee's not really my thing," he said, shaking the vegetable drink, and the ice cubes clinked. He took a sip. "Although, this is pretty good. Oh! Yes. Why you're here."
Snap placed his cup on the coffee table and fished out a stack of black and white photos from his rucksack. They covered more of Pan and Uub's argument, and again Marron tried to maintain a relaxed but curious demeanor as she took them, trying to remember she still had a very real job to do.
"What's the story here?" Marron said with real curiosity.
"Yesterday there was an event downtown - oh of course you know, it was on your front page." He chuckled, ignorant of the lives he had the potential to destroy. "What you didn't see is the one dressed in black didn't leave the scene immediately, but waited on the rooftops. They must have been there for thirty, forty minutes hunkered down on that roof, and I managed to snap them mask off. Difficult, especially with the heat hazes, but I have the lenses." He took the stack back, flicking through them like a slideshow with his story. "I thought that would be interesting enough, but then Papayaman appears here, and they get into an argument, then he takes his helmet off, which is beyond anything I've seen - the mohawk is his actual hair by the way, it's hard to make out here but when he was moving around it was clear as day - the smaller one leaves and then Papayaman sits by himself for a long while. A very long while."
So it was an argument. Uub had been blunt relaying the news of Pan's appearance to their group chat last night, his jovial tone lost, even turning down the offer of Marron's call.
Snap raised a conspiratorial eyebrow. "Odd that the police said this was a planned operation, yet the smaller one wasn't at the press conference, and then this, yes? There's a huge story brewing here, there has to be. If any more of these photos are of interest to Red, we can negotiate standard licencing. I came to ZPress first out of nostalgia, but I'll need an answer soon."
"No worries about that, he's very interested," Marron said, eventually returning to her drink to take a morose suck on the straw. The way Uub sagged on the roof tugged at her. He was always so placid, so positive. He had his problems and misgivings, they all did, but he kept them private. It felt a little rude to see him so down. "How did you know to photograph them? A tip?" Maybe she could help narrow down the Police's leak.
"Nothing like that." He slipped the photos back in their sleeve, handing them over to Marron in a show of trust. "I've made it a habit to photograph any Hero events I can spot around town, just in case I can take better pictures of the others."
Marron nodded, then replayed Snap's words, a terrible sinking feeling swallowing her and making her next words echo in her ears. "What do you mean, 'the others'?"
Snap wasn't exaggerating. His apartment really was a five minute walk from Goten's café, but would have taken ten to climb on foot; he lived on floor thirty, one away from penthouse, in the fanciest, doormanned highrise you could find jammed between covered interregional highways. Through wall-to-ceiling windows Snap's apartment boasted the most breathtaking view west of the mountains' snowcaps with the dark dots of the telescope arrays perfectly visible, although Marron's breath was stolen for a very different reason - Snap had a perfect perch to watch a good third of the city centre and suburbs.
"You have very little sense of self preservation," Snap said, "following me to my apartment."
"Makes me a perfect reporter," Marron quipped back, sliding on the softest guest slippers to glide to the open plan kitchen-diner, ceramic tiling reflecting the sky like water. The huge apartment was the type rich people bought when they had money to afford space and land, but wanted a view and amenities nearby instead. Unlike most minimalist homes however, Snap's walls were covered with photo canvases; dramatic landscapes and perfectly composed cities from around the globe, with some locations even Marron didn't recognise. But a good two thirds were close ups and action shots of sports. Snap followed her curiosity.
"I'd cover all sorts for myself and any of ZPress' papers," he said. "Baseball, sumo, soccer, martial arts, you name it. Even the Budokai Tenkaichi." Snap pointed and there, on the wall, was a ring-side shot of Mr Satan holding up the championship belt synonymous with him. "I was right there for his first win at the twenty-fourth." Snap smiled, "who'd have known then, eh? Come."
Snap dove into a room off the open plan living area, flicking a switch on the inside of a room, and red light shone. His dark room. She heard him rummaging inside a filing cabinet for a moment, then he returned with a manilla folder under arm, flicking the light off and closing the door fast.
"You might not believe me right now," he said. "but there's more than just Papayaman and this new guy in the sky."
Marron couldn't muster a safe response quickly enough, but Snap didn't seem to mind; like older men are wont to do when met with a woman's silence, he took her as enthralled.
"I covered the world martial art tournament even before my career. Loved it. But the twenty-third? Absolute insane, full of the pyrotechnics you probably grew up seeing on the Cell Game vids. And The Great Saiyaman, Papayaman? Oh they hold back, but they're absolutely part of the same faction. I was in two minds for a long time, wondering whether the Bu-Ten management had sold out to draw the crowds with scripting and effects. But after seeing the Heroes, no bad guy is going to play along with an actor."
Snap waved her to his window, and Marron followed, and she found the height dizzying when she wasn't supporting herself with ki. "I moved here about a year ago," Snap said, "and once or twice I've seen Papayaman speeding along in the sky. Up up up, then down he goes -" Snap traced the high arc with this finger against the glass. "When he's far enough away he's a tiny dot but trackable against a bright sky. He's quick, but I keep the radio on and a camera on the bookshelf ready. One morning I ran some shots on the mountains, and I saw a shape go by - but it wasn't Papayaman."
Snap carefully pulled a photograph from the folder and handed it to Marron, and she held it by the edges. He'd clearly captured a distant image of one of the Son men, taken from a low angle so their features were darkened against the bright sky, but it was certainly one of their ilk. Broad build with short, dark hair and the pale shorts made her guess Goten. Snap waited for her surprised cooes, but she couldn't dig up any appropriate noise for the ignorance she was supposed to have.
"Maybe this is The Great Saiyaman, out of uniform," she said. It still could have been Gohan.
"Maybe," Snap said, the excitement of his reveal growing. "But then who's this?" He presented a photo of a slim figure in flight, again blown up with features blurry beyond identification. This flier looked female with pale hair, and for a moment Marron panicked thinking it herself, although she never wore denim jeans, and she definitely didn't fly with one knee up. Her mother. Snap had a picture of her mother.
Marron tried to deflect. "They look the right build to be the new Hero to me."
"Could be, could be," nodded Snap, undeterred. "But there's more."
He turned and spilled dozens of pictures across his kitchen island, letting them skim and spin away. To Marron's horror, there were more low resolution photos of Sons and her Mom and Trunks' family and Uncles she hadn't seen in a long while. And then finally, stuck in the middle of the table and out of subtle reach, was a monochrome image of Marron. There she was, in bright shorts and a loose white blouse, hair tied back and sunglasses on as she always would in flight towards the sun, straps of a rucksack visible, sunrise creating deeper shadows and highlighting her shape. According to the ink pen scrawled in the corner the photograph was taken on the seventh of October. That would have been her trip west for Bra's birthday present, Marron travelling to a well-loved spring in the mountain range to find spa products the girl liked. The white blouse happened to be the same one she currently wore. Without any other plan Marron scooped up the pictures towards her as though to flick through them, discreetly sticking the one of her in the unexplored middle.
"So," Snap said, bright with his evidence finally in the light, and all the while Marron's hands shook. "What do you think?"
"This is big," was all she could think to say.
"Bad," Trunks said, rubbing his face. "This is bad."
"Take it that's a 'no' on this one?" Marron, holding a photo towards Gohan's laptop camera of a caped Piccolo in flight, didn't need to wait for Trunks' response. She tossed the photo on the "definitely do not present to Red" pile growing on the dining table and fished for another candidate. She held up the next, the first photo of her mother she'd seen, and Trunks squinted. Mai and Bra flanked him.
"Sit back," Bra said, "I can't see."
"Tough," he muttered. "I said you could join if you didn't get under my feet."
Bra scoffed, flinging herself back onto her brother's couch and Mai laughed into her West's-morning coffee.
"I can photograph and text them to you," Marron said. This was getting farcical.
"Absolutely not," he said. "No digital trace."
Trunks effectively sat head of table, his video feed on a laptop screen propped up by Biophysics textbooks. Gohan and Videl had graciously offered to host the impromptu emergency dinner in their usually cosy, pink family dining room and sat beside Marron, sifting through the photo stack. A morose Uub and guilt-ridden Pan had mostly sat in silence, their picked-at-meals of vegetable curry cold and forgotten, Pan staring like a startled cat at the shots from across the table. Bra had insisted on attending for Pan's support, though likely more for her own sense of inclusion; if Pan was being summoned to the secret conclave of the World's strongest and shiest defenders, so should Bra.
"Does the security matter?" Goten said, holding a photo of himself out at arms length, tilting it here and there over his empty bowl. He sat opposite Marron, officially driving the laptop, and had threatened to mute Trunks twice already. "If Red thinks these raise doubts on the Cell Games too, these pictures will be global by morning."
"But not our identities," said Trunks. "There's still some hope there, and hope he won't make the same Golden Fighters link - that one's okay," Trunks said with a wave of the hand.
Marron tossed her mother on the safe pile, holding up another of Gohan and Videl's possibly safe candidates - Marron's father silhouetted against low storm clouds.
"Why not hide all of them?" Bra said, recovering from her tantrum. "Or give your boss only one?"
"The photographer will be expecting payment in a certain range for each shot." Marron gave a soft smile, knowing the fine line she had to tread in the selection. "I can dump the worst before Red picks his favourites, but not everything."
"And you can't remove these?" Uub added wryly, gesturing to the incriminating ones of him and Pan, his good-natured self resurfacing for a moment.
"Sorry," Marron returned the smile. "He's seen them already."
"This does raise the issue of how lax everyone has been recently." Trunks shook his head and Marron put her father's photo on the 'no' pile. "We'd benefit from gaining altitude far faster and flying higher over population centres, wearing disguises when appropriate. Can you all feed this back to your families?"
Feed this back... Marron and Goten shared identical, withering looks. If she fed that back to her mother, Marron was pretty sure her mother would soon feed her foot up Trunks' ass.
Marron had just the remedy. She held up a shot of Trunks in pale capris, dark, long-sleeved shirt and his god awful disguise of a black beanie hat. Trunks' cheeks sucked in with his frown and Bra cackled.
"Given my hair's covered," he said, "that could be anyone. Proof even a simple hat can work."
"For a change." Marron heard he wore it so often at college to hide his trademark purple hair that celebrity stalkers knew to hunt for the beanie instead.
Mai softly touched his shoulder. "It's awful love, please stop wearing it."
"Hypocriticism aside, Trunks makes a point," Gohan said, and all bickering stopped, reverent attention on the most experienced member of the conclave. "By the look of the landscape the photographer's apartment faced west and covered routes we hardly ever use over very little of the city. If his apartment faced north he'd see Goten's, east he'd see here, and south would be travel to my parents'."
And Marron's, and her own apartment. They were very lucky. Feedback taken onboard the group returned to their task, gently chided but chided nonetheless. Goten dug out another of his photos from the no pile, squinting again.
Videl sighed. "Do you want to borrow a pair of Gohan's glasses?" she asked, not unkindly, but with the air of watching a toddler struggling to slot a round peg into a square hole. "It'd be no trouble."
"I'd rather suffer. Or," a mischievous grin lit up his face, "I could borrow Pan's. I'm sure they're delightful."
"The eye doctor was wrong." Pan didn't look up from her lap. "I don't need them, so I'm not going to pick them up." This was the first full sentence she'd said since Marron dropped the photos amongst dinner, and Goten exchanged the briefest of relieved glances with Gohan.
"Squirt," Goten said, "you're texting under the table at arm's length."
"But if you don't wear yours, why should I wear mine?"
"Goten doesn't need his," Trunks piped up, "because he can't read."
With one finger Goten quietly, resolutely, closed the laptop lid.
A moment later Marron's phone vibrated - the simple and repeating long buzz meaning Trunks on the secure line. She answered the video call and pointed the phone, screen first, at Goten.
"Pan, actually." Trunks said, and Marron dutifully reorientated her phone. "Do you and Bra want to participate here or gossip more freely about this elsewhere? I can't quite follow."
At that, the simmering Bra launched into a shrill yet impassioned defence of Pan's confused feelings and difficult situation, how both girls were participating in the group discussion but just not vocally, and accusations of Trunks having no tact. The intensity made the phone speaker rattle in Marron's hand. Trunks stuttered through an apology between Bra's brief breaths, but, on making no inroads into calming her in what he deemed ample enough time, he raised his voice too, and Marron winced at the familiar scene. Only Pan shaking her head made Bra lose all momentum and settle back down to Earth. Marron didn't have to see the screen to know Bra would still be seething.
"It's okay," Pan said to her when peace finally returned, "I understand you but I've decided to say it anyway. I'm sorry." Pan bowed her head to everyone. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
"Honey." Videl smiled sadly. "Pictures like these would have surfaced one day. We're lucky we have some warning. It'll all work out for the best."
"I know, I guess," Pan picked up her spoon to limply poke at a carrot in her bowl, but thought again and lay the cutlery back down. "Dad said I could find my own way to be a Hero, and I really thought this would work."
Evidently this exact nuance in the story of Pan's escapades was news to Videl too, as she gave Gohan two very raised eyebrows and he regained a pink fluster Marron had not seen in years. "I only meant to try being a Hero without using your abilities," he said, "maybe using the fame you thought unearned - through charity work or similar."
Pan closed her eyes, exhibiting restraint that Bra was incapable of as Pan's chest lit up repeatedly with phone message alerts. Gohan winced, also sensing Pan's racketed shame as anger. "I was hoping you'd come to that conclusion yourself and believe it your idea, so if anyone needs to apologise, it's definitely me." Both East and West murmured forgiveness to both.
"Well," Pan said, recentred, and her embarrassment hidden with surprisingly mature poise. "I did kinda have fun, and it felt nice to help, but I couldn't do it the same way again. I... don't have insurance."
Pan smiled ruefully at Uub and some sort of understanding passed between them then, the remaining tension fizzing away.
"Never say never," Uub said, wrapping one arm around her shoulders, and giving her a quick squeeze. "We can look into other ways you can Hero."
"And whatever way you decide we'll help," Videl added. She stroked the back of Gohan's hand, and he responded by scooping up hers in turn. They interlocked fingers, and Marron was reminded of her parents' unwavering relationship - although how they would have coped with someone as determined as Pan as a daughter was anyone's guess.
Marron spun her phone to check the time, heart sinking over the moment she was about to ruin. "Uub, I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm going to need that statement."
Uub blew through his cheeks and rubbed his thighs. "Okay. Hit me."
They could brainstorm question and answer as a group, just like they had with these photos. Even with only five minutes they'd develop a statement suitably watertight and bland, but Marron had her limits. She was not a planted saboteur but a journalist after all, and at some point Marron needed, no, wanted to do her job with integrity. Marron handed off her phone to Videl and fetched her jotter and trusty ballpoint from her purse, determining the dictaphone overkill and far too much pressure. She tapped her pen, thinking how to best phrase the question, then readied to note the quote in shorthand. The table held their breath.
"So," Marron said, "The new Hero was not present at the very press conference in which they were announced, and these photos of you two clearly show a heated disagreement. Should the citizens of Satan City be concerned?"
Uub cleared his throat and sat up straighter, broadening, that little knot of eyebrows coming in, and despite the situation Marron bit her lips together knowing the voice was coming. "'A Hero in training is not yet a Hero,'" he said. "'As of this moment they are only my Shadow, and so they hide from the limelight as all shadows do.'" His grand gesticulations softened, and he looked to Pan. "'Our disagreement in the debriefing was only passion over the details of a job well done, and if they challenge me like that in future, Satan City can surely rest easy.' Was that enough?"
"Magnificent," Gohan said with dorky earnestness, and Pan for once did not scoff at her father, but agreed with a tiny, grateful nod.
"It's a more honest answer than I was expecting." Marron clicked her pen closed. "Thank you."
"And that's given me an idea," Mai's voice came across distant on the phone, "I may have a solution - not for Pan's predicament but for the wider issue of restricted travel, although Pan, you had the right idea. Can you send me your measurements?"
"What ones?" Pan said.
"All of them. Anything Uub or your father would need for us to update their costumes."
Pan's face screwed in repugnance. Goten laughed.
"And for that," Mai said, voice clipped and louder as she grabbed Trunks' phone, and Marron knew to turn her phone screen to Goten, "you can send me yours, too." Goten sagged with a groan, which seemed to cheer Pan further. "I'll need a week," Mai said, "so visit CC's family quarters next Saturday morning West City Time. All of you are welcome, breakfast I'm sure will be ready."
"What are you planning?" Trunks asked, but Mai remained button-lipped.
"Will you tell me?" Bra tried, and Pan flushed with incredulity.
"If I can't know you definitely can't!"
Marron let them laugh and bicker again, Pan's boisterous spirit returning. There hadn't been lasting damage - between these families, at least. Marron eventually waved them back to Gohan's laptop to continue their interhemispheric feud and the task of sorting through the photographs, she needing her phone to text Red Papayaman's response.
Funny how she'd have her very first front page byline tomorrow for the one story she'd hoped to avoid. One or more of these photos would surely adorn Monday's edition of the Herald, too, cementing her involvement. Maybe after this she'd leave well alone, Marron thought. She sent the text and got a thumbs up response so fast Red must have been clock-watching. This would absolutely, definitely mark the very first, and very last time she'd try to "help".