Wow! I got this chapter out in record time, and I've already started the next one! I'm so proud of myself! ^_^
Falling Star: Yep! I tried to make that chapter cute to make up for this one. * evil laughter *
Okay, so it isn't that bad… more of Kris's past is revealed. Poor little traumatized thing…. And it gets worse. Ack! I've said too much!
Helpful ages (why? For the heck of it.):
Goten: 12
Trunks: 13
Marron: 9
Bra: 7
Pan: 6
Kris and Ranu: 5
Chapter 6: School
(A/N: 1 month after last chapter)
"I don't wanna go!"
"Let go of the door! You have to go!"
"No!"
So was the deafening noise that greeted Ranu as he sleepily blinked open his eyes. He yawned hugely and looked around the room he had fallen asleep in the night before. After a few moments he recognized the voices and contemplated going back to sleep.
After listening to Ranu recite what he remembered of his past (which was only his name), Bulma had come to the conclusion that Ranu was the victim of amnesia, much like Goku was. Ranu didn't remember how he survived the first five years of his life all by himself, or if anyone had taken care of him. (A/N: Which makes for a convenient character!)
He had been staying with Chichi and Goku for the past few weeks, on Chichi's insistence. That and Vegeta had threatened to kill him in his sleep if they had to stay anywhere near each other, so they really didn't have a choice. Last night however, he had had a sleepover at Capsule Corp. with Kris. It was miracle he lived through the night.
Ranu jumped out of the bed and threw on some clothes quickly. Today was the first day of school! He opened the door to the hallway.
"Nooooo!"
And was greeted by the sight of a very peeved Bulma dragging a struggling Kris down the hallway.
"Honestly! It's just school, not a torture chamber!" Bulma said.
"I don't really blame her mom," Trunks half-mumbled as he staggered past them, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
"Oh, shut up. You're not helping. Come on Kris, it won't be so bad!" Bulma said encouragingly. "You might even meet some new friends! How does that sound?"
"NO!"
Bulma rolled her eyes and gave up on trying to persuade Kris to get ready for school willingly and continued down the hall, Kris trying to desperately claw her way back to the safety of her room.
Ranu blinked a few times in confusion before shrugging it off as "Kris just being Kris" and cheerfully assisted Bulma in dragging her downstairs to the kitchen, ignoring Kris's cries of "traitor!".
~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~
Kris sat in the backseat of the car, Bra and Trunks on either side of her, with her arms crossed and glaring at the driver via the rear view mirror.
Bulma sighed and shook her head.
"You know," she began. "I doubt it will be as bad as you think it will be." Ranu, who was in the front passenger seat, turned to look at Kris.
"Yeah. We'll meet lots of new people! Maybe some of them will be really nice and want to be friends!" Ranu exclaimed happily.
Kris turned her glare at him.
"You have no idea," she replied darkly.
Ranu turned back around to the front, confused as to why his best, and only besides Goten, friend was so opposed to meeting new people.
Bulma pulled the car into the parking lot.
"Here we are!" she exclaimed.
"Yay!" Ranu cried, and struggled to get out of the imprisonment of the seat belt.
Kris growled and stayed put as Trunks undid her seat belt for her, and him, Bra, Ranu, and Bulma got out of the car. She continued to growl as she watched Bulma give her a look that clearly threatened something unpleasant if she didn't get out with the rest of them. She grudgingly hopped out of the parked car and looked around, as if she was expecting someone to leap out of the non-existent shadows and attack her.
Ranu, however, was ecstatic.
"Come on Bulma-san, hurry!" he yelled, jumping up and down in excitement. Bulma laughed and led the two, one who was running ahead and the other trailing behind, to their classroom while Trunks and Bra went to their own respective classes.
~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~
Kris glared and growled as she watched all the other children run around and play before class started. (A/N: They're in kindergarten. I'm not basing it off Japanese schooling, my reasons being 1. I have no idea what that's like, and thus can't really write accurately about it, and 2. DBZ does not take place in Japan. Shut your mouth. It doesn't. Get over it, and accept the fact that the DBZ Earth is not the same Earth as ours. Hell, it only has one continent! And a bunch of islands, but you get the point.)
Kris glanced over at Ranu to see that his eyes were huge and sparkly, and he was just barely restraining himself from running forward and pouncing happily onto one of his potential playmates. Kris snorted at his enthusiasm.
"Well, hello there!" a cheerful feminine voice interrupted her thoughts. Kris looked up to see who she supposed was the teacher, a cheerful-looking blonde woman who looked about in her mid-twenties. She was currently leaning down to get a better look at her new students and smiling brightly. Kris frowned and looked away.
"Hello! Are you the teacher? My name's Ranu. Do I just call you 'teacher' or-" Ranu chattered. Kris rolled her eyes.
"Whoa, hold on there! You're certainly excited to be here, aren't you?" The teacher laughed. Ranu nodded vigorously.
"And yes, I am the teacher. You can call me Ms. V, my whole name is too hard to say."
'Not as hard to say as some words in Saiya-go I'll bet,' Kris added mentally. Vegeta had been teaching her how to speak Saiya-go recently.
Ms. V turned to Kris now.
"And what's your name?" she asked sweetly. Kris glared at her and grunted.
"Oh, her name's Kris," Ranu explained. "She doesn't want to be here, but I don't know why."
"Well Kris, why don't you want to be here? I'm sure you'll make lots of new friends, other than your brother here," Ms. V said, mistaking Ranu and her for twin siblings. Bulma interrupted and explained everything to her, right down to both of the kids having tails and not being related. While Bulma was doing that, Kris had drifted off into her own thoughts yet again.
'Lots of new friends huh? Yeah right. It's just like before, and it'll end the same way too…'
* * Flashback * *
"Come on," a male voice commanded. Kris yawned a blinked sleepily.
"Huh?" she muttered.
"Get up. You're getting a day off from testing, so hurry up and don't waste it."
Kris got up out of her cot and dressed in her one outfit of play clothes. She carefully wrapped her tail around her waist and followed the man out of her "room". In all actuality, it was more like a prison cell, but she always called it her room. She skipped happily as she followed the scientist down a hall. A day off! She wondered what for.
He led her into a room she had never been in before and what she saw made her squeak and hide behind the man's leg in fright.
There were children everywhere! And toys! Kris stared in shock at all the commotion made by all the other children playing.
The man who had led her pushed her forward and quickly left. The door clicked quietly behind him. Later, Kris would associate the clicks she always heard with something significant, but the she hadn't the mind to equate the two things together.
Almost immediately after her entering the room, a girl around her age with green hair ran up to her.
"Hello!" the girl chirped.
"H-hi…" Kris responded uncertainly.
"Do you want to play with me?"
"Um… 'kay…."
And the girl promptly grabbed her hand and dragged her off to play dress-up. After an indefinite amount of time, although it couldn't have been more than an hour, the two were approached by a small group of little boys. Kris and Emily (the green-haired girl's name) looked up from the plastic horses they had been playing with.
"Whatcha doin'?" The apparent leader asked, contempt evident in his voice. Kris felt a tingly feeling go up her spine. She had seen some of the scientists look at her the way those boys were looking at both of them. Like fresh meat when they hadn't eaten in days… Both girls stood up.
The boy, needing no reason, pushed Emily to the ground. Kris snarled and abruptly punched the offending boy in the gut. He flew backwards a few feet and skidded to a halt on the floor.
Kris's tail snapped out from around her waist and lashed angrily behind her. The room broke out into a panic. Kris winced and covered her sensitive ears to protect them from the shrill screaming. She looked around for Emily, to make sure she was all right.
She found her in a little plastic fortress and stuck her head in. She winced again as the children hiding there screamed again.
"Are you okay?" she asked, and offered a hand to Emily to help her out of the play fort. She was therefore surprised when her new friend shrank back and screamed and cried. One of the children inside threw a plastic block at Kris and it hit her in the nose.
She yelped and jumped back, hands nursing her injury. The children, apparently seeing this as a sign of weakness, slowly crept out of their various hiding places. Another toy came flying through the air and hit her squarely in the back of her head. She yelped again, tears springing to her eyes.
The twelve or so boys that had become bolder as she didn't react suddenly pounced. They dragged her to the floor and punched and kicked, screaming various monkey-related insults at her. While the physical blows had little sting, the words acted as a catalyst, turning her confusion and sorrow into anger.
She screamed and thrashed, but still a few clung on. Desperation began to claw at her mind and within a few seconds, she found herself free. She was panting heavily and looked around for a clue as to what happened. The various boys who had clung onto her were now scattered throughout the room. She looked down at herself and saw a nice blue aura flicker and disappear. She tilted her head to one side in confusion. She heard more screaming and growled in frustration. Deciding to ignore it, she stalked over to where Emily was to continue playing undisturbed.
"S-stay away from me!" Emily screeched as Kris neared her. Kris blinked in surprise.
"But… don't you wanna play?" Kris asked innocently.
"No! I would never want to play with some… some… monkey-tailed monster!" and she promptly scurried away to the door and pleaded to be let out. Kris started shaking.
'But… I'm not a monster! They were gonna hurt you… I don't understand!'
As the scientists gave the other children back to their parents and led her back to her room she heard them talking.
"Well, that experiment was a surprise, eh?"
"I'll be surprised if we don't get sued if it caused any damage to one of the kids."
"Ah, quit worrying. If they file a complaint or anything of the sort, we'll deny it and put little 54763 somewhere they can't find her!"
"It, Jones, it! Honestly, you can't go getting attached!"
"Dr. Toshika seems to be rather fond of her."
"Well, you know I don't approve of that. We could advance so far in our research if only that sentimental fool would just let us do some chemical testing! If I was running this compound…"
Kris barely registered anything they said, although later she would wish she had. Not that she could have stopped what was going to happen…
The scientist who had been leading her opened the door to her cell and pushed her in.
Click.
And there it was again. The door closing with a click. She strained to remember when she hadn't heard a door click after it was closed. She couldn't bring up a single memory. She collapsed in the middle of the cold tile floor and curled herself into a ball and sobbed.
* * End Flashback * *
"Yo! Kris! You awake?"
Kris jumped in surprise and smacked Ranu in the head.
"Oowwww! What'd you do that for?!" he yelled, nursing the lump on his head. Kris glared at him.
"Because you were in my face!"
"Was not!"
"Were to!"
"Was not!"
"WAS TO!!"
"Now now," Ms. V scolded. "No fighting!"
Kris stared at her like she had suddenly sprouted a tail. On her forehead.
"No fighting?" she echoed quietly, more of a statement than an actual question. Ms. V stared back with a similar expression.
"That's right…" she trailed off. Kris's face fell. She abruptly let her legs give out and sat on the floor. Mrs. V moved to pick her up, but Bulma stopped her.
"She's fine," Bulma said. "Just… difficult."
"Come on Kris, get up!" Ranu pleaded. He really didn't want her to be left out of all the games that were currently going on. He picked her up by the armpits, but when he let go she just dropped back down to the floor and crossed her arms stubbornly. Ranu sighed in defeat and gave her one last pleading look before wandering off to play with the other children.
Kris felt tears threaten to overcome her eyes before she turned away and rubbed them. She swore to herself that she wouldn't let this abandonment get to her.
Shortly after, Bulma and the other parents left, and Ms. V called the class together. Kris reluctantly joined the circle to listen to stories. After that it was the alphabet, which Kris quickly became bored with. She already knew how to read, why should she sit there listening to someone recite the various letters? She stared with disgust at the many children who struggled with the first few letters. To her dismay, Ranu was one of them. She silently resolved to teach him one day soon.
As an hour passed, it became snack time. Kris perked up a little bit at this, and she barely managed to keep her tail wrapped tightly around her waist, and not wagging happily behind her. She glanced over at Ranu and prayed he didn't forget to keep his tail in check as well.
She waited anxiously as the snacks were coming down the line.
"Here you are Kris!" Ms. V said cheerfully and handed Kris a graham cracker. Kris stared incredulously at the single measly cracker in her hand. After a moment, she sighed dejectedly and crammed the entire thing into her mouth. It was gone in less than 10 seconds.
After snack time, it was naptime. Kris did not want to sleep with all those other noisy smelly brats, but her instincts kicked in and she was out cold in two minutes. She had just eaten, after all, small amount though it was. She was used to sleeping around this time anyway. Vegeta said being a "weak female" had something to do with it, but Kris hadn't really paid attention. Anyway, the point is Kris fell asleep, and Ranu didn't.
He stared at the ceiling while all his new playmates fell asleep around him. He looked around and saw Kris, asleep on her mat, all curled up in the blankets. He smiled at the sight. She always did that. He knew from experience.
During one of the sleepovers they had (not too many, but enough to cement their friendship without driving the adults in both households insane) he tried to share the blanket Kris had and in the morning wound up hopelessly tangled because of her. While they were struggling to get free, Chichi walked into the room, told them to stay where they were, and rushed out. When she came back a minute later, she had a camera and was snapping pictures, saying how cute the two looked together and talking to herself about ways to embarrass them when they were older and (she got really happy at this part) married! Neither of the two Saiyans knew what 'marry' meant, and had just brushed it off as another strange incident that didn't need to make sense.
Ranu decided to get up and go talk to Kris. He was bored, and there was nothing else to do. He carefully kicked off the blanket and crawled around the other children until he was right next to Kris. The teacher had left to get some coffee from the teacher's lounge, so there was no one to scold him for being disruptive during naptime.
He gently shook her shoulder to wake her. Kris groaned and clutched the blankets tighter.
"Kris! Wake up!" he hissed into her ear.
Kris's eyes shot open at the feeling of rushing air in her ear and she sat up. She relaxed when she saw it was Ranu.
"What do you want?" she mumbled and rubbed her eyes.
"I wanted to talk," he answered calmly. Kris gave him a quizzical look.
"'Bout what?" she inquired.
"Well," Ranu started. Kris waited for him to spit it out. She knew the boy had trouble with talking to people sometimes. At times he was even shyer than her.
"I was wondering…" he continued. "Do you wanna play with me during recess?" Before Kris could answer, he continued, fearful that the answer would be no.
"'Cause you see, everyone else is fun and all, but… they just aren't as strong or fast as you are, and I wanted to play tag and stuff, and they can't ever keep up…"
Kris moved to pounce on him and hug him (her usual method of saying yes) but got caught in the blanket and landed on her face. Ranu choked back a laugh and helped her up. No matter how many times she did that, it would still be funny!
Kris blushed and looked at the floor once she was free of the "death-grip" of the blanket.
"Thank you," she muttered, embarrassed that she had to have help.
"You're welcome!" Ranu replied cheerfully.
"Wakey wakey!" Mrs. V had returned and switched on the lights. Kris groaned and covered her eyes to shield them from the offending fluorescent lights. As the other children groggily became aware of their surroundings, the lessons resumed.
Woohoo! So, how did you like it? Not much was revealed or explained in this chapter, but don't worry! I'm just getting to the good stuff. =)
I might be redoing the first chapter, so just bear with me, okay? I have to fix it in so many ways it makes me tired just thinking about it.
All right, to the next chapter! Next title: Vaccinations and Fears. This one will be horribly short. I'm sorry. It was going to be the ending to this chapter, but I decided to split it up. I'm already working on the chapter after that. Aren't you proud? ^_^ Anyway that one will probably be titled Parent Teacher Conferences. I'm guessing you already know what it's going to be about. That one will focus more on the four remaining full-blooded Saiyans and is just generally going to be a fun little chapter. Maybe some chibi romance at the end? I'm a sucker for chibi romance. I melt every time I read it, and I have no doubt that I will end up a gooey sticky melted mass of KrysSaiyan before I'm finished with that chapter.