Okay, everyone kill me now. SORRY it took so long to update! I've been wicked busy with school, tennis and choir, and I haven't had more than twenty minutes to myself since summer ended. So, I have finally gotten a chance to write! Thanks to the reviewers. Here are my responses:

Strudel: Yeah, it's kind of supposed to be depressing. This story is all the bad things that could possibly happen to you summed up and stuffed into a single day. Glad you like it!

Me2U: Thank you.

Warrior: Trunks is usually my favorite character, but in this story, there is no room for the caring and compassionate, so I made him the stereotypical, self-absorbed teenager.

Anyone who has not read Chapter One since I updated, I changed a few things, so you might want to read it over again.

If I owned DBZ, I would make the series fit on a DVD so I could watch it whenever I wanted, but I don't, so I won't.

oOo

2. Tsunamis

Bulma pulled into the Orange Star Middle School parking lot at four-thirty. She looked around for her daughter, but the girl was nowhere in sight. The only people Bulma could see were what looked like the members of some shady high-school gang, dressed all in black, smoking behind a dumpster. Bulma noticed one kid in particular had dyed his hair some shade of blue or pink; it was difficult to tell from her distance. Their heads turned as she parked her car, but apart from that they didn't seem to take any notice, and they went back to whatever it was they were doing.

Bulma made her way to the front of the school and pushed the heavy doors open. It had been so long since she had been inside a school, and the unique smell of an educational building roused up some pleasant memories of her grade-school days. Feeling just a little happier, she strode down a long hallway, but her mood faded when she found her daughter. The girl was sitting on a bench next to some other girl Bulma didn't recognize. Both of them stood up as Bulma approached them.

"Bra," she called, frowning slightly, "I thought you said nobody else was here?"

The girl shook her head, her blue ponytail bobbing violently behind her as she did so. "I said no one could give me a ride," she clarified. "This is Amy Peters." Her friend stepped forward. She had long, straight, blonde hair, and she was wearing a small pink tee that showed a little more skin than Bulma was interested in seeing. Amy smiled politely as Bra continued. "Her mom works at Capsule Corps, too," she was saying. "Do you know her?"

Bulma shook her head. She turned to head back to the car. Her daughter and Amy followed behind.

"Anyway," Bra went on as they walked, "her mom is doing this project on how kids act around each other, and Amy took some pictures today, and she was supposed to email them to her at, like, lunch or something, but the computer lab was closed, and they wouldn't even let us in, so then we tried to just mail them but the guy said it might take a whole day to get there, which is totally crazy, I mean, it's right across town, so—"

Bulma cut her off. "Bra, we kind of need to get home…"

Bra cut to the chase. "I told her you worked there, so we could bring her and she could drop off the pictures at her mom's office."

Amy smiled. "It's really nice of you to give me a ride, Mrs. B," she said sweetly.

Bulma opened her mouth to say something as they arrived at the Mercedes, but she wasn't sure which to object to first—the fact that these girls were asking her to drive twenty minutes out of her way, or the fact that some girl she had just met was calling her "Mrs. B." Bra, however, took her hesitation as compliance.

"Great!" she said, hopping into the passenger seat. "Amy, you can sit in the back."

Bulma snapped out of her brief meditation. "Hold it," she said. "Bra, I'm not driving all the way over to Capsule Corps! It's on the other side of town!"

Bra made a pouty face, and Bulma prepared herself for tears as she climbed through the driver's door, but then Amy spoke up from the back seat.

"Mrs. B, I can just fax them to her," she said confidently. "There's a Kinko's, like, right around the street!"

Bulma craned her neck to look behind. "I don't know of any Kinko's around here," she said somewhat skeptically.

The girl nodded fervently. "There is, I swear," she contested. "I can show you where it is. It'll take, like two seconds."

Bulma looked from Amy to her daughter, and back to Amy again. Finally, she heaved a sigh. "All right," she agreed. "I guess if it's not too far…"

Amy squeaked with glee. "Oh, thank you so much, Mrs. B!" she cried as Bulma put the car in gear. "This is really important to my mom. She'll be really grateful to you!"

Bulma didn't say anything; she drove in silence out of the parking lot, noticing that the gang she had spotted earlier was no longer there. Amy guided her through a neighborhood she didn't recognize, calling out, "Left here!" or, "Right at that stop sign!" whenever she needed to turn. Bulma was just starting to wonder how long this would take when they emerged on the other side. She recognized this suddenly as the road she took to get onto a major freeway.

"Turn left here," Amy instructed from the back seat.

Bulma frowned. Left? she wondered. That'll take me onto the highway... "Are you sure?" she asked.

Amy nodded. "Yeah," she said. "It's right around the corner!"

The woman shrugged. "Okay." I've never seen a Kinko's around here, but then again, I never pay too much attention. Bulma approached the light and obligingly turned left.

As soon as she had completed the turn, however, Amy shrieked, "Right! I meant turn right!"

Bulma started and looked behind her. Sure enough, drifting farther and farther away, a green "Kinko's" sign blared up in front of a small white building. She cursed in her head and turned back to the road. "I'll have to find somewhere to turn around," she thought out loud.

Unfortunately for Bulma, she had just turned onto the entrance of the highway. She cursed again, silently, and accelerated. She'd just find an exit that took her back the way she had come. As they entered the freeway, Bra noticed a sign on the side of the road. "Look, Mom," she said. "A service station! You can turn around there!"

Bulma checked the sign. "Service station," it read. "Next exit: 20 mi." Bulma groaned. Here we go again….

oOo

When the three finally arrived at Kinko's, it was nearing five-thirty. Amy hopped out of the car and ran into the shop. When she came back out a few minutes later, she was frowning. "They don't fax," she said unhappily. "We'll just have to go—"

"I'm not going all the way to Capsule Corps," Bulma maintained. "You'll just have to give your mom the pictures when she gets home."

"But, Mrs. B, it would mean so much if—"

"I'm taking you HOME, Amy!" Bulma's voice grew to a level where even Amy knew it was time to shut up. She shrank back into the seat and didn't say one word all the way to her house. Bra even had to give the directions.

Luckily, Amy didn't live too far away. Bulma dropped the girl off and headed for home.

Once they got back, Bulma headed for the chicken, which she had left on the counter. She stuffed it in the oven as Vegeta entered the kitchen. He wore a towel draped around his neck, and sweat was gleaming on his face and bare chest. He filled up a huge glass of water and downed it in one gulp.

"Veg," said Bulma as she set a covered pot of water to boil on the stove. "Have you seen Trunks? He came home with five speeding tickets, and I wanted to talk to him about it."

Vegeta opened the door to the refrigerator and rummaged around for a snack. "He went out," he said, his voice muffled. "Went to a friend's or something."

Bulma glared at him. "You let him go?" she snapped. "Vegeta, I wasn't going to let him drive for at least a few weeks!"

The man straightened up and frowned, a coca-cola in one hand and a huge slice of cheesecake in the other. "How was I supposed to know that, woman?"

Bulma started to speak, but she let it go. She turned back to the stove and shook some salt into the steaming pot. As she was replacing the lid, something caught her eye out of the window in front of her. She looked out onto the street and saw a black pick-up truck speed by, closely followed by a Lincoln and a Volkswagen. She glared at them as they passed, as if to send negative waves in their direction, and she put her head out the window to take the license plate numbers. To her shock and horror, the license plate on the back of the truck read, "SJN-WAR." It was Trunks' license plate, and therefore, Trunks' truck.

Before she really knew what she was doing, Bulma was in her Mercedes and backing out of the driveway. She floored it and flew down the street in pursuit of the racers. She followed at a distance, not wanting them to speed up to avoid her, so it made it difficult to see where to go. At times, she thought she had lost them, but then they would emerge from an alleyway up ahead, and the chase would resume. They led her through winding streets, down hills, over bridges and under tunnels. The truck ventured off-road now and then, and Bulma bit her lip in anxiety. Amid her fuming, she was praying that none of them would get hurt.

Suddenly, the three cars took a turn Bulma didn't see and zoomed down into a gulley. She had to take the long way around, which entailed driving for another minute then slowly curving down a dirt road.

When she finally caught up to them, they had all parked their cars and were standing on the side of the road laughing. It turned out that there were more than just three of them; there were actually about six or seven, and together they looked like some kind of street gang. Bulma pulled over, got out, and slammed her door behind her. Trunks looked up and saw her. He said something under his breath, and his friends glanced Bulma's way. She was storming over to the trio, a look of total enragement spreading over her face.

She marched up to her son and looked up into his apathetic face. He stood a head taller than she, but at present, she was in no mood to be intimidated by him. "What the HELL?" she screeched at him, making him veer back slightly to protect his hearing. "Have you got any common sense whatsoever in that thick, purple head of yours?"

Trunks cocked his head and rolled his eyes at his friends, which only served to further enrage his mother.

"You could get yourself killed driving that way! And after five speeding tickets, I'm not so sure I want you driving at all until I think you've learned a little responsibility!"

Trunk scoffed. "Really?" he drawled. "Don't you think you're being a little hypocritical?"

His mother glared at him. "What does that mean?"

Trunks said nothing, but cast a sidelong look at the silver Mercedes parked on the side of the road.

Bulma's eyes narrowed. "What?" she asked. No one answered. "What's wrong with my car?"

She moved cautiously over to it, a knot of anxiety rising in her stomach. She couldn't see anything wrong with it… that is, until she came around to the other side. When she did, her jaw dropped nearly out of her skull.

oOo

Ha ha ha. It isn't really a cliffhanger, unless damage to expensive cars puts you on the edge of your seat… In any case, lots of reviews, please! Oh, and if it doesn't seem PG-13 yet, wait until the next chapter. Maybe that will cliff-hang you. Oo

- I am the Tennis Pirate