Versus 4: Temporal Distortion

--My Sunday Feeling--

Goten answered the door with his award-winning smile. Well, at least it SHOULD have been award-winning. "Wow, I wasn't expecting you until later on today."

Bra smiled back at him. "What can I say? I missed you."

Goten moved so she could enter. "I missed you too."

They both took a seat on the sofa and sat silently for a while.

Bra was about to say something, but Goten was about to speak as well. They both stopped short and just at each other.

"You can go ahead," Goten said to her.

Bra smiled. "Nah, you go."

"Well, I was just gonna ask you how your day's been going," Goten went on.

She thought about the whole wave thing and frowned. She really didn't feel like going into all that. There would be no purpose. She didn't even know what it all meant. So she answered, "Fine. Couldn't be better." She played at the designs on the sofa.

"So, what were you going to say?" Goten asked.

What WAS she going to say? She looked up at him and tilted her head to the side. "Ummmm..." She looked around the room to see if something there would remind her of what she wanted to say... Nothing. "It slips my mind," she replied with a laugh.

Goten laughed a little. "You can be so silly sometimes." He sighed and just looked at her for a while. "So, what do you wanna do? We already beat Halo and there aren't a whole lot of other 2-player games out now. Not good ones anyway."

Bra immediately knew what she wanted to do. He'd said he would do something with her a while back, but they never got the chance. "It's Sunday. Do you think there are a lot of people at the pool hall?"

"Sunday? In the middle of the day? Of course not," Goten told her. He stood and took her by the hand. "Come on! Let's go before a lot of people decide to show up."

Bra stood and laughed as he pulled her out the door.

They silently drove to the pool hall. Bra could almost feel every breath Goten took. Maybe she was just paying a little too much attention to him these days. In any case, she was happy just being with him. There was no need for them to chatter amongst themselves. Their being together said much more than any words could say.

The parking lot of the place was virtually empty, aside from one car and one truck. That truck looked familiar for some reason...

Bra hopped out of Goten's capsule car and stretched.

"I was gonna open your door for you," Goten told her once he got out of the car.

Bra smiled. "Oh, you don't have to do that. There's no reason to try to win me over with good manners. I already know how sweet you are." She watched him as he walked over and stood in front of her. She leaned against the car and folded her arms across her chest.

Goten shook his head. "I'd just like to do things for you. I'm not trying to win you over. Hopefully, I've already done that." He smiled and put his hands on her face.

"Yeah. You've already done that," Bra said, blushing and looking away a little. "You did that a long time ago."

Goten moved one of his hands closer to her mouth and gently touched her lips. "Same here."

Bra could only look at him.

"Alright. Let's go shoot some pool," Goten said. He took one of her hands and they went inside.

Just as she suspected, the place was pretty much empty. There were a couple of workers behind the counter. And then there was a group of guys playing pool at one of the back tables.

Goten just walked over to one of the tables in the other corner and pick up a pair of cue. "So, you've never played pool before, huh?" He offered her a stick.

Bra shook her head. "I pretty much know the rules of the game, but I've never played it." She looked at the stick, then at the chalk laying on the table.

"Well, maybe you can get a little practice in while I get some change for the table," Goten said. He walked back to the front of the place where the change machine was.

Just as she was about to pick up the chalk, a cue ball flew over and knocked it off their table. Bra looked in the direction the projectile had come from and immediately recognized the guys on the other side of the room.

Kori - age: 18 - Captain of the football team, he stands 6'4" and has straggly blond hair. He's a jerk of a human being and has a reputation at their high school for being a womanizer. He had a run-in with Goten a while back and vowed that he would get Goten back for making a fool out of him at his own school.

Wright - age: 17 - He's Kori's taller (6'8") friend with short black hair. A master of stating the obvious, he can be chatty sometimes and will believe almost anything he hears. He's not really a bad guy. He just got caught up with the wrong crowd.

Patrick - age: 18 - He's Kori's shorter (5'11") friend. He has long brown hair and doesn't seem to have the ability to talk. No one at the school has ever actually heard him say anything, so most people just assume he's mute.

So, that was why that truck in the parking lot looked so familiar to her.

The idiot captain was the culprit. He stood there now with his cue in one hand and the other hand on his hip. "Well, if it ain't Little Miss Capsule Corp."

"We probably shouldn't mess with her, Kori, man," Wright warned.

The one named Kori ignored him. He continued to speak to Bra. "Never thought I'd see you hanging out in a place like this."

"Looks like she's playing pool," Wright added.

Kori finally looked at him. "Yes, I know that." He looked back at Bra and started making his way over to her. His lackeys were right behind him.

Just when she'd been on such a good trend of thinking positively, here came trouble. She didn't even want to see this guy. Why couldn't she choose to come here on a day when these clowns weren't around? Noooooooo. She just happened to have the urge to play pool when the biggest jerk on the face of the planet was around. And she definitely didn't mean that in a good way.

"You know, CC. I saw the strangest thing last night," Kori began. He stood right in front of her.

Bra just folded her arms across her chest and looked up at this lumbering giant. It was a look that would have turned him to stone had she had the ability to do it.

"You see, my pals and I went to this club the other night," Kori went on.

Club? Oh, this wasn't going to be good.

"We wanted to see our favorite local band play," Kori continued. "But at the end of the show, we saw you up there in this really hot dress. You sang a song that took me by surprise. Then I saw who you were singing it to." He threw his cue down on the floor and it broke. "What's up with that?"

Whoa. He was saying it like she'd just cheated on him. Bra looked down at the broken cue, then looked back up at Kori nonchalantly.

"Hey, what's going on over here?" Goten asked once he showed back up. He had a pocket full of quarters.

Bra just kept looking at Kori.

"Now I know why you defended this pretty little thing a couple of weeks ago. You two've had something going on right under everyone's noses. I should have known," Kori said.

Bra ground her teeth. This guy was really getting on her nerves. He was underestimating her again. She didn't need someone to defend her. She could take care of herself just fine.

"I told you you'd made a dangerous enemy," Kori told Goten. "Now I'm gonna show you what it's like to be pummeled by an all-star."

Kori ran at Goten with a punch. Just when Goten was about to dodge it, Bra phased between them and grabbed Kori's fist with ease.

Patrick looked surprised.

"I told you, Kori, man. We never should have messed with this girl. She lifted a car," the tall Wright said.

Patrick nodded.

The black-haired jock was referring, once again to the incident during Bra's first year of high school. She'd made it her priority to strike fear into the hearts of the entire student body. She'd lifted a car around 6 or so people and the story's been circulating ever since.

Kori was astounded. "But...you're just a girl."

Bra squeezed his fist a little and he let out a cry. "You should have listened to your friends. Now get out of here before I break your hand."

"Hey, Kori, man. That's your throwing hand. If she breaks it, it's all over," the goofy one named Wright said.

Goten put a hand on her shoulder and she released the dummy's hand.

"Argh!" Kori said, pulling his hand away and hugging it to his chest. "Alright, Capsule Girl. I was thinking about honoring you by letting you be my girlfriend--"

Bra laughed to herself.

"But I see you'd rather stick with geeky teachers," Kori continued. He looked from Bra to Goten. "You've both made a dangerous enemy. I won't be made a fool of in my own pool hall."

His pool hall?

Bra flexed up at Kori and his crew and they all cowered.

"Let's get outta here," Wright said.

"This isn't the last you've heard of me!" Kori called to them as they scurried out of the place.

Goten looked at Bra. "Temper, temper."

Bra put her hands on her hips and turned to him. "Well, it's no worse than what you did when you first met him."

Goten thought back on the incident, then laughed. "You're right." He frowned. "You know, word'll probably get back to the principle about us."

Bra frowned and looked away. "I know..." She didn't want him to lose his job. He seemed to like it a lot. What in the world were they going to do now?

--End My Sunday Feeling--

--It was a long time coming, but it finally made it out. I'm sorry for the long wait. I've been adjusting to my new work schedule. Finding time to do these is getting harder and harder. But I hope you enjoyed it.

--Personal Rant: This computer I'm forced to work with is SUPER annoying. It has a virus on it that my virus scan can't seem to pinpoint and it's making everything super slow. And I know there's a virus on it because it's been teasing me with viruses ever sinced I came back. I hate even working with the stupid thing. What it used to take me 3 minutes to do, it now takes 45 minutes. My internet takes 15 minutes to even show itself. (I'm on satellite. This isn't even dial-up.) Then it takes another 5 or so for my home page to come up completely. Then I have to go to another site to do what I want to do, so that takes about 10 more minutes. By the time I've checked my email, it's time for me to go to work. I hate you, computer! I hope you burn in hell! (Once I get rid of you, that is.)

--There. I'm glad that's off my chest. Anyway, thanks for reading this silly little chapter and thanks for reviewing past chapters. You're a great audience. Please stay tuned for the next episode of Temporal Distortion.