Tyranny and Mutation

Chapter 6

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--Planet Earth

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--math teacher's classroom...

Suddenly the classroom light came on. The math teacher stood by the door with her hands on her hips. "What are you two doing in here?"

Trunks was speechless.

Pan smiled a little nervously. "Hey, Teach. I was just showing the new guy around the school."

"Hm. For some reason, I'm having a hard time believing you, Ms. Son," the teacher told her. She walked farther into the classroom.

Pan moved so that she was standing between the teacher and the chalk tray. "Come on. I don't see why you wouldn't believe me. I mean, have you ever seen this guy before?"

Trunks looked at Pan out of the corner of his eye. :This is obviously an authority figure. How can Pan talk to this woman like this? Is she going to talk us out of trouble somehow? We're caught red-handed: he thought.

The math teacher looked Trunks over. "Actually, I haven't--"

"See? There you have it," Pan said. "Now, if you'll excuse us, I still have a lot of school ground to cover before classes begin." She grabbed the sleeve of Trunks' shirt and started dragging him out of the classroom. Once she closed the door behind them, Pan looked at Trunks with a smile. "Am I smooth or what? She didn't even notice her chalk."

Trunks laughed a little. "I've gotta admit. That was pretty cool how--"

Suddenly the math teacher called out, "Pan Son! You and your practical jokes! I should have known you were up to something!"

Pan gasped and grabbed Trunks' hand. "Busted. We'd better get lost until this thing blows over." She quickly led them out of sight.

By the time the math teacher got the door open and looked into the hallway, the two juveniles were already gone.

--picnic tables outside...

"Well, like I said, we don't live very far from you guys. Maybe you and Pan could stop by today," Bra said to Goten. :It would be a good time to start getting them introduced to the idea of alien civilizations. We'll have to be careful about the way we do it. If we ease them into the concept slowly, they may be more accepting of the idea: Bra thought.

"I guess that would be alright. As long as we tell our parents where we are... Hey, you said that you guys live by yourselves, right?" Goten asked.

Bra looked at him and nodded.

"You know, you're the first high school kids I've ever heard say that you live alone," Goten went on. "I've never heard of anything like that. I mean, it's really cool and all, but how do you get into a foreign exchange program like that without being sent to live with a family?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Uhhhh...," Bra began. She had to think of something and fast. "In Greenland, our exchange program is a little different..."

Goten folded his arms across his chest. "I don't know. For some reason, I'm starting to believe there's something you're not telling me." He thought for a while.

Bra was worried now. :I really hate lying to this perfectly good guy. And now he's found me out. What if he starts hating me once he finds out I've been lying to him all this time: she thought.

"I've got it!" Goten said. He looked at Bra for a moment, then smiled. "You're considered adults where you're from, aren't you? That's the reason you two can live on your own."

"Yes. That's exactly it," Bra told him. She breathed a sigh of relief.

The first bell rang just as Pan and Trunks jogged over to them.

Goten looked at Pan and frowned. "I know that look. You've been doing something you weren't supposed to do, haven't you?"

Pan smirked. "I'll never tell." She looked at Trunks.

Trunks was smiling as well.

Goten stood. "We'd better head to class."

--after school...

Pan had gotten into trouble with their math teacher. The teacher knew that keeping Pan after school would do no good, but she kept her anyway. Trunks didn't get in trouble for being a witness to the crime because Pan had taken full responsibility for it.

While their math teacher held Pan after school, Trunks and Bra signed up for classes and received their schedules. They had almost all of their classes with their newfound friends. It had turned out relatively well. Of course, Trunks had more classes with Goten than he had with either Pan or Bra. And Bra had more classes with Pan than she had with Goten or Trunks. But that would be fine as long as they had people they knew around.

The four teenagers were currently walking toward Trunks and Bra's home.

"Hey, thanks for taking the fall for me with that teacher," Trunks said to Pan as they walked side by side. "You know, you didn't have to do that."

Pan laughed a little and shook her head. "Think nothing of it. There was no need for you to get into trouble on your first day anyway."

Bra and Goten walked side-by-side a little behind Trunks and Pan. Bra giggled to herself.

Goten looked at Bra. "What is it?"

"Those two," Bra said. "I think that somehow they've reached a common ground. Trunks is what I like to call a free spirit and Pan seems to be as well."

Goten laughed a little. "Pan's more than just a free spirit. She's a live wire. I've never been able to keep up with her myself. She's really...'out there'. I'm always hanging out with her, but I'm more of a..." He couldn't seem to find the right words.

"Take it easy type?" Bra asked, giving him a look.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. I like to have fun as much as anyone else, but Pan prefers to live on the edge," Goten told Bra.

"Just like Trunks. He'll do some things just to get a charge," Bra said. "He and I are always together, but we always seem to be on a different page. He can be pretty impulsive while I'm more..." She couldn't think of exactly what it was she wanted to say.

"Calculating?" Goten suggested.

"Calculating? I don't know if that was the word I was looking for," Bra stated.

"Well, I just noticed in class how organized you were. You don't even have any books or anything, yet you were taking notes," Goten said. "And I can tell by the way you say things and the way you move that you think a lot."

Bra blushed and smiled. She couldn't believe that he had been paying so much attention to the things she did. "I'm flattered that you noticed so much about me after such a short period of time."

Goten looked away. "Well, it's...pretty obvious." He cleared his throat.

Pan stopped walking suddenly. The group had made it to the edge of town. "Hey! I've got an idea," she said. "Since your life energies are so high, Goten and I could teach you to fly."

"Hey, that rhymed," Bra told Pan, giggling a little.

Pan laughed. "It did, didn't it?"

"Yeah. But hey, we already know how to fly," Trunks told them.

Bra looked at her brother, surprised by the information he'd just volunteered.

Pan looked a little surprised and put her hands on her hips. "You already know how to fly? Then what are we walking for? Let's take off." As she was speaking, she was already up in the air.

Trunks was right behind Pan. And Bra followed soon after.

Goten looked amazed. "This is so weird." He took off after them.

--Bra and Trunks' capsule house...

After they arrived, Bra suggested that Pan and Goten have a seat in their living room.

Pan commented on the style of the house and looked around at the furnishings strangely. "This is like nothing I've ever seen," she stated as Bra dragged Trunks toward the kitchen.

Goten was taking a look around as well. "It's most likely all from their home country."

Trunks frowned once he and his sister entered the kitchen. "What is it? What's your problem?"

Bra signaled for her brother to keep his voice down. She closed the kitchen door and put her hands on her hips. "Trunks, you shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?" Trunks asked, looking confused.

"Regular Earthlings don't fly. We're here posing as regular Earthlings," Bra told him.

"Oh, come on, Bra. They already somehow know that we have a higher power level than regular Earthlings," Trunks said. "I don't see what all the fuss is about."

Bra put her hand on her forehead. "They can somehow sense people's fighting powers. I don't understand that part of it, but something like that could come in handy later." She sighed. "Listen, we have to be careful with this. If we make one wrong move, they may not be willing to cooperate when the time comes. They may not even believe us."

Trunks folded his arms across his chest. "I think that since we ran into people who are close to our age, they may take what we have to say seriously."

"They have no idea about space travel. Their government is hiding the fact that aliens really exist. They're under the impression that they're the only form of intelligent life in the universe," Bra said. "We have to be careful. We have to be understanding of their responses. And we have to make sure that they believe and understand what it is we need for them to understand. They have to understand that we're not from Earth. Not only that, but that THEY'RE not from Earth. Not completely. Because Goten's father, Pan's grandfather, is from another planet."

"You're forgetting something," Trunks said with a smirk.

Bra raised her eyebrows.

"You and I are part Earthling," Trunks reminded her. "We could use the fact that their parents might know our mother to help convince everyone of what's going on."

Bra laughed and threw her arms around her brother. "Trunks, you're a genius."

--back to the living room...

Pan was pushing buttons on the TV remote.

Goten was trying to get it from her, but she kept moving out of the way. "Pan, you're gonna break something if you keep pressing those buttons. This is most likely a Greenland television. To get it replaced would probably cost more than either of us is worth."

"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. And right now I'm looking for the Music Video Station," Pan told him.

Goten held up his hands and took a seat on the sofa.

As soon as Pan got comfortable surfing through the TV stations, Bra and Trunks came back into the living room. The siblings looked at each other, then at Goten and Pan.

"We have to talk," Bra began.

--End Chapter 6--

--I'm always ending these in bad spots. Thanks for reading this chapter. I'm not gonna lie, I put this in the action/adventure category, but there's not much action or adventure going on. Once we get past all the introductions and set ups and things like that, the "actioning" and "adventuring" will begin. Until then, we'll all just have to be a little patient.