Title:Keeping in the Family
Disclaimer:...Yeah, because this would ever happen.
Rating:PG-13 ( T ), for angst, violence, lust and a young Saiyan hybrid learning the value of naughty words.

Summary: "If 'Nii-san won't marry you, will you marry me instead?" With a misplaced wish on the dragonballs, this could turn into a problem. Post-Buu, GV – but which G?

See? You didn't need a prologue.

Chapter Two: Away! Goes the Son

Goten's orange-tinted reflection grinned at him in the crystalline surface of the magical, god-made artifact clutched between his tiny palms. The second child of Goku glowed brighter than the dragonball in unrestrained triumph, holding the wish-giving globe high above his head at greater vantage.

"Trunks-kun! I found it, I found it!" Goten cheered, twirling in mid-air as he held his prize aloft on a pedestal of pride. "It was in bird-san's nest!"

Trunks leaned over the sharp edge of the cliff fifty feet above, heedless of the dangerous height, and squinted down at his fellow hunter. A shining splotch of gold betwixt his partner's hands made him grin. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Alright, Goten! Bring it up here!"

The half-Saiyan clone of Goku slowed the spinning of his body and waited for his insides to catch up. The dragonball doubled in his vision for an instant before morphing back into a singular object. "Coming, Trunks-kun!"

Careful not to drop his long-time quarry, Goten released a burst of chi that propelled him upward at high-speed. He skimmed the cliff's face, stirring loose foliage and stray gull feathers as he ascended. A swarm of seagulls squawked around him in anger, disturbed from their roosting, and surpassed him as they escaped into the great blue beyond.

With a grace not allotted most eight year olds, Goten touched ground next to Trunks on the rocky ledge on pointed toe. "I've got it, Trunks-kun!" he reminded his counterpart eagerly. Goten held up the starred orb for emphasis.

Trunks leaned over and glared suspiciously at the dragonball as if certain that Goten couldn't have possibly done it right and the orange globe would turn out to be a forgery, but smirked with satisfaction soon enough. "Good job, Goten. That's the last one."

Doubly proud of himself now, Goten's inherited grin spread from ear to ear. "Do we get to make our wish now?"

"Yep!" Trunks conceded, kneeling next to their bag of treasure for a final count. He muttered numbers under his breath as he touched each ball in turn, mentally checking them off his list. After triple-checking his count on the radar, the violet-haired princeling declared himself satisfied. "We probably shouldn't make our wishes here, though," Trunks mused aloud, casting his eyes about for a more suitable spot.

Goten tilted his head at Trunks as he queried, "Why not?"

Pausing in his search of the immediate area to tun his attention on Goten, Trunks rolled his eyes in exasperation. Intelligence was obviously an inherited trait. "Shenlong might be too heavy, you dope. Do you want to fall into the ocean and drown if he causes a landslide?"

Goten looked to the sky as he considered the likelihood of the infamously huge Eternal Dragon being unsupported on the rocky, elevated terrain. Visions of the huge, snake-like being overshadowing both the Earth and sky couldn't be neglected when he answered, "Hm. I guess you're right."

"Of course I am," Trunks replied with a self-satisfied smirk, equally the son of Bulma.

The boys resumed the search of the local vicinity with their eyes, seeking out a more stable area to summon the dragon god. A few yards opposite the ledge in each direction, the ground sloped into softer terrain carpeted in yellow-green grass, sprinkled with wild flowers. The flowers, further along, were overshadowed by outcrops of trees that grew steadily closer together as one approached the clusters center.

With no obvious clearings from their short vantage, the boys lifted themselves into the air to compensate their height. Their ever-observant child eyes skimmed the horizon over the forest canopy for a convenient spot to call forth Shenlong.

"Trunks-kun, what about over there?" Goten suggested, pointing to the west. A couple miles in that direction, the trees thinned and a plain of undisturbed grass stretched from the edge of the forest into unknown territory beyond.

Trunks pretended to consider it, rubbing his chin like he'd seen his mother do time and again when she was pretending to hold back on buying him something. "Well...I guess it'll do..."

"Whoopie!" Goten cried, doing a series of flips. "Let's go, Trunks-kun – I'll race you!" the youngest Saiyan challenged, wasting no time in leaving his dragonball-burdened partner behind.

"Wait, Goten!" Trunks shouted, disgruntled. "That's no fair! You got a head start!"

Goten turned his head and blew a wet raspberry over his shoulder.

The lavender-topped saiyan princeling shifted the duffle bag filled with dragonballs on his shoulder, the smirk on his face curling into a full-fledged grin. "Fine, you don't want to play it fair, then we won't play it fair."

With a flash of gold and a sense of justice, Trunks took off after Goten.

--- --- ---

A breeze invited itself in through the open window of the science classroom, taunting the confined students with a hint of summer heat. They all leaned into the wayward wisp of wind, breathing in the light flavor of ripe watermelon and the bitter smell of burning sulfur. If they were to simply close their eyes, the gust would carry them to a place far away from their educational prison, stretched out on a sandy beach in the shade of a palm while the salty waves licked their bare feet. Multicolored drinks with miniature umbrellas would be on hand as they soaked in the dry summer heat and ignored their homework due at the beginning of next term.

Freedom. Pure...sweet...unadulterated freedom. A week long eventuality.

Those lucky enough to have been assigned window seats were privileged with scenery to accompany their wandering eyes and minds. Plush-looking grass out on the sporting fields, the clear sparkling blue of the swimming pool and the promising breeze lured their attention away from the lesson at hand and focused them on their many fantasies of freedom beyond the school's gates. Even the deep-throated drawl of the professor in the background seemed only half-hearted at the prospect of being rid of this frightful institute of learning.

Gohan, wasting his prime position by the window, couldn't have cared less for the promising weather. Whatever in hell's name the professor was going on about was even lower priority for the genius demi-Saiyan considering his mother had surely forced the same material into his head at age four. Even if it had been necessary for him to listen to the god-forsaken educator, Gohan would have been much too distracted to bother anyway. His problems were, by far, more relevant than a long dead moon's cycles.

Erasa sighed heavily by his shoulder for the third time in five minutes, staring out the window over Gohan's slackened shoulder. A new breeze wafted into the classroom, eliciting a few near-moans of pleasure from it's enraptured audience and another, more approving sigh from Erasa. It licked at Gohan's ears, whispering sweet nothings to him about the day beyond the concrete jungle.

Gohan was still far from giving into the temptation of the summer's day. His attention was drawn to a colder front indoors, pointedly ignoring him in favor of abusing her unfortunate piece of paper. Gohan's gaze was locked onto the one student who appeared to be dutifully taking down the professor's learned speech, scratching away at her paper with a frightful gleam in her eye. She bore down on her innocent paper with nothing short of enraged fervor as she ignored her enthralled, one-man audience.

The breeze whispered lovingly into his ear again, but Gohan was interested in hearing only one voice in the room full of students. It didn't seem as if she would acquiesce, however, as she carved the assignment into the desk through her doubly-murdered sheet of paper. Her pen oozed its dark blood onto the death scene, leaving black splotches during instantaneous pauses for punctuation. She was more absorbed in her paper than the ink while she ignored her distressed after school instructor.

Videl hadn't spoken to her demi-Saiyan classmate in three days. Three days. Not since Saturday evening after the...unpleasantness. She had willingly obliged to explain the complications of a marital relationship to Goten, but had completely ignored Gohan from thenceforth. Videl had even refused to offer him a simple "bye" as she left for home that night, opting instead for her silent grudge that Gohan was sure to endure for a long while. With Videl gone, his mother had rounded on him next, bouncing back and forth between disgruntled anger about how he treated women and tears over her now lost future grandchildren. He was then ordered to take Videl out and apologize after school today.

Watching the teenaged poster child for anger management from a safe distance away, Gohan somehow figured that talking to Videl's chair would be a more productive waste of their time. If Videl was anything, she was adamant about everything she did or didn't want to do, even to a fault. But that was just the way that Gohan loved her...much to his own disgruntlement.

The fear of rejection aside, Gohan further had to worry about being physically and verbally abused if he were to ask her the question wrong. (Not that even asking her was an option anymore, of course.) He had almost gotten up the courage to decide to ask her when he had completely ruined everything over the weekend. And now, of course, his mother insisted (or, more precisely, ordered) that he do the very thing that he had lacked the courage to do since before the Budokai...

Resting his chin against his palm, Gohan propped himself up to stare at the object of his discouraging affection. There was no way she'd agree to a date with him...

"Hey, Videl," a deep voice interrupted the hybrid's wayward thoughts of lost love and women scorned. Sharpener had entered his line of vision, leaning around Videl with a smooth smirk on his face.

Videl didn't bother to look up from her scribbling. "What?"

Ah, there was Gohan's refreshing breeze.

Sharpener leaned in closer, indifferent to the potential danger he faced in simple proximity to a hopeful half-Saiyan's prospective girlfriend, and rested a leisurely hand on her knee. "Could I borrow a pencil?"

"No."

"Cummon, Videl. I left mine at home," he continued, giving her knee a squeeze. The desk in front of Gohan received a similar but greater pressure.

"Too bad," Videl replied, unmoved. "Now back off before you get to borrow this pen through your neck." She jabbed a period at the end of her sentence for emphasis.

With an offended snort, Sharpener relented to her wishes to be left alone. "Sheesh, fine..."

Sharpener removed his hand and sat back in his seat, a safe distance away from Videl's bad mood. She didn't usually threaten him with death until around the tenth wheedle for attention, but he obviously wasn't about to push his luck when she was so...out of spirits.

Gohan tore his eyes away from Videl for the first time in hours in effort to hide his growing smile. He doubted that this technique was effective, but cared more about the teacher's recitation of the text than this fact. It was always uplifting to see Videl blow off Sharpener, who had redoubled his efforts in dating Videl after the tournament when it was apparent that Gohan hadn't made his move.

Sharpener seemed to have conveniently (or inconveniently, depending on how you looked at it) forgotten the ever so small, yet ever so important detail about Saiyaman's true identity after being revived. Shame, really; had Sharpener been more interested in his own salvation, it would have probably been enough to convince him to switch seats with Goku's eldest, hormone-driven son.

Not that close proximity to the miffed daughter of Mr. Satan seemed like a good idea today. After a good weekend of training (assuming Gohan refrained from angering her), though, she always had this adorably perky smile...she hummed a lot, too. Usually that song he had grown to like...he didn't know what it was, but it had a cheerful beat.

Another breeze invited itself into the classroom, ruffling the short hairs on Gohan's neck. Beside him, Erasa shivered and rubbed her bare arms against the sudden chill. Her teeth chattered in complaint and she slid down in her seat as her demi-Saiyan classmate froze, finding interest in the window after all.

"Gohan-kun, what's wrong?"

Issues far beyond Videl opting to speak to him again plagued Gohan as he stared in horror out the window.

Black. The sky was pitch black at noon.

"Oh...shit..."

--- --- ---

"No fair, Trunks-kun!" a disgruntled Goten complained, rubbing a purpling spot on his left arm. "You're not supposed to kick in a race!"

Trunks snorted, stopping an escaping dragonball with his foot. He nudged it with the tip of his toe, prompting it to rejoin its fellows. "Yeah, well, you got a head start. That makes us even."

"Nuh uh! 'Cause you went Super Saiyan, too," the younger boy countered, pointing a finger at his adversary. "That means you were unfair twice."

"Nobody ever said that I couldn't go Super," Trunks defended. "Besides, who cares about the dumb race? We're here to make our wishes, right?"

Changing moods with a speed only his mother could beat, Goten cheered. "Yeah!"

"So shut up and put the last dragonball over here," Trunks commanded, pointing at the gathering of star-speckled orbs down by his feet.

Goten crouched low and placed the final ball in the center of the group, completing the earthly constellation. He hopped backwards to stand next to Trunks as the balls began to pulse with light. The miniature red stars within twinkled in rhythm with the pulse, impatiently urging their founders to call forth the dragon.

"Here goes!" Trunks announced, clenching his hands in anticipation.

Goten bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet as he waited for Trunks to wake the sleeping dragon god. It had been Goten's idea, for once, to take off on this adventure. He had thought about it for a long time over the past couple of days and, even though it had taken him a long time, the youngest Son had finally found a solution to his problem. A solution to everyone's problems, as a matter of fact. All he needed was a teeny, tiny bit of help from the Eternal Dragon...

Trunks held out his hands, palms down, over the dragonballs and, in his best authoritative voice, shouted, "I call forth the Eternal Dragon! ARISE!"

The heavenly orbs abandoned their flashing for a steady glow as the command was processed. The light intensified as the balls began to heat, the crimson stars floating beneath the surface of each darkening to black as they roasted under the influence of heavenly power. A hazy aura surrounded the god-made orange globes and, with a final flash of golden power, the balls cracked, releasing their prisoner into the mortal realm.

The boys leapt away from the explosion as an elongated body burst forth from the wish-granting stones, formed by the swirling aura that hovered around the dragonballs. They landed gracelessly on their backsides as the length of dragon slithered out into the open sky and coiled in the darkened atmosphere.

"Wow...," Goten said in childlike awe, gaping as the scaled rope slowed it's ascension. Against the pitch sky, the Eternal Dragon Shenlong glowed a brilliant gold. As his full power was granted him, his eyes lit with the familiar crimson twinkle of twenty-eight stars.

"You have gathered all seven dragonballs. You may now have two wishes within my power."

Goten bounced to his feet, whooping. "Cool! Trunks-kun, what are you going to wish for?"

The half-breed princeling remained frozen on the ground, blinking at the gigantic monster he had released into the world. "Uh..."

"State your first wish."

Goten grinned at his playmate expectantly, eager for his own turn.

Trunks blinked a few times before admitting, "I...uh...forgot."

--- --- ---

The classroom was alert and buzzing at this strange new predicament. How did daylight just disappear? At noon?

"Is it an eclipse?" someone ventured a guess as the classroom was swallowed by early night. No one bothered turning on the lights.

"T-that's funny...," the confounded professor muttered, not registering his student's question as he approached the window. He placed a hand on the glass and leaned forward, as if this phenomenon could be cleared up by just squinting at it harder. Finding no solution in this, the under-paid government employee removed his glasses and began polishing them feverishly. "A solar eclipse," he corroborated with a strained voice. If there were any light in the room, the chattering students now gathering around the windows would probably have been able to witness their teachers thick dark hair begin to gray.

"But, Takanaka-sensei," a quiet girl who usually sat in the front row raised her hand tentatively. "I...I thought there had to be a moon for a solar eclipse."

Takanaka Yue replaced the now shining lenses on his nose. "Ah, yes...I mean...I thought so..."

The classroom buzzed louder, none of them having passed their last test.

Gohan remained standing behind his desk, far removed from the swarming crowd of students at the windows. Internally, he was the only person in the room more distraught than his overworked and underpaid professor.

"But...there hasn't been a moon since we were, like, five. How can there be an eclipse?"

'Because there's a giant, wish-granting dragon god blocking the sun.'

"Maybe the moon grew back...?"

'Not unless that's what they wished for.'

"Is this...yanno...some kind of bad omen?"

'I sure don't have a good feeling about it.'

"Omigod! Is this, like, the end of the world?"

'...depends on who's making the wishes, really.'

A few of the girls in the classroom with a weaker constitution broke down into tears. "Omigod!" one of them screamed, clutching at her blonde curls hysterically. "I'm gonna die in polyester!"

Someone tugged on his sleeve, insisting on his attention. "Gohan-kun!"they said, lowering their voice for his ears only. "What's going on?"

Gohan turned his head to find Videl standing a step behind him, hand firmly tangled in his long, white sleeve, and bestowing him with a glare that said "The truth. Or else."

She waited impatiently for him to answer before reaching up for his collar. The weaker human being jerked him down by it, bringing master and student nose to nose. "Tell me!" she insisted, lowering her voice to a hiss.

Gohan unstuck his parched throat with difficulty. "S-someone's...using the dragonballs," he admitted honestly.

Videl's eyebrows drew together as she translated Gohan's predicament. "Dragonballs?" she repeated, sifting through her most recent memories. Videl was certain that she had heard of them, at least in passing. "What about them?"

Gohan declined to elaborate as the classroom flooded with a more intense darkness. The lighter navy shade that accompanied the psudo-nighttime sky was drowned in the pitch of all blacks.

"Eeek! This is it!" the same hysterical girl screamed, absorbed in the darkness to the point that it was no longer possible to put a face to the voice.

"Gohan-kun! Tell me what's going on!" Videl demanded, not bothering to hide her voice now. She clutched at the fabric in her grasp more tightly, pulling the accompanying body closer. "Now!" she demanded, sounding panicked.

There was silence from her martial arts tutor.

"Gohan-kun?"

And the fabric slipped from her fingers.

"They've made their first wish," the calm, disembodied voice of Gohan explained.

"What?" Videl asked, reaching out into the darkness for him. Her fingers, once secured firmly in Gohan's shirt, met nothing but air. "Gohan-kun!"

The intense darkness lifted and the lighter navy hue returned, infusing the classroom with a hazy non-light. The silhouettes of the students were visible, still gathered around the window, but one was missing.

There was no Gohan.

Videl could feel her pulse quicken as the sentiment of panic shared with the room truly began to set in. What if there was another catastrophe? Could there be something out there even stronger than Buu? Had Gohan gone to fight it? Dragonballs...dragonballs...what the hell were dragonballs, anyway? Instruments of evil?

Along with the intense darkness, the awed silence of the blinded spectators disappeared.

"What the hell was that?" one student asked, finding his voice before the rest. "Do eclipses change color?"

"Stupid!" the quiet girl from the front row said, beginning to sound angry and panicked. "This isn't an eclipse! There's no freaking moon!"

"I'm scared..." one of the hysterical blonde girl's friends sniffled, clinging to a group of assorted classmates beneath the window. "I d-don't want to d-d-d-die!" she wailed and buried her face in the shoulder of the closest girl. The girl, chubby and spectacled, clung to the slender brunette for her own comfort.

"Hey, what's that?"

"It looks like a shooting star...but why is it so close to the ground?"

Videl, latching onto a new lead, darted to the window, knocking over a pile of simpering teenage girls along her way.

"Hey!" Sharpener complained, elbowed harshly out of the way as Videl usurped his position.

Videl ignored him as she caught sight of the tail end of the blueish "shooting star."

'Gohan-kun!' Was her only thought as she returned Sharpeners spot to him, leaping from the window ledge into the darkened outer atmosphere.

"Videl-san!"

"Videl! Where the hell are you going?"

"Come back!"

He wouldn't leave her behind this time, no way!

With a sense of purpose, Videl charged her electric-blue chi and took off after the trail of light at full speed. She wouldn't be able to catch up with him but, damnit, she would try!

--- --- ---

Word Bank:

Budokai- for those of you only familiar with the dub version of DBZ, the Tenkaichi Budokai is "The World Martial Arts Tournament" for the world's greatest fighters to show off their stuff in structured battle conditions. Previous winners include: Muten Roshi, Son Goku and Mr. Satan. The tournament also happens to be the place where all hell breaks loose at the start of the Buu Saga.

Sensei - teacher; can also be used to address people with professional title, such as a doctor, author, manga-ka, lawyer, etc.

---

Authors Note: I lost this chapter TWICE. Not once, but TWICE while I was writing it. Apparently, I had a corrupted disk and not enough forethought to save the file to the damn computer itself. I also lost a first chapter to another fic I was working on, but losing this chapter TWICE was what really got to me. The worst part was that I was genuinely pleased with the second version (well, as pleased as someone can be with something written at four AM, anyway) so I was genuinely pained to see it disappear. Stupid...corrupted...disk. GAH! I'm not going to make THAT mistake again. From henceforth, all my files shall be saved to at LEAST two sources (and, for the next two or three weeks, three) so that I have a backup. Luckily I was undeterred in continuing this after two failures (but maybe the challenge was what kept me going). That said, I'm not particularly thrilled with how parts of this chapter turned out...but I don't hate it, I suppose. Eh, I'm looking forward to the next couple of chapters, though. After just a bit more angst, I get to do the fun stuff again! Heh heh heh...

Also, the ages of the characters are based on the manga as opposed to the anime. In the anime, Gohan is eighteen at the start of the Saiyaman Saga whereas, in the manga, he's sixteen. This takes place approximately a year after the Buu Saga so that the dragonballs are useful again. This would make Gohan about seventeen and Goten about eight. All other ages are up for speculation (for now).

Something occurred to me last night as I was trying to get Nic to guess where I was going with this...to my complete and utter surprise, I had to spell it out for him. In light of these new developments, I decided to shorten my second chapter and leave you with a nasty cliffhanger in hopes that some of you would venture to guess what comes next. It seemed kinda "well, duh" to me, but, then again, I know what's going to happen. I want to know what YOU think is going to happen. So, if you would be so kind, drop your guesses in the review box. All the amusement might just propel the next chapter forward earlier...hint hint.

. ( . Ms Videl Son . ) .

–Brothers can't share everything. GohanVidelGoten

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Next Chapter: Mystery solved...getting up to speed...and a rousing game of blame tossing.