Goten was lying flat on his back in his bed, waving his feet around in the air. "It was weird, though, huh?" he said. To all appearances, he was speaking to the air. Then Trunks's head popped up over the windowsill. He was hanging around (literally) for a little while longer before heading back across the mountains to his house in West City.

"Yeah," Trunks agreed, his voice sober. "We weren't trying to kill each other; I don't care what my dad says."

"Why can't I remember what happened after my Kamehameha blew you back?" Goten asked himself. Trunks frowned.

"Hey, that's not true. My blast won, not yours!" But his friend wasn't listening. Goten's baby face was scrunched up as he racked his brain. His eyes were shut.

"I think…I think something…hit me." He moved his hand to touch his head and massage the overgrown black hair. "Really hard." Trunks blinked in thought. If Goten could recall what happened, then he could, too.

"Well, I got thrown back"—he hated to admit that part—"and then I hit a wall or something. But it hurt more than just hitting a bunch of rocks…" He rolled his shoulder around in circles to flex his recently-healed arm. Yes, it had hurt even more than his dad or Goten's mom had ever done.

"Do you think something happened?" Goten wondered.

"You mean, like something sneaked up on us?"

Both boys went as tense as rubber bands when they felt a massive power level out of the blue. Gulping, Goten ventured, "Uh, something like that?"

"Yeah. Something like that," agreed Trunks. He stared toward the source of the chi. "It's not my dad or your dad, so it must be someone we've never seen before." He shook his head. "'Cause no one else is that strong."

"And feel that?" Goten was concentrating so hard that he was holding his breath. "Everyone else is going toward it." He stared at his friend in awe. "They're going to fight!" The two boys were speechless, each thinking of the implications of what Goten had just said. Earth hadn't been threatened for years—not since Majin Buu. They hadn't truly fought anyone in a long time. Sure, they had been more or less training, but that was nothing like a real battle. Now, all of a sudden, a fight was thrust upon them.

Trunks's blue eyes gleamed with eagerness. He was ready for it. "You know what that means, don't you?" He leaped into Goten's room and began ransacking the bottom dresser drawer. One of his gis must be in here somewhere…he was always leaving them over here after training for Chi-Chi to launder. He found a black one with an orange belt, pulled it out, and began hopping around in excitement. "We're going to fight, too!"

Goten's open mouth slowly turned into a huge grin. "Yeah! Let's do it!" He threw off his surcoat (his mother made him wear it) and kicked off his little shoes (he wore those when Goku wasn't looking). In a flash, he was in his orange fighting outfit, complete with the heavy black boots. He was looking less and less like a carbon copy of his dad as he got older. His body was maturing, and his hair had grown a lot. But he still proudly wore the same orange clothes as Goku, although the weighted blue undershirt and wrist cuffs were nowhere to be seen.

Both of them jumped out the window and soared through the air, making zigzags and loop-the-loops. "Watch out, you monster!" proclaimed Goten heroically.

"Here we come!" Trunks yelled with gusto. And this time it wasn't one of their pretend games.

This was real.