Right so short chapter. I wanted to make this all one long chapter instead of two shorter ones, but work this week has been chaotic and a thing and I've been feeling sick and I finished writing this Thursday, editing Friday, and hopefully, I wake up early enough to post it Saturday cause I got places to be.

Hopefully this will help me get a week ahead rather than last minute as it has been since the Frieza fight

Anyway, this just means you get a chapter of pure kiddo shenanigans.

frankieu: Thanks, but is that the wish that was made? I dunno, sounded like it'd involve them going somewhere...

thewittywhy: Thanks ^.^ hate at first sight indeed

Ndhuo: Its a bit early in this story for that still

xXSelenaXx: Haha yeah, I left off the name intentionally, both because I don't really want people to start defaulting to it and because it's gonna come up later ;)
And yes, asking the real questions about the wish now, aren't we?

fangrts: I adore every version of Butterfly, but yes, Koji Wada certainly made an iconic song
And no romance here, illegal.

"For the last time, Gohan, no. If you want to hang out with your friends, go hang out with the ones that are actually your age."

Aside from a few, mostly internal, "well technically's", I didn't do much to complain about having to go see the orphan kids rather than the canon characters. Spending time with them felt more like babysitting than I'd ever admit out loud, but I didn't mind. I didn't mind because they were mine. They were my friends that didn't depend on Canon to have. In fact, it was explicitly against canon that I keep them. It was a small, safe change.

Completely ignoring the much bigger change I had already made. And one that would soon be made. granted, that one was far less risky than not having Super Sayain yet. As in, practically no risk, to me at least, or most anyone on the main cast.

In a simple outfit of a T-shirt and shorts, and my hair neatly tied into a ponytail as per Chichi's insistence, I took off towards Capsule Corp as a quick stop before the orphanage.

I was flying lower to the ground than usual, so I could duck into the tree line if anyone had the risk of seeing me. Granted we were so far from civilization, but even so, there was the occasional outlier wandering about.

That was probably why I noticed the flickering energy hiding beneath the trees.

I paused for a moment, before descending. It was odd, too strong to be an animal or regular human, but too unfocused and wild to be a martial artist, aware of their Ki or not.

I landed before making my way through the brush, whatever it was, no need to scare it.

I pushed my way into a clearing only to freeze at what I saw.

It was worth it. Everything. This world, the aliens, the fighting. All of it. Completely and totally worth it.

Because what I found in that clearing was a purple baby dragon.

"Oh," I whispered, in awe, "you're Icarus…"

"I mean- can I call you Icarus?" I corrected myself, not entirely sure how much he could really understand. Based on what o remembered of the show it was at least a fair bit, right?

I was so aback from finding a literal baby dragon, It took me a moment to realize he was hurt. A small gash running down his side.

"Oh! Uh, wait here!" I said, uselessly as I backed away.

I took off back to Capsule Corp, this time taking much less care for if someone saw me and upped my speed. Not quite top speed, but far from slow.

I landed, rushing in and going through the drawers of stuff Bulma said we could take whenever- as long as we reported how well they worked- until I found her first aid capsules. They're far from a Senzu Bean, or even the Frieza Force healing pods, but the medicine included should be enough to fix up Icarus well enough.

Before taking back off I stopped by the indoor enclosure, where Ocari tended to spend most of his time.

"Hey wanna go out?" I asked as the boy looked up from his current interest, a butterfly he seemed enamored with.

"Out?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna go hang out with the other kids."

His eyes lit up at the suggestion. since he no longer had any kids his own age to spend time with I had brought him over to meet them, and as I had expected, the youngest three were immediately taken by the quiet Namekian.

I did have to tell him to, ah, avoid any details of the whole Frieza thing. I've told the kiddos a very watered-down version of what happened, but no violence was portrayed. Smol babies. No violence.

Ocari liked having different places to go to, from what I could tell, but obviously couldn't go many places by himself. Because child.

Oh sure, he was stronger than most humans he'd run into, using one of the Scouters that I had pilfered off Frieza's ship, his Power Level was around 50. Far from relevant in terms of fighting at this strange, but more than enough to be stronger than most non-Ki users on the planet. He'd run into problems if he decided to challenge one of the more skilled martial artists, as in World Tournament level, but somehow I doubt he would.

Even so, child, regardless of strength, is not allowed to wander about unsupervised.

Just, just ignore the fact that I can pretty much go wherever unsupervised. At this point the only one who really treats me as an actual child is Chichi, sometimes Krillin. I'm fairly certain it's because of Namek and all that happened, maybe how I act sometimes influences it. No one ever seems to ask follow-up questions though which is nice.

Bulma had since taken the Scouters to tinker with, with the promise that she'd return one once she made it better, which fair enough, Krillin and I were probably the only ones who had been to Namek who wouldn't overload the things as they were, and there's no use in an exploded scouter.

Just as long as I got one back in 118 days.

Regardless, I lead Ocari back out by a hand, explaining that we had to make a quick stop on the way and that it was a surprise.

To say he was delighted to meet a dragon- I don't think I need to finish this sentence.

At first, Icarus was not exactly pleased to have someone approach him, growling and borderline hissing, which was an interesting noise from a dragon, but I wasn't exactly concerned about being injured, and eventually, the dragon was patched up, willingly or otherwise.

After realizing he felt better, though perhaps not completely healed, Icarus was more of the friendly boi I remembered from canon. Semi canon. Was Icarus considered canon or was he just in filler and movies? Well at this point, it hardly mattered, he was canon enough to be here.

Also dragon.

Dragon friend.

10/10.

I didn't even have to encourage him to follow, as soon as Ocari and I were making to leave, he followed by default.

Granted, I had to fly slower than usual, but I'd have to do that anyway with Ocari. We still got to the orphanage just off of Orange city faster by any conventional means.

We landed just outside the entrance, opting to walk in rather than fly. Sure, by now they all knew I could fly, but still, no need to show off.

"Ok, stay here," I turned to Icarus, motioning with my hands for him to stay. It took several tries before he actually remained in place as I made to leave.

I turned around as I left to make sure he was staying.

Ocari looked torn between staying with the dragon and following, but eventually, he jogged to catch up to me.

We got in just as Pigero seemed to be leaving.

"Oh hey, good timing," he commented as we crossed paths.

He paused to ruffle his hands through my hair, which was a slight inconvenience considering the ponytail. I didn't particularly care about keeping every hair in place, but it was difficult to tame the hair well enough to make it fall straight enough to do anything with it.

Still better than that stupid bowl cut though. It looked fine on canon Gohan, I guess, but I was not dealing with it.

"You're heading out?" I guessed. His eyes lingered on Ocari for a second as he greeted him. He never outright commented on his resemblance to Piccolo, but it wasn't exactly a secret. The green skin and pointed ears would be a bit difficult to explain away.

I am fairly certain he read between a few of the lines of my extremely watered-down Namek story. He seemed to accept the whole aliens being a thing, at least outwardly easily. It probably helped that I had hinted at it before.

"Yeah," he answered, "I'm heading into town, it's-"

"Pigero's got a date!" Ena ran out, giggling.

"I told you it's not like that! Isabella said I should hang out with kids my age so I'm doing that! That's all!"

"Then why are you blushing?"

"Because you're-" Pigero cut himself off, straightening and opting to ignore the gigging preteen girl instead. By now the others in the group had filtered out.

"Better hurry up so you're not late for your date~" the dog boy, Yordon called over.

"Oh don't you start!"

"So, anyone I should threaten? You know, for your not date?" I couldn't help but contribute to the conversation.

"Very funny," the teen half glared down at me.

"You're only encouraging them you know," I pointed out, as they were obviously jibing at him for annoyance.

He huffed, turning away, "well I! Am going to go!" And he all but marched out the gate without looking back.

A beat passed and suddenly Chico seemed to notice my appearance because I was tackled in a hug, as per the norm at this point.

The instant I regained my freedom, Ocari was then captured in a hug.

"So, what's the plan for today?" I asked when all had settled.

"Oh! Ohohohohoh!" Rom raised his hand as of being called on, "we found a really cool lake! It's not far! We were gonna swim!"

"Alright, but first, I have a surprise, I made a new friend."

It didn't exactly take much convincing to get them to follow me, and for a moment the lot of them were awestruck by the literal dragon who was now looking up from his previous stalking of whatever animal he heard in the tree line.

The kids stood, awestruck, for a moment. Even in this world dragons were far from a common sight, let alone baby dragons. Distantly I wondered what had happened to its mother, but considering it was injured and alone I wasn't exactly hopeful.

Cautiously, the fox boy, Jinku, was the first to approach. He slowly extended an arm to pet Icarus, and didn't even get that far before the curious dragon licked him.

Jinku was reduced to giggles as the rest of the kids slowly gained the confidence to also approach. I kept a close eye just to make sure nothing happened, but Icarus seemed friendly, and the kids were being as mindful as little kids could be.

"You just, befriended, a dragon…?"

I turned to see the second oldest boy, Hacchi, still standing behind me, looking somewhere between skeptical and bewildered.

"Yeah. I'm calling him Icarus."

I don't think he likes me much, but I wasn't exactly gonna lose sleep over that some 14? 15? Year old thinks of me.

"What is a date?" Ocari asked as there was a lapse in conversation.

"Huh? Oh, Uh-" how does one even explain- "it's like, when two people like each other, romantically, and they spend time together."

"What does, romantically, mean?"

"It's…uh, ok so, you have platonic and romantic, platonic is like, your friends, family, people you care about. Romantic, is like that, but, more, I guess. Usually only with one person, uh, it's kinda hard to explain."

I glanced up at Hacchi but he seemed far too amused by my fumbling to offer any assistance.

Eventually, we started walking off, assumably in the direction of whatever lake they found, as I continued to offer explanations to whatever follow-up questions Ocari came up with.

Eventually, we did happen upon a small lake, or perhaps a pond would be more accurate. Either way, it was plenty big enough for a small hoard of equally small children.

The kiddos were apparently already wearing bathing suits under their clothes, which was convenient, and made sense considering they had planned to come here.

"They have different clothes?" Ocari asked.

"Yeah, for swimming."

"Why?"

"Because it's fun!" Chico answered for me.

"Oh. Why?"

"It's like," Chico paused, trying to come up with a comparison, "it's kinda like flying! You don't touch anything but you can move around."

Ocari blinked, then slowly hovered a few inches off the ground.

"Well we can't do that!"

"Why?"

"We- what do you mean why?"

"Other earthlings can fly. Why can't you?"

A beat passed. Then six pairs of eyes were trained on me.

"It's uh, not a very easy thing to learn. It's, relatively new that people even can, and can take years-"

"You're younger than we are!"

"Uh, yeah…but uh, I have a bit of a genetic advantage… and uh-"

And I had no idea how I'd even go about teaching that. sure, humans can fly in this world, assumably so could animal people then. It's always been after years of martial arts training though. And there's no way I'm going to do anything that might even slightly, tangentially, involve them in any sort of plot.

"Ok, I will, look into it…and see, if it can be possible," I settled on. Hopefully, they'll just, forget. Incredibly unlikely, but I can hope.

They accepted that answer for now at least and continued getting out their stuff.

"Should I not have said that?"

I glanced over at Ocari, before waving it off.

"It's fine. It was probably inevitable it'd come up eventually."

What kid doesn't want to fly after all?

What person doesn't want to fly really.

I got away with sitting on the side for a fair while before Chico noticed and asked what was up.

I didn't get to respond before she answered for me, "oh! You don't have a bathing suit! Hmmm…" she looked down in thought.

"It's fine, I don't really-"

"Hey if Goh doesn't want to swim you shouldn't push," Ena scolded. Or at least as much as a ten-year-old could scold.

"Of course she does! She just doesn't-"

"She?"

By now everyone else had gotten out of the water and was able to turn to Ocari, the poster child of innocent curiosity.

Chico froze and slapped her hands over her mouth with wide eyes.

"Nice," Jinku commented, voice coated in sarcasm. Chico turned to glare, not removing her hands.

I fell backwards, groaning.

Children are exhausting.

Until slowly Chico lowered her hands, slapping on a nervous smile in their place, "did I say she? Whoops, must have-"

"No. Stop," I sat back up, at best that'd just cause more confusion, "yes, she did say she, but Ocari, listen, it's important that around everyone else it's still He and Him, got it?"

Ocari frowned, but nodded. I sighed, knowing I'd have to explain that better later but for now-

It's not like I couldn't dry my clothes easily anyway. I removed my t-shirt at least, which left me in my shorts and a tank top.

It took me a second to realize they were now all staring at me in varying degrees of shock or alarm, sans Ocari who could offer no explanation as to what they were staring at.

I looked down but there was nothing-

"What happened to your arm!?" Chico finally broke the silence.

"Huh? Oh," the scar, "that uh- I tripped?"

"Wow. You are an awful liar," Hacchi just had to comment.

Which wasn't fair because of course I'd have difficulty coming up with something on the spot.

"Well! Anyway! Chico, you wanted to swim?" I didn't wait for a response as I grabbed her arm, walking towards the water.

Ocari seemed plenty content just poking a single finger in the water, while Icarus bounded after me, diving into the water as I jumped, pulling a half confused, half laughing Chico with me.

And that's just when everything had to go wrong, now isn't it?