What You Will

AN: So, so, so. I tried very hard to fix up Gohan's POV at the beginning of this chapter. I still think I write him rather clunkily, and his scenes never come as smoothly as Videl's does. I often wonder why it is that a happy-go-lucky young man is so much harder to write? I thought I must have just been having writer's block at the time, but this chapter is about two months old, and coming back to polish it up didn't come easy.

Well, enough of my complaining. Here's chapter two.

Gohan neatly returned his notebooks and pencils from his bag to his desk. He'd seen stranger days, but he had to admit that this one wasn't quite peachy-creamy, at least when compared to his expectations. He didn't anticipate to be tested so thoroughly on the materials in all his courses right away; from what he had heard of schools, teachers usually taught their students first before giving them exams. And even though one of his teachers said that those tests were for evaluation and orientation purposes, Gohan still thought it was just a little odd.

Anyway, if he was to be honest to himself, he thought he did well. He was able to answer all of the questions; his math answers especially were precise to the hundredth digit, even though they were not allowed to use a calculator. Perhaps that would impress his math teacher. Boy, was he grateful that he listened to his mother when she told him to study those things when he was younger!

Classes aside, it looked like a good day to visit Bulma. He felt as if he was relatively settled in anyway. He finished pretty much all of the house keeping the previous day, and since the teachers hadn't given them homework as of yet, it would be the best time to pay a visit to his friend.

He finished putting away his things, and was about to turn to leave his room when there came a knock on his door.

Huh? He wasn't expecting anybody. Perhaps someone was going to invite him to one of those ice-breakers he heard about... streaking in the streets, carjacking ice-cream trucks, booze hazing... Gohan shuddered. He'd read about them in those teenaged contemporary books that he bought to prepare himself for a life in the city. He was never one to judge so easily, but still sometimes he found city people a bit strange.

You're way over-thinking this, he reprimanded himself. Surely those kinds of events were purely artistic in nature, designed by authors to make their books more interesting. He dashed to the mirror to see if he still looked presentable, and then rushed to get the door, just as the person on the other side started to knock again.

He opened it up to see Del on the other side.

"Hey Del!" he greeted, surprised to find that he was actually glad – and relieved – that it was Del. At least it was someone he had already talked to. "What's up? Do you need anything?"

"Yeah," Del lowered his voice, and looked at the carpeted floor for a moment. "I need to apologize."

"Apologize?" Gohan was even more surprised to hear that. "For what?"

"For running away from you this morning after math class," the small boy looked up at him now with hesitant eyes. Gohan couldn't help but feel some brotherly tenderness, a feeling only Goten and Trunks had evoked before. "Look, I didn't mean to act like a snob or make you feel unwanted. The test didn't go well for me at all, and I was just frustrated. I let my anger get the better of me. And I'm sorry."

Gohan stared at Del, wondering what prompted his guilty confession, because as far as Gohan knew, he hadn't done anything wrong. Not really.

"That's alright... I guess," Gohan rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, I don't think I have anything to forgive. At least, it didn't bother me."

Del looked up at him, surprised. "Oh," was all he said.

Then Gohan realized he was blocking the door way, and he flushed.

"Now I have to apologize! How could I forget my manners?" He opened the door wider, and motioned for Del to head inside. "Come in! I should have invited you right away. I don't know why I forgot. Oh, mother would be so disappointed."

He saw Del hesitate and begin to turn away. "Ah... I can't. Thanks, but uhm..."

"Oh, I've done it now, haven't I? I'm such a bumpkin, I knew I would mess up something sooner or later–"

"Okay, okay, I'll come in!" Del exclaimed, slipping gracefully through the space between the door and its frame. "You don't have to feel bad about it. Honest." He looked around the room for a moment, slipping his small hands into his pockets.

Gohan looked around his room too... and blanched. What was he thinking inviting Del in, when there was absolutely nothing he could offer? No tea, no spring water, not even candied fruits! He turned back to his classmate and cringed. This was not going well at all.

"Sorry, but I have nothing to offer you," he waved sadly to the chair tucked under his desk. "Except a seat."

Del smiled. "That's alright. All I really wanted to do is to apologize."

Gohan returned his smile with a grin. "No worries. So how were the rest of your courses? I think I might have spotted you in literature class and physics, but you sat away from me."

Del frowned and shrugged. "Not good. Probably just as bad as in math class, perhaps even worse." He tried to laugh, but Gohan could tell he was frustrated about something.

"You know, I can probably help you a bit. I have some knowledge on the things we were tested on today."

Del shrugged. "Thanks, but I'm not sure if I can. It wouldn't be fair to you. I don't think your mother sent you here to teach, but to study. Besides, just a minute ago, I had some books ordered to help me with studying."

"Oh, if it's books you're looking for, I can also help you with those!" Gohan remembered all of the titles and authors of the books his mother had bought for him when he was younger. "Which subjects are you specifically looking into? I might have a couple of suggestions that you might want to try apart from the ones you've bought."

Del's shoulders sagged. "All subjects. And no offense Gohan, but I don't think I'm ready for your level of books."

"What? No, don't put yourself down like that, Del!" He began writing down a few titles of general introductory books for the subjects they shared together. "I can definitely help you along too, if you need it!"

Del's eyes widened. "No, no, no! I cannot accept that. I... uh... I'm a... I'm a really slow learner, you see, and you'll only get impatient with me, I'm sure."

"Oh," Gohan said, quite disappointed, before handing him the slip of paper. "Well, if you're sure. But if you have any questions, you can definitely ask me."

The other boy smirked then. "I guess it would depend on who's scarier: you or the teachers." They shared a chuckle, Del looking hesitant as if he wasn't sure he was supposed to be. It was odd; it reminded Gohan of how Piccolo looked when his mother forced him to try to learn how to drive.

Then Del awkwardly began to shuffle out of his door. "Well, I won't bother you any longer. Have a good day, Gohan!" He waved and jogged away from Gohan's room even before the door closed completely.

Okay, definitely as awkward as Piccolo.

Gohan glanced at his watch, and checked his things one final time, before making his way to Capsule Corps.

-o-

Bulma was loquaciously happy to see him, and demanded to know everything about his experience at school so far.

"I'm gonna let you in on a little secret later," she mentioned. "But you have to tell me your story first!"

She invited him in her lab, where eight servers were wheezing at full processing speed, while her helpless printer spat out page after page of tabled data.

Gohan chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't know what I can tell you, Bulma. So little has happened yet."

"Well, tell me whatever that little thing is!"

He told her about the tests he took earlier that day, and how surprised he was that that had been the first thing the teachers wanted to do. "No introduction at all! It was like they were trying to scare us. I mean, I honestly think I did fine, but I just found it strange."

"That's all?"

"Actually," Gohan thought the incident that occurred the previous day at the plaza. "I was wondering if you would know of a way that I could disguise myself on the fly. I came across some scums yesterday, but I couldn't do much because I was afraid of revealing my powers."

"A disguise, hm? I think... I think I might have something. It might need a bit of remodeling to fit your purposes, but if you'd be willing to wait a couple of hours, I can get it to you by then."

"Really, Bulma? That would be great!" Gohan exclaimed. "I wasn't even expecting to have it that soon."

She winked at him. "Anytime, Gohan! Besides, wouldn't it be quite funny to have you running around my city? Make sure to smile at the cameras too."

"Hehe, catching bad guys is enough for now. Being a local celebrity isn't really on top of my priority list. Besides, seems like you already have a local hero here yourself."

She narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. "I hope you're not talking about Vegeta. Or Trunks, for that matter. Because there are other nouns to describe them, and 'hero' wouldn't be a particular favourite of mine."

"No, definitely not Vegeta! I'm talking about someone a lot prettier!" Gohan laughed.

"...prettier?"

"Black hair. Short," Gohan started to list off qualities he remembered from the previous day. "Fights like the very incarnation of fierceness itself?"

"...I have no idea who you're talking about."

Gohan frowned. "Doesn't the name 'Videl' sound familiar to you?"

Bulma shot up from her seat, spilling to the ground some of the papers she had been observing. "Videl? You mean Videl Satan?"

"Er... Satan? Well, I don't know her last name, but if she's–"

Bulma interrupted him with a frantic waving to one of her opened laptops. "Gohan, there's this wonderful thing called the Interweb, where you can type stuff you're curious about, and information comes out. It's really useful, and we've only been using it since, I don't know, way before you were born. You need to become more tech savvy."

Gohan stood behind her and looked at the screen where she was typing in the name 'Videl Satan'. After half a second of loading, the page showed lists of online documents pertaining to Videl Satan. The right column was filled with pictures of the identified person, and others who were related.

"That's the girl you're talking about?" Bulma asked.

Gohan could merely nod, as the results affirmed what he already suspected after Bulma mentioned the girl's last name. Beside one of the pictures of the girl he saw at the plaza was another popular image that everyone in the world – even those who lived in secluded mountains like him – had seen at least once in their lives. It featured the 'Great Hercule Satan' standing at a stadium with a large golden belt hugging his waist, and title of 'World Champion' brazenly written across the top. Beside those images, the first document retrieved from Dragopedia had a one line summary stating, 'Videl Satan, born on June 17 Age 756, is more widely known as Hercule Satan's daughter.'

Uh, you've got to be kidding me.

Not that he was particularly bothered, but boy, did it surprise him.

Bulma sent him a sideways look. "So, what's with you and miss Videl, huh?"

Gohan felt his cheeks heat up. "What do you mean? I just asked if you knew her!"

"What do I mean?" Bulma cleared her throat, deepening her voice as she said, "Fights like the very incarnation of fierceness itself. Sounds familiar?"

Gohan blushed deeper. "But you should have seen her fight! Really, she fights nothing like her father. No theatrics at all, just good old plain and effective martial arts. She was the one who subdued those criminals at the plaza yesterday. Did it rather quickly too, that I didn't even have to do much."

The blue-haired scientist cocked her head to the side, brushing her bangs away from her eyes. "That's strange. What's she doing here at West City?"

"You mean she doesn't live here?"

"No. She resides in her father's city. At least, last I heard of her anyway. She doesn't dwell in the spotlight much. Not like her father, so there's actually not much news about her. I heard she fights culprits there mostly."

"Oh. Maybe she got called over here for back-up?"

Bulma's eyes widened. "That's almost seven hours via an average copter! No, she must have been already here. I'm not surprised though. Ever since her father rose to fame, West City has been very friendly towards Satan City. They've made quite a lot of alliances already, politically and commercially. Why, haven't you heard? Even Hercule is endorsing your precious West City Academy!"

"Oh, is he now? I didn't know that!"

"Yup! The ads all went up last month or so. Good timing too, because..." Bulma trailed off, as she walked over to another desk. She opened the drawer, and showed Gohan a poster. "The first annual International High School Science Tournament is happening this year. I don't think it's a coincidence that Hercule began endorsing your school at about the same time this tournament is happening."

Gohan's eye twitched. What did Hercule even have to do with science? He thought the old man was pure jokes and laughs. But at the same time, he also knew companies lined themselves up in desperation trying to vie for the celebrity's endorsement. Apparently anything with Hercule's face on it tended to sell twice as much.

"West City Academy, of course, as you already know," Bulma continued. "Places high emphasis on the sciences. The various scientific institutions across the world only came up with this school tournament recently, and not all the details have been ironed out yet. They're waiting for all the specifics before broadcasting it officially. But here's the little secret I wanted to tell you."

Gohan perked up at that.

"I donated funds to your school when I learned about it. Capsule Corps is one of the companies who voted to put this tournament through, because whoever wins the tournament would get recruited to the company with the highest bid, and his or her research would be completely patented. Plus there are also some prize money and fame to go along with it."

"Ah, I see," Gohan nodded. "So you donated research funds to WCA to ensure that we'd have the resources to churn out the best projects at the tournament."

"That's right! They're a safe bet, especially now that you decided to go there."

The half-Saiyan laughed. "Thanks Bulma! So I take it that this is sort of like a science fair."

"But on a grander, more spectacular scale," Bulma added. "At least it better be! I donated a million zennis to your school!"

Gohan's eyes bulged. "A million zennies? That's a lot."

"If the projects are good, the money a company like Capsule Corps can make from patenting the students' ideas would exceed my investments. Which is why I'm letting you know early! Never hurts to start thinking about these things ahead of time." She gave him another devilish wink.

They both exited her lab where Bulma told him he could catch up with Trunks, while she tinkers away at his disguise. After thanking her, Gohan took an elevator up to the residence floor, and knocked on Trunks' play room. He found a grouchy Trunks there, who spent ten minutes ranting about how annoying his father was. The rest of their time was occupied by playing various video games, and Trunks showing off some of the new fighting tricks he learned. Bulma called him down just after Trunks had accidentally knocked down a lamp, and begged Gohan not to tell his mother.

"Tell her what?" he asked. "I didn't see anything!" He winked, before saying farewell.

Bulma presented him with a watch, ordinarily looking enough. Digital numbers showed the time, and there were buttons on the side to handle various settings.

"Try the red button."

Doing as indicated, he found his vision shaded by a dark visor, and there came a light weight that pressed around his head. His body was covered in dark spandex, and his torso was wrapped in a bright green tunic, held together by a tight white belt. He looked up to see his image on the full-body mirror Bulma had set up just for this moment.

He. Looked. AWESOME.

"Wow!" he exclaimed with glee as he struck several poses in front of the mirror to test the outfit's flexibility. "You've really outdone yourself this time, Bulma! This is great!"

"I do try. I hope that would do just fine?"

"Oh absolutely! Thanks Bulma, you're the best!"

-o-

Sharpner knocked on the heavy double doors of his father's office. He had flown in right after class had finished to Stilo Inc.'s headquarters where he knew his father would be. The man almost never left the place. He waited for the usual curt "Come in," before opening the door. He straightened his shoulders, and lifted his chin. He schooled his face into utter masculinity.

"You called, sir?" Sir. Of course, because he wasn't really this man's son. No, Sharpner scoffed. This man had no family. Only subordinates and employees. And peasants.

The man sitting on the tall-backed leather chair didn't even look up. There were piles of folders and bound papers fighting for space on his already extended desk. The intense coolness of the air-conditioner hit Sharpner as soon as he stepped away from the hallway, and the door shut softly behind him. The carpet was clean, though there was a spot of coffee stain by his father's desk. Sharpner knew that although the man did it himself, one of the servants would get fired over it.

"Well you certainly took your time getting here. Scotch said he called you yesterday," his father stated, as the printer behind his desk wheezed into life.

Sharpner shrugged. "I figured since you don't pay me for my time, I can spend it how I choose."

His father then looked up, sending him a glare so piercing Sharpner thought the people from the next building would have cardiac arrest over it.

"You're right," Mr. Pencil tossed the document he was reading to the side of his desk, and focused his attention on his son. "I don't technically own your time. But I do own the house you live in, and those clothes on your back, and the food you've eaten the past seventeen years, and your precious education. So tell me, son. Isn't your time just a little bit of payment for all the things I've done for you?"

You mean all that crap? Sharpner thought, and he just sneered.

His father continued. "Tell me, what was your average last semester?"

"A... C+," Sharpner said. It was a disappointing grade, of course, but no man should let that stop him. He filled his voice with saturated pride.

"Well then," Mr. Pencil shuffled quite roughly through the drawers filled with files by his side. "Since you're so busy getting a C+, why don't I add a little fun in your life and get you to do something else? Something right up your alley."

Sharpner felt a stone weigh down his heart. Suddenly, it seemed as if strings had been attached to his wrists and ankles. But he knew that fear was never appreciated on a face like his, so he turned towards his other option: irritation and anger.

"What happened to the last fun I did for you?" he asked, his voice roughened.

His father looked up for a moment, a nice steady stare that would have melted a doorknob. "That was for the last campaign. When you run a business, you don't advertise once and let it go, Sharpner. Are you sure you deserved that C+? Because it seems to me as if you're only at a D level. Actually, I might even be pleasantly surprised if you were."

Sharpner could feel his ears redden, and his fists unintentionally hardened their grip. He hated these little projects his father gave him. Why, three years ago, he lost a girlfriend over it. His father, of course, didn't care. He laughed and said the project-girl had been a lot better anyway.

"I'll pardon that C," the 'king' replied. He pushed a piece of paper in Sharpner's direction, urging him to take it.

"C+," Sharpner corrected. He took the page and looked at its contents. Contempt rose in him as he exited the office.

He folded the paper into a tiny, tiny square as he walked back out of his father's office and back down to the ground level of the high sky-scraper. It was absurd! The whole thing. This whole life! Sharpner wished Cell had destroyed Stilo Inc. seven years ago. Then... then everything would just be different.

Only when he was seated inside his copter did he take out the paper again. It was a profile of a girl. Daughter of a respected, local politician, it said. She was pretty enough that Sharpner wouldn't really mind being seen around her, but Kami, how he hated these projects!

He revved up his vehicle, and shot up to the sky, heading for West City.

The first project had been when he was fourteen. His father came home from work, raging like a late typhoon over lost opportunities in sales pitches. "People just don't know about us! They're getting their supplies from other well-known companies already established in the trade. They don't want to take a risk with someone they don't know. They'd rather stay safe."

Mr. Pencil shut himself in his room, brooding for the next five days. Then he came out with an idea as trivial as it was shallow.

"We just need to create some buzz!" he declared. "People need to see us in the news, the tabloids, the magazines!"

They all thought he had gone crazy. Not only his colleagues, but his entire family as well. The only thing the tabloids would get them was a bad rep. Many people doubted Mr. Pencil.

Until it worked.

And part of it, part of the success of this so-called buzz generation, was because Sharpner was forcibly hooked up with the younger sister of a popular rock singer. Yeah okay, they had to pay her for the first date, but threatened with no games and no sports in an entire year, Sharpner was pressured into keeping the relationship going. Oh, all those lies he told the poor girl. But for sixteen months, they were the apple of the cameras' eyes, and all of a sudden, more and more people became interested in the Pencil family and their business.

Sharpner's grip hardened on the drive stick as he remembered the results of that stunt. The sad thing was that he had already been in a relationship – oh it was an amazing first love – and he hadn't even been able to explain the situation to her, lest the whole plan went down the drain. Nope, he could do nothing as his girlfriend confronted him about all the pictures in the magazines, and all he could do was shrug.

There had been countless stunts since then. Sharpner personally thought that Stilo Inc. no longer needed the type of publicity he provided, since it was now an internationally well-known corporation. Yet he still found himself meeting with random girls whose names and phone numbers he couldn't be bothered to remember.

When he arrived in West City, it had been dark for several hours, and he was grouchy as heck. He capsulized his copter when he reached the driveway of the academy. He had pulled out the profile of the girl again, and felt an excruciating temptation to rip it to pieces and throw it away. What was it to him? Who was she anyway? She was just another testament to his father's insatiable need to control those around him.

It was a grave insult, even if Sharpner had really been interested in all these women. His father didn't even trust him to find a suitable girl on his own to help him further his goals! As if he did not even know the type of girls that could help his father and those that could not. Oh, Sharpner knew for sure. As a matter of fact, he could probably pick better women than his father could. What did his dad know about women anyway? The two he had chosen for himself left him, one driven to death by an apoplectic fit, and the other packing her bags in the name of freedom after bearing three little devils.

Sharpner snickered as he made his way up to his dormitory on the eighth floor. Damn right, he could choose a better girl than his father.

As he exited the elevator onto his floor, he passed by the daily news bulletin. And spotted, on one of the leaflets, like a heavenly gift bestowed upon he who was in need, a picture of the perfect girl he could lord over his father's head.

Videl Satan.

Daughter of the World Champion.

Sharpner found himself crumbling the profile of Ms. Little Politician, as he approached the news bulletin. The leaflet announced how the young girl saved an entire plaza the previous day from the vicious quarrel of two gangs.

Heck, now was that not someone a million times better than the twittering girls his father assigned to him? Strong, smart, beautiful, and had the entire world wound around her finger tips. What would be a better way to rub his competence on his father's face than the successful courtship of the precious Videl Satan?

Sharpner grinned, ripping the news leaflet from the bulletin, and heading off to his room in much better spirits than when he left it.

-o-

Time for some midnight investigation.

Videl didn't exactly know what she expected to find in the middle of the night. Most of the people were asleep, and that made it very convenient to move around without looking incredibly conspicuous, but that also meant that she would probably not find anything at all.

A lot of sneaky crimes happened at night though, she reminded herself. And if stealing 600K zennis from a top-tier high school wasn't sneaky, then Videl didn't know what was. Officer Miso hypothesized that the person who accessed the funds accounts directly would have been familiar with the school. It was confirmed that West City Academy made all of its transactions within the school premises; it was one of the few institutions who could afford to have all of its databases inside the building itself, not outsourced like most did.

Videl snuck slowly down the hallway of her dorm floor, wet hair in tight pigtails framing the side of her face. She wouldn't take the elevator, since it did not provide her with a lot of mobility, so she rounded the corner to the end of the hallway where the stairs were located. She found it quite funny that she should be roaming about disguised as herself. It would not do that she be wandering as Del; if someone saw her, she would not be able to explain her presence. But if someone saw her as Videl, she could always just say someone had reported something fishy in this location.

Officer Miso gave her a map of the floor plan of the school. At the heart of the main building's basement was the data center and the servers. She already knew how well protected it was. Three passwords protected the iris scanner; one would have to pass the iris scan to open the fingerprint scanner, and then the doors could be opened. But that's not all. Within the computer lab itself, one would have to type six more passwords to log onto the server, and each of these passwords were changed every day.

Videl jogged swiftly from shadow to shadow, closing the ten-minute distance from the dormitory to the school building. The building itself was open 24/7 to students and staff, who were welcome to use the public facilities. Many students had studying prime times at midnight, and WCA prided itself in facilitating any means of studying for its students. She did not have a hard time getting inside, though she had to time it just right when the cameras trained at the doorways rotated away from her, before slipping in.

Once she got to a particularly camera-free zone – cameras were also marked on the map given to her – she sat back in the shadows for a moment to try to formulate her goal properly. When she was fighting, she always knew what the goal was: subdue her opponents. Even when she was helping the cops around the city, her goals had always been pretty clear; save the hostages, lead the people to safety, etc., etc. But with the whole spying thing, she didn't even know what she was supposed to look for in the first place! Okay, so she was given a list of sketchy folks, but what kind of information was she looking for to figure out which one of them was the true culprit? What if none of them were? It wasn't like they were just going to come right out and say something.

She put it down as another item on the list of the things to bring up during her next meeting with Miso. She followed the hallway until it curved into a rather remote area that forked into two more hallways. She kept behind a statue of an ancient alumni to take out her map from her pocket; she was just judging which path to take when she saw a shadow quickly move into a room to her right.

Strange. The map says that's the kitchen.

Would one of the staff enter the kitchen at midnight?

Curiosity getting the better of her, she tiptoed her way to the door. The doorknob was one of those old ones that didn't yet utilize electronic cards, so there was a keyhole in the middle. That was strange; for an institution with a reputation for security, West City Academy seemed to lack a bit in the edge cases. Videl was starting to believe just how possible it could have been for the thief to steal so much money.

She grabbed the latch and slowly tried to turn it. Not locked; figures. Either it wasn't locked in the first place, or the person inside wasn't worried about being found there. She couldn't afford to go into the room without prior knowledge of what she was about to find. What if the person was just on the other side of the door? She'll get caught immediately.

The map indicated that the entire kitchen occupied the space from this hallway all the way to the side of the building, meaning that she could get to the same room through the windows on the opposite side. Quickly going back the way she came, she rounded the building until she reached the part of the outer walls adjacent to the kitchen. There was a row of windows, probably meant to let the heat and the greasy fumes out when the kitchen was busy. It wasn't difficult for Videl to pick the locked windows and heave herself into the kitchen quietly. She was quite surprised. The windows were easy to breach and the doors weren't electronic... if someone truly wanted to enter the building, they pretty much had free admission through the kitchen.

Maybe the security enforcers thought nobody would enter through a kitchen. Petty burglars certainly wouldn't. But serious burglars... well, those would take advantage of any weak spots. It's the kitchen, for Kami's sake! I might just be over thinking the situation. But she would never satisfy her curiosity if she didn't act now.

She heard a noise somewhere in the middle of the room. There was the unmistakeable sound of crumpling plastic, the opening of cardboard boxes... was someone raiding the kitchen?

The young crime fighter took one step at a time, easing her way into the middle of the room. The moonlight was shining from the windows, so her shadow could betray her. She got down onto her knees, and began half-crouching, half-crawling her way to where the sounds were coming from.

She heard a satisfied belch, a soft one, followed by a murmur of "Not bad."

The next table over was three feet away, and the bare space between the one she was leaning against and the other was bathed in moonlight. She had to be fast if she did not want to be spotted. Slowly, gathering energy, she poised herself to leap forward from a crouching position. In a blink, she crossed the chasm between the two tables, and settled silently against the other one, getting closer to the middle of the room.

Videl held her breath for a moment, and to her dismay, the sounds had ceased. The person had noticed her. They were now mutual in their waiting for each other, waiting for a sign to fight or flight. Videl closed her eyes and tried to enhance her other senses, ears straining to hear something... anything. From her pocket, she felt for an object and caught a pen. In a fluid motion, she threw it to the other side of the room, hoping it would trick the person into thinking that she was in a different location that she really was.

The pen clanged on the floor, the sound echoing in the room. But the room was as silent as a grave after that.

Videl let out a frustrated breath. Okay. At least she knew she had been dealing with a trespasser. If the person really had been welcome in this place, he or she would not have hesitated to seek her out, since she would be the one in the questionable position. But the other person had hidden away, like she did.

After several minutes of immobility, Videl decided she had had enough, and decided to peek over the table.

The room was empty.

There were open cookie boxes at the counter in the middle of the room, and some orange peels and banana peels discarded by the floor.

She stood up fully, and scanned the entirety of the kitchen. Could the culprit be hiding?

After she spent almost an hour looking about the kitchen – opening pantries, fridges, even cupboards – Videl decided to leave. She took a picture of the mess left behind by the thief.

Perhaps, this was nothing. Maybe stealing into the kitchen was just one of those things that boys did all the time. She did not know. But it was better to be safe than sorry, so she would add it again to the list of things to report.

She sighed. Well, at least something happened. After all, she had deemed that the worst case scenario would be if she did not discover anything strange. Kitchen theft? Well, it was not the re-incarnation of Cell, but it wasn't something to be swept under the carpets either.

-o-

Gohan walked briskly to the open lounge for students where a few of them were sharing beer and looking over their textbooks. He tried not to run completely, because if anything, he had learned that that would only attract more attention.

Aw, he rarely cursed his Saiyan side due to its usefulness, but to function like a Saiyan, one must eat like a Saiyan. He wasn't used to having dinners with portions as small as the ones provided by the school cafeteria. He hadn't been prepared for that at all; the two course meal was simply a snack to him. He had money in his room, but sadly he brought only enough for the week to purchase school supplies and the occasional incidentals.

Gohan's guts tingled with guilt, knowing he had just broken one of his mother's most intense rules. In a way, he himself couldn't believe he'd just stolen from his school. But he was getting desperate, and the school kitchens were easier to access than some random store out on the streets. Besides, he planned on replacing those cookies anyway.

He sighed and exited the building, heading back to the dormitory.

The thing was... what bothered him the most about tonight was not the fact that he had snuck into the school's kitchen, almost gobbled up all of their supplies of cookies and muffins, and almost got caught in the process.

The weirdest thing was by whom he almost got caught.

There was a split second where a chi sparked amidst the darkness, a second that alerted him he was being watched. It was momentary, but very prominent. And it was so noticeably clear to him because he could not just forget a chi like that, a chi so saturated with human fierceness.

No, what really bothered him was... what was Videl Satan doing in West City Academy in the middle of the night?

AN: How is it so far? Let me know if things are boring you guys. I really need to set things up in order for events to make sense and for the characters' motivations to be understandable. But I can understand if things are going rather slowly and your interests aren't being piqued. A good story should be able to unfold its events while not losing the readers' interests.

So, let me know what you think!

And thanks for reading!