When I talked to Don Juan about reposting this, he said, "Why?"
Good question.

	The saga of a man of destiny continues (in 30 KB packets)
....

					Switch, for Don Juan
					"The summer's takin' it's time!"

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The Three-fold God's Path

A DragonBall fanfic by

Nikholas "Don Juan" F. Toledo


Episode 2:  The Boy


	Flames surrounded him on all sides as a slow, ancient and gentle voice 
whispered in his ears, lulling him.  He fought, focussing the power of his 
spirit and channeling it through his body, he fought in the pure, controlled 
frenzy that his martial arts style specialized in.  He felt the pure energy 
coursing through his body, and drew even more.  The flames were slowing him 
down, dragging at his muscles, as though he was pushing his way through 
solid rock.  

	"That is not the way to the power you seek."

	He roared, angered by his slow, clumsy movements, pouring more effort 
and energy into moving through the thick, viscous fire.  He was tiring, and 
his body ached with the effort.  Soon, he would be too tired to protect his 
flesh from the fire, and he knew he would burn.  He was afraid, and 
desperate.  There seemed to be no escape.  It felt as if he'd been trying to 
move for hours, and failing.  

	"This way will just destroy you..." the voice was murmuring in his 
ears, and the soft droning tones threatened to pull him into a deep sleep.  
He grimaced, drawing in all the power he could, and going even beyond, 
pushing the flames and the voice away in a steadily expanding sphere of 
destruction.  He'd drawn in so much power that he was afraid he would lose 
control, and go mad, but he could think of no other way to escape that 
prison.

	"Surrender to the darkness - surrender to the void, and you will know 
Power...  Please, just listen to me..."  The voice was fading as it pleaded 
with him.

	His strength gave out.  The flames rushed back close around him.  He 
was too tired.  He couldn't contain the power any longer. And as he began to 
feel the raging fires around him biting into his flesh, he screamed.


	Trunks jerked awake to the sound of an explosion nearby.  He jumped 
out of bed, and tore through the air, the friction from the speed causing 
his skin to flush, the rapidly displaced air sounding like thunder.  
Streaking down the corridors to the guestroom, he frowned as he came upon 
the door.  There didn't seem to be any damage...  He was sure he'd felt an 
explosion of chi-energy, more than enough to demolish the house.  For a 
moment, he'd been afraid that they had been attacked.  But there was nothing 
now.  No, he realized.  Less than nothing.  The room felt...  empty.  
Absolutely devoid of life-energy.  The earth was populated with so much life 
that it generated a near constant field of weak chi everywhere on its 
surface, but in that room, it was empty now, where no living energy touched.

	He frowned, cautiously drawing up the power of his spirit as he slowly 
opened the door to the guestroom.  A soft golden light surrounded his 
outline in the darkness as he concentrated.

	Inside, the stranger was floating, asleep, in the center of that 
sphere of death.  Trunks could sense no life signs, see no movement, hear no 
heartbeat.  The sphere of emptiness gradually shrank, and as the last of it 
faded from the room, the stranger slowly fell back into the guest bed.  As 
Trunks drew closer, he noticed that all of his mother's new ornamental 
plants in the room had died, leaving only dust.  Otherwise, everything was 
untouched.  
	The thin man's heart was beating again at least, Trunks thought.  And 
he could hear him breathing in and out, slowly.  The stranger was covered 
with perspiration, as though he'd been in a fight.  

	"Unreal," Trunks said.  He blinked, wondering if he'd seen or dreamt 
all of that.  He shrugged, deciding that whatever it was could be put of 
until tomorrow.  It had been a long first day at college, and he was tired. 
 

	As he backed out of the room and closed the door, he felt the approach 
of an extremely powerful presence...  

	"Trunks, who is this...  human?"  

	A distinctly arrogant voice that dripped with power.

	"Errr...  I don't really know 'Tousan.  Mom and I were flying home in 
the helicraft when he pounded on the side of the door, bleeding.  Mother 
wanted to help him out, and I was there so we thought it would be safe.  He 
didn't want to be brought to a hospital, so..."  

	Trunks had never been comfortable talking with his father.  His 
father's gaze was so intense as to be disturbing.  And he'd never been able 
to lie to his father without being found out eventually.  The truth was that 
he was still anxious about disappointing his father.  He knew that his 
father had not been happy to accept the fact that his people was mostly 
gone, and that most of the remaining few were not even of pure-blood.  
Trunks wondered how his father felt, to be a King of a dead race, his son of 
impure, lowly half-human blood.  Even now that Trunks had surpassed the rest 
of the remaining Saiyajin (with the possible exception of Gohan, except he'd 
given up fighting...), had become the most powerful warrior of all, he felt 
unsure if his father could be proud of him.  He wondered if his father 
resented the fact that his half-human son had become stronger than he had.  
He wondered all of this in a secret place in his heart he didn't show to 
anyone, most of all not to his father.  That was why he was scared of 
Vegita's gaze...  It always felt as if his father could see every flaw, 
every dirty secret in Trunk's soul.  

	Vegita probed the guestroom with his chi-senses, attuning himself to 
the flows of life force and energy inside.  He'd grown much more sensitive 
as the long years passed and he trained with and fought against Kakarotto.

	This was the one, he thought.  This was the one who caused the mess 
downtown.  His energy signature is the strongest a human has ever attained. 
 Perhaps a little over that.  Still puny compared to me of course.  
Nevertheless, that strange chi is disturbing...

	"Trunks, what happened in the room a few moments ago?  I felt a 
disturbance - all the life energy in the room disappeared completely.  I'd 
have thought our guest had died."
	
	"Aaaah..."  Trunks looked at his feet and scratched the back of his 
head.  "I don't know.  I was wondering if I'd dreamt it, actually."

	Vegita scowled.  It was the sort of scowl that could drive icy fear 
into the depths of the bravest heart, and made one want to shrink against 
the ground, where one could be less conspicuous and hide and cringe.  He 
hated it when things would happen and he would be the last person to know.  
He especially hated it when there was some puzzling phenomenon that no one 
could explain to him.  The unknown could be dangerous, and though this was a 
puny human, that he could not understand such things beneath him annoyed him 
to no end.  It didn't use to bother him so much, really, but ever since he'd 
died and was brought back to life; he'd realized what an incredibly 
irritating thing it was to die.  Hell had not been pleasant.  His survival 
instinct had grown since then, and that instinct assessed every unknown as a 
threat.  It made life safer, if more tense.  

	What am I thinking?  I'm letting the matter of some weakling human to 
worry me.  Bah.  

	"Trunks, your classes start early tomorrow."

	He turned on his heel and left.

	Trunks sighed.  That was the closest to a "Goodnight." he'd ever heard 
from his father.

	
	He was very young the first time he'd fought in a real tournament.  
Barely a teenager, at thirteen he was rail-thin, with slender, delicate 
hands, and a clumsy, jerky stride.  He'd been training then for just over 
nine years, and despite all the training he was still as clumsy as the most 
inebriated drunkard, except for when he concentrated, except for when the 
thrill of the fight sang in his blood.  

	He approached the forty-foot diameter circle where he was to face his 
first opponent that day, and stopped three steps from the edge.  He 
straightened then, and as he closed his eyes and began the concentration 
techniques he'd spent nearly a decade learning, his breathing deepened and 
slowed, his blood became super oxygenated, and his alertness jumped three-
fold.  One by one, he flexed every individual skeletal muscle in his body.  
His chi rose and charged his synovial joints, increasing efficiency and 
decreasing friction as a function of his willpower.  He stopped sweating as 
the energy that would normally go to producing waste body-heat was instead 
caught up and harnessed in his chi.

	He could hear the audience cheering for various favorites in the 
matches going on around him, hear a hundred extraneous noises, and one by 
one he shut them away, until he could hear only two things, his heartbeat, 
and that of his opponent, who he could sense had just stepped into the 
circle.  He was ready.
	
	He opened his eyes, and his steps into the circle were lithe and 
graceful as he visually took in his opponent and finished assessing his 
opponent's chi.  

	A decade older.  Hard calluses on his knuckles, on the edges of his 
hands, and on his feet.  Forty or sixty pounds of muscle more than Arien.  
Several inches more reach.  No excess body fat.  Form honed to incredible 
precision by years of intense training.  

	Arien was surprised when he realized that the two of them were even.  
He was young, and though he'd started learning the Art early, Arien hadn't 
realized how far he'd actually progressed.

	His opponent's eyes widened as he too realized that they were even in 
ability.  He'd been expecting an easy match against a green fighter, a child 
with soft, weak hands.  Arien looked weak, and just before he'd performed 
his mental focusing, he'd felt weak too, but he now he radiated a calm aura 
of strength.  His opponent realized that this would be a difficult contest, 
with no certain outcome.  One that he could lose, and potentially become 
crippled in.  He smiled at Arien, and bowed, showing his respect.  A true 
challenge for both of them.  

	Arien returned the smile, bowed deeply, and took stance.     

	His opponent was the wind, terrible and furious, wolf-eyes blazing a 
furious light.  

	Arien felt the Rush, and charged to meet the warrior.  

	Their styles couldn't have been more different.  Cool and calculating, 
the younger fighter spent just enough effort to deflect and dodge attack 
after aggressive attack that the elder unleashed on him, only weakly 
attempting to retaliate and probe the other fighter's defenses.  To most of 
the audience, the exchange was a blur, happening in the space of two 
seconds.  

	Suddenly, the older fighter's fists streaked even faster towards 
Arien, seemingly bypassing Arien's defenses.  A moment before those two 
blows would have landed and shattered Arien's ribs, he twisted and caught 
his enemy's wrists, attempting to throw him, or at least bring him off 
balance with his own momentum.  The big warrior snarled, shifting his own 
footing and changing the motion of his arms to reverse the throw.  

	Anticipating the move, Arien used the motion to help him launch 
himself up over the other warrior, kicking him in the back of the head as he 
somersaulted over.  

	The big man lost his footing, caught himself.  Arien touched down 
softly, twenty feet away.  Neither was breathing very hard.

	"You're holding back."

	"So are you," Arien answered.  

	They both smiled at each other.  They understood each other.

	"Now this is a good fight," Yamcha said to himself as he reassessed 
the fighting ability of this strange child before him.  Not since Goku had 
he fought anyone who was so technically precise with a natural flair for 
strategic combat.  

	He'd been training hard these past few years in far corners of the 
globe, seeking out and challenging masters of different fighting styles.  
He'd come here to this secret island to fight in yet one more tournament to 
hone himself.  After watching a few matches, he thought he would be 
disappointed.  He had seen no one with noteworthy skill to approach his own. 
 And now... this child, this physically weak child who was at least as young 
as Goku the first time Yamcha had met him, had one of the most 
sophisticated, efficient fighting styles he'd ever come across.  He honestly 
wasn't certain if he could win.  Ruefully, he thought to himself how utterly 
distressing it was that there were so many of these gifted child prodigies 
walking around the world.  Then again, he supposed that one of the reasons 
he was wandering the world was to find people like this boy.  The training 
was everything.  The fight was everything.  He frowned inside.  I wonder how 
this kid would have done against Goku at the same age?  If I am ever to 
defeat Goku, I must at least defeat this child...  
	
	He removed all the restraints on his power.  I shall win this day, he 
swore to himself as the fire of his spirit enveloped him, strengthening him 
even further.  

	Arien felt the other drop all pretense of holding back, and did the 
same.  Even though he'd expected it, he was slightly dismayed by how much 
more physically powerful his opponent was than he was.  He was fairly 
certain that he had a slight edge in speed and strategy, but if he was 
unable to block one full-strength hit...  This fight would be over very 
quickly.  So be it, he thought.  He always fought his best against those 
more powerful than him.  And he had a few special tricks designed for these 
occasions.

	Yamcha saw it then, the huge gap between their respective power 
levels.  Goku would have won, he decided.  Goku had both technique and 
strength.  No weaknesses like this skinny kid in front of him.  He smiled.  
"You're good, kid.  But this fight is mine!"

	It was time to finish this.  He had to reserve his strength for the 
later opponents in the tournament.  Perhaps they would prove to be more of a 
challenge.

	In his hand he held a steadily growing ball of light.  

	Arien identified the technique as soon as Yamcha had begun.  He knew 
that he would not be able to dodge it.  He knew that he would almost 
certainly receive a near-fatal strike.  He knew he wasn't quick enough to 
defeat Yamcha before the technique was completed and that tiny sphere of 
death would begin its unstoppable race for him.  
		
	Utterly calm, he began the execution of a move of his own.  He gasped 
with agony as he pushed almost all his life force into ten, tiny, nearly 
invisible points of light at his fingertips.  He may not have had much raw 
power, but he had skill.  He knew how to manipulate it so that he could 
weave a few, razor thin ribbons of energy so concentrated in energy that, 
weak or not, they would cut.  Through anything.  

	Yamcha didn't realize the danger he was in, or he would have rushed 
through the attack.  He could sense considerable energy in the boy's hands, 
but he didn't imagine that it could be enough to seriously damage him.

	They launched their attacks at the same time.  

	Nearly every bone in Arien's torso cracked or shattered.  He fell, 
thinking how he should have been quicker on the offense, thinking how 
distressing it was to lose in this manner.  His vision went dark.  "If only 
I were stronger..."

	He didn't see the effect of his own move.  Yamcha was shocked when 
those thin streams of power cut through his defenses as though they were 
nothing.  Then they were on him, and he felt himself getting sliced and 
pierced in a dozen places, felt blood fountain out of severed arteries.  

	Blood bubbled out of his mouth as he cursed.  "Dammit...  yet 
another...  little...  kid...  I...  underestimated...   At least...  
draw..."  

	Sheer willpower held him up for one painful moment, and then he fell 
in the growing pool of his blood.  The scars would remain with him for the 
rest of his life.
	

	He woke to the sound of two powerful presences blasting into the sky. 
 A moment of disoriented thought passed before he recalled the events of the 
day before.  Such strange dreams...

	"They fly so noisily.  Still, I suppose they have no need for 
stealth."  

	He drew himself out of bed, feeling remarkably well-rested.  He'd been 
dressed in pajamas that were just a little too short.  Checking himself, he 
noted that his injuries were pretty minor.  He estimated that he'd lost 
perhaps 15% effectiveness in a fight, but most of that was due to his 
strained joints.  

	Closing his eyes, he drew into himself, and started flooding his 
injuries with power.  Slowly, he manipulated the streams of energy to repair 
and rebuild the damaged tissues.  It was a very delicate procedure, and one 
he was too tired to perform the night before.  It helped that he'd been 
given fairly skillful first aid.  Then he repaired the damage he'd done to 
his joints by moving at speeds far beyond what they could withstand.

	He finished, and though he was a little tired out by using his 
accelerated healing, he felt much better for it.  

	It took a lot of concentration to heal himself, so he wasn't too 
surprised that someone had been able to approach him without his noticing.  

	Eyes still closed, he spoke.  "Greetings, Ma'am.  It is an honor to 
meet the owner of Capsule Corporation.  I thank you for your help last 
night, and for taking care of my injuries."
	
	If Bulma felt any discomfort from this stranger's knowledge of her, 
she did not show it.  She was wearing a scouter.  He realized that she was 
examining him much like one would a lab animal.  He was familiar with that 
look.  He'd had it himself, many times before when examining the other 
members of the Program.

	"My instruments detected some energy readings here.  And I looked at 
the recordings from the night before.  You're very strong.  Stronger than 
any human's ever reached before.  Who are you?  What could have injured you 
last night?"

	"You seem very trusting, Ma'am.  I wouldn't feel so comfortable with 
the idea of a total stranger sleeping in my house."

	"I can afford not to be afraid of strangers, having the friends I do. 
 Also, you interest my curiosity.  And please don't 'Madame' me.  It makes 
me feel old.  Call me Bulma."

	"I am...  Arien."  He shook his head.  "You were wise not to bring me 
to a hospital.  I'd better leave before I get you in trouble."

	"As I said, I can afford not to be afraid of much, having the friends 
that I do.  My friends could help you..."

	Arien looked closely at the blue-haired woman's expression.  Still 
beautiful after the years, her face had stern lines here and there that 
added to her look of authority.  She was concerned, he realized.  It was a 
sincere offer.  He supposed one could develop a similar attitude after being 
involved with the beings that had saved the earth on many occasions.

	He smiled.  "I thank you.  I know about your friends, but truly, I 
can't involve you.  As powerful as your friends are, they couldn't protect 
you twenty-four hours a day over years at a time.  In an open fight, they 
are undefeatable, but it is the grey men in the shadows who come after me 
that should be feared.  Your friends couldn't protect you from being 
poisoned, or save you from a bomb in your office.  I have to go."  
	
	She sighed.  "Your things are in the drawer beside the bed.  Are you 
sure you don't want to meet my friends..."

	"Again, thank you.  I would like to meet your friends very much, but 
not under these circumstances.  I have to go.  Your husband's probably not 
very happy with the idea of me as a guest..."

	"How would you know what my husband thought?"  

	"Your friends have been the subject of a great deal of careful study 
by a lot of dangerous people.  I suppose I should at least warn you.  Be 
careful over the next few weeks.  These people coming after me...  They'll 
have studied your husband, and his friends.  I know there's not much that 
could hurt them...  But the same doesn't extend to you.  Ma...  Bulma, why 
are you so concerned?  I'm just a stranger."

	She turned away from him to look at the sky.  She remembered when she 
was young, adventuring about the world in the company of a monkey-tailed 
boy.  Searching for the Dragonballs.  Carefree, the dangers had seemed so 
minor...

	"I guess it's something I picked up from Goku.  He always helps those 
who seem to need it..."

	She looked about for the stranger, but he was gone.  Despite the 
stranger's dire predictions, she didn't feel very nervous.  Her previous 
experiences with world-destroying beings made her resistant to most kinds of 
fear.  These grey men Arien had spoken off, they seemed like such a mundane 
enemy compared to beings like Cell.  Still, she knew he was right about 
being vulnerable to them.  They wouldn't challenge her husband to a fight.  
Wouldn't give any warning.  They would just strike.  She'd have to upgrade 
the security of her home, and her work-place.  Well, she'd been meaning to 
do that anyway...  She already had excellent security systems.  She was 
after all, one of the richest people on the planet.  She probably wouldn't 
have to work on the systems very much.   



	The scroll.  He'd just remembered.  Before he went into hiding, he'd 
have to retrieve the scroll...  It was a good thing he kept it in his office 
at the university instead of at the Facility or at his home.  Both of those 
would be watched.  That isn't to say that his office wouldn't be watched, 
but at least the grey men couldn't be too obvious at the university because 
of the security there.  And they wouldn't be able to ransack his office 
because that would alert his office-mates to something being wrong.  And the 
grey men wouldn't want that.  Not yet.  

	He supposed that it would at least allow him to make a clean 
break with the university.  He'd probably never return.  

	The scroll was something he'd picked up in the days when he'd been 
wandering around the world in search of new techniques to learn.  He'd been 
in Tibet then, heading for an ancient temple where the monks were said to 
possess the secret of some special technique of power.  When he'd come upon 
the site of the temple, there was only wreckage.  It had been abandoned for 
centuries.  He'd thought it was some sort of cruel joke.  

	The only reason he'd gone there was that the map pointing out the 
directions to the place was the reward for an earlier tournament he'd won.  
Angry and frustrated from the wasted months of wandering about frozen 
mountains, he'd powered up, wanting to demolish the entire mountain range.  
He'd stopped because just as he was about to unleash his power, he'd noticed 
something underneath the temple ruins responding to his chi, resonating with 
it.  Intrigued, he'd carefully taken the ruins apart with his hands, 
eventually finding the source.  It was a rock about two feet across, 
inscribed with runes and hieroglyphs that Arien didn't even begin to 
recognize.  At that time, Arien had already been conversant in several 
ancient languages as it was necessary in his training.  These letters on the 
rock felt different to Arien...  there was something otherworldly about 
them.  When he reached towards the rock to touch it, the letters glowed with 
starlight, and the rock split to reveal a scroll made of some strange kind 
of crystalline fiber, perfectly preserving the tiny characters and symbols 
on it.  On the scroll were diagrams depicting flows of chi and the technical 
aspects of strange combat techniques.  He'd consulted several experts 
afterwards, but none of them could recognize it.  

	One day when he'd been wandering back from a class he'd just finished 
teaching, he'd come across a strange woman from the archaeology department 
of the university.  Andrea.  She'd been rushing towards a meeting to argue 
for the existence of a previously unknown ancient culture when she'd 
literally crashed into Arien that morning, causing him to drop the case 
where he kept the scroll.  The case had sprung open, and Andrea skipped her 
meeting, treating Arien to brunch and desperately trying to get her hands on 
the scroll.  She'd claimed to recognize a few of the characters on it, and 
the material was something she'd seen hints of before.  They'd...  worked 
out an arrangement between the two of them.  Andrea would help him translate 
the scroll, and in exchange, once Arien finished learning the fighting 
techniques on the scroll, she could have it and use it as evidence for her 
theories regarding that previously unknown ancient culture.  So began the 
long and arduous work.  

	Arien smiled at the memory.  They were a good team, but after two 
years of late nights and bad coffee they'd still only managed to translate 
the first quarter of the scroll.  It hinted at power that Arien had dreamed 
of and sought for years, to protect humanity.  A technique at ascension, at 
elevating one to a point that the scroll described as being similar to 
godhood.  In secret, outside of the Facility, he'd practiced some of the 
moves described and pictured on the scroll.  So far, progress had been 
excellent.  He'd learned to access and control nearly twice as much power as 
he'd previously had, and it was still growing.  The people at the Facility 
hadn't known what to make of his sudden leap and continuous increase in 
power, but they'd just taken note of it and accepted it.  Sometimes, a 
fighter's power level could increase rapidly during moments of extreme 
stress.  It was a rare phenomenon, but it had already been observed several 
times in the Saiyajin.  He'd convinced the men at the Facility that he'd 
come across a fighter who challenged him, and in a moment of intense 
concentration, he'd broken past his previous limits of chi. 

	He sighed.  Andrea wouldn't be very happy when she found out that he'd 
have to disappear.  It would be too dangerous to keep in contact with her.  
And she could get hurt.  

	After flying a short, safe distance from Bulma's house at a speed that 
would make visual identification impossible, he landed and stopped after 
carefully assessing the chi around him and deciding that, at the moment at 
least, he wasn't being watched or followed. 

	He quickly dampened down his chi to hide it from those who could sense 
it.  

	The next step:  take the bus.  Buses were great for this sort of 
thing.  Very public.  And it was easy to lose oneself in a crowd.  And it 
was easy to find out if you were being followed.  You just randomly got off 
and on at various places, watching for people who followed you.  And you 
always sat at the back of the bus, so that you could watch for anyone who 
gets on after you do.  All this was greatly facilitated by Arien's chi-
sense, as it allowed him to identify people who followed him with great 
accuracy.  

	Yes, he was safe, for now.  He must have lost them when he'd gotten 
into Bulma's helicraft the other night.  


	Goten was in a rush.  He'd finally gotten up the nerve to ask Ami out, 
and he wanted very much for it to work out.  So right after his Classics 
class, he knew he had exactly fifteen minutes to get flowers for her and run 
into her on her way back to her dorm after her Physics class.  A Saiyajin in 
a hurry, even a half-human one, could move very, very fast.  After clearing 
the worst of the crowd and getting to a more or less open spot, he blurred, 
moving faster than human eyes can see.  He flew to a relatively expensive 
florist's located on the other side of the city.  He knew what to buy.  Ami 
had a specific, favorite scent that it had taken his acute senses hours to 
identify, and it was derived from a relatively rare hybrid orchid available 
at this one shop in the city.  It had deep red petals with dark streaks of 
purple running through them.  It matched her perfectly.  Goten arrived, took 
a flower and left the money on the counter without slowing down a beat.  To 
the slightly confused shop-owner, it looked as if a strong breeze opened the 
door, then one of his flowers was missing and the money for it was next to 
his hand.    

	Goten had to fly back at a slightly slower speed so that he could 
shield the delicate blossom with his chi from the air friction that arose at 
his speed.  

	He got there with thirty seconds to spare, touching down and seemingly 
appearing out of nowhere on the cobbled stone pathway that lead out from her 
lecture hall.  His heart was beating as fast as it did when he was in a 
major battle.  It took incredible effort to keep control over his body 
enough so that he wouldn't be sweating buckets.  
	
	She came out of the building, and he was about to walk over to her 
when his eyes widened in utter shock.  She was already carrying a flower 
just like the one he'd gotten, and deeply inhaling its fragrance.  And 
walking right beside her, CLOSE right beside her, grinning and jabbering 
like an idiot, was Trunks.  

	They were heading right at him.  

	With that incredible, non-human speed characteristic of him, Goten hid 
the flower behind his back and used a quick, minor energy surge to vaporize 
it.  His face was frozen in what he hoped was a relatively convincing smile. 
 

	"Hi, Goten!  Do you have a class now?"  A sweet, high voice, an 
angelic (in Goten's mind anyway) voice spoke as she smiled and her short 
blue hair stirred in the wind.  

	"Ah, nothing...  Doing anything later Trunks?"

	The slightly shorter half-human nodded, still grinning obliviously.  
"We're doing an assignment together that our substitute Physics teacher gave 
today.  It's pretty long, he wanted to make up for our section's not having 
a teacher the first day.  He needed us to catch up.  We'll be at the 
library..."

	"Well...  I'll see you later at the house then."

	Goten said his good-bye's and walked slowly in no direction in 
particular.  

	"Why?  Why does he always win now?"  

-----

end episode 2