School:

Videl rushed into the class just as the bell rang, on time for once even though she had already managed to stop a gang of bank robbers. She raced up the steps to her seat next to her friend, Erasa. Erasa and their friend, Sharpener, had moved along from their usual seats because the girl who usually sat on Sharpener’s other side had left the school for good. This ment that there were two free seats next to Videl, which suited her fine.

“Good morning, err… students,” said the teacher, Mr. Somtand. “Today we have the pleasure of welcoming two new students who both scored highly in the entrance exam.”

“Nerds,” muttered Sharpener under his breath.

“Please come in,” said to the two students standing outside the door who then walked in, “this is Miss Lime Osate and Mr. Gohan Son.”

The girl, Lime, entered first and Erasa and, surprisingly, Videl felt a sudden surge of jealousy. The girl was tall, taller than Erasa, and dressed in the latest fashion, as though she was getting fashion tips from the greatest trendsetter of them all, Bulma Briefs. She didn’t have a gram of fat on her but she did have some thin, streamlined muscles. Her long chocolate brown hair was pulled up into a ponytail that she had divided in two and let each part spill down a shoulder as her light brown eyes surveyed the room. Their jealousy doubled only doubled when Gohan Son entered the room behind her and casually placed an arm over her shoulder.

Gohan was mind-numbingly handsome. Erasa (who had been reading too many supernatural romances) fancied that he looked like an angel, a fallen angel ment too tempt them. And who could resist that kind of temptation? His white shirt emphasized his muscles and his jeans, completely opposite to the current fashion, fit him so tightly that it should be illegal. The smirk on his face as he held the girl was enough to warn all the males in the class not to try to hit on his friend.

“Mr. Son, would you please refrain from draping yourself over any females in this class and would you and Miss Osate please find yourselves a seat?”

“Of course, Sir.” Gohan removed his arm from his best friend’s shoulders and lead her up to the only two side-by-side free seats. He leaned back and glanced around the class. A quick perusal told him that none of the girls in his class were his usual type: tall, strong, feisty and brunette. He couldn’t help it; he was half saiyan, after all. The brunette on his right came close to his ideal but she was short and he had no idea if she was feisty. He could sense her ki though and it was abnormally high for a human; she might even be able to give Yamcha a run for his money. He was subtly checking her out when Lime spoke and reclaimed his attention.

“Any particular reason you, as the teacher put it, draped yourself over me?”

“Wouldn’t want any of the idiots in this class to get ideas, now would we?” replied Gohan causing Lime to sigh.

“You just scared off any I might be interested in.”

“If they truly liked you, they wouldn’t be scared off by little old me.”

“Yes, Gohan, you’re right. Humans that have never had a decent fight in their lives aren’t going to be scared off by the strongest fighter in the universe.” Irony laced Lime’s tone so much that Gohan let out a low laugh and leaned to whisper in her ear:

“But they don’t know that.”

“Mr. Son, will you please stop talking!” The two new students looked up at the fuming teacher who continued: “Mr. Son, Miss Satan, swap seats!”

Videl, who had been attempting to ignore the stunning new students, was furious. Now she would be stuck sitting between two people she didn’t know, and probably wouldn’t like, for the rest of the year. She knew that her usual frown was on her face as she gathered her books and pencils and moved over but Erasa, who usually tried to erase (A/N: erase, Erasa, get it? sigh, never mind) it, was too far away to do anything about it. She opened her book as the teacher started to lecture on equation systems and the uses of the discriminator delta. Time for yet another boring lesson.

…

Finally, it was lunch time. Most of the school had been waiting eagerly for the free hour so that they could track down the new students. During recess, the new students had been nowhere to be found but that hadn’t stopped the rumours about them.

Students weren’t technically ment to be off the school grounds during the day but Chichi had implicitly given Gohan permission to go and get himself a decent sized meal without drawing attention to himself. Lime, being Lime, refused to be left behind so, after the bell, Gohan and Lime went up to the roof and flew to the restaurant area.

The place they had picked was a small Italian place in one of the back streets. They had been there before and were on good terms with the owner and manager, Eleta, so ,when they entered, they were immediately whisked to the best table, despite the politicians, crime bosses and old money rich that were waiting for a table in one of the classiest places in Satan City. Lime and Gohan sat and, within minutes, their favourite foods were brought out, they didn’t even need to order. They dug in; Lime to her normal sized lunch and Gohan to his usual twelve-course banquet. They were about halfway through lunch when the conversation between two politicians at the next table snagged their attention.

“Did you hear that the Centennial (A/N: it means every hundred years, in case you don’t know) Royalty Convention is being held here this time around?” asked the woman.

“Yeah. I know that I’ll try and worm an invitation if I can; royalty always looks good to voters,” he remarked.

“The trick would be landing one of the more mysterious families; they’re more prestigious,” she agreed.

“Shurck royalty, or maybe Quark. Hurit, Fullat or Ox would be good as well.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ox royalty supporting you would be the coup of the millennia: they’re the richest, most mysterious and most powerful family on the continent, except for the Briefs and even that’s debatable.” As the pair moved on to other topics of conversation, the two teens at the next table looked at each other with wide eyes.

“Why didn’t you say anything, Gohan?” Lime asked, her voice flat, not accusing.

“I didn’t know,” he stated in the same tone, “I wonder if Mum did.”

“Do you even know what this Centennial Royalty Convention is?”

“No but I’ll ask Mum that as well.”

…

The students couldn’t believe it; their quarry… er… new fellow students had managed to evade everyone for the past hour and a half. The whole school (especially the girls) had searched the place from top to bottom and they still hadn’t found them. To compound the insult, Gohan and Lime walked into to the classroom, cool as you please, just as the late bell went, as though they had spent the whole of lunch relaxing.

Videl, once again stuck between two people who could make models look ugly, was in, if it were possible, in an even worse mood than she had been that morning. Her bad mood persisted right up to the end of school when Erasa and Sharpener dragged her over to Erasa’s place: they once again had an idea for an adventure.

They sat in Erasa’s living room and were about to begin when Erasa’s mother walked in. Serenity, Ren for short, was more like Erasa’s older sister than her mother. Ren had been just fourteen when her much older boyfriend had persuaded her to sleep with him. The moment he had found out that his underage girlfriend was pregnant, he had skipped town. Ren’s widower father, far from blaming her, did his very best to help her raise her child. Nineteen years later, Ren was running a successful boutique in between joining her daughter and her friends on adventures.

“Hi, guys,” said Ren, “What’s the adventure this time.” Erasa turned and replied to her mother’s question with a question of her own.

“Have you ever heard of the dragonballs?”