Chapter 20

The abrupt change in the Heir's plans necessitated an emergency meeting for the leaders of the Queen's Guard. Although they were often called to split their forces between the Queen and the Heir, this was the first time said forces were to be spread across two continents. The session turned into a bit of a squabble, with Negin insisting the untried Prince needed to be closely hemmed in and Tamane protesting the powerless Queen was the one who needed the majority of Saiyan soldiers about her. Negin pointed out that the Queen's mother had no ki to speak of and yet half the Guard went in holy terror of her. Tamane bristled; Radditz smirked but sided with Tamane, deciding that it would be an insult to the House of Vejiitasei to suggest the Heir needed to be coddled away from the palace. The regulations simply specified an Elite bodyguard needed to be available for the Prince. While traditionally that had been the Commander of the Armed Forces, the King himself refused to honor the tradition. A new tradition was called for. Radditz decided to leave his lieutenants and the other Guards at the capitol as he alone accompanied the Heir on the boy's first ever journey outside the capitol.

There was a mass of people present to greet them at the landing point near Nira's palace on the Eastern Continent. The hasty addition of the Heir to Gohan's and Mrs. Briefs' trip meant it was not as simple as Bardock and Nira meeting them at the shuttle port. Appropriate dignitaries and tribal officials from all over the Continent needed to be present. Mrs. Briefs busied herself gathering together "necessities" as the craft completed its landing, but the two boys, impatient after being cooped up during the flight, were quickly spilling out of the craft. When Radditz stepped onto the shuttle tarmac after Trunks, he saw a crowd of Saiyan warriors, most clad in the green and black armor of Nira's tribe, in mid-flex as they fell to their knees in the presence of the Heir. Only one person remained standing; a large barrel-chested man with harsh-hewn bronzed features and thick brows that fused over his nose. It was all Radditz could do not to automatically drop to his knees himself. He barely prevented himself from succumbing to an old habit, remembering in time that the Queen's Captain knelt to no-one. He gave a respectful nod instead. "Kabu," he greeted the standing man. "My Prince, this is the Chieftain of the Eastern tribes."

Trunks strode over to the Chieftain, crossed his arms and stared haughtily up at the man who drawfed him.

Chieftain Kabu bowed to the Heir, his dark features composed and unreadable. In the first rank of soldiers, Radditz spied Bardock's inclined spiky head. Gohan pointed him out to the Heir with the words, "That's my Dad's dad."

A gesture from the Chieftain commanded the Saiyan squad leader to get up. Bardock, however, hesitated, his eyes going sideways. Near him, Nira rose from her kneeling position to stand at formal attention. Her actions were mimicked by a small child at her heels who followed the movements of the daimyo so perfectly she appeared to be a shadow. The two stepped behind Kabu, the little girl halting in her mother's shade; on his other side, Bardock stopped at Kabu's shoulder.

Ignoring Bardock despite Gohan's introduction, Trunks frowned suspiciously at the little girl. "Wow," said Gohan in surprise. "I didn't know there were any kids here."

"Zenza," stated Nira with a small head tilt towards the girl.

Gohan bowed before indicating the smaller boy with a hand. "This is Trunks, but I guess you knew that."

Zenza frowned, peering up sideways at Nira. "That is Prince Vegeta's Earth name," explained her mother, repressively.

"I'm Gohan."

"You don't look like a Saiyan," Zenza announced after surveying the Earth-Saiyan critically.

Her mother uncrossed one arm, rapped the girl sharply on the temple, and went back to attention without once changing expression.

Gohan glanced at the Heir from the corners of his dark eyes, as if expecting him to answer, before grinning down at the small, grim girl. "Neither of us do. You haven't seen Trunks mom, I guess, or mine," said Gohan cheerfully. "He looks a lot like her. I look most like my mom."

"Oh, there's a touch of your grand-dam in the profile," said Nira coldly. "Zenza is too young to be presented at court yet." The girl was subjected to a frigid glare. "I will make sure she is appropriately briefed on how to behave around members of the Royal family first."

Zenza gave a small sniff. "A real Saiyan his age wouldn't be here." The comment earned another rap on the temple, although Radditz couldn't help but notice this one was delivered with far less force.

"You think I should be on a planet by myself now?" There was no heat in his nephew's voice, just curiosity. "Doesn't that apply to you as well?"

"Of course not. I'm not a peasant."

"The Earth-Saiyan is about the age many brats are when they send the recall signal," shrugged Nira. "The clever ones, anyway," she added, the distaste in the words making her opinion of "clever" Saiyans very evident.

"My mother thought it would be good for Gohan to come with me," stated the Heir. "You will," he added to Zenza, sternly, "be proper to him."

In this, at least, Zenza was well trained. She promptly saluted the Heir and fell silent, although a pout indicated she considered the order questionable. Observing her, Nira told her, "The Queen has her reasons, brat. Parents do what is best for their offspring. It is their duty." Her mouth twisted, self-mocking. "Unfortunately the duty of offspring does not include recognizing the duty of parents."

There was a soft chuckle from Bardock at that, directing Radditz's attention to his sire. His father's face had a sly cast that immediately put Radditz on his guard. "You will be pleased to know that your mother's 'duty' will be bringing her here in a couple of days."

"What? She's on a mission."

Bardock said, "There was an emergency communiqué from the King's liaison recalling her squad. She was not happy about it. She had hopes of a good fight on her current mission."

Radditz glowered.

"She'll be happy to see you, too," his sire commented in amusement. "You're traveling light," he said to Gohan.

"Mrs. Briefs is getting everything. We're ready to go once she comes out and, um," Gohan looked around at the still-kneeling crowd of warriors, "everyone gets up."

"'We'?" Kabu questioned derisively. He put his head to one side, studying the Earth-Saiyan narrowly.

"My nephew is staying with Squad Commander Bardock," Radditz told the Chieftain. "He apparently assumed that the Heir and the Imperial Mother-In-Law would be staying there as well," he added.

"That would not be appropriate," said Bardock with lifted brows, as if the very idea was surprising.

"The Heir and the Imperial Mother-In-Law will stay with Nira, of course," stated Chieftain Kabu. "The Earth brat can stay will her as well, if that's what the Heir desires, but officially—"

"I'm not doing anything official," spat Trunks. "I can do that at home."

There was open amusement now from Kabu, and not a little appreciation of the Heir's willfulness. "We will be as 'unofficial' as you like, my Prince, but there are still some formalities that must be observed," the Chieftain said, respectfully but firmly. "You may not stay with a third-class commoner. If you wish your Earth-born comrade to remain within spitting distance, then he must stay at Nira's palace."

Two pairs of eyes settled on Gohan. The Heir's was openly pleading, Bardock's merely—steady. After swinging his head up to look at the stoic adult and down to look at the still child, Gohan turned to Radditz. "You have to stay with Trunks, right? Then I should stay with Mr. Bardock. I've spent a lot of time with you," the Earth-Saiyan reminded the Heir. "I haven't spent any time with my Dad's family. We can see each other in the daytime."

Whatever protest the Heir might have offered was swallowed up by a cry from the shuttle.

"Yoo-hoo!"

In a rush of rustling packages, Mrs. Briefs disembarked. Moving so quickly it seemed as if she were airborne, she thrust her luggage at Radditz and latched onto the arm of the very startled Chieftain of the Eastern Tribes. "Kabu, how perfectly darling of you to come meet me and my little grandson," Bra cooed as the Chieftain's face changed colors several times in under a second before it gentled into an expression that was definitely (decided Radditz) smitten. "I was so disappointed that we weren't able to take a tour of the crystal caverns next to the Great Lake last time I was here. I hope I'll be able to drag you away from your tribal duties for at least one day so we can make the trip this time."

Peering between two shopping bags, Another one, thought Radditz in amusement as Kabu gingerly patted Mrs. Briefs' fragile hand and assured her that he was at her service during her trip. It's a good thing there's a travel embargo between Earth and Vejiitasei. All it would take is a handful of human females here to throw the Empire into complete chaos.

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The nobles' concept of unofficial differed from Gohan's expectations. Trunks didn't have to do any of the inspections of troops or endure any of the public meetings of dignitaries Kabu and the other nobles originally scheduled for him; however, the little boy still didn't have any free time. Trunks accompanied his grandmother on her various expeditions, usually with a Vegeta-like scowl plastered across his pale features. Although it meant sacrificing time with his own grandparents, Gohan gave into Trunks' silent pleas and went with the boy as Mrs. Briefs made her rounds. At the end of the day, however, Gohan bade Trunks farewell and flew back to his grandfather's cottage, leaving behind a stone-faced child with mournful blue eyes and increasingly petulant parting comments.

Unoffical or not, the young boy was becoming irritated at being "on" so much. Gohan called his Mom; Chi-chi called Bulma; Bulma called Mrs. Briefs. At the large formal dinner in Nira's banquet hall that concluded their fourth day on the Eastern Continent, Mrs. Briefs brightly chirruped, "I think the boys are getting a little tired of all the touring, Kabu. They don't need to come with us to the caverns tomorrow, do they?"

"If the Heir wishes to rest he can remain here," allowed the Chieftain with indifference.

Radditz's dismay was ill-concealed. When Mrs. Briefs asked him why he was pouting, Gohan's uncle grumbled something under his breath that had to do with the Heir's position and the need to have an Elite guard for him. "Oh, you're coming with me, of course," said Mrs. Briefs with a twitter. "You have to protect me, right?"

"I have to stay with the Heir," responded Radditz, regretfully, as Kabu quickly assured Mrs. Briefs that he would, of course, be happy to see to her protection.

Trunks "hmph'd." He folded his arms and glared straight ahead. Gohan paused in the action of stuffing his face, looking up from his position at a lower table in the hall. With no rank to speak of, he wasn't allowed to sit at the same table as the Prince—which was probably one of the reasons Trunks was getting more and more petulant. Gohan pushed back his chair, standing to address his uncle. "You don't have to go with Trunks if you'd rather go to the caverns. Your mom's home now," Gohan reminded Radditz. "She's an Elite, right?"

There was a sudden, dead silence in the dining hall.

"Unacceptable," said Kabu flatly.

"Oh, don't be silly," scolded Mrs. Briefs. "They need a quiet day to themselves, after all this running around. Goku's mother will be a fine chaperone for the boys. If you don't think she's strong enough to look after Trunks, I'm sure Gohan is. He must be at least an Elite himself, whatever that is. Aren't you, sweetie?"

Gohan's mouth dented at a corner, wryly. He could hear the delicate whir of machinery as a banquet hall full of Saiyans leveled scouters at him, followed by the low murmur of amused whispers. They didn't get the 'can't read Earthling ki' memo out here — or maybe they just don't believe it. "I'm not sure what they call 'Elite,' Mrs. Briefs, but I doubt the machines show me as qualifying."

"He put Nappa in a regeneration tank," said Radditz with a smirk, family pride making him unexpectedly support his nephew. The tone of the murmurs altered.

"I knocked down Zarbon, too," said Gohan matter-of-factly. "I was just a kid then, though."

The murmuring cut off. The new silence was heavy with incredulity.

"Now why would you want to knock that charming Zarbon over?" wondered Mrs. Briefs. "He's such a nice boy. Always helping me in the kitchen and setting the table." She batted her eyelashes at Radditz. "All you ever did was eat."

Radditz flushed and looked down at his plate with a scowl.

Mrs. Briefs' gaze turned to the Chieftain of the Eastern Continent. "I understand that Trunks has special requirements when it comes to guards. I cleared everything with my daughter, the Queen. Bulma said Riiki was okay with her," she said with a charming smile and a steel glint in her sleepy eyes. "She did send Trunks here so he could spend time with Gohan, not to traipse around tourist traps with a bunch of boring old people like us. You'll find the orders from her when you get back to your quarters."

The outflanked Kabu gave her a look of open admiration. Gohan grinned and flashed a "V" sign to the silent Trunks, while Radditz breathed a noise-less sigh indicating relief that he would not have to tolerate being around his parents — both of them — for an entire day.

Early the next morning Radditz escorted the Heir to the small house deep in the woods that Bardock and Riiki shared. Outside the house Gohan jumped up and down, laughing and waving his arms as the two circled overhead before Trunks landed. Radditz only hovered long enough to exchange snarled greetings with his mother. He sternly remind her of her duty to the Heir. Riiki folded her arms and remarked that she wasn't the one neglecting her obligations in order to go sight-seeing with the Imperial Mother-In-Law.

The Queen's Captain scowled fiercely. Without ever touching the ground near his parents' home Radditz corkscrewed up into the sky and vanished.

"This is my dad's mom, Riiki," Gohan told the Heir. Riiki bowed formally to the small boy, her straight-edged hand going to her opposite shoulder. "She used to be the King's Captain when your grandfather was King."

Trunks acknowledged the salute with a formal nod of the head, exactly as he had been taught to do with Chishan and Radditz. "Captain."

"Mr. Bardock is training with his squad this morning, so it's just us," Gohan said to Trunks as Riiki's eyes widened at hearing her former title from the Heir. "What do you want to do today? We can do anything we want," he reminded Trunks when the Heir appeared nonplussed at being offered a choice.

Trunks finally said, slowly, "Something — fun."

"Oh, there's lot's of fun stuff to do around here," Gohan assured the younger boy as Riiki again reacted with surprise at hearing the 'f' word from the future ruler of Vejiitasei. "We can collect bird eggs for dinner, or go swimming in the lake, or even go into the limestone caverns on the other side of the mountains and have our own cave stories to tell Mrs. Briefs when we see her tonight. Which do you want to do?"

"I don't know. Which do you want to do?"

Riiki's surprise was beginning to be visible even to someone who didn't read auras. She was staring at the pale-skinned pale-haired boy who, despite wearing the armor of the Saiyan Heir and despite the clear stamp of his royal father around the eyes and jaw, was willing to defer to someone of far lower rank. Gohan grinned up at her. "I'd like to go swimming," he said, as much to his grandmother as to the Heir. "Can we go to the lake you showed me last time I was here?"

"The Heir may do as he sees fit, of course," said Riiki slowly. Her expression appeared to indicate she was working through a difficult problem involving higher level mathematics as she stared down at the two boys. "I'll leave a message for Bardock so he'll know where to find us."

"You can't come," said Trunks.

Riiki struggled to maintain her composure. "My Prince," she said with as much respect as she could muster — Gohan had a feeling that, even when she was at court, 'respect' had been difficult for her — "there is no problem with you going to the lake, or to the limestone cavern, or hunting for whatever you wish to hunt for, but you must have an Elite with you."

"Gohan will be with me," Trunks pointed out. "Gohan is stronger than you are."

Riiki swallowed what-ever her immediate retort was so quickly she went into a coughing fit. "That may be—" she tried again.

"Gohan," Trunks informed her, "is stronger than anyone except my father."

Gohan blushed and looked down and mumbled something about his own father and a few other people that might have opinions on the subject, while Riiki just stared at the Heir blankly.

Trunks fixed her with an imperious stare of his own and issued an edict. "Grown-ups always get in the way of 'fun.' You are not getting in my way," he informed the former Captain.

Riiki closed her wide-hanging mouth. "My Prince," she finally said, "I wouldn't dream of it."

Trunks gave a curt nod and turned his back to her. Gohan gave Riiki an apologetic under-the-bangs glance that was very like what his father would have done in the same situation. There was a touch of a strange whisper in his mind — hero worship, it said. Gohan blinked, then realized he had just picked up a stray thought from his grandmother and took a moment to readjust his mental barricades. "Are you coming?" demanded Trunks.

"Well, of course," said Gohan as he began to lift off the ground. "How else are you going to know where to go?"

"Hmph," snorted Trunks, but the ki energies gathered around him, stirring the pale hair and generating a small whirlwind of dust before he shot up, past Gohan, and began to sprint ahead. "I can smell fresh water," the Heir shouted back over one shoulder as he skimmed away over the treetops.

"You little brat!" His aura kindling into bright light, Gohan streaked after the escaping Prince.

If he had glanced back, he would have seen his grandmother leaning against the wooden side of the little house, laughing so hard tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes.

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Gohan quickly passed the Heir, putting on a burst of speed that spun Trunks around a couple of times as he zoomed past. Yelling and giggling, Trunks tried to catch up. Gohan let him get close and even allowed the young boy to snag one of his feet before twisting out of Trunks' grasp and shooting high, high up in the green sky. He halted with a 'pop' of displaced air, hovering dozens of meters over the tree tops. Yelping, Trunks shot past him, arms waving frantically as he put on the brakes. The Prince came to an awkward, skidding halt, the air screeching in protest. Twisting around, he looked between his legs at Gohan, floating casually a little distance away with his arms and legs dangling loosely.

"You have a good nose." Smiling, Gohan pointed down, at an angle. Trunks twisted around again, following the direction of Gohan's extended arm. From this height, the two could see the wide-bodied lake past the trees. There was a narrow stripe of black that edged the water on the north side. To the east, west and south, foothills and cliffs went right to the water's edge. "That's where we're going," Gohan told Trunks, indicating the dark strip. "That's the beach."

Trunks gave him a dubious look but oriented himself and followed Gohan toward the dark edge of the lake.

Landing, Gohan glanced around with a satisfied grin. He had books at home that explained things like how mountains formed and why sand was sometimes black. Volcanic activity involving basaltic lava, thought Gohan, even though the jagged mountains that enclosed the far side of the lake weren't volcanic. There were no shield-shaped mounds that could be glimpsed even when he flew over the forest canopy. Whatever eruption produced the dark lava flow happened very, very far away. Gohan plopped down on the beach, squirming happily as the damp almost immediately permeated the cloth covering his backside. He really, really missed splashing around in the water! Tail twitching this way and that as Gohan instinctively kept it elevated away from the sand, the boy tugged his shoes off and wriggled his toes into the granules.

The Heir stood on the very edge of the beach, so close to the big trees he was in their shadows. Trunks did not know what the fine-granulated stuff was called, nor could he describe the yielding, wet feel of it scrunching under his boots as he picked his way cautiously toward his friend. He did have enough vocabulary to express his opinion of "beaches," however. "I don't like this," he proclaimed.

"Trunks, relax. We're going to have fun, remember?" Gohan patted the dark, wet sand next to him. "Take off your boots and sit on the beach for a while. Look." Gohan traced a heart in the sand with his big toe, then the word "MOM" next to it. Head cocking to the side, Trunks regarded the impromptu artwork critically.

"What purpose does it serve?" he finally asked.

"Just me saying I love my Mom," Gohan told him. "That I miss her. And Dad. But I'll be going home soon, so I'll see them both." Laughing, he plopped down on his back and rubbed his arms against the sand. "This is great!"

Gingerly, Trunks sat down next to him. "It's wet," he complained, distaste wrinkling his nose as he shifted in discomfort.

"It's a beach, Trunks. 'Wet' comes with the territory." Gohan grinned happily up at the sky, watching the clouds. "Hey, look at that one! Squint your eyes and turn your head sideways," Gohan suited his actions to the words, "and it looks just like Nappa!".

"No, it doesn't."

"You're at the wrong angle. Lay back."

Trunks attempted to recline without actually touching the sand, but his ki control wasn't fine enough to float a millimeter off the earth. He thumped heavily against the ground. Gohan giggled. Scowling, the Heir sat up again, rubbing the back of his head and coming away with a handful of sand. "Yuck! Stop laughing, it's not funny!"

"You afraid of getting your hair dirty?" taunted Gohan.

Trunks glared. "No! I'm not afraid of anything!" Grumpily, he threw himself back. The damp ground made a squelching noise as his body struck it. The Prince crossed his arms and scowled. "It does not look like Nappa," he snapped, sourly viewing the cloud.

"Clouds change fast," Gohan said cheerfully. "Now it looks more like a bowling ball." He began to giggle again. "I guess that means it could still look like Nappa!"

The Heir glared at the passing clouds, refusing to be amused.

"You're lucky you get different colors here," Gohan told him. "That's pretty unusual. The sky's only blue where I come from, unless it's about to rain or something. When we were here last, it was for most of the orange shift. It turned green like this the day you were born—or maybe it was the day before, I don't quite remember. It was kind of a busy day. We tried to get here for your birthday this time, but there was a problem with the solar winds in one of the areas we had to cross and we had to wait for a few weeks. So it was already green by the time we arrived."

"Grandfather says," the Heir said unexpectedly as he continued to stare at the verdant skies, "that there is a fine dust high up in the air, and that the light from the suns strikes it differently at different times of the year, and that's why the sky changes colors sometimes."

"It's probably from the war—" started Gohan, then cut himself off, wondering if he had said too much.

"I wish," said the Heir, "that I had spent more time with Grandfather. He knows stuff."

"So does your Mom."

"Yes, but he knows different stuff. He's trying to figure out why the Northerners get so gray when they spend a lot of time on the Northern continent. Mom thought that they were like Zarbon, that it's just the color they are, but Grandfather doesn't think so. It's something to do with the environment there, he says."

Also probably from the war, thought Gohan, although this time he kept the thought in his head.

"Father didn't like it when I spent time with Grandfather. He does not think what Grandfather does is important."

"He doesn't think what your Mom does is important, either," pointed out Gohan. "Lots of other people do, though, right? People come from all over to pay their respects to your father, but they also come from all over to consult with your mom. What does that tell you?"

The Heir shrugged. "Different people think different things matter, that's all."

And that's a profound statement, for a Saiyan. I have done well here," Gohan decided with the sort of self-satisfaction only a nine-year-old could experience. I just hope it doesn't all get beaten out of him before the next time.

He sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees as he gazed out over the water. "I used to be so scared of this place," said Gohan with a far-away look in his eyes. "I begged Dad not to let Vegeta bring me here, and he said we wouldn't go unless we all went together. This time, I had to beg both of my parents to let me come without them. Things change. When we did come, I wasted most of the trip being scared and thinking I might have to get away fast. It's just a place, though."

There was the sound of sand grains rubbing together as Trunks turned his head enough to regard Gohan's profile.

"I wasted a lot of time being afraid last time. Don't waste time being afraid of stuff you don't need to be afraid of."

Trunks sniffed and sat up, giving an uncomfortable shrug as he tried to shake sand off of his damp battle suit. "I can't be afraid of anything. I'm going to be King. The King can't be scared."

"I think," Gohan told him seriously, "that you need to stop trying to act like your dad and stop trying to think like your mom and just be yourself. Being yourself is hard. It's hard for me. My sensei wants me to take over the world," Gohan added prosaically. "He wants that bad. It's not what I want."

"I am going to take over the world," Trunks pointed out.

"Okay," Gohan conceded. "But you don't have to run it the way anyone tells you to. Once you figure out who you are, you can run it the way you want."

"But I don't know who I am," Trunks admitted in a very small voice.

"That's the first step to finding out," Gohan said, once more feeling a deep sense of self-satisfaction. Standing up, he pulled off his shirt and his undershirt. Trunks watched him, puzzled. "We can't swim with our clothes on," Gohan told him as he wriggled out of his drawstring pants, standing on the wet sand clad only in his boxers. "Here, give me your shirt and stuff. I'll put them out of the way so that no-one wanders off with them."

Trunks cast a skeptical glance around the deserted beach but stripped down to his shorts. Gohan took the handful of clothes into the nearby forest, leaving Trunks cautiously dipping a bare foot in the water as the older boy searched out a bush to hide his clothes under, the way Dad did when he went swimming. Humming off-key as he trotted through the underbrush, he was just beginning to consider stashing everything at the top of a tree instead when he heard a snort, followed by a solid 'thump' as if a foot had just been forcefully stamped. He's so impatient. He must get that from his Dad and his Mom. "Hold your horses," Gohan started as he turned toward the sound, "I'm —" His voice trailed off into a startled squeak. "— coming," he finished, weakly.

What-ever it was, it was big. It had a wide, muscular body set on four solid hoofed legs. There was a flare of protuberances around each ankle that appeared sharp enough to remove flesh. Those were nothing compared to the protuberances on its narrow head. A thick horn poked from between flared nostrils; more thick pointy-looking things encircled the top of its head. Dark red eyes stared at him balefully.

It looked like a cross between a bifurcated musk ox and a very furry rhino.

It looked angry.

Once more, a thick-hoofed foot stomped into the damp leaf litter on the ground. In a flash words like "territory" and "defense posture" ripped through Gohan's mind. Then the creature lowered its head, and Gohan realized that, on Vejiitasei, even the animals adopted a strong offense as the best form of defense.