Breaking Forth

By Elbereth in April

"Words like this" are used for mind speech between Saiyans.

Chapter 2:

They landed in a wide alley a block away from the school. Goten was waiting. "Do we have to go through with this?" he whined.

"Notoriety awaits," Nasu replied.

Trunks laughed. "Nicely put."

"Here we go then," said Vegeta, and they began to walk.

They had decided they might as well stick with the Siberia story. They had even researched up on the country. Vegeta was still Trunks' orphaned cousin, and Radditz and Nasu were his best friends, sent over by their parents for the opportunity of a Japanese education, after Vegeta had told them what a wonderful country it was and that they could get free room and board.

The fuzzy belts? Very popular style in Russia. It was cold in Siberia. People wore a lot of fur.

The four human girls met them at the front entrance. They showed them their lockers, the cafeteria, where their first period classes were. There were 6 periods in all. A lot of useless moving around, in Vegeta's opinion.

Then the bell rang and it was time for class.

Goten and Vegeta had basically the same schedule--deliberately, on the part of Bulma and Chi-Chi, who thought they could give each other moral support. So they trudged off to their first class together. Algebra. To Vegeta's disgust, the teacher wanted them to stand and introduce themselves, as the new kids, along with a girl from Kyoto named Haiku. She and Goten caused no comment, but Mr. Akiro announced enthusiastically, "Vegeta comes to us all the way from Russia!"

Vegeta groaned inwardly and adopted a blank expression.

"Cool! What's it like?" asked a boy in the front row.

"Barren, chaotic, and unappealing. I like it better here."

"Go Japan!" a boy in the back cheered. There was laughter. Vegeta quickly sat down.

Haiku came and sat next to them. She had spiral curls and dimples and hated feeling new and out of place. She figured they felt the same.

Goten sat down on Vegeta's other side.

A blonde turned around and smiled at him. "Aren't you Gohan's brother? I'm Pensa! I'm Erasa's sister! She and Gohan were great friends!"

"Oh, um, yeah. Hi."

"All Russians are commies," a voice hissed from behind them.

Vegeta turned around with a dangerous glare. The speaker was a lean, muscular boy with very short brown hair and blue eyes set a little too close together, giving his face a strange weasel-like quality.

"And you would be?"

"Garrett."

The teacher rapped sharply on the desk. "Class has started. Everybody pay attention!"

With a last lingering look, Vegeta turned to face the front. Garrett was insignificant enough to wait.

--

Nasu and Radditz sat in history class, looking outwardly calm. Japanese history was completely outside their knowledge, and so were Japanese teaching methods. They were bored and uncomfortable.

"Do you think we can just purge them?" Radditz asked, fiddling with his notebook paper nervously.

"Mom would scold," she replied, meaning Bulma.

Radditz cringed. "I will get through the day without killing anybody. I will get through the day without killing anybody. . ."

"I'll keep an eye on you."

A teenage boy in ripped jeans and scuffed sneakers was staring at Radditz with a sneer on his lips. "What kind of hair is that? Are you a girl or a guy?"

"Oh dear." Nasu rolled her eyes and waited.

Radditz stood up. He was already 6' 4," and wearing a sleeveless dark grey muscle shirt that showed off his biceps. "Were you addressing me?"

The boy paled slightly, but his lip stayed curled. "Yeah, you."

The boy next to him, wearing a K.I.S.S. jacket, gave a nasty laugh. "Maybe he's part-bear."

"Let's call him Fuzzy."

Nasu felt Radditz's ki rising sharply. There was only one thing to do. She stood up abruptly and punched the jacketed one in the nose, breaking it cleanly. He started hollering and wailing.

"When you insult one of us, you insult all of us," she informed him icily. The class gasped, attention riveting to the fight.

The first boy jumped up. "You little--"

Radditz silenced him with a fist to the jaw. He was felled like a tree in the path of a ki blast.

Radditz and Nasu sat back down. Nasu primly folded her hands on her desk. Jacket-boy continued screaming.

The teacher walked in, took one look, and ran over. "What's going on? Who did this?"

Nobody spoke. They didn't want to be tattlers.

"John? Who hit you?"

John started to rat her out when it occurred to him: he'd been taken down by a girl. Admit that? He'd be the laughing-stock of the school! Word would spread bad enough as it was. "I--um--nobody. I tripped and hit the desk."

The teacher's eyebrows rose. "And Drew?" She pointed to his unconscious friend.

"He's what tripped me. We fell into each other and I hit the desk and he hit the ground and passed out." Of course, his story was less intelligible than this because his broken nose slurred the words up.

The teacher heaved a sigh and gave up. "Well, I'm sending you to the nurse's office, right away. You," she picked a student at random, "go with him. Now how do I get poor Drew there?"

"I'll carry him," Radditz volunteered.

All eyes swiveled back to him. "You do look like you could manage it," the teacher appraised him. "OK. Follow John."

Radditz nodded, slung Drew over his shoulder, and followed a now very nervous and in pain John and an awed and nervous bystander out the door and down the hall to the nurse's office.

The teacher walked back to the front of the room and faced her wide-eyed class. "Very well. Let's get on with it. I'm going to hand out the books."

The nurse, when Radditz and John and the other boy found her, was distraught. Radditz was to learn she constantly seemed to be flustered and overwhelmed, yet she did fine work. In the case of John, however, his nose was clearly broken, and she decided to send him to the emergency room. An ambulance and his parents were called. Radditz started to feel bad, but then he shrugged. They had started it. And Nasu had done the real damage. Some smelling salts and Drew was coming around, no harm done.

Nurse Seo instructed them to assist Drew back to class. She wrote them a pass. Radditz took it. "What's this?"

"So you won't get in trouble if someone sees you in the hall," the nurse explained, startled. "All students are supposed to be in class except in between periods."

"Oh." Radditz looked at the slip of paper in his hand.

"You're new aren't you? Where are you from?" Nurse Seo asked him.

". . . Siberia."

Drew stared at him. "You are a freak."

"Watch your mouth!" Nurse Seo snapped. "You apologize right now!"

Drew scowled. The nurse tapped her foot. "Sorry," Drew muttered.

"Can I get ice on this?" John pleaded.

The 3 boys walked back to class. Drew kept glaring at Radditz. The third boy walked several steps behind them, for safety, and wished he were elsewhere.

"Oh, come on, let's just forget it and start over," Radditz said just before they reached the door. "My name's Radditz. Hello."

Drew looked taken aback. The other boy edged past them and re-entered the room. Radditz and Drew stared at each other.

It was a graceful way to get out of a fight he was pretty sure now he couldn't win. "I'm Drew."

"When I was five," Radditz blurted before he thought, "my mother said she was glad I had such thick, black hair and she was going to let it grow long. Then she died." He swallowed. "So I--I've never cut it." Cold settled into his stomach, a sudden, thorough regret that he'd shared this with a stranger who was surely just going to mock him for it.

He didn't. He looked at Radditz for a long, silent moment, and then nodded. "That's a good reason." His voice was soft and did not taunt at all. "I was eight when my mother died. I've had to raise my sister. She wears Mother's ear-rings every day." He half-shrugged. "I guess it's just one of those things." He turned and started to enter the classroom.

"Your sister. What's her name?"

"Eleanora."

--

"But most people call me Nora," the girl finished, smiling at Trunks and Becky, who had just introduced her friend. "Except for Becky and my brother, for some reason."

"Pleased to meet you."

"Are you related to the Capsule Corps Briefs?"

"Um, Bulma Briefs is my mother."

A girl from the next row spun around and squealed. "Bulma Briefs is your mother!" turning half the heads in the room. Trunks scrunched his shoulders, trying to be smaller. The girl, who had thick glasses, clasped her hands in rapture. "She is my idol! I want to be a successful businesswoman, just like her!"

"Good for you," Trunks mumbled.

"Are you interested in business, Trunks?" Nora asked, peering at him closely.

"Yeah, sure," he replied, with no real enthusiasm in his voice. "Are those real topez?"

She blinked and fingered one of her ear-rings. "These? Yes."

"Cool."

She looked down at her feet. She wore old brown sandals. She had painted toenails and a rope and beaded ankle bracelet that her brother had given her.

The teacher stood up from behind her desk then and wrote her name on the chalkboard. "All right, be seated, everyone. I'm going to call roll. Forgive me if I mispronounce your name."

--

At the end of 1st period, while everyone was milling around talking about their summers, or filing out the door to their lockers, Haiku asked Goten if she could hang around with them. Of course he agreed.

Meanwhile, Vegeta turned around and grabbed Garrett by the front of his shirt, pulling him forward until their faces were only inches apart. Garrett, who had expected him to be a wimp because he was short and foreign, gulped and wished he didn't have those eyes boring into his own, especially that close.

"Never insult me again," Vegeta told him, his voice as deadly as his stare. "This is your only warning."

"Yeah, uh huh. Whatever you say," he managed, knowing he was going to have to run to the bathroom as soon as this scary kid had let go.

Vegeta flung him away with distaste and gathered up his notebook, pen, and the 1st school textbook of his life. Goten was grinning at him when he turned around.

"Well done," he praised. "You didn't even blast him!"

"I've always had admirable restraint," Vegeta returned with eyes heavy- lidded and a half-smirk on his lips.

Haiku was beginning to look doubtful, but Goten gathered her up with them as they went out the door. "Why is she following us?" Vegeta asked him.

"I told her she could. She's new, too, and she doesn't want to be alone."

"Hn." But he didn't tell her to go away. He was, in fact, thinking that she could take the burden of Goten's cheerful chatter and attention. He still got on Vegeta's nerves quite often.

--

Things rolled along until lunch time, which by luck and careful maneuvering, they all had together. They picked one long table in the back corner for their own, and Radditz and Vegeta successfully scared off anyone else who looked like they were heading toward it.

They sat down, the 5 Saiyans, 4 girls, and Haiku, who was still tagging along.

"You guys, we've made it half-way through the day and no boom's yet," Trunks complained.

"Nasu did break that guy's nose," Radditz reported.

"What?" They all turned to her.

Becky sighed. "I thought you'd be better behaved than those boys."

Nasu smirked. "I thought I was remarkably well behaved. Radditz would have Gallic Gun'ed him if not for me."

"You do like that move, don't you?"

Radditz shrugged and started eating his first tenderloin. He had four of them on his tray. "I picked it up from Vegeta."

"Well, why did you break his nose? What did he do?" Meg was curious.

"He made fun of Radditz's hair." She nudged him; he was sitting next to her.

"Ah. And Radditz would have killed him, so you intervened. I get it." Vegeta flashed her a smile.

Haiku was regarding the whole table with wide eyes. "Kill him?"

"Oh, they're just joking around," Julie assured her. "They talk like that. You get used to it. I think it's cause they're all martial artists."

"Are you going to join any sports teams?" Reina asked.

Vegeta glanced at Nasu and Radditz. "We're not the joining type."

"Besides, nobody could give us a challenge."

"That good are you?" Julie asked, eyeing Goten.

"And nobody here knows Frieza-ball," Nasu sent to Radditz and Vegeta, who looked at her sharply, then all three burst out laughing.

"What?" Julie snapped, thinking they were laughing at her.

"We were just thinking of a game we used to play as kids," Nasu finally managed to get out as their hilarity died down. Radditz had snorted milk out of his nose.

"What game?" Meg narrowed her eyes.

"Um, details would be a bad idea," Vegeta said, and the other two started laughing again.

Trunks and Meg pestered them for awhile, but they never would tell.

"So what kind of boom were you hoping for?" Goten asked Trunks to change the subject.

"Oh, I don't know. Just something to let everybody know we're here."

"You should have just climbed on the roof this morning and shouted, 'Hello, Orange Star High School,'" Reina remarked, while using the sickly gravy from the mashed potatoes to glue her milk carton to her plate.

"There's always after school," Meg smiled.

"Don't give him ideas," Nasu retorted.

Trunks looked to Vegeta for support, but he just shrugged. "Actually, some quiet might be nice for a change." Trunks looked quite disappointed.

--

A/N: This story is going to be heavily high-school centered for a little while, because it's all new to them and it's consuming their minds while they adjust. But it won't stay like that; it's going to move on to other things.