Koronu would never be able to understand Piccolo’s fondness for children. Yes, she enjoyed their exuberance and their innocence. And seeing the world through the eyes of a child --- especially a child on this perfect planet was truly a beautiful experience. She admired the way that they could view everything with wonder and excitement, as if each new day was a new adventure. And yes, she wished that she had even half of the energy that they all seemed to possess. But there was something to be said for peace and quiet as well, and as long as children were around, little ones anyway, tranquility simply did not exist. She could only tolerate them for so long before she started feeling as though she were going to tear her hair out. She couldn’t understand how Piccolo could stand there in the foyer of Gohan’s home with Pan attached to his leg, screaming at the top of her lungs --- and still remain calm.

Calm on the surface of course, but what lay beneath was an entirely different affair. Not even Piccolo could withstand this kind of verbal onslaught, especially with his sensitive ears. She knew that he had a soft spot for the younger generation, but that didn’t mean that he enjoyed being accosted by a sobbing, screaming little girl. And Pan’s capacity for reaching high decibels was remarkable for a young girl her age. Her sobbing screams came out in high-pitched shrills, melding into one endless, ear-splitting shriek. Koronu glanced at Piccolo again, dark eyes sliding over to view the single drop of sweat that was sliding ever so slowly down his temple. Her smirk crept up just as slowly, and she made no move to extract her great granddaughter from the Namek’s leg.

“Adorable, isn’t she?” She asked him with a smirk, fondly tilting her head as she watched her granddaughter wipe her tears off onto Piccolo’s formally pristine pants, still sobbing with a wide open mouth.

He said nothing, but gave her a deathly glare.

Videl and Gohan came out of the kitchen then; he was carrying a small bag that most likely contained just a few necessary items. Koronu couldn’t be sure because of the angle that she was at, but something in the bag looked suspiciously like a book. She narrowed her eyes. Gohan was a very intelligent man; she had known this since the very first time that she had seen him. His dark Saiya-jin eyes spoke of intellect and cleverness, not the rabid hunger for a fight that she saw in most of their eyes. But although his mind was obviously on other things, he still remained the most powerful of them all --- or so everyone seemed to think. She never would have guessed that such an amazing power lived within that intelligent, caring eyes however. And she certainly wouldn’t suspect the man wearing thickly rimmed glasses and a tie of having a power sleeping inside of him that could shake the very foundation of the Earth. And yet, it was true. In many ways, Gohan reminded her of Potuto, the son that she had lost on Sukuashi. But Potuto’s strength would never have been enough to compete with Son Gohan.

Her grandson bent over to plant a kiss on his wife’s forehead, then straightened up to his full height and glanced over at Piccolo. He smiled when he saw Pan clinging to the Namek’s leg with all the strength that her small body possessed. “Pan-chan, why are you crying?”

“I want to go!” She wailed, spurring on a whole new round of tears and sobs.

Gohan crouched down to her eye level, and put a hand up by her ear as if telling her a guarded secret. “Remember what I told you about keeping an eye on your mother?” He asked her. “She can’t be left alone for very long --- she gets scared, remember? If I can’t be here to watch over here and protect her, who knows what she’ll do? I need you to stay here and keep an eye on her so that she doesn’t hurt herself.”

Slowly, he was able to coax Pan away from Piccolo and handed her off to Videl, who managed to calm the girl with ease. Koronu supposed that it must have been some kind of a special connection between mother and daughter that allowed Videl to be able to calm Pan down so quickly. Videl herself gave off an aura of peace --- those pale blue eyes reminded Koronu of a cloudless, boundless sky on a summer day. She was a good match for Gohan, who looked as though he could use a little bit of stress-relief in his life. Neither one of them was much a fighter anymore of course, though she had heard a great deal about their crime fighting days. With the two of them so calm and peaceful, Koronu really had to wonder where the fire in her granddaughter came from. She supposed that Pan was a mix of everyone --- there was a bit of her parents in there, as well pinch of Gokuu, and definitely a lot of ChiChi. And Koronu liked to believe that a bit of the true Saiya-jin blood ran through Pan’s veins as well. The little girl reminded her a bit of herself when she was very young.

As the three of them left in the direction of Capsule Corporation, Videl and Pan stood in the doorway and waved them off. Koronu cast one more look back at her small granddaughter and smiled. Perhaps when they returned from this short adventure and things got back to normal, she would put some effort into training the young girl properly. Pan already had a lot of very gifted fighters that could show her how to use her power, but Koronu was the only one that could show her how to be a Saiya-jin --- a female Saiya-jin. This little girl wasn’t going to grow up thinking that she could never reach the power levels that the men around her had reached. As Pan began to reach the fighting age, she was going to be aware of the possibilities --- all of the possibilities.

She didn’t even have to pause in the air, but nearly shivered when the transformation ran through her body. The hair hanging in front of her eyes turned to gold, and her eyes shaded over red for a moment before her vision came back clearer and sharper than it had been just a moment ago. Though she could not see herself as she flew beside Piccolo and Gohan, she knew that her eyes were jade, and that she had once again transformed into something that Saiya-jin males had once scoffed at the idea of.

Nothing was impossible.

“Careful. Try not to touch them or even get to close to them. They might appear to be unconscious, but there is really no way to tell. We’ve already had one accident today; we don’t need another.” Mirai Bulma directed gently as Dr. Cho and his assistant began to move the jinzouningen onto the stretchers that had been brought. They were going to be transporting them to the hospital in order to perform the surgery, and the easiest way was simply driving them there in one of the vans that the hospital had for just these kinds of circumstances. Unfortunately the process was going very slow for two reasons: first of all, Dr. Cho’s assistant was a complete klutz, and secondly, it was hard to move two such dangerous cargo without being just a bit nervous and shaky. Normally she would be patient enough to wait, but they didn’t have very much time before the jinzouningen would wake up again and start terrorizing everyone in the room. She bent over and picked up her clipboard, which had at listing of time ratios for the sedation drugs and the last time that both of the jinzouningen had been fully awake.

The sound of a stretcher collapsing jerked Mirai Bulma to attention. She dropped her head in defeat when she saw Dr. Cho’s assistant struggling to prop the legs back up. The joints appeared to be locked and the small girl was tugging on them with all her strength. When it finally did straighten back up, the poor girl wasn’t prepared for it, and her hands came flying back to smack Dr. Cho in the face. His glasses flew off and skittered across the laboratory floor, and he lost his balance as well, stumbling back and knocking into one of the counters.

When her son walked into the laboratory just then, she had never been so grateful.

She smiled at him, feeling as though it had been years since she had seen him last. They had both been so busy lately that they hadn’t had a moment to just sit down and talk --- something that they had normally done ever day. In their future world, they usually ate all of their meals together, just the two of them in the kitchen. And he would usually accompany her on whatever mission she had for the day, or help her finish some kind of work around the house or the office. She knew that she would be lost without him there by her side. He wasn’t just her son; he was a good friend to her as well, and she counted on him for a lot. Perhaps she had been feeling so unsettled the past few days because she hadn’t been able to spend any time with him. Their future world might be bleak and horrible at times, but she had grown accustomed to her simple little life. She missed playing cards with ChiChi and making breakfast with her son in their small kitchen on summer mornings.

“Do you need any help, Okaasan?” He asked her in a pleasant voice, but she could sense the undertone of something else. She knew that he was trying to act normal because of his audience. Besides the struggling doctor and his assistant, Marron and Kuririn were also there --- now trying to help with the stretchers as well. He couldn’t very well tell her what was on his mind with all of these people listening in on him; he wasn’t very fond of sharing anyway, but especially not in front of strangers. There was no doubt about it in her mind though, there was definitely something that her son was trying desperately to hide. And the way the past few minutes were going, she was honestly a little afraid of what it might be.

Just as she suspected, a mere few seconds later, the younger Trunks came barging into the laboratory as well. Goten --- the poor boy, was hanging onto his shoulders with a horrified expression on his face, trying to hold his friend back. And Tayhei came in last with a wickedly furious glare, still snapping angry retorts at Trunks as she slammed her way through the doors and stomped through the laboratory. Trunks labored across the tile floor with Goten struggling against him the entire way, and came up face to face with his future counterpart, snarling in anger.

“What the hell kind on an answer was that!? You can’t just walk away in the middle of a fight.” He shouted bringing his fist up and managing to look quite intimidating.

Her son stared back, looking bored and slightly frustrated. “Maybe I didn’t want to be around you anymore.”

“And maybe I’ll just kick your ass right here in this laboratory.” Trunks threatened while desperately trying to shake Goten off of him.

Exasperated, Tayhei shoved her way in front of Trunks and put a hand on his chest, holding him back. Her sharp green eyes glinted under the florescent lights, and Mirai Bulma supposed she might look pretty if it weren’t for the vicious snarl that was on her face. Her face was just inches away from Trunks, and she was glaring at him as though she might actually be able to burn holes straight through him. “This is just pointless. There is really no use in getting upset. Both of you are acting like stubborn children. And this is not the time or place to start a fight. I have important experiments going on in this laboratory. And if either one of you does anything to mess them up, then I am going to kick both of your asses. I’ll seriously haul one of those nice big G-6s out of the armory and start shooting. If you want to talk like sensible adults, then do it outside where you aren’t going to break anything or get blood all over the walls.”

Across the room, the stretcher broke again.

Mirai Bulma sank back into her desk chair and placed her hands on her temples. She fought the impulse to run screaming for the door. After all, she had promised herself that she was going to face all of her problems from now on. But dealing with a room full of anger, accident prone people was almost more than she could bear. Especially since she knew that she had a job to do and that there were people counting on her. With growing horror, she watched as the chaos around her unfolding into a blur of quick movements, angry voices, and screeching metal. All she knew was that it all better stop soon, or she was going to quite possibly lose her mind. She could deal with a lot of problems, but she hadn’t been prepared for something like this.

For about the millionth time since Vejiita had stepped foot on this planet, he wondered how these people could survive. He had some memories of his earlier years on the Saiya-jin planet, a red, inhospitable, ugly place with horrid dry seasons and lengthy draughts. There had been riots for water there; massive gatherings of angry people in the center of the capitol city --- it was complete and utter chaos as they yelled back and forth between each other, kicking and punching and slashing out with knives and other weapons. The scene that was playing out before him in the laboratory was quite similar to the vague memories he had of the riots on the planet Vejiita. There was no violence (not yet anyway), but the intensity and the fire was still there. He had seen things like this before here; usually during one of those repulsive social gatherings that Bulma had used to like. When several people, all suffering from individual stresses and ordeals, were placed together in the same room, there was bound to be chaos.

He of course, was on the outside of all of it. Standing in the corner of the laboratory, nearly hidden by the shadows, he was practically invisible to everyone else in the room. And that was just fine with him. He would rather be skinned alive and baked into one of ChiChi’s pies than be a part of that mess. The occasional fight was enjoyable and even necessary at times, but when it involved more than three people, it tended to get a bit out of hand. He had been slightly amused by the arguments that Bulma and Trunks used to constantly have, but as soon as Bra, Tayhei, Goten, or anyone else was dragged into it, he felt as though he were suffocating. He liked things to be calm and quiet; loud, screaming noises made his head feel as though it were about to explode.

He turned his head slightly as Kakarroto’s first brat, the Namek, and the Saiya-jin woman entered the laboratory. Great. He thought darkly. More people. We might as well bring in half the city’s population.

If he had been in a better mood, perhaps he might have said something quick and sharp to quiet them all down and scare them a little. But amid all of the chaos, something had caught his eye.

Mirai Bulma was sitting at her desk, looking lost and bewildered again. Her long fingertips were angled back onto her temples and she was slouched down into her seat as though she were in pain. He guessed that the noise and confusion was probably a little too much for her to bear, especially since she was already feeling stressed out enough. Vejiita found it odd that a woman as strong as her could be so easily beaten by emotional and circumstantial matters. For a woman who had lived through some of the most tragic, horrifying events possible, she certainly didn’t handle stress very well. He didn’t feel sorry for her because of this --- he never felt sorry for anyone. But as he stared at her tired eyes, he felt a slight tug at his heart.