The New Age Empire v2: Book 2

Monday, December 19th

~Chapter 14: Public School Inadequacies~

The moment she had entered through the main doors Jakina knew that she would have a miserable day at school. The hallways were abuzz with chatter and somehow she knew it was about her. Children glanced at her from the corners of their eyes and teachers would look away. She made her way, alone, to her locker and quickly spun the dial on the lock.

"Jackie-chan," Pan said as she suddenly appeared next to her. Jakina had sensed her coming closer for a while so she wasn't surprised. Pan had left for school before the other girl did because Jakina had spent ten minutes trying to convice her mother that she was seriously ill. It didn't work. It never did.

"How many?" she asked as she placed her coat on the hangar.

"Ninety-nine percet. Gomen. The remaining percent are talking about that woman."

"I should have known," she sighed and leaned against the row of lockers. "I don't want to go to class but I have to."

"I know!" The other dark-haired girl exclaimed. "I can threaten them all with bodily harm so that nothing will happen!"

"Pan, both your mother and your obaasan would freak out. You don't want a scene here, not today."

She nodded in agreement. "You're right. Well I'll be going to class now. I hope you have a better day than we're thinking it's going to be."

She sighed. "So do I, Pan-chan." So far it was the *second* worst day of her life.

***

About thirty minutes into class (and after her teacher had finished lecturing and giving instructions) Jakina was called out into the hallway for a little "conference". She knew what it was all about before the teacher even spoke.

"Jakina, dear, are you alright?" she asked in a concerned tone. Jakina used to think that the way Hakura-san cared about things was great but at the moment it was just annoying.

"I'm fine. What you know depends on how you found out. Tabloid, newspaper, magazine, television, or radio?"

"Rest assurred it wasn't a tabloid," Hakura-san shook her head. "I don't like those things. I watched the news on t.v. last night and that was how I found out what happened? Did she hurt you in anyway?"

Jakina frowned and then shook her head. "My papa taught me how not to be weak. I knocked her unconscious and tied her up. Personally I don't approve of his punishment methods but there wasn't anything I could do to stop him. It's all about proving to everyone that he won't allow stuff like that. I just didn't want to come to school today, not because it's the next-to-last day before Christmas break, but because everyone would be talking about it and looking at me funny. It's irritating." She sighed and looked up at her teacher with tired eyes. "Can I go to the library until lunchtime? I could get started on that report you gave us for the break."

"Go ahead, Jakina. I don't mind. Just go and get your things from the classroom. Do you need anything else?"

She smiled for the first time that day. "I'm fine. Thanks for doing this. I won't forget it."

Laughing she gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "You're acting as if I just saved your life."

"You may have, ma'am." She said seriously. "Thanks again."

The time went quickly as Jakina researched her subject: torture through the ages. She really hope that Hakura-san didn't think she was insane for doing so but it interested her for some reason. She checked out several books on the middle ages, the period of time where the most torture had been done, and exited out into the hallway just as the bell for lunch rang. All-in-all it had been a very productive few hours.

"Jackie-chan!" Pan shouted as she and Magori spotted her in the hallway. "Where were you? We went by your class and Hakura-san said you had left earlier."

"Pan thought you had run away," Magori laughed. "I had to stop her from panicking." Pan blushed to the roots of her hair and turned away slightly.

"Iie nothing happened. I went to the library to get away from all of these people." She waved her hand around the indicate the ones who still appeared to be talking about what had happened that weekend. She seriously hoped that over Christmas break they would forget.

The hallway chatter changed in intensity and all three children noticed it. All three of them were short so the older kids, the fifth and sixth graders, were blocking their view. It seemed to originate from the other end of the hallway.

"What's going on *now*?" Jakina groaned, thinking it had something to do with her. The crowd of kids in the hall slowly began to part for someone but once they had passed, the pathway disappeared. Teachers came out of their classrooms to see what all of the commotion was. Suddenly both her and Pan's eyebrows shot up and they exchanged glances as well as words.

"What is *he* doing here?!"

Jakina shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Who? Who's here?" Magori asked them. He could not yet sense ki. His question was answered by the arrival of Vegeta himself.

"Um Papa? What are you doing here causing a scene? I don't like scenes!"

He took her hand and let her down the hall towards the principal's office. "I'm checking you out of this school. Kakarott suggested and I think it's a good idea."

Her face broke out into a big grin. "You're the best! Have I told you that lately?"

An odd, half-amused smile came over his face. "Iie. But I sort of got the picture."

"What about us, Vegeta-ojisan?!" Pan asked him as she walked along side. "Is my Papa coming up here?" Making a face, she added. "I doubt it, though. He's really attached to his job. Maybe Mama will do it."

"Pan, I'm the king. I can do basically whatever I want." He opened the door to the office and ushered the three children inside before entering himself. "That includes acting as your legal guardian to get you out of this school."

"Can I help you?" The secretary asked him. Either she had no idea who he was or she didn't care because her face was completely blank.

"I'm Vegeta, Jakina Briefs' father, and I need to see the principal. Is he here?"

"Sure thing, Briefs-san." He didn't bother to correct her. "You can go right on in." As they left the outer office, recognition flashed across the woman's face. Picking up the phone, she quickly dialed a number. "Janie? You'll never guess who I just talked to!"

***

Bra swore that she was being stalked as she went from class-to-class. There was always a low ki level near her but when she turned around there was no one there. By fifth hour she was freaked out and extremely jumpy.

"That is it!" She spun around and caught someone darting around a corner. She took off after them and found a small brown-haired boy running down the hall in the opposite direction. She caught him just as he tried to vanish into the boys bathroom.

"Look here, I have no idea who the heck you are but will you quit it with the stalking? You're driving me insane!"

"How did you know?" he asked her with a frightened look on his face. "I was quiet and people tell me that I'm the best at sneaking around."

"I didn't hear you. If I had relied on that sense then I *wouldn't* have noticed you. I sensed your ki even though it's pretty low."

"Ki?" he asked in a confused tone.

"Your life energy. Everyone has it and everyone has the ability to sense it. Why were you following me?"

The quick topic changed stunned him for a second. "You interest me."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I find you interesting," he shrugged. "I investigate the things that I'm interested in."

"You are extremely weird." She began to walk down the hallway. "Don't follow me again. If you really want to know me, why not just ask me? Besides I'm perfectly a normal person in a perfectly normal family."

It was precisely that moment when a large crowd of people that she pretended not to know ventured down that side hall.

"Bra-chan! We have to go now." Jakina ruined the whole effect by calling her name.

"Why Jackie-chan? Did the wittle baby get in trouble at school?"

"I am *not* a baby and no. Papa just says we don't have to go to school anymore."

The old girl's face lit up and she began to grin. "You're lying!"

"No I am not. Just ask him."

When they reached the main hallway their father was surrounded by drooling female admirers. They stood there for a moment, watching in amusement, before they decided to take pity and help him.

"No, you can not have an autograph!" Vegeta told one girl firmly. "I don't even have a pen on me."

"We should be going, Papa." Bra said in a *very* loud voice. "We don't want to be late for your appointment."

The short saiyan blinked in confusion while the questions rang out. "What appointment? What's wrong? Is he dying?"

Bra leaned in towards them as if sharing a sacred secret. "You see, it's just that he's prone to random acts of violence. Papa has an appointment with his therapist three times a week to cure him." Then she gasped. "He's about to have one now! Run! Run for yours lives!"

Several girls shrieked and took off down the hall while the rest departed warily as if the would die if they turned their backs. Bra and Jakina exchanged hi-fives while Pan and Magori tried to catch their breath.

"That was so cool!" Pan giggled. "Random acts of violence. If he hurts something I know it's always on purpose."

"Quick thinking, Bra," Vegeta told her. "I know where you get your cleverness from."

"Yeah, Kaasan will be proud of me." She ducked his half-hearted swing and snickered to herself.

"Papa? Do we really get to stay home everyday and just watch television or play outside?" Jakina asked with hope in her eyes.

He snorted. "Of course not. I won't have my children or Pan or Magori grow up stupid. You're going to school just not a public one. The security is laughable, the cafeteria food is disgusting, and I swear there are rats in the basement."

"You took a tour of the basement?" Pan asked, her eyebrow raised.

"They just left that door wide open. They wanted someone to go down there!"

"Uh yeah, right." They paused a moment while Bra got her things from her locker and left the textbooks there.

"Anyway, it'll take me a few days to find a good school within flying distance of the palace but you don't have to back until after the new year. Someday I'm going to find out why the day of the new year is a holiday. It's pointless to celebrate the passing of a year! What did they do in year one? Celebrate the fact that they existed?" No one said a word to answer him as he pushed open the double-doors of Bra's middle school. That was something they wondered as well. Pan glanced at Magori from the corner of her eye and smirked.

"Who's turn is it to carry him?" she asked. "I had my turn. I think it's Bra's."

"Jakina's," Bra promptly said.

"Papa's." Was the answer.

Vegeta grabbed the little boy around his waist and took off into the air just to stop the argument. "You are going to learn how to fly soon. I don't care who teaches you but you should choose based on their method."

"Who's the best?"

"Probably Kakarott or one of his offspring." He smirked. "They don't push people from cliffs."

Magori gulped. "Who does that?"

"Me."

"Then I'll definitely choose Goku-san."

"Good decision. I won't have much time anyway."

"I was thinking about that, Papa." Bra said. "Why don't you have a cabinet?"

"I know you're talking about something other than a place to store dishes but I have no idea what."

"A cabinet is a group of people that help you make decisions. They're your advisors. Goku-san, since he's head of the army and now head of public safety; Kaasan, just because she's the queen and head of technological advances..." She trailed off. "That's it. You need more advisors, Papa. That's why those stupid laws are driving you insane. If you had a cabinet and a congress they wouldn't even make it to you."

"Who makes up this congress?" He was interested, that was clear. "Wouldn't there have to be special people?"

"You would have at least two people from every country in the world who would come to a formal meeting once a month to propse laws. The best of those laws make it to your advisors, the cabinet, who will reject most of them. The most important laws finally reach you. They won't be those idiotic ones you've been getting so far but rather the great ones."

"So each country has only two representatives?"

She nodded. "Unless you want some underneath them. Sort of like rulers of each city and rulers of each county. The rulers of a city in a single county would get together and then the rulers of each county would get together with the country representatives."

All of that information was a lot to take in but it sounded doable. "I'll have to get together with the current leaders of each country. Maybe at the Christmas Ball thing your mother's having."

"How about you erase the boundary lines and divide the planet into sectors?" Pan asked him. You can have someone rule over each sector and then you would have to deal with less people."

"That won't work, Pan," Bra made a face. "Chikyuu's too big. Besides, all of the maps and globes would have to be changed."

"You just want him to use your idea."

"He is *my* Papa you know!"

Vegeta said a single word. "Girls." And both of them shut up.

***

"Contacting Suk'dn-sei." Don said in a bored tone. "Putting through a request for Doctor Judek. Will connect in three, two, one..."

"Hello, Vegeta-ouji," he greeted pleasantly. "How may I help you today?"

Vegeta leaned backwards in his chair, hands folded across his stomach. "I'm looking for something. It has to do with the Ring of Agalar. There are a lot of catches to this thing. Were you aware of them?"

Judek showed the first hints of nervousness. "Oh no. I told you that we found the ring in the debris of a former planet. We studied it and found out that it was a map of Agalar. Anything other than that we have no knowledge of."

"He believes you," Goku said before Vegeta could respond. "We just need to know if you had any idea where the magical containers were."

"Well," Judek moved away from the screen and began to rifle through a large box. Various carefully tagged items were set gently onto the table as he searched. Soon he came upon a metal case, about four inches by six inches, and held it up to the screen. "This may be what you are looking for."

"A box?" Vegeta asked while narrowing his eyes.

"It's what's *in* the box that counts." Judek opened the latches and tilted the case to show the contents. "There are seven empty glass vials inside of this case but they are not very breakable since they have been magicked. We had our best mage casting all sorts of spells to figure out their properties. I couldn't figure out for the life of me just what they were for until you called. I believe these are the magical containers you are looking for."

"Great!" Goten exclaimed. "Tousan, go pick them up now. We can head on over to Agalar and be home by the twenty-fifth!"

"Hai sir!" Goku saluted with a grin. In another second he was gone. Goten jumped to his feet, grabbed Kallen, and began to dance around the bridge.

"On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree!"

"What song is this?" Kallen asked him as he paused between the first and second days.

"It's called a Christmas song. There are tons of them!"

"Can you teach me a few?"

"Sure!"

Goku returned then, food in one hand and the case in the other. Vegeta rolled his eyes and took the vials from him.

"Goku-san, why is it that everytime you teleport to Suk'dn-sei you grab some food?"

"Have you seen how good it looks?" he asked as he swallowed. "It's great!"

Kallen broke free of Goten's dancing and took the metal case gently from Vegeta. She closed her eyes and tried to discover for herself just what the vials were all about.

"A lot of effort went into making these vials just as a lot of effort went into making the springs. There is a rune on each vial that tells what kind of water goes into which one. I can read the runes because they belong to a written language that mages have been using for millenia." She opened her eyes briefly. "I'm very useful, aren't I? Anyway, to make a potentially long speech short the vials aren't breakable unless dropped into Hellfire and and the magical water from the springs will keep it's potency for as long as you need."

Everyone crowded around her and simply gazed at the vials in a moment of silence. Vegeta broke it by laying his hand on top of the cool metal and smiling softly.

"Well guys," he said. "It looks like our journey has almost ended."