The New Age Empire v2: Book 2

Sunday, December 25th

~Chapter 20: I'll Be Home for Christmas~

"BRA! Guess what day it is!" Jakina took a dive onto her sister's queen size bed and landed heavily on top of the drowsy girl.

"It's Christmas, right?" Bra asked in a false awed tone. Jakina hit her with a pillow and ran from the room shouting in her glee. As soon as she was gone her sister rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Her head hurt from all the caffeine from yesterday. She wondered how Pan was feeling.

"PANNY-CHAN! Guess what day it is!" She had run through the bathroom that connected Bra and Pan's room. The other girl was already waiting for her, still dressed in her pajamas.

"I know! Let's go downstairs! I wanna open my presents!" Pan, perfectly fine, grabbed her hand and they both ran down the hall towards the staircase singing at the tops of their voices.

"On the first day of Christmas my truelove gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree! On the second day of Christmas..."

"Oh thanks a lot!" Trunks was coming down the stairs from the third floor with an irritated look on his face. "Who said I wanted to be woken up at SIX AM?!"

"Quit whining about it!" Bra said as she came down the hallway. "You *are* crabby without Goten around!"

The tips of his ears turned a bright red color and he began to shout. "WILL YOU GUYS STOP SAYING THAT?!"

"Is Magori already down there?" Mia yawned. Her bedroom was further down the hall on the second floor. "He's not in his room."

"Probably." Jakina jumped on the banister and began to slide down. "I mean, I would have been if Trunks here hadn't started yelling."

"Get your butt off my banister!" The small girl jumped off immediately but her mother was no where to be found.

"Am I hearing things or did Mama really say that?"

"She's Kaasan." Bra shrugged as she began to descend the stairs. "She always knows when something's wrong."

Magori was indeed in the family room when they got there and he was just staring at the three with wide eyes. "Santa Claus did come!"

Bra snorted but she didn't say anything to him. She did whisper behind her hand to Pan though. "More like Kaasan and Papa."

The two anxious girls had to wait until every single person was assembled in the family room by the tree. The adults all looked rather tired from the previous evening's festivities but soon Goku was just as excited as Pan and Jakina.

"Ooh! Open that one next!" He said as he spotted another large one with Pan's name on it. He handed it to her and still continued to rummage underneath the tree for his own presents. The ones for Goten and V.J. were placed in a special pile. After stopping a small struggle between Pan and Bra over a present that didn't have a tag (it was Bra's), Bulma went into the kitchen to start cooking breakfast. ChiChi was soon talked into taking over.

"Did you get everything you wanted, Pan-chan?" Videl asked as she let Moura play on the floor with her new doll.

"Not really," she sighed and began to stack up her new PlayStation 2 games. "I wish Goten-ojisan could be here. V.J. too."

Goku smiled to himself and continued helping Jakina set up her new Junior Chemisty Set. A few seconds later the doorbell rang.

"Why are we standing on the doorstep out here in the cold?" A voice asked someone else. "Did you forget your key again?"

"No!" The other voice retorted. "Hai...." Then the voice quickly tried to change the subject. "Look! It's starting to snow!"

"In Japan?!"

"Konichi-wa! Is someone gonna let us in or do we have to break the door down?"

Pan's face lit up and she ran to the front door. "Goten-ojiichan!" Unlocking it quickly and flinging it open she jumped into his arms almost before he had a chance to catch her.

"Well hello to you to, Panny-chan. Have you beaten up anyone lately?"

She laughed. "Nope. We all missed you a lot!"

As he, V.J., and their three guests crossed the threshold ChiChi shouted from the kitchen. "Did someone just come over? Who is it?"

"My, aren't we nosey," Vegeta muttered as he placed three different boxes of clothes into a pile. It wasn't as if he had a Christmas list.

"Kaasan! Tadaima!" Goten called as he placed his niece back on her feet. She grinned and skipped across the great hall to get Bulma and ChiChi.

"Aren't you going to greet him, Papa?" Bra asked as she released her niichan. With wide eyes she watched her father slowly cross the room until he stood before his second born son and namesake.

"Hi Papa," V.J. said and for once he wasn't grinning as if he were up to something. He extended his hand slightly. "Nice be back."

Surprsing them all, including ChiChi and Bulma who had been dragged from the kitchen by a very happy Pan, Vegeta grabbed Vegeta Jr. into a hug instead of merely shaking his hand.

"Very nice." Vegeta agreed. Then he quickly resumed his former grumpy appearance.

But the moment had not been lost.

***

"Now you two better now try and sneak off to get married," ChiChi told them firmly. "I want to be there for the wedding."

It was an hour later and everyone was sitting around the dining room table helping themselves to a delicious breakfast courtesy of ChiChi that Bulma didn't ruin.

"And she'll be the loudest one in the church!" Gohan laughed.

"Gohan-chan!" ChiChi scolded.

Meek as a child he apologized. "Sorry Kaasan."

"I don't want to have my wedding in a church," Goten said. "That's too traditional. A beach wedding would be great."

"Um, Goten?" Kallen finally spoke up. "I didn't even say that I would marry you. In fact, if I recall correctly, I said that I was too old for you."

"Ten years is not old!" He protested. "Besides, I don't know anyone your age. Everyone's either older or younger. What about nine years?" Trunks looked up with a confused look on his face. He had a feeling they were now talking about him. "My best-friend Trunks here would make a good husband."

"Now wait a minute, Goten-" But he was interrupted by his mother.

"That would be wonderful!" She exclaimed in glee, ignoring her son's protests. "I could plan the whole thing, from ceremony to reception to honeymoon!"

"You would plan the honeymoon?" Videl asked her. "Isn't that a little too involved?"

"Only the best for my eldest!"

"Geez Goten. Look what you started." Trunks muttered as he focused on eating to block out his mother's words. "I don't even want to get married." Of course Bulma heard that loud and clear.

"NANI?!" She shrieked and everyone covered their ears. She and ChiChi are definitely spending too much time together. The kids fled the table to go play with their new presents and everyone else just sort of snuck away. Only Trunks and Bulma were left.

"Do I have to sit here and listen to you?" He was annoyed to say the least. "Can't I just go injure Goten for bringing this up in the first place?"

"You will sit here, Trunks, and you will listen to what I have to say." She was firm about this. "You're just lucky I'm not your father."

***

"What's that fuzzy thing floating around your head?" Pan asked curiously. "It looks just like a huge dust bunny."

"This is Bob. He's a Keekle. I got him in space." Goten grinned. "Kally-chan bought him for me as a Christmas present."

"Kally-chan?" Bra raised an eyebrow. "Since when were you two that familiar?"

"That's what I'm saying!" V.J. exclaimed.

Goten's grin grew wider and he repeated something in a very mild tone. "You're just mad your girl dumped you."

"I TOLD YOU SHE DIDN'T DUMP ME!"

"Sure she didn't!" Goten, Pan, Bra, and Jakina said in a very disbeliving tone.

The doorbell rang suddenly, its melodious tone ringing throughout the house. Both Bra and Pan jumped to their feet and raced towards the door. Everyone in the family room could hear them speaking to someone and the door close tightly. Soon the new arrivals ventured into the living room.

"How convient!" Goten beamed in pleasure. "Let's ask her ourselves, shall we?"

"Did you break up with Vegeta, Marron? Or did he break up with you?" Bra asked in a curious tone. "We're having a little debate over that."

"Marron broke up with him," Trunks said dryly as he entered the room. He glared at Goten until the other demi-saiya-jin shrugged apolegetically. "She broke my little brother's heart."

The blond girl laid her coat on the couch and took a seat. "I admit that I was the one who ended the relationship but I didn't break his heart. I don't think it affected him all that much. Do you have another girlfriend, V.J.?"

"Iie, I don't." He then frowned. "Don't think I'm depressed or anything 'cause I'm not. You broke up with Trunks and he still doesn't have another girlfriend."

"I'm just waiting for the right one, okay!" He said loudly, making sure everyone heard him.

Vegeta senior spoke up. "Maybe he's just not interested in girls."

Eyes narrowed, his son questioned him. "What are you implying?"

His father, definitely not tactful, told him outright. "Maybe you're gay. I mean, it's not uncommon. Around seventy-five percent of the saiya-jin population was."

"Really?" he asked.

"There weren't a lot of saiya-jin females. I think it's a species quirk. The odds that a saiya-jin would have a female baby were quite low. Either one female would procreate with several males or the scientists created babies by artificial means. That was how we kept the race going after we acquired the technology. It would definitely explain a lot of things about you."

"What about you, Papa?" Jakina began in a completely innocent tone of voice. "Do you like males too? Aren't those people..." She trailed off, trying to think of the word.

"Bi-sexual, Jackie-chan."

She nodded. "Yeah, that."

"Why is everyone so quiet?" Bulma asked as she, Krillin, and Juuhachi-gou entered the room. "It's Christmas! I thought I would have to scream at you people to be quiet."

Everyone sort of turned to Vegeta for his answer. Bulma blinked in confusion but she eventually looked at him too.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Did Vegeta do something interesting?"

"Oh it's nothing important, really." Bra said in a false bored tone. "Jackie-chan just asked Papa if he was interested in guys. That's all."

Her mother stared at her as if she'd grown another head. "Nani?"

"It's no big deal, Onna." Vegeta smirked at her. "Jackie-chan just wants to know the truth. How else will she learn if she doesn't ask questions?"

"You're not supposed to ask your parents stuff like that!" Bulma exclaimed. "I wouldn't want someone asking me if I had smoked pot before."

"Have you?" Jakina was on cue with her question. Her mother flushed and turned away slightly.

"I'm not the one on trial here."

"Then you have!"

"No comment."

"To tell you the truth," Vegeta spoke so suddenly that everyone was a little startled. The whole group of them, five youngsters and thirteen adults, focused on Vegeta as if he were telling the meaning of life. Not the least bit self-conscious, he spoke without hesitation. "hai. I do sometimes." He shrugged. "If anything, completely straight males were abnormal on Vegeta-sei. I know I would be quite an oddity here. As if that wasn't already the truth."

"I would love to study your cells Vegeta," Bulma had that 'scientific find of the century' look in her eyes. "Especially your DNA. I would take some blood and other things from you to examine. Would you do it?"

"Why not?" he shrugged. "It's not a big deal."

"What about Goku-san?" Bra asked. "He's fully saiya-jin." And so everyone turned their eyes to him.

"Me?!" He squeaked in a very unGoku-like manner. "Taking blood involves needles! I hate needles!"

"Aren't you going to ask Goku the same question you asked Vegeta?" Krillin asked with a smirk. "This is the man who couldn't tell apart males and females you know."

"I grew up in a forest, Krillin." Goku blushed bright red. "I had just never seen a girl before, that's all."

"He completely didn't know what I was." Bulma laughed. "But seriously, Goku, do you like guys?"

Goku he tried to pretend he didn't hear her, he tried to change the subject, he tried everything to get out of answering. Finally, after noticed that ChiChi was frowning at him intensely, he answered.

"Well, uh, I g-guess so. Um, can I go now?"

"Be a man, Kakarotto," Vegeta smirked. "Stop stuttering like a child."

"But you're all staring at me!" He whined. "It makes me feel like I've done something wrong!"

"You? Goku? Do something wrong?" He said with with wide eyes in a awe filled voice. "How preposterous!"

"I would ask *who* you liked before," Trunks said to his father. "But that would be a little bit too weird."

"I don't even want to think about it," Vegeta glared at Goten one last time and left the room. "I'm getting something to drink."

Goten, Gohan, and Mia in the meantime were staring at their tousan in absolute shock. He fidgeted underneath their gaze and looked someplace else. Unfortunately that 'someplace else' was ChiChi's face.

"Why didn't you tell me before, Goku?" she asked with a frown.

"I know next-to-nothing about saiya-jin things, ChiChi. Vegeta's the expert on that stuff. How was I supposed to know that it was some weird genetic thing?"

"That's not why I'm mad and you know it! Now every time we go someplace public I'm going to look at a cute guy and wonder if my husband think he's cute too!"

Goku groaned. "Kami, Vegeta. You see what you brought up?"

"She's ChiChi," Vegeta said by way of explanation. "She's irrational."

Said woman glared at him. "I heard that you know."

He nodded. "I know."

"What are we going to do about Trunks?" Bulma changed the subject skillfully. "If he doesn't get a girlfriend soon then I won't have any grandchildren."

"Calm down, Onna. We have three other kids. V.J. is quite the girl chaser. If Trunks is gay it doesn't matter."

"Don't I have any say in this? It's like you're deciding this for me! I didn't say that I didn't want kids, I can always adopt."

"Leave the boy alone, Bulma. Let him do what he wants. He's a grown man."

Suddenly Jakina's eyes lit up and she grinned. "I know who he really likes! I know, I know!"

Her brother's eyes widened and he covered her mouth as quick as he could. "Do you really know?" She nodded. "Then whisper it to me." He slowly removed his hand and bent down to her level. She said something for several seconds and his face paled. "Don't tell anybody!"

"I won't." She promised. "Besides, it's not any of their business except the person you love."

Bra raised an eyebrow. "Is it...?"

"Yep."

"Thought so for a while." She whispered something to Pan and both girls giggled.

"Damn," Trunks said in embarrassment. "My life can't get-"

"Don't finish that statement," Kallen warned. "You'll regret it."

"What am I supposed to say then? My life can't get any better than this?!"

"A relationship might just work out," Bra mused. "I could arrange some things-"

"Iie."

"But it'll be easy!"

"And fun," Pan added.

"Iie!"

"I'm going to do this science thing right now to get it over with and then go train. Kakarotto, come on."

"Nani?" He blinked, his mind coming back to the present. "Oh sure."

"Trunks, we need to talk."

"What is it with my parents lately? They always want to talk to me."

After the three saiya-jins, Bulma, Videl, ChiChi, and Trunks left the room, V.J. returned and the three demi-saiyan-jins pounced on Bra, Jakina, and Pan. Of course they wanted to know all about Trunks and his secret love.

"If we guess it then you didn't do anything wrong." V.J. said in his usual sneaky way. "Does his love someone with saiya-jin blood?"

"We're not telling," Pan said firmly.

"I'll tell niichan all about your little boyfriend, Panny-chan." Mia whispered to her. "You know how he'll freak out..."

"I told you that in the strictest of confidence!" She glared at her briefly. "Alright, fine. Hai, his love does have saiya-jin blood. I'm not telling you how much."

"They have to be at least half, Pan-chan! You're the only quarter and there are only two full. I'm not even thinking about them."

"Male or female?" V.J. asked curiously.

"We're definitely not telling you that one."

"Male then," he decided. "That narrows it down to three people. Gohan, Goten, and Taura."

"Gohan is automatically ruled out because he's married."

"Yeah and he's my Papa!" Pan said. "That would too weird."

"Taura's ruled out because they just met in person today. So..." Everyone looked at Goten.

"Nani? Why are you all staring at me?"

"Goten, you and Trunks have been best-friends since you were toddlers. You're the logical choice."

"That doesn't mean a thing!" But he didn't look convinced. V.J. frowned at him.

"You know something, don't you. Trunks told you something and no one else."

"We did that sometimes, you know. We *are* friends." Goten rolled his eyes. "I like Kallen. I wanna marry Kallen."

Smiling sweetly, Vegeta spoke to him. "But Kallen doesn't want to marry you. Why not marry my niichan? You'll be happy together. It's not as if you don't already know everything about each other."

"Oh kami," Goten sighed. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Go talk to him. Papa should be finished by now. I think he was just nosey anyway."

"I have never been around people this strange before," Taura observed. "Especially since you're only two seperate families."

"This is definitely not the strangest thing to happen," Krillin told him. "They still surprise me and I've known Goku for over thirty years. Right now I'm going to watch them spar. It should be really interesting."

"I'll come too," Juuhachi-gou said as she followed. Marron hesitated for a moment and then spoke.

"Tell Trunks that I understand, okay? He didn't really seem like he was having fun on our dates anyway. V.J. I'll talk to you later." She left then, probably heading off to join her parents.

"Sounds ominous," Mia commented. "She's going to scream at you for lying."

"We have a big, huge, humongous problem on our hands." Jakina said in a worried tone. "You guys shouldn't have found out about niichan. He's gonna kill Pan."

"But they guessed it!" She said. "I didn't tell them anything and I didn't have to, Look." Pan crawled on her knees over to a nearby cabinet. Pulling a photo album from it, she started from the beginning and began to flip through. "Come on over here and I'll prove it to you guys."

"This is Trunks and Goten-ojisan at ages two and three with eleven year-old tousan in the corner here," she pointed to a glossy photo in the upper left hand corner. "You see all of this closeness here? I heard Trunks-chan was mean to him but Goten still remained his friend. Why is that?" She flipped a few more pages and pointed to another photo. The two chibi demi-saiya-jins had big grins on their faces and arms around each other's shoulders. "This is them at the tournament. Trunks is eight and Goten's seven. Ya see this?"

"I disagree," Bra said. "They would have never known if you hadn't of said they were saiya-jin."

"Have you ever met my tousan, my kaasan, and my obaasan?" Pan asked with one eyebrow raised.

"Of course I have bakayaro!"

"Then you know how they would freak out if Mia-obasan told him about that boy."

"Oh yeah, you're right. I would have told anything to get out of that situation."

Jakina was still insistent. "That's not an excuse!"

"Why argue over this?" Jas spoke up. "What's done is done. Nothing can change that." Neither girl heard him.

"What we need is a plan," Pan motioned for them to lean in closer. "Trunks will never have to find out I blabbed his secret."

As they discussed possible plans, Magori continued to play with his new toys and the other four adults plus Mia left the room, got coats, and went outside for a walk.

"How are you liking Chikyuu so far?" Mia asked as she pushed the button to electronicly close the gate behind them.

"It's really great!" Taura said with enthusiasm. "I would move here but there's all this paperwork to take care of to move my business and stuff. Besides, all of my family lives there."

"You would be helping us out a lot if you moved here. The man at the currency exchange place in Astra said that our unit of money couldn't be exchanged unless we had a booth on the trading floor. You could sell things for yen and we would be all set!"

"I would have to see what would be good about living on this planet," he said slowly. "I'm seriously thinking about it but there are things to take care of. What about you, Jas? Are you still going to be a Death Chaser?"

"We now know how to seal rifts am I correct? Kallen and I should go to every place where there is a rift and seal them up. Taura, you can stay here with everyone."

"I want to be there on Tale for the sealing. Once we're finished we can always make our way back to Chikyuu. We should be more than a few weeks but then again I have no idea how many rifts there are total."

"I have something that I wish to ask of you," Jas said. "How does a planet become a member of the Alliance?"

"Your planetary leader fills out forms One A, One B, and Once C and we get back to you." Vegeta smiled. "It's not hard at all."

His voice was filled with surprise. "We apply for a position?"

"I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Seriously though, your leader gets together with Papa and you make a deal. I should tell you now that Suk'dn-sei Namek-sei are a part of the Alliance."

"We don't have one leader for the entire world. There are many leaders for many areas."

"I have no idea how this will work, then. Chikyuu used to be that way but Papa's working on redoing the boundaries. At this moment we have over one hundred and fifty countries and several large races of people. I think he should seperate everyone by languages, not races. This planet is too huge and diverse to rule without designated areas."

"And without help," Mia added.

"Hai, he needs that too. Papa can only speak three languages and one of them won't even help him here. Imagine this, though: Trunks gets to rule it all when Papa dies."

"He won't die, remember? He has water from the immortality spring." Kallen frowned. "There has to be some way to use it for more than one person. Maybe Bulma-san can come up with something."

The entire group stopped on the sidewalk. "What do you mean?" Vegeta asked.

"Exactly that. Only one person can consume the water because there is only enough for one dosage. You can't split it in half or anything because it will lose some of its power. Half of the magical water will probably only extend your life maybe three or four hundred years. Imagine how surprised you would be if one day you go to sleep and the next day you're checking in with Enma."

"Kami!" He exclaimed. "I hope kaasan finds someway to change that. But seriously this has been a very good year. After what happened earlier this year I'm surprised that everyone was able to bounce back this quickly. I can't say that it's just like nothing happened but this is pretty close."

"Like Tiny Tim says in "A Christmas Story" 'God bless us, everyone'." Mia said this with a smile. "You guys want to go back now? It's about time for another saiya-jin mass feeding. All of the non-saiyan-jins are probably gonna gather somewhere and fear for their safety. C'mon, it'll be cool!"

Everyone laughed as she imitated both Goku and Vegeta's eating habits. They also laughed when she slipped on a patch of ice and landed on her back in a gathering snow drift, Vegeta the hardest.

"Not funny," she grumped as she brushed off the snow. "Just for that I'm eating your food, V.J." Mia ran off, laughing, for the palace.

"No! I'm hungry! You can't do that!"

"Watch me!" Was the only reply.

Chikyuu went through a terrible time eight months ago that harmed many people and terrified them all. In the months following the Kamoku-jin's attack and eventual defeat, Vegeta decided to unite the planet's people and form a more perfect society. One saying still stands true: united we stand, divided we fall.

~OWARI~

How did you like the longest book so far (485kb total)? Book three will be coming eventually so watch out for it. I have no idea at the moment if there will be a book four and five but I'm thinking about it. The whole Trunks & Goten thing was considered in the first version of this fanfic but then discarded. I changed my mind in the end. Here's a little hint about what's going to be in book three: read Once Upon a Dream. Seventeen chapters plus an epilogue isn't that bad. You'll thank me later.