Author’s Note: Arg! Another chapter! I’m working myself to the point of insanity here! Anyhow, things are definitely growing, and getting interesting! I say again—I don’t own any of the regular characters you’d find in the show or manga Dragon Ball Z. They are copyright of Akira Toriyama. Cyris, Laura, Sita, Nyome, Dora, Meah, and Valerie are MY PROPERTY! Also, keep in mind there’s plenty more to come! Enjoy!

~KASH

Cyris slowly trudged through the door of her aunt’s small two-story apartment house, ready to just sit down on the couch and relax by watching a couple of soaps before starting her homework.

"What a day," Cyris sighed, curling her striped hair behind her ears to get it out of her line of vision.

She took off her backpack and lazily dropped it on the floor next to doorway, slumping toward the living room.

"Hey!" she heard her Aunt Laura suddenly chirp as she passed the kitchen. She scurried into the room and gave her niece a big hug.

"So, how was school?" Aunt Laura asked, staring at Cyris anxiously, a smile of anticipation on her lips.

"Nothing much, considering it’s Twelfth Grade. Wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be," Cyris replied nonchalantly, shrugging.

"Now see, didn’t I tell ya!" her aunt laughed, slapping her niece lightly on the back.

Cyris rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but right now I’m ready to just collapse in front of the couch and watch some soaps on the tube before I start my homework," she sighed, running her fingers through her hair.

At that very moment, however, the front door quickly opened and shut. Two girls Cyris’s age quickly scuffled into the entrance of the kitchen, both with wide smiles on their faces.

One girl, the shorter and skinner of the two, had light skin, large jade-green eyes and light blue hair tied up into two loose pigtails. She wore a light pink shirt with a fat yellow stripe down the center that bore the phrase "Shopaholic!" in big yellow letters, tight fitting blue jeans, and Adidas dark blue sandals.

The other had dark brown skin, short but thickly curled black hair and dark brown eyes. Her black T-shirt had red flames streaking up the sides with matching black flares, glittery flames running up the sides as well.

"Hey!" they both chirped in unison.

"Valerie! Meah! What are you guys doing here?" Cyris exclaimed, a smile broadening.

"We came to check in on ya to see if the day went OK. Ya know, Twelfth Grade ‘n all," the black girl, Valerie, answered.

Meah nodded. "Yeah! We miss not seeing you at school anymore!" she pouted, sticking out her bottom lip.

"Are those the only reasons?" Cyris questioned with a tone of anticipation in her voice, crossing her arms.

Her two friends smirked. "That and we wanted some of your aunt’s home-made cookies!" they both laughed.

Cyris chuckled, shaking her head. "How well do I know you?"

"So, are you girls gonna just stand here all day or are you gonna go upstairs and hang out, like you usually do?" Laura sighed, handing Valerie an extremely large plate of chocolate chip cookies.

Cyris’s two friends bolted up to her room, both fighting over the cookie tray all the way up the stairs.

Cyris stared up at the ceiling, sighed, and then looked back to her aunt.

Her aunt shrugged. "They’re your friends. I don’t have to understand them."

______________________________________________________________________________

Gohan walked through the front door of his home, glad that a day of hard work—let alone saving the city and trying to avoid Videl—was finally over.

"GOHAN!!"

A split second later, Gohan found himself lying on his back on the floor, two large eyes peering at him through clumps of spiky black hair.

"Hi!" Goten chirped, sitting on his stomach with a huge grin on his face.

"Uh, hi Goten..." Gohan smiled weakly.

"Now now, get off of him!" Chi-Chi scolded, walking into the room. She picked up Goten by the back of the shirt and set him down on the floor, allowing her eldest son to get up off the floor.

Gohan sluggishly got to his feet and brushed off his shirt and pants, picking his backpack off the floor.

"Can’t you let your brother come home one day without being plowed over?" Chi-Chi moaned, shooting Goten a look.

"At least he didn’t knock me through the wall like last week, remember?" Gohan commented, taking off his shoes and setting them neatly next to the doorway.

"Goodness! How could I forget?!" his mother exclaimed, giving her youngest son another look.

Goten began to giggle, scratching the back of his head.

"Moving on—how was school?" Chi-Chi said, changing the subject.

"Weird, actually," her eldest son replied.

"How so?" she questioned, walking back to the kitchen to continue her cooking.

"We got a new transfer student in our class." Gohan began, following his mother into the kitchen and sitting down at the table, "Her name’s Cyris. She’s supposed to be a genius, but man, she seems to have it out for me!"

"Well, I bet she’s probably just all talk. Girls nowadays, right?" Chi-Chi smirked, smiling back at her son.

"Yeah!" Goten chirped, sitting down in a chair across from his brother, though he didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about.

"It’s weird though. Something seems...kinda familiar about her," Gohan murmured, staring down at the table.

"Oh! How about this—she’s some past villain in disguise, or something, and she’s going to try to kill you every chance she gets!" Chi-Chi laughed, chopping up some vegetables for her stir-fry.

Gohan shook his head. "Ha! Like anything like that would ever happen!" he snorted. "Please!"

Goten stared at them quizzically. "I don’t get it..."

______________________________________________________________________________

"Hey! No fair! You’ve had more than half of them! Give me the last one!" Meah complained, grabbing the plate of cookies from Valerie, glaring.

"Nu-uh girl! You’re the one who’s had the most!" Valerie protested, narrowing her eyes at the blue hared teen.

Cyris, having had enough of her friends’ complaining, got out of her chair at her computer, walked over to her two friends that were sitting on her bed, and grabbed the remaining cookie off of the plate.

"Hey!" her two friends both shrieked.

Cyris stuffed the cookie into her mouth and, without barely even chewing it, swallowed it.

"There. No more arguments," Cyris muttered. "Now would you kindly keep it down? I’m trying to do something and you two are being very distracting!" she huffed, stomped back over to her desk and sat down in her chair.

Meah glared hatefully back at Valerie. "It’s your fault, you know," she hissed.

"My fault?" Valerie growled, wrinkling her nose at her.

Meah jumped off the bed and trotted over to Cyris’s side to see what her friend was up to.

"Whatcha doin’?" she asked, pointing to the screen, cocking her head to one side.

"I’m looking for something on the Internet," Cyris answered, staring intently at the screen. "Hey Val, what was that site you told me about yesterday—the one about the Cell Games seven years ago?" "Uh, http:www.herculevictory/tournament/cellsucks.html, I think."

"Thanks."

Cyris quickly typed in the address into her Web Search. In almost a split second, a site popped up with huge pictures of Hercule pasted all over the place.

This looks more like the "Bum of the Year" site to me, Cyris thought, curling her lip.

Valerie, out of curiosity, got up and walked to Cyris’s other side to watch her. "What are you looking for?" she questioned, resting her head on Cyris’s shoulder.

"A picture," Cyris replied. "Would you believe that I’ve never seen a picture of Cell before?"

Her friends’ jaws dropped.

"Are you serious?!" they both exclaimed, eyes wide.

"Unfortunately," Cyris sighed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

"So, why the sudden interest?" Meah inquired.

Cyris just stared at the screen in thought. "I don’t know," she whispered.

Cyris quickly opened up the Pictures Section of the site and began rummaging looked through the images.

"God, are they all of Hercule?!" she groaned agitatedly after a couple minutes of searching, finding nothing but Hercule, Hercule, and more Hercule.

Suddenly, as she was scrolling down to get to the end of the infinite list of Hercule pictures, one that flew past caught her eye.

"Ah-ha!" she chirped triumphantly, moving her mouse back up toward the name.

"Cell."

"Wow! There’re fourteen pics of Cell here!" Meah awed, leaning further over Cyris’s shoulder, her nose touching the screen.

"Makes ya wonder how many guys died trying to get ‘em, don’t it?" Valerie smirked, crossing her arms.

"Well…here goes," Cyris whispered, clicking on one of the picture titles.

"Geeze! All of these stupid pictures are from a distance!" Cyris exclaimed after a couple more minutes of searching through the pictures.

"Yeah. Bummer, huh?" Meah sighed, resting her elbow on the computer desk.

"Well, look at it this way—at least you know what he looks like from, what, twelve feet or more," Valerie laughed, curling back her hair.

"A lot of good that’ll do me," Cyris groaned, looking agitated.

"There’s still one left. Maybe that’s just the one you’re looking for!" Meah sang, jumping up and doing a curt little spin.

"Oh…I gotta go. I’ll stop by tomorrow, OK?" Valerie said, looking away from her watch and heading toward the door.

"OK. Thanks for stopping by," Cyris replied as her friend exited, closing the door behind her.

"So, lets see that picture!" Meah chirped, looming back over Cyris’s shoulder to observe.

God I hate it when she gets like this… Cyris thought. "Here we go," she breathed, clicking lightly the mouse.

Cyris must have had a look of pure shock and horror on her face.

There, on the screen, was Cell. His cold, piercing, lifeless pink eyes staring right at her; into her soul.

"Wow! That’s a good one!" Meah exclaimed, smiling.

Cyris didn’t show any reply. She just kept staring straight at the screen, into Cell’s eyes.

"His eyes..." she whimpered. "His ey-eyes-s…"

Her breathing suddenly became rapid—her heart racing.

"Cyris? Are you OK?" Meah questioned, looking at her friend nervously.

Cyris began to shake uncontrollably. She tried to push back her chair, but ended up loosing her footing and crashed onto the floor. She scooted herself hastily along the floor and into the nearest corner of the room, staring ahead blankly.

"Cyris!" Meah screeched, dropping down in front of her. She grabbed her friend’s shoulders and began to shake her, trying to snap her back to reality.

"CYRIS!!"

* * *

Cell and Goku stood poised twelve feet away from one another in the air high above the tournament ring, both with serious expressions.

"You almost fell out of the ring," Cell began, breaking the silence, a smirk appearing on his lips. "If you had, I would’ve been declared the winner of this little match of ours."

Goku raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Is the game too hard for you? Should I make it easier?" the bio-android continued. "Perhaps this will make things a little more interesting!"

He slowly outstretched his hand, aiming his palm toward the ground below.

"Hold on! What are you doing?" Goku demanded.

"I am tired of being confined to that ring anyway. Oh—and you might want to tell your friends to...clear the area," Cell cackled.

The Super Saiyan’s eyes went wide.

Cell chuckled, a sinister smile on his face, eyes shining.

Goku spun around. "Hey! Get away from the ring!" he shouted to his fellows. "NOW!!"

Cell summoned up his ki and fired an earth-shattering blast at the ring, making it exploded into thousands of tiny pebbles, the ground cracking and shaking.

After the thick clouds smoke and dust cleared, all that was left was a huge gaping hole in the earth’s surface.

"Whoa! Cell blew the ring up!" Krillin exclaimed, regaining his footing, eyes wide open, disbelief written all over his face.

Cell slowly lowered himself back down to the ground, letting out a small squeak when he landed. "How do you like that, Goku? It’s quite an improvement, don’t you think?"

Goku landed back down a couple of feet away from Cell, still staring at him with that serious _expression.

"Now the whole desert is our ring! Let’s say that the last one standing wins the game," Cell snickered, staring playfully at the saiyan.

"I see. So it’s a fight to the finish?" Goku concluded, a small smile spread across his lips.

"Would you have it any other way?" Cell laughed, his smirk broadening.

"No. I guess not," Goku shrugged, beginning to stretch.

The genetically engineered villain turned to completely face his opponent, stretching out his arm. "Right. That’s enough talk Goku. Now—it’s time to continue the game."

With barely a second to blink, Cell fired an energy blast toward his competitor. Goku quickly leapt out of the way, flying low, but swiftly along the ground.

Cell sped after him, firing ki blasts just barely missed by an inch.

"Get outa there Goku!" Krillin shrieked to his friend, watching worriedly from the sidelines.

Goku flung himself up, spun around, and fired a couple of shots to deflect Cell’s numerous attacks, erupting the sky with blinding light, spewing tiny particles of rock every direction.

When the light died down, Goku charged at his foe; the two broke out with a wild outburst of punches. A golden aura surrounded the two fighters—the ground beneath them began to shake violently, all rocks close enough began to crack into pieces, flung in every direction by their immense power.

"They’re even! Not only are they equal in speed but now they’re equal in power as well!" Trunks awed, wide eyed.

What is the secret to Kakarot’s power?! Vegeta pondered, watching the competitors intently.

Finally, the lock between the two competitors broke by each punching the other violently in the face. They lunged back to one another in another wild scramble of kicks and punches.

Goku flew into Cell and hit him hard in the jaw, sending the android crashing into the rocky terrain desert terrain. The Super Saiyan flew down toward his rival, ready to attack as soon as he surfaced.

Cell leapt angrily out of the ground and back onto solid earth. With a yell, he fired a savage array of energy blasts at Goku.

The Super Saiyan stopped instantly and blocked the blasts, creating a huge cloud of light and dust around him. After a moment of regaining his bearings, he lunged high into the sky.

"Look! Goku! He’s way up there!" said Krillin, gazing toward the sky at his friend. "Hey, what’s he doing?"

"Kaaaaaaaaaa…meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." Goku started, standing in his most famous attack pose.

"Everyone! Get down! Take cover! Get moving! Goku’s releasing the Kamehameha!" Piccolo screeched, fear in his eyes.

A wide smile spread across Cell’s face. "Goku wouldn’t dare unleash the Kamehameha from there, he’ll destroy the Earth if he does!" he snickered.

"Ah just relax guys, Goku’s crazy but he’s not that crazy. There’s nothing to worry about," Krillin reassured, waving his hand nonchalantly.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...!"

"No! Goku!" Cell shrieked, his eyes widening.

"No don’t do it! Please Dad don’t!" Gohan pleaded.

"No! He wouldn’t!" the bio-android exclaimed, trying to persuade himself.

All of a sudden, Goku vanished right into thin air.

Cell’s eyes widened. Slowly, he lowered his head to look down in front of him.

There, standing before him, ready to fire, was Goku.

"NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Cell screamed out.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

* * *

"NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Cyris screamed out at the top of her lungs.

Her Aunt Laura, who was kneeling down in front of her, was so surprised at the sudden outburst she fell backwards onto the floor.

Meah let out a yelp, jumping at the sound of her friend’s scream.

Cyris stared at her Aunt Laura for a few seconds in confusion, and then a river of tears broke. She leapt into her aunt’s arms and buried her face into her shoulder. Laura wrapped her arms around her niece and patted her on the back.

Meah flopped down next to them, about ready to burst. "Thank God you’re all right!" she exclaimed.

After a moment, Cyris managed to calm herself down a little. She looked up at her friend and gave a weak smile.

"Please do us a favor and don’t plan on doing that again any time soon!" Meah sighed, looking as though she was about ready to start crying too.

Cyris hastily wiped the tears from under her eyes and gave her friend a hug.