Future Scientists Of Earth!

"An entire month? You underestimate me, Val," he said with a comedically-timed shrug, attempting to make her laugh before they headed into the sea. "While I was gone, I came up with some ways to speed this up. Less crystals, less ki, more time spent actually saving people. Whenever we resurface, I'll show you the schematics that I put together. You'll like them--promise! And the other scientists are gonna think they're cool too. They might let me do stuff without yelling for once so that something can actually get done around here."

---

Swimming proved to be very fun for the halfling. Kronos had forgone most of his scuba-diving equipment in favor of a small mask that allowed him to breathe and speak, very important due to the amount of gawking he had towards everything. The ocean was cool! Squids were cool! Temples even cooler! Krakens...

'What the--woah--HOLY SHIT! Look at the size of that sucker, I never saw anything like this on Plant! Val, you've gotta take a picture or--"

'Oh, right. Human-ish!' For as awesome as the kraken might've been, he still had a job to do; more importantly, Valentine wasn't a warrior! Kronos's protective instincts kicked in rather quickly, flying towards Vak like a torpedo while unsheathing his sword.

"Fear not, valiant scientist!" he cheered with a knowingly-corny expression. "Our oversized mollusc over here doesn't stand a ghost of a chance!" With a (somewhat lopsided) swing, he hacked off one of the tentacles, turning himself into a bonafide blender as he hacked and slashed at the endless, writhing masses.  "Take that! And that! And a bit of this!"

'You're not done, are you, big boy?' Kronos pondered with a mischievous little look, diving deeper into the temple as opposed to backing away with Valentine. An injured, angry Kraken was too dangerous to leave alone; if the creature decided to run, he'd leave it alone, but if not...

Kronos bragged heavily about their achievements to the other scientist, yet these boasts were a lot less mocking than the ones from yesterday; he even subtly suggested that the scientists could be (half as) cool as him!

In spite of that confidence, receiving even a casual compliment from Valentine was obviously unexpected, causing Kronos to do a small double-take, blush more than he'd like, then look away in an attempt to be stoic. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!...I mean..."

"It was great work, not good. And I totally knew that already! S-so you don't have to patronize me!" He said, exasperated. "Although you did great too. W-whatever! Let's get to saving the world already!"

This was the first real job that Kronos had ever had. He wasn't alien to the concept of scheduled work, of course; creating a spaceship from scraps in a junkyard wouldn't be possible without a lot of focus, but that was more of a passion project. Chugging along in a proper organization, run by adults, in a group--you couldn't have described a bigger nightmare. If not for the Central City massacre making the teenager desperate, he would have dismissed the Alliance Company as useless. The only thing he'd expected out of this project was money...but at the end of it, Kronos was almost calling the scientists his friends. Of course, whenever prompted they were "inferior colleagues" or maybe even "begrudging acquaintances". But deep inside...this wasn't so bad, was it? It was what he'd always imagined the Teens of Tomorrow would be like....

---

"Kronos? What's wrong?"

A staunch, tall Saiyan strutted into a dark room, switching on the lights to reveal a dead quiet, nine-year-old Aspara. The woman took a seat next to her son on his bed, shedding her Vegetan armor to make her incoming hug comfortable. "You better not say nothing, boy! Ya only scrunch up your face this much when those meanies at school did something worse than usual."

Kronos did nothing but shrug, worrying his mother further. "...that's not like you, Aspara! You'd be screaming about these guys by now. If it's something serious, tell me. I'll make sure those dorks never forget it!"

He chuckled lightly. "It's, uh...it's almost nothin'. Just a bit of trouble with my teachers."

She sighed, knowing far too well what he meant. "They started to make fun of you for being half-Saiyan again?"
"Yeah."

Immediately, his mother sprung up from their bed and cracked their knuckles. "I thought I'd given those brats a piece of my mind already. Stay home, dear. Your mother's gonna be loud."
"Don't you have work, mom?"
"Ohhh, it can wait." With a final kiss on his forehead, she stormed out of his room with her armor in tow, leaving the halfling to this thoughts yet again.

Aspara took a breath of relief: for as sharp as his mom might've been, her impulsiveness sometimes stopped her from asking better questions. It would've been hard to explain to her that the nicest professor in the whole school, the only one who'd ever given him the time of day, turned out to hate him more than any bully ever could? How the hell do you put that into words?

---

Seven years later and Kronos still didn't know what to say in the face of such betrayal. He didn't even know what to think. All for the better: if there was one thing they had taken from their mom, it was knowing when to forget about everything, push away every single thought you have, and fight.

Mere moments after Yangcong demanded him to surrender, Kronos swung at him with his sword with full-force with a cold edge. He knew that sparing so much as a second to think of what just happened would break him harder than he could imagine.