FERAL SCIENCE, CHAPTER ONE
    By Kitsune

    An early morning mist hung over the lake, as early morning mists tend to do. A bird in a tree chirped happily to its
 neighbor, who looked toward the lake, made a surprised squawking sound, and flew off. Piccolo didn't notice any of
 this, mainly because he had his eyes closed. He was doing his early morning routine of meditating above a lake and
 making the water ripple like mad underneath him. To tell the truth, he hadn't meditated over this particular lake in a
 long time. The last time he could recall being here was way back in the days when Raditz came. Rocks were just
 beginning to tremble and rise from the ground underneath him. Smirking inwardly to himself, Piccolo began to
 concentrate even harder
    Plish. All of a sudden, Piccolo heard the unmistakable sound of a rock landing in water. It wasn't the sound of a rock
 skipping across the water, he had scared off enough annoying rock skippers to know that, but definitely the sound of a
 thrown rock falling short of it's target. Nobody he knew was stupid enough to throw rocks at him while he was
 meditating.
    Slightly curios, but mostly just really annoyed, Piccolo opened one eye just in time to see another rock speeding
 towards his head. Whoever was throwing these things must've had a pretty good arm on them. Due to good reflexes,
 his arm shot out and the in the next instant, he had caught the rock in his hand. He squeezed it a bit and was
 rewarded with the crunching sound of a rock being crushed into a thousand and one little itty bitty pieces. He opened
 his other eye and saw the vague silhouette of a thin figure with long hair on the edge of the lake.
    "Go away! My lake, you hurt water, scare fish away, and I hungry!"
    "It's not a good idea to disturb my meditation. Take my word for it, you better go away, before I get mad." With that
 said, Piccolo turned around and resumed his meditation. Usually if you ignored annoying individuals like this, they
 gave up and went away.
    Then a good-sized rock bounced off the back of his turban.
    "I said YOU GO AWAY! I mean it!" Piccolo slowly turned around. He was seriously starting to get annoyed now.
    "Do you have a death wish or something?" He said coldly.
    "Death ...What? Weird man talk funny. You want fight?"
     "What?!"
    "We fight, yes? I win, weird man go away." Piccolo sighed to himself. He really wasn't in teh mood for this kind of
 thing. He was trying to meditate, not fight some country hick. He turned away from teh person and fired a small ki blast
 over his shoulder at the rock the he was standing on.
    Then another rock whizzed by his head, grazing the tip of his ear in the process. He turned around again and saw
 that the figure was standing next to the crater where the rock used to be and was looking very annoyed.
     "Come on, weird man with funny hat! Come out of lake and fight for real! I want eat!" the figure taunted.
    That did it. Nobody called his turban a "funny hat" and lived.
     "Why you little... Fine! If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!"
    There was no mistake about it. Piccolo was seriously pissed now. Add to that the fact that he did NOT have a good
 sleep last night due to some frogs in mating season who wouldn't shut up (he had fried them, needless to say), had
 woken up feeling especially grouchy, and was not at all in the mood for people annoying him.
 Normally he would just scare people like this away, but when they started chucking good sized rocks at your head and
 calling your prized turban a "funny hat", well, that was a different matter. He glided over to the edge of the lake and
 floated there, LOOMING over the person in the mist. There were a few things he noticed right off the bat. Namely the
 fact that this person was a girl. She looked a couple of years older than Gohan, maybe about thirteen or fourteen. She
 was short and skinny, and looked almost as if a big breeze could knock her over. No, wait, she wasn't skinny. She
 was wiry. She was thin, yes, but that thinness was all muscle. On second thought, it would probably take a lot more
 than a breeze to knock her over. She was wearing a ratty beige tunic, black pants, and had a wooden tube strapped
 across her back like Gohan's old sword case. Instead of a sword, he could just see the tip of a big stick poking out
 from between two strands of her blue hair, which came down past her waist and looked as if it hadn't seen a
 hairbrush in a decade.. She had a white bandana underneath her hair, although it was almost the same color as her
 gi because it was so dirty. Something was definitely odd about her though. Her skin looked a little weird, it had an odd
 tinge to it
     "What you looking at?! Are you pervert or something?!"
     This comment was so uncalled for that Piccolo almost fell into the water.
    "WHAT?!?!? ARE YOU CRAZY!?!?!?!? " The girl smiled grimly, as if satisfied, and took up a fighting stance. Piccolo
 blinked. Something was wrong with that smile, something not quite human. He looked again, but she wasn't smiling
 anymore. She was just standing there in her fighting stance, looking slightly impatient.
     "You ready fight now? Remember, I win, you go away. Come on land, I no fight floating in water." Piccolo grunted
 and landed softly on the grass. It was way too early in the morning for this kind of thing. He couldn't believe how stupid
 this was. He was about to fight some kind of vertically challenged cave girl with a stick... Nonetheless, she had
 seriously pissed him off, and he was ready to fight. Besides, he hadn't sparred with Gohan for a while, so he could
 use the practice.
    The girl took a good look at him and backed away a bit, startled. Piccolo smirked. The pointy ears, green skin, and
 pink muscles usually had that effect on people. Then she shook her head, as if to get her back to her senses, and
 resumed her position.
     "You ready fight? You not in position or anything."
     "I don't need to be."
     "Then we start!" she yelled. With that, she charged towards him and threw a punch. Piccolo easily dodged the blow
 and whacked her with his arm, sending her crashing into a nearby tree. Piccolo watched her for a few seconds. She
 wasn't moving.
     "Feh." He said. With that, he began walking back towards the lake to continue his meditation. All of a sudden, a big
 stick whacked him upside the head, making his eyes bug out.
     "I not dead yet!"
    Piccolo slowly turned around. She was standing there, back in her fighting position, holding her stick and looking
 very serious.  She slowly put her stick back in its sheath. All of a sudden she sprang at him, throwing dozens of
 punches at his stomach. Piccolo responded by dodging these and doing the exact same thing. Soon they were in a
 full blown fist fight, throwing dozens of lightning fast punches at each other and dodging each other's blows.
 Whenever she didn't manage to dodge one of Piccolo's fists, the girl ended up crashing into the same tree from
 before, but always sprang back at him, fists-a-flyin'. Finally, after getting bashed into the tree for the fourth time, she
 stood up and charged towards him again, except this time she ducked down and tried to sweep his legs from under
 him. Piccolo kicked her in the face. Instead of crashing into the tree, she did a somersault in midair and landed on all
 fours to soften the impact.
     "Y-you good But I still fight. No lose." She said, rubbing the large red footprint on her face and glaring at him. Piccolo
 snorted again.
     "I think you're a bit out of your league, kid...."
     "You being overconfident. I fight lots people, no lose yet." Piccolo had to smirk. This kid was damn lucky she hadn't
 met up with Vegeta. "And I no lose to freaky pervert-man, either!" she finished.
     Piccolo's brow ridges shot up in indignation.
     "I AM NOT A PERVER-" before he could finish, she dashed behind him. Instead of punching, she grabbed onto his
 arm and jerked him backwards. At the same time, she kicked forwards with her foot, tripping him over her
 outstretched leg and using his weight to her advantage, making him crash to the ground. This all happened so quickly
 and was so unexpected that Piccolo barely had any time to react. He sat up and gave the runt his absolute worst
 death glare as he adjusted his cape, which had flopped awkwardly over his left shoulder.
     "What you say?" She said, almost mockingly. Piccolo didn't say anything, but growled and stood up. His fist shot
 forwards, and probably would've taken her head clean off if she hadn't ducked just in time. As it was, Piccolo's fist
 became embedded in the tree. The girl jumped back, and whipped out her stick in one smooth, practiced motion. She
 then whacked Piccolo on the side of the head so hard that the stick knocked his turban clean off. Piccolo finally yanked
 his fist free and turned around. The girl stared at him in horror and began backing away slowly. *What's got her so
 freaked out?* He wondered. Oh. Right. The antennae. It was always the antennae.
     "W-where you get those?" she said slowly, pointing at his forehead.
     "None of your business." He said as he put his turban back on. The girl made a small "eeping" noise and backed
 away even more. All of a sudden, she straightened up and snarled at him, baring her teeth. Then she pulled her hair
 back and fixed it in a loose ponytail using a rag she had in her pocket. Piccolo's jaw dropped. Now he knew what was
 wrong with that smile. She had FANGS. And POINTY EARS . He wasn't exactly a social butterfly, but he'd been around
 enough humans to know that fangs and pointy ears weren't exactly the norm in most places. Before he could think
 about this, the girl sprang forwards, screaming "DIE, FREAKY PERVERT MAN!!!" at the top of her lungs. She lunged at
 him, flailing her fists in a mad frenzy. She didn't once hit him. Finally, Piccolo caught one of her punches. She pulled
 on her wrist with her other hand, but Piccolo's grip was like a vice.
     "Don't call me that again, if you--" Before he could finish his sentence, the girl whipped out her stick and whacked
 Piccolo across the wrist so hard that it left a purplish bruise mark. He immediately let go, and grabbed the collar of the
 girl's gi before she could get away. He jerked her up to eye level, which basically meant that she was hanging a few
 feet off the ground.
     "Now listen to me you little runt," he hissed, "I'm sick and tired of this stupid half assed excuse for a fight. If you ever
 come near this place, call me a pervert, call my turban a "funny hat", lob another rock in my direction or come near me
 with that stupid branch of yours again, you're deader than roadkill. So just run on home back to your stupid parents
 and never come near me again, especially when I'm meditating!" Piccolo bared his fangs at her to help get his point
 across. Anger and something else that Piccolo couldn't place flashed in her eyes at the mention of her parents. She
 narrowed her eyes at him and grinned evilly, but didn't say anything. She seemed to be concentrating on something.
     "Did you hear me?!" The girl didn't answer. Instead, she grabbed onto his wrist with both hands and squeezed.
 Piccolo felt a sharp burning sensation where her hands were, and realized that the girls' hands were glowing a pale
 blue color. He reared back his arm and flung her at the same tree from before, which now had a big splintery hole in it
 thanks to piccolo's hand. She crashed into it as usual, but quickly got back up, and was now looking more scared
 then ever.
     "Why...You" Piccolo obviously wasn't thrilled with getting his wrist burnt, especially since he now had two
 hand-shaped burn marks on his arm. The girl started running away towards the forest, while looking over her
 shoulder at him.
     "Hey!" She turned around, looking very scared. She then pointed one hand in his direction and shouted something.
    A huge blast of energy corkscrewed from her hand, straight towards Piccolo. He shielded his face from the blast,
 and braced himself for the impact. This attack looked particularly nasty. When the dust cleared, Piccolo opened his
 eyes. The girl was gone, and there was no sign of the seemingly huge blast that she had shot at him, no crater or
 anything, just clouds of dust. He stood there for a few seconds, completely silent. Then he found he had only three
 words to say about the whole
 occurrence:
     "What The Hell...?"

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