Gohan tossed the last empty plate on to the pile of others he had accumilated next to him signaling the end of his Saiyan sized meal, as the Capsule Corp. robots came out to clean up he stretched and let out a slight yawn.
"well i think its about time for us to hit the hay, my mum has had me out all day on royal duties as i will be missing some for the next week."
"yep good idea kiddo," Bulma responded "im going to fly you out so im off to get some shut eye too, honestly the things i do for you cutie." Bulma teased ruffling Gohans hair.
"sleep well Zangya, i will come wake you when its time to get ready."
Gohan waved as he wandered off towards his room, the robots had finished tidying and cleaning and scuttled off back to their various standby stations leaving Zangya in a now quiet sparkling kitchen, Zangya looked up at the clock, '9pm', and so with her head swimming with the excitement of tomorrows adventure she practically skipped off down the hallway to her own room.
It seemed like meer minuets had passed when Zangya found herself being woken softy by Gohan at 4am, as Gohan mentioned about breakfast being ready and dashing off after the smell wofting down the corridor Zangya dragged herself out of bed and pulled on the clothes she had pre sorted for todays traveling which consisted of a gray tracksuit and trainers, 'comfort is king in the wild' Bulma had said to her. Zangya followed the alluring breakfast smell to the kitchen where she found Gohan on what appeared to be his 11th helping of a full english breakfast, she looked at the clock 4:17, 'he works fast' she thought before sitting across from him and pulling a bowl and some chocolate cerials towards her, Zangya had developed a massive sweet tooth since settling on Earth and chocolate was always high on her hit list.
"Morning guys" Bulma greeted as she stepped through the kitchen door, "I will be starting pre flight checks shortly, all of your bags and equipment are being loaded by the bots now and it looks like you are going to have a nice day for it by the time we land."
"Thanks Bulma" Gohan responded finishing his breakfast, "Think i will take a little stroll outside, i will meet you down at the chopper in a little while."
As the clock struck 5am Gohan, Zangya and Bulma were strapping themselves into a luxury chopper, Gohan suspected it was supposed to be the prototype for CC's new top of the line international transport customers, settling back in the deep plush leather seats Bulma could be seen fiddling with swithes in the cockpit conpartment, suddenly her voice came over the intercom.
"What do you think guys? pretty sweet ride."
"Very nice, although are we actually allowed to use it?" Gohan asked.
"sure we are" Bulma asured, "i only finished building it yesterday so it needs a flight test before we sign it all off as a saleable product."
"so we are essensially guinea pigs then?" Zangya asked
"kind of."
Before anyone else could speak again Bulma had closed the intercom and started working the controls moving the aircraft out of the hanger and into open air where she quickly fired up the rotor blades and took to the sky, it only took a few minutes to climb safely above the city altitude limit upon which the main engine could be started, this consisted of several jet thrusters built specifically for this aircraft to be smaller than standard, a lot smaller, yet just as powerful. Even when the extra boost kicked in and they shot across the sky at great speed if you hadent have been looking out the window you might not have noticed, with fancy internal dampeners both sound and inertia are cancelled out giving an almost eiree quiet flight with maximum comfort, in fact Bulma was pretty sure the only way passengers would feel anything is if they were shot down.
The flight was pretty uneventful, Zangya had fallen asleep within 30 minuets of take off and Gohan was taking the time to meditate, Bulma was buisily looking over the instruments making slight adjustments when a prompt appeared on the GPS screen, she pushed the intercom.
"Gohan we are about 30 minutes out of the landing co-ordinates and will be switching to conventional flight mode for final aproach."
"Thanks Bulma."
Gohan took a few moments to take in the view, he was pleased to be greeted with the familiar sights of the same mountainous region that Piccolo had trained him in all those years ago before the saiyans first arived on earth, with memories flooding his mind he retook his seat and turned his attention to the snoozing Zangya, her head had flopped to one side causing a few loose bangs of hair to fall across her face and she was snoring lightly, Gohan couldnt help smile as he thought 'for all her tough act shes still a normal girl underneath, pretty cute too'.
"Are you actually going to wake her up or just sit and stare longingly at her?" Bulma joked.
"Shut up Bulma" was Gohans only response before turning his attention back to Zangya, "Zangya its time to wake up, we will be landing soon."
Zangya found herself being woken softly by Gohans voice as he shook her gently, as her eyes opened and adjusted she became aware of how close Gohans face was to hers causing her to rapidly change colour and almost jump out of her seat.
"i'm sorry i didnt mean to startle you," Gohan appologised retaking his seat.
Zangya regained her composure " Its fine, I dont know why I was so surprised I had to wake up at some point." she laughed weakly hoping Gohan bought it, which of course he did because its Gohan.
Gohan and Zangya fastened their seat belts and Bulma started her decent to the landing zone, as Bulma zipped over the ever closing landscape Gohan could see their drop off point on the horizon and with it a feeling of nostalgia or like returning to an old home, it had been far too long since he had been out in the wild properly he concluded. Soon Bulma was hovering over the point her sat nav told her was their destination, there was the edge of the jungle a couple of hundred metres away on their left, a stream cutting through it that terminated in a large lake a couple hundred metres the other side of the helicopter and a large mountain that rose up out of the jungle most of which was covered in jungle as if the trees were trying to pull the mountain down into its gloomy depths.
Bulma landed the helicopter softly and swithched off the engine, "ok folks you have arrived at your destination, please leave the aircraft in an orderly fashion and thankyou for flying air Briefs." she joked before leaping out of the pilots door, Gohan slid the passenger door open and stepped out into the fresh mountain air quickly followed by Zangya, they stopped to take in the view for a few moments before Gohan made a move, "well lets get our stuff from the hold and make a start, we have quite a trek ahead of us before we get to the camp site."
Bulma was making herself busy checking over all the systems of her prototype to make sure it had held up alright from its first test flight and had her head burried deep in the engine compartment fiddling around, Gohan opened a panel further down the side of the chopper to reveal their luggage, passing Zangya her bag Gohan slung his own over his shoulder and closed the panel, they said their goodbyes to Bulma who was now head deep in another compartment and strode off towards the jungle, it took a little over 5 minutes to cover the distance tothe jungles edge by which time Bulma had restarted the engine and was ready to take off, Gohan and Zangya waved as she zoomed off.
"Right, we need to follow this stream to our campsite," Gohan said pointing at a calm trickling stream that wound its way up through the landscape and into a dense jungle that seemed to consume a mountain.
"Remind me again why we didnt just fly there?" Zangya asked.
"Because if we walk we get to appreciate all that nature has to offer." Gohans face was glowing with unbridaled wonder as he tightened the straps of his bag and set off following the winding stream. Watching Gohans face fill with wonder and enthusiasm by being surrounded by nature and the possibilities of adventure Zangya couldnt help thinking how cute he looked, in battle he was powerful, ruthless and unrelenting, however in normal surroundings you would never assume that this happy, carefree, polite and rather docile young man was capable of hurting a fly. Zangya found Gohans split personality a huge turn on, his battle persona made her blood boil with passion and desire while his regular persona makes her fell all warm, cuddly and affectionate, it was driving her crazy, she had never had feelings like this before and had no idea what to do about it.
Zangya set off following Gohan, who had stopped to watch a shoal of fish leap up some small rapids, after the last one had made it up he continued on up stream Zangya hot on his heels as they aproached the outskirts of the mountainous jungle. Gohan stopped to pull out a medium sized machete, which he then tested the sharpness of, and two head lamps one of which he secured to his own head and the other he passed to Zangya.
"what do we need these for its only mid morning, now a pair sunglassed they would be most welcome."
"The jungle gets pretty dense in a few kilometers pretty much no light makes it to the jungle floor, then for some time it will be like walking in the middle of the night during a lunar eclipse." Gohan responded.
Gohan set off into the jungle swinging his machete every now and then at stuborn bits of undergrowth that couldn't be brushed aside, Zangya was impressed by how Gohan seemed to know exactly where he was going despite not having any obvious land marks or even a map, occasionally he would stop to show Zangya rare and unusual things he even seemed to have an affinity with the local wild life, a few times she could have sworn animals appeared just to greet Gohan before scuttling back into the depths of surrounding trees. In a small clearing that they seemed to stumble on out of nowhere Gohan stopped, threw off his backpack and stretched out in the pool of sunlight they now found themselves in.
"Time for a light snack i think," Gohan checked his watch, early afteernoon, "definitely time for a snack."
Gohan busied himself unpacking a picnic, handing Zangya a plate of sandwiches he set out other nibbles on a nearby tree stump and started helping himself to a massive plateful of everything.
"Is there much further left to go Gohan?"
"Its only about an hour hike from here," Gohan said between mouthfuls "But it gets a lot steeper from here, it will be worth it though."
"Oh that i dont doubt."
They rested for a while longer, then with the remains of their poicnic packed away they left the clearing to continue their journey, soon the jungle was so dense the only light was coming from the head torches and pretty much all Zangya could see was the back of Gohan, however after another dozen or so steps she thought her eyes were playing tricks what apeared to be fairly large glowing mushrooms started appearing across the jungle floor.
"Gohan, are those mushrooms glowing?"
"yeah a very rare variety, it only grows in this mountain range."
Zangya was now taking much more cautious steps as Gohan guided them close by the streams edge it also seemed to now be very fast white water and she could definately the roar of a large waterfall nearby and the sweet smell of wild flowers before they burst suddenly out into the bright mid afternoon sun, after her eyes had adjusted she could fully appreciate the beauty of where they were, they had come into a large clearing the waterfall Zangya could hear was cascading down a 20 meter cliff face at the far edge that flowed into a large pool in the middle that covered about 40% of the clearing, around the edge of the pool was a golden sandy beach with the odd cluster of trees providing welcome shade as well as growing some exotic looking fruits, the aroma inside the clearing was divine, sweet yet subtle, her eyes eventually wandered back to Gohan who had been stood watching her.
"Well shall we get settled in" he smiled clicking a deluxe tent capsule he had and tossed it down.