Videl picked up a large crate of supplies off the small transport vehicle, and stumbled a bit under the weight, carrying it up to their new ship, which she personally thought was a downgrade. She climbed the ramp and nearly fell backwards, as her foot collided with a slippery pool of oil, or what she could only assume to be oil, that had leaked from the cracks in the roof. Two hands caught her shoulders and pushed her back up to where she could set the crate down.
"Whoa, careful there, Vi."
Videl let the crate fall to the ground, careful not to catch her fingers and looked back. "Thanks, Yamucha."
He put his hand on her hair and looked down. "You don't have to do the heavy lifting you know. You can help Kuririn run some diagnostics if they're too heavy."
Videl huffed, and folded her arms. "What, you think I'm not strong enough?"
Yamucha laughed and shook his head. "Come on, that's not what I said. Never mind, why don't you help me grab that big one." He said, jerking a thumb back at the transport. She nodded and walked back down the ramp, before grabbing one end while he grabbed the other. They both lifted it up, and began to slowly move towards the ramp. Videl took a deep breath and put her entire weight into lifting it up, and as she did she saw Gohan slide past her, pick up two crates and sprint back onto the ship ahead of her.
She huffed and tightened her grip. "Show off." The two carried it up onto the ship and set it down as Gohan sprinted back to grab another. Videl shook her head, and wiped her brow. She looked up at Yamucha who was watching Gohan run back and forth, while leaning on the crate with his forearm. Videl frowned and pulled her self up onto the crate, and sat there, quietly looking down at Yamucha. "You don't like him." She accused softly.
"What?" Yamucha looked like he had been jarred from a train of thought and he looked up at her. "No, I mean… it's not that." He said, folding his arms. "He seems like a good kid, and if he is Chi-Chi's son then he can't be all bad." He said, as Gohan sprinted past them again. "I'm just not sure if we should give him full amnesty yet."
"Amnesty?" Videl smirked, one eyebrow raising. "What does that mean?"
"I mean, we can't just trust him blindly. Who knows what Freeza's done to him all these years? I mean, for all we know, he could have been brainwashed and will be set off by a random trigger word." Yamucha said, looking up at him.
"Uh huh, sure." Videl nodded. "Are you sure this isn't about Bulma?"
Yamucha sighed and leaned back up against the crate. "I can't blame him for that, so no. It's not about Bulma. Besides, it's like Kuririn said, it can't be as simple as it seems. She's been gone for years, after all. Who knows what's happened?" He shrugged his shoulders. "What rubs me the wrong way about him, is what he did to you."
"What he did to me?" Videl frowned, leaning onto her knees. "What are you talking about?"
"He's attacked you twice now."
"Well yeah, but both times he was scared and panicked. He wasn't trying to hurt me."
"But he could have."
Videl looked down at Gohan who was carrying two more crates up over his head, like Atlas and watched him make his way up the ramp. "Alright, I'll give you that." She said quietly. "But I'm alright now. And he's not going to do it again."
Yamucha nodded. "No, he won't. If he knows what's good for him."
"Yep." Videl said, hugging him from behind. "You can have free reign if I ever get hurt." She laughed, a little before sliding off the crate to her feet. She looked back over at the Saiyan boy who was trying to balance the crates as best he could, and she smiled a little bit. She didn't think it would come to that. Gohan seemed like a nice guy. Suddenly she realized he was about to step in the exact same oil puddle she had landed in earlier and she gasped reaching forwards. "Gohan, watch out!"
Too late. The Saiyan boy fell backwards with a startled cry, landing on his back, with two heavy wooden crates laying on top of him. She winced at the noise and looked up, frowning. A few seconds past before she heard Gohan's muffled voice from underneath the two boxes that had him buried. "I'm okay!"
Gohan winced a little bit as Videl applied more ice to the large bruise on his forehead. "It's fine, really." He insisted quietly, reaching up to take the ice bag from her and hold it in place himself. He looked up at her and smiled a little bit. "Believe me, I've taken worse hits to the head than this."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me." She said, leaning back and putting her hands on her hips. She sat down across from him and Gohan laughed a little bit, even though it had been a joke at his expense he didn't mind it terribly much. He remembered his uncle demanding to know how many shocks to the head his father had taken as a child, and smiled a bit at the memory. His uncle hadn't exactly been a very kind individual, but he had come all the way to Earth just to save the life of his brother. It had certainly given him a few points in Gohan's book. He looked up at Videl who was just sitting there, staring at him. She looked like there was something on her mind, but then again he couldn't really be sure. He didn't have an awful lot of history with women.
"Is something wrong?" He asked, removing the ice bag and prodding the bruise tenderly. The swelling had gone down at least.
"How did you do it?"
"Do what? Slip and fall and bash my head on crates full of engine parts? With great skill and finesse." He joked a little bit, smiling at her.
"No, not that." She shook her head. "That thing you did on top of the ship. You blew a whole in that fleet, and I want to know how."
"I used my Ki." Gohan answered blankly. He wasn't sure what she meant.
"I know that, but how?"
"What do you mean, how?"
"I mean…" Videl said, biting down on her lip. "I've seen Tien and Yamucha do things like that before. Kuririn too." She said, leaning back onto her hands. "Heck, even 17 and 18 can do it, and I want to learn too."
"You don't know how to use your Ki?"
"What IS Ki?"
Gohan opened his mouth to answer, but then realized he was drawing an alarming blank on the subject. What was Ki? He wasn't sure how to answer that. "Ki is…" He started, picking the ice bag up again. "Well, you see it's um…" He scratched his head a little bit and finally realized no one had ever explained to him what Ki was. He looked up at her and frowned. "You know, I don't really know WHAT it is. I mean, I guess it's like your… energy, if that makes sense." He raised both his hands and summoned his Ki to his fingertips. A small glowing orb appeared in his hands and he manipulated it expertly. Videl leaned in closer to look at the glowing ball of light that Gohan held in his hands, and he looked down at it. "Everyone has it. The trick is learning to control it."
"How do you do that?"
"Well first…" Gohan was drawing another blank. He had no idea whatsoever. Now that it was second nature to him, he didn't even have to think about controlling it, it just came naturally to him. He looked up at her and frowned. "I guess it just takes practice."
"Show me."
"What?"
"I want you to teach me how to control it. I want to learn."
"Well… um…" Gohan rubbed the back of his head. "Okay, I guess." He said, quietly. He had no idea how to go about teaching something like this. He had given his little brother a few lessons on Ki, but he had never needed to explain how to control Ki or even what Ki was. Goten just seemed to understand and pick up on it more naturally than Gohan had when he had been learning. He looked up at Videl who was staring at him rather expectantly. He wasn't quite sure what to do or even what to say. "I don't know how to teach it, really, but I can try."
Videl folded her arms. "Well teach me the same way you learned."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because when I was learning, in order to show me what Ki was, my teacher threw me at a mountain."
It was dead silent in the room for what seemed like an eternity before Videl spoke up. "Threw you at a mountain?"
"Well, I mean… I wasn't hurt or anything." He said, looking from side to side. "Ki has a way of manifesting itself when you're under physical duress. I was a bit of a crybaby and kept insisting I couldn't do it, so he threw me at a mountain. The mountain actually came out worse for wear than I did."
The silence that followed was almost overwhelming, and Gohan wasn't quite sure what to make of it. And then, with no warning, Videl stood up, and brushed herself off and walked to the door. "Come on." She said, pulling it open. The door made a rusty squeaking noise that made Gohan wince. He pulled himself up, nonetheless and looked over at her as she stood in the doorway.
"Come on, where?" He asked, tilting his head to the side.
"We're going to go find a mountain."
The rest of the crew sat in the bridge of the new ship, mostly in silence. The only sounds that were made were the sounds of metal scraping up against metal, and the occasion electrical whirr that made promises of progress in making the consoles work, but never really went anywhere. The ship they had been given could only be called a piece of junk. In fact that had been 17's idea of what to name it. However, Tienshinhan had been the first to shoot that idea down. The ship didn't even appear to be that old, it simply looked like it had spent three years in a place that regularly rotated between heavy rain, sandstorms and blizzards. The outside was sloppily covered with a coat of red pain, which was cracked and peeled. The metal underneath appeared rusted and less than sturdy, and there were actually several places with huge gaping holes in them. This particular ship was going to take more maintenance than it had cost to buy it.
As the majority of the crew kept working, the door, which had needed to be pried open with a crowbar, opened with a heavy thumping noise. Yamucha walked in and looked around and coughed at the heavy clouds of dust that had been propelled into the air by the simple act of walking through the room. "Well, it's a good think we didn't pay too much for it…" He spoke up, coughing between words. "Everything has been loaded on board, despite a few mishaps." He said, sitting down in one of the old dilapidated chairs.
"Good, maybe when 17 gets back from the engine room we can start piecing something together that will get this boat in the air." Tienshinhan said, folding his arms over his chest. "Till then we'll have to work on getting some more metal plating for the outside of it. There's bound to be a vendor, somewhere in this place."
"Probably." Kuririn added, flipping a few more switches before returning to the panels full of wires. "This is going to take an awful lot of work, Tienshinhan."
"Well we don't have any other choice." Tienshinhan shook his head. "Every single ship in Freeza's army is going to be gunning for an Earth transport ship. This will keep us under the radar a while longer until we figure out what to do."
"What are we going to do?" Yamucha asked, leaning back in the chair and resting his chin in his palm.
"We're going to save Chi-Chi and Bulma."
"Sorry, I should have asked how."
"That's the part we're going to have to work on."
"Hey, come on." Kuririn said, pulling up a wire and clipping it off. "We'll figure something out. I mean, you saw what Gohan did to that fleet. With a fighter like that on our side, the odds are slightly more even."
"That's true. But Gohan is still on probation until we can be absolutely sure he can be trusted."
Before the conversation could continue any further, the door opened again sending more clouds of dust spiraling into the air. 17 walked through, smoothing his hair down, and looking awfully disheveled. "Well, I found out one of the problems with the engine." He said, brushing himself off. "Something small, furry and vicious was nesting in it."
"Did you get rid of it?" Tienshinhan asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Define 'rid'."
"Great. That's one more thing we'll have to deal with, then."
17 flopped into one of the chairs, and looked extremely disappointed when he found that it wasn't a swivel chair. "So what were we talking about?"
"Gohan." Yamucha said, looking over at him. "And if we can trust him completely or not."
"I think so." 17 said, leaning back, and stretching his legs out onto one of the many cracked and broken consoles.
"Do you really?" Kuririn asked, looking over in shock.
"Sure." 17 folded his hands behind his head lazily. "I mean, if he were going to kill us all he'd have done it by now. He's a strong kid. And honestly, we might not be a match for him. Well, I mean…. We might be." He said gesturing to his sister. "But you guys definitely wouldn't."
"Thanks." Yamucha said, slumping further into his seat. "As backhanded as that was, I think I agree with it. He seems like a good kid, and he hasn't hurt anyone yet, even though he did threaten Videl…" The thought seemed to stick out in his mind. "But, I think he's doing alright to prove himself. I mean he did knock a hole in Freeza's fleet. That's got to count for something."
"It does." Tienshinhan looked out the window, and frowned. "He honestly wasn't expecting us to pull him back in, and he really did try to save our lives."
"Well he seems like a good kid, anyhow." Kuririn said, leaning back. "And I don't think he'd ever do anything to hurt any of us."
Just as he said that, Gohan and Videl passed by the room, Videl leading the charge and Gohan running after her. "This is a terrible idea, Videl!" He called. "I'm not going to throw you at a mountain!"
The room was silent as the two disappeared down the hall. All eyes turned back to Kuririn who was just staring at the door way where the two had passed a few minutes ago. He shook his head and looked up at the rest of the crew. "Well I said 'seems' didn't I?"
