Chapter Four
Vegeta growled angrily, "Woman!!! Will you fix the blasted Gravity Machine, already?!" he yelled at Bulma, her whole upper body buried in the machine's wiring and chips.
She backed out of the inside of the machine and looked at Vegeta, "It's not my fault that you tried to push it too high! You know that it was never meant to go passed 300 times normal gravity! But would you listen? Noooooo!" She grunted angily and entered the inside of the machine once more. "This is a good opportunity to get to know Kinira. By the way," she said, her voice muffled slightly. "I bought a book for you. It's next to the computer."
He glanced to where Bulma's computer was, and saw a yellow book with red lettering on it, and various crayon drawings all over the cover of parents and children looking happy together. He picked it up and read the cover, "'A Single Parent's Guide to Parenting: Book VIII--Raising the Artistically Gifted Child.'" He stared at it, confused. "What is this, Woman?"
"Kinira loves art, and you have no idea how to handle it. Also, there are a few books that the Clerk said I should take for you. They should be right next to that one."
Vegeta picked up the other books that were near and read off the titles, "'Raising a Teenage Girl,' 'The Cosmic Child,' 'Parenting for Dummies,' 'Your Little Fighter,' 'Birds, Bees, and Sweaty Palms'...?" he asked in confusion. "You have got to be kidding me!" He then noticed a white book on the desk, "'Passion on the Beach'...?"
"Whoops!" said Bulma, immidiately getting up and dusting her hands off. "That one's for me, but the rest are all yours."
"And why--exactly--would you think I would need these?" asked Vegeta angrily.
"Because, you don't have a clue, parent-wise. I'm the one who is practically raising her! All you do is train her until she's too exhausted to lift her pencil and finish her homework. Fortunately, she finishes a lot of her homework in class."
"That's not true!" yelled Vegeta angrily. "I raise her just as well as you do, better than you do! I don't need human books to know my own child."
"Is that so?" asked Bulma, wiping some excess oil off of her hands. "If that's true, then what's her favorite color?"
"... ... ..."
"What's her favorite food?"
"... ... ... ..."
"What's her favorite song?"
"Uh... ... ...Well..."
"No answer? Well, what is her best friend's name?"
"I... Uh..."
"What's the color of her eyes?"
"Uhm... Green!"
Bulma crossed her arms, "Well, that's one out of five questions about the things that every father should know, Saiyan or not. Now, I've got a lot of work to do, so why don't you go upstairs and read those books?" Vegeta snorted in disgust and trudged upstairs, the pile of books under his arm.
He walked into the living room and plopped down in a red armchair, and set the pile of books on the coffee table in front of him. He picked up the yellow book entitled 'Parenting for Dummies' and began reading.
After the first few chapters, he noticed that Kinira was lying back on the green couch in front of the wide side of the coffee table. She seemed to be drawing in a sparkling blue-covered book. He decided--since he had nothing better to do--that he might as well try some of that 'bonding' that the books had suggested.
He stood up and walked up behind her as she chewed on the eraser on the tip of her pencil. He looked over her shoulder and saw that she was doing one of those drawings he had occaisionaly heard about from Bulma. He quickly snatched the book away from her, "Heeey!" Kinira screeched in anger, but silenced herself once seeing that her father was the one who held her sketchbook.
He eyed the drawing, it was a very dramatic picture of the Eternal Dragon, Shenlong, floating in a starry sky over a high flaming forest. Then he realized, after thoroughly looking at the sketch, that his daughter's artwork was really quite good. "... ... ...Good," he said after a moment of silence.
Kinira looked up at her father and cleaned out her ears. "... ... ...What did you say...?"
Vegeta met eyes with Kinira, "I said that your sketch was good. Is this something you do often? When you aren't training?" She nodded as he began flipping through the pages, occaisionally stopping at certain sketches that caught his eye. "What's this one?" he asked, pointing out a picture of a girl with dry and very stringy brown hair.
"Oh, that?" said Kinira as she scooted over so Vegeta could sit down beside her. "That one's of a friend of mine from school. Her name is San."
"Is she your 'best friend?'" he asked, recalling Bulma's recent question.
"Nope, that would be Aki," said Kinira, pointing to a girl with short hair in pigtails on the previous page.
"I see..." Note, Kinira's best friend is a girl named Aki, thought Vegeta. This alone was more than anything he had known about Kinira, all except that she was excellent at kicks and needed work on the sword-hand block. Besides those two and what she looked like, it was all he knew about her. That's pathetic... he thought.
Then he realized that it was even more pathetic that he was listening to a human book. The Prince of all Saiyans! He sighed slightly, and went back to flipping through the sketchbook. He stopped suddenly at the drawing of a boy around Kinira's age. Bang--the instinctive Father fangs went out at the thought of a boy in thier little girls' life. "Who is this?"
"New guy, name's Trunks. He's kinda cute, but he never says a thing..."
A bullet of nervousness shot through him. "Y-You're not--you know..." He nodded pointedly at the light blue book entitled 'Bird, Bees, and Sweaty Palms.' "...Are you?"
Kinira gave her trademark eyebrow-raise. "Dad--please--we haven't even had lunch." He nodded in relief and went back to flipping through the books. What is with him? she thought. This was definately not anything natural. Obviously, something had gotten to her father and turned him into one of those creepy sitcom parents that said everything their children did was 'swell.' Frankly, she liked it just fine when he was just the strong silent type for a father. She didn't mind that he was tough on her, she liked it. It showed that he knew that she could take it. It showed that he knew she was tough. She loved that quality about her father.
"Uh... Daddy...?" she asked, a little afraid.
Vegeta looked at her, "What is it?" he asked, concerned.
She scooted away, slightly. "Uh... Why are you acting so creepy?"
"What do you mean? Go ahead and tell me--you can talk to me about anything, you know," he said, repeating something he had read in 'Raising a Teenage Girl.'
She pointed at him, almost accusingly. "See? Right there--creepy!" she shrieked with emphasis. "Come on, since when do you do all of that 'Leave it to Beaver' stuff?"
He looked confused, and slighltly angered. He crossed his arms over his chest, placing the sketchbook on the coffee table. "Since when is it 'creepy' that I spend some quality time with you?"
"Spend time with me? What are you talking about--you spend plenty of time with me! And--whoa-whoa-whoa! Did you just say quality time???" She back-flipped from the couch and got into her fighting stance. "Alright, you creep! Who the freak are you and what have you done with my father?! And don't you play any games with me, pal--I don't play 'good girl, bad girl'--I go straight from bad girl to worse girl!"
Vegeta smirked, "At least I know that you can handle yourself well." Huh? Kinira thought. "Kinira, it's me. I was just trying to get to know you better."
"Get to know me better?" she repeated in confusion. She hesitantly sat down, "You don't need to get to know me better, you know me better than anyone I know--even Aki doesn't know me better than you do. I know that she knows all of my favorite colors and foods and styles and stuff, but that's just superficial stuff! You know everything about me--everything from my eating habits right down to my problem with sword-hand blocks. You remember when I came to earth for the very first time?"
Vegeta nodded, "I remember."
"Remember how you were clueless on what to do about me? And, then, I asked you to train me. And--just like a good father--you recognized what I needed and came through. You saw how much I wanted to be stronger and--like a good father--you were tough on me. Not just because you were pissed off at me for throwing your life out of balance, but because you knew that I could take it! That's what I like about how you train me.
"And remember how I was just getting used to stuff on earth? You know, like the difference in gravity? Like the way people were so different and didn't share the will to fight? Like the infiriority the people here had of other galaxies and planets? Like how there was no fear or knowledge of Frieza? Like the lightning and thunder? I was so scared of those loud noises that I couldn't even think straight!"
He laughed slightly, "I remember that--you screamed every time something banged."
She crossed her arms as her father laughed, "Yeah, but that was when I was a little kid... I'm totally over that, now--WAHHH!!!" She jumped at the sound of a loud boom in the basement, and the next thing Vegeta knew, Kinira had landed in his lap just like when she was a little kid. He began laughing hysterically. Kinira's face drew into a scowl and crossed her arms, "I'm still entitled to one fear." She then noticed the books on the coffee table, "'Your Little Fighter'...? Is this the reason you were 'getting to know me'? Because of all these books?"
He stopped laughing, "I think I know a way to use those books that both of us can enjoy."
"READY?" Vegeta shouted up to his flying daughter from the ground. She hovered high above Capsule Corp. and waved down.
"I'M READY!" she yelled back.
Bulma sat up at the sound of odd noises coming from outside. She wiped the oil off her hands and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. She looked in the living room, Vegeta, Kinira, or the books were nowhere in sight. The noises grew louder as she made her way to the window. She looked out the window, seeing nothing but a bunch of pale ki flashes flying and zipping around.
They broke apart and she saw Kinira and Vegeta on the ground, both in their own trademark sparring stances, Kinira's looking like something from Bruce Lee; she jumped very far back. Vegeta began powering up as Kinira raised her arms as if she were about to do a cartwheel.
She cartwheeled across the yard, powering up at the same time. She looked as if she were a spinning wheel of blue light. Vegeta raised his ki energy, and created a huge dome of power. Kinira spun away and up the wall of one of the Capsule Corp. buildings as if she were a loose motorcycle wheel. Everything from there was covered in ki energy. The all of the windows on the second story shattered and Bulma was blasted back and knocked unconcious. She was jogged back to concousness at the feel of getting hit on the head by a book.
She shook her head and picked up the charred and destroyed book that hit her on the head and read off the title. "'The Cosmic Child'...?" She frowned and sighed in frustration, they used her books for target practice...? "Well, at least they're using them..."
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Hi! I know that most of you haven't really looked over at this story, but, if you've gotten this far, I applaud you! Yay! Whoo-hoo! N-E-ways, I should have chapter five up next! Trunks will SURELY be included in the next chapter. Also, to those of you who have read my FF8 fic, Through My Eyes, I'm SOOOOOO sorry for the delay in the next chapter, but I'm working on it as we--er--I speak--er--write--er--you know what I mean! If you haven't seen it yet, perhaps you should? *looks hopefully up* Thanks! And--please be a responsible reader--and review! PLEEEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~Kayli