~~~

Hero? Doubt it

Chapter 7 – Flying Lessons

Written By RJ

~~~

Disclaimer: don't own it.

Thanks guys for the reviews. Sorry it took so long to update, I have finished this story, but it's the actual getting motivated to put my files onto a floppy disk, transferring them to my parents' computer and uploading them is a whole other thing…=D…well anywayz, enjoy.

~~~

"Now, to fly, you gather your ki energy and push it out under you, it's quite simple really" Gohan said

Videl raised her eyebrow when Gohan said 'simple' but she knew she had to do it, not just for herself, but for some strange reason, she wanted to make him proud of her.

Videl took a deep breath and closed her eyes and concentrated on gathering her energy.

"Relax your muscles" Gohan coached her softly

Videl did so, instantly, she felt the change and she felt really light and floaty.

"Now push the energy out from your feet" Gohan said softly

Videl clenched her fists by her sides, but remembered Gohan's instruction about relaxing and unclenched them, letting them dangle uselessly by her sides.

She gathered up her energy and let it slowly move through her body until she felt it moving down her legs, it was a really strange feeling, but Videl didn't let that distract her, she moved the energy down more until it got to her feet and with a final push, she pushed a little of it out below her.

Suddenly, she was off the ground, Videl snapped her eyes open to see how much she had risen into the air, granted, it was only a few centimetres, but to Videl, that in itself was a great achievement, seeing as she'd only been learning about this for a day.

Not letting the feeling of happiness distract her, she concentrated on pushing more of her energy out so she'd rise higher.

She rose further and further into the air until she was a couple of metres in the air.

Suddenly, she felt really tired and wanted to come down. She sweatdropped. She didn't know how to get down.

"Uhhh, Gohan...how do I get down?" she asked

Gohan laughed a little "You just drop the amount of energy you are pushing out, but don't cut it all at once, you might find yourself in a rather uncomfortable position on the ground"

Videl nodded and closed her eyes once more, concentrating on cutting the energy she was putting out slowly.

After what seemed like ages, she finally reached the ground and she flopped over and lay down on the ground, arms and legs splayed out at rather awkward angles, breathing heavily, but she had a huge smile all over her face.

"Well done" Gohan congratulated her "It usually takes ages to learn this kind of stuff, you have really good control of your powers, for a human"

Videl smiled at the compliment and blushed slightly "Thanks, Gohan" she said, "I can't wait until I can fly like you do"

"That will take a lot of practise" Gohan said "But you can come here anytime and practise, no one will see you"

"That's cool," Videl said, then added, "Is it normal to get really tired when you're flying?"

"Yeah, when you're learning, and probably cause you've only just learnt how to control your ki, and all in one day even, but you'll probably sleep well tonight, that's for sure" Gohan said, "I remember one day when I was learning, I fell asleep in mid-air and let's just say, I had a rather rude awakening"

Videl giggled "I can imagine"

Silence fell over the area for a second, but was broken by Goten as he flew in on Nimbus, even though he could fly under his own power, he enjoyed flying with his golden, fluffy friend.

"Gooohhannn!!!" Goten called from quite far away.

Gohan and Videl both looked towards the chibi sitting on the little cloud.

"Gohan! Mum said I have to come and play with you" Goten chirped, Chichi must have gotten sick of him hanging around and sent him out to find his big brother.

"Okay then, Goten" Gohan said as his cute little brother jumped off Nimbus and landed on the ground beside the two teens.

"Gooohannn" Goten said in a whiny sort of voice "When are we gonna do our proper training?"

"Later, Goten, I'm sure Videl wouldn't wanna watch us spar" Gohan said, crouching down so he was the same height as his little brother.

"But I wanna spar and Trunks can't come over, he said he was grounded" Goten said sadly.

"Grounded? What did he do this time?" Gohan asked, amused, the pranks that Trunks pulled were usually aimed at Vegeta, but they were always really funny, not that he'd ever let the Saiyan Prince know that.

"He made everything in the house taller so Vegeta thought that he was shrinking, and he even made Bulma to wear her tall boots too" Goten said "And he was really mad too"

Gohan tried not to laugh when he heard that, the Saiyan Prince was always very self-conscious about his height and something like this must have really pushed him over the edge.

"But that's nothing compared to what we did to him last time" Goten said proudly "Last time, Bulma was gonna make us all go shopping with her and she needed to get Trunks some new clothes and she was annoyed with Vegeta and she made him come too, and me and Trunks put a sign on his back which said 'Point and laugh', it was really funny coz people actually did point and laugh, and Vegeta was getting really annoyed cuz he couldn't figure out what they were doing for ages, then finally Bulma told him about the sign"

Gohan laughed, Vegeta could be quite oblivious to things sometimes.

Silence fell over the three for a second and suddenly, Gohan noticed the rapidly clouding over sky.

"Uh, guys, I think we're in for a bad storm" he said as he turned his gaze back to Videl and his brother.

Goten and Videl looked up at the sky and right on cue, a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, lightening up the rapidly darkening sky.

A loud roll of thunder followed soon after and before they knew it, rain was pouring down like nothing before.

"Dammit" Gohan muttered under his breath and motioned for his brother and Videl to follow him, he knew of a cave near here and now would be a good time to make use of it.

"Gohan? Where are we going" Videl called out to him over the noise of the falling rain.

"Don't worry, we'll get there in a second" Gohan shouted back and they ran into a small patch of trees and to a cliff wall on the other side.

Gohan ran along the cliff face for a few paces and suddenly stopped.

"Up there!" he shouted over the rain and pointed to an opening higher on the cliff face.

Goten immediately took flight and entered the cave and Gohan grabbed Videl and quickly followed him into the dark depths of the cave.

Videl restrained herself from making a noise as Gohan unexpectedly grabbed her and flew up towards the cave.

She held on tight to his slippery, wet clothes as he rose through the air.

Suddenly, she felt him stop moving and he let go of her. She waited for a second to regain her balance before she pulled away from Gohan.

"Goten" Gohan said, getting his brother's attention "There's some wood back in the cave a bit, can you get it please"

Goten nodded and ran off to complete the task, coming back a few seconds later with a large pile of wood, which looked too big for the chibi to manage, but Goten seemed to manage just fine. He quickly dropped the wood in a pile in the middle of the cave and set it alight with a small bit of ki.

Soon the fire was burning nicely and Gohan, Goten and Videl were sitting quite contentedly around the fire. The rain outside was showing no signs of letting up, but despite all of that, Videl was quite surprised to find that she was enjoying it.

The crackling fire danced in front of her vision, capturing her attention while she disappeared into her thoughts.

Gohan tried staring at the fire, but somehow, his gaze kept on turning to Videl. How was it that just last week, he could have sworn that she hated him, but now, she was sitting in a cave with him and he had told her about some of his past, and now he was teaching her how to fly. Things just don't get much stranger, but somehow it seemed to fit just right.

"Gohan" Goten said, shaking Gohan out of his thoughts "I'm hungry"

"I'm sorry, squirt, but I've got no food here" Gohan said "You'll either have to go back home through the storm or get some berries or something from the forest"

Goten thought for a while as he weighed up the options.

"I'm gonna go home" he said bravely "It's really boring here"

He walked over to the edge of the cave, looking outside for a second before he took off.

"Be careful, Goten" Gohan yelled after his quickly retreating form.

Silence fell over the cave again.

"Well, do you wanna go back too?" Gohan asked

"I don't know, maybe we should just stay here for a while" Videl said, "I don't really feel like facing a storm like this right now"

Gohan moved so he was leaning against the wall and made himself as comfortable as he could against the hard rock.

"I guess we'll be here for a while then," he said

Videl sat in silence for a while, they hadn't spoken for a while, there seemed to be nothing to say, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence, they were just enjoying each other's company.

She moved around, trying to find a comfortable spot against the hard wall. She finally found a reasonably comfortable one and she wriggled around a little, making herself comfortable.

"Hey, Gohan" Videl said

"Mm-hm"

"What's it like being a Saiyan?" she asked

Gohan sat up straighter, thinking of how to answer the question.

"I don't know really, I'm just used to it, I never really thought about it," Gohan said, "But it's far different from being a human. For one thing, Saiyans naturally have a lot of pride, you never wanna mess with one when it's about something they value or anything, although, it's not so strong in half-Saiyans. You only have to look at Vegeta for an example of Saiyan pride. There's also the urge to fight, Saiyans love fighting, whenever a Saiyan is faced with a situation where there could even possibly be fighting, they try and encourage the fight"

Videl watched, taking in his every word, Saiyans sounded so different to humans.

"It sounds cool," she said

"It's not all good," Gohan said quietly and he turned his attention back to the fire.

Videl shut up, he obviously didn't want to share something and she wasn't gonna push him for answers, not anymore. She remembered the look he got in his eyes when she asked him about his father, she guessed it was something to do with his father, but if he wanted to share, he would in his own time.

Videl looked outside and was surprised to see that the rain had stopped.

"Hey, Gohan, the rain's stopped, we can go now" she said, pointing outside.

Gohan looked up at her and smiled, the traces of emotion from his face before were gone and he looked normal again.

"Come on then" he said, standing up.

He walked to the edge of the cave, picked Videl up and took off into the air.

Goten was sitting at the table, eating his food quickly, as usual. He'd come home and made a bee-line for the refrigerator, and had made himself a rather large sandwich, and at that moment, was trying to open his mouth far enough so he could fit the whole sandwich into his mouth.

Just as the sandwich was about to go in, Gohan and Videl walked through the door, sopping wet. Goten dropped his sandwich and rushed over to his brother and gave him a big hug, ending up sopping wet again too.

In the midst of Gohan's attempt to pry the hyper-active chibi off him, Chichi walked into the room per mother's instinct.

"Gohan" she said, her voice ringing around the room, getting everyone's attention "Go and get changed now before you catch a cold" conveniently ignoring the fact that Gohan was half Saiyan and Saiyans are immune to the common cold and the like.

Gohan and Videl obeyed and quickly walked towards Gohan's room.

Gohan grabbed his clothes and made his way to the bathroom, leaving his bedroom free for Videl to get changed in.

The two teenagers got changed quickly and then met again in the kitchen where they were greeted with a mountain of food on the table.

"Yeah, snack time" Gohan said, then sat down in his seat and started digging in to the mountain.

"Snack?" Videl said as quickly sat down and took her share of the food before Gohan and Goten could eat it all.

Time passed quickly and soon it was early on Monday morning.

Gohan was lying on the couch, his feet sticking out the end of his short blanket, staring at the roof, deep in thought, but not thinking about anything in particular. (Does that make any sense at all?)

He felt very out of kilter, as he hadn't done any proper training for the last 3 days.

Slowly, he pulled himself into a sitting position on the couch and stared out the window opposite.

Outside, he could see that it was still dark, but there were some beams of light piercing the dawn sky.

He heard a small shuffling noise behind him. It could only be one person.

"Morning, Videl" he said softly, not adverting his attention from the window.

Videl moved forward until she reached the back of the couch.

"Mind if I sit down?" she asked

Gohan didn't answer, but instead, moved over a bit so she could sit down next to him.

The two sat there in silence for a while, just silently enjoying each other's company.

~~~

Author's Notes: Well, I hope u enjoyed it. The story is almost finished, only two more chapters, plus an epilogue if I can be bothered to write it…review and I promise I'll update quicker.