Disclaimer: I own zip. I make zip writing this. Sue me and I'll write my
name in urine on your front lawn as soon as it starts snowing.
Author Notes: Sorry this took so long, writer's block and a very busy time at school made for the delay. I'll have Chapter Five up ASAP.
Chapter Four: Gohan's Explanation
GOHAN FLEW THROUGH THE AIR, hoping against hope that Videl wouldn't die before he reached Karin Tower. When he finally saw the little palace, located halfway up to the Lookout, Gohan sighed with relief. Cradling the little body in his arms tighter to him, Gohan barely slowed down enough to avoid turning Yaijirobe into a steaming pile of overweight mess.
"Yaijirobe, where's Karin?" Gohan snapped, still holding Videl in his arms. "I need a Senzu, InowI.
"Whoa, Gohan, is that you? What's with the costume? And who's that?" Yaijirobe turned to Videl with a slightly lecherous grin. When he met Gohan's glare, the grin disappeared. The lazy fighter's laid-back demeanor vanished as he finally grasped the seriousness of the situation. "Karin! Karin! Gohan's here and he needs a Senzu really fast!" Gohan winced as he powerful ears picked up Yaijirobe's shout, not two feet away from him.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," the godly cat muttered, waddling from the interior of his small palace, a brown bag in one hand and his staff in the other. "Gohan can- oh, my," the lord exclaimed softly at seeing Videl. "Where did you find this one, Gohan?"
"She was beaten almost to death by a person with that 'dark ki' I told Dende about two weeks ago. She was trying to help people."
Karin motioned for Gohan to place Videl on a soft pallet he conjured for her and began examining her, lifting this and that limb, pinching in certain places. Several times Videl would moan and stir in seemingly uncontrollable spasms of pain. Each time this happened, Gohan would try to bat Karin away, but the cat would just give him his level, wise stare and Gohan would back off. After ten minutes of this, Karin finally relented and placed a Senzu in Videl's mouth, poking her throat to make her swallow.
At once, Videl began to splutter and cough. She sat up, the bruises and cuts suddenly healed, leaving her face unmarred by scar tissue. Before she could say anything, Karin tipped a bottle full of red fluid into her mouth. Videl blinked once, her violet eyes widening, then dropped back to the pallet, instantly asleep.
"What did you do, cat?" Gohan demanded angrily, shooting to his feet.
"Please, calm down, child. I only gave her a potion to help her sleep. That Senzu healed her wounds, but nearly exhausted her ki supply. She needs rest, child; at least a few hours. You may bring her in there," Karin gestured with a furry arm to a small room off the palace.
"Thanks, Karin." Gohan hoisted Videl in his arms carried her to the room Karin had let them use and gently put Videl down on the bed. Careful not to disturb her, he wrapped her in the light coverlet and sat down on the only chair in the room, waiting for her to awake.
{Four Hours Later}
Videl blinked sleepily and looked up at Gohan, not really recognizing him. She took him in, seeing the familiar demi-Saiyan features dressed in the even more familiar clothes of the Great Saiyaman. Her mind worked furiously, trying to figure out why she was sitting in an unrecognizable room being watched over by a secret crush dressed her worst enemy's clothes instead of wherever people go when they're dead. Finally, she succumbed to simply asking him.
"Gohan?" she breathed, sounding far weaker than she usually preferred. The teen snored on, slumped low in his chair. "Gohan?" she repeated. Finally, she lost her temper. "GOHAN!" she bellowed, the teen falling from his chair as he bolted upright.
"No! Piccolo, I promise, I'll learn the Makankosappo! Don't-" Gohan broke off abruptly as he realized where he was. Videl wondered idly what the Makankosappo was before she remembered her questions.
"Gohan?" she asked him, her voice turning to that of one who just woke up.
"Videl? How are you feeling?" Gohan asked gently.
"I'm fine. Actually," Videl paused, biting her lip. "I'm better than fine. I haven't this goof for. . .well, a long time. Where am I? This isn't the hospital."
Gohan cleared his throat and looked around nervously. "Um. . .about that. Videl, what I'm about to tell you sounds pretty unbelievable. I could just lie, but I respect you too much to lie. I'm going to tell you everything. Whether you believe me or not, I promise you that this is truth." Gohan waited a moment longer, seemingly to collect his thoughts. Videl cleared her throat politely. [I'll just listen to what he has to say. I mean, if couldn't be too weird, right? I was near death and still made it, so I guess I owe him a few minutes of my time] Videl wondered idly what time it was. It was nearly impossible to tell in her surreal surroundings.
"Okay, look. It all begins with my dad, Son Goku," Gohan began, taking a seat again.
"Your dad is ISon GokuI?!" Videl exclaimed. How could such a harmless fellow like Gohan be related to the former most advanced fighter on Earth?
"Yeah," Gohan blinked, as if this was no big news. "Of course he is. Anyway, it all started when. . .err. . ." Gohan suddenly realized Videl wouldn't be buying any story about aliens. Instead, Gohan changed the story to add a degree of vagueness to it. "My dad was born into this warrior society, see, called the Saiyans. They sent him off to this mountain to kill everyone in that . . .nation and burn it to the ground. They were really warlike, you see. The only thing is, my dad hit his head, and all his programming was lost. He became an extremely powerful, extremely kind, fighter. . ."
Gohan proceeded to tell Videl all about his father's adventures when he was younger, telling her of the Dragonballs, of Bulma and Yamcha and the rest of his father's friends. He went into great depth on his father's marriage to Chi-Chi and his subsequent fight with Ma Junior, better known to Gohan as Piccolo-san, his first master. Videl sat quite patiently through the whole thing, never once interrupting again. Finally, Gohan got to the part he dreaded most. The Cell Games. Thinking on the spot, Gohan told her this.
"My father fought Cell too, you know. He used every move he had, every technique in his arsenal. He knew he couldn't beat him after fighting him for nearly an hour straight. He did the only thing he could think of. He chose me to fight Cell."
"But you were only a little boy!" Videl gasped. "How could he put such a responsibility on you?"
Gohan looked at her with a level gaze before answering, as if wondering if she should hear the truth.
"He did only what he thought best. He chose me, Videl, because he knew I was the only hope we had. I might have only been eleven, Videl, but I did it. Your father didn't kill Cell. I did. In the process, I lost my father forever. That's why the Son family stopped participating in the Budoukai. I couldn't bear to fight against a pretender like Satan Hercule; I probably would have killed him," Gohan said, forgetting momentarily Videl was Hercule's daughter.
"So. . .you're saying that all these years my dad has been lying when he said he did it all by himself?" Videl's tone was masked; Gohan wasn't sure what she was feeling.
"I'm afraid so, Videl," Gohan said, keeping his own tone carefully neutral.
Videl paused for a moment, then jumped up, laughing joyfully. Gohan fell over, astounded at her sudden display of emotion. He had never seen her act like a fellow human being before.
"Gohan, do you know how great this is?! All my life, I've hoped and hoped that what Daddy said wasn't true! Don't you see? My dad is a fake, a pretender! We have to expose him, Gohan! Can't you see that?"
"Videl, I don't want any money or spotlight. My family and I only want to be left alone. That's why we live way out in Fry Pan Kingdom, on Mt. Fry Pan itself. The only contact with people we have is a general store a four hour drive away and the other Z-Senshi. To live in the winter, I hunt game for us. There's a reason for that, you know. We just want to be left alone. Let the world idolize your father; the people need their heroes. We just want to quietly honor my father's memory in peace."
"But Gohan, allowing people to think your father died because he was a coward and weakling is an insult to his memory! Do you know what my dad said about him? He said that your dad gave up, and that he had to finish Cell alone. Son Goku's reputation as a fighter is worth shit nowadays. Muten Roshi hasn't had a single application for a student since he died, and the Turtle Style is Ithis closeI to being classified as a 'lost art' by the Budoukai Regulation Panel! How can you say that's honoring your father's memory?"
Gohan stared at the teen, shocked at the passion in her argument. "You must really hate your dad, huh?"
Videl's eyes swept back to her feet. "He left my mother right after the Cell Games and hasn't been with only one woman at a time since. I grew up trying to find new ways of deafening the noise of Dad and the whore he had brought home that night. He planted drugs in my mother's apartment and sued for her visitation rights to be revoked. When she killed herself a couple months later, I wasn't even told. . ." Videl trailed off, sniffling. Sensing her discomfort, Gohan awkwardly put an arm around her.
"It's okay, Videl. . .I mean it. Here's what I'll do. I'll enter in the next Budoukai as the Great Saiyaman, and before my match, I'll tell the whole world who I am and then humiliate your father in the finals. Sound good?"
Videl's sniffles subsided slightly and she put a head on his shoulder. "Thank you, Gohan. But are you sure you can get ready by June?"
Gohan grinned broadly. Unless one of the Z-senshi decided to arbitrarily sign up, he wouldn't even need to use his Super Saiyan form to beat the Earth's supposed "best fighters." Knowing that he couldn't tell Videl this, Gohan settled on another half-lie.
"As long as me and you work together instead of against each other to curb crime in the city, I'll have plenty of time to train. 'Sides, if I ever need a work-boost, I'll just ask Bulma to lemme use her gravity room."
Videl arched in eyebrow, trying to maintain her sarcastic façade despite Gohan's revelation. "You know Bulma Briefs well enough to ask her to kick that husband of hers out of the gravity chamber?"
"You mean Vegeta?" Gohan laughed loudly. "Aww, don't worry about him. He may seem scary, but deep down, he's a softy."
"Tell that to the CEO of Corporate Industries. A few years ago, he grabbed Bulma's ass, so Vegeta ripped off his arm and relocated it to his rectal cavity."
Gohan doubled over laughing at this tidbit of information. "I remember that. Bulma made him sleep on the couch for weeks! He was really pissed off when I went to train with them that week. . ." Gohan cut off abruptly as he saw Videl's expression.
"You train with the only guy in the world people say might be able to challenge my dad?"
"Train with him? Sure, about once a month or so. Usually I'm busy with school and Saiyaman, and when I do train, I like to do it with my brother Goten or Piccolo-" Gohan stopped again. "What? What did I say now?"
"Piccolo? The Demon King who tried to take over the world?" Videl gritted her teeth. "I thought your father killed him!"
"Oh, no," Gohan laughed. "The Demon King's son, Ma Junior. We just call him Piccolo. He tried to kill my dad a couple times, but he turned all right in the end. My dad beat him to win his first Budoukai."
"Then why didn't your dad come back to fight? My dad only won his first one because yours didn't show. From what you tell me, your dad should have dominated mine."
Gohan, not knowing how to respond to this, just grinned. "He was getting ready to fight Nappa, that giant who destroyed the airforce a couple years ago. But enough of ancient history right now, it's getting late. I can drop you off at home if you want."
"Uh, sure. Speaking of which, where are we, anyway? And how I am fine? I was pretty sure that Montag guy killed me before you showed up."
Gohan grinned and offered her his hand, helping her to her feet. "We're in a place called Karin's Tower, located half-way to the Lookout of the Earth's Kami, or guardian. His name's Dende and he's a pretty good pal of mine. You've been healed by a senzu bean, which are grown by Karin, and heal you of any wound instantly," he told he as she threw of the blankets and followed him out to the enclosed courtyard. Carefully skirting in the hole in the floor where the ladder poked through, Gohan bowed respectfully to Karin and bid Yaijirobe farewell.
"Thank you for healing Videl, Karin-sama," Gohan bent neatly at the waist. "Thank you for reacting so quickly, Yaijirobe-san." Gohan took Videl's hand as he gathered his ki, preparing to fly.
"Hey, what're you-" Videl began to protest before Gohan shushed her.
"It's much faster this way."
With a final wave of farewell, Gohan blasted off, carrying the (to him) featherlight Videl beneath him like he had carried Bulma when helping her run from the androids so long ago. As the two teens sped towards Videl's home in Satan Manor on the outskirts of Satan City, Videl wondered how on Earth Gohan could fly. Had Bulma Briefs rigged up some thing in that suit of his? Finally, unable to figure it out on her own, Videl decided to just ask Gohan. He had been pretty forthright so far.
"Gohan," she began, shouting to be heard over the rushing wind. "Do you wear that suit because it has the flight device built in, or just as a disguise?"
"Flight device?" Gohan shouted back. "Why would the suit need a flight device when I can do it on my own?"
At this point, Videl wasn't going to automatically discount anything Gohan said, no matter how immpossible. Still though, she was doubtful that Gohan could actually IflyI.
"It's actually pretty easy, as long as you can control your ki. In fact, I bet I could teach you how to do it, if you want. There are plenty of places by my house where no one could see us. How bout it?"
Videl reached up and smacked Gohan. "How dumb do you think I am? Flying lessons? Honestly, Son Gohan, I would have thought you above that! You're just trying to lure me to your house so you can-"
"No, no, Videl, that's not how it is at all!" Gohan protested. "I mean it- I can teach you how to fly!" Videl noted with some amusement that the seeming-invincible warrior was near purple from flushing so hard.
"Okay, okay, I'll believe you. You don't strike me as the type anyway. If you were that Sharpner kid. . ." she trailed off and joined Gohan in a small chuckle.
"Well, we're here," Gohan said, suddenly touching down. Videl looked around, shocked. He was right, there were here. They must have been going fast; that tower place was at least four hundred miles from Satan Manor. "I'll talk to you in school tomorrow about those lessons."
As Gohan turned to leave, a pale white aura snapping to life around him, Videl suddenly turned to face his back and blurted out.
"Uh, Gohan, d'you think we could do it this weekend, sometime?"
Gohan paused to consider this. "Well, sure," he said thoughtfully. "Nice to have a student so eager. I'll see you around, Videl." Gohan bowed and rose several feet in the air before Videl blurted again.
"And. . . uh. . .thanks, Gohan! I owe you my-" but Gohan couldn't hear, because he was already two miles away, looking forward to teaching a certain attractive girl how to fly.
Fin.
NEXT: Flying Lessons, more Goten. The Z-senshi find out about the tournament and Goku makes an entrance. More Kaioshin, Kibito, Babidi, Dabura, and Piccolo. Sharpner makes and unexpected- and unpleasant- entrance.
Author Notes: Sorry this took so long, writer's block and a very busy time at school made for the delay. I'll have Chapter Five up ASAP.
Chapter Four: Gohan's Explanation
GOHAN FLEW THROUGH THE AIR, hoping against hope that Videl wouldn't die before he reached Karin Tower. When he finally saw the little palace, located halfway up to the Lookout, Gohan sighed with relief. Cradling the little body in his arms tighter to him, Gohan barely slowed down enough to avoid turning Yaijirobe into a steaming pile of overweight mess.
"Yaijirobe, where's Karin?" Gohan snapped, still holding Videl in his arms. "I need a Senzu, InowI.
"Whoa, Gohan, is that you? What's with the costume? And who's that?" Yaijirobe turned to Videl with a slightly lecherous grin. When he met Gohan's glare, the grin disappeared. The lazy fighter's laid-back demeanor vanished as he finally grasped the seriousness of the situation. "Karin! Karin! Gohan's here and he needs a Senzu really fast!" Gohan winced as he powerful ears picked up Yaijirobe's shout, not two feet away from him.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," the godly cat muttered, waddling from the interior of his small palace, a brown bag in one hand and his staff in the other. "Gohan can- oh, my," the lord exclaimed softly at seeing Videl. "Where did you find this one, Gohan?"
"She was beaten almost to death by a person with that 'dark ki' I told Dende about two weeks ago. She was trying to help people."
Karin motioned for Gohan to place Videl on a soft pallet he conjured for her and began examining her, lifting this and that limb, pinching in certain places. Several times Videl would moan and stir in seemingly uncontrollable spasms of pain. Each time this happened, Gohan would try to bat Karin away, but the cat would just give him his level, wise stare and Gohan would back off. After ten minutes of this, Karin finally relented and placed a Senzu in Videl's mouth, poking her throat to make her swallow.
At once, Videl began to splutter and cough. She sat up, the bruises and cuts suddenly healed, leaving her face unmarred by scar tissue. Before she could say anything, Karin tipped a bottle full of red fluid into her mouth. Videl blinked once, her violet eyes widening, then dropped back to the pallet, instantly asleep.
"What did you do, cat?" Gohan demanded angrily, shooting to his feet.
"Please, calm down, child. I only gave her a potion to help her sleep. That Senzu healed her wounds, but nearly exhausted her ki supply. She needs rest, child; at least a few hours. You may bring her in there," Karin gestured with a furry arm to a small room off the palace.
"Thanks, Karin." Gohan hoisted Videl in his arms carried her to the room Karin had let them use and gently put Videl down on the bed. Careful not to disturb her, he wrapped her in the light coverlet and sat down on the only chair in the room, waiting for her to awake.
{Four Hours Later}
Videl blinked sleepily and looked up at Gohan, not really recognizing him. She took him in, seeing the familiar demi-Saiyan features dressed in the even more familiar clothes of the Great Saiyaman. Her mind worked furiously, trying to figure out why she was sitting in an unrecognizable room being watched over by a secret crush dressed her worst enemy's clothes instead of wherever people go when they're dead. Finally, she succumbed to simply asking him.
"Gohan?" she breathed, sounding far weaker than she usually preferred. The teen snored on, slumped low in his chair. "Gohan?" she repeated. Finally, she lost her temper. "GOHAN!" she bellowed, the teen falling from his chair as he bolted upright.
"No! Piccolo, I promise, I'll learn the Makankosappo! Don't-" Gohan broke off abruptly as he realized where he was. Videl wondered idly what the Makankosappo was before she remembered her questions.
"Gohan?" she asked him, her voice turning to that of one who just woke up.
"Videl? How are you feeling?" Gohan asked gently.
"I'm fine. Actually," Videl paused, biting her lip. "I'm better than fine. I haven't this goof for. . .well, a long time. Where am I? This isn't the hospital."
Gohan cleared his throat and looked around nervously. "Um. . .about that. Videl, what I'm about to tell you sounds pretty unbelievable. I could just lie, but I respect you too much to lie. I'm going to tell you everything. Whether you believe me or not, I promise you that this is truth." Gohan waited a moment longer, seemingly to collect his thoughts. Videl cleared her throat politely. [I'll just listen to what he has to say. I mean, if couldn't be too weird, right? I was near death and still made it, so I guess I owe him a few minutes of my time] Videl wondered idly what time it was. It was nearly impossible to tell in her surreal surroundings.
"Okay, look. It all begins with my dad, Son Goku," Gohan began, taking a seat again.
"Your dad is ISon GokuI?!" Videl exclaimed. How could such a harmless fellow like Gohan be related to the former most advanced fighter on Earth?
"Yeah," Gohan blinked, as if this was no big news. "Of course he is. Anyway, it all started when. . .err. . ." Gohan suddenly realized Videl wouldn't be buying any story about aliens. Instead, Gohan changed the story to add a degree of vagueness to it. "My dad was born into this warrior society, see, called the Saiyans. They sent him off to this mountain to kill everyone in that . . .nation and burn it to the ground. They were really warlike, you see. The only thing is, my dad hit his head, and all his programming was lost. He became an extremely powerful, extremely kind, fighter. . ."
Gohan proceeded to tell Videl all about his father's adventures when he was younger, telling her of the Dragonballs, of Bulma and Yamcha and the rest of his father's friends. He went into great depth on his father's marriage to Chi-Chi and his subsequent fight with Ma Junior, better known to Gohan as Piccolo-san, his first master. Videl sat quite patiently through the whole thing, never once interrupting again. Finally, Gohan got to the part he dreaded most. The Cell Games. Thinking on the spot, Gohan told her this.
"My father fought Cell too, you know. He used every move he had, every technique in his arsenal. He knew he couldn't beat him after fighting him for nearly an hour straight. He did the only thing he could think of. He chose me to fight Cell."
"But you were only a little boy!" Videl gasped. "How could he put such a responsibility on you?"
Gohan looked at her with a level gaze before answering, as if wondering if she should hear the truth.
"He did only what he thought best. He chose me, Videl, because he knew I was the only hope we had. I might have only been eleven, Videl, but I did it. Your father didn't kill Cell. I did. In the process, I lost my father forever. That's why the Son family stopped participating in the Budoukai. I couldn't bear to fight against a pretender like Satan Hercule; I probably would have killed him," Gohan said, forgetting momentarily Videl was Hercule's daughter.
"So. . .you're saying that all these years my dad has been lying when he said he did it all by himself?" Videl's tone was masked; Gohan wasn't sure what she was feeling.
"I'm afraid so, Videl," Gohan said, keeping his own tone carefully neutral.
Videl paused for a moment, then jumped up, laughing joyfully. Gohan fell over, astounded at her sudden display of emotion. He had never seen her act like a fellow human being before.
"Gohan, do you know how great this is?! All my life, I've hoped and hoped that what Daddy said wasn't true! Don't you see? My dad is a fake, a pretender! We have to expose him, Gohan! Can't you see that?"
"Videl, I don't want any money or spotlight. My family and I only want to be left alone. That's why we live way out in Fry Pan Kingdom, on Mt. Fry Pan itself. The only contact with people we have is a general store a four hour drive away and the other Z-Senshi. To live in the winter, I hunt game for us. There's a reason for that, you know. We just want to be left alone. Let the world idolize your father; the people need their heroes. We just want to quietly honor my father's memory in peace."
"But Gohan, allowing people to think your father died because he was a coward and weakling is an insult to his memory! Do you know what my dad said about him? He said that your dad gave up, and that he had to finish Cell alone. Son Goku's reputation as a fighter is worth shit nowadays. Muten Roshi hasn't had a single application for a student since he died, and the Turtle Style is Ithis closeI to being classified as a 'lost art' by the Budoukai Regulation Panel! How can you say that's honoring your father's memory?"
Gohan stared at the teen, shocked at the passion in her argument. "You must really hate your dad, huh?"
Videl's eyes swept back to her feet. "He left my mother right after the Cell Games and hasn't been with only one woman at a time since. I grew up trying to find new ways of deafening the noise of Dad and the whore he had brought home that night. He planted drugs in my mother's apartment and sued for her visitation rights to be revoked. When she killed herself a couple months later, I wasn't even told. . ." Videl trailed off, sniffling. Sensing her discomfort, Gohan awkwardly put an arm around her.
"It's okay, Videl. . .I mean it. Here's what I'll do. I'll enter in the next Budoukai as the Great Saiyaman, and before my match, I'll tell the whole world who I am and then humiliate your father in the finals. Sound good?"
Videl's sniffles subsided slightly and she put a head on his shoulder. "Thank you, Gohan. But are you sure you can get ready by June?"
Gohan grinned broadly. Unless one of the Z-senshi decided to arbitrarily sign up, he wouldn't even need to use his Super Saiyan form to beat the Earth's supposed "best fighters." Knowing that he couldn't tell Videl this, Gohan settled on another half-lie.
"As long as me and you work together instead of against each other to curb crime in the city, I'll have plenty of time to train. 'Sides, if I ever need a work-boost, I'll just ask Bulma to lemme use her gravity room."
Videl arched in eyebrow, trying to maintain her sarcastic façade despite Gohan's revelation. "You know Bulma Briefs well enough to ask her to kick that husband of hers out of the gravity chamber?"
"You mean Vegeta?" Gohan laughed loudly. "Aww, don't worry about him. He may seem scary, but deep down, he's a softy."
"Tell that to the CEO of Corporate Industries. A few years ago, he grabbed Bulma's ass, so Vegeta ripped off his arm and relocated it to his rectal cavity."
Gohan doubled over laughing at this tidbit of information. "I remember that. Bulma made him sleep on the couch for weeks! He was really pissed off when I went to train with them that week. . ." Gohan cut off abruptly as he saw Videl's expression.
"You train with the only guy in the world people say might be able to challenge my dad?"
"Train with him? Sure, about once a month or so. Usually I'm busy with school and Saiyaman, and when I do train, I like to do it with my brother Goten or Piccolo-" Gohan stopped again. "What? What did I say now?"
"Piccolo? The Demon King who tried to take over the world?" Videl gritted her teeth. "I thought your father killed him!"
"Oh, no," Gohan laughed. "The Demon King's son, Ma Junior. We just call him Piccolo. He tried to kill my dad a couple times, but he turned all right in the end. My dad beat him to win his first Budoukai."
"Then why didn't your dad come back to fight? My dad only won his first one because yours didn't show. From what you tell me, your dad should have dominated mine."
Gohan, not knowing how to respond to this, just grinned. "He was getting ready to fight Nappa, that giant who destroyed the airforce a couple years ago. But enough of ancient history right now, it's getting late. I can drop you off at home if you want."
"Uh, sure. Speaking of which, where are we, anyway? And how I am fine? I was pretty sure that Montag guy killed me before you showed up."
Gohan grinned and offered her his hand, helping her to her feet. "We're in a place called Karin's Tower, located half-way to the Lookout of the Earth's Kami, or guardian. His name's Dende and he's a pretty good pal of mine. You've been healed by a senzu bean, which are grown by Karin, and heal you of any wound instantly," he told he as she threw of the blankets and followed him out to the enclosed courtyard. Carefully skirting in the hole in the floor where the ladder poked through, Gohan bowed respectfully to Karin and bid Yaijirobe farewell.
"Thank you for healing Videl, Karin-sama," Gohan bent neatly at the waist. "Thank you for reacting so quickly, Yaijirobe-san." Gohan took Videl's hand as he gathered his ki, preparing to fly.
"Hey, what're you-" Videl began to protest before Gohan shushed her.
"It's much faster this way."
With a final wave of farewell, Gohan blasted off, carrying the (to him) featherlight Videl beneath him like he had carried Bulma when helping her run from the androids so long ago. As the two teens sped towards Videl's home in Satan Manor on the outskirts of Satan City, Videl wondered how on Earth Gohan could fly. Had Bulma Briefs rigged up some thing in that suit of his? Finally, unable to figure it out on her own, Videl decided to just ask Gohan. He had been pretty forthright so far.
"Gohan," she began, shouting to be heard over the rushing wind. "Do you wear that suit because it has the flight device built in, or just as a disguise?"
"Flight device?" Gohan shouted back. "Why would the suit need a flight device when I can do it on my own?"
At this point, Videl wasn't going to automatically discount anything Gohan said, no matter how immpossible. Still though, she was doubtful that Gohan could actually IflyI.
"It's actually pretty easy, as long as you can control your ki. In fact, I bet I could teach you how to do it, if you want. There are plenty of places by my house where no one could see us. How bout it?"
Videl reached up and smacked Gohan. "How dumb do you think I am? Flying lessons? Honestly, Son Gohan, I would have thought you above that! You're just trying to lure me to your house so you can-"
"No, no, Videl, that's not how it is at all!" Gohan protested. "I mean it- I can teach you how to fly!" Videl noted with some amusement that the seeming-invincible warrior was near purple from flushing so hard.
"Okay, okay, I'll believe you. You don't strike me as the type anyway. If you were that Sharpner kid. . ." she trailed off and joined Gohan in a small chuckle.
"Well, we're here," Gohan said, suddenly touching down. Videl looked around, shocked. He was right, there were here. They must have been going fast; that tower place was at least four hundred miles from Satan Manor. "I'll talk to you in school tomorrow about those lessons."
As Gohan turned to leave, a pale white aura snapping to life around him, Videl suddenly turned to face his back and blurted out.
"Uh, Gohan, d'you think we could do it this weekend, sometime?"
Gohan paused to consider this. "Well, sure," he said thoughtfully. "Nice to have a student so eager. I'll see you around, Videl." Gohan bowed and rose several feet in the air before Videl blurted again.
"And. . . uh. . .thanks, Gohan! I owe you my-" but Gohan couldn't hear, because he was already two miles away, looking forward to teaching a certain attractive girl how to fly.
Fin.
NEXT: Flying Lessons, more Goten. The Z-senshi find out about the tournament and Goku makes an entrance. More Kaioshin, Kibito, Babidi, Dabura, and Piccolo. Sharpner makes and unexpected- and unpleasant- entrance.