Usagi flew to the lake in the woods with Hotaru on her back. She glanced back as Hotaru laughed as loudly as she could from excitement. "I know you've flow here from Nagoya on a plane. I bet you never though in a million years that you would be flying on top of a person, did you?"
Hotaru continued to look around herself in awe. She had never seen anything quite like this before. The view was certainly breathtaking. "This is great, Usagi! GO FASTER!"
Usagi complied with her new friend's wishes and increased her speed, very slowly though as to not cause Hotaru to loose her balance and fall off. "I thought you'd like it. I know I did when I first learned that my dad could fly. I was four when he first let me ride on his back like this. Before that he made me ride on this yellow cloud called Nimbus. Though he never really took me on his back because mom said it was too dangerous. But sometimes he would break the rules. Those were the best times too because he always went a lot fast on Nimbus."
"Your daddy sounds like a nice person, Usagi. When do I get to meet him?" She looked down to the ground where a mother deer and it's fawn were grazing on a patch of open grass. 'Neat!'
"He is a great person. Maybe you can meet him tonight. Wait, I think he's going to be training tonight. You may have to wait a little bit to meet him. He's going to be doing a lot of training for a while." She decreased her altitude as soon as she had the lake in view. "Here we are! This is one of my favorite places to come." She landed near the water and let Hotaru slide down her back.
Hotaru was in pure bliss. She looked at the environment all around her in astonishment. Never in her life had she seen anything quite like it before. "This is amazing. This is SO much better than Fuji San."
"That's because it hasn't been turned into a place where tourists come. It's untouched and left for the animals. Me and dad don't really tell anyone about places like this. If we did, a company would come and make houses here for people to live in. They would totally ruin it."
"Then why did you tell me about it?" Hotaru walked to the edge of the lake and waved her hand around the water a bit.
"I don't think you're going to go and get a construction company to come and bulldoze this place." Usagi bent over and touched her finger tips to her toes without bending her knew to stretch her legs. "We should get your training started though. The first you thing you always want to do before you do it though, is always make sure you're muscles are nice and stretched before you do it so you don't hurt yourself."
"Right." Hotaru began to copy Usagi's movements and stretched her arms over her head. "Like this?"
Usagi turned over to Hotaru. "Yep. Just like that." She stopped stretching for a moment and thought about how she was going to go about training Hotaru. She still wasn't fully sure that she would be capable of doing it. 'Why daddy has faith in me, I don't know. I'm just a big screw up when it comes to important stuff like this.' Usagi went over a few ideas in her head on how she was going to do this. She thought up, rejected, revised various ways that she would do it on the way to the lake. She almost went out of her mind trying to think of the best way to do it, but decided to start the new fighter on Ki strength and physical endurance build up first. That way, she would be able to take blows that would come when she began to fight for real.
Usagi took a deep breath for not only was Hotaru's training going to begin, but so was Usagi's. This was a test for the both of them. It wouldn't be easy, but they would both get through it, together. "Ok Hotaru, we are going to start with some knowledge of Ki and how to use it to increase your strength and toughness of your body."
Hotaru clueless looked up to Usagi. "What's Ki?"
"You don't know what Ki is?" Hotaru shook her head. "Well, I guess Ki is kind of like someone's inner soul energy."
"Do I have any?"
"Of course you do. Everyone has Ki. It's just a matter of being able to control it. I was controlling my Ki energy when I was flying."
Hotaru's eyes widened when she heard the word fly. "WHEN CAN I LEARN TO FLY!?"
Usagi laughed. "First you have to learn how to control it, then we can teach you the basics of flying, but I think flying may be for another day." She noticed that she had Hotaru's undivided attention so she decided not to stop there and let her ask more questions.
Usagi smiled down at the curious girl and continued. "I think we should start with a nice run first though. That's what my dad did when I fist started out. He had me run for two miles. But because I'm a Saiyan, I could handle it. Since you're human, I think we should start you out with one."
Hotaru opened her mouth for protest. "A WHOLE mile?"
"Yes. It wont be that hard. We can go at your pace. And if there's ever a time that you feel like you're going to collapse, please tell me. I don't want to force you to run if you can't take it." 'But then again, I can't always go easy on her. I have to be tough like dad sometimes. Otherwise she wont learn. But I have to be reasonable like mom. Oh daddy! Why did you do this to me!? Why couldn't you just be fair and train her the way I asked?' "Come Hotaru, let's see how much you can do. We'll run a mile and then turn back to do some work with your Ki."
"What if we get lost?"
"That wont happen. Me and my dad always come out here and do this. I know the woods like the back of my hand. Just stick with me and we'll be fine." She readied herself for her run, which wouldn't be that stressful on her since she wasn't going to be going at anything like her full speed. "Ready when you are."
Hotaru gave one nod. "Ready." She burst out running at her fastest speed, with Usagi right by her side. "I'm going too slow, aren't I?"
"No. You're doing fine." Usagi was amazed at the girl's speed. 'She's going as fast as I did when I first started out. That's faster than a normal human should be starting out at.' "Just don't speed up and you'll be fine. You want to keep a steady pace so you don't wear yourself out. Once you start out at a certain pace, you should try to keep it. Never go up or down, unless it's an emergency."
Hotaru knew that she wasn't going to have a problem with slowing down. For some reason, she felt like she could have gone on forever. "This is kind of fun. I don't get a chance to run a lot."
Usagi was shocked as she looked down to the little girl next to her. 'What?!' "Well for someone who doesn't run very much, you're fast."
Hotaru smiled as she let out a squeak. "Thanks."
"Now listen to what I say. This will help you in your running. Feel your body as it moves. Make a note of what it feel like. Then, when se start Ki training, I want you to feel how it works with your body. I want you to be able to compare it to what it feels like when you aren't using you Ki. I think it's a good idea to know how Ki affects your body. In the end, the best fighters know how their bodies work inside and out. They have their heart, mind, and soul as one."
"Wow, Usagi. You're smart. Did you learn that from your daddy?"
"Some of it. Other parts I came up with. I feel that a fighter should know their body. I ask you this, Hotaru, how can you expect to over come someone if you don't know how your own body works?"
Hotaru was tongue tied for words. She could only think of one thing to say. "Whoa…"
"As your legs and arms get tired, try and feel how your heart is beating. Breath with it to help it along. Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Never breath in with your mouth or else your throat will get dry and you will want to stop."
Hotaru absorbed the information with wonder. She had never known that there was so much to the art of fighting. "How much further."
"You tell me, how much strength do you have left? Do you have more energy that gone go further than a mile?"
"I think I can go further. I'm not THAT tired."
'Amazing. She isn't at all like a normal Human. Even the girls couldn't really run for a mile without getting really tired. I could barely go two. We're already coming up on the mile mark.' "Ok then, let's keep going."
~*~*~
The two young fighters fan for a total of thirty minutes before Hotaru started to gasp for breath and slow down. Usagi took this as a sign to stop. Hotaru had had enough for the day. "Let's stop now. You need to stop before you hurt yourself."
Hotaru stopped her running to a complete stop only to look up and have her eyes be met by a slightly frowning pair of blue eyes. "What did I do wrong?"
"Never just stop running like that. You'll hurt yourself. Your legs will cramp up if you do that. Come on, we have to walk for a cool down."
"Oh, sorry." She began walking and grabbed Usagi's hand with her own. "Did I do good?"
"You did really good. That was quite a good distance for your first run. Even though you slowed down near the end, you kept going, which as good. You almost went two miles." 'Amazing for a human. Wait till daddy hears about this. He'll be surprised.' She slowed to a complete stop, with Hotaru doing the same.
Hotaru bent over and rested her hands on her knees as she continued to gasp for breath. "Thanks."
Usagi grinned as an idea crossed her mind. "Now I want you to hop on my back."
Hotaru looked up in confusion. "Huh? Why?"
Usagi giggled. "Well I want to get a good work out today, too, you know. You can't have all the fun."
Hotaru hopped onto the Saiyan's back as directed and wrapped her arms around her neck so she wouldn't fall off. "K!" She couldn't wait to see what was going to happen.
Usagi prepared herself for her own workout. "HOLD ON CAUSE HERE WE GO!" Without any further conversation from either of the girls, Usagi took off at an impossible rate of speed. She heard a small 'eep' from Hotaru as she felt tiny nails being dug into her skin. Unknown to herself, she was using a small portion of her Ki to hold the small girl in place. Both girls began to laugh with enjoyment.
Usagi stopped laughing once she got another idea of training. "Try now to feel my energy as I run. Try to feel it moving through the wind."
Hotaru closed her eyes and tried to feel the energy that Usagi spoke of. She tensed her muscles trying to find it, but had no luck. She opened her eyes with disappointment. "It's not working."
Usagi lowered her speed just in case she was running to fast for Hotaru to feel. "Try it again. But don't do it by trying to use your strength. Try sensing it. Try to see it by closing your eyes."
Hotaru once again closed her eyes and tried to feel and see the energy moving at the same time. But it just wasn't clicking for her. She couldn't grasp the idea of being able to see energy moving. But all of a sudden she felt something warm around her. Not only was a warm, but bright. Her dark world inside her closed eyes soon became filled with a golden beam of light that was twisting and turning all around. Whenever she would feel her own body being thrown to the right, the yellow beam would turn that way too. She smiled as she realized what she had stumbled upon. "I DID IT! I CAN SEE AND FEEL IT!"
"Good job!"
~*~*~
~~Capsule Corp.~~
Goku walked into Vejita's gravity room as he was going to challenge to him to a spar before he trained with Chi-Chi. "Vejita?" He looked around the room and saw Vejita sitting in the middle of it looking more aggravated than ever. "Hey there."
Vejita glared up at Goku. "What is it?! Can't you see I'm busy!?"
"Hey Vejita. Just thought you'd like to spar with me."
"I never want to spar with you! I only want to kill you! Which is what I feel like doing right now."
"Come on Vejita. We've known each other for nearly fifty years and you still haven't killed me. Can't you drop it now?" He walked to what he considered to be his friend and put his hand on his shoulder to try and be friendly.
Vejita violently pulled away from Goku. "DON'T EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN! I WILL kill you. You piss me off!" He looked behind Goku and smirked in interest. "Where's your brat? Doesn't she like to hang around you all the time?"
Goku frowned. "She isn't a brat, Vejita. I would appreciate it if you didn't call her one. She happens to be training someone right now."
Vejita burst out laughing. "OH GOD KAKKOROTTO! You actually let HER go and train someone? She's not a fighter. She's too much of a whiny baby to do ANYTHING. How could you have been dumb enough to let HER of all people do that."
"Shut up! She didn't think that the way we trained would be suitable for this girl. She wanted me to train her gently."
Vejita stared blankly at Goku as if he had never heard of the option of training gently. "Gently? Gently?! How the HELL do you train someone gently?"
Goku shrugged. "You got me. I think it's a little outrageous myself, which is why I told her to do it. I would never train someone gently. They wouldn't know what pain they should be expecting if I did. But I let her have her way. It didn't seem like it was going to harm anything. She seemed to know what she was talking about, too."
"And I thought she was an idiot before. Kakkorotto, your kid just keep getting dumber and dumber. This is just too funny. I can't believe you're going to let that other kid be trained improperly."
"I have faith in Usagi. But, if her way doesn't work, we can always correct the problem."
"Yeah right. Don't expect me to help. I've already tried to train that girl the proper way, she just doesn't want to listen."
~*~*~
~~The Forest~~
Usagi ran for about an hour with Hotaru on her back, which added up to be much more than the mile and a half that Hotaru had run. When she was ready to stop, she ran back to the lake where they had come from. Before completely stopping, she walked around the giant lake once so as to not let her legs cramp up.
She set Hotaru down on the ground when she did finally stop, she let Hotaru slip off. "What a rush. I love running like that. Me and dad always do that. We usually end up racing each other, even though I always loosing."
Hotaru was trying to get used to being still as she let her eyes get used to not seeing everything flying by her. "You daddy BEATS you?!"
"Yep. Dad's a lot faster AND stronger than me. But that's ok. I'm practicing all the time. I plan to actually beat him one day. Hopefully."
"Wow, I can't wait to meet him. Will I ever get to fight him?"
'Wow. She's already getting into this fighting thing. She's kind of like me and Makoto.' "When you get stronger. Dad is REALLY strong. Even my friends still have a hard time beating him, though they're getting a lot better at it."
Hotaru's eyes sparkled with happiness as she couldn't wait to meet everyone that Usagi knew. "DO I GET TO MEET YOUR FRIENDS TOO?!"
"Yep. You get to meet them on Monday after school. You would have been able to meet them today, but my mom wanted us to get to know each other better before the others came." Hotaru appeared to be too happy to even be able to reply. "So, you wanna continue?"
"YES!"
Usagi giggled at the girl's enthusiasm. "K! Now we are going to get more into the Ki stuff, like I said before. Now, what we need to do, is sit down and clear our minds." Both fighters sat down by the lake and faced each other with their legs crossed. Usagi held her hands in front of herself with only six inches in between them. "Put your hands out just like this and imagine your own Ki energy flowing from your body into this small space." Hotaru looked at her friend as if she were crazy, but went along with it. Usagi could see that Hotaru was struggling with her task. She could see her muscles tensing. "Remember what I told you when I was running? Don't try to do it with your own physical strength. Relax and let your energy do the work. As long as you're concentrating your energy to do something, it will work."
She became more interested in the girl's progress as she felt her Ki moving inside of her. 'Wow, she's actually doing it.' A small bead of purple energy built inside the opening between Hotaru's hands. Usagi couldn't believe it. Even her own friends had had more trouble controlling their Ki when they first started. It had taken them around two days for them to fully be able to control it. 'How is she doing that? She did it almost as fast as I did.'
A small smiled appeared on Hotaru's face as she looked down to the bead of energy that was in her control. It was giving off an intense purple light that expanded even beyond the area of her hands. It was at that moment, for some reason, she began to feel that she had more power to do anything than ever before. "Am I doing good?"
Usagi nodded in awe. "Ye…ah…" 'Why does it feel so powerful? Almost like a…' "Can you feel it moving within you? Do you feel like you can control it and what it will do?"
Hotaru nodded with much excitement as she opened her eyes. "Uh-huh. This is like nothing that I've ever felt before. For the first time I feel like I have control over what my body does."
"That's good." Usagi decided that I was time to take the five year old to a new level since she seemed to be learning fast. "Now take that energy back and let your energy lift you up. Let it make you float away from your troubles."
A soft breeze was created around the two girls as Hotaru brought her energy back into her body. She could feel how it was flowing through her veins now. "This is the neatest thing I've ever felt before." She closed her eyes again and concentrated her energy all around her body. She then concentrated the energy as pushing her body up. From no where, Hotaru felt a sense of weightlessness come over her. She felt as if she were a feather just floating around aimlessly in the atmosphere. "How am I doing?"
Usagi still couldn't believe how much progress Hotaru was making for a human. 'Wait till I tell daddy about this. He's going to be surprised.' "Why don't you look down and then you tell me."
"Huh?" Hotaru opened her eyes and noted that she was ACTUALLY floating about fifteen feet from the ground. "OH MY GOSH!" She screamed from the shock. As a result, she lost concentration and fell down to the ground.
Usagi ran to Hotaru's side and helped her up to her feet. "That was great. You're learning really fast." She giggled. "My best pupil yet."
Hotaru giggled as well and objected. "I'm your only pupil."
Usagi's giggles turned to laughter. "See what I mean?" She turned her head in the direction of a field not to far from where they were, where her mother, father, and Vejita seemed to be powering up. "Hey Hotaru, here's something for you to try and do. There are three people powering up not to far from here. I want you to try and sense them just like you did when you sensed mine."
Hotaru nodded and complied with her Sensei's wishes. "K!" She closed her eyes and tried to feel around for the power levels that she was told to sense. Though it was somewhat hard since she didn't know exactly WHAT she was searching for. "Usagi, this is hard."
"I know. But it's something you should know how to do. It could make a battle easier if you know your opponent's power level. Just look harder, it's alright if you don't get it."
Hotaru dropped all of the physical strength that she put into searching as she remembered Usagi's words. 'Now where could they be?' Little did she know that she was feeling around for the three distant fighters with her own energy. Though she had the power of her Ki on her side, she still didn't have any luck. "I can't do it."
"Don't worry, you will sooner or later. But you've done really good already today." 'Almost as good as I did when I first started with using Ki. That's sort of scary. I wonder what they girls will think.'
Hotaru's face was once again overtaken with excitement as she began to ask Usagi what she thought was an important question. "Can I learn how to fly NOW?!!"
Usagi continued to laugh at Hotaru's eagerness as she began to answer "Yes, but not today. I want to show you something before you have to be home, plus, for a job well done, I want to give you ice cream."
Hotaru jumped for joy. "ICE CREAM!"
"Alrighty then. Let's go shove off. I'm going to show you something that only my friends and my parents know about. We can walk there since it's not too far from here."
"Usagi, I'm really tired though."
Usagi reconsidered the walking idea after hearing that. She remembered back to what happened when she first started using her Ki and how she was passed out for almost two days. "Ok, I can carry you. Do you wanna go REALLY fast again?"
"YEP!" Chirped Hotaru.
~*~*~
Hotaru hopped off of Usagi's back and looked around the area of the forest that she was in, in a state of being confused. "Where is this thing you wanted to show me? I don't see anything. Did you get us lost? I thought you knew the forest really good."
Usagi giggled at her friend's confusion as the answer was all to simple. "I know where we are." She pointed up into the trees.
Hotaru slowly raised her head and peered into the tree tops, only to drop her mouth in amazement. "WOW!"
Bringing her gaze higher, her mouth falls open. No other comment went through her head. That was the only thing that she was able to say.
Usagi only continued to let the new comer stare for a short time. Once she thought that Hotaru had had enough time to gawk, she decided it was time to take action. "So? What do you think?" She was referring to her 'super' tree house that spanned out over nearly a mile long and half a mile wide.
Hotaru's violet eyes widened to their fullest as she turned to Usagi. "It's fantastic. How was it made?"
Usagi couldn't help but laugh out loud as she remembered back to how the money for it was earned. "Well, a couple of arrogant people me and my friends know, we won a forty million dollar bet."
Hotaru gasped in disbelief. "That's a LOT of money."
"Yeah. You're telling me. My mom has twenty-five million of it put away in he bank for college. She said that if we have money put away for it, then we don't have to work while we're in college. Not that I want to go. Then we used a whole FIVE MILLION of it to build this super tree house with the works."
Hotaru gasped louder. "What did you do with the rest of it?"
"Mom put it away in another bank account. She said that we can only spend it a little at a time and when she SAYS that we can. Since she's the one who won us the money. We decided to give half of what was left to my parents though."
"Why?" Hotaru didn't think that she could ever even imagine having that kind of money.
"Well, I guess they've been living off of my grandpa's fortune ever since they got married a LONG time ago. When it started to run low, my dad and brother's entered this fighting tournament to get more money since the winners got A LOT of money. And when we made the bet, everything was running out. So me and my friends decided that, since my mom won it for us, that we would give them half of what was left."
Hotaru smiled. "You're really nice, Usagi."
Usagi grinned as she took the compliment. "We like to call this place Sanctuary. The five of us came up with what we wanted it to be like. Ami, one of the smartest people around, used a Capsule Corp. Computer and designed it. All of us, plus my brothers and parents built it after that." Usagi pointed to a water fall right behind the main house. "That water from that water fall flows into that lake that we were just at."
"Awesome!"
"The house blends perfectly with the trees. The main house is right off of the waterfall that flows into the lake. We kind of altered the trees to make a place to sit the house though. In the middle is the biggest and strongest tree. Around it are other huge trees that act as the supporting edges.
"As you can see, it blends in perfectly with the trees, save for a few choice alterations. The main house is right off the water and below the waterfall that flows into the lake. It is built around the strongest tree, with three other huge trees supporting the edges. That way, it wont collapse."
"The tree house has a safety device as well, so that if we ever needed to we could store it and the surrounding trees in a capsule, that way in can be moved if ever needed. And, the additive the girls and I made, was a Ki shield system in it."
Hotaru curiously looked up to Usagi. "Ki, shields."
"Yep, we have like SO gone beyond our original ugly shield. When we first made a Ki shield it was ugly and rubbery. We can still do that kind of shield, because it's useful in some cases. But we didn't want to see that ever time we came here. So we practiced doing it and made it to where we don't even see it." Usagi could see that her student was still a little curious as to WHAT a Ki shield was. "A Ki shield is basically all of our auras that act together and deflect any attacks that are weaker than it. If an attack comes at it that is stronger, than it will begin to break it down and give us time to get out. Ami and my one of my other friends, Makoto, figured out that we could merge our Ki with the tree house and the trees themselves to make them more sturdy. Ready to go up and check it out?"
Hotaru smiled a smile so bright that it put the sun to shame. "OF COURSE!!"
"K!" She grabbed Hotaru and let herself float up to the main area of the house. "The main part of the house is the only part that has indoor plumbing. But that's ok. We kind of like the outdoor feeling we get when we go into the other parts." She guided her into a large kitchen. "This is our Kitchen that Makoto spends most of her time in. It's filled with all the cooking supplies and weird looking gadgets that Makoto could think of. She's a GREAT cook. We have a HUGE walk in refrigerator and freezer that I insisted on having. I mean, what good is a house without food?"
"Nothing."
"Darn right."
"Can't forget the snacks either."
"THAT'S WHAT ME AND MY DAD ALWAYS TELL MY MOM!" Both girls laughed as Usagi led Hotaru into the large living room. "This is the living room. Here is where we keep our big screen TV, stereo with surround sound, and enough couches and bean bag chairs for all of us. This is where Minako likes to spend her time. She's going to be a super star one day. I wanted to put another fridge and microwave by my chair, but everyone else said that it would be ugly. I don't see what's wrong with the idea."
"Neither do I."
Usagi grinned. "I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship." She pointed to a staircase on the far side of the living room. "This is the main stair case that leads down to the two lower levels. There are a couple of slide poles that me and Minako wanted to put in. Everyone agreed when I said to…" Usagi grinned. "Put in slides from the top floor to the ground. In the summer time, we even turn them into water slides."
Hotaru knew that she was definitely going to like hanging out with Usagi and her friends. "COOL!"
Usagi grabbed Hotaru's hand and guided her down the staircase into another large room. "The next level is our meeting room. Now just by looking around you can already tell that this isn't the usual meeting room that you see in 'normal' buildings. Look at all the comfortable chairs around. And there's a HUGE table in the middle of the chairs. That's where we usually play games or eat when we're here. Over there on the right is a bar with another little fridge. The bar ACTUALLY has a slush machine, my favorite! Coke and Cherry mix are my favorite."
Usagi walked to the wall by the stairs and pressed a red button. From the walls emerged seven computers and monitors. A humongous computer console was revealed by part of the wall sliding away just across from the bar on the other side of the room.
"WOW."
"Yep, Ami insisted, and no one argued. State of the art, most advanced available, with upgrade possible, computers. There is one for all of us, with one back up. This is where we meet for studying. My mom was pretty happy with us for getting these things. Even though I hate studying. Most of the time I just play games on them. Then my mom and Ami gets mad at me."
"Ok, if you follow me into the room over here by the bar, we arrive at the library that has TONS of books."
Hotaru followed Usagi into a large room filled with the most books that she had ever seen. "SO COOL!"
"Our library has comfortable pillows to lay on, and everything from our comics, which I wanted, to Ami's choice of 'proper' reading material. From kindergarten to college and beyond. I don't come in here very often since I hate reading. That's another thing they get mad at me about."
Usagi led Hotaru out of the library down to the last floor, which was closest to the waterfall. "This is where we have the showers, the sauna, the Jacuzzi, the baths, the lounge chair, and the back up generators."
Hotaru looked out one of the windows by the Jacuzzi and saw one of the slides that her friend was talking about earlier. "Usagi, that one looks really close to the water."
Usagi smiled. "That's my favorite one. With that one, you actually land in the water."
"COOL!"
Usagi led Hotaru outside where there was a walkway around the bottom floor and all the two floors above. "Here we put a walk way around each floor. We kept this as natural as we could. Wood boards and Real vines."
"Up on top is our sundeck and windmill. We keep the lounge chairs up there all the time. The windmill brings up water for the water slide. It also has a back generator power supply. As you can see there are several of them, made to look just like rocks, but smooth. And those vines over there we can swing off into the pool of water below the water fall. It's Really fun. The water below the water fall is like a mini lake."
Hotaru giggled in awe as she looked around the area. Usagi grabbed Hotaru hovered up to the main floor and stood on the outside walkway. "Off this floor are bridges that lead to rooms that have different purposes. One room as a thing kind of like a dojo for Rei. Another is a room dedicated just to TOYS! We have a sun room and then another room with nothing in it but chairs and stuff to relax. That's about it."
"Do you come here a lot?"
"Not as much as we'd like to. Usually, we are at school, or training, or at the arcade." She looked at a clock that hung over the door that led back inside the tree house. "Uh-Oh!! We have five minutes before you have to get home! Why am I always late for EVERYTHING!?"
Hotaru shrieked in worry. "WHAT!? We'll never EVER make it home in time." She began to panic.
Usagi thought of all her options and came up with only one conclusion. If she wanted to keep her job and keep training Hotaru there was only one thing that she could do. "Grab my hand, Hotaru."
"K!" Hotaru did as she was told and grabbed onto her friend's hand. She held tightly since she knew what Usagi was capable of.
"Ready? Let's go." She pressed her fingers to her forehead and teleported to Hotaru's home. 'I've gotta stop relying on this or else daddy might get mad at me.'
~*~*~
The two girls arrived at their destination just as the Professor was hover car was pulling into the mansion's driveway. Usagi sighed. "Made it just in time." She looked over to Hotaru, who didn't appear to be able to say anything about what had just happened. "My dad taught that to me. It's called teleportation. It's hard to do. It took me almost a year to REALLY get. It takes a lot of energy. I'll ask if he can teach it to you later, once you get become a good fighter."
"Why can't you teach it to me?"
"I wouldn't trust myself to do something like that."
"Oh." Hotaru looked down to her father, who was just getting out of the car. "Papa!!" Hotaru waved down to her father as she giggled.
Professor Tomoe looked up and nearly freaked out when he saw his daughter and her friend hovering in the air. "Hotaru?"
"Papa! This is COOL!"
Usagi lowered herself and her friend to the ground just in front of the Professor. "Hi, sir."
Hotaru ran to her father and jumped into his arms. "PAPA! I MISSED YOU!"
Professor Tomoe laughed as he hugged and kissed his child. "Hi there, my little firefly." He turned to the miracle worker, Usagi, and was once again happy that his daughter had met her. "Hello, Usagi. How did your first day go?"
Hotaru didn't even give Usagi the chance to open her mouth before she jumped into the conversation. "It was great, daddy! She taught me about Ki power, and let me ride on her back when she ran REEEEEEEALY fast, like a million miles an hour! She showed me how to sit with my legs in weird position while I figured out how to use MY OWN Ki, and then I hovered. She even showed me this COOL tree house that her friends and her made."
The professor laughed at his daughter's antics, but stopped short when he realized that she had mentioned the word, hover. "Hovering? As in, a step towards flying?"
Usagi took that as her sign to step in. "She did great, sir. There's nothing to worry about. She's a fast learner. And me and my friends will be there to make sure nothing goes wrong."
Hotaru jumped out of her father's arms and looked up to Usagi. "I want your daddy to teach me to teleport like you did. That's how we got home, daddy."
The Professor looked a little shell shocked by all the incoming information as he glanced at Usagi for an answer. "Teleportation?"
"Uh…yeah. It's kind of like energy transfer." She sensed that her mother and father were just arriving at home, which was her why she knew that she was to start heading home herself. Her mother knew that she would only be out until a little after five. She would have had a cow if Usagi was out any later. "I better get going before I get in trouble. My mom hates it when I'm late."
Hotaru grabbed her father's hand as she leaned into his legs. "I had fun today, Usagi."
Usagi smiled. "So did I. Don't forget to bring your Gi to school on Monday. My friends will want to see all that you've learned."
"I can't wait to meet them."
"They'll love you." Usagi walked to Hotaru and gave her a hug, which made Hotaru feel all the more better. "See you Monday."
"Bye, Usagi."
In a flash of gold, Usagi had teleported out, leaving the Professor flabbergasted. His daughter only laughed at the 'funny' face that he made.
( There is yet again, another part. What did you think? Gotta bounce, ja )
Hotaru continued to look around herself in awe. She had never seen anything quite like this before. The view was certainly breathtaking. "This is great, Usagi! GO FASTER!"
Usagi complied with her new friend's wishes and increased her speed, very slowly though as to not cause Hotaru to loose her balance and fall off. "I thought you'd like it. I know I did when I first learned that my dad could fly. I was four when he first let me ride on his back like this. Before that he made me ride on this yellow cloud called Nimbus. Though he never really took me on his back because mom said it was too dangerous. But sometimes he would break the rules. Those were the best times too because he always went a lot fast on Nimbus."
"Your daddy sounds like a nice person, Usagi. When do I get to meet him?" She looked down to the ground where a mother deer and it's fawn were grazing on a patch of open grass. 'Neat!'
"He is a great person. Maybe you can meet him tonight. Wait, I think he's going to be training tonight. You may have to wait a little bit to meet him. He's going to be doing a lot of training for a while." She decreased her altitude as soon as she had the lake in view. "Here we are! This is one of my favorite places to come." She landed near the water and let Hotaru slide down her back.
Hotaru was in pure bliss. She looked at the environment all around her in astonishment. Never in her life had she seen anything quite like it before. "This is amazing. This is SO much better than Fuji San."
"That's because it hasn't been turned into a place where tourists come. It's untouched and left for the animals. Me and dad don't really tell anyone about places like this. If we did, a company would come and make houses here for people to live in. They would totally ruin it."
"Then why did you tell me about it?" Hotaru walked to the edge of the lake and waved her hand around the water a bit.
"I don't think you're going to go and get a construction company to come and bulldoze this place." Usagi bent over and touched her finger tips to her toes without bending her knew to stretch her legs. "We should get your training started though. The first you thing you always want to do before you do it though, is always make sure you're muscles are nice and stretched before you do it so you don't hurt yourself."
"Right." Hotaru began to copy Usagi's movements and stretched her arms over her head. "Like this?"
Usagi turned over to Hotaru. "Yep. Just like that." She stopped stretching for a moment and thought about how she was going to go about training Hotaru. She still wasn't fully sure that she would be capable of doing it. 'Why daddy has faith in me, I don't know. I'm just a big screw up when it comes to important stuff like this.' Usagi went over a few ideas in her head on how she was going to do this. She thought up, rejected, revised various ways that she would do it on the way to the lake. She almost went out of her mind trying to think of the best way to do it, but decided to start the new fighter on Ki strength and physical endurance build up first. That way, she would be able to take blows that would come when she began to fight for real.
Usagi took a deep breath for not only was Hotaru's training going to begin, but so was Usagi's. This was a test for the both of them. It wouldn't be easy, but they would both get through it, together. "Ok Hotaru, we are going to start with some knowledge of Ki and how to use it to increase your strength and toughness of your body."
Hotaru clueless looked up to Usagi. "What's Ki?"
"You don't know what Ki is?" Hotaru shook her head. "Well, I guess Ki is kind of like someone's inner soul energy."
"Do I have any?"
"Of course you do. Everyone has Ki. It's just a matter of being able to control it. I was controlling my Ki energy when I was flying."
Hotaru's eyes widened when she heard the word fly. "WHEN CAN I LEARN TO FLY!?"
Usagi laughed. "First you have to learn how to control it, then we can teach you the basics of flying, but I think flying may be for another day." She noticed that she had Hotaru's undivided attention so she decided not to stop there and let her ask more questions.
Usagi smiled down at the curious girl and continued. "I think we should start with a nice run first though. That's what my dad did when I fist started out. He had me run for two miles. But because I'm a Saiyan, I could handle it. Since you're human, I think we should start you out with one."
Hotaru opened her mouth for protest. "A WHOLE mile?"
"Yes. It wont be that hard. We can go at your pace. And if there's ever a time that you feel like you're going to collapse, please tell me. I don't want to force you to run if you can't take it." 'But then again, I can't always go easy on her. I have to be tough like dad sometimes. Otherwise she wont learn. But I have to be reasonable like mom. Oh daddy! Why did you do this to me!? Why couldn't you just be fair and train her the way I asked?' "Come Hotaru, let's see how much you can do. We'll run a mile and then turn back to do some work with your Ki."
"What if we get lost?"
"That wont happen. Me and my dad always come out here and do this. I know the woods like the back of my hand. Just stick with me and we'll be fine." She readied herself for her run, which wouldn't be that stressful on her since she wasn't going to be going at anything like her full speed. "Ready when you are."
Hotaru gave one nod. "Ready." She burst out running at her fastest speed, with Usagi right by her side. "I'm going too slow, aren't I?"
"No. You're doing fine." Usagi was amazed at the girl's speed. 'She's going as fast as I did when I first started out. That's faster than a normal human should be starting out at.' "Just don't speed up and you'll be fine. You want to keep a steady pace so you don't wear yourself out. Once you start out at a certain pace, you should try to keep it. Never go up or down, unless it's an emergency."
Hotaru knew that she wasn't going to have a problem with slowing down. For some reason, she felt like she could have gone on forever. "This is kind of fun. I don't get a chance to run a lot."
Usagi was shocked as she looked down to the little girl next to her. 'What?!' "Well for someone who doesn't run very much, you're fast."
Hotaru smiled as she let out a squeak. "Thanks."
"Now listen to what I say. This will help you in your running. Feel your body as it moves. Make a note of what it feel like. Then, when se start Ki training, I want you to feel how it works with your body. I want you to be able to compare it to what it feels like when you aren't using you Ki. I think it's a good idea to know how Ki affects your body. In the end, the best fighters know how their bodies work inside and out. They have their heart, mind, and soul as one."
"Wow, Usagi. You're smart. Did you learn that from your daddy?"
"Some of it. Other parts I came up with. I feel that a fighter should know their body. I ask you this, Hotaru, how can you expect to over come someone if you don't know how your own body works?"
Hotaru was tongue tied for words. She could only think of one thing to say. "Whoa…"
"As your legs and arms get tired, try and feel how your heart is beating. Breath with it to help it along. Breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Never breath in with your mouth or else your throat will get dry and you will want to stop."
Hotaru absorbed the information with wonder. She had never known that there was so much to the art of fighting. "How much further."
"You tell me, how much strength do you have left? Do you have more energy that gone go further than a mile?"
"I think I can go further. I'm not THAT tired."
'Amazing. She isn't at all like a normal Human. Even the girls couldn't really run for a mile without getting really tired. I could barely go two. We're already coming up on the mile mark.' "Ok then, let's keep going."
~*~*~
The two young fighters fan for a total of thirty minutes before Hotaru started to gasp for breath and slow down. Usagi took this as a sign to stop. Hotaru had had enough for the day. "Let's stop now. You need to stop before you hurt yourself."
Hotaru stopped her running to a complete stop only to look up and have her eyes be met by a slightly frowning pair of blue eyes. "What did I do wrong?"
"Never just stop running like that. You'll hurt yourself. Your legs will cramp up if you do that. Come on, we have to walk for a cool down."
"Oh, sorry." She began walking and grabbed Usagi's hand with her own. "Did I do good?"
"You did really good. That was quite a good distance for your first run. Even though you slowed down near the end, you kept going, which as good. You almost went two miles." 'Amazing for a human. Wait till daddy hears about this. He'll be surprised.' She slowed to a complete stop, with Hotaru doing the same.
Hotaru bent over and rested her hands on her knees as she continued to gasp for breath. "Thanks."
Usagi grinned as an idea crossed her mind. "Now I want you to hop on my back."
Hotaru looked up in confusion. "Huh? Why?"
Usagi giggled. "Well I want to get a good work out today, too, you know. You can't have all the fun."
Hotaru hopped onto the Saiyan's back as directed and wrapped her arms around her neck so she wouldn't fall off. "K!" She couldn't wait to see what was going to happen.
Usagi prepared herself for her own workout. "HOLD ON CAUSE HERE WE GO!" Without any further conversation from either of the girls, Usagi took off at an impossible rate of speed. She heard a small 'eep' from Hotaru as she felt tiny nails being dug into her skin. Unknown to herself, she was using a small portion of her Ki to hold the small girl in place. Both girls began to laugh with enjoyment.
Usagi stopped laughing once she got another idea of training. "Try now to feel my energy as I run. Try to feel it moving through the wind."
Hotaru closed her eyes and tried to feel the energy that Usagi spoke of. She tensed her muscles trying to find it, but had no luck. She opened her eyes with disappointment. "It's not working."
Usagi lowered her speed just in case she was running to fast for Hotaru to feel. "Try it again. But don't do it by trying to use your strength. Try sensing it. Try to see it by closing your eyes."
Hotaru once again closed her eyes and tried to feel and see the energy moving at the same time. But it just wasn't clicking for her. She couldn't grasp the idea of being able to see energy moving. But all of a sudden she felt something warm around her. Not only was a warm, but bright. Her dark world inside her closed eyes soon became filled with a golden beam of light that was twisting and turning all around. Whenever she would feel her own body being thrown to the right, the yellow beam would turn that way too. She smiled as she realized what she had stumbled upon. "I DID IT! I CAN SEE AND FEEL IT!"
"Good job!"
~*~*~
~~Capsule Corp.~~
Goku walked into Vejita's gravity room as he was going to challenge to him to a spar before he trained with Chi-Chi. "Vejita?" He looked around the room and saw Vejita sitting in the middle of it looking more aggravated than ever. "Hey there."
Vejita glared up at Goku. "What is it?! Can't you see I'm busy!?"
"Hey Vejita. Just thought you'd like to spar with me."
"I never want to spar with you! I only want to kill you! Which is what I feel like doing right now."
"Come on Vejita. We've known each other for nearly fifty years and you still haven't killed me. Can't you drop it now?" He walked to what he considered to be his friend and put his hand on his shoulder to try and be friendly.
Vejita violently pulled away from Goku. "DON'T EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN! I WILL kill you. You piss me off!" He looked behind Goku and smirked in interest. "Where's your brat? Doesn't she like to hang around you all the time?"
Goku frowned. "She isn't a brat, Vejita. I would appreciate it if you didn't call her one. She happens to be training someone right now."
Vejita burst out laughing. "OH GOD KAKKOROTTO! You actually let HER go and train someone? She's not a fighter. She's too much of a whiny baby to do ANYTHING. How could you have been dumb enough to let HER of all people do that."
"Shut up! She didn't think that the way we trained would be suitable for this girl. She wanted me to train her gently."
Vejita stared blankly at Goku as if he had never heard of the option of training gently. "Gently? Gently?! How the HELL do you train someone gently?"
Goku shrugged. "You got me. I think it's a little outrageous myself, which is why I told her to do it. I would never train someone gently. They wouldn't know what pain they should be expecting if I did. But I let her have her way. It didn't seem like it was going to harm anything. She seemed to know what she was talking about, too."
"And I thought she was an idiot before. Kakkorotto, your kid just keep getting dumber and dumber. This is just too funny. I can't believe you're going to let that other kid be trained improperly."
"I have faith in Usagi. But, if her way doesn't work, we can always correct the problem."
"Yeah right. Don't expect me to help. I've already tried to train that girl the proper way, she just doesn't want to listen."
~*~*~
~~The Forest~~
Usagi ran for about an hour with Hotaru on her back, which added up to be much more than the mile and a half that Hotaru had run. When she was ready to stop, she ran back to the lake where they had come from. Before completely stopping, she walked around the giant lake once so as to not let her legs cramp up.
She set Hotaru down on the ground when she did finally stop, she let Hotaru slip off. "What a rush. I love running like that. Me and dad always do that. We usually end up racing each other, even though I always loosing."
Hotaru was trying to get used to being still as she let her eyes get used to not seeing everything flying by her. "You daddy BEATS you?!"
"Yep. Dad's a lot faster AND stronger than me. But that's ok. I'm practicing all the time. I plan to actually beat him one day. Hopefully."
"Wow, I can't wait to meet him. Will I ever get to fight him?"
'Wow. She's already getting into this fighting thing. She's kind of like me and Makoto.' "When you get stronger. Dad is REALLY strong. Even my friends still have a hard time beating him, though they're getting a lot better at it."
Hotaru's eyes sparkled with happiness as she couldn't wait to meet everyone that Usagi knew. "DO I GET TO MEET YOUR FRIENDS TOO?!"
"Yep. You get to meet them on Monday after school. You would have been able to meet them today, but my mom wanted us to get to know each other better before the others came." Hotaru appeared to be too happy to even be able to reply. "So, you wanna continue?"
"YES!"
Usagi giggled at the girl's enthusiasm. "K! Now we are going to get more into the Ki stuff, like I said before. Now, what we need to do, is sit down and clear our minds." Both fighters sat down by the lake and faced each other with their legs crossed. Usagi held her hands in front of herself with only six inches in between them. "Put your hands out just like this and imagine your own Ki energy flowing from your body into this small space." Hotaru looked at her friend as if she were crazy, but went along with it. Usagi could see that Hotaru was struggling with her task. She could see her muscles tensing. "Remember what I told you when I was running? Don't try to do it with your own physical strength. Relax and let your energy do the work. As long as you're concentrating your energy to do something, it will work."
She became more interested in the girl's progress as she felt her Ki moving inside of her. 'Wow, she's actually doing it.' A small bead of purple energy built inside the opening between Hotaru's hands. Usagi couldn't believe it. Even her own friends had had more trouble controlling their Ki when they first started. It had taken them around two days for them to fully be able to control it. 'How is she doing that? She did it almost as fast as I did.'
A small smiled appeared on Hotaru's face as she looked down to the bead of energy that was in her control. It was giving off an intense purple light that expanded even beyond the area of her hands. It was at that moment, for some reason, she began to feel that she had more power to do anything than ever before. "Am I doing good?"
Usagi nodded in awe. "Ye…ah…" 'Why does it feel so powerful? Almost like a…' "Can you feel it moving within you? Do you feel like you can control it and what it will do?"
Hotaru nodded with much excitement as she opened her eyes. "Uh-huh. This is like nothing that I've ever felt before. For the first time I feel like I have control over what my body does."
"That's good." Usagi decided that I was time to take the five year old to a new level since she seemed to be learning fast. "Now take that energy back and let your energy lift you up. Let it make you float away from your troubles."
A soft breeze was created around the two girls as Hotaru brought her energy back into her body. She could feel how it was flowing through her veins now. "This is the neatest thing I've ever felt before." She closed her eyes again and concentrated her energy all around her body. She then concentrated the energy as pushing her body up. From no where, Hotaru felt a sense of weightlessness come over her. She felt as if she were a feather just floating around aimlessly in the atmosphere. "How am I doing?"
Usagi still couldn't believe how much progress Hotaru was making for a human. 'Wait till I tell daddy about this. He's going to be surprised.' "Why don't you look down and then you tell me."
"Huh?" Hotaru opened her eyes and noted that she was ACTUALLY floating about fifteen feet from the ground. "OH MY GOSH!" She screamed from the shock. As a result, she lost concentration and fell down to the ground.
Usagi ran to Hotaru's side and helped her up to her feet. "That was great. You're learning really fast." She giggled. "My best pupil yet."
Hotaru giggled as well and objected. "I'm your only pupil."
Usagi's giggles turned to laughter. "See what I mean?" She turned her head in the direction of a field not to far from where they were, where her mother, father, and Vejita seemed to be powering up. "Hey Hotaru, here's something for you to try and do. There are three people powering up not to far from here. I want you to try and sense them just like you did when you sensed mine."
Hotaru nodded and complied with her Sensei's wishes. "K!" She closed her eyes and tried to feel around for the power levels that she was told to sense. Though it was somewhat hard since she didn't know exactly WHAT she was searching for. "Usagi, this is hard."
"I know. But it's something you should know how to do. It could make a battle easier if you know your opponent's power level. Just look harder, it's alright if you don't get it."
Hotaru dropped all of the physical strength that she put into searching as she remembered Usagi's words. 'Now where could they be?' Little did she know that she was feeling around for the three distant fighters with her own energy. Though she had the power of her Ki on her side, she still didn't have any luck. "I can't do it."
"Don't worry, you will sooner or later. But you've done really good already today." 'Almost as good as I did when I first started with using Ki. That's sort of scary. I wonder what they girls will think.'
Hotaru's face was once again overtaken with excitement as she began to ask Usagi what she thought was an important question. "Can I learn how to fly NOW?!!"
Usagi continued to laugh at Hotaru's eagerness as she began to answer "Yes, but not today. I want to show you something before you have to be home, plus, for a job well done, I want to give you ice cream."
Hotaru jumped for joy. "ICE CREAM!"
"Alrighty then. Let's go shove off. I'm going to show you something that only my friends and my parents know about. We can walk there since it's not too far from here."
"Usagi, I'm really tired though."
Usagi reconsidered the walking idea after hearing that. She remembered back to what happened when she first started using her Ki and how she was passed out for almost two days. "Ok, I can carry you. Do you wanna go REALLY fast again?"
"YEP!" Chirped Hotaru.
~*~*~
Hotaru hopped off of Usagi's back and looked around the area of the forest that she was in, in a state of being confused. "Where is this thing you wanted to show me? I don't see anything. Did you get us lost? I thought you knew the forest really good."
Usagi giggled at her friend's confusion as the answer was all to simple. "I know where we are." She pointed up into the trees.
Hotaru slowly raised her head and peered into the tree tops, only to drop her mouth in amazement. "WOW!"
Bringing her gaze higher, her mouth falls open. No other comment went through her head. That was the only thing that she was able to say.
Usagi only continued to let the new comer stare for a short time. Once she thought that Hotaru had had enough time to gawk, she decided it was time to take action. "So? What do you think?" She was referring to her 'super' tree house that spanned out over nearly a mile long and half a mile wide.
Hotaru's violet eyes widened to their fullest as she turned to Usagi. "It's fantastic. How was it made?"
Usagi couldn't help but laugh out loud as she remembered back to how the money for it was earned. "Well, a couple of arrogant people me and my friends know, we won a forty million dollar bet."
Hotaru gasped in disbelief. "That's a LOT of money."
"Yeah. You're telling me. My mom has twenty-five million of it put away in he bank for college. She said that if we have money put away for it, then we don't have to work while we're in college. Not that I want to go. Then we used a whole FIVE MILLION of it to build this super tree house with the works."
Hotaru gasped louder. "What did you do with the rest of it?"
"Mom put it away in another bank account. She said that we can only spend it a little at a time and when she SAYS that we can. Since she's the one who won us the money. We decided to give half of what was left to my parents though."
"Why?" Hotaru didn't think that she could ever even imagine having that kind of money.
"Well, I guess they've been living off of my grandpa's fortune ever since they got married a LONG time ago. When it started to run low, my dad and brother's entered this fighting tournament to get more money since the winners got A LOT of money. And when we made the bet, everything was running out. So me and my friends decided that, since my mom won it for us, that we would give them half of what was left."
Hotaru smiled. "You're really nice, Usagi."
Usagi grinned as she took the compliment. "We like to call this place Sanctuary. The five of us came up with what we wanted it to be like. Ami, one of the smartest people around, used a Capsule Corp. Computer and designed it. All of us, plus my brothers and parents built it after that." Usagi pointed to a water fall right behind the main house. "That water from that water fall flows into that lake that we were just at."
"Awesome!"
"The house blends perfectly with the trees. The main house is right off of the waterfall that flows into the lake. We kind of altered the trees to make a place to sit the house though. In the middle is the biggest and strongest tree. Around it are other huge trees that act as the supporting edges.
"As you can see, it blends in perfectly with the trees, save for a few choice alterations. The main house is right off the water and below the waterfall that flows into the lake. It is built around the strongest tree, with three other huge trees supporting the edges. That way, it wont collapse."
"The tree house has a safety device as well, so that if we ever needed to we could store it and the surrounding trees in a capsule, that way in can be moved if ever needed. And, the additive the girls and I made, was a Ki shield system in it."
Hotaru curiously looked up to Usagi. "Ki, shields."
"Yep, we have like SO gone beyond our original ugly shield. When we first made a Ki shield it was ugly and rubbery. We can still do that kind of shield, because it's useful in some cases. But we didn't want to see that ever time we came here. So we practiced doing it and made it to where we don't even see it." Usagi could see that her student was still a little curious as to WHAT a Ki shield was. "A Ki shield is basically all of our auras that act together and deflect any attacks that are weaker than it. If an attack comes at it that is stronger, than it will begin to break it down and give us time to get out. Ami and my one of my other friends, Makoto, figured out that we could merge our Ki with the tree house and the trees themselves to make them more sturdy. Ready to go up and check it out?"
Hotaru smiled a smile so bright that it put the sun to shame. "OF COURSE!!"
"K!" She grabbed Hotaru and let herself float up to the main area of the house. "The main part of the house is the only part that has indoor plumbing. But that's ok. We kind of like the outdoor feeling we get when we go into the other parts." She guided her into a large kitchen. "This is our Kitchen that Makoto spends most of her time in. It's filled with all the cooking supplies and weird looking gadgets that Makoto could think of. She's a GREAT cook. We have a HUGE walk in refrigerator and freezer that I insisted on having. I mean, what good is a house without food?"
"Nothing."
"Darn right."
"Can't forget the snacks either."
"THAT'S WHAT ME AND MY DAD ALWAYS TELL MY MOM!" Both girls laughed as Usagi led Hotaru into the large living room. "This is the living room. Here is where we keep our big screen TV, stereo with surround sound, and enough couches and bean bag chairs for all of us. This is where Minako likes to spend her time. She's going to be a super star one day. I wanted to put another fridge and microwave by my chair, but everyone else said that it would be ugly. I don't see what's wrong with the idea."
"Neither do I."
Usagi grinned. "I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship." She pointed to a staircase on the far side of the living room. "This is the main stair case that leads down to the two lower levels. There are a couple of slide poles that me and Minako wanted to put in. Everyone agreed when I said to…" Usagi grinned. "Put in slides from the top floor to the ground. In the summer time, we even turn them into water slides."
Hotaru knew that she was definitely going to like hanging out with Usagi and her friends. "COOL!"
Usagi grabbed Hotaru's hand and guided her down the staircase into another large room. "The next level is our meeting room. Now just by looking around you can already tell that this isn't the usual meeting room that you see in 'normal' buildings. Look at all the comfortable chairs around. And there's a HUGE table in the middle of the chairs. That's where we usually play games or eat when we're here. Over there on the right is a bar with another little fridge. The bar ACTUALLY has a slush machine, my favorite! Coke and Cherry mix are my favorite."
Usagi walked to the wall by the stairs and pressed a red button. From the walls emerged seven computers and monitors. A humongous computer console was revealed by part of the wall sliding away just across from the bar on the other side of the room.
"WOW."
"Yep, Ami insisted, and no one argued. State of the art, most advanced available, with upgrade possible, computers. There is one for all of us, with one back up. This is where we meet for studying. My mom was pretty happy with us for getting these things. Even though I hate studying. Most of the time I just play games on them. Then my mom and Ami gets mad at me."
"Ok, if you follow me into the room over here by the bar, we arrive at the library that has TONS of books."
Hotaru followed Usagi into a large room filled with the most books that she had ever seen. "SO COOL!"
"Our library has comfortable pillows to lay on, and everything from our comics, which I wanted, to Ami's choice of 'proper' reading material. From kindergarten to college and beyond. I don't come in here very often since I hate reading. That's another thing they get mad at me about."
Usagi led Hotaru out of the library down to the last floor, which was closest to the waterfall. "This is where we have the showers, the sauna, the Jacuzzi, the baths, the lounge chair, and the back up generators."
Hotaru looked out one of the windows by the Jacuzzi and saw one of the slides that her friend was talking about earlier. "Usagi, that one looks really close to the water."
Usagi smiled. "That's my favorite one. With that one, you actually land in the water."
"COOL!"
Usagi led Hotaru outside where there was a walkway around the bottom floor and all the two floors above. "Here we put a walk way around each floor. We kept this as natural as we could. Wood boards and Real vines."
"Up on top is our sundeck and windmill. We keep the lounge chairs up there all the time. The windmill brings up water for the water slide. It also has a back generator power supply. As you can see there are several of them, made to look just like rocks, but smooth. And those vines over there we can swing off into the pool of water below the water fall. It's Really fun. The water below the water fall is like a mini lake."
Hotaru giggled in awe as she looked around the area. Usagi grabbed Hotaru hovered up to the main floor and stood on the outside walkway. "Off this floor are bridges that lead to rooms that have different purposes. One room as a thing kind of like a dojo for Rei. Another is a room dedicated just to TOYS! We have a sun room and then another room with nothing in it but chairs and stuff to relax. That's about it."
"Do you come here a lot?"
"Not as much as we'd like to. Usually, we are at school, or training, or at the arcade." She looked at a clock that hung over the door that led back inside the tree house. "Uh-Oh!! We have five minutes before you have to get home! Why am I always late for EVERYTHING!?"
Hotaru shrieked in worry. "WHAT!? We'll never EVER make it home in time." She began to panic.
Usagi thought of all her options and came up with only one conclusion. If she wanted to keep her job and keep training Hotaru there was only one thing that she could do. "Grab my hand, Hotaru."
"K!" Hotaru did as she was told and grabbed onto her friend's hand. She held tightly since she knew what Usagi was capable of.
"Ready? Let's go." She pressed her fingers to her forehead and teleported to Hotaru's home. 'I've gotta stop relying on this or else daddy might get mad at me.'
~*~*~
The two girls arrived at their destination just as the Professor was hover car was pulling into the mansion's driveway. Usagi sighed. "Made it just in time." She looked over to Hotaru, who didn't appear to be able to say anything about what had just happened. "My dad taught that to me. It's called teleportation. It's hard to do. It took me almost a year to REALLY get. It takes a lot of energy. I'll ask if he can teach it to you later, once you get become a good fighter."
"Why can't you teach it to me?"
"I wouldn't trust myself to do something like that."
"Oh." Hotaru looked down to her father, who was just getting out of the car. "Papa!!" Hotaru waved down to her father as she giggled.
Professor Tomoe looked up and nearly freaked out when he saw his daughter and her friend hovering in the air. "Hotaru?"
"Papa! This is COOL!"
Usagi lowered herself and her friend to the ground just in front of the Professor. "Hi, sir."
Hotaru ran to her father and jumped into his arms. "PAPA! I MISSED YOU!"
Professor Tomoe laughed as he hugged and kissed his child. "Hi there, my little firefly." He turned to the miracle worker, Usagi, and was once again happy that his daughter had met her. "Hello, Usagi. How did your first day go?"
Hotaru didn't even give Usagi the chance to open her mouth before she jumped into the conversation. "It was great, daddy! She taught me about Ki power, and let me ride on her back when she ran REEEEEEEALY fast, like a million miles an hour! She showed me how to sit with my legs in weird position while I figured out how to use MY OWN Ki, and then I hovered. She even showed me this COOL tree house that her friends and her made."
The professor laughed at his daughter's antics, but stopped short when he realized that she had mentioned the word, hover. "Hovering? As in, a step towards flying?"
Usagi took that as her sign to step in. "She did great, sir. There's nothing to worry about. She's a fast learner. And me and my friends will be there to make sure nothing goes wrong."
Hotaru jumped out of her father's arms and looked up to Usagi. "I want your daddy to teach me to teleport like you did. That's how we got home, daddy."
The Professor looked a little shell shocked by all the incoming information as he glanced at Usagi for an answer. "Teleportation?"
"Uh…yeah. It's kind of like energy transfer." She sensed that her mother and father were just arriving at home, which was her why she knew that she was to start heading home herself. Her mother knew that she would only be out until a little after five. She would have had a cow if Usagi was out any later. "I better get going before I get in trouble. My mom hates it when I'm late."
Hotaru grabbed her father's hand as she leaned into his legs. "I had fun today, Usagi."
Usagi smiled. "So did I. Don't forget to bring your Gi to school on Monday. My friends will want to see all that you've learned."
"I can't wait to meet them."
"They'll love you." Usagi walked to Hotaru and gave her a hug, which made Hotaru feel all the more better. "See you Monday."
"Bye, Usagi."
In a flash of gold, Usagi had teleported out, leaving the Professor flabbergasted. His daughter only laughed at the 'funny' face that he made.
( There is yet again, another part. What did you think? Gotta bounce, ja )