Chapter 20 Training, and Tribulations Monday June 16,

Meanwhile, back at the Son estate...

Roshi couldn't sleep. Actually, he was totally and completely awake. The fact that he had just sent Slip away with a girl who almost killed him last night did not sit at all well with him. Especially since Kinomi didn't exactly seem to be sorry for her actions.

To complicate matters even more, he still had to figure out what he would tell Mariah and Kit. He didn't like lying if he could help it, but he didn't really see any other way to explain things. It was not like he could just tell Mariah the truth. That would take a LOT more explaining then he cared to even think about at the moment.

So of course that and Kinomi, and Slip's safety, and his life in general were all he could think about.

'What a mess.' Roshi thought as he put down the 4 star ball. In his usual fashion for when he was deep in thought, he was seated at his desk. His computer to his left, its screen was filled with various helpful passages from his ancestor's diaries and journals. Then, his journal sat to his right, and the dragon ball sat right in front of him.

So there he sat. Thinking, reading and writing. As was tradition, Roshi tried his best to keep a good journal. Some of his ancestors had used theirs as a log of activities, or as a pen pal or various other ways. Roshi liked to write 'Thoughts' that he had on general topics. Tapping his pen on his journal Roshi thought for a while and then started typing. While Roshi wrote, the pen detected the movements and digitized what he wrote. It then sent the information to a special mainframe at Capsule Corp where the complete digital copies of all the journals were stored. Fifty years after his death, the sealed and hidden files would become active and could then be accessed by any member of the family that wanted to read them.

The digital copies of the hardbound journals and diaries were one of the greatest things Pan had done for the family. After finding all of her parent's journals and restoring her house, Pan's project in life became making sure that the stories and truth's were passed down generation by generation unchanged and undamaged. Before she had managed to convince her Granddaughter Bulma Jr. to create the mainframe and system. It was built in secrecy. No one knew how the system worked or even where it was, but it had never failed in 400 years so most people didn't put much thought into it. Those who did never found what they were looking for. Slip even admitted to have tried to hack into her mother's files once. But she couldn't find the system or the files to hack them.

His thoughts organized to some degree, Roshi began to write.

The Journal of Son Roshi, Monday, June 16

First impressions and the Truth

I have heard it said by a lot of smart people that first impressions are the most important thing in any relationship. Whether the relationship is business, social, or romantic in nature does not matter. If one makes a poor first impression, they are more or less finished before they even started.

Gohan never trusted Vegeta. At least, he never completely trusted him. Just because of the fact that Vegeta tried to kill him the first time they met. Videl called Gohan her shy pensive geek throughout her life, just because of the way he acted the first few times she saw him.

I can go on and on about people not changing their views. I can also find where people were completely wrong about someone after the first impression.

At the moment, however, I am trying to puzzle out my first impression of Kinomi, and figure out what it means. I have to admit though that if first impressions are all that matter, we will never be able to work together and I had best get Slip to send her away as soon as possible.

I doubt either of us made good first impressions. I have to admit when I first saw her climbing Korrin's Tower with her pinkie fingers going slow as a stunned snail, I thought she was an idiot. Piccolo had said that she had been in such a rush to get answers and find what she thought she was looking for, that she didn't even look around or think about what she was doing. Attack first, ask questions later.

Then she gets here and spends over two hours inching up the tower to only get barely over half way up it. She could have climbed that tower in a minute, or flown up it in two seconds. What the heck was she doing? It made no sense. None what so ever. Then she won't even answer a simple question and started threatening me. I don't take threats well. Never have, never will. I must take after Vegeta. If you are going to do something so astronomically stupid as to threaten me you had darn well better be able to back up those words.

She almost can.

Ok, to summarize, She is arrogant, condescending, short tempered, hiding something, and very very prideful. Her ability to back up her arrogance and pride makes her very very dangerous.

My ability to wound her pride and bitch slap her arrogance has definitely made an impression, but I doubt it is a very good one.

She has more reasons to not like me then I have to not like her. 1. I rip off her tail. 2. I ogle her and then laugh at her. 3. I beat the crap out of her and in the process practically destroy all of her clothing. 4. In the process of blowing her clothing off of her and beating the crap out of her I accidentally grabbed her chest. 5. I mock her words and throw her around like a rag doll. 6. I saw her nude.

I hope Tee dies long before me; cause I never want him to read that. He is such a hormonal teenager. I cannot believe he actually asked me what it felt like. And then I accidentally walk in on her. Boy wasn't that great. She already thought I was a pervert. So what do I do? Oh, just every pervert's fantasy.

Roshi stopped writing and got up to blow his nose. 'That's odd, I never get nosebleeds.' He thought as he dabbed at his nose for a bit and then sniffling returned to his journal.

Anyway, all Tee saw was her physical beauty. That is not the right way to think about a girl, any girl. Not to say that Kinomi isn't very stunning. She is. Not that I have ever seen another girl in the same state of undress, but I can imagine, and Kinomi is very nicely put together. If Niko is an 8 or so, Kinomi is at least a 9.5 (I do not believe a man can label any girl a 10 unless he is married to her because to be a ten she has to be perfect. Beauty like so many other things is in the eye of the beholder, and if a girl is perfect in your eyes, she had darn well better be married to you.)

Kinomi will definitely (if she ever calms down and stops being such an enormous bitch) be some guy's ten someday. Very easily. Her body is just a work of art. Even the flaws beg questions and attention. She has a hook shaped scar right...

On second thought this is not the line of thought I want to be thinking about. Kinomi while being a horrendous bitch is a person and it is not dignified to think about anyone in that manner. Besides, even if she was going to be staying on Earth for an extended period of time she is like an old fashioned nuclear reactor minus the control rods. Unstable, in a state of meltdown and dangerous to all surrounding life.

That is just my first impression of course, but I don't think I am wrong about that. Besides, thinking like that makes me feel very very bad about betraying Mariah.

Roshi stopped writing and thought about Mariah for a moment. 'Funny, I've never thought about Mariah that way before. Heh, Mariah is really nice looking, but I guess not in that way.'

'Stop; now you are betraying Mariah. Just because she isn't the most beautiful person does not mean you should think less of her. She has a... a... I want to say ten for personality, but after what I just wrote I guess a 9.9 where as Kinomi has like a -50. No doubt she's nice to look at, but man what a bitch!'

Roshi looked at where he had stopped and continued his previous thoughts.

Which is my other problem. How do I get her to stop worrying without telling her more then I want to? I would do anything for Mariah, but I just cannot bring myself to tell her the truth.

I know, Kit says that fate will bite me if I don't, but I... I want to be sure before I tell her. I mean sure totally sure. The problem is that I don't think I will ever be sure. Gohan had it easy. Videl FOUND out about him and forced him to come clean. Why can't I have things so easy?

Because life is not supposed to be easy. That is why.

I think I will just tell them that I am sorry, but my thing at CC lasted until late and I did not get home until around 2.

That is honest enough.

Which moves me to the real problem. I am starting to LOOK like a Saiyan. I bulked up. Noticeably in the past few weeks.

This has Mariah worried. She thinks I am using drugs. Kit thinks it is funny. It is not funny. I don't want Mariah to worry but I don't want to hurt her either and I want to make her happy, but I don't think she will believe a simple story; she is too smart for that. So I will have to tell her everything. I can't do that yet. I just can't.

Which gets me thinking about Kinomi again. That girl won't get out of my head. Anyway, I know Kinomi isn't telling me the whole truth. I withheld stuff about training from her because I could not trust her. I realize that she is doing the same.

Why is the truth so hard to tell?

Why are first impressions so hard to overlook?

If or when I can answer those two questions I will be a very very lucky man.

Son Roshi

Roshi looked at his watch. It was 10:02 Slip had been at CC with Kinomi for over an hour now. 'I thought I felt Kinomi's ki spike a few times, but it didn't stay that way very long, and everyone at CC is still alive. All million or so of them. I forget how big that place is until I try to track ki at it.'

Roshi stood and grabbed the Dragonball. 'If only the rest of you were around. I could wish for Kinomi's problems to be solved so she could leave, and then I would wish to be able to know what to do with Mariah.'

Sitting back down he called Kit first. She finally answered after six rings. "Hello?" She said groggily off screen.

"Hi, Kit, this is Roshi. What's up?"

"Where were you yesterday? Kit said while walking past the screen in a big fluffy robe. "Mariah kept me up until 4 waiting for you to call us back."

'Till four? What on Earth?' "What?! I was at Capsule Corp until 2 or so, but I thought that was too late to call." Roshi said sounding every bit as confused as he was.

Kit reappeared on the screen. She had thrown on a green tee shirt and some mesh shorts. The shirt however was backwards and inside out. So the tag was hanging right below her chin.

"Kit, are you ok?" Roshi asked, "You look a bit disheveled."

Kit rubbed her eyes quick and looked at Roshi like he had just blurted the world's largest understatement. "No! I got like 2 hours of sleep last night and now that I finally fall a sleep, you wake me up."

Roshi did the math in his head. "Um Kit, if Mariah left at 4, you should have gotten about 6 hours of sleep."

Kit rolled her eyes and looked sheepish for a bit. "I know... but I was dumb and..."

"And you drank some of Mariah's coffee." Roshi finished for her.

"Yep." She admitted.

Roshi laughed. Kit avoided most caffinated beverages like the plague. She couldn't handle caffeine. It made her hyper, jittery, jumpy, and overly alert.

It was a rather odd contrast to Mariah, who sucked down Frapaccinoes cappuccinos, and any other caffinated beverage like a jet engine uses fuel.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to bed." Roshi said while shaking his head.

"Wait, what was going on at the Capsule Corp that you were so busy?" Kit said quickly before he could end the connection.

"Just some stuff for Slip. It really isn't that important. I just wanted to say I was sorry I didn't get back to the two of you. Anyway I think I'll send Mariah an e-mail, but if you see her could you tell her I am sorry we didn't get to do something last night?"

"Ok, no problem. Well, I guess, it is summer, and I don't have to work, so I am going back to bed. Mariah works tonight from 4 to close at the mall remember." Kit replied

"Oh, yeah that's right. Well catch ya later." Roshi said before ending the conversation.

Roshi quickly typed out an e-mail to Mariah and then sent it. Shaking his head he grabbed the Dragonball off of his lap and put the orange globe down on its pillow before he grabbed one of his many palm pads and headed down the stairs.

'Just because there has not been a problem caused by my having sent Kinomi away with Slip, doesn't mean I can relax anytime soon.'

After quickly making a small breakfast of French toast, pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausages, a few liters of Milk and several glasses of Orange juice, oh, and grabbing three peaches, he sat down to eat.

His mother smelled the food, and walked in to see what all he was eating. Even after being married to a Saiyan for over 20 years and having watched Roshi's appetite grow faster then he did, Beth still could not get over how much they ate.

Roshi heard her coming and grabbed his pad. When she walked in he was busy typing something into it with his right hand while he shoveled food into his mouth with his left.

"What are you working on?" His mother asked seeing him concentrating on the pad.

Roshi quickly swallowed. His father may talk with his mouth full, but his mother had never allowed him to get away with it. "I'm just flipping through a bunch of Gohan, Videl, and Pan's journal entries."

"Whatever for?"

"I'm trying to see if they ever got grounded for saving the world."

His mother's sharp intake of breath and then reddening glare told him that he had gotten her attention.

"And did you find anything?" Beth asked tensely.

Roshi knew he was playing with fire, but his mother usually liked a good argument, so he was hoping he could convince her to lighten up on him and let him go to keep watch over Kinomi.

"Nope. Seems Gohan never got grounded his entire life." Roshi replied. Roshi had memorized the entries long ago. Videl had been grounded for dating Gohan, but that had not lasted long. Gohan had never been grounded. And as for Pan, well, Pan got away with just about anything she wanted to. She did, however, get grounded once.

"Oh wait, here we go. Pan got grounded for a month once." Roshi replied looking up.

"Oh, and what did Pan do to get grounded?" Beth asked not sounding very interested.

"Seems she and a few friends broke into the male's locker room at school and stole all of the equipment from the Baseball team's lockers. They then replaced the equipment with string bikinis that read Girly Men."

This actually brought a smile onto Beth's lips. Oh really. So what happened?"

Well, it seems they gave the equipment they had stolen to the rival school and then hid a camera in the locker room to tape the guy's reactions when they saw the bikinis. The problem was they left the camera transmitting on wide band and most of Satan City got to watch the humiliation of the OSHS team. Since Yamcha had retired from the pros and was the assistant coach at the time, the team had been expected to do very well. They still did but the stigmata of that event ended there season rather quickly. I guess Gohan was rather mad about it."

Beth sighed and shook her head. "So since all you did was what was it you said? Saved the world, you don't think you should be grounded. Is that right?"

"Hit the nail on the head mom."

"Ok, care to explain why Pan's house looks like it has been ransacked by thieves and why there are two huge black holes in the hardwood floor in the dinning room?"

The hopeful smile on Roshi's face died. "Um... well..."

"That's what I thought." Beth said while grabbing the sausage link Roshi had grabbed while they were talking. "You are still grounded."

"MOM!!!!"

"Don't take that tone with me young man!"

"But... But... But... I didn't do anything wrong! This is so unfair!"

"That's it! Go to your room!" His mother yelled as she grabbed the plate away from him.

"What?!?! I'm not done eating yet!"

Son Beth turned around and glared up at her son. "So, You wanted to lip off to me, so now I am punishing you the best way I know how. You will eat only NORMAL amounts of food until I am satisfied that you have learned your lesson."

Roshi turned white. 'She's going to starve me to death. I've never seen her this mad. Oh this is soooooooo unfair!!!!!!!'

Realizing that he wouldn't get anywhere by continueing his argument, he went up to his room.

* * *

Boxers looked around. 'Shit.' "Well, follow me." He told the fuming Saiyan girl.

The original gravity room was built right next to Bulma's lab. Since that was now Slip's private lab, and Ichigo had just destroyed a very large portion of it, Boxers decided that he would have to take her to the big one.

Taking her to the big gravity room was easier said then done however. Capsule Corp. had grown a lot since the time when it was just the one dome that Slip's lab was in. There were now six separate domes on the CC campus. The largest and now primary headquarters one was 165 stories tall and just under a km wide. Then there was the Vault, and the Spacedome, the Biodome, and last but not least the SaiyaDome.

SaiyaDome was known as the Fortress by almost everyone. To Boxer's knowledge only family members knew what was in there. While there were huge areas within the CC that the average person would never get into, the Vault for example, there were no connecting tunnels to the Saiya dome shown on any document, map, or file. Every building on the grounds had multiple tunnels, walkways, and Turbolift people movers connecting them. There was nothing connecting the SaiyaDome.

The SaiyaDome was about halfway between the First dome and the MainDome. It was one of the oldest buildings on the grounds having been built specifically to house the training facilities for his highness Vegeta. Sometime about 300 years ago someone had tried to break into it and had activated the training Androids. Since whoever or whatever it was did not survive the encounter, the Son Briefs of the time decided to seal the dome. They did not want anyone else to get hurt, and they did not use it since most of the fighters of that era trained over in the 439 area anyway. The dome had since been attacked about once every 60 years or so by some idiot trying to see what was in there. The walls of the SaiyaDome had been made of a substance that absorbed energy and were strong enough to withstand the might of a fully powered up Vegeta. Needless to say no one had been successful in getting in.

The only way in was through an underground tunnel that does not show up on any map. Local legend said that the dome was sealed because of a nuclear disaster that had happened during some secret experiment. Of course, no one minded since this just deterred possible snoops.

Boxers was trying desperately to remember how to get to the entrance to that tunnel. He knew it was around here someplace, but he didn't know where. Even though the original dome was now one of the smallest, it was still quite large. Most of it had been turned into a public museum displaying the works of Dr. Briefs and Bulma. Along with the gardens and other interesting features of the building. They had yet to leave the private and sealed to visitors' section of the dome however.

Mumbling under his breath he continued walking. * * *

Ichigo followed the young demisaiyan who had identified himself as Boxers around for what felt like forever. After they passed the same statue for the third time she had had enough.

"Do you even know where you are going?" She asked snidely.

"Yes." Boxers spat back. He stopped next to the statue and turned to look back at her. "I just don't remember exactly how to get there. If you can't tell this place is huge."

Looking at him Ichigo suddenly realized why she had so much trouble accepting him as a Saiyan. He looked nothing like a Saiyan. He had long limp blonde hair (NO not SuperSaiyan hair... Think Sharpener only not as tall or bulky) blue eyes and most noticeably no tail. The statue on the other hand looked like a Saiyan. The statue showed the man with his hands cupped right in front of his heart as if he were about to charge and fire off a ki blast.

The base of the statue had Saiyan writing on it identifying the man as Vegeta's father, the last "King" of the Saiyans.

Seeing that made Ichigo mad for a moment. 'Stupid traitorous bastard's calling themselves royalty.' She thought to herself.

"You call yourself a Saiyan? You don't even know were the training facilities are? It is no wonder why you are so weak." Ichigo said as she pointed at the statue. "That is what a Saiyan looks like. Proud and strong and determined. You look like some sort of frightened animal." She said as she pointed to the statue.

Boxers turned to look at the statue. "Oh DUH I am an idiot!" he yelled. He then made a ki ball in his hand and placed in the cupped hands of the Statue.

To Ichigo's surprise, the Statue absorbed the ki ball and then a panel in the wall opened up. There was a long down-slopping hallway behind the door.

"After you." He said politely completely ignoring her earlier comments.

'Stupid idiot doesn't even know when to get mad. He knows he can't win so he avoids the fight. I think I might be able to get a bit more out of him then I got out of Roshi. That Roshi guy seemed a lot smarter and protective of his information then this guy.' Ichigo thought to herself as she walked down the hallway.

"So tell me, Roshi claims that you guys are descendants of Super Saiyans. Considering what the legend say about Super Saiyans, I find it hard to believe." Ichigo said trying to goad him a little bit.

Boxers ignored her.

The two of them came to a very large very heavy looking vault-like door. There was a handprint reader station on the wall, but other then that there was nothing of note.

"Once again you show that you don't deserve to call yourself a Saiyan. A REAL Saiyan would never allow themselves to become so weak after achieving so much power. I don't know whether I should be appalled at you and your cousins or if I should just laugh at your pathetic attempts to claim something you cannot prove." She said snidely.

"Look, I don't really care what your opinion of me or my cousins is. Roshi beat you to a millimeter of your death last night, so don't act so high and mighty. You call me weak, but I happen to know that I am probably more then a match for most of your high and mighty pureblooded morons who have never seen a fraction of the things my ancestors saw and defeated. So don't you dare go putting on any airs with me." Boxers said hotly.

"Roshi got lucky and everyone including himself knows it." She said back.

Boxers threw his hands up in the air. "That's it. I tried to ignore you. I tried to be nice. Last night you claimed you didn't want to kill those people. Well from what I have seen, you have not shown any remorse for your actions. You are hot headed, judgmental, arrogant, snide, prejudiced, rude, you act like a spoiled child, and over all I would say you are every bit as barbaric as the rest of the Saiyan race was before Frieza sent them all to hell." Boxers continued on before she could interrupt. "You say I am not worthy of the name Saiyan. Fine I am an Earthling as have been ALL of my ancestors since the time Vegeta settled on Earth. You can claim your Saiyan heritage all you want it means about as much to me as a bag of flaming dog crap!" Boxers said as he turned around and walked back up the ramp.

WHAM! Ichigo kicked him in the middle of his back sending him sprawling on the floor. She was seething. He had just called her and everything she believed in worthless. She realized that more then the fair share of comments had hit home exactly were she was most vulnerable. She knew her behavior was not up to what it should be, but she was not used to having anyone question her about anything.

"Get up, I did not kick you that hard." Ichigo said to him. "You are right. I have not been the greatest person in my life. I did not mean everything I just said. I was only trying to get some more information out of you since Roshi has told me almost nothing."

Boxers slowly got up. He glared right into her eyes as if looking for deceit. "I don't trust you and neither does Roshi. He has not told you much because he does not know if you are worthy of the information. However Kinomi, after what I just said to you, it took one heck of a lot of resolve to say what you just said. So I think I am going to take you to the Hall of Heroes as we call it and show you some of the proof you are looking for."

"Follow me." He said.

"Lead the way." She replied.

* * *

Boxers lead her to a large room with a huge screen for watching movies and many displays of various objects, gis and other miscellaneous things.

"This is one of the larger historical shrines I suppose you can call it. Pan's house is almost considered sacred and then the Kame house has a lot of other neat stuff in it. Oh, and then there is the lookout, but I have never been there." He said to her as he sat down in one of the chairs in the middle of the room.

"Although neither Tee nor I are related to Goku like Slip and Roshi are, the entire story really starts with him."

Boxers spent the next hour regaling the tale of Goku's life as best as he could. Ichigo was fascinated. She realized after being shown various artifacts and pictures that these people really were the real thing. She interrupted the story several times to ask questions.

"So Goku did that Kamehameha after only seeing it once? And a Human really did invent it? It seems to be a rather powerful attack."

"Yes, yes, and yes. It is very much a universal ki attack. It works by focusing and amplifying a person's ki. This makes it much more powerful then just the normal ki beam. Oh, and while you don't think much of the Human race, many of the skills Roshi used last night were developed or taught by humans." Boxers replied before continuing on.

"So these things called Dragonballs could make people immortal and even bring people back from the dead?"

"Yes, but they don't exist anymore so don't try to look for them."

"What happened to them?"

"During Goku's time they got over used and the Dragon turned evil. After Goku beat all the evil dragons, he more or less died and took the balls with him, but back to the story."

He then told her about Goku's fight with Vegeta, and the start of his battle with Frieza.

"Do you know how to do the Kiao-ken?"

"No, I don't know if anyone can do it anymore."

When Boxers got to the Frieza/Goku fight she became even more interested. She was particularly shocked to learn that Changelings could transform several times and get much much stronger then they were in their normal form. She asked many questions. Most of which Boxers could not answer.

"How was Cell made!?!?"

"Cell was a bioroid. He was made using genetic material from all the strong fighters of the time. The genetic research that it took to make him is a good reason why what Slip wanted to do with you is totally and absolutely wrong."

"But you didn't try to stop her." Ichigo said defensively.

"Roshi would have, and even if he didn't Slip wouldn't have done anything with the research, not that that makes it right, but she just craves information."

Ichigo grimaced, "She's still a barbarian."

"Ah, yeah well to continue, after Cell beat Goku, Goku had Gohan fight..."

"So there is another level beyond Super Saiyan?" She asked next after Boxers continued on.

"Yes there are actually three levels of Super Saiyan and then the Golden Ouzaru and what I guess you could call Super Saiyan four. But SS4 is not reached the same way as the other transformations so I don't know how to classify it."

They talked for a little while longer and Ichigo was surprised in the actual intelligence that Boxer's showed. In the end they headed back down to the Gravity Room, there was still a large amount of training to be done.

* * *

'Where the hell is he?' Slip asked herself as she watched the fire control teams work at saving some of her lab. She had already send the clean up crews away since she didn't want them digging through her stuff. But the fire was too large for her to handle herself and the explosion had knocked out the automatic systems.

'It's gone... all gone... And it's all HER fault.' She thought as she dialed Roshi's number again.

"Hello?" He answered.

"GET YOUR WORTHLESS ASS HERE NOW AND KILL THE BITCH!!!" Slip screamed at him.

Roshi groaned. "What did she do now?"

"She blew up my lab. She went nuts and she blew the hell out of my main bank of mainframes and hit one of the backup generators and it blew up and now most of my entire lab is burning to the ground as we speak!!!"

"That sucks. So, she didn't attack you?" Roshi inquired.

"No, but she blew up my lab! Do you have any idea how irreplaceable most of that stuff is?" Slip yelled franticly.

"About as irreplaceable as her tail I would bet. Let me guess, you actually took her to her tail rather then her tail to her. So she saw what you had done and got very very mad. Right?"

Slip blinked a few times. "You... you... you... you... You're on her side! How can you be on her side? She tried to kill you and she blew up my lab and she's dangerous!"

"But she didn't attack you. Did she?" Roshi replied sternly.

"Nooooo but!"

"But nothing Slip. Equipment you can replace. Everything you had on those mainframes was backed up twenty times on some other system someplace at the CC. All she cost you was some money and some time. We cost her a bit more in retrospect, and from what she said her people are being killed by the Changelings. You should have thought about how she would react. Don't blame her for your actions."

"Well then why can't we ship her off to Namek and have her wish for everything to be normal again so she can go away?! Oh, and do you blame her for killing those five people she killed on her way hear? Or are you the almighty mama's boy going to forgive her and make it all better? I suppose you are just waiting to use the Namekian Dragonballs huh? Alls well that ends well or something?" Slip replied snidely.

Roshi sighed. "Damn. Sorry, but I ah lied about using the Namekian Dragonballs. We can't."

"What!?! Then how are we going to bring those people back?!?!"

Roshi shrunk into his chair. "Ah, we can't bring them back."

"WHY NOT?!"

"Cause when Goku absorbed our Dragonballs, the Nameks took it as a sign that we relied too much on them. Since the decided that it was the unverse's way to correct things, they won't let us use their balls until our Dragonballs return."

"Hmm, in retrospect then she killed five people. KILL HER YOU PANSEY!!! We know she did it. IT would keep her from causeing more problems and it would be justice!"

"I can't"

"WHY THE HELL NOT?!?!?!"

"Because I don't think she is evil, and I am currently grounded without food. If you have a problem with her, handle it yourself."

"Your mother took away your food?!"

"Yes."

"Ouch, ok, maybe I can talk some sense into her."

"I doubt it but you could tell me how to talk to Kinomi through her scouter so I can actually train them."

"Oh, ok, I'll get on it." Slip said sounding unenthoused.

"You do that. In the meantime, I am going to lay here and listen to my stomach complain."

* * *

"You know now that I have told you quite a bit about our history, I think you should maybe open up and tell me a little bit about your history and that of the planet you came from. From what Roshi has said you claim to be from the home planet of the Saiyan race." Boxers asked as they walked back down the ramp towards the vault-like door.

"I am from the home planet of the Saiyan race. And I will tell you guys about our history a bit more, but I am not ready yet." Ichigo said avoiding the issue.

"I guess, but remember this, just because I told you all of this stuff does not make us friends. Roshi and Tee and I will still be watching you." Boxers said as he walked over and placed his right hand on the reader.

"I know." Ichigo said to herself.

"This system has not been accessed in 304 years 6 months and 18 days. Please wait while it updates protocols." A voice said.

"New computer core located... accessing... accessing... Connection to network hub verified. New data download in progress. Identity: Boxers Briefs. Please confirm Security level three please." The voice said.

Boxers looked panicked for a moment. "Ah... Oh yeah." He said as he sent another ball of ki into the handprint scanner.

"Ki manipulation confirmed. Who beat Cell?"

"Son Gohan beat him even though the world still thinks that Mr. Satan beat him." Boxers said quickly.

"Access confirmed. This dome was sealed for a reason. Please lock it up when you are done." The voice said as the large round door started to roll away.

The air was stale. Like it had not been disturbed in many many years. The odor of Saiyan sweat hit them as they walked in.

"Ugh that reeks. Fans full." Boxers said as they walked in.

The two of them walked past two changing rooms and pile of old and battered armor.

"Roshi said you can't sense ki. I am not nearly as good as he is, but I can do it. Slip was supposed to rig up your scouter so that it would transmit to Roshi's computer, so he could tell you what to do, but I doubt she is in a big hurry now." He said as he walked over to a computer panel.

After poking around at the panel for a few moments he was able to find the link to Slip's lab. Miraculously Ichigo had not damaged the main computer core in the lab. Just the experiments and a lot of data storage modules had been damaged. "WHAT DO YOU WANT? Slip demanded through the screen.

Ichigo could see that Slip's lab was still burning. It made her smile.

"Ah could you get that scouter fixed. I would really like to have Roshi handling things here."

"I have more important things to worry about right now! But fine when I find the time I will set it to transmit." She said back.

"Thanks." He replied.

"Come on," he said as he opened up a porthole like door into a large round white room. It was about 500 meters from side to side. With the exception of a large tower in the middle of the room and a window by the door, the room was featureless.

"You call this a training room? What am I supposed to do run around in circles?" She demanded hotly.

"Ah yeah, once we turn the gravity generator on." Boxers said as he walked to the tower. "Just wait there, I will turn the system on and be right back."

"Gravity Generator?" Ichigo said more to herself then anyone else.

Boxers walked to the tower and stepped into an alcove that protected the computer panels.

'Ha, the system is set for 1060 Gs! That would really suck to turn it on right now. Who on Earth used this thing last? Ha, maybe I should just turn it on and see how she likes it.' He thought to himself as he was powering up the system.

He set it for 10 times normal gravity and activated the room.

Ichigo heard a beep and then a slight hum and then felt quite a bit heavier. In fact for the first time since leaving home, she felt normal.

"I still don't see what kind of workout this room can give me." She said to Boxers as he walked out of the alcove.

"Ok... ah, Computer Increase gravity to 20 Gs."

Ichigo watched as Boxers almost fell down under the new pressure. She was surprised at the sudden extra weight. She realized that she was close to twice if not twice as heavy as she had been moments ago.

"Maybe this room can give me a workout." She said as Boxers fell to his hands and knees.

He recovered quickly enough trying to make it look like he had just started doing push-ups.

"Wimp" She said as she got down to do the same.

"What are you talking about?" He stammered under the load. "This is twenty times normal gravity how can you be so relaxed?"

After hearing him complain about the gravity level, Ichigo decided to show off a bit. Just for the fun of it. "How high can the gravity get in this room? And will the computer adjust it if I ask it too?" She asked as she used her arms to launch herself into a backflip.

"Ah I don't know how high it can get. I know it gets as high as 1060 times normal though, cause that is what it had been set at." Boxers said as he slowly stood up.

"ONE THOUSAND SIXTY?! What the heck was using this room last?!?!" Ichigo blurted in shock.

"Ah that would probably be Trunks. Ah you know who that is right?" Boxers said.

"So what kind of training are... Whew damn that can cause vertigo!" Tee said as he walked into the Gravity Room and almost fell down.

"We really have not started yet. We are kind of just trying to figure out how to use the room at the moment." Boxers said.

"Well, Slip said to give this to her" Tee said while holding up Ichigo's scouter and pointing at her. "And Roshi said that the two of us were supposed to train with her."

"Remind me to kick Beth for grounding Roshi." Boxers replied while Tee gave Ichigo her scouter and she put it on.

"Kinomi you there now?" Roshi asked through the earpiece. "Kinomi? Hello, anyone there?"

"Huh, Oh yeah I am here with your two cousins. Not that I will be able to learn anything from them, but why should you care." She said back.

"Hey" Both Tee and Boxers said at once.

"Ok, first things first. I want you guys to figure out how much gravity you can take before you can't stand up anymore. Have the computer start at 10 Gs and go up one gravity a minute while you guys run around the room. Don't over exert yourself but try to run as fast as you can as long as you can." Roshi said. "Once you guys have done that we can start the real training."

"Fine. Hey you two Roshi wants us to run around in circles until we fall down." Ichigo told them.

"Kinomi... That is not what I said to do, but close enough" Roshi scolded in her ear. * * *

Forty-five minutes and more laps then Ichigo could count later, She was starting to get tired. Tee had dropped out at around 24 gravities. Then Boxers at 28. She was now running at 55 times normal gravity and it was starting to get very hard to move. Every breath burned in her chest. Her neck ached. To make matters worse, she was actually glad that Slip had forced her to get new clothing that actually fit. While no one would ever call Ichigo large busted, she still had breasts. She had heard older women complain about having pains while doing fast movements in fights and such. Before today, She had dismissed it as mostly complaints by women who were trying to skimp out of duty. Now however, the gravity was very noticeable. She had a feeling that had Slip not forced her to get underclothes that actually fit, she would have had to quit a long time ago. This fact annoyed the hell out of Ichigo.

"Beep" The gravity went up to 56 times normal gravity. Ichigo stopped and bent at the waist to rest for a moment. This she realized very rapidly was a very dumb move. She almost blacked out as blood rushed to her head and she saw red.

"Beep, Beeep" The computer sounded and then the gravity generators shut down.

"Good job Kinomi!" Roshi said through the scouter. "Now I want you guys to go find a spot to stretch out and then relax for a few hours. Once you get done stretching I will tell you what I want you to be doing while you relax."

"What good is relaxing? If I stop now I won't gain anything from all that running." Ichigo spat back.

"No you won't. The Gravity Room does a lot to strengthen a person physically. But any fighter who is worth the salt of his or her own sweat knows that a battle is not only about physical strength. Besides, beating up your body will not help you as much in the long run if you never find your mental focus."

"That sounds like a bunch of psychobabble to me." She shot back.

"You want my help or not?" Roshi said back.

"Ok Ok! I'll do it. Still sounds like a waste of perfectly good training time however." Ichigo answered. * * *

"Ok, since you guys are a bunch of sissies, Roshi said you get to train while I go over to the locker room to get a drink of water and relax for a while. How does 50 Gs sound to you guys?" She said smirking. Looking at them sweatdrop she continued. "Ah, that too much for you? Wouldn't want a girl to be showing you up though would you?"

"Ok, who are you and what have you done with Kinomi?" Roshi said through the scouter. "Are you actually teasing those two in good humor rather then mocking them?"

"Can't tell you, and Yes I am teasing them because it is fun to look at their faces when they realize what I have just said." Ichigo said into the air. * * *

Boxers and Tee watched Ichigo converse with the air and break out laughing.

"Dude, what the heck did you do? This morning she tried to kill Slip and blew up her lab. Now she is like this totally different person. She is even laughing at something!" Tee said to Boxers.

"I couldn't tell you. She was a total bitch this morning. I took her up to the Hall of Heroes and told her as much as I could remember from family history. Roshi could probably tell her a lot more. I have not really paid that much attention cause well you know the stories are at times rather hard to believe. Anyway, whatever it was that I told her or showed her in that room made her so a complete 180 as far as her attitude. And I think she is enjoying the training in here." He replied.

"Enjoying the training? How can anyone enjoy the torture sessions that Roshi is putting us through. I tell you that guy has all the luck. Who else would be so lucky as to not have to be here while being able to tell us what to do?" Tee said indignantly.

"Yeah, well, Since we couldn't find Yoshi anywhere, he is the most qualified to be teaching anything. At least until His father gets back." Boxers replied.

"Yeah well at least she isn't trying to kill us." Tee commented.

"Why do you think Roshi has not had us spar yet? He doesn't want her to kill us."

"Yeah and don't you forget it!" Ichigo said with an evil looking smirk after overhearing their conversation. * * *

She walked over to them. "Roshi says we are supposed to keep the gravity off and meditate and rest for an hour or two. He said that you two would know what he meant by finding our focus or something like that."

Ichigo didn't know if she liked the evil look that suddenly appeared on Boxer's face.

"Roshi wants us to have you just sit there and focus on your ki. This will help you focus your energy more effectively. Making you even more dangerous. However I think we can do something even better." He said with a smile.

"Why to I get the feeling that I am not going to like this idea one bit?" Ichigo said back.

"I'll be right back." Boxers said as he ran out of the room.

The look on Tee's face was enough to tell Ichigo that he had no idea what was going on.

While she was pondering Boxers, she realized something that she should have realized a lot sooner. Tee was sitting at a power level of 18,054 and he was just standing there. He couldn't manipulate his ki like Roshi could. Either that or he just wasn't.

"Can you lower your ki like Roshi can?" She blurted out aloud.

"Ah, what do you mean. Yeah here watch." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then his power level dropped rapidly. It got down to around 350 and then he stopped and opened his eyes again. "I can supress it further, but right now I would rather not."

"Ok, now float up into the air and hover there for a bit." She said.

"I don't see why but ok." He said as he floated up into the air.

Her scouter beeped as his ki rose to 8,489.

"Just as I thought. You are not much better at keeping your ki down then I am. I wonder how Roshi does it." She said.

Boxers came back in carrying a basket full of small ball things. "While you were running around the room making fun of us weak boys, I was reading up on the abilities and training programs that this room has and I found something neat."

"Oh, what is it?"

"You'll see." He said as he started tossing the balls into the air. They floated around and then started circling the three of them.

"What are these for?" Tee asked.

"Well, they are training droids. They shoot little tiny ki blasts at us so we have to keep our eyes on them and block their attacks."

"Funny, that reminds me of a movie I once watched. Star Battles, or War Stars or something like that." Tee said.

"That doesn't matter, the hard part is that while we are trying to keep watch on these things the gravity in the room is going to be changing randomly." Boxers said. He finished tossing the twelve balls into the air and turned on the program.

Ichigo felt herself being yanked into the air when the gravity suddenly changed direction. Twisting herself around she landed on her feet. She was now standing on the curved ceiling of the dome. She barely jumped out of the way as Tee slammed into the ceiling beside her.

"Ahh!" She squawked as a ball shot her in the leg. She turned and sent a ki blast back at it. The ball absorbed the ki blast and sent it right back at her.

"Ah" Ichigo jumped up out of the way and lost her balance as the gravity changed to be about 18 Gs to the side of the room.

She got shot in the back and after whipping around she realized that there were actually four of the balls hunting her specifically. Continuing to look around she saw that the two guys were not much better then she was. Boxers was in the process of getting hit by three of his droids. Tee on the other hand was lying on his back on the wall were he had fallen when the gravity changed.

"I think I would have rather done the meditation." Ichigo muttered under her breath as she dodged another ki shot. * * *

After a few minutes of getting shot and continuously loosing her balance, Ichigo made several observations. First, was that Tee was inept at this. Second, Boxers was much better then she was. He was rotating around the room with the gravity changes keeping his feet down towards the source of gravity at all times. He also was moving fast enough that the droids were having trouble hitting him. He was however starting to slow down.

Zap Zap! "Ouch! Those things sting!" Ichigo said aloud. "Well, I guess it is what I get for not paying attention to what I was doing." She shook her head and focused on what she was doing. * * *

Ichigo was in the middle of dodging a ki blast when she heard Roshi's voice. "What is going on in here?"

She whipped around and saw him standing near the door. His feet were remaining firmly planted on the ground. Even though the gravity was going up at an angle towards the ceiling.

"End Program. Hey, Roshi what the heck are you doing here? I thought you were grounded. What did you do to get your mother to let you come?" Boxers said in surprise.

Ichigo had to catch herself as the gravity stopped. 'Jerk could have warned us' she thought as she glared daggers at Boxers.

"Oh nothing much. Slip convinced my mother that I was desperately needed here. So she let me come. I am supposed to be home by 6. And then I am grounded again until I fix the damage Kinomi did to Pan's house. Hopefully we can get some stuff done today before I have to leave." He said. "Anyway, this doesn't look like the meditation that I told you to do."

"What did you do to the house?" Tee asked quick.

Ichigo glared at him and then Roshi. "It is not important. Let's just train. SO Boxers, just why were we doing this?"

"Ah yeah, I thought that this would be more helpful." Boxers replied.

"Well it does work on your reflexes, but really that is not going to help you guys much." Roshi said as he walked to the middle of the room. "Now while I was working at my house this morning, I looked up the schematics of the this room and I think that we can actually use these droids for something better.

"I'm game," Tee said while rubbing a nasty looking bruise on his forehead."

"What do you want us to do?" Boxers asked

"Oh, don't worry, it shouldn't be that hard. But what I am going to be teaching you is important." Roshi replied. "Ok, when my dad realized that I was not using my abilities he had taught me he had me play hide and go seek. Now we can't exactly do that here. But what we can do is work on our ki manipulation."

"Sounds like what I really want to learn." Ichigo said while shaking her head. "So what is the first step?"

"Well first take off that scouter. Now I picked up these blind folds out in the locker room. I want all of you to put these blind folds on. Then I am going to have you guys just stand still and try to predict where I will be attacking from. I will keep my ki relatively high so it should be easy to spot. Now as I said earlier my father says lowering your ki only takes relaxation and clarity of thought. Hiding your ki takes serenity of soul, mind and spirit. With clarity of mind you can reach out your senses and detect me. With serenity of soul, you will be at peace with your body's needs. This will lower your ki and hide the actual strength you posses. With serenity of Spirit, you will be able to call upon and focus your ki faster."

"Riiiiight oh wise one." Tee said mockingly.

Roshi cocked his eyebrow and looked at Tee as if he was appraising an idiot. "You want to test me?" he said while putting one of the blind folds on. "When ever you guys want to all three of you can attack me." He said as he floated up into the air.

"Arrogant isn't he?" Ichigo said to the two guys. "Why do you two show him what you are made of." She said while watching Roshi very closely. She had yet to discard the scouter, so she tried to have it detect his ki.

It was fluctuating from five to twenty. So low he shouldn't have been able to fly at all.

"This should be interesting Ichigo said to herself as she watched Tee take off making a bee-line right at Roshi. Without making the scouter so much as beep, Roshi sent a ki ball straight at Tee and then ducked under a punch thrown by Boxers.

Tee barely dodged the ki ball and circled around to catch Roshi from behind.

Boxers tried again feebly which resulted in Roshi grabbing him by the arm and throwing him into Tee.

Ichigo saw her chance and threw a Star Ripper at his back.

Roshi let it get almost to him before he destroyed it using a Masenko and then kicked Tee in the gut as Tee flew through the smoke.

"Taiyoken!!" he shouted making a sun burst so large it blinded anyone in the room.

"AHHHH my eyes!" Ichigo whined. 'That was the same attack he used last night.'

"Ok, that is enough!" Roshi said as he landed. As you can see, I was able to detect your movements and attacks even though I was wearing the blindfold. A Taiyoken, which blinded all of you, would probably not do much to me. Now, I don't expect it to be easy to teach you guys how to do this stuff. My father taught me how to do these sorts of things while I was a child. I didn't realize what they were and did not use my abilities as intended. Earlier this month my father corrected that mistake. You guys on the other hand are going to have to learn it from the beginning starting now. I hope you are ready for hell." Roshi said with a evil looking smile.

* * *

Sorry this took so long. Please put the mouse pointer over the little blue button that reads "Click here to post Review" and then click the mouse button. ;)

Please review!

The Smooster

Oh and then read and review these fics... OR DIE!!!

(or I may just stop posting my fic... WHA HA HA HA HA... er ok.. well just read and review them PLEASE?)

Arthain's The Saiyan war http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=883389

Dracon's To save a Kingdom http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=866651

And Kitsune Maxwell's Glitch http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=630268