/*
Disclaimer: DBZ isn't mine, Gohan is, well in my dreams he is at any rate.
Anything between /* and */ is just me budding in, so is anything after // up until the next hard return.
For those of you that realised, I'm trying to learn to program in C++ as a hobby, that's the origin of the commentary codes.
*/
/*
Response to reviews:
To edward-tivrusky-5:
Well you were outvoted on the Japanese or English name question. I like both equally myself, but I'm not sure on how correct the Japanese is so I'll go with the English for the time being. If you want to you can always replace the name yourself, but the attack isn't even in this chapter.
To Lady Queen:
You and your brother are also mentioned at the bottom of the fic, BTW, I'm also the baby, I have three older sisters * growls Saiyan style*, but I thought I'd put something here too. Only Goku (and possibly Goten) would be capable of not getting the wrong number joke as a joke.
I'm glad you liked the attack as it took me a while to think up.
To Flyby Stardancer:
Glad you like the attack.
To Everyone:
Thanks a lot. I just love reviews.
*/
Life Is Strange
Saga: The Heir Of The Cold-Empire
Chapter 9: The Journey
"Should I come as well?" Piccolo asked interrupting Videl's thoughts. "Not so much to keep the two of you apart, I'm sure fear off your mother will see to that, but space can be a dangerous place."
"No thanks, I'm sure we'll be fine." Gohan said. "From Vegeta's stories, Frieza really was the most powerful fighter out there, and we all know he couldn't even take a level one Super-Saiyan. But if there are in some way bigger threats out there, you should stay here, with Vegeta and you we'll have two of the strongest warriors in the universe still here to defend Earth should it be needed. Because if I beat some bad guys, there's always the chance of their friends tracing out trajectory back to Earth."
Piccolo nodded. "Just be careful Gohan."
"Don't worry, I will be."
"Yeah don't worry Piccolo I'll make sure he behaves and doesn't do anything to dangerous." Videl said with a smile.
The tall Namek gave her a rather strange look at this comment. For a moment Videl thought she must be imagining it but she could swear he was looking at her almost fondly.
"Why are you so concerned about this Piccolo?" Gohan asked.
"I'm not sure." The Namek replied. "I just have this feeling, I guess you humans would call it a premonition. Nameks usually are sensitive to this sort of thing, do you remember when your dad went to get Dende to be the new God of Earth and they'd already sensed something was going on here on Earth."
"I see what you mean." Gohan said. "We'll be careful."
"Okay kid, now I don't want you to worry about finding the Dragon Balls here on Earth. I'll take care of that. The Nail in me wants to go to New Namek when it becomes possible."
"Thanks Piccolo, I owe you one."
Soon after that they left heading for Capsule Corporation.
They were almost to CC when Gohan realised something and came to a halt in mid air. Videl next to him came to a halt also and looked at him with great curiosity.
"Why did you stop Gohan?" She asked.
"I just thought of something. I haven't told mom and Goten about this yet. If we go to Bulma now she'll call my mom when we leave, and I really think I should be the one to bring home the news."
"So, looks like a course change then." Videl said. "Heading, the 439 mountain area."
Gohan nodded. He couldn't help but feel a little anxious about how his mom would react, especially to him keeping her, as well as everyone else for that matter, in the dark on this all this time.
They flew side by side for a while, but his nerves were getting too much for him.
"Videl." He said after a while. "I'm really nervous about this. I want to get there quickly and just get it over with, so no offence, but would you mind if I carried you?"
No offence huh? Videl thought. Well I guess I would be offended if I didn't know how true it was. Besides I like it when he carries me.
"I don't mind." She said out loud. And in an instant Gohan's arms surrounded her, holding her close to his body as he started to really speed to the Son home. He wasn't in the greatest of hurries, as he wasn't using the Kaio-ken technique, which she new made him even faster, but he was fast, at this pace the trip would take five minutes at the most.
Soon they landed between the two houses that now stood side by side or rather front-to-front, on the Son family property.
Gohan put her down right in front of the Son family home, and the two of them went inside.
"Mom! Goten!" He yelled as they stepped inside.
Almost instantly Chi-Chi came into view from the kitchen, and only seconds later the sound of little feet behind them signalled Goten coming in from outside.
"What is it Gohan?" Chi-Chi asked.
"I have something to tell you, maybe I should have told you this before but I didn't want to get your hopes up."
"What do you mean?"
"When I talked to dad a couple of weeks ago he said one thing I didn't want to tell you about at the time. You see he knew about my feelings for Videl starting to develop, and he said he'd come back for the wedding. So Videl and I are going to New-Namek to wish him back."
Goten as always reacted with a goofy smile and a lot of happiness jumping up and down and singing, "I'm going to meet daddy." Over and over again.
Chi-Chi on the other hand just about fainted, sinking to the couch with a dazed look.
"Mom are you all right?" Gohan asked.
"She'll be fine." Videl replied. "Why don't you get your little brother out of here because he's a bit noisy, and I'll take care of your mom."
She shot him a look that plainly said, 'Now and I mean it.', and he and Goten went outside.
When the two boys had left Videl sat down on the couch next to Chi-Chi. Taking the older woman's hand and just holding it, waiting for her to calm down a bit before doing anything else.
"Why didn't he tell me before?" Chi-Chi finally managed to stammer.
"I think this is why." Videl replied. "He didn't want you to have to go through this when it wasn't certain that Goku would come back. Goku said he was coming back for Gohan's wedding, and if things hadn't worked out between the two of us that would probably still be years away. I guess he just didn't want you to have to face the possibility of disappointment."
"It's just so much to take in right now." Chi-Chi said.
"I can understand that. What do you think I felt when Gohan popped the whole, we have to go to an alien world to get your father in law, story on me?"
Chi-Chi let out a small chuckle. "I think that would be a bit much as well."
"Believe me it was, but not nearly as much as you must be going through now, a life time of memories must be surfacing right now."
"They are, but it's getting better, don't worry."
"Good, you'll have to hold down the fort with Goten while Gohan and I go to New-Namek."
"Well that shouldn't be too long, you can just wish yourselves there."
"No, Gohan wants to make a permanent passage, but he needs both Dragons to do that, so we'll be going over to Bulma's to borrow a spaceship."
"Now Videl, you know I want grandchildren, but..."
"Don't worry Chi-Chi, we'll behave ourselves."
"Good, now why don't you go get Gohan and head out to Bulma's I'll be fine."
"If you're sure..."
"I am, don't worry about it, now go."
"Is mom all right?" Was the first thing Gohan asked when he saw Videl leave the house.
"She's fine don't worry." Videl replied, her tone easing his nerves somewhat.
"Okay, then let's get going, we need to get back to Capsule Corp. to get that space ship."
"Let's go."
Gohan took to the air, feeling more at ease than he had since they'd interrupted their previous journey to Capsule Corporation.
He could see Videl smile as she flew next to him, he'd been able to sense her worries about him before and now he could sense her relief. It was good to have this weight of his shoulders.
It only took them about twenty minutes to get to Capsule Corp. definite proof that Videl was getting faster day-by-day.
As usual they landed in the backyard and headed in the kitchen door. Finding Bulma bend over, working on some gizmo at the kitchen table.
"Hi Bulma." Gohan said. Chuckling in his thoughts at the sudden and shocked way Bulma looked up.
"Oh, hi Gohan, hi Videl." Bulma said seeing who had just come in. "What can I do for you?"
"Well," Gohan said, "this may come as a bit of a shock to you, I actually only just told mom about it before coming here, but my dad's coming back."
"What?" Bulma yelled in surprise. "But I thought he wanted to stay in other world because he was afraid he'd attract evil and danger to Earth."
"He did, but he figured that if no one came for him in the last seven years, no one's going to now. And I have to say I agree."
"So why are you here, do you need to Dragon Radar so you can get the balls to wish yourself to New-Namek?"
"Actually I wanted to borrow a Z-48."
Bulma blinked at him several times. "You want to go by space-ship, why?"
"Well I don't just want to go there, I want to make a permanent passage for future use. But Dende says that's beyond Shen Long's and even beyond Porunga's power, so I have to make the wish to both of them at the same time. Anyway, you know how impatient those Dragons are, so I can't wish myself to Namek and then leave Shen Long waiting for Porunga. That means I'll be using a Z-48 to get there if you'll lend me one, and then when I get to New-Namek and get the Balls, I'll contact Piccolo who's promised to get the Balls here on Earth for me and we'll make the wish to both Dragon's at once."
"Don't you need to speak Namek to make the wish to Porunga?"
"You do, but that shouldn't be a problem, I'm sure the Nameks will be glad to help, and I might not needed, I've been spending some free time with Dende over the years and I learned some of the language."
"I guess you would. Must be Chi-Chi's influence on you, always studying in one way or another."
"So what type of gravitron does the Z-48 have, I might want to do some training while we're on our way?" Gohan asked.
"Oh the new type, up to 500 times gravity, though if you want to train in that, Videl should leave the room or get into one of the grav suits."
"Grav suits?" Videl asked.
"They're similar to the gravitron." Bulma said. "They create artificial gravity, but only around the person that's wearing them, because they work the same way, they cancel out the gravitrons effects. There's a supply of them on board, in case the gravitron fails, or if it malfunctions the way it did when Goku went to Namek."
"What happened then?" Videl wanted to know.
"Well Goku ran into a magnetic storm, and from what my dad tells me, it made the gravitron go haywire. Gravity shot to its maximum of 100 G's, Goku barely survived back then. Because the suit is stand alone it's isolated from things like magnetic storms. The new ships have sensors to warn you of them, so you can suit up just in case. The gravitron is hooked into the ships systems so it can't be fully isolated and remains vulnerable, that's one of the reasons to have the suits, to cancel out any unwanted gravity effects in such a situation."
"So do you have my size?" Videl asked. "I think I may need one."
"Actually I based the grav suits on my reproduction Saiyan armour, they can be stretched to about ten times their original size. The Saiyan armour, even the reproduction, can stretch further, but because off the technology that's in there this is rather more limited. But even with just ten times stretching, one size fits all."
The discussion then went on with Videl asking about Saiyan armour and Bulma and Gohan answering her questions. When Videl's curiosity had been satisfied Bulma told Gohan that their ship would be waiting at CC the next day, stocked with food and everything, and Gohan and Videl left after thanking her.
Videl let out a sigh as she sat down on her couch that evening. After their visit to CC, Gohan had taken her shopping, saying she needed some more clothes before they left for New-Namek. She'd known he was right, but she still didn't like going shopping, it was too girly for her taste.
He'd taken her to several stores, and she'd always ended up buying normal, sensible things, like jeans and t-shirts. To her surprise he hadn't tried to change that. Most guys she knew had been quite clear about wanting to change her, they never said it in so many words, but all of them seemed to want her to fully embrace her feminine side, Gohan didn't. He just wanted her to be herself. He'd been the one that made her realise just how important that was. To have someone be there for her, not for Videl Satan, not for the daughter of Hercule, but just for Videl. She looked at her luggage that was lying on the coffee table ready for tomorrow, two large travel bag caps, filled with clothes. What she had with her should be enough for at least two weeks. And that should be plenty, Bulma had done the math back at CC and had called in the evening telling them that a little over a week would be enough to get them to New-Namek.
// It only took Goku 6 days to get to Namek in the series, but New Namek is a lot farther away than Namek was so it takes longer, even with the faster space ship.
Videl could still barely belief it, she was going into space tomorrow.
Ah well. She thought. Might as well go to bed now, no sense in starting my space adventures tired.
The next morning Videl woke up to a knock on her bedroom door.
"Are you decent?" Gohan's voice called from the other side.
"Just a minute." She called, getting out of bed and changing into her normal clothes in less than one. "Okay, you can come in now."
"Some quick dressing there Videl." Gohan said.
"What do you mean?" She asked. Feigning ignorance. "I've been up for a while."
"Don't lie to me." Gohan said. "I could tell from your Ki that you were asleep."
"All right so I was. I just didn't want you to think of me as lazy."
"Don't worry about it, we all need our sleep. Besides we have a big day ahead, it's good to know that you're well rested."
"What do you mean, a big day? Sure we'll be leaving, but that's hardly going to take a lot of energy."
"We'll see. We'll be continuing your training while we're in space, maybe even in raised gravity, so you'll need a lot of energy before the day is through."
"I can't wait, I really want to train. I hardly had time to do anything yesterday with all the flying around we did."
"That could be considered a way of training too. I don't know if you noticed but it only took 20 minutes to get to CC yesterday. And you were even quicker after shopping even if you did insist on carrying your own bags."
She smiled inwardly, just hanging with Gohan was a form of training she supposed. It was no wonder that Chi-Chi was one of the strongest women on Earth, she had to be able to handle first her husband, and now her sons.
After breakfast and Gohan and Videl took some time to double-check everything they'd packed, while Goten and Chi-Chi left for Capsule Corporation on the Nimbus. Actually Chi-Chi rode the Nimbus while Goten flew alongside it. Gohan had smiled as he saw them take off, Goten was so proud and happy he could fly by himself now he'd periodically refused to sit on the Nimbus with his mother.
After checking that he had all of his bags, or rather their capsules, Gohan went over to Videl's capsule house. He found her in the bedroom, still rummaging through a final bag, checking to be sure she had everything she needed.
"So do you think you have everything?" He asked, walking up behind her and gently kissing the back of her neck.
"I think I do." She replied. Closing and Capsulating the bag. "So let's get going."
"One more thing," Videl said as the left the house, "do you think we should take this Capsule house with us?"
"We could, but I don't see a need to, there should be plenty of room to stay in the ship."
"Well I'll put it back in its cap and take it anyway, better safe than sorry after all."
"Okay."
Gohan waited patiently while Videl capsulated the house and put the capsule in her cap-box, along with her luggage and some other essentials.
"Let's go." She said, putting the box in her pocket and taking to the air, closely followed by Gohan.
The trip to CC took a little less than twenty minutes this time. Everybody was there already to send them off. Though Gohan had only told a few people, the news of Goku's imminent return had travelled like wild fire among the Z gang and they'd all gathered again at Bulma's to send of the two space-farers.
The space ship was standing ready in the back yard. Next to all the other small changes it was slightly bigger than the old Z-15's had been.
"So is it ready to go?" Gohan asked Bulma as soon as he'd landed.
"Ready and waiting. The course is pre-programmed, and it has an automatic collision avoidance system. It has a hyper speed connection to CC headquarters so you can always call me if there is a problem, and you can also receive TV at hyper speed, there's enough bandwidth on the antenna to send it to you."
"Thanks," Videl said, "it'll be good to keep up with the news and we'll have something to do besides training. I'm afraid Gohan might wear me out otherwise."
"You're welcome, now get going."
"Okay." Gohan said. "We will just as soon was we say good bye to everyone."
Gohan and Videl made their way through the crowd, shaking hands with everyone, thanking them for good wishes, and finally spending almost ten minutes to calm Chi-Chi down enough to be able to leave without having to worry about her.
Finally the farewells were taken care off and they boarded the space ship.
"I'm glad that's over." Gohan said as he sat strapped into his seat waiting for the count down to start.
"What?" Videl asked, though she had a pretty good idea.
"Saying good-bye to mom." Gohan replied. "I think Roshi once described her as the only thing scarier than a Super-Saiyan and I sometimes think he was right. Now don't get me wrong, I love her, but when she gets mad, or otherwise emotional, it can be really scary."
// It's actually the only thing more powerful than a Super-Saiyan, but even Gohan has to get things wrong every now and then doesn't he. Besides I made this mistake, and when my sister pointed it out, I didn't feel like changing it, because the real quote doesn't really fit.
Videl chuckled. "I know what you mean, she does seem to have a bit of a temper."
"Actually I'm usually thankful for that." Gohan said. "I inherited that temper, when I get really mad my strength increases dramatically, I get that from her."
Videl just nodded.
Just then Bulma's voice came out of the speaker on the instrument panel.
"Okay you guys, good luck and bring back Goku. There's a Dragon Radar aboard and Piccolo has the other one, so everything should be all right on that front. Now here comes the count down. Vegeta!"
"No way woman."
"Come on Vegeta you gave Frieza a countdown on Namek, Gohan told me about it, so now be a good boy and do the same for your wife or I'll take you shopping."
"Fine, * talking really fast * ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one."
"Lift off." Bulma said.
Gohan and Videl could hear the roar of the engine starting and the ship shot up, they were pressed a bit more firmly into their seats as it accelerated the first few seconds, but soon the gravitron compensated and they could get up.
"Shall we have a look around?" Gohan asked as he unbuckled just as the left the atmosphere.
"Why not." Videl said, following his example and freeing herself from her chair as well. "Though I must say this looks a lot like an empty room to me."
"Well this is empty, it's where we'll train later, but we can get furniture here, Bulma explained the whole thing to me some time ago." Gohan said. Pressing a button on the wall.
Instantly part of the floor turned over and a couch appeared. He pushed a few more buttons and some chairs came out of the floor like the couch, while a monitor folded down out of the ceiling.
"There now we're all set." He stated. "We can watch TV now. The view screen is also for visual communications."
"So what else is hidden like that?" Videl asked.
"Nothing." Gohan said. "This is everything we can conjure up here, for everything else we'll have to go down-stairs."
With those words he led her to the other side of the ship where there was a spiral staircase leading to the lower deck.
After they'd descended to the lower floor of the ship Videl looked around. The stairs, were at what you might call the back of the ship, the side that was farthest from the instruments and controls, though technically, calling this the back meant that they were flying upwards.
She sighed, appointing directions to something spherical was best done by just doing what seemed right.
"Gohan." She said. "Do you mind if we call this the back, where the controls are the front, and the direction we're flying in up."
"Seems reasonable to me." He replied. "You'd expect the controls to be the front even though we're flying up."
"Good. Now what do we have down here?"
"Well the large room directly ahead is the kitchen."
They were facing the door to the kitchen so a quick walk down the hall got them there. The kitchen took up the front half of this floor. Well almost half anyway. It had a normal kitchen counter and a large table in it, as well as a big fridge, and a Cappuccino machine clearly this place was meant to feed Saiyans.
/* For those of you that don't remember when Goku wants to leave for Namek dr. Brief tells him the ship isn't ready yet. So Goku starts asking questions and it turns out that it isn't ready yet, because the Cappuccino machine hasn't been installed yet, dr. Brief couldn't find a good place to put it. */
"What's this?" Videl asked as she looked into the fridge, seeing that it wasn't full and only contained a lot of caps. "Why isn't there any food in here?"
"There is." Gohan said. "All those caps are storage caps, filled with food. Since this fridge was here already this was more efficient than using fridge caps. The fridge size hasn't changed from the old model and when my dad used that he had the thing cleaned out in two meals, so taking the normal food doesn't work with Saiyans on board."
"Okay, so what else is on this floor?"
"Just the bathroom and the bedrooms."
They walked out into the corridor again.
"The bathroom is the big room on the left." Gohan said. "And the two bedrooms are on the right."
Just as he was showing Videl around the bathroom, with a big bathtub, because Bulma wanted to be able to soak if she ever had to use it, Gohan felt something strange.
He looked over to Videl to see she looked shocked. She must have felt the same thing. So he couldn't be imagining it. But how, how was this possible.
As he looked at her she turned to face him and their eyes met. He motioned to the door, with his head and she nodded. Slowly they left the bathroom, crossed the corridor and entered the bedroom nearest to the stairs.
The sight that greeted them, though not wholly unexpected, came as a bit of a shock. On one of the two beds in the room sat Goten and Trunks. They were sitting there cross-legged and were apparently playing some sort of card game.
"What are you guys doing here?" Gohan asked shocked.
"We just wanted to say good-bye here before you took off." Goten said looking innocent. "Trunks said you'd take a tour of the ship first."
"No." Gohan replied, trying to remain calm. "We just took off a while ago."
"WHAT!?" Goten and Trunks both shouted.
"That's right, we're in space." Videl said. "Looks like we'll have to go back."
"But that'll take a week at least." Gohan said. "Because we just left the Solar system there are no planets near, and we need a planetary gravity well to break or manoeuvre with any manner of speed. The manoeuvring and retro thruster-systems don't' have enough power to turn us quickly without using a gravity slingshot."
"So we're stuck on board?" Trunks asked.
"Yeah." Gohan said. "And now we'll have the pleasure of using the comm. system to tell your moms about this."
Both boys looked seriously scared at this point and Gohan wasn't feeling too happy either.
Gohan, Goten and Trunks let out a triple sigh as the sat on the couch face the view screen. Videl was at the controls.
"Any minute now." She called, punching the comm. activation button.
"You two get out of here for a sec." Gohan told the two younger demi-Saiyans. "I'll take the brunt of the assault and then you come in as back up when I give you a hand signal."
The two youngsters nodded eagerly and headed to a point behind the camera.
"Gohan." Videl asked. "Why do you make this sound like you're planning to defend against an invasion?"
"Because I am. My mom and Bulma are going to just about scream me to death. I can't let the little guys sit through the first part of it. That would be to cruel, I remember what my mom was like when I told her I was going to Namek with Bulma and Krillin."
"Okay the connection should become active in a few seconds."
Just then the screen activated, showing some static first and then Bulma.
"Hey Gohan." Bulma said. "Why are you calling?"
"Oh, uh, I have something to tell you, but is my mom still there?"
"Yeah I'm here." Chi-Chi said walking into view. "We can't seem to find Goten and Trunks so I have to wait for the little guy to show up before I can go back home."
"Well that's what I wanted to talk to you about. It looks like the little guys wanted to say good-bye to Videl and me on the ship, and they didn't realise we'd taken off."
Their response was like he'd expected, motherhood seemed to give of a standard pattern of thought because the two women responded in stereo.
"WHAT! MY ADORABLE LITTLE BABY IS ON THAT SHIP, BUT HOW..." Gohan just stopped listening at this point or at least tried to. After about fifteen minutes of the two women screaming their heads of it seemed they had to pause for breath and he decided to try to reason with them.
"Come on guys, it isn't that bad. I was even younger than them when I first went to Namek. Besides they're already way stronger than I was then."
He gave the hand signal and Goten and Trunks came into view of the camera and sat down next to him. They seemed a bit shaken from the way they'd just heard their moms scream.
"Hi mom." They chirped in unison.
"Goten darling are you alright?"
"Sure mom I'm fine." Goten replied.
"Me too mom." Trunks said before Bulma could even ask anything.
"Well what do you boys have to say for yourselves?" Chi-Chi asked.
"We thought Videl and Gohan would look around the whole ship before taking off so we decided to hide in the bedroom to give them a surprise." Trunks said.
"What were you boys thinking taking a chance like that?" Bulma said. "But I suppose what's done is done. It'll only be for a couple of weeks anyway and Gohan should be able to materialise clothes for you when you need them."
She and Chi-Chi talked to all three boys some more, repeatedly threatening Gohan with a horrible fate should he let anything happen to their sons, until finally the connection was closed.
Gohan let out a sigh of relief when the screen flickered back to static and then went black.
"Well I'm glad that's over." He said. "I suppose it could have been worse, they could have continued yelling the whole time."
"Yeah." Trunks said. "I thought they were going to kill us by yelling and they could too."
"Tell me about it squirt." Gohan said. "But that's not what I'm worried about right now."
"What do you mean?" Goten asked.
"I just remembered, there is only enough food aboard for 64 courses a meal, 4 for Videl and 60 for me. So that means that we'll only have 20 courses a meal each."
"WHAT!" Both Trunks and Goten looked horrified at the prospect. Gohan didn't exactly feel good about it himself. To any growing or teenage Saiyan a twenty-course meal hardly went past the appetizer stage. Goten despised meatloaf, but even he would eat two dozen servings of that at least.
"And there's another thing." Gohan said. "What are we going to do for sleeping arrangements now that there's four of us and only two bed-rooms?"
"That's not a big problem." Videl said. "There's two beds in each room."
"Yeah, who's going to sleep in which room?"
"Well, they boys can share one and we can share the other."
"But we can't sleep in the same room, that's going to look odd."
"Come on, Gohan, this is no time to be modest. Besides otherwise you might wake one or both of them when you go to bed, and I don't want us to have to deal with sleepless Super-Saiyans in the middle of the night."
"Oh all right then."
Later that evening Goten and Trunks had gone to sleep in one of the bedrooms, young Saiyans slept a lot, and even more when they didn't get enough food.
Videl and Gohan were sitting on the couch watching the news on TV. When the news finished Gohan turned it off and looked at Videl.
"How about some training?" He asked.
"Sure, why not." Videl replied.
"Good, you go warm up and I'll turn on the gravitron."
Gohan walked over to the instrument panel and switched it to gravitron control, the couch, chairs and TV were automatically cleared away as he pushed a few buttons and the gravity increased by a factor of five.
Videl's movements seemed relatively unhindered by it on the surface, but he could tell that each move she made used a lot of Ki. That was the effect any gravity training was aiming for so he figured this level was perfect. He walked back into the 'room' and pushed a button on the wall to bring down a metal protection screen between the controls and the rest of the room, to prevent any damage.
"Let's spar." Was all he said as Videl dropped into a stance to face him.
Videl knew she had no hope in the spar with Gohan. Not if he really fought her anyway. But she knew that wasn't what he was doing now, he was just training her. Moving under five times gravity turned out to be harder then she'd expected though it didn't seem to bother Gohan, but then this was her training not his.
"This is so frustrating." She sighed as he once again dodged her attacks with ease. "This gravity has me panting just to stand up and you don't even feel it."
"Don't be so hard on yourself Videl." Gohan said. "Precious few humans could stand up in this gravity at all. So we'll just train until you need to go to bed and I think you'll be surprised at how much you'll have improved in the morning."
About an hour later Videl was completely exhausted. Even though Gohan had deactivated the gravitron her legs felt like it was still on, and on a higher setting.
"I really need to go to bed now." She told him. "Are you coming?"
"No, I'll be there later." Gohan said. "I'm going to train for a bit myself before turning in. I'll try not to wake you."
Videl nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow then."
She forced her body down the stairs and into her room into bed. Gohan would be joining her in the room when he was done, but not in her bed, they had separate beds.
It wasn't long after her face had hit the pillow that Videl fell asleep, completely exhausted from the gravity training and a long day in general.
Gohan trained for a while in two hundred times gravity, a rather challenging level as he didn't allow himself to go super. After going through a few series of kicks and punches, he switched to some sit ups and one finger push ups before going downstairs, almost as exhausted as Videl had seemed.
Videl was already a sleep when he tiptoed into their room. He shot a look at her sleeping form, breathing so softly and peacefully.
She's even beautiful when she's asleep like this. He thought. What did I ever do to deserve someone like her?
// I can think of a few times he saved the world but that's beside the point.
He got his pj's and went to the bathroom to change and brush his teeth. When he returned Videl was still asleep. He could hear her mumble his name, apparently dreaming about him and smiled. He'd probably mumble hers in return a few times during the course of the night.
Still smiling he got into bed, where he soon drifted off to dreamland.
"He's still asleep."
"Maybe we should throw water on him."
"Videl's still sleeping too."
"Maybe we should throw water on both of them."
Two youthful voices filled with mischief could be heard at the edge of Gohan's consciousness as he started to wake up.
"Okay Trunks, I'll go get the water."
This had to be Goten, Gohan's semi-conscious mind thought. And if he's already getting the water I'd better think off something quick.
He smirked in thought as inspiration struck and pretended to be asleep while keeping an eye on his brother's Ki as it moved into the bathroom and then came back a little while later.
He opened his eyes a tiny bit as Goten came back into the room, with a glass of water in each hand.
Goten and Trunks positioned themselves by his and Videl's beds and then Trunks counted down.
"Three, two, one. Go."
Just as the little boy said go, Gohan extended his Ki, to form a horizontal blanket over both him and Videl, evaporating the water just before it hit.
"Morning squirts." He said, sitting up in bed with a grin.
"Aw, that not fair Gohan." Trunks called. "When did you wake up?"
"Right around he's still asleep." Gohan said.
"Why didn't you say something big brother?" Goten asked.
"I just wanted to see what you two squirts came up with." Gohan replied. "But why did you have this urge to wake us in the first place?"
"Well we want to eat."
"Okay, Videl and I will be there for breakfast in a while, now you two get out of here."
Goten and Trunks both smiled happily and ran out of the room, towards the kitchen.
"Gohan," Videl mumbled in a sleepy voice, "what's going on?"
Gohan smiled. "Goten and Trunks decided that we'd slept enough and they want breakfast. I told them we'd be there in a little while so we have to get up."
"Hmm, can't I just have a few more minutes?"
"No, those two will tear this ship apart if we don't get out there soon. I'll go change in the bathroom so you can have some privacy here."
Gohan picked up his Gi and left the room, crossing the corridor and entering the bathroom.
Once he got to the bathroom it didn't take him long to get dressed and head out to the kitchen.
Videl had a bit of a struggle to get up. Some of her muscles were lightly sore from training the previous night and she really wanted to get some more sleep, but Gohan was right, it was time to get up.
After about a minute of lying there, yelling at herself in thought she finally got up and dressed. After taking another moment to comb her hair she went to the kitchen where she could already sense all three demi-Saiyan Kis.
"Morning guys." She greeted as she entered the kitchen.
"Good morning Videl." Gohan said, walking over and giving her a kiss.
"Ewww." Goten called. "No kissy-kissy."
While Trunks made some gagging noises.
"So what are we going to do today?" Videl asked when the kiss had ended.
"I want to get in some heavy training." Gohan said. "I want to see what I can do under 500 times gravity. Other than that, I don't think there are any plans, besides eating breakfast, lunch and dinner."
"What are we going to do?" Trunks asked. "This place is boring."
"Well you guys can train, and I'll ask Bulma to upload some games to the ships computer so you can play those. Other than that, you can watch TV, there's not much else to do."
"I'm going to train." Videl said. "I'll have to wear a grav suit to train at the same time you do, but from what I've seen they can go up to ten times normal gravity as well, so that should be plenty for the time being."
The next six days passed with a standard pattern. Gohan would meditate rather than sleep at nights, but otherwise their pattern was identical to that of the first day.
In the morning everything started of with breakfast, after which Goten and Trunks would go play computer games while Videl and Gohan would train.
Then after lunch Goten and Trunks would each be complaining that the other had cheated at their games in the morning and would also train.
After dinner Bulma and Chi-Chi, who was staying at Capsule Corp., would call to fuss over the two youngest members of the group.
Finally in the evening they would watch some TV before Trunks and Goten would go to bed and Videl and Gohan would get in some more training before Videl went to bed and Gohan started his meditations.
The seventh day, the last day of their trip, also followed the pattern, until lunch. Gohan ordered the others into their seats as they started their final approach to Namek.
Videl smiled as she looked at Gohan who was in the seat next to her. She'd become a lot stronger thanks to him. And now they were about to land on an alien world together. The ship began to shake as it entered the atmosphere. The gravitron couldn't fully compensate for the turbulence.
Videl could feel the ship using planetary gravity to turn itself so it could use its main engine to break for it's landing.
A few minutes later the engine fired and they touched down.
"We're here." Gohan announced, getting up again. "If Bulma did everything right, and knowing her she probably did, we should be a couple of hundred miles south of the Nameks' settlement. I suggest we capsulate the ship and fly there first, then we can start looking for the Dragon Balls after that."
"Okay." Videl said.
As Goten and Trunks yelled: "Let's go!"
The left the ship and once outside Gohan capsulated it and put it in his pocket before the four of them took off, heading north.
They'd gone about a hundred miles when Gohan came to a sudden stop in mid air. Videl could barely stop fast enough to prevent herself from crashing into him.
Goten and Trunks stopped as well all three off them now following Gohan's gaze to the west.
"Do you see that?" Gohan asked.
"Yeah." Videl said. "Looks like a big space-ship landing."
Goten and Trunks nodded.
"Not just any big space-ship." Gohan said. Sounding worried. "From what I can tell it's an exact replica off Frieza's flagship."
/*
What's this, what is a ship that looks like Frieza's doing here? Is this some new evil force to do with the Cold family? But how is that possible when Mirai Trunks defeated both the king and his son. Find out next time on life is strange.
Well that's it for Chapter 9, sorry it took a bit long to write but I've had a lot of other things to do as well. Anyway I left you cliffhung again.
// Shows how mean I am, I'm starting to use 'to Cliffhang' as a verb.
Now you'll all have to wait for the next chapter to see what evil force I've concocted, if indeed I've concocted an evil force at all. One hint, it's not going to be Lady Queen's evil-little-brother, not even a fusion of him and me, evil little brothers unite :).
Another hint, it's not Cooler, since I can't be bothered to integrate the movies with the series, which from what I've heard is frankly impossible, Cooler hasn't been born in this AU.
Anyway, please review and tell me what you think.
*/
Disclaimer: DBZ isn't mine, Gohan is, well in my dreams he is at any rate.
Anything between /* and */ is just me budding in, so is anything after // up until the next hard return.
For those of you that realised, I'm trying to learn to program in C++ as a hobby, that's the origin of the commentary codes.
*/
/*
Response to reviews:
To edward-tivrusky-5:
Well you were outvoted on the Japanese or English name question. I like both equally myself, but I'm not sure on how correct the Japanese is so I'll go with the English for the time being. If you want to you can always replace the name yourself, but the attack isn't even in this chapter.
To Lady Queen:
You and your brother are also mentioned at the bottom of the fic, BTW, I'm also the baby, I have three older sisters * growls Saiyan style*, but I thought I'd put something here too. Only Goku (and possibly Goten) would be capable of not getting the wrong number joke as a joke.
I'm glad you liked the attack as it took me a while to think up.
To Flyby Stardancer:
Glad you like the attack.
To Everyone:
Thanks a lot. I just love reviews.
*/
Life Is Strange
Saga: The Heir Of The Cold-Empire
Chapter 9: The Journey
"Should I come as well?" Piccolo asked interrupting Videl's thoughts. "Not so much to keep the two of you apart, I'm sure fear off your mother will see to that, but space can be a dangerous place."
"No thanks, I'm sure we'll be fine." Gohan said. "From Vegeta's stories, Frieza really was the most powerful fighter out there, and we all know he couldn't even take a level one Super-Saiyan. But if there are in some way bigger threats out there, you should stay here, with Vegeta and you we'll have two of the strongest warriors in the universe still here to defend Earth should it be needed. Because if I beat some bad guys, there's always the chance of their friends tracing out trajectory back to Earth."
Piccolo nodded. "Just be careful Gohan."
"Don't worry, I will be."
"Yeah don't worry Piccolo I'll make sure he behaves and doesn't do anything to dangerous." Videl said with a smile.
The tall Namek gave her a rather strange look at this comment. For a moment Videl thought she must be imagining it but she could swear he was looking at her almost fondly.
"Why are you so concerned about this Piccolo?" Gohan asked.
"I'm not sure." The Namek replied. "I just have this feeling, I guess you humans would call it a premonition. Nameks usually are sensitive to this sort of thing, do you remember when your dad went to get Dende to be the new God of Earth and they'd already sensed something was going on here on Earth."
"I see what you mean." Gohan said. "We'll be careful."
"Okay kid, now I don't want you to worry about finding the Dragon Balls here on Earth. I'll take care of that. The Nail in me wants to go to New Namek when it becomes possible."
"Thanks Piccolo, I owe you one."
Soon after that they left heading for Capsule Corporation.
They were almost to CC when Gohan realised something and came to a halt in mid air. Videl next to him came to a halt also and looked at him with great curiosity.
"Why did you stop Gohan?" She asked.
"I just thought of something. I haven't told mom and Goten about this yet. If we go to Bulma now she'll call my mom when we leave, and I really think I should be the one to bring home the news."
"So, looks like a course change then." Videl said. "Heading, the 439 mountain area."
Gohan nodded. He couldn't help but feel a little anxious about how his mom would react, especially to him keeping her, as well as everyone else for that matter, in the dark on this all this time.
They flew side by side for a while, but his nerves were getting too much for him.
"Videl." He said after a while. "I'm really nervous about this. I want to get there quickly and just get it over with, so no offence, but would you mind if I carried you?"
No offence huh? Videl thought. Well I guess I would be offended if I didn't know how true it was. Besides I like it when he carries me.
"I don't mind." She said out loud. And in an instant Gohan's arms surrounded her, holding her close to his body as he started to really speed to the Son home. He wasn't in the greatest of hurries, as he wasn't using the Kaio-ken technique, which she new made him even faster, but he was fast, at this pace the trip would take five minutes at the most.
Soon they landed between the two houses that now stood side by side or rather front-to-front, on the Son family property.
Gohan put her down right in front of the Son family home, and the two of them went inside.
"Mom! Goten!" He yelled as they stepped inside.
Almost instantly Chi-Chi came into view from the kitchen, and only seconds later the sound of little feet behind them signalled Goten coming in from outside.
"What is it Gohan?" Chi-Chi asked.
"I have something to tell you, maybe I should have told you this before but I didn't want to get your hopes up."
"What do you mean?"
"When I talked to dad a couple of weeks ago he said one thing I didn't want to tell you about at the time. You see he knew about my feelings for Videl starting to develop, and he said he'd come back for the wedding. So Videl and I are going to New-Namek to wish him back."
Goten as always reacted with a goofy smile and a lot of happiness jumping up and down and singing, "I'm going to meet daddy." Over and over again.
Chi-Chi on the other hand just about fainted, sinking to the couch with a dazed look.
"Mom are you all right?" Gohan asked.
"She'll be fine." Videl replied. "Why don't you get your little brother out of here because he's a bit noisy, and I'll take care of your mom."
She shot him a look that plainly said, 'Now and I mean it.', and he and Goten went outside.
When the two boys had left Videl sat down on the couch next to Chi-Chi. Taking the older woman's hand and just holding it, waiting for her to calm down a bit before doing anything else.
"Why didn't he tell me before?" Chi-Chi finally managed to stammer.
"I think this is why." Videl replied. "He didn't want you to have to go through this when it wasn't certain that Goku would come back. Goku said he was coming back for Gohan's wedding, and if things hadn't worked out between the two of us that would probably still be years away. I guess he just didn't want you to have to face the possibility of disappointment."
"It's just so much to take in right now." Chi-Chi said.
"I can understand that. What do you think I felt when Gohan popped the whole, we have to go to an alien world to get your father in law, story on me?"
Chi-Chi let out a small chuckle. "I think that would be a bit much as well."
"Believe me it was, but not nearly as much as you must be going through now, a life time of memories must be surfacing right now."
"They are, but it's getting better, don't worry."
"Good, you'll have to hold down the fort with Goten while Gohan and I go to New-Namek."
"Well that shouldn't be too long, you can just wish yourselves there."
"No, Gohan wants to make a permanent passage, but he needs both Dragons to do that, so we'll be going over to Bulma's to borrow a spaceship."
"Now Videl, you know I want grandchildren, but..."
"Don't worry Chi-Chi, we'll behave ourselves."
"Good, now why don't you go get Gohan and head out to Bulma's I'll be fine."
"If you're sure..."
"I am, don't worry about it, now go."
"Is mom all right?" Was the first thing Gohan asked when he saw Videl leave the house.
"She's fine don't worry." Videl replied, her tone easing his nerves somewhat.
"Okay, then let's get going, we need to get back to Capsule Corp. to get that space ship."
"Let's go."
Gohan took to the air, feeling more at ease than he had since they'd interrupted their previous journey to Capsule Corporation.
He could see Videl smile as she flew next to him, he'd been able to sense her worries about him before and now he could sense her relief. It was good to have this weight of his shoulders.
It only took them about twenty minutes to get to Capsule Corp. definite proof that Videl was getting faster day-by-day.
As usual they landed in the backyard and headed in the kitchen door. Finding Bulma bend over, working on some gizmo at the kitchen table.
"Hi Bulma." Gohan said. Chuckling in his thoughts at the sudden and shocked way Bulma looked up.
"Oh, hi Gohan, hi Videl." Bulma said seeing who had just come in. "What can I do for you?"
"Well," Gohan said, "this may come as a bit of a shock to you, I actually only just told mom about it before coming here, but my dad's coming back."
"What?" Bulma yelled in surprise. "But I thought he wanted to stay in other world because he was afraid he'd attract evil and danger to Earth."
"He did, but he figured that if no one came for him in the last seven years, no one's going to now. And I have to say I agree."
"So why are you here, do you need to Dragon Radar so you can get the balls to wish yourself to New-Namek?"
"Actually I wanted to borrow a Z-48."
Bulma blinked at him several times. "You want to go by space-ship, why?"
"Well I don't just want to go there, I want to make a permanent passage for future use. But Dende says that's beyond Shen Long's and even beyond Porunga's power, so I have to make the wish to both of them at the same time. Anyway, you know how impatient those Dragons are, so I can't wish myself to Namek and then leave Shen Long waiting for Porunga. That means I'll be using a Z-48 to get there if you'll lend me one, and then when I get to New-Namek and get the Balls, I'll contact Piccolo who's promised to get the Balls here on Earth for me and we'll make the wish to both Dragon's at once."
"Don't you need to speak Namek to make the wish to Porunga?"
"You do, but that shouldn't be a problem, I'm sure the Nameks will be glad to help, and I might not needed, I've been spending some free time with Dende over the years and I learned some of the language."
"I guess you would. Must be Chi-Chi's influence on you, always studying in one way or another."
"So what type of gravitron does the Z-48 have, I might want to do some training while we're on our way?" Gohan asked.
"Oh the new type, up to 500 times gravity, though if you want to train in that, Videl should leave the room or get into one of the grav suits."
"Grav suits?" Videl asked.
"They're similar to the gravitron." Bulma said. "They create artificial gravity, but only around the person that's wearing them, because they work the same way, they cancel out the gravitrons effects. There's a supply of them on board, in case the gravitron fails, or if it malfunctions the way it did when Goku went to Namek."
"What happened then?" Videl wanted to know.
"Well Goku ran into a magnetic storm, and from what my dad tells me, it made the gravitron go haywire. Gravity shot to its maximum of 100 G's, Goku barely survived back then. Because the suit is stand alone it's isolated from things like magnetic storms. The new ships have sensors to warn you of them, so you can suit up just in case. The gravitron is hooked into the ships systems so it can't be fully isolated and remains vulnerable, that's one of the reasons to have the suits, to cancel out any unwanted gravity effects in such a situation."
"So do you have my size?" Videl asked. "I think I may need one."
"Actually I based the grav suits on my reproduction Saiyan armour, they can be stretched to about ten times their original size. The Saiyan armour, even the reproduction, can stretch further, but because off the technology that's in there this is rather more limited. But even with just ten times stretching, one size fits all."
The discussion then went on with Videl asking about Saiyan armour and Bulma and Gohan answering her questions. When Videl's curiosity had been satisfied Bulma told Gohan that their ship would be waiting at CC the next day, stocked with food and everything, and Gohan and Videl left after thanking her.
Videl let out a sigh as she sat down on her couch that evening. After their visit to CC, Gohan had taken her shopping, saying she needed some more clothes before they left for New-Namek. She'd known he was right, but she still didn't like going shopping, it was too girly for her taste.
He'd taken her to several stores, and she'd always ended up buying normal, sensible things, like jeans and t-shirts. To her surprise he hadn't tried to change that. Most guys she knew had been quite clear about wanting to change her, they never said it in so many words, but all of them seemed to want her to fully embrace her feminine side, Gohan didn't. He just wanted her to be herself. He'd been the one that made her realise just how important that was. To have someone be there for her, not for Videl Satan, not for the daughter of Hercule, but just for Videl. She looked at her luggage that was lying on the coffee table ready for tomorrow, two large travel bag caps, filled with clothes. What she had with her should be enough for at least two weeks. And that should be plenty, Bulma had done the math back at CC and had called in the evening telling them that a little over a week would be enough to get them to New-Namek.
// It only took Goku 6 days to get to Namek in the series, but New Namek is a lot farther away than Namek was so it takes longer, even with the faster space ship.
Videl could still barely belief it, she was going into space tomorrow.
Ah well. She thought. Might as well go to bed now, no sense in starting my space adventures tired.
The next morning Videl woke up to a knock on her bedroom door.
"Are you decent?" Gohan's voice called from the other side.
"Just a minute." She called, getting out of bed and changing into her normal clothes in less than one. "Okay, you can come in now."
"Some quick dressing there Videl." Gohan said.
"What do you mean?" She asked. Feigning ignorance. "I've been up for a while."
"Don't lie to me." Gohan said. "I could tell from your Ki that you were asleep."
"All right so I was. I just didn't want you to think of me as lazy."
"Don't worry about it, we all need our sleep. Besides we have a big day ahead, it's good to know that you're well rested."
"What do you mean, a big day? Sure we'll be leaving, but that's hardly going to take a lot of energy."
"We'll see. We'll be continuing your training while we're in space, maybe even in raised gravity, so you'll need a lot of energy before the day is through."
"I can't wait, I really want to train. I hardly had time to do anything yesterday with all the flying around we did."
"That could be considered a way of training too. I don't know if you noticed but it only took 20 minutes to get to CC yesterday. And you were even quicker after shopping even if you did insist on carrying your own bags."
She smiled inwardly, just hanging with Gohan was a form of training she supposed. It was no wonder that Chi-Chi was one of the strongest women on Earth, she had to be able to handle first her husband, and now her sons.
After breakfast and Gohan and Videl took some time to double-check everything they'd packed, while Goten and Chi-Chi left for Capsule Corporation on the Nimbus. Actually Chi-Chi rode the Nimbus while Goten flew alongside it. Gohan had smiled as he saw them take off, Goten was so proud and happy he could fly by himself now he'd periodically refused to sit on the Nimbus with his mother.
After checking that he had all of his bags, or rather their capsules, Gohan went over to Videl's capsule house. He found her in the bedroom, still rummaging through a final bag, checking to be sure she had everything she needed.
"So do you think you have everything?" He asked, walking up behind her and gently kissing the back of her neck.
"I think I do." She replied. Closing and Capsulating the bag. "So let's get going."
"One more thing," Videl said as the left the house, "do you think we should take this Capsule house with us?"
"We could, but I don't see a need to, there should be plenty of room to stay in the ship."
"Well I'll put it back in its cap and take it anyway, better safe than sorry after all."
"Okay."
Gohan waited patiently while Videl capsulated the house and put the capsule in her cap-box, along with her luggage and some other essentials.
"Let's go." She said, putting the box in her pocket and taking to the air, closely followed by Gohan.
The trip to CC took a little less than twenty minutes this time. Everybody was there already to send them off. Though Gohan had only told a few people, the news of Goku's imminent return had travelled like wild fire among the Z gang and they'd all gathered again at Bulma's to send of the two space-farers.
The space ship was standing ready in the back yard. Next to all the other small changes it was slightly bigger than the old Z-15's had been.
"So is it ready to go?" Gohan asked Bulma as soon as he'd landed.
"Ready and waiting. The course is pre-programmed, and it has an automatic collision avoidance system. It has a hyper speed connection to CC headquarters so you can always call me if there is a problem, and you can also receive TV at hyper speed, there's enough bandwidth on the antenna to send it to you."
"Thanks," Videl said, "it'll be good to keep up with the news and we'll have something to do besides training. I'm afraid Gohan might wear me out otherwise."
"You're welcome, now get going."
"Okay." Gohan said. "We will just as soon was we say good bye to everyone."
Gohan and Videl made their way through the crowd, shaking hands with everyone, thanking them for good wishes, and finally spending almost ten minutes to calm Chi-Chi down enough to be able to leave without having to worry about her.
Finally the farewells were taken care off and they boarded the space ship.
"I'm glad that's over." Gohan said as he sat strapped into his seat waiting for the count down to start.
"What?" Videl asked, though she had a pretty good idea.
"Saying good-bye to mom." Gohan replied. "I think Roshi once described her as the only thing scarier than a Super-Saiyan and I sometimes think he was right. Now don't get me wrong, I love her, but when she gets mad, or otherwise emotional, it can be really scary."
// It's actually the only thing more powerful than a Super-Saiyan, but even Gohan has to get things wrong every now and then doesn't he. Besides I made this mistake, and when my sister pointed it out, I didn't feel like changing it, because the real quote doesn't really fit.
Videl chuckled. "I know what you mean, she does seem to have a bit of a temper."
"Actually I'm usually thankful for that." Gohan said. "I inherited that temper, when I get really mad my strength increases dramatically, I get that from her."
Videl just nodded.
Just then Bulma's voice came out of the speaker on the instrument panel.
"Okay you guys, good luck and bring back Goku. There's a Dragon Radar aboard and Piccolo has the other one, so everything should be all right on that front. Now here comes the count down. Vegeta!"
"No way woman."
"Come on Vegeta you gave Frieza a countdown on Namek, Gohan told me about it, so now be a good boy and do the same for your wife or I'll take you shopping."
"Fine, * talking really fast * ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one."
"Lift off." Bulma said.
Gohan and Videl could hear the roar of the engine starting and the ship shot up, they were pressed a bit more firmly into their seats as it accelerated the first few seconds, but soon the gravitron compensated and they could get up.
"Shall we have a look around?" Gohan asked as he unbuckled just as the left the atmosphere.
"Why not." Videl said, following his example and freeing herself from her chair as well. "Though I must say this looks a lot like an empty room to me."
"Well this is empty, it's where we'll train later, but we can get furniture here, Bulma explained the whole thing to me some time ago." Gohan said. Pressing a button on the wall.
Instantly part of the floor turned over and a couch appeared. He pushed a few more buttons and some chairs came out of the floor like the couch, while a monitor folded down out of the ceiling.
"There now we're all set." He stated. "We can watch TV now. The view screen is also for visual communications."
"So what else is hidden like that?" Videl asked.
"Nothing." Gohan said. "This is everything we can conjure up here, for everything else we'll have to go down-stairs."
With those words he led her to the other side of the ship where there was a spiral staircase leading to the lower deck.
After they'd descended to the lower floor of the ship Videl looked around. The stairs, were at what you might call the back of the ship, the side that was farthest from the instruments and controls, though technically, calling this the back meant that they were flying upwards.
She sighed, appointing directions to something spherical was best done by just doing what seemed right.
"Gohan." She said. "Do you mind if we call this the back, where the controls are the front, and the direction we're flying in up."
"Seems reasonable to me." He replied. "You'd expect the controls to be the front even though we're flying up."
"Good. Now what do we have down here?"
"Well the large room directly ahead is the kitchen."
They were facing the door to the kitchen so a quick walk down the hall got them there. The kitchen took up the front half of this floor. Well almost half anyway. It had a normal kitchen counter and a large table in it, as well as a big fridge, and a Cappuccino machine clearly this place was meant to feed Saiyans.
/* For those of you that don't remember when Goku wants to leave for Namek dr. Brief tells him the ship isn't ready yet. So Goku starts asking questions and it turns out that it isn't ready yet, because the Cappuccino machine hasn't been installed yet, dr. Brief couldn't find a good place to put it. */
"What's this?" Videl asked as she looked into the fridge, seeing that it wasn't full and only contained a lot of caps. "Why isn't there any food in here?"
"There is." Gohan said. "All those caps are storage caps, filled with food. Since this fridge was here already this was more efficient than using fridge caps. The fridge size hasn't changed from the old model and when my dad used that he had the thing cleaned out in two meals, so taking the normal food doesn't work with Saiyans on board."
"Okay, so what else is on this floor?"
"Just the bathroom and the bedrooms."
They walked out into the corridor again.
"The bathroom is the big room on the left." Gohan said. "And the two bedrooms are on the right."
Just as he was showing Videl around the bathroom, with a big bathtub, because Bulma wanted to be able to soak if she ever had to use it, Gohan felt something strange.
He looked over to Videl to see she looked shocked. She must have felt the same thing. So he couldn't be imagining it. But how, how was this possible.
As he looked at her she turned to face him and their eyes met. He motioned to the door, with his head and she nodded. Slowly they left the bathroom, crossed the corridor and entered the bedroom nearest to the stairs.
The sight that greeted them, though not wholly unexpected, came as a bit of a shock. On one of the two beds in the room sat Goten and Trunks. They were sitting there cross-legged and were apparently playing some sort of card game.
"What are you guys doing here?" Gohan asked shocked.
"We just wanted to say good-bye here before you took off." Goten said looking innocent. "Trunks said you'd take a tour of the ship first."
"No." Gohan replied, trying to remain calm. "We just took off a while ago."
"WHAT!?" Goten and Trunks both shouted.
"That's right, we're in space." Videl said. "Looks like we'll have to go back."
"But that'll take a week at least." Gohan said. "Because we just left the Solar system there are no planets near, and we need a planetary gravity well to break or manoeuvre with any manner of speed. The manoeuvring and retro thruster-systems don't' have enough power to turn us quickly without using a gravity slingshot."
"So we're stuck on board?" Trunks asked.
"Yeah." Gohan said. "And now we'll have the pleasure of using the comm. system to tell your moms about this."
Both boys looked seriously scared at this point and Gohan wasn't feeling too happy either.
Gohan, Goten and Trunks let out a triple sigh as the sat on the couch face the view screen. Videl was at the controls.
"Any minute now." She called, punching the comm. activation button.
"You two get out of here for a sec." Gohan told the two younger demi-Saiyans. "I'll take the brunt of the assault and then you come in as back up when I give you a hand signal."
The two youngsters nodded eagerly and headed to a point behind the camera.
"Gohan." Videl asked. "Why do you make this sound like you're planning to defend against an invasion?"
"Because I am. My mom and Bulma are going to just about scream me to death. I can't let the little guys sit through the first part of it. That would be to cruel, I remember what my mom was like when I told her I was going to Namek with Bulma and Krillin."
"Okay the connection should become active in a few seconds."
Just then the screen activated, showing some static first and then Bulma.
"Hey Gohan." Bulma said. "Why are you calling?"
"Oh, uh, I have something to tell you, but is my mom still there?"
"Yeah I'm here." Chi-Chi said walking into view. "We can't seem to find Goten and Trunks so I have to wait for the little guy to show up before I can go back home."
"Well that's what I wanted to talk to you about. It looks like the little guys wanted to say good-bye to Videl and me on the ship, and they didn't realise we'd taken off."
Their response was like he'd expected, motherhood seemed to give of a standard pattern of thought because the two women responded in stereo.
"WHAT! MY ADORABLE LITTLE BABY IS ON THAT SHIP, BUT HOW..." Gohan just stopped listening at this point or at least tried to. After about fifteen minutes of the two women screaming their heads of it seemed they had to pause for breath and he decided to try to reason with them.
"Come on guys, it isn't that bad. I was even younger than them when I first went to Namek. Besides they're already way stronger than I was then."
He gave the hand signal and Goten and Trunks came into view of the camera and sat down next to him. They seemed a bit shaken from the way they'd just heard their moms scream.
"Hi mom." They chirped in unison.
"Goten darling are you alright?"
"Sure mom I'm fine." Goten replied.
"Me too mom." Trunks said before Bulma could even ask anything.
"Well what do you boys have to say for yourselves?" Chi-Chi asked.
"We thought Videl and Gohan would look around the whole ship before taking off so we decided to hide in the bedroom to give them a surprise." Trunks said.
"What were you boys thinking taking a chance like that?" Bulma said. "But I suppose what's done is done. It'll only be for a couple of weeks anyway and Gohan should be able to materialise clothes for you when you need them."
She and Chi-Chi talked to all three boys some more, repeatedly threatening Gohan with a horrible fate should he let anything happen to their sons, until finally the connection was closed.
Gohan let out a sigh of relief when the screen flickered back to static and then went black.
"Well I'm glad that's over." He said. "I suppose it could have been worse, they could have continued yelling the whole time."
"Yeah." Trunks said. "I thought they were going to kill us by yelling and they could too."
"Tell me about it squirt." Gohan said. "But that's not what I'm worried about right now."
"What do you mean?" Goten asked.
"I just remembered, there is only enough food aboard for 64 courses a meal, 4 for Videl and 60 for me. So that means that we'll only have 20 courses a meal each."
"WHAT!" Both Trunks and Goten looked horrified at the prospect. Gohan didn't exactly feel good about it himself. To any growing or teenage Saiyan a twenty-course meal hardly went past the appetizer stage. Goten despised meatloaf, but even he would eat two dozen servings of that at least.
"And there's another thing." Gohan said. "What are we going to do for sleeping arrangements now that there's four of us and only two bed-rooms?"
"That's not a big problem." Videl said. "There's two beds in each room."
"Yeah, who's going to sleep in which room?"
"Well, they boys can share one and we can share the other."
"But we can't sleep in the same room, that's going to look odd."
"Come on, Gohan, this is no time to be modest. Besides otherwise you might wake one or both of them when you go to bed, and I don't want us to have to deal with sleepless Super-Saiyans in the middle of the night."
"Oh all right then."
Later that evening Goten and Trunks had gone to sleep in one of the bedrooms, young Saiyans slept a lot, and even more when they didn't get enough food.
Videl and Gohan were sitting on the couch watching the news on TV. When the news finished Gohan turned it off and looked at Videl.
"How about some training?" He asked.
"Sure, why not." Videl replied.
"Good, you go warm up and I'll turn on the gravitron."
Gohan walked over to the instrument panel and switched it to gravitron control, the couch, chairs and TV were automatically cleared away as he pushed a few buttons and the gravity increased by a factor of five.
Videl's movements seemed relatively unhindered by it on the surface, but he could tell that each move she made used a lot of Ki. That was the effect any gravity training was aiming for so he figured this level was perfect. He walked back into the 'room' and pushed a button on the wall to bring down a metal protection screen between the controls and the rest of the room, to prevent any damage.
"Let's spar." Was all he said as Videl dropped into a stance to face him.
Videl knew she had no hope in the spar with Gohan. Not if he really fought her anyway. But she knew that wasn't what he was doing now, he was just training her. Moving under five times gravity turned out to be harder then she'd expected though it didn't seem to bother Gohan, but then this was her training not his.
"This is so frustrating." She sighed as he once again dodged her attacks with ease. "This gravity has me panting just to stand up and you don't even feel it."
"Don't be so hard on yourself Videl." Gohan said. "Precious few humans could stand up in this gravity at all. So we'll just train until you need to go to bed and I think you'll be surprised at how much you'll have improved in the morning."
About an hour later Videl was completely exhausted. Even though Gohan had deactivated the gravitron her legs felt like it was still on, and on a higher setting.
"I really need to go to bed now." She told him. "Are you coming?"
"No, I'll be there later." Gohan said. "I'm going to train for a bit myself before turning in. I'll try not to wake you."
Videl nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow then."
She forced her body down the stairs and into her room into bed. Gohan would be joining her in the room when he was done, but not in her bed, they had separate beds.
It wasn't long after her face had hit the pillow that Videl fell asleep, completely exhausted from the gravity training and a long day in general.
Gohan trained for a while in two hundred times gravity, a rather challenging level as he didn't allow himself to go super. After going through a few series of kicks and punches, he switched to some sit ups and one finger push ups before going downstairs, almost as exhausted as Videl had seemed.
Videl was already a sleep when he tiptoed into their room. He shot a look at her sleeping form, breathing so softly and peacefully.
She's even beautiful when she's asleep like this. He thought. What did I ever do to deserve someone like her?
// I can think of a few times he saved the world but that's beside the point.
He got his pj's and went to the bathroom to change and brush his teeth. When he returned Videl was still asleep. He could hear her mumble his name, apparently dreaming about him and smiled. He'd probably mumble hers in return a few times during the course of the night.
Still smiling he got into bed, where he soon drifted off to dreamland.
"He's still asleep."
"Maybe we should throw water on him."
"Videl's still sleeping too."
"Maybe we should throw water on both of them."
Two youthful voices filled with mischief could be heard at the edge of Gohan's consciousness as he started to wake up.
"Okay Trunks, I'll go get the water."
This had to be Goten, Gohan's semi-conscious mind thought. And if he's already getting the water I'd better think off something quick.
He smirked in thought as inspiration struck and pretended to be asleep while keeping an eye on his brother's Ki as it moved into the bathroom and then came back a little while later.
He opened his eyes a tiny bit as Goten came back into the room, with a glass of water in each hand.
Goten and Trunks positioned themselves by his and Videl's beds and then Trunks counted down.
"Three, two, one. Go."
Just as the little boy said go, Gohan extended his Ki, to form a horizontal blanket over both him and Videl, evaporating the water just before it hit.
"Morning squirts." He said, sitting up in bed with a grin.
"Aw, that not fair Gohan." Trunks called. "When did you wake up?"
"Right around he's still asleep." Gohan said.
"Why didn't you say something big brother?" Goten asked.
"I just wanted to see what you two squirts came up with." Gohan replied. "But why did you have this urge to wake us in the first place?"
"Well we want to eat."
"Okay, Videl and I will be there for breakfast in a while, now you two get out of here."
Goten and Trunks both smiled happily and ran out of the room, towards the kitchen.
"Gohan," Videl mumbled in a sleepy voice, "what's going on?"
Gohan smiled. "Goten and Trunks decided that we'd slept enough and they want breakfast. I told them we'd be there in a little while so we have to get up."
"Hmm, can't I just have a few more minutes?"
"No, those two will tear this ship apart if we don't get out there soon. I'll go change in the bathroom so you can have some privacy here."
Gohan picked up his Gi and left the room, crossing the corridor and entering the bathroom.
Once he got to the bathroom it didn't take him long to get dressed and head out to the kitchen.
Videl had a bit of a struggle to get up. Some of her muscles were lightly sore from training the previous night and she really wanted to get some more sleep, but Gohan was right, it was time to get up.
After about a minute of lying there, yelling at herself in thought she finally got up and dressed. After taking another moment to comb her hair she went to the kitchen where she could already sense all three demi-Saiyan Kis.
"Morning guys." She greeted as she entered the kitchen.
"Good morning Videl." Gohan said, walking over and giving her a kiss.
"Ewww." Goten called. "No kissy-kissy."
While Trunks made some gagging noises.
"So what are we going to do today?" Videl asked when the kiss had ended.
"I want to get in some heavy training." Gohan said. "I want to see what I can do under 500 times gravity. Other than that, I don't think there are any plans, besides eating breakfast, lunch and dinner."
"What are we going to do?" Trunks asked. "This place is boring."
"Well you guys can train, and I'll ask Bulma to upload some games to the ships computer so you can play those. Other than that, you can watch TV, there's not much else to do."
"I'm going to train." Videl said. "I'll have to wear a grav suit to train at the same time you do, but from what I've seen they can go up to ten times normal gravity as well, so that should be plenty for the time being."
The next six days passed with a standard pattern. Gohan would meditate rather than sleep at nights, but otherwise their pattern was identical to that of the first day.
In the morning everything started of with breakfast, after which Goten and Trunks would go play computer games while Videl and Gohan would train.
Then after lunch Goten and Trunks would each be complaining that the other had cheated at their games in the morning and would also train.
After dinner Bulma and Chi-Chi, who was staying at Capsule Corp., would call to fuss over the two youngest members of the group.
Finally in the evening they would watch some TV before Trunks and Goten would go to bed and Videl and Gohan would get in some more training before Videl went to bed and Gohan started his meditations.
The seventh day, the last day of their trip, also followed the pattern, until lunch. Gohan ordered the others into their seats as they started their final approach to Namek.
Videl smiled as she looked at Gohan who was in the seat next to her. She'd become a lot stronger thanks to him. And now they were about to land on an alien world together. The ship began to shake as it entered the atmosphere. The gravitron couldn't fully compensate for the turbulence.
Videl could feel the ship using planetary gravity to turn itself so it could use its main engine to break for it's landing.
A few minutes later the engine fired and they touched down.
"We're here." Gohan announced, getting up again. "If Bulma did everything right, and knowing her she probably did, we should be a couple of hundred miles south of the Nameks' settlement. I suggest we capsulate the ship and fly there first, then we can start looking for the Dragon Balls after that."
"Okay." Videl said.
As Goten and Trunks yelled: "Let's go!"
The left the ship and once outside Gohan capsulated it and put it in his pocket before the four of them took off, heading north.
They'd gone about a hundred miles when Gohan came to a sudden stop in mid air. Videl could barely stop fast enough to prevent herself from crashing into him.
Goten and Trunks stopped as well all three off them now following Gohan's gaze to the west.
"Do you see that?" Gohan asked.
"Yeah." Videl said. "Looks like a big space-ship landing."
Goten and Trunks nodded.
"Not just any big space-ship." Gohan said. Sounding worried. "From what I can tell it's an exact replica off Frieza's flagship."
/*
What's this, what is a ship that looks like Frieza's doing here? Is this some new evil force to do with the Cold family? But how is that possible when Mirai Trunks defeated both the king and his son. Find out next time on life is strange.
Well that's it for Chapter 9, sorry it took a bit long to write but I've had a lot of other things to do as well. Anyway I left you cliffhung again.
// Shows how mean I am, I'm starting to use 'to Cliffhang' as a verb.
Now you'll all have to wait for the next chapter to see what evil force I've concocted, if indeed I've concocted an evil force at all. One hint, it's not going to be Lady Queen's evil-little-brother, not even a fusion of him and me, evil little brothers unite :).
Another hint, it's not Cooler, since I can't be bothered to integrate the movies with the series, which from what I've heard is frankly impossible, Cooler hasn't been born in this AU.
Anyway, please review and tell me what you think.
*/