What's Good About Life? (Dragon Ball Z SI Chapter 11)

Gohan put down his pencil and closed his textbooks. He strained his ears to listen for his mother, waiting to see if she was in the kitchen or somewhere else. He didn't want to open his room's door to check. Her hearing was like a bat's and would hear it.

He slowly pushed his chair back, not thinking on how that would be suspicious. He went to his window, looked down for anyone, then slowly got up to the opening and floated down.

So far so good.

"GOHAN!" His mother shouted.

He looked back to see her coming from where she was putting up laundry.

Damn. He didn't account that she would be outside the house.

"What are you doing? Shouldn't you be studying!?" Chi Chi cried out.

"I have!" Gohan argued back. "I did all my homework, I read all my required material, and I finish studying everything I'm assigned."

"Then you should review everything again." Chi Chi said as she stood in front of her son, hands on her waist in an angry authoritative manner.

"I did!" Gohan cried back. "I studied everything we're suppose to take this year."

"Then study everything for next year."

"Oh come on, mom! I just want a break!" Gohan's eyes watered.

Ever since he returned from Namek, his mother was on his case, watching him like a hawk, lest he "gets in trouble".

"Then why don't you read some of those fun books I brought you." Chi Chi said back.

"No! No more reading. I just wanna go out for a while. Just take a walk, play games, something!" Gohan shouted.

"You mean you want to go learn how to fight! Like your father!?" Chi Chi's eyes narrow.

"Well...maybe? Not really, but-" Gohan stumbled.

"But nothing!"

"Chi Chi, why are you being so harsh on Gohan now?" Goku approached the duo, hearing their shouting match from his farming field nearby.

"Goku!" Chi Chi turned on him. "We both agreed that Gohan doesn't have to do any fighting anymore, right? Then you agree with me that he shouldn't go bother with training or fighting, right!?"

"Um, I mean," Goku gave a nervous smile. "He did his studying, right?" He looked to his son.

"Yes!" Gohan nodded vigorously.

"Then come on, it should be fine to let him go out and have fun." Goku tried to argue.

"WHAT!?" This only had the effect of making Chi Chi explode, but turn her anger on the older Saiyan.

While Chi Chi was shouting and reprimanding Goku for being so lax, Goku gave his son a smile and a wink.

Gohan smiled in return, getting that his father is serving as a distraction, and quickly flew away.

He went to the closest familiar ki signatures first, reaching a house a bit of a run from his home, but relatively close, still within Mount Paozu.

"Heeey! Uncle Raditz, Ms. Nach!" Gohan shouted and waved. Gohan's eyes lit up at the third person there. "Ms. Launch!"

"Hey, Gohan! How've you been, kid?" Raditz shouted back.

The two Saiyans, Nach and Raditz halted their spar, and powered down to rest.

"S'up, brat." Nach gave a curt greeting, with a small smile.

"Hello, Gohan." Said the kind voice of blue Launch. "How have you been lately? Are you still a good boy doing your chores and everything?"

"Y-Yes, ma'am." Gohan said with a blush at the nice praise of the good Launch.

Raditz laughed at Gohan's bashfulness, while Nach smiled with a huff and rolled her eyes.

The four caught up for a bit, asking about what Gohan had been up to, and he asked the same of them.

Nach scoffed as she heard about Chi Chi's latest ban on Gohan's training for the sake of his "studying".

"I swear that-" Nach seeing Gohan look at her with a tilted head, as well as blue Launch looking at her in confusion, stopped herself and kept her insult of 'useless harpy' in her mind. "-Woman is just being a detriment at this point. Not wanting you to be in danger is delusional, but annoyingly can be somewhat, maybe understandable. This however is going too far." She growled.

"Wow, Nach, would you like to add a bit more adverbs to not agree with her on something?" Raditz chuckled.

"I'm surprised you even know what an 'adverb' is. What? Trying to impress the goodie-two-shoe here?" Nach gestured to Launch with her head.

"Hmm? Impress me?" Launch asked while looking at Raditz.

"Pfff-wha? Me? No. I'm not trying to do anything impressive." Raditz stuttered and looked away.

"Hmm? But you are impressive, Raditz." Launch said without shame, making Raditz flushed at the praise. A feeling he wasn't used so, but didn't dislike. "You are smart but strong too. Sometimes I wonder if I can be strong like that." She said looking down.

"Of course, you can!" Raditz said right away. "You just need to train, learn ki and you'd be golden." Raditz then chuckled at his own joke, which Launch also laughed at, having got the double reference.

Gohan politely smiled. Adults were weird sometimes.

"Anyways," Nach spoke, getting Gohan's attention again. "Your mother clearly lives in her own head, if she thinks you'll never be in danger, or will never fight again in your life."

"My mom is worried about me." He tried to argue and defend his mother, but he did feel a bit angry toward her at the moment. "And wants me to do well in school, so my future would be good." He said looking down, the excuses starting to lose their weight in his ear after intense studying for months now.

Before Nach could say anything else, Launch spoke up.

"I think your mother is trying her best." Launch said in a calm patient manner. "Her son isn't only part-alien, but went to outer space, why you are now ahead of any astronaut in the achievement department. And you're also super strong, compared to kids your age." Gohan blushed at the compliment. "Maybe rather than train to fight or get stronger, you should try telling her you're training to have fun, or to make a version of it that's a game."

"That is a great idea, you really are a smart cookie!" Raditz chimed in.

"Aww, thanks." Launch smiled back.

"Training like a game, huh?" Gohan gave it some thought.

"Try Dive." Nach spoke up.

"Huh?" Gohan looked up.

"The guy's training tends to be soft, with meditation and image training and the like." She explained. "He had some ki control stuff where we threw ki balls at each other, so that's a thing. After a while, he just told us to train till our power was double Frieza's first form, before coming back to him to give a try at Super Saiyan." She then thought for a moment. "Also Piccolo is with him. They're meditation buddies or whatever."

"Alright!" Gohan's smiled as his eyes lit up. "Thank, Ms. Nach, I'll go and-"

"ACHOO!"

The trio of Saiyans flinched as they looked at the one human around.

"Oi, wharra'lookin at?" Said the blonde Launch.

"Hey, trigger bullet." Raditz waved with a grin.

"S'up, porcupine." bad Launch grin back, before the two chuckled at one another.

"Hey, Ms. Launch." Gohan said politely to the other Launch.

"Told'ya kid. Just Launch is fine." She said back. "Hmm, by the way, you're going to that extra monkey Saiyan guy, aight?"

"A...ight?" Gohan hastily nodded.

"Well, I'm bored of watching you two duking it out, without getting in on the action." She said to Raditz and Nach. "I'm going with ya." Turned to Gohan.

Gohan wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not.

"You know you could have went with them." Raditz said to Nach as they got in stance to resume their spar.

Nach grunted.

"Seriously, you can just meet up with Dive like we all do. You don't have to do this weird 'I'm not meeting you' thing, till your match."

Nach growled and launched herself at the smirking Raditz.

"Okay," Dive said as he heard each of Gohan's and Launch's issues. Piccolo was also sitting there, hearing this pausing his training with Dive on Ki Circulation that is suppose to aid his natural regeneration. "The solution to this is easy, but first..."

Dive pointed a hand on blonde Launch's shoulder, and before she could react, a ki body formed from her, powered by Dive, and blue Launch appeared.

"Holy smokes! You separated us!"

"Goodness me."

Bad Launch and Good Launch said in surprise.

"No, no," Dive waved them off. "You're literally a situation of one person, two sides. I just gave your other personality a temporary body so I can talk to...all of you." He explained, gesturing at them. "Both of you want to train, right? You want to generally become strong, or do you each want to work on something specific."

"Well, I feel like everyone is too extraordinary, that whatever aid or contribution I can provide is minimal. I'd like if I could help, or just support everyone." Said blue Launch.

"I wanna kick ass." The blonde Launch said plainly. "I mean, I wanna do it with my trusty sidekick," she patted her machinegun. "But if not that, know how deem 'Key boom' go. Besides I like da thought of being bulletproof." She had a sly smile. "Might make summ'aah...job opportunities more open."

Dive and Gohan looked a bit exasperated, while hiding it behind a smile. Piccolo just rolled his eyes.

"Alright general rule," Dive spoke up. "Don't hurt innocent people with what I teach you." He said with a deadpan.

"Ya, ya, sure, sure." Blonde Launch waved him off.

"Why, of course. Harming people is bad." Blue Launch said pointedly. Bad Launch clicked her tongue but seemed to relent.

"Hmm, so healing and weapon augmentation." Dive scrtached his head in thought. "First one is easy, second one is an interesting challenge. Might ask Bulma for a better weapon if you get too powerful for the machinegun." He paused for a moment. "Would Bulma even know anything about weapons?"

"Aw, hell yeah!" Blonde Launch shouted in excitement.

"Oh? Healing? Like a doctor, sounds lovely!" Blue Launch said with a wide smile.

"What about me, Mr. Dive?" Gohan asked.

"Well, first things first, you need to be able to go places to train," said Dive. "So I'm gonna teach you Instant Transmission."