Cosmic Crisis 2 - The Return of Orion

Chapter 18 - Training

"Well on to stage one. Natalie, since you're far more advanced than Goku was when he first showed up, I won't go through the whole "catch bubbles" routine." King Kai explained to Natalie, with a cheesy grin on his face throughout the whole thing. "However, you will have to endure strenuous training while you're here, and you will have to keep up with Goku and Vegita. Are you willing to do so?" he asked. She nodded in reply. Vegita smirked.

"Heh. I doubt that you'll be able to keep up with us." Vegita said to her. She just shot him a glare and turned back to King Kai.

"It's fine with me." She said.

"Alright. Then we'll start off light with ordinary sparring. And no ki attacks." King Kai said. "Natalie you can go with Vegita this time."

"My pleasure." Vegita said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, come off it, Vegita. I'm not all THAT bad, you know." Natalie snapped. Vegita shut up and began to spar with her.

"I see you got all made up to visit us, huh?" Vegita said, observing Natalie's makeup.

"Actually", she began, "I had an unfortunate encounter with the snake princess and just barely managed to escape. Why, you think it brings out my eyes?" She said, winking at him while dodging one of his attempted blows to the stomach. Vegita just clenched his teeth and fought more fiercely, determined to get her at a weak moment and dissipate her cocky attitude.

On Earth, Kira and Trunks were training in the gravity room. They had been doing so for almost three hours, taking a break every 45 minutes.

"Had enough yet?" Trunks asked, wiping a bit of sweat off his brow.

"Yeah." The girl said, panting, and crouching with her hands on her knees. She hadn't trained this hard since her grandpa had been killed. She was very happy that her own dad was training her. In the future, he had taken over Capsule Corp. after her great-grandpa had retired, so her dad never really had time to train with her. Often, her mother would help him run the company to keep herself busy during the day. Kira sighed to herself. Maybe it would all change as a result of Orion's defeat? She could only hope.

"Come on, then. Let's go in and get you cleaned up." Trunks said. Kira stood up straight and followed her dad into the building with the ends of her training pants dragging under her feet. As she walked inside, she felt so dizzy and far away from the reality that stood right before her. All of the colors and shapes began swimming and twisting in front of her eyes, and she felt like she could reach out and mold them into desirable shapes.

"Kira? Are you okay?" Trunks asked, noticing her far away look. She heard him, but his voice was distorted, and out of sync with his lip movements. She fell off balance, swaying from side to side. She almost fell, but Trunks caught her and knelt down, looking into her eyes with worry expressed in his own. Kira tried to say something, but her mouth couldn't form words, and she couldn't produce sounds. Trunks immediately noticed this and remembered that these symptoms were a result of an extremely low supply of energy. If he didn't get help soon, all of her systems would shut down and suffocate her.

"Damnit." He hissed. He had already lost one person today. He wasn't about to lose another. He didn't waste one precious second calling for his mother. He brought Kira into his arms and lifted her off of the ground, holding her close to his muscular chest. She just shuddered in his grasp. Without wasting anymore time, he ran for Natalie's room. He heard Bulma walk up the stairs in her lab coat, obviously aware that something was wrong.

"Trunks? Kira? Can you hear me? What's going on?" the blue-haired woman called as she took slow steps up the stairs. Trunks lay Kira on the bed in her back with her legs stretched out and her hands folded across her chest. He then placed his one palm on top of her tiny hands and another on her forehead and began to donate some of his energy to her. Based on past experiences with Natalie, this should fix the problem. After about ten seconds, Trunks staggered forward and lost his concentration.

"That should be enough." He said, his voice nothing more than a whisper. He then slumped onto the bed, sitting next to the still unconscious Kira. He ran his hand down her cheek and brushed strands of purple hair out of her face. Seeing her made his heart melt. But it wasn't the same feeling he got when he looked at Natalie. No, he knew this was something different. After this, he would be more careful and protective of his daughter. Maybe training her wasn't the best idea. At least not for three hours. He seemed to forget her tender age when he had been sparring with her in the gravity chamber. She had so much power, so much potential. She went Super Saiyan at age five! Of course, she was the offspring of two incredibly fierce warriors. Thinking about Natalie made him sad, angry. He was angry with her for overextending herself. Her was angry with himself for letting her go off alone, not knowing what dangers lie ahead.

Just then, Bulma popped her head into the room. Her blue hair was pulled into a messy bun and she had goggles hanging from her neck.

"Are you two okay?" she asked, studying the scene. "You seemed to hurry inside. I thought that something might be wrong."

"No, everything's fine, mom." Trunks lied. "She's just tired."

"Okay. If you need anything I'll be in the lab."

"Sure." Trunks replied. He didn't want to tell her the truth. If he did, she would never let Kira get near the gravity room again. He knew that after a day of recuperating, she would be up and ready to go. That's how Saiyans tended to be. She stirred in her sleep, catching Trunks' eye. As he looked down at her, she opened her large green eyes and squinted her eyes as they focused on the figure of her father. When she saw him, she smiled and sat up in bed.

"D-Daddy." She said, rubbing her eyes. "What happened?"

"You were just low on energy, that's all." Trunks replied. He looked into the green eyes of his daughter and felt his heart melt as he fell in love.

"Shit!" Natalie cried as Vegita landed a blow to her face. Vegita smirked, a sign that he had succeeded. Natalie growled in anger as a tiny trail of blood ran down her chin. She continued to battle fiercely with the cocky Saiyan prince while Goku and King Kai watched in amazement.

"I must say this girl has amazing skill." King Kai commented.

"Trunks and Vegita trained her." Goku said, still focused on the fight. "She worked really hard, from what I hear."

"That's good. We have a lot to work with then." King Kai replied.

"Are you going to teach her the Kaioken technique?" Goku asked, not turning to King Kai.

"I'm not sure. Besides, you and Vegita are going to train her. I'm just the supervisor."

"Really? Wow." Goku said, and turned back to Natalie and Vegita's sparring match. They were both equally matched when it came to skill, but it was shown from previous training sessions on Earth that Natalie had an advantage when it came to ki attacks. After a few more minutes, King Kai had them stop so that he could examine their state. Natalie had a bloody lip and a few red spots on her arms that would develop into bruises later on. Vegita had suffered a few blows to the face as well and his wrists were bruised from blocking Natalie's attacks.

"Well done you two." King Kai said. "After you cool off, we can begin using ki attacks."

"Oh." Natalie said in between heavy breaths to satisfy her body's oxygen demands. "Do I still get to spar with his Royal Highness over here? I wouldn't want to deflate his ego or anything." She finished. Vegita shot a furious glare at Natalie and she replied with a sneer.

"You little brat!" he cried and threw a punch at her chest. Unfortunately for him, she just blocked it and sent her foot straight between his legs in a not-so-great place almost on instinct. Vegita's eyes bugged and he doubled over. Goku was using all of his will power to keep a straight face, but King Kai had given up and exploded into a fit of laughter. While Vegita was lying on the ground, Natalie walked away and sat down in front of a tree, three feet from where Piccolo was meditating. He cracked one of his eyes open and looked at her as she brought her knees to her chest and rested her head on them.

"So they tired you out already, did they?" Piccolo asked with his usual tone. Natalie turned her head to face him.

"No." she replied.

"Well what are you doing over here? Can't you see that I'm busy?" he said coldly.

"Sorry to bother." She said and walked away with her arms crossed. Piccolo just rolled his eyes and continued meditating. Natalie joined Goku and Vegita once again.

"Oh, there you are." King Kai said, seeing Natalie walk up. "We were just about to start again. Uh...I don't suggest sparring with Vegita right now. He's a bit...angry." King Kai finished. Natalie glanced over to where Vegita was standing against the side of the house with a sadistic look on his face.

"Oh I think I can take him on." Natalie said, deliberately trying to catch Vegita's attention. His head snapped around and he looked at Natalie with a lethal glare in his eyes.

"Bring it on." He growled. Natalie got into a fighting stance.

"Now, now you two. I don't think it would be wise to-"

"Shut up old man. She brought it on herself." Vegita snapped, getting into a fighting stance as well. The two just looked at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. Suddenly, Vegita's eye twitched and Natalie flew at him with amazing speed. Vegita just dodged and tried to bring her down with a blow to the back, but she swung around before he got a chance.

"If you think I'm going to hold out on you this time you're making a mistake." Vegita said in an angry tone. Natalie suddenly stopped fighting and stood before him with her arms crossed.

"So you had been holding back, huh?" she said, obviously annoyed. "Did you think I couldn't take it or something?"

"A puny female like yourself can hardly take getting up on time in the morning! What makes you think you're an adequate fighter?" Vegita shot back.

"Puny female? Take that back you egotistical ass hole!" she shouted.

"Or maybe if you could take your mind off my son for a few minutes, you could concentrate on more important things." Vegita shouted, continuing to taunt Natalie.

"Oh, that's it." Natalie said, producing an unusually enraged look on her face. "You are going to be sorry."

"Try me." Vegita said. Suddenly Natalie's aura exploded before her and her hair flashed gold, spiking outwards. She let out a scream and then looked back at Vegita with an absolutely infuriated look on her eyes.

"What the hell?" Vegita said. He hadn't seen her go super Saiyan for the first time on Earth, and didn't know that she had the ability. After a few seconds of surprise, he regained his composure and sneered. "I can do that too, you know." He said, and then transformed as well.

"Let's go." Natalie said with a smirk on her face. The both then raced towards each other, battling faster than the eye could see. Occasionally Goku and King Kai could see a flash of gold, but that was all. They heard them yelling insults at each other and throwing punches.

"Goku we have to stop this. They could seriously hurt each other if this keeps up." King Kai said, his voice filled with concern and a bit of annoyance. Goku nodded and jumped into the battle, pushing Natalie and Vegita away from each other with his hands.

"You stay out of this, Kakarott! If that girl wants to get her tail kicked, that's her priority." Vegita shouted.

"You, kick my tail? I doubt that you royal pain in the ass." Natalie shouted back.

"QUIET!" Goku roared, stunning Natalie and Vegita both. "King Kai orders that you two stop this senseless fighting. We're here to train, not beat the living hell out of each other." Goku said firmly. Natalie had never seen Goku angry like this and was almost afraid. He still stood with his hands on both of their chests, making sure that they wouldn't lunge towards each other. Natalie knew he was right. She had let her rage get the best of her. Maybe it was the Saiyan side of her surfacing, but, whatever it was, she didn't like it.

"I-I'm..." Natalie started. Her ego was trying to prevent her from doing this, but she shoved that aside. "I'm sorry, Vegita. I could hardly control what I was doing. I didn't mean to-"

"Hmph." Vegita said, folding his arms. "I didn't think you'd give up that easily."

"Why you-" Natalie started, but was stopped abruptly by Goku's strong grip.

"Natalie, stop. What's come over you?" Goku said, gripping her shoulders and facing her.

"I-I don't know..." she said. "But why aren't you yelling at Vegita? He's always mean and nobody ever does anything about THAT!" Natalie shouted. Tears streamed down her face and she fought to control the hiccup-like convulsions that fought to overtake her. Goku looked at her and felt sorry for her. He knew that she couldn't control it when she became enraged. It was a common Saiyan trait. Vegita didn't want to say so, but he felt sorry for her too. He knew that these weren't her normal tendencies. King Kai had Natalie rest for a while, while Goku and Vegita sparred. She staggered over to the tree that she had been sitting under earlier and slumped onto the ground. She brought her knees close to her chest and hugged them, burying her face in the fabric of her training pants. She felt like a disgrace. Here she was, one of the only female warriors on Earth, and she couldn't keep her temper under control. Piccolo was watching her out of the corner of his eye as she sat sobbing underneath the shade of the tree.

"Hmph...pathetic. Their emotions are their weak spots." Piccolo muttered.

"I heard that." Natalie said, not even turning her head. Piccolo just growled.

"It's the truth, whether you like it or not." He replied.

"Well I'm sorry for having feelings, but unlike you, I can't do anything about it! And while you're meditating why don't you concentrate on ways to stop acting like such an ass to every person that comes within ten feet of you!" Natalie cried, taking in a large amount of air and sighing. Her head was throbbing and she could hear her pulse in her ears.

"Heh. You're worse than Bulma." He said, allowing a smirk to form on his face.

"In that case you don't know me very well." Natalie said, smiling as well. The two then sat in silence, the only noises in the background being Goku and Vegita's grunts and shouts as they sparred fiercely under King Kai's watch. "And anyways, I don't know if I 'm going to be able to take this until we're wished back." She continued.

"Surely you won't give up that easily. I thought you were supposed to be a great fighter." Piccolo commented. "Though, I wouldn't expect much for a female."

"Don't be sexist!" She cried. "It's obvious that I'm as good a fighter as anyone here. After all, Orion killed you three. I defeated him."

"Yes, but then how did you end up here?" Piccolo asked with his harsh tone of voice.

"Well..." Natalie started. It was obvious that she was ashamed of the cause of her death. "I overextended myself in training."

"And we all know that none of the fighters here would be foolish enough to do such a thing." Piccolo said with a sneer on his face.

"Hey give me some credit here. I've only been training for four months." Natalie huffed, folding her arms. Piccolo facefaulted.

"F-four...four months?" he stammered. "T-then how did you become as powerful as us? We've trained all our lives to achieve this level of power!"

"It...comes naturally? What can I say I had powerful parents." Natalie said, with a hint of pride in her voice. "Besides I had some help." She continued, and nodded her head in Vegita's direction. Piccolo smirked.

"Well even if you are as powerful as you claim, that doesn't make you any more of a fighter than us." He began. "We have all learned that with great power comes tremendous responsibility and maturity."

"Yeah, yeah I know all that. Don't blame me for oversleeping once in a while." She said, smiling. "So then why did you sacrifice your life fighting Orion?" Natalie asked. "I mean, you could have just watched from a distance and you wouldn't have been killed."

"I suppose it's my duty. If you had presented me with the same situation twenty years ago I would have blown you to bits." He replied. Natalie cringed at Piccolo's comment, knowing that he spoke the truth.

"NATALIE!" King Kai called. Natalie's head perked up and she looked in his direction.

"Yes?" she shouted back.

"It's time to train once more. Are you ready for it?" the god asked. Natalie remembered fighting with Vegita earlier and almost backed out. She then remembered Piccolo's words, "tremendous responsibility and maturity". She then swallowed her pride, stood on her feet, and walked towards King Kai with a look of determination on her face.