.03

Rhuda was staring at an extremely handsome man who didn't look a day over twenty five. He had gravity defying black hair, deep onyx eyes, and a slim frame hidden beneath a bright orange outfit. On the front of his Gi was the Capsule Corp symbol. The obi tied about his waist was dark blue and waved with the slight breeze.

"Goku," she breathed. It was intimidating to say the least to see the star of the show himself.

The Saiyan from Earth lifted a brow and leaned in, too close-- really very close, "Goku? You feelin' okay there Rhuda? You've always called me Kakarot."

"I'm fine. Now get out of my face before I make you!" her mouth blurted. Then an ashamed," A-ano, sorry, that wasn't what I meant--"

[System: Son Goku]

"Jeez...guess you're feeling fine after all." Goku only grinned at her threat. "Have you seen Broly? We're supposed to head off on a mission soon."

"Do I look like his caretaker?!" she spat. "Er--I think he went that way," she added with a point towards the Time Patrol Academy.

"Sweet! Thanks a bunch! See ya around, Rhuda! Maybe next time we can finally spar!"

Goku flew off with a happy little wave to her in parting.

Rhuda sighed in exasperation. It was tiring being a tsundere. She stood and swiped tears away, seeing Shallot talking to a group of people. They were all laughing at something he said. Two Earthlings and three Namekians.

"It must be nice having friends," she pouted.

She checked the character menu and saw that she had some points to put towards her stats. After a moments thought she chose to evenly spread them out to make her base form stronger. The five points were now gone.

Right after doing that, Vegeta flew over and scowled heavily. "And just where do you think you're going? Get ready, I'm going to give you training from hell!"

He yanked her into the sky without a seconds pause and flew to a floating platform, which was perched on a rotating ball. On this square platform was a robot standing and awaiting orders. Vegeta said, "take me to the gravity chamber!"

Rhuda's vision faded into a yellow and white atmosphere, she squeaked in fright and grabbed Vegeta's arm, afraid of falling into the abyss of nothingness below her.

"There's no way to fall," Vegeta assured her, "unless you're a complete idiot like Kakarot and try flying."

"Oh. I see."

The yellowness broke into white before new surroundings came into being. Rhuda found herself standing inside a round room that smelled of bleach and cleaning supplies. All the walls appeared to be made out of some sort of metal sheeting, flush with one another. She glanced around, noting the lack of anything aside from the middle where a cylinder with complicated buttons sat. There was a timer on it that read 3x.

[System: Gravity Chamber]

"I hope you're ready for a good beat down," he said to her, "I won't hold back. So I suggest you do the same or you won't make it out of here."

Rhuda gulped. "I'll do my best!"

Vegeta smirked. "Good. Now, let's do a little warm up. Commence level one!"

Everything got heavy. Rhuda took a breath and noticed that it was hard to fill her lungs up. The air around her became red tinged, holes opening up in the ceiling to reveal tiny machines.

Rhuda had a bad feeling...

"Now!" Vegeta shouted.

They began spraying the room with red lasers. Rhuda quickly ducked down and tried to crawl away but was hit by a beam on her foot. She cried out from pain and shook her injury, seeing steam rise from the boot. Vegeta paused from his own dodging to yell, "What the hell are you doing? You can't possibly avoid them like that! Get up and get moving!"

She stood and winced a little, feeling real pain in a videogame. Her health bar had went down a peg. Which meant she only had so many times to be hit before it was lights out for her.

Rhuda began running and jumping, barely avoiding the rain of lasers that only seemed to speed up. She could hear them hit the walls and thud off of them to make it even more challenging. To make matters worse were lasers coming from the floor.

"Ha! Hyah!"

It was tiring trying to miss being hit, and glancing at the blur of Vegeta beside her made it all the more obvious of their difference in caliber.

She made several laps around the perimeter of the round metal room before noticing her stamina had ran out.

That couldn't be good, she thought.

As she suspected, she was no longer able to run and as such was hit by two lasers, one to the chest and one to the leg. Singe marks where left in her outfit as searing pain set into her flesh.

Her health bar was now halfway gone.

"Kya!" she shrieked as another laser came too fast for her walking pace; Rhuda crouched to avoid the hit. Some of her hair was burnt off for the effort.

Vegeta watched from the corner of his eyes, scowling the entire time. He allowed her to be hit twice more before yelling, "Stop session!" At his words the lasers retreated back into the crevices of their openings and became hidden from view. Rhuda panted for breath as she waited for the Stamina bar to refill, wondering why her first training was so difficult. It seemed impossible to pass.

"Vegeta...I'm sorry..." she mumbled, looking down at her boots. "Maybe I'm not...cut out for this," she added.

He covered the distance slowly and deliberately as if trying to give her an anxiety attack.

Rhuda couldn't bear to hear how awful she did, so she turned away from him and stared at the metal wall, feeling that she was an utter disgrace to her 'kind.'

"You..." he said slowly, wrapping arms around Rhudas narrow curvy waist, "did better than I expected."

Of all things she hadn't expected to hear that. "Is that...could it really be true?"

He turned her around and put his gloved hands upon her tiny shoulders. "Hn. do I look like I'd lie about something like that?"

She bravely stared into his handsome face, trying not to get flustered. It was useless--the girl grew red and sputtered, "No...but...I got hit by the beams...!"

Vegeta looked away from her and said, "thats the point of the training isn't it? If you don't get hit how can you possibly become stronger? It's only when we fail that we can rise above defeat and face our goals head on. A weak spirit won't do for a saiyan. So don't get all mopey on me; we're only just getting started. Here," he pulled from his person a tiny capsule, "Take this. I won't put up with you complaining either so don't start."

Rhuda took the capsule and opened it, seeing a tiny bean inside. She recognized it to be a senzu bean and crunched into it, noting the salty flavor and nuttiness. As if she'd awoken from the best sleep possible Rhuda watched her Health Bar and Stamina refill to Maximum. "Thank you, V-Vegeta sir...I appreciate it."

"Tch. Sir? You do realize we're almost the same age. Cut the crap and call me by my real name, or I'll tell Broly our little secret." He smirked.

"Eh?! Secret?" Rhuda squeaked. What was he referring to? She really had no idea and that alone was worrisome. What would be so taboo that even her brother Broly couldn't learn? "I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

At that Vegeta thew his head back and chuckled. "...It was a joke. Couldn't you tell?"

"Not at all! What part of that was a joke?"

"All of it of course. What, do you really think we have some kind of dark secret?" He closed one eye and added, "Unless you're talking about those damn worms you used to sneak into my boots."

"I really did that?"

Her instructor grimaced and looked up at the ceiling as if traumatized. "It was a nightmare. I sometimes thought you hated me. Now I know it was just your way of making friends."

Rhuda couldn't help but laugh a little and hid the smile behind her hand, thinking of what must have taken place. She quickly sobered up when he said, "Now! Commence Level Two!"

"L-Level Two?!