lucetilogs | He was always a rock when I needed one (closed)

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He was always a rock when I needed one (closed)

Who: Bulla and Vegeta (open to Bulma as well)
What: A special Father's Day celebration, Saiyan (and half-Saiyan) style
When: June 16th all day
Where: Brief household, Battle Dome and then back home again
Summary: Bulla trained diligently for over a month in order to surprise her dad. This is the result.
Rating: PG for sparring violence

Bulla was up uncharacteristically early, but she wanted to wake up before her father. She prepared a generous breakfast with pancakes, eggs, bacon, bagels with cream cheese and orange juice. Her outfit had been carefully selected. Fashionable, and yet, something she could train in without minding if it got sweaty. She'd been planning this for over a month, and as far as she knew, her father had no idea how much time she'd been spending training. She'd pretended to do very little other than exercise - she claimed she'd been going running, or just exercising with friends to stay fit to explain the times she came in sweaty and wearing athletic (though still ver colour coordinated) clothing.

It wasn't a lie - she had been getting plenty of exercise with friends. She just downplayed the extent of it by a lot, and didn't mention training at all. There was no reason for him to think that she'd changed her routine by much. The lack of a shopping mall necessitated finding other hobbies, but she'd kept herself busy with Fashion Club with Quinn and that wasn't a secret at all.

"Good morning, Dad!" she greeted cheerfully when her father finally emerged. "Happy Father's Day."

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"Aero--oh."

Bulla started to guess that aerobics might be her mother's choice of exercise right up until she saw the way her father's face turned beet red, and her cheeks flushed pink while her eyes adopted a mildly horrified deer in headlights look. It was one thing to be passingly aware that her parents had a sex life beyond the two times that had resulted in her and her elder brother. It was another to be reminded of that fact. She considered herself fortunate she'd never walked in at a bad time.

"Lots of people," replied Bulla, happy for the change of topic. "Saori, Cliff, Rin, Lee, Tenten, Korra, Xavin and Ino. Everyone taught me a little something different, though there was some overlap, too."

She has a hard time containing her laugh, watching Vegeta's face turn red and Bulla getting the reason why that happens. It doesn't matter if she's in front of her daughter or in front of a five years old, Bulma is shameless enough to not care about what she says or the implications that can be taken from her words. Still it's funny, because both daughter and husband are right in their first thought, but Vegeta's reaction seems more as proof of how badly she has corrupted him in that aspect. And the idea that she could corrupt him at anything is practically hilarious.

"You get it right, Bulla. Aerobics do wonders to help keep my figure, and they are a great way to get a day started... Though it seems that your father has other ideas about how I get to keep my figure;" because playing innocent and use Bulla's guess for it in order to make Vegeta look like the pervert one is something Bulma wouldn't just let pass. "I didn't know you thought of that as such a daily practice to be considered proper exercise, Vegeta." She's not sorry, Bulla needs to learn how the real world is anyway. And what she has to endure and hear isn't as bad as what Bulma had to deal with when she was her age, really, at least Vegeta and her don't talk about getting lovers or divorcing.

She focuses on Bulla, though, as the girl lists off the people that helped her. "Are you planning to stick with that training? Not as intensely maybe, but to keep learning from them a bit?" Bulma isn't a fighting expert, far from it, but she doesn't think that it would be bad if Bulla did that, quite the opposite, it may be more helpful to her if she wants to do a bit more than just one special gift to her father.

Vegeta shoots an angry glance over to Bulla, his face still beet red. "Don't listen to your mother. If there's any decency to be had, it's not coming from her." He sets his jaw, arms crossed and ignores the rest of the statement, far too embarrassed to discuss it further. Instead he'll roll with the following question, a much more agreeable one in his opinion.

"I know most of those you've listed off. I guess Luceti comes with a few that aren't completely worthless." He makes a mental note of those names. It amazes him that the people here are so similar to how helpful their friends are back at home. He guesses he shouldn't be terribly surprised, but at the same time, it's nice to know. He might not like a majority of people here but even he can recognize the benefits to having kind and thoughtful people about. Since they've done the impossible and helped Bulla, something he could never bring himself to force her to do.

He sits quietly, awaiting Bulla's answer. He would love to know if she was going to stick with training.

"Maybe...I decided to train at first because I heard that even little kids could be drafted. I wanted to at least get strong enough to protect the kids here."

It was only fair to be honest about her original intentions and what led her to start training. The drafts still bothered her, but she did feel far more capable of doing something rather than being forced to passively accept them. It made her realize just how much she'd relied on the strength of those around her. How much she'd just cheered from the sidelines rather than trying to become strong in her own right.

"Once I started, I realized what a perfect surprise it would be. I didn't want to bring it up on just any day, so I decided save it for Father's Day. Except then I realized if Dad knew I'd been training, he'd want to spar, and I was going to need to get a lot better if I wanted to have any chance of making it interesting and last for more than ten minutes. I thought I'd have trouble making myself train enough, and there are plenty of trained fighters in Luceti, so I thought I'd see if any of them could teach me ways to fight someone much stronger than me."

The results were even better than she'd believed herself capable of, showing her what she could do when she sincerely worked at improving. She would never love fighting the way her father did, but she couldn't help but feel a little proud of what her hard work had achieved.

"...actually, I think I will." She quickly added, "A little. Not every day for hours, but maybe an hour every other day."

Bulma makes an appreciative sound as she smiles at her daughter, "Look at that. Beauty, brawn and brains. I can't believe you're already so mature, I certainly wasn't that way at your age! Must be your father's influence."

She's sincerely amazed by the girl, by her maturity and capacity to both refuse a settled fate and find ways to fix it, or to at least make it a bit better. Rather than sitting and crying, Bulla was rolling up her sleeves and getting to work. She wouldn't be the strongest fighter around, not compared to Vegeta, but Bulma is sure that the girl will be close to the top if she tries. And if not... Protecting those who can't fight is also an important job, even if she's not there to deal the final blow to the enemy.

"I don't want to sound like your father or anything, but maybe you should try to make it actually an hour every day at least. Protecting people isn't easy, it's a lot harder and demanding than being on the offensive, so if you want to protect them you're going to have to work hard for it, dear;" she says it in the most encouraging tone she can, though behind her words a message of "don't stress yourself" or "don't try to protect absolutely everyone" can be heard. It's not that she doesn't approve of Bulla's goals and thoughts, on the contrary, she just doesn't want the kid to have to face the ugly part of protecting people: not being able to protect someone.

She will.

She'll continue to train even after this- that makes him prety happy to hear, wearing a content smile on his face. He knew she didn't have that drive to fight as he and Kakarot had, but she was still a Saiyan, meaning she still was born with a natural talent for it. And she might find herself liking it the more she became good at it...at least he hopes so.

He passes that smile to his future wife, eyes shining with pride. "If you do train without me at all," he says, turning to his daughter, "are you going to continue with lesson from all the people who helped you for this?" There's a slight curiosity, even though he'd never put it past her to make this a social project. "And I think you can handle well over an hour a day. That's only a warm up. We've been at it in there several hours already and it's quite clear to me that you can keep going. Anyone else you train with will be hard pressed to keep up with the daughter of the Prince of Saiyans.

It's not as if there's much else to do in this dump," he mutters to himself, though loud enough for the two of them to hear.

"Probably," she replied in regards to the question as to whether she'd train with her friends. "I promised makeovers in exchange for help with training, but I think most of them were happier having a sparring partner they didn't need to pull their punches with."

It had been sparring with others that clued her into the fact that she had inherited a lot more Saiyan powers than she'd first thought. For the longest time, Bulla had just considered herself a natural athlete with an amazing immune system. Gym class wasn't a challenge and was easily her best subject. She never got sick. She'd always been able to lift heavier objects than other girls her age. But then, come to think of it, she'd been able to withstand the pressure her father and Trunks trained in within the gravity chamber with only minimal discomfort. So perhaps she'd been deluding herself all along.

"I'm only committing to an hour every other day," she added, snapping back out of her moment's contemplation. She knew what a slippery slope it could be if she didn't stand firm on that. "Anything else I do is extra."

While she understood her mother's point, and knew that she probably would train more than an hour every other day, she didn't want to raise expectations too high. Not when she'd seen how much Trunks' social life fell by the wayside in favour of training. It was already a drastic change for her to voluntarily train, and especially on a regular basis.

She can't help to laugh when Bulla comments on her friends not needing to pull their punches with, not having seen the girl growing him, Bulma doesn't know how much the kid had come to delude herself regarding her heritage. So for her it's just a small joke, because she there's no way a half-saiyan couldn't be leaps stronger than most people, humans or aliens.

"I'm sure you surprised them, it's a good thing you didn't have previous training or maybe you would have had to be the one holding back;" she had heard about Gohan's potential, she had seen the results of it even, way before the kid got any training. Just because Bulla was a girl she wouldn't be any weaker, that's a fact for Bulma.

She gets what her daughter means in her next comment though and nods in agreement. "If you're so sure about that then I guess an hour every other day is fair enough;" because it's obvious she will end doing more, but without stressing over it or anything. And given who her father was... It was probably better to try to keep his expectations and hopes from flying high. Assuming they could be shot down by now, judging by that expression on his face Bulma wouldn't be surprised if he was actually imagining Bulla dressed in saiyan clothes and fighting right and left, all by her own will.

He raises an eyebrow at the notion that every other day would even be close to sufficient, but if there's one thing he's learned over the years is that he doesn't exactly always get what he wants with these two women. Especially if they're in cahoots with each other, he's the odd man out and as much as he'd like it to be, his opinion won't outweigh theirs. So he keeps his mouth shut and scrunches up in his seat a little, drinking some more water and keeping himself from trying to protest. Infernal women. He still thinks her Saiyan blood will get to her in the end, and it'll be more than just every other day in the end. It was only a matter of time, to him at least.

"Bulla probably did have to hold back to keep herself from completely destroying her opponents. I'm completely convinced that there's no one in this enclosure that can stand up to Saiyan might, even if it's from one that's sorely in need to fine tune their skills," he states in a matter-of-fact tone, "in fact I'm not surprised we didn't have anyone knocking on our door in an unadulterated rage that our daughter sent their friend or family member to the clinic for an extended stay. And I wouldn't be surprised if she told us that she did send a few losers to the hospital."

"Well, Xavin and Rin both have super-strength. Xavin is a shapeshifter and one of her powers lets her become superhumanly strong. She was one of the only people I trained with in here, and we even turned the gravity settings all the way up. Rin did pretty well against me strength-wise, too."

As he well knew, Saori was quite powerful, but her lessons with Saori hadn't been about strength, but rather about using one's strength against them.

"...I figured out I was stronger than I thought when I was sparring with Lee and Tenten, and I especially had to apologize to Tenten after punching her through a tree. But she and Lee were both great sports about it and they didn't even need a lot of downtime before they were ready to keep going. I was mostly trying to learn a few new moves from styles that weren't from our world so I'd have some element of surprise."

That was one of the other results she was quite pleased with. With the mix she'd picked up during training with everyone, she was starting to learn how to blend techniques together to make her very own style. She'd always liked standing out as having her own sense of style fashion-wise that paid attention to trends and other influences, but ultimately made it her own. Why should her fighting style be any different?

"As far as I know, learning from different styles is the correct way to train in fighting. Son-kun has been learning from others, picking up techniques and making his own since he was a kid after all;" Bulma comments in a slightly nostalgic tone as she remembers how Goku's fighting style had developed. "So I think that was a great idea... And from what little I've been able to see from your practice it has worked out well."

She doubts that any of the hits Bulla managed to land on him were gifts that Vegeta gave her. "I'm glad your friends took it well, it must have been a surprise for them at any rate;" and she's also glad that it doesn't seem as if Bulla sent anyone to the hospital. Really, only Vegeta would think that training sessions would end with people being sent to the hospital.

"A-hahahaha! You punched Tenten through a tree? I'm sorry I missed it!" It's a hilarious image in his head, Tenten flying through a tree or several trees. And he can see the look of shock right on her face after it happened. He likes Tenten and all, but that sadistic part of him still finds enjoyment in the pain of others. In fact, the very thought of Bulla beating up on anyone he knows makes him start to chuckle quietly. It's just an amusing thought to him.

Now he's imagining Lee being punted into the sky, so far that when he comes back down it leaves a crater where he landed. Vegeta would very much love for that to happen to that boy, maybe it would shut him up about shouting about youth every few seconds or so. He's stopped listening to Bulma talk about Goku because first of all, he doesn't care about Goku and how he learned to fight and secondly, he's entertaining himself with these thoughts, and if anything is probably being sort of rude.

She was glad that her mother supported this method of training, blending different fighting styles into one of her own. It was encouraging to hear that this was how Goku had become as skilled as he did, too. Bulla was about to speak when her father's laughter cut her off.

"Well, I didn't do it on purpose," she replied, raising an eyebrow at how much enjoyment he was getting from the idea of Tenten being knocked through a tree. "We were trying to figure out what kind of weapon would work for me, and after that, she decided I should just stick to hand to hand."

Bulma just rolls her eyes at Vegeta's reaction, of course he would laugh at other people being beaten down, that's something that apparently will never change in him, and she's glad for it. It's still quite rude and heartless though.

"Certainly, with the heritage your father has left to you through genes I can't see you using a weapon regularly. Saiyans just aren't made to manipulate weapons, though being a half-saiyan and with how my genes have influenced in you I'm sure you could use one;" if that sounds as if she's subtly implying that saiyans don't have enough brains to use weapons that's... Probably because she is doing exactly that. Of course, Bulla is different, she has got enough of her mother's brains to not fall in that sack.

"For your information, Saiyans are perfectly capable at being quite adept with weapons. There's no reason for it since we ourselves are far more powerful and effective. I simply don't see the need to carry around a sword when my fists work just as well." He harrumphs, crossing his arms. Trunks was very, very good at wielding his sword, though it proved useless against the androids.

However, he did enjoy the fact that Frieza was cut into tiny pieces with that same sword.

"Well, it was fun to try anyway, but I think I got the most out of learning how to redirect other people's force and learning how to get better at dodging. At least when it comes to sparring with someone as strong as Dad."

The last part was both her honest opinion, and an attempt to smooth over her father's ruffled feathers. Though she was accustomed to her parents' harmless bickering, Bulla wanted to keep it from escalating. On special occasions, she was willing to try running interference for the sake of making sure the family had a good time together.

"Thanks again for bringing refreshments, Mom. I really needed that. I should have thought of bringing water."

For a moment Bulma smiles at Vegeta as if she's ready to counter his informative tid-bit, probably with something about how monkeys are also perfectly capable at being adept with anything they are trained for. But she decides against it when Bulla speaks up, deciding to just wave a hand as if the matter was of no importance, which isn't a lie.

"I figured that with what you wanted to do you would need them. I'm glad you both took a break on your own, though;" upon seeing her, she knows. "I was thinking of trying to interfere to make you two stop to rest for a bit had you kept going at it any longer. Last time I checked your father wasn't good at remembering to take breaks when he's excited about something fighting related."

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He was always a rock when I needed one (closed)

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