Chapter Three

"The hell? An overnight? Feh, just what I need." Vegeta groaned and layed down next to Bulma.

"Oh, come on, Veggie, it'll be interesting with out new guests here." Vegeta slapped his forehead.

"Nani? They're all going to be here? Kuso…" Vegeta mumbled various Saiya-Jin profanities under his breath. Bulma rolled her eyes.

"Veggie, I'll drive back to the houses with ChiChi and Juuhachi and we'll get everyone's overnight luggage. I have a really, really big capsule tent that will fit everyone into it." Vegeta sighed as he thought of the horrors that could go on with everyone in the same tent. He groaned again as he realized that he and Bulma also couldn't make out that night. Another Saiya-Jin curse escaped his lips as Bulma took off with her lady friends.

***

"An overnight? That sounds like an absolute blast! We'll have such a party! And we can flirt with those two hunky guys we saw earlier," Mina raved along with Lita. They both had a monsterous crush on Goten.

"Yeah, well, I've got my sites set on that gorgeous black-haired young man who flew me across the lake," Ami said. All turned to look at her. Ami didn't usually take to liking guys. Everyone had to admit, Ami's man wasn't too shabby.

Rei, however, was thinking about something else. She was actually pretty depressed because the guy she liked was way off limits. He was totally out of her ballpark in the age department, and he was already married with two kids, she had found out from Goku-san.

Rei had a crush on her sensei. She couldn't get over his little smirk, his handsome face, and his totally sexy build. She sighed.

"What's wrong, Rei-kun?" Chibi-Usa asked her friend.

"Oh, nothing. Well, I guess I did sort of like that purple-haired boy. Actually, I liked him alot," Rei realized. That teenager who had wanted to fly her over was very enchanting and also extremely good looking. (Note: Rei knows that Veggie has two kids, but she doen't know which ones they are).

"Great! We can all go boy crazy!" Lita squealed. The other girls all squealed, too. Even Rei.

***

Bulma and the others were back with the overnight supplies. The boy and the brown-haired girl from the other group had gone to get their nighttime supplies earlier and also had returned to the picnic site. It was starting to get dark.

"VEGETA! Come get your stuff!" Bulma yelled at her husband. He mumbled grumpily and jogged over to his mate.

"Veggie-chan, be a man and take these over to Trunks, will you?" Bulma asked.

"Fine, fine, but the girl's clothes are yours," Vegeta replied, and quickly snatched up his son's belongings and his. He ran over to the teenage boy and threw his stuff at him, causing much laughter from Goten as most of it fell to the ground. Trunks groaned and bent to pick it up, while Vegeta hurried away, secretly smirking in delight as he heard his son jokingly threaten to beat up Goten if he laughed one more time. Of course, Goten laughed, which ended up with Trunks landing a punch on his friend's shoulder.

Vegeta saw the capsule explode into an extremely large tent. The girls and young black-haired man gasped as the smoke cleared.

***

There was still one thing Rei was wondering about as she walked towards the tent to set up her sleeping bag. She wanted to know more about that tail. She wanted to see what it felt like, what it was like to touch it, and possibly even if her sensei would react or not, which Rei didn't especially want to know. Still, she had to find out.

Rei concluded that she would get up when everyone else was sleeping and examine the brown, furry appendage. Vegeta-san had looked at it in quite a loving way for a fleeting second earlier, during her training. He obviously was very proud of his tail, so she needed to be extra careful about exploring.

***

After everyone was set up in the tent, it was about 11:00 at night. All had brushed teath, set up sleeping quarters, battled out the territories and marked them with yellow duct tape (much to Vegeta's amusement, as he could pass over any territory and not be challenged to a duel with the territory president). Vegeta silently declared himself king of the resting quarters, and relaxed onto his comfortable sleeping bag. Bulma's was touching his bag directly to his right, and they were surrounded by yellow tape (courtosy of Trunks and Goten).

The small, dim light started to go out in the middle of the room. Goten lit it back on fire with his finger, then lit Trunks's hair on fire. Trunks yelped at smacked at his head. Goten exploded with laughter.

The tent was so large that a 2-person territory (for wedded couples) was about 6'x7' area-wise. The ones for the groups of three and over really were huge. Trunks, Goten, and Gohan were ganged together, defending thier territory from the offending Bra, Marron, and the new girls, whose names they had discovered were Lita, Mina, Serena, Ami, Chibi-Usa, and Rei. Rei was the one Trunks was turning red over, but he didn't know that this was the girl his own Tousan was training. Goten was wild over Mina, and Gohan was hot on the beautiful Ami. The boys chased the girls off and flirted with them at the same time. The girls did the same to the boys.

After about two more hours, everything was quiet, with the exception of Goku's raucious snoring. Rei, however, was sitting in the dark, patiently waiting untill she knew everyone had drifted off to dreamland. When she heard Serena's loud sleep snort, she got up and started walking across the room to Vegeta-san.

To Rei's great fortune, her sensei had slept outside of his bag. He was breathing lightly and had his eyes closed. Rei crouched next to him and then sat on the ground beside his bag.

His tail was lying behind him, stretched out long on the sleeping bag's surface. Rei felt a tingle of excitement. Her hand reached out to stroke the fur. She was startled at the fuzzy fur's soft, cushy, dense texture. It looked quite like his hair. She ran her hand down the length of the strange fifth appendage, rubbing her fingers deeper into the dense fur.

Rei almost yelped loudly as she heard Vegeta say something. She realized that he was talking in sort of a half sleep. Rei kept quiet.

"Mmm……that's so nice…right there…" Rei was startled, but kept petting and rubbing the brown fur, and following the dozing Vegeta's instructions.

"Down more…harder…not that hard…oooh, just right." Rei almost giggled as she rubber her sensei's tail up and down on his sleeping command.

However, Rei was soon to learn that Vegeta had been half woken-up from having his tail petted, and was fully concious, but his eyes had remained closed and he hadn't looked to confirm that it was really his wife who was putting him in such delirious comfort. He decided to reward her.

"Dende, woman…you know all my good spots. C'mere."

Vegeta's hand reached out and gently took Rei's chin. The girl was bursting with unbelieveable surprise as her head was guided by her sensei's hand. Without opening his eyes, Vegeta planted a deep kiss right on Rei's lips. The young lady did nothing to draw back. She was…astonished…at Vegeta's passion towards her (Rei knew he didn't know it was her, but…). He had such a wonderful mouth, and again, his wierdly soft skin astonished Rei as Vegeta's strong hand continued to hold Rei's jaw in place. Rei sank into his amazing love and power. He then pulled her mouth away from his and cracked his shining, obsidian eyes open.

They almost rolled out of his head.

Vegeta's eyes just got bigger and bigger for a few seconds, then he stood up and backed away from Rei, realizing who she was.

"THE HELL??!?!?!?!!!!!!!!! NANI…" he screeched. Everyone heard him, and they all woke up. Trunks immediately turned the light back on.

"HOLY GODDAMN SHIT TO HIGH HEAVEN AND BACK!!!!!!!" Vegeta screamed. Intensely deep, bright red instantly spread from the bridge of Vegeta's nose to all over the main part of his face. Literally. His eyes were about as wide as they got, which was pretty darn wide for Vegeta, and he had his teeth set together with his lips pulled back in shock, making for a very embarrassed expression.

Rei was hardly better off, except she wasn't cursing the walls down. She still sat, silent. Her face must have been brighter red than Vegeta's, her mouth was wavery, and her eyes were huge. She looked like a child. Vegeta looked…utterly helpless.

"Vege-chan?! What happened? Why are you so out of whack here, honey?" Bulma asked, with slight amusement sparkling in her eyes. Somehow, she knew almost exactly what Rei had done. Bulma had done nearly the same investigation almost right after she'd grown his tail back. She knew how Vegeta reacted to having his tail petted and fussed over. It was hysterical.

Bulma just could not help herself. She burst out laughing. Vegeta just got brighter.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LAUGHING AT, WOMAN?!?!" Vegeta got an even more nervous look on his face. He knew that she knew. And he knew that she was going to tell everyone.

She did.

She told the whole story. Rei confirmed her suspicions with a slight nodd when asked by Vegeta's wife. Everyone struggled hard not to laugh. Trunks sucked in his chest, forced his smile away, and took his hand off of his mouth.

"I think Goten and I will be leaving now. Byebye!" Trunks and Goten darted out the door and exploded with wild laughter. Bra and Marron managed to join them, as did Gohan. Serena, Lita, Mina, and Ami didn't know what to think. They sat in their territory, bright red covering their faces in sympathy for their friend. ChiChi was muffling her laughter, and rushed outside to join her sons. Juuhachi was smirking, Krillin also rushed outside, and Goku was the only person there who didn't understand what the big deal was.

Bulma stood up and walked over to the shaking Vegeta. She gently stroked his tail, and he calmed down quite alot. He was still bright red all over his face, and his eyes still nervously darted around the tent. Bulma led him back to his sleeping bag and managed to shove him into a resting position.

"Veggie-chan, are you going to calm down tonight? I'm awefully tired. How about I sleep with you this time, eh? Would that make you feel better?"

Vegeta was not aware of his pride just then. He shakily nodded his head as Bulma crept underneath the top of his bag with him. Vegeta lay close to his mate under the covers, and he wrapped his tail around her waist. She smiled. He had done this only a couple times before, and she always loved it. They had both discovered that tails were very useful love toys, especially when it came to seducing Vegeta. Once you had a hold of his tail, it was all over.

"I'll have to try that sometime," Juuhachigou said quietly to herself, inaudible to anyone else in the tent. The others, who had mostly finished their laughing fits, filed back into the tent, and looked at Vegeta snuggling Bulma. Everyone smiled warmly and went back to bed. The Sailor senshi were all gathered around Rei, comforting her, and they finally lulled her to sleep by rubbing her back. The whole tent was snoozing in about five minutes.

***

The next day was pretty much a living Hell for Vegeta. Rei didn't seem to mind half as much as her poor sensei did. Rei had never dreamed that such a dark person could be so loving. She understood why he had been converted from evil to good. She actually liked his usually snappy personality. It was quite like her own, except she wasn't THAT weird.

Vegeta mostly kept to his own, stayed away from many of the others, especially Juuhachi. But it came to Rei's surprise that he actually worked up some nerve and walked over to her.

"Wanna train some more?" he asked her.

"Sure. Arigato, Vegeta-san," she replied. And then in the softest whisper just as she passed his ear, "I love you." Of course, having Saiya-Jin ears, Vegeta did not miss this and again turned beet red. He hurriedly followed her out of public.

***

At the training grounds, Vegeta exploded on his young student. He couldn't believe what she had done to him.

"BAKA! What the HELL were you DOING SNEAKING around in the middle of the KAMI DAMNED NIGHT?!?!? And WHY in the HELL were you PETTING my……TAIL! DAMN, brat, how'd you find out about…that?" This matter was still a little confusing to the prince.

"Goemen…goemen nazi, Vegeta-san…I was just curious…I wanted to see what it was…"

"It's a Kami damned TAIL, baka! You could tell something idiotic like that from a mile away!" Vegeta fumed.

"I'm…sorry…"

"YOU DAMN WELL SHOULD BE! As for this mushy nonsense, don't you realize that I have a mate and two brats already? You're out of your mind if your even thinking about…that!" Vegeta's face glowed red.

"I'M SORRY, ALRIGHT! WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT? I CAN'T UNDO WHAT'S ALREADY BEEN DONE!" Rei was starting to get a little tired of her sensei's ravings, althought she understood perfectly why he should want to crush her skull and rip her thoat out after what she did last night. "I know you have a family, but that doesn't make you any less sexy, does it?" Rei was mad at herself the millisecond after she said this, because she just wasn't thinking in the least when the last comment rushed out of her mouth. She watched as Vegeta's expression twisted into a very bashful glare. She didn't know how his face could get redder, but it did.

"Wha…me…well…" The prince did not have a clue what to say. His usually snappy and witty attitude failed him. "Umm…uuh…I…umm…………thanks."

***

Vegeta was shocked at how his own student could pull a stunt like that and then right afterwards call him sexy even when she knew he had a family. Thanking her for the compliment was all his numbed brain could come up with.

"Gee, you're welcome," his student said, apparently startled at his answer. Vegeta immediately recovered his regal stance, arms crossed and brows knit, and decided that chatting hour was over.

"Alright, enough with this foolish business. We've wasted too much time. You're going to be training alot more than two hours every day for the rest of the summer. You're going to be out here with me for at LEAST six hours evey weekday and probably about 8 or 9 on Saturdays. I understand that Sunday is a rest day, so 4 hours will be accurate then." His student's mouth sagged open. She quickly closed it at a glare from the short prince. Vegeta continued.

"You've proved to be good at concentrating and basic ki manipulation, ect. But that stuff is powdered sugar compared to what you're going to end up doing. Levitate. Now. As high as you can." Vegeta watched as his student Rei floated into the air, eventually out of sight in the clouds. He knew yelling would be no good, even though his screams could break mountains, so he decided to use telepathy. He knew humans couldn't reply in it, but she could hear his instructions.

<<Now shut off your ki completely.>> Vegeta felt her ki slowly, sort of nervously shut down. <<Good. You should be falling now. Right before you are flattened onto the ground, switch your ki back on again so that the tips of your toes gently touch the earth.>>

He saw a dot falling quickly from the sky. It took the form of Rei with a teriffied look on her face. <<Don't worry, I'll catch you if you're retarded enough to keep your ki off.>> The color came back to Rei's face.

Vegeta stepped out of the way as Rei appeared directly in front of him. Her toes brushed the ground.

"Bravo. I must say, definitely impressive for a whelp like you. Now," Vegeta continued after Rei's grunt, "you will learn how to fly. Actually, you already know. Just move yourself wherever you want to go with your ki, except in a little more of an aerodynamic position. There is a certain way to take off that increases your ki and really gets you a blasted start."

Vegeta assumed the crouching, about-to-fly position. Rei copied it. "Great. Now, instead of just thinking out what you want to do right before you're going to do it, instruct your ki that you are about to fly and that you want a quick start. Sort of…visualize it, I guess. Increase your ki too, make it visible even. Great." Rei started to glow red. Vegeta cocked an eyebrow in interest as Rei suddenly burst into very small red flames. She cried out, rather like powering up. Vegeta knew it was from the scorching pain of the flames. They were always pretty destructive if you didn't know what you were doing.

"Wow, fantastic. Were you practicing or something?" he asked her. She only shook her head. "Well then, let's go." Rei looked over, startled even now as she watched her sensei burst into huge blue and white flames, about ten times bigger than her own. They both shot into the air, leaving ki trails of red and blue.

"Wow, this is so cool!" Rei yelled over the whipping wind. Vegeta knew the giddy feeling of his first flight. A small smile crept onto his face in remembrance. The girl's hair flung this way and that in the wind. He had to admit, she was beautiful.

They landed on the other side of the lake, both of their toes touching th ground before completely landing. Vegeta's flames extinguished, but her told Rei to keep hers on.

"It's starting to burn really badly," the girl said, in a concerned voice.

"That's completely normal. The damage will be minimal. Now that you have flames, power up. Increase your ki. Force it to its absolute largest physical state. Force it outside of your body. It's hard even for me without motivation, but you've gotta do it sometime or other," Vegeta told her with a smirk.

"Right," his student said in a determined voice. She clenched her fists and crouched. Vegeta smirked even more as she started to growl. His eyes popped open when she screamed out and a much larger flame exploded around her. Vegeta stepped back a few feet. And another few feet as the flame turned red and white and became about as large as his most relaxed, lowest flame: the one he had used to blast off into the sky. Vegeta was extremely startled by Rei's unbelieveably fast transition from invisible ki to almost huge flames. He saw, though, that this was really taxing her body.

"Stop." When she didn't stop, Vegeta got a little worried. "I said STOP, dammit!" The flames kept burning.

"I can't…it's too much…" his student cried from inside the red inferno. She screamed again as the ki increased even more. Vegeta realized that she had not practiced; her ki had been this large to begin with. Now that her mind knew how to release this great power, her body took advantage of her knowledge and let go of everything it had.

Vegeta walked up to his student. There was only one way to go that would teach her anything about controlling her own power. He had to motivate her to make her shut down her ki.

"ALRIGHT, BRAT! IF YOU DON'T MAKE YOUR DAMN KI TURN OFF THIS INSTANT, YOU'LL BE COVERED IN BLUE FLAMES FROM MY FIREBALLS, GOT IT? DON'T YOU REALIZE YOUR BODY IS GOING TO INCINERATE ITSELF IN A MATTER OF MINUTES?" Vegeta screamed at her. She looked at him fearfully, then squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her fists in excertion. The flames slowly died down within four minutes of Vegeta's warning.

The prince relaxed. He had done the same thing when he was a child. It happened to almost everyone who was destined to become a great warrior: the ki suddenly exploding from them, not being able to turn it off. Only the best and most motivated survived this, and for all the others, their bodies burned themselves to death. This was the chance one took when training a powerful yet unknowing force. Vegeta was stunned.

He watched Rei fall to the ground, breathing heavily and sobbing from her burns. Vegeta felt a small wave of pity, but it quickly disappeared. Vegeta walked over to his student to see just how bad the damage was. It wasn't half as bad as his had been when the power came over him; the first time it happened when he was only four years old on Vegeta-sei, he had been out of commission in the regeneration tank for more than a week. Rei had nothing but surface burns which could be easily healed by fifteen minutes in the tank, at the least. Vegeta, however, had other plans in mind.

"You'll be fine," he told her. "Do you want to quit for today?"

"No," Rei flatly replied. Vegeta once again raised an eyebrow, but this time in pleasure as he smirked at the girl's toughness. He had begun to teach her well.

"Fantastic. Get up and pay attention. Here, eat this." The infamous Senzu bean was tossed at Rei. She quickly ate it, not caring what it was, and stood up immediately afterwards. She was more than twice as powerful as she had been before, Vegeta noticed.

"I'm going to teach you how to throw ki missiles. It's tough, and there's so many ways to do it that I'm just going to teach you my techniques. After one month of having mastered all of my weaker techniques and after you have hit me with them, without me blocking, at least twice, you will not be permitted to use my moves anymore. You will come up with your own and name them. After you have weaker attacks, I'll teach you my greater attacks at low velocities. Well, most of them at least. I can tell you will never be able to do some of these, it's just a fact, but I'll teach you as many as I see fit. You will then come up with your own heavy attacks. Then, you must hit me with them, and these hits must break a bone or two and put me in the regeneration tank ONCE. I will warn you, I am not going to let you hit me at any cost.

"Your last duty while studying under me is to have a hand to hand sparring match with me, and you must last at least five minutes while I am fighting you at Super Saiya-Jin level one. You must be able to fly only about half as fast as me to pass the flying part, and you must be able to block one of my larger attacks with a ki shield, then a smaller one with your arms for concentration. Got it?" Rei's mouth sagged open. She didn't know what she had gotten herself into, but Rei knew she had to go through with it. She couldn't quit now.

"Alright. I'm ready." Rei prepared herself for the immense challenge that lay ahead. She knew she would never defeat Vegeta at even half of his full power, but even a fourth of his power was formidable.

"This is a different kind of ki manipulation. Again, you bring the energy outside of your body, but focus it all in one place at one time, or at different times, but I'll explain that to you later with one of my own moves. Right now I'm going to teach you a very weak attack: your basic low-calibur ki sphere. I'll demonstrate while I show you."

Vegeta stuck out his hand, palm up, and closed his eyes. Slowly, to Rei's amazement, a ball of blue light appeared, floating above his palm. It grew to about the size of a grapefruit.

"There. That's all it is, your ki focused in one place. Now watch what it does." Vegeta threw it into the lake, and seconds later, a huge spiral of water shot from where the ball had entered. Rei gasped.

"To throw it, just reach back, aim, and disconnect the ki from your body. Launch it like you were throwing something. You try," Vegeta told her. She nodded.

Rei held out her hand and concentrated. She felt the heat of the ki gather above her palm. When she opened her eyes, a red sphere was floating just as Vegeta's had been. She reached back, aimed towards the lake, and threw, letting the ki go as she did. To her pleasure, another spiral of water flew from the lake. Rei could now form explosives.

"Alright, that's about as weak and pitiful as it gets. Beams are better. The energy usually comes out of your hands, but eye beam attacks have also been formed, as well as mouth attacks. That baka Kakkarott, whom you know as Goku, even managed to shoot some out of his feet, but for what retarded reason I can't begin to imagine. You're going to be using your hands right now. Manifest your ki mainly around your hands, then…pump the energy out in a beam. Beams and bolts come in different velocities, shapes, colors, and styles, but you're just going to be basic. Put your two hands out it front of you, side by side. Now do as I just told you and you should get results." Vegeta stepped back and watched with satisfaction as his student fired a long, thin beam of her signature red ki across to a moutain, where it blew up about a fifth of the moutain's exterior. Rei maveled at her powers.

"Let me finish that off for you," Vegeta said, stepping forward. "This large of an attack isn't needed, but this will make a good demo. Observe." Vegeta put both of his hands out, the heels of his palms touching and his fingers curled in.

"FINAL FLAAASH!" Vegeta screamed. Rei was thrown back by the bolt's power waves. The energy soared towards the mountain, where it exploded on contact, erupting in a large dome of energy. The mountain was a small pile of incinerated rubble.

"Alright, we're done for today. It's been about five hours. Go play with your little weak friends. I estimate you're about twice as powerful as each one of them now." Rei jumped with a sharp intake of breath. Twice as powerful as all the Sailor Senshi? She couldn't believe the power her handsome sensei had been able to bring out in her.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Vegeta snapped.

"I…I want to try to spar with you. Right now. You have those…bean things. Come on, please? I want to know how hard I have to work! I promise I can control my fire now," Rei pleaded as she saw the doubting look on Vegeta's face. The look did not dissipate, even after her pleas.

"Please, Vegeta-san, if you hurt me it will be my fault, I'll explain that to everybody. I want to fight you! LET ME FIGHT YOU!" She found herself yelling at him. He chuckled.

"That's much more like it. I do NOT take kindly to polite begging and pleading. Pleading is for the weak. From now on, when you want something, DEMAND it. If I don't listen the first time, scream at me and try to hit me with something. Got it?" Rei nodded, pleased. Vegeta went into a crouching position.

"I'm going to hold back about 90% of my power. Don't look at me like that, if I fought you with more than that you'd be dead before you could swallow a Senzu." Rei sadly knew that this was true. She developed a sparring stance.

Rei concentrated. She burst into bright flames once again. Through the red haze of her flames, she could see Vegeta surrounded in blue, his tail wrapped tightly around his waist, a serious expression on his face.

"Begin!" Vegeta automatically blurred from sight. Rei sighed as she waited for him to come out. He appeard to her right and threw a punch at Rei's face, which broke her jawbone and sent her flying several feet. She spat blood onto the ground and charged at her sensei. As she arrived right in front of him, she slammed the side of her hand down onto Vegeta's left shoulder, right next to his neck. He just tilted his head to the side and allowed the attack to hit him.

Rei gasped as pain burned through her hand. Vegeta's muscle was rock hard.

"YEEEAAAAAAHHHH!" Rei screamed as she threw a red ki bolt at her sensei. He batted it to the side calmly. Rei then flew at him in a furious flurry of punches and kicks, ki bolts and balls. Vegeta dodged and blocked every attack. After five minutes, Rei retreated and hung her head in miserable defeat.

"NEVER FEEL SORRY FOR YOURSELF!" Vegeta barked at her. She looked up sharply and saw the dissapointment in Vegeta's eyes. "You should know better than to hang your head after battle! It is utterly disgraceful and shows no pride whatsoever. Do you know how many times I've failed in battle, half dead and lying in a ditch? And do you know how many times I've stood up again, fought and fought even though I KNEW I was not going to win? Fought untill I DIED? Untill I was thrown aside unconcious with every bone in my body snapped in half, bleeding in three dozen places? I NEVER gave up! I never do! And if you're trained by me, YOU WON'T EITHER!!" Vegeta stormed out of the forest, leaving behind a stunned and softly sobbing Rei, holding a Senzu bean in her hand.