Make It Work: A Dragon Ball Z Story

Chapter 14: Its A Boy Thing

Every breath Shalay took was burdened and weighted down by her exhaustion. She stood slouched over with her hands resting on her knees. Her tail hung limply behind her and her sweat made her bangs stick to her forehead. The girl's eyes were filled with envy as she watched Trunks and Goten spar without a hint of tiring. They'd been training for five hours at least and Shalay had been already fatigued by the second hour. It was times like these that she wanted to give up - when she had doubts in her strength, but thoughts of what her mom would think pushed her forward.

Shalay fell backwards unto the lush green of the Capsule Corps' backyard grass. Her arms were stretched out at her sides and her legs crossed into the shape of a "four". She looked up to the blue sky that was littered white puff balls.

'I wonder how those taste,' Shalay thought lazily,'I've never tasted clouds before.'

This place was different from her home planet. Earth sported skies of blue and green grass. Her planet had no grass, just sand. The skies – oh, the skies - they were a beautiful pink. She sighed longingly at the far gone memory. Since she'd been living with the Sons, memories started to flood her mind about her forgotten planet.

Soon, she hoped, she'd be home again.

She closed her eyes for what she thought were only seconds. The semi-refreshed feeling she had when she opened them again told her otherwise - Trunks and Goten staring down at her with quizzical eyes helped with that explanation as well.

"Shalay, why are you sleeping?" Goten asked innocently. "We just started to warm up." Goten waited for her answer, but Shalay only opened and closed her mouth as if the words were lost to her. He tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy.

Were all girls like this?

"You guys are crazy." Shalay breathed out, disbelief written across her face in bold ink. Here she was lying with aching bones and this was a warm-up! Unbelievable!

Were all saiyans like this? Or am I just weak?

Her thoughts echoed through her mind, pushing her own questions onto herself for answering. It was unleashing her insecurities. She had a lot of those and seeing her closest friends being so far ahead of her hurt, a lot.

Shalay's thoughts were clouded by her emotions. She had never felt so weak before and it wasn't even in battle. It was just a "warm up". She fought hard to keep her tears from falling. The combination of being home sick and feeling weak made that almost impossible.

She was broken out of her slump by two small hands, big compared to hers. One came from the right, the other from the left. The sun radiated off of them. The one on the right was a skin tone brighter than the left.

Hm.

She sighed inwardly. Trunks and Goten, her friends, she liked the sound of that. Right off the bat, she and Goten hit off, but Trunks was different. She had to work for his approval, not like she minded. She hadn't had true friends in a long time. She couldn't remember clearly but she had a feeling on her home planet, she had her own "Trunks and Goten".

Her own true friends.

"Are you going to take our hands or not?" Trunks hissed in annoyance, wiggling his fingers at her.

She took their hands with a toothy grin, forgetting her depression like the kid she was. They hoisted her up and she stumbled a bit from the force. She turned around in a flash and smiled at the boys.

They smiled back.

It was nice having friends.

"All right. Let's get back to work!" Trunks commanded swiftly. His attention turned to Shalay, who shuffled uncomfortably at his gaze. "Or do we have to wait for Shalay to stop acting like a girl?"

Shalay's body went rigid, her cheeks reddening from anger and embarrassment.

With the stomp of her feet she screeched back, "I'm not the only one acting like a girl!" Trunks face heated up in a blaze of anger.

"Oh, yeah!" Trunks bellowed.

"Yeah!"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Yeah!"

Goten didn't know what to do at the moment, so he did what any boy would have do.

With a grunt he shoved the bickering two to the ground. They looked shocked at his actions. He did too. Goten's hands started shaking at his sights. He was nervous. Two pairs of blue eyes burned into him, replacing their fury at each other on him.

"Goten!"

Thus, the fight began. Trunks launched forward, upper cutting Goten's chin. Goten stumbled backward with a yelp. Shalay crawled like a cat to his side and swept his feet from the ground.

"Ouch!" Goten screamed out, rubbing his sore rear end. "That's it!" His wrath exploded and he transformed into a super saiyan. He yanked Shalay up by her tail and used her as a weapon to knock Trunks onto the grass. They both grunted in pain trying to untangle their beaten limbs.

When they finally got free, Goten was over them, trying to look menacing, but it turned out to look more like intense pouting.

Trunks had had enough of being beat up by Goten, so he blasted Goten in the face with a Ki ball. Goten toppled over holding his stinging face.

Trunks laughed mockingly at Goten's pain. "You're so weak!"

Weak! The word struck Shalay before it hit Goten. How could Trunks say that? Goten wasn't weak! Oh, but if Trunks thought Goten was weak, what did he think of her!? That jerk!

"Aaahhh!" Shalay charged a blast in both hands and smacked both hands on either side of Trunks' head.

Trunks instinctively did a spinning kick to her head and slammed her to the floor. "Ouch!"

"Looks like I win," Trunks said, looking confidently to his right and left at his fallen friends. He plopped down on the ground crossed legged and waited for them to pull themselves together.

Goten was the first to sit up, Shalay soon after. They glowered at Trunks, who paid no attention to them.

"One day, I'll beat you." Shalay breathed out. If it wasn't for their Saiyan genes, Goten and Trunks wouldn't have heard it.

"Me?" they both questioned.

"Both of you." she said flatly. "But," her face brightened up drastically, "It's just so I can finally feel equal to you."

Trunks scoffed at her, "As if. You're a girl, so give it up! You can't beat me or even Goten."

"I don't know?" Goten said slowly. "She could get stronger."

"Whatever," Trunks dusted himself off, standing up dismissively. "Let's go in, I'm hungry."

"Wait," Shalay jumped up with a little too much pep. "We're all still friends' right?"

The boys raised an eyebrow, "Duh."

She looked confused, "B-but didn't we just-" The boys walked up to her draping their arms over her shoulders.

"We do that all the time." Goten laughed.

"Yeah," Trunks agreed, "It's a thing boys do."

"Oh, okay." Shalay didn't quite get why it was boy thing. Or how that explained anything, but agreeing seemed to be the a good way out.With their training done for the day, it was time to eat. They were growing, getting stronger.

Becoming stronger together.