[ ] West
You and Bulma argue for several minutes before she agrees with your idea to search the west first. She doesn't really enjoy the idea of a visit to the desert and wants to put it off as long as possible. You counter by pointing off that it's better to do so now, while the three of you have plenty of supplies, than in the uncertain future. Reluctantly, she agrees.
Goku, of course, doesn't even really know what a desert is. His contribution to your argument is… limited.
[ ] Yes. In fact, maybe you'll try to convince Bulma to learn how to defend herself. At the very least she can unlock her ki to reap the benefits, surely?
-[ ] For goku keep to the practical applications.
-[ ] For bulma work on getting her in shape while covering both theoretical and practical.
Goku, of course, is ecstatic for the chance to train. You pore over your books, particularly "Learn By Teaching," to figure out the best way to train the monkey-tailed boy on the road.
---
Goku could barely contain his excitement as his new friend Jin took him to a clearing on one of their stops to begin his training. He had always loved training and growing stronger with his Grandpa, and he hoped this would be just like that.
"So what's our first lesson, Jin?" Goku asked as Jin stood across from him. As always, he looked kind of mad. Or maybe he had to go to the bathroom? He really didn't smile as much as he should have.
"Are you gonna teach me how to use your Gale Palm? Or help me with that move I made up? Oh, oh, I know! You're gonna teach me how to-"
"Dodge!" Jin yelled, and suddenly leapt into an attack.
Martial Arts + Speed (12) vs. Reflex + Speed (9.2) – Goku Failure!
Jin is holding back! 1.4 Damage (2.2 Ki Shield Remaining)
Before Goku could move, Jin had already struck, launching him several feet through the air.
"Dodge!" Jin yelled again, not letting up and quickly chasing Goku to try to attack him while he was still sailing through the air.
Martial Arts + Speed (12) vs. Agility + Reflex (9.2) – Goku Failure!
Jin is holding back! 1.4 Damage (0.8 Ki Shield Remaining)
Goku attempted to twist around in midair to dodge the second onslaught, but still wasn't fast enough. Jin's fist drove the airborne boy back into the ground, where he lay down to catch his breath.
Jin sighed in frustration. "This is going to be a long training session." Idly, he took out a book and began flipping through it while letting Goku collect himself.
A strange look crossed Jin's face. "Wait… These pages are stuck together," the white-haired prince noticed. Gently prying the pages apart, he quickly read over the revealed content.
"Oh… I skipped a lot of steps because of this. I was supposed to start by throwing water balloons at you, and then move up to dodgeballs and rocks before…"
Jin apologized a lot to Goku that day, and used, as Goku termed it, his "cool healing thingy" on him to help him recover. For the rest of the day, they were a bit more sedate in their training, although Goku still got thrown around quite a bit over the course of the day.
---
Barring some… unfortunate accidents that obviously weren't anyone's fault and don't bear talking about, your training with Goku actually progresses incredibly quickly. You were right when you assumed the boy was some kind of martial arts prodigy; he grasps very complicated concepts without even realizing he's doing so. It actually inspires a bit of jealousy in you, but you clamp down on that hard. A teacher should never envy his student, and the same goes for a rival. Or, as Goku maintains you are, a friend. Regardless, you mostly focus on teaching him through practical training, with very little focus on the theoretical of what you're teaching him.
Mostly, you help cover some of the holes in his technique and give him help with his physical conditioning. You also help him cultivate his ki, which has the added benefit of sharpening his senses and instincts a little; ki, after all, is a mental and a spiritual force as well as a physical one.
In addition, you help him refine the technique he created when he tried to mimic your Gale Palm, as well as come up with a name for it. You still maintain that "Heavenly Thunder Hammer" is better than shortening it down to simply "Thunder Hammer," but at least you managed to shoot down Bulma's suggestion of "Dragon Fist." It's not yet a technique worthy of being called a dragon's anything yet, in your opinion. Maybe one day in the far future, if Goku can put much more force into the attack, but not now.
---
You also decide that you should teach Bulma the rudiments of ki and the martial arts. You can't say she strikes you as a wellspring of untapped potential, but at the very least she can learn to defend herself to some extent so she won't be entirely reliant on you and Goku to protect her.
Convincing her to do so, however, is a bit of a struggle…
---
"Not a chance," is her immediate response to your offer.
"And why exactly are you opposed?" you ask curiously. You honestly can't understand why anyone wouldn't want to learn martial arts. The benefits are many and great, after all.
"For one, I'm not some rough-and-tumble wild child like Goku, and I'm not some kung fu prince like you. I am a delicate flower, and I'm simply not suited to such brutish pursuits," she says loftily.
Your left eye develops a bit of a twitch. "If you're such a delicate flower, you'd be better served going back to your city and never leaving," you point out. "As you've not doubt realized, the world we live in is a dangerous one. If you're not willing to take steps to ensure that you can handle yourself if the worst comes to pass, you've no one but yourself to blame when the world devours you whole."
Bulma blanches a bit at that, but rallies quickly. "Oh, come on; look at me! A pretty young thing like me just can't do that kind of thing; what if I turned into some muscle-bound Amazon!? And why is this such a big deal, anyway? I've got you and Goku to deal with anything that can come up. What, you don't think you can handle it?"
Well. Time to stop being reasonable about this; diplomacy was always one of your worse topics anyway. What would your father do if someone refused to listen to reason? The answer comes quickly.
"Gale Palm!" You deliberately fire the weakest Gale Palm you can and aim it almost a meter away from Bulma's head, but even that is enough to knock her clean off her feet and keep her there, as the wind throws her for a loop and interferes with her balance.
You hold your open palm in front of her face, as though about to throw another Gale Palm. Bulma's eyes are fixed on it, her face a mask of terror.
"That was the weakest Gale Palm I'm capable of. It's weaker than a punch thrown by me, and it would still have likely taken your head off if I'd aimed it directly at you.
"Think about that for a moment. There are people in this world just as strong as me; in fact, there are many who are far stronger than me. They could kill you with a flick of their finger. And you expect Goku and I to be able to protect you, no matter what happens? No matter how outmatched or outnumbered we might be? Or even if we're just unlucky enough that a stray bullet reaches you while we're too far away to intercept it?"
"I…" Bulma begins, but you cut her off.
"No; you surrendered your right to argue with me about this when your best defense was that you were too lazy and vain to bother learning to defend yourself," you say firmly. "I will not teach someone who refuses to learn, but you will listen to me before you make your decision.
"Goku and I may not always be able to protect you. There may be times where you are separated from us, or when we simply can't focus on keeping you safe and on keeping all three of us alive. When that happens, you will be nothing but dead weight as you are now. You have a choice; you can continue to hide behind a pair of 12-year old boys and be worse than useless every time we encounter danger, or you can attempt to take your life into your own hands and learn the rudiments of self-defense."
Still staring at your outstretched palm, Bulma shakily agrees to your generous offer.
---
Your education of Bulma goes much more slowly than Goku's training, for many reasons. The first, of course, is Goku's own natural talent. Just as obvious is the difference in enthusiasm: Bulma spends half of every training session whining and complaining, while Goku throws himself into every task with a smile on his face and a laugh in his throat.
Even the less physical training you set her to – most notably the meditation exercises you teach her so that she can find and harness her ki – don't really go smoothly. Bulma's very much a city girl, and a scientifically-minded one at that: you receive a litany of complaints and lectures on how "impossible" your explanations of ki are. She repeatedly points out how ki seems to violate the Law of Conservation of Energy and other such things. She shuts up when you point out that, impossible or not, it works, and she's expecting answers that no one has managed to think of in centuries from a 12-year old boy, but the silence never blesses you for very long before some new thing sets her off.
Still, slower than Goku's it may be, but progress is made. Bulma manages to successfully find and harness her ki, and you manage to drill some rudimentary martial arts into her: mostly simple throws and locks, as well as the correct ways to strike and block.
It's actually not necessary to meditate and discover one's ki, incidentally; many martial artists manage to harness it without ever realizing it's there, but their use of it will always be flawed and weaker than it could be otherwise. Bulma's interest is rather piqued when you explain this, but she mercifully spares you the questions about it, apparently realizing that you just don't have all the answers.
Physical conditioning also comes into play; all told, Bulma could almost certainly handle herself against the average thug off the street, assuming said thug had no backup, weapons or training of any kind. It's certainly a drastic improvement compared to what she was capable of previously.
Your own training, incidentally, actually goes very well; contrary to your fears, teaching two students has actually helped you grow quite a bit. Your gains aren't quite as great as Goku's but you're still making good progress.
So, how exactly did you spend your training time?
You have 4.0 unspent Attribute points. How will you spend them? The template for voting on Attribute points goes like this:
[ ] 0.5 on x Attribute
[ ] 1.8 on y Attribute
[ ] 0.7 on z Attribute
And so on. These votes will be tallied as a full plan, for obvious reasons.
During your training, you also managed to pick up a new technique.
[ ] You perused the "Dragon's Nine Yang Manual" and used the exercises contained therein to develop a new technique.
Learn Technique: Fiery Grasp
[ ] You perused the "Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms" and managed to master a new technique.
Learn Technique: Proud Dragon's Challenge
[ ] During your training to help Goku refine his Thunder Hammer technique, you picked it up yourself.
Learn Technique: Thunder Hammer
[ ] You spent every day healing Goku and Bulma after your training, so you ended up becoming a better healer.
Learn Technique: Ki Healing
The downside is that you spend so much time training yourself and the other two that what should have been a 10-day drive to the Diablo Desert manages to last twice as long. Bulma makes sure to stock up on plenty of water and gasoline before you reach it, and you and Goku hunt down plenty of food to keep your reserves of food up (to Bulma's disgust), though, so the lost time doesn't affect you too much.
---
Your first day of searching in the Diablo Desert goes by without event, but the second day is a different story. Due to the heat, Goku is sitting in the air-conditioned car with you and Bulma rather than riding the Flying Nimbus (you finally got the story on that; apparently some weird old man who called himself Roshi gave it to Goku for helping his pet talking turtle return to the sea. You had a nagging feeling that you should know about the man, but you just can't put your finger on it…).
"So Jin, this place is kind of close to your kingdom, right? Do you know anything about it?"
Smarts (4.5) vs. Difficulty: 4 – Success!
"Yes, actually. The Diablo Desert is very large, and quite dangerous for ordinary people," you say.
"Dangerous? How?"
"Well, for one thing, the roads are filled with roving tribes of brigands and thieves."
"What!?" Bulma yells. "You didn't think to mention this earlier!?"
"It's fine," you assure her. "Warriors from my kingdom make the journey here every now and then to capture the more notorious brigands and clear the roads in exchange for payment; it's a good source of revenue. It happened just last year, so most likely the roads will still… be… clear…"
You trail off as, from behind the many rocky outcroppings, dunes and other hidings places swarm vehicles so heavily modified with welded steel plating, spikes and grisly decorations that they seem to have been made piecemeal out of scrap and anything deemed intimidating-looking.
Riding both inside and on top of these vehicles are a motley collection of dirty people armed with weapons of all kinds: guns, axes, meat hooks, etc., all of which look either homemade or home modified. The people themselves wear patchworks of rugged cloth, leather, bone, and bits of metal plating here and there. Goggles are a common sight, as are personal decorations like tattoos, piercings, and odd haircuts like spiked Mohawks.
The gang circles around the car like a pack of sharks around a lone fish, their riders laughing and shouting threats and obscenities.
Bulma takes a moment to throw you a withering glare. "The roads should still be clear, huh?"
This is rather problematic. These people are very obviously a gang of brigands; it seems the last hunting expedition missed them, or they moved in to fill the gap quicker than usual. Either way, you likely don't have much time before they decide to strike, and you'd rather they not slash the tires or something: you don't want to have to walk through the Diablo Desert to look for an oversized glass bead.
[ ] You and Goku will get on top of the car and take care of these fools while Bulma concentrates on keeping the car going. Standing still would make the car too easy a target.
[ ] Bulma will stop the car and get to cover while you and Goku step out and take care of business. You don't want Bulma or the car getting caught in the crossfire, after all, and if their attention is solely on you two it's unlikely that'll happen.
[ ] Surrender. The Diablo Desert gangs often take hostages to ransom them, and both you and Bulma probably look like you're worth some money. They'll also take the car intact, and the three of you can easily escape (or just beat everyone up) at your earliest convenience.
[ ] Write-In.
Sub-votes or a write-in detailing a specific plan of action can increase chances of success.
AN: Sorry to anyone who wants to see more of ROYL; I'm having a lot of trouble with the latest chapter and I just can't get it to sound "right" to me. Thankfully, this is a fair bit easier to write for ATM.
Also, the character sheets will be updated presently.
