Piccolo stretched lazily in front of the mirror, getting the kinks from sleeping on a futon out of her well-muscled body.

It was after school on Monday of the third week. Piccolo had woken up the earlier morning to the most unsettling news that she was starting her yearly. Not only that, but after sitting down with Bulma in the Med. Lab and going through a battery of tests and questions, she had been informed that she would be having her yearly monthly for the next nine weeks. There was one benefit though of having the damn thing monthly.

Since right now she was half Human half Namekian, she wouldn't feel the full impact of Namekian hormones.

Nameks generally grew up pretty fast and were part male and female. At the age of five (That's ten Earth years.) they had a growth spurt till they were fully-grown and started to have feminine yearly heat cycles. Between cycles, a Nameks body would produce sex hormones and store them away till the next cycle began. When it began, the hormones would flood the Nameks system, making it almost impossible for the Namek to think of anything other than jumping anything compatible that was male.

Sexual intercourse could be avoided if the Namek in question isolated herself to an area where possible mates could not be found or come. However, if the Namek did not do so, let's just say things would heat up REAL fast.

After words, if a child was created, it took about one Earth day for an egg to be created and hatched, since the child would have a combination of DNA. The process for making eggs for a child that did not have a combination of DNA took only a few seconds, and was more of a gut reaction to a life threatening situation to make sure that the species would live on.

Dende got a little reprieve from these facts of life. Dende had only been hatched for two earth days when the whole Freeza affair had happened. Since he had taken over as God of Earth, one of the benefits was that his body's natural growth was slowed down. This allowed him to still have his child like body at this point of time yet also to have the mind of his true age.

Feeling as if she had stretched enough, Piccolo stalked down stairs and out the door to her training with Gohan.

*---*---*---*---*

Piccolo stalked back and forth, waiting impatiently for her friend. He was late, which wasn't all that unusual. Gohan had been coming to the training field late for the past week. Piccolo wasn't sure what Gohan did to be late, but she'd be damned if she didn't reprimand him.

Thinking of different techniques to use on Gohan this time, Pine spun on her heel as she heard the tell tale swish of air that meant someone was landing. "You're late, brat!" It was only then that she noticed that he wasn't alone.

Hanging onto his neck was a girl with black hair pulled up in pigtails with blue eyes that rivaled Bulma's. She was a head shorter than Gohan and was looking into his face with a faint blush on hers.

Pine was surprised that she felt immediate distaste for the girl and was even more surprised to find out that she was growling. She new who this person was, after all, the girl was in her class. Videl Satan. The same girl that kept splitting class to help the police every chance she got, Gohan exiting class soon after to go to the bathroom. But Pine wasn't surprised at all when he didn't come back till a period later, since she was always subconsciously tracking his ki and could feel it leaving the school area.

"Sorry, Pine-chan, I had some work to do at school," Gohan rubbed the back of his neck.

[He's lying,] Pine thought, [I felt his ki racing all over Satan City.] Her scowl grew darker. [Feh, at least he's gotten better at it. He used to stutter when he was lying.]

"Apology accepted, now, what is SHE doing here?"

Gohan blushed as he looked down at Videl and back at Pine. "I, uh, promised to teach her how to fly."

"That doesn't answer the question."

Gohan's blush darkened. "She won't let go of me till I teach her, but I don't know how!"

Pine paused. She was torn between laughing at Gohan's predicament and pulling Videl off of Gohan, since Videl was still looking up at Gohan in a way that made Pine feel really protective of Gohan for some weird reason.

Deciding on neither, Pine sat down in a meditation pose to let Gohan figure it out himself.

*---*---*---*---*

It was two hours later and Pine and Gohan still weren't sparring because Gohan was trying to teach Videl to fly.

Extra emphasis on the word trying.

"Come on, Videl, just direct your ki and push it out around you."

"Gohan, how can I do this when I don't even know what ki is?"

"Ki is ki! It just is!"

Gohan was a poor teacher.

Pine had had enough of this. She couldn't concentrate very well with all of their bickering and she was getting highly upset. As anyone that could sense ki would know.

This was probably what was putting Gohan on edge, feeling Pine's ki go up a notch when ever he did something she perceived as wrong or their yelling and shouting was just making her sensitive ears hurt.

So Pine was going to do something about it. Or more specifically, Piccolo was going to do what she would normally do about things like this.

"Give it a rest Gohan," Pine said as she stood, flawlessly coming out of her lotus position without showing one bit as if she had stiffened up. "I'll take over." She smiled her best intimidating smile, flashing her fangs as prominently as possible, looking positively like a demon recently spawned from hell (Or whatever evil place you prefer ^_^.).

Gohan, feeling as if he was on the edge of turning into a Super Saiya-jin, gratefully gave up his position for a break, not even looking Pine in the face as he went off to cool down. This, of course, left Pine with Videl.

And Videl had seen the almost insane look of pleasure in Pine's eyes as Gohan walked away. Suddenly, Videl felt REALLY unsafe in Pine's presence.

"Now, you want to learn to fly, right?" Pine purred low in her throat, acting entirely like a tiger about to pounce. "All right then," and with that, she struck.

*---*---*---*---*

Gohan's head snapped up as he heard a female scream of terror fill the air, coming from somewhere above. Blasting into the air, he followed the scream to where he saw a body of a certain female human with black hair plummeting towards the ground.

Gohan knew he would never get there in time to save her unless he went SSJ, but before he could do so, Videl started to slow down and miraculously stopped in midair, all the while with her eyes closed.

Opening her eyes, Videl started to panic and falling, but Gohan was there in time to grab her and lower her safely to the ground. Gohan was checking the shocked Videl over when he heard the tapping of someone just setting down behind him. Turning around he saw Pine standing there with a smug smirk on her face and her arms crossed. For an instant Gohan almost could have sworn he saw Piccolo's image superimposed to Pine, but when he blinked his eyes the weird double image vanished.

"And that," Pine said in a voice that almost seemed as if she was trying to hold back laughter, "is how you fly."

--To be Continued.