Special Education-Afternoon with Arale, By Risan F

[pixelgoddess]

Here's a few scenes from Special Education, a Dragon Ball/Dr. Slump crossover where Goku brings Arale to Kame House for training. In these scenes, Kuririn hits on Arale, Senbei makes a phone call, and Arale drives Kame Sen'nin up the walls.

Rating: PG-13

-RisanF

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The hallway was a bullet chamber, and Kuririn was streaking through the pipe. The young monk eased his way down the narrow expanse to the guestroom Arale was currently occupying, his stride light and confident. He had rubbed his chrome dome to a glistening sheen, and had even washed his clothes with a special detergent. His breath was minty fresh; he had gone through three strips of chewing gum in preparation for his upcoming encounter.

(Arale's too fast for a country bumpkin like Goku,) Kuririn snickered to himself, rounding the corner to the girl's room. (She needs someone more experienced in the ways of amour...like me!) He gave the dating magazine in his hands one more squeeze for luck, then walked through the door of destiny.

Inside, Arale was fitting her possessions into the cramped shelves around the room. There wasn't any particular rhyme or reason to her sorting scheme; everything was just placed next to each other in a random order. Kuririn paid it no mind; this was no time to get technical. Not when you were about to score a date with Cameron Diaz.

"What's a cute girl like you doing all alone in a place like this?" Kuririn crooned, being sure to stay close to the outline depicted in his dating magazine.

"N'cha!" Arale gave him a friendly wave.

Kuririn played it aloof, coasting around the perimeter of the room for inspiration. "So, Godzilla and Mothra huh?" he began, fixating on the action figures that took up a large amount of space on the shelves. "You know, that show's on just before the Dating Game." He was lying, of course; what kind of network airs a dating show on the same block as a Japanese monster show?

"What's the Dating Game?" she asked, the smile vanishing for the moment.

"Three bachelors, one girl, with the smoothest swinger taking the prize," he explained with a smile, taking the opportunity to sidle up to Arale. "Get the picture?"

"Hey, I know a game we can play!" Arale brightened, as if struck by sudden inspiration.

"Do you now?" Kuririn snaked an arm around her shoulder like a rock star. Inside, he was struggling to hold in his excitement. (Who knows what a wild girl like her has in mind for me?)

"Uh huh!" The girl reaching over to the shelves for an object. Kuririn's grin widened, ready for whatever surprise she had in store.

Then, the monk suddenly found his mouth full of a strange, amorphous substance, similar in texture to soft-serve ice cream. Kuririn soon realized that Arale had put one of the poo piles from her collection right on his tongue. She smiled with self satisfaction. "Isn't this fun?" she inquired, clearly expecting an affirmative.

{BRRRING!} the phone rattled from down the hall. "Ooh, phone phone!" Arale cried, leaving Kuririn flash-frozen in the room.

In the living room, Goku was holding the receiver for Arale. "Hey Arale-chan, this thing started making noises, so I picked it up," he babbled, waving the aforementioned object. "Now there's this weird guy talkin' inside of it. I think he's talking about you!"

Arale listened to the insistent barking from the phone for a moment, and soon her face lit up in recognition. "Oh, that's Hakase!" she said, taking the reciever from Goku and putting it to her ear. "N'cha, Hakase!"

"Arale, you suck!" the ornery squawk of Norimaki Senbei emanated from the speaker. "I thought I told you to call as soon as you got in! I've been worried sick since you since you decided to go off with that Goku kid! Where the heck were you today?!"

"I've been having lots of fun with Go-kun and his friends!" Arale made a motion with her free hand, as if the inventor could see her through the speaker. "We all ate sandwiches for lunch, except that I fed Go-kun sandwiches, and nobody else had any!"

"Having a good day, huh?!" The incredulous laugh from the other end was viscous with sarcasm. "Well, why don't hear how MY day's been! The Ga-chans' chewed up half the kitchen, the teachers keep bugging me on when you're coming back to school, and now that I'm not doing maintenance on your parts any more, I can't write off my electronics purchases as a tax deduction!"

A few pixie peeps could be heard underneath the man's whining, along with a distinct chewing sound. "No, not the new sofa!" Senbei's voice came out distant, as he was speaking away from the receiver. "We're still making payments on that!"

As the girl continued to listen to her benefactor's list of complaints, Kuririn meandered in, gargling with some mouthwash from a half-empty bottle. "Hey Kuririn, where've you been?" Goku asked, as Kuririn fiddled absently with the mouthwash cap. "I thought you said you wanted to talk to Arale about somethin'."

"Forget it man, she's all yours." Kuririn poured the mouthwash into the cap to serve as a makeshift cup. "Bros before hoes, and all that stuff." He chucked the contents of the cap into his mouth, and wandered off to throw his dating mags in the garbage.

"You better get back here right away, or I'm not gonna give you that boob job I promised!" Senbei continued to holler at Arale, who just smiled her pleasure as random thoughts danced before her eyes. "You'll just have to go through all your high school years being the flattest girl in your grade!"

"Hey Hakase, I gotta go," Arale responded as if she hadn't heard him. "I just remembered that Godzilla vs. Gamera is coming on."

"Arale, don't hang up!" The voice became muffled as she pulled the reciever away and lowered it back onto the hook. Arale then turned to Goku with a bright smile. "He really misses me!" she told him.

Goku grinned in response. "A lot of my friends are loud like that," he agreed.

"Wanna watch Godzilla vs. Gamera?" she asked, appealing to him with shining irises. "It's the super cool crossover millennium fight!"

"That's one of those 'kaiju' things, isn't it?" Goku said, as the girl nodded. "Sure, I'll watch it." The two clasped hands and walked over to the living area, where the small archaic television was blaring with static. Arale quickly turned the knob to the appropriate channel, then settled down with her boyfriend, making herself comfortable by his side.

"Is there lots of fighting?" Goku asked her as the program began.

"Yup!" Arale nodded her head as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

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*****
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"Brush-a brush-a brush-a! Here's the new Ipana!" Arale warbled as she vigorously massaged her gums with her toothbrush. "With the brand new flavor! It's dandy for your teeeeeeth!"

Goku poured a beam of toothpaste onto his own brush. "You said that's a 'commercial jingle?'" he inquired, peering over at her. "What's a commercial?"

"It's when they tell you to buy stuff with money," she told him, spitting a mouthful of toothpaste slop into the sink. "I buy everything they show on the Saturday Morning cartoon block."

"Oh, okay," he nodded. Somehow, Arale had the astounding ability to explain things to where Goku could actually understand them. It was really nice to have someone tell him stuff without barking at him.

The two continued to brush their teeth, smiling into the mirror of the small washroom. They were dressed in their pajamas, Goku's streaked with a simple stripe pattern, and Arale's festooned with Japanese monsters. The boy thought he could recognize some of the creatures from the shows they had watched earlier that evening. Half of them looked like something he had fought at one time or another.

"I can't wait to get started training!" Arale squealed, pumping her fists and flicking toothbrush spittle everywhere. "Then we can have even better fights than before!"

"You'll do fine," he encouraged her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I know I did pretty good when I first started trainin' with Grandpa. And you're neat, Arale-chan, so I'll bet you'll catch up to me real quick!"

Arale giggled, sliding her hand over Goku's fingers. "If you're there, then I know I'll have fun!"

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*****
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Kame-Sen'nin lie awake in his futon, his sunglasses resting on his bedside to give his eyes a clear view of the ceiling. His sleeping position was stiff; his body sank like a leaden weight into the soft material of the futon, making an indentation as jagged as his bony body. His expression was miserable, his beard ragged, and his underpants ratty. All he wanted was a good night's sleep, but insomnia flowed through his veins, and he remained awake even at 11:00 PM.

"Brush-a brush-a brush-a! Here's the new Ipana!" The obnoxious, sing-song voice bullied its way into the bedroom through layers of drywall. Kame-Sen'nin pulled his pillow out from under his head and covered his ears with it, as if trying to avoid the report of machine gun fire.

It was slowly dawning on the old man that instructing his new student in the ways of the Kame school was going to be a long ordeal. Norimaki Arale was twice as exhausting as Goku ever was; quite a feat in of itself, concerning the boundless energy of the monkey tailed boy. How the heck was he going to mold this television-raised munchkin into a serious fighter? Turn his training program into a two hour infomercial on Spike TV?

"Brush-a brush-a brush-a...!" Kame-Sen'nin's teeth ground together at the horrific rendition of an old 1950s corporate slogan, and he finally lurched out of bed. "Will you two go to sleep already!?" he shouted out at the walls. "We're getting up at 6:00 tomorrow!"

He twisted back into the futon, trying to turn his thoughts to other matters. Such as the sudden impulse to order a few dozen cases of Ipana brand toothpaste before the week was out.

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[Webtester01]

So true.

Next thing you know, Goku's going to be asking about buying candy. LOL

Nice short story.

[RisanF]

Thank you. Actually, this is only a segment of my story; the full story is here.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5109200/1/Special_Education

[tryniamerin]

I really enjoyed the interaction between Krillin and Arale. She fits well into the Kame House group. Also love how you handle her and Goku interacting so naturally together!