1.

It was amazing how easily the treaty with Frieza's empire had been. To avoid bloodshed and war, the people of earth had been perfectly willing to hand over their freedom. They didn't have much choice, not with Goku dead, and all the rest of earth's warriors forced into hiding, but it was still amazing how easily they had done it.

It wasn't as bad as some sceptics had thought it would be. They weren't all slaves, and you wouldn't be killed on the spot for voicing your opinions. But there were the down sides. All of the humans with a power level (most of them didn't even know what that was) of over twenty were hunted down and killed. If you made any kind of physical contact with a member of Frieza's royal guard, you would be carted off to prison.

No one knew what 'prison' was for them, and no one wanted to know. All they knew was that they never saw the 'prisoners' again.

It had been a simple matter, really. At first, people thought that Frieza would demand some sort of retribution for Radditz, the saiyajin warrior that had been killed in the battle that had also ended Goku's life for the first time, but there was none. Apparently, warriors were so plentiful for Frieza's army that he didn't care.

No one seemed to care that their freedoms were gone. They were just happy that they were still alive.

But there were a few that still fought in hiding, a few that still trained in hopes of one day overthrowing the oppressive empire, impossible as it may have seemed.

+

Gohan zoomed across the sky, high above the clouds, riding on nimbus. Of all the things he had been able to learn from the various Z fighters before the battle, he wished he had been able to fly. But there wee other things.

Just before it had happened, Bulma had given them all a watch that blocked scouter signals. Even then, she seemed to have known that they would need them. He had kept his, because even at five years old he had had a very realistic view of the world. He knew their chances. Luckily, he had been wearing it when they had come after the people with high power levels to kill them.

He had no idea if the others had survived. It was possible. Since the first sweep of the planet, there had been no further checks. He was grateful for that.

It had been two years since then. He was seven now, practically an adult. He helped his mom as well as he could. He was, after all, the man of the house.

But once in a while he did have to get away, and just ride nimbus in the only private place that there was anymore: the sky. He thought about a lot of things, like his father, and how he would love to be strong like that. It didn't matter that his father had lost to Vegeta. Because somehow Vegeta still didn't seem like a real person.

He often wondered if the others were still around. Krillin, and Tien, and Yamucha. They were all nice. Piccolo was kind of scary, but even he would have been some comfort, some kind of tie to his father, who he missed more than anything. His mother was all he had, and she...

Well, ChiChi wasn't the same since Goku died. She still loved him, and showed it, but it wasn't the same. She was angry a lot more, and often Gohan saw her crying for no reason that he could see, except for that she missed Goku as much as he did, even more.

He didn't know if that was possible. But it sure looked like it.

He silently willed nimbus to speed up, and as always, the cloud responded instantly. The wind whipped over him, ruffling the cloth of his yellow and green robe that his mother always had him wear. He had left his hat at home, the one with the four star Dragonball on it, because he knew it would have flown off. His short cropped black hair whipped around his head.

He had been working on building up his endurance for a long time now. Every chance he got, he was training himself, trying to make himself strong like his father. He was making progress, without a doubt, but he still wasn't at anywhere near the levels of the other Z warriors.

He could move enough ki to create very strong wind, strong enough to break large branches off of the trees around his house, but not enough to make a visible blast, like his father's kamehameha. That was his goal; to be able to do a kamehameha. Once he had reached that point, he would worry about going further.

He didn't know it, but the point he was at was absolutely extraordinary for a young boy, even one who was half saiyajin. Especially for one who had only himself to train. If he could have had a teacher, his potential was huge.

He heaved a deep sigh, and swung nimbus back around in a wide loop, checking the cloud's speed as he did so. It was time for him to be getting home.

As he got closer and closer to his house, he got the feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something was out of place, something that he was so used to that he didn't notice until it was gone.

He was almost home now; he could see the hill that formed what would be their back yard.

It came to him, in a flash like being hit by lightning. He couldn't sense his mother's ki.

Terror gripped him suddenly and coldly. He would have made nimbus go to maximum speed, if he wasn't already moving over the hill.

There was nothing where his house had been but a large charred circle on the ground.

+

Krillin sighed. "I wonder sometimes why we bother." he muttered under his breath. He hadn't meant for anyone to hear, much less answer him, but Kami's lookout was so high up and the air so clear that the tri-clops across the room from him did both.

"We bother because there's absolutely nothing else to do." Tien said, grunting in effort as he lifted the seven hundred pound weight for what must have been the thousandth time in the last hour. "Except for dying, and I don't plan on doing that anytime soon."

A small smile snuck across Krillin's lips, and he once again went to work on pushups. Normal pushups would have done him absolutely no good, no more than it would have done him to lift a feather a few times a day, but he was hearing a cape and turban, with two hundred and one hundred pounds of weight in each. They were really too light, but he didn't feel like pestering Kami for some new ones just yet.

He couldn't remember any time when he had trained so hard with such little hope of accomplishing anything. He knew as well as Tien and Choutzu did that it would be ten years at least before they could build up the kind of power Vegeta had possessed, and by that time he was sure to have advanced far beyond that.

And never mind Frieza. Or his royal guard.

But Tien was right. It was either this or die. Or go insane. Neither idea was particularly appealing.

Of course, maybe someone else could do what they couldn't. Kami was still alive, so that meant Piccolo was still around somewhere. And they had seen Yamucha once or twice since the shit had hit the proverbial fan. And it was possible that any number of people could still be alive and training in hiding, as they were.

He sighed again and continued doing his pushups. This day, like every other one they spent training on Kami's lookout, was going to be long.

+

If Choutzu had been looking even a bit the other way, he would have zoomed right by Gohan without even seeing him. But luckily he was looking down and to the left, and saw the crouching child in the middle of the charred circle of land.

Checking his speed immediately, he lowered himself just a little in a wide loop, so that he could get a better view. He was already sure that it was definitely Gohan, and equally sure of what had happened. But he wasn't sure what to do about it.

A crying child always made him act impulsively, however, and this was no exception. Maybe it was because he was considered to be an eternal child by so many of his acquaintances, or maybe it was because he had seen so much suffering lately that it all got to him, but he felt more sympathy for the small boy than he had felt for anyone in a great while.

He landed softly behind him.

"Gohan?" he said quietly. Though Choutzu's high voice could hardly be perceived as threatening, Gohan spun around in alarm, quite fast for someone with almost no training, with malice in his eyes. Choutzu himself looked even less threatening than his voice sounded, unless you were trained well enough to sense hidden ki. The look of rage vanished from Gohan at once, and he only looked gut wrenchingly sad.

Just looking at him made Choutzu feel sad. The depth of pain in those far too young eyes was horrible to see. Immediately, he walked toward he boy, who was actually taller than he himself was, and put one small hand on his shoulder.

Gohan didn't say anything. He simply collapsed onto Choutzu's shoulder, sobbing. The former emperor tried his best to comfort the boy, rubbing his back soothingly and letting Gohan get it out. Perhaps the boy would have cried on anyone's shoulder at that point, but Choutzu was a familiar face, a friendly familiar face.

How long this went on neither would have been able to tell, but after a while the sobs slowed to an occasional sniffle, and Gohan did the most natural thing of all after crying so hard. He fell asleep.

Which left Choutzu in a pretty hard predicament.

What was he to do with Gohan?

He could take him to Kami's tower, but he had no idea how the others would react. Krillin would be happier than anything to see the boy, but Tien might react a little differently. A seven year old child would hardly help their training. Kami was likely to agree.

He could take Gohan to capsule corp., except that he wasn't going anywhere near a city, not with Frieza's imperial soldiers on every corner. His power level would be picked up before he got within miles of the place. Not to mention, Bulma was busy enough as it was. She didn't need a kid, even a kid that was as nice and self sufficient as Gohan was.

What did that leave?

"Well," Choutzu said to himself, "he looks plenty strong, and I can't leave him out here alone. He'll want to train, wherever he goes, and there may just be one person who'll be able to do it."

He smiled and flew off toward home, Kami's tower, but first he would drop off Gohan at Korin's.

+

A huge ugly building served for the guardhouse in capitol city. It was basically a huge cube, painted some strange orange color that looked like long ago congealed orange juice. Inside, the top half was divided evenly into one thousand rooms of about five feet square each; they were the guards quarters. The bottom half was divided into four large sections that were used for a sort of office building, and a smaller set of rooms, much more luxurious. They were the captain's quarters.

Inside on a plush looking chair, finished in fine blue cloth, sat the captain himself, captain Farrus. He didn't look like anything one would meet on earth. His skin was a purplish red, the color of dried blood, and his hair was a pure white, and cascaded down his shoulders in waves and rippled, until it hit the small of his back, where it was neatly clipped. His face had no nose or mouth, only two wide, staring eyes that were the only normal part of him, looking just like large human eyes. He wore a long black tunic over the regulation armor.

In front of him cowered a for once humbled cyborg Tao Pai Pai. He was holding up a Dragonball. The four star ball, to be exact.

"I was forced to kill a woman, she tried to resist my taking the ball, but other than that, there were no problems."

Tao did not mention that he had torched the house after taking the ball. He didn't classify that as a problem, he classified it as covering up a problem.

"Very good. That's four now isn't it?" Farrus said, his voice coming from god-knew-where.

"Yes, captain. The other three will be your's soon."

Farrus' eyes brightened, and if he had a mouth, he would have been smiling. "Very good. I'm sure that Frieza-sama will reward you for your excellent work once we have them all."

Tao stood and bowed, but it was plain that he was still trembling. "Thank you, captain."

"Dismissed." Farrus said, and Tao bowed quickly and left the room, as fast as he could without seeming rude.

Farrus gazed silently at the ball that Tao had left at his feet. After a second, his soft laughter filled the room.