Gohan found himself sprinting down the hallway of the deserted office building at eleven o'clock at night, dressed as the Great Saiyaman. He was still quite confused why he was here. The owner of the company had called for him just ten minutes ago. It seemed the business man was afraid someone would come to kill him that night. Once the Saiyan boy reached the main office, he skidded to a stop and quickly threw open the door. "I'm here, sir! You're safe now!" he proclaimed loudly in that fake hero voice of his. There was a long silence in the room just before Gohan decided to look around. He didn't see anyone there at first, but soon spotted something quivering behind the large desk. The raven haired boy blinked, approaching the desk cautiously. Suddenly...
"S-stay back!! D-don't kill me!! Whatever those sons 'a bitches said was a lie, I swear!! I was never involved in any of that!!" a man's voice shrieked as a small desk lamp was chucked past Gohan's head. This made the teen jump slightly, but soon calmed back down again. "Ummm... It's me, the Great Saiyaman. You.. uhh... asked me to come here?" he said nervously, rubbing the back of his neck a bit. Was he perhaps mistaken? No, Videl wouldn't mess up with something as serious as this. That reminded him, though. Videl, after informing him of the CEO's request, was rather adamant about coming along to help him. He tried everything he could to convince her otherwise, but that girl was just so damn stubborn. The only reason she wasn't there beside him now was merely because she couldn't keep up with him. Suddenly, he was brought back from his little flashback, hearing the frightened man's shaky voice once again. "Ah. T-terribly sorry about that, m'boy. I've been quite j-jumpy lately, you see..." he explained. As the man spoke, Gohan took the opportunity while he was talking to examine him for a moment. He was average size, about an even six feet tall. He had somewhat of a young face for a man in such a high position, but his gray hair gave his age away. Still, he couldn't be much older than forty at the very most. He wore a navy blue business suit that looked a bit wrinkled. Of course, that was probably due to him hiding under his desk. "Now, all I'd like you to do is stand out there in the hall and not let anyone in, got it?!" the man said, regaining his composure a bit. Gohan merely nodded and left the room, closing the door tightly behind him.
This was all rather strange to Gohan. Why on Earth did that man need him of all people there? The building was already crawling with police, surely anyone that's come to kill the man wouldn't get past all of them. The Saiyan boy merely shrugged it off, though, thinking the man was just being overly paranoid. Still, he would stay, not one to leave someone in danger. As he stood by the door, he got to thinking. He started to think something was a bit off. How did he find out he was going to be murdered anyway? He'd never made that clear, even to the police. However, the young Saiyan decided not to wonder too much about that any longer.
Gohan ended up waiting for a good two and a half hours for anyone to show up. At that point, he felt his eyes drooping and his attentiveness severely decreasing with the passing minutes. It was at that point that a certain person decided to make their appearance. Standing in the shadows of the narrow alleyway between the guarded building and the next one was man. All you could see was a silhouette, though, as he was standing well away from any revealing light, but some features still stood out. He stood approximately 200 centimeters tall, wore a black suit and had a bald head. Beyond that, you could tell nothing of him. He chanced a quick peek around the corner at the fleet of police cruisers parked just in front of the building, but quickly pulled back before he could be seen. He then made his way calmly along the side of the building until he came to the fire escape, at which point he made quite an impressive, yet seemingly effortless, leap up to grab the ladder. After hoisting himself up, he flew up the metal staircase quite skillfully, managing not to make a sound. Every so often, he'd press himself against the wall just between the windows, narrowly missing getting spotted by one of the officers inside.
The figure continued upward until he reached the top floor, at which point he waited below the window until the coast was clear before jumping in. He made a bee line for the room the CEO was in, his footsteps remaining absolutely silent. As he prepared to round the corner, however, he spotted Gohan and quickly retreated back to the other side where he wouldn't be seen. He hadn't expected him to be here. Now he'd need a diversion. It didn't need to be much, just enough so he could slip past Gohan unseen. Rounding a few more corners, the unknown assassin made his way to the middle of the building and dashed into an empty office. Once there, he bent down beside the desk and reached into his jacket, pulling out two long strings of fire crackers, one with a slightly longer fuse at the beginning, and placed them in the trash bin. He then took out a lighter and lit the fuses before quickly dashing out of the room again. Yes, it was a very simple and cheap trick, but why improve upon that which already works? Not long after he made his way back near where Gohan was assigned to stand, they went off. It sounded enough like gunshots to make the police rush to that spot. Of course, having lit them on the inside of that metal trash bin added a nice reverberating metal ping to it all, making it slightly more convincing.
Gohan, too, fell for the distraction to a point, running to the first turn in the hall to try to see what was going on. The mysterious man took that opportunity to slip into the CEO's office, closing the door carefully as to not make a sound. The business man was, of course, cowering behind that large desk of his. The man approached silently and stopped at the wall of windows behind, glancing at the squad cars below. The CEO froze, looking up at the man's back, unable to tell who he was due to the bright lights from the ground below. He then looked at his hands. Black leather gloves. There was no doubt about it. He was a hitman. panicking, the CEO stumbled to his feet, quickly opened his desk drawer and retrieved a small handgun. As the hitman looked over his shoulder at him, he pointed the gun at his would-be assassin's head and pulled the trigger.
Gohan whirled back around when he heard a genuine gunshot, followed by a loud shout of pain. The cry seemed to cut short strangely, though, leaving nothing but silence. The young Saiyan burst into the room in time to see the hitman standing there, his back to the door, the CEO hanging by his neck at the man's hands, his feet a good meter off the ground. The hitman jerked the wire he's wrapped around his target's neck one more time before the CEO's body went limp. The hitman, target still in hand, glanced over his shoulder. Gohan couldn't help but stare at the scene before him. It was horrifying. Yet, as that man turned to look at him, the red and blue lights from the squad cars creating an amazing aura around him as his form remained a tall, dark, mysterious silhouette, he couldn't help but think that it looked so damn cool. Like something straight out of a spy movie. He then thought himself a terrible person for actually thinking a murderer looked cool and charged at the killer.
However, Gohan could not have anticipated what happened next. It was all so fast, yet everything looked as if it was moving in slow motion. The hitman took the CEO's body in his right hand and tossed him through one of the large panes of glass that made the windows. Still using the momentum from that, he turned around, looking as if he were floating, and struck Gohan hard on the side of his neck with the side of his hand just as the Saiyan teen reached him. Gohan hadn't anticipated this at all. He thought it would just be a normal human, if anything at all, but here he found himself slipping into darkness with a single strike. As Gohan fell unconscious, still seemingly floating in midair, the hitman wrapped his right arm around the young Saiyans waist and, just as his right foot touched the floor once again, he took a leap out of the already broken window.
All of this had happened so fast that gravity had not yet taken effect on the dead body previously chucked through the window. As the hitman leaped out with Gohan held tightly under one arm, surrounded by shards of glass that looked like tiny crystal suspended in the air, a white aura suddenly burst to life around him, shattering the glass further and scattering the shrapnel in all directions. He took off so fast, the police below never saw him, or Gohan. When the body finally reached the ground below, they were already long gone.
Gohan had no idea how long he was out for. Five minutes? A few hours? Perhaps even a day or two? He had no way of knowing. When he awoke, however, he found himself staring up at a dark ceiling, a series of colorful lights dancing across it. It took him a moment to figure out the lights came from a TV in the room he was in, and not from the police squad cars from before. As he sat up in the bed he didn't remember getting into, he discovered that he was no longer wearing his Saiyaman outfit. He was instead only wearing a pair of old jeans with rips in the knees. It didn't take him very long to figure out that they were, in fact, a pair of his own jeans that he could have sworn he'd lost months ago. It may have made a tiny sliver of sense if he'd been in his own bedroom, but he wasn't. He'd never been in this room before in his life. What really made him confused wasn't the fact that some strange person that had just murdered someone had kidnapped him, changed his clothes, and put him in some strange room. No, he could process that just fine. That didn't mean he didn't think it was the most creepy thing that had ever happened to him, he just knew that was what most likely had happened. No, what was strange to him was that this room held an extremely familiar scent, particularly the pillow and sheets on the bed, but he couldn't quite place where he'd smelled it before. That was the part that didn't make sense.
His thoughts were abruptly cut short, however, as the door to the room suddenly opened. Gohan's heart practically leaped up out of his throat he was so surprised. He stared up at the figure. The room was too dark for him to see his face, but he immediately recognized that silhouette. He remained silent, watching as the man sat down at the end of the bed just in front of the TV, a puff of cigarette smoke emerging from his mouth before he finally spoke.
"Are you feeling alright?" he asked in a deep, growl like voice. Gohan blinked. Was he feeling alright? That was it? Not 'I'm going to have to kill you now, too'? And, though he didn't want to admit it, he felt comfort in this man's gruff voice, almost as if he'd heard it a thousand times before speaking similar words of concern and comfort. Wait... as a matter of fact, he could have sworn he had! "Wh-who are you?!" he demanded, to frightened and confused to think properly at the moment. He saw the man stare directly in his direction for a long moment before replying. "You don't honestly believe I think you're that stupid, do you, Gohan?"
Gohan merely blinked in reply. What can I say, the kid takes after his father sometimes. The man sighed and hung his head a little. "You've got to be kidding me..." he grumbled as he got up and flipped the light switch on. Gohan was momentarily blinded by the sudden arrival of light, but after quickly shielding his eyes with his hand, he managed to get a look at his captor. He let out a sigh of relief, instantly recognizing him even before he turned around to face him again. Now he felt really stupid.
"Oh, Piccolo-san! It's just you!" he said, truly relieved. Piccolo gave him a 'gee, thanks...' look before moving to stand beside where he lay in the bed. "I'm so glad, really. I had this horrible dream about this spy lookin' guy killing some company boss and taking me away! It was so weir--" Gohan suddenly stopped when he spotted a rather odd look in his old friend's eyes. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen that expression on him before. He looked sad, apologetic, and dead serious all at the same time. Then, he suddenly caught the middle of the news report playing on the television. "--fell from the twentieth floor of his company building after several shots were fired. Local hero "Great Saiyaman" went missing immediately prior to the murder. He is the only suspect at this time, but the police are investigating any other possibilities. Anyone with any leads as to who the Great Saiyaman is are asked to report to the police so he may be brought in for questioning."
Gohan stared at the TV for a long time in disbelief. "Th-this... This can't be happening..." he thought out loud. He was a suspect?! Or rather, he was the suspect?! He turned his gaze up at Piccolo, looking as if he were on the verge of tears. "Y-you must have seen who really did it, right?! It was whoever was carrying me away! You saw, right?! You can tell them who really did it!" he begged desperately, grabbing firmly onto his old mentor's shirt sleeves. All he got, however, was silence and that same somber look from before. "P-Piccolo-san... Y-you..." he stuttered, his eyes widening a bit. He was starting to catch onto the truth, but refused to accept it as just that. "Y-you did see him, right Piccolo-san...?" he asked again, practically up to his neck in denial.
Piccolo suddenly gritted his teeth and slapped away Gohan's hands. His eyes remained glued to the ground, unable to face his old student. There was a long, painful silence. "P-Piccolo-san... Y-you couldn't have..." Gohan said in disbelief, those tears he'd been holding back finally coming up to the surface. Piccolo let out a sigh, crushing the still-lit cigarette that he'd been neglecting in his hand. "I'm sorry, Gohan..."
After Gohan had finished his crying and Piccolo promised over and over again to give him an explanation, the young Saiyan found himself sulking at his Namekian mentor's dinner table, still only wearing those old jeans of his. He still couldn't wrap his mind around it. Piccolo? A professional killer? That was just insane! Of course, he hadn't seen him in such a long time and a lot had changed about him. He never remembered Piccolo smoking, or dressing like a human, or actually living in a house. He was starting to pray all over again that this was a bad dream. Gohan looked up after a while to see Piccolo walking up to the table.
"Here..." the Namekian grunted, placing a glass of water in front of his student. Gohan took it slowly, but didn't drink it. He merely stared down at it, his fingers fidgeting around the glass a bit. Once Piccolo sat down across from him, he looked up again. His mentor was wearing a loose white long sleeve shirt that was no longer tucked into his jeans, the first two buttons undone. Gohan let out a heavy sigh. He really didn't want to even mention it, but he really wanted some answers. Eventually, he gathered the courage to ask.
"Piccolo-san... How long have you been keeping this a secret?" he asked meekly, his voice small. There was a long, uncomfortable pause as Piccolo seemed to think for a long moment. Gohan looked down at his water again. "Six years." the answer came suddenly, causing the Saiyan to look up again. Six years.. that was a lot longer than he was hoping. "Six? That was just a year after the whole thing with Cell... Why so long? And why'd you do it in the first place, Piccolo-san? Y-you're a nice person! You shouldn't be killing people like this!" he replied, starting to get upset again. He just couldn't stand it. As far as he was concerned, there was no excuse for such a thing, especially from the man he'd looked up to for so long. Piccolo let out a sigh. "Calm down, Goha--""NO!!"
Gohan had suddenly rose to his feet and slammed his fists down against the table. He was now glaring at Piccolo, unable to contain his outrage any longer. "I will not calm down!! You've been killing innocent people for years without telling me! How the hell can I calm down?!" he roared. At that, Piccolo merely stared at him, his face it's normal expression. After a moment, however, he calmly rose to his feet and made his way over to stand next to the young Saiyan. Suddenly, his hand flew forward, grabbed the boy by the shoulder, and slammed his back into the wall. "I said calm the fuck down, dammit!" the Namekian roared, causing Gohan to freeze, staring wide eyed at his old friend. It was very rare for Piccolo to raise his voice at him, so he took it hard whenever it happened. Now even more so than usual. "P-Piccolo-san..." he managed to stammer out as Piccolo released his shoulder. He then turned his back to the boy, folding his arms across his chest.
"What makes you think I kill innocent people?" he asked finally. Gohan blinked. What was he talking about? Of course that man was innocent, wasn't he? He hadn't done anything as far as Gohan was concerned, anyway. After getting no verbal response, Piccolo continued. "I only kill people who kill others. That's my rule." he explained briefly, glancing back over his shoulder at the boy. Gohan blinked again. On the inside, he was relieved. He knew Piccolo couldn't be evil. That was impossible. And while he still didn't approve of his methods, he was glad he wasn't going around killing just anyone. But there was something he didn't get. "But... what about that man earlier? He didn't seem bad at all to me..."
"Quit the stupid act, Gohan." he sighed, turning to face the boy, his expression calm as ever. "He knew I was coming for him. You should be proof enough of that." he stated, referring to Gohan being called there to guard him. "Did he ever bother to tell you why he thought I was coming to kill him?" Gohan quickly shook his head back and forth like a little five year old. "Because he had been warned by someone, obviously. Warned that he'd done something so vile that he'd be hunted for sure. Do you understand?" Gohan nodded stupidly. He wanted so very much to believe Piccolo was still the good person he always thought he was that he was willing to believe anything without question. Piccolo noticed and rose a brow at him, but didn't call his eagerness to agree into question.
"Right then. Now, about this 'Great Saiyaman' business..." the Namekian started again, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and sticking one in his mouth. Gohan, however, interrupted before he could continue. "Oh yeah... the whole suspect thing... what am I supposed to do now?" he whined, sitting back down at the table like the scene a moment ago never occurred. Piccolo shook his head a bit after he lit his cigarette, staying where he stood. "You're going to abandon that fruity getup and stop this stupid super hero nonsense, got it?" It wasn't a question. It was more like an order. Gohan looked up at him. "Wh-what? But, Piccolo-san, I want to help people!" he retorted. "Well, you can't very well do that if you're suspected of murder, now can you?" came the immediate rebuttal. Seeing the sad look in Gohan's eyes, he then placed a reassuring hand on his student's shoulder. He may have only donned that costume recently, but Piccolo knew how the boy felt about it. He was proud of finally being recognized as a hero that helped people, and it was not something he could just abandon all at once. However, if he wanted to continue his life as it was now, that's exactly what he'd have to do. "Toss that costume in the gutter somewhere, kid. As of now, The Great Saiyaman is dead."