Chapter 1- Find his own answer

Tai peered out into the space, witnessing the stars fly by as bright white and yellow streaks. He stood with his arms folded, lips pressed into a firm frown, whilst tapping impatiently at his elbow. The journey was taking longer he would have liked, and the stale air was starting to make his nose itch.

His annoyance didn't last for much longer, since he finally arrived at his destination. Earth, a planet he briefly called home, one which he was bafflingly willing to die for once. But now he glowered at the blue rock, seemingly unimpressed with its appearance.

"You must find clarity. Only then can you master all that I have to teach you."

Tai turned to the voice and maintained his indifference. "Yeah, yeah whatever," Tai scowled. "Your idea won't work. I won't find the answer on this stupid ball of dirt."

The man sighed, silently admitting defeat in the matter. Tai wasn't going to agree but he knew Tai would listen. "Well there's only one way to find out," the master tapped his staff and they continued their descent into Earth's atmosphere.

"Should I introduce myself to your friends?"

"No, they'll ask too many questions and I don't think explaining to them what you are will go down well."

"Fair enough, you know how to reach me if you need to. And remember the training exercises I showed you. You can do them to keep in shape and perform mantras to train your mental strength."

"Yes master," Tai bowed respectfully. He didn't always agree with his master, but he hasn't been wrong once in the last 7 years.

Tai's training has stifled in recent months, and it irked him considerably. He made great strides not only in strength but also ki control, although that wasn't optional. If he didn't learn to control it, he would have destroyed himself. And now his own will bertrayed. He can't proceed with the last stage of his training until he can strengthen his will and accept the path he has chosen.

But I have accepted it. It's what I've trained for and it's what I was destined to become. There isn't a doubt in my mind. However, my master doesn't see it

When Tai turned around, his master was gone, and he was alone. He had often been in this position, floating high above, presiding over a planet with authority while the cold bites at his skin. Instinctively found himself aiming his palm towards the earth, only to be stopped by the screams of a bird flying towards him.

"Ok, so what am I going to do now. Finding clarity is pretty vague. Going to West City is out of the question, same goes for Kame House, Paozu mountains and wherever Yamcha is. I could look for Tien but I never really got along with him. Piccolo and Dende can keep their mouths shut about me so I guess I should start there."

-X-

"There's no need to fear, the Great Saiyaman is here!" Gohan boomed, after punching through the wall, much to the chagrin of the bank robbers.

Gohan supressed a smile upon hearing radio covering the bank robbery he foiled before school started. He saw a group of police cars outside the bank, so naturally he descended from the clouds to check in. Once fully informed he took care of the situation.

While he was proud of his heroism, it was the reason he was late to school, again, and if he kept racking up late stamps his mother was going to kill him. Chi-Chi had just started softening up and he'd hate to potentially ruin things for Goten.

He walked into class bearing his now signature sheepish grin, mumbled an apology and marched to his seat beside Erasa.

"Let me guess, your alarm didn't work," Sharpener drawled.

"Leave him alone Sharpie," Erasa lightly smacked his arm.

Gohan ignored the pair, casually taking out his books. He focused on what the teacher was saying for a little bit before noticing something oddly concerning. He felt comfortable in class. He wasn't looking over his shoulder or sweating bullets, he could relax.

"Where's Videl," he immediately asks Erasa.

"She got a call about a bank robbery at the edge of the city."

Without realising it, Gohan's eyes widened. She's not gonna like this.

And right on queue Videl stormed into the classroom. She huffed an apology before stomping over to her seat and sitting down with a frustrated groan.

"What crawled up your butt?" Sharpener asked.

She glared at the blonde menacingly. Sharpener got the hint and kept his mouth shut. "I'll tell you guys later."

-X-

Piccolo was surprised to see me at first, but he quickly adjusted. People coming back to life wasn't shocking anymore, so he thought nothing of it. Dende on the other hand was far more curious about how I was still breathing. I avoided his questions artfully until he got the hint that it wasn't his business.

"Where's Kakarot," Tai asked. "I can't sense him anywhere on this planet, is he training with King Kai?"

Piccolo's lips pressed into a hard scowl, regarding Tai with some sorrow. "Goku was killed by Cell."

Something inside Tai's chest suddenly felt a jolt of pain, like he had been pierced by a death beam. "That's impossible. I was there when he blew up."

As Tai recalled during the Cell Games, Gohan wanted the android to suffer and refused to finish Cell off. Then it was too late, Cell became a giant bomb and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Tai acted quickly, using instant transmission to get Cell away from earth.

"A lot happened after you died. Cell used my cells to regenerate and came back to earth. In the end it came down to a beam struggle between Cell and Gohan. Gohan was badly injured from saving Vegeta. Goku grabbed Cell from behind and let Gohan kill him and Cell," the namekian explained.

"And Kakarot has already been wished back once so Shenron can't bring him back," Tai surmised. "So, Trunks came back to save Kakarot, and he still died in the end," he sighed. Some things are just meant to be I guess.

"Tai, I'm happy you're back, and I know you don't want to talk about what happened to you but… why come back now?" Dende inquired.

"I need to get stronger, and I need to answer a question," Tai replied evasively.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm here to train Dende," Tai snapped.

Piccolo observed Tai as he argued with Earth's guardian. The first thing he noticed was his attire. It wasn't like anything he had ever seen, and more ostentatious than he would normally expect from the boy. He wore black tights, with black namekian like shoes, a blue belt with a long black loincloth adorned with a yellow border as well as orange and white diamond shapes and a blue vest with a similar pattern. To top it off he wore a gold cuff bracelet on one hand and another just above the elbow of his other arm.

"I know you don't like the questions but you can't blame us for being curious. Just answer two things for me and we'll stop being nosy."

Dende glared at Piccolo, he wasn't a fan of being spoken for, but he still nodded in agreement. "Fine."

"Where did you get your get up? I think the old man came across someone wearing the same thing," he asked referencing his shared memories with Kami.

"My master gave it to me. I grew out of my old clothes, so he gave me these ones," Tai answered, careful not to reveal too much about his training or his master. He eyed Piccolo with suspicion, feeling that the namekian had a vague idea what Tai was hiding.

"Hmm, I guess you're not going to give me more than that are you," Piccolo smirked.

"And what's the 2nd."

"Are you bringing trouble with you?"

Tai involuntarily twitched his nose at the question. It may one day be this planet. But I need it for now so…

"No, at least not for now," Tai responded, he didn't need to look at them to know he had to elaborate on that one. "Trouble follows this planet. You never know when something could pop up."

Piccolo was satisfied with Tai's answers for now and didn't press any further. He even helped Tai with some meditation exercises while Dende returned to monitoring the Earth.

-X-

"Okay class today we'll be playing football," Mr Fields announced. A chorus of cheers erupted from the guys in the class. Football was very popular in Hercule City, especially after Orange Star won the world cup.

"Let's mix it up this time. Instead of Videl and Sharpener being captains, we'll have Erasa and Marker chose the teams."

"I chose Videl!" Erasa shouted quickly.

'Of course, she does' Videl thought as she took to her best friends' side. They usually ended up on the same team, especially when it came to sports that Erasa was bad at.

The raven-haired crime fighter turned her attention to Gohan. Sharpener told her that he was late as well, which only increased her suspicion. She was in a bad mood after rushing to the other side of the city to stop a bank robbery, only to find out that Saiyaman took care of everything.

Saiyaman annoyed her to no end. Whether it was his stupid dancing, his ridiculous poses, his over the top voice or his unexplainable super powers. Everything about him irked her very core. He rendered her unneeded and expendable, a feeling she refused to acknowledge. She was also worried about what would happen if he got bored being a hero and decided to go on a rampage.

The costumed nerd arrived the same week as Gohan, and he also arrived the same day that the Golden Fighter emerged. None of that was coincidental. Then there were the lies he told, like what he did as a kid, what his parents do, how he gets to school and even his age. Everything about him was a lie and Videl hated it.

"…. Hey I know he's cute but you're making it awkward." Erasa whispered, derailing Videl's train of thought.

It took her a moment to realise that she had zoned out staring at Gohan. Her cheeks were tinted a light shade of pink as she walked to her team's side of the pitch.

"Great we have Gohan…" Videl mumbled under her breath. Unbeknownst to her he heard her annoyed tone. "Have you read about this sport?" she asked.

Gohan shook his head. "Just great, go in goal. Just stop the ball from going into the goal." She instructed annoyedly before taking the centre forward position.

Gohan stood outside of penalty area with his arms folded and stared at the ground thoughtfully. I can't show how fast I really am otherwise people would freak out. Videl's suspected me being Saiyaman for a while now and if I stop every shot that comes my way she'll hound me even more. But if I throw this game then she'll kill me.

"Got you," Sharpener yelled before shooting straight from kick off.

"Gohan look out," Videl called out as the ball had already gone over Gohan's head.

Sharpener sent the half breed a sneer, finally triumphant over the nerd. He didn't like the fact that Erasa seemed to be forcing Gohan on their little friendship group and made little secret of it. He turned around already high fiving Marker.

Videl had cursed at the young saiyan soon after Sharpeners shot. She didn't want him on her team because she knew he would cost her the game. She hated losing, but she despised losing to Sharpener of all people.

She expected to see the scoreboard say 1-0 but it remained unchanged at 0-0. Mr Fields eyes popped out of his head looking at Gohan, as did Sharpeners entire team. The only person who didn't seem at all surprised by what happened was Erasa who wore a knowing smirk.

Gohan had ran to the goal line and simply caught the ball before it even reached the 6-yard box.

"H-he just covered 20 yards in half a second," Marker stuttered.

His awe and fear was shared by the majority of the class. "I need to get me some of them shoes," Mr Fields uttered.

-X-

Tai's master observed the Earth from his planet while preparing himself some food. He frowned at his what his student was doing. Tai needed to interact with the earthlings and find his own answer to the question his master hadn't asked him. Tai's scope is too narrow and painted by his past. He must figure out the question and answer for himself. Otherwise he will never truly accept what he's been taught.

A/N- Thanks for reading the first chapter.

This is my first DBZ story and one that's been knocking around my head for a while. I'll try and update it once a week.

For clarity's sake

- Tai is a saiyan and he's the same age as Gohan. I'll reveal his past gradually in later chapters but I'm guessing it's kinda obvious who his master is.

- Goku and Vegeta will make their appearance in later chapters

-This story won't cover much of the Buu saga (It'll make sense when you learn more about Tai) and it will end at around Battle of Gods

Please review

It's always good to know what people think or what improvements I can make.

I'm also looking for a beta in case anyone is interested.