Chapter 2: Learning Curve
The month flew by too quickly for his taste, Gohan quickly settled into his new schedule. Wake up, eat, get beaten within an inch of his life by his uncle during their training matches, wake up in a healing tank, eat dinner, and go back to sleep. But with every passing week he noticed that he managed to last longer and longer in the fights against his uncle, he even managed to get in a few good hits every once in a while. Raditz had even taken the time to help him master how to fly and create more complex energy attacks than just an energy ball. And now it was finally the day they both had been preparing for, Vegeta and Nappa would be returning from another mission from the guy called Frieza, and no matter how much he pestered Raditz, his uncle refused to speak about their boss. And Gohan didn't know whether that was a good thing or not.
Gohan stood next to his uncle on the landing pad, he shifted nervously in preparation, constantly trying to straighten his armor or make sure his hair wasn't too messy or just trying to ignore the pounding sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. Their companions were set to arrive within the hour, and if he failed their test he wouldn't live long enough to see the next one. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder, he tensed up and looked over to his uncle and made eye contact with him, he noticed Raditz was glaring at him. The older man was clearly annoyed by his antics, swallowing the lump in his throat, Gohan took several deep breaths to try and calm down. "They're here."
Gohan's eyes snapped up to the sky above him, quickly scanning for any sign of them. He caught them out of the corner of his eye, two bright dots quickly growing in size and were coming right for them. Raditz let go of his shoulder and crossed his arms, he was slightly dissapointed, that was the closest thing to an affectionate touch he had experienced since he came here, unless Raditz punching him counted.
The platform shook beneath them as the pods landed in front of them, a few moments later the doors opened and the two saiyans crawled out. The duo stopped once they were a few feet away, Vegeta was the first to address them. "All right, let's get this over with. I'd rather not have to waste my time by walking all the way to a training room to see you fail, so just power up here and I can get on with my day, boy." Gohan gulped, he sucked in a deep breath and began to power up, and his white aura flared to life around him. But no matter how much he powered up, Vegeta kept the same blank look of boredom on his face. He gritted his teeth, was all of that tortuous training for nothing? He pushed those thoughts away, doubt and caution would be pointless at this point. Gohan let out a scream as he pushed his power up as far as it would go and as soon as he hit his limit the aura died around him.
He saw Vegeta reading out the information on his scouter, his heartbeat was nearly deafening at this point, "well, well, well, it seems you aren't quite as worthless as the rest of your pathetic family, kid. Going from 6 to 1100 in a month is not bad for low class scum." It felt like a weight was immediately lifted off his shoulders, "so… You aren't going to kill us?" Vegeta gave him a closed lip smile, "Don't get too hasty brat. For all I know, Raditz just beat you within an inch of your life every day and didn't show you anything useful. So here's the deal, I won't kill you or your pathetic excuse of an uncle if you can pass another little test I have for you. I'm going to test your skills myself, a fight between you and me, just a little one on one fight. If you can last, let's say… three minutes against me without getting knocked out or killed. I'll let you and your uncle off, scot-free, for wasting my time with you. But if you fail… Well, there won't be enough of you both left over to send back to that mud ball of a planet you came from. Deal?"
He balled up his fists, if he couldn't even come close to beating his uncle. How could he stand up to Vegeta? "I don't have a choice in this, do I?" The smile Vegeta gave him told him all he needed to know. It didn't take them long to make it to the biggest training room they could find. Nappa and Raditz made their way to the very back of the room in order to stay out of the way of the fight. He mentally prepared himself for his fight while Vegeta was setting up his timer on his scouter. He only had to last three minutes, how hard could that possibly be? Vegeta pressed one last button and the timer began to count down.
3:00
Vegeta flew towards him in a single dash, the gap instantly closed between them. He just barely managed to raise up his arms in time to block a punch aimed for his head and slid back several feet, he could feel his arms buckle under the hit. Without hesitating, he rushed back towards his opponent throwing a punch after punch but Vegeta managed to block or dodge each one easily. Switching tactics, Gohan attempted to sweep out his legs from under him, but Vegeta manage to jump out of the way. He charged up a ball of ki and launched it at Vegeta, the older saiyan easily deflected it and knocked it back at the ground. Throwing up a cloud of smoke in the process. Putting some distance between them, Gohan began charging up a beam of energy and concentrating it in the palms of his hands.
2:00
As soon as the smoke cloud cleared, he saw Vegeta hadn't moved from his position at all. Merely waiting for him with the same damn smug grin on his face. Growling, he launched his attack and a purple wave of light surged forward at his enemy. Vegeta slapped the beam like it was an annoying insect back at him, he barely had time to dodge it and it struck the wall behind him, causing a massive explosion. He didn't even see Vegeta move when he felt his knee digging into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Vegeta grabbed him by the skull and rammed him straight into the floor, the metal buckled and caved in when Gohan's body struck it. He was sure he felt several bones break from the hit alone, he tried to stand back up but Vegeta was already on top of him again, he was knocked into the air by one well placed kick and a torrent of blows pummeled him from every side and angle. He felt his ribs shattering just like how his armor was with every blow. With one more elbow to his broken back, Gohan was knocked back onto the floor again.
1:00
He felt Vegeta's boot on the back of his head, slowly applying more pressure with every second. "Is this the best you can do boy? Because you're boring me, kid. Even your worthless excuse of an uncle or even your failure of a father would've put up more of a fight than you have." Vegeta stomped down on his head, he felt his skull nearly shatter under the pressure of the hit. "D-don't talk about m-my daddy." His voice was faint and overwhelmed by pain but Vegeta did manage to hear it, grinding his foot into Gohan's skull he lent down, "what was that brat? I couldn't hear what you said over the sound of your skull collapsing in on itself." He swallowed a mouthful of blood and continued, "m-my daddy, wou-would kill you with-with-without breaking a sweat, y-ou s-sself entitled ass!" Vegeta laughed in his ear, "very funny kid. But you seem to forget that your precious father rolled over and played dead against Raditz. How do you think he could stand up to me?"
0:30
Vegeta grabbed him by his collar and hosted him up so they were eye level, Vegeta placed one hand over Gohan's stomach and began to power up one last ki blast. "You were a riot kiddo, but it seems you lost this little bet. But I'll tell you what, when I'm done with your uncle, I think I'll pay a visit to that dirtball you call home and send your daddy to you in hell." His eyes widened,"N-No! They have nothing to d-do with this!" Blue energy lit up Vegeta's face as the ki started to gather in his palm," oh don't worry brat, once I'm done with your pathetic excuse of a "daddy", maybe I'll pay a visit to your mother as well, see if she likes what a real saiyan has to offer her before I send her to you as well.
0:10
Gohan's vision turned red, he didn't care how much pain he was in. He didn't care how humiliated he felt after all that training and work he did to get stronger only to get picked apart like this by Vegeta, he didn't care about Raditz, or Cui, or even his family and his home at this point.
0:08
All he knew, all that he cared about, was that he Hated this man in front of him. He wanted to get revenge for every blow Vegeta landed on his body. He wanted to give back every ounce of pain and suffering that Vegeta gave him, tenfold. He wanted to feel Vegeta's blood on his hands, he wanted to see him cry and scream for mercy. He wanted to see him afraid.
0:06
He wanted Vegeta to die.
0:05
A wave of energy burst out from him, knocking him lose from Vegeta's grip and sending the older saiyan stumbling back, even with every bone in his body broken, his muscles crying out in pain, it did nothing but feed his hatred of the man in front of him. His aura flared to life once again around him.
0:03
He gathered every single ounce of strength that he had left, every bit of ki and life force in his broken body and gathered it in his right hand. Purple lightning sparked up and down his hand and arm,
0:02
"Hey Vegeta!" For the first time since the start of this battle, Vegeta's grin was gone, and was finally replaced by a look of concern and surprise.
0:01
Gohan raised his fist above his head, "keep your eye on the birdy!" A giant ball of purple ki surged forward from his outstretched hand, it nearly reached the ceiling of the room in height and just barely hovered above the floor as it flew in Vegeta's direction. Vegeta had no time to dodge, all he could do was try and block the blast. The ball detonated as soon as it made contact, and Gohan collapsed, depleted and unconscious.
0:00
Purple light flooded out of the training room a moment before the door, room, and hall erupted in one large explosion. Sending waves of smoke throughout the halls of the space station and alerting every soldier on the station that something had happened.
Over half of the training room was a melted and twisted metal husk, the area surrounding Vegeta was still burning and smoking. Burns and scorch marks covered the front half of his body, several sections of his armor had been blown off and he had several painful looking lacerations along his arms from where the attack had struck him. He was panting, the attack had damn near killed him. How did the half-breed manage to generate an attack this strong with such a low power level?! Nappa and Raditz slowly approached their injured boss, too afraid to address him first. "Nappa… How high was the kid's power level a moment ago?" The older saiyan replied, "11-1100 my prince." Vegeta turned to Raditz, "Raditz… Exactly how powerful was the kid when he tried to kill me with your attack?" Raditz swallowed the lump in his throat, "10,000, prince Vegeta." Vegeta finally lowered his arms, and continued to try and catch his breath, "interesting… Get the kid to a healing tank before he dies of internal bleeding." Raditz seemed surprise, "you mean you aren't going to kill us?"
"Kill you? This kid is the trump card I've been waiting for! If he is capable of generating a power level of 10,000 with what little training he got from you. Imagine how powerful he could become under the training of an elite saiyan. Your nephew is the silver bullet that will finally put that bastard Frieza in the grave he dug for himself when he destroyed my planet. So congratulations, you and the boy get to live for another day."
Once again Gohan woke up in the green murky water of the healing tank, he was sick of ending up here every day. One of the alien scientists that operated the medical facility was fiddling with the console to his pod. The alien looked like a cross between a cat and a lizard, with red feathers going down its back. The pod quickly drained and opened for him, he ripped off the face mask himself and climbed out of the tank. "You will find your companions in the next room, saiyan, they have left you a change of armor on the table." The alien doctor immediately walked off and began monitoring other patients, he walked over to the nearest table where a new set of black and green armor was waiting for him and his old green scouter.
After clothing himself he exited the infirmary and stepped into the side room just ahead of him. Inside the other three saiyans were waiting, Vegeta was fully healed after their fight. Raditz immediately kicked Nappa awake when he walked in and they both stood up straight. Gohan sent a glare at Vegeta even as he settled next to his uncle, but the prince didn't seem to care, "congratulations boy, you passed your second test of the day. So I've got good news for you, I won't be trying to kill you anymore." He grit his teeth, "and thats supposed to make up for what you did to me?" Vegeta chuckled, "If you're fishing for an apology then you are shit out of luck, kid. Get used to it, there is a lot more trouble coming your way in the next few days." Gohan narrowed his eyes, "what the hell are you talking about?"
Vegeta smiled, "you passed boot camp, brat. It's time for your first mission." He was confused, he knew everyone that worked for Frieza were soldiers of some fashion but he didn't exactly know their purpose, "what are you talking about, what mission?" Nappa chuckled, "Raditz, you seriously didn't even tell the kid what we do for a living?" His uncle shrugged, "I thought it would be for the best to wait and see if he made the mark and got acclimated to our lifestyle before throwing him into the deep end." The giant older man turned his attention back to Gohan, "sorry to disappoint you son, but we don't just train for the thrill of it. Frieza is in the business of buying and selling planets to the highest bidder. And sometimes he needs the former inhabitants of his property to be… exterminated." His eyes widened, "y-you can't mean..." Vegeta ended any doubts he had, "Frieza sends us in to wipe the planets he buys clean for the next buyer to move in. The more powerful the inhabitants, the more dangerous the job, means we get paid more for the biggest bounties. And it gives saiyans like us the chance to continue to get stronger by testing ourselves against the most powerful enemies." Gohan shook his head, "no! You can't seriously expect me to do this! What you're suggesting is insane! I don't care if you kill me or not. There is no way I would agree to do that!"
Vegeta shrugged, "sure, you could refuse. But even if we'd leave you here on your own, you wouldn't have your uncle to watch your back anymore. It wouldn't be more than a week before one of Frieza's men tear you apart, just for the fun of it. And besides, if you refuse to go along with this, we'll just kill you and go and destroy your home planet ourselves. Truth is kid, no matter whether you want to do it or not, you are coming with us." The defiance drained out of him, he unclenched his fists and just stared at the ground in despair. How could he justify letting his parents and the earth die just for not going with them on their mission? Besides, it wasn't like Vegeta really expected him to do the killing himself, did he? "Fine, I'll go on the mission with you." His voice was flat and dull, there was no point in resisting the inevitable anymore. "It's good that you finally learned your place, brat. We leave within the hour."
It didn't take long for them to leave the station this time, as soon as Vegeta and Nappa's pods were done refueling, they were ready to ship out on the three month long voyage to the planet Kwaark. The only upside was that he wouldn't have to share a pod with his uncle this time, he tried fiddling with the controls, but he learned very quickly that the coordinates were already pre established and couldn't be altered, and as he stared down at the battle station as his pod lifted up in the air. He had the sinking feeling that he may not be the same person by the time he came back. Did he really have it in him to kill an innocent person? Much less an entire planet of people? A sweet smelling gas filtered into the pod and he began to become drowsy, he only hoped his mom and dad could forgive him for what he was about to do.
Vegeta: 19,000
Nappa: 8,250
Raditz: 1,600
Gohan: 1,400
Gohan (Enraged): 10,000