Chapter 7: The Arrival

The boy wasn't the same. He would never be the same. Pushed to his moral limits by the very man who he trusted so much. The boy inside of Gohan had died, and in its place was an empty shell of a child, who lived for only two purposes. Serve his master Piccolo, and destroy the one who sent him on his path of evil. The day that he had annihilated the village was the day that permanently marked Gohans travel into the path of darkness, one that wouldn't be stopped very easily. However, Gohan wasn't as much evil as he was obedient, he would jump on every word that Piccolo would tell him to do. If he told the boy to sit, he would sit. If he told the boy to kill a defenseless animal, he would do it, but Gohan would never harm another being unless he was ordered to do so, barring Goku, or if it tried to harm him first. Inside he was still the same caring child, but that was deep, deep down, in a place that seemed totally unreachable by anyone, which was a fact that Piccolo relished to its fullest. Never would he have to worry about the child rebelling against him, for now he had the perfect little soldier, one who would wait on him hand and foot, a complete tool of destruction to be used at his will. Through the months of training that had passed after Gohan's switch into the dark path, the boy had shown an amazing increase in power, not even complaining once about the injuries he sustained during the training, Piccolo knew that the boy had grown a great deal, however he was always just slightly behind his master.

Piccolo trained even harder than his student, spending day and night trying to perfect his technique, meditating to increase his mental capacity, training rigorously with Gohan to make himself stronger. He was absolutely sure that no one would be able to even lay a finger on him, nor would they be able to beat his new 'pet' as well. However, one thing still bothered him, and always lingered in the back of his mind. The damn child had made a permanent imprint on him, something that he had never let happen before. He cared for the child, even in his own, sick, twisted way, it was something he was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. He was the closest thing that he had to a son, but Piccolo refused to think of the boy in that way, instead trying to focus his energies on punishing the child to make him feel better for his own weak, caring feelings.

However, Gohans mind was at a constant battle with itself. Every time a thought would come up telling him that what he was doing was wrong, he would push it back and keep it there. How many countless innocents had he killed since that day? He couldn't keep track after about 200, which wasn't even half of the damage that Piccolo had ordered him to do. Terrorizing towns and villages had seemed to become a natural part of life for Gohan and his master, who did it at least once a week. All of the screaming woman and children had not even put a damper on the child's obedience, and all that the child would do was drown it out with the thought of Goku, and a rage would fill him that shook the very foundation of his soul. Goku had become his primary source of malice and hatred, as he now completely believed that Goku was responsible for everything that had been wrong for the past months, and why he was left alone in this world, with only his master to keep him from the total brink of insanity.

Piccolo was in the mountains, talking with his pupil on the day that the Saiyans would arrive, speaking about the very nature of evil. "Your soul" Piccolo explained "will forever be tainted, and you should never look back." Gohan nodded and continued to listen "the reason that I have become what I am today is because of the fact that I never forgot what made me hate humans in the first place." Gohan stared up at the man with a curious demeanor.

"Why do you hate them so much master?" Gohan asked, which was certainly an anomaly as of late, as the child would rarely speak.

"As you already know, humans are weak, they are pathetic, and they serve no purpose at all." He stated "they are falsely clever and will do anything to escape their own death." Piccolo crossed his arms. "They fear death to the very core, whereas people like you and I have ascended beyond that point, we are the higher beings in this world, death has no power over us, no one can even touch us." Gohan nodded and continued to listen "All these humans are idiotic, what purpose would it serve to help those fools when you get nothing in return?" At one point in time, the child may have chimed in and told Piccolo that it was the 'right thing to do.' However, under the current circumstances, all Gohan did was nod.

"I understand master." Gohan said emotionlessly, which made Piccolo smirk a bit.

"Why aren't you talkative today?" Piccolo jested, all Gohan did was stare at the ground. Even though Gohan had essentially become the perfect minion, Piccolo did think it was rather depressing that Gohan never showed any emotion. "It's been a year, Gohan." Piccolo said, looking over to the horizon. "The Saiyans will be here soon, but I think we've trained enough to destroy anyone who crosses us." Piccolo chuckled and shifted his gaze at Gohan, who looked over to where Piccolo was staring at earlier.

"Never underestimate your enemy, even you taught me that." Piccolo's eyes shot wide open. Had Gohan actually tried to teach the teacher? The master shot his gaze back at the horizon in anger.

"That may be true, but we've trained each and every single day for this moment." The boy looked back down at the ground.

"Master, I don't want you to die…" Gohan stated, tears forming in his eyes. Although this normally would have displeased Piccolo, the fact that Gohan was showing any form of emotion showed that he was recovering from the emotional scars that Piccolo had given him.

"Gohan…" Piccolo said softly, raising his hand, about to pat the child on the head, but he heard something in the distance, and then felt a great surge of power. "Gohan! They're here!" Piccolo shouted as he shot back at how much power he was feeling.

"Yeah, your right, I just felt them." Gohan said as he jumped to attention, arms at his sides. The Piccolo deduced that at the speed they were going, they would be getting to their location in about two minutes.

"Master, four more power levels in the distance." Gohan stated as Piccolo felt the energy as well.

"It's those damned friends of your father." Piccolo snarled as Gohan instinctively shot into his battle stance. "They'll get here about the same time as the Saiyans."

"Are they our enemies, master?" Gohan asked Piccolo, who shook his head.

"Not this time kid, but they will be after we finish off these Saiyans." Piccolo chuckled as everyone approached their location. The two of them waited for about a minute, and finally two men touched down in front of them. There was a small one and a large, bald one. Just by looking, both Piccolo and Gohan thought that the larger one would be the most powerful, but for some reason Piccolo could sense that the smaller one was holding back a lot of his energy.

"Hey Vegeta, it's a Namek, why is he here on earth?" The big bald one asked the smaller of the two Saiyans. Piccolo was confused as to what the two of them meant by "Namek."

"These Dragon Balls on earth make sense now Nappa, this Namek must have created them. He has to be the one who killed Raditz as well." Vegeta smirked at his revelation, while the big one started to smile.

"I suppose you two came here to try and revive your buddy." Piccolo said calmly, to which the small one replied:

"Ha! You mean the fool who was defeated by a lowly Namek like you? That would be a waste of a wish." He started laughing, though Piccolo chuckled along as well.

"I can't say that I'm not surprised" Piccolo smiled, which angered and confused the Saiyans "I figured that you two would be like this." Gohan watched on as his master exchanged words with the Saiyan. Soon, the rest of the Z fighters touched down, who included: Yamcha, Krillin, Tien and Chiaotzu.

"We got here as fast as we could." Tien said to Piccolo, who ignored him and kept his conversation with Vegeta going.

"So tell me Saiyan, what are these 'Nameks' you keep speaking of?" Piccolo asked, to which Vegeta chuckled at.

"You mean you really don't know what your own race is?" Piccolo's eyes widened as he heard of his true origins. All of his life he had wondered what he was, but he had given it up, and now, all of a sudden, it had been thrust upon him. Even if it was just a name, he knew that he now had a race, and that was just enough to shock him.

"Hello? Are we invisible or something?" Yamcha yelled over to the two, Piccolo only stared at the ground, contemplating his very existence.

"Nappa, I'm tired of those idiots standing over there, how many Saibamen do we have left?" Vegeta asked his friend, who lifted a bag out of his armor.

"Looks like we have about six Vegeta." The small one smirked.

"That's perfect, one for each of those fools." Vegeta said "Read their power levels Nappa." The large one clicked a button that made his scouter show many different symbols that the fighters couldn't understand. After the symbols stopped moving, the large Saiyan laughed.

"Their total combined power level is only 1000!" Vegeta smiled as Nappa chuckled along, however, Piccolo's head shot up with a sadistic smile.

"I don't think so! Wait while I show you just half of my power!" Everyone besides Gohan and the two Saiyans stood back as Piccolo began to power up. A large aura surrounded the Namekian as his power level jumped exponentially, wind surrounding him and blowing away everything near him.

"Nappa!" Vegeta yelled, the larger Saiyan nodded as he checked Piccolo's power.

"Woah, Vegeta! It's over 1500, and rising!" Vegeta smiled at this as Nappa read off more of the scouter "2000! 2500! 3200!" Finally, It stopped raising at 3700. "Wow… this Namekian is way stronger than we thought; he's almost as strong as me!" Vegeta nodded to his friend.

"Yes, he should give you a bit of a challenge shouldn't he?" Vegeta smiled. "No need for the Saibamen Nappa, this Namek would just kill them all with ease." Piccolo smiled at his adversaries.

"This isn't even my full power." He laughed, as he hadn't even taken off his weighted clothing yet. The other fighters were in awe at the unexpected power that Piccolo had in his grasp.

"Woah… How did Piccolo get so strong?" Krillin yelled to the other fighters, who just shrugged. Gohan stood silently still, not saying a word, or expressing any emotion.

"Should I fight him Vegeta?" Nappa asked his leader, who stared at the Namekian for a moment.

"Sure, just don't kill him; otherwise we could lose the Dragon Balls." Nappa nodded as he began preparation for a battle. Gohan had enough, and stepped in for a moment.

"If you want to hurt my master, you're going to have to go through me." Gohan spoke up, which surprised everyone in the area.

"Gohan! Are you nuts?" Krillin screamed to the child. 'You're a good kid.' Thought Piccolo as he smiled, powering down to let the spotlight be shown on Gohan.

"Aww, does the little kiddy want to play?" Nappa laughed at the child, who turned his head to face Piccolo. His master nodded, and Gohan nodded back. The child stepped forward, took off his weighted cape, threw it aside, and started to power up to a level no one could believe.

"Wow Vegeta! This kid is packing some serious power!" Nappa shouted, reading off the powers on his scouter "He just shot up from a 500 to 2000!" However Gohan didn't stop there, he kept on escalating. "3000? This scouter must be busted!" Nappa yelled, however the power kept rising. "Oh no… 4300, 4800…" Nappa's expression turned into one of sheer terror as he watched the child being surrounded by an intense aura that blew the weaker fighters onto their backs.

"Gohan is a monster!" Yamcha shouted while rooting for the child.

"You got that right!" Tien agreed, the other fighters laughed and cheered for Goku's son.

"Vegeta! Th-this isn't p-possible!" Nappa shrieked as he saw that Gohans power had risen to over 6000. "It just can't be!" Gohan stopped powering up and capped his power at 6500, which relieved Nappa immensely.

Vegeta only watched the child, annoyed that someone so small could have such a high power level. 'If this keeps up, both the child and the Namek may overwhelm me, I must keep my guard up.' Vegeta thought as he watched Gohan, who was obviously ready to battle. However, he finally noticed something that he should have from the beginning, Kakarot wasn't with them.

"Where is Kakarot?" Vegeta yelled over to the Namekian, who was confused at the moment.

"Who are you talking about? There's no one by that name on earth." Piccolo explained, after some thought he came to the conclusion that Goku was the one he was talking about. "Do you mean Raditz's brother?" He asked.

"Of course I do you idiot! Where is he?" An impatient Vegeta snarled at the warrior, who smiled.

"He's dead, I killed him." Everyone shot back at this, besides the Saiyans.

"So then I trust he will not be participating in this fight?" Piccolo laughed at the thought of Goku even needing to lift a finger against these weaklings.

"Not when I have my way with you fools." Piccolo said, angering the small Saiyan to the core.

"How dare you speak to me such a way you imbecile!" Nappa looked over to his friend, who was powering up a bit.

"Wait! Vegeta, let me fight first!" The bald one intervened. Vegeta calmed down quite a bit and smiled.

"Let's see if you can even last one minute against Nappa." Vegeta bragged as Nappa began powering up to his max, just above a power level of 4000.

"Wow, that guy is ripped!" Yamcha stated, seemingly admiring Nappa's rather large muscles. Piccolo scoffed at his comment, having already grown immensely annoyed at the humans voice. Although he might have made good fodder for the fight ahead, Piccolo decided to strike some fear into the hearts of the other humans and let them know that he was no friend of theirs.

"You wouldn't even make decent fodder." Piccolo smirked, turning to face the human as Yamcha donned a face of sheer confusion.

"What are you…" a thin beam of ki was sent straight through Yamcha's chest, penetrating his heart and killing him instantly. As his body slumped to the ground, the three remaining human fighters all watched in horror.

"Yamcha!" Krillin yelled, eyes gaping in terror at his friend's dead body. Piccolo turned around to face an awe struck Nappa, who looked right at the man Piccolo had murdered, however Vegeta just smiled.

'I like your style Namek' He thought as he looked over to find the boy Gohan was waiting patiently, as if to be waiting for an attack order.

"If any of you idiots tries to harm me in any way, you will end up just like Yamcha." The three of them huddled around their friend and cried for him, which made Piccolo scoff at their moronic behavior. "Gohan, you can attack whenever you want." Gohan nodded to Piccolo, and then looked directly into the eyes of a terrified, yet totally excited Nappa, who took off his Saiyan armor.

"Ok kid; let's see what you're made of!" Nappa yelled as Gohan started to sprawl an evil smile across his face. He was going to enjoy this.


How will Gohan fare against this brutish Saiyan? What will the death of Yamcha mean for the humans? Find out next time on Piccolo's Choice!


Written By: Saucemonkey