Chapter 7: Arrival on Namek

The three warriors decided that they needed to start training as soon as possible, so they headed for the gravity chamber. When they were in it, they decided to push up the gravity level until they found a level that was challenging. They started with twice the earth's normal gravity, and had no problem with that, then went to five, then ten, and at this point Krillin really began to feel the effect of the extra gravity, but since Gohan and Piccolo seemed to be fine, he didn't want to say anything. They then pushed the gravity up to fifteen times, and Piccolo decided that was high enough to start with. "We can't damage the ship, or we'll die, so we can't be indiscriminate in our training, so I think we should avoid ki blasts and really intense fights." explained Piccolo. They began doing their own training with various exercises. After about an hour of this, Piccolo said to Gohan "We don't know what we might be going up against, so we need to train your mind as well as your body." "How do we do that?" asked Gohan. Piccolo then explained that Gohan would first need to learn to meditate, and so they dropped the gravity down to times ten, and Piccolo began to instruct Gohan whilst Krillin continued his own training.

On the third day of the trip, Bulma announced that she had got the regeneration tanks working. With this safety net in place, the Z warriors upped the level of their training to twenty five times normal gravity. At the end of the first week, Krillin was exhausted due to working flat out to try and catch up with Piccolo and Gohan, and when he went into the gravity room while Gohan was training on his own at thirty five times normal gravity, he pushed himself too hard and ended up in a regeneration tank for a few hours.

The warriors all continued to push their training hard, and a week before they got to Namek, Gohan and Piccolo had both got to the point where they could handle one hundred times normal gravity, the maximum the gravity room could generate, and Krillin had got up to eighty five times normal gravity. Since they were going to get to Namek soon, they decided to start taking it easy, so that they would arrive rested and ready.

They had a bit of a rough landing on Namek, but they were all fine, and once Bulma had confirmed that the atmosphere was safe to breathe, they all got out of the spaceship. Gohan, Piccolo and Krillin cast their senses around the planet to see what they could detect. Gohan was the first to speak up "Vegeta's here. I can sense a lot of kis that feel like Piccolo's, and there are several other strong kis as well, and a couple of them feel like they're being suppressed." "You're right. We need to get to the dragonballs before Vegeta does. We should start out right away." Bulma spoke up and said "I think I should stay here, I want to make sure there's no damage to the ship and I'd just slow you down."

Piccolo said to Krillin and Gohan "I think we should split up. I'll go and see if I can find the leader off the Nameks on this planet, and you two should go and try to gather the dragonballs."With that, Gohan, and Krillin flew off to the nearest dragonball on the dragon radar, and Piccolo flew off to look for the leader of the Nameks. When Krillin and Gohan were flying towards the dragonball, they saw a small Namek being menaced by an evil looking creature. "Where's the dragonball you little brat?" the creature shouted. "I don't know." replied the Namek. The creature then threw a ki blast at the Namek, but was surprised to see Krillin appear in front of it and block it with ease. "What do you think you're doing trying to hurt innocent children?" growled Krillin. "I'm Zarbon." And with that the creature began to transform into his significantly more ugly – and powerful form. Still, Krillin wasn't scared and threw at destructo disc at Zarbon, slicing him in half, and then proceeded to obliterate him with a kamehameha wave.

"Thank you for saving me, I can see that you are very strong. My name is Dende." The young Namek said. "We're from earth, and we're looking for the dragonballs. We're travelling towards one at the moment, and our friend is looking for your leader. Once we have the dragonball, can you take us to your leader?" said Gohan. "Yes, but I will slow you down, I can't fly very fast." Dende replied and then they flew off towards the dragonball.

Meanwhile, Piccolo had encountered Vegeta, who was carrying a dragonball. Vegeta had seen Piccolo and decided to get revenge, and attacked Piccolo. Piccolo, being a lot stronger than he was back on earth, easily blocked all of Vegeta's attacks. "What? How is this possible, I was much, much stronger than you when we fought on Earth." Piccolo just smiled, and the launched a barrage of blow at Vegeta, who was unable to block them, and soon collapsed to the floor, battered and bruised, with multiple broken bones. Piccolo took the dragonball from Vegeta and continued with his search for the leader of the Nameks.

It was not long before Dodoria came across Vegeta's body, and decided to take him back to Frieza. Once Dodoria presented Vegeta to Frieza, Frieza said "Throw him in a regeneration tank, he may know something about the dragonballs. Once he's healed, we'll torture any information he has out of him and then kill him. Also, Zarbon hasn't reported back, I think he might be dead, so call in the Ginyu force."

Gohan and Krillin soon realized that Dende was struggling with flight, and would exhaust himself before long, so Gohan offered to carry Dende, who gratefully accepted, and they were then able to speed up. They were soon at the dragonball and they picked it up without incident. When they were flying towards the elder's dwelling, the Ginyu force appeared in front of them. "Hand over the dragonball" demanded captain Ginyu. "No, please get out of the way" replied Gohan. "Well, if that's the way you want to play this, then, Guldo, take the dragonball." The shortest member of the Ginyu force darted towards Krillin, who appeared to be frozen in place, but at the last second, Guldo was sent backwards by Gohan's fist. "What? How? I stopped time, how could you possibly have moved?" exclaimed Guldo. "It is an impressive and interesting technique you have there, but don't fool yourself. You're not strong enough to stop time, all your technique does it to overwhelm the mental defences of all living beings within the vicinity and makes them believe that time has been stopped. Unfortunately for you, my mental defences are far stronger than most, and you weren't able to overwhelm me. So now, maybe you'd like to settle this the traditional way?" replied Gohan. "Fine, my scouter shows your power level at 1000, I'm still way stronger than you" stated Guldo, and with that launched himself at Gohan, and passed through Gohan's after image. Gohan had appeared behind Guldo and knocked him out with a chop to the back of his neck.

Author's note:

Thanks to everyone who left reviews on the previous chapter, it is greatly appreciated. Not much action in this chapter, and it is a bit shorter than the last one, but I have at least got it up in a much more reasonable time. We're very much leading up to a lot more action in the next chapter. As before anonymous reviews are enabled, and all reviews are appreciated.

Power levels:

The power levels of Gohan, Krillin and Piccolo are all supressed in the following numbers.

Krillin vs. Zarbon:

Zarbon: 22000
Zarbon (transformed): 27000
Krillin: 36000

Piccolo vs. Vegeta:

Vegeta: 24000
Piccolo: 40000

Gohan vs. Guldo

Gohan: 1000
Gohan (briefly while dodging Guldo and knocking him out): 42000
Guldo: 12000