Chapter 9- Kids

"Gohaaan!" Chi-Chi displayed her impressive lung capacity as she called for her son. He, Goten and Videl were in the forest, training together again. Personally, Chi-Chi had her doubts about the usefulness of spending time training that girl. She was related to that Satan man, after all…

Chi-Chi was not very good at sensing Ki, but she knew her sons better than anyone else. She felt Gohan approach at high speed, seeming to just appear in front of her a short time later. "Are you ok, Mum?"

"Yes, but Bulma is calling me on the communicator. Apparently Vegeta wants you and Goten to train in the gravity room with him and Trunks. He said that whatever weight training you're doing can't be as good as that room." She replied; glad to have an excuse to get rid of Videl. She was sure that girl had her eye on her son. Then again, her family did have money…

"Uh, ok, I guess we'll be over in about half an hour then. I'm still trying to explain to Videl about moving her centre of Ki." Gohan hadn't actually been doing any weight training in particular. He wondered if Vegeta would notice.

"I think you should stop wasting time training that girl, Gohan. We only have half a year, remember." She began to fret a little.

"I don't have much choice Mum, she said she'll reveal my secret identity if I don't."

"She what?" Chi-Chi demanded shortly, seeming to bristle with rage. "I'll deal with this! You just take Goten and go!" She would have rolled up her sleeves if she had any. She did, however, march out of the house in the direction of Goten's energy.

Gohan kept up well with his mother, and tried to placate her. "You don't have to worry about it; it should only take one more weekend for her to be ready to learn on her own."

"Oh I worry about it all right!" She exclaimed, waving her arms in the air. "You have more important things to be concerned with right now!"

When his mother confronted Videl, Gohan and Goten quietly left them to their bickering as various accusations flew forth. It mostly consisted of Videl becoming extremely embarrassed by Chi-Chi's accusations, but she was hardly a pushover, and continued to defend herself. Gohan decided to just leave them to it.


"What took you so long?" Just the greeting Gohan would expect from Vegeta.

"Hey Goten, I bet I can do more laps around the gravity room than you!" Trunks challenged, even though he was already sweating from being in there earlier.

Gohan let the boys go and just grimaced in response to Vegeta's question, "Oh you know, women…" He was too embarrassed to be any clearer.

To his surprise, Vegeta seemed to accept this as a viable excuse. "I see… What have you been doing over the past few days? Surely sparring the Namek is hardly a challenge for you anymore."

"Piccolo is," he started to defend, but realised it was a pointless nicety to someone like Vegeta. "Well, honestly, no. He makes me think, but it's pretty easy to just overpower him with a transformation… or two."

"That's what I thought." Vegeta nodded, following the boys into the chamber, who were still playfully arguing about who was better. "We'll work on technique, then finish up with a spar outside. Something tells me Bulma will refuse if I ask her to fix the room again this week."

Gohan was surprised by this kind of openness and usage of people's names, but knew better than to ask what was on his mind. If he didn't want to say anything, asking certainly wouldn't sway him.

"Right," Gohan agreed as he watched Vegeta activate the simulator. The next thing he knew, he was struggling to stay upright. His immediate instinct was to transform, but Vegeta spoke before he tried it.

"Don't change. If you train the base form, the others will improve. If you train in Super Saiyan form straight away, you'll just burn out your energy reserves. You already have control, at least in the first stage, so you should concentrate more on the base form this time." Gohan hadn't really noticed this phenomenon before. Suddenly he missed his father. He might not be educated or mean enough to train him properly, but he did miss this kind of advice about his Saiyan side.

"Dad, it's too much!" Trunks complained, struggling to keep himself from being pushed to the floor.

"Hey Trunks, just do that cool trick and it gets easier!" Goten exclaimed, transforming into a tiny Super Saiyan before their elders' bewildered eyes.

"Oh yeah!" Trunks laughed, also changing up. He ran after Goten, seeming to have forgotten the complaint he made already. "I'll win for sure now!"

"How long have you been able to do this?" Vegeta demanded as his son ran headlong into him. They didn't realise that other people could also move that fast. Goten tripped over Trunks' prone body, not noticing what had happened until it was too late.

"I dunno," he shrugged, looking to Trunks for confirmation, who also shrugged. "It just happened while we were playing one day."

Vegeta quickly wiped the shock off his face and became stern again, "Didn't you hear what I said just now? I'll turn the gravity down a bit, but you need to stay in your base forms!"

"Oh alright…" Trunks sighed, looking disappointed that the others weren't impressed anymore. Not that the boys' egos needed to be inflated any.

The gravity was turned down, to Gohan's private relief, and they all resumed with basics. It was incredibly harsh, but also effective, as Vegeta whacked any limbs that were out of place and occasionally threw a hit at them to make sure they weren't slacking off.


"No!" Vegeta exclaimed again, watching Gohan's crescent kicks as the boys took a break. "Don't swing it around stupidly on the way up, just go vertically upwards, then across. It's too slow and weak otherwise!"

Gohan grit his teeth and tried not to retort angrily. He had been doing the kick this way since he was five! How was he supposed to instantly break a habit that old?

'Vegeta used to be in an army, right? Of course he expects you to have the discipline to start doing it properly. Just pretend you're learning a different kind of kick.' Piccolo advised unexpectedly. 'I didn't want to interrupt, but my offspring has hatched and appears to be healthy. I might not try to kill you and run if you come later.'

'I'll be there.' He thought, before trying the kick again. Piccolo had been right, of course. Once he thought of this kick as something separate to his normal crescent kick, it was easier to take the advice on board. It really was faster and stronger this way, if only by an amount of time that was inconceivable to most.

Still, if whatever was coming this time had the potential to kill Piccolo, then every microsecond would count. He just wished there was something more he could do…

"That will do for today, I suppose." Vegeta interjected as Gohan finally performed the kick as desired. "Fifteen minutes to rest and rehydrate, then we'll head into the mountains to spar." He shut off the gravity and moved off into the kitchen, which was on the other side of the house.

"Hello boys!" Mrs Briefs chirped as the exhausted and ragged bunch entered her domain.

"Granma, I'm hungryyy…" Trunks replied, edging on a whine (to Vegeta's disapproval). Goten nodded fervently in agreement.

"Ok, here we are!" She smiled, watching their faces light up with delight as she placed a batch of cookies and a container of fruit salad in front of them.

Gohan bit into a strawberry as he waited for Vegeta to finish with the water bottle. Noticing this, he turned back to the fridge and threw a second one at Gohan. Due to the stuffy room causing them to sweat profusely during training, they completely drained both bottles before deciding to fly out.

After training, Vegeta sat down next to Gohan and began to indirectly account for the strange mood he'd been in all day. "You know, on planet Vegeta it would have been an absolute honour for you to be training with me, of all people. Now my closest living relatives are my half-caste son and some third class' brats."

Gohan wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to respond to that. "At least Frieza's tyranny is over now. And you have Bulma and Trunks… and me!" He joked.

"Yes, you know how to lift your Prince's spirits," Vegeta said with all the sarcasm he possessed, knowing how bad the Sons were with social skills. But Gohan was sure he saw a flash of a smirk first.

"Hey, you started it! Trying to kill us and all that," Gohan replied, remembering a time when he was terrified of Vegeta. Even his father had had trouble in that battle.

"Hmm, good times, good times…" He replied, wiping away a line of blood which appeared to have come from his nose sometime during their spar. He was simultaneously pleased and annoyed by Gohan's abilities. How was he able to pop his blood vessels with radiant Ki alone? That was before he transformed, too!

Vegeta sat up straighter and rubbed the stump that used to be his tail. Yes, he had a few reminders of that battle, despite his phenomenal self-healing powers.

"Remember that time I fooled you into thinking the Dragon Ball radar was a clock?" Gohan laughed and Vegeta's earlier grimace changed into a scowl.

"… No." He said after a lengthy pause.

Gohan laughed again before standing. "Well anyway, I need to get going. Thanks for today, I learnt a lot."

"Right, no more slacking off, I expect to see you again tomorrow. You can also come here after you've finished in the education institution, but I don't know why you still bother going." He answered as he stood up as well.

"I guess I'm hoping I'll be able to pick it up again where I left off, once we save the world." He answered shortly, before taking off in the direction of Piccolo's Ki.

Vegeta watched him leave, apparently in deep thought, before returning to his home.


'Gohan?' Piccolo asked as he felt a massive Ki approaching him. Even after all the time he'd spent training, he still had plenty of energy to burn.

'It's just me; I'm going to land next to you, ok?' He replied as he halted and hovered over the two Nameks.

'Yes, it is.'

Gohan dropped out of the sky and crouched next to Piccolo, who was once again sitting on the river's bank. His small child was wrapped in the material from his cape again, gripping the front of Piccolo's shirt as though his life depended upon it. Seeing the way he looked at Gohan, he probably thought it did.

Piccolo stroked his head and murmured something in what Gohan assumed was Namekian. The small one looked like an ordinary Namek as far as Gohan could tell. "Do you think it worked?"

"I would assume so. He keeps telling me he's hungry, anyway." Piccolo grumbled. He was the one who had to hunt for him at the moment. He peeled away the white material and turned the nude baby over. "Luckily it seems he also inherited your digestive system and rectal tract.

Gohan rested his chin on Piccolo's shoulder as he wrapped the child back up again. "Have you named him yet?" He asked, attempting to touch the baby's cheek. He, however, shrank away from his finger whenever it moved closer.

"Make a mental connection with him first. He doesn't believe me when I say you're harmless." Piccolo smirked before adding, "Well, I'm not sure. I was going to call him Piccolo as well."

"Won't that be kind of… confusing?" He asked as he lowered his mental barriers to this new Ki.

"Not for much longer." Piccolo answered grimly.

Gohan felt the oddly intelligent mind of the child explore their connection, and eventually open to him in return. Despite the language barrier, they were able to manage reasonable communication.

'Hi, I'm Gohan. Just because I have a lot of Ki, doesn't mean I'm gonna use it to hurt you!' He attempted, before receiving some doubt. But then the younger thought if his parent trusted this person, he could too. That had seemed to be authentic grief toward his father's imminent death, as well.

"I'll teach him to speak Common as soon as I can, and it's going to be a few days before he's old enough to start training properly." Piccolo turned his head away; their proximity was starting to make him uncomfortable.

Gohan tactfully leaned back again before continuing their conversation. "How does he know Namekian?"

"I had to grant him some of my memories. Namekian seemed obvious, no- necessary- but I didn't even think about Common." He sighed, feeling like a moron. Truthfully, he was exhausted. "As soon as he realises the whiny brat in my memory and you are the same person, I think he'll start trusting you more."

Gohan nodded thoughtfully. "It will really only take a week for him to be ready?"

"Yes, he's very smart. He has a lot of my memories from my various lives, and he seems to have inherited my brains, thankfully."

It took Gohan a second to realise what Piccolo was getting at, "Hey!"

"My point exactly…" He muttered, wondering if things would really be ok when he was forced to leave. "I did, however, leave out the parts about evil and world domination. Wouldn't want someone smart and strong to get any ideas now would we?"

Gohan looked up ruefully and noticed how low the sun was already. "I've got to head home now," He began, but Piccolo spoke over him.

"Wait, while you're here, can you teach him a bit about finding his own sustenance? Not only am I absolutely exhausted, but I detest watching him eat these creatures." His nose wrinkled at the thought.

"Sure!" Gohan smiled, reaching for the baby. The child was still tense, but he wasn't actively trying to escape.

Gohan decided to show him how to fish first, since it seemed to be mess and blood that Piccolo detested the most. At least, the more dominant parts of him detested carnage. He felt destruction was another matter entirely…

They walked downstream until Gohan saw the insect he was looking for. "See, the fish that live around here love eating these insects." He knelt near the river so that the boy could take a closer look.

An image of the insects buzzing around the nearby flowers popped up in Gohan's immediate thoughts. Did the insects live around those flowers?

"Huh, I didn't even think of that. Yes, it looks like they do. So you know how to find good fishing spots easily, now! You need to be fast and stealthy when it comes to these. Don't make too much noise or cast a shadow over the water and you should be fine."

He seemed to understand all of this. Piccolo hadn't been joking; the boy was bright and observant. With a little training and battle experience, he would be able to strategize with the best of them.

They returned to Piccolo a short time later, who was still a little tense. He'd been watching and listening to them the whole time. Apparently he was still edgy.

"He should be able to fish for himself now. But I really have to get going. I need to make sure both Mum and Videl are still breathing." He grimaced, hoping they hadn't become violent.


When he returned, much to his surprise, he saw Videl and Chi-Chi laughing and cooking together. "I can't believe he eats so much!" He heard Videl exclaim as he stood in the doorway.

"I know: it's ridiculous! But at least I'm never bored!" They both laughed.

Gohan stood in the doorway a little longer than usual, completely baffled by this transformation. What the hell had happened since he left?

"Is that you Gohan?" Chi-Chi called out a moment later, sticking her head around the corner so that she could see the entranceway properly.

"Yep, I'm back." He admitted somewhat hesitantly.

"Oh dear Videl, you can't put the eggs on yet or they'll be done before the pterodactyl! What kind of food do you usually make for yourself?" She said all at once, turning back to the kitchen.

Now he understood! His mother felt sorry, and somehow responsible, for her because she didn't have a mother of her own.

"Um, I don't cook very often. We have a chef…" He faintly heard Videl reply over some strange hissing noise.

"Has Goten come home yet?" He asked as his mother frantically tried to save the eggs, which he supposed were responsible for the hissing.

Videl saw him standing in the doorway and immediately became embarrassed that he had seen her make a mistake like that. Not to mention, he was in his Gi again…

"Yes dear he came back quite a while ago. What kept you?"

"Vegeta wanted to spar, and then I had to see Piccolo." He wasn't sure whether it would be appropriate to tell his mother about Piccolo's son yet, so he stopped at that.

Chi-Chi pursed her lips in disapproval, but she didn't say anything about Piccolo. "How did it go?"

Gohan sat at the table and rested his chin on his folded hands before replying. "Vegeta was as merciless as ever, but you know what my Ki is like." He tried to remain vague so that Videl wouldn't grasp exactly what they were talking about.

She looked relieved, "I'm glad to hear that. You need to be able to look after your little brother, but when he and Trunks are together, it seems they don't have a problem looking after themselves." She mused.

"I couldn't believe it Mum, they turned Super Saiyan today!" Gohan blurted, too excited to think about what Videl would make of it.

Videl frowned, "What's a Sup-?" She began to question, but Chi-Chi quickly saved them from having to answer.

"Quick, put the eggs back on now! See how the meat has changed colour?" She and Gohan smiled sheepishly at each other as Videl was successfully flustered and distracted. They would have to be more careful around her from now on.

Is it just me, or do these chapters always start either with Chi-Chi yelling, or Gohan waking up…? The next chapter is giving me a lot of trouble, so don't expect it until, say, early February. Thanks to all those who gave reviews and alerts!