"Dad... Are you sure this is a good idea...?" Gohan stammers out to his parent, trying and failing to keep his trepidation from being too obvious.
He stands in one of the many, open training areas placed around Grand Kai's planet. A place where fighters from around time and space have trained individually or with others in heated sparring sessions to improve one another.
For the past few days since their arrival here, Gohan's partner for such activities was his father Goku, now standing to the side with his hands placed firmly on his belt. He's acting as a sort of referee for today's fight to make sure nothing particularly bad happens.
Just something particularly bad, given Gohan's opponent, he can't imagine this test going over smoothly for him. Not with Vegeta serving as his opponent.
The Saiyan Prince stands on the opposite end of the small arena in his usual stance. With crossed arms and a demeanor of haughtiness to him. Well, almost his usual look. A small, unnerving smirk graces the features of his face.
"What's wrong boy?" The Prince shouts from afar. "Don't have the stomach for combat unless you're a psychotic little lunatic'"
Kind of, Gohan admits to himself. All of his success' in battle thus far, which isn't saying much, are a result of rage induced strength increases. Not that he isn't a decent fighter without this ability, but he hardly feels half as confident in battle without it. Vegeta being his partner today diminishes his already meager opinion of himself.
For the life of him, the boy can't understand what his father is thinking with this.
"I know this is a little weird, Gohan," His father tells him warmly, trying his best to calm him down a bit. "But trust me, for the next part of your training, Vegeta's the perfect guy for the job."
"Assuming he can pull it off," The Prince interjects with indignation. "Which I seriously doubt."
Pull off what- Before he even finishes the thought, the answer pops into his head. "You're trying to make me into a Super Saiyan?" He trails off in disbelief.
"I was kind of hoping you wouldn't figure that out.." His father admits with an awkward laugh and rub of his neck.
"A foolish endeavor, as I've already told him," Vegeta shouts again with his smirk transforming into a full-on grin. "Your tainted blood has most certainly made it impossible for you to become one."
"Don't listen to him, Gohan," His father tries to reassure him. "Vegeta says a lot of things about what we I can or can't do. We've proven him wrong every time so far."
So far... Gohan worries.
"Plus," Goku continues. "I'm here to keep an eye on things. If Vegeta tries anything, I'll stop him."
Feeling a little better knowing that, Gohan manages a half-hearted smile and nod for his father. He's already proven his superiority to Vegeta in terms of strength, and with Instant Transmission, he can get Gohan out of any sticky situation in a split second.
"Alright guys, get ready to start," Goku announces, prompting both Gohan and Vegeta to enter their respective fighting stances. The former pushes his dominant leg forward while his other falls to an almost crouching position. Like his mentor, Gohan lets his fingers reach out into a claw-like manner.
Vegeta also spreads his legs evenly, placing his right arm to the side while his left reaches to his forehead. Closing half of his palm, he leaves the hand standing just in front of his face, covering half of it.
The two stare one another down, though Gohan's contribution to the little contest is more of him trying to keep a straight face on. Vegeta has no such problem, he's locked onto him like a beast ready to pounce at any moment.
Goku's eyes dart from one to the other, he slowly raises his right arm into the air and with a swift chopping motion brings it down.
"Begin!"
Instantaneously, the two fighters rush at one another, raising massive puffs of smoke from their white and blue aurae. Just ahead of locking fists, Gohan fires a simple pair of blasts into the ground, propelling himself just out of the reach of Vegeta's first punch.
Curling his small body into a ball, he spins in the air before unleashing his aura once more, rushing the Prince from behind with a kick aimed at the back of his skull. Vegeta blocks the kick and launches one of his own, missing thanks to the boy's use of his own smaller body. He darts around the blows, staying close to Vegeta and keeping him perpetually almost off balance.
A strategy which works for a short while until Vegeta unleashes his power outward with an explosion, putting some distance between himself and Gohan.
The boy gets his bearings just in time to intercept a volley of attacks sent his way by the smirking Saiyan. What little security he felt a moment ago quickly starts to drain away. Now, he falls back on his instincts, an effective enough strategy seeing as Vegeta's failed to land a single hit thus far.
"Impressive boy," Vegeta grunts between attacks. "Your father's right about this much, at least, you're almost a match for us like this. Almost."
A fist smashes into Gohan's nose, breaking his defense and leaving him open to a few more attacks of comparable speed and strength. He feels the blood rushing to his nostrils, along with his mouth and several scrapes quickly appearing all over his body from the Princes attacks.
As it usually goes when he finds himself backed into a corner, desperation quickly falls to the wayside in favor of anger. Gritting his teeth, Gohan lets his temper slip and soon, the barrage of blows becomes clearer with every passing moment.
What was once unseen becomes a blur, then what was once a blur, becomes clear images of clenched appendages coming to wreak havoc on his body. The boy catches one punch and promptly delivers one of his own, an uppercut to Vegeta's chin, drawing blood from the Saiyan.
Vegeta reels back for an instant too soon, his smirk fading as he finds himself in Gohan's previous position. Fueled by a bit of extra power coupled with his smaller body, Gohan manages to easily evade any strike Vegeta sends his way responds in kind with a strike of his own.
"It's a start but not good enough..." Gohan hears his father mutter nearby. "Vegeta! You're gonna have to take it up a notch!"
"Gladly!" The Prince responds before unleashing an animalistic roar, a burst of brilliant golden energy erupts from all over his body, covering it as he transforms into the warrior of Saiyan legend. His eyes turn blue and his black hair alters to fit the aura coursing through his body.
The rush of energy is enough to snap Gohan out of his small burst of anger, allowing Vegeta to finger flick him to the opposite end of the arena.
It hurts more than all of his previous blows combined and then some.
As he rubs his aching forehead, Gohan sees the smirk return to Vegeta's face as he wipes the blood away from his lip. "Now then," He cracks his knuckles. "Let's see who wins the bet!"
A kick to his chest sends Gohan kneeling onto the ground with a rush of blood spurting from his lips. The sound of Vegeta's chuckle irritates him enough to release another small increase, one that does little. For the Prince doesn't even bother blocking or avoiding his attacks, instead he stands there like an immovable object, letting Gohan bloody his knuckles against his body.
Another kick, this time to his chin, causes him to roll on the ground in pain in another fit of bloody coughing. The boy's headaches along with most of his body, he can barely keep his hands from shaking.
"Come on boy!" Vegeta taunts while slowly walking towards him. "Show me what you're made of so I can prove your clown of a father wrong!"
Is that how he got Vegeta to do this? Make some sick game out of this to make him agree to it? Gohan wonders with a renewed, stronger surge of rage quell inside of him. At Vegeta, and his dad.
"Gohan!" He hears his father yell. "Don't let go of your anger! Get mad! As mad as you can! That's the key to becoming a Super Saiyan!"
"Oh, I'm getting mad alright..." He whispers before blasting off towards Vegeta, the adrenaline pumping into his system allowing him to ignore his sustained injuries thus far.
This time, he manages to get Vegeta to intercept his attacks but none connect. He can tell even in such a rush that the Prince toys with him, the sick, playful spark in his eye speaks volumes about that.
Gohan doesn't let up, instead, he allows himself to cut loose as much as he can. The force of his blows increases enough to send shockwaves rippling through the air and ground. But none of this gets the intended effect, Vegeta still stands there, smirking.
Soon, the Prince tires of this and attacks once more, locking himself into a volley of punches and kicks of all kinds with the young, half-breed. Gohan manages to endure it initially, letting his increasing temper and energy to shrug off the blows.
But eventually, Vegeta regains dominance, for his increase is vast and fairly long last. Gohan's have always been fleeting and only somewhat impressive. The adrenaline wears down with each strike, for a bit, he managed to respond with every attack of Vegeta's with his own. Then one for every three, then five, and now? Ten.
He's sent flying through the air and into the ground, bloody and aching all over. His blue robes are in tatters and he can barely find the strength to even stand. He hasn't felt this tired and weak every since his last battle with Vegeta.
The boy hopes that this is enough. That this proves the Saiyan Prince right, he can't become a Super Saiyan. He'd gotten as mad as he could and it wasn't enough. Any second now, he expects his father to call it quits.
"That's it Vegeta!" Goku exclaims. "Now that he's desperate, he'll transform for sure! All he needs is one more push!"
"I hardly think so given his sorry state," Vegeta scoffs while raising an open palm towards the boy. "But have it your way, I'll indulge in this farce one last time."
Gohan tries to plead with his father but he finds himself too weak to speak. Too weak to even telepathically contact him, the dizziness and blood loss have taken their toll on him. He can barely even keep his eyes open enough to spot the ball of blue energy forming in Vegeta's palm.
"This is it brat!" Vegeta roars. "Whatever power you have left better come out now! You'll need it!"
Before he can even put a proper guard stance up or attempt to dodge, Vegeta unleashes the accumulated energy out in the form of a wave. A massive cascade of power barreling down towards the wounded boy with a soul-crushing size and force behind it.
Once more, he tries to plead with his father to stop this, knowing full well its useless for a multitude of reasons. The least of which is his inability to do so, the crux of the issue lies with the man himself: he wants this.
He knew this would happen, his own son beaten at the hands of a maniac like Vegeta, facing down death in one of the sorriest states of his life. A small, logical part of Gohan's plan tells him this is necessary, he needs the power of a Super Saiyan to help save the world.
But that little voice of reasons disappears gradually as he lets his frustrations at everyone flood his mind. He remembers his mother's pained expression and how terrible he felt when she told him to come here. He remembers the day his father passed away, never to return.
Now? His mother will die if he can't come back and save her. And his father now stands idly by as the insane architect of this plan. A plan that will most likely kill him.
Clenching his fists, Gohan feels a burst of power building up inside of him, stronger than anything he's ever felt but also strangely familiar. All the fatigue and battle damage thus far slip away as he finds himself rejuvenated in the storm of his raging mind. Replaced by something primal, and dangerous.
Deciding he has nothing left to lose, Gohan closes his eyes and lets that part of himself take over completely. Consequences be damned.
The explosion of raw power is almost defeaning to Vegeta, assaulting every one of his senses from sight, to sound to ki sensing as the golden pillar of light explodes into the air.
He tries to shield himself from the eruption, placing his hands in front of himself and powering up as much as he can to try and protect against it. He barely succeeds at it, as he slides in the opposite direction of the pillar, such is its force.
His attack is gone now, blown away by a far greater power than that of its creator. The power of another Super Saiyan. Were he not held back by the strength of the display, he'd chew the brat out for making a fool out of him once again. A recurring theme with himself and the members of Kakarot's clan.
The boy in question stands several feet away from him, his long black hair and eyes transformed into the distinct appearance of the legendary Super Saiyan. A massive aura, easily five times his own size pulsates all around him, raising cracks of rubble into the ground before exploding from discharges of energy.
That's not what unnerves the Saiyan Prince when he gets a better look at him, it's the boy's eyes. These weren't the eyes of that timid child weakened by half-breed emotions of politeness or even the mad stare from his tantrums.
This way the look of a man ready and perfectly willing to kill. Vegeta knows it well, he's practically made an art form of it.
For the first time while looking at him, despite his pride protesting at an even silent confirmation such as this, Vegeta feels genuinely afraid of him. A fear quickly justified when the boy brings him to his knees with a simple uppercut to the chest.
Blood explodes from his mouth, his hands instinctively going to the dented belly portion of his armor. Vegeta tries to breathe but finds the task almost as impossible as the first time he used the gravity machine on himself.
"Not laughing now, are you?"
A cold chill runs down his spine at the tone of his voice. Not his usual one or the angry tantrums of a child: but the cold edge of a true killer. He manages to raise his head to meet the boy's eyes once more and finds a faint smirk on his face, the same kind he gave Gohan not mere moments ago.
"Gohan! Stop!" Kakarot appears at the boy's side, also a Super Saiyan, likely for extra protection and reaches out to him. "You've done it! You're a-"
Whatever praise he was about to send Gohan's way is lost when his son brings him crashing into the ground with an elbow to his gut. Kakarot too bursts out into a fit of coughing blood, gasping desperately for air.
Gohan grabs him by the back of his belt. "I'll deal with you later," Is all he tells his father before tossing him gently into the air then uppercutting him in the ribcage. An instant later, his buried fist unleashes a wave of energy many times the sizes and strength of Vegeta's and blasts away directly up into the sky.
The boy watches the beam, and his parent, vanish off into the distance until they're but a small flicker in the sky.
"Now then," Gohan cracks his knuckles, smiling down at Vegeta with a grin that would make Freeza proud. "Did I win the bet?"
Honestly, did you think this WOULDN'T end with a massive ass-whooping for Vegeta? Clearly, you've not seen the guy's track record for fights. Or Gohan's when he flips shit.
Anywho, here's some power levels:
Goku: 4.4 million (Base), 220 million (Super Saiyan)
Vegeta: 4.2 million (Base), 210 million (Super Saiyan)
Gohan: 4 million (Base). 200 million (regular Super Saiyan), 280 million and rising (rage boost + SS)