What's Vegeta doing with Gohan and Goku?
Piccolo wonders as he picks up the Saiyan's energies all at the same spot. Nothing odd for the father and son duo, they've spent most of their time here training together. Vegeta's inclusion is what both puzzles and worries him. A rush through the wind to his left catches his attention, prompting his body into action and narrowly allowing him to avoid most of the punch, only suffering a cut to his cheek.
"Don't get so easily distracted!" His master warns him while spinning in mid-air, using the momentum for a kick. Piccolo only narrowly manages to duck under it. Not that it matters, for the older Namekian re-adjusts to his pupil's altered position, firing on him with a volley of blasts. With a series of quick, focused jabs, Piccolo manages to disperse them all only to suffer a punch to the chest from his masters stretching arm.
From the clawed appendage currently ramming into his lungs, a ball of yellow energy forms and promptly blows up at point blank range. Landing with a loud crash, Piccolo leaps out of the crater, avoiding a new hailstorm of blasts sent his way.
Placing two of his fingers mere inches from his forehead, a yellow orb of electricity gathers before his eyes as he readies his best attack. Momentarily, the volley of fire seems less difficult for him to avoid. A nice bonus for focusing much of his energy into a singular point, raising his overall power for the duration of his charging period.
He knows it's an advantage which won't last long, though. Already, his master effortlessly adapts to his greater speed. With just a bit more, he could blast him a dozen times over.
Instead of waiting for such a thing to happen, Piccolo takes off into the sky and jabs his fingers in the direction of his fellow Namekian.
"Makankōsappō!" He roars the name of his ultimate move, unleashing a beam of spiraling, electric energy towards his master.
As he expected, the other Namekian responds by blocking the attack with an energy shield focusing on his front side. The Makankōsappō shatters like glass against it, getting a chuckle out of its target.
"Get ready, Piccolo!" His master warns him as his eyes begin to glow with yellow fire. "Remember, just like we've practiced!"
Piccolo nods, extending his open hands towards his master just as a beam of vast, yellow energy bursts from his eyes. Glaring at it and gritting his teeth, Piccolo puts all his concentration on the blast hurtling towards him. Primarily through his ability to sense ki.
During their more routine practices of this technique, Piccolo managed to perform quite well, quickly getting a feel for the blasts sent his way and promptly responding to them. But this was early on when the two merely stood in an open field with little in the way of physically taxing exercises to bog him down.
Now? The fatigue of combat has taken its toll on him, even in his dead body, the lengths of his master's assault thus far have left him worn out. In ideal conditions, a blast of this magnitude could easily be sensed. But now, with a worn down mind and body, he finds himself growing more and more uncertain of his ability to perform the move this time.
Still, his enemies won't simply stand perfectly still and go easy on him. He needs to learn how to do this as effortlessly as any other technique and move on to master others. He can't afford to fall behind the others when the Earth, and possibly the universe, needs them all at their absolute peak.
The blast singes his palms upon reaching him, the least of the damage to come should he fail to do what comes next. Slowly twisting his arms into a slow, circular motion, with great difficulty, the beam of energy obeys his command, twisting to his will while still trying to blow him to pieces.
Snarling in anger and feeling every fiber of his being strain under the pressure, Piccolo manages to force the beam of energy into a ball position. He almost finds himself mesmerized by the display and not for the first time.
The raw energy flows like water into a new form under his motions, appearing less like a cascade of wild energy sent to destroy him but something much more calming and possibly even beautiful.
But this is just the first part of the technique, the next one he must perform quickly or risk losing control. Pulling his arms back with the ball positioned in-between his palms, he prepares to fire the attack back at his master in a thrusting motion similar to the Kamehameha. Just as he prepares to do so, his concentration momentarily wanders to another battle happening off in the distance. Between Gohan and Vegeta, but not the one he expected when he first sensed them minutes earlier.
Next to Vegeta's blazing energy, empowered by his Super Saiyan form, he senses another, far more powerful and vicious one exploding right next to him. For a few moments, he cannot recognize it until he spots something familiar in the inferno of golden energy burning off in the distance.
G-Gohan?!
A painful burning feeling eats away at his palms, returning Piccolo's focus to the matter at hand only for him to realize his own folly. The ball contorts and expands wildly in his hands, completely from of his last thing Piccolo hears before the ball engulfs him in a blazing explosion of energy is the call of his master rushing in vain to save him.
Piccolo awakens with a moan, feeling the first true weight of fatigue since arriving to Grand Kai's planet. An impressive feat to achieve for someone who's usual necessities are all but gone here. To his surprise, he finds himself in a fairly comfy bed and a white blanket covering most of his body. Slowly and cautiously, he pulls the blanket off and climbs out of the bed, still feeling sore all over.
Damn that technique, He curses while trying to keep his balance. The door to his room creaks open, revealing another, familiar Namekian on the other side.
"Ah good! You're awake!" His master, the Super Namekian of legends, Lord Slug, steps inside with a toothy grin and a keg of water in hand. Piccolo met the warrior mere hours after arriving in the afterlife. King Kai was to thank for their introduction. Almost immediately, Piccolo felt a great power within the man, the sort of power he knows he needs to save the Earth and fight other threats from across the cosmos.
After a taxing sparring match and a bit of convincing from the Grand Elder, his much younger brother, Slug agreed to train him in the ancient ways of the Super Namekian's. Despite some early insistence from the old warrior, Piccolo chooses to call him master as a sign of respect. Something which surprises him even now, perhaps an aftereffect of his fusion with Nail giving him a respect for his elders?
"Catch," He tosses the keg to Piccolo who manages to catch it. "Good, good! Drink up! It'll help you regain your strength."
Piccolo wastes no time in doing so, drinking the entire contents of the cooling, fresh water and letting himself enjoy every second of it. It reminds him of the ice water from Yunzabit Heights.
"How long was I out for?" Piccolo inquires, wiping the remains of the water from his lips. It's hard to tell how much time passes exactly around here, it's always day time, something which doesn't bother the other Namekian's but certainly feels bizarre for him. Especially now that he essentially has no real reason to sleep anymore.
"Only half an hour," Master Slug sits down on a nearby chair, no doubt meant for visiting friends. "The fact you've recovered so quickly speaks volumes about your strength Piccolo. In only a short amount of time, you've improved considerably."
"The Grand Elder mentioned Nail has something to do with that," He materializes his cape and turban on, lessening the weights a bit until he gets better. "Apparently this new body's given me a vast amount of new potential to tap into. Still, I'll need more than raw power to master these techniques of yours."
"It'll be worth the trouble," Master Slug assures him. "For your first time using that technique in actual combat, and fatigued no less, you've performed incredibly well. If you hadn't gotten distracted, I think you could have fired it back at me."
Piccolo freezes as he remembers what precisely distracted him. "Gohan," He mutters, turning fully to face his master. "What's happened?"
Slug's grin fades, replaced with a face full of hesitation. He sighs. "I'll tell you so long as you don't do something stupid."
"I don't do stupid things," Piccolo tells him calmly.
"Very well," Slug crosses his arms, leaning back into the chair. "The boy, Gohan, managed to attain the power of a Super Saiyan as his father intended. However, he lost control of himself and nearly killed the haughty bastard of a Prince. Were it not for Pikkon's surprising intervention, he might have done quite a bit more damage."
He finds himself at a loss for words. Gohan, a Super Saiyan? Nearly killing Vegeta? Shaking his head slightly, he takes a few urging steps towards the Super Namekian. "Is he alright?"
"He's fine," Slug assures him. "He took quite a beating from the Prince and Pikkon's little jab to his neck but he's resting here in the hospital with you as we speak. The healer says he should be waking up any moment now."
Calming himself done a bit, Piccolo finds it easier to process the information. Remembering his master's words and combining them with a bit of common sense, however, makes his small comfort quickly vanish, replacing it with a slowly rising fury.
"That idiot," Piccolo mutters, clenching his fists and making a beeline for the door only for Slug to extend his hand, blocking his path.
"You said you don't do stupid things," Master Slug calmly reminds him though this only makes Piccolo angrier.
"He sent Vegeta to torture the boy," Piccolo replies matter of factly. "Goku's far from the smartest man to ever live, but if he knows one thing it's fighting. He knew exactly what would happen here and he didn't do anything about it. He couldn't even be asked to have you there to step in if Gohan went wild."
"Goku is a fighting genius, yes," Slug admits with a nod of his head but doesn't retract his arm. "But I suspect his poor understanding of other things may have hampered his judgment this time around."
Piccolo merely raises an eyebrow at him, earning another sigh from his master.
"I don't know your pupil particularly well but even from a few brief exchanges and just by looking at him, I can tell that he's not like the rest of us. Similar in some ways but not distinctly different in others."
"A fact I'm well aware of-" He tries to retort when he starts to understand where his master is going with this. "But Goku isn't..."
"Indeed," Slug nods again. "Saiyan's from what I know aren't exactly the most emotional of creatures. It takes a great deal to make them care about things other than fighting. They have no real concept of family and as a species born for combat, there's something distinctly... off about the way their brains are hardwired. To see a Saiyan exhibit something like tears or rage about the death of another an exceedingly rare sight."
Piccolo briefly remembers seeing Vegeta, the most prideful of his species and the embodiment of what they were, break down when his spirit was shattered against Freeza.
"But when it comes to Super Saiyan's, I suspect this is an advantage," Slug continues. "Because they aren't as emotionally developed as other species, the transformation doesn't affect them quite as profoundly. At best it makes them more reckless or just more inclined for fighting. But we both know Gohan isn't a regular Saiyan. He's in many ways emotionally and mentally more similar to humans.
"He understands things at a far greater level than his Saiyan forefathers. He has greater emotional range, a more developed psyche capable of seeing the world through a great many angles, positive and negatives ones. This is why he can do things Goku and Vegeta can't, how he can tap into massive reserves of power through anger well ahead of becoming a Super Saiyan."
"But when he became one, his better nature and understanding went berzerk?" Piccolo inquires.
"In a manner of speaking," Slug shrugs, finally retracting his arm. "I suspect his psyche underwent something of a merging of two sides. His Saiyan nature burst forth, unleashing a craving for battle and destruction he's probably never felt before, at least not so profoundly. But his better understanding didn't fade, not fully. Creating a mindset of a raging animal hellbent on tearing apart everything in his path but one who understands perfectly why and how he got put into this position. Goku himself even confirmed this for me when I asked him about it."
"What did he say?"
"He said Gohan accused him of wanting him to get killed," Slug says matter of factly. "That his father would've liked for him to die by Vegeta's hand. It would let Gohan train longer, harder and without needing to take breaks. It's a terrible thing for a child to think about his parent, but that's precisely what Super Saiyan did to the boy. It made him a hurricane of anger seeing the world around him as bleak and hostile in every possible way. In such a state of mind, the boy's concience likely faded away with only his rage giving him any sense of control over the things happening around him."
"And Goku couldn't predict that because he doesn't understand that," Piccolo concludes, feeling much less inclined to argue with the man and much more interested in helping to console the no doubt shaken boy.
"I suspect not," Master Slug leaves his chair. "He probably never will, but hopefully, this makes him more cautious about how intensely he wants to push Gohan in the future. In his own way, this may serve as a wake up call for him too."
I hope so, Piccolo thinks when he receives a strong pat on the back.
"Besides, you sent the boy to fight Vegeta when he invaded the Earth without much in the way of training, hardly the safest thing to put a five-year-old through now is it?"
Piccolo glares at him, for the first time, feeling genuine regret for getting himself involved with the Super Namekian. But his irritation only masks a silent acknowledgment of what he's saying. He did throw Gohan into a horrible situation because he had no other choice but to do it. He knows Goku was faced with a similar situation, to save the planet down the line, Gohan needed the power of a Super Saiyan at his fingertips.
"Come now," Slug pushes Piccolo again. "Let's go visit the boy! Judging by his ki, I'd say he's on the cusp of waking up."
Piccolo merely nods, opening the door for his master who nearly hits runs into another spirit. An older human with a small black cap resembling Chiaotzu's and a heavy mustache growing from his nostrils.
"Pardon me!" The man exclaims, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly with a chuckle. "I was just on my way to visit someone and I didn't see you there-"
The human suddenly stops upon seeing Piccolo, his previous awkwardness fading, replaced with a curious look in his eyes. "You wouldn't happen to be Piccolo by any chance?"
"I am," Piccolo confirms, eyeing the man with some suspicion as he gives him a friendly smile.
"Thought so! My grandson's spoken very highly of you! Way he talks about you, you'd think you were his cool uncle or something!" He laughs at his own description for the Namekian who begins to remember the man's face from a vague memory of the Son household. Specifically, an old picture he noticed around the place during his frequent visits.
"Oh, where are my manners!" The old man laughs again, extending his hand out to him. "I'm Gohan, the other Gohan's grandpa!"
You all knew these two had to meet sooner or later :P