Disclaimer: Don't own nothing, it all belongs to someone else who's making a lot of money out of it all.

Once again Styring calmly walked into the secret laboratory, holding his briefcase and appearing as if he was showing up at just another corporation meeting. In a way, it was. After all, he was going to meet up with his ally and companion, but it wasn't so different from a meeting with a big corporation.

"Good afternoon Doctor." He announced his presence as he placed his suitcase on a table, took off his coat and placed it in the wardrobe behind the table. Some distance in the room, far away from the room, the Doctor was standing, looking over several people strapped down on various tables surrounded by equipment.

"Mr. Behersk." He greeted back, not even turning around. Instead, the Doctor's eyes were focused on his work as his new assistants where running around, taking measurements of the test subjects. Styring walked over to the Doctor, joining him in overseeing the operation.

"Allow me to congratulate you, dear Doctor." Styring began as a pleased smile spread over his lips. "The operation was an utmost success. Both #1 and #2 performed even better then I had hoped. You have my deepest congratulations for your success."

"Of course they would." The Doctor stated, still not looking at his partner. "Their objective was an easy one, although I can not help but wonder what on earth you wish with these… people." The last word was spoken with obvious difficulty: the Doctor had not looked at humans as people for a long time and even now considered them unworthy of the title.

"They are of a rare kind, my good Doctor." Styring simply said, now starting to walk between the tables to examine the subjects. Lead by his curiosity for finding his partner's motives, the Doctor followed, walking right beside him.

"These… people… were all defeated; they are useless to you now."

"And that is where you are wrong, my dear Doctor. You are, of course, correct that they have been defeated. However, that has not made them useless in any way; they are still highly trained, well-disciplined soldiers with more experience and knowledge then most armies. They are without a doubt more skilled then my own men and have much knowledge that I desire to have."

"Perhaps, I will admit that they are on the pinnacle of what humans are capable of, although that still is not worthy of much praise. Humans are all so frail."

"Yes, we are." Styring admitted. "But personally, I find our frailness to be one of our defining assets. And, in these men, I'm sure you can remedy that error, can you not Doctor?"

"Of course I can." The Doctor was obviously insulted at even the slightest doubt in his skills. "But why on earth would you need me to work on so many subjects?"

"Because I have a job for them; a job that cannot be completed right now; but with your unmatched skill, I'm sure they will soon be more then up for the task."

"It will delay my work on the Series Three." The scientist announced. "I will focus the majority of my attention on them, they are far more important then these… tools of yours."

"Of course, you can simply let one of your assistants take control of this particular operation. However, Doctor, I would like you to check on their status at least once a day to ensure our success. Good day Doctor."

Without waiting for a reply, Styring turned around, gathered his things and left the Doctor to his work.

XxX

Gohan closed the door behind him as he walked into Bulma's office, taking a sip of his tea as he moved to the desk. It was actually the head for the department's office, meaning that it was Gohan's office, but Bulma always used it when she was working. Gohan didn't mind, because he preferred walking among the others, talking and sharing ideas with them. After all, that was his job; supporting creativity and going over plans to work out the flaws.

"Morning kid," Bulma said, looking bored behind her computer as she went over her emails. "Gimme a sec to finish this up," She turned back to her email, typing a reply to one of them, and quickly scanned over the others. Gohan walked over to the bookcase on the wall and pulled out a random book on quantum-physics. Bulma finished her emails five minutes later, by which time Gohan had made himself comfortable in an easy chair by the window.

"Ok, all done." she announced. At once Gohan closed the book and placed it on the table before standing up and sitting down in the chair opposite of Bulma's.

"Well Gohan, I'm glad to see you're not feeling nervous with being back at work." She joked as he took another sip of hot tea. "I've seen people freak out just because I asked them to come talk to me."

"Yeah, I can imagine that happening. But I've known you for a really long time now and I can tell if you want to talk about something bad or not when you call me over. And from what you said, it wasn't urgent or negative at all." Gohan admitted, looking a little sheepish. "And I actually feel pretty good being back at work, I didn't realize I missed it so much."

"Well, that's great." Bulma agreed before turning her computer's screen so they could both watch it. "Now, I've wanted to ask you a couple of things about your new project, the improved hover-bikes for the CCDD. I like the base idea, but it's going to need a lot of fine-tuning. Where are you at so far?"

"Well, I made the suggestion to the others the day before yesterday and we started brainstorming on it. I suggested that we use a force field generator combined with an anti-gravity machine to reduce almost all outer forces to zero, maximizing the power that we get from the engine."

"But those are two massive devices, not to mention that they drain an awful lot of power." Bulma mentioned, more thinking out loud then really criticizing Gohan.

"Yeah, that's what the others also said, but I thought that maybe, if we can combine the two machines into one - have the force field double as the anti-gravity machine – we might save a lot of space, making it useable."

"Even if that's possible, it still leaves the problem of high-power usage. You'd need almost three gallons of gas just for twenty kilometers. That's not going to be very efficient."

"Hmm… I hadn't thought of that yet." Gohan was now pacing the room, already lost in his ideas, "But to circumvent that, we could have the motorcycle itself create an additional amount of energy. But how on earth are we going to do that? No-one on my team – or even in the department – is specialized in that particular area."

"Did you go over the application that I mailed to you?" Bulma suddenly asked, an idea dawning on her. "About that new girl who was applying for a job in the department?"

"No, I haven't." Gohan admitted as he sat back down. "But why should I? When you gave me the position, you where very clear that I wouldn't have to do any kind of management, only help out with the ideas and the like. You would take on the actual management, deciding who to fire or hire."

"Doesn't mean I don't want your opinion," Bulma simply said as she drained her coffee cup. "You're going to be working with them, so you have to approve of whether or not they're going to work here."

"Well ok. I guess I can see some reason in that." Gohan said, standing up again to continue his pacing. "So, can you give me a brief explanation about her?"

"Sure thing; She's young, only in her twenties, a redhead, and she finished her university about three months ago. Her area of expertise was actually the economic usage of energy, she might have some good ideas for you to use."

"That's… pretty young." Gohan realized. He never really thought about it, but he was the youngest in the department by twelve years; the other employees where all in their thirties or higher. "I can't really say anything now, but if you can wait till this afternoon, I'll go over her record and see what I think about it. If you're right though, she might make a good addition to the department.

"My thoughts exactly, get someone else who's young in here to revolutionize the way our scientists think. Now, about your motorcycle…" once again, both super-geniuses bent over the screen, discussing various ideas with each other about how best to improve it.

XxX

- BAM –

- BAM-

The loud bangs sent all the birds in the area flying, but Sharpener knew better then to interrupt. Gohan had picked some logs and was now securing them in the ground, using his immense strength to punch the logs twelve feet deep with a single punch. He continued until there where four poles standing from the ground, each the same height and exactly six meters away from the rest. It formed a perfect square, and Sharpener had a good idea about what they where going to be doing.

"Ok, ready?" Gohan asked as he landed and walked over to Sharpener.

"I hope so. Just be careful not to kill me." The blond half-joked as he entered the makeshift boxing ring.

"Well, I've gotten a good feeling for your rhythm, speed, power and level of skill. I should be able to match you. But it might take some fine tuning though, so for now please be careful."

"Well, at least no-one else is around to see me getting my ass kicked. And tomorrow you'll be gone on a shopping spree all day, so I can at least recover a bit."

This much was certainly true; Gohan had taken every measure possible to prevent Videl and Erasa from finding the ring. It wasn't so much the fight itself, but rather for Gohan's fighting prowess. He wasn't certain that he could control his power properly right from the start.

"Ok, are you ready?" Gohan asked as he pulled on his gloves. Sharpener was already jumping and swinging his arms to warm up, his gloves already on.

"Yeah, I think I'm ready." Sharpener said, sanding still and assuming his stance.

"Well then, let's begin our first sparring match." Gohan announced, also assuming a boxing stance.

Before Sharpener had even had a chance to get his bearings, Gohan was already in front of him, his fist almost upon Sharpener's nose. The attack was too sudden and fast for Sharpener to do anything but take it. The impact send the blonde's head flying back, quickly followed by the rest of his body, as he flew out of the ring and straight into one of the large trees some five meters away from the clearing.

"Oops." Gohan lamely said as he saw the effect of his simple punch. "Guess that was a bit too much. Sharpener, are you ok?" He was at his friend's side in a second, turning him around so he at least sat the right side up, and made a quick check. Sharpener's eyes where still glassy, so he was knocked out for a few seconds, but the only other real injury that Gohan's punch had caused was a bruise just below Sharpener's eye and a small stream of blood flowing from his nose. Fortunately, there were no fractures or anything of the kind.

"Damn, Gohan, I thought you said you had it do – aargh." As he complained, Sharpener tried to stand up but immediately fell back with a yell of pain. "No, no, I'm ok; I just need a couple of minutes to get my bearings back. That punch really did a number on me."

"I'm sorry." Gohan said for what seemed like the millionth time. "I really didn't think I'd be moving that fast or hit that hard. I'll try to hold back more next time."

Of course, that was no easy task for the half-saiyan, since the movement just now had already been about a millionth of his real power, even without powering up to maximum.

"Don't worry about it, this isn't the first time I got my legs shocked from a punch you know. Make yourself useful and start working on some more of your fine-tuning while I recover." Sharpener eventually ordered, knowing he needed some rest and that Gohan wasn't helping by hover so close by.

Heeding his friend's words, Gohan returned to the makeshift ring and started swinging his own arms around, shadowing against opponents he couldn't see. He had to try very hard to keep the image of Sharpener as his opponent; any other opponent would spur him into movements far beyond those of a normal human and that would ruin the purpose of the training.

After a few minutes of deliberately slow breathing, Sharpener managed to push himself back up on his feet and announced that he was ready to continue.

"This time I won't attack yet, only move around so I can get adjusted to your speed, how's that?," Gohan asked as they stood in the centre of the ring.

"Ok, let's try that."

"Ready? BEGIN."

This time it was Sharpener who took the initiative, charging at Gohan and swinging a punch clear through the air where Gohan's head had been a mere second ago. Gohan appeared on the other side of the ring, looking somewhat sheepish.

"That was a little too fast I think." He mumbled. By now Sharpener had found him and charged forward again, his hands flying in the patterns they'd memorized in years of training.

Yet for all Sharpeners efforts, he couldn't once connect with Gohan. The raven-haired youth kept slowing down further after every dodge, but his reaction and movement were still so well-developed that the blond boxer never even got close. After almost twenty minutes of missing swings, Gohan had finally managed to find the right level of speed, no longer disappearing from Sharpener's sight with every move like he teleported; his speed was now sufficiently low that the boxer could actually corner his opponent.

When Gohan's back was placed against the corner, Sharpener repeated his barrage of punches, hoping to finally hit something now that Gohan could only move sideways. Nothing was further from the truth; even with simple switches of his bodyweight, Gohan could evade most punches, using his experience in fighting and much higher reaction time to read any and all punches Sharpener was going to throw. The few that he wasn't able to dodge at that speed, he parried with his gloves, still not allowing anything to hit him.

"Ok, that's enough." Gohan announced as Sharpener dropped to the floor in exhaustion. "I think I've got the speed down now, wouldn't you say?"

"Wha…" Sharpener panted, his breathing extremely heavy, "Yeah… sure… just… gimme… a few… minutes."

"Sure, take some time to get back your breath. In the meantime, I'll explain what we're going to be doing for the rest." At Sharpener's nod, despite his eyes still being cast to the sky as he lay fully stretched on the ground, he continued. "I've got the movement speed down now, so that won't be a problem. But we still have to work on my attack speed, attack power and how strong I should make my blocks. And since we still have about an hour and twenty minutes left, we'll be doing each of those for about twenty minutes each, using the remaining time to get back some energy. That should be enough for me to get it down."

On the floor, Sharpener simply nodded his head, still trying to catch his breathing.

Three minutes later, they stood in the ring again, Sharpener placing his hands in a tight cross-arm block, prepared for the onslaught that was sure to come.

However, Gohan proved himself far more careful this time around; instead of actually hitting Sharpener – and risking accidentally killing him – Gohan purposely missed all his punches, checking for Sharpener's reaction to them. The movement was, for Gohan's standards, slow enough to carefully observe Sharpener's movements and reaction to the punches. Whenever Sharpener made a small movement behind is block, sometimes as miniscule as a twitch of his eye, it showed that he had seen the punch coming. Using those small clues, Gohan continued to adjust his speed, slowing down all the time, until at last Sharpener's reaction where almost enough to dodge the punches.

"That's it!" Sharpener finally yelled, ducking underneath one punch and then sidestepping the follow-up short hook. "This is a speed I can react too, I can follow this."

"Good." Gohan confirmed, never relenting in his assault. "That'll do."

As they stopped to gain their breath again, since Sharpener had been forced to move around quite a bit during the spar, Gohan noticed that he too was covered in a fine layer of sweat.

"So far, so good." Gohan said as he drunk some water. "But now we're going to have to do the most dangerous part; matching my power to something you can handle."

"Yeah, any idea's how you're going to do that without killing me in the process?" Sharpener asked, only half joking.

"We'll go at it one punch a time and you'll have to tell me how to adjust." Gohan answered after a few seconds of thought.

"Assuming I'm still conscious enough to do so."

"Yeah, that too, I'll start with a punch about half as strong as the one I hit you with earlier. I know you'll survive it, if nothing else; and we can go from there."

So, a few minutes later they stood in the ring once again, Sharpener with his block up and Gohan in a standard boxing stance, his right tucked in at his side and his left to the front for quick jabbing.

"Ok, here I go. I'll start with jabs."

With that he let his left fly straight at Sharpener's block. The hit – light as it was supposed to be – still knocked Sharpener down to the ground, grabbing at his arms in pain; the punch had still been far stronger then anything a normal boxer could throw.

"Weaker!" Sharpener yelled as he gathered himself again. "Much weaker!"

The next jab Gohan sent had a similar effect, knocking Sharpener down, although it left him without the feeling of his arms nearly breaking. The third jab, significantly weakened and carefully executed, was brushed off by Sharpener's block, much to the surprise of both fighters.

"Ok, that was good, maybe a little harder. But only a little!" Sharpener hastily said as Gohan readied himself for another attack. The fourth jab pushed aside sharpener's block, but left the blond standing.

"Ok, it might be a bit strong for a jab, but it's nothing extraordinary."

"Ok then. Now on to the next punch, a straight." Gohan cheerfully said, happy with the rate of success.

"What?" Sharpener's voice and face were filled with fear, "I'm going to die…"

As they finally moved out of the forest almost an hour later, Sharpener showed that he had only barely been proven wrong; his entire body was pained and his arms and torso were filled with bruises. He had been so exhausted and pained that he could barely walk, instead having Gohan – to the blonde's great reluctance – carry him until they were just barely out of sight from the Son residence.

Gohan on the other hand looked perfectly fine; the only prove of any physical exhaustion where the few drops of sweat that where still gathered around his head. Even so, he faked an attempt at dragging his feet and slumping his shoulders – at Sharpener's orders – but a lifetime of training in good manners and appearance by his mother, along with his training and pride as a warrior, prevented this little act from being effective.

Gohan pushed open the door and placed Sharpener on the sofa before dropping down on it himself, a surprised Videl and Dumbstruck Erasa sitting across from them. They had just had a small lesson from Chichi in cooking – at Erasa's request – and were now taking it easy while sipping some tea.

"What the hell happened to you Sharpener?" Videl immediately asked when she saw the state Sharpener was in. "You look like you got beaten into oblivion by an entire gang."

"Yeah, you look awful. Those bruises will probably be black in the morning." Erasa said, already standing up and examining Sharpener closer.

"It's nothing." Sharpener's attempt at brushing them of was valiant, if useless. Neither Videl nor Erasa would let something like this slip past without further enquiry.

"Gohan, you tell us; what exactly happened to Sharpy?" Videl asked, also standing up and placing her hands on her hips for emphasis. Combined with the half-glare, half-worried look on her face, Gohan couldn't help but suddenly realize that she looked very… impressive… when so angered and worried. He couldn't – wouldn't – think of a better word to use to describe it.

"Like Sharpener said, it wasn't really anything big; today's training ended up making him a bit bruised…"

Over at the side Sharpener smiled as Gohan made his first attempt at practical lying that Sharpener had taught him not three days ago; don't tell the truth if you can't twist it.

"And what kind of training would that be?"

Too bad it didn't work on Videl, who was now deadest on finding out the truth.

"Ehm… you know…"

"Gohan!" The fire in Videl's eyes nearly tripled in intensity as he tried to dodge her question, making Videl go so far as to step forward to stand directly next to him, standing on tiptoes and still looking upward to glare at his face.

"Sparring." The answer left his mouth before Gohan had even realized it, since he was still too surprised by Videl's sudden closeness.

"Sparring?" Videl slowly repeated, stepping back and taking on a non-believing look. "You're telling me that you, Gohan, beat up the third ranked boxer of the nation like this, without even suffering an injury yourself?"

At this, Gohan didn't manage to make a reply, until Sharpener suddenly started a pained laugh; it was faked and just a second to late, making Videl question it.

"Of course not, Vi." Sharpener quickly said, glancing around the room for a split second before looking his eyes on hers. "It was more of a preparation for sparring, with Gohan having to get used to all the moves and the like, so I had to serve as his human boxing ball. The reason I'm this beat up is because he's got a lot more power behind his punches then either of us expected and it took him a while to get used to the movements. It's nothing really big."

Gohan eagerly nodded at this explanation, agreeing with Sharpener but not trusting his own words to add to the twisted truth, but Videl was interrupted by Chichi's call for dinner. And since there was no talking to Gohan when he was eating his dinner – if it could even be called eating and not inhaling it – the questions would have to wait for a later time. A time when Sharpener wouldn't be around…

And tomorrow, they would have plenty of time. After all, Sharpener wasn't going to come along with the shopping trip. And since they would leave immediately after breakfast, as Erasa was going to inform Gohan after dinner, there was no shortage of time. All she had to do, was distract Erasa long enough to get Gohan alone and force some answers out of him.

Videl walked to the dining table with a confident smile on her face again, already making plans on how to get Gohan alone the next day.

'Easy as pie.'

XxX

'What was I thinking?' Videl questioned herself as she followed Erasa around the mall. 'I should know better then to think Erasa would leave us alone on a shopping trip…'

As Erasa had said, they left immediately after breakfast, although Sharpener hadn't even woken up yet. At Chichi's orders, he had taken a sleeping pill last night so he could peacefully sleep through his injuries instead of waking up in pain in the middle of the night. By now Videl was starting to wish she was back at Chichi's house instead, interrogating Sharpener rather then trying to get Gohan alone.

Videl didn't mind shopping, it was in fact one of her favorite hobbies, but today's objective had been to get Gohan to talk to her about what happened to Sharpener; there was no way that Sharpy would allow himself to be beaten up so thoroughly, no matter what he said. But there was another problem as well; taking Gohan to a location where they could be alone was one thing, but making sure that Erasa wouldn't notice it was something completely different.

Should the bubbly blond notice Videl's attempts at getting the tall, dark-haired and not-unattractive Gohan alone, she would help out in any way she can, of that Videl had no doubts. But it would come at a high cost; Erasa would think that Videl liked Gohan or, even worse, that she might have a serious crush on the tall teen. And that was something Videl would avoid at all costs; Erasa would do everything in her power to ensure that Gohan and Videl would then get into embarrassing and awkward situations, just so they could 'realize their love and get enough smarts to act on it' as Erasa would say.

So as they strolled into yet another clothing store in the South City Mall – the biggest and best shopping centre in the entire country – Videl had almost abandoned her attempts to get Gohan alone. It was nearing the late afternoon anyway, so they wouldn't have much time left. And she still had plenty of opportunity to corner Gohan back at his place, without Erasa noticing.

With that thought in mind, she placed down her bags again and stepped aside just in time for Gohan to drop his load of bags. Erasa had not exaggerated when she said they would be buying a lot of clothes; already Gohan was loaded down with no less then six bags. 5 of which where stuffed to the brim with new clothing for him, obtained from no less then twenty different stores, and the last was full of clothes for the girls. Videl had not allowed Gohan to carry the remaining two bags – her pride demanding that she would not pose herself as a helpless little girl – while Erasa had no such problems.

Inside the shop, Erasa immediately pulled Gohan over to the t-shirt section by his sleeve.

"More shirts?" Gohan asked, a bit spooked. "But we already have so many of them… shouldn't we go and get a raincoat or something?"

"A raincoat?" Erasa asked; shocked and appalled at the suggestion. "You mean like a trench coat?"

Gohan carefully nodded, but was at once silenced by Erasa's dark look.

"Gohan Son." She started, a look of pure poison on her face, "Trench coats are only for people who try so hard to look cool and mysterious that they end up looking like complete idiots. If you want to look good, you'll wear a normal coat or jacket and take the rain like a man! And since we already bought a couple of jackets for you we're going to buy some more shirts. You need to have enough shirts to wear three different shirts a day for a week."

"Hey Erasa, I'm going to try this on." Videl announced from a different rack of the shop. She raised a blue top and disappeared into the corner of a shop to fit it after Erasa had given a satisfied nod. While Erasa had been lecturing Gohan about coats and jackets, she had simply been browsing for new shirts until she had found something that she could fit.

As Videl pulled off her shirt to try on her new top, she could still hear Erasa's continuing a lecture to Gohan about how clothes should all fit together instead of simply selecting a random selection of shirts and colors. Videl had been forced to sit through several lectures just like the one Gohan was suffering through at that moment.

Videl had just barely put her hands through the top's sleeves when suddenly everything went silent in the shop. Erasa let out a loud squeal, before she was obviously silenced by someone else. Other similar sounds came from the rest of the shop. Based on the sounds, Videl would estimate that around six people had been forcibly silenced. The most obvious solution that Videl could think off was a sudden robbery, with several captured people to serve as hostages and leverage.

But before Videl had even managed to pull her hands out of the shirt, an awfully familiar voice sounded from the outside. A voice she hadn't heard for almost two years.

"Videl Satan, I know you're in there. Get out now or your best friend, my ex girlfriend, will suffer for it."

And another chapter over and done, hope you liked it.

As always thanks to my beta Kushin-eX for going over this chapter.

And as always, please leave a review telling me what you think.