Chapter 34: Training

The Demon King returned to his former cave home where he had told Gohan to stay the night before. The morning sun had risen long ago, and Gohan was already doing his daily meditations as Piccolo had taught him before they left for Namek. The Saibamen Trokar was in the midst of his own training, or what little he could do with no training partner anymore, since Skriatch hadn't been seen or heard from in a long while. As soon as Piccolo touched down at the mouth of the cave, Trokar stopped his midair kicks and ran over to Gohan, placing a hand on his back.

"Master returned." Trokar explained, moving forward slightly to see if Gohan's eyes had opened. The boy grunted and lowered his body to the ground, opening his eyes to see his master standing with his arms crossed one a few feet away.

"Hello, master." The boy greeted, holding back the malice in his voice. Ever since the day before he had tried to hold in all of his resentment of Piccolo for not allowing him to kill Goku when he had the chance, even after telling him that he could when Goku would come to the lookout. Now the bastard was still out there, and Gohan wanted nothing more than to wipe him off the face of the Earth.

Piccolo walked past Gohan as the boy stood up on his two feet, making his way towards the back of the cave where he reached towards his back and took grip of Kami's cane, dropping it on the ground in front of his and turning around.

"I'm whole, once more." Piccolo grinned and clenched his fists. The young half Saiyan turned around to meet eyes with his master "I'm stronger than I've ever been before, far stronger than Goku, far stronger than Cold and Frieza." He stopped a moment and laughed, closing his eyes and throwing his hands to his sides with his palms open, generating concentrated electricity in both palms while chillingly chuckling all the while. "Don't you see Gohan? I could kill them all in a minute if I wanted!" He released the electricity and sighed "but I can't, not yet, even after so long I must wait to slaughter them."

"Why should we wait?" Gohan asked, powering up into his super Saiyan state "We can handle anything that comes our way!" The boy's grin was unsettling to the Saibamen, who was more used to the timid boy he had grown to care about.

Piccolo smiled. This new development of the boy's aggressive tendencies were proving to be quite entertaining, and would no doubt serve his ends in the future. "I take no chances, Gohan."

"Let me kill Goku then, please Master!" Gohan shouted, his aura flaring up "I've waited so-" Gohan's cheek indented as Piccolo instantly teleported to the boy and swatted him away like a fly. Gohan crashed into the side of the cave and fell to the ground, lifting himself up slightly before Piccolo grabbed him by his hair and lifted him up so that he was eye level with his protégé.

"You cocky, arrogant fool." The evil Namekian whispered to Gohan, whose hair returned to its normal black hue. His eyes remained clenched shut, weary of another assault from his master. "I don't know the full extent of this transformation you've gained, but I'm still stronger than you." Piccolo dropped the boy and stepped back, watching as Gohan knelt down in both pain and fear. "What I say goes, and you are not to lay a finger on Goku, Tien, Yamcha, or anyone who could help us if what the one from the future says is correct. Understood?"

Gohan tilted his head up and down, although Piccolo couldn't see his facial expressions.

"Get up and look me in the eye, don't make me finish the job." The boy reluctantly began to rise to his feet, showing his battered face and bloodied nose. "I have a few things that need to be done, so stay here." He walked over to the mouth of the cave before stopping and turning around to say a few more words "all of the training that I've given you before will be absolutely nothing compared to what I have planned for you in the future." Piccolo grinned and turned back around "sleep, train, meditate, do whatever you need to do. These next three years will be the worst of your life." The Namekian raised his index and middle finger to his forehead and disappeared, leaving Gohan behind to try and figure out how to best spend his last moments of freedom.

The boy sulked over to where Trokar had made a makeshift bed for him the night before and crashed onto his side, tears pouring down his face. His Saibamen friend rushed to his side and placed his clawed hand on Gohan's shoulder, causing the boy to turn and lift himself up by his arm. The green alien gulped and looked down at the ground for a moment before he embraced Gohan in a hug.

Gohan's eyes widened as he felt the strangely warm embrace of the Saibamen, returning the hug with his free arm.

"Gohan… I miss you." Trokar said, his voice soft and sweet. "People hug in blue haired woman's house when they're sad, so I hug you, Gohan." Upon hearing his words, the half Saiyan laughed lightly and began to cry harder, clutching his friend tightly.

Friendship, it seemed, had not forsaken the boy.

"Look, I don't care if it is well written; I'm not reading your story about how you single handedly defeated Vegeta!" Korin shouted to the fat samurai, Yajirobe, as he paced around his own lookout.

"C'mon Korin, you know you want to read about how badass I am!" Yajirobe shouted, holding up a few pages he had painstakingly written after a few long months of boredom.

Korin looked over the side of his tower and growled, obviously more annoyed than anything "How can you be talking about that at a time like this?!" Korin shouted after turning to face Yajirobe, who stepped back with a look of concern on his face.

"Woah, sorry, I just wanted to show you my story, I didn't think you hated books." The samurai said.

"First of all, five pages isn't a book" Korin explained, looking back over the side of the tower "and second, Piccolo absorbed Kami last night and killed Mr. Popo. You're damned story is going to have to wait."

Yajirobe sighed and looked over the first page of his story again, then he lowered it and screamed as he witnessed Piccolo right in front of his face.

"Wh-what the hell!?" Yajirobe shouted as Piccolo snatched the give pages out of his hand, crumpling them and incinerating them with a small blast of energy. "Th-that was just mean!"

Piccolo smirked as Yajirobe ran and hid behind a pillar. Korin sighed and turned to face the one who had effectively eliminated two of his closest friends.

"Here to do me in too, Demon King?" Korin asked in the most sarcastic voice he could muster.

"You're not worth my time." Piccolo said, dumping the ashes of Yajirobe's story on the ground. "I'm here to make a deal with you, cat." Korin sighed and looked to the ground.

"Like I have a choice." The old cat said, looking back up to Piccolo as the Namekian looked around the tower.

"The beans, I want half of every single one of them that you create over the next three years." Piccolo ordered. "What you do with the others doesn't matter, have fatass over there eat them for all I care." He gestured towards the pillar that Yajirobe hid behind.

Korin turned back around and began to pace, the last thing he wanted to do was help this monster, but it seemed that now that he didn't have much of a choice. If Korin died, the senzu beans would never be able to be cultivated, and Goku and his friends would desperately need them in the battle ahead. His hands were tied, but at least Piccolo was only asking for half of them.

"Fine, I'll agree to your damn request." Korin grumbled as he ceased his pacing to face the Namekian.

"Excellent." Piccolo said, grinning as he looked over into the pot where Korin kept all of the senzu beans that had fully matured. "Have that pathetic weakling bring me a batch every three months." Piccolo gestured over towards Yajirobe once more, reaching his hand into the pot and grabbing three of the beans out of the pot, leaving two.

"I agreed to your deal; now get off of my tower." Korin ordered in distain.

"No need for such a tone with me, kitty" Piccolo said in a sarcastic tone, rushing right up to Korin and leaning his face in so that it was mere centimeters away from the anthropomorphic cat. Korin didn't move a single inch. Upon seeing his fearlessness, Piccolo backed away "fearless as always, Korin."

"I would tell you to go to hell, but I have a feeling you'd enjoy it there." The cat remarked as Piccolo lifted his fingers to his forehead.

He grinned and teleported away instantly.

After a few moments, Yajirobe poked his head out from behind the pillar and stared at his friend, still frozen in place.

"Wow, Korin, I thought for sure that he was gonna kill you." The samurai said, walking out from behind the pillar. "He didn't have to destroy my story though…"

"Oh shut up about your story!" Korin shouted.

A few weeks passed without incident, Gohan's training had begun, and Piccolo had meant every word he said to the boy. Harsh training every single day for eighteen hours, sometimes without a break. Piccolo would allow the boy only 5 or 6 hours of sleep, and after he woke up it was straight back to training after a quick breakfast. The Namekian took little notice of Trokar in this time, who had spent his time attempting to train on his own. However, it had proven ineffective as he truly did need a sparring partner in order to increase his skills. The Saibamen planned to one day go out and look for Skriatch, but feared that leaving Gohan alone with Piccolo would cause the boy too much stress and so he had decided to stay.

Gohan was adjusting well to the new training regiment, he wasn't able to keep up with Piccolo's level of power, but his master had lowered himself to Gohan's level so that he could hone his protégé's skills. The boy could take a rough beating, Piccolo had found that out on several occasions when he decided to use his full strength, but only once did he have to feed Gohan a senzu bean when he had nearly Gohan's neck. From then on he decided to not use as much force, which relieved both Gohan and Trokar.

Piccolo wasn't pleased, however. He had so much newfound power and wasn't able to use it with Gohan, whose power had risen significantly with the advent of the super Saiyan form, but not enough to pose a challenge to the Demon King. He wanted to fight someone worthy of his time, someone who could give him a thrill of a battle, but only once so that he could get it out of his system. While Gohan slept he divided his power through the multiform technique and battled against himself, but the drop in power was significant, and when he tried using the multiform against Gohan the boy was able to overpower the clone with ease.

However, they had made significant progress in just a few weeks, and Piccolo found some solace in that. He honed his techniques as often as he could; trying to find a way to utilize the instant transmission technique he had picked on Yardrat to its fullest extent.

On another part of the planet, the fighters living in the Capsule Corp. building were also making progress. Scar had yet to return despite his promise of only being gone for a week, but in the meantime Yamcha, Tien, Krillin and even Chiaotzu were all fighting well in high gravity, each of them taking turns to hone their skills in the chamber. Dr. Brief had promised that he would make a chamber for each fighter, and he had already made progress on the first one, but it had only been a short time and there were a lot of things on the good doctor's mind.

Vegeta had reluctantly started training with the Ginyu force; or rather Team Jeice as the red alien had begun calling it, after he had found the human's training methods to be too conservative. It was often the four of them against him, and he would usually end up easily defeating them unless Guldo got lucky with his time stopping powers. Though they had all been training together for a while, the animosity of the three members of Team Jeice that Vegeta had known in his stint in space had stayed, and Guldo, Cui and Jeice were still not happy that Vegeta was so much stronger than them when they had each been superior to him at one point.

Vegeta spent the time that he wasn't training attempting to figure out why it was that Kakarot and his brat of a son were able to achieve the legendary state of super Saiyan, while he himself could not. The prince of a race of proud warriors was pathetically weak compared to a low class warrior and his young child, which made him rather pathetic in his own eyes. The prince would often fly out into a deserted wasteland and release his frustration into a mountain side; everyone could tell when Vegeta was having a bad day if they heard entire mountains crumbling.

In his room one night, in a deep sleep, Vegeta dreamed of his battle with Kakarot. In his Oozaru state he had easily defeated both Goku and Piccolo, who were no match for the forms size and power. The Saiyan woke immediately from the dream when the fat samurai cut off his tail. He sat up on the bed, covering his face with his hands but quickly lowered them when he felt something strange around his waist. He threw the covers away to reveal that his tail had re-grown while he slept and wrapped itself around his waist, surprising him greatly as he had no idea if the tail would grow back or not.

The next morning he pondered to himself what the dream had meant.

'Having a tail has always been a trademark of a great warrior, yet Kakarot and his son are stronger than me and have no tail to speak of.' Vegeta thought as he washed himself in the shower. 'Perhaps their tail held them back…'

Vegeta turned the knobs to the shower to turn it off and stepped out, grabbing a towel and drying his hair. "That's preposterous." He said aloud, walking in front of the mirror and looking at himself "No self respecting Saiyan would be caught dead without their tail!" He looked behind and watched as his tail wrapped itself around his waist. 'Maybe I've been going about this the wrong way…' The prince thought, un curling his tail and holding it with his left hand 'maybe it's genetic…' He sighed and released his tail, placing both hands on the sink and looking down at the drain "Perhaps I was never meant to be a super Saiyan." He solemnly suggested to himself. He looked back up to the mirror and watched himself for a moment before his facial expression changed to that of a scowl. "If I'm not a super Saiyan, then I need to be better than a super Saiyan!"

Vegeta left the bathroom and equipped his Saiyan armor, not bothering to hide his tail at all. He walked over to the window and took a brief look outside, it was raining, but that didn't bother Vegeta. "I've got to find out when the next full moon is." He told himself "or else find a better way to get enough moonlight to transform." Truth be told, the Saiyan did have a way to create an artificial moon, but the technique was very tiring and he much preferred not to use it. 'That woman…' Vegeta pictured Bulma in his head 'she and that egghead scientist's father of hers might be able to come up with something.' He grunted and shook his head, not wanting to accept help from mere humans. "I'll be damned if I have to ask any of those fools for aide." Vegeta was about to open the door out of his room when his mind pictured Kakarot and his child in their super Saiyan states.

"Grrr…" Vegeta growled, crushing the doorknob in his hand. He stood in place for a moment before finally resigning. 'Fine, but only because the prince of all Saiyans should be stronger than a low class cur.'

Vegeta made his way down to where he usually trained with Jeice and his lackeys, not surprised that they hadn't shown up yet for their scheduled spar. The prince secretly enjoyed fighting them, but only because he of the fact that he hated Jeice, Cui and Guldo, and relished that he was able to beat them to a pulp every single day. He didn't care about the other member, she was a weakling and wasn't worth his time anyway.

After training alone for about an hour in intense gravity, Vegeta exited the room and looked around for a sign of them.

"Slackers." Vegeta scolded, remembering his plan to talk to Bulma and her father. As he was about to leave, he heard a familiar yet annoying voice calling to him from across the room.

"Where do you think you're going Vegeta?" The prince turned around and grimaced as he saw Cui walking towards him with Jeice, Guldo and Fiore right behind.

"I was waiting for someone worth fighting to show up, but I guess there isn't anyone in this building strong enough to take me." Vegeta scathingly remarked.

"Can it ya Saiyan bastard." Jeice shouted, looking down at Vegeta's waist and noticing his tail "is that your tail or are you just happy to see us?" The others chuckled at Jeice's joke, causing Vegeta to be angered slightly.

"If you really want it, I can demolish you all like I did yesterday." Vegeta boasted, grinning at the red alien.

"Bring it on, you just got lucky!" Jeice rebutted. The others in the group exchanged worried glances as Jeice led them into to gravity chamber, followed by Vegeta.

When they were all in the room the door slid shut, Jeice punched in some numbers on the pad in the middle of the room and set the gravity level to make the fight more difficult. Only Guldo and Fiore felt the shift in weight, as Jeice, Cui and Vegeta had trained enough that they could handle a higher level if they wanted to. The Saiyan stood opposite of the four fighters, only two of them seemed to really want to battle at this point.

"Ah…" Fiore began, lifting her hand up "I don't think I want to get beaten up again today." She remarked, looking over to a chuckling Vegeta and back to Jeice.

"Ahh, so you're the smart one of the group?" Vegeta claimed, crossing his arms as Fiore lowered her right one.

Jeice growled and stepped forward with his right leg "You're too cocky, you know that Vegeta?" He calmed down and looked over to Fiore with a scowl "and you, shut it, we're already one man short as it is." Fiore grumbled and reluctantly took up a fighting stance. Jeice returned his gaze to the prince and flipped his hair in front of his body. "Prepare yourself for…" He then flipped his hair behind his head, but before finishing his intro Vegeta rushed up and rammed his fist into Jeice's chin, sending him flying to the other side of the room and crashing against the wall and to the ground. The three other fighters backed away and looked at Vegeta in shock and confusion.

The prince looked around at them and shrugged "I got tired of listening to that idiot the first ten times."

"You fucker!" Jeice shouted, lifting himself from the ground and rushing at Vegeta, who dodged to the right of the red aliens punch and deflected Cui's kick with his right arm. Guldo jumped away from Vegeta and began to hold his breath, but Vegeta was already rushing away and managed to evade Guldo's area of effect.

The Saiyan threw a small ki attack at Guldo, who turned as quickly as he could and was blasted straight in the chest, sending him flying a few feet and falling on his back. Cui ran up to Vegeta and threw a right hook that was blocked by the Saiyans left arm, Jeice managed to catch Vegeta off guard and kick him in his right side, but that only caused Vegeta to fly a few feet away. Vegeta purposefully ducked into a ball and kicked the wall as soon as he neared it, rocketing himself towards Cui and ramming his shoulder into the purple aliens guarding forearms. Vegeta stopped himself midair as Cui was sent skidding backwards, Jeice tossed a few ki attacks Vegeta's way that were all easily deflected, but it allowed Guldo and Cui time to recover. Fiore was still in the exact same place she was before, either out of fear or out of spite for Jeice.

"Get moving!" The red alien shouted towards Fiore, who snapped to attention and nodded back. Vegeta threw a ball of ki at Jeice and rushed back at Cui, throwing a punch that Cui managed to narrowly dodge. Jeice blocked the ki attack and rushed towards Vegeta, as did Fiore. Vegeta twisted his body around midair and kicked Cui into the wall, blocking Fiore's kick with his arms as he landed back on his feet. Jeice came in quickly and threw a flurry of punches at the Saiyan which were all easily deflected. Cui joined with a flurry of punches as well, but Vegeta was still able to block everything that they threw at him.

Guldo merely trying to follow the battle when Fiore somehow landed a punch on Vegeta's back, but it did so little damage that Vegeta barely noticed. The Saiyan shouted and his aura flared up, creating a shockwave that blew the three closes fighters away from him. Guldo took advantage of this and began to hold his breath, holding Vegeta in place with his powers.

"Take this!" Jeice shouted, slamming his fist in Vegeta's face. The Saiyan didn't budge, more because of Guldo's powers than anything, and so Jeice, Fiore and Cui began wailing on Vegeta as hard as they could, trying to do as much damage as possible before Guldo ran out of breath.

A few seconds later Guldo gasped for air, releasing an enraged Vegeta who kicked Cui straight in the face, sending him into the wall and nearly breaking his back. Fiore backed away as Vegeta threw a quick punch at Jeice, whose arms couldn't move fast enough and Vegeta's fist rammed right into his chest. Jeice coughed out saliva and flew straight to the floor, bouncing up from the ground and then landing once more.

Vegeta turned to Fiore who merely backed up to the wall and sat down with her arms around her legs. "This is stupid, I don't even know why I signed up to be on this team!" She shouted, closing her eyes and digging her head into her arms. Vegeta scoffed and looked at Guldo, who merely shook his head and sighed.

"You win again, Vegeta." Guldo announced, causing the Saiyan to ease up on his stance.

"You're damn right I do." The Saiyan prince gloated as he lowered himself to the ground.

Jeice and cui both moaned in pain as they got up, Cui seemed to be more severely hurt, but underneath the red aliens armor there was a massive bruise on his chest.

"Now if you don't mind, I have some business to attend to." Vegeta turned around and grabbed his training towel, wiping some beads of sweat off of his face.

"What, you don't want to boast about beating us for half an hour again?" Cui panted out, taking a seat on one of the benches on the side of the room.

The Saiyan laughed and shook his head "as much as I'd love to point out how much better I am than you, there's something far more important I need to do." Vegeta took a swig out of his water bottle and opened the door to the gravity room.

"Whatever you say, asshole." Jeice commented as the door slid shut. Vegeta threw the towel in a bin that had been placed by the room for dirtied clothing or cloth of any sort and then started to walk towards the room where Bulma and her father spent their time working.

As he walked into the room he was met with quizzical glances from the scientists, none of whom really knew who he was. It was rather easy to pinpoint Bulma from the rest of the scientists by her bright blue hair, which Vegeta noted as a ridiculous color for anyone to have their hair be. When he reached her, she was at a table with blueprints spread across it, analyzing something very deeply when she noticed that someone was standing next to her. She looked over expecting Yamcha, but jumped at the sight of Vegeta, who she wasn't used to seeing.

"Wh-what do you want?" Bulma said in surprise and shock.

"Learn some manners, woman." Vegeta said, crossing his arms "I'm here because I…" He stopped himself for a moment and looked away towards the table "I need your help." He mumbled, barely audible.

Bulma's right brow raised in intrigue. What could the arrogant prince of all Saiyans want out of an inventor? "What do you need help with?" She asked, turning her body to face Vegeta. He sighed and looked back up at her, surprised to find that she was more attractive than he originally thought.

"I…" He began, grabbing his tail "this re-grew last night, and I need to find a way to access moonlight whenever I want to transform."

Bulma didn't quite understand at first, and so Vegeta began to explain to her how his Oozaru form worked, and how in order to train for the arrival of the androids he needed the power of the form to be able to stand a chance. Bulma followed him quite well, and after listening to his proposal she had already hatched a plan for an invention. She attempted to explain it to Vegeta, but Vegeta coarsely claimed that he didn't care what it was or how it worked, just that she build it for him as soon as possible. Quickly after he had grown bored of Bulma's techno babble he left, leaving the blue haired women rather flustered. He was blunt and to the point, though, and Bulma decided that she would work on his request as soon as she was finished with her latest project.

A few days later, Scar was finally back in West City after two weeks of personal errands, his clothes were covered in dirt but otherwise he seemed fine. Tien had noticed his aura early in the morning while Yamcha, Chiaotzu and Krillin were still asleep, so he exited the building and stood outside the entrance. The sun still had yet to rise as Scar landed a few meters away from Tien, unraveling a red scarf from his head and tucking it into his belt.

"You've been gone a while." Tien pointed out, crossing his arms. "Where were you?"

Scar shook his head, smiling as he closed his eyes.

"I'm only back for a few minutes and you're already on my case." He laughed a bit, confusing Tien slightly "you never change, do you Tien?" Scar walked forward past his old friend but stopped before entering the building. "Come on, I'll explain when you're all up."

Scar sat down at the breakfast table as Tien went back into his room to wake the others. Krillin, Yamcha and Chiaotzu all stumbled through the hallways and down to the dining hall where they sat near Scar, who was already chowing down on some ham.

"You guys want some, it's really good." Scar said with his mouth full of meat. The others didn't say a single word. Scar gulped down the food and placed his fork back down on the plate, looking up at the four people around him. "Alright, alright, I get it, you guys want to know what I've been up to." Krillin and Yamcha both nodded, with Tien and Chiaotzu merely staring on.

"You told us you'd be back in a week; we've been pretty excited about training with you." Krillin explained, looking down at the meat on Scar's plate and realizing that he actually was hungry.

"Fair enough." Scar sighed and wiped his mouth with a napkin before explaining. "Truth is, I've been trying to find Dr. Gero's lab, the one where he's creating the androids." The others looked around the table at one another and then back to Scar.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Yamcha asked his future self "We could have helped you!"

Scar shook his head. "No, he's a brilliant man despite being evil; I doubted I'd actually be able to find where he's hiding."

"Then why look in the first place?" Krillin wondered aloud, still staring at the ham on Scar's plate. After taking a single look at Krillin, the scarred man pushed his plate over to the short warrior.

"I had to try, there were a few places I suspected he might be, but I couldn't find a trace." Scar explained, leaning forward to place a spare fork on the plate "It doesn't matter, right now we need to be training."

"You're right," Tien agreed "right after breakfast we'll start."

Scar nodded and leaned back in his chair. "Oh." A thought popped into his mind "Has Goku been here recently?"

Yamcha and Tien shook their heads "He hasn't been here since you left." Yamcha noted.

"Ah, well, no matter."

As the months past, everyone's training went rather well. Scar was able to teach the human's how to better handle the Kaio-Ken technique, while Bulma was close to finishing Vegeta's device. Gohan was making relatively small progress, something that Piccolo was almost frustrated over. During the first two month, Gohan's power had risen to great heights, but in the months after he was no longer able to make such strides. No matter how hard they trained, no matter how long, Gohan would only seem to get slightly more powerful. Piccolo had thought that perhaps it was because of the new form Gohan had attained, that it was a sort of plateau that was highly difficult to proceed past, and it was infuriating to him that he couldn't find a way to break past it to allow his student to attain greater levels of strength.

Gohan had been pondering this as well, he would often converse with Trokar after his training sessions and try to get another opinion, but due to his limited intelligence, the Saibamen was usually of no help.

On a particularly bad day, just hours before the sun was to rise, Gohan tried explaining his feelings to the Saibamen.

"I want to get stronger, Trokar, I really do." Gohan admitted, sitting down on his makeshift bed and taking a bite out of an apple.

The Saibamen looked away from the mouth of the cave to Gohan, nodding his head.

"I keep trying, but Picco-" The boy stopped himself, shaking his head "-master… just doesn't understand." He took one last bite out of the apple and tossed the core to Trokar.

"Master want what's best." Trokar claimed, catching the core and putting it in horizontally to chew on.

"I used to think so, but now…" Gohan sighed and leaned back on the bed "I had him, Trokar." The Saibamen looked toward the ground and shook his head. "I could have killed him, it would have been over." Gohan's hands clenched together tightly "He said I could, he told me that it was ok!" the cave nearly started shaking when Gohan began to express his anger. Realizing it was getting quickly out of hand he relaxed.

Gohan lifted himself back up out of the bed and walked over to a wall of the cave, pressing his hand lightly against it.

"I don't know if I can hold it." Gohan claimed, brushing his hand down the side of the wall "Its crushing me, I need to finish it." The boy clenched his hand into a fist, his arm shaking in rage. "How am I suppose to wait three years to kill that bastard!" He shouted, pulling his arm back.

As his fist collided with the wall of the cave the entire mountain shook, he left a rather noticeable crater on the wall, but it was nothing he hadn't done before. There were many other indents from his less controlled moments. Trokar had learned to not worry when Gohan did this, as it usually calmed him down when he was feeling great rage.

But not this time, Gohan only felt angrier now.

"You don't know what it's like Trokar, to have a father that cast you aside." The boy looked towards the ground and shook his head "I could have been stronger if he would have trained me, I could have killed Raditz, and I could have made sure none of this would have happened!" He fell to his knees. Tears began to roll down his face as he looked back up at the hole he had made in the wall. "I hate him." Gohan said quietly.

A few moments of silence past.

"I hate him!" Gohan said, quite a bit louder than before. "Why was he so stupid? Why didn't he see what I could be?!" Gohan fell to the ground with his palms outstretched, shaking his head as tears flowed to the ground.

Trokar walked up behind him and placed his hand on the boy's back.

Gohan shrugged it off and lifted himself back up to his feet.

"I thought I was done with this, with the tears." He said, wiping the wetness off of his cheeks "I can't show Piccolo how strong I am by crying."

He didn't say a single word as he walked back towards his bed. Trokar tried to talk, but the words just wouldn't come out, and before long it was clear that it was best to just let Gohan sleep it off.

Just outside the cave, Piccolo was sitting cross legged in the sky while meditating, listening closely to Gohan's words. It bothered him how much the boy seemed to be losing control, and how his power over the child was slipping. It was evident that if Gohan were still more powerful that Piccolo at this point, he might have already gone off and killed Goku without the Namekians approval. What he was creating wasn't a minion anymore; Gohan's rage issues coupled with the aggressive tendencies of the super Saiyan form were turning him into something else completely.

He still had control now, because of his superior strength, but how long would that last? If he trained Gohan and the boy surpassed his plateau, then what would happen to his strength? Would it skyrocket past the point of his own power? Piccolo had no idea, but he wasn't about to give up training the kid. He was a great bargaining chip if he needed something from Goku, and it stopped Goku from attacking on Namek when their powers were more equal.

Perhaps it would be best to try and teach Gohan technique and skill rather than focusing on pure power. Piccolo could deal with skill, but if the boy somehow grew to be even more powerful than himself, then the Namekian told himself that he would be forced to put Gohan down by any means. The boy was simply too unstable, but that was the price Piccolo paid for kidnapping a four year old and twisting their mind. And while the boy was by no means stupid, his rage could take over much more easily now that it ever had, as when training with the Namekian, the child would often lose his temper in the super Saiyan state.

Piccolo was torn, he was losing the most promising student he would ever have, but he didn't know exactly how to bring him back to his side. On one hand, Gohan needed someone to be there for him, but Piccolo despised the idea of trying to be a father figure to his arch enemy's son. On the other hand, if he didn't do something soon, it was readily apparent that either Gohan would lose his mind, or that Gohan would do something incredibly stupid and force Piccolo to take action against him.

It all seemed like more trouble than it was worth to Piccolo, who had already come to the logical conclusion that without the boy in his life, many more things would become vastly simple. He wouldn't have to worry about Gohan trying to fight him if the Namekian went too far. He wouldn't have to worry about the child interfering with his plans because of his rage issues. Piccolo could train himself far more efficiently without having to worry about Gohan's well being and strength as well, but for some reason Piccolo kept the boy around. He couldn't bring himself to end the life of the child whom he had brought to power in the first place.

Such sentimental nonsense was frightening to Piccolo, he felt as if he was losing his edge and was growing softer because of the boys influence. His father, King Piccolo would be disappointed to see his son's lack of ruthless cunning in a situation such as this, or so the Namekian told himself so often. He wasn't his father, however, and Piccolo didn't do things because he thought that he could appease his deceased father in some way. It was a horrible feeling, however, going against his father's predetermined wishes for him. It was true that Piccolo was made for the sole purpose of killing Goku, but even after that he felt the urge to kill others and take over the planet, and It was far easier for him to accept these urges than to push them back, as he had for the five years after Goku had defeated him in the Worlds Martial Arts tournament so many years ago.

Piccolo sighed and released himself from his meditative state, there was far too much on his mind right now, and meditating seemed only to make it worse. He hadn't killed a single person since Mr. Popo, and an urge was suddenly sweeping over him to take an innocent life. Normally he would push back these feelings, but tonight he felt particularly sadistic, as he had wanted to kill Gohan after the boy had failed to keep his temper in check. The Demon King reassured himself that after he killed a single person, the urge would subside and he could think more clearly.

He lifted his index and middle finger to his head and transported away.

In a cold, dark house in East City…

A faint noise could be heard within the room, but no one heard. The entire house was quiet, its residence ignorant of the presence of the intruder.

The daughter of two hard working parents slept quietly in her bed, moving her head slightly in adjustment. She was in a deep slumber, her dreams filled with pleasant images and her mind completely at ease.

On the opposite side of the room, blood red eyes stared menacingly through the darkness, unbeknownst to the young child who was facing the opposite direction.

The eyes stared at the child for a few moments, darting around the room a few times in some kind of inspection. Moonlight shown through the window only served to show a single portion of the owner of the red eyes, the tips of his brown shoes, while the rest of his body was covered in shadow.

He crept forward to the child, trying not to wake her as he slowly walked.

The suspense was everything; the thrill of the kill was only accentuated by the anticipation.

As he moved closer, the light through the window showed more and more of his body.

He stopped immediately as the child turned around in her bed. She was now facing him, but that was no problem as long as he stayed quiet.

Once again he began walking slowly towards the bed, careful not to make a single noise.

He stopped a mere six inches away from the bed, a sadistic grin growing on his face.

'Your parents won't like this when they wake up.' Piccolo thought to himself, raising his clawed hand into the air.

"What!?" Piccolo shouted quietly, noticing a familiar power signature n the distance. The noise woke the girl up, who looked up at the man for a moment before realizing what was happening. Piccolo immediately transmitted back to his cave to wake Gohan, leaving the girl in a panic back in her home.

Who or what has Piccolo sensed on the horizon? Find out next time on Piccolo's Choice!

Wow, everyone, over 200 reviews! It's great to know that everyone is still enjoying the story, and I'm thankful for each and every one of you that has stuck with it for so long! I have to thank the entire DBM community, everyone is so supportive and they keep me wanting to write!

Written By: Saucemonkey