Gohan sat on top of the spaceship he probably should have been training in, watching construction work going on in the city across from him. Musclebound men in jeans and tank tops, teaming up to lift the poles, concrete, and ledges as they worked on rebuilding the damage from Gohan's rampage. Large, yellow tractors and cranes handled some of the more strenuous tasks.

He had been doing this for the past several days now, watching them rebuild the skyscrapers after training sessions, wondering if he should join and help. With all the years that had passed by, he didn't remember much about his previous time on Earth, but he certainly remembered his mother complaining about having to clean up after people.

Given how…thorough the Saiyans were on the job, Gohan had never seen anything like this before – the actual impact his wide-scale violence had on survivors. Having to deal with the losses and push forward. It was almost an act of mercy to just finish the rest of them off.

God, why did he even think that way?

As he had done each of the previous days, Gohan groaned with disgust at himself and prepared to jump off the spaceship, until his body picked up a subtle electromagnetic vibration in the air. A split second later, a loud bang went off at the construction site. When Gohan looked around, he found a sparking construction truck engulfed in flames and dozens of workers rushing away from it. Attached to the truck was a crane holding an enormous strip of metal that dangled precariously over the crowd. The crane destabilized, threatening to drop the metal and crush the workers to death.

Without a second thought, Gohan flew to the scene. He was just in the nick of time, too, because the metal strip fell from the crane and knocked over a pole on the way down. Gohan caught it with his arms, and then phased in front of the pole and caught it in between his legs with no strain. Like he was handling a tiny baton, Gohan kicked the pole up so it could flip into a straight position, caught it back in his legs, and dug it into the ground, twisting it around to keep it stable. Gasps sang from the crowd of construction workers down below as Gohan floated to the ground and gently set the metal strip down. From behind, he heard a muffled scream; when he turned around, he found someone stuck inside the burning truck while a few selfless workers threw whatever they could find to break the door down.

Able to sense the impending explosion from the heat, Gohan zipped in front of the crowd and kicked the door down. He pulled the man out with one hand and fired a shockwave of Ki that dispersed the flames with the other. Once Gohan unceremoniously dropped the worker down, he was greeted to a rousing ovation.

"Holy shit, you saved all our asses!" yelled a tall, bald construction worker. "And you're just a kid!"

The worker with long hair whom Gohan saved from the truck stood up, coughing and dusting off his clothes. "You saved my life, kid. Shit, if you were awake when that big monkey turned up, we might not have even needed to be here!"

Gohan looked away, a shameful frown dampening his face.

"Wait, aren't you dressed like that Piccolo guy?" asked another worker. Gohan looked down at his worn-out purple uniform that he'd been using ever since the incident. He braced himself for hostility but was instead given a shrug. "Everybody has a change of heart, I guess."

Gohan glanced at the man with a curious eyebrow, surprised by the lack of condemnation. Whether it was a Frieza Force uniform, or his current Piccolo uniform, Gohan always bore clothes that designated himself as a threat; but these guys didn't see him that way.

"Piccolo goon or not, you're a hero," said another man, a lit cigarette in his mouth. "If there's, like, a video game or anything we can repay ya with, we'll find a way to do it."

Though he had no desire for rewards, Gohan looked at the cigarette hanging from the man's lips. That craving hit him. "You got another smoke?"

All of the men blinked at Gohan with bewildered stares. Some even laughed. The smoker thought it over and shrugged. "Normally I'd say you're a little young for that but shit, you got superpowers. Probably got super lungs, too." He dug out a pack from his pocket and passed a cigarette to Gohan. "Have at it!"

"Thanks," Gohan said as he caught it. The collective minds were blown even further when he summoned a flame from his palm to light it. And to add the astonishing icing to the cake, he flew away.

It was the right thing to do, Gohan said to himself as he puffed away at the cigarette. Nine years as a killer hadn't dulled his heroic impulse.

He landed in front of the dome's entrance and stepped inside, wandering down the halls as mused over his heroics. A re=are good use of his power, but nowhere near enough to reverse all of the destruction it had produced. Then again, there was a way to do just that – the reason he and Vegeta even fled to Earth: the Dragon Balls. Bulma had even brought it up.

And if anybody knew how to find them, it was that blue-haired genius. He sensed her Ki in her laboratory down the hall and headed there. In the lobby leading to the room, he saw a familiar hairless, noseless face sitting on the couch. He wore the same uniform as Goku. What was his name, again?

"Oh, Gohan. Nice to see ya," greeted the bald monk. "You training with Piccolo now or something?"

Gohan only acknowledged him with a grunt, his eyes on the closed door in the middle of the wall. Seeing the height-challenged fighter reminded him of how effortlessly Raditz had taken him out with a simple whip of his tail. In hindsight, he figured that must have been the moment where everyone realized that Raditz and Goku had a connection.

"Looking for Bulma?" he asked. "She's in the lab with my wife and brother-in-law."

Gohan hummed quizzically, clueless to the identities. The bald fighter slapped his shiny head to admonish himself. "Oh, of course you wouldn't know from me saying that. The twins that helped you guys against that purple creep."

"I see." On that subject, Gohan had a lot of questions about those two. When Goku ran through their story, one specific detail captured his attention: how they were kidnapped by a scientist who wanted to program them into literal killing machines that could satisfy a grudge.

"Curly, right?" Gohan asked.

The monk laughed out loud and whimpered. "Oh, jeez. It's Krillin. Close enough, though."

Krillin cringed as the thirteen-year-old boy indifferently blew a trail of smoke. "Whatever," Gohan said. "Do you know how those two got caught up in all that?"

"Eh, it's not my story to tell," Krillin said. "But I'm sure if you asked them, they'd have no problem answering."

Understandable, Gohan admitted. They stayed in silence for a few moments, until Krillin cleared his throat.

"So, um, Gohan-"

"You're sorry you were too weak to prevent my kidnapping, you're glad I'm back, and you can't even begin to imagine what I've been through," Gohan quickly rattled off with smoke emanating from his irritable scowl. "Does that cover it, or do I need to add that you won't judge me for killing people, too?"

"Broken record, huh?" Krillin snickered. "Well, I was just going to say I heard about the whole Ape rampage. Hell, I felt the power. But I won't hold that against you."

"Because I had no control over myself and my father's done it, too, so it's all A-okay." Another puff of smoke, that one more aggressive. "I've heard that enough already, too. And it's bullshit."

"Whelp. At least you're not doing it now, though. I trust you way more than the other Saiyan, at least."

On the subject of Vegeta, Gohan mulled over his Super Saiyan theory. He had spent the last few days training relentlessly with him, upping the gravity level and engaging in strenuous sparring sessions until they tired themselves out. Gohan felt more assured that his body might have been able to withstand the Great Ape's power, but that was a paltry concern. Would his mind withstand it?

The door slid open, and Bulma stepped out. She met Gohan with surprise. "Oh, hey kiddo."

Gohan flinched at how easily she'd taken to giving him an endearing nickname.

"You were just the kinda person I was looking for, actually. Would you be down to give me a hand in the lab?"

"I guess."

"There's the enthusiasm I'm looking for! Follow me." She glanced at Krillin. "They're both doing fine, by the way."

"If she glitches out and terminates you, let me know," Krillin quipped.

Laughing, Bulma turned around and led Gohan inside, shutting the door once they were both inside. The twins, Lapis and Lazuli, were laying down on two tables with scanners over their heads, clearly sedated. A few wires connected the scanners to Bulma's laptop.

"So you probably already know, but these two are cybernetically enhanced humans. A mad scientist named Dr. Gero who used to work for an army that tried to kill us a long time ago did it, but he didn't get very far until Piccolo killed him," Bulma explained. "Why Piccolo would kill a guy who could turn some regular 20-somethings into super-powered cyborgs instead of signing up is anybody's guess."

Bulma grabbed a blue sheet of paper amongst the dozens of disheveled sheets on her desk and handed it to Gohan. "This is Lapis' blueprint that we managed to get from his lab."

After grabbing it, Gohan probed the diagram. It was a scan of Lapis' body, labeled "Android 17." Within the outline were an assortment of mechanical parts with labels attached. Bulma's laptop screen displayed a similar scan but with far less parts – specifically in the brain area. If Gohan had to guess, this Dr. Gero was planning on wiping their minds clean; the less attachments, the easier to manipulate.

"The technology this guy was building up blows my friggin' mind." Bulma pointed her finger at a part in the center of "Android 17's" body on the diagram, also present in the live scan of Lapis' actual body. "This is the energy reactor that's the source of their power. It's incomplete, and I can't put its actual intended capabilities into more tangible terms."

Gohan looked at the numbers next to the labels, but they were in units that went over his head.

"Those scouters of yours read somebody's strength, right? I was trying to see if I can match the scouter's math to Gero's, but as much as it pains me to admit it, not even my galaxy brain can fully grasp this thing's mathematical framework."

Gohan rolled his eyes. He understood why Bulma and Vegeta butted heads – their subtle egomaniacal tendencies were practically identical. But he focused more on her dilemma.

"So you want me to translate the scouter's math to the reactor's math?" Gohan asked.

"Correctamundo!" Bulma headed to her laptop and clicked out of the twins' scans to a black window filled with white numbers. She pointed to the red scouter hooked up to the laptop. "See if you can make sense of everything and plug in the code."

A simple matter; Gohan had fiddled with numerous scouters over the years. He stepped to the laptop and scanned over the line of code, spending the next few minutes typing away and crunching the figures in his head. When he finished and hit enter, the scouter gave its usual beep and began scanning the numbers from the twins' energy reactors.

"Says they're at 15,000, now," Gohan said.

"Ooh! That's a big number! That's awesome, right?"

"I was at 15,000 when I was eight, so not really."

Bulma deflated. "Well, shit. But either way, you and Vegeta would've been coming to a vacant planet if they'd been successfully brainwashed when Piccolo woke them up. Gero was going to wipe their minds of any thought other than destruction and killing Goku. His computer had records of your address and everything."

"Seriously?" Gohan's fingers twitched restlessly at the thought. But why? The man was dead, his deprogramming obviously hadn't occurred, and his father was fine.

Maybe it wasn't just the protective instinct of his family. Maybe it was the way Bulma's words managed to circle back to himself. Mindless killing machines, just like Gohan's true self.

"I can't believe I'm saying it, but thank God for Piccolo – oh wait, God sort of is Piccolo." Bulma laughed, though Gohan didn't quite grasp why. "Now, let's see how strong these guys would've been if Gero completed his work on their reactor."

Gohan translated more of the numbers and hit enter. When the scouter started scanning, it went on for considerably longer than the first calculation. Curious, Gohan looked at the red lens; every passing number made his eyes grow wider.

"What the fuck…?"

By the time the numbers crossed the seven-figure threshold, Gohan could smell smoke coming from the scouter. He jammed the red button to shut it off before one of its infamous overclocking combustions. Frantically, he looked back and forth at the twins and scouter, completely baffled by the extent of Gero's plans. With no idea of how to contain his surprise, he removed the cigarette from his mouth and held it in his fingers.

"What did it say before you shut it off?" Bulma asked.

"Their power's supposed to be at least a million," Gohan replied, his voice hoarse. "But how…?"

"A million? Is Frieza's that strong?"

"Nobody ever knew his actual power level, but rumor from a few older people was around 500,000." Saying it out loud only drove the insanity of Gero's technology even further into his brain – a scientist on Earth was going to produce an energy that could exceed the universe's worst tyrant?

"Holy shit," Bulma marveled. "Gero sounded like an absolute piece of shit, but his scientific capabilities were utterly astonishing. Then again, the lack of ethics probably got him that far in the first place. Some of the pictures I found in his hard drive…shit I can't unsee." Bulma scowled and crumpled a piece of paper in her hands. "These two were hardly his first victims, just his first successes that didn't end up buried in a landfill."

Gohan's body stiffened, distressed not just by the potential power in these two humans, but the exploitation behind it.

"So what I'm trying to do is enhance their power just a little bit. Gero had written a ton of papers about the human body and the energy Goku and the gang used to produce their power. You guys call it Ki."

Gohan nodded, cracking a smile. The whole Ki-energy mix-up was one of his few fond memories of Frieza's empire that didn't involve Arepa.

"Gero uses a human's Ki as a fuel for the most robust thermal reactor I've ever seen. To put it in layman's terms, he basically turned these two into living nukes."

"Weapons," Gohan added. There went that word again. "These two are okay with you working on them?"

Bulma theatrically gasped. "Ah shit, they're gonna wake up any time now and find out, huh?" When Gohan grimaced, she laughed. "Obviously they're cool with it. With Frieza's army coming, they want to see how they can help."

While Gohan observed the twins, he could feel Bulma's concerned gaze on him. When he directed his narrowed eyes on her, she backed away with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry. But…you must relate to them a little bit, huh?"

"It's not that," Gohan dismissed, even though that was exactly what ate at him. But he was beyond sick of discussing his feelings. There was something else, though, that he quickly pivoted towards. "Arepa – she was the girl I was talking to on the scouter. She used to work for an army that opposed Frieza. They attacked me and the Saiyans with a giant robot, and she said that was powered by a person's Ki, too. But they couldn't figure out how to work it without wearing out the user."

"But Gero did."

Gohan shrugged. Though intriguing to his intellectual side, it was a fleeting thought. As a warrior first and foremost, he had no interest in artificially enhancing his power.

"Well that covers it for now. I'm still trying to even comprehend this engine Gero created, but this at least shows me what to shoot for. There's still a lot of experiments to go." She turned to Gohan with a smirk. "You and Vegeta might want to watch any drinks I serve you two."

When Gohan glared at Bulma, she slumped her shoulders. "Oh, right. Less tasteless jokes," she said.

She pushed a button on each of the scanners above Lapis and Lazuli's heads, shutting off the lights. The scanners retracted themselves, freeing the twins' faces. Moments later, they woke up with loud yawns. They opened their crystal-blue eyes, surprised by the extra guest in the room.

"Hey," Lapis said, wiping crust out of his eye. "You're Goku's kid, right?"

Gohan nodded. The cybernetically enhanced twins sat back up stretched out their limbs. "So, what did you find?" asked Lazuli.

"Well, if Gohan here's reaction was any indication, the finished model of your reactor was going to make you two the strongest beings in the entire universe." Both twins gasped in awe. While Bulma typed away on her laptop. "Crazy, right?"

"I don't want to go that far. I wouldn't even know what to do with that kind of power," Lapis said. He gestured towards Gohan. "I just want to keep up with kid and his dad, at least."

"Good luck," Gohan said, his competitive side flaring. Lapis chuckled with good nature.

"I've got a lot of things to work out, but if you guys could come back here same time next week, that would be awesome," Bulma said.

"Sure thing," Lazuli replied. "Krillin's gonna be training with God up there on the lookout soon so I'm gonna be bored."

"So it's either this or a vibrator, then," Bulma remarked as she took a sip of water. Lapis' face paled with disgust while his sister laughed uproariously with a bright-red face. Gohan didn't understand what was so funny or what was evidently so gross.

"And break Krillin's heart? I'm pretty sure that would count as cheating for me," Lazuli said with smirk. Bulma violently spewed her drink onto the laptop's screen and doubled over with laughter so strong she had trouble breathing; even Lapis had to cover his mouth to stifle his chuckles. All Gohan could do was wonder what the fuck the joke was.

"That was too good," Bulma said as she stood back up, dumping her water bottle in a green bin and pushing a button that slid the door open. She and Lazuli walked out together, exchanging cigarettes with Lapis trailing them.

"Hey," Gohan called out when it was just him and Lapis. His tone was guarded, his posture was stiff, and his head was aimed at the tiles.

Lapis turned around. "What's up?"

After closing his eyes, Gohan sighed and looked up. "What was it like? You and your sister being kidnapped and experimented on."

Though initially taken aback, Lapis nodded. "Oh, yeah. I heard the basics about what happened with you."

"It's not about that!" Gohan snapped. Instantly, he clenched his teeth and looked away in embarrassment. To his relief, however, Lapis didn't flinch as Bulma or Goku frequently did towards his outbursts.

"I get it. Believe me," Lapis replied, a faint smile on his face. He sat down the table he had just been laying on moments earlier, resting his hands on his knees. "Laz and I weren't innocent kids like you, though. Just a couple of 20-year-old junkies mooching from friend's couch to friend's couch, stealing and scamming to get by."

Gohan sat down in Bulma's chair with a snicker. Arepa would like these two.

Lapis looked at Bulma's desk, sighing before he picked up the blueprint she had shown Gohan. "Gero approached us as one of the many dealers we'd stumble on. Turned out he'd been scoping us for months. We were the perfect guinea pigs for him – a couple of losers that could drop off the face of the Earth and nobody would care. A couple pills later and the next thing I know, I'm waking up on one of these tables with my stomach pried open and bunch of cables hooked up to me."

Wrapping his arms around his chest in discomfort, Gohan retreated to the cigarette for another drag. A chop to the head later, and he had woken up on a military base in outer space.

"He would wipe our memory clean, but after a couple of hours they'd all come back and hit us hard. Then he'd knock us out, do it all over again, and it would end the same way." Lapis - or Android 17, as the blueprint he held in hands designated him – warily laughed. "Doc had quite the plans for us. He was gonna make us his little monsters. The guy was obsessed with your father."

"Why?"

"Bulma dug through his files. We always figured he was just salty that he didn't have tax-free income for his psycho ambitions anymore, but come to find out, his son had been in the Red Ribbon Army, too. One of the many goons your dad knocked off when he attacked them."

"Really?" Gohan felt his tail coil anxiously again. He never took his father for the type to run on malice or kill anyone.

"Don't worry, your dad's not secretly a serial killer or anything," Lapis joked, reading Gohan's expression perfectly. "Gero's son was a goon that came at Goku and got dealt with, plain and simple. But yeah, that drove him mad. He needed proxies for revenge and cyborgs were the perfect way. Some people get revenge for themselves, and some use others and get them caught in it."

Gohan was so tempted to throw Vegeta into that pile, too, but he knew deep in his heart that wasn't entirely true – Vegeta was training to defeat Frieza himself and had only seen Gohan as an ally against the whole army. As a Saiyan, that was all the man saw; not a person with his own hopes and ambitions, but a live weapon. Gohan wished he never even came into his field of vision.

"Then that big ol' scary demon, Piccolo, broke us out," Lapis snickered. "He had zipped clean past the Boogeyman as the scariest name among us Earthlings, and here he was as our knight in green armor. It wasn't out of the goodness of his heart, though. Gero offered to make him an Android, too, but Piccolo already knew the catch would be his free will. And then he figured we'd be good, grateful minions to handle the dirty work he didn't feel like doing."

"Of course," Gohan spat resentfully.

"He trained us to get used to our powers. We did some bad shit." Lapis' unyielding calm demeanor cracked just slightly, as he squeezed the paper with his fingers. "But then, once we got the hang of everything, we realized pretty fast that we were way stronger than Piccolo – or anybody, really."

"Yeah, I saw that a minute ago." With a bitter smirk, Gohan picked up the scouter, an almighty tool in the Frieza Force. "If you two were in the place I ended up, you would've been good soldiers. You could've killed everyone here without blinking, including my father."

Lapis tossed the blueprint aside. "We didn't understand the power we had, for a long time. It scared us. We didn't have any plans to take over the world or anything, but all our self-destructive tendencies got ten times worse. We were monsters looking for someone to take us out."

Gohan flinched.

"We wreaked havoc on a few cities – nobody was killed, thank God, but when your dad and his pals tried to stop us, we roughed 'em up a little. We and everyone on this planet were lucky your dad came back from the dead all powered up, 'cause we were ticking time bombs. Krillin got to my sis, but Goku had to put me in my place a couple times."

"How do you deal with it?" Gohan asked, looking at his palms. Everything from the kidnapping, to surpassing their masters, to their fear of themselves were hauntingly familiar. His body began to quiver. "Being used. And…just…I…"

"Take it easy. You don't have to find the words, yet." Gohan froze, stunned by the ease with which Lapis spoke. After dealing with so many people trying to understand him, Gohan finally found somebody who did.

"If I had to say, it's just knowing who I am, and what I stand for, and always looking ahead." Just as Gohan frequently did, Lapis looked at his palm. "I didn't ask for these powers, and the way I got them was the worst thing that ever happened to me that led me on a monster's path. But I have them and there's no changing that. So, I take control of them and now I use them to be better than what I used to be."

Lapis looked up at the lights, and then smiled at papers scattered on Bulma's desk. "Me and my sis were just Lapis and Lazuli. And then Gero and Piccolo tried to make us Androids 17 and 18. Now, we're a little bit of both."

Gohan looked down at the cigarette in his mouth – a reward for a good deed that his powers enabled him to commit, but a vice he used to run away from his stress, too.

Lapis got up from the table. "Focus on the good parts of you and the things you care about. If you commit to that shit, they'll feed off each other and you'll come out better."

As Lapis head for the doorway, Gohan observed the smoke filling the room, seeing the past and his present in the vapors. So much of his life had been defined by fear of everything – if it wasn't Vegeta, and if it wasn't Frieza, it was himself. As much as he could say he had no choice in his actions, he could have just as easily taken a stand. He would have fucking died, sure, but he would have died a brave man's death.

The sword had been shoved in his hands, but he swung it. And he knew it, going all the way back to when he first killed Mentos. And yet, as Goku, Bulma, Kobe, Arepa, Kiyomi, and even Vegeta in his weird way kept telling him, many of his actions proved he could be more than just a self-preserving coward.

Could he figure out his real self and commit to it, or keep running from the struggle?

After one more look at the cigarette, he plucked it from his mouth, tossed it to the ground, and stepped on it. He joined the adults in the lobby, remembering why he had been there in the first place. "Bulma."

"What's up?" Bulma asked.

"Do you know a quick way of finding the Dragon Balls?"

Bulma boastfully folded her arms and smiled at Gohan like he'd just asked her the color of her hair. "Do I know a quick way? Kid, nobody would even know how to find the Dragon Balls if it weren't for my intellect."

While Krillin slumped his shoulders in exasperation, Gohan rolled his eyes. "My father found three on his own."

The blue-haired genius' blusterous eyes twisted into a cranky glare. "Yeah, well…I bet it took him a long time! Now I'm not telling you."

"It's serious, Bulma," Gohan replied, mirthlessly.

The typically haughty Bulma clammed up. "It's about 'the incident,' right? Yeah, no problem. I've got a Dragon Radar, so you can find them in a cinch."

Bulma walked in the lab and returned shortly after with a round device displaying a green grid in her hand. "Here it is. You sure it won't be easier if I just go ahead and look for them instead? That way you can keep training."

"No," Gohan said, his eyes full of conviction. "I made that mess, so I'm cleaning it up."

Having no reason to contest such an answer, Bulma smiled. "Sure thing. This is a great thing you're doing, Gohan."

The half-Saiyan shrugged, having no interest in praise. When he turned around and headed for the stairs, Lapis gave him an approving nod. Gohan nodded back.

Upstairs, Gohan went to his room and set the Dragon Radar next to the blue scouter on the dresser. If he was going to restore his victims, he would have to make sure they wouldn't all die again by Frieza's hand. And that meant taking a risk. He headed down the hall to Vegeta's guest room, where the flame-haired prince was sitting on his bed and bandaging his wrist. The various tape up and down his body were practically the only thing holding him together. Always a man enslaved by his inferiority complex (among other, literal things), his training had become even more relentless since his poor showing with Gohan and Goku in the gravity room. If he wasn't in the gravity room, he was in the compound bickering with Bulma about whether or not he was abusing his body.

Gohan sighed, still unable to properly gauge how he felt about the prince. With an enigma like him, it was probably better to go moment-by-moment. At the end of the day, training to beat Frieza was the top priority, and he would need to set aside his feelings to get anything done.

You don't have to like him, as Vegeta himself would always say.

The temperamental Saiyan grunted. "If that woman sent you to yell at me about resting, I'm not listening,"

"I'm ready."

Vegeta scoffed. "To train? Why the hell are you waiting for me?"

"No. Your Super Saiyan idea…I'll give it a shot."

One tightening of a bandage later, Vegeta smirked.

Gohan and Vegeta stood in a valley of rocks far removed from any civilization. Just to be on the safe side, Vegeta wore his full uniform with his banged-up armor. Floating above his outstretched right hand, the power ball. Gohan stared into the white light intently, almost like an enemy. He released his energy and heightened his senses, determined to get the jump on the transformation's call.

Vegeta launched the ball into the sky and kept his hand raised.

"Burst open and mix!"

Once Vegeta clenched his fingers, the light exploded, filling Gohan's vision with whiteness. Once everything cleared, all Gohan saw was the orange evening sky and a white ball in center. He flexed his Ki, digging his shoes into the ground and squeezing his fists until his knuckles turned white. He felt that trigger go off in his mind, like a loosening of his destructive impulses. His heartbeat jolted in pace, his body temperature sweltered, his pubescent body hair stood on end.

"Breathe, boy!" Vegeta commanded as harsh sweats drenched Gohan's entire frame. His teeth grinded against each other like falling rocks as he breathed in and out at a breakneck rhythm. Though his grip slipped with every passing second, he pushed through.

"You have to move," Vegeta urged. "Force your body to listen!"

Vegeta's commands grew increasingly muffled as Gohan's vision turned a shade of red. When he tried moving his leg, a force heavier than any gravity level kept it bound. As the anxiety overwhelmed him, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried focusing on his breathing.

Finally, his finger moved an inch; and then his entire arm. Somehow, his foot left the ground, too. He took a march forward through his willpower only; by the time he tried to move the other leg, he fell.

"Get up!"

In his anger, Gohan gained enough control over his body to slam his fists into the ground. But the madder he became, the more the transformation took hold. The surge of Great Ape power flowed through Gohan's body like actual fire, melting Gohan's veins. He couldn't take it anymore. His arms expanded in size, as did his legs. The fabric of his clothes began to tear. He could even feel his teeth growing sharper…

And then, it stopped.

Gohan's face fell into the dirt. He panted frantically, not even noticing the rocks and dust spilling into his mouth. Had he done it? Had he conquered the ape's power? With how erratic his Ki felt, he couldn't gauge it at all.

When he looked up and saw Vegeta standing with his hand raised to a sky that only bore clouds and a setting sun, he got his answer.

"Wh-Why…why'd you stop?" Gohan asked, trying and failing to move his limbs.

"What do you mean, why?" Vegeta sneered. "It was already over. The transformation was starting."

"I..I could've done it," Gohan pleaded, even as his body wildly writhed. "Just a little bit more."

"Tch. You wouldn't have done shit but crush me like you almost did to your father."

Though he had trouble moving, breathing, or even completely making out his surroundings, Gohan still looked back up at Vegeta with a scathing glare.

"Fuck you."

Vegeta cringed, almost in shame. That did little to fan Gohan's fire, however, as the boy found enough to strength to reach at his prince's boot and grab it. Vegeta tried to retreat, but Gohan gradually found more of his old strength and tightened his grip.

"When are you gonna stop being an asshole, huh?"

Gohan stood up one knee, molten rage burning in his black eyes as he let Vegeta go. His Ki soared higher than it ever had, forcing Vegeta to back away in trepidation. The teenage half-Saiyan stood back up on the other leg while his energy kept blazing, making him look every bit as demonic as his outfit would denote on Earth.

"You keep trying to fix things," Gohan paused to catch his breath. Spit even fell from his mouth like a rabid animal. "But you still don't fucking respect me!"

Vegeta bore his teeth with a genuinely aggrieved scowl. "Nonsense, boy!"

"LIAR!"

Gohan swung the hardest punch he could, and Vegeta only caught it on instinct. But his hand paid a heavy price, as Gohan could feel its bones shatter on impact. And yet, Vegeta kept his grip firm, even as he bit down on his bottom lip out of necessity. Gohan tried punching him with his free hand, and it was in defending that where Vegeta finally fell to his knees and unraveled his pain in a brief shout.

With his wrists twisting in different directions, Vegeta squeezed his eyes shut as spit flung from his teeth.

"I-I'm sorry…!" The proud prince yelled.

What the fuck?

Gohan's aura disappeared like a vacuum sucked it away. His eyes were the size of globes.

"What…?"

Vegeta's face flushed a deep crimson. "I'm s-"

Before Vegeta could finish repeating himself, all of the exhaustion crashed down on Gohan at once. He collapsed in complete agony. His body couldn't move an inch, not even to roll onto his back and get all of the dirt and bugs out of his face.

Vegeta looked down at Gohan, trying to ignore the stinging sensation in both of his hands. If there was anything the Saiyan Prince knew absolutely nothing about, it was contrition; and yet, under the worst circumstances, he actually expressed some. For almost the entire time he had known Gohan, he had given the boy every reason to despise him. But Gohan was just too meek to go all the way with it. He'd harshly push him away, then pull him back in with that same hand. Even when Vegeta tried to cultivate his hatred as motivation, with his provocations and his rant in the torture chamber, it never stuck. And he thought he wouldn't care if it did. More competition, right?

But seeing the real consequences of his actions on Gohan's mental state – and yes, even Bulma's little speeches – had changed his outlook in ways intensely uncomfortable and foreign. Their goal was always Frieza; Vegeta despised the tyrant for everything he'd done to him since he was old enough to form words. And even if Gohan shared that hatred, Vegeta had been a Frieza-like figure in his life; only he successfully won his self-sabotaging loyalty.

The only thing he was better at than Frieza was using and manipulating a Saiyan. An absolutely revolting thought.

His impulse was to just tell Gohan to shut the fuck up and get over his pain, but that would only make things worse. It had never actually worked; if anything, it was probably the biggest reason Gohan was such a mess.

Since Gohan wouldn't buy his words, and Vegeta had no idea how to even properly verbalize them anyway, only actions would suffice. And thus, Vegeta picked Gohan up even while his wrist practically shouted curses to his brain and hauled him onto his shoulder. He flew back to West City, to the Capsule Corporation compound. With no desire to navigate all of the floors, he landed on the balcony of Bulma's refurbished room and forcefully slid the door open. When he stepped inside, that pleasant strawberry aroma that Bulma always carried calmed his senses.

He dropped Gohan off on the bed in his guest room. The boy was still awake, but clearly on the edge of keeling over.

"Dammit…we have to try it again…!" Gohan said, his voice a gravely rasp.

Vegeta removed the glove from his right hand and rubbed his forehead, even as his fingers quivered. "Get some rest, kid. We'll try again after training for a few more days."

He left the room, drifting in the direction of the spaceship purely off of instinct. His mind replayed Bulma's message from a days prior:

"Maybe you'll have an easier time treating Gohan as a weapon if you stop seeing yourself as one."

With a frustrated growl, Vegeta slammed his injured hand into the wall, allowing the bones to fracture even further. He hated how right she was. But this was all he knew. He had to get stronger. Whether the Saiyan race was dead or not, he had to be the flag bearer. If Gohan and his low-class peasant of a father could push him around, how could he ever hope to beat Frieza?

With a resigned, exhausted acceptance, Vegeta headed back towards Bulma's room so he could fly to the spaceship through the balcony door he'd already opened. When he drew near, however, he could feel her scent approaching the room from his right.

When he looked in that direction, he stopped dead in his tracks.

In the world Vegeta lived in, it took a calamity of incredible strength to stun him. That rare enemy on a purge that could potentially put a permanent end to his ambitions. Usually, Frieza, Zarbon and Dodoria when Vegeta was hoping they didn't know something that could get him on the receiving end of a nightmarish thrashing.

But when he saw Bulma in her black dress that accentuated every curve of her body, her glistening skin, how her blue hair now sat in curls like majestic hills, and the way her makeup highlighted her face, he couldn't do anything but freeze. And her walk. She wore high heels that added an extra swivel to her movement. He clenched his fingers in a futile attempt at reigning himself in.

"Vegeta?" Bulma asked. When Vegeta growled and looked away, she smirked, looking equal parts sexy and insufferable. "I look that good, don't I?"

"Shut up," Vegeta sneered, even though she was right.

Bulma was about to boast some more, but grimaced when something caught her eye. "Your hand, Vegeta!"

Vegeta looked down; not only did his right wrist resemble a pretzel, but his entire hand was swollen and purple. It was nothing but a nervous system response, though. He could simply train without using it, no matter how much it hurt.

"What about it?" Vegeta asked.

"You're not seriously going to train with that, right?"

Though her concerned, fluttering eyes softened Vegeta's mood, it didn't restore his patience. "You're clearly dressed for some occasion, so focus on that and stop pestering me for one goddamn second."

"Well, I can't stop you, I guess." Bulma sighed and headed into her room.

Vegeta followed her, focused on the balcony door he left open so he could have a quick route to the ship. As they walked, however, he found himself captivated by the way her body swayed back and forth. His eyes drifted downwards to her backside that her dress enraptured in the universe's tightest hug, but shot back up a second later.

Bulma stopped and turned around, having heard his footsteps. "Uh…are you following me? Because I-"

The mere implication made Vegeta drop his jaw in offense. "Don't be ridiculous, you succubus! I took a shortcut in here through your door and am taking the same shortcut to leave."

Bulma sneered and folded her arms, squishing them against her chest in a manner that forced Vegeta to look straight ahead at her balcony. "So you just barge in my room unannounced like you own the…hey, wait, did you just call me a succubus?"

"If the shoe fits."

At first, she growled, but then a light bulb seemingly went off in her eyes. As if proving him right, she smiled in a manner so suggestively, sweat formed on Vegeta's forehead. "Been having some bad dreams about me lately?"

Resisting the temptation she brought with neon lights, Vegeta snorted in dismissal. "Rest assured, if I have any dreams about you, they all involve me destroying you."

Shit, Vegeta said to himself when Bulma's sharpened, silky eyebrow raised flirtatiously.

"Destroying me, huh?"

She inched closer towards him, evidently forgetting whatever she was dressed for. That devilish grin of hers widened while Vegeta backed away like she was Frieza in the flesh.

"Do not twist my words with your vulgar brain, wench." God, why hadn't he pulled something more unambiguously gruesome from his limitless vocabulary of violent terminology? Murder, slaughter, dismember, eviscerate!

Her eyelids lowered, revealing a purple shadow that gave her a darker, sinister look. Like a woman worthy of the hand of a violent, savage prince. And why did she have to walk like that, practically hypnotizing him into lustful thoughts?

"Yeah, I bet you want nothing more than to 'destroy' me right now."

Flustered, but aware that he was backing into a dresser, Vegeta lifted his hand to steady himself but shrieked in agony when he felt his wrist bend after he grabbed the edge of the wood. Whatever was in Bulma's eyes – mischief? Lust? – vanished once Vegeta clutched his wrist.

"Ah, shit. First, I thought you were harassing me, and here I am harassing you instead." Bulma reached out to his hand, but Vegeta backed away. She shrugged. "Right, bad idea. I've got a banquet in an hour but I can get you to an actual doctor so you can get it treated right. You're really pushing it right now."

"If you don't want to harass me, then spare me your insufferable doting."

Her face grew less concerned, and more irritated. "If the thought of me caring disgusts you so much, then just look at this way: I'm making sure Frieza doesn't kill us all by trying to keep one of our best bets against him in one piece."

The prince's forehead swelled with fury at the mere thought of his former ruler. "You have no idea who Frieza is and what he's capable of. If you've ever seen even an inkling of what he's done to me or Gohan, you'd be making sure I was training every goddamn second until I passed out."

He turned to his left and punched a vase to pieces with his swollen right hand, clamping his teeth down to avoid showing the excruciating pain it brought. Bulma jumped back in shock, and her heels caused her to stumble onto the floor.

Chunks of marble embedded themselves into Vegeta's hands, adding crimson liquid to its purple complexion. He raised it in front of Bulma like a badge of honor. "This is nothing. This same hand was once severed by a mere officer and reattached. I was on an assignment an hour later.

"You don't want Frieza to destroy your planet? Then back off me and let me train. I don't have your pitiful human bones and genetics – pushing myself until I'm half-dead is exactly how I'll get stronger." He flung the shards from out of his hand and into Bulma's wall. He took a few steps towards her, letting his menacing, flame-topped shadow hover over her body. "The only thing you should worry about is the fact that you share a roof with a man like me."

Using her bedframe for assistance, Bulma stood back up, her face sullen and defeated. "Fine. I'll stay out of your way from here on out." She headed to the door but stopped when she was directly next to him.

"I just wish you could see more in yourself."

Something about her tone made Vegeta's breath run short. She sounded sad, and not for herself. But as a warrior first and foremost, he couldn't understand why,

"I see plenty, woman."

"I suppose."

Bulma left her room, and Vegeta went to the balcony. He hopped off the railing and trekked down the lawn into the spaceship for another brutal training session. He stepped inside, closed the door, and turned the simulator on.

As the pressure in the room increased, Vegeta stared at his reflection in the black screen. His work in this room would determine his worth, and that was all there was to it.

Initially, he had started doing it because of his hand injury; two weeks and a full recovery later, he just enjoyed it.

Vegeta hopped up, thrust his leg forward, and fired a Ki blast from his foot like a soccer ball. The proverbial goalie was the long-haired teenage on the other side of the circular room. Rather than dodge, Gohan raised his arms and let the blast collide. He didn't budge an inch. From Vegeta's foot came a shower of more blasts, and again, Gohan stood his ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Vegeta saw the 50G label on the monitor and smirked in satisfaction at how easily he was moving now.

Toughening up Gohan had been the priority over the two weeks. Operations in all of Capsule Corporation had been peaceful, but a tense peace. Vegeta treaded Gohan's emotional minefield cautiously – and received similar treatment from Bulma. All the tension saved him the headache, at least.

They'd intermittently tried the moon experiment in between training days, but they still hadn't broken through. He could feel Gohan getting closer, however – he was withstanding the power longer…and his angry outbursts in the aftermath had become less explosive. A few more pushes would get him there.

Suddenly, Vegeta curled both of his arms back and gathered explosive Ki to both of his palms. But rather than fire at Gohan, Vegeta turned around and fired the wave of energy at the wall. Manipulating his Ki, he made the blast wrap around the circular room and target Gohan's back.

The half-Saiyan just barely turned around and blocked the blast that exploded against his forearms. And yet, his feet never left the floor.

Gohan triumphantly swung his arms down and spun around to face Vegeta. "I think I'm ready for it now. For real."

"Let's do it, then."

They left the spaceship and headed for the same far-off wasteland they'd been occupying. Gohan tensed at the thought as he flew, for he knew why they needed to step away from people to pull something like this off. No matter how much he tried heeding Lapis' advice, he couldn't help but continue fearing the wretched beast inside him.

But fear was fine; he wasn't running from it anymore, no matter how uncomfortable it all made him.

When they both landed, Gohan immediately powered up. Vegeta produced another power ball; by the time he launched it to sky and gave his command, Gohan was already flexing every muscle in his body, even his brain.

Once the ball blended into the atmosphere, Gohan could feel that trigger again. He jumped into the sky, preventing the chemical reaction the Bruit's Waves produced from having any power over him; just engaging his Ki pushed it away. That power lurking deep within his blood bubbled to the surface. And as his body rose in temperature and broke into violent tremors, he worked to contain it.

His arms spasmed wildly. Like a force of gravity had slammed into him, Gohan's body dropped back into the dirt. The power was overtaking him yet again, consuming his mind with rage. He had to conquer this it. If he ever had a prayer of defeating Frieza, he needed to withstand anything, not give in like the coward he'd been all of his life.

He stood back up and stomped on the ground. A rock hit him in the face, forcing his attention to the Earth's surface. All of these rocks, all of the grass, all of the mountains…the sky, the clouds, the sun – if he couldn't handle this power, Frieza would light it all up in flames. He even promised it.

Power flowed into every corner of Gohan's body, demanding it morph into that monster. Instead, Gohan dug his fingers into his palms until they bled.

"Push, dammit!" Vegeta yelled. "I thought you were strong!"

Gohan's frazzled eyes shot to Vegeta. How dare he question his strength. He knew better than anybody how fucking strong Gohan was – he made him that strong, crossing whatever line necessary to do it. Gohan would prove precisely how strong he was to him, to Frieza, to his father, and anybody who dared question him.

As his aura flickered to green, Gohan yelled into sky, screaming away the protests of pain from both his mind and his body as he captured the energy invading him. The entire wasteland shook; mountains even crumbled. The green energy ignited until even Vegeta had to flee.

The Prince of all Saiyans couldn't believe what he was seeing – the little brat was doing it. This power, this aura, was unlike anything he had ever felt. His piercing screams raged into sky and parted the clouds, releasing all of Gohan's primal fury until a sudden burst of energy forced Vegeta to shield his eyes. An explosion of dust, rocks, and light kicked up from the ground. Vegeta jumped into the sky to avoid the shockwaves.

Once everything cleared, Vegeta dropped back down. The green aura was still raging around Gohan, but he was on his hands and knees. He fell completely, squeezing his head and rolling around back and forth with violent shrieks as if he were being attacked. Gingerly, Vegeta approached Gohan, unsure of if he should just let him continue powering through.

Blood burst from one of Gohan's arms. And then his leg. He screamed so loud his voice cracked into an extra octave. A destabilizing mix of guilt and panic hit Vegeta's chest as he watched Gohan suffer. His Ki didn't feel right; it was huge, but corrosive. His body was suffering. If this went on any longer, he would surely die.

Vegeta had been wrong. The normal Saiyan body wasn't equipped to handle that power. For the umpteenth time, he had treated Gohan as nothing more than a weapon and made him suffer for his experiments. But no more of that. He raised his arm to the sky, preparing to evaporate the power ball.

And then a fist plunged through his armor and into his stomach.

Blood rushed through Vegeta's esophagus, spilled out of his mouth, and drifted into the hair of the assailant snarling and hyperventilating across from him.

It was Gohan, only the spikes at the top of his black hair now stood on end. But that wasn't the grisliest change – his eyes, devoid of sanity, bore pupils the most haunting shade of gold Vegeta had ever seen in his entire life.

Gohan removed his fist from Vegeta's gut, making his blood pour onto the ground. Vegeta collapsed onto his back, losing his breath while his body desperately pumped oxygen. Greater than the pain enrapturing his body, though, was fear. This new, wicked iteration of the timid half-Saiyan smeared Vegeta's royal blood across his own face, even letting it stain his clenched teeth while he breathed raggedly.

And then he stuck that same hand out and aimed it at Vegeta's face.

A ball of deadly Ki emerged from his palm.

"G-Gohan…!"

There I go again with the cliffhangers! Anyway, as for the Android backstory: Yes, I know Toriyama said Gero's son was killed by another soldier. But if that nugget's gonna be incorporated into the actual story, I like TFS' take on it better, so I used it here.