2.



Gohan's eyes opened slowly, still bleary and tired from sleeping for so long. He stared up at the ceiling above his bed, not moving or even thinking. For the life of him, he couldn't even remember where he was. The ceiling was white, the sheets were white, everything he could see was white.

He sat up slowly, and saw that he was on a pallette spread out on the floor. The floor itself was a smooth white marble, cool and pleasant to the touch. He lay back down, not wanting to think or remember for just another minute. Some part of him knew that thinking about what had just happened to him would be horrible. Or, at least, he thought it had just happened. He had not idea, though, how long he had been asleep.

Suddenly he sat up straight again. He heard voices.

When he sat up, surprised full awake by the sound of at least two people quietly talking, he also remembered.

"Mom." he whispered to himself. At least, he meant to whisper, but what came out was a half sigh half sob.

The voices stopped instantly, and he heard footsteps from beyond the huge central pillar of the place. When he glanced that way, he also saw the sky around him and realized where he was; Korin's tower.

He stood up slowly, not really able to take his mind off of his mother, no matter how much he wanted to, but wanting to be polite to whoever was coming toward him all the same.

The owners of the voices rounded the pillar, and there were three, not two. One was Choutzu, one was Korin, and the other was a large man that Gohan had only seen once, and vaguely remembered as Yajirobi.

"Gohan, I see you're awake." Korin said with a grin. "How are you feeling?"

Gohan shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

Korin's smile slowly disappeared. "I see. Listen, Gohan, I don't know how else to break into what I need to tell you, so I have to ask. Do you know what happened?"

Gohan's brow wrinkled in confusion, and he shook his head. Then suddenly, he contradicted himself by nodding.

"My mom's dead, isn't she?"

The baldness of this statement that wasn't even a question shocked all three of the people in front of him, and it was several seconds before Choutzu finally broke in and said:

"Yes, she did. We're sorry, Gohan."

The young demi-saiyajin nodded, looking down at his feet. "So, what happens now?" he asked.

"We don't know." Korin said. "But you can stay here, at least for a few days. By then I think Choutzu is going to have other...." he glanced at the small warrior briefly. "Arrangements."

Choutzu nodded. "It shouldn't take longer than that. Maybe less."

Gohan's sighed heavily. He was grateful for how kind they had all been, but there was never a question in his mind about simply staying up here. He had to do what his father would have done.

"I'm sorry. I know you're all trying to help, but I can't just stay here."

No one said anything. There was nothing to say.

"I have to find out who killed my mother, and then avenge her death." he said. He marched off across the floor of the tower, presumably intending to call nimbus and fly off.

But before he could so much as say anything, he felt a hand on his arm. He turned, expecting to see Choutzu, and seeing Yajirobi instead.

"Listen Gohan," he said softly, but Gohan stopped him with a look of utter rage. It wasn't rage at Yajirobi, really, but rage at everything, at the sudden huge turn his life had taken.

Gohan tried to pull away, but Yajirobi's grip was solid.

"We want to help you." Korin said. "We want you to have the proper training, so that when you fight you'll be sure to win."

"That's right!" Choutzu put in. "You can train with Tien and Krillin and me! When your done, you'll be as strong as your dad, even stronger!"

Gohan's anger seemed to vanish. "You mean that? I can be like my dad?" he asked. Tears suddenly sprang back into his eyes. "I can... I can be a hero?"

Yajirobi smiled and let his hand fall gently from Gohan's arm. "Yeah. That's what Goku was, alright. A hero."

+

Tien's eyes went wide. "Are you NUTS!? Bringing a little kid up here to train with us? It's dangerous!"

Choutzu sighed. "But he can do it. He wants to, Tien. I all but promised him he could. Besides, at least this way he'll be safer than he would be out there."

Tien sighed heavily, crossing his arms and closing the bottom two of his eyes, leaving the top one open to regard Choutzu cooly, a gesture that unnerved everyone until they got used to it.

"So, you want me to take time off of my own training to help train a kid, who has never had any fighting experience, and will probably just get hurt or give up, causing any time we spent on him to be wasted?" he opened his eyes again.

Choutzu gulped and nodded.

Another deep sigh escaped Tien's mouth. "You get to watch him, Choutzu."

A huge smile spread across the small warrior's face as his friend turned and walked away.

+

Krillin sat, his knees drawn up and his chin resting on them, just looking at Gohan. The kid wasn't even waiting for instruction, he was already beginning his own clumsy, child's version of training. But, although it was clumsy and childish, it was also extraordinarily good for being invented by a child.

Most kids, Krillin reflected, would have charged straight into trying to do a thousand pushups, or lift huge eights, or any number of things that would only get them hurt. But Gohan appeared to know, at least a little bit, what he was doing. He might have picked up a few things from watching Goku train, or he might simply be a genius. Or maybe a little of both.

First, he did a quick series of stretches, a lot like Goku's, but different enough so that it was visible that he had added a few of his own touches. Then, after the stretches, Gohan did a series of fifty pushups, a good number for a kid that hadn't been much trained. After that, the major flaw in his training showed. He plowed headlong into an attempted kamehameha.

"Umm.... Gohan?"

He jumped visibly at Krillin's voice, mainly because he hadn't even noticed the warrior monk yet. Krillin had flown immediately down after he had heard that Gohan was here, not waiting to try and convince Tien with Choutzu. But when he got here, he had been so mesmerized by Gohan's training that he hadn't spoken.

"Krillin!" Gohan's face suddenly broke into a smile, and he ran over across the floor, wrapping his arms around Krillin's waist in a tight hug. Gohan knew very well that he had been Goku's best friend. And he liked Krillin anyway, because he was always nice and talked and played with him.

"Hey, kid." Krillin laughed and returned Gohan's hug. "It's great to see you."

Gohan looked up at Krillin and smiled, grief momentarily forgotten. "Choutzu said I get to train with you guys!" he said happily. "You wanna train now?"

Krillin couldn't help but smile back, even though he knew that it would take a lot of convincing to get Tien, not to mention Kami, to let a child up there to train with them. Anyway, he could at least give the kid a few tips.

"Sure, why not?" he said, and Gohan smiled even wider.

"I was trying to do a kamehameha." Gohan said, pronouncing each syllable of the attack name carefully. "But it's really hard. All I can do is make a lotta wind."

Krillin raised an eyebrow and put a hand on his chin, looking thoughtful so that it wouldn't look to Gohan like he had just pointed out some obvious mistake. Stuff like that discouraged kids.

"Well, why don't you show me how you did it." he said.

Gohan nodded. "Sure!"

Krillin took a few steps back, and Gohan took his position, facing out toward the endless sky, his body cocked slightly to the right.

"Ka me...." he started, and cupped his hands in front of him, not quite right, but not bad. It was easy to see that he had learned how to do by watching, but he only made a few mistakes. He had his hands a little far apart, which made it hard to really gather energy.

"Ha me..." he said, and cupped his hands behind his back. Now there was a more pronounced error. His hands, instead of being held in a tight cup to ensure that no energy escaped from the cupped palms, his hands were facing more outwards, almost flat back. He was probably letting more energy escape than he was gathering.

"Ha!!" Gohan thrust his hands forward, and a huge blast of wind, strong enough to blow up dust from the floor and send it shooting off into the sky, blasted out and away.

Gohan stood back into a normal position, breathing a little heavily. "Well, was that good?"

Krillin nodded slowly, still making himself look thoughtful. "Yeah, it was pretty good. It took me years to learn how to do a really big kamehameha, and you're already pretty far along." he paused. "But Gohan, watch me. Pay special attention to my hands behind my back."

Gohan nodded, eyes wide in awe. He hadn't seen anyone do a real kamehameha since his dad had died.

Krillin assumed the same stance Gohan had, facing the sky, torso slightly to the right.

"Ka me..." he said, and it was much more visible that he was gathering energy, because the effort could be heard in his voice.

"Ha me..." he put his hands behind his back, making a tight cup, but waiting for a second to really push the energy so that Gohan could clearly see the position of his hands.

"Now, see how my hands are cupped together?" he said as the energy began to glow in them. Gohan nodded wide eyed as the light of the ki illuminated his face. "That keeps the ki from escaping."

"Ha!!!" he threw his hands back out in front of him, and a white and blue beam of energy, more than a foot across with a huge ball at the head, flew outward into the sky with a faint sizzle of ozone, like lightning. Krillin turned the beam up slightly so that it wouldn't demolish the rail on the edge of the platform.

After a second, when the attack was done and the beam out of sight, he stood back up and mopped sweat from his forehead with a sigh.

"See? It makes a lot of difference just how you put your hands."

Gohan was almost jumping up and down. "Wow!! Can I do that, if I put my hands right and everything?"

Krillin laughed. "Probably, with a little training. But not right now, okay? We have to show you how to warm up and stuff first, or you could hurt yourself."

Gohan, his newfound perpetual good cheer not daunted in the least, only nodded and smiled up at Krillin.