Chapter Two: The Great Saiyaman is Born!
THE NEXT MORNING Gohan rose extra early and carefully selected his clothes. In the end, he decided on a pair of red trousers, a long white sleeved shirt, and a black vest on which he pinned his Orange Star badge, which all students were ordered to wear. As per his usual custom, he dragged a comb through his hair, but only succeeded in tangling several of the broken teeth in his impossible mane of hair. Before heading downstairs, Gohan grabbed the messenger bag his mother made for him when he was younger and flung his notebooks in it. Pausing only to check his reflection in the mirror one last time, Gohan thundered downstairs, where his younger brother, Goten, and mother waited him.
"Yay! It's Gohan!" Goten exclaimed when Gohan walked in. Gohan smiled. His younger brother was the splitting image of their father and was nearly a mirror in personality. Gohan paused on his way to his place at the table to affectionately rub his brother's head as he passed.
"You're the best brother a kid-" Gohan began.
"Mom! Gohan's here! Now we can eat!" His eager little eyes turned to Gohan. "I thought you'd never stop looking at yourself in the mirror, Gohan! I'm glad you're back, 'cause now we can eat!"
Chi-Chi, Gohan's mother, plopped a large plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, toast, and home-made corned-beef hash in front of Gohan.
"I want you to eat a good, hearty breakfast, Gohan," she told him in her accusatory tone, making him feel like he had done something wrong. "I don't like the sound of that 'cafeteria food.'"
Gohan sighed with relief. Of course, he felt sorry for the school food system now that the wrath of his formidable mother was trained on it, but at least it wasn't aimed at him. Heartened, Gohan dug into his breakfast with the relish only a Saiyan can feel towards food, pointedly ignoring Goten's comment.
"Well, Gohan," his mother said when the meal was just about through (something that took the two demi-Saiyans less than four minutes). "I guess it's time for you to leave," she finished thickly.
"Aww, Mom, it's okay," Gohan told his mother, shouldering his backpack. "I'll be home by five."
"Oh, Gohan!" Chi-Chi wailed, bursting suddenly into tears. "My little boy's all grown up and leaving his mother home alone all day! Soon he'll be gone off to college and get married and never time for his poor, poor mother!" Gohan's probably bipolar mom subsided into sobs, sitting down at the table and blew her nose on her napkin.
"Mom, it's okay. It's just high school. It was your idea, remember? I'm not leaving permanently, just for a few hours," Gohan protested weakly, taken aback as he always was at his mother's supreme emotional display.
"Okay." his mother sniffled. Suddenly she straightened. "Then you be home at four-thirty, Son Gohan, or so help me I'll-"
"Okay, Mum, bye!" Gohan interrupted her tirade before she could get going. If he let her build up momentum, she'd never stop. He instead pecked her on the cheek leapt into the air. "NIMBUS!" he called loudly, seeing the little yellow cloud race towards him. Gohan used a small burst of ki and landed deftly on the cloud, settling into its cushion-like mass.
Leaving his probably bipolar mother and still-waving brother behind, Gohan sped off as fast the cloud could go, streaking towards Satan City, and, more specifically, Orange Star High School, the highest rated high school in the world.
When Gohan hit the outskirts of the city, he landed, sending the cloud away to wherever it went when it wasn't being used. He hopped down from the cloud and began walking quickly. According to his directions, Orange Star was just a few blocks north.
"Help! Help me!" Gohan whipped around at hearing a distressed woman's voice call out from a dark alley between two buildings. Without thinking, Gohan dashed towards the voice.
When Gohan got about twenty feet into the alley, he saw the woman, and why she had been crying. A large, ugly man was holding her down while an even larger, bulkier man was tearing at her jeans, fumbling excitedly. Her mouth was held shut by the first man, who was laughing insanely while his friend, who had just gotten his own pants off, was forcing the girls legs apart.
At once, anger began to rise in Gohan. They were raping this girl! Gohan felt power crackle to life around him, igniting bits of garbage throughout the alleyway. His transformation came upon him, unbidden, giving all the world a golden sheen as his surveyed it magisterially with cerulean eyes. With a roar of pure, unadulterated rage, Gohan leapt at the bulkier man, catching him across the jaw with his left foot. Gohan felt his jaw liquefy and his neck bone shatter, spinning the rapists head all the way around- twice- and sending him flying into the brick wall of alley with speed of several times that of sound.
Next, Gohan turned to his partner. This man was also covered in grotesque muscles, although not as many as his friend. He had a strange tattoo on his forehead, like an elaborate M shape. Gohan growled. Who cares what the man had on his forehead? What mattered was him paying for what he was about to do to that woman.
With another yell of righteous rage, Gohan punched the would-be rapist as hard as he could in the face, feeling bone give way and cheek bones shatter as the man struck the brick wall hard enough to dash his brains all across the pavement. He slid to the ground, his lolling tongue hanging out, grossly purple in death. With a sneer of contempt, Gohan disintegrated his body with brutal motion of his hand.
"YAMU?" The giant called. Gohan spun around in surprise. It was the first one! How was he still alive? Gohan had ruined his jaw, shattered his spinal column, and had probably broken his skull against the brick. How could he still be up, apparently whole?
Gohan growled again, a low, menacing sound. His Saiyan fangs were fully displayed now, pumped full of fatal venom. Power rushed from his pores, making the air around him shimmer, like the air over hot pavement. He watched calmly as the giant sprinted at Gohan and dove, aiming to knock him to the ground, as if they were playing football. Gohan flipped backward, timing his arc so that his hands were directly pointed up just as the freak was passing over him. With a rush of ki, Gohan engulfed his opponent in a bath of energy, leaving no trace of him save for a dark cloud of ash.
His task done, Gohan kept his Super Saiyan form to disguise himself. He would prefer to have a normal high school life, and being thought of as a freak did not usually entail that. He turned to the still crying woman, who had just gathered her pants back up to her hips and was trying to make sure her tattered shirt covered her. The entire encounter had taken maybe five seconds.
"Are you all right, ma'am?" Gohan asked in his most polite voice. He stared directly into her own eyes, deliberately trying to ignore her nakedness.
"I'm fine," she stuttered, wiping a tear from her eye. She stood, wincing as her left leg touched the ground. "They grabbed me as I walked by. I had defense-" she held up a small bottle of pepper spray- "But they just laughed. Thank God you came along."
"But they didn't get far enough, ma'am? You're okay?"
"I'm fine, just a little. shook up. This city really has gone to Hell lately, you know." The woman seemed to be regaining her composure as she spoke, so Gohan let her babble. "Gangs, drugs. Not even Hercule can do anything about them. You handled those two so well; you should think about going into business. This city could use a hero." She let out a cynical laugh, pulling on her jacket to cover her exposed breasts. "What we call you? Golden Boy?" She laughed again. "Thanks for helping me, I'll just go home and change my clothes. No need to file a police report, I don't think they could fill a snuffbox up with what you left them."
Gohan paused. A hero? He thought heavily for a moment. Yes, why not? He had read that Satan City had the highest crime rate in the region. The people he had seen had looked forlorn and hopeless, as if they were all just waiting to die. Gohan smirked.
"Ma'am?" The woman turned around. "Call me Saiyaman." Gohan's voice suddenly became deeper, tougher. More.evil. No, not evil. Vegeta. More Vegeta.
With an ignition of ki, Gohan flew away.
* * *
"So, if don't have any questions," Headmaster Ithomitis was saying to Gohan, leading him out of his office. "That concludes the tour and orientation of Orange Star High School. You're lucky it's only November, Gohan. You've barely missed anything." Gohan rolled his eyes as he followed the portly administrator to the end of the hallway the main office was located in. Outside the door, a short-blond haired girl waited for them, dressed in skintight purple pants and a green tube top that showed more skin the rape-victim's tattered shirt.
"Hi!" she exclaimed when she saw him. Gohan winced. It was too early for anyone to be that happy. "I'm Erasa, and I'll be your student-buddy! I'll show you to all your classes, introduce you to your teachers, and help you in your first few weeks at Orange Star! I can see we'll be, like, really good friends! C'mon, first period is starting! We have Physics 12A, down in the Science Lab. The teacher, Mr. Williamson, is."
Gohan tuned out the annoyingly-bright girl as he followed her down to the Science Lab, hoping she'd eventually get tired of hearing herself talk.
Fat chance. She whispered to him the whole time in Physics, talked to him in Calculus, whispered again in Latin 4, corresponded by note in Creative Writing, and announced to him that after CW was over, it would be lunch time. The day was split into nine forty-five minute periods at Orange Star, four periods, a twenty-five minute lunch and a twenty-minute study, then four more periods.
As Erasa and Gohan waited in the lunch line and were served hot, greasy, and generally unrecognizable food, she introduced Gohan to all her friends. There was Sharpner, who proudly told Gohan he was Captain of the Boxing Team, Wrestling Group, and Weightlifting Club, Eusuke, who was either Sharpner's sidekick or lover, Jaclyn and Victoria, who agreed to everything Erasa said and occasionally added such scintillating observations such as "He is sooo hot this year."
Overall, Gohan was beginning to get bored. The food was hardly enough, leaving Gohan hungry. And a hungry, bored Gohan was not usually a good thing. Gohan was about to do something drastic- that is, break Sharpner's arrogant, pretty-boy jaw, when he saw her across the cafeteria.
She was easily the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her long, ebony hair cascaded over her shoulders and rested lightly at the level of her collar bone. Her eyes were the purest shade of violet he had ever seen, and smoldered with barely controlled rage. A fighter. Gohan grinned. He liked fighters. He could just imagine her now, her delicately beautiful face set in a determined expression, her body, which was obscured beneath a gigantic T-shirt, splayed into a fighting stance, ready at any moment to attack.
Gohan broke off his train of thought.
Careful, he thought to himself. Wouldn't want the little Saiyan to make an entrance.
"Gohan! Gohan!" Gohan realized for the first time Erasa was poking him in the shoulder. "I said, 'are you doing anything after school?' Well, are you?"
"Uhh.yeah!" Gohan almost sighed with relief as he thought up a valid excuse. He had to see Bulma anyway, why not just go after school? "I have to.stop by Capsule Corp. and pick up.uh.some capsules.. Yeah, that's right. Uhh-huh." Gohan bobbed his head, feeling stupider by the moment. "And hey, Erasa?"
The blonde floozy turned back. "Yes?"
"Who's that girl over there? Sitting by herself?" Gohan motioned subtlety to his mystery girl. Erasa looked over and, for some reason, scowled. Gohan supposed it was because she was so much prettier than Erasa.
"Oh, that's Videl," Erasa waved a hand in dismissal. "She's Hercule's daughter, but she's so weird. She's like, always angry all the time, and such a bitch. Besides, have you ever seen her fight? What a freak! Who spends all that time trying to learn how to fight?"
"Videl." Gohan muttered to himself, trying the word out. Videl. What a lovely name. A strange feeling swelled in Gohan's chest. Was it that strange sauce on the 'taco surprise'? Probably. Yeah, that had to be it. Gohan excused himself and headed for the bathroom, taking his stuff with him. With any luck, he'd miss the rest of lunch and be able to proceed directly to his Half-Study Hall.
* * *
"Master Babidi, Spopovitch and Yamu are dead," a gigantic, red- skinned creature said. He was at least nine feet tall and covered in muscle that his blue cloak barely contained. His sharply trimmed goatee and mustache accented a sharp, strong face. Legends of him were prevalent in every culture in the universe. To some he was known as to Lucifer, to others as Satan. Still others called him Morningstar, the Antichrist, others the Beast. The Kaios knew as him the Keeper, while the Nameks called him the End. He was Dabura, Lord of the Demon World, King of the Demons. His power was legendary, the Kais held great fear for him.
"What?!" An annoying, high-pitched voice answered him. "Impossible! No one on this planet can compete with those two! I gave them enough power to kill the strongest being on this planet easily!" The stunted, twisted creature rubbed his gnarled hands together. Two servants lost. His sickly yellow skin wrinkled in displeasure. "When we scanned this planet three hundred years ago, there was only that Turtle fellow, and Spopovitch and Yamu were three times his strength! How could beings so strong have gained their power so quickly?"
"I do not know, my lord," the Demon King answered. "But think how easily it will be to gather the necessary energy to resurrect Majin Buu. Their largest fighting tournament is in only four months; we could easily pick another slave. All we'd have to do is choose someone with a personal vendetta against one of the competitors. Their Majin Power would be much greater that way."
"I know the Majin Power works, Dabura!" Babidi snapped. The old wizard was irritable today. He always was when his plans didn't go exactly the way he wanted. "Get yourself a disguise and do that for me. Observe carefully. Pay attention to the younger contestants, especially those with mates. Mammals are always coveting another mammal's mates."
"Yes, my lord. And what of the Kaioshin?"
Babidi cackled. "The East Kaioshin and that bodyguard of his will cease to be a problem after Majin Buu is released, Dabura. Even you are stronger than that Kibito, and Majin Buu makes you look like a weakling!" Dabura sneered in displeasure at his master's affront to his power. Babidi cackled again, rubbing his hands together. "Soon, the universe will be mine, and the Supreme Kai will feel my revenge!"
The laughter filled the underground complex, echoing off walls and assaulting the ears of his slaves.
* * *
Gohan sat in the waiting room at Capsule Corp., trying to pass the time while he waited for Bulma. The azure-headed scientist had dove right into Gohan's disguise dilemma, dashing off to her lab to solve the problem right away. Trunks, who by strange coincidence was at the zoo with his grandmother, had left Gohan with nothing to do but sit in silence. Gohan's mind was too abuzz with thoughts to meditate properly and his homework was done, so the young demi-Saiyan was left with nothing to do but wait for Bulma to be done.
About an hour after getting out of school, Gohan felt a familiar power getting closer. Vegeta. A split-second later, his sensitive Saiyan nose picked up the Elite's distinctive scent and his acute hearing heard the almost-silent tap of his boots against the hard floor.
"Well, well, well. Look who it is. The boy who is 'too busy' to train," Vegeta scoffed.
"Well Vegeta, that's right. I'm too busy taking care of my family to train. But you wouldn't know about that, would you? You just shut yourself in that gravity chamber all day while your woman takes care of the work." Gohan was deliberately baiting Vegeta. It was one of his favorite things to do, mainly since the Saiyan prince was so easy.
"How dare you!" Vegeta exclaimed angrily. "You little fucking ingrate! I'll-"
"Vegeta!" A familiar feminine voice called suddenly. "What did I say about using the 'f-word?'"
Vegeta turned to his mate. "But Trunks isn't here, woman! I can't warp his vocabulary if he's not here!"
Gohan suppressed a snicker. The great, proud Vegeta, forbidden from his favorite word, because of the psychological affects it might have on his son? The very idea was laughable. Seeing it being enforced was hilarious.
Bulma turned to Gohan. "Here you go, honey. It's a transformation watch. Just push the red button and it'll create a disguise for you. The watch is tuned into the news, so if anything big happens, you'll know." She turned back to Vegeta. "And you, you big ugly lug, will be sleeping on the couch tonight!" Bulma fearlessly stepped forward and grabbed a handful of his hair. "And no more training today, mister! You're going to do the dishes and take out the trash for once! March!"
Gohan laughed once more as Vegeta shot him a murderous glance from across the room. He thanked Bulma who brushed it off.
As he left the building, Gohan happened to glance at his watch. When he saw the time, he almost fell over. "Dammit!" he exclaimed. "It's 5:30!" Gohan had no other choice. The Nimbus wouldn't get him home fast enough. He put his finger over the red button and repressed the screaming thought NEVER PUSH THE RED BUTTON!
When Gohan depressed the button, a crackling surge of electricity covered him, overwriting his clothes with the stores ones in the watch. Gohan took a moment to check out his costume. A black bodysuit covered him from ankle to wrist to neck, tucked into standard issue Saiyan combat boots and gloves. A green knee-length tunic provided the base of the outfit, cinched at the waist with a small white belt containing various capsules full of food. A horrendous orange helmet complete with antennae topped off the costume.
"Ugh," Gohan muttered and discarded the helmet. Instead, he used a useful ki trick he learned from Piccolo to let ki crawl across his face. The ki was mirror-like, reflecting light, but also shone with many colors, effectively hiding and distinct features of his face. "Better," Gohan noted aloud. With a second of concentration, a burst of ki forced its way through the soles of Gohan's boots and shot him high into the air, toward his home.
Fin.
THE NEXT MORNING Gohan rose extra early and carefully selected his clothes. In the end, he decided on a pair of red trousers, a long white sleeved shirt, and a black vest on which he pinned his Orange Star badge, which all students were ordered to wear. As per his usual custom, he dragged a comb through his hair, but only succeeded in tangling several of the broken teeth in his impossible mane of hair. Before heading downstairs, Gohan grabbed the messenger bag his mother made for him when he was younger and flung his notebooks in it. Pausing only to check his reflection in the mirror one last time, Gohan thundered downstairs, where his younger brother, Goten, and mother waited him.
"Yay! It's Gohan!" Goten exclaimed when Gohan walked in. Gohan smiled. His younger brother was the splitting image of their father and was nearly a mirror in personality. Gohan paused on his way to his place at the table to affectionately rub his brother's head as he passed.
"You're the best brother a kid-" Gohan began.
"Mom! Gohan's here! Now we can eat!" His eager little eyes turned to Gohan. "I thought you'd never stop looking at yourself in the mirror, Gohan! I'm glad you're back, 'cause now we can eat!"
Chi-Chi, Gohan's mother, plopped a large plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, toast, and home-made corned-beef hash in front of Gohan.
"I want you to eat a good, hearty breakfast, Gohan," she told him in her accusatory tone, making him feel like he had done something wrong. "I don't like the sound of that 'cafeteria food.'"
Gohan sighed with relief. Of course, he felt sorry for the school food system now that the wrath of his formidable mother was trained on it, but at least it wasn't aimed at him. Heartened, Gohan dug into his breakfast with the relish only a Saiyan can feel towards food, pointedly ignoring Goten's comment.
"Well, Gohan," his mother said when the meal was just about through (something that took the two demi-Saiyans less than four minutes). "I guess it's time for you to leave," she finished thickly.
"Aww, Mom, it's okay," Gohan told his mother, shouldering his backpack. "I'll be home by five."
"Oh, Gohan!" Chi-Chi wailed, bursting suddenly into tears. "My little boy's all grown up and leaving his mother home alone all day! Soon he'll be gone off to college and get married and never time for his poor, poor mother!" Gohan's probably bipolar mom subsided into sobs, sitting down at the table and blew her nose on her napkin.
"Mom, it's okay. It's just high school. It was your idea, remember? I'm not leaving permanently, just for a few hours," Gohan protested weakly, taken aback as he always was at his mother's supreme emotional display.
"Okay." his mother sniffled. Suddenly she straightened. "Then you be home at four-thirty, Son Gohan, or so help me I'll-"
"Okay, Mum, bye!" Gohan interrupted her tirade before she could get going. If he let her build up momentum, she'd never stop. He instead pecked her on the cheek leapt into the air. "NIMBUS!" he called loudly, seeing the little yellow cloud race towards him. Gohan used a small burst of ki and landed deftly on the cloud, settling into its cushion-like mass.
Leaving his probably bipolar mother and still-waving brother behind, Gohan sped off as fast the cloud could go, streaking towards Satan City, and, more specifically, Orange Star High School, the highest rated high school in the world.
When Gohan hit the outskirts of the city, he landed, sending the cloud away to wherever it went when it wasn't being used. He hopped down from the cloud and began walking quickly. According to his directions, Orange Star was just a few blocks north.
"Help! Help me!" Gohan whipped around at hearing a distressed woman's voice call out from a dark alley between two buildings. Without thinking, Gohan dashed towards the voice.
When Gohan got about twenty feet into the alley, he saw the woman, and why she had been crying. A large, ugly man was holding her down while an even larger, bulkier man was tearing at her jeans, fumbling excitedly. Her mouth was held shut by the first man, who was laughing insanely while his friend, who had just gotten his own pants off, was forcing the girls legs apart.
At once, anger began to rise in Gohan. They were raping this girl! Gohan felt power crackle to life around him, igniting bits of garbage throughout the alleyway. His transformation came upon him, unbidden, giving all the world a golden sheen as his surveyed it magisterially with cerulean eyes. With a roar of pure, unadulterated rage, Gohan leapt at the bulkier man, catching him across the jaw with his left foot. Gohan felt his jaw liquefy and his neck bone shatter, spinning the rapists head all the way around- twice- and sending him flying into the brick wall of alley with speed of several times that of sound.
Next, Gohan turned to his partner. This man was also covered in grotesque muscles, although not as many as his friend. He had a strange tattoo on his forehead, like an elaborate M shape. Gohan growled. Who cares what the man had on his forehead? What mattered was him paying for what he was about to do to that woman.
With another yell of righteous rage, Gohan punched the would-be rapist as hard as he could in the face, feeling bone give way and cheek bones shatter as the man struck the brick wall hard enough to dash his brains all across the pavement. He slid to the ground, his lolling tongue hanging out, grossly purple in death. With a sneer of contempt, Gohan disintegrated his body with brutal motion of his hand.
"YAMU?" The giant called. Gohan spun around in surprise. It was the first one! How was he still alive? Gohan had ruined his jaw, shattered his spinal column, and had probably broken his skull against the brick. How could he still be up, apparently whole?
Gohan growled again, a low, menacing sound. His Saiyan fangs were fully displayed now, pumped full of fatal venom. Power rushed from his pores, making the air around him shimmer, like the air over hot pavement. He watched calmly as the giant sprinted at Gohan and dove, aiming to knock him to the ground, as if they were playing football. Gohan flipped backward, timing his arc so that his hands were directly pointed up just as the freak was passing over him. With a rush of ki, Gohan engulfed his opponent in a bath of energy, leaving no trace of him save for a dark cloud of ash.
His task done, Gohan kept his Super Saiyan form to disguise himself. He would prefer to have a normal high school life, and being thought of as a freak did not usually entail that. He turned to the still crying woman, who had just gathered her pants back up to her hips and was trying to make sure her tattered shirt covered her. The entire encounter had taken maybe five seconds.
"Are you all right, ma'am?" Gohan asked in his most polite voice. He stared directly into her own eyes, deliberately trying to ignore her nakedness.
"I'm fine," she stuttered, wiping a tear from her eye. She stood, wincing as her left leg touched the ground. "They grabbed me as I walked by. I had defense-" she held up a small bottle of pepper spray- "But they just laughed. Thank God you came along."
"But they didn't get far enough, ma'am? You're okay?"
"I'm fine, just a little. shook up. This city really has gone to Hell lately, you know." The woman seemed to be regaining her composure as she spoke, so Gohan let her babble. "Gangs, drugs. Not even Hercule can do anything about them. You handled those two so well; you should think about going into business. This city could use a hero." She let out a cynical laugh, pulling on her jacket to cover her exposed breasts. "What we call you? Golden Boy?" She laughed again. "Thanks for helping me, I'll just go home and change my clothes. No need to file a police report, I don't think they could fill a snuffbox up with what you left them."
Gohan paused. A hero? He thought heavily for a moment. Yes, why not? He had read that Satan City had the highest crime rate in the region. The people he had seen had looked forlorn and hopeless, as if they were all just waiting to die. Gohan smirked.
"Ma'am?" The woman turned around. "Call me Saiyaman." Gohan's voice suddenly became deeper, tougher. More.evil. No, not evil. Vegeta. More Vegeta.
With an ignition of ki, Gohan flew away.
* * *
"So, if don't have any questions," Headmaster Ithomitis was saying to Gohan, leading him out of his office. "That concludes the tour and orientation of Orange Star High School. You're lucky it's only November, Gohan. You've barely missed anything." Gohan rolled his eyes as he followed the portly administrator to the end of the hallway the main office was located in. Outside the door, a short-blond haired girl waited for them, dressed in skintight purple pants and a green tube top that showed more skin the rape-victim's tattered shirt.
"Hi!" she exclaimed when she saw him. Gohan winced. It was too early for anyone to be that happy. "I'm Erasa, and I'll be your student-buddy! I'll show you to all your classes, introduce you to your teachers, and help you in your first few weeks at Orange Star! I can see we'll be, like, really good friends! C'mon, first period is starting! We have Physics 12A, down in the Science Lab. The teacher, Mr. Williamson, is."
Gohan tuned out the annoyingly-bright girl as he followed her down to the Science Lab, hoping she'd eventually get tired of hearing herself talk.
Fat chance. She whispered to him the whole time in Physics, talked to him in Calculus, whispered again in Latin 4, corresponded by note in Creative Writing, and announced to him that after CW was over, it would be lunch time. The day was split into nine forty-five minute periods at Orange Star, four periods, a twenty-five minute lunch and a twenty-minute study, then four more periods.
As Erasa and Gohan waited in the lunch line and were served hot, greasy, and generally unrecognizable food, she introduced Gohan to all her friends. There was Sharpner, who proudly told Gohan he was Captain of the Boxing Team, Wrestling Group, and Weightlifting Club, Eusuke, who was either Sharpner's sidekick or lover, Jaclyn and Victoria, who agreed to everything Erasa said and occasionally added such scintillating observations such as "He is sooo hot this year."
Overall, Gohan was beginning to get bored. The food was hardly enough, leaving Gohan hungry. And a hungry, bored Gohan was not usually a good thing. Gohan was about to do something drastic- that is, break Sharpner's arrogant, pretty-boy jaw, when he saw her across the cafeteria.
She was easily the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her long, ebony hair cascaded over her shoulders and rested lightly at the level of her collar bone. Her eyes were the purest shade of violet he had ever seen, and smoldered with barely controlled rage. A fighter. Gohan grinned. He liked fighters. He could just imagine her now, her delicately beautiful face set in a determined expression, her body, which was obscured beneath a gigantic T-shirt, splayed into a fighting stance, ready at any moment to attack.
Gohan broke off his train of thought.
Careful, he thought to himself. Wouldn't want the little Saiyan to make an entrance.
"Gohan! Gohan!" Gohan realized for the first time Erasa was poking him in the shoulder. "I said, 'are you doing anything after school?' Well, are you?"
"Uhh.yeah!" Gohan almost sighed with relief as he thought up a valid excuse. He had to see Bulma anyway, why not just go after school? "I have to.stop by Capsule Corp. and pick up.uh.some capsules.. Yeah, that's right. Uhh-huh." Gohan bobbed his head, feeling stupider by the moment. "And hey, Erasa?"
The blonde floozy turned back. "Yes?"
"Who's that girl over there? Sitting by herself?" Gohan motioned subtlety to his mystery girl. Erasa looked over and, for some reason, scowled. Gohan supposed it was because she was so much prettier than Erasa.
"Oh, that's Videl," Erasa waved a hand in dismissal. "She's Hercule's daughter, but she's so weird. She's like, always angry all the time, and such a bitch. Besides, have you ever seen her fight? What a freak! Who spends all that time trying to learn how to fight?"
"Videl." Gohan muttered to himself, trying the word out. Videl. What a lovely name. A strange feeling swelled in Gohan's chest. Was it that strange sauce on the 'taco surprise'? Probably. Yeah, that had to be it. Gohan excused himself and headed for the bathroom, taking his stuff with him. With any luck, he'd miss the rest of lunch and be able to proceed directly to his Half-Study Hall.
* * *
"Master Babidi, Spopovitch and Yamu are dead," a gigantic, red- skinned creature said. He was at least nine feet tall and covered in muscle that his blue cloak barely contained. His sharply trimmed goatee and mustache accented a sharp, strong face. Legends of him were prevalent in every culture in the universe. To some he was known as to Lucifer, to others as Satan. Still others called him Morningstar, the Antichrist, others the Beast. The Kaios knew as him the Keeper, while the Nameks called him the End. He was Dabura, Lord of the Demon World, King of the Demons. His power was legendary, the Kais held great fear for him.
"What?!" An annoying, high-pitched voice answered him. "Impossible! No one on this planet can compete with those two! I gave them enough power to kill the strongest being on this planet easily!" The stunted, twisted creature rubbed his gnarled hands together. Two servants lost. His sickly yellow skin wrinkled in displeasure. "When we scanned this planet three hundred years ago, there was only that Turtle fellow, and Spopovitch and Yamu were three times his strength! How could beings so strong have gained their power so quickly?"
"I do not know, my lord," the Demon King answered. "But think how easily it will be to gather the necessary energy to resurrect Majin Buu. Their largest fighting tournament is in only four months; we could easily pick another slave. All we'd have to do is choose someone with a personal vendetta against one of the competitors. Their Majin Power would be much greater that way."
"I know the Majin Power works, Dabura!" Babidi snapped. The old wizard was irritable today. He always was when his plans didn't go exactly the way he wanted. "Get yourself a disguise and do that for me. Observe carefully. Pay attention to the younger contestants, especially those with mates. Mammals are always coveting another mammal's mates."
"Yes, my lord. And what of the Kaioshin?"
Babidi cackled. "The East Kaioshin and that bodyguard of his will cease to be a problem after Majin Buu is released, Dabura. Even you are stronger than that Kibito, and Majin Buu makes you look like a weakling!" Dabura sneered in displeasure at his master's affront to his power. Babidi cackled again, rubbing his hands together. "Soon, the universe will be mine, and the Supreme Kai will feel my revenge!"
The laughter filled the underground complex, echoing off walls and assaulting the ears of his slaves.
* * *
Gohan sat in the waiting room at Capsule Corp., trying to pass the time while he waited for Bulma. The azure-headed scientist had dove right into Gohan's disguise dilemma, dashing off to her lab to solve the problem right away. Trunks, who by strange coincidence was at the zoo with his grandmother, had left Gohan with nothing to do but sit in silence. Gohan's mind was too abuzz with thoughts to meditate properly and his homework was done, so the young demi-Saiyan was left with nothing to do but wait for Bulma to be done.
About an hour after getting out of school, Gohan felt a familiar power getting closer. Vegeta. A split-second later, his sensitive Saiyan nose picked up the Elite's distinctive scent and his acute hearing heard the almost-silent tap of his boots against the hard floor.
"Well, well, well. Look who it is. The boy who is 'too busy' to train," Vegeta scoffed.
"Well Vegeta, that's right. I'm too busy taking care of my family to train. But you wouldn't know about that, would you? You just shut yourself in that gravity chamber all day while your woman takes care of the work." Gohan was deliberately baiting Vegeta. It was one of his favorite things to do, mainly since the Saiyan prince was so easy.
"How dare you!" Vegeta exclaimed angrily. "You little fucking ingrate! I'll-"
"Vegeta!" A familiar feminine voice called suddenly. "What did I say about using the 'f-word?'"
Vegeta turned to his mate. "But Trunks isn't here, woman! I can't warp his vocabulary if he's not here!"
Gohan suppressed a snicker. The great, proud Vegeta, forbidden from his favorite word, because of the psychological affects it might have on his son? The very idea was laughable. Seeing it being enforced was hilarious.
Bulma turned to Gohan. "Here you go, honey. It's a transformation watch. Just push the red button and it'll create a disguise for you. The watch is tuned into the news, so if anything big happens, you'll know." She turned back to Vegeta. "And you, you big ugly lug, will be sleeping on the couch tonight!" Bulma fearlessly stepped forward and grabbed a handful of his hair. "And no more training today, mister! You're going to do the dishes and take out the trash for once! March!"
Gohan laughed once more as Vegeta shot him a murderous glance from across the room. He thanked Bulma who brushed it off.
As he left the building, Gohan happened to glance at his watch. When he saw the time, he almost fell over. "Dammit!" he exclaimed. "It's 5:30!" Gohan had no other choice. The Nimbus wouldn't get him home fast enough. He put his finger over the red button and repressed the screaming thought NEVER PUSH THE RED BUTTON!
When Gohan depressed the button, a crackling surge of electricity covered him, overwriting his clothes with the stores ones in the watch. Gohan took a moment to check out his costume. A black bodysuit covered him from ankle to wrist to neck, tucked into standard issue Saiyan combat boots and gloves. A green knee-length tunic provided the base of the outfit, cinched at the waist with a small white belt containing various capsules full of food. A horrendous orange helmet complete with antennae topped off the costume.
"Ugh," Gohan muttered and discarded the helmet. Instead, he used a useful ki trick he learned from Piccolo to let ki crawl across his face. The ki was mirror-like, reflecting light, but also shone with many colors, effectively hiding and distinct features of his face. "Better," Gohan noted aloud. With a second of concentration, a burst of ki forced its way through the soles of Gohan's boots and shot him high into the air, toward his home.
Fin.