Author's Note: This is just some back story. I didn't feel like advancing the plot. Expect an addition to "An Interesting Future" relatively soon. I already started it. Those who wonder about the fate of Videl and Satan, they're dead as it gets. I don't like Videl, so rather than ruining her as a character, I just omit her entirely. Besides, a Gohan/Videl romance would be extremely creepy, under the circumstances. I am currently in the process of editing "An Alternate Afterlife" and the mess will be a much cleaner mess after I'm done. Keep in mind, in that story I never thought to the next chapter. I just sat down and wrote whatever I felt like.

I know this chapter kind of switched verb tenses halfway through, but it's easier to write that way. I think you guys get it: this is a flashback, it's just really long. Goten is quickly shaping up to be a main character, though I didn't intend for him to be one. A tip for writers: Online Thesaurus's are good, useful tools. I use one all the time. Just don't use words you don't know, or your story will come out sounding odd.

Jay Goose- Trunks isn't going to show up that much. He'll be in a couple chapters, but only when there is a use for him. Cell is going to show up next chapter or the one after, I promise. You get some Gohan here, though.

Phoenix-Rising- I know, I'm currently revising AAA for that very reason, as I have a bad habit of posting stories before looking them over. My tendency to not separate speakers I could claim is a remnant of English class permanently lodged in my brain, but that would be a lie, as I love writing in sentence fragments. As for why. . . no one thinks in complete sentences, and I am writing from characters' perspectives, after all.

Goten couldn't remember ever being especially bothered by blood, or death. He first kill had been at four; a training instructor who had said his stupid catchphrase one too many times, and criticized his technique, which was far more exact than the instructor's. Before that, all he had been was Lord Gohan's younger brother; prestigious to be sure, but nothing on its own. Afterwards, he was no longer regarded as a child.

At his first purging, he had just entered his sixth year. Piccolo had wanted him to have a solid enough defense that a stupid mistake wouldn't lead to him being killed by a lesser opponent. It was nothing like the murder of the instructor; the adrenaline rush lasted much, much longer, and the blood had soaked all of his clothes, not just a smattering across the face like before. He had watched mothers beg for their children's lives, and observed the weeping of those children over their parents' bodies before he sent tight energy beams through whatever passed for their major organs, killing them instantly. Mercy killings. At most, he felt contempt for their weakness; otherwise there was nothing.

At seven, he realized why his mother never left her room. Gohan wouldn't let her. She would try and find something, anything with an edge. Slit her wrists, her throat. Once she even made it as far as to actually get a hold of a kitchen knife before she was finally located. The guard on duty at the time was executed for his incompetence. But his mother had always been a determined woman. She finally achieved her goal when Goten was sixteen. The body was still warm when he had come across her the next morning. Goten knew the Rebellion thought he was unaware of his mother's fate. He had no desire to correct them.

At eight, he witnessed his first torture session. Nothing was left untouched by Gohan and his edged weapon of choice. Blunt, it took much longer. Nothing was left unscathed. As the body on the table screamed out everything, anything he could think of to end it, Gohan heard what information he had been searching for. He cut the tongue out for silence, as the screams had gotten beyond irritating; he cut the heart out to bring death, as the usefulness of the body was at an end.

Goten had never been bothered by torture, either. It was often necessary. You had to get the information somehow, and of course, it always took something to get your enemies to talk. He had never especially liked it, but he didn't like broccoli either; sometimes unpleasantness was necessary to achieve a goal.

When Goten was nine, he first sparred with Gohan. Piccolo hadn't thought him ready, but Goten was arrogant and Gohan had been amused, so the fight had come to pass. Gohan, without even going to super saiyan, defeated Goten without Goten landing a punch. He had spent a week in the tanks, and never questioned Gohan's power again.

Goten had always been aware that Gohan sometimes toyed with prisoners long after their usefulness had run out. Only rumors, but Goten knew his brother well enough to recognize some truth in them. He wasn't bothered. Gohan was an epitome of strength, near perfection. It was almost comforting to know that even his brother had flaws.

A few weeks after Goten turned ten, a major celebration took place across the Emporium, but none greater than the party that was thrown in the royal palace of Taros III, capital and residence of Gohan, the golden lord, and Goten, the bloody aura. A rather disturbing nickname, but true enough. After his first purge, his power had always seemed to manifest a dark red.

Goten was normally rather fond of celebrations. He often met others of his own age and status, a rarity in the palace mostly populated by servants, and saw strange aliens that he wasn't required to kill. However, this was different. A major victory for Emporium forces, and also a first, for Gohan had gotten involved in the battle. A necessity; the leader of the decimated group had power enough that even Piccolo wasn't assured of victory, and Gohan wanted blood. Years later, tales were told of the golden lord achieving the heavenly aura that characterized an ascended saiyan, and the battle that followed. Goten had seen this often enough when Gohan was training, but it was a sight rarely viewed by the masses. After that, the resistance cell didn't stand a chance. Those who lived were executed, save one, who was brought to the capital unconscious, his wounds untreated.

With the most powerful opponent of the Emporium defeated, a series of victories took place over the variety of rebellious factions. This turned out to be more of a detriment than an advantage, as it finally persuaded the various insurgence groups to join forces. This, Goten noticed, put even more stress on the namekian second in command of the Emporium then there was already. He had seen Piccolo more than once wandering the halls as bouts of insomnia kept him from achieving the peace required for meditation.

Gohan had not been bothered. Sometimes Goten wondered whether Gohan noticed anything, especially after he gained a new focus, and his worldview quickly narrowed to one, solitary, creature. Supposedly the interrogation rooms were soundproof. This soon proved to be a complete and utter falsehood. . . unless Goten was imagining things. Goten didn't have much of an imagination to speak of.

It had happened before. Gohan would get a new toy, and be utterly fixated on it until he broke it a few days or weeks later. Then he would go back to being the competent and powerful (though slightly unstable) ruler of the universe. . . until he came across another trifle, and the cycle would start all over again. Goten expected this to be the same. Gohan had taken a shine to powerful fighters before (even if they did lack the sheer capacity for deadliness as his current plaything). If anything, they were found in the disintegrator even sooner than the others. Brittle things break when there is too much pressure. Nothing shatters easier than a warrior's pride.

This time was different. It first became obvious one morning several months after the annihilation of the rebellion cell. Goten's morning started out with the usual routine; he tried to push the sleep button on his alarm clock and broke it (again), dragged on his gi, went through his morning katas, got his ass handed to him by Piccolo, got holes in his technique prodded at by Piccolo, took a shower, said good morning to his mother (it was 50/50 odds whether she'd return the greeting), and went to eat breakfast.

Someone else was in the kitchen. This wasn't unusual, it was unprecedented. Piccolo didn't eat. Gohan always ate breakfast in his office, or he skipped breakfast entirely. When pushed about this, Piccolo told him Gohan didn't like eating in kitchens. Servants were told to stay out. This was Goten's domain. It was finally concluded that someone hadn't been informed of the way of things.

Goten valued his kitchen. He had ruined several meals there. He ate his cereal, eggs, sausage, and muffins there every morning. He distinctly remembered hitting Gohan with a paint balloon once, in the adjacent corridor (by mistake, actually. He had been aiming for the damn butler who always set his alarm an hour too early). He could refrain, however. He wouldn't get angry. He wasn't his brother. He allowed for mistakes.

However, he could be surprised. He knew this person, or at least recognized him. From vids, mostly, and one glance in person, though at the time he had been soaked with his own distinctive, violet blood. ((Though come to think of it, the color wasn't so distinctive, anymore. The android's plasma was the same shade.)) The rebellion cell leader.

He looked nothing like the vids. Or that first "meeting" as it were, though they had exchanged no words. The changeling hadn't even been fully conscious at the time. Even so, there had been an aura of lethality about him, of hopeless resistance. Cooler wasn't stupid. He knew he didn't stand a chance against whatever awaited him. But he didn't want to give in to his fate.

Now. . . not defeated, exactly. Or maybe it was, but. . . helpless frustration. He recognized the changes in himself, and hated it. Goten had always been adept at reading auras. Unlike Gohan, who's early training had been, because of necessity, focused on brute force, the lack of need for Goten's talent meant Piccolo could use more subtle methods for the advancement of the demi-saiyan's training. Sometimes Goten felt this had shortchanged him in the raw power department, but he had a fine tune control over his power that Gohan couldn't match and only Piccolo surpassed. Slight fluctuation in feeling was blindingly obvious to one who could read opponents' movements like his own.

The changeling was a magnificent creature. Had to be, for Gohan to take such an interest in him. He had held the warrior's pride as surely as any other fighter, but it had been tempered by failure of his followers and the knowledge that powers out there surpassed his own. There was still something of that in the figure standing before Goten, but honed to an even finer point. No arrogance, just the comprehension of one's strengths. . . and weaknesses. Gohan had a habit of making those blindingly obvious to his amusements.

It was just then that the changeling noticed him. There was no surprise, but this seemed less because he had known Goten was there and more he couldn't be bothered to express any emotion that required as much facial movement as that. Goten spoke first. "Any particular reason you're in my kitchen?" A shrug.

"I wanted something to eat." The sheer informality of the changeling's statement was startling.

"I'm surprised Gohan hasn't killed you yet. Usually he loses interest much more quickly." Apparently not with Cooler. Vivid scars covered the changeling's body, a majority of them mostly healed over but others much more recent, some still slightly bleeding. The brand above his left shoulder blade looked to be no more than a few hours old. And the collar encircling the throat of Gohan's newest plaything spoke of an unheard of permanence. The changeling met his eyes calmly, but shifted under his prolonged scrutiny. So, either Gohan was losing his touch, or Cooler just repressed a great strength of will that Gohan had noticed, and wanted to possess. The older demi-saiyan professed a fondness for the rare and unusual. "Any idea why you're still around?"

"No."

That pretty much concluded their first encounter. Goten had nothing more to say. Cooler hadn't had anything to say to begin with. Goten sat down to eat breakfast, and Cooler looked to be deciding between a muffin or a bagel before a sharp hiss alerted Goten to his unwanted guest, who currently had his hand at his neck, though it hovered a centimeter or two above actually touching the collar. The changeling walked out without another word being uttered, and Goten promptly forgot about him. He had a purging assignment to take care of, and the ship left in an hour. It wouldn't do for the mission's commander to be late.

----

It didn't take long for Cooler's presence in the palace to again manifest itself. Books started to go missing from the royal private library. Literature like "The Art of War," which Gohan had memorized by the time he hit puberty. Goten knew it as well, but he liked to look over the better of his family's collection once in a while. For the first, and thankfully the last, time, the book wasn't there.

Goten actually once encountered the changeling between the shelves. He hadn't bothered with pleasantries. "Why do you keep taking my books?"

"There isn't anything else for me to do around here. I might as well endeavor to understand your culture." "We don't have a culture. We're hybrids. Besides that, you won't get anywhere near to understanding Gohan by reading Earth texts. You'd do better with the namekian ones." Cooler raised an eyebrow ridge.

"I thought he was raised on Earth."

"In the woods, not anywhere near human civilization, and Piccolo pretty much took care of him from four on anyway." A gross generalization, but Goten couldn't wrap his mind around their mother taking care of anyone, and he didn't like to think about his father.

"Ah." Cooler carefully slid the book he was holding back onto the shelf. "Would you kindly direct me to the namekian volumes?"

"Two bookcases to the left, top three shelves."

"Thank you."

Goten didn't care, really. He just hated to see people futilely waste their time, which was most likely why he didn't bother toying with his opponents on purges. Misuse of energy best spent elsewhere. And it didn't look like Cooler had time or energy to spare. Gohan was prone to taking out his moods on whoever was available.

----

It was several months later before Goten actually saw Gohan and Cooler together. He rather wished he had found a way to avoid the experience. No matter what your race or how you were raised, it is always disturbing to see one of your parental figures (which sometimes made Goten wonder whether he subconsciously thought of Piccolo as his mother, or if it was indeed possible to have two father figures and not be scarred for life, and there goes my political commentary for the month) sticking his tongue in someone's mouth.

Goten had never really contemplated the exact nature of the abuse Gohan put his victims through. Physical, for sure. Many of the examined bodies showed extensive burns, scars, mutilations. Mental, most likely. Goten himself had largely avoided the sharper edge of Gohan's tongue, but more than once he had witnessed those who dared to oppose his elder brother, be it socially, politically, or otherwise, being dragged off screaming incoherently to their planet's mental institutions.

He had never really considered sexual. Goten easily forgave himself for this oversight. All maturity aside, he was just a few months shy of eleven.

He had never thought of his brother as uncontrolled, either. With power as great as Gohan's, mastery over your ki was essential, or else it would eat you alive. But there was nothing restrained in the demi-saiyan before him. Ascended, Gohan's left hand easily contained Cooler's two, constrained above his head, tightly against the wall. The right gripped the changeling's chin firmly, not letting him pull away. Not that he was really trying. Goten couldn't tell if Cooler was just resigned to his fate, or he enjoyed the taller, more powerful warrior's command over him as the demi-saiyan relentlessly explored his mouth. He didn't seem the type for the latter, but months alone with your captor could do strange things to a person. There was actually a name for the disorder, but Goten was too busy trying to back out of the room inconspicuously to think of it.

He really should have knocked before entering Gohan's office. Well, lesson learned. Maybe he would buy his brother a lock for his next birthday.

----

Things proceeded from there. More worlds were conquered. Goten's finely tuned mastery over his ki increased, though his power seemed lazy in catching up. Gohan's ki did the exact opposite, though blowing the occasional head off an annoying subordinate didn't seem to bother the elder demi-saiyan at all. Cooler's already large collection of scars grew, including a startlingly vibrant gash that diagonally split the changeling's face in two. Cooler didn't volunteer any information. Goten didn't ask. Piccolo spoke less and less, which Goten could only hope was an indication of his increasing fighting proficiency and not a portent of bad things Goten just couldn't see. The Rebellion continued to be a thorn in the Emporium's side, but it little affected the pattern of life in the palace on Taros III.

Goten was fourteen when he finally found out what had happened to his father. "Gohan killed him." This came as more than a surprise. Goten hadn't even been asking when a breather in their sparring had brought about Piccolo's declaration. It didn't even make any sense. Gohan spoke of their father and his time with him in the fond, reminiscing tones he usually saved for the stories of the pet dragon he had as a child.

"Why?"

"Because Goku couldn't protect him when he should have. Or perhaps Goku just wouldn't. There was a threat to Earth once, one Goku should have stopped. But he made Gohan fight in his place."

"To increase his power." Goten could understand that. Gohan often made him fight against opponents that the elder demi-saiyan would have no trouble defeating. Invariably, Goten received a jump in power after spending a few hours in the recovery tanks, and he could never stay angry at his brother long. His lack of power was his weakness, and he took every chance to increase it. But Piccolo was shaking his head.

"No. He just wanted Gohan to get over his dislike of. . . fighting." This, Goten couldn't fathom. Gohan? Not wanting to fight? All that was normal and sane in the universe did a temporary 180, but quickly reasserted itself. "Gohan won, but Goku died in the process."

"So. . . Gohan liked fighting after that?"

"No. If anything, Goku's death temporarily drove Gohan away from fighting altogether. It didn't last long, but things really changed three years later. Gohan died, and after I wished him back with the dragonballs. . ."

Goten couldn't hold back a snicker. Magic seemed like such a crock. Wishing people back from the dead. Meeting god. Okay, maybe that wasn't so far-fetched, as apparently Piccolo had been god at one time or another and so had Dende, whom Goten had met once (the shorter namekian had seemed rather unstable. He called Piccolo Nail, for Kaioushin's sake, though Piccolo had done nothing to destroy Dende's illusion). Guardian would perhaps be a better label, but Piccolo had also met a higher god. Maybe there was a level somewhere where the Kaious actually had the omniscience and omnipotence commonly associated with Greater Beings, but Goten had a hard time believing. Piccolo shot him a look, but continued his story.

". . . he was a warrior, then, but of a darker order than anything Goku ever could have wished for." Then there was some description of the rather gruesome bloodbath that followed, but Goten was far more interested in watching Cooler slump against the glass observation wall that looked over the training room, obviously in the belief that the glass was tinted. When blood started to dye the glass purple, Goten started to feel slightly concerned. When the changeling collapsed, Goten passed concerned, but morbid curiosity overwhelmed his usual good sense, which was currently yelling at him to notify the royal (and discreet) physician over his ear link, so he stood up to investigate instead. Piccolo was still talking. ". . .so Gohan blew up the Earth." Normally very observant, Piccolo took until just then to notice his student's distraction. "Goten, what is it?"

"Cooler."

"Goten, now is not the time to be thinking about your brother's. . . oh no."

As Piccolo quickly (and oddly, somewhat frantically) alerted the physician, Goten walked out of the training room and up the stairs to Cooler. For a moment, he gazed down at his brother's work, and it was Gohan, for no one else could do that kind of damage to one as powerful as the changeling. The left arm looked partially torn off. Despite all logic, the brand was bleeding. There was a variety of other minor cuts and bruises, a particularly nasty one covering the entirety of Cooler's neck. To make things even worse, the face disfiguring scar had reopened, tingeing the facial features a distinct shade of lilac, which made it difficult to tell if the changeling was breathing. Goten checked the pulse. There still was one, and it was strong, though worryingly erratic.

The physician and her assistants soon arrived, and took Cooler off to the ward. He survived, barely, though it took months before he spoke again. And he never was the same, after that. Goten hadn't expected the life of his friend (for he could be nothing else) to endure. He hadn't wanted it to, after finally realizing the horror the changeling lived in every day. Goten wasn't used to it, someone he was close to, someone he had discussed books with and had taught him how to cook an egg without it turning out all rubbery, being hurt. By Gohan. By his brother, who had been torturing Cooler for years, and had tortured others for years before. Seeing some of the scars on Cooler, for the first time really seeing them, Goten remembered they hadn't been there when Cooler was first brought to the capital. And only something horrible could leave scars like that.

For the first time, Goten began to have doubts. What sort of person could hurt someone for no reason, and enjoy it? It took him years before he knew the answer.

----

Only a monster. Only a demon could mete out such pain, on one who did not deserve it, because no one deserved it. Goten could see now, why Cooler had rejected him. If Gohan was a demon, only a being of equal horror could stand by for years, watching such agony being inflicted and knowing its evil, and do nothing. He was the brother of a demon. And such things ran in families, after all. Goten needed to get rid of the taint, before it completely stained what was left of his soul.