He blinked twice as he looked around the familiar white abyss. The only difference this time is that he can feel the cold floor beneath his bare feet.
"Huh, did I end up dying again?" The sound of his voice startled him yet again as he touched his mouth. "Oh, I still have Gohan's body!" He said excitedly while his tail started to wave left and right with excitement.
Gohan's eyes zeroed in on his said tail as they followed its movement. "Right, Kid Gohan still had a tail, didn't he? God, this feels so weird." The boy spoke with bemusement as he tentatively touched the tip of his furry tail, lightly rubbing it and feeling a strange tingle that made his knees weak. "Oooh~ T-that's something alright." He said in a low voice as he rolled it between his fingers, feeling his body weaken.
The sound of someone clearing their throat came from behind him, it almost spooked the soul right out of his body as he yelped in fright and almost tripped into his own feet as he quickly turned around to face the person that made that noise.
There behind him is the same Inky Man that sent him to this body. The Inky Man's body language betrayed his amusement as he started to calmly speak. "Are you done touching yourself?" He asked with his head tilted towards Gohan as his eye twinkled with mischief.
The tip of Gohan's ears burned with embarrassment as he released his tail. "I'm not-! Okay, I am touching myself but I'm not touching-touching myself! ...Right?" Crap, he might as well have been touching himself, maybe it's a weird Saiyajin thing and he didn't know about it.
Inky raised his hands apologetically as he gave Gohan a disarming smile. "You don't need to feel so embarrassed about it. I was just trying to break the ice with a little joke. I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable." He palmed the back of his neck as he chuckled.
Gohan released his tail as he coughed, trying to will the embarrassing air away. "Sorry, it's just that I wasn't expecting you or anyone else to show up again. I thought I had died again or something like that." The boy's hand gestured around vaguely as he spoke to the man with curiosity in his eyes.
Said man decided to sit down on the transparent floor, indicating Gohan to copy him as he tapped the transparent floor with his left hand. "I'm sure you have some questions regarding your most unusual situation, yes?" He asked Gohan.
Gohan hesitated for a few moments as he measured his words carefully. "Did you... kill Son Gohan?" He tentatively asked, dreading the answer.
The man covered in ink hummed. "I did not, his Soul is now fused with your Soul, your Soul simply overpowered his, you could say he now lives within you. The Son Gohan of this Universe was fated to die alongside Son Goku and the Namekian. In this Universe, he would have been too scared to subconsciously activate his latent powers and due to that he would ultimately cause the death of Earth's inhabitants and at a later date the guaranteed Erasure of that Universe itself by the hands of Zeno." He spoke way too casually about the complete Erasure of that place as if he didn't care about it in the slightest.
The boy felt a tense lump on his throat as he tried not to choke on empty air. "A-all of that would happen just because Gohan didn't hit Raditz once?" He whispered as he realized just how important that moment was for the future and for the survival of the Universe itself.
He received another round of humming from the man as he tilted his head left and grinned. "Such a small little moment, yet it was a key one for the survival of that Universe. You'll be surprised with how far little actions can take you. I recommend you to be careful, but not too careful, of course."
The Hybrid started to realize it was starting to become more difficult to breathe the longer he was at this white void. "What do you mean? Wouldn't being careful be the best choice?" He questioned the Eldritch being.
"Common senses would indicate yes." The man covered in ink started to respond in a thoughtful tone of voice. "Yet if you end up overthinking too much about what you'll do in the future and try to think about every single possible contingency plan you'll never live in the present and fully enjoy it. There's also the fact that's Incredibly boring to watch." He said with some amusement as Gohan started to cough. "It seems we're running out of time, it's been a pleasure to talk with you. If you have any more questions you better hurry up now."
Gohan continued to cough as the water was being forcefully expelled from his lungs while tried to speak up, falling into the nothingness below him. "W-wait! *Coff coff*, why I'm not freaking out about *coff* this?" He managed to finish the sentence with some difficulty.
"That's quite simple. I simply removed any possible negative and detrimental feelings regarding this unique situation from your brain! It would've been quite the inconvenience if something like that dragged you down. Aren't you thankful that I did it?" The man smiled kindly towards Gohan as he spread his arms wide.
The newest member of the Son family coughed more and more as he started to choke. He used his hands to support his body as everything started to turn black all around him. '...He brainwashed me, rude.' That was his last thought before he woke up.
-000-000-000
His lungs are burning up, full of *something* that is not air. His eyes stung as he opened them wide.
He is drowning. 'WHY AM I DROWNING!?' Gohan thought in panic as he struggled to get up from the muddy ground, gasping for air as he hacked his lungs while coughing up the fluid that invaded them. He greedily swallowed the fresh air once his head was out from under the water.
He looked around and saw Piccolo crossing his arms as he looked down at him. 'God, he looks immensely tall. He's so imposing and he's not even doing anything intimidating, that's scary.' Gohan thought with awe as he craned his neck to look up at the Namekian.
Piccolo's lips slightly curled down in a frown. "Brat, you have already slept for far too long. We need to talk so get out of the water." Piccolo ordered once Gohan stopped struggling to breathe.
Gohan blinked twice. "Uh, good afternoon?" He said sheepishly as he slowly waddled out of the water. "I think my clothes are ruined, Mother is going to have a fit..." He mumbled to himself as his colorful outfit tightly clung to his soaking wet body. He jumped out of the water and started to wildly shake his hair and tail, trying to dry them off.
Huh, his hair is currently pretty long already and braided into a Chinese-style ponytail, fancy.
Piccolo grunted. "Humpf, that ridiculous get-up is the least of your worries right now. Your dear little 'Daddy' is dead." He spoke with some satisfaction and a smirk. "He died protecting you from the man that kidnaped you." He finished as he crossed his arms, cape billowing into the wind as he stared Gohan down, trying to gauge his reaction.
Gohan pursed his lips as he looked down with some shame and regret. He knows Goku needed to die alongside Raditz so he could learn the Kaioken and the Genki-Dama, but that doesn't lessen his feelings of guilt or the sadness he feels while imagining how and why he died. "...Yeah, I figured that out since you're here and he's not." The boy said as he clenched his fists tightly.
Piccolo hummed approvingly. "I was expecting you to cry your eyes out but that reaction is much better. The sound of a child crying is absolute torture to my ears." He said with disgust as his right ear twitched slightly.
The Saiyajin Hybrid scratched his left cheek. "They're gonna wish my Daddy back with the Dragon Balls, right?" He looked up at Piccolo with curiosity, still amazed at the fact he's talking with someone he only saw as a fictional being.
The Namekian grunted in confirmation. "You're catching up quickly and aren't annoying me nearly as much as I thought you would. Good, I can deal with this." Piccolo said with some small approval hidden behind his voice. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about." He raised one finger as he continued to speak. "In around one year two more men will arrive, those men are allies of the man you helped your father and I murder. It took the two of us plus your assistance to barely even manage to kill Raditz successfully so even with your father being brought back from the afterlife it would still not be nearly enough to defeat them." Piccolo snarled the next words as he looked displeased. "Those two men are much stronger than Raditz was so for us to even have the slightest chance to defeat them I will need to train you." Piccolo pointed at Gohan with the same finger he previously raised. "For some reason, you have an enormous amount of potential and power hidden deep inside of you."
Piccolo leaned down until his face was head level with Gohan's. "And I'm going to force it to appear even if I have to rip it out with my own bare hands." He wickedly smirked at the thought of that, idly flexing his clawed fingers.
Gohan gulped as he felt dread creeping up from his spine, Piccolo's sadistic eyes glinted with barely restrained malice as they stared him down. Right, the start of Z Piccolo was still a bad guy, mostly. "W-when are we going to start?" He asked with some trepidation behind his voice as sweat formed on his forehead and dripped down.
Piccolo straightened back up and crossed his arms. "Right now. We have no time to waste so the faster we start the better it'll be for all of us. This training is not just for you but for me as well so once you're ready for the sparring sections we'll focus on that. You will be learning the Mazoku-Ryuu, a style that has been passed from me directly from my progenitor." The green man said with some pride in his voice as he tapped his temple twice with his index finger. "Do you know anything about Ki?" He questioned the boy.
Gohan nodded excitedly. "It's something every living being has. It's our inner power and some people also call it Chi or even Chakra! I used all I had when I escaped the Space Pod and hit my uncle." The boy rambled a bit as he spoke with excitement, waving his hands around.
Piccolo hummed as he rubbed his chin between his fingers "So you're telling me you used your Ki on purpose to strengthen your body, it was not an accident?" He questioned Gohan. "Show me how you did it. Now." The green man ordered in a serious tone as he crossed his arms again.
The little boy gulped as he felt nervous being under the watchful eyes of the Demon Prince(Who was not even a Demon at all!). He nodded as he focused on that tingly feeling he felt before, pulling on it as his muscles strained due to the effort.
Piccolo grunted. "Stop." Gohan looked up in surprise as he stopped pulling on that feeling, looking up with clear confusion written all over his youthful face. "You're doing it wrong. The way you're doing may be useful in the last ditch effort during a hopeless battle, but the way you're doing it is by forcing your Ki to appear instead of making it naturally flow all over your body. This will only damage your body in the long run if you keep using that method." Piccolo lectured the boy as he started to ponder something. "Sit down, I'm going to show you how it's properly done," Piccolo said to him as he too sat up and crossed his legs. "Pay close attention to me and don't say a word, I will not repeat myself." He ordered.
Gohan sat down with his legs crossed over each other and lips pursed tightly as to not make a single peep.
The Namekian nodded in approval. "As you have said before, every living being has Ki. The more Ki a being has the more difficult it is for control it without the proper training. You have an exceptional amount of Ki within you, far greater than what I or your father have combined." He didn't sound too pleased to admit that fact. "You know how to tap into it, that's the hardest part for anyone beginning to grasp into the basics so now all you need to do is practice until your body gets used to it. Ki is both a mental and physical exercise as it benefits from practicing both in unison until they start to work together to change the world around you. Ki can be used to strengthen your body, as you're aware by now, but it can also be used to create powerful techniques such as the Makankosappo or flying." Piccolo demonstrated it by creating a perfectly spherical ball of Ki right above his palm, it lazily spun as it emitted a low humming noise from it. "Can you feel this?"
Gohan was going to speak up but closed his mouth and choose to instead nod once he caught the warning look Piccolo gave him.
"Good, pay close attention to what I'm doing. Focus on how I spread the Ki around my body and how I form this Ki blast." Piccolo dissipated the Ki sphere and started the process of making another one. "At this point, I can do something like this without a second thought. It has become second nature to me and it is as easy for me to make as it is for you to take a breath so just this once I'm going to take it slow to make another one, you better pay very close attention because I'm not going to be doing it again." Piccolo grunted his last words out.
Gohan leaned forward, no longer blinking as he focused entirely on the feeling of Piccolo's Ki moving around his body, even starting to sweat with how much he concentrated on it.
Slowly but surely a new Ki Sphere started to form right above Piccolo's palm as bit by bit the brightness and mass of it increased.
The young boy widened his eyes as he realized what he was doing wrong. He closed his eyes again as he focused on tapping into his Ki.
This time he didn't try to forcefully pull on that feeling, he instead decided to imagine as if he was being slowly submerged into it and using his hands to spread the Ki all over his body, slowly coating it with that warm feeling.
Gohan cupped both of his hands in front of him as he furrowed his eyebrows. He willed his Ki to gather at a point between his palms while using his fingertips as conductors for his Ki.
Nothing happened for several minutes as Piccolo observed the brat gather his Ki. Until finally a small spark started to appear between Gohan's hands. It weakly sparked left and right as it took form while it slowly increased in power due to Gohan just now starting to get used to it.
Gohan's eyes fluttered open as he heard the insistent humming of the Ki ball quickly spinning between his hands. It was so bright it almost blinded him as it caught him by surprise. The boy looked at it with awe as his long tail waved left and right at a quick pace.
Piccolo smirked. "Congratulations brat, you can make a basic Ki blast. You are allowed to speak up now." He added almost as an afterthought.
The youngest and newest member of the Son family breathed out and the Ki ball flickered alongside his breathing. "It's amazing! I never thought I would ever be able to do something like this!" He said with a huge childish grin as he stared at his biggest feat so far, well, if you excluded recklessly attacking Raditz, that is.
"Don't be so excited," Piccolo grunted out. "It took you almost half an hour to form the most basic Ki technique. Do you think an enemy is going to just allow you to sit there while you're making something like this? If this was a real battle you would have been dead already." Gohan appreciated the brutal honesty, even if made him feel bad about himself. "Now do it again and again until you can form that Ki blast using only one hand. Then you'll continue to make more and more until you can pull it off in less than a second. That'll be a more respectful time."
Piccolo got up from his seated position. "Of course, you won't be allowed to eat or drink anything until you manage to figure it out." He added the extra challenge in a sadistic tone as he chuckled to himself. "I'll be back in one week to review your progress, if you manage to survive all by yourself during this time I'll officially accept you as a new apprentice of the Demon Clan. Good luck, you'll need it." Piccolo said his lasts words as he glanced back at Gohan, shooting up into the air and disappearing between the clouds as he started to fly, breaking the sound barrier with a loud sonic boom.
Gohan's tail and head hanged limply as he heard his stomach growl. "This... complicates things..." He laughed at himself in self-deprecation. 'I am pretty sure Piccolo is still hanging around close enough to watch me in case something goes bad so I'm not that worried, but sill.' He grinned as he continued to think to himself. 'Even if he wasn't I wouldn't cheat anyway, I don't think whatever amount of pride I have in me would allow me to do it. I just hope I don't get caught off guard by something else. I wonder if that feeling is part of my Sayajin nature...' Gohan finished his thoughts with a bit of worry.
And yet he still felt excited as he worked on making another Ki sphere. A smile never left his face even as dusk took over and the night started.
-000-000-000
Gohan ran away as if his life depended on it.
Well, to be fair, it did. The reason being the huge dinosaur that resembled a T-Rex that is currently chasing him with a hungry look in his eyes and saliva dripping from his mouth.
A mouth with very big and sharp bloodied teeth.
Now, this wouldn't have been a problem but he spent hours upon hours practicing how to make a better Ki blast, and now due to that his current Ki reserves are pretty much spent and drained dry so he is understandably tired.
All he can do now is run around in zigzag as he tried to confuse the dinosaur and hope the T-Tex doesn't get close enough to take a bite out of him as he slowly tried to recover his Ki reserves.
'C'mon, I don't even look like Jeff Goldblum! Just because one of my favorite movies was Jurassic Park it doesn't mean I want to get to live into it!' Gohan thought as he panicked, sweating bullets as he kept on running.
Gohan has since then discarded his previous upper body clothing and is now only wearing the dark moss pants and the black boots with white lacing alongside a black belt to keep his pants on. Both his pants and boots are dirty with mud and grass due to being chased around by the T-Rex.
'Crap, I can't just keep running! I'm losing more Ki than recovering it by using it to strengthen my legs so I can outrun this thing! I need to find a way to hide or jump somewhere tall enough.' Gohan's head swirled around as he frantically scanned the environment with his eyes, wildly roaming them all over the place as he tried to find somewhere safe.
Gohan suddenly stopped running as his body stiffened. His Neck strained up as his eyes focused on the moon.
The full moon, that is.
He felt his muscles and bones strain as a deep animalistic growl started to rise from his dry throat. His nails sharpened and increased in size alongside the bulk of his body. Fur started to grow all over his body as his pants and boots ripped off like wet tissue.
The T-Rex stopped chasing the boy as It looked down at him, backing down as It felt terror just by looking at the unknown phenomenon happening to the boy, It could somehow feel the drastic increase of the boy's Ki. Its head looked higher and higher up as what was previously a little boy turned into a fearsome giant ape.
The giant ape turned around to face the T-Rex. The Ape loudly snarled at the overgrow lizard as he gripped his head between his meaty hands."...YOU... CHASE... ME! ME KILLS... YOU!" The Great Ape roared in anger in a warped voice as he smashed his mighty fists on his broad chest.
The T-Rex decided to wisely BACK THE HELL AWAY FROM THE DANGER APE as it turned tail to run away.
"COWARD!" The apefied Gohan growled out in anger as he rushed towards the fleeing dinosaur and grabbing It by Its tail. He pulled the lizard closer as It desperately took several bites at his right arm, it did not even manage to break the resilient skin despite Its sharp teeth and strong jaw.
Gohan roared again as he raised both furry arms up with his fists clenched tightly. "ME! KING!" He brought both fists down, smashing them into the terrified dinosaur's ribcage. "KING! KING! KING!" He kept smashing the agonizing scaly beast, each time his fists smashed into It the more they came out bloody and covered in gore.
The dinosaur eyes rolled back into Its skull as Its life mercifully faded away. Yet Gohan did not stop attacking Its corpse even when it could no longer even resemble the body of a dinosaur, turning it into a pile of minced meat.
The Ape stared at his bloodied trembling hands as he took several deep breaths. The red lenses of his battle lust disappeared and left only the remnants of what he previously felt.
He gripped his head again as he roared towards the skies as he felt an ounce of meager control he had in this form start to slip away into nothingness.
A powerful beam of Ki illuminated his surroundings in beautiful golden light as it was shot by his mouth into the night sky above. The beam ripped through the clouds above and revealed the beautiful starry sky. The warm brightness caused by the beam lasted only for a couple of seconds after it was shot from his maw, dissipating somewhere in space.
The almost mindless ape continued to roar as it beat his chest, loudly drumming on it as his chest rose up and down.
"So that's what your dear uncle meant when he said a Saiyajin true power only comes out during the full moon," Piccolo said from behind the overgrown ape. Each word is carefully measured as he spoke slowly to Gohan.
Said ape seemed to calm down instead of immediately attacking him, sitting into the blood and gore stained ground as he took deep breaths, one of his hands kept gripping his head as he strained his red eyes to focus on Piccolo, it seems like a familiar face and voice managed to bring enough focus for Gohan to stop his mindless rampage. For now.
Piccolo raised one eye ridge as he stared down at Gohan. "That's surprising, it seems you still have some control. I can tell you're holding back from your body language alone. You want to tear me apart too, don't you?" Piccolo smirked as he flew closer to Gohan's head.
He continued speaking as he looked Gohan's great ape form up and down carefully. "Good, we can use this form of yours to practice your mental control. If you can keep lucid like this then your mind will be greatly strengthened too." Piccolo nodded to himself as he rubbed his chin. "You know, I was planning on simply blowing up the moon when I saw you transform into this thing, but once I noticed you had some control left I decided to keep observing you and see what you would do. Make no mistake, I still plan on blowing up the moon just in case the other two Saiyajins try to use it to their advantage, but for now, we'll use it to our advantage. Do not speak, just focus on trying to stay conscious." Piccolo ordered him.
Gohan used all of his willpower to keep on focusing on Piccolo's words, staring at his lips move with burning intensity as he clenched his fists and crossed his legs. Even that was barely enough to resist the urge to attack the Namekian.
Piccolo nodded in approval. "Good, you're doing great. Focus on my words and my voice until the break of dawn. This will be our new training regimen during every night the full moon appears. Forget about surviving here during a week, you have already shown me you're capable enough not to pick a fight while weakened." The Namekian thought about something for a few moments. "I know you must be starving but do not eat that ...corpse. I have no idea how Saiyajin biology works but I won't risk your health over some raw meat. Use your hunger as motivation to get better."
Piccolo crossed his legs and arms in a meditating stance, still flying close to Gohan's face. "Meditate with me, this will help you focus. From now onwards you're officially an apprentice of the Demon Clan, congratulations." Piccolo smirked in approval.
The great Ape grinned widely as he showed his sharp fangs, a sense of pride kept him conscious and in control as he entered the same meditating stance as Piccolo.
Gohan closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. He can feel this is going to be a long night.
-000-000-000-
Another chapter, this time a bit longer than the first while having some more meat in it. The next update will take a longer time since I'll be busy with an ongoing Christmas Event in Fate Grand Order. My gacha addiction is unmatched.
Quite concerning.