Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super, or anything else related to the Dragon Ball universe, or any of its characters. They are all owned by Akira Toriyama.

Piccolo was deep in meditation.

Even though his senses were able to extend miles in all directions, the sound of the crashing waterfall right behind him, never reached his ears.

He had achieved a state of complete detachment from reality. It was the ideal state of mind to optimize the results of his current task.

Hovering a few feet above the surface of the water, he was mentally diving into his vast reserves of energy, getting a feel for it all, and increasing his control to even greater heights.

He had been at it for several hours already, ever since the sun came up in fact. And he intended to go for several hours more, before starting on his more physical training.

At least, that was his intention.

He would have continued too, had he not been disturbed by the massive release of energy hundreds of miles off to his right.

The power was so intense that he could feel it from here, despite its vast distance away. It was strong enough to immediately kick him out of his own meditation, and force him to focus back on reality.

His head snapped in the direction of the power surge, and his jaw almost dropped in shock.

He definitely didn't like the way it felt.

It was at least ten times stronger than he was now. Maybe more.

At least, that's what his first estimate was. It felt angry too.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be on a rampage, based on what he could sense from here.

Worse yet, it was in the same general direction as the place he had left the kid.

He almost wanted to believe that it was Gohan finally accessing his hidden power somehow, but it felt different. It didn't feel like the kid's power, not quite anyways.

When Gohan had released a portion of his hidden energy against that saiyan, Raditz, his energy signature hadn't changed. There was just more of it.

A lot more.

The energy signature of whatever this thing was, was totally different. It didn't even feel human.

It did sort of feel like a saiyan though.

He could never forget what they felt like.

He summoned his Ki, and powered up, before blasting off into the sky, towards the direction of the surge.

He had to find out what this was, before it did too much damage to the planet.

And while he was at it, he should probably make sure that the kid was still alive.

Gohan was tired.

He didn't even want to open his eyes.

His muscles were still incredibly sore. Much more than usual actually, now that he thought about it.

Despite almost destroying himself daily with his training, he could usually get up in the morning again, more or less ready for the next day. But for some reason, he just didn't want to move.

Maybe his air walking training had finally caused his body to just crash. Trying to permanently hover above the ground was way harder than it originally seemed to be, when he first thought up the idea, and he had been at it for over two weeks.

It was definitely getting easier every day, but maybe the consequences of his training just hadn't caught up with him yet, until now.

He let out a yawn.

Maybe he should take the morning off, and sleep in.

He was feeling pretty comfortable right about now. He'd be able to fall asleep again very quickly at this rate.

The sun was pretty warm in the morning too, which only made his decision easier.

Really warm.

It was nice.

…

'Hang on a second... Why can I feel the heat from the sun, inside a cave?'

Now that his mind was beginning to think at least somewhat rationally again, he could make out a few other irregularities too.

He could feel the wind blowing. It was making a weird noise too. The sound reminded him of the sound of his mom cooking. The water and oils that steamed off of his mom's frying pan when it was in use, made a sizzling sound, not unlike the one he was hearing now.

A sound that was coming from seemingly everywhere at once.

Odd.

His bed didn't feel like it usually did either, and was that a light?

He shifted his weight slightly.

'OK, problems.'

He knew something was definitely wrong, the moment he moved his leg and felt sand grind against it.

Against his bare leg.

His eyes snapped open.

The first thing that he noticed was that it was bright out. He could see the sky.

The sun was up, there were almost no clouds in the sky at all, he could see the moon in the distance, half obscured by the horizon and still lowering, and he was in a crater.

Naked too.

…

'Wait, what?'

He shot up into a sitting position.

Sure enough, his clothes were gone completely. He was in a huge crater at least ten meters deep, and everything around him was just gone. What was left of his surroundings was smoking like it had just been laid to waste by the hand of god.

The forest was gone, his cave was gone, even huge chunks of the ground were gone.

For a moment, he had no idea what to even do. He was so lost.

That was when the panic set in.

He jumped to his feet, immediately sprang to the side of the crater and climbed out as fast as he could, not even caring that he never once touched the ground due to the results of his recent stealth training.

He stood at the edge of the crater, still hovering a small, unnoticeable distance above the ground, and got a better look at the surroundings.

Everything was flat. Mostly.

There were large boulders interspersed between what looked like hundreds of massive craters across the landscape, in all directions, but other than that, all signs of nature were gone, and the ground looked relatively level.

The forest area was a wasteland, devoid of all signs of life.

'Is this another dream?'

He really hoped that it was, because he didn't really know what to do now, if it wasn't.

'OK, OK, calm down before you hyperventilate. This is probably just another dream. And even if it isn't, panic won't do you any good at all.' He thought to himself, after noticing how fast his heart was beating, and how his breathing had picked up.

He closed his eyes, and took several deep breaths of air to try and calm down, before opening them once again.

As he feared, destruction greeted his gaze again.

So, this was either one of those incredibly vivid dreams like the one he had with those saiyans, or this was real.

He took another deep breath, and calmed his mind.

He needed to think about this logically. After once again getting into his usual mindset, it only took a moment for him to collect his thoughts.

He definitely didn't want to bank on the fact that this was a dream and do nothing, when his life could be in danger.

No, he needed to treat this like it was reality. That way, if he was actually dreaming, he would wake up like nothing happened when it ended, but he would still be prepared in the case that it wasn't a dream.

'OK, so I have to start completely from scratch. I have no food, no shelter, no clothes, and there could very well be some dangerous being, or monster lurking around somewhere that destroyed everything…'

Maybe there was a military base nearby that launched a nuclear weapons test? That could be another possibility.

A test that he somehow survived out of, presumably, sheer luck, and one conducted on a forest full of wildlife.

He didn't want to think that people would actually do something as unnecessarily cruel as that, but then again, his dad had told him about the old Red Ribbon Army, and what they were capable of at their worst…

A military bombing raid was probably more likely, judging by the presence of several craters, rather than just one big one, but that theory still had the same problems.

There was no reason to just level a forest in a weapons test when there were uninhabited wastelands just a few miles from here. They would make much better testing sites.

And if it wasn't a test, what around here could possibly be valuable enough to warrant such destruction?

His stomach let out a growl, cutting off his current train of thought and prompting him to look down.

'Prioritize…'

He needed to find food, but water and shelter needed to come first. He was hungry, but he could survive without food for a few days, weeks even if it got that bad, as long as he had water.

He needed clothes so that he wouldn't die of exposure too.

The events that caused the surroundings to look the way they did could be discovered later. In the unlikely event that a nuclear weapon had detonated that he had somehow slept through, he would be in an area flooded with dangerous radiation and he needed to leave, now.

The same applied if there was a monster hiding somewhere nearby.

Whatever happened here, happened recently based on the smoke rising from the landscape.

He had to get out of here.

Looking around frantically, he noticed a mountain range in the distance.

That was probably the best place to go first.

His best option for clothes at the moment would be to skin the pelt off of an animal like a lion or bear. He could also use that as a source of food.

He had access to his Ki now, so killing the animal shouldn't be too big of an issue. He was in a much better shape to survive on his own now, than he had been a month and a half ago.

Mountains usually had sources of running water too. There may even be a forested area near it.

All of those things increased his odds of surviving.

It was really a no-brainer.

He turned, and started running at a moderate pace towards them.

It took him a few steps before he noticed that his footsteps were more silent than usual. Looking down, caused him to smile. He was using his air walking technique, and it was noticeably easier to do now, than it was yesterday. He hadn't even thought about activating it. He had done it purely instinctually. It was a good thing that he had too, because he was running barefoot over a ground full of jagged rocks and who knows what else.

He had to be careful out here by himself. If he got a cut, he could get an infection that would go untreated since he wouldn't know how. If he hadn't created this technique, his feet would have been cut into a bloody mess in no time, and he could have been in really bad shape.

His current situation wasn't as bad as it originally seemed, now that he thought about it. He had gotten himself into a routine over the past several weeks. One that he had gotten incredibly used to. Being forced to start over had caused him to panic, but it really shouldn't have.

He should definitely be wary of whatever had caused everything to just be leveled like it was, but he had been surviving on his own all this time. He shouldn't panic over losing everything. He could definitely do this.

He had done this before when he was much weaker, and he would do it again.

He would survive out here on his own.

He would survive this.

The sun was already on its descent in the sky, by the time Piccolo finally reached the area he had sensed the energy surge.

As he expected, he saw nothing but wide scale destruction. Destruction on a scale he hadn't seen since his final battle with Goku at the twenty third world martial arts tournament.

The energy surge had only lasted around ten minutes before it vanished again without a trace. That had been a few hours ago now.

Whatever this thing was, it was strong. And quite big too, based on the fact that some of the craters looked like footprints.

But that was no longer his main concern.

When the energy signature vanished a few hours ago, he had briefly sensed the kid's energy in the same area. But it vanished soon after, exactly like the massive one did.

He had no idea what was going on anymore. Were Gohan and this thing linked somehow? Or did the kid get killed by whatever it was?

He needed to find the kid's remains if that was the case. He needed to know for sure what happened.

He had spent a good deal of effort on keeping the kid alive so far, so if whatever this thing ended up being, ruined his plans, he'd find a way to kill it.

Even if it was stronger than he was at the moment, he could tell that it was mindless, based on its rampage. It would only take one good shot to take whatever it was, down.

He could feel the scowl form on his face.

He wasn't in the mood for this.

So many potential plans, gone in an instant.

He let out a growl of frustration.

He needed to start his search.

Bright blue's in the sky gave way to shades of red and orange, as the sun continued to dip lower, and lower, towards the horizon.

The few hundred meter clearing, surrounded by trees was empty aside from one single sabre toothed tiger, slowly making its way towards its home in the forest.

As it approached the treeline, it caught a scent that it didn't recognize. Closing its eyes, it raised its head and began sniffing the air, hoping to discover whatever it was.

It never opened them again.

The tiger didn't even feel the four foot wooden spike hit it, as it obliterated its skull in an instant.

The force behind the strike was tremendous. Far stronger than the threshold force needed for piercing the bones in the skull.

The tiger's skull wasn't just pierced, even though the spike was used in a stabbing motion. It flat out exploded.

'Maybe that was a bit overkill…' Gohan thought to himself, as he stood over the remains of the headless tiger he had just brutally killed, mostly by accident.

He had searched for hours for a suitable animal that could provide clothing. This was the first one he had found, so he hadn't let it slip away.

He had never been more grateful for his stealth training. It was absolutely perfect for hunting. The tiger hadn't suspected a thing, despite the fact that he had been following it for almost twenty minutes.

He had sharpened a tree branch to use as a weapon, and stayed in the canopy of the trees, waiting for the tiger to finally approach. When it did, he had jumped it from above, putting all of his weight and force into the point of his makeshift spear. He had even pumped a little Ki into it to make sure he got the job done.

He hadn't meant to hit it in the head, or to do so much damage. He was clearly a bit stronger than he thought he was.

He didn't know his own strength.

…

At least he had some clothes now.

…

And some food.

…

All he needed was a suitably sharp rock to use as a knife, and he could finally get what he needed, to stay warm.

It was incredibly uncomfortable running around naked all the time, even with nobody around to see him.

Looking up at the sunset, he figured he had another three hours before he had to be in a shelter of some kind to sleep for the night.

He frowned.

He needed to find another food source as well, at some point. He hadn't found any fruits, or nuts like he had in the last forest he had inhabited.

He had found a waterfall though that he was going to use for drinking water.

He picked up the remains of the tiger, and lifted it over his shoulder, before he started walking off in the direction that he had seen some jagged rocks earlier.

He had to get this done, before it got too cold outside.

This, wasn't going to work as well as he had hoped.

Gohan had just finished tying his newly woven rope, into a makeshift belt, for his temporary clothing.

And that's exactly what they were. Temporary.

He hadn't had the time to properly tan the hide into potential clothing, so it was really poorly done. He had managed to clean it sufficiently, and he was wearing it with the fur to the inside, like he had read and been taught in the past, but he didn't have the time to dry it out properly, and he had to skip a ton of steps in the normal tanning process.

He would have to try again, over the next few days to make a better set of clothes.

But the ones he was wearing now would suffice. Hopefully. For now anyways.

He took a seat on his newly made bed, next to his fire. He had made his new bed in the exact same way as his old one. Only, this time, he didn't have a cave to put it in. He was under the stars directly now, but between the insulation provided by his bed, his fire, and his new 'clothes' he should be able to keep warm enough to survive.

Laying back on his bed, he started going over everything that happened in the day.

It clearly wasn't a dream.

It never ended, so this was almost certainly, reality.

He had no idea what had caused his old home to be destroyed, or why he had managed to survive whatever it was.

All he remembered was waking up in the crater and then…

'Wait a second…'

His eyes widened.

He just remembered something. He had woken up twice last night.

He had woken up at his normal time in order to start his daily training. He had stepped outside his cave and then…

And then…

Nothing. He couldn't remember anything else after that.

Then he woke up again in the crater, several hours later.

It had been about noon when he woke up the second time, and he always woke up to start his training early in the morning. Probably around seven or eight in the morning.

He was missing almost four hours of his memory.

Yet another mystery to add to his growing list.

How annoying.

Why did all of these weird things keep happening to him?

He had only been out here for a month and a half, roughly, and yet he was having vivid hallucinations, dreams, and unexplainable events blindside him on a near weekly basis.

He took pride in his ability to solve problems, and yet, he was drawing blanks on all of his current ones.

It was almost insulting. Like the world was conspiring against him, ensuring that he would be forever plagued with unsolvable mysteries.

His one weakness.

All of these new mysteries were not helping him either. He already had so much on his mind without them interfering.

He was still unsure about how to feel about his dad, and Piccolo, due to his recent revelations on what they had done, or might have done. He had no way of knowing for sure that the information they had been given by his uncle about the saiyans had been accurate, and he was constantly struggling with how to progress in his training.

Now he was without proper clothes, in a new location. He had no continuous source of food like he had before, either. It would take at least another week, for him to get back to a position where he could finally start his training again.

So many setbacks happened in a single instant, without any warning at all to go along with it, or to help him prepare for them.

He hadn't expected to lose everything he had built up.

All of that effort, wasted.

'I guess…'

…

'I guess, I'm just going to have to try again.'

He refused to allow himself to break. Not after coming this far.

He'd get into another routine, and begin his training once again.

After he fixed his current clothing, and food problems.

And rebuilt everything from scratch once more.

A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.

- LeviTamm