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.
Sometimes, he wondered what things would be like if his life were like a television program. Where someone could tune in, and see what he was up to whenever they felt like it. And sometimes, when he did wonder that, he would always entertain the thought of what any hypothetical spectators would think of him if they began watching him at that exact instant. Having missed the circumstances that led up to the present…
He was calmly walking through the forest.
In his left hand was the jaw bone from a giant… something. He still had no idea what species it was from. A sentient bear of some sort maybe…
In his right, he was carrying a severed human head.
He also had no shirt on. His homemade one had disintegrated long ago, and his homemade pants had countless holes in them.
He was covered head to toe in blood, and dried mucous.
None of which belonged to him.
Needless to say he was pretty uncomfortable with the current situation.
...
What would someone watching him think?
He had been walking for a while, and it had given him a lot of time to go over everything that had just occurred.
He had reclaimed control over his emotions, and his body's anger had finally receded.
He was in control again.
But he almost wished that he wasn't.
It was getting harder and harder to continue forward.
He had just killed what amounted to two people. Nearly a third as well. They were evil sure, but he was second guessing himself now. Why did he even kill them? That fourth one had been surprisingly afraid of him for some reason, and had run off somewhere. Was it even necessary? Maybe he could have just scared them a little…
…
He was regretting it.
He had this feeling in his chest now. It was very similar to the feeling where you just remembered that you needed to do something extremely important, and forgotten all about it until that exact moment. And now it was too late, and there would be serious consequences.
Only, the feeling was worse than that.
It was this heart sinking tug that just got worse with every step.
He hadn't felt this way at all after he had killed Raditz.
He hadn't felt anything when he did that.
Was it because he couldn't remember that moment very clearly?
…
When his body was in control, it had spared that third giant of the group after finally- finally, listening to one of his suggestions.
At the last instant, after the giant had shouted those words at him- words that he still didn't understand, he had managed to regain enough control over his body to divert his hand, giving the giant a deep slash rather than a fatal wound.
It hadn't been an act of mercy. His mind had simply come up with a plan, and the plan required the last giant to be alive.
The giants had repeatedly referred to a boss of some kind during their conversation. And they had said that there was nothing around for miles. So he had concluded that the giants were from some kind of camp, or base somewhere nearby.
And there was an opportunity there.
He was tired. Tired and frustrated. He didn't want to have to restart all over again. He wanted out. Out of this infuriating forest, and into a town of some kind.
He would find a way to get some money, get a capsule house, enough provisions so that he wouldn't have to worry about gathering food anymore, and maybe even some training gear.
Then he'd come back out here again and train until Piccolo showed up, if he ever did.
He was still working on how he'd get the money, but he'd worry about that when he got to a town.
Keeping the last giant alive had been a logical decision at the time, but now that his emotions were back, he was kind of grateful that he had spared at least one of them.
He had certainly threatened him though.
Basically said he'd finish the job if his new prisoner didn't guide him back to wherever it was that he came from.
Looking back, he was surprised that he had managed to pull that off. He had never really threatened someone before. Didn't think he had it in him. Now that his emotions had come back, he probably wouldn't be able to again, either.
It was kind of scary when his body just took over like that. It wouldn't care about anything one moment, then it would go on a rampage in the next.
Then it would thrust him- the shy, antisocial, introverted four and a half year old back in control to deal with the consequences.
It was a recipe for disaster.
Now the giant was walking ahead of him, in rigid terror. Oblivious of the fact that as he was now, he wasn't sure if he could actually carry out any of his threats anymore.
They hadn't said a word to each other since then, either.
Though the giant would occasionally glance back at him. Then they'd lock eyes, and then the giant would turn away again and keep walking.
…
He had taken the head back there too.
He still wasn't sure if that was the right decision either.
If he hadn't, it would just sit out there and decay, but now that he had, he was stuck- you know, carrying around someone's severed head.
His original thought had been that it might be a good idea to complete the man's body so that it could be given a proper burial and whoever it was could finally rest in peace, but he had no idea if it was the right thing to do at all.
It was awkward.
And not the type of awkward that he could look back at, in hindsight, and find entertaining. It was closer to the type of awkward that he wasn't ever going to tell anyone about under any circumstances ever, for the rest of his life.
And he hoped that nobody saw him in the meantime.
Because, just as he had made assumptions about the giants, for carrying a severed head around, so too would a spectator who spotted him, carrying it around himself.
Maybe he should have just left it back there.
But if he had, he was pretty sure he'd be thinking about it for the rest of his life. Wondering if he had made the right call…
Imagining it decaying in some unknown forest...
Maybe he should have made the giant carry it.
…
He had no idea what he should have done.
…
The sun was starting to come up now.
The sky just above the treeline was beginning to turn that familiar shade of orange that was always present just before sunrise.
…
And he was beginning to get mentally fatigued.
His muscles were totally relaxed.
He was moving his body solely through the use of Ki manipulation because he wouldn't be able to move it around otherwise, broken as it was.
It took a lot of concentration.
His body had sustained a lot of damage, and he was still getting used to moving around that way.
…
He should probably visit a hospital when he got to a town.
But how would that work out?
They were usually pretty thorough with how they dealt with patients. There would be an identity check, and he probably wouldn't be able to get away with a false name. It wouldn't be on any list. He'd probably be labelled an orphan and child protective services or whatever agency handled lost children would be all over him.
He'd be put in a home somewhere.
He'd promptly break out and escape obviously, but then he'd be considered a missing person, and his picture would be sent out to the public. Then his mom would see it at some point…
She did watch the news every now and then…
But he couldn't give his real name either right? He had no idea if his family was well known. His mom had family ties to Ox King, so if the Son family was well known he wasn't sure if it was a good thing. A lot of people were still deathly afraid of Ox King because he hadn't always been friendly and fun loving the way he was now.
There were some people who still referred to him as "The Emperor of Demons" even after all these years…
And then there was his mom…
If she found out that her kidnapped son had stumbled into a hospital in some random town somewhere, a lot of things would happen in short succession.
And she would find out if he gave his real name.
Hospitals were obligated to phone the relatives of patients under their care.
It was both morally, and legally, the right thing to do.
From their perspective.
They certainly wouldn't listen to some kid babbling about a coming alien invasion, begging them to not call his mom because the world could potentially end if they did...
And he'd bet that his mom could cover the distance from their home in Mt. Paozu, to any given hospital on the planet in just a few hours, after receiving that kind of information. She was terrifyingly overprotective of him like that…
And as much as he wanted to go back home, doing so would lower the odds of victory over the saiyans.
And that was really all he could afford to care about right now.
He wasn't a fighter who would go and challenge them to an honourable fight when they got here. All he was concerned about, was victory at any cost. He'd do every last thing that he could think of, to stack the odds in his favor.
Raise the odds of his success, and lower the odds of their victory.
Because really, he just wanted to get on with his life.
He'd do whatever it took to win.
And that meant that he needed to gain control over his hidden power, and train until he was strong enough to fight.
His mom would probably ground him for years, if she saw him now. Which meant no training, and certainly no fighting either.
She wouldn't see that she would be potentially shooting his dad and his dad's friends in the foot by holding him back like that.
He needed to be there.
They needed him to be there.
But only if he was strong enough.
There was a threshold after all…
If he was too weak, there was a chance he'd be taken hostage again, or otherwise get in the way of the others, and he'd actually end up hurting their odds by being there.
He needed to be either strong enough, or have some sort of valuable ability when he got there.
He needed to-
…
Click.
…
He stiffened.
A sound.
It had been barely audible, but he heard it.
He had been watching the giant carefully for a while now, but other than acting deathly afraid of him, the giant hadn't done anything suspicious.
He was just casually walking with his hands in his pockets.
…
He glanced at the giant's left hand. It was buried in one of the massive pockets sewn into the sides of its dark blue pants.
Was there something in the giant's pocket? Its hand had been in there the whole time.
He was pretty sure that the sound had originated from there…
"We-we're almost there," the giant stuttered, breaking the silence for the first time. "It's just up ahead. About ten minutes."
The giant kept walking without looking back.
Gohan didn't answer. He was starting to get worried. He had a bad feeling about this now…
Maybe this wasn't such a great idea. His resolve was really weakening. And his hidden power wasn't at the surface anymore. If something happened now, he would be on his own…
He tried calming himself down. He should be fine as long as he didn't run out of energy.
Surprisingly, he still had a good amount left.
When his body had taken over earlier, it was like it had a different well of energy to draw from. Now that he was in control himself, his old reserve of energy was back.
If a fight broke out, he should be alright.
This giant wasn't very strong after all…
The giant led him into a deserted camp of some sort.
There were capsule buildings everywhere. Arranged in a ring around a bunch of giant yellow machines of some sort. They looked like some kind of excavators. Excavators or drills maybe. There was a pretty big hole in the ground too.
Like, a really big hole.
Some kind of mining operation maybe?
Why were they digging such a big hole in the ground?
There was nobody in sight either.
It was like the whole place had been abandoned.
There were also a line of non-descript empty vehicles. They had no symbols of any kind on them. Just plain green trucks, and there had to be twenty of them, at least.
…
About two hundred meters.
If he drew a circle of that diameter, it would be about the size of this clearing. The forest itself continued on past its edge.
…
He had nothing.
This whole situation made no sense at all.
Was this their base?
Why would a bunch of giants- murdering giants, be digging a hole in the middle of nowhere?
What about the person they kidnapped? How did they fit into this?
Where was everyone?
…
The click.
His mind scrambled, and his eyes narrowed.
…
And he surprised himself yet again with how fast he came up with a solution.
He stopped walking immediately.
…
The giant took a few more steps before noticing, and then he turned around to face him.
The giant looked hesitant. The fear was very prominent on his face.
He looked like he was about to say something, but Gohan beat him to the punch.
They were the first words that he said to the giant since killing the other two, about an hour ago.
"If I get attacked, I'm going to make sure that you're the first person to die here."
On the inside however, he was terrified.
He had guessed that the giant had some kind of communicator, and his instincts had started screaming at him that this was some kind of trap.
So he had extended his senses outwards, using his new ability, and his stomach had dropped.
In the trees around him, hiding out of sight, were a lot of things of all shapes and sizes.
He had originally thought animals, but no. They were being quiet, and making an effort to hide.
People.
Lots of people.
People of all shapes, sizes, and species, were hiding in the trees and waiting.
He had discarded a few ideas immediately. Retreat wouldn't really work, he could sense that a few of the people had moved into the trees behind him already.
He was cut off on all directions except for one.
His flight was untested though. Would he be able to get away?
He had been about to try, until his mind had brought up the idea of guns.
His body was fast when it was in control. But could it outmaneuver bullets?
He wouldn't be able to himself either. He hadn't practiced enough. Just some basic levitation back when he was in that dinosaur.
He couldn't escape this so easily.
So he had come to the conclusion that a fight would likely break out here unless he could somehow stop it.
So he had put up a façade, and threatened the giant again.
Flight was a pretty rare ability from his understanding, so they wouldn't expect some kid to be capable of it. That's why he wanted to keep it hidden. He had a lot of cards and abilities that were very dangerous when they were revealed suddenly, and out of nowhere. That surprise factor was his backup plan.
But maybe he could avoid a fight altogether.
He really hoped that the fear he was feeling wasn't evident in his expression.
If he scared this giant badly enough, he might be able to get out of this without a fight.
…
'Take the bait please…'
It seemed to work. At least initially. His words had had a very clear effect on the giant.
Wide eyes, and a mouth hanging open in shock, at his sudden threat.
That was when he felt people casually approaching him from behind, and a bunch of others stepped out from the treeline.
They were no longer making an effort to hide.
…
He couldn't count them all.
Forty? Sixty maybe?
They were closing in on him from all sides, and they definitely had guns.
Then he heard an uproarious laugh. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
Gohan turned to look at the speaker, and his jaw dropped.
He was huge.
Some type of dinosaur, thing. It had wings and everything, and it could talk.
Much bigger than the giants he had killed earlier.
He felt his mind go into overdrive as he frantically scanned his surroundings.
Giants, dinosaur type… things, of all colours, and a lot of people carrying a lot of guns.
He was at the center of attention.
…
He hated when that happened.
He had never been able to just act normal around other people when he was at the center of everything like that.
…
"You activated the silent alarm over this?"
He could hear various complaints and sounds of disbelief all throughout his surroundings.
Brat. Kid. Looks dead on his feet. And all other types of expressions were being thrown around.
Then the giant he had threatened responded to the criticism, outraged.
"Wha-? This kid isn't normal! He killed my whole team!"
The big one laughed even harder. "And how the hell did they manage to get killed by this runt? Did you guys get wasted again?"
A different voice came from his left.
"God dammit Sid. I thought the general had somehow found us, and was on his way here. You scared the shit out of us."
…
They were talking about generals now?
What sort of situation had he stumbled into here?
Glancing to his right, Gohan immediately noticed someone that didn't seem to belong.
A girl.
A good few years older than him at least. Teenager maybe? She had black hair, tattered clothes, and was heavily bruised.
The one on her right cheek was painful to even look at. It covered that entire side of her face.
She also appeared to be restrained, and she had guards on either side of her with guns.
And she was crying. Or had been anyways…
She appeared to be trying to hold back the tears, but couldn't quite manage it.
…
He knew exactly what that was like.
His mind briefly brought up the memory of the time he had spent trapped in his uncle's spaceship, totally helpless and afraid…
Yeah, he knew.
…
She just had this air of hopelessness and despair clinging to her like a wet cloak.
This was probably the girl those giants had been talking about.
…
But… why?
Just, why?
What was the point of all of this?
…
"You there." The big one who seemed to be the one in charge abruptly pointed to one of the normal humans carrying a gun.
"Yes sir."
"Shoot this runt in the leg and knock him out. I'm curious to see how many people this bitch will let die in front of her before she cracks."
"Yes sir."
Gohan watched in disbelief as the guard raised his rifle at him, and took aim.
He took one last glance at the girl, before facing the barrel of the gun.
It happened in slow motion.
As the gun rose, a feeling like a tightening spring welled up inside him.
If ever he needed his mind to be on its A-game, it was now.
There was no time to plan. There were just too many people. He'd have to figure it out as he went.
He had the element of surprise though.
He took a final deep breath and exhaled.
…
And then his mind did what it did best.
…
He was nervous.
Anxious.
And there was this underlying feeling that he couldn't quite identify. It was almost… excitement?
No, not quite.
It was more of a feeling where, he knew he was being severely underestimated, and the moment he made a move, all of their preconceptions about him would shatter in an instant.
It was almost a sort of anticipated satisfaction.
Things were not about to play out the way these people thought they would.
Not even close.
Things would change fast.
The guard pulled the trigger.
Gohan had predicted where the bullet would go by watching the gun barrel, estimating its angle, and waiting for the man's trigger finger to twitch.
He didn't think he could dodge a bullet that was already in the air, and he didn't know a whole lot about guns besides the basics.
Bullets were launched by rapidly expanding gas, and they followed parabolic trajectories when they came out of a gun. It was a common element in the physics problems he used to do in his textbooks back at home.
And the trigger needed to be pulled before the bullet would come out. So instead of looking for the bullet while it was in the air, he opted to stay out of the path of the gun barrel entirely, and keep his eye and senses on the trigger finger.
An invisible dome of Ki had covered the entire area giving him his three hundred and sixty degree pseudo-vision.
He had spent so much time practicing the technique back in that dinosaur, that he could see with it almost as well as he could with his normal vision.
But he hadn't really practiced combining it with his normal vision yet, because he had been in a pitch black environment when he had invented it. His eyes had been useless, and as a result, his sensing technique had been a complete substitute, rather than an augmentation.
He couldn't see with both his eyes and his energy at the same time as a result yet, so he opted to just use his Ki.
He'd sacrifice a small bit of clarity, for the expanded field of view.
He closed his eyes, and dodged to the left the instant the man's trigger finger twitched.
The bullet whizzed past him, far faster than his senses could detect.
It was just a blur cutting through the air.
It had felt like a super long spear, or even a laser due to the sheer speed of it, rather than the tiny pellet that it actually was.
But it had missed.
In that instant, three options opened up to him. Take out the giant that brought him here in the first place just like he promised he would, take out the guard shooting at him, or take out the big one behind him- the leader.
Once everyone here realized that he was a lot stronger than he appeared, they would likely all decide to attack him at once. By then, if he could get the biggest threats taken care of, he might just make it out of this alive.
He needed to inflict as much damage as possible, as fast as possible.
So…
Leader, gunman, or giant?
…
Leader it is.
Everyone would probably wait for his instruction if he was conscious, so he needed to remove him from the equation to cause as much confusion as possible.
The tightened spring feeling inside him released, and he sprang into action, launching himself at the big dinosaur creature behind him.
The leader wasn't even paying attention when he was kicked in the face.
Gohan felt something shatter under the weight of his kick, and the leader was launched off his feet and fired backwards into the crowd behind.
The instant Gohan landed on his feet, he felt the gunman that had shot originally prepare to start shooting again.
He could feel everyone in the area jolt in obvious surprise.
…
They were slow, he realized.
These people were ordinary.
Nobody reacted with superhuman reflexes of any kind, so he didn't have to worry about other Ki users by the looks of things.
According to his books, the average human reaction time was reported to be about a half second. That was so slow when compared to his own. It would take a little longer for them to get their guns ready, so for a brief interval of time, the only threat was the gunman who already had his gun facing in his general direction.
It was really only now that he could see how far he had come since he had started his training.
Everything was happening in slow motion relative to him, once again.
It was a familiar feeling. Like stepping into a different time frame.
His thoughts and reaction speed were so ridiculously fast in comparison to these people.
It was something he hadn't anticipated, and came as a bit of a shock.
He spun around, and dodged to the right this time, just as the next wave of bullets started to fly.
The gun could fire rapidly, but it should have a limited clip size.
Based on his previous observations as well, the guns seemed to be standard amongst everyone here. They all looked the same apart from just a few.
Perhaps they had the same clip size as well.
He needed to count the bullets.
…
Five so far.
He continued to the right, staying just slightly ahead of the strafing gunfire.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
He felt three or four people in that direction dive to the ground to prevent being shot by their own teammate.
Guns were being raised all around him now.
So slow…
He needed to follow an unpredictable path.
A simple zigzag wouldn't do.
These people were ordinary. He could zigzag faster than they could react. So he'd end up jumping to the side, then jumping back and getting hit by a bullet he was supposed to dodge, because they were too slow to follow his movements with their guns.
He needed to alter his speed. Acceleration and deceleration in all directions. Constant speed was predictable, even to someone who couldn't match it themselves.
He dove to the ground, and launched himself into the air.
He constantly changed his direction of travel, and even ran a tight circle in place.
He needed to wait for his moment of opportunity.
No other gun was pointed at him just yet, but the crowd was scrambling to get them up, now.
If it could just stay that way for a few more moments.
He jumped to the left, did a quick zigzag, and then his moment arrived.
There was a click, and the gun stopped firing.
Thirty-nine bullets in a clip?
That seemed like a weird number.
Did he miscount?
The gunman jettisoned his magazine, and it slowly began its descent to the ground.
A scenario flashed before him in his mind.
What if he were the guy in charge of making these guns?
…
He would probably set up a double blind.
He'd make a range on each magazine between two values. Say, fifteen to thirty, for example. Then a random number of bullets within that range would be placed inside each magazine to prevent someone from accurately deducing the number of bullets that could be fired before having to reload.
Not even the gunman would know how many were in each magazine, if that were the case.
Maybe they did that.
Was it a common practice in the military? How about in gangs?
He wasn't sure what these people were…
…
Maybe he was overthinking things again.
The gunman began reaching for his next clip.
He probably was overthinking it.
That would only be an effective strategy against people who could move like he could.
People who could actively count and dodge bullets as they were being fired, in real time.
Ordinary people couldn't do that, and guns were meant to be used against them.
…
So, he'd move forward open to that possibility, but it probably wouldn't actually be in use here.
He might have counted a ricochet or two by mistake.
Or maybe thirty-nine was just a standard number of bullets in a magazine.
He launched himself forward at a relatively slow speed towards the gunman.
Still no other guns were trained on him, though there were a few getting close.
He watched carefully as the gunman attached the next magazine, and pulled some sort of latch on the side of the gun.
As the gunman slowly raised his gun again, Gohan sped forward at roughly one quarter of his full speed.
He covered the remaining twenty or so meters almost instantly.
He was already inside the gunman's guard before he could even wrap his finger all the way around the trigger.
He was a little bit surprised though. Surprised and confused.
This guy had spoken totally monotonously when he took those orders originally. He hadn't seen even a hint of surprise on the gunman's face this whole time. He was just blankly staring ahead like some sort of robot.
…
But the gun was now fully loaded and ready, and that was the moment he had been waiting for.
He was going to take it for himself and use it. He'd have as many as thirty nine bullets to use if he did.
He didn't know how to load a gun properly, so he had waited for one to be loaded for him. Shooting it seemed simple enough now that he had seen how, and it was loaded now and ready to go. Just point and shoot.
For an instant, Gohan and the gunman locked eyes.
Emotionless blue met Gohan's determined black.
What was with this guy?
Gohan punched forward with his right arm, aiming for the gunman's face.
"Fuck."
The word was spoken calmly and articulately, without any emotion or inflection at all.
Then there was a crack, as the man's face caved in.
Gohan wasted no time in reaching for the falling weapon.
Pull the trigger, point and shoot.
…
Maybe not in that order.
He was reaching with his left hand. The one holding the severed head that he probably should have dropped earlier.
So he let go of it, and stuck it to his forearm using his Ki compaction ability, freeing his hand.
His hand wrapped around the handle of the gun.
…
It was only then that his current plan really registered in his mind.
What was he about to try to do? Shoot all these people?
He was a little surprised at himself for how easily he had enacted this plan. There had been no hesitation about shooting and possibly killing everyone here until this moment.
The other him, his body, was supposed to be the careless one, not him. His body was supposed to be the one with no reservations in killing, not him.
And his body wasn't in control.
So what was he about to do now?
As his hand finished wrapping around the falling gun, he spun around and pointed it at the group behind him.
He was met with a wall of sound.
It was overwhelming.
"DROP THE FUCKING GUN RIGHT NOW!"
"DROP IT NOW!"
"GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!"
A wall of guns were pointing at him now. Dozens of them from all directions.
It was such a shock that he felt his insides freeze up, and his eyes widen.
They hadn't shot yet however.
Why?
Whatever the reason, they were definitely taking him seriously now.
The sudden chaos of shouts, and the wall of guns totally destroyed his concentration.
What now?
Everything quietened down from his perspective, and it felt like he was listening with his head underwater.
They were shouting still, but he couldn't really make out what they were saying anymore.
They were pointing their guns at him, and he had his pointed right back.
The shouting continued to drone on and on.
He wasn't really paying attention to it anymore.
He couldn't.
His headache was starting to come back, strong.
A pressure was starting to build up behind his forehead.
Opening his eyes to the storm of chaos, he glanced towards the girl again.
She was staring back at him with a strange look on her face.
Surprise, and was that… admiration?
Or was it hope?
It reminded him of the way he used to look at his dad, back in the days when he seemed like an infallible character.
Someone incapable of making mistakes.
…
Click.
…
Another click. One that barely registered underneath the cacophony of noise. This time from behind him.
Sparing a moment, he focused his senses behind him without turning around.
It was that gunman again.
He was still conscious somehow, and had pulled out another smaller gun out while lying in the dirt on his back.
And the gun was now pointed at his back, ready to fire.
He was still facing towards the girl.
'Hey…'
A sudden thought occurred to him.
Maybe he could save her somehow.
Wouldn't that be something?
…
His headache was getting worse.
He brought his hand up to the bridge of his nose, and he pinched the nerve endings there, in the hopes of alleviating the pain.
This really was the wrong day.
He could feel the shouting now. That's how loud it sounded to him. It was just echoing in his head.
It was shaking his bones.
Flashes of memories flickered in his vision.
The giants, that dinosaur, and then Raditz's face.
And then all the sound just cut out.
…
Today…
He was done with it.
Something just snapped in his mind.
Lashing out with his tail, he slapped the gun out of the gunman's hand behind him and then he started shooting.
The first time he pulled the trigger, three bullets came out, and the recoil threw off his aim.
He was trying to shoot the bullets individually to not waste them, since he didn't know how to reload.
But he had a feel for it now…
Flooding the gun with his energy, he locked it in place to prevent it from jumping up.
The gunman he had stolen it from had been using two hands to hold it earlier. With his Ki masking the recoil, he only needed to use one.
They tried shooting back.
With his senses, he was able to see who was going to pull the trigger first, so he could tell which direction to dodge in.
…
He had come to the conclusion that he wasn't skilled enough to deal with this situation properly.
He wasn't a good enough fighter to keep these people alive.
He wanted to incapacitate them. He really did. He even tried to with that first gunman. But it didn't work. He just tried shooting him again when he had his back turned.
Killing them would be so much easier.
…
These people knew the risks.
They had chosen to live their lives in this profession, and had to have known that it was risky to do so. Their lives were on the line, and as far as he could tell, these people weren't the good guys.
Kidnappers and murderers.
They would get no sympathy from him any longer.
He had seen enough blood and killed enough animals in the past few months that he was really starting to get desensitized to this sort of thing now.
It probably wasn't a good thing for someone his age, but that's how it was.
…
Slow.
They were so slow.
Way too slow.
He was firing individual shots from his newly acquired gun now, targeting and prioritizing the people in front of him that looked to be the closest to pulling the trigger on their weapon.
His eyes were closed, yet he could see everything in the clearing around him with his senses.
His aim was perfect, now.
He barely even needed to dodge anymore.
They were falling to the ground before they could fire back.
He could aim faster than they could.
He could dodge faster than they could.
This wasn't even a battle anymore.
After getting used to the weapon, he was able to shoot a target in front of him, reposition the weapon a full one hundred and eighty degrees behind him, and shoot another target, in the time it took the gun to cycle once.
In other words, he could press and hold the trigger down, without releasing it, firing continuously, and each bullet would still hit a different target.
So he spun, around and around, blurring out of focus, firing in seemingly random directions.
And the people around him fell by the dozens.
Apart from his first mistake of missing the first three shots, he had only missed one other time before his gun ran out of bullets, and started clicking.
Aiming was so easy when the gun didn't jump, and he could see in all directions.
And these people couldn't dodge like he could.
There wasn't even anything to hide behind.
It had taken about five seconds for the gun in his hand to empty.
In that time, he had fired his first bullet, learned how to aim a gun, mastered the skill, and halved the population of the clearing around him.
The gun clicked three times before he finally registered it being empty.
Only thirty five shots in that clip by his count.
Oddly enough, only the humans had been carrying guns. All of the bigger species were carrying either bladed weapons, or seemed to be unarmed.
Since he had only targeted people carrying guns, only six humans were left in the clearing now, by his count. Only six guns were left.
"KILL THE BITCH NOW!" Somebody shouted, pointing at the girl.
Gohan immediately threw his now empty weapon in the direction of the shout, hard.
From what he had gathered so far, bitch seemed to be another word for girl.
The intonation of it however, felt almost derogatory. Like it wasn't a very nice thing to say.
But whatever it meant, he got the message. And he would rather they didn't try and kill whoever that girl was.
He leapt into the air and did a no-handed cartwheel.
He heard the slap of his thrown, empty weapon striking his previous target the instant he reached his maximum height. At the moment of inversion.
He had run out of bullets so he needed more.
So he picked up the smaller gun, the one that he had previously knocked out of the first gunman's hand with his tail, while he was still upside down, and then he aimed it when he finished the rotation, and returned to a standing position.
"THE GENERAL HAD TO HAVE HIRED THIS KID TO SAVE HER! SHOOT HER NOW! WE CAN'T LET HER LIVE!"
Gohan pointed his new weapon at the first person to raise a gun after that order and pulled the trigger.
This gun was clearly different though. It only fired one time, even though he was holding the trigger down like last time.
It only took a moment for him to figure out that this type of gun needed to have its trigger pulled repeatedly, to keep shooting.
Six shots later, there were no more humans in the clearing, aside from the gunman behind him, and the girl.
On the seventh shot, he discovered that the bullets were indiscriminate when they hit someone in the head. A giant would go down just as easily as a human in that scenario.
He stopped shooting after the fifteenth shot.
Everyone left had their hands raised in the air.
"DON'T SHOOT! WE SURRENDER!"
...
Then the clearing was quiet.
For a full ten seconds, nobody said or did anything.
…
And then he felt sick.
That.
That was different from killing animals.
He took a deep breath, and exhaled.
...
He really just wanted to go home now.
Sparing a moment, he glanced around the clearing.
There were ten other people left alive. Two humans, three if he counted himself, and eight other members of various other species.
Bodies absolutely littered his surroundings. Dozens of them were lying around on the ground in various positions, and none of them were moving.
When he looked at the girl again, he expected to see a lot of fear in her expression. Instead, he was quite surprised to find a lot of relief and general happiness there. Like she hadn't just witnessed a massacre.
"You," Gohan broke the silence with his still-raspy voice, by pointing at one of the creatures that had just surrendered to him. "Untie her," he gestured towards the girl.
The giant creature quickly followed his instructions without hesitation.
Shutting his eyes, Gohan started to rub the bridge of his nose again.
His headache just wasn't going away. It probably wouldn't for a while yet either, at this rate.
The girl stumbled forward when her bindings were released.
She glanced around hesitantly, almost disbelievingly. Like she couldn't quite wrap her mind around the fact that she wasn't a prisoner anymore.
Slowly, she started to walk towards him.
They locked eyes with each other, and she smiled at him.
It made no sense to him at all, how anyone could smile at anything, given what had just occurred.
After a moment, she opened her mouth to speak.
And then Gohan's vision was flooded with red and it felt like he had been slapped in the face.
...
The feeling was eerily familiar, and his mind flashed back to the only moment he had ever felt something like that happen before.
It had been back at his home in Mount Pauzu a long time ago. His mom had asked him to tell his dad that she was finished making dinner.
So he had run as fast as his little legs could carry him towards the river that he knew his dad was fishing at.
He got there just in time to get a face full of mud, as his dad had dropped a tree into a mud puddle, just as he had arrived.
When he came back to the house that day, with a face full of mud… mud that his dad had clearly tried, yet failed to clean off…
His mom was good at yelling, that was for sure.
…
He tasted iron.
There was a thud as something hit the ground in front of him.
Gohan tried to wipe off whatever grime was on his face with his hand to see what it was.
The girl was on her knees now with a hole in her stomach, bleeding profusely.
She looked at him one last time before she collapsed fully onto the ground.
She made a gurgling, choking sound for a moment, and then she stilled.
…
She was dead, he realized.
…
The clearing was silent again.
With a detached, blank gaze, he just stared forward at the group of prisoners that had surrendered to him only moments earlier.
Closing his eyes, he felt his mouth form a thin line, before he took a deep breath, and then let it out a moment later.
…
Yup. The other Gohan was in control now.
…
Then his eyes snapped open, and he drew on his Ki.
He gathered a lot. Way more than he usually uses even in his experiments.
Way more than necessary.
He formed an unstable ball, and threw it at the remaining group.
There was a rain of red when it detonated, leaving nothing solid behind.
He killed them all in one shot.
Then he turned around, and pointed his stolen gun at the first and last gunman.
That same blank, robotic gaze was still there, despite everything.
He didn't know what it was about that gaze, but it pissed him right off.
This was the guy that started this whole mess by trying to shoot him in the first place.
Then he had tried again from behind despite the fact that he was clearly beaten.
It was his fault.
When Gohan pulled the trigger, the gun clicked.
Empty.
Without hesitation, he dropped the empty gun, and grabbed the man by the jaw, and twisted hard.
…
It was like twisting a rolled up sheet of bubble-wrap.
…
He hadn't moved, since.
He was still standing in the same spot, over a minute later just... thinking.
Why?
That pretty much summed up all of his questions.
Just... why?
...
He gave them a way out. They had lost. Why would they still take the opportunity to kill that girl even after everything they had just witnessed him do? They had to have known what would happen when they tried.
They had to have.
It didn't make any sense.
He simply could not wrap his mind around why someone would do that.
He hadn't even seen who had actually shot her either. But one of them clearly had.
…
How many people had he just killed?
There were a lot. Dozens for sure.
Every single one of those shots were now welded into his mind. Every single one of them had killed someone, apart from four.
Just four misses.
Four misses from that first gun out of thirty-five shots, and no misses out of his second gun, which he shot fifteen times, plus the last gunman whom he had killed with his hands…
'I guess that makes… forty-seven?'
…
That was probably the first time he had ever regretted having basic mental math skills.
He was probably never going to forget what he did today.
And it all made him wonder.
…
What would someone watching him think?
'Okay,' he thought.
…
'Okay.'
…
It had taken him a little while to gather his thoughts.
He had almost ended up in a guilt-ridden, panic filled, self-loathing spiral, but he had managed to stop himself.
He had killed something like forty-seven people. Plus the two other giants from earlier. So forty-nine.
Fifty on the nose if he counted Raditz. An average of over ten for every year of his life.
Wait.
Plus those final eight that he had killed with that ball of energy...
Fifty-eight.
...
No… not killed.
He relocated them to some other place in the other world.
They still existed in some form. He had already deduced that, a while ago. If someone's soul wasn't stored somewhere after their death, then when they were wished back to life with the Dragon Balls the things that came back wouldn't actually be them. Just exact copies with the same memories because the dragon would be reassembling them from scratch.
And he had worked out the logic for why that couldn't be the case, earlier.
...
That's what he was going to do.
He was going to walk out of this clearing, follow the road to the nearest town, and continue on his path to fighting the saiyans.
...
He would never tell anyone about what happened here.
Then quietly, someday... probably years from now, he'd undo everything with the Dragon Balls.
He let out another sigh and glanced over at the line of green trucks.
…
Maybe he could figure out how to drive one?
It'd certainly be faster…
All of a sudden, he heard a groan amongst the bodies.
Glancing toward the sound, he found the leader from earlier, spread-eagled on the ground, rubbing his face with his hand.
'It's not over just yet...' Gohan thought to himself.
He placed the head on the ground, because he had no idea why he even bothered carrying it in the first place, and made his way over to the leader.
On his way, he picked up another dropped gun from the ground, just in case he needed it. It was the bigger type, that kept shooting when he held the trigger down.
He stopped walking a few meters away from the huge being. Closing his eyes, he used his energy to scan his surroundings as thoroughly as he could to check for any other potential survivors.
The one in front of him seemed to be the only one... wait. Not quite. There was one more hiding just over there-
"That was impossible."
His thoughts were interrupted when the leader started speaking.
"You're just some fucking, normal kid." He spat out a mouthful of blood. "There's no way you can be that strong."
Gohan raised an eyebrow, and responded in his raspy voice. "Why not?"
He was honestly curious about what this guy had to say.
"You're just a kid..."
"So?" He was unimpressed.
The leader grumbled in annoyance. And it was only then that Gohan really noticed how much damage his previous kick had inflicted.
He had been confused as to why this guy wasn't able to get up from a simple kick to the face, when he noticed that he had literally caved something in on his face.
The nose had been literally driven back into the skull, he was missing countless teeth, and was bleeding profusely, not only from his mouth, but from his nose, ears, and even from his eyes. The whole skull was just deformed.
It was amazing that he was even alive.
"You were warned," Gohan continued, when it looked like the leader wasn't going to continue. "Sid right?"
He was pretty sure that he had heard that name earlier. That was the name of the giant that he had spared earlier, in all likelihood. The one who led him to this base.
He wasn't alive anymore.
"Your own teammate warned you, and you ignored it." There was something about that that just bothered him. It's what led to this whole mess in the first place. "You keep calling me a normal kid. Why? You've never met be before. You've never seen what I could do. You looked at me for less than a minute, and made a whole bunch of assumptions you had no right to. How'd that work out for you in the end, I wonder?"
He had no idea why he was even talking to this guy. Or why this had gotten him so worked up. Maybe it was because of the fact that, if this guy wasn't so much of an idiot, he wouldn't have ordered his men to attack. You have to be truly stupid to ignore your allies' advice, and judge people by what they looked like, in his opinion.
"You forced me to kill your entire army because of that. Because you thought I was a normal kid."
...
"What are you?" The leader asked.
The question initially caught him flat-footed.
...
What am I?
There were any number of ways he could have answered that question. He could have gone on about how he was technically a descendant of an incredibly powerful, alien race.
Or, a person who had trained extensively in energy based abilities that someone like him could never hope to match.
He could have gone on about how he was probably one of the strongest people on the planet, despite his appearance, and he could have tried to demonstrate just how much of an idiot this guy was for choosing to attack him.
...
But he didn't do any of that.
Because while he was in the middle of thinking about how to answer such a question, an item off his list of mysteries was crossed out.
Piccolo.
Piccolo had spoken aloud about the Dragon Balls and their abilities to Raditz, and that was the primary reason why two more saiyans were on their way here.
He had revealed what should have been considered top secret information, to a known enemy for what appeared to be no reason.
But there had been a reason. Hadn't there?
He was in a similar situation himself now. An enemy asking about what should be considered top secret information.
And he had nearly answered.
That would have made him a hypocrite.
Raditz wasn't dead technically. He was relocated to another dimension. He knew that, and Piccolo probably did too. So, in his final moments alive, Piccolo had wanted Raditz to know that without any doubt, his mission was a total failure, and that he would die a meaningless death. So that for the rest of time, Raditz would be forced to stew in that knowledge wherever he would end up.
Piccolo wanted to defeat Raditz on every level. Both physically, and psychologically.
And even though it proved to be a mistake, it would have taken a ridiculous level of forethought to even consider the idea that revealing that information, at that time, to a soon-to-be-dead enemy, would somehow come back to harm them.
...
It was always easier to point out the mistakes of others in hindsight. And he took pride in the fact that he could point out his own mistakes in the same fashion.
He understood that revealing secret information to an enemy was bad. He considered that an obvious fact. Yet he had still nearly done it in the heat of the moment.
For the exact same reason as the one Piccolo must have had.
The fact was, nobody knew how things would turn out. All anybody could do was learn from the actions and consequences of the past, accept the mistakes for what they were, and move on.
Piccolo probably understood that better than anyone, now.
Maybe, even someone like Piccolo had regrets.
If their places had been exchanged, and he were the one to reveal that information to Raditz, and not Piccolo, he would probably beat himself up about it for the rest of his life.
He would absolutely regret it forever, and would never be able to forgive himself for it.
...
And so he was wrong to judge.
Because if anyone knew that that had been a mistake, Piccolo did.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
...
Gohan didn't need to do much else. The leader died only moments later.
He only needed to do one more thing before he could leave this place.
He turned towards a seemingly random capsule house, and started walking towards it.
Moments Later - Inside
He was still shaking.
After he had seen his teammates, those dumb shits, threaten to attack that demon child in the forest, he had booked it.
He didn't even care that he'd abandoned them, or that he'd be called a coward for showing up back at camp, without his team, babbling about ghosts living in the forest.
And that's exactly what had happened.
He had been told to get lost. And everyone had laughed him off.
They should have left this forest the day after they had heard those incredible roars in the distance some time ago. And had seen the massive explosions off in the distance.
Even though nobody had figured out what they had been, and they hadn't been seen or heard again, they had still been ordered to continue the mission anyway.
It was fucking bullshit.
And now there was some shit going down just outside. As soon as he heard the gunfire, and the screams, any idea about going outside to check out whatever was going on was squashed.
He hoped to god it wasn't that demon from the forest.
His thoughts were interrupted when the door slowly creaked open.
He glanced up at the front door, and nearly shit his pants.
Because it was him.
In the doorway was that same creepy ass kid from before.
Dark, spiky hair that covered his eyes and a large section of his face, casting sharp angles upon it and making him look like some sort of hellspawn.
His hair was totally untamed, and went down his back, almost to waist level. He was thin enough to see bones under his skin, and was soaked in the blood of his victims.
But the part that really caught his attention was the fact that the creepy ghost kid had managed to get his hands on a machine gun, and was now pointing it at him.
His mind went blank, and they just stared at each other.
...
...
"Why are you here?" The ghost kid asked.
"W-what?" What kind of question was that?
"This place. Why were you all out here in this forest with that girl."
He just stared dumbly at the kid for a while, trying to find a way to answer that wouldn't get him killed.
"I-I don't know! It was just orders! I only got here yesterday! I have absolutely no idea why we are out here!" Honestly, he was surprised that he had managed to get even that out. His whole body was paralyzed from fear.
They stared at each other in silence once again.
...
...
"What does fuck mean?"
That one threw him for a loop.
I mean, what kind of bullshit question was that?
After a moment of staring in disbelief, the ghost kid prepped his gun to fire.
Holy shit. He was going to die if he didn't answer the question.
But what the hell should he say?
"Uhh, uhhh..." He scrambled for something useful.
"Set!" He finally shouted after another moment. His eyes were squeezed shut hoping his plan would work.
"Set?" The ghost repeated.
"What does set mean?" He finally asked the ghost. Because he would have to explain a whole heap of shit to even start trying to define the word fuck.
The ghost just stared at him for a while.
"That... was an excellent answer." The ghost finally stated, sounding amazed, before lowering the gun, and disappearing into the next room for a moment.
He came back out moments later with a pair of recently cleaned clothes that were approximately his size, and left out the front door the way he had arrived.
...
Holy shit, it had actually worked.
Outside - With Gohan
So the definition of fuck depended on context, did it?
The word 'set' had the most number of definitions in the English language. It had well over four hundred distinct meanings. By asking him that exact question in response, he had understood immediately what the giant was trying to say.
'Fuck' was like 'set'. So many definitions and meanings that he couldn't immediately come up with one.
What a creative answer. He honestly hadn't expected that.
It was an answer that appealed to his inner bookworm, and that made him smile.
He had let that giant live for that answer, it was so creative.
That guy clearly hadn't been involved in what had happened out here, and that had been the giant that had run from him in the forest in the first place.
And besides, he had killed enough people today.
It was a relief to know that there was at least one person who had lived.
He started walking towards the line of trucks at the end of the clearing the moment he finished getting changed into his newly acquired clothes, and wiped as much of the grime off of his face as he could manage.
He was surprised to find a set that were only slightly bigger than what he needed. He had spotted a room full of folded up clothes out of the corner of his eye the instant he entered that building.
He picked a pair of navy blue pants, and a slightly lighter blue T-shirt.
And most importantly socks. Socks and shoes that actually fit him.
It had been so long since he had worn any.
Putting on a set of clean clothes was one of the best things he had felt in weeks.
He was now ready to go into town.
BOOM!
A massive explosion rocked the clearing, as all of the capsule houses ignited in a massive fireball at once.
The shockwave was so huge that it blew him off his feet, despite him being over fifty meters away from the closest house.
He didn't even realize what had happened until his ears stopped ringing almost a full minute later.
Slowly, he managed to crawl to his feet, and he looked around at the clearing.
He could already feel the heat.
All of the remaining buildings were on fire, and had been completely destroyed.
A look of realization, crossed his face.
Did that...
Did that giant do this?
Running back to the house he had just been in, he got as close to the front entrance as he could before the heat became too unbearable.
There, inside, were the remains of the giant.
Gohan just stared at the remains for a while, trying to figure out what had happened.
The giant hadn't moved.
The giant was dead.
...
He had no idea what had just happened.
He needed to leave though.
He just had this really bad feeling the longer he stayed here.
Slowly, he turned around and started making his way back to the line of trucks. He extended his senses as far as they would go, trying to find out if there was anyone in the treeline.
It felt like he was being watched by someone.
Then he froze.
His mind had supplied him with a completely bizarre idea totally unrelated to the blast, the moment he laid his eyes on the girl's body from earlier.
Out of his urgency to leave, he nearly dismissed it instantly. The feeling was getting worse and worse the longer he stood there, and his new idea would keep him there longer than he needed to be.
...
After a moment of indecision, he decided to ignore his progressively worsening feeling and went for it. He could only hope that he wouldn't regret it.
He really didn't want to be anywhere near a group of buildings that had exploded for seemingly no reason.
A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.
- LeviTamm