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.
Gohan had no idea what town he was in. He had simply traveled down the road he had found in the forest without making any turns at all.
Learning to drive had been surprisingly simple. One pedal made the car go forward, and the other made it slow down. The rest all depended on the orientation of the steering wheel. Since he hadn't had to deal with any traffic, or complicated rules, he had managed to drive all the way to a city somewhere.
It had only taken about an hour too.
He had spent that time doing a couple of things. The first was driving of course, but he had the basics of that figured out in just a few minutes. The majority of his concentration had been spent on planning out his next move, and manually beating the heart of the girl next to him with his energy.
He didn't know where the idea had come from, and he didn't even know if it was working, because she hadn't woken up at all during the duration, but he figured he'd try it out anyways.
It would at least give her a shot at surviving, however small.
It was easy for Ki to contour to physical objects. And he could 'see' through things with it. So he had flooded the girl's body with his energy, 'grabbed' her heart, and started manually beating it at a constant rhythm to hopefully keep her blood flowing.
After he had gotten the hang of it, he started periodically inflating her lungs by a similar process.
The rest of his energy was focused on keeping all of her blood inside. Which was done by compacting the majority of the energy he had pumped into her.
A human body of course, was way too complicated to just fix up with such primitive energy techniques, but he had figured that the theory of what he was trying to do made sense on paper.
He couldn't go trying to repair any severed veins or arteries, as he had absolutely no idea how to even attempt that, or even what vein was supposed to connect to where, but he could ensure that any blood that would normally escape her body, would instead be forced back into it somewhere.
It may have been a lost cause though. She had stopped breathing for a significant period of time before he had tried to intervene. He had no idea what kind of brain damage might have taken place during that time, if any had occurred at all. And now she was suffering from severe internal bleeding.
But, she might have a shot.
He had stopped the truck close to a busy street.
He had no idea where the closest hospital was, and he didn't want to leave the girl's side to try and ask someone on the street either. But he had come up with a plan on the way there, and he was about to execute it.
He was just waiting for there to be an opening on the street outside. People were walking by, and he needed to wait for there to be a gap in the crowd so nobody would see what he was about to do.
The truck had a roof and tinted windows, so the people outside couldn't see him very easily, which was certainly convenient. He didn't want anyone out there interfering.
So he waited.
And when a sufficient gap in the crowd showed up, he opened the door, and levitated himself, and the girl onto the pavement a short distance away.
...
Then he blew up the truck with a ball of energy.
…
He didn't want to go to a hospital in person, mostly because his mom would find out if he did, so he decided to make one come to him.
Emergency services would arrive eventually to inspect the blast, and when they arrived, they would find a girl who wasn't breathing, and with serious injuries on the sidewalk.
He just needed to hide in the smoke in the meantime.
And just to make sure that no nearby pedestrian would come close to the truck out of curiosity, he fired a few extra Ki blasts across the sidewalk and road, creating a sizeable amount of damage, and a smoke screen.
Then he returned his attention back to the girl and continued the process of oxygenating her blood.
…
When the ambulance finally arrived, accompanied by the police, and they started to investigate the area, he levitated skywards, ensuring that he stayed inside the shroud of rising smoke, and out of sight.
He watched as they carried her body into the ambulance, and sped off, siren's blaring.
…
He'd probably never know if she made it, but at least he had tried. There was at least one thing he didn't regret doing today…
Finding a library was his next goal. They had computers, which had the information he was looking for. He needed a way to make money, so he needed to find out if there were any events going on in the city.
He had figured that a police officer would know where one was, and he had conveniently just summoned a few of them.
So after he had escaped the scene of the explosion, landed in a back alley, and waited for a few minutes, he prepared a quick backstory for himself and walked up to an officer, trying to look as innocent as possible.
"Excuse me."
The officer turned around to face him. He was very unintimidating. Nothing at all like the people he had met in that clearing earlier.
"Oh, what can I do for you, kid?""
"What happened here?" Gohan asked as innocently as possible, gesturing towards the flaming wreckage a short distance away. They had blocked it off with barricades, to make sure that nobody got too close.
The officer scratched the back of his head in confusion and responded. "Well, we're not really too sure. We're still trying to figure it out. A truck exploded, and somebody nearby was seriously hurt by it." He glanced back at Gohan and seemingly started panicking.
"She's on her way to the hospital though, so she should be alright!" He continued with his hands raised in front of him. "Capsule Corporation has some amazing medical technology after all!"
Gohan didn't really understand why the officer was panicking. Was he trying to placate him?
"Right… well... " Gohan began awkwardly. He was really bad at ordinary conversation with strangers. "I hope she's okay."
He scratched the back of his head nervously, before gathering his courage and initiating his plan.
He was about to lie to an officer.
"Do you happen to know where the library is?" He asked.
The officer seemed taken aback by the sudden change in topic.
"The library?" He parroted.
"Yeah. I promised to meet a friend of mine there. Do you think you could point me the way?"
"Uh... yeah… sure, kid." The officer pointed down the street. "If you just go straight down this street here, you'll see it just on your right. In fact, if you look carefully you can even see the entrance from here. See that white sign there?"
Gohan faced in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, there was a white sign about fifty meters away with 'library' written on it.
It was certainly convenient that it was so close.
"Yeah, I see it! Thanks officer!" Gohan tried to force himself to sound excited.
The officer smiled. "No problem, kid. You have a good day, now!"
Gohan took a few steps in the direction of the library, then deliberately paused for moment, before spinning back around to face the officer.
He pulled a note that he had written earlier out of his pocket. There had been a pen and pad of paper in the truck he had borrowed, earlier.
"Oh yeah, one more thing," Gohan began. He pointed towards the alley he had walked out from earlier. "There was some guy wearing a hood back there who wanted me to give you this."
Gohan handed the officer the note then spun back around before he had a chance to respond, and started to jog towards the library.
"Thanks again for everything!" He called back to the officer.
...
The officer would probably be busy for a while.
The note detailed the general location of almost sixty dead people after all.
He had figured that the police should probably know about it…
So he had come up with a story about a suspicious stranger and fed it to the officer to try and stay out of it all.
He learned a lot at the library, that's for sure.
In his biology textbooks at home, he had read about the process by which animals reproduce.
Sexual reproduction. There was an entire chapter about it that explained it all in detail. But for some reason, he had never made the connection that humans did the same thing.
One of the first things he had looked up was the definition of the word 'fuck'. He had been unsure of the spelling at the time, but it didn't take too long to figure out. He had thought for a while that it started with a 'ph', as in 'phone'.
That whole branch of research had led him on a very strange journey throughout the internet that led to some strange websites, and a huge number of blocked ones that he couldn't access.
It was the most versatile word he had ever seen.
It could be used anywhere. As a verb, a noun, an adjective... and sometimes all three at once. And sometimes it was just thrown in a sentence for no reason.
There was this whole branch of language that wasn't in any of his books. It was like english had been separated into two distinct types. An informal variant, and a formal one. Formal english being the type he used all the time at home, and the informal type he had just learned about, was much less strict on grammar rules, and contained an entire subsection containing nothing but curses and insults.
There were pages upon pages of words and phrases meant for the singular goal of being as rude, and insulting as possible.
He had even managed to find the meanings of those words he had heard from the giants earlier.
'Fuck', 'shit', 'bitch'...
Such strange words…
After reading up on them, he vowed to himself to never say any of them in front of his mom.
He could only imagine the disaster that would unfold if he tried…
But, the main reason he had gone to the library had been to find an opportunity to make money. And he had made progress on that front as well.
His first thought had been to go to this place called a 'casino'. He could probably make a lot of money off of some of the games that were there if he used some of his abilities. The problem was, he had to have a certain amount of money to start out with, and he was currently penniless. The other problem was he wasn't old enough to get in.
So he had to scratch the idea.
The second idea had been almost immediately dismissed. That was to just steal either the money or the capsules that he needed. He'd maybe do it as a last resort if there was no other way, but otherwise, he'd just go with his third option.
There was an event going on in the town, kind of like a carnival. And there were a few events going on in that area that offered prize money.
These sorts of events seemed to be a prime location for martial artists and bodybuilders, as a means of advertising. A martial artist's sponsor, would get them to show off their abilities at public events, so they could gain a larger following. And one of the ways they had chosen to do this was by offering cash prizes to people who could defeat these martial artists or body builders in some form of contest.
What that contest turned out to be, depended on the person giving it.
He had left the library as soon as he had seen the article, and was on his way there, now…
Arm wrestling?
He had never heard of it before.
The crowd had been easy to spot from a distance, so he had pushed his way to the front to see what was going on.
Sure enough, this was one of those cash events he had found out about.
The challenger, and the martial artist would lock arms, and see who could get the other person's arm to hit the table first. It was an interesting idea, and now that he had seen a few matches, he had every intention of trying it out himself.
The award was a lot of money. Two hundred thousand zeni for the victor.
The martial artist offering the money certainly had to be confident to offer that much. Or rich.
That was almost half of the first place prize amount in a World Martial Arts Tournament. It would solve all of his money problems without a doubt. He could get everything he needed, and more with that much.
The guy was pretty big... but he had seen bigger.
Overall he wasn't really that impressed with the strength he was seeing.
Oh, well.
It was free money, and it would be going to a good cause.
So when the next challenger lost his match, Gohan stepped up to the chair and sat down…
"What the…"
The martial artist had a deep baritone voice, unlike any he had ever heard before.
"Is there a problem?" Gohan asked.
The crowd had gone silent.
The martial artist looked stunned.
Gohan waited for a response, and what he got didn't really surprise him. Though privately, he'd admit that it irritated him a great deal more than it should have.
Laughter.
The whole crowd just started laughing.
So did the martial artist.
Any thought of going easy on the guy vanished from Gohan's mind in that instant. Images of the last few people to laugh at him began to cross his mind. They were fresh, having happened earlier that same day…
He was already anticipating the absolute satisfaction he was going to feel after he buried the guy.
The martial artist put a palm over his face, to wipe some of the tears away.
"Kid, this is no place for someone like you…"
Then he began to ramble on and on about how young he was, and how he should go back to his parents.
But Gohan had stopped listening, waiting patiently for him to finish.
He had heard it all before…
When the guy had finally finished talking, Gohan simply waited for a few moments in silence. Then he raised his right arm, and rested his elbow on the table in the starting position for the match.
He wasn't playing anymore. He hated being underestimated.
Gohan wasn't smiling anymore.
"Put your arm on the table, or give me my money."
That certainly put a look of surprise on the guy's face.
"Choose."
…
Apparently, some part of his expression got the message across, because the martial artist stopped laughing.
The crowd continued on though.
The martial artist finally sighed.
"Fine, kid. I hope you learn something from this…"
They both locked arms to the amusement of the crowd.
"Begin," the ref announced.
As soon as the contest began, it ended.
The wooden table exploded into thousands of splinters, the martial artist's arm shattered, and he was buried almost two feet into the concrete floor.
Gohan didn't feel his glare lessen until he was absolutely sure that his feat had silenced the crowd.
Perhaps utilizing so much Ki like that had been overkill. But he wanted to make sure that there was no doubt of the legitimacy of his win. He would not allow an outcome where the spectators could try to make the argument that the martial artist had thrown the match.
They all needed to see the damage to the table, and the two foot crater in the ground first hand.
You can't fake that by throwing a match.
Gohan stood up from his chair after a moment, which had miraculously survived the impact, and he walked towards the ref's table in the deafening silence.
The martial artist's sponsor was seated behind the table with a slack-jawed expression. He had been counting the stack of money in his hand, but when the impact had occurred, he had froze.
Gohan walked up to the guy without a word and simply held out his hand and waited.
It took the guy almost ten seconds to understand the situation and hand over the money.
Gohan counted it on the spot to ensure it was all there, before he spun around and started walking away without another word.
The only sounds in the area were the pain filled groans of the martial artist.
He had been right. That had been so satisfying...
Finding a store that sold capsules had been simple.
They were standard, widespread, and almost every store had them.
He picked up a capsule house, and an assortment of other capsules came with it. A vehicle of some kind, there were some appliances, a giant box that served as a storage area, and some dishes, utensils, and various tools.
A lot of it would come in handy in the future. He hadn't even thought about picking up some of those things…
While he was at the store, he also picked up a large amount food. Probably a year's worth. And he stored it all inside a preservation capsule specifically designed for that purpose.
Since he still had a lot of extra money that was essentially useless to him, he decided to buy a set of scalable weights. They were designed for martial artists, and they could be set to weigh up to several tons.
Finally, he spent the last bit of money he had on a set of assorted scientific equipment. Because it was time for him to start getting serious about his training. He wanted to know what Ki was, how it worked, and what its precise properties were. He needed to start making more precise measurements with advanced tools to get that information.
He bought everything he could think of getting, and made sure to use as much of the money he had on him as he could.
After paying for it all and ignoring all the strange looks he received at his purchases, he capsulized everything and started walking towards the edge of town.
It was time to get back to training.
He left the city limits, and returned to the forest.
A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.
- LeviTamm