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.
There were all of these little... decisions that he was constantly having to make.
Should he intervene and save the people in the helicopter?
...If he did, he'd be revealing his hand too soon. He'd lose his element of surprise.
Maybe if he had known what the saiyans were capable of already, and didn't have to assume the worst case scenario about their strength, he would have intervened.
The Dragon Balls had to be used later to wish back all the people that had been killed in that city earlier, anyways. What were a few extra bodies amongst thousands? Those people in the helicopter would be brought back at the same time with that wish.
...But that hadn't been his only option in that moment.
How about instead, during that moment, as Nappa launched his attack, should he have used that instant to strike?
...
He actually nearly had.
That saiyan had let his guard down in that moment, and Gohan probably had coin flip odds of taking him out in that instant.
Of killing him.
And there may not be an opportunity like that ever again.
...
But he didn't.
He didn't because that would also reveal his hand too soon.
He didn't know how strong that other saiyan was. The shorter one. And after killing the big one, the fight would have escalated immediately.
And if that saiyan was as strong as Gohan hoped he wasn't, both himself and Piccolo might have died shortly afterwards. Long before the other fighters made it there.
He could feel a handful of other fighters from around the world rapidly converging on their position. In all likelihood, they were his dad's friends.
So he likely had allies to work with. Decently strong ones at that. They didn't have to truly get started until everyone was there.
He also still had a few plans in place that depended on misleading these two saiyans.
This whole conflict might still end non-violently. Ideally, Gohan still wanted that to happen. Not because he was merciful or anything, but because there were too many unknowns, and he was not totally confident about his chances.
If he could spend even just a few more months or so, training…
...
And then there was his dad.
Should he try to stall?
Why was his dad even late to begin with? Why couldn't he sense him yet?
The power levels approaching his position right now, weren't his. Gohan knew this because he recognized them all. He had observed their progress from afar with his senses during the past few months of training.
Since he recognized them, they weren't his dad's because his dad hadn't been on Earth in that time.
So his dad was late. And that was a problem.
But he couldn't do much about it, so he'd just have to deal with the situation.
Dragging the fight out for as long as possible would buy time for his dad to eventually get there. But it would also waste his own energy.
He didn't know if his dad would be able to win, either.
It might just be better to assume that the fight would be over long before his dad even got there. That they were on their own.
...He basically had a choice in front of him.
Go all out and try to kill these saiyans as fast as possible? Which actually had a decent shot of working with some of his preparations in place…
But if he failed, he'd lose his element of surprise, and the saiyans would immediately see him as a threat and try to kill him right back.
...Or should he stall?
If he did that instead, the saiyans very likely wouldn't be in any rush to end things too quickly.
They had spent a year just travelling there after all. That took a lot of patience.
He also remembered Raditz. His uncle hadn't tried to kill his dad immediately at all, back then. He had taken enjoyment in dragging that conflict out.
Gohan actually hoped that these two saiyans would be like that, too. The longer this fight dragged out, the better their chances.
He could also take the extra time to observe the capabilities of his new allies.
He could figure out their weaknesses, and how best he could cover for them.
…
Gohan was actually leaning towards this option for the most part.
He wanted to conserve his own power for as long as possible, and let them take on the brunt of the assault. Even though he was stronger than they were, nobody else but Piccolo knew this.
He had trained with clones all the time, so his power level was almost never unified in one place. Which meant that the other fighters likely hadn't sensed his full strength at all until his little energy burst earlier. And they'd likely think that that had been from Piccolo.
And he always made sure that during his orbital energy dumps, he was on the other side of the world from them, and out of their sensing range.
A double blind worked best here, in his view. He wanted his strength to be a surprise even to his own teammates.
Piccolo had actually given him the idea, and after hearing it explained, Gohan had to agree.
There were these little queues that a fighter gave off during a fight that could be read by a diligent observer.
If his teammates knew how strong he was, they might glance in his direction when they expected him to intervene at certain moments, or give off other subtle queues that they otherwise wouldn't have.
And things like that could be read by these saiyans if they were paying attention.
But if his teammates didn't know, they'd likely see him as just a kid. One that needed to be protected.
They'd take the brunt of the assault so that he wouldn't have to, thinking that they were protecting him, and the saiyans watching the interaction would conclude that he was obviously weak as a result.
That he wasn't a threat.
Because what kind of super strong fighter just sat back and watched their friends get killed right in front of them? They would think.
...Gohan was.
Death wasn't real. So they could all afford to die if it meant his strategies would play out in the end.
So if he relegated himself to a support position instead, he'd preserve this element of surprise throughout the entire battle until an opportunity arose.
...Then he'd only go all out if he noticed an opening that was too large to ignore.
"It looks like they aren't going to tell us where the Dragon Balls are, Nappa." The shorter of the two saiyans began, as the flaming rubble from the helicopter settled into the dirt.
"Wanna bet?" Nappa replied, a malicious edge in his voice.
He continued.
"Alright! Let's see how strong you really are."
Nappa pressed a button on the side of his scouter and it started beeping.
"The kid's at 400, and the Namek is at a thousand. You fools! Do you really think that you can beat us with such puny power levels?"
"Hey Nappa," the shorter saiyan interrupted. "Take your scouter off."
"What?"
"It seems that they know how to concentrate energy and raise their fighting powers. These figures are most unreliable."
The shorter saiyan spoke as he dropped the device onto the ground.
"Hey, right. Good call. Now I remember. That pathetic loser Raditz let himself be fooled by all of their power readings."
Nappa dropped his scouter onto the ground, and then there was another moment of silence.
Piccolo and Gohan watched all of this without speaking. They were both settled into their fighting stances and waiting for things to get started.
…
Nobody moved for another thirty seconds or so, as the two sides simply stared at each other.
"Nappa," The shorter one broke the silence. "I believe it's time we had a little fun with them. Better yet, get those Saibamen out. There should be six of them left. They'll do."
Nappa laughed at the order.
"You're too much. You really know how to have fun."
Nappa reached into a pocket on the back of his armour, and pulled out a blue bottle.
"You're right, there are six."
"Maybe the Saibamen can persuade them to tell us where the Dragon Balls are, huh Nappa?"
Nappa crouched onto the ground, laughing, as he started planting the green pills into the ground.
"Oh, I think they can arrange that."
Nappa finished by pouring a green liquid from the other side of the bottle on top of where he had planted them.
"There."
He threw the newly emptied bottle to the side.
The ground absorbed the liquid, and after a few moments, six Saibamen started growing out of the ground.
They grew fast. In seconds, they were fully grown, and started making these weird insect-like sounds. They sounded almost alien, in Gohan's opinion.
When the Saibamen were finished growing, they looked in Piccolo and Gohan's direction, and moved.
There were so many decisions to make.
Gohan could tell that he was riding along a very thin line.
There were countless futures arrayed in front of him. In each of which, he made a different decision. But in most of which, he made the wrong one.
If he slipped up anywhere along the way, he'd die. And so would Piccolo.
He had to get this right.
There could be no mistakes.
…
He was calculating everything.
Should he have said some of the things he planned on saying during that moment of silence earlier? Or should he wait until later?
...It was too soon, he had eventually decided. Some of those things would have gotten them angry, in all likelihood. Very angry. Later, but not yet.
So he had remained silent.
...Should he have intervened when they implied that they had reinforcements of some kind?
When Nappa had pulled out that bottle, he had been careless about it. These saiyans weren't treating them as a threat, yet.
In an instant, Gohan could have powered up, used one of his new techniques, destroyed the bottle, and done serious damage to the saiyan holding it, before anyone could have reacted.
...But it would tip his hand too soon. And escalate the conflict immediately.
He took a gamble that the Saibamen wouldn't be too strong.
It was actually almost beneficial that they were being summoned actually, in his opinion. It meant that the saiyans intended to drag on the fight for their own amusement.
Which bought them time for his dad to arrive. And the other fighters too.
...When he sensed the power of the Saibamen as they formed, he knew immediately that he had made the right call.
They were weak. So weak that Gohan could take them all out in seconds by himself, with some of his new techniques. Especially if he went all out in an instant, as a total surprise to everyone.
Piccolo could do the same, he knew.
During their training together, Gohan had actually managed to close the gap between them almost two months before the saiyans arrived.
He had reached the point where they were about equal in strength, then, in the remaining months, both of them almost became rivals.
They had been able to push each other far harder than they had ever managed to before.
And Gohan had made sure that Piccolo got just as much out of it as he had. He wanted that time investment by Piccolo to pay off.
Piccolo had shown him a new world of possibilities. And Gohan would never take that for granted.
He'd never forget that, and he'd make sure that it had all been worth it.
...It also seemed as if the two of them were on the same wavelength on how to proceed with the battle, too.
Gohan and Piccolo had both sat by and allowed the Saibamen to form, after all.
Either of them could have stopped it with ease.
When the Saibamen abruptly charged in their direction, Gohan was a bit disappointed.
He had hoped that they would have waited just a little bit longer. He could sense one of his dad's friends closing in on the battlefield.
They were all getting very close, but one of them was nearly on top of them, now.
Ideally, Gohan wanted to preserve his element of surprise until everyone arrived so that they could do most of the work, while he waited for an opening.
But if the Saibamen attacked now, he might have to show his power.
...Wait, maybe not, he suddenly realized. He didn't have to immediately kill them all. He could deliberately lower himself to their level.
He could fight in a way so that he was exactly one step ahead of these things, and no more. That way, he wouldn't take any damage, he'd get a decent warm up, and the saiyans wouldn't suspect much.
The fight would drag on, and the Saibamen would still be alive at the end of it.
And as long as they were alive, the saiyans likely wouldn't intervene themselves. They were too busy just watching the action, to do that.
Making his decision, Gohan remained in his stance, and entered the slow motion world.
...
Since the Saibamen were moving so slowly compared to what he was used to, he didn't have to slow time down all that much to observe their movements.
He watched as they slowly crawled their way towards him. Relative to him, in this new time frame, it took them almost thirty seconds to get there… but before attacking, they changed directions at the last moment.
Confused, Gohan continued to watch as they started running in circles around them.
They ran, and ran, and started jumping around all over the place. All in super slow motion.
…
'What are they doing?' Gohan thought to himself, after watching this all happen for a few slow motion minutes. Minutes which probably translated to just a few seconds in real time.
Eventually, one of them smashed a boulder nearby with a kick, and then they all took it as a signal to land in front of him and stop.
…
Gohan exited the slow motion world when they froze in place so he could hear if the saiyans were going to say anything. Sound didn't work in that world after all…
When time returned to normal, he felt the shockwaves from all the previous supersonic movements slam into him all at once, and echo off the environment around him.
...
It didn't hurt him at all, but it was one of the more annoying aspects of this type of combat, in his opinion.
It was one of the consequences of being able to slow down time that much.
That boulder for instance, the one that that Saibamen had just destroyed… Goohan had watched it explode in slow motion, observed the other Saibamen's movements for a while, considered their strengths and weaknesses, and had almost even forgotten about the boulder entirely, only for the shockwave to just then hit him, after dropping his time acceleration ability.
It took so long for sound to get anywhere.
He'd be hearing shockwaves from attacks that had happened an eternity ago, relative to him.
The ground, in fact, was just now shaking from the tremor of that impact.
Nature just wasn't keeping up properly.
...
The six Saibamen settled into a formation in front of him, and started making those insect noises again.
Gohan was really just confused though. Why had they even done all of that? Was it supposed to intimidate him?
Maybe if he had had to face them a few months ago, he would have found them to be strong, but now, they were really just nuisances.
"This should be a pretty good match-up," The shorter saiyan stated. "These Saibamen seem spunky."
"Three each?" Gohan asked Piccolo. He wanted to clarify how they wanted to deal with these things. If Piccolo wanted to go take on all six of them himself, Gohan wanted to know.
"Two each," Piccolo replied.
Gohan looked up at Piccolo, confused for a moment, as those numbers didn't add up, but then he noticed Piccolo's grin.
Gohan grinned as well, when he extended his senses out a little bit further, and felt the first of his new teammates, arrive.
Two each, after all.
Gohan recognized him from that day. He had met him on Master Roshi's island a year ago.
What had his name been again?
Gohan started replaying his memories from that day.
…
He had never been properly introduced to this person, but he had heard his dad call this person's name a few times.
Once, when they were skipping those rocks back on the island.
And again, when Raditz had attacked this person with his tail, sending him back, crashing into the house.
It was Krillin.
"How 'bout some help?"
Krillin landed next to the two of them.
"Yeah, sure. Why not?" Piccolo replied. "But things are going to get intense. You might just slow us down Krillin."
"I doubt that. I've been doing a little bit of training on my own."
"So you have. I can feel a significant increase in your power level."
Krillin grinned, then took a moment to observe the battlefield.
"So, these are the saiyans then, huh?"
He paused.
"What the heck are those things?" He asked as he glanced at the Saibamen.
"Good question," Piccolo replied. "They grew them here a little while ago."
"Well that's just great. As if the saiyans by themselves weren't bad enough," Krillin complained. the sarcasm evident in his voice.
He continued.
"Man, Goku's running a little late, huh. We're going to have to hold out without him somehow."
Krillin then glanced at Gohan. He was about to speak up, but was interrupted.
"Oh look," the shorter siayan interrupted, catching everyone's attention. "Another one joined them."
"It makes no difference," Nappa replied. "Saibamen, I want to hear them all beg for mercy."
"Krillin!" A new voice echoed across the battlefield.
Just then, another two fighters landed next to Krillin and Piccolo.
Gohan didn't recognize either of them. He did recognize their energy though. He had been observing their progress for some time, after all..
Gohan could feel another person closing in on their position, as well.
They had all managed to arrive almost simultaneously.
"Wait for me!" Yet another shout echoed across the battlefield.
A few moments later, another fighter that Gohan didn't recognize arrived.
He was wearing the same uniform as Krillin, though. It was the same colour as what his dad used to wear all the time. Mostly orange with a little bit of dark blue thrown in.
These were his new allies?
Gohan had never met half of them. He had never even seen a triclops before. Though he had read about a bit about them.
He didn't know what the little one was either. He looked like a mime, with that get-up. Was he a human?
Gohan had thought that he'd be the shortest person here. But the mime was actually a pretty close candidate for that position.
"Hey, you guys!" Krillin greeted them all cheerfully. "It's great to see you again! We could really use the help."
"So these are the saiyans then, huh?" Tien asked. "Looks like they brought some friends along for the ride."
"Apparently, they grew them here," Krillin replied.
"What?"
"I have no idea. I never actually saw it happen. Piccolo told me earlier."
"They were grown here? That's a new one," Yamcha stated.
"Yeah, no kidding."
Gohan stood by and simply listened to the group of friends converse.
...He felt almost out of place now. Awkward, even.
He had no idea who any of these people were. He had watched their powers grow from a distance, and that's all they had really been to him until now.
A bunch of power levels that would one day join him in the fight against the saiyans.
But they were people. They had personalities, dreams, goals… they laughed, and had fun…
It made him question a lot of his current plans.
His whole strategy utilized them as tools, essentially. It felt almost dehumanizing.
...
He was going to have to keep his distance from them, he quickly realized. He couldn't treat them as people if he wanted to win, so he couldn't really treat them as friends, either.
They all had a common goal, and he would try to ensure that they would make it out of the fight alive, but mostly as a favour to his father. To be totally honest though, from what he could sense, if they were all wiped out, his chances of winning would still be roughly the same as if he were on his own with just Piccolo.
They were useful, sure, but not because of their power levels. They were useful because they were going to provide data on how these saiyans would fight.
…
These people weren't his teammates after all, he concluded.
There were three parties involved in this conflict.
Piccolo and himself, these four fighters, and the saiyans.
Two of those groups were allies, but there was no true connection between them.
...Gohan wouldn't be surprised at all, if all four of these people died before either himself or Piccolo truly got serious.
He needed to prepare himself for that possibility.
"Look Nappa, now it's six against six. Their warriors against our Saibamen. How perfect. This may just prove to be interesting after all."
Nappa laughed.
"I can't wait."
The four friends halted their conversation immediately, and got serious at the proclamation.
"Gentlemen," Vegeta began. "How would you like to make a match of this and fight our soldiers one by one?" He offered.
It was a perfect scenario, in Gohan's opinion. The saiyans were acting as he had predicted so far.
He shared a glance with Piccolo.
…
They were on the same wavelength. That was good.
"Well? Answer." Vegeta commanded.
"If that's how you want to do it then that's fine by me." Yamcha agreed.
"Yeah! This is perfect. We can buy some time for Goku to show up."
"I'll go first," Tien stated. "I'm not afraid of these little creeps. It'll be a good warm up!"
Nappa laughed.
"That's the spirit! Fresh meat for the grinder! But just wait, you won't be so cocky when you see what these 'little creeps' can do."
Tien stepped up and settled into a stance as he waited for his opponent to step forward.
"Be careful, Tien," the little mime advised.
So the Triclops is named Tien then, huh?' Gohan thought to himself. Since he hadn't been introduced to anyone, he was having to learn everyone's names through context.
Tien approached the Saibamen, and settled into a stance a few meters away.
The group of Saibamen continued making those insect like noises in the meantime.
After a few moments of this, Tien spoke up.
"A lot of noise, but no volunteers."
Vegeta frowned, and glanced towards one of the Saibamen.
"Alright, you go," he commanded. "But don't hold anything back. Got it?"
The Saibamen nodded in acknowledgement, and stepped forward.
Tien and the first Saibamen faced off, and there was an intense moment of silence.
...A silence which was again, broken by the sounds of helicopter blades as another group of news helicopters approached the battlefield.
Gohan pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation.
He didn't mind the interruption, but it seemed like such a waste of human lives. Didn't they see what had happened to the last helicopter that got too close?
Gohan could already predict what was going to happen in a few moments and again, he debated whether or not he should stop it.
...It was a relatively short internal debate, and he decided quite quickly that he wouldn't. They'd be wished back to life with the Dragon Balls just like all the rest.
Sure enough, as he predicted, a few moments later Nappa charged up another energy attack, and with a battle cry, shot down the helicopter.
As the flaming wreckage fell to the ground around them once more, Nappa started speaking.
"Good! No more distractions! Now what do you say we get this fight started?"
Gohan stared at the fighters, his disbelief slowly rising.
...
Is this how fights usually start?' Gohan thought to himself.
The two of them had just been staring at each other for the past five minutes or so.
Neither the Saibamen, nor the triclops, had made a move yet.
It was bizarre.
If Gohan had been in this fight, it would have been over already, long ago. He never allowed long drawn out silences to occur like this unless they were beneficial to him.
'I suppose they are buying time for my dad to arrive…'
But still. This was almost annoying to watch. Seeing them both waste so much time staring each other down.
His fights with Piccolo never went like this. They had been rapid, full of action, and without pauses of any kind.
Not at all like the stalemate he was watching unfold agonizingly slowly, in front of him.
…
The Saibamen eventually made the first move.
As soon as it did, Gohan entered the slow motion world so he could watch the fight.
All sound ceased.
The Saibamen charged at Tien at an annoyingly slow pace in the new time frame. He watched the creature make its journey over the course of about twenty seconds or so.
Tien countered with a directed energy attack.
He had created a ball of energy, quickly wrapped it around the Saibamen, locked it in place, and ramped up its kinetic energy. Changing the direction of its motion vector in the process.
The Saibamen was suddenly moving in the opposite direction. The attack had done almost no damage to it physically, but it created an opening.
It basically looked like it had been hit by an invisible bus, or something. The way it was sent rocketing backwards like that…
The Saibamen landed, and charged again.
Abruptly, the top of its head split open and Gohan saw something white flash from inside it.
…
He narrowed his eyes and slowed down time even further to observe.
Both of the fighters in front of him slowed to a crawl to Gohan's senses.
Was this some sort of special attack?
Gohan watched the head split open, and a white liquid started spraying out.
Gohan's finger twitched, and in an instant his bubble sensing technique was active.
He wrapped the Saibamen with it and focused in, on as deep a level as he could manage.
He zoomed in on the creature's head, and felt the biomechanical components shift around as the Saibamen's attack took place.
He observed as a fleshy compartment inside the creatures head opened up, revealing a pool of liquid.
It was segregated from the creatures brain from what Gohan could tell, so the liquid was probably corrosive. Or had some other inherent danger to it.
But the flap of flesh that opened… the valve, for lack of a better word, was thin. Very thin.
It was a glaring weakness in the structure of these creature's bodies, he realized.
With a precise application of Ki, he could easily destroy it without them even noticing. Killing them almost immediately by their own acid from the inside.
Gohan expanded his energy bubble further out, and encompassed the remaining five Saibamen in the brief window of time he was stretching out and observing.
He located the same flap of flesh in the heads of each of them.
They were not on guard, these Saibamen. They had the typical defenses in place that Gohan would expect, but not much else.
He could not destroy their brains outright with his energy, for instance. Not unless he got serious, but everyone would notice the spike of energy if he did. The Saibamen had their own Ki protecting it. He would have to overcome that energy if he wanted to destroy their brains himself.
But if he concentrated his attacks on that tiny region, then he could.
The pool of acid was sitting in a container above the creatures brain, and there weren't as many Ki defenses in place protecting it, since it was meant to be opened up at a moment's notice.
It was inefficient to constantly have to pull Ki away from defending that acid container in order to start spraying it out, so there wasn't a lot there to begin with.
It used too much magic to pull it off. And that was the main reason why biological abilities like that were pretty much useless at this level of combat.
That flap was unguarded.
It would be so easy, Gohan realized. In an instant, relative to them, he could lash out with his energy, rip open this piece of flesh inside each of their heads, and watch as their brains fried from the inside out.
He could pierce the skin on the skull, expose the pool of acid, and punch a hole into the base of it, allowing gravity to pull some of it down onto the thing's brain.
Hitting that thin piece of flesh would be much less energy intensive then burning their brains out directly with his own energy.
In fact, he could probably do it without anyone here even noticing, at all.
…
He wouldn't though.
It was a waste of magic. Concentrated attacks like that were magically intensive, and he needed to conserve that form of energy.
He had unlimited Ki to work with, essentially, so his only bottleneck was magic energy. He should stick with his original plan, and conserve it as much as possible.
He should stick to large scale energy attacks that do not require much effort to control.
He'd waste a lot of Ki with them... which wasn't actually a problem at all. He had a Ki network set up to charge back up.
Gohan refocused on the Saibamen currently battling the Triclops.
...Maybe he would do it once, on one Saibamen only, but only if he ended up getting a turn in this competition of sorts…
Gohan watched as the acid spilled out of the Saibamen's head and headed towards him.
The Triclops had dodged the attack, and since Gohan was directly behind him when he had, it was now approaching him.
It wouldn't hit however. After some careful observation, Gohan was able to estimate the spread, and the range, and he was able to calculate that it would miss him by a foot or two.
It would shoot past his left shoulder and continue on.
It was not worth the effort to dodge.
Gohan sped up time again, back to the original rate he had been observing the fight with.
It was still too slow for sound to exist, but he could at least watch the fight unfold again.
Gohan idly noticed the other fighters jump out of the way of the acid, and as he predicted, the acid missed him by a small margin.
Since he had seen it coming, he didn't even flinch from the near miss.
...If he had been a good actor though, he would have thrown on a surprised or frightened expression so that the saiyans would think that an attack even as weak as that, was actually a danger to him. Further demonstrating how weak he apparently was.
He wasn't a good actor though, so the point was moot, and he didn't even attempt it.
The potency of the attack surprised him however. That acid was strong. Probably stronger than any acid ever discovered on Earth. It burned a hole in the ground next to him, almost immediately. Digging a trench into the rock.
The fight ended almost immediately after that.
Tien had charged once again, and struck the Saibamen down into the dirt.
The creature landed in a heap on the ground, and Tien landed and froze in place, indicating that he had left the accelerated time frame.
Gohan followed suit, and sound abruptly returned.
...
That entire fight had probably only lasted about five seconds or so, if he were to take a guess. That long to an outsider anyways…
It had appeared to last a few full minutes to him, however.
"What? Impossible!" Nappa declared.
Krillin and the little mime cheered at the victory.
Now all that needed to happen was for Tien to deliver the killing blow while it was down.
Gohan's eyes were locked onto the creature's fallen form.
"You're the best, Tien!"
Tien sighed and… turned around?
Gohan felt his eyebrows rise in disbelief once again, as he watched Tien start walking back towards his friends.
He had just turned his back on his opponent, and was letting him recover.
...
That was a dangerous mindset to have.
Gohan narrowed his eyes, made a note of that, and realized that he was likely going to have to be the one to kill these saiyans himself, since it would appear that nobody else here would.
Not if they thought the fight was just over, when their opponent was lying on the ground.
His 'teammates' were not killers. None of these people were.
It was truly down to himself and Piccolo wasn't it?
"Thanks," Tien replied.
"Looks like you got hold of a weak batch, Nappa."
"No! They're all good. These are the same ones that survived that crazy battle on Tradick! He should've won! His power level is 1200! All of these Saibamen have the same fighting power as…"
He paused.
"...As who?" Vegeta prompted.
"As… Raditz."
There was a moment of silence.
"Now do you see my point?"
"Well, I think so…"
"Do you?" Vegeta laughed. "Well, don't strain yourself, just leave the thinking to me from now on."
"Uh, Tien," The little mime spoke up. "That one's getting back up."
He pointed to the Saibamen that was slowly getting back up to its feet.
Gohan was wondering when someone would point that out. He had no idea why the thing was even still alive. If he had been the one to fight it, he would have killed it the instant the fight was over.
Tien spun around, surprised, and settled into another fighting stance.
Abruptly, Gohan felt the shorter saiyan's power level spike dangerously.
In an instant, Gohan was in the slow motion world and time was almost stopped from his perspective.
That was a lot of power, and he wasn't sure what the saiyan was going to do with it yet.
With his bubble sensing technique however, he was able to determine that the siayan was not aiming at him, or any of Gohan's temporary allies.
He was aiming at the defeated Saibamen.
'So that's how it is then…'
No mercy, even for their allies.
Gohan left the time frame again.
The Saibamen exploded an instant later as the attack hit.
The spectacle produced an astonished silence.
Even Nappa appeared to be surprised by the sudden attack.
"Vegeta, why?"
'So the shorter saiyan's name is Vegeta then?'
"He wasn't of any use to us anymore."
"I know, but… he was… alive."
There was another moment of silence.
"I… I don't… understand," Nappa finished.
"It would have been pointless to allow him to continue, Nappa. He was losing. Which leads me to believe that he wasn't trying his hardest."
Vegeta glared at the other Saibamen.
"I specifically told him to not hold anything back."
A/N: Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors, as I have no beta reader at this time.
- LeviTamm