Gohan looked at the sky with a growing sadness. His brother was betraying him, and no matter what he did, it wouldn't be enough to silence the boy for good. It had been a week since he'd even gotten the stupid F, and Goten still used it to get his every desire. It had gotten to the point where Gohan didn't even argue, he just did as he was told and hung his head. He hated his brother with a burning passion that grew every day. Videl would constantly tell him that he didn't mean it and though he would agree, it saddened him to know that he did truly mean it with every fiber of his being. His thoughts were interrupted by a knee making contact with his spine, sending him towards the earth cringing in pain, with the air gone from his lungs. He felt himself being caught mere inches from the ground.

"If I had been an enemy, you would be dead," barked out a voice that he knew all too well.

"Yes Mr. Piccolo," Gohan replied as he remembered the fact that he was in the midst of a spar when he zoned out. Piccolo looked at the teenager that had been the closest thing he had to a son since the boy was a child

"What's wrong with you?" he asked bluntly.

"Promise you won't tell my mom?" Piccolo let out a chuckle, as if he would be talking to her in the next hundred years. Taking this as a yes, Gohan continued, " I failed a stupid test at school, and Goten found out and has been blackmailing me ever since." Piccolo let out a gasp. Even he knew that this act that he would have applauded if used against an enemy, was extremely out of character for the young boy, especially against his own flesh and blood.

"What have you tried?"

"Uh, I sort of just gave him what he wanted," he replied, a little ashamed of his lack of knowing what else to do. Piccolo just shook his head at the boy.

"That is not how you stop someone from blackmailing you. Since obliterating him is out of the question, your only options are to tell your mother and make his information useless, or intimidate him. Knowing that you for some strange reason fear your mother, your best option would be the latter. Strike fear into him, and make sure that he knows that telling her will be the last thing he does. Now I will show you a few techniques that will be enough to scare him, but not seriously injure him."

Goten looked up at the sky, seeing different things in the clouds and trying trace them with his newly regrown tail. He knew that his parents would take him to Dende and have it removed again. This would be the third time in his life he would be losing it. It seemed that the older he got, the longer it would take to regrow. He was told that one day it would simply not grow back, leaving him without that weakness/danger. But he would have the tail until the end of the month, when Dende returned from a trip to New Namek. He watched it move, and was amazed at how natural the feel of moving it around was, as if the tail was a part of him that he knew he must part with, but didn't want to. An idea flickered into his mind, monkeys use their tails to swing from tree to tree, so why couldn't he? The spiky haired boy ran through a patch of trees that had leaves the color of the grass below his feet, and jumped up to them, wrapping his tail around one of the thick branches. He had expected the warm breeze in his face as he laughed happily and swung through the trees. This was the exact opposite. Goten felt a tug that quickly turned into a pull, that quickly turned to a yank, that had him gasping for air. In too much pain to cry, Goten hung there suspended due to the fact that he was stuck on the branch, feeling as if his spine was being ripped out of his back. He finally gained the strength to uncurl his tail enough to let it slowly slide off of the branch, collapsing in a heap at the foot of the tree. As the air entered his lungs again, he began to cry out and let the salty, crystalline tears that reflected the sun as they slid off of the little boy's face fall. As he began to regain more air, his cries got louder and louder and louder, as they began traveling closer and closer to his home. ChiChi dropped the dish in her hand, and ran towards the sound of her baby.

"Goten!" she called out desperately. He cried louder still, allowing his mother to find him and collect the sobbing little boy in her arms. He snuggled against her, releasing his loudest and wettest sobs into her shoulder. She pulled him away from her asking him with a face that was worried for her little boy, "What happened?"

Snot running from his nose, and salty tears spilling over his eyes and down his cheeks, he replied, "I 'sniff' was 'sniff' playing m-mo-monkey!" he sobbed before letting out another deafening wail.

Gohan returned home with a newfound strategy for stopping Goten's charade. He however found that the poor little boy had hung by his tail from a tree, and was hurt badly. Gohan rushed into see his now puffy eyed little sibling.

"Are you okay little buddy?"

"N-no," he replied holding his hands to his bottom.

"I know, I know it hurts, but the pain will go away soon."

"Can you get me some water?" Gohan stroked the little boys ebony locks not answering for a while. Goten took this hesitation as Gohan ignoring him.

"Sure little bud…" But he was cut off by Goten,

"Or I'll tell mom about your grade." Gohan was now angry, no, Gohan was now furious. Here he was, trying to comfort his brother, putting all the anger aside to help him, and Goten attempts to blackmail him right in the middle of it! Gohan looked at his little brother in disgust, giving the boy's tail a quick jerk sending him back into sobs of pain, before storming out of the house and flying away. This was not over. Not even close.

Even though it does scream "filler" I had this idea bouncing around and found it perfect for this particular story line. I hope you like it.