"So… About those martial arts lessons…" Sharpner approached Gohan shortly after the teen left the boys' dressing room before gym class. "I would kind of like to try it out, see if you weren't full of shit about anyone being able to become as strong as you."

"I think you're approaching this from the wrong angle, but sure. Videl-san and I were going to get some training in today after class. We'll wait for you and go home all together," Gohan nodded, looking excited about the prospect of finding a new friend. Martial arts were truly amazing, bridging the gap between him and someone like Sharpner.

"Videl? You two are pretty tight. Is she your student like me?" Sharpner wondered, leaning to examine Videl from behind after she left the girls' dressing room.

"Oh, no!" Gohan exclaimed, waving his hands out in front of him with a pacifying gesture. "Videl-san is far too advanced for lessons at this point. She's her own mentor in terms of the technical aspects. We mostly just spar so that she can notice her own weaknesses and feel where she can still use some training. Of course, the same is true on my end. If Videl-san finds an opening in my moves, it's a little embarrassing, since I've been practicing since early childhood."

"So I'll be getting in the way…" Sharpner dipped his chin, letting gloom obscure his eyes.

"Not at all!" Gohan defused the notion. "In fact, my younger brother is almost at the age where he can start picking up martial arts. I was wondering about asking my mother if I can start teaching him the basics. You two can start picking it up together."

"Your younger brother? How old is he?" Sharpner asked.

"Well… Let's see… Around three years old," Gohan began counting birthdays in his memory up and down.

"Th-Three!?" Sharpner's face stretched out equally in all directions, stressing his skin to where it was surprising that his face didn't just burst and splatter in all directions. "I'm going to be learning alongside a three-year-old!?"

"It's around the age when Saiyans start training. Though, if memory serves, I started at around four. But my mother didn't want me to focus on my training too much, so I'm a bit of a different case. For some reason, mother's a lot laxer with Goten picking up martial arts and doesn't push him to study," Gohan shrugged, though he showed no offense about it.

"If it's within anyone's power to become strong and it's only based on the time and effort one puts into their training of how strong one becomes, then it's no wonder Saiyans are so powerful if they begin training so absurdly young," Sharpner clenched a fist and looked at it. His pride felt poked through and deflated deep down that he'd be sharing the stage with a three-year-old brat, so he had to delve within him and find out just how much strength meant for him. Was becoming strong worth swallowing that pride and accepting that Sharpner may have become a rival to someone four times younger than him?

"You don't have to start training now, you don't have to train with Goten if you don't like it. It's just that it would be incredibly convenient to train both of you at the same time. I'm sure my parents would also invest additional hours into Goten, so don't feel bad about not advancing as fast as he will be. If you want, we can include you in our sparring session with Videl once you pick up the basics," Gohan shrugged.

"No… I'm willing to give it a try. It's the least I can do," Sharpner swallowed his pride and bowed his head. He noticed Videl turned her head up and began strutting away from their vicinity to the opposite side of the gym, almost as if something Gohan said had offended her. Seemed odd, though Sharpner didn't really know these two too well to speculate about what that might have been. He only had his gut as a young man to go by. "Though… If it's okay, I would like to train on my own after I learn the basics. I wouldn't like to get in between you and Videl and your training. It seems to me, looking from the side, that Videl enjoys spending time with you, Gohan. I wouldn't like to be a third wheel to that."

"Hmm… That's okay, if you want it that way, of course…" Gohan raised an eyebrow, making a worried and stumped look on his face while scratching the top of his head. "Though I'll let you know that training together boosts your gains a great deal more compared to training on your lonesome. My dad was a bit of a wall-breaker in his early days as a martial artist, discovering new, ground-breaking ways to train, but his friends constantly kept pace with him by just training together, whereas my dad always trained alone. If you train with Goten now, then with me and Videl later, you'd have at least a two or three-times-increasing rate of success with your training. Who knows, maybe you'd even become strong enough to enter the World's Martial Arts Tournament next year?"

"The World's Martial Arts Tournament?" Sharpner gasped. "I wasn't aware something like that existed."

"Yeah, my dad and his friends and Chayote-san used to compete in those all the time back in the day. However, during the 23rd one demons from the Demon Realm invaded the Earth and they ended up leveling the entire island. They had to rebuild the whole thing from scratch, but they didn't really have much funding to go through with it. It's only recently that Chayote Security started pouring funds into their accounts and attracting investors and advertisements that the reconstruction of the entire Papaya Island. I think they're building a whole new town on it to host all those investment projects and companies," Gohan explained. "Chayote-san is rubbing elbows, trying to convince all the powerhouses like Vegeta-san and my dad to skip from competing. She's even asked me and Videl-san to not compete, even though Videl-san was quite excited about fighting her father in the tournament. If you decide to compete, you won't have to face off against any of the strongest martial artists, so you might do great in it!"

"Huh… But isn't the point of the tournament to decide who the strongest is?" Sharpner looked down. Gohan could only crack up into a subdued laugh at that question before Sharpner livened up again. "Say, you told me I'm approaching this martial arts thing the wrong way earlier. What did you mean by that?"

"Huh? Oh… Well… You said you wanted to try martial arts to see if anyone could become strong with martial arts. That's the wrong way to look at it. Martial arts aren't some sort of shortcut to becoming strong. In fact, if you don't put your soul and heart into it, you may as well not try at all. It isn't actually just anyone who can become as strong as me or my dad. It's just that you don't have to be a Saiyan to be as strong as one. You still need to devote as much time as you can, foster your talents, and improve on your weaknesses. You need to devote an incredible amount of time and patience, you need to overcome your pride and learn to admit to your shortcomings, also, tremendous effort is required. Your body won't grow stronger if you don't truly put it to the test, and testing your limits is naturally uncomfortable," Gohan pointed out.

"Hey, monkey-boy!" someone shouted out from afar while Gohan was getting passionate about his explanation. The middle schooler grasped in his hand a pair of girls' shorts from the girls' dressing room. The intruder wound his arm back for a fling, trying to smack the shorts into Gohan's face while his loud shout would have attracted attention to the scene and exposed Gohan as a would-be perv, with the young Saiyan ending up with girls' shorts smacked across his face.

However, the bully's plan backfired. He yelped and tripped over his feet, realizing that the light had gone out and the laces of his shoes were tied together. Before he could flop on his face with girls' shorts put on his head and dragged down his face, Gohan leaned out and stretched his hand out. The gentle Saiyan exclaimed a Kiai shout, sending a mild concussive push that tipped the bully the other way and made him fall softer on his rear, instead of flopping face-first. With the bully having fallen on his butt, the shorts he had slipped over his head slipped slightly to the side, exposing a blushing and embarrassed face while his own cronies laughed at him from afar.

"You ASSHOLE!" Ireza, one of the transfer students from Orange Star City dashed up to the fallen bully and began giving him hell with kicks after forcing her shorts off his head and pounding him for good measure for slipping into the girls' dressing room to loot them. "Coach! Did you see what Bagupak did? He totally stole my shorts from the dressing room, the damn perv!"

"Bagupak!" the elderly coach with a bald head and eyebrows bushy enough to cover up his sleepy-looking eyes jumped up after being called. "To the principal's office, now!"

"B-But my grade for this month…!" the blushing and bruised bully exclaimed, still sitting on the floor with a busted nose from Iraza's beat down.

"You can make it after school, during detention hours!" the coach approached the bully and pointed at the door. "We have separate dressing rooms for a reason. You're not supposed to disturb the girls' privacy. It doesn't matter how good you are at sports. If you disrespect women, you're no man at all! You'd do well to remember that, boy!"

The fallen bully picked himself up, sneering at his own group that mocked and pointed fingers at him while crouched over in laughter. "It wasn't me who's not a man. It's that… That Saiyan over there. I don't care about those stuck-up girls or their stupid jeans! I just wanted to show him he doesn't belong here."

"You…" Sharpner growled, clenching a fist in front of him, ready to get into a fight before he could get any proper martial arts lessons.

"It's okay, Sharpner-san," Gohan put his hand on Sharpner's shoulder and stepped out. "I might deserve a bit of blame here too. After all, I saw Bagupak-san with Iraza-san's shorts and I shoved them over his head to obscure his vision. I guess I ended up touching them too. Sorry, Videl, Sharpner… I guess you'll have to start training without me."

"Gohan-kun…" the coach muttered, looking surprised by the young man.

"So, it was you… I knew it!" Bagupak pointed his finger at Gohan as if Gohan's response to his bullying somehow vindicated Bagupak for trying to frame the young Saiyan to begin with.

"That speed, incredible…" Sharpner still couldn't believe it. "Gohan noticed Bagupak coming and moved without my eye even registering it. He shoved Iraza's shorts over his head and tied his shoelaces together, then returned to this very place he was talking with me without breaking the conversation and making it feel unnatural… Simply breathtaking… Martial arts… Are amazing!"

"Before we go to the principal's office, I still think you owe an apology," Gohan put his hands over his hips while looking at Bagupak who seemed a bit intimidated by Gohan's otherworldly strength and speed which he never used against his bullies before. This was the first time that Gohan did anything about the flack he received for his race from the other students. "Iraza-san, I apologize for taking your shorts off of Bagupak's hands and putting them over his head. I treated your property as something I could touch and handle with my own two hands and, for that, I apologize."

"I'm not mad at you, Gohan-kun," Iraza waved it off with a softer look before sneering at Bagupak with a shut-off, crossed-arms disposition. "I'm mad at the douche that moved them from my drawer in our dressing room in the first place!"

"Bagupak, if you claim that Gohan-kun is no man at all, I must admit he is being the bigger man out of the two of you right now," the coach nodded in agreement to Gohan's proposition while turning to Bagupak.

"Damn it… Okay, Iraza, I'm sorry I used your shorts as something to get to Gohan with. It was wrong, if I had a problem with Gohan, I should have just confronted him about it without getting your jeans involved," Bagupak caved in to the peer pressure while his cronies snickered to every word.

"Confront him, yeah right…" Iraza beamed a mean stare in Bagupak's way. "Gohan would've steamrolled you like he did now. You're just getting desperate 'cause your days of him taking your shit are over. Gohan's been cutting loose and acing his tests and he's no longer accepting your crude behavior, you're lucky he's smarter and gentler than to flatten you miserable bunch like anyone lacking his good nature would without blinking twice."

"Look, I said I'm sorry…" Bagupak looked completely crushed, shattering his façade of keeping up a front of coolness despite being utterly embarrassed in front of his friends and the rest of the class.

"Fine, whatever, it's just some shorts. Besides, I gave you some bumps I regret too, so… Just forget it," Iraza eased up and turned around to walk back to the girls' group, who all got interrupted from their routine of warm-up exercises by this unpleasant incident. "Why are you even on Gohan's back to begin with? He's smart, strong, and kinda cute too… Oh, I get it, you guys are just jealous…"

"Iraza!" Videl yelled out after the short-haired blonde went off too far for her mumbling to be heard. Videl's exclamation rang loud and clear across most of the gym, though.

"What? I'm not wrong…" Iraza shrugged unapologetically.

"Okay, come on you two, I'll take you to the principal then," the coach sighed. "Someone's got to watch you two so that you don't jump at each other's throats on the way, even if you both know where the principal's office is. Then again, perhaps Gohan-kun doesn't?"

"Actually, Bagupak isn't done apologizing yet," Gohan looked at the elderly coach with a pure and blank expression on his face. It didn't relay any malice behind it, but it genuinely showed confusion as to why the coach and everyone around just ignored the obvious.

"What's that?" Bagupak shoved himself up at Gohan's face with a nasty sneer. "Didn't you hear it? I apologized alright! It cost me all of my dignity!"

"Yeah, you apologized to Iraza-san, but you haven't apologized to me for trying to pin entering the girls' dressing room and stealing Iraza-san's jeans on me, or for making fun of me because of my race, or because you and your friends have been trying to get my attention the entire school year," Gohan pointed out without even a glint of pride in his eyes. "Say what you want about Vegeta-san, the King of Saiyans, but he's been able to make me prouder of being a Saiyan than ever in my entire life by the way he handled himself during the second Machine Mutant invasion. I'm proud of being half-Saiyan, so when you mock me for it, it hurts my dignity, and it is insulting to all the Saiyans and their families living on Earth."

"Hmm… When he puts it like that, he's not wrong…" the coach pulled and rolled the tips of his bushy mustache and rubbed his clean-shaven beard in reflection. "We don't tolerate racial prejudice in this school, Bagupak-kun. Please apologize to Gohan-kun for your behavior as well."

"Are you serious!?" Bagupak flipped out, turning around to dash for the door before groaning and beginning to pace back and forth. After a few turns, he strutted up to Gohan and bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Gohan. I'm sorry for the mean things I and my friends said and did. I won't do it again and while my friends are their own people with their own opinions and behaviors, I won't treat such bigotry kindly," the bully mashed through his teeth, realizing that he needed to do well in this school if he were to get his sweet and warm nesting spot in Orange Star School when it reopens.

"And I apologize for demeaning you in response to your attempted prank," Gohan bowed with the entire upper half of his body, almost as if he was excusing himself for failing to do his job in front of his boss. "I should have defused the situation without stooping to that level," the young Saiyan sealed the deal with a kind smile.

"Alright, is there anyone else I've insulted and need to apologize for? I suppose I've slipped into the girls' dressing room, so I can apologize to every single girl individually…" Bagupak groaned, only sounding like he was half-kidding.

"Ugh, coach, this is stupid. Why don't we just get this over with and get to the practice already? Whatever… Bagupak apologized, Gohan apologized, no harm, no foul, right girls?" Videl turned to the rest of the group. Her eyes were serious and scary enough for the rest to just gulp down and nod, submitting to the authority of Videl as the alpha she-wolf immediately. "Besides, let's not act like we've lost our minds, Gohan deserves none of this trouble. If anything, he was acting too sweet around these guys for far too long."

"I agree," the coach nodded. "Very well, if everyone agrees, we can forgive these two young lads this incident and move past it, just this once. Since both of them are willing to be better men about it and admit to their faults, some grander than others'… We've spent enough gym time on this, let's get to the count already!"

"Sorry I nearly cost us our martial arts lesson by getting detention," Gohan snickered after approaching Videl from behind after the count was over and the boys and the girls started dividing themselves into teams.

"Silly, I wasn't worried about that. I didn't want you getting punished for being right. If you punish people for doing the right things, they'll stop doing them, eventually. Even Bagupak deserved a break after owning up to his mistakes like that, if we kept pushing him, he'd have bent backward all the way until he ended up right back where he started…" Videl nodded and nudged Gohan's arm before running off to join the soccer team that picked her.

"Gohan, are you coming?" Bagupak called out.

"Me?" Gohan pointed to himself with wide and shocked eyes and stretched downward lips.

"Yeah, we picked you as our point guard! You know how to play basketball, right?" Bagupak shook his head in frustration after he stuck his neck out for Gohan, and the young Saiyan didn't even seem to pay attention to the class.

"Umm… I know the rules," Gohan shrugged. "A point guard is the team's shortest player that handles passing and ball-handling, identifies flaws in enemy defense, and creates opportunities for himself and his team to score, right?"

"Yeah, it's just like in martial arts, don't you think?" Sharpner smirked, casting an unspoken challenge to Gohan to accept the position.

"Coming right up!" Gohan raised his hand with a cheerful grin and rushed to the basketball court section of the gym.