Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Light in the Darkness ❯ Gohan Surprises Vegeta ( Chapter 22 )

A Light in the Darkness - part 22: Gohan Surprises Vegeta
by Mia Skywalker & Wataruo

PAIRING: Vegeta/Gohan. Just kidding! No pairing in this part.
RATING: G
WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: Neither of us owns any of the DBZ characters or anything about DBZ, but we both wish we owned the Saiyans. All of them. At least all of the ones with hair. These characters are owned by Toei, Viz, Akira Toriyama, and FUNimation. We do own what we've written here, and our specific storyline, just not Dragonball itself. We make no money off of any of these guys, nor off this fic. We just have fun writing it.
SUMMARY: Gohan surprises Vegeta.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Thanks to saiyengerl for the beta!

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Gohan flew eagerly out of the house, automatically heading for the place where they had practiced the day before. Vegeta was right behind him; Gohan wasn't going to get too far ahead of his new teacher. As a game, Gohan decided to pour on the speed, and wasn't surprised that Vegeta kept up easily. The two raced like this for a little while, before arriving at their desert spot in just a few minutes.

 

Gohan hovered in the air and cocked his head at Vegeta. "What do you want me to do first, Vegeta-sensei?" he asked politely.

 

"Yesterday was ki blasts." Vegeta grinned. "Today we will work on our sparring skills." And without another word, Vegeta dove at Gohan aiming a kick at his abdomen.

 

Vegeta's strike threw the unsuspecting Gohan far in the air, knocking the wind out of him. He managed to catch himself after several minutes, to find that Vegeta had appeared above him. He managed to dodge Vegeta's next strike, causing the Saiyan to go temporarily off-balance, and dodged behind him, hitting him on the jaw and knocking him back. This only caused Vegeta to grin wickedly, and the two of them started raining blows on each other.

 

After several minutes of the two of them exchanging blows at a rate too fast for anyone not either a Saiyan or a Zed warrior to see, Gohan decided to try something a little different. As they continued trading blows, Gohan began powering up, slowly and unnoticeably, not to develop a ki blast, but instead to power his blows. His blows became harder and faster, surprising even Vegeta, and then with a single, unexpected blow, sent the older Saiyan sprawling.

 

The two Saiyans stared at each other, breathing heavily from the exertion, the Prince from the ground where the little Saiyan had thrown him, and Gohan from the air, where he had landed the blow. For a moment Gohan was worried, afraid that he had gone too far and had angered Vegeta, until Vegeta suddenly started to laugh. "Vegeta? Are you all right?" the little half-Saiyan asked warily.

 

"You are just full of surprises this morning, aren't you?" the older warrior said smirking up at the boy. The kid was as good as his father. Maybe he would even surpass him, he thought as he looked up into the worried face.

 

"Well, let's see how you handle this." Vegeta powered up and released several small ki attacks at Gohan and waited to see what he would do.

 

Gohan didn't move - he wouldn't have had time to - but he instinctively formed a shield, which bounced the ki blasts directly back at Vegeta. Surprised, the older Saiyan didn't have time to react, but the blasts hit him square on.

 

Vegeta was surprised as he saw his own attacks coming back at him, but deflected them out of the away. After all they weren't really enough to hurt him or Gohan. They would just sting a little. Vegeta took to the air and charged at the boy, aiming another kick at his middle, but then abruptly disappeared and reappeared to attack Gohan from the rear. The blow knocked Gohan towards the ground and the young boy skidded to a halt several yards away. He waited in midair for Gohan to get up, realizing that he had gotten a lot stronger since Namek. Vegeta wondered vaguely if Piccolo had anything to do with it.

 

Gohan stood up, shaking himself off, then launched himself in the air again. He blinked twice, confused that Vegeta had said they weren't going to use ki this morning, and then he had. Gohan considered his next line of attack carefully. Straight ki blasts wouldn't do much; Vegeta could dodge them or block them. Vegeta was physically stronger than he was, so he wasn't going to be able to beat him that way. No, he would have to take the older warrior by surprise. He was small and he was fast, and people often underestimated him for his youth. He had the strange feeling, however, that Vegeta did not, that he considered him more of an 'equal', at least as a warrior, than as just a 'child'.

 

Gohan thought about something that had worked in a video game he had played, and wondered if it would work against Vegeta. He powered up, then abruptly launched himself straight at Vegeta, head first. It was an expected move, and Vegeta was about to dodge it, but Gohan was prepared for that, and unexpectedly moved upward and spun around at the last minute, blocking the Saiyan and causing him to move directly into Gohan's feet. Gohan gave a hard kick, knocking Vegeta in the chin and sending him flying backwards, landing on his back on the ground, shoulders first, stunning him for a few moments.

 

Gohan paused in the air, hovering over Vegeta as the older man stirred and wiped a trickle of blood from his lip. "You should have finished me off, brat, when you had the chance."

 

Gohan shook his head. "You're not my enemy, you're my teacher. I don't want to kill you. How can you teach me if I kill you?" he asked ingenuously.

 

Vegeta snorted. There were times when Kakarotto's brat had more brains than he gave him credit for. "This is true." Vegeta agreed as he got to his feet and looked down at Gohan. "But how do you know I won't kill you?" He sneered down at him. "There is always that possibility, brat. You shouldn't ignore it."

 

And even as he said it, Vegeta knew he was lying. He didn't want Gohan dead. This confused him. Why he wanted Kakarotto's hybrid brat to live was unknown. He didn't like him, did he? No, that wasn't it, Vegeta reasoned. It was because Gohan was a Saiyan, it was that simple. But there was something nagging at his subconscious, trying to break through years of hatred to become something else. Something the warrior could not put a name to.

 

Gohan smiled at Vegeta, a pure and simple smile that reminded him of Goku, except that he sensed Gohan wasn't quite as simple as the other Saiyan. "No, Vegeta. If you'd wanted to kill me you would have done it before. You didn't kill me on Namek, you saved my life twice. And you could have killed me since we've come back. But you didn't."

 

He started powering up his ki again, and launched himself into the air. "What do you want to practice next, Vegeta?" he asked the older warrior.

 

Vegeta snorted. He really wanted to argue with him, but then decided it wasn't worth the effort. The expression of surprise that would be on Gohan's face when Vegeta finally killed him would be worth it. Vegeta suddenly felt nauseous at the thought of killing the little boy and he cursed himself for being weak.

 

"Whatever," he muttered as powered up. He floated up to where the boy was and glared at him. "Let's practice that Masenko of yours," he said after a moment.

 

"OK!" Gohan smiled happily, and powered up some more. He concentrated the form of the Masenko in his mind, and loosed his ki.

 

"MASENKO!"

 

It obliterated the side of one mountain, causing the top of the mountain to crumble when the support disintegrated underneath it. Gohan looked over at Vegeta, and, seeing the impassive look on his face, turned back and concentrated again. He continued blasting rock after rock, mountain after mountain, as the morning wore on, Vegeta taking turns occasionally also trying to duplicate the Masenko. He wasn't completely successful, but he came close to it several times.

 

It was when the sun was fairly high in the sky and the two of them were covered with debris, sweat, and bruises, that both of them realized their stomachs were growling. And as was the way of Saiyans, when they got hungry, they got weak.

 

Vegeta, feeling more than a little peckish, called a halt to their training session. "All right kid," he said holding up a hand. "Let's go eat. We can continue this later." Vegeta gestured for Gohan to follow him and the two took off towards Capsule Corporation.

 

It was on the way there that a sudden thought occurred to the warrior. With all the ki that had been used earlier, one of the other Chikyuu warriors should have noticed it. But none had come to see what the fighting had been about. Cowards, he thought. Vegeta was also aware that they would recognize the power signature as his and should have come to see what was going on, but none of the Chikyuu warriors had. It was rather puzzling. Vegeta dismissed it as unimportant as the two touched down in Bulma's front yard.

 

Gohan ran ahead of him towards the house with all the exuberance of youth, running towards the kitchen and the smells of cooking food. He shouted happily as was the way of young children, not paying any attention to what the adults around him might be doing.

To be continued.....

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And in the next exciting episode of DragonBall Z: A Light in the Darkness... Fights, lemons, and a secret confession.

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