Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Garrulous and Gritless ❯ I, 4: Gohan ( Chapter 4 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

NOTE: Yeah, it's pretty short. But don't even pretend like you can blame me for wanting to hurry along to the next Raditz chapter. XD

...


I wake up again. What happened to me—is it the same as last time, with the—uh—no, wait, I'm somewhere different now. Oh yeah, because the guy my daddy called Piccolo took me away.

I have no idea where I am, but I'm sure I've never been here before. Well, mostly 'cause I've never been much of anywhere besides the woods near my house, and the place where my daddy was just fighting the big hair guy, and that island, and this is definitely not any of those places.

But, I'm pretty sure I hear Daddy's voice nearby. I get up and start walking toward
it—only—

I'm way way way up high.

My daddy is at the bottom of the big tall rock I'm on, talking with Piccolo. If I kneel down on the rock and kind of peek over the edge, I can hear them pretty well.

"But what'll I tell Chi-Chi?" Daddy asks. Piccolo doesn't seem to care at all, and he doesn't even answer. "I mean, she'll probably try to come out here herself...you've gotta promise not to hurt her if she does." He frowns. "Anyway, I think I can train Gohan just fine, so..."

"Son Goku," Piccolo finally speaks up, "you will be far too easy on your child."

Easy on me?

"Well..." he seems to consider it.

"You will come here each day and fight me," Piccolo says.

"Oh?" now Daddy seems excited. Is he really gonna leave me with this scary green guy? But I guess if he's here every day...well...but Mommy's gonna be so mad...what's she going to do when I come back? If I don't even go home I'll look all scruffy and I'll have dirt on me and I won't have my books and I can't study and my hair will get long and messy and my clothes will look bad and Mommy's gonna be so mad—my eyes are all hot and my skin and insides feel funny and then there's water all over my face and I can't think anymore.

"Gohan..." Daddy says from the bottom of the big tall rock.

Piccolo looks at him. "See? You're about to go save him. I need to train him."

"And I can fight you every day?" Daddy kind of bites his lip, but he still looks excited. "And you promise you won't kill me or nothin' like you said you were gonna?"

His teeth show and he makes a funny noise. "I cannot afford to kill you at this time, Son Goku," he says kind of quiet-like. "But rest assured that I will learn from each of our battles and use all of that knowledge against you the moment we overcome the problems posed by these Saiyans."

Now Daddy looks really happy. "Yeah! Yeah, okay!"

"Don't look so overjoyed," Piccolo says. He looks up at me and I just realized it's 'cause a drip of the water from my face fell on top of his head. "You must leave the child alone while I train him. If you talk to him, I am certain he will weasel his way into your soft human heart and you will do something foolish to foil his progress."

"Er," Daddy looks up at me too, smiling like he does when he says sorry, which I guess is what he's trying to do.

"Take this seriously, Son Goku. You heard that man who claims to be your brother. We were lucky to have defeated him—you will regret leaving him alive. We have no reason to doubt that he indeed has two much stronger allies who may arrive here within the year, as he has warned us." That's a lot of words and I'm trying to figure out what he means, but he keeps talking, "And you saw what your son was able to do to Raditz. We will need to be able to rely on his power." My power? What power? What's he talking about? Did I hurt the big hair guy? He keeps talking like I did...oh no, if Daddy says yes that means that that big green guy is probably gonna be mean to me and hurt me and make me fight and not let me have books and study!
"Daddy!" I yell down. "Daddy! No!"

He kind of leans back and forth from one foot to the other. "Gohan!" he yells up at me. "I'm really sorry, but Piccolo is right! He's gonna be your master for a while!"

I can't keep the hot water off my face.

"It's okay! When I was a kid, I trained under lots of different people! It'll be fun, I promise!"

Fun? I don't wanna even punch anybody. Why can't Daddy teach me the light-in-his-hands thing? That worked. "I don't wanna!" I yell back. "I wanna study!"

He frowns a little bit, thinking. "This is sorta like studying, Gohan!" as he says it he smiles a little bit, like he kind of figured out an idea. "It's like a challenge! You have to study real hard about being a good fighter! You know, Mom always challenges you to do all that math stuff, and," he kinda stops, "uh, stuff?"

I nod. A couple more of the drips from my eyes fall all the way down from where I am on this big tall rock onto Piccolo like raindrops but he pretends like he doesn't notice.

"Well, this is me challenging you! I know you can do it, Gohan! Just think of it like, um," he looks over at Piccolo for some help, but he's still quiet, with his eyes shut, and kind of waiting or something, "like...like Piccolo is your tutor...and...um...he's gonna...give you...homework...but...you have to do it outside. And you have to learn how to look around real careful, and how to move your body real careful, and...stuff like that."

I swallow and nod a little. Maybe it won't be too bad. Even if Daddy promised Piccolo that he's never gonna talk to me while Piccolo teaches me, if I was getting hurt real bad, he'd save me, right? "O...okay. How long will I have to?"

"As long as it takes!" Piccolo shouts real suddenly, but his eyes are still closed.

"Piccolo?" Daddy says.

"Are you done giving your son a pep talk?" he asks.

"Uh, I was wondering—" he scratches his head. My daddy always does that. "Maybe whenever we fight, you could make sure I come home looking real bad?"

"I was planning on it," he grumbles, but he finally opens his eyes. "Why?"

Daddy scratches his head even harder, his smile getting real big and kind of nervous. "Well, uh, I wanna tell Chi-Chi that I'm coming out here to try to get Gohan back, but you're just too strong so you keep beating me." Maybe if my daddy's really that alien's brother, the whole reason he can smile that big is 'cause it's a special thing that aliens can do or something. Piccolo kind of chokes on something or another. "You know, so I don't get in as much trouble. And, if she comes out here, you can tell her that."

"You really thought this through," he says.

"Well," his hands go on his stomach, "I like having dinner." Also, usually when Daddy doesn't get to have dinner 'cause Mommy is mad, they don't fight in their room like they sometimes do, because when Mommy is mad, Daddy makes his bed in the living room. Maybe so he can get to breakfast soon the next morning. It's weird, because I thought, wouldn't they fight less when Mommy is in a happy mood? But they fight more. Well, I never actually see them, but it sounds like it.

"Daddy," I call down, "will you bring me some dinner too?"

"No!" Piccolo shouts real loud. "You will be finding your own dinner."

I thought maybe Daddy would get mad at that, but he smiles. "Hey, I used to do that! That's a good idea, Piccolo. When my grandpa died I was about Gohan's age, and I caught my own food in the forest all the time."

Wow. Well, maybe if Daddy did it, maybe I could try it. Everybody said how I look kind of like Daddy. Maybe I can act kind of like him too. Maybe. If I have to. If there's more scary mean aliens coming, and that's why I gotta do this, well, maybe I should really try.

But...I don't know how to catch dinner. My nose feels all sniffly. Maybe I can just pick fruits off of trees. Yeah! But some more water hits Piccolo's head.

"Will you stop that?" he screams up at me. I shake my head. I can't control if it happens or not!

He gives me this look like I'm probably not gonna have very much fun even though Daddy said I would.

Daddy kind of smiles. "Be a good student, Gohan," he says.

And then he's gone.

And then Piccolo disappears.

And now I'm all alone.

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