DB SF CH 4: Training

Back on Earth, Goku had closed himself in on Kami's palace and had started to train like crazy. Kami gave him much more heavier clothing, now Goku had to move with more than 600 kilograms on. In the meantime Krilin visited him und participated, even if he was clearly not in his league. But even with that Goku felt that his power didn't grow as fast as he wished.
Out of impatience, only after four weeks, he visited Bulma again, and asked her for the scouter to check it out. The woman had worked hard, she was able to analyze the scouter and to build a duplicate. More than that, she created a program to translate Saiyan language into Terrestrial. While that her father had started to create a customized version of the space-pod, based on their analyzing results.
"Hi Bulma! How're doin'? Can you lend me the scouter for one second?"
"Sure… but why do you need it? I thought you can feel the Ki quite well…"
"Yeah, true… but I want to see it in that way. What is my power level?"
Bulma put the Scouter on und activated it. "It's… 670! You have gained more than 150 points! Great job!"
Goku was not so impressed. "And Piccolo? You can read also other people's energy, can't you?"
"The others? Well, I can try… Yes. The next-strong force is… 509. I guess that must be Piccolo."
Goku growled. "Shit, that's not enough. Damn! If Kami's right, then we need a power of at least 1500, and the more the better!"
Bulma look was a mix of concern and worry. "W-what? 1500? Is that even possible?"
The Saiyan nodded silently. "Yeah. If Raditz was really the weakest of them all, then I must aim at least at 2.000. Oh jeez…"
In that moment of dark feelings Bulmas dad irrupted, he was eagerly searching for something. "Where did I put it…? Bulma, did you see my induction welder? I need the level 7 one…"
The woman blinked, this was a sudden changed of topic. "Why do you need such a strong one? I thought you are working on Gokus spaceship? Some electric circuits are burned and just need to be fixed…"
The old man looked aghast and started to laugh. "Ah… Ah! True, I have to do that too! I totally forgot about that..! Sorry!"
"Dad… you're truly impossible…" Bulma sighed, but choose not to argue. "And… may I know what caused your distraction?"
Dr. Briefs scratched the back of his head and begun silently: "Well… I'm working on a device that can reduce the gravity… to experience the feeling you have in space. I think that might be a cool thing for an amusement park…"
His daughter sighed even louder and bursted out: "And for such a thing you forget to think about your work for a friend??? Goku has to rescue his son! And you play with gravity… Impossible… Wait a second…" She stopped her movements in midair, seemingly thinking about something. Her expression changed from angered to surprised and then to happy. At the end she hugged her father, who didn't know what had happen. "Dad, you're a genius!"
He scientist stood there like a statue and tried to understand his daughter's sudden change of mind. "Thank you… but… what happened? Weren't you angry..?"
He looked at Goku, but the fighter wasn't in a better position than himself. Bulmas infamous changes of her mind were too much for him to understand. Seeing those puzzled faces finally she cared to explain. "Try to understand! Goku, you want to train, right? Imagine, you could train at a higher gravity! Wouldn't that be cool?"
Finally the penny had dropped. "Uh, yeah! That would be great!"
"Yeah, but… to modify the device I will need some time! At least eight days!" told the scientist as fast as he could.
"That doesn't matter! How much will be the maximum?" Goku wanted to know, now he was totally caught be this idea. The perfect way to improve his power, and it felt in his hands so sudden!
"Uhm… I guess… modifying the generator I think… 8- 9 G… maybe I can improve it to reach 10 G, but I'll need some more powerful coils…"
"Great! Please do it!" cheered Goku, then he stopped with a puzzled face: "What is this G-thingy?"

Gohan held his aching head und tossed a few times, while his mentor Raditz stand behind him and yelled: "Com on! Stand up! Attack!!!"
The boy was covered with bruises and scratches, this training session already lasted some hours and was far from being finished. Tears started to run over his face while he has looking at his impatient uncle. When he made one menacing step in his direction, Gohan struggled to stand up und raises his still thin arms. He knew that the Saiyan would hit him without mercy, it didn't matter if he was standing or lying on the floor, all he could do was to escape though attacking. With a battle-scream he jumped at Raditz, who let connect his little fist, but the impact had little to none effect on the man. As a response he slapped the boy again.
"What the hell was that? I though you have learned how make a decent punch?! On the floor! 100 push-ups, now!!"
"B-But…!"
"No but! Then 150! C'mon! You arms need more strength! One! Two! Three…! What'cha waiting for???"
The training had only started 16 days ago, Raditz showed himself as a very impatient teacher who liked to teach with the body. It's wasn't entirely his fault, he was taught to act like that. Saiyans learn the best when they have to endure the beating firsthand. The harder the beating, the tougher will they get. It's the easiest way for them. The boy was quite weak, he barely knew how to strike a proper punch. What was Kakarot thinking? Didn't he want to make a fighter out of him? That was too much for Raditz to understand.
In the meantime Gohan was able to reach 50 push-ups, when his arms surrendered to the gravity and he fell straight on the face. He was out of breath and sweating.
"I'm done for… Please… I cannot… anymore…"
"What?! You surrender? Did I hear right?!"
Gohan nodded weakly, this made Raditz rush on this side and pull him up on his shirt, obviously in quite a rude way. "A Saiyan does not surrender, no matter what! He would rather die than surrender! Continue!"
The boy struggled against his tears, this time very hard, but he managed to fight them back; this fact calmed down the Saiyan warriors. At least some steps in the right direction! He remembered a thing what his late father had told him long time ago, when he was still a child in Gohan's age. He took a deep breath and begun as calm as possible.
"When you give up, then you will deprive yourself of the possibility to win! When you surrender, you will never know if you maybe had the chance to win, if you had fought with all your strength! I know, we are able to give more than 100% in a fight, I can tell you that. When you are cornered, you can burst out more than 120%. But you'll never know, if you give up too early, without trying. Maybe you could have won…!" Raditz thought about his fight against Kakarot and how the young and incomplete fighter was able to surprise him. That taught him a lesson in that sense, and finally he understood is fathers words. But he wouldn't tell that his nephew. Not now.
The boy had listened very carefully, even he had to sniff one or two times, and then he asked: "Really…? 120%? Do you think… I can do that too…? I'm not a full Saiyan…"
Raditz shrugged. "Seriously, I don't know. I guess it's on you to show that to me. Hey, if I remember correctly you have still 100 pushups to do!"
He let the boy fall on the floor, from that position he was watched with great big children eyes, but after some moments he started to do the exercise. Raditz was filled with satisfaction, seeing that the boy was now taking the training seriously. Was that speech successful?
Watching him an idea came into his mind. Really, how much of Saiyan blood had this boy? He activated his scouter and red 105 points. Well, not that bad, a gain of almost 100 points in 10 days…! And if he was in perfect state he might be able to go on 150 points, he guessed. And if the scouter wasn't broken that time when it had shown 710 points…? This idea came closer and closer, could he dare that? There was only a thing which could tell him the answer of his question, the Zenkai. The special skill of the Saiyans to raise their power after recovering from a near-death-experience. It was a great risk. What if the boy was too fragile? What if he wasn't able to bring him to sickbay in time?
He was unsure, but after about two minutes he took a decision. "Gohan… come over here…" his grin was really sinister now. The boy stood up, quite puzzled, because he had still about 20 push-ups to do. Innocently he stood before his uncle and waited for new orders.
"What is the matter?"
"Nothing… I'm gonna test something… Just stay still."

Raditz raised his fist, and in the next moment Gohan was embraced by darkness. The fist hid him very hard, causing the young Saiyan to collapse and loosing his consciousness. He was bleeding from his right ear, that indicated a damage on the skull. His fighting power dropped so rapidly that Raditz had to hurry up. He really had to. As fast as possible, almost hectic, he grabbed the boy and almost ran to the next sickbay. Arrived there he hand the boy over, the medical staff was quite shocked. As fast as possible they put him into their best healing tank.
Once his condition was stabilized, the doctor confronted Raditz with his diagnosis. "That was close..! Subdural hematoma, and a complex fracture of the left temporal and frontal bone… it would have been deadly in a few minutes! What was the matter this time?", inquired he at the end, quite shocked of this.
But the Saiyan didn't even listen to the alien doctor, he stood silently in front of the healing tank and observed his nephew inside. He was enclosed in the special greenish healing liquid, electrodes on his temples and chest and an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. How many times he was forced to use this tank? Sometimes they are the last thing that separates the living from the fallen.
"How long?" he demanded without emotion.
The doctor looked up some values on his pad and answered: "Oh, this boy is interesting…. Healing rate is 300-04... I guess he will be healed in approximately 12 hours."
"Good. Please call me when he's awake."
Said that he turned around and left the sickbay without looking back. He decided that he should follow his own order and headed for the training halls. He better added some points on his power level too…

Exactly after 10 hours and 47 minutes of exhausting training later - only interrupted by a lunch break- he left the hall and granted himself a refreshing shower. Instead of his usual armor he wore only a blue sleeveless shirt, similar to Gohan's, and came back to the sickbay. He didn't expect that what he saw: Gohan was already out of the healing tank and full awake.
Hiding his surprise he entered and greeted as nothing happened: "Hi! I see you are back!"
"Why did you do that? That was not nice!" shot Gohan back, in his eyes was a clear hint of anger and disappointment. Raditz smiled about that and activated his fellow scouter, it showed him 800 points! How was that possible? Did his power just quadruplicate with the Zenkai? He blinked in surprise, but then he started his explanation.
"I thought you should experience of a critical hit. One that blows your mind out. Being on the brink of death could be a lesson for life.", he explained, letting the thing about the "experiment" out. "If you don't want to have that experience again, all you have to do is to train as hard as you can! And… do you feel it? Your body… now it's much stronger and resistant. You've become stronger."
"I don't care. You were very mean." groused the boy still offended.
The value on his scouter increased even more, almost reaching 900 units, Raditz was fascinated. He seemed to have understood, there was a system behind this outbursts.
"Hey brat, do you know something? Your power depends on your emotion. It's interesting, but also instable. You can be really strong, when you are angry, but this magic is over when you calm down. You will have to learn how to use your power in a more stable way…"
"What? Use my power…? How should I do that?", was the obvious question following. He calmed down, and that was visible on the scouter level: it decreased until 620 and continued to fall under 300. Heck, what should he say? Some weeks ago he believed that nobody could actually control his power, and now he asked a boy to do it like he knew how to…! Fortunately Gohan didn't catch this hint of doubts.
"I don't know it yet. It' up to you, brat. I guess you have to train much more… It will work somehow. It has to work, you don't have many alternatives. If prince Vegeta gets the impression that you are just a burden for us, he will eliminate you. That's for sure."
"He will… kill me..? Really..?" repeated Gohan now really shocked. Just some hours he had experienced the pain of a near-death-experience and now there was another menace. The only memory of Vegeta let him shiver. "But… are all… the Saiyans so brutal?"
Raditz shrugged again. "Dunno… I guess it's in our blood. I think, we are just like that. Maybe not all of us, but,,, Never thought about that´.… Why do you ask?"
"I will never be like you. I'm scared… Dad was not like that…"
"Again this concept that you should cancel from your vocabulary..! Come, we gotta eat something and rest. Tomorrow will be a tough day!" Raditz cut it short, his patience was at his limit.
Gohan nodded and dried his eyes from the upcoming tears, after that he managed a proud Son- smile. Now it was Raditz who was caught of guard, he had to turn around quickly, before the boy had the chance to see his satisfied smile.