Gohan returns to the Time Chamber

[Gohan]

Gohan snaps his head up from his meditation. Another huge powerlevel, and it feels like it's by the lookout. And it's definitely one that hadn't been nearly that strong before. He grins. The Time Chamber must have just become avaliable. With a flash and rush of air, Gohan vanishes from the large rock he'd been sitting on. Within moments, he reappears on the lookout near the stranger. He gives him a brief nod and a grin, and immediatly strides for the still-open door. Once inside, it slowly closes behind him, and he surveys the area. Ah, memories. He knew already what this place was capable of doing to people, if they worked hard enough.

Gohan walks forward to get out of the doorway, and feels the slight increase to 10x gravity as he moves away from the steps. He stops, and considers a moment. What to do first... Well, best to start at the beginning. He looks out at the endless expanse, remembering his father's warning from the first time he had been here. His face grows serious. Before this is over, he's going to have to ignore that warning.

Gohan begins shadow boxing, thinking back as he does. He starts off moving lightly and easily, but he soon begins moving with more and more intensity and ferocity. Eventually he's lashing out in all directions at imaginary opponents, flashes of light blazing through the air all about him. He slowly begins to rise into the air, still throwing rapid flurries of attacks all about him. His aura begins to flare about him as he powers up a bit, speeding his motions up even more. Suddenly he stops, high above the ground, and looks down. Directing himself away from the door, he suddenly bolts downward, feet first. With a resounding crunch, he slams into the ground, bending his legs to absorb the impact and forcing himself back up before he's even recovered, deepening the resulting crater. He suddenly bolts forward, running at breakneak speed across the chamber, keeping the door within sight at all times as he makes huge circles around it. Eventually he's not running, but flying, his aura growing bigger and bigger as he pushes himself for more and more speed. He's sweating profusely, but none of it's visible at the speed he's moving, the air drying it almost instantly.

After nearly an hour, Gohan's energy begins to ebb. Rather than quit, he flares his aura even more, and with a yell he blasts forward faster still. Finally, he accomplishes what he'd been aiming for. A shudder runs throught the entire area, and the glass on the clock of the distant doorway cracks just slightly as a sonic boom rips through the chamber, Gohan having broken the sound barrier. That done, Gohan flips in midair and slams his feet into the ground, skidding a good distance before he finally comes to a stop. With a flash of speed, he moves back to the barely visible doorway and heads for the kitchen to get something to eat.

Gohan spends the remainder of that month performing similar routines each day, improving his speed, flexibility, and endurance of his body to heavy impacts.

[Gohan]

Gohan awakens on what would be the dawn of the second month, if the Time Chamber actually had any such thing as dawn. He stands and stretches, feeling at ease. The first month went well. Now it's time to step things up a bit more.

After getting dressed and having a sizable breakfast fitting of a Saiyan, Gohan quickly heads out to a distant portion of the chamber, aiming for stronger gravity. He gets his wish. It feels to be almost double the usual amount out this far. He almost feels a bit uneasy about moving so far from the door, but he throws off the feeling. Now, it's time to hone his ki skills.

Gohan rises slowly into the air, his aura quickly building around him. He pushes his power up to its maximum, without transforming. He spends several hours in a half-meditative state in the air, learning to direct his ki to every single area of his body. Near the end of the day, his energy begins to ebb, and he frowns slightly as he's forced to call it quits for the time being. He's gotten better, but he hasn't yet acheived his goal.

The next morning he resumes where he left off. About partway through the day, he leaves the meditative state, grinning. He's done it. Now to put it to use. He closes his eyes again, and begins forming energy balls. Energy collects all around him, the balls forming all along his body rather than just his hands. As time drags on, Gohan slowly teaches himself to control the balls, and eventually is able to send them whirling furiously about his body. From there, he starts learning to fire them. This takes a bit longer, nearly a week in fact, to master, but in the end he is able to fire a blast from any point on his body.

The day after managing this, Gohan returns to the same area and rises up once again, something different in mind. He thinks back to what Buu had done after absorbing him. He might have been partially unconcious, but he was still aware of what Buu was doing with his power. This, though, should be taken a step further. He spreads his arms and legs out to the side, and begins to collect energy. Whisps of powerful ki flow through the air towards him, collecting all around him and nearly hiding him from view. Suddenly, Gohan yells loudly, and the balls begin blasting off in all directions in a rapid rain. As fast as one ball vanishes from his body and flies off, another one is formed. Gohan begins spinning his body, the blasts raining down on the ground and blanketing the entire area with large explosions, the entire Time Chamber glowing a bright blue. With the spinning of his body, the lines of ki flowing towards him are whipped into a furious whirlwind around him. As he speeds up, he looks like nothing short of a large tornado hurling a heavy rain of ki balls in all directions, but far more than Buu had been capable of. He had only used his hands. After using a sizable portion of his energy up on this, Gohan stops his spinning with a final, almost graceful spin, which disperses the rippling wind of ki and sends threads of it shimmering through the air till it vanishes completely. Gohan drifts back to the ground, which is somewhat scorched and smoking heavily from his onslaught. He nods, satisfied.

Gohan continues to perfect his ki technique for the remainder of the month, enabling himself to fire ki from any point on his body and as a result teaches himself the Renzoku Tornado.

[Gohan]

Gohan looks about the chamber somewhat idly after another barrage of his new ki attack. It was taking less and less energy to perform each time, and now it was nearly effortless. He glances up at the clock, noting that today is the start of the third month. Hmm. What to do... He grins a bit to himself at a thought. He's improved only his body so far..why not his mind too?

He strides into the bedroom, thinking. He pulls out a stack of textbooks, some of them obviously schoolbooks, others on fighting techniques. He chuckles to himself at how unusual this would seem to anyone watching, and snags one of the books, walking back out of the room. This time, he's going to try to multitask a bit.

To start, Gohan begins to power up, setting the book to the side for the moment. Rather than release large amounts of energy as he tends to, he concentrates on transforming with as little strain as possible. He has an easy time of this with Super Saiyan, since he hasn't completely forgotten what his father put him through when he first transformed. He takes a deep breath, and with a brief flash his hair stands on end and turns golden, his small aura doing the same, his eyes fading away and returning as a sparkling emerald green. Super Saiyan 2 presents a bit more of a challenge. The first few times, Gohan's aura expands outwards threateningly, and he's forced to power down and try again. It takes him several hours, but eventually it requires nothing more than a few seconds of concentration. He then powers up, and with another quick flash of ki his aura is suddenly dancing with sparks of electricity. His hair sharpens and spikes a bit more instantly, and he grins a bit at the success.

Mystic he has comparitively little trouble with. Since it was never a transformation that required anger, he's able to slip into it easily with only an hour or so of practice. His hair returns to normal, though it stays spiked, his eyes fading into black again and his aura turning white. This is where the easy part ends, however. Gohan takes a deep breath, knowing how tricky this is going to be.

Gohan struggles to power up using very little energy. His aura flickers sporadically, and he tries to keep it from expanding. Several times it flashes blue as he comes close, but it always fades again. Gohan eventually uses up his energy, and has to call it quits for the day.

The following day he tries something different. As he powers up, he meditates to try and keep his mind steady. This time, his aura turns blue and stays that way. He doesn't fully transform, but it's a step in the right direction. Some time later, his eyes snap open. The pupils are gone. He slowly straightens up a bit, taking a deep breath. His aura flares only a little bit, and he finally manages to complete his transformation, heavy bolts of ki lancing over his body as his hair slowly lengthens, turning blue with whitish-blue streaks. He looks around after transforming, and spots his book. Grinning, he picks it up and floats into the air, crossing his legs, reading as he practices maintaining control over his newest transformation.

He continues the month in this fashion, powering up as far as he can with as little effort and use of ki as possible, and then remaining in that form for as long as he can while he reads. Any books of general knowledge are simply absorbed and remembered, but many of the books on fighting techniques allow him to see flaws in his own style, which he then works to correct while remaining powered up.

By the time the month ends, Gohan has mastered all his forms and has vastly improved his fighting technique, making him hit harder and more fluidly, though he has yet to test it in an actual fight.

[Gohan]

Gohan enters the fourth month still in his Force of Will form, now hardly feeling any drain at all from it, at least while in a relaxed state. He muses for a while on what to do next. He charges a ball of negative ki on one hand and examines it as it crackles dangerously. He found the balance between darkness and light to acheive this attack...why not move further? There's more than simply light and darkness in the world, and the Time Chamber's an easy place to find just about any condition.

He starts out with simple shadow boxing, allowing himself more and more acrobatic attacks to start upping the intensity of his training, springing around and throwing fast attacks out in all directions. He concentrates hard on his training, and is sure to keep focused. Then, as it had with his father, the room begins to respond. It slowly begins to feel warmer all around him, and soon it becomes almost unbearable. Then, as Gohan throws a punch his fist catches fire. He stops dead for a moment, but then, rather than put it out, he continues. Soon enough his entire body is engulfed in flames that seem to spread out all the way to the horizon, springing into the air as if the chamber is the surface of the sun itself, a thin layer of Gohan's own ki being the only thing keeping the intense fires from consuming him. He continues his training, his attacks no less intense, struggling to keep focused against the intense heat. At the same time, he explores the fires with threads of his own ki, testing, seeing how his ki measures up against the energy that is fire. He continues until his energy is nearly exausted, and he is forced to send a wave of ki rippling off himself to quench the fires for the time being.

Several days of this go by, Gohan gaining more and more insight into the nature of fire itself every time. Eventually, he is able to control the fire to an extent, even able to clear a small area around himself of flames by directing them elsewhere. After a week, Gohan is able to actually create a ball of pure flame in his hands by manipulating his own energy till it's similar to that within fire, then igniting it with a moment's concentration. He practices with this until he's able to launch gouts of flame from his hands, and then moves on.

Once fire has been taken care of, Gohan goes back to his shadow boxing, his mind focused on something else. This time, as his focus intensifies the room begins to become somewhat drafty. A wind whips up as if from nowhere, kicking up into a whirlwind and catching Gohan in it despite his best efforts. He's forced to fight to stay balanced in the center of the twister, continuing his training, concentrating on the whirling energy around him known as wind. As before, after around a week Gohan has managed to tap the nature of the wind, and is able to call forth powerful gusts by manipulating his energy precisely, or even small tornados if given enough time to concentrate.

As the month draws to a close, Gohan moves to one last element. As he goes back to his training, the room becomes frigidly cold. Ice spikes begin to jut out of the floor of the chamber, attempting to stab or entrap Gohan. He continues his movements, having to concentrate while smashing through the walls of ice and sometimes being knocked to the ground by a surprise strike from an ice pillar. Just as before, he also searches through the energy structure of the ice, learning how to manipulate his ki to achieve a similar result. As this next week draws to a close, Gohan is able to create balls of frigid energy, capable of freezing whatever they strike within moments.

For the last week, Gohan continues his intense shadow boxing through the elements, using his new knowledge of each to cancel out whatever threats they may strike out at him with.

Gohan learns the Tempest Zero, Inferno Zero and Absolute Zero attacks this month, as well as gaining insight into the energy that composes each of the above elements.

[Gohan]

Gohan awakens feeling somewhat stiff the first day of the fifth month. He grins wryly. Not even halfway through yet. He'll get there, though. As with every other day since the third month, he immediately powers up to his maximum in a powerful but brief flash, and begins stretching and warming up for what he has planned.

After hus warmups and a hearty breakfast, he heads outside again and moves off a bit further from the door. He frowns. He doesn't want to have to keep it within sight... And then, as he thinks this, he spots the scorch marks on the floor from his training. He grins slightly, turns, and sweeps an arm towards the door. A huge wall of fire sweeps forward off his arm and burns along the ground, tapering out before it hits the door. The result is a long burn mark leading straight to the door. Gohan makes his way further out into the endless expanse till the gravity feels to be around 150x, making new burn marks as the old ones begin to be lost from view, and then stops. He starts with his usual array of punches and kicks through the air, eventually working up to launching each of his newly created attacks, sending gouts of fire, pillars of ice, and gusts of powerful wind flying through the air. As days pass from him doing this, he discovers a huge array of different ways to use the energy provided.

On one such day, he hits upon another idea. Perhaps all of them together... For the next few weeks, he practices melding the elemental energies to produce more powerful and varied attacks, all of which have a number of different effects. He doesn't go through the trouble of naming them, but instead combines the two names.

The month continues in this fashion, and by the second week Gohan has learned a great deal about how to control his elemental energy. But that still leaves half a month unused...hmm.

The day after he stops the energy training, Gohan moves a bit further into the void and decides to meditate in the extreme gravity. Sitting and crossing his legs, he envisions himself in a sparring match with his father. He feels a slight bit of surprise, not having planned to face his father, but whatever his mind wants to produce is fine by him. He squares off against his father, grinning in his new form.

"Wow, Gohan, you've really improved since the last time I saw you," Goku says cheerfully, that same old grin on his face. Gohan mentally blinks. His thoughts haven't ever talked before...oh well.

"Come on Dad, let's see if you can keep up with me now," Gohan replies, grinning himself. Goku simply laughs, powering up to Super Saiyan 4 and getting into a combat stance. Gohan launches himself at his father with all his newfound speed, and manages a solid hit right in his chest with an elbow, sending his father skidding backwards. Goku keeps his footing, though, and straightens up, grinning even more.

"That was great, son. I never expected that you'd have gotten so fast. But give your old man a little credit..." He reappears, and before Gohan can move he's been kocked sideways by a spinning kick from behind. "I'm not all that slow either," Goku finishes, moving back into his combat stance. Gohan flips around and stops himself dead in midair with a flare of his aura, unhurt and grinning right back at his father.

The fight begins in earnest then, both Gohan and his father trading almost godlike blows with one another. Gohan is pleased to see how well he's keeping up with his father. Goku seems more and more pleased himself as the fight wears on, and after nearly an hour both have barely even broken a sweat. Then they begin employing energy. Both launch and dodge vollies of weaker beams, some striking, others being deflected or blown away by another beam. Gohan rushes forward through the smoke of one such explosion and comes up right in front of his father. Both of them lock hands and yell loudly, ki building in the small prisons created by the clasped hands and exploding violently, throwing them both backwards. Both fighters spin and land in a similar fashion, and begin charging energy. However, midway through the attack, Gohan gets an idea... But continues.

"Kaaaaa..meee...haaaaaa...meeeeeeee...." father and son yell in unison, a ball of red ki forming in Goku's hands even as the bright blue orb forms in Gohan's. A moment later both scream, "HAAAAAA!" ....But only one beam flies forward, a red one. Gohan stands upright and grinning as the massive beam barrels towards him, sensing how much energy Goku has behind it. Goku himself blinks and stares at his son, unable to stop the attack but knowing something's about to happen.

"Diamond Mind!" Gohan yells. Suddenly, pure ki flows over his body, sharpens around him, and hardens int o a flexible crystal formation around him, the only things visible of his body being pupiless, glowing blue eyes. He stands ready with the additional power granted by the form, and lets the beam strike him head on. However, instead of actually hitting him, the beam vanishes as it draws within half an inch of the shell. The crystal suddenly glows red as it absorbs every bit of the energy Goku had just used. Gohan puts both hands out in front of him, and blue and red ki swirls up his arms from his crystal body and begins to collect in his hands.

"DIAMOND COUNTER!" he roars. A massive beam composed of both red and bright blue ki erupts from his hands and blazes towards Goku. Not having near enough energy to stop the blast, Goku is forced to brace against it and push himself off it into the air before it overwhelms him, landing somewhat awkwardly, the fur on his arms singed. He stares at Gohan in shock as the crystal dissolves away into threads of ki which whirl around Gohan and join his aura. He then breaks into a huge smile and powers down, walking over to Gohan and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Good job. I'm proud of you, Gohan. You're almost as strong as I am now, and if that fight had continued I would have lost. You showed me how careless I'm getting lately." He grins broadly. "I'm going to keep training. Don't think you'll get off so easily the next time we fight!" Gohan grins back.

"Thanks Dad," he says. "I'll be waiting." With that, the meditation abruptly ends. Gohan stands, feeling very drained, but satisfied. And now he knows; that wasn't just a thought-form. That was truly his father, joining him in his mind for a long awaited sparring match.

Gohan finishes out the month with more mental sparring matches against imaginary opponents, trying different combinations of his new techniques each time.

[Gohan]

The sixth month finds Gohan further out than ever before. He's discovered a sort of "dark" side to the chamber, an area of perpetual blackness that not even ki can light up. He hesitates after this discovery, though, knowing he could very well get lost in this new enviornment. He can't make anything visible on the floor of the area, and after experimentally hanging an energy ball outside it to see if he can instant transmission to it he discovers he can't sense power from within the dark blanket, either. He shakes his head, and gives up on the area for the time being, staying on the borderline.

Unsure what to do next, Gohan begins repeating the training routines from the previous months, but out here in the more extreme gravity for maximum benefit. He can feel himself growing stronger with each passing day, but it feels as though there's something missing. He continues for about three weeks, a little less. Finally, one day, he feels bold enough to step through the border into the dark area.

He stands still after moving only a few feet inside. Complete silence. He sits, being extremely careful not to turn. All he needs to do is remember the exit is right behind him. He begins to meditate, his mind clearer than ever in the calming darkness.

Hours pass, and Gohan begins to wonder if it's truly been hours or just minutes. This area seems to be a whole other realm, apart from the rest of the chamber. The silence is positively oppressive. And of course, as is natural in such a perfectly dark and silent place, Gohan begins hearing things. He begins to feel somewhat nervous, but tells himself it's nothing and he needs to shake it off. His mind makes him think he hears small skitters and quick shrieks in the darkness. He ignores them, discarding them as his imagination. And that's when all hell breaks loose.

Out of nowhere, something strikes Gohan hard as he's meditating, a piercing shriek cutting through the air as Gohan is sent sprawling. He stands quickly, looking around uselessly, almost panicky. What WAS that? A moment later the creature dives again with another shriek. This time Gohan barely manages to avoid it, and feels something sharp catch the side of his clothes as he leaps aside. Claws, perhaps. Gohan tries to keep his guard up, but has no idea where to turn to be ready for the thing. Even its sound is distorted in this strange place, so he can't tell where exactly the shrieks are coming from.

What feels like an eternity passes as the creature keeps making attacks on Gohan. He manages to keep fending it off, but of course he's slowly tiring. His mind races as he tries to think of something. After all this movement he knows he's lost...so what good will standing around do? He turns, and blasts off in the direction he hopes the barrier is in. To his horror, he hears the shrieks following him. The creature is actually keeping UP with him.

He pushes for all of that extra speed he had attained in months past. With a shudder, he breaks the sound barrier. He hears a mournful wail from the creature behind him as the sonic boom knocks it back. Then, something he had been dreading; more wails. There was more than one of these things!

Now in a pack, the creatures swarm Gohan. He feels pain lance through his side as one manages to swipe his side with its claws, or talons, or maybe even a dagger. He has no idea. He begins lashing out, trying to find the things, but his fists never catch anything solid. Time wears on, and eventually Gohan is panting, and can feel warm blood flowing from various deep cuts on his body. This isn't going well.

Going for broke, Gohan leaps up and unleashes his Renzoku Tornado, hearing the area shaking with massive explosions as he rains ki everywhere. He hears panicked and pained wails all around him, and eventually screams as the creatures are consumed in the destructive rain of ki. He slowly drifts to the dark ground, mournful. That solved part of his problem, but now he's running low on energy and still has no idea where to go to get out.

Gohan spends another week trapped in the darkness, though thankfully either the creatures he destroyed were all there were or they're keeping their distance after seeing him kill so many. Keeping it till he drops dead of exaustion, he remembers sourly. Then, sudden relief. On his next step forward, Gohan is suddenly blinded by light. The Time Chamber! He collapses to the ground in relief, looking back at the border behind him. That's the last time he does anything like that.

Counting himself lucky to be alive, he follows the scorch mark back to the doorway and grins a bit. He still has another day before the seventh month, and he knows just what to do with it. He heads for the baths, cleans himself off, then heads for the bed and drops dead, spending that last day resting.

[Gohan]

Gohan awakens on the seventh month feeling ravenous. A week spent running from....whatever he was running from apparently works up an appetite. He quickly fixes himself a massive breakfast, and after satisfying himself he continues outside and powers up as usual.

After warmups, he begins to consider what to do with this month. He's tried everything he can think of so far...well, there's nothing like a number of plain old workouts. He begins a number of pushups, spending about an hour and making it to a solid five thousand before flipping over and beginning a series of pushups as well. He rotates back and forth between these two for about a week, doing nothing more than strengthening his body.

The next week is for basic meditation. He spends it just a few feet away from the chamber door, clearing his mind and keeping it that way for as long as he can before something interrupts, either hunger or sleepiness.

The third week sees him doing basic practice with ki, and honing his skills with his newer attacks a bit more. The more he does this, the less energy he needs to use to complete a powerful attack. Every bit of his energy begins to count for just a little bit more, becoming more potent.

The final week sees him running, helping to toughen up his legs. He increases his speed, but doesn't move up to flying this time, focusing only on his body. In addition, he begins going through a bit more of that stack of books, reading them while he runs, also helping his mind to adapt to focusing on two things at once, useful for fighting multiple opponents.

He finishes this uneventful month with simple, basic training and moves on to the next with increased strength, speed, and stamina.

[Gohan]

The eighth month arrives. Gohan begins to wonder what else he might try to train himself. He's done all he can think of with what he has at hand...unless... He begins to comb through the living area of the chamber. He knows there were storage areas he'd never been into, mainly because his father had blown them off since what they stored wasn't food, and told Gohan not to worry about them. This time though, there might be something he can use.

He digs through the storage closet. He finds old sets of clothing, some of them actually being torn-up clothes from his father. He'd always wondered what he'd done with the clothes he'd worn out while he was here. He chuckles, finding some of his own amid the mess as well. After digging through a couple of these storage closets, he finds a cabinet containing what he wants.

"Perfect," he says, opening the cabinet which is labeled "WARNING: Combat Android capsules." He selects a likely looking one that's labeled to be somewhere near his powerlevel, and heads for the more extreme gravity at the back of the chamber. He hits the button, and tosses the capsule to the ground. With a puff of smoke and an odd noise, an Android appears.

"Greetings. I am training model 45-7L. Activation keyword: Begin. Deactivation keyword: Applesauce. Thank you for using Capsule Corp." Gohan blinks as the droid falls silent and stands waiting. Applesauce? What on Earth? ...Oh well.

"Begin," Gohan says. The droid immediately springs towards him and begins launching a rapid volley of attacks at him. Gohan is pushed back, surprised at the droid's speed and strength. Soon he catches his stride, and both combatants are sailing around the Time Chamber, each taking hits that knock them to the ground, or send them flying through the air. The fight drags on for ages, until Gohan runs out of energy. As he fends off one last volley of blows from the tireless droid, he calls out, "Applesauce!" Sure enough, the droid stops moving and powers down with a low hum. Shaking his head at the unusual keyword, Gohan heads to sleep.

He continues training with the droid for the last few weeks, until something unusual happens. On the last night of that month, while he's sleeping, he hears movement outside. He sits up in bed and looks around warily. No one else should be here. He steps outside and looks around, and is suddenly caught by a hard punch from off to the right. He's sent sprawling, and quickly powers up as he regains his footing. Standing before him with fist extended is the training droid, laughing. Gohan blinks, looking up at the clock as it booms out its announcement that the ninth month has begun. And it looks like he'll be starting it off in a very unusual way...

[Gohan]

Gohan moves into a combat pose as the droid rushes him again. This time he manages to fend off the attacks, but it seems like this droid has improved from the training just as he has. He stares, trying to reason this out.

"What's going on?" he finally demands. "I deactivated you." The droid just starts laughing hysterically.

"Did you REALLY think anyone in Capsule Corp in their right mind would make the deactivation key of an Android 'applesauce?'" the droid asks, smirking as his laughter subsides. "I don't HAVE a deactivation key. Perhaps you should have looked a little more closely at the label of that cabinet." Gohan gives the droid a blank look, and the droid laughs derisively. "It said UNTESTED Combat Android capsules, you fool. We were never actually finished, and after Capsule Corp discovered how dangerously intelligent they'd made us they requested that Kami lock the remainder of our capsules in here to keep us from repeating what happened with Androids 17 and 18. Yes, I know all about them." He grins again. "And now, after I kill you, I'll leave the time chamber in your place when time runs out. You're one of the strongest fighters I've seen. No one will be able to stop me if you can't!" Gohan just laughs.

"It's true I'm one of the strongest, but how do you know there isn't someone stronger than me out there, just waiting to smash you to bits if you get past me?" It's Gohan's turn to grin now, causing the Android to scowl. "Besides," he adds a moment later, "you haven't killed me yet, and I've got a whole lot of unpleasant surprises for you."

With that the real fight begins. For the first hour or so both combatants are evenly matched, almost blow for blow, neither taking much damage. However, after a while Gohan realizes that he hadn't gotten his night's sleep, and his energy is draining faster than usual. Not good. Gritting his teeth, he jumps back from the Android and fires a volley of ki from one hand, the smoke hiding him from view for a moment as explosions rock the chamber. Quickly he runs into the chamber living quarters and grabs a capsule that supposedly contains a temporary house with a stocked kitchen. No choice now... If things continue he'll lose. The Android can't run out of energy.

With a flare of his power, Gohan makes a run for it before the smoke clears. He watches the door, and the plume of smoke slowly disappear into the distance as he flies on. He gives himself an hour flying straight, and then stops. Hitting the capsule, he deploys the small house and steps inside. Hopefully the Android won't find him for a while, and he can get some sleep.

He heads for the bed, but he isn't out for more than two hours when he hears laughter outside, and building energy. Gritting his teeth angrily, he explodes into Force of Will again and blurs outside, quickly hitting the button on the side of the house before the Android's attack destroys it. Snagging the capsule that appears, he pockets it and leaps up to meet the Android through the smoke from the capsule's appearance. He lands a solid uppercut on the mechanoid's chin, and spins around to hammer him into the ground with a heavy kick before he recovers.

"I found you," the Android says, grinning disturbingly as he stands up. He seems unharmed. Gohan grits his teeth again as the Android assaults him. It's all he can do to fend off the blows. He needs to come up with something quickly, or...

Gohan continues most of the month in this fashion, long bouts of fighting with the Android ending with him making a run for it so he can try to rest and restore his energy, the Android always somehow managing to find him before he can do so. On the last week, Gohan finally loses his patience. As the Android bears down on him for what seems like the hundreth time, Gohan explodes in a bright blue aura as he gathers whatever energy he has, bringing his full power to bear.

"I've had ENOUGH!" he roars. He vanishes from sight, reappearing behind the Android. The droid spins and hits him, but Gohan doesn't even flinch, simply whipping around with a fist and sending it crashing into the side of the Android's face. Bits of it crack off and fly away from the impact, and visible beneath are churning gears and a glowing eye plate.

"About time you decided to fight me," the Android says, sounding eager. It rushes him again, and Gohan flips around, planting a booted foot in the back of the Android as it flies beneath him. With a cracking sound, the android sails to the ground and leaves a deep crater. Gohan feels a bit surprised. With the constant fighting, his full power is considerably more than it had been at the start of the month. The Android stands, not looking all that pleased anymore.

"This isn't over yet," he growls, lunging at Gohan. Gohan smirks.

"I say it is," he says seriously. He stretches his hands out to either side, and forms three balls of energy, one of fire, one of wind, and one of ice. He brings his hands together and melds all the balls together, creating a somewhat bizarre mix of the three elements, concentrating his power into it and causing it to grow to the size of a small Spirit Bomb. The Android stops dead in the air and looks at the elemental monstrosity in Gohan's hands.

"Elemental Triad!" Gohan roars, flinging the massive ball at the droid. With surprising speed, it barrels down at him. He tries to avoid the shot, but too late. With an eruption of flame, wind, and cold, the Android is consumed by the attack. After the massive explosion subsides, all that's left are a few frozen circuits that fall to the ground, and the air is filled with the smell of hot metal. Relieved, Gohan drifts to the ground and powers down, releasing the house again. He goes inside to rest for the day, and eat before he begins looking for the door again.

The next day, his search ends faster than he could have hoped. As he packs up the house and begins flying, he hears a faint chiming in the distance to mark the beginning of month ten. He immediately flies for it at top speed, and to his relief he finds the door in the distance.

Gohan begins the tenth month with increased power and a new respect for things with warning labels on them.

[Gohan]

Gohan begins the tenth month by closing up the cabinet with the battle droids, and locking it deeper in the closet than it had been to keep anyone else that comes in from making the mistake he just corrected. After that, it's back to wondering what to do.

He strides outside and begins his tried and tested training routine again, running, situps, and pushups, not feeling terribly original. As he begins to tire, he stops, then reconsiders. What's training without pushing his limits? Rather than stop, he pushes on, his body protesting after this pushes into the hours he generally uses to sleep. The next day he's still managed to keep himself powered up, only taking breaks to meditate when his body simply won't move. He manages to last until that night when he finally powers down. He barely manages to drag himself into the living quarters, and drop off to sleep.

The next morning he cleans himself up, eats, and heads back out to repeat the process. The rest of the month is spent increasing the time he can train for without stopping, and in the last week he manages to keep himself going for that entire week without stopping, straining his body past the limitations it had known previously.

Gohan ends the month simplistically, working only to improve his endurance and learn to limit his use of energy while active.

[Gohan]

The eleventh month arrives, and Gohan is beat after the amount of time spent working like that. His body protests at every movement, and he's forced to take the first day simply to rest. He spends it reading through a few more of those books in his bedroom, and meditating a bit to keep himself sharp.

The next day he begins training again. This is a month for review, he decides. He begins repeating everything as he had started off. He first does his flying excercises until he can break the sound barrier at will. He then goes to charging ki into each area of his body again, practicing shooting energy balls from his back and chest especially, envisioning an opponent that has grabbed him and pinned him. The next is an easy thing. Gohan simply makes sure that he's able to power up into each of his forms individually with very little effort. Next comes more practice with his elemental attacks. Following that, he does his meditation sparring, and though his father doesn't enter in again his mental forms are good enough, and he squares off against an imaginary Cell and Buu at the same time, even throwing in Frieza at one point. He moves away from meditation afterwards, reviewing the books on fighting techniques that he'd gone through and ensuring he's taken everything in them into account.

He hesitates a moment at the next item, and decides not to go through with it just yet. He was nearly killed by the creatures last time; he's in no hurry to give them another chance. He finishes off with more practice with the elemental attack he'd used to kill the Android, and more of his basic pushups and situps, moving to only one hand on the pushups and switching arms as they grow tired.

Gohan spends the eleventh month in review of the previous months.

[Gohan]

The final month arrives. Gohan takes a deep breath as he awakens to the clock chiming. Almost time to end this session. But there's one last thing he wanted to save for this month.

He strides out, and makes his way to the intense 150x area he had discovered. He raises a hand, and builds a ball of negative energy on it. He looks at it warily, the ball black with purple bolts of ki racing over it. He doesn't want to do this, really, but he needs to. It's just another means to become strong.

"FINAL ZERO!" He slams his hand with the ball down on the ground. The darkness creeps out over the ground, and then leaps up to consume him in a dome. To anyone watching, the dome appears to shrink and disappear into nothing. However, to Gohan nothing changes. The interior is dim, but not without light. It almost seems like he's floating out in space, with large belts of purple "stars" in the backdrop and red tinges here and there. He sits, and waits, knowing what's going to happen.

About ten minutes later, Gohan stands as he sees a figure approach. It's himself. But on his face is an expression anyone would be terrified to see on Gohan. It's easy to tell that this Gohan is the evil within Gohan's heart, the part of him that loves the pain and suffering he inflicts on his enemies, the part that wants him to carry that pain over to the innocents as well. The part of him that follows the Saiyan image of what a warrior should be.

"So, you show your face here again at last," the dark Gohan says mockingly. "Coward. I can't believe you have the spine to come back." The good Gohan stands and looks piercingly at his evil half.

"Of course I came back. I told you the first time we met I was going to destroy you," he replies. The evil side laughs.

"You can't destroy me here!" he says, laughing and gesturing at the expanse around them. "This is MY world!"

"We'll just see," Gohan whispers to himself. The two lunge at each other in unison. They meet head on, and begin furiously striking at one another. The evil Gohan is of course Gohan, so their techniques are identical, and both match each other for every single movement without fail. Even when both spring away and Gohan tries the same surprise move he'd used on Goku, he finds his Diamond Counter met with one of equal strength. Good and evil are both thrown back away from one another by the force of the two blasts colliding and exploding.

The fight begins then in earnest, and drags on for hours upon hours. With his new endurance Gohan manages to keep himself going, and of course his evil half lasts just as long.

"Why don't you give up?" his dark side mocks. "You'll tire just as I do. You can't defeat me." His good half remains silent. It's true. Killing him would probably mean killing himself.

Gohan is eventually forced to end the Final Zero and go to rest, but he continues this each day, never gaining any headway against his dark self. But finally, as the time begins to run out for the last month and he grows desperate to find a way to stop it, he hits upon the way to do it.

The next day, the last day in the chamber, he fights his dark side as usual. But now, partway through the fight, he manages to grab the dark side's arm. He looks at himself in alarm.

"What are you doing?!" the dark side bellows. He begins to fade away, and the good Gohan closes his eyes.

"You're a part of me," the good Gohan says quietly. "There has to be a balance in everything. You're my balance. I can't fight myself." With a last wail of protest, his evil side vanishes into him. Nothing has changed. That evil was, and always will be inside him. But now he can resist it being bare to the world.

He ends the attack again, and strides to the doorway, powering down and watching at the last ten minutes tick away. He's been through a lot. But now he can truly say he tried his best, and hope his best was good enough to put him back up on par with some of the other fighters out there. The clock chimes, and the door swings open, and Gohan steps back out into the sunlight, taking a deep breath and smiling. Now all that remains to be seen is how worth it it all was.

OOC:That does it. Aki, since you're the one in charge here, I think I'll let you decide how much I deserve to get.

[tc2425]

I'm very impressed! the was a great effort. 45,000,000pl!
You set the standard my friend. wait till I go in again.heh heh

[Raikou]

how did u rite dat much in 2 days???
how long were u online???

[Gohan]

I was on...oh, maybe 3 hours on the site, total. I just type fast.

[robz]

dayam, i cant even think that much in a day let alon 3 hours!!!