Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Cooking
Slicing through the wind, I caught up to the Owl in no time, even flying past him about a mile ahead.
As I flew past, he gave me a look of curiosity. The same stupid one he gave me when he attacked. What he didn't know was that things would be a lot different this time around.
Like last time, the owl locked his eyes on me while his wings glistened with moonlight.
This time, I no longer saw a shadowy figure.
What I saw today was nothing more to me than an overgrown chicken.
Standing in the sky, the bird got closer and closer to me while I stood there, smiling with my sword in my right hand.
"Come here birdy… Yeah. That's right. Just a little closer."
The owl opened his beak ready to swallow me whole.
Unfortunately, for him, anyway, I had gotten much stronger and sped to the side of his head slicing upwards from his neck to the other side, instantly killing him.
As his head separated from his body, his toes curled up as if it had cursed me upon its passing.
Its blood began to splatter to the lands below, staining the treetops, certainly soon attracting many predatory land animals.
Digging my fingers into its left leg, I swung its huge and imposing figure in circles until there was no more blood leaking out.
"Ha. That was anticlimactic."
I smiled.
I had no idea how long it had been, but during that time, I had been waiting for this day. The day when I could get my revenge.
'I guess I should probably be thankful for it. Without it, I probably wouldn't have pushed myself as hard as I did to get stronger.' I thought to myself.
Dragging the bird by its leg through the sky, I arrived at my base.
Gently landing, I neatly laid its body on the ground.
'Now… How am I gonna eat you?' I thought.
Slicing off its feet, I then threw them into the jungle. Perhaps one of the wild animals would find joy in eating the feet meat.
I then began to pluck its huge feathers, thinking that they would go nice as extra bedding.
As I was working, all of a sudden, I sensed a truly monumental and stomach-turning force coming from behind me.
Momentarily, I was frozen. I had never felt a power as great as this.
Quickly putting my hand on my blade, a thought to myself.
'An android? No. I wouldn't be able to feel their energy. And Cell isn't supposed to be awake for another 10 years… that could only mean One thing.'
A few seconds of silence passed before I heard a very familiar voice and the Ki suppressed itself.
"Impressive you've managed to master Ki without any form of guidance. Commendable."
Relaxing my hand and dropping it to my side, without looking, I voiced, "No thanks to you, Gohan."
"Is that how you greet your master who you haven't seen for 5 months?"
"*sigh*"
It was a pleasure to see another person in all honesty.
To that, I couldn't help but greet him with a smile as I turned around.
"It's been a while."
"Hahaha. It sure has. 5 months to be exact. And I gotta day, you really are amazing, Trunks. To think… From a scrawny little guy to buff guy. But I gotta admit, your proportions are a little off." he said, tilting his head and looking at me strangely.
"I don't wanna hear that coming from you. My mom told me you went through an awkward phase too."
"Ah. Ya caught me. Your clothes are different."
"Is that a bad thing?"
I asked.
"No actually. They look kinda cool!"
"Ah. Thanks. I appreciate it. I didn't know what I was doing, but through trial and error, I managed to cook up something nice."
"So… what brings you here?"
I asked.
"Well, I wanted to start off by saying I'm genuinely surprised with the amount of progress you've made so far. It has me wondering, har far can you really go if pushed hard enough?"
"So?"
I asked with a raised brow.
"And so… I decided that continuing on with this part of your training would be pointless and a waste of time. Today, you and I are gonna spar for the first time."
"A spar?"
"That's right. Unless you're not up for it, that is."
He replied with a cocky smile.
'He sure is more arrogant than I remember… But if I were to start sparring with him on the regular, because I'm a Saiyan, I'll definitely get a few Zenkai boosts if I get pushed to my limits.' I thought.
I had already had my first one when fighting the tigers. I had my second one when I was forced to face off against a group of Dinosaurs. Ever since then, I'd been pretty stagnant in the realm of Zenkai.
The only thing that pushed me was the makeshift gym that I created where I would basically squat boulders and run endlessly.
"You know what? I'm down."
"Good." He smiled.
Sending into the air, he waved for me to follow. I did just that.
Hurrying by his side, I asked, "Where are we going?"
"To a place that's far away from any wildlife. It's also a place where our dads once fought."
Goku and my Father had fought a lot from what I heard. But a place that was relatively desolate, I could think of one picture in mind.
Without asking more questions, he and I soared like the wind.
As we flew, he gave me a smile and a nod, then doubled his speed with a sonic boom that would have shattered a regular person's eardrums.
"Hurry it up, slowpoke! You can move faster than that."
Rolling my eyes at his little remark
"*BOOM*"
I caught up to him, vaporizing any clouds in my way.
"Well would you look at that, you caught up. Let's see how long that lasts."
"*BOOM*"
Forcing a whole bunch of wind to hit my face, Gohan took off once more.
"*BOOM*"
I caught up to him once more. This cycle of cat and mouse continued until we arrived at our destination.
It was hot. It was isolated. It was a wasteland. I knew this place. It was the very same place where Goku and Vegeta had their first fight. It would be the place where their sons would have theirs.
Descending down to the ground, Gohan waited with his arms crossed.
Making my way down to him, I stood a few feet away while he began his words of motivation.
"Trunks. In this fight, I want you to go all out. Show me everything you taught yourself up to this point."
"Alright."
While he got into his combative stance, I got into a boxing one. It was all that I knew.
"Now… Come at me!"
He shouted.
Without a second thought, I launched myself forward at twice the speed of sound, aiming directly at his head.
"*Boom*"
The impact that could be heard from around the world wasn't from my punch. Not by a long shot.
It was his kick to my chin that I couldn't even see coming. Heck. I didn't even realize it happened.
As I flew through the sky, all that I could hear was unrelenting white noise.
'I knew he was strong… But this is ridiculous.'
Halting my movement in the air, I looked down to see that Gohan was no longer in the place I had last seen him.
Quickly, maximizing my senses, I felt a huge presence coming from my right. Without even looking, I knew it was Gohan headed straight for me with a right hook aimed at my jaw.
Swinging my head back to dodge, Gohan was caught off guard and was riddled with surprise.
Without giving him a chance to redirect his attack, I continued on with my momentum and swung 180 degrees, slamming the top of his head with a kick that included all of my might.
Unfortunately for me, he saw that coming. And with a smirk, kneed me on the bridge of my nose, causing it to almost break.
With the level of input in that knee, I was about to be sent flying until he grabbed me by my ankle and dangled me in the air.
"Y'know. You really have good senses... Problem is, you lack skill. And because of that, your foundation is weak."
Holding my nose, stopping the blood flow, I retorted.
"Maybe if I had a better teacher, my foundation would be more impressive."
He frowned.
'Oh… He doesn't like that.'
Then, as if he had turned into a carousel from hell, he started to spin, spin, and spin. With every rotation, he got faster and swung harder.
Right when I was about to hurl my stomach contents, he sent me crashing to the earth below.
"*Boom*"
I was planted in the earth, and began coughing up blood.
"Ugh."
I definitely had broken something.
Attempting to focus my eyes on the sky, I saw Gohan's imposing figure blocking out the sun.
But then, like magic, he vanished once more.
'Was he really this much more powerful than me?'
Although I had made excellent strides in Ki control, it appeared that I lacked severely in the physical realm.
"*BOOM*"
As if time stopped, Gohan appeared with his knee in my chest while the earth I laid upon started to suck me in even deeper.
Tiny bits of debris floated in the air along with all the oxygen in my lungs.
I was certain that with that knee, 3 of my ribs were fractured.
"*gasp*"
Ascending out of the pit, Gohan looked at me with a disappointment that I never witnessed him express.
"How are you already making me regret taking you in?"
He asked with a cold glare.
"It almost makes me want to laugh."
Staring at him… I realized instantly what he was doing. He wanted to see if he could invoke emotion out of me.
"*cough cough*"
Spitting up blood, I began to chuckle.
"I'd understand if you were the one up here, but you're not. What are you laughing at?"
"I'm laughing at you. You know you don't have to be an ass to get emotion out of me, right?"
"What are you-"
"Enough of that, Gohan…"
Digging myself out of the ground, I wiped the dust off of my body and stood opposed to him.
My heart began to pump quickly.
Cracking my knuckles and neck, adjusting myself for battle, I got back into my boxing stance while also taking note of every movement he had just used on me.
Jumping up a few times, I was now warmed up.
"Ha… Sorry for those few sentences then. I'm just teaching you the way I was taught."
"Piccolo must have been a handful then."
I commented
"Yeah. He was, if I'm being honest. But he knew how to get the best out of me."
"Alright then. Let's see if you can get the best out of me."
I smiled, wiping the blood from my mouth.
I felt excited. My body was on fire. I was now prepared.
Nodding his head respectfully, Gohan dashed forward, but this time, the roles had been reversed. As he went for a punch to my face, I dodged his attack, landing a blow to his chin. Or at least I thought I did when I mimicked his kick.
He had caught my foot, but without giving him time to advance, I launched a powerful Ki blast to his face which caused him to be launched backward.
Capitalizing on the moment, I then stopped in place and put my hands together, summing Ki to my hands, launching about 100 blasts just like the initial one.
To my surprise, Gohan started a flurry of cartwheels and flips, avoiding almost all of my blasts, and deflecting a few others.
Closing the distance again, Gohan delivered a jab to my esophagus.
"*gasp*"
Taking a mental note of his actions, I quickly began to retreat, using a Ki blast to create a dust cloud.
For some reason, instead of pursuing me further, he stayed still and got into a sligh crouching stance.
"*wosh*"
The dust that was originally my creation started to spin in a vortex. That was when I heard the beginning of a word that I was terrified of.
"KA!"
I could hear the sounds of Ki starting to conglomerate. It was a similar sound to when I did Ki Meditation.
"ME!"
'Shit!'
I screamed internally.
"HA!"
'Fuck!'
Judging by the amount of Ki he was putting into his attack, I was certain that it had the capability to turn me into dust.
"ME!"
Composing myself, I took out my sword.
'I guess now's the time to test this out.'
I thought.
Focusing my Ki and channeling it to my sword, a dark purple aura began to surround it. This was a technique that I hadn't yet come up with a name for. But I found its characteristics very interesting, so I'd been contemplating the right time to master it.
"HA!"
A bright blue energy wave traveled to me faster than I could think. Without delay, I held onto my sword, performing a horizontal slash that contained all of my energy.
"*swoosh*"
As soon as the sword made contact with the wave, it started to split down the middle with succession. The problem was that the wave had so much force that I was barely able to keep all 10 digits on my hilt.
Gritting my teeth, I tried my hardest to hold on, but seeing as I still remained unmoved, Gohan decided that it was now time to put more energy into his attack.
"HA!"
With his scream came searing pain all over my body as the wave was starting to make its way through my defenses.
"Ugh!"
I was at my breaking point. How would I get out of this rock and a hard place?
It was then that an idea popped into my head about a similar situation I had seen on a T.V show.
Deciding to abandon the idea of slicing the attack in half, I sliced upward, giving me just enough leeway to jump out the top of the wave.
With my blade still in hand, I flew with the tip of my sword, slashing the wave in two as I moved forward, almost as if I was surfing it.
Seeing this, Gohan's eyes became wide.
Unfortunately, I had gotten too close to him. He was unable to direct his attention towards me and had to focus on reducing the destructive output of his attack, preventing an earthquake.
With my right leg, I came down the Kamehameha and stamped it on his forehead. Launching him back.
As a result, in the far-off distance, there was an explosion.
Fortunately, there were no signs of life prior.
Getting up with a red footprint on his head, Gohsn looked impressed and relatively unphased.
"Interesting."
He mumbled.
"Time to get serious."
Gohan and I started running directly to each other.
My leg collided with his forearm while his elbow clashed with my palm.
Each blow that collided and detonated large explosions.
This… This was my first real fight!
My DNA played me like a fiddle.
It was like I was in a state of hypnosis. I couldn't stop myself from enjoying this moment..
"*BOOM*"
"*BOOM*"
"*BOOM*"
"*BOOM*"
No matter how many times he hit me, an unknown force kept telling me to get back up. Ignore the pain.
'Wait… This feeling… I don't think it's as alien as I think it is.'
The longing for a fight. The need to overcome adversity.
It was something I was born with. It was as natural to me as breathing was. Perhaps it was as crucial. Right now, it certainly felt like that was the case.
As we clashed and clashed, before I knew it, I wasn't even landing hits on Gohan anymore. I also realized that I was getting more and more bloodied. I didn't care. I just wanted to keep going. I was having the time of my life.
(Gohan's Pov)
'What the hell is wrong with this kid?!'
Although I was having fun in the beginning, Trunks had been forcing me to use more and more of my power. I had no other choice but to start pulling moves out of my arsenal that I hadn't used for years.
If I hadn't, he would have continued to adapt to my fighting style. It was like he was downloading me. He probably hadn't even realized it, but he had even begun to mimic the way that I breathe.
I noticed when I had given him what was supposed to be a finishing blow to his chest. In that brief moment of me getting close to him, he had a starry-eyed look in his eyes. It was strange. The look made it seem like he wasn't even coherent. But as we continued to fight, that was proven not to be the case.
"*BOOM*"
"*BOOM*"
"*BOOM*"
Punching him in his throat and liver, and kneeing him in the nose, the boy spat more blood and was knocked back into a cave, giving me a few seconds of breathing room.
'This was supposed to be a spar, but he's pushed me so hard I've broken 23 of his bones… Today's session was supposed to end with me humbling him today, then going easy on him until the real training began. Right now, he's just stealing all of my skills.'
Given, I did tell him that today would be his real training, but that was a white lie. The real wasn't supposed to be initiated for a year. But now, here this little monster was.
Walking out of the cave, Trunks came with the same starry-eyed look as before, but now, his body was broken.
'I gotta stop this…'
With that thought, I took a deep breath.
"Trunks! I think it's about time that we-"
Before I could finish my sentence, the boy had vanished from the spot where I had last seen him. I couldn't sense his energy. Did he learn to conceal it from me doing it in this fight!?
"Where did he-"
"*BOOM*"
Catching me off guard with an elbow to the head with enough force to slam me onto the ground. Quickly putting my hands out in front of me in order to catch myself, Trunks stood in a very familiar formation.
"Ka."
Looking up I saw the boy cupping his hands and pulling his arms back to his left hip.
"Me."
"Trunks. What the hell are you doing? The Kamehameha wave is a technique that can't be copied with just a glance. It even took me a couple days to learn it. If you're not careful, it'll backfire."
"Ha."
The boy looked serious. He intended on launching the attack at me with full force.
"Me."
Panic started to set. He was actually doing it. The wave was even forming.
'The power in that wave. It's enough to cause me some serious damage! I need to stop him!'
"Ha!"
(Trunk's pov)
The attack was easier to mimic than I had expected.
Perhaps it was because of my Ki control. Perhaps it was because it was a relatively basic attack. I didn't know. But the power that coursed through my veins told me that it was strong.
"Ha!"
Releasing the attack point-blank at Gohan, I sensed his power increase by an insurmountable amount while my blast went straight through past him as if he wasn't phased.
Towering over me in his Super Saiyan form was Gohan, glaring at me with blueish-green eyes that pierced my soul.
Grabbing my arm, the Ki in my palms was dispersed.
"I was going to wait to show you this form, but you've proven yourself to be more than a handful. If I hadn't transformed, I would have been seriously injured by that last attack."
"Seriously hurt?"
I asked while looking him up and down with apprehension.
Then, pointing to my nose and to other parts of me that were wounded, he then had a look of guilt that overcame him.
"Trunk I-"
"It's fine. I busted your lip and bruised your eye, you broke my body. Eye for an eye." I shrugged.
"I'm sorry. I should have restrained myself better. I did you a disservice as a teacher."
Gohan said while clenching his fist.
"Stop it. I told you already that it's fine. It might not look like it judging from my injuries, but I had fun."
"..."
For a moment, Gohan didn't know what to say. Should he have been proud? Should he have been concerned? All he could do was ponder.
Seeing this, I took the opportunity to make a request. I didn't want this match to end quite yet.
"There's a way to make me feel a little better about this situation." I voiced.
"Tell me. What can I do to help?"
He asked with a smile.
Gohan was a sweet kid. I almost felt guilty using him as a Zenkai machine… But I didn't intend on stopping.
"Fight me while you're in Super Saiyan."
"What?!"
Nodding my head at his surprise, he continued.
"Trunks, Hold on a minute. I don't think you understand what it is to be a Super Saiyan. It may not look like much, but this is the legendary transformation of our people! Only a select few of the Saiyans have ever been able to achieve this. And in order to become a Super Saiyan, a warrior pure of heart has to awaken an internal fury."
"Your point?"
I asked which cause the guy to almost fall over.
"My point?!"
Washing his hand over his face with frustration, Gohan went on to explain.
My point is that I'm at least 50 times stronger now. If I wanted to, I could easily blow away a planet. Fighting me is like-"
Deciding no longer to listen to his long-winded explanation of what I already knew, instead of yelling for 30 minutes like in an anime, I focused my Ki toward the center of my back, creating a large explosion of energy within me that completely enveloped my person in a yellow aura.
Like that, Gohan's seemingly unreachable power level became just a little more tangible.
At my transformation, Gohan's mouth went agape while his eyes went hollow. To compare his look to something, it looked like he was just informed that Santa wasn't real.
"Y-Y-YOUR A SUPER SAIYAN?!"
He yelled with every emotion on the spectrum.
"Yeah. I am. That's why I said I wanna fight you in this form. So I could get used to it."
"B-B-But, How?"
He asked.
"Well… to put it simply, one day, I was walking in the forest, something wanted to eat me. Because I didn't want to die, I ended up transforming, and killing it."
Stunned, Gohan didn't know what to say next. Deciding to lead the conversation, I continued.
"So… you think you can help me get used to this form?"
Gohan put his hand on his chin, carefully analyzing what me being a Super Saiyan meant to not only him, but the world.
"Trunks… no matter what you do, you always end up surprising me. There are so many things we need to talk about, but that can wait. Right now, I think it really is best that I help you learn more about this form. How long can you hold it?" He asked, genuinely wanting to know.
"I don't know. This is only my second time transforming."
Gohan's eyes widened for a moment, then following that came a look of frustration.
"Okay… it's only your second time holding that form…. Yet you're able to move comfortably and didn't even need to power up. Okay. Alright. Notted. Then I guess we should get straight into the sparring again."
"Cool. I'll go stand over there."
I said walking a few feet away.
"Trunks, I forgot to say, please don't use Ki blast. This is only gonna be practice. For real this time. No fighting dirty, meaning no throwing dirt in my eyes, and aiming for eyes."
"What about throats? Are the restrictions only for me?"
I asked.
"*sigh*"
"Alright. I won't hit you in the throat as long as you keep the same code of conduct."
He stated.
"Deal."
I smiled.
With that, round 2 began
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone