Chapter 5 -- The First Purging Lesson

Written by RJ =)

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Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.

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Gohan woke up early the next morning by Tora coming into his room.

She slipped into his room quietly and tiptoed over to his bed.

"Gohan?" she whispered, seeing if the demi-Saiyan was awake.

"Mmm?" Gohan mumbled, still half-asleep than anything else.

"I'm cold and lonely," she said

Gohan shuffled over in his bed, making room for Tora, she had recently started coming into his room and slept in his bed with him. They'd both just recently had their birthdays, Tora's was a couple of weeks after Gohan's. So now they were both 6 years old. Not that they had any celebrations or anything, they just quietly acknowledged it between each other.

Gohan had a feeling that she might have been having nightmares, because she was kidnapped on her 5th birthday and having another birthday might have brought the memories back in the form of nightmares.

She snuggled into his side and her breathing slowed, indicating that she was sleeping again.

Once he was sure Tora was asleep, Gohan allowed himself to also slip back into dreamland.

The next time he woke was from his computer, which started beeping at him loudly, making him wake up with a start.

He slipped out of his bed and checked the message in the pop-up window on the screen. It said --Master Frieza wants to meet you in his throne room in 15 minutes. Don't be late--

Tora was sitting up in the bed with a questioning look on her face.

"Frieza wants us to meet him in 15 minutes" Gohan said, answering the unasked question.

"Oh" Tora said "Well, I better go and get ready then" then she exited Gohan's room and made her way to her own room to get changed.

Gohan pulled another blue spandex suit out of the closet among the many other suits that looked exactly the same.

He quickly got changed and discarded of his old, ripped one, which had been ruined at yesterday's training, where he had fought one of the elite Brondians.

He stepped out into the corridor and met Tora, who was exiting her room and they made their way to Frieza's throne room.

They stopped in front of Frieza's throne room with the ornate gold framing around the door. Tora pressed the red button and the door hissed open.

"Ahhh, my young warriors" Frieza said when they entered "I have been waiting for you"

"Sorry to keep you waiting Master Frieza" Gohan said

"It's all right," Frieza said, smirking, "How have you been finding your time here?"

"It's okay" Gohan answered cautiously.

"That's good. I have a special exercise for you today"

Frieza clapped his hands and couple of guards entered the room.

"Take the kids to Hangar 3. They will be going with Raion and his crew"

Gohan and Tora exchanged a nervous glance, but nevertheless, followed the guard to the hanger.

This hangar was bigger than the previous one they'd been in, and like the other one, it was swarming with all sorts of creatures doing many different jobs.

They were led over to a spaceship similar to the one they'd been in last time. Inside the ship was Raion, with a group of 4 other people who they didnt recognise. Two of the other creatures were humanoid, and were wearing strange helmets and scouters over their eyes and the other two were green lizard-type creatures with a blue mop of hair on their head, they were also wearing scouters.

As soon as they'd entered the ship, the door slid closed and the ship rumbled into life.

After sitting in silence for a while, Tora asked, "Where are we going?"

Raion laughed "Were going down onto a planet, and I can guarantee this'll be a trip you'll never, ever forget"

Tora gulped, wishing she'd never asked that question, and Gohan shot her a worried look.

But whatever they were going to do, they were going to have to do it soon, because just then, they entered the atmosphere of the planet. The ship shook violently for a minute as it rocketed through the thick atmosphere, and they soon landed roughly on the ground of the planet.

As soon as the dust had cleared, Raion and his crew got up without a word and exited the ship.

"Come on brats, get out here!" Raion yelled when Gohan and Tora took their time about coming.

The two kids scrambled to their feet and raced outside, intimidated by the fierce Raion.

Raion smirked at the worried looks on Gohan and Tora's faces.

"Today, you will have your first lesson in planet purging" he said, laughing maniacally at the end of his sentence.

Gohan and Tora instantly became very worried and they both swallowed.

"P-purging?" Gohan said

"Yes, purging: getting rid of all life forms; making a planet ready for sale; killing creatures" Raion snarled, enjoying the effect he was having on the two young Saiyans. "Meson, Brog, grab the brats and make sure they don't get away" Raion instructed two of the other members of his crew.

Meson and Brog stepped forward and grabbed the struggling chibis.

"No! Lemme go!" Tora yelled as she struggled

"It's no use struggling, brat" Meson growled, tightening his hold "I'm bigger and stronger than you"

"And uglier" Tora muttered, but stopped struggling anyway.

Meson growled at Tora's comment, but didn't say anything.

The group then took to the air and flew towards a nearby civilisation.

Gohan could sense many low powers moving around the city. There were a few larger powers over to the west side of the city, and by the way they were spiking erratically, he could tell that they were sparing, but even so, they were heaps weaker than any of the members of their group. But what annoyed him the most was that these people didn't know what was gonna happen. These people didn't know that these moments would be the last moments of their life.

As they reached the settlement, Raion suddenly shot a ki blast into the middle of the town, immediately causing screams to arise from the small town. Gohan could sense the ki levels of the people fluctuating rapidly with their growing panic as more and more ki blasts followed.

"Stop it!" he yelled. He could hear Tora yelling for them to stop also.

The only response he got was an evil laugh from Raion and the other members of the group.

They landed in the middle of the city and they fired powerful ki beams randomly into sections of the town.

Gohan shuddered as he felt the worst feeling he'd ever felt in his whole life. The feeling of hundreds of powers fading into inexistance.

"NOOOO!!!" he yelled and broke free of Brog's grip "STOP IT!!"

He saw a small child curled up in fear next to the rubble of a fallen building. Raion was about to shoot a ki beam at her.

Gohan's eyes widened in fear when he realised that they were gonna kill her. He used his newly acquired move and phased out and appeared in front of the small girl.

He girl looked up at him, her eyes wide, wondering what he was going to do to her. Up close, he could see that the girl was about his age. His stomach did a somersault. He knew he couldn't save her, but he had to try.

"Move it, brat" Raion commanded

"No" Gohan yelled back "You can't kill her!"

"I can do what I like" Raion said "Now MOVE!!!"

Gohan stood his ground and took up a defensive position. The look of determination on his face was enough to tell you that he wasn't gonna give up easily and wasn't gonna give up without a fight.

"You have one last chance, brat. Move now of face the consequences" Raion said.

Gohan didn't reply, but gritted his teeth in preparation for the ki beam he was sure would come straight for him.

"Gohan! No!" Tora yelled, still struggling to get free of Meson's grip.

Raion held his hands out in front of him and summoned ki into his hands. He yelled out and released the attack, which zoomed towards the young demi-Saiyan.

Gohan crossed his arms in front of him and put his head down as the ki beam came racing towards him. The beam hit him hard and pushed him back half a metre, but Gohan soon regained his footing and pushed back as hard as it was coming.

Raion was getting frustrated that his beam wasn't beating Gohan yet, so he upped the strength of the beam slightly.

'Haha, this should get him' Raion thought, laughing maniacally in his mind.

Gohan gasped when he saw the bulge of extra power flow through the ki beam.

"Run, kid!" he yelled to the girl behind him.

She looked at him wide-eyed for a second, then came to her senses and ran off in the other direction.

The new burst of power pushed Gohan back even more, making long skid marks in the ground from his feet where hed been pushed back.

'No! I have to stop this!' Gohan thought

Raion, seeing as the other burst of energy wasn't stopping Gohan's efforts at all, pushed all of his spare power into the beam, using all of his power.

'Take that, brat' he thought

Gohan saw the second bulge of energy racing through the beam straight for him. He looked at it in devastation, he knew he couldn't block it any more. The girl was gone now, and hopefully far away from here, so all he was worried about at the moment was himself.

He tried to block the extra power, but he couldn't. The huge beam engulfed him and knocked him flying. He crashed into the wall of a partially standing building and it collapsed onto him, burying him under a few metres of rubble.

Gohan was trapped under a large slab of concrete. He was lying on something sharp and it wasn't very comfortable. He was in pain and he had bruises, burns and cuts all over his body.

Suddenly, the large slab of concrete was moved, revealing the smirking face of one of the other members of the group.

"He's still alive," one of the humanoid creatures said

"Bring the little brat out here" Raion commanded.

The creature grabbed one of Gohan's arms and pulled him roughly out of the destroyed building, ignoring Gohan's grunts of pain.

The creature roughly set Gohan on the ground in front of Raion.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Raion said menacingly "A traitor? I'm sure Master Frieza would be interested in that"

Gohan refused to answer, instead, he sat there, trying to ignore the fact that his body felt like it was on fire.

Suddenly, the other humanoid member of the team appeared near them and he was holding the girl who Gohan'd protected.

When Gohan realised what they were going to do, he felt like his stomach had started tap-dancing.

"Set her down" Raion instructed.

The girl was set on the ground and she looked at Gohan with fear in her eyes, asking the question silently.

Gohan couldn't look, so he turned his head away.

Raion grabbed his head roughly and turned it to look at the trembling girl "You look!" he yelled at the young Saiyan.

While Gohan was looking, Raion shot a small ki beam at the girl's head and it neatly pierced her skull, and she fell over.

To Gohan, it seemed like this was all in slow motion.

"NOOOOO!!" he yelled, and he twisted free of his captor and leapt down onto the ground in front of the group and got into a fighting position.

Raion laughed "You're too beaten up to fight, you'll never beat us"

Gohan ran towards Raion and started punching him, but Raion expertly blocked each and every punch that the tired Gohan was making.

Suddenly, Gohan felt a sharp crack on the back of his head and he blacked out.

"Take the brat to the ship, we're going" Raion said, firing one last ki beam into the city, destroying the last of the remaining population.

The next time Gohan woke, he was in a regeneration tank. He floated in the blue water lazily, feeling his injuries gradually healing. The burning sensation all over his body was slowly disappearing.

He closed his eyes, but quickly opened them again when his mind suddenly was filled with pictures of the girl being killed. It was playing over and over again in his head like someone had taped it and was showing it in his head on a big movie screen. He'd never thought that something like that would have such a big impact on his life.

'And thisll probably be a regular occurrence' Gohan thought in despair.

His thoughts were interrupted just then by the doctor, who came in and looked at his stats, which were displayed on a panel to the side of the machine.

"Well, little one, you're almost finished" the doctor said

Gohan sighed in relief, soon he'd be able to go back to the quiet sanctuary of his room.

About five minutes later, the machine beeped, alerting the doctor that his cycle had finished.

The doctor pressed a button and the water slowly drained and the top opened.

Gohan stepped out of the machine, making little puddles of water wherever he stepped.

"Here" the doctor said, handing Gohan a towel and a clean spandex suit.

Gohan quickly got dressed and handed the towel back to the doctor.

"Thanks" he said, then exited the door and ran down the corridors to his room.