4 Awakening 4

I was roused back into consciousness by a sharp pain in my ribs. "Fuck!" I swore explosively, my torso jutting up and forcing me into a setting position. I was about to blow whatever annoyance hit me to kingdom come, but when I saw a tall pointy eared green man scowling down at me with his arms crossed.

"Get up, I've got some questions for you." Piccolo ordered gruffly.

I rolled my eyes and didn't bother. Piccolo is hardly much of a threat right now, not without charging his Special Beam Cannon. From what I can sense thanks to that Zenkai I went through with the help of Tien, Piccolo is a little bit less than half my current power. I'd say he could potentially be suppressing some of it, but this is just a few days after my brother got whacked by the original and green bean over here - so that sounds about right.

The clothes weighing me down massively could be a problem, but I could just blast him out of existence so there's really no need to fuss for now.

"What?" I scowled at him. I'm kind of going through a freaking life crisis right now. "Shouldn't you be off training the brat of the original or something right about now?"

Piccolo snorted, "He's still struggling along, he's nowhere near ready yet for me to personally train him." I almost rolled my eyes again. Sure, Gohan learning how to survive himself in the wild is a good thing, but making him do it for months after he got it down is a waste of time. How long did Piccolo really train him for? Six months or so if I remember right. And with Piccolo's boot camp, Gohan's official Battle Power had been 2,800. If he started training him after just two months, no doubt Gohan would break the four thousand mark, and Piccolo himself would grow stronger with a stronger training partner, and would probably reach somewhere around six thousand, maybe a bit less. But regardless, they would have been strong enough to defeat Nappa, especially if Gohan went rage boost at some point.

"What I'm more interested in is you," Piccolo interrupted my thoughts, staring daggers down at me, "I've already got a general idea of what you are thanks to gleaning information from that dried up old fossil on the lookout, what bothers me is how you got so much stronger than Goku so quickly. This 'zenkai' you spoke of with Kami and the three eyed twit, why did it not effect Son Goku like it has you?"

Ugh, I really didn't want to speak about Goku right now. "Because the closest that fools ever truly been to death was against you," I didn't even bother to conceal knowledge I shouldn't know, I don't really care either way at this point, "And saiyans as a whole, above even being a warrior species - we're natural born survivors. The stronger the threat around, the more we grow from the zenkai. It just so happened that I could sense Raditz' power even while in stasis and remembered his strength. If the original had survived your attack, and got a sensu in time, he'd more than likely be even stronger than me right now." Admittedly, this is only a little theory of mine, with a few holes in it regardless to explain why Goku didn't explode in power early on despite the numerous injuries he got early on, such as against Tao, King Piccolo and this Piccolo beside me. If zenkai's worked as originally shown in canon, then he should have zipped past a battle power of a thousand without too much effort.

The fact that this body, through me knows the powers we're going up against soon just makes me believe it all the more so. It may not have felt say, Frieza's power, but such a looming threat doesn't need to be felt when it's so far beyond you that you cannot even fathom it. So my body growing stronger instinctively to that threat through zenkai is the best idea I had going. To be honest, I hadn't thought I'd even get this strong. I thought I'd at best hit the five hundred mark, but right now, I should be around the thousand mark, if not a little above.

"Hmph, so that's it huh?" Piccolo grunted. I grunted right back. "Now what the hell is bothering you? You're nothing like the Son Goku I know. And I know of him when he was in that exact form. That blast you shot off earlier had more than enough power packed into it to kill Raditz in one shot, so what the hell did you fire it off for? I can't have loose ends like you running around blowing up parts of my planet so willy nilly when I plan to rule it soon."

"Did you know that Son Goku killed his grandfather when he transformed into a Great Ape?" I asked suddenly. Piccolo remained silent. "It's something all us saiyan's can do as long as we have our tails and we get a good look at the full moon. It amplifies our powers by a maximum of ten times."

Piccolo grunted again, "Interesting to know and something I'll definitely keep an eye out on Gohan for," he replied, "But what's that got to do with anything?"

"I can remember my mother and father sending me off to this planet, not to conquer it, but to be safe from the man that conquered even the saiyan race, and I can remember the older brother who excitedly chattered to me about how his power had grown to over give hundred and how he would make sure to train me up to be strong just like him so we could go on all the exciting missions together." I let that hang in the air for a moment, "My parents are dead. My brother killed by near enough my own hands because of the original, and on top of that, the original, pitifully weak minded as he is, stomped our grandfather to death because he forgot who he was and couldn't control himself as an Oozaru."

I turned a narrowed glaring eye towards Piccolo, and finally brought up the true question that was bothering me, "All my family is dead, but they aren't even really my family in the first place, I'm just a copy of Son Goku who remembers being Kakarot." I stated, "My friends, aren't even my friends, they're his friends. Even you are not my rival, but his. I have absolutely nothing in this world - what's the point of my existence?"

Really, there wasn't any need for Kakarot around. I already knew how things would turn out. And anything I do could just make things worse for everyone. Just because they were Goku's friends and not mine, didn't mean I didn't inherit the fondness he had for them. Bulma, Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, Chiaotzu, Mr. Roshi, Launch, Popo, Kami, Puar, Korin, Yajirobe. I let loose a bitter chuckle, "Honestly, Kami can ne quite cruel, can't he?"

Piccolo who had been silently listening to me snorted, a fanged smirk appearing broadly on his face, "Glad to see somebody besides me knows how much of a pain that fossil is," he chuckled. He kept chuckling for a few moments before it trailed off and he narrowed his eyes at me, "As for everything else. Get over it you brat. I was in more or less the same position when I was born. And as you said, you are Kakarot, not Son Goku. And you're far stronger than he ever was at this point. There's no point to anybodies existence, you just reach out and grab what you can to make it worth it. So stop crying like a pitiful weakling and stand up. I can't have one of the main forces I'm gonna use to defend my planet moping around so pathetically." And with that said, a white aura burst out around him and he shot off into the air, leaving me sitting in the grass.

...."Hah," I sighed. Really, getting a pep talk from Piccolo who hasn't even become friends with Gohan yet. What is the world coming too? But, I suppose in a sense, he had it just as bad. I mean, he didn't really lose anyone close to him when he was spawned from the late Demon King Piccolo, but he would have inherited what it felt like to die upon just being born, so it's not like I'm the only more or less clone who has it rough/ Hah, I really can't mope around can I? It's infuriating that I'll just need to get over these feelings.

Besides, do I really have any right to most of them? Like I said before, I'm not Son Goku. Either way, I feel a little bit better, and I get the feeling after learning about the zenkai Piccolo is going to train Gohan harsher than ever. That might be a good thing too. Honestly, if I do stick around, I'm gonna have to smack some sense into Chi-Chi. She's not really got any right to spout the crap she does half the time about Gohan running off when she wasn't much older and without his insane power, and running off all the time as a child herself. That was the entire reason she met Goku after all.

There's really nothing wrong with her wanting to keep him from fighting. He's a child after all, and despite how my stomach rolled at the thought of a powerful saiyan, even a child not fighting, I can understand where she's coming from. But at the same time, she needs to not be a harpy about everything and ease up on Gohan a little. Between her and the constant training, Gohan never got the chance to enjoy his childhood. It made my chest clench in anger when I thought about how raw Gohan got it. It was always his mistakes he got lambasted for, never what he helped achieved or achieved by himself.

Gohan is my favorite person in the entire Dragon Ball universe. And I hated the treatment he got either from those around him, or even fans of canon. The only thing Gohan ever won at in life, was his wife really. Come Super, Videl was possibly the best partner in the entire series, or at least on par with Bulma and 18. But even she started out harassing Gohan and making his everyday life kind of miserable when he started high school.

If I stick around, I'll definitely do something for him. Especially, as weird as it sounds, since he's kind of partly my kid now. Honestly, I'd love to go visit him right now, actually, there was a buzz of excitement that replaced my earlier melancholy at the thought of meeting Kid Gohan. But him and Piccolo becoming friends is something I don't want to get in the way of at all - that's one relationship I refuse to change at all, so I'll keep my distance for a while.

Instead I'll....

Err, I'm not sure what I should do. I could go join the others on the Lookout, but I've already done more training under Kami and Popo than they ever will. I've got enough weight on me to simulate Goku' weighted clothing weighed down by King Kai's planet, and I'm not going to take six months to get to my destination and start training. I could just start off right now and find somewhere to train my ass off.

Maybe, I'll grab some of the Ultra Divine Water. Actually, if it works anything like Guru's potential unlock, then I'm best leaving it till just before Vegeta and Nappa arrive.

Training is a must. Even if I didn't want to, I need it to not end up dead. But one thing I don't have, that made the others in canon grow faster, is a sparring partner, or two. the stronger, the better. Hmm, the best sparring partner power wise would probably be Popo, but he's busy training the other maggots. Behind him it would be Tien, but his power is probably around three hundred or so at best at the moment, so he wouldn't be much help.

If only I had...

Wait!

My power is only around the thousand mark. And Saiyan's come with easily grown minions with a power just slightly higher than mine. I've no idea where Raditz pod is, and it's likely that what I wanted was destoyed by Gohan's rampage against my brother anyway. But, there's one great thing about being Kakarot and Goku at the same time. I know where my own space pod is.

A red aura flared around me, and I took off into the sky, a solution for me has formed.