Ch. 9: Gohan's Training

I slept that night in the Core, which meant I got ten hours of sleep in just a single hour normal time. The girls all instantly mobbed me upon my coming back, excited about the new moon. There was sunlight in the Core already, but having a moon really made it feel like home for some reason.

The next morning, I watched Gohan wake up and be almost immediately besieged by a huge crocodile, then a saber-toothed tiger, then a bird, crying and screaming the whole time. The sword wasn't much help for him, since waving it randomly didn't do much to ward off the hungry animals.

Finally, the bird grabbed him and took off, immediately getting into an ariel dogfight with a pterodactyl. The fight ended in a draw, but the bird accidentally dropped Gohan into a hole in the ground.

...

Gohan landed on a pile of sand in some strange place.

"This sure is a weird place, and those pictures on the wall... They look just like what I saw in my history book." He said, wandering aimlessly. He tripped on something and tumbled forward. He ended up right in front of some sort of robot.

"What is that thing? And what's it doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?"

Gohan knew a little about robots, so he pressed a button that looked like it might power the robot up.

"Who's there? Who took me out of standby mode?"

"Standby- whoa, it's talking!"

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"I'm-- uhh... My name is Gohan, sir!" The cave started shaking from Gohan's voice.

"Well, Gohan! Keep your voice down. What are you trying to do, bury us under tons of sand?"

"My name is Gohan."

"I heard you." The robot replied, annoyed.

"What zare you doing out here in this place?"

"That's none of your business. Just put me back in standby mode and get out of here."

"But there's no way out..." Gohan replied.

"Except for that trail behind me." The angry robot told him. Gohan thanked him and immediately leapt up to leave, but the robot stopped him. "Standby mode?"

Gohan obliged the robot, putting him back into standby mode before attempting to leave the cave. Unfortunately, the hole that the robot had shown him lead to the side of a cliff. He went back into the cave and cried to the robot, who either couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it. The robot simply urged Gohan to go back to the hole and climb, but Gohan couldn't.

Thinking that Gohan had taken its advice and forgotten to put it back into standby mode, the robot panicked.

"Gohan! come back! You forgot to put me back in standby mode!" Not getting an answer, the robot kept panicking, "He's gone. Now I'm stuck here forever, wide awake! I can already feel my power cells draining away..."

"Uhh... hello?" Gohan said, having not moved a muscle.

"You... you're still here?"

Gohan realized that the robot's eyes had been turned off. With his knowledge of robotics, turning the robot's eyes back on was a pretty simple thing, so he did.

The robot didn't want his eyes turned back on. He felt like it was just a waste of power, but he felt a little sympathy for Gohan when he realized how young he was. Unfortunately, the robot didn't have the power reserves to help Gohan without losing the rest of his power. The end result was the same. The robot told Gohan to leave, but Gohan told the robot that it wasn't possible, and reluctantly put him back into standby mode.

After a while in the cave, Gohan lost track of time. He woke the robot up multiple times after that.

"Mr. Robot! Mr. Robot! There's a scorpion!"

"This is a cave. Caves have lots of scary things, scorpions, snakes, et. cetera. Put me back into standby mode."

"Me again. Do you have anything to eat?"

"Bering a robot, I keep lots of food lying around. What do you think?"

"Hungry..."

"You can always make a nice snake or scorpion sandwich. Standby mode."

"BUT I'M STARVING." Seeing Gohan crying loudly again, the robot frantically thought something up.

"This time of year, there's sun shining in that corner of the cave. You might be able to find some vegetation." He told Gohan. Following his advice, Gohan picked a whole bowl of mushrooms.

Realizing that the robot was a Capsule Corp robot and had cooking functions, Gohan convinced the robot to cook them, but...

"They're not very good."

"Seriously?" The robot was annoyed.

"That's not what I meant! I just meant that they're not Mom's. They're even worse than something Hanna would cook. I just wanna get back home."

The robot felt sympathetic to Gohan's plight. Even if he managed to leave the cave, getting out of the endless desert that they were stuck in would be another problem. Then, he'd have to leave the island and cross the sea.

They ended up talking about how the robot ended up there. He had been studying the ruins when he accidentally caused a cave in. He'd been stuck there for over 50 years, having not met a single soul.

Gohan decided to do something for the robot. He knew that his sister wouldn't have hesitated to dig the robot out and carry him out of the cave by herself, and that was what Piccolo would want him to do, too.

Gohan started digging the robot's arm out, but as he dug, the cavern became unstable.

"Gohan! Stop! You're causing a cave-in!" The robot tried to warn him, but it was too late. A pillar started to fall, on Gohan, but the robot managed to catch it.

"Get out of here, I can't hold this thing forever!"

"But you're..."

"You must leave now! Use the path I showed you!"

"I can't leave you here! I can't!" Gohan frantically dug with his sword, but it was no use.

"You have to! If you don't, you'll be buried here forever. Get moving! I can take care of myself!"

Gohan just kept digging in futility.

"Gohan, please! This is your last chance. Climb over me to the pathway and leave this place! Quickly!"

Gohan finally realized that his digging was in vain. The robot was just stuck too deep. "Alright..." He climbed over the robot, just like the robot told him to.

"Now jump! Jump out as far as you can!" The robot urged Gohan. Gohan looked down as the robot kept urging him. He was scared. He remembered something that happened long ago...

"Gohan, come on. Just climb up here with me. The view is amazing." His sister had urged him long ago. 

"It's too high! I'm scared!"

"So?"

"So I can't do it!" he yelled up at her.

"How do you know if you don't try? Even if you get hurt, isn't that better than dealing with regret?"

His sister's words back then resounded in his mind now. Gohan jumped as high as he could, tapping into his inner potential. 

He sailed high, all the way to the other side of the cliff, just as the cave collapsed behind him.