Author's Note: Been a while folks. After a long time focusing on another one of my stories, a fan of this one reminded me that I still had a lot of work to do on this one. This chapter was supported by my and came out four days before there, like all my stories, so please consider supporting me on there if you want to support these fics and get early access to them!

For now, on to the tale.

The day after Panacea and I almost destroyed the training room, I was in dire straits. I woke up that morning and immediately started meditating, trying to find some way through the problem my dumb Saiyan brain had created.

As it turned out, bringing Leet and Uber in custody didn't mean I got an instant gravity room or Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Right now, they were being walked through the 'talk'. The 'join us or get arrested today' talk, which I wasn't privy to. Even with Body Read, my constantly improving ability to comprehend all body language, I wasn't an interrogator or negotiator. Just a big dumb punching machine. Which I liked, as jobs went. But it meant that Leet wasn't making me a gravity chamber. Dragon was looking through his old files to try and find something she could replicate, but as of now I had five days left. In five days, I'd need to get in a brawl with Eidolon.

Fuck.

In that time frame, I had to do everything I could to kill my body. I needed to destroy myself, then rebuild, over and over. But training wasn't going to be ENOUGH. I needed to find something better. That or hope Dragon would pull off a miracle soon.

If I'd been on tv, the moment I had that thought would have been when Dragon would call with good news. But I wasn't, so she didn't.

She actually called about eight minutes after I had that thought.

My laptop blinked online, and Dragon's familiar digital face appeared. "Gohan. I've got some great news for you."

"You found something!" I said excitedly.

"Yep," Dragon gave me a smile. "I don't know if you remember this, but you know the game Half-Life 2?"

"The gravity gun," I said immediately, eyes widening.

"That was quick," Dragon said with a smirk. "But yeah. Near the beginning of their career, Leet and Uber did a heist with a theme based around the game. So of course they made the most iconic weapon from it. I found some old data of the gun Leet made. I'm figuring out how to mimic the gravity device inside of it as we speak. Shouldn't be much longer."

"Thank you. I need it done fast, if I'm being honest," I said with a sigh. "I'm trying to figure out a new move, but having the extreme gravity training would really help."

"Do you really think that would work? I know your body works by a different set of rules, but increasing gravity on a person's body tends to lead to… well, very bad things. Like, heart attack bad," Dragon said.

"Not for me," I said with some smugness. "Higher gravity is candy to me."

In Dragon Ball Z, Goku took six days to get to Namek, training under first; fifty, then a hundred times Earth's gravity. At least, that was my memory of it.

"If I can get even a couple of days under one hundred times Earth's gravity," I mumbled to myself.

"A hundred times!?" Dragon said, shocked. "You'll be crapping out your own spine!"

"I promise, I won't crap out my own spine," I said with a sigh. "Dragon, I'm not being reckless. If I train under immense gravity, my body will break apart, then come back together. As opposed to, ya know, instant death from blood being pulled into my legs, bones breaking apart, and brain getting squeezed in my skull."

"You are way too confident," Dragon said with some concern in her voice. "I can get this done, but the most I can raise the gravity to is eighty. I might be able to make it stronger if Armsmaster can help me with the tech."

"If he can't, then eighty is fine," I said with a frown. "Any chance of a timeline?"

"Tomorrow."

"That soon?" I asked, shocked.

"What do you think, I can't make Leet's tech work for me?" Dragon scuffed. "If you didn't give yourself such a dumb timeline, I could make this stuff sing. Right now I'm doing what I can with the time I've got. So unless Armsmaster can figure something out, this is what I've got."

"It'll work," I sighed. "I think I'm going to take a day to meditate. But I'm going to do it somewhere a little less stuffy… Dragon, let me know when you're finished? Please?"

"Of course," Dragon said with a smile.

The blue digital woman disappeared from my screen. As she did, I opened my window and flew up and out, making sure to take my phone with me.

I got as high as I could, then crossed my legs to sit in a pose Piccolo-style. Then I got to work.

The technique I'd be working on was based on a couple of different things, but the foundation was Battery. Her powers had inspired me to try and make my own version of Kaioken. I mimicked the way she used it. Charging ki through my body, letting it flow through me. I focused it to follow similar paths to the ones Battery used, but then 'twisted' it. I had a much stronger base to start from, so the ki that flowed through me had to compensate. I winced in pain when the energy inside me began to build under my skin. I knew, if I opened my eyes, I'd be glowing pale white.

I didn't stop pushing myself. More power. Until my calm breath had become ragged. I felt like my skin was going to burst, my muscles and bones shaking under the power that was in my body. I slowly uncrossed my legs, then opened my eyes.

I began to kick and punch as fast as I could, using a kata I'd created for flying combat. For a moment, I felt excitement. I was faster! My punches sent small shockwaves across the sky, my kicks split the air!

Then the ki inside me dissipated.

"FUCK!" my cry split the air.

Damnit. It hadn't worked! I mean, it had, but it was so inefficient. Battery could hold that power for much longer. And Goku had been able to use lower levels of Kaioken for even longer than that, as far as I could remember. Granted, both were only slightly similar in that they were powering up with those abilities, but it was what I had to work with.

Had to do better. There was a hooded bastard waiting for me soon...

I spent the next few hours floating in the air over the rig before finally stopping to eat. Then it was back to training.

The next day, Hannah and I walked side by side through the halls of the Rig.

"You really spent all day on one technique?" Hannah asked me, her American flag scarf down so that I could see her face.

"And I'll probably spend most of today on it too," I admitted freely. "There's potential in this technique. If I can find a way to multiply my power, I can kick a whole lot of ass."

"Huh," she gave me an odd look.

"What, you've never trained for days to get one move right?" I asked with a scoff.

She thought about that. "That's a good point actually. I guess that's a lot like when I want to learn how to use a new gun. Or at least, it was. I don't have a lot more to learn about guns."

"That's fair," I admitted. That was the nice thing about guns. There was a skill to learning how to use them, sure, but it wasn't like throwing a punch. A child could pull a trigger and throw a punch, but only one of those would kill you coming from a child. Ease of use is king in war. It's why soldiers went from fists, to rocks, to knives, to guns, then nuclear bombs over millennia. Like every other advancement in humanity, it all came down to convenience.

"Are you doing that thing where you trail off mentally to think about random tangents again?" Hannah asked, cutting off my thoughts.

"...No?"

"You are!" Hannah punched me in the shoulder playfully. "You know how rude that is? Just ignoring me mid-conversation."

"I never ignore you," I gave her a smile. "You always stand out to me."

We entered Armsmaster's laboratory, finding the Batman-esque superhero standing in front of-

"OH MY GOD," I said in absolute awe, staring at the cube-like room currently being worked on in front of us.

Armsmaster looked back at me. He was wearing nothing but a t-shirt and some jeans, covered in fluids of various types. He had dark circles under his eyes, his hair and beard were a mess, and he had small bruises on his arms. He also had just a hint of a smile on his face, though that passed when he saw Hannah and I walk in.

"You're early," he said gruffly.

"Yeah, sorry," I said reflexively, walking around the structure in the center of the room. It was about four feet tall and three feet wide on all sides. "This doesn't look like a gravity room."

"It isn't. It's a gravity manipulator," Armsmaster said. "Dragon and I decided that building a room was unfeasible in the time we had. Not without risking serious damage to the Earth. We're dealing with gravity, one of the fundamental forces… All to make you a toy."

The last was said almost bitterly. I let it slide off my back. "Come on, like you haven't been thinking of a thousand ways to use this for new weaponry and gear. I bet the second you found out about this you were trying to figure out how to make yourself fly."

Armsmaster grunted, while Hannah chuckled. "The point is, this will be able to increase gravity in a selected space without causing damage to an area outside that space. Leet's design wasn't very efficient but," for a moment he looked like he was swallowing a lemon. "His 'gravity gun' worked. It wasn't just some electro-magnet or an air cannon. It worked."

"Yeah well, that's Leet's genius. Make anything. Once."

"I'll be finished with this soon," Armsmaster took something out of the big metal cube of tubes, buttons, and wires, manipulated it, then placed it back inside with a loud 'click' sound. I went to his side. "It'll need a test drive of course. Dragon's run as many simulations as she could, but the last thing I want is to turn it on and find ourselves turning someone into paste," he scowled. "Or create a black hole."

"That's a risk!?" Hannah said in shock.

"Not at all. We've run through every possible iteration of the device, making sure we could actually make black holes before figuring out how to stop it. We can't, by the way. It's hard enough increasing gravity without getting to immense levels necessary for a black hole," he explained. "That said, keeping the effect contained so that it'll only affect a specific area took thousands of calculations… Why are you looking at me like that?"

Armsmaster asked me that, since I was staring at him.

"I think this is the longest you've ever talked to me with a smile on your face," I said immediately.

Hannah was grinning, while Armsmaster blinked at me. She shook her head. "You've been having fun. Working with Dragon on this."

"It's not about having fun," he grumbled.

"Nah, but it's a nice side effect, right?" I pointed out to him.

He grunted again, continuing to tinker without saying anything else to us, which might as well have been a screaming admission.

"Dragon made her prototype in Canada after we were done with the calculations. She's testing now," he pointed at a monitor, showing a room with a similar device. There were also remains of rubber balloons, popped basketballs, and crushed fruit everywhere on the floor. "Making sure of how precise she can make the device.

On the screen, a pig carcass was moved into the center of the room by a large robotic arm. It moved away, leaving that dead pig. Then the machine in the center activated. And slowly, the pig was crushed under it's own weight, bones snapping through flesh. Hannah swallowed.

"Well… that's unnerving."

Yeah. And exciting. I hid my eagerness.

Near the end of that day, Amy and I watched from outside the training room as Armsmaster and Kid Win installed the gravity manipulator into the training room. It was being set into a wall near the doorway, so that if someone inside ended up injured, a person could turn it off with having to walk through a hundred times gravity to do it. Granted, it had voice command as well as an alarm for if people were actually injured within, but we were taking all the precautions we could.

"Here," Kid Win pointed at a section of the gravity manipulator. Armsmaster easily placed a section inside.

Chris had really come into his own lately. Since discovering his specialty was modular devices instead of big guns, his contributions to Armsmaster and Dragon's tech had become more and more advanced. I couldn't wait to see what sort of tech he'd be making next. Some sort of power armor, apparently, though he was still working out the bugs.

It was just us four for now because everyone else was on patrol. No one was causing trouble in the city tonight, but it was important to have a presence out there.

Victoria had wanted to stay to try out the new gravity, but then Gallant said he was going on patrol, and the hormonal teens went off together.

"You okay?" I asked Amy. My tiny protege hesitated before answering.

"Yeah. It's getting easier… I don't feel the influence of her aura anymore, you know?"

It was easy for a dummy like me to forget the little nuances of interaction, but even I knew Amy had a crush on her sister. A crush that came from a combination of Victoria's natural beauty, constant kindness to Amy, and her aura powers. In her allies, her aura inspired awe and admiration. For Amy, a young teen who had no one else in her life, that combination led to a very painful attraction.

Lately, she'd managed to get some control over it. Access to ki gave her the ability to guard against damage, as well as certain effects. Including Victoria's aura.

It didn't mean she had no feelings for her adoptive sister. But it helped.

"Gallant is good to her. I just-" she stopped herself, bending her head down so she was partially hidden in her hoodie.

"It's fine to feel envious, Pan-Pan," I placed a hand on her head. "You're allowed to have dark thoughts. Just don't let them turn you to the dark side."

"I know," she pushed my hand off her head. "I stopped suppressing stuff," I gave her a little look. "I mean… I'm trying to."

"Fair enough," I said with a smile. Teenagers have enough problems without superpowers. Those tend to turn little emotions that are part of growing up into nightmare scenarios. But Amy was getting better. She was a good kid.

"Hey," Armsmaster drew my attention. "It's ready."

"Good," Amy and I turned to see Piggot standing there, a group of PRT soldiers around her. "I want to see it in action."

"Director?" Kid Win said, a surprised look on his face. "I've never seen you out of your office."

"You think I live there?" Kid Win sputtered in response, only for Piggot to wave a hand dismissively. "I wanted to get a look at this for myself. If you get this right, the technology would be revolutionary. Beyond training purposes."

That was saying things lightly. Manipulating gravity is one of the dreams of sci-fi for a reason.

"I'd suggest standing back," Armsmaster said, walking over to join us. "Right now."

One of the PRT soldiers looked like he was about to protest.

"I'm starting with five times Earth's gravity. You'll be crushed in your suits if you don't stand outside."

Everyone very quickly got back at that. Armsmaster waited until we were out of the way, then turned to look at the training room. "Let's start it up. Dragon, are you watching?"

"I am," the disembodied voice of the secret AI said through Armsmaster's suit. "Ready for testing."

Armsmaster nodded and raised his arm up, pressing a couple of buttons on a wrist-mounted computer. Then… nothing happened.

"Did it work?" I asked, curious.

"Try it out," Armsmaster waved at me. "It should be at five times."

With some trepidation, I started walking forward until I was just outside the room. Then I walked in.

And just like that, I had to stop, shocked. Whoa. That felt interesting. Like I suddenly had a big heavy blanket on top of me, pulling me down. I looked back at Armsmaster. "It feels… heavy."

"Obviously," he scoffed. He didn't know what I really meant. I felt like a normal human again, just a bit. Ten times Earth's gravity was a Saiyan's normal habitat after all. Still, five times felt intense after so long in normal gravity

"Can I try?" Amy asked.

Everyone looked at her, askance. She rolled her eyes. "I'm super-strong now too. I can handle it."

"Maybe lower it a bit first-" Piggot was about to say.

Then Amy walked in. And stumbled, almost falling to her knees. She waved me off before I could catch her. "I'm fine! Jus-Just give me a second!"

I stared as she slowly rose to her full height. " God. That was surprising," she said, blinking at me. "It's not bad. Just… more."

"Well, we're going up a bit more. Let me know when you can't handle it," Armsmaster said to us both.

"And no bravado!" Piggot shouted. "The last thing we need is you idiots breaking your spines to show off!"

Amy and I nodded. Armsmaster pressed at his console. "It'll start going up slowly. Give it a minute."

I could see a number on the digital counter of the gravity manipulator. 10. 11. 15. Up and up, the number climbed. And Amy stared at it, her eyes widening and widening. "I'm this strong!?"

"Ki is awesome like that," I said with a grin. As the number continued to climb, I felt my bones and muscles sing. Weight, true weight, was on the horizon. I wanted to scream for joy.

At ten times, Amy winced and quickly began to walk out. She came to a stop outside and kneeled over. "God. That was… insane."

I was sweating now just from standing there. But I couldn't let this stop. Armsmaster kept going higher and higher up the dial. For a moment, just one, I almost told him to stop. We'd gotten to 15 times. I was panting.

Then I remembered. Goku had gotten to the insane heights he'd gotten too against Frieza by complete accident. The gravity machine in his machine had glitched, going from fifty to a hundred times in a single instant, forcing him to adjust. I was going up against Eidolon. I couldn't make any progress by taking half-efforts! I needed to go beyond my limits.

So the number kept climbing. And I stood there, focusing myself.

20 times Earth's gravity was where I decided to end it. "Okay, we're good!"

Armsmaster pressed a few buttons on his wrist again, stopping the climb.

I slowly raised my arms. God. That was…

"This is going to work," I said slowly, looking up at Piggot. "I can raise it every day and adjust."

"You really think this will let you be able to take on Eidolon in only a few days?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," I grinned. "Just watch me!"

Then I got down and started doing push-ups. "Gonna need a lot more food than usual though."

"...Joy," she said with a sigh, Amy chuckling a bit.

"I'll leave you to it," Armsmaster said. "I have a new project to work on."

I ignored them leaving. Up until I saw Amy still there. She was watching me work with a nervous look on her face. "I'll be fine."

"I know… I just wish I could train too," she said with a sigh.

"You can," I looked over at the manipulator while continuing to do push-ups. "But not right now. I need to put everything I've got into this. When I'm done though, we'll work on your own training? Cool?"

"...Cool," Amy said with a smile.

I gave her a smile back, then continued my workout. As I did, I began moving my ki through my body again. I needed to get stronger after all. And the technique I had in mind, in combo with this raised gravity, had to help.

Eidolon rested in the horizon.