___Chapter 16___

All the days passed the same, training during the day, Gohan and Vegeta collapsing in the training room, and Lute secretly helping his mother to fall asleep at night before his nightly stroll.

But starting the second day, Lute began to slowly attempt to enter the gravity room. Each day he got better and better, and by the sixth day, he discovered he could stand up. But, that was all he could do.

"Ut-oh! Great! I'm stuck! What an embarrassing way to be found out! My mom is going to kill me when she hears about this." Lute said quietly as he saw Gohan and Vegeta begin to stir.

---

Gohan woke up slowly, stretching his tired limbs as he looked at the ceiling.

"Oh god, what are you doing here!! Gohan! Look to your left!" yelled Vegeta.

Gohan did as asked, and laughed when he saw Lute standing there.

"Ok. I've been caught. Are you going to make me stay like this as punishment, or are you gonna turn that stupid machine off?" asked Lute in a snappish voice.

Gohan stopped laughing when he remembered the gravity. It was at 250x normal! And the kid could stand up!! Also, he was about 1/2 way through the room. That meant that Lute had somehow traveled to the middle of the training center. In that gravity.

Gohan let out a low whistle and said "Woah. You're a tough kid."

Lute glanced his eyes toward him and answered "My dad trained me."

"Me too! So, did he leave you out in the wilderness to start it?"

"No! Why would he do that?"

"How DID he train you then?"

"The general sorta stuff- fighting techniques, how to watch your opponent, and all sorts of other awesome things."

"Did anything ever happen to you?"

"Nah. My dad beat the crap out of me a couple times when I was practically asking for it, but nothing major ever happened. *grins* Except for once when I was four. I saw my dad flying and decided I could too, so I jumped off one of the cliffs near our house."

Gohan laughed out loud.

"Could of killed myself if I had decided to 'fly' from one of the bigger ones. Those go up a mile or so. But since I picked a midget hill, I fell about thirty feet and slammed right on my backside. *winces* It HURT like hell! My dad saw me fall, but he couldn't catch me before I hit. When he did get to me a few seconds later, he picked me up, started cursing me off, and flew me to my mom. She was ready to kill him before he explained that he wasn't the one who had done it to me. That was the only major thing that ever happened."

"Shit."

"Yeah. I've gotten much better at flying since. I'm no longer 'suicidal boy', as my dad called me for about three months after that."

They both started laughing, and then Gohan got back to their earlier topic, saying "Well, Piccolo left me out in the middle of nowhere when I was five years old."

"I'm only six, and he's been training me for four years!"

"Oh yeah? Hey Vegeta, turn the gravity off so our little stole-away can move!"

"Sure." said the sayian a he switched the machine off.

Instantly, Lute sat down. "What a relief! I was thinking I would never move again! IU was standing like that for nine hours, at least!" smiled Lute as the yawned and stretched his aching limbs.

"Now the bad part. Time to go tell your mom."

The young namek's antennae stood straight up on end as he shrieked out "Oh no! Anything but that! She'll kill me!"

"Sorry little guy. I have to tell her." Gohan said as he reached out his hand. Lute sighed, and gave Gohan his.

The two walked to Oboe's room, and Gohan knocked on the door. When noone answered, he knocked louder, and after that he noticed the door was unlocked, and he poked his head in.

"Oboe? Are you awake?" he called out. Still no answer. Then Gohan flipped the light on, walked to the side of the bed, and shook her shoulder. "Oboe! Hey! Wake up! OBOE!" he yelled in her face.

Oboe's sapphire eyes fluttered open, and she glanced to her right. She sighed, and sat up, rubbing her eyes and pushing the covers away from herself as she mumbled "What is it Gohan, why did you wake me up?"

"It's about Lute. He's..."

"What happened to Lute! Oh god! Don't tell me he's hurt! He's all I have left! What happened to him! TELL ME!!!!" Oboe shrieked hysterically as she leapt out of bed and jumped right in the boy's face.

Gohan clasped his hands to her shoulders and said "Chill out! Lute is fine! He's here!"

Oboe froze. She sat down and said with a voice as hard and cold as steel "What did you just say?"

Gohan sent a glance toward the door and Lute, head hung, stepped from behind it.

In the same stern voice, Oboe whispered "Lute, I told you not to come. Why did you come."

Lute was too ashamed to look his mother in the eyes. "I..." he choked on his words, and hesitated before saying "Sorry. I had to come. Don't you remember the battle?" Lute became more bold and looked his mother in the eyes as he continued to speak. "If I had been there to help in the first place, dad might still be alive. I feel like it's my fault. Now I'm going to fix it. I'm going to help bring him back! He's do the same for me!! Now I've gotta be strong, like him, and I'm not gonna sit around when he needs me!"

Oboe reached down and picked up her young son. "Lute, you are all I have left. I know you want to help, but I want to keep you safe." She hugged him tight, a small tear coming from her closed eye as she patted the back of his little head. He was soo much like her old friend it scared her sometimes...

Lute didn't speak. He just tied his arms around his anocha's neck and let her hug him. He understood.

She pulled back from the embrace, and added "There's another reason I wanted you to stay. I'm going to disguise myself as a normal namekian while we're there. I'd cause too much confusion if I went like this. If you come along, you might blow my cover."

Lute laughed out loud, and said in laughing disbelief "You're going to dress up as a GUY?"

"No, I'm going to transform! You DO know I can do that, don't you? *Lute shakes his head* Oh, you don't. Sorry. Anyway, because of these earrings, I can transform as long as I like."

"How did you get them? did dad give them to you?"

Oboe laughed, and shook her head no. "Your father's a great man, and as smart as hell when he wants to be, *laughs* but he'd never be able to figure out how to make these, sweetheart. A very special man gave them to me when I was just a tiny thing. You wouldn't know him, he died well before you were born."

"Who was he anyway? Please tell me."

Oboe smiled as she placed Lute back on the ground, and said "I knew him as Sanchiro.

Gohan couldn't help but yell out "Guru! How did you know Guru!"

Oboe stood up and answered "I knew Sanchiro about five centuries before you did, Gohan."

"WHAT!!? I'm...I...I don't get it. How can you be that old! You'd be as old as Kami!"

"I am as old as Kami! Actually, I'm about two minutes older."

Gohan looked about ready to faint at that point.

"Maybe I'll tell you the whole thing later. Right now we have more pressing issues at hand. Look out the window." said Oboe.

Gohan and Lute ventured out of the room, and after throwing her clothes on, Oboe got out just it time to see Gohan pressing his nose against the glass of the big window in the training room and yelling "It's Namek! Yeah! We're finally there!"

Vegeta, who had been training, walked over to the window and added "Looks just like the old one. Wonder if it's a coincidence or not."

"I remember this place, sure as hell I do. It looks EXACTLY the same." Oboe said as she stared wistfully out at her old home. It DID look just like the old one, and... "I even get the same FEELING from it." She let that thought sink into her head for a few seconds before continuing with "What's the gravity on anyway? I can feel a decent amount of pull on me."

Vegeta laughed. "Go look for yourself."

Oboe walked over to the gravitron and almost fell over when she read the level. "Wow. 250x earth's gravity. I have been training, haven't I?" Oboe then knocked the gravity down to 25x and asked Lute, who had been sitting in the hallway, if he wanted to come in now. He did, with ease.

"Wow mom, is that the planet Namek?" Lute said as he peeked up over the bottom rim of the window.

Oboe smiled at the comical site of Lute standing on his tip-toes to look in the window, and replied "Yes son. That is my home planet. It may not be the original, but it's still Nameksei."

The ship then started it's decent into atmosphere, and only more confusion flooded into Oboe's head as they slowly descended. She was recognizing landmasses... it looked EXACTLY the same..... to the slightest detail of her memory. She had to sit down and look away from the window after a while it was so shocking. Oboe pulled her legs up to her chest and closed her eyes, humming "Pillar of Davidson" as the time passed.

She didn't notice when the ship landed, but then the door opened and a rush of cool namekian air filled the capsule. Even THAT was the same... her eyes opened slowly to see that the others were not in the room with her.

"Gone to ready our supplies I guess." she whispered to herself as she stood up and leaned slightly out the door.