The gift
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Part 2
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The little dragon, Gohan's playmate, was hungry again and couldn't understand why his friend would rather occupy himself with a pile of boring books than play with him. Of course, this could have something to do with the female person who, at the beginning, had moaned every time he saw him, as if he were a monster ... even today she was standing behind his friend again, never taking her eyes off him for a moment. The older male, who had a similar charisma to his friend and to whom he owed the cozy cave, was on the way and so the little dragon was terribly bored. A sugar beet field was just the thing to let off steam and find some tasty bites at the same time. With its claws the little dragon happily rummaged turnip after turnip out of the earth and nibbled with relish.
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Suddenly he felt that he was no longer alone and looked up.An unfamiliar person who gave off an aura that made his scales stand on end hung right over his head. Distraught, the dragon dropped the turnip and squeaked fearfully.
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"Don't worry, little one, I don't want much from you," Ramagi laughed hoarsely and floated down until he could look directly into the dragon's wide eyes. "You're just right for me, I just need some information." His right hand jerked out and placed itself between the dragon's eyes. The dragon shuddered, but didn't back away. "That's good ..." Ramagi closed his yellow eyes and concentrated. It was not easy to find the information he was looking for in the jumble of memories, but after a while he found it. It was only a fleeting moment, a dialogue between ChiChi and Gokou, which the dragon had overheard but of course not understood.
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"Do you think it's really good that our son is with Piccolo so much?"<br />
"Why not, the two seem to really like each other and Piccolo is a good teacher"
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"Still, he's still the devil, forgot? The same monster that killed your friends, laid down countless cities in ruins and almost killed you too. He wanted to destroy the world and now you seem to trust him blindly."
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"Not blind, just because my feeling tells me he's not the same anymore."
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"Phhh! It's good that Gohan doesn't know exactly what kind of monster Piccolo used to be."
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Ramagi nodded satisfied. It was worth activating the auric shield and following the yellow cloud this far.
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He wasn't wrong. The Namek had a dark side, just as he expected from any of his races.
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A few wrinkles formed on his smooth, pale forehead. The black-haired Earthling was not mistaken, the malice that ought to be oozing from every pore of the Namek seemed tamed, and it was obviously the Earthling's boy to blame.His naive trust in the chief devil (a very fitting name as Ramagi found) seemed to have weakened his dark side.
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"Hmm ..." muttered Ramagi, "it's not that bad." Piccolo is sure to care for little Earthling and his affection. It should be possible .....
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With a cold grin, Ramagi released the dragon from its spell and shot into the sky. He knew where to look ...
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Dragon Ball number two had chosen a rather uncomfortable hiding place, as Piccolo found. The Arctic Ocean of the North Pole was really no place for a beach holiday. Ironically, in the lowest area of the underwater part of an iceberg, in a rather lightless depth it has to be stuck. Piccolo did not dare to take the radar underwater, which meant that he could only use his eyes for precise localization. Piccolo dipped a ball of energy as a light source in one hand deep and deeper into the cold darkness.<br />
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Basically he was still lucky, the Dragon Ball was so stuck in the ice that it could be seen from the outside, impossible to imagine if it had been somewhere in the middle. Piccolo, whose antennae were slowly freezing off and running out of air, dosed his strength very carefully before striking the iceberg with his fist and dividing it. The Dragon Ball came free. Before the depths of the sea could swallow the sphere with the five stars, Piccolo's hand closed around it. The sea was seething as Piccolo unleashed his strength to catapult himself into the air like a torpedo. Gasping for air, he hovered over the cracked iceberg in the frosty morning light with a dripping coat.
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"Done!" he muttered in relief, flew back to wherever he'd left the sack and radar, and slipped his loot to the first Dragon Ball.
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He hit the radar once, twice before he found out that if the radar and his own knowledge of the topography of the world were to be trusted, his next route was straight to the southeast, into the middle of the desert.<br />
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"Well at least my cloak will dry quickly there ..." he muttered to himself, shouldered the sack, pocketed the radar and flew south.
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"Who are you and what do you want here?" Snapped the archivist of the largest television station on the planet at the uninvited visitor, who naturally retrieved the directory from his computer.
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"I'm just looking for a few interesting articles from the time when Piccolo wanted to razor everything to the ground," said the pale stranger calmly, while his narrow eyes darted over the characters on the screen.
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"But ... but we cannot give everyone access to our archive," stuttered the gray-haired archivist. "You must already have the boss's approval ..."
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For a moment the intruder turned to him and the narrow, cold eyes bored into the archivist's. The old man shuddered and the mug of hot coffee spilled over in his trembling hand.But only when the cold gaze returned to the screen did the archivist's freeze break and he perceived the pain. Nevertheless, he did not dare to turn his back on the stranger and to cool his near-scalding, just at the thought of turning his back on this creature, the fear clenched into a heavy lump in his stomach and almost blew his breath away.
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"A lot ... maybe I can help," he offered in a trembling voice. "I've been here in the archive for over twenty years, my memory is almost better than the computer."
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The cold gaze fixed him again, but this time with neutral interest.
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"If there is ... so where are the videotapes of Piccolo's actions?"
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The archivist swallowed and thought feverishly. Fortunately for him, his memory didn't fail him. "They should be over here ..." He walked along the shelves until he stopped in front of one of the hundreds of narrow drawers.He opened it with his uninjured hand and took out three of the thirty or so capsules that were neatly lined up there, which he placed on the desk in front of the strangers.
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Without a word, the stranger took the capsules and activated them. There were ten videotapes in each capsule.
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"These are recordings of the daily reports of the relevant time," the archivist explained hastily. "In addition to Piccolo's activities, other things were of course also reported ..."
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"Is there a device here where you can play these things and cut them together?" Asked the pale intruder.
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"Sure, that's what people like to do for annual reviews or nostalgia programs. Two doors down is a small studio, unfortunately I don't have a key ..."
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"That's the smallest problem. Can you handle the devices there?"
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The archivist nodded and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.<br />
The intruder rose silently and walked to the door. At his gesture, the ten video tapes and the two unopened capsules floated after him. The archivist shook off his stupor and followed with soft knees.
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At the bottom of his heart he was firmly convinced that his life would be over one way or another today ...
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Piccolo's coat had long since dried again and was fluttering in the oven wind of the Lost Desert. Hovering over one of the countless sand dunes, Piccolo shielded the radar from the sun in order to be able to read the display better. No question about it, the green glowing point was right below him.
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With a suppressed sigh, Piccolo searched the dune for a clue as to where the Dragon Ball might be. In vain, of course.
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Piccolo floated higher until he spotted a rock protruding from one of the dunes at a safe distance.There he left the sack with the two dragon balls and the radar and went back to the dune in question.
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With a deep breath he carefully gathered his strength and directed it against the desert sand. As expected, the dune rose as a whole into the air. The veins on Piccolo's forehead swelled up and he began to sweat profusely. Controlling every single grain of sand was far more exhausting than throwing a massive stone ten times its size into the air. When the dune finally hovered a good fifteen meters above its former location, Piccolo carefully took his strength back from the dune centimeter by centimeter, whereupon the part in question trickled to the ground. When about three-quarters of the dune had settled down again, Piccolo finally saw an orange spot in the falling mass of sand that shimmered in the sun. In a flash he shot and grabbed. His bad luck was that he let go of the rest of the dune at the same time.He managed to get hold of the ball, but then the sand fell on him and buried him under itself.
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"So ChiChi, what goes too far goes too far," said the beef devil resolutely and carefully put down the huge box. "Gohan is here to celebrate his birthday, and since you will only be staying a few days anyway, you don't have to drag Gohan's entire library and study computer with