There is no greater feeling than knowing you are loved. The love you share with your family or a soul mate, different in their own respects, but are equally powerful nonetheless. To feel the gentle touch of your mother soft hands on your shoulders, or the rough skin of your father's knuckle scraping against your cheek affectionately, to gaze into your lover's eyes and feel the same passion, attraction and connection they display welling up in your heart. There is nothing worse than being forgotten. Your life, your experiences, the suffering and the accomplishments, everything you've stood for and everything that you've learned from tossed into the wind and painfully shoved into the dark recesses of people's minds, people want to forget you.

I have experienced both. They say it's better than to have love and lost, than never to have loved at all. I, for one, tend to disagree with that statement, because what I've lost has been the most painful experience of my life – my family, and worst of all, their love.

In the time period between the devastating tournaments held by Cell, and the titanic struggle between the Saiyan Warriors and Majin Buu, there was my story – a story of a hope and love, ultimately ending in betrayal. Everyone is familiar with the Cell tournaments and the Buu story arc, but what happened in the seven year gap between the two events that forever shaped the fate of the world? Who are the children of Son Goku, the mighty Saiyan warrior with a heart of gold, who doted so kindly upon his heirs with his fatherly love and firm, but gentle guidance? As far as everyone is concerned, there were only two. But I refuse to let myself be forgotten, not after everything I suffered, and especially not after what my mother, Chichi, had to sacrifice. You scoff at my claims, no doubt about it, but give me a chance to explain my story. If I am still to be disregarded, at least I will be remembered.

Every family has its black sheep and that role was mine within the Son family. Back in those days, nobody had even heard of a Son Goten, simply because he had yet to come into being. I was Son Goken, the second infant born to Chichi, daughter of the Ox King, and Son Goku, the last of the mighty Saiyan warriors. Father had passed away suddenly, sacrificing his own life to destroy the monstrous Cell, putting my older brother, Gohan, in the awkward role as the man of the family at such a young age.

Gohan accepted the role with honor and pride and promised himself, promised our Father that he would do his absolute best to protect our family and help raise me the way Father had raised him – as a descendant of the Saiyan people and one of earth's mighty protectors. The Saiyans were a lethal people, traveling to worlds with advanced technology, destroying the cultures of multiple worlds and transforming their once proud people into mere slaves for the Saiyan Empire. All of that changed with Father's arrival on earth. A freak accident had caused him to bump his head, destroying any innate notions to continue his people's cruel legacy, and was found, as a helpless infant, by a kind monk who selflessly took him under his wing.

Father had since taken whatever he learned from the great monk, Gohan, and instilled the values in his only son at the time, naming him after his guardian. But before Father could've done the same with me, he had perished, much to the sadness and grief to our Mother, Gohan, and our friends. Gohan trained me the way he had been trained - viciously, endlessly, and without rest.

I failed him miserably. I loved Gohan. He was my big brother but most importantly, he was an example to me. But I never once felt that same adoration coming from him. He was cold, relentless in our training, and he did not tolerate failure. Day after day, I exerted myself, struggling to earn some form of approval from Gohan, any form of it at all. But I never got it.

"You're not trying hard enough," was all he would say at the end of every exhausting day. "Keep at this rate and you will never become the man that Father was, Goken." The words were delivered simply and coldly, without emotion, though I could sense an immense disappointment coming from him. What was I doing wrong? I could fight, I could run, my endurance was near impeccable, considering I was a mere six year old child in those days.

Mother was proud of me though. Her large, gentle eyes told me so. Her brows would contort with concern for my well being while the corners of her small, pink lips would curl upwards ever so slightly in a sympathetic smile. She would run her long fingers through my hair affectionately and kiss me on the forehead, telling me, "You'll get it some day, my little warrior. Now just isn't the time."

My inability to transform into a Super Saiyan – that's what Mother was referring to. Gohan was around my age when he mastered the technique, transforming his black hair into pure gold, his eyes into an emerald green, as if the gods themselves had bestowed upon him such heavenly features. That inability of mine was a black mark on our family, and Gohan was especially ashamed of it. And that's just half of it. In addition to not being able to transform into a Super Saiyan warrior, there was another trend I had set that wasn't typical Saiyan infants.

The second born son of Saiyan men bore an uncanny resemblance to their fathers. I'd seen a picture of Father before, one that Mother kept by her nightstand. He was square-jawed and tight lipped, and though his expression in the picture was cheerful and carefree, there was something about his presence that commanded respect. His dark hair stood up in impressive spikes on his head. I never once found out how he'd kept it like that. Hairstyles aside I did not look like him. Father was assertive. I was submissive. He was strong, stood with his chin up and a straight back. My gaze rarely left the ground before my feet and my shoulders were usually rolled forward, especially around Gohan. He may not have been the spitting image of Father, but he had inherited his strength, determination, and most importantly, his powers. Where were mine? My face was round, smooth skin like a baby's bottom, innocent eyes and black hair that clung to my skull like there was no tomorrow. The only aspect of Father that I'd inherited was his skill. I picked up the martial arts lessons from Gohan pretty quickly, but that didn't seem to satisfy him. Perhaps to him, being a son of a Saiyan warrior meant that one could transform. I could do everything but that.

And then one day, I met the Firebird, a spiritual entity that had no physical form, just a surge of pure, suffocating fire-based energy. He was kind to me, assuring me that I wasn't the failure Gohan had deemed me to be. The Firebird convinced me that I was not a Saiyan and I didn't have to be just because Father was, and that fate had something far better in store for me. I was skeptical at first, believing his words to be too good to be true. It was the answer to every loser's prayer – to not only be a winner, but to be far greater than those who tormented you.

"Allow me to show you your true power," the Firebird had told me. I didn't know how he planned on showing me what I could do, but at the time, I was more curious than anything. So I'd let down my guard, and that notion had proved to be fatal not only to myself, but to everyone around me. The Firebird walked into me, his energy passing right through my flesh, into my bones, and into my mind. The power that surged through me was magnificent. Whatever Saiyan power I had inherited from father the Firebird now brought out. It was amazing. I was rendered speechless upon realizing just how much potential I carried within my small six-year-old frame.

That power was my own, true enough. Only now, it had combined with that of the Firebird and our two entities slowly merged into one without me realizing it. I was young, naïve, and worst of all, I was submissive. I allowed him, trusted him blindly to control my powers without realizing that he was powerful enough to overthrow my very conscience and control the body that had once been mine. And that's exactly what he did.

Shortly thereafter, the Firebird, housed in my body, using my powers, went on a murderous rampage, killing young and old, men and women, good and evil alike. Our powers had merged to the point where it was hard for me to decipher which was mine and which was his. All I knew was that his abilities, combined with mine, were nigh unstoppable, turning him – turning ME into a cold, killing machine. The more he employed our powers, the more mine became his. The intense spiritual energy that he consisted of overpowered my meager body, swallowing it whole, claiming it as his. It was through me that the Firebird gained a tangible form in the physical plane. And it was my body, my face, so familiar to those I loved and cared about that he claimed as his human form. And it was my face that betrayed the ones I loved.

My body had been consumed, but my mind remained, trapped in the recesses of the body that once belonged to me. It was then that the Firebird proved to me he wasn't only powerful in the physical sense, but mentally as well. His mind was like a drill, forcing its way painfully into mine. I resisted. It hurt, but I was firm my resolve. I never understood why he was so adamant about claiming my mind. He had everything I had to offer him at his fingertips. There was no point in absorbing my mind.

In a desperate attempt to save myself from the Firebird's efforts to claim the only sanctuary I had left, and to stop all the pain and suffering I'd gone through to stop him from achieving his goal, I shut my mind off. I surrendered it to death, begging for it to come. That was the only thing left for me to do, without any powers, without any abilities of my own. All I had remaining was my willpower. And I was going to use it to escape from the confinement. I refused to become a part of someone else, losing my own identity in the process. I had lost enough.

And that's when I met Father for the first time. He came to me as an apparition. He was in my mind. Father had accomplished what the Firebird had tried so hard to do. That capability displayed his staggering power and I was afraid, more afraid of my own father than the Firebird. How did he break so easily into my consciousness? What did he intend to do to me? But one look in his gentle eyes comforted me greatly. There was an inkling of familiarity in them, though I had not seen him before. But I knew I could trust him. I could feel it from the warm aura he emanated. I confessed everything to him – my sorrow, my guilt, the circumstances in the family that led me to my current position. He listened with compassion, but made no excuse for my mistakes. Instead, he offered forgiveness.

And that forgiveness would come in a penance, a sacrifice – one that only I could make. The Firebird had grown to immeasurable strength and had even proved more than Gohan could handle. The Firebird had decimated entire cities out of sheer greed and pleasure. He overpowered Gohan and the other Z Soldiers with ease and nearly killed them all. Father told me that I was the only one who could stop the Firebird by using all that I had left – my mind. I couldn't quite figure out what he meant at first. This whole time I had spent protecting myself, not wanting to become a part of such evil. I had been preserving the one and only weapon to use against the Firebird while he slowly overpowered the others. I didn't understand what Father meant until the moment for me to react came.

The Firebird had gathered all the energy we possessed into one focal point and was about to unleash it upon Gohan. Given our combined energies, the ball of concentrated chi would have vaporized the Gohan and the entire planet with it. The Firebird was about to launch it when I suddenly, much to his surprise and mine, came out hiding and fought a mental battle with him. Somehow, through sheer resolve, I stopped my arm – HIS arm from launching the chi energy. We struggled for control over our body, leaving us wide for a counterattack.

Gohan delivered the final, lethal blow. We were dead before I realized it. There was no more pain, no more suffering, just an overwhelming sense of freedom. As the cells of our body vaporized, my prison went along with it and the sweet air of freedom surrounded my senses. There was light pushing away at the darkness and in the center of that light stood Father, welcoming me into the eternal palace in the skies. It was there that I learned who I truly was, and how I came to be. Sensing the Firebird's arrival to earth, the gods had a crystal implanted into Mother, a crystal that contained my spirit, predetermined with a set of specific abilities and fated to save the world from the Firebird. But in order to do so, I would need to exist in the physical plane as well, in a physical body. Mother and Father and produced my body to house my spirit. Therefore, though I shared the same genetics as my parents, I inherited none of their abilities, none of their talents.

Goten was delivered into the world shortly after my death. The black sheep was dead. Mother cried. I had never seen her cry before. And for the first time, Gohan expressed sorrow and guilt. I watched them embrace each other in an emotional river of tears. I wanted so badly to be able to rest my head on Mother's shoulders and tell her I was alright, and that I loved her dearly, to feel her soft, protective touch. I wanted to tell Gohan that I always loved him too, that I always respected him, looked up to him, but a spirit could do none of those things. My sadness was deepened further when the two of them made a pact right then and there – to never speak of me again, for the memories my existence conjured were too painful. Their words stabbed me like a knife. Whoever decided that spirits could not feel physical pain was a blatant liar because I felt it then, a pain more intense than I had ever experienced before. How could my own family be doing this to me? Why had Mother displayed so much love to me, only to hide it in the end? Why where they so ashamed that I'd been born into their family, to the point where they tried to forget me all together?

They didn't speak my name from that point forward. Not even our closest friends, Uncle Vegeta or Auntie Bulma. They hid their memories of me from Mother while Gohan did the same. Their silence continues to this day, and will most likely follow them to their graves. But I will not stand for it. I will not allow myself, my life to be thrown into the wind. I will be remembered. I may have been a submissive child, but it was my sheer willpower that saved the world from the likes of the Firebird. And it will be through the same willpower that I will be remembered.

- Son Goken

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Author's Note: Son Goken's full story is told in my Dragon Ball Z fic titled "Prologue: The Firebird Arc."