Chapter 2
Data Recovery
A minute after impact, the dust started to settle, Gohan and Videl started to come to their senses. Gohan looked down at her and realized that his hands were cupping her chest. When Gohan didn't move right away Videl spoke up.
"You may have just saved my life but that doesn't mean you can feel me up."
"Sorry," was all Gohan could say, quickly trying to get up. However, from the position they were in, the only way to do that was for him to push against her.
For a moment, he was caught with the realization of where his hand had just been and was about to experience one of those normal reactions boys his age get, when someone called out to them.
"Are you two okay?" It was Erase's worried voice calling.
Forgetting his previous train of thought, Gohan called back to everyone else that they were okay. He then turned around to see what had crashed. The object had left a long scrape in the ground leading up to a large crater. Even Gohan would have been hurt if he was hit by it.
From the large amount of twisted metal, it was hard to tell what it used to be, but Gohan guessed that it was a satellite of some sort. 'It's probably an old satellite that lost control and fell out of the sky. But wouldn't someone have noticed if there satellite was going to crash?' he thought to himself.
The dust had cleared and the whole class was coming closer to see what it was. Speculations started to fly around. Some thought it was an alien ship or probe; others thought it was some unmanned test plane. Gohan didn't think much about it until someone called out.
"Hey, look at that side,there's some kind of logo." The class started to shuffle around so everyone could get a look at the logo, but no one recognized it. Gohan decided to take a look but figured that if none of his classmates knew the logo, there was no way he would.
He looked at it anyways and there was a visible sign of shock on his face. Gohan recognized the logo with its red background and two black R's on it; the Red Ribbon Army. With all the excitement and speculation flying around, only Videl caught the look on Gohan's face.
Walking up to him, she asked, "Do you recognize that logo?" in a sort of interrogative way; but it also seemed like she was trying to talk calmly, as though suspecting that Gohan was in shock.
Gohan stumbled for a moment before saying 'No,' very flatly. Videl could tell he was lying, but decided to drop it. With a crash like this, the police would be here soon and she could just ask them: being the daughter of the world's strongest fighter had its advantages.
"Okay, class," the teacher said, to get the students' attention. "Let's all step back from it until the police get here and figure out what it is. I want everyone to head back in and get changed."
Gohan was quick to get changed and then slipped away from the class to call Bulma: she had to know about this. When he thought he was in a safe location, away from the other students, he pulled out his cell.
"Hello, Bulma speaking."
"Hi Bulma, its Gohan."
"Gohan, what's up? How's the first day of school going? Have you gotten yourself a girlfriend yet?"
"I don't have time for this right now. You need to get a recovery team over to my school right now: a satellite just crashed in the back field."
"If it's just a satellite, why should I send a team? I would have been informed if it was one of ours."
"I know it's not one of Capsule Corps,' but it has the Red Ribbon army logo on it."
At that, Bulma was silent for a moment. She remembered all the problems caused by Dr. Gero and his androids, not to mention Cell.
"Don't worry, a team will be there right away and I will head it up personally."
"Thanks Bulma. Whenever I see that symbol I get worried."
"I feel the same way, see you soon."
Hanging up, Gohan felt better knowing that Bulma was taking care of things. If anyone could figure out what that thing was doing at his school, she could.
As Gohan turned to head back to his class, Videl stepped out from around a corner.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I had to call my mom quickly, it's my first day and if she sees this on the news before I tell her about it she will freak out and I don't want her moving us back to the mountains and home school again." Gohan stopped his long-winded and drawn-out lie with a look from Videl that said, "Okay, I get it –enough."
The two headed back to where the rest of the class was gathering in the gym. As Videl and Gohan walked in, the class broke out in cheers. One of the students had seen Gohan push Videl out of the way just before the satellite passed over them.
"If Gohan hadn't pushed Videl out of the way, they both would have been hit by it," one student confirmed.
"Yeah, Gohan is a hero!" another student yelled out as the class resumed its hollering and cheering.
Just as the cheers were calming down, Mr. Richards walked into the gym, followed by Mr. Plunder. The two educators quickly got the students' attention and began to address the class.
"Hello, boys and girls. Mr. Richards has just informed me of what happened. The police have been notified and are sending over a team to determine what that object is. Since this is your last class of the day, you will be allowed to leave early as I'm sure you have all been a little shaken by this event."
This announcement caused a few cheers and every face now sported a huge smile, except for Videl and Sharpener's. "One last thing before I let you go," Mr. Plunder said, silencing the students who were eager to leave."There will be an assembly tomorrow to announce to the whole school what has happened. That's all - you are free to go."
The students began filling towards the gym exit when the doors flow open, and in walked a blue-haired woman. Most of the students had seen pictures of the world's richest woman, but few thought that they would ever see her in person.
"Mr. Plunder, the office told me I could find you here," Bulma said, walking up to the man.
"Yes, Mrs. Briefs, how can I help you?" the principle replied, very surprised to have such a famous person addressing him.
"My company was tracking the satellite that recently crashed into your school's playing field. So far no company has claimed the spacecraft, and as such, Capsule Corp will be collecting it to determine its origin. The local police have been informed and a recovery crew will be here shortly to clean up the mess," Bulma finished, and stood there waiting for the principle to say something; but he was left speechless by this unprecedented string of events.
After a moment for his brain to process what was just said, Mr. Plunder simply replied, "Very well."
Satisfied with this answer, Bulma turned around and began to head to the door when she stopped and called over to the students who had been standing there eagerly listening to the exchange - if you could call it an exchange.
"I need to ask: did anyone see anything before the satellite crashed?"
"If anyone saw something it would have been Gohan or Videl, since they were almost hit by it," a student called out.
"Would Gohan and Videl please follow me? I would like to get statements from you while things are still fresh in your heads."
Without further talk, the student began filling out of the school while Gohan and Videl followed Bulma back out to the field where the satellite landed.
Standing next to the crater created by the impact, Bulma began to ask questions. "Videl, is it?" Bulma started. "What did you see?"
"Well I didn't see anything. I was busy telling Gohan off for not trying his best during the soccer game when all of a sudden he throws himself at me and we both hit the ground a second before that thing passed over us," Videl said, trying to be as detailed as possible, knowing how important an accurate description is when one is trying to piece things together.
"And you, Gohan." This time she said it with a bit of familiarity that Videl caught, raising questions in her mind after hearing part of Gohan's phone conversation earlier.
"Well, all I can remember is that I heard a shout and there was the satellite flying at us. I just tried to push Videl out of the way and then it crashed."
"Thank you for your time. My team appears to be arriving, so I will let you two get on your way." At this, a couple of large trucks began pulling up on to the field next to where they were standing.
"Can I get your last names so I can contact you again if we have more questions?"
"Sure, I'm Videl Satan."
"So you're the daughter of Hurcule. I've heard a lot about your own fighting career in the paper this last year, since you won the junior division at the last world martial arts tournament. I'm sad to say I didn't make it to the last tournament; however, the fights in the last couple years have been very boring compared to the ones years ago."
"Well, thank you. I'm always glad to meet a supporter," Videl said, trying to sound polite, but there was part of her that wanted to learn more about the older tournaments, and she had to ask a question."Which tournaments did you mean when you said the 'ones from years ago?'"
"I mean the twenty-second and twenty-third. Back when they had the preliminary rounds, where the finalists were decided by skill and not overall strength, unlike how they are decided now, with a punching machine. I remember when Jackie Chun won in the twenty first tournament; that was an amazing fight."
Videl's eyes lit up, wishing that she could have seen it for herself. She always wanted to find out more about the old fights, but the video equipment of the time was bad and most of the final fights were never recorded due to technical difficulties.
"I could talk about those fights all day, but I have to get to work and clean up this mess. So, what's your name?" indicating Gohan. Back when Gohan started assisting Bulma, he was happy to do it, but he didn't want it made public knowledge. He was worried that the media would start looking into his family.
"Gohan Son" Gohan replied glad that Bulma was keeping up the appearance that they didn't know each other. "Thank you both. Now if I could ask you to clear the area, so we can get this mess taken care of."
Without another word the two students left the field and made their way to their lockers. Along the way, Videl stopped for a moment and got Gohan's attention.
"Gohan," Videl said in a very sweet voice which reminded him of when his mother was about to punish him for doing something. "I'm grateful for you saving my life, BUT if you ever tell anyone about where your hands ended up you will need someone to save your life. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes," was all Gohan could say in response. The rest of the walk to their lockers was held in silence as both thought over the events that had just transpired. Videl was thinking about the old martial arts tournaments and how cool it would have been to see them. Gohan, on the other hand, was thinking about where his hands had been. He thought about how Videl had felt, how soft yet firm they were. Gohan was glad that their lockers weren't too far away, because his current train of thought was creating a noticeable problem that he didn't want anyone to see.
"Have a good day," Gohan said as he quickly shoved something in his locker and started moving away.
"Ok, see you tomorrow." With that, the two split off and Gohan was free to be on his own until he cooled down a little.
That evening, Videl sat in her room, going over the events of the day. She was glad to be alive, but there was something nagging at her. She remembered overhearing Gohan's phone call - not that she was trying to listen in, but he was talking about some army and how he was worried about it. There was also the person's name he had said: Bulma.
With sudden realization, Videl shot up and began to pace around as she thought over some of the smaller details. On the phone, Gohan had said something about an arm. Then later he called the person named Bulma. The next thing that happens is Bulma Briefs, the smartest person in the world, who comes walking in, taking over the whole situation. Later when she was talking with Bulma, the way she had asked Gohan the question sounded almost like they knew each other.
"It can't be possible," Videl started to say out loud. "Gohan can't know Bulma. How could a guy who only just moved into a city know the richest person in the world?"
Videl almost threw herself down on her bed as reality started to sink in. Gohan must have called Bulma and asked her to take care of the crash. Thinking through this strange revelation, Videl knew there was still a piece missing.
"Even if Gohan knows Bulma, why would she drop everything and come at his call? It was just a satellite that crashed into our school field. It can't be…" Videl remembered the logo on the side of the object.
This had her back on her feet, pacing around the room again. She remembered what the logo looked like: the two R's on a red back ground; also, Gohan had said something about an army. Taking this information Videl went to her computer and tried a search with what she knew.
She started by looking up armies, but there were so many over the years that it was hopeless to look through them all. She tried narrowing things down by searching for "RR Army." There were still a lot of useless things popping up, but she kept looking for any clue that would lead her in the right direction.
After a few pages that talked about different units in some foreign countries, she found something promising. It was the Red Ribbon Army. Clicking on the link she found herself staring at the logo that had been on the satellite.
Reading through the information helped some more things make sense to her. The Red Ribbon army had started as a weapons developer, but was quickly over shined by Capsule Corp. Over time the army aimed for world domination.
That explained why Capsule Corp would be interested in getting to the satellite, Videl thought. She found it very interesting reading all the rumors about what he Army did. Some of the rumors sounded believable, like how large and extensive it was, but she could not believe the rumor about how it ended. There is no way that one person, a kid no less, could charge through the army and destroy them all on their own.
With her search over, she was content with what she knew. "Okay, so Gohan knows Bulma and knows about the history of the Red Ribbon Army," Videl stated, thinking out loud again. "So when he saw the logo on the Satellite, he called Bulma because he knew it would be important to her. I can live with this; but Gohan had a direct line with Bulma. How well does he know her to be able to reach her like that?"
Satisfied with what she knew at the moment, she was able to drop the subject, but had promised herself to talk to Gohan about all this the next chance she got. While she was relaxing in her computer chair, a knock sounded on her door, and her mother walked in without waiting for a reply.
"Honey, your dad is waiting for you in the gym," Videl's mother said.
"Thanks mom, I'll be there in a minute."
"It's so good of your father to take time to train you every day despite his busy schedule. Well, I'll call you two when dinner is ready."
With that, Videl's mom quickly left the room with a motherly smile on, still thinking about how nice it was to see Hurcule bonding with his daughter. Videl, however, was staring to catch up to her father in terms of skill and ability, and was beginning to see her father as more of a big mouth, always going on about his victory over Cell. Videl wanted to believe her dad, but looking at the level she was at and how strong she was compared to her father, she had some doubts about his clams.
She stared walking through their mansion of a house, pushing the doubt out of her mind. Who else could have beaten Cell - those weird fighters that used those light tricks? However, she did think it would be cool to fly.
It took Gohan a couple of hours of flying to get himself back under control. The events of the day left him with too much built-up energy. As soon as he left the school, he headed for the train station, where he flew into the sky, changing back to his Super Saiyan form as he went. When he reached a high altitude, much higher than any plane would fly, he pushed himself to the next level of Super Saiyan.
Although he could stay at the first level indefinitely, Super Saiyan Two took a lot out of him. After an hour in that level, Gohan was too exhausted to maintain it and dropped down to level one. In this form, he spent some more time flying around.
He decided that he may as well take a look around Satan City so he would at least know where things were if he was talking to people at school.
His school was out on the edge of the city, and had a bit of a rural feel to it, but only a couple blocks away the buildings started to get taller and the roads busier. Gohan noted that the city was a fairly clean place; no doubt because Hurcule lived here, and the city wanted to look its best for tourists. Even from the sky, Gohan could see some nice-looking shops and cafes down in the main tourist area.
He enjoyed his little bit of sightseeing, until off in the distance he heard the sound of sirens. Flying towards the source, Gohan soon discovered a car chase in progress. The car running from the cops was swerving all over the road and was headed for a fairly populated area. The police were doing their best to keep up with the criminals, but they had to go a little slower to make sure they didn't cause an accident or hit anyone as they started to enter the highly populated area.
Gohan thought about going down and helping the police, but decided just to watch for now because he didn't want to be seen, and he was also scared of what his mother would do if she found out what he did. The chase went on for a while and nothing eventful happened until Gohan saw the guys in the runaway car almost hit someone on a crosswalk.
Seeing that near-accident triggered something in Gohan. He was back at the Cell games watching as his dad sacrificed himself because of his actions. This memory brought back all the guilt he had felt back then and he knew he had to do something. Reaching out with his KI, Gohan focused on the car, trying to lift it off the ground. At first nothing appeared to happen but soon it was apparent that the car causing the chase had started to bounce up and down.
With a little more focus, the tires of the car lifted right off the ground. As the car's momentum died away, the car came to a stop, floating about five feet above the ground. The police cars finally caught up and they surrounded it looking on in awe. Gohan saw that the car was surrounded and slowly lowered it to the ground.
The driver of the offending car stepped out just as awe struck as the police. At this point a large crowd had formed and several people were taking pictures of the mysterious floating car. The police were the first to come out of their shock, and promptly arrested them.
Gohan felt absolutely exhausted from the strain of lifting the car with just his KI from that distance. He flew off to East City, quickly dropping out of his Super Saiyan form. Gohan was sure no one saw him and was glad that no one got hurt, but he was still a little mad at himself for taking so long to act.
Just as Gohan was nearing Capsule Corp, he thought back to the satellite crash and what had happened. He ended up just floating high above his new home until things had settled back down before finally going home.
As he landed on the balcony and walked into the living room, he was greeted by his mother - and she did not look very happy.
"Where have you been? School got out over two hours ago and I know you wouldn't actually take the train," Chichi said with a sharp, angry tone in her voice. "Didn't I tell you that if you weren't at school or working with Bulma you were supposed to be working on getting your hair back to its normal color?"
"Sorry mom, I was just flying around a little. I got out of school and had so much pent-up energy I just had to let loose. While I was flying around I did work on some of the KI control that Piccolo taught me."
Chichi gave Gohan a once-over when he mentioned working on his KI control. She was surprised but happy to see that the yellow tinge was gone from his hair and that his eyes were their old stony black. Seeing this, she smiled slightly and let her anger subside.
"Well seeing how well your bit of training has worked, I will let it slide today, but if you decide to go gallivanting around the sky for hours at a time I expect you to call: got it?"
Not waiting for an answer, Chichi left the living room, heading towards the kitchen to start working on dinner. Although Bulma had chief bots that could cook, Chichi still preferred to make their meals by herself most of the time.
"Let loose, you say," Vegeta said, coming into the room as Chichi was leaving. "I wouldn't be surprised if scouters on the other side of the galaxy didn't pick your energy signal up."
"If they did pick up my energy then they know not to bother coming to Earth to pick a fight."
Vegeta scoffed at this, although he knew it was true. The half-breed offspring of his rival was stronger than him: the mighty Saiyan prince. Hurt from Gohan's remark, Vegeta retreated to the gravity room to continue his training, determined to eventually overcome Gohan.
With no one else in the room for Gohan to talk to, he headed off to his room to get his homework out of the way. In an hour, Gohan had completed his homework for the week, since most of it was math and science work he could do in his sleep. Looking at his watch, he figured dinner wouldn't be ready for a little while longer, so he decided to see if Bulma was around. He wanted some answers about that satellite.
Walking into her personal work room, Gohan found Bulma looking into a large chunk of the satellite.
"Have you found anything yet?" Gohan asked as he walked up beside Bulma to take a look for himself.
"We recovered the main storage device and a team is working on recovering the data," Bulma said, not looking away from her work. "I have also determined that this satellite was either designed or built by Dr. Gero. The workmanship is too distinct for it to be anyone else."
"Any idea what it was for?" Gohan asked, almost worried to find out what the answer would be.
"Judging by the wear and tear, I'd say it's about thirty years old. It was probably launched back when Gero was working for the Red Ribbon Army. As for what it was for, I can't tell until the data is recovered."
"Do you know how long that will take?"
"Not for sure, but the team I have working on it is very good, so they should have something later tonight."
"Can you forward me the data when you get it? I'd like take a look for myself."
"Sure."
"Thanks. I just don't feel comfortable when things of Dr. Gero's start popping up."
Bulma nodded in agreement, feeling exactly the same. Before they could say anything more about the satellite, Chichi called over the intercom that dinner was ready. With this news, Gohan was quickly on his way to the kitchen.
XXxxXX
As Videl finished the sparing match with her father, the doubts about his actual strength came to her mind again. Out of five rounds, she was able to beat him three times. He said he was just holding back to make it fair, but the look of exhaustion on his face didn't back up his statement.
After she took a shower, she sat on her bed, turning on her TV. She was looking for something to distract herself from the disappointing training session. She flipped through channels until she reached the news where an unusual story caught her attention.
"As you can see," the news reporter was saying, "this car chase came to an end in a very unexpected way. Police were baffled when then the car they were pursuing suddenly lifted into the air where it came to a stop before returning to the ground. We have just received this amateur video of the incident."
They played a clip where the car clearly lifted into the air and came to a stop. Videl watched with amazement. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. "There's no way this is real. Cars just don't start flying like that. I wonder if Erase has seen this. She would go ballistic."
Videl picked up her phone and called her friend. "In other new, this afternoon at…" Videl turned off the TV when Erase answered.
"Hey Erase have you seen the news tonight?"
"No, why?"
"I was just watching and there was this story about a car suddenly flying into the air where it stopped and hovered before coming back down. There's no way its real right? Cars can't just fly into the air like that, can they?"
"Calm down, V, you're getting overexcited about this. I bet it was just some kind of trick like those ones at the Cell Games. You remember those weird people that made it look like they were flying around and could blow things up with light? Even your dad said he could do those things. Anyways, I got to go V, I can't seem to get anywhere on this homework. Maybe I should ask that new kid to help me out; they said he got perfect scores on the entrance exam. Bye."
With that Erase hung up and left Videl sitting there in just as bad a mood as when she finished her training session. Remembering the Cell Games didn't help the image of her father. "Cell could take on an entire army with tanks and huge weapons all by himself: I still don't see how my dad could have stopped him."
Videl was tired of having so many unanswered questions. First there was Gohan knowing Bulma Briefs, then the mystery of the flying car, and now she wanted to know just how strong her father was. Sleep did not come easily to her that night.
XXxxXX
Gohan had been playing with Bulma's son Trunks and his little brother when she called him to come to her lab. Gohan was surprised that Bulma would call him now. He thought she was just going to forward whatever data was recovered from the satellite.
"What is it, Bulma?"
"I just got some of the data back from the recovery team and I thought you should see it."
Bulma clicked away at her computer for a second before the main screen in the lab came on. On the screen you could see what looked like a small town or complex. All of a sudden there was an explosion and the whole place turned into a battle field. The odd part was that there was only one person attacking the place. Gohan thought the kid attacking the compound looked like his father.
"Bulma, is that who I think it is?" Gohan asked, needing to have someone else confirm what he was seeing.
"I recognize that place. It was the base of the Red Ribbon Army. What you are watching is Goku destroying it. And this is only one clip."
Bulma typed away at her computer for a second and the picture changed. Now there was a video of the world martial arts tournament where Goku fought against Piccolo. Bulma changed the picture again and there was Piccolo and Goku facing off against Raditz. The two watched as Gohan came flying out of the space ship and head butted Raditz.
Bulma changed the video once more. It now showed the Cell Games where Gohan and Cell were locked in the final Kamama wave battle. Bulma and Gohan looked on as the battle came to an end and they could clearly see Gohan barely standing after beating Cell.
Bulma turned off the screen and looked over at Gohan before speaking.
"From what I can tell Dr. Gero used this satellite to spy on your father. This is only a fraction of the total data stored on the hard drive, and the recovery team says it should be able to get about 95 percent of it put together."
"So my father's whole life from the time he destroyed the Red Ribbon Army is on there?"
"Looks like it."
"I don't know what to think about this."
An uneasy moment of silence followed, as Gohan kind of wandered out of Bulma's lab. He walked through the halls of Capsule Corp for a while before heading to his own lab, where he sat down behind his desk. He figured he should be glad that so much of his father's life was recorded, but part of him knew what those same recordings helped to make Cell. Gohan decided that he would talk to Bulma after school tomorrow and figure out what they should do with the footage.
Looking down at his empty desk, Gohan remembered that Bulma had removed his Capsule Corp responsibilities while he was attending school. However, at the moment he would have loved to have a good challenge to take his mind off the memories that were starting to surface. With nothing to do in his lab, Gohan made his way to bed.