Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball Z.

Dawn Of The Third Era

Opening notes:

Okay, this is going to be a major AU. The differences start shortly after the Cell games, but most of the fic will be set later.

Warning:

There is going to be a Yaoi, Male/Male relationship in here between two original characters (meaning two characters I made up). This relationship will not become graphic in a sexual sense, however it will be explicitly present in this fic, up to the point of holding hands, and maybe kissing, depending on the circumstances. If this bothers you, you should leave. This relationship will not be the focus of the story, but it will be present at times, the main story line will be, more or less, Gohan/Videl, more or less because there's a hell of a lot more than just romance happening.

Changes:

Goku has put a limit on the time he's going to spend in other world, ten years, and he's kept in touch every now and then.

Gohan hasn't stopped training, for reasons listed below, and is able to go to level three.

Non of the movies, even those that can be made to fit in with the series, happened.

About a year after Cell Z-squad was formed. It basically incoporates the most powerful of the Earth's Z-fighters, Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, #18, Krillin, Yamcha, and Tien. As well as Bulma as their technical expert and Chi-Chi and Chaozu who help out with things when it's needed. What exactly Z-squad does will be explained in the fic by Gohan.
Z-squad has kept them all in training so they're all stronger. Even #18 has gotten a bit stronger because she used to be human and her human side can now train, she can also sense Ki now, thanks to the training of her human half, which has also given her a small, but noticable Ki.
A lot of the others are loosly associated with Z-squad, like Korrin, who though he isn't officially part of the team keeps growing Senzu-beans on a constant basis so there's always a suply of them, and Dende who helps with the healing when someone is wounded, but on Earth, the reason being that Dende, being Kami, or God, or Guardian, whichever you prefer, of Earth can't come with them while they can take the Senzu-beans anywhere.

Now with no further ado, the story.

Chapter One: New Boy

As their teacher made the announcement that a new boy would be joining their class this year Videl sighed, Erasa squealed, and Sharpner looked disinterested. The thoughts on their minds were about as different as their reactions.
Videl: 'Oh God another guy to follow me around and hero worship my father. At least I managed to get Erasa between me and Sharpner as a buffer, but I think this one next to me is the only free seat in the room.'
Erasa: 'Another potential boyfriend you can never have to many of them.'
Sharpner: 'Probably just another nerd skipping grades, so who cares.'

Quite unaware of the mixed feelings his arrival was causing, Gohan stepped into the classroom. His feelings about being here were anything but mixed. He was glad for several reasons. For one, he was sure he knew everything he was supposed to be learning this year already, from his home studies, and for another he would finally be making some friends his own age. But the most important reason for his positive out look on the situation was normalcy, hopefully he would be able to be just another teenager here, not a warrior, not a Z-fighter, or Z-squad member, not a Super-Saiyan, just Son Gohan age 18.
"Class." The teacher called to silence the group that had begun whispering as Gohan entered. "This is Son Gohan. Many of you could do with following his example. He got perfect scores on all his entry exams, and even came up with better answers to some of the questions than we had. Why don't you tell us something about yourself son?" He finished, turning to Gohan.
"Well like Mr. Johnson here said, my name is Gohan, I'm pretty new to this whole school business since I've been homeschooled all my life. Other than that I enjoy reading..." he paused as a few people laughed softly, "and martial arts."
"There's no way he can do martial arts, he's a nerd." A guy with long blond hair, sitting towards the back of the class, whispered just a bit too loudly.
Gohan frowned, he was sure the teacher hadn't noticed, but most of his new classmates had and a lot of them were snickering behind their hands.
"Well," mister Johnson said, looking around, "I'm sure everyone will do their best to make you feel at home here. So if you'd like to take a seat, I believe there's one up there." He pointed to the empty seat next to Videl.
Gohan nodded and noticed the seat was quite close to the blond guy that had made the remark about him being a martial artist. He immediately decided what to do, and headed towards his seat, walking at first and then suddenly jumping and doing a triple somersault in the air before landing next to it. Mr. Johnson who was looking at some papers on his desk hadn't noticed, but most of the class did, and there were a few gasps of surprise.
Gohan meanwhile leaned over to the blond. "Three things, first I AM a martial artist, second if you're going to whisper about me please do it softly, I have rather acute hearing, and thirdly I don't enjoy people questioning what I say without reason, so if you feel a need to do so please whisper."
Gohan then calmly sat down, getting out his book and notepad ready for class to begin.

After a few hours of furiously scribling down notes on various subjects it was finally time for lunch, the first real chance for the students to interact. Gohan was more nervous about lunch than he had been about class, he'd quickly been proven right in class anyway, he'd had all this stuff years ago, but now he was about to have his first real contact with fellow teenagers. Unless you counted Dende, but the young Namek wasn't exactly a normal teenager, especially when you took into consideration that next to being an alien he also happened to be Earth's Kami.
Of course Gohan wasn't exactly a normal teenager either, being half alien. But he was a lot more like a human teenager than he was like Dende. While this didn't subtract in anyway from his friendship with the young Namek it did leave Gohan feeling a bit isolated.
It was a beautiful summersday so Gohan made his way outside along with most of the other students, he'd brought a capsule table, the picnic model with attatched seats, and some food, a lot for a human but barele enough for a Saiyan to get through the day, however he wanted to seem normal so he'd have to watch how much he ate.
Meanwhile Erasa had taken it upon herself to follow Gohan, dragging Sharpner and Videl along with her. Erasa's interest in Gohan was quite clear to both her friends, and even Videl had to admit the boy was cute. While Videl herself didn't feel a particular need to be near Gohan she did follow Erasa to avoid being alone with Sharpner, who of course followed her.
Videl felt curious when Gohan didn't head over to the bleachers but instead produced a capsule from his pocket. Her surprise lessened some, but remained in part, as a picnic table appeared with food already on it, and a lot of food, at least by her standards.

Gohan was just sitting down and was about to attack his food with his usual Saiyan appetite when the already familiar voice of a certain blond caused him to look up.
"Mind if we sit with you?" Erasa asked sweetly.
"Not at all, this thing seats four anyway, or six if you activate the extensions."
"Extensions?" Videl questioned. "I must say I've never seen this model before, is it new?"
"Yeah," Gohan replied, "they just hit the market last month, a friend of mine gave me one, as for the extensions..." He reached under the table and pushed a button, making extra seats appear at the head and foot of the table.
The others sat down, and so conversation started over lunch, the four of them generally getting to know each other better, though Videl was a little withdrawn in this conversation. Erasa noticed this and thought her friend was just being shy so after a while she decided to bring her into the conversation.
"Say Gohan, why haven't you remarked on Videl's dad yet, or don't you know who he is?"
"I know who he is." Gohan simply answered. Of course he knew, even though he hated the fraud he knew Videl by sight. He tried to keep up with the news on TV, annoying as it was with a Hercule Satan item every other day.
"So why haven't you said anything about it?" Sharpner asked, hoping to take Gohan down as any possible form of competition as far as Videl was concerned.
"Why should I?" Gohan asked.
"Hello!" Sharpner replied as if he were dealing with some sort of moron. "Her dad's mister Satan, the world champion, the man who saved us all from Cell."
"And?" Gohan enquired.
"And... and... and why haven't you said anything about him to his daughter?"
"Quite simple." Gohan replied. "She isn't the world champion, unless you count the junior devision, and she didn't beat Cell." He paused adding 'Neither did her dad.' in thought before he continued. "So if I wanted to ask her or talk to her about anything it would be the junior tournament, but I didn't because it's my considered opinion that life in the public eye must suck."
'Well this is strange.' Videl though as she eyed Gohan. 'He's into martial arts, but doesn't make any remarks about my dad, he even seems rather dismissive about the whole thing. I've never had that happen before, everybody is always asking me for autographs of if I can get them free lessons.'
She was about to make a remark about it when the bell sounded and they got up, waiting for Gohan to capsulate the table again before they headed back to the building.

There was another hour of normal class and then it was time for the last class of the day, PE.
Videl was certainly looking forward to it, they would be continueing where they'd left off last year which was in martial arts. She wondered a little at how good Gohan would be. He'd said he was into martial arts, and had given at least some prove of it in that triple summersault. But that move, while flashy really wasn't much use in a fight.
She gulped, fortunately for her inaudibly, when Gohan came out of the locker-room in his PE uniform. School policy was that everyone had to wear the same T-shirt and shorts, both white with Orange stars. On most people it didn't really make a difference but Gohan had been wearing rather concealing clothes all day and now suddenly Videl found herself confronted with his muscular arms and legs. Though she couldn't see under his shirt she was pretty sure that his entire body must be s creation so perfectly sculpted that it would make any renaisance artist jealous. But Gohan of course had been sculpted by nature and in a way probably by himself.
'Kami.' Videl thought to herself. 'I've never seen anyone under twenty with a body that toned. His muscles aren't too big, unlike Sharpner's, but his whole being just seems to radiate with power when you see him like this.'
Gohan looked around a bit pained, even Videl was looking at him, but that wasn't too bad, the bad part was all the other girls who were almost literally drooling as they eyed his body with a possessive gleam in their eyes.
"Attention please!" The coach yelled when everyone had arrived, startling the girls that were busy drooling over Gohan out of their trance like states. "Now we'll be continueing where we left off last year, which was martial arts, but we've got an extra hour today, normally your last hour of the day is history on mondays but today you'll be staying here three hours instead of two. Now mr. Jameson, your history teacher, didn't just give me that hour, he'll be here too and we'll study the use of the Samurai sword and the way the Samurai combined it with martial arts. Anyway you know the drill, first hour you can do whatever you like, lift weights, spar, whatever, and the second hour we'll have a tournament, though I'm sure we all know who's going to win."
"So Gohan, you say you're a martial artist, want to spar?" Sharpner asked.
"Why not." Gohan replied. "What rules are we using? Tenkaichi Budoukai(world tournament) rules or something else?"
"Tenkaichi rules." Sharpner replied after a moments thought. "Half an hour time limit, though I doubt that we'll reach it."
Gohan nodded, "Okay, I'll just change into my Gi, this T-shirt is to limiting for my arm movements."
Sharpner stared along with everyone else as Gohan calmly walked to the locker room, getting out a capsule and throwing it just before he got there.
Videl had half expected a travell bag or some such thing when she saw the capsule but the volume of the 'boom' and the size of the smoke cloud were clear evidence that whatever was in the capsule was much larger. As it turned out this was a storage capsule, but not just any storage capsule, Videl immidiately recognised it as a top of the line safety-storage-capsule. The safe that was now standing there, had multipal compartments, each having its own code and Gohan quickly punched one in.
All the others could see was something orange as he reached into the compartment opened, then it closed again and Gohan after recapsulating the whole thing and pocketing it proceeded to get changed.
'I suppose these T-shirts would be to constricting for him.' Videl thought. 'I don't have a problem because I always use one that's a size too large, but I'd just as soon use a gi as well. He must be pretty serious about martial arts though, to carry his gi around with him everywhere, not to mention under such security.'

Gohan returned less than a minute later dressed in the type of Gi his father had always used. Underneath the orange he was wearing a blue T-shirt and on the main Gi were two symbols, his own on the front and Piccolo's on the back.
"Let's do this." He told Sharpner.
Sharpner nodded and the two of them got into 'ring' that had been marked out on the floor. It was a lot smaller than the real tournament ring of course, but it still offered a reasonable amount of room and certainly enough room outside it for the other students to all gather around the fight. All of them rather curious to see what this new kid could do.

Gohan smirked just a little as he dropped into his stance. Sharpner's attitude reminded him of Vegeta, but even the prince of Saiyans had become more acceptable to be around over the years, and even back when he was this bad he had a decent punch to back up what he said, but even compared to most non-Z fighters Sharpner wasn't really incredibly strong.
"Who's keeping time?" Gohan asked, knowing full well that he needed less than a minute which made having someone make sure the 30 minute mark wasn't reached a mute point.
"I am." Videl said, from her place beside the ring.
"Time's the last thing you have to worry about." Sharpner stated, trying to send a death-glare at Gohan but not quite managing to pull it off, making him look rather silly. "You'll be out of the ring in no time, I've been trained by mister Satan himself for the last few years, and I've been training since I was 9."
"Gee, and I thought I'd started late." Gohan replied without thinking.
"What do you mean by that?" Videl asked. "Even I didn't start until I was 7, so 9 can't be that late."
"Depends on your point of view I suppose." Gohan replied thoughtfully. "In the end I suppose when you start isn't always the most important thing, but as things are I started training when I was five."
"And you think that is late?" Videl exclaimed.
"Compared to most people I know, yes. Most of them started almost as soon as they could walk. I would have too if my mom hadn't insisted she wanted me to be a scholar, my dad bought a set of training weights and a sword for me the day I was born."
"So how did you start training if your mom was against it?" Videl asked.
"How I really started is a long story." Gohan replied. "But once I had, my mom realised that I could train without my studies suffering too much so she let me."
Sharpner apperently couldn't stand the talk anymore and chose that moment to attack while Gohan was still talking to Videl.
To everyone's surprise, except his own, Gohan managed to bring up a hand to block the punch in time.
'Kami, how could he block that?' Videl wondered. 'With his face turned this way he couldn't have seen it other than out of the corner of his eye.'
"That isn't really a fair way to attack Sharpner." Gohan said, his voice so cold it made a lot of people shiver. "Now it just so happens that I have periferal vision and quick reflexes but most other people would have suffered from that foul, and a fight won without honour is a fight you've lost to yourself."
"I wouldn't lose my honour." Sharpner challenged. "It would serve them right for talking instead of paying attention to the fight."
"Trust me Sharpner, one doesn't exclude the other." Gohan stated as he attacked, continuing his conversation with Videl as his reflexes fought for him.
"So anyway, that's when I started training."
"Exactly how good are you?" Videl asked as she watched him fight, clearly Sharpner wasn't any match, he was loosing without Gohan even focusing on the fight.
"As good as I need to be." Gohan replied. "Over the years I've learned to fight on reflexes alone, at least with an opponent as predictable as this." At this time he simply kicked Sharpner softly, knocking the boy of balance and sending him to the ground. "See," he continued, explaining, "he was dropping his guard every time he attacked with his left. And that type of carelessness loses you matches." He bend down, lifted Sharpner with ease, and gently tossed the boy out of the ring.
The crowd fell silent. Sharpner was second only too Videl in the competitions the class had, and yet Gohan seemed to have had little or no trouble defeating him.
"So Videl, would you like to spar?" Gohan asked.
"No thanks, I'll go do some warming up by myself, we can save the fight for the tournament next hour, I have a feeling I'll be meeting you somewhere in there, I'd say in the finals depending on where we end up in the draw."
"Whatever you say Videl, anyone else want to spar."
Most kids looked a little intimidated but finally one boy stepped forward.
"I will, if you promise to take it easy on me."
"Don't worry about it. Sharpner just got on my nerves a little too much."
"I can understand that, he gets on everybody's nerves a little too much, but with most people he can unfortunately get away with it."
"You shouldn't overly concern yourself on his behalf, he's not all that tough." Gohan said, his eyes on a corner of the room where Sharpner was talking to some of his buddies, letting Gohan's Saiyan ears catch the phrase "I slipped."
"Anyway," the boy said, "my name's Steve, but everybody calls me by my last name, Twister."
"Which do you prefer?" Gohan asked.
"I prefer Twister. Even my parents call me that nowadays."
"Alright then Twister, let's see what you can do."
Gohan dropped into his stance again and watched Twister as he did the same. The other boy was a bit shorter, giving Gohan a sligth hight advantage, though he knew from experience that physical size counted very little. Twister had a rather high Ki for an untrained human, almost as high as Videl's, the only thing stopping this guy from beating Sharpner was probably lack of training and mindset, but Gohan was sure he could take care of that.
"Okay Twister, you attack first." Gohan said, changing his posture to be more defensive.
As Twister charged Gohan made sure his Ki was as far down as he could push it. With Sharpner he hadn't really bothered pushing it down, but this boy was different, the whole fight was different, but there was something about Twister that made Gohan consider something entirely different altogether.
(Yes I'm mean and I'm going to leave you hanging as to what he's considering although part of it will become clear immediately.)
After blocking a couple of punches Gohan countered slowly, but steadily increasing his pace as Twister was working harder and harder to keep up. Finally a punch made it through and Twister was knocked over.
"You're not bad." Gohan commented, as Twister got up and brushed himself of. "You could be a lot better though."
"What do you mean?" Twister asked.
"From what I can tell you've never really been taught properly. You're reflexes speed and strength are good, but you haven't had enough experience yet to use them to their full potential. If you want I could help you get at least a little better, certainly good enough to beat Sharpner."
"You mean it?" Twister asked. "Nobody's ever defeated Sharpner except for Videl, and well, you."

When Videl had finished the first part of her warm up excercises she walked back over to the ring to see how Gohan and Twister were doing. To her surprise they weren't fighting, but it looked as though Gohan was teaching Twister. The strange thing was the way he went about this, he'd give instructions every once in a while, but for the rest he almost seemed to be using his body as a living punching bag to let Twister practice. Just as she looked over he was giving some instructions, then he brought up his arms, crossing them at the wrists in a defensive stance as Twister came in with a faster series of kicks and punches than she'd ever seen him produce. There was no room left for doubt as to who'd win if Twister were to fight Sharpner, the blond had clearly been knocked from his second place standing down to fourth.

The 'tournament' in the second hour went quickly, there were only three really interesting matches, the first was Steve a.k.a. Twister, versus Sharpner.
Sharpner was looking to redeem himself for his loss to Gohan but to his own, and most others' surprise was quickly overwhelmed by Twister, who was putting Gohan's coaching to good use. He and Videl had ended up in one half of the draw and Gohan in the other so the next interresting match again featured Twister, this time against Videl. If people had been surprised by Twister's new found ability to handle Sharpner, or had assumed that Sharpner must be having a bad day they were soon forced to come to the conclusion that whatever that victory had been, it wasn't a fluke. Videl managed to hold her own against Twister, but was having more difficulty than anyone had ever caused her before.
In the end Videl managed to win by a ring-out but she had to admit that whatever Gohan had done with Twister had worked wonders. And next up on her schedule was a fight with the wonder man himself.

Not surprisingly after the way he'd defeated Sharpner while sparring, Gohan had made his way to the final, where he would face Videl. The others all crowded around the ring, though there was little doubt in any of their minds that Videl would win. Doubt only existed in two minds, while one person knew she was going to loose. That person of course was Gohan, who had already decided that he was going to beat her. The two with doubt were Twister and Videl herself. Sharpner didn't doubt that 'his Videl' would take care of Gohan for him. She was the daughter of Hercule after all.
While most of the others didn't exactly think along the lines of taking care of him for Sharpner, they were pretty sure the daughter of Hercule was unbeatable.
Videl herself, didn't know what to think, she'd certainly had more difficulty than she'd bargained for in her fight against Twister and the way Gohan had been training him earlier, the only two possibilities were that Twister had been holding back in his work with Gohan, or that Gohan was even stronger and probably a technically more gifted fighter as well.
Twister was almost as sure as Gohan on the other boys victory. To his own great surprise his work with Gohan had not only allowed him to take down Sharpner but had actually put him into Videl's league. The fight had probably been the closest fight Videl had ever had, and he knew, he just knew, that Gohan was stronger and better.

Gohan had made up his mind before the fight to show mild superiority from that start and proceded to do so, easily deflecting Videl's attacks and slowing his own down to the point where she could deflect some of them, but not all. Of course the blows that got through were of precisely calculated strength, strong enough to be felt, and to drive her back, but not strong enough to do any real damage, like bruising and basically everything from there on up.
The gathered students gasped in surprise a couple of times when this happened. Though everybody believed by now that Gohan was a good fighter, nobody had expected him to have such a clear upperhand against Videl.
Videl herself was having mixed emotions as the fight progressed and she was slowly pushed to the edge of the ring. She didn't like to be defeated, but on the other hand she found the experience of facing a stronger opponent quite refreshing. With her dad refusing to spar with her, saying she was to weak for him to be able to do so without hurting her, this was the first time that had happened in a long time.
When Gohan ended the fight by dropping to the ground and using an extended leg to sweep hers out from under her, making her fall out of the ring she suddenly realised that this was the first use he'd made of his legs in the whole fight. Well he'd used them to walk of course, but he hadn't used any kicks, and even defended against her kicks just using his hands and arms.
"So," Videl asked Gohan as he helped her up, "just how good are you?"
"As good as I want to be." Gohan replied cryptically.
"And how good is that?" Videl pushed.
"As good as I am now." Gohan replied, not loosing the cryptic nature of his replies.
"And how good is that?" Videl kept insisting.
"Better than you apparently." Gohan replied, ending the discussion.

An awkward silence fell, Gohan had said what he wanted to say and Videl was searching for a good reply, but couldn't really think of any.
"So," Gohan said, changing the topic to break the silence, "the next hour is going to be about the Samurai sword."
"Yes, we've been studying Samurai culture and history, so it seems that history and PE have decided to do a joined project of sorts, or should that be of swords." Videl replied, smiling a little at her own joke.
Gohan allowed himself a chuckle but then a thoughtful look crossed his face. "Ah well," he mumbled, "it can't be helped, I did make a oath."
"What are you talking about?" Videl asked. "An oath about what?"
"Oh, did I say that out loud." Gohan said with a slightly confused smile. "I was just thinking, I'll have to get my storage-cap out again."
"Why?" Videl asked. "Another change of clothes?"
"I wasn't planning on it, but I do need to get out my own sword."
"You carry a sword around with you."
"It's in the capsule so it's not exactly a burden." Gohan shrugged. "My first Sensei gave it to me, it's actually the second one he gave me, I out-grew the first, I got that one when I was five, so it became to short. I once swore an oath that I would not fight or even train with any other sword as long as this one remained intact."
His face took on an odd expression as he remembered that oath. It had been in battle, not really a major battle but still challenging, mostly because he'd just finished sparring with Vegeta, and didn't have any senzus on him to restore his energy. The strange thing was that the oath had been a promise to his sword, but it seemed a forgivable thing for a thirteen year old, to promise his sword he'd never use another if it got him through the fight. In retrospect he could have fought without a sword just as succesfully, but it had served him well as a confidence boost, he'd been doing a lot of sword training right before that.

Gohan threw his capsule again, and punched in a different code this time, opening another compartment where his sword was stored. A small smile touched his lips as he slung his sword across his back.
It always brought back the memory of when Piccolo had given it to him, a cold winters day in the 439 area that still saw Gohan outside training. He'd found his first sword, the one that Piccolo had given him when he'd first started training, in his room and was trying to see if he could still use it at least to some effect. Gohan just blindly went through a series of strokes with it when it was suddenly caught by a green hand.
"Not bad kid." Piccolo had told him. "But don't you think it's getting a little small for you."
"It is really." He had replied. "Could you give me another?" Piccolo had just nodded and materialised this one. It had seemed a little large to Gohan, and it was a little large compared to him when he was still just a boy, but now it was perfect.
Automatically he removed it from it's sheath and started going through a few moves, slowly by his standards, and still well within the vision range of the untrained eye, but impressive non the less.
Suddenly almost on instinct he stopped in mid stroke, leaving the blade just a few inches away from Twister's shocked face.
Twister was shaking slightly, he had just walked up and was rather surprised by the sudden appearance of this sword in front of his face.
"Sorry Twister." Gohan apologised. "I didn't see you earlier."
"It's alright Gohan." Twister said with a wry smile, just as Gohan sheathed his sword again. "At least you stopped before splitting my skull rather than afterwords."
Gohan just grinned sheepishly before changing the topic. "You did really well against Sharpner and Videl."
Twister blushed a little and looked down. "You were the one who did well, I was still defeated by Videl in the end."
"Don't be to hard on yourself. You're already a good fighter and you've had very little real training, just this class and a few pointers from me. I've been doing this since I was five, it's actually really surprising to see how quickly you took in the new stuff I taught you."
Twister blushed even more and decided it was his turn to change the topic. "Okay, I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is my best friend Justin Frost, but we call him Thaw."
"Nice to meet you." Gohan said shaking hands with Justin. "Why Thaw, if I may ask?"
"Twister picked it, he said it was only fair for both of us to have a meteorological phenomenon as a nick name, and we weren't really good friends to start with, so he says I just need a little while to warm up to people. Besides it's a good contrast with my last name."
"Okay, I take it that like Twister you're more comfortable with your nickname that with your real name."
"Yeah, I'm just used to being Thaw."
Gohan nodded.

"So," Thaw asked, "I know you did great work with Twister, but how did you get to be so good at martial arts?"
"A lot of it, if not too much." Gohan responded simply.
For a moment he looked like he would go on, but instead he fell silent and a thoughtful expression took over his face.
'What is it about him?' Videl wondered as she studied his expresion. 'What does he mean by too much martial arts, and why does he seem so serious about it? Not that I'm not serious about martial arts, but this guy seems to think it's a matter of life and death.'
Soon the moment had passed and was all but forgotten as the conversation turned back to the topics of the day while they waited for the final hour to completely commence.
In that final hour Videl found herself more and more fascinated by the mystery that was Son Gohan. She'd fought him and knew he was a great martial artist, but even the small demonstration he'd given before hand hadn't prepared her for just how much of an expert swordsman he turned out to be. In fact it seemed as though he wasn't a swordsman at all, he didn't fight with a sword, he made it part of himself when he choose to use it.

The next three weeks passed without any extraordinary incidents. Though Gohan's presence did act as a catalyst for new processes and developments in interpresonal relationships. This let to the distance between Videl and Erasa growing and Gohan, Twister and Thaw suddenly getting a lot closer to Videl. Another effect of this was Sharpner leaving her alone some more since her 'group' now included three people who could kick his butt. The whole process in the end culminated in some switching of seats during the second week. As a result of the switching Gohan and Videl still sitting where they had been sitting, Twister in Erasa's seat and Thaw next to him where Sharpner had been before, while the two blonds were now sitting elsewhere in Twister and Thaw's old seats.

On the friday of the third week something that Gohan had half been expecting to happen eventually happened.
To everyone's surprise, safe Gohan's because he'd already been able to sense it, there was a knock on the door during physics, the last class of the day.
Videl was as surprised as the others and felt her surprise increase as the door opened to reveal a short man. Who quickly walked up to the teacher and softly said something, in which Videl could make out the word 'Gohan'.
Gohan himself had either heard it as well or knew what was going on because he was on his way to the front of the class before the teacher could even say anything.
Videl kept her eyes locked on Gohan and the short stranger. To her surprise they didn't shake hands, but clasped underarms. After that they started to talk quietly after removing themselves a few paces from the teacher. However she strained her ears she couldn't pick up anything of their conversation. Finally both men nodded and Gohan turned around and headed back to his seat. He was almost halfway back when he turned and yelled the only thing Videl could understand over his shoulder.
"Get Tien and then come back and wait for me."
The short man nodded and exited the classroom.

"What was that all about?" Videl asked as Gohan slid back into his seat.
"It seems a bit of a crisis has come up and needs my attention. I'll have to go see about it right after school." Gohan replied.
Videl thought about continuing, but she'd already found out that when Gohan answered vaguely trying to get through was not easy. Besides that the lesson continued and she had to pay attention, Thaw might be good at physics, and Gohan was good at anything, but she and Twister knew they really had to pay attention here even with the other two helping them.

Gohan anxiously awaited the bell that would signal the end of the day, he could sense that Krillin was back and waiting, right outside the door, while Tien was waiting outside the building, probably in whatever vehicle they would be using, so he wouldn't draw any attention.
He got up when the bell rang and could feel his friends eyes on his back as he hurried to the door and down the halls to the outside. Krillin joined up with him as he exited the classroom but he barely acknowledged the shorter man, it wasn't needed, they both knew they knew where the other was and where they were headed.

Videl stared after Gohan as he left and she knew Twister and Thaw beside her were doing the same. They'd never seen Gohan quite like this. They left a little after him, taking a bit more time to get their stuff into their bags and could therefor see Gohan's back as he made his way out of the building. The short man had apparently been waiting right outside their classroom and was now walking next to Gohan, though the two of them barely seemed to acknowledge each other's presence, almost as if they were soldiers who knew that the other was marching next to them even without seeing.
Outside their transportation was waiting and Videl was only slightly surprised to see that it was a top of the line jet-copter, much like her own model but larger and much faster. The paint job on it was something else though, it was blue as a base colour and had several symbols on the side in gold, but she couldn't make sense of them. The gold paint was so realistic that she briefly wondered if someone had actually inlaid it with gold.
Both Gohan and his friend got into the back and the jet engines fired before they'd even closed the hatch, allowing the three of them one last glimpse at Gohan as he pushed the button to close it.
"I wonder what's going on." Videl muttered.
"Yeah, I suppose we'll have to wait until Gohan gets back to find out though." Twister said. "But whatever this is, it shows for certain what we've probably all suspected since we first met Gohan: there is more to him than meets the eye."
Videl and Thaw both nodded as the three of the looked at the jetcopter that was now about to dissappear over the western horizon.

End Of Chapter One

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