It felt like a bomb had exploded onto Doale's chest, burning through his armored chest plate and searing his skin. The force was so powerful it flung him helplessly through the air and through a massive chunk of concrete, shattering it into pieces.

Gohan ran after Doale's flying body, teleported behind him and caught him in a strangling headlock.

"Stop," Doale pleaded through coughing fits. "I'm ... not the FIREBIRD!" The words didn't phase Gohan, who continued applying the suffocating pressure to the young Emperor's neck.

"Hurry up, and die," Gohan hissed coldly, ignoring the stinging tears than ran down his eyes. "You slaughtered millions, both in this life and in your past. You ressurected our enemies for your own selfish purposes. You killed my brother!" Gohan could feel his face turn red with anger, and with the effort of trying to kill Doale, who stubbornly clung onto life ... just like Goken ...

"If ... if I was truly the enemy ... why'd I save your life back ... in the forest?!" Gohan's suddenly lost his strength as he released Doale, collapsing on the ground with fatigue.
Doale fell onto his knees, coughing as gasping for air. His weak, blurry eyes looked at the young boy whose innocence changed his entire frame of mind. The child now stood hiding behind a stone. Those same eyes that had melted his heart now showed expressions of fear, fear that Gohan would kill him.

Gohan wouldn't kill him, Doale thought. It's me that he wants dead.

BOOM!

An explosion of energy came from Gohan's general direction. His hair stood straight up on end. The electricity surrounding his body was so intense, it made the fine hairs on Doale's arm stand on end too.
The level two Saiyan charged at full speed towards Doale, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"This is the end," Doale whispered to himself under his breath. "Make it quick. Oh god, please make it quick."
It happened so quickly, Doale's mind hardly had time to register. As the heat from the energy surrounding Gohan's body threatened to vaporize him, something warm wrapped around his waist, blocking the deadly blinding light.

"No!!" a child's voice screamed.
It couldn't be. The boy had put his own life on the line to save Doale's. His tiny body, no match for Gohan's power, was the only thing standing in between Doale and instant death.

* * *

A distant world, far beyond the reaches of the known universe where the constellations were unfamiliar, a terrifying scream of horror escaped from a teenager's mouth. The remnants of a nightmare still clinging to his mind, he sat up from bed and fumbled for the light switch. Beads of sweat on his forehead glittered in the moonlight.
He found the switch, and flipped it, and instantly the room was bathed in a luminous light. And there everything was, just as they should have been; the wooden dresser to his right, the radio on the far wall, and the window that overlooked the entire city, in all it's glowing glory. The boy wiped an arm across his forehead, sighing outwards in relief.

Comforted by his familiar surroundings, he tried to let his mind recall the events of the nightmare that woke him up. There was nothing. He couldn't remember anything but the feeling - no, that was the wrong word. The emotions the dream had left with him were all too familiar; the feeling of a demon inside of him, the fear of death for those he loved.

"Like it's happened before," he said under his breath. Shaking his head, the boy looked at himself in the mirror. Dark brown hair parted to the right, falling around the round frame of his face. His eyes were tilted slightly upwards at the corners - oriental eyes. He brought his fingers up to them and rubbed them. "Get a grip, Ken," he told himself. "You're too old to have nightmares."
But that still didn't shake the feeling. Someone out there needed his help.

* * *

"Perhaps you could try picking on somebody your own size," Frieza said, surprising Gohan.
Gohan turned up from Doale's collapsed body, lying in a bloody heap on the ground. The boy that had tried protecting him had been safely teleported away. There was no way Gohan was letting anyone stop him from getting the revenge he wanted. Not a young child, and certainly not Frieza.
The lizard king snapped his fingers, and out from behind various pieces of debris stepped the demons Gohan had hoped never to see again. And there they all stood in one giant horrifying collaboration. A green shelled humanoid insect, "Cell," a largely built human looking android with black hair reaching down to his shoulders, "Juunana Gou," a tall pink demon who appeared to be made of dough, "Buu," and Frieza himself.

Doale had been permanently removed from the picture, now dying on the ground at Gohan's feet. He struggled to open his eyes, watching the world spin around him. I've lost too much blood. Sharp pains of broken bones assaulted his dying body, coated in a fine layer of dust. "Not the way an Emperor should die," he thought, "but it's everything I deserve ... isn't it..."

Four demons now stood in front of Gohan. Even at level two, he was doubtful he would be able to take them all on. They began to close in on him with slow, cautious steps, their power levels slowly rising with every step they took. Gohan stood unmoving.

"Charge!!" Buu ordered. They dashed towards the Saiyan boy with blinding speed from all directions, but a flash of white light prevented them from laying a finger on him.
Gohan shook his head, rubbing at his eyes as he tried to open them.
A warm hand placed itself on his shouders and a voice said, "Don't worry Gohan, we're here for you."
It was an all too familiar voice. "Dad," he said, "thanks for being here."

"Getting killed once wasn't enough for you I see," a raspy, cocky voice said. It could've only belonged to the Prince of Saiyans, Vegeta. Gohan's eyes finally recovered from the shock and smiling cheerfully in front of him were the faces of Goku, Vegeta, Juuhachi Gou, Trunks, Goten, and Piccolo.
"Ready to kick some ass, bro?" Goten asked Gohan enthusiastically with clenched fists.

***

"Gohan, no!!" Chichi screamed, tears flowing freely down her face. But she saw Gohan grab the little boy that Doale had embraced - the boy that looked so much like her Goken, and teleported the kid away to safety. But when he returned, Gohan pummeled Doale mercilessly in an array of lightning fast kicks and punches. Chichi swore she could almost hear the bones breaking, along with her heart with every impact of Gohan's strikes. And Doale, the young Emperor offered no resistance, only submission.

Not even the chilly wind that blew at the altitudes of Kamisama's palace effected Chichi. Her body had shut off all physical feeling.
She sat crying tears of sorrow into a soaking tear-filled hankerchief. Bulma was at her side, with arms wrapped tightly around Chichi's shoulders for support.
The two women watched the events unfold through a window appearing through space and time. Doale was dead, murdered by her beloved Gohan.

"I didn't want him dead, Bulma," Chichi cried. "He might have deserved it, but ... he was willing to change. Oh god, Bulma, I saw it in his eyes. He cares for us. But now..."

"No more, Chichi," she said. "Doale is not Goken, he was never Goken. Let him go."

"No," Chichi said, "it's not because we thought he was Goken! Non of that nonsense! It's because he cared for us, and was willing to turn his whole life around for us." How could you do this, Gohan?

***

The morning sunshine illuminated the white walls of the massive mansion living room. Elaborate pillars held up a ceiling mosaic depicting the history of the legendary Golden City.
The bright atmosphere didn't even dampen the dark mood that had set into Ken's heart. He stood in front of his comrades, who looked at him with worried eyes. They knew he had something important to tell them, but they didn't know what.

"I ... I have to go," he said flatly, trying to hide the building sadness that threatened to explode. It hurt him to say that to his friends. They had been through so much for the past seven years, risking their lives on some insane mission to liberate their captured city. And now that it was over, now that the battle had been won, something was calling him away.

"Go where?" Chaz, a light brown haired guy asked. He was the closest to Ken's age and the two of them had been best friends as long as either of them could remember.

"Go ... I'm not sure," Ken replied. "I can't explain it. It kind of ... came to me in a dream." He paused for a moment, seeing the looks of "what are you, crazy??" look appear on everyone's faces. "I know it's hard to understand, and believe me it's hard to explain. But ever since I've had these recurring dreams, I haven't been able to shake this feeling. I know where to go, but I don't know where exactly I have to go. I think it means something. I'm so sure of it, because in every one, there's always been this image of a crystal orange ball with these eight brilliant stars in the middle. It's almost like it's calling out to me. All I know is I have to go."

"Yeah, but to where??" Marshall, the tall leader of the group asked. "You can't just leave us all of a sudden, after seven years claiming you have to go SOMEWHERE!! That's insane." Ken frowned. Being responsible for everyone, Marshall had the tendency to want to know everything about everyone. But Ken knew his own reasons hardly made sense to himself, let alone the all controlling Marshall.

"Back to..." Ken had no idea at first, but then the words hit him, like they were there all along, he just didn't know how to say it. "Back to my home. Back to my family." And no other statement could have described his feelings more.