A/n: I'm Re up-loading all of my chapters so that they will hopefully look better on FF.net…
A/N: Well you said more so I wrote some more. Warning, This chapter is rather… Depressing. I'm almost afraid that it will launch it straight into the angst category. However considering it's characters, I think that the tone is appropriate.
Thank you to dbz-videl and Angel wings's. * Hugs reviewers * even you "haha not telling" Kiwi I will find your secrets.
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I have invited a guest from one of the books on my favorite's list to do my disclaimer. However he was not happy about it. He was having a rather nice conversation with a mattress. * Pushes Marvin the robot out in to the open*
Marvin: * Sigh* I'm feeling rather depressed at the moment.
Min: You are always depressed, Go do the disclaimer.
Marvin: right. Brain the size of a planet and they ask me to do a disclaimer. Typical…
* Min glares *
Marvin: * sigh * Min Farshaw doesn't own DBZ; it's characters, a chemistry textbook, or me. She does however own her story and the only can of Greek olive oil left in the universe. Thank you.
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Chapter 1: Memories
The day was bright as a 60-watt light bulb on its last legs. That is to say, it was cloudy and overcast, and about as miserable as a day can be. Son Gohan silently mused over this as he flew towards orange star high school. Clouds precipitated their freezing drops onto Gohan's face. He briefly considered raising a Ki sheild against the droplets, but decided against it against it. He had this lurking feeling that he was being followed, and didn't want to raise his Ki signature as an alarm. Still every time he turned around, the feeling left, and was replaced with one of being watched. He squirmed to get the uncomfortable feel of questing eyes off of his back. This failing, He landed in a back alley and decided to walk the rest of the way.
The feeling of being watched intensified and he bent his head down and flipped up the collar of his dark denim jacket to keep out the could autumn rain. Finally the itch of unseen eyes became more like a rash, and he just had to turn around, and confront his pursuer. He used his Ki sensing abilities to find the being that was following him, so as not to alert his pursuer. Gohan searched and found the Ki of an alley cat, tough, but small, a number of terrified rats and one that he couldn't identify. It didn't seem quite human, but it wasn't a Namek or a Sayia-Jin. It didn't register with the Ki's of other species he had encountered before either. It was almost like it didn't quite belong in this universe. Apart from that, The Ki was fairly strong, but it radiated despair like a beacon. How can anyone feel like that for long and live? Gohan thought to himself. Very slowly he turned around, afraid of what kind of ghastly creature his pursuer was
Gohan stared at the being with shock. It was humanoid, but there the resemblance ended. He had lank dirty hair that fell past his ears with neglect. His skin was grey and loose; bags under his red, blood shot eyes, made them appear infinitely sad. He had a hunched over posture, and his non-descript clothes hung loose on his body. Knobby joints were visible through the creature's black dirty tunic. He rambled as if he had no real purpose in life, and seemed likely to collapse at any moment. The creature's sad eyes wandered over the ground and finally came to rest staring into Gohan's black ones.
Instantly he felt all the sadness in the world wash over him. Spasms of despair racked his finely toned body. A complete loss of hope crossed his features. His eyes flickered with pain and loss as every single terrible event in his short life played through his memory, like a badly filmed home movie.
He was in an enclosed space. It was dark and musty and smelt of unwashed bodies. Blood stank in his nostrils. He was alone, and no one was going to save him. That horrible man had taken him away and now he would never see his father or his mother ever again. The memory fast forwarded his escape and centered back on the image of his father. He was holding his father was holding the nasty man back while Piccolo charged his attack. Surely his daddy would get away in time and not be caught in the green man's blast. But to his mounting horror and despair he realized that his father didn't intend to let Radditz go. Gohan stared as the beam of twisting writhing agony speared through his and his uncle's stomach, killing them both. But they suffered. Gohan could see every agonized line of his father's face as he died. How it burned him to know that there was nothing he could do because he was too weak and insignificant. He realized how cruel the world was, as the strong green namek swept him up. But life had lost it's meaning without his father.
Gohan writhed with the pain and despair of the memory, the feeling of utter uselessness. How he had failed. But he hardly had time to contemplate this as the next of his memories assailed him.
He looked on in horror as the giant bald man called Nappa defeated his friends one by one. They all fell, Tien, Krillen, and Chotzu's heroic effort, they all died in vain. Gohan tried but found again he was inadequate insufficient, a failure. He froze up at the sight of the huge energy blast careening towards him. He was dimly aware of voices calling for him to move and get out of the way. But all he knew was that he was going to die, and he had failed his father, failed his mentor, and failed his planet. He was going to die a failure.
But there out of nowhere a shining figure intersected the beam of light. Gohan realized with misery that it was t5he already injured Piccolo. He had jumped in front of the beam to save his pathetic life. As Piccolo lay dying Gohan felt all the pain of loss as his Sensei died there in his eyes. He had failed Mr. Piccolo now two. He was worthless as a sayian, worthless as a human.
At this point in his ruinous remembrances tears began to flow down Gohan's face. He was sobbing like a baby, and he didn't care. The pain was as fresh as if it had happened two days ago. His mind reeled with the unfairness of it all, and he briefly wondered why he should be allowed to continue with his wretched existence in this world. But then the next memories rolled along.
He saw the entirety of his time on namek again, his repeated failure to be worth anything in the group. He saw more deaths, of innocent nameks he could not help, of Freiza, of Vegeta's death at the Ice jinn's hands. Krillen, speared through on Freiza's horns. Krillen, forced into a violent death, in an effort to anger his father. Finally, They had to leave his father behind as the planet exploded. How he had failed him again. Gohan knew what was coming next, and tried to resist, but the memory rolled forward any way.
He was returned back to that point, seven years ago. The desert was dry, the remains of white tiles scattered all around. A whirlwind surrounded him and his power. His friends were hurt, fighting for their lives against the tiny hellish beasts that had sprung into life from the abomination standing before him. He didn't wasn't to fight. The killing. Every death weighed on his conscience. Every time his friends has perished, or innocents fallen because they were in the line of fire. He couldn't take it anymore. If more blood was spilled on his hands he thought he would explode, or die. The dismembered head of Android 16 lay in his path, speaking words of encouragement to him. Then that… Thing Cell crushed it, destroyed 16's head.
Something tore loose in Gohan. The rage he experienced took him out of his mind, out of his body. Power unimaginable flowed trough his veins. The Cell Jr's fell easily before him. Cell soon followed, relentlessly beaten by his rage. 18 was spat out at a powerful blow from Gohan.
He should have done it, right then and there. He should have ended the Charade, and Killed cell forever. But he couldn't for his stupid blind pride would not allow the abomination to get off that lightly. Death was too good for him. Then Cell played his trump card. A self-destruct sequence that would take the whole world with him. So Goku had to step up to cover his son's mistake, sacrificing himself for Gohan's pride. Goku was dead because of him. It was his fault. The failure.
Gohan's eyes were dry of tears now. He felt like an empty husk, burned out. The death was fresh in his mind as a rotting carcass. Gohan knew the real reason his father didn't want to come back because of his disappointment in his son. Gohan was a murderer and a failed protector. He felt so hollow that he wanted to howl, and tear out his eyes, but the memories streaming trough his mind made it impossible to do anything but let them pass. He stood in the cold autumn rain; shivering because he could no longer find tears, no longer find joy. All he could find here, alone, in the cold was a deep bone shattering depression that was slowly damping down the fires of his soul.
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Rain dropped from the steely grey sky, the tears of one thousand mourners at the blockage of the sun by the unyielding clouds. It rolled down roof, and was pulled through drainpipes like the rattling of prison chains. Nowhere was this more apparent than at Orange Star High. Videl Satan sat in a stupor as she gazed out the small window at the rain soaked lands below. Her mind followed lazy tracks that had nothing to do with the disinterested lecture of the professor at the front of the class.
Gohan should be here by now. Something must have happened to him. Videl thought, worried. He is never late for school. He has never had a sick day in his life, nor would it be possible for anything to seriously injure him so much that he couldn't come. She suddenly shivered at the thought that someone other than his friends was strong enough to slow Gohan down for even this long. She decided to use her limited Ki sensing abilities to try and find him. He was there, and close, Videl guessed, Probably with in the city limits. Further extrapolation reveled that he was most likely within one kilometer of the school, and somewhere to the west.
Videl frowned. What would he be doing so close to the school, and apparently not moving at all? This was definitely a more interesting puzzle then the polynomials that presented themselves in her math textbook. As a matter of fact she hardly noticed the annoying beeping sound and the incessant prodding at her shoulder. When she did notice she looked up to tell whoever was poking her to bugger off, when Videl noticed it was Erasa.
"Videl, you police watch is beeping!" Erasa said for what must have been the fiftieth time. Videl blushed and quickly answered the call.
"Chief?" She asked, "What is it?" An electronically synthesized voice answered her from the watch's tiny speakers.
"Videl, we could really use your help over here, so come ASAP!" Videl sighed in annoyance, but quickly realized this was the means of escape she needed to investigate why Gohan was standing so close to the school
"Good I could use a good ass kicking right about now" She replied. " Professor, I've got to go, police work!" She said while exiting the class. Perfect, She thought to herself, as she ran by her sleeping class and into the rain.
Her professor raised his head to watch her go then dropped it again. Boy was he ever feeling lazy today, and who was that fat boy sitting way in the back? He was sure that he didn't recognize him, and was positive that he didn't have any students in that particular shade of blue. He stared at his attendance list, but by time he looked back up, the fat boy was gone. The teacher shrugged and decided to join the rest of his class in slumber.
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Depression moped around. He didn't know what point there was in living. He'd tried killing himself at least four times that day, before he realized ithat he wasn't alive in the first place/i. Upon realizing this he became even more depressed than he was before. He stared morosely at the teen standing in front of him. He could see the immediate effect of his watery eyes as the youth broke down into tears in front of him. Depression sighed. It always started like this. First the crying then they stopped moving or eating. It was all so ….. depressing. He sighed again then turned to shuffle away.
No one liked him. It was probably the inevitable aura of gloom that invaded parties he went to. It could be that the last time he tried to talk to the hostess she ended up locking herself away in her bedroom for thirteen years. Not even the other demons liked him. So Depression walked the streets of Satan City, spreading gloom like dirty pollen in ragweed season.
He briefly wondered if he could fly as he passed the Satan City Bridge. A few jumps off the structure reveled that he in fact could not fly, nor did his fall seem to have any immediate effect on his state of life. Chalk up one more disappointment to his long list. It was Hopeless. As a matter of fact she happened to stroll up to depression, though in a rather morose and neglected manor.
" I didn't think we were ever going to be free. But here we are now trapped by the social constraints of the age, our power amounting to no good. It's not like were actually doing anything here. Besides the others won't ever get free and we'll be stuck here until we die," Hopeless cried.
"Yes it's all rather depressing" Depression added without interest, disdaining to mention the fact that they couldn't die, and were immortal beings
"Well at least you're one of the bigwigs. I'll never be anything more than a minor affliction. My days are over." Hopeless shrugged, "There are no more heroes"
"It's no good trying to cheer me up. It won't work. Besides the heroes of this time barely get any recognition as it is. They pass it off on floozies like him " depression sighed, jerking his head towards the giant statue of Hercule standing at the foot of the bridge. Hopeless took one look at him and the statue and promptly agreed. She sat right down in the middle of the roadway. Her hair was long, curly and tangled beyond the repair of even the greatest stylist. Acne spotted her pale grey face, her clothes were really more hole than cloth, with no attempt at repair to be seen. Depression shrugged and joined her. They now sat across both lanes of the bridge, as a queue of cars quickly built up on either side of the unhappy companions.
"Get Off the Road!!" yelled an angry tuck driver, and blared his horn loudly. Other motorists were making similar demands. Depression and hopeless took no notice, absently picking at their clothes and hair. Depression took this opportunity to like flat on his face and examine the blacktop. It was certainly more interesting than his pathetic worthless half-life at the moment. Gradually the demons' presence began to take an effect. Horns stopped honking, and people became listless, or started crying. Eventually the people stopped moving and stared blankly out of their windows, or the upholstery of their cars, contemplating if life was really worth living after all.
"It's all so… depressing"
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END A/N Okay it's done! Yay!
I will probably try to get my chapters out once a week. However this is not set in stone. I have a lot of homework, so we'll see.
Oh and the first Reviewer to tell me where Marvin the depressed robot comes from wins an extra large pizza sized cookie, baked by Chi Chi.
Please review!!!