DISCLAIMER: I do not own DBZ. I'm also too tired to make up something more entertaining!

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Silence is Golden

Chapter 9: The Gold Fighter

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Gohan muttered obscene words under his breath as he made his way up the stairs to the roof. School had just gotten out less than 5 minutes ago and he was hoping to get out of the damn place before he had to deal with anyone else. He placed an open palm on his chest, letting his ki form into his idea for a disguise.

He didn't even need to put the usual two fingers to his forehead to Instant Transmission himself back to his house. It didn't take too much concentration to find the ki of his mom. Gohan was just about to transmit his ki when the door behind him opened.

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Videl growled under her breath as she opened the door to the roof after school only to find the Gold Fighter standing there. He was clad in a jet black, rather baggy, fighting gi with a dark blue shirt and black wrist bands. The outfit gave a great view of his arm muscles, but the rest of his body was hidden behind the baggy gi. On his feet he wore black boots (Saiyan boots) that simply tied up the ensemble to make him look as if he were the incarnation of death, come to take her life away (Okay, this was a combination of a lot of different people's suggestions. Because of this, I'm just thanking everyone who gave an idea! I'm too lazy at the moment to write whose ideas this was built from).

"What are you growling about?" He muttered angrily as he glared at her.

"Nothing that concerns you!" Videl retorted. She knew that it was lame, but she had to say something.

The Gold Fighter just gave her a look that said 'Feh, yea right.'

"Where'd you come from, anyway?" Videl asked him, trying to keep the anger hidden. She wanted answers from this guy and was beginning to understand that getting him mad wasn't the way to get answers.

The Gold Fighter just scowled at her before putting two fingers to his forehead and vanishing again; the fingers made for a quicker transmition.

"So, that's the Gold Fighter who everyone is talking about." Videl heard a new voice from behind her.

The daughter of the supposed 'Savior of the World' spun around to come face to face with Lime.

"I suppose so. I've never met anyone else with golden hair before." Videl told her friend (Yes, Videl and Lime are friends in this fic. I need Videl to have some friend that's not an idiot (Sharpener) or a blond ditz (3 guesses who I mean. . .)).

"He's an odd guy, but I think that I know him from somewhere." Lime said without thinking about her words, her thoughts were too caught up with the guy who'd just disappeared, as she stared at the place Gohan had been a moment before. There was no longer any doubt in her mind as to who the 'Gold Fighter' was. Seeing him like that, she knew that it was the Gohan that she'd met. The hair color was even the same shade of blond that she remembered for all those years. She even recognized Gohan's face, why didn't anyone else? Oh yea, nobody believed that you could change your hair color by will!

"You do?" Videl asked, completely surprised that one of her friends knew what was going on.

"A little bit, but I'm not sure about anything though." Lime told her, mentally beating herself over her head for her slip-up.

"Well, you know more than I do. Why don't you come over to my house and we can see what we can dig up on the Internet?" Videl offered.

"Sure. I'd like to learn anything that I can about that guy." Lime said while in her mind, she was in a panic. 'Oh man! I know waaaaay too much about Gohan. Do I help Videl find out more? I know exactly where to look to find out nearly everything that she could need to know about Gohan, but I don't think that he wants anyone to find out. But Videl would be mad at me if she found out that I intentionally misled her so that she didn't find anything out . . . . . What have I gotten myself into?!?!'

"Okay then, come over at four tomorrow. Does that work for you?" Videl asked her friend, feeling slightly excited at the thought of revealing the mysterious 'Gold Fighter.'

"Sure." Lime groaned inwardly. She. . . Was. . . SCREWED!

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Lime reached into her pocket and pulled out the capsule that was her ride. It was a rather small bright red air car with black jets on the back. Her Grandpa had given her this for her birthday and there was no way she would let anything happen to it. Getting into the jet, she began the long ride home.

Five minutes after taking off, she heard gunshots and screams from below her. Favoring living, she quickly landed her car and recapsulized it. It was safer on the ground since in the air, she might get hit by a stray bullet.

Running toward the area where the gunshots were, she found herself at the City Bank. Lime quickly found out from other people in the crowd that there were seven guys with automatic blaster rifles holding the clerks and owners of a bank hostage in the second story of the bank. They're demands were simply, have Hercule come out and fight.

A yellow jet-copter landed behind the police line outside the bank and out stepped Videl. "What's going on?" She asked the chief.

"Videl, we're glad that you could make it. There are seven men holding the owner and clerks of the Satan Bank hostage. They're demanding that Hercule come out and fight or else they'll start killing the hostages!" The chief explained.

"I think that I can handle that." Videl said confidently before noticing the still nervous look on the chief's face. "What's wrong?"

"They have the army class blaster rifles. How they managed to get their hands on such weapons is beyond me." The chief explained.

"You're kidding me?!" Videl gasped, "Those rifles can kill a person instantly, no matter where they hit! Who was the idiot who let them get the plans for those things?!"

"As I said Videl, I'm not sure how they managed to get those blasters." The chief sounded oddly like a puppy that just got kicked.

"Darn. That means that I've got to go in there and free a bunch of people, and if I even get touched by the shots, I'm dead. Joy." Videl muttered as she stormed past the chief in the direction of the bank.

"Heh. Don't think that you get all the fun." Videl heard a voice from above her.

She looked up to find the Gold Fighter sitting on the roof of the bank, looking down at her with a smirk.

"Get out of here! I can take care of things on my own here!" Videl yelled back up, "I don't need you getting hurt, either." She added as an afterthought since people were staring at them.

Gohan's stare turned into a glare that could melt steel if given the chance. Was she insulting him?! He'd gotten shot head on, literally, and came out unscathed. Now she thinks that he'd get hurt?!?! By humans?!?! His saiyan pride wasn't too happy with the idea.

He continued glaring at her as he stood up and jumped off the roof of the building. A few people in the crowd screamed as the boy fell towards the earth.

'Show off.' Lime thought with a smirk as she watched him fall.

Videl watched in amazement as he seemed to slow down before gently touching the ground. "You were fine until you said the second part." He growled at her as he whirled around and began walking in the direction of the bank entrance.

Videl stared wide-eyed after him as he walked toward the bank. Now more than ever she realized how badly his golden hair clashed with his black gi. 'Now's not the time to be worrying about that! I've got to go in there and make sure that idiot doesn't get himself killed.' With that thought, she ran in after him.

As they walked in, they noticed that the main room was completely vacant. Gohan could sense thirteen or so ki's from somewhere above him. He tapped Videl on the shoulder to get her attention.

Videl glanced at him irritably but got the hint as he pointed up. She could only assume that he'd heard something that she'd missed. Videl was tempted to rebel against someone helping her, but realized that the most important thing at the moment was to rescue the hostages. She nodded and they began searching for a set of stairs.

'I could fly, but that would kill the element of surprise if I burst through the ground. I can take a blaster shot, but Videl Can't.' Gohan thought with a scowl as he continued his search.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gohan saw Videl motioning towards him. Apparently she'd found something. Looking in front of her, he saw a door labeled '2nd story, employees only.' He smirked a bit before following her through the door.

Videl shuddered a bit as she walked up the stairs. Her odds of dying were incredibly high. She might survive a gunshot wound, but a blaster went clear through the body, if you didn't die instantly from the shot, you'd die from blood loss within minutes.

They came to a door and Videl reached out to grasp the handle and open it, more than likely to her death. Her hand froze inches before the knob. She was too young to die looking like swiss cheese! The thought of the beams shooting through her body scared her, she'd never even seen one before, but the police had told her that blasters were beyond deadly.

Gohan growled under his breath at the sudden stop, but could understand Videl's fear. His superior saiyan nose was able to smell the fear, it excited his instincts to smell it, but squelched it in favor of his 'mission.' First, he had to get Videl to move.

"Calm down, Videl." Gohan whispered in her ear. "I'm not going to let you get hurt."

Videl shivered at the feeling of his breath against her ear. She'd never had that feeling before. And the thought of having someone there to protect her was also rather nice. To her surprise, she found herself trusting him. Taking a breath, she grabbed the handle and threw the door open before running out, the Gold Fighter right behind her.

Seven glowing blaster nozzles were all they saw. 'A trap.' Videl thought, feeling true fear hit her for the first time in her life. 'I'm gonna die . . .'

Gohan's thoughts weren't far from Videl's. The energy emitted from these guns told him that if he got hit, he definitely would not come out unscathed. . .

Gohan just stared as the nozzles glowed with brighter and brighter golden light. 'What am I going to do?! I'm really beginning to regret coming.' Then his thoughts turned to the girl beside him. He could feel her ki fluctuating and could smell her fear even stronger than before. He was surprised at his instincts demand to protect her with his life. His saiyan side couldn't have chosen her, could they? This early? He couldn't deny the fact that he was attracted to her. More than once in the past few days had he found himself staring at her. 'She would make a good mate, and a good mother.' He registered where his thoughts were going and quickly drove them from his mind (AN: Haha! Did you notice that he didn't deny any of it? ^.^).

Even while trying to forget, he found himself making the oath never to let her be hurt. Even if it killed him.

The nozzles stopped getting brighter as one of them gave an order. "Kill them."

Seven beams of energy erupted from the blasters as Gohan shoved Videl behind him. "SHIELD!" He yelled as he thrust his arm out. A blue see- through bubble appeared around Videl and himself. (AN: Gohan used this in the mini-movie 'History of trunks,' so he can use it here too!)

Videl watched in amazement as the seven beams of energy hit the shield and seemed to split in half like soft butter dropped on a warm knife. But the shield started to bulge inward before fixing itself as Gohan pumped more ki into it.

'What the hell did the military make these things for?! They could incinerate humans with ease when given the time to charge. I guess that these are the blasters that Bulma was talking about. She told me that once they're charged, they can fire a continuous beam for nearly half an hour straight before running out of energy. Unfortunately, I'm going to need a power-up if I'm going to keep this up for half an hour.' Gohan thought with a grimace as he continued fighting against the seven beams. A shield was more exhausting than a ki blast because it needed the ki more compact to keep all the enemy ki out. He was beginning to feel the effects as he'd now held the shield for nearly five minutes. He'd have to think of something quickly.

The seven men were getting nervous. The Gold Fighter wasn't giving in. These beams were supposed to kill both of them instantly, he was now wondering how long the beams would hold out. "Stop fire!" The same man yelled as the seven beams faded out.

Gohan dropped his shield before running into the group of men. He was able to knock one guy out before noticing his mistake. He was now directly in the middle of their group. That, and that the nozzles were starting to glow again.

"Can you stop beams from every direction, Gold Fighter?" One man said mockingly as he picked up his fallen comrade's blaster and aimed it and his own at Gohan. "Boys" He smirked, "Kill him."

"SHIELD!" Gohan yelled as he was surrounded by a bubble of energy.

He was able to hold off the beams for a few minutes before he realized something. It was taking too much energy to block all these beams. Before, all he had to do was set up a shield in front of himself. Now he had to hold an even stronger shield that went completely around himself.

He didn't have that kind of ki left. . . At least not in his current form . . .

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AN: Well, it's not too hard to guess what's going to happen next. Stay tuned for the next chapter! Sorry if it's a short chapter, but I couldn't resist the chance to leave it off there. The next chapter should more than compensate for this chapter's shortness. However, I want 16 reviews before I put up the next chapter. That way, the incredibly huge fight scene in the 10th chapter can be my 100 review special. I'm kinda' counting on you guys to make this work out well.

Also, the contest as to where Gohan's personality came from is OVER! Any submissions received after this point will be ignored (And I plan to go back and erase the contest's existence from my prior chapters). The winners will be announced in the next chapter, which is gonna' be HUGE!

-Ligar Zero X

PS: Sorry if it's a short chapter, but I couldn't resist the chance to leave it off there. Again, the next chapter should more than compensate for this chapter's shortness. Please Review as I want to break 100 before I post my next chapter!