Aftermath

Meanwhile in a small house in East District 439, a mother and grandfather, together with a pink haired witch were watching the fate of the world through a crystal ball.

Zooming in and upon seeing the uncomfortable facial expressions of her husband Goku and Piccolo, Chi-Chi got a nagging feeling in her gut. Chi-Chi never wanted her son fighting Cell in the first place and seeing those expressions did little to lift her mood. Almost fearful she spoke up: "What's happening?"

Nobody spoke up, but Baba knew however and the crystal ball suddenly flashed to black and stayed black.

"What! No! Get back! Get back on!" Chi-Chi screeched as she grabbed the crystal ball and swung it around.

"Careful, my crystal ball apparently can't handle to project the vast amounts of energy being produced, it's is too much." Baba lied.

Chi-Chi shrieked: "LOOKOUT NOW!"

At the Cell Games:

'AAAAAH! Pain! It hurts! AAAAARGH!' Gohan yelled out in his mind as the process was starting. It started with his useless arm then down with his feet, from there it would work its way up, so that the arm firing the Kamehameha and his head would be the last to go if necessary. It was a terrible burning feeling, nothing was as painful as this, like somebody is peeling your skin off. After that continues to peck the flesh and muscles of your bones like a vulture does with its beak. Finally it concludes with a feeling of your bones being finely powdered to dust like in a meat grinder. Before it repeats the entire process over again for the next centimeter of your body to turn into energy.

No longer feeling his feet and shins but feeling the newly made available energy a tiny smile made its way to his lips. Using a bit of the new energy to keep himself together and afloat, for now he had no legs to stand on, he used the rest in his Kamehameha. Still needing more, he bit down on his left cheek as to not scream out in pain, a few tears escaped his eyes while continuing the process.

Time passed, it's unknown if it were seconds of minutes, but all the Z-fighters were now conscious and starting to get up. Looking at the spectacle they were all just in time to see Cell's Kamehameha disappear as it was overcome by Gohan's.

Sensing Cell was no longer alive, Gohan let his Kamehameha die down, stopping the turn-process, reverting to his base form and falling down to the ground. Gohan felt nothing down below his lungs and felt himself slipping away, even with Cell dead he knew he wouldn't make it right now. Trying to calm his still breathing body he closed his eyes and sensed out just to check if they were all okay.

'Dad'

'Mr. Piccolo'

'Krillin'

'Mirai Trunks'

'Vegeta'

'Tien'

'Yamcha'

'Two energies at the Lookout, those belong to Dende and mr. Popo.'

'Three energies at Kame House, baby Trunks, Bulma and Master Roshi.'

'Four energies going from home towards the Lookout, grandpa, Baba, mom and… One inside mom? … I'm becoming a big brother!' A small smile started to adorn his face.

When the Z-fighters made their way towards Gohan they met a horrific sight no one would have imagined:

Before them laid a child of eleven years old, missing the lower half of his body his organs and parts of them together with a lot of blood almost spilling out. Only a part of Gohan's brain unconsciously still feeding energy to keep himself together prevented it. What was left of his chest still heaved up and down through breathing, dried tears stained his face and he was showing no sign of pain. It even sported a small smile, even in the sate he was in now he tried to stay strong.

Opening the eyes on his tear-stained face Gohan managed to tilt his head up towards the group and got out a strained laugh: "It's finally over… hehe…" Before the last sparkle of life left his eyes becoming entirely whites and his head fell back to the ground lifeless.

Goku took a step towards the body of his son, only to be pushed aside by the hand of Piccolo who let out a small growl. He knelt down to the body and started to wrap his cape around Gohan, which quickly started to get drenched in red of the blood. After completely covering Gohan with his cape, aside from his one arm and head Piccolo took off. The rest followed suit except for Goku. Krillin stopped to turn around and saw Goku still standing there and went back to him. Goku's shoulders hung low, he was breathing hard and tears were threatening to spill. With one hand he grabbed a shoulder and as Goku looked at him Krillin nodded towards the direction the rest had left to…

'The Lookout, the Dragon Balls, we will get him back.' Goku realized and nodded back to Krillin as they both started to catch up to the rest.

'The Lookout, the Dragon Balls, we will get him back.' Piccolo prayed in his head as he was flying at top speed towards the Lookout, with a determination that he didn't notice that the wrapped body he was carrying slowly had become transparent before it completely disappeared.

Most witnesses of the Cell Games had emotionless faces, some had wind in their eyes due their travelling speed, some had tears due emotions, though one had dollar signs.

With Gohan:

"HAAAA!" Gohan jumped up, looking frantically around him.

'Am I not dead?' Gohan thought confused as he suddenly felt something behind him.

"My tail!" 'It's back!' "I mist you little guy." Gohan said towards his tail, which affirmatively and happily swished behind him. Suddenly the whole place was shaking, Gohan's tail quickly wrapped itself around the waist. Stretching out his senses to see what was causing the quakes…

'Cell' "Cell!" Gohan shouted, immediately powering up to Super Saiyan and flew towards him.

Arriving at Cell's location, Gohan yelled: "I thought I killed you!"

Cell turned around and saw Gohan, upon seeing him he yelled back: "You!" as he pointed at Gohan: "I'll kill you!"

Powering up to his maximum Gohan's hair spiked up even more and he felt incredibly strong. 'That is strange, I am not even in my slower but stronger form.' Looking down he saw the lightning crackling around him. 'This form! I remember! This is like the second level of Super Saiyan. Super Saiyan 2! With this I can beat Cell.' Looking back at Cell: "I'll finish you now!"

Both Gohan and Cell flew at each other, but due Gohan being the faster one he landed his right square in Cell's face as Cell was launched backwards through the yellow clouds.

30 seconds later.

A crash was heard in HFIL, the curious residents of HFIL walked over to the crater, but before they could get close a gold-haired boy walked out of the crater. Said boy was dragging some green bug-man, who was covered in bruises and its own purple blood, behind him by its leg.

Taking two steps out of the crater Gohan threw Cell into the air and cupped his hands together: "Kame…"

Cell tried to balance himself, but his injuries were making it difficult.

"Hame…" Gohan continued.

Cell had stabilized himself.

"Haaa!" Gohan finished as he let the beam fly at his enemy.

Cell could only look in horror as he couldn't dodge the beam that closed in on him.

After a piercing scream of pain and horror it was deadly silent as Gohan no longer felt Cell's energy. Relieved that Cell is finally dead he took a look at his surroundings, only to see Raditz, Nappa, Dodoria, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force, Frieza, Cooler and King Cold and many others.

Taking a few steps back Gohan began to mutter in horror: "No… No! You're all dead, you can't be alive, you can't!"

While none of them were able to sense energy levels Frieza recognized the boy: 'No… No! It is that brat from Namek… and he is a Super Saiyan! Wait, calm down, we can take him.'

Turning around to face his father and brother, Frieza began to talk: "Well, look what the bug dragged in, a Super Baby, let's get him!"

"Everyone charge!" King Cold ordered as they flew towards Gohan.

As everyone who ever served them joined the charge, aside from the Saiyans, Frieza grew confident and maniacally laughed: "Ha! You may be a Super Saiyan, but you can't defeat us now. Hahaha!"

He expected to see the child trembling with fear, which Gohan did, but it wasn't with fear, but with rage.

Raising both his hands, Gohan fired a blast from each hand. The charging force tried to dodge the yellow blasts, but the two who were hit were reduced to nothingness.

Guldo and Dodoria

Angry, Frieza threw a Death Saucer at Gohan, Gohan caught the disc spun 360 degrees and threw it back. Again the charging force tried to dodge, but one more died again.

Recoome

Now flying himself headfirst into the charging force, Gohan stopped the force in its tracks. Between all the dodging of the punches and kicks, Gohan managed to grab King Cold's head and shoved him headfirst into Cooler.

"AAAARGH!" Cooler screamed out in pain as the horns of his father were sticking out of Cooler's back.

"Oh no! I'm stuck!" King Cold exclaimed.

That was when the stuck father son duo heard: "Masenko…"

Turning to its source they could only stare in horror at the yellow energy being gathered in the hands of their executioner.

"Haaaaa!" Gohan exclaimed as he fired, after the following explosion, there was nothing left of them safe for one of King Cold's horns and the tail of Cooler hitting the ground, dead.

Frieza, despite being horrified by the death he just witnessed of his family, continued to fight the half-Saiyan. Frieza threw punch after punch in the hope of hitting his opponent, but he came nowhere close. After three more dodged punches Gohan felt an opponent charge him from behind. Turning around Gohan caught his enemy's wrist, stopping his enemies pink energy blade two centimeters from his face. Spinning back towards Frieza, still with Salza's wrist gripped tightly, Gohan used Salza's blade as his own. Managing to cut Frieza with it across his stomach causing a deep wound, Gohan was about to cut him again until he felt an attack being charged up to his left. Ending the spin Gohan threw Salza towards the charging energy just as it was fired, causing Salza to be hit by the pink electric attack of his colleague, taking Salza out of commission.

Neiz was surprised when suddenly Salza was thrown into his attack, but he couldn't think about it too long without losing his head, which he did. Neiz's head was completely obliterated, as Neiz's body fell to the ground, Gohan lowered his raised hand from which he fired. Turning back towards Frieza, who was now covering his wound with his arms, Gohan went to punch Frieza in the face. Despite the pain, Frieza saw it coming and raised his arms in an X-block to guard his face. Feeling an excruciating pain, Frieza's eyes looked towards the source of the pain and only saw an arm. Gohan's fist had buried itself inside Frieza through the wound and started to charge a blast inside his fist.

"No! AAAAAH!" Frieza screamed as Gohan released the blast from his hand which was still inside Frieza, blowing Frieza's top half clean off, killing him.

Everyone had stopped fighting after seeing their three strongest members and then some being killed off easily. Gohan touched down at the same time as Frieza's body hit the ground, still producing smoke from the explosion.

Sensing the rest stopped charging him, Gohan allowed himself to relax a little, but no sooner had he let that thought enter his mind as two figures made it through the smoke. A short figure with a purple cloak with hood covering its face and a tall figure with a red cloak with hood covering its face stopped in front of him.

The short one spoke up: "You need to come with me."

At the Lookout:

Landing at the Lookout Goku's black eyes met another pair of black eyes, those belonging to his wife and the mother of their son. Unable to look Chi-Chi in the eyes he hung his head low and went for an embrace, he was so sorry, but he couldn't change a thing, he didn't act like the father as he should have been. He really hoped and needed that Chi-Chi would still accept him as her husband despite his acts as a father.

Chi-Chi accepted the embrace, she knew what her husband was thinking, she too needed the embrace of the significant other. After standing there for a while in their embrace, they let go and turned to see the rest waiting for them. Walking towards them Dende softly spoke to the two: "All the Dragon Balls are gathered, we'll get Gohan back."

Those words brought small smiles on the faces of the parents.

"Come forth Shenron!" Dende called out.

The Dragon Balls glowed yellow as it shot out the yellow light beams which melted into one big one to form the dragon.

"You have summoned me from my slumber, I shall grant two wishes, what is your first wish?"

"We wish for everyone who was killed by Cell to be brought back to life!" Dende replied.

The Dragon's eyes glowed red as it worked on fulfilling this.

"Your wish has been granted, what is your second wish?"

Piccolo, Mirai Trunks and Goku immediately stretched their senses to find Gohan. When they couldn't find them they looked at each other, after the three men nodded towards each other Piccolo turned towards Dende. Upon receiving a nod from Piccolo, Dende brought his attention back to the dragon.

"Is Gohan back?" Chi-Chi nervously asked her husband, she expected smiles and Goku to say he would pick him up, but that wasn't the case.

Goku was at a loss at what to say, thankfully Piccolo managed to adequately fill her in: "Well Cell is the cause, but in the dragon's eyes he wasn't directly the cause."

Before Chi-Chi could ask details about how Cell wasn't the cause, Dende was speaking to the dragon again. Chi-Chi dropped the subject because it didn't matter, because they would just use the second wish to get her son back from whatever other cause there was.

"We wish for Son Gohan, who died at the Cell Games to be brought back to life!"

While the dragon's eyes glowed red, Chi-Chi couldn't help but cringe at the wish. While Gohan would be back he still has died, an experience you should only experience once in your life and certainly not as a child.

"Your wish… Cannot be granted!"

"What!" Chi-Chi screamed, while others could only stand with their mouth open, because they couldn't believe it either. "Why!"

"He has broken a rule in the afterlife, because of this offense he is not allowed to come back to the living."

"What rule?" A desperately Chi-Chi asked.

"Killing the already dead, erasing them from existence. When the person you call Son Gohan arrived in the afterlife he was confused, when he sensed Cell, he forgot about both he and himself being dead and started to fight him. During their fight they crashed in HFIL, upon seeing all the previous enemies he went berserk and erased several beings before stopping."

"Goku, you know the North King Kai, please talk to him." Chi-Chi begged her husband, but before he could answer the dragon spoke again.

"The King Kais can't help, this rule is being held in order by someone above them."

Falling to her knees, Chi-Chi started to sob, until she felt a pair of arms around her neck. Looking up she saw Goku in front of her, also on his knees with tears coming out of his eyes as he held her close.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Chi." Goku almost inaudibly whispered through his crying.

Piccolo who was silent since filling Chi-Chi in could only stand still in shock, breaking out of it he walked away from the group. He didn't care about what the others would do with the second wish, he heard something about the Androids, but he just didn't care. Thoughts went through the Namekian's head as he, unable to help, could only watch as the kid who was the first person who showed him what it meant to have a friend, was no longer among them, who risked his life on Namek and now risked and lost his life against Cell.

'Gohan… I'm sorry we couldn't help you.' Taking a deep breath as he walked towards the edge of the Lookout, staring at the world below him, which was now safe again. 'Until we meet again.'