To Gohan, the only thing comparable to Cell in terms of sheer terror inducement would be the double pronged attack of his mother and little brother. They were both now haranguing him as he tried to finish his meal.
Goten was still hanging off his leg, happily yelling "Big Bwother!" unknowingly squeezing of his blood circulation in the limb. Mom after realizing he was okay on the other hand…
"Gohan, why are your clothes such a mess? Have you been fighting again? Did you even bother to remember that you have homework? I thought we agreed you were going to be a good boy and not be a juvenile and go off running with your father's old friends? Do you want to send your dear poor mother off to an early grave? Don't forget to wipe your chin dear. Then who would take care of Goten? How could you be so irresponsible? I can't take care of you forever you know!"
"I'm sorry mom, but the Earth was in trouble and I just couldn't sit by and do nothing while everyone around was getting hurt, and I'm pretty sure it's what dad would've wanted and…" he wiped his mouth, having finished his last bowl, and tried to stand. Then he realized the leg his brother was latched onto had fallen asleep and immediately stumbled down, tripping over Goten..
"Waahh! Waaahh!"
"Now look what you've done Gohan, you've made your brother cry," Chi-chi's lips began to quiver. "My boy's turning into a delinquent under my very eyes."
How do I always get into these situations? Gohan ruefully thought. However, a pair of fast moving ki's on the periphery of his senses interrupted his ruminations. This could be trouble. He stood back up and prepared to greet the newcomers. But first he would have to deal with the obstacles in his way.
Gohan reached down, tickling his smaller half to shoo him away. The toddler stopped crying and giggled happily at his brother's antics. Chi-chi, however, would not be so easily dissuaded.
"Oh no you don't Gohan, I know that look on your face. You are not leaving again, young man. Not before you've finished your chores. Do you hear me?"
"Sorry mom, some strangers are approaching quickly and I have to make sure they're not a threat to you or Goten" Gohan sheepishly shrugged before exiting the door and blasting away, the reasons for his quick exit not entirely altruistic. "Don't worry about the dishes, I'll take care of them when I get back," he shouted back, his voice fading away as Gohan raced outside to see who was visiting.
He found the two dark figures hovering several miles away from his home. Gohan slowly approached the pair, now recognizing their Ki signals as the ones who had been following him to the lookout earlier. I must be getting sloppy, they must've seen or sensed me leaving and followed me without my noticing. Now that he was a little closer he could see that one was a tall black man, the other a shorter paler woman.
"Hi there," Gohan said. "Can I ask who you two are and what you're doing at my home?"
"Don't mind us, we're just visitors admiring the scenery," the taller one said. So this is the kid we've been looking for. Gohan was it? And supposedly the son of Son Goku. He seems a little scrawny.
"We don't get too many visitors so I hope you're not looking to cause any trouble," Gohan replied.
"Relax kid," the shorter woman spoke up. "No one's here looking for trouble. Like my friend said, we're just here to look around, maybe chat a little bit with the inhabitants here."
"Not many live around here, in fact my family and I are the only around for hundreds of miles. Are you guys lost? I could show you the way back to the main road if you want."
The woman slightly snorted in laughter to herself. He didn't bat an eye during the entire exchange. Apparently chatting with strangers and offering to lead them back to a road despite hovering several miles off the ground was a regular day occurrence. "No that's alright, we've got GPS," she saccharinely smiled, holding up the watch for the boy to see. Showing him the actual GPS built into her skull would be a little more difficult. "But, I was hoping you could still help us. Do you know where Son Goku and his family lives? It would be a real help if you could tell us."
"Why? Why do you want with him?" Gohan was immediately on guard. If these people really were androids, then the fact that they were looking for his father couldn't just be a coincidence.
She was caught off balance by the sudden hostility from the kid. He'd not been exactly friendly before but wasn't overtly hostile either. Was it something she said?
"Whoa there calm down," she said. "I'm sorry if I accidentally said something to upset you. My name's Burdett and this is Hamilton, we're actually here on behalf of the government. If it's okay with you, maybe we could land somewhere and talk? The wind's blowing my hair all over the face." True to her word, several strands of her hair were flying wildly over her forehead. Her attempts to brush them behind a her ear proving futile.
Gohan carefully watched them. He sensed no ill intention from them, yet he couldn't risk endangering his family. Still, if she was telling the truth about her allegiance, then his fears could be unfounded. He had heard quite a bit of how the new Earth government had been improving the lives of the people of Earth by introducing some new highly developed technology. Since they probably didn't know the layout of the land, he could also take advantage of her offer and lead them away from his home. "Okay, I know of a spot where we can talk," he started to head off before pausing a moment. "By the way, you should probably cut your hair."
"Why is that?" the other man chimed in. "You like girls with short hair? Don't worry, I know a couple I can hook you up with. They're really cute too" He ignored the slight jab to the stomach and glare from his partner.
"What? No. I mean, that's not what I meant. Well, not that there's anything wrong with short haired girls, but not that there's anything wrong with long haired ones either." Great, I've just met them and I'm already embarrassing myself. Strongest in the universe indeed. "What I meant to say was that if you cut your hair, you wouldn't have so much problem with it flapping in the wind." Gohan sighed in relief, glad to have finally gotten it all out.
Hamilton chuckled to himself, amused at the kid's embarrassment. He might be the most powerful person on Earth, but he's still just a kid. I still can't believe he just straight up told Burdett to cut her hair, how adorable. Speaking of which. He looked closer at the boy's hair. That's strange."How do you get your hair to stay in place while flying? I cut mine for the same reason you mentioned."
It's due to my alien genotypes from a now nearly extinct warrior race that was originally bent on conquering and wiping out all life on Earth. "I don't know," Gohan half smiled half shrugged. "My hair's just naturally like this. Shall we go?"
Gohan flew off a bit before finally selecting and landing on a plateau several miles away, his two new companions joining him shortly after. "So what do you guys want to talk about?" Gohan ventured forth.
The one named Burdett ventured forth. "Are you by any chance Gohan, son of Son Goku?"
A few seconds passed before Gohan hesitantly responded. "That's correct."
Eagerness shone on Burdett's face. Good. We've finally found them. That means this wild goose chase is finally almost over. Maybe I'll get some actually interesting assignments afterwards. Months of fruitless search had even worn down her extensive patience."Where is he? We'd like to speak to him." Again the boy paused reluctantly, his eyes seemingly downcast.
"He's dead," was the quiet whisper.
"I'm sorry to hear that, you have my condolences," Burdett said, a little bit taken aback and trying desperately to grasp for words. She recalled the imagery she had seen of the Cell Games, of Cell ballooning himself up into a tremendous size and the warnings from the scientists that an explosion would irreparably damage the Earth. Then the golden haired Goku had appeared, placed a hand on Cell, then both vanished. "So is it just you and your mother now?"
"No," Gohan replied. "I have my little brother to take care of now as well."
"Then I have fantastic news for you," Hamilton said suddenly. Gohan blinked in surprise. "With your dad gone, that would make you the man of the house, and you do want to take care of your family, right?"
"Y…yeah, I mean yes. Yes, I do want to take care of them. But how?"
"That's easy, my superiors would like to offer you a job." Burdett gaped at her partner. Here this kid was obviously distraught at having painful memories pulled up and now Hamilton was thickly laying on the sales pitch.
"Me? But I'm just a kid, what can I do?"
Hamilton continued on, ignoring the dagger like glares he was receiving from his partner. "Are you kidding me? I don't know about you, but I don't know of many teenagers who can fly, and judging from I've seen of you in action in videos and images, at least the ones hadn't been accidentally destroyed, I doubt there's anyone on the planet quite like you."
Gohan idly wondered where they managed to get videos and images of his fights.
"You could do so much for the planet, for your people, not just for your family. I know about your dad, you see we've done our homework as well. Although I gotta say, the records were a little spotty sometimes. I know about his past, I know about all the good he's done for the people on our fine little planet." Gohan sincerely doubted that he actually knew of all of his father's exploits, but he let him continue his speech. It was nice hearing someone asides from the usual circle praise his father for a change. After years of hearing about nothing but Hercule and how his father was a cowardly trickster who wouldn't face the champ, Gohan couldn't stand watching television anymore or having much contact with the outside world. "Now's your chance to continue his legacy, assume his mantle so to speak. Hell, it's not like it'd even be much of a transition for you, considering your accomplishments and everything. So what do you say, son?"
"Gee, I don't know," Gohan said doubtfully, Hamilton's smile never wavering an inch. The thought of having to fight again terrified him a little bit. Terrified that he would make another catastrophic mistake. Terrified that others would suffer because due to his own shortcomings. But still, maybe this was what his dad would want. After his death, Gohan had become directionless, burying his head under mountains of books because it was just easier to do what the authority figure said. But deep down, he knew he could never get over his grief if he didn't face it one day. Maybe he could at least give this thing a try. "I'd… I'd have to ask my mom first."
"Don't worry kid," Hamilton said confidently. "You can leave that to me."
As they were flying back towards Gohan's home, Burdett pulled her partner a little bit back and began furiously whispering into his ear.
"What do you think you're doing? The kid probably lost his dad to Cell for crying, couldn't you at least show a little bit more compassion before laying it on so thickly?"
Johnson was unperturbed and pointed towards Gohan. "I look at that kid, and you know what I see? I see someone who could annihilate me in an instant. Hell, I bet if it pleased him to, he could annihilate all of us and this planet and there'd be nothing we could do about it. But look underneath all that swirling scary power, and you'll see he is just another lost angry kid who's wondering why it has to be him who has to get up every morning without his dad to greet him. But you know what? He's tough, he gets up anyways and he does what has to be done. The kid might look like a kid, he might sound like a kid, but he sure as hell stopped being a kid a long time ago."
Burdett looked back dubiously. "And you got all of this after speaking to him for a few minutes."
"What can I say? I'm a good judge of character."
"What?" Screamed Chi-chi. "Absolutely not! Gohan has his studying to attend to and doesn't have time to go gallivanting across the world. Isn't that right Gohan?" She crossed her arms with a "hhmph" to accentuate her point.
"Actually Mrs. Son, your son's studies won't suffer a bit. You should know that the government has tremendous resources at its disposal. And I mean Tremendous." Burdett rolled her eyes at Johnson's sales routine. She'd already heard him practice it many times with his numerous lady friends. "For example, did you know that the best and brightest scholars and academics are now employed by the government. Just imagine, your son working side by side with the greatest members of academia, staying up late at night discussing the theories of the universe, the beauty and symmetry of math, deep intricate philosophies and ideologies. I assure you, he'd learn more from just being around these geniuses for an hour than he ever would from only studying these no doubt wonderful books you have here. That's not even including the one on one tutoring he would receive."
"I…" Chi-chi began to feel her defenses falter, desperate trying to come up with another argument. "There will be no staying up late at night. Gohan is a growing man and needs his sleep." Hamilton ignored her.
"What's more, once he's old enough, we'd be more than willing to offer him a full scholarship to the academy of his choice. Anywhere he goes would be at the expense of the tax payers. This offer is also available to your second son as well. All Gohan would have to do is spend a few hours every week showing us his energy manipulation techniques. I don't know about you, but I think I know who's really getting the raw end of the deal here."
That last bit seemed to seal the deal. "Full scholarships? To anywhere he chooses?" Chi-chi almost feinted, this was unbelievable. She had stayed up many late nights fretting over how she was going to pay for her sons' university expenses. "Where do I sign?"