Chapter Fourteen

The Trouble with Fangirls

xxxx

The next morning had come around all too fast for Gohan.

He had narrowly missed being caught by Angela's parents as he jumped from her bedroom window and fled down the drainpipe as to not cause any suspicion on Angela's part.

When he had speedily made it home, he found that his mother and Goten had already left for West City, the remains of wrapping paper stuffed in a bin bag next to the Christmas tree. His presents were missing, so he gathered his mother must have taken them to Bulma's in the hope he would turn up eventually.

Despite this, the teenager took his time, having a well deserved shower and cigarette out of his bedroom window before slipping on a pair of skinny jeans and black jumper and blasting off to Capsule Corp.

When he arrived, the entire brood of Z were already half-way through their Christmas dinner. His mother had nearly yelled his ears off, especially when he refused to give in to her interrogation as to his whereabouts and therefore made him sit and eat his meal before he was allowed to open his presents.

Still, the food was glorious, and just what the young saiyan needed to satisfy his aching stomach. Once everyone had had their fill, they retired to the living room where the young saiyan could finally open his presents. Aside from money and textbooks, he received a real leather jacket from Bulma, which he spent the rest of the afternoon wearing despite his mother's remarks that he looked like a punk.

It was a pretty standard Christmas Day by all accounts, the teenager stuck entertaining the kids whilst the adults watched cheesy television programmes and drank tipples of sherry, wine and beer. Gohan sat on the floor, bored, as the kids became distracted, leaving him with his usual disappointing glass of shandy.

He was sitting begrudgingly through another TV sitcom Christmas special when the programme was suddenly interrupted, and a frantic news anchor appeared on screen.

"We interrupt this programme with breaking news has just come in from Satan City-"

The teenager leaned forwards anxiously, as the transmission shifted to a reporter shielding himself behind a police car, a barrage of gun shots sounded from the television as he whimpered.

"Yes I'm here reporting live from at Satan City's town square! A shoot out between rival gangs The East City Rotter's and Satan Sinner's has been going on for several minutes now. Police were called to the scene mere moments ago! Why these gangs have started attacking each other this time is unclear, but they're ruthless - ah!"

An explosion sounded, causing the reporter to duck as smoke drifted across the screen.

"What was-?!" He coughed loudly, before his eyes widened in horror, "Its Videl Satan! She has just disarmed a man with - a bazooka?! Oh my! This is very dangerous folks! Please stay indoors! Oh where is The Gold Fighter when you need him?!"

"Well that's my cue!" Gohan beamed, as all eyes in the room turned to him.

"Yeah alright!" Trunks bellowed, "Gohan's going to fight the baddies!"

"Can we come big brother?" Goten asked excitedly.

"Certainly not!" Chi-Chi warned, turning to her eldest, "I want you straight back after you've sorted this mess out."

"No promises!" The halfling called, opening the window and blasting out into the sky, transforming as he went.

He reached Satan City in no time at all, dropping right beside Videl as she stood poised in the middle of what looked like an all out brawl.

"Merry Christmas!" He beamed cheerily, punching a gang member straight in the jaw as they lunged at him.

Videl glared, knocking out her own opponent, "What the bloody hell took you so long?!"

"Charming that," he scoffed, "Least you could do is say it back."

"Now is not the time!" she growled, ducking under an enormous leg of a brute that came hurtling towards her head. Taking her chance, she returned the favour by delivering a sharp knee into his groin.

The man howled in pain, tears streaming down his face as he sank to the ground in a quivering heap.

Gohan winced, "Ouch, now that's what you call a nut cracker."

It didn't take long for the crime fighting duo to clean up the rest of the fight, allowing the police to arrest the gangs and cart them off in riot vans. The young saiyan didn't feel like going back to Capsule Corp. so soon, and instead accepted the offer of hot chocolate and warm Christmas pudding, that the woman who owned the local cafe across the road had laid out for the hard working officers.

He and Videl had managed to escape the crowd of reporters that had suddenly swept the scene and were currently eating their pudding behind one of the police vans away from everyone else.

"No rest for the wicked eh?" Videl broke through the silence whilst they ate.

Gohan grinned, "Nothing like locking up a few baddies to brighten a Christmas afternoon."

"Baddies?" She scoffed, "just how old are you?"

He chuckled, "Must be my little brother's influence."

Her lips quirked upwards, "You have a little brother?"

"Er yeah," the halfling replied slowly. Shit, he didn't mean to let that slip.

"Is he golden too?" she asked in amusement.

The teenager shook his head.

"Ah, I see, so your unique are you?" said Videl with a wry smile.

He didn't answer, spooning a lump of pudding into his mouth instead.

"Shouldn't you be getting home?" he asked after he swallowed, attempting to change the subject, "Wouldn't want your dad getting lost on Christmas Day in that ginormous mansion of yours."

"Shut up," she replied haughtily, "It's not really a mansion. And I prefer spending as much time away from that place as I can if you must know."

Gohan blinked in surprise, and was about to ask her why when his vision was assaulted by flashing camera's.

"OH MY GODS! IT'S HIM!"

"Mr. Gold Fighter, will you sign my doll?"

"Will you sign my baby's face?"

The teenager couldn't believe his eyes as a gaggle of screaming girls surrounded him, causing Videl to snort in distaste. He had never really stuck around long enough after a fight to see the impact that all his crimefighting really had on his fans. And as he looked at the star struck group that mainly comprised of teenage girls, he couldn't help but feel as though he was missing out.

"Alright ladies! Calm down!" He laughed, as they surrounded him, "Has anyone got a pen?"

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" They screamed, causing his head to spin.

Dozens of selfies, autographs and various pairs of lacy underwear thrown at him later, Gohan finally bid an agitated Videl goodbye and blasted back to Capsule Corp., feeling rather dazed but considerably lighter.

As far as Christmases went, it hadn't been such a terrible one after all.

xxxx

The new year brought new prospects for Gohan, he found himself sticking around a lot longer after his appearances as The Gold Fighter, causing his fan base to grow considerably more so. His mother and Piccolo found it rather concerning, but he couldn't see the problem in all honesty, he was only giving a bit of love back to his fans as it were.

If anything, he found the whole thing hilarious, especially when Hercule Satan had lost it in an interview when asked if he thought that The Gold Fighter might be an even bigger hit than the Champ himself.

"WHAT?!" Mister Satan had cried, "Listen here, that scrawny kid may be helping out with crime rates with those fancy gadgets of his, but lets not forget that I SAVED THE WORLD!"

Ah, if only they knew the truth.

He had been thoroughly enjoying his time spent as the golden haired superhero, and he had come to realise that he and Videl were quite the team. Still, she hadn't managed to find out the exact location of Borbonne's whereabouts, though luckily, there had been no other mysterious deaths to speak of as far as they knew.

Gohan had been so busy enjoying his time off from work that he almost forgot about the New Year's party he had been invited to by the interns. That was, until Iris text him asking if he was still going to be there. Although the New Year had come and gone a few days ago, the students of West City University had only just moved back into their halls of residence after the holiday.

So the young saiyan found himself walking down the dank and dingy corridors of the student halls on the Saturday after New Year, following the sound of blaring music to where the party was situated. His mother didn't protest when he had told her he was spending the evening at the university, although he may have deliberately left out the part where an alcohol fuelled party was involved.

The door to the flat was already open, and various students who were but a few years older than him were lined up in the corridor drinking and chatting. He pushed past them, entering the student flat that smelled rather musty.

Loud rock music emitting from a set of speakers in the corner pounded in his ears and the young saiyan didn't think he had ever seen so many people crammed into such a small space.

There were youths drinking and dancing in the living area, the worn sofa barely visible and the stained carpet near impossible to see. There was a crowd of people in the kitchen playing what looked like a drinking game. Various empty bottles and cans littered the tables and sideboards, and people were smoking out of a very large window at the back of the room.

He was about to go and join them himself when someone covered his eyes from behind.

"Guess who?!" a girlish voice laughed.

"Er, Santa Claus?" he teased, turning around and facing the girl.

Iris grinned, her eyes framed by dark make-up as well as her usual glasses. She was dressed in a simple black dress that was extremely complementary to her figure. He gave her a winning smile, it was rather strange to see the interns out of their uniforms.

"You made it!" she exclaimed, a glass of something strong smelling and fizzy in her hand, "I think Thomas and Roy are around here somewhere, have you got a drink?"

"Nah," he replied, "I only just got here."

"Well there's plenty of booze," she informed him, pulling on his arm and leading him to the kitchen, where a bunch of burly looking lads were cheering on another chugging a can of beer.

"Oi you lot!" Iris bellowed over the raucous, "This is Gohan, he works with us at C.C!"

The lads gave him a wave of acknowledgement, before returning to cheer on another one of their friends.

"Rugby team," Iris informed him, "Absolutely off there heads they are, but a nice bunch."

Gohan smiled, accepting a can of beer that she offered him. Soon enough, he was taken around the party being introduced to some of the intern's friends. He had bumped into Thomas and Roy, but the latter was too busy snogging Erin's face off to make conversation. He couldn't wait to tease him about it at work on Monday morning.

The party was in full swing, but the younger teen had soon lost sight of his friends in the crowd. He had just come back from having his tenth cigarette of the night when he wasn't sure if he should call it a night. He couldn't help but shake the feeling that something was missing, but he couldn't quite place it.

"Oi Iris' mate!"

Gohan looked up, he was just about to discard his empty beer can in the already overflowing bin, when one of the rugby lads called out to him.

"Uh yeah?"

"Fancy joining us for a round?" the brown-haired teen grinned, pointing at one of his friends, "These lot are a bunch of fanny's and there's a shot going spare."

Several tequila's later…

"WE LIKE TO DRINK WITH GOHAN, 'CAUSE GOHAN IS OUR MATE, AND WHEN WE DRINK WITH GOHAN, HE DOWNS IT ALL IN EIGHT… SEVEN… SIX… FIVE… WOAHHHH!"

"Yeah suck it Alan!" Gohan bellowed, throwing down his empty can to the ground as his opponent cried out in defeat.

"WHEEYYYYYYY!" The rugby team bellowed, throwing their arms around him in triumph as if they had just scored a try.

The halfling laughed along with them, feeling slightly giddy as he was saved from the fray by Iris.

"Enjoying yourself?" she giggled, sitting down on the sofa that was now free of teenager's.

"Yeah," said Gohan, his head a little fuzzy, "Thanks for inviting me."

"No problem," Iris smiled, "It was the least I could do."

"What do you mean?" he asked curiously, leaning back on the sofa beside her. it groaned under his weight, sending mothballs flying out of the cushions.

The girl shrugged, "I dunno, I guess I feel bad, I always see you trying to listen into our lectures."

He cringed, "Oh, you noticed huh?"

"Yeah," she nodded, her eyes widening suddenly, "but don't think that's the only reason we invited you!"

Gohan grinned wickedly, "Of course not, I'm a fucking riot."

"Well, the rugby team certainly seems to think so," she laughed, turning to him, "Don't worry, you'll be in our position soon I'm sure of it. Think about it, you've already got working at Capsule Corp. on your CV!"

"I suppose," he sighed, reaching forwards and grabbing an unopened beer from the coffee table.

"You know, I sort of envy you," Iris said after a while.

Gohan almost choked on his drink, "You envy the tea boy? Come off it!"

She chuckled, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear, "Well, only to the extent that you'll have more time to watch and practice before you get thrown in as an intern. I don't think I'll last much longer."

"Don't be daft!"

"No seriously," she said, her eyes baring a hint of sadness, "I think I'm going to fail. The projects our mentor has set for us are too hard. He's so brutal! I know how to take apart an engine and how it works, but haven't got a clue how to put it back together! And he refuses to show us."

The young saiyan thought for a moment, "Well, I could show you."

Iris snorted, "No offence Gohan, but I don't think you would understand the complexities of a spacecraft engine."

"Really now?" he guffawed, "you one hundred percent sure about that?"

"All I'm saying is that you've had no training," she said simply.

"I don't need it," he stated smugly, getting up off the sofa and pulling her with him, "Come on, I'll prove it."

"You're serious?" she laughed.

"Oh completely," said Gohan, "I'll show you that there's no need to feel sorry for this tea boy."

They left the party with complete disregard, walking the short distance to Capsule Corporation with drunken mirth. Seen as it was still officially the holidays, there wasn't a soul around and luckily Iris' staff card managed to slip them both into the teaching labs.

She watched as the young saiyan located her project and her jaw dropping to the floor when he had successfully put the entire engine back together, albeit a little slower than usual. He was a little drunk.

He stood up beneath the harsh light of the lab, a smirk playing on his lips, "Told ya."

"B-but thats amazing! How did you manage to do that?!" She cried in disbelief, "and why the hell aren't you already on an internship like the rest of us?!"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he sighed, twirling the spanner in his palm and looking back at the engine. "Now if I were you, I'd be looking at building a simulator to test the pressures of this thing, thats what he wanted right? It'll take some time but it'll knock his socks off."

Iris squealed, stumbling a little as she threw her arms around his neck, "That's amazing Gohan! Your like a boy genius!"

"I try," he joked, her arms holding him tightly.

"Will you help me?" she asked, her eyes pleading with him.

"Well, I suppose I could - ," said Gohan but he was shortly interrupted by Iris' lips slamming into his.

Shocked, but by no means deterred, the young saiyan forcibly kissed her back, grabbing her hips and pressing her up against the work bench. Blueprints and notes fluttered to the floor as Iris let out a deep moan, causing his head to spin with lust. He didn't even care that they were in the middle of the engineering labs, or that Bulma would surely kill him if she ever found out.

It was safe to say that Gohan and Iris did not return to the party for a while, but the young saiyan didn't feel like he was in any way missing out.

Monday morning rolled around with a high winter sun that shone brightly over the grounds of Capsule Corporation. The teenager carried on with his work as usual, but ended up making several more trips to the intern's lab than he usually would have.

He didn't really know the rules of inter-colleague relationships at Capsule Corp., but he couldn't really care less. As the month flew by, he gradually started to spend his evening's after work helping out the other intern's with their projects, the deadline drawing nearer. However, Iris always stayed behind, claiming she needed to work a bit more on hers.

Gohan was more than willing to work well into the night with her, though the majority of their time wasn't spent drawing up blueprints.

No one suspected a thing, except for when the professor found out that the tea boy was basically teaching the interns more than he was. Turns out that Thomas had accidentally let slip that he was staying over after hours with Gohan, and the man wasn't all too impressed with it.

"You there, boy."

Gohan blinked as he placed a cup and saucer down next to Iris' workbench, brushing her lower back with his tail teasingly as he did so. The young saiyan had come to find that girls didn't mind the furry appendage as much as he thought they would, especially Iris, the girl was smart enough to understand how genetics worked after all and didn't really question it when he said that it was a trait he had inherited from his father's side.

He looked up to see the professor, Professor Whats-his-face - Gohan never paid much attention to his name.

Professor Whats-his-face narrowed his beady eyes at the teenager, "Is it true that you've been instructing my students after hours?"

"Well, just a bit," admitted Gohan, the intern's shifting uncomfortably in their seats, "I just thought they might need some help."

The balding man raised an eyebrow, a hint of amusement in his eyes, "You did, did you? And you think you are qualified enough to liaise with university students?"

"Please Professor," Iris started, "It's not Gohan's fault-"

"Depends what you mean by qualified, Professor," the young teen shot back, causing the intern's to gape at him both in horror and awe.

"Indeed," He almost smiled, "Why don't you come with us, er, Gohan is it? There's something I want to show the class."

Exchanging a look with the interns, he abandoned his trolley, following the professor out of the lab and into the main complex. They arrived in front of the massive spaceship, that was still being worked on relentlessly by the employees.

"This spaceship, is one of the most pioneering concepts of our time," the professor started, "our top scientists have been working on it for months, the aim is to get it to travel to the edge of the galaxy within three-hundred days."

The interns gasped in awe, yet Gohan wasn't phased, he had reached old Namek in less than that.

"Now, there is a problem," he explained, "Obviously, to reach the edge of the galaxy, the ship would need to go beyond ultrasonic speeds."

"But thats impossible!" Thomas gasped.

The professor smiled, "Difficult Thomas yes, but not impossible. So who knows how one might solve the problem of the ship breaking up in the atmosphere due to heat, pressure and pure speed?"

The interns stared blankly.

"Come on now," he laughed, "I'm not expecting you to solve it, trust me, our top scientists are racking their brains at the moment trying to figure out a way to do it. I'd just like to know what you would try. Gohan? You think you know it all, what would you do?"

Gohan gritted his teeth in anger, before thinking for a moment and replying simply, "Well, to achieve that kind of speed without the whole thing disintegrating, you'd need a shield to support the craft."

The professor looked positively bemused, "A shield you say?"

"Well yeah," the young saiyan replied simply, "It would have to be a super-molecular encasement that's neutralised to repeal heat, otherwise it won't work."

He was met with silence.

"That's impossible boy," chortled the professor, "Neutralising molecules is one thing, but then trying to get them to form a shield around a craft of this size? I think someone's been reading too many sci-fi comics. Now Iris, what do you-?"

Gohan raised an eyebrow, before walking casually over to a the hologram screen hovering in the middle of a group of scientists. Intrigued, they watched him, and a few moments later the group of interns and professor joined them. Swiping his fingers across the screen, the teenager took around five minutes before stepping backwards, the formula he had created on screen attracting a large group of people.

"A-amazing! How did we not see this before?"

"It's genius I tell you!"

Voices whispered excitedly around him and, turning around to the awestruck professor, Gohan smirked, "So, milk and two sir?

xxxx

"Can you not go one day without pissing somebody off?"

"Evidently not," spouted Gohan, folding his arms across his chest.

Twenty minutes later and he was sat across from Bulma in her office, apparently someone hadn't taken lightly to the teenager embarrassing the entire scientific stronghold of engineers that afternoon.

Bulma sighed, having put Bulla down for her afternoon nap in the crib next to her desk.

"What am I going to do with you Gohan?" she asked, although she had an amused glint in her eye, "Not only did you make a complete mockery of the first year internship syllabus, you've actually been teaching them too."

The teenager shrugged, "Well they asked, and I was really bored Bulma."

"I know kid," she said slowly, "The professor-"

"The git," he spat, his anger suddenly rising, "Serves him right for trying to make me look like a complete prat in front of everybody."

Bulma grinned, "Well I'm sorry you feel that way Gohan, because he was the one that called up here, begging me to offer you an internship."

His mouth fell open, "W-what?"

"I suppose I have no choice do I?" she smiled, "I can't have the tea boy making my top scientists look like idiots."

"But Bulma," he started, "You said that I have to pass my exams!"

"That was the second thing I was meant to tell you," she continued, "I got you in to take your end of year exams at West City Academy in July. As soon as your results come back - you're in kid."

"WOOHOO!" Gohan yelled, jumping up and down in his seat. Yet his sudden outburst caused Bulla to wake.

"Whoops sorry," he said sheepishly, as the crying baby was picked up by her mother.

"That's okay, it was time for her to go to her daddy anyway," she winked, cooing at the little girl.

"Thanks Bulma," Gohan grinned widely.

She waved him off, "I should be thanking you, never would have thought of a neutralised shield to go around that craft!"

"That reminds me," he said thoughtfully, "Why not just replicate a ship like the one we went to Namek in? Surely a ship like that would be a lot faster."

Bulma grinned, "Oh Gohan, we've got to keep a little bit of fun for ourselves."

After bidding Bulma a hearty farewell, he practically skipped back through the floors to work. He couldn't believe it, things were finally coming up Gohan. Basking in his glory, the young saiyan didn't feel like going back to work so soon, instead, he sought out Iris and she was more than willing to help him celebrate in the store cupboard next to the kitchen.

Everything seemed to be finally going his way.