Dragonball Z

Gohan: Protector of Earth

Disclaimer: This is a Dragonball z fanfiction. I do not own or in anyway profit from Dragonball z or any of the characters in this story. This fic centers on Gohan, and begins right after the cell games. It is an AU, and reviews are welcome and much appreciated.

Chapter 2:

It had been 3 months since Goten had been born and Gohan could see that his mother had changed quite a bit since then. She had been so quiet since his father's death, putting all her efforts into taking care of the house but things were different now that Goten was with them. Chichi was happy once again, spending nearly all her time with the baby. Gohan had changed as well with the arrival of his brother. Although he had spent more time training since that day, he had also been more at peace with himself. Gohan regained some of his happy nature he had before Cell had arrived.

Gohan was amazed every time he walked by Goten, he seemed to be the happiest baby on the planet. The only time he wasn't smiling was when he would devour a can of baby food Chichi prepared for him. Even as a baby, saiyans seemed to eat much more than the typical human was even capable of. Goten was definitely a miniature version of his father between the attitude and appetite. Gohan could see mashed carrots and peas all over Goten's face as he ate breakfast so he proceeded to wipe it off with a nearby napkin.

"Oh there you are Gohan. Are you going to be training today?" Chichi asked as she walked out from the kitchen.

"I spent all this last week training so I think I may take it easy today. Only a few hours of training or so, maybe a meditation session."

"I have an idea Gohan. Why don't you take Goten out for a nice walk? You could take a walk by the lake you and your father always went to. I'm sure he'd love that. I could pack you some food and you could have a picnic."

"Isn't he kind of young to be going outside and to the lake? I'd be nervous flying with him in my arms," Gohan said.

"Well you could fly on nimbus that would be safe, or just walk. It's not that far. Oh and I bought this cute contraption in town a couple weeks ago, you can wear to take Goten in. It would look cute on you, hold on while I go and get it."

Chichi then proceed to grab a pink baby carrier out of the closet and strapped it around Gohan's back.

"See I'll put Goten in this strap for you and he'll be just fine."

"Mom, this is embarrassing. The thing is pink."

"Gohan," Chichi said sternly. "Goten needs to be in the fresh air and this is the only carrier I have. Nobody will even notice. And look, there's a compartment to put your water in."

Gohan knew this was a battle he wasn't going to win and gave in to his mom. Besides, he thought it might be fun to go to the lake with Goten.

"Ok, I guess. C'mon Goten it's about time I showed you the lake that Dad and I used to fish at. Maybe if you're lucky you can catch a fish."

Goten started to giggle as Gohan was talking to him. He would always laugh in that happy tone whenever Gohan was around. He was always a happy baby but he seemed to hold a special bond with Gohan. With Goku in the other world, Gohan was like a father figure at this point to Goten.

Gohan proceeded to walk to the front door with Goten on his back and turned to his mother.

"We'll be back in a while mom. See you for dinner."

"Bye Gohan, be careful with Goten. Make sure nothing happens to him."

With that Gohan walked out the door and down the path from his house. It was a good day for a walk and Goten seemed to be enjoying the outside. With the weather being so nice Gohan decided to just walk to the lake. It had been a while since he truly appreciated how beautiful the countryside was. Usually when he was outside he'd be training and that was not usually very relaxing. It took Gohan an hour before he reached the lake. He placed Goten down on a grassy knoll and then proceeded to take off his clothes and jump into the clear blue water. Gohan figured since he was at the lake he might as well pick up a fish for his mother to cook for dinner. It was only a minute or two before Gohan was able to scoop out a small sized fish from the lake at about 10 feet in length. With the fish in his hand Gohan started to examine the place where he had put Goten down and realized he was no longer there. Suddenly fearful, Gohan started yelling out Goten's name in hopes he might start to giggle or do anything to give away where his location.

"Goten! Where are you?" Gohan screamed. "Wow, I'm dead if mom ever finds out about this. I need to find him quick before something happens."

Goten was still too young to give off much of a power signal so Gohan would have to rely on his eyes to find his brother. After about a minute of scanning the area Gohan saw Goten, he was sitting on top of a little hill crying. Gohan immediately threw his fish towards a tree and rushed to the area. When he arrived Gohan saw Goten crying but more surprising next to Goten was a large tiger limping off of the ground. He could see a fist mark in the side of the tiger's face about the size of a baby's fist. The tiger was trying to scamper off but was doing it very slowly; he almost seemed to be scared of the small child next to him.

"There you are Goten, I'm glad you're all right. Did you really fight off that tiger? You must be pretty strong for a baby; well I guess you are half saiyan after all. I'm glad mom wasn't here she would have had a heart attack and then would have killed me for not keeping watch over you."

Goten stopped crying when he heard Gohan speak and instead gave a large smile as Gohan was accustomed to at this point.

"Well I don't think we'll have to worry about that tiger anymore. How about we lie here for a little while and then head back home."

Gohan placed Goten on the ground and then lied next to him. Gohan stared into the clouds and started to think over some of his old memories. He thought about the last time he was at this lake with his father right before the Cell games. He had been so calm before that tournament, as if he knew everything was going to be alright. Gohan laughed when he remembered how on that same day Krillen threw a rock at Goku's head as he slept. Krillen thought that since his father was in his super saiyan form he'd be ready for it. Goku's reaction to that had been priceless as well as the guilty look on Krillen's face. Gohan did not have many peaceful moments with his father so he made sure to cherish the few that he had.

As Gohan continued to lie next to Goten he started to dose off a bit. It was so peaceful by the lake he couldn't remember the last time he had been so relaxed. Gohan quietly closed his eyes and then started to nap. Despite the relaxing area surrounding Gohan, his dream would be anything but peaceful.

Out in the darkness of space stood the massive interplanetary spaceship. It was hovering above the planet in a menacing manner as if it were ready for some sort of attack. Aboard the ship stood three figures, all wearing the durable saiyan fighting armor typical of high ranked warriors. The one on the right was a fat creature with pink, scaly skin. Despite being the largest of the three, he gave off the weakest ki signature. On his right was a slightly more powerful warrior. This one stood with good posture and appeared to have human characteristics, except for his green skin. His green hair was done in a ponytail and hung over his left eye. He seemed rather feminine to be a good warrior. The third one stood in front of those two, he was obviously the leader of the ship by the way the other two reacted towards him. He was short and pink with two horns coming out of his helmet. Although he did not appear to be a capable warrior, the incredible ki signature that radiated off of him would disagree. They all wore power level scouters over their eye as if ready at any moment to enter into battle. The three stared at a monitor screen as they saw a saiyan warrior of incredible strength fight through their ranks of henchman as he approached the entrance to the ship. His intent was obvious, to destroy the ship and the three on it.

"If it's me he wants, then so be it," The middle one coldly told his green minion. "Prepare my ship."

An angered look could be seen on the tyrants face. Not often was he so directly challenged as this. He would have to make an example of this warrior so that no other would ever dare disgrace him like this again.

"Frieza!" the warrior from space yelled repeatedly. "Frieza, come out and fight me! You coward come out."

Despite fighting hundreds of enemies, the saiyan warrior was still able to taunt the tyrant in an attempt to draw him out from the ship.

Almost on cue, the tyrant lord of the universe Frieza appeared from the ship's main hatch. With a blank look on his face he started gathering energy from his finger. Starting off as a small ball it rapidly grew in size to the terror of all those near him, except for the one who challenged his supremacy.

"We quit. We don't work for you any more Frieza," Bardock yelled at the tyrant.

Bardock had a look of confidence on his face, either because he thought he could defeat the one proclaimed to be strongest in the universe or because he had come to accept his own demise. Either way, he was not backing down now for he had come too far. Frieza had basically enslaved his people and forced them to do his bidding. For Bardock, Frieza's hold over him and his people was over. Bardock quickly gathered all the energy he had into one last energy ball and with one last proclamation threw it at Frieza.

Frieza only laughed when he saw the energy ball approach his own. It was absorbed into Frieza's much more powerful energy blast that was growing rapidly by the second. When it reached the size Frieza deemed fit, he unleashed it on the proud warrior Bardock. The blast engulfed the saiyan warrior along with all of Frieza's henchmen who had been fighting the saiyan. The blast did not stop there though, it continued on to the planet Vegeta, soon engulfing the entire sphere. After the blast had finished, nobody on the planet had survived from the blast and there was nothing left to remember the planet by except for a few chunks that blew off in the explosion. Screams of pain could be heard all the way from the spaceship but they ended almost instantly. A mighty race had been completely wiped out, all at the finger of the mighty tyrant.

Gohan quickly arose from his dream with beads of sweat dripping off of him. He looked to his left to see Goten looking back at him with those innocent eyes. Gohan had not expected to fall asleep and was out later than he had planned. Dinner was almost ready and Chichi would be furious if Gohan did not get back soon. Gohan quickly picked up his brother off of the grass and put him on the strap behind his back. He then located his fish and carefully flew back to his house making sure Goten was stable on his back. Gohan was not too worried about his mother's reaction to him being late, instead he was preoccupied with the dream he just had. How could he have such a vivid dream about an event that he never personally witnessed? Sure he had heard the story from Vegeta but never in that much detail. It all just seemed so real to him unlike any dream he has had before. As Gohan heard his stomach rumble, he decided to seek a resolution to that problem on another day. Now it was time for dinner.

3 days passed since Gohan had gone to the lake with his brother Goten. He was still thinking about the dream he had when he lied by the lake. Gohan hadn't told his mom about the dream because it would only worry her, she would not be able to give any helpful input in that matter anyway. There was only one person Gohan knew who could explain what his dream meant, and he wasn't especially looking forward to seeing him.

As Gohan headed for the front door, he was stopped by his mother.

"Where are you off to today Gohan? You didn't finish your two hours of work as we agreed upon. Remember I'm letting you train because you promised to keep up with your studying."

"I know mom. I was actually planning on going to Capsule Corp, would you mind if I did my work when I got back."

"Capsule Corp? Oh that sounds like a wonderful idea, I haven't seen Bulma since Goten was born and I know she would love to see him. We could set up a play session with Goten and Trunks."

Gohan didn't want to tell his mother about Capsule Corp because she had never really liked Vegeta. She knew about his past and thought he was a bad influence on him. Gohan didn't especially like Vegeta either but he knew he was the only one he could talk to about the dream he had. After all, he was the only other saiyan left over the age of 2.

"Actually mom, I was planning on going by myself. I needed to um, talk to Vegeta about something."

"Why would you have to talk to him for? You know I never approved of him. I have no idea why Bulma would get involved with some thug like him. She's a genius and all he is is a no good thug. He has absolutely no social skills at all, and is really unfriendly."

"I just needed to talk to him for a second. It's not very important but-"

"Well I still want to show Goten to Bulma, so why don't you call for Nimbus and we can all head over there. You can ask Vegeta whatever it is you want and then we can spend time with Bulma and Trunks. I wonder what kind of new contraption she is working on this time. You know Gohan, you should spend more time around there, and I bet you could help her with one of the projects. Oh and imagine how good that would look when applying for college, helping out the head of the biggest technological company in the world."

"Hahah, sure mom. I could do that," Gohan replied. He was just glad his mom wasn't talking about Vegeta any more and was letting him go over there.

As Gohan approached Capsule Corp with Chichi and Goten riding on Nimbus they could make out a blue haired woman outside on the patio. She appeared to be setting the patio table for lunch.

"Bulma!" Gohan called as he landed a few feet from the startled woman.

"Gohan. Oh it's so good to see you. How long has it been since you've come around? It feels like forever since that whole Cell fiasco. Well I can see you're growing up into a fine looking young man."

"Yeah it has been a while I guess. How's everything going with you?"

"Bulma, how's are you dear?" Chichi said as she approached Bulma from behind.

"Oh Chichi you came out too. Oh don't tell me, is this Goten? Well isn't he just the most adorable thing. You know he looks just like Goku. He has that same spiky black hair Goku had as a child."

"Tell me about it. So where's little Trunks, I thought we could put them together for a little play session."

"What a wonderful idea Chichi. My mother is looking after him now, let me go and get him."

Gohan was bored with the conversation at this point. He liked seeing Bulma but that was not why he came out here today. He still needed to talk to Vegeta.

"Uh Bulma, do you know if Vegeta happens to be around." Gohan asked her tentatively.

"Vegeta, hmm. Last time I checked he was in the gravity room. That's where he always is though. The only time he ever comes out is when he asks for food or for me to fix that stupid gravity room of his. God, sometimes he just overdoes it in there. It can get annoying. I swear the next time he breaks that thing I'm not going to fix it."

"Thanks Bulma," Gohan cut her off and hurried off to where the gravity chamber was.

He knew Vegeta would be annoyed to see him there but he didn't really care. He needed to talk to him even if it did interrupt his training. Gohan could only imagine how hard Vegeta was training to catch up to his own power level. Gohan remembered how crazy Vegeta tried to become a super saiyan the first time and he could only imagine how much effort he was putting in to reach the ascended level. Vegeta was always very proud and he couldn't stand it if there was someone stronger than him. He was after all the prince of all saiyans and as he said it that meant he should be the strongest saiyan there is.

As Gohan entered the gravity chamber he noticed the setting at 300 times earth's normal gravity and saw Vegeta doing one handed pushups in the corner. By the painful look on his face, Gohan could tell he had been training for a while.

"What are you doing here brat? Can't you see I'm trying to train? Leave here and go bother the woman if you must," Vegeta told him in his usual angered tone.

"Listen Vegeta, I need you to explain something to me."

"Do I look like a teacher to you? I'm a warrior; I don't have time to answer your questions. But I will give you some advice; your clothes are unfit for any warrior. You look absolutely ridiculous," Vegeta said in a mocking tone.

"I don't have time for this Vegeta, now can you stop training for a second and answer my question."

Gohan was obviously upset with Vegeta's tone and did not feel in the mood for his usual attitude.

"Oh really, are you going to force me. I'd like to see that. I bet you haven't trained at all since your fight with Cell. You're probably much weaker than you were then. I've probably already overtake you in strength."

Gohan gave a smirk at that last comment. If Vegeta only knew how much time Gohan spent training he would be shocked. Gohan probably spent more time training than Vegeta and was definitely getting better results from it.

As Vegeta stood up from his one arm pushup position and started to walk over to where Gohan was he suddenly felt a fist make contact with the side of his face knocking him against the far wall of the room. If the walls had not been heavily reinforced with Capsule Corp technology he would surely haven't been sent flying a good couple miles.

Gohan had attacked first to make a point to Vegeta, that he was not playing games here. That and to show he hadn't taken it easy in these times of peace. Vegeta did not take lightly to the point Gohan was trying to make because after getting up from the hit he quickly charged back at Gohan, exchanging a series of punches and kicks. Neither of them transformed into super saiyan since that would just be admitting that they were not stronger than the other in their base form. Not only had Gohan achieved super saiyan 2 from the fight with Cell but that in turn made his base fighting form substantially stronger than Vegeta's. That and all the training he had done in the recent months made the gap between the two's power substantial. As Vegeta aimed a roundhouse kick at Gohan's head, Gohan quickly ducked it and sent an uppercut into Vegeta's ribcage, knocking the breath out of him. Vegeta would not stay down for long though, he would continue to fight until either he one or was knocked unconscious.

This exchange of punches and kicks lasted for a good hour until Gohan could see that Vegeta was barely keeping up anymore. He then called an end to the fighting. Vegeta had been giving it his all while Gohan was taking it easy a bit. If he had gone all out he probably could have knocked Vegeta out in a couple minutes.

"Ok Vegeta, that's enough. Let's stop this. This wasn't why I came here in the first place."

"Fine. You've wasted enough of my training time as it is. Ask me your question and then get out of here."

"I want to know about my saiyan heritage. I am half saiyan after all so I think it is important that I know about my roots and ancestry."

Vegeta gave Gohan a confused look.

"Why do you care now about your saiyan ancestry? You've never been interested before and your third class saiyan father never cared at all. Keeping that ridiculous Earth name of his, Goku, instead of his born saiyan name. He was a disgrace to his saiyan heritage."

"Just because my father didn't care about his heritage does not mean I don't as well. I had a dream a couple days ago. It showed what happened moments before Frieza destroyed planet Vegeta and everyone on it. I could vividly see him create a large energy ball and throw it at the planet. I saw the saiyan Bardock attempt to kill Frieza with an energy blast of his own as Frieza appeared from his ship. Bardock was calling for Frieza to come out of the ship, he wanted to kill him and free the saiyan people of Frieza's evil reign."

Vegeta was intrigued by Gohan's description of the dream.

"Do you know who Bardock was?" Vegeta asked Gohan.

"I don't. Who was he?"

"He was Kakkarot's father, so that would make him your grandfather. He was very powerful for a third class warrior. He was one of the strongest saiyans around at the time although clearly no match for Frieza."

Gohan's eyes just dropped as Vegeta was talking.

"He was my grandfather? Could that have something to do with the dream I had, why it seemed so detailed as if I had been there."

"Could be," Vegeta answered. "That's enough talking for now though I need to get back to my training." With a momentary pause Vegeta continued, "Come by tomorrow and I will teach you some of the legends I learned about our saiyan ancestry. We will rotate the discussion with some sparring sessions."

"But I thought you preferred training by yourself?"

"I do. But if I don't spar with you then I will never know when I become stronger than you. Besides, I've been developing some new techniques and I would love to try them out on you. On your way out tell the woman to get in here quickly. I need her to make some repairs for the gravity room."

Gohan agreed to Vegeta's offer of teaching him and left the room heading back to where his mother and Bulma were conversing. He ignored the last thing Vegeta had said to him. Gohan knew Vegeta was too proud to admit he wanted a sparring partner so he would just make up a lame excuse for it instead. He also wasn't going to tell Bulma about fixing the room; he figured he would let them get in a fight once he was gone.

"This should be interesting," Gohan thought to himself. "It's hard to imagine Vegeta having the patience to teach anyone, especially if it doesn't relate to fighting. I just hope this helps me understand what my dream meant."