PREVIOUSLY
The rest of the day was quite peaceful, and all worries about anything left Robin's mind when he saw how happy Goku was. Especially when Goku tasted the cake, he was so joyful. All the while, Robin was taking pictures.
One picture was of Goku trying to shove the entire cake in his mouth with Gohan next to him laughing. The next was Goku opening a present with a new gi inside of it that Robin helped Gohan make. It was the same colours as his old one, but slightly larger. The last photo was all three of them sitting around a fire, Gohan was smiling happily while looking down at Goku, Goku was laughing at something and Robin was looking up at the camera making sure it's pointing in the right direction.
That night, everyone went to bed in a blissful mood. In the morning however, Robin knew he would need to talk to Gohan about the rebellion but he decided not to let it worry him too much. Tonight was a final night of peace before all focus went into the rebellion. After all the friends Robin made today, he felt defending them should be a top priority.
Chapter 9: War
The next morning, Robin was surprised to find out that all three of them had slept in. Usually Robin would wake up around four or five in the morning but today, it was almost noon. Like usual though, he was the first to wake up.
He also felt quite good and well rested and everything seemed so peaceful, but it quickly went away for Robin when he remembered about needing to talk to Gohan. He decided that he would wait until later in the day to talk to Gohan and went outside to go train by the lake.
He wasn't in too much of a mood to train though and instead just meditated and practiced controlling his energy. He could feel his growing at a tremendous rate the last few months but lately it started to slow down as he hasn't had much of a chance to challenge himself.
He guessed that when he first started to learn how to use energy, it increased rapidly because each day he pushed himself more, but lately pushing himself is starting to become more difficult because he wasn't sure how to do so.
He also knew that he was a long way from mastering ki, but he knew that at the moment, he was probably one of the strongest on the planet due to the simple fact that he could use energy. Robin didn't think he was quite at Kami's level of power yet or even Popo's, but he thought he could probably take on Roshi.
Today however, he couldn't push himself at all. He just couldn't seem to focus. His thoughts and feeling were at war with each other and he didn't know what to do. 'Should I just go ahead and go defend Orange Star City? Or should I simply disappear for a few days and let it run its course?' Robin couldn't decide on what to do.
He felt as though now that he had the power to defend people that he should do it, it's mostly the future outcome that has him worried. So instead of getting training done, Robin sat there cross legged and floating while looking at his hands in deep thought.
After a little while Robin's thoughts started to shift to himself and what has happened. Each day he missed his family more and more, but each day he also got attached to his new life more and more. Robin moved his gaze over to his left hand. All the veins in his hand up to his elbow were darkened and contrasted a lot with his skin tone.
'Is this a blessing, or is it a bad thing.' Robin thought about his scarred arm and the lightning strike. 'Will this be here forever to remind me of my old life? Or is it there to taunt me that I can't see my family when I want?' Robin just couldn't think of why this happened to him.
Before he could ponder on it even further though, a voice came from someone that snuck up on him. "Something seems to have you worried Robin." Gohan said with his ever gentle voice. The fact that the voice seemed to come out of nowhere scared Robin and he fell out of the air onto his butt.
"How could you tell?" Robin asked while looking at him sheepishly. "You would've heard me coming from a hundred feet away had you been in a proper mindset." Gohan replied. "Why don't you tell me about what has you worried?" He asked and looked down to Robin who was now sitting comfortably on the ground while looking towards the water.
"Well yesterday while I was in the city, I found out about a Rebellion that's most likely going to happen soon. Apparently some guy named Red Truman lost an election for mayor of the city and he got his voters to join him in taking over the city. They robbed the armory and now, Orange Star City is relying on teams of martial artists and people with whatever weapons they still have to stop the Rebellion." Robin paused to take a breath and look up at Gohan to see if he was paying attention.
"Well, while I was in the city, I met some friendly people and now I feel that I should join the City to help defend them. And I may have also told the Mayor that you too are a martial artist. The problem is, I don't know if I should help or not since it may affect the future which I really don't want to change." Robin finished and looked at Gohan for insight or an answer.
"Well I think that defending those who you care about is more important during the present than setting them up for the future." Gohan said. "Anyways, Goku's still sleeping but he'll probably be up soon and lunch will also be ready soon. I'll send Goku down to fetch you when it's ready." Gohan said as he turned to walk away.
'Maybe I should defend the city, and then start training twice as hard in case things start to move to far from their tracks. Maybe I can even make the future more peaceful than it should be. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do!' Robin thought to himself with new resolve and stood up instantly to train.
'If I can't raise be energy level too much by simply controlling it, maybe I should develop some new techniques to burn up my ki faster than flying and make myself more versatile.' Robin thought to himself as he stood there and called upon his ki.
The first thing he tried was to make large ki balls and control their directions while constantly summoning more of them. He quickly realized though that the size didn't necessarily increase their strength.
He then tried to create an energy wave and launched it at the lake but he could only seem to create inconsistent orbs of energy. 'Strange, how am I supposed to make a constant flow of energy?' Robin thought to himself as he tried shifting his energy around inside.
He then supercharged his arms and created a ball in each hand. Next he connected his hands and fused both energies together and that's when he couldn't hold on to it any longer and he blasted it out of his hands and created a somewhat consistent beam.
'Maybe I could try practicing that one more but for now maybe I should leave it be.' Robin thought as he looked at the lake and realized that he blasted some of the trees on the other side of it.
Robin also knew that he could use ki to power his punches and kicks, but he wanted to be able to super power them. He thought back to the blast he just created and right before he let it go, his arms were glowing.
'If I could use that without letting go of the energy, maybe I could use it to make explosive punches or something. Maybe if I could also find a way to charge my legs without flying that could be useful too.'
Robin continued training by practicing to charge his arms and creating blasts, and before he knew it he could sense Goku running though the forest towards him. SO he decided to stop training and sat down next to the water before Goku got to him.
When he sat down though, he realized that he may have overdone himself when he almost passed out from exhaustion as the adrenaline wore off. 'Maybe tomorrow I'll train my sensing abilities instead.' Robin thought to himself as the exhaustion wasn't fun.
He could hear Goku run through the forest and onto the grass before he yelled. "Big Brother, the food is ready! So come on, I'm hungry!" Goku said impatiently. 'Hunger over everything.' Robin thought to himself with a chuckle as he forced himself self up and walked through the trees slowly after Goku.
The rest of the day went by pretty slowly as Robin decided to relax for the rest of the day. Goku continued his own training under Gohan's watchful eye and Gohan went about doing his usual things.
The next two days after Robin's visit to the city went by almost the same way but Robin got back to waking up early and practicing energy waves while getting better at sensing and controlling energy.
Goku continued on like nothing was different and Gohan went about his days normally also but without Robin realizing it, Gohan kept his eye on him too. Gohan was actually quite worried about Robin, being away from home so long could definitely ware someone down. That along with Robin wanting to be a defender couldn't be too good for his health in Gohan's opinion.
Gohan however decided to keep his thoughts to himself until Robin felt more comfortable with speaking about his past. Gohan noticed that it was something Robin avoided talking about.
The third morning after Robin's trip was when things changed. Robin woke up that morning just a little bit later than usual, Gohan and Goku were already awake and things seemed normal at first. When Robin walked out of the small house though, he noticed that Gohan wasn't around and he couldn't sense him anywhere near.
"Big Brother, you're finally awake! Do you want to spar with me?" Goku asked him as he was shadow sparring and going through his moves. "Not right now Goku. Do you know where Grandpa went?" Robin asked him.
"I don't know, he said he was going for a walk a little while ago and he's not home yet." Goku said and looking a little disappointed that Robin didn't want to spar with him. "I'll spar with you later today Goku, but right now I'm going to go find Grandpa.
Robin wasn't sure why but he had a bad feeling, he also wasn't sure why he went in the direction of Raft Village but once he was out of eyesight of Goku, he blasted off into the air at top speed.
He arrived at Raft village in roughly 5 minutes since it was only a mile away, but once he got there his stomach dropped. The whole village and the surrounding forest were obliterated. He saw a lot more smoke about 4 miles away and could even hear loud bangs coming from the direction.
He blasted towards the smoke and got there in a little less than 15 minutes as he really pushed himself. He saw a lot of people in uniforms with guns slowly gaining ground towards the village and there were several groups of people without weapons running through the crowds of soldiers beating them up. Robin looked away though when he saw several of the men get shot.
He continued through for the next mile and landed outside of what looked like a barrack. He noticed a big red cross on a similar building nearby and he noticed a smaller building with a satellite dish on top of it. He walked over to it assuming that it was the command post and he walked in without a knock.
The Mayor was standing there looking of a guys shoulder to a screen with a worried look on his face. Robin walked over to him and made his presence known by clearing his throat.
Yang looked up and when he saw Robin his face brightened a bit. "Robin, I wasn't sure if you'd show up or not but it's good that you did. Were losing pretty badly and we need people to help evacuate the city, I fear that we won't be able to keep up our defenses much longer." Yang said.
"I'm sorry Mr. Takosi, but I would rather go to the front lines right now, I fear that my Grandfather might be out there and I need to find him." Robin said as he wasn't good enough at sensing to figure out where Gohan was in the mix of people.
"Hmm, might I ask what his name is Robin?" Yang said as he walked over to a list of volunteers that he seemingly made. "His name is Son Gohan." Robin said. "Ah yes, he was sent to the front lines saying he refused to take any other position on the battle field. You should be able to find him with a group of fighters wearing purple outfits.
Robin nodded and ran out the door and blasted off into the sky towards the battlefield. When he got there, he saw a lot of people lying on the ground dead and almost puked at the sight. He decided to tough through it though and ran off to the side where he saw a group of purple.
He got over there just in time to see Gohan blast away several rebels with a Kamehameha wave. Gohan seemed to be in fighter mode though as the second he finished his blast he started jumping around and taking out a lot of soldiers.
Robin ran towards Gohan but the second he got close a huge mortar landed between him and Gohan and he felt Gohan's ki drop and everything seemed to freeze for Robin before the smoke cleared. He wasn't sure if Gohan was dead or alive but he'd be damned if he didn't avenge him.
He instantly powered up and could feel more power than he ever had before and blasted through the smoke at an incredibly quick pace and took of almost twenty soldiers before the smoke cleared. He then summoned a storm of ki balls and blasted them across the field into about 50 soldiers. None of them were dead but they were out of the fight for good.
Robin then looked back at Gohan and noticed he was still alive but only barely. He ran over to him instantly now that the area they were in was cleared out. "Gohan, you're going to be okay, I'll bring you to the medical barrack and you'll be fine alright?" Robin said as he was somewhat panicked.
The other fighters around him walked over to him and one of them spoke up. "We'll take him to the medical barrack, it's obvious that you're one of the best fighters here." Robin looked down at Gohan. "Don't worry about me Robin, it'll take more than that to kill me." Gohan said while mustering a small smile.
Robin just nodded at him and watched several fighters carry him off in the direction of the small base that was set up. He then turned around to look at the battle and realized that it may take a while before he was done fighting for the day.
Sorry this chapter took so long to come out. But I may or may not have messed up my wrist while playing baseball and I couldn't type for almost a week. Now some true action starts and we get to see a bit more of what kind of person Robin is.