Gohan was not your normal 16 year old. He knew it, his friends knew it and his family knew it. From Battling freaky soldiers on an alien planet to fighting a giant bug man with the DNA of all his friends and family (and some enemies') DNA, he was well aware that his life had been very, very strange, especially compared to a "normal human" (not that he was entirely human either).

Gohan hated fighting. He loved to train, some of his best memories with his father were training and martial arts were engraved into his very being at this point, but it was fighting he hated. Not sparring, he could have fun doing that, but he had no wish to ever be in any life-or-death battles.

Cell had scarred him permanently, his stupidly smug green face haunting his dreams with his father's last words echoing around him. He had fallen into a depression shortly after Cells defeat and had been searching for a way to grow stronger ever since. This wasn't out of misplaced pride like a certain prince but because Gohan knew he didn't do good enough against Cell and it cost Goku his life. His friends all told him he did all he could and that it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't help but blame himself. After all, he wasn't even using half of his true power against Cell.

This is not to say he wasn't trying, oh he tried, but he felt a wall to the rest of his power in SSJ2. He still was stronger than Cell, but he couldn't help but think that if he had just somehow used all of it, he may have been able to save his dad and everyone else from Cells terror sooner.

A couple years back, around age 12, he started to research meditation to attempt to help with his emotional issues. Not just the type of meditation he did with Piccolo, but every single variant he could find anything about. Nothing really worked but he had a sort of eureka moment concerning his training.

He spent 7 long, gruelling months splitting his day in 6 parts, eat, study, eat, train, eat, sleep. Everyday he worked on gaining control over Super Saiyan 2, and it had worked, kind of. He could hold the form for hours on end with minimal energy drainage, but he was still affected by the sheer amount of emotion that being SSJ2 brought out.

Eventually, while consulting Piccolo and Dende for any source of information on meditation, Dende had suggested he gather the dragon balls and ask Shenron for advice. While it seemed rather stupid to him at the time, Piccolo pushed him to do it, citing the fact that if he had a severe mental breakdown one day from accumulating stress, nobody on earth (whose kidding, most of the universe) would be able to stop him power-wise.

Gohan, with some help from his awesome godmother Bulma Briefs, located the balls and summoned the dragon. His first wish was a meditation technique to reduce his stress and anxiety and help cope with his trauma, the second wish was a training method perfectly tailored to him that would allow him to draw out his unused power.

Through the following years he would consistently practise his new training method, ki compression, which allowed him to unlock most of his latent power but increase his control immensely and develop new techniques. Things like his Destructo ball, a variation of Krillin's Destructo disc that was basically an enormous ball of constantly spinning saw-like blades, or his self healing method, derived from the spirit bomb technique his father used to allow him to gather the planet's energy and absorb it into himself to heal his wounds. He also meditated with the method Shenron had granted him, which had worked wonders to not only to help his recurring nightmares but helped him realize how limited his worldview was.

He brought the issue to his mother roughly 2 months ago and she had suggested he attend high school. He already had learned everything they would teach him by age 8, Chichi made sure of that, but he recognized that interacting with other kids his own age wouldn't hurt as the only friends he had within a decade of himself were Lime, a girl from a small village close to mount Paozu that he helped before the Cell games and Future Trunks.

With some help from Bulma, he was enrolled in Orange Star high, the top public school in Satan City as a junior. This is where our story begins.