Chapter Ninety-one

Here Comes Gohan! Mother-Son Adventures!

It had been more than a month, by Gohan's estimation, since he and Goku had entered the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. It had been simultaneously the most fun and most harrowing time of Gohan's young life. It was fun because, for the first time since he was a baby, Gohan got to spend time with his mom. When they weren't training, Goku would tell Gohan stories about her adventures from when she was younger. They were stories that Suno had told him before and that Bulma and Krillin had talked about on the journey to Namek but it was just fun to hear Goku's perspective on them.

"So then Tao threw a rock at me after I beat him up. I guess he was just a sore loser, so I kicked it back in his face!"

"Are you sure it wasn't a grenade, mom?"

"Oh… oh, yeah. That would explain why he was all metal-y when he showed up at the 23rd Budoukai. Ah, well. He was a jerk anyway."

The harrowing part was the actual training itself. The training was even more intense than what he had undergone with Mr. Piccolo but with the added pressure of a goal in mind. Every day that Gohan didn't turn into a Super Saiyan was a day that Gohan considered a failure. His mom was doing her best to try and impart the knowledge onto him but the transformation, Gohan had realized, wasn't something that could easily be taught.

"Hey mom," Gohan asked during lunch when they were taking a break one day, "Not that I want to cut back or anything but how come we're training so hard? Do you think Cell is still stronger than Vegeta?" Goku took a second to respond, still chewing on one of those weird hunks of meat with a bone stuck through it that no one knew quite what part of the animal it came from.

"Well," Goku started, "I don't think Cell's stronger than Vegeta right now. But let's be honest, do we really trust Vegeta to be the strongest guy on the planet?" Granted, Goku had a higher opinion of Vegeta than the others. She'd had her suspicions that Vegeta was a better person than he gave himself credit for all the way back on Namek. She was sure that, deep down inside, he could be a good guy if he just stopped taking himself so seriously all the time. Still, she knew that the others didn't like Vegeta all that much and she figured that if her being stronger than him made them all feel better, that was fine. Besides, she wanted to be the strongest, anyway. "I mean," she added, "I don't think Vegeta'll do something really stupid but he might. I mean, really, really stupid. So we should keep training just to be sure." Gohan nodded and the two finished lunch before walking back out into the void.

OoOoOoO

Another week passed and Gohan wasn't any closer to being a Super Saiyan. "Power has to come from a need, not just wanting it really bad," Goku explained after Gohan screamed in frustration following another fruitless attempt at forcing himself to power up. "Just powering up won't make you turn into a Super Saiyan. You need to create that need, Gohan."

"But how?!" Gohan asked irritably, almost snapping at his mom. "How am I supposed to create it when it's just me and you in here?! I can't just wait until I might have to fight Cell or watch someone die! We're wasting time!" Goku was silent for about a minute, which made Gohan wonder if he'd done something to upset her. "Mom?"

"No," Goku said, "It's okay. You're right. I've been doing this kinda wrong." Then she put her hands on Gohan's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "Do you remember when I became a Super Saiyan the first time?" she asked. Gohan nodded. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to forget that day. "That was what I thought about the second time I transformed back on Yardrat. Even though I knew you and Suno were perfectly safe and that Freeza… well, I thought he was dead, anyway. Just the thought of you guys in danger like that again made something inside me explode. Can you think of something like that?" Gohan nodded and closed his eyes. He pictured Cell killing people. All the deaths that Trunks said Cell was responsible in his timeline and all the death it would cause if they didn't stop him. Then the people Gohan was close to: his mother, Krillin, Mr. Piccolo, his friends at school. He couldn't imagine Cell killing mom, though. Even though he knew that she had died once before, he just couldn't wrap his head around the idea. She was always so strong, always rushing in when thing seemed their bleakest. "If you've got it," Goku said, "Hold onto it. When you want to try and transform, let it scream out from the depths of your heart!"

"Got it," Gohan whispered resolutely with his eyes shut tight. Then he heard the soft "whoosh" of his mom pushing off into the air and slowly opened one eye. "Uhhhh, mom?" he asked as he watched Goku fly higher and higher up. "Whaaaat are you doing?"

"Something drastic," she called down as she transformed into a Super Saiyan. Gohan wasn't entirely sure he liked the sound of that. "I think I've been taking it too easy on you," Goku explained. Gohan found that extremely hard to believe, given how hard his mom had been pushing him and the intensity of their sparring. "If we're going to get you turned into a Super Saiyan, I need to push you to your absolute limits!" Gohan wasn't sure if he liked the sound of that. "So I'm going to attack you," Goku continued, "And the only way you're going to be able to survive is if you become a Super Saiyan!"

"Wait, WHAT?!" Gohan exclaimed. His mom… his mom was joking, right? She wasn't seriously going to do anything like that, was she?

"Ready?" Goku called down.

"Not rea–" Gohan started to say before Goku immediately cut him off.

"Here it comes!" she cried. Gohan could see his mom bring her hands to her side and could see the bright blue light within the golden aura. "Kaaaa meee…" Gohan closed his eyes, both to try and focus on the images in his mind and to keep from focusing on how large the blue light had already become. "Haaa meee…" He could do this. He had to. He tried to picture everyone that Cell was going to kill, all the pain and destruction Cell had caused and would continue to cause if it wasn't stopped. It filled him with an even greater anger than he had felt when he was small when Mr. Piccolo or his moms had been hurt. "HAAAAA!" Gohan kept his eyes shut tight, not even looking up as he focused on the anger. It wasn't just that he was more angry, it was a different kind of anger. Everyone was counting on him! They needed him to be ready. They needed him to be strong!

Something inside Gohan changed in that moment. It wasn't that something broke as it had when he was little and got angry, or even, although he didn't know it, the way something had broken inside Trunks, Vegeta, or Goku when they had transformed, pushed to the edges of rage and despair. Something woke up inside Gohan, like a flame that had been stoked suddenly blazed into a colossal inferno. Power was bursting out from inside him, filling him up, threatening to overwhelm him. His eyes snapped open and he threw out his hands, catching the Kamehameha against his palms and gritting his teeth as he dug in his feet. Then, rather than holding onto the beam, Gohan actually began to push it back.

"Kaaaameeeehaaaameeeehaaaaa!" Gohan roared, letting out a scream from the depths of his heart. The blast completely overwhelmed Goku's Kamehameha and sent it hurtling back at her. Goku dove out of the path of the beam at the last second, watching it fly off into the infinite abyss with her mouth open wide. She had no idea that Gohan had that kind of power in him! She looked back down toward Gohan as he threw back his head and screamed triumphantly, his young muscles standing out against the blue bodysuit, his aura flaring around him in a golden blaze, and his long, shaggy hair standing out in golden spikes. He'd done it! Gohan had become a Super Saiyan.

"That's my boy," Goku whispered happily with a huge smile on her face. No parent had ever been so proud of their child. Then Gohan's aura faded and he started to collapse forward, the strain of the sudden and violent transformation apparently being more than his young body could handle. Goku was there before he'd even started to fall, catching him in her arms and putting him over her back like when he was little to carry him back to the chamber for some rest.

Of course, Goku reflected as she carried him, Gohan had never been in any real danger. If he wasn't going to transform or it looked like Gohan was going to be overwhelmed, Goku had enough ki control that she could have drastically weakened the blast, or even cut it off entirely, at the first sign of trouble.

But hey, why tell Gohan that?

OoOoOOO

"So wait," Gohan asked as they sat on the steps of the time chamber with Goku behind him, "Why do I need a haircut? I mean, now that I can turn Super Saiyan it'll just go up, right?"

"Yeah," Goku admitted while brushing Gohan's long red hair, "But it still makes a blind spot when you need to turn your head around and stuff. Trunks' hair wasn't too long before and I noticed he was wearing it back when he came out of here like Suno usually does. Yours is different and we don't want it getting in the way."

"Oh," Gohan muttered. "Oh yeah." That was obvious. Why hadn't he thought of that? Wasn't he supposed to be the smart one?

"Jeez," Goku remarked as she continued to brush her son's hair, "Your hair is thick. I guess you get that from Raditz, huh?"

"Yeah," Gohan said with a shrug, "I guess so. He'd look pretty silly as a Super Saiyan, huh?" The pair of them laughed at the image. "Do you ever think about him?" Gohan asked after they were silent for a moment.

"Raditz?" Goku asked before shrugging. "Eh, not really. He was just kind of a jerk that fell out of the sky. I mean, I know he was my brother but I never really cared about that."

"I used to," Gohan admitted softly. "Him and Nappa. They used to give me nightmares when I was little. Freeza still does, sometimes." Goku smiled sympathetically and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"Well don't worry," she told him, "You can kick all their butts now. Now hold still." Goku held a fistful of Gohan's hair while she raised her other hand high overhead in a chop. A blue-white aura flared around her hand and she brought her hand down swiftly, slicing the extra hair right off.

"Wow," Gohan exclaimed as he ran his hands over the cut, his hair feeling much lighter now, "That's awesome!"

"It's nothing special," Goku told him with a shrug. "Focusing ki like that into a weapon is pretty easy once you know what you're doing."

OoOoOoO

Out in the depths of space, Salza stopped in the middle of his stressful workload. With King Cooler training and Sorbet dead when Geldaria was mysteriously destroyed, he was the commander of the Arcosian forces. Yet as taxing as the job of commanding a military that could literally populate three whole galaxies was, he couldn't shake the sudden feeling that his honor had been insulted.

"Merde," he muttered under his breath as he shook his head and went back to work.

OoOoOoO

There were times during their training where Goku would wake up a few hours before Gohan. She'd leave him alone when those happened since he was usually still snoring and worked himself pretty hard so he needed the rest. Goku found that, unlike Suno or the others, she only really needed a few hours of sleep a night. Heck, when she was training on her way to Namek, she could go days without sleep. Gohan still needed more sleep than her, which she figured was because Gohan was still a growing boy and, probably, because he was only half-Saiyan.

These hours before Gohan woke up left Goku alone with her thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts led her to ponder how much she missed Suno- these were the times Goku was glad Gohan was sleeping- but, other than that, Goku sometimes found herself worrying. Would she be strong enough to beat Cell on her own? Would Gohan be able to defend himself if it became his fight? Was Cell, was all of it, her fault in some way? The pressure of it all, the weight on her shoulders, the incredible responsibility she had to bear… but that kinda thing usually made her feel down so she cheered up by thinking about Suno again.

This time also left Goku to train by herself which was the time where Goku tried to tap into the higher levels of Super Saiyan power. She knew that there was more to the form than what she was capable of. She could feel it every time she powered up, like a pressure in her mind. She thought that she'd discovered it one night but the forms she had tapped into were bulky and inefficient. One had a lot of power but burned it up while the other one had even more power but made her so slow that all the power was useless!

"These suck," Goku muttered as she powered down out of the bulkiest form. "There's got to be a better way…"

OoOoOoO

Weeks passed, the intensity spiking significantly after Gohan gained the ability to transform into a Super Saiyan. It was only now that Gohan began to recognize how talented of a fighter his mom was. He'd always known she was the best but now that he himself was more powerful, he noticed the intricacies of Goku's abilities. She used a different style in every single spar, forcing Gohan to adapt in turn. There would be times where she could focus on speed and precise attacks where other times she would throw heavy strikes in a relentless attempt to overwhelm him with brute force. Sometimes Goku would focus entirely on ki attacks and sometimes even grappling. She would even change tactics in the middle of a spar, forcing Gohan to adapt his style repeatedly. In this way, Gohan realized, his mom was teaching him all of the techniques and skills that she herself had learned in all her travels and studying but in a very distilled way.

It also gave Gohan an opportunity to see how inventive his mom was as a fighter. When they weren't sparring, Gohan was able to watch his mom test herself and her abilities of ki control and manipulation. She didn't invent techniques as much as experiment with them and learn their intricacies. This was how the pair of them discovered that Kaiouken and Super Saiyan didn't mix, which cost them a whole day of training while Goku recuperated. On one occasion, Goku had even asked for Gohan's help while experimenting.

"Just fly out as far as you can," Goku told him, "But not so far out that you can't see the chamber anymore." Gohan nodded and, although not entirely sure what his mom had planned, he flew off into the void at top speed, stopping once the chamber was just a golden speck in the distance.

"Okay," he shouted, using ki to amplify his voice, "I've stopped flying!" Then he waited. For what, he wasn't entirely sure, but he knew that his mom must have had something in mind and so he waited to see whatever it was. He was starting to get bored and was actually almost missing homework when Goku suddenly appeared in front of him and startled Gohan so badly that it nearly knocked him off of his feet.

"I did it!" Goku exclaimed. "I was able to use Instant Transmission without putting my fingers to my forehead!" She held out her hand for a high five, which Gohan gave her eagerly. On the flight back, Gohan had a question.

"So what do you think you'll do now that you've got such better control of Instant Transmission?"

"I dunno," Goku admitted, "But it definitely makes my hands free, which is useful." She grinned at him. "I'm sure I'll think of somethin'." Once they reached the chamber, Goku actually stopped Gohan from powering down. "Hold on." she told him. "Are you feeling comfortable with transforming into a Super Saiyan?" she asked.

"Yeah," Gohan replied, "I think I'm getting the hang of it. It's a little tricky to maintain but I think I can manage. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Goku assured her son, "But I don't want you to power down. We're going to try and maintain Super Saiyan for as long as we can for the rest of the time we're in here. When we're training, when we're eating, all the time."

"Why's that?" Gohan asked curiously. It seemed like they could be using that time better to become stronger or to access a higher form of Super Saiyan, if such a thing existed.

"Because we're wasting power right now," Goku explained. "The strain of transforming and of maintaining the Super Saiyan form burns up valuable ki. We could be so much stronger than we are now and by the time we're finished with this, being a Super Saiyan will come as easily to you as breathing." Gohan supposed that made sense. "Now sit here," she told him as she sat down herself and patted a space beside her. "We're gonna see how long you can stay Super Saiyan while meditating." Gohan nodded and sat down beside his mom, folding his legs and putting his hands in his lap. Without having his anger to focus on, Gohan dropped out of his Super Saiyan form almost immediately so he had to power up again. This was clearly going to take some time.

OoOoOoO

The next several months flew by as their training progressed and Gohan could feel himself growing stronger with each passing day. He also spent more time talking with his mom and more or less hanging out than he would have expected, although that in itself was probably training, just more stuff to keep Gohan occupied while maintaining the Super Saiyan form, a task that was getting a little easier with every day.

OoOoOoO

"Need to stop, guh… huh… I-I can't–" Gohan gasped as sweat ran down his face and along his Super Saiyan hair, running across the stiff spikes like water down a knife. His arms were burning and he was panting with the exertion.

"Don't gimme that," Goku told him somewhat sternly, "You can do it! You've already done five thousand pushups, what's another thousand? Yesterday you could only do three thousand, look how strong you're becoming!" Goku got down into the pushup position beside Gohan and smiled. "C'mon," she encouraged him, "I'll do 'em with you. Let's go!" Gohan nodded and the pair dropped down before pushing back up again. To Gohan's surprise, he was still able to keep pace with his mom but he just told himself she was holding back on his account. That would make sense, right?

OoOoOoO

"Hey, Gohan," Goku said as the pair of them were having lunch one day, still maintaining their Super Saiyan forms, "I wanna ask you something."

"What is it?" Gohan asked while slicing a pear, using precise ki control to turn the tip of his finger into a knife.

"Do you know who you like yet?" Goku asked while making an absurdly tall sandwich.

"What do you mean?" Gohan responded curiously. His mom wasn't asking about… that, was she?

"I mean, y'know, your mother likes me," Oh dear God she was, "So I figure she likes girls. I kinda like everyone but if I think about it, I always kinda thought Launch and Bulma were pretty more than I thought any guys were pretty. Maybe Krillin, I guess. So, do you know if you like boys or girls? Or both? ...Gohan?" Gohan's response was somewhat delayed as he was trying not to choke on a slice of pear while hitting himself in the chest.

"Guh… huh…" Gohan finally panted out once he no longer had fruit jammed in his esophagus. "I dunno," he replied. "I think… I mean I dunno, I haven't thought about it too much. I mean, I guess there are some girls that are cute at school but… maybe both?" Goku smiled and tousled her son's hair while compressing her giant sandwich in her hands.

"That's nice," she told him before shoving her entire sandwich into her mouth and eating the whole thing in one bite, something that would have earned her Suno's sternest reproach. "Whoever you decide you like," Goku continued, "I can't wait to meet them someday. And I know they'll be really lucky." She giggled as Gohan's face got bright red and he buried it in his hands.

"Moooom," he groaned.

OoOoOoO

Gohan and Goku now had near-complete control of their Super Saiyan forms. Five months ago, Gohan had been able to meditate for maybe a second before dropping out of his Super Saiyan form. Today he had already been meditating in this form for four hours. His mom was trying to help him learn Instant Transmission like she'd promised him that she would. The tricky part of that was that, within the endless pocket dimension of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, there were only the two of them. Not a lot of ki to try and focus on. When Gohan tried to expand his consciousness and sense the ki of the world outside of the chamber, however, it messed with his head.

"Everything out there feels so… slow," he muttered. Goku nodded with a grimace, no doubt having tried to do the same thing.

"Yeah," she agreed, "It's pretty weird." She could sense, however vaguely, that Vegeta had done the dumb thing. She sighed and shook her head in clear disappointment. Vegeta still clearly had a long way to go.

"What's wrong, mom?" Gohan asked. Goku sighed again and started to get up. Clearly Gohan hadn't been able to sense it yet so there was nothing to worry him about yet.

"Nothing," she told him. "We'll focus on the Instant Transmission training once we get out of here. Let's get back to sparring!" Gohan nodded and got back to his feet eagerly before getting into a fighting stance. That day's sparring had been highly educational for Goku for two reasons. The first one was that, when Gohan had hit her, it hurt. A lot. Gohan had been progressing tremendously in the last several months and was already an equal to her skill as a fighter but now he was matching her power as well!

The second one came at the end of the spar, after Goku had knocked Gohan to the ground with a blow to the back of the head. He dropped out of his Super Saiyan form and collapsed onto the white ground, the sight of which made Goku power down herself with concern etched onto her face.

"Gohan!" she cried worriedly. "Are you alright?!" Gohan didn't reply but he was starting to stir at least, which made Goku give a sigh of relief. "Come on," she told him as she started to walk towards him, "Let's call it a day. We've been sparring for twelve hours. I think it's time for a break." Then Gohan said something that surprised her.

"N-no," he groaned out, his gloved hands scraping against the smooth, glass-like surface of the floor as he pushed himself up slowly to his feet. "No, mom! Everyone's counting on us! I can't just be strong, I have to be the best! I have to be as good as you!" It was as if Gohan was suddenly filled with renewed life and his aura flared brighter than ever as he transformed into a Super Saiyan again. "I-I know I can keep going!" Lightning crackled in his aura and around his hair as his resolute expression turned furious. "Don't baby me, mom! I can handle it!" His mouth twisted into a cold smirk before he threw back his head and screamed with all of his heart. For half a heartbeat, Gohan's hair spiked even higher than normal and his ki skyrocketed higher than ever before. Then the moment passed and Gohan collapsed, his hair black again. The whole thing had left Goku absolutely stunned. She knew that Gohan had tremendous power but nothing like this…

'He can do it,' she thought proudly as she carried Gohan back into the chamber and put him to bed. 'He can really do it!'

OoOoOoO

There was only a month left before Goku and Gohan would have to finish their training or else be locked inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber forever. In that time, Gohan's strength and abilities continued to increase and he became more and more confident in his power. Yet, as their time drew to a close, Gohan would never have been prepared for what his mother was about to tell him.

"So mom," Gohan asked one day during a break from their sparring, "Do you have a plan for beating Cell?" They were sitting on the steps of the chamber and seeing how far they could throw peach pits out into the abyss. By this point, Gohan was so comfortable with being a Super Saiyan that he didn't even think about it sometimes. He'd see his mom as a Super Saiyan and it would make him remember that he, too, was a Super Saiyan.

"Not really," Goku admitted. "But I didn't really have a plan for Freeza, either. Figure I'll just hit Cell really hard and see what happens." She grinned at Gohan and that made him realize it was a joke, so they shared a laugh. "Actually," Goku admitted, "I do have a plan for beating Cell."

"Really?" Gohan asked as he grabbed a peach pit and pulled his arm back to throw it. "What is it?"

"You, Gohan," his mom stated matter-of-factly. "You're gonna beat Cell." The peach pit slipped from Gohan's hand and bonked him on the head.

"Say what?" Gohan asked while cocking his head to one side. Him? He was going to beat Cell?! What was his mom talking about?! "D-do you mean that Cell's not as strong as you?" Gohan wondered, trying to grab for something that made sense. "That's what you mean, right? And you're just going to give me a chance to prove myself?"

"Nope," Goku said plainly. "I can't really accurately gauge how powerful Cell is from inside here but I do know one thing: If I can't beat Cell, you can. You're stronger than me, Gohan." This was it, Gohan decided. Clearly, the extreme isolation had finally driven his mother insane. Why else would she say something like that? Him? Stronger than her?

"M-mom," Gohan replied with a nervous chuckle, "You-you're kidding, right? You're… I mean, come o–" Goku screamed suddenly and swung her fist at Gohan in a punch. Gohan brought his hand up quickly to catch her fist in his palm, the impact making a "THOOMP" sound like a bomb going off underwater. Despite the sound of the impact, and the fact that the shockwave sent their pile of peach pits tumbling off into oblivion, Gohan didn't feel any pain in his hand.

"I just tried to punch you as hard as I could," Goku pointed out. Gohan blinked in disbelief and stared at his hand. There was no way… this couldn't be happening. "And you've got even more power inside you than you realize. I'm so proud of how strong you've become!" Gohan just shook his head slowly as if he still couldn't fathom what he was being told. "I know it's a lot to take in," Goku told her son as she put her arm around him, "But I know you can do it. I believe in you, Gohan. I always have."

"I just… I don't know if I do," Gohan admitted softly. "I mean, I've always tried to help and I can do some damage when I get mad but you're always the one who's saved the day. It's hard for me to believe that I have this kind of power or that I can actually do what you think I can." Then he looked up at his mom and gave her a weak smile. "But if you believe in me… I guess I can at believe in the me that you believe in." Gohan wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that but it made him feel a little better.

"You'll see," Goku said encouragingly as she pulled Gohan in for a hug which he happily returned. "Just don't tell your mother about the plan, okay? I'm pretty sure she'd freak out." Gohan laughed and nodded before Goku let go of the hug. Then Goku said something else that surprised Gohan. "Y'know what?" she said as she hopped up to her feet. "Let's get outta here!"

"Are you sure?" Gohan asked even as Goku held out a hand to help him up. "We still have another month left! There's more time to train!" Goku shook her head with a smile.

"Believe me," she told him, "We've done all that we can. I've gotten as strong as I'm going to and you're already more than powerful enough. Plus, I miss Suno and I'm sick of the color white. Come on!" Gohan had to admit that he was getting pretty sick of this place. It'd be nice to experience things like weather and sounds beside sparring and his own breathing again. To hear a voice that wasn't his mom's or his own. To talk to a third person. Mother and son walked to the doors of the chamber side by side with each one taking a door handle and swinging it open, walking out into the light, prepared for whatever awaited them on the other side.