XII: Hello everyone, my name is TheCriminalWhirlwindXIII and we must chat. This Fanfiction originally belonged to RainthelingeringSentiment. He had lost the will to continue it and with his permission, I was allowed to adopt it from him along with another Fanfiction of his that I really enjoyed so here it is, my version of…Son Gohan: Champion of Earth

Summary: When Goku refused to come back to life for his friends and family at the end of the Cell Tournament, It caused a chain of events that would change Gohan's life. With a new purpose to surpass the previous champion of the planet he loves, How will Gohan fair as the new protector of the Earth? Will he be able to rise to the challenge or will he crash and burn? AU

Pairings: Gohan/Videl/?

Genre: Drama, Action, angst and Romance

Rating: Rated M

Disclaimer: I wish I owned DBZ but alas, I don't.

Son Gohan: Champion of Earth

Prologue: Promise in the Rain

"I'm sorry guys but I'm not coming back…"

A battered and weakened Gohan glanced up at his father's image with a look of shock on his face.

What did he mean he wasn't coming back? His father had to come back. His mother was waiting for the both of them to come home after this.

Gohan then started to laugh at this, causing everyone to look at him in confusion.

It had to be a joke.

His father was always the jokester so this time shouldn't be different.

There was no way that his father would leave his mother, himself and all of their friends again.

There was no way his father could just leave them like that.

It seemed like Krillen was on the same mindset because the bald monk chuckled and said "Stop joking around and bring your butt down here Goku,.

But to his horror, Gohan watched his father shake his head slowly and said "This is no joke old friend. I'm not coming back."

Goku wasn't coming back to Earth.

And Gohan felt that it was his fault.

"Father! You can't do this!" Gohan spoke up, trying to keep the sorrow from his voice.

He watched as Goku gave him a saddened frown and reply "I'm sorry Gohan but it has to be this way…"

"Is it because of me that you're leaving? Because I didn't defeat Cell when I had the chance?" Gohan asked, his vision becoming blurry due to the unshed tears within them.

"Of course not!" Goku said with shock in his voice. "You may have lost your way during that battle but in the end you did defeat him…No, the real reason I'm leaving because all of this is my fault..."

Now Gohan was really confused.

His fault?

How could it be his fault?

Luckily, Goku was quick in giving an explanation.

"When I was younger, I defeated the Red Ribbon Army and showed in mercy to them. In turn, Doctor Gero created the androids and Cell to kill me, with the latter succeeding…"

Gohan watched Goku's image close his eyes and continue with "As long as I live, Every life on Earth will never be safe. Villains will continue to pop out of the woodworks to fight me and all of you would get in the way and as much as I want to stay here with you all, I don't want to see you guys hurt anymore…"

"That's bullshit!" Gohan exclaimed, shocking everyone around him. He knew that he was always proper and refrained from cursing but this was one of those moments that he needed to bust one out.

"Even without you, there are always villains that are targeting earth for one reason or another! Garlic Jr and his crew, the Saiyans, Lord Slug and his entire army, Doctor Wheelo and Turles and his crew! They all attacked earth, not for you but for some other reason and we happened to be there!" Gohan argued.

"Gohan," Goku started but Gohan wasn't going to stop now with what he had to say.

"No father, you can't sit there and say that the world will stop being in danger with you dead!" Gohan yelled furiously, his eyes flashing teal for a moment.

But to Gohan's anger, Goku shook his head and said "I still can't take the chance Gohan...I'd rather be gone than have any of you die because of my enemies… "

Gohan watched as Goku gave a bright smile down towards him. "Besides, I can train with King Kai in the otherworld to get stronger."

"There is more to life than training! I need a father, my mother needs her husband! Our friends need you! Don't do this!" Gohan begged angrily.

Goku's image began to fade which caused Gohan to scream out "Damn it father, don't do this!"

"Goodbye Gohan…Tell your mother that I love her…"

Gohan screamed out in fury, causing the slowly fading image of Goku to look at him in surprise before he said "You can tell her that yourself! Just come back! Don't leave us here without you!"

"I'll be watching after you all….I'll be back one day but until then…See you guys next time!" And those were the lasts words Goku said before he completely disappeared, leaving an angered and distraught Gohan behind.

Goku had left them here once again and to make it worse….Goku's tone was as the happy, loveable goof that he was instead of a tone of sadness and guilt that he should have been saying it.

Gohan could feel everyone staring at him as he fell to his knees but he refused to shed anymore tears.

"Gohan…"

He could feel Krillen's hand on his right shoulder but Gohan didn't respond to his honorary uncle's voice. Instead, Gohan slowly rose up to his feet and took a small breath before giving a sad smile to Krillen and saying "I need to get home to tell mom the bad news…I'll catch you guys later, ok?"

He didn't wait for an answer because with a charge of his blue energy, Gohan flew off of the lookout and flew away as slowly as possible. It just wasn't fair to him. He didn't want to do this to his mom. She had gone through so much since Goku died the first time and it felt as if she would never get a respite from all of this stress.

Especially now that he would have to repeat the very same words he had given her so many times before.

"Mom...We managed to save everyone but Dad he….He's gone…"

The last time he had to give her those words was when he was gone for a year and a half after his battle with Frieza and she had been inconsolable.

Every day, she would try and keep it together for him but at the end of the day when he was trying to rest for the next day, he could hear her try to stifle her sobs with her pillow.

For a year and a half, he had to deal with his mother crying her heart out for his father and he knew that once he was done talking to her tonight, those tears would begin anew.

And this time, he didn't know if they would ever truly stop.

And just then, It began to rain….

Son Gohan

Son Residence

It was pouring heavily when Gohan finally landed on the side of his house and the young savior of the earth found himself more nervous than he had been when he was fighting Cell and with good reason.

When he peeked through his house window, he saw streamers and balloons and tons of other decorations hanging from the walls and there was also a banner that read "Welcome home" on it but it was the sight of his messy mom, sleeping on the table that had tons of food for all three of them sitting around her as she slept.

'Oh mom…' Gohan thought to himself sadly.

It was clear that she was working on this little surprise while everyone was off fighting for the fate of the world and knowing that she made this for both him and his father had caused his heart to clench.

He knew that when he walked into the house, she would be super happy that he and his father had come home alive but then he would tell her those familiar words that she would be dreading to hear and by the time he would be done, she would break down and cry for her husband as he had hours before.

Walking to the front of his house, Gohan rang the doorbell one time and waited and just like he suspected, Chi-Chi opened the door with happiness shining in her eyes but the moment she saw that it was just him, he could almost see the gears in her head turning and then she took a step back, tears forming within her eyes.

"He's gone…." He heard his mother mumble tearfully.

Gohan hadn't even said a word and already she knew what had happened to Goku and it made a tear fall from his eye.

Taking a deep breath, Gohan closed the door behind him and led his mother to the couch and told her everything that had happened and by the time he was done, he simple held his mother as she cried her eyes out for the man that had left them.

After an hour of hearing her cry against him, he found himself putting her in bed and placing the covers around her form.

Gohan glanced down at his sleeping mother and felt tears prickling his eyes as she whimpered her husband's name. 'She looks so weak,' Gohan thought to himself softly as he balled up his hands into a tight fist.

His anger soon grew when he watched one last tear fall from her eyes.

To see his powerful, tough, headstrong mother look so small and broken had caused him to finally snap.

How could his father do this?!

How he leave his mother…The woman he called his "Wife" like this? Broken and distraught while he was probably laughing it up with King Kai in the otherworld.

It wasn't just the fact that he had abandoned the two of them once again; it was the fact that he left his mother alone while she was pregnant.

His mother was going to surprise both of them when they got home but now that Goku was gone, she tearfully revealed this to Gohan during her bout of crying and it pissed him off to no end that he left his mother in such a miserable state, especially knowing that he was going to have a little sibling!

Sure he was sure that his father didn't know about this development but the fact that he left before hearing this news was truly sickening to the Demi-saiyan.

It was then where Gohan walked out of his mother's room and straight out outside into the rain around him and yelled out "You want to just abandon us here while you train without a care in the world?!"

Gohan was so infuriated about how everything transpired that he changed into a super saiyan as he shouted. "You can stay up there for all I care! I'll protect this world without leaving my friends or my family behind! I swear to you that I'll become a better protector than you ever could!"

"Do you hear me?!" Gohan raged against the storm, the yellow energy around him flaring wildly around his body. "I'll become a better warrior, father, husband, and friend than you ever could! I swear it on everything that I love that I will surpass you!"

Gohan then lowered his head and allowed one last tear to fall from his eyes before he said "And when I do, I'll show you first hand how strong I have become...And that is a promise I will never break."

XIII: And that's the prologue to my new story Son Gohan: Champion of Earth. Not much has changed from RainthelingeringSentiment's version but trust me, things will get so much better. So tell me what you guys think and catch you on the flipside!