AN: I know it has been a very long time but I'm glad to finally update this story. Sorry for the long wait.

Chapter 9

"Okay Gohan, what's going on?" Krillin asked once the whole gang was there. Gohan had flown straight to the lookout from school and had to wait about an hour for the rest to arrive. Vegeta was the last to arrive since he had to carry Bulma with him.

"The simple answer is that Gero is alive." Gohan watched as all their faces turned from curiosity to dread. He went on to explain what happened at school and what Tao had said. "So that's why I'm almost sure Gero is alive. I think all of you will agree that anything involving that man should be taken with extreme caution." There were nodes all around except Vegeta, who only shrugged in response.

"I agree with you, Gohan, but is Gero really stupid enough to believe that that buffoon, Hercule, actually defeated cell?" Yamcha asked, just needing to say the thought out loud.

"He may be a genius in terms of his work with robotics and bio-engineering, but need I remind you he created Cell, and his own creations killed him. Or so we thought." Bulma was the one to respond to the question, but no one could disagree with what she had to say.

"So what's the plan and how can we help?" Krillin's words were reflected in the faces of everyone present. With Goku gone, the group turned to Gohan as their new leader.

"Our top priority is to find where Gero is hiding. When I left school the police were already there, which means the media shouldn't be too far behind, so I'm sure he is aware of Tao's failure. We all know Gero is not one to take failure well so we need to find him fast, before he hatches his next plan." Gohan, new to his role as leader, felt the need to lay out the logic behind his priority.

"Bulma, you know his work best, can you try and figure out where his lab is? Are there any specific materials or equipment he would need, and if there were any suspicious acquisitions of those materials before he was killed? I'm going to head back to Capsule Corp and see if I can upgrade the scouters to scan underground and through mountains. I need the rest of you to start searching areas similar to where his last lab was." The group nodded signifying their agreement. The guys teamed up and were ready to head out.

"Before you head out, guys, I made these for you." Bulma pulled out a capsule and clicked it. Out popped a simple wooden box. She opened it revealing a bunch of stylish watches. "After all the problems we had with communication during the android attack, I created these." She picked up one of the watches and placed her thumb on the display. There was a small light as the watch scanned her thumbprint. The display split apart to show a small earpiece inside.

"I made them so we can easily contact each other. You can set it up so you're only talking to a specific person, or press this button and the whole group can hear you." She demonstrated the functions. "They can also keep track of all the places we search."

"Thanks, Bulma," they all said as she passed them out. They all put them on and tested the features out. "Hey, Bulma, what if we don't want to wear the ear piece?" Tien asked. "Just leave it in the watch and the display acts as a speaker. I just included the ear piece so we can use them without people seeing it." She said the last part while looking at Gohan.

The guys got back in their groups and headed out, leaving just Gohan, Bulma, and Vegeta standing on the lookout with its permanent residents. "Vegeta, can you and Bulma head back to Capsule Corp without me, I'll be along shortly." Without another word he picked up his wife and flew off back to West City.

"What's on your mind, kid?" Piccolo asked, knowing that his pupil's reason for staying behind was to talk.

"I'm worried about what's going on. Right after hearing that Gero was alive, I had a flash back. I couldn't move my body and was stuck standing still as the Cell Games replayed in my mind."

His face stopped looking as confident as it had a moment ago, when he was giving orders. Now it had a resemblance to the way he looked back during his first days of survival training, when he was four. "Am I making the right decision? If dad was here he would know what to do. Now everyone looks at me for the answers, but I don't have them." He looked at Piccolo pleadingly, needing some kind of reassurance.

"Listen kid, when your father was watching you get beat to a pulp by Cell, he didn't stand by and watch because he liked seeing you get hurt. He didn't do anything, because he believed in your strength. And in the end, you were the one to beat Cell. Goku put his trust in you and you pulled through. Everyone has come to the same conclusion as Goku. They know that you will do what it takes to come through in the end. That is why they trust you, and that's why you need to trust yourself."

"But it was because I couldn't control my strength that he died." Gohan's eyes were shining with the beginnings of tears. "Even after HE chose to do what he did, Cell came back even stronger than before and you pulled yourself together and beat him. If your dad had any doubt in your ability to protect the world he would not have stayed in Otherworld."

Gohan smiled and wiped away the tears that had formed. "Thanks", he said before running off the side of the lookout and heading back to Capsule Corp.

'Goku, how could you leave such a heavy burden on your son's shoulders?' Piccolo thought to himself, hating his old enemy for a new reason.

XXXxxxXXX

To say Videl was pissed at the way Gohan had just walked out would be an understatement. She was furious that he would assault an officer and walk away as though she was nothing. '" To do my job." What kind of excuse is that to walk away from an officer, and more importantly, me? Gohan doesn't even have a job, he's only fourteen.' Videl let the last words of Gohan ecoh through her mind.

"Excuse me Ms. Satan, but I'm going to need you to come with me." The officer said, trying not to push this girl, fearing that she might lash out the way the other kid just had. Videl simply nodded and followed the officer outside.

The area around the school was quickly becoming a zoo, with all the media and the crowds of parents and people that heard something happened. Videl was swarmed by reporters when they saw her walking out with the officer.

"Ms. Videl, will you tell us what happened in there?" a pushy reporter asked, shoving a microphone in her face. "Is it true this was a hostage situation?" another reporter asked. Videl did her best to ignore the onslaught of continuous questions as she followed the officer to his cruiser.

Videl got into the car and sat in silence on her way to the station. Once there, she was shown to the waiting area outside a detective's office. The officer informed her that detective Ryan's would be along shortly. She was left there to think about all the things that had happened that day.

Her day had started out wonderfully with the trip to Capsule Corp. Trying all the cool advanced equipment was amazing. She was still stunned that they had given them those cool training room items. However, that string of wonderful events had to come to an end. Of course, the only way to make up for all the good things was to end up in a school-wide hostage situation.

The wait gave her time to calm down and think through the things that happened at the school. Once more she was surprised to remember that it was Gohan who had saved her, and the whole school, from armed gunmen. She thought about how he seemed more angry than scared at the situation. These thoughts led her to realize that until that man's name was mentioned, Gohan had stayed out of the way.

Gero? Videl thought, I wonder who that guy is? That name seemed to really upset Gohan. And the way he attacked Tao. How could he attack the world's most notorious and dangerous mercenary? As she asked herself these questions, a man walked up to her. It was the same man that she had talked to after the bank robbery.

"Ms. Videl, I see we meet again. Interesting how our paths keep crossing when armed gunmen are involved."

"Detective Ryan, I presume?" She responded, feeling like he thought she was responsible for both incidents.

"Come on in Videl and let's see if we can figure out what happened today." With that, he motioned for her to take a seat in his office as he opened the door. The office had a rundown look. There were piles of paper stacked on his desk and several towers of boxes, which she assumed contained other cases.

"Sorry for having you waiting so long, I wanted to finish my look around your school before I talked to you." Videl looked down at her watch and realised that she had been waiting outside his office for about an hour and a half.

"Then let's see if we can do this quickly, my dad is probably worried sick by now." Detective Ryan nodded and sat down behind his desk and signalled toward the empty chair opposite him.

"From what I heard, the offenders were there for you, what can you tell me about that?"

"All I know is what Mercenary Tao said. He was hired to take the school hostage to draw out my father. Apparently, the guy who hired Tao, this Gero person, is mad that my father defeated Cell." Ryan was surprised to hear this. The thought that anyone would be mad about, the vile monster, Cell being killed was preposterous.

"Regardless of why he did it, I heard it was this … Gohan Son who stopped the attack?" The detective had to pause and look at his notebook to recall the name. "How did this Mr. Son stop one of the most notorious criminals of all time?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure," Videl started, not sure how to phrase the story. "Gohan yelled at Tao and at first he didn't seem to care about Gohan. Then Gohan mentioned some village and Tao started to act strange. It was like he was scared of Gohan. He told Tao to send his men away and after a small scuffle with one of the gunmen they left."

"You said Gohan got in a fight with one of the gunmen. Is it the one that we found at the school with the broken shoulder, shattered ribs, and a collapsed right lung? It appeared he had been sent flying through the gym door."

Videl's expression changed slightly when she heard how injured the gunman was; she didn't think one hit could cause so much harm. She was a little scared about what Gohan had done.

"I can assume from your expression we're talking about the same gunman." Detective Ryan could tell Videl was a little shaken and decided to end the interview. "I don't think there is anything else you can tell me at this time. I just have one more question. Do you know where Mr. Son is now?"

"He just walked away from the police. I was too shocked to follow him. All he said was that he had a job to do."

"Well thank you for your time, I'll get one of the units to give you a ride home, and we will notify your father so he won't worry. Thanks for your help."

Videl was escorted to a waiting police car that drove her home. After Videl left his office, Detective Ryan turned on his computer to look into who this Gohan person was. He opened up the Satan City database but there was no record of a Gohan Son. Not giving up there, Ryan extended his search to include the databases of cities and towns nearby but there was still no record of Gohan Son. Being the persistent detective, he was, Ryan kept searching in as many databases as he could. Eventually he ran out of databases that he could access, so he went to his superior.

After explain the situation, his superior agreed to run a search on the world wide database to see if he could come up with anything. Because of the security on the world wide database Ryan wasn't allowed in his supervisor's office while he ran the search, so he went back to his office to wait for any news. After two hours Ryan got a call from his supervisor. The message was short but to the point. "Detective Ryan, you are to destroy any notes you have involving Son Gohan and never speak of it again."

XXXxxxXXX

It was getting late and Gohan was just finishing the modifications to the scouters, so they could scan underground and through mountains. Bulma walked into his office with a stack of papers in her hand. "I used the blueprints I made of Android 16, when I was fixing him, to come up with a basic list of materials that would be needed to create an android. I also looked in to the type of machinery that was available around the time of Geros death, as well as some older equipment. But I hit a snag."

Gohan's shoulders slumped when he saw the look on Bulma's face. He knew this problem was going to be more than just a small issue. "Despite having the list of unique materials and equipment, most companies in business at the time only kept paper records. As well, these companies are only required to keep their records for three years. Unless we go to all of these companies in person and are somehow given permission to dig through their records, we're at a dead end on this front."

A sad expression was all that showed on Gohan's face. This had been his best hope for getting a lead on Gero and possibly stopping things from getting out of hand. His first time having to take charge and already his plans were falling through. "You know, it's getting late. You should go to your room and get some sleep." Bulma offered seeing how disappointed Gohan was with how her research had hit a dead end. With a nod, Gohan handed the updated scouter to Bulma, asking if she could apply the update to the rest of the scouters they had.

Walking through the many hallways in Capsule Corp, Gohan found himself outside his little brother's room. Without a second thought, he opened the door and looked in to see both Goten and Trunks curled up together sleeping peacefully on the bed. This was what Gohan needed to see. This was his reminder of why he trained every day and worked so hard. After the childhood that he'd had, Gohan was determined to see Goten's turn out differently. He wanted for Goten to know only peace and safety.

With newfound resolve, Gohan headed to bed, knowing that in the morning he would join the search to find Gero's hideout.

XXXxxxXXX

Over the weekend, the search for Gero's lab had not been an easy one. They were still looking come Monday morning. Even with the whole gang split into groups, there was so much ground to cover that they had only visited about half of the locations with similarities to where Gero's previous lab was hidden. Even with the updated scouters, the range that they could scan underground was limited, which meant each location had to be vigorously searched before crossing it off the list.

Gohan had wanted to continue helping with the search but he had to go to school. He thought of asking his mom if he could take the day off but that would require him to tell her what was happening, which he just couldn't do. After what happened with the Cell games, he didn't want to make her worry. As well, since the attack at the school had been targeted at Videl ,he thought it would be a good idea to keep an eye on her. However, Gohan hadn't realized that his mom knew about the hostage situation from the news.

Chi Chi had talked to Bulma on Friday night and found out the whole story. After finding out all of the details, she decided to wait for Gohan to talk to her about it. She knew that he would only feel more stressed if she pushed him.

Gohan walked into school seconds before the bell rang. He had decided it was best not to give the other students time to ask him questions about what had happened. Despite this tactic he could feel the eyes of all his classmates on him when he walked into the classroom.

As he headed to his seat the math teacher called out to him."Mr. Son, we were not sure if you would be here today. Seeing as you are, I was asked to inform you that the principal wants to see you at lunch today."

"Do you know what he wants, sir?" Gohan asked, more to draw the students' eyes away from him than to know what the principal wanted. He could easily guess that it had something to do with Friday. "You'll have to wait till you see him to find out," the teacher said, knowing full well what the principal wanted. The teacher was still a little angry and wanted to let Gohan's imagination fill in the banks. "Now everyone look up at the board; I'm going to show you how to work with negative exponents . . ."

Gohan let the sound of the teacher's voice go to the back of his mind as he finished taking his seat. Looking around at the students, he was surprised to see Videl looking so exhausted. Little did he know the kind of weekend she had endured.

XXXxxxXXX

"Sweet pea, are you all right?!" was the cacophonous roar that greeted Videl when she got home Friday night. She had just been dropped off at her home by the police and the last thing she wanted to deal with was her father and his protective mother bear routine. "I wish I was there, I would have shown those punks what for. But it shows that you're my daughter, being able to handle those thugs. However, those guys are still out there so I forbid you to leave the house until I say otherwise. Now come with me, we can have dinner and watch tapes of my old matches."

It wasn't until late that night she was able to extract herself from her dad's trophy/game room. She was glad to head to bed, but at the same time Hell would have been an improvement over what he'd subjected her to. She fell back onto her bed, enjoying the solitude of her own thoughts for a while.

After a couple minutes of just lying there, she got up and went to get her pj's on. As she came out of the bathroom she looked across the room and saw her school bag by the door, where the butler must have put it when she got home. Going over to it, she pulled her cell out to see just how many times Erasa had tried to call her. With everything that had happened and then being stuck with her dad, she had completely forgot about it.

Looking at the screen she was a little surprised to only see one missed call and one message. Both the call and message were from Erasa. Normally, whenever something happened Erasa would call and text almost non-stop until Videl got back to her. However, Videl's surprise turned to understanding as she read the message from Erase.

"Hey Videl, I know you're all right but I really want to talk to you about what happened today. Normally I would keep calling until I got ahold of you but Sharp reminded me how protective your dad can get. So I figured that you wouldn't be able to get back to me for a while. But please call me when you can."

Videl wanted to call her, but there was just something at the back of her mind that kept her from pressing the call button. She put the phone on its charger and crawled into bed. Closing her eyes, the nagging thought at the back of her mind finally surfaced. It was Gohan. What happened today? Where did he go? How was he able to stand up to Tao? These questions swirled in her mind as she tried to fall asleep.

She didn't wake until close to noon Saturday morning. Rising from her bed, she felt refreshed and full of life. The thoughts that had been swirling through her mind had vanished in her sleep as though she had never had them. With her head finally clear, she was able to start the day.

After a quick brunch Videl took the time to call Erasa and get her caught up on what had happened after she left with the police. The call was rather short with Erasa just wanting to know what happened, although she was bummed out to hear that Videl was on lockdown till further notice.

With the call to Erasa out of the way, Videl was at a loss as to what to do. She would have used the gym in her house except her father was already using it and she didn't want to spend any more time with him after what they had done last night. Walking around her room, she once again saw her schoolbag and remembered the trip to Capsule Corp the day before. It felt like the little field trip had happened weeks ago because of all the things that had happened since then.

She rummaged through her bag and found the capsule gym they had given her. Looking at the side of the capsule, she found the directions that told her the area that the little gym required. It only needed a minimum ten by ten space and a normal eight foot high ceiling to be opened. She figured since her dad was in the house gym she may as well try out this capsule gym.

Heading to the ball room that was rarely used, Videl gave the capsule a click and a toss to the center of the room. As the smoke cleared it revealed a ten foot square platform in the middle of the room. On the platform was a workout bench, a rack of free weights, an adjustable chin-up bar, a treadmill, and an open area clearly ment for stretching and other floor work. When she stepped up on the platform, a display raised out of the floor beside her. She could see a dial that could be set from one to five with a lot of little increments in between each number. Reading the words "Gravity Setting" above the dial, Videl remembered that the platform could increase the gravity around it.

Staying on the safe side, Videl only moved the dial up to 1.5 gravity just to see what the difference was. At first she couldn't feel much but after a couple of minutes she could feel a difference. It was like she was wearing really heavy clothes. Ready to get to work, Videl went over to the workout bench and grabbed the weights that she would normally work with. As she lifted them from the rack they felt so much heavier than usual. It was at this moment that she comprehended how useful this training platform could be. Without wasting any more time, she got into her routine and started to work out. By the end of the day Videl was exhausted and fell right into bed. The next day she spent most of her day on the gravity platform again.

At some point, Videl's mother had convinced her dad to allow her to go back to school on Monday. Videl was glad to hear this because as much as she liked to train on her new equipment, she didn't like the idea of being stuck at home.

XXXxxxXXX

Sitting down in his seat, Gohan focused on the front of the room and hoped that Erasa wouldn't try too hard to ask him questions about Friday. It must have been his lucky day since Erasa didn't say anything to him beyond a simple good morning. Gohan just hoped that his luck would hold thoughout the day.

XXXxxxXXX

"Computer, how long until the first units are complete?" Gero demanded. "Due to the pre-fabrication all one thousand units will be activated in two hours. Any further units will require another month for organic material to be grown."

"Good; as soon as the androids are activated, send them to Satan City. I want them to eliminate Videl Satan. Then have them go after the man that destroyed Cell." "Yes Dr. Gero, it will be done. Is there anything else?" "Has there been any word from Tao? I would like to know why he failed me." "There has been no communication from Tao yet, Sir."

Gero threw a glass container at the wall in outrage. First Tao fails him, then he doesn't even bother to contact him. Although, to Gero, it made little difference now. He had finished putting his brain into a new body. Once more he looked like himself as Android 20. He no longer needed an incompetent mercenary like Tao.

"With my new androids I will rule the world, once I dispose of Hercule Satan. There is nothing that can stand in my way now. Computer, inform me when the androids are activated."

"Yes Sir."