(One and a half months later)
Humming pleasantly to himself as he sat at his desk in his old room, Gohan continued to busy himself away with his studies. With a ceiling high shelf of textbooks stacked to his left and his computer sitting on his right, the young man had practically everything he needed for a few hours of successful cramming. After the harrowing events that'd taken place at the Intergalactic Martial Arts Tournament not too long ago, this had pretty much become standard procedure for him.
Ever since Bojack's attempted invasion of their planet the defenders of the earth had all decided to make some significant changes to their lifestyles.
For starters, Vegeta was now back in the game and hitting the gravity room harder than ever before… that is, whenever he wasn't looking after his son and filling in time that Bulma wanted him to take up while he was at home. Having pretty much recaptured his youth, the Saiyan Prince was now determined to reach the same level of control and ability that Gohan had achieved in his training, while at the same time not wanting the demi-Saiyan to get too far ahead in the combat department. He'd even managed to shanghai Mirai Trunks along for the ride who, after getting out of the hospital, had decided to stick around for a little while longer to hang out with his friends and family before returning to his own timeline.
Foregoing his planned rest period in the subcategories, Krillin had also decided to continue his training at Master Roshi's island. Every day the current Turtle Master would set some time aside to practice his move sets and polish up his fighting techniques, staying in peak physical shape while simultaneously becoming more emotionally and socially active. The man wanted to get out there to see as much of the new world as possible and to experience all of the things he'd missed out on in the past couple of years. Since they'd arrived at a time of secured peace and prosperity for all of mankind, he, along with Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu, the sole human members of the Z-Fighter squadron, had all decided to live it up as best as they could, now that they didn't have the threat of androids and aliens looming over their heads.
Of course, one couldn't be too careful.
Speaking of which, Yamcha, a long time supporter of the group, had decided to return to his old career path in baseball and practicality in the world, while Tien and Chiaotzu had disappeared into the north to continue their regular training regimens. This further went on to illustrate the level of commitment each and every one of them held toward their responsibilities and passions as fighters, which varied between each member of the team.
The same could be said for the non-fighters of the group. Korin and Yajirobe were up in their tower doing whatever it was they did best while watching over the planet from afar.
Dende, bright and dedicated as ever, was still learning the ropes of being guardian of earth and was taking frequent lessons under Mr. Popo, who was just glad to have a friend to serve once again. Master Roshi was being pedantic and laidback as usual, with Turtle and Oolong coming in a close second, and the Briefs family filled in their quota of the year by pushing the Capsule Corp. industry in a whole new direction of discovery and innovation.
In a few words, everyone across the board had their own parts to play.
Getting back to the heavy hitters, Piccolo never strayed too far from the regions surrounding Mount Paozu or Kami's Lookout. The man was always… around, in some way, shape or form. Sometimes you would often see him standing outside the Son family house under a tree or find him meditating beside the local waterfall not too far from them. This didn't bother Chi-Chi too much since she never really saw the Namekian warrior very frequently, but Gohan did, and it always made him smile whenever he noticed his friend watching over him.
And as for the young demi-Saiyan, things were going nicely for him.
Just like he planned, every morning and late afternoon Gohan spent his hours training away, juggling time between skill and technique molding and strength building. Every so often he would share a couple of sessions with Piccolo whenever his old teacher dropped by and when the green warrior wasn't coaching him in the first half of the day, the two of them would spar until they were both too tired to move. Gohan was even sure to push himself by not going Super Saiyan the entire match, making him work even harder. Though on one hand it made Piccolo happy to see the half-Saiyan trying so hard, at the same time it irked him somewhat since he thought his student was taking it easy on him. But Gohan had his reasons and the man understood them well enough to let these little foibles slide.
It was a given. The more the demi-Saiyan trained and strengthened his base level state the stronger his subsequent Super Saiyan transformations would become. But this didn't mean Gohan neglected training in his powered up states either, as the young warrior knew he needed to gain control over his Ascended Super Saiyan state, or what he liked to call Super Saiyan 2, above everything else.
In the past month, he'd actually managed to gain a certain level of directive over it. He did this by spending a whole week in that form, walking around with his hair blonde, elongated and defying gravity. It was cool at first and the youngster loved the feel of it, but his mother soon urged him to turn back to normal since not only did he appear a little scary, but he also had these sudden bursts of strength that just came out whenever he got too excited or carried away.
The most notable instance was when Gohan first opened the door when he was coming home after a morning session and inadvertently ripped it off of its hinges.
That was pretty much all he needed to know that his control skills at the second level needed a bit more fine tuning.
Outside of working his physical abilities into the ground and training to the point of complete and utter exhaustion of course, just like he promised, the demi-Saiyan also focused a lot of his time on his studies. After all his years of homeschooling under his mother's loving care and guidance, the boy had gotten so good at math, science, and all the other subtopics that he barely needed to apply a hundred percent effort into his learning process anymore. He wasn't even sure there was anything more for him to learn, period. As it stood, with only a quarter of his concentration, he could burn through textbooks like they were children's picture books. He'd memorized all of the most complicated mathematical theories to date, knew every single field and method by hard, and could solve complex equations in his head like he were adding and subtracting, as he'd been doing stuff like Calculus ever since the ripe old age of four.
Even when he'd been training under Piccolo's watch, he'd actually spent a lot of his free time recapping on his complex numbers and differential equations while resting in a cave.
General theory of relativity, nonlinear systems of equations, differential topology, geometry and manifolds, quantum mechanics, matrix algebra, quantum field theory, nuclear physics, vector calculus, advanced counting theory, chaos theory, unified field theory… you name it and there's a good chance Gohan has covered it at least five times.
Hell, while some people struggled with their times seven multiplications, Gohan could recite the entire quantum chromodynamic gauge-invariant Lagrangian in his sleep.
Really, by this point in time it was all just a practice in futility.
But if it made his mum happy, then Gohan wasn't complaining.
Anyhow, after having spent a couple of hours cramming some basic systems of algebra and quadratics into his head for the hundredth time in a row, the demi-Saiyan felt he'd spent enough time sitting down. So, marking his page, closing up his text book, and adjusting the orange top of his father's style gi, the youngster got up and headed into the kitchen to see if his mum needed anything. When he got there, he saw she was busy scaling some fish at the counter.
Beaming at how hard she was working, Gohan approached the young woman and stood alongside her expectantly. "Hi, mum. Do you need any help?"
"Oh, Gohan," Chi-Chi exclaimed in slight surprise, "I didn't hear you come in. Did you finish your studies for this morning?"
"Yep. I covered all six books like you asked and filled out all of the exam papers you gave me," the young Saiyan responded, beaming across at the hardworking mother.
"That's good. You seem to be going through those texts a lot faster than you usually do," the raven haired woman remarked while raising an eyebrow at her son, at the same time deboning the large fish on the counter. "You aren't cutting corners in your work, are you? Because if I come in there and see that you're purposefully skipping questions and slacking off…"
"No. Of course not," Gohan chuckled. "I went through all six books page by page, formula after formula. I'll be able to show you the papers afterwards if you like and you can have a look to see what I've done."
"Hmm…" Chi-Chi raised an eyebrow at the demi-Saiyan. However, after giving the boy a suspicious once over and upon staring into his disarmingly innocent smile, the Son mother shook off her distrust and gave the eleven-year-old a warm gaze. "Ah, I trust you. After seeing the amount of work you put into your education, I think it's about time I start taking it a little bit easier on you." She turned back to chopping up the fish. "Like your father said, too much work can turn your brain into mush."
"Thanks mum," the boy nodded, before checking out the pile of food standing alongside her. Giving it a considerate scan, he then pointed towards the stuff, "Would you like me to dice all of that up for you?"
A little bit surprised by his sudden question, Chi-Chi quickly glanced between her boy and the food he was pointing out. After three back-and-forths, she then brightened up and refocused her attention on the youngster, "Of course sweetie. If you like."
"Yeah." Cheerfully hopping over to the other side and washing his hands at the sink, the youngster then brought out a second clever from the drawer beneath them. After twirling it expertly in his grip and finding a suitable balance, he then grabbed a couple of Chinese cabbages, lined them up, and, without hesitation, began chopping them up into bite-sized pieces at record breaking speed.
All he did was push the whole cabbages across the board and sliced down on them with the blade.
Watching her son start cutting through the vegetables faster than the Energizer Bunny, and watching him separate the piles for extra measure, the Son mother smiled proudly and, not wishing to be outdone, returned to her work as well.
"My son… I'm so proud of him," Chi-Chi exclaimed, putting the fish pieces into a separate bowl and sparing a fond gaze towards her stomach, where she knew the growing life inside of her belly was sitting. "You're going to have a wonderful older brother waiting for you when you come out…"
His mother's distant expression as well as her hand wrapping around her stomach area gave Gohan a moment of worried pause, "M-Mum? Are you okay?" He saw the woman glance up at him. "You're not feeling sick are you?"
"Oh no. No dear. It's nothing. I was just spacing out," Chi-Chi replied quickly and threw the young man a pleasant smile. Obviously, she had yet to tell Gohan about the fact that she was pregnant. It'd been two months already, but there hadn't been many changes to her body that would warrant the young demi-Saiyan's notice, even with his superhuman senses.
This just showed how much like his father Gohan actually was, bless his heart.
Smiling brightly, the Son mother regarded her son considerately for a few moments. "I'm just thinking about how much of a fine young man you're turning into." Her eyes then sparkled as she met Gohan's gaze with her own, "I know that no matter what obstacles you may come across and no matter what challenges you may face, you will lead a rich, full life, filled with happiness and love, and that you'll make whoever you end up with feel like the most important person in the world to you."
Blinking at this, Gohan smiled, "Thanks mum."
Slowly returning to their work, a cheerfully humming Chi-Chi went through a couple more fish before inevitably asking the one question that'd been standing out in her mind. "By the way, Gohan… have you been keeping in touch with Videl?" Her question startling the young man from his task, the mother looked across at him curiously. "You haven't visited the city for a while and she hasn't come over to visit us yet. In fact, I don't think you've said anything about her the entire month… so I'm just curious. Are you two still friends?" Clearly, she was more concerned about whether or not the two of them were together in the fundamental sense as opposed to the common term, even if she may have been getting a little bit ahead of herself.
Shaking off the surprise, Gohan nodded his head vigorously, "Of course we are, mum. I keep in touch with her everyday over the computer. She says she's doing really well in the city, and that she would like to come over and visit us sometime." What he really wanted to say was 'visit him'. To be honest, he was hoping he would be able to stop by and visit her as well.
Videl was a really great person to talk to and he really enjoyed the many times he'd been able to spend with her. Chief among which was when he finally got out of the hospital and he was able to go explore the town with her. However, since they lived so far away from each other and because they both had responsibilities to keep with their families, such as schooling and training, it meant that the only way they'd effectively been able to stay in contact with one another was via the internet.
The two were happy nonetheless, but they still kept trying to find times where they were both free to drop by and see one another.
This information brought a wide grin to Chi-Chi's face, before she languidly went back to cutting up the salmon, "Well, as long as things are going well between you two, then I have nothing to worry about. Be sure to try and invite her over for lunch some time. It would be nice to have somebody new around the house… especially one of my boy's girl friends."
Now, while she really meant to say 'a girl who was a friend of her son's', the way she'd said it inadvertently brought a flash of red to the boy's face and had Gohan round on his mother with distress. "M-Mum!"
"What?" Chi-Chi looked back at him in surprise. After taking note of the startled look of embarrassment on his face, the mother soon realized what she must have said and smiled deviously. "Oh, I'm sorry Gohan, dear. I didn't know you two were already boyfriend and girlfriend."
"MUM!"
Damn it. Why did she have to go there?
While the boy blushed and babbled on nonsensically under the delightful gaze of his mother, the young demi-Saiyan was completely unaware of the set of eyes watching him through the window.
Atop the nearby hill underneath a tall oak tree, the orange haired form of Zangya could be seen standing there, leaning against the trunk with her arms folded and eyes set on the building down below.
At first having been observing the boy while he'd been studying, the former alien invader then saw him abandon the confines of his desk and head into the kitchen to help his mother out with her housework. It was a routine she'd adopted for a while now, as ever since the scuffle on the island over a month ago, the alien woman had been keeping close tabs on the young warrior, taking her time to watch him, analyze him, and getting a feel for what he did in his off hours.
She had to admit, it'd been incredibly entertaining observing his interactions with his family members and awe-inspiring watching his training sessions every morning and late afternoon. The entire experience gave Zangya a big idea of what life was like for this timid little warrior and what made him such a force to be reckoned with in the first place.
Oh sure, the young Hera wasn't exactly a friend of the demi-Saiyan's or an ally of his by any stretch of the word, but she sure as hell wasn't an enemy of his either. And even though she didn't hold any deep-seated animosity towards the people who'd killed Bojack and her teammates, but was in fact relieved to have been liberated from that power-hungry demon's command, Zangya was also smart enough not to start anymore fights with these people.
She actually frowned upon the idea of fighting against them, knowing what consequences awaited her if she did, and simply resigned herself to sitting on the sidelines and looking on from afar for the time being.
After watching Gohan for several weeks now, the young alien girl couldn't help but shake her head at his everyday antics and smile.
"Hard to believe that he's one of the strongest beings in this universe," Zangya thought, continuing to look upon him with interest and tilting her head when she saw him return to cutting up the vegetables.
As interactions slowly returned to normal within the Son household and the events of before calmed down slightly, the former alien gangster couldn't help but wonder to herself whether or not she should show her face to the young warrior and ask him the question that'd been plaguing her mind ever since the Intergalactic Martial Arts Tournament. By this point, it'd really been grating on her patience and, after days of nothing but silence, she was starting to feel a little bit antsy just waiting around for an opportunity to approach.
"Hmph… maybe I can pester him the next time he goes out to do some training," the young Hera considered.
That is… if she didn't lose her nerve stepping out from behind this tree of course…