This is not a new chapter, sorry guys.

***********************Author's Note***********************

I received several reviews that had an issue with the scene Gohan gets shot. The question they pose is this: Why could the bullet hurt Gohan? He's a Saiyan.

Now, for those of you who feel this way and think that there is no way a bullet could actually harm Gohan because he is a Saiyan, I'd like to give my ideas on the matter and why I think that it makes perfect sense for Gohan to be vulnerable to a gunshot in this particular situation. This is completely non-vital to the actual content of the story, but if you're interested, here it is.

There are two main factors that need to be addressed. The first is that of power. None of the other Z-fighters, Saiyan or not, would be affected by a bullet if they are at their full power. Indeed, they can take far more force than even the most powerful gunshot without even flinching. According to DBZ, this is because—and let's be honest here—they are strong. To my knowledge, there is never really a technical explanation stated in Dragon Ball Z (I am working strictly off the anime here). However, there is also the idea of ki—the natural energy inside a person's body. When a fighter trains, they get stronger and have more ki.

So there you have it. You have more ki, so you're stronger, so bullets bounce off of you like ping-pong balls. And given the ever-prevalent auras of energy surrounding fighters can shoot debris everywhere when they power up, I'd say it's safe to say the thing stopping the bullet, fist, or whatever it may be is a sort natural barrier of ki encasing the fighter's body. When you weaken or lower this barrier—think during the Frieza saga when Vegeta asks Krillin to shoot him so Dende could heal him—things that would be normally harmless could get through. This is key, because due to the effects of the ki suppressor, Gohan in this scene is roughly as strong as Videl, who is only slightly stronger than average in the grand scheme of things. Therefore, his natural defenses will only be as strong as those Videl would have, and I'm sure we can all agree that Videl is vulnerable to bullets. (Note: Despite Gohan's anger in this scene, he is not significantly more powerful. He simply is using his energy strategically.)

Of course, the issue of power is the easy part. The main issue for many people lies in the fact that Gohan is a Saiyan. There is a very common idea floating around, especially among fan fiction writers, that Saiyans, because they are a warrior race, have evolved to have unnaturally tough skin/bones that are impenetrable to your average bullets. Now, I tried to research this, but found nothing that officially states this to be true. What we have to go on, then, is what we see in the series itself. One of the main justifications for this is that during Dragon Ball, when Bulma first meets Goku, she shoots him several times with a handgun, and besides experiencing some pain from the impact, Goku is completely unarmed.

Now, I'm not going to say that it is impossible that this is because he is a Saiyan, but I propose that it is simply because Goku was inhumanly strong. Saiyans naturally possess great potential and strength, and Grandpa Gohan had been training him in martial arts. The result: A twelve year old kid picks up and throws a fully loaded compact car several feet back. That's a good two to three thousand pounds. Compare this with the world record for the clean and jerk which I found to be 580 pounds. That's around four times as much weight. Plus Goku as a kid weighed like a fraction of the amount that a full grown, heavy-weight body builder does, which makes lifting it even harder (look it up, I won't explain here), and on top of that, he freaking threw the thing what had to have been ten feet. All that together, I'd put Goku at at least ten times stronger than even the strongest human, and it's probably more like twenty. Pack all that strength into a twelve year old body, and it makes sense that a bullet couldn't hurt him. Goku was a tiny ball of densely packed ki.

Now hold on, you say. The Daizenshuu states that Goku's official power level as a kid was 10, while the average human's power level is 5 based on the reading of a farmer from Raditz's scouter. That means Goku was only twice as strong as average. I'm sorry guys, but I'm calling BS on this one. I don't care if Akira Toriyama himself comes out and publicly states Goku's power level was only 10, I'm not buying it. You're trying to say that this kid that just picked up and threw an entire car is only twice as strong as your average farmer? It's logical suicide. The only way to reconcile Goku having a power level of 10 is if power levels are non-linear, and doubling the number actually more than doubles strength. And that brings everything back to my original point that, based on objective evidence, Goku was many times as strong as even an above-average human (aka Videl and Gohan with the ki suppressor), which would allow him to withstand bullets.

All that said, there is little that actually disproves that Goku didn't also have super tough skin in additional to his strength. I may be missing something, but there just isn't enough to go on to make a sure call. I would say that it seems unlikely mainly because of the many times when Saiyan's tails have been cut off, even when transformed into Ozaru, with a sword or pair of scissors. I know it's their weak spot and all, but I can't believe the skin there would be that much more vulnerable, especially once they've transformed into Great Apes.

And if after all that, you still are convinced that Saiyan's have do have naturally tough bodies that cannot be pierced by bullets, than that's fine. There is some evidence that that could be the case. I just personally disagree with you. For the purposes of your sanity in reading my story, think about this. Gohan is half-Saiyan, half-human. The human genes in him could have made his skin less tough, or even just as vulnerable as human skin.

And that's the end of this rant. If you read all of this through to the end, you are indeed a Dragon Ball geek. Welcome to the club!