I guess I'll go first, yeah? This is going to be a long post:
For this to work, Gohan can't be pure of heart, he has to be corruptible.
This is simple, make him bitter. Making him construct his own reality even when it might not be true. Alter the characters around this shift in personality.
Bitter at what you may ask? At many things, I respond in haste.
At all the enemies that made his childhood a horrific succession of one beat down after another, specifically, Cell for torturing him. At his father for choosing to abandon him to go train, for not being with him in his time of growing into a man. At his mother after she became even more overprotective and vicarious because Goku's death broke her a little. At the world, for dumping all shit he has gone through on to him when he was just a kid.
And the person he spites most of all is himself. HE could not tap into the potential he had before his friends were brutally tortured, HE couldn't control his anger as a Super Saiyan 2, HE let Cell start his Self-Destruction, HE let his father die, and HE was not a worthy enough son for his father to want to be wished back to life. No matter how much he succeeds in school and life, it is never enough for the slightly deranged Chi-Chi. He fears everyone despises him for his failures and his self-doubt is eating him from the inside.
Despite this, he always puts on a smile for everyone, he always listens to his mother's wishes without complaint, he spoils his little brother Goten rotten because of his desperate need to feel loved.
This is when he starts attending Orange Star High School, where he meets a feisty and beautiful girl Videl. She sees past the fake smile he puts up and sees that Gohan is a broken man, and she is determined to put him back together again. Since I don't know a thing about romance I'm a just stop here. Skip.
And so when he learns that his father is coming back for a tournament, he's conflicted.
His father is coming back, even if it is only temporary, and he's so ecstatic that he almost doesn't remember why his father isn't with him always. But that fact that his father is returning for a tournament sobers Gohan up and the resentment at his father returns in full, as well as all of his insecurities
Skip to the tournament, and all of Gohan's trauma causes him to get angry when some strange red-skinned pointy eared giant starts mocking his strength. And so he puts him in his place by ascending beyond a Super Saiyan, then Spopovich and Yamu drain him of his energy, blah, blah, blah...
Then we skip to when the Saiyans are waiting for Babidi's "strongest fighter". Gohan is silently internally fuming while tapping his foot anxiously. He's in disbelief, the one day his father returns and there is another threat? What are the odds? And how embarrassing it is to have the father he adores and the prideful Saiyan prince that he looked up to mocking him for his dimish in power over the years.
In his head, Gohan creates a million different excuses while secretly begging them to stop.
With Babidi freaking out in the other room, Dabura brings up that the Saiyan he was fighting with seemed very angry, conflicted, and not entirely focused on the fight. He suggests that Babidi tries to mind control him. Babidi protests saying that Vegeta would be a better choice, Dabura retorts that Vegeta's confidence and sheer egotism would make controlling him nearly impossible and that controlling a confused angry hormonal teenager would be more beneficial. Babidi agrees and casts his magic.
The longer the wait, the farther lost in his thoughts Gohan becomes, and with it, the angrier he gets. With the silence comes reflection, and all of Gohan's insecurities come to the forefront of his mind. Gohan's mentality is cracking and Babidi's mind-control is the straw that breaks the camels back. Gohan's mind shatters and he just can't fight back, he can't hold it in anymore.
He needs to get his anger and frustration out, and he knows the perfect person to do it on. The man that is at the center of all his mental anguish, the man that abandoned his sons "for the safety of the world" - his father Son Goku.
With Gohan's potential unlocked because of Babidi's spell, Gohan puts forth energy that shocks everyone to their core. Without warning sans a mighty yell, Gohan rushes toward Goku, grabs his father's face with his palm and breaks out of Babidi's ship to the wastelands above where he throws his father to the ground.
Goku, shocked and stunned, makes his way up and asks Gohan to calm down, to explain what's wrong and what happened.
This incites Gohan further, he races at Goku again. This time Goku responses by using his full power, going Super Saiyan 2 as well. It's a massacre, Gohan is just too powerful. But over the course of the brutal stomping, Gohan verbalizes his hatred, his insecurities, and his questions.
Goku, dumbfounded at how his son, the son he was assured to be the man of the house while he was gone, had turned into such a shade of a man. When he realizes that HE is the one responsible, he stops trying to fight back and accepts his punishment for his failures.
Goku crashes onto the ground, barely holding on to consciousness when he looks up to see a volatile Gohan. Goku starts to cry, the act shocks Gohan out of his rage, then Goku begins to apologize. He apologizes for everything, for his Saiyan instincts making him desire a good fight, for all the horrible people that have hurt him, for using him(Gohan) to defeat Cell when he (Goku) couldn't, for failing as a father.
Gohan is lost, conflicted, and confused. In the end, he starts screaming at the top of his lungs. Gohan's power fluctuates and begins to grow. He moves his hand in front of Goku's face, the message clear, this was the endgame. Goku smiles and closes his eyes, accepting it, but not before telling Gohan that loves him.
Gohan's energy drops instantly as if it was a value that was turned off.
His father just said the words he wanted to hear his whole life and he doesn't know what to do. Gohan screams again and starts crying as he falls out of his Super Saiyan 2 state, he then falls to his knees and starts apologizing vehemently for all that he did, all the failures that he took out on his father. Goku just smiles and pets his head, softly telling him that it is all alright.
During the altercation between Goku and Gohan, Babidi and Dabura are killed off by Vegeta, and Buu's shell is brought back to the World of the Kais to make sure it will never hatch again.
Right before Goku's time is up, the gang gets together to send him off. Gohan's anger has been voided, and what's left is an emptiness to fill its place. Gohan then looks over to see Videl and the sparks of hope are lit within his heart once again. Goku then makes an announcement, he's deciding that he wants to be resurrected, saying to the group that he was wrong, not all threats were the cause of his existence, Babidi was proof of that, and so why must he be apart from the ones he cares about if that's the case.
Internally, the true reason to why Goku decides to come back to Earth is revealed. Goku realizes that his son needs his help, and he was done running away from his responsibilities as a parent. He was going to come back and be the father and leader that Gohan needed.
Gohan, as well as the rest of the Son family, are ecstatic about the return of the Patriarch of the family.
With his father having return and with him actively playing a more meaningful role in his life, not to mention the budding relationship with a beautiful and caring girl like Videl, Gohan's life beings to be set on the perfect track.
Also, Roshi never gets laid, lol.
Well, that's a basic main plot summary of how I would do this What if scenario.
Whatch'a guys think?
