Prologue: Stagnant Canyons
Disclaimer: I do not own or make money from DBZ, and never had, as it was created before my time and is too expensive for me to buy now.
So don't sue me.
Some notes:
Trunks I have designated his age to be nineteen.
Tori His younger sister (yes, Vegeta is the father), age seventeen, my O.C.
Also, I'm not going to be religiously faithful with the plot; as DBZ fans know, the show has incredible breadth and so much detail that pinning the exact date/time/location/hair color (lol) is too much work. But I have enjoyed this anime since I was nine and found it an interesting alternative to my Sailor Moon episodes (no offense).
--
A fortnight ago, Stagnant Canyons
Ashen smoke rose from the cave. Trunks struggled to open his eyes and glanced at the time machine's clock, and approximately eight seconds had passed in the journey between now and eighteen years in the future. But those eight seconds were the longest in his life, much like traveling through an eternal vacuum, where he could neither speak, blink, nor breathe.
"Are you okay?" Tori coughed.
He coughed until his lungs, while desperately heaving for air, felt like squeezed oranges. "Y-yeah," he muttered. "Gimme a reading on the Droid-Metre."
This was one of their mother's side projects--a GPS fixed on the androids that came to be very useful in times like this. Usually, Trunks and Tori could "sense" the androids' presence, as their ki (energy, life force) was very strong and distinct from other beings. But traveling through the vacuum temporarily repressed this mechanism, so they depended on the Droid-Metre. "Eh"--Tori began sneezing--"thirty miles, NW. They haven't been released yet, I'm getting underground feedback. "
"Good," Trunks grunted. He had a tingling feeling that they were still not around; maybe his senses were recovering already. "Let's go."
Tori jumped out and pressed her hand against the capsule's outer shell, battered by recurring events through time. This was it. Everything depended on this mission. They had never known a peaceful world. They had never known a father figure, except Gohan. Everyday, if even for a moment, they saw their mother withdraw in herself to hide her emotions. There were so many famous but faceless people she and Trunks should have known that didn't, names of the dead Mom forced them to remember: Vegeta, Krillin, Tien, Chaotzu, Yamcha, Piccolo…most of all, Vegeta, and just as often, Goku. And of course, neither of them could forget Gohan. He was more than their mentor, almost like an older brother and a father and a friend in one. They missed him.
"No time to get sentimental now, sis," Trunks reminded her gently.
She took a deep breath and glared at the cave wall. "I know."
"We can do this." He rubbed her shoulder encouragingly.
--
Chapter 2…coming soon