Future Trunk's Nightmare

For nearly every age of man since the beginning, there have been people who wished they could change the past. Go back and make things different. Whether for good or for evil; it doesn't matter. It's just part of our human nature to wish for different circumstances. There have been books written about it, movies inspired by it, and dreams upon dreams dreamt about it.

But now, one young boy with extraordinary powers has done it. Trunks has gone back in time and brought back what was necessary to save his future. With incredible strength gained in the past, he has destroyed both of the androids and the monster called Cell, restoring peace and hope to the world he lives in.

Or so he thinks…

The world is filled with both wonder and danger. Doom follows adventure like a hungry vulture, picking off those who proved unprepared for the cards life had handed them.

Which is exactly how Trunks had felt the night after the androids terminated the life of his dearest friend and teacher, Gohan. He had cried tears of unfathomable despair that night, knowing that he would forever be unable to avenge his friend's unjust demise. Knowing that they would always be out there, two figures of merciless power. They just came from nowhere, like a massive dark storm that had random and pointless destruction in it's every gust.

… knowing that he would forever be unable to avenge his friend's unjust demise…

But forever had not proved as strong as it's reputation in this case. When his mother had at last made her breakthrough on the basic concepts of time travel, it seemed to Trunks that perhaps the 'forever androids' had finally exposed their weaknesses to him. The time travel had brought even more than he'd hoped, or feared. Unlike the dark storm he'd compared them to so long ago, Trunks had finally uncovered the concrete origins of the androids that plagued him. And with those origins soon came the technology necessary to defeat them.

Then Cell came, and everything changed. The androids became almost like victims in the shadow of Cell's unstoppable lust for perfection.

Yet even then, Trunks could not find it in his heart to forgive them. Because he'd promised himself he never would.

After Cell's destruction and the young Sayain's being revitalized by the Dragonballs, Trunks knew he'd finally achieved the levels of power necessary to do what he'd failed to do when it would have counted most. Setting his time machine to take him back to the future that he'd been born in, Trunks returned to the time and place that now needed him most, already preparing even as he sat in the time capsule to end the two nightmares that had plagued his dreams for all those endless years.

He'd caught them by surprise when at last the moment of battle came. Android 17 had barely dodged the first blast only because it had been a warning shot. The Android had been so consumed with eliminating the life of a single old man that he'd been virtually defenseless when the Sayain warrior arrived. But Trunks hadn't wanted the old man to get hurt, so he let 17 dodge that first blast. But once Trunks's feet touched the ground, the battle, for him, began in earnest.

He could remember the few seconds before Android 18 died with incredible clarity. By the time she realized he was right in front of her, lethal energy building in his hands, it was too late. Her android brain quickly told her that she was about to die, realizing the sheer magnitude of the energy sphere aimed directly at her chest. Trunks had seen fear in her eyes and for a moment the android held her breath in anticipation of what was to come. Even if Trunks had wanted to, he couldn't have spared her life at this point. Blazing energy as bright as the sun consumed her form, reducing her to dust with it's unrelenting vengeance.

17 had died much less honorably. His pride and rage over his sister's swift end made him lose sight of the fact that he was obviously dealing with a superior fighter. At least 18 seemed to have acknowledged her inability to defend herself in those few moments. Android 17 had refused to acknowledge his inadequacies, unwilling to be upstaged even as his back hit the ground and the blazing light of an energy blast filled his view. With 18, perhaps someone with an exceeding ability to forgive could have sensed a sadness about the way she died. For 17, however, his pride had helped quicken him to his inevitable grave.

But if 17 had been thick-headed, Cell had been even more-so. If anyone had stood a remote chance of escaping Trunks's retribution, it had been Cell. Surrounded by a city full of people, if Cell had just accepted how outmatched he was he might have been able to escape in the way his creator Dr. Gero escaped from Vegita and Piccolo; perhaps not even Trunks would have been able to stop the blast and pursue Cell effectively. But no, Cell assumed immediately that Trunks was inferior, and that mistake cost him dearly. Not one strand of DNA survived Trunk's crushing blast of long-overdue vengeance.

The Z fighters of the alternate timeline were overjoyed to hear of Trunks's successful victory of the androids and Cell, and Trunks had come back to his own time… only to realize that those people that he'd fought alongside and trained with… were dead in his world.

No amount of vengeance, no matter how meaningful, would bring them back. Without Piccolo, the Dragonballs were merely rocks, useless. There was no going back, it seemed, and society would have to go on without all of it's uncelebrated greatest heroes.

But, the question was, could Trunks now go on without…

That night, Trunk's dreams were plagued by nightmares…

The dream world all around him was darkness. Trunks felt himself standing on an invisible platform in the midst of the void, surrounded in eerie, chilling, deafening silence.

Until they arrived.

"Well well, what have we here." Android 17 mused with his usual air of mocking confidence. Trunks gasped in surprise and took an uncertain step backwards.

"What's wrong, 'Super Sayain', didn't think you'd ever be seeing us again?" 18 taunted.

Trunks was shocked. As the two androids walked confidently towards him, he could feel a cold sweat of fear come over him.

"… No, this… this is impossible!" He exclaimed, as if defending himself. "I destroyed you."

"Sounds like someone can't tell that he's dreaming." 18 mocked as the two androids came to a halt barely three feet from where Trunks stood.

"Dreaming??" Trunks exclaimed, fully in control of his actions.

"Where did you think you were, in the middle of a black hole?" 17 asked with equal mocking scorn. There was a look in his eye that seemed to almost say 'I know what you're thinking, Trunks. You can't hide from me' The two androids began encircling Trunks, slowly taking small steps in a circle around the fear-held teenager. "You must be wondering why we're here, aren't you Trunks?"

Trunks was silent for what felt like an eternity, while the androids simply continued circling him, like vultures confident that their prey wasn't going anywhere.

"Why are you doing this to me?!!" Trunks finally screamed out in desperation. The androids continued, unphased.

"It didn't end when you killed us, did it Trunks?" 17 continued. "Getting rid of us didn't end it for you. Come on, be honest; did you really think you could 'let us go' that easily?"

"You can't shake it, can you Trunks?" 18 inquired, still pacing slowly around him, now reaching his left side but keeping a three foot distance. "You can't just put us away in caskets and think that ends it."

"What do you mean??!!! What do you want with me?!!" Trunks shouted, a slight tone of helplessness in his voice.

"Getting desperate, I see." 18 mused with a smirk.

"We gave you purpose, the only purpose you ever knew in your whole life." 17 stated coldly. "We were your sole objective, your ever-distant horizon, the one thing that you got up every morning and thought about. Your hatred of us is what made you strong, your hatred of all the pain we caused you, of everything we did to you, and stole from you, including your father." There was bitter resentment in that last word.

"You hated us with every single part of your being, hatred so strong that it blotted out all fear." 18 stated in a loud voice, mocking scorn in her voice. "Your hatred of us made you strong even more so than all that training, all that hard work, all those battles. Your rage consumed you and gave you purpose, but now," She paused, stopping in mid-step right in front of Trunks. A smirk emerged on her face. "Now, even after destroying us, you still can't live without us."

"What?!!" Trunks exclaimed. "That's – that's not true!"

"Your battle with us is hardly over, Trunks." 17 said, coming up alongside 18. "Because every time you look in the mirror, every time you see a battle of any kind, every time you see anyone sick or hurt or dying,… you'll blame us, just like you have for the last ten years. All the suffering you saw, all the destruction, all the countless millions dead, you blamed it on us, and rightfully so." Now 17 smirked as well. "But now that we're dead, there's nothing you can do about it, is there? It won't really be our fault, but inside you'll always find some reason or another to blame us. Your struggle against us will follow you to your grave, you pathetic excuse for a Super Sayain."

"Actually, about that 'countless millions' part," 18 interjected, beginning to laugh. "I wouldn't exactly say countless. After all, somebody had to keep score."

17 joined in her laughter, a heartless, piercing, scornful laughter that echoed in Trunk's ears.

"… You, you monsters!!" Trunks shouted, fear suddenly shattered as rage, surging out of nowhere, ignited his battle instincts. His first punch slammed clean into 17's face, tearing artificial skin and ripping apart the circuitry that lay beneath, leaving a fist-sized gap in the left side of the android's face that exposed the technology that he was made of. Yet the laughter hadn't even missed a beat. The next blow contacted 17's stomach, a punch so powerful that Trunk's fist literally punched a hole in the artificial human's torso. With each blow, Trunk's rage was increasing. An energy blast sent 17 flying, and what was left of the android hit the ground several dozen feet away. But the merciless laughter wouldn't end from either android. Trunks turned his attention on 18, and suddenly he felt the weight of his sword in his hands. The blade made a clean slice through the female android's stomach, leaving a giant slash that exposed micro circuitry. His next strike was a stab through the chest, and after that he removed the android's head. Still, their laughter wouldn't end. Trunks systematically destroyed every part of the two androids, blasting apart their heads, torsos, arms and legs, but nothing would silence that hellish, echoing, ethereal laughter.

Trunks collapsed to his knees, screaming in tortured agony at the top of his lungs…

-And then with a jolt, he woke up. For several long moments, he was literally so paralyzed with fear from the nightmare he'd just experienced that he couldn't move his body. After a few minutes, he managed to stabilize his breathing and clear his head. His first instinct was to go into the bathroom and splash his face with water. He found the button on the wall that turned on the lights, stumbled over to sink, set the computer system to run some cold water for him, and then thoroughly splashed his face with it. Reaching for a towel, Trunks happened to glance momentarily at the mirror-

-and froze.

The face looking back at him, exactly how it had been in his nightmare, was that of Android 17. And the android had a fist-sized gap in the left side of his face, revealing the technology he was made of. And silently, the android's lips spoke.

'Every time you look in the mirror…'

And the moral of the story is that, once a person is consumed in hatred, it never goes away. Hatred is a cancer. It will kill you from inside because you've let it run parts of your life. Take, for example, the nightmare you have just read about. If you don't put it down, if you don't go on with your life, or even if you do go on but harbor a secret hatred somewhere in your heart… the results can be forever.