I just love messing with Canon... and since I recently got back into the Dragonball universe (thanks Mr Toriyama! What would I have done without Dragonball while being a horrible, terrible, hormonal teenager?) I just have to mess with that story's canon as well.
The plot bunny just hopped through my head... what if Trunks had changed more than he had ever intended? More that just Android 19 and 20 showing up first. More than Goku's heart virus starting up late. What if he had unintentionally changed something about himself?
Disclaimer: I wish I owned the Dragonball universe. Wouldn't that be awesome? Sadly, I'm still a piss-poor student instead of an acclaimed mangaka. - I do not own any rights to Dragonball and I do not make money by writing a little story about it.
The city wasn't completely gone. Where Trunks had come from, the entire city in which the Androids had first appeared at had been completely destroyed. It had been where most of the Z Tenshi had died as well, so just flying over the city where the end of his future had begun, gave Trunks a queasy feeling in his gut.
This time over half of the city seemed untouched. Some buildings on the far left side had been badly damaged, the death toll in that district of the city still was enormous. But most inhabitants were alive and currently trying to put out the fires.
The official version the people had come up with was a broken gas line and an accident at a gas station. Tragic, but a perfectly normal possible disaster – no flying people, no news about twin-robots – a boy and a girl – laying destruction to a city.
I'm sure I didn't change too much... Trunks thought while flying to where he felt the Z Tenshi fighting at the moment. It had been three years since most of them had seen the lavender haired boy, but for Trunks a mere five minutes had passed. Now his Time Machine had just enough juice left to take him back home to his mother. She was probably already worried out of her mind, even though he would only be gone for a minute at most.
Suddenly he saw a craters on the ground, the ones only a ki-blast would leave behind. They must have really started the fighting around here, probably after luring the Androids away from the city – and now they had wandered even further north. He landed after he saw something metallic glint in the hole in the ground. Had Goku already defeated one of his nightmares? Was it Juuhachigou? Or Juunanagou? He silently prayed for the later...
What Trunks saw when he glimpsed into the crater that had drawn his attention left him speechless: This is not one of the Androids I know! Who are they fighting?
With worry churning in his belly Trunks sped toward the still ongoing fight. He could feel his father's power, it was like a bright bacon of light. Like Goku's had been when he had talked to him three years in this world's past – Vegeta had ascended to Super Saiyan. Something had already changed. From what his mother had told him, he knew Vegeta had been training to catch up and then overtake Goku power-wise, but when Goku had died, he had taken Vegeta's drive with him. There was no real reason anymore to train, no eternal rival to match up against. He had not gotten to Super Saiyan level in Trunks' original timeline.
Feeling the terrible worry gnawing on him, the fear that the real Androids were about to be woken or were about to attack another part of the world and kill thousands of people while the only help the people of earth had were hundreds of miles away playing cat and mouse with some substitutes, Trunks sped up.
Trunks arrived at the place of the fight just in time to see some weird old guy with a see-through skull blast his mother's hovercar out of the sky.
As fast as lightning he was at the car, he pulled Bulma and little him out of the open door and raised his ki to protect them from the heat of the explosion.
The old creepy guy yelled something, then vanished into the smoke. Trunks could honestly say that he had never, in his whole life, seen this weirdo.
"What is going on here? Who are you guys fighting?" he asked as soon as things quieted down a little. "And where is Goku?" he looked around, half expecting the guy to pop up from behind a rock. This time travelling business was more confusing than Trunks had anticipated. Somehow he had thought that things would hardly change, that he'd find the Z Tenshi fighting bravely in that city, that he would swoop down and help them out in the last stages of battle – not that the battle had travelled over a hundred miles north-east of where it had originally been. Or that his mother would be there. And that Goku would still be absent. Or that the Androids would change appearance and become two weird guys in puffy clothing.
"What are you talking about? We are fighting the Androids you told us about!" Piccolo yelled at him. Trunks very nearly sweat-dropped.
"No, no, those are not the Androids I know!" he told them all. His mother was trying to calm little Trunks down, patting the baby's back comfortingly while humming a jaunty little tune – not that it seemed to do any good. Little Trunks was wailing like there was no tomorrow and Big Trunks could see his father's face twist as in in pain. The wails were pretty shrill... "The Androids from my time are a boy with black hair and a red bandana around his neck and a pretty blonde girl, both wear hoop earrings and have cold stares. Those two were not the Androids I meant... and where is Goku?" the last part he had to ask again – so far no-one had answered him. His face scrunched up when the baby took a lung full of air and doubled the volume of his wailing.
"Goku has the heart virus. It just started today..." Kuririn told him with a sigh. He glanced at the baby and twitched.
"You know, guys... that old man." Bulma started over the wailing of her baby. "I think that was Dr. Gero... I recently saw a picture of him in a magazine..."
"What are you babbling about, onna?" Vegeta suddenly stood in front of Bulma, a furious look etched onto his face.
The baby started to wail louder than ever before.
"Well done, Vegeta! I just got her quieted down a little! Everytime you turn on that glare of yours in front of her, she screams her head off!"
Trunks mind went a little blank when he heard his mother talk about her. What was that about? Surely not... he gulped.
"Do you know where that bastard's lab is, onna?" Vegeta all but yelled at her. The baby matched Vegeta's volume to a tee.
"Sure. Hold your daughter and I tell you." she held the baby out to Vegeta with an expression on her face that promised long, lonely nights on the couch if he were not to comply. He actually looked a little stunned.
"BULMA!" Kuririn screamed. "The world might be ending and you want blackmail Vegeta? Now?" everyone had blanched – no-one could imagine Vegeta to comply and take the kid.
She blinked, looked at the baby in her arms, her daughter, at Vegeta, at Kuririn, then she nodded. "Yes." she grinned. "Hold your daughter or you won't fight anything anytime soon." Vegeta growled – but he took the baby. Let her snuggle up, even, without just holding her at arms length. The baby ceased to wail instantly. Trunks could feel his jaw hitting the floor – and if the startled gasps behind him were any indication, the others had the very same expression on his face that he was just sporting.
"Talk. Now." Vegeta commanded while actively comforting his infant daughter. The world surely had changed a lot.
"The magazine said Dr. Gero had his lab in some cave near North City." she smiled sweetly. Vegeta nearly thrust the little baby back into Bulma's arms, then he took off at top speed. The baby started up her wailing again as soon as she was forced to leave her father's arms.
"Things... changed." Trunks murmured with wide eyes.
"What do you mean, Trunks?" Piccolo ground out, eyes narrowing.
"The heart virus started late. The Androids were different models – in my time Dr. Gero started with the real deal right away..." he gulped and glanced at Bulma and her baby. Only now did he notice the little monkey tail the child was waving around. He gulped again. "And then... there's me." He nearly choked on the word.
"What's wrong with you?" Bulma asked. "Time travelling didn't make you sick somehow, right?" Just like his mother, always worrying about her friends... or complete strangers – she had let Vegeta into her house, knowing him to be a mass-murderer.
"No. But... myself in your timeline changed. Big time." he felt faint. He shook his head to clear it but somehow made the dizziness even worse. Everyone was staring at him.
"How?" asked Kuririn. His eyes were wide. "Did you go and check yourself out?" he sounded confused.
"He's a girl this time around." Trunks could hear Piccolo grin. He felt like punching the Namekian.
"How do you know?" Bulma asked, mouth slightly open. "Did you go and check on the boy?" she looked at Piccolo as if he was a paedophile after all and had just now admitted the fact.
Trunks gulped again. This was not going to go over well...
"You said 'Hold your daughter' to Vegeta, my dad." the boy nearly whispered.
Bulma's mouth formed an 'o'. She looked at her wailing daughter and then looked at her pale, swaying son. "I need to sit down." she said and unceremoniously let herself collapse on the floor. "Wow." she breathed.
"Wow alright...My name is Trunks, by the way." the boy said with wide eyes. Why keep secrets anymore – it wasn't as if he could undo the gender change anymore.
"Trunks... I picked that as a boy name before I knew I was having a daughter."
"Bra, right?" Trunks sat down, too. Vegeta and his solo take-off momentarily forgotten. "You told me you picked that for a girl-name." he grinned a little. No matter what, he was still named, according to Briefs family tradition, after underwear.
"Actually... no." Bulma sniffed. "Daddy-Dearest was faster than me. He told the nurse to write down Plum."
Everyone was gaping at her now.
"Vegeta named her?" Tien ground out.
"Yes. After he was done he told me he refused to let me abuse his child by naming her after underwear when she already had to live with the family name 'Briefs'." she sniffed again, apparently totally offended that anyone would dare and not agree with her family's tradition. Vegeta apparently did not agree. Plum...
"So much changed... I didn't plan on changing this much." Trunks whispered and glanced at girl-him. Plum... He had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that Vegeta had named the girl.
Bulma laughed a little and patted little Plum's back reassuringly.
"Let's hope for the better, right?" she grinned at him and Plum, black-haired, blue-eyed daughter of Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyans, looked at the pale lavender haired boy for the first time. She was still sniffling and blinking away tears, her tail was waving around wildly, showing the world how agitated she was.
And suddenly, Trunks' mind caught up with the past few events of the day.
The most important one stuck with him, nearly blinding in its intensity:
"Oh my God." Trunks said and dropped his head in his hands. "I'm a girl!" then he and Plum started wailing together.