Dragonball DBZ and GT belong to Akira Toryama, nothing of it is mine.
xxccc
This is my first story of Dragonball. The plot will span a few different timelines. One of the most important will be the Mirai future-world.
While a part playing after the end of GT will be very prominent in the first few chapters, this is not really a post GT fic. The story will concentrate more on other dimensions later on.
Dragonball Alternates
Timelines, alternate dimensions, even parallel universes, there were many of them. And there were some beings, only a few, who could watch into this different worlds.
Some of them were the infamous God of Destruction Beers and his mysterious master Whiz and to some limits the Kaioshin and others.
Next to the 12 known universes, that were completely different and separated realities, there were in first line the many `timelines´, altered variations of the same basis universe.
Most if not all of this words had gods of one kind or the other, Gods of Creation, Gods of Destruction and other higher beings. Of course there was also a good chance of other planes somewhere where the rules were completely. Some even believed that there was some kind of Super God out there who was watching over all these realities. But that was something nobody could truly say for sure.
Many of these beings were able to see into other dimensions and they were using this gift to watch themselves and others.
Now, recently however another entity had emerged that had developed this ability. This one was not a god or even another supernatural being.
It was something completely else, something not of natural heritage, artificial...
...and it was watching.
For the moment this being was taking interest in a certain one of this many realities.
xxx
Somewhere in one of this worlds was in this moment a single figure standing in a large dark-shadowed cave-complex.
This young man was a half-sayan, the last who existed in his universe. He was wearing a blue capsule-corp jacket and dark grey trousers. Strapped on his back he was carrying a sword. And he had strange colored blueish, nearly purple hair.
Around him were several mechanical devices, one of them a large wide screen, otherwise only in some distance the walls of the cave.
"Now let me show you what I have gathered out there Trunks," someone said to him. It was a monotonous sounding voice, coming out of the dark around him.
xxxxxxx
`Present´- timeline, 23 years after the Cell Games
While the Saiyajin known as Son Goku or Kakarot was somewhere in space, following Shenlong to an unknown place, at the same time on Earth other things were happening.
xxx
Artificial Human Number Seventeen opened his eyes.
The sky, the forest, it was the normal world, Earth, a regular landscape, recreated by the Dragonballs in it´s former state. Like king Yemma had told him. Nothing was to see of the destruction that had happened here anymore. He was lying at the border of a forest, very close to a city that had been lying in ruins only a few minutes earlier. That meant of course the parts of it that had not been completely wiped out. Now it had been restored, just like himself, by the Dragonballs.
It was a city that by all rights hadn´t existed anymore, it hadn´t because he had destroyed it. Not willingly, not on his own accord, he had been forced, manipulated. He had not been himself, in the truest sense of the word.
As he looked around, he saw something else lying on the ground, a few meters next to him. It was a body, an android, wearing a dark shirt, ripped jeans, sport shoes and a orange bandana, just like him, exactly like him.
The body was looking exactly like himself, another version of himself, like a clone. Nearly like a mirror image it was identical in every way, every way except one.
The copy had no life in it anymore. It was completely functional, he could feel that, but the mind, the intelligence, the soul if you wanted to call it that, it was just not there.
The being before him was Neo 17 or simply Hellfighter, as he was sometimes also called by the two madmen who had created him. He was meant to be not only a exact double of him, but in fact a complentation, a part of himself, but in the worst possible way.
This Android had been designed to make him stronger to bring out his full potential, but also to control him, to become a part of him. To take him over and finally to merge with him into a single being, Super 17, one that was meant to be under the absolute control of this two.
As far as it came to Doctor Gero and his new partner Doctor Myuu this other Android was a part of him, of Android 17, of their `ultimate creation´, like a lab experiment. His opinion to all that had never been asked by either of them, not years ago, as he had first been referted into a cyborg and certainly not now.
But they had overseen one thing, he was the one who decided who he was and not them. Even if sometimes, as it seemed, he needed a little bit of help to realize it. He thought about 18 and a surge of anger came over him.
Seventeen was looking into this lifeless eyes, otherwise completely identical to his own.
It was just like King Yemma had said, it was nothing than an empty husk now.
He remembered, remembered everything that had happened. Doctor Gero and Doctor Myuu, Hell, the very place where he himself had once send Gero to and from where he and his allies were now trying to escape, his clone, the copy of him they had created. All of that came now once again back to him.
How the copy had been controlling his mind, how it had used him to attack people, to kill Krillin, the human his sister had married, to attack his sister, to destroy this city.
On top of that this copy had, by controlling him, been able to create a gateway between the dimensions and literally opening the gates of Hell, allowing Gero, Myuu and all the long dead opponents the Z-Fighters had defeated over the years to return to the living world. Until they had been beaten once again at least.
But still the chaos they had managed to cause, both here and in the afterlife was terrible.
xxx
He remembered how he was standing before King Yemma, the guardian of the afterlife after had Son Goku killed him. Or maybe you should rather say after he let Son Goku and his own sister kill him.
In the end he had gained enough control to overcome Gero´s and Myuu´s programming and hold his other self back, if only for some time. It was enough to show them an opening.
Some time after he had died then, the afterlife ruler was now looking at him with grim and worried expression.
In fact he had been dead for some time now, but after the `mass breakout´ from Hell that Gero and Myuu had iniciated with his unwilling help and he had heard rumors that there was also another crisis going on, they needed somewhat longer to bring everything back under control. As far as you could call their current situation this.
It hadn´t been the first time that he was standing before the guardian, by far not. He had been here after Cell had absorbed him and he had been here after Buu had blown up the planet.
But now it was the first time both of them were facing a real dilemma.
"Well, what shall I do with you?" King Yemma thought aloud, asking the serious question. "I hope you realize in what difficult situation we are with you," he put it.
That was an understatement as it would later turn out.
"You can not really be blamed for the most of your recent negative actions, for being under mind control," King Yemma told Seventeen, while he was reading in a thick book that seemed to contain the rules of the afterlife.
"Actually, since you had a hand in stopping your artificially created counterpart. Then you took control of the fusion, you were actually the one who caused Super Seventeen´s downfall. You may in fact get a bonus for heroic deeds, but it is complicated.
And that is only the purely bureaucritical part of it," the large otherworld deity told him.
"Ahm, what do you mean by that?" Seventeen asked him a bit insecure.
"What he means by that," another voice was to hear, he recognized it as the one of Piccolo, the former God of Earth and creator of the original Dragonballs who had died a few months earlier, "is that you quite possible won´t stay long anyway," he said. "You wanted to see me?" the Namekian now addressed King Yemma.
"Ah yes, we have something to talk about," the large underworld deity responded.
"Ah, nice to see you again," 17 greeted Piccolo. "It seems we are both dead. You mean that the Z Fighters will use the Dragonballs to bring me back?" he questioned.
"If we are lucky," he replied. "Do you have any idea what is going on on Earth right now? The Dragonballs have gone out of control and manifested themselves into 7 dangerous creatures that are threatening to destroy everything."
"Then let us hope that Son Goku and the others will be able stop them," 17 stated, "and that they manage to do it this time without messing up," he added.
"Goku, Gohan and Vegeta have saved us many times," Piccolo reminded him.
"And how many of this time it were his own actions that had allowed this threats to rise in the first place?" he responded.
The Namekian looked as if he wanted to say something in return, but they were interrupted.
"There is still another problem that we have," King Yemma stated. "Your double," he said to Seventeen, "is not here."
"What?" 17 exclaimed. "What do you mean he is not here?"
"Just this. We have realized a short time ago that the soul of your doppelganger had not been registered anywhere," the afterlife-ruler informed them.
"And you only found about about this now?" Piccolo asked him.
"Oh excuse me, but we had just two universal crisises going on here," Yemma replied sarcastically, "so you understand that the question what had happened to a single soul was not exactly high on our list of priorities."
"Okay okay, I understand that," the Namekian responded. "I guess you want me to look around in Hell if I can find our missing Android," he questioned.
"Exactly."
"Hell?" 17 asked.
"Well, Picollo here had recently `volunteered´ to go down there to keep an eye on all the villians and keep them from causing that sort of trouble again," Yemma stated. "I have allowed him to come out for a short time because I wanted to talk to him about this."
"Do I even want to know," Seventeen asked the Namek.
"I will explain later," Picollo replied.
In the end Goku and Vegeta did succeed. They stopped this new threat known as the Shadow Dragons. Afterwards the Dragonballs had been used to turn the Earth back to how it had been before and bring everybody back to life.
xxx
And so he returned.
Seventeen was checking himself. Biochemical and Technological implants inside his body were running multiple analyses. He was unharmed, undamaged. His powerlevel? was gigantic, even when he was currently not merged with his counterpart.
If at all he had the impression that he was even a bit stronger than during the last fight with Eighteen and the Z-Fighters, just before the fusion with his double.
He was looking at his right hand and was then looking at the deactivated Android lying before him, concentrating.
Suddenly it´s eyes returned to life, flashing in a red color, just like his own and it´s right arm started to move, suddenly and fitfully. Seventeen moved his right arm and the arm of the clone-cyborg made at the same moment the very same movement, nearly exactly mirroring his own.
It was like a bizarre mimicry of a living being, a doll those movements were directed by someone else. The situation was reversed now. At the same time he saw flashes of electricity sparking around the clone´s body and also his own hand.
The connection between them was still active. This proofed it. But now when Hellfighter´s mind was gone, he was the one controlling both bodies.
"It looks like I am the one in control now bastard," he said with a grin to silent the form of the now mindless robot.
Seventeen remembered back. He knew, as he had first been created, turned into a artificial being, he was meant to be the strongest fighter on Earth and more. For some time Doctor Gero had been working on his intended greatest project, an practically invincible super-being, the Ultimate Warrior.
He, Android 17 had been the latest attempt. Despite all of Gero´s attempts to keep him and 18 under his thumb and be `good´ little creations, he had found out far more about the mad scientists plans for him when he would ever have wanted.
He was meant to be this `Ultimate Fighter´ and on some level, he openly admitted, he had actually wanted to be it. But not to Gero´s terms, not under his control.
What Seventeen also knew however, was that back then he had only brought out a small part of his full potential. Gero never had the chance to fully realize it, not until now. Seventeen had killed him before was able to complete his work on him or his sister.
He knew hand in hand with the physical changes would also come the mental one and by the time Doctor Gero would have brought him to his full intended power, he would have also managed to bring him and 18 fully under his influence and turn them completely into his slaves. So he had killed him before he could finish his work.
At this point he and his sister had already been stronger than any other Android model they knew of and since their transformation was based on bio-engineering, they even had the potential to grow stronger. It had been enough or so he thought. He had been wrong.
What he had not been aware of was that there were `other candidates´ who still existed.
One of them had been Cell, another `Ultimate Android´ who had, as he later found out, stolen a time-machine and travelled back into the past. As it looked Doctor Gero, or at least a possible future version of him, had changed his mind and planned for him and 18 to get absorbed by that Bio-Android.
Later after Cell had been defeated, he and 18 had began what you would call peaceful lives. He had started to work as a ranger, living in the woods and otherwise doing whatever he wanted, even having a family and children.
Despite that he had in the last twenty years also tried more than once to find a way to achieve this old goal, to become what he was meant to be, the most powerful in the universe
and if it was only out of spite against Gero and Cell. He wanted to reach this power by himself, without his so called `creator´.
When he had not been working in the wild-park territory, taking care of things or spending time with his family or just being off and doing whatever he felt like, he had been training regulary.
His reasoning for that was simple. Years ago, when he had first been converted into an Android, he had lost everything. All memories of the time `before´ were gone. Great parts of his mind had been reconstructed, filled with the desire to fight, to defeat and kill Son Goku, while at the same time his organs, skin, bones and his entire cell structure had been altered, manipulated, enhanced through genetic engineering and completed with biomechanical components...
...to something that could barely be described as human anymore and certainly not as the same being as before.
The human he had once been did´t exist any more. He was by all rights dead. For his power he had paid with his old existence. His mind as it was today was a mixture of Gero´s basic programmings, the lingering remains of his human self and more than anything else, the decision he had made over the years, his own choices.
He was completely aware that he had been created from a young man named Lapis, twin brother of Lazuli. It was a knowledge that he and Eighteen had found out several years ago. But it was a pure factual knowledge. He had no details, barely any personal information and even that little that he had felt hollow. There was no personal connection anymore.
All what was left for him from this life was his sister, who had gone through the same process and even this had Gero and his allies nearly destroyed now.
The Saiyans, Son Goku and Vegeta, thought they deserved to be the strongest? He and 18, they had literally died for it, in a way that not even the Dragonballs could reverse. So when he and his sister had paid such a horrend price, at least he wanted to have his end of the deal.
Now he had reached it. He was the most powerful. He was far stronger than Cell could ever hope to be.
He had even defeated Son Goku, at least before 18 interferred, but the victory tasted like ash in his mouth.
In a twisted sort of irony it was in a sense all pointless now. He didn´t reach this power by himself. It was all given to him, no forced upon him, by Gero and Myuu. He was the strongest being in the universe but it was only because of what they did to him. Once again the old man had gotten one over him, at least until their last meeting as his luck run out..
He didn´t knew if he should laugh or be sad at the memory how Myuu had finally betrayed Gero and ordered him and his counterpart after their fusion to kill him. Controlled by the programming and Hellfighter´s presence he had no choice. But still it felt good killing Gero again.
Seventeen knew the specifics of the process that had transformed him into Super 17 perfectly well. The first stage of the transformation had been only very subtle, only the thoughts of his doppelganger that were reaching out to his own, unnoticed at first, slowly corrupting and subverting his own, until they finally took over.
In the next phase his strength had grown. Hellfighter had been especially designed to realize his dormant power and bring it out, finally.
This had in a twisted sense actually been another slap in the face. Even if he had not trained a single day since the Cell Games, this device would have powered him up to exactly the same level. It would have only taken maybe a half hour longer. 20 years worth of training, for nothing. Of course the procedure to unleash his full potential came right after the one to control his mind.
Then finally came the fusion, merging the two bodies into a single practically invincible fighter.
But there was more about his new transformation. It was not just raw power, not just about physical strength.
17 picked up the other Android and then he lifted off into the air carrying the live- and motionless body of his double in his arms. He knew exactly what he had to do, as little as he liked it. But he had no other choice.
While he was flying over the landscape, he was using another one of his new abilities.
He concentrated.
"18," Android 17 silently called out. He concentrated his thoughts on his sister and his body automatically reacted and send out a mental call.
It wasn´t however true telepathy, but a mental connection made possible by both electronic and bio-chemical implants in his and his sister´s brains and a device inside his now mindless double.
This wasn´t the first time he used this ability, by far not. As his double had been controlling him, it had used it to coordinate their attacks.
It was meant as a tool to communicate and to control. Hellfighter had been using it against him, to turn him into his and Doctor Myuu´s puppet and under their influence he himself had used it against 18.
But finally they both had resisted, sadly however at different times. Eighteen had broken the control when hid double had used him to kill Krillin as the human fighter had nearly succeeded to bring him back to his senses, nearly. The attempt had cost him his life. Hellfighter saw him as a threat. And while he had not succeeded, 17 certainly felt a level of respect for the man for trying.
He himself broke free as his sister confronted him a short time later as Super 17 and reminded him who he was. Being 18, she of course did it in the most rude and demanding way possible, he grinned. You just had to love her, 17 thought.
To say that his sister had been pissed off when they last met would have been an understatement. She was positively furious about Krillin´s death. It was something he was understanding all too good, now at least, if it had been his wife.
But that had not been his doing, not really. He only hoped that she would listen. Well, she was smart, but also often incredible stubborn, so he would have to see.
"Eighteen, do you hear me?" he once again send out his message.
"Seventeen?" he finally heard her answer in his head. It was eighteen´s voice, however actually a mental representation of it instead of actual sound.
Her `voice´ was mixed with sorrow, anger, deep cutting doubt and cold rage. It was no surprise. Part of it might also come from the simple fact that he was using the ability of his hated double, he reminded himself and that 18 strictly seen had no way to know for sure who exactly she was talking to, him or his copy.
"Eighteen," he repeated his message, "it is me, truly me, not Gero´s new Android. I am myself again."
xxx
Many miles away Krillin, who had recently also been resurrected by the Dragonballs, was only starring confused at his wife who just seemed to have phased out somehow.
In fact of course she was holding a mental conversation.
xxx
"Why should I believe you," she replied coldly. "I remember all too good what happened and the last time I checked my brother was not a telepath."
Seventeen cringed.
"It is true that I am still connected with the other Android, at least in body. But he is gone. His mind is no longer there. It is me," he assured her. "You can convince yourself very soo when we are meeting."
"You want to come here?" she asked, obviously with a bit of shock.
xxx
Miles away she was actually saying this part out loud, that only caused her husband and her daughter and Master Roshi who had just entered the room to look at her even more curious.
Krillin and Muten Roshi had by now figured out what was going on. They had both by now witnessed enough telepathic conversations to recognize the signs. The only question was who was she talking to?
xxx
"Not exactly," 17 replied, "I am on my way to Capsule Corporation and I am having the body of my double with me. I need them to take a look at it."
"What?" 18 asked now.
"Look," 17 continued, "it is as I said, the mind of the other Android had just vanished. I don´t know why. Not even King Yemma could explain why. I need to know what is going on with my double and I need to be sure that his mind stays gone and the people at Capsule Corp. are the only ones who can find out for sure."
"The Saiyans might attack you on sight if you just show up there," she stated. "You realize that?"
"They won´t," he responded, "not if you tell them exactly that I am coming and why. Can you do that 18? I need to make sure that he will not return and control me again. You understand why I have to do this right, after what I...what he did to you?"
Eighteen, miles away, had now tears in her eyes.
"Yes, I do," she answered.
"Thanks 18," he told her, "We will talk about all this, I promise."
"It won´t be pretty," she stated.
"No it won´t," he replied. A grin started to form on his face.
He thought back about how he taken control of their fused state after Super 17 had been confronted by 18, how he had then distracted his double. How he had kept them both concentrated on his sister, the accusations she was shouting to them and on their own internal conflict, while he knew all too well that Goku would get up again and preparing his next attack.
Then he recalled the memory that happened only a few seconds afterwards, the picture as Super 17 saw Goku´s final strike coming to him and as he was forcing his double to stay in place and take the attack. And he remembered his feeling at that moment, horror coming from his artificial clone and triumph from himself.
The smile on his face actually deepened.
"I got you," Seventeen said quietly to his still liveless double.
xxxxxxx
"Mom," Marron said to her mother as she realized that she was crying.
"I understand 17," Eighteen spoke, still seemingly into thin air.
Krillin felt how his jaw dropped as he heard who his wife was talking to.
Eighteen´s gaze now turned back to her family.
"You have heard..."
"Your...your brother," Krillin stammered.
"Seventeen has been brought back to life. He is on the way to Capsule Corporation. 17, he is not longer under Gero´s and Myuu´s control, he is normal again."
"This is good...well very good," Krillin responded.
"...At least he said so," 18 stated a bit quieter.
xxxxxxx
It was less than a half hour later as 17 landed in front of the Capsule Corp. building.
Just as expected the group of four Sayans was waiting for him at the outside. None of them made any aggressive moves, but they all looked ready to defend themselves.
Seventeen calculated his chances. Trunks and Son Goten he knew were small fries. Gohan was strong, by his knowledge however he was seriously undertrained and at least after his latest power up he should be absolutely no match for him.
Vegeta on the other hand. He was clearly the most powerful of them. Out of all of them he was also the only one who had mastered the so called godly Ki and integrated it into his own. The only other who had managed to do that was Son Goku.
Seventeen knew however that he was stronger than Vegeta in his normal state. During the last fight Hellfighter easily managed to hold him off while he was barely trying to fight.
But he wasn´t completely sure if he transformed. He was aware that with the power Vegeta had already reached, the SSJ state gave him only a relative small boost. So it was hard to say who would win between him and the Saiyan Prince.
The real question was if he was still able to transform in the Super Saiyajin 4 level? By what he had heard while he was in the afterlife, 17 wasn´t quite sure. If Vegeta could, he knew he could only match him by fusing with his double. This was something he wanted to avoid on all costs, at least until he was sure nothing would go wrong.
Anyway, he was here to avoid a fight anyway, unless he had no choice.
"I see your sister was right," Vegeta greeted him. "You are back."
"Then she has also told you that I am not here to fight," he responded. "This here is the guy responsible for all the trouble," he nodded to the Android he was holding in his arms, "and as you see he has not much to say right now."
"Well excuse me if I don´t just take your word for it," the Saiyan Prince replied.
"Okay, if you say so." Seventeen kneeled down and dropped the Clone-Android to the ground before them and held his now empty hand up in front of the four Saiyans. "See, I am peaceful. All I want is for Bulma to take a look at this cheap copy here."
"And why would you do that?"
"I thought that would be obvious even to you Vegeta. I want to make sure that he doesn´t suddenly wakes up, takes control of me again and uses me to kill you."
"You have to admit, he has a point here. That is certainly something we want to avoid, right?" Gohan pointed out.
"And who guaranties that he won´t suddenly wake up while my wife is working on him and attack her?"
"We can keep an eye on her the entire time," Goku´s elder son suggested.
In this moment two other persons were landing next to them, Eighteen and Krillin.
His sister was looking at Seventeen a bit insecure. Then her eyes fell on the Clone Android lying on the ground and he saw a barely hidden wave of hatred going through her expression.
"17," she said.
"18," he greeted her.
Neither of them said another word right now.
xxxxxxx
Parallel to all that however, someone else was following the events.
`Mirai´-timeline, 23 years after the appearance of the Androids
"Why are you showing me this?" Trunks asked as he saw the events that were being displayed in detail on a screen before him.
For the last few hours now he had been following several events from the other timeline, had been watching the future of the past, of the world, he had himself once visited, that he in fact had helped to create.
Trunks, this Trunks, had lived a life quite different from his other self of that other reality. He had grown up in a world that was once dominated by the Androids 17 and 18, two alternate versions of the same beings he was watching right now.
Some of what he had just witnessed had been mind blowing, a bit just hillarious and some of it just plain frightening. He remembered his complete shock as he had seen Super 17 and even the other version of 18, how his hands had been actually shaking at the sight. Just how dangerous could these cyborgs have become.
He was lucky, more than lucky, he realized that the two Androids he had been fighting against had never even come close to that level.
What also astonished him however was just how different this two had become from the killing machines he knew from his world.
"Why? I wanted you to see," the monotonous voice answered. "I wanted you to understand what could have been and what is waiting out there, the things you need to know," the being told him.
"Why should I trust you?" Trunks asked him.
"Can you truly afford to ignore what I have to tell you?" the unknown asked.
The half Saiyan was in deep thought. He had to make a decision.
To the continuity: The story contains elements from both Battle of Gods and GT. Meaning both Goku and Vegeta have become SSJ God at one point, but have it completely integrated into their ususal ki at this point.
In the current timeline BoG took place 5 years after Buu, so 12 years after the Cell Games, GT 22 to 23 years after Cell.
What I also consider to have happened are Movie 9, a few months after Cell and the first Cooler Movie (but not the second) in the three years gap before the Androids.