"Gohan, come to bed."
"Just ten more minutes."
"It is two in the morning. Come to bed. Besides you have to wake up early if you are going to find the parts you need."
It has been 7 years since the end of the world. Seven long years since Vegeta ended it all. We all thought he had changed, especially after the defeat of Buu. But the past ultimately repeated itself and my father Goku was not around to fix it. Cell was defeated, he couldn't touch Vegeta or Trunks, but did he defeat him? No, he was baited into allowing Cell attain his perfect form. We never believed that it would happen again. His pride got the better of him. My wife Videl believed that it was his inner Goku that made his decision but she wasn't there.
It could be argued that my father did the same thing. Giving Cell the sensu bean before I fought him. While it was true that Goku did let Vegeta go and did heal Cell, neither did the horrific things that Surac did.
Surac…Even today his name put chills down my spine. We still don't know where he got his power from. Only that he was a serial rapist and murderer. He took great pains to rape and brutally murder all the women of the Earth while their significant others watched. He could even seem multiply his body to be more efficient at his task. It was the only explanation for his sudden ability to be a multiple places at once.
It started out small. With only a few rape victims displayed in horrific ways. The monster needed to be stopped. With every victim he got stronger. No one could stop him. He hid under the radar for more than a decade with only the path of destruction in his wake. Then it became a game.
Vegeta caught a glimpse of him and they fought. Ultimately Vegeta won, but did he kill the man? No, he left him defeated. Vegeta had enjoyed the fight too much. I wasn't interested in fighting anymore, and I was the only one close enough to his level of power. So he used Surac as a fighting partner. Playing and toying with him then letting him go. Both gone long before anyone could reach the battle scene. The locations of the fights were always different and always among large cities and always with massive number of casualties.
Bulma and Trunks were of no help in halting these fights. Bulma refused to believe that her lover was purposely killing people for the sole purpose of fighting an almost equal. Trunks was even less capable of believing that his father was capable of these atrocities. They just couldn't understand that in Vegeta's mind they were all collateral damage.
The death toll had reached more than 1 billion in 10 years. That didn't stop the rampage and the game of cat and mouse that had started so long ago.
It changed 7 years ago. I could blame myself for the path this took, and I did for almost two years after the end. I blamed myself for not finding Surac, and not stopping Vegeta. I came to the conclusion that I didn't have the ability to find him that Vegeta had. I didn't have the resources of Capsule Corporation either.
I never thought that Bulma would facilitate Vegeta's deadly game. Whether Bulma was ignorant or not it still happened and was not my fault. It was Vegeta's. Everything that happened, every death that occurred and all the children forced to watch their parents die, was all Vegeta's fault.
It stopped being a game when Vegeta came home from the hunt to find Bulma and Trunks murdered by the man that he left alive for his enjoyment. I could feel the change in Vegeta from that moment on he wanted revenge and he was going to have it. It didn't take long for Vegeta to find his target and get his revenge.
Unfortunately it didn't end there. He felt the need to end his life, not only his life but all life. He blew himself up and half the planet making it uninhabitable. I was able to save my wife's life. My daughter was not so lucky. I can only hope that she died in the blast and not in the vacuum that followed from the loss of atmosphere.
It was only by chance that Videl and I found an old Capsule Corporation Space pod. I get chills thinking about what would have happened if we weren't on our way to visit Bulma. Yes, we did see everything. That is the only way I know what happened and am able to make an educated guess as to what caused the end of life on Earth. It didn't take long to realize that everyone on Earth was dead. The mushroom cloud in the distance and the sudden vacuum of space to come to the realization that we were the only ones left alive.
I will never forget when Videl regained consciousness. Her pleading for Pan to be alright and the harsh reality that she was not. My determination to stop this from ever happening was what pushed me forward. The loss of my daughter was enough to drive me to the brink. If I was not the only presence on Earth Videl would have left me a long time ago.
Every day I searched through the rubble in a space suit, searching for anything that would help ease our suffering and give us the answers we needed. Four years to the day I found what I was looking for. Four years since I found the schematics that would set into motion events that would ultimately lead to Vegeta's demise.
Luck was on my side as I pulled apart the metal casing surrounding the only compressor in existence. The last part was finally in my grasp. I flew as fast as I could towards our home keeping mindful of how much stress the space suit could hold. I landed in front of the spaceship and waited for the recompression system to complete its cycle. I walked in and removed my suit and ran towards the storage room.
"You found it didn't you?" I turned around and found my wife with a fake smile. "So when do you expect it to be complete?"
I placed the compressor on the floor and walked towards Videl. "In about 3 days. I just need to compress the fuel."
"Gohan, I have made up my mind. I am coming with you." My smile faded away and I stepped towards her once again. "I am coming! I don't want to hear it. No more excuses! If something happens to you…" With an embrace the hysterical woman calmed down. "Ok…I won't stop you."
The next few hours went smoothly as we both worked on Bulma's invention. I never knew she had worked on designs for it. I always thought that necessity was what drove future Bulma to build the time machine. Since there was no dire threat there was no need for her to design one. The schematics were perfect. The data and journals were enough to get into the mind of Bulma as she designed the machine. It became a small hobby for the overworked scientist. The journals started after the defeat of Cell and continued till the day she died.
She perfected the time machine. There was not going to be any dimensional skip. Whatever changes we make in the past was going to affect our time-line. This gave rise to more problems as a massive paradox was now Bulma's biggest concern. This part took the longest time to perfect. She played with time, traveling in time with baby rats a few minutes before their birth and then terminating the life of the parent. She documented all the attempts with varying results. One of the most common was the disappearance of the rodent's children. But rarely a temporal rift would form for a short time and then disappear. No notation was made on the affects of the rift only of its appearance and subsequent disappearance.
These tests led her to the creation of a temporal serum. Only the chemical formula was present with the pages describing how she developed it being torn out. At the bottom of the page she wrote, "I am so sorry…"
It was time. We were going back. I gave the serum to both of us and encapsulated the Spaceship. "Are you ready?" She nodded her head and we both stepped into the Time machine. "Say good-bye Videl. This world will never exist."