Future Trunks Timeline
Gero pinched the bridge of his nose. The design for his ultimate creation, a bio-android currently labelled 'Cell', was painstakingly difficult. Every tiny detail needed to be correct, lest he fail in his mission.
"Difficulties, Father?"
Gero turned in his seat to look at his 'daughter,' Nijuni. It was nearly twenty years ago to the day that he created her.
(20 years ago)
Gero paced his laboratory, contemplating his next project. A thought had occurred to him in recent months. What would happen to his work if he were to die suddenly? Surely, there was no single being on this planet that possessed enough intelligence to even comprehend the tasks that he completed. An idea popped into his head. What if he were to create a child? Not just any run of the mill brat. The perfect successor to his metaphorical throne. Gero rushed to his work table, carelessly pushing aside the clutter. He pulled out a large piece of paper and began to scribble down notes. The child would possess DNA from the brightest minds in the world, including his own. He grabbed another piece of paper, and began to create designs for an incubation chamber with his other hand. He switched focus between the two objectives intermittently, never once stopping the motions of his pens. He continued in this fashion until the small hours of the morning, until all of the designs were finally done. A stroke of genius urged him to include DNA from those known to possess telekinetic and telepathic abilities. The child could only become so strong. A second feature of the child would be decelerated aging. They would only age at one fourth the speed of a normal human. Gero grinned a rather malicious grin. This would be one of his greatest and most difficult projects yet.
(Present)
Nijuni walked towards the sighs of frustration down the hall. Her bushy white hair was wrangled back in two large pigtails, excluding her messy bangs and two chunks of hair on either side of her face. Her rosebud lips were in their typical frown. She sighed through her petite nose, ticked that she had to deal with her father's mental incompetence on a daily basis. Though, she supposed, it wasn't his fault. He was several hundred times more intelligent than the average human. To any normal man or woman, he would be at an untouchable level of genius. Too bad Nijuni was far from normal.
"Difficulties, Father?" Nijuni stopped at the entrance to his workroom. She felt far too small in this room; her half lidded white-blue eyes darted around. Such is the burden of being a genius in the body of a five year old.
"Ah, Nijuni. Come. Perhaps you can see something that I cannot," He motioned her to a chair on the opposite side of the table. She scrambled onto it, white pigtails bouncing behind her. She settled in a kneeling position on the chair, leaning on the table on her elbows to survey the upside down blue prints.
"I'm having a bit of a problem connecting the Namekian DNA to the others, considering that it is plant based, perhaps..." Dr. Gero trailed off. Nijuni was already drawing out a solution to the problem, connecting the DNA in the middle of the human and Saiyan helices, creating a triple helix.
"Genius as always, child. I've created a computer generated image of Cell's forms. Would you care to see it?" Gero stood up from his chair.
Nijuni narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean by 'forms', Father?"
Gero placed his hands behind his back and turned away from her.
"In the event that Androids 17 and 18 malfunction, I lack the resources to complete them, or they are unable to defeat Goku, Cell is to absorb them into his system. When he absorbs both of them, he shall become perfect," Gero emphasized the last word.
'He has already gone senile,' Nijuni glared at his back. This would not do. She needed him alive and functioning until she was old enough to be on her own without raising suspicion.
"I've created these with two possible scenarios in mind. Cell will invariable begin in his imperfect form," Gero typed rapidly, causing an image of a humanoid creature that resembled an overgrown cricket.
"If Cell were to absorb 18 then 17, the results would be as such,"
A second image appeared beside Imperfect Cell. It had become sleeker, the horns on its head thinning and curving more. The hips on the creature became slightly wider, and its wings elongated and sharpened. Its feet became boot like, even possessing spurs similar to high heels. A third image appeared. This Cell's horns were shorter, but still parted in a V shape, curving back over the dome of its head. Its face was thin and gaunt, along with most of the rest of its body. The armored sections on its arms, legs, and torso were a dingy, olive green.
'Shouldn't 'perfect' connotate 'not ugly as sin'?' Nijuni wondered, a rather disgusted look on her face.
"And if the inverse were to happen,"
The two previous images were replaced by a single image of a creature nearly identical to Imperfect Cell in color, but possessing a muscular and masculine countenance. A third image appeared. Cell was smaller in height, but made up for it in being a hell of a lot less ugly. In fact, Nijuni blushed at the thought, he was downright handsome. His face resembled a cross between King Cold and Vegeta. Two purple sections covered either side of his face starting at the middle of his eyes and ending at a golden section that stretched from his ears to his chin. The middle of his face was light purple, almost white, and his eyes were a vivid pink. The armored sections of his body were bright light green flecked with darker green patches, alongside smooth black plates on his chest, calves, and groin area.
"Hmm. Interesting. Is that all you will be needing tonight, father?" Nijuni yawned.
"Yes. You are dismissed,"
Nijuni left the laboratory and headed to her room. The door slid open and she stepped inside. Her room was sparsely decorated, a queen sized bed with a grey duvet, a dresser, a mirror, and a workdesk were the only pieces of furniture besides a nightstand and lamp. The twenty year old child looked at her reflection in the full length mirror. Her shirt was dark orange with several thin black stripes. The sleeves puffed out from her shoulder to her elbow, where they became yellow and tight to her forearm. Over her shirt she wore a black vest possessing two white buttons on either side held closed by a red band shaped like an infinity symbol. around her waist -and visible from the bottom of her vest, was a super-wide red ribbon tied into a massive bow at her back. Her legs were obscured by a plain, dark brown skirt.
'Ah, if only I could waltz into town and pick out my own wardrobe. But, that wold raise too many questions from more people than my telepathy can control,' Nijuni sighed in defeat. She stripped out of her gaudy outfit and donned a simple white nightgown. Sleep came easy to her that night. Her dreams were rather ridiculous, consisting mainly of her as a princess trapped in a tower by a wrinkly old dragon with a bushy mustache, only to be rescued by a night in light green armor flecked with dark green spots.
Sixteen Years Later.
Nijuni poked her head out of her door. She reached for her Father's mind, and was pleased to find that he was asleep in his room. Slowly, the thirty-six-year-old-nine-year-old tiptoed into the huge testing room where Cell's incubation chamber was kept. An eerie green glow seeped out from the nourishing liquid in the tall tube. Her eyes rested on the white creature suspended in the fluid as she made her way over to him. The telepath closed her eyes and rested her forehead and hands on the glass.
Cautiously, Nijuni reached out to the infant Cell with her mind. Much to her surprise, he reached back. Relaxing, the girl and bio-android allowed their minds to connect, causing their thoughts and feelings to be communicated instantaneously.
Nijuni felt his curiosity about his current state strongly. She did her best to explain why he was there. Something in his mind seemed to trigger, and she felt him become fully self-aware.
'So you are Nijuni,' Cell rasped mentally.
'Yes, I am. I must admit, I didn't expect you to be sentient so soon,' the girl replied smoothly.
' Nor did I expect you to sneak up on me in the middle of the night. Is there something that you want?'
'Not particularly. I've been coming to you most nights, talking to you, waiting for you to talk back,'
Cell seemed to retreat within his mind for a second, before returning.
'Yes, I remember now. You should go. Your father is going to awaken soon, and will be coming here to check on my progress, much the same as you are doing,'
'Good night, Cell,'
'Good night,'
Four Years Later
'It's so dreadfully boring in here,' Cell rolled his pink, slit-pupilled eyes.
'It's not much better out here,' Nijuni replied, raising a thick white eyebrow.
'Entertain me,'
'And how exactly do you expect me to do that?'
'Show me a memory,' Cell mentally shrugged.
'Alright, here, I don't think you've seen this one before,' Nijuni began to play the memory of the night she helped Gero with Cell's DNA.
Cell fully engrossed himself in the memory. Nijuni took this as an opportunity to install some new programming. Discreetly, she accessed the part of Cell's brain that dealt with his programming. Concentrating, Nijuni fed the system a program that she had designed. It was something to keep her safe from Cell's inevitable rain of destruction.
The program was simple. No matter what his form, Cell would never become hostile towards her. Of course, Nijuni expected him to find a way around that command. She added a second program that would paralyze the bio-android long enough for her to escape if he ever attacked her, directly or indirectly, and even compelled him to assist and protect her. The memory ended just as she finished up the last bit of commands.
'What did you do?' Cell narrowed his eyes at her.
'What do you mean?' Nijuni replied innocently.
'You... you changed part of my formatting,' Cell observed.
'Just fixed a possible flaw from my idiot of a father's design,'
The answer seemed to satisfy Cell, and he left it at that.
One and a half years later
'This form is painfully slow and weak!' Cell growled. He crawled along behind Nijuni in his bug-like larval form.
"Come now Cell, we all must go through highs and lows," She replied cheerfully.
Cell merely hissed at her.
Later that day
The design was perfect.
Nijuni ran her eyes appreciatively over her latest work. It was a time machine, similar to the Saiyan's space pods, except for the life support systems, which were designed to sustain a human being for upwards of a thousand years. Nijuni's face fell. She was going to spend sixty eight years in hibernation in this thing. She closed her eyes, recalling her vision. Androids 17 and 18 would rebel. Gero would die, Nijuni would be next. Cell would steal a half-Saiyan with odd hair's time machine, forcing him to revert to his larval stage.
Opening her eyes, she decided that now was as good a time as ever.
Cell felt as though something was tearing away from him. He scuttled towards where he had last felt Nijuni's mind.
She was gone.
He stretched his mind out over the surrounding five mile area. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Dr. Gero ran into the room.
"Nijuni's life force just disappeared!" He sounded genuinely surprised.
Gero spent three months scouring the globe for a trace of his 'daughter''s life force. He was unwilling to let his creation go just like that.
Cell watched him buzz around like a desperate insect. He must truly have lost his mind. The only logical conclusion was that the girl created a time machine and traveled to either the future or past. Whichever it was, he was sure that they would meet again.
AN: In the main timeline, Gero does not create Nijuni. Anyhow, how do you like the story so far? I'll try my best to keep Cell in character, but I want you guys's opinion on something. Do you think the Anti-hostility program Nijuni installed would force Cell to be less of a cocky ass to her, or would that be unaffected? Thanks for any and all feedback.
'Cept flamers. Y'all can go get absorbed by Imperfect Cell. Next chapter will pick up when our protagonist awakens.
