Hey there! It's been a long time since I posted anything on this site, though the urge has been there for quite some time now, believe me. For those who have read through my prior work – A New Hope for the Future particularly – you'll know that all my DBZ works have been set in the rather bleak timeline that is home to Future Trunks and his mentor Gohan. This one is no different and can be considered a spiritual successor and re-working of the aforementioned work. To any old readers, thank you for your continued support, and to any new readers, thank you for taking the time to read this story. I hope you'll take the time to make a few comments at the end. Anyway, I've waffled on enough. Onto the story!
Gohan awoke feeling refreshed and rejuvenated for the first time in a long while. For the first time since his father died he could look ahead with some hope for a better tomorrow. Bulma had just thrown him a serious life-line and he was going to grasp it with both hands - well, he'd grasp it with one hand, at any rate. The androids had already seen to his other arm. That particular outcome had been the secondary driving force behind his current mission, Bulma being the primary one. As he stepped across an empty room in his father's old colours he thought back to the last conversation he had had with Bulma and how that magnificent mind had once again placed salvation within arms reach...
"Gohan? Gohan! Are you in here? Where has that man got to?"
She rolled her eyes. If he wasn't here... then there was only one other place Gohan would be. And she had a feeling she would find her son there too. Gohan and Trunks where making use of an artificial gravity room underneath the main lawn of the Capsule Corporation building as she had suspected. The two Saiyan hybrids fought across the empty space, Trunks with more difficulty than the larger Gohan despite the loss of the latter's left arm, who seemed to glide as opposed to the clumsy steps of his sparring partner.
"Hey! Dinner is ready, you two!"
Bulma's voice sounded through the rooms intercom and all activity inside stopped, which Trunks tried to take advantage of, but his mentor saw his clumsy movements a mile off. Gohan side-stepped Trunks' attempted lunging attack, sticking out his foot to trip the latter up, and looked up towards the room where Bulma stood as his student tumbled to the floor in a heap. Bulma turned down the gravity to normal levels and Trunks, who was in the process of returning to his feet, fell forward onto his knees as the weight was quite literally lifted from his shoulders.
"Good work today." Gohan said, helping Trunks up. "Rest up and we'll hit the training again before bed."
With that the two joined Bulma above ground for dinner. Gohan wolfed down a bowl of rice and curried pork with a level of speed and gluttony only a Saiyan could accomplish, and Trunks mimicked his mentor, with Bulma looking on with a mixture of surprise and disgust. One would think she was used to this sort of behaviour. She had known Goku, whose eating habits put even Gohan to shame, since he was a small boy. As the feast quickly vanished and the duo declared themselves stuffed she decided it best to tell them why she had prepared such a huge spread for them in the first place.
"You know I've been working on a number of contingency plans to deal with the androids, right?"
The excitement in her voice was apparent even as she brokered a topic such as the androids.
"I know you rarely sleep." Trunks supplied as he sipped a bottle of cola.
Gohan nodded his head, both in recognition of what Bulma said and what Trunks added to the conversation. He knew Bulma was working on a number of options, some of which where... well some where just outrageous, if he wanted to be truthful about it. Time travel? Yeah right, he thought. Shut-down remote? Chance would be a fine thing. Not that he'd tell her that. He knew better than to annoy her else he risk a frying pan upside his head. There was one option however Gohan was banking on. The option he was putting his faith in was the spaceship that Bulma had been building underneath their feet in secret. The gravity room they had just been in was part of that selfsame ship and Bulma had been working on it 'round the clock for years now, on her own mostly, to avoid any possibility of the androids somehow learning of its existence.
"The spaceship is done!"
She declared this with a big smile, leading Gohan to slap the tabletop with his right hand in reply!
"That's great Bulma! I can finally go to Namek and wish everyone back."
That was how Gohan came to be travelling through space at any rate. What he didn't expect however was a stowaway who thought he was stealthier than he was. Gohan opened the door leading into the storage department which Bulma had generously packed with all the supplies he could possibly need, and then some. He made a show of looking for something to eat until he reached the green tarp under which he suspected his student, Trunks, was hiding. He pulled it free in one motion and exposed a frightened youth with purplish hair dressed in a Capsule Corporation jacket cowering near the back of the container.
"Agh!"
"Really? You stow away? You could have said to me that you wanted to come with me, you know. I would have happily taken you with me, Trunks. But this... Oh, boy. Your mother is going to kill me!"
"You think she didn't plan for this!?" Trunks exclaimed as he shot to his feet. "Look at all this food! Even with your appetite there's more than enough food here to feed us both for weeks and then some!"
Now that he mentioned it... there was a lot of food here. Every inch of free wall and space had been fitted with shelves or containers filled to bursting with all manner of food one could imagine. There was a good chance that, prior to take-off, this ship had been the best stocked place food-wise on the entire planet! The elder Saiyan picked out a tin of ham and tossed it lazily up and down as he looked at his student. He noticed the emotion in that young face, the pang of regret and wish to make himself useful, and Gohan's heart melted. Finally he sighed, resigning himself to defeat in this particular instance. He saw too much of himself in the boy.
"Oh, fine. C'mon! I don't suppose you know how to cook do you?"
"Me? Cook?" Trunks answered, dumbfounded.
"Great. There goes that plan. I roast a mean wrack of ribs but nothing much more than that. You like pork right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good! Now to get the scolding of the century out of the way. Your mother makes mine look reasonable."
"You're going to call her!?"
"I can't very well not call her, can I? Trust me. This is the best solution for all involved."
"... I guess..."
Gohan approached the computer on the wall farthest from him and brought up the display, trying his best to look brave, despite anticipating what could only be the untapped fury of a mother whose son had just knowingly defied her to journey with his mentor. Bulma' face filled the television screen and a tongue lashing of epic proportions greeted Gohan! He barely got a word in edge-wise. Apparently, in no uncertain terms, he was an idiot and her son was a bigger one for following Gohan in the first place, and if anything happened to her little boy Gohan was going to get it good. He visibly gulped at that last bit.
"You hear that Trunks?" Gohan asked after Bulma hung up on him.
"...Yeah..."
"Stay out of trouble or you'll land me in it."
"What trouble am I going to run into on Namek? My mother says that its a peaceful place."
Gohan couldn't help but chuckle at that. His journey on Namek as a child had been anything but peaceful. Frieza and his goons had saw to that quite well. He just hoped nothing on that scale happened this time around or Bulma really would kill him. Oh, well. He could take comfort in the fact that, should the worst happen, he was light-years away from the woman who was threatening his life with Earth's hardest frying pan.
"We may as well make constructive use of our time Trunks. We're going to pick our training up where we left off. Come at me with everything! But be careful not to break anything."
"Hey, Gohan? What are we going to wish for?"
That was a good question. Gohan had brainstormed this particular conundrum at length with Bulma, and they'd come to a rough conclusion. If Gohan remembered things correctly the Namekian dragon could only restore one person at a time. With that in-mind his first wish would be the resurrection of Piccolo which, in turn, would restore the Dragon Balls of Earth as well. The second wish would be for the revival of Vegeta. The Saiyan Prince would be burning with a desire for vengeance and, regardless of his past or methods, his power would be sorely needed against the mechanical duo. Gohan was hopeful that, with the Super Saiyan Vegeta at his side alongside Trunks and Piccolo, the four of them would be able to pull through and defeat the androids. The only thing they couldn't figure out was the final wish, but that was a bridge they could cross at a later time. As he told this to Trunks the younger Saiyan grew steadily more excited, particularly with the mention of his father.
"What was he like?"
"He was a complicated man. Powerful and prideful without a doubt... and possessing of a fierce will and determination. I see a lot of him in you."
"You think?"
"I do. And I'll tell you all about it later. For now though we have training to do. Let's go!"
End.
At present I'm planning to have this particular story cover five chapters; that is if all goes according to plan, at any rate. That will cover the "Android Saga" if you will, though I won't rule out "specials" and the like. I also won't rule out additional chapters exploring what happens afterwards, though I'll say now that it won't be as disjointed nor as rushed as the work that preceded this one, hopefully. Looking back on it I realized the faults of that particular work and this is very much an attempt to better that particular story with new direction and ideas, not to mention a new writing-style I picked up during my time on various fanon wiki's . Thanks once again for reading; any advice, tips, or comments are greatly appreciated!