Android 18: Only Toriyama owns us – neither did Gero, nor does this miserable writer.
Chapter 1 – AWAKENING
Krillin (darling) just told Goku that we could have a child because I had initially been a human female before being turned into an Android through some 'alterations'. I was, incidentally, 18 years old when I was captured. I do not remember this, but this is what I gathered from Dr. Gero's info archive. 17 and I had read some files on us when our old 'creator' was busy performing experiments on himself (to become Android 20) and left us in charge of security, or rather, to test our proper functioning.
Speaking of 17, I haven't seen or heard or known anything about him ever since Cell … well, 'absorbed' him. 17 was my comrade-in-creation – we were modeled similarly, and awakened together. Our thought processes were also similar – quite advanced actually. Our pasts were erased from our brains – instead, chips were installed to simulate artificial Intelligence, surrogate reflexes to fire ki-blasts and enhance motor movements. Our physical conditionings were altered to a great extent too. Our skin was toughened by indestructible, yet flexible metallic infusions; parallel to our blood vessels ran equipments to enable constant attack on our enemies; and behind our pupils, in our eye sockets, were planted specialized cameras to gauge our opponent's power level. This, combined with our informative chips on the Z-Gang's fighting techniques and special abilities, made us virtually invincible.
But we had one obvious nemesis – the remote control in the hands of Dr. Gero – one false move, and he threatened to push the big red button to terminate our existence. Sure, we did not realize what big difference death would make for us, but wasting the opportunity to know life, get acquainted with the world outside did not sound appealing either. We had our golden – no platinum opportunity when Dr. Gero activated us to go out and fight whoever was chasing him.
As usual, he threatened to disable us, but we spotted that one of his hands was maimed (by Vegeta, I learnt later), and he was holding the remote with the other hand. So there was no way he could push the button. As it was, he was already battered pretty badly. We played about a bit, activated Android 16, and as the Z-Warriors entered the lab, we killed Gero after destroying his remote. Now we were FREE.
Free, but where? In a world of enemies, where even before we set a foot on, were we unwelcome? The aggressive fighter, whom our chips identified as Vegeta and an unidentified, yet similar to Vegeta youth were hell bent on killing us. We recognized the significant power levels of the Namek Piccolo, and Tien, along with his three eyes, caught our notice too. The followed our tracks and underestimated our powers. Too bad. For them that is. We beat them up – we had to, as they chose to hate us, and make enemies of us. Moreover, destruction WAS what we were programmed for, right? After beating them up to a pulp we were about to accompany 16 for fulfilling his mission. It then that I, for the first time, noticed the short, bald man, who knew how weak he was compared to us, and yet dared to stand up to us, even without the slightest chance of survival.
I don't know what snapped inside me, I felt as if things were leaking into my brain, as if through a key hole whose key was misplaced. I teasingly kissed the top of his waxen, shiny head (poor, poor Krillin)!
A/N: I always felt that had the Androids not been attacked from the beginning, they might not have turned hostile. Their aversion to the mindless monstrosity of Cell substantiates this.