Ch 1: Timeline Travel and Piccolo's Encounter
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN DRAGON BALL OR DRAGON BALL Z NOR DO I MAKE A PROFIT FROM THIS STORY.
Chemistry-Deaf: This idea came to me while I was working on Chapter 3 for Demonic Potara Earrings.
I am the greatest creation by Dr. Gero. I will become the perfect being. To do my master's wish, I have to find Android 17 and 18. With my small insect body, I scurried around the countryside, looking for my prey. When I found them, I was sorely disappointed. The Androids were destroyed, from what I could detect, from the inside. Upset that I couldn't achieve my dream, I looked for answers. I found him by accident.
A tall boy with lavender hair was telling a woman with blue hair about how successful the control button thing destroyed the Androids. From her reaction, he probably told her so many times. He wanted to go back to another timeline to tell whoever how successful it was. Hope enlightened inside me when I heard of the possibility of Androids. Sneakily, I followed the excited boy to a cool device, the time machine. He got in and was programming something. He was unsuspecting of my presence as I crawled on the machine.
I made a noise to grab his attention. He turned at the noise and messed up the desired time. He got out and caught sight of me crawling around. I readied a mouth blast to take his head when he appeared. He never knew what hit him. I crawled back to the machine. I have no idea if the time was right or not, but it seemed appropriate. I pressed the start button and held on tight.
It was a bizarre sight to see. I really have no idea where I am or what time. I have no idea how to open the door, but I didn't care. There's no need for me to return to my correct timeline. I blasted the glass hood dome above me and crawled out. If I were going to get those Androids, I need to grow in strength and height. That meant, I need substance. Lucky for me, I was in a forest. Plenty of plants and animals for me to eat.
I didn't expect the difficulty of hunting. My reserves were enough to keep me alive for months, but to grow and live longer, I need to eat. I have no idea how long it took me to reach adult phase. Being a bug-like thing, I had to shed my outer skin whenever it gotten hard to move or growing larger. My recollection of that was fifteen times before I became fully grown.
I was ready for the next phase: energy gathering. I searched out for a closest area populated by humans. Quietly, I arrived to a small quiet town. The night had fallen, and I can collect my prey with ease. By morning, everyone in the town became my power. I left the scene to hunt down more. The next town was bigger and busier. It wasn't long when everyone was busy trying to escape from me. I relished the chase.
The sun was starting to come down when my acute hearing caught a machine noise. I was draining a male in his thirties when I looked over to the noise. The machine noise stopped and changed to sounds of footsteps and soft whir and hums of smaller machines. I was done with the human and was about to go over to check it out when I heard a gun. Bullets bounced off me harmlessly as I knocked my attacker to unconsciousness. That attracted whoever that arrived.
I jumped on top of a roof and watched them arrive. I slipped down the street behind them and crept behind a guy with something on his shoulder. The guy that was talking turned around and said, "I'm going to try to get as close-". He stopped when he saw me right behind the guy in front of me. His eyes widened in shock as I crushed the man. The machine smashed on the pavement. He screamed as I quickly knocked them unconscious.
A girl watched me as I finished absorbing them. Her whimpering caught my attention, and I was quick in knocking her out. I sensed someone arriving and turned. A green skinned being with purple gi, white cape and turban landed in front of me. He turned as he said, "So, you've finally shown yourself, ... monster." When he saw me, he looked shocked. I wasn't sure what he was shocked about. Don't I look like a monster he called me? His eyes moved to my hand where the girl limped from my hand. "I don't know if you understand me, but release her. She does deserve to live."
Why do they needed to live? What purpose did they serve? I pushed my curiosity away and replied, "Then, in her place, I will absorb you, Piccolo Daimao." I let her fall to the pavement.
Another shock covered his features before he asked, "H-how did you know my name?! What are you?!"
"Does it matter, Piccolo?" I asked him as I felt a smirk on my face. "I'm going to enjoy consuming you." Piccolo was going to say something, but I wasn't in the mood to continue this discussion. Instead I launched a surprise punch on him. It amused me seeing Piccolo looking stunned as he stumbled back a few feet. Those two towns of energy may give me a chance defeating him. In my excitement, I underestimated his speed and power when his punch send me flying backwards. I crashed into the wall of the house behind me.
I scrambled around for a hiding place. As soon as I hid myself, Piccolo burst down the door and stormed in. "Come on out! Before I decided to blast this house down!" I smirked as I slowly lift a finger at him. The glow of ki from my finger caught his attention and shout out in surprise as multiple ki beams flew toward him. I knew it wouldn't do much damage. After the smoke cleared, I was confirmed right. Piccolo's shoulder weights broke and the top part of his clothes were burned, but he looked fine. Piccolo glared at me.
I gave him a mocking smile as I flew up through the roof. I heard him yell something at me as I slipped into another house. It won't be long for him to find me, so I started to charge an attack he would know. This time, Piccolo broke through the same window I did. His angry expression was replaced by recognition by my stance. With the two fingers on my forehead, I smirked at him. I quickly pointed them at him and said, "Special Beam Cannon!"
Piccolo barely moved out of the way of the deathly spiral. As soon as the blast went passed him, I moved closer and kicked him outside. He stopped himself in the air and deflected my punch. He followed up with a kick. I landed on the roof and managed to dodge his next attack. I couldn't escape his watchful eyes as he started to land powerful punches and kicks. Thinking quickly, I used eye beam to distract him and slipped out of his field of vision. Using my chance, I knocked him to the ground. I followed it up with a knee on his open back and held him there. My tail was ready for action.
I aimed to near center of Piccolo's back and neck. The point dug deep; I could feel his energy and substance going through my tail and into me. When I said I would enjoy consuming him, I was right. The power of the Namekian was filling me up. It felt like a rich strong healthy meal compared all those weak humans. I did hear Piccolo screaming from the pain and tried to throw me off with a burst of ki. I felt it and would have been thrown off if I weren't draining his energy.
I foolishly did not pay attention to my surroundings as I draining his life away. He tried a few twist to throw me off, each was weaker than the last until he stopped moving. The moment that happened, a flash of light alerted me. In front of me was a young teen with a sword. He swung it at me. I was surprised by his sudden appearance that his blade cut my chest. I leaped back as the pain came. My tail came out of the dying body. A whir alerted my ears, and I saw a disc of energy coming at my side. I ducked. My tail got nicked when my motion caused my tail to move too close to the disc.
I recognized the disc was from Krillin who was at the scene. My blood was seeping out of the two wounds as I watched them. I could easily kill Krillin, but the lavender haired boy seemed strong. I decided that I had enough at the moment and placed my hands near my head. Krillin eyes nearly popped out when he recognized it. "Solar Flare!" As they stood blinded, I remembered the girl and grabbed her as I ran off.
I kept my power level low and kept a watch to their position. Once they were gone with Piccolo, I absorbed the girl. Leaving her clothes there, I searched for another town to be my victim.
It was awful. Seeing Piccolo in that state was chilling. I glanced at Trunks who looked determined to have that monster pay. The shrivel form of Piccolo was carried by Trunks. Piccolo may not last very long, and I was worried about Gohan. We arrived to the Turtle House to bring the bad news. If this happened around the time when everyone didn't trust Piccolo, the range of reaction would be much greater. I did expect Gohan to be the most devastated by the news while the rest of us look very solemn about losing him. I was surprised that Chi-Chi looked upset about this as well. I knew how much she hated him. Did she sort of grew on him while he stayed with the family?
Trunks laid Piccolo down gently on the floor. Everyone gathered around him as Piccolo struggled to breathe. Gohan dropped by his side in shock and was the first one to touch him. Piccolo forced his closed eyes to open and glanced at him. He tried to say something, but his voice wasn't working properly. He settled on saying "Gohan." Gohan burst into tears and cried on his formerly strong shoulder. Weakly, he brought up his hand to Gohan's head. We stayed with him till Piccolo breathed out his last breath. When Gohan realized what happened, he gave out the loudest yell I ever heard from him. It was comparable to the first time Piccolo died.
What happened next shocked everyone including me. I never seen Goku turn Super Saiyan for the first time because I was the cause of it. Here Gohan was, his ki was skyrocketing. I have no idea what sort of thoughts that could have ran through his mind as his black hair flickered gold a few times before standing on ends in pure blond. Chi-Chi gasped at the transformation of her sweet kind son to a raging golden boy. Gohan vowed revenge against the monster for what he done and was about to rush out. Trunks immediately went super saiyan to stop him and had to restrain him since he won't listen to reason.
It didn't take long for Gohan to run out of steam and lost his Super Saiyan. He ended up crying himself to sleep. Chi-Chi took him and brought him to a spare room. Meanwhile, we felt Vegeta's ki coming very fast. He must have sensed Gohan's momentary burst of Super Saiyan. Behind him was Tien. As they arrived, they found Piccolo dead. Outside of Trunks and I seeing the monster and what he did, we have nothing to go on. The monster's goal, name, ability, and history was unknown to us.
One thing I was annoyed of was Vegeta's cocky attitude. He was very sure of himself that he could defeat that monster in a heartbeat, but he would train to surpass the Super Saiyan. After confirming it to himself more than to us, he left for training. As the silence stretched, I started to think about 18. She's out there somewhere with 16 and 17. Probably doing their own version of trashing the place. Yamcha had turned on the television to hear the news about that strange monster.
Unexpectedly, he was moving to different towns each farther from the last. What was strange about the whole thing was the number. The first one we heard on the news mentioned him nearly wiping out the town. As we got to the seventh town or so, the number had decreased to 10 or even 5. We had no idea what he's doing or thinking. Somehow, the reporters got lucky that some people had cameras with them and took a picture of the monster. The news reporter had chosen the best image received and spread word of his appearance.
Gohan had woken and looked dead to the world. It was a strange feeling seeing the kind cheerful boy turned into a very quiet calculating child. He had came down during the 5th town disaster and looked solemnly at the screen. I was the closet to the stairs, so I noticed him coming. The moment that monster's image came on, I heard Gohan said, "You will pay, monster," to himself. I hoped he would feel better when Goku wakes up. This wasn't Gohan.
The news changed as the monster stopped attacking. When he will attack again was unknown to all of us. Everything seemed to turn upside-down for the worst. Speaking of worst, the Androids were on the news. They had stolen a company car and driving around, disobeying the laws of our society. Little did I know that the next few days was nerve wracking with waiting. It was briefly broken by Goku waking up earlier than expected.
He heard our story about the death of Piccolo, the new threat, and Gohan's transformation to Super Saiyan. He tried to comfort Gohan but was rejected. Chi-Chi had been trying for a day and a half, and she hoped seeing her husband would lightened Gohan. Gohan gave a small weary smile to him, and his behavior didn't change. Instead, he looked all the more determined. Goku had came up with a plan and told us about it. Using the HTC, Vegeta, Trunks, Gohan, and Goku would use it to get stronger faster.
To nobody surprise, we agreed to it. Chi-Chi tried to complain, but Gohan stopped her. She still couldn't believe the boy was her Gohan, and he doesn't need her to protect him. As soon Goku left via IT with Gohan and Trunks, everyone let out a breath. Who knew that tension in the air was higher with Gohan around? The news notified us about the Androids and the hunt for the monster. The monster hadn't attacked any towns lately. Little did we know just how close he really was to the Turtle House.
I feel great, wonderful, exhilarating, and sick. Yes, the last part was true. The massive power boost from Piccolo made each human energy added felt tiny and insignificant. This wasn't what caused me to feel sick. Absorbing them in small numbers didn't affect me at all. It's when I tried to absorb the whole town in an hour or so. I would felt great when I got them all that I would rush to the next town. Along the way, a twisted feeling would slowly appear around where my stomach was.
I ignored it and started my attack on the next town. I barely got all of them when I felt like throwing up. I had to leave in a hurry just in case those fighters decided to show up. I had no idea what was wrong with me. By the time I got to a safe hiding place, I feel severely ill with cold sweat. I curled up to ease the pain and waited for it to pass. I have no idea why I continue to absorb those people. I had great power boost, but I seemed to fear it wasn't enough. After the seventh town or so, I couldn't handle the side effect and stopped.
With nothing better to do, I made way to where they were residing. I sensed three with very high power levels, a fourth not as strong, and several puny power levels that I couldn't count how many. I recognized one of them to be Krillin who attacked me some days before. The boy with lavender hair wasn't there, but it didn't concern me. I hoped absorbing them would be better than those weaklings.
A/N: Cell came to the timeline between the first arrival of Trunks and the second. Therefore, the timelines are very similar to the cannon version.