Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball / Dragonball Z / Dragonball GT.

Happy reading!

"Okay, we're online."

"Cool! Gee, I wish I'm as good as you, Trunks. I can sneak into school network to modify my past grades!"

It was four in the morning. Everybody in the enormous compound except Trunks and Goten was still in slumber, and they had woken up for a reason: hacking into Capsule Corp's security network. The halflings had been busy with Trunks's laptop for the past hour, trying to bypass countless encrypted units of zeros and ones that almost made no sense even to the thirteen-year-old prodigy. To tell the truth, their success was only because of a streak of good luck, but of course the overly proud Trunks would never admit it.

"You can't change history, Goten," said Trunks, haughtiness brimming in his voice, "You can only create one. Now let's see… where did mom store the time machine capsule?"

The laptop screen was now displaying a three-dimensional floor plan of Capsule Corp. Trunks struggled to remember the exact capsule room as he navigated his way around the blue and red blocks. There were just too many rooms for him to remember, and the convoluted hallways were making things even worse. He for the life of him could never understand how people would find their way out from the depths of the lab in case of earthquake or fire.

Suddenly, something clicked inside Goten's head. "Trunks, display west wing, R&D module, B3," the younger boy instructed. Trunks wondered where it came from, but complied nonetheless. "Here. Unlock the door to this room," he said again, pointing to a small, L-shaped room.

"Really? Howdcha know?"

"We've been there before, remember? When we tried to steal the capsule to visit the future?" Goten tried to jog his friend's memory, and was quick to follow with a seemingly very important remark, "Oh, this time, make sure you disengage the area lock as well. I don't wanna be chased around by the bots again for trespassing! They're scary!"

"Uh, I guess you're right, haha…" replied Trunks with a nervous chuckle. He winced as he walked down the unpleasant memory lane.

When they were ten and nine, they had snooped around the R&D module to get their hands on the time machine. Bulma had told them stories about time travel, much to the children's excitement. Those stories proved enough to fuel their interest about the future—one of them, actually; Goten had seen the future once when the other Trunks took him and cure him of his heart disease, but Trunks who hadn't insisted that they pay a little visit—so they agreed to snatch the time machine in the middle of the night. What they didn't know was that an area lock had been set up for the entire module; they unknowingly trespassed the area, and in an instant alarms blared, security robots sprang to life, and the next thing they knew they were being chased around by a very large, intimidating, almost military-scale robot flinging tear gas bombs and flashbangs to all directions. The commotion was loud enough to wake Bulma up; she immediately disengaged the security system and gave the tear-soaked, bleary-eyed boys a scolding of their lives and five wallops of the extremely hard and sturdy Frying Pan of Apocalypse she obtained from Kibito Kai as her new year present around five years back.

Not wanting to relive that stupid moment, Trunks did some more hacking into the system and tinkered with some apparently important bytes. His efforts were rewarded with some kind of a dialog box with an option to toggle the security system on or off. He smiled as with a few clicks of the mouse he turned them off.

"Alright, just in case, I've shut down the security system as well. No alarms, no bots, no worries! It's gonna be a walk in the park."

Trusting his friend, Goten was brimming with excitement. There hadn't been many instances in which he got to travel through time; last time he did that, he went to the future, but now they got to visit the past and see the younger selves of their friends and relatives, as well as Frieza. He managed to have Trunks pack up some clothes for their journey since there was a good chance that they would be staying there for quite a while—after all, they would need to go to Namek to see Frieza. With everything ready, they proceeded to sneak into the west wing.

Normally, they would need a level two card keys to access the R&D module, but with the security system shut down the doors were more than willing to grant them passage. They minded their step, though; it didn't hurt to exercise extra caution when walking between two rows of imposing security robots, even though they had been pacified. One wrong move on their part might trigger an unexpected turn of events, and escaping angry mechanical golems—again—was on the bottom of Trunks and Goten's to-do list right now.

"We're on basement three. What's the room number again?" asked Trunks. Goten responded by flashing him a hand gesture signifying the number seven. "B3-07… there you are."

Finally finding their way to the room their goal was in, the young Saiyans opened the metal door. It was a storeroom of some sort where old but not completely useless parts from the research and development department were deposited. And as one might have expected, being equivalent with an archive room, countless items were stored in that small space; it took Trunks and Goten another hour of rummaging through the paraphernalia of articles before finally finding the capsule case which had been hiding inside a box in the deepest part of the store.

With the object of their interest in their possession, the boys returned everything back to where it had been before with Other-Worldly speed and efficiency, shut the store door, and quickly scurried through the twisting and turning hallways of the R&D module before finally making their way out to the grassy backyard.

The case contained a dozen capsules and there was no way to tell which one held the time machine, so they had to try them one by one. Some of them were filled with junk; there were all kinds of old utilities and appliances such as washing machine, fridge, hovercar, and even an old, dilapidated small capsule house. It was as though they were used to contain items Bulma didn't need or want anymore but too huge to move around easily. Good news finally smiled at them, however, when they opened the ninth capsule which contained their means of transport.

Trunks pressed a button on one of the legs and delighted when the canopy opened up; it was still working. He hovered into the cockpit and naturally flicked a red switch, partly because it was the only one with a striking colour. A low humming sound was produced as a result; it seemed the switch supplied power to the mains and brought the machine to life. Sure enough, moments later various LEDs lit up on the display panel as the capsule-shaped vehicle was initialised. Trunks settled on the pilot seat and beckoned at Goten. The younger boy followed suit, taking his place on the navigator seat.

With the canopy lowered, it turned into a display panel on which Trunks saw a dialog box opening. "Alright, so… now it prompts for a destination date. Heh, piece of cake," he said. Operating the machine was easier than a turning over a baby's palm. "Goten, you have the date, right?"

"Yeah! 14 November, Age 762. Hee-hee. Gohan fell right through it!" replied a very cheerful Goten. He had somehow tricked his brother to provide him the details of their trip to Namek down to the date and time. How he did that, no one in the world or the Other would ever figure out; one didn't simply guess what was brewing in Goten's mind.

"Man, I dunno what that means. Either you got lucky or Gohan was being stupid," the cerulean-eyed boy grinned as he took pleasure in making fun of his friend, which gained him a bop on the head with Goten's bookbag. Laughing sadistically, he inputted the destination date with the keypad. "There. We're one button press away from blasting off."

"Wait, wait. There's a warning," Goten prevented his friend from doing anything else. For all he knew, disregarding warnings may bring about unpleasant consequences. "Hmm… 'No records detected. Destination timeline will be selected at random. Press the open button to input another date, or the ignition button to proceed anyway.' Are you sure about this, Trunks?"

"Well, it's not like we have any other choice. Here goes nothing!" said Trunks nonchalantly, pressing a button conveniently labelled 'Ignition'.

In a flash, the two time travellers zapped out from their timeline and ceased to be. If one were to look from inside the time machine, he would see everything progressing in reverse very slowly and gradually becoming faster and faster, until there was nothing else but light which gets redder and redder as time passes. Trunks was a little amused with the redshifting light, but Goten kept to himself and stayed silent; not only because he had seen something like this before, but also because of Trunks's being unheeding of risks.

"You're always like that, arentcha? You never think much before making your move," Goten mumbled loud enough for his friend to hear.

"Let me tell you something, Goten. Life is too short to make lengthy decisions," Trunks retorted. He exaggerated his gestures to appear more philosophical and dramatic.

Hearing the older halfling, Goten just sighed and said quite gloomily, "I don't wanna spoil the fun, but suddenly I have a bad feeling about this," his voice assumed a slightly gloomy tone, "Is it really okay, Trunks? I mean, we're not supposed to interfere with their timeline."

"Ah, you're just overreacting."

"I don't think so."

"Hey… Goten, you okay?" asked Trunks, who was now concerned about his downcast friend. Goten very rarely acted like this, so he figured out he had to cheer him up somehow. "Look, pal! We get to see Gohan, my dad, and your dad fighting Frieza! We'll just sneak into my mom's ship, pretend to be helpless kids, and watch, that's all."

"I hope you're right, Trunks… let's try not to mess up anything, okay?"

Trunks gave him the thumbs up, and he cracked a little smile after being assured. Now that they were in the trip already and there was nothing they could do to stop it, Goten decided to make himself as comfortable as possible. He rummaged through his relatively large bookbag—he had it with him because he was having a stayover at Capsule Corp, took out a comic book, and started to read while leaning on the backrest. Seeing Trunks had been watching the emptiness outside as though it had been the most interesting thing in the world, he passed him his game console to play with.

It seemed they had spent a considerably long time in the time machine, because the next thing Goten realised was that his comic book was covering his face; he must have fallen asleep while reading. Trunks, too, slumped in his seat and was currently in his own la-la land; the game console was still on with his character also sleeping for being left idle for some time, so Goten decided to continue what Trunks had abandoned. Around ten minutes into the game, Goten saw Trunks stir in his sleep and slowly regain wakefulness.

"Morning, Trunks," Goten greeted Trunks who responded with a nice, big wake-up stretch.

"Mmmhh… not there yet?"

"Nuh-uh. It's a long trip—WAH!"

Suddenly, the machine experienced some kind of turbulence; everything was shaking very violently. The tremor was so intense it was enough to completely snap Trunks back to his fully awake state.

"Wow! Wh-what's happening?" shocked, Goten tried to find something to hold on to. It was no use, of course, since the entire machine was quaking.

"Hang tight, Goten!"

After a while, as quickly as it had begun the tremor stopped, and Trunks and Goten let out a sigh of relief. Their respite didn't last long, though; they abruptly came into stop, reality suddenly existed in the empty space outside, and there was a sharp downward yank followed by the machine crashing onto the ground. They had arrived, but the landing wasn't as comfortable as Goten had thought it would be.

"Yeowch… we crash-landed…" Goten muttered while trying to get up and open the canopy. However, before he could do that, large green texts on the display caught his attention. He squinted to see through his blurry vision, and appeared surprised when the texts registered in his mind. "WAH! Look at this, Trunks!"

Unsure of what just happened, Trunks got back to his seating position to see what Goten was so agitated about. When he did, his mind struggled to make sense of it. "Hey, wait a sec… 18 December, Age 762? I'm sure I inputted the correct date."

"Yeah! But it seems whatever it was earlier causes us to land one month later!"

"Oh great… there goes our chance of getting to Namek, AND getting back to our timeline."

The younger boy was astounded by his friend's words. "H-huh? Whaddya mean?"

"Wake up, dummy. Assess the damage around you."

Goten did as he was told to. He found out that his blurry vision had been caused by smoke, and when he saw where the smoke came from he got visibly dumbstruck. The control panel was fried and some parts were cracked open, revealing the circuit board underneath it. He could see cables jutting out from everywhere, complete with electric sparks flying from the open ends. It didn't take a genius to tell that something—if not everything—had gone awfully awry, and being a skittish boy he was, Goten's first reaction was none other than freaking out.

"Trunks! Does it mean we're trapped here forever? I still wanna go home! Wawawawaaaah!"

"Goten, be quiet, you're driving me nuts!" the older Saiyan hybrid snapped in vexation seeing his friend undergoing a fit of frenzy. Somehow, the former always had the power to silence the latter in this kind of situation. "Sheesh… you could be a baby sometimes. Now listen. The time machine didn't jump far in space, so we must have landed in Capsule Corp," he explained, although he wasn't sure whether or not it would permeate that thick skull typical of non-Gohan Son boys, "There should be spare parts around. We'll just have to search for them, and I hope I can repair it."

Goten looked sceptical, especially after hearing Trunks's last words; the genius didn't seem convinced of himself either. "Yeah, you hope. Way to go."

"Shut it, you! Now help me."

With that, Trunks jumped out of the time machine, capsulised it, then took a look around. They had shipwrecked in a small room with a single bed and a wardrobe with two doors: one connected the room to the toilet and the other to a much larger round room with a huge central pillar. The place looked nothing like the Capsule Corp they had grown up to see, so they proceeded to explore it a little bit more, hoping to figure out where exactly they had made their landing.

There was a metal ladder leading downstairs; since Trunks was checking around the round room, Goten figured he could cover more ground by having a look at the lower level. As he descended the ladder, he shouted, "Your house seventeen years ago sure is dull, huh Trunks?"

"No… it's not my house," he replied, but the younger boy didn't bother.

The basement turned out to be some kind of a pantry with an enormous fridge, a microwave oven, and a small stove. Being the complete doppelganger of Goku, Goten got naturally interested with everything that was related to food, so he opened the fridge door. To his utter astonishment, inside there was a huge amount of food—fish, meat, eggs, juice, and even beer—which could well satisfy a full-blooded Saiyan for ten straight days, a heavenly sight that made his eyes dilate. He then subconsciously reached to an enormous roast beef sandwich, held it before his face, and readied himself to devour it.

"Goten! Hey, c'mere, hurry!"

If it hadn't been Trunks, he would probably have stormed out of the pantry and blast whoever it was who dared to disturb his blissful time to kingdom come. Since it was Trunks, he hovered up the ladder to the central room and would just whine and make silly faces at him; however, upon seeing the lilac-haired preteen waving at him enthusiastically, he suppressed the urge to do so and approached him.

"Look at this!" cried Trunks, pointing to a control panel of some sort. Suspending above it was a rather large monitor showing technical details in small green fonts. "This must be a spaceship!"

"Wowee! You're right, Trunks! This is cool!" exclaimed Goten in enthusiasm. He then proceeded to take a look around and—although he had no idea how to tell them apart—see if there were any spare parts in the ship that could be used to repair their time machine.

While wondering around, he somehow had his memory jogged. If this was a Capsule Corp spaceship, then the enormous device surrounding the central pillar had to be a gravity machine. There was a single bedroom, so someone was meant to take this machine all by himself, but the amount of food in the fridge was an overkill. That day was around one month since Gohan's departure to Namek, which meant…

"Hey, we're lucky! It's pre-programmed to travel straight to Namek!" the genius boy hollered in excitement as though he had just found a sunken galleon full of treasure, "Let's go!"

"Let's… what?" said Goten with a confused tone. In that split second, the pieces of memory he had been thinking about just moments ago arranged themselves nicely in his mind as he figured out whom this spaceship belonged to, and what purpose it should serve. "TRUNKS! NO, WAIT!" he rushed toward his friend, desperately trying to stop him from doing anything foolish.

It was too late. Before Goten could even reach Trunks, the latter had punched the ignition button on the control panel. Moments later, the ship rumbled and shook violently, a sharp upward jerk followed, and the scenery outside the hull window quickly shifted from the familiar trees and buildings of the earth to the vast blackness of space as blast off they did out of the earth's atmosphere.

Not more than a minute ago…

A lavender-haired scientist was tending to his beloved cat, Scratch, while watching his exotic mix of pets roam about an indoor grassy turf fitted with an enormous dome-shaped skylight. His period of bliss was interrupted, however, when suddenly he heard a rumbling sound from the compound lawn.

"Hmm? I wonder what that rumbling sound is," looking up toward the sky, he mused as he put his coffee cup on the table just next to him.

"Oh! Perhaps it's an earthquake!" said Mrs. Brief, who was eating her home-made cakes and cookies with her husband, with her usual singsong voice, "But why is the ground not shaking?"

Realisation soon struck Dr. Brief and in horror he ran toward the outer lawn of Capsule Corp. "No, dear, it's not… it's the spaceship!"

The scientist was right. When they arrived to the lawn on which their spaceship had been parked, a gust of hot wind and dust greeted them, momentarily blinding them. When the dust cleared, there were absolutely no traces left of the technological marvel Dr. Brief had built for a certain rescue mission other than a twenty-metre crater on the ground.

Behind the dumbfounded couple stood a clueless Goku, who was rubbing the back of his head and struggling to make sense of the entire situation. "Uhh… can somebody explain to me what's going on? I don't get it. I'm here, so who's inside that thing?"