A few hours later, at the shopping mall, 18 and Krillin are walking around the upstairs level. 18 is looking around to see which store she wants to go in next, while Krillin holds the bags of clothes.
"Well, the pants in that store were a bargain." 18 said to Krillin.
"Yeah…only 4000 zeni. Clothes just get cheaper and cheaper these days." Krillin said sarcastically.
"Hey, 18. How's about we grab something to eat?" he asked. 18 stopped walking and looked back at him.
"Okay. Where should we go?" 18 asked.
"There's a nice place." Krillin pointed over to a restaurant.
"Okay." 18 said. They started to walk over there when Krillin sneaks a look at 18's behind. She turns around and notices that he was staring at it.
"Were you…just staring at my ass?" She asked.
"What? No, I would never stare and your- Well, not that it's not a nice ass. It's very nice, actually, its uh-" Krillin said awkwardly before noticing 18 staring at him like he's crazy.
"Relax. It's alright. I was just messing with you." 18 smiling at him. Krillin blushes and smiles back.
On the other side of the mall, near the entrance, Sakuna steps in and begins to look around the place.
"Plenty of female creatures here. I'll find a good one soon enough." He said to himself.
Back at the restaurant, 18 and Krillin are sitting in a booth table across from each other. Their food hadn't come yet, so they just sat there in awkward silence. 18 decided to speak.
"So, what's your story, Krillin?" she asked. Krillin looked at her feeling kind of embarrassed.
"Well, when I was a kid, I had trained at the Orin Temple. It's a place where monks practice martial arts, so that explains my shaved head." Krillin explained.
"Do you ever think about growing it out?" 18 asked.
"Uh, well, no. Ever since I was four, I've been keeping my head shaved." Krillin said.
"I think you'd look nice with hair." 18 teased.
"Really?" Krillin asked.
"Yeah. It'd be cute." 18 answered. Krillin blushed and began fiddling his fingers.
The waitress then came back with their plates, and set them down.
"Thank you" Krillin said to the waitress.
"You're welcome. Enjoy." The waitress said, and walked away.
Krillin and 18 turned their attention back to each other.
"Well, anyway, I was picked on a lot by the other kids at the temple, so I moved to Master Roshi's house to train, and that's how I met Goku." Krillin said.
Hearing the name Goku made 18 feel funny. She was originally supposed to kill him, and now, here she is having lunch with one of his friends. It was weird how things turned out for her.
"So, what about you, 18? What was your life like when you were first….created?" Krillin asked.
18 shot a look at Krillin and paused.
"I wasn't created at first….I was born." she said.
"You mean you used to be a complete human?" Krillin asked. 18 nodded her head.
"Yes." she answered. "I don't remember a lot. Just bits and pieces, really. The most I can remember is when I ran away with my brother." she continued.
FLASHBACK
Five Years Ago
Somewhere in the mountains surrounding North City, near Dr. Gero's lab, 2 teenagers, a beautiful girl with blonde hair and a young man with black hair run across the canyon as if they had just stolen something.
"We had run away from home that year, 17 and I. Back then we were just ordinary." 18 narrated.
They stop running due to exhaustion, and rest. Panting, the sister decides to speak.
"Brother, we've been running for 2 weeks. I'm tired." she said.
"Listen, if we don't run, we'll have to go back home. You don't wanna do that, do you?" the brother said to his sister.
She shook her head.
"Good." The brother said. "Look, only a few more days, and we'll be in the next town. I promise you we can rest then. Okay?"
"Yeah." the sister answered. As the two continue walking, they spot about 5 guys, possibly a gang walking up to them.
"Let's go the other way", the brother suggested. He and his sister turned to leave, but then they heard one of the guys speak.
"Hey, where are you guys going?" asked the leader of the pack. He was big and muscular with a green t-shirt.
"Excuse me, but we're in a hurry. We've gotta get to the next town." the brother said to the gang. The leader looked over and noticed the sister.
"Whoa. Hey, baby. How would you like to roll with us for a while?" The leader asked her. The sister looked with a grimace at the leader.
"Hey, listen, pal. That's my sister you're talking to." the brother said, stepping in front of his sister.
"Your sister?" the leader asked.
"Yeah, and I'd like to save her the trouble of rejecting you by saying 'no' myself" the brother answered.
"Oh, is that right?" the gang leader asked before punching the brother in the face. He falls to the ground hard, shocking his sister.
"Brother!" she cried out. The gang then tried to move in on her.
"Come on, sweetheart. Let's go for a ride." The leader said to her. She tried to run, but he grabbed her by the arm.
"Let go of me!" She screamed, punching at the leader's huge arm in an attempt to make him let go.
"Leave her alone!" the brother yelled, but he was then kicked in the ribs by one of the other gang members.
"Now, let's see how good you feel, baby", the leader smugly said before reaching down and grabbing the sister's breast. She had had it. She reached up and scratched the guy across the face. He screamed and clutched at his face as he threw her to the ground.
"You little bitch." he said before walking over and grabbing her by the hair. The sister slightly yelped as he pulled her hair back.
"Stop it!" the brother yelled. He moved to get ready to do something, when suddenly, he was grabbed and restrained by the other gang members. The leader took out a knife and held it to the sister's throat.
"Ah, ah, ah" he said smugly. "Don't move."
"Drop the knife.", came a voice out of nowhere. Everyone looked up to see an elderly old man standing on a nearby rock, holding a gun pointed directly at the gang leader's head.
"Get out of here, old man! This is none of your business!" The leader shouted at the man with the gun.
The old man cocks the gun, and keeps it pointed at the gang leaders head.
"I said, 'drop the knife'", he repeated. The leader finally gave in and let go of the sister's hair. He nodded at his friends, and they let go of the brother. The leader then put his knife away.
"Alright, pops. We was just foolin'." he said.
"Just leave", the old man said with firmness in his voice.
"Okay, okay. We're gone." the leader said. "Let's go.". And at that, the gang members left and walked away the opposite direction from which they came.
The sister and brother looked over at the man who had the gun.
"Wow. Thanks, mister." the brother said. He walked over to his sister and helped her up.
"Yeah, thank you." she said to the old man.
"Tell me, what are you two young ones doing out here in the first place?" the strange man asked.
"Well, we were just….um…going to visit our grandmother, and we got lost." the brother nervously answered. The old man's eyes gazed upon the two. Did he know the brother was lying, or was he just studying them?
"Where were you headed?" he asked them.
"North City. Our grandmother lives there." the sister answered. She got nervous when she noticed that the man was still looking at them with some kind of avarice in his eyes. As if he had just found buried treasure.
"Well, it's too hot to be traveling on foot in this type of place. At this rate, you'll be in North City next week. Come with me, I'll take you to my home, you can rest there, and tomorrow, I'll take you to the city myself." the old man said.
The sister felt a little uneasy about this idea, while the brother seemed a little eager to embrace this stranger's hospitality.
"Yeah, sure. That'd be great." the brother said, smiling. "Well, what do you think?" he asked his sister.
"Well, I don't know about this, brother. Who is this guy?" the sister whispered back to him.
"Come on. We can trust him. He saved our lives. He said he was gonna take us to his place. You haven't eaten in 2 days, sister, maybe he has food." the brother said to her.
"Well…okay." the sister said. She looked back at the old man, and just couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right here. For some reason she felt that this man wanted something. The man came down the mountain and walked over to them. The brother told him they would take him up on his offer, and they started to walk.
"My brother thought he seemed nice enough at first, until…"
The sister noticed that on the old man's black hat, there were two R's. She knew she had seen that logo before, but where?
"Something troubling you, honey?" the old man asked her. He noticed that she had been staring at his hat.
"It's just, that logo. I've seen it before, I just can't remember where." she responded.
"This is the logo for the Red Ribbon Army, my dear." the man said. Unbeknown to the two siblings, the old man was reaching in his back pocket slowly but surely.
"Red Ribbon Army?" the brother shockingly asked. "Not that same organization that was destroyed years ago?" he added.
"The same. And I am Dr. Gero." the old man said.
"Dr. Gero?" the sister said to herself.
"Yes. And I need you both to hold still for a moment." the old man continued, as he pulled out a syringe.
"What?" the brother said turning to the old man. But in that instant, the crazy doctor injected the brother with half a dose of the syringe. The brother fell to the ground, completely unconscious.
"Brother!" The girl tried to move towards her brother, but Gero knocked her down. She looked up at him as he came towards her with the syringe.
"Are you a rapist?" she asked him with fear.
"Oh, no, my dear. But rest assured. You'll find out exactly who I am soon enough." Gero said.
END OF FLASHBACK
"And then he injected me with it." 18 said. "Can't remember much after that. Next thing I know, I wake up in the doctor's lab, feeling better and stronger than I ever had in my life. But there was something missing. I felt like a part of my soul was ripped out, and I hated him for it. We became his slaves. Both of us. 17 and I made a secret pact to kill Dr. Gero the first chance we got." she finished.
Krillin sat there in awe. He didn't know what to say. He couldn't imagine how scary and lonely that experience could've been.
"Well, why don't you start all over again?" Krillin suggested.
"What?" 18 asked. She had no idea what he had meant.
"Yeah. You can go back to who you were before you became an android. What was your name?" Krillin said.
18 sat there. Krillin hadn't expected this. He thought maybe if she could go by her original name, it may be easier for her to forget about Dr. Gero.
"I don't know it." 18 finally said. "Dr. Gero took that too. I can't remember my own name".
"Really?" Krillin asked.
"Yeah. How pathetic is that?" she responded. She rested her hand on her chin and looked away from Krillin.
Krillin couldn't believe it. He felt even worse now. It's one thing to turn you from a human to part machine, but to make you forget your own name, is just soulless.
"Man. I wish I could do something for her. I pretty much ruined our day for asking her all those things. Come on, Krillin. Think of something that might cheer her up." Krillin thought to himself. Then it came to him.
"Hey, what do you say we go do some more shopping, now?" he asked.
"Okay" 18 simply said. She didn't sound very interested, but whatever, it was something else to do.