"It doesn't matter how many of you rust buckets there are. If one of you is too weak to handle my might, so are the rest of you." said Vegeta, looking from one android to the other.

"Maybe so," said 18, touching down in Vegeta's arena.

"But we aren't like those scrap piles you fought before." said 17.

"Fine then. Bring it on." Vegeta scoffed, setting down in the arena, opposite 17 and 18, a confident smirk on his face, his arms crossed arrogantly.

17 and 18 smirked to one another and both vanished, reappearing on either side of Vegeta, who leapt back just in time for both of his opponents to hit each other. Just as 18 charged up to Vegeta, he powered up, becoming a super saiyan and pushing her back slightly.

"His power level just jumped all of a sudden." 17 thought, somewhat surprised.

"Worthless transformation." 18 thought, smirking. "He changed his hair, so what?" She and 17 pointed a single finger at Vegeta and a powerful beam shot from their fingertips, narrowly missing Vegeta. He focused his attack on 17, holding out a hand, from which a blue light emanated from, and with a cry of,

"Big Bang Attack!" The attack hit 17 head on, blowing him aside temporarily. He then struck at 18, who punched at the same time as Vegeta, their fists colliding. What Vegeta thought would be a tied clash turned out to be a defeat for him. 18 was greatly more powerful, her punch sending Vegeta into the wall of the arena. Both androids then double teamed him, landing a simultaneous punch to his chest, shattering his armor.

"I was hoping to save this for another time," Vegeta panted as he wiped the blood from his chest wound and removed what little remained of his armored chest piece. "But you've pushed me too far." He raised a fist to the sky, building up energy into it. When what seemed to be crackling lightning glowed in his fist, he slammed it into his chest and an immense golden mass of energy formed around him.

The androids were thrown back into the wall of the arena's indent, and looked up to see the tremendous energy mass form a giant gold faceless Vegeta, wearing a long red cape of what looked like fire. "What do you think, androids?" Vegeta's voice reverberated, and the androids noticed Vegeta standing inside the head, behind where the face would be. "This is the symbol of the saiyan king's might!"

"How interesting." 17 smirked. "You certainly look more powerful, but all that form really does is make you a bigger target." He let off a number of ki beams, all of which had no effect. He and 18 then shot upward just as Vegeta stomped the ground hard, making the earth shake. They mirrored each other as they each dropped a powerful kick on the head of the mammoth lightning giant, which flicked them aside easily.

"Quit screwing with me!" Vegeta barked irritably. "Where is the one you call Android 23?"

"Like we'd know that." said 18 dully. "We've been inactive for probably a good few years. We have no idea about any androids past our creation."

"And anyway," said 17. "You're not even our real target. You're just a warm-up for our fight with Son Goku."

"A warm-up, am I!" Vegeta roared. "You dare put me, the king of all saiyans on a lower pedestal than that clown, Kakarot!"

"Well, according to Gero's data, you are second only to Son Goku." said 18. She turned her eyes away from the lightning giant and smirked. "Looks like we have guests." she pointed her right index finger across her left shoulder, firing a single beam behind her. A painful shout could be heard as the attack hit Gohan, who was accompanied by his older counterpart, Mirai, and Toni.

"So, we'll make this simple." said 17, catching Gohan and holding him in front of himself like a shield. "Power down, or the kid dies." To his surprise, however, Vegeta simply laughed loudly.

"You really think I give a damn if you kill that pathetic little half-breed!" He barked amusedly. He grabbed 17 and Gohan in his massive gold fist and squeezed harder than necessary, then dropped his crushed foes into the dirt.

"Gohan!" Mirai shouted, dropping down to check on his younger counterpart. The damage to him was minimal, though he did seem on the verge of fainting.

"I put up an energy shield at the last moment." 17 grunted as he got to his feet, brushing some dirt off of himself. "Saved me from being crushed, though don't get me wrong, I didn't care whether the kid lived or died."

"You're Android 17!" Mirai gasped. "You two are the ones who've destroyed the world in the future!"

"Are we now?" 18 smirked. "Strange that Gero doesn't have any data on you."

"Well," said Mirai, glancing at Gohan. "He kinda does."

"So what is it you want, kid?" asked 18, not looking at Gohan, Vegeta, or Mirai, but Toni. Toni looked confusedly between the golden giant form of Vegeta and the androids.

"I came… to stop you!" She said shakily, not sure herself whether she was talking to the androids or to Vegeta. This proclamation was met by immense laughter from both sides.

"I don't think you quite know what you're dealing with, girl!" Vegeta scoffed. "You talk to me as though the king of all saiyans is a meaningless title. The title of somebody you can threaten with empty words alone!" Suddenly, the giant began to shrink, and Vegeta stood at normal height, looking incredibly irritated. "Damn! To think I wasted that transformation!" He snarled to himself.

"Personally, I agree with his majesty." sneered 18, saying these last two words with sarcasm. "I'm quite offended by the way this little brat is talking to us."

"Whatd'ya say we teach her a lesson?" said 17 in agreement. He and 18 both fired a beam from their fingers, which where refracted right back at their firers when they made contact with Toni's body. "What the hell was that!" 17 shouted, getting back up from the strange refraction.

"Gero always did have a thing for 'anti-energy' technology." said 18. "Idiotic that he would replace androids like us, with infinite energy and superior fighting skills and power with trash like that." She indicated Toni. "We just need to refrain from using energy attacks against her."

"No big deal." 17 smirked. They both charged at Toni, 18 kicking her in the back, 17 tripping her, and both androids landing a harsh punch, driving her a few inches into the ground. Toni got back up and tried feebly to block the androids' simultaneous punches, which both made contact with her before she had time to block them. She reached out her hands to pull their fists away from her, and while she wasn't strong enough to make them move an inch, something very strange happened. Several long red lines glowed brightly on 17's and 18's bodies like circuit boards. They both froze, their eyes wide with shock. They both stood perfectly still, unmoving like statues, the circuit board-like lines on their bodies still glowing brightly.

"What the hell was that!" Mirai asked. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Me neither." Toni blinked at the stagnant androids. She waved a hand in front of their faces, but nothing happened.

"If you're done," Vegeta interjected. "I have some business with you!" He pointed at Mirai.

"Get Gohan somewhere safe." Mirai whispered to Toni. "And if I find you've done anything to harm him…!" Toni nodded, trying not to seem concerned by Mirai's threat. She picked up Gohan's unconscious form and took off.

"No you don't!" Vegeta scowled, chasing after her. Mirai caught up with him and his fist collided with Vegeta's.

"You again." Vegeta growled irritably. He shot an energy blast straight at Mirai, who was barely able to evade it at such a close range, a small energy burn on his face where the attack grazed him. "What do you think you're doing here!"

"I sensed that you were fighting something too big for you to handle, so I came to help." Mirai explained. This did nothing to improve Vegeta's anger.

"Don't you dare insult me!" He roared, punching Mirai straight in the face and catching him by the ankle as he fell. He yanked him back and hit him again in the gut, then blasted him where his fist collided, teleporting onto the ground below and hitting Mirai's back with his knee as he landed. "I am King Vegeta the second! How dare you even for a moment underestimate me!"

"King?" Mirai repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"You lied about the androids." said Vegeta sharply. "There were five others, not including those two." He indicated the still immobile forms of 17 and 18. "And one of them rather got my interest: #23, as they call him. He's King Vegeta the first reborn." Mirai gasped.

"But that's impossible! How…?" he blurted.

"I don't know, and don't care." Vegeta stated. "But only by killing him will I truly claim the throne that is rightfully mine!"

"But if he's been dead all this time, you've always been the king of all saiyans, haven't you?"

"No. The only way I could ever take the throne is by taking it from my father by force. Only when I kill him by my own hands can I call myself King of the greatest warrior race. And now, I finally have that chance." He laughed joyously. "At last, I can finally rule over the universe, as I was meant to from the beginning!"

"This isn't you, Vegeta!" said Mirai sharply. "The Vegeta I knew never would have let himself be…"

"The Vegeta you knew!" Vegeta repeated with a harsh laugh. "What idiotic arrogance makes you think you actually knew me!"

"Because I did. You may not recognize me, but I'm Son Gohan many years from now." said Mirai. Vegeta froze, looking shocked.

"You're… that kid? Kakarot's half-breed son?" He breathed.

"I am." said Mirai. "I live in a future where dad, Piccolo, Krillin, everyone, even you, have died at the hands of these androids, and I won't let that happen again! I came to this time to learn how to stop the androids. What I do here and now may not affect my timeline, but I need all the knowledge about the androids I can get."

"Fascinating." said Vegeta dully. He landed softly on the ground and gestured for Mirai to do the same. He did, though reluctantly. Though he was afraid Vegeta would punch him when he touched down, all he did was place a hand on his shoulder and give a rare grin. "Go ahead. Have fun with that." He said. "Just leave 23 alone. You'll recognize him instantly. He looks a lot like me."

"Um, right." said Mirai, a little awkwardly.

"What happens in the future, your present, won't be affected by what happens here in my present, right?" said Vegeta. Mirai nodded. "Then you won't get in my way when I take my rightful place."

"I have to." said Mirai firmly. "But for now, our interests are mutually benefitual. We can fight the androids together and…" Vegeta laughed at this proposition.

"Don't be an idiot." he scoffed. "The only one I'm interested in killing is 23. I don't give a damn what happens to the others, as long as they don't get in my way." He gave a dirty look at the frozen 17 and 18. "Get those things out of my sight."

Mirai powered up to super saiyan and fired his Makankōsappō at an angle, so as to obliterate both androids at the same time, but nothing happened. He tried again, this time using a Kamehameha. Nothing he tried worked. Even Vegeta threw a ki blast at one of them, only to no effect at all. Whatever was freezing them like this also seemed to be protecting them somehow.

Out of any better ideas, Mirai flew the living statues away from the remnants of Vegeta's arena, to a distant wasteland, where he remembered by the wreckage to be where he fought Vegeta when he first came to earth. he set them down near a somewhat distinctive rock formation, then set off to search for Toni and Gohan.

Meanwhile, Toni set down in a city somewhere far away from Vegeta. She tried to blend into the crowd, which proved to be difficult, due to her mismatched eyes and the fact that she was carrying an unconscious child. She sat on a bench and lay Gohan's head in her lap.

"What was that before?" She thought, looking at her hand as though seeing it for the first time. "How did I do that to the androids? All I did was touch them. And why is it I feel so strange around Gohan and Mirai? Nothing makes any sense!" She remembered what 21 usually said about these kinds of things when Toni brought things like these up.

"Forget about the past. It doesn't matter. It never mattered." he would bluntly say. That may be how 21 felt, but for Toni, it mattered to her greatly. She had flashbacks of an older Gohan, or at least someone who looked a lot like him, and every time she tried to find out about herself, it was only to raise more questions than answers.

As she was thinking about all of this, she was completely aghast as she saw a young girl in a school uniform walk by. She looked just like a young Toni, though her hair was short, it was still the exact same shade of white, and it was too much to just be a coincidence that she was heterochromic, her left eye blue and her right eye green, just like Toni's. Forgetting entirely about Gohan, she stood up and followed the girl, who didn't seem to notice her older look-alike tailing her.

"Who is that?" Toni asked herself as she hustled to keep up with her mini-me as she turned a corner. "She can't be me… can she? This is impossible!" She slowed down as the young 'Toni' turned a corner into an ally, where she was met by two girls, a bit taller than herself with sinister looks on their faces. The young Toni look-alike looked quite frightened of them.

"You're late." One of them said, a sinister look on her face.

"S-so-sorry." The Toni look-alike sniffled. Both girls exchanged a dark smirk, and it was then that Toni noticed that both of them had the same mismatched eye colors as herself. One girl drew a small bag from her pocket and dropped it on the ground, several coins rolling all over.

"Pick it up." she ordered. "Now." the young 'Toni' obeyed, hunching down and picking up every coin dropped. The other girl pulled a knife from her pocket, held it over the head of the white-haired girl, who was still picking up scattered coins, too busy to notice what was happening just above her, and dropped the knife. Just as the young 'Toni' was about to stand up, the knife grazed her left eye, making her cry in pain and terror, covering her eye, which had blood dripping all around it. The girls laughed and as they made to grab the white-haired girl, probably to bully her even more, she screamed and tried to push them away.

Just as she touched her bullies, red circuit board-like lines glowed all over their bodies and they froze like statues. The white-haired girl gasped, the eye that wasn't slashed wide with shock and confusion. She backed away from the girls, as though scared they might spring back to life again and kill her, only to back straight into her older counterpart. She whirled around, scared of what she might see. Her undamaged eye became even wider.

"You… you look like… me." She breathed. "Who are you?"

"I was hoping you could tell me." said Toni. "Who were those girls?" The young girl looked back at her bullies, still fearful.

"They're… I don't know who they are." she said. "They always want things from me, say they need them for some doctor."

"Doctor?" Toni repeated.

"Doctor…. Gero, I think they said." said the younger girl, trying to think. She looked at her hands, as though they didn't belong to her. "What was that?" She said in a low voice, though sounding like she was hoping Toni could answer. "All I did was touch them." She whimpered and slapped a hand to her injured eye, but slowly withdrew it to find that, aside from the residual blood on her face, her eye was completely healed. "What is this?" She asked, panicking. "What am I?"

"I've been asking myself that for a long time." said Toni. "What is your name?" The girl thought for a moment, then said pitifully,

"I don't know." said the younger girl. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." said Toni. "How old are you?"

"I don't know." Toni's look-alike looked ready to cry. Then, all of a sudden, her eyes changed, her left eye orange and her right red. She then said in a warped voice, "I have to go. Zero needs me."

"Zero? Who is Zero?" asked Toni. Her look-alike's eyes returned to normal and she gasped, as though she was just then remembering where she was.

"Zero?" she repeated. "I… I don't know." Her eyes changed again and she walked away, as though in a trance.

"Wait! Come back!" Toni called, following her. "Where are you going! What are you talking about! Who's Zero?" But just as she caught up to the girl, blue circuit board-like markings lined her body and she vanished. Toni stared at the spot where her apparent younger self used to be. For what seemed like hours, she was unable to move, take her eyes off the spot, or even blink. Finally, she simply blurted out the only words that came to mind:

"What the hell just happened?"

"Toni?" Gohan was walking to her. "What are you doing?"

"I… what just happened?" Toni repeated. Gohan looked at her, confused.

"What is it Toni?" Gohan asked. Toni simply shook her head.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." she said simply.

Meanwhile, in the wreckage of Gero's laboratory, the androids were sitting by, discussing what they were going to do to face the challenge before them.

"Who ever said we needed to fight this bastard?" said 21, fitting a pair of katanas under his belt. "I mean, our only real purpose is to kill Son Goku, so why not just search for him?"

"I can't locate his energy signature." 22 answered, several incomprehensible symbols running through his blue eyepiece. "Son's signature is quite distinctive, so normally I would be able to track him easily, but so far, he's impossible to find."

"Well, we're all androids here! Vegeta can't sense our energy." 21 retorted. "We'll have all the time we need to find and kill Son."

"You're forgetting just how Vegeta is." said 23, whose injuries had just recently been fixed by 24. "If we don't meet him in the time he…"

"What do you mean 'we!'" 21 interjected. "The only one he wants to fight is you, remember? If you humor him for a while, we're free to kill everyone we want until we get Son for as long as it takes." He smirked. "Or is the great king of all saiyans too scared to stand up his crazed brat of a son alone?"

"21 has a point. None of us but our 'great king' have to face Vegeta." said 22. "Besides, I have a personal vendetta with Son Goku, and I'm not letting this arrogant little bastard get in the way. You know what? Screw it! I'll just go kill him now! I don't care who gets in my way, I'll kill them no sweat!" Blasting a hole in the ceiling, 22 flew off.

"21, 24. You two are coming with me." said 23 firmly. He glared at 21. "And don't think for a moment you can best me in battle." 21, remembering his first encounter with the saiyan king, simply, crossed his arms and looked away, grumbling.

"Do you believe we will be able to defeat Vegeta?" asked 24, sounding very worried. "He almost killed us before."

"Well, thanks to that thrashing, I've become far more powerful." 23 smirked. "Plus, if things get too bad, I still have something that will guarantee my victory." His saiyan tail swished and wrapped tightly around his waist, giving it the appearance of a furry, black belt. "He will regret ever picking a fight with King Black Tail."

To be continued….

Sorry it's been so long since this has been updated, and sorry again if it was a disappointment. Transitioning from a side story back to the present has been more difficult than I would have imagined. Hopefully, next chapter will be posted in less time than this one took , and things will start to pick up again, and if this chapter made little to no sense, good. That just means the story is going the way I intended.

See you then!