Skorch and 18's Heart 2 Heart. From: The Z-Fighters React to Death Battle! (Take 2)

Intro: One of the fun parts about writing this fic is how the characters react to seeing themselves in it. From Vegeta's shock, to Buu's indifference, to 18's… understandable apprehension. Admittedly, IMO, the show never really touches on what would probably be traumatic AF (the events of DBZ and all) but I honestly think that works. In my real opinion, 17 and 18 are sometimes too robotic, and almost inhuman when it comes to emotions. My issue being, they have family. So, I had it show up in her uneasiness in her DB episode. This was supposed to be in a later chapter, but… well, it felt unexessary.

The Story…

(Skorch is trying – key word, try – to talk to 18, not knowing what happened recently.)

"It's just… if you knew Cell was coming, that might've been a nice heads-up." 18 remarked, somewhat coldly.

"Wait. Duke brought Cell?! Why woul-OH, THAT SON OF A BITCH!"

(Questions get asked.)

"TLDR; Duke is someone I have beef with. He's another Entity, but I forget what his deal is. He ain't a Watcher.

(More questions get asked.)

"Long story short: while we can go into one another's worlds, we can't change things. The way we get back at one another is by making things difficult."

(Skorch gets accused of manipulating 18.)

"YOU THINK I WANTED YOU TO WATCH THAT?!" Skorch snapped. "FOR CRAP'S SAKE, LAZULI! I know that stuff is harsh for you to go through! I know being reminded of the pain and anger isn't something you want! That's why I called, I called so you could tell them to skip it!" Skorch snapped, and 18 froze. Not only at his sudden anger, but at the fact that he addressed her as 'Lazuli'. (Yes, previous chapters did this, ignore that.) "Laz- 18. ANYONE else would be down to watch a Death Battle with them in it. Goku, Vegeta, Hercule, Roshi, Frieza… but you wouldn't. I didn't want you to go through that." Skorch admitted. "If you hate me for this, I don't blame you."

(Marron asks Skorch why he'd let this happen, and Skorch can't tell if she means the Andorid-ification, or letting her mom watch her DB with Cell there)

"Marron… the truth…" Skorch began but sighed. "The truth is, sometimes good people do terrible things. Sometimes it's because they think they're doing the right thing, other times it's because they believe there's no other option. My buddy Kace has been through that… a lot. But your mom… She did things that seem bad, because she didn't have a choice. Someone else made those choices for her, and she had no choice but to follow them."

Was that 100% true? Eehhh… that was debatable. But that didn't really matter right now.

"Why didn't you do anything?"

"…what?"

"If…if you're as powerful as you say, couldn't you help Mommy back then? Couldn't you keep the bad guys from hurting people?" Marron quietly asked, and it looked like both Krillin and 18 wanted to stop her, but neither could.

"Marron, he-" 18 began, but cut herself off in genuine surprise at what she saw happening before her. A single tear escaped Skorch's left eye, running down its face. "By the Kais, is he crying?!"

"I want to, more than anything." Skorch admitted, 18 noticing its body seemed to be turning blue, as if he was freezing as he spoke, but it didn't deter the Entity. "More than anything I've ever seen or done, I want to help people. But… I can't. It's against the rules of the Universe, I don't know who made them, but an Entity, especially a Watcher, can't just change things because they don't like how it turns out. If we do, bad things can happen, the world as we know it can change. Sometimes if we change something that's bad, it can make things worse." Skorch paused, then added: "Marron, I've been to worlds and seen more wars and death than anyone could begin to imagine. I've seen decillions upon decillions of people I wished more than anything I could help."

This is as far as I got before scrapping it.

Why'd I Cut it?

Because I could write 'Skorch and 18 had an honest conversation, and things would work out in the end. The end.

There's a lot of unknown lore behind Skorch, and in time, all will be revealed, but this didn't feel right. It felt like a single line could be seven or eight pages, and not in a good way. I felt like it was too distracting from the actual story, so I passed on publishing this in the actual fic.