The time machine was Trunks' hope in physical form. It looked almost alien in nature, something that didn't belong on this planet, as if his mother, Bulma, had summoned it from some other world or extraterrestrial dimension. But mother didn't summon it, she built it from scratch, and if you asked Trunks, building a time machine from the ground up was a way more impressive feat than summoning it. Mother sat on top of a ladder long enough to reach heaven, putting the finishing touches on the time machine, manipulating the circuits and the wires and being so careful it looked like she was operating on a living thing she didn't want to die. He shoved his hands in his pockets and was so excited that he felt himself shaking, and he swore he felt the planet itself shaking along with him, as if the entire world was as excited as he was to finally be rid of the Android menace. This was it. Almost twenty years of hard work, twenty years of pain and struggle had all amounted to this one moment. This time machine was like a God's altar that so many people had sacrificed their lives for, and Trunks promised their sacrifice would not be in vain.
Mother wiped decades' worth of sweat off her face and leaned away. She looked at Trunks with a crooked smile that cautiously crawled out of her face. Her eyes shined with tears, but they were hopeful tears. Tears that were nourishing to see, like he could feed off them if he wanted to.
"It's ready," Mother said.
It felt like Trunks had been waiting for those words his entire life. Hell, even longer than that, he'd been waiting to hear those words since before he was even born. He took in a deep breath, even the air smelled fresher thanks to those two, magical words. His fists clenched up, hopeful tears started to well up in his eyes, too.
Mother climbed down the ladder. Trunks folded the ladder and placed it in a corner, away from the time machine, before walking back over to his mom. She looked at Trunks the same way she looked at that time machine, like they were both her greatest creations in life, and she was proud of what she'd accomplished by making them. Mother wiped Trunks' eyes with a soft touch.
"Are you ready?" Mother asked.
Trunks nodded. It was a question he didn't even think Mother needed to ask. He'd never been more ready for anything in his life.
"Now, when you go back there, remember to try to avoid speaking to anyone if you can. Goku's the only person you need to come in contact with. Interacting with anyone or anything else might drastically change things, and not in a good way."
"I understand, Mom." Trunks said. These were all things Mother had told him before, but Trunks guessed she felt the need to repeat her little instruction guide for time traveling, which was something he really couldn't blame her for. Time was fragile, she'd explained a while back. Mess with one detail, no matter how tiny it is, might cause the entire fabric of the past to unravel. One wrong move and Trunks might make the past worse than the future.
"So, what's the verdict? Will going back in time change anything?" Trunks had asked. It was probably the millionth time Trunks asked Mother this question, but he had to make sure. Maybe the answer might have changed, maybe she discovered something while working on the time machine for the final time that might have changed her theory.
But Mother shook her head.
"It's like I've told you before, I'm not sure. I still believe that going back in time will just create a parallel reality, so I don't think it'll change our time. I mean, it's a possibility, but I just think it's unlikely." Mother fixed the collar on Trunks' purple capsule corp jacket. "But we won't know for sure until you go back in time."
Trunks nodded. He hoped that going back in time would automatically change things. Even if it meant he wouldn't exist anymore, at least he'd be another, happier version of himself, completely ignorant and oblivious to the Androids' tyranny. He did wonder what it'd be like changing the time stream, though. Would it have been like changing clothes? It's him, just a different him, or would it be like a form of reincarnation? Trunks would die, and in his place would be another, completely different Trunks.
Whatever. He'd be fine with either scenario. That was only if, of course, going back in time actually changed things, which Mother claimed it wouldn't.
There was a pause. Mother looked back at Trunks the way she did whenever he went to fight the Androids, like it could have been the last time she was seeing him again. The corners of her lips twitched and her eyes shook and she went in and squeezed Trunks so hard he couldn't believe Mother was capable of such physical strength, it was almost like she was trying to stop him from leaving. Trunks felt locked in, unable to break free of Mother's hold if he could, so the only thing he could do was surrender to Mother's love and hug her back.
"I love you." Mother whispered in Trunks' ear, the words traveled past his brain and went straight down to his heart.
"I love you too, Mom."
Trunks let go of Mother. She rubbed his arms before letting him go for good.
"So, I guess avoiding everyone means not coming into contact with Dad."
Mother rubbed her nose with the sleeve of her shirt and sniffled.
"I don't think that's a good idea, for more reason than one. Interacting with your father or the past me might result in you never being born. And even if that doesn't happen, your father, at this point in time, was a very stubborn, proud man. You'd might want to temper your expectations."
Trunks nodded. That was a word that always came up whenever Mother or Gohan talked about his father. 'Proud.' A very 'proud' man. But that didn't stop Trunks from wanting to meet him.
Mother took him in one last time. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the heart medicine Trunks was supposed to give to Goku.
"Remember, Goku must take this medicine when he gets the heart virus. That's when the medicine is gonna' be at its most effective."
Yet something else that Mother had told Trunks over and over again. He nodded, and was about to grab the heart medicine, when a loud crash upstairs interrupted the serene, hopeful moment the two of them shared.
"What the hell?" Trunks asked.
Mother put the heart medicine back into her pocket, and Trunks ran towards the door to leave the lab. He ran up the stairs, Mother right behind him, and didn't stop until he got to the first floor of their giant capsule corp house. Trunks ran to the living room, but when he got there he damn near threw up in his mouth. His blood went so cold he was shivering from it, his body went rigid and his heart was pounding in his ears while his chest went hollow. It was them. Oh God, it was them. Androids 17 and 18 stood inside his house, hands in their pockets, the front door lying on the floor in front of them. They stared at Trunks with that same, sick, ugly smile they'd given him countless times. The devil's grin.
17 shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Wow, this is your place, kid? I didn't know you were rich." 17 said.
A scream exploded out of Trunks' mouth.
He clenched his fists. His rage dissolved into energy, and that energy spilled out before he went Super Saiyan, the power of the Saiyan half of his genes like a solar powered battery that kept charging him, heightening his senses, making his eyes sharper, lighting his muscles on fire, making the air crackle. Sometimes he felt invincible when he transformed.
Then he realized the Androids were ten times stronger than the most powerful transformation in the universe, and suddenly the legend of the Super Saiyan felt about as worthless as an empty threat. Like all he was doing was giving the Androids the finger.
"Oh, here we go again," 18 said, rolling her eyes.
Mother screamed Trunks' name, but he didn't listen. He pulled out the sword and charged the Androids, as the only thing that was important now was protecting Mother. Because if he couldn't do that, then the future wasn't worth saving without her in it.
18 could tell that punk yellow haired brat was fired up, because he was moving faster than usual. Fast enough to catch 18 off guard. Trunks managed to land a punch on 18's face that sent her flying through the house's wall, even though she hardly felt the attack. That punk brat sent 17 flying through the wall too, and they both landed beside each other, 18 covered in dust that latched onto her like some old artifact stocked on a shelf for far too long. She stood up and saw that her favorite jacket, a jacket she'd worn since she crawled out of the shell Dr. Gero had locked her in, was torn. Honestly, that was about the only thing good about being in Dr. Gero's care for so many years, that old piece of crap gave her a nice wardrobe.
18's lips crinkled into a tight sneer, her muscles clenched and her heart pounded and she was going to make that punk kid pay for this once and for all. Trunks flew up into the air and launched a ki blast at them as soon as 17 stood up, smoke surrounded her and her brother like they were on fire.
"Look at what he did to my jacket," 18 told 17, who chuckled at how torn it was. "I'm done with that kid, we're killing him today. End of story."
17's laughter shrunk into a smirk.
"But think about all the fun we'd be missing out on. Besides, can't you just force a seamtress or something to fix it?"
"I don't care. I shouldn't have to do that in the first place. And there's no guarantee that even if they were sewn back together, it'd look the same as it did before. I am killing him, 17. End of discussion."
17 sighed.
"Fine, I'm kind of getting bored toying with him, anyway."
From up in the sky, she heard Trunks say,
"I did it! I did it!"
Then the smoke cleared, and 18 took pleasure from the look of pure panic and terror that consumed Trunks' face when he made eye contact with them. It was the same look all humans wore seconds before the Androids took their lives, like they had a painful epiphany of how futile their efforts were. It was a look that gave 18 life every time she saw it, she could feel Trunks trembling all the way from the ground.
"Did what? Did you see what he did, 18?" 17 teased.
18 dusted her clothes.
"He got my clothes dirty, that's what he did."
She clenched her teeth, biting down hard. Trunks' whole demeanor changed. He no longer held his battle pose, instead he held a pose of fear, his hands spread out as he shook and shook and shook like he was already feeling the cold embrace of death and freezing from it.
18 smirked.
"Our turn."
18 and 17 went on the attack, mauling Trunks. They practically treated that bastard kid like a soccer ball, 17 punted him, then 18 punted him back to 17, before 17 punted him right back to her before she launched a ki blast over in Trunks' direction. With each punch 18 felt Trunks' bones crack and his strength weakening. Finally, with a hard right kick, 18 sent Trunks flying to the ground. His body slid across the ground and stopped in front of the outer walls of his house, he wasn't even moving anymore.
18 and 17 descended from the sky and landed in front of Trunks' motionless body, and when his golden hair faded back to purple, 18 wondered if they might have accidentally killed the boy. 17 must have wondered the same thing because he approached Trunks and laid two fingers on the kid's neck.
"He's still breathing," 17 told her. "But barely. I kind of wish he put up a better fight than that, don't you?"
18 rolled her eyes and approached Trunks. She aimed an open hand at him, felt the electricity surging through her arm and through the center of her palm, about to finish off Trunks for good.
"No!" Another voice screamed.
18 looked over her shoulder and saw Bulma running up to her fallen son. She laid on him and cradled him in her arms like he was a baby, then looked up at the Androids with eyes that were melting in tears and snot running down her nose and onto her lip.
"Please don't do this!" Bulma shouted. "Please! Let my son go!"
Her son, huh? So that was where that kid came from. 18 wondered who the father was. According to data Dr. Gero picked up, Bulma was in a pretty intimate relationship with that Yamcha guy, so 18 figured it might have been his kid, but she wasn't sure.
Not that it mattered.
"We won't let him go, but I'll do you a favor. I'll kill you along with him, that way you'll both at least be together in the afterlife."
A bright, yellow ball of ki sat on 18's palm. 18 had to hand it to Bulma. The woman didn't run, like so many other human beings would've done, instead she continued holding Trunks and looked 18 square in the eye, seemingly accepting her fate. It kind of took a bit of the fun out of killing her, 18 liked to see the Earthlings scream before they died, but it was also a nice surprise. Almost admirable.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't save her.
Just as 18 was about to launch the explosion of ki blast from her hand, Bulma asked her and 17 one question,
"Why are you doing this?" Bulma shouted. "Can you at least tell me that? You've killed my husband, you killed my best friends, you're about to kill my son! The least you can do is tell me why the hell you're doing all of this! What do you two get out of causing all this pain?"
17 grinned.
"It's simple, really. Dr. Gero programmed us to kill Goku, but since he's gone, what else are we supposed to do to keep us busy? We're the most powerful beings, not only in the world, but the universe. The only thing we can do with this power is to kill and destroy. And let me tell you, it's a fun exercise. Since we've been doing this for over twenty years, it's also kind of a habit."
Bulma had this look on her face like the answer didn't satisfy her.
"Does that answer your question?" 18 teased.
Suddenly, Bulma's eyes went wide. Her jaw dropped and she had this expression as if she'd just had some massive revelation. Did the answer shock Bulma that much?
Whatever. Didn't matter. Bulma was probably just buying time, stalling, trying to delay her inevitable death.
"What if I could take you to Goku?" Bulma blurted out of her mouth.
What did she just say? 18 raised an eyebrow, 17 walked closer to Bulma.
"What was that?" 17 had asked Trunks' mother.
"What if I could take you to Goku?" Bulma repeated, her words sounded even less believable the second time. "Would you be interested? Would you two still want to kill him?"
17 chuckled like it was a joke. And it might as well have been, because there was no way they'd be able to kill Goku.
"Isn't he dead already?" 17 asked.
Which was what 18 thought, too. Piccolo had told them that during their first encounter all those years back, when they first tried to find Goku. He'd told them that Goku died from some kind of heart virus. 17 had idiotically thought about keeping Piccolo around, so maybe they could go and find the dragonballs to wish Goku back to life, then kill him themselves. But Goku's death was probably a natural cause, so they wouldn't have been able to wish Goku back anyway. Because if that was possible, then she was sure Goku's friends would've done so already.
"He is now, yeah." Bulma's voice was cracking under the weight of her own grief, she kept having to wipe the tears from her eyes. "But I could take you both to a time when Goku was still alive, so that way you guys could carry out your life's mission."
"How would you be able to do that?" 18 asked.
Bulma stood up.
"I invented a time machine," Bulma said. 18 should've stopped listening to Bulma right then and there, then killed the both of them so Trunks would be out of her hair for good. A time machine? This was obviously a lie, a work of fiction Bulma was spinning to delay her meeting with the Gods that watched over Earth in the afterlife. But for whatever reason, 18 listened to this obvious con even though it couldn't have been true. "I was going to send my son back in time to give Goku the antidote for his heart virus, hoping that if Goku was alive then, with his help, he'd be able to stop you. But if you agree to let me and my son live, then I'll take you two back to the past instead, so you can have your chance at finally defeating Goku."
"You actually expect us to believe that nonsense?" 18 asked.
"I have no reason to lie to you at this point,"
"Yes, you do. You could be trying to save your life. If you ask me, that's plenty of a reason."
"If you don't believe me, I can show you the time machine myself." Bulma had said. "What do you think? I'm leading you two into some kind of trap? What can I possibly do to hurt the two of you? Seriously?"
18 glanced over at 17, who was staring at Bulma with this serious, almost analytical face. She could see the gears in her brother's head turning and knew that her brother was playing what Bulma had just said to them over and over again, dissecting her words to search for the truth inside of them. And unfortunately, 18 was starting to do the same thing, too.
She stopped charging her ki blast. 17 turned to make eye contact with her.
"You don't actually believe this, do you?" She wasn't only asking 17 this, but herself. "A time machine?"
17 looked back over at Bulma, before settling her gaze back onto 18.
"According to Dr. Gero's data, this is the same woman who invented the dragon radar. Who was able to reprogram and pilot an alien spacecraft by herself, with only her father barely helping her. Inventing a time machine, as crazy as it sounds, might not be out the realm of possibility."
18 groaned. 17 definitely had a point. And like Bulma said, even if she was tricking them, what would be the point? They had her and her son dead to rights, completely at their mercy, and there was nothing she or her son could do to stop them. 18 asked herself a question she was almost afraid to ask. What if Bulma was telling the truth? Then what?
"Assuming she's telling the truth, I think we should give it a shot." 17 said.
"Are you serious?" 18 asked. Her brother gave little to no thought about this whatsoever, which was typical 17. "We're not talking about a trip to another country, here. We're talking about time travel. Going back in time. Something that should be impossible."
17 shrugged.
"And? Look, sis, we've done everything we could here. Everything. Imagine how cool it'd be to go back in time and start from the very beginning. Not only would we get the chance to finally take out Goku, but there's way more people to kill in the past, which means even more fun. Seriously, what are the cons of this?"
17 had a point. They'd been running Earth for two decades now and it was getting tedious. Finding more humans to kill was becoming harder and harder, since they'd reduced the planet's population considerably, and a lot of human beings had smartened up and decided to go into hiding somewhere underground. Going back into the past was an opportunity to start fresh. Besides, like 17 said, they would've been able to finally kill Goku, the one that got away.
After several minutes of thinking about it, 18 nodded at 17.
"Does that mean what I think it means?" 17 asked.
"Yeah. I'm down for it."
17 smiled, like 18 had just given him the best present of his life.
They both settled their eyes back on Bulma.
"So, you two want to give it a shot?" Bulma had asked, who'd most likely been listening to their entire conversation.
"Of course we'd want to see the time machine first, but if everything you say is legitimate, then we're in." 18 said.
"Then you'll spare my son?"
18 narrowed her gaze back down at Trunks. She really had her heart set on killing him, but she also prided herself on being a woman of her word. Besides, killing Goku would've been more than enough to satisfy her bloodlust. Trunks and the other z fighters were just appetizers, Goku was the full meal. A full meal that she and 17 had been starving for for almost twenty years now.
"Sure." she told Bulma.
Bulma wiped the tears away from her eyes. She looked both relieved and frightened at the same time.
"Then follow me."
Bulma led the two Androids into her house and downstairs into her lab. Once there, she took them towards what had to have been the strangest looking thing 18 had ever seen. This thing had spider legs and a round glass bowl on top of it and looked about as alien as anything 18 had seen in a sci fi movie. Ok, Bulma had to have been telling them the truth, because this machine, whatever it was, looked like nothing she or her brother had seen on Earth.
"This is it," Bulma said.
17 and 18 walked around the time machine, examining it. 18 floated up in the air to see the top of the time machine, inside of that bowl was a cockpit and a control panel, like something you'd see on an air craft or a spaceship. Admittedly, it looked a bit small, but she figured there was just enough room to fit all three of them inside. They might have been a little cramped, but it could work.
18 floated back down to face Bulma.
"I have to hand it to you, this thing looks pretty cool." 17 touched the time machine and admired it like it was a work of art. "It doesn't look like a time machine, though."
"What does a time machine look like? You've never seen one before." 18 reminded her brother.
"So? I could use my imagination. What I meant was that this wasn't how I pictured a time machine to actually look like."
"I'd have to pilot it," Bulma chimed in. "Since I'm the only one who knows how this thing works."
"That's fine," 17 said.
"Do you two mind if I get a couple of things before I take you two to the past? Like Goku's heart medicine?"
"Sure, let's go," 18 said, as she was definitely going to keep an eye on Bulma in case she tried to escape.
18 followed Bulma across the lab. Bulma opened a cabinet and retrieved what looked like a small bottle of medicine, and she also took out another capsule that she put in her pocket. A part of 18 wanted to ask Bulma what that capsule was, but it didn't matter. Like Bulma said, there was nothing this woman could've come up with or invented that could hurt them.
Afterward, Bulma took out a piece of scrap paper from that same cabinet. She pulled a pen out of her pocket and started writing on it.
"What are you doing?" 18 asked.
"I'm writing Trunks a quick note before I go telling him what we're doing. I don't want him to wake up to find his mother and the time machine gone, and he doesn't know what happened."
18 sighed.
"Hurry up."
Bulma wrote the note as fast as she could. 18 followed Bulma as she ran back outside, and watched from the house's entrance as Bulma knelt down next to her still unconscious son and placed the note on her chest. Then Bulma leaned in, kissed Trunks on the cheek, and whispered something that 18 was too far away to hear. The whole thing was almost touching. Almost.
Bulma went back into the house. Using a ladder, Bulma climbed into the time machine's cockpit, and 17 and 18 stood next to her. The bowl on the time machine closed, locking the two of them inside. Bulma started typing the buttons on the time machine's dashboard like she was typing on a computer.
"I'm actually pretty excited," 17 told her. "This is crazy."
Honestly, 18 was pretty excited, too. They were actually going to go to the past, the possibilities were endless. Sure they'd most likely fall into the same habit of killing and destroying that they'd become so used to, but at least there would be way more people to kill. And way more things to destroy.
But more importantly than that, they'd finally be able to kill Goku. And killing him would've been more satisfying than killing billions of people on this planet. She'd been waiting for this moment her entire life. Or, at the very least, her entire life as a cyborg.
"Here we go. Get ready." Bulma said.
With a click of a button, the time machine levitated off the floor, bursting through the lab's ceiling, then through the ceiling of the entire house, to float seamlessly in the sky like it belonged there. The time machine whirred, vibrated, rumbled, then 17 and 18 were suddenly surrounded by a white light too bright to look directly into before...they were gone.
Trunks' head was pounding, his body was burning. He coughed up blood, coudn't get the taste of it out of his mouth, and was only barely able to keep one eye open. He held his head, tried to jog his memory, but it was hard to do that with the headache in the way. What happened? What the hell happened?
Then he remembered his fight with the Androids. Well, it wasn't really a fight, it was a slaughter. It was always a slaughter. It was basically just a couple of minutes of the Androids treating Trunks as a punching bag, kicking him around. The memory of that fight actually hurt way more than his body did. But if he was hurting, that meant he was alive.
Had the Androids let him live? Or did they just think they killed him and decided to leave Trunks for dead?
He sat up, a piece of paper slid off his chest. He picked it up, read it.
Dear son:
I have cut a deal with the Androids. I took them to the past to do the one thing they couldn't do in this timeline, and that is to kill Goku. I made this decision because it was the only way to save your life, and maybe the only way to save the world as well. I have full faith that Goku will be able to stop them, full faith that he'll finally be able to save humanity from these monsters. I'm sorry this had to happen. I hope I'll see you again someday, but if I don't, please do your best to live a good life. Whatever happens, you're free, Trunks! You're free! You and the rest of the world don't have to worry about the Androids anymore. Take care. I love you.
Love, your mother.
Trunks crumpled the note. No, no, no, not like this. Not like this! This wasn't supposed to happen! This wasn't how they were supposed to save the world!
Trunks shot up and ran inside the house like he was chasing it, unable to bear the thought of his mother being at the mercy of those cybernetic demons. How did she know they wouldn't kill her as soon as they got to the past? How did they know that Goku would've been able to stop them if he wasn't warned about them first, which was the whole reason of going to the past! That, and giving Goku the heart medicine!
He made his way down to the lab where the time machine was supposed to be. Except the time machine was gone. And that meant so were his mother and the Androids, something he should've known after seeing a hole in the building's ceiling.
Trunks buckled down to his knees, balled his hand into a fist, and punched a canyon sized crater into the floor. The future was now safe, but his mother might have had to sacrifice herself to save it. And if that was the case, then as far as Trunks was concerned then the Androids won, anyway.