18 walked out of Kame House into the bright morning sunlight. She had to admit it was nice wakeing up to a tropical island.
"Hey 18!" Krillen called to her. "You ready to go yet?"
"Just about." she answered as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. She hoped that it wasn't a tangled mess. She hadn't been able to find a brush anywhere this morning. But she guessed that it was a rare item in a house full of bald men. "I'm ready now." she said. "How do I look?"
Krilen turned around and felt his jaw fall lose. 18 was wearing the same blue jean skirt from yesterday but she had borrowed a botton up white shirt from Krillen earlier today. Instead of tucking it in her skirt orletting it hang lose, she had tied it up underneith her breasts, showing off her midrift.
"You look beautiful." Krillen said letting the words slip out of his mouth before he had time to think.
18 giggled at the blush racing up his cheeks. "Thanks." She had to admit that he looked god too. Instead of sporting his regular orange gi he wore a pair of white dress pants with a matching button up t-shirt. 18 was suprised at how . . . . sexy he looked.
Krillen cocked his head to the side. "18, are you okey?"
It was then that 18 relized that she had been stareing. She shook her head trying to get thoughs thoughts out of her head. Like how lean and compact he looked with the top button of his shirt undone. . .
18 blinked a little. Where had that come from?
"Of course I am." she said, while she was really thinking, "What's wrong with me?"
Krillen nodded as if accepting that aa an answer. He turned to yell to Master Roshi.
"Master Roshi! We're heading out, do you want me to pick up anything while I'm in town?"
The elderly master popped his bald head out the window. "Yeah, there's this new magazine in-"
"ROSHI!"
The geezer laughed a bit. "Come on Krillen, you know I only read it for the articals hee-hee-ha!"
Krillen sighed and turned back to 18. "Let's get going, one of the best malls is about fifteen minutes away by air."
Around fourteen minutes later . . .
Krillen and 18 landed just outside of the city when 18 asked, "Why are we landing here?"
"We don't want to draw any attention to ourselves, especialy this soon after Cell Game." he answered.
"Like they'd even notice." 18 said gazeing around her.
All over the place newspspers read "CELL BEATEN BY WORLD CHAMP!" "SATAN SAVES CITY" or other bogus head lines. The t.v.s in store windows showed Heracule fighting or advertisements for his latest action figure.
18 looked around with a look of disgust on her face.
"This is so pathetic. Watching all of these people stare at Heracule as if sunshine beams out his ass. I swear, if I were in your shoes I'd grind him into chalk dust."
Krillen shrugged. "Well none of us got into this for the fame. We got in to it because someone had to do what was right."
Someone had to do what was right . . .
Those words struck a cord in 18, but she shook it off. For some reason she felt so strange when she was around this man. So safe.
Krillen on the other hand was a nervious wreak. His palms were sweaty, his mouth felt dry and he was more than self-concious about his height. Just play it cool, he told himself. He started to walk down the mall parking lot towards the front entrance. He stopped and tunred around and grinned nerviously.
"Come on 18." He said and waved for her to follow.
When they entered the store 18 felt the cool breeze of air conditioning and the scent of pizza hit her.
"So where do you want to go first?" Krillen asked.
18 looked startled. "My pick?"
"Sure." he said. "Today is your day. Let's charge forward to charge credlt cards!" He pointed forward like he was leading in troops.
18 just stared at him blankly. Kami, Krillen thought, I an such an idiot.
After a second 18 began to laugh uncontrolably. "You're sweet Krillen." she said.
Krillen froze in his tracks. Did she just call him 'sweet'? 18 was already walking into a dress shop and didn't notice.
Around three hours and twelve shops later they decided to break for lunch.
As they sat down in a quaint booth in the back of a Bar&Grill, 18 went into the restroom to change. When she came out Krillen was already studying the menu.
"Ah-hem." she said clearing her throat.
Krillen looked up and once again was speechless by the sight of her. "Wow." was all he could whisper.
18 had traded her jean skirt and white top for a silky yellow sundress that seemed to flow down her body, hugging at her breasts and tiny waist, to stop short at her knees. Green ivy traced its way up her dress in a brilliant pattern.
She slowly sat down, smirking, taking his silence as an affirmative. "See something you like?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"On the menu." she said picking up her own.
"Huh? Oh, um, yeah. The long legs- I mean chicken legs are great here. Um, see anything that you like?" He started to babble. The worse thing was that he knew that he was babbling, but couldn't stop. "Or do you androids not eat? Well of course you have to replinish yourself, everything does. But then again Trunks, the future one, said that you had an unlimited power source. Well he was wrong about alot of things, yet-"
18 placed her hand over his mouth quieting him. Slowly she slid her ring finger across his bottom lip, enjoying the smooth texture. When she relized what she was doing she pulled away and picked up her menu keeping her eyes glued to, not really reading it. She coughed.
"I can eat. After all I was once human just like you." 18 said.
"Sorry.I forgot." Krillen said humbly.
"It's alright." she replied. "And stop that!"
Krilen looked up from the specials. "Stop what?"
She smiled at him. "Being so nice."
"I-i'm not, not always," he said a little shocked.
"Oh yes you are." 18 said breaking in. "I'll bet that you haven't done anything wrong or rude in your entire life."
"Really now?" he said with an unusual smile on his face.
She leaned over and placed her elbows on the table. "Really." she said challanging.
Krillen continued to grin. "Well . . . ."
A half hour and three lunch specials later . . .
18 never laughed so hard in her life. "S-so when Goku found this 'turtle' rock, you stole it from him?" She laughed some more.
"Yeah." Krillen said chuckling a bit. "Then, because Master Roshi said that whoever found the rock was able to eat and the other not, Goku went without dinner that night. But I guess that he was the lucky one."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because he was the only one that didn't get food poisoning from the fish our cook, Launch, bought."
That sent both of them into histarics. Some of the other people in the resturant stared at them like they were crazy.
18 sipped her iced tea trying to recover. "So that's the worst thing that you've ever done?"
"Yeah. I guess I learned my lesson after that." he said.
Krillen then noticed how quiet 18 was. She was stareing at the salad she had ordered, but not eating it.
"18 are you okey? Aren't you hungery?" he asked, concern clearly in his voice.
"I've done so many terrible things." she said quietly. "And none of them small like stealing a dumb rock. I've hurt so mant of your friends. Ruined so many lives." Krillen watched as a tear slid down her cheek and landed on a napkin in front of her.
"18 . . ." he said not sure what to say.
"I shouldn't be here." she said and ran out of there, moveing so fast that she appeared as only a soft breeze to the other people there.
"18 wait!!" Krillen shouted. He started to go after her but was stopped by the manager. He pointed at the empty plates at Krillen and 18s table.
"Oh, heh-heh."
18 flew away as fast as she could. She didn't know where she was going. She had just picked a direction and took off.
How dare he! she thought. How dare he act like the past few months never happened! Damn it! I'm an android! A metal machine designed to destroy him and his friends. Why does he make me feel this way? Like I have just been punched hard in the gut and felt helpless.
Tears continued to fall down her face. Damn these human emotions! What does it all mean? she wondered. She should have killed him when she had the chance.
The further she flew the more she began to reconize the landscape. Down below was where she first fought Vegeta. That means that the lab was straight ahead. She picked up speed.
Krillen landed in front of Kame House holding a dozen shopping bags and gasping for air. It would have looked funny if not for the paniced look on his face.
"Is *gasp gasp* 18 here?" he asked his old master.
"Nope. Last we saw she was with you. Why? Is something wrong?" Roshi asked.
"Maybe. I don't know. She took off."
Roshi gasped and Oolong fainted. "Hold on," he said. "I'll call Gohan."
"No!" Krillen exclaimed. "I'll find her. She's just a little upset."
"But-" Roshi protested.
"I'll be right back!" Krillen said taking off.
Roshi and Umigame stood there looking as he jet off, knowing that they couldn't stop him.
18 landed on the lab. Or what was left or it. She moved around the wreakage kicking the occaional piece of scrap metal. She sighed. Krillen and the boy from the future had destroyed everything. She didn't even have this for a home anymore.
She sat down on a nearby rock. Why did I come back here she thought. It wasn't like she expected to find anything here. Maybe for her to see for herself that there really was no place for her.
A few pieces of rock shuffled lose to 18s right. She jerked her head that way.
"17?" she asked.
Suddenly she felt a familiar ki heading towards her from the opposite direction. Krillen landed down in front of her a moment later.
"I thought you might come here." he said.
18 turned her head away. "Go away Krillen before I decide to do something that I should have done."
"I'm not leaving, 18." Krillen said firmly.
18 jumped up and tried to fly away, but Krillen flew in front of her, powering up his ki and preventing her escape.
"Move out of my way!" she roared and flew in a different direction. But once again he jumped in her path. Every time she attempted to get away
Krillen would fly in front of her. 18s' anger began to rise and she brought her hands back forming a energy ball in each.
"Don't start a battle that you do not plan to finish, little man." she sneered.
Krillen rose his power up untill a blue aura flared up around him.
"Go ahead 18, but I'm not about to let you throw a new life away just because we WERE once rivals!" Krillen shouted.
18 froze momentaraly in front of the fighter before her.
"I was killed by Piccolos' father and nearly kiled by him too!" he said. "But now I'm honered to have him as a friend. I watched as the saijins killed my closest friends, but now their prince battles along side us.
"Tein and Chotzu were students under Master Roshis life long rival," he continued. "Yet we still offered friendship to them after they broke Yamchas leg and beat the daylights out of Goku."
"Yamcha- hell even Yamcha and Goku were rivals once. All of us- all of us were enemies. But we moved past that and now are as close as family."
18 watched as the blue aura around Krillen faded away.
"I know that your good 18. And you know that everything I just said is true." Krillen floated in mid-air as he talked to 18. "I know that you are going to need time to realize, I mean what I say. But you don't have to spend that time alone." He offered his hand out to her.
18 stood perfectly still, as she stared at the hand as if it would bite her the moment she took it. She looked up into his face and saw . . . something. Something she had never seen before in anyones eyes.
The blasts in her hand fizzled then disappeared. She slowly let herself drift to the ground.
Krillen smiled at her and said, "Let's go home 18."
Home. She had a home.