Chapter 1:
On the Run
The silence echoed through the backstreets of Orange Star City.
Not even the rats were out on a cold night like this.
But there was somebody still awake.
The door of an old boarded up house cracked open a few inches, and the eyes of a handsome teenager peered out into the night. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he stepped out, quietly closing the door behind him. From the other end of the street, a tall, green-skinned figure rose from his crouched position on the roof of an apartment block, and performed a casual flying leap, landing in front of his young companion.
For a moment, they just stood there, their eyes locked, trying to read through the other's gaze. Finally, the green-skinned man spoke. "Any sign of Doctor Gero?" he asked in his monotone growl.
"Of course there isn't! Honestly Piccolo, do you think I'd have come out if there was? He got whatever he was looking for about five minutes ago, then took off."
Piccolo shrugged. "Did you see where he was headed?"
"No, but I'm guessing he'll head back to the lab. The equipment he was holding looked like machine parts, for a radio transmitter, maybe."
"He might be trying to make another deactivation remote. Would that have any effect on me now I'm a cyborg as well?"
"No. You've only been given an Adrenalin Boost, a few muscle augmentations, an energy enhancer and the absorption nodes on your hands. As you've probably noticed your upgrades have increased your power level significantly, but you're brain would have to be replaced by a positron CPU before he could program you in any way."
"Well, that at least is a consolation. I'm already annoyed enough with this metal garbage he's put in me without it making me vulnerable to his anti-android weapons, but I suppose you wouldn't be so lucky. We're going to have to go after him, aren't we."
"What did you expect, green man? Did you think we were just going to let him chase us all over the world until he finally caught us?"
Android 17's constant rudeness was starting to get on Piccolo's nerves, but he new that this alliance wasn't going to work if they were constantly arguing, and besides, he remembered the days when he would have said the same thing, and they weren't too long ago. He had needed the android's help to escape from Gero's lab, and in return, he had taken him to Capsule Corp to be repaired afterwards, seriously endangering Bulma and Trunks. At first, imprisoned in Gero's lab, he had thought 17 and his twin sister 18 were just clockwork dolls, looking and speaking like humans, but really just machines going through the motions. Now, his opinion had changed. He had seen emotion break through 17's shell several times over the last few weeks. He had been angry at Doctor Gero for keeping him and 18 locked away in the lab, instead of fighting as they were designed to do. He had been shocked and depressed when Gero killed 18 the day they escaped the lab, and he had almost seemed apologetic when Bulma had found the tracking device injected into his arm, and realized that Doctor Gero would be on his way to Capsule Corp. They had barely escaped that day, and the capsule corp. building had been destroyed, along with the dragon radar. They had hidden Bulma and her family, as well as Master Roshi, Oolong, and Sea turtle in a submarine in the middle of the Southern Ocean, and left to fight Doctor Gero by themselves, knowing that they might endanger the others by involving them, or even staying with them, if the old genius had implanted any more tracking devices. It seemed he had not, because even when he had been only a few hundred meters away from them, he had not tried to attack them. Luckily 17 had no readable energy, and Piccolo was probably more adept at energy suppression than even a Kai. Doctor Gero had been chasing them, and they had been running away from him for three weeks now, and 17's everlasting energy had often pulled Piccolo through when he thought he just couldn't struggle on any more. Of course, he had never let his fatigue show, but in several encounters with their pursuer he had needed to rely on his android companion to fight for him. His robotic upgrades weren't helping either. The metal was reacting badly with his body, so that it hurt him every time he moved his augmented muscles, and the absorption nodes in his hands dug deep into his skin, causing constant sores and blisters. He was barely managing to hold back the pain, and it was slowing him down considerably.
"Well, let's go," Piccolo finally said.
Android 17 grimaced. Secretly, he wanted to keep away from Gero even more than he new Piccolo would. That old man, who had been so absurdly puny when 17 was first activated was now miles above any of the other androids he new of, and a good deal more powerful than both him and 18. Kame, he'd sliced her in half with one attack, even if it was from behind! Goku must have been pretty powerful, much more powerful than Gero had been when he'd absorbed him, and Piccolo had said their was another person who had been absorbed by the old man, who was even stronger than Goku! His name was Vecheka or something, could be Vegeta, but that didn't make sense, because Vegeta had been Goku's arch enemy!
"Well?" Piccolo interrupted 17's reverie. "Are we going or not!"
"Yes, we are." 17 lifted off and blasted away towards Doctor Gero's lab, not looking back to see if his giant green partner was following. Now that he didn't have 18, he would have to make do for a while, but once this was all over, and he could gather up all those magic dragon balls, he would revive 18, and though he didn't think he'd ever return to his old ways, he new he would feel better with his twin sister and fighting partner back.
The problem was, he somehow couldn't believe that this ever would end.
.
Doctor Gero stood at his workbench, carefully screwing on his Jeweler's eyepiece. He had included Infrared vision in the many enhancements he'd had Android 19 give him, but he had continued wearing it out of habit alone. He leant forward over the components he had spread out on the tabletop, and began to link them together. For weeks, he had been chasing his rebellious Creation #17, and the Namekian subject he had been trying to turn into a twenty-second android. Android 21, who he had nicknamed Cell, didn't seem to be forming quite as he had planned, and besides, he enjoyed his tinkering, and had always wondered what sort of genome a creature such as this would have. Unfortunately, his curiosity had backfired on him. The Namek had turned his two best creations against him, forcing him to seriously damage one, and taking away the other. He had asked his P.A.L network what would be most likely to ensue if he activated Androids 13, 14 and 15, and it had told him that the Namek and #17 would destroy them all, and he would be no closer to reclaiming them. He could tell that its analysis would be correct. 17's recorded energy level was much higher than that of his lesser creations, and after all the operations he had performed on Piccolo, he would probably stand a good chance against them as well.
So he had gone after them alone, and spent a fruitless few weeks chasing them all over the globe. He had come close to catching them several times, but always they had got away at the last second. Yesterday, 17 had snatched the activation remote from him, and crushed it effortlessly in one hand. Without 17, the Namek didn't stand a chance, but without the remote, he couldn't deactivate 17, and Piccolo's cunning would continue to keep them just out of his reach. So, he had collected the necessary components, and come back here to make five new activation remotes. He had decided that, despite what the P.A.L network had told him, releasing Units 13, 14 and 15 would be his best course of action. Even if they didn't manage to deactivate 17 and recapture Piccolo, they might still give him an idea as to where they were. Besides, the system had been due for some slight recalibrations ever since Android 19 was completed, and what would have been a minor decoding error might now have corrupted some of his important programs, causing the predictions it made to become unreliable. The problem with releasing his inferior creations was that he would have to leave with them to conduct an effective search for his escaped creations. His own organic logic told him that the fastest, safest and most efficient way was to have one android patrol each quadrant, with another back at the lab to guard, and control the Dimensional Bridge if required. He couldn't trust any of his androids to remain here for an extended period of time without supervision, and none of them possessed the necessary qualifications to operate the bridge. The android that remained here would have to be him, which meant he didn't have enough androids. Not unless…
.
Doctor Gero looked down at his latest creation proudly. Since the failure of his last 3 models, all needing to recharge every 300 hours or so, he had started work on this new body, using some of his one time unwilling partner Doctor Frap's old designs. For eighteen months he had labored constantly, when he wasn't adding more information about Goku to the P.A.L network's memory banks, or checking that Goku was still weaker than any of his androids so far. Truthfully, he could have sent one of his earlier mottles to do the job long ago, but he enjoyed his experiments, and wanted to know that he had made the perfect and utterly undefeatable android before he allowed himself the satisfaction of seeing Goku die. Now, he was sure he had finally done it.
The giant lay motionless as a rag doll on the ground in front of his creator. Doctor Gero took a moment to gaze down at the killing machine at his feet, a machine that he had crafted with the quickness of his hands and the brilliance of his mind. This, he thought, was the perfect android, the one that would smite that insolent little boy once and for all.
.
"How wrong I was," he said to himself with a dry chuckle. On activating Android 16, he had soon found that somewhere, somehow in the process of his conception, emotions had been introduced into the artificial intelligence. While 16 was willing to kill Goku, if only to complete his primary program, he do no further harm to the world which he had immediately fell in love with. Doctor Gero had been disgusted with his uselessness, and promptly locked him away, never to be seen again.
Or so he thought…
A/N: Well! What do you think? Did you like the ideas I used? Is there anything you don't like about the story so far? Do you have anything you'd like to happen in the story at some point? Please review, and tell me what you think! Also, I desperately need a better title for this story, so if anybody can think of one, please tell me! Bye for now.
Story Advertising
A/N: Just a tradition I've decided to adopt, so that if you don't like this story I might at least be able to point you to something better.
Title: KiBlind
Author: Sholio
Summary: COMPLETE The Z-senshi have mysteriously lost their ability to control ki, and the Earth is being invaded. Will strategy succeed when brute strength
fails?
JDX's Comments: This is a great story with original ideas and wonderful character development. It's an epic which is not as well known as it deserves to be, so go read it now!