Author's Note: I decided Cell's going to be one of the main characters in
"A Conceivable Outcome," but a lot of characters are going to be in it.
It's probably going to be one of those stories where so many characters are
essential to the plot that you only see a character every half a dozen
chapters or so. It is more fun for me that way. This chapter started out
serious and turned rather odd. This is almost a filler chapter as only the
first thousand words or so really matter to the plot, but I actually really
like this chapter. One more to go after this, and maybe a teaser of "A
Conceivable Outcome" if I feel like it. Only one review for my last chapter
is kind of pathetic. If you're reading this, write something, so I know
more than one person likes this. It does motivate me when I have reviews.
Jay Goose- I want to slightly revise my statement. I have the story up to the first chapter in "A Conceivable Outcome" mapped out, so you'll probably see the prologue and the first chapter of the sequel out pretty quickly, mainly because I really, really want to write that chapter.
One moment Cell was sure he had finally ended up in Hell (except this Hell was devised especially for him, which made it worse, seeing as Hell in general actually wasn't that bad, but I digress), the next his mind did the sensible thing and shut out all outside stimulus. Whether this was due to the agony brought on by a misused Instant Transmission, or a delayed "your life is about to suck" signal, he didn't know, but for all intended purposes the android blacked out before getting to see where they ended up.
Cell didn't dream. Whether this was due to the fact he wasn't programmed to, seeing as he didn't sleep (unlikely as sentients in general do dream, or at least hallucinate, and it wasn't programmed into them), or because his brain wasn't used to shutting down completely and hadn't figured out yet what it was supposed to do when all senses got turned off, the android instead found himself inside his own mind. If he knew more about Earth culture, Cell might have felt flattered, as only those who strived for inner peace got as far as he was in that moment (that or Raven from "Teen Titans," but she's half-demon so it doesn't count). However, all he knew at the moment was that he was currently staring at a desk that bore a remarkable resemblance to his desk at the checking station of Otherworld, and a saiyan was leaning against it.
Cell glanced around. Besides the desk and the saiyan, there wasn't anyone else around except for a lot of white. It looked a lot like the Room of Spirit and Time, for those of you who want a visual, but Cell had never been there so it doesn't matter to him. "I'd always figured my mind would be a little more interesting than this." The saiyan snorted. He resembled Goku, though not to a great enough degree he would be mistaken for the Earth-raised saiyan unless one desperately needed glasses (or was Freiza, but he had a lot of issues concerning saiyans). "It is, though disturbing would be a more accurate adjective. It is about as orderly as one would expect, seeing as you were created in a test tube, but that puppy with two legs dragging itself along kid's play room soaked in blood made me wonder if I'd gotten the wrong head and ended up in Tim Burton's. No, I just brought you here so there wouldn't be any outside distractions." "Who's Tim Burton?" "A human movie director. His mind is disquieting, to say the least. Anyway, I suppose you want to know why I brought you here." "Not really." "Oh? Usually the people I contact desire some idea of my intentions." "You are a dead psychic of the saiyan race, here to contact me about Goku, who presumably is related to you in some way. You also absorb characteristics of the people you contact, seeing as no one talks like that except me."
"You're smart. Good, that will speed up things. Though no, I don't absorb anything from you. I just use big words and complex sentence structures because it tends to impress people and make them think me a god of some sort, which makes things easier for me. Anyway, Goku's my son. I'm contacting you from Hell because he's in a world of trouble right now, and like an idiot he's going to dive right in because he thinks the best of people and wants to do the right thing." Bardock, for it was he, fingered the scar on his left cheek, and sighed. "How the hell I managed to spawn such a simpleton I'll never know. At least my grandson is a true saiyan, even if he is a little mixed up." Cell ignored the comment about Gohan, but he couldn't stop himself from rubbing the bite where his neck met his shoulders. "If you want something done about Goku, you might want to contact him instead of me." "He isn't out of it enough. I needed someone with at least ambivalent intentions towards my son who was comatose or deeper. You're the only one who fits the bill." "I don't like your son." "Of course you don't. You think he's an idiot, though for different reasons than most people. However, you felt betrayed at the idea Goku would take Gohan's side over yours, which tells me even if lack the ability to become fond of people, you are still able to trust them." "Is that supposed to mean something?" "The feelings people hold for others are qualities they themselves hold. If you are unlikable, you are still trustworthy, which is far more important and what I need right now. And stop touching the bite. All you're doing is irritating it. It's not going to go away." Cell drew his hand away from his neck, but glared at Bardock. "I heal from everything." "A bite like that has more to do with the spiritual and less with the physical." "What in Kami's name are you blathering about?!" "All you need to know is to stay at least one planet away from Gohan at all times." The saiyan shrugged. "Just a piece of advice. Anyway, tell Goku not to get involved with the group he just decided to get involved in. No matter how important he was in the past, he can't make a difference in the long-run here. Especially if he uses his regular tactics."
"Are those pieces of advice supposed to be so incredibly nonsensical? Why should I stay so far away from your brat of a grandson anyway?" "Fine, go seek him out and get your head blown off. I really don't care. Just give my message to Goku." "I'm still not entirely sure I'm not just hallucinating all this." "If you didn't know who the hell Tim Burton was, you sure couldn't have made him up in your own mind. Ask Goku about "The Nightmare Before Christmas."" "The what?" "Exactly. If he knows what it is, then obviously an outside source is feeding you all this." "That seems sort of strange way to tell." "Says the android whose mind consists of blood soaked play rooms and adorable dying baby animals. The whispering child with no eyes didn't do much for me either. Look, just do it so I can go and catch the end of "Will and Grace." Radditz promised to tape it for me, but I don't think he really knows how to use the VCR." "Erm. . ." However, Bardock was already gone.
----
Cell watched silently as the white walls fell down to reveal a corridor full of rotting food and photos of laughing clowns. And the clowns were watching him. He sighed. "This seems more of a Goku nightmare than mine." "Who ever said this was supposed to be a nightmare? This is your subconscious, not an amalgam of your experiences and fears." The android glanced to his left to see an open doorway where there was none before. Leaning against it was Trunks. "You know, I never thought you had anything in the way of exceptional telepathic powers." "I'm not Trunks, I'm just an expression of him you concocted to help explain yourself to yourself. I suppose you could think of this as a dream, if you want. It amounts to the same thing; material expressions of your feelings and thoughts. Your mind isn't able to process them in their purest form, so they are filtered to prevent your head from exploding." "If you are here to translate my subconscious to myself, why Trunks, of all people?" "He is the only warrior of real intelligence you respect without fear. Or perhaps this is just fanservice to those out there who think this story needs more bishounin." "What?" Trunks shrugged. "Okay then, what's with the laughing clowns?" "Hell if I know, but they are kind of disturbing. Can you imagine walking down an endless hall of these things? Eventually their faces would become angrier and angrier, until. . . until. . . erm. . ." "Where are you getting this?" "You saw it in a movie once. Or Goku did. I think he left the room at that point. You got some weird memories from that guy. Did you know he once tried to eat a cake made of soap? Got three pieces in before his wife dragged him off.
"This isn't an important part of the subconscious, it's just something you have in there because you never forget anything. I could show you more, if you want, though I recommend staying away from the darker parts." "What, like the bloody play room?" "That's barely counts as shadowy here. You're a pretty twisted guy. Kami didn't intend for four people to be combined at once, and Dr. Gero did a sucky job. I'm kind of surprised you haven't gone insane yet." "The only person in here is me." "You aren't much of a person, just a pale reflection of four different people at once. The only reason you have a voice at all is because a lot of those people's memories have been excised. Unfortunately, now another person is here, and he's got a much stronger hold on your mind than you do. You should follow Bardock's advice and stay away from Gohan." Cell felt a chill go down his spine. "Any particular reason?" "The closer you are to Gohan, the greater control he has over you. Right now you two are pretty far away from each other, so he is no stronger than you are here.
"So, what do you want to visit first?" "Quite frankly, I don't want to be here at all. Tell me how I can leave." "No can do, amigo. A lot of people stay in the condition you're in for months or years. Some never wake up. Extreme trauma and all that. You can't just snap out of it. And as long as you're here, you might as well look around. A greater understanding of yourself will be very beneficial at some point." "Why do you think I don't understand myself?" "If you did, you wouldn't need me to explain everything that goes around in your head. So, what do you want to visit first?" "Is there a map of some sort?" Trunks rolled his eyes, but obligingly snapped his fingers to materialize a map into Cell's hands.
It was separated into four parts, which only in the middle intersected. Trunks pointed to the intersection point. "That is you. Everything else isn't you." A 'you are here' red dot started blinking on the fringes of the lightest colored portion of the map. "Right now we are on the fringes of section Goku. The different shadings indicate who is what. The color is by the evil quotient. You can take a guess as to the descending order." "Why is it the parts of the sections closer to the middle are darker in color?" "The more you understand yourself, the closer you will get to the darkness." "It isn't very comforting that the only section that is me is pitch-black." "That's where Gohan has taken residence. Oh shit, there it goes again." Cell watched, slightly wide-eyed, as the darkest part of the map suddenly turned a blinding white. "In case you didn't know, Gohan is insane. He fluctuates between his two personalities all the time, but it's actually kind of deceiving. Gohan and Nione used to be separate, but they've long since seeped into each other. Now two sides of the same coin instead of fun house mirrors, if you want an analogy." ". . . I think I'll stick to Goku for now." The demi-saiyan that was not shrugged. "Suit yourself."
----
As they walked along the corridors of Goku, Cell asked a question that had bothered him ever since his talk with Bardock. "Which part of the mind did the dying animals and such come from?" "The whispering child with no eyes was all you, but the puppy and the play room came from Vegeta. Kami, was his childhood screwed up." "Care to explain what my subconscious is trying to say?" Trunks snorted. "I thought it was obvious. You have abandonment issues. Ah, here we are." Cell wasn't sure whether to be surprised or just completely furious as they entered a room that seemed rather reminiscent of a forest. "Abandonment issues?!" "Well, yeah. Ever wondered why you were so angry at Gero the first time you met him?" "He. . . oh." "You looked up to him, for whatever perverse reason, and as such wanted him to be proud of you. Of course, all you were to him was an experiment, and later an instrument, albeit an important one. When you finally figured it out, you were angry, but you kind of have an abused child syndrome. Hate your dad's guts, but still strive with all your might in the hopes he might feel what you want him to. And no offense, but you had it right when you kicked his ass. Gero was a complete sicko. What a Dr. Munroe complex." "What?" "Another movie Goku saw." "He seems inordinately fond of the horror genre." "Nah, Chi-chi just insisted on renting them all the time on the hope it would spice up their love life." Trunks smirked. "It didn't work."
They finally entered a clearing, and Trunks paused on the edge. Cell stopped beside him, to observe a child sparring with an old man. "This is Goku's memory of the purest, simplest, most happy time of his life. He really loved his grandfather." The demi-saiyan and the android observed the young Goku attempt a roundhouse kick to the back of the old man's head, only for his leg to be grabbed and thrown bodily into the trunk of a nearby tree. "It really is too bad he was the one to kill the old man. But I wouldn't tell Goku that. He doesn't need to know, and it would only hurt him. He doesn't deserve that kind of pain."
Despite finding his inner Trunks annoying and sarcastic, Cell had to agree with him on that one. They watched Goku get steadily thrashed for several more minutes, but then the two combatants suddenly screeched to a halt after Grandfather Gohan suggested lunch, and Goku lost all interest in the fight. Cell smiled softly as the two walked off, his thoughts elsewhere. "Goku hasn't changed very much at all." "Hey, that isn't true! I love rice balls much more than I used to." The voice wasn't Trunks. Cell startled, whipped around, to view a very annoyed Trunks standing next to an indignant Goku. Trunks sighed. "I guess I'll be going then, since your ride has arrived." He faded away. Cell regarded Goku warily. "Are you really Goku?" "Who else would I be? I'm certainly not Vegeta! You know, those psychics Goten had weren't very good. They said your shields were impenetrable, but a good fourth of it was practically transparent. You ready to go?" Cell glanced back at the clearing where he had viewed young Goku sparring with his beloved grandfather. "I suppose I am. I could always come back here if I wanted." (Not that I would ever want to. Getting to 'know thyself' is rather daunting, especially since Gohan is around. It's bad enough encountering him in real life. Seeing him in my own mind is something I'll never do voluntarily.) "Okay then, let's go!"
As cheerful as Goku seemed, he couldn't help but send one thought out before they finally left. (Goodbye, grandfather.)
----
Grandfather Gohan paused in the middle of biting into a meat bun. Young Goku stopped as well, and sent a slightly worried look in his grandfather's direction. "What's wrong, Grandpa?" "I just thought I heard something. But it's nothing, Goku. Now finish your broccoli."
Jay Goose- I want to slightly revise my statement. I have the story up to the first chapter in "A Conceivable Outcome" mapped out, so you'll probably see the prologue and the first chapter of the sequel out pretty quickly, mainly because I really, really want to write that chapter.
One moment Cell was sure he had finally ended up in Hell (except this Hell was devised especially for him, which made it worse, seeing as Hell in general actually wasn't that bad, but I digress), the next his mind did the sensible thing and shut out all outside stimulus. Whether this was due to the agony brought on by a misused Instant Transmission, or a delayed "your life is about to suck" signal, he didn't know, but for all intended purposes the android blacked out before getting to see where they ended up.
Cell didn't dream. Whether this was due to the fact he wasn't programmed to, seeing as he didn't sleep (unlikely as sentients in general do dream, or at least hallucinate, and it wasn't programmed into them), or because his brain wasn't used to shutting down completely and hadn't figured out yet what it was supposed to do when all senses got turned off, the android instead found himself inside his own mind. If he knew more about Earth culture, Cell might have felt flattered, as only those who strived for inner peace got as far as he was in that moment (that or Raven from "Teen Titans," but she's half-demon so it doesn't count). However, all he knew at the moment was that he was currently staring at a desk that bore a remarkable resemblance to his desk at the checking station of Otherworld, and a saiyan was leaning against it.
Cell glanced around. Besides the desk and the saiyan, there wasn't anyone else around except for a lot of white. It looked a lot like the Room of Spirit and Time, for those of you who want a visual, but Cell had never been there so it doesn't matter to him. "I'd always figured my mind would be a little more interesting than this." The saiyan snorted. He resembled Goku, though not to a great enough degree he would be mistaken for the Earth-raised saiyan unless one desperately needed glasses (or was Freiza, but he had a lot of issues concerning saiyans). "It is, though disturbing would be a more accurate adjective. It is about as orderly as one would expect, seeing as you were created in a test tube, but that puppy with two legs dragging itself along kid's play room soaked in blood made me wonder if I'd gotten the wrong head and ended up in Tim Burton's. No, I just brought you here so there wouldn't be any outside distractions." "Who's Tim Burton?" "A human movie director. His mind is disquieting, to say the least. Anyway, I suppose you want to know why I brought you here." "Not really." "Oh? Usually the people I contact desire some idea of my intentions." "You are a dead psychic of the saiyan race, here to contact me about Goku, who presumably is related to you in some way. You also absorb characteristics of the people you contact, seeing as no one talks like that except me."
"You're smart. Good, that will speed up things. Though no, I don't absorb anything from you. I just use big words and complex sentence structures because it tends to impress people and make them think me a god of some sort, which makes things easier for me. Anyway, Goku's my son. I'm contacting you from Hell because he's in a world of trouble right now, and like an idiot he's going to dive right in because he thinks the best of people and wants to do the right thing." Bardock, for it was he, fingered the scar on his left cheek, and sighed. "How the hell I managed to spawn such a simpleton I'll never know. At least my grandson is a true saiyan, even if he is a little mixed up." Cell ignored the comment about Gohan, but he couldn't stop himself from rubbing the bite where his neck met his shoulders. "If you want something done about Goku, you might want to contact him instead of me." "He isn't out of it enough. I needed someone with at least ambivalent intentions towards my son who was comatose or deeper. You're the only one who fits the bill." "I don't like your son." "Of course you don't. You think he's an idiot, though for different reasons than most people. However, you felt betrayed at the idea Goku would take Gohan's side over yours, which tells me even if lack the ability to become fond of people, you are still able to trust them." "Is that supposed to mean something?" "The feelings people hold for others are qualities they themselves hold. If you are unlikable, you are still trustworthy, which is far more important and what I need right now. And stop touching the bite. All you're doing is irritating it. It's not going to go away." Cell drew his hand away from his neck, but glared at Bardock. "I heal from everything." "A bite like that has more to do with the spiritual and less with the physical." "What in Kami's name are you blathering about?!" "All you need to know is to stay at least one planet away from Gohan at all times." The saiyan shrugged. "Just a piece of advice. Anyway, tell Goku not to get involved with the group he just decided to get involved in. No matter how important he was in the past, he can't make a difference in the long-run here. Especially if he uses his regular tactics."
"Are those pieces of advice supposed to be so incredibly nonsensical? Why should I stay so far away from your brat of a grandson anyway?" "Fine, go seek him out and get your head blown off. I really don't care. Just give my message to Goku." "I'm still not entirely sure I'm not just hallucinating all this." "If you didn't know who the hell Tim Burton was, you sure couldn't have made him up in your own mind. Ask Goku about "The Nightmare Before Christmas."" "The what?" "Exactly. If he knows what it is, then obviously an outside source is feeding you all this." "That seems sort of strange way to tell." "Says the android whose mind consists of blood soaked play rooms and adorable dying baby animals. The whispering child with no eyes didn't do much for me either. Look, just do it so I can go and catch the end of "Will and Grace." Radditz promised to tape it for me, but I don't think he really knows how to use the VCR." "Erm. . ." However, Bardock was already gone.
----
Cell watched silently as the white walls fell down to reveal a corridor full of rotting food and photos of laughing clowns. And the clowns were watching him. He sighed. "This seems more of a Goku nightmare than mine." "Who ever said this was supposed to be a nightmare? This is your subconscious, not an amalgam of your experiences and fears." The android glanced to his left to see an open doorway where there was none before. Leaning against it was Trunks. "You know, I never thought you had anything in the way of exceptional telepathic powers." "I'm not Trunks, I'm just an expression of him you concocted to help explain yourself to yourself. I suppose you could think of this as a dream, if you want. It amounts to the same thing; material expressions of your feelings and thoughts. Your mind isn't able to process them in their purest form, so they are filtered to prevent your head from exploding." "If you are here to translate my subconscious to myself, why Trunks, of all people?" "He is the only warrior of real intelligence you respect without fear. Or perhaps this is just fanservice to those out there who think this story needs more bishounin." "What?" Trunks shrugged. "Okay then, what's with the laughing clowns?" "Hell if I know, but they are kind of disturbing. Can you imagine walking down an endless hall of these things? Eventually their faces would become angrier and angrier, until. . . until. . . erm. . ." "Where are you getting this?" "You saw it in a movie once. Or Goku did. I think he left the room at that point. You got some weird memories from that guy. Did you know he once tried to eat a cake made of soap? Got three pieces in before his wife dragged him off.
"This isn't an important part of the subconscious, it's just something you have in there because you never forget anything. I could show you more, if you want, though I recommend staying away from the darker parts." "What, like the bloody play room?" "That's barely counts as shadowy here. You're a pretty twisted guy. Kami didn't intend for four people to be combined at once, and Dr. Gero did a sucky job. I'm kind of surprised you haven't gone insane yet." "The only person in here is me." "You aren't much of a person, just a pale reflection of four different people at once. The only reason you have a voice at all is because a lot of those people's memories have been excised. Unfortunately, now another person is here, and he's got a much stronger hold on your mind than you do. You should follow Bardock's advice and stay away from Gohan." Cell felt a chill go down his spine. "Any particular reason?" "The closer you are to Gohan, the greater control he has over you. Right now you two are pretty far away from each other, so he is no stronger than you are here.
"So, what do you want to visit first?" "Quite frankly, I don't want to be here at all. Tell me how I can leave." "No can do, amigo. A lot of people stay in the condition you're in for months or years. Some never wake up. Extreme trauma and all that. You can't just snap out of it. And as long as you're here, you might as well look around. A greater understanding of yourself will be very beneficial at some point." "Why do you think I don't understand myself?" "If you did, you wouldn't need me to explain everything that goes around in your head. So, what do you want to visit first?" "Is there a map of some sort?" Trunks rolled his eyes, but obligingly snapped his fingers to materialize a map into Cell's hands.
It was separated into four parts, which only in the middle intersected. Trunks pointed to the intersection point. "That is you. Everything else isn't you." A 'you are here' red dot started blinking on the fringes of the lightest colored portion of the map. "Right now we are on the fringes of section Goku. The different shadings indicate who is what. The color is by the evil quotient. You can take a guess as to the descending order." "Why is it the parts of the sections closer to the middle are darker in color?" "The more you understand yourself, the closer you will get to the darkness." "It isn't very comforting that the only section that is me is pitch-black." "That's where Gohan has taken residence. Oh shit, there it goes again." Cell watched, slightly wide-eyed, as the darkest part of the map suddenly turned a blinding white. "In case you didn't know, Gohan is insane. He fluctuates between his two personalities all the time, but it's actually kind of deceiving. Gohan and Nione used to be separate, but they've long since seeped into each other. Now two sides of the same coin instead of fun house mirrors, if you want an analogy." ". . . I think I'll stick to Goku for now." The demi-saiyan that was not shrugged. "Suit yourself."
----
As they walked along the corridors of Goku, Cell asked a question that had bothered him ever since his talk with Bardock. "Which part of the mind did the dying animals and such come from?" "The whispering child with no eyes was all you, but the puppy and the play room came from Vegeta. Kami, was his childhood screwed up." "Care to explain what my subconscious is trying to say?" Trunks snorted. "I thought it was obvious. You have abandonment issues. Ah, here we are." Cell wasn't sure whether to be surprised or just completely furious as they entered a room that seemed rather reminiscent of a forest. "Abandonment issues?!" "Well, yeah. Ever wondered why you were so angry at Gero the first time you met him?" "He. . . oh." "You looked up to him, for whatever perverse reason, and as such wanted him to be proud of you. Of course, all you were to him was an experiment, and later an instrument, albeit an important one. When you finally figured it out, you were angry, but you kind of have an abused child syndrome. Hate your dad's guts, but still strive with all your might in the hopes he might feel what you want him to. And no offense, but you had it right when you kicked his ass. Gero was a complete sicko. What a Dr. Munroe complex." "What?" "Another movie Goku saw." "He seems inordinately fond of the horror genre." "Nah, Chi-chi just insisted on renting them all the time on the hope it would spice up their love life." Trunks smirked. "It didn't work."
They finally entered a clearing, and Trunks paused on the edge. Cell stopped beside him, to observe a child sparring with an old man. "This is Goku's memory of the purest, simplest, most happy time of his life. He really loved his grandfather." The demi-saiyan and the android observed the young Goku attempt a roundhouse kick to the back of the old man's head, only for his leg to be grabbed and thrown bodily into the trunk of a nearby tree. "It really is too bad he was the one to kill the old man. But I wouldn't tell Goku that. He doesn't need to know, and it would only hurt him. He doesn't deserve that kind of pain."
Despite finding his inner Trunks annoying and sarcastic, Cell had to agree with him on that one. They watched Goku get steadily thrashed for several more minutes, but then the two combatants suddenly screeched to a halt after Grandfather Gohan suggested lunch, and Goku lost all interest in the fight. Cell smiled softly as the two walked off, his thoughts elsewhere. "Goku hasn't changed very much at all." "Hey, that isn't true! I love rice balls much more than I used to." The voice wasn't Trunks. Cell startled, whipped around, to view a very annoyed Trunks standing next to an indignant Goku. Trunks sighed. "I guess I'll be going then, since your ride has arrived." He faded away. Cell regarded Goku warily. "Are you really Goku?" "Who else would I be? I'm certainly not Vegeta! You know, those psychics Goten had weren't very good. They said your shields were impenetrable, but a good fourth of it was practically transparent. You ready to go?" Cell glanced back at the clearing where he had viewed young Goku sparring with his beloved grandfather. "I suppose I am. I could always come back here if I wanted." (Not that I would ever want to. Getting to 'know thyself' is rather daunting, especially since Gohan is around. It's bad enough encountering him in real life. Seeing him in my own mind is something I'll never do voluntarily.) "Okay then, let's go!"
As cheerful as Goku seemed, he couldn't help but send one thought out before they finally left. (Goodbye, grandfather.)
----
Grandfather Gohan paused in the middle of biting into a meat bun. Young Goku stopped as well, and sent a slightly worried look in his grandfather's direction. "What's wrong, Grandpa?" "I just thought I heard something. But it's nothing, Goku. Now finish your broccoli."