Disclaimer: Dragonball Z isn't mine…..

Chapter 1

The sky was a bright blue, with only the odd cloud gently drifting across its surface. The sun was shining brightly down on the city and in normal circumstances it would be considered a perfect summers day, but today was different. The whole city is silent and all that can be heard are the occasional banging of an unhinged sign blowing against its supports in the gentle summer breeze.

A Wind blows across the road where he's standing gently cooling the air, and making his jet black hair wave back and forth softly. He's looking directly at the sun but he isn't bothered, his eyes can handle its brightness. Slowly he turned his head towards his twin. She looks just as bored as he feels and is sitting on some rubble with her head in her hands staring blankly at the floor. Taking one last glance at the decimated city to make sure he hadn't missed any survivors he turned fully towards his sister.

"So…… did we killed him?" he muttered breaking the silence. Even before he asked he knew the response he was going to get, since he had guessed it himself already. Looking away from her again he looks back towards the sun.

"…….No, you know I didn't, I made sure he was alive afterwards remember. I've already told you anyway… and why would I lie, you said yourself how boring it will be without someone strong to mess with" she responded briskly, only a hint of uncertainty showing in her voice, "unless I overestimated how strong he was and overdid it".

At this she turned away from 17 and looked back at the floor thinking, her blond hair shielding her face in case he turned around to look at her. She was starting to wonder if Trunks had been alive after their last battle, but she didn't want 17 to realise that.

"Then where is he, we've killed a lot of people since then 18 and he hasn't shown up… unless… he's too scared" 17 smirked at this last statement knowing it not to be true, Trunks was the only person left on the planet who would stand up to them.

"Well what do you want to do, im bored", she sighed standing up, brushing the dust off her denim skirt and smoothing out the creases.

"Well I think were about finished here, don't you" 17 responded, shifting his gaze from the sun to the remains of the city and its ex-inhabitants.

The breeze picked up again moving 18's hair in front of her face. Smoothly she brushed it back behind her ear again. "I want to go look and see if any clothes survived, you did leave that store in one piece didn't you" 18 said, eyeing her brother suspiciously.

Laughing at the cold gaze his sister was inflicting on him 17 responded, "Of course I remembered…" quickly changing his tone, becoming serious again "but that's not important… I've just had an idea… lets go to Gero's lab, im curious about something,……and we never really looked around properly before we left. Anyway it beats watching you try on clothes for the next 2 hours" he chuckled again smiling back at his sister.

"Whatever" she sighed simply, she couldn't be bothered arguing with him and she could always come back to look for clothes later, it wasn't like they were going anywhere. 17 nodded at her and they both took off into the sky heading towards the ruins of Gero's lab leaving nothing but a ghost city behind.

"Ahhhhh it's been a while" Sighed 17 looking down at the broken lab.

It was starting to get dark and the sun had turned the horizon crimson. Both of them floating down they landed gently outside the door, not that they needed to use it, their were enough holes in the building to just walk in. Stepping into the lab their feet crushed bits of the ceiling and rubble that littered the floor. 18 walked over to the light switch and pushed it. The soft hum of electricity emanated from cobweb ridden lights as they struggled to work. After a short pause they flickered into life, giving off nothing more than a dim glow, barely illuminating the room. The whole place was in decay, moss covering the computer terminals and dust lining the floors.

17 knelt down to the floor running his hand across a burn mark that ran across most of the room, ending at the wall where their was a large piece missing. He smiled "remember when I killed the old man,…… he shouted something about how he gave us life, and how he could easily take it away". Standing back up again he wandered over to his old pod looking at it with an expression close to anger, "Why did he say that 18, I mean he must have know he wasn't strong enough to beat us himself".

18 walked across the room towards one of the computers brushing her hair behind her ear, "I'm not sure, I destroyed his controller so it couldn't have been because of that, there was no way he could have defeated us without it….….. Unless" she said suddenly realising why 17 had brought them here.

"Exactly, unless he had made other androids, ones who are even stronger than us" 17 said finishing 18's sentence. He looked around the room at the 3 pods that occupied it. Reading the numbers on them 17, 18 and 19….. They both knew that Gero never had time to complete 19. Wandering over he looked through the window at the half completed machine. "Hmmm he couldn't have meant 19, apart from being incomplete he's of a much inferior design to us".

"Maybe he had another lab" 18 offered, "or maybe there is an extension to this lab that we can't see" At this she walked over to the centre of the floor and looked at it…she smiled, "and since theirs no visible extensions on the surface" making a very thin energy beam she cut a square in the floor, which fell away to another level below making a satisfying crash as it landed. She looked up at her twin with a smirk on her face. It was the first time in a while that he had seen her reasonably interested in anything.

Both of them jumped down to the lower level landing softly on the steel floor finding themselves in short corridor. The only lighting was that of the dim light from the room above them.. Unlike the room above this corridor looked clean. Behind them was a ladder leading back up to the lab they had just come from. Walking away from the ladder they found another door. 18 pressed the door release and it slid across smoothly making only a slight noise as the metal scraped against metal. The opening revealing a lab very similar to the one above greeted them with the hum of electricity and soft beeps coming from the computer in the centre of the room. The lights flickered on automatically as they entered showing a room in total contrast to the one above. It looked untouched and better equipped than the lab above. There were another 2 pods inside the lab on opposite sides of the room and a bio chamber connected to the computer.

"Well, well, looks like I was right" 17 said smugly looking around the room, a smile on his face. Quickly he walked over to one of the 2 pods. Shaking her head at her brother's impatience 18 walked over to the other. He had always been inpatient, he never seemed to realise they had all the time in the world.

"Darn it, this ones empty" he said angrily. "What about the other one 18" he said turning his head around quickly.

"This ones empty as well" she said calmly. After a few seconds she suddenly burst out laughing. "You should see your face, you look so disappointed" she giggled pointing at him, "Well don't worry this pod isn't empty I just wanted to see how you'd react, especially after how clever you though you'd been to work all this out" she chuckled saying the last bit in mock sympathy, then unable to contain it she started laughing again.

"Very funny 18" 17 muttered shaking his head, "And you say I'm immature….. So anyway what's it look like" he said walking over and sitting on one of the tables.

"It's a he, and he's kinda cute" she giggled, "number….. 22" she said looking down at the number on the pod. "Gero was 20 so I Wonder what happened to 21, what number was on the pod over there"

"Urm…. 23" he said glancing over his shoulder at the pod.

"Strange …… and what's that anyway", 18 said tilting her head in the direction of the bio chamber where a large bug was growing almost filling the chamber; "whatever's inside it looks kinda freaky".

"Hmmm im not sure but I don't like the look of it" 17 said getting off the table and wandering over, at this he started peering into the tube "looks like a bug or something…and hey, I found our 21" he said smugly looking at 18.

She smiled back happily then turned back towards 22's pod, "Hmmm, you recon we activate them both" she said thoughtfully.

"Well activate 22, but im not so sure about this guy, it looks like the computers still working on him and anyway, I don't like the look of him" he said pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the bio chamber.

18 turned back to the pod "Hmmm its time to meet our new friend". 18 pressed the door release, after the computer beeped a few times in recognition the door slowly opened letting out a metallic scraping sound. 22 opened his eyes.