Chapter 22: Between Time

Yamcha and I had an uneasy silence as we flew to Capsule Corp. For us all to rest and to transport Goku safely, we'd need a plane. And, of course, Bulma would have the capsules for the job. Vegeta had run off somewhere once more, most likely to vent out his anger.

We landed at Capsule Corp. and Bulma's mom, Bunny, met us.

"Oh! Hi dears! Bulma's just inside working, would you like some lemonade while you wait?"

"No, we're fine Mrs. Briefs." I said.

"Alrighty, then!" then she turned back to her flowers, singing and watering them.

What a loveable ditz.

Trunks and I headed in and found Bulma in her lab, as usual. Trunks was a little agitated, seeing his mom so young and pretty. It made me wish I could see my mom again.

"Oh, hi, Katie, Trunks. What are you doing here?"

"Bulma, we need your help." I said.

"Really?" she stopped what she was doing and turned to face us.

"Yeah, we need an airplane capsule so we can transport Goku to Roshi's island so the androids won't find him. And we'll need you to fly it. I know you'd want to come anyway."

"Yeah, it's getting boring around here. Except that little Trunks here wants to interrupt my work, don't you sweetie?" Bulma turned back to a play pin in the room, where baby Trunks was playing. But Future Trunks blushed, hearing his mother talking to his past self like that.

So Bulma packed up baby Trunks and got out her plane capsule so she could fly to Goku's house. The rest of us flew outside the plane to watch for the androids. We would rest on the way to Roshi's island from the Son house.

"Trunks, is something wrong?" I asked. He kept this look of intense thought on his face the whole flight so far. The two of us were on the left of the plane; the others spread around the rest of the plane like the good little guards we had become.

"Its nothing."

"Trunks, I know how you feel. You feel guilty, right? You've changed the future in an unexpected way."

"That's only half of it. Tell me about my dad, you know him better than anyone else, even mom."

"I figured this would be coming up. Your dad's really a good guy. He's arrogant, rude, and violent, but overall he's a good guy. He was even bold enough to tell me that he respected me when we were on Namek." I remembered that day all too well. Frieza still gave me nightmares, as I know they did Vegeta and everyone else who saw him.

"Yeah, he sounds like a real nice guy." Trunks said sarcastically.

"That's cause you haven't fought with him or against him. And you don't know the things about him I know. He's no Goku, that's for sure, but on the show he was my favorite character. He's like an idol to me. Back home I drew his picture a thousand times, and I wrote short stories about him. I even wrote a poem about him, but being here, meeting him and fighting with him, it almost makes being so far from home bearable. I'm rambling again, aren't I?"

"Yes, but you answered my question perfectly." Trunks smiled, the first time I had really seen him smile sincerely. Sure, he laughed with me about my accent, but this smile was different.

No, he couldn't! Is he actually falling for me, too? I have to keep my senses. We can not fall in love! It would be a mistake.

We reached the Son house and inside were Gohan, Chi-chi, and the fallen Goku.

"Alright guys, we gotta go, now!" I said.

"Why? What is it?" Chi-chi asked.

"I'm not sure how long we have, but the androids are looking for Goku right now. We have to get him out of here!" I said.

"Where?" Gohan asked.

"Roshi's island, now come on!" Yamcha said.

"I gotta get something, I'll be right back!" I ran up to my room and opened the safe. I got out my journal looked through it quickly, double-checking the events. Cell was already here if all was going as planned, as I had guessed. Bulma assured me the safe was unbreakable and would deflect any Ki but my own, so the information was safe.

Why did I write that all down? That was so stupid. I'll have to destroy it.

So I did, I ripped it apart and blasted it to ashes. If I wrote it all down from memory, I could remember it all. Now the only thing remaining in the safe were the PJ's from home, my Sayjin armor, and the capsules. I quickly changed into the armor, then I locked the safe and left the room in a hurry. Everyone was out side, just getting Goku in the plane. They had to be gentle; Goku was in a lot of pain.

Trunks noticed the armor and smiled. It made me blush, and I noticed he blushed, too. I shook my head clear and helped seat Goku.

Bulma had the perfect plane for our little mission here. Four rows for the nine of us, one row just for Goku. The first row had Bulma and Krillen, the second row had Gohan, Chi-chi, and Trunks, the third row had Goku and me, and the last row had Yamcha and Tien, and baby Trunks, who was sleeping. Chi-chi said Goku had said my name in his sleep a few times, so I should sit with him. Weird, but I was okay with it.

"Katie?" it was Yamcha. I really don't want to argue again…

"Yes?" I asked nicely, as though I wasn't mad at him.

"I want to apologize about earlier. I was a real creep. I never thought of your feelings this whole time that I've known you. I thought you were some smart-ass kid acting all high and mighty. The truth is, I was jealous."

"Jealous? Of me?" Yamcha was surprising me.

"Yeah, you just woke up one day with these amazing powers and you knew the future. Krillen told me about Namek after our argument. You had to decide weather or not to save Krillen from Frieza, and you did what was right though it was hard. I don't think I could have done that."

"Apology accepted, but now I have to apologize to you. I never thought someone could be jealous of me. At school, I was one of the invisible kids. Who'd figure the Desert Bandit would be jealous of me? Well, let's just forget it, okay? We have more important things to worry about."

So the rest of the flight was quiet as some of us fell asleep. We were exhausted after that losing battle, even with the Zinzu beans.

Finally we got to Roshi's, and we got the others out and then Goku. Bulma, Krillen, Trunks, and I climbed back into the plane and took off back toward West City, where the androids would be. We weren't very talkative on the plane, until Krillen spoke up.

"Hey, what's that?"

"What?" I looked to where Krillen was pointing, and saw a large, egg-shaped dome in the field near the woods we had just got over.

"Lets have a look." Bulma said as she turned back and landed. Trunks' eyes grew wide and ran over.

"What is it?" Bulma asked. It was the time machine, called Sayjin Princess. It was covered in moss and rust, too.

"It's my time machine. But, I have it here." He took out his capsule and showed us as proof.

I thought it was called Hope

"It looks so old!" Krillen said as they examined it further. I looked and found the skin of the monster.

"Guys, look." I pointed it out to them.

"Eew! It looks like a giant bug!" Bulma said.

"It is! Trunks, you and Krillen were at Gero's lab, right?"

"Yeah." Trunks replied, confused.

"And did you destroyed an embryo in a tank, right?"

"Yeah, we did." Krillen said. Not exactly like the show, but…

"Well, in the future, this thing killed Trunks and stole his time machine to come here."

"What!" Trunks was really confused now.

"I know it sounds weird, but its true, and that's the best I can explain it. Its called Cell, and it came here to complete its programming, to absorb 17 and 18 and become perfect. It has to be stopped." From my tone I guess the others weren't going to argue.

I stared at Cell's old skin and thought back to the show. Cell was my favorite villain throughout the entire series. But now that I'd have to face him, I was scared. He could easily kill me or absorb me.

Then the worst thing I could imagine happened, my SG went off. And it was Cell's doing.

"I gotta go!" I turned to take off, but Bulma of all people grabbed my arm.

"Katie, what is it?"

"Cell's attacking people, I gotta stop him!"

"But what exactly is Cell?" Trunks asked.

"I'll have to explain later, but I have TO GO!" I got loose from Bulma's grip and flew off.