Chapter 2

Goku and Trunks had now succeeded to move the fight. They were now heading to the north, with the two Androids following them.

After some time they had reached the border of the ice land, where they decided to face their opponents.

With Krillin and Gohan being close by, but only as spectators. Since both of them simply were not powerful enough to face opponents like this... yet.

As the fight was once again going on however, the third activated Android - Number 13 - suddenly appeared.

The fight would have turned seriously in the favor of their opponents, if Vegeta had not shown up as well a short time later... in a grandious manner by appearing right through one of the icebergs, he had cut in two.

He had sensed the ongoing fight and interrupted his training to come here.

Being who he was, he of course declared (once again) that no one would kill Kakarot except him. Before he faced Android 15.

It was now three against three.

After a few more minutes however Trunks, Vegeta and Goku had enough of testing out their opponents... and finally transformed into Super Saiyans, showing their true strength.

xxxxxxx

A town a few hundred miles away - a short time earlier

Meanwhile the three other Androids were spending their time until the coming fight.

This meant in Eighteen´s case she was shopping. Or - as most normal people would call it - shop-lifting along with threatening the personel.

"This looks good. Don´t you think so?" she asked the young girl next to her, who was working as a assistent in this shop.

"Oh yes - very," she said. "You are really beautifull. I could get jealous."

She had of course no idea that 18 had no intention to pay for the outfit she was trying out.

xxx

Seventeen and Sixteen meanwhile were close by. They were just sitting together in a small cafe. Currently the two were waiting for the drinks they had ordered.

Of course, being a full machine, 16 would not actually drink it. 17 had just wanted to enjoy the day and 16 went along with the flow.

Well- in opposite to 18 however, they would actually pay for them. (With money that they had stolen from some rich looking guy though.)

xxxx

Flashback - ten days earlier

They were just flying away from the Turtle Hermits small house, where they had confronted Son Goku.

"Okay - I will go along with it and wait this month too," Eighteen said. "But for that time, I want us to do the things I want to do."

"Alright," Seventeen replied. "But if you plan to go shopping for hours again, tell us beforehand. Then we will keep us occupied otherwise for that time. We won´t just wait for you doing nothing again."

"Okay - you have a deal," she said.

xxxx

Flashback end - now

"Son Goku and his comrades are fighting someone," 16 informed 17.

"Interesting. Any idea who they are fighting against?"

"No. My sensors detect Son Goku and the one called Trunks. Vegeta is also approaching the fighting place. But there is no ki I can detect form their opponents," Sixteen answered short but meaningful.

"I see. So possibly more of us," 17 replied.

"That is likely," 16 responded.

"Come," 17 said. "Let us get 18 and then we will take a look at it."

xxx

A minute later they appeared in the shop where 18 was still trying out clothes.

"Hey Eighteen," 17 called her. "Son Goku is fighting someone. It seems to be some other Androids. We should take a look at it."

Normally she would have wanted to try out a few more outfits. But this sounded important enough.

"Yes - I come," she said.

She turned around to leave.

"Ahm mam - you have to pay for this," the young saleswoman told her.

"Says who?" 18 asked her.

She suddenly lifted off the ground.

"Bye," she said to the shocked woman and flew out of the door and then up into the sky with the others.

xxxxxxx

The present - fight at the glacier

They had defeated 14 and 15 pretty quickly.

Android 14 was being sliced in half by Trunks sword... and 15´s body wrecked by a powerful strike from Vegeta. The bodies of both of them completely blew up as parts of their inner machinery not longer worked correctly and overloaded.

But none of their enemies really cared about that detail. One way or the other, they were defeated.

The two Androids had not been weak. Their power was actually greater than that of models like Number 19 and 20 had been.

But they were still no match for a Super Saiyan at full strength. Even with the advantage of never-ending energy they didn´t last long.

Only the fight between Goku and 13 was still going on. As it turned out, out of the three 13 was the only one able to actually fight a Super Saiyan at full power one to one.

His raw strength rivalled Goku´s own and like his comrades, he would never get tired.

The technique that seemed to be his main attack move - called S.S Deadly Bomber - that was basically a construct of a large leathal energy sphere, was dangerous and effective and according to 13 himself: Could easily wipe out half the planet.

All in all 13 was a powerfull and dangerous enemy. But Goku had a long history of fighting powerful and dangerous opponents and overcoming them.

Theoretically the fight could end up one way or the other.

If that had been all.

But then something happened that none of them would have expected.

13 had a grin on his face...

... as certain parts of the two destroyed Androids suddenly started to move by themselves. The energy-cores and CPU´s of both 14 and 15 rose up in the air and flew towards 13.

To all their surprise, the parts sunk into the Android´s skin and merged with him. The move took everyone too much off-guard to prevent or even do anything about it, until it was too late.

In the next moment, 13´s entire body started to change. His muscles seemed to grow, his entire body swelling up with energy pumped into him. The vest he had been wearing was ripped apart by his expaning body.

His skin was turning dark blue, his hair red and his eyes glowing deep yellow.

His appearance was not longer human.

What the hell? they all thought as they were starring at the abomination before them.

13 said nothing and instantly attacked. He was now overpowering Goku, Trunks and Vegeta at the same time.

Well - he had said to Trunks that he wanted to fight the Androids, when he had first appeared from the future this three years ago, Goke thought sarcastically to himself. It looked like his wish was getting more than fulfilled.

"Damn it," Vegeta hissed as he was lying on the ground. "We should have teamed up on that bastard and destroyed him right away when we got the other two."

"As if you had ever done that father?" Trunks commented quietly.

They all realized now why 13 had been so much stronger than the two other Androids from the start. The other two had just been side-products.

xxxxxxx

Meanwhile 17, 18 and 16 were now in the air above the pl and watching the fight from a distance. They had arrived around the time 13 had joined the fight.

So far nobody had noticed them.

"What do you think Eighteen?" 17 asked.

"I have to say I somewhat respect this guy´s determination. But he seems too much like a loyal crony of Doctor Gero to me," she responded.

"You got that right."

Yes - 13 and the others just seemed to stubbornly follow their programming and not care about anything else. They might not have heard much of the exchange between the other Androids and the Z-fighters,

but the Androids single minded behavior and the fact that they did not even show any reaction to each others death, told them a lot.

They had also noticed 13´s bizarre change after absorbing the other´s parts, that unsettled even them somewhat.

"One thing is clear," 16 stated. "His current power is much higher than either of yours."

"Is that so?" 17 said grimly.

What was going on here? he asked himself.

He had been surprised a few weeks when he heard 16´s story and found out that Doctor Gero had been able to create an completely artificial infinite-energy model Android, but still returned to using human bases for them.

And now they were seeing another older model - Number 13 - that was able to absorb components of two others to gain more power.

What in the world had Doctor Gero been planning?

They had thought all the other models had been dismantled. So where did these three suddenly came from?

Whatever - any Android loyal to Doctor Gero, who could reach that level of power was reason to be nervous.

The question was, what to do? Should they stay out of it? Or actually help the Z-fighters?

For all they knew, this creature might come after them next. In the best case, this 13 was just about to kill Goku before they could.

"Moment," 16 said and turned around.

They noticed it as well. Someone was approaching very quickly.

It was Piccolo, they realized as the Namek appeared before them one moment later.

"What?" he called out as he saw them.

"Ah hey Piccolo - nice to see you again," 17 greeted him. "I guess you want to help Goku and the others?"

"Yes."

"Then go. We will not stop you. We have an agreement after all," 17 said.

Piccolo didn´t waste any more time and rushed to help the others.

xxx

The fight continued.

Vegeta, Trunks and Krillin were now lying worn out and beaten up on the ground.

Goku and the newly arrived Piccolo were somehow still holding themselves on their legs.

Then even they were beat down as well.

Goku had been thrown down into the icy water. Down there however, he decided to use the chance for his last resort and form the Genkidama.

Up on the ground Gohan - who was not a Super Saiyan (yet) - was the last one standing and drawing back from the approaching 13 more and more.

Until Goku emerged from the water, with the half formed Spirit Bomb floating above him.

13 turned around and fired a blast at him. But Gohan moved and took the blast instead, shielding his father.

For a moment, Goku nearly lost his concentration as he saw his son being hit. But he forced himself to show no visible reaction.

He sensed that Gohan was still alive, only injured. But if he lost the Genkidama now, they all might die.

The small `disruption´ did not disturb 13 much. He just charged up another attack at Goku.

But before he could fire, he was suddenly hit in the side by another very powerful blast from the distance that threw him off balance and caused him to loose his footing.

`Who?´ Both Goku and 13, who was now laying on one knee looked in the direction were the blast came from.

xxx

Up in the air, 17 just lowered his hand after the blast he had just fired.

He and 18 exchanged a short meaningful look.

xxx

13 rose up again.

The short however gave the Z-fighters the chance to come up again too.

Vegeta was the first. He charged at 13, but was quickly overpowered by him, who then bend his back painfully over his knee and nearly broke it.

Trunks then however fired a blast into 13´s back and forced him to release Vegeta.

"... in the future, you don´t exist," Trunks threw at him. "Do you know why? Because you die here and now."

But he was blasted aside too.

Piccolo managed to sneak up on 13 from behind and put him into a full-nelson. It took only a second for the Super Android to break free, punch Piccolo and stomp his face into the snow with his foot.

But this second was all Goku still needed. He showed a move that nobody had ever seen before, transformed into a Super Saiyan and then absorbed his own Genkidama.

17, 18 and 16 watched from the distance intrigued, how Goku - now literally overflowing with energy and power - confronted 13 and with one blow simply punched a whole right through his chest.

The already leathally damaged Android still tried to attack again. But his fists were literally burned away by the intense energy Goku was radiating... before the same energy disintigrated his entire already wrecked body.

One moment later Goku sank down and was lying on the ground. As it seemed not longer able to stand anymore.

It was over. They had won.

xxx

"Now that was interesting," 17 said. "I never thought Son Goku could be capable of something like this."

"Honestly - that seemed like a freak incident to me," 18 responded.

"Possible - but that doesn´t mean that he can not repeat it. Or something similar," he stated. "I think we should `prepare´ ourselves for the coming fight as well. We still have 50 days, right?"

"You want to train?" 18 asked him.

"Given your human-based design, you two should be able to get stronger," 16 suggested. "Sadly I do not possess this advantage."

xxxxxxx

A few hours later

The Z-fighters had by now, after a short visit in a hospital in the closest town until they received senzu beans, fully recovered.

They were now still sitting together in the hospital room, along with Chichi, Muten Roshi and Oolong.

"Where did this three Androids even came from?" Trunks questioned. "Doctor Gero´s lab was destroyed."

"Maybe they were activated before that," Gohan suggested.

"Then why should they have waited so long to attack?" Piccolo countered.

"Or the lab was not completely destroyed," Trunks said. "Maybe there were more parts of it that we didn´t know about."

"You mean like a basement?" Chichi asked.

"Yes. If there was one, it would have probably been missed by my blast."

"In any case it doesn´t seem to be a bad idea to return to that place and take a closer look at it," Piccolo stated.

"You can do that," Vegeta told them. "I will return to my training."

xxxxxxx

As they had returned to the location where Gero´s lab had been before Trunks had blown it up, it indeed didn´t take too long for them to find the entrance to the basement.

What they found down there however astonished them.

Trunks was holding a blue-print in his hands that they had found lying on a table.

"Number 17," he red.

But that was not the true surprise.

He, Goku, Piccolo, Krillin and Bulma, who had accompanied them were standing in front of some kind of large glass-tube, connected to a computer.

Swimming inside was something that looked like some kind of bizarre embryo.

"W-what is that?" Krillin asked.

"Another one of Doctor Gero´s creations, so much is clear," Goku stated the obvious. "Just how many had he made?"

"Written here is the word Cell," Bulma said.

"What in the world had this man been doing?" Krillin asked.

She sat down in front of the computer console.

"Give me some time to take a look at the data and I can tell you more," she said.

"We have another problem," Piccolo stated. "13, 14 and 15 - they should have been in similar pods like the other Androids earlier, right? We have looked everywhere, but there aren´t any there."

"So - does that mean that there is an entire different lab somewhere?" Goku questioned.

"Most likely. We can only hope that these three were the only Androids just waiting to be activated," Piccolo replied.

"These three were nowhere in my future either," Trunks said. "Just how much has changed? Did my appearing three years ago truly affect the timeline so much?"

"Okay -by what I read here, this `Cell´ was some kind of `special-project´ by Doctor Gero. But any closer information is protected by passwords. To that comes that the computer seems to possess some kind of artificial intelligence and is trying to keep me out.

The good news is that it seems to be still in the beginning stage."

"Whatever it is," Trunks said, "we should destroy everything here."

"We agree here," Piccolo stated.

"What about the blue-prints?" Goku asked.

"They could actually be quite useful," Bulma said. "If I examine them, I might find a weak point of the Androids. Maybe I could replicate that shut-down switch Gero had been using."

"No," Goku replied. "I have given them a challenge and I stand by it. Besides that - these Androids have not killed anyone else and are right now no real threat to the world.

This is my fight. I will not get out of it like this... and Vegeta will say the same thing."

"Okay," she said resigned.

"Excuse me Goku," Trunks said. "The Androids here might not be a direct threat to the world, but the ones in my time are. Even if you have no need for such a shut-off device, I do.

The truth is I would also rather defeat them with my own hands, but I don´t have this luxury. By the time I might be strong enough, if I ever will, thousands more could die in my time."

"Alright," Bulma said. "I will try to build such a switch for you. Even if Goku and Vegeta would not use it, you can."

"There also is something else. As soon as the shut-off switch is ready, I want to return to the future."


The first half of the chapter is pretty much a recap of Movie 7. With the exception of 17´s short interference.

13, 14 and 15´s appearance also serve as an answer to the question, if Trunks had used a shut-off device against the Androids in the Cell Future, how did they found 17´s blue-prints for it without Cell telling them about the basement?

xxcc

Powerlevels:

Super 13: 450.000.000

Goku (Genkidama absorbed): ca. 620.000.000