IT LIVES.
All credit to respective owners!
P.S. So Xenoverse 2 (to my observations) seems to base itself heavily on the anime and animated series like GT. The Manga is not really all that visible in the game which is the groundwork for this fic. Hopefully I can build the motivation for another chapter and start some villain arcs.
-Y.A.R.N.
The years that followed after Kurai being dumped in Xtrunks' timeline were some of the most relaxing Kurai ever had. Despite having a job a time patroller — with a stipend of zeni to use on items from the market and free meals from the cafeteria — Kurai never really had the time to simply relax either. Constant alterations and patroller emergencies kept their limited-yet-growing staff in a constant frenzy of 'get to where the distress calls were coming from and deal with them before things got out of hand'. Newer patrollers fresh out of the academy needed guidance and overwatch from older patrollers of a certain strength. Kurai had been no exception to this and it was one of the things that contributed to his rapid growth as a saiyan as the almost constant zenkai boosts — that slowed after some time after they bolstered his abilities — when he was healed from his missions only to go right back out into the fray.
Now though?
He could take time to connect with his once-in-a-timeline friends all over again, which he didn't mind. When he had the time, he sparred with Vegeta, Gohan, Xtrunks, Trunks and Goku while trading banter. As in the main timeline, Dende had been the one to take up the mantle of 'Kami' on earth and with that, the Dragon Balls were once again active and usable. Goten was born and though he would never have the friendship he had with Trunks of the main timeline he was able to grow up in a world without so much carnage. Gohan had looked at his baby brother with such a look of wonder and joy when Chichi delivered him that the determination to protect his brother with his life would have triggered a transformation if he was in a battle. Kurai had finally learned how to cook at least half-way decently (much to his own relief as being a hungry saiyan was bad enough plus what meager meals he had rather than The Supreme Kai of Time's inedible dishes he would be something he would never have to relive) to feed himself and continued living at West City at the Capsule Corp building.
He had intended to move out and live away from Bulma and her family as to not having to owe her more (and not be reminded of the tough but ultimately dedicated mentor Vegeta had become over the course of his life when compared to the less mature and still battle-lust-craving-though-slowly-maturing person he still was in this timeline), but she had put her foot down when all he really had were the clothes on his back and nothing else. Until he was financially stable (or at least had some items to call his own when he left) he was under Bulma's care as a guest. That arrangement actually turned out to be more permanent than he thought when her husband found out where Kurai had been staying since his first month. Vegeta decided that having a decent sparring partner living nearby would help both his and his son's training and thus constantly called on him to spar. Bulma noticed the positive impact on her husband and decided that Kurai was welcome to stay as long as he liked. Kurai had been mildly uncomfortable as to what he could do to earn his keep and wasn't too proud that he was very comfortable in the small niche he had carved out for himself.
Apparently the spars and general contentment of Vegeta and his sons was payment enough so he rolled with it.
It wasn't like he was all that smart to work in Capsule Corp and even then he was still using all of his time climbing to regain where he once stood in terms of power. He could do it, he was fully capable of him reaching it, but that was due to him to finding insanely strong fighters and fighting them. Goku was always down for a spar as was Vegeta, but Xtrunks, Trunks, and Gohan wanted to enjoy the peace, which was something that they hoped would last. He had just achieved his super saiyan 3 form — after sneaking off into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber every now and again over the course of two years — with any of his usual sparring partners in tow to fight as hard as he could, but the stamina drain in using it was horrifyingly massive. He could barely retain the form while doing nothing; fighting made it so much more difficult to maintain.
He didn't want to just climb up the ladder with his transformations, he wanted to refine them so the drain was negligible. He had already mastered his Super Saiyan transformation but that was only the beginning, he need to have the same level of mastery for all his transformations, which was not as easy as snapping his fingers. A task of that magnitutde took time and a herculean amount of effort on Kurai's part but he did have a shortcut that he was more than willing to use. That ace was utilizing his mystic transformation as he had before, which wasn't exactly easy but required him to stop while fighting and focus on releasing his mystic energy. Gohan had reclaimed this form shortly before the Tournament of Power began, but he had been training nonstop to get what skills he let deteriorate finally grow back to where to where they used to be. After that, Gohan's transformation hadn't dropped or fluctuated all throughout the tournament and the time leading up to it. While Kurai had done nothing but train, he still had a tendency to stall when he had to stop to transform and in a battle, any pause was a moment for an enemy to get a hit in, which was unacceptable so his Mystic transformation was the best workaround for it. He would sometimes spend a couple of days — or years depending on point of view — in the Time Chamber and then access his Super Saiyan Blue and Evolution forms. He could not master them yet as his body still too unaccustomed to the strain, but he had time, and that was all it took.
All in all, things progressed very well over the next few years.
Kurai was sitting on an cliff overlooking some sprawling plains and lush green hills, enjoying a rare day off for himself. He never really worried about his presence in this timeline, but he wondered if his presence was actually doing anything to the timeline. The thing about his presence not having an effect was just that most of the things that hadn't changed were already because of the sorry state of the future. Bojack hadn't been unsealed since King Kai's planet never blew up, not that he would be an issue with the Earth's Special Defense Force revived and stronger than before. It wasn't like Frieza was going to be revived or was going to be in this timeline. Whenever hell he was in, he would probably stay dead and not revived by the remnants of his followers since there was a distinct lack of Dragon Balls for them to use. New Namek was able to defend themselves since all of Freiza's forces were the weakest soldiers, and the Earth had been under siege and had been without Dragon Balls for so long, they probably never ventured too close to try to find them.
Vegeta changed upon seeing the warrior his son could become and cared for his family more, acting so much more like the man Kurai had once known. Goku was now able to raise his infant son from birth, something that was denied to him in the main timeline and while always a bit slow on matters that weren't fighting, Goku did love his family so much. Piccolo trained Dende to be able to defend himself to some degree (Kami had been able to battle and fight but he had years on Earth and its conflicts and Dende was fairly new and was mainly a healer) and also trained with Gohan as well, picking up where they had all left off before his death. Gohan never met Videl sadly, and never had a daughter to dote on and love like he had in the main timeline. Kurai also never brought up the family Krillian could've had with Android 18 as he mourned the loss of the family-oriented and humane woman she had become; 17 would never be the protector of the forest, a job he honestly found so much peace in doing everyday. Two casualties of almost-friends and definite allies that were lost to the circumstances of Kurai could not help now.
Time flowed and change happened, and Kurai found himself thinking on what he should do with his now inaccurate future knowledge.
Because something was very clearly off now.
And it was Cell.
Honestly Xtrunks and Kurai had reacted a bit early to Cell as he wasn't supposed to even be awake, but somehow he had woken up and they immediately fell into dealing with him, which wasn't a bad thing at all.
But it was easy to forget that as a time patroller in the academy that were taught all of the technicalities of time travel, alterations, and — most notably at the moment — histories on each timeline. Cell had been awake by the tail end of Gohan's once-deadly encounter with the androids and that was already a change he didn't anticipate. With Gohan death averted they should've had years before Cell woke up and began devouring people in order to gain a more humanoid form for use in battle. He wasn't a time traveler as Gohan, Kurai, Xtrunks, and Trunks had scoured the planet after his abrupt arrival, but finding Gero's lab had seen the lab destroyed with the tube containing the once maturing Cell shattered from the outside in. He had somehow had an accelerated growth and woke up, not that it changed the major outcome of his bout with Xtrunks. But what had caused that deviation? Why was Cell awake and if he had been awake long enough, wouldn't he immediately gone after the androids after gaining a form more suitable for combat? He would have had no problem to murder Trunks while he was recovering and he as definitely able to kill Gohan since he had only recently been enough to take on an android one on one. He and Xtrunks had both gone over the why's and hows, but they couldn't find a concrete reason as to how he had woken up so early when he shouldn't have even fully matured. That was not good and led more credence to the fact that something about Xtrunks and Kurai's arrival on this timeline had changed things, but what changes had they caused was something they couldn't know. Had they somehow sped up the series of events that were happening now through some sort of time discrepancy?
If that were the case, what could they do about it?
Kurai thought Babidi and Dabura would have revealed themselves in some way by now, bringing the whole Buu fiasco to a head, but they never showed. Then again the tournament never really got started as the people had enough of violence and lived far more peacefully than before. Also, he was basing his timeline as though it had followed after Cell had been destroyed and from there on in. No one was looking forward to more violence with the carnage and genocide the androids had wrought. Maybe things would be truly back to normal sometime, but everyone on the planet were perfectly fine if conflict never came again.
In all honesty, he toyed with the idea of letting Babidi and Dabura actually succeed in their plan to revive Buu. He wanted to try his hand to see if they could win over the innocent Buu and have him as an ally once again. Though — to be fair — this was after Buu had been split into the good half and bad half and the whole Kid Buu debacle had been settled. Buu's little kids had been kind and fun-loving — while still being pretty tough — and he felt it would be great for Goten to have some strong friends to play with. The young saiyan loved fighting and sparring just as much as his Dad did, and Goku was always happy to have a practice bout with his youngest, and Goten was so strong for all his youth. Gohan kept his studies up with his training, even with the world at peace, the wrath of the androids had taught him that being prepared was never a bad thing. Plus he was reasonably sure that they could handle that threat reasonably with the current power level he was at. Kurai had managed to fully master Super Saiyan 2 so it wouldn't strain him at all and was now refining Super Saiyan 3 and God transformations daily.
And while that was all well and good, his god transformations were the only thing he didn't want to use at the moment; if it became a dire situation with no other way he would use them, but it was his to policy to make it do or die. He had already trained enough to sustain Super Saiyan God as long as he needed and Super Saiyan Blue was only just became feasible in a long fight, but even then it was a hard strain once he powered down; his Evolution would knock him out for the next round and would only last for a few minutes before the strain would start to degrade his abilities as both of his blue forms were still too taxing on his body for his liking. To try to bolster the ability for him to handle himself, he furiously drilled in his base form — much like Goku had in his initial trip to Namek — tanking his own strongest blows and attacks without blocking in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber — to increase his base form's endurance. That helped his body handle the strain, but no matter how much better he got at maintaining Blue, Evolution was just so hard to hold. He had shied away from it as a Time Patroller because of that, and now he was regretting how rarely he used it since he had no way to determine if he was better at it.
He would've been happy to show Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta the forms even as they would probably be confused that they couldn't sense his ki, but he was already trying to keep from changing things too much. He could imagine exactly what would happen next if he showed those forms to his friends. Goku would immediately ask how to achieve it and Kurai would have had to sheepishly admit that there was a ritual but he didn't use it as he had been… granted godly ki by an angel. In hindsight he should have asked how to achieve it alone even if it was was moot by that point; Kurai kicked himself for simply accepting it and not asking Whis for the specifics, then again he never expected he wouldn't be able to return to the Time Nest at any point. Plus, it was not like they needed to attract the attention of the gods themselves and kickstart the whole Beerus and Whis of this timeline to come and investigate. That would begin the whole nightmare of events that initially ended up with Trunks traveling back to the main timeline.
The Goku Black issue would start all over again before they were ready.
That was a nightmare he was more than willing avoid, but it was only a matter of time before Zamasu stole Goku's body. In all honesty, Zamasu ideally should be dealt with before he fully succumbed to his perverse belief of 'Divine Justice' and murdered every single mortal he could find. Then again, if Goku never met Zamasu would the Kai try to steal Goku's body? Would he go after someone else? Maybe he would inquire who was the best possible candidate from the dragon balls, maybe not the Super Dragon Balls, but maybe go to New Namek and eradicate the Namekians after he got what he wanted? Would he try to swap bodies with Beerus or — god forbid — someone like Jiren or Toppo?
Oh god, he didn't even want to think about him swapping bodies with Whis!
Being a god came with rules, despite the utter power and strength, Gods and even Angels did have guidelines in which they operated and rules they shouldn't break. Angels are rendered inert if they do not have a God of Destruction to attend to. Gods of Destruction should not use their powers to create time rings through errant actions, their respective Kai must be alive for them to survive as well, and they are not supposed to fight each other unless allowed, they cannot destroy immortal beings, they are restricted from traveling through time or letting anyone else do so. Which made sense in why the Time Ring pulled Zamasu back through the rift Xtrunks created when he escaped to the future. Which was the crux of the issue when it came to Xtrunks and Kurai and why they didn't want to meet the gods due to what they were.
Anomalies. Changes. Time Travelers. Mainly: 'Not Supposed To Be Here At All'
Depending on how Beerus was feeling that day?
He could very well kill them.
Beerus had already destroyed the time machine back in the main timeline due to the fact that it was messing with the timelines and causing massive issues.
Then again, they hadn't used a time machine but a time scroll, and this timeline was only allowed because Trunks selfishly disobeyed The Supreme Kai of Time's warning and went to help Gohan destroy the androids anyway and the Supreme Kai of Time decided that it was okay. And if and when the Supreme Kai himself showed up — if Babidi showed up — should they request an audience? Would they be believed?
Zamasu was an issue that couldn't be let alone forever.
They should still have time though.
