Chapter 5

Goku and the others had by now taken in heir first few sights of the City.

The inner regions were truly much more impressive than the small outskirts they had seen before.

Most imposing of course was the royal palace, that they were standing in front of right now.

Vegeta on his part couldn´t help to be reminded of his father´s palace, that he remembered from his childhood.

But that time was long gone and things were completely different here. These saiyans were not world-conquerors under Freeza´s or Cold´s control. Quite the opposite. They were peace-keepers.

"Yes - I have to say this is quite impressive," Gohan stated as they took a look at the palace from some distance.

"Vegeta - you are so quiet," Bulma said to her husband.

"Even more than usual," she added.

It was normal for Vegeta to be silent. Right now however he actually seemed like his thoughts were somewhere else entirely.

"This just reminds me a bit of the past," he responded. "But at the same time it is very different."

"By the way, you were interested in an audience with the king - Master Vegeta," Cabba mentioned.

"Yes - but I guess that has time.," the Saiyan Prince responded. "Let us visit your place first."

"Then let us go," Goku said enthusiastically.

"It would be nice to meet your family Cabba," Kale said in her usual shily manner.

"Yeah - I guess it can not be bad to meet the folks of our trainings-partner," Caulifla commented.

xxx

They had already made a short visit to Caulifla´s and Kale´s gang. Whose place was very close to the point they had arrived in this universe. They mostly wanted to make a short stop there to check on them.

A few of the gang members made the mistake to challen Goku, Vegeta and Gohan to a sparring fight.

While Kale had tried reluctantly to warn them, Caulifla had just staid silent and let it happen. They had even argued that the three Universe 7 saiyans `did´ not look that strong´.

As predictable, it had been over in moments, each of them knocking their opponent out with a single strike.

Trunks and Goten had only complained however that they were left out of the fight (if you could even call it that). So they both transformed into SSJ and challenged the rest of the gang.

Who were only starring at them shocked and completely gobsmacked. They all remembered Cabba´s SSj transformation and what it could do. But they had never expected two 13 years old to do it.

None of them was willing to accept the challenge.

Their short visit in the SDF Headquarter a short time later happened without any interruptions.

xxx

"It is just my mother actually," Cabba replied to Caulifla´s statement..

His Father had died in a battle a long time ago. But he wasn´t speaking it out loud right now. While he trusted practically everyone here, it was nothing he liked Talking about.

A smirk was forming on Caulifla´s face.

"Now Cabba - how do you think your mom will feel if you bring not just one but two girls back with you?" she asked him.

The young male saiyan blushed deeply from Caulifla´s obvious teasing.

Even more as she was wrapped her arm round his own and was walking close to his side, just as if they were a couple.

Very similar actually to how Videl was doing it with Gohan, just a few meters behind them.

Cabba´s face became even redder, if possible, as Kale… very reluctantly, entangled herself to his other arm and putting him between them, going along with her friend´s and boss small prank.

Goku was simply laughing as he saw him being stuck between the two female saiyans.

Chichi and Bulma were just rolling their eyes.

Vegeta staid silent as before. And Gohan and VIdel were just following the events with small smiles on their faces.

xxx

They didn´t knew that someone had been tracking their movements since he had sensed their arrival in this world.

"Interesting," the former Angel - now Demon - named Saek said quietly to himself. "So this are Freeza´s former enemies."

"Keep an eye on them," Demigra´s voice spoke to him. "If they are as powerful as expected, then we will contact them."

"To make them the same offer? Or to eliminate them?" he questioned.

"We will see. By what we heard of them, it would be unlikely that they would be willing to join our cause. But let us take a closer look at them.

First however, let us deal with the other reason for our visit."

xxxxxxx

Universe 2

Seventeen, his wife and children, Eighteen, Krillin and Marron, were being led through the crowd of people.

"Well - this world is... something else. So much is clear," Rubi commented drily.

"They are kind of strange… well to us at least," 18 responded. "But they aren´t as bad, as soon as you get used to them. They can be quite fun to be around actually." She grinned.

"Oh really - we can be fun?" Brianne commented.

"You have to admit our fights were quite entertaining," 17 stated.

"For you maybe," Vikal commented. "my head is practially still circling from when you were throwing me around."

"And mine is still hurting from when you landed on me," Pell - the Kaioshin of Universe 2 - commented, barely hiding his smile.

Vikal suddenly had a deep blush on her face.

"That - that... I am sorry Lord Pell - I really didn´t want this to happen."

The Kaioshin simply laughed.

"Don´t worry about it my dear," he said.

"And I remember you had no problem declaring us evil, because we actually defeated a few of your teammates," 18 remarked with a side-glance to the Kamikaze Fireballs. "In a Tournament we were all forced into by a threat to our lives."

"Yeah - I guess we reacted really badly here. Sorry," Sanka admitted. "But well…"

"I understand," 17 replied. "I guess we were all a bit on the edge back then."

"You weren´t," Brianne responded. "In fact you seemed to show no fear at all during the entire Tournament - you both," she said with a side-glance to 18.

"We barely do," the female Android replied matter of factly. "Actually we barely show any emotion at all. What Doctor Gero did when he changed us into what we are made it very hard for us to express any."

"Any at all?" Su asked horrified.

"Well - we still feel them. But showing it is often quite hard to us," 18 admitted.

"I am so sorry," Brianne said.

"What happened to this villain?" Jimeze wanted to know.

"I killed him," 17 said simply.

"Good," Brianne replied grimly. While they were carrying love and kindness on their banners, there were things that were just not tolerable.

Heles, who was walking in front of the group, had overheard the exchange as well. She admitted they had judged their former opponents far too quickly… and carelessly.

She remembered how she and several other gods had even tried to blame the saiyan Goku for the threat to their universe. Despite that the High Priest himself had told them bluntly that Xeno-sama had been planning to erase the lesser ranked universes anyway.

But none of them had been listening. Of course they had all been in panic back then, but that was no excuse. Not for gods like them.

Her cheeks were actually turning red as she remembered how foolish she had acted back then.

And in the end it turned out that the entire Tournament had just been a test made by Xeno and the High Priest. A test that she and her universe had failed collosally.

Despite claiming to hold the ideas of love above anything, none of them had even considered using the wish from the Super Dragon Balls, that had been the prize for the winner, to bring the other already erased universes back.

She herself and Pell, as well as Brianne and their other warriors had been both flabbergasted and shocked as they had heared this piece of Information from their Angel Sour. And devastated as they finally fully realized the implications.

They had failed. They had failed completely from the beginning. Not only that, they never even had a chance. Not with their attitude.

Even if by some wonder one of them would have been the last one standing in the Tournament, they would have still failed. All because of a selfish wish they would have made.

They somehow needed to make it up to their saviors, she herself, Pell and her maidens had decided together.

xxx

The children were now walking a short distance ahead of the rest of the group.

The one in the front was Jade, the girl who was actually Rubi´s and Seventeen´s own child… and the youngest of them. She was now nearly six years old.

Then there was the pair of twins - a boy and a girl - two years older than her, who they had adopted. Their names were Kai and Rin.

The last one was of course their cousin Marron.

All of the children were taking in their surroundings curiously. This town and this entire world were truly something completely else, compared to everything they had seen before in their lives. That meant of course the places they had spend most of their childhood and also the greater cities from their own world.

"Are you coming Marron?" Jade called out to her.

Krillin and 18´s daughter send a quick look to her mother.

"But don´t move to far away," 18 told her. "I don´t want to have to look for you in the end."

"You don´t need to worry," Brianne told her. "Most citizens here are friendly, love filled people."

"Most? - but not all of them," 18 stated. "Right? Otherwise warriors like you would not be needed in the first place."

The Universe 2 fighter were now looking at a bit uneasy. Brianne exchanged a look with Sanka and Vikal.

It was true that their picture of a loving and peaceful universe was all but perfect. There was evil and villains here as well. Enemies of the philosophy of love and people who followed them for different reasons.

Eighten had been right on the point, that this was the reason groups like the Kamikaze Fireballs even existed.

And they themselves were also far from perfect. How the Tournament had shown all too well.

"As I thought," 18 said.

She sighed, barely visible of course.

"But it is not that I even really think they could be in danger," she stated. "But we are on a visit here and I really don´t want to spend all my time here searching for my daughter and her cousins after they managed to get themselves lost.

Not when I could do something better like letting you showing me around... or going shopping with my sister-in-law," she said with a smirk, looking to Ruby

"You are a smart woman Eighteen," she replied with a similar smile.

"And with our new friends of course," 18 added, turning to the female Universe 2 Warriors.

xxx

But Son Goku and Vegeta´s group were not the only ones who were being watched.

Towa and her partner (servant), the being named Mira - were also in Universe 2. And they had more than one good reason as it turned out.

They were in this moment just standing somewhere in the crowd. Nobody was paying attention to them. They had suppressed their energy. And beside that most being could not sense them either.

"Why are we interested in these guys again?" Mira asked.

Towa suppressed the urge to role her eyes.

"By the Information we have, one - maybe two - of them might have power rivaling Freeza´s," she stated. "And we have considered Freeza as a possible ally. So we should at least have an eye on them, when they are already here.

Even if they are not the main reason for our visit."

"Heles," Mira said.

"Yes," she replied.

They were here to introduce themselves to the God of Destruction. This group from Universe 7 was just a bonus.

xxxxxxx

Back in Universe 7

It was a planet in a far of part of Universe 7, in a nearly completely desolete part of the cosmos. The planet itself was habitable, but barely… and had no intelligent life.

Far away from most most known worlds... and even away from the eyes of the Kaios.

And especially it was far away from Freeza´s and before that Cold´s Empire.

Nobody would have expected out here in the nowhere to be the fortress of an interstellar warlord. One whose power and influence, while by far not comparible to Freeza or his Universe 6 counterpart Frost, was still a notable force.

But someone had noticed... someone who had been monitoring all twelve Universes for a while now… from outside.

And so another one of Demigra´s followers appeared on this planet. Very close to the fortress belonging to the person he was looking for.

Standing in front of the gates were two guards. The two of them were of different alien species, the first looking like a green colored lizard on two legs, the other a pink skinned humanoid.

"Stop - whoever you are. Don´t move a limb," one of them exclaimed as they saw him.

"I came to see your master," the Fallen Angel answered.

"Yes, very likely," the second guard replied. "Nobody out there even knows this place. Who are you? What do you want"?

"I see." The servant of Demigra released a small part of his power... and the two were frozen in place. Only able to shiver in fright.

They put up no more resistance as he pushed them aside and walked past them.

As he stepped a minute later into a great hall, he was greeted with the sight of the owner of the fortress, sitting at the end of the room in a large throne-like chair.

Standing in a line next to him were three more warriors. This ones with considerable higher power than the ones outside.

Their obvious leader was a blue skinned humanoid with short white hair. This three were obviously some kind of elite unit. But still far from being a threat.

"So you are our `guest´," the person in the chair greeted him. "My soldiers have already informed me that you claim you wanted to meet me. Who are you?"

The Fallen Angel noticed that the being before him was an nearly lizard like alien of the same Kind as...

"I - for my part - are merely a messenger of the being known as Demigra," he stated. "However - as I see, you are clearly of the same species as the Warlord known as Freeza - the so called Emperor of the Universe."

The creature before him only laughed out bitterly.

"I am not just of the same species. In fact we don´t really have a species to speak of. Our family is basically a line of mutations that has barely anything in common anymore with the race that had once spawned us. I am Freeza´s brother…" the alien spat.

You are talking with King Cold´s first Born son - Cooler."

In this moment another presence manifested itself in the room, that overshadowed nearly everything else… Demigra´s.

"It seems my Master wants to address you in person," the Fallen Angel commented.

"So Freeza´s brother, very interesting. And still you are here, at an outpost at the Edge of the known universe," Demigra´s voice halled through the room, addressing Cooler.

"If you must know, as it turned out I had not inherited my father´s immense power from birth. He had always treated me like a disappointment and as Freeza had finally been born, he had decided to banish me out here. Together with a few soldier he found either expandable or untrustworthy."

"I see… and still I sense considerable powers in you," Demigra stated.

"But I trained hard for it for many years," he responded. "Father might have thrown me away, but out here I am the master. Here is my Kingdom. And I answer to no one. Not even to someone like you," Cooler snarled.

"So if you want to offer me to become your servant, you can forget it."

"I understand. But what if I offered you greater power - power rivaling your brother´s? Far surpassing your father´s? Did you know that both he and your brother had been defeated? I could point you to the people who did it. So that you could succeed where they have failed. You could return to the universe as the king you were always meant to be.

I don´t need your servitude, just your cooperation."

"I am listening," Cooler finally replied.

xxxxxxx

Mirai timeline

The time-machine carrying two people was moving through time and space and finally arriving at it´s destination.

It appeared right in the center of West City, not far from the Capsule Corp Building. Just were they had started in the other timeline.

Mirai Trunks and Mai stepped outside. It just took them one look to see that something was not right.

Since in the past, Lord Beerus had erased the Evil Kaio Zamasu from existence, before he could use the Dragon Balls to steal Goku´s body and become Goku Black, Black should have never exiszed.

And since Whiz had promised to warn this timeline´s Beerus baout the threat that ths world´s Zamasu presented and have him take care of him early, he should have never have become a problem either.

So this new Future timeline, in opposite to the one Xeno had erased from existence after Zamasu had completely corrupted it, should have been peaceful ever since the fall of the Androids.

So why was the town around them lying in ruins?

"What is going on here?" Mai asked as well. "Has Black somehow returned? Did we miss something?"

"I - I am not sure," Trunks admitted. "Maybe we are in the wrong time."

In this moment he suddenly sensed something - a energy he thought he would never feel again - in the past, yes - but not here in his own timeline. Because the one it belonged to was long dead.

"G-Gohan," he said quietly.

And then suddenly Trunks understood. They both remembered how Whiz had used his Supernatural powers to somehow adjust the time-machine. So that they could use it to travel to this new, changed timeline, instead of their old one that didn´t exist anymore.

But maybe he had also done something else.

He remembered how Whiz had told him in his tyical mysteriously relaxed way that maybe not all would be as they expect, when they arrived in their new world. And they might be in for a few surprises.

"Mai," he said, "I think Whiz did something. I think he changed the time-machine to send us into the new timeline. But years earlier as we expected. In a time when Gohan was still alive. And I think he did it as a favor to me."

But that meant, Trunks realized something… that the Androids (his world´s Androids) were still alive too.

Here is finally the next chapter.

Like the last section shows, a Future Trunks sub-plot is starting. I had for some time considered writing it as a separate story. But in the end decided against it for multiple reasont. Partly also because lack of time.

The chapter also introduces a new Version of Cooler, who however will have a quite different development when the character we know.