Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super, or anything else related to the Dragon Ball universe, or any of its characters. They are all owned by Akira Toriyama.


A/N: I'm sure most of you are aware by now, but I'm not a fan of the way I wrote this story. It got bogged down in the beginning and followed canon too much and did a bunch of things that it shouldn't have.

If I were to ever rewrite this story, this chapter (or something close to it) would be chapter 1. This is where the story should have started in my humble opinion as a lot of the earlier stuff wasn't important enough to dedicate entire chapters to.

With that said, I'm not sure I'll be updating this story anymore. It'll depend on how many people want me to continue. But at the very least I felt that I should at least post this to show where the story was going.


Discord: A3dTszc

(See A/N at the top of Chapter 1 for context)


It did not take Trunks very long at all to realize that something was wrong.

His mother had been very thorough in her explanation of what to expect during his trip to the past. Goku was supposed to be in deep space. Sure, he would be on his way back, but he was supposed to still be a few hours away inside a spaceship when he returned. He was then supposed to land at a very specific destination, at a very specific time, and then Trunks was supposed to seek him out to give him the antidote for the heart virus he would contract in a few years and to warn him about the androids. Frieza was even supposed to be there along with his father.

...And there was this whole plan in place that his mother had pounded into his head.

With Goku's help, they would fight the androids in this new timeline he had just arrived in, and then Trunks would ask Goku to help him defeat the androids back in his own timeline afterwards.

Everything had been planned out in detail, and all Trunks had to do was follow the instructions.

The first signs that there was something wrong with the plan appeared not two minutes after arriving in the past.

Trunks had landed his time machine, capsulized it, and had taken a few moments to extend his senses as far out as he could. Getting a feel for exactly who was on the planet at the moment.

He quickly found out that there were some glaring issues.

Firstly, was the fact that he couldn't sense Gohan at all.

Out of everyone that was supposed to be alive at the current moment in time, Gohan, his master, was the only person whose energy signature he should have been able to recognize.

Trunks had been too young to remember what everyone else's energy felt like before they died, and as a result, he wasn't able to identify exactly which signature he was sensing belonged to who.

But the numbers weren't adding up.

There were supposed to be seven main signatures.

Krillin, Vegeta, Tien, Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Piccolo, and Gohan. He would not be able to sense Goku yet since he was in space.

But he could only feel six. And out of those six, only one of them felt like a Saiyan at all. And it certainly wasn't Gohan.

Was it Vegeta?

He didn't know.

But at first, Trunks sort of dismissed this strange situation.

Maybe he had simply made a mistake in his analysis. Or maybe his senses just weren't picking up everyone for some reason. So he had decided to proceed to the location that Goku was supposed to land at anyways, and wait for him to arrive, all while turning over this information in his head.

But after waiting in the middle of a desert on his own for a few hours, he had eventually been forced to confront the very real situation that everything was wrong.

Goku never landed. Frieza never showed. And for a good few minutes, Trunks had been filled with absolute confusion.

He had even un-capsulized his time machine just so that he could look at the console with his arrival date on it, to ensure he was where he was supposed to be. When he was supposed to be, rather.

Sure enough, everything was as it should have been. He had arrived exactly when he meant to.

This led him to one of two possibilities. Either the time machine was broken, or his arrival had somehow changed the past even before he had done anything important.

And the only way he'd be able to find out which was correct was to track down the energy signature that felt most like a Saiyan's, and see who it was.

So Trunks set off to do that just a few moments later.


Flying through the air at a moderate rate of speed, Trunks' mind was moving a million miles an hour, trying to figure out what was going on.

What had gone wrong?

What should he do now?

Whose signature was he heading towards?

What should he say when he finds them?

Trunks let out a sigh of frustration.

Why couldn't anything just be easy for a change?

As he was flying through the air, he rolled onto his back. Well, he tried to, anyway. It was supposed to be a simple motion. He had just wanted to casually roll onto his back to look up at the sky while continuing his flight forwards.

He found it relaxing, flying upside down like that. And he had wanted to proceed that way for a little while just to try and clear his mind a little.

But instead, the strangest, most outrageous, and ridiculous sequence of events he had ever experienced in his entire life happened instead.

"W-Whoah!" a voice called out from above him, as the person standing on his back stumbled around trying to regain their footing as Trunks rolled over.

The person floundered about for a moment, before regaining their footing on Trunk's front side. Standing on his abdomen, and riding him like a surfboard through the sky.

Trunks was absolutely flabbergasted and almost went into shock.

"Can't you see I'm -hic! ...standin' here? Quit shiftin' around," the person standing on him drunkenly complained, a bottle of alcohol in one hand, and a pair of binoculars in the other.

Then the person using him like a surfboard proceeded to look through his binoculars again, gazing off into the distance and ignoring him. As if standing on someone's back without their knowledge was just a thing to do.

It took a good bit of time for Trunks' brain to reboot, and to process the fact that this situation was actually happening for real and that no, in fact, he wasn't going insane or hallucinating.

Someone was actually standing on him, and had been doing so for who knows how long.

The person was weightless, and more disturbingly, had no energy signature whatsoever. They didn't even cast a shadow, or leave any hint whatsoever as to their presence at all. This was the primary reason why Trunks hadn't noticed their presence until just now.

It was one fact in particular however, that Trunks eventually responded to.

With so much time under his belt fighting androids without an energy signature just like this person, his danger senses went haywire immediately. Long before his conscious mind decided on an action to take.

So with a surprised shout of: "What the hell?!" Trunks powered up and rocketed away from the person as quickly as he could.

Trunks then watched as the mysterious person shouted in surprise at their lack of anything to stand on and comically tumbled down to the ground, creating an impact crater as they crashed.

"..."

There were just no words at all to describe the situation

It had been so completely random and unexpected that Trunks had absolutely no idea how to react.

Terrifying, too. What had just happened had been absolutely terrifying. The fact that someone had snuck up on him like that simply beggared belief. His heart was still beating wildly.

Eventually, Trunks' gaze hardened, and he descended down to where the mysterious person crashed, but decided to keep his distance for now.

He watched as the person slowly climbed out of the crater while coughing up a lung as the dust cleared away.

Then the mysterious person drunkenly staggered towards him before stopping a few meters away and glaring at him in irritation.

As if Trunks had been the bad guy here.

"That was rude!" the person claimed.

But Trunks was having another mind-melting experience as he actually recognized the person in front of him.

"G-Gohan?" Trunks asked in disbelief.

He recognized some hints of his master's facial features. So even though Trunks had never seen a photograph of Gohan as a child, he recognized that this was, in fact, him.

The younger version of him.

But Trunks was so off his game due to the sequence of events that had just transpired, and so confused as to what was going on, that he simply said the first thing that came to mind.

"Do you have any idea how mad your mother will be if she catches you drinking alcohol at your age?"

Trunks had heard the stories of that woman's temper, after all…

She would be furious.

There was a moment of intense silence.

...

"Nope. Can't say that I do," Gohan replied.

There was another, far more awkward moment of silence after that. However, it was eventually broken by Gohan again.

"So… do you think you can- hic!... get back up in the sky there and keep flyin'? I was enjoyin' the view."

Trunks said nothing at all for a few moments. But eventually, his face fell into a scowl of disappointment at the drunk child in front of him, and he decided that he was just going to continue on his way to go meet the energy signature.

Trunks had no idea that his old master was an alcoholic. He could see no trace of that man in this kid in front of him. So Trunks just grimaced, turned around, and flew back up into the air with the intent to leave the kid behind. He'd just tell Goku where he was later.

"Thanks, mister."

Trunks blinked in surprise, before looking behind him. And sure enough, there Gohan was. Standing on his back again, looking through that pair of binoculars.

"Get off!" Trunks shouted as he threw the kid off his back again.

"Wah!"

This time, however, Gohan caught himself in the air instead of crashing into the ground.

Trunks had no idea what was even going on anymore.

"That wasn't very nice!" Gohan claimed.

Trunks pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation.

"Look, kid. I have stuff that I need to do, alright? So get lost."

"No thanks. I think I want to ride on your back for a little while longer."

"Well, I'm not going to let you."

"Hm. I don't care. I'm going to do it anyway."

Trunks sighed. But then he powered up and drew his sword.

"Kid, you don't want to mess with me, alright? I'm a lot stronger than you are."

"I don't know about that. I'm pretty strong- hic!... too, you know."

In an instant, Trunks readied his sword, and covered the distance between them, before resting the tip of his blade a millimeter away from Gohan's forehead.

"You're out of your league, kid."

Inwardly, however, Trunks was slightly impressed by the fact that Gohan didn't so much as twitch from his surprise assault.

"It's cute that you think that," Gohan replied seriously, despite the situation

The two stared intensely at each other for a few more moments before the tense atmosphere was finally broken with a belch from Gohan.

Burp!

Trunks wrinkled his nose in disgust, before deciding to just leave.

"Your mother is going to be furious," Trunks claimed as he flew off, taking care to go fast enough that Gohan wouldn't be able to catch up. Whatever punishment awaited the kid was just fine with him.

"Only if she finds out!" Trunks heard Gohan shout back.

Inwardly, Trunks was extremely curious about how his mentor had gone from that absolute wreck of a child into the great man he ended up as. His mind simply couldn't imagine it. But he would probably never know the whole story, either. Because he planned on talking to Goku, and then immediately travelling three years into the future to help everyone with the battle with the androids.


Trunks flew away from his strange encounter with Gohan for about five straight minutes before he finally realized that there was a problem. He had tried to reach into his vest's inner pocket where he stored his case of capsules when he made a pretty horrifying discovery. He had expected to feel a solid lump through the fabric, as the capsule case was made out of a hard metallic material. Instead of this, however, he had felt a similarly sized squishy object in its place instead.

With widened eyes, he quickly pulled out the item. A crumpled up piece of paper that had been shaped into a rough approximation of his case of capsules had been what he had found. Folded up like a piece of origami. The size and shape was very similar to his capsule case. Enough so that he hadn't noticed the difference until just a few moments ago.

But they were missing. All of them. His capsules, including his time machine... were gone. Trunks frantically went through every single pocket he had, looking for them before finally coming to the conclusion that they weren't with him.

Looking back at the piece of paper he had pulled out earlier, he unfolded it, and found that there were two words written on it.

'You're a…'

That was it. An incomplete sentence. Complete with the ellipses at the end. Implying that there was more to it, somewhere.

But it was no great leap in logic for him to figure out exactly who probably had his capsules now.

He turned around and glared into the distance. Off in the direction where he had come from. Where he had had that bizarre encounter with Gohan.

He couldn't even imagine what kind of damage a drunk kid like Gohan could do with a time machine, or any of the other equipment he had in that case.

But there was one question on his mind that really stumped him. How had that kid managed to get them in the first place?

Ultimately, Trunks decided it wasn't important. He needed to get them back, now.

He drew his sword immediately and transformed into a Super Saiyan.

He was not playing around anymore.

…But then he got another surprise. Taking a look at his sword, he noticed that there was something seriously wrong with it, to say the least.

It was made entirely of what looked like plastic. And… perhaps more annoyingly, written on the blade, in big bold letters was the phrase:

'...Dingus.'

Once again, complete with ellipses. Implying that this was the end of the phrase he had seen on the piece of paper he had unfolded earlier.

'You're a dingus,' was the complete sentence.

It was completely childish, and unexpected. He didn't even know what it meant. But for some reason, it pissed Trunks off far more than it probably should have.

He had absolutely no idea how Gohan had managed to accomplish all of this, but honestly, he wasn't sure he cared at this point either. His sword had been stolen and swapped out with a toy, apparently.

But the fact of the matter was that the drunk, younger version of his master was screwing around despite the dire situation that Trunks and everyone in his timeline was in.

He resolved himself in that moment to beat the crap out of the kid, take back everything he had stolen, and dump the kid's unconscious body at Goku's feet when he finally met up with him later.

Trunks was absolutely out of patience.


Another sharp feeling of rage and disbelief went through him when Trunks finally encountered Gohan again.

There the child was, rifling through his un-capsulized time machine, and going through all of the compartments. Carelessly tossing random items outside.

Out of patience, and fed up, Trunks wasted no time in landing on the roof of his machine and picking Gohan up by the back of his shirt.

"Huh?" Gohan slurred out, as Trunks rotated him so that he could glare into his eyes.

Seeing Gohan carrying his stolen sword was the last straw.

Trunks angrily tossed the child outside the machine, sending him sprawling across the ground.

"Okay. I've had enough of this. What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Trunks shouted furiously, as he picked up his sword again and resheathed it.

"What do you mean?" Gohan grumbled as he sat up. "I was playing with my new spaceship. It's really cool."

"Your new… spaceship?"

"Yeah."

Thankfully, Trunks realized, Gohan hadn't figured out the machine's true nature. So Trunks went along with the story.

"That isn't your spaceship," Trunks snapped. "It's mine."

"Nuh-uh."

"You stole it from me!"

"I don't see your name on it anywhere."

"What does it matter?! You took it straight out of my pocket!"

"But I'll tell you- hic!... what," Gohan continued, as if Trunks hadn't said anything at all in response. "You see that right there?" Gohan pointed to the machine.

Trunks turned and immediately scowled at what he saw. There, scrawled in messy, childish writing, in black marker, was 'Gohan's Spaceship'. Right on the side of his time machine.

The 'G' was backwards.

"It's got my name on it. So I think that makes it- hic!... mine, actually. By the rule of finders keepers. So you're the thief, here, random blonde guy. Stop stealin'."

A furious expression settled on Trunks' face, that only got worse as Gohan continued his explanation.

"Rude behaviour. You see, this crazy guy with purple hair generously gifted me this spaceship. Maybe you even saw him on your way over, blonde guy?"

"I didn't give that to you," Trunks stated through gritted teeth.

"Of course not. I completely agree."

'Good,' Trunks thought. 'So this kid is finally starting to see some sense.'

"So give it back!" he demanded.

"Purple guy gave it to me."

Trunks glared daggers at the child the instant he understood the implication behind those words. Gohan was pretending to not even recognize him! And speaking as if Trunks' untransformed state had been a totally different person!

"No he didn't! I didn't! Give it back now, or I will hurt you, kid! And then I'll just take it back!"

The only reason Trunks hadn't beaten the kid to a pulp already was because he had so much respect for the man that Gohan would turn into in the future.

"Mm. Nah. I don't think I'll do that. It's mine- hic!... you see."

Trunks, glaring at the child, decided to simply turn and walk towards his machine so that he could re-capsulize it and put it away.

As he reached his hand up to press the mechanism, however, he was struck from behind.

It wasn't a particularly hard hit, and it was definitely one that he could shake off, but it was strong enough to send him flying.

After taking a second to recollect himself after landing, he looked back up and saw… pretty much exactly what he was expecting.

Gohan, with an outstretched leg, standing exactly where Trunks had been standing a moment ago.

The kid had roundhouse kicked him.

...So Trunks intended to roundhouse kick the kid back even harder. Pushing off from the ground, he blurred towards the drunk child, but froze in horror before he could strike.

While he had been making his way over, the kid had jumped back inside the machine and had sat down at the console.

And then a cold spike of dread sank into Trunks' heart at what the kid said next.

"Hm. I wonder what this button does."

Trunks' eyes widened, and he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"No! Wait!" He managed to leap into the machine just as Gohan pressed the button and then they both vanished.


As soon as they reappeared, Trunks wasted no time at all. He attacked Gohan with his full strength. He was furious, and intended to knock the kid out and keep him unconscious until Trunks managed to make it back.

The kid had sent them both to a different location in time and that had potentially just doomed Trunks' entire timeline. His friends, his mom, all of those people, there was a very real chance that they would all die, and remain dead forever, all because of this stupid kid's interference. And Trunks wanted revenge for that.

But it was not to be. Because the surprises for the day just didn't seem to ever end. As Trunks grabbed Gohan's shoulder and prepared to punch his lights out, he noticed just a brief second before he found himself in a world of pain, that Gohan's drunken, goofy expression had been wiped clean off his face. And there was a dead serious expression in its place now.

The whole thing had been an act.

Gohan then simply vanished from his view, and then something happened that Trunks had never experienced before. It felt like he was struck by a million punches simultaneously from every direction. It was a world of pain, and when he finally came to, he found himself sprawled out on a forested floor, looking up at the deadly expression on Gohan's face.

'There it is…' Trunks' delirious mind supplied to him. That was the expression he was used to seeing on his former master's face.

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions now," Gohan calmly stated. "I suggest you answer them honestly."

"How did you know my name?!" The kid suddenly shouted. "Who sent you?! Why did you come here?!"

Ignoring the furious expression on Gohan's face, Trunks climbed up to his feet, and returned the glare to the kid.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?!" Trunks shouted back. "You stranded us both in the past!"

"Wrong. I stranded just you in the past. I can leave any time I choose."

"What are you talking about?! The time machine can only travel twice before it needs to recharge! You just used up the fuel for a return trip to my time! Neither of us can go back!"

"Wrong again. Everything you said was true except for the part where you assumed that I needed to use a time machine at all, to go back."

"W-what?"

"I'm a clone."

"A… clone?"

"Yes. Are you familiar with the multiform technique?"

"Yeah… What does that have to do with anything?!"

"Imagine this hypothetical scenario," Gohan began. "I use the multiform to split into two copies. One of them goes into the time machine with you and travels somewhere else leaving the other one behind. What happens?"

Trunks' eyes widened in realization.

"This happens. It is of no consequence to this body what happens now to it. You are the only one in danger here. I can leave at any time by dispelling. The real me is still back in the other timeline."

"It has been a very long time since anything has truly surprised me," Gohan explained. "But your sudden appearance on the planet, my planet, sure managed it. You completely slipped past all of my senses and planetary defences and came out of nowhere."

"That makes you a threat," Gohan warned. "Doubly so now that I know that you're a time traveller. Do you have any idea how much damage you could have caused with an invention like that?"

"The planet is under my protection from all threats! And it remains to be seen whether you are one or not! So how you answer my questions will determine whether or not I leave you here!"

"You know my name. You said it before I told it to you. You recognized me. That means you know a version of me from either the past or the future."

"So which is it?! How do you know my name?!"

"What does it even matter?!" Trunks shouted. "Even if I told you everything, I'm still stuck here! You may be able to dispel, but I sure can't!"

"All you need is a recharge for your machine. I am perfectly capable of that."

"What are you talking about? You know how that thing works?!"

"I have no idea how it works. Yet. I had no idea that time travel was even possible until you showed up and I confirmed it myself firsthand. In fact, I was almost certain that it wasn't possible at all. But now that I know that it is, you can bet that I will replicate the process given enough time."

"But a power system is easy," Gohan claimed. "I have learned how to atomically construct any form of matter I choose."

Gohan demonstrated this first hand as a block of ice started forming in his hand from thin air.

The ice changed into iron a moment later.

"By analyzing the power system on your machine, I can determine the molecular structure of whatever fuel it is that you require to recharge, and construct it from scratch myself to give you the power needed to return."

"So answer my questions. Or I will ensure that you never see your home again."


How had it come to this? Literally nothing had gone according to plan.

"Who… who are you?" Trunks asked.

"I think I'm the one asking the questions here," Gohan replied.

"You can't be Gohan."

"Oh? Why not?"

"You're nothing alike. I've known Gohan for years. And he isn't like you at all. He trained me. So I can tell."

"Gohan trained you? Interesting. I'd never train anyone, so I don't think I believe you."

"It's true."

"What's the password then?"

"What are you talking about?"

"If I trained anyone, especially someone with a time machine, I would have given you a password with a certain set of instructions that the past version of me knows very well. You see, if someone tells me the password that only I know about, I can be sure that whoever spoke it to me is either a mind reader, knows one, or is a time traveller who made contact with a version of me from another timeline. So what is it?"

"Gohan never told me anything like that."

"Then there's no way he's me. Unless he bonked his head and got amnesia, or something."

"How did you get like this? I don't understand…"

"Wait... what are you doing?!" Trunks shouted as he watched Gohan point a large energy attack at the time machine.

"Preparing to destroy that machine of course. What does it look like I'm doing?" Gohan calmly replied.

"Wait! Why?!"

"How many times do I have to answer that question before you will be satisfied? The Earth is under my protection. Your time machine managed to slip past every defence I had set up, so I had to personally see what was going on."

"I stranded you in the past so that I could determine what your intentions were. If you refused to answer my questions, I would destroy your time machine and leave you here. You aren't answering my questions so… what do you think I'm doing?"

"I'm going to ask one last time, so I suggest you pay attention. Explain everything about who you are and why you came here, in detail, or else."

"Okay, okay! Just hold on!"

"If the next words out of your mouth are not the beginnings of a satisfactory explanation, we're done. I'm out of patience."

Gohan lowered his attack as he listened to Trunks as he began his story.


"...And that's everything."

There was an extended period of silence as Gohan processed all of that information.

"That makes no sense at all," was his reply.

"What do you mean?" Trunks asked.

"These androids sound like they are pretty strong."

"Yeah. They are. So what?"

"So why are you looking for my dad?"

"Because he's the only one who can help me."

"Why is that?"

"Because he's the strongest on the planet."

"He definitely isn't. In fact, he's not even close."

"What do you mean he isn't?! Of course he is! Goku has defeated every threat to the Earth that has ever shown up! It was only thanks to that heart virus that we couldn't stop the androids!"

Gohan stared at him for a moment.

"Name them."

"What?"

"Name every threat that my dad has ever taken out."

"I don't know about all of them. Why?"

"Because I think our timelines are different. Just do it."

"Okay…"

Gohan continued to watch him as Trunks started explaining the rough timeline that he remembered. He explained Goku's adventurers from as far back as the Red Ribbon Army.

Trunks noticed the change in Gohan's expression however, once he explained how the fight with the saiyan's went.

It was small, but noticeable. But still… Gohan did not interrupt as Trunks continued to explain how Goku defeated Vegeta but did not kill him. How they then went to Namek in search of the Dragonballs. How they fought Frieza, the Ginyu force, how Goku became a super saiyan, and all sorts of other conflicts that Goku had gone through.

"...And then he was killed by the heart virus."

There was a moment of silence.

"So… what? Does that sound familiar so far?"

"No."

Trunks felt an uneasy feeling rock through his entire being at that.

"W-which part is different?"

"Everything past Raditz landing on Earth, pretty much."

"So… almost all of it, then?" Trunks replied, voice full of worry.

"Yeah."

"What happened in your timeline then?!"

"My dad never fought Vegeta, or Nappa. Piccolo never died, so we never lost the Dragonballs. In fact, nobody important died at all. Nobody went to Namek. I have no idea what a super saiyan even is, and pretty much everything else you mentioned never happened at all."

"Wait… how? If Goku wasn't there, what happened to my father that day?!"

"Vegeta's your dad?" Gohan asked, a strange expression going across his face.

"Yes!"

"Well I guess that's pretty awkward then, isn't it?"

"What are you talking about?!"

"I killed him."

"W-what?"

"Your dad. I killed him. Nappa too."

"You… how?"

"How do you think? Blew his head off."

"There is no way you were strong enough to do that at that age."

"Oh, I see. You're one of those people aren't you?"

"What do you mean those people?"

"One of those martial artists who thinks the only way to beat someone is to be stronger than them. Figures. I guess that explains why your timeline is such a horrible shithole too. Everyone was just too damn stupid to do anything properly. So they all died."

"Don't ever say something like that to my face again."

"Oh?"

"You have no idea what they all went through."

"Needless work is what it sounds like. Is running off to die in a battle that they knew they couldn't win supposed to make me respect them?"

"They were saving lives!"

"No!" Gohan denied. "No, they weren't saving lives. They were ending them through their own incompetence. The only way to save everyone in your situation is to defeat the androids utterly. To get a new set of Dragonballs, and restore everything to the way it was before they showed up."

"That is the goal that you should have all agreed to achieve. You should have made the decision to let the androids run amok as they saw fit, and only intervened in the moment where you knew you could win."

"Because you didn't do that, now here you are, all alone. Beaten and bloody, and at the mercy of a kid half your age, because you are all that's left. Because everyone important died, more people will die overall than would have, had you all refrained from sacrificing yourselves."

"You could have all trained together. Worked together, became super saiyans, whatever the hell that means, together, and then… years later, face down the androids from a position of strength, defeat them, then move on to the next problem of finding a new set of Dragonballs to undo the damage that was caused."

"In your timeline, you sacrificed your fighters needlessly. You used up the Earth's strength by depleting its strongest warriors. And you weren't even smart about doing it. But now that you've run out of those things, you want to start using my timeline's warriors since you're out of cannon fodder."

"I won't let you rope my family into this mess."

"But there is one thing that I just can't wrap my mind around. How the hell did Gohan die in your timeline? The story you told me makes no sense whatsoever. There is no way he would have thrown his life away to save some weak piece of shit like you and doomed the rest of the planet in the process. He would have come up with a plan to save everyone and would have executed it even if literally every last human alive was temporarily sacrificed to achieve it. Because he would have known that no matter how bad the damage was, as long as he got his hands on a working set of Dragonballs at the end, all of it could be undone."

"But there wasn't a working set of Dragonballs to use!"

"Really? What happened to the Namekians in your timeline?"

"They were wiped out by something. I don't know what it was. But that wasn't an option."

"There is a working set in my world. Why not use those?"

"It won't work. Shenron only has authority over the timeline he is originally from."

"The Namekians in my timeline?"

"Porunga has the same problem, I'd expect."

"You'd expect? That doesn't sound like you know that with much confidence."

"It doesn't matter anyways. He can't resurrect multiple people at once."

"Yes… but what about the Namekians in my timeline?"

"What are you talking about? I just said that Porunga won't-"

"No. The Namekians in my timeline."

"What are you talking about?"

"They can create Dragonballs."

"So?"

"So… get one of them to volunteer to go with you into your timeline to make a new set there. Use those to wish back Piccolo. That gets you back a set of Dragonballs that can be used on multiple people at once."

"Then when Piccolo is back, get the Namekian you took with you to transfer his guardian powers over to Piccolo once again, and have him return to his people in my timeline."

"I don't know if they can do that."

"So why aren't you trying it? The way I see it, you have two options. You can either proceed with your current plan, in which the best case scenario ends with the androids defeated and you returning to a post apocalyptic shithole world to rebuild, accepting all your losses as permanent, or you can try my plan out, which has no negative consequences I'd like to remind you for failing, and simply use your original plan as a backup."

"I… Can that actually work?"

"Well there is one thing I can say for certain. Your original plan certainly has to change."

"Why?"

"Because Goku is nowhere near strong enough to handle androids that are this strong. I'm probably the only one who can, actually. He's also busy."

"Busy? Busy with what?"

"His family. I won't let you interfere with that."

"What about his family?"

"He has some kids to take care of."

"Some… kids?"

"Yeah. You were making a dangerous beeline straight for them back there which is why I stopped simply observing your actions from a distance and confronted you instead. Because the Goku in my timeline wasn't running off to other worlds to get into fights, he settled down and had a family. So he has children now. They weren't born too long ago either. So they are extremely young, and don't need a missing father figure in their lives."

"But in any case, here's what I'm proposing."

"I'll take out your androids myself and completely restore your timeline to the way it was before they showed up. Including bringing your version of Goku and Vegeta back to life, along with all the other innocent people who died. And in exchange I want three things."

"The first is open access to all of Capsule Corporation's servers. The Capsule Corp from your timeline, that is."

"The second is the complete blueprints to your time machine."

"And finally, my third condition is the freedom to not answer the question you will inevitably ask next. 'Why?'"

"If you give me those 3 things, I will do all of that."

"Why do you want-"

"What did I say condition 3 was again?"

"It isn't anywhere near that simple."

"Why not?"

"The androids are stronger than anyone you have ever faced before."

"Bullshit. Even if that were true, it almost certainly isn't by the way, but even if it is, why would that matter?"

"How would you beat them if you can't even keep up?"

"Funny. I bet your dad thought something just like that right before I blew his head off. Nappa too."

"How did you manage that? Even if you could, why did you? I can't understand how you were that strong at such a young age."

"I wasn't that strong. In fact, I was pretty weak. Mercy is a luxury that only the strong can afford. I put those saiyans down hard because I was not strong enough to keep them prisoner, or to keep an eye on them if I let them go. That's all there is to it."

"You look skeptical. Why not go see what happened for yourself? You have a time machine, don't you?"

"A time machine that is out of fuel."

"...Which is a problem I can fix."

"O-okay."

"You want to go watch what happened that day?"

"Yeah. I… think I need to see that for myself."

"Well let's go then."


Discord: A3dTszc