Chapter 1: Malfunction

Trunks was ready to return to his own timeline. He leaned against the wall outside Bulma's lab, waiting for her to finish synthesising the fuel for his time machine. He wanted to get back home soon so he only asked for enough fuel for a one way trip, he knew his mother, future Bulma, would be able to make more should he want to come back to the past.

Now that he'd eradicated the Androids and Cell from his own timeline he was finally at ease. For the first time in his life he wasn't stressed out, instead he was content, maybe he could actually live a peaceful life.

As he stared into his own reflection through his sword, there was one thing on his mind though. Gohan's perfected form. He'd seen the power of the form when Goku's son had obliterated Perfect cell, and once again when he wiped out Bojack. It was awe inspiring, yet deep down he knew he could achieve the ascended state, it was just a question of time and training.

"Trunks!" Bulma hollered. "Your fuels all set" she smiled holding out a cylinder of bluish fluid.

"Oh what? That was quick" he replied, sheathing his sword behind him. "Well I guess that means it's time then." He smiled back at her. "Thanks mum, for everything" He took a hold of the fuel and headed to the courtyard with Bulma.

Once in the open space he took out the capsule in his pocket, pressing the top and throwing it in front of him. *Poof*. When the smoke cleared you could see a futuristic looking machine, shaped sort of like an egg, with 4 legs holding it up and an array of turbines around it.

Going round the side, Trunks opened up the side panel and placed the cannister of fuel into position, however it felt a bit stiff and needed a bit of force despite usually fitting right in. 'That's odd', he thought. After closing the panel, he went back to Bulma and gave her hug. What he didn't notice was the small sparks coming from the panel

"Oh yeah I almost forgot here's a little gift from us Trunks", she said, pulling out a case from her lab coat. "It's a couple capsules with some senzu beans, saiyan armour, and a space ship. Vegeta insisted I put a gravity room in it so you wouldn't 'become a weakling again' as he put it". He couldn't help but chuckle at that.

Climbing into the cockpit and closing the hatch, he activated the turbines and slowly watched the ground get more distant as the time machine climbed higher into the air. "well time to go back" he muttered to himself, as he pressed the launch trigger. The machine whirred louder and the engines came to life, but as soon as they did an alarm blared. The pod became lit with flashes of red, and the monitor voice screamed "CRITICAL OVERHEATING!".

Frantically, Trunks tried his best to fix the error, pushing in multiple commands. "Come on!", he growled at the monitor, but when he saw flickers of orange coming from the fuel compartment he knew it was pointless. He could see Bulma's horrified face below, but before he could exit the craft the blaring siren came to an abrupt stop. *Zlip*. He was gone.