The Darkness Within

This is the story of the past of Android 17 and 18 and how love saved them from the darkness within. K18, NSFW, TRIGGER WARNING

Disclaimer: I do not own DB/DBZ/DBS or any of its characters. Please take the trigger warning seriously!

Chapter 4

18 meditated with him every night after that. Bulma said she would finish the device in two weeks and in those two weeks they would meet up every night at midnight at the same spot. Krillin always seemed much more relaxed afterwards but 18 could not seem to find that same inner peace. Whether she meditated or not she felt that low, violent, rumbling anger bubbling up inside her ready to explode.

"It won't work if you don't let it go you know," Krillin said one night after a week and a half of meditating.

18 was hovering crossed-legged like Krillin but she wore a shirt and he didn't. She glanced at him and said, "let what go?"

"Your anger."

"If I do that I might kill people."

Krillin sighed. "I know that feeling, though I was never powerful enough to hurt anybody. There are ways to let it go without violence."

"How is that?"

"Talking about it."

18 scoffed.

"I didn't say you had to share it with me or with anyone," Krillin said. "Some people like to talk to therapists, some people to their friends which is what I did, and others can't talk to anyone so they wrote it down in journals."

"Journals?"

Krillin nodded and broke his meditation pose to get something from his shirt. He pulled out a small notebook with a pen and handed it to her. "If you wanna write you can," he said. "And if you wanna talk to me you can too."

18 stared at the notebook for a while as Krillin hovered back into his meditation position. "Who did you talk to? Goku?"

Krillin glanced at her and smiled. "As much as I love Goku and thought of him as a brother he just didn't understand. So I talked to Yamcha."

"Did he understand?"

Krillin nodded. "He never experienced that kind of hardship but he was comprehensive and always made me feel better."

"We had another brother."

Krillin jumped out of his meditative pose in shock. "A-another..."

"His name was Lamel," she said. "He was ten years younger than us. Gero killed him."

Krillin stepped closer to her but said nothing, allowing her to continue. "Our mom died giving birth to him because Gero posed as her doctor and that's what he said but I think he killed her. Father had to take extra shifts at the fire station so I raised Lamel on my own. Lapis helped dad by working at an animal shelter bathing dogs after school."

"Lapis," Krillin said. "That was 17's name?"

18 nodded.

"And yours?"

18 hesitated. "Lazuli."

Krillin smiled kindly at her. "That's a beautiful name."

18 felt heat rush to her face as she blushed and turned her face away. Instead she continued. "Five years later the commissioner of the fire station said that father died in a building collapse. I have a feeling Gero had something to do with that too."

"I can find out for you if you want," Krillin said.

"What's the point?" 18 said feeling anger well up inside her again. "It won't bring him back. Though I would've liked to have been the one who killed Gero."

Krillin didn't respond to that. "What happened after that?"

"We were scared to be separated in an orphanage so our old nanny helped us escape," 18 said jumping out of her meditative stance. "Come with me."

"Where?" Krillin asked grabbing his shirt as 18 lifted into the air.

"Just follow me."

Krillin tugged his shirt on and flew after her.

XXXXXXX

10 years ago

Pilani opened the door to see Lazuli and Lapis standing there with Lapis carrying a sleeping Lamel.

"Kids..."

"Nanny Pilani," Lazuli said with a respectful bow.

"It's very late what are you doing here?"

Lazuli felt tears welling up and when she tried to talk she just started sobbing. Pilani looked very worried now. Lapis continued, "We found out tonight that father died in a building collapse."

Pilani immediately pulled the twins in and hugged them careful not to wake Lamel.

"We need help nanny Pilani please," Lazuli said wiping away her tears. "Social services will be here tomorrow to take us to the orphanage and we can't let them separate us."

"I'm sure they won't..."

"Please Nanny Pilani," Lapis said. "We can't risk it. We have to escape."

"But what will you do?"

"We will work hard and survive," Lapis said determinedly.

Pilani looked pensive but then led further into the room. "Sleep in my guest room tonight, I have some extra money for train fare. There's a village far from here called Bokra Town. It's isolated from the city where no one would question why you kids are alone and they have a lot of need for workers there."

XXXXXX

Krillin followed 18 into the shack and glanced at the two mattresses on the floor and the moldy makeshift kitchen. "What is this place?"

"Our home," 18 said. "After Nanny Pilani helped us escape we found this shack and moved in. All the stuff we found in dumpsters or bought at the pawnshop after weeks of hard work. We lived like this for six months until Lamel got Scarlet Fever."

"Oh no," Krillin said. "That epidemic hit hard."

"We worked nonstop until Lapis helped a gangster rob a bank and got the medicine," 18 said. "That was on our 15th birthday. A few months later Gero came to us saying that he was a poor old man who lost all his children and he wanted to help us."

"You didn't recognize him?"

"He looked very different," 18 said shaking her head. "If it hadn't been for the scarlet fever scare we would've said no."

Krillin sighed. "I don't think he would've taken no for an answer."

"He took us to this mansion where Android 16 trained us in martial arts and academics until we reached our human limits five years later," 18 said. "Android 16 was ordered to kill Lamel and when we woke up we were in his lab."

Krillin turned to her and placed a gentle hand on her arm. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?"

"Just sorry that happened to you," Krillin said.

"I don't want to talk anymore," 18 said trying to stay calm at his soft touch.

"May I?" Krillin said opening his arms wide.

18 looked at him bewildered. "What?"

Krillin stepped forward slowly and wrapped his arms around her waist, pressed himself against her and laid his cheek against her sternum.

18 was at a loss. Was he...hugging her?

XXXXXX

5 years ago

Lapis kicked the lab door hard with his full Ki but the door didn't budge. He growled loudly and pointed right to the camera. "Let us out of here you son-of-a-bitch! Where's Lamel!?"

"You've been at it for hours Lapis," Lazuli said from her position on the cold metal bed in the center of the room. "Who knows how long we've been in here." Her body shook as tears started wracking her body.

"No Lazuli," Lapis said walking to her. "Don't you dare cry. Don't give that monster the pleasure of seeing you suffer."

"I can't," Lazuli said through tears.

"Yes you can," Lapis said grabbing her hands. "You think about strength. Crying is for the weak. Hold your head up high and hold the tears in."

"But Lamel," Lazuli said sobbing. "We lost him."

Lapis hugged her close against his chest and she cried hard letting all her pains and sorrows go.