Hello everyone. Welcome to the latest chapter of this story. Not much action happens and there's a lot of explanation here, but I hope it's still enjoyable. Now, onto the story.

Gohan and 21

Gohan was having a very confusing day. Scratch that, his whole life was confusing right now. Starting with the fact that he shouldn't have one, as he died over a decade ago. That alone packed a lot of questions as he is supposed to be dead, and the dragon balls are gone so he couldn't be revived. However, one look at his surroundings made it clear that he was not in otherworld, and he didn't have a halo either. Then he goes and finds his home and everything else destroyed. He was heartbroken at this site, and he couldn't find Trunks or Bulma anywhere. It made him wonder what happened as he knows Trunks defeated the androids over 11 years ago. Then he suddenly senses two powerful energy signatures around where Capsule Corp. was. He goes there and finds his dad, who is also supposed to be dead, attacking a pink-skinned woman. Except he knows that's not his dad, his energy is different and evil. So he stops him from attacking while trying to figure out what's going on. So yeah, a very confusing day for him. However, none of that matters right now. What matters is confronting this imposter and making sure that woman is alright.

"HAAAAA!" Gohan fires a Masenko towards the imposter. He dodged it, but that didn't matter to him, as long as the woman was out of danger.

"Oh." The false Goku calls out. "Another mortal who seeks retribution?."

Gohan glares at him, curious about his phrasing but not caring at the moment. "I don't know who you are," he responds. "or why you look like my father. But I know you're not him." He transforms into Super Saiyan. "And you better leave her alone."

"Hehehe." the false Goku chuckles. "If you want to die with her so badly, then go ahead," he makes a coming motion with his hand. "Face your judgment."

"Raaaagh!" Gohan charges at the false Goku, who gladly charges back. The two collide with their fists, creating shockwaves from the blow. Goku Black throws a kick, but Gohan ducks under it and throws his own kick. He blocks it and pushes it off before throwing rapid punches. Gohan blocks most of them, but gets hit by one and stunned, before feeling a knee in his gut. Goku Black smirks and draws his leg back, then snaps it forward kicking Gohan back. He charges forward while charging up a ki blast in his right hand.

"Hrrng" Goku Black suddenly felt a pain in his chest and stops. Gohan notices and takes advantage of it. "Haaaa!" He throws a reverse roundhouse kick and knocks Goku Black back. He charges towards him and goes for a punch. Goku Black recovers and grabs Gohan's arm in his left hand, before pulling it in and elbowing him with his right, stunning Gohan. He then grabs his hands together and punts Gohan down. Gohan crashes but quickly gets back up and flies at him again.

21, watching from a distance, notices the brief pause from Goku Black. 'He stopped mid-attack because of pain.' She realizes. 'But I never hit him there during our earlier fight. But then when…?' She thinks back to him coming out the portal. 'Thinking back, he came out a little tired. He must have come from a fight then. And whether he won or lost he's still recovering from his injuries from then.' She smirks. 'We can use that to our advantage.'

Back to the fight, we see Gohan getting knocked back into a building. He struggles a bit to get out of the rubble. Goku Black chuckles. "Well, well. Looks like you're struggling a bit there. Don't tell me this is all you have. I can't even benefit from this." Gohan gets up and glares at him. Goku Black sighs with a smile. "Well, as fun as this was, I have to get going. So let's wrap this up." He then cups his hands and places them behind him. "Consider this a parting gift from father to son." A black energy begins forming in his hands. Gohan's eyes widened in recognition of his father's signature move. Goku Black continues to chuckle as charges up his Kamehameha.

Suddenly, 21 appears directly in front of him using instant transmission. Goku Black face morphs into shock. She punches him directly in the chest knocking him back causing him to curl in on himself. He recalls when Goku kicked him there during their battle before he left. 21 then appears above him and launches herself into him, ramming him into the ground. She then takes her hand and charges up a blast and points it point blank in his face. "Take this!" She yells before launching it, landing a direct hit and causing a massive explosion.

As the explosion dies down a massive crater is seen, with Goku Black visibly injured in the middle. Gohan watches this in amazement, before 21 appears beside him. He turns to her seeing two fingers placed on her forehead while holding out her other hand. "Come on." She says. Nodding, he grabs her hand before teleporting somewhere else. Almost immediately after this, Goku Black flies up while screaming, causing his aura to flare and the ground beneath him to shake. He stops and looks around for the two opponents only to see nothing.

"Hmph. So they fled." He says. "Well no matter, I'll destroy them before long." He then seizes up before griping his chest. "But first, I must recover. No doubt when we meet, they will have as well." He flies away to his current residence.

21 and Gohan appear inside a ruined building. 21 falls flat on her behind in exhaustion, while Gohan powers down from Super Saiyan.

"Whew." 21 sighed out. "We got away safely."

Gohan looks at 21 with both gratefulness and curiosity. He holds his hand out to help her up. 21 looks at it for a second before accepting it. "Thank you."

"It's no problem." Gohan says. "Now that we're in the clear," His face then morphs into a serious expression. "Can you tell me what's going on? What happened here? Who was that guy? Why did he look like my dad?" He then pauses for a second before continuing. "And frankly, who are you? I don't mean to be rude, but you don't exactly strike me as from around here."

"It's fine." 21 responds. "I don't know everything that's going on, but I'll tell you what I can. Besides, I'm going to need your help if we want to stop him." 21 walks over to a nearby table, grabs a chair and sits in it. "I suggest you get comfortable, because this is going to be a long explanation." Gohan walks to the table and grabs a chair as well. "Okay. Let's start with after your death…"

Gohan shot up in alarm. "How do you know…"

"Calm down." 21 quickly replied. "I promise I'll explain."

Gohan eyed her cautiously before sitting back down and motioning for her to continue.

"Alright. Now to start…"

And so 21 explained to Gohan about how Trunks couldn't beat the androids on his own, so Bulma built a time machine and he went back in time to save Goku's life in hopes that they could beat them with his help. She explained how time-travel worked and that Trunks created an alternate timeline where Goku lived through his heart virus and that the androids were different, less cold-blooded and ruthless than his were. She talked about Android 16, she got a little depressed when going over him, and how he was a gentle giant who cared for the Earth. She went over Cell, who was a bio-android, or android made up of the cells of multiple people, and how he went back in time after Trunks killed his Android 17 and 18 to absorb the ones from the past and obtain his perfect form. She went over the Cell Games and how that timelines Gohan was the one who defeated him by unlocking a form beyond Super Saiyan, along with Goku's sacrifice. She explained how Trunks went back to his own time to kill the androids and Cell, but knows no more about him after that.

"I knew he could do it." Gohan said proudly.

"Yeah, he really was this world's last hope." 21 replied. "Though, I'm concerned for what's become of him now."

"Yeah." Gohan deflated. "I know he's strong, but I can't help but worry." He continued sitting on that thought for a second before shaking his head. "We can worry about that later. Continue."

21 nodded. She talked about Goten and Trunks, Gohan took time to process that he had a little brother, and how he became a retired fighter and went to school, and how Krillin and 18 were married, that took Gohan even more time to process. She described the incident with Majin Buu and how he was sent to Earth long ago in a seal and how Babidi released him. She took a long time to describe everything that happened, how the Supreme Kai recruited the Z fighters in order to stop Babidi, how Vegeta submitted himself to Babidi to gain more power and how he ultimately sacrificed himself to stop Buu, Goku revealing Super Saiyan 3, Goten and Trunks fusing into Gotenks, Majin Buu splitting himself into a good and evil version and the evil version absorbing his good self and killing everyone on Earth, that timelines Gohan unlocking his potential, Buu absorbing everyone, Goku and Vegeta fusing into Vegito, Goku and Vegeta saving the absorbed fighters causing Buu to revert to his original form, Buu destroying Earth and Goku and Vegeta escaping to the planet of the Kai's, and finally Goku destroying him for good with a Spirit Bomb.

"Wow." Gohan gasped. "That's a lot happening in that other timeline." He said, honestly sounding impressed at what his alternate self, father and friends had to go through. "I have a little brother. Wish I could meet him." He smiled at the prospect of having a little one to take care of. Then a thought passed him and suddenly looked concerned. "Wait, what about the Majin Buu of this world? Could he still be here?"

"Probably. Although based on my knowledge, he was either never released here or defeated, most likely thanks to Trunks."

"Okay that's good. One less threat we have to worry about. But what does all of that have to do with our current situation?"

"I'll get to that in a bit." 21 answered. "I just need to go over one more thing." She then took a deep breath before starting again. "Though all of his experiments had been destroyed or failed, Dr. Gero has one last project. He realized that despite the power Cell would have from mixing the World's strongest fighters, he was still too unpredictable. Not just his body, but his mind would be a random fusion of the gathered cells, and he already had trouble controlling his previous projects. So he decided, in case things went wrong, to do one more project. By combining the aspects of the previous ones, he wanted a bio-android that had a collection of DNA he gathered packed into a base body of another person like 17 and 18 that he could control or that could potentially control and lead the other androids in his place as a second-in-command. In case he didn't live long enough to see it, he would pre-program this last android to carry out his will and put them in charge." 21 takes a second pause before continuing. "The hardest part was the base, finding someone he could take without making a huge fuss, susceptible enough to manipulate, and smart enough to successfully carry out his ambition should he meet an unprecedented demise. Ultimately, he chose someone who was close to him and almost as important to him as his creations. His wife." She stopped, hesitant to explain the next part.

Luckily she didn't have too, as Gohan was already putting the pieces together. "Wait," Gohan gasped, understanding where this was going. "You mean?"

21 nodded. "I had left him after I figured out he had planned to use our son's body to create one of his androids. So I tried to run away with him. But we were caught and our son died in the incident. He decided that I was the perfect subject for his final project, Android 21." She stopped, finding it difficult to bring up old memories. Gohan got up and got behind her, putting his arm on her back. 21 looked up at Gohan as he offered a comforting smile.

"Thank you." 21 thanked him. "However, there was one thing that Gero had not planned for when creating his final android, the existence of Majin Buu. His machines had captured Buu's DNA and added it as part of the final android. But it created a bug in the programming. The android would be consumed by hunger and need for power, and its programming rewrote its central focus from Gero's plans to that." 21 looked down, upset at her previous actions. "When I first woke up, the first thing I did was use Gero's research to create clones of all the fighters on Earth, in hopes of having an endless source of strong warriors to feast on and gain power. When that wasn't enough, I revived Earth's greatest villains and made clones of them as well. Though they were strong, they weren't as strong as the originals. So I also created a machine that produced waves that would neutralize all the strong fighters and inhibit their powers so they couldn't stop me. Without an outside source to help them, they couldn't even do so much as fly." She took a breather before continuing. "And that outside source was souls." Gohan widened his eyes in shock. "As I said, the clones were not as strong as the originals, and therefore didn't give me as much of a boost or *shiver* taste as good." she paused, looking very uncomfortable at that thought and took a few seconds to regain her composure. "Most of them were failures so I switched to artificial souls, but it started out with taking humans and removing their souls from their body. These souls could enter the bodies of people affected by the waves and control them, even tapping into some of their power, that being their main purpose. To strengthen the original fighters as much as possible so I could feast on them."

"What happened to those people? The ones that the souls were made from?" Gohan asked cautiously.

"Dead. With the exception of one, all of them did not survive the process, and I don't know what has become of the one that did. Though they did assist the Z-Fighters in taking me down."

"Father and the others brought you down?"

"Well, not 'me' me. Remember how I told you Majin Buu's evil self split from his good one. Well after managing to regain control of myself, I tried to contain my hunger. But all that did was make it worse, until it turned into another, more twisted version of me. And just like Buu, she and I split apart, with her taking most of our power and continuing her conquest. So together with the rest of the fighters, we took her down."

"So how did you end up here, then?"

"That I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, I should be dead."

Gohan paused, feeling sympathy for the bio-android "How did you die?"

She looked down with a sad smile. "Thanks to the Majin Buu's cells I have, if even an atom of me, and by extension her, remains, I can reform myself. So they had to end her the same way they ended Majin Buu, with a Spirit Bomb. Unfortunately, their power was still dampened and she was too strong and held it back. So I went in and stopped her, causing it to hit and destroy the both of us." She looks up at Gohan. "Why I am alive or how I ended up here, even I don't know." She gains a serious expression. "However, after searching here for a while to figure out where I am and what happened to me, a portal opened up above Capsule Corp. and out came Goku Black. And based on his words, I know he's from the timeline I am from. As to who he is and why he looks like Goku, I don't know."

Gohan's face had a serious expression, before softening and smiling. "So we're both dead people who got a mysterious second chance at life, and now we're gonna save the world from an evil version of my dad."

21 looks at him before giggling. "Pretty much." She replies. "But first we rest. I wasted the last of my energy reserves in that last attack and you need to recover from your fight. As we are now, we'd get destroyed."

"Agreed." Gohan responds. "We'll rest till tomorrow. Then we'll come up with a plan, and hopefully some information along the way. There's still too much we don't know about our opponent."

"Yeah." 21 agreed. "But we are going to need something else."

"What?" Gohan asked.

"A place to train." 21 answered. "I don't mean to insult you, but compared to Goku Black, you're not even close to being able to face him. You need to get a lot stronger if you want to face him. As for me," she raised her hand and looked at it. "I never really had the opportunity to test my capabilities. I was either brainwashed, crazy, or trying to stop myself from destroying the world. While I have knowledge of the people I'm made of, I'm not sure of everything I could do. We'll need everything we got if we want to stop Black."

"Well, that will be a challenge." Gohan looked down, thinking. "Unless we can go off the planet, there's nowhere to train where he can't sense us."

21 thought about that. "Actually, that's not completely true." She contemplates. "There is one place that might work. Although it's not a guarantee."

"Really!" Gohan looked up. "Where?"

"The Hyperbolic Time Chamber."

"What's that?"

21 looked at him with a mix of surprise and confusion before remembering. "Oh yeah, the androids. Well, it's basically a separate dimension that has a different flow of time. One day out here is equivalent to a year in there. There's an entrance to it on the lookout. Goku and the others used that place to train for long periods of time when they were short on it." She gained a confident grin on her face. "And since it exists in a separate dimension, no one can sense what we do in there."

Gohan smiled. "That's perfect. It's exactly what we need. We'll go there after we've gotten some rest." He says with a determined smile on his face.

"Sounds like a plan." 21 smiles back.

In an underground tunnel, one could find the equivalent of a camp, with tents, stalls, and a bunch of people are seen grouped up together. Men and women of all ages could be seen in this group. Suddenly, a group of soldiers came from a tunnel and approached them. Most of the people turned towards the soldiers in a mix of relief and anticipation.

One of the soldiers stepped forward. "Where's Mai?!" He asked.

An adult male stepped forward. "She's this way." The soldiers followed the man to a room. Inside we see a tall, black-haired lady in a blue coat covered in bandages laying down on a couch.

"Commander Mai! Reporting!" One of the soldiers yelled.

Mai looked up to the men and smiled. "Good, you're all okay."

"We should be telling you that commander," another soldier spoke up. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine." She said standing up. "Anything to report."

"Yes, commander. We found a few civilians. They weren't under attack so we were able to safely escort them down here."

"That's good." Mai said. "Keep up the good work." She goes to grab some supplies.

"There's something else, commander."

"Hm?" She stops and looks towards them. "What is it?"

"As we were escorting the people, we caught the sight of a large explosion."

"Oh no. Was it Black?"

"We weren't sure. It seemed different from his usual ones. It was…pink." His tone drifted into uncertainty at the end. "So one of our men went to investigate, and he saw something interesting."

"What did he see?"

"It was only a quick glance so he could be mistaken, but he said he saw a pink woman and a one-armed man at the scene before teleporting away. Then Black had risen from a crater, likely the result of the explosion, and after that he left."

"Wait, you're saying Black rose from the crater?!" Mai asked with shock.

"Yes commander, of that we are certain." the soldier responded. "And if our intel is indeed correct, it was likely caused by the man and woman that were seen on the site."

"Then that means whoever they were fought Black. And escaped." Mai deduced. "And with Trunks coming with backup from the past, we can make a team of strong warriors who could defeat Black." Mai focused back on the soldiers. "Men."

"Yes commander." They responded.

"I want you to make a secondary objective to be on the lookout for those two people." Mai ordered "With their help, plus the reinforcements Trunks is bringing, we have a serious chance to form a successful counter strike against Goku Black."

"As you command."

"Alright. You're all dismissed." They nod and leave the room.

Mai sighs before grabbing her supplies. "We need all the help we can get. Let's just hope these people are our allies." She then morphs into a serious face. "And won't become our enemies."

And so the day seems to be over. Goku Black has retreated for now, but not for long. Our heroes have escaped, and they have a lot to do and in so little time. And what's left of humanity seems to be holding out in hopes of surviving until Trunks returns with help. Can they survive long enough for our heroes to return? Can our heroes return strong enough to take on Goku Black? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Future!

That wraps up this chapter. Hope it was still enjoyable despite the long recap of half of DBZ. Also hope you enjoyed my personally created lore for 21. It was very interesting to add to her backstory besides what the game reveals. Also nice to give lore behind the game itself as many things are never explained and up to assumption. Next time, training, more explanations, and we finally get to see our favorite time-traveler and Saiyans.