Chapter 5
Son Goku and the Z-fighters, Gohan and later Trunks were the super-fighters and protectors of Earth. A few beings with superpowers who had taken it upon themselves to defend it from threats.
The planet Earth and it´s people however not only consisted of Z-warriors and Androids. It were normal human beings, without superhuman strength or powers, who made the far majority of it´s people.
And who had to live - and survive - in this world.
One of them was the woman named Keira. The same news reporter who had become a friend and confident of Son Gohan many years ago after the Androids first appeared.
xxxxxxx
11 years earlier - a TV studio in Orange City
The eyes of several terrified and completely shocked humans were watching the scene before them.
All in all it were nearly two dozen people, Keira and a few other journalists who had been invited, the camera crews, Mister Satan´s manager, a few security members, etc.
They were all here to witness Mister Satan´s news announcement about his `challenge´ to the Androids
Just a moment ago they had all witnessed Mister Satan making his declaration that he would defeat the Androids.
As the same Androids suddenly appeared, breaking through the roof.
To say that everyone present was shocked by this would be an understatement.
For a few moments Mister Satan tried to maintain his fearless fassade.
"You two made a great mistake coming here," he proclaimed. "That only means I can deal with you right here, without having to look for you first."
He laughed loudly in his typical showing-off manner.
The Androids were of course completely unimpressed and took a few steps closer to him.
"S-stay back," Mister Satan said, now suddenly nervous.
He threw a punch at Seventeen. But the Android stopped it... with one finger.
The scene was caught on Life-TV by a dozen cameras and all who saw it were terrified.
Most people believed - or maybe rather wanted to believe - that the World Champion at least had some kind of chance. Even after the Androids had defeated armies. But being the World Champion, they thought he possessed some kinds of superhuman powers. (Like many World Champions in the past actually did.)
But their wishful thinking was getting crushed right now.
Mister Satan starred at the Android before him in disbelief. How did they appear here so suddenly?
"Y-you should better leave now," he said to them. "This was just a warning. If you don´t, I´ll show you what I really c-can.."
But Seventeen had already grabbed his hand and twisted his arm.
Mister Satan cried out in terrible pain.
"Now show me what you `really can´," he said mockingly. "It seems nothing as I see it," Seventeen commented.
He broke one of Mister Satan´s fingers, then another one. Both times he let out another painful cry.
"Please!" Mister Satan screamed. "Let me go."
"Do you hear that Eighteen? Is our World Champion begging for mercy?"
"It just looks like it Seventeen," Eighteen replied.
"How about this Mister Satan? I make you an offer," Seventeen said. "You just need to call out for everyone to hear that you are a weakling and I will not kill you. How is that?"
"What? But... Arhh!"
Seventeen broke another one of his fingers.
"I am a weakling! I am a weakling!" Mister Satan finally shouted in front of a dozen cameras, for the entire world to see.
"Good. Very good." Seventeen let go of his hand.
"Eighteen - do you want to?" he asked.
"With pleasure." She pointed her hand at Mister Satan.
"B-but you said?" he stammered.
"That I will not kill you," Seventeen told him. "And I won´t,... she will."
Eighteen fired a small ki blast right through Mister Satan´s chest and after a couple moments of his body still standing, the terrified expression on his face like frozen, he fell down dead.
"Now then," Seventeen said, "since you news-people are already here, we have an announcement to make as well," he stated in front of the terrified people.
"You." He pointed right in the direction where Keira was standing in the crowd. "Comes closer."
"I-..." Keira repeated, feeling like her bones had turned into ice. She had never been so scared in her life.
"Don´t worry. We just want you to get a better picture of us," Eighteen told her. "Or we can kill you right now and choose someone else. Your choice."
"I... okay," she said. What choice did she have?
She turned to her camera-man.
"Max - the camera is still running, right?"
"Of course it is," he replied in a somewhat gruff voice.
It had been a stupid question, Keira admitted. The camera had been running the entire time. She was just too nervous to think straight.
"Humans of this planet," Seventeen started, "as you could just see, your so called Champion, who many of you thought was your last hope, was just a weak fool with a big mouth," he explained. "We have however already defeated and killed the actually strong fighters on this planet."
"Just like we defeated the pathetic armies your kind has send against us," Eighteen added. "They were all no match for us. There is nobody who can even hope to defeat us. This world belongs to us."
"And that means all of you are only for now allowed to exist for our personal amusement," Seventeen stated.
"And the only thing that amuses us about you is seeing you die," Eighteen said.
"But don´t worry, it ould be no fun to kill you all too quickly. That means some of you still have several years ahead of you," Seventeen pointed out. "So make the best of the time you have left humans."
They turned away from the camera and towards Keira and the camera-man Max, who were both shaking in their boots.
"Good job Max," Seventeen commented sarcastically.
Then he pointed a finger at him and a small ki blast blew up the camera-man´s head in a gory display.
In this moment Keira could not longer take it anymore and screamed out in terror.
"You killed him," she stammered. "You killed him..."
"Of course. He has done his job and was not longer useful," Eighteen stated. "By the way, neither are you."
The female Android raised her hand towards Keira as well.
In this moment however Gohan came suddenly flying down through the hole the Androids had left in the roof earlier.
He touched the ground for a short moment, before he leaped right towards the Androids.
If anyone in the room was astonished by the sight of an around ten year old boy with glowing golden hair flying, they did not longer show it after all they had just gone through.
Gohan charged straight at Eighteen. But she just backhanded him into a wall. The boy left a deep crack when he crashed against it, but to everyone´s surprise he seemed unhurt and just stood up again.
Eighteen had however turned her attention away from Keira when she hit Gohan.
"Son Gohan," Eighteen said.
"And he had become one of this Super Saiyans as well," Seventeen remarked.
"What are you waiting for?" Gohan shouted at the rest of the humans in the room, "run!"
The people realized that the boy distracting the Androids might give them some chance to escape. Many of them felt bad about having a child risking his life for them like that, but it was clear that the boy had some kind of superpowers. Which they didn´t.
So they begun to run for the entrances.
The Androids were now aiming at the fleeing people.
"You want to leave?" Eighteen asked sardonically.
But Gohan placed himself between them.
"I am the one you should pay attention to," he said.
"If you wish," Eighteen responded. "You know, just because you know the same little trick like Vegeta, you should not think that you have any chance. He had none too."
Gohan knew she was right. Not even being a Super Saiyan made a difference here.
He had no chance.
Some day however, he thought.
He raised his hands and used the only technique that could help him here - Solar Flare.
"Oh - that trick," Seventeen commented.
With the Androids blinded for a short moment, Gohan grabbed Keira and flew away with her in his arms as quickly as he could. Out of the building and as far away as possible.
"T-thank you," she said to him.
"I - I am trying to save as many people as I can," the boy said.
Keira realized, despite his powers, he was still a child.
She continued to ask her strange rescuer questions, about who he was, where he came from and other things.
Gohan had answered them... to a degree at least.
He told her his name, a few fundamental facts about his powers and some other things. Just a few of course. Things like the fact that he was part alien, that there had once been an entire group of people with superpowers or that he had been trained by the son of the Demon King Piccolo were not something you told a person you just met.
Keira however recognized his name.
"Are you related to the former World Champion Son Goku?" she asked.
"He was my father," Gohan said.
`Was,´ she noticed the word.
"I am sorry," she told him. "Were it... the Androids?"
"No," Gohan answered. "He died before they even appeared. It was a desease."
"I see," Keira replied.
It was clear that he did not want to answer any more of her questions. He then dropped her off at her home and left.
This was how she had and Gohan met for the first time.
After this event Keira, looking back, became a bit obsessed with the young hero. Also, as she admitted to herself later, because concentrating on him distracted her from thinking about the Androids.
Until Gohan had told her off and reminded her that exactly her behavior might cause the Androids to go after her.
And then mentally she fell into a black hole.
it took Keira some time before she was able to work in her job again... and even longer before she was able to deal with a story involving the Androids. In fact she regulary had panic attacks.
With time however she got a grip on it.
xxxxxxx
It was four years later that she met Gohan again.
At first it had been just a regular day for her, as she suddenly heard a loud explosion right in the middle of the town.
The Androids were standing on top of a building close by and were for fun blowing up vehicles down on the streets.
Keira froze and pressed her back against a wall in the corner she was standing. She felt herself hyper-ventilating. She wanted to run away, but at the same time she was terrified that the Androids might notice her if she did.
A minute later Gohan appeared and a fight broke out between him and Android Eighteen.
He had grown up much and was now a teenager, Keira noticed.
Gohan lost quickly.
Eighteen fired a blast at him from short distance and then send him downwards with a punch.
Keira saw Gohan hitting the ground on the middle of the street maybe a dozen meters from her. To her relief it seemed he was still alive, but he was definitely injured.
The Androids rose into the sky and flew away, obviously deciding not to finish him off.
After a few moments Keira dared to come out from her hiding place and run to Gohan.
She looked around. The street was blocked by the remains of blown up and damaged cars, so an ambulance was unlikely to reach this point.
All over people had run for their lives... or were dead. The place was deserted. She saw the charred remains of a human and a ripped-off arm lying close to two of the car-wecks. Keira closed her eyes, breathing heavily. It reminded her too much of the `interview´ four years ago.
She decided to help Gohan stand up and drag him to the nearest hospital that should be less than a kilometer away.
"No - don´t," he said quietly to her. "I - in my pocket there is a bag, filled with beans. Give me one of them."
Keira looked at him flabbergasted. Was it possible that he had brain damage?
"Please trust me, they will help," he said.
So she did what he had told her... and to her amazement as soon as he had eaten the bean, his wounds seem to suddenly disappear.
"There seem to be a lot of things you had not told me," she commented.
"You are that reporter," he said. "I told you to stop following me."
"Believe me, that I was here today was just coincidance. I swear I have not tried to get footage of you in years," she assured him. "But I thought I could return the favor and save you this time."
"Thank you," he told her with a light smile.
From this point on they continued to see each other from time to time.
Their exact relationship with each other however staid ambiguous and changed from time to time - friends, allies - Gohan was using Keira´s job at the media whenever he wanted to inform the public about something, like during the Hildegarn crisis, while in return she kept his exact identity in confidence from the people.
When Gohan grew older they even slept with each other a few times. But it never became an actual relationship.
Ultimately Gohan always kept his distance. Keira was twelve years older than him, but that wasn´t the reason.
He knew that anyone close to him could be targeted by the Androids. Keira also had two daughters. One from an earlier relationship and an orphan she had adopted.
For Gohan only one reason more not to endanger them. So he kept seeing them only from time to time and irregulary.
Keira knew she would have died years ago if it had not been for Gohan. She had come to consider every day she lived since then as a gift and as a small victory over the Androids.
Deep down however she always feared that the day might come when her luck finally came to an end and fate would finally be catching up with her.
xxxxxxx
The present
Keira asked herself if the day she had feared had finally come.
She had come to this place for a important story. One that ironically had nothing to do with the Androids.
But she had still found herself in a deadly situation.
The place where they currently were, were the broken remains of East City. After the Androids had attacked the former Eastern Capital twice by now, killing millions in the process, there was not much left of it than a giant ruin landscape.
Nearly the entire northern half of the city had been replaced by two large craters where the Android´s blasts had impacted.
It was here in the southern half of the town however, in one of the few districts that were still mostly intact, where - with neither any legal authorities or the Androids being around anymore - a gangsterboss or maybe it would be more accurate to call him a warlord, had taken control a couple years ago and declared the entire district his personal turf.
This man named Meison - or `The Boss´ as he was calling himself - had declared himself to be the absolute ruler of about one square-kilometer of what had once been East City.
And surprisingly exactly this self-proclaimed ruler had agreed to give her channel an interview.
The man probably wanted to announce his claim to this small part of a wrecked city and the people who lived here to the entire world or something.
xxx
Besides Keira herself and her new camera-woman, there was a third person with them.
The name he was going by was just Jake. He was a tall man, who was always wearing a leather jacket and sun-glasses. He was a hired bodyguard, who beside personal protection also specialized in guiding people through lawless territories, like this one. For the right kind of money of course. They had hired him especially for this job.
xxx
Looking back Keira asked herself why she ever agreed to this insane job. Oh yes - they had offered her a load of money. And she needed it for her two girls. Especially with the Androids slowly destroying civilization and everything getting more and more expensive and harder to get by.
When they entered the town, they met the first `guards´ - who were actually just a few shady looking men and also a few women carrying guns - already right at the border.
The obvious outlaws were escorting them deeper into the district.
A short time later they arrived at a plaza in front of the building, a former hotel, that Meison had chosen as his `military´ headquarter.
It turned out the situation was even worse than she had imagined.
They arrived in the middle of what could only be called a mass-execution.
Assembled on the plaza was a large crowd of similar gunmen like the one who had led them here.
In the center of them, sitting on some kind of makeshift throne on a small podium was Meison himself, surrounded by a group of armed men and with two more than scantily dressed women sitting close to him.
He was a tall, slightly overweight man around fourty with dark blonde hair. He was not looking particular outstanding, not very attractive or unattractive or otherwise remarkable. Just a ordinary man, on the first look.
And on the other side a group of over twenty people, with a half dozen men with machine-guns standing before them with their weapons pointed at them.
Then they gunned ten of these people down without any mercy or hesitation.
"Boss - the reporters are here," one of Meison´s men called out to him.
"Ah good - bring them to me," Meison told him.
Meanwhile the men with the machine-guns were busy killing the rest of their victims.
Scenes from that wretched Mister Satan interview from all those years ago were flashing through Keira´s mind. It was not as if the Androids were ever truly needed to terrorize innocent people, she thought. Humans could do that all by themselves.
"As you see I just made an example of some dissenders and other troublemakers," Meison said. "But that is not why you are here."
"You agreed to give us an interview," Keira stated.
"Very right," he responded. "It was me who brought back order to this territory as everybody else had already given up on it," he declared.
`If that is what you call this,´ Keira thought sarcastically with a side-look at the corpses.
"And it is time that the Royal Army accepts this as well," Meison continued. "Nobody can take this territory from me. It is mine. I want you to tell this to the world."
Another idiot, she thought. This `declaration´ would only draw the Androids attention and they would smash his little kingdom here.
"Oh really?" they heard a voice coming from above them, "nobody can take it from you? Maybe we should test this?"
Seventeen.
"Oh - no, no, no, no, no." It shot through Keira´s mind. Her entire body was shaking.
As they looked up, Seventeen and Eighteen were floating in the air above them.
"We had heared that someone had declared himself ruler of this place," Eighteen said. "That made us curious."
It was Keira´s nightmare come to life. Meison´s heavily armed men were mowed down in seconds.
He himself was sitting in visible terror his throne, the two women cowering at his sides.
"No - you..." he stammered.
Seventeen lifted a finger and send a small ki blast right through his stomach.
Meison sank down in visible pain.
Before Eighteen finished it and blew the entire podium up, together with Meison and his two concubines.
"Now then," Eighteen said, "should we end this?"
They didn´t pay attention to her, they didn´t recognize her (or they just didn´t care), Keira thought.
But that didn´t change anything. They would kill everyone present anyway, she knew. She would just end up being a nameless victim.
"Wait Eighteen," Seventeen said. "I have an idea. You said thinks were getting boring, right?"
"Yes - so what is it?"
"This," he pointed to the execution sight, "humans killing humans. How about we keep a few around and let them kill each other."
"Humans?" Eighteen asked surprised. "Do you think that could be entertaining?"
"If it doesn´t work out, we can always get rid of them, right?" he said.
"Yes."
"Besides - we can also pick a girl and she can go shopping with you," he suggested.
"Okay - that sounds good."
"Alright," Seventeen called out to the few still living humans around. "You have heard it, all of you - kill somebody... and we might let you life. But make it interesting. entertain us."
What? Keila listened horrified at the Androids latest cruel idea.
But then she heard the loud sound of a gunshot and felt a sharp pain in her back.
Jake - she realized, their bodyguard had betrayed them. He had shot her.
As she looked around under pain she just saw Jake gunning down her camera-woman, before he turned back to her and pointed his gun at her head.
`Daisy, Mai - I am sorry,´ she thought about her daughter and her stepdaughter. `Gohan - thank you for the time I had because of you.´
Then the next shot ended her life.
"Not bad - what is your name?" Seventeen asked.
"Jake."
"Good Jake - you are in."
xxxxxxx
A few days later
The Androids were standing in the middle of the wreckage of one of the many devastated towns they had left behind.
Left to them was a broken wall that had once been part of a building that had long been destroyed and to their right the burned out remains of a car.
And in between... a small group of humans.
"Look Seventeen - I have found a few," Eighteen said. "Now then - I know you will find it had to believe, but we have a surprise for you, we will not kill you," she announced. "And in return we only ask one little thing from you."
"You." Seventeen pointed at one of the gathered humans, a young girl in regs, kneeling on the ground, "how is your name?"
"S-Sera," she answered.
xxc
Powerlevels:
Future Gohan: (12 years after the Android´s Arrival): 4.600.000 - SSJ: 230.000.000
Future Android 17: 280.000.000
Future Android 18: 270.000.000
