East City, which had only just barely begun to rebuild itself after being completely destroyed by the Saiyan warrior Nappa over three years ago, now sat in ruins once more as a new threat many leagues above the Saiyan invaders surveyed the broken landscape in search of prey. Where the Saiyan invaders had briefly confused the people of East City by more or less resembling humans save for their bushy brown tails that they tied around their waists, there was no mistaking the creature that menaced those few survivors now as anything other than an inhuman monstrosity. Between his two antennae, his generally green skin broken up by dark pink patches around his torso and arms, and his two pointed ears, one could almost mistake him for a Namekian from a distance. However, anyone who did so would soon realize their error as soon as they got a closer look and noticed the many discrepancies in his appearance which could not be explained as resulting from any Namekian physiology. These included the dark pink sclera of his eyes, the dark green armor-like extension over his torso, the three clawed extremities on his hands and feet, the black spiky hair which jutted out in odd angles from his head, and the long tail that ended in a needle-like stinger and trailed behind him as he walked. All of these traits taken together made him into a rather odd amalgamation of several different humanoid species: the spiky hair and tail of a Saiyan, the antennae and general appearance of a Namekian, and the sclera and claws of a Saibaman, all rolled together alongside the DNA of Earth's greatest human warriors to make him into the strongest creature to ever live. He knew this, and he was proud of this, and yet, ever since the climactic battle which ensued from his great awakening, he had spent every minute afterwards mourning the purpose which had been ripped away from him before he had even been aware of what it was. He had hoped, desperately, that his present occupation would fill the void in his heart, but he knew he could not deny the truth:
He would never be Perfect.
Still, the energy he gained from feeding on the people of Earth did increase his strength considerably, and with no warriors of consequence left alive to offer him any kind of challenge save for a few unimportant stragglers, the creature didn't really have anything better to do than to hunt humanity to extinction, then see if he could find some way to travel the stars in hope of finding someone who could give him a proper challenge. With all but the most isolated pockets of humanity wiped out and absorbed into his biomass, the creature was idly brainstorming methods of accomplishing this long-term goal of his as he scanned the area for the ki signatures of any survivors, unaware that a far more powerful ki signature was about to drop itself into his lap.
Taken aback by the sudden rush of power behind him, the creature had no time to react as, in a blind fury, Vegeta took one look at the monstrous creature standing in front of him before immediately throwing a punch that sent him flying through multiple ruined buildings. The creature scarcely had a chance to stop himself and take stock of what had just happened when Vegeta was suddenly ahead of him, holding out both of his arms and charging up a massive attack with all of his power behind it. As the creature was engulfed in ki and disappeared from view, Vegeta briefly allowed himself to think that he had gotten the upper hand by catching the creature by surprise. However, once the blast cleared away and the creature was nowhere in sight, Vegeta quickly realized what he was up against, and although he had the advantage of sensing where the creature had gone, he was still not fast enough to dodge the creature's tail as it moved to pierce his chest.
Vegeta cried out in agony and tried his best to wrest his body from the grip of the now-golden haired creature's tail, which had now folded back its fur to reveal a deadly stinger, but found his efforts at escape stymied by the fact that his energy appeared to be leaving his body through said stinger at an alarming rate. This became increasingly noticeable as Vegeta watched the parts of his body that he could see wither away before his eyes, leaving him unable to do much of anything by the time he had spent one minute trapped by the monstrous creature. Once the prince was little more than a shriveled up husk of skin and bone, the creature finally saw fit to stop, his face taking on a rather sinister expression as he looked down at the barely-living Saiyan prince.
"Well, I must say, Prince Vegeta, you certainly put up a much better fight than anything else I've fed on recently, and your energy is far more nourishing than these feeble humans," the creature remarked, causing Vegeta to look up at him in confusion.
"Who...what-?" he asked weakly, only to be shushed by the creature.
"Ah, yes, that's right; you weren't here for my marvelous debut," the creature began with an exaggerated flourish. "Well, I imagine you have some questions about what you missed since the last time you came here, so I'll give you the quick version: I was made from the DNA of the strongest warriors to ever come to Earth, I woke up a few months ago, Earth's heroes tried to stop me, they failed, and I killed them all!" The creature let out a sharp laugh as he gave the dying prince a second to process what he just said, only to seemingly realize that he never actually answered the first part of Vegeta's question. "Ah, yes, my name! My creator picked it out for me, it's a rather easy one, you see; just four letters! Of course, this probably won't matter if you don't make it out of this, but if you survive, and I'm truly hoping that you do, you can call me...Cell."
Less than a second after revealing his name to his beaten opponent, Cell saw fit to add injury to injury by slashing open Vegeta's stomach, causing his intestines to spill out to the ruined city below as the bio-android tossed Vegeta's limp body aside, leaving him to fall hard enough to crack the pavement beneath him. As his vision blurred with his inevitable loss of consciousness, Vegeta could only catch a fleeting glimpse of Cell's retreating figure as he took off into the sky, evidently having combed the place clean of any survivors and no longer finding the Saiyan worth his time.
When Vegeta eventually came to, he found himself lying down in a rather sub-par bed within a room that hosted a wide variety of high tech equipment, likely some kind of laboratory. An IV drip inserted into his arm seemed to be occupied with the crucial, if somewhat time consuming task of replenishing the prince's severely depleted nutrients, and although he still looked rather visibly frail, he certainly looked better than he had just before losing consciousness. Reflecting back on that battle, Vegeta moved aside the covers of his bed to look down at his stomach, and was initially horrified at how even this simple movement seemed to take a lot out of him. Of course, before he could dwell on that much longer, he was taken aback by the sight of what his stomach now looked like in the wake of his battle with the terrible Cell.
From the lower half of his torso to his legs, where there had once been flesh and bone, there were now a series of mechanical implants that he could only assume were designed to replicate the function of the intestines and other organs he had potentially lost to the best of their ability. Considering what he had seen of the Earth's technology, he wasn't entirely optimistic about how well these implants could accomplish this task, but seeing as he was still alive, he supposed that they were performing the job adequately. The diminished amount of ki that he could sense coursing through his body as a result of these injuries was an even more difficult fact to bear. Although he could only assume that he would eventually receive a Zenkai boost once he had fully recovered, the loss of natural body parts which were crucial to generating ki within his body meant that he would have to be lucky if whatever boost he did receive didn't serve merely to return him to the level of power that he had possessed before he was injured. A level of power which this "Cell" creature had handled like it was nothing, only to proceed to grow even stronger by absorbing Vegeta's own energy. The only consolation that Vegeta could offer himself was that he doubted Goku could have fared much better, a thought which caused him to reflect back on the battle and just what the creature had said just before he slashed open Vegeta's stomach and left him at death's door.
"He killed them all," he muttered weakly, speaking just loudly enough to catch the attention of a blue-haired woman he had just sensed coming into the room. The woman was clad in a pink jacket with some kind of logo on the right shoulder, which Vegeta could now see adorned several of the devices that he had observed earlier and was even branded onto his new implants around where his belly button should have been. Having seemingly just noticed that he was awake, the woman chuckled to herself before addressing the weakened prince.
"Well, I never thought I'd say this, but thank goodness you're alive," Bulma remarked dryly, leaving Vegeta with the strange feeling that this woman was important somehow.
"Who...who are you?" Vegeta asked, struggling to get up before Bulma placed a firm hand on his chest and pushed him back down into bed. So astonished was he that he briefly wondered whether this woman was the strongest of her species, only to more sensibly conclude a few seconds later that it was probably due to his own extreme frailty. Bulma, meanwhile, relished the brief look of confusion on the prince's face before answering his question.
"Name's Bulma. I don't believe we've actually met before now, but I was one of the ones who went to Namek to get their Dragon Balls. You know, to bring back all the people your buddy murdered?" The slight bitterness in her tone gave Vegeta pause as he reflected on what his aide had done over the course of their attempted conquest of the Earth, only to stubbornly turn away from the woman with a scowl. Bulma scoffed at the prince's reaction as she continued, already anticipating his next question. "Found you while combing East City for any survivors that Cell might've missed. Hadn't had much luck with that before now, but well, it doesn't hurt much to try. We used to have a much better way of treating injuries like this, but Cell blew up the Lookout not long after he killed everyone else, so...hope you weren't as attached to your stomach as Goku was." She tried to go for more of a joking tone with that last comment, but her heart clearly wasn't in it. Bulma simply sighed. "Well, I better let you rest some more. Try not to move around too much; in the state you're in, I'm not certain you won't break something if you try to stand." With that last instruction, Bulma was ready to go back and update the other residents of Capsule Corp on their latest arrival's condition, but a slight telekinetic pull from Vegeta stopped her with about the same effectiveness as a hand to the shoulder: completely ineffective at actually restraining her, yet enough to get her to turn around.
"Why?" Vegeta asked simply, with a look in his eyes which Bulma couldn't quite sort neatly into the spectrum of emotions she had assumed the prince was capable of feeling. Not quite sure how to answer it, Bulma could only shrug as she decided to opt for frank honesty.
"Truthfully, I had half a mind to leave you there after all the stuff you pulled on Earth and on Namek, but at the same time...everyone else is gone." Bulma fell silent for a moment as the loss of so many of her friends weighed on her the same way it did every day of her life for the last few months, then took a deep breath in an effort to finish her response.
"As much as I hate to say it...you're the best hope we have, Vegeta."
It would be a long time before Vegeta would recover enough strength to even walk around on his own, much less return to the level of physical fitness that he had been at when he had first returned to Earth. He spent each day of his drawn out recovery hoping against hope that he had been wrong about how his body would react to his new augmentations, only to be repeatedly proven wrong again and again. Thus, although it was difficult to reconcile with his immeasurable pride, he eventually came to accept the fact that he might never possess the same degree of potential power that he had held before, at the very least not without more extensive training than what he had ever undergone in his life. The idea of having to train in order to get stronger didn't sit too well with him, especially considering how much he had come to rely on Zenkai boosts to grow stronger than those he had fought in the past, but his new implants made it clear to him that this planet no longer had any means of healing him in a quick and timely manner. Making matters worse, although he had gained the knowledge of how to perform some kind of healing technique from his extraction of Pybara's memories, he was not particularly confident in his ability to pull off this technique after having already suffered from the kind of grievous injuries he needed to endure for a Zenkai boost.
What's more, as he had plenty of time to reflect on what had transpired during his recovery, and as he was absolutely unwilling to dwell too long on what he had done on the deserted planet, it became equally clear to him that Cell had deliberately left him with a slim chance of surviving their encounter in the hopes that he would grow stronger from the ordeal. Vegeta could only assume this decision was a side effect of Cell's evident Saiyan heritage, or perhaps due to likely having the DNA of that prideful "Demon King" which Vegeta had clashed with mixed in with that of all the rest of Earth's warriors. Should Vegeta fight with him again and prove an inadequate challenge, he had little doubt that Cell would not be so considerate as to give him a second chance to recover and grow stronger. Therefore, the only course of action available to him was to train until he could overcome Cell in battle without running the risk of being drained once again. It was no doubt going to be a monumental undertaking, especially considering his current condition, but Vegeta had a feeling that knowing more of what his adversary was capable of might give him an edge in combat.
With this in mind, as soon as he was deemed to have recovered enough to no longer require the IV drip and various other vitamin supplements that Bulma had been giving him, Vegeta asked to be taken to meet the other survivors which Bulma would occasionally mention during the brief, unimportant conversations they had engaged in during Vegeta's treatment. Although somewhat wary of him even in the midst of his recovery, Bulma took Vegeta down a corridor leading away from the laboratory he had been staying in, which Bulma explained was part of a bunker which she and her father had built over the course of the years which followed her return from Namek. During a distressingly lengthy period of her life where she apparently had not needed to sleep, Bulma had gradually come to understand something about the nature of ki itself from a scientific standpoint, and had discovered how to synthesize a material which could effectively hide the ki signatures of living creatures. Although Vegeta had noticed that he had been unable to sense Cell during his recovery, he had assumed that the creature was hiding his power for whatever reason, or that his own weakness had left him unable to sense ki as well as he should have been able to.
In any event, the bunker evidently did its job of hiding the scattered survivors which Vegeta was met with as soon as Bulma opened a set of double doors leading into a large meeting room. There, he could see a number of ordinary civilians who were left simply minding their own business alongside what appeared to be a pig-man and a small cat-person, talking amongst themselves and sparing the occasional fearful glance upwards as if they expected Cell to come crashing through the bunker at any moment. He was more surprised to note that a few relatively young mothers appeared to count themselves among the survivors, as he saw a woman with blue hair similar to Bulma's holding a baby girl while a blonde woman who scowled as he entered appeared to be carrying a twin boy and girl in both of her arms. Standing next to them was an elegantly dressed woman with long black hair whose posture denoted that she had once been a warrior, and who was accompanied by a much larger man with a graying beard that also seemed to have left the warrior's life behind him. Of course, the most surprising sight that Vegeta was greeted with as he entered the room were two individuals that he actually recognized: the heavyset warrior who had gotten a lucky slash on him during his confrontation with Goku and his allies, as well as the Namekian warrior that had almost killed him on Namek. Although he was left unsure how exactly to approach any of the people he encountered in the room, the question was swiftly answered for him as Blonde Launch spoke up.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the prodigal ass himself!" she taunted, prompting Vegeta to growl slightly in annoyance as he turned towards her.
"Watch yourself, woman. I may be weakened, but I am still more than capable of-!" Vegeta began before he was forced to stumble backwards as, somehow, Blonde Launch had managed to not only shift both of her children to a single arm and mostly covered their ears to protect them from the sound of the gunshots, but had also pulled a machine gun from out of nowhere and unloaded an entire magazine into Vegeta's face. Although the bullets didn't do enough damage to harm him significantly, he was nonetheless left with a series of welts all along his massive forehead, and instinctively readied a ki blast to reply in kind when Bulma swiftly grabbed his arm in order to throw off his aim. As Vegeta backed down under the intensity of her gaze, a gaze that he had quickly learned to fear over the course of his recovery, Bulma turned to direct that same gaze at Blonde Launch, who was far less intimidated by it than Vegeta was.
"The name's Launch, pint-sized prince, and don't you forget it!" she called out.
"Launch, knock it off. I know that you've been holding back the urge to shoot him since he got here, but there's no purpose to be served in antagonizing-"
"Oh, piss off with that bull, I deserve at least a little payback after he put my man into a goddamn coma!" Blonde Launch retorted as she dropped the gun, to which Bulma put her face to her forehead as she acknowledged the point. Vegeta, meanwhile, hadn't quite learned his lesson.
"...Was it not Nappa who was responsible for-?" he began before he received a shot to the leg from a pistol that had also come out of nowhere, causing him to lean forward in pain.
"He was your lackey, it still counts!" Blonde Launch shot back, while Bulma simply sighed.
"Ugh, you both are impossible," Bulma remarked, the exasperation in her voice evident. "I'm going to get Chiaotzu so that he can bring Vegeta up to speed on everything that happened, so long as you two can manage not to kill each other while I'm gone." Vegeta simply scoffed at her.
"Oh, please. We're not children," he remarked as she walked towards a side room where she knew Chiaotzu liked to spend his time meditating, with both him and Blonde Launch waiting for Bulma to get out of earshot before the latter continued their verbal sparring.
"Eat ass and die."
"Yes, screw you."
"Alright, you heard Bulma. We don't have to like this husband-maiming jerkface, but we can at least be civil," the other blue-haired woman interjected, muttering that brief interlude under her breath before holding out a hand to Vegeta. "Hello there, your princely-ness! I'm Maron, and this is my daughter Mile!" In response to being mentioned, the baby cooed adorably in her arms, softening Blonde Launch's expression slightly as she backed away from the prince and returned to carrying her children in both arms. Vegeta, meanwhile, cocked his head in confusion at just who Maron was referring to, then moved to interject once again once he figured it out by process of elimination.
"Again, was it not Nappa who-?"
"Don't start," Maron replied sweetly, yet firmly as Mile absentmindedly reached out to touch Vegeta's face, annoying the prince as the tiny child tugged on his cheek. Blonde Launch, meanwhile, snickered at Vegeta's predicament before sighing.
"Well, as long as we're making introductions, these are Break and Din," she remarked tiredly, gesturing to the baby girl she held in her left arm and the baby boy she held in her right. Vegeta, not knowing what to do about the baby tugging on his face, turned to look at them with confusion, causing Blonde Launch to grow somewhat irritated. "What's the matter, you've never seen twins before?" she asked, to which Vegeta scoffed.
"No, I was simply wondering why they only have two eyes," Vegeta asked, to which Blonde Launch simply shrugged, not sure of the answer herself.
"No idea, and Tien didn't know either. Maybe they're recessive or something, not that it's any of your business what my kids look like." Vegeta still had one more question which he ultimately dared to ask, simply out of a lack of anything else to talk about.
"And what is it with you people and naming your children after foods and food-related things?" Vegeta asked, only to have his train of thought interrupted by a guffaw from behind him.
"Big talk coming from a pint-sized Vegeta-ble," Yajirobe replied, causing many of the survivors to chuckle as Vegeta seethed at the warrior who had caught him by surprise yet again.
"Oh, hello to you too, swordsman. Tell me, how's that skull of yours been feeling lately?"
"Just fine. How's your back?" Yajirobe replied with a smirk, no longer quite as intimidated by the Saiyan prince now that he'd witnessed him being playfully pulled on by a baby and riddled with bullets by Blonde Launch of all people. Vegeta could only grumble in response as he looked around at the various survivors who continued to snicker at the altercation.
"Oh, fine, go ahead and mock me all you want, fools!" Vegeta called out to the group. "You should consider yourself lucky that I'm still too weak to stop you from doing so, and that your planet is too blasted to hell for me to bother with conquering it anymore!"
"And you should be lucky to even be here at all," Chi Chi responded calmly, having elected to keep quiet throughout the entire exchange until she finally stepped forward to look down upon the prince. "You may be stronger than any of us, Vegeta, but from what I understand, that's about the only superiority you can claim to hold over us at this point. Your planet is gone, that empire you were so desperate to conquer probably doesn't even exist anymore, and anyone you could have claimed to be your subject isn't...isn't with us now." Chi Chi paused briefly as she reflected on all of the struggles and losses that she had personally endured since the Saiyans first came to Earth. "You may well become strong enough to defeat that horrible creature out there, but I sincerely doubt that you will ever be even a fraction of the man my husband and son were, and I know that deep down, you know that just as well as I do." As Vegeta was left unsure how to respond, Chi Chi continued purely to drive the point home as all of the anger she had carried in her heart for years was brought to bear upon Vegeta. "Face it, Vegeta: you're not a 'Saiyan elite' anymore. You lost any claim to that title the moment that my husband and our friends left you half-dead in the dirt just like that monster did. All this posturing you're doing now is nothing more than a sad attempt to hold onto whatever glory you think you deserve as the heir to a kingdom that is dead and gone."
Vegeta stood there in stunned silence along with the rest of the crowd. Any retort that his mind attempted to conjure in rebuttal died on his tongue in the face of the brutal truths that Chi Chi had laid out before him. At the time, he could have cared less about being seen as a good man the way that Goku had been viewed as such by the people around him, but when his present circumstances were laid out before him in the way that Chi Chi had spelled them out...he could not deny that she was correct. He had spent the majority of his life holding himself above everyone around him: above his family for being stronger than them, above Nappa and Raditz for being the prince to whom they were bound to serve, above Goku and all the rest for being an elite Saiyan warrior. And yet, in the end, all of his nobility and inborn power meant nothing when confronted with the foes that he had narrowly survived against on both Earth and Namek. First he had been sealed away by Master Roshi, then he had been bested by Goku and his allies, and even when he became leagues stronger than he had been when he fought them, he still found himself bested by Nail and Captain Ginyu and had to rely on trickery and pure tenacity simply to survive. He had been tricked by Pybara and trapped on that deserted planet for over three years, and even when he had finally managed to find a way to escape that wretched place...it had cost him the only friend he had left. When weighing all of his failures and all of the mistakes he had made, there was only one conclusion that Vegeta could possibly reach in that moment:
He didn't deserve to be a prince of anything.
"You're right," he finally managed to say, stumbling on his words as everything he was seemed to rebel against his first ever attempt at an apology. "I shouldn't have-"
"Whoa, uh, did I miss something?"
As he spoke, Chiaotzu floated into the room with Bulma close behind, only to find that the crowd assembled in the meeting room were all staring intently at Vegeta. In particular, Blonde Launch groaned in response to Chiaotzu's arrival as she put away her cell phone, having once again moved her two children to a single arm.
"Aw, come on, little dude! I was about to get video proof of pint-size actually apologizing for something for once in his life!" Blonde Launch complained, causing Vegeta to flush in embarrassment while Bulma chuckled to herself in spite of her earlier admonishments.
"Well, as hilarious as that would have been to see, we've got more important matters to attend to," Bulma replied, jerking her thumb towards Chiaotzu. "Care to answer the first question on our 'dear prince's' mind, little buddy?" she asked, to which he nodded.
"Sure thing," Chiaotzu said before clearing his throat. "Not long after Goku killed Frieza and came back, he went out into space again to go kill Frieza's dad and dismantle Frieza's empire so that they wouldn't bother us anymore," Chiaotzu began, to which Vegeta nodded; the strategy seemed to make sense, and was unusually pragmatic of his old rival based on what he had assumed about Goku's nature. "Of course, according to what the others witnessed through King Kai before they came back...Goku wasn't able to win against him." At this, Vegeta cocked his head in confusion.
"What? King Cold is formidable, yes, but it was well known that his son exceeded him in power. If Kakarot truly killed Frieza, he should have had no problem taking out his father," Vegeta reasoned, to which Chiaotzu shook his head.
"The way I heard it, apparently Frieza had a brother named Cooler who showed up too, and although Goku was stronger than them both, he'd apparently picked up this nasty heart virus while he was in the hospital after fighting you," Chiaotzu explained, causing Vegeta to grimace slightly as the small warrior continued. "It would've been one thing if either of them killed him with an attack, but as luck would have it, Goku died from the heart virus seconds before he would have died when Cooler blew up the planet they were on, meaning that he couldn't be brought back to life since he had died through 'natural causes' instead of being murdered." At this, Chi Chi shuddered slightly as she briefly relived the pain of hearing what had happened to her husband, and both the Ox King and Maron placed a hand on her shoulder to comfort her while Vegeta simply stared ahead.
"I...I see," he said after a moment, unsure how else to respond before moving on to a different subject. "So, I assume his two opponents survived then?" he asked, to which Chiaotzu shook his head as he continued relaying what he had heard.
"Nah, only Cooler survived; he apparently turned on his dad at the last second so that he could take power for himself. After that, he and this elite squadron of his came to Earth in a super fast ship that belonged to his dad in order to blow up the planet." Vegeta nodded slowly, having heard rumors of King Cold possessing a remarkably fast private shuttle while he was in the Frieza Force, but he cocked his head in confusion as another question occurred to him.
"So then, if Kakarot could not be brought back, how-?"
"Oh, there was a workaround to that little hang-up," Bulma interjected. "You see, years before we had the misfortune of meeting you, we went to see this old lady named Fortuneteller Baba. She was the sister of Master Roshi, aka that old guy who almost took you out," Bulma added smugly before continuing. "She was mostly known for her divination powers, which she charged a pretty penny for, but a lesser known ability of hers was the ability to bring a dead person back to life for a single day as part of a contract between her and the Other World." At this revelation, Vegeta's eyes widened in astonishment at such a thing being possible, only for them to narrow as a question occurred to him now that he had learned this new capability of Earth's warriors.
"Couldn't you have used this ability when me and Nappa came to Earth, rather than go through the trouble of reviving Kakarot with the Dragon Balls?" In response to this simple question, Bulma was about to issue a matter-of-fact dismissal, only to pause as she took a moment to actually consider the idea that Vegeta put forth.
"Huh. Hang on a second, why didn't we do that?" Bulma asked the rest of the group.
"It would have been simpler than gathering the Dragon Balls," Chi Chi pointed out. "Not to mention I wouldn't have had to worry about him dying again, since he would already have been dead; we could just bring him back properly with the Dragon Balls after he defeated you."
"He might've gotten back a bit faster, not to mention you have more stamina when you're dead in the Other World," Chiaotzu added, speaking from personal experience. "Goku probably would have had an easier time beating you if we'd done that."
"Easy enough that you might not have gotten away," Yajirobe said with a smirk, annoying Vegeta slightly as Blonde Launch brought up another point.
"And it's not like we didn't know she could do it either; y'all saw her with Goku's grandpa, and that old geezer had been dead for years," she remarked, causing the group to nod along.
"Huh...well, I guess it's a good thing we didn't think of that back then, because otherwise Cooler probably would've killed us all," Chiaotzu concluded, to which the group nodded in agreement. "Anyway, point is: we used a wish from the Namekian Dragon Balls to have Goku teleported to where they were, then he killed Cooler and his goons, and that was that. Of course, because of that he wasn't able to...say goodbye, but...it got the job done in the end, at least," Chiaotzu finished somberly, bringing down the mood even more than it had already been brought down as a result of the subject matter they were discussing. Vegeta allowed them to have a moment to reflect on the loss before continuing.
"Anything else of note?" he asked, prompting Chiaotzu to think for a moment before Nail interjected for the first time since Vegeta was brought down to see them all.
"Well, not long after Goku returned to the Other World, my people were returned home with Dende's help, taking our own Dragon Balls with them. We enjoyed a period of peace for about four months before the survivors of the "Ginyu Force" who almost bested me and Goku's allies in combat went to Namek to try and revive their fallen comrades. I had grown stronger in the interim, but...so too had they grown stronger, and as before, I was outnumbered and overwhelmed. After that, they...they forced Tsuno to grant them their wishes under threat of killing me and everyone else on the planet if they did not get their wishes exactly as requested. By the time they got their wishes and were about to leave, Dende was warned of what was going on back home and brought the young Gohan to intervene. Of course, by then...it was too late. The aliens decided to destroy my planet from their ship in orbit, purely out of spite, taking our Dragon Balls...and our people...with it. Dende only had enough time to save two: Gohan...and myself." Vegeta looked to Nail for a moment and nodded along once more; if nothing else, he could at least relate to the feeling of having one's planet destroyed, even if he wasn't quite at the point where he would openly express his sympathy for Nail's loss. Nevertheless, there was still one last subject that the pair of them had to discuss.
"And what of this 'Cell' creature?" he asked, causing Chiaotzu to grimace.
"Ah, right, that. Okay, so, it all started when Goku took down this real bad group called the Red Ribbon Army when he was a kid," Chiaotzu began as Vegeta followed along. "As it turned out, one of their scientists, this real piece of work named Dr. Gero, survived and secretly plotted his revenge against Goku for decades. As he so helpfully monologued to us when we fought with him a couple months ago, he'd been secretly observing our fights over all that time, charting out how we got stronger over time so that he could make a bunch of robots and stuff to fight all of us." At this, Vegeta scoffed at what he saw as the old scientist's foolishness.
"You expect me to believe that some random human could build a machine strong enough to defeat Kakarot in a cave? With a bunch of scraps?! Ridiculous," Vegeta said, somewhat taken aback when Chiaotzu chuckled in response to his objection.
"Well, uh, he honestly didn't, as far as we know," Chiaotzu replied. "From what Gero monologued to us, it seems like all of his previous attempts either ended up failing or rebelled against him, like this one guy Goku told us about named Android 8. The Androids we ended up fighting were more cyborgs than anything else, and he'd apparently had some trouble with them as well. He also mentioned that he had plans for more Androids after the whole cyborg thing didn't work out too well for him, but he decided to scrap that idea once he got ahold of the leftover bits of Saibaman DNA you left behind after our fight. So, you know, thanks for that," Chiaotzu ended sarcastically, causing Vegeta to shrink in on himself slightly.
"Okay, so that part was definitely my fault," Vegeta admitted before becoming confused once more. "Hang on, are you suggesting that he somehow managed to reverse-engineer the Saibaman growth serum from a handful of scattered limbs and brain tissue that had been out in the desert for days?" Vegeta asked, to which Chiaotzu simply shrugged.
"Eh, he was a pretty textbook evil genius, so if anybody could do it, it'd be him," Chiaotzu replied, prompting Vegeta to nod in agreement before the floating warrior continued. "Anyway, he figured out how to grow more Saibamen, then turned them into cyborgs based on what he had learned the first time around. He called them, wait for it...Saiborgs." At this, Vegeta and the rest of the people in the room groaned, with the notable exception of Puar.
"Honestly, it's not the worst name," she argued, to which Oolong shook his head.
"Speak for yourself, Whiskers," Oolong replied, kickstarting a brief scuffle between the two shapeshifters before Chiaotzu used telekinesis to break them up in order to continue his story.
"By the time he finally launched his attack, he had an army of the things, enough that he could send one to each of the forty-three regions. Fortunately, between refining the stuff they learned from King Kai and training like heck to fill the gap Goku left behind, Tien and the others were pretty well equipped to take them all down before too many people died. After that, he threw the two human cyborgs at us, Androids 17 and 18. Those guys...phew." Chiaotzu paused to take a breath as he reflected on the battle he had witnessed involving those two terrible twins. "It got pretty dicey for a bit, but Gohan was able to beat them with some help from Piccolo. For a moment, we thought we were safe...that we'd won. But then..."
"Cell," Vegeta finished for him, causing Chiaotzu and the others to nod.
"Apparently, when Dr. Gero was gathering all that data on how we fight, he was also discreetly collecting our DNA to contribute towards his greatest creation: a genetically engineered fighter who combined all of the best qualities and techniques of the strongest warriors he'd observed into a single entity of unimaginable power. He'd assumed that the thing would take decades to gestate, but with a little Saibaman DNA thrown into the mix-"
"His growth accelerated exponentially," Vegeta finished once again, being fully aware of how quickly a Saibaman could be grown from its solution.
"Yup," Chiaotzu confirmed. "Mind you, Cell was pretty insanely strong and had all of our best techniques, but between Gohan and the rest of us, it was pretty touch and go. But, unfortunately for us, that was about when we learned he could regenerate...and that his tail could absorb people's energy." From this, Vegeta was able to guess the next part of the story based on personal experience.
"He grew stronger, didn't he?" he asked. "Between his Namekian DNA enabling him to regenerate and his Saiyan DNA enabling him to grow stronger, one mortal wound was probably enough to turn the tide," Vegeta reasoned, to which Chiaotzu nodded.
"Things got even worse when he started absorbing people after that. Yamcha and Krillin were the first to go, and he drained Master Roshi within an inch of his life. He got a lucky shot on Piccolo that drained away most of his energy, and at that point, he had enough power to drain Gohan to the point where he basically took off one of his arms," he said regretfully, wincing as he saw Chi Chi cover her ears and turn away from the pair as Chiaotzu moved to the story's gruesome conclusion. "By that point, Gohan and most of the others were almost at death's door. Dende moved to heal Gohan while Master Roshi tried using the Mafuba to trap Cell in a special container Bulma had made for Master Roshi to use, but apparently one of the stolen techniques that Dr. Gero had jammed into Cell's brain was this Mafuba reflection move Piccolo came up with when we first fought with him. Cell used it to turn the Mafuba towards Dende instead, and swallowed the container so...so we couldn't get him out." At that point, Bulma cut in, having noticed that Chiaotzu was having trouble getting to the end of the story.
"With Dende stuck in limbo, that somehow severed his connection to our Dragon Balls, so when Master Roshi dropped dead after using the Mafuba, and once Cell managed to take Gohan, Piccolo, and Tien out...we couldn't bring them back. Most of the people who died in that battle had already died once, so even if we didn't lose our Dragon Balls, we still wouldn't have been able to do anything once they died again. They were just...gone." At this, the room fell silent for a moment before Vegeta turned back to Chiaotzu.
"And how did you survive?" he asked, forcing Chiaotzu to spend a minute preparing himself.
"I'm not proud of it, but...I figured if there wasn't anything I could do against Cell, then there might have been something I could do against his creator. So, I went in there and...and I killed him," Chiaotzu admitted, pausing as he reflected back on the incident that was still burned into his mind. "I think that might've been the first time I'd killed anyone before. Me and Tien, we had trained to be assassins, of course, but after we broke away from our master Shen, I...I never imagined I'd be pushed to do something like that to anyone. Dr. Gero was unimaginably evil, he definitely deserved it, but...he couldn't even defend himself against me." The group fell silent for a moment before Chiaotzu finished his thought in a somewhat bitter tone. "Of course, it wasn't like it did anything; Cell hardly even noticed. By the time I got back, the fight had taken a turn for the worse, everyone was either dead or dying, and I probably would've been taken out too if Nail hadn't come in at the last second and...gotten us both out of dodge." Vegeta simply nodded as Nail spoke up to supply his brief side of the story.
"With nowhere else to go, I had taken to living on this planet's 'Lookout' to watch over Dende, and when Dr. Gero's creations attacked, the two of us moved into action immediately. After we had dispatched the creatures attacking the Earth's provinces, we met up with the rest of Earth's warriors and did our best against the doctor's stronger creations. Once it seemed like all hope was lost in the battle against this 'Cell' creature, Piccolo and I attempted to fuse together in order to defeat him, but...I was taken out of the battle before we could do so. By the time I awoke...the battle was already over." As Nail fell silent, Bulma finished up the recap to the best of her knowledge, seeking to spare them both from having to relive what they had gone through any further.
"After that, Cell was pretty thorough in making sure that nobody else could stop him. He blew up the Lookout and killed Korin so that we wouldn't be able to grow any Senzu beans, he blew up the gravity chamber I left outside Chi Chi's house to prevent any survivors from getting much stronger, and since Dr. Gero had apparently observed Goku and the others fighting Fortuneteller Baba's minions all those years ago, Cell killed her so that she couldn't arrange for anyone to come back from the dead. Yajirobe only barely managed to escape the Lookout, and everyone else was far enough away from the battlefield to make it here before all hell broke loose. Cell started absorbing everyone on Earth in order to grow even stronger, and all we've been able to do is funnel people down here before he can get to them. What few fighters we have here have tried getting stronger, but...none of us have any hope of becoming strong enough to fight Cell. The only one who could maybe stand a chance against him...is you," Bulma finished, the slight degree of earnestness in her voice causing Vegeta to blush slightly in spite of himself as everyone around him looked at the Saiyan warrior expectantly, waiting for him to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was actually going to try and fight this monster instead of just running off to save his own skin. After a moment of deliberation, Vegeta decided on a response to give to the desperate survivors.
"Look...I'm not Kakarot, and I can't imagine anyone has ever viewed me as some kind of hero," Vegeta began, to which the group generally nodded in agreement before he continued. "However...Kakarot's mate, 'Chi Chi' I believe it was...was right about me. At this point, I have very little left to continue fighting for: both sets of Dragon Balls are gone, the warriors I had desired to take vengeance upon have all died before I had the chance to face them again, and I have no home or...or companions to return to." For whatever reason, the Saiyan warrior briefly thought back to all of the missions he had shared with his Saiyan subordinates, a part of him knowing yet refusing to fully accept that he had treated them poorly. Pushing past this, he continued. "Growing strong enough to defeat this creature is the only purpose I seem to have available to me now, and I certainly don't wish for him to grow any stronger in the meantime...so it appears I have no choice but to save you all. However, there's only one method that I can think of to accomplish that, and it certainly isn't hiding out in some fancy bunker and scooping up the occasional survivor while everyone else on this wretched rock dies." At this dismissive end to an otherwise decent speech, Bulma scoffed.
"And just what do you suggest we do?" she asked indignantly, to which Vegeta smirked.
"Simple," he replied. "We evacuate the Earth."
With the abduction of the Saiyan invader several years prior and the apparent dissolution of the Frieza Force, the people of Yardrat had at long last returned to their peaceful lives, albeit saddened by the absence of their last elder. When it became apparent that he would not be returning to their planet until he had succeeded in his foolish mission of redeeming the Saiyan prince, a new leading council was selected from Pybara's own recommendations, one which he intended to be comprised of much younger masters of the Yardrat's techniques in order to ensure that their people would have reliable leadership for decades to come. So it was that Synara found herself selected as the new leader of her people, a position she had initially felt completely unqualified for, yet gradually settled into over the past few years. She supposed that she was fortunate enough to have come to power during a time of peace...a peace which, unfortunately for her, was about to be disrupted.
Having elected to leave as soon as possible in order to make preparations for Earth's evacuation, Vegeta locked onto Synara's ki signature and used Instant Transmission to appear before her in her private chambers, shocking the Yardrat leader so severely that she instinctively fired a ki blast which sent Vegeta flying backwards. When this seemed to do more damage to him than she had expected, she paused to fully register the Saiyan warrior's diminished condition...as well as the absence of Pybara at his side, with the Yardrat elder being successful in his endeavor being the only scenario in which she ever saw Vegeta returning to their planet.
"What business do you have here, scoundrel?" Synara asked as Vegeta wheezed with pain and shakily got back up to his feet in order to answer her question.
"As you've no doubt noticed, I'm hardly in the best condition right now," Vegeta began, gesturing to his injuries. "If you wished to kill me, I imagine you could accomplish that task rather easily. However, I would warn you that, if you do so, you may well be condemning an entire planet of innocent people to extinction." At this, Synara narrowed her eyes at the Saiyan.
"How do I know you are telling the truth about this?" she asked simply, to which Vegeta pointed towards his mind before responding.
"I give you access to my thoughts, if you'd prefer to cut to the chase," Vegeta replied, causing Synara's eyes to widen slightly before she used her telepathic powers to read Vegeta's mind and accept the rush of information that his memories had to offer. Almost immediately after she was done, she put her hand to her mouth, too shocked by one event in particular that she had seen to focus on anything else that she would have learned.
"You...you-?"
"Yes, I did," Vegeta replied simply, the catch in his voice surprising him. "And...and if you have read everything in my mind, you would know that I...regret it." He paused, the word "regret" sounding foreign on his tongue before he pressed on. "I don't expect you to forgive me, because I'm...I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forgive myself. But this isn't about me. This is about the people of Earth, who are getting picked off one by one by a monster more powerful than anything this universe has faced before that isn't documented within the annals of legend. If I'm to have any hope of growing strong enough to defeat this monster, I can't have him continuing to grow stronger with every person he absorbs, and I definitely can't spare a thought towards the safety of the ones who...who brought me back from the brink of death." At this, he paused again, suddenly taken aback by a new feeling which was even more unfamiliar to him than regret: gratitude. Choosing to ignore this for now, he saw fit to wrap up his entreaty with a dismissive statement which he hoped would be enough to mask this newfound feeling and protect his ego. "In short, I can't afford any distractions." Counter to what he had hoped, however, Synara simply smirked at the Saiyan, wondering if perhaps Pybara had been slightly successful in his efforts after all.
"You're right, Vegeta; I don't forgive you, and I cannot expect that anyone on this planet will after what you've done, so if you expect us to aid you in your training, you can forget it. However...we would not dream of allowing innocent people to continue to suffer, and for that reason and that reason alone...we will allow the people of Earth to stay here." At this, Vegeta simply nodded, unsure how exactly to respond before Synara cheekily gave him a suggestion. "I believe the typical response to a generous offer like that is 'thank you,' dear prince," Synara remarked, snickering to herself as Vegeta simply grumbled out a muffled "thank you" in response before she put two fingers to her forehead and went back to the matter at hand. "Return to Earth, Vegeta. I have already relayed the situation to my fellow council members; we will follow you there shortly." Vegeta nodded once again before following suit and teleporting back to Earth, ready to begin the long and complicated process of evacuating a ruined world.
It was a nice enough service, not that Vegeta had been present for it.
He knew as soon as he delivered the former grand elder's body to Synara that she and the other Yardrat would take great offense to his attendance, as could reasonably be expected. Even a man as unscrupulous as Vegeta had once been could understand the immense disrespect that attending the funeral of the person you murdered would represent to that person's loved ones. As such, he stayed far away from the site that they had selected to hold the service, waiting until he sensed that all of the Yardrat and other people in attendance had left at the service's conclusion before finally daring to fly down and land before the freshly made grave of his fallen friend. He simply stood there for a moment, not sure what to say to the man he had murdered.
"I...'I'm sorry' is insufficient," he eventually began. "I understand that. It'd almost be pointless anyway; it's not like you can hear me...wherever you are. I don't even know why I'm bothering." With that statement, Vegeta paused as he thought over what he was feeling in that moment before admitting his true feelings out loud. "And that scares me. It scares me to think about just how much your guidance changed me...evidently not quite for the better, considering. Now I find myself being thrust into the role of these people's only hope against a monster as despicable as I...was," Vegeta remarked, his tone suggesting that he was less than certain that his horribleness truly was a thing of the past and not a character flaw that continued to define him. "I can't say I'm as confident as I would ordinarily be about my ability to kill that creature, but as I told those Earthlings...working towards that goal is the only purpose I have left in this world. Perhaps, if I do succeed and save the Earth from that monster...perhaps then I can at least begin to be the good man you thought I could be. And if I cannot...well. You knew as well as I do that I won't be joining you in the same Other World paradise that I'm sure you're residing in right now. And since the universe is apparently without Dragon Balls...that means I'll never see you again."
At this, the Saiyan warrior found himself unable to hold back the tears that had been threatening to spill out from his eyes for far longer than the disgraced prince would have cared to admit. So wrapped up in his own sorrow was he that he failed to notice a set of footsteps behind him stop and regard him for a moment before cautiously moving towards him and wrapping him into a hug from behind. He could sense who it was without even having to turn around, and although a part of him pondered just why the woman who had saved him from the jaws of death had any inclination to offer him comfort in that moment, he found himself unwilling to brush her aside as he might have been predisposed to do in any other circumstance.
And so, the two remained in front of Pybara's grave for a very long time, both of them having no idea what this silent moment between them would ultimately lead to years down the line...
Over the course of almost two decades, Vegeta dedicated every day of his life towards growing stronger. Although Bulma was able to manufacture a new gravity chamber using parts that she salvaged from the abandoned Frieza Force medical transport that Vegeta had used to get to Yardrat several years prior to his return, the fact of the matter was that his implants could only operate safely under gravitational forces of 10 gees or less. Therefore, with Vegeta's use of the new gravity chamber effectively forbidden beyond the range that he had already mastered as a child, only Nail and Chiaotzu were able to make effective use of it. Even with this restriction and the added difficulty of having to grow accustomed to his new physical limitations, however, Vegeta was still able to make a great deal of progress over the years, enjoying the benefits of having Nail as a sparring partner and of not having to worry about Cell attacking his somewhat reluctant allies. Of course, it was still slow going, and everyone from Earth knew that Vegeta only had so much time. All that it would take to push them towards a new course of action was a single climactic event.
Cell destroying the Earth was just such an event.
In retrospect, Earth's warriors should have expected that it would happen sooner or later: without any Earthlings to feed on, the Earth was nothing more than a ball of dirt and water to the monster that had taken so much from all of them. All the same, however, seeing that tiny little dot on the star map of the Frieza Force medical transport suddenly blink out of existence without any warning or fanfare was a mental image that would be burned into Bulma's mind forever. She had been threatened with the loss of her home before, both in the sense of West City being destroyed by the likes of King Piccolo and in the sense of her entire planet being threatened with destruction or subjugation time and time again. One might have expected her to grow used to the possibility of such a thing happening, but with how many times that her closest friends had risen to the occasion and stopped that threat from coming to pass, she could be forgiven for coming to believe that the Earth would always be there, at least for another four and a half billion years. As soon as that light blinked out, however, Bulma knew that she had to do something more substantial than simply building what few fighters they had left a gravity chamber and hoping for the best; she had to find a way to fix the odds of the coming confrontation in their favor. After hours of racking her brain trying to come up with a solution to the conundrum facing Vegeta and the others, she finally hit upon her most ludicrous invention yet:
She was going to build them a time machine.
With her mind set, Bulma in turn dedicated over fifteen years of her life towards designing and constructing the first (and hopefully only) time machine in existence, with the intention of assigning Vegeta to use it to travel back in time with two goals in mind: save Goku and everyone else from dying in the past, and take advantage of the additional time provided to grow strong enough to kill Cell upon coming back to the present. When presented with this plan, Vegeta had initially laughed at the idea, which earned him a vicious backhand across the face. Having thus been persuaded to come around to the plan, Vegeta was similarly convinced to lend his surprisingly considerable knowledge of the many different kinds of advanced technology used by the worlds that had been absorbed into the Frieza Force to assist Bulma in her work when he was too fatigued or physically injured to continue training without putting himself at risk. This naturally led to the pair working late into the night on many occasions, occasions which gradually led towards the two developing a tenuous friendship...which, in turn, began to evolve bit by bit into something more.
By the time the time machine was finally completed, Vegeta was fighting for more than just a fleeting sense of purpose. He was fighting for a group of people that he had, over a long and exhaustive period of soul-searching on his part and gradual acclimation on theirs, come to regard as genuine friends, the first friends that he had come to know on such a level since he was stranded on that deserted planet all those years ago. He was fighting for a world that, although it would never truly forgive him for what he had done, still had to acknowledge that he was a changed man as a result of what their former grand elder risked his life to accomplish. And he was fighting for a woman that he had come to love, a woman who understood him like he had never imagined anyone would ever come to understand him, and a woman who would even go so far as to call him her husband and bear him two children that he found himself willing to die to protect. With these thoughts running through his mind, Vegeta said one last goodbye to the survivors of Earth, enveloped his son Trunks and his daughter Bulla in one last hug, and gave the woman he loved one last passionate kiss before climbing into the time machine they had completed together. As the temporal vortex generated by the machine began to set it on its course twenty one years into the past, however, there was only thought which came to the forefront of his brain:
"This is my chance to fix everything."
"So that's it?"
A newly rejuvenated Goku sat across from Future Vegeta, having been brought back from his comatose state using the Namekian Dragon Balls shortly after the Saiyan warrior had sat down to begin the long tale of his origins in the future. Sitting by his side were Krillin, Master Roshi, Nail, and Yamcha, who had similarly been brought back to Goku's house once word had gotten to them of Future Vegeta's arrival and were caught up on what they missed through a quick cursory mind reading from the wise human master. In response to Goku's question, Future Vegeta simply nodded.
"Yes. Once the time machine was completed, I used it to travel back to this day, then left the device behind on an uninhabited world before arriving in the nick of time to kill Cooler and King Cold. Before doing so, I gave you some heart medicine which the Bulma of my timeline developed to treat your condition, dropped you off with your son, and now...here we are." Goku likewise nodded in turn as Future Vegeta completed his explanation of events before standing up and walking out the door. "Now, then, as fun as it's been to recount the darkest moments of my life to you all, I would once again suggest that we depart without any further delay," Future Vegeta snarked at the large group assembled, somewhat bitter about the wasted time and having to mentally relive the moment when he killed Pybara. In response to this, after a brief telepathic conversation between the assembled warriors, Goku turned to Future Vegeta as the Z Fighters' elected spokesperson.
"Alright then," he said simply. "We haven't got a moment to lose, right?"
As Future Vegeta nodded before taking off into the sky along with the rest of Earth's fighters, the ladybug probe that was discreetly monitoring them from several miles away gradually turned itself around to track their course: heading directly towards Dr. Gero's lab. Although it hadn't been able to pick up on anything they were saying inside, it was obvious enough to the aging doctor monitoring the probe's progress that Vegeta had somehow learned of his activities and was not intent upon parleying. He grimaced: the twins' behavioral conditioning program was still several years away from completion, and Cell had only just entered into his earliest developmental stage. Of course, his calculations prior to Son Goku's departure from the planet had determined that his Saiborgs would be able to outmatch him and his allies, both through their sheer overwhelming power and the amount of them which he had already been able to gestate and modify thus far. He wasn't about to doubt his calculations. And yet, even so, a part of him was left with the foreboding sense that he may well have to deploy the one creation of his that he was least willing to send out into battle against his foes. Although tempted to ignore this sense of unease and proceed with what forces he had available, Dr. Gero was smart enough to know that his gut instinct may well have some basis in fact. Thus, with a heavy heart, he gave out one final command to his lab's computer as he watched Earth's warriors approach his position intent upon stopping his war before it started.
"Computer...prepare Android 16 for remote activation on my mark," the old doctor said, his voice catching in his throat as he contemplated the risks he was willing to take for his revenge. His computer, as always, followed orders without any awareness of its creator's inner turmoil, and gave out the simplest response that it could to indicate that those orders had been received.
"Confirmed."
And there we have it: the end of the History of Vegeta mini-arc!
I hope y'all have gotten at least some enjoyment out of these and that they have answered the questions that y'all were bound to have about the future timeline of this fic. Of course, I have noticed a much sparser number of reviews for this brief storyline in comparison to the previous arc, which I'd say makes sense between this arc being much shorter and coming after an incredibly long and drawn out hiatus, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a tad disappointing. And, well, speaking of things being a tad disappointing, I feel like the latter half of this chapter was likewise somewhat rushed, which is ironic considering the length of this whole thing. The main problem I faced with this chapter was transitioning between describing how Future Vegeta came to be involved with the people of Earth and the moment he left for the past: between cutting the chapter as I have and stretching out the decades with a number of short interludes, I opted for the former because I figured it'd be easier to read through and easier to write at the same time. I hope that, in doing so, I haven't inadvertently shot myself in the foot as far as Future Vegeta's gradual redemption and relationship with Future Bulma is concerned, but eh, that's for y'all to decide.
In the meantime, we've only got one review to respond to: SmartCookie0, who says "Dende went into space, and came back covered in ice. From this, we can deduce Namekians are coldblooded. This is because warmblooded creatures don't freeze; they boil." Yes, this was absolutely, definitely my intention as the writer and not me forgetting how space actually works due to how enamored Hollywood sci-fi is with the image of frozen corpses floating in space. xD
Anywho, we've got some power levels to go over for the first time in a while, so let's get to that!
Future Vegeta (post-disemboweling): Idk, like 50, 2,500 if he could even manage going Super Saiyan for more than 5 seconds; dude got *messed up* (which, honestly, I mostly put in to contribute to the tradition of Future time travelers losing *something* in fanfics, plus it helps to explain how he only got strong enough to match Present Goku after literal *decades* of training to kill Future Cell).
Future Chiaotzu (post-training): 5 million: he was pretty weak before and has got a lot of catching up to do, but he's also got decades in which to do it, and although he can't really use the Kaio-ken for similar reasons to why he couldn't use Max Power, he can still greatly refine his telekinetic powers no problem.
Future Yajirobe (post-training): 2 million: he's mostly doing this training stuff because Chiaotzu needed a sparring partner and promised him food; he is fully content to leave the task of fighting off Future Cell to Future Vegeta.
Future Nail (post-training): 100 million: between his training with King Kai, his training on Earth to make up for his failure on Namek, and training with Future Vegeta for two decades, the dude has gotten *jacked*. He eventually figured out the Kaio-ken, but opted not to use it due to the risks that Piccolo outlined for him, and thus opted instead to optimize the Max Power technique like Piccolo did. Using the same methods that Piccolo outlined, he could theoretically get to a power level higher than Future Cell's, at the cost of making himself a massive target that could be dodged fairly easily.
Future Gohan: 150 million: He doesn't quite manage to become a Super Saiyan, but he trains harder in the wake of his dad's death, to the point where he's far and away the strongest warrior they've got in the fight against the Androids.
Future Saiborgs: I'll keep this one a mystery for now, but just suffice it to say that the Z Fighters didn't have much trouble with them. ;)
Future Androids 17 and 18: 75 million. Over the years, some people have questioned how Dr. Gero could have made Androids stronger than a Super Saiyan with limited resources and no prior knowledge of the form, so I've decided to nerf the Androids' initial level of power with the slight exception of Android 16, who will have a few alterations made to his design to reflect this new principle while allowing him to still be pretty busted. This chapter also confirms the elimination of Androids 19 and 20 from the Hermit timeline, as Dr. Gero instead switched gears towards developing his Saiborgs (despite what I have the characters say in-universe, know that I, personally, love this name xD) and integrating Saibaman DNA into Cell in order to accelerate his growth. However, before y'all despair over 17 and 18 ever being the cool badasses they are in canon, keep in mind: the Kaio-ken exists. ;) That's all I'll say for now.
Future Cell (emergence): 300 million: without any Frieza or King Cold in him, he loses a lot of initial potential compared to his canon counterpart, and the Saibaman in him doesn't really do much aside from rapidly increasing his growth (hence why he can appear this early in the story to begin with). His regeneration also isn't quite as insane as it is in canon, since I feel like that came from Frieza's insane durability interacting with Piccolo's regenerative abilities. Without Frieza in the mix, he's basically got the same limitations as any old Namekian, meaning that he can regenerate from anything as long as he's still got his head.
Future Cell (post-regeneration and absorbing Z Fighters): 450 million: between a sudden Zenkai boost he got from what would've been a lethal shot at some point in the fight, as well as absorbing several of the Z Fighters to varying degrees, he was able to gradually overwhelm them all by draining their energy to add to his own.
Future Cell (post-global genocide): 750 million: Seeing as he was able to overcome the gap in power between him and Kamiccolo after absorbing a handful of cities, I'd argue that this much more battle-tested Cell would get to a relatively level of power after absorbing the vast majority of Earthlings alive in the future timeline. For simplicity's sake, these developments have essentially closed the power gap between him and canon Cell.
So, with all that said, thank you all for reading, stay safe, wear a mask and get vaccinated if possible, have yourselves a fantastic night, and take care. Until we meet again!