Rain had always been a bad omen for Trunks, especially in late afternoon. She forced the memories and intrusive thoughts out of her mind, but they resurfaced for an instant, when she ordered this version of her father to transform. Stupid Saiyan genes, this was suicide. But she needed to see it. To feel it. Trunks observed with unyielding attention how Vegeta summoned the power of the super Saiyan, the tense muscles, the closed fists, the rage, the roar, the exploding power, the gold, the teal. How the clouds parted, chasing away the rain and darkness, leaving only her drenched. She briefly lifted her hand from her elbow to push away a rogue wet strand of hair from her face.
Vegeta was seething, and being given an order by that brat who dared to come to him didn't help the absolute hatred he has been bathing in for the last seven hours or so. The brat who'd jumped in his fight against the blonde bitch. Wasn't super Saiyan supposed to be invincible? Especially his, because he was an elite, and not a third class nor a halfbreed waste of blood. His super Saiyan should have been invincible, and yet here he was, recouping from a loss, and that same halfbreed had shown up to taunt him. Vegeta was furious. He actively remembered how the brat had absolutely dominated him two and a half years prior. That brat who had absolutely trash tactics, no positioning wits, no combat sense, no guard, no pride, and yet outclassed him, Vegeta, the Prince of all Saiyans, the elite, without effort even. And that brat who had the absolute gall to throw back at him the order he'd given during their first 'spar'. The insufferable abomination.
She didn't move back, unwilling to flinch as she felt the other's aura warm her skin. She kept her arms in front of her, fingers holding firmly on the fabric of the windbreaker by her elbows, matching the tension she felt, and hovered when the rocks underneath her disintegrated by Vegeta's display of power. Vegeta looked ecstatic, drunk on power, Trunks furrowed her brow. As she had sensed before, the transformation didn't affect Vegeta the same as it affected Goku, Gohan or her.
"More," her voice growled out against her will, and Vegeta's power grew, enveloping her in his burning rage. A blind act of trust (or fearlessness) had her close her eyes, so she could focus on what she felt and not what she saw. That up-close, she focused on Vegeta's ki, its variations, its emotions. Saiyans were hot-blooded, and Vegeta was the embodiment of that. She wasn't the best at reading ki, but she was strangely attuned, even if she wasn't able to actually make great sense of what she could feel.
"More," she whispered, opening her now teal eyes, power had attracted power, her own golden aura drying her. Gohan, her version of him at least, had always remained in control of his emotions, and taught her that without a lid on it all, he'd lose. She didn't understand at the time, she was too young, too eager to fight, too drowned in her own hate at the Cyborgs and at the destruction and despair they caused. In a way, Gohan had been reluctant to get her to reach super Saiyan, he didn't even show it to her outside of needing to use it to fight off the Cyborgs. To Gohan, and to Trunks once she obtained it, super Saiyan had a cost, it tore at their essence. With her attempts to control it, she understood Gohan's reluctance; it's the form of rage, desecration, hate and violence. Gohan wasn't afraid of losing a fight, he was afraid of losing himself, giving up his humanity to embrace his Saiyan side. Was it different for Vegeta because he was a full-blooded Saiyan? Goku was an oddball whose whole life revolved around the idea of having a good fight, rage and hate wasn't in his nature, but Vegeta? Vegeta wielded those emotions and rode them instead of controlling them. Trunks had long tried to not think about it, but this time, seeing what super Saiyan meant to her father, it was all too different. That's what had felt so wrong when she first felt his golden energy.
"You can do more," she repeated the full thought she first whispered barely an instant ago, and she uncrossed her arms, ready to fight. "You cannot lose. Do you hear me?"
Vegeta wanted to beat that kid to the ground, eyes staring right into the other's, but something kept him. The voice echoed and he spat to the side with a growl.
"No matter how strong the opponent, I'll surpass them and destroy them! You don't need Kakarot, brat."
"I need no one. Your opponent is yourself."
Vegeta launched forward to punch, but Trunks caught it with both her hands. Unlike their previous spars, Trunks couldn't just -not move-, her body moved back, having no support under her feet and Vegeta's momentum forcing her back. Her eyes focused on his with their proximity. Something caught Vegeta's attention now that he was that much closer and what he noticed hit him like a truck, and he snarled.
"You smell like the wench."
Oh that can't be good. She pushed him off by extending her arms forward in a swift movement and releasing the fist she held. Better put some distance.
"What if I do, you care, now?" Stupid Saiyan genes. Or rather, stupid desire to protect this version of mother? Trunks' aura flared at the memory of what she'd been told, that it had been Tenshinhan out of all people who saved Bulma and the baby from an attack earlier that day. What Bulma was even doing there didn't matter, Vegeta had a responsibility to her and the baby. She still resented the Saiyan for his callousness, but asking him why was useless. The man was far too selfish and obsessed with his goals. Her mother had told her Vegeta cared in his own way, but Trunks knew better now. She was ready to fight him, and had no regrets provoking him.
And Vegeta took the provocation as intended. He was relentless in his assaults, putting the younger one on the defensive. It took a few blows, but eventually Trunks realized Vegeta had little experience with the transformation. He could summon it at will, and he rode it, but he had little control on his energy, his combat sense wasn't as sharp as he was in base form. He lacked experience with the form. Yet he was about as fast and strong as she was, and while his hits intended to kill, he wasn't as invested as he was when he attacked her in the Gravity Room. It took a while, but once she caught on, she used it in her favor to land a few painful, but otherwise harmless (at least by Saiyan standards) blows, to tire the other and put an end to the fight. By the time she managed to do it, however, they both had a few cuts and tears on their skin and clothes. They never lost sight of each other's eyes. After he landed his fist in her stomach, they got out of each other's guards, and she dropped the transformation first, holding herself to soothe the pain a little.
Vegeta suspected the teenager was his the moment the brat came back with Kakarot after their poor excuse of a fight, right after slaughtering Freeza and King Cold. The mention of being from the future (he'd known if he had halfbreeds running around; the age difference didn't match his own anyway) only confirmed it. Added that the teenager came from the future with a Time Machine. Such a feat could only be by the hand of someone as talented as 'Bulma fucking Brief' as she called herself.
He knew for sure since he saw the brat in the kitchen of the Capsule Corp compound, just before their first 'fight'. The halfbreed was oddly in sync with him, and the only one who understood his tenacity, his aspirations, in a similar way was the blue-haired woman. So she taught the kid, and the kid applied the newfound knowledge. Vegeta had observed the halfbreed closely, whenever possible when the kid approached him for a fight. The opportunity to see super Saiyan and to test himself against it was too good for Vegeta to pass on, and this kid was all too eager to be 'at his disposal'. The hair color and texture, the eye color, the clothes all matched the wench. The kid's eye shape, strength, secrecy, body frame, and skin tone matched his. That confirmed that he'd mate with the woman at one point or another (and he did, and he left the moment he found out she was pregnant). The woman was alluring in her stubbornness and fearlessness of him, and she'd proven useful with the Gravity Room. He'd grown to respect the wench in a way, but she was overwhelming and unbearable to be around, and there was this annoying weakling around her. The weakling left not too soon after the brat gave them the Cyborg warning. Vegeta overheard their screams, something about 'inviting other strange men into their house' (why did the freeloader even think the brat could steal the wench?), and 'lack of trust and commitment'. Every other possible thing was higher on his priority list than his host's dramas. The kid staying over probably hadn't arranged it all, but at least there was more peace, and work on the training equipment improved.
"You're my heir." Vegeta stated, licking the blood of the back of his glove, courtesy of a back slap he inflicted on her head just previously. Trunks nodded as if it had been a question. Vegeta let out a slight hiss at the kid's confirmation. He didn't need it, he felt insulted that the kid thought it was anything but a true statement.
Trunks moved back, using her handkerchief to wipe the blood off her left eyebrow, the cut was superficial, and the pain in her stomach was slowly going away. She'd guessed he didn't really want to fight, his heart wasn't in it, his lashing out against her was just in anger and frustration. She took a moment to catch her breath, and in a whisper, let out the only advice she was able to word properly.
"Vegeta-san, you must submit this new power to your will. This isn't your limit."
"Tell me something I don't know. Those toasters will pay for letting me live. No one bests me and lives a second encounter; and that includes you, brat. Now get out," he ordered with a dismissive gesture, and he dropped the transformation himself.
Trunks wanted to tell him to follow her, to talk about the new threat, but clearly the other was in no mood to listen. She survived that and he seemed to consider she'd bested him? Just take the win and get out. He'll show up to the next fight. She took off as ordered, heart pounding.
She flew straight to Korin's tower, then flew upwards. She went once as a child to the tower, with Gohan, to retrieve senzu beans (which is when they found out the plant had dried), but she never went above it. The platform of the lookout was large, circular and pristine, lit by the early rising stars.. and people were already there, waiting. Piccolo, further back, and Krillin, Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Yamcha.. and someone she didn't know. He looked like an older version of Piccolo, with a white robe and a staff. Kami, probably. He was on the edge of the platform, looking down, but he approached this newcomer when she landed by the humans.
"You look like shit, Trunks! What happened?" Krillin exclaimed when she landed.
"I poked the bear," was her explanation. "I just had a talk with Vegeta-san, it's fine." She smiled to show she was fine, her cuts and bruises were superficial on the exposed skin, and her jeans and windbreaker were now just worn down. Nothing broken, nothing torn, and nothing to her organs. All would heal after a nap. She turned her attention to Kami, and bowed her head.
"You must be Kami-sama. I'm an intruder from another universe, according to the Eternal Dragon."
"I know who you are, Trunks. I hear you have information about your findings from this afternoon's events."
Even Piccolo came closer, eventually; Krillin had told him something came up when they were moving Goku to Kame-House, but he didn't elaborate, and Gohan was forced back to his studies when he came home, and he didn't tell them about their findings, closely guarded by Chichi. They all looked expectant. Trunks unzipped her windbreaker, took out the procedures notebook she had taken with her, and showed it.
"My first intrusion seems to not have been my Time Machine's first intrusion. What was found near Gingertown was my Time Machine." She used the notebook as if it were a representation of the Time Machine. "It arrived here roughly four years ago, one year prior to my initial intrusion, and it came from three years in the future, for my world's time."
"So 763, and since you come from January 784, it came from 787" Yamcha remembered the dates Trunks had explained in the plane, and she confirmed with a nod.
"So how is it your Time Machine?" Chaozu had to ask.
"It will become my Time Machine in 787. There are two of them in this world, at the moment. The 787-one, which is currently in the lab, which contained this version of Mother's notebook, and the 784-one, which still has its own notebook and which is safely stored away as a capsule." It was all clear in her head, but she saw some of the others start a headache. This was all too complex, and she wasn't the best at words. So she made a more tangible comparison. "They're both the same item, from different times. As much as Bulma-san's baby is me, but it is not me."
The comparison between the machines and the two Trunkses made everything clearer to the fighters.
"So future-you that's like, twenty years old, came here in that machine and arrived in 763?"
"I have good reasons to believe whoever used that Time Machine is neither my future-self, nor the future version of my mother, and both of us certainly died trying to prevent it."
It felt jarring to talk about her future self as a different person who would die in three years her time. Her morose dark look wasn't lost on the others, and she didn't bother hiding it.
"The machine contained some sort of egg, which hatched, melted the cockpit and matured somewhere in a burrow. Whatever the creature is, it left a moult behind recently. It looked like a giant cicada, perhaps as tall as Piccolo-san. The machine's data is currently being processed by Mother's computer at Capsule Corp. Perhaps I'll find a clue by comparing that data to the one from my Time Machine."
Kami frowned. The timing matched the unease he'd be feeling for a while. He'd voiced it to Piccolo before everyone arrived, which is why he'd refused the fusion for now, much to Piccolo's displeasure and frustration.
"Whatever sin Mother and I committed by breaking time and universe laws has greatly affected this world. I intend to fix it one way or another once the creature shows itself. In the meantime…"
"What about Vegeta? You told him any of this?" Tenshinhan wasn't exactly happy to admitting it, but with Goku out of commission, Vegeta's help was invaluable.
"As you have told me before, Tenshinhan-san, that man is not the kind to give up. He will join us as soon as he senses something, but discussing things as a team is not his modus operandi. This," she said with a gesture to indicate the notebook in her hand, "is of no use to his current predicament, nor is it something we can do about currently. I am only informing you because it keeps us alert to another threat."
Trunks put away the notebook back into the inner pocket of her windbreaker and stuck her hands in her jeans pockets. She ignored the cigarettes, her fight with Vegeta had been intense and bloody enough to satisfy her thirst, and she managed to focus on actionable thoughts than deep fears thanks to her earlier chat with Gohan.
"As for the problem at hand, the cyborgs can't be sensed so Vegeta-san is not able to just go and find them, and the cyborgs themselves cannot sense us either. On the plus side, no evacuation orders and no cities being leveled means they have not started their rampage. On the downside, Sixteen is a cyborg I have never seen before, nor did Seventeen and Eighteen ever mention him when I fought them in my world, so we are going in blind on that front. The computer will take a while to go through the Machine's on board computer, too, so there isn't much I can do to accelerate that process."
"So what can we actually do?" Chaozu wasn't happy about the impending doom and the waiting. Krillin had asked that same question on the plane before, and they'd come to an impasse.
"Short term? Stall the cyborgs until Son-san recovers, and inform him of what changed. According to the medicine's posology, it could take anytime from one week to one month for him to recover… if we ignore Saiyan physiology interference. While he recovers, perhaps it would be wise to discuss potential plans that don't involve 'fair fights'." Trunks couldn't help a little venom. They could've prevented this if they'd listened to Bulma, and took care of the threat before it appeared. The others didn't word either agreement or disagreement.
"They said it was a game to them, and Seventeen said he wanted to drive to find Goku, so it'll take them a while to get all the way to Mount Paozu," Krillin was reassuring. The cyborgs stalled themselves.
"Seventeen likes to drive." Trunks frowned at the memory of Seventeen 'marking points' by running over people. "I guess we can only wait, for now, and do as Vegeta-san: get stronger, and find their weakness. The Dragon Balls could help us with that."
"They would but they aren't active right now." Trunks gave a maskless, 'well fuck me' look to Krillin who stated the unfortunate event. Of course someone used the Dragon Balls.
"Evacuation and world wide alert plans the moment they strike, then."
"And keep an eye on whatever that cicada-creature is, if and when it shows itself." Piccolo was frustrated, and he gave a pointed glance to Kami.
"The Cyborgs are dangerous, yes, but whatever this is, it is a far greater problem." The old Namekian gritted his teeth. "Even I don't know what came back with this machine."