The space trip to New Namek was quite similar to the trip to Namek this trio had made prior. It had only been a few years for Krillin and Gohan, but it had been almost twenty-five years for Bulma. After the initial uncanny feeling that had come with their unique situation, the trio eventually bonded like they had done on that first trip.
Gohan had an occasional spar with Krillin, but spent more of his alone time trying to master the transformation he had used to beat Cell, without letting it consume him. The Gravity Room part of the ship helped him contain it, but he was careful not to keep it up too long, as he had been warned not to overwhelm the system. Dr Brief had the foresight of having separated the spaceship system and computer from the training system, so even if it broke down entirely, including physical breaches, the ship would still be able to carry its passengers to their destination.
Check-ins with Tora were every few hours, either through the video call to the landline or through the watch. Bulma tried to make sure her alternative son was eating healthy, and every single time, Tora hissed about having one mother already and that she was capable of taking care of herself just fine, then redirecting to more important subjects; everything being peaceful and the trip being safe. The fourth time of Bulma trying mothering Tora, Tora clapped back about the older woman's ability to burn toast and as such, had no competence to judge whether Tora made proper meals, and with Bulma's embarrassment, that put an end to it. Veiled harmless threats were made between the two, giving them a sense of uncanny familiarity. Neither was too different from the one the other actually knew.
Krillin noticed the new necklace Gohan wore when not sparring, and the child showed it; the dogtags Tora sometimes wore as a reminder of her world, with the tiger symbol on one side, and West City on the other. Bulma, swallowing her tears, mentioned her son had the same one, but hers had the letters to spell out his name and not the symbol. Perhaps another difference? Eventually Bulma started talking about her son as 'Trunks' and accepted the nickname 'Tora' for that other version of him, as that was how she answered the phone. Gohan also mentioned how 'Tora-san asked us to call him Tora to begin with' which is why he had never switched off to 'Trunks', despite knowing his friend's identity. Tora, after all, was only 'Trunks' in her own world, and while she usually did not correct people using her actual name, she never used it, even if it was her identity.
The first week was spent making sure Capsule Corp was safe no matter what. Thankfully, despite the three years of reconstruction, Bulma and Trunks weren't the kind to have neighborly relations and were mostly recluse due to working on whatever engineering projects they would share with the world at large. Bulma being absent (or 'holed up') for a few months wasn't going to raise suspicion, or so she told Tora.
Considering how identical they looked, judging from more recent framed photos in Capsule Corp' living quarters, with Bulma's permission, Tora 'impersonated' Trunks, whose death hadn't been shared with the community. She used 767-Bulma's beanie she had forgotten to give back to hide her hair, and tried to go to other cities in order to not be recognized. Whenever she needed to stay within West City, Tora kept interactions to a strict minimum; getting supplies, occasionally helping out with physical work or technical repair, and avoiding any sort of subjects about 'meeting my friend's daughter, you'd be a great couple' old ladies talk. However, as much as she kept her contacts with others to a minimum, something bothered Tora, but she couldn't exactly put her finger on it. Despite the initial similarities with 784, especially when it came to the atmosphere and the higher temperature, something tasted foul. The people felt.. off.
Certain that everything was safe in Capsule Corp, and just after one of their check-ins about ten days in, Tora got courageous and decided to travel to Gero's lab with some stolen (borrowed!) materials from Bulma's stash. Namely and most importantly, an empty capsule.
The lab had been destroyed a while ago, judging from the vegetation surrounding the debris. A couple of hours of searching, Tora found the exit Cell had used from the sublab. She went back to the destroyed lab above, and after a couple of hours digging through, she found the entrance to the sublab, the same one she had used with Gohan and Krillin in 767. Upstairs, she had found the empty pods of Seventeen, Eighteen and Nineteen.
Cell had seemingly destroyed the supercomputer when he left its incubator, Tora was happy to give it another hit once she found what she actually came from, and after clearing some ruble deeper into the sublab, she found it: Sixteen's unopened, unplugged pod, up straight hidden in sublab's 'living quarters'.
From what she saw in 767, this version of Sixteen hadn't been moved upstairs in the main lab. Krillin explained how Seventeen and Eighteen didn't know about Sixteen, and their curiosity had them wake him up. In 767, Sixteen's pod was on the ground, but it wasn't where it belonged. Tora remembered seeing a sort of empty closed with tubes in the sublab, and figured it was for another project, but now, she knew it was where Sixteen's pod was supposed to be.
"Hello, spare hardware," she whispered as she approached the correct location of that pod.
She hovered to be high enough to rub the dust and debris off the glass and see through. It was a necessary step to confirm whether its occupant was in it. And from what she could see, a little flicker of red hair and a humanoid shape, she smiled warmly. Sixteen could be brought back. She pulled the pod out of its place, then laid it down, and then used the empty capsule to compress the whole pod and its occupant. She labeled the capsule 'A16' once the process was done, and promptly left.
That capsule would remain hidden in her case alongside her own Time Machine until she, Gohan and Krillin were back in 767.
"So, about the wishes. Porunga can grant three wishes, but can only bring back to life one person at the time." Bulma discussed their options once the ship was at cruising speed, out of their immediate solar system and out of danger from asteroid belts and rogue celestial bodies.
"Well, perhaps we should wish back Trunks-san and Piccolo-san, so Kami-sama also comes back which would revive Shenron, then the third wish to be transported back to Earth?"
"Shenron can only revive people who have been dead less than a year, and not people who have died once already, such as Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Master Roshi, Yamcha and.. Vegeta too, and me." Krillin had to remind them of the bad news. They all had been revived once by Shenron.
"Do not forget it's been twenty years, too," Bulma sighed, picking at her food. "Gohan-kun died seven years ago as well, even if it was his first death. None of them can be brought back, even by Porunga, who can only bring back people who have been dead four Namekian years," she recalled Moori's words about Porunga's limitations, and how them needing to wait for an extra Namekian year to bring back Tenshinhan and Chaozu wasn't a problem.
The other two went silent at the gloom reality of it all. The goal of the Time Machine was to create a world without Cyborgs, and then save their own world.
Cell had also murdered quite a few people before finding Bulma and Trunks, as Gohan and Krillin explained how the monster had emptied cities in 767. Bulma was quick to put two and two together as she remembered the news about a few communities disappearing just before they decided to go to the past. Considering how few people were alive in 787, it was necessary for them to think about a way to bring them back too, which is when the two time travelers explained their plan to get a new Guardian as well, most likely Dende, as it had happened in their own timeline.
"Maybe he won't want to come back," Bulma whispered over the communication device at what would be ungodly hours. She called Capsule Corp, and Tora had answered, even that late. She doubted anyone else could be brought back, due to how much time had passed since their deaths, and so she could only imagine if Trunks was happy in heaven with everyone else.
"He will," Tora assured over the video call, firm and assertive.
"Are you sure? Here he would only have old me, but there, he has everyone else, he can rest.. Am I not being selfish?"
"You are the most important person in his life, like Mother is to me. Please don't doubt," Tora never thought she'd have to reassure any version of Bulma, the woman was being far too self-conscious to not be worrying.
"But-"
"Bulma-san, he's waiting for us. I know it." Tora was assertive, she didn't remember exactly how nor why she was certain of it, but she felt it. Deep down, she knew Trunks wasn't resting.
"Alright, I'll trust you, Trunks," she let go of her alternative son who should have been in bed for a while now, and the communication was cut.
Bulma tried keeping her doubts to herself as she held her wrist close to her. She was wearing her son's watch, and he wouldn't have died if she hadn't needed to go to the past. Bulma was the one wearing the watch because she was the one meant to pilot the machine this third time around. She hadn't told anyone why she and Trunks wanted to use the invention again...
After a couple of weeks only using a guest room, the kitchen, the lab and one of the bathrooms, Tora eventually went to snoop in her alternate self's bedroom. The compound had been rebuilt and strengthened enough over the past three years to give Trunks his own room. Tora appreciated how she, too, would eventually have it.
The resident lavender-haired man had sparsely decorated his room and kept it tidy. Tora saw a couple of framed photos of him, his mother, and Gohan, as well as an old stolen one of Vegeta in the Gravity Room. Only the most recent ones, taken after 784, as well as some pamphlets celebrating the end of the Cyborgs thanks to the 'Golden Warrior', were unknown to Tora. All previous photos, she had similar or identical ones in her own world. Unlike her, however, this Trunks kept the same haircut: curtains covering the top of his ears with a middle part, with shaved back. Tora considered keeping the shaved part, it made it all lighter, but she liked the longer do.
She also checked his wardrobe; his clothes were the same as hers minus the binders. He was half a shoe size larger, too, and considering the medical records, was a solid three centimeters taller. Only the underwear (boxers) were slightly different (hers were mostly boyshorts), at least from what she saw when she opened a drawer and promptly closed it realizing what was in it.
Under the bed, Tora found a familiar box of souvenirs; like her, this one kept few personal belongings, but those were valuable, sentimental even. On top of it, Tora found the Geography book Gohan had brought, in which he had doodled Piccolo, and in which Trunks, like herself, had doodled Gohan. Tora recognized other trinkets underneath but didn't dig through them, and moved on to the bedsides. Trunks was smarter than most men, but he was still a man, and as such, finding the dirty magazines hidden behind mundane books on the bed table shouldn't have been a surprise for Tora, who promptly left the room to wash her hands and cursed the disgusting mind of men. Other than that , Trunks was extremely similar to Tora due to having been raised mostly the same.
The lack of physical activity itched Tora a week in already, the occasional sword exercises weren't enough. She had started trying to let her power flow on its own, high up in the sky and far from civilization. A couple of weeks in, Gohan expressed his lack of progress when it came to mastering the form they both had obtained against Cell, Tora decided to give it a go too. She left the Compound in the early morning to fly high and away from prying eyes and let her energy flow in relative safety, trying to summon the same desire to protect Gohan. The everyday attempts were slow and tedious, exactly like the ones she had when she first tried to control the form after Gohan's death, so because she had been there already, she didn't give up. She would get there eventually.
Tora and that younger version of Gohan talked about their mutual struggles with this transformation often enough, the phone or video calls becoming routine as the Capsule Corp spaceship made its way through the galaxy. Krillin and Bulma could only listen with a certain awe as they couldn't relate to anything either of them went through. Bulma quietly observed how 'this other Trunks' behaved towards Gohan like how her version of Gohan behaved towards her Trunks, albeit more like equals.
It took three weeks for Tora to be able to summon it at will, even if it was draining, while Gohan didn't risk anything beyond short bursts in order to not endanger their ship, despite all the safeguards.
Five weeks into their trip, and a little less than one week left to arrive at their destination, Krillin and Gohan used sparring to discuss something they'd noticed. Even if Bulma had managed to kick the smoking habit for the duration of the trip and she was physically fit, something felt off about her ki, and it wasn't just the stress and grief that they thought it was at first.
Bulma wasn't healthy.