Feeling cold and solid ground underneath her back, Lazuli sat up and looked around. Her befuddled eyes scanned the spacious metallic chamber full of glowing neon lights and holographically projected screens, various control panels relaying information about the operationality of one or another informational system. Lazuli stood up and dusted herself, strangely finding the space station she was in completely spotless.
"Where the hell am I?" Lazuli wondered, scanning the place with her sensory and energy reading systems activated. The entire place was so over-flooding with information and skyrocketing electricity flow that reading too much into any specific thing was nigh impossible. Lazuli began heading toward the nearest door in her way, trying to delve deeper into this station and find out what was going on, but the door hummed open before she could do much about it.
"Do not be alarmed, No. 18. You are safe and so is Krillin," a familiar-looking giant with a gentle disposition was the first sight that greeted Lazuli's eyes as the broad shoulders of the towering figure obstructed the intense beaming of light coming in from the hallway that he and his companion walked in from. The bulky colossus had ash-gray military boots, a dark blue bodysuit, and cumbersome metallic armor covering his upper chest and shoulders. If it weren't for the spiky red mohawk, Lazuli wouldn't have been able to tell that she was speaking with the abandoned project of her past mistress who had since adopted the Artificial Human as her own son. The black and red vizor obstructing the upper half of Super No. 16's face did little to help his familiarity.
Because of the daunting size of No. 16, it was impossible to notice his doll-like companion immediately. She was a pale-skinned young woman with an elegantly combed haystack of hickory-colored hair and round blue eyes, wearing a classical, western-style dress with a frilly orange skirt, a long and flowing orange veil with a chest tightly wrapped in a black corset, a white undershirt with a decorative red tie, baggy shoulders and upper arms with forearms wrapped in tight black fingerless gloves. Super One-Nine had gone a far way from being just a mere glorified footsoldier protecting the lab where Frieza's and King Cold's bodies were being studied and experimented on.
"Krillin's here too?" Lazuli gnashed her teeth, looking around despite having established it earlier that it would do her little good. "Where are we anyway?"
"You'd think that you'd be able to put it together after seeing us, then again, I suppose it's only normal that a model as outdated as you would experience memory leaks," Super One-Nine smiled and crossed her arms, excited to showcase her sass at Lazuli's expense.
"Outdated? What's that supposed to mean? Have you forgotten that you were built before the old hag converted me and Lapis?" Lazuli hissed at One-Nine, stepping up to get in her face, but Super No. 16 protectively raised his hand and guided his sister behind his back.
"Cease your quarrels," Super No. 16 demanded with a dry and robotic tone. "It's true that mother has pulled you out of harm's way. She claimed it was to avoid letting Cell get his hands on you–an infinite energy source, but I believe it was a show of kindness. She pulled Krillin off Planet Caterpillia too, after all."
"Yeah, right…" Super One-Nine rolled her eyes. "More like a guarantee that No. 18 won't immediately run off to fight Cell again. At one point or another, you must have hit your processor and shaken a screw loose or something. You're no match for him."
"Stop calling me that!" Lapis barked out, approaching Super No. 16 to where their chests nearly touched as she glared at the emotionless visor of the immovable mound of muscle and metal. "My name is Lazuli, I'm a human being who received cybernetic enhancements, not some tin can built in a lab like you two!"
"Understood. I will refer to you as Lazuli from this point on," Super Artificial Human No. 16 nodded. His stiff lips and static body language relayed no signs of agreement or denial, no particular way of feeling about Lazuli's request. It was just an operation to him. Just a request to process and execute.
"Whatever," Super One-Nine crossed her arms and looked away. "What's so fancy about being born a meat-bag anyway?" she rolled her eyes.
"The fancy part is that I'm able to experience love for someone other than myself and able to express that love. That unlike whatever all of this is, I'm actually able to start a family," Lazuli sent a scorned glare in the way of the bratty Artificial Human. "Another nice thing is that I'm able to grow and change as a person without needing a software update. I don't have to be stuck in my teen years until the old hag feels like she's bored with watching over one and updates my personality."
"I can make a family too," Super One-Nine nudged out from standing behind Super No. 16's colossal thighs and stepped up to Lazuli on her toes. The two shot thunderbolts from their glares for a second before Super One-Nine turned to a human in a jumpsuit tending to system repairs in the hallway behind them and pointed her finger like a gun. A zapping red jolt blasted the bustling working bee from behind, shocking it with an encompassing fry and Lazuli stared in horror as the stiffened worker collapsed on the floor, shrunken, looking plastic and doll-like. With clacking heels of her platform boots, Super One-Nine approached the dollified drone and scooped him up, nestling him in her arms like a baby before pecking him on the forehead. "See?" she stuck out her tongue at Lazuli.
"You haven't changed at all!" Lazuli gnashed her teeth, ready to attack the Artificial Human who would do such a thing to someone just because she wanted to prove a point but Super No. 16 interjected by stepping in Lazuli's way with raised hands, attempting to pacify her.
"Do not be alarmed. That worker drone was not an Earthling, or an alien, for that matter. It was a robot produced by the Puri Star by utilizing the Big Gete Star's factorial capabilities and coated with artificially produced living tissue, human-like flesh, and hair. Besides, little sister will turn her little toy back when she's bored with it," Super No. 16 tried to negotiate peace. "Won't she?" Super No. 16 turned to his little sister, turning his intimidating presence to pressure his own sibling.
"Whatever, it's not like we can't produce 1500 drones a second. No one's gonna miss this one," Super One-Nine rolled her eyes and stroked her dolly's hair that now looked like it was made from a brush.
"Oh, well," Lazuli sighed, dropping the matter. "At least she can pretend to be attached to it. I've got no time to argue with tin cans programmed to be bratty and talk back to me. Take me to Krillin. I want to make sure he's safe."
"Of course," Super No. 16 nodded. "Your friend was very weak and injured. However, the function of the Big Gete Star was to allow its master to defy death in one of countless different ways. Its facilities should bring Krillin back to being functional and suitable for his social functions in less than twenty-five minutes."
"Krillin isn't just my friend, he's my husband," Lazuli replied with restrained aggravation in her tone.
"I see…" Super No. 16 looked away. "I shall refer to him as such from this point on."
"Teehee, you'll love your lovey-dovey smooch-pal when he's back up. You two will finally have something in common…" Super One-Nine snickered while the party of three advanced through the shifting hallways that moved and shifted the infinitely complex configuration of the merged uber-planetoid to help bring the laboratory in which Krillin was regenerating to full health closer to the advancing trio and the advancing Artificial Humans closer to Krillin's medical lab.
"What does she mean by that?" Lazuli turned to Super No. 16, whom she saw as a more agreeable source of straight answers compared to his insufferable little sister.
"Your husband's injuries are extensive. Simply treating them is impossible. It's as if a devastating explosion went off inside every muscle in his body. The Big Gete Star can allow your husband to defy death, however, it will do so by artificially replacing body parts and organs that are beyond saving," Super No. 16 replied. "In other words, what Super One-Nine alluded to is technically correct. Your husband will, by the strictest definition of the word, be a cyborg, just like you."
"What!? Don't you dare do anything like that!" Lazuli ran out in front of the two, obstructing their path. "Save Krillin's life, but don't turn him into an Android!"
A reinforced glass tube emerged from the ceiling, filling up with a cerulean plasma flow. When the beam dissolved with starlit sparkles, the image of Ultimate No. 21 stood inside the reinforced glass tube in all of her lab-coat-wearing glory. The glass tube then withdrew back into the panel inside the mechanized ceiling with Dr. Puri approaching the shocked Lazuli and placing her hands on her hips.
"You're making an awful lot of requests for someone who's been granted a favor," Dr. Puri confronted Lazuli. "It must be my failing as your employer that I couldn't teach you that the real world doesn't work the way you want it to. You can't just demand to have your way and have it every time."
"A favor?" Lazuli growled, wincing in disdain for the woman who finally dared show her slimy face to her. "You straight up occupied our lives, all but enslaved us, and modified my and my brother's bodies against our will. You turned us into your little lab assistants, then your little footsoldiers, then your obedient business associates. Let's make one thing abundantly clear here–you didn't grant me a favor by saving my and my husband's lives. You made a decent gesture that put you on the right path to making up for the sick shit you've done to me and my brother!"
"I don't recall you or your brother objecting to eternal youth, infinite stamina, and unimaginable power," Dr. Puri stood her ground without as much as blinking. "You took all the fancy clothes and candy I bought you and asked for more. You'd have killed however many people it took to get a spare pair of shoes you'd never actually wear. Don't play the victim here, I won't have it. Not from you or your sadist brother. At least you're an irreparable materialist, your brother did everything I asked not for material reward, but just for the fun of it. Just to see if he could do all those things I asked him to do."
"We were children!" Lazuli screamed out with tears forming in the corners of her eyes, losing any semblance of her cool and appearing more vulnerable and more human than she'd been in a long time. While the face of Dr. Puri seemed merely to be entertained if a little disgusted by the show of Lazuli's human side, Super No. 16's strict lips parted, showing a flicker of worry in what one could see on his lower face. "We didn't know any better. Tell any child that they could have all the candy, all the money they want and they'll agree to anything! Don't try to play off the sick shit you did by blaming it on the people it turned us into!"
"Fine," Dr. Puri turned to the wall on her right, pressing the tips of her fingers to it and extracting a holographic control panel from it. After fiddling with it by quickly inputting some commands at an untraceable speed that the world's most complex and advanced feat of cybernetic and mechanical engineering could produce and technology that no race in the known universe could reproduce in at least 5 billion years could process at real-time, Dr. Puri turned back to Lazuli without a glint of shame in her bright yellow eyes. "There. I've transferred your husband to a medical pod modeled after the Frieza Army design. Normally it would have taken a few days to stabilize his condition, but my new and improved design should cut it in around two hours. Once the medical pod stabilizes his condition, you can do with him whatever you want."
"Don't expect me to thank you for this. Definitely don't expect any favors from my end," Lazuli sneered at Dr. Puri.
"Couldn't care any less about the first. Wouldn't need the second," Dr. Puri dismissed the notion with a careless wave of her hand while walking away to attend to business that she deemed more important to her. "Make no mistake, the only reason I pulled you out is because…"
"So that Cell didn't get his hands on my Infinite Energy Reactor, I know," Lazuli snarled back at the woman's back.
"And the only reason I saved Krillin is because…" Dr. Puri glanced back at Lazuli with the left half of her face.
"Because you didn't want me running off and doing anything stupid," Lazuli spat back at Ultimate No. 21.
"No, because he's your husband and I can relate to what it's like losing the man you love. We may have our differences, Lazuli, and I understand why you wouldn't invite me to your wedding. But I wouldn't want the despair that I went through upon losing my beloved Gero to anyone else, not even my worst enemy, which I don't consider you to be," Dr. Puri replied before walking off and disappearing in the gloomy shade of the oppressive cybernetic hallways.
"Lazuli…" Super No. 16 approached Lazuli from behind and softly placed his hand on her shoulder in comfort. "I hope you understand that once the medical pod stabilizes your husband's condition, he will not be in a fully operational state. Your husband will be in a state most closely defined as catatonic."
"That's okay," Lazuli's chin dipped to her upper chest as a handful of tears dripped down to the floor, running down her nose and falling off its tip. "Maybe Kami or Dende can heal him, maybe the Dragon Balls will be able to… It might be difficult for you to comprehend, as it was for me for the longest time, but hope is actually a beautiful thing."
"Pheh…" Super One-Nine stuck her tongue out in disgust, imitating the expression of a toddler that ate something they turned out to loathe. "Hope is just one word that defines the absence of concrete data and a solid plan. Hope, despair… All useless meat-bag constructs that have no place in the meticulous and efficient Artificial Human mind. Look around you, granny, nothing here was built on hope or love or despair. All of this was built using incredibly advanced calculations and concrete, genius blueprints."
"I think I understand this hope," Super No. 16 smiled softly as he looked up at a neon light that gleamed with perfect efficiency, not even the faintest sign of ever glitching or flickering because of how immaculate the planning and energy management was in this cosmic cybernetic mega-structure. "When I was first awakened, I had absolutely no data backing up the conclusion that someone like me could ever have a family. All I had was hope that mother would see reason, that mother had it in her the capacity to love a failed project such as myself the same way she'd have loved her own son. That she'd be able to abandon plans and projects laid out over decades of careful planning and meticulously putting pieces into the right places. That her capacity to love surpassed her craving for revenge. All data back then suggested otherwise, however… I liked what Gohan said. That even a shut-down and abandoned machine such as myself could be more than what I was built for. That I could experience love and be a part of a family if I wanted it. I liked the idea of that dream world so much that it empowered me to defy my programming and do my part in making that world come to life. That is why I believe I understand hope."
"Hmph… Something really must be broken in you, old hag. You babble about hope and dreams and the power of love, but you didn't have any significant updates since separating from mother's control and management," Super One-Nine crossed her arms, fondling her precious doll in her hands like a teddy bear.
"You don't need a software update to learn hope. It comes bundled with your humanity. And I don't think you have to be born a human to be capable of benevolence," Lazuli replied, having quashed her disdain for the bratty Artificial Human for the sole reason that she began pitying her a little. Super One-Nine's eyes widened a little as she glared back at Lazuli with an unreadable emotion overcoming the bratty Android's expression before a rowdy quake hit the Puri Star, forcing the Artificial Humans to take flight and navigate themselves carefully to avoid the worst of it.
"What's going on, are we under attack?" Lazuli grumbled out as screws and loose metallic plates began pelting from above like some twisted version of a cybernetic blizzard.
"Who would be foolish enough to attack us?" Super One-Nine turned to her older brother who stared off toward the darkness of the seemingly infinite hallway with the red light of his visor blinking in a constant rhythm to relay the fact that Super No. 16 was processing information.
"It's Cell. He's found the Puri Star," Super No. 16 stated as firmly as if he was staring right Cell in the eyes.
"How can that be possible? We should be untraceable! The Puri Star's technology is far too advanced for Cell's sensors to track and we're too far away for him to have been able to track Lazuli," Super One-Nine barked back at her brother, showing that the Android may have been in denial about the sworn enemy that terrified even her usually stoic and above it all mother having found them in their home.
"Krillin…" Lazuli gasped. "He must have sensed Krillin's Ki and used Instant Transmission!"
"You mean your husband brought him here!?" Super One-Nine turned to Lazuli, ready to snap the neck of the inferior model even if that wouldn't have helped their situation in the slightest.
"Enough," Super No. 16 extended his hand and put it in between the two Artificial Humans. "Go find mother. The Para Brothers will hold him off for a brief time, but he'll figure out a way to overcome their dancing before too long. Mother will know what to do. In the meantime, I'll hold him off."
"B-Big brother…" Super One-Nine's lip quivered with a somber softness that seemed unlike her. Lazuli was genuinely taken aback by this show of affection. Before the bratty Android could burst into tears, Super No. 16 patted her head with a smile.
"Do not worry, little sister. I am not walking off to get myself terminated. I am merely doing my duty as the big brother and the man of the family," Super No. 16 assured his sniffling little sister before looking up at Lazuli. "Lazuli, I'll entrust my little sister into your hands. Make sure to locate mother. She's the only one who knows how to stop Cell at this moment."
Lazuli nodded and dragged Super One-Nine by the laced collar of her dress while Super No. 16 stood still and blocked the hallway until the two Androids vanished into the gloomy shade. Then, he dashed toward the hangar, where he read the disturbing bio-mechanical readings of an army of dozens of different alien species merged into one super-lifeform.