"Everybody!" Goku burst through the door. The Saiyan extended his hand, grasping a sash as he rushed in. "I've got the Senzu from the Korin Tower!"
Chi-Chi and Ox-King ran up to Goku. Ox-King picked up the sash from the Saiyan's hands while Chi-Chi leaned over Goku, pressing her hand on to her husband's back as Goku leaned over and panted. His entire forehead had been drenched with sweat. Chi-Chi didn't want to say that out loud, but she didn't expect her husband to be this slow, either. Especially given the signs of extreme physical exertion that Goku went under to get the magical beans here in time.
"Are you feeling okay, Goku-sa?" Chi-Chi wondered, feeling her husband's back and his tense, pulsing back muscles.
"Yeah… Just ran out of breath a bit, that's all…" the Saiyan panted, slowly making his way to the couch and flopping onto it. Seeing her husband with his eyes closed, panting heavily with his head looking up to the ceiling and his limbs sprawled out, like a plant trying to gather sunlight, distressed Chi-Chi a great deal. She hoped that the Senzu would do their thing and then, maybe, they could all take one just as a precaution so that Gine's symptoms didn't spread around.
"I'll make dinner…" Chi-Chi wiped remnants of tears off her eyes. At this time, this was all that she could do for her family. It felt disgusting, bitter even. She was a martial artist too, so she understood how Goku and Gohan must have felt, faced with a threat, that they had no options to fight directly. Yet she was more than just a fighter. She was also a wife and a mother and had other ways to lift her spirits and feel useful. Given how she was about to burst into tears and go into a full mental breakdown, it would have been better if Chi-Chi diverted that attention elsewhere.
"That'd be great…!" Goku exclaimed, trying to sound like his old, cheerful self, but his voice still lingered in the air and lagged behind while the Saiyan struggled to take in enough oxygen. "Nothing to get your strength back like a good dinner."
Chi-Chi hoped her husband was right. Though, looking at Goku and his complete exhaustion after dashing across the world, a trip he should have been able to make in a blink with his eyes closed, Chi-Chi wondered if even Goku believed that deep down.
"It… It didn't work…" Ox-King stumbled out from the room alongside Dende. He didn't need to say that much as Gine's moans and shouts echoed throughout the house and didn't even ease up the slightest after she took the magical healing beans. "The Senzu… It does nothing against this sickness."
"This makes no sense!" Gohan clenched his tiny fists with tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "I've never even heard about such a disease. Even if descriptions of it existed before today, the Senzu should have worked!"
"Settle down, Gohan…" Goku leaned off his resting position, placing his hand over Gohan's head, trying to look strong for his son. "There's nothing we can do now. We've tried everything, so it's got to be all left to mom to beat this thing."
"I feel so… Useless…" Dende wiped his eyes with his sleeves.
"Nonsense, you tried your best, and it appeared to work for a short time." Ox-King shook his massive head adorned with a decorative horned helmet.
"I can't just sit here and wait for grandma to die!" Gohan's face shriveled up as he desperately fought off despair. "We need to find out what that virus is. I'll go to Bulma's house and find out as much as I can. She has the biggest library I know, and it's not like the Capsule Corps will close for the night."
"You should go there in the morning. Your mother's making dinner and neither you nor your father ate anything the whole day." Ox-King objected.
"Grandma might not have that time! She might not make it through the night!" Gohan snapped back at his grandfather with ferocity, very much unlike his usually gentle soul.
"Gohan, wait. Don't rush out." Goku tried to warn his son, but Gohan moved quicker on his feet than Goku could handle in his worn-out state. Standing in front of the door, Gohan pointed to his father.
"It's clear that the virus can be contagious. What if dad got it too? We don't have the time to waste!" Gohan insisted.
"If the virus is contagious, Gohan…" Dende ran up to his old friend and grabbed his hand. "Then you risk spreading it even further by bringing it to the West City. What if you already have it and you make Bulma and her family sick too? Then nobody will be in any condition to do anything."
"He's right, Gohan." Ox-King walked up to his crying grandson and gently nudged him back into the guestroom of the house. "Let's just call her and let her know what's going on. She can work things out. If you also want to help, you can try to scour your biology books and discern what this virus might be. You're young, but you might be the best-educated person in this house, as awful as it feels like to admit it…"
Gohan settled down and looked up at Dende.
"You should stay too. You've been working hard healing grandma the whole day. If you bring the virus all the way to God's Temple, there'll be massive trouble." Gohan said.
"True. If none of us shows any symptoms tomorrow morning–we can assume we've dodged a bullet for the time." Dende looked down, realizing that he was now trapped here. "Goku-san only came into contact with the virus this morning, and it took him a few hours to show symptoms. We can take that as a sign of how fast the virus works."
"Don't go writin' off your old man just yet," Goku chuckled through some tension in his chest that he was visibly working with. "I may just be tired or maybe it's just cramping from the trip."
Gohan and Dende looked at one another with discomfort. The atmosphere of agonizing screams filling the house and uncertainty over anyone's future wasn't quite what one would describe as ideal conditions.
"I'll go call Bulma-san. Let her know about what's going on." Gohan changed the subject.
"Say, maybe we should call everyone and tell them to collect the Dragon Balls?" the Ox-King wondered out loud. "We can use them to bring Gine-san back if… If the worst happens. We can also just ask the Divine Dragon to erase this virus from existence."
"I… I don't think that would work." Dende replied. "The Divine Dragon is only as powerful as its creator, and I couldn't heal the virus in Gine-san. There is simply no way that the Divine Dragon could heal everyone affected by the virus or erase the virus. Not to mention, dying because of a disease would be considered a natural cause, so the Dragon Balls wouldn't work on anyone killed by the virus either."
"Man, what a pickle…" Goku chuckled to himself, finding a curious way to express his desperation while rubbing his aching chest. "Can't fight it, can't collect the Dragon Balls either… What are we supposed to do?"
"Everyone!" Bardock burst through the door. "How's Gine?"
"I'm sorry…" Dende shook his head, alarmed by the entrance of the burly Saiyan bruiser at first, but he had worked through so much sadness and disappointment that day that even terror didn't quite have the same impact on the young Namekian. "I did my best, and I slowed the disease down a bit, but… Neither my healing magic nor Senzu seem to work. What's more… Goku-san seems to have started showing symptoms too."
"Goddamn it!" Bardock growled out, picking Dende up by his collar and winding up his fist. "You're telling me that this whole damned thing was useless!?"
"B-Bardock-san!" Ox-King yelled out in distress at the violent actions of the wild Saiyan.
"Dad!" Goku yelled out, standing up on uneasy legs. "Dende did his best trying to heal mom. He had nothing to do with this virus."
"Bullshit!" Bardock let go of the little Namekian, shoving him aside as gently as he could in his current agitated state as he stepped up in front of his son's face. "I've been up the God's Temple, and the Kami knew something dark was brewing this whole time. Apparently, there are some sort of robo-warriors experimenting on aliens all the way out in the Northern Region. Piccolo and I fought some of 'em! It's that Dr. Puri's doing! This disease, those Androids, everything!"
"What? Dr. Puri?" Goku went pale and staggered back into his seat.
"I'm not about to sit here and wait for my wife and son to wither away and die because of some experimental sickness that bitch probably cooked up. I'm either going to stop her or blast her away to hell!" Bardock clenched his fists, seething with wild wrath.
"Please, calm down, Bardock-san! You're saying you've contacted Piccolo-san? We must contact him and tell him to stay away from the God Temple in that case. The virus might be contagious!" Dende pulled on a torn strap of Bardock's trousers, but the battle-worn Saiyan turned around and shoved the Namekian aside.
"I hope that the virus is contagious. That way I can spit in that bitch's eye and have her taste some of her own medicine. If she wants to kill all of us, she should have just trained up and challenged us like a warrior, not gone around with some virus bullshit like the snake that she is!" Bardock clenched his fist in front of him. The warrior approached the table where a sash of Senzu laid and took a few, eating one of them on the spot while he pocketed the rest and burst out from the house.
"Dinner is ready. Was that Bardock-san just now?" Chi-Chi appeared in the doorway between the main room and the kitchen with a few hefty plates of food in hand.
"Yes, he left to do something horrible. We're short on hands to stop him." The Ox-King looked down with sweat pouring down his face. An appropriate amount given the consideration of the entire world collapsing around them. Just yesterday they were all one, big, happy family… "He's off to kill Dr. Puri. He thinks that this virus is her doing."
"Serve the table, dad!" Chi-Chi tightened her belt and the ribbon around her ponytail. "I might not like that Dr. Puri for the way she looks at Goku-sa sometimes, but I ain't gonna let my father-in-law act like a loose cannon while his own family needs his pair of hands!"
"Chi-Chi! You can't possibly…" Ox-King freaked out, grabbing his head.
"Don't worry, dad. I don't have to beat him, just beat some sense into him." Chi-Chi stiffened her lips before running off.
"Damn it!" Goku clenched his fists and jumped on his feet, preparing to run off. "I won't let Chi-Chi run off alone. If dad's acting wild, I'm the only one who can stop him."
"Please, settle down, Goku-san!" Dende blocked Goku's path, floating out in front of him with his hands spread out. "If you try fighting now, you're just going to aggravate your condition! You might collapse and even skip a few stages of the virus. We have to trust that Chi-Chi-san can make Bardock-san see reason."
"Dende is right, Goku-san. A lot of your techniques involve causing unfair stress to your body. You can't handle using the King Kai's Fist or even the Super Saiyan in your current state. You need to settle down and rest. Try to work your way through the virus if that can even be done. Let's wait for Gohan and Bulma to figure something out." Ox-King joined in on pacifying Goku.
"Damn… I'm not great with the trustin' other people thing…" Goku admitted, collapsing in his seat to ease his dizzy head and rubbing the back of his head while his free hand clenched his hurting chest. "I'd much rather knock some sense into my old man myself, but I guess it can't be helped."
"Bulma-chan, someone's calling you on our telephone." Bulma's mother peeked into the room. The woman's goofy appearance distracted the three from their doom and gloom moods. Yamcha finally found some space he needed to breathe out while Bulma sprung to action.
A tiny boy pressed against Bulma's mother's thighs, taking tiny peeks into the dark room that his mother had been spending so much time in. Had it not been for this room, the entirety of mother's time would have been spent with him, which was why little Trunks wore a bitter scowl throughout his immature examination of everything around him. His attention lingered on the two odd-ball elements in the room–Yamcha and a slouching young man with long, lavender hair.
"Yamcha-san! You're back already? Are you and Bulma, by any chance, getting back together, maybe?" Bulma's mother wondered with a goofy chuckle. With the woman wondering inside, young Trunks found his excuse to step into his mother's lab for once and see what exactly it was that kept his mother so busy that she couldn't be bothered to take him to the playground.
"What? Oh, no, ma'am!" Yamcha laughed out, shaking as if he was excusing himself, though his goofy body language just translated how much of an oaf Yamcha could sometimes be in embarrassing social situations. "We're just in the middle of something and Bulma could use my help right now."
"Ah, I see… And who is this young man? Such a brooding pout-face, you should smile more. Cookie?" Bulma's mother extended a tray with cookies and milk that seemed to follow her everywhere the woman went.
"I am…" Future Trunks was about to declare exactly who he was, as the young man didn't seem to care about preserving anything within the timelines he visited, acting with all the subtlety of a stampeding dinosaur but upon returning to the sight of the security guards of Chayote's crew that he had killed, Trunks silenced himself. "A friend. I'm looking to help Bulma-san and Yamcha-san with their mission."
"Grandma, I want some cereal." Little Trunks stepped out from his grandmother's cover and declared, staring right up into her squinted eyes, almost like he had demanded it of a servant he owned. The woman nodded and tip-toed away, looking like the world's most excited grandma even though she's been sent away for a menial chore.
"Oh, by the way, Krillin-san is about to recover in a few hours. I'm not sure when Chayote-san will wake up though." Bulma's mother said in the middle of the doorway while Trunks walked up to Future Trunks and centered his stare right up into the one, visible, human eye of his future counterpart.
"You're me from the future, aren't you?" Trunks pointed his index finger in an accusatory manner at Future Trunks. Yamcha freaked out, leaning back and running through countless scenarios about how he could try to convince Bulma's son to reconsider his spot on theory. The only one unbothered by this question seemed to be the traveler from the future himself who just closed his eye and sighed.
"That's right." Future Trunks admitted. "I came here to save my future, but it might be possible to save the past as well, something I hadn't even considered. If all goes well, you'll never look like me or experience what I have."
"I knew it!" Trunks pointed at himself proudly with his thumb. "The human side of your face just looked exactly like me and it took little probing around to find out that the rocket ship you came here with is a time machine."
"W-What!? You figured it out by looking at the ship Trunks came here with?" Yamcha gasped. "Don't tell me you've tinkered with it! What if you broke it and Trunks couldn't return home?"
"I didn't do anything!" Trunks crossed his arms with a childish pout to his lips. "It was grandpa who started tinkering with it. When he examined some of the fuel that dripped out from it, he just couldn't help himself. He said that the ship could still use some upgrades like it doesn't have cable or a stereo system." Trunks scratched the back of his head, acting like he had nothing to do with the tinkering on the time machine even though he clearly took multiple peeks under the hood.
"That's okay. My grandfather is one of few people who can be trusted with fixing the machine if it is leaking fuel. It takes a long time to gather so if nobody attended to it things could have been much direr." Future Trunks nodded in approval.
"So… You're gonna meddle with the past so that I don't become a swashbuckling, renegade half-cyborg time traveler?" little Trunks stepped up on his toes as he stared right up the confused face of his future counterpart.
"Yes." Future Trunks nodded. "I wouldn't wish the life I've been leading to anyone, let alone a child like you. Though it's up to your mother to decide just how much of the future, she will allow to happen."
"Humph… You suck!" Trunks pointed an accusatory finger at Future Trunks. Yamcha exclaimed something unintelligible before stepping in between the two, trying to lecture the prodigious child.
"Come on, Trunks, you can't say that to adults, plus… When you're name-calling yourself from the future, you're technically name-calling yourself, you know…" Yamcha said.
"Did anyone ask me what I want for my future?" Trunks pushed at Yamcha's thighs, making the baseball superstar step aside and let the immature brat talk to his future self. "Maybe I want to become a cool cyborg swordsman shooting down people? Maybe my life is really boring and I'm sick and tired of nobody acknowledging that I'm strong like my dad?"
"Trunks…" Bulma's voice made both versions of her son look up with baffled faces while Yamcha sunk his face into his hands. "I… I didn't know that was how you felt."
"Of course, you didn't know!" Trunks objected, putting up his dukes like he was about to fistfight everyone in the room. "You're always working in the lab, always tinkering with something. Honestly, you keep berating that Dr. Puri lady during dinner, but you spend way more time competing with her than playing with me. I'm always like a burden to you. You just fling me away to your own parents like some pet of yours to keep busy and I hate it!"
"Trunks… This… This really isn't the best time." Bulma looked down, realizing how horrible it sounded for her as a mother to be saying this.
"It's never a good time!" Trunks lost his cool, thrashing with his hands over his head as he lifted off the ground. Both Yamcha and Bulma took a few steps back in surprise. They clearly didn't know that little Trunks could fly. "I like toys. I enjoy visiting the playground, but I also want to fight and fly around and do everything that I can do instead of hiding all that power! I want to train and grow stronger like everyone else!"
"Trunks!" Future Trunks slashed through the boy's breakdown with a strict voice. The half-converted traveler from the future stood up from the pile of junk that he was sitting on and walked up to his teary-eyed child self. "I know how you feel, but your mother is right. Now is a bad time. If your father was here, maybe he would have trained you, but your mother isn't like him, so there was no way she could have trained you herself. Plus, everyone around you pretty much left that life behind them and, as someone who had never experienced loss, you cannot dare to blame them. Your mother is about to receive the most important call of her life, so right now we've got to focus on saving this timeline's future. But… I promise you, I'll train you myself once this timeline is safe."
"Really?" little Trunks bent his knees and shook his excited little fists beside himself.
"Yes." Future Trunks nodded.
"Young man, you asked for some cereal!" Bulma's mother peeked into the heated laboratory. Trunks jumped up and ran out of the dimly lit and cluttered with junk room while Bulma walked through the area of the laboratory that her son had blocked off with his presence and settled down into her favorite chair in the place, staring blankly at the keyboard and various control panels beside her.
"It's okay, Bulma. You didn't know he felt this way." Yamcha tried comforting the crushed woman while Bulma tried activating most of her communications system and setting up an open line for Dr. Puri to reach out to her as Future Trunks said she would. It was just a distraction to keep her mind busy and away from the neglected needs of her son and her own failures as a mother.
"I… No… I knew…" Bulma sighed, owning up to it. "Heck, I knew even before Trunks was born that he'd be a chip off the old block and want to brawl it out and be proud just like his dad was. Maybe that's why I didn't want to deal with him and just kept pushing it away. I could have asked Chayote to train him any time. I wanted to a few times, though I saw her settling down to a normal life, and even if I knew it wasn't final… It was enough to form an excuse to lie to myself. Why I wonder, is it so hard to confront a tiny version of a man you think you love?"
"If it's of any consolation," Future Trunks stood up and walked up to the communications system, helping Bulma set the right frequency so that she could filter out Dr. Puri's call sooner than she normally would have. "You were the exact same in my timeline as well, though we've come to grow much closer in time. Even if it is hard to appreciate it at times, what with having to fend off Dr. Puri's machines all the time and me being a cyborg myself, we will become closer than most loving mothers and sons do because of the tragedy that binds us and the collapse of the future. It might be one good thing to come out of the doomed future scenario if you choose to accept Dr. Puri's deal."
"You're going to accept it, right?" Yamcha turned to Bulma and walked up to the screen as a red, pulsing signal warned them of an incoming call. "Dr. Puri's deal. After all, Trunks said that it will help us save humanity from the heart virus and, if we can find Mecha Frieza and extract his control module, we can prevent Dr. Puri from taking control of humanity and prevent the doomed future, right?"
"Initially, I thought I would rather die than accept it," Bulma admitted, letting Dr. Puri's call hang for a bit. "Hundreds of potential ideas over how to deal with this problem ran through my head. I had figured gathering the Dragon Balls might have helped, but… This call I left to take… It was Gohan-kun."
Trunks' face became gloomy suddenly, though only Yamcha had noticed it as he was looking right at the future traveler when the bitterness sprung forth.
"Gine-san went down with the virus. She's feeling terrible and Gohan wondered how much I knew about this. Apparently, Dende is there too." Bulma said.
"Dende? The little guy from Planet Namek that stayed behind to train to become Kami's successor and help him with the Dragon Balls?" Yamcha asked.
"That's right. It appears that neither Senzu nor Dende's healing magic work on curing the heart virus, just as Trunks said. Dende thinks that for that exact reason the Dragon Balls wouldn't work too, because they're tied to Dende's magical powers as he was their creator." Bulma pointed out. "It may very well be that Dr. Puri's deal is the only option for humanity to survive the heart virus."
"My mother in the future came to the same conclusion," Future Trunks finally spoke up after becoming visibly distraught at the mention of Gohan's name. "Do not feel bad about taking the deal. What matters is preventing Android 21 from taking control over the converted people. There's nothing wrong with the conversion itself."
Finally, feeling unable to postpone this conversation any further, Bulma pressed on the button and filled her screen with the image of Dr. Puri, this time in her lab coat, surrounded by her pair of associates in Lapis and Lazuli and a whole line of shadowy, dimly lit figures behind her. They weren't mere workers, bustling to finish up the revolutionary nanites that would save humanity, but instead, they were standing still and staring at the screen at an angle from which their own faces couldn't have been clearly made out.
"Sorry to reach out to you so soon, Bulma-san, but, I'm afraid, I will need your answer now. Humanity doesn't have the time to wait until you weigh this decision on your biased scales. It needs saving now." Dr. Puri declared, crossing her arms and leaning back in her large black leather chair.
And thus started the phone call to decide the future of humanity.