Countdown to Destiny! The Final Androids Awaken!
One Year Before Cell Attacks
Vegeta powered down from his Super Saiyan state easily and smirked confidently to himself. He had mastered the power. He was the power. As a Super Saiyan, thirty times the gravity of Planet Vegeta put as much pressure on his body as Earth's gravity. It was effortless and intoxicating, his raw strength and power, the destructive force he commanded with every breath. Now it was time to put it to the test.
"Ship," he declared, "Set a return course for Earth. I have a bug to squash." He began to strip down from his gi to take a bath and a nap before adding, "And play something particularly victorious."
"Very good, your majesty," the ship replied cheerily as it hummed and jumped into hyperspace. After a few seconds of searching, it found a song that it believed would be to Vegeta's liking.
"Heeeere we are! Born to be kings, we're the princes of the universe!" Vegeta sighed contently and settled down into hot water and bubbles that came up to his chin.
"Glorious."
Seven Months Before Cell Attacks
Gohan sighed as he looked down at his advanced calculus homework, the blank page sitting in front of him while he tapped his pencil ineffectually against his lips. While he'd always been a quick study and was able to adapt to and learn advanced concepts far faster than most people his age (or so his mother and Bulma had observed), even he had limits as to how much information he could process in a single afternoon. Especially with the sounds of sparring off in the distance. His mother was sparring with Krillin, he could tell, while his mom was sparring with both Trunks and Piccolo. Suddenly, though, one of the sparring sounds was missing.
"Hey, Gohan!" Goku exclaimed happily as she suddenly appeared in Gohan's window and causing him to fall out of his chair. "How's the homework coming?" Gohan pulled himself back into his chair and gave a half-hearted shrug.
"It's coming," he muttered unconvincingly.
"Need a break?" Goku asked while giving him a sympathetic smile. Gohan nodded but let out another exhausted sigh as he ran a hand through his red hair.
"I can't come out and spar, though," he pointed out. "Mother will notice." Goku grinned and passed Gohan a large bag through the window.
"I didn't say you needed to spar," Goku pointed out, "I said you needed a break!" Gohan looked into the bag and saw that it was nearly overflowing with superhero comics. Gohan grinned and set the bag down on his desk before throwing his arms around his mom's neck in a quick hug. "Thank you, mom!" he exclaimed happily. Goku grinned and gave him a quick hug back.
"Well, I gotta get back to training. You have fun!" Then she was instantly gone, leaving Gohan alone with his reading material. Gohan slid out of his chair and onto the floor, taking the bag with him. In a few minutes, he was lying on the rug and happily kicking his feet while flipping through the pages and reading aloud.
"Rider Kick!"
Six Months Before Cell Attacks
The Capsule Corp ship popped out of hyperspace and slowly descended down toward Earth with the autopilot function carrying it precisely back to the landing pad it had launched from. Dr. Brief looked out the window of his lab and rolled his eyes before tapping the call button on his scouter to talk to Bulma.
"Your boyfriend is back," he grumbled. "Although I'm shocked that my ship is still intact. He blows everything else up…"
"Thanks, daddy," Bulma replied cheerily from her lab before tapping her own scouter to end the conversation. She put down her tools and stepped away from the electromagnetic fusion reactor she'd working on and bent down to pick Trunks up out of the bouncy chair he'd been sitting in while she worked. "C'mon, little guy," she said with a slight huff of effort at the density and heft of the infant before placing him in the carrier on her chest. "Time to go meet your daddy." Trunks giggled happily and wiggled his tiny toes.
Bulma was waiting with her hands on her hips as the door to the ship opened and swung down into a ramp that Vegeta walked down. To her surprise, he was actually wearing the gi that her mom had made him and actually seemed to have washed it and tried to sew up some holes he'd put in it.
"So," she asked tensely as she looked down at him, "You a Super Saiyan now?" Vegeta grinned smugly and puffed out his chest.
"As a matter of fact–" Bulma reached back and swung as hard as she could, slapping Vegeta across the face. He touched the red imprint on his cheek with an expression that was impressed as it was indignantly furious.
"You could have at least waited for me to wake up, asshole," she muttered. Vegeta smirked and shrugged.
"Why," he asked, "Did you think you were special?" Bulma let out a fuming whistle of air through her nostrils as Vegeta turned his attention to their son. "Hello, Trunks," he said before noticing the black cat-ear hat on his head. "What in nine hells is he wearing?" he demanded.
"My mom bought it for him," Bulma explained. "He likes it!" Vegeta rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the ears, plucking the hat off Trunks' head. "No wait, don't!"
"He looks ridicu–" Vegeta started to say. But, at the exact moment that Trunks felt air tickle his scalp, he threw back his head and wailed with all his might. The cry shook the windows in the Capsule Corp building and made car alarms go off. The ground shook under their feet and trees were yanked up by their roots. Vegeta grabbed his ears painfully and groaned in agony before quickly placing the hat back on Trunks' head. The crying instantly ceased and Trunks smiled and giggled again, waving his fat baby arms and legs.
"Told you he likes it," Bulma declared proudly while Vegeta grumbled and groused and checked his ears for blood.
Two Months Before Cell Attacks
Piccolo grimaced and grit his teeth as he tried to sit in calm and contemplative meditation to focus and amplify his power. "Tried" being the operative word because he couldn't focus with the constant "swish-swish" of Trunks' baggy pants and the crinkling of grass under his boots with every step as the young man from the future paced around him.
"Will you just sit down?!" Piccolo snapped. "Why did you even come out here if you're not going to meditate with me?"
"I can't help it!" Trunks insisted irritably, although he at least stopped pacing. "I can literally count down the days until the thing that destroys the world and kills you all shows up! I've come back in time and told everyone that they're going to die and they're just… okay with it! They're all so sure they can win but all I can worry about is that I won't be strong enough!" Trunks sighed and sat down on the grass beside Piccolo with a "thump!" "Are they right? Am I just… worrying too much?"
"No," Piccolo told him bluntly. "You're right. They're optimistic idiots. Nothing is certain. Cell could still be strong enough to kill us and this could all have been for nothing. There's no guarantees that we'll win or that justice will prevail or any of that garbage." Trunks stared at him in wide-eyed horror and Piccolo shrugged. "I'm a reincarnated Demon King who tried to enslave mankind. Forgive me if I'm not the most reassuring motivational speaker. You want empty platitudes? Go find Goku." Trunks looked down at his feet and Piccolo sighed before pulling off his turban and scratching his head. "Look… if you're really so worried, the only thing to do is to keep training. Worrying is wasted energy. It exhausts you and eats away at your motivation and time. If you spend all your time fretting that you won't be good enough to succeed then, when the challenge comes, you will fail. Push yourself to your limit and overcome any barrier in your mind. Train until you can hold your enemies in the palm of your hands and grind them into dust!" Piccolo emphatically wringed his hand in the air to demonstrate and Trunks chuckled. "What," he asked.
"Nothing," Trunks promised, "It's just… well, I can kind of see why you and my dad became friends in my timeline." Now it was Piccolo's turn to stare in wide-eyed horror.
"That's it," Piccolo declared as he shoved himself to his feet. "Back to sparring. We are going to kill Cell because I am never, ever going to let that happen." Trunks laughed aloud as he stood up, "Makankousappou!" And then immediately had to dodge.
OoOoOoO
The feeling of cool sand against his back and the sound of crashing waves brought Gohan back to the waking world. He sat up painfully and started to sit up before immediately sitting back down because moving made him feel lightheaded. He looked around at the beach around him with dazed bewilderment. As his head cleared, his memories returned. He'd been sparring with his mom in the backyard and then she'd… hit him… with a Kamehameha. Gohan looked at the trench he was buried in and put the pieces together.
"Oh," Gohan muttered in understanding. "Oh jeez." It was about fifteen miles from their home to the coast. You never realized how far their beams went when they were usually being fired over the horizon or off into space.
"Gohan!" Goku cried as she suddenly appeared next to Gohan and nearly startled him out of his socks. Nearly three years later and Instant Transmission was still taking some getting used to. "Are you okay?" she continued as she dropped into a crouch at his side. "You got your block up in time, right? You're not hurt too bad, are you?"
"I'm fine, mom," Gohan assured Goku as he groaned and slowly got to his feet, ignoring the hand Goku put out to help him up. He hadn't meant to be rude but he didn't like being babied, either. He could take care of himself. "I'm just… sorry I'm disappointing you," he added sadly as he looked down at his shoes.
"Disappointing me?" Goku asked in a tone of hurt confusion. "What're you talking about? You're doing great! You've improved so much. I'm proud of you, Gohan!"
"But I'm not a Super Saiyan!" Gohan pointed out in self-irritation. "That's what this has all been about, right? Almost three years of training and I still can't do it! I let you down." Goku pulled Gohan to her and hugged him close while patting his back gently.
"Hey, hey," she whispered reassuringly, "It's okay. I spent my whole life getting to the point where I'd become strong enough to be a Super Saiyan. I didn't even know what a Super Saiyan was until about four years ago! Besides, you're how old?"
"Nine," Gohan reminded her as he slipped out of her hug.
"Yeah, nine," Goku repeated with an encouraging grin. "When I was your age, I hadn't even met Bulma yet! You're literally thousands of times stronger than I was when I was your age! I'm sure it won't be long til you're even stronger than me now!" Gohan's eyes went wide and his eyes went starry just like hers.
"You really think I could?" he asked.
"Of course I do," Goku told him. "I think you can do anything, Gohan! Let's get back to training!" They both got into their guards but dropped immediately out of them once they heard their gurgling stomachs. "But… maybe after lunch!"
Two Weeks Until Cell Attacks
The day had finally come. Mankind looked into the sky one day with horrified eyes as the heavens above filled with thousands of starships that loomed menacingly overhead. The first strike was swift and brutal as they attacked the Royal Palace, blasting it off the face of the Earth like they had done to East City.
But before the space-faring green and tailed savages could begin the slaughter in earnest, they were beset upon by the Cyborg Red Ribbon Army, mankind's invincible protectors. And their greatest champion? Cell, The Ultimate Being!
"Your terror ends now, aliens," Cell cried triumphantly while throwing one of the warships into another warship in a glorious red-orange blossom of flame. "Because you underestimated the ingenuity and power of the human race!"
"Doctor Gero," a heavily-synthesized voice said suddenly that cut through Archimedes Gero's dream and brought him back to the waking world, "It is time to wake. Are you ready?" Gero opened his eyes with a blink and stirred in his sleeping pod.
Or rather, Archimedes Gero's brain sent a signal to his android body, which opened its eyes and began to move inside its chamber. All that remained of Archimedes Gero's mortal body was his magnificent brain, kept alive in a chemical bath inside a bubble of a nearly indestructible polymer of Gero's own design. Gero realized some time ago that, due to the unsafe conditions of his construction due to lack of funding, his experiments would kill him. Not wanting to die before he felt Son Goku's life drain away in his hands, Gero began to construct a mechanical body that was a replica of his own organic flesh. Torches dimmed his eyesight; acids corroded his flesh; poor hygiene matted his hair and made his teeth fall out; the radiation poisoned his blood and his bones; his own weaknesses and vices corrupted his lungs and his his liver. In time, only his mind remained untouched.
"To me, 19," Gero's brain thought the words and they came from the mouth of the robot as it climbed out of its charging pod. The alabaster automaton walked to Gero's brain and handled the dome with the delicacy of an expert surgeon, carrying it with smooth and graceful movements across the room before placing the bubble into the concave indent in Gero's skull. The mechanical manservant had helped in the surgery that had moved Gero's brain into the sphere that maintained his mind and consciousness.
"How do you feel, Doctor?" 19 asked. The robot was robust and rotund, with white skin, bright blue eyes, and golden hoop earrings. He was dressed in a pair of striped and plumed orange pants, white shoes with black tips, a black shirt with a yellow vest tied shut with a red string over a black shirt with puffed shoulders and yellow sleeves, a purple cummerbund, and a pointed yellow hat with the Red Ribbon insignia. Perhaps not the most intimidating of warriors but Gero had based his design off of a child's toy. He had found the toy on the outskirts of the ashes of East City when he'd entered the ruins to gather data and felt... inspired.
"I feel…" Gero began to say as his voice calibrated under mental command back to a more natural sound, "Alive." He flexed his fingers, bent his knees, and rotated his shoulders. He stretched his neck from side to side and was pleasantly surprised that it actually cracked. Gero pressed two fingers to his throat and felt a pulse. His eyes made no noise when he blinked and his chest even rose and fell to simulate the psychosomatic movements of breathing even if he no longer needed to. He inspected his naked form and ran his fingers through his long white hair before stroking his luxuriant mustache. "19," he ordered with a snap of his fingers, "My clothes."
As the android fetched his outfit, Gero reflected that a more vain man might have rebuilt a body in the image of his youth so that he might be forever young but, as Gero inspected the ruby quartz absorption gems embedded in his palms, he also looked attentively at every wrinkle, noting that they were exactly as he'd remembered them. Because Gero was not fighting for the perfect, for the young and the beautiful. Archimedes Gero was fighting for all mankind and had designed his androids to reflect that. The big and the small, the strong and the round, the young and the old, the sharp and the dull. His androids were the champions of Earth and every being that lived on it.
"Hrm," Gero muttered as his cyborg implants connected his brain to the various world media outlets, "So the King is a Dragon." Gero wasn't sure if that was better or worse than a dog. "And they've built a 'new' East City." A slap in the face to the threat of the alien menace. Archimedes grabbed a titanium wrench between his hands and bent it as effortlessly as if it were made of marshmallow fluff. "Excellent."
"Doctor," 19 announced, "I have returned." He held out a stack of clothes and Gero smiled and nodded appreciatively as he took the stack from his servant's hands. Gero dressed himself in a pair of black dress pants, white and black dress loafers, a white dress shirt, a black waistcoat with a golden chain in the pocket, black sleeve garters and a red bowtie. Finally, with a flourish, he put on his black stovepipe hat with the Red Ribbon logo embroidered on the brim. "Are you ready to proceed, doctor?" 19 asked. Gero rummaged through the personal effects he had left behind before permanently abandoning his physical body and slid his simple, golden wedding band onto his finger.
"Yes," Archimedes declared resolutely as he he balled his fists, "I am." 19 nodded and the pair made their way out through the cave's hidden entrance before taking off into the sky. Bitterly, Gero reflected on how much his war against the Enemy had taken from him. He could not even enjoy the freedom of true flight. 'It does not matter,' he thought to himself. 'At last, vengeance shall be mine!' The weak-minded fools considered the alien Goku some kind of "hero". The price of being bait would be the penance for their blind worship.
OoOoOoO
Suno was watching TV on the living room couch with the faint sounds Goku and the boys training in the distance while she sipped her rosehip and hibiscus tea. One of her favorite movies had just started playing on TV.
"When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious sh–" But the wild-haired and lovably eccentric scientist was suddenly interrupted by the bespectacled face of Mann Blitzer, one of the most recognizable faces in news media.
"A breaking news development out of the southern hemisphere," Mann announced as a quarter of the screen was taken up by another screen that showed footage of a city under some kind of attack, with people screaming and cars exploding in the background, "A terrorist attack has been launched on Amenbo Island, just south of the Southern Continent. The source of the attack is unclear although eyewitnesses have reported seeing two flying men bearing the insignia of the Red Ribbon Army." Those three words made Suno's eyelid twitch and she shattered the mug in a fist, unphased by the piping hot water running all over her hand. She got up quickly from the couch and marched resolutely to the sliding glass door, flinging it open and tilting her head up toward the sky.
"Goku," Suno called out as she cupped her hands around her mouth, "Me and Krillin are gonna go beat up a couple more androids in the south!"
"Okay," Goku called back down, "Make sure to power up a lot if you're in trouble so we can come help!"
"Sure thing, babe!" Then Suno shut the door and picked up her cell phone. Krillin answered quickly. "Hey, Krillin. You see the news?"
"Yeah," Krillin replied, "I was just about to call you."
"Cool. Meet ya there?"
"Meet ya there." Suno hung up and dropped her phone before flying out the front door. The Red Ribbon Army had taken her father from her. They had terrorized her home. They'd killed so many people all across the world. She wasn't going to let them come back and hurt one more person. Not as long as she was breathing.
OoOoOoO
As Gero incinerated another skyscraper with his heat vision, he supposed that at some point he'd tire of killing things with his eyes. Probably not for some time, though. While he blasted a group of fleeing civilians to slag, 19 plunged a fist down under the pavement and destroyed a transformer, wiping out power in half the city. A stupid man would wonder why someone who wanted to save mankind would kill so many. A painful necessity, the same reason that his ultimate creation had the capability of consuming life force. The world could not support a continually-booming population. There would need to be a culling.
In the middle of their mayhem, a red-and-blue streak smashed into the pavement behind them. Archimedes and 19 slowly turned around to see a redheaded woman with her hair tied back with a blue ribbon and wearing an ice-blue martial artists gi glared up at them from the crater she'd made with all the hatred in the world burning from her eyes.
"Ah," Archimedes observed calmly, "Son Suno. The one literally in bed with the enemy." Her glare grew, if that was possible, more hateful as she climbed out of the crater and a short, bald man in a black and orange gi floated down beside her and matched her stride after she exited the crater and the pair began walking purposefully toward them. "And the 'Bald Tiger'," Archimedes added with his arms clasped behind his back, "Excellent. Those closest to Son Goku. You will have the information I require so that I may hunt down Son Goku and exterminate her for the good of the human–"
And then Suno let out a bloodcurdling scream and launched herself at Gero, nailing him square in the chest with the damnedest flying kick in recorded history. Krillin and 19 stared at them both in open-mouthed shock before flying after them awkwardly and quickly as they could. The kick carried both of them off of the island and across the width of the Southern Continent before flipping forward and punching him down into the ground on the central continent. She continued to scream as she rained down jackhammer punches that tore a trench through the ground that was hundreds of meters wide.
"I! Won't! Let! You! Hurt! Anyone! Ever! Again!" Suno grabbed Archimedes by his hair and swung him around as hard as she could before launching him into the air. "Kaaameeehaaameehaaa!" She thrust her hands forward and the blast roared from her palms to blast the doctor head-on. Suno smirked but the smirk faded almost immediately as the light faded and she saw Gero holding one hand out, a glowing red light shining in his palm.
"Hmm," he mused as he began dusting himself off and straightened his hat. "I suppose I should thank you for providing a litmus test for the duress my energy absorption technology can maintain under. Not even a flicker of difficulty in this body's batteries." 19 flew into the airspace between Gero and Suno in a defensive stance and Gero gave a disappointed sigh. "Thank you for moving to defend me, 19, belated though it might be."
"I am pleased to serve, Doctor," 19 replied with as close to genuine emotion as he could supply. Gero sighed and waved for 19 to engage as Krillin flew down and landed beside Suno.
"Man," Krillin muttered, "For such a big guy, he's a lot more aerodynamic than you'd think."
"I regret the eventuality of killing you," 19 told them earnestly, "But your association with the extraterrestrial threats makes you traitors to your planet. My directive declares that traitors must be exterminated."
"Well," Suno remarked sarcastically, "He's polite." 19 reminded her of Eighter, in a very, very limited sense. "Watch out for anything red on his hands and be careful about throwing ki at him. Looks like they can absorb energy." Krillin nodded and the pair charged to meet 19 as he barrelled toward them with a good-natured smile plastered across his face. It was a tricky thing fighting the android because of the gems on his palms. 19 was constantly grabbing, constantly reaching to try and grab them and suck the energy out of their bodies. They couldn't get too close or put too much force behind their kicks or punches because they had to pull back nearly as soon as they made impact.
"Hey," Krillin muttered as they pulled back and jumped to avoid one of 19's own non-ki energy blasts, "This guy's only got two hands, right?"
"Yeah," Suno agreed with a slightly confused expression, "Why?" Krillin smirked and flew high into the air.
"Get a load of this," he called as he thrust out his hands. A yellow ki bolt flew out of Krillin's hands down toward 19. Suno wondered what the hell he was doing. The blast was moving so slowly that 19 would be able to catch it. In fact, he was flying straight for it. "Kakusandan!" Krillin cried. The blast suddenly swerved upwards to avoid 19 before bursting apart into a dozen different ki blasts, all striking 19 at different angles. He might have caught one or two but the rest battered him around and kept him off-balance, doing the first real damage they'd managed to hit him with.
"Huh," Suno murmured with dawning realization, "I get it!" She brought her palms down to her sides with a smirk. Good thing she'd developed this particular technique, she supposed. "Kamehame…" Then she squeezed the blue-white ball down into her fist and flung it at 19 like a baseball. "Senbonhari!" A thousand needles of blue-white light flew from Suno's outstretched fingers and sliced through 19 like razor blades. Two of them sliced off 19's arms at the elbows and his hands fell to the ground, now useless. "Let's finish him off!" Suno declared.
"19," Gero called dryly, "Initiate Destruct Sequence!" 19 aimed the point of his hat at Suno and Krillin and flew at them like a rocket.
"Well," Suno remarked as she and Krillin stood side-by-side and moved in synch, "Wouldn't be the first time I had to blow up a nuke with a Kamehameha. At least this time I've got a friend."
"Kamehameha!" they cried as they thrust their hands out, curving the blast slightly to push 19 up and into the air so that he erupted in the sky like the world's largest firework.
"A pity," Gero sighed. "He was the most useful of my assets. No outlandish personality, no insubordination. He did what he was told. Although I suppose you'll do just as well." He cracked his knuckles and got into a boxer's stance as if it were the only fighting stance he'd ever seen. "For instance, I am telling you to die." He flew at them and they flew down at him. They had the same issues against Gero that they'd had against 19, only because of Suno's Kamehameha, Gero was stronger than them. They had to fight even more defensively and Gero came dangerously close to grabbing one of them. Just feeling Gero's hand reaching for his arm made Krillin's skin crawl and he could feel the energy draining from his body.
'Not good,' Krillin thought as drove both feet up under Gero's chin and pushed away as quickly as he could. 'We definitely need a plan. If this guy absorbs energy, maybe he burns through it. If we can get him to drain his battery–'
"I learned from the mistakes of my earlier models," Gero explained as if he were reading Krillin's mind. "Even if I never touch you, it will take ten thousand years for this body's batteries to burn up their reserves of energy." So much for that. "You cannot defeat me," he declared boldly. "My supreme mind has bested your treacherous strength!"
"Yeah," Suno asked as she jerked a thumb up at the sky, "Well what about them?" Gero looked up into the sky as Tenshinhan, Yamcha, Launch, Chi-Chi, and Chaozu came flying toward their position. "I was raising my power level all throughout the fight," Suno explained, "And I'd bet that Goku's bringing the rest any time now! So how about we just skip to the part where you give up?" Gero stared up at them, blood traitors and filth breeds all. They would be on him in seconds.
"Yes," Gero muttered with dripping sarcasm, "It seems you have bested me and my evil ways with your friendship and teamwork." He slowly raised his hands over his head as if in surrender. "Congratulations, good has won the day a-HA!" he turned his palms toward each other and pressed the jewels together, the feedback loop causing an overload that made a blindingly bright red explosion. Gero turned while they were distracted and rocketed away as fast as he could, low to the ground so as not to be seen. His hat flew away but he ignored it. His hand nervously went to rub at the band around his finger but discovered that the feedback had caused it to melt into its constituent particles. He felt a bilious rage boil up at the back of his throat at the discovery. Just one more thing that the aliens and their sympathizers had taken from him. There was no choice in the matter. His back was up against the wall. Cell was not yet ready, all his other forces had been destroyed. He would have to awaken… them.