"What happened?" Chayote wondered, following the example of Xeno Trunks and powering down to her base state. Her body shrunk and slimmed down so much that the rags she had on hung even looser and threatened to slip off and scatter away even more than when she was swollen up. This prompted the Supreme Kai of Time to wave her hand and surround Chayote in lemon-colored light. Chayote wore a plainer version of the Supreme Kai's outfit when the light vanished. "Is Cell gone?" Chayote followed up after briefly admiring her new fit and deeming it acceptable for the time being.
"That's right," Xeno Trunks nodded. The solemn look on his face softened and filled with kindness and relief after he at last managed to correct the mistake that still haunted him from so long ago. Not too long ago, Trunks would have never believed that he could one day meet Chayote or challenge Cell Max again. And yet now here he was, having accomplished both those things.
The lemon-colored shroud of light enveloped the Supreme Kai of Time at the same time as Demon King Dabura, vanished back into the card atop Xeno Trunks' deck, which the Time Patroller kept in his pouch. The timekeeper emerged from the shroud in her shorter and stubbier base state, having reverted from her enlightened Awakening, filling her to the brim with Time Power.
"Trunks sealed Cell Max inside the Crack of Time for all eternity," the Supreme Kai of Time pointed out, brimming with glee for someone who just described an incredibly grim fate. "It's safe to say that this paradoxical version of Cell will never bother anyone ever again."
"The Crack of Time?" Chayote shook her head. This was a surprisingly headache-inducing day for what was meant to be just brawling it out with Cell and its infernal spawn for the entire time.
"It's a separate dimension that exists entirely outside of time-space, separate from all other timelines, but is intrinsically connected with all timelines," the Supreme Kai of Time pointed out, looking proud of herself and having the chance to elucidate someone new to this entire Time Patrol business.
"I assume that's bad news for Cell?" Chayote winced her right eye, hoping.
"The absolute worst," Xeno Trunks interfered, frustrating the Supreme Kai of Time, who turned toward her trusted Time Patrol hero with blown-out cheeks and stomped her leg with deep-seated scorn. "In order to seal someone in the Crack of Time, the forces of Light, Darkness, and Time need to work in unison, wielded by someone with God Ki, or an actual divine entity. It is considered the most severe, greatest punishment the Time Patrol can mete out and we've only used it once before."
Interrupting the conversation between the Time Patrollers and Chayote was the King of Everything, who descended from observing the climatic battle from up above, still accompanied by its bodyguards, who hovered by little Zeno's side with sullen looks on their faces. Out of everything that existed in the entire multiverse, only Zeno himself made these two react or display any emotion whatsoever.
"So, the battle's over, huh?" Zeno asked, sounding mellow and somewhat disappointed. "Too bad, it was sparkle-sparkle shiny and bang-boom loud!"
"I'm sorry, Zeno-sama, but I couldn't prolong the battle for your entertainment any longer. I had to settle it," Xeno Trunks respectfully bowed.
"I see…" Zeno blinked slowly, accepting Trunks' answer. "In that case, I'll still destroy this ugly universe!"
"W-Wait, what!? What did we have that massive battle for, you little sh…" Chayote freaked out, but Xeno Trunks calmed her down by raising his hand before her, halting Chayote from arguing against the King of Everything's decision.
"An excellent decision, Zeno-sama," Xeno Trunks bowed. "This pocket of time exists as a vile paradox and is nothing but a zombie depiction of another timeline. You may freely eliminate it from existence before it grows too unruly."
Xeno Trunks turned to the Supreme Kai of Time and nodded at her calmly. Tokitoki flapped its wide wings, perching atop the Supreme Kai's head as the petite Kai observed Zeno rising higher and spreading its stubby arms to the sides, emitting a pulse of destruction energy from the palms of his childish hands.
"Disappear forever, ugly universe!" Zeno chanted out, slowly beginning to undo not just this universe as it existed at this moment in time, but all traces of this same universe across all of time. From the moment of the creation of this paradox in which Future Trunks and Cell Max existed, to the current moment, destroying the universe an incalculable number of times over.
"Kai-Kai!" the Supreme Kai of Time exclaimed, surrounding herself, Xeno Trunks, and Chayote with a protective bubble that once again allowed the two Saiyans to breathe properly without needing to rely on powerful transformations to sustain their life or hold their breaths. Before the destructive wave could reach and delete the Time Patrollers and Chayote, the Supreme Kai of Time whisked them away somewhere else, leaving the King of Everything to do the dirty but necessary deed.
"Whoa, that's not my home!" Chayote gasped in awe after snapping out of her bedazzlement and realizing she was standing in the middle of a gigantic bird cage, around which actual planets drifted like moons and which seemed to be located inside an immeasurably vast green dimension, similar to the Room of Spirit and Time. Despite being essentially a humongous birdcage for Tokitoki, this area looked more like a garden or a park, having its own lake and a massive tree growing straight through a temple.
"It's not, I figured I owed you a little break and an explanation as well as an apology and a chance to make things right for Trunks after whisking him away into servitude and not letting him settle things with Cell sooner," the Supreme Kai of Time winked with a starlit glint in her cheerful eye. "This is the Time Nest. It's where Tokitoki lives and where I take care of it. That temple over there is the Time Nest. It's an unfathomable library that contains the historical records of an infinite number of timelines. It's how the Time Patrollers maintain order all across space-time!"
"Hmm…" Chayote pressed her hands to her hips, bending her head to the right as she scanned the Time Nest with the skeptical eye of an art critic. "You know, for a place that contains all of historical records, this place is kind of small. I mean, it's smaller than the headquarters of Chayote Security and we still have many buildings in all the different towns around the world."
"Ah, but that's because it's magically enhanced to appear like an ordinary temple!" the Supreme Kai of Time pointed out with a smug expression, expecting Chayote to lose her composure and begin singing the Time Patrol's praises.
"Why would you use magic to make something look smaller and more compact?" Chayote squinted with a tense twitch to her right eye. "Magically de-hanced is more like it. Huge things are way cooler…"
"Shows what you know!" the Supreme Kai of Time turned her nose up, crossing her arms and turning away from Chayote in disdain. "As a mortal, you've no sense of scale or appreciation for divine records-keeping. Talk to me when you've worked as a timekeeper for over 75 million years…"
"Whoa! You're a total hag!" Chayote shrieked out in disbelief. "I'd have never guessed, you look like a complete brat!"
"Ch-Chayote…" Xeno Trunks stepped in with a look of bewilderment and second-hand embarrassment.
"Hmmm…" the Supreme Kai of Time appeared like she was about to punt Chayote through a few of those remote, drifting planets, but, because she still held Tokitoki perched on her head, she managed to resist the temptation. "Trunks, are you going to go ahead with saying your farewells already? Chayote doesn't belong here. We need to send her back to her own time and, when we do, it won't be soon enough…"
"Wait, say your farewells?" Chayote turned to Xeno Trunks, who became gloomy and distant with his expression. "What's this shit now!? I came to that paradoxical future to pull your deadbeat ass out and drag you back to your family! I don't care if you're Super Saiyan 10, Super Saiyan Super-Ultra God, or whatever… If you resist, I'll break all bones in your body and drag you back if I have to! I've already destroyed a Room of Spirit of Time back home, so ripping this dimension apart will mean nothing to me if it means bringing you back home."
"That… Can't work, Chayote. Don't get me wrong, you deserve all the answers for what Cell put you through and for losing me and having to take care of Navy on your own, but… I'm no longer the Trunks you knew. I don't belong on any singular timeline longer than it takes to maintain order in it. I'm Time Patroller forever now, Chayote," Xeno Trunks replied, looking like admitting this crushed him inside enough.
"Cut this crap out, Trunks!" Chayote cried out, despite her intentions to intimidate the Time Patroller or the deity pulling his strings, her voice broke and came out more sad than furious. "I'm busting you outta here and bringing you home, Navy needs a dad, and… I… I need you!"
Hearing Chayote's passionate plea appeared to hurt the Supreme Kai of Time herself. The look in the petite goddess' eyes became gloomy and her eyes became moist. Her chest deflated like she was about to collapse. Chayote didn't care if it hurt her, after all, it was because of this Supreme Kai of Time keeping Trunks as her employee or whatever that he was even doing all this. If only Chayote beat her up and knocked her flat… Maybe… Trunks could still come home.
"HAAAAAH!" Chayote cried out, surrounding herself with a passionate golden aura and bulking up enough to rip through the sleeves of her Supreme Kai robe in places, making her hair stand up and turn spiky and gold as her tears sprinkled up, defying gravity from the surge of her rising energy.
"Stop, Chayote!" Trunks scolded his once-lover, stepping in between the hysterical Saiyan and the deity who earned her ire. "If it weren't for the Supreme Kai of Time, I'd have been deleted by the King of Everything when Cell trapped me in the future and killed the future version of you. It's because I had no further purpose to serve in the timeline that the Supreme Kai of Time pulled me out of harm's way and gave me a new purpose. For my transgressions against time, she offered me a chance to fix it and maintain order."
"B-But…" Chayote's golden aura snuffed out, de-powering back to her base state. "This isn't fair! Cell attacked you and robbed you away from me! It's not your fault, it's not my fault, and it's not Navy's fault either! It's not right that you have to do any of this and that you can't come back to us!"
"You're right," the Supreme Kai of Time replied, stepping out from Xeno Trunks' protection and confronting the fit-throwing Legendary Super Saiyan. "Nothing about Trunks' situation is fair. Though to be frank, neither is your love or your son. Technically, mortals shouldn't be time-traveling. The existence of your son is a terrifying prospect that I will overlook because of the grievous injustice done to your family and because of all the good that Trunks did as a Time Patroller. However, Trunks absolutely cannot go back from being a Time Patroller. Part of becoming a Time Patroller means embodying all different versions of yourself from across different timelines. That means that by becoming Xeno Trunks, Trunks cannot return to any timeline without becoming a paradox himself."
"RAAAAAGH!" Chayote broke into an inhuman scream, exploding with a violent black and green pillar of energy that resonated throughout the whole Time Nest, however, because of the ancient magical modifications to the dimension and its temples and gardens, Chayote's resounding energy failed to reach or harm anything inside the infinitely vast dimension. It was as if every object inside the Time Nest was surrounded by its own personal field of a Zeno's paradox.
Xeno Trunks and the Supreme Kai of Time observed Chayote's meltdown with somber looks, letting the distraught Saiyan woman vent her frustrations until she burned herself out and collapsed. Trunks rushed in and caught Chayote, preventing her from falling down.
"Please understand that Trunks cannot return to your timeline without ruining it and undoing it. Perhaps you could become a Time Patroller, but Navy, a terrifying gray area in laws governing time-space, absolutely cannot. That would expose him to other gods who would undoubtedly wish to destroy him just for what he is and the circumstances of his conception. I don't think I even need to ask if you would agree to do any of this without him," the Supreme Kai of Time explained.
"No… I wouldn't leave Navy again," Chayote answered, although after contemplating challenging those wannabe mortal law-enforcing deities who would wish to harm her son. The truth was that Chayote had been fighting for too long. Her insistence on being Planet Earth's perfect little soldier has hindered Chayote's role as a proper mother to Navy and impeded her being there for most of her son's greatest moments of his, so far, brief life. Getting into a cosmic quarrel against a pantheon of gods was the last thing in terms of being what was best for her family.
She had to let Trunks go. That grim realization hit Chayote in the chest harder than any punch Cell had thrown, forcing her to break into tears in Trunks' chest.
"It's okay," Xeno Trunks smiled, tightening his hold on Chayote and fending off a shake in his voice. "I'm just glad to know that you and Navy are doing well. I've made plenty of things worse in my life, ever since I've taken that time machine to your time, but you and Navy are two of the best things that have ever happened to me. You're the thing I would never change and would make every mistake I've ever made again a thousand times, just so I could fall in love with you and my son. I wish I had more time, but I'll have to cheer for you from here. My only hope is that you can still find happiness knowing that I'm watching out for you two somewhere…"
"I'm the one who's glad," Chayote finally got a hold of herself, sniffing a few times before pulling her head back and glaring back into Trunks' lone human eye through the blur of her tears. "Glad finally to know you're not dead or trapped or… I'm sure Navy will do just fine, knowing his dad is a super time cop. You're not the only one who's made mistakes. I've been so immersed in my dream of being a soldier and fighting for my home that I've forgotten I'm a mother too now. There are plenty of kids, Navy included, who can and are eager to pick up the slack now, so it'll be okay… As long as we deal with this Cell situation in the past as well… I'm guessing whatever the blue-skinned shrimp did in the future won't stick to the chrome-horn back home?"
"That is highly unlikely," the Supreme Kai of Time pinched her cheek with a serious look. "Cell Max was a paradox version created through time manipulation via time travel and the illegal usage of a Time Ring. Even if it was the past version of Meta-Cell, Meta-Cell's Time Ring alloy coating would prevent causal effects from different times affecting it in the present."
"Figures…" Chayote sighed and, feeling Xeno Trunks' loosening grip, stepped back. "I guess that's enough weeping. Both of us have to get back to work, huh? Are you gonna wipe my memory?"
"Against my better judgment, I'll take a risk on you," the Supreme Kai of Time crossed her hands and closed her eyes, not looking too happy about this decision before gulping it down and smiling at Chayote with an enthusiastic thumb-up gesture. "After all, it would be awful to wipe your memory after such a touching and romantic scene! Consider it a divine gift to you for your service to the Time Patrol. Are you ready to go, Chayote?"
"Pretty much…" Chayote nodded, not sounding too certain of it at first. Then again, it wasn't like there was ever going to be a good time to leave the love of her life. "Is there any hope of me ever seeing you again?" she looked at Xeno Trunks.
"The interesting thing about Time Patrol and existing outside the confines of any timeline is that our history is never pre-written. We're constantly writing it. I'd guess that the odds aren't too likely, but before today I'd have never hoped to meet you at all. I guess we'll just have to see…" Xeno Trunks shrugged with a content smile on his face. "Since I haven't given you anything for your help yet, let me give you a piece of advice for the road… Don't be embarrassed of yourself. If you ever feel angry, rage on. If you ever feel like raging–cut loose. Never be embarrassed about who you are or stand up for yourself. You're the woman I fell in love with and you're amazing!"
"Trunks!" the Supreme Kai of Time stepped up on her toes and gave her subordinate an angry glare with pouted lips. "No spoilers!"
"Don't get so worked up, Supreme Kai of Time-san," Xeno Trunks looked back at his boss with a truly radiant look, the very first time she'd ever seen him like that. "After all, Chayote already knows what to do, the timeline's already written, isn't it?"
"Still!" the Supreme Kai of Time stomped her foot down while Xeno Trunks lifted his middle and index finger as a farewell salute. With a bittersweet smile, Chayote waved him farewell as a sky-bound beam of light lifted her up and ethereal white constructs of clockwork and gears surrounded Chayote before sending her away and back to her own time.
Cell was nowhere to be seen when Chayote returned. That was odd because Chayote had figured Cell would be all over the place, trying to keep her pinned down after she returned. His fight with Goku must have really taken a toll and forced even the transcendental genetic powerhouse to focus on a single location and a single opponent. Chayote looked around, seeing conveyors with incomplete Meta-Cell bodies rolling around.
Unlike Meta-Cooler, Meta-Cell was too arrogant to place its true consciousness into multiple bodies or to clone it. It was too worried that one of its clones would get its hopes up about being the real deal, more deserving of freedom and dominance than Meta-Cell prime. It was then that Trunks' last words to her reached Chayote, and she flicked her forehead. Chayote clenched her fist and surrounded herself with a jade explosive energy wave.
In a blink, it expanded to cover the entire merged Four-Star, overloading its shielding systems and disassembling the unheard-of marvel of engineering and cybernetics one sheet of titanium at a time. Chayote's swelling energy bloated the Four-Star like a balloon with an unwanted visitor inside before the station's walls cracked and spilled the jade radiance out into space, bursting into an emerald supernova that extinguished all activity in Dr. Lychee's, then Dr. Puri's, and then Meta-Cell's Four-Star.
Laughing it up at the marvelous fireworks and cosmic cinders that reached the outermost depths of the star system the station was based in, Chayote, in her Legendary Super Saiyan state, looked around, whiffing the universe for a trace of a familiar Ki signature she could trace. She's severed Meta-Cell's connection to the Four-Star, its nigh-omniscience, and the ability to craft additional Meta-Cell bodies or transport using the Quantal Matter Beam.
Unless Chayote made her cosmic return in time, everything else was now in Goku's hands. Trunks' words filled Chayote with previously unheard-of confidence. Her battle at the end of time made her feel almighty and invincible. No matter the enemy, as long as it got its ugly mug in Chayote's way if it threatened her family or her home planet, that head would get smashed to bits under her boot.
"Kakarot, you better save the day, or I'll come and wreck it for that bastard!" Chayote snickered, letting her consciousness flirt with a little bit of berserk madness, confident that the way she was now she could pull it back in time if need be. Like a muscular salad-green asteroid, Chayote launched herself into a mad dash toward the location of Gohan's Ki signature, which was the largest and the most prominent one of what Chayote could pick up at the time.
Cell Max was dead, now it was Meta-Cell's turn!