“Alright, which group goes in first?” Asks Mr. Popo, looking at the four Saiyans.
Kakarot half turns to glance back at Trunks and Vegeta saying , “Hey you two go ahead on in.”
“Good,” nods the rotund little man, then he turns to lead the way to the Chamber. “Follow me please, right through here.” Mr. Popo stops before a closed doorway, with an inset clock face on it. He opens the huge wooden door, with a polite little bow.
Smiling gently at them, he explains, “Once you cross the Chamber’s threshold you can only spend a year inside the room.”
Mr. Popo’s face turns serious. “Do not try to remain any longer than that or you will be lost forever and dissipate into nothingness.”
Then he smiles once more, “When you do emerge only a short period of time will have passed out here, a single day if you use all of your time allotment. The two hourglasses inside measure the time. The one to the left will mark your days inside the chamber, the one on the right marks the time outside. So the right one will seem to flow very slowly. Good luck.”
Trunks moves forward, saying “Thank you, Goku.” As he passes Kakarot.
“Good luck Trunks, take care of Vegeta okay.” Responds the other Saiyan.
Vegeta glares at his rival and “Humphs” as he strides past him. Kakarot just chuckles good naturedly, and to Vegeta’s disgust, it had sounded almost affectionate! As the door closes behind them, Vegeta hears Gohan say, “I hope those two get along.”
They are alone in the virtually silent chamber. The only sound is their own breathing and the soft susurration of the sand moving inside the hourglasses.
“What’s so special about this place?” Asks the puzzled Prince.
As he crossed the threshold, the environmental changes inside the chamber remind Vegeta of the gravity room at Capsule Corp.
Unthinking, Trunks replies to Vegeta’s rhetorical question, “It’s hot, there’s less air and the gravity’s different.”
Vegeta hmms in response as he inspects his surroundings for any traps and measuring it for defensive possibilities. A hold over of his wary warrior habits, so deeply i ngrained that he doesn’t even realize that he still does it.
The Prince gauges the changes in the environment from that of the other side of the doorway. The ambient pull of gravity is far stronger inside here than it had been out there. And because of the physics of the gravity increase, the heat and air pressure have increased exponentially, but he can sense nothing else of any perceivable difference.
He and Trunks are the only living things inside this place.
The lavender haired youth proceeds to the edge of the building and stares about in consternation as Vegeta watches him silently.
The boy is fighting his inner trepidations admirably, like a true Saiyan Prince.
Trunks gasps in awe. “What? I don’t believe it!”
Vegeta follows him and glances about, assessing the rest of his new surroundings. The space is vast, a seemingly endless expanse of nothingness.
The Saiyan Prince extends his sensing abilities as far as he can, but there are only the two of them, there is no other life in here, not even a microbe.
It’s completely sterile, devoid of any life but their own. Even though it seems as if there’s a distance, almost at the edge of hearing, muttering echo of voices. A trick of sound or the space itself. It could even be just the magnification and rebound of their own words echoing and coming back to them from the emptiness.
He can see the boy is stressed by the strange environment and distressed by the apparent limitless size of the oppressive whiteness, as is Vegeta, himself.
But the stoic Saiyan Prince refuses to show any outward signs of his own disquiet.
Other than it’s size and strangeness of the environment, it seems similar to other training areas he has used.
“There’s nothing here!” Says Trunks in awe. “We’re surrounded by total emptiness, it’s like floating in a gigantic void! What kind of place is this?”
The enormity of the place bears down on them both. They can hear the sand hissing softly in the flanking hourglasses, as it rises in the left one and falls in the right, it is the only other real sound besides that of their own breathing and heartbeats.
“Too much for you?” Asks Vegeta sarcastically, breaking the oppressive silence once more.
“Of course not!” Replies the youth almost too quickly. “But now I know why few can stand a whole year in this place. I-it‘s overwhelming.”
“It is, isn’t it!” Vegeta can sense the boy’s trepidation, but is pleased by his display of stubborn courage. He is definitely his son as well as his mother’s.
Vegeta strides past the youth, growling, “Just remember to stay out of my way, boy!”
As he steps off the platform, the sudden gravity increase hits, startling him. Vegeta almost but doesn’t quite stumble under the impact. He continues to stride away from the building, distancing himself from it and the youth.
Then the Saiyan Prince begins to train.
Trunks trails after his sire at a distance, determined to glean whatever he can from Vegeta’s training methods. Watching his father eagerly, he begins to copy the Saiyan Prince’s actions. Learning by emulation, true Saiyan training techniques for the first time.
Trunks first sensei, Gohan had never known them, he had learned his training routines from Piccolo.
Even his father Goku had not known them, or at least could not recall them. Saiyan methods had been part of what was lost to his memory just as his original mission had been.
Vegeta always a quick study and with a seasoned warrior’s awareness, quickly grasps the nuances of how to manipulate the void’s environment to his training needs.
Meanwhile the boy struggles, not realizing that his emotional state is what controls the area he occupies.
Vegeta’s burning anger manifests as a fierce firestorm.
While Trunks feelings of frigid rejection, manifest in his environment as freezing cold.
Time is endless in here, the awareness of it’s passage blurs away as minutes flow into hours, hours into days.
After three days of continuous training without a break Trunks energy finally begins to flag. Sweat drips from both of them, but Vegeta continues on with no outward signs of weariness.
The Prince had learned long ago, under his relentless taskmaster Frieza, to endure. Despite everything including the seemingly endless privations that the monster had inflicted on him. Any show of weakness would have brought on an attack from the blood thirsty beasts in Frieza's forces. Where the only real rule had been that of the jungle, where the strong survived and the weak were killed. So Vegeta had learned to conceal any signs of it.
And in the few years he has lived on Earth, Vegeta had finally overcome the nutritional deprivations of his childhood. His reserves are now enormous and he’s no longer subject to the dizzy spells caused by his once constant hunger. The Prince is now as capable as any other adult of his people had ever been, no longer subject to the weaknesses Frieza had so carefully cultivated in his young Saiyan minion.
Trunks pants in utter exhaustion, heat and increased gravity have taken it’s toll on him. Even though he had suffered privation in his own time and place, it had never been to the extend of that of his father‘s. But his endurance is nothing in comparison to that of a seasoned warrior like his father. Or the the will power of the Prince of all Saiyans.
And his mother had always insisted that he the take time to rest and recuperate properly so he had not learned to work through to his second wind. That had only happened after he had started training with Gohan and learned it was the key to Saiyan strength increase and regeneration. Even after he discovered that truth, he had rarely pushed himself very far past his full limits. Not because of any personal reluctance but because of the heavy responsibility he felt as part of Earth’s last line of defense against the android threat. So he watches Vegeta in amazement and admiration, as he sees the determination and strength of his father fully displayed to him for the first time.
Trunks is strong and has fought several battles himself, but his overall endurance is no match for that of Vegeta’s. The demi-Saiyan youth had only really started fighting the androids within the last few years, since Gohan‘s death at their hands.
While Vegeta had been fighting foes for decades, as well resisting Frieza's repetitive assaults. First fighting in Frieza's army and then commanding his own elite purging squad. The Saiyan Prince has fought in thousands of battles on hundreds of worlds for almost thirty years. Even handicapped by his weakened, undernourished state during that time, his endurance had still increased with every battle survived, every attack overcome.
Not to mention the fact that as a young child he had also been trained by the finest Saiyan warriors available before he had been taken by Frieza.
Vegeta continues to feign indifference towards the boy‘s efforts, but he has been watching Trunks covertly. It’s obvious that he is his son, although he’s taller than the Prince. Much like Vegeta’s own father and well conformed, a true warrior.
But the boy also displays his mother’s softer influences. His emotions are strong and uncontrolled under stress. At one point during training, he had assumed Vegeta was in trouble and had attempted to rush to his father’s aid.
Vegeta had stopped him with a repelling force pulse, preventing the boy from touching him. “Stay away! I told you once, I train alone!” He had ordered gruffly. The boy had obeyed reluctantly but continued to observe from a distance.
Although having being raised only by his mother, he exhibits all the traits of a true Saiyan. The Blood Royal obviously courses strongly through the boy’s veins. His strength and power are incredible for one so young. Vegeta even marvels at the youth’s instinctive grasp of energy manipulation. Even alone, his mother had managed to raise him well.
But it’s extremely obvious that the boy lacks almost any kind of proper warfare training. He has had some inklings along with some excellent single combat moves, probably learned from the Gohan of his timeline. But it is nowhere near enough, since most of his attacks are overblown and wasteful, using more energy than really needed. Trunks has to learn more discipline and finer control over his power.
Vegeta had smiled inwardly when he noticed how the boy was imitating his actions. The Prince had also noted with satisfaction that Trunks was just as an adept and quick study as he himself was. Especially when it came to learning new moves and techniques. So unobtrusively, the Saiyan Prince began to slowly alter his training, adding discipline and control exercises into his own regimen. Well knowing the boy would incorporate them into his training regime and thus learn them.
Trunks watches in silence for a while longer, then is finally overcome by his bone deep weariness and retires to the residence. He tiredly forces himself to fix something to eat knowing and consumes it. Instinctively knowing that he needs the nourishment. He thoughtfully prepared enough so when Vegeta does come in, he too can have something, and then after a last look out at his still training father he goes to the bedroom, to change. But he’s so tired that he merely flops onto one of the beds without disrobing first. Planning only to rest for a few moments, before getting up to clean shower and get ready for bed properly. But he quickly falls into the sleep of utter exhaustion.
After a several more hours Vegeta pauses in his training, overcome by hunger, more than weariness. He enters the residence and finds the food Trunks has left out for him. He ravenously devours it, then before returning to training, looks in on the youth.
Trunks is sprawled loose limbed across one of the beds, so tired he had just fallen deeply asleep, fully clothed. His lavender hair is mussed across the pillow. The boy’s grim melancholy look has softened, his youth is fully revealed, at barely seventeen, he’s still more child than man, even though he’s shouldered the full responsibilities of adult warrior. Vegeta’s pride grows, but the boy looks so much like Bulma that it tugs at the Prince’s lonely heart.
He resists the impulse to reach over and straighten the lad’s locks. Knowing without touching, that the boy’s hair that it has the same silken texture as his mother’s. He stares longingly at the youth, aching for the balm of Bulma’s spirit, longing for the peace her soul holds for him.
Vegeta grimly returns to his training.
Outside the hours pass, Cell has continued in his rampage across the planet.
Piccolo, with Krillian and Tien alternating, continue on with their two quests, to try and catch and stop the insectoid, as well as searching for the other three androids.
Each near miss at Cell frustrates them further. Much to Piccolo’s discomfort since engines have always grated harshly on his sensitive hearing, they even go so far as to try using mechanical means to sneak up on it to no avail.
Finally exhaustion overcomes all of the humans and they return wearily to Roshi’s for some much needed food and rest.
As on the lookout, Goku and Gohan have watched all their friends efforts, as they impatiently wait for Vegeta and Trunks to emerge from the Chamber. So they can start their own turn at training inside it.
While back at Capsule Bulma has labored without rest over the blueprints Trunks had found in Gero‘s hidden lab. Seeking any kind of weakness to exploit in the androids.
As she had studied the schematics she had been horrified by the atrocities of Gero’s evil. He had used his genius to actually alter humans, to turn them into mechanical monstrosities. And not all of them were willing volunteers to his experiments.
It was also obvious that he had dabbled in genetic manipulation too. Mixing and melding DNA and RNA on the cellular and the molecular levels. That was the only way he could have created the soulless, consciousless monstrosity that was Cell.
Bulma knew she had to find a way to stop the androids, to neutralize both them before Cell could get to them. Not doing so would lead to the unthinkable, a world of death and despair like the one Trunks from the future had come from. And it looked as if to only way to accomplish that was by the total destruction of two already victimized teenagers. She hated it but it had to be done for the sake of the entire world. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, or at least the two.
But even as she worked searching for an answer, she also pondered the strange reactions she had had during Vegeta’s combat with the androids.
For some reason the empathic bond between them had not weakened, though the link itself had attenuated over time.
Even now she can still feel him but in strange almost nanosecond flashes of emotion. Like the distance echo of waves you can almost hear when you‘ve moved to the interior of an island. She doesn’t quite understand it....yet!
Later, one night after what to the two inside the chamber perceive as several months of hard training, Vegeta returns to find Trunks waiting for him. The boy had prepared a meal for them both, and if not lavish it was better than the norm that they had been just grabbing and eating in passing. The youth had put out a real effort to make this more than just a necessary food break.
Vegeta frowns and glares at his son’s future self, then sits down and begins to eat ravenously without comment. It seems as if the boy has inherited his mother’s talent for setting traps, too.
Trunks sits down across the table from him and toys aimlessly with his food.
“Father.” Starts the youth.
“Don’t call me that, your father is dead.” Snaps Vegeta.
“Maybe, in my time line. But here, in this one, you are still alive and my father.” Chastised Trunks replies softly.
Vegeta pauses to glance up at the boy then returns his attention to the food. Then instructs the boy, “Whatever. Eat.”
“We’ve reached the next level, why are we still here?” Asks the youth curiously. “They need our help out there.”
Vegeta glances up, “We can still do more.” It is the Prince’s only answer, and it’s not a lie, he senses that he can continue to grow stronger yet.
But he can’t tell the boy that the real reason they’re still remaining in here.
Trunks has progressed amazingly but there’s so much more Vegeta can impart to this youthful warrior from the future.
So instead his only response is, “A warrior uses every advantage he can to increase his strength before going into battle.”
Vegeta has seen that this youthful Trunks is learning quickly but the teenager still lacks many things. Things that he will need to defeat the androids in his time. The knowledge of tactics, discipline and complete self confidence in his own power. He needs it, to make him a successful warrior when he returns to battle those other future foes.
That realities Bulma has already lost half of her soul with the death of her truemate. Vegeta cannot alter that, but he will do what he can to make certain that she will not lose her son as well.
“Oh.” Is the unaware boy’s reply.
They continue eating in silence for awhile then the adolescent starts speaking again, a little wistfully. “I’ve often wondered about you. What you were really like.”
Trunks is staring down at his plate. He takes a small bite, chews and swallows it then adds, “I never knew you in my timeline, you were killed when I was still a baby. I often wondered what it might have been like if you’d lived. If you’d survived to help mom raise me. I.., I wondered if you’d have been proud of me. Mother never told me much.”
Vegeta stops eating. “She never talked about me.”
Trunks shakes his head, “I think it hurt her too much to talk about you. Sometimes at night I’d hear her crying when she thought I was asleep.”
“I’ve hurt many people.” Vegeta returns to his food. Outwardly uncaring seeming but wincing inwardly at pain the death of that other Vegeta must have caused that Bulma.
“All she ever told me, was that you were a hard man to know and that you never once said that you cared for her.” Finishes the youth softly.
“I haven’t.” Is the Prince’s curt reply.
“Why not?” Persists Trunks peering at his father.
“Because I don’t have to,” Says the Saiyan Prince brusquely, “Bulma knows how I feel.” But Trunks suddenly sees a softening in Vegeta’s eyes as he thinks of his mate.
The youth’s eyes brighten in hope. “Then what mother said is true, you did care.., You still do!”
Vegeta stops eating and slams the utensils down onto the table and glares at the boy.
“Why do you think I’m trying to do this?” He stares at the boy angrily, “What do you think I’m fighting for? Certainty not for Kakarot’s sake or this pitiful mudball planet‘s! I could just as easily leave and let the rest of them fight Cell alone. I owe them nothing.”
Trunks is taken aback by his father vehemence, “Krillian and the others, they all think it’s your pride that drives you. Your arrogance.”
“Let them think what they will and perhaps it is partially true, but your mother knows better. She sent you here, after all.” Vegeta smirks.
“She sent me back to save Goku.” Replies Trunks slowly.
“She sent you back to change time, boy. To give us a chance, warn us, me.” Retorts Vegeta. “You know your mother’s not stupid. Bulma knew that we would have figured it out before too long. Even if you hadn’t told Kakarot anything. If nothing else, she knew her own past self would puzzle at it till she guessed the truth..., or till she nagged it out of Kakarot!” Another smirk crosses Vegeta’s lips. “Bulma is a stubborn. intelligent female, with a female’s insatiable curiosity. A mystery like that would have fascinated her no end, she would have gotten it out of Kakarot eventually.”
Thinking about it Trunks nods in agreement, “I guess you’re right.”
“I’m always right, even when I’m wrong. That's what makes me a Prince.” says Vegeta wryly.
“The others, they all think your only reason in fighting is to prove you’re better than Goku. They say your arrogance makes you reckless.” Trunks look away, abashed that he had said so much.
“I am better than Kakarot.” Asserts Vegeta. “The only thing Kakarot has that is really superior to me is his blasted supernaturally good luck! But none of them really knows me, boy. Or even knows what a real Saiyan is, not even Kakarot! But I do know that they couldn’t care less about what happens to me in the end.” Another smirk, but one filled with regret appears. “ALL they’re worried about, is if my strength will be available for their efforts.”
He glances up at Trunks, “Only two people truly care about what happens to me. I will not fail them. And because of that, you could say that I do fight out of pride.”
The Saiyan Prince starts eating again, but also continues talking, “And what is pride without someone to appreciate it. To embrace it.” Vegeta pauses to look earnestly at this future version of his son, showing Trunks a side he hasn‘t seen before. “Pride is a gift passed from one generation to the next. My father instilled it in me before..,”
Vegeta suddenly falls silent, it seems the boy also has his mother’s talent to draw out the Prince’s worst memories.
Vegeta can still remember that morning. After a particularly intense night, Frieza had woke him with another assault. As the monster was pleasuring himself on the helpless boy‘s body, he had informed the prince that he had decided to keep him after all, because he was so deliciously amusing. Even though he considered most Saiyans to be merely ‘troublesome mammals’.
It was then the monster had begun to undermine the Prince’s belief in his father. Frieza had hinted that his father had been more than willing to hand him over because he saw Vegeta as a threat to his own reign. That the Saiyan King had actually feared his young son’s growing power. And had been glad to have him taken off planet so he could be rid of him. That he had even bartered the boy to secure his own place.
The lonely young Prince hadn’t wanted to believe it, didn’t believe it, at least not then. But weeks and months had passed without any messages from home and doubts had grown. So the insidious lie had found a place to root, nourished by those doubts. Why had his father sent him away at such a time. Had he really thrown them to Frieza's ‘mercy’ to secure his own power base? If not, then why hadn’t there ever been any answer to their communications? Surely Frieza couldn’t stop have stopped every avenue. Fresh warriors from the Saiyan planet, had rotated into the forces at the base and onto the ship. Surely the king would have found a way to send a coded message to him or Raditz somehow!
The lie had grown, flourishing and hardening within him. As time passed he became more and more brutalized by what he endured at Frieza‘s hands. Prince Vegeta had began detest and then hate his father for what had appeared to be his callous abandonment of his sons. So when he heard of his homeworld’s destruction, the boy had already locked his grief away over his mother’s death and had been left with only a belief of paternal betrayal!
And it had remained that way until Frieza revealed the truth just before he had slain Vegeta on Namek. The Prince had actually hated the happy recollections of his father’s love and pride in him, detested them as a weakness that he had labored hard but vainly to discard and forget.
Believing what he recalled was nothing more than a put-on, an act, his father‘s dissembling falseness until he could rid himself of his son and heir, the dangerous rival to his own power. Rejecting the feeling of happiness and security they had held, because they were totally at odds with what life under Frieza had drummed into him.
That power and strength was everything , the only truth and ultimate goal. Vegeta had seen that evidence with his own eyes! People would do anything to attain power and keep it firmly in their own hands, to remain the strongest.
Not knowing that real reason there had been no messages, no communication, that it was because his father was already dead, killed by Frieza bare weeks after he had been taken from home. Most likely the very day he was first assaulted by the monster.
And he had still believed Frieza's power mantra even after his resurrection.., until Bulma had shown him differently, and reawakened his soul.
Trunks looks at Vegeta in puzzlement. “Before what?”
The Prince shakes himself out of his dark thoughts. “Before he was killed by Frieza.”
He returns morosely to eating his meal. The boy may have his mother’s gift to draw out old memories, but he doesn’t have Bulma’s ability to sooth those agonies away. Vegeta’s latent pain and rage increase, the iciness in his heart hardens.
Trunks contemplates these new revelations in silence.
Noting Vegeta’s increasing grimness, he becomes aware of just a little of the pain this man in front of him must have endured throughout his turbulent life. Torn from his home and family with no one to turn to, then surviving for endless years in the clutches of one of the universe’s most evil monsters.
No wonder he seems so grim and dour. Cold and suspicious of everyone, even evil seeming to anyone who first encounters him with out an awareness of his past life.
But if the truth were fully known the Saiyan Prince is far deeper than any fleeting casual contact like that would reveal.
His father is not as cold, distant or unfeeling as he first appears outwardly. And if you can get past his defenses and find it, you would soon learn that the Saiyan Prince’s heart is just a vulnerable as anyone else’s. He begins to fathom at least part of what drives his father’s rage, his grief and loneliness. And finally understands that, that is what his mother saw in Vegeta.
His courage and perseverance in managing to survive against such odds. Something so much more than even Goku had done.
Vegeta stops eating, sensing the train of Trunk’s thoughts. “My life, my emotions are private. What we talk about, what we do in here, it between the two of us. Keep it that way!” Growls the Saiyan Prince.
The youth smiles. “The only person I’ll ever talk to this about is my mother. I think she deserves to know.”
Vegeta grunts but nods sharply. Knowing which mother the boy is referring to. The one in that alternate world, who perhaps was not completely privy to the true depths of her mate’s attachment to her. She needs whatever reassurance she can get in her bereft loneliness.
They finish the meal in silence, but now there is a new understanding between the father and his son from the future.
Trunks knows that the underneath the gruff stoic exterior the Saiyan Prince cares deeply for both his wife and child. And he now realizes the depths of his father’s loneliness and anger, if not all it’s causes. He also understands that, even if he doesn’t show it outwardly, this Vegeta does feel something towards him, at least a little bit, as well.
Otherwise the Saiyan Prince would not have opened up so much for him.
Time continues on Earth.
Goku and Gohan continue to await Trunks and Vegeta’s emergence at the lookout.
While morning breaks below.
Piccolo is watching Roshi‘s television, keeping track of Cell’s actions while the others sleep. Is suddenly startled by the sound of someone arriving outside.
He get up and looks out to find the three androids. 17 asks almost casually if Goku is there, like a child merely looking for a favorite playmate.
The Namek quickly retreats and wakes the others.
As they step outside, 17 demands to know where Goku is.
When they refuse to reveal the Saiyan warrior’s whereabouts, the youthful android threatens to beat the answer out of them.
Piccolo accepts the challenge but manages to convince them to take the fight to a nearby uninhabited island. Before he leaves he admonishes the other z-fighters to stay behind and wait at Roshi’s.
The others agree reluctantly, knowing they would stand little chance against the automatons.
In the Room of Spirit and Time Vegeta and Trunks continue their year of training. They have had other short conversations, when they break for food or rest. And an understanding of sorts grew between them.
Trunks had begun to appreciate and respect Vegeta, more and more. Seeing behind the cultivated mask, he has started to understand what really drives his father.
Part of it is definitely his pride and arrogance, of that there is little doubt. But now Trunks also knows the rest, of his father’s bitter loneliness and loss.
He even suspects that Vegeta longs to be welcomed as an equal member in the tightly knit circle of Earth's defenders, even if the Saiyan Prince would deny it vehemently if asked.
While Vegeta’s pride in this version of son grows as well. The boy has inherited his own talent of being a quick study. Learning exceedingly fast, even though the youth had been an experienced warrior before he came back in time, Trunks had still unsure of himself and had lacked confidence in his own power. Mostly stemming from the inescapable fact of his own inability to defeat the androids in his reality. But now the boy is nearly ready, his strength nearly matches Vegeta’s own. His grasp of tactics and control almost complete.
When Trunks returns to his own time he will defeat the androids there with ease. All that is left now is to prepare for Cell.
So the Saiyan Prince continues to adapt his training sessions, insuring that the boy’s emulations of him serve to teach and improve Trunks own techniques for the future.
The youth’s endurance had increased everyday, and his strength and finer power control are improving as well.
And while Vegeta continues to scrupulously avoid any physical contact with this version of his son during the boy’s waking moments. Often, after Trunks has retired and is fully asleep, the Saiyan Prince will come in and check on him. Assuring himself that the boy is not injuring himself by over training.
Isolated from Bulma‘s softening influence, Vegeta is reverting to his old personality more and more. It been almost a year since he’s been with his truemate to reaffirm their bond. The longest they’ve ever been separated. So Vegeta’s original abrasive mannerisms are almost in full control once more.
The shield of ice he had built around his heart has been repaired, although it is fragile and weaker than it was. His resentment at this separation from her burns within, adding more fuel to his fiery rage, increasing his strength.
Trunks has watched his father’s hardening. But the boy now understands the true defensive nature of Vegeta’s fury. He can see why the Prince’s burning anger might make him appear evil to someone who didn’t know it’s underlying causes.
Piccolo begins his battle with 17. The two combatants seem almost evenly matched! The changes in the Namek startles both 17 and 18, but not 16 who can sense ki.
Soon the forces that the combatants release become so great that it awakens the is land’s slumbering volcano.
And also alerts the others!
At the lookout, Goku and Gohan sense the rise and fall of Piccolo’s ki as he battles. Goku quickly realizes that the Namekian has to be fighting the androids since neither he nor Gohan can sense any type of ki originating from whoever he‘s in combat with.
As well as another distant foe.
Cell senses Piccolo’s power fluctuations. And guesses correctly at it’s cause. He breaks off his attack on yet another town and races towards the sensations of ki from the Namekian warrior.
The combat and the eruption destroys the first island forcing the battle to become mobile and move to a second.
Meanwhile Bulma has been working as hard as her mate has. She had deciphered Dr. Gero’s notes enough to figure out that he had controlled the androids with a remote switching device. If she can recreate it they may still have a chance to stop the androids before Cell can get to them.
But there are other distractions.
She can still feel Vegeta, and Yajirobi’s still hanging around.
While baby Trunks has been screaming for the past several hours. The child had missed his father in the last three months, but during that time at least he had been consoled by his mother’s increased attentions. Then he had seen Vegeta but then his father had left without touching him and now even his mother’s comforting attention is absence.
Not only that but being half Saiyan, the infant is acutely sensitive to his mother’s moods.
Baby Trunks can sense her worry. He knows something unprecedented is happening in his little world.
Unsettled by this, all he truly wants is the comfort and reassurance of one of his parents presence. But since even that has been denied him, he voices his complaints about the situation the only way he knows how. Protesting at the top of his lungs and refusing his grandparents and even Yajirobi's rough efforts to sooth him.
Bulma has been peripherally aware of her son’s distress and displeasure but she knows that the work she is doing is vital to everyone's survival. If she can find the key, it will assure a safe world for Trunks to grow up in. So she has been working nonstop trying to decipher Gero’s schematics for seventeen. The brilliant scientist senses that the solution is almost within her grasp. If she can only decipher the last few scribbled notes in the blueprints. Gero's equations are extremely complex.
But then, her father trailed by Yajirobi comes into her work room carrying the wailing child. Dr Briefs beseeches her to stop and take Trunks for just a little while. “Bulma please he won’t stop crying he’ll make himself sick!”
And then the wild woodsman even dares to add his own two cents! “Some mother you are letting your kid cry like that!”
She snaps at them both in frustration without even turning around or lifting her eyes from the computer screen. Knowing that once she gets this final section unraveled she will have the solution to the problem.
“Dammit I know it,” she growls, “but I’ve almost got it figured out. You both realize how important this is!”
Suddenly Bulma spots the solution, she’s puzzled out the last bit of the equation. Finding the key element and revealing the fact that the needed frequencies are a rotating series of sequences.
She crows with glee as she punches in the final keystroke! She has isolated the proper wavelengths and all that’s left is now is constructing the controller!
Whirling about to face her visitors, she’s ecstatic with her success as she takes her child and begins to murmur to him soothingly, “We did it Trunksie, mommy’s got the answer, baby!” Cuddling him close.
Her father’s enormous relief is apparent.
Relieved of his grandson the older Dr. Briefs begins to examine her findings and the design for the remote. Both he and even Yajirobi are impressed by the accomplishment.
Trunks had quickly quieted once he felt his mother’s arms about him. The babe snuggles contentedly against his mother’s breast. Her scent, heartbeat and warmth, reassure and comfort him even though he no longer nurses.
After Trunks has fallen into an exhausted sleep, she settles him gently into the crib she keeps for him in the work room. Then quickly begins the task of constructing the actual remote. The device’s mechanism itself is simple, finding and isolating the right frequency combinations had been the real difficulty!
As she constructs the device she ponders her other problem. It’s now been more than three days since she’s last seen Vegeta, and nearly three months since they were last together. For some reason during the last few hours their bond link has attenuated even more rapidly than before and that troubles her. But even with that happening, Bulma has still been feeling all the sensations her truemate has been experiencing, intense heat, freezing cold, even a hint of pride, though they are fleeting, almost instantaneous impressions.
Their enforced separation hasn‘t succeeded at all in altering the strength of her physical or empathic ties to him!
Even as she works on the device, one part of her agile mind puzzles over it. Their bond is still as strong as ever. But thinking back she realizes that it may not be all that strange after all. Chichi has always reacted strongly whenever Goku was in battle, and they have been separated far more than she and Vegeta.
Goku was even dead for a year! But still, she had always noticed that ChiChi reacted violently to her mate’s injuries, the other woman seemed to faint all the time during any of Goku’s conflicts.
Although at the time, Bulma had thought it was more a psychological reaction than physical one in her friend‘s wife, a weakness of ChiChi’s. No one had recognized it for what it really was, the result of the couple’s empathic bond. But it kind of explained an awful lot too, like why she was more concerned with Gohan’s injuries after a battle.
ChiChi's empathic bond with Goku enabled her to sense if his injuries were life threatening or not. She didn’t have than kind of a connection to Gohan and that was why she’s always more worried about her child than her mate.
Even though it’s very apparent that the other woman has never been quite as strongly affected, physically by her bond with Goku, as Bulma has been with Vegeta. The psychic link between ChiChi and Goku is still obviously there, once you know what you were looking at!
Bulma thoughts lead her to only one logical conclusion, that she and Vegeta really don’t need to be parted. Especially, if the other realities Trunks’ mother survived her mate’s completely unexpected death. It can be reasonably assumed then, that if something did happen to her Vegeta, she should be able to live through it too. She decides that what ever happens after this she won’t allow herself to be separated from her mate again.
Finally completing the remote control as she comes to that conclusion, she calls Roshi’s to inform the others that it’s finished and that she’ll be bringing it over to Kame house.
The others urge her to hurry because Piccolo is already battling against 17 and they can sense that Cell is on his way!!
As she gets ready to leave Trunks starts fussing again. She had hoped to leave before he woke. Where she’s going is much too dangerous a place bring the child. Especially with both the androids and Cell at large and nearby. But when Yajarobi and her father start to protest, the baby starts screaming even louder than before. Looking down at her young son’s scowling face, so much like his father’s, she recalls her promise to Vegeta. The promise that they will both be nearby watching, whenever his battle is finally resolved. No matter what. So she takes the child with her.
To be continued.....
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