His teacher

Well, this was actually done a while ago, but I had to get chapter 6 started before I could post it to make sure it all worked together. Anyway, here it is.

And to Veronica: I repeat, no comment.

Oh, and I don't know how much violence is enough violence to warrant a warning, but I went ahead and threw a violence warning up there anyway. Just pointing that out.

---
Chapter 5: Want and need
---


The bowl fell from his hands and hit the floor, smashing into pieces and splashing scalding hot liquid on his feet and everywhere else. Chiaotzu didn't notice. The sudden wave of fear that had
just swept over him had left him cold.

"Chiaotzu! Are you okay? What's wrong?" Roshi demanded right in front of him. It had been he who was about to receive soup.

Chiaotzu couldn't see him. He was looking right past the old man, past everything, as if trying to see what Tien was seeing. "I don't know. I don't know. Something. Something's wrong. Tien..."

Tien was never scared like that. He wasn't scared of anything. What had happened that had him so afraid? Not for his own life, but for...everything. "Something's wrong."

"Hey, it's okay." Oolong told him. "Whatever it is, you know Goku and the rest will handle it. They always do."

"No." He couldn't feel the tears rolling down his face. He couldn't feel anything except Tien's fear. He wanted to reach out, find out what it was that was causing the feeling, but he couldn't remember how. "It's not okay."

Whatever it was that was making Tien feel this crippling fear, it had to be...terrible. "I'm scared. Tien, I'm scared."

---

Gohan nearly catapulted Yajirobe clean off his back when he stopped dead in the air. "Hey, watch it! Have some respect for your passengers!"

"Gohan?" Bulma asked as he turned around. "What's wrong?"

Trunks had just powered up to Super Saiyan. Nothing strange about that, really. Just meant they had found the old man is all. But there was something... "Nothing."

"Really? You stopped because of nothing?"

"Just a feeling." A bad one. Something wasn't right.

"You nearly splattered me all over the ground for a feeling?" Yajirobe demanded.

"Shut up." Bulma suggested to him before addressing Gohan again. "Sweetie, are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." He turned back around. "It's nothing."

It didn't mean anything. He told himself that. He was just imaging the sense of...terror that he had felt tingeing the Super Saiyan energy. It didn't work that way anyway; he couldn't know what people were feeling. He was just imagining it.

He started flying faster.

---

Would it not have been monumentally clichéd, Gero would have laughed out loud at the warriors' reaction to seeing his creations. Fear, plain and simple. Rising heart rates, faster breath, fluctuations in body temperature, tremors...his scanners picked it all up. And Seventeen and Eighteen hadn't even done anything yet.

Their inexplicable foreknowledge was working against them here; the mysterious boy in particular appeared too terrified to move. They somehow knew what his androids were and what they were capable of, and knew that there was nothing they could ever hope to do about it. Delightful.

"Is this all? Where's Goku?" Seventeen asked quietly. "Destroying a bunch of losers isn't going to be any fun."

"Excuse me, toaster brain, I am your opponent, not them!" Vegeta snarled.

Seventeen regarded him expressionlessly for a moment and then smiled. "Like I said."

"Hey, what's this?" Eighteen said from behind him. "Doctor, you made us another friend and didn't tell us?"

"Get away from that!" Gero spun away from everyone else to face the female android. "That unit is not functional yet. It's not safe to activate."

"Is that so?" Seventeen sauntered over to Sixteen's pod to inspect it with his sister.

"Seventeen! Eighteen! I command you to destroy these intruders!" They weren't listening to him, as Gero had feared. This situation was fast going to Hell.

"In a minute." the dark-haired android waved a hand at him. "They're so scared they can't move anyway. They're not going anywhere."

"That's it!" Gero roared. "I knew it was a mistake to activate you." He seized the controller from his belt to rectify that error.

"I don't think so, you worthless bucket of rust!" Vegeta's kick sent him flying, right into Seventeen's arms.

"You don't need this, right?" The other android asked, relieving him of the controller and crushing it with one hand. Gero's scanners were aware suddenly of the mysterious youth launching towards them. Seventeen leaned in to whisper in Gero's ear. "And we don't need you."

He had never in his entire career, his entire life, doubted or regretted anything; even his failures had furthered his research and so had been worth it. But as he lost what little control of his body he'd had left, Dr. Gero found himself thinking, Heavens help me, what have I done?

---

Trunks had fought these androids for most of his life. And in that time, he had learned a few things.

It was a game to them, all of it. They wanted it to be fun. If someone didn't run, didn't fight back, didn't play, they weren't interested. So he stood there and watched them, feigning crippling fear.

Well, that wasn't all that hard.

Everyone else either followed his lead or were in truth too scared to move. Whichever way, it kept them all alive for the moment. So he watched, waited. His only chance was to wait until they were distracted and...

There. Their predicable betrayal of Gero. They were both entirely focused on the old man, and so was Vegeta. Trunks drew his sword and charged at Seventeen, positioning for a stab and putting every ounce of strength he had into it. He easily pierced Gero's collarbone and kept going until...

Until it was stopped by Seventeen's hand. "I do hope that's not the best you can do." He drawled, supinating his wrist and sending Trunks and the sword flying, along with the still impaled Gero. The sword ripped through the mechanical body and tore it apart, a process which was helped by a small energy blast from Seventeen. The old man's body was destroyed completely, his head the only thing intact. It rolled to a stop right beside Trunks, who was laying in what had used to be a upright pod with the number twenty stylized on the front.

Seventeen proceeded to ignore him fully; after all, Trunks had just proven he was no fun. He was left on the ground in the wreckage as the android made his way over to the pod that rested on the ground nearby, remarkably similar to...no! There was no way.

"Sixteen, huh? Well, Eighteen? Let's greet the brother we never knew we had, hmm?"

"Sounds fun, I guess."

"No!" Another android! There were only supposed to be two! How was this happening? Had his arrival changed time so much?

"Excuse me." Vegeta, as usual, managed to talk over everyone else. "Have you two walking computers forgotten that you were activated for a reason? You can worry about that empty can after I've destroyed—"

One instant Seventeen was bending down to examine the pod, and the next he was in front of Vegeta, fist in face. A kick across the stomach bend the prince double, and the android put his hands together to smash the base of Vegeta's neck, sending him straight to the floor. Then he picked the man up and tossed him like he was nothing out the entrance to the lab and off the cliff. "Did anyone else have anything they wanted to say?"

Nobody seemed so inclined, though Piccolo appeared ready to fight. "Good. Now stay there for now. I'll get to all you in a minute."

"Boy." The voice came from beside Trunks, and it wouldn't have been unfair to say he freaked out just a bit when he realized it was Gero talking. Gero's head was talking to him.

"You're alive?" That was just so creepy he didn't even know what else to say.

"There is no time for foolish questions, child. You must stop them from activating Sixteen. Destroy the pod if you must, but if they activate it, nothing will be able to stop them!"

Trunks was still stuck at the part where the fucking disembodied head of Dr. Gero was talking to him, but he managed to stand. Destroy the pod. He could do that. They couldn't sense energy and they weren't looking at him, so...

He flew not straight at them, which would have taken him face-to-face with Seventeen again, but in an arc that took him around them, giving him a clear shot at the pod. Piccolo and Tien followed his lead and moved as well.

The energy blast Trunks had thrown was deflected as Eighteen appeared in front of him. Seventeen had turned to face the other two. "Didn't I tell you to wait? Oh, well. Bang, bang." A blast took each of them in the chest and they flew back, cracking the wall where they impacted.

Eighteen smiled a glacier at him and her energy bolt took him in the stomach, throwing him right back where he had been and then some, through the wall and off the face of the mountain. All manner of mechanical debris followed after him, and landed all around him on the ground below.

Above him, as Trunks struggled to his feet, the lab exploded all at once. "Crap." Now what? He took off, shaking his head clear of the fuzz that seemed to have been injected into it.

"Boy!" It was Gero again, shouting from somewhere below him. He was still alive? "Get down here this instant and pick me up!"

Why he complied Trunks didn't know. There was just something about the tone and demanded obedience. After he had carefully pried Gero's head from the rubble, the old man said, "You will take me with you."

"Why would I do that? This is all your fault! I should destroy you right now!" It would be a small victory, a meaningless one, but just tossing the head into the mountain and watching it smash might make him feel better.

"And here I thought you were intelligent!" Gero snapped. "Clearly another mistake on my part. Boy, you are associated with Bulma Briefs. You will bring me to her, and she will take me to her father's laboratory, where I will instruct him in the creation of the controller that you will use to destroy my androids."

Well, that sounded...fantastic. Far too much so to be true. "And why would you want to do that? You made them!"

"I am not a harbinger of the apocalypse, child! They will destroy everything they encounter if left unchecked!"

"I know!" Oh, how he knew. It was an effort not to just squeeze Gero in his hands until he was mush. "I know that."

"That outcome is no more desirable to me that it is to you and your friends. Thus, I will aid you in preventing it. 'The enemy of my enemy,' yes?"

Trunks wasn't sure that that really applied here, but still...it made the most sense. And Gero was just a head; it wasn't like he could do anything. "Alright."

"Excellent. Let's get going, then."

"Hold on. I'm not carrying you around everywhere." Thankfully, Trunks had an empty capsule. He set Gero down and took it out, preparing the tiny container to be filled.

"Wait, you idiot! You can't put living matter inside one of those things! You'll kill—" Gero was enveloped in smoke and then there was only the little capsule.

The time traveler bent over to pick it up. "You'll be able to in fifteen years." He muttered, pocketing it. Talking heads. And he thought he'd seen everything.

All the other warriors were back up on the mountain by the time Trunks finally arrived, and as he did, he noticed three forms flying away. Three forms. So they had activated Sixteen. Damn. Damn, damn! All his effort to make the future better, and it was only getting worse and worse the farther along he got.

"Well?" Vegeta was demanding of everyone. He looked slightly worse for wear, though no more so than anyone else. Still better than Krillin, who at least seemed to be fully conscious now and was watching the full-blooded Saiyan warily. His father continued. "Where are they? One of you morons must have them!"

"Trunks, do you have the Senzu beans?" Piccolo asked as soon as he touched down.

"No, they're..." A sudden flash of memory, Tien tossing the bag, his injured arm seizing up and his throw going awry, the beans being caught by... "Gohan still has them." It hadn't even occurred to him to get them back. Why was he so dumb? "Damn." Everyone seemed to share that sentiment.

"Incompetence!" Vegeta roared, Super Saiyan energy exploding around him once again. "How is it that any of you have managed to live so long when you can't even coordinate one battle? Nevermind; I'll destroy those androids without the help of any beans!" The fact that he had just minutes ago been utterly defeated with such ease obviously held no import for him. The mountaintop cracked as Vegeta took off, vanishing quickly from sight after the androids.

A horrible thought occurred to Trunks and he took to the air as well, preparing to follow.

"Trunks, wait!" This was Piccolo. "There's no point in going after him. He's not going to listen to reason."

"I'm not going after him! The androids!" He needed to calm down so he could talk properly, but his sudden panic was a strong force. "They're headed towards Goku's house!" Gohan's house. Where Gohan was going, by himself.

"Okay, I understand. But we can't just rush in—"

"I'm not waiting. Gohan won't stand a chance against the three of them!" And he left, not staying around long enough to get an answer.

His father could go to Hell. If he did it distracting the androids long enough for Trunks to get to Gohan, then it would be worth it.

"I won't let them get you. I promise I'll keep you safe, Gohan. I promise."

---

It wasn't fair. It wasn't at all fair that he could feel everything that happened to Tien, the blast that took him in the chest, the breathless sensation of slamming into a wall, all-over burning of the room exploding around him, even though he wasn't there. It was just plain mean.

But it was precisely because Chiaotzu wasn't there that it was happening. Tien had been in fights before and he'd never felt a thing, because they'd never not been together when something important was happening. Until now. And because he had all of his senses open to their fullest, desperate for any knowledge of what was happening, he was feeling everything.

Of course, such sensations would cease immediately when he closed his mind off again. But then he wouldn't have any idea of what was going on.

"Chiaotzu?" Roshi asked. the mess from earlier had been cleaned up and he had been sat down on the sofa where they could keep an eye on him. Like a child. "Are you alright, son?"

"I'm fine, Master." Even to him his voice sounded dull and far away. He hadn't told any of them about the second-hand injuries he was feeling. They would just worry unnecessarily.

Normal people didn't understand what it was like to be telepathic. They thought that it was just as simple as knowing what someone was thinking when you tried hard enough. But just reading minds was nothing. Even Master Roshi was purported to be capable of it. Full telepathy was so much more involved, more complex. His case with Tien was a bit different from even that, because they'd been together for so long; for Chiaotzu, it was like the other man was part of him, like his own leg.

And that was why not knowing what was happening to him was so hard.

He couldn't do it anymore. Not knowing was driving him crazy. I'm sorry, Tien. Chiaotzu reached out with his mind, found his friend. And the big wall he'd put up around his mind.

Chiaotzu could demolish the wall easily. Well, maybe not easily, but he could do it. But that would distract Tien when he was in the middle of a fight. That could get him killed. Instead, he approached the wall and found the equivalent of a loose brick, and pulled it out so he could peer inside.

Pain hit him physically, more than he'd felt when Tien had been attacked. He had only felt echoes of it, but here was the whole thing. But Chiaotzu ignored it; pain he could deal with. Under that were feelings. Dread. Determination again, and fear, and...resignation.

Tien was certain he was headed to his death.

"No!" Chiaotzu stood abruptly, barely maintaining the presence of mind to put the brick back in Tien's wall before he broke away.

"What's wrong? Chiaotzu? You sure you're okay?" Roshi was leaning over him as if looking for whatever was wrong on top of his head.

"I have to go." He flew to the door—faster than walking, with his legs being so short—and pulled it open.

"Whoa, hold on! What's going on? Did something happen?"

Chiaotzu stopped for a second and thought of how all the uncertainty had been killing him. "They're going to fight. They need help. It's—" An invisible fist hit him in the stomach and the little telepath gasped. "I have to go!" He ran out of the house and into the sky, headed toward the fight.

Maybe Tien was right; maybe he couldn't help at all. But Tien thought he was going to die. If that was the case, Chiaotzu would be going with him.

---

Seventeen and Eighteen seemed to be malfunctioning. They, like he, were programmed to destroy Goku before anything else. And yet, they were allowing themselves to be...delayed. By Vegeta, a being of no significance.

Sixteen refused to participate in the fight. He existed only to destroy Goku, and nothing else. He would not be wasting time and energy in pointless pursuits.

So as Eighteen strode forward to deal with the Saiyan prince, Sixteen waited. And watched the birds. Something about them was...intriguing.

He would just go and kill Goku himself; Sixteen certainly possessed the power, despite what Seventeen thought. But he couldn't. A program was running in the back of his consciousness, urging him to stay with the other two androids. He could not identify what its function was, but because of it Sixteen could not leave. He had to stay with them, until...

Until what, he did not know. Sixteen would have been more comfortable were Dr. Gero here to explain what he had planned, but apparently somebody had killed him. Seventeen would not say whom. Therefore, with no higher power to direct him, Sixteen would simply follow his programming.

"What do you think, big guy? You think Vegeta stands a chance?" The two had long since flown off, and were currently fighting two and a half miles away.

"No." Sixteen replied, not turning away from his study of the birds. "Eighteen possesses greater power than he does." He did not feel it necessary at this time to inform his fellow androids that he was capable of detecting energy. It was irrelevant.

"So she does. It will be fun, watching him beg for mercy, don't you think?"

"No."

Seventeen threw up his hands. "Yeesh. Gero certainly went cheap when it came to your personality, didn't he?"

Another source of energy was approaching them, moving very quickly. There were three smaller ones not too far behind it. None of them were Goku. Irrelevant.

Eighteen and Vegeta returned, smashing through cliff and road as they fought, she smiling and he snarling with rage. Their arrival scared the birds, and they fled.

How disappointing.

---

Trunks took a risk and flew directly over the fight, rather than taking a few more minutes to go around it. The androids couldn't sense energy anyway, and the chance that one of them would physically look up and see him wasn't high enough to warrant a delay in getting to Gohan.

Far below, Vegeta was engaged in battle with one of them. It looked like Eighteen, in the brief glance he took down as he neared. Too bad for Vegeta. She was the more sadistic of the pair, if only marginally.

"Where are you going?" Trunks stopped in a rush of wind, and chose to believe that that was what stole his breath for that one instant. Seventeen was right in front of him. He tapped one ear. "Good thing I have these, or I might never have known how rude you were being to me. Flying right by without saying hello? For shame."

Trunks drew his sword and said, "Get out of my way." He managed to keep the quaver out of both body and voice as he did.

"Or what?" The android paused to adjust his hair. "You'll chop me to pieces with that big sharp sword of yours? Do excuse me while I flee in terror."

Growling, Trunks lunged, intending to get behind him and attack, but then Seventeen was right in front of him, one crushing hand holding his wrist. "No, really. I'm not mocking you." The android assured him. "You utterly terrify me." He was yanked down by his imprisoned arm and kneed in the chin; then Seventeen's elbow connected hard with his face and Trunks was rocketing towards the ground.

His impact was certainly impressive, cratering the ground fifty feet around him and sending plumes of dust billowing towards the sky. "Seventeen." Eighteen said impatiently as Trunks got to his feet. She and Vegeta were about thirty feet apart, and he was almost directly between them. The other android landed not too far from her.

"What is it?"

"I'm busy. Keep your toys out of my way."

Vegeta took advantage of their distraction and charged with a yell, power surrounding him like an incandescent shield. Trunks thought it was possible that he was even stronger than Gohan, but it wasn't going to be enough. It was never enough.

Something Gohan had once told him sprang to mind: "Do something unexpected." Even an inferior strength could sometimes win if it had surprise on its side. So he lunged at Eighteen, sword held straight to stab her through the heart she didn't have.

She clapped her hands over the blade and stopped him dead, but barely got halfway through her eye roll before Vegeta charged into her and the two crashed into the cliff.

What the outcome of that would be Trunks wouldn't get to see. He had to throw himself on the ground to avoid an energy blast from Seventeen. "I can't believe you would rather play with her than me." He called out after the attack. "I'm smarter, you know. And stronger and better looking."

Trunks got to his feet and put the sword away, since it was being colossally unhelpful. Before he could so much as consider a plan, Seventeen was behind him and his arm was being held backwards above his head. "It's funny." He said, as Trunks cried out with the pain of his shoulder nearly tearing from the socket. "We're getting along so well and I don't even know your name. Why don't I have files on you?"

"Go...go to Hell..." Not the most original response, but the fact that he had even managed to formulate words was impressive.

"Hm. Recalcitrant, are we? I bet you I can make you tell me." His arm was lifted even higher.

As Trunks shouted out in pain again the worst of it vanished—he only realized after that he had felt the energy blast approaching. The half-Saiyan got to his feet—he didn't remember falling—and turned. Seventeen was holding his wrist and glaring at the sky.

Piccolo crashed into him from the direction the attack had come from and Seventeen was forced back. But Trunks knew it was more surprise than anything else; there was no way the Namek was strong enough to match the android for any length of time.

Indeed, Seventeen almost immediately got the upper hand, which was to say he hit Piccolo with a roundhouse kick to the head. Tien appeared behind him as he landed—again, Trunks realized in retrospect that he had sensed him and Krillin, but had been to busy to register it—and blasted him in the back with a triangular beam of light. Before Seventeen had time to fully recoil, Krillin was above him, holding a disc of energy.

Seventeen caught it in one hand and shattered it, turning gracefully as he did to seize Tien and pull him forward, punching the three-eyed warrior in the stomach. Tien fell, and Seventeen leapt up, kicking Krillin in the chin before the smaller man could react and sending him hurtling up through the road and into the mountain beyond, not five feet from the massive third android, who apparently had elected not to fight.

It was all happening again. He couldn't do anything to stop it. Everyone was going to die.

The android floated down and stood in front of him, his face the mask of icy boredom that had haunted the half-Saiyan's dreams since he was a child. He spoke, in a voice like permafrost. "I do hope this isn't the best the Earth has to offer. Because if it is, I'm going to be really bored."

---

Five more minutes. If they were where he thought they were based on the river he'd just flown over, Gohan calculated that it should only be five more minutes to West City. He was almost there.

"Um...Gohan?"

Somehow he knew from the tone that they weren't going to be getting there in five minutes. "What is it, Bulma?"

"We need to stop for a minute. Somebody needs his diaper changed." This set Yajirobe muttering indistinctly up top.

"We're almost there, though. Can't it wait a few minutes?"

"I'm sorry, but it's kind of an emergency. Can you take us back to that river we saw a minute ago? I need to wash him off."

Gohan sighed. Once again, Trunks was making his life difficult. Well, it wasn't like he could help it this time. "Sure." He swooped down and pulled around, doubling back. It shouldn't be too long, right? Gohan didn't know much about changing diapers, but it couldn’t take that much time.

The river was edged by woods, and Gohan found a small clearing and landed as swiftly as he could without breaking Bulma's ankles. She immediately sat and placed Trunks on the grass, baby-talking to him. "Okay now, stinky boy, let's get you all cleaned up so we can go home."

Trunks—the stupid adult one, not the little one currently being undressed—was fighting, Gohan realized abruptly. He turned away from the other three and wandered some feet away to the bank of the river, looking off into the distance towards the fight as if it would help him see all the way there.

"Yajirobe, take this into the river and wash it."

"Why do I gotta do it?"

"Because it's your scarf, that's why! What, do you want to take my defenseless naked son into the river instead? I've always wondered about you..."

Vegeta was there too, and Piccolo, Krillin and Tien, but their energies were so weak that Gohan could barely sense them. In fact, they were blinking in and out of his awareness, almost like...

Almost like they were dying.

"Darn..." Gohan felt his chest tighten almost painfully. He wanted to go help them, notwithstanding whether he was strong enough to do so. But he couldn't. He had to get Bulma and Yajirobe to West City first. He had to do what he was supposed to do before he could do what he wanted to do.

"Hey! Make that little monkey stop splashing me!"

"Oh, grow up. Trunks is the one who's supposed to be a baby, not you!"

"Fine. I'll go somewhere where I'm appreciated."

"You mean somewhere where you're the only person?"

There was a sloshing noise as Yajirobe walked downstream, and then a cry as he tripped, and then Gohan was half drenched in splash water.

Gohan wiped his eyes clear of the water Goku had splashed as he exploded out of the lake. And as he did so realized that Goku had only blown the water as high as he had so that it would hit his son.

A burst of speed put Gohan in between his dad and Piccolo just in time to catch a punch with his crossed forearms. He leaned back until he was horizontal, spinning his whole body to kick Goku's arm away with one foot and get him in the side of the head with the other.

Except that what his second leg actually connected with was his father's palm, which then grabbed and threw him diagonally at the lake, where Gohan skipped uncontrollably like a stone for a few dozen feet before managing to right himself. It was amazing how much hitting a water surface hurt.

He righted himself as fast as his body would move and launched back up into the air to where the Namek and his father were now fighting, getting in between them again and drawing Goku away from Piccolo.

Gohan still wasn't quite sure what this training game was supposed to accomplish. Piccolo was hardly convincing as someone who needed his protection, though Goku wasn't doing a bad job as an evil villain.

They fought for a few minutes, Goku holding back enough that Gohan could keep up, until the boy got under his father's guard and punched him in the chin, following up with a kick to the ribcage that put Goku in the water again.

The half-Saiyan floated down, tracking Goku with his senses. He wandered around under the water for a minute before charging up, and Gohan raced down and intercepted him just above the water's surface. They fought for about ten seconds before Goku grabbed one of Gohan's arms and twisted him around with it, seizing the other in the process and effectively stopping him from moving.

"Enough, Gohan. You're missing the point."

Gohan stopped struggling for the moment. "Huh? I am?"

"Yes. You're supposed to be protecting Piccolo, not fighting me."

Those two things were kind of the same thing. "But...I have to beat you to protect him!"

"No. You could have gotten him to run away while I was under the water, but instead you left him up there and came down to fight me again. You have to do what needs to be done before you can do what you want to do, Gohan."

Something wasn't right here. He needed to beat his dad to save Piccolo. All running just then would have accomplished would have been a few seconds of safety, until Goku caught up with them again. But instead of that, what he said was, "How am I supposed to tell the difference?"

"You'll have to learn how to decide for yourself. There isn't always going to be someone to tell you..."

He shook water out of his hair and sighed. Trunks and the others would have to be okay for five more minutes. Plus whatever time it would take him to get there after. They had the Senzu beans, so they should be fine.

"Geez, Yajirobe, are you trying to empty the river?"

"Shut up! I did that on purpose."

"You could at least apologize to Gohan, you know. You got him all wet!"

"A little water never hurt anyone. Besides, kid needed a bath anyway."

"It's okay, Bulma. It's just water." There were worse things than being wet. And they were happening to his friends, and to Trunks, too. It wasn't that hard anyway to dry off with energy, just using way less than when he was trying to blow something up. By the time Bulma and the now-clean Trunks emerged from the river, Gohan was dry.

Of course, he would pick up the spluttering and cursing Yajirobe in a minute and get soaked again, but things happened.

It took Bulma a moment to wrap Yajirobe's scarf around Trunks again in a reasonable facsimile of a diaper, not that Gohan had enough experience to know what it was supposed to look like. She of course complained as she worked: "Wouldn't have made such a mess if this thing had been shorter."

Yajirobe overheard, not that she had been keeping her voice down. "Well, sorry my clothes aren't good enough to go on your spawn's behind. Next time I go shopping, I'll be sure to bring you along."

"You do that." Bulma picked Trunks up and changed to her baby voice. "Are you ready to go flying again? You are, aren't you?"

"Come on, kid, let's go. The faster we get to her house, the better." Gohan kind of wondered if Yajirobe realized that he would be dropping both of them off at Capsule Corp. He certainly wouldn't be taking any detours to Korin Tower; Gohan barely even knew where it was.

"All right. Ready to go. Oh, Gohan!" Bulma snapped her fingers as if just remembering something important. "I wanted to ask you something. What is it that you have in your front pocket? It's been digging into my back since we left."

"My front pocket?" He didn't remember putting anything in there. "It's just..." The half-Saiyan reached into his shirt and pulled out...

The bag of Senzu beans.

Oh, damn.

"I have to go." He was already walking away and lifting into the air without them.

"Wait, Gohan!"

"I'll be back soon." Without these, they didn't stand a chance in that fight. Even Trunks was starting to slowly fade now. They needed these beans. "Don't worry."

"It can't wait ten extra minutes?"

"No." There was no time to explain, he was already almost out of hearing.

"What about your mom and dad? Don't you need to go see them?"

"He'll wait." Gohan called out as he powered away. It was pretty far away, but it wouldn't take him that long if he flew fast. "I waited for him." He muttered a moment later, grabbing the guilt at leaving and putting it in the box. With it went the memory that threatened to surface as he spoke, those horrible two hours, with the blood, and...

No. In the box, all of it.

Sometimes need and want ended up being the sharing the same goal. "I'm coming, guys." Hold on, Trunks.

---

Piccolo got up—for the third or fourth time; Trunks had lost count—and made yet another pointless charge at Seventeen. The time traveler coordinated his own attack to come from the other side at the same time, but it hardly mattered. The android easily deflected them both back. Trunks managed to land on his feet, but the Namek fell to the ground again. Seventeen's clothes weren't even out of place.

Trunks stood, panting, blood dripping from one hand where the android had caught a punch and squeezed, and he thought, We're dead. We just haven't stopped breathing yet. There was no way. The androids...they almost seemed to be stronger here than in his time. But that was impossible.

He glanced over at Vegeta and Eighteen. His father was still putting up a good fight, or thought he was, but she was playing with him as much as Seventeen was with them. Trunks didn't know if Vegeta could tell, but it was obvious to him.

"My, my. You're a hard one to knock down, aren't you?" Seventeen asked, taking a few steps towards Trunks. "The pretty little warrior. He tried valiantly to help, but couldn't even save himself. It's really quite tragic. For you, I mean. I don't care all that much, but it's really a waste of that nice face of yours."

Seventeen and Eighteen couldn’t sense energy, so when Tien got up right behind the dark-haired android, Trunks had to keep him distracted so he wouldn't notice. "You don't have to do this, you know." He knew there was no chance that he would be changing Seventeen's mind about anything, but if he could get him talking for a few seconds...

"Of course I don't. And you don't have to keep getting back up, either. But you still do." That was true. If they'd all stayed on the ground after the first round of attacks, the android probably would have left without killing them. Probably.

"Why, though?" Trunks felt like he was reading from a script, but it was working. Seventeen was looking straight at him and not over his shoulder, where Tien was quietly gathering energy. "Why do you have to hurt people? We haven't done anything to you!"

"Sure you have. I'm trying to get to Goku and you're in my way." He paused to fix his hair again. "Goku so greatly offended the dear, departed Dr. Gero. What kind of son would I be if I didn't carry out my father's dying wish?"

Trunks thought that if he took Gero out of his capsule right now and asked him, right at this very moment, the doctor would probably prefer to see Seventeen dead over Goku, but he wasn't about to bring that up.

Tien attacked—dispensing with the characteristic yelling that they all felt the need to do in the hopes of keeping his sneak attack just that—rushing forward with energy gathered to bursting in all four...yes, all four of his hands.

Seventeen didn't seem to notice—but he raised one leg from the ground and kicked backwards, taking Tien in the stomach again and doubling the other man over. "Hold on one second, would you?" He asked Trunks, turning to his would-be attacker. "Attacking when my back is turned." He picked Tien up by the throat. He was quite a bit shorter, and the three-eyed man's toes still brushed the ground. He raised his free hand, aiming for the heart. "Not very polite."

"No!"

But before Trunks could move, he sensed something coming from the sky. An explosion went off just to Seventeen's right, and something hit his left shoulder. He dropped Tien and took a step back in surprise. "What?"

He was hit again, from a different angle this time, in the cheek and the stomach. "Who's doing that?"

It wasn't the sky the attacks were coming from, Trunks realized, but the very top of the cliff, far up above the damaged road. Seventeen unfortunately realized this at the same time, and even as he was hit square in the chest with the next two attacks, he pointed outstretched hands in that direction. The whole top of the cliff exploded, and Seventeen vanished.

Seconds later a small form hit the ground just as violently as he had before. Trunks felt the irrational fear that it was Gohan, before he realized that was impossible. Seventeen reappeared, standing within arm's reach of Trunks. "You try to ignore me, you gang up on me, and now this one hides while he attacks me." He sounded angry, but at the same time he could have frozen an ocean. "I think it's about time you learned some etiquette."

The dust cleared from the new crater, and Chiaotzu emerged, bleeding and with as furious an expression as Trunks had ever seen. He had only met the little man once, when he'd come to the past before, and hadn't thought him capable of such intensity.

But there it was anyway. The telepath's eyes were hot enough to melt the ice of Seventeen's glare, though he held the android in his gaze for only a second before turning to see Tien, who looked to be unconscious. Then he launched himself at Seventeen without warning.

Now that the android could see him coming, however, Chiaotzu was no match. Both punch and narrow energy beam were blocked easily and he was kicked up into the air, where he rose and fell in an high arc that landed him thirty feet away. He got up immediately.

"And to think you managed to tear my shirt." Trunks recognized that look in Seventeen's eyes; there was no way he would be letting Chiaotzu live after offending him like that. The time traveler charged at the android, but Seventeen got both of his arms and pinned them in one hand. "I'm busy right now, dear; don't interrupt. Go wait over there and I'll get to you when I'm done." And he was tossed to one side, cutting a tract through the ground and coming to rest on a pile of rocks. If the amount of pain he was suddenly in was any indication, many things were broken. He couldn't move, much less get up and stop Seventeen from killing Chiaotzu.

The telepath charged again, this time vanishing to attack from behind. It didn't matter. Seventeen punched him square in the face and sent him into the side of the cliff.

Seventeen was going to torture him to death, Trunks knew, letting him attack over and over again, futilely, and all the while fighting back just enough to cause new pain every time. That was what he did.

Trunks could do nothing but watch as the little warrior who had been deemed not strong enough to fight got up again and flew full-on at the enemy he knew he had no hope of defeating.

---

"I do not understand." Android Sixteen declared. "Why does that creature continue to attack Seventeen? He must understand that he cannot win."

"He knows." The man called Krillin said from where he sat in the rubble nearby. "He's not trying to win."

"They why fight?"

"To protect his friends." Krillin was leaning back against the rock wall where he had been thrown, one arm hanging limp and his legs resting at an unusual angle. There was blood all over his face from a laceration on his scalp.

"Explain. How does he protect them by allowing himself to die?"

"Because that Seventeen guy's not looking at them right now, is he?"

"Prolonging their lives for a few moments longer is something that this person is willing to pay for with his own?" How...irrational.

"It's not just Chiaotzu. Any of us would."

"Then why do you not?"

"Because I can't move." Even to Sixteen, Krillin's voice seemed to take on a tone of dullness. "My legs aren't working."

Sixteen looked over at him and ran a body scan. "Indeed. Your spinal cord is severed below your fourth thoracic vertebra. Further, all of the musculature of your right shoulder is torn and your right scapula, clavicle and humerus are crushed. Your gallbladder is ruptured and your liver is perforated.." No medical science in Sixteen's databanks could bring function back to his lower extremities, and if he did not receive aid in the next hour, he would die. The android turned his head back to the fight.

"Gee, thanks. I feel so much better."

"It was not my intention to provide you comfort."

Krillin sighed and was silent for a moment. The fight, such as it was, raged on below. Chiaotzu leaped at Seventeen and was thrown to the ground, a foot planted on his chest.

"Hey. Can I ask you a question?"

"You may do whatever you wish."

"Except walk." Then, louder, he said, "Why aren't you fighting?"

Chiaotzu had gotten out from under Seventeen—because the android had kicked him away. "I am programmed to destroy Goku. I do not desire to fight anybody else."

"I thought they were programmed to do the same thing!" Krillin shouted as best he could. "How come they desire to fight other people? If all they're supposed to do is kill Goku, how come they're doing all of this?"

"I do not know."

"Well, maybe you should ask them."

Sixteen didn't answer for a moment as he watched Chiaotzu attack Seventeen again and have his left ulna broken with one flick of a finger. He did not have likes and dislikes, and he was designed to fight and kill, but something...something inside him did not wish to see this continue much longer. "Perhaps I shall."

---

It was over. Seventeen and Chiaotzu were still fighting, and so were Eighteen and Vegeta, but neither could even be called a fight. Both androids were standing completely still, simply blocking every attack that was launched and counterattacking just enough to inflict more pain.

At this point, Trunks almost wished they would just go for the kill.

He was starting to lose consciousness, he could feel it. And something was wrong with one of his lungs, probably punctured by one of his many broken ribs. The sun seemed to be going down, but he knew it was still only early afternoon.

They had failed. He had failed. He had done everything he could, and still everything was going to be the same. Somehow he wasn't surprised by that. Trunks wondered which Gohan would be more disappointed in him, the one whose world he'd let be destroyed, or the one who he was trying to avenge. Of course, they were the same person, weren't they?

Eighteen had had enough. He heard her say, "You're just boring me now." And out of the corner of one eye, Trunks saw her break Vegeta's knee, and then when he bent over, she hit the back of his head like a hammer and he went down. Eighteen kicked his body away from her, and Vegeta landed not far from where Trunks lay, his eyes glazed over, just like Gohan's had been.

Trunks managed a coherent thought. My father's dying two feet away from me and I still can't stop thinking about Gohan.

"Are you almost done over there, Seventeen? I want to go now."

"In a minute. Hold on." Trunks couldn't turn his head to see what was happening over there, but Chiaotzu screamed and then went very silent. It was one of the first noises he'd heard the little warrior make through the whole fight.

"All right, let's get going, then."

"You didn't kill any of them, Seventeen. They're all still breathing."

"For now. Besides, what would be the—" Something cut him off, and Trunks felt very warm. He finally identified the interrupting sound as an explosion, but that wasn't the cause of his temperature change. That was from inside him. It was because of...something. He couldn't remember. There was a lot of dust everywhere again, and he couldn't see anything.

But...

There was someone there. Trunks felt so warm and safe all of the sudden. Everything would be okay now.

Gohan was going to save him.

---
End
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I'm expecting a fairly long delay before the next chapter--I imagine at least a few months. Just so everyone knows.