Chapter 10: Living Hell

            The girl collapsed. Gohan gasped and ran to her, putting her head in his lap and smoothing back her ruffled hair. Just as he did this, a short bald man came running to her.

            “Videl! Oh man, this is the millionth time this has happened!” he said, running to the fallen girl in Gohan’s arms.

            Gohan recognized the man instantly.

            “Krillin!” he shouted, a smile of hope spreading across his face.

            “Who are you?” Krillin asked. “…Goku?” he then added.

            “No, you dumbass! It’s me, Gohan!” Gohan laughed, still smiling.

            “Gohan?! We all though you were dead!” Krillin shouted happily, running to hug his friend.

            “Who else is here?” Gohan asked.

            “Everyone…everyone on Chikyuu…except for Goku…Gohan. I don’t know how to tell you this,” Krillin began.

            “I know…Dad’s dead. It’s a long story of what happened but I can tell you another time. Right now we have to help…Videl, right?” Gohan said.

            “Yeah…she has been fainting for about a week now. She keeps saying weird stuff and then just collapsing…she told us that she keeps seeing the one who is going to save us and that he’d arrive soon…something about her needing to go on for him or something,” Krillin explained.

            Gohan looked down at her. He remembered what Vegetasei had told him.

            …Look into the pool, Gohan, and see this girl. When you meet her, keep her close to you. She is your strength. Without her, your powers are useless…

            Gohan gasped and looked down at her. She was the girl from the vision…she was…            

            “Hey guys!” Krillin yelled suddenly, “come in here! You’ll never guess who’s here!”

            Even before he finished his sentence, everyone appeared in the room, in a fighting stance. Yamcha, Tien, Chaotzu, Piccolo, even Vegeta, and one new face…

            He was a mirror image of Vegeta, but much younger. His hair was pale lavender, and flat against his head. Little wisps of it fell in his handsome face, in front of his sharp, haunted blue eyes that promised death to anyone who tried to cross him.

            “Who…” Yamcha began, but realized ‘who.’

            “Whoa, Gohan, is that really you?” he cried, a smile spreading across his scarred countenance.

            “Yeah, guys, it’s me!” Gohan said, grinning from ear to ear.

            All but Vegeta and the young man rushed forward to crush Gohan in a joyous embrace. Laughter filled the air, but was soon interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.

            “Guys, I need to speak with Gohan now,” the mysterious young man said.

            Gohan walked out from the happy crowd and followed the man where he went.

            They walked into a small, simple room with a cot and chair. The young man sat on the cot and Gohan took a seat on the chair. He looked at the newcomer and saw tears in his eyes.

            “What’s wrong?” Gohan asked, concerned about this enigmatic young man.

            “You have no idea…I need you now to trust me. Before I can tell you anything, I need to know what happened in the years after you disappeared from Namek,” he said.

            “How do you…know about that?” Gohan asked.

            “Nevermind for now. Please, trust me and tell me what happened,” he repeated.

            Gohan looked into this stranger’s eyes, feeling an unusual trust for him. After considering and taking in the whole situation, Gohan prepared himself to speak.

            “I don’t know exactly how I got there, but the entire time I was gone I was on Vegetasei. All I know is that I hit my head on Namek and then woke up there. I met my grandfather there, before he died…only one day before. I tried to talk to him and warn him about Frieza, you know, trying to blow up the planet. They thought I was crazy and threw me in some dungeon. It was there that I heard this voice…a young woman’s voice. She instructed me and I almost succeeded in saving the planet, but I was too late. The planet blew up.”

            “How did you live, then?” the young man ask.

            “That’s the thing. I didn’t think I did. But when it was over, I woke up on the ground again…back where I started. The voice then told me something else to try, and I did it, but once again failed. But that time, I met the King…I’m sure Vegeta will be pretty surprised to hear that. Well, I failed, but that time I woke up in a beautiful cave, called the Amethyst Cave. The woman who had instructed me through all of it appeared out of this purple pool. She told me that she was the spirit of Vegetasei, and she was trying to get me to save it. She gave me one more chance…then she said something about “once more before I alter things a bit” or something like that. She gave me this blood red pendant and told me to give it to Bardock. I gave it to him and he began to help me. We failed that time, too…”

            “What was the pendant for?”

            “I’ll get to that in a second,” Gohan said, and then went on with his story.

            “I woke up that time in the cave. But when I looked down, I was no longer the six-year-old boy that I had been. I was like this. I had aged about twelve years, and I guess that so did Chikyuu. Well, she said that since I was of age, I could have a small say in decisions. So she transported me to this meeting place in the desert where all the Saiyans were gathered, talking about the rebellion against Frieza. They saw me, and stopped. I then made them a deal: I would fight the King. Whoever won would have their way about the rebellion. If I won, they wouldn’t rebel and Frieza wouldn’t blow them up right away. If he won, then he could rebel against whoever the hell he wanted to and I would leave. So the fight began, but I humiliated him by just sidestepping a blow, so he sent one of his henchmen at me. I punched him once and he died. It was really strange. Well, they said that they would stop the rebellion, so I was just brought back to the Amethyst Cave. Vegetasei congratulated me, but then she told me that a battle was approaching…between Frieza and me. Well, she put us both on the top of Mt. Koarna-sul, the mountain where the Amethyst Cave was hidden. We fought for a long time, and in the end, I won. I was transported back to the Amethyst Cave, where Vegetasei told me the significance of the pendant.

            “It was from my grandfather. Vegetasei had made him a deal: if he drank from the pool, which gives you incredible powers, she would give him the strongest Saiyan ever to live as a son. His wife then had my dad, but something happened and they sent him on the purge. Bardock, who had gained his Sight from the pool, wanted to thank Vegetasei for fulfilling her promise ten fold, since he Saw what Dad would do, and gave her the pendant as a thank-you. Then she had me drink from the pool…it gave me incredible power—“

            “I know, I felt it,” the young man said.

            “Well, anyway,” Gohan continued. “She told me to look into the pool then, and I did, and well…I saw the girl back there…Videl. She said that Videl was my strength and my new powers were worthless without her. I cried when I saw Videl’s pain, because I could feel it too, and my tears dropped into the pool. Well, the water turned from purple to blue. Vegetasei gasped and told me that it was good, but…but something. She wouldn’t tell me. Then she put me here.”

            As Gohan finished his story, the young man remained totally silent, as if taking in everything.

            “So is Vegetasei restored? Shouldn’t things here be different?” the young man asked, seeming as if he knew the answer already.

            “That’s the thing. Vegetasei said that we would not be changed…only that timeline…I didn’t understand it but I think that it is an entirely different dimension.”

            “Then we are doing the same thing. You tried to save Vegetasei in hopes that it would change our time…but it changed another. The same thing happened here. I tried to save everyone here so my time would be better, but I returned shortly and nothing changed. When I came back here, of course, things were very different, but still wrong,” Trunks said.         

“Then we aren’t so different, you and I,” Gohan noted.

“We shouldn’t be…you trained me,” the man said.

            “What? But I just told you about—“

            “I know that,” he interrupted. “I am from the future…but my younger self is here now…just an infant.”

            “How far into the future are you from?” Gohan asked.

            “About seventeen years,” he said.

            “Ok…what’s going on then? I’d really like to know,” Gohan asked, a little irritably.

            “Ok, I’ll explain all of it now,” the man said, “and I’ll start with my name. I’m Trunks.”

            Gohan remained silent and waited until Trunks went on.

            “Right now I am your age: only eighteen. In my time, you didn’t get knocked out on Namek and you came back to Chikyuu. Everyone but you was killed. My father’s dying words were to you…to train me, but I was too young at the time to know anything.”

            “Who was your father?” Gohan asked.

            “Well, you might not have guessed, but I am Saiyan. Half-Saiyan, actually,” Trunks said. “Bulma is my mother.”

            “Ok…” Gohan said confusedly. “Is my dad—“

            “No…who else is there?” Trunks said, obviously enjoying for once being smarter than Gohan (he wasn’t in his own time, now was he?).

            “Me…but you aren’t far enough into the future and you were already born, so…Vegeta?! Seriously? Well, you do look like him…Whoa, I never would have guessed otherwise!” Gohan laughed.

            “Yes, Vegeta is my father,” Trunks said, “but let me continue my story.

            “Every one of the warriors you grew up with and fought with were gone. It was just you and me that were left. You trained me without any rest, for weeks on end sometimes, but it worked out well. Eventually, though, you were killed, and all you left me with was this,” Trunks said, lightly touching a beautiful sword on his back. “My mother was then so upset by your death that she built a time machine, which transported me here.”

            “What killed all of us? Had to be something pretty bad…worse than Frieza,” Gohan said.

            “It was a terrible creature…an android named Cell. At first, he was nothing, and we had to deal with two other androids, called 17 and 18. They did horrible damage, but nothing as bad as Cell. They were created so that Cell could absorb them and…evolve, kind of. He has swallowed 17, but 18 is here, with us. We are in hiding, now, trying to escape Cell’s slavery. Funny thing is, she has turned good and has had a child with Krillin. Marron is a beautiful little girl about my younger self’s age. Well, we are stuck here now, until someone stops Cell. The only one now who hasn’t tried is you, Gohan. Will you help?”

            “Of course. I owe it to everyone. If only I had been here…” Gohan said, his temper flaring.

            “Calm down, Gohan, please. Save it for Cell. Anyway, we have something like a Hyperbolic Time Chamber down here, but not as good as the one on the lookout. My mother, once again, saved us by building it,” Trunks said.

            “She’s a great woman. Her brains have saved all our asses quite a few times. So what should we do now?” Gohan said.

            “You need to train in the Time Chamber. It works the same way as the one on the lookout, but you can only use it once. Now is the time. There is one advantage, though,” Trunks explained.

            “What’s that?” Gohan asked.

            “One day will equal two years, not one. There aren’t any harmful side effects or anything like that, either. You and Videl will go in as soon as she wakes up.”

            “Why is Videl going in?” Gohan asked.

            “I don’t know the full extent of it, but you two have a connection. About a week ago, she started having visions about you, and I guess that Vegetasei saw this and did something with your strength…concerning her, of course. I don’t know what it is, but two years together will solve all this. I’ll get everything ready, ok? You guys will need a lot of food and water, as well as some other stuff.”

            Gohan nodded at Trunks and smiled. On Vegetasei, he had rarely smiled. His Saiyan side had become dominant, and he always smirked. Smiling felt better to him…more fulfilling.

            He just hoped that there would be something to smile about when he came out of the Chamber.