章 23: Chapter 23: My Planet
Walking outside, I saw Krillin leaning against the tree in front of King Kai's house with his arms crossed and his eyes closed.
"Hey-hey," I greeted with a wave.
"Hey, bud. Come on over. Let's chat for a little bit."
He said, taking a seat on the grass.
Taking a seat next to him, he laid back on the floor looking up at the battle arena. Getting comfortable, I did the same.
"Why'd you come down here? You done training for the day?" I asked.
"Nah… Not exactly." He said, putting his arms behind his head leisurely.
"Then why'd you come down?"
"Well… to be honest, I just wanted to check in with ya, ya know? Since you've been here, all we've been doing is training really. We haven't really gotten the time to get to know each other yet."
"What do you mean by that? We've been with each other 24/7 since I got here. I hang out with you guys all the time." I replied, raising a brow.
"I mean, yeah… But you haven't been able to talk for most of your training. On top of that, although you've been a little more coherent as of recently, you haven't really been in the position to socialize. I wanna get to know you more, but on a deeper level."
With his statement, I sat up and looked directly at him with speculation.
"... Krillin, are you coming on to me right now? Is that what this is?"
His eyelids shot wide open while the skin on his cheeks became flushed.
"What?! N-No," He exclaimed with panic.
"I like women! I swear! My intentions are pure. I just genuinely wanted to get to know you better. Platonically!" He let out, visibly flustered.
"Woah-woah. What are you getting so defensive for? I wouldn't judge you if you were… Ya know. I'm just letting you know that I'm not."
"I'm not gay, Trunks! I might be single right now, but I've had girlfriends!"
"Haha. Relax. I'm just messing with you."
"*sigh*"
"Thank god." He chuckled, going back to his relaxed state.
"Anyway, continue. What do you mean by "you wanna get to know me?"
"Well… You're strong. I know that. I also know that you're from the future… Other than that, you're kinda a complete mystery to me. A part of me is convinced that you keep it that way on purpose, so I really haven't tried to pry. But I can't deny the fact that as the days go by, I wonder more about your origins. I feel like Goku and King Kai are the only ones you've really let in."
"...Want me to tell you the truth?"
"Well, yeah. I wanna know who you are… What brought you here? For a while now, I've just been going with the flow for a lot of things. I just kinda assumed that you and the other Trunks were carbon copies of one another, but with how much he looks up to you, I can't help but see that you two lived completely different lives."
"That little shit looks up to me?"
"Yeah. He probably won't admit it himself, but before Bojack came to Earth, he was thinking about going to Namek to bring you back. Not only that, but he started training his swordsmanship up like crazy once you left. He even found your swords and started working out with them."
"He trains with my swords?" I had been curious as to what happened to them. It's been a while since I had Noir and Owl in my hands and I kinda missed them.
"Yeah… By the way, why are those things so damn heavy? What are they made out of, because It makes me wonder if they're even practical in combat situations… Like, at all."
"Ha… They're not. As for what they're made out of, I really don't know. My mom made them for me after I broke my original sword. I told her that I wanted them for training and that I needed them to be really heavy. In turn, I got Noir and Owl."
"Well, she delivered on that, that's for sure. I felt like my arms were gonna fall off just from lifting em." He chuckled.
"Yeah…anyway, how did my Dad feel about the other me using weapons? I can't imagine him being happy about his son using weapons for combat instead of his fist."
"Haha… Well, you'd be right on the nail with that one. Those two trained together all the time. He always called Trunks… let's say, Dumb, for using them."
"He called him a pussy, didn't he?"
"Ha… And every synonym for it under the sun." Krillin laughed nervously.
"Did that stop them from sparring with each other?"
I asked.
"Nope. When Vegeta made fun of him for using your swords, Other Trunks always used to say that you got stronger with swords, and you were way stronger than your dad."
"I'm guessing my dad didn't take that too well. What was his response?"
"Child abuse… But hey, to be fair, that only pushed Other you to get stronger."
"Ah…" I uttered.
In a strange way, I was proud that other Trunks was pushing himself to be stronger. It made me wonder what his power level was as of currently.
"Anyway… About my question earlier." Krillin trailed.
"My past. You wanna know about it?"
"I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. We all have our fair share of secrets. But I can't lie, I wouldn't mind knowing."
"I don't mind telling you. Also, the part where you said earlier that King Kai and Goku are the only ones who I let in; that might be the case, but they don't know my background as in-depth as you think."
"Huh? Then how are you guys so close?"
"We just get along like that." I smiled.
*
*
*
For the next 20 minutes, I went on to tell Krillin about how I became the person I was today. I told him about my childhood, my relationship with my mother, my friendship with Gohan, and the impact the androids had on my Earth.
For the first time, I told another person who Cell was and what he did to my mother. I even told him what my initial intention with staying in this timeline was, which horrified him.
"Trunks… you can't be serious, right? Do you seriously wanna allow that Cell monster to achieve his perfect form? That's insane! He killed your mother! And you have no Kami to wish her back. Are you gonna let history repeat itself and make us all suffer?!" He stood up and exclaimed. He then nervously paced back and forth.
"They ruined your life. What's stopping them from doing it again? They have all of our DNA. On top of that, we're way stronger than we were in your timeline, so they might even have our current genes. That means that it'd be even crazier to keep them alive now!" To his words, I calmly shook my head.
Even though I held my composure, there was an eerie feeling that I had been harvesting. I knew something was off with my dabbling in the timeline. Gero Had eyes everywhere on Earth. The chances of him making the Androids stronger did cross my mind. Would his having Bojack's DNA be problematic for me?
'No. I remember. He should have already finished with 17 and 18. I just have to kill this Cell so the future doesn't absorb him.' I thought, calming my nerves.
"*sigh*"
"I see that you're upset right now, Krillin, but hold on a second. I don't plan on letting Cell live anymore. I said I planned… Past tense. But I know better than I did. My time here made me rethink a couple of things. Letting Cell stay alive was one of them."
As if a bucket of cool water had been doused over his head, he was once again calm, stopping in place.
"Oh thank god. I almost had a heart attack."
"After I was done on earth, I planned to return to Namek so that I could ask its dragon for Cell's location. Then, I planned on killing him."
"Good… good. Okay. Now I can relax." He said, flopping on the ground.
"Wait… But that leaves the other Androids. What are you gonna do about them? What are you gonna do with the cell that comes back from the future?" He asked with a metaphorical sweat droplet coming down from his forehead.
"Well, for them, it's a different story." At my words, Krillin's eyes darkened.
"What do you mean by different story?"
"What I mean by that is, all of you guys have been training for a bit, right?"
"I'm following."
"Good. Can we agree that I'm strong?"
"I mean, yeah. That pretty much goes without saying. Yamcha's in there crippled because of you."
"That's… Aside from the point. What I'm saying is that I'm strong enough to take all of them on by myself. With that being said, I want to allow you guys the opportunity to advance."
"Okay… You see, that's the part I'm not following. Why?" I could tell he was getting frustrated with all of my replies, but there was a point that I needed to make him understand.
"Krillin… The Androids aren't the only threat that's coming. There are gonna be times where you don't have an extra Trunks lying around. There are gonna be times when you don't even have Goku to protect you. And when more threats come, you guys need to be equipped with as much battle experience as possible." With my statement, Krillin looked like he was just about ready to strangle me.
"Trunks…No offense, but do you know how stupid you sound right now, or do I need to tell you? If you're as strong as you say you are, then you need to get rid of those Androids, ASAP!"
"Krillin. How many times have you died?"
"Why does that-"
"Just answer the question… How many times have you died?"
For a moment, he hesitated, then reluctantly gave his response.
"This'll be my third time. Once when I was a kid. Namek makes for the second. And this most recent time with Bojack."
"And that's the problem. Everyone around you keeps dying. Yourself included. No one is safe. Not unless you get stronger so that you don't have to worry about another Bojack. And the thing is, you guys have been doing just that. You probably don't even realize it, but in such a short period of time, you've managed to get just as strong as Yamcha."
"...What? You can't be serious right now. You think I'm as strong as him?"
"Yeah. You are. That's because you have been putting your blood sweat and tears into your training. Mind you, Yamcha was strong enough to take out Frieza. And that was without the use of Kaio-Ken." For a moment, he looked at his palms in disbelief.
"But even with all your hard work, you still need to work harder. You and everyone else. You guys need all the battle experience you can get. The Androids are just that for you. You've been training your hearts out. You probably already know this, but training alone isn't enough." I replied. I
"*sigh*"
"I get that… I do. Master Roshi used to say something similar to that actually, but that aside, even if we've managed to reach a new level of power, I can't agree with you on a good conscious. I still feel like putting our lives in jeopardy is a bad move. I mean, wasn't the whole point of you traveling back in time to save us?"
"This might sound a little bit heartless when I say this, but if I'm being honest here, No. Originally, I came because I wanted revenge on Cell. He brutally murdered the people I cared about most in the entire world. I wanted to Kill him all over again. But now, I realize that what I really was looking for was another chance… a chance to save those I care about."
"And with me changing my goals up, that puts even more pressure on you to get stronger. There might be a time when out of the both of us, I'm the one who has the floating halo on my head. When that day comes, somebody needs to fight the bad guys off so that I can come back."
I was being dead serious. Before I went into my coma, I almost died to a Godzilla-sized bug. Right now, I was the only one capable of handling Hirudegarn. I had screwed up the timeline beyond belief. If I had been reckless for even a second and died, there was no one to bring me back to life. I didn't know how I caused it to appear, but if I hadn't stopped it, it would have turned Otherworld into ruins.
There wasn't a chance in hell that Goku could've done what I had in his current state. The him of a year ago would have ended up getting his astral form obliterated. Without either me or him, it was over for Earth. It was over for pretty much everything in existence as I knew it unless Beerus decided to step in. But even in the hypothetical situation where he did, it wasn't like my loved ones were gonna get wished back.
"How do you know? In your time, all you had to worry about was Gero's robots." Oh, how wrong he was.
"Let me answer your question with more questions. Did things stop with pilaf when you were a kid?"
"Bulma told you about that?"
"Did it stop with the red ribbon army?"
"No, but-"
"Did it stop after Piccolo, the Saiyans, or Frieza? How many people were lost because none of you were prepared for what was to come."
"A lot…" He mumbled begrudgingly.
"Alright then. That means that all of us need to get more powerful. Not just for our sake, but the planet we all grew up on."
"*sigh*"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give you the third degree. You probably had enough of that with Yamcha already. It's just… I'm scared. I just keep dying over and over again, and honestly, you never get used to it." He said with a defeated smile.
"Krillin… It's okay to be scared. We all get scared. The thing is, we can't be paralyzed with fear. I learned that when I had all those voices in my head."
"What? Voices? Are you like, schizophrenic now or something?" He teased, attempting to change the mood.
"Ha… No. But God, did feel like it."
"I'm just pulling your string. King Kai explained what kind of training you had to do. I gotta say, I don't envy you." He said nudging my shoulder playfully.
"Yeah, It definitely sucked. But, here I am, one step closer to getting us home safe. For the time being, anyway."
"We can agree on that. We still gotta take care of Bojack."
"Don't worry about him. He shouldn't be a problem for me." I smirked, confident in my capabilities.
At most, Bojack was at the level of a Super Saiyan 2. Although I couldn't transform into one, I now had a better transformation in my back pocket that could do the job.
Although I still needed to make improvements on my prime form, I couldn't call it inefficient. Every time I felt like my Ki reserves were close to 0 and every time I felt like I was too injured to continue a battle, channeling my emotions seemed to push me beyond my limitations.
In my Prime form, my pain receptors were dampened while my heart would beat faster than a hummingbird's. My senses were enhanced while my muscles pulsated with power, making me feel like I could crush any opponent opposing me. Being in my Prime form felt like being on the best performance-enhancing drug without having to worry about any adverse effects.
"*creak*"
"You two done kissing and holding hands yet?"
Voiced a smiling King Kai.
"Depends. You done rubbing on Yamcha's naked body?" I replied with a smirk.
"Ha. nice comeback," Krillin whispered, nudging my arm.
"Is that right, Krillin? You know, I was thinking lately. You've been wearing those weights you got on for a while now. I can remember the last time I doubled em. I mean, I don't want my students slacking off after all." King Kai stated with a coy facade.
"shit. he heard me. I always forget how good his hearing is… Uh, No, King Kai. I think I could wait a little bit until-" Before Krillin continued, his clothes started glowing blue.
"*Boom*"
With a force strong enough to create a Krillin-sized crater, Krillin laid on the ground motionless, covered in dirt.
"God damn it…" He said, slowly lifting his head up.
"Trunks, you wouldn't happen to have a senzu on you now, would you?" At his words, I smiled and shook my head.
"That's 100 laps around the planet for you, baldy."
"King Kai, I didn't even say anything! He was the one who said it."
"Oh? Is that right? 200 for ratting on your fellow student. You better get moving mister. You got a long day ahead of you."
"Crap."
Picking himself off the ground, Krillin began his long journey while King Kai approached me.
"As for you, it's time to start. You ready?"
"Yeah… By any chance, did you hear us talki-"
"I did. Don't care. The less I know, the better. Just me teaching you right now could get me wiped from existence. I wanna stay away from time travel as much as I can."
"Ah… got."
"But Trunks?"
"Yeah?"
"Just a little word from the wise… If you plan on staying, you should get rid of all of the evidence of your crimes. Destroy that Time Machine of yours when you get back to Earth before it's too late, or you're gonna have a very angry kitty cat knocking on your door. Once he does, he's blowing the whole house down, you understand me?"
"Yeah."
I nodded. I couldn't help but appreciate the fact that King Kai was worried about my overall well-being. In truth, just by me being was putting his life in danger. I owed him more than one.
"Good."
***
With that, a month passed. And as I had internally vowed, I managed to master the Kai Kai. My training with King Kai was finished… At least for now.
"So… I guess this is goodbye." King Kai said, looking more depressed than usual.
Currently, I was surrounded by everyone. Today was the day I would finally take care of Bojack and so they all gathered around, preparing to give me a proper send-off.
"Yeah. I guess so. But as I said, I'll make sure to visit at least twice a month." With my comment, his spirits were lifted.
"You better, monkey boy." He smiled.
Then, Tien placed his hand on my shoulder.
"It was nice getting to know you, Trunks. I hope the feeling was mutual."
"Yeah. Best believe." I smiled which he returned with a stoic nod.
"Alright, bud. I guess I'll see you soon if everything goes right." Krillin stated, holding out his fist for a dap.
"You bet," I said, meeting his knuckles with my own.
"Bye Trunks. See you next time." Chiaotzu farewelled.
"Hey, Trunks?" Goku beckoned, tapping my shoulder.
"What's up?"
"Well, I hope it's not too much to ask, but if you have another wish left after bringing us back, do you think that you can get me one of those?" He pointed to my wagging tail. When his question left his mouth, Krillin began to panic.
"Uhhhh, You heard him, Trunks. 'IF' you have a spare wish. Only If. Goku knows that you'll be Veeeeeeeery busy trying to save the Earth. So only make that wish IF you have an extra." Krillin's shaking eyes told me everything I needed to know as to why he emphasized the IF in his sentence.
"Hey? Why'd you say it like that? You almost make it sound like you don't want me to get my tail back or something." Goku stated with his head on a swivel.
"What??? Me??? Nooooo. I would never. If my best buddy in the whole wide world wants his tail back. Haha. That'd be rude of me."
"Uh… yeah, Goku. I can do that for you."
"NO!"
"YES!"
While Krillin despaired, Goku jumped in the air with excitement.
While that was happening, I focused my Ki in the palms of my hands and clasped them together. Slowly pulling them apart, a yellow-glowing greatsword as tall as Krillin with purple surrounding its edge manifested, putting everyone in a state of awe.
"Since when the hell were you able to do that?" King Kai asked with surprise.
"Since always."
"Woah… that thing looks as sharp as Yamcha's claws… And judging from the way that purple Ki is circulating in a prophetical motion like a destructo disk, I'm guessing that you managed to incorporate the principles of both skills into your own, making a weapon with an unreal amount of cutting power." Goku speculated with stars in his eyes, almost getting too close to the weapon.
"Well… yeah. That's exactly what I did." I said with slight surprise. Goku wasn't an idiot by any means. He might have been daft to social cues at times, but he was a battle savant. A true master at his craft.
"The Ki consumption on that thing must be unreal. Even if you have good Ki control, it should be almost impossible for that thing to keep its shape. How are you doing that?"
"Well… I have a lot of Ki for one. Two, I've been training my Ki control every day since I was a toddler."
"Wow… That's impressive. I'm not really a fan of weapons and prefer to fight with my fist, but I gotta say, you really are something, Trunks." He uttered. Honestly, the compliment felt good, I had to admit.
"Nevermind all that, why'd you pull out that big ass sword?" King Kai complained.
"Oh. Because I'm about to cut off Bojack's head with it."
With my announcement, everyone dropped their jaws in astonishment.
"You what?! Do you not remember me telling you how strong he-" Before King Kai could finish, I cut him off.
"Alright. See you in a few hours, everybody. Got some shit to take care of."
Right before I teleported, the others tried to grab onto me while King Kai tried to hit me with a Giant hammer.
"*pop*"
*****
Instantaneously, I teleported to Kami's lookout. Upon my arrival, I realized that it was completely different from my expectations.
The tile that once made up the floor… It had been replaced by literal Gold and obsidian. There were statutes of a one-off character everywhere in different poses. Leading all the way inside Kami's chamber was a luxurious red carpet
What sickened me was that I was surrounded by slaves. Scantily clad female ones and malnourished male ones who looked like they hadn't eaten in weeks. I couldn't look away from them… How could I when the moment I teleported in, they all were staring at me with animalistic eyes that begged for help? Even though the majority of them were battered and beaten, they still had enough energy to be concerned with my presence and began to whisper amongst each other.
"Who is he?" whispered a male slave dressed in dirty rags like the rest of his gender.
"I don't know… Maybe a guest?"
Said a dark-haired rag-sporting slave.
"Then should we greet him?"
"No. Are you crazy? The best thing we should do is inform King Bojack of this. Maybe, We'll get some extra food if we do it."
Seeing a situation as inhumane as this one really made me cement my perspective on power. Around the lookout, there were people of various varieties. Some had missing limbs, while others were severely burned.
Some were old while some were disgustingly young. Male and female… The problem was, the dress code remained the same for both genders.
I wasn't stupid… I understood exactly which roles each and every one of these victims played and it made me sick to my stomach. If it was bad here, then I could only imagine what was happening with the rest of Earth right now.
The perpetrators for all of it were nearby. I could sense 3 energies. One being a repugnant evil that I smell from out here. The other two being relatively neutral. Without another thought, I teleported directly inside of the building with my sword in hand.
"*pop*"
***
Sitting atop a gold throne was a large teal demon with long wild orange hair. Beside him stood two of his comrades who looked to be of the same race. One male and one female.
In front of the splay a strange holographic depiction of a purple and white bipedal alien species with a long purple lizard tail.
"Can you assure me that the people on this planet you're attempting to sell me are obedient?" Said the hologram.
"For the thousandth time, Cooler-" The man in the throne was about to continue, but was interrupted by the man by the name of Cooler.
"Emperor Cooler… It's Emperor Cooler, pirate, and you will respect me as such."
"*sigh*"
The teal man shook his head and scrunched his face at Cooler's correction.
'This little slimy lizard fuck wad has some nerve. A guy gets sealed for a few million years and everyone seems to forget their place. He has one more time before I rip the heads off of him and all his men.' The man by the name of Bojack thought.
"Very well, Emperor Cooler… As I was saying. I can 100% guarantee that this planet has been pacified. It's ready to sell." Bojack retorted.
"So you are capable of respecting a superior. Good."
Cooler smirked.
Angered by his arrogance, Bojack stood from his seat, unconsciously flaring his Ki.
"You know what? I've had it up to here with-"
Before Bojack could finish, from his perspective, the entire world seemed to be rising. No… That wasn't it. The lights… Everything around him started to dim.
Confused about what was happening, he attempted to call out to his comrades…but failed. He had no voice. He had no feeling in his body.
Unbeknownst to him, his fellow clansmen Zangya and Koga were trembling in fear. Not in fear of their leader's condition, but in fear for the unknown purple-haired entity that had magically appeared before them.
Angered that his meeting had been interrupted, Cooler looked at the tailed individual with malice.
"Saiyan… What are you doing here?"
With blood splattered on his face, the supposed Saiyan stood over Bojack's now headless body with a greatsword in hand.
"I'm only gonna say this once… If you come to this planet, I'll kill you just like I did your brother and father."
For a moment, Cooler looked at the man in shock. Then, as the gears began to click in his head, a menacing smile surfaced on his face.
"Oh… So it was you. You were the one who killed them."
Dissipating his Ki sword, Trunks frowned at Cooler.
"It was. I killed them. And if I ever see you again, you're next." Stomping on the device that was transmitting the conversation, Trunks closed his eyes momentarily and took a deep breath.
Turning around, he glared at the remaining two people.
"Now, it's your turn."
At his words, Koga and Zangya began to shudder in fear. They couldn't sense his energy. They had no idea how he manifested out of thin air. For all they knew, the being in front of them was a true God.
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