MAY 12TH,
8:40 AM
Nine miles south of South City...
Three years of intense preparation had passed in the blink of an eye.
Atop a high, desolate plateau north of South City, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu stood waiting, scanning the quiet morning skies with sharp, anxious eyes.
"Then we better start looking," Tien said, his voice tense as he squinted into the horizon. He suddenly caught sight of familiar energy signatures approaching through the clouds. "I told you, Tien, it's him!" Yamcha called out, waving his arm. "Hey! Goku! Down here!"
Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, and Escallion descended onto the plateau, their boots kicking up light dust as they touched down.
"You're late!" Yamcha greeted them. "What took you guys so long?"
Before Goku could answer, the loud hum of an aircraft engine echoed through the valley. A Capsule Corp flyer descended onto the rock beside them, the hatch sliding open to reveal Bulma stepping out, holding a small baby in her arms.
"Bulma?!" Krillin gasped. "It is Bulma!"
"Hey guys!" Bulma cheered, stepping over to the group with a bright grin. "Wow... you all have been working out, haven't you?"
"Bulma, what in the world do you think you're doing out here?!" Goku demanded, staring at her in complete disbelief.
"I've come to watch you fight, silly!" Bulma chuckled lightly. "Oh, don't worry, I'll just stay for a little while, and then I'll go home."
Krillin leaned in, tilting his head as he looked down at the bundle wrapped in blankets. "Hey... I hope you don't think I'm nuts for asking, but... what's the deal with the baby, Bulma?"
"He's my son!" Bulma said proudly, cradling the infant against her chest.
"Huh?!" Krillin blinked, waving his hands frantically. "I'll bet he's-"
"Before you say it, he's not my kid." Yamcha closed his eyes and folded his arms, obviously bothered. "Well, if you think that's a shock, just wait... wait until she tells you who the father really is!"
Goku, standing nearby with Escallion and Piccolo, grinned sheepishly. He remembered his private conversation with Future Trunks three years ago, but quickly put on his best innocent face to avoid giving away the secret.
"I'll bet it's Vegeta, isn't it?" Goku chimed in with a goofy grin. "Right... Trunks?"
Bulma's jaw nearly dropped. She stared at Goku in utter disbelief. "Yeah... now who told you that, Goku?! I wanted to keep it a secret! I was going to surprise you guys!"
"Well, actually... I just thought I'd take a guess!" Goku said, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish chuckle. "I mean, he kind of looks like Vegeta! Heheh..."
"You guessed his name, too?!" Bulma asked, completely baffled.
"Yeah! What are the chances of that, huh?" Goku laughed nervously. "Maybe I'm psychic!"
Yamcha folded his arms, shaking his head in absolute bewilderment. "Outrageous... who woulda guessed Bulma and Vegeta, huh?"
"Thought he would have died before having offspring." Escallion remarks, chuckling.
"Well, since we're on the subject..." Krillin asked, looking around the empty plateau. "Where is Vegeta?"
"I don't have a clue," Bulma admitted, looking down at little Trunks. "I really haven't seen him around lately. I know he was training to come here, but what with the baby and all... well, I guess I must have lost track of him."
Escallion stood slightly behind Goku, his dark eyes calmly scanning the surrounding mountains.
"He'll show," Goku assured everyone, his expression turning sharp as nine o'clock rapidly approached. "He wouldn't miss this."
As 9:00 AM passed without a single trace of Ki to sense, the tension on the plateau reached a boiling point. The cold realization set in, just as Trunks had warned: Dr. Gero's mechanical creations didn't possess readable energy signatures. Searching by sensing power levels was useless; they had to rely on their own eyes and ears.
"Standing around here waiting isn't going to do us any good," Goku said, his face tightening with sharp focus. "They're already down in the city. We need to split up and search section by section. Bulma you stay here."
"Right," Piccolo agreed, his cape snapping in the wind. "If anyone spots anything suspicious or runs into them, raise your Ki to the absolute maximum. That'll be the signal for everyone else to converge."
Without wasting another second, the Z-Fighters divided the vast urban sprawl of South City into search sectors.
Tien and Yamcha launched off the cliffside, speeding off toward the dense commercial districts to the South.
Goku, Krillin, and Gohan took to the air together, flying in formation to sweep the residential grids to the West.
Piccolo bounded across the mountain ridge, taking high altitude to monitor the sprawling industrial sectors to the East.
Escallion stepped to the edge of the plateau and launched himself northward. Moving like a silent shadow over the skyline, he took the North sector, his eyes scanning every alleyway, rooftop, and avenue below.
Sweeping low over the quiet suburban streets of the southern district, Yamcha kept his eyes glued to the pavement, weaving between towering apartment complexes and empty glass storefronts.
"Nothing down here either..." Yamcha muttered to himself, landing lightly on a concrete pavement in a quiet alleyway. "Damn it, how are we supposed to find monsters that don't even have a Ki signature?"
He stepped out onto a broad, tree-lined avenue. The street was eerie, practically deserted.
Then, two figures turned the corner a hundred yards away, walking with deliberate, unnatural synchronization.
One was a pale, stout android with cold, lifeless yellow eyes. Beside him walked an old man clad in a black vest and hat bearing the red, interlocking letters of the Red Ribbon Army.
As a car drove close, the old man slammed his hand onto the hood of the car; with a crunch, his hand drove straight through the engine, stopping it dead. The oil leaked out onto the road.
"What the hell? Hey! My ca-"
The old man walked around to the side of the vehicle, grabbed the man by his throat, he lifts him through the roof of the car. Snapping his neck with ease.
Yamcha, seeing the scene, rushed to protect the other civilians as the Old Man's eyes glowed, ready to shoot a beam.
"Well, well," Dr. Gero rasped, his voice sounding like grinding gears as he stopped in his tracks, looking straight at Yamcha. "It seems one of Son Goku's little stray dogs has found us first."
Before Yamcha could react or flare his Ki to signal the others, Android 20 blurred across the pavement in a flash of terrifying, silent speed.
SWOOSH!
"W-What?!" Yamcha gasped, reaching for his guard, but it was far too late.
Gero appeared directly in front of him, his pale, synthetic hand shooting forward like a steel vise. His clawed fingers slammed into Yamcha's throat, clamping down with crushing force and lifting the martial artist off his feet.
Yamcha thrusted his hands against Gero's wrist, gagging as he tried to pull the machine's hand away, but it was like trying to bend solid titanium.
"Don't bother," Gero sneered, a cruel, cold glint flashing in his artificial eyes. "Your energy is useless against us."
Gero's red palm-orb began to glow with a sickly, red light as it pressed into Yamcha's chest. The mechanical palm unlocked its energy-draining protocol, violently siphoning the life force right out of Yamcha's body. Yamcha's eyes rolled back, his legs kicking uselessly in the air as his stamina, Ki, and consciousness were drained in seconds.
'I... I can't... even scream...' Yamcha thought, his vision fading into black as Gero plunged his fist straight into his chest to lock the absorption in place.
Across the northern sky, miles away, Escallion's head suddenly snapped toward the south. Though there was no Ki signature from the attackers, Yamcha's power level had just violently plummeted to near-zero in a fraction of a second.
Escallion tore through the sky like a comet, slamming into the concrete of the southern district alongside Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, and Krillin. The shockwave of their simultaneous landing shattered the surrounding storefront windows.
They arrived just in time to witness the horrific end of the assault.
Dr. Gero's mechanical claw was buried deep into Yamcha's sternum. The old android sneered with cold, artificial disgust as he violently ripped his hand back, blood spraying across the asphalt. With a casual flick of his wrist, Gero tossed Yamcha's limp, bleeding body into the air like a piece of discarded trash.
"YAMCHA!" Krillin screamed.
Reacting on pure instinct, Krillin launched himself forward, diving across the pavement to catch Yamcha before his head could strike the curb. He pulled his trembling friend into his lap, pressing his hands over the gaping chest wound. Yamcha was barely breathing, his eyes rolled back into his head, his life force hemorrhaging fast.
"He's... he's barely got a pulse!" Krillin yelled back, his voice cracking with sheer panic. "He drained him! He drained almost all his energy!"
Goku took a slow, heavy step forward, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists. The air around him trembled with suppressed rage. Beside him, Piccolo's jaw tightened, his sharp eyes locked onto the two machines with absolute venom.
Escallion stood towering over the group, his dark hair whipping in the sudden, hot wind generated by their arrival. His bright yellow-rimmed irises narrowed into lethal slits as he looked down at Yamcha's bleeding form, and then up at the pale, smiling face of Dr. Gero.
"So," Gero chuckled raspily, wiping Yamcha's blood from his pale synthetic palm with a pristine white cloth. "Son Goku and his pathetic little friends. You arrived faster than my calculations predicted... but it changes nothing."
"Krillin," Goku ordered, his voice unnaturally calm and quiet. "Take Yamcha to Bulma. Get him a Senzu Bean immediately."
"Right!" Krillin nodded, carefully hoisting Yamcha's limp body onto his shoulder before taking off into the sky as fast as he could fly.
As Krillin sped away, Goku turned his full attention back to the androids. But before he could step up, Escallion took a heavy, deliberate step past him, his dark boots crunching loudly on the shattered glass covering the street.
"Get out of the city," Escallion said, his deep voice carrying a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated through the concrete beneath their feet. "If you want a fight, we won't do it here."
Dr. Gero let out a dry, rasping laugh, his artificial red eyes gleaming with condescension as he adjusted his black hat.
"Very well," Gero sneered, stepping back alongside Android 19. "If you prefer to die in a wasteland rather than among the ruins of this city, we are more than happy to oblige. Follow us, if you can keep up."
Without another word, Gero and 19 leapt into the air, moving in dead silence toward the desolate mountain wilderness miles away. Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, and Escallion took off right behind them, four distinct streams of air cutting through the clouds as they tracked the mechanical monsters.
Within minutes, the sprawling urban grid of South City gave way to jagged, reddish-brown canyons and desolate stone spires.
Gero and 19 descended onto a wide, dusty flat area surrounded by towering rock formations.
Goku slammed down first, his boots kicking up a cloud of pale dust. Piccolo and Gohan landed right beside him, while Escallion touched down a few paces back, his heavy stance anchoring him into the bedrock. The wind howled through the canyons, carrying a bitter, dry heat.
"This ought to do it," Goku said, his expression completely stone-cold. "No innocent people around, no buildings to destroy. Just us."
Android 19 took a step forward, his porcelain-white face tilting slightly as his internal computer calculated their combat probabilities. "Target acquired: Son Goku. Probability of victory: 100%."
"Don't be so sure, machine," Piccolo growled, dropping his white turban and heavy cape to the stone floor. "You might have built your little data files on us years ago, but you have no idea what we've become."
Beside them, Escallion stood with his arms crossed, his dark hair whipping in the desert gale. His yellow-rimmed irises locked onto Gero and 19 with terrifying stillness.
Goku stepped out into the center of the plateau, cracking his neck as he squared his shoulders against Android 19.
"I'll take this one," Goku said, a sharp, confident grin breaking through his serious tone. "I've been waiting three years for this fight. Let's see what you've got."
Android 19 turned his head slowly toward his creator. "Master Gero. Permission to engage Son Goku?"
"Granted, 19," Gero replied with a cruel chuckle, folding his arms behind his back. "Collect his data, drain his energy, and crush him."
Goku widened his stance, took a deep breath, and let out a fierce roar that vibrated through the bedrock.
BOOM!
A blinding pillar of golden light erupted into the sky, tearing open the earth beneath Goku's boots. Dust and pulverized gravel sprayed outward in a violent shockwave as his hair spiked straight up, glowing gold, and his eyes turned a piercing teal. The air pressure rattled the surrounding canyon walls as the Super Saiyan aura flared around him.
Android 19 didn't flinch. His internal sensors hummed, analyzing the sudden spike in energy. "Energy output: massive. Executing combat routine."
SWOOSH!
Goku vanished in a blur of blinding speed, reappearing instantly in front of 19. Before the pale android could raise his guard, Goku drove a devastating right hook straight into 19's jaw, sending the fat machine hurtling through two solid rock spires, crushing them into powder.
"Whoa!" Gohan gasped, shielding his face from the flying debris. "Dad is completely overwhelming him!"
Piccolo, however, kept his eyes narrowed. "Don't celebrate yet, Gohan. Look at Goku's breathing."
Goku landed back on the ground, his chest heaving slightly heavier than it should have been after a single strike. A small bead of cold sweat rolled down his forehead.