The hum of the airship's engines filled the quiet cabin as they soared high above the ocean, flying toward West City.
Suddenly, the dashboard communications console chimed, and Bulma's face flashed onto the main monitor. She looked pale, her brows furrowed in utter bewilderment.
"Trunks! Are you there?" Bulma's voice crackled through the speakers, sharp and laced with confusion.
Trunks leaned into the cockpit, gripping the back of the pilot's seat. "I'm here, Mom. We're on our way with Goku right now. What's wrong?"
"Trunks... tell me something," Bulma said, her voice dropping to a low, hesitant strain. "In your future... exactly how many time machines did I build?"
Trunks blinked, a look of complete confusion washing over his face. "What do you mean? Just the one. The one I flew back here in. It took years of salvaging scrap and collecting energy just to get that single ship running. Why are you asking me this?"
"Because..." Bulma paused, taking a shaky breath. "Because I'm looking at a picture of one right now."
"That's impossible," Trunks scoffed, shaking his head. "My ship is sitting safely inside a Capsule right in my pocket."
"I'm sending the image to your ship's receiver now," Bulma said grimly. "Look at it yourself."
A loud beep echoed through the console, and a high-resolution photograph expanded across the central display.
Trunks stepped closer, his smile instantly vanishing. His breath hitched in his throat, his eyes widening in pure shock.
Displayed on the screen was a time machine, unmistakably the exact same design as his own, complete with the word HOPE!! Scratched into the side. But this machine wasn't sleek or functional. It was abandoned in a dense forest, completely rusted, covered in thick moss and vines, its glass dome shattered from the inside, and worn down as if it had been rotting in the elements for years.
"No..." Trunks whispered, his voice trembling as he stared at the screen. "That's... that's my time machine. But... how is this possible?!"
Escallion pushed off the wall, stepping up behind Trunks to glare at the display, his dark eyes narrowing as he studied the decayed wreckage on the screen.
"Where is that?" Krillin asked, leaning over Trunks' shoulder to get a better look at the screen, his face pale. "Where was that picture taken?!"
"It was logged by a Capsule Corp research team in District West 1050," Bulma answered over the coms, her voice tight with tension. "It's a secluded forest area about an hour out from the city."
Trunks stared at the glass dome blown outward in the photo, his jaw clenched tight. "I don't understand... if my ship is here with me, whose machine is that?!" He took a firm step toward the console, his voice resolute. "I'm going there to investigate."
"I'm coming with you," Bulma declared immediately, the sound of her grabbing her jacket rustling through the line.
"Alright, Mom," Trunks agreed, nodding sharply. "Just don't go near it until I get there."
"Understood. See you at the coordinates," Bulma said, before the transmission cut to static with a sharp beep.
Escallion said nothing. He simply stepped up beside Trunks, his dark eyes fixed silently on the screen, staring unblinkingly at the worn, decaying wreckage displayed on the console.
"Can I come with you, Trunks?" Gohan asked, stepping forward from the back of the cabin. His eyes were wide with determination. "If there's something else out there, I want to help."
Chi-Chi's head whipped around, her face instantly reddening as she opened her mouth to object. "Absolutely not, Gohan! You are staying right here with your father and—"
"Mom, please," Gohan cut in softly, turning to her with a calm, steady look that stopped her mid-sentence. "Don't worry. I'll stay right beside Trunks, and I won't do anything reckless. But if something weird is going on, I need to know."
Chi-Chi hesitated, her anger deflating into anxious concern as she looked between her son and the glowing dashboard screen.
Trunks looked down at Gohan, nodding firmly before looking Chi-Chi dead in the eye. "He'll be safe with me, Chi-Chi. I promise you, I won't let anything happen to him."
Chi-Chi let out a long, reluctant sigh, clutching Goku's blanket tightly in her hands. "Fine... but you hold onto that promise, Trunks. Bring my boy back in one piece."
The cargo doors hissed open, letting the cool air rush into the cabin as Trunks and Gohan stepped up to the edge. With a pair of sharp, synchronized nods, both half-Saiyans flared their auras, golden and pale white bursting into the dark sky, and shot off toward District West 1050, instantly vanishing over the horizon.
Escallion stood in the open doorway, watching the glowing streaks fade into the distance.
He uncrossed his arms, turning his gaze back inside toward Krillin and Chi-Chi, who were hovering over Goku's resting form.
"I'm heading off too," Escallion said, his voice flat and calm.
"Wait, Escallion!" Krillin called out, looking up in surprise. "Where are you going? Are you going after Trunks and Gohan, or heading back to Capsule Corp?"
Escallion didn't answer. Without another word, he stepped out of the open cargo hatch into the open air, dropping a few feet before his feet caught the breeze. Leaning forward, he powered into flight, his aura cutting through the sky as he took off in his own direction.
Escallion cut through the sky, the bright midday sun beating down against his shoulders as he left the coast far behind. Beneath him, the lush green terrain gradually gave way to jagged, sun-baked rock and towering stone pillars—an desolate, uninhabited wasteland miles from any human settlement.
He descended, his boots touching down firmly on a high plateau. Dust swirled around his shins as he straightened up, scanning the silent expanse around him.
The sight of Vegeta being broken, the overwhelming speed of Android 17, and the effortless power of 18 played back in his mind. Raw, unfocused rage wasn't going to be enough against opponents that never tired and felt no pain. If he was going to bridge the gap in the ten days they had left, he couldn't just get stronger, he had to master his control.
Escallion closed his eyes, taking a single, slow breath. The wind died down around the plateau, leaving total silence.
Then, he dropped into a low, heavy stance.
CRACK.
The ground violently buckled beneath his boots. Deep, jagged fissures tore across the plateau as a blinding, golden-green light erupted from Escallion's frame, scorching the loose sand to molten glass.
His muscles surged, expanding under the immense pressure of the dual powers colliding within him. The wild, primal roar of the Great Ape echoed behind his voice as his emerald-tinted Super Saiyan aura roared into the sky, tearing through the clouds above. Lightning crackled wildly through the column of energy, standardizing into a harsh, vibrating hum as Escallion forced the raging Ikari instinct under the absolute iron grip of his mind.
Sparks tore off his body, shattering the surrounding rock pillars into fine dust. Standing at the center of the roaring maelstrom, Escallion held the violent, surging power perfectly locked, a devastating fusion of primal Wrath and Super Saiyan precision.
His eyes glowed with fierce intensity as he locked his focus on the horizon. He drew his fist back; the compressed energy hummed until it vibrated the very air, and he threw a single, monstrous strike forward, sending a shockwave so immense it ripped a mile-long canyon straight through the wasteland below.
The roaring, golden-green aura snapped shut like a dying flame, leaving behind only the hissing heat off the cracked stone and the drifting mountain dust.
Escallion exhaled, a long, heavy breath that rippled the scorched air in front of him, and sank smoothly toward the earth. Crossing his legs as his boots met the stone, he settled into a tight lotus pose right at the center of the molten crater he had just carved out.
He rested his wrists lightly over his knees, palms open to the sky.
The surging Ikari energy still churned violently just beneath his skin, thrashing like a caged beast fighting for control. But Escallion kept his head level, his chest rising and falling in deep, rhythmic intervals. He closed his eyes, forcing every ounce of that chaotic, explosive power to draw inward, compressing it deep within his core until the wild pressure settled into a controlled, deadly calm.
Opening his eyes, the black and yellow-rimmed teal eyes reappeared. "I gotta work on my control," he muttered softly before his yellow hair fell back to black, instantly extinguishing the dense aura.
He stood up smoothly, rolling his shoulders as the heat from the cracked stone drifted off into the breeze. Taking a grounded stance, Escallion began to go through the fluid, deliberate motions of a Yardratian kata. Every step was measured, every turn of his wrists calculated to align the flow of his Spirit with the physical space around him.
During his time on Planet Yardrat, learning Spirit Control had taken him almost all of his stay. While others managed to grasp the fundamental balance of spirit and body much faster, Escallion's power was inherently destructive and unyielding, a volatile mix of raw Saiyan biology and the overwhelming impulse of the Ikari state. On Yardrat, every attempt to gather his Spirit initially resulted in explosive pressure rather than fine harmony.
Now, moving through the kata, he focused entirely on refinement. Instead of letting his Ki flare outward in destructive bursts, he used the Yardratian techniques to guide it smoothly through his body, taming the wild energy into a sharp, flawless edge.
As he shifted his weight into the next stance, his palms sweeping in a slow, circular motion, Escallion's mind drifted back to the quiet expanse of the cosmos.
Before coming back to Earth, 3 years were spent wandering deep space had been a non-stop blur of blood, iron, and engine hums. To train, he had taken work hunting down pirate syndicates across the rim. Scum who thought raiding backwater planets made them gods. He remembered the feeling of crushing steel hull plates under his bare hands.
Then came the day he ran across that strange, short little guy in the white-and-navy armor.
Jaco. A Super Elite of the Galactic Patrol, or so he constantly insisted on calling himself.
Escallion almost cracked a faint smirk at the memory. Jaco had shown up mid-raid, striking ridiculous poses and loudly declaring Escallion under arrest for unauthorized vigilantism, right up until a towering pirate chief tried to ambush him from behind. Escallion had obliterated the chief with a casual finger beam before Jaco could even turn around, blowing a hole straight through the mountain behind them.
Jaco had frozen, looked at the giant smoking crater, adjusted his gloves with exaggerated professionalism, and immediately decided to reclassify Escallion as an "unregistered freelance consultant." For the rest of the week, the Patrolman had tagged along, complaining endlessly about his spaceship's air conditioning and showing off his pose routine, all while using Escallion as his personal muscle to clear out half a dozen pirate outposts.
"The spirit isn't just force," Escallion remembered Pybara's voice echoing from his training on Yardrat. "It is the alignment of mind, body, and intent. If your mind is scattered, your energy will tear you apart."
He snapped back to the present, his hands freezing mid-kata as his breath leveled out. The chaotic wildness of space, the memory of Jaco's theatrical antics, the violent memories of the androids- he let them all drift away, burying the noise deep beneath a surface of absolute, unbreakable focus.
He snapped his wrists forward, finishing the final motion of the kata, and instantly the atmosphere shattered around him.
Without a single roar, a second of strain, or even a thought, his full-powered state ignited.
The golden-green aura flared up instantly in a tight, pristine layer around his body. Lightning crackled silently across his shoulders, and his yellow hair swept up as the black-and-yellow rimmed teal eyes gleamed with absolute clarity. The violent, churning friction between the Ikari instincts and the Super Saiyan transformation was gone, replaced by a smooth, terrifyingly efficient current of pure energy.
Escallion held his hand out in front of him, looking at his palm. The wild, thrashing power was completely contained, wrapping his frame like a second skin without wasting a single drop of Ki.
Escallion dropped his hand, letting out a low, dissatisfied grunt. The aura hovered smoothly around him, perfectly contained, yet a cold, hollow feeling lingered in his chest.
Despite the flawless efficiency, something was missing.
His mind flashed back to Namek, to the burning air and the blinding rage that had consumed him against Frieza. In that state of pure berserk fury, he had lost all reason. He hadn't been trying to keep his anger under wraps; he had been a force of nature, driven by a single, monolithic intent: to slaughter the tyrant.
It had blinded him, making him wild and reckless. But it had also stripped away every doubt, every reservation, and every bit of restraint holding his spirit back. It was absolute, unadulterated focus channelled toward a single point.
Right now, his control was perfect, but it was too clinical. By taming the beast, he had caged the raw, primal fire that gave the Ikari form its terrifying edge.
Escallion clenched his fists, staring down at his glowing palms. If he wanted to beat the androids, he couldn't just suppress the rage with Spirit Control; he had to find a way to let the madness burn without losing his mind to it.
After a while of thinking,
Escallion stood motionless in the center of the scorched crater, the golden-green energy humming steadily around him as his mind raced through the possibilities.
Two distinct paths formed in his thoughts:
He could force the transformation into a Great Ape and actively fight to master the primal rage while in that massive form. If he could tame the beast at its absolute peak, it might unlock the true, unrestrained potential of the Ikari state, allowing him to channel that terrifying, raw power without losing his mind to berserk fury.
He could leave the Great Ape instincts behind for a moment and focus purely on the golden transformation. If he could force Super Saiyan past its current wall, pushing the form itself into a deeper, stronger state beyond its standard limits, he might generate enough raw power to overpower the androids through sheer, refined output.
Both methods carried immense risk. One threatened to unleash a wild monster he might not be able to pull back; the other pushed his body toward a threshold no Saiyan had ever crossed.
Escallion lowered his hands, his eyes narrowing as he weighed his options.