"Urghh…"
A low groan escaped Taz's mouth as he slowly came to. The air was cold and dusty, and the sky above wherever he was looked sickly and grey.
Clutching his forehead, he pushed himself up from the ground and immediately winced as he clutched his torso. Looking down, he was stunned and horrified to see that there was a huge hole that was cauterized, no blood leaking from it, but its presence was still jarring.
However, before Taz could even panic, he was hit with a flood of memories.
One image showed a ruined street from a climactic battle, where a familiar body lay in a pool of water.
Another image showed traveling to another timeline to see a healthy group and seeing his idols in the flesh.
Another image showed him returning and finally defeating two monsters in human skin by exploiting their implanted explosives.
The final image saw him about to return to the alternate timeline when he was ambushed, and killed by… something.
Taz flinched, and his fingers curled into a fist without him thinking about it. He looked down, and he saw hands that were strong, calloused, and definitely not his.
Actually looking at his attire confirmed that indeed, he was wearing a purple jacket with a black undershirt, and his chest was far more developed than he had ever achieved in his life.
Taz lifted a trembling hand, and he touched his own face as if to confirm a lie, but what he felt was a sharp and sculpted jaw along with hard cheekbones that looked like they could take hits and gave him a masculine aura.
Purple hair brushed his forehead, even though he knew it should not be possible to have hair of this color unless he dyed it, and Taz never did anything more than a fade.
"No way…" he whispered with shock, and his voice cracked as the words fell out.
"What… what is this?" he added as he glanced at his body from head to toe once more, disbelieving the circumstances.
The voice that spoke was not his voice, yet it sounded extremely familiar. It was deeper, steadier, and carried a strange weight.
"I… am Future Trunks?" Taz muttered to himself, clenching his fists and testing his movement.
The sheer power he felt contained in this body was something else, quickly intoxicating him. He especially felt that power within, the energy called Ki that was the focal point of power for all combatants of this world.
It was a strange feeling, like having a new organ that one could control. Just as easily as you could breathe, decide to breathe, and even breathe in special ways to produce sound like whistling or song, so too could he effortlessly move this Ki in ways he wanted.
Before Taz could enjoy this unearned power further, he immediately groaned and clutched his middle torso area in pain. Looking down, his mind was submerged with a recollection of a green shape behind him, its long tail whipping forward and piercing him, along with a searing agony that begot a laugh from that monster that did not belong to a person.
Cell.
Taz looked up to where he instinctively knew the time machine should be and saw that it was understandably gone. Cell had already gone to the past and had changed the flow of time for that timeline, which would culminate in Gohan unlocking the ascended Super Saiyan form and ending the threat.
But he…
He wasn't the Future Trunks who trained with Vegeta in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, he wasn't the Future Trunks who unlocked Grade 3 Super Saiyan, nor was he the one who would fight Goku Black later on and prevail with his little wife Mai.
No, he was the Future Trunks that was only told of briefly in one panel, shown being killed by Cell and then disposed of. He was the Future Trunks who died to allow the events ongoing in other timelines to happen, the one who was forgotten, along with his future, which was completely left to its fate.
He was the Trunks from the unseen timeline!
Taz pushed himself up even as his heart sank into despair. There was no Goku nor Z Fighters to assist him, no Dragon Balls as Piccolo was dead and the location of New Namek was unknown, and in about seven years, Babidi would arrive with Dabura to release Majin Buu!
The worst part was that as he was now, he was far weaker than the popular Future Trunks that people knew. By the time that Trunks returned to his timeline to solo the androids, he had already raised his power by more than fifty times from when he first appeared, having a power level that went from the millions to the billions.
Meanwhile, if he went by what he remembered, this Trunks should only have a power level of around five million, which became two hundred and fifty million when he powered up into the Super Saiyan form. Given that Dabura started at a power level of 3.2 billion and could reach a maximum of four billion, he was going to need to work very hard…
At this moment, he heard a sound that made his whole body tighten, that of a door slamming open behind him, loud and sudden.
Bang!
Footsteps rushed out, fast and uneven, full of desperation.
Taz lifted his head and turned to face the person who was approaching, revealing it to be an aged Bulma who had the look of someone who had suffered too much but still soldiered on.
Her hair was messy, her face looked exhausted, and her eyes were full of worry.
"Trunks!" she shouted as she ran straight toward him, her hands reaching out as if she feared he would vanish too, like her best friend as well as his own father.
Taz froze, and the sight of her made something twist painfully in his stomach. He wanted to speak, but his mouth felt stuck, and his tongue was suddenly heavy.
Because the simple truth was that this was not his mother, and yet her eyes held the kind of love that could break a man.