Six Days before The Cell Games...
Krillin didn't care that he probably wouldn't be of any use or help on the battlefield. The last image in his head of Eighteen—her words, her look, the sound of her scream—still haunted him, fueling him to train until he collapsed, every day. The connection they had, as brief and fleeting as it was, meant so much to him. She had a bad deal in life, along with her twin brother. They were tormented, experimented on, repeatedly hurt, again and again and again, only to be eaten alive and used for some other android's power up. Neither of them deserved this. She, especially, didn't deserve this.
Luckily, he wasn't the only one who was determined to make Cell pay.
"Don't hold back from me!" Android Sixteen shouted at him from above. He powered up, his steely-eyed blue gaze locking onto him. "Cell won't hesitate in using all his power, and neither should you."
Krillin smirked up at him with a small nod. "You're right." He powered up, grimacing his teeth from how much ki he was using. "Don't hold back on me either, you got that?"
"Affirmative."
He shot up into the air, meeting Sixteen's fists dead on.
***
Five Days before The Cell Games...
Out in the wasteland where they first fought Dodoria together all those years ago, Nappa and Piccolo sat side by side on a rock formation, sharing a bottle of water. Dirt and sand peppered their torn gi and shoes. Sweat, bruises and cuts littered their visible skin under the cloudless sky. They stared out at the horizon, passing the bottle between them without a word said, until every drop was gone. Once empty, Piccolo crushed the plastic in one hand, disintegrating it with a burst of ki.
Only then did Nappa break the silence. "Y'know what I just realized?"
"Hm?"
"My boss might show up."
Piccolo turned his attention to Nappa with a frown. "To what, the Cell Games?"
"Heh heh, yeah. Before all this shit went down with Cell, I landed a gig being the bodyguard to some big shot martial artist. Think he won the last World Martial Arts Tournament. Y'know, that thing you, Kakarot and Vegeta participated in?"
"I'm aware."
"Yeah, so he won it, and now he's the most popular guy on the planet."
"You don't say."
"A'yep. He's a weak human who loves a good pay day but adores the fame even more so. Generally he acts nice, but holy Tor above and below, he is absolutely stuck up and arrogant. Worse than Vegeta ever was, I think."
"I doubt that."
"Ha! Yeah, true, true." Nappa finally turned to Piccolo. "So I got to thinking right now. When Cell invited all martial artists to show up, I thought, 'wait a minute, what if he shows up? Would he be that stupid?'" He smirked. "Dumbass questions to think, right?"
Piccolo smirked in return. "What's his name?"
"Mr. See-tin. Say-ten. Something like that."
"Dumb name."
"Right??"
A shared small bout of laughter floated between them. Once it petered off, the thick silence of anticipation and anxiety returned. Both of them looked away from each other, back out to the far distance.
The gust of harsh wind nearly overpowered Nappa's soft voice. "If something happens to you—"
"—I know."
YOU ARE READING
Dragonball: Rewritten
ActionA routine planet purging became a near-death experience for Vegeta, one that should've ended him up in a healing tank. But a stray beam from the planet below knocked him off course, heading towards a wayward planet with a weird name: Earth. A "what...
