Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Hope ❯ One Man Army ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 5: One Man Army

Number 18 smirked as she dodged Gohan's attacks.

"You've gotten a lot stronger," she commented as she kicked at his side. Gohan was just barely able to bring his arm down in time to block it, but left himself open for the punch that followed. "Too bad it isn't enough," she added as he staggered backwards.

"Aren't you done yet?" Number 17 yawned. "With all the commotion you two are making, all the people ran away. Now I don't have anyone else to kill and I'm getting bored."

"Too bad," Number 18 said as she dodged Gohan's volley of ki attacks. "That means I'm still ahead. If you can't catch up soon, I'll just have to collect on our bet," she added throwing a large ball of energy at the allusive Gohan.

"No way! I am not going to lose this one," he said launching himself into the fight. "I am not going to take you shopping!"

Gohan braced for the new round of attacks. His training with Roshi and Korin had helped him considerably, but not as much as Mr. Popo's Pendulum Room of Time and Space. In it, he had fought against other Saiyans from long ago, training how to handle multiple opponents. The only problem was, there were no opponents as strong as the Androids to practice with.

The attack came from both sides and there was no way Gohan could dodge them in time.

"Energy shield!"

The shield held, but took more energy than he dared expend against these two. It was obvious that he had done all he could. There was no way to win, but he had delayed them long enough for at least some of the people to get safely away. That was as much as he could hope for. Now it was time to retreat before they succeeded in killing him.

Number 17 flew in and punched Gohan back through the brick wall of a building a block away. Number 18 quickly followed with multiple blasts, causing the entire thing to collapse on top of him. Gohan took the opportunity to hide his power level, dropping back from Super Saiyan.

"Did we get him?" he heard Number 17 ask.

"Doubt it," Number 18 answered. "He's like a cockroach. He keeps coming back no matter what we do."

"So do you want to look for him?"

"No. I'm getting bored. Let's just leave him for now. If he doesn't die, then he can surprise us another time."

"I guess so," Number 17 said. "But next time we get him for good."

"Whatever," Number 18 sighed. "So I guess I won today. You know what that means?"

Number 17 groaned. "OK, I'll take you shopping. But next time I get to pick the game."

Gohan heard their voices drift away. He could barely breathe from the weight of the bricks and there was a steel girder sticking him in the side, but he stayed where he was. He didn't want to give away his position if they still happened to be around. If only there was a way to sense where they were.

By the time he finally crawled out from under the rubble, the stars were shining bright overhead. He looked himself over and decided not to use one of the sensu beans Master Korin had given him. The cuts and burns would heal well enough by themselves. He just wished the Androids would take a break. The closest he got to a vacation was when they decided to destroy property instead of lives.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Not again!" Gohan groaned as he flew toward the smoke rolling into the sky from Pepper City. They were getting too close for comfort to Capsule Corp. If he couldn't stop them soon, he would have to try and talk Bulma into leaving her house for their own safety. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if anything happened to Trunks because he wasn't strong enough to stop those two monsters.

It had been thirteen years since the Androids first arrived and Gohan had been doing his best to save as many people as he could since becoming the earth’s last hope. He couldn’t even count the number of battles they had been in, but each one had ended the same. The Androids were unstoppable!

Although they had the power to wipe out the entire planet with one blast, they seemed to enjoy the entertainment of it all more than reaching their goal. Gohan sometimes wondered if they prolonged the extinction of the human race because they knew they would become too bored with no one left to kill.

So for years, Gohan and the Androids had played a complex, and deadly, game of cat and mouse. Sometimes he hunted them down, sometimes they hunted him. He knew deep down that he could never defeat them, but if he was able to save them from killing just one person and live through the battle, he considered it a success.

Pepper City was a total loss. Gohan flew around trying to pick up on any life signs from beneath the rubble of the destroyed buildings. There were absolutely no survivors. He cursed himself for being too far away to sense the Android’s destruction of the city.

For weeks, the Androids had been following a direct course across the country, leaving behind them ruined cities and dead bodies. Gohan had tried to warn the people in the next cities to leave, but there was just not enough time for all of them to evacuate. He fought against the Androids to try and buy them at least a little more time, but it was never enough. It would never be enough.

So just when Gohan thought he knew the Android’s plan, they completely changed direction and attacked a city hundreds of miles away. One with tens of thousands of innocent people.

A strong energy level caught Gohan’s attention. This was no injured survivor. The levels were much too high. Even before he landed on top of the rubble that used to be a skyscraper, he knew who it was. There was no mistaking the distinct emotional power, so like his own.

The teenage half-Saiyan stood in the midst of the horrifying destruction, holding onto a small doll he had found among the dead bodies. A doll that would never be hugged and loved by its owner ever again. His eyes were haunted by what he was seeing and tears streamed down his face from the pain he felt for the innocent victims.

Gohan understood at once that Trunks had never witnessed the Androids’ atrocities first hand before. He may have heard about them or seen scenes on television, but never experienced the sounds and smells that accompanied the devastation. It was bound to change him forever.

Trunks sensed Gohan’s presence and looked up at him. The intensity of anguish in the young face tore at his heart and he cursed himself again for not being strong enough to prevent this day from happening. Now that Trunks had seen what the Androids were capable of, it was only a matter of time before he took it upon himself to join in the battle against the monsters. His Saiyan blood demanded it.

The boy’s raw emotions were already channeling into his power levels faster and harder than Gohan was able to do as a teenager. It wouldn’t take much to tip the scales and teach him to achieve Super Saiyan status. He just hoped Trunks had kept up the training he had taught him so many years, and a lifetime of battles, ago. He was getting so tired of fighting the same war for so long. Maybe, in a few years, he wouldn’t have to be a one-man army against unsurmountable odds any longer.

It was then that Gohan realized that it was not he, but Trunks, who would be the hope for the future of the planet. The lavender-haired, half-breed son of a Saiyan prince would be the savior of the earth. The planet’s last hope!