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Mai's quiet murmur lingered in the air as all eyes turned toward the shadow racing across the night.
It got closer and beca a lot clearer. Step by step, the figure erged until Trunks could finally make out her form.
But it was Gohan whose heart shook the most. His gaze quivered, unable to accept the sight before him.
The figure… was Videl.
No, that couldn't be. This wasn't his Videl. This was a parallel world's Videl. Yet everything about her was different from the wife he knew.
This Videl radiated authority, a sharp and commanding aura honed in battle. She wore a tight combat uniform, her once loosely hanging twin braids now bound together and coiled firmly atop her head.
If the Videl of his world was a devoted homaker, then this Videl was the very image of a valiant warrior.
Against all expectations, she was the Commander of the Human Defense Force.
And strangest of all, there wasn't even a trace of Ki to be felt from her.
Trunks' eyes swept over her carefully, noticing the scars of countless battles etched across her being.
Videl's eyes locked on Gohan. Suddenly, she rushed forward, grabbing his hand, circling him in disbelief.
"It's really you… Gohan!"
Then her attention snapped to Trunks. Her eyes swept over him from head to toe, trembling with recognition.
"It's true… it really is Trunks!"
Gohan, trying to steady himself, extended a hand toward her. "Hello."
Videl froze for a heartbeat, her gaze lingering on his outstretched arm. Her eyes clouded, as if mories of the dead clawed their way back into her mind. But in the next mont, she masked it with a smile and grasped his hand firmly.
"…It's been a long ti, Gohan." Her voice wavered faintly, and in her eyes glimred the tiniest hint of tears, almost invisible, but there.
Bulla caught it.
So did Mai. Puzzled, she asked, "Commander… Do you know them?"
Videl stiffened, then turned slowly, her smile calm, almost casual.
"…Sothing like that. But these aren't the Gohan and Trunks of our world."
Her words cut like a blade. "Because… the Gohan and Trunks of this world have been dead for a long ti."
She spoke as though it were nothing, as though the weight of those deaths had already been carved too deep to hurt anymore. Yet her eyes flicked back once more to Gohan and Trunks, betraying just a sliver of truth.
Her calmness only deepened Trunks' unease. She wasn't mistaking them for resurrected ghosts. She knew perfectly well they were outsiders, travelers from another tiline.
And curiously, she never once addressed Bulla.
Which ant… in this world, Bulla likely never existed.
Trunks stepped forward. His tone was firm.
"Commander… tell . What happened to this world?"
The question struck right at the scar she carried. Videl paused for a second, then exhaled lightly, turning her back to them before speaking in a asured tone.
Her words painted the bleak truth.
In this tiline, the arrival of the Androids brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
Massacres swept across the planet. In the span of re months, half of humanity had been annihilated.
Son Goku fell first, his life stolen not by an enemy's hand, but by the rciless grip of a heart virus. The Z Fighters followed one by one, each cut down until only Gohan and the infant Trunks remained.
To stand against the Androids, the remnants of humankind gathered together, forming the Human Defense Force.
This… was their desperate last stand.
Yet the role of humanity was almost negligible.
It was then that Gohan stepped forward. But even his power alone could not stand against the Androids.
Still, his presence lit a spark of hope in mankind's heart.
Around that sa ti, Videl joined the Human Defense Force. It was then that she t Gohan.
But fate was rciless.
In a desperate battle to protect the last survivors, Gohan was ambushed, and one of his arms was torn away in the struggle.
Later, during a retreat, he stood his ground to shield Trunks and Videl, hurling himself into a suicidal clash against the Androids.
And in that battle, Gohan's life was extinguished.
Humanity's hope collapsed once more, plunging the world back into darkness.
Yet, in that abyss, a new light flickered. Trunks, driven into a storm of rage by Gohan's death, broke through his limits, becoming a Super Saiyan.
But if even Gohan, his ntor and brother-figure, could not defeat the Androids, then how could Trunks possibly triumph?
Humanity was forced underground, living like shadows of their forr selves.
Bulma, unwilling to surrender to despair, began to design a ti machine to rewrite their fate.
And against all odds, she succeeded.
Trunks journeyed to the past. There, fighting alongside the heroes of another ti, he discovered Dr. Gero's laboratory. Hidden within it were the blueprints for the Androids.
With those designs, Bulma constructed a remote control capable of shutting the Androids down.
And so, in that past tiline, before Cell could even appear, the Androids were successfully deactivated and destroyed.
Trunks then returned to his own world, bringing the remote with him.
Yet doubt gnawed at him. The Androids in each tiline differed in strength, would this remote even work against his own world's versions?
He entrusted the device to his mother. And Bulma, true to her genius, recalibrated it. The remote succeeded. The Androids of his world were finally silenced.
Peace seed possible at last.
But just as in the other tiline, the mont Trunks prepared to bring the good news back through the ti machine, disaster struck.
A monster appeared.
Cell.
Trunks transford into a Super Saiyan and fought with all his might, but he was no match for Cell.
This version of Trunks had never trained in the Hyperbolic Ti Chamber. He had never received Vegeta's rciless guidance within its tiless walls.
Without that training, he stood no chance, even against Cell's imperfect first form.
In the end, Cell slaughtered him and departed for the past.
This was the fate of that tiline. The story of a Trunks who died.
...
(The nature of Dragon Ball Z's parallel worlds has long been debated. So argue there are three. But I believe… there must be at least four.
After all, the so-called "Dead Trunks" tiline requires the remote to be built only after returning to the past, raiding Dr. Gero's laboratory, and recovering the Android blueprints.
Yet in the original work, the remote doesn't appear until after Trunks and Vegeta erge from the Hyperbolic Ti Chamber.
Which would an that this Trunks should have been strong enough to defeat Cell's first form. But in the "Dead Trunks" tiline, he clearly was not.
That is why I believe my description fits better.
Dragon Ball Z does not rely have three tilines. It has at least four.)
(End Of This Chapter)
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