Chapter Text
It was quiet.
However, it wasn’t like the desolate silence he had grown used to after many, many trips through destroyed cities. Nor the suffocating stillness Trunks had experienced first-hand when the artificial humans threw him into an abandoned building that one time.
No, this was... different, peaceful, in a way.
Sailing through the seemingly endless sea of colors that composed the timestream was something he'd definitely have to get adjusted to. Especially considering that he'd be time travelling again if all went according to plan.
...That was the thing, wasn't it? He didn't know if anything would go according to plan. This was the first time anyone on Earth would be messing with time, and all things given he was going in completely blind and hoping for the best.
Trunks trusted his mom's machine, but even she admitted that dabbling with things like time were out of her expertise. He looked down at the console of the time machine, his eyes taking in the technological marvel that laid before him. And to think, she managed to make something like this in the middle of the apocalypse.
‘She really is amazing.’
Trunks leaned into the driver’s seat and gazed back outside of the time machine’s glass hatch.
‘Okay, so, the plan is to wait for Goku to get to Earth and defeat Frieza and his father. After that, I’ll single him out to explain who I am, what’s going to happen in the future, and give him the medicine for the heart virus.’
The hybrid gently placed his hand over the breastpocket containing the small glass vial. Inside such a fragile thing was the key to making sure Gohan’s dad didn’t end up dying before the artificial humans made their move.
‘And if all goes according to plan…’
Trunks let out a long breath, shutting his eyes as he did so.“...Things won’t turn out the way they did,” he murmured.
His mom’s friends wouldn’t die.
The earth wouldn’t be plunged into chaos.
His best friend wouldn’t have to suffer through over a decade of helplessness and pain as his planet was slowly ravaged.
He wouldn’t have to die in the first place.
Trunks sat straight up once more, eyes opening with the motion. He had to succeed, he would. He wouldn’t let everyone suffer for even a second longer if he could help it. That is if changing the past affected the future in any way. His mom had mentioned the possibility of their alterations creating a branching timeline separate from theirs starting from the point of divergence—that being his arrival in the past—that wouldn’t change a thing about the world they lived in.
But still, he had to try. He'd be letting everyone down otherwise.
A beeping from the square screen in front of Trunks then dragged him out of his thoughts, alerting the young hybrid to the time machine’s current proximity to his target destination.
‘Only a minute longer…’
The notification had its intended effect on him: his posture tightened, tan hands reaching out to grab the control sticks on either side of him.
‘...Only a minute until I can fix everything.’
Trunks vaguely registered the feeling of his palms becoming slightly slick with sweat, paying the sensation little more than a passing thought in attention before turning his eyes towards the timer.
‘50 seconds.’
His fingers tightened around the objects in their grasp.
‘45 seconds.’
The hybrid's chest felt unreasonably tight.
‘40 seconds.’
A lingering sense of worry briefly wormed its way back into his brain before being thoroughly quashed.
‘35 seconds’
…Almost time.
‘30 secon—’
POW!
A violent lurch from the time machine ripped him from his previous focused state, nearly throwing him from his seat as the vehicle began to spin wildly.
“What the hell?!”
Trunks hurriedly looked at the console for any information as to what had just occurred, only to be met with a chilling set of warning messages:
WARNING: THRUSTER 3 CRITICALLY DAMAGED.
WARNING: LEG 3 DAMAGED.
WARNING: TIME MACHINE DEVIATING FROM EXPECTED PATH.
WARNING: TRAJECTORY HAS BEEN COM—
The would-be time traveller didn’t get a chance to read the third message as the aforementioned time machine slammed against something solid, spinning even faster against the surface as Trunks found himself clinging onto the controls with a white-knuckle grip. Nausea wracked his body as the world beyond the glass turned into a smear of colors.
‘Crap!’
He yanked the sticks to the left, desperately attempting to resist the rotational force that was grinding the vehicle against whatever it was stuck on. But to no avail, as his attempt was met with nothing but immediate failure.
“Come… on…!” Trunks spat out, the hybrid doing his absolute best to not rip the controls straight out of their sockets while also putting enough strength into his pulling to actually do something.
‘What even happened?! Everything was going fine up until just now!’
His brow creased in worry, eyes quickly flicking to the computer screen, briefly scanning the blinking red text once more.
WARNING: WORMHOLE INTEGRITY REACHING CRITICAL LEVELS, ABORT TRAVEL IMMEDIATELY.
‘No...!’
The hybrid clenched his teeth, forcing the rising bile in his throat back into his stomach.
‘This can’t be happening! Not when I’m so close!’
But if something went wrong here, everything Trunks and his mom worked so hard for would be jeopardized. So, swallowing his apprehension, the young hybrid snapped his hand towards a set of buttons on his right.
‘I can’t risk it, I have to use the emergency return protocol…!’
CRCK—
The console lit up with a brilliant red glow, another warning flashing across its screen. One that Trunks would never see.
CRACK—
Right as he was about to press input the combination that would hopefully save him, the wormhole collapsed. Space folded in on itself, fractures spreading through the tunnel-like structure at an unimaginable speed. And for an instant, as his eyes snapped over to the outside world, Trunks witnessed the horrifying majesty of space-time falling apart around him.
“Shit—!”
FSHHH
With a shimmer, the tunnel around him fizzled away.
If he were able to see anything beyond a smear of new colors assaulting his vision, the hybrid would’ve been awestruck at the sight of the realm he now found himself in: threads, rods, and other sprawling shapes of a deep blue spread throughout an infinite space, swirling amidst a rainbow-colored abyss.
He, however, could only feel raw panic gripping his heart as the situation registered: the screen in front of him had gone completely dark, and he could faintly hear the thrusters powering off just outside the time machine.
The time machine was offline in the middle of nowhere, and he couldn't do anything about it.
Anything except sit there and let the crushing reality sink in. He was completely in the dark, and the very machine meant to aid him in fixing the past—taking him Kami knows where off course—had become completely and utterly useless. But despite that, he forced himself back to reality, keeping his eyes on the machinery surrounding him, sharp eyes scanning the inactive buttons around him.
‘Come on, you can’t die on me now!’
Trunks pressed down on one button to his right—a system reset toggle from what he recalled—to see if that would fix the issue.
…Nothing.
Cursing under his breath, he tried another button near the screen in front of him, this one the main ignition.
Once more… nothing.
‘Come on…’
He pressed the ignition again.
‘Please…!’
The time machine remained silent, ignoring his pleas for it to cooperate with him.
‘There’s got to be something I can do!’
Despite the overwhelming nausea clouding his mind, Trunks desperately racked his brain for anything he could do in this situation, anything his mom had implemented in case of an emergency like this.
‘This can’t be it!’
A tan hand whipped towards the thruster ignition lever just above the system reset button, pulling it up before forcing it back down again.
Nothing happened.
‘I won’t let it be!’
Trunks repeated the process again, and again, and again, with the same soul-crushing results as the first time. He eventually gave up on pulling the lever at all, leaving it pushed up. The hybrid snarled, his frustration beginning to overwhelm him.
‘Come on, think! There has to be a button, a switch, a protocol I can—!’
A swell of nausea forcibly cut off his thoughts, his vision going completely dark for a second as it rocked his brain. And in that instant, his grip slackened on the controls, and without their support to keep him upright, he slumped in the direction of the time machine’s counter-clockwise spinning. Trunks’ vision came back right as he thudded against cold metal, groaning as he lifted himself up.
The hybrid bit his lip hard enough to draw blood in order to keep himself together once he was back in his original position, hands firmly on the controls again. The acrid taste of iron coating his mouth almost immediately after the first drop hit his tongue. And as he tried to calm the sickness bubbling within him, Trunks could only look upon the screen in front of him, the darkness reflecting his face back at him only serving to hammer home what he was now forced to accept:
‘It won’t move.’
His chest felt tight, his head pulsed in agony, everything inside of him suddenly felt wrong.
‘It won’t move.’
Trunks’ heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest.
‘It won’t move.’
His nails dug into his palm, scratching, tearing, at the calloused hands that they were bound to.
‘It won’t move.’
Something warm dripped down his chin and hands.
‘It won’t move.”
He could feel something welling up within his throat, but he couldn’t focus enough to tell what it was.
‘It. Won’t. Move.’
He’d never make it to the past, he’d never see his mom again, he’d never stop all of the death—all of the destruction—that the androids caused, he’d never make it back home, he’d never avenge Gohan, he’d fail everyone.
His mom would die, everyone would die…
He’ll die here.
And like a dam had burst within him, a torrent of liquid and chunks of partially-digested food poured out of his mouth with a vile wretch onto both the time machine and himself. Trunks was left heaving after the contents of his stomach splattered onto the floor beneath his feet, unshed tears stinging his eyes.
Silence.
Pure, suffocating silence.
Then, ringing. Piercing his ears and stabbing into his skull.
He could vaguely hear his shuddering breaths over the infernal noise, but none of that formed a coherent thought within his rattled mind.
‘Gohan, mom, I-I’m so sorry…’
Choked sobs breached his lips, accompanied by the fall of salty tears down his cheeks.
‘I’m so, so sorry… I couldn’t do anything…’
A part of him was angry, livid at the hand fate had dealt him. But it was overshadowed by the sheer grief he felt at the moment. And for a moment, all he could do was sob as he grappled with everything that had happened.
Looking up at the glass peering into the unknown, he expected to see the same thing he had before, a dizzying swirl of colors that he couldn’t pick apart from each other. But…
‘It… it stopped…?’
…Trunks could actually tell what he was staring at.
In his haze, he couldn’t tell the time machine had ceased spinning. As a matter of fact, it still felt like it was spinning. But now he could see the shapes, the colors, everything. And maybe he would have been mesmerized had he not been so utterly fatigued right then and there.
The time machine then began to inch forward, much to his confusion. But before he could do or even think about anything else, he was slammed against his chair, a sudden increase in force dragging both him and the vehicle along at incredible speeds.
“Guhack—!” Trunks’ eyes snapped closed as he was pressed further and further into the red material.
Both him and the machine could feel the constantly increasing speed they were going at, as evidenced by the groans of the metal around him.
‘T-the time machine shouldn’t be able to go this fast, let alone move in this direction!’
With great effort on his behalf, the young hybrid forced his eyelids apart, quickly analyzing the current situation. Though all he could see was streaks of rainbow-colored light and darkness passing him by. A quick peek at the still-offline computer screen in front of him confirmed his previous thought’s hypothesis to him.
‘The time machine isn’t doing this!’
Blue eyes flicked back to what was in front of him, something else had decided to drag him somewhere, but where exactly was he going? He could only hope he wasn’t being dragged off to his death.
“Gah—!” The pressure forcing him down increased to an uncomfortable degree. In response, Trunks raised his ki higher, a flash of transparent white flames burst to life as he lifted his body up before fizzling out as quickly as they came.
“...Okay, I shouldn’t have to worry about being flattened anymore,” he huffed.
The would-be time traveler took a few shuddering breaths, steadying himself as he once again took stock of the situation at hand.
“But I need to worry about where I'm going now, seeing as the time machine’s moving again.” Trunks said right before his nose scrunched up as the smell of his vomit hit his nose in full. Looking down, he groaned at the mess he’d made.
‘I’m going to have to clean that up later…’
Putting the matter aside, the hybrid tapped the system reset toggle on his right once more for good measure. But like the last time he’d pressed it, it didn’t trigger anything.
“Figures,” he muttered, trying the rest of the buttons only to get the same results. “I suppose I just have to wait then.” Trunks sighed.
Almost as if the universe itself was messing with him, the time machine violently lurched forwards, throwing the hybrid out of his seat and nearly into the puddle of vomit on the floor had it not been for his superhuman reflexes saving him at the last moment as he caught himself on the controls.
He felt a weight press itself down onto his entire body, followed by the screen in the corner of his eye flickering back to life. He shot back up as soon as it did, no small amount of hope igniting itself in his chest. Only to be quickly replaced by dread as he noticed that both him and his vehicle were no longer flying through what could only be equated to space-time itself but instead plummeting towards what appeared to be a forest not too dissimilar from ones that could be found on Earth.
“D-damn!” Trunks snapped into action, quickly activating the main ignition and pulling the thruster activation lever down. He could hear the thrum of the four currently active thrusters roaring to life, his descent gradually slowing.
…Not nearly enough to prevent the machine from slamming into the ground beneath him, however.
The hybrid grunted as the impact rattled his bones, and upon seeing that he was indeed upon solid ground once again, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“It’s over…” Trunks slumped back into his chair. “...It’s finally over.”
Lifting himself back up, he pressed a button in front of him, opening up the hatch and hopping out of the time machine in short order. “Might as well take a look around, seeing as how I don’t think this is where I’m supposed to be,” he muttered under his breath, yellow boots crunching the green grass beneath him. His mom had told him the exact details of where the time machine would take him once he went to the past, and a lush forest was the exact opposite of a rocky wasteland.
“I might not even be on Earth right now…”
Trunks winced at the thought, given what he had just been through, the chances of him actually ending up at his destination were slim to none. Shaking his head, he looked around at the flora. Tall trees, minimal shrubbery, it seemed like he’d managed to land in some sort of clearing now that he got a good look at things. Lucky him. Turning back to the time machine, he hovered up to the hatch to close it, only for his heart to sink again as he noticed the damage it had sustained on its backside through the glass.
‘That’s right, it did say it had taken damage to the thruster and leg, but this…’
An entire thruster was completely gone, leaving only shredded metal in its place.
Gale force winds tore across the clearing as Trunks’ ki flared. His hair shot towards the sky, and both it and the familiar white flames associated with his life energy flickered a bright yellow in tandem with his surging frustration. He’d already been at his limit with the events that had transpired thus far, and finding out how much his only hope of changing anything—hell, even going home— had been crippled pushed him over the edge. Further exacerbated by the fact that he didn’t even know where he was.
“Damn it!” Trunks cried out, hands reaching up to grab fistfuls of gravity-defying hair. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” His ki flared up again in his fury, another burst of wind shaking the trees near him. He shut his eyes, throwing his head back for one final scream, “DAMN IT AAALL!!”
The hybrid was left breathless after his outburst, panting as his digits slowly let go of his now physics-obeying lavender locks, arms falling to his sides after. And for a brief second, he just sat there—head pointed towards the sky— with nothing but his breathing and the faint noise of birds squawking in the distance sounding out.
Something crunched behind him.
Instincts honed over years of looking over his shoulder jumped into action, Trunks’ body spinning around before a thought had even crossed his mind. And to his bewilderment, a massive armored wolf—if it could even be called that—the color of tar sat crouched just a few inches deep into the treeline, staring straight at him with glowing red eyes. But that wasn’t what shocked him the most. It was the thing’s complete lack of ki that stunned the hybrid so much.
Now animals in general didn’t tend to give off that much of a presence—depending on their size, that could change, but not by much—in the first place. From his own experience, Trunks could typically feel their energy if they got close enough or if he focused. And this… beast had gotten more than close enough for him to have passively felt it, especially with its size. But that was the thing, he couldn’t sense it at all. Call it trauma induced by the androids, but the distinct feeling of a void where there should be even the slightest sign of life energy sent shivers up his spine.
‘W—what is that thing? I couldn’t feel any ki coming from it…!’
As soon as the overgrown wolf showed even the slightest sign of moving, Trunks dashed to the left, away from the time machine, putting a solid chunk of space between him and it. The wolf seemed to be confused at his sudden disappearance, evidenced by it quickly looking around the area he once was before turning its head to his right, and then to his left, where it once again met eyes with the hybrid, a deep growl rumbling its way out of its throat as it crouched lower to the grass.
‘I don’t know why the hell I can’t sense you, but I don’t care enough to find out, so I’ll finish this quickly.’
Trunks’ eyes narrowed, and he blitzed forward. In an instant, he drew the sword on his back, banking to the right to avoid a tree to the beast’s side and swinging his sword upwards, cleaving through the bottom of its jaw all the way up through its head, a burst of wind following the slash, shaking the trees around them. The hybrid drifted backwards after, watching as it toppled forwards, black smoke—wait… what?
His eyebrows rose up marginally as plumes of the substance rose up from its now fallen corpse, quickly followed by the rest of it dissolving and blowing away into the wind.
‘That’s… odd.’
Trunks let out a tired sigh as he tracked the smoke flying away, rubbing at his forehead with one hand all the while.
‘I don’t remember ever seeing any animals on Earth doing that, so I guess that confirms it…’
Floating back over to the time machine, he quickly shut the hatch, wincing once more at the damage, and then dropped down, pressing a button near one of the remaining thrusters, turning it into its capsule form in a puff of orange gas. Trunks picked the capsule up off the grass, pulling a case from his front jacket pocket and storing it inside, snapping the lid closed and returning the container to its fabric prison.
‘...I’m not on Earth.’
The hybrid couldn’t even force a reaction to the devastating news at that moment. The only thing he could do was rub at his forehead, trying to soothe his spontaneous headache, letting out one final, immensely exhausted sigh in the process. His eyes immediately sharpened afterwards, deciding on one thing:
‘But I’m still alive. I have to find a way to get back on track, no matter how long it takes.’
A monstrous chorus of roars echoed from not too far away from Trunks as soon as he finished the thought, prompting him to immediately shoot into the sky with a flare of his ki. No sense in facing anything else this world had to offer when he had a much more pressing matter to attend to.
Stopping a good distance above the ground, the hybrid briefly glanced down towards the canopy below him, spotting various dark shapes resembling the wolf-thing—albeit smaller—rushing towards the clearing he once occupied.
‘Good timing. Anyway, first order of business: Checking if there’s any sort of advanced civilization here.’
With no further delays, he sped off into the distance, determination burning bright.
For a while, there was nothing but trees, rolling hills, mountains, and the occasional body of water.
It was a beautiful sight, but not what he was looking for. And so on he went, passing by much more of the same until off in the distance, he spotted it: a settlement just beyond the end of the forest leading into the ocean. A smile crossed Trunks’ face as he noticed it.
‘Good to know I’m not the only intelligent life here. All things considered, the place looks pretty modern, if a bit different from what I’m used to.’
Coming to a stop, he examined the surrounding area from his vantage point high up, noting the steady flow of people—humans, or at the very least humanoids—entering and leaving the town through a gate built into the massive wall protecting its citizens from the outside.
‘Let’s hope communication isn’t too difficult…’
The hybrid began flying down to the ground, making sure to move quickly and quietly into the forest just outside the stretch of land leading into the entrance to not alert anyone nearby. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Trunks looked down at himself, grimacing at the stains on his boots and lower pantlegs. Not to mention the dried blood on his hands…
‘I’ve got to do something about this before I head in.’
Unfortunately for him, he had nothing but the clothes—and sword—on his back to aid him, and he wouldn’t dare even consider using the capsule case for this. Thus, he looked around him for a more… natural solution.
“Trees, sticks, leaves, grass, and more trees…” Trunks said to himself, walking up to one of the aforementioned sticks on the ground and picking it up. “Looks like I’ll be relying on nature for this one.”
After scraping whatever he could off of his clothes with a stick and wiping the blood off his hands—and mouth, he almost forgot about that—on a low-hanging branch, the hybrid proceeded out of the forest, walking parallel to the main path leading to civilization, getting a few curious glances from people travelling on it who’d noticed him come out of nowhere in the process. Now that he got a closer look at things from the ground, that wall was absolutely massive. Trunks wondered if the reason behind it could be attributed to the wolves he had seen earlier, they could definitely be a problem for anyone who didn’t possess a degree of superhuman abilities. Especially if the monsters decided to group together and attack as one.
A slight frown creased his features at the notion, a part of Trunks hoped at least some of the inhabitants were strong enough to handle themselves. He had enough experience in being hopelessly outmatched against a stronger enemy—enemies, in his case—to know it was an absolutely awful way to live.
‘If you could even call it living.’
He walked in silence for a moment, simply taking in the sights around him as he approached his destination. It was nice. Trunks also decided to listen in on what he could only assume were conversations he could hear around him as he trekked onwards, keen on picking up whatever language the people spoke. And to his surprise, everyone seemed to speak the same language as him. How lucky. He hoped the people living beyond the walls followed the same trend.
Eventually, he stopped near the gate—peering beyond the wall as he steeled himself for first contact with another world’s populace. With any luck, things would go smoothly from here on out.
And so, Trunks took his first steps towards his future.
‘Seeing this place from up high is one thing, but being up close to everything is an entirely different experience.’
Trunks admired his surroundings as he walked beyond the entryway, taking in everything from the ground he walked on to the architecture all around him. Not for long though, as he quickly snapped back to focus just before he left the gate entirely.
‘Enough of that, I need to concentrate.’
The young hybrid separated from the flow of people entering the city proper, maneuvering past a few individuals who were exiting in the process as he moved towards a nearby wall where he could take some time to think while not having to worry about pedestrian traffic. Upon reaching the surface, Trunks put his back to the frigid stone and slid down it to take a seat on the brick beneath him. For a moment, he just listened to the voices around him, noting that once again, everyone seemed to share a language with him. Honestly, what were the chances of that?
‘Now then, what should I prioritize? Gathering information about this settlement? Finding a stable source of food and water? Getting directions around this place? Locating a temporary shelter?’
A low hum escaped his throat as Trunks weighed his options, all of them were important, but if he had to choose one over the others, it would have to be information. After all, he was in a completely foreign environment, any and all knowledge pertaining to it would be crucial to his time here.
‘Getting directions could come with gathering information depending on who I ask, I can sleep wherever, so shelter’s not really an issue, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gone without food or water for long periods of time so I can deal with that.’
For probably the first time in his life, having experience living during an apocalypse where resources were scarce was actually coming in handy.
He glanced around the area, taking note of the plethora of people milling about in addition to the armed figures—who he can now recall seeing on top of the gate—watching them. “I could ask one of these civilians, but that’s a gamble. After all, they could be new to this place like me,” he murmured, “Or I could ask the people I can only assume are guards here, which is most likely the better option.” Trunks then stood up, having made his decision.
He’d ask one of the guards.
It was a simple matter: all Trunks did was walk up to a female guard stationed near the gate not too far from him and present himself as a lost tourist.
“You can go to the visitor information center, they should be able to help you out,” the woman stated, “it’s one of the offices in that building not too far from here marked by a sign outside the door, can’t miss it.” She pointed a thumb behind herself towards an unremarkable two-story structure.
Trunks nodded at the guard, flashing her a grateful smile, “Got it, thank you very much!” With that, he turned and proceeded towards his destination.
‘Alright, what do I ask the people there?’
Humming to himself, the foreigner pondered his next moves. He could ask them for a map of the place for starters, followed by some probing into a library or any similar places. Yeah, that sounded like a good start.
The hybrid weaved between groups of people as he made his way to the sidewalk, and in no time at all, he spotted the noteworthy sign hanging just above a wooden door. Trunks stopped in front of the entrance, craning his neck to look at the bold lettering to his left one more time.
‘“Visitor Information Center”. This is the place.’
Trunks placed his hand on the cool metal doorknob, twisting it and pushing the door open. Trunks quickly stepped into the office, shutting the door behind him. He found himself in a small sparsely decorated room, with some plastic chairs arranged along the wall to his immediate right facing a long desk covered in various knick-knacks and papers currently occupied by a man with short purple hair who sat behind it. The aforementioned individual perked up a bit upon seeing him walk in.
“Good morning, can I help you with anything?” He greeted, a relaxed smile on his face.
“Yes. I’m new to the area and I was wondering if you could help me, you see…”
He approached and told the man the same thing he’d told the guard earlier, and with a nod, the worker reached across the desk and handed him a rather thick booklet.
“This’ll help you out a bit, it’s a brochure all about Argus, and even though it doesn’t go fully in-depth on certain topics, it’s enough to get you by.” He then reached under the desk, pulling open a cabinet and laying a thinner piece of paper on the wooden surface. “And this is that map you wanted, it’s pretty basic all things considered, but it notes any important places you might want to visit.” The man’s head tilted upwards, brown eyes meeting blue. “Are you planning on sticking around for a while?”
Trunks hummed, until he gathered a decent amount of information about the world around him, he really didn’t plan on going anywhere. And that was if he decided to leave after the fact.
“Probably,” he answered.
The worker nodded again, “Do you have any identification on you? An ID card, a passport, or anything of that sort would work.” He grabbed another piece of paper off of the desk, sliding it over for Trunks to read. “I should have mentioned this first, but the city requires anyone coming in through any of the checkpoints to have one of those if they want to get in.”
The foreigner quickly picked the paper up with his left hand, and as he read through it, and the man’s words fully registered, a creeping sense of unease fell over him.
‘I don’t have any of those.’
“I, uh, don’t have any of those…” Trunks immediately voiced his concerns to him.
“Hm, okay then,” the worker tapped his fingers on the desk, “You should still be able to get in, although the process’ll take longer.”
“How much longer?” The hybrid asked, some of his unease vanishing as he did so.
“At least a couple of hours, maybe up until the evening,” he responded, “You’ll need to tell the border agent inside of the checkpoint booth your situation, they’ll have you escorted to city hall by one of the officers stationed nearby.”
“Right.” Trunks nodded in understanding, grabbing the map and putting all of the papers he was given into one stack in his hands. “Where’s the closest checkpoint?”
“Down the street. It’s about a 5 minute walk.” The worker answered, “You’ll have to cross the street to get to the booth though, as the pedestrian exit is on this side of the road.”
“Got it. Thank you for all the information, take care.” The hybrid said his goodbyes, turning and heading out of the office.
He heard the man bid him farewell in turn as he opened the door once again, a wave of cold air hitting him as he stepped back outside.
‘Onto the next stop, then.’
“Next in line!”
Trunks shuffled into the station at the tinny speaker’s behest, turning to his left to come face-to-face with the border agent.
“Documents, please,” she requested, her voice coming out slightly distorted through the speaker installed into the thick plexiglass separating them.
“I don’t have any, but I was told I’d be able to get in if I asked for help here,” the hybrid responded, the agent letting out a quiet hum as she processed his answer.
“Any particular reason why you don’t have documentation available at the moment?” she asked, her eyes laser-focused on him.
‘Alright, here goes nothing.’
He’d practiced/revised his cover story on the way here, turning it over in his head countless times until it sounded passable. Thanks to the brochure he’d been given, Trunks had picked up on the fact that other settlements existed beyond Argus, so, using that information, he’d added the lie that he was a Mistral citizen from further inland who decided to move to Argus to his backstory. In addition to that, he also decided to drop the “lost tourist” act.
“I lost it on my way here,” he said. “Couldn’t go back for it, so I had to keep heading here.”
The woman nodded, her eyes still focused on him. “Alright, well, I’ll call someone over to take you to city hall, they’ll be able to help you figure out your situation.” She clicked a button on the microphone she had been speaking into, cutting off any noise beyond the partition. Trunks saw her slip away to the left, and a few seconds later, she came back into view, clicking the same button as before. “Go ahead and exit out to your right, you’ll meet an officer who’ll take you where you need to go.”
‘Oh thank Kami.’
Trunks nodded, thanking the woman and stepping out of the booth. Almost immediately after he did so, a uniformed man stepped in front of him. He wore a thick white jacket alongside dark blue pants and an equally white hat, a belt adorned with various pouches and equipment holding the trousers up.
“Come on, we’ll take this cruiser to city hall,” he stated, motioning with his head towards a black and white car with the word “POLICE” emblazoned on its side a few feet away.
“Yes sir.” The foreigner nodded once again, and to his mild confusion, the officer cracked a small smile, turning and walking to the vehicle soon after, Trunks quickly following suit.
“No need to be so formal, kid,” he commented, opening the driver’s side door and climbing in.
“R-right..” The now slightly embarrassed hybrid muttered to himself, opening the door adjacent to the officer’s and hopping inside. The cruiser’s seats were made of a hard—and uncomfortable—plastic, he noted.
“Name’s Officer Indigo by the way,” the aforementioned man said, clicking his seatbelt into place and adjusting the rearview mirror. “So feel free to call me that.”
“Got it, Officer Indigo.” Trunks slipped his own seatbelt into its buckle, adjusting himself in his seat.
From what he could hear from behind the partition, Indigo had inserted his keys into the ignition, and after the telltale rumble of a car engine coming to life, the two were off.
As they drove down the road, Trunks let himself relax, shutting his eyes as he slouched back into his seat. He was especially tired at the moment, so why not take the chance to unwind before they got to their destination?
The would-be time traveler let his thoughts wander, idly processing the strange turn of events that had landed him here.
He had no idea what had knocked the time machine off course, and a part of him wondered if he ever would.
‘I didn’t even get a chance to see it before everything went to hell…’
The lack of any information regarding the incident’s cause deeply frustrated Trunks, subconsciously causing him to clench his hands.
‘Not that it matters anymore. Right now I have bigger things to worry about...’
Shelving the matter for the moment, he thought back to earlier in the day, his encounter with the beasts in the woods clinging to his mind, their lack of ki still unnerving him.
‘That’s something I’ll have to research once I get the chance to. Still though, what are those things?’
Monsters that lacked life energy weren’t anything he was unfamiliar with, but seeing them in an alien environment was baffling to say the least. Especially ones that looked like mutated wolves made out of shadows.
This world he found himself in was similar to his own in some ways, yet so different in others.
Trunks decided he’d had enough ruminating for the time being, opening his eyes and turning his head to look out of the window on his left, watching the buildings passing him by.
He was lost, no doubt about that.
But still, he had to find a way to complete his mission.
He had to save his world.
For his mom, for Gohan, for everyone living on the planet.
‘I’ll fix everything, I promise.’
No matter how long it took him.