voidtreckerexpress | [Closed] I can hear them running chains around our door

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[Closed] I can hear them running chains around our door

Who: Rich and Trunks
Where: 2-B
When: Backdated to late night Jelly 2.
What: Rich returns back to the sleeper car after bolting on Trunks, and most likely after realizing a few things about the incident on the network. Bonding over trauma ensues.
Warnings: Discussion of mind control, physical and mental abuse, homophobia/transphobia, likely suicide by fire... anything about Rich's backstory might come up here so avoid if any of that is too difficult to read about!

Rich hardly dares to breathe as he steps into the room he shares. His steps are as light as he can make them, and he doesn't bother with turning on any lights. Honestly, he had been planning on just napping in the quiet car, but with how he had bolted out earlier, he had a feeling at least one person in the room wouldn't appreciate that.

God, Trunks must have been worried sick, and Rich certainly can't blame him. At least, not with the context. Even if Rich wouldn't want the concern, after what he witnessed between Jack and Rich, and after Rich had convinced himself it all was nothing...

He had been pretty messed up, and he's lucky he's started to recover himself now. It's a slow process, but healing always is. Now, if he can just make it to his bunk without interrupting someone else's process... will that be possible? Or has Trunks stayed up waiting for him?

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"That's awful... so without him, you weren't strong enough to deal with any of the aftermath, I'm guessing."

Surely someone must have come to get revenge for Freiza.

"3 years later, yes. But not from Frieza or his family. Two Artificial Humans, known as Androids 17 and 18, appeared. They were regular humans who'd been so heavily modified as to no longer be considered 'human'--and they were angry. Psychotic and homicidal, they killed their creator. Then they went on to the rest of the Earth, doing what they pleased. No one left could stand up to them, and all the warriors who tried, including my Father, died. My mother isn't a fighter, per se, so she survived. I was 6 months old. Gohan, Goku's son, also survived."

"...That's- really messed up." That's all Rich can think to say, as he feels his own fear coming back up to choke him again. He can hardly blame Trunks for hating these androids that arrived in his world, but... the fact that they'd been taken and twisted into killing machines is painful to think about.

"You didn't deserve that. No matter how they felt, they shouldn't have taken it out on the whole world."

"Things kept getting progressively worse over time, but we managed. Humanity managed, as it did take a while for things to progress. Gohan trained me, and he and Mom kind of both raised me as best they could. He kept trying to help me surpass my limits and reach a state called 'super saiyan'. He'd achieved it, as had Goku, and presumably my father. Perhaps if Goku had survived, he and Father together could've stopped the androids with it."

Trunks shrugged. "In any case, that was our hope. But I wasn't ready, no matter how much I thought I was. Or how much I tried. I couldn't do it. And we still did our best to try and stop the androids when we could--we were the only ones who had any chance. But....Gohan lost an arm protecting me." There's a slow blink, Trunks obviously trying to keep himself calm.

"A few weeks later, we were training, when the androids struck nearby Pepper Town. Gohan knocked me out, so I couldn't join the fight. We'd already lost so much--we were about to lose one more."

Trunks' fists were clenched against his legs, in remembered anger and pain.

"I woke up later, and went to Pepper Town to find him, to try and find them. It was raining. I...I found him. Lying facedown in a puddle, looking like a mouse that a Cat had played with and then discarded. I remember Rage--and pain welling up in me. I remember something unlocking, and I'd finally done it, while tears were streaming down my face. My, in some ways the new world's as well, greatest loss yet, and finally my achieving super saiyan as well.

Rich is listening to all of this with a horrified look, almost unable to keep himself from losing his temper as well. For Trunks to grow up in a fucking apocalypse, with a broken family, desperately training in an attempt to win out against something he was certain he would lose to... it's all so unfair, and tragic, and painful.

And then for someone who lost so much to try to calm Rich down and try to help with his trauma... it doesn't feel right. He never went through anything like this, and he could never do enough to help heal everything Trunks had gone through.

His voice is weak and choked with tears when he speaks. "I'm... so sorry, Trunks. I'm so sorry you had to go through something so awful. That's... no one should have to deal with that much pain." What else can he even say?

"Want me to continue? It gets...only slightly better, but it gets worse first." Trunks warned. "I'm 19 now, by the way. If we can figure out when November is on this train, that's when I turn 20."

"Yes. I... I want you to share, if it'll help you. I just... damn, you've got it a lot worse than I ever did."

"Yeah? What day?" He's definitely making a note to save the date. Thanks to Devero knowing from his interface, he should be able to keep track.

"It's not about who has or had it worse, Rich. Not to me, anyways." Trunks shrugged. "It's not some kind of contest." There's a wry twist to his mouth though. "You can see already why I'm not fond of androids."

"Yeah, I... I can't blame you at all for that. Even if what happened to them was awful, you didn't deserve that directed at you."

He does hope, deep down, that Jack is just a regular ass android, and isn't struggling with hurt, like the androids in Trunks' world were.

"The world didn't deserve it, no." Trunks said quietly. "In any event, I was...very angry. Maybe I wanted revenge unconsciously too. Because the next time they attacked where I could get to them, I headed off to fight them. It was a mistake."

"...I get how you must have felt. You're really lucky you didn't end up killed."

Rich doesn't scold too much, though. In a similar situation... he knows himself well enough to know he would have stormed right into the lion's den as well.

"Good guess. I was almost killed." Trunks confirmed. "It was stupid, but I was too angry and rage-filled to care. A bit before that, Mom had started trying to find a different solution. That turned out to be the Time Machine. While I healed up, we had discussions about it, and who would go back, and well...discussion is actually probably too nice a way to put it. But there wasn't shouting at all, so I count it as a good thing."

Trunks reached up to rub the back of his neck sheepishly. "When I was 17, Mom showed me how, and I went back to the past. I didn't realize I was creating an alternate timeline at the time, but I was. In any case, I went back to when Freiza showed up. I took him and his father and their troops out. Then I met my father, and the other warriors I'd heard about, for the first time--except for Gohan. But it was a younger Gohan."

"...She must have been pretty smart." He feels bad that Trunks had to argue with his mom, argue about who should survive, but he also knows that parents - good ones, at least - are willing to do anything to keep their children safe.

"Ah, making a bit of a grandfather paradox, okay. Keep going."

"She's a genius. My grandfather was also a genius inventor." Trunks said, with some pride. "Grandfather paradox?" He tilted his head curiously, for a moment, before continuing.

"I couldn't really tell anyone who I was, but we all met Goku when he returned from space. I talked to him privately, and warned him about the androids. And about the heart virus. I gave him the cure that was eventually developed. And then I left." There's a sigh, and he rakes his hand through his bangs. "I'm not sure if Mom knew or not, but nothing changed in our time. All that did change, although I didn't know it until later, was another timeline was created. One that didn't quite match the events as I knew they'd happened."

"It's a thing with time travel stories... It goes like, if you went back in time, you could kill your own grandfather. But in doing that, you wouldn't be born, and thus no one would be around to kill him. And it goes in a loop of logic like that forever. Or leads to branching timelines, like you said."

He offers an unsure little smile. "So what happened in the other timeline?"

"Well, I didn't actually find out that I'd changed things, until I went back." Trunks began, offering a small smile. Just a hint sheepish. "So the time machine took a year to get refueled, then I went back to what now was the alternate timeline--but 3 years later by their reckoning. It turns out that the two androids that showed up, were late. They also weren't the androids I'd warned them about. These were two new androids, one of which was actually Dr. Gero--their creator--who'd turned himself into an android. Goku also hadn't gotten sick yet."

"Ah, yeah, that's kind of what I expected. Go back in time to solve problems, and more will just pop up, unfortunately. Were these androids worse than the last two?"

Trunks said there was a happy ending, though, so they must have solved the problem eventually.

"They were, although at least we could take them as a group. But Dr. Gero escaped, and was able to activate Androids 17 and 18. The two that I was familiar with, only....these two were stronger. They killed their creator, and activated android 16, and then we lost track of them. My mom in that timeline had been alerted to a different problem."

"Yikes..." That makes sense, of course, but must have been miserable for Trunks to deal with. Rich knows what it's like for your desperate sacrifices to end up not meaning anything... "What did your mother find out about?"

"Mom found another time machine. But one that looked like it had been there for years. It was the same as the one in my possession. We...found out there was yet another android. Named Cell. He'd come to absorb 17 and 18, and gain his perfect form. Apparently in the timeline he came from, I'd found a way to deactivate the androids, so he couldn't use them. So he killed that version of me, and came back to a timeline where they existed. Then he waited."

Oh god, the amount of timelines to keep track of is getting a little too complicated for Rich, but he's trying his damndest. He frowns in concentration, as much to show he's listening as it is to actually focus.

"So... did he find them and manage to use them? Or did you stop him before that happened?"

"So, it's about to get a bit more complicated, as I was pulled in the middle of the mess. Cell found 17, and 18, and eventually absorbed them both. We've been fighting to try and stop him, but...well..." Trunks shrugs. Too much to explain really. "Anyways, he decided he was gonna hold a tournament for the fate of the world. I was in the middle of training for that, when the train pulled me."

Pausing, Trunks reaches up and brushes his fingers through his bangs.

"I know we survive in at least one-timeline, thanks to Piccolo and Mother and Father being here. I don't know more, and I don't want to know the details, but well...that's hopefully the happy ending."

Rich is quiet for a long moment, seeming to be stuck absorbing the details of the story. The longer he sits there, though, the more something seems to nag at him, and when it comes to him, his hands curl into fists.

"But that might not be a happy ending for you. You might not be in the timeline that survives!"

"I know a version of me is." Trunks said. "The point I was pulled from, he's about 7 months, maybe." So at least one version of him got a 'happy ending'.

"...So you're okay with that? With one version of you being happy, even if you might have to keep suffering?" That sounds like something a lot harder to accept. Maybe Rich is just frustrated for his friend's sake.

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