"Trunks?!"
Following Raditz's exclamation, everyone's mouths fell open.
Wasn't Trunks the baby of Vegeta and Bulma? He was at home sleeping right now! Was this boy also called Trunks? But... this young man really did look similar around the eyes...
Everyone didn't know what was happening and looked at Raditz, who was the only one who'd called out the name.
The battle between Nappa and the androids was ignored instead...
Raditz didn't know what was going on either. By all logic, there should no longer be a Trunks in his timeline. After all, Frieza were dead, and the androids were about to be eliminated. Although there were some twists and turns in the middle, the historical trajectory still hadn't deviated too much.
Yet here Trunks appeared.
"Um... Mr. Goku, don't you know me? I came here three years ago," Trunks asked hesitantly. When he'd come three years ago, everyone had obviously met and talked with each other.
The only person who could say his name was someone he didn't recognize.
"Three years ago? I don't remember. Who are you?" Goku scratched his head. "Did you come to find us specifically?"
Vegeta looked at Trunks cautiously, then at Raditz, as if suspecting Raditz had done something wrong.
Chaos! Complete chaos!
It was all messed up. Where was "three years ago"?
Raditz suddenly understood why Future Trunks had come here. He'd once used the space-time ring to go to a parallel universe. Everything in that timeline had developed according to the original timeline. This was when Trunks would travel through time.
That meant this Future Trunks was from a parallel timeline. Three years ago, Future Trunks had gone to the original world, and because Raditz's travel had connected a channel between the two timelines, the two parallel timelines were linked together.
This time, Future Trunks had actually traveled to Raditz's timeline!
"What's wrong with you all?" Trunks scanned everyone and found that most were unfamiliar faces, but the familiar Goku, Krillin and others all looked at him with confusion, as if they didn't know him at all.
He didn't recognize the three guys in battle, and the whole world had suddenly become strange to him.
"Young man, did you come to the wrong place? Please stay back—we're dealing with androids. It's very dangerous." Pepara turned sideways with a tone of "gods are fighting, mortals should leave."
"Androids? Are they androids too?"
Trunks floated in the air blankly with an expression of disbelief. He was a little scared, thinking that traveling through time and space had distorted the world, causing history to be completely different. Not only was it different—even the people he used to know had forgotten him. Or did he no longer exist in this world?
Then what world had he come from? Trunks' face slowly turned pale.
"Let me explain." Raditz looked at the bewildered Trunks and puzzled crowd. "I said I have a way to see some future scenes, so I foresaw this boy traveling through the time machine. This boy is Bulma's son—the grown-up Trunks. To change the tragedy of his world being destroyed by androids, he went back from the future to the past to stop the androids."
"Ah?! Time machine... Trunks!"
This boy turned out to be Bulma's child!
Almost everyone was shocked. They'd never thought there was a machine that could travel through time and space. When Raditz said he used divine power, they believed it—after all, Raditz was an apprentice Supreme Kai. But humans had created a time machine, which was enough to make them feel it was mysterious and incredible.
Vegeta's crossed arms loosened, and he looked at the handsome boy with joy and surprise in his expression.
"Is that so? Are you?" Trunks didn't recognize Raditz.
"I'm Goku's brother, Raditz."
"Ah!" Trunks fell into shock again. In his history, Raditz was the first boss who'd been killed by Goku and Piccolo. He'd only heard about it by accident when his mother talked about Uncle Goku's heroic history.
However, Raditz was standing in front of him now.
"Don't be surprised. We're actually not from the same timeline. Simply put, when you used the time machine to travel, you got the time right but the direction wrong. This isn't the world you wanted to go to."
"Not the same timeline..."
"Parallel timelines—you should have heard Bulma mention this?" Raditz extended his hand. "Our timeline is the same as yours. There are androids, Goku and Vegeta, but some things have changed, so the world's path has also changed. The time machine might go to your past, but by accident, it came to our present."
"Does that mean I can't save my world?" Trunks understood the meaning with a depressed expression. He'd actually traveled to another timeline, so wouldn't he be unable to reach the past to save it?
Years of preparation wasted, the time machine wasted, his mother's and the world's hope...
"Hey, Trunks, don't be disappointed. Even if you traveled here, you can still save the future. You want to defeat the androids but don't have enough strength. I can help you train to become more powerful," Raditz said.
"That's right, Trunks. As long as you train hard, you can defeat androids no matter which timeline," Goku also chimed in.
"But..." Trunks looked at Nappa and the androids. "In my world, the androids are different from the ones here. Moreover, as a Super Saiyan, I can barely fight against them. Mr. Raditz, you..."
Trunks scanned Raditz up and down. In his mother's stories, Raditz's combat power was permanently fixed at 1,200, and he'd been defeated by Mr. Goku and Mr. Piccolo early on. Now he suddenly appeared saying "I'll help you train," which left Trunks feeling overwhelmed.
Although he didn't know why Raditz still existed in this timeline, subconsciously he'd defined Raditz as an ordinary warrior. To help him train, wouldn't Mr. Goku and Dad be more reliable?
"It seems you don't know us very well. Let me introduce us first!" Raditz smiled and snapped his fingers.
At the same time, violent air waves blew up around him, as if a severe storm was scraping the ground layer by layer. Suddenly a burst of golden flames erupted, the ends of his long hair curled up, and the front strands stood on end.
The powerful aura was so amazing it overshadowed Nappa's energy!
Trunks' hands trembled, and his whole body shook violently.
But the shock wasn't over yet...
"Big brother is so strong!" Goku shouted, then transformed himself. With a loud bang, golden flames burned!
"Kakarot, are you showing off?" Vegeta finally couldn't stand it anymore and also transformed into a Super Saiyan.
Each of the three golden lights represented a Super Saiyan, and each one was stronger than him—enough to shake the earth.
Trunks was stunned, like a frog at the bottom of a well jumping out into the outside world for the first time, his eyes wide open without blinking, his face pale.