Sparring had become my new normal. If it wasn't with Goku, it was with Vegeta — usually Vegeta, since he had more or less taken up residence in my house. Every time I activated the energy generator and pushed my power level fifty times higher, I noticed the same phenomenon: my hair shifting into a bright orange glow.
It was confusing. Krillin used the generator too, but he didn't undergo any such change.
Frustrated, I felt like I was hitting a wall. When I mentioned it to Goku, he suggested I ramp the generator up slowly instead of blasting it all at once. I tried. And that's when I felt it.
Something foreign.
Every time I reached that fifty-times multiplier, this strange energy stirred — fusing with my ki, rewriting me from the inside out. That was why my hair turned orange. It wasn't just the generator. It was this.
But the strangest part? No one else could sense it. Not Goku. Not Vegeta. To their ki senses, I was just me. And yet, I could feel it clear as day — a silent current running alongside my own energy, invisible to everyone but me.
---
When I wasn't testing my limits in the dojo, I was busy working in my lab. My newest creations: reconnaissance drones disguised as a squirrel and a mouse. Small, unnoticed, perfect for infiltration.
I sent them crawling into Dr. Gero's hideout. The feed confirmed my suspicions: he was already halfway through reprogramming Lapis and Lazuli, wiping their memories clean. What he didn't know was that I had quietly breached his network months ago. Every keystroke, every new code — I saw it all.
I wasn't going to let him get away with it this time. When he finally tried to combine Frieza's cells into that monstrosity he was growing under his lab, I would take control. I wasn't just going to stop him. I was going to erase him — make sure the end of humanity would never come at his hands.
---
And then there was… the other development.
I don't know how else to say it — but I think Trunks will be born earlier than in my original timeline. I'm already six months pregnant.
No, it wasn't romantic the way I imagined it would be. It was wild, unrestrained, and full of passion. That's just how things are with Vegeta. But as inconvenient as it might sound right now, I wouldn't change it.
With my body limited, physical training had to take a backseat. Instead, I poured myself into refining my armor. I reinforced its ki absorption, making the plating more durable. Then, I added something new: self-repair. By channeling my ki into the systems, the armor could heal damage the same way a body heals a wound. Not just patching — but restoring even missing parts, guided by the design memories I'd programmed into the generator.
---
Still, I couldn't ignore the future.
Future Trunks would arrive in about a year. I needed to be ready for him, maybe even more than he was ready for me. I was already preparing devices tailored for him, including a portable gravity manipulator like the one I had given Goku and Vegeta.
And I was doing more than that. I was recording and sketching every blueprint, every invention, every process I had perfected in this timeline. I packed resources into capsules, caches of technology and supplies I knew the ruined world of my original timeline would need.
Trunks wouldn't just inherit my knowledge — he would inherit hope.
I looked at the capsule case, my hand resting over it protectively.
"This time… you won't stand alone," I whispered. "When Babidi, Zamasu, or whoever else comes for you — you'll have everything I can give."
For the first time in a long while, I felt steady. My body was changing. My energy was changing. Even my destiny was changing.
And when the time came… so would the future.