POV - Bulma
While i knew that there was another me from the future timeline from which Trunks came from, the two of us never went in much details about our alternate selves before, perhaps because it was a bit weird for me to hear about the life of an alternate version of myself.
But now, hearing about a third version of myself... her strength, her motivations, her desperation... i felt incredibly sad about the entire thing.
The story of how she lost all her friends, then resorted to trying to save them in an alternate reality that would have never been her own, only to lose her own son because of it...
I didn't know if i would have ever gone to such lengths as creating something... no, someone like Jamall... even after all that happened to her.
Would i have, in her desperation, truly created the equivalent of a child soldier, then programmed him to die if he didn't follow my orders in a timely fashion? I desired to say no that i would never do something so horrible to anyone, not even an artificial life that i myself created... but given the fact that there was a living proof of her escapades in front of me right at that moment... i couldn't be sure.
It was all so alien to me, but i have never been in the terrible situation of my counterpart, i didn't feel it right to judge her actions in any way.
Perhaps, it was also because of this mysterious sickness, this unknown disease that seemed to affect her sanity to such a degree... to turn her obsessional, that influenced her actions and decisions this much.. or perhaps i was only making excuses for her behavior.
I wished to ask at least some details about the disease, to see if it was something genetic or something that could be prevented, but this was probably not the time. I'll ask later about those things... when the two of us have a moment alone to speak about it.
What saddened me most than anything though was what the other me had to experience it just wasn't the loss of her friends, nor the loss of her son. It wasn't her sickness either, or the effects it seemed to have on her psyche. No, while all of that was incredibly depressing, what really saddened me was that despite her sickness, despite her many losses, despite everything that happened to her, the other me managed to stay as focused as she could; she managed to remain strong, to do anything she could... with the final objective of saving a son that wasn't really her own, and some people that looked like her friends, that she would have never met.
She did all of that, all the sacrifices and the time spent on working on Jamall, knowing that she would have gotten absolutely nothing for herself.
It was for that very reason, that despite having misgivings about some of her actions, I would have loved to met her my alternate self, if only to hug her, to give her not only her own gratitude... but also the peace of mind that she so much seemed to have needed.
I had to admit to myself, that i was initially unsure about Cell, the being that claimed to be my adoptive son... of a sort. The reason for this feeling, of this uncertainty, was realized a little later, probably because of the hideous appearance that made him look more like an evil being than anything else... But still, hearing how highly he spoke her, how proud he was of her accomplishments, of all the sacrifices my other self made to create him and give him life, i started to feel some kind of connection with Cell.
What i was feeling was hard to explain with words... it wasn't exactly like what i felt with Future Trunks; after all, he is my biological son, or at least of a version of my son, so it was easier for me to feel that link, that instant emotional connection.
I didn't have that same feeling with Jamall, initially... but, when i hugged Jamall in my bout of sadness, after hearing the emptiness in his voice when he recounted the traumatic events that did lead him in this time, i could feel his surprise in the way his own body jerked slightly, he was surprised that i was hugging him... but that wasn't all.
I did feel something else at that moment; after the short moment of surprise caused by my actions, Jamall hugged me back in response ever so slightly, just for a moment. I didn't exactly know the reason, but it was almost like he had a reluctant wish of remaining embraced with me, but feared me own reaction if he did so.
Such a reaction from the hybrid being, completely clashed with the stoic and cold countenance that he showed to the rest of the world... i realized then and there that he was not a machine, a weapon created by my other self and nothing else, but a living being just like me, with feelings, emotions... someone that has never been hugged before, and wasn't sure on how to react to it. Someone that has never seen the affection anyone should.
No matter how different he looked on the outside, he was a living being that i myself created in the future, a fruit of her labor, not born from my body like Trunks, but from her own mind.
I almost couldn't believe my own thoughts, considering that i did run away from Jamall only minutes before, but at that moment i felt as if i could accept him as a son, just as i did with the Trunks from the future timeline. The only difference that mattered to me, was that Jamall didn't have an alternate Bulma to come back to.
He didn't have a mother waiting for him in another timeline.
He was alone.
"That is when I realized that she made a mistake."
...
"Mistake? What mistake?"
There were many things that could have gone wrong, the worse would have probably been a mistake during the creation of Cell, perhaps some error in his genome that would have caused his death even if he did successfully absorb the Androids 17 and 18... or anything else really.
The answer though was far less complicated. "In her obsession on working non-stop to create the perfect warrior... she forgot that my body needed to fit in the time machine."
At that, I widened my eyes in surprise, as well as everyone in the room. It was so obvious in hindsight... such a stupid mistake, something that could have been easily noticed and fixed, but even I didn't think about this incongruence until Jamall voiced it himself, despite having already seen the time machine before and knowing for a fact that it was indeed too little in size to contain Cell's own body.
Was it because she was emotionally involved, that she was too distracted to notice? ... In any case if i didn't then I bet my alternate self could have done the same exact mistake as me, especially given her deteriorating sanity and abysmal working conditions.
"That's right!" My thoughts were interrupted by Trunks surprised exclamation. "My mom built the time machine for me to use, so there was only enough space for a human-sized driver!"
Cell nodded, confirming Trunks words, and i had to admit that i was curious: how did he manage to travel to the past, if he couldn't fit inside the time machine?
"There was only one way for me to do so. I set the time machine to four years before the arrival of the Androids, then after enabling it for the travel, I willingly reverted myself to the state of an egg, losing basically all of my powers in the process."
I was speechless... he could do that? It was a very weird ability to possess, turning himself into an egg... how that even worked?
No... I could ask all of those things later, there were more important questions at the moment.
"Why only four years? Why not traveling to an earlier time?" Yamcha question was indeed interesting, but i could already guess that the reason had something to do with the Androids. Compromising the timeline would have put his life in jeopardy too, not only that of the others.
"There are multiple reasons. One is that, once I arrived at this time, I needed at least four years to recover my adult form. Another reason is that I didn't know how much energy the time machine used, or how it was powered up at all, and I didn't know what would have happened if I set a date and then the energy ran out mid-travel, so I picked the option that was both the closest and the farther possible. The third reason was that I couldn't risk coming too early and causing changes that would lead to Androids different from 17 and 18 to be created or activated, or no Androids at all."
Now that i knew that Jamall needed four years to recover his Adult form, it was easy to understand the reason. I nodded toward Cell. "If Android 17 and 18 were not created yet, you won't be able to absorb them and would die in ten years, am I right?"
He nodded in response, confirming my deduction. "Yes, but that was not the only reason. Normally, if I could have come earlier and completely prevent the creation of the Androids, I would have done it... even if it was going to cost me my life, but sadly, doing so went against my prime directive."
Hearing that he was willing to sacrifice himself for their well being, caused my newfound affection for my surrogate son to grow once again and I would do whatever was in my power to make sure he had a happier life here from now on.
"Prime directive?" The question came from Trunks, i noticed was warmer in his attitude towards Jamall compared to earlier on. It wasn't an easily noticeable change, but it was something a mother guessed... he was so similar to Vegeta in the way his body moved and reacted, that now I could read him like an open book by now.
"Yes, the order my mother not only wished me to accomplish but wrote in my DNA herself, which is that of seeking and absorbing Androids 17 and 18. Without those two Androids actually existing, I wouldn't be able to fulfill such a condition. That is the main reason why I couldn't risk altering the events prior to their awakening, even if a part of me wanted to."
It was certainly a logically sounding reason given the impossibility to change the premises, but there was still something that bugged me about all of this. "I don't understand though... why did my future self, set such a hard condition for you to fill? If her only fear was that of you not following her wishes, even if that was an unfounded fear as we now know, she could have had done things in a different way and obtain the same exact result, perhaps even better. For example, instead of giving you the need of absorbing the two Androids, she could have sent you to the past with the purpose of stopping the Androids activation, giving you instead the need of absorbing someone else that existed already at the time and would also have been easier to subdue, like Dr. Gero, for example. His death would have also stopped the Androids activation... right?"
He appeared to be a little thrown off by my question and seemed to try to think about a possible answer, but it was clear he didn't have one. "I... I'm not really sure... perhaps a part of her wanted revenge too, over Android 17 and 18, I mean... for the death of her family and friends... or she was already so out of her mind that she didn't think about it."
I nodded to him, I'll probably never know the reason... since he didn't know as well, but it wasn't really that important in the great scheme of things. I was about to ask another question, but was interrupted by Trunks. "What about the time machine you came with? Did you still have it?"
Jamall seemed to expect the question, and was ready to answer it. "No, I destroyed it. I couldn't use it without losing the majority of my power anyway, it was useless to me, so I decided to blow it off. In doing so, I also didn't have to worry about someone else using it and changing another timeline for the worse."
As Jamall finished his answer to Trunks, i could now ask my own question. I realized earlier on that the progenitor of jamall, which was the source of the sample that then gave life to Jamall was probably present in their timeline as well.
Fortunately, Jamall seemed to have thought about it too. "Yes, there was an alternate version of the being from which I was cloned from. I have already proceeded to destroy it, It was one of the first things I did once I recovered my Adult form." He turned toward Trunks then. "Remember Trunks, you have to destroy the one present in your timeline as well, once you return to it. He was created by Dr. Gero, so it's bound to be evil and dangerous."
As Trunks nodded in response, it was Piccolo that wished to ask something now, after having been silent for a long time. He seemed to be thinking about something earlier and i was curious what it was about.
"Jamall, I have a question for you, and depending on how you are going to answer, it could be the last... " That sounded like a threat. How dare the green skinned bastard, threatening one of my babies like that!
My rampaging thoughts were interrupted by the Namekian's question. "... Are you the one who killed all of those criminals in the last couple of days?"
...
Silence befell on the entire living room, everyone left speechless by the question from Piccolo,to me... and Jamall.
But if the question left us without words, it was the answer that followed it a few moments later, that floored us all.
Because the answer was...
"Yes."