The first attempt was a disaster.
Dr. Gero stood over the slab, his wrinkled hands shaking as the prototype writhed. It was half-flesh, half-metal, a grotesque mockery of his dream. Buu's DNA twisted the synthetic cells, regenerating even as the mechanical systems rejected them. Tubes ruptured. Flesh bubbled. Circuits screamed.
Its mouth opened in a silent wail before its body collapsed into itself, imploding into formless pink sludge. The containment chamber hissed shut as alarms shrieked.
Gero did not flinch. His pale eyes glittered. "Not a failure," he whispered. "A lesson. Creation is not built… it is born."
And so, he began again.
Days became months. He whispered to his machines like a priest before an altar. He rewrote code, reshaped cells, coaxed regeneration and circuitry into harmony. He did not sleep, did not eat. His voice cracked into madness as he murmured to himself:
"She will not be machine. She will not be flesh. She will be something else. Something beyond. Perfection."
And then, at last, she opened her eyes.
They were wide, blue, impossibly clear. Eyes not yet hardened by war or cruelty. She blinked at the sterile white ceiling, then at the trembling hands of her creator. Her lips parted in the smallest, most fragile sound.
"…Papa?"
Gero fell to his knees. For a moment — a single heartbeat — his expression was not that of a mad scientist, but of a father.
"Yes," he whispered, tears burning in the corners of his tired eyes. "Yes, my child. My masterpiece. My Android Twenty-One."
Her first steps were clumsy. She tottered like a newborn, reaching out to touch the walls, the glowing screens, the shattered remains of failed experiments. She smiled when lights flickered, giggled when static buzzed across her fingertips. Her voice was light, curious, untainted.
"What's this?" she asked, pointing to a dissected drone.
"Useless," Gero muttered. "Forget it."
She tilted her head, uncomprehending, then turned her attention to him. "Why are you always frowning, Papa?"
The words stabbed deeper than any blade. Gero, for a moment, had no answer.
When she met the others, the tension was suffocating.
Seventeen leaned against the wall, arms folded, smirk razor-sharp. "So this is it? The big project? Looks like a kid."
Eighteen's eyes narrowed. "Too human." Her voice dripped disdain. "She's weak. A mistake."
Twenty-One tilted her head, blinking innocently. "Brother? Sister?"
The word froze them.
Sixteen stepped forward, towering. His gaze lingered on her, his scanners humming, and for the first time in decades his voice softened. "Designation: 21. Child. Alive." He knelt, his massive hand held out not as a weapon but as support. "Do not be afraid."
She touched his fingers, tiny hands dwarfed by his. She smiled. "You're warm."
Eighteen turned away sharply. Seventeen muttered under his breath, "…This is a joke."
But then the air shifted.
Her aura, unintentional, slipped out like a gasp. It wasn't ki. It wasn't machine energy. It was something else — something heavier, darker, infinite. The walls groaned. Consoles cracked. Even Seventeen staggered, his smirk vanishing.
"What… the hell is this pressure?"
Eighteen gritted her teeth. "She's not a child. She's a bomb."
Sixteen remained still, his voice low. "She does not know. It is not intent. It is nature."
Gero, pale but exultant, raised his arms as though before a goddess. "Yes! Do you see? She is beyond you. Beyond all! The power of Majin Buu, perfected in human form. My masterpiece!"
But as he ranted, Twenty-One only blinked, confused. Her aura faded as quickly as it flared, as if she didn't even notice. She giggled again, chasing a stray flicker of light from a broken monitor.
To her, the world was new.
To everyone else in the room, it had just become terrifying.
From that day, everything shifted.
Seventeen watched her with narrowed eyes, suspicion burning in his smirk. "She's not one of us," he told Eighteen. "She's… something else."
Eighteen's gaze hardened. "She's a weapon. If we don't be carefull, she'll destroy us."
Sixteen lingered near her more often, silent protector. When she stumbled, he caught her. When she asked questions, he answered simply. He began to log her laughter the way he logged birdsong.
And Gero… Gero grew fevered. He hovered constantly, pushing her, testing her. "More," he demanded. "Show me more." But when she faltered, when she grew frightened, he would kneel and whisper soothing words, half-mad, half-genuine: "You are perfection. You are my child. You are my future."
And Twenty-One only smiled. "Papa, why is everyone so sad?"
Her power terrified them all. Her innocence disarmed them.
And none of them yet understood what she would become.
Six months after her birth, the girl was gone.
Android 21 had grown in leaps that defied reason. The childlike innocence had shed like old skin. Now she walked the halls of Gero's hidden fortress with the stride of a teenager, her voice sharper, her laughter less pure. She still smiled, but it was no longer curiosity. It was challenge.
Her hair, now longer, spilled past her shoulders. Her eyes still gleamed blue, but behind them flickered something restless, something hungry.
"Papa," she said one day, leaning against a console with arms folded, "you said I was perfect. But perfect compared to what? If there's no one strong enough to challenge me, then I'm just… bored."
Gero, hunched over his instruments, turned sharply. "You are not bored. You are special. You will lead us to destiny. Do not confuse yourself with childish cravings."
She smirked. "Childish? I grew past 'childish' months ago. I want to fight. I want to steal every trick, every movement, every breath from someone stronger than me. But no one here is strong enough."
Her eyes swept the room, where Seventeen leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, watching with a smirk that didn't reach his eyes.
"Say that again," he said coolly.
Twenty-One tilted her head, grinning now, sharp as a knife. "You heard me. You're not strong enough. None of you are."
The silence that followed was thick.
Eighteen's voice cut through it like ice. "Arrogant brat."
But Gero only smiled, trembling with both pride and obsession. "If you want proof, then we will test you. Against all of them."
The chamber was vast, walls reinforced by alloys scavenged from a dozen conquered worlds. Energy dampeners thrummed, containment fields humming. Gero stood high in the control booth, his eyes alight, his voice echoing through speakers.
"Android Twenty-One — today you face your siblings. Seventeen. Eighteen. Sixteen. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Each of them superior to mortals. Each of them killers. Defeat them… and you will prove my words true."
She smirked up at him, rolling her shoulders. "Five minutes. That's all I'll need."
Seventeen sneered. "I'll make sure you regret that."
Eighteen's gaze was cold, unreadable.
Sixteen only said, "Engaging test. Purpose: evaluate subject."
Thirteen cracked his knuckles, his drawl thick. "Lil' lady thinks she's somethin'. Reckon I'll break that attitude real quick."
Fourteen and Fifteen stood silent, their eyes glowing, their systems locked onto her.
The air shifted.
Twenty-One let her aura slip, just a flicker, and every sensor in the room screamed. The pressure crushed the walls, bent the air, made circuits whine. Even Seventeen blinked, his smirk faltering.
"Damn…" he muttered.
Then she was gone.
In a blur, she appeared before Thirteen, her knee slamming into his gut with enough force to bend his frame in half. He coughed synthetic blood, eyes bulging, before her elbow smashed down across his back, driving him into the floor with a crater.
"Too slow." She giggled.
Fourteen charged, fists like iron. She caught one punch with her palm, twisted his arm until metal screamed, then launched him across the chamber into the wall.
Fifteen came in behind her, headbutt aimed for her spine. Without even looking, she lashed her tail — a smooth, pale appendage that coiled from her back like instinct. It cracked across his face, snapping his neck with a sickening crunch.
"Three down." She smirked. "How boring."
Seventeen roared, his aura flaring bright. He blitzed forward, fists a blur. For a moment, his strikes connected — jaw, ribs, temple. Sparks flew as she staggered half a step.
Then she laughed.
"That's better!"
Her hand shot out, catching his wrist mid-strike. She twisted, bones snapping with a sick crack. His smirk turned into a scream before her boot drove into his chest, sending him skidding across the floor in a trail of blood.
"Not good enough."
Eighteen was on her instantly, cold and precise. Her strikes were surgical, every blow aimed at a kill point. For the first time, 21 blocked seriously, their fists colliding with thunderclaps. The ground shook, shockwaves cracking the walls.
But Eighteen's calm mask slipped when 21 grinned. "Nice technique, sis. I'll keep it."
Her tail whipped forward, wrapping Eighteen's arm, draining energy in a sharp pulse. Eighteen gasped, her knees buckling.
21 shoved her back, laughing. "Your moves are mine now."
Sixteen loomed then, massive hands swinging down. His blow could have cracked a planet. It met her open palm — and stopped.
The room went silent.
Her grin widened. "Big brother… you're holding back."
She shoved, and the giant stumbled. In a blur, she leapt, her fist smashing into his jaw with an impact that made the whole chamber quake. Sixteen staggered but did not fall.
For the first time, 21's eyes lit with excitement. "Finally! A wall that won't break on the first punch!"
But even he could not hold her long. She darted around him, strikes coming faster, harder, learning with every clash. His defense faltered. His sensors screamed overload.
And then she drove her palm into his chest, her ki exploding in a brilliant crimson blast. The giant toppled, his systems failing, smoke pouring from his cracked frame.
The chamber was silent but for her laughter, breathless, ecstatic.
Five minutes had passed.
All of them — Seventeen groaning in the rubble, Eighteen on one knee, Sixteen sparking and broken, Thirteen unconscious, Fourteen mangled, Fifteen limp — lay defeated.
And she wasn't even tired.
From the booth, Gero's hands trembled, his face pale, his voice cracking between awe and fear. "Yes… YES! My child! My goddess! You are perfection itself!"
Seventeen coughed blood, glaring up at her with hatred. "You… bitch…"
Eighteen said nothing, but her eyes burned cold fire.
Sixteen lay on his side, systems failing, but his voice was soft, almost proud. "…Alive… and terrible…"
Twenty-One only stretched, her smile wide, her eyes hungry. "Too easy. Give me someone worth stealing from. Someone worth eating."
Her laughter echoed through the chamber.
And for the first time, even Gero wondered whether he had created perfection… or a monster.
The stars fell faster now.
What had once taken decades — the subjugation of a galaxy — now happened in mere years. The Androids had discovered technologies buried deep in the bones of alien civilizations, devices that bent physics itself, engines that could rip space and stitch it back together.
With each discovery, the conquest accelerated. Fleets of android drones poured through rifts between galaxies, spilling into new skies like locusts. Civilizations that had endured for millennia found themselves reduced to ash in weeks. The galaxy clusters screamed, and then they went silent.
On a cold, nameless world stripped of its oceans, Dr. Gero stood in his newest laboratory, watching the data streams spiral across a thousand monitors. His wrinkled face was pale in the glow, his eyes sunken, his lips trembling with something between awe and hunger.
Android 21 leaned on the railing above, her arms crossed, her smirk mocking. "Papa, you've already won. The stars are ours. What more do you want?"
His gaze rose to her, trembling hands clenching the rail. "Perfection is not an end. It is a beginning. You were proof of that. You were my triumph." His voice cracked, whispering like a prayer. "But now I see it… even perfection can be surpassed."
She tilted her head, eyes glinting with both curiosity and scorn. "Surpassed? By what?"
Gero's voice grew fevered. "By creation itself. Something so vast, so pure, that even I cannot understand it. That will be its meaning. To exceed the mind of its creator."
She laughed, sharp and cruel. "You're saying you'll build something smarter than you? Stronger than me?" She leaned close, her aura flaring just enough to make the machinery groan. "Careful, Papa. What if your new toy eats you first?"
For a moment, his face twitched with fear. But then he smiled, teeth bared. "Then it will prove I succeeded."
Seventeen, lounging on a pile of broken alien steel, smirked. "Figures. The old man can't stop chasing ghosts. He made us, then made her. Now he wants something else."
Eighteen stood nearby, her arms folded. "He's addicted. He doesn't want perfection. He wants to play god."
Sixteen watched the sky, silent, his sensors tracing the endless fleets of drones spreading across the stars. Finally, he spoke. "…Purpose is endless. He cannot stop."
Years passed like months.
World after world fell, and Gero took everything from them. DNA, energy signatures, alien technology. He dissected gods, tore apart demons, bottled the essence of ki itself. His laboratories swelled into titanic vaults, each one a labyrinth of tubes and vats, each humming with the heartbeat of a thousand stolen lives.
The Androids were his hunters. 17 and 18 brought back the strongest warriors they found, broken and bleeding, their cells harvested before their corpses were burned. 13, 14, and 15 scoured the wreckage of alien empires, tearing through libraries and vaults, dragging back data and samples. Sixteen recorded and catalogued, storing every song of birds and beast alike, even as they were fed into Gero's machines.
And always, 21 watched, growing stronger, faster, more restless. She was no longer the child who smiled at broken lights. Now she paced like a predator, her laughter sharp, her eyes always burning.
"Papa, you said I was perfect. But I'm still bored." Her voice was sweet, mocking. "When will you finish your next toy? I want something worth fighting."
Gero trembled, his wrinkled hands pressing against the glass of her containment chamber. "Patience, my child. Every sample brings me closer. Saiyan, Namekian, demon, god… all will be threads in the fabric. When it is ready… it will not just fight you. It will define existence itself."
Her smirk widened. "Then hurry. Before I get tired of waiting and break all your little toys."
For the first time, there was a flicker of something in Gero's eyes. Fear.
The empire of the Androids swelled into something unrecognizable.
The Milky Way was gone, a hollow carcass of factories. Neighboring galaxies were stripped, their stars burning dimmer. Alien fleets scattered like sparks in the void, always extinguished, always swallowed.
From Earth's ruins, the empire had grown into a machine spanning light-years, a cold leviathan that devoured everything it touched.
And at its heart, Dr. Gero waited. His vaults overflowed with stolen essence. His dreams burned brighter, darker. He had created perfection, then sought to surpass it. Now he whispered in fevered tones to the shadow that was coming.
"It will not be machine. It will not be flesh. It will not even be god. It will be the meaning of life itself."
The Androids heard him, and for the first time, even they wondered whether their creator was losing his mind.
And somewhere deep within the vaults, in vats that pulsed like beating hearts, the first fragments of that dream stirred.
Android 21 body matured at impossible speed, the Majin cells accelerating her growth until she stood tall and flawless, a vision of youth and beauty. Her figure carried a strange grace, but her eyes betrayed her truth — not wisdom, not age, but instability. Behind her gaze flickered the conflict of someone who had lived only a year yet had been forced to grow thirty.
She was not whole. She was two.
There were nights when she wandered the halls of Gero's laboratories, her bare feet echoing softly against steel. Sixteen often followed at a distance, silent guardian, his sensors noting every erratic fluctuation in her energy. Sometimes, when she paused, she would glance back at him with soft, human eyes.
"Sixteen," she whispered one night, her voice trembling, "do you ever… feel hungry?"
His head tilted. "I do not eat."
"I don't mean food." She pressed her hands against her stomach, her nails digging into her skin. "It's… something else. A hunger that never stops. It tells me to… eat everything. To consume." Her eyes watered, her voice breaking. "But I don't want to. I don't want to hurt anyone."
Sixteen lowered himself to one knee, his massive hand resting gently on her shoulder. "You are not what you fear. Choice remains."
For a moment, she smiled. A small, fragile smile. The good side flickered through.
But the next day, she was different.
Seventeen walked into the chamber, his smirk razor-sharp. "Still moping, little sister?"
She turned to him, eyes gleaming with mockery. "Oh, it's you. I was just thinking how delicious you'd taste."
His smirk faltered. "What?"
Her laugh was cruel, bratty, sadistic. "Don't look so scared, brother. You wouldn't be the first meal I tried to imagine." She licked her lips, her aura flickering like crimson flame. "Maybe if I eat you, I'll finally stop being bored."
Seventeen clenched his fists, aura sparking, but for the first time he hesitated.
Eighteen's voice cut the tension, cold and sharp. "Pathetic. Threats from a spoiled brat."
21's smile turned sweet — too sweet. "You're right, sister. I don't need to threaten you. I can do it."
Her energy surged, the walls groaning under its weight. Seventeen and Eighteen staggered, their smirks gone, replaced with the first traces of fear.
Then she laughed — high, mocking, childish. "Relax. If I wanted to eat you, I already would have."
And just as quickly, her aura vanished.
Dr. Gero watched it all from above, his hands trembling with both triumph and dread. "Yes," he whispered to himself. "Yes, yes, yes… The hunger is perfection. The conflict is strength. She will consume everything… even the limits of life itself."
But when she turned her eyes on him, he flinched.
"Papa," she said sweetly. "Am I really your child… or just your next experiment?"
He could not answer.
The good side clung to Sixteen, soft, remorseful, fighting the hunger with every breath. She smiled shyly when he spoke, leaned into his massive frame for comfort, whispered that he was the only one who made her feel safe.
The evil side mocked Seventeen and Eighteen, bratty and cruel, laughing at their fear, taunting them with promises of consumption.
And Gero stood at the center, trembling, knowing both sides belonged to him.
The empire expanded faster. The technology found in alien ruins bent space itself. Fleets poured through artificial wormholes, galaxies falling in weeks instead of years. The arm of the Androids stretched endlessly, their machines rewriting creation into silence.
But at the heart of it, in the cold vaults where Gero labored, the question grew louder in his mind:
"Is this my limit? Or is she?"
One year had passed.
Android 21 looked like a woman grown, but inside she was still young. Too young. Her laughter rang too high, her cruelty too sharp, her kindness too fragile.
And every day, the hunger grew.