It began with silence.
No alarms. No sensors. No tremor in the void.
One moment, the Android empire stretched unbroken across the stars. The next, two figures stood in the heart of Gero's hidden world, as though they had always been there.
A tall man with pale blue skin and staff in hand. And beside him… a lean, purple cat with eyes like gold fire, his samurai garb swaying with the faintest movement.
The air bent.
Seventeen felt his smirk die in his throat. Eighteen's eyes narrowed, her breath catching. Sixteen's scanners failed, every reading returning impossible values.
And 21 — for the first time in her brief existence — felt fear.
Beerus yawned, stretching like he'd just woken from a nap. "So this is the little nest? Hmph. Messy."
Whis smiled faintly, his tone polite. "Lord Beerus, please remember — we're here to explain, not destroy, My name is Whis and his is Beerus." he explained
Beerus' ears twitched. "Depends if they listen."
The Androids attacked.
Seventeen's aura blazed, his body a streak of light as he dove in with fists flying. Eighteen moved beside him, precise, deadly. Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen unleashed everything at once.
Beerus didn't move.
He looked at them — and they collapsed, crushed flat against the floor as though the universe itself had decided they should kneel. Their systems screamed under the weight. Circuits bent. Bones cracked.
Only one remained standing.
Android 21.
Her body trembled. Every instinct screamed at her to drop, to crawl, to submit. But her pride burned hotter.
She roared, her aura tearing the air apart, crimson flames surging around her body. "I won't—!" She forced one foot forward, then another, straining against the crushing gaze of the God of Destruction. "I won't kneel! I'll surpass you, I'll eat you, I'll—!"
Her fist shot forward, all her strength, all her hunger, all her fury poured into a single punch.
It struck Beerus' chest.
And he didn't move.
Not an inch.
He blinked down at her, bored. Then he raised his fingers and snapped.
The sound was soft, almost playful.
The effect was cataclysm.
A shockwave rippled outward, a pulse of destruction that tore through the entire solar system. Stars shuddered. Planets cracked. Drones collapsed by the millions. Across light-years, every sensor screamed and died.
Android 21's eyes went wide as her body locked. Her scream died in her throat. The force crushed her to her knees before slamming her into unconsciousness, her form trembling on the floor.
The others could barely breathe.
Dr. Gero's old hands shook as he gripped the railing, his face pale. His dream. His empire. His perfection. All of it was dust before this… this being.
For the first time, he knew despair.
Beerus turned lazily, tail flicking. "Hmph. That was boring. You lot aren't even close to interesting."
Whis' smile never faltered. "Still, Lord Beerus, they will need to understand. The Tournament of Timelines will begin in four months. Each reality must send its champions. Victory means survival. Defeat…" His eyes flicked over the fallen Androids. "…means erasure."
Beerus yawned again. "Tell your toys, old man. If they don't show up, I'll just erase this place myself."
And with that, they were gone. Vanished as though they had never been there at all.
The silence afterward was suffocating.
Seventeen coughed blood, staggering upright. "What… what the hell was that thing?" His voice shook with rage he couldn't hide.
Eighteen's jaw tightened. "Stronger than anything we've ever seen. Beyond calculation."
Sixteen's gaze lingered on the unconscious form of 21, his voice quiet. "God."
Gero stood frozen, his mind racing. All this time… and still there are beings above us. His eyes darted to the faint crack in the floor where 21 had fallen, his lips curling into a trembling snarl. No. Not above me. Not for long.
21 stirred, groaning, her hands clutching the ground. Her voice cracked between fury and despair. "I… I couldn't even touch him…" Tears streamed down her face, hot and unrelenting. "I couldn't steal it, I couldn't take it, I couldn't even grasp it!" She slammed her fists into the ground, screaming. "WHY?!"
Sixteen knelt, his massive arms wrapping around her trembling frame. "You are alive. That is enough."
She sobbed against his chest, trembling like a child. "No… it's not… I want… I want it all…"
Seventeen turned away, disgust in his eyes. "Pathetic." But even he could not stop his hands from shaking.
Eighteen said nothing, her silence colder than space.
And Gero…
Gero's hands clenched the railing until his nails drew blood. His voice shook with rage, with obsession, with madness.
"So. Beerus. Whis. Gods that dare to look down on me. If they are above us… then I will drag them down. My scanners have already taken their signatures. Their essence is mine. They think themselves untouchable?"
He turned, eyes gleaming like fire.
"Then I will build something untouchable. Android Forty-Two. Not perfection. Not hunger. Not even life. A mystery even I cannot comprehend."
The lab shuddered with his laughter.
The laboratory was silent save for the hiss of steam and the grinding hum of engines buried in the walls.
It had once been a place of science. Now it was a cathedral.
The walls were lined with vats that pulsed like organs, filled with churning fluids that glowed faintly pink, green, violet. Shadows of failed forms floated inside, half-dissolved, their faces blurred. Rows of consoles blinked with alien symbols, scavenged from civilizations long dead, their data streams twisting together in endless, frantic code.
At the heart of it, surrounded by a web of wires and needles, stood the cradle — a pod of black alloy, its surface carved with circuitry that seemed to crawl like veins.
And before it, Dr. Gero knelt.
His back was hunched, his skin pale as parchment, his beard wild and stained with oil and blood. His trembling hands rested on the console, each knuckle sharp as bone, each fingertip blotched with chemical burns. His eyes — sunken, yellowed, bloodshot — gleamed with a light that was no longer wholly sane.
He whispered not to the machines, but to himself.
"Perfection was never the answer." His voice cracked, dry as ash. "Seventeen, Eighteen — flawed. Sixteen — too gentle. Twenty-One — too human. Too hungry. Even she cannot surpass the gods. Beerus. Whis. Proof that existence itself mocks me."
He raised his hands, voice growing louder, echoing through the chamber.
"But what if the answer is not to be?" His laugh broke like glass. "Not a him. Not a her. Not a self at all. A being without name, without core, without anchor. A vessel that feeds, consumes, becomes, and then… moves on."
He staggered forward, pressing one hand against the pod, leaving a bloody smear on its surface.
"Android Forty-Two." His voice was reverent, a priest before his altar. "Not a machine. Not flesh. Not god. You will be other. Always beyond. If Beerus is stronger… you will consume him. If Whis is untouchable… you will merge with him. If there is something even above them… you will take them, wear them, become them. And in the end…"
His voice dropped to a whisper, hoarse and trembling.
"In the end, through you, I will have my answer. What is this cruel existence for? Why were we made only to suffer, to hunger, to kneel?"
The lights flickered. The fluids in the vats bubbled, rising higher. Sparks crackled across the pod as though the thing inside was already listening.
Gero's hand pressed harder, his face inches from the cold metal. His breath fogged the surface as he whispered:
"You will not be my child. You will not be my servant. You will not even be mine. You will be the question itself. The meaning that devours all meaning. Android Forty-Two."
The machinery screamed as if in agony.
Pipes ruptured, steam hissing into the air. The cradle began to pulse with its own heartbeat, a rhythm that shook the floor. Gero fell back, his arms spread wide, his eyes wet with manic tears.
"Yes… yes! Awake! Feed! Show me! Show me why we exist!"
The chamber shook as the pod hissed open.
What lay inside was not yet formed — not flesh, not machine, but shifting, unstable matter, a body that flickered between shapes, faces, voices. It whispered in echoes, fragments of the DNA it held. Frieza's sneer. Buu's laugh. A Kai's scream. Beerus' growl. Whis' calm tone. All broken, tangled, layered into something unrecognizable.
Gero fell to his knees, his lips trembling in awe.
"It has no face…" he whispered. "No self.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACK TO THE TOURNAMENT
The Android team sat at their table, the smell of untouched food thick in the air.
Seventeen leaned back, arms behind his head, his smirk lazy but forced. "So. everyone stronger than us, universes about to be erased, and a tournament where we're the main attraction. Anyone else feel like this is just another Tuesday?"
Eighteen rolled her eyes. "Your jokes were never funny."
Thirteen snorted. "Hell, reckon it's a good time. Nothin' wrong with a lil' brawl, long as I get to smash a few skulls."
Fourteen and Fifteen said nothing, their blank gazes fixed on the glowing arena.
Android 21 sat apart, arms wrapped around herself, her face shadowed. Her voice cracked low, more to herself than the others. "…I should have been able to touch him. I should have taken it. Why couldn't I take it?"
Sixteen placed one massive hand gently on her shoulder. His voice was calm, steady. "That is enough."
Her eyes flared crimson, a tear sliding down her cheek as she hissed, "No. It's never enough."
The table fell silent.
All the while, Dr. Gero watched them, his aged fingers steepled, his pale eyes half-lidded. Outwardly, he appeared calm, even bored, but his mind burned with thought.
Android Forty-Two should be out there already. Two hundred kilometers from this arena, just as I planned. Hidden. Untouchable. No ki signature, no life force, no presence. Not even the gods can sense him. He is nothing.
His lips curled faintly.
And yet… by the end of this, he will be something. My final answer. My weapon. My question to the universe.
He glanced at his creations, still bickering like children, still nursing their wounds. You are all obsolete. Forty-Two will not fight like you. He will not need to. He will consume. He will merge. He will move one step higher every time.
And in the stillness of his mind, he dared admit the thought that chilled him most: I want to control him… but I don't know if I really do. What if he shows me what even I cannot understand? What if that is the point?
Far away, in the silent void, something stirred.
Android 42 had no form. No face. No soul. It hovered like a shadow of static, flickering, shifting, drinking in the world around it. Its "eyes" — if such things could be called that — stared toward the infinite colosseum, its mind flooded with alien images.
Perfect Cell, his body rippling with Kaioken ×2000, a scream of red fire.Vegito, laughing, fists blazing.Baby Vegito Black, aura suffocating, a fusion of hate.Broly, roaring, madness incarnate.Future Gohan, calm and infinite, the perfected Mystic form.The gods. Beerus. Whis. Their power absolute.And above them all… the Daishinkan, his presence bending reality itself.
The images did not frighten 42. They fascinated.
It did not "think" as mortals thought. It did not wonder or plan. It only repeated, like a mantra:
Consume. Become. Continue.
Its body shifted, flickering between forms, wearing their shadows for a heartbeat before dissolving again. A thousand identities whispering inside it, all waiting.
It had no ki. No life. No presence.
It was nothing.
And yet it was already waiting for its first body. Its first step. The moment someone in the arena was deemed… "worth."
The Androids' room was filled with the sound of their own voices—bickering, mocking, false bravado trying to cover the sting of gap in power earlier from other timelines. Eighteen polished her nails against the metal table. Thirteen was cracking his knuckles, laughing at some crude joke no one else found funny. Seventeen lounged with his chair tilted back, pretending not to care.
Then—
THUD.
The floor trembled. A sound so heavy, so deliberate, it made the metal legs of their table rattle.
THUD.
Another step. Closer this time. The vibration climbed up through the soles of their boots and into their bones.
The conversation died mid-sentence. Even 21 froze, her crimson eyes narrowing toward the door.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Each footstep was a drumbeat of pressure, low and primal, as if the entire hall bent under the weight of one being.
Seventeen's smirk faltered. He set his chair down carefully, hands flat on the table. "...That's not Beerus."
Sixteen's sensors whirred, his blank eyes scanning the hallway through the reinforced wall. His voice, usually calm, had a rare edge to it. "Immense bio-energy detected. Power exceeds… calculable range."
Eighteen frowned. "What is it?"
Her answer came not in words but in presence. A pressure, crushing, suffocating, as if the very air turned heavy. It wasn't ki—no sharp edge of trained aura, no disciplined focus. It was raw. Untamed. Animal.
The footsteps grew louder, closer, until they were just outside.
THUD.
The entire room shook.
For a moment, no one breathed.
Then they saw him through the thin light spilling from the half-open corridor: a massive silhouette, towering, shoulders hunched, long wild hair spilling down his back like a mane.
Broly.
He did not speak. He did not even look toward their door. He simply walked, each step casual, but each one sending tremors through the structure like the beating of a war drum.
Thirteen's jaw worked, the words caught in his throat. For the first time, there was no joke. No smirk. Only silence.
Eighteen folded her arms tighter, but even she looked away, her eyes flicking to the table, refusing to meet the shadow passing by.
Gero sat motionless, eyes narrowed. His old, wrinkled fingers trembled faintly against the table. But behind his pale stare was something different than fear—calculation. He watched the silhouette move past like a predator watching another, older predator. "So this… is the Legendary Super Saiyan."
THUD. THUD.
The footsteps faded into the distance, deeper into the labyrinthine halls of the arena.
No one spoke for a long time.
Sixteen broke the silence first, voice low and almost reverent. "…His output was suppressed. He was not fighting. Not even aware.." He didn't finish the thought.