Chapter 1: First Time Meetings

Trunks closed his eyes. Counted to ten. Opened them again. Looked around. Sighed and resisted the urge to thump his head against the instrument panel in front of him. His readings and the scenery remained the same – Diablo Desert, approximately sixteen years farther back in time than he'd meant to go. He sighed again. This was the danger of untested technology.

Not that they really could have tested the time machine… Rubbing his forehead, he adjusted the coordinates, went to activate it again…

And hesitated. Let his ki sense spread out the way Gohan had taught him to, encompassing the desert, the country, the globe. This time period was so… peaceful. Serene. Trunks had never really realized what a constant hum the fearful ki from his timeline's Earth made in the back of his mind, but here, with it gone… tension he hadn't known he was carrying was flowing out of him. This world was at peace and, as far as Trunks was concerned, there were no noteworthy power levels anywhere on the planet. It would be so nice to just… stay awhile. Catch his breath. Not long – a day or two, a few weeks at most. After all, he had a time machine, it wasn't like he could be late to warn the Z Warriors and Son Goku…

Trunks popped open the time machine's lid, hopped out, capsulized it, and put it away. Then he looked around with a stretch and a contented sigh, taking in a deep breath of air. It was hot and dry here – he'd always liked the heat (Mom said it was probably his saiyan blood showing through), and nice and far away from anywhere populated. It would be a good place to rest for awhile, away from people and the possibility of screwing up the timeline. Hands in his pockets, he started walking, heading for some nearby rock formations. They seemed to have been hollowed out by the wind and sand, and the gusting air was making an interesting, whispery sort of music as it blew through them. A natural Aeolian harp. Cool.

He was just bending forward to examine some striations within one of the stone walls when something dropped on him from above, striking him hard in the back of the head, and the world went black.

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Yamcha sprang off the youth he'd just landed on foot-first, dropping into a defensive stance in preparation for a counter-attack. He held it for a moment. The youth didn't move. Yamcha frowned and approached cautiously, nudging the prone figure with one booted foot, then snorting.

"Come on out, Pu'ar, he's down!"

"That quickly?" Pu'ar floated down from the ledge she'd been waiting on and which he'd jumped off of, "I thought you said he looked tough and that's why we ambushed him!"

"Yeah, well, his defence is apparently terrible." Yamcha smirked at her, "Come on, let's see what he's got with him."

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Trunks groaned as he sat up, wincing as he rubbed the back of his head. What had hit him? And - he started as he took stock of himself – where was his sword? And his capsule case?! And- his boots?

He stared down at his bare feet for a moment. Why would someone take his boots?

He shook his head – that wasn't important right now. What was important was his missing capsule case and the time machine it contained. Sure, he could technically wait the ten years to tell Goku and everyone about the androids (provided he could stop himself interfering in the timeline), but after that, how was he supposed to return to his own timeline?! His mom, the people of Earth – the androids would kill them all!

Even as he felt the panic rising, old advice from Gohan echoed in his mind. 'Take a deep breath and let it cool you down, Trunks. You come from two passionate parents, it's not surprising you're passionate as well. Make it work for you, not against you – you rule your emotions, not the other way around.'

He breathed in. Held it. Breathed out. Held it. Breathed in again. Stopped and thought. He was in a desert, empty, mostly isolated. His attacker couldn't have gone far with the resources of this age, and would likely be the nearest human ki presence.

Trunks extended his awareness again, searching- there! Human, higher than average ki, but still so low Trunks could easily have overlooked it as a potential threat (Gohan would have had him running drills for hours for letting his guard down and making assumptions like that). Locking onto it, he rose into the air. Time to pay his robber a visit.

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Kung Pao Rock was rather more… ostentatious than Trunks would have expected from a bandit's lair, though if the huge label were removed it would fit the image a lot better. He could hear voices from inside, and drifted silently to a window, keeping his ki low.

"-vehicles, and an honest-to-god plane!" a young man was crowing inside, "Selling all this will set us up for ages! And this little beauty… this one we keep for ourselves!"

"Really?" a squeaky voice asked, excited, "You know how it works, then?"

"No, but I think I can figure it out, it looks straight-forward enough," the male voice replied, confident, "And once I work out the power source, well. We'll have some fun, I'll tell you that!"

They'd found the time machine, shit! There was a metallic sound; if they tried messing with the engines or anything-!

Throwing caution to the wind, Trunks put on a burst of speed, zipped through a window, and tackled the youth standing inside. The young man let out a grunt and didn't have time to do more before Trunks had him pinned on the floor.

"DON'T YOU DARE- Mess… with…" Trunks started out strong, then tapered off. The guy on the floor couldn't have been any older than him and – Trunks swallowed – he was seriously attractive. Strong, handsome features, dark eyes, black hair tumbling unrestrained past his shoulders… Trunks swallowed again and felt his face heating up. Usually he didn't have too much trouble with his hormones – he didn't see that many people, especially not of his own age - and so they generally blindsided him when they did show up.

The bandit, meanwhile, was staring at him, stunned. The shock slowly melted into a lazy grin, though, an expression that suited him to an unfair level…

Trunks shook his head and narrowed his eyes. Focus! He opened his mouth to demand his stuff back.

He didn't get the chance.

"Change into a frying pan!"

Trunks barely had time to think 'what?' before he was once again struck in the back of the head and the world went dark.

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He woke up very securely tied to a chair. Across from him the handsome youth was stirring something on a grill, and there was no sign of the time machine. The bandit looked up a moment later and gave that lazy grin again. "Oh, so you're awake." He moved the pot off the heat, then casually reached down and picked up Trunks' unsheathed sword from where it had been propped against a counter. Trunks glared.

"Hey, that's mine!"

"Not anymore," the bandit replied easily, walking forward, "I'll admit, it's an absolute beauty, though – I usually use a scimitar, but it might be worth learning the long sword to wield this lovely." He twirled it in his hand, then levelled it at Trunks' throat. "Time for that later, though. Right now, I want some answers – like how you managed to cross Diablo Desert so quickly on foot, especially at midday with no boots, and how you got up to that window without knowing where the handholds are."

Trunks glared at him. "Why should I tell you, I don't even know who you are!"

The bandit grinned. "Didn't I introduce myself? How rude." He gave a bow. "I am Yamcha, Lord of the Diablo Desert, and this is my associate, Pu'ar of the Thousand Forms." He straightened up and strolled over to Trunks, resting the flat of the sword on Trunks' shoulder in a casually threatening manner. "And you are?"

"Finished with this," Trunks said flatly, and snapped the ropes holding him, flaring his ki as he did so. Yamcha stumbled back, dropping the sword, and, in a flash, Trunks was on him, pinning him to the ground, one arm twisted behind his back. "Tell your friend not to try anything or I'll break your arm," he stated, praying his tone was convincing (he really didn't want to have to follow through (over-powering someone like this… it made his stomach twist)).

Yamcha snarled and struggled, but froze as he felt his bones begin to creak in Trunks' grip. "Pu'ar, stand down."

"But Lord Yamcha-" the squeaky voice came from behind the two of them, sounding upset.

"I said stand down!" Yamcha snapped, glaring over his shoulder at Trunks as best he could. "What do you want, pretty boy?"

Trunks tried to will the blush those words incited away, but he was pretty sure he failed. He took a deep breath and schooled his features into a stern expression, like he'd seen on his father in the few photographs he had of him. "Where's my capsule case?"

"On the table," Yamcha growled, "Your scabbard's next to it."

"Good. And my boots?"

The bandit blinked at him, then laughed. "Haven't got 'em. Sorry, but you're out of luck on that point."

Trunks frowned. "But… you're the one who took all my other missing stuff…"

Yamcha made a dismissive sound. "Tch, what would I want with used boots? Especially ones that won't fit me?"

"How would you know they wouldn't fit if you didn't take them?" Trunks challenged.

He got an unimpressed look in return. "I've got eyes, don't I? Anyone ever tell you you've got small feet for a guy?"

Trunks resisted the urge to bang his head on something. "So you don't have my boots?"

"Nope."

"Great." Trunks sighed, then straightened his spine. "I'm going to let you up. Try anything, and you'll wish you hadn't."

This line completely failed to impress the other youth. "That's what you're going with? Really? 'I'll wish I hadn't?' Not very convincing."

Trunks glowered and held up a hand crackling with ki.

Yamcha paled. "Now that, on the other hand, is very convincing. I'll behave."

"Good." Trunks slowly released his hold and Yamcha scrambled out from under him, moving to the far side of the room and watching Trunks warily. Slowly, a little blue-grey cat floated from behind a couch and onto Yamcha's shoulder. It whimpered a bit.

"Lord Yamcha…"

"Easy, Pu'ar," the bandit lifted one hand to rub the cat's ears, almost certainly without conscious thought, eyes never leaving Trunks as the demi-saiyan re-sheathed his sword and strapped it on, then opened his capsule case and gave it a quick scan. All present and accounted for.

He sighed in relief, then turned to the bandits. "As far as I'm concerned, we're done. You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. Fair?"

Yamcha narrowed his eyes. "Depends. You planning on staying long? 'cause I don't care how strong you are, try to poach on my territory and the desert'll have a new set of bones to clean."

"I just want to hide out for a bit," Trunks replied, affronted, "I don't steal. Now, about the deal I offered?"

Yamcha considered him a moment longer, then shrugged with the shoulder Pu'ar wasn't sitting on. "Sounds fair. Now get out of my house."

"Gladly." Trunks walked back to the window. The guy was attractive, but Trunks had more important things to think about. Climbing on the ledge, he leaped out, flying back to the rocks he'd started out at.

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Yamcha gaped for a moment after the stranger jumped out the window, then darted over, fully expecting to see his splattered remains at the base of his home. Instead… nothing. He frowned, looking around. How had he done that? Had it been some sort of space trick, seeing as the other teen was most likely from space or something. After all, only an alien could have had a vessel like the one the youth had arrived in, one that appeared in a flash of light and a pulse of sound (one that was, admittedly, familiar with Earth and it's tech (Planet Earth: come for the scenery, stay for the capsules (hmm… then again, maybe the kid was from Capsule Corp (he had that jacket (and that company made all sorts of weird things…)))).

Pu'ar sighed from his shoulder. "Well, so much for today's haul…"

Yamcha allowed himself a smirk at that. "You know what I like best about outsiders, Pu'ar?"

His friend looked at him inquisitively. "No, what?"

Reaching into his pocket, Yamcha pulled out a very particular capsule. "They're gullible." He held the capsule up and let his smirk grow wider. "He may have gotten most of his stuff back… but we've still got the treasure."

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And that's chapter one. Bandit Yamcha's really fun to write – he's so confident and sassy and determined, and he's got a wily streak that a lot of people seem to forget about. As for how he got the drop on Trunks like that, as mentioned, Trunks wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, and he also had his ki partially capped. Furthermore, Yamcha dropped on him from a decent height, and struck Trunks directly in the back of the head with his heel, so that the full force of Yamcha's momentum and weight was focussed in a small area. And, as Yamcha is canonically pretty tall and muscular, and given that muscle weighs more than fat, I can see him being a good 160 lbs bare minimum, so that blow would probably have been enough to kill a normal person. Thank kami this is Dragon Ball.

I'd also like to note that, while Yamcha/Future!Trunks is not something I generally go for (too many potential squick factors for me), I'm okay with it in this situation for two reasons:

This Yamcha has yet to meet Bulma, derailing any potential weird Freudian shit that could come from dating your ex's son, even if he is from the future and of legal age as a result.

Speaking of legal age, at the moment Trunks is seventeen years old, and Yamcha is canonically sixteen at this time, the same age as Bulma, and since these are currently two people with absolutely no prior experience with each other, I'm setting their ages at how long they've been alive, regardless of when exactly those years of life happened. Which means, in the continuity of this fic, Trunks is actually a year older than Yamcha. Yeah, time travel just makes everything weird.