55 Chapter 51 - Tasty Clothes?

'Missing people? This is way too early! Where are the androids? Isn't Vegetas pride supposed to be stomped on literally by Android 18 first? Has to be Cell...'

"I have to check this out really fast, Caulifla and Kale, you two go back and tell the others that I won't be long."

Goku quickly dashed off from the island and headed straight towards the city to capture Cell and snuff him out before he got too powerful. In the back of his mind, he knew he should have been more proactive in seeking Dr. Gero but he was too elusive.

By the time Goku was able to cover the entire Earth in his range, Dr. Gero's Ki was already masked by the veil of metal. Even Bulma's extensive satellites and the such could not find Dr. Gero and his mind that is able to par hers.

Arriving that the city, he got there so fast that the helicopter that was broadcasting live was still above him. Not caring too much about it, he started to inspect the city in more detail.

He peeked inside the abandoned cars, the streets, and the buildings. The quietness gave it an eerie feeling but Goku was instead of feeling creeped out by the ghost town, was confused.

'The MO of Cell is definitely missing people... but their clothes are missing too! What does this mean? Is it really Cell?'

If Cell really came down here for an afternoon snack, anyone would hardly think that he also left the clothes on them for added taste.

"Where are the clothes...?"

"We are dealing with missing people, presumably they would take their clothes with them."

Looking over at the new voice, Tien came flying down next to Goku to greet him.

"After hearing about what happened on the news, I came over to check on this unusual case. I thought it would be something over your radar as the most powerful man on Earth." Tien's smirk and tone gave away his playfulness.

"Good one three-eyed baldy. I thought they would leave something like a purse or anything if they got snatched out of the blue. That's why I was questioning...uh...clothes."

"Right..."

With Tien on his side, together they were looking for clues around the city. All they came up with was more of nothing much to Tien surprise and Goku's displeasure.

"Let's call it a day, for now, we will find who did this eventually."

---

Unfortunately, that day would never come. One year later, it has happened on three more separate occasions albeit on smaller scales than the one previous. Goku traveled as fast as he could to each one hoping to catch the perpetrator responsible.

It seemed as if he was seconds too late to save the towns from their disappearance. Maybe with a stroke of fortune, when he heard of one disappearance happening in real-time and left immediately.

By the time he got there, as usual, there was no contraption sucking people away from their homes. Goku almost gave up and debated using the Dragon Balls to located this person risking another step closer to Shadow Dragons until he heard some faint noises inside a building.

Going to the apartment building, he found it was locked from the inside. Not that it really mattered as there was a giant hole in the wall next to the door. Entering, a bullet whizzed through the air and missed Goku's head by an inch.

Inside the building, there was a small crowd of people huddling in a corner with a security officer in the middle of them. In his hand was a pistol shaking uncontrollably.

"I-Its Goku! Strongest Under Heaven! He came to save us!" A random person in the crowd recognized him loosening the tension everyone else was feeling at that moment.

"You people survived one of the Disappearing Towns, tell me, what did you see?"

The officer who was standing up finally fell to his knees after loosening the tension on his legs. He spoke up and couldn't help but trip over his words from the trauma.

"It was unlike anything I ever have seen. There was a woman. Her eyes were filled with pure evil. She sucked everyone up with this strange contraption behind her. I didn't really get to see what it looked like. I ran into this building as fast as I can and met up with people here. The wall was blasted open, through a bomb or something, and she was about to get us too. Until she noticed something and escaped at a speed faster than any car I have seen."

That was a lot of information. It is now confirmed not Cell since the person was identified as female. Actually, since she was identified as female, this can only could be attributed to a few.

'Android 18? No, she wouldn't do this. Maybe someone from the movies? Zangya? This isn't her either. Who would do this?'

"Do you know what way she left to?" The shaky police officer pointed straight outside from where the hole was. North it seemed.

Hitting the earpiece, he spoke to the person on the other side.

"Chichi, I am heading North, seems like the person's base is somewhere in that direction. Radio in if something comes up."

Turning off the earpiece, he flew straight North keeping an eye out everywhere. He flew over other cities, mountains, forests, and deserts until he stumbled upon something that looked rather strange. In all his years of being one with the wilderness like Tarzan, he never once has seen such prime flowers be ignored by bees.

Watching it a little more closely, he saw that bees weren't attracted to these certain flowers while the same kind of flowers was basically being molested by them.

"Chichi, these are my coordinates. Did anything happen in this stretch of forest recently?"

"That is showing up on the records, there was a wildfire at the other edge of the forest that sparked randomly. The fire department from the nearby city was able to combat it with relative ease. That's about it."

Going up to the tree, he knelt down to inspect the flowers. Touching them with his hand, he felt the lushness of it. Smelling them, they smelt refine and beautiful. As would any after seeing such flowers, he started to dig them up.

"I'm digging a hole. Diggy diggy hole..."

Much to his suspicion, the flowers had no roots at all. Meaning it wasn't a real flower no matter how much it felt like one. Standing up and knocking the tree a bit with his knuckles. It felt like real bark but just in case...

"Eat this tree!"

Goku's fist went straight through the tree its metal insides. Revealing itself to be hollow and extend deeper underground. A chuckle escaped through Goku's mouth.

"Typical villain underground hideout. -1 in creativity."

Jumping down the pit, it was surprisingly deep. Eventually, the dirt transitioned itself to metal. Landing on a piece of metal while still surrounded by metal walls, Goku broke down even more layers under him and dropped down into an elevator.

Looking around the dark room, Goku could barely see a thing. Using a ball of ki as a light source, the room he found himself in was filled to the brim with computers, books, and scattered paper everywhere.

Picking up one of the papers, it was notes on a bunch of gibberish that he could not understand. Most of it was scratched off so that didn't help his case. No matter how passionate Bulma was in her research, that same stuff could not apply to him as well.

At bottom of the paper, he was able to see who it was created with the signature. He couldn't read the first name, but the last name was something he was familiar with.

'Gero'

Placing the piece of paper back on the table, he was about to advance further down this metal structure a single bulb of light illuminated itself in the hallway he was about to move forward in.

He felt an unfamiliar, yet familiar, ki swell in front of him indicating someone was there. Goku stopped and waited patiently for this person to arrive. Coming forward into the light, it was someone who was quite ugly to look at.

Green in color, looking more like an alien than Piccolo, the light reflected Cell's features back to Goku's retinas. After listing him as someone who didn't do the spree of missing people to him showing up in front of him was a slap to the face.

Goku didn't want to feel like a one-time villain that would be face slapped for the plot so he changed his thinking a bit.

'Well it is obvious it wasn't Cell...but past that point what is this?!'

Standing in front of him wasn't just a normal first-form Cell...it was second-form Cell!