(That afternoon)
Many, many miles away from West City, far to the North where another great metropolis stood, there sat the familiar home belonging to a long forgotten enemy. With the only remnants being a massive pile of rubble and chunks of metallic debris and machinery lying about, making up both the top and basement levels of Doctor Gero's lab, there seemed to be very little that remained of the old nemesis of Son Goku's. After the last few years that'd come and gone, the place had been left pretty much undisturbed, with nothing but the forces of nature to twist and mould the debris to their liking.
Ever since Trunks and Krillin's visit here, which had left the entire lower levels of the complex buried and the rest of the lab in pieces; it was nothing but an empty graveyard now. To the Z-fighters and their friends, this place had been pretty much left forgotten.
To all but one of course.
At the base of the cliff where the lab was once situated, the ground grass-covered ground slowly started to churn before a large silver drill suddenly shot out of it. This was immediately followed by the metallic body of a thoroughly beaten up and damaged Sentinel. Dazed, burnt, and a little bit confused, the armor plated android's gears ground and churned loudly as he pulled himself to the surface and, after regaining his footing, walked out into the open.
Here, you could see that not only was an entire half of his body missing, including his right arm, side and shoulder, but the android had half a head missing too. He was like two-face, except without the other side to shout back at him. This pretty much left most of the mechanics making up the inner workings of his frame exposed to the air, classing the android as nothing more than a wrecked piece of hardware.
At least… that's what a normal person would believe.
"S-S-System reboot complete. Primary threat successfully evaded," Sentinel spoke, sparks flying from the side of his cranium as he recovered from the thorough beating he'd received."Compiling files. Assessing damages. Scanning." A few beeps of his optical sensor later and the android smiled. Or rather… half smiled. "Damage to primary combat chassis: thirty-eight percent. Damage to nuclear furnace: five percent. Damage to central processing unit: zero percent." Cracking its neck, the android marched towards the mound of rubble that had previously been his creator's home, all the while taking stock of his body's condition. "Energy levels at sixty percent. Good. I can work with that."
Even so, being hit by that last attack at the closing stages of his fight back in West City had still come as quite a shock to the robot. Despite his overwhelming confidence and mathematical certainty at being able to defeat Vegeta in the state he was in, the android failed to anticipate the power boosts of the man's transformation stages, which had been a significant blunder on his part. However, as soon as he'd realized he didn't stand a chance against the Prince in his Super Saiyan form, the robot quickly devised a plan to escape his foe, while at the same time making it look as though he'd been destroyed.
The android took the brunt of the blast in the side, ensuring the main components of his form didn't suffer any serious damage in the cataclysm to follow. Then, while Vegeta flew over to check on the crater he supposedly ended up in, the android detached his damaged parts and fled underground, ensuring he covered his tracks at the same time.
It'd been a useful trick and a necessary sacrifice on his part in order to make a clean escape. Sentinel had also made certain to set aside the information he'd gained from today's battle for future reference.
Marching up the field of boulders and scrap metal of the ruined plateau, the android slowly began searching the area for something… anything that he could use as a temporary joining agent. It wasn't until he happened upon a discarded android storage pod lying wedged in the rubble with the number '16' written on it did he know he was in the right place.
Approaching the unit, the robot took a moment to analyze the damage and rust and, realizing it still had salvageable material he could use, extended his only working arm towards it and opened the plates on his guard. Cables then shot out and plugged into the pod, slipping into all the open areas and places with wiring sticking out. After several seconds of sparks and electricity bursts, Sentinel then disassembled the key components of the capsule and pulled them back towards his frame.
Using the parts he'd managed to grab, he was able to not only cover up the damages done to his side and head, he was also able to create a makeshift arm, leaving one side of his form fully armored while his damaged right side had a skeleton limb. Flexing it and its makeshift fingers, checking to make sure it was responding properly. Sentinel then turned his attention back to the area.
"A crude design, but it will do until I can build a proper replacement for it." Scanning the hill of rubble and debris for several minutes, using his specially modified sensors to search underneath the various obstructions, the android quickly saw that some of Doctor Gero's lab had remained intact. Though much of the basement had been buried and most of the tech inside had been blown to pieces, there were still many things left lying around for him to use.
Even some of the small storage spaces for machinery and computers with specially installed shock buffers had also managed to survive the hell they'd been put through. It was all the comfort the android needed to know he could pick up where he'd left off.
"First order of business is to repair this body," Sentinel stated, raising a hand and extending his cables into the rubble. One by one he began plucking random bits of metal debris out of the earth, salvaging what he could of his original creator's place of business. He was lucky that the good Doctor had designed his old lab using the finest material and hardware he could steal, because even after all the exposure to the harsh environment, most of it hadn't rusted in the least.
While he continued to scavenge the area, Sentinel smiled once again, "Second order of business is to create a base of operations. Then I can begin work on my next major project."
As far as he was concerned, sacrificing a third of his body to make it look as though he'd been blown to bits by Vegeta's blast had been a great way to throw the Saiyan Prince off his tail. Now that he and the Briefs family believed he was destroyed, Sentinel now had plenty of space to recover from the damages he'd received, upgrade his frame, and construct a home to conduct his next set of tasks.
After all, he had plenty of objectives and schemes in his head to follow up on, all of which involved improving upon his current form and taking over the world.
If he was going to do that, then he needed power and resources. That first one was a must.
There was an entire city nearby where he could 'borrow' technology and hardware from, and with the Z-fighters off his tail and a destroyed lab in an isolated area to work with; Sentinel had all the time in the world…
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