Chapter 1: Story Time

(Note: this is based off a mixture of both the book and the movie, so fans of only one might not recognize some parts.)

"Pan! We're going to leave now, will you be okay, do you have everything you need?"

"Dad, it's just a cold, nothing important, I'll be fine."

"…alright…Grandpa Goku will be here in a few minutes, and he'll read you a story."

Pan blinked. "Grandpa can read?"

Gohan sighed slightly. "…Yeah. He can read, surprisingly, considering he didn't have much of an education. Listen, just be nice to him, he'll be here in a minute and he'll take care of anything you need."

"Ugh. Fine, but I don't need a babysitter."

"We know you can take care of yourself Pan. Believe me, we know. But you're sick, and it'd just make me and Mommy feel better if we had someone watching you."

Pan sighed and nodded, lying down and picking up the game controller. Gohan smiled before walking out of the room.

A few minutes later Goku walked in, holding a book carefully. "Hey Pan!"

Pan grunted in response, absorbed in the game.

Goku watched the screen for a few moments before frowning. "You know, Chichi gave me this to read to you… and I was kind hoping you and I could have some fun together and…" Goku was absorbed in the moving pictures on the screen. "…Pan?"

Pan grunted, executing a combo attack on Bison.

"You know… I kind of assumed your eyesight was faster than a normal person's…" Goku started.

Pan raised an eyebrow and paused the game. "Yeah?"

"Well, isn't it boring pushing the button and then waiting for the sprite to move for so long?"

"I get used to it. I mostly use my awareness to sense what move my friends are going to do next."

Goku hit the palm of his hand with his fist. "ah! So it's a type of awareness training!"

Pan smiled a little. "Sure Grandpa."

"Well anyway, want me to read this to you?"

"Nah.. I want to do my… 'awareness training' for a while."

Goku nodded, and reclined in the chair. He stared out the window, his gaze shifting all over the room, before he turned toward the book. And then to Pan. And then to the screen. "Pan?"

"Yeah Grandpa?"

"I'm bored, can I read you the story?"

Pan chuckled at her grandpa. "Which one of us is the kid here again?"

"You are. Can I read it? Chichi specifically pointed out this one. I'm kinda curious."

Pan rolled her eyes. "what's it about?"

Goku flipped the book over and read the back. "'a timeless tale that pits country against country, good against evil… love against hate?" Goku blinked. "Love story?"

Pan raised an eyebrow as Goku became more and more perplexed with the back of the book. "Ah here we are!" Goku finally said. "Inigo the swordsman who lives for vengeance, Fezzik, who can uproot trees with his hands, Vizinni, the evil Sicillian, whatever that is, and Prince Humperdink, the eviler ruler of guilder, who loves war and pretty chocolates! Count Rugen, who's even more evil than humperdink, and… some kind of healer, and… oh! Buttercup is the girl! Wait… why is the prince thirsty for the girl?"

Pan sighed. "Hey grandpa… how about I read you the story. Just to mix things up?"

Goku frowned. "I wonder if Chichi will be okay with this…"

"How about this, I'll make the story more interesting for you as I read it? That way we can both enjoy it more."

Goku frowned. "Chichi left me very clear instructions…"

"Grandpa, grandma wants us to read a story together, right? What does it matter who's reading or how close we stick to it?"

Goku smiled, and reclining into his chair handed Pan the book and closed his eyes. "I haven't had anyone read me a book since I was living with my grandpa."

"Alright, then let's start…" Pan began reading for a little while, and after two or three minutes of skimming through the entire story, (Saiyan hybrids always seemed to have a very high intelligence, and it didn't hurt that her dad was a genius too.) "Alright, I think I've got it. Ready grandpa?"

"Yep. I'm ready."

Pan cracked a sly smile, turning the pages back to the beginning.

The year that Chichi was born the most beautiful woman in the world was named Launch, who worked as the maid of a man named Tien and-

"Skip to the good part." Goku demanded.

"Ugh! I was starting at the beginning, it's explaining how pretty Buttercu- I mean Chichi is."

"But I already know how pretty Chichi is." Goku's eyes widened as he realized what Chichi being buttercup meant. "Wait… the prince is thirsty for Buttercup… and Buttercup is Chichi… ad Buu ate Chichi… so is Humperdink really Buu?!"

Pan shrugged. "I was going to have him be Cell, but whatever floats your boat Grandpa. Humperdink doesn't eat Buttercup at any point in the story though…"

Goku nodded. "That's because the hero saves her in time!"

Pan sighed. "Can I continue Grandpa?"

Goku nodded his assent, making the motion of zipping his lips.

"Good."

"But- er… Chichi loved two things above all else; riding her horse and taunting the farm boy. The horse did whatever she wanted it to. It came when she called, it trotted where she told it to, and it stopped when she told it to. So did the farm boy.

"Farm boy, fetch me this, Farm boy get me that, go on, quickly now you lazy thing or I'll tell my father."

And he always answered 'as you wish'. 'farm boy, fetch me this' "as you wish." 'farm boy dry this' "as you wish." The farm boy lived with the farmer's animals and took good care of them. Bu- Chichi's father was fond of saying 'I'll give him an acre in my will." To which Chichi would always say that "you're spoiling him."

"Am I the farm boy?" Goku asked abruptly. "Because that's how it was with Chichi all the time! 'Goku, have you picked the radishes yet? No? Then do it, honestly, my husband doesn't know a thing about work!' And then I'd always say 'yes Chichi…'"

"Grandpa! Stop interrupting! It's getting good, honest. Just give it time, we have all day!"Pan sighed. "Would it make you feel better if I skipped to the Prince?"

Goku looked down, slightly ashamed. "..yes."

"Ugh."

Chichi had grown more and more beautiful as time went by, and had to stop the advances of every boy in the village. But eventually, when she was almost seventeen rich men in carriages began coming to their farm to catch glances of Chichi. Chichi never gave them the time of day. But it was one of these rich men who told Count Freeza of her great beauty.

The Count, as that was what he called, there was only one Count in the entire country, Prince Buu had given him the title as a present on one of Freeza's birthday's. A party that was thrown by the Countess who…

"Granpa, did Freeza have a wife or something?"

"Nah, just a bunch of minions, he might have had a wife, but I never met her."

"Darn. Ah well, skipping ahead."

Count Freeza arrived at the farm one day, and Chichi's father, the Ox King, looked on with wonder, as he had always wanted to live like Count Freeza, and admired his great wealth. The Count made his way toward the farm and the ox King hesitantly came out to greet him.

"Hello, I've come out into the country to start a dairy business, and since you have the renowned best cows in all the country of Flor, I've come for your secret." The count began.

The Ox King was confused, because he had by no means the best cows in the land, in fact, they used to be the worst before they took in the farm hand. "Ah, my secrets, I have so many."

"Well, get to spilling them." The Count said. But the Ox King didn't really have any secrets, so the Count asked him "Do you have a daughter?"

"Y-yes… how did you know?"

"Well, if you had kids it had to be one or the other, sometimes I'm just lucky." But the Count had no more words as the young Chichi came forward. He was dumbstruck by her pure beauty.

"I'm tired of this part, I want some action!" Goku complained again.

"Sheesh Grandpa! Just let me tell you the story!"

"But you said you'd change it to be more entertaining, I want to see them fight!"

"You wouldn't be able to see them fight in the first place, it's a book!"

"You know what I mean, skip to the good part, beside, Freeza and the Ox King were completely out of character."

"Not as much as you'll be."

"What do you mean?"

Pan put a thumb on her forehead. "You know, Trunks would fit Westley's character better than you would, since he's a swordsman… and… um… how should I put it, he's more…. Cunning?"

"He was only a swordsman in another dimension in the future."

"You know what I mean, I'm saying it's okay for the characters to be out of character."

"Fine. But when do they fight?!"

Pan growled and through the book upward. "Fine! Alright, the Countess, who's not in the story anymore, has a crush on Westley, that's you-" Goku frowned. "What now?"

"I just had this disturbing image of a female Freeza coming on to me."

Pan fell over laughing, her irritation forgotten. "heh… but anyway. This makes Chichi confess her love for you, then you tell her you loved her all along, and that by saying 'as you wish' you really meant 'I love you', and then you go off to another continent to make money so you could pay for a farm to live with her on." Pan flipped through the pages. "There. The central romance plot, done. Happy?"

"Not until we get to the action!"

Pan shook her head and skimmed a little further ahead. "Ah! Here we are."

She loved him completely, and had transformed in his absence into a warmer, nicer woman. The people she shunned in town before were now beginning to like her, those who didn't just stare at her beauty now found she was a pleasant person. Her love for Westley completely overpowered her. Which is why it hit her so hard when he died.

"What?!"

Pan smiled. "You asked for it."

"You didn't have to kill me!"

"No, no, it happened in the book."

She found her father, stiff as a board that morning. "Off the Carolina coast." He grumbled.

"What happened?" Chichi asked.

"Pirates…" The Ox King replied sadly.

"Did they take Goku prisoner?!" Chichi asked, worried.

"No… it was Broly. The dread pirate Super Saiyan."

"The… one who never… leaves any survivors?"

The Ox King nodded.

"H-how did they do it? Was he stabbed, shot? Tossed overboard, hung? Whipped to death? Did they beat him to death?!"

"Honorably in single battle?" Goku ventured.

Pan shook her head, smiling as Goku's features drooped slightly.

And then Chichi stopped, "I'm sorry… the way he died isn't important, I've been made silly by the news… I'm going to go to my room for a while."

And she went upstairs to her room. And stayed here for three days, her father worried dearly, but when she came down she was impossibly lovely, her features had always been beautiful, but now there was character underneath. She was someone who understood loss. In fact, Wes- Goku's death had made her into the single most beautiful woman in the past hundred years. And she didn't care.

"Are you alright Chichi?"

"Quite alright Father,"

"Do you need anything dear?"

"I can take care of myself father." She said, her face smiling but still impossibly sad. She walked toward the other end of the house, but stopped, and turned to her father. "But Father?"

"Yes Chichi?"

"I shall never love again."

And she never did.

Pan closed the book with a smile that grew even wider as she saw Goku's gaping expression.

"Wh-what happens next?!"

"I finished the chapter,"

"So you're just leaving me dead and Chichi depressed?! We haven't even got to a fight yet! Can you at least describe my fight with Broly?!"

"Nope. How about this, you go down stairs, get me some cookies and orange juice, and then I'll begin the next chapter."

Goku gaped at her for a minute before blinking and running downstairs, leaving a Pan to laugh maniacally while rubbing her hands together. "I have him wrapped around my thumb!" She stopped her laughter when her cough came in. "I really need that orange juice."