I don't own dbz or any of the characters....except for the people that i made up...
a/n--this is an au fic so the characters are different...Trunks is 23, Pan is 20....don't worry a lot of the other characters are in it too...it's just that Trunks and Pan are the main characters. As always in my fics..."~" indicates thoughts...
"Get back to work, you lazy slave!!"
The taskmaster cracked his whip across the tailless woman's back. She cried out and fell to the ground.
"Don't touch her!!" shouted the raven haired girl as she ran over to the injured woman.
"Mother!! Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine, Pan," said Videl.
She struggled to get back on her feet. She got up on her knees, but fell back down when she tried to go farther. Pan turned back around to the taskmaster; hate gleaming in her eyes.
"You monster!"
She began to build up her energy. When the taskmaster's scouter picked up the increase in her power level, he quickly cracked his whip across her chest. She fell to the ground, gasping for air. That blow had knocked the wind right out of her. As the taskmaster began to approach her, she panicked. There was no way she could defend herself if she couldn't breath. She tried to back away, but the taskmaster had already gotten to her. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet. He raised his fist in the air, ready to strike her.
"This will teach you to act up again!"
He began to swing his fist at her, but before his fist had covered half the distance to her face, a large hand had grabbed his wrist, stopping it in mid air. The taskmaster looked up.
"What do you think you are doing, Ploom?!"
Pan looked up to see an incredibly handsome man standing in front of her. His piercing blue eyes were brought out by his lavender hair. He had a tall muscular build that showed how often he trained.
"Your Majesty!" the taskmaster was terrified, "I-I was... I was only putting this slave in her place. She wasn't showing the proper respects to her authorities."
"Let her go."
The man's voice had become calmer, but still authoritive. The taskmaster (Ploom) let go of Pan's wrist. She massaged it as the circulation began to return to it.
"Speaking of respect, Ploom... is there a reason you have not bowed before your prince?"
"Forgive me, Majesty!"
Ploom immediately bowed before the prince. He then looked over at Pan. He realized that Pan had not knelt down. Instead she was just staring at the prince with an angry scowl on her face.
"On your face slave!"
With that, Ploom knocked her in the front of her knees, causing her to fall forward. She cried out and closed her eyes, waiting for the impact of her face to the ground. But to her surprise, she never hit the ground. She opened her eyes to see a large muscular arm wrapped around her waist. She then looked up and saw that the prince was the one who caught her. He was looking at Ploom. Eyebrows furrowed.
"How dare you attack a defenseless woman!"
Ploom just stared at the prince, eyes wide with shock. ~The prince went out of his way to help a slave?... Why?~
"B-But Prince!... She's only a slave and..."
He wasn't given the chance to finish. The prince raised his hand and shot a ki blast right through the taskmaster's heart. It killed him instantly. Pan stared at the prince. He was still holding her. She was beginning to get annoyed. How dare he hold her so close! The prince looked down at her. To say she looked unhappy was an understatement.
"What's your name?" he asked while setting her back on her feet.
"Why do you want to know my name," she snapped, "You're a prince! What concern of yours is the name of a slave?!"
"Who said I cared? I just wanted your name."
She wouldn't answer, and the prince was beginning to lose his temper. Videl, who had quietly been watching the whole scene, intervened for her daughter.
"Her name is 'Pan', sire."
"Pan, huh? Well, Pan, do you know who I am?"
"Of course. You're a spoiled, selfish, ungrateful, bastard!"
The prince was taken aback. How dare this slave talked to him in such a manner. After what he'd just done for her. She had no right.
"Who do you think you are, Girl!? You obviously don't know who you're speaking to! Or for that matter, how lucky you are to be speaking to me!"
~Arrogant bastard.~ she thought to herself. She didn't care who he was. She hated him for everything his family had put her through. She was tired of all the abuse, the torture......... the rape.
"I am 'Trunks'. Heir to the throne of Vegeta!"
"It doesn't matter what your lineage is," she interrupted, "Your family's cruelty is what matters! You want me to respect you? HA! There is no way I am going to show you any respect after all me and my mother have been put through! I don't respect those who use fear to get their way! I never have! I never will!"
She turned around to walk back to Videl, but Trunks wasn't about to let her get away with what she said. To him, she had set a challenge. A challenge for him to get her respect. And he wasn't about to back down from it. Now he would do whatever it takes to get her to respect him. He grabbed her arm and turned her around. She looked into his eyes. What she saw there scared her. They were filled with a determination that she had never seen before. He pulled her close, and held her firmly against him. He then took off into the air. Pan was too shocked at first to react. That is, until she heard her mother's cries.
"NO!!! PLEASE BRING HER BACK!!!!"
"Mother?"
She looked up at Trunks, scared and confused. Was he going to kill her? No. If he were going to do that he would have done it by now. Suddenly, a horrifying thought came to her.
~Is he going to rape me?~
She began to panic, frantically beating on his chest to get him to let go. It didn't work.
"Let go!!! Please!!!!! I'm begging you!!! No more!!! I can't take it!!!!
Trunks' chest was beginning to go numb.
~Man. She's stronger than she looks.~
"I'm not going to hurt you. Please calm down."
"NO!!... LET... ME... GO!!!"
With that, she abruptly raised her knee. Hitting him in the groin. His initial reaction of keeling over in pain caused him to drop her. To his surprise, she could fly. She blasted off in the opposite direction. When he regained his composure, he went after her. Pan was surprised when he caught up to her.
~Man he's fast.~ she thought, ~But I can be faster.~
She sped up, but so did he. And he was moving a lot faster than her. when she was within his reach, he wrapped his arms around her and stopped.
"NO!!... Let me go!!!..." She was panicking again.
"Please calm down. I'm not going to hurt you."
"That's what all the taskmasters said, too! But they never meant it! Every time they touched me it hurt!"
"What do you mean 'touched you'?"
"What do you think I mean?! They... they..."
She couldn't finish. But she didn't have to. Trunks knew what she was trying to say. He let her go. Much to her surprise. Pan didn't know how to react. She just floated there, staring at him.
"Well?... what are you waiting for? You wanted your freedom, and I gave it to you. So leave."
Pan couldn't believe what she was hearing. He was letting her go? No. She must have been hearing things.
"W-What did you say?"
"I said you're free to go. You don't have to come with me if you don't want to..." he paused for a moment, "You know... I never intended to hurt you. I'm not like my taskmasters. I don't sleep with women unless they want it."
"Then why did you take me with you?"
"I wanted to get you away from those slave drivers."
"Why me? Why not my mother or one of the other slaves?"
"You were the one with the most potential."
Pan gave him a weird look.
"Do you think I made this decision in three seconds? I've been watching you. Observing your response to everything thrown at you. You impressed me... intrigued me."
"What did you mean by 'potential'?"
"I meant that you needed out of there. You deserved out of there. Someone with a power level as high as yours shouldn't be a slave anyways."
"How do you know how strong I am? No one's ever seen my full power. Not even me."
"I don't have to see it. I can feel it. I have one question for you though... with as strong as you are, you could have killed any one of my taskmasters with a thought. Why didn't you try to escape?"
"And cause more trouble for my already diminished family? Do I look like an idiot to you? If I ever tried anything your father would have come after me... personally."
"Is your family really that hated?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because your father was (and probably still is) jealous of my grandfather's immense power."
"Who's your grandfather?"
"His name is 'Goku', but your father called him 'Kakorot' for some reason."
Trunks' jaw dropped. He knew the man his father called "Kakorot". In fact, Kakorot and his family used to be very close friends to Trunks and his family. But one day, for no reason at all, they disappeared. He asked his father, Vegeta, where they were, but he simply answered they were on an assignment. Then a few weeks later, when they had not returned from their "assignment" Trunks asked where they were again. Vegeta simply told him that they had all died when they failed their task. He was devastated. His best friend, who would have been Pan's uncle, Goten was with them... where ever they were. Which meant that he had died with them. But now... now he had found Pan. Goku's granddaughter. Part of the family that had supposedly "died on the assignment" with every one else. And thinking back, he realized that Pan's mother, Videl, was back at the slave camp, too. This meant that his father had lied. He was furious.
"You're Son Goku's granddaughter?... You're supposed to be dead."
"Who told you that?"
"My father."
"Yeah? Well your father is a liar."
"He told me, you and the rest of your family were all killed on assignment."
"HA! Is that so? Well, let me tell you what really happened... Eleven years ago, me, my parents, and my grandmother were eating dinner. Your father burst into our house, demanding to know where Goku was. We didn't know because he had left to train uncle Goten a few months before. He never told us where he was going. Your father didn't buy it. He insisted that we were all lying, so he called in his guards. They grabbed me, and my mother. Then your father told mine to give the location of 'Kakorot'. Father told him that we didn't know. He looked over to my grandmother and then shot her through the heart." she paused after saying that. It was so hard to relive those memories, but she had to let Trunks know just how demented his father is.
"My father and mother screamed. I couldn't. I was in too much shock to even breath let alone scream. I had never seen death before. And the fact that it was my family that had died made it that much harder. My father went mad. He powered up to full power and attacked Vegeta head on. I was sure that my father would win, but he didn't. Vegeta powered up, too. Only, he was much stronger than my father.........."
She couldn't continue. She broke down crying. Something that she hadn't done in over eight years. Trunks didn't know what to do. He had no idea his father was so ruthless. It made him sick to think about it. He flew over to Pan and embraced her in a hug. She stiffened when he first touched her, but she eventually relaxed.
"I'm sorry, Prince... I shouldn't be crying in front of you like this."
"It's okay, Pan. And Pan..."
"Yes, sire?"
"Call me 'Trunks'."
"Isn't that a little informal?"
"We're not in public. Titles mean nothing in private..."
He hesitated. Unsure if the question he wanted to ask her would be too much.
"Pan..."
"Hmm?"
"Look at me."
She looked up. A single tear was caught on her cheek. He gently cupped her cheek and wiped the tear away with his thumb.
"Why didn't he kill you and your mother?"
"I don't know. I guess it was his sick way of torturing us. All I know is that after he killed my father, he walked over to me. He looked me up and down with a smirk as hideous as it was mischievous. He said something like 'the taskmasters will have fun with you two.' My mother just looked at him. She asked him why he was doing this. He said it was to draw out my grandfather. My mother kept saying 'I thought we were friends... I thought we were friends.' His only reply was 'never'."
"I'm so sorry, Pan."
She didn't say anything. She just started to cry again.
"Pan... I want to take you to the palace."
Pan jerked her head up to look at him.
"You what?! You want to take me to the place where the man --and I use the term 'man' loosely-- who killed my family and ruined my life lives?! Why?"
"I want to help you get your revenge. In a way, I want revenge, too."
"How's that?"
"Your uncle Goten and I were best friends. Gohan and I were almost as close. He may as well have killed my family, too."
"Don't you think your father would recognize me?"
"No. I didn't. You've changed a lot. I remember the last time I saw you, you were nine. Now look at you. You used to be really tomboyish (no offense), but now..." he paused a moment to take in her looks, "(don't take this the wrong way) you've filled out, your curves are more defined... you're a very, breathtakingly, beautiful woman."
Pan couldn't help but blush. No one had ever told her that she was beautiful before. Some of the taskmasters had, but they had always meant it perversely. The way Trunks said it made it seem sincere. There was something different about the way Trunks was around her. He was warm and considerate. She had always expected him to be just like his father, but he wasn't. In fact, he was his exact opposite. She didn't know why, but she was beginning to feel an attraction towards him.
"How are we going to get me into the palace unnoticed?"
"We'll go in through Ploom's quarters. He won't mind."
Pan giggled a little at the thought of what had happened earlier that day.
"So what are we going to do from there?"
"This..."
Trunks proceded to tell her the plan. After he finished, they noticed that the sun was beginning to set.
"We'd better get back if we want to make it before nightfall."
"All right. Lead the way."
With that, they headed off towards the palace.
a/n--this is an au fic so the characters are different...Trunks is 23, Pan is 20....don't worry a lot of the other characters are in it too...it's just that Trunks and Pan are the main characters. As always in my fics..."~" indicates thoughts...
"Get back to work, you lazy slave!!"
The taskmaster cracked his whip across the tailless woman's back. She cried out and fell to the ground.
"Don't touch her!!" shouted the raven haired girl as she ran over to the injured woman.
"Mother!! Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine, Pan," said Videl.
She struggled to get back on her feet. She got up on her knees, but fell back down when she tried to go farther. Pan turned back around to the taskmaster; hate gleaming in her eyes.
"You monster!"
She began to build up her energy. When the taskmaster's scouter picked up the increase in her power level, he quickly cracked his whip across her chest. She fell to the ground, gasping for air. That blow had knocked the wind right out of her. As the taskmaster began to approach her, she panicked. There was no way she could defend herself if she couldn't breath. She tried to back away, but the taskmaster had already gotten to her. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet. He raised his fist in the air, ready to strike her.
"This will teach you to act up again!"
He began to swing his fist at her, but before his fist had covered half the distance to her face, a large hand had grabbed his wrist, stopping it in mid air. The taskmaster looked up.
"What do you think you are doing, Ploom?!"
Pan looked up to see an incredibly handsome man standing in front of her. His piercing blue eyes were brought out by his lavender hair. He had a tall muscular build that showed how often he trained.
"Your Majesty!" the taskmaster was terrified, "I-I was... I was only putting this slave in her place. She wasn't showing the proper respects to her authorities."
"Let her go."
The man's voice had become calmer, but still authoritive. The taskmaster (Ploom) let go of Pan's wrist. She massaged it as the circulation began to return to it.
"Speaking of respect, Ploom... is there a reason you have not bowed before your prince?"
"Forgive me, Majesty!"
Ploom immediately bowed before the prince. He then looked over at Pan. He realized that Pan had not knelt down. Instead she was just staring at the prince with an angry scowl on her face.
"On your face slave!"
With that, Ploom knocked her in the front of her knees, causing her to fall forward. She cried out and closed her eyes, waiting for the impact of her face to the ground. But to her surprise, she never hit the ground. She opened her eyes to see a large muscular arm wrapped around her waist. She then looked up and saw that the prince was the one who caught her. He was looking at Ploom. Eyebrows furrowed.
"How dare you attack a defenseless woman!"
Ploom just stared at the prince, eyes wide with shock. ~The prince went out of his way to help a slave?... Why?~
"B-But Prince!... She's only a slave and..."
He wasn't given the chance to finish. The prince raised his hand and shot a ki blast right through the taskmaster's heart. It killed him instantly. Pan stared at the prince. He was still holding her. She was beginning to get annoyed. How dare he hold her so close! The prince looked down at her. To say she looked unhappy was an understatement.
"What's your name?" he asked while setting her back on her feet.
"Why do you want to know my name," she snapped, "You're a prince! What concern of yours is the name of a slave?!"
"Who said I cared? I just wanted your name."
She wouldn't answer, and the prince was beginning to lose his temper. Videl, who had quietly been watching the whole scene, intervened for her daughter.
"Her name is 'Pan', sire."
"Pan, huh? Well, Pan, do you know who I am?"
"Of course. You're a spoiled, selfish, ungrateful, bastard!"
The prince was taken aback. How dare this slave talked to him in such a manner. After what he'd just done for her. She had no right.
"Who do you think you are, Girl!? You obviously don't know who you're speaking to! Or for that matter, how lucky you are to be speaking to me!"
~Arrogant bastard.~ she thought to herself. She didn't care who he was. She hated him for everything his family had put her through. She was tired of all the abuse, the torture......... the rape.
"I am 'Trunks'. Heir to the throne of Vegeta!"
"It doesn't matter what your lineage is," she interrupted, "Your family's cruelty is what matters! You want me to respect you? HA! There is no way I am going to show you any respect after all me and my mother have been put through! I don't respect those who use fear to get their way! I never have! I never will!"
She turned around to walk back to Videl, but Trunks wasn't about to let her get away with what she said. To him, she had set a challenge. A challenge for him to get her respect. And he wasn't about to back down from it. Now he would do whatever it takes to get her to respect him. He grabbed her arm and turned her around. She looked into his eyes. What she saw there scared her. They were filled with a determination that she had never seen before. He pulled her close, and held her firmly against him. He then took off into the air. Pan was too shocked at first to react. That is, until she heard her mother's cries.
"NO!!! PLEASE BRING HER BACK!!!!"
"Mother?"
She looked up at Trunks, scared and confused. Was he going to kill her? No. If he were going to do that he would have done it by now. Suddenly, a horrifying thought came to her.
~Is he going to rape me?~
She began to panic, frantically beating on his chest to get him to let go. It didn't work.
"Let go!!! Please!!!!! I'm begging you!!! No more!!! I can't take it!!!!
Trunks' chest was beginning to go numb.
~Man. She's stronger than she looks.~
"I'm not going to hurt you. Please calm down."
"NO!!... LET... ME... GO!!!"
With that, she abruptly raised her knee. Hitting him in the groin. His initial reaction of keeling over in pain caused him to drop her. To his surprise, she could fly. She blasted off in the opposite direction. When he regained his composure, he went after her. Pan was surprised when he caught up to her.
~Man he's fast.~ she thought, ~But I can be faster.~
She sped up, but so did he. And he was moving a lot faster than her. when she was within his reach, he wrapped his arms around her and stopped.
"NO!!... Let me go!!!..." She was panicking again.
"Please calm down. I'm not going to hurt you."
"That's what all the taskmasters said, too! But they never meant it! Every time they touched me it hurt!"
"What do you mean 'touched you'?"
"What do you think I mean?! They... they..."
She couldn't finish. But she didn't have to. Trunks knew what she was trying to say. He let her go. Much to her surprise. Pan didn't know how to react. She just floated there, staring at him.
"Well?... what are you waiting for? You wanted your freedom, and I gave it to you. So leave."
Pan couldn't believe what she was hearing. He was letting her go? No. She must have been hearing things.
"W-What did you say?"
"I said you're free to go. You don't have to come with me if you don't want to..." he paused for a moment, "You know... I never intended to hurt you. I'm not like my taskmasters. I don't sleep with women unless they want it."
"Then why did you take me with you?"
"I wanted to get you away from those slave drivers."
"Why me? Why not my mother or one of the other slaves?"
"You were the one with the most potential."
Pan gave him a weird look.
"Do you think I made this decision in three seconds? I've been watching you. Observing your response to everything thrown at you. You impressed me... intrigued me."
"What did you mean by 'potential'?"
"I meant that you needed out of there. You deserved out of there. Someone with a power level as high as yours shouldn't be a slave anyways."
"How do you know how strong I am? No one's ever seen my full power. Not even me."
"I don't have to see it. I can feel it. I have one question for you though... with as strong as you are, you could have killed any one of my taskmasters with a thought. Why didn't you try to escape?"
"And cause more trouble for my already diminished family? Do I look like an idiot to you? If I ever tried anything your father would have come after me... personally."
"Is your family really that hated?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because your father was (and probably still is) jealous of my grandfather's immense power."
"Who's your grandfather?"
"His name is 'Goku', but your father called him 'Kakorot' for some reason."
Trunks' jaw dropped. He knew the man his father called "Kakorot". In fact, Kakorot and his family used to be very close friends to Trunks and his family. But one day, for no reason at all, they disappeared. He asked his father, Vegeta, where they were, but he simply answered they were on an assignment. Then a few weeks later, when they had not returned from their "assignment" Trunks asked where they were again. Vegeta simply told him that they had all died when they failed their task. He was devastated. His best friend, who would have been Pan's uncle, Goten was with them... where ever they were. Which meant that he had died with them. But now... now he had found Pan. Goku's granddaughter. Part of the family that had supposedly "died on the assignment" with every one else. And thinking back, he realized that Pan's mother, Videl, was back at the slave camp, too. This meant that his father had lied. He was furious.
"You're Son Goku's granddaughter?... You're supposed to be dead."
"Who told you that?"
"My father."
"Yeah? Well your father is a liar."
"He told me, you and the rest of your family were all killed on assignment."
"HA! Is that so? Well, let me tell you what really happened... Eleven years ago, me, my parents, and my grandmother were eating dinner. Your father burst into our house, demanding to know where Goku was. We didn't know because he had left to train uncle Goten a few months before. He never told us where he was going. Your father didn't buy it. He insisted that we were all lying, so he called in his guards. They grabbed me, and my mother. Then your father told mine to give the location of 'Kakorot'. Father told him that we didn't know. He looked over to my grandmother and then shot her through the heart." she paused after saying that. It was so hard to relive those memories, but she had to let Trunks know just how demented his father is.
"My father and mother screamed. I couldn't. I was in too much shock to even breath let alone scream. I had never seen death before. And the fact that it was my family that had died made it that much harder. My father went mad. He powered up to full power and attacked Vegeta head on. I was sure that my father would win, but he didn't. Vegeta powered up, too. Only, he was much stronger than my father.........."
She couldn't continue. She broke down crying. Something that she hadn't done in over eight years. Trunks didn't know what to do. He had no idea his father was so ruthless. It made him sick to think about it. He flew over to Pan and embraced her in a hug. She stiffened when he first touched her, but she eventually relaxed.
"I'm sorry, Prince... I shouldn't be crying in front of you like this."
"It's okay, Pan. And Pan..."
"Yes, sire?"
"Call me 'Trunks'."
"Isn't that a little informal?"
"We're not in public. Titles mean nothing in private..."
He hesitated. Unsure if the question he wanted to ask her would be too much.
"Pan..."
"Hmm?"
"Look at me."
She looked up. A single tear was caught on her cheek. He gently cupped her cheek and wiped the tear away with his thumb.
"Why didn't he kill you and your mother?"
"I don't know. I guess it was his sick way of torturing us. All I know is that after he killed my father, he walked over to me. He looked me up and down with a smirk as hideous as it was mischievous. He said something like 'the taskmasters will have fun with you two.' My mother just looked at him. She asked him why he was doing this. He said it was to draw out my grandfather. My mother kept saying 'I thought we were friends... I thought we were friends.' His only reply was 'never'."
"I'm so sorry, Pan."
She didn't say anything. She just started to cry again.
"Pan... I want to take you to the palace."
Pan jerked her head up to look at him.
"You what?! You want to take me to the place where the man --and I use the term 'man' loosely-- who killed my family and ruined my life lives?! Why?"
"I want to help you get your revenge. In a way, I want revenge, too."
"How's that?"
"Your uncle Goten and I were best friends. Gohan and I were almost as close. He may as well have killed my family, too."
"Don't you think your father would recognize me?"
"No. I didn't. You've changed a lot. I remember the last time I saw you, you were nine. Now look at you. You used to be really tomboyish (no offense), but now..." he paused a moment to take in her looks, "(don't take this the wrong way) you've filled out, your curves are more defined... you're a very, breathtakingly, beautiful woman."
Pan couldn't help but blush. No one had ever told her that she was beautiful before. Some of the taskmasters had, but they had always meant it perversely. The way Trunks said it made it seem sincere. There was something different about the way Trunks was around her. He was warm and considerate. She had always expected him to be just like his father, but he wasn't. In fact, he was his exact opposite. She didn't know why, but she was beginning to feel an attraction towards him.
"How are we going to get me into the palace unnoticed?"
"We'll go in through Ploom's quarters. He won't mind."
Pan giggled a little at the thought of what had happened earlier that day.
"So what are we going to do from there?"
"This..."
Trunks proceded to tell her the plan. After he finished, they noticed that the sun was beginning to set.
"We'd better get back if we want to make it before nightfall."
"All right. Lead the way."
With that, they headed off towards the palace.