Disclaimer - I still don't own DB/Z/GT/Super... sadly.
A/N - New chapter is here, hope you enjoy reading it. The story's going a bit slow, I know, but it does pick up especially near the end of the first arc. I just want to apologize in advance, I haven't written fighting scenes before this story so I think when I get used to writing them I'll re-edit this story to make the fighting scenes better. :)
Previously on Dragon Ball C...
"Pan!?" They all said in unison.
"Erm...surprise!"
The Z-Warriors had found Pan at the back of the ship after they'd left Earth and were on their way to Namek.
"Pan are you okay? Should we change the gravity back to how it was?"
"N-No Dad, I-I'm fine"
After much persuading, Gohan's decided to let Pan go with them to Namek, now the first day of living on the ship begins today...
Chapter Four - Day 1
Pan awoke the next day slightly confused about where she was, she opened her eyes after realising she wasn't at home in her bed. Yawning, she rubbed her eyes then took in her surroundings, the room was far too depressing for her liking, the walls were a light murky yellow colour making the room look quite dull. There were no windows in here so the room itself was dark, it would have been pitch black were it not for the few candles sitting at the edges of the room, although it did make the place rather eerie. Pan decided to get out of bed and look around, she was still half asleep so it was no wonder she couldn't remember where she was.
After a few minutes of looking around the room she was in she went over to the only door she could see and left, hoping to get some answers somewhere else. Still half asleep, she didn't notice the large window in the hallway she was walking in that gave a clear view of space. She carried on, oblivious to it, until she came across another door, she shrugged her shoulders as she had a silent conversation with herself in her head, trying to decide whether she should go through the door or not. She went with the former and pushed the door open slowly, trying to be as quiet as she could be, as she was doing so she realised she was hungry, her stomach made a loud rumbling noise, destroying any means of her being the element of surprise. Pan punched her stomach to try and shush it.
"Oomph" then realised that was a stupid idea when she winded herself, on the plus side though, it woke her up slightly.
Pan stayed hunched over for a bit before she straightened up and continued through the door she'd just opened, she was more awake now and highly alert, she still hadn't figured out where she was. As soon as she entered the room she noticed there was a shadow of a person reflecting on the wall at the front of the room, she inched closer to it to find out where the person was and realised that the said person was sat on a white egg-shaped chair, but it was turned away from her so she couldn't make out who it was.
She decided to go in and attack first, that's what her dad always told her to do in these situations, strike before the enemy has a chance to. Pan tiptoed along the edge of the room, steadily making progress to the chair.
She was close now, a few more steps and she would be right behind the chair that held the intruder...or was she the intruder? She couldn't tell. If she could remember how she got here then she'd be able to determine who the bad guy was here, for all she knew, maybe she was the bad guy. But highly doubtful.
Pan was right behind the chair now, so now was the time to strike, she got into a fighting stance and counted to three in her head, (another thing her dad had taught her) and then jumped and aimed a kick at the man in the chair who she had just now noticed had spiky black hair.
"Kiai!" Pan cried, landing a kick right to the back of the enemies head.
"Oww!"
"Oh" she muttered.
"What's going on?" Gohan came rushing into the room a few minutes later wearing his training Gi.
"Are we under attack?" Trunks asked with concern evident in his voice, he scanned the room looking for any sign of an attack.
"Every man for himself!" Goten declared, turning around and trying to leave the room, but Piccolo grabbed a hold of the back of his shirt to stop him from doing so.
"V-Vegeta?" Gohan asked while trying to stifle a laugh, Vegeta was now stood next to Pan rubbing the back of his head and glaring at her, a twitch apparent near his temple.
"CONTROL YOUR BRAT, BRAT!" he bellowed at the half-saiyan, but he kept his glare fixed on Pan, as if daring her to speak.
"Geez Veggie you're no fun" Pan told him grumpily, using the nickname she loved to call him. That only made him angrier.
"Veggie must be really healthy" Goten joked, he doubled over laughing, obviously finding his pun funny.
"I can't express to you enough how lame that was" Trunks announced to his best friend while folding his arms and shaking his head, clearly not impressed.
"Ha ha, your dad's a vegetable" Pan began chanting, running around Vegeta a few time before Trunks reminded her of something.
"Pan your name means bread" she stopped in her tracks, comprehension suddenly dawning on her. Gohan and Piccolo watched them all from the sidelines, both worried that this was how it was going to be for the two day journey. After watching for a few more minutes of Vegeta bickering at Pan, Goten and Trunks encouraging a fight to break out and Pan pulling childish faces at Vegeta, Gohan finally decided to step in and sort things out.
"Pan, why did you kick Vegeta?" he asked his daughter accusingly, folding his arms and trying to appear intimidating, but failing with his goofy child-like face.
"I didn't know it was him. I thought he was a bad guy!" she replied defensively, trying to clear her name and hopefully stop Vegeta from exacting his revenge against her. Vegeta only harrumphed in response to her excuse, obviously not believing her one bit.
Piccolo walked away from them all and leaned against one of the far walls of the control room, seemingly losing interest (if he ever had any) with the whole thing. Gohan rubbed the back of his head, a natural habit, not exactly sure what to say now.
"Uh...Vegeta, if she didn't mean to do it then you can't really get mad at her..." he tried but was cut short by the saiyan prince.
"Considering we're the only ones on this ship who do you suppose she thought I was?" That question stumped everyone in the room, excluding Pan. No one having any clue as to who she could've mistaken him for, they all turned to her expectantly and waited for her response. She took a painfully long time before she decided to give her answer.
"I thought you were a space alien..." she said rather confidently. Everyone fell to the floor, in a comical way, with a loud 'THUD'. All that suspense for that? They got up rather slowly and blinked at her.
"...Space?..." Goten started.
"...Alien?..." Trunks finished, both staring at her incredulously.
"Yeah, a scary space alien who came to this ship to eat our brains and kill our young, which is why I was SO scared and why I attacked without hesitation" Pan explained, wanting the grown-ups to understand why she took the necessary action.
Everyone gaped at her, all concerned about her sanity, save for Vegeta of course. He knew she never had any sanity to begin with, not when she was Kakarot's brat's brat. The air was filled with an idiotic silence, Gohan supposed they could give her the benefit of the doubt, she was a child after all, he was sure kids had weird imaginations to this extent...right?
"So..." Trunks drawled out, startling them all in the process.
"This isn't awkward at all" Goten articulated, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Nobody enjoyed his facetious comment, especially since it was too early in the morning for them, so they all walked past him, slapping him on the back of the head as they went by. Pan was the last one to reach him and Goten thought that at least she wouldn't hit him, but alas, he was wrong. In fact, her hit was the worst since she was putting full power behind it.
"That's what you get for looking at me like I'm weird!" she explained whilst waving her tiny fist in his face, as though daring him to retaliate. Pan skipped off after the others and left Goten all by himself to sulk.
A few hours later they were all once again back in the control room, after getting themselves something to eat from the kitchen first. They were about to begin their training, today it was going to be Gohan VS Vegeta, Trunks VS Piccolo and Goten VS Pan.
"I'm changing the gravity so you idiots better be ready 'cause I'm not changing it back" Vegeta told the other five who all nodded an understanding, although they were ticked off at him calling them 'idiots'.
Vegeta went over to the gravity control panel and pressed a few buttons and just like that Pan felt that large change of gravity as it tried to splatter her to the ship's floor as if she were made out of liquid. The tug intensified and she felt her muscles begin to strain from the weight, sweat beaded down her forehead but she quickly wiped them away, trying not to show that she was having difficulty like the last time. Unfortunately Gohan was keeping a keen eye on her and began fussing over her the moment she tensed up.
"Pan don't strain yourself, just like yesterday you can hold off your fight until your body starts getting used to the gravity"
"We only have two days to train Dad, I can't spend that time walking around the room while you guys are fighting!" Pan whined indignantly, her voice high-pitched, higher than usual.
"You can't force yourself that'll only end up with you getting hurt"
" ' !"she huffed out loudly, drawing out each syllable slowly and coherently while straightening up. She loved her dad but his constant worrying was just too much, she felt like he didn't believe in her abilities which annoyed her.
Pan stomped past her dad, albeit slowly because she had difficulty moving, it didn't exactly give the intimidating notion she was going for but it had to do. She walked over to Goten, leaving a few feet of distance between them, then bent her knees and got into a stance, signalling that she was ready for the sparring match to begin. Goten complied after much hesitation, shooting Gohan a furtive look before he too went into a stance.
As soon as Goten got into his stance Pan charged at him, wanting to prove to her dad that she was indeed capable of doing this. She aimed a kick to his groin but Goten quickly jumped out of the way after giving a very girlish yelp when he realised where she was aiming for.
"HEY!"
Pan frowned then decided to go in for another attack, she landed back on the floor then sprung up into the air - with difficulty - and tried a round-house kick to his abdomen, but that too was avoided as Goten lifted his arm up to block her oncoming attack. He retaliated by shooting a fist her way towards her face and she barely had time to dodge it from this close a range, she ducked under his punch just in time, listening as it sailed over head causing a 'whoosh' and disturbing a few strands of her hair on top of her head and then kicked him in the shin with her right foot.
Goten howled in pain then fired a barrage of punches at her, trying not to put too much power into the attacks. She struggled fending his attacks off and some managed to make contact with her, she was hit in her stomach, on her face and a lot of his punches connected with her arms as she crossed them over her body, trying to shield herself from the onslaught.
The match continued like that for awhile, Goten on the offence and Pan on the defence. She didn't know how long she could keep this up, her arms were stinging and were starting to go numb, she was panting hard now as she was forced backwards from the impact of his hits. She had an inkling that it was the gravity that was draining all her stamina, after all, this wasn't the first time she'd had training matches and she'd lasted a lot longer in those before getting worn out, but she'd never trained on a different level of gravity.
Pan was so lost in thought she completely missed the punch that had broken through her defences and was heading towards her face, his fist made contact and there was a loud 'CRACK' heard; followed by Pan shooting to the other side of the room and flying straight into the wall, getting embedded in it.
Everyone's fight's came to a sudden halt as soon as they heard the crack of a bone being broken, then they noticed as Pan crashed into the wall opposite where she was fighting. Gohan rushed over to her as quick as a flash and pulled her out of the wall, he carried her limp body to the middle of the room and set her down carefully on the floor.
"Pan? Pan?" Gohan kept calling her name frantically but she wasn't responding. He rounded on Goten and it looked as though he would pounce on him at any given moment which made Goten audibly gulp and take a few steps back, holding his hands up in front of him.
"G-Gohan I-I'm so s-sorry, I thought she was going to block that punch. I swear" he stuttered, fearing for his life right now, also feeling extremely guilty for hurting his niece.
Gohan stood up and towered over him, trying very hard to control his anger. All this time he was worried about an enemy hurting her and it was his own brother that, though inadvertently, ended up causing his only daughter harm.
They both continued bickering at each other, Gohan threatening to beat him senseless and Goten trying to prevent that from happening, it went on for quite a while until someone cleared their throat noisily.
"Be quiet you two, she's waking up" Piccolo ordered them both, motioning with a tilt of his head to Pan. Gohan immediately turned back to her, forgetting about his brother for the time being.
Slowly but surely she was indeed waking up, she let out a low groan that was barely audible, soon followed by a few louder moans of pain. She opened her eyes, squinting at the light of the room as it was far too bright for her right now. Everything was blurry to her and the people around her resembled colourful blobs.
She frowned as she tasted something liquidy on her lips, she licked it wondering what it could be but found it didn't taste nice at all so she gagged, wincing as a sharp pain on her nose washed over her in an instant. Pan put a hand to her nose to find out what the problem was but as soon as she touched it she yelped and jerked away from the offending hand.
"Pan are you okay? I knew this was a bad idea, don't worry honey we'll get you fixed up in no time" Gohan smiled reassuringly at her while sighing inwardly in relief, she was fine...sort of.
Pan listened as the red and black blob continued jabbering on and on about something, but she was still slightly out of it so she couldn't get her mind to put together his words in a coherent sentence.
"You guys can go back to training, I'm going to patch her up and then take her to rest for awhile" Gohan announced, picking the small figure up in his arms and cradling her. Goten paled, realising that he was going to have to spar with Vegeta since Trunks refused to and Piccolo did it yesterday. He had to find a way out of this.
"Rest for awhile? come on Gohan she's not a child, br-" He stopped himself abruptly after he remembered who they were talking about right now, in this case Pan was actually a child, a five year old for that matter. He felt like an idiot for saying that.
"Your stupidity hurts my ears!" Vegeta growled, getting more annoyed at the saiyan brat, the said saiyan brat laughed nervously then backed away from him, not wanting to die before they even got to Namek.
"There's some senzu beans in one of the top cupboards in the kitchen to the left" Piccolo relayed to Gohan after having that drilled into his head by Bulma who insisted on going over the instructions of the ship and forcing him to remember where each object belongs. He shuddered as he thought back to that long painful hour.
Gohan nodded a thanks Piccolo's way then left the room to drop off Pan on her bed, leaving the others to get back to their training. He looked down at her and noticed that her eyes were unfocused and she was frowning in concentration as she tried to grasp her surroundings. He lightly kissed her on her forehead then smiled as she cuddled up to him, her hand clenched to the font of his Gi tightly. He sighed, knowing that this was just the beginning...