Sorry that this one is so short, there was supposed to be another scene, but I wanted to get this done and posted because I have a stressful and busy week ahead of me. Hopefully, this won't delay the next chapter, but just in case.
It had been a calm week for Videl, despite each day being almost the exact same routine, the exact same sights, the exact same weather (On that note, she was a tad worried that there was something wrong with the weather). Maybe it was simply a matter of her every approaching age that would give her the mantle of 'Old Woman', but all the days were beginning to blur together.
She still made an effort to keep active of course, just because he restriction of the species she was born as stoped her from ever becoming anything close to the level of any fighter that mattere at this point, doesn't mean she'd let herself grow old. She promised her late father on his death bed that she'd die before she lost the ability ram the end of a rifle into an attacker's face before they could pull the trigger, all with just her foot.
Plus, she had to keep in shape for the one difference in her life over the past week. Pan. That little girl with the fighting spirit of her grandpa and the kind-hearted nature of her father. Which made a deadly combination of the most tiring person in existence. Videl always had to keep up with Son Pan, who shared her distinct distaste for being left in the dust. So, of course Videl gave her the basics to follow in her family legacy, which only allowed Pan to rocket far ahead of Videl in no time. Kind of insulting, now that Videl thought about it.
And for now, she spent her time out of the house, with company, who she doesn't hospitalise and some one of the opposite gender at that. That was progress in Videl's book. Though after Pan first returned from her new training sessions, Videl wondered if Trunks would accidentally hospitalise Pan.
The first time was a bit of a shock. Videl was stuck in the living room, alone in the rather dim lighting, intently focusing on a cross word puzzle she'd found on the ground the other day. It frustrated her. How was she supposed to find the bloody word when every 's' looks like a 'z' and every 'j' looks like an 'I'!? It was simply impossible.
That's when she heard a sudden rumble from outside the house, of course by now she'd grown accustomed to Pan's entrances. She'd never nail her 'stylish' landing. As well as any landing that didn't result in marking the ground with her butt was simply a rare occurrence. On cue, she heard Pan open the door, groaning at the pain in her backside.
"How was training, honey?" Videl's greeting was low and dismissive, refusing to take her eyes off the paper that challenged her wits to the best of their abilities.
"I- Ow!... Think it went well" She could hear Pan shuffling through to the kitchen, looking for something inside the fridge. "I climbed a mountain"
Videl glared at the cross-word puzzle, all those 'Z's were laughing at her. She knew it. "Climbed? Did you forget that you learned how to fly at five?"
"No, Mom… Well, not then! I might have forgotten for a bit when I… Hit my head on t-… Nevermind." Pan pushed her way back into the living room, and as Videl finally craned her neck to look at her daughter, an ice pack was being pressed against a glowing bruise on her hip. "Trunks kind of scratched that option out for me"
For a moment, her motherly instincts kicked in and a worried gasp was dragged from her throat at the sight of Pan. Her little girl was covered in cuts and bruises, dirt staining her top, blades of grass stuck in the messy dark folds of her hair. At least her shorts looked okay. "Oh my- Pan! What happened to you!?" Was Pan's landing THAT bad?
Pan tilted her head at the alerted gaze of her mother, simply responding with a shrug and a grin. "Training. Duh" At the immediate glare that followed from Videl, Pan backed away a few paces and awkwardly threw her arms behind her back. "What's wrong, Mom? Oh, I get it. You think these scars mean I did bad, right?"
If Videl wasn't in the middle of worriedly fawning over her daughter, she'd have felt the need to ram the palm of her hand into her forehead. Immediately, the woman jumped to her feet, stomping towards Pan and dragging her back over to the kitchen. Not responding, simply allowing Pan to groan at the dragging.
It was then that Videl was able to notice how heavy Pan seemed to have become now despite the fact that Pan wasn't resisting in the slightest. It was as if Pan was dragging a ton of heavy weights along with her. Maybe all those late night binges are finally catching up with the girl. "I mean, yeah. Gotta admit, at first it looked impossible. I mean, me. A mountain. And a merciless rainbow Saiyan"
Videl found herself rolling her eyes at Pan's strange description of Trunks, the girl had resulted in using that nick name for him after swearing that she kept seeing his hair change from purple to blue. Never the less, Videl had dragged the small woman into the kitchen as sat her down beside the tap, where Pan only sat with a pout on her lips, wondering why her mother was overreacting over this. It was only a scratch! It won't hurt the 'Satan' name.
Quickly, the older woman had rummaged through draws to recover a cloth, along with some healing herbs she'd crushed into a purple powder. First, she ran the cloth under the tap, pulling out Pan's arm and dabbing the edge of the cloth against her wounds. Of course, this instantly set off a chorus of groans and whining from Pan. It stung, to say the least.
"Moooom! I just wanna go to bed…" Pan moaned, letting out a small gasp of pain with each dab. You could hit her with a truck, detonate a bomb on top of her, but this was just too much.
"You'll go to bed when I' finished with you, and I'll be finished with you when I'm done"
"And you'll be don-"
"When I say I'm done!" Videl gave Pan a glare with more weight than Frieza's power level, shutting Pan up, for a short while at east. Allowing Videl to pull over the small container with the power and sprinkling it over Pan's wounds, earning a few more howls of pain from the girl as she rubbed it in.
"I did good in the end! Trunks looked happy, he even said he was impressed. With me!" She pleaded with the woman kneeling beside her. "And it was all triumphant and stuff. I even heard music in my head, drums and trumpets and… Stringy things"
Videl rolled her eyes at the girl, sighing. "If you're not going to shut up, at least tell me how it went. In detail"
And so, Son Pan did. Her face growing ever brighter as went on and on about all the session, detailing Trunks sending her to the bottom of the mountain. How she attacked him a few times, but ultimate failed with not a drop of sweat on Trunks's side. It was a sight that made a Mother proud, watching the little girl's grin grow to inhuman proportions as she explained, revelling in experience of her improvement.
It reminded Videl that for most of the girl's childhood, she had no one who was 'on her level' when it came to her natural power and battle prowess. It was a struggle to teach the girl self-control and she quickly found that training with Videl was a danger to her mother. So, having a person who matched her blow for blow and even went beyond must have been a tremendous experience for the girl.
"One time, I thought I had it. He touched me up, and it obviously made Trunks vulnerable, he went stiff! So, I got an idea-"
Videl stopped her right there, wondering if she heard right. "…What?"
"I got an idea"
"Before that."
"During all the intense fighting, Trunks grabbed-"
"He what!?"
"Don't worry, Mom" Pan leaned forward, a mischevious glint in her eye as she tapped the side of her nose. "I got him back for it"
It was then that Videl asked herself if she or Gohan had remembered to go over the 'Birds and the Bees' with Pan. "... Do I want to know?"
"In the end I grabbed him by th-"
"Nope." Videl stopped, stood up, backed away and covered her ears. She did not want to hear this. Even if Pan meant something completely different. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"
The little girl looked down at her now mostly cleaned skin, the bruises disappearing, leaving only scars on her flesh. And for a moment, she caught herself in thought, what was Mom talking about? "Yes?" With Pan, it was hard to tell whether she truly didn't get it, or was only feigning ignorance.
"Just… Continue"
And nothing made Videl prouder than Pan proudly grinning as she let loose her struggle up the mountain, the grin itself showing that even through all the muck and bruises, Pan was proud what she'd done. She felt accomplished. Even Videl was surprised that Pan had actually managed to come up with a bit of creative thinking in catching Trunks off guard.
"And that's how I totally kicked Trunks's ass… With maybe a few exaggerations, but no one cares about those" Pan concluded, slamming her hands together as an ending clap, waiting for Videl to react. "So… You still mad at me, Mom?"
Videl shook her head. "No, not at all. I just didn't think Trunks would be that harsh of a teacher at first, seeing you come home like this is… Shocking. TO say the least" She smiled back at Pan, getting to her feet to pull the girl into a hug. "I was worried. Mothers do that" Videl looked down at the girl, watching Gohan's eyes stare back at her.
"I miss Dad too" Pan muttered, trying to cheer Videl up. For some reason, Videl had a sneaking suspicion that this wasn't the first-time Pan had said that today.
"AH, look at me. You're reaching your twenties and here I am still treating you like a little girl that scraped her knee. Sorry" The woman felt herself chuckle as they separated, patting Pan on the back and sending the girl off to bed. Leaving her to watch Pan drag herself away, noting the weights Pan had mentioned earlier, how the girl held a determined smirk as she struggled against them, even in her exhausted state. She'd get used to them if they killed her.
And that grin on her face, that bounce in her step, that spark Videl could see in her eyes. Videl would have to remind herself to thank Trunks the next time she was over at the Brief's.