Co-written by SuperSaiyan2Link.
"Ah, good. You're awake."
A male voice. Pan turned to her left, seeing a man with short white hair and a small strip on his chin. He was donned in teal attire and a white Time Patroller chestpiece.
"We were starting to worry. Granted, you were in worse shape when you first arrived here, but it was worrisome all the same."
She began to sit up, then saw tubes of some kind going into the top of her left hand. She then lifted up her sleeve, seeing only faint markings on her left arm from the damage Raditz had inflicted on her.
"What about...?"
She felt her teeth for gaps from to any of them being missing, but everything felt in place.
"But these were... did you put them back?"
"It certainly seems that way...but no."
He handed her a tiny bottle. She looked at it and shook it, seeing and hearing individual teeth inside.
"The healing fluid grew teeth virtually identical to the ones lost."
Just then, the man put out his hand.
"Ah, my apologies. I haven't introduced myself. The name's Beetro. Medical professional."
As she shook his hand, Pan's eye was drawn to something behind Beetro: a tail of the same white color as his hair.
"He's a Saiyan... yet he's a doctor."
He could see the thoughts flowing through her upon the revelation.
"Ah, yes. You wouldn't think of a Saiyan for having a medicinal background."
"But Saiyans are a warrior race, raised to take over planets, right?"
He nodded.
"Indeed."
She spoke the first thought she had on the matter:
"Did you receive an injury to your head like my grandfather?"
Once she spoke it, she caught just how presumptuous that sounded.
"I really just said that. What am I, a Saiyan expert, spouting that out loud?"
"That was rude of me. I apologize."
Beetro put his hand out, signalling everything was alright.
"What you asked is understandable, as there is much not known of Saiyans as a whole."
He turned, both his hands to his back.
"Yes, not all of them are the savage warriors most believe them to be. Indeed, some were the result of an injury to the head as a child like Son Goku."
He turned back to her.
"But as for myself... it was how I was born."
Beetro sat down atop a stool.
"Both my parents died fulfilling a mission for Lord Frieza, so I lived among the orphaned. As my peers grew restless for blood and battle, I found that I had no taste for violence and conquest as a whole. In fact, I preferred to tend to the hurt. And because of that..."
He shut his eyes for just a moment.
"I was met only with disdain. They abhorred me, believing me to be less than a Saiyan. Time and time again, they tried to force me into changing, to become like them... but I couldn't betray who I truly was even amidst the scorn."
Pan could tell Beetro was pained bringing this up.
"Since I was unfit for combat, I took the lowest jobs available to a Saiyan like myself: tidying the streets and facilities of Planet Vegeta. But even as I grew, I was always reminded that a Saiyan that didn't want to fight was worth less than the muck I scrubbed from the gutters."
That last sentiment was heartbreaking to her.
"I'm so sorry. I can't even..."
"It's alright, Pan. Painful as it was, it is all in the past."
"But how did you get away from all that?"
"One day, a member of the Time Patrol came to me and made me an offer: to join them here, where I could finally utilize the skills that I had longed to learn... or to remain where I was, where nothing would change."
Finally, he opened his eyes and stood back up.
"Since arriving here, I trained to become one of the Time Patrol's top medical professionals... and could finally be myself."
Pan was certainly happy with how his tale ended, but a new thought occurred to her:
"How does the Time Patrol pick its members?"
"Throughout the nearly infinite timelines, there are several individuals who are left idle, unable to leave their marks due to their circumstances. When they accept, they leave their timelines, leaving no alteration. Just as an example, had I stayed on Planet Vegeta instead, I would've fallen to Frieza the same as the rest of the Saiyans on the planet."
Pan then thought back to how, if she had been left in space after her Earth was destroyed, her death wouldn't have changed anything... except she was summoned by a wish on the Dragon Balls, not recruited.
The door to the room opened, Beetro standing at attention as Commander Hale made his way inside.
"Hale... I mean, Commander..."
"At ease, Beetro."
Pan got out of the bed and made it to her feet.
"What's the situation, Commander?"
"You're certainly quick on the uptake."
He tossed Pan her Time Patrol fitness attire, all wrapped together.
"Get dressed, then come along with me, Pan. There will be much to discuss."
Commander Hale and Pan made their way down flights of stairs below the academy towards a familiar room.
"You must understand how dire our situation is."
"I do, but... I have just six days?! To become that much stronger?"
"I've recalibrated the training chamber to give you more time."
"But how?"
"The training chamber can recreate nearly any environment or condition we require... it can even slow time inside of it."
Pan stopped for just a moment.
"That room can slow down time? I could train for anything on short notice."
"It takes a substantial amount of Toki Toki City's power to do so. Too much and the entire infrastructure would be drained, perhaps beyond repair. That is why we always hesitate to use the room in this way."
He continued downward as Pan followed.
"Now, we are left with no other options, but even then, we will only use as much power as we can without jeopardizing the city."
"How long?"
"In six days time here... you'll have six months inside the chamber."
Even as the idea of having time to herself to train appealed to her, this was massive to her.
"Six months... by myself?"
"Not alone."
Outside of the doors to the training chamber were three figures: one with a bald head in a formal fighting attire, one with long hair and sideburns, and one a foot shorter than her. As she got closer, she saw one man had a third eye, another a scar on the lower left of his face, and the shortest with pale white skin and red circles on his cheeks.
"So... she's the one we're training?"
Just then, the figure in white felt a tight hug: Pan knew his voice from anywhere.
"Yamcha. It really is you."
This Yamcha, however, didn't know how to respond to this gesture.
"So... big fan, huh?"
Once he said this, she noticed the surprise on his face, more akin to meeting a stranger rather than anything familial.
"He doesn't know me?"
As she let go of him, she noticed his hair wasn't dark grey like the Yamcha she knew: he was younger, maybe by a decade or two. Next, she looked over at Tien and noticed him lacking his short hair and goatee.
"Tien... your hair..."
Tien was puzzled by her mentioning hair with him, but it barely showed on his face. Finally...
"Chiaotzu..."
The small man looked right up at her. As for his appearance...
"You look the same."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Commander Hale stood to the side between Pan and the trio.
"These three are from the main timeline, not your own."
"Wait... if they're from the main timeline and they're here..."
"The Supreme Kai of Time found an opening in their timeline in which all three would be available without any issue. Once they are finished, they'll be returned back, their timeline restored like they never left."
Yamcha put out his hand to her.
"Well, since that's all cleared up and you know the three of us, how about introducing yourself, Miss...?"
"Pan."
"Pan, huh?
As she shook his hand, Yamcha pondered regarding the name.
"...That's a nice name."
Just then, the doors to the chamber opened as Trunks made his way in front of the five gathered outside it.
"Checked everything myself. Everything's all set inside."
Once Trunks joined the group, Hale made his way to an elevator.
"I'll make the necessary preparations. Trunks will explain the rest."
Once Hale left, Tien had an inquiry for Trunks.
"How large is the inside of the chamber?"
"It gives the illusion of several miles, but try to avoid flying at top speed or you may run into a barrier."
Yamcha had a question as well.
"Is it going to be daytime the whole time?"
"The chamber will flicker between day and night about every hour in real time, but at its proper time when inside."
As did Chiaotzu.
"What will we do about food?"
"Your bodies won't be able to tell the difference between the food the chamber generates and the real thing."
And finally, Pan.
"How will we be accommodated when we're not training?"
Trunks put his hand out to the four.
"Come inside and see for yourselves."
As they took their first steps, they saw the chamber took on the appearance of a desert wasteland. Yamcha was ecstatic about this.
"Alright. This'll be like old times."
Trunks then pointed to the left and right at small white structures.
"Each of you will have your own housing quarters. Beds, bathrooms, clothes... you name it."
All four structures had a different color stripe, each associated with one of them: green for Tien, red for Chiaotzu, orange for Yamcha, and blue for Pan.
"Oh, before I forget..."
Trunks took out what looked like a metal wrist band with a small screen on the center.
"Pan, this will let you gauge your power."
As he put out his hand to give it to her...
"Trunks!" called out Hale on Trunk's communicator. "It is time."
He placed it in Pan's hand, then bowed his head to her.
"This is going to be difficult... but I believe in you."
He lifted his head back up.
"Take care of yourself."
Trunks flew through the entrance, the doors slowly beginning to close upon him exiting.
Commander Hale, at the controls, watched on a screen as the doors finally closed all the way.
He pressed on the console...
Patrollers walking around were caught off-guard as electronics across all of Toki Toki City began to flicker on and off rapidly.
"What's going on?!"
"Is it a power failure?!"
"That shouldn't be possible!"
And for a few seconds, all the power in the city went completely dark. All the holographic screens disappeared, not a single light glowed, and even the mechanical staff stood motionlessly.
For all the time Toki Toki City was around, the power had never once done this.
"The city's power... is it...?"
Right at that moment of terror, the power returned... except it was reduced somewhat. The holographs partially fuzzy, the lights dimmer, and the mechanical staff slightly slower to move and act.
"What in Hercule's name is going on?"
Pima, crouching over in a corner behind one of the structures, grasped what was going on before anyone else.
"That girl... after what happened yesterday..."
He stood up and turned towards the academy, then peered at the ground as if he could see through it.
"The chamber... if it needs that much power... time itself is threatened."
The moment the chamber powered up, the entire area around Pan felt heavier...
"The gravity..."
She began to hunch over.
As Trunks came to see Commander Hale at the console, something hit him:
"Crap!"
"I forgot to tell her about the gravity!"
He turned to exit.
"Open up the door and I'll let her know..."
"It's too late, Trunks," Hale told him, gesturing him to stay where he was. "If we open the door now, it will waste valuable time and power that we cannot get back."
Trunks accepted the case, but also was in disbelief about his blunder.
"How could I have forgotten? Time itself is on the line! This is the worst time for me to screw up!"
Pan tried to stand up straight as the trio inside with her stood almost unaffected. Yamcha took notice of this.
"Hey... you okay there?"
Tien walked forward towards her.
"We may have half a year, but we have a lot of ground to cover."
He took on a fighting stance.
"We need to get started right away."
Pan tried gesturing for him to wait.
"Hold on. I just need a minute to..."
"Do you think the Saiyans gave us a minute?!"
As Tien shouted this, Pan felt a kick to her side, grounding her to Yamcha and Chiaotzu's shock.
"Do you expect them to give you a fair fight?!"
As Pan tried getting up once more, he kicked her in the side once again. Yamcha stepped in front of him.
"Tien, what the hell are you doing?! Can't your three eyes see the gravity's getting to her?"
Tien grabbed onto Yamcha by the collar of his coat.
"The Supreme Kai of Time made it crystal clear to us: if we fail in our task to train her, then time itself will be at risk, our selves and our home included."
During this heated argument, Pan made it onto her knees.
"If we coddle her, she'll die the same as all three of us!"
Once Tien stated this, both Yamcha and Chiaotzu began to reflect on the exact moment they were brought to train her for. Yamcha was finally let go and backed away as his anger shifted.
"You're right... but we're not going to kill her either."
"We won't..."
Tien turned back to Pan, whom could tell he wasn't about to offer her a helping hand up.
"But you will be ready for a fight to the death!"
This time, his kick was blocked as Pan's initial shock wore off.
"Now get up! Stand!"
Pan made it back up, but like before, they could tell she was struggling to stand upright.
"Hit me."
This scenario already sounded familiar to her, only this time, the chamber's gravity was against her. She took a step and a punch, one that Tien was quick to redirect, tossing her aside rolling.
"Come on," shouted Chiaotzu to her. "You can do better than that."
Pan could tell he, like Tien, was beckoning her to push through. She wasn't sure how much individual steps would take out of her, so she began floating off the ground.
"Now to just go to him..."
She zoomed forward, Tien stepping to the side from her intended punch. Right after, she came crashing into the dirt, as if she were pulled straight down. Standing was hard enough, but flying forward somehow pulled her down even harder. She strained just to lift herself up from the small hole her impact created.
"I can't function like this. The gravity..."
Instead of seeing Tien standing and waiting for her, he approached her on foot as if the gravity was normal to him.
"If you want to fight among the Z-Fighters... if you want to survive the coming battle, get up or you'll end up buried!"
With a burst of ki, Pan pushed herself upward, then swerved her arms to keep from falling onto her back. Once she gained her composure, Tien swept at her legs. She hopped over it, floating in midair, but then saw a chopping hand coming right for her. She barely avoided it, then grabbed on to try flipping Tien over.
"DODON...!"
She felt Tien's finger pointing right at her.
"No... he wouldn't... would he?"
Not wanting to try her luck, she quickly let go. Her upper body was out of range...
"RAY!"
The beam fired all the same and while she tried to move as quickly as she could, the thin beam was far faster than any Dodon Ray she had faced before.
In the midst of this, Yamcha tried approaching and putting out a hand in protest.
"Wait, don't...!"
But by the time he began, the beam had struck and Pan lied on the ground grabbing her right knee. At first, Yamcha feared the worst.
"Tien, what were you thinking?!"
"Did you really think I would use the Dodon Ray anywhere near full power?"
Pan let go of her knee, seeing a hole in her track pants, but only a sear from the beam: it didn't pierce through her leg as Yamcha and even she herself feared. She looked back to Tien, who already looked ready to strike.
"You'll live. Now get up."
As soon as Pan heard those two words, her mind echoed with Raditz saying the same.
"Get up."
Tien, seeing her just staring at him for a moment, grew impatient.
"I said get up!"
A blast struck near her side. Pan focused, seeing the crater in the ground from an intentionally missed attack.
"You think Raditz was the worst?!"
Another blast on the other side.
"The Saiyans you'll fight are his superiors in every way!"
A third neared her feet.
"You just going to lie there and let yourself and everyone you know and love die?!"
This last statement cut deep down into her: she had seen her loved ones slain one by one before her and in spite of giving it her all, she couldn't stop it.
"You think I did nothing at all? That I didn't even try?!"
Suddenly, rocks began to flow around her as she floated off the ground, then flew towards Tien. The shock and fear in her face was replaced by seething as she struck at Tien, forcing him to block. Yamcha was in awe.
"I think we may have a Super Saiyan on our hands."
As Tien continued his defense, Pan zoomed past him several times, trying to force his guard open. As far as he could tell, she didn't show any hints of a golden glow in her hair or her ki.
"At least at the moment... no, we don't."
There she was fighting with all she had, perhaps surpassing her efforts against Raditz, only for Tien to be unmoved by anything she had. It was like fighting Goten when he went Super Saiyan or Frieza in his golden form: all her power and training in vain.
Tien leapt over one of Pan's charges, then, as she turned and found him, he already came crashing down with a two-handed slam. Pan blocked it and managed to land on the ground without being pushed into it...
Followed by a burn in her knee. She had been floating this whole time and now that she was standing on that leg, she struggled just to not crouch from how much it stung. Tien landed hard in front of her and began unleashing a flurry of punches. Pan recognized the Machine Gun Punch immediately and guarded accordingly...
But each punch was harder than any hit she took from Raditz. In spite of her efforts to keep her guard up, her wrists began to waver. With two final upward swings, her defenses were broken and her arms went upward. Before she could even think of forcing them back down or even trying to float out of the way, Tien placed a lone palm in front of her face.
From the distance, Chiaotzu saw Pan flying back before landing onto the dirt, leaving a trail behind until she came to a complete stop.
Tien walked over to her almost calmly as Yamcha ran with haste. Both looked over, seeing Pan with her arms stretched out and her eyes closed. She wasn't unconscious, but she wasn't in any condition to continue the spar. Yamcha grabbed hold of Tien's shoulder.
"You need to tone this down. We can't just do this for six months and expect her to just toughen up."
Tien shrugged the hand off of him.
"I know."
"Then what? Are you just giving her a taste of the training Tao gave you?"
Tien was about to respond angrily, but then Yamcha saw him pause, as if he really did begin to wonder if that was the case.
"Tien, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go that far."
"Tao taught me almost everything I know, but he tortured me to make me... how I was. This is to help her to survive. You know what Nappa did to all of us."
Yamcha couldn't help but realize his shortcomings in that battle.
"You two at least got to fight Nappa. I was done in by a..."
"Don't beat yourself up over the Saibamen again, please. It could have happened to any of us. Even Gohan or Piccolo."
"...Saibamen?" asked Pan, having finally opened up her eyes. "What's a Saibamen?"
"You'll know in due time," replied Tien.
He felt someone tapping on his shoulder and turned to see Chiaotzu floating.
"Tien, are we going to be fighting like this the whole time we're here?"
"No. Not like this every day."
He turned back to Pan, crouching down and offering his left hand to help her up.
"Forgive me for my methods, but I had to see how far you could go."
"You mean... it was a test?"
"To an extent."
She took his hand as he lifted her up. Once she tried standing on her right leg, she struggled to keep standing. Yamcha quickly helped her keep steady.
"We trained an entire year just to be able to stand up to Raditz. In spite of how intense our training was, it wasn't enough. I promise you that we'll do all in our power to make sure you succeed where we failed."
Even after Tien stated this, Pan still couldn't help but think about how powerful Tien was in their spar alone. He talked about them only matching Raditz, but all his attacks and speed were greater than anything even the powered-up Raditz was capable of.
"...but you're way stronger than Raditz."
"But that was after we traversed Snake Way and trained on King Kai's Planet."
He already saw Pan getting ready to ask about them.
"I'll tell you about them, don't worry."
After treating her leg and cleaning up, she and the three Z-Fighters gathered around a simulated camp fire as the sky turned dark.
"Tell us about yourself, Pan." began Yamcha. "What's your timeline like?"
"I don't even know where to start..."
"Anywhere. Wherever you'd like."
"This may come as a shock, but..."
Chiaotzu had his hand on the side of his face.
"You're Gohan and Videl's daughter, huh?"
Yamcha fell over, struck by the revelation Chiaotzu stated nonchalantly while Tien turned to his friend with the mildest look of disappointment.
"Chiaotzu, it's rude to read someone's thoughts like that, especially at your age."
Just then, Yamcha got back up.
"You're... Goku's granddaughter."
He turned to Tien.
"Say, wasn't Videl expecting the last time we saw her? Do you think..."
"It isn't our place to think about that. And even then, Pan, you're from another timeline."
Tien realized he sounded somewhat harsh, so he tried gesturing to Pan.
"Please, continue."
From there, Pan spoke at long lengths about her Earth and the people she grew up with, the three listening nodding along and rarely interrupting, save for...
"Wait, so you're telling me Vegeta... Vegeta grew a mustache?"
While this was just a plain observation to Pan, Yamcha tried hiding a smirk from the sound of that.
"Oh man... I would pay to see that."
Tien thought of something:
"So, your grandfather... Hercule... is he still the world martial arts champion on your Earth?"
Pan tried as hard as she could not to reply with how it was the past tense, and instead answered with...
"He won four tournaments in a row, but then my mother fought him in his last tournament."
Yamcha sat up intrigued.
"So, your mother dethroned the champ, huh?"
The word "dethroned" didn't sit well with her, but she continued.
"Right. She had trained with Master Roshi a year prior."
"With Roshi training your mother, I bet she racked up a bunch of tournaments after that."
As she thought more on the issue, she could hear the cheers of a tournament crowd followed by shocked gasps, and the tournament announcer...
"It's over! It's all over!"
The three could see her in thought before she tried changing the subject.
"So, do you wanna know what you three were like on my Earth?"
Chiaotzu looked to be trying to use his telekinesis again only for Tien to put his hand down.
"I'm not sure. I mean, that is..."
Yamcha didn't seem to have any issue with the topic.
"Sure. Tell me all about my alternate Earth self."
Pan saw Tien's hesitance on the subject, so she began with Yamcha.
"Well, you were an instructor at Tien's dojo..."
"Like... like a full-time job?"
"You practically lived with him. You even babysat Tien and Launch's daugh..."
The moment Tien heard the word "Launch", he began to get up. Once he began to hear the start of "daughter", he turned away.
"...Tien?"
"I'm alright. Don't mind me."
He tried hiding it as well as he could, but Tien couldn't shake Pan's unfinished sentence: that him, on another Earth, had a child with Launch. Chiaotzu flew after him shortly afterward.
Pan began to wonder if she had said something to hurt him.
"Was it something I said?"
"Don't mind him. Launch is just a touchy subject for him, that's all."
"You mean they didn't have a kid?"
"No. Never married either. They hardly keep in touch these days. They used to be an item, but not anymore. Guess they just grew apart."
He didn't show it in his tone, but Yamcha knew that feeling all too well.
Just then, a large yawn.
"It's getting late, so I figure a good rest'll do all four of us good. You can tell us more about your Earth tomorrow night after some training sessions."
As he got up, he marked the ground with his finger, leaving a small line. When Pan was about to ask...
"One day down. One seventy-nine to go. Good night, Pan."
As Pan lied in her bed in her quarters, she thought on what Yamcha said.
"One seventy-nine to go..."
Her seven year old self stood next to her grandpa Hercule, looking over at Master Roshi and this older man with a crane-shaped hat in a heated argument. She only caught bits of it without much context.
"What are you doing here, Shen?!"
"Just bringing my latest pupil! And he has a history with Mr. Satan..."
"If either of you try killing anyone...!"
"We won't. Maybe he'll just beat them to near-death."
After inquiring about the large man in a hooded green robe, Hercule recognized him as the man approached them.
"Spopovich... that really you?"
Hercule didn't sound intimidated and instead changed to a more casual tone.
"Oh man, it has been ages..."
"Ages?" Spopovich began. "It's been twenty years."
"Well, uh, how's it been? What have you been up to?"
"You know something, 'Savior of Mankind'?"
He grabbed hold of Hercule's collar to both his and Pan's shock.
"You humiliated me. And then I heard how you defeated Cell when no one else in the world could. It broke me. I couldn't stop thinking about how easily you bested me in the ring."
His look of resentment then began to mold itself into something else...
"Then your daughter showed me the truth when she fought you: you're just flesh and blood like the rest of us. You didn't defeat Cell: you weren't even in the same league. And yet for decades, you conned everyone into believing it."
He let go of Hercule.
"I made it my life's mission to reveal to the world the fraud you really are. My only regret is that you had to retire before I could crush you myself..."
Hercule had taken in everything Spopovich had to say and turned him and Pan away from him, wanting to end the conversation.
"Sorry, but you missed your chance."
He and Pan made their way elsewhere when...
"...so I guess I'll just have to settle with your daughter."
Pan could feel Hercule stopping in his tracks. As he turned around, she could almost feel an aura of anger around him.
"What did you say?"
Spopovich grinned.
"If I can't beat you in the ring, then Videl will suffice."
He had tried composing himself as much as he could through Spopovich's threats to his legacy, but this pushed him over the edge. Pan saw him approaching the massive fighter, pointing a finger right at him.
"You a low enough man to threaten my daughter?!"
"Threaten? No. It's a promise."
Roshi overheard all of this and turned away from Shen.
"You wanna fight me that bad?!"
Pan, having been left by Hercule, was in shock at what her grandfather was doing.
"Grandpa Hercule?"
Spopovich stood in anticipation at Hercule's intended punch, only to see Roshi pushing Hercule back.
"Let me go, Roshi! I beat the goatee off him before and I'll do it again!"
"Stop this," Roshi interjected, keeping him at bay even as Hercule kept trying to move forward. "You're just playing into his hands."
Shen laughed, relishing the fact Roshi had to hold Hercule back.
"If your pupil's father is having this much trouble keeping it together, then we'll see how far the apple falls from the tree."
Pan had stomached their insults towards Hercule, but once Shen remarked about her mother...
"Don't you talk about my mother that way!"
Shen and Spopovich both took notice of Hercule's granddaughter, her anger matching Hercule's from before. Spopovich tauntingly crouched down to her level.
"Ah, look at the little runt. Here to watch your mommy dearest?
She took a step forward, but Hercule grabbed hold of her to keep Spopovich away from her.
"Don't fret: we're just having a little chat."
Pan glared at him, trying to come up with words to express her distain for everything he had said thus far.
"What's the matter? Nothing else to say? Not even one word?"
She stuck her tongue out at him before Hercule backed away with her.
"Come, Spopovich. Let us leave these old men and their little mongrel."
All three of them were struck with how they described Pan. She tried flying out of Hercule's arms towards them.
"Old fart!"
Shen stopped immediately upon hearing this, turning with the slightest bit of annoyance on his face.
"My mom's gonna win, and you and your bully are gonna lose!"
Instead of replying, he simply turned away, him and Spopovich resuming their exit.
"YOU HEAR ME?!"
She tried wrestling through Hercule's arms more and more as he saw himself tiring from his efforts.
"Pan, honey, you're making a scene."
Roshi grabbed onto her shoulders.
"It's not worth it, Pan."
She saw him looking her in the eyes and stopped moving.
"Those two are despicable out of their own choosing. It is no reason for you to lower yourself to their level. Understand?"
After nodding to Roshi, she accompanied the three in silence towards their seats. She had been looking forward to seeing the fighters, but now this unpleasant encounter with Shen and Spopovich had begun to poison her day so far.
It was day 2 inside the training chamber. It still somewhat boggled her to think just how little time passed outside the chamber's doors while 24 hours passed for her. When she way ready, she met with the trio, already gathered outside talking amongst themselves until she arrived.
"So what's the game plan for today?"
"We talked it over last night," began Tien. "And we've decided going forward that the training each day'll be in three parts."
Part 1:
Pan saw what looked like track lines for two people stenciled into the dirt, stretching off from nearby into the far distance.
"Did you make this yourself?"
"Well... I might've had a little help."
"And how did you know where to stop before the barriers?"
Yamcha put a hand on the back of his head and she could only catch a glimpse of a round bruise with two bandages in an x-shape.
"I... might've forgotten what Trunks told me."
Pan made a mental note to herself: always watch for the track lines whenever she flew.
"Anyway, before the Saiyans showed up, your granddad wasn't kicking back in Otherworld: he trained with the martial arts master King Kai on a small planet with greater gravity than Earth."
"Like it is here?"
"That's right... but before he got there, Goku had to traverse Snake Way, a pathway a million kilometers long."
"A million?!"
"It took Goku six months to cover the whole thing. Tien, Chiaotzu, and I had to cross it too. You wouldn't believe it, but we actually crossed it even faster."
Pan was in awe at this: like her grandfather Hercule defeating Goku, it seemed even now, humans always found a way to match or even beat Saiyans.
Yamcha had his hands to his sides in pride.
"Sometimes we humans even surprise ourselves."
Tien cleared his throat.
"What?"
"That was because of our training a year prior to the Saiyans." Tien explained. "We were stronger than Goku was after his fight with Raditz when we crossed."
After Tien contextualized this, Yamcha continued, sounding less like a braggard.
"Right. The point of this exercise being... the room's not a million kilometers obviously, but if we did laps, we could try to cover that distance over time."
Yamcha got down into a running stance as Pan slowly followed his lead.
"As long as you can, okay?"
After a nod from Pan, the two stormed off, running in such a blur that a normal human wouldn't have been able to see either of them: only a trail of dust from where they ran.
Part 2:
Tien had drawn a sketch of some short creatures in the dirt for Pan to see.
"Before you get to the Saiyans, you'll have to get through the Saibamen: creatures they grow to handle tasks beneath them. The soil of any given planet determines how powerful they are. With Earth's soil, they were on the same level as Raditz."
As if facing an opponent as powerful as Raditz wasn't a horrible enough thought, now Pan had to imagine that level of power in multiple combatants at once.
"Chiaotzu will be your opponent."
She saw Chiaotzu approach and at first wondered how he would fill the part of several combatants on his own...
...until he split himself into four.
"Treat him and his clones as Saibamen. Do all that you can to stay in the fight."
Tien began to take his leave...
"One more thing: if any one of them manage to grab onto you, the session is over, so stay vigilant and keep your guard up at all times."
She saw that Tien had not left, but was only observing from a distance. Just then, one of the Chiaotzu's flew at her, trying to grab onto her arm. Pan managed to avoid it just in time, then gave her full attention to him and the other three.
Part 3:
There she was face-to-face with Tien once again. Pan came at him with everything she had and he won with ease the day before. She knew he wouldn't be going at her like he did the day before, but even then, she still had to accept just how grueling the coming exercise was likely to be.
"Yesterday, I gave you the unwinnable battle. Now, I give you a chance at victory... but I won't hand it to you."
His two hands were out ready to strike.
"Are you ready?"
She grinned, taking on a stance. After the day before, she wasn't about to let Tien catch her off-guard before the actual fight began. The two already took a lone step towards each other, a lone fist from each already closing in.
Seven year old Pan sat between her father and Bulla as the rest of the Z-Fighters and their families had finished seeing the first seven quarter-final battles. Pan, Hercule, and Roshi hadn't seen Spopovich as of yet and all three were hoping he somehow didn't qualify. But after the announcer introduced the first combatant of the eighth match, a young man in rags with scuffs of dirt on him who looked to be from a poor village, he turned to the crowd.
"For those of you who were there for Hercule's very first tournament, you may recall that Spopovich was his opponent in the quarter-finals. While Hercule went on to win that tournament and three more in a row, Spopovich hadn't been seen or heard from in twenty years... until today."
He pointed to the tunnel.
"Here he is, folks: Spopovich."
His reception was somewhat neutral, but there were plenty of gasps from when they saw his completely shaved head, a green wrestling top, and martial arts pants.
"That really him? He shaved his head?"
"That wrestling meat head took up kung fu or something?"
As Spopovich took to the center of the ring, he glared at his opponent. In spite of this, the young man bowed to him.
"Good luck Mr. Spopovich, and may the best man win."
This gesture of respect and goodwill went unreturned by Spopovich as the announcer put his hand into the air.
"Begin!"
*GONG!*
The young man made the first few moves: a swinging kick to Spopovich's side and a left-handed punch to his chest. To the shock of him and the entire audience, Spopovich didn't even flinch. Instead, he grinned.
Immediately, the young man rolled out of the way of a downward punch, then continued backing away as his massive opponent walked calmly toward him. He was no child and was well past his teenage years, but even now, this man struggled to not shiver in the face of Spopovich's aura of intent. He took another step backward...
Then saw himself about to back out of the square and swerved forward to keep himself in play. He succeeded, but fell onto his knees and hands, seeing Spopovich still approaching. The announcer might've said a few things regarding the state of the match so far, but the young man didn't hear a thing, as if the entire world around him had gone completely silent, save for the footsteps of this giant before him. He was lost in thought for a few seconds, perhaps pondering if he should just forfeit the match right then and there.
But then he considered how far he came from home just to get there and what it would mean for him to just give up. What winning the tournament would mean for him and his family. He got back up, recomposing himself entirely, which Spopovich took notice of.
"He's back on his feet and now Spopivich has stopped in his tracks."
With fear no longer on his face, the young man came at Spopovich with a flurry, moving side-to-side as he threw punch after punch. Nothing seemed to hurt his opponent so far, but he didn't let himself get discouraged. Hitting him was akin to striking a solid material, but not quite like hitting a sheet of metal either: Spopovich was still a human, flesh and blood.
A sweep to Spopovich's legs didn't quite seem to work, but the young man bounced back with a blow to his stomach. No matter how futile it seemed at the moment, he kept trying, going across all the tournament-legal areas to hit excluding the eyes and groin. He was now working up a sweat and Spopovich hadn't attempted a counter move as of yet. Maybe the young man was moving just fast enough to keep him too occupied with where he was last to fight back. Or perhaps the man was foolish enough to stand in place and outlast him through durability alone.
He saw Spopovich's neck completely exposed. A strike there wouldn't be tournament-illegal and it might've been the best place to attack where it could actually hurt. With his hand ready to poke like a cobra, the young man thrust it at Spopovich's throat...
...and nothing still. Hercule couldn't believe this.
"What?! How is he...?!"
Just then, the young man felt a monstrous grip crushing his wrist. Roshi turned to Hercule.
"Shen's training."
With a twist of his own hand...
*SNAP!*
The young man closed his eyes and cried out, his hand dangling as if it were deflated. By the time he had opened his eyes again...
A punch to his face sent him crashing into the tile floor. He could barely feel his face, his nose was clearly bent out of place, blood was starting to drip from his forehead, and he spat out pieces of what were once teeth to keep from swallowing them.
But even now, he tried getting up. He had to try. His other hand aimed right for Spopovich's knee...
Only to be caught by Spopovich's hand once again. He flung him upward one-handed, then swung downward, slamming the young man back down into the same spot as before, leaving a greater indent than before. He then lifted the young man once more, who tried kicking away at him with whatever he had left.
"This is... absolutely brutal."
Spopovich looked over at Shen and from his posture alone without a single word, he could tell his master wanted him to end things already. He turned back to his opponent, who landed a two-legged kick to the top of his head with all his strength. Spopovich felt the faintest irritation: the tiniest cut from the impact.
With almost a feral snarl, he used his other hand to lift the young man up above his head, then stood on one leg, the other bent. He crouched over, one leg back, and his opponent came crashing down...
*CRACK!*
Back-first onto Spopovich's knee. He wasn't dead, nor was he snapped in two, but the crowd was completely silent. Even the announcer failed to so much as form words after what he saw.
"'May the best man win'?" taunted Spopovich in his defeated opponent's ear, not even caring if he could hear in that moment. "You're less than one."
He was finally finally let go and fell to the ground. The announcer tried to recompose himself just enough to begin the ten count.
"One... tw..."
"Don't bother counting." Spopovich scolded, turning away.
Pan was horrified at all of this, especially at what happened to Spopovich's opponent. She turned to her father.
"Is he...?"
She was tearing up.
"Is he dead?"
Gohan put his arms around her, trying as best as he could to comfort her as she put her head against him.
"It's all going to be okay, Pan."
Videl, who was watching all the matches through a window from a private room, didn't even know what to think of this. She had anticipated seeing fighters from all across the world try their hands at the chance to take her on, to prove themselves like she had years prior...
And she had just watched this savage act by the man her father had defeated 20 years ago. She didn't think anything ill of him before: just a fellow fighter that tried his best against her father long ago and had the tough luck of losing to him with ease. But this changed everything: Spopovich could have beaten the young man in so many different ways that would have left him far less injured, or comatose as she she feared he was, but instead, Spopovich took the most brutal and damaging as if it pleased him to break someone weaker than him.
"You!" Spopovich shouted from outside.
She looked downward at Spopovich, whom pointed right at her.
"I'm coming for you, champ! You're gonna be history! You hear me?!"
Bulla, while tearing up just as bad, tried reaching over to Pan, who turned her head to the ring, still crying, but her face scorn at Spopovich.
"You're gonna be history!"