Photocopy
Chapter 2
A.N. At the time I'm writing this, I haven't gotten any reviews yet. But, I hope some people are reading this story and enjoying it. Remember, constructive criticism please! Which means no "STOP MAKING PAN A BRAT!" and "TRUNKS SHOULD LOVE PAN!" (Personally, I'm T/M all the way. Trunks is just too old for Pan.) Anyway, here goes…
Chapter 2Now what?
About an hour later, Trunks arrived at Goten's doorstep with the android Keiko in his arms. He didn't even need to ring the doorbell, because Goten had been waiting for him.
"You better have a good reason for making me…" Goten began, opening the door, but stopped when he saw what Trunks was carrying. "Trunks-kun… is that…?"
"Hai. I'll explain," Trunks replied as the two best friends entered Goten's room.
Trunks set Keiko down on the bed, and then sat down on the wood floor. Goten continued to stand and stare at Keiko.
"But… I thought she died…" Goten whispered in disbelief.
"She did. This isn't really her, she's an android with her memories," Trunks explained.
"Did you build her? Why would you build something like this?" Goten asked, turning to his friend and sitting down on the only chair in the room.
"No, of course not…" Trunks began, and explained what had happened.
After Trunks finished explaining, Goten asked, "If she really could be that dangerous, why don't you just destroy her?"
"I would have, and it probably would be the safe thing to do, but I just can't. Every time I try to kill her, I think of the real her. I mean, what if this "thing" really is just like her, and has feelings and a mind of her own? I can't just take a life. She hasn't done anything wrong yet, really. What if someone just killed us because we might destroy the Earth? We both know we could, but why would we? I think she deserves a fair chance," Trunks replied.
"I guess your right. I can't believe Masano did this. We both knew he was crazy but…" Goten was cut off by a call from the kitchen.
"Goten! Pan is here!" Chi Chi called.
"Oh no… Hide me!" Trunks yelped.
"Nani? Why are you afraid of Pan? She's as weak as a kitten compared to you," Goten asked.
"No, no, I'm not afraid of her. She's just been driving me nuts lately!" Trunks explained, attempting to squirm under Goten's bed.
Suddenly, the door to Goten's room swung open, and Pan stepped through. "Trunks-kun! You're here! I called you at the office to see if you wanted to go to a movie, but you weren't there!" Pan exclaimed, skipping happily over to Trunks and pretty much ignoring her Uncle Goten.
"Um, well, something came up, and I had to leave. Um, Pan-chan, we're a little busy, let's talk later alright…" Trunks stuttered, inching away from Pan.
Pan ignored him and walked over to bed. "Who's this?" she asked, leaning over Keiko to get a better look at her. "I-is this y-your girlfriend?" Pan stuttered, sounding upset and angry at the same time while looking at Trunks with huge, watery eyes.
"N-no! Of course not! She's an old friend. Um, Pan-chan, why don't you go, uh, hang out with Bura or something…" Trunks suggested hopefully.
Pan ignored him again and shrieked, "OH MY DENDE! She hasn't got any ki! Trunks-kun, did you murder her or something?! Or, was it you, Uncle Goten? Or maybe you both murdered her!? Oh no! Now you're going to murder me too!"
"No! Dende, how could you say something like that?" Trunks reassured her.
"Then, why doesn't she have any ki? Who is she?" Pan asked.
"I don't think you'd understand, it's a long story, so why don't go play somewhere else, while Goten and I figure this out, ok? Trunks said.
"I would understand! I like long stories! Tell me!" Pan demanded.
"Trunks is right, you wouldn't…" Goten began, but Pan cut him off.
"TELL ME NOW!!!" Pan screamed, holding a mallet above her head threateningly.
"Ok, ok…" Goten gave in. "Back when Trunks and I were in high school, we had two really good friends; Masano and Keiko. Trunks was better friends with Masano than I was because they were always trying to out do each other in science fairs and stuff. Keiko was an extremely cheerful girl who was always cooking good food like chocolate chip muffins and blueberry pies and cookies and tarts and pastries and…" Goten rambled, starting to drool at the thought of sweets.
Trunks realized where this was going and quickly cut in, "Anyway, Goten and I dated Keiko on and off, but Masano was always the one who cared for her the most. He'd do anything for her, even if it meant loosing the science fair to me, which was the end of the world for him, just to help her with her algebra homework. Eventually, those two started going steady, so Goten and I stopped dating her. One night, on the way home from a party where we'd all been drinking a lot, we got in a car accident. Masano, Goten, the guy driving the other car, and I all survived, but Keiko died…"
"After that, Masano went crazy," Goten said, after waking up from his daydream of sweet tarts and pastries. "A few weeks later, he blew up the wing of the school where the guy from the other car was taking his classes. He killed that guy and about fifty other students. A few days afterwards, our principle, Mrs. Machinari, made the mistake of saying something bad about Keiko in the halls, and Masano overheard it. He got so angry, he created an android cat to kill Mrs. Machinari, and he succeeded," Goten remembered.
"We knew he was doing this, but we pretended to be clueless like the rest of the student body. For some reason, it didn't seem right to turn him in. Besides, he knew that we knew, and we were afraid he'd kill more people if word got out that he was the one who killed the students and the principle. We didn't have the heart to kill him; we'd known him since the 3rd grade. After high school, we never saw Masano again, at least until I got a call from him at the office today. He told me he had an important creation that he wanted to show me. So I went to his house, and he showed me her," Trunks said, pointing to the android on the bed. "She's not a person, she's an android with Keiko's memories and personality programmed in. But, that's not all she is. Masano wanted her to rule everything. He asked for Goten's and my help, but I told him no, and I destroyed most of his lab, killing him in the process. But, she survived,"
"So, why don't you just destroy her now?" Pan suggested.
"We can't! She hasn't done anything wrong!" the two guys shouted.
"OK, OK, don't bite my head off," Pan said, holding her hands up in surrender.
Just then, a moan was heard through out the room. The three turned to look at Keiko who was slowly sitting up in bed, rubbing her blond head.
"Ow… who hit me…" she muttered, looking around the room and holding her head. "Who are you guys? …Trunks, right?" she asked, turning to Trunks, who nodded. "And… you're Goten, right? What happened to you guys? You look so different! And who's this girl?" she asked, turning to Pan.
"I am the great Pan! You will listen to me, because I am the strongest here!" Pan lied, hoping Keiko was a stupid computer and would believe her.
"Pan-chan!" Trunks and Goten yelled.
"Umm… no your not… those two are quite a bit stronger than you… And besides, I am supposed to follow the orders of Masano-sama, and if he's not around, I'm to follow the orders of Trunks-sama and Goten-sama," Keiko said.
"Really?! You have to do everything we say?!" Goten yelped excitedly.
"Yeah," she replied.
"Kakoi! Let me try! Go cook food!" Goten commanded.
"OK, but first, can I ask a question? Where is Masano-sama?" Keiko asked.
"Trunks kil…" Goten began, but Trunks quickly covered his mouth.
"H-he's on vacation!" Trunks cut in.
"Oh… ok then," she said, then left the room to go cook some food for Goten.
Once he was satisfied that Keiko was out of earshot, Trunks gave Goten a good whack on the head and yelled, "Bakayaro! What do think she would've done if she knew I killed Masano? Obviously, he programmed himself higher in the rank of importance than us! She would've gone berserk and might have attacked. Then, we'd have to kill her or be killed!"
"Alright, alright, I get the point. But this is cool! She has to do everything we say! Think of it, no more work, food whenever you want…" Goten said.
"We are not using her as a slave," Trunks stated flatly.
"I know, I know. We won't. We'll just tell her to do things we really don't want to do. Besides, I'm hungry, none of us can cook, and she probably has to eat, too," Goten justified.
About an hour later…
"Something smells good…" Goten said, peering around the doorframe into the kitchen.
"I didn't know what you guys wanted, so made just about everything!" Keiko said.
The kitchen table was covered with twelve different kinds of muffins, several pies, pastries, and just about every other kind of junk food you can think of. The four sat down to eat. Goten and Trunks pretty much grabbed all the food on the table and each hoarded whatever they could get.
"Hey! Don't I get any?!" Pan yelled, trying to steal a muffin from Goten, who threatened to stab her with his fork.
Keiko tapped Pan on the shoulder and led her over to a cabinet. She pulled out another tray of muffins and said, "I figured they'd do that, so I hid some. You can have these,"
"Arigato! Ha ha! See guys! I got my own now!" Pan said triumphantly, holding up the tray of blueberry muffins.
"Ah! Those are my favorite! No fair!" Trunks protested.
"Well, maybe if you weren't such a pig, you would've gotten some, too" Keiko said, rocking back in her chair.
"Same old Keiko…" Trunks muttered. "I thought you had to listen to us!"
"I do. But, I also have a mind of my own. Besides, that's Masano's rule and he's not here now. I'll follow the commands that I want to follow," she replied. "I have a question. What happened to me? The last thing I remember is hitting that truck. And now I wake up, and you guys look different, and the calendar says 793!" (Yes, this is the correct year for Trunks to be 27 years old. In case I forgot to mention, this takes place one year after GT.)
"Ummm… well… you…" Trunks began.
"You're not…" Goten started, but Trunks covered his mouth again.
"Baka! You're not going to tell her the truth! How would you feel if someone told you weren't who you thought you were and were really just an android copy of the real you?!" Trunks hissed in Goten's ear, quietly enough so that only Goten could hear.
"But isn't that lying?" Goten asked.
"Of course it is, but it's ok to lie sometimes," Trunks assured him, letting go of his mouth. "Um, Keiko, you've, uh, been in a coma for the last eleven years,"
"Oh… ON GOTEN'S BED?!" she yelped, horrified. "My god, what've you guys been doing to me all those years…"
"No! Of course not! The uhhh… hospital burned down, so we had to move you there," Trunks said quickly.
"Oh… ok…" She said, feeling less than satisfied with Trunks' explanation. 'I can tell he's not telling the whole story, but I won't push him to say anymore,' she thought.
The four chattered happily the rest of their meal. Pan really got into the conversation when they started talking about her, Goku, and Trunks' adventures in space. She especially liked telling about the time she forced Trunks to wear a dress. When they were almost finished, Trunks' cell phone rang.
"Moshi moshi. This is Trunks… A virus? Really?" he said, winking at the others who started cracking up. "Ok, I'll be there right away. Sayonara," He clicked off the cell phone and turned to the others. "Oh well, it seems my break is over, for now. I'll go clean up the virus and be back in a little while, ok? Ja ne!"
After Trunks left, Pan decided to go home, too. Goten was about to start ordering Keiko to do everything and anything, but at that moment, Chi Chi returned from the mall.
"Hi Goten," she chirped, pushing her way through the front door, lade down with several shopping bags. She turned to look at her son, and was about to say something when she spotted Keiko sitting beside Goten at the table, thumb wrestling with him, of all things.
"Hi Chi Chi," Keiko said with a smile.
"G-g-g-ghost!" Chi Chi cried, dropping her bags and springing out the door with a scream.
"WHERE?!" Keiko yelped, looking around frantically.
"Calm down… in the last eleven years mom has uhhh… started to see dead people!" Goten said quickly. "…Even when there aren't any around."
"Oh…" Keiko said, calming down slightly. "Can I have some other clothes? It's kind of weird walking around in a bathing suit and Trunks' jacket. Hey… why am I wearing these things anyway?"
"Oh umm… I dunno. You were wearing a bathing suit at the hospital when Trunks picked you up, and he put his jacket on you to take you here. I think I still have some of your old clothes in the attic somewhere. I'll see what I can find," Goten said, folding down the rickety attic stairs and climbing into the dusty room.
Goten picked his way amongst the boxes and things that should've been thrown away a long time ago. Keiko poked her head up through the attic's trapdoor and coughed.
"It's so dusty up here…" she coughed.
After a few minutes search, Goten found the trunk of Keiko's things that she'd left at Goten and Trunks' houses before she died. Goten and Trunks had packed her things away in a chest and stowed it in Goten's attic because they'd reminded the two best friends of Keiko and made them upset. Goten slid the chest over to the trapdoor, and Keiko dragged it down the temporary attic stairs.
Once she and Goten had put away the attic stairs, Keiko carried the chest into Goten's room and dug through it. She picked out a pair of jeans, a black tank top with a tiny red flower, and a pair of red flip-flops.
"Hope these still fit…" she muttered as she shut herself in the bathroom.
A few minutes later she emerged from the bathroom looking a bit annoyed. For a moment Goten was confused why, but quickly noticed that she was practically falling out of her tank top.
He stifled a nosebleed with his shirtsleeve and said, "Uhh… forget something?" with a note of perverted amusement in his voice.
"HENTAI!" Keiko cried, smacking Goten and running back into the bathroom. After a moment she muttered, "It's not my fault there's no bra in there…"
Goten searched the chest for a moment and found a jacket for Keiko to cover herself with, but Keiko refused to come out of the bathroom.
"Oh come on! I've seen you naked for crying out loud! Please come out, it's not like I'm going to do anything to you," he pleaded through the bathroom door.
"GOTEN!" she cried, remembering when he and Trunks had seen her naked. "I was drunk! And I'm not coming out!"
"But I need to pee!" Goten whimpered.
"Then go outside!" she replied.
Goten groaned in annoyance and headed outside. A moment later, Trunks landed beside him.
"Why are you relieving yourself in your mother's garden?" Trunks asked.
"'Cause Keiko's locked herself in the bathroom…" Goten replied.
"Oh no… what'd you do to her?"
"Nothing! She asked for some other clothes, so I went up into the attic to find some of her old stuff. She put it on, but she didn't have a bra so now she looks like a porn star, and she refuses to come out of the bathroom!"
Trunks sighed, "I'll solve this."
Looking like he had some sort of half-baked plan, Trunks walked into the house.
K**chan: Oooooh. Crappy cliffhanger. Will Keiko ever come out of the bathroom? Where has Chi Chi gone? And will this stupid fan fic author ever write anything serious? Anyway, I know, I know, it took me forever to finish this… Oh well. Chapter 3, asap. I'm writing two fan fics at once right now (the other being a Metropolis fic called Bleeding Pages) and the other one is also overdo for an update. Don't forget to review!