Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Dragon Balls

Rating: PG—nothing naughty, just a bit of cross-dressing and castration references…

Summary: THIS IS NOT A CROSSOVER. Sorry. Basically, the trio of space heroes better known as Goku, Pan, and Trunks pick up a strange girl who is, believe it or not, not based on the authoress in any way, shape or form. She overreacts to everything, is more of a hindrance than a help, is terrified of robots, DOESN'T FALL FOR ANYONE (and no one falls for her, so nyeah) and her name is the German word meaning "crap." Still think she's a Mary Sue?

Author's Note: Umm…not a whole lot to say…Dragon Ball is my latest obsession, so I had to write a fanfic…plus, I wanted to show how hard it was to both keep the characters in character and add a Mary Sue…I mean, the very nature of the characters rejects them! Everyone, and I mean everyone, looks stupid sometimes. Besides, they'd get suspicious of a random, perfect girl…

On the last episode of DragonBall GT...Goku, Trunks, and Pan had come so close to obtaining the four-star Dragon Ball, only to be thwarted at the last minute by a ragged band of space pirates. Seizing the Dragon Ball, the pirates flew off into space. Our trio of heroes, however, didn't give up on saving the planet that easily. They pursued the enemy ship to an unfamiliar planet, where they discovered a mysterious girl lying unconscious under a tree. Who is this sole resident of a seemingly uninhabited planet? Does she know something about the pirates, or even the Dragon Balls themselves? Find out on today's episode of DragonBall GT.

Interstellar Hitchhiker

Goku, Pan, and Trunks peered down at the girl.

"Do you think she's okay?" Goku asked. "She looks like she's been out for a while."

"I don't know," Trunks answered. "The only way we'll know is if she wakes up and tells us.

Pan frowned. "Gahh!" she shouted in frustration. "We don't have time to wait around for some girl we don't even know to wake up! We've got to find those pirates and that Dragon Ball! It's not like she's gonna die if we leave her alone for a while, right?

"I dunno, Pan," Goku said. "We don't know what else lives on this planet. We can't just leave her here."

"That's right," Trunks agreed. Ever logical, he added, "Besides, she may know something about those dirty pirates who stole our Dragon Ball."

Pan sat down on a rock, impatiently kicking the dirt. "Oh, fine," she pouted. "Is there anything we can do to help her wake up more quickly?"

Almost as if on cue, the girl stirred. However, she only rolled over in her sleep. Furthermore, she began to snore. Loudly.

"Well, I think it's safe to say she's not injured!" Trunks shouted over the cacophony.

"I don't think I can take much more of this!" Goku complained.

"Owww…" Pan moaned. Then, she was struck by an idea. She put her plan into action immediately.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Trunks protested as Pan forcibly removed the bandana around his neck.

"Stopping this awful racket!" Pan answered, stepping determinedly off into the woods. She stopped, and listened for water. Following the sound of the first stream she heard, she dipped the scarf in, and walked back to her friends and the originator of the obnoxious noise. Pan then wrung out the bandana…directly over the girl's face.

It had an immediate effect. "AAAGHYOU'LLPAYFORTHATYOUDEVILSIDON'TCAREIFYOU'REUSHITA'SFAVORITEGRANDKIDS,I'LLGETMYREVENGEANDYOU'LLBESORRYYOUAWFULLITTLERUNTS!" the girl screamed, causing a few birdlike creatures to fall out of the nearby trees. She looked around quickly, turning from right, to left, to behind her, to above her, seeing no one. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," she said in a singsong voice.

Once the din was over and the echoes had died away, the heads of Goku, Pan, and Trunks poked up from behind a rock.

"Wow, you've got lungs like a bellows," Goku joked, smiling at her. "Hey!" he protested.

The girl had lunged at Goku, grabbing him by his collar and screaming, "GOTCHA!" Goku blinked as she shook him back and forth. "Aha! Finally, I have you at my mercy, Shiba! Now, how shall I exact my revenge?" She stroked her chin with her free hand. "Boil you, maybe? Or perhaps I should hang you by that tail of yours and—wait, tail!" She rotated Goku, and peered at the prehensile appendage. "Uh…"

Pan leapt forward. "Put my grandpa down, now!" she shouted, pulling Goku by the back of his shirt, trying to yank him away from the girl.

The girl let go in shock. "Grandpa!" she exclaimed, falling backwards onto her rump. "You're her grandpa? You better not be pulling my leg, monkey-boy."

" 'Monkey-boy'! " Pan fumed. "That's my grandpa you're talking about! I'm surprised he's not kicking your butt right now!"

"…you are?" Goku blinked.

"Tell me who you are first!" the stranger demanded.

Trunks spoke. "We're voyagers from Earth," he explained. ("Never heard of it…"the stranger mused.) "We're searching for the Black Star Dragon Balls. They were scattered across the galaxy, and we need to find them."

"Dragon Balls?" Mist's eyes went wide. "The poor dragon!"

"No, no, no, not like that!" Trunks said, sweatdropping embarrassedly. "They're little orange spheres, with little stars on the inside. Unfortunately, the first one we came across was snatched up by a gang of pirates."

"Pirates? You mean Ushita's crew?" the girl asked.

"Well, do they go around in a black ship with a skull and crossbones painted on?" Goku asked.

Pan sighed and hit him on the head. "All pirates go around in black ships with skulls and crossbones on them!" she hissed.

"This ship was pretty worn," Trunks elaborated. "It looked rather beat up—there were makeshift repairs all over it. Sound familiar?"

The girl nodded. "Yup. That's Ushita's ship, all right."

"Do you know where they are?" Trunks inquired.

The girl was suddenly defensive. "Why do you care?" she demanded. "How do I know you're not really bounty hunters out to kill us all?"

"Oh, please! Do I look like a bounty hunter?" Pan demanded angrily. She grabbed Goku by the scruff of the neck. "Does HE look like a bounty hunter to you?"

The girl was still defensive. "Looks aren't everything!" She pointed at Goku. "For all I know, you could be a super-powerful warrior who's only temporarily taken the form of a little kid to get my guard down!"

"Jeez, you're paranoid," Goku laughed.

"Wait a sec…how'd you know about Goku?" Trunks asked suspiciously.

"…you mean the super-powerful warrior thing? I was joking!" the girl insisted. Before the trio could comment further, a ship with a skull and crossbones that must have been about half a mile away blasted off. The girl exploded.

"WHAAAAT! YOU MAROONED ME!" she shouted at the retreating ship. "NO WAY! USHITA, YOU…I'LL GET YOU! SOONER OR LATER I'LL GET YOU!" She paused, panting for breath. She looked around. "Hey!" she called after the retreating forms of Trunks, Pan, and Goku. "Where're you going?"

"To get our Dragon Ball back!" Goku called.

"Then wait for me!" the girl yelled, running after them. She ran after them, following them to a spaceship with the words "Capsule Corp" on the side. They ran inside, sat down in three chairs, and strapped themselves in.

"Hey!" Pan shouted over the rumble of the starting engine. "What're you doing here?"

"Helping you help me get revenge!" the girl answered, panting. "If I can get that Dragon Ball thingy from right under Ushita's nose, she'll be furious! It's the perfect way to get back at them for abandoning me! Besides, it'll go a lot more smoothly for you if I'm here to help!" She then collapsed, obviously not used to running and shouting in succession.

The ship blasted off, vibrating with energy.

"So…uh…where do I sit?"

"Just grab hold of something solid, and don't let go!" Trunks shouted as he maneuvered the controls, trying to ignore the exclamations of pain from behind him.

Said exclamations were due to the fact that the girl hadn't grabbed something solid in time. Because of this, she was thrown backwards as the ship accelerated. "Ow! Ow! Owowow!"

"Quiet down!" Trunks was trying to concentrate. Finally, the ship stabilized. The girl was curled up, nursing her new bruises, muttering to herself.

"Hey!" Goku called over the back of his seat. "You okay?"

The girl raised her head. "I'll live," she groaned, "I think…"

"Well, once you've sufficiently recovered, come up here and tell us what you can about those pirates," Trunks instructed. "We don't have time to lose."

Wincing, the girl got to her feet and walked up to the front, leaning over Goku's seat. "They're just a bunch of space pirates," the girl informed them. "I don't know an awful lot, 'cause they only picked me up a couple weeks ago, but I'll tell you what I know. It's pretty much a huge family—Ushita's the captain and matriarch; whatever she says goes. Her sons do the heavy work, their wives cook, clean, and do laundry; and their kids perpetually harass me. I don't know how they amused themselves before I showed up. Anyways, a week or so ago I…got kinda mad at the two of them for throwing my underwear out the airlock and something happened-don't ask me what, I don't know-but when I came to, they were lying beaten to a bloody pulp on the floor, and my hands had said blood on them. Look, I swear I don't know what happened," she said at Trunks, Pan and Goku's horrified looks, "I wouldn't lie about something like this. I don't remember a thing. After that, Ushita threatened to maroon me on the next planet we stopped at if I didn't shape up. I thought she was kidding, but…yeah…here I am."

"Tell us your life story later," Pan said impatiently. "Give us some useful information, like why they're after the Dragon Ball."

"I'm getting to that," the girl said, frowning at Pan. "They were on the giant planet because they heard a rumor that the gold and jewels on that planet were super-sized as well, and Ushita's too greedy to pass up a chance like that. Then, they saw all the effort you three were putting into getting the Dragon Ball, so they figured it must be really valuable. Naturally, they stole it."

"What weapons do they have?" Trunks asked.

"Just your basic laser guns and shields," the girl answered.

Trunks sighed. "Oh, well. We can't beat them in a firefight, so we'll have to wait until they touch down on a planet." He looked at the fourth passenger. "You have any idea where they're going?"

The girl thought. "I think they said something about stopping on planet Yoshiro to refuel…"

"Then that's our next stop." Trunks hit a few buttons, and then relaxed. He turned around. "So, who are you, anyway?"

The girl shrugged. "My name's Mist."

"Missed? Missed what?" Goku asked.

"MIST! M-I-S-T!" Mist insisted. "Like fog, only different!"

"Oh. Okay. Gotcha," Goku laughed. "I still think it's an odd name."

"You're one to talk, Goku," Mist said, sticking her tongue out.

"I happen to like my name!" Goku protested.

"Look, do you want me to finish my story or not?" Mist asked impatiently.

"Sorry," Goku apologized. "Please continue."

Mist coughed. "Ahem. Anyway, I've been hitchhiking my way around this galaxy for quite some time now, but I'm never with one ship for more than a few weeks. For some reason, no one wants me to stay on their ship for very long."

"Why?" Trunks asked.

Mist shrugged. "I don't really know. I think it might have something to do with the fact that there are some times, especially when I'm mad or scared, when I lose my memory. I don't remember what happened, but someone's almost always seriously injured. I don't understand it at all…but the reason I started wandering in the first place is because my parents left all of a sudden. That was the first time I had lost my memory, and they just ran away, terrified. They didn't say why. Everyone in the town kept looking at me like I was some sort of freak. I eventually got fed up with living alone, so I left to try and find them." She shrugged again. "I've given up by now."

There was a thoughtful silence. Pan looked at Mist and wondered what her own life would be like if her parents just up and left. Trunks also looked at Mist. She was certainly an odd individual. She wasn't physically attractive to him at all—short, rather skinny, no figure whatsoever, awkward facial features that included eyes a rather boring grey-blue and so large and clueless-looking it was almost unnatural, clashing clothes that consisted of faded blue pants outgrown long ago that clashed horribly with her red-orange shirt, yellow-green scarf around her waist, and purple bandana she used like a headband, with wisps of brown, slightly grungy hair poking out on top and the sides, badly framing her face. If anything, she reminded him of a rabbit. He had no idea if she had any brains under that clueless expression, but she was a companion, if only a temporary one, and no matter what she looked like or her history was, she knew about the pirates who stole the Dragon Ball, and that information was very valuable. Besides, they couldn't just throw her off the ship. Goku wasn't thinking about much except how long it would be until his next meal. However, there was a nagging question in his subconscious: what if this girl was more than just a ditzy, hitchhiking teenager? What if she was dangerous? What actually happens when she loses her memory? Why is everyone always injured afterwards? However, when he was hungry, Goku was never good at listening to his subconscious.

"So," Mist broke the silence, "I've told you about me, now it's only fair that you do the same."

"Right!" Pan grinned. "I'm Pan, this is my friend Trunks and my grandpa, Goku. We're traveling the galaxy, collecting all seven Black Star Dragon Balls."

"Why?"

"'Cause, if we don't, our home planet, Earth, will be destroyed!"

Mist sat back, thinking. "So, how many do you have so far?"

Trunks, Pan, and Goku looked at each other and sweatdropped. "…none…" Goku conceded.

"None?" Mist's eyes widened comically. "How long do you have to gather them?"

"…less than a year now…"

"Whaaaat!" Mist exclaimed, anime falling.

"Well, we only started a week ago!" Pan said defensively. "Cut us some slack!"

"Still, you'd better hurry up! Where are they, anyway?"

"Randomly scattered," Trunks sighed. "We have a device for finding them, though…"

"Speaking of which, where is he?" Pan demanded. "GIRU!" she screamed. "Get your lazy metal butt over here!"

The door to another section of the spaceship opened, and through it floated a small, spherical robot. "Giru?" it asked in puzzlement. "Stranger!" It flew over, hovering in front of Mist's face.

Mist squeaked. "Yeek! All right, all right, I give! Now call off your robot!"

Giru backed away. "Giru?"

Mist twitched. "I hate robots," she shuddered. "They're just so scary…"

"It's okay, Giru won't eat you unless you're made of metal," Trunks assured her.

"Yeah!" Pan winked. "He's harmless. Useless, but harmless nonetheless."

"Giru!" Giru sounded hurt. "Giru not bad! Giru friendly!"

Mist still kept her distance. "If you say so…"

"Giru, show her the Dragon Radar," Pan commanded.

"Giru," Giru replied, turning around.

Mist reluctantly took a look. She blinked. "It just looks like a flashing dot to me," Mist commented. Trunks, Pan, and Goku slammed into the floor in an anime fall. "It's blinking at me!"

Trunks climbed back up into his seat. "That flashing dot is the Dragon Ball. Giru, how long will it take us to get to planet Yoshiro?"

"Two days of travel at our present velocity," Giru answered.

Mist looked around. "Well, as long as I'm here, where will I sleep?"

Pan grabbed her hand. "Come on, I'll help you find a place."

Goku, Trunks, and Pan have picked up another passenger. Is this clueless girl as harmless as she looks, or does she harbor a secret? Stay tuned for scenes from the next GT.

On the next episode of DragonBall GT...Goku, Pan, Trunks, and their new comrade Mist catch up with the pirates who stole the four-star Dragon Ball. Is Mist ready to betray the pirates who took her in? Afterwards, Mist meets some old "friends" from her last visit. Can Goku, Pan, and Trunks find her in time? And what is her secret, after all? Will the quest for the Dragon Balls end before even one is found? Find out on the next GT.

end of episode

Well? Is it worth typing up the two more chapters I have so far? Or should I just keep it to myself, and write it just for fun?

Some info:

Mist isn't based on me at all. Period. End of story. She's her own character, not based on anyone. Sure, on occasion she does something that I myself do, but she also does things that my sister does, and she's got a few scenes where she reminds me of my mother. She also sometimes does things I'd never do in a million years. She's not me; she's Mist.

She won't be falling for Trunks. That's one of the most clichéd fanfic plots on Besides, I don't think she's his type…and she won't be falling for anyone else as I've planned it…unless someone suggests something really excellent…but this isn't a romance, it's a story about a schizophrenic, lonely girl finding real friends and a purpose in life.

Basically, her purpose is to provide some slightly sarcastic comic relief, and to help the heroes out as much as she can. After the next episode, the plot will be back on track, and Mist's time to shine will be over…at least, until they meet-ack, I'm giving too much away, aren't I? Oh, well. Anyway, let me know if this is any good…