Heh. Yeah, the fanfiction stat thing messed up the number of words in my fic. So I'm reposting chapters 1-12. I might revamp some of the scenes I didn't quite like. Feel free to read and review! I thrive on the reviews. Oh, yes.

In fact, yes. I am going through and editing the entire thing. Might as well.

Chapter 1

She stood on a dank, dark platform, utterly alone and yet quietly confident. Black night enveloped her body, so thick it was almost tangible, choking her ever so slowly with its silence and its vile indifference. A thin layer of sweat and grime coated her prominent brow and clumps of stringy, greasy black hair stuck to her cheeks, unheeded for the moment. Her pale forehead was drawn down heavily in an outward façade of intense concentration, masking the inner turmoil that flowed through her stomach like a raging tornado. All around her lay carnage of a battle that was fought in the name of a war begun long ago, fought long after complete victory had been achieved. She scoffed at their perseverance, that stubborn streak that stupid men hold after their world has been racked and torn. She would never be able to understand their motives for running boldly and insanely to their death. Then again, they had nothing behind them to live for.

Her heavy burgundy cloak was draped about her square shoulders, attached at her lean neck with a tarnished brass circle. The cloak never moved. No trace of a wind blew through the surrounding blackness to encourage such a thing. Instead it simply hung, as dead as the majority of the poor idiots strewn just out of eyesight. The cheap mail it obscured was composed of small steel discs, which now bore not only ever-clinging rust but the red and sticky blood of the saps she had battled personally.

She had not bothered with leg armor this time, wearing tight brown slacks instead. Her body bore no scratch to prove she had even attempted to engage in battle. Her fighting skills were honed as sharp as the sword that hung loosely at her side (the only object about her person that even resembled fine equipment) and the silly males she had fought, although determined, had not been real soldiers. They had not even employed a plan of attack; they had simply swarmed en masse into her domain in anger and spite. They had not expected to win.

A twinge of guilt pervaded her senses, written off shortly afterwards with a snort. She pivoted on the heels of her black leather boots, now folded down to her ankles and resembling cuffed shoes. During battles, she always unfolded them completely, so that she could feel the rim of the soft material just beneath her knee. Absent of any sort of decoration, she wore them only because they allowed a freedom of movement that most other such boots entirely lacked.

Receding footfalls could be heard, echoing through the vast area, by those fallen men who had yet to breathe their last inevitable breath.

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Pan gasped loudly as she left the holodeck, clutching her chest and leaning heavily against an opposing wall. She stared at the door to the room she had just abandoned, a look of horror painted on her pale face. I…killed them. I killed those innocent men. But I feel so…satisfied. She swallowed. This program is dangerous. I must discontinue… she thought silently, her breath coming in rasping gasps. She knew she would be back, but she didn't have to like it.

&&&&&&&&&&&FLASHBACK-TYPE THING (don't you just love these?)&&&&&&&&&&&&

Pan had begun using the holodeck in order to increase her fighting prowess and learn to handle different weapons. They interested her. At first she had been drawn to the quarterstaff, a long, smooth wooden rod that was comfortably thick and left her opponents with cracked bones and heavy concussions. After intense training under a programmed hologram she now referred to as "Kugo," she had sufficient knowledge of the weapon to land a few hits on her teacher while they sparred. Kugo was an abnormally amazing fighter, and the few strikes that struck (heehee) confirmed to him that Pan had mastered the staff.

Pan thought often that it was a VERY good thing that Kugo was a hologram, and a friendly one at that. He could have killed her in an instant had he wanted to, and had the computer's safety constraints allowed it. As it was, after every lesson Pan departed the holodeck with battle scars galore and caused a sickbay nurse to become very angry.

Later on, in much the same body-breaking and nurse-patience-provoking way, Pan learned to use the broadsword (a personal favorite and the only weapon she truly perfected), the longbow(LOTS of upper body strength needed there, folks), and the Kas'Gharmel, a set of three silver razor-sharp discs that, in the event of the thrower missing the target, returned, much like a boomerang. They had scared her half to death the first time she used them; whenever they returned, they came too fast, and she always thought they would cut her catching hand in half. She finally suppressed this phobia when Kugo gave her a black glove for her right hand which had a strip of indestructible metal that conformed to her thumb and first finger. Kugo never let her forget her fright, though.

Soon Kugo realized that Pan was a force to be reckoned with when, in a sparring match, Pan using the quarterstaff and Kugo using a curved sword, she whipped his holographic butt. He tried to lessen the pride Pan was feeling by stating that 'anyone with a quarterstaff can beat a swordsman, even if he's an expert.' Nevertheless, she enjoyed holding her victory over his head.

With this realization came the inevitable. Kugo decided he had taught Pan all he could, professing that even though he was wise and a superb fighter, his program was limited. He also knew that Pan had been spending large amounts of time with him, ignoring the outside world. He found that he didn't know anything at all about her life outside her fighting. "Pan," he said at what was to be their last meeting together, "This is our last meeting together." (I know! I'm sorry, I had to. Association to Stamp Out Redundancy Association, right?)

Pan was gently bid farewell by the hologram, and the program shut down, leaving her standing in the middle of a bright room, the hum and whirr of technology invading her ears. She stamped her foot angrily. "Why must it end now?" she shouted to the glaring walls. "I have so much to learn! I can't fight! He doesn't realize that! I'm hopeless without him here to guide me!"

&&&&&&&&END OF FLASHBACK-TYPE THING (sobs from the readers-I know, I know…)&&&&&&&&

Pan slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting, one leg drawn against her chest by her shaking limbs and the other sprawling across the carpeted floor. She was haunted by the need to learn more and more, to become stronger than the weakling she thought she was, and she hated it. It pushed her to return daily to the holodeck, despite the absence of Kugo, and it had pushed her to open the terrible program she had just experienced.

Her mother had always warned her off from using it; it was, she said, a perfect facsimile of the Janaga Wars that had torn the country of Rafan apart many years ago. Out in the corridor, Pan's dark, glossy hair no longer resembled the stringy mass she had borne while running the Janaga program. Her clothes looked nothing like the stagnant uniform the computer had synthesized. She had been changed physically in the program to resemble Katharos, the tyrant who had instigated and heartlessly finished the Janaga Wars with the destruction of millions of lives. Katharos had been relentless and evil, and the computer had filled Pan's mind with all the thoughts and mindsets Katharos was known to have harbored in her dark mind. Essentially, Pan had become Katharos. She reviled the feeling.

She would never betray her mother's good advice again. She would stick to nice programs, happy programs, programs that involved pink elephants and smiling teddy bears and…No. She wouldn't. She'd use the harsh, war-based programs, she knew it. She had to become more powerful!

Could she ever escape the prison she had built around herself?

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What an ending line. Anyway, on to the next chapter for the editing. Hehe. Review!