Darrk Past

Chapter 4

The next morning Katrina got woken up at seven a.m. by a very enthusiastic Trunks.

"Wake up lazy bones," he said as he roused her.

"Go away," she mumbled, and wrapped the covers more tightly around herself.

"Oh no you don't," Trunks said as he pulled the covers, and therefore Katrina off the bed and onto the floor.

"Hey-ouch! That hurt," she exclaimed as she landed with a thud.

"Awake yet?"

"Yes," came the flat reply.

"Then go take a shower and get dressed, it's time for your first flying lesson!"

The next two weeks consisted of waking up at seven each morning to start training, and coming in at nine at night. Trunks not only taught her how to fly, but was also putting in sparring technique and showing her how to concentrate her ki into a single spot to form a small blast during their training sessions. It was hard work, but Katrina didn't mind it so much when Trunks was the one teaching her. Those first two weeks kept Katrina's mind off anything but training and Trunks. She wasn't the best at sparring, nor was she anywhere near the strength that the others possessed.

All the same, she was getting stronger little by little every day. By her third week of training, Katrina could fly without any problems whatsoever. Her speed and strength had doubled, as had the soreness in her muscles when she woke up each morning. The day before the results came out from the decoding machine; Katrina woke up and found that she couldn't move.

"Shhhiit..." she hissed as she finally managed to get up, and felt pain cutting into each of her muscles like fire. Once seven thirty came around, Trunks came in to see what was taking so long; she was fifteen minutes late. He walked in her room and found Katrina on the floor in pain.

"Kat, what's wrong," he said. Kat was a nickname he had started to use for her during their training sessions.

"My...m-muscles won't...let me m-move," she managed to say as she slowly got up. Trunks quickly went to her and helped her over to the bed.

"Maybe you should take a day off from training," he suggested.

"No, I can get through it, I'm fine," Katrina argued. She got up and something in her knee clicked, she shouted in pain and sat back down.

"Kat look at you! You're hurting too badly for me to let you train. I'll just give you today off and tomorrow we'll start up again. You're body's not used to all the exercise you're getting. It's trying to tell you to take it easy."

"I will not be weak! My body is just giving me a hard time. All I need is a hot shower, that should help."

"You're acting like my father Kat, don't be so stubborn."

"I am not being stubborn. I'll meet you out in the usual spot in twenty minutes. If you're not there, I'll go into the gravity room and train with the androids instead."

Trunks sighed as he watched Katrina get up and (wincing with each step) make her way to the bathroom to take a shower.' She's just as bad as my father,' he thought as he made his way to their little spot outside. Still, he wanted her to train with him and not the androids. They were ruthless, and she could get seriously injured if she worked out with them in her condition.

"Katrina..." he said softly to himself.

"Aww man have you got it bad..." a familiar voice teased. Trunks looked up to see that Goten was standing in front of him. He aslo realized that he had, at some point, walked outside.He looked a lot better than he did when he and Katrina had last visited him. Goten stood with an amused look on his face.

"What have I got," Trunks asked.

"You got it bad for Katrina don't you?"

"What? No I don't! I j-just..." Trunks stammered.

"I-I-I," Goten said mockingly, "Yeah whatever Trunks, you're drooling over her admit it! I may have been sick, but I wasn't delusional, I saw the way you looked at her when you came to visit me."

"I don't know what you're talking about I..."

"But you know what? I think she like you too."

"I- what? Really, you think so?"

"MmmmHmmm."

"Hmmmmm..." Trunks thought about this for a few seconds. Maybe Goten was right, after all he was better at these things.

"Well...so what if I do," Trunks said looking up at Goten.

"Well, maybe I could help you out. You know, give a clueless friend some advice. Find out if she like you (which I'm sure she does). Put in a good word. You know, the usual."

"Fine, but when will you-"

"Just leave it to the master," Goten said reassuringly.

"Oh hey Goten, glad to see you're feeling better," Katrina said as she came up from behind the two boys.

" Speak of the devil..." Trunks hit Goten as he walked over to her.

"So are you ready?"

"Yup. Let's start!"
"Okay, we'll begin with some light sparring."

Trunks and Katrina both got into stances and waited for the other to make the first move. Trunks started off and threw a punch at Katrina who dodged it and retaliated with a kick. Trunks blocked it and knocked Katrina on the ground. He was about to strike her when she rolled out of the way and jumped back up. She ran at him and went for his chest but he caught her fist.

"You're slow today," he said and started to squeeze. Katrina's face twisted in pain as his grip became harder and harder. She finally kicked him in the stomach and he let go.

"Now let's turn it up a notch. Use energy blasts now, try and knock me down." Katrina concentrated and shot one at Trunks, aiming for his chest. Her aim was a little off, and it hit him in the stomach. He recoiled, but not much as he prepared his own blast and fired it at Katrina, who moved out of the way a little too late. It ended up hitting the back of her hand. Katrina then went running at Trunks and fired a blast at short range. Trunks lost his balance and Katrina took the opportunity to tackle him down. Her plan worked, and the two went flying and hit the ground with a thud. Goten went over to where they had landed.

"Hey you beat him," he exclaimed as he helped Katrina to her feet,

"You okay?"

"Yeah, Trunks broke my fall," she said as she helped Trunks up.

"Nice job, but you were still slow today. I suppose that you wouldn't be if you had listened to someone..."

"Oh come off it Trunks," Katrina said as she hit him and left a bloody handprint on his shirt, "Oh man, I'm sorry your shirt-"

"Never mind the shirt, look at you hand."

"Wow," Goten commented as he looked at her, "That's a whole mess of blood. Maybe we should take you inside and clean you up before you continue training." Katrina looked as if she was wearing a crimson glove.

"Perhaps," she said as they led her inside.

Once they cleaned her up, they put some hydrogen peroxide on the wound to clean it out. They topped it off with wrapping a bandage around her hand, and then they got back to training. Katrina had a good time training with Goten and Trunks. She didn't feel like the third wheel with them anymore. They trained hard, but still goofed off once in a while. It was getting near dark and the trio had started up with sparring again. Katrina was hurting pretty bad, but tried not to show it as Goten came at her with a barrage of kicks. The boys didn't go all out with Katrina because they knew she had just started out. She did a back flip to get away from him and landed wrong on her leg. She doubled over in pain as her body fell limp and she landed hard on the ground. Trunks and Goten came over to her and tried to figure out was wrong.

"I think you tore a muscle," Trunks said after a brief examination.

"I'd say he's right," Goten agreed.

"I'd hate to say I told you so but..." Trunks trailed off.

"Ughh... okay so maybe I should have stayed off it, but there's nothing I can do about it now is there," Katrina said as she sat there on the ground. She tried to get up, but her leg gave out again and she fell to the ground.

"Here..." Trunks said as he picked her up and carried her to the house. Goten just nodded and followed them inside.

"I knew it..."

They bandaged Katrina up again and set her down on the couch. Katrina started to take off the bandage on her wounded hand.

" What are you doing," Goten said as he looked over at her.

"Trying to see if it's any better." Katrina took off the bandage and saw some strange markings on it. She told Trunks to turn on the light so she could get a better look at it. The three stared at the strange writing.

"That gash in your hand cut it in half, but it looks like a tattoo of some kind. I didn't know you had one of those Katrina," Goten commented as he peered closer at...whatever it was.

"I don't." Katrina's mind sent the new information around to connect it with something, but she just drew a blank. It had to do with something important. She just knew it. But...oh if only she could remember! It reminded her of something she had seen before, some image in her memory, something that was right on the tip of her tongue, the edge of her mind. But for the life of her she couldn't remember what it was.

"It looks like a set of numbers," Trunks noted.

"22051-26," Katrina said coldly.
"What," Trunks said in disbelief, 22051 was the name of the project they had read about earlier, but that meant,

"I was right...but then that means...oh no...Kat..."

That means that what Katrina had been trying to deny so long to herself was true. She was an experiment. A test subject from a government funded project. From the moment she had had her third flashback, she had suspected, but decided she was overreacting. When she read the book it had all come together. But she was in denial about all of the evidence.

No, she couldn't be an experiment. The fact that Bulma had paid special attention to her recovery in the hospital when she wasn't a doctor. The fact that she took her into her own home. Maybe she thought she was too dangerous to live with a normal one. The monthly blood tests, must have been to make sure the experimentation wasn't going to make her go insane, like it did to numbers 10-14. They also must have taken her mother away and killed her so she didn't interfere with their work. That was the reason she had remembered being in a tank. That was why she was strapped down in the bed. They were injecting things into her, to try and make her the perfect soldier, a weapon they could use in a war. A type of puppet...

"Katrina! Katrina snap out of it," Trunks worried voice came into Katrina's mind and brought her back from her thoughts.

"What's going on," Goten questioned with a stern look on his face.

"Look, it's," Trunks began.

"Show him," Katrina demanded.

"Show him what?"

"The book we found." Trunks picked Katrina up and told Goten to follow him. They went down the science hall and into the lab where it all had started a couple weeks ago.

"Here, read this," Trunks said handing Goten the book,

"Then you'll understand." Trunks went over to Katrina and took her hand into his. "It's okay," he said. Katrina just looked at him sadly; they then watched Goten in silence as he read the report. When he was done he looked up at Katrina in astonishment.

"That means..."

"I'm an experiment," she finished for him.

"No, you can't be..."

"But it all makes sense. The reason Trunks' mom took an interest in my recovery, the reason she took all those blood samples and analyzed them every month. You guys, she knew and wanted to make sure I didn't malfunction or something. The flashbacks, that damned book...it all fits together!"

"But what do we do now," Goten said quietly.

"We wait and see what the decoder says tomorrow," Trunks said angrily.