Dragon Ball Z kinda sorta meets Thumbelina... yeah, weird combo, but I couldn't get it out of my head. Without further ado... The drabble!
Pan-17
Bra-18
Trunks-31
Goten-30
"What are you mixing up now?" Pan drawled, placing her glass of soda on the lab table. Bra scoffed at her brunette friend, keeping her attention trained solely on the beaker filled with a clear, bubbling liquid.
"It's a special solution that will allow women who think they're too tall to shave inches off of their height in seconds," the bluenette responded, lifting a test tube filled more clear liquid and pouring it into the main beaker, "I've been trying to perfect this for a few weeks now."
"Really?" The daughter of Gohan leaned forward a bit to take a closer look at the mixture, unknowingly pushing her glass closer to the base of the stand that held the beaker filled with solution, "so a few drops of this and..."
"Inches will come off like magic," Bra murmured, smiling, "it took a while to make the loss of height completely proportional, because it'd be weird to lose height and still have arms that are meant for a taller body. You have to be careful how many drops you add to your water, otherwise... well, lets not talk about otherwise."
The daughter of Bulma used a thin glass rod to stir the solution and bumped against the table as she leaned over her experiment to grab another test tube of clear fluid, "this is going to be a blessing for the women out there who have to suffer fashion-wise because their bodies are too tall to rock certain clothing items." She bumped the table again, and Pan's cup of juice was nearly flush against the base of the beaker stand.
"Oh, cool... I guess." Pan shrugged and leaned back on her stool, watching as her friend leaned away from the bubbling beaker and removed her goggles and gloves. She grabbed her cup and absently took a sip, placing it back on the table afterwards, a little bit further away from the stand than it was before.
Bra shrugged out of her lab coat, "now, we let it sit for about a half-hour on low heat." Her hand bumped the knob that controlled the heat of the flame under the beaker, causing it to rise.
"Come on," the bluenette gestured towards the stairs, "lets go see what Trunks and Goten are up to, and then we can come back and check out the mixture."
"Uh... sure..." Pan shrugged indifferently, and the two young women scurried off up the stairs, leaving the slowly cooking solution on the high heat of the flame.
Not even five minutes after they'd left, the liquid within the beaker began to rise up the narrow neck and bubble over. The continual supply of heat only made things worse, and a spurt of clear fluid flew out of the beaker and splashed into Pan's half-empty glass of clear soda. The bubbling fluid hardly looked any different from the clear, bubbly soft drink, and the only thing to mark its presence was the rise of temperature of the soda. A few more spurts of liquid managed to land in Pan's cup before another presence entered the lab.
"What on Earth is that smell- Oh, Bra!" Bulma rushed over to the bubbling solution and turned the heat down, grumbling under her breath at the mess on the counter. She moved the glass of contaminated soda to the side and put on gloves and a lab coat before cleaning up the spill.
"I told her about leaving the heat on when she's down here experimenting," the blue haired woman grumbled, "she could've blown the whole place up." Once the spill was cleaned up, and the cleaning supplies properly disposed of, Bulma poured what was left of the solution into a heat-proof container and marked it before storing it in a refrigerating unit.
"She knows she not supposed to have drinks down here... I could've sworn I told her that." Bulma grabbed Pan's glass and headed upstairs to put the warm 'soda' in the fridge upstairs. Not even a second after the older bluenette entered the kitchen, Pan returned, searching for her soda.
"Pan, could you tell Bra that she's not allowed to have her drinks in the lab while she's experimenting, please?" Bulma asked curtly, "Kami knows we don't need another 'Trunks' episode."
Pan, blushing furiously, didn't bother to tell her god-aunt that the cup was hers, and waited until the woman left to make sure she'd cleaned up all of the mess in the lab before going into the fridge and getting her glass. Frowning at the heat, she recalled that the soda had been rather close to the heating unit, and attributed the extra volume to the melting of the ice cubes. The daughter of Gohan dropped a few more cubes into the soda and took a deep swig.
The liquid was a lot more bubbly than she remembered, and tasted less like lemon-lime and more like... strawberries. Definitely a strawberry-like flavor. The young girl shrugged and killed the rest of the glass, dropping it in the sink before heading on her way. Before she made it across the property to CC, where Trunks, Bra, and Goten were, Pan was struck by a sudden wave of queasiness in her gut.
Dende... what'd I eat? Groaning quietly, the daughter of Gohan decided against returning to Trunks's office, and sent her blue haired friend a text saying so before taking to the air and heading back to Mount Paozu.
*meanwhile*
"Pan says she doesn't feel so great and she's going back home." Bra reported, glancing at her phone. Trunks pouted, and Goten chortled, slugging his friend in the arm, "you're so whipped." The young bluenette rolled her eyes as her brother returned the sentiment, triggering a wrestling match in the middle of Trunks's posh office.
I'm surrounded by idiots...
*with Pan*
Why do I feel so sleepy all of a sudden? Pan mused as she shrugged to keep her eyes open. She was about halfway to Mount Paozu, and her body had gone from queasy to uncomfortably tingly. Her skin felt as if billions upon billions of tiny bugs were marching under her skin, and it was all she could do to not stop flying and scratch it all off. Add in the sudden drowsiness, and the Son was not in a good place at the moment.
"Dende," the girl groaned, rubbing feverishly at her upper arms, "this is miserable..." She was so caught up in the numbing tingle that she almost missed the sensation of her shoes dropping off of her feet. Almost.
"Huh?" Pan looked down, frowning at the sight of her black converse tumbling into the trees below, "what the hell? Those were tie- Oh my Dende..." Her feet were rapidly shrinking in size and, judging by the state of her calf muscles, the rest of her would be sure to follow. She had to get home now, before it was too late. Oh, but she was getting so sleepy...
"Ahhhn..." Pan groaned, giving in to the drowsiness she felt. It was easier to simply fall asleep than it was to process the fact that her body was rapidly decreasing in size at the drop of a hat. The daughter of Gohan tumbled the short distance from the treetops to a small clearing below. If she hadn't been a quarter saiyan, she certainly would've broken something in the fall. Luckily, she was already flying so low due to her sudden bout of exhaustion, and didn't have too far to fall.
As her body hit the grass, the shrinkage spreading upwards from her feet sped up, and the quiet sounds of bones and internal organs shrinking and changing size added to the natural ambiance of raw nature. The young Son was lost from sight as she became too small to fit into her clothing, and soon, it was impossible to tell that she'd even been wearing the simple pair of jeans, plain orange t-shirt, and black converse. Barely as tall as her father's thumb, the tiny daughter of Gohan slept peacefully, hidden from sight in her over-sized clothes.
*that evening*
"Pan still hasn't come home?" Gohan questioned as he came home from work later that evening. His worried wife had called him that afternoon when their daughter failed to return from her trip to Capsule Corp to visit with Bra, and she was unable to sense her ki from that point afterwards. Even with his superior skill, the son of Goku couldn't find a single trace of his only child.
"No, she hasn't," Videl murmured, "I called Bulma to see if she was still there, but she told me that Bra said that she'd left to come back here at around one because she wasn't feeling well. She never made it back here."
"Maybe she found a meadow and fell asleep there," Gohan suggested, "you know how much she loves the outdoors." Videl looked perplexed, but nodded once nonetheless, "I'd still feel better if you went out and looked for her. The sun's going down and I don't want her out there after dark; I don't care how strong she is."
"Let me put on something more outdoorsy, and then I'll go look for her," the eldest son of Goku brushed his lips against his wife's forehead and headed upstairs to change clothes. Something in his gut told him that his daughter was fine, but he knew his wife wouldn't relax fully unless Pan was physically in front of her. Videl was protective and worrisome that way.
Changing swiftly into an old gi, the scholar left through his bedroom window and flew low over the treetops, keeping an eye out for any and all clearings he came across under the light of the setting sun.
*meanwhile*
A small shape began to stir beneath the bright orange fabric of Pan's t-shirt, and a small voice yawned as the owner came to after a long, refreshing nap. The Son sat up, gazing at her dimly lit orange tent in surprise, and then blushed furiously when she realized that she was completely naked. Furrowing her brow, Pan crawled carefully towards a slightly brighter source light, the neck of her over sized shirt, and poked her head out into the open air.
"What on Earth..." Pan felt as though she'd traveled back in time to when she was hunting for the Dark Star Dragonballs with her grandfather and Trunks, particularly the planet Monmaasu. Everything was so much bigger than her, the grass, the trees, the wildflowers... What had happened? Why was she back on Monmaasu?
Conscious of her nakedness, the Son noticed her bandanna lying a little ways away from her and grabbed the old piece of fabric and pulled it closer to herself so she could wrap herself in it. Once she was sufficiently covered, Pan used her ki to hover over the grass, and gasped at the sight of the pile of her clothing... Everything came back to her in that instant, and she groaned, looking down at her tiny body. What was she, five and a half inches tall?
Before Pan could ponder this further, she heard the tell-tale screech of a bird of prey and ducked with a scream as a small falcon or hawk flew over her head, obviously aiming to have her for dinner. Wrapped in the bright orange fabric of her bandanna, the daughter of Gohan was a beacon for birds hunting in the fading sunlight. Aiming to escape before the bird could recover, the Son flew off in a random direction, mumbling curses as the sound of a rustle of wings reached her ears.
"I just want to go home so I can figure this out... I don't want to be your dinner!" Pan cried, glancing over her shoulder at the bird. Despite her decrease in size, the girl was still a rather fast flyer, but, unfortunately, not fast enough to escape the falcon's sharp sight. Searching for a familiar ki to orient herself, the Son found her mother's ki, it stood out with her anxiety and worry, and gunned it in that direction, with the bird of prey hot on her trail.
*at the Satan/Son home*
While Gohan was out searching for Pan, Videl busied herself at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes from lunch and preparation for the dinner that was now cold. Her periwinkle eyes remained focused on the task at hand, but her mind was miles away, wondering where her daughter was. She was so deeply into this stupor, that the sound of a tiny object hitting the window over the kitchen sink made her jump a mile in the air and drop the plate she was washing on the floor.
"Oh kami," Videl whispered, wiping her brow, "what on..." The mother of one trailed off, unable to speak through the shock of seeing what the object that had scared her was. Pan, an extremely tiny Pan, was standing on the window sill, waving frantically at her mother, wrapped haphazardly in what appeared to be her favorite orange bandanna. Before the woman could react, a ball of tawny feathers and sharp talons collided with the window, scrabbling for Pan, who screamed and cowered into the corner of the window and the sill.
"Oh Dende," the wife of Gohan got her wits about her and hurried out of the backdoor, "stupid bird! Get away from my daughter!" A ball of yellow ki formed in her hand as she made her way over to the hungry bird that was trying to devour her Pan-chan. The falcon, sensing the volatile woman's presence, flapped away with an angry screech, having lost out on his prize. Once the bird was gone, Videl dissolved the ki blast and hurried over to the sill, eyeing the bundle of orange fabric tucked into the corner.
A tiny head of black hair peered fearfully out of the bundle, and Videl gasped, holding out her hands, "Panny...? Pan-chan, what happened to you?" Pan carefully stepped onto her mother's hand, tucking her bandanna around herself, and looked into her mother's eyes, trying to calm her racing heart. Her entire body was shaking, and her mother carried her into the house at once, trying to soothe her panic.
Once they were safely in the house, Videl went into the living room and sat on the couch, holding her tiny daughter cupped in the palm of her hands. Pan, who had mostly stopped shaking, pressed a hand to her face and wiped away a few tears shed from her relief from escaping the hungry falcon. Her mother stroked the top of her head with the tip of her finger, and the last of the tension drained from her tiny body. The two women sat in calm silence... at least until a worried Gohan burst in through the backdoor, trailed by Goten and Trunks, clutching a bundle of his daughter's discarded clothing.
"Videl?" The eldest son of Goku entered the living room in a tizzy, "Videl, I found Pan's clothes..." the end of his statement was lost as he absorbed the fact that his wife was cupping their daughter in her hands, and the two of them were staring at each other silently... and Pan was roughly five inches tall.
"P-Panny?"
Pan glanced over at her father and realized that now would be a good time to explain her situation... only thing was that she didn't know how to explain it. One second, she was feeling tingly, queasy, and sleepy, and the next she was five inches tall and flying as fast as her tiny body could go to keep from being a falcon's dinner. It was all too much for her to take in one day and, with a weird laugh, the tiny girl fainted dead away, much to the worry of her parents, uncle, and Trunks.
*the next morning* Pan's POV
"When is she going to wake up?"
"She's barely taller than my thumb..."
"How did this even happen?"
"Do you think it was one of Bulma's experiments...?"
I groaned softly as soft voices began to trickle into my subconscious, slowly dragging me out of my slumber and into the realm on consciousness. Another groan escaped me, and I clutched the piece of fabric draped over me closer to my chest before sitting up, recalling that I was naked. My parents' worried faces were the first thing I saw, and, of course, since I was so tiny, I recoiled from the over sized faces that loomed so close to me.
"Sorry, Pan-chan," Mama whispered, leaning back to a more comfortable distance and pulling Papa back with her. Once they were settled, I rubbed my eyes with one fist, using the other to keep myself covered with my bandanna, which brought another dilemma to mind, somewhat minor to the one we were dealing with at the moment, but a dilemma nonetheless.
What am I going to do about clothes?
Before either them could speak, my vision was filled with the visage of my blue haired best friend, who was overflowing with apologies. I frowned at her frantic movements and took a moment to really listen to what she was saying.
"...and some of the solution must've gotten into your soda when it overflowed. I'm so sorry, Pan-chan." she finished her rant, and I raised a brow at her, "...what?"
"The shrinking solution I was working on the other day," Bra explained, "when your parents called last night, I managed to find the glass you were drinking out of before it got washed and I found traces of the solution in it. You drank the shrinking solution, a lot of it, and now you're... well," she waved a hand at me, "tiny. It'll take a while to wear off, though. The prescribed dosage takes a week to wear off, and you clearly got a lot more than that... It could be a month or two until you regain your full height."
"That's fine," I responded, "at least it's not permanent."
"I'm so sorry you almost got eaten last night, though," my bluenette friend whispered, "I wish I'd known you'd drunk it so I could've stopped you from trying to go home. Oh," she brightened, "almost forgot. I had these express delivered this morning. I told the company that they were for a doll." Bra placed a moderately sized box on the bed and opened it, pulling out a few sets of tiny clothing, "Kami knows we can't let you walk around in that travesty of a bandanna for next two months."
"Gee," I grumbled, "thanks, Bra."
"You scared the hell out of me last night, Pan," Mama scooped me up, careful to keep the bandanna tucked around me, "how the hell did you end up getting chased by a bird?"
"Uh... that's a really long story, Mama," I responded sheepishly, "and I'm sorry for scaring you." She grumbled something that sounded like 'should've roasted that damn bird' and brushed a finger over my head lovingly. Papa smiled at me, "this is awkward."
"It is," I agreed, looking down at myself, "I've learned my lesson. No food or drinks in the lab." Mama placed me back on my bed and reached into the box filled with tiny clothing, "here you go, love, put these on." She passed me a pair of jeans, a blue t-shirt, and some underwear and a bra. My father left the room to give me some privacy, and I quickly changed into the clothing, grateful to have something to properly clothe myself.
This is gonna be a long couple of months...
Short and sweet... kinda like Pan is now, lol.
~CloudSpires1295~