Authors Note: I know I haven't written in forever.. but I just started watching Dragon Ball Z again and I felt like writing. Soo I'm gonna try and keep writing, cuz I really do like this story.

Waking up

When Ryoko opened her eyes, she was still in darkness. She was a bit groggy at first, wondering where she was, completely forgetting what had happened before. She closed her eyes, rubbed them, and then all of a sudden, the yellow eyes flashed into her mind and she sat up with a shriek, breathing heavily. She stood up, remembering everything that had happened, wondering if it were a dream.

She looked around for a few moments, then she turned around a saw a light, realizing she was in a cave. She walked to the end of it, the light blinding her eyes.

"How long have I been here?" She said to herself, staring in the woods that surrounded her.

"A few days."

She jumped, not recognizing the voice. Her father was suddenly standing next to her, with a grim expression on his face.

"Where... What happened?" She asked, turning away because the look on Goku's face made her stomach turn.

It was silent for a few minutes, making her stomach turn even more. She could feel that Goku was incredibly angry, which scared her a little. She had never seen him angry, or even in a bad mood.

"I told you not to go to Barleytown, not to follow me," he finally said. "Why would you go there when I specifically told you not to?"

Then Ryoko was silent for a few minutes. The truth was, she wasn't too sure why she had gone.

"I… I don't know, I felt like I had to go, like I was being drawn there," she realized, looking at him. His expression changed to astonishment, and he looked back at her, making her look at her feet. "Why didn't you want me to go? Who was that… thing? What was it? How did he know my name?"

"Listen to me from now on, Ryoko. Or one of these times I may not be around to save you from Deborah." And with that, he jumped into the air and sped away.

Ryoko stared after him for a little while, questions running through her mind. She was still a bit scared from seeing her father so angry, but she was now sort of angry that he would just leave her without answering any of her questions.

Then she started flying in the direction where Goku had gone, since she had no idea where she was, or how to get home.

She must have been flying over woods for at least a half an hour before she made it to the city, and from there it took about fifteen minutes to find Capsule Corp., then her house. She landed on the front step and left her hand on the door-handle for a few moments, realizing that Chichi was probably going to be infuriated.

She took a deep breath, then opened the door and walked in, immediately hearing a shout and feeling Goten's arms wrap around her legs.

"Ryoko, Ryoko, Ryoko! You're finally home!" He cried, laughing.

"Ryoko?" Gohans walked into the room, then his face lit up. "Ryoko!" He also ran to her and wrapped his arms around her. "You're home!" He stepped back, looking her up and down. "Are you okay? Where's dad?"

"Yeah, I'm fine… I don't know where dad is. I woke up and we talked for a minute, then he just… left." Then Chichi came in, started crying, then yelled at her. Ryoko explained what happened. As soon as she finished, Goku came in.

"Goku!" Chichi screamed. "Why didn't you come home? What happened?" Goku just looked at them all, then went into his room and closed the door. Chichi followed him, banging on the door, still screaming at him.

"Ryoko, you should go see Trunks. He's been really worried about you." Ryoko looked at Chichi and nodded, feeling her heart swell.

She walked to Trunks' house, and nervously tapped on the door. After a few minutes, the door opened. A groggy Trunks was standing before her, rubbing his eyes and yawning; it looked as if he had been asleep. When he opened his eyes and saw her, he was suddenly wide awake.

"Ryoko!" He cried, lurching forward and hugging her. He leaned back and stared into her eyes, a bright smile on his face. "Where have you been? What happened?" She explained what she could remember. "It seems like Goku knows more than he's letting on."

"I'm almost positive that he does. But I don't understand why he wouldn't tell me, it's not fair."

"If Goku isn't telling you, then he must have a reason." Ryoko nodded. "You wanna go get something to eat"

Demons of the North

Punches were being thrown at Ryoko almost too fast for her to see, and she barely missed them, never mind landing a punch on Trunks. She let out a yell, then flew to the ground and sat down, panting.

"Well, Ryoko, keep this up and you might be as strong as Goten." Trunks said with a smirk, landing next to her and looking down at her. They had decided that sparring often would be a good idea to get Ryoko's power up so she could defend herself if she ran into Deborah again.

"Great, I'll be as strong as my younger brother. Really something to strive for." Trunks just laughed and sat down next to her, grabbing her hand. Ryoko looked up into his eyes, squeezing his hand, and slowly brought her face closer to his.

"…Ryoko?" Trunks whispered, then she placed her lips on his.

After a few moments, they parted, both blushing madly.

Since then they were inseparable, and were finally an official couple. They sparred often, and after a few weeks, Ryoko was proud to announce that she was stronger than her eight year old brother.

School had started, and to Gokus disappointment, Chichi did not allow any of the Son children to spar with him during the week, and only allowed Ryoko to see Trunks during the week while they 'studied'. Usually during this 'study' time, they would go off and spar, or just spend time together. This caused Ryoko to be up extremely late at night, while she actually did her homework and studied. All of this only lasted for the first week or so, eventually Chichi had given up due to the whining of her children and husband.

"There's nothing on!" Mai said angrily as Ryoko flipped through the channels. They were sitting in Mai's living room, and it was that time during the summer where you were starting to get ridiculously bored and restless, but still didn't want to go back to school.

"Let's see what's on the news."

"Oh cause that's really interesting." Mai muttered sarcastically, but quickly after gasped and exclaimed "holy crap!"

The camera was on the ground, obviously dropped by the camera man. The view wasn't too clear, and the tape kept cutting out, but it was obvious that a battle, or rather a massacre, was occurring. People were screaming, there was a visible bloody, unmoving body a few feet away from the camera.

Ryoko stared in disbelief, then jumped up.

"I'm gonna go."

"Are you crazy?!" Mai cried in disbelief, also standing. "Goku would kill you!"

"I'm sick of him treating me like I was a little kid! I've been training with Trunks, I think I can handle this." She took a few steps forward, then stopped and looked back at Mai with a slight look of uncertainty on her face. "Well… I'm gonna go and give it a shot. Call Trunks in ten minutes and tell him to meet me there. If I can handle it, then everyone will know that I don't need to be taken care of. If I can't, well then Trunks will be there to help me. What could happen in ten minutes?" With that, she ran out the door and hopped into the air.

The city she was going to wasn't hard to find, she had learned to be able to sense chi, and as she got closer the chi grew stronger and she became more worried that she had made another mistake.

As she walked through the city, it seemed deserted. There were bodies everywhere, she figured she would be seeing a lot of them since she was now a Z Fighter, so she tried not to look away as the sick feeling in her stomach grew stronger with every step that she took.

She heard whimpering noises coming from behind an ally, and slowly walked toward it. A little girl, ten at the most, was huddled in the corner. Ryoko kneeled down and put her hand on the girls shoulder and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

"Hey," she said quietly, "what's your name? What're you doing here all by yourself?"

"Heroki…" she said with a sniffle. "I don't know where my mommy is. I'm scared there's monsters here I'm all alone." She started crying, and Ryoko lifted her into her arms.

"It's okay, don't cry, I'm here I'll take care of you." Heroki clung to her, her sobs turning into sighs and sniffles.

Ryoko walked through the city, calling out looking for any more survivors. She had Heroki hide her face in her shoulder so she wouldn't have to see the gruesome scene. She called out for her mother, but Ryoko knew she must have suffered the same fate as the many others strewn across the streets.

Heroki was suddenly thrown from Ryoko's arm when something attacked her from behind. Whatever was on her had sharp claws, and were digging into her back. She turned herself over and threw the attacked to the side and jumped up, then gasped in fright at what was again lunging at her.

The monster walked on all fours, and did indeed have claws; three long, sharp claws. It had grey skin, a long tail with a hook on the end, and sharp, bloody teeth. It had no eyes, the skin on its head was pulled back revealing its brain, held back by a chain then connected to a spike coming from its hunched back.

She barely had time to recollect herself and think of a plan of attack when it lunged back at her, knocking her over again. She screamed, her arms extending as she tried to push it off of her. Heroki screamed when the monster scratched her arm with its claw, it looked at her and then threw its tail at her, driving the hook into her stomach.

"Heroki!" Ryoko cried, throwing it off of her as soon as it took the hook out of her stomach. Heroki fell to the ground, Ryoko jumped into the air and started firing chi blasts at the monster. It screeched, then jumped up and bit her ankle and pulled her back down with it.

It threw her to the ground, then screeched again as Trunks drove a sword through its head.

He turned to her, looking completely outraged. "What the hell is the matter with you?! Why would you come here by yourself?!"

Ryoko looked up at him for a moment, then ran to Heroki and lifted her head.

"Heroki? Are you okay? Heroki?!" Ryoko started crying when Heroki didn't answer her, and she laid her down and turned to Trunks and cried in his arms. "I told her I'd take care of her."

"Ryoko…" Trunks started, unsure of what to say to comfort her. "We… we can't save everyone, Ryoko. We just have to try our best and do what we can, you can't blame yourself when things like this happens."

Ryoko stepped back and nodded, knowing he was right.

"There's more." She said, looking around. Trunks also looked around, and looked confused.

"How do you know? I don't see any, and I can't sense their chi."

"You can't?" She asked. "I could feel it for miles. Now that you mention it, their chi does feel different from anyone else's." She shrugged. "I just know. There's more, they're everywhere."

"We need to get home. You're too hurt to stay and fight."

"We can't just leave them here! They'll go hurt more people! I'm fine, I can fight."

"You couldn't even handle that one on your own."

"I can do it! I wasn't prepared."

"Neither of you could take care of them all on your own." Goku had arrived, and stepped down next to Ryoko. Along with him came Gohan, Vegeta, and Piccolo. Ryoko looked away from everyone, feeling ashamed and stupid that she thought she could handle this on her own.

"What are these things?" Trunks asked.

"Demons." Goku replied.

Ryoko shot a glance and her father, "how do you know-" She didn't get to finish her sentence before a few dozen more demons showed up, all hissing and growling.

"This is gonna be fun…" Gohan muttered.

A/N: comments please. I'll try and get more up soon.