War Stories

Pan's eyes widened with shock and awe, her young body trembling with overwhelming sensations, her bare ankles quivered with confusion. This old, scarred, beaten, down, war torn man with a cybernetic appendage is her uncle Goten? The young girl could barely believe it.

Pan blinked "Uncle Goten? Is that really you?".

The cyborg Saiyan laughed "It's so hard to believe I'm sure, but then again, I can't believe I'm seeing you either. When Lance told me who we rescued from the androids, I thought it was some kind of joke, but here you are. Young, beautiful, and feisty as ever, still the same old Pan".

The girl groaned "B-b-b-b-but this doesn't make any sense, what happened here, where is everyone, why are there so many 17 and 18's, and what happened to you Uncle Goten?".

Goten cringed and looked away from his beloved niece, ashamed of his facial scars and clanking robotic arm. Emotional scars and tears formed in Goten's mind as he painfully recalled the horrible life he had forgotten about for a few moments. Pan sadly looked at her uncle and wondered what she said to make him so sad, the cyborg Saiyan sighed and looked down.

"That's what happens you disappear for 25 years Pan" Goten said.

Pan's jaw dropped "25 YEARS?".

Goten nodded "That battle with Android 30, that was 25 years ago, we thought you and Trunks were killed…….we didn't take it so well".

Pan protested "But we weren't, we fell into this weirdo time hole and ended up in this alternate universe. We met this magical guy named Taron and he sent us here to try and stop something horrible from happening".

Goten looked at Pan with a strange look on his face, his eyebrow raised in obvious disbelief. The young girl bashfully stared at her shoes and rubbed her feet into the ground.

"Well he did" Pan said.

Goten half smiled "Well, judging by the fact that you and Trunks haven't aged a day since I last saw you, I'd say that's entirely possible".

Suddenly remembering from before, Pan rushed behind her and examined Trunks, hoping to make sure her life long friend was okay. Trunks groaned a bit as he slowly stood up, his head throbbing with pain along with his torn shoulder. Pan smiled cheerfully and hugged Trunks tightly.

Pan giggled "Oh Trunks thank god you're all right, I was so worried about you".

Trunks gasped "OW hey, easy, easy, I'm still damaged goods here. Boy, those tank guns sure hurt like a……Goten? Buddy? Is that really you?".

The cyborg Saiyan smiled to his friend but then turned to exit the room, signaling for them to follow. Trunks looked to Pan with a very strange and confused look on his face.

Pan bit her lip "Uh were in the future Trunks, like 25 years, and I'm guessing things haven't been going well".

Trunks sighed "Then I think it's time we catch up and find out exactly why Taron sent us here".

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The Saiyans exited the room and followed Goten down a long, dark, hallway. Hundreds of metallic blue doors surrounded every inch of the fowl, mud colored yellow walls and crackling ceilings. Blood splatters and screams echoed from one room as doctors were trying frantically to save a dying man. The screams chilled Pan to the bone as she nervously held onto Trunks arm for cover. The teen half smiled at that, but remained focused.

Goten pushed open two large doors and revealed the war room to Trunks and Pan. In the center, a large, electronic table with a green orb shaped like light projecting maps, information, data sheets, etc. Hundreds of people ran past the curious Saiyans, some with mechanical body parts like Goten, others with stack loads of papers and books. Trunks looked to the right and saw a wall of TV monitors, each one displaying the android army's actions.

Loud explosions could be heard from down the far right at the end of the war room, bright lights flashed from the concealed shooting range. Pan could see people in the windows of the armored room, firing energy blasts at targets and practicing their energy manipulation techniques. Next to the massive center computer, a radio station armed with men and women operating on wireless headsets. One of them was the pink haired girl Pan saw before.

Goten shouted "Lance, give me a status update on their next target".

Trunks and Pan looked to see who Goten had addressed, it was a man dressed in blue and operating on the central computer. His hair was short, buzz cut like, dark aqua blue, his coat was leather but blue as well and he had sky blue colored fingerless gloves on his typing hands. The man's shirt was a faded rusty green color with splatters of purple and black all over it.

Lance replied "The army has changed directions and is headed due south, Spyder pods are detected in sector 6 and are initiating their clean up routine".

Goten cursed "Dammit".

Rage filled Goten's scarred eyes as he bashed his cybernetic arm into the central computer, his iron muscles flexing behind grinding gears and ticking motors. Pan looked at the arm and cringed a little, still creeped out by it.

"Uncle Goten, I hate to ask but, what happened to your arm?" Pan asked.

Goten sighed "Everyone's lost something in this war Pan, my losses are just a bit more……obvious".

Trunks blinked "Wait a second, what war, who exactly are you guys fighting against?".

Goten frowned "The Red Ribbon Empire Trunks, a lot of things have changed since you guys left. The human race……is extinct. We are all that remains of the resistance against the android army, the rest of the world has been completely destroyed, dried up, turned into a barren wasteland. Nearly all the humans have either been killed or assimilated by the empire".

Trunks took a deep breath and held his purple haired head, confusion and anger ripped into him like a buzz saw. Pan and Trunks had only been gone for 2 days time, and now their entire world has been taken away and destroyed by an enemy long thought to have been dead and buried for good.

Pan gulped "Everyone's dead?".

Trunks frowned "Hold on Pan, we don't know the whole story just yet. So Goten".

The Saiyan smirked "General Goten, actually".

Trunks rolled his eyes "Whatever, just tell us EVERYTHING that happened, step by step. Start by explaining what happened after we vanished".

Goten sighed "All right then……

After Android 30 blasted you guys with his nuclear ray gun, we thought you were both dead. Goku was the only one standing there. But the ray somehow changed him, he became a savage, primal monster with the power of a Super Saiyan 4. He ripped apart Android 30 and his men, but his power was too great and too fierce. When Android 30 tried to escape, Goku fired a kame hame ha wave that vaporized him along with the sun, he blew it all up.

Without any light, all of Earth was cast into darkness and people started panicking. Goku was too far gone to control or even talk to, he attacked cities and killed people without any remorse. We tried to stop him (points to his scars) but he was too powerful, he threw us around like rag dolls. The government started coming after us, trying to throw us out of town, they blamed us for everything. We decided to try and use the dragon balls to help.

If we could wish the sun back, maybe it would help calm the people down. But we couldn't find them. The dragon radar was jammed by some outside source, and Bulma couldn't get it to work no matter what she did. Two weeks later, that outside source revealed itself in the form of Vanguard Guardian robotics, or VGR for short. VGR claimed to have the solution for all Earth's problems, they had created an army of android robot defenders.

Cybernetic guardian androids that could protect the human race from the Saiyans, they also offered to solve the sun problem as well. By firing a satellite into space, they could reflect the light off of another star back to Earth. Gohan and I tried to tell the people we could handle Goku, but they didn't listen. In less then a month, nearly every house in the country was protected by a VGR guardian android. They were absolutely everywhere.

To avoid further trouble with the press, we stayed away from the cities and refused to fight the androids. With such a high success rate, the government had no problem supporting VGR. They were funded with millions of dollars to fully blast off their satellite program; VGR launched their satellite a year after the sun had been destroyed. By the time the satellite reached orbit, nearly everyone in the world had a VGR android protecting their home.

Everyone finally felt like they were going to be saved from the menace of the Saiyans, and that hope would be restored along with the sun, all thanks to VGR……they were wrong. The satellite wasn't a sun reflector; it was a high frequency detonator. It triggered every nuclear warhead in the planet to explode; hundreds of million of lives were vaporized in an instant. The VGR protection androids turned on their families and started killing everyone.

VGR unleashed a wave of high tech tanks, jets, giant robots, and enslavement ships. Before the world even knew it, they had been wiped out by the machines they relied on so heavily to protect them. The androids revealed themselves to be duplicates of Dr. Gero's Androids 17 and 18. They stormed the globe and enslaved humanity in a matter of hours……no one had a chance. By the time we knew the truth, it was already too late.

The RR disguised themselves as a different company and camouflaged their androids as domestic house robots. The Red Ribbon army jammed the dragon radar so we couldn't find the dragon balls, we eventually found out they had already taken all 7 balls. They jettisoned them into outer space and with all space stations taken over by RR, they was no way anyone could go after them. Anyone who is caught by the RR is either killed or assimilated".

Pan gulped "I really don't think I want to know this but……what do you mean by assimilated?".

Goten paused before replying "Just prey you never get the chance to find out".

Trunks frowned "Okay, now I've got a question, if Dr. Gero and Android 30 are both dead, then who's running the Red Ribbon army now?".

Goten shrugged "No one knows for sure, rumors have been floating around that it's someone who's known only as……Mastermind. Someone with the knowledge, the financial support, and power to fully recreate Gero's lost technology and bring back the Red Ribbon army. We don't know who he or she really is, we've tried to sneak into their HQ but we failed every time".

Pan curiously blinked "Hey, wait a minute, if all of our friends are in this resistance? Then where's Papa and momma?".

Goten's eyes widened and his throat suddenly went dry, his scarred eyes looked to the ground as he whimpered a pair of silent tears. Trunks gasped as he saw Goten clutch his mechanical hand tightly, sparkling wires and oil leaked from his hand as it crunched its own metallic armor plating. Lance and the other workers went quiet and all hung their heads in silence. Pan and Trunks nervously looked around and wondered what was going on.

Pan rushed towards her uncle and grabbed him by his tattered shirt, the girl yanked him back and forth as tears started to leak from her terrified eyes.

"Uncle Goten, where's my papa and my mom, what happened to them, are they all right, PLEASE you have to tell me" Pan begged.

Goten sobbed "Your mom……she's fine she's all right but Gohan, well you see……I hate to tell you this Pan but……Gohan's dead".

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To be continued……