Scars

"Papa?" Pan squeaked.

Goten simply nodded and closed his eyes tightly, bitter tears of painful memories stung fiercely into his aching heart. Pan shook her head and cried.

Pan sobbed "NO, NO it can't be true, papa's one of the strongest fighters in the world, he can't be gone he can't be".

Trunks simply sighed and looked to Pan; she wept into the boy's black t-shirt and just wrapped her arms around him. Trunks cradled Pan gently as she wept her heart and soul into him.

The purple haired teen asked "How did it happen?".

Goten regretfully replied "We were on a rescue mission, routine thing, anyone who signals help from the outside world we respond to and check it out. Gohan is……was our leader and he led us to the location from the transmitter. It turned out to be a trap. The Androids ambushed us, the new Android 19 cut off my arm while Android 18 knocked Gohan unconscious.

I woke up back at home base 2 days later, with my new arm. 15 of us went after Gohan……only 2 came back. Yamcha, Tien, Chaoutzu, Yajirobe, they all tried so hard. We never saw or heard from Gohan again after that, and every rescue attempt only expanded our casualties. I'm so very sorry".

A moment of silence was passed for the great and honorable Gohan, a man that everyone in the resistance looked up to. Gohan was a symbol for truth, courage, and freedom, and a great man that will always be missed. Goten clutched a steel cross around his neck and silently prayed to it for Gohan.

"Go with peace my brother, go with peace" Goten whispered.

A dark shadow suddenly appeared in the war room.

"We lost a good man that day" the shadow said.

Goten blinked and smiled, wiping away his tears and flexing his mechanical digits to have the shadow come into the light. Pan ceased her tears as she and Trunks looked over towards the shadow.

Goten smiled "Nice of you to drop by Piccolo".

The Namek smirked "Wouldn't miss such a momentous occasion for the world".

Pan smiled brightly and wiped her tears away, the girl happily ran towards Piccolo and wrapped her arms around him. Trunks smiled with cheer as well, at least some of their friends had made it. Piccolo frowned a bit as he entered the light, revealing his hidden body.

"Huh? Piccolo, what are those things on your arms?" Pan asked.

Trunks gulped "I think those things are his arms Pan".

Piccolo's massive green forearms were completely mechanical now, they were large, steel, armor plated biceps with tubes, wires, and fluids being pumped through small motors and yellow and black colored plating. Pan nervously flinched at sight of the cybernetic arms as she pulled away.

Piccolo frowned "My regeneration cells dried up years ago, I can't regrow my body parts anymore. I adapted these new arms to my nerve endings so I can still generate my energy attacks without overloading the arms motors. It's not much but at least I can still help".

Trunks half laughed "Nice to know not all machines are bad huh? Say Goten, where are my parents, are they around?".

The general sweat dropped a bit, his black hair nervously being scratched by his dark, chrome covered fingers. The subject of Trunks parents was another seemingly sensitive issue that Goten was hoping he wouldn't have to cover.

"I'm disappointed son, you should know better then to doubt the power of a true Saiyan" a dark and very familiar voice said.

Trunks turned around and smiled at the sound of his father's voice. Vegeta entered the room with a steel, plate like face mask that covered his mouth and was attached to his neck. Trunks nearly gagged at seeing so many wires plugged into Vegeta's pulsating neck.

"Jesus father what happened to you?" Trunks blurted out.

Vegeta scoffed, his steel mask echoing his voice a bit "Technology happened. You don't have any idea how disgusting it feels to have this blasted pacifier stuck to my face, Saiyans don't need such tinker toys to do battle".

Goten snapped back "No but you do need it to LIVE. During the early stages of the war, Mastermind tried to create powerful toxic chemicals he was planning to disperse into the air. Since androids don't breathe air, the poison would have no affect on them. They were planning on launching it across the planet in an attempt to weed out the remaining freedom fighters.

Vegeta and I were assigned to destroy the chemical plant, and he was supposed to wait for my signal. But Vegeta rushed in and destroyed the gas tanks too early. He was infected by the poison mist and we were ambushed by skybat jets and omnibots. We created an artificial breathing mask to keep his body alive since his lungs were dissolved by the toxic gas".

Trunks bit his lip a bit "Yuck, oh uh sorry father, it's good to see your still around, even if you can't breath on your own".

Vegeta nodded "It's about time you came son……about time".

Even though it had been so many years, and so much has happened, Trunks didn't expect any other answer from his father. The young teen smiled and nodded in thanks to his father. Trunks knew even in Vegeta's hardened of hearts, that the mighty prince was happy to see Trunks home and alive. Even if it was in his own angry, and bitter way. Goten showed the rest of the base to Trunks and Pan, introducing them to his soldiers and fellow team mates.

Pan's dark eyes curiously lit up when Goten had approached the pink haired girl known as Pepper. The fiery, pink haired woman was standing beside Lance who was busy at his computer. Pepper had long, atomic pink style hair with bronze colored lighting bolt styled streaks in it. Her hair was wrapped in a dark blue strap and she wore a styling black top with flared out shoulder flaps. One of the girl's legs was encased in a stocking just below her shorts.

The shorts were blue, jean style, raggedy, and torn just above the mid-thigh. Black heels with neon colored stars and stripes adorned Pepper's feet, the girl smiled and winked at Pan. Trunks raised a curious eyebrow upon seeing an orange star tattooed on Pepper's left cheek.

Goten smiled "And these are our two lieutenants, Lance Gambit and Pepper Sunyei".

Trunks and Pan smiled as they extended hands and shook the two, vibrantly colored warriors. Lance smiled behind his intelligent yet sharp looking eyes as he nodded to them politely. Pepper giggled a bit as she smacked her gum, ruffling Lance's blue hair.

"HEY, hey, come on now, you know I hate it when you do that" Lance scowled.

Pepper smirked "All the more reason to do it more often, playing games with you is SO much fun".

Lance frowned "I hate games"

"That's the point silly" Pepper smiled.

Goten rolled his eyes "Anyway, Lance and Pepper are the most powerful recruits in our ranks, except for us of course. There the only ones who have the most experience with energy manipulation techniques. The average human takes years and years to train, and their powers rarely ever develop in time to be any help to us".

Pan blinked "So what makes you guys so much stronger then everyone else?".

Lance answered "We were the only survivors of the Saiyan project".

Trunks and Pan gasped "The Saiyan Project?".

Goten looked to his mechanical arm as he was fixing a bad wiring connection in his circuits, the general winced a bit as he sparked a few times, trying to repair his robotic arm as he explained the story to Pan and Trunks.

"Before the Red Ribbon Empire took completely over, several rebel companies used their assets to start a secret experimental project that would genetically recreate Saiyan DNA. The DNA was designed to incorporate into human cells so it could automatically accelerate people's power levels, without having to go through years and years of training" Goten said.

Vegeta added "They called it the Saiyan project, but unfortunately those bone headed fools at the science department botched it up. Blue boy and pinky here were the only test subjects that successfully survived the process".

Goten nodded "For some reason, the cloned Saiyan cells resisted nearly every biological subject it was exposed to. Lance and Pepper were the only ones who could adapt them to their systems and survive the procedure. All of our supplies were destroyed or confiscated by the RR before we could go any further with the experiment".

Pan gasped "Wow, that is so cool, I didn't know you guys could do stuff like that".

Trunks smirked "I'd wager my mother was the one who funded the project in the first place?".

Goten laughed "Why don't you ask her yourself?".

A large monitor screen appeared and a digital image of Bulma appeared on it, the blue haired woman smiled and greeted everyone in the war room.

"Hello again, hope you guys didn't miss me too much. All systems and databanks are nominal, initiating sector vector protocol 1-305" Bulma said.

Trunks gasped "My mother's a COMPUTER?".

Goten sweat dropped "Well you see, the Red Ribbon army has always been at ends with Capsule Corp, so it was no surprise that they hit Capsule Corp first when they began their invasion. Bulma was fatally injured by a missile blast and she told us to head underground into her special bunker area. This is that bunker area, though we've expanded it out long since then.

Bulma suggested that we transfer her brain waves into the central computer so she could operate everything from inside the computer. Her body may be gone but at least her mind is still active, besides, now she can't hit us anymore when we do something to piss her off".

Bulma growled "I HEARD that you creep, if I had legs I'd stick my foot right up your ass for that one".

Goten gasped and everyone burst with laughter, even Pan found it hard to resist the odd humor in this twisted little situation. Trunks groaned a bit and rubbed his face.

"Even after spending 25 years as a machine, mother hasn't changed one bit, why am I not surprised?" Trunks said.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Goten gasped "It's the alarm, Bulma, status report".

Bulma bleeped behind the computer screen "Mirror tanks are headed for sector 5, Mr. Satan's old mansion. I also detect several android units close by and increasing in numbers".

The cyborg raised his mechanical arm into the air and summoned his troops forward, people were rushing towards the exit and charging up the stairs. Trunks and Pan stared at each other in confusion.

"You two stay put, we can handle these chrome domes by ourselves, when we get back, we'll talk about where you guys have been for the past 25 years. All right everyone, let's GO, GO, GO" Goten shouted.

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To be continued……