Chapter 1

Little Miss Son

7 years later ...

Pan came back home from school on a Friday afternoon in a great mood. She had no Homework and it was the weekend; That meant she could spend the whole time training with her dad and swimming with her best friend, Bra Briefs, in the Briefs' family pool. Life couldn't be better for an eleven year old quarter- Saiyen girl.

"I'm home!" She called out the moment she opened her front door. "Is anyone here?"

"I'm upstairs!" Her mom's voice came form the second-floor study.

Pan took off her shoes by the front door, left her school bag in the hall and climbed the stairs lightly. In the study, her mother was seated in front of her laptop in workout clothes, her legs stretched under the table, sipping from a large glass of juice while flicking through documents with one finger. Pan's mom liked to stay in shape - she was a very strong fighter - and Pan was used to seeing her wear training clothes rather than the strict office suit, with her short black hair, damp with sweat, tied back in a ponytail.

"How was your day, honey?" She asked, peering at her over the computer screen.

"Okay," Pan replied, preferring no to mention the fact that she had to accompany one of her classmates to the infirmary that day because she passed him the ball a little too hard in gym class. Everyone knew she was Mister Satan's granddaughter - The most powerful man in the world! - So these events generally ended up with her receiving no more than a stern look.

"Yeah? How was gym class?" Videl continued to ask naturally, her eyes on the screen.

Pan stressed. "Um..."

"I got a call form the principal earlier," her mother explained. She lowered the screen to look straight at Pan, a stern look in her eyes blue. "She told me you hurt a student. Again."

"It was an accident!" Pan defended herself immediately. "I didn't mean to throw so hard! It Just -"

"I know, sweetheart," Vidal said calmly, beckoning Pan to come near her. Then she began to arrange the bandana Pan wore on her head to restrain her black hair, which had a tendency to grow in all directions. She got that from her dad's side if the family. "But you have to try harder, before you really hurt someone. You're becoming stronger by the day, and someday we wouldn't be able to use grandpa Hercule as an excuse..."

"Why is it so bad to be strong?" Pan demanded to know, feeling wronged. "Dad always says Grandpa Goku had to leave to make sure there will always be someone to defend earth, so that all the people would be protected, and that one day maybe I'll have to help protect the planet from someone who wants to destroy it. So why should I be ashamed that I'm stronger?"

"You don't need to be ashamed, darling. But if people knew how strong you really are, or how strong your dad really is - God forbid - we couldn't keep on living a normal life. You remember how is is to visit grandpa Hercule, with all the photographers always lurking around. It will be much worse, and it will happen every day."

Vidal smoothed the bandana with a gentle hand and kissed Pan's head. "I had to grow up with it, and I don't want you to go through the same thing. Do you understand?"

Pan nodded, feeling a little bad about for getting mad at her mom. She knew she wanted the best for her, but sometimes she was just so tired of pretending she's a normal girl.

"Vidal, Pan, I'm home! Oops -"

Pan and her mother rushed downstairs when Gohan's voice was followed by several thuds and crashes. They found him lying on the floor among scattered groceries, his leg caught in Pan's backpack strap.

"Pan! How many times do I need to tell you not to leave your bag in the hallway?" Vidal scolded her daughter, kneeling to help her husband pick up the groceries.

"I'm sorry, Dad," Pan said meekly while her dad stood up from the floor and adjusted the glasses on his straight nose.

"It's okay, Pan," he told her and started laughing. Pan started to laugh too. She loved that her dad could see the humor in everything. He almost never got mad at her - he used to say that it was Videl's job.

The family gathered the groceries together and took them into the kitchen. Videl told Gohan about Pan's baseball indecent at school that day. He didn't scold her, just patted her head and said they would have to teach her how to control her power better.

Pan loved her dad very much. It's not that she loved her mom less - she loved them both equally - but sometimes her dad would behave more like a friend than a parent, and she liked that. He always watched over her and educated her, but he also knew how to laugh and have fun, and when they played together she felt that he's having as much as she does. That was how it used to be with her grandpa Goku, before he left.

Her dad was her role model. Strangers would think he was a geek because he worked at the academy and wore suits and glasses to work. They thought he was a regular, boring and maybe a little silly man, because he smiled a lot for no apparent reason. They didn't know that underneath his appearance he was a merciful, wise and courageous man, not to mention that he was one of the world's most powerful fighters. Everyone said so. Even her friend Bra's dad, Vegeta, who liked to act as if he didn't know Pan's family, admitted that Gohan was on of the most powerful fighters on Earth, immediately after himself and Pan's grandfather.

The small family started cooking dinner together as the day turned into evening. A single moth hit the kitchen window, eager to get to the warm lamp light.

"I going to take a shower," said Pan's mother and kissed her husband. "you should check on your mother. She usually arrives by this time."

"You're right," Gohan said while going through the mail. "Pan, can you go see if Grandma's coming?"

Pan, who had been hanging around in the kitchen doing nothing, nodded happily, glad to perform a task to relieve her boredom, and left.

Her grandmother had dinner with them almost every day, because she lived all alone on the other side of the field. Pan walked toward her house with light steps, letting the tall grass caress her palms. The air was warm and very pleasant - summer vacation was about to start soon - and the sky was completely yellow at sunset.

She entered her grandmother's house throw the front door, knowing there was no need to knock.

"Grandma?" She called. The lights in the kitchen were on, as was the TV, and a pot of stew on the stove was ready to be served to the table. But Pan's grandmother wasn't there. Confused, Pan searched the whole house, but her grandmother wasn't anywhere. Strange.

Thinking she may find her in the back yard, taking off laundry she forgot on the rope before it got dark, Pan walked around the house to the back yard. The scene she witnessed there made her blood freeze.

Her grandmother was indeed in the backyard. Against the threatening shadow of a darkening forest, Pan saw her laying slumped in the arms of a monstrous creature. It rose to a height of two meters at least, his skin completely green. His ears were large and pointed and two antennas stuck out from his forehead. On his head he wore a strange turban, his shoulders were draped with pointy shoulder pads and a big, white robe that flapped in the evening breeze.

What was this monster going to do with Pan's grandmother? She didn't know, she just knew she had to stop him before he hurt her.

She fell on the creature with a battle cry and and punched him in the face. He stumbled away in surprise and dropped Chichi's limp body. Pan persisted in her attack, hitting the creature and pushing him back. He quickly gathered his wits, holding of the assault. She increased her energy, but it wasn't enough; She tried to land a kick, but he caught her foot with a green hand with long fingernails and she couldn't release herself.

"Let me go!" She shrieked at the monster with rage.

"What's going on? Pan?" Pan's dad landed in the grass behind her. He undoubtedly felt she increased her energy.

The monster released Pan's leg suddenly and she fell to the ground.

"This monster tried to eat the grandma!" She shouted to her dad in a desperate voice as she hurried to stand up before the creature could attack her on the ground.

The replay she got was a deep rolling laughter from the creature. He stood over her with his arms crossed, making no attempt to harm her.

"Even if I was a man eater, I doubt that your grandmother would have been to my liking," he told her in a low voice. Then, before Pan's eyes, he picked up her grandmother from the grass and approached Gohan, placing her carefully in his arms. Pan stared in amazement.

"Piccolo," Pan's dad said, looking at the creature with surprise mixed with concern. "When did you get back? What happened to my mom?"

"I gave her some very exciting news," The creature - Piccolo - said, ignoring the first question. "You have to hear them immediately. It's about Goten."

Pan watched her dad's face turn pale. She couldn't remember ever seeing such an expression of nervous anticipation and concern on his face.

She looked at the two in anticipation. Did he say Goten? Uncle Goten? But he disappeared years ago, when Pan was very young. What could this creature – that somehow knew her dad – tell them about him?

"Do you have information about him?" Gohan asked in a voice so quiet that Pan could barely hear him.

Piccolo nodded gravely. "I saw him."

Gohan eyes widened. Pan feared for a moment that he would pass out. "When? Where?" He demanded.

"About twenty minutes from here here. I came here as soon as I realized I wouldn't be able to catch him."

"Catch him? What do you mean?" Pan's dad began to look very upset.

"He has changed greatly, Gohan," Piccolo said sternly, keeping a calm appearance. "I didn't recognize his energy, but when I saw his face, I knew it was him. He still looks like Goku - even more than he had been seven years ago..."

"How did this happen? Start from the beginning," Gohan pleaded.

"I stopped to rest overnight on the way back here after my training journey," Piccolo explained patiently. "In a patch of forest that I used to train in. Then I felt a foreign energy near me. I searched for its source and found that someone was watching me from bushes. At first I could barely see him - he camouflaged with great talent - but when I saw him, I recognized him immediately. For a brief moment we just looked at each other. I'm quite confident that he didn't recognize me; he seemed intrigued by me. But when I tried to talk to him he fled, disappearing among the trees, and I couldn't sense his energy anymore. But I knew it was him. "

Pan's dad seemed torn between happiness and sadness. "Piccolo, if you're wrong -"

"I'm not mistaken," promised the green creature. "Maybe I haven't spent as much time with Goten as I spent with you, but I know his face. It was him."

Gohan took a deep breath to calm himself.

"I need you to take me there," he stated.

Piccolo nodded in grave readiness.

Gohan went to the Pan and passed her her grandmother's unconscious body. "Take her home and look after her until she recovers," he told her softly.

"Can I come with you?" She asked, even though she knew the answer.

"Not this time, Pan." Gohan stroked her head a little. Then he took off his glasses and put them in his jacket pocket.

Pan looked at piccolo, not sure what she's hoping to find there. To her surprise, he grimaced with a little friendly smile, revealing sharp little canines.

"Ready?" Gohan said. He nodded and they flew away.

Pan's dad didn't return home that night. She helped her mother take care of Grandma Chichi, but couldn't stop wondering about the mysterious Piccolo and Unlce Goten, until her mom ordered her to go to bed. She knew her grandma and her mom hadn't always gotten along, but Videl remained sitting next to her mother in law until very late at night, wiping her sweaty brow and making her drink cold water.

When Pan woke up the next morning she peered into her parents' room. Her dad wasn't there, and her mom was still asleep, although normally she would have been up at that hour.

She went into the kitchen and found her grandmother there, making breakfast quietly.

"Good morning, Panny," she said to her granddaughter with affection. "Keep quiet, your mother needs to rest."

Pan obeyed, sitting in a chair without having to drag it. Her grandmother served her breakfast, smoothed her wild hair and kissed her head, showing no sign that the night before had any effect on her.

Pan wasn't feel particularly hungry, but ate anyway. Her grandmother went to the window and looked out tensely, as if she was expecting someone. Pan imagined her mom had already filled her up on the events, and she was waiting expectantly to see not only her oldest son, but also her youngest, whom she hadn't seen for seven years.

"Grandma," she said quietly, trying to swallow a piece of egg. "Who's this Piccolo?"

"Piccolo? Oh, he was your father's master. He and Goku were enemies once, but over years they became friends," her grandmother told her. Usually she enjoyed telling stories about the past, but now it seemed she has no desire to.

Pan wanted to ask her about uncle Goten – if she thought they would find it - but for some reason it felt strange. She hadn't thought about him for a long time. Like her grandfather, in time she learned to live without him. She was very young when he disappeared, after all, and even her father had already lost hope of him ever returning. He became a sweet distant memory, like her grandfather, who left shortly before the mysterious disappearance.

Her grandmother had agreed that it would be better if she would spend the day at her friend's house. That's how it had always been when her parents were busy - they always sent her to the Briefs. Bulma was always happy to have her, but the last time it happened Vegeta shouted at Pan's dad that he wasn't running a kindergarden.

Pan's mood was heavy as she flew to West City, where her best friend lived. She remembered that when uncle Goten disappeared her parents sent her to stay with Bra, and she hadn't seen them for three days. Every time she tried to ask Bulma why she couldn't go home, she gently explained to her that her parents had to help her uncle now. Only after three days, her parents sat her in the kitchen for a conversation that she would never forget, explaining to her with serious faces that her uncle disappeared in the woods, and no one was able to find it. Even Trunks Briefs, who knew Uncle Goten's energy sign better than anyone else, was completely at a loss.

She landed before the Brief's family enormous house, in the heart of the West City. She came in through the kitchen door, feeling comfortable enough to let herself in. The kitchen, like any other room in the house, was wide and clean, furnished in a modern fashion and equipped with all the most sophisticated tools.

"Greetings, Pan Son," said the mechanical voice of the computer responsible for all the functions in the house. Pan jumped at the sound. This was a new addition to the house, the invention of Bulma Briefs, who ran one of the largest technological corporations in the world.

"Uh... hi," she blurted insecurity. "Where's Bra?"

"Miss Bra in busy in advanced training with master Vegeta in the training room."

"Fantastic!" She really wanted to train with someone and let out some energy. She ignored the computer's attempts to offer her different things to eat while she took the familiar route to Veggta's special training room. The screen next to the door showed a warning – the gravity in the room was twenty times the normal gravity of the Earth.

Pan let out a long whistle. Bra defiantly took her training seriously. But Bra took everything seriously - she found it was an integral part of her attempts to prove to the world that she was an adult. Without a second thought, Pan opened the door and entered.

The gravity in the circular chamber made it difficult for her to make the first step - she nearly fell off her feet. She gathered her strength and stood up.

"That's all you got?!" Vegeta shouted, standing in the center of the room with his fists on his hips in a threatening position. A short distance from him stood a young girl with blue hair, panting heavily. Her pale, beautiful face was covered with sweat. Like her father, she wore a navy colored training suit. Her hair, which was very long, was tied in a braid- bun on the back of her head, bright blue hairs sticking out around her face. neither of them noticed Pan as she entered.

"Come on! Let's see you transform into a Super Saiyan! Or are you afraid to ruin your hairstyle?" The black-haired warrior teased his eleven year old daughter meanly.

Bra grimaced angrily and stormed her father with renewed force, an attack which he deflected without any effort. Bra directed a ball of energy at him, which he avoided skillfully.

The ball flew straight towards Pan. Her heart leapt, but she managed to push it to the wall, there it sank into the energy filters, which used the power to generate power for the house (Bra's mother really was a genius).

That attracted the attention of two fighters to her.

"Pan! What are you doing here?" Bra asked in confusion, her anger forgotten.

"Dodging energy balls, apparently," Pan replied, dusting her hands. "I thought we could go for a swim, but to train with Vegeta looks like a lot more fun."

"Nobody invited you to join," Vegeta claimed arrogantly, lifting one black eyebrow.

"I think it's a great idea, Dad," Bra said, giving her father a teasing glance. "Unless you're afraid you can't beat both of us at the same time..."

Vegeta snorted. "Come on, let's see what you got."

Pan and Bra exchanged glances. Pan smiled and Bra chuckled . Then they stormed Vegeta simultaneously, each from a different direction.

Pan thought they were doing a pretty good job, considering that they were two little girls and Vegeta was a pure- blooded Saiyan, mature and very experienced. They fought him for a long time, until he had had enough; He kicked Pan aside, blocked Bra's attack for another brief moment, then threw her across the room too.

Pan shook the damage quickly and lunged again. It was a mistake - Bra had the same thought. Vegeta chuckled and disappeared. The girls collided forcefully and fell to the ground.

Vegeta has already appeared a few steps away. "You two are strong, but you've got to improve your technique. Especially if you intend to work together," he lectured them as they rubbed their aching heads. "If you go back and attack the enemy the same way every time you'll lose very quickly."

With these words he left the room.

"Good job," Bra said. Pan has learned to recognize when she spoke in sarcasm – a figure of speech used for mocking, which she learned from her older brother.

"You were the one who couldn't stop in time," Pan reminded her as her friend got up with the help of the hand she reached to her.

"Whatever," Bra replied, already bored with the argument. "So what were you up to this week?"

They walked together to the changing room, where Vegeta was busy wiping her face and hair with a towel. Pan would usually shrug when Bra asked that question - she loved to ask "adult" questions, and usually Pan didn't know how to answer without sounding childish. But today she had a lot to tell.

Bra listened to her attentively as she told her about Piccolo's appearance and about the news he gave to her dad as her fingers loosened her braid absently. Pan sensed that Vegeta was tilting his head slightly to the side as if listening to her story.

"Wow," Bra hummed when Pan finished the story, her loose hair reaching the bench she was sitting on. "Do you think they'll find him?"

"I hope so," Pan muttered.

Bra moved her blue gaze toward the ceiling. "I always liked Goten," she said, "He was always so nice to me. I never understood exactly what had happened to him." She looked at Pan expectantly for an explanation.

"Well, I don't really understand it myself," she replied. "My mom said he had something called amnesia. It makes you forget things."

"So he just forgot things? It doesn't sound so bad. My mom forgets things all the time, that's why she has a personal assistant and a journal."

"Not things like that. Important things," Pan said, beginning to feel uneasy about the conversation. "Important things that happened, people's names. Sometimes he forgot where he was and my dad had to remind him again and again..."

Pan paused. She didn't like to think about it. A very short time before her uncle disappeared she spotted him sitting in the garden when she came to visit him and her grandmother. She went to him and asked to him to play with her. He agreed, and they played with her ball for a short time before he told her she was a very nice girl and asked her what was her name. Her uncle - the boy who made her laugh and sang her songs since she could remember herself - asked her for her name, because to him they were strangers. And he just stood there and smiled at her naturally. It was surreal. She was so confused and didn't know what to say or do, so she started to cry.

The next thing she remembered was her mom taking her inside, and her dad resting his hands on his brother's shoulders while talking to him softly. That was the last time she saw her uncle.

It seemed that Bra sensed she didn't want to talk about it anymore, or she was simply desperate to wash, because she grabbed a towel and went into one of the private shower rooms. Pan was relieved.

After she showered, put on a pair of jeans and a tank top and brushed her long hair, the two went to the kitchen for an after- training snack. Vegeta had almost finished his meal there, but two plates of food were waiting for them, untouched.

They sat down and ate without saying anything to Vegeta. Pan always thought it was weird he acted like he didn't care although he obviously did, but she knew the Briefs long enough to know that when Vegeta did something nice, you just had to accept it and shut up.

"Hey. What are we eating?" Bra's elder brother walked into the kitchen, setting a business briefcase on a chair while his other hand lessened his tie.

Pan looked at the suitcase in disbelief. "Trunks – Don't tell me you're working on Saturday!"

"I'm always working, Pan," he replied, pulling out a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He sipped and winked at her. "And even when I'm not working, I'm still working."

He searched the kitchen for leftovers. "Come on, you didn't leave me anything!"

"Stop complaining," Vegeta growled, putting a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink. Mechanical hands sprout out and immediately began to wash them. Pan knew what she was going to suggest Bulma to buy her mom for her next birthday.

"Trunks, guess what?" Bra's started. "Some funny guy told Pan's dad that - ouch!"

Her eyes filled with tears as she held her head where her dad gave her a blow.

Trunks raised an eyebrow in a manner that reminded his father. "You know, when I look at it that way, it really does look like abuse."

With these words he took his briefcase and headed toward his room, not interested in what his sister was trying to tell him.

Vegeta waited for him to leave earshot before he hissed, "Don't you dare say a word about that other brat when he's around, you understand me?"

"Why?" Bra demanded with a combination of insult and anger for the treatment she received. "Goten was his best friend! He'd want to know if -"

"Do you really think he should hear that stupid rumor?" Her dad retorted acidly. "He needs a lot less than that to go out on another fruitless searching quest, which can go on for weeks and months! Maybe you don't remember what it was like for him the first time, but I do remember."

Vegeta stood up and turned his back on the girls, so they couldn't see the expression on his face.

"He can't afford another delay in his training," he said in a strange, unconvincing voice and left.