Chapter Twenty

Once upon a time, the tower held an overpowering smell of dust and decay. Now it smelled like something else: coffee. Pan would never have admitted it, but the exertion she'd put on her body was catching up with her. Eventually she'd have to find some way to squeeze in real rest, not just snatch an hour or two of sleep here and there or knock herself unconscious. However, she still had the secret weapon of caffeine on her side, and now was the time to use it.

Not that she needed the side effect of jitters. She wouldn't have admitted this, either, but the things she'd seen here had worn down her mind just as much. She pulled out her phone and again flipped to her picture collection. There was Trunks and Giru.

"I owe you one for coaching me to anticipate that ambush," She said to the robot's picture. "You're still a braggart, though."

She flipped to the photo of her grandparents and stared at it a moment. What else did she have on here? She filed through more photos of herself and Bulla and Marron before stopping at a grainy old picture of her six-year-old self on the seashore, holding a crate of milk, with a hairy and sandal-clad foot just barely visible behind her. That picture hadn't been taken with this phone. She'd had to scan it.

She took a swig of coffee and that was the exact moment Frieza walked out of the mist and looked over her shoulder.

"Is that you?" He asked.

"On my first official day of training."

"That doesn't look like Goku."

"It's Master Roshi, the founder of the Turtle school of martial arts," Pan said.
"He taught Grandpa, and me, too, for a few years."

"Dare I ask why he has you carrying that?"

She laughed. "It's early-morning training. Me and Marron had to get up at four-thirty and run the milk all the way around the island before it got warm. After that we had to plow for the farmers with our bare hands. He made us keep up our schoolwork in the afternoon, and last of all, he'd mark a stone and throw it into the forest, and we had to bring it back before we could have dinner. He wouldn't teach us any techniques until we could do all that without tiring out, because otherwise, he said we wouldn't have the stamina or mental and physical control to use them without hurting ourselves."

Frieza took the phone. "That's training? It sounds dull. I'm glad I never bothered with it."

"Maybe you'd feel different if you'd been there with us," Pan said.

He looked away, at the floor, and was quiet for a moment. "Maybe," He said finally. "Cooler and I were besieged, after all; and even a manor house gets stale if you're never allowed to leave it. We fought, but only from the battlements, with ki and the Prismasphere. Likewise, it didn't take long for the new to wear off the palace of Asphodel when we were prisoners there. The sorts of games we invented… well, by necessity, they were bordering on solipsist, weren't they? Maybe I would have found some entertainment chasing empty bottles and rocks around an island with you and your friend Marron. I doubt there's anything to be gained from speculating, but I doubt there's any harm in it, either."

Woah. He didn't argue, Pan thought. She offered him her cup. "Are you feeling all right? Try some of this. It'll perk you up."

Frieza looked at Pan, then the cup, and then tasted some. He gagged on it. "That's revolting!"

"That, my friend, is the flavor of maturity."

"It's killed me. I'm choking."

"That's how you know it's working," Pan said. She took another drink herself and tried not to wince.

"You don't seriously believe a socially-constructed rite of passage based on keeping down some foul concoction will confer any strength or wisdom, do you? That is a hopelessly naïve view of personal development." He reached into the mist and pulled out something that looked like a flower pot. "Besides, this is a much bigger cup."

It was, too, and with a saucer, like in a fancy restaurant. He was able to empty the rest of the pot into it. They glanced at each other and swigged it at the same time, which only meant they ended up trying not to wince at the same time.

"You gave me this because you thought I felt bad," Frieza said. "Do you feel bad? Is that why you were drinking it?"

"What? No!" Pan said.

"There's no shame in it. You have to know the pace you trying to keep is unsustainable, even for you. A lesser being wouldn't have survived this long."

I didn't want you to know that. Blurt it right out, why don't you. "Oh, so I'm not one of the lesser beings anymore, huh. When did I graduate?"

It wouldn't have surprised Pan if Frieza had become angry at her taunt, but instead, he looked disturbed. "Did your grandfather tell you about the time I fought him without using my hands?"

"Yes," Pan said, wondering at the abrupt change in subject.

"Since you're under the weather, tonight I will fight you without using my hands."

"Now, I may be a little tired, but I don't think that's fair," Pan said.

"If it's unfair, I'll stop. He should have told you that, too."

"I'm going to even the odds my own way," Pan said. "You go ahead and fight without using your hands. I'll fight with my Gramps's moves."

"Isn't that what you've been doing?" Frieza asked.

"I don't mean Grandpa Goku," Pan said. She brought up a picture on her phone and held it up: a picture of a mustachioed giant with an afro as broad as his significant shoulders and a shiny golden championship belt. "I mean my maternal grandfather, Mark Satan, alias Hercule."

Frieza stared at the picture skeptically. "This man… is also strong?"

"He's very strong," Pan said. "For an actor who only pretends to fight for entertainment. He and my mother used to be professional faces, although they're both retired now. They played the heroes in what amounts to battle theater. They made up these over-the-top moves that looked flashy on television and they had choreographed fights."

"You want to play-fight me like a common cur," Frieza said, "You mock the Emperor of the Universe, girl; and anyone else would be dead for it. However, I have to admit your description has left me with such an excess of disgusted curiosity I'm willing to humor you just to see if it's as farcical as you've made it sound."

Pan ran that through her head a couple of times and still had to clarify. "That's a yes, right?"

"In fact, I'm revising my battle plans in accordance with yours," Frieza said. He paced between two of the fallen statues and kicked one out of the way. "Not only will I refrain from using my hands, I won't spill the coffee, either. If so much as a drop touches the floor, you win. You may come at me at your leisure."

She did. "Dynamite kick!"

Pan lashed out too low and too hard, but she'd timed it well enough that though Frieza blocked the first strike with one knee, when she pulled back and kicked again, that one tapped him. It left something like a scuff. The coffee barely rippled.

He kicked back. Pan rolled out of the way and threw a punch while she was at it. She wasn't as wide as she should have been, all things considered, but it didn't take Frieza a lot of effort to step aside. Once he had, there wasn't really any way to stop the runaway train that was the Rolling Hercule Punch. Pan skidded into another bust, which fell over and knocked over a half-pillar, which fell over and knocked over her coffee cup, which splattered all over the floor.

"Eek!" She yanked her skirt away from the spreading puddle.

"Perhaps you misunderstood," Frieza tapped the side of his cup. "You're supposed to spill this one."

"Good line, and the torn-up cloak of doom really sells it. You're a natural heel," Pan said.

"I won't argue with that."

"Volcanic Sting!"

Frieza dodged the first and second strikes but he took the third. It didn't take Pan long to find out why; he caught her square in the chest launched her.

"This is one of my favorites. Hercule Miracle Bomber!"

She clotheslined him on the way down and knocked him clean off his feet. He landed face-first on the floor.

At the last minute, he threw the cup and saucer straight towards the ceiling.

Pan held up her phone. She flashed the camera a peace sign with the other hand and snapped a photo, capturing Frieza's stunned face.

He wasn't so astonished he couldn't catch the cup and saucer, though. The coffee sloshed more than it had last time, but still none tipped over the edge.

He hooked his tail around her waist and moved her so he could stand back up.

"A valiant attempt, but an ineffectual one," He said, sipping the coffee. "Give up yet?"

"Give up? You haven't even seen Gramps's signature move. You want me to show you that, right?"

"Oh, please do."

"You ready?"

"Any time you are."

"You asked for it," Pan said. "Megaton Punch!"

At this point, Frieza had gotten familiar enough with Gramps's moves (and their effectiveness) he didn't bother dodging or deflecting. Pan had known he'd get confident eventually, and it was the opportunity she'd been waiting for. She didn't aim for him. She aimed for the cup in his hands. She stopped just short of hitting it full-force. Cracks formed in the glass.

Frieza flicked his wrist and hurled the coffee- not the cup, just the liquid- into the air. Both the cup and the saucer crumbled.

"Uh, oh," Pan said. The brown liquid lingered in the air right above her head.

Before it could fall, Frieza yanked her away from it, crossed his arms behind her back, and caught the coffee in both hands.

If Pan ever had a reason to suspect bad luck was a sentient entity consciously out to get her, this was it. Here she was trying to act normally, and she'd been succeeding; now she'd somehow wound up with the tyrant's arms around her.

"I wasn't expecting that," He said.

She hoped she wasn't stammering. "That I'd attack the cup, even though it had always been my target? You should have anticipated it."

"No," Frieza said, frowning, "That this beverage is still hot."

Pan twisted to look. Steam rose from his hands. "Oh."

"This is most uncomfortable. I don't suppose you could…" He jerked his head towards the coffee pot, which was about the only vessel they'd left intact.

Pan stretched her leg. She slipped her toe through the handle and slowly pulled the pot to her, then pushed it with her heel until it was roughly under Frieza's cupped hands. He dropped it and it oozed into the pot, too perfect a blob.

"I never thought I'd be using my telekinesis that way," Frieza said.

"But you didn't spill any coffee. That means you win."

"What do I win?"

Pan showed him the picture she'd taken during her recreation of the Hercule Special. "A photo of yourself with the granddaughter of the World Champion."

Frieza twitched. His shoulders were shaking. "Do you know one of the torments those evil dolls used to inflict on me involved trying to force me to laugh? They were trying too hard. They should've just brought you down."

"I'm not sorry you pulled that off, though. I'd have hated to stain this dress. It isn't mine."

"Whose is it?"

Pan shrugged. "I don't know. Someone Flare killed in the lodge."

"It can't be. It predates the lodge by years. Would you know what I meant if I said this is period-specific attire?"

"The red skirt is camouflage?"

"…not that kind. I mean there's only one time in Saiyan history clothes like this were available: the late fifth century, when they were awarded to the warriors who captured the most land. They were to be worn to royal feasts so the king could immediately identify his most prolific raiders," Frieza said.

"Now I feel even more wrong wearing it. I'm not a prolific raider."

"You conquered Imecka."

"We didn't go there to do that. The robber baron in charge wouldn't leave us alone, even after his advisor told him to lay off us."

"As if the how or why matters. You still did it. Even if you insist on splitting the planet three ways because your grandfather and friend were with you, that's more than enough to earn the uniform. It's authentic, too. I'd hoped it might be counterfeit. Much as Flare considered himself a connoisseur of Saiyan culture, he knew less about it than I picked up sharing a cell in his hunting lodge with a bunch of captured monkey scouts. He might not have been able to spot a fake. I am. That isn't a fake. How did he get his hands on it?"

Pan sighed. "I wonder."

"What? Do you know something about it?"

Pan swung her legs over the edge of the fallen pillar. "King Flare had a lot of books on display. Didn't you see them when you were held here?"

"I was held in the dungeon," Frieza said. "I certainly wasn't allowed near Flare's 'treasures.'"

"I wonder if any of them are from the same era. Not that I could read them if they were."

He was inches from her so fast it almost looked like Instant Transmission. "I can. Will you take me to that trophy room?"

"You mean break in? Right now?"

"And besmirch my sterling principles? Perish the thought. We should wait until morning and ask King Sulfuri for permission. Of course I mean break in right now!"

"Ember showed me a secret path to the palace from the market district," Pan said. "And if I can get to the palace, I can use the secret path Incendria was going to sneak us out to get back in. It opens in a wardrobe across the hall from the trophy room. Nobody should be in either this time of night. It shouldn't be too hard to get in and out without anyone knowing. But why's it so important?"

He looked down. He wasn't embarrassed, but pensive, as if seeking an answer to that question on the floor.

"It might not be. I won't know until I see the documents."

Pan held out her hand. "Then let's go see them," She said.

ooo

Frieza had not been afraid as he'd run the lodge's opening gauntlet, and he wasn't afraid now, although the two events were in his mind very similar. Fighting in the lodge could have killed him. What waited in the trophy room could destroy everything he was inside.

Pan hadn't spoken since they'd reached the palace. It was comfort enough she was here, picking through this dark room of rustling cloth and mannequin shadows; and that was the pathetic kind of state he was in now, that he found it comforting to have a Super Saiyan hovering at his elbow.

She opened the wardrobe door and peeked out. He didn't feel anything, and doubted she'd have risked the look if she had. He noticed in the Prismatic light a gleam of cobweb that had caught in her hair, probably when they were spelunking in that old secret passage.

She jerked her head and darted across the hall. He followed.

Pan didn't dare turn on a light until she'd closed the door behind her, and then it wasn't the trophy room's lights, but a small candle she found amongst Flare's prizes.

"They're all here," she whispered, pointing to the display.

Frieza would have guessed it even if she hadn't told him. Those small-scale huts, he'd seen in person, stood inside. He'd fought the owners of those weapons. He almost snapped one in half reaching for the first book. To see the scourge of so many worlds enshrined in a curio cabinet; he couldn't decide if that was repellent or amusing, and he was leaning towards repellent.

He flipped through the first book with lingering disgust. Its contents did little to ease that. This one's just a storybook. He put it back.

Pan, meanwhile, browsed a weapons display on the far side of the trophy room. "I bet Trunks would like these swords."

"So would my father," Frieza said. He tried the next book. Recipes. Dear to a Saiyan, perhaps, but no help to him.

"There's something behind the sword display," Pan whispered urgently. "I found a hidden switch. What could Flare want to keep so secret he'd go to all that trouble? It's more books! It's…"

She pulled one out and shook it. A centerfold unfolded.

"…dirty magazines," She said, disgusted. "I bet Master Roshi would like that."

"So would my father," Frieza said, exchanging another useless book for an unread one.

"You know what? I'm just going to stay over here with you so I don't find anything else I don't want to know about." Pan pushed the sword case back into place and squeezed next to the center island, wrapping her arms around herself. "This place is creepy enough as it is. And this thing here is the creepiest."

She kicked the center island.

"Why?" Frieza asked.

"All the other displays are sorted by category. One for weapons, one for armor, one for sculptures; but this, it's all the Saiyan stuff tossed together."

"I told you Flare was quite fond of you. You should have heard him go on about how close the Saiyan conception of honor was to the Sutova's, unlike us scornful Reizomorphs. How dedicated and practical you were, with none of that grub-like disloyalty. You were assertive, we were predatory; you were hardy, we were vermin; you were good, we were evil."

"I'm glad I missed this King Flare guy's reign," She said. "Every new thing I hear about him is grosser than the last."

"You consider being placed on a pedestal gross?"

"If you mean the kind of pedestal a serial killer keeps his victims' pickled faces on," Pan said. "Yes. That's gross."

"Hmpf! At least you've still got a face."

"But if it's been peeled off me and pickled, it's not doing me any good."

Frieza opened his mouth to argue, realized he couldn't, and also that he was about to get into an altercation over the value of pickled faces, which was a discussion not even he had ever expected to have.

Before it could continue any further, he glanced at the book in his lap.

"I found it," He said.

"Great!" Pan flopped down beside him and looked over his shoulder, even though she couldn't read the Saiyan language. "What is it?"

"Records of the envoy Flare sacked for these goods. It dates…"

Frieza grew silent. He didn't know whether to continue with "that's impossible" or "I knew it." Everything he believed told him it must be impossible, but he wouldn't have sought out these records if deep down, he hadn't begun to suspect it wasn't.

"It dates in the late 570s. It was started before construction began on the colony that would become Asphodel. The Saiyan envoy was sent to document as well as assist in the construction of the Prismasphere. The writing is every bit as austere as I'd have expected. It's little more than a list of names. Names of those whose contributions to the Prismasphere included their own life energy."

Frieza closed the book and laughed.

"They're Saiyan names."

That laugh must have sounded like it felt. Pan edged away from him.

"Don't misunderstand. They're not only Saiyan names. Taleggio, that's a Brenchian name. Tempra, that's a Reizomorph name. Tinder, that's a Sutova name. Turni, that's a Saiyan name."

Frieza politely closed the book and placed it back on the shelf.

Inside, he was screaming, I was told only the Sutova had anything to do with the Prismasphere! That a weaving of that complexity required the refined life forces of fully-developed beings, not simple organisms still in the process of learning to think and walk upright.

Outside, he said, "Is it possible to transport us back to the tower? There's no point in breaking in and retrieving what we came for only to get caught on the way out."

"No, sorry," Pan said. "It doesn't work like that. I can't teleport cold into an empty building. I need someone's energy to use as an anchor. Our safest bet may be crawling back in the tunnels and waiting out the dawn."

Frieza thought, your grandfather never told you, did he, what he did that I found so unforgivable? Likely, he didn't even know. But it wasn't defeating me; I'd faced defeat before. It wasn't humiliating me; I'd faced humiliation before. It wasn't even the proselytizing… although that was a close second. No, it was that moment he decided to save my life by sharing his own energy with me. I couldn't sense vital forces then, but not even I could have missed the implication our energies would have to be the same for that to work.

Frieza said, "Fine. We'll do that. We'd better do it quickly. Dawn approaches, and we don't need anything else in here."

"The hall's still empty. Let's make a run for it before people start waking up and that changes."

In that lightless tunnel against the palace wall, Frieza could feel the daylight coming, and envied that Pan couldn't. It felt more like a tomb than his tomb. Pan sat across from him and stole the occasional glance at him, thinking about talking, and not, and it drove him mad. What did she bite back?

She finally found the courage to unstick those words in her throat. And what did she say?

"Are you okay?"

He almost snapped, I've been the enemy of your family for several of your lifetimes, apparently for no damned reason at all, and you're asking me if I'm okay? Why must you sit there so… considerate? This is all Goku's fault! If he weren't dragging his feet, our fight would be over by now.

But he didn't, because as frequently as he'd defaulted to those kinds of outbursts, they'd never improved his mood.

Instead he said, "Thank you for asking."

They were the last words he was able to speak that evening.