Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Black Hearts ❯ Guilty Conscience ( Chapter 15 )

Well, here's the next chapter. I'm really sorry that it took so long. I hope I still have readers…you can thank Angel of Blades for motivating me to get over the standing problem. That problem is that the computer I wrote the fics on is so old that I couldn't post them. I haven't even used said computer in months. I just dragged it from the bottom of my closet and put the chapters onto a different computer. I already have up to chapter 19 finished, so I'll try to post the rest within the next month.

However, I've lost a lot if interest in DBZ, so after chapter 19 it'll be a chapter every other month or more. I'm working on more original fictions at the moment, but I'm also starting my leaving Cert exams. In my country, that the BIG state exam that decides my future. I also have two years to learn the German language, so I don't have much spare time. Sorry!

Lastly, I'm not sure that the fic will come out the way in intended it to. The computer I'm on now is still old. Some people complained about strange markings distorting the fic. This is not me. I've had this problem too on other fics. It's a problem with web browser compatibility.

Well, on with the fic.

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Pan's pod crashed into the surface of Earth, sending up a cloud of dust and causing chunks of earth to be thrown around. Vegeta had been following her, she knew, so she prepared to fight him. She got out of the pod and stretched, relieving the minor aches in her joints. She powered up as high as she could go, her hair turning gold as she did. She knew that it would attract the other earthlings, but she didn't care. Kakarott was the only threat. She took little comfort in that. It hardly seemed to matter anymore.

After about five minutes, a second pod crashed near to hers. She shielded her eyes from the flying debris. They were in the country, but it was not an area where nobody lived. There were farms covering the smooth hills. The odd farmhouse could be seen, and several roads ran through the area. Cattle and sheep had been grazing, but they felt the disturbance of Pan's powerful energy and were looking at her, their instincts telling them to run.

Vegeta climbed out of the pod, and approached Pan. He knew that a fight was inevitable. He powered up to super Saiya-jin, and confronted Pan. She concealed her surprise at seeing him a super Saiya-jin. `Do you really want to do this?' he asked her, his eyes pleading.

`No, but I have to. For my son, and for my pride,' replied Pan. There was a short silence, meaning that Vegeta didn't debate why she was doing it.

Off in the distance, Goku could be seen approaching. He shortly arrived, fully powered up. He looked very surprised to see not one, but two super Saiya-jins. Goku was stronger than either of them, a fact that enraged Vegeta, but he wouldn't stand a chance fighting both of them, and he knew it, and they knew it.

`What do you want!' barked Vegeta.

`Hold on Vegeta,' replied Goku calmly. `I'm just here to see what's going on. Truth be told, I'm nervous. You're not here to kill us all again, are you?' he asked, half-joking, half-serious. Vegeta glared at him.

`No. Nobody is going to die here today,' he said hotly. Pan debated on correcting him, but she decided that the sooner Kakarott left, the sooner they could fight. `Now I insist that you leave, so that Pan and I might get down to our personal business.' Goku was very reluctant to leave, but the glares he received from both of his fellow Saiya-jin told him that he had better go. He turned around to leave, and just before he blasted off, he called over his shoulder, `I'll be watching from far away. If the planet is threatened, I will stop both of you. Please, fight someplace that is deserted.'

As soon as Goku could no longer be seen, Pan attacked Vegeta, ignoring Goku's plea to fight elsewhere. She caught him by surprise for the first time ever. Vegeta couldn't believe that he had been caught off guard. He had gotten so used to Pan that he trusted her not to attack him. He thought himself a fool. Pan upper cut his chin, sending him flying. She teleported behind him, and knocked him into the ground. From there, she gathered ki in her palms, and sent a blast down. Another and another followed it. In all, she rained about a dozen of them down. They were powerful, and turned the ground below her into a giant smoking crater. She waited for Vegeta to emerge.

Vegeta shot up from the ground, and sent hundreds of small blasts at her. She blocked as each of the blasts hit, but she was unprepared for Vegeta's punch to the ribs. It was a powerful blow, and she felt a crack. He threw another punch, at her face this time, and got her in the temple. From there, they went into a lightning fast session of blows. They broke apart. Pan was bleeding from the side of her head, and Vegeta's nose was broken and streaming blood.

Pan cupped her hands, and gathered energy. She cried `Ka-me-ha-me-ah!' as the blast shot forward. Vegeta put up a ki shield to block it, but just before it hit him, Pan spread her arms wide, and the blast split into two separate parts. They went to either side of Vegeta. Just when Vegeta knew what she was doing, Pan poured a far larger amount of energy into the beams. They each tripled in size and speed. She geared them back at Vegeta, but he easily dodged. She geared up the move. With a seemingly large amount of effort, she spread her hands out, so that the fingers were no longer touching. Each of the two blasts split into five, so that she was controlling ten individual blasts. They were no longer as powerful as the first had once been, but she guessed that they were each powerful enough to destroy a city. She wiggled her fingers, and they began to chase Vegeta in seemingly random patterns, making it very hard for him to dodge them.

Vegeta dodged them for a minute before he realised it was futile. He gathered a blast in his hands, and stopped to fire it at Pan. Each of the Kamehameha's crashed into Vegeta, creating a huge explosion, which blew the houses on the ground away. A huge cloud of smoke formed, and from it came Vegeta's blast, equal in power to Pan's. Taken by surprise, the blast smashed into Pan.

For several minutes, there wasn't a sound. The smoke blew away from both blasts, revealing both fighters still mostly unharmed. Vegeta thought that he would have been badly wounded by that attack of Pan's, but he had underestimated his own power.

`You've gotten better, Vegeta,' said Pan. `Come. Kill me, if you can. You couldn't before. What makes you think that you can now?' Vegeta growled.

`I don't want to kill you!' he yelled.

`Oh? You did before. You killed my son!'

`I didn't mean to!' He knew it was bullshit. He knew fully that killing her while pregnant would kill the child.

`You still did though, didn't you?'

`It was an accident!'

`One which cost the life of my son!' Pan charged him again, smashing her elbow into his chest. Vegeta countered, and they began to fight so furiously that the very ground shook beneath them, and a cloud of dust formed around them, caused by the wind they were producing.

They fought for hours, each getting weaker, but neither gaining the advantage. Both were tired and bloody. It was pitch black. The only light was the light given off by their weak golden auras. It was raining heavily. They were both on the ground.

Pan charged Vegeta. With an almost human speed, she ran towards him, and left hooked him. He ducked, and punched her in the face. She countered with a punch of her own. Vegeta grabbed her hand, and twisted it. Pan's body jerked, and Vegeta pulled her to him. She glared at him. He kissed her. She kissed back. For minutes, they were locked in an embrace, but Pan broke away, and gave Vegeta a mighty blow to the face, breaking something and bursting the flesh. Vegeta hit her back, snapping her head to the side, and when she came back up, she kissed him.

Vegeta threw her to the ground, and began to undress her. They lay together for the first time. Pan was in pain. Already injured in many places from the battle, the intimate act caused her only pain. But she welcomed it. Pan, despite her pain, was feeling relief. Not physical relief, but a sense of mental relief. She was taking pleasure in the fact that she was being punished. Punished for her wrongs. Punished for her acts. She was relishing in the sense of relief, as if her being in pain was penance for what she had done her whole life. She didn't care that Vegeta was bringing her no physical pleasure, for the weight he seemed to lift from her shoulders was all she needed.

It was then, covered in blood and dirt that she realised something about herself. She was guilty. For the first time in her life, she felt guilt for what she did to others. She felt guilt for killing indiscriminately. How many people had she slain in her short life? More, surely, than any other being alive. And how many of those people ever actually posed a threat to her? Hardly a handful. Freeza. Maybe a few others. Certainly nobody save Freeza since she died on earth.

It couldn't be! For the first time, Pan realised that she was evil. Actually realised. She always knew that she did evil things, but she justified that as doing what she had to do to survive. She realised that she was a monster who had truly outdone the worst of the worst. She had made Freeza seem like a righteous ruler. At least he let people live, by and large. He had an empire, though he held it through fear and violence. Pan was simply death. She brought death to everybody, regardless of age, sex, race or belief.

And why, she thought. Because she believed it was right? Since when did she do the right thing? Who was she to say what was right?

So many things went through her mind as things became dark, the last being utter despair. She could feel herself black out, and was taken away from her newfound suffering.