Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Illumination ❯ Mission 01: Corporate Espionage ( Chapter 2 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Silver Armada 
Trunks's first job as a mercenary isn't exactly what he expects.
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 06.25.2015 | Pages: 11 | Words: 7.0K | Visits: 205 | Status: Completed
Trunks's first job as a mercenary isn't exactly what he expects.
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 06.25.2015 | Pages: 11 | Words: 7.0K | Visits: 205 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer:
Dragonball Z and all related characters belong to Akira Toriyama
and other respective owners.
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Trunks walked behind Armada as she led them to the end of one of the piers in Ute. He wasn't sure exactly where they were going, considering all that he could see were warehouses, but he remained silent for the time being. He noticed her pick up her pace and jog toward a building before she stopped at the door. He followed suit.
She stopped in front of the door to one of the ubiquitous warehouses and entered a number quickly into the keypad. Trunks tried to watch but he only caught the first six of eleven or twelve digits. The door opened and she walked inside, Trunks right behind her.
“Whoa,” Trunks stopped just inside the door and looked up to see that the warehouse was occupied by a large silver spacecraft, maybe fifty meters long. It had a sleek design, not unlike the old military fighters from Earth. Or at least, the pictures Trunks had seen of them since the military had long been destroyed by the androids.
Armada turned to face him. “It's my ship, and because I'm broke I can't buy any fuel to leave this damn place,” she added matter-of-factly. She turned away from him and flew up to the side of the ship. “We'll be working here in Ute until I can get some fuel,” she called out to him, not turning around as she spoke.
Trunks stood and watched her fly up to the ship. She had a lot more control over her ki than she let on, he could tell now because she wasn't so guarded about it. He wasn't worried; if it came down to it he figured he was stronger than her. He didn't want to just fight his way out of this, though. He did make a mistake and he felt like he owed her. He'd rather find some way to work out his return to Earth peacefully than just flee and cause his friends in Ute undue harm in the process. Besides, Ute was the connection to Earth, and Armada clearly had no problem breaking in and attacking Murtole. What would stop her from making the trip to Earth? Of course he could stop her, but how many people could she kill in the interim? He wasn't sure he was willing to take that risk.
Trunks flew up to the ship after her, and watched as Armada punched another code into a keypad outside the door to the ship. It slid open and he followed her inside; she immediately headed to the right in the hall. Trunks stopped and watched her, unsure of what to do and she turned in the air to face him. “It's not huge, you'll figure it out,” she said before disappearing around the corner at the end of the hall.
Trunks took a guess and headed left. He passed a small room with a large monitor set up on one wall and identified it as the ship's comm room. It certainly looked similar to the same room at the lab in Ute where he had recorded his message to his mother only minutes ago. He kept going and found three doors at the end of the hall, all of them open. He glanced inside; each was a small barracks with three beds. Two rooms were untouched, and one had a few things lying around in the room, so he figured out which one of the three was occupied. Trunks settled into the room to the left of the one that was taken and set his bag with his few things from the lab at Ute on one of the beds. He glanced around and found a bathroom attached to the room and guessed each room probably had the same.
Kind of lonely, Trunks thought as he walked out of the barracks. Nine beds and only one person here... well two now I suppose. At the end of the hall where Armada disappeared he found the bridge, and Armada was sitting at the console in the middle of the others, typing away at the keys furiously.
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Illumination
Mission 01: Corporate Espionage
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Trunks walked up behind Armada where she sat and looked up at the monitor in front of her. She was reading a message that appeared to be an offer for some work. “What's up?” Trunks asked as she read.
“We've got a job,” she said flatly and started to type up a quick reply. She sent it off before Trunks could say anything else and she swiveled her chair around to face him. “Nothing too hard to start,” she said and stood up. Trunks instinctively backed up a few steps so she had room to walk away. Instead she stayed put where she was and looked to him as she continued.
“We're going to break into a corporate office building in another city tonight to retrieve some internal documents,” she stated flatly.
“No qualms about breaking the law,” Trunks added sardonically as he watched Armada move past him toward another doorway in the bridge, leading to areas unknown to him.
She stopped in the doorway and turned to face him. “It wouldn't be necessary if there was a place in this universe for old soldiers like me, but there isn't,” she said rather calmly. She paused for a moment before she spoke again. “Feel free to look around the ship, I'll be down in the engines cleaning the fuel lines.” She turned away and walked off again. “Can't get fuel yet so I might as well clean them now,” she threw out over her shoulder as she walked away.
Trunks watched her turn out of his sight down the other hallway attached to the bridge and decided to follow down the corridor himself to see what was on this side of the ship. Like she said, he needed to get a grasp on where everything was. The first thing he saw was through a door on his right, what appeared to be a lounge or sitting room. There was a table in the corner with wrap-around seating and more seating on the wall across from it. From both areas one could view the monitor on the wall closest to where Trunks entered, and facing the bridge.
He saw another door leading through the break where the seating was and decided to continue. He soon found himself in the ship's kitchen, or more aptly the galley as he thought about it. He took a moment to peek in the cabinets and refrigerator to find a lot of stuff he recognized as Bmyhadian and a few things he didn't.
Trunks left the galley and stopped in the corridor; on the wall opposite the side with the galley and lounge was a safe on the wall and what appeared to be a closet next to it. Both had keypads so he didn't bother with them for now. Just after the galley he found the infirmary, with three beds and a large steel center island. He didn't bother to look through the storage in there; there were still a lot of medical supplies in the lab he didn't recognize so he didn't want to bother with anything until he could ask questions.
Across from the infirmary there was nothing of note, and Trunks figured it was due to the barracks on the other side. He glanced to the end of the hall he was in to see a set of stairs heading down. He walked about halfway down the stairs to see what looked like a cargo bay and more areas beyond it. He heard noise in the distance and assumed that the rest was access to engines and other systems in case any repairs were required.
He turned and headed back to his room; he wanted to finish settling in. It was still night, and only a few hours earlier Armada had broken into the lab and conscripted Trunks into helping her with her business, exactly whatever it was. So if they were going to bust into some office building tonight, she meant after the rest of the day they were currently on. It was going to be a while so he thought he should finish putting his things away and get some rest; he had no idea how long their operation was going to take.
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“You ready?&rdq uo; Trunks heard Armada call down the hall to his barracks for him.
“Yeah,” he replied as he finished putting his jacket on and walked out the door to his room and down the hall to meet her at the door to the ship.
She was dressed in her armor, no surprise there, but he was taken back by the look on her face when she saw him. “Seriously?” she asked with an irritated visage.
“What?” Trunks asked defensively. He was wearing a black tank top with his dark blue denim jacket over it, and long gray pants that fell to cover his orange boots. He certainly didn't see what the problem was.
Armada let out annoyed breath as she looked him up and down. “I don't have anything for you and there's no time to worry about it for now,” she said and reached over to open the ship's door. She flew out and Trunks followed; a few seconds later when they hit the ground at the door to the warehouse he heard the ship's door close behind them.
The pair walked outside and Armada stopped on the sidewalk, facing the street. Trunks glanced left and right as he slowly moved to her side. “So now what?”
Armada pulled a small piece of the navy alloy from her belt and clicked a button on it. A black car from down the street flashed its headlights, pulled out into the street and drove to their location and parked. She glanced to her left at him. “We drive.” She put the piece of metal back in its spot on her belt and walked around to the left side of the car. Trunks followed her lead and opened the door and got in on the passenger side. He recognized Bmyhadian cars but had no idea she had one. Then again, it wasn't surprising if she was living here.
Once inside and buckled up, Armada started driving and Trunks looked out the side rear-view mirror. The sun was setting and it would be dark soon. If they were leaving now he supposed their trip might be longer than he expected. “So,” he asked and turned to glance at Armada, “how long 'till we get there?”
She didn't bother to take her eyes off the road as she slowed and made a left turn. “The office we're breaking into is in another city about two hundred kilometers away,” she stated casually. “It'll be well after dark when we get there.”
Trunks nodded and turned to look out the window and watch the Utian scenery pass by. He didn't mind the drive; he'd get to see what was outside the city. He'd never left before so the prospect was interesting. He just hoped that she had a plan for when they arrived.
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Several hours after nightfall, the two mercenaries stood beside the black car they took to the city of Mensa and watched the building they were targeting. Armada was looking through a pair of binoculars when she lowered them and handed them to Trunks. “The stragglers are leaving,” she nodded toward the building.
He took the binoculars and looked up to the seventeenth floor of the high-rise building. He could see inside the windows with the binoculars' special glare reduction and did indeed see the last few employees leaving the building. “They don't have a night shift?” Trunks asked as he brought the binoculars down from his eyes and handed them back to Armada.
She took the binoculars and hooked them onto the side of her belt. “They usually have light security and a late shift of researchers but they're all leaving for the night for the building to undergo a routine fumigation.” She walked around to the rear of the car and opened the trunk.
“If they're fumigating then how the hell are we supposed to get in?” Trunks asked as he turned to follow her movements.
“These,” she lifted the hood high enough so he could see inside. He looked over to find two sets of goggles, small tanks and masks.
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With their goggles and masks in place, and the long black tubes of oxygen strapped to their right thighs, the pair was ready to enter the building. Trunks glanced at his watch to see it was sometime after midnight, and the fumigation had started about two hours earlier, shortly after everyone left the building. Armada kicked open a metal door on the side of the building facing the alley and the pair moved in. She turned around and closed the door behind them, and proceeded to use her energy to melt the metal of the lock so the door wouldn't open. “We don't need anyone following us,” she said before walking farther into the building.
The pair entered in the back area of a restaurant kitchen on the ground floor of the building. After walking through the kitchen and the front of the restaurant they reached the center of the skyscraper. The middle square of the building was empty on each floor all the way to the top, where dim light from the surrounding city poured in through a skylight. Armada nodded to Trunks before she flew up and he followed suit.
Once they reached the seventeenth floor they moved over the center railing and landed on the floor. Armada glanced left and right to get a bearing on exactly where they were. “This way,” she said softly and started walking down the hall to their left. She followed the numbers on office doors until she found their destination. She tried to open the door but found it locked with another keypad. Before Trunks could say anything she punched the keypad, crushing it into the wall. The door slid open in response and she walked in.
Inside they found what appeared to be a larger office. Armada sat at one of the terminals in the room and booted it up. She quickly typed in a username and password and waited for the system to load.
“How do you know that?” Trunks asked as he stood over her shoulder and watched.
“The client gave me the information needed to complete the mission; standard procedure,” she said calmly as the system loaded. She reached down and pulled a small data chip from her belt and inserted it into the computer next to the monitor. She navigated a few directories before she found the files she was searching for and began to copy them over.
“That's it?” Trunks asked. “Seems too easy,” he said as he stood upright.
“Not quite,” Armada spoke as the files finished copying and she pulled the data chip out before she had the system log out. She turned and stood, and put the data chip back into a compartment on her belt. “Now we need to go downstairs to the basement clean room and get the physical files we need.”
Just as the pair went to leave, Trunks sensed an energy signature. He turned to look but felt it soaring toward them at an incredible speed. “Get down!” he shouted and threw himself and Armada to the ground. Just as they hit the floor the wall behind them exploded and sent debris flying everywhere.
Armada grimaced and jumped up to her knees. She crawled forward to kneel behind the area of wall in front of them that hadn't been destroyed. Trunks scrambled up and followed her. “I don't sense anything,” she whispered to him, the mask distorting her voice. The dust behind them began to settle and the pair sat in silence, unmoving.
Trunks sat and listened. He couldn't risk looking around their current cover, and he couldn't smell anything, so he relied on the last sense available to him. He heard a footstep but before he could react Armada stood up high enough to see over their cover and fire a return shot. All was silent for a few seconds before a barrage of energy was shot at them. Both fighters flew low to the ground to the end of the room in an attempt to stay in cover.
The pair huddled in a corner as the debris and dust settled over where they just were. It was all destroyed with shrapnel of the metal structure in the walls of the building littered about. Trunks was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Armada on his left. He looked to her and her eyes met his. “Stay here,” she whispered. She moved forward and he grabbed her right arm with his right hand.
She glared at him. “Don't move,” she whispered once more and jerked her arm free of his. Before he could protest she flew toward the other end of the room, much faster than he'd thought her capable of. In the wake of her flight whoever was attacking them fired a multitude of shots and more explosions rang out. He wanted to yell for her but knew it wasn't in either of their interests at the moment.
This time there was a lot more debris in the air so Trunks couldn't see if Armada was okay, though he didn't see any blood so that was a start. “Well, we expected a bit more from you,” Trunks heard a male voice call out. It too was distorted from the man speaking wearing a mask, and Trunks crept up until he could see above the overturned desk and piece of wall he was hiding behind to take a glance at their assailants.
He saw three men, the one in the middle slowly walking toward Armada's position—or where Trunks assumed she ended up since he still couldn't see clearly to the other end of the office. "Expect more from me?" he heard his comrade spit back. "You dipshits set off the alarms." Trunks didn't hear any alarms but it made sense—they never disabled any on their way in, and they were probably silent anyway. "Just wait until Mensa PD gets here," she added.
"Hah," the man in the center kept moving toward her and charged a blast of energy around his right fist. "Don't make me laugh. You think we'd walk in here unprepared? You were the one who didn't expect us."
Sounds like they didn't see me, Trunks thought. He didn't bank on it though, and kept his head down as far as he could while still being able to see the three men. The two in the back started to move forward behind the one who was talking. "I don't know exactly how stupid you are," he looked to the direction of Armada's voice, "just that you are stupid." The dust cleared a bit and he could see her huddled behind a partial wall, blood dripping from her right elbow.
"Come on out now," the man spoke as he sauntered closer. Trunks could make out his face now as he approached, and his mind ran with possible tactics to get out of this situation. From what he had seen so far, he figured he was still a lot stronger than their assailants, but too much energy dispersed in the area could make the building structurally weak and collapse—not just on them, but anyone else in the city around the building. He dismissed the idea with too many casualties.
He could fly forward to fight them off hand-to-hand, but then he didn't know if they would end up destroying the building. He wasn't sure how strong Armada was to leave her to defend herself. Damn he cursed mentally.
"We don't want to have to force you out, but we will if necessary," the man said as he looked behind a few overturned desks and chairs and continued walking toward Armada's general direction.
"You wouldn't dare," Armada shouted back. She started inching her way from the wall she was backed up against and closer to Trunks, though not by much considering there was at least fifty feet between them. "You wouldn't make it out of here alive," she scoffed at them.
"You don't know that," he responded, still moving forward with the search. "We're stupid, remember?"
Armada stopped when she reached the end of the pile of debris, or rather the pile got too short for her to hide behind. She pulled something from her belt and looked over to Trunks. Without saying anything she made a throwing motion, then pretended to cover her head and eyes. He wasn't sure what she was about to do but he nodded in understanding.
She leaned forward a bit and threw the tiny object in her hand backwards with her right arm, and it landed at the foot of the talkative man. "What the hell is this?" he said in irritation and bent down to pick it up. Armada ducked her head and used her arms to cover her eyes, and Trunks did the same. No sooner had he closed his eyes, he saw a flash of bright light through his eyelids. Flash grenade? He thought as he turned and looked to his comrade. She was gone from her spot and he took that as the sign to go for it.
"Shit!" one of the men who had yet to speak cursed as he rubbed at his eyes. Trunks flew straight for him but at the last second the man sloppily dodged around him. Trunks stopped and turned to see the third man fire a ki blast at him, which he easily swatted away with his left forearm. The energy shot up into the higher floors of the building, blasting through several floors before he heard it explode.
Before Trunks could think the same man flew at him and started swinging. Trunks easily dodged his attacks as he realized this man hadn't been blinded by the flashbang; maybe he ducked away in time. It didn't matter because he was too slow for the Earthling who dodged a right roundhouse punch before he launched his own assault. Trunks started with a knee to the man's gut, then several hard punches to face before a second kick to send him flying away into a wall.
"Alex!"
Trunks turned to the sound of the scream to see the darker-skinned man of the three fire a blast at him. He quickly dodged out of the way and came up on his attacker to deal a lethal uppercut when he dodged Trunks far faster than he anticipated. Trunks's eyes widened in shock as he felt a harsh kick to his back, across his shoulder blades which sent him falling forward to the floor. He caught himself on hands and knees in time to glance behind himself and fly out of the way of another energy blast, this one leaving a hole in the floor.
"You're gonna make the whole building collapse!" Trunks shouted as he flew. He found another room that was mostly in tact and ducked inside, settling on the floor on his haunches ready to move if he needed to. Trunks sat silent and listened; he didn't hear anything going on. Where did his comrade go, and the guy who was firing at them in the first place?
"Alex, you okay?" the dark skinned fighter asked as he helped his comrade up.
"Yeah," the guy wiped at blood oozing from his nose and mouth with the back of his hand. When he was attacked his mask had been destroyed, but it appeared the fumigation wasn't affecting him. "He's fast, Royce; definitely not your average fighter."
"I'm fast too," Royce replied as Alex took a breath and dusted himself off. Before either party could say anything else, something crashed through the ceiling above and landed right next to them. They turned to see a body rise up to its knees from the rubble.
"Get her!" they heard their comrade yell from above and their heads snapped back down to see the woman they were after jump up from the debris and tackle them both to the ground. Before they could react she jumped up from their bodies and flew off to another corner of the room.
Trunks was about to make another move when Armada flew around a corner and knelt next to him. "You okay?" she asked through heavy breaths.
"I'm fine, what about you?" Trunks asked as he saw that now she had blood smeared under her chin in addition to the blood oozing from her the inside of her right elbow.
"Nothing serious," she waved him off with her right hand, which appeared to be moving fine.
"One of them avoided the flash, but the other two are still feeling it," she said with a quick glance in the direction of their attackers. "The loudmouth is injured, so I'll take him and the one who can still see fine, if you get the third guy," Armada said and swallowed hard.
"No way," Trunks said, "I'll take the quiet two and you get their leader," he stated rather than suggested.
Armada shook her head. "Don't get yourself killed."
"Same to you," Trunks smirked at her. The two then immediately took off for their targets, causing the room they left from to crumble under the pressure of their launch.
Trunks was headed for the one he figured was Alex, who was wearing a blue shirt. Right before he got there the dark skinned guy—Royce, he assumed—appeared in front of him and smirked as he fired a giant blast of energy. Trunks didn't have time to dodge so he had to return fire and deflect as much of the shot as he could.
In the ensuing explosion, Armada lifted her arms to block debris from hitting her face only to find the guy in the blue shirt slam into her and fly her into and through several office walls. He finally stopped when they reached the last room, and he let Armada fall to the floor and skid to a stop in front of the wall of windows on the edge of the building. She went to get up and he was on her, hands around her throat.
"Sorry you gotta die," Alex said through gritted teeth and heavy breaths. Armada had her hands on his but as she lost oxygen she was losing the strength to pull him off. "It's just my job." She continued to struggled with pulling his hands from her throat when she charged energy blasts into both hands which blew the pair apart.
"You bitch!" Alex screamed as he shook his arms; the places where her hands had grasped his forearms were burnt and bleeding. Armada coughed, her hands were burnt and bloody too but now she could breathe. He charged at her again and Armada caught his fists in her hands. She crushed them in her fists before turning to fling him out the windows behind her.
Alex grabbed her wrists when she released his fists and the pair tumbled through the glass and outside the building. Armada pushed her right elbow into his neck under his chin to get him to let go of her, and Alex coughed and released his left hand. She then flew them down toward to the ground with the intent to slam him into the asphalt below.
Armada only had a few more seconds to pry his right hand from her arm, and focused on pushing into his throat more. Alex felt his hand starting to lose its grip, so he pulled a six-inch knife from his left side with his left hand and jammed it into Armada's back right above the scapula. At thirty feet before ground impact Armada stopped and let Alex's body keep going due to his momentum. The knife wasn't in her skin deep and his hand didn't let it go, so the knife dragged over her shoulder and up the right side of her neck before it left her body. He did keep going and hit the ground in a loud boom, breaking up the asphalt around him and creating a cloud of dirt obscuring him from view. Armada took a deep breath and winced as her right hand went up to cover the slice in her neck.
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After the explosion in front of him, Trunks had a few cuts on his face and hands but had taken almost no damage. Royce, on the other hand, had been blown backward into a wall and was bleeding profusely from his forehead. He breathed heavily and his eyes were half closed due to the blood seeping into them. Trunks walked up to him. "I don't want to kill you," he said with sincerity, "so stay down and I won't have to."
Royce seemed to have conceded defeat because he lowered his head and didn't reply. "Lyle won't give up so easily," he said lowly after a moment. Trunks was about to ask who Lyle was when he was blindsided from his right with a heavy hit. The Earthling was sent hurtling to his left and after he crashed through two office walls Trunks stopped himself in mid-air and turned to his right. The third man, the one who did all the talking earlier, whom Trunks now assumed was Lyle, flew straight at him. Trunks caught Lyle's hands in his own and the pair grappled.
"Where are the files?" the man asked through gritted teeth as the pair struggled.
"If you didn't destroy everything you could have made your own copy," Trunks spat back before he lunged forward and headbutted Lyle square between the eyes. The force of the blow dazed Lyle for a moment for him to both let go of Trunks and float unguarded for just an instant, and that was all Trunks needed.
Trunks jammed his right elbow into Lyle's chest, sending him flying backward. Before Lyle hit any debris, Trunks appeared behind him and slammed his left forearm into Lyle's back, effectively stopping his motion. Trunks then slammed his forearm down across Lyle's shoulders and he plunged face-first into the floor, though only enough to have it crack and buckle beneath him. He rolled over and as soon as he did he found a foot pressed to his throat. He looked up at Trunks to see he had injured his opponent, as Trunks had a cut bleeding down the left side of his face, the blood running steadily, under his jaw and down his neck until it disappeared underneath his jacket.
Trunks pressed a tiny bit harder on Lyle's throat and the man couldn't breathe. He couldn't find the strength to lift his arms in defense, and waited for the stronger man to finish him off. Armada floated over to Trunks's side, clutching the right side of her neck as blood spilled over her fingers and down her armor.
"You lost," the woman said through angered eyes. "Don't follow us or we'll kill you." Trunks released his foot on Lyle's throat and the injured man coughed and wheezed for air. Armada nodded to Trunks and the pair flew away.
When the pair exited the building in the back alley they heard the sirens of local law enforcement on their way. Armada reached to her belt and grabbed a small black item, then proceeded to toss it to Trunks.
"You're driving," she said and headed straight for the passenger side. He saw the wound on her neck better and with the way she winced he figured she just wasn't fit to drive at the moment. He ran around to the driver's side and got in.
"Hurry up and get us out of here," Armada said and grimaced as she spoke. He looked confused for a moment, and she realized she needed to instruct him. “Insert the chip into that slot,” she pointed with her left hand at a small rectangular slot near the steering column, “that will allow you to start the vehicle.” He followed her instructions and the engine came to life. She gave a brief explanation of how to accelerate and brake, and after a few seconds Trunks pulled out from their parking spot and continued down the alley until it ran into a major road and he turned right. "When he get down to this intersection, make a left," Armada said as she used both hands now to cover her wound.
"Hey, stay awake to give me directions, okay?" Trunks joked in an attempt to lighten up the situation. "We won't make it back if you pass out," he said as he turned his attention back to the road and made a left turn.
"Get there fast or else I might," she said in a pained voice.
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Back in Ute an hour before dawn, Trunks reached out to help Armada get out of the car but she jerked away from him. "My legs are fine," she said bitterly and flew up to the side of the ship. He'd parked inside the warehouse—there was a small door for the car on the side—and followed her up to the ship. Once inside she flew straight to the infirmary and he followed her. Under the bright lights she lifted her hands and tried to look at the wound in a mirror but she couldn't see it without pulling too hard to turn her neck and it made the wound bleed more.
"Sit down, I'll take care of it," Trunks ordered when he walked in behind her. Armada sat up on the steel surgical table in the center of the room. He walked over and examined the wound as best he could at the moment. She had a deep gash leading down from just under her jaw on the right side of her neck over her shoulder that ended just above her scapula. "It's deep, it'll need stitches," Trunks said as he turned away from her to get supplies.
He picked through the cabinets for a needle, surgical thread, antiseptic and a few towels to wipe away the blood. "Take your armor off," he said as he turned around. It seemed she already knew it would be in the way and was working at it. She had both arm guards off and she was struggling with her chest piece so he set the supplies down and moved to help her.
"Hold on to the back," she said before she clicked something on her belt and her chest plate came apart underneath both arms, leaving a front piece and back piece. Trunks caught the back piece and set it aside, Armada did the same with the front. He was about to ask about the black fibrous material underneath because he couldn't see a zipper or any sort of fastener when she grimaced before lifting both arms and reaching just under her breasts.
Trunks watched in curiosity as she pulled up what had the structure of a shirt over her head. It appeared that the fibrous material was several different pieces, and one place it overlapped was under her breastplate. She pulled it completely off and Trunks could see she wore a black banded bra underneath the armor, and the fibrous material that covered her torso started just under the breasts. He turned his focus back to her wound and saw that it was much worse than he'd initially thought.
"Lay down on your stomach," he said as he looked at the wound. She figured as much based on how far down her back the cut went, so she dumped her armor onto the floor and did as told. Trunks worked methodically to clean the wound and began stitching it up from the insert point on her back. After forty minutes he'd made it to the base of her neck and only had another two inches left to stitch shut. He leaned in closer to get a better look but it wasn't helping, with her laying on her stomach the cut was angling away from him. "Turn over," he said and she sat upright. She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes and he shrugged and went back to work.
Trunks finally finished stitching up the wound entirely after another thirty minutes, trying his best to make it clean and minimize scarring. He was certain that if he had done this more often he'd be quicker at it, but as it stood his skills were what they were. He leaned in close when he cleaned the wound a bit more and examined it closely to make sure everything was as good as he could get it.
Armada shuddered almost imperceptibly and her skin started to pimple up. "Goosebumps?" Trunks stood up and looked at her.
"You breathed on me," she said flatly and turned her face away from him. From what he could see she didn't appear embarrassed, and he realized that she must have been on her own for some time to have that kind of reaction to him, considering the circumstances. He was going to speak when she stood up from the table and moved around him to a cabinet to his left. She pulled out a bag of red liquid and proceeded to hook it up to a needle and then jab the needle in her right arm.
She then grabbed some antiseptic and a few swabs which she placed in her mouth as her hands were full with the blood bag and antiseptic. "Synthetic blood," she said before he could ask. "No need for types or donors." She walked over to a seat at a table in the corner of the infirmary and set her supplies down as she got to work on her smaller wounds, namely the one her face, right elbow, and hands. Trunks watched her closely for a moment. How long has she been on her own? What would she have done without me here to stitch up that wound? He ignored the lingering thoughts and grabbed a few bandages to take care of his minor wounds, and stood at the counter with his back to her. She was definitely unlike any other person Trunks had met in his life, but he had a lingering feeling that in her case it was a bad thing.
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Thanks for reading! If you'd be so kind as to leave some sort of comment I will love you forever. *heart*
Silvia
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Trunks walked behind Armada as she led them to the end of one of the piers in Ute. He wasn't sure exactly where they were going, considering all that he could see were warehouses, but he remained silent for the time being. He noticed her pick up her pace and jog toward a building before she stopped at the door. He followed suit.
She stopped in front of the door to one of the ubiquitous warehouses and entered a number quickly into the keypad. Trunks tried to watch but he only caught the first six of eleven or twelve digits. The door opened and she walked inside, Trunks right behind her.
“Whoa,” Trunks stopped just inside the door and looked up to see that the warehouse was occupied by a large silver spacecraft, maybe fifty meters long. It had a sleek design, not unlike the old military fighters from Earth. Or at least, the pictures Trunks had seen of them since the military had long been destroyed by the androids.
Armada turned to face him. “It's my ship, and because I'm broke I can't buy any fuel to leave this damn place,” she added matter-of-factly. She turned away from him and flew up to the side of the ship. “We'll be working here in Ute until I can get some fuel,” she called out to him, not turning around as she spoke.
Trunks stood and watched her fly up to the ship. She had a lot more control over her ki than she let on, he could tell now because she wasn't so guarded about it. He wasn't worried; if it came down to it he figured he was stronger than her. He didn't want to just fight his way out of this, though. He did make a mistake and he felt like he owed her. He'd rather find some way to work out his return to Earth peacefully than just flee and cause his friends in Ute undue harm in the process. Besides, Ute was the connection to Earth, and Armada clearly had no problem breaking in and attacking Murtole. What would stop her from making the trip to Earth? Of course he could stop her, but how many people could she kill in the interim? He wasn't sure he was willing to take that risk.
Trunks flew up to the ship after her, and watched as Armada punched another code into a keypad outside the door to the ship. It slid open and he followed her inside; she immediately headed to the right in the hall. Trunks stopped and watched her, unsure of what to do and she turned in the air to face him. “It's not huge, you'll figure it out,” she said before disappearing around the corner at the end of the hall.
Trunks took a guess and headed left. He passed a small room with a large monitor set up on one wall and identified it as the ship's comm room. It certainly looked similar to the same room at the lab in Ute where he had recorded his message to his mother only minutes ago. He kept going and found three doors at the end of the hall, all of them open. He glanced inside; each was a small barracks with three beds. Two rooms were untouched, and one had a few things lying around in the room, so he figured out which one of the three was occupied. Trunks settled into the room to the left of the one that was taken and set his bag with his few things from the lab at Ute on one of the beds. He glanced around and found a bathroom attached to the room and guessed each room probably had the same.
Kind of lonely, Trunks thought as he walked out of the barracks. Nine beds and only one person here... well two now I suppose. At the end of the hall where Armada disappeared he found the bridge, and Armada was sitting at the console in the middle of the others, typing away at the keys furiously.
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Illumination
Mission 01: Corporate Espionage
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Trunks walked up behind Armada where she sat and looked up at the monitor in front of her. She was reading a message that appeared to be an offer for some work. “What's up?” Trunks asked as she read.
“We've got a job,” she said flatly and started to type up a quick reply. She sent it off before Trunks could say anything else and she swiveled her chair around to face him. “Nothing too hard to start,” she said and stood up. Trunks instinctively backed up a few steps so she had room to walk away. Instead she stayed put where she was and looked to him as she continued.
“We're going to break into a corporate office building in another city tonight to retrieve some internal documents,” she stated flatly.
“No qualms about breaking the law,” Trunks added sardonically as he watched Armada move past him toward another doorway in the bridge, leading to areas unknown to him.
She stopped in the doorway and turned to face him. “It wouldn't be necessary if there was a place in this universe for old soldiers like me, but there isn't,” she said rather calmly. She paused for a moment before she spoke again. “Feel free to look around the ship, I'll be down in the engines cleaning the fuel lines.” She turned away and walked off again. “Can't get fuel yet so I might as well clean them now,” she threw out over her shoulder as she walked away.
Trunks watched her turn out of his sight down the other hallway attached to the bridge and decided to follow down the corridor himself to see what was on this side of the ship. Like she said, he needed to get a grasp on where everything was. The first thing he saw was through a door on his right, what appeared to be a lounge or sitting room. There was a table in the corner with wrap-around seating and more seating on the wall across from it. From both areas one could view the monitor on the wall closest to where Trunks entered, and facing the bridge.
He saw another door leading through the break where the seating was and decided to continue. He soon found himself in the ship's kitchen, or more aptly the galley as he thought about it. He took a moment to peek in the cabinets and refrigerator to find a lot of stuff he recognized as Bmyhadian and a few things he didn't.
Trunks left the galley and stopped in the corridor; on the wall opposite the side with the galley and lounge was a safe on the wall and what appeared to be a closet next to it. Both had keypads so he didn't bother with them for now. Just after the galley he found the infirmary, with three beds and a large steel center island. He didn't bother to look through the storage in there; there were still a lot of medical supplies in the lab he didn't recognize so he didn't want to bother with anything until he could ask questions.
Across from the infirmary there was nothing of note, and Trunks figured it was due to the barracks on the other side. He glanced to the end of the hall he was in to see a set of stairs heading down. He walked about halfway down the stairs to see what looked like a cargo bay and more areas beyond it. He heard noise in the distance and assumed that the rest was access to engines and other systems in case any repairs were required.
He turned and headed back to his room; he wanted to finish settling in. It was still night, and only a few hours earlier Armada had broken into the lab and conscripted Trunks into helping her with her business, exactly whatever it was. So if they were going to bust into some office building tonight, she meant after the rest of the day they were currently on. It was going to be a while so he thought he should finish putting his things away and get some rest; he had no idea how long their operation was going to take.
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“You ready?&rdq uo; Trunks heard Armada call down the hall to his barracks for him.
“Yeah,” he replied as he finished putting his jacket on and walked out the door to his room and down the hall to meet her at the door to the ship.
She was dressed in her armor, no surprise there, but he was taken back by the look on her face when she saw him. “Seriously?” she asked with an irritated visage.
“What?” Trunks asked defensively. He was wearing a black tank top with his dark blue denim jacket over it, and long gray pants that fell to cover his orange boots. He certainly didn't see what the problem was.
Armada let out annoyed breath as she looked him up and down. “I don't have anything for you and there's no time to worry about it for now,” she said and reached over to open the ship's door. She flew out and Trunks followed; a few seconds later when they hit the ground at the door to the warehouse he heard the ship's door close behind them.
The pair walked outside and Armada stopped on the sidewalk, facing the street. Trunks glanced left and right as he slowly moved to her side. “So now what?”
Armada pulled a small piece of the navy alloy from her belt and clicked a button on it. A black car from down the street flashed its headlights, pulled out into the street and drove to their location and parked. She glanced to her left at him. “We drive.” She put the piece of metal back in its spot on her belt and walked around to the left side of the car. Trunks followed her lead and opened the door and got in on the passenger side. He recognized Bmyhadian cars but had no idea she had one. Then again, it wasn't surprising if she was living here.
Once inside and buckled up, Armada started driving and Trunks looked out the side rear-view mirror. The sun was setting and it would be dark soon. If they were leaving now he supposed their trip might be longer than he expected. “So,” he asked and turned to glance at Armada, “how long 'till we get there?”
She didn't bother to take her eyes off the road as she slowed and made a left turn. “The office we're breaking into is in another city about two hundred kilometers away,” she stated casually. “It'll be well after dark when we get there.”
Trunks nodded and turned to look out the window and watch the Utian scenery pass by. He didn't mind the drive; he'd get to see what was outside the city. He'd never left before so the prospect was interesting. He just hoped that she had a plan for when they arrived.
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Several hours after nightfall, the two mercenaries stood beside the black car they took to the city of Mensa and watched the building they were targeting. Armada was looking through a pair of binoculars when she lowered them and handed them to Trunks. “The stragglers are leaving,” she nodded toward the building.
He took the binoculars and looked up to the seventeenth floor of the high-rise building. He could see inside the windows with the binoculars' special glare reduction and did indeed see the last few employees leaving the building. “They don't have a night shift?” Trunks asked as he brought the binoculars down from his eyes and handed them back to Armada.
She took the binoculars and hooked them onto the side of her belt. “They usually have light security and a late shift of researchers but they're all leaving for the night for the building to undergo a routine fumigation.” She walked around to the rear of the car and opened the trunk.
“If they're fumigating then how the hell are we supposed to get in?” Trunks asked as he turned to follow her movements.
“These,” she lifted the hood high enough so he could see inside. He looked over to find two sets of goggles, small tanks and masks.
-+-
With their goggles and masks in place, and the long black tubes of oxygen strapped to their right thighs, the pair was ready to enter the building. Trunks glanced at his watch to see it was sometime after midnight, and the fumigation had started about two hours earlier, shortly after everyone left the building. Armada kicked open a metal door on the side of the building facing the alley and the pair moved in. She turned around and closed the door behind them, and proceeded to use her energy to melt the metal of the lock so the door wouldn't open. “We don't need anyone following us,” she said before walking farther into the building.
The pair entered in the back area of a restaurant kitchen on the ground floor of the building. After walking through the kitchen and the front of the restaurant they reached the center of the skyscraper. The middle square of the building was empty on each floor all the way to the top, where dim light from the surrounding city poured in through a skylight. Armada nodded to Trunks before she flew up and he followed suit.
Once they reached the seventeenth floor they moved over the center railing and landed on the floor. Armada glanced left and right to get a bearing on exactly where they were. “This way,” she said softly and started walking down the hall to their left. She followed the numbers on office doors until she found their destination. She tried to open the door but found it locked with another keypad. Before Trunks could say anything she punched the keypad, crushing it into the wall. The door slid open in response and she walked in.
Inside they found what appeared to be a larger office. Armada sat at one of the terminals in the room and booted it up. She quickly typed in a username and password and waited for the system to load.
“How do you know that?” Trunks asked as he stood over her shoulder and watched.
“The client gave me the information needed to complete the mission; standard procedure,” she said calmly as the system loaded. She reached down and pulled a small data chip from her belt and inserted it into the computer next to the monitor. She navigated a few directories before she found the files she was searching for and began to copy them over.
“That's it?” Trunks asked. “Seems too easy,” he said as he stood upright.
“Not quite,” Armada spoke as the files finished copying and she pulled the data chip out before she had the system log out. She turned and stood, and put the data chip back into a compartment on her belt. “Now we need to go downstairs to the basement clean room and get the physical files we need.”
Just as the pair went to leave, Trunks sensed an energy signature. He turned to look but felt it soaring toward them at an incredible speed. “Get down!” he shouted and threw himself and Armada to the ground. Just as they hit the floor the wall behind them exploded and sent debris flying everywhere.
Armada grimaced and jumped up to her knees. She crawled forward to kneel behind the area of wall in front of them that hadn't been destroyed. Trunks scrambled up and followed her. “I don't sense anything,” she whispered to him, the mask distorting her voice. The dust behind them began to settle and the pair sat in silence, unmoving.
Trunks sat and listened. He couldn't risk looking around their current cover, and he couldn't smell anything, so he relied on the last sense available to him. He heard a footstep but before he could react Armada stood up high enough to see over their cover and fire a return shot. All was silent for a few seconds before a barrage of energy was shot at them. Both fighters flew low to the ground to the end of the room in an attempt to stay in cover.
The pair huddled in a corner as the debris and dust settled over where they just were. It was all destroyed with shrapnel of the metal structure in the walls of the building littered about. Trunks was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Armada on his left. He looked to her and her eyes met his. “Stay here,” she whispered. She moved forward and he grabbed her right arm with his right hand.
She glared at him. “Don't move,” she whispered once more and jerked her arm free of his. Before he could protest she flew toward the other end of the room, much faster than he'd thought her capable of. In the wake of her flight whoever was attacking them fired a multitude of shots and more explosions rang out. He wanted to yell for her but knew it wasn't in either of their interests at the moment.
This time there was a lot more debris in the air so Trunks couldn't see if Armada was okay, though he didn't see any blood so that was a start. “Well, we expected a bit more from you,” Trunks heard a male voice call out. It too was distorted from the man speaking wearing a mask, and Trunks crept up until he could see above the overturned desk and piece of wall he was hiding behind to take a glance at their assailants.
He saw three men, the one in the middle slowly walking toward Armada's position—or where Trunks assumed she ended up since he still couldn't see clearly to the other end of the office. "Expect more from me?" he heard his comrade spit back. "You dipshits set off the alarms." Trunks didn't hear any alarms but it made sense—they never disabled any on their way in, and they were probably silent anyway. "Just wait until Mensa PD gets here," she added.
"Hah," the man in the center kept moving toward her and charged a blast of energy around his right fist. "Don't make me laugh. You think we'd walk in here unprepared? You were the one who didn't expect us."
Sounds like they didn't see me, Trunks thought. He didn't bank on it though, and kept his head down as far as he could while still being able to see the three men. The two in the back started to move forward behind the one who was talking. "I don't know exactly how stupid you are," he looked to the direction of Armada's voice, "just that you are stupid." The dust cleared a bit and he could see her huddled behind a partial wall, blood dripping from her right elbow.
"Come on out now," the man spoke as he sauntered closer. Trunks could make out his face now as he approached, and his mind ran with possible tactics to get out of this situation. From what he had seen so far, he figured he was still a lot stronger than their assailants, but too much energy dispersed in the area could make the building structurally weak and collapse—not just on them, but anyone else in the city around the building. He dismissed the idea with too many casualties.
He could fly forward to fight them off hand-to-hand, but then he didn't know if they would end up destroying the building. He wasn't sure how strong Armada was to leave her to defend herself. Damn he cursed mentally.
"We don't want to have to force you out, but we will if necessary," the man said as he looked behind a few overturned desks and chairs and continued walking toward Armada's general direction.
"You wouldn't dare," Armada shouted back. She started inching her way from the wall she was backed up against and closer to Trunks, though not by much considering there was at least fifty feet between them. "You wouldn't make it out of here alive," she scoffed at them.
"You don't know that," he responded, still moving forward with the search. "We're stupid, remember?"
Armada stopped when she reached the end of the pile of debris, or rather the pile got too short for her to hide behind. She pulled something from her belt and looked over to Trunks. Without saying anything she made a throwing motion, then pretended to cover her head and eyes. He wasn't sure what she was about to do but he nodded in understanding.
She leaned forward a bit and threw the tiny object in her hand backwards with her right arm, and it landed at the foot of the talkative man. "What the hell is this?" he said in irritation and bent down to pick it up. Armada ducked her head and used her arms to cover her eyes, and Trunks did the same. No sooner had he closed his eyes, he saw a flash of bright light through his eyelids. Flash grenade? He thought as he turned and looked to his comrade. She was gone from her spot and he took that as the sign to go for it.
"Shit!" one of the men who had yet to speak cursed as he rubbed at his eyes. Trunks flew straight for him but at the last second the man sloppily dodged around him. Trunks stopped and turned to see the third man fire a ki blast at him, which he easily swatted away with his left forearm. The energy shot up into the higher floors of the building, blasting through several floors before he heard it explode.
Before Trunks could think the same man flew at him and started swinging. Trunks easily dodged his attacks as he realized this man hadn't been blinded by the flashbang; maybe he ducked away in time. It didn't matter because he was too slow for the Earthling who dodged a right roundhouse punch before he launched his own assault. Trunks started with a knee to the man's gut, then several hard punches to face before a second kick to send him flying away into a wall.
"Alex!"
Trunks turned to the sound of the scream to see the darker-skinned man of the three fire a blast at him. He quickly dodged out of the way and came up on his attacker to deal a lethal uppercut when he dodged Trunks far faster than he anticipated. Trunks's eyes widened in shock as he felt a harsh kick to his back, across his shoulder blades which sent him falling forward to the floor. He caught himself on hands and knees in time to glance behind himself and fly out of the way of another energy blast, this one leaving a hole in the floor.
"You're gonna make the whole building collapse!" Trunks shouted as he flew. He found another room that was mostly in tact and ducked inside, settling on the floor on his haunches ready to move if he needed to. Trunks sat silent and listened; he didn't hear anything going on. Where did his comrade go, and the guy who was firing at them in the first place?
"Alex, you okay?" the dark skinned fighter asked as he helped his comrade up.
"Yeah," the guy wiped at blood oozing from his nose and mouth with the back of his hand. When he was attacked his mask had been destroyed, but it appeared the fumigation wasn't affecting him. "He's fast, Royce; definitely not your average fighter."
"I'm fast too," Royce replied as Alex took a breath and dusted himself off. Before either party could say anything else, something crashed through the ceiling above and landed right next to them. They turned to see a body rise up to its knees from the rubble.
"Get her!" they heard their comrade yell from above and their heads snapped back down to see the woman they were after jump up from the debris and tackle them both to the ground. Before they could react she jumped up from their bodies and flew off to another corner of the room.
Trunks was about to make another move when Armada flew around a corner and knelt next to him. "You okay?" she asked through heavy breaths.
"I'm fine, what about you?" Trunks asked as he saw that now she had blood smeared under her chin in addition to the blood oozing from her the inside of her right elbow.
"Nothing serious," she waved him off with her right hand, which appeared to be moving fine.
"One of them avoided the flash, but the other two are still feeling it," she said with a quick glance in the direction of their attackers. "The loudmouth is injured, so I'll take him and the one who can still see fine, if you get the third guy," Armada said and swallowed hard.
"No way," Trunks said, "I'll take the quiet two and you get their leader," he stated rather than suggested.
Armada shook her head. "Don't get yourself killed."
"Same to you," Trunks smirked at her. The two then immediately took off for their targets, causing the room they left from to crumble under the pressure of their launch.
Trunks was headed for the one he figured was Alex, who was wearing a blue shirt. Right before he got there the dark skinned guy—Royce, he assumed—appeared in front of him and smirked as he fired a giant blast of energy. Trunks didn't have time to dodge so he had to return fire and deflect as much of the shot as he could.
In the ensuing explosion, Armada lifted her arms to block debris from hitting her face only to find the guy in the blue shirt slam into her and fly her into and through several office walls. He finally stopped when they reached the last room, and he let Armada fall to the floor and skid to a stop in front of the wall of windows on the edge of the building. She went to get up and he was on her, hands around her throat.
"Sorry you gotta die," Alex said through gritted teeth and heavy breaths. Armada had her hands on his but as she lost oxygen she was losing the strength to pull him off. "It's just my job." She continued to struggled with pulling his hands from her throat when she charged energy blasts into both hands which blew the pair apart.
"You bitch!" Alex screamed as he shook his arms; the places where her hands had grasped his forearms were burnt and bleeding. Armada coughed, her hands were burnt and bloody too but now she could breathe. He charged at her again and Armada caught his fists in her hands. She crushed them in her fists before turning to fling him out the windows behind her.
Alex grabbed her wrists when she released his fists and the pair tumbled through the glass and outside the building. Armada pushed her right elbow into his neck under his chin to get him to let go of her, and Alex coughed and released his left hand. She then flew them down toward to the ground with the intent to slam him into the asphalt below.
Armada only had a few more seconds to pry his right hand from her arm, and focused on pushing into his throat more. Alex felt his hand starting to lose its grip, so he pulled a six-inch knife from his left side with his left hand and jammed it into Armada's back right above the scapula. At thirty feet before ground impact Armada stopped and let Alex's body keep going due to his momentum. The knife wasn't in her skin deep and his hand didn't let it go, so the knife dragged over her shoulder and up the right side of her neck before it left her body. He did keep going and hit the ground in a loud boom, breaking up the asphalt around him and creating a cloud of dirt obscuring him from view. Armada took a deep breath and winced as her right hand went up to cover the slice in her neck.
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After the explosion in front of him, Trunks had a few cuts on his face and hands but had taken almost no damage. Royce, on the other hand, had been blown backward into a wall and was bleeding profusely from his forehead. He breathed heavily and his eyes were half closed due to the blood seeping into them. Trunks walked up to him. "I don't want to kill you," he said with sincerity, "so stay down and I won't have to."
Royce seemed to have conceded defeat because he lowered his head and didn't reply. "Lyle won't give up so easily," he said lowly after a moment. Trunks was about to ask who Lyle was when he was blindsided from his right with a heavy hit. The Earthling was sent hurtling to his left and after he crashed through two office walls Trunks stopped himself in mid-air and turned to his right. The third man, the one who did all the talking earlier, whom Trunks now assumed was Lyle, flew straight at him. Trunks caught Lyle's hands in his own and the pair grappled.
"Where are the files?" the man asked through gritted teeth as the pair struggled.
"If you didn't destroy everything you could have made your own copy," Trunks spat back before he lunged forward and headbutted Lyle square between the eyes. The force of the blow dazed Lyle for a moment for him to both let go of Trunks and float unguarded for just an instant, and that was all Trunks needed.
Trunks jammed his right elbow into Lyle's chest, sending him flying backward. Before Lyle hit any debris, Trunks appeared behind him and slammed his left forearm into Lyle's back, effectively stopping his motion. Trunks then slammed his forearm down across Lyle's shoulders and he plunged face-first into the floor, though only enough to have it crack and buckle beneath him. He rolled over and as soon as he did he found a foot pressed to his throat. He looked up at Trunks to see he had injured his opponent, as Trunks had a cut bleeding down the left side of his face, the blood running steadily, under his jaw and down his neck until it disappeared underneath his jacket.
Trunks pressed a tiny bit harder on Lyle's throat and the man couldn't breathe. He couldn't find the strength to lift his arms in defense, and waited for the stronger man to finish him off. Armada floated over to Trunks's side, clutching the right side of her neck as blood spilled over her fingers and down her armor.
"You lost," the woman said through angered eyes. "Don't follow us or we'll kill you." Trunks released his foot on Lyle's throat and the injured man coughed and wheezed for air. Armada nodded to Trunks and the pair flew away.
When the pair exited the building in the back alley they heard the sirens of local law enforcement on their way. Armada reached to her belt and grabbed a small black item, then proceeded to toss it to Trunks.
"You're driving," she said and headed straight for the passenger side. He saw the wound on her neck better and with the way she winced he figured she just wasn't fit to drive at the moment. He ran around to the driver's side and got in.
"Hurry up and get us out of here," Armada said and grimaced as she spoke. He looked confused for a moment, and she realized she needed to instruct him. “Insert the chip into that slot,” she pointed with her left hand at a small rectangular slot near the steering column, “that will allow you to start the vehicle.” He followed her instructions and the engine came to life. She gave a brief explanation of how to accelerate and brake, and after a few seconds Trunks pulled out from their parking spot and continued down the alley until it ran into a major road and he turned right. "When he get down to this intersection, make a left," Armada said as she used both hands now to cover her wound.
"Hey, stay awake to give me directions, okay?" Trunks joked in an attempt to lighten up the situation. "We won't make it back if you pass out," he said as he turned his attention back to the road and made a left turn.
"Get there fast or else I might," she said in a pained voice.
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Back in Ute an hour before dawn, Trunks reached out to help Armada get out of the car but she jerked away from him. "My legs are fine," she said bitterly and flew up to the side of the ship. He'd parked inside the warehouse—there was a small door for the car on the side—and followed her up to the ship. Once inside she flew straight to the infirmary and he followed her. Under the bright lights she lifted her hands and tried to look at the wound in a mirror but she couldn't see it without pulling too hard to turn her neck and it made the wound bleed more.
"Sit down, I'll take care of it," Trunks ordered when he walked in behind her. Armada sat up on the steel surgical table in the center of the room. He walked over and examined the wound as best he could at the moment. She had a deep gash leading down from just under her jaw on the right side of her neck over her shoulder that ended just above her scapula. "It's deep, it'll need stitches," Trunks said as he turned away from her to get supplies.
He picked through the cabinets for a needle, surgical thread, antiseptic and a few towels to wipe away the blood. "Take your armor off," he said as he turned around. It seemed she already knew it would be in the way and was working at it. She had both arm guards off and she was struggling with her chest piece so he set the supplies down and moved to help her.
"Hold on to the back," she said before she clicked something on her belt and her chest plate came apart underneath both arms, leaving a front piece and back piece. Trunks caught the back piece and set it aside, Armada did the same with the front. He was about to ask about the black fibrous material underneath because he couldn't see a zipper or any sort of fastener when she grimaced before lifting both arms and reaching just under her breasts.
Trunks watched in curiosity as she pulled up what had the structure of a shirt over her head. It appeared that the fibrous material was several different pieces, and one place it overlapped was under her breastplate. She pulled it completely off and Trunks could see she wore a black banded bra underneath the armor, and the fibrous material that covered her torso started just under the breasts. He turned his focus back to her wound and saw that it was much worse than he'd initially thought.
"Lay down on your stomach," he said as he looked at the wound. She figured as much based on how far down her back the cut went, so she dumped her armor onto the floor and did as told. Trunks worked methodically to clean the wound and began stitching it up from the insert point on her back. After forty minutes he'd made it to the base of her neck and only had another two inches left to stitch shut. He leaned in closer to get a better look but it wasn't helping, with her laying on her stomach the cut was angling away from him. "Turn over," he said and she sat upright. She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes and he shrugged and went back to work.
Trunks finally finished stitching up the wound entirely after another thirty minutes, trying his best to make it clean and minimize scarring. He was certain that if he had done this more often he'd be quicker at it, but as it stood his skills were what they were. He leaned in close when he cleaned the wound a bit more and examined it closely to make sure everything was as good as he could get it.
Armada shuddered almost imperceptibly and her skin started to pimple up. "Goosebumps?" Trunks stood up and looked at her.
"You breathed on me," she said flatly and turned her face away from him. From what he could see she didn't appear embarrassed, and he realized that she must have been on her own for some time to have that kind of reaction to him, considering the circumstances. He was going to speak when she stood up from the table and moved around him to a cabinet to his left. She pulled out a bag of red liquid and proceeded to hook it up to a needle and then jab the needle in her right arm.
She then grabbed some antiseptic and a few swabs which she placed in her mouth as her hands were full with the blood bag and antiseptic. "Synthetic blood," she said before he could ask. "No need for types or donors." She walked over to a seat at a table in the corner of the infirmary and set her supplies down as she got to work on her smaller wounds, namely the one her face, right elbow, and hands. Trunks watched her closely for a moment. How long has she been on her own? What would she have done without me here to stitch up that wound? He ignored the lingering thoughts and grabbed a few bandages to take care of his minor wounds, and stood at the counter with his back to her. She was definitely unlike any other person Trunks had met in his life, but he had a lingering feeling that in her case it was a bad thing.
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Thanks for reading! If you'd be so kind as to leave some sort of comment I will love you forever. *heart*
Silvia