Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Illumination ❯ Interlude: Detective Work ( Chapter 6 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

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Disclaimer: Dragonball Z belongs to Akira Toriyama and numerous other companies. This fanfic is only for fun, no monies are being made.

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Trunks had double and triple checked the list Armada had given him to make sure he'd gotten everything. With the last of their supplies loaded into the car, he walked around to the driver's side, opened the door and quickly settled himself in. Learning to drive this car was fairly simple; he'd gotten a crash course in it back when they were leaving Mensa and she was injured. Several days ago, she told him she would give him a more proper lesson. You might as well make yourself useful,she'd said to him as she tossed him a the 'key' to the car. It was a black plastic square with a transparent piece in the middle, a chip, she had explained, that when inserted in the vehicle permitted it to start.

After thirty minutes of brief instruction mostly on traffic laws in Bmyhad, she left him to figure out the rest, though admittedly it was pretty easy. This car was very similar to cars on Earth, and Bulma taught him to drive when he was twelve. You never knew when you'd need to get away from the Androids... not like a car would really help, but it gave Bulma a sense of ease, thinking her son had an out. Despite that he could already fly.

It wasn't long before Trunks arrived at the ship's hangar down at the pier. When he pulled around the back to bring the car through the small garage door, he was surprised to find it wasn't opening. Armada had it programmed to open when detecting the car approach, but nothing was happening. Figuring it was nothing more than a glitch, Trunks parked the car in front of the door and got out on foot. He'd just have to go inside and tell Armada, she would fix it, and he would pull the car in like normal to unload.

When Trunks got the human-sized entrance and went to punch in the passcode, he stopped. The lights were not lit up on the keypad like normal. Is this a power outage?Trunks wondered briefly. That would explain the door not opening for the car. He stepped closer to the door and placed both hands flat against the surface. Giving a little push, he heard the lock move, and was able to slide the door open slowly. It wasn't heavy for him, he just didn't want to break anything. It was dark inside the hangar when Trunks stepped inside, with the exception of a few lights on the outside of the ship letting in some very dim ambient light into the hangar.

After taking a few steps inside, something hit Trunks. Is that... blood? The faint smell of blood hit his nostrils, and worry began to set in. “Armada!” Trunks called out as he followed the trail of the smell. As he ran closer to the source, he heard something move in the dark. To give himself some light, Trunks created a small ball of energy with his right hand. As soon as the light from his energy illuminated the room, his eyes widened in shock. Armada was lying face down on the ground, a small pool of blood around her head with blood running down her hands which were restrained behind her back. Nearby were two bodies of men, and Trunks immediately sensed that they were dead.

“Armada!” he shouted as he ran over to her and knelt down beside her. She gurgled and coughed while Trunks used his free left hand to try and help her up. Armada moved with his help, and she was able to get up on her knees. She turned to face him, and Trunks had to hold back a gasp. Blood ran from her mouth and nose, down her neck and chest—for whatever reason she had no shirt on, just her black bandeau. She also had gashes to her forehead, with blood running into her right eye which was bruised and mostly closed. She had bruises and blood all over her body, and her hands were covered in it, as if it were running down from underneath whatever metal contraptions were covering her forearms. There was a metal cable running between them, and by the way her hands were cuffed behind her back, clearly they were some form of restraint. What the hell had happened?

Armada spit blood from her mouth in an attempt to clear it out enough to speak. “In the corner behind me,” she said and gurgled once more. “There's a breaker, go flip it to get the power on.”

Trunks did as told and ran over to the area she had indicated. On the wall was a metal box, already torn open by the looks of it. Holding his light where he could see it, he flipped the switches one by one, and the lights in the hangar slowly began to turn on. With the lights on, he let his energy dissipate and turned back to his comrade. She was still kneeling about a meter from one body, the other was about five meters away and crumpled against the wall of the hangar.

Trunks ran back over and knelt by Armada once more. “What happened?”

“Cut the cable,” she said lowly. Trunks hesitated for a moment before he realized she meant the cable connecting the two cuffs on her arms. He quickly moved behind her, grabbed the cable, and ripped it out. He looked at the cable briefly, it appeared to carry an electric current.

With her hands free in front of her, Armada slowly rose to both feet, placing her right hand on her right knee to stabilize herself on the way. She slowly approached the body closest to her and bent down on one knee next to him. She rolled him over, and Trunks could see that the man's nose was broken, and brutally so—he had blood running down the front of his clothes much the same as Armada. She reached inside several of his pockets before she found a small tablet.

“I'm not sure how they managed to sneak in,” she finally spoke as she browsed the contents of the small personal computer. “They cut the power. When I left the ship to take a look, I was ambushed. They hit me in the head with a shock rod which threw me off long enough for them to put AEM cuffs on me.” She paused her tale momentarily as she apparently found what she was looking for, and with a few more button presses the cuffs unlatched themselves and she threw the tablet and the cuffs down to the floor.

“Kami,” Trunks said breathlessly when he saw what had happened underneath. Each cuff had four metal hooks—bloodymetal hooks—that left four matching wounds in each of Armada's arms. She ran the fingers of her right hand over the wounds on her left arm. From the amount of dried blood, Trunks could tell it had been downright horrific, but now her blood had coagulated and the bleeding from the wounds had stopped. Some time ago, from what he could tell, which means that she was attacked sometime shortly after he left. A thought hit Trunks; what if her assailants were waiting for him to leave? What if he had giventhem the opportunity?

Trunks shook his head in shock, still staring at the bloodied cuffs that had fallen on the floor. “I don't understand,” he started and turned his gaze up to his comrade, “how did this happen?”

In the full light of the hangar, it was clear that Armada had been badly beaten. She had bruises all over her arms, chest, and abdomen, and her right eye was swollen shut. Her face was mostly covered in blood, especially the amount that had trailed from her mouth. It looked like she had taken some serious internal injuries.

Armada turned her gaze away from her injured forearms and up to Trunks. “Anti-energy manipulation restraints. AEM cuffs,” she started and nodded toward the restraints he had helped her remove. “How do you think they keep people like you and me from just destroying everything in sight?” To be honest, Trunks hadn't given it much thought thus far. Armada leaned over and spit more blood from her mouth. “They have ways to control our abilities. These are a fairly inexpensive one, it's just hard to get them on your target. But once you do,” she trailed off. “If you try to use your energy, the hooks sink in and give you a huge electric shock—equal to the power you're trying to control. It converts the energy you manipulate into electricity to power the restraints. The more you struggle, the worse it gets.”

Trunks's gaze fell. He got it. He understood. She was basically tortured in the short time he was gone. Somehow she had managed to kill her attackers, without her strength behind her... a miracle in and of itself. Yet she acted like this was just another day, just another explanation of something as mundane as the hours of the day. But more importantly, she needed treatment—she had serious injuries, and that was putting it mildly.

Trunks reached out toward Armada to help her make her way into the ship and to the infirmary—no, she needed a hospital—but she immediately took a step back from him and raised her right arm in a defensive stance. “I can handle this,” she ground out somewhat angrily.

“You need to go to a hospital, you were nearly beaten to death!” Trunks shouted in return. He wasn't sure why her actions infuriated him, but they did. Why did she have to be so damn stubborn?

“I don't need a hospital, and I don't need your help,” she spat. “This doesn't involve you. I'm going to take care of this... don't touch anything,” she finished and flew toward the ship. Immediately Trunks sensed that her energy was chaotic, all over the place, like she had trouble controlling it. Which would make sense based on what she just told him about the restraints she was in when he found her.

When she had disappeared into the ship, Trunks turned his attention back to the two bodies laying on the floor in the hangar. He wouldn't be dissuaded so easily.

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Illumination

Interlude: Detective Work

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Trunks closed the gap to the first body, the one Armada had searched and pulled the tablet from which apparently controlled her AEM cuffs. The man looked to be about his age, maybe a little older. His nose was badly broken, the type of break that probably sent bone fragments into his brain, the cause of his death. He did have blood splatter on his clothes outside of the fountain that had drained itself from his nose, but Trunks suspected that it wasn't his blood. Rather, it was his comrade's blood from the man beating her. The thought made Trunks's blood boil; they beat someone who had diminished ability to fight back. Then again, somehow she managed to kill him... which in a weird way made Trunks proud of her. She didn't give up, she fought back no matter what. She wouldn't be an easy kill... he knew that feeling all too well.

Searching the first body came up with nothing, so Trunks stood and stepped over to the next. On his way over, he noticed a piece of bloodied white cloth laying on the ground. He bent down and picked it up, and after looking at it for a few moments he realized it was Armada's shirt. They must have ripped it off of her. At first he was unsure as to what good that would do, but when the possibilities started to flitter in, he felt sick. Sure, people wanted Armada dead, she was a mercenary—but torture, and... worse... it made his anger flare again. Why? What was the point in all of this?

He set the torn shirt down and approached the second body. This one was facing up, leaned partially against the back wall of the building. A shock rod was sitting nearby, so it looked like this was the one who had initially hit her. Again, the young man appeared not much older than Trunks himself, although this one had a shaved head. As Trunks knelt down to take a closer look and go through the man's pockets, he noticed a knife embedded deep into the man's chest. It looked like it was thrust up under his ribcage from a low angle, and shoved in past the blade's hilt. It likely punctured his lungs, because while there was a good deal of blood near the wound, it wasn't enough to think his cause of death was blood loss.

After a quick search of the body, Trunks found two items of interest. The first was an ID. He'd seen these before around Ute; it was a digital ID almost like a tablet or smart phone itself but that only carried identification information. Since the other body carried no ID, this might be a good place to start to figure out who these men were affiliated with and why they were after Armada. The second item Trunks found was a watch. He wasn't sure what time system it was for, because it didn't match Bmyhad's system. But it was broken, and it had a symbol inscribed on the back. More interestingly, it had a wrist band, but the man kept it in his pocket. This watch likely wasn't used as a watch, and perhaps the symbol the back may help identify who these men were.

Trunks stood and shoved both items into his right jacket pocket. There was only one place he knew to start looking if he was going to get this ID read. Trunks just hoped he would catch him before he left the office for the day.

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Murtole yawned as he attempted to finish typing up the latest report on his research. It didn't need to be done by tomorrow, but he liked to have it done early so he could go back and review it before it was finally due. He took another sip of his coffee before he turned to see who those footsteps he heard approaching belonged to.

“Trunks,” Murtole said with a weary smile. He didn't bother to rise, he was too tired from all the hours he had been putting in lately with his research.

Trunks returned his friend's smile, although nervously. “Hey.”

“What's up?” Murtole asked, smile still present on his face. Trunks may have known, although Murtole hoped he didn't, that Trunks was one of Murtole's only friends. He was the nerdy kid in school who continued to work hard in his career and, well... he never got out much.

Trunks stopped when he reached Murtole's desk. He hestitated a moment, before reminding himself that he needed to find out what was going on. The Earthling pulled out the ID he'd pulled from one of the corpses back at the ship's hangar, and set it on the end of Murtole's desk. “I need help with this.”

Murtole instantly knew what it was. His gaze fell. “I'm sorry, I can't,” he said slowly. “I mean, if I do, put my whole career on the line, I-I could get arrested...” Murtole trailed off.

“No, no, it's fine,” Trunks tried to reassure his friend. What the hell was I thinking?! Trunks mentally berated himself. Of course he can't do anything, Murtole is a good kid. He obeys the law... what was I thinking, trying to get him caught up in this. Kami, I'm a dumbass. “Don't worry about it,” Trunks said hastily as he picked up the ID and put it in his pocket.

“I,” Murtole started in a near-whisper, “I have a friend, though. We went to school together. If he can't do it, then he'll know somebody who can.” Murtole reached over to another area of his desk and pulled out a small piece of paper and a pen. He wrote on it briefly before holding it out to Trunks.

Trunks took the paper and looked at it as Murtole spoke. “That's his comm address. Tell him you got it from me, he's a friend so he should help you.” Murtole's gaze fell, and his countenance with it. “I'm sorry I can't do anything more for you.”

“No Murtole, this is great, thank you,” Trunks said in earnest as he put the paper away in the same pocket as the ID.

The pair let silence settle between them for a moment before Murtole spoke up. “Hey, Trunks... this isn't. I mean, she isn't making you do... bad things... is she?” the researcher asked with a pained expression.

Trunks was taken aback. Armada had threatened to kill Murtole. She was a mercenary. She was paid to kill people—among other crimes—and apparently she had no problem doing it. Was he going to fall into the same life of crime? He'd already broken the law countless times, and he was nowhere near paying back even one percent of what he'd cost Armada that day a few short weeks ago. But something in him had changed, something turned. Especially when her blooded body he found earlier flashed across his eyes. They could have killed her, and yet... they didn't. Why? Honestly, he wasn't even sure why he wanted to know. Something spurred him forward. And even at his friend's question, he wasn't going to quit now.

“No... don't worry about it,” Trunks said. Suddenly he realized that yes, he was probably a wanted criminal, right there with Armada. By standing here right now, he was putting Murtole at risk. He was putting Devan, and everyone at the lab, at risk. He'd already crossed that line, and now... he was putting his friends' lives and reputations in jeopardy by virtue of having anything to do with them. Trunks's face hardened. It was clear to him now what he needed to do.

“I'm not going to come around here anymore,” he said flatly. Murtole opened his mouth to protest but Trunks cut him off. “I don't want to get you guys in trouble.” He turned to walk away when one last thought occurred to him. “Tell my mom I'll contact her when I can.” With that said, he turned and headed out. And deep down, Murtole must have understood, because he never did say anything as his friend walked out of the lab.

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After stopping at the lab, Trunks had then gone to get his own smartphone. He had no way to contact Murtole's friend without Armada knowing unless he had a separate communication device from the ship. And, someday, if he got it configured right, he may be able to send messages direct to his mother. After his first paying job with Armada, she had handed him a bank card and told him it had fifteen thousand beta on it. So you can buy whatever you need. He wondered what she'd think if she knew this was what he was spending it on. Well, she wouldn't care about the what, but the why. Which is why he had to be discrete about everything, and make sure he kept things locked away in his room should she decide to take a look around.

When Trunks got back to the hangar, he immediately smelled disinfectant. Glancing over to the area of the scene from earlier, he noticed the bodies were gone and everything looked exactly as it had before. Apparently Armada had cleaned up... he wondered what she did with the bodies, but after considering it for a moment, he figured he'd rather not know. Upon boarding the ship, Trunks went straight to his quarters to lock his things away. He had a locking cabinet built into the wall in his bathroom, which is exactly where he stashed everything. It was locked by a code he put in via a keypad locally, which he was certain Armada could override if she really wanted to get in. One thing he had noticed though, was that she never attempted to enter the barracks designated to him, nor did she ask questions about his belongings. It was a gamble, but he was fairly certain she wouldn't snoop around.

After leaving his room, Trunks paused for a moment. He didn't feel Armada's energy in the ship, but... below it? He focused a moment longer; no, she was in the ship, but she was in the cargo bay. Curious as to what she would be doing there, as opposed to resting from the beating she took, he headed to the back of the ship by the kitchen to jump down the ladder leading into the cargo bay. He landed softly, using flight to slow his descent. When he turned around the corner right by the ladder leading into cargo, what he saw stunned him.

Armada stood, no shoes, only wearing her black skirt and black bandeau, hair tied up on in a bun of her head. She made a few slow, deliberate motions that confused Trunks for a moment, until it hit him like a bag of bricks—she was training! In the short time they'd been together, he had never seen her do any type of training.

She moved slowly, and fluidly, more like she was practicing the motions. Occasionally she would take a few quick strikes, but then slow her pace again. The type of movements she was making, they seemed vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn't place it. She seemed to not notice him, as she was totally focused on what she was doing. Trunks also noted the bandages covering both of her forearms, and the small bag of liquid taped to her left upper arm. It was some kind of IV fluid, as a small plastic line ran from the bag down to her left hand, where it was buried under the skin in the top of her left hand. As he continued to watch, he noticed that her movements were somewhat strained. Ever so slightly, her muscles would tremble. She would complete her motions, but it wasn't as smooth as it should be. Of course not, Trunks mentally shook his head at her while his face displayed a disappointed scowl, she's seriously injured. Her body is begging for rest and she's doing this?

Armada kept her focus on her movements, turning away from Trunks once more as she spoke. “How long do you plan on standing there and staring?”

“You're an idiot,” Trunks said flatly as he moved closer to her in the room and away from the ladder leading into the cargo bay.

“That's rich, coming from you,” she said and finished three quick strikes before turning to face him.

“You could have died today—no,” Trunks restarted his thought, “you almost died today. And you think now's the time for practice?” He was getting downright angry, and honestly he wasn't sure why. He figured it was the blatant stupidityof what she was doing.

Armada stopped and stood upright, ending the practice of her stance. “And who are you to tell me how to live my life?” She wiped at the sweat on her forehead with her right forearm, the bandages soaking up a decent amount of it. Trunks then noticed that her right eye was still mostly swollen shut.

“At least I know how to train properly,” he shot back, somewhat cooler than he felt underneath the surface. “You can't keep a simple form solid because you're shaking like a leaf.” He paused, and tacked on, out of irritation, “And who trains in a skirt anyway?”

Armada glared at him a moment before reaching for the hem of her skirt where it sat on her right thigh with her right hand. Trunks's eyes shot wide for a moment as she lifted it, only to reveal that she had black skintight shorts matching the fabric of her skirt on underneath. “This fabric is the same as my armor, it stretches as it needs to,” she added as she pushed her skirt back down. The two stood in silence a moment before Armada spoke again. “If you have nothing useful for me, then leave.” She turned away from him and settled back into her routine.

“Are you gonna tell me who those guys were?” Trunks asked, fully expecting to be told to shut the hell up.

“No idea,” Armada said, her eyes focused on some imaginary point in space as she stepped forward and turned, still facing away from Trunks. He knew this would go nowhere fast, and as irritated as he was with her, he simply turned and went back upstairs to the ship's main level. No need to argue with her, it wouldn't do anything other than irritate him further.

It was already getting late, so Trunks went to his room to call it an evening. When he entered his barracks and closed the door behind himself, his eyes lingered on his sword, sheathed and hanging from the top bunk of the bunk bed set. Memories came flooding back to him, of a younger version of himself, bloodied and beaten to near death by the androids, practicing slow steps and swings with his sword. He remembered how many times he would drop his sword and curse the pain, but pick it back up and keep pushing on, no matter how injured he was. Going through movements where his muscles shook from exhaustion, where he wanted to cry out in pain but decided instead to channel it into a mind-numbing focus on each move, each breath.

He understood. And he didn't care for the reminder of those times. When the world rested on his shoulders and he could do nothing but fail.

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The next morning, Trunks was up and moving early. Armada was long gone, and Trunks was grateful. While he had come to terms with where his anger at her was coming from yesterday, he still felt unusually irritated with her actions. She didn't have to make things hard; he was here, she could rely on him for help. It was frustrating that she refused him at every turn. She was stubborn to the point of stupidity... but he'd had his own moments like that not too long ago.

Trunks left the hangar and walked to his destination. He was headed for a park on the north edge of downtown Ute to meet with Murtole's friend. He had setup his smartphone last night and sent the first cursory message to the comm address Murtole had given him. Whoever was on the other end agreed to assist, and told Trunks to bring the item he needed examined and meet him there in the morning. And thus Trunks was taking his time walking through the city.

Ute was a gorgeous city. Granted the cities Trunks grew up seeing were all half destroyed, so anything would seem gorgeous in comparison, but Ute was different. The concrete was a very light gray, almost white, and everything was a mixture of that shining white and glass. The streets were clean, and Ute didn't have slums—he'd even asked Devan and Murtole about it. Walking through the city on a warm morning in the summer was fun. Fun was something Trunks needed more of in his life.

It didn't take long for Trunks to arrive at the park mentioned by Murtole's friend. He walked through until he found the bench specified in the message. It was a dark gray, and a different style from the rest of the architecture of the park. It sat just under a tree and about twenty meters from a fountain. Nobody was there, so he slowly approached and seated himself. Trunks sat and people-watched, just enjoying the weather. His home was still healing, but they were close—they were close to this level of normalcy.

A few minutes later someone who appeared to be just walking by took a sharp turn and headed straight for Trunks. He sat himself down on the bench next to Trunks and let out a contented sigh before he turned to Trunks and smiled. “You're Murtole's friend, right?” his voice was light and had a slight accent.

“Yeah,” Trunks said, somewhat shocked. This guy wasn't any older than him. He was a few inches shorter, from watching him walk over. He had short, wavy dark hair and wore black rimmed glasses, and was fairly thin. Not a malnourished thin, just like it was his natural build.

“Nice to meet you,” he still smiled brightly. “My name's Quarry, but call me Q.”

Q looked at Trunks expectantly, awaiting a response. Trunks wasn't naïve enough to give out his real name, so he quickly thought up a name to give Q. “I'm Toran,” Trunks reached out and Q took his hand and shook it briefly.

“Murtole is a dear friend of mine,” Q said, his gaze edging slightly away from Trunks. “If he sent you to me, I'll do my best to help you. Now,” he brought his hands together in front of him, “let's see what you've got.”

Trunks pulled out the ID he'd scavenged from the bald dead man and handed it to Q.

“Ah, well this should be easy,” Q said with a quick smile to Trunks before he reached back into one of his jacket pockets and pulled out what appeared to be a smartphone. He pulled the small retractable cable out from the ID card and plugged it into his smartphone. “Should only take a minute to decrypt,” Q added, “and then we'll know who you're looking for.”

Trunks was slightly confused. “We couldn't have just transferred the data remotely?” he asked. Meeting in person seemed kind of... risky.

Q shook his head. “Too easy to track over the network. Besides, this,” he moved the smartphone in his hand, “isn't online. It only connects to a database I've created that I keep on an entirely separate network.” Q turned back to his smartphone. “Oh,” he said with a look on his face that Trunks couldn't interpret but he knew wasn't good.

“What?” Trunks finally asked.

“It seems I already had the key for this encryption protocol,” Q replied. He stared at his phone a moment and swallowed thickly before he looked at Trunks. “Do you know who you're dealing with?” he asked with a look of worry upon his face.

“No,” Trunks responded automatically. “That's why I'm here.”

Q sighed and tucked his lips in for a moment, letting out a deep breath. “Rieve. I've decrypted a few things of theirs before, so I already had the key for their encryption protocol, which is why it went so quick.” Q sighed again.

“What's Rieve?” Trunks asked with concern bringing his eyebrows together. He had no idea what Q was talking about.

Q looked at Trunks like he had just grown another head. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. “No,” he closed his eyes and shook his head briefly. “It's done,” he said and unplugged the ID from his smartphone and handed it to Trunks. “I've highlighted his real ID in green, so you can just go through the rest of it on your own time.” Q paused a moment. “But I suggest that if you don't know who Rieve is, that you take this back to where you found it and you get as far away from it as you can.” Q put his phone away and stood up.

Trunks hurriedly stood behind him. “What do you mean?” He was thoroughly confused.

“Do me a favor,” Q turned to look at him. “Don't take that anywhere near Murtole.” Before Trunks could respond, Q started walking away.

Trunks sat a moment and watched Q disappear into the crowd. He slipped the ID back into his pocket. What the hell was Rieve and why was Q so upset about it? Trunks was about to get up and leave when he realized something, and felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. He pulled his own phone out and pulled up a network site that functioned as an encyclopedia of sorts. He opened the search and spoke into the phone, “Rieve.” The application processed his voice command showed it searching for the word 'RIEVE.' A few seconds later the results came up.

What Trunks read should have shocked him, but sadly it didn't. 'RIEVE' was the name of an organized crime family, and a fairly accomplished one at that. He read on about their history, their exploits, how several police organizations had been working for decades to take them down. All of the information was unconfirmed, save a few members who had been taken into custody and flipped. The article stressed the unknown, as Rieve was still somewhat shrouded in mystery. Their name was well known through the mapped universe, but most of the information passed around was merely rumors. However, Rieve was estimated to have long reaching arms into many governments and nations across the universe. Just how far was unknown.

So Armada had pissed off an interstellar mafia. No surprise there, with her type of work, if he could even call it that. Just what she had done to piss them off was still a mystery. Trunks decided at that moment that he would work to find out what was going on. Because if Rieve was half as bad as Q and the network entry made it sound, then he had reason to worry.

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A short chapter, but a necessary one. Thanks for reading!