Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Illumination ❯ Mission 06: [Classified] ( Chapter 10 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Silver Armada 
Trunks and Armada are forced into taking a job that doesn't seem so bad, until a super weapon is used against them.
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 12.07.2016 | Pages: 14 | Words: 8.7K | Visits: 131 | Status: Completed
Trunks and Armada are forced into taking a job that doesn't seem so bad, until a super weapon is used against them.
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama / Adventure | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 12.07.2016 | Pages: 14 | Words: 8.7K | Visits: 131 | Status: Completed
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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It took a few agonizing seconds for Trunks to breathe. He almost thought time itself had stopped, with the way his body went numb and his lungs froze. Once he was able to breathe, he could focus his senses for a moment. As the pain started to roll in, lighting up his nerves throughout his entire body, he could begin trying to move. His vision was still completely black, but he was able to start moving his fingers. His left hand grabbed whatever it could, and his fingers wrapped around a few pieces of concrete rubble.
Suddenly his ability to sense ki came back to him, and he could track what was going on. It only took a few seconds for him to realize that Armada was moving away from him. For a moment he was curious, but as she darted farther away he quickly realized what she was doing. No... he thought in anguish as the reality of the situation sank in. She was leading him away, and Trunks knew what that meant. Armada wasn't strong enough to defeat him. But she was protecting him yet again, pulling the danger away even if they both knew what that meant.
If Trunks didn't get up in the next thirty seconds, she was going to die. And he would likely follow after her.
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Illumination
< /p> Mission 06: [Classified]
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[Approxima tely three days ago]
Armada gazed at the window to her left, and her eyes narrowed while her mind focused on other matters. She leaned back in her seat, watching as the private shuttle she was on docked with the space station in preparation for her to disembark. Her trip to LOKI and back had taken four days. Once she disembarked at this space station, there was only one more shuttle left to take to descend down to the surface of Bmyhad, and she would be back to the ship in a few hours. That was a problem, since she had not quite resolved the issues that had been bothering her through this entire trip.
There was no question in her mind that Trunks was far more powerful than her. She had suspected it for some time, but now knowing without any doubts, having felt that terrifying force herself, she couldn't ignore the issue. This one fact brought many problems to mind, the most pressing of which was the question of why. Why would he stay? He had the power to crush her in an instant. Why would he even go with her in the first place? Back when she had tracked him down to the lab in Ute, he could have ended things there. What was he planning? There had to be some reason for this. Maybe he was working with Dax. Although if he was allied with Dax, and by proxy Rieve, wouldn't he be assisting Rieve? How would he have fallen victim to Rieve's attack so easily? Why would he have saved her from being killed by Corvus, and kill him in return? And if he was working with Dax and Rieve, why was he so naive about the universe as a whole? He was one hell of an actor.
The muscles in her jaw tightened. He was after her, he was after something she had, although she wasn't sure what. She didn't know why. And it was disconcerting to say the least. Dax had already taken her money, which was truly a pittance to Rieve. What else did she have? If he was sent to kill her, he could have done so a hundred times over. So why wait? Armada couldn't answer these questions, and for the first time in eight years, she was mystified as to what to do.
“Miss Solaris?”
Armada looked up to her right to see the single flight attendant on this shuttle standing in the aisle, looking to her. “We'll begin disembarking shortly,” the elderly man said once she made eye contact with him. Armada nodded and he smiled at her before turning away to head back to the main cabin. She had chartered this private shuttle for just herself, but the company had included a flight attendant anyway. Not necessary in her mind, but she made no point to argue it.
She turned and looked out the window to her left once more. It wouldn't be long now before she returned to Ute.
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Not even one full day after waking up from what Trunks supposed was a coma, Armada left. I'm going to LOKI, I'll be back in four days. That was all she said before she put on her armor and took off. He didn't say anything in response, didn't argue with her. Because what was the point? The only conclusion Trunks could come to was that she was insane. Why else would she be so damn determined to die for no decent reason?
He was confused, to put it mildly. Some of her actions made it seem like she was trying to protect him, to keep him from being involved. And others made it appear that she had a death wish. But why go to such extremes? Perhaps she thought she could have defeated that assassin from Rieve before she fought him and found out that she couldn't. But if she had any doubts, why keep him from going with her, from assisting her? While the thoughts still continued to plague him, Trunks tried to push them to the back of his mind. These were questions with no answers, and all they served to do was fill him with doubt.
As Trunks sat and ate his lunch in the lounge, watching some show on the network that reminded him of old martial arts movies he'd seen back on Earth, he heard a noise in the hangar. After hearing the noise and taking a moment to set down his utensils, he sensed Armada's ki. Curious as to what the noise was about, he got up and headed for the open door to the ship.
When Trunks reached the hole in the side of the ship that he had created by destroying the ship's door, he looked down below to see Armada carrying a large crate inside the hangar through the larger side door they used for the car. As Armada flew carrying a crate larger than their car, she finally noticed Trunks and looked up at him. She set the crate down, and proceeded to throw a small object at him.
Trunks had to lean out the open door slightly to catch the small black box she had thrown at him. “Hold on to that,” she called up at him. “Don't lose it; it cost me half a million.”
Half a million beta?Trunks thought as he looked at the small plastic black box in his hand. It was a cube only about an inch and a half on each side. It reminded him of the old jewelry boxes his mother had at home. The idea that Armada had purchased jewelrywas almost as crazy as... well... as crazy as her. Perhaps that meant it wasn't such a crazy idea to think she wasted half a million beta on jewelry.
Trunks looked back down below to see Armada pulling the lid off of the metal crate she had carried inside. Curious as to what she was doing, he flew down to where she worked to get a closer look. He landed on the other side of the crate as she finished pushing the lid to the side where it rested upright against the longer side of the crate.
“What's that?” Trunks asked as he placed the small box she had given him in his right pants pocket.
“I have to replace the door to the ship,” Armada said without looking at him as she continued to work. With the lid of the crate out of the way, she pulled some packing material aside to reveal a shiny metal door. It looked slightly different than the one Trunks had destroyed. Armada reached down and carefully lifted the door from the packing material around it. She hovered in the air slightly and set the door down, upright, leaning against the short side of the crate.
“What about the box?” Trunks asked, referring to the small black box she had handed over to him.
Armada moved around to the side of the crate and removed more packing material to reveal a metal box in the bottom of the crate. “It's a new ship identification scrambler,” she said while lifting the box out of the crate. She set it on the edge of the crate and unlatched it before opening it. “Noran and Senator Ballasten scanned our ship. The specific algorithm for that chip has been compromised, so it needs replaced,” she answered. She picked up several small pieces of metal out of the box that Trunks figured were the accessories for the door needed to install it.
With her hands full of small pieces, she turned to Trunks briefly before lifting the new door once more. “I'll install the door and then I'll install the chip, so hang on to it for a few minutes.” With the door in her hands, she flew up to the side of the ship and set the door just inside the opening from the old door. Trunks flew up after her.
They worked together for thirty minutes to install the new door. Since he blew apart the old one, Armada had to open several of panels of the hull of the ship to remove all of the components of the old door. For a sliding door, the whole thing seemed a lot more complicated and involved. Then again, it had to seal the ship for flight into space. With a coordinated effort, they finished installing the door in half an hour and moved on to the bridge.
Armada knelt beneath the pilot's console in the bridge and opened a metal panel to expose the wiring beneath. Trunks knelt next to her, holding a small flashlight in his hand, positioned to help her see into the dark interior of the ship's components. Installing the new chip went quickly, all that she had to do was remove the old chip, put the new one in the same socket, and restart the ship's identification operating system. Once it was in, Armada sat in the pilot's seat while Trunks sat at the navigation console to her right. She wanted to check the ship's systems and run a quick diagnostic to make sure both the door and the new ID scrambler were functioning properly.
After rebooting several systems, Armada sat watching the diagnostic messages scroll down the main monitor in front of the pilot's chair in the bridge. Suddenly a new dialog window appeared and displayed the words Incoming Transmisson. Decrypting signal...
Armada watch the monitor for a second before her eyebrows came together in worry. “No,” she said lowly as she started typing furiously at the console.
“What's up?” Trunks asked. Based on her tone in just that one word, it didn't sound good.
“These encryption keys are specific to the Republican government,” Armada said, glancing between her keyboard and the monitor in front of her. “I can't stop the transmission, they've overridden the system!” she exclaimed, a mixture of worry and fury playing out in her words.
“The Republican government is trying to contact us?” Trunks surmised. This didn't sound good to him.
“And I don't want any part of it,” Armada said lowly as she continued to try and stop the transmission. It was too late however, when an image finally appeared on the screen.
“Good evening Armada,” a woman on the other side of the transmission spoke. She had brown hair that was tied back and away from her face, and dark brown eyes. She was wearing some kind of suit, although she had no wore no badge or symbol to indicate exactly who she was. “I hope you're doing well.”
Armada glared at the woman on the other side of the screen. “I don't want anything to do with you.”
The woman on the other end laughed and her eyes fell for a moment before she raised them again, a smile still on her face. “I think we both know that you don't have a choice at this point.” She paused a moment and typed something at her own console. As she did, a smaller window appeared superimposed on the current communications window. This one was a quarter of the size and sat down in the bottom-left corner.
“Ten days ago, a top secret prototype of a weapon being developed by the Venetian government was stolen,” the mysterious woman continued speaking. At her words, a blueprint of what Trunks thought did indeed look like some kind of weapon appeared on the smaller screen. If he had to guess, it had the general shape and size of a rocket launcher. “And you're going to get it back,” she added with a smile.
Armada continued glaring, but finally relented to participate in the conversation. “Who stole it?”
The woman smiled broadly, though it seemed strained. “We have our theories as to who hired him, but it was a mercenary by the name of Mikhail,” she said, and the image on the smaller screen changed to an image of a man that didn't appear to be much older than Trunks. “We've tracked him to an abandoned district of Virda City. He doesn't appear to be moving. The signal has stayed put for the past two days.”
“You're tracking him through the weapon,” Armada said. Trunks supposed it should have been a question, but she didn't say it like it was one.
“Yes,” the woman replied. “I've uploaded a copy of the signal the device emits so that you can calibrate your equipment to track it.” She paused a moment before she spoke again. “You must bring the weapon back. There will be no compensation if we do not receive the prototype.”
“How much are we talking about?” Armada asked.
“Eight hundred fifty-thousand beta,” the woman responded plainly. “We expect to hear from you within a week,” the woman added. “Good luck.” With that, the transmission cut off.
Armada sighed, and Trunks was surprised. He would have expected her to start screaming or punch something, not sigh. Was she feeling sick? “So what do we do?” Trunks asked, unsure if this meant they were taking the job or not.
“She was from the Venetian government,” Armada said plainly without looking at Trunks. “If we refuse, we'll have them as an enemy.” She paused a moment before turning to her right, her eyes catching Trunks's. “Venice is one of the founding nations of the Republic. It's also one of the most powerful countries in existence,” she added. “We can't refuse.”
“So we just need to go get this weapon back from a mercenary,” Trunks replied, summarizing the situation. “Shouldn't be too hard, right?” One mercenary versus the two of them sounded like a walk in the park.
Armada opened the file the Venetian woman sent them. The mugshot of Mikhail appeared on the monitor in front of her. “It can't be that easy,” Armada replied, staring at Mikhail's picture and the accompanying profile. “There's a reason they're not going after him.” She paused a moment as she read the data in front of her. “Looks like he's an energy fighter, but the best estimates of his strength have him so low he should pose no threat to either of us, or a proper Venetian strike team.” Her eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up a little bit before she sighed yet again. “There's something about this that they're not telling us.”
Trunks thought for a moment before he spoke. “Why don't we just tell them we failed and never bother with it?”
Armada shook her head and kept her gaze on the data onscreen. “They must already have surveillance setup on him, even if it's only via satellite. They'll know if we don't even bother,” she said, almost dejectedly.
“So what's this weapon?” Trunks asked. Perhaps that held the answer to the question of why Venice wanted them to go retrieve it.
Armada pulled up the weapon specs and read the file. “It doesn't say anything about what it does, just gives physical specifications so we can identify the weapon,” she answered. “And a name,” Armada added after a moment, “Project Nadol'tonne.”
“Look up that word,” Trunks interjected. A conversation floated up from his memory where he and his mother talked about project name conventions and the name of the Capsule Corporation project that produced the time machine. Maybe it wouldn't hold water for an alien empire, but if it did, perhaps the project name might reveal something about the nature of what this weapon was. He waited a few moments as Armada typed away at the console in front of her, when finally she paused on a screen and he watched as her eyes narrowed in concentration. “What is it?” he asked, knowing immediately that she'd found something.
“Nadol'tonne is an ancient Venetian god of the earth,” she said slowly as she stared at the screen. “He was said to carry a giant hammer that he used to create earthquakes when he slammed it into the ground,” she finished and looked to Trunks.
“You think this weapon can generate earthquakes?” Trunks asked as his eyebrows rode a little higher. Certainly such a thing wasn't possible. The energy released from an earthquake was massive, there was no way it could be contained in a weapon small enough to be carried by a single person.
“No,” Armada shook her head slightly, “it's not possible.” She glanced back at the image of the weapon on the monitor, “But whatever it does, we've got to be careful.”
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The trip to Virda took three days, and Trunks loathed every minute of it. Floating through space, unable to do anything but wait... it was frustrating. After they took off from Ute, Armada had disabled the ship's communication system. She had explained to Trunks that since the Venetian government had hacked it, the system was compromised. While it was run by a separate operating system and the infrastructure was isolated, they still ran the risk of a potential hack into the ship's other systems. After she had shut it down, she removed the components of the system. She said they'd replace them later, after they returned from this mission.
Her reticence for this mission was understandable, but still strange. He agreed that things didn't quite add up, but between the two of them, what did they truly have to fear? This wouldn't be a repeat of her fight against that white-haired Rieve assassin. She had been alone for that, until he caught up to her. This time they would be working together from the start. And Trunks understood that he was ridiculously powerful compared to most beings in the universe, and this was confirmed by the way she tiptoed around him after that debacle. It bothered him slightly, but perhaps she wouldn't be so quick to fight with him now that she knew he was far more powerful than she was.
When they approached the planet and began their descent, Armada explained that almost a hundred years ago, Virda was involved in a war with a member nation of LOKI. Virda City had fallen victim to a nuclear attack, and as a result a massive part of the city was destroyed. Those ruined remains were still cordoned off from the rest of the city due to radiation poisoning. It wouldn't harm them to enter the district to apprehend Mikhail, but if they were to live there, that would be a problem. Thus the government of Virda did not allow anyone to resettle the area. However, the derelict district was massive, and the health risks posed to those who would be forced to patrol it regularly to enforce the quarantine meant that it was mostly unsecured. Which made it an ideal place for criminals to temporarily hide.
Armada landed the ship within the living side of the metropolis, under an assumed name, and paid off the local hangar to keep things quiet. They headed for the quarantine zone on foot, and when they reached the border wall it was all too easy to sneak by local police and enter the district under the cover of night. Once inside, Trunks inwardly grimaced. This Virda City looked nothing like the high tech, clean and orderly metropolis they just left behind. No, it resembled the ruined West City during the height of the androids' reign. In some ways, it was worse, because he couldn't sense anything—not one living being in the area, and that emptiness stretched for miles. He wondered if this was what Earth would look like if he had failed and been killed by the androids. It made his stomach turn.
They walked through the ruined section of the city, following the signal emitted by the stolen weapon. Armada had programmed her phone to track it, and they were closing in. She stopped walking as they approached a skyscraper that was mostly still standing. She turned to look at Trunks, who followed behind her and off to her left a step or two. “The weapon's in the building,” Armada said, motioning toward the derelict construct with her head. “Mikhail is likely with it. Keep your energy suppressed,” she said lowly before walking toward the building while sliding her phone into place on her belt.
Trunks stepped lightly as he followed behind her. The streets were covered in a thin layer of what appeared to be ash, which helped muffle the sound of their footsteps. He didn't sense anything for miles, save his comrade, and it was unnerving. Even the abandoned cities of Earth held some life, from small animals that would seek shelter in the rubble. This place was like a dead zone, with no signs of life, no plants, no animals... nothing. If Mikhail was in that building with the weapon, he was completely hidden from Trunks's senses. Which while he wasn't sure how such a feat would be possible, he knew it couldn't be impossible. The universe was full of strange technology that both enabled and disabled ki. Who knew what else this mercenary had besides the Venetian military weapon?
The front doors to the building had long been gone. When Armada approached the threshold, she lifted her feet and floated into the air. Trunks did the same, and the pair both worked to keep their energies as low as possible. Trunks knew that Frieza's men were not trained to sense their enemies, as they relied on scouters to read ki levels. He couldn't assume that was the case for Mikhail, however it hardly mattered. He and Armada would be the only life forms around for miles. Surely the mercenary knew they were coming.
The path ahead was blocked with a lot of rubble, but the broken concrete didn't obstruct the hallway completely. A small gap was present at the left end of the hallway near the ceiling, however they would have to go through one at time. Armada flew through first, without a second thought. Trunks followed after her, although it was a tighter fit for him with his wide shoulders, and he bumped a few pieces of broken concrete loose. The small sounds generated by the falling debris seemed incredibly loud to Trunks as the noise echoed through the building. He was surprised at first, until he quickly realized that this area was silent—silent like death, which is exactly what this abandoned district represented. Death.
On the other side of the blocked hallway, Trunks found they were in what appeared to be a lobby for the building. He looked up and saw that the center of the building was cut away for several stories, and he could see far up into the building. Moonlight poured in through the windows, so while the building was dark it wasn't without any light. While taking in the surroundings, Trunks's head snapped back down when he sensed movement.
Armada must have sensed it too, because she tensed and drew her arms back, preparing for a fight. However, when Mikhail appeared, he struck at her quickly, so fast Trunks almost didn't see it. Armada couldn't block his attack, and took the brunt of a kick that pushed her to her left and into a concrete wall that crumbled under the force of her striking it.
It seemed like time stopped for a moment, as Trunks stared into Mikhail's golden eyes. The short dark brown hair, the stubble, and those golden eyes—they matched the portrait they were given all right. There was no doubt that they had found their target. Trunks prepared to move in for an attack, and Mikhail disappeared as quickly as he came. Only a flash of a moment after he disappeared did Trunks realize that he couldn't sense Mikhail. The demi-Saiyan didn't panic though; not sensing his opponent didn't mean he wasn't capable of beating him. Trunks's main adversaries for well over a decade were beings that emitted no sense of life energy. A sudden thought hit him; was Mikhail an android?
Mikhail took off, and Trunks followed. He was fast, but not fast enough to lose Trunks. Mikhail flew up, several stories up into the building. When he slowed momentarily, Trunks took the opportunity to attack. The mercenary thief was skilled, and was able to block a considerable amount of Trunks's attacks, while dodging others. Trunks wasn't worried though; he was testing Mikhail's abilities. So far, he found that his target was fairly skilled, and likely far more powerful than Armada. Compared to Trunks though, Mikhail had yet to present a serious threat. But things were just getting started.
The thief backed away from Trunks slightly, and the mercenary moved into the space he left behind, preparing to make Mikhail pay for it. Trunks lunged forward with a well-placed palm strike aimed at Mikhail's face, when the thief completely disappeared. Trunks's inertia kept him moving forward, and he blinked in shock. Mikhail had not moved, he had disappeared. Something strange was going on, and it worried Trunks slightly. He turned and looked down toward the direction of Armada's energy.
No sooner had he turned, her body flew backwards and up toward him, passing him without colliding by inches. She was bleeding from her nose as she flew past—no, she was thrown past him. Her body slammed into a concrete wall a few stories above, and rubble fell down into the open center of the building. She quickly pushed herself out of the rubble and glanced down to Trunks. “Keep him busy!” Armada shouted to him, and he turned just in time to see Mikhail appear before him again.
Determined to not let him get away without figuring out just what that disappearing technique was, Trunks surged forward with more speed and force than last time. This time, he landed several punches to Mikhail's face and chest, though he took the hits well. Just as Mikhail tried the same maneuver as he did moments ago, Trunks lunged forward and grabbed Mikhail's dingy white shirt with his right hand. The thief's golden eyes widened slightly, and Trunks reached back with his left hand, preparing to plant a fist into the mercenary's face.
Before he could let his attack loose, Armada appeared behind Mikhail, her left arm wrapping around his neck as she reached toward his chest with her right. Trunks didn't notice until now, that Mikhail was wearing some kind of metal pendant. Armada reached for it, and once it was within her grasp she ripped the pendant and its chain from Mikhail's neck. She released her hold on his neck with her other hand, pushed back a meter or so and crushed the metal piece in her right fist into pieces.
As soon as the device was destroyed, Trunks felt a strange energy surge through the area from Armada's fist. Immediately he sensed Mikhail's energy, and he realized what Armada had done. Whatever that 'necklace' was, it as effectively masking Mikhail's ki. Now that Armada destroyed it, the thief's energy was detectable, and he certainly was no android with the amount of energy he was emitting. With Mikhail's shirt still in his grasp, Trunks pressed forward with his attack, and threw his left fist toward his enemy's face.
Mikhail blocked the attack with his right forearm, and used the inertia from Trunks's attack to spin backward to his left and away from his attacker. His shirt ripped and Trunks was left holding a handful of cloth as Mikhail turned and attempted to plant his left elbow into Armada's face. She caught his attack with her hands and countered with a right knee into the side of his ribcage. Her attack connected, and Mikhail charged a ki blast in his right hand in retaliation. Both Armada and Trunks immediately backed away, and Mikhail fired at Armada, just barely missing his target. His attack destroyed a large chunk of the building behind her and several floors above, as he aimed slightly up.
Trunks stopped himself in the air several meters away from where Mikhail had fired that blast, and the building rumbled and shook from the thief-mercenary's attack. The demi-Saiyan figured that a hundred year old ruined skyscraper in a city destroyed by a nuclear bomb was probably already unstable, and energy attacks that large certainly weren't helping any. He looked up and saw Armada had moved farther up into the structure after that last attack, and their eyes met briefly.
Mikhail had taken the opportunity to disappear during his previous assault, which wasn't really meant to do any damage. He wasn't gone long though, and just as Trunks thought he sensed Mikhail much farther up into the building, he appeared in front of Trunks not even two meters away. After seeing him appear, Trunks knew he had seen that kind of teleportation technique before. However he had no time to think on it, as Mikhail already has an energy blast charged in his hands. He fired, and with no time to flee Trunks could only return fire to deflect Mikhai's attack.
Armada flew in to take a swipe at Mikhail as he fired upon Trunks, but he was prepared for her attack. He turned and parried her punch with his left forearm and slammed the heel of his right hand upward, connecting with the bottom of her chin. Her head was pushed up, so she struck out at him with her right knee. He pulled back and caught her knee in his hands, then used his momentum to turn and throw her away from him. Armada righted herself in the air but Mikhail immediately began firing small energy blasts at her. She flew down toward the floor of the building while barely dodging his attacks.
Taking the opportunity presented by Mikhail's focus on his comrade, Trunks launched another attack. Mikhail's eyes darted over to meet Trunks's just before he disappeared again. Trunks stopped in midair where the thief disappeared and focused on finding his ki. He was now certain that what he saw was similar to Goku's instantaneous movement, if not the same thing. The problem was that Mikhail seemed to be able to employ it much faster than Goku, and in succession without missing a beat. Growing tired of this game, Trunks immediately powered up and transformed. Mikhail could teleport but he hadn't gone very far, so maybe Trunks could just use pure speed to keep up with him. When he sensed Mikahil several floors above, he took off after him.
Armada dodged the last of Mikhail's barrage of small but powerful ki blasts when she felt a sudden overwhelming energy explode. Her head snapped up just in time to see Trunks with a golden aura, his hair turned the same shade of gold as it floated up around him. She immediately faltered, and felt her stomach leap into her throat. This was the energy she had sensed, but now to see it... it was something else. She'd never heard of such a feat; it was impossible. Or so she had thought until she had felt it, and now she had seen it with her own eyes.
When Trunks cornered Mikhail higher in the building, he finally made an attempt at a defense. Trunks reached for him and Mikhail's hands met his, and they grappled. “Dasra von'te!” Mikhail screamed as his own energy unleashed and skyrocketed. It was clear to Trunks that this might be a challenge for him, and that Armada stood no chance one-on-one with the thief. He would have to handle this, and that was fine with him.
That was when Mikhail surged forward, trying to headbutt Trunks. Trunks backed up to avoid the hit, and Mikhail fled once more. Armada flew up toward her comrade, stopping where Mikhail disappeared from again. Trunks caught her eyes for a moment before she turned away. He didn't get time to think about it when Mikhail appeared before them again but almost instantly disappeared. He continued appearing and disappearing in rapid succession around them. Trunks charged a ki blast in his right hand, waiting for the moment to strike.
As soon as Trunks thought he had him, Mikhail appeared from nothing again, this time with a large weapon that looked like a rocket launcher in his hands. Trunks's eyes widened as he realized that was the weapon they were here for, but there was no time to move. Mikhail fired it almost instantaneously when he appeared in front of Trunks, and the demi-Saiyan couldn't dodge it. A wave passed through the air, passed through Trunks, and the walls behind him. He didn't feel anything when it happened, it was like his body just went numb and his eyesight went black. He didn't even feel himself falling as he collapsed to the ground several stories below.
Armada's eyes widened in shock as she watched the scene play out in front of her. She watched as his eyes rolled back into his head, and his hair faded from its golden hue back to normal. After Trunks's body fell, she saw the perfectly circular hole in the walls behind him and the cloud of dust in the air. Is that... some kind of sonic device? Armada thought in a panic. It had literally disintegrated the environment around Trunks. How could someone live through that?
“Trunks!” she shouted as she snapped out of her thoughts. She made a move to fly toward him and catch him before he hit the ground, but she was stopped by Mikhail's left elbow smashing into her face. She stumbled back for a moment, a small trail of blood already running from her nose. Before she had a chance to put up a defense, Mikhail descended upon her. She lost track of how many hits she took in the ensuing onslaught, but it didn't matter. She could sense Mikhail's energy clearly, and despite what she had seen she could also sense that Trunks was not dead. If he was going to have any chance at getting out alive, she had to get Mikhail away from him... no matter the cost.
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It took a few agonizing seconds for Trunks to breathe. He almost thought time itself had stopped, with the way his body went numb and his lungs frozen. Once he was able to breathe, he could focus his senses for a moment. As the pain started to roll in, lighting up his nerves throughout his entire body, he could begin trying to move. His vision was still completely black, but he was able to start moving his fingers. His left hand grabbed whatever it could, and his fingers wrapped around a few pieces of concrete rubble.
Suddenly his ability to sense ki came back to him, and he could track what was going on. It only took a few seconds for him to realize that Armada was moving away from him. For a moment he was curious, but as she darted farther away he quickly realized what she was doing. No... he thought in anguish as the reality of the situation sank in. She was leading him away, and Trunks knew what that meant. Armada wasn't strong enough to defeat him. But she was protecting him yet again, pulling the danger away even if they both knew what that meant.
If Trunks didn't get up in the next thirty seconds, she was going to die. And he would likely follow after her. No...! he screamed inside his head once more. He had to get up, he had to. There was no time; it felt like they had already left the building, Armada flying away with Mikhail chasing her. He focused for a moment, and after what felt like reaching for something with all his might to only touch it with his fingertips, he finally found his ki once more.
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Mikhail unleashed another barrage of ki blasts at her, and Armada did all she could to avoid them. A volley of small but powerful blasts was difficult to navigate on its own, but Mikhail could redirect his energy after firing it, which made it even harder. She moved to avoid one that exploded to her left when it hit the concrete wall of the building they were in, but she couldn't escape the blast that hit her square in the middle of her back. It exploded and forced her down toward the ground, where she landed in a bunch of decrepit debris which created a cloud of dust from her collision.
She clenched her teeth as she pushed herself up off of the ground. Blood ran down her face from a gash on the top of her head. She was hurt, but nothing serious yet. Was Mikhail toying with her? What would be the point? When she managed to rise to her feet, she turned to look for him above. They had moved away from Trunks and were in a different building now, what appeared to be the remains of an office highrise. Several floors were broken away, and from where she stood Armada could see up into a few floors above. Suddenly Mikhail appeared in one of the floors above her, but before she had a chance to react a beam of ki came flying into the building and enveloped Mikhail in a blinding light.
Or she thought he'd been hit by the attack, but he appeared a meter in front of her with an attack of his own charged in both of his hands. Just as he went to fire, another blast shot into the building and this one did make contact with Mikhail. The energy in his hands mixed with that which was fired at him and exploded, sending both Armada and Mikhail flying apart.
Mikhail crashed through at least one wall before he was able to recover and right himself in the air. Trunks appeared in front of him, transformed, and started throwing punches. Mikhail couldn't get away, and took a barrage of hits. Blood started running from his mouth, and Trunks stopped hitting him for a moment to charge energy in his right hand. Mikhail took the split second opening he was given to disappear, and Trunks's blast only served to incinerate several floors of the rundown building behind his enemy.
Trunks's chest heaved as he tried to focus his senses on where Mikhail ran off too. His body felt like it was on fire, and both his vision and his thoughts felt cloudy. He could sense Armada somewhere nearby, though he couldn't tell exactly where she was. Mikhail had dropped off of his radar again. Where was he going? Was he teleporting long distances and then coming back again?
Sitting up slowly, Armada winced as she put her right hand to the back of her head. That explosion had sent her hurtling through the office building and into the street where she was now. She looked at her right hand as she got up to one knee to see blood, as she suspected. She finally stood upright, pushing away the remnants of the car that had stopped her motion, and took a look at around. She thought she'd just been tossed into the street from the explosion that resulted from Trunks's attack, but she quickly realized she was wrong. She found herself several blocks away, dust hanging in the sky as far as she could see.
She took off back toward Trunks, figuring Mikhail would be nearby though she didn't sense him again. The Lacus device he was wearing had been tuned to his energy signature to mask it, but she'd already destroyed that. She found it hard to believe he would have another. A moment later, she had found her way back to where she was initially, and the building looked like it was ready to collapse. Trunks was floating much higher up into the building than where she had been, and he was in that state. His aura was downright suffocating, but she didn't have time to worry about that now. They had a job to do.
That was when Mikhail reappeared once more, halfway between the two mercenaries but off to Armada's left. Trunks was facing away from both his comrade and the thief, and Mikahil had that weapon in his hands, aimed at the demi-Saiyan. Despite the enormity of his energy, Armada could sense that Trunks's ki was erratic—he was injured, and it was pretty serious. If he took another blast from that weapon, he may not get up again.
Armada flew at Mikhail as fast as she could, and apparently he hadn't noticed her when he arrived. He turned to face her, his eyes widening slightly. At the same time, Trunks had caught wind of what was happening, and turned toward the pair. Mikhail tried to dodge Armada's attack, but he predicted her behavior incorrectly. She reached for the weapon, not him, and managed to get her left hand around the long barrel near the end. Mikhail yanked backward from her, and fired.
Trunks's eyes widened in shock. He would have been in the path of that blast, unable to move out of the way in time had his partner not attacked Mikhail. Instead, Armada's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she dropped to the ground like a stone. He took off toward Mikhail, who aimed at Trunks and pulled the trigger. Instead of firing, the weapon sparked and jammed. Mikhail threw it to the ground but not before Trunks was able to hit the thief with his right fist.
Mikhail's power spiked but it was still nothing compared to Trunks, even severely injured. After taking a flurry of hits, Mikhail made a quick move and was able to catch Trunks's left hand on his right. Without missing a beat, Trunks reached up with his right hand and drew his sword. In a flash, he sliced into the inside of Mikhail's right forearm, almost severing the limb. Mikhail hissed and flew backward, his left hand immediately moving to cover the wound on his other arm.
He continued flying backwards, quickly running out of space in the building. Sensing that Mikhail was going to run again, Trunks surged forward and thrust his sword into the thief's left shoulder. Mikhail cried out and the world around them swirled into a mash of colors. Trunks felt disorientated, and a moment later everything came back into view and they were high in the sky above the ruined section of Virda City below.
The thief glared at the mercenary with a pained face. Holding his sword steady in Mikhail's shoulder to keep him from fleeing, Trunks used his left hand to fire a ki blast point blank in the thief's chest. With a sizable hole in his chest, Mikhail's eyes dulled, and Trunks pulled his sword loose. The thief's body fell, and Trunks only watched for a moment before his attention was diverted elsewhere. Helicopters with sirens blaring were headed his direction. He figured that they must have set off energy sensors with their fight. Armada had previously explained that most advanced nations like Bmyhad and Virda could at least track energy usage even if they had no plan to deal with it. Virda police were headed his way, so it was time to leave.
A moment later he was back in the office building they had left behind. He quickly found the Venetian weapon, but he had a harder time locating Armada. He'd powered down from super Saiyan, and was really starting to feel the ache from whatever that weapon had shot him with. Nothing hit him directly, so it wasn't like a traditional weapon. He figured it must have been some type of sonic device, and whatever it was put him in so much pain it was hard to focus. After searching for a minute, he finally found his comrade.
She was unconscious and barely breathing. He knew his injuries were bad, but he never considered she would be much worse. Then again, he carried a genetic healing factor thanks to his father; he had no way of knowing if she possessed such a thing. It seemed like she didn't. Regardless, he had to get them out of Virda as soon as possible. He hefted her body up and slung her over his right shoulder so his left hand would be free to carry the weapon. What would be the point in coming so far to leave it now?
Within a few minutes he'd avoided the authorities and made it back to the ship. Once inside he dropped the weapon in the hallway and immediately flew to the infirmary with his comrade in tow. He set her down in one of the beds in the infirmary and paused for a moment. His head swam and he swayed on his feet. Trunks grabbed the edge of the bed to stabilize himself. When he had control of himself again, he started to panic. The whole way back he'd been focused on getting to the ship, now that he stood next to his partner he realized her ki was flickering and extremely low, and it wasn't being suppressed. Realization hit him like a bucket of cold water to the face; if he didn't get her medical treatment soon, she would die.
He floated back to the bridge and sat down in the pilot's seat. His head still felt foggy, and he couldn't concentrate. He looked up at the main monitor, but he had no idea where to begin. She'd never shown him how to fly the ship. He tried to navigate the menus to find something of use, but to no avail. Panic rose up from his stomach and he felt sick. Trunks grabbed his hair at the scalp with his left hand and squeezed in frustration. What was he going to do? He didn't know how to fly the ship and Armada was dying. They were in Virda City, on another planet a significant distance from Bmyhad, and he had no idea where he could take her for treatment. Even if he managed to get the ship moving, it had taken them three days to get to Virda, and he was certain she didn't have three days to wait.
No...! Trunks thought in anguish as he hunched over the pilot's console in the bridge of the ship. He willed himself to think, to come up with a way out of this. But as the seconds ticked by, hope slowly slipped away from him.
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Thanks for reading! My apologies for the cliffhanger, but sometimes you just have to cut things off before you move on to the next part. :]
DarkVoid116 and Son Goshen – omg you guys. ;~; Thank you SO MUCH for the reviews, it's so encouraging to know somebody is reading and liking this enough to look forward to updates. I hope I can live up to your expectations!
* heart *
Silvia
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It took a few agonizing seconds for Trunks to breathe. He almost thought time itself had stopped, with the way his body went numb and his lungs froze. Once he was able to breathe, he could focus his senses for a moment. As the pain started to roll in, lighting up his nerves throughout his entire body, he could begin trying to move. His vision was still completely black, but he was able to start moving his fingers. His left hand grabbed whatever it could, and his fingers wrapped around a few pieces of concrete rubble.
Suddenly his ability to sense ki came back to him, and he could track what was going on. It only took a few seconds for him to realize that Armada was moving away from him. For a moment he was curious, but as she darted farther away he quickly realized what she was doing. No... he thought in anguish as the reality of the situation sank in. She was leading him away, and Trunks knew what that meant. Armada wasn't strong enough to defeat him. But she was protecting him yet again, pulling the danger away even if they both knew what that meant.
If Trunks didn't get up in the next thirty seconds, she was going to die. And he would likely follow after her.
-+-
Illumination
< /p> Mission 06: [Classified]
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[Approxima tely three days ago]
Armada gazed at the window to her left, and her eyes narrowed while her mind focused on other matters. She leaned back in her seat, watching as the private shuttle she was on docked with the space station in preparation for her to disembark. Her trip to LOKI and back had taken four days. Once she disembarked at this space station, there was only one more shuttle left to take to descend down to the surface of Bmyhad, and she would be back to the ship in a few hours. That was a problem, since she had not quite resolved the issues that had been bothering her through this entire trip.
There was no question in her mind that Trunks was far more powerful than her. She had suspected it for some time, but now knowing without any doubts, having felt that terrifying force herself, she couldn't ignore the issue. This one fact brought many problems to mind, the most pressing of which was the question of why. Why would he stay? He had the power to crush her in an instant. Why would he even go with her in the first place? Back when she had tracked him down to the lab in Ute, he could have ended things there. What was he planning? There had to be some reason for this. Maybe he was working with Dax. Although if he was allied with Dax, and by proxy Rieve, wouldn't he be assisting Rieve? How would he have fallen victim to Rieve's attack so easily? Why would he have saved her from being killed by Corvus, and kill him in return? And if he was working with Dax and Rieve, why was he so naive about the universe as a whole? He was one hell of an actor.
The muscles in her jaw tightened. He was after her, he was after something she had, although she wasn't sure what. She didn't know why. And it was disconcerting to say the least. Dax had already taken her money, which was truly a pittance to Rieve. What else did she have? If he was sent to kill her, he could have done so a hundred times over. So why wait? Armada couldn't answer these questions, and for the first time in eight years, she was mystified as to what to do.
“Miss Solaris?”
Armada looked up to her right to see the single flight attendant on this shuttle standing in the aisle, looking to her. “We'll begin disembarking shortly,” the elderly man said once she made eye contact with him. Armada nodded and he smiled at her before turning away to head back to the main cabin. She had chartered this private shuttle for just herself, but the company had included a flight attendant anyway. Not necessary in her mind, but she made no point to argue it.
She turned and looked out the window to her left once more. It wouldn't be long now before she returned to Ute.
-+-
Not even one full day after waking up from what Trunks supposed was a coma, Armada left. I'm going to LOKI, I'll be back in four days. That was all she said before she put on her armor and took off. He didn't say anything in response, didn't argue with her. Because what was the point? The only conclusion Trunks could come to was that she was insane. Why else would she be so damn determined to die for no decent reason?
He was confused, to put it mildly. Some of her actions made it seem like she was trying to protect him, to keep him from being involved. And others made it appear that she had a death wish. But why go to such extremes? Perhaps she thought she could have defeated that assassin from Rieve before she fought him and found out that she couldn't. But if she had any doubts, why keep him from going with her, from assisting her? While the thoughts still continued to plague him, Trunks tried to push them to the back of his mind. These were questions with no answers, and all they served to do was fill him with doubt.
As Trunks sat and ate his lunch in the lounge, watching some show on the network that reminded him of old martial arts movies he'd seen back on Earth, he heard a noise in the hangar. After hearing the noise and taking a moment to set down his utensils, he sensed Armada's ki. Curious as to what the noise was about, he got up and headed for the open door to the ship.
When Trunks reached the hole in the side of the ship that he had created by destroying the ship's door, he looked down below to see Armada carrying a large crate inside the hangar through the larger side door they used for the car. As Armada flew carrying a crate larger than their car, she finally noticed Trunks and looked up at him. She set the crate down, and proceeded to throw a small object at him.
Trunks had to lean out the open door slightly to catch the small black box she had thrown at him. “Hold on to that,” she called up at him. “Don't lose it; it cost me half a million.”
Half a million beta?Trunks thought as he looked at the small plastic black box in his hand. It was a cube only about an inch and a half on each side. It reminded him of the old jewelry boxes his mother had at home. The idea that Armada had purchased jewelrywas almost as crazy as... well... as crazy as her. Perhaps that meant it wasn't such a crazy idea to think she wasted half a million beta on jewelry.
Trunks looked back down below to see Armada pulling the lid off of the metal crate she had carried inside. Curious as to what she was doing, he flew down to where she worked to get a closer look. He landed on the other side of the crate as she finished pushing the lid to the side where it rested upright against the longer side of the crate.
“What's that?” Trunks asked as he placed the small box she had given him in his right pants pocket.
“I have to replace the door to the ship,” Armada said without looking at him as she continued to work. With the lid of the crate out of the way, she pulled some packing material aside to reveal a shiny metal door. It looked slightly different than the one Trunks had destroyed. Armada reached down and carefully lifted the door from the packing material around it. She hovered in the air slightly and set the door down, upright, leaning against the short side of the crate.
“What about the box?” Trunks asked, referring to the small black box she had handed over to him.
Armada moved around to the side of the crate and removed more packing material to reveal a metal box in the bottom of the crate. “It's a new ship identification scrambler,” she said while lifting the box out of the crate. She set it on the edge of the crate and unlatched it before opening it. “Noran and Senator Ballasten scanned our ship. The specific algorithm for that chip has been compromised, so it needs replaced,” she answered. She picked up several small pieces of metal out of the box that Trunks figured were the accessories for the door needed to install it.
With her hands full of small pieces, she turned to Trunks briefly before lifting the new door once more. “I'll install the door and then I'll install the chip, so hang on to it for a few minutes.” With the door in her hands, she flew up to the side of the ship and set the door just inside the opening from the old door. Trunks flew up after her.
They worked together for thirty minutes to install the new door. Since he blew apart the old one, Armada had to open several of panels of the hull of the ship to remove all of the components of the old door. For a sliding door, the whole thing seemed a lot more complicated and involved. Then again, it had to seal the ship for flight into space. With a coordinated effort, they finished installing the door in half an hour and moved on to the bridge.
Armada knelt beneath the pilot's console in the bridge and opened a metal panel to expose the wiring beneath. Trunks knelt next to her, holding a small flashlight in his hand, positioned to help her see into the dark interior of the ship's components. Installing the new chip went quickly, all that she had to do was remove the old chip, put the new one in the same socket, and restart the ship's identification operating system. Once it was in, Armada sat in the pilot's seat while Trunks sat at the navigation console to her right. She wanted to check the ship's systems and run a quick diagnostic to make sure both the door and the new ID scrambler were functioning properly.
After rebooting several systems, Armada sat watching the diagnostic messages scroll down the main monitor in front of the pilot's chair in the bridge. Suddenly a new dialog window appeared and displayed the words Incoming Transmisson. Decrypting signal...
Armada watch the monitor for a second before her eyebrows came together in worry. “No,” she said lowly as she started typing furiously at the console.
“What's up?” Trunks asked. Based on her tone in just that one word, it didn't sound good.
“These encryption keys are specific to the Republican government,” Armada said, glancing between her keyboard and the monitor in front of her. “I can't stop the transmission, they've overridden the system!” she exclaimed, a mixture of worry and fury playing out in her words.
“The Republican government is trying to contact us?” Trunks surmised. This didn't sound good to him.
“And I don't want any part of it,” Armada said lowly as she continued to try and stop the transmission. It was too late however, when an image finally appeared on the screen.
“Good evening Armada,” a woman on the other side of the transmission spoke. She had brown hair that was tied back and away from her face, and dark brown eyes. She was wearing some kind of suit, although she had no wore no badge or symbol to indicate exactly who she was. “I hope you're doing well.”
Armada glared at the woman on the other side of the screen. “I don't want anything to do with you.”
The woman on the other end laughed and her eyes fell for a moment before she raised them again, a smile still on her face. “I think we both know that you don't have a choice at this point.” She paused a moment and typed something at her own console. As she did, a smaller window appeared superimposed on the current communications window. This one was a quarter of the size and sat down in the bottom-left corner.
“Ten days ago, a top secret prototype of a weapon being developed by the Venetian government was stolen,” the mysterious woman continued speaking. At her words, a blueprint of what Trunks thought did indeed look like some kind of weapon appeared on the smaller screen. If he had to guess, it had the general shape and size of a rocket launcher. “And you're going to get it back,” she added with a smile.
Armada continued glaring, but finally relented to participate in the conversation. “Who stole it?”
The woman smiled broadly, though it seemed strained. “We have our theories as to who hired him, but it was a mercenary by the name of Mikhail,” she said, and the image on the smaller screen changed to an image of a man that didn't appear to be much older than Trunks. “We've tracked him to an abandoned district of Virda City. He doesn't appear to be moving. The signal has stayed put for the past two days.”
“You're tracking him through the weapon,” Armada said. Trunks supposed it should have been a question, but she didn't say it like it was one.
“Yes,” the woman replied. “I've uploaded a copy of the signal the device emits so that you can calibrate your equipment to track it.” She paused a moment before she spoke again. “You must bring the weapon back. There will be no compensation if we do not receive the prototype.”
“How much are we talking about?” Armada asked.
“Eight hundred fifty-thousand beta,” the woman responded plainly. “We expect to hear from you within a week,” the woman added. “Good luck.” With that, the transmission cut off.
Armada sighed, and Trunks was surprised. He would have expected her to start screaming or punch something, not sigh. Was she feeling sick? “So what do we do?” Trunks asked, unsure if this meant they were taking the job or not.
“She was from the Venetian government,” Armada said plainly without looking at Trunks. “If we refuse, we'll have them as an enemy.” She paused a moment before turning to her right, her eyes catching Trunks's. “Venice is one of the founding nations of the Republic. It's also one of the most powerful countries in existence,” she added. “We can't refuse.”
“So we just need to go get this weapon back from a mercenary,” Trunks replied, summarizing the situation. “Shouldn't be too hard, right?” One mercenary versus the two of them sounded like a walk in the park.
Armada opened the file the Venetian woman sent them. The mugshot of Mikhail appeared on the monitor in front of her. “It can't be that easy,” Armada replied, staring at Mikhail's picture and the accompanying profile. “There's a reason they're not going after him.” She paused a moment as she read the data in front of her. “Looks like he's an energy fighter, but the best estimates of his strength have him so low he should pose no threat to either of us, or a proper Venetian strike team.” Her eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up a little bit before she sighed yet again. “There's something about this that they're not telling us.”
Trunks thought for a moment before he spoke. “Why don't we just tell them we failed and never bother with it?”
Armada shook her head and kept her gaze on the data onscreen. “They must already have surveillance setup on him, even if it's only via satellite. They'll know if we don't even bother,” she said, almost dejectedly.
“So what's this weapon?” Trunks asked. Perhaps that held the answer to the question of why Venice wanted them to go retrieve it.
Armada pulled up the weapon specs and read the file. “It doesn't say anything about what it does, just gives physical specifications so we can identify the weapon,” she answered. “And a name,” Armada added after a moment, “Project Nadol'tonne.”
“Look up that word,” Trunks interjected. A conversation floated up from his memory where he and his mother talked about project name conventions and the name of the Capsule Corporation project that produced the time machine. Maybe it wouldn't hold water for an alien empire, but if it did, perhaps the project name might reveal something about the nature of what this weapon was. He waited a few moments as Armada typed away at the console in front of her, when finally she paused on a screen and he watched as her eyes narrowed in concentration. “What is it?” he asked, knowing immediately that she'd found something.
“Nadol'tonne is an ancient Venetian god of the earth,” she said slowly as she stared at the screen. “He was said to carry a giant hammer that he used to create earthquakes when he slammed it into the ground,” she finished and looked to Trunks.
“You think this weapon can generate earthquakes?” Trunks asked as his eyebrows rode a little higher. Certainly such a thing wasn't possible. The energy released from an earthquake was massive, there was no way it could be contained in a weapon small enough to be carried by a single person.
“No,” Armada shook her head slightly, “it's not possible.” She glanced back at the image of the weapon on the monitor, “But whatever it does, we've got to be careful.”
-+-
The trip to Virda took three days, and Trunks loathed every minute of it. Floating through space, unable to do anything but wait... it was frustrating. After they took off from Ute, Armada had disabled the ship's communication system. She had explained to Trunks that since the Venetian government had hacked it, the system was compromised. While it was run by a separate operating system and the infrastructure was isolated, they still ran the risk of a potential hack into the ship's other systems. After she had shut it down, she removed the components of the system. She said they'd replace them later, after they returned from this mission.
Her reticence for this mission was understandable, but still strange. He agreed that things didn't quite add up, but between the two of them, what did they truly have to fear? This wouldn't be a repeat of her fight against that white-haired Rieve assassin. She had been alone for that, until he caught up to her. This time they would be working together from the start. And Trunks understood that he was ridiculously powerful compared to most beings in the universe, and this was confirmed by the way she tiptoed around him after that debacle. It bothered him slightly, but perhaps she wouldn't be so quick to fight with him now that she knew he was far more powerful than she was.
When they approached the planet and began their descent, Armada explained that almost a hundred years ago, Virda was involved in a war with a member nation of LOKI. Virda City had fallen victim to a nuclear attack, and as a result a massive part of the city was destroyed. Those ruined remains were still cordoned off from the rest of the city due to radiation poisoning. It wouldn't harm them to enter the district to apprehend Mikhail, but if they were to live there, that would be a problem. Thus the government of Virda did not allow anyone to resettle the area. However, the derelict district was massive, and the health risks posed to those who would be forced to patrol it regularly to enforce the quarantine meant that it was mostly unsecured. Which made it an ideal place for criminals to temporarily hide.
Armada landed the ship within the living side of the metropolis, under an assumed name, and paid off the local hangar to keep things quiet. They headed for the quarantine zone on foot, and when they reached the border wall it was all too easy to sneak by local police and enter the district under the cover of night. Once inside, Trunks inwardly grimaced. This Virda City looked nothing like the high tech, clean and orderly metropolis they just left behind. No, it resembled the ruined West City during the height of the androids' reign. In some ways, it was worse, because he couldn't sense anything—not one living being in the area, and that emptiness stretched for miles. He wondered if this was what Earth would look like if he had failed and been killed by the androids. It made his stomach turn.
They walked through the ruined section of the city, following the signal emitted by the stolen weapon. Armada had programmed her phone to track it, and they were closing in. She stopped walking as they approached a skyscraper that was mostly still standing. She turned to look at Trunks, who followed behind her and off to her left a step or two. “The weapon's in the building,” Armada said, motioning toward the derelict construct with her head. “Mikhail is likely with it. Keep your energy suppressed,” she said lowly before walking toward the building while sliding her phone into place on her belt.
Trunks stepped lightly as he followed behind her. The streets were covered in a thin layer of what appeared to be ash, which helped muffle the sound of their footsteps. He didn't sense anything for miles, save his comrade, and it was unnerving. Even the abandoned cities of Earth held some life, from small animals that would seek shelter in the rubble. This place was like a dead zone, with no signs of life, no plants, no animals... nothing. If Mikhail was in that building with the weapon, he was completely hidden from Trunks's senses. Which while he wasn't sure how such a feat would be possible, he knew it couldn't be impossible. The universe was full of strange technology that both enabled and disabled ki. Who knew what else this mercenary had besides the Venetian military weapon?
The front doors to the building had long been gone. When Armada approached the threshold, she lifted her feet and floated into the air. Trunks did the same, and the pair both worked to keep their energies as low as possible. Trunks knew that Frieza's men were not trained to sense their enemies, as they relied on scouters to read ki levels. He couldn't assume that was the case for Mikhail, however it hardly mattered. He and Armada would be the only life forms around for miles. Surely the mercenary knew they were coming.
The path ahead was blocked with a lot of rubble, but the broken concrete didn't obstruct the hallway completely. A small gap was present at the left end of the hallway near the ceiling, however they would have to go through one at time. Armada flew through first, without a second thought. Trunks followed after her, although it was a tighter fit for him with his wide shoulders, and he bumped a few pieces of broken concrete loose. The small sounds generated by the falling debris seemed incredibly loud to Trunks as the noise echoed through the building. He was surprised at first, until he quickly realized that this area was silent—silent like death, which is exactly what this abandoned district represented. Death.
On the other side of the blocked hallway, Trunks found they were in what appeared to be a lobby for the building. He looked up and saw that the center of the building was cut away for several stories, and he could see far up into the building. Moonlight poured in through the windows, so while the building was dark it wasn't without any light. While taking in the surroundings, Trunks's head snapped back down when he sensed movement.
Armada must have sensed it too, because she tensed and drew her arms back, preparing for a fight. However, when Mikhail appeared, he struck at her quickly, so fast Trunks almost didn't see it. Armada couldn't block his attack, and took the brunt of a kick that pushed her to her left and into a concrete wall that crumbled under the force of her striking it.
It seemed like time stopped for a moment, as Trunks stared into Mikhail's golden eyes. The short dark brown hair, the stubble, and those golden eyes—they matched the portrait they were given all right. There was no doubt that they had found their target. Trunks prepared to move in for an attack, and Mikhail disappeared as quickly as he came. Only a flash of a moment after he disappeared did Trunks realize that he couldn't sense Mikhail. The demi-Saiyan didn't panic though; not sensing his opponent didn't mean he wasn't capable of beating him. Trunks's main adversaries for well over a decade were beings that emitted no sense of life energy. A sudden thought hit him; was Mikhail an android?
Mikhail took off, and Trunks followed. He was fast, but not fast enough to lose Trunks. Mikhail flew up, several stories up into the building. When he slowed momentarily, Trunks took the opportunity to attack. The mercenary thief was skilled, and was able to block a considerable amount of Trunks's attacks, while dodging others. Trunks wasn't worried though; he was testing Mikhail's abilities. So far, he found that his target was fairly skilled, and likely far more powerful than Armada. Compared to Trunks though, Mikhail had yet to present a serious threat. But things were just getting started.
The thief backed away from Trunks slightly, and the mercenary moved into the space he left behind, preparing to make Mikhail pay for it. Trunks lunged forward with a well-placed palm strike aimed at Mikhail's face, when the thief completely disappeared. Trunks's inertia kept him moving forward, and he blinked in shock. Mikhail had not moved, he had disappeared. Something strange was going on, and it worried Trunks slightly. He turned and looked down toward the direction of Armada's energy.
No sooner had he turned, her body flew backwards and up toward him, passing him without colliding by inches. She was bleeding from her nose as she flew past—no, she was thrown past him. Her body slammed into a concrete wall a few stories above, and rubble fell down into the open center of the building. She quickly pushed herself out of the rubble and glanced down to Trunks. “Keep him busy!” Armada shouted to him, and he turned just in time to see Mikhail appear before him again.
Determined to not let him get away without figuring out just what that disappearing technique was, Trunks surged forward with more speed and force than last time. This time, he landed several punches to Mikhail's face and chest, though he took the hits well. Just as Mikhail tried the same maneuver as he did moments ago, Trunks lunged forward and grabbed Mikhail's dingy white shirt with his right hand. The thief's golden eyes widened slightly, and Trunks reached back with his left hand, preparing to plant a fist into the mercenary's face.
Before he could let his attack loose, Armada appeared behind Mikhail, her left arm wrapping around his neck as she reached toward his chest with her right. Trunks didn't notice until now, that Mikhail was wearing some kind of metal pendant. Armada reached for it, and once it was within her grasp she ripped the pendant and its chain from Mikhail's neck. She released her hold on his neck with her other hand, pushed back a meter or so and crushed the metal piece in her right fist into pieces.
As soon as the device was destroyed, Trunks felt a strange energy surge through the area from Armada's fist. Immediately he sensed Mikhail's energy, and he realized what Armada had done. Whatever that 'necklace' was, it as effectively masking Mikhail's ki. Now that Armada destroyed it, the thief's energy was detectable, and he certainly was no android with the amount of energy he was emitting. With Mikhail's shirt still in his grasp, Trunks pressed forward with his attack, and threw his left fist toward his enemy's face.
Mikhail blocked the attack with his right forearm, and used the inertia from Trunks's attack to spin backward to his left and away from his attacker. His shirt ripped and Trunks was left holding a handful of cloth as Mikhail turned and attempted to plant his left elbow into Armada's face. She caught his attack with her hands and countered with a right knee into the side of his ribcage. Her attack connected, and Mikhail charged a ki blast in his right hand in retaliation. Both Armada and Trunks immediately backed away, and Mikhail fired at Armada, just barely missing his target. His attack destroyed a large chunk of the building behind her and several floors above, as he aimed slightly up.
Trunks stopped himself in the air several meters away from where Mikhail had fired that blast, and the building rumbled and shook from the thief-mercenary's attack. The demi-Saiyan figured that a hundred year old ruined skyscraper in a city destroyed by a nuclear bomb was probably already unstable, and energy attacks that large certainly weren't helping any. He looked up and saw Armada had moved farther up into the structure after that last attack, and their eyes met briefly.
Mikhail had taken the opportunity to disappear during his previous assault, which wasn't really meant to do any damage. He wasn't gone long though, and just as Trunks thought he sensed Mikhail much farther up into the building, he appeared in front of Trunks not even two meters away. After seeing him appear, Trunks knew he had seen that kind of teleportation technique before. However he had no time to think on it, as Mikhail already has an energy blast charged in his hands. He fired, and with no time to flee Trunks could only return fire to deflect Mikhai's attack.
Armada flew in to take a swipe at Mikhail as he fired upon Trunks, but he was prepared for her attack. He turned and parried her punch with his left forearm and slammed the heel of his right hand upward, connecting with the bottom of her chin. Her head was pushed up, so she struck out at him with her right knee. He pulled back and caught her knee in his hands, then used his momentum to turn and throw her away from him. Armada righted herself in the air but Mikhail immediately began firing small energy blasts at her. She flew down toward the floor of the building while barely dodging his attacks.
Taking the opportunity presented by Mikhail's focus on his comrade, Trunks launched another attack. Mikhail's eyes darted over to meet Trunks's just before he disappeared again. Trunks stopped in midair where the thief disappeared and focused on finding his ki. He was now certain that what he saw was similar to Goku's instantaneous movement, if not the same thing. The problem was that Mikhail seemed to be able to employ it much faster than Goku, and in succession without missing a beat. Growing tired of this game, Trunks immediately powered up and transformed. Mikhail could teleport but he hadn't gone very far, so maybe Trunks could just use pure speed to keep up with him. When he sensed Mikahil several floors above, he took off after him.
Armada dodged the last of Mikhail's barrage of small but powerful ki blasts when she felt a sudden overwhelming energy explode. Her head snapped up just in time to see Trunks with a golden aura, his hair turned the same shade of gold as it floated up around him. She immediately faltered, and felt her stomach leap into her throat. This was the energy she had sensed, but now to see it... it was something else. She'd never heard of such a feat; it was impossible. Or so she had thought until she had felt it, and now she had seen it with her own eyes.
When Trunks cornered Mikhail higher in the building, he finally made an attempt at a defense. Trunks reached for him and Mikhail's hands met his, and they grappled. “Dasra von'te!” Mikhail screamed as his own energy unleashed and skyrocketed. It was clear to Trunks that this might be a challenge for him, and that Armada stood no chance one-on-one with the thief. He would have to handle this, and that was fine with him.
That was when Mikhail surged forward, trying to headbutt Trunks. Trunks backed up to avoid the hit, and Mikhail fled once more. Armada flew up toward her comrade, stopping where Mikhail disappeared from again. Trunks caught her eyes for a moment before she turned away. He didn't get time to think about it when Mikhail appeared before them again but almost instantly disappeared. He continued appearing and disappearing in rapid succession around them. Trunks charged a ki blast in his right hand, waiting for the moment to strike.
As soon as Trunks thought he had him, Mikhail appeared from nothing again, this time with a large weapon that looked like a rocket launcher in his hands. Trunks's eyes widened as he realized that was the weapon they were here for, but there was no time to move. Mikhail fired it almost instantaneously when he appeared in front of Trunks, and the demi-Saiyan couldn't dodge it. A wave passed through the air, passed through Trunks, and the walls behind him. He didn't feel anything when it happened, it was like his body just went numb and his eyesight went black. He didn't even feel himself falling as he collapsed to the ground several stories below.
Armada's eyes widened in shock as she watched the scene play out in front of her. She watched as his eyes rolled back into his head, and his hair faded from its golden hue back to normal. After Trunks's body fell, she saw the perfectly circular hole in the walls behind him and the cloud of dust in the air. Is that... some kind of sonic device? Armada thought in a panic. It had literally disintegrated the environment around Trunks. How could someone live through that?
“Trunks!” she shouted as she snapped out of her thoughts. She made a move to fly toward him and catch him before he hit the ground, but she was stopped by Mikhail's left elbow smashing into her face. She stumbled back for a moment, a small trail of blood already running from her nose. Before she had a chance to put up a defense, Mikhail descended upon her. She lost track of how many hits she took in the ensuing onslaught, but it didn't matter. She could sense Mikhail's energy clearly, and despite what she had seen she could also sense that Trunks was not dead. If he was going to have any chance at getting out alive, she had to get Mikhail away from him... no matter the cost.
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It took a few agonizing seconds for Trunks to breathe. He almost thought time itself had stopped, with the way his body went numb and his lungs frozen. Once he was able to breathe, he could focus his senses for a moment. As the pain started to roll in, lighting up his nerves throughout his entire body, he could begin trying to move. His vision was still completely black, but he was able to start moving his fingers. His left hand grabbed whatever it could, and his fingers wrapped around a few pieces of concrete rubble.
Suddenly his ability to sense ki came back to him, and he could track what was going on. It only took a few seconds for him to realize that Armada was moving away from him. For a moment he was curious, but as she darted farther away he quickly realized what she was doing. No... he thought in anguish as the reality of the situation sank in. She was leading him away, and Trunks knew what that meant. Armada wasn't strong enough to defeat him. But she was protecting him yet again, pulling the danger away even if they both knew what that meant.
If Trunks didn't get up in the next thirty seconds, she was going to die. And he would likely follow after her. No...! he screamed inside his head once more. He had to get up, he had to. There was no time; it felt like they had already left the building, Armada flying away with Mikhail chasing her. He focused for a moment, and after what felt like reaching for something with all his might to only touch it with his fingertips, he finally found his ki once more.
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Mikhail unleashed another barrage of ki blasts at her, and Armada did all she could to avoid them. A volley of small but powerful blasts was difficult to navigate on its own, but Mikhail could redirect his energy after firing it, which made it even harder. She moved to avoid one that exploded to her left when it hit the concrete wall of the building they were in, but she couldn't escape the blast that hit her square in the middle of her back. It exploded and forced her down toward the ground, where she landed in a bunch of decrepit debris which created a cloud of dust from her collision.
She clenched her teeth as she pushed herself up off of the ground. Blood ran down her face from a gash on the top of her head. She was hurt, but nothing serious yet. Was Mikhail toying with her? What would be the point? When she managed to rise to her feet, she turned to look for him above. They had moved away from Trunks and were in a different building now, what appeared to be the remains of an office highrise. Several floors were broken away, and from where she stood Armada could see up into a few floors above. Suddenly Mikhail appeared in one of the floors above her, but before she had a chance to react a beam of ki came flying into the building and enveloped Mikhail in a blinding light.
Or she thought he'd been hit by the attack, but he appeared a meter in front of her with an attack of his own charged in both of his hands. Just as he went to fire, another blast shot into the building and this one did make contact with Mikhail. The energy in his hands mixed with that which was fired at him and exploded, sending both Armada and Mikhail flying apart.
Mikhail crashed through at least one wall before he was able to recover and right himself in the air. Trunks appeared in front of him, transformed, and started throwing punches. Mikhail couldn't get away, and took a barrage of hits. Blood started running from his mouth, and Trunks stopped hitting him for a moment to charge energy in his right hand. Mikhail took the split second opening he was given to disappear, and Trunks's blast only served to incinerate several floors of the rundown building behind his enemy.
Trunks's chest heaved as he tried to focus his senses on where Mikhail ran off too. His body felt like it was on fire, and both his vision and his thoughts felt cloudy. He could sense Armada somewhere nearby, though he couldn't tell exactly where she was. Mikhail had dropped off of his radar again. Where was he going? Was he teleporting long distances and then coming back again?
Sitting up slowly, Armada winced as she put her right hand to the back of her head. That explosion had sent her hurtling through the office building and into the street where she was now. She looked at her right hand as she got up to one knee to see blood, as she suspected. She finally stood upright, pushing away the remnants of the car that had stopped her motion, and took a look at around. She thought she'd just been tossed into the street from the explosion that resulted from Trunks's attack, but she quickly realized she was wrong. She found herself several blocks away, dust hanging in the sky as far as she could see.
She took off back toward Trunks, figuring Mikhail would be nearby though she didn't sense him again. The Lacus device he was wearing had been tuned to his energy signature to mask it, but she'd already destroyed that. She found it hard to believe he would have another. A moment later, she had found her way back to where she was initially, and the building looked like it was ready to collapse. Trunks was floating much higher up into the building than where she had been, and he was in that state. His aura was downright suffocating, but she didn't have time to worry about that now. They had a job to do.
That was when Mikhail reappeared once more, halfway between the two mercenaries but off to Armada's left. Trunks was facing away from both his comrade and the thief, and Mikahil had that weapon in his hands, aimed at the demi-Saiyan. Despite the enormity of his energy, Armada could sense that Trunks's ki was erratic—he was injured, and it was pretty serious. If he took another blast from that weapon, he may not get up again.
Armada flew at Mikhail as fast as she could, and apparently he hadn't noticed her when he arrived. He turned to face her, his eyes widening slightly. At the same time, Trunks had caught wind of what was happening, and turned toward the pair. Mikhail tried to dodge Armada's attack, but he predicted her behavior incorrectly. She reached for the weapon, not him, and managed to get her left hand around the long barrel near the end. Mikhail yanked backward from her, and fired.
Trunks's eyes widened in shock. He would have been in the path of that blast, unable to move out of the way in time had his partner not attacked Mikhail. Instead, Armada's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she dropped to the ground like a stone. He took off toward Mikhail, who aimed at Trunks and pulled the trigger. Instead of firing, the weapon sparked and jammed. Mikhail threw it to the ground but not before Trunks was able to hit the thief with his right fist.
Mikhail's power spiked but it was still nothing compared to Trunks, even severely injured. After taking a flurry of hits, Mikhail made a quick move and was able to catch Trunks's left hand on his right. Without missing a beat, Trunks reached up with his right hand and drew his sword. In a flash, he sliced into the inside of Mikhail's right forearm, almost severing the limb. Mikhail hissed and flew backward, his left hand immediately moving to cover the wound on his other arm.
He continued flying backwards, quickly running out of space in the building. Sensing that Mikhail was going to run again, Trunks surged forward and thrust his sword into the thief's left shoulder. Mikhail cried out and the world around them swirled into a mash of colors. Trunks felt disorientated, and a moment later everything came back into view and they were high in the sky above the ruined section of Virda City below.
The thief glared at the mercenary with a pained face. Holding his sword steady in Mikhail's shoulder to keep him from fleeing, Trunks used his left hand to fire a ki blast point blank in the thief's chest. With a sizable hole in his chest, Mikhail's eyes dulled, and Trunks pulled his sword loose. The thief's body fell, and Trunks only watched for a moment before his attention was diverted elsewhere. Helicopters with sirens blaring were headed his direction. He figured that they must have set off energy sensors with their fight. Armada had previously explained that most advanced nations like Bmyhad and Virda could at least track energy usage even if they had no plan to deal with it. Virda police were headed his way, so it was time to leave.
A moment later he was back in the office building they had left behind. He quickly found the Venetian weapon, but he had a harder time locating Armada. He'd powered down from super Saiyan, and was really starting to feel the ache from whatever that weapon had shot him with. Nothing hit him directly, so it wasn't like a traditional weapon. He figured it must have been some type of sonic device, and whatever it was put him in so much pain it was hard to focus. After searching for a minute, he finally found his comrade.
She was unconscious and barely breathing. He knew his injuries were bad, but he never considered she would be much worse. Then again, he carried a genetic healing factor thanks to his father; he had no way of knowing if she possessed such a thing. It seemed like she didn't. Regardless, he had to get them out of Virda as soon as possible. He hefted her body up and slung her over his right shoulder so his left hand would be free to carry the weapon. What would be the point in coming so far to leave it now?
Within a few minutes he'd avoided the authorities and made it back to the ship. Once inside he dropped the weapon in the hallway and immediately flew to the infirmary with his comrade in tow. He set her down in one of the beds in the infirmary and paused for a moment. His head swam and he swayed on his feet. Trunks grabbed the edge of the bed to stabilize himself. When he had control of himself again, he started to panic. The whole way back he'd been focused on getting to the ship, now that he stood next to his partner he realized her ki was flickering and extremely low, and it wasn't being suppressed. Realization hit him like a bucket of cold water to the face; if he didn't get her medical treatment soon, she would die.
He floated back to the bridge and sat down in the pilot's seat. His head still felt foggy, and he couldn't concentrate. He looked up at the main monitor, but he had no idea where to begin. She'd never shown him how to fly the ship. He tried to navigate the menus to find something of use, but to no avail. Panic rose up from his stomach and he felt sick. Trunks grabbed his hair at the scalp with his left hand and squeezed in frustration. What was he going to do? He didn't know how to fly the ship and Armada was dying. They were in Virda City, on another planet a significant distance from Bmyhad, and he had no idea where he could take her for treatment. Even if he managed to get the ship moving, it had taken them three days to get to Virda, and he was certain she didn't have three days to wait.
No...! Trunks thought in anguish as he hunched over the pilot's console in the bridge of the ship. He willed himself to think, to come up with a way out of this. But as the seconds ticked by, hope slowly slipped away from him.
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Thanks for reading! My apologies for the cliffhanger, but sometimes you just have to cut things off before you move on to the next part. :]
DarkVoid116 and Son Goshen – omg you guys. ;~; Thank you SO MUCH for the reviews, it's so encouraging to know somebody is reading and liking this enough to look forward to updates. I hope I can live up to your expectations!
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Silvia