Categories > Anime/Manga > Dragon Ball Z > Illumination
Mission 05: Seeing a Ghost
0 reviewsSo far, the missions have been easy. And every one ended successfully (though maybe not in the most graceful of ways). What happens when a ghost from someone's past (long thought dead) suddenly app...
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Mission 05: Seeing a Ghost
Armada juggled the parcels in her hands as the door of the Verdandi opened. She reassessed her grasp on the bag in her right hand and decided it wouldn't make it to the kitchen. She set down the bag, rolled her wrist around, and then grabbed the sack once more. "I'm back," she called out to the other person living on her ship, something she was still fairly unaccustomed to.
She rounded the corner of the bridge into the common room and bumped into her roommate of sorts. "I got it," he called, grabbing the bag from her left hand that she dropped.
"Thanks," Armada replied, following Trunks to the kitchen. Once inside, he set his newly commandeered parcel on the counter top, and Armada did the same with the other three. She stopped and leaned against the counter, facing him. "Well now at least I know you're good for catching groceries if not buying them," she teased.
"Oh, thanks," he responded in given sarcasm.
Both worked at putting away this and that in the cabinets and refrigerator, or 'cold storage' as Armada called it. "Any calls while I was out?" she asked, packing away a few boxes in a shelf on a hanging cabinet, near the sink.
"No," Trunks replied putting away cans in another cabinet. It amazed him how much the kitchen on the Verdandi was like those back on Earth. Everything else was largely different, except for the kitchen.
"Good," she turned to face him once the task at hand was done. She glanced to a clock placed in the room and back to Trunks. "Wanna go out to eat?"
Trunks blinked. "Sure, but...why?" After they'd just packed away tons of ingredients in making a meal, he was a little unsure as to why she'd request that they eat elsewhere.
"We've got a mission starting in a few, and it'd be easier if we were already near our destination during dinner," she explained with detachment.
"So we're working in town today. Quite a change from the border crossing recently, eh?" he joked. Armada shook her head and moved to leave the kitchen. As she walked out, another thought hit Trunks. "When exactly were you going to tell me we had a mission today?"
In no time at all, the two managed to walk halfway across town, into the downtown area, and find a place to eat. Trunks ordered a large meal and a drink, nothing fancy. His comrade, however, ordered a medium sized meal and around five or six tall glasses of the restaurant's strongest alcoholic beverage throughout. And so Trunks learned her very high, even abnormally high tolerance for liquor. As they ate, Trunks talked more about Earth, comparing it to Bmyhad. Armada was a little impressed, understanding that Earth wasn't as bad off as she'd imagined. She did comment, however, that it was still 'underdeveloped' to Trunks's dismay. Several hours after dark, Armada read a clock on the wall opposite their table.
" '0343,'" she read quietly. She then stood and stretched her arms. "Ready?" She quickly paid the bill and no sooner had she said 'ready' were the two on the streets, headed for their final destination of the evening.
"So what are we doing, if it's such a big secret," Trunks inquired as the two walked at a leisurely pace.
"The Bmyhadian National Museum's been robbed every month on the same day for six months straight. They want us, obviously, to catch the criminal," Armada explained, taking a look up the sky. /Been a while since I looked at the stars.../she thought absentmindedly.
"Hello!"
"Huh?" Armada turned to see Trunks stopped in front of the steps leading into the museum-a building that by no means was small.
"Are you coming or not?" he asked jokingly.
Unsure of how many times he'd called out to her and how much time had passed as she stared at the sky, Armada decided to make a quick recovery. "Of course. I get paid to do this sort of thing," she said with a smirk as the two approached the building.
A doorman awaited their arrival. He seemed old, and his stature did him no justice-being that he was small. "This way," he said flatly, reaching for a key from his pocket and opening the door. He made a simple movement that indicated the two were to head inside. "A bit of warning," he began, "do not use your energy. We know you are ki-fighters, and if you fight using that technique you will undoubtedly destroy priceless artifacts. If you destroy anything, we will have you arrested. Do you understand and accept this condition?"
"It's fine," Armada said with Trunks nodding in agreement.
"Proceed," the elderly gentlemen stated. The mercenaries walked in cautiously, and the old man locked the door behind them.
Both wandered around a bit in the very dark and empty museum. "Looks like it's going to be a while," Armada said to her partner.
***
About ten hours later (that would be three-and-some Earth hours), the museum was in the exact same condition as it was when Trunks had entered it. Nothing. Nothing was happening. As he wandered around, checking the areas split between himself and Armada for monitoring, he wondered if the thief was really coming back tonight. If the guy's smart/, he thought, /he probably won't be coming back here anymore. Especially if they know what day he's coming.
'Thump.'
It was a sound so small that Trunks was sure that if he wasn't part Saiyan, he never would have heard it.
'Slide-slide.'
/Finally, some action/! an extremely bored mercenary thought as he stopped to listen for any more sounds.
'Scraaa-tch.'
Somebody was definitely here. He picked up his feet and literally hovered along, following where he thought the sounds came from. Stopping to hide behind a corner, he looked into a small alcove. The exhibit was dedicated to a famous jewel found on the surface of Bmyhad.
And there stood the thief.
He slowly used some sort of device to remove parts of the glass-like covering the stone had. If that was the only protection for the jewel, Trunks was very unimpressed. No wonder this guy keeps coming back...
In no time at all, the burglar had a diminutive hole in the shell over the jewel and soon found the gem to be resting in his hand. He dropped it into a bag at his side along with the contraption used to get through the glass. Just as the thief finished cleaning up his area, Trunks decided to strike. He flew around the corner while the burglar had his back turned, hoping to grab the man and be done with it.
The thief, entirely covered in black, must have somehow sensed that Trunks was coming. He spun around and blocked Trunks's advance, pushing him back a bit. The intruder then charged at Trunks and attacked with several punches and kicks, in some combinations Trunks swore he'd seen before. Surprised with the strength of the opposition, Trunks let down his guard too far as the attacker pushed him back and ran towards the balcony.
"Armada, he's coming your way!" Trunks shouted out as the thief dove off of the balcony, at least forty-feet in the air, and flipped forward once before landing on both feet-quite gracefully too.
Armada had heard her comrade's cry and came barreling around an exhibit and tackled the thief. With an 'oof' sound, both fighters went flying to the ground and the intruder dropped his sack, which contained the gem and his equipment. Armada went to work trying to subdue the criminal, reaching for flailing arms while sitting on the intruder's waist. In an act of weakness, the thief took the better of the situation and gave Armada a left roundhouse across the face. Caught off-guard as Trunks was by their attacker's strength, Armada was knocked out of her pinning position over the intruder.
The thief scrambled over across the ground, reaching for his bag when a foot clamped over it. Looking up, the burglar saw Trunks and decided to back away. Trunks kicked the bag across the room into a wall in the opposite direction of the thief. He then surged forward, chasing after the masked character.
The unknown ran towards a lower balcony and jumped up to it, running in to hide with some exhibits. Trunks deftly followed. Arriving on the mezzanine, he quickly glanced around, attempting to catch a glimpse of the prey. Unfortunately, there was none. Just then, Trunks felt something strange...another ki? The thief definitely had a specific energy signature, one he could easily tell apart from that of Armada. This, of course, explained the foe's underlying strength. He took a moment to concentrate on this new energy, scanning to find the exact direction in which it was headed. After a moment, he was able to lock on...and it was headed towards Armada, where the jewel had been thrown!
The masked man flew towards Armada, attacking her with what seemed like an angry conviction. Armada blocked several shots, but eventually began to succumb to hits now and then. Enraged, Armada threw back the opponent and began nail him with her own barrage of attacks, landing nearly all. The black silhouette ducked a kick with lightning speed and rammed into Armada with his left shoulder, sending her scrambling back across the floor and into a smaller, lowered area of the museum.
Trunks then approached from behind and gave the foe a punch to be reckoned with. The thief fell back a bit, dazed, before launching an offensive against the lavender-haired wonder. The two fighters exchanged blows, mostly blocking and dodging than receiving. The burglar slowed for a moment to send a hard kick aimed right at Trunks's lower torso.
Trunks immediately dropped both hands to block the kick from his foe's left leg. /Geez! Was he aiming for my/-with a hard kick to the head from the right leg, Trunks dropped his guard and stumbled back, in a daze. However, as the intruder slid away, Trunks reached out and snatched at the back of his foe's head-pulling off a dark mask that revealed bright red underneath. It was the last that Trunks saw before hitting the ground.
Armada had slowly picked herself up and stood between the intruder and his prize-the jewel. She stood her ground as she felt the foe coming. The thief jumped down from ground level to the sub-level at which Armada stood. She saw that somehow the burglar had been unmasked, and to her horror.
Armada's eyes shot wide, as she stared into the face of the thief. The woman's sharp green eyes shone wildly in the dark, and her long, fire-red hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her face resembled that of Armada's with little inconsistency, the only being the differences in eyes and hair-the intruder's eyes were shaped differently, as was her hair, being that it was more round and shorter. Her face was also a little more pointed and triangular around the jaw line, but the resemblance was uncanny.
Armada opened her mouth to speak, but was unable to do so in her shock. It's...it's...it's... she thought wildly, unable to bring herself to a name yet as the memories began to unfold before her eyes. Arrianna!
The green-eyed figure before Armada gave her a smirk before casually walking around the mercenary to retrieve the jewel. Armada turned and watched as the figure slid behind some exhibits and went on a dash out of the building.
Armada stood in silence for some time, regaining her composure as the images flooded in. Arrianna...she wasn't like the rest of us...she was made...
"Where'd...he go?" Trunks brought Armada back to reality with his question. She spun around to see him beginning to stir from his position on the floor where 'Arrianna' had presently put him. I thought he was out cold/, she told herself mentally. /Wait...how long have I been standing here?
Armada walked over to Trunks, giving her comrade-in-arms a hand. "She got away," she explained while giving the demi-Saiyan a lift.
"She? Got away?" he asked confused, sitting down with his left hand on his head. Armada knelt beside him. "What happened?" he asked, turning to face his comrade.
"She knocked you unconscious. Then she came towards me to get the jewel," Armada began to explain with a sense of shame.
"And then?" he wanted her to continue.
"I stood and watched as she took the jewel and left. I don't know how long it's been, but it was long enough ago that we won't be chasing after her," she finished, lowering her head and letting out a long held sigh of disappointment.
Trunks wasn't sure of what exactly happened, and figured he probably never would be. Armada expressed her shame in failing the mission but at the same time held something back. /Maybe I'm just reading too much into it/, Trunks thought. Something about the whole situation just didn't seem right. But with the way it felt, he didn't want to ask.
Armada helped Trunks stand slowly, as his head was still spinning somewhat. The two slowly made their way out of the museum in silence, and in shame.
A/N: As for telling time, let me explain. The hours in Bmyhad are equivalent to twenty minutes on Earth. So, for every hour on Earth three have passed on Bmyhad. So the total of hours in one day on Bmyhad is three times that of Earth-72 (assuming Earth has 24-don't get all "23:58" on me, we'll just round it ^^;). So if you take the time in BST (Bmyhadian Standard Time-har har) and divide by three, you'll get the time on Earth in military standard (like 5400 BST is 1800 hours on Earth, or 6:00 pm). As for the last two digits, ignore them in the equation. Bmyhadians divide their 'minutes' into a hundred segments of an hour, so the last two numbers have one hundred possibilities, ranging from 00 to 99. So 50 would be in the middle, or equal to 30 minutes. Same with 25 to 15 and 75 to 45. Get it? (Sorry for the wasted space, this was just so people who were curious could know-and to show that I didn't just throw random numbers around for time ^_^)
Armada juggled the parcels in her hands as the door of the Verdandi opened. She reassessed her grasp on the bag in her right hand and decided it wouldn't make it to the kitchen. She set down the bag, rolled her wrist around, and then grabbed the sack once more. "I'm back," she called out to the other person living on her ship, something she was still fairly unaccustomed to.
She rounded the corner of the bridge into the common room and bumped into her roommate of sorts. "I got it," he called, grabbing the bag from her left hand that she dropped.
"Thanks," Armada replied, following Trunks to the kitchen. Once inside, he set his newly commandeered parcel on the counter top, and Armada did the same with the other three. She stopped and leaned against the counter, facing him. "Well now at least I know you're good for catching groceries if not buying them," she teased.
"Oh, thanks," he responded in given sarcasm.
Both worked at putting away this and that in the cabinets and refrigerator, or 'cold storage' as Armada called it. "Any calls while I was out?" she asked, packing away a few boxes in a shelf on a hanging cabinet, near the sink.
"No," Trunks replied putting away cans in another cabinet. It amazed him how much the kitchen on the Verdandi was like those back on Earth. Everything else was largely different, except for the kitchen.
"Good," she turned to face him once the task at hand was done. She glanced to a clock placed in the room and back to Trunks. "Wanna go out to eat?"
Trunks blinked. "Sure, but...why?" After they'd just packed away tons of ingredients in making a meal, he was a little unsure as to why she'd request that they eat elsewhere.
"We've got a mission starting in a few, and it'd be easier if we were already near our destination during dinner," she explained with detachment.
"So we're working in town today. Quite a change from the border crossing recently, eh?" he joked. Armada shook her head and moved to leave the kitchen. As she walked out, another thought hit Trunks. "When exactly were you going to tell me we had a mission today?"
In no time at all, the two managed to walk halfway across town, into the downtown area, and find a place to eat. Trunks ordered a large meal and a drink, nothing fancy. His comrade, however, ordered a medium sized meal and around five or six tall glasses of the restaurant's strongest alcoholic beverage throughout. And so Trunks learned her very high, even abnormally high tolerance for liquor. As they ate, Trunks talked more about Earth, comparing it to Bmyhad. Armada was a little impressed, understanding that Earth wasn't as bad off as she'd imagined. She did comment, however, that it was still 'underdeveloped' to Trunks's dismay. Several hours after dark, Armada read a clock on the wall opposite their table.
" '0343,'" she read quietly. She then stood and stretched her arms. "Ready?" She quickly paid the bill and no sooner had she said 'ready' were the two on the streets, headed for their final destination of the evening.
"So what are we doing, if it's such a big secret," Trunks inquired as the two walked at a leisurely pace.
"The Bmyhadian National Museum's been robbed every month on the same day for six months straight. They want us, obviously, to catch the criminal," Armada explained, taking a look up the sky. /Been a while since I looked at the stars.../she thought absentmindedly.
"Hello!"
"Huh?" Armada turned to see Trunks stopped in front of the steps leading into the museum-a building that by no means was small.
"Are you coming or not?" he asked jokingly.
Unsure of how many times he'd called out to her and how much time had passed as she stared at the sky, Armada decided to make a quick recovery. "Of course. I get paid to do this sort of thing," she said with a smirk as the two approached the building.
A doorman awaited their arrival. He seemed old, and his stature did him no justice-being that he was small. "This way," he said flatly, reaching for a key from his pocket and opening the door. He made a simple movement that indicated the two were to head inside. "A bit of warning," he began, "do not use your energy. We know you are ki-fighters, and if you fight using that technique you will undoubtedly destroy priceless artifacts. If you destroy anything, we will have you arrested. Do you understand and accept this condition?"
"It's fine," Armada said with Trunks nodding in agreement.
"Proceed," the elderly gentlemen stated. The mercenaries walked in cautiously, and the old man locked the door behind them.
Both wandered around a bit in the very dark and empty museum. "Looks like it's going to be a while," Armada said to her partner.
***
About ten hours later (that would be three-and-some Earth hours), the museum was in the exact same condition as it was when Trunks had entered it. Nothing. Nothing was happening. As he wandered around, checking the areas split between himself and Armada for monitoring, he wondered if the thief was really coming back tonight. If the guy's smart/, he thought, /he probably won't be coming back here anymore. Especially if they know what day he's coming.
'Thump.'
It was a sound so small that Trunks was sure that if he wasn't part Saiyan, he never would have heard it.
'Slide-slide.'
/Finally, some action/! an extremely bored mercenary thought as he stopped to listen for any more sounds.
'Scraaa-tch.'
Somebody was definitely here. He picked up his feet and literally hovered along, following where he thought the sounds came from. Stopping to hide behind a corner, he looked into a small alcove. The exhibit was dedicated to a famous jewel found on the surface of Bmyhad.
And there stood the thief.
He slowly used some sort of device to remove parts of the glass-like covering the stone had. If that was the only protection for the jewel, Trunks was very unimpressed. No wonder this guy keeps coming back...
In no time at all, the burglar had a diminutive hole in the shell over the jewel and soon found the gem to be resting in his hand. He dropped it into a bag at his side along with the contraption used to get through the glass. Just as the thief finished cleaning up his area, Trunks decided to strike. He flew around the corner while the burglar had his back turned, hoping to grab the man and be done with it.
The thief, entirely covered in black, must have somehow sensed that Trunks was coming. He spun around and blocked Trunks's advance, pushing him back a bit. The intruder then charged at Trunks and attacked with several punches and kicks, in some combinations Trunks swore he'd seen before. Surprised with the strength of the opposition, Trunks let down his guard too far as the attacker pushed him back and ran towards the balcony.
"Armada, he's coming your way!" Trunks shouted out as the thief dove off of the balcony, at least forty-feet in the air, and flipped forward once before landing on both feet-quite gracefully too.
Armada had heard her comrade's cry and came barreling around an exhibit and tackled the thief. With an 'oof' sound, both fighters went flying to the ground and the intruder dropped his sack, which contained the gem and his equipment. Armada went to work trying to subdue the criminal, reaching for flailing arms while sitting on the intruder's waist. In an act of weakness, the thief took the better of the situation and gave Armada a left roundhouse across the face. Caught off-guard as Trunks was by their attacker's strength, Armada was knocked out of her pinning position over the intruder.
The thief scrambled over across the ground, reaching for his bag when a foot clamped over it. Looking up, the burglar saw Trunks and decided to back away. Trunks kicked the bag across the room into a wall in the opposite direction of the thief. He then surged forward, chasing after the masked character.
The unknown ran towards a lower balcony and jumped up to it, running in to hide with some exhibits. Trunks deftly followed. Arriving on the mezzanine, he quickly glanced around, attempting to catch a glimpse of the prey. Unfortunately, there was none. Just then, Trunks felt something strange...another ki? The thief definitely had a specific energy signature, one he could easily tell apart from that of Armada. This, of course, explained the foe's underlying strength. He took a moment to concentrate on this new energy, scanning to find the exact direction in which it was headed. After a moment, he was able to lock on...and it was headed towards Armada, where the jewel had been thrown!
The masked man flew towards Armada, attacking her with what seemed like an angry conviction. Armada blocked several shots, but eventually began to succumb to hits now and then. Enraged, Armada threw back the opponent and began nail him with her own barrage of attacks, landing nearly all. The black silhouette ducked a kick with lightning speed and rammed into Armada with his left shoulder, sending her scrambling back across the floor and into a smaller, lowered area of the museum.
Trunks then approached from behind and gave the foe a punch to be reckoned with. The thief fell back a bit, dazed, before launching an offensive against the lavender-haired wonder. The two fighters exchanged blows, mostly blocking and dodging than receiving. The burglar slowed for a moment to send a hard kick aimed right at Trunks's lower torso.
Trunks immediately dropped both hands to block the kick from his foe's left leg. /Geez! Was he aiming for my/-with a hard kick to the head from the right leg, Trunks dropped his guard and stumbled back, in a daze. However, as the intruder slid away, Trunks reached out and snatched at the back of his foe's head-pulling off a dark mask that revealed bright red underneath. It was the last that Trunks saw before hitting the ground.
Armada had slowly picked herself up and stood between the intruder and his prize-the jewel. She stood her ground as she felt the foe coming. The thief jumped down from ground level to the sub-level at which Armada stood. She saw that somehow the burglar had been unmasked, and to her horror.
Armada's eyes shot wide, as she stared into the face of the thief. The woman's sharp green eyes shone wildly in the dark, and her long, fire-red hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her face resembled that of Armada's with little inconsistency, the only being the differences in eyes and hair-the intruder's eyes were shaped differently, as was her hair, being that it was more round and shorter. Her face was also a little more pointed and triangular around the jaw line, but the resemblance was uncanny.
Armada opened her mouth to speak, but was unable to do so in her shock. It's...it's...it's... she thought wildly, unable to bring herself to a name yet as the memories began to unfold before her eyes. Arrianna!
The green-eyed figure before Armada gave her a smirk before casually walking around the mercenary to retrieve the jewel. Armada turned and watched as the figure slid behind some exhibits and went on a dash out of the building.
Armada stood in silence for some time, regaining her composure as the images flooded in. Arrianna...she wasn't like the rest of us...she was made...
"Where'd...he go?" Trunks brought Armada back to reality with his question. She spun around to see him beginning to stir from his position on the floor where 'Arrianna' had presently put him. I thought he was out cold/, she told herself mentally. /Wait...how long have I been standing here?
Armada walked over to Trunks, giving her comrade-in-arms a hand. "She got away," she explained while giving the demi-Saiyan a lift.
"She? Got away?" he asked confused, sitting down with his left hand on his head. Armada knelt beside him. "What happened?" he asked, turning to face his comrade.
"She knocked you unconscious. Then she came towards me to get the jewel," Armada began to explain with a sense of shame.
"And then?" he wanted her to continue.
"I stood and watched as she took the jewel and left. I don't know how long it's been, but it was long enough ago that we won't be chasing after her," she finished, lowering her head and letting out a long held sigh of disappointment.
Trunks wasn't sure of what exactly happened, and figured he probably never would be. Armada expressed her shame in failing the mission but at the same time held something back. /Maybe I'm just reading too much into it/, Trunks thought. Something about the whole situation just didn't seem right. But with the way it felt, he didn't want to ask.
Armada helped Trunks stand slowly, as his head was still spinning somewhat. The two slowly made their way out of the museum in silence, and in shame.
A/N: As for telling time, let me explain. The hours in Bmyhad are equivalent to twenty minutes on Earth. So, for every hour on Earth three have passed on Bmyhad. So the total of hours in one day on Bmyhad is three times that of Earth-72 (assuming Earth has 24-don't get all "23:58" on me, we'll just round it ^^;). So if you take the time in BST (Bmyhadian Standard Time-har har) and divide by three, you'll get the time on Earth in military standard (like 5400 BST is 1800 hours on Earth, or 6:00 pm). As for the last two digits, ignore them in the equation. Bmyhadians divide their 'minutes' into a hundred segments of an hour, so the last two numbers have one hundred possibilities, ranging from 00 to 99. So 50 would be in the middle, or equal to 30 minutes. Same with 25 to 15 and 75 to 45. Get it? (Sorry for the wasted space, this was just so people who were curious could know-and to show that I didn't just throw random numbers around for time ^_^)
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