Categories > Anime/Manga > Dragon Ball Z > Illumination

Interlude: Long-Winded Explanations

by SilverArmada 0 reviews

The follow up to Mission 07. Some questions are asked of Laiserta and Trunks, so now it's time for long-winded explanations! **Note:: ~'s mark a flashback during the 'Illumination' timeline, and...

Category: Dragon Ball Z - Rating: PG-13 - Genres: Action/Adventure - Characters: Trunks - Warnings: [!!] [V] - Published: 2006-02-11 - Updated: 2006-02-12 - 1656 words

0Unrated
Interlude: Long Winded Explanations
The common room of the Verdandi was dead quiet. An eerie silence descended upon the place after the last mission two days ago. Nobody had said a word since what happened.
The mission was sort of a failure, sort of a success. Depended on how one looked at it. They didn't really earn the two hundred and fifty-thousand, yet it was given to them anyway. All were thankful, of course. At least, those that were conscious.
Armada sat behind the table, watching the 'television' of sorts. Her eyes kept glancing over to the young man set before one of the consoles as he caught up on recent news.
Trunks glanced over to Armada, and when their eyes met both darted away. There was an extreme nervousness in the air, due mostly to the fact that one-third of the crew was not in the common room.
What should I say? What should we say? Trunks thought to himself while trying to read. Surprisingly, there were things in this world that he could understand. He knew Armada was thinking about it also. It's why the two kept looking towards one another. Waiting for the other to say /something/-anything. He couldn't get his mind from the one crew member who lay doubled-up in the infirmary, and neither could his conscious comrade.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Help me get her on the table!" Armada ordered in exasperation from her comrade. Trunks didn't hesitate and lifted his fallen shipmate upon the examination table-though with a bit of difficulty.
The two had worked carefully to carry their severely injured and very heavy friend gently and hopefully without her sustaining further injury. They set her face down, on her chest, so the two could work on her back-the part that was bleeding, at least. The clothing on her back had been torn, as well as her trench coat due to the blast she'd incurred.
"Get the jacket," Armada commanded. Trunks worked to remove Laiserta's coat while his partner reached for her weaponry. Her trademark yellow sunglasses sat aside already, as they had fallen off upon entering the ship.
The two found that beneath the coat, Laiserta's back was covered in blood as most of the clothing had been burned off. And as the two looked on, their friend continued to bleed.
"Put pressure on the wound," Armada said, pointing to an area on her friend's back.
Trunks reached in and pushed down with enough force to stop the bleeding, yet more blood gushed out upon his contact. "I can't tell where the wound is!" he exclaimed as Laiserta's blood rushed over his hands. Her life was gushing from her body, and running over his hands. The feeling was strange, and Trunks wasn't sure he'd ever seen so much blood, aside from Gohan-
"It's gotta be around there!" Armada pointed again, this time getting blood on her hands as well. She reached in and pushed down, and again more blood spilled from their friend's body.
"We can't keep doing this! If she loses any more blood-"
"Let me clean off the area so we can see the wound," Armada cut him off, not wanting to hear what he had to say. Their eyes met, and each could read the doubt in the other-but neither said a word, not wanting to voice what was only a slight probability as long as it was only pondered over mentally. If they said it, then it'd have more ground, and become a more realistic result. Something neither wanted. After all, Laiserta had jumped in the way to save her, not him.
Trunks looked closer to see if he could find anything, but there was just too much blood. Armada had reached over and grabbed a towel-type thing, and wiped it slowly across Laiserta's upper back and scapulae. Once she pulled back to wipe the towel clean or to get a new one, her movements were too vague to tell, she dropped the cloth in shock upon seeing what was beneath the blood. Trunks's eyes widened as well and the two froze. /S-scars?! Trunks thought stunned. /No...more like...incisions?!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
At that moment, both mercenaries' eyes flew up and turned to face the door leading to the infirmary. There was a slight stirring inside. Neither moved, but instead looked to one another and waited.
Inside the infirmary, Laiserta began to stir. She sat up slowly and blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the light. Once the realization came to her of what had happened at the fort, she looked down. Her shirt had been removed, and her chest and back bandaged. But her arms...Laiserta sighed. So they've seen it. Now I've got some explaining to do. She took a quick look around and soon found a blanket on one of the counter-tops. She wrapped it around herself, leaving only her hands exposed-not as bad as her entire arms open to public gawking, but bad enough. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the common room.
"Lai!" both screamed once she came through the door. The two jumped up to help her, as she was leaning a bit while walking. "You need to sit down," Trunks advised while giving the raven-haired mercenary something to hold onto.
The two guided their injured partner to a seat behind the table, where Armada was sitting before she'd come to her comrade's aid. After Laiserta was seated comfortably, still wrapped in the blanket she clung tightly too, the other two-thirds of the crew said nothing, but only stared at her with concern. Laiserta fidgeted a bit under the gaze of her coworkers.
"My eyes," Laiserta spoke, not looking into those of the two whom stared at her, "it's...they weren't the only part of me changed..."
+ + + + +
She lie on her stomach, unmoving. After her latest surgery, she was unsure of just how many places she'd been opened up-for she couldn't feel any pain. Her mind, in order to keep sane, released the chemicals to block out immense amounts of pain. She did know, however, that she couldn't move. And she wasn't about to try.
At that time, Jinta-bae opened the door to her room and took one step in, still holding to the handle. "I'm sorry, but...Akeru-sae was sent to the 'S' level today." After that, he left, closing the door behind himself.
Xyra-mae lie still, unable to bring herself to even speak. And she would have cried, if only she knew how.
+ + + + +
"They used a synthetic muscle fiber, I have no idea what it's called, and they removed a lot of my own muscles to put it in. It weighs somewhere between four-to-five times the weight of real muscle tissue, and has nearly unbreakable tensile strength. The only places they never worked on were my fingers, the front of my neck and my head. Everywhere else...is as you've seen," Laiserta finished, talking rather detachedly about a subject so personal.
"And that's why you're so strong...without ki," Trunks concluded aloud.
Laiserta nodded. "Risu, it's how I survived all those years." The three were silent for a while, until Laiserta looked up to Trunks. "By the way..."
Trunks looked at her with a slightly confused look. "What?"
"What the hell did you do?!" Laiserta near shouted at the young man.
Trunks stepped back defensively and blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"That.../thing/ you did while fighting those guys at the fort. Your haired turned some freaky gold color," Laiserta elaborated, narrowing her red eyes-which were not partially covered by her golden sunglasses, giving them an eerie look.
"Yeah," Armada spoke up, remembering what Laiserta spoke of. "Your power shot through the roof. I turned to see what happened, and that's when I dropped my guard."
"Eh, sorry," Trunks laughed nervously. The other two women looked at him with curiosity. "Well, where do I begin?" he asked himself quietly. "I suppose you two have never heard of 'Saiyans,' have you?"
The only response he was granted with was silence and blinking eyes. "I'm taking that as a 'no,'" he surmised. "Well..."
And so, Trunks explained quite a bit about the Saiyan race to his comrades. Mostly regarding who they were, what they did, the destruction of the planet, how he came to be-including his half-blood origins-and just what the 'transformation' was. However, he'd left out the parts about Goku being the literal savior of Earth on several occasions, and who exactly his father was-if people in this part of the universe knew anything of the Saiyans, they probably weren't too happy with them. So putting two people at risk of knowing more than they needed was something Trunks was careful not to do.
"Risu," Laiserta exclaimed with wide eyes. "That has got to be the weirdest thing I have ever heard."
Armada blinked. "Yeah...what she said."
"But," Laiserta spoke up now, regaining some composure, "don't you think that's a little odd?"
"What?" Trunks asked while raising an eyebrow.
"Do you seriously believe that only a handful of your people survived? I mean, if Taydr was destroyed right now, I know that I can't be the only one left-y'know? The odds are just against it."
"It sounds realistic Lai," Trunks admitted, "but I'm really doubting that there are any Saiyans left besides the ones I knew of, and myself. And if there are-well, to be honest, I'm not really interested in finding them."
"Well," Laiserta started while standing, "I better go find a shirt." With that, she deftly left for the barracks.
"I'm gonna go see if I can fix that engine," Armada told Trunks while heading out. She stopped at the door and turned to face him. "And warn me next time you're going to 'transform,' alright?"
Trunks laughed. "Sure." After Armada left, he sat down once more and took a deep breath. /Maybe one day, we'll stop keeping secrets from one another/.
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