Dragonball M, Chapter 2: Lighthouse! Across the Shores of Shattered Time!

[KingofPie]

"Once upon a time I actually had a job." Held began simply, "It entailed a lot of things that aren't really important for the moment."

Not to mention, It's not like I'm applying for a job interview here....It's not really the place to getting nostalgic.

"Either way, my own people went missing. Large numbers, from all over Nevadian land, with seemingly no reasoning behind it. There one moment, and gone the next..."

"A Nevadian..." P-Sta muttered to himself. So that's who Held was! The officer thought he looked familiar! Miras' words from months ago returned to him as the officer remembered that she had informed him about two wanted criminals residing on Earth.

Kami, I'm getting a headache just thinking about the headache I got during all that. It's was like trying to track down a team of magicians...

"One thing led to another, and me and my team were charged with investigating the matter. It wasn't exactly easy to uncover what went on, but eventually we found the truth."

Held glanced at the shattered ship, it's fragments scattered all across the land.

"It turned out that they were being sold as slaves, and then I was tasked with hunting the slavers...Our success was..."

He glanced towards the graves, sighing despondently at the state of things. "Well, I would use the term 'successful' loosely, if I had to use it at all."

Still, I thought that group was at least disbanded, if not eradicated....I guess they just managed to pull the wool over our eyes again.

"I've been gone for awhile, but I'm almost certain that we shouldn't be hunting a species, so much as we should be hunting a very particular group."

P-Sta nodded and sighed. "A group, eh? Well, I'm glad for that.," he sighed. Still, he wasn't the least bit interested in simply slaughtering them all. If he had his way, he would see them all incarcerated, his current allies thirst for vengeance be damned. "And Held..." P-Sta folded his arms. "I can't help but notice you deemed several key details of your story unimportant. Wouldn't it be best to fill in all of the gaps so that we might have a clearer picture of the threat our Junjo foes pose?"

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

'I'm yours to do with as you please.'

Ishtar said nothing, choosing to leave Sarada's statement as the perfect end-cap to a conversation that left both eager to properly reunite ... Yet the smile that was offered- a hungry thing with a slight bearing of fangs- was plain enough to understand.

The golden-eyed Oni would take full advantage of Sarada's offer when the time came.

Zaofan offered his condolences, and took up the task of burying the dead himself. Eventually, Midori joined him. Together, they could likely get it done, but Sarada couldn't let them do it on their own. She owed it to the fallen to offer them peace as they finally took their last rest. She wasn't sure how these Saiyans felt about combat. If they were anything like Enoki, they didn't have the compulsive need to fight to quell their restless spirits. Still, it would to offer them one final word.

Slowly, Sarada walked over to Zaofan and Midori and joined them in burying the dead. Whenever she lowered one into their grave and covered them with dirt, she whispered a short phrase in Vocadoan: "Peace be with you, brother/sister."

It was the least she could do.

When the others set about with the burying of the slaughtered Saiyan however, Ishtar found herself at something of a disadvantage.

The Oni had suffered the Death of one she loved, yet never once had she suffered the death of kin. What she remembered of her time in the Afterlife, and that Timeless Garden was that her kind was not familiar with death in that way; and though she knew they could be killed- had she not almost died ?- the golden-eyed Oni was so far detached from those other Oni's that ... she was not sure that she would care. And that was ...

"A thing to think about," Ishtar muttered, softly.

Still, Sarada mourned, and offered the dead words of comfort should such be a thing heard. And while Ishtar had not performed such rites in at least five thousand years, what she felt from the Saiyan was enough to guide her feet; and voice.

"..."

Following behind the three- Midori, Zaofan, and Sarada- the Oni lingered at each shallow grave, and performed the rites once assigned her by the High Priestess, Sekhmet. "I offer you my light, so that it may guide your Ka as it travels to the far-off shores of the Lands of the Dead; and may those shores find you welcome ... so that you may find peace denied you in Death."

Touching the soil of each grave as she spoke, the energy that Ishtar had drawn from the surroundings plants to prepare for Jagam- who was not there, in the end- found its use, then; as each was offered a fragment of the Oni's golden-black Ki.

A small gesture, perhaps, and one that did little for the souls that had already passed on ... and yet Ishtar realized that such likely didn't matter in the end. After all, she had learned all those years ago that the rites were to ease the souls of those who yet lingered. Who in this case, was one she loved, her aunt; and the twelve young ones stripped of their parents.

She pauses, thinking.

“The hangar is hidden, cloaked. For emergencies if Vacado ever came calling. As to leaving me alive.......”

She pauses, eyes widening.

“In case I got out of the bunker, of course I would send out a distress signal. More people for them to get if they intercept the message. If I didn’t, they knew where I was regardless. They would just come back for me and the kids. ****.”

"All the more reason to deal with them quickly."

Any more time wasted was time the Junjo had to regroup and form a strategy with which to take Enoki and the children. Not to mention them.

...

It was very convenient that they happened to crash land on this planet in particular.

"The group that took us meant to eject us on this planet," she said to the others. "I think they're going to come back, strike us all at once while we're still weak." It made sense. At the time, they had been giving them trouble. There was little doubt they would have taken the ship and killed everyone on board. Ejecting them in a pod not only got them out of their hair, but also gave them the opportunity to get a double kill, so to speak.

Ochazuke chuckled darkly.

Whatever these Junjo are, they are anything but stupid.

"He who pursues two targets catches neither. You would be hard pressed to fend for both yourself and the children in the wilderness alone, much less against a foe laying in wait," he said, "Even if you escaped with them on a single vessel, that would be like flying right into their hands."

There was something to be said of starving out a colony of Saiyans, but that was a thought he'd keep to himself while their mutual enemy hovered just out of reach, their pool of shared resources thinning rapidly.

"And when their ship went down in the space above this planet, they know we are here. Hmm."

He walked over to the ridge that overlooked the upturned earth of the freshly dug graves and concentrated his senses over the horizon, searching for something.

"Still, advanced as their technology may be, it would be wasteful for even poachers like these to announce their attack from the sky above. On the surface, perhaps..."

When Ishtar finished her task, she returned to the group discussing why the Junjo had done what they had- leaving Enoki and the children alive, and the bunker undamaged- and the truth of it caused the Oni to offer a sigh.

"It sounds as if they intend to run us to ground, like wounded animals. Killing those too difficult to outright capture, and leaving the truth of what has transpired here buried."

A troubling thought, really.

After a moment of silence then, Ishtar turned her attention to Enoki.

"Would it be possible, to lure the Junjo out of hiding ? Perhaps use the craft they allowed you to keep as bait, while yourself and others prepare a trap to be sprung once they are revealed?"

[rhyvurg]

Adam pauses in it's salvage of the saiyan pods. "Possible imminent attack, shelter and airship exposed. Secure backup shelter required." The android forms itself into a conveyor/digger hybrid and begins boring a hole down.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Faintly, Ochazuke gets the sense of something cloaked about a mile or two out passes where the graves were being dug.

Enoki shakes her head.

“If they planned this, presume my ship is being watched. Maybe I can remote pilot it......”

She looks at the group.

“You got anything that can remote pilot a ship? Cause a diversion with it?”

[Sub-Zero MKA]

Faintly, Ochazuke gets the sense of something cloaked about a mile or two out passes where the graves were being dug.

Enoki shakes her head.

“If they planned this, presume my ship is being watched. Maybe I can remote pilot it......”

She looks at the group.

“You got anything that can remote pilot a ship? Cause a diversion with it?”

"I'm pretty sure Jinzi has something." Sarada glanced the billionaire for confirmation. "If not, then Adam can manage it," she continued, gesturing to the silver android.

[rhyvurg]

Adam forms a head to stick up out of the hole it's digging. "I wasn't listening but yes I can."

[Miburo]

"If blaming an entire race for what one group did, or what one's ancestor's did, then Sarada and I might as well turn ourselves in to the Galaxy Police." Meagan rubbed her hand over her brow as she considered this, "Held, how do we go about tracking the slavers down? How do we stop them? We don't even know how many of these slave ships are out there, how extensive this damnable operation is."

"Well, I can't tell you much about their numbers and the scale of their operation." Held said meekly, sighing as he spoke, "I've been out of the loop for almost four years. I had thought they had gotten broken apart, but given they're apparently managing to grab sizable swaths of Saiyan colonists, and your own people....Never mind managing to catch us so offguard. Whatever they've been working on since then, it seems to be pretty complex, in terms of tactics."

He placed his hand on his chin, contemplating the rest of her query.

"As to tracking them, it's easy enough I suppose. They did tend to return to the scene of their crimes from time to time, as some sort of feint from what I recall. Group going missing, big group goes to investigate, big group goes missing, and so on."

He shrugged slightly. "It wasn't the most genius strategy, but it was effective enough until it got too much attention."

And even then considering they apparently still managed to come back.....

"A Nevadian..." P-Sta muttered to himself. So that's who Held was! The officer thought he looked familiar! Miras' words from months ago returned to him as the officer remembered that she had informed him about two wanted criminals residing on Earth.



P-Sta nodded and sighed. "A group, eh? Well, I'm glad for that.," he sighed. Still, he wasn't the least bit interested in simply slaughtering them all. If he had his way, he would see them all incarcerated, his current allies thirst for vengeance be damned. "And Held..." P-Sta folded his arms. "I can't help but notice you deemed several key details of your story unimportant. Wouldn't it be best to fill in all of the gaps so that we might have a clearer picture of the threat our Junjo foes pose?"

Held went silent for a moment, considering the officers words.

"It's a fair point." He said atlast, "Although, I wasn't withholding information because it was relevant, so much as because I didn't think you all wanted to hear about 'Held Debon: Space Enforcer' or whatever."

He tilted his head to the side, as he began to contemplate out loud.

"Technically I was a privateer, so I suppose 'Space Pirate' was maybe a bit more accurate, but that implies I was running around doing unsac---You know what, never mind."

He cleared his throat, before continuing.

"Well, the Junjo aren't slavers by trade, I can tell you right now." He began, "Infact, I don't think the majority of their people even know this is a problem, frankly. It was a group of exiles or outcasts or whatever, who was responsible for these crimes."

I always wondered if they were exiled because they were slavers, or if they were slavers because they were exiled....But, It's hard to get that sort of information from such a group of rouges.

"In either case, I suppose you can consider them the antithesis to the Intergalactic Merchant Guild. If that behemoth exists for the purpose of trade and commerce, this group exists solely to take what they want from whoever they can...Or, whoever they can, I guess if the price is high enough.

It's pretty much a Guild of Thieves."

[Sub-Zero MKA]

Sarada considered Held's words carefully before thinking of a response. "Well, it's a good thing we discussed this now before going over to Junjo World fists blazing."

Despite her humorless chuckle, it was a good thing. Held seemed pretty knowledgeable about this people, so she deferred to his expertise, relatively speaking.

If she has killed huge swaths of their population, only to find out after the fact that it was only a small exiled pocket that they were dealing with, she would never forgive herself.

Luckily, Held saw it within himself to speak up.

[Miburo]

Sarada considered Held's words carefully before thinking of a response. "Well, it's a good thing we discussed this now before going over to Junjo World fists blazing."

Despite her humorless chuckle, it was a good thing. Held seemed pretty knowledgeable about this people, so she deferred to his expertise, relatively speaking.

If she has killed huge swaths of their population, only to find out after the fact that it was only a small exiled pocket that they were dealing with, she would never forgive herself.

Luckily, Held saw it within himself to speak up.

"I figured it was best to give you time to grieve and compose yourself before working on clarifying anything." Held replied, "I don't think earlier was the best time to attempt to explain the situation in detail....We were already on rocky terrain to begin with, consider how we were captured. And then with...."

He trailed off. There was no need to mention the slain colonists, buried, but still fresh in their minds.

"Well, there is a such thing as too much at once, I think."

[Ptrvc]

Sarada smiled gratefully when Jack pledged his support. "Thank you, Jack."

It occurred to her that he likely left because of her antics with Ishtar. Even if they agreed that they were just friends, it couldn't have been easy watching someone he admitted to caring about flirt and get handsy with someone else. She wanted to make it up to him for being so patient with her. Maybe later, she'd spend some time with him. Have a spar, eat something, and just... talk? Mating didn't seem appropriate, given all they had been through today.

"Hey, did you find your knives in the wreckage?"

Jack nodded, and two knives appeared in his hands.

"Took me a minute. Finally just zorched a chunk of the wreckage and there they were. Nice benefit of being made of katchin."

There was a gleam of silver and the knives disappeared once more.

"You still have yours right?"

[Tami]

"I figured it was best to give you time to grieve and compose yourself before working on clarifying anything." Held replied, "I don't think earlier was the best time to attempt to explain the situation in detail....We were already on rocky terrain to begin with, consider how we were captured. And then with...."

He trailed off. There was no need to mention the slain colonists, buried, but still fresh in their minds.

"Well, there is a such thing as too much at once, I think."

"There is the problem of those stun devices they used in us to begin with. No idea how they work or how to block them, but if they come back and simply knock us all unconscious, we'll end up either dead or back in those tubes."

[Sub-Zero MKA]

Jack nodded, and two knives appeared in his hands.

"Took me a minute. Finally just zorched a chunk of the wreckage and there they were. Nice benefit of being made of katchin."

There was a gleam of silver and the knives disappeared once more.

"You still have yours right?"

"Yeah."

She flicked her wrist like he showed her. One of the two knives appeared in her hand. Her tail unfurled from her waist to reveal the second one.

She noticed that the one in her hand had a smudge on it. While she could have simply ignored it, or wiped it off with her finger, why? Jack needed to be titillated every once in a while.

She brought the knife up to her mouth and ran her tongue along the flat side of the blade. All while maintaining eye contact.

"There was a smudge on it," Sarada explained as if what she did was completely normal.

"I figured it was best to give you time to grieve and compose yourself before working on clarifying anything." Held replied, "I don't think earlier was the best time to attempt to explain the situation in detail....We were already on rocky terrain to begin with, consider how we were captured. And then with...."

He trailed off. There was no need to mention the slain colonists, buried, but still fresh in their minds.

"Well, there is a such thing as too much at once, I think."

She smiled gratefully. "Thank you."

While she didn't feel ashamed of the anger and thoughts of revenge she indulged in earlier, she knew that acting on them would have had adverse consequences. It was better to let that anger burn itself out, then point out the flaw in the conclusion it bore than to simply do so right at that moment. With her rage lessened -- but not completely gone, nor was it alone -- she was more pliable to sensible arguments and suggestions.

Okay, so from what she understood so far, the Junjo were perhaps still on the planet and were simply waiting for the survivors to simply starve enough to venture out for food before capturing or killing them. That was only worsened by Sarada and the rest of her group also being present. Two birds, one stone, as Earthers said. Why fight two battles when they could group up their quarry into one large target and pool their resources and strategies toward one singular battle?

It was a fine tactic, but one that required them to underestimate their prey.

A mistake. One that would cost them their lives. With every second that passed by, Sarada felt more of her strength return bit by bit. She knew the same was true for the others. Once her full power was restored -- or even something closely resembling her top strength -- she would show no mercy. If these Junjo were in fact an exiled portion of their race, then there was no need to worry about their families mourning them.

These bastards had no one who loved them, and only Death was waiting to embrace them.

[grampagen]

Faintly, Ochazuke gets the sense of something cloaked about a mile or two out passes where the graves were being dug.

Enoki shakes her head.

“If they planned this, presume my ship is being watched. Maybe I can remote pilot it......”

She looks at the group.

“You got anything that can remote pilot a ship? Cause a diversion with it?”

Past the stretch of small burial mounds he felt a presence. Pouring the focus of his diminished energies into expanding the field of sense-awareness, Ochazuke reached out to find what eyes and even scouters could not, and that hidden shape gave him pause.

The hunted may not have the luxury to presume their pursuit has ended.

"Whatever preparations you need, make them quickly," he said. Keying in the comm, he called out to Jinzi, "Pantaloon, this is your area of expertise. See what you can do for them."

He then looked toward that looming, hidden space, shrouded in plain air.

"There is a matter some distance away I shall see to."

Floating a short distance off the ground, he pushed off a cloud of dust and flew toward the area where the energy of his sense interacted; the nearer he approached, the stronger his insights became, as he closed the distance under what scant cover the terrain provided.

[Ptrvc]

"Yeah."

She flicked her wrist like he showed her. One of the two knives appeared in her hand. Her tail unfurled from her waist to reveal the second one.

She noticed that the one in her hand had a smudge on it. While she could have simply ignored it, or wiped it off with her finger, why? Jack needed to be titillated every once in a while.

She brought the knife up to her mouth and ran her tongue along the flat side of the blade. All while maintaining eye contact.

"There was a smudge on it," Sarada explained as if what she did was completely normal.

Jack smiled and shook his head slowly.

"Don't you ever change Spacegirl."

Titillated? Maybe. But though he hid it from his face, Jack felt something of a cold emptiness welling up within him. Titillation. Attraction. Lust. Sex. That was what his relationship was Sarada was, or at least, how she felt, it seemed.

Which wasn't...bad...exactly. But, Jack knew that pool so shallow, boiling hot though it might, could never truly satisfy him.

Jack patted Sarada on the head, "Keep a hand on your knife 'till we're outta here."

Past the stretch of small burial mounds he felt a presence. Pouring the focus of his diminished energies into expanding the field of sense-awareness, Ochazuke reached out to find what eyes and even scouters could not, and that hidden shape gave him pause.

The hunted may not have the luxury to presume their pursuit has ended.

"Whatever preparations you need, make them quickly," he said. Keying in the comm, he called out to Jinzi, "Pantaloon, this is your area of expertise. See what you can do for them."

He then looked toward that looming, hidden space, shrouded in plain air.

"There is a matter some distance away I shall see to."

Floating a short distance off the ground, he pushed off a cloud of dust and flew toward the area where the energy of his sense interacted; the nearer he approached, the stronger his insights became, as he closed the distance under what scant cover the terrain provided.

Jack followed behind Ocha, raising his a finger to his mouth, and sneaking behind him. With everything going on it did make sense to let the man go alone, and if Jack knew how to do anything, it was stalk and ambush.

And gamble. And fight.

Not much else though really.

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

Jinzi nods and calls out to Adam.

“Adam, we need to make an array that transmits on a secured, hidden, channel. It will also need to interface with an outdated GP system for remote access.”

He taps rapidly on his datapad, drawing up quick schematics and showing them to Adam.

“If you morph your body into this configuration and broadcast on this frequency, you should be able to grant me access to Enoki’s ship.”

Meanwhile, he gestures for everyone to get ready or to hide as OchaUke and Jack go off.

Ochazuke discovers at least four more cloaked mounds beyond the first. He can’t quite penetrate what’s inside save a few flitting feelings of movement.