Two girls walked along the outer boundary of Capsule Corp. That was not an unusual occurrence. Marron and Bra often walked or flew along the border. The unusual thing was that these girls were not Marron and Bra—in fact, Trunks had never seen either before, though they did look strangely familiar. They seemed perfectly at ease with security, turning off guard robots and disabling alarms before either could put up a warning.
And yet he sensed they were no threat to him. They made no move to actually move inside any of the buildings, just to keep the alarms from alerting anyone of their presence.
Trunks sighed. He wished Marron were here. With her strange truthsense or whatever it was that she possessed, she would have been able to easily tell if they were trouble or not.
Of course, that’s not the only reason he wished she were here.
“Hey, look there’s a camera,”
one said.
Trunks leaned forward to listen.
“You’re right,” the other
said. She stepped in front of it and grinned. “Hello. Trunks-sama?
I assume you’re in there. If you are, I would like to assure you
that we possess absolutely no threat to anyone here. Or anyone else
you know and love. Not Marron-sama, not your parents, not your sister,
not anyone. We come in peace.”
“Well done, Mikka-chan.”
“Why, thank you, Azami-chan.”
“You’re welcome.”
Mikka turned back to the camera.
“If you’re in there, Trunks-sama, please come out here and talk to us.
We don’t mean any harm, and even if we did, you could squash us like bugs.”
“Yes, please come out, O Mighty
Warrior,” Azami added.
Trunks debated with himself.
It was true—they didn’t possess any threat he couldn’t handle, but should
he really risk it?
“All right, I’m coming out,”
he said into the intercom.
“Good! I think you’ll
be very pleased you did. We’ll be right by that cedar tree, all right?
Bye-bye.” They moved out of sight.
Trunks sighed and left the
security lounge.
***
“He’s coming,” Mikka reported.
“I know. I do have ears
after all,” Azami replied.
“And what large ears they
are, too,” Mikka teased.
Azami glared at her, sensitive
to the fact that Saiyajins tend to have larger ears than those of a typical
human. Mikka, on the other hand, wasn’t. “Yeah, so?” Azami retorted.
“Timely comeback, that one.”
Azami stuck her tongue out
at her cousin. “Why don’t you just—”
“All right, I’m here, what
do you want?” Trunks interrupted them.
“Tou—I didn’t hear you coming,”
Azami stuttered.
“Amazing, considering the
size of your ears,” Mikka said with a perfectly straight face.
Azami glared at her.
Mikka grinned impudently and
then turned to Trunks. “We have something very important to tell you.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s something that everyone
needs to hear at once,” Azami said. “If you don’t want to take us into
Capsule Corp, we can all meet out here, but we need to talk to everyone.”
Trunks gave them an amused
look. “Are we talking about the same everyone? Son Goku, Gohan, Goten,
my father, Tien, Yamcha, and anyone else I’ve left out?”
“The same,” Mikka confirmed.
“Then let me get them and
you can come on in. You really think you can pull any stunt that
can’t be stopped by all them?”
“No, but we thought we’d give
you the option,” Mikka told him.
“Thank you, but no.” Trunks
hit the motion detector and disabled it. “After you,” he said, opening
the door and holding it for them.
***
Everyone gathered rather quickly.
Within the hour, all pertinent individuals were in Vegeta and Bulma’s living
room.
“It’s hard to believe they’re
all here,” Mikka whispered to Azami.
Azami stared at Krillin and
Jinzouningen Azami and touched the small gold hoops she wore in her ears.
“I know,” she whispered back.
“Okay, we’re all here.
What’s the big secret?” Trunks asked.
Azami noticed he was holding
Marron’s hand and had his other arm around her shoulders. In response,
Marron idly trailed a finger from her free hand down and across Trunks’
arm muscles. They probably weren’t even aware what they were doing.
Azami had to swallow before she could answer. “It’s not really a big secret,”
she started to say, but couldn’t finish.
Mikka took over. “It’s not
a big secret, it’s a big revelation.”
“Okay, what is it?” Goten
asked. He had his legs crossed at the ankles, kicked back into a
reclining position.
“Azami and I, we’re from the
future.”
Yamcha groaned. “Again?
What goes wrong there?”
Mikka laughed bitterly. “What
didn’t, is the better question, Yamcha-sama. You see, Saiyajins aren’t—weren’t
the only planet brokers in the universe. Another race, the Rikiajins,
also does that. Their groundwork showed that Chikyuu is a prime location,
but that there are some defenders who are rather powerful. So, in
about six years, they’ll attack.”
“We can take them,” Vegeta
said.
“No, you can’t,” Mikka told
him. “Everyone is killed.”
They all started at that.
“Everyone?” Gohan asked.
“Well, Bulma, Tien, and us
survive the fighting,” she corrected. “But we’re the only ones.”
“Why do we lose?” Goku asked.
“They’re very powerful, and
there are so many more of them than there are of us. They just kept
coming. It got so bad that you two,” Azami gestured to Goku and Vegeta,
“Fused as Vegetto instead of Gogeta.”
They stared at her. “A permanent
Fusion?” Goku asked in shock.
Azami nodded. “Well, it was
the only hope for survival, and it failed. We lost dismally.
Like I said, everyone’s dead.”
“Actually,” Goten corrected,
“Mikka said that.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Well, she did!”
Azami opened her mouth, then
shut it again. “Okay, moving on.”
“To where?” Mikka asked. “We
told them everything we wanted to.”
“No, we need to tell them
to start training and stuff.”
“Oh, right. Well, the
attack will occur in six years. You guys need to train until then.”
“Six years? Why so much
warning?”
“Well, we figure that if you
guys start training now, you can get Bra and even Pan to Super-Saiyajin.”
“Even Pan?” Pan exclaimed.
“Yes, even Pan,” Mikka snapped.
She’d never liked her cousin. “You’re only a quarter Saiyajin, and you
never reached Super-Saiyajin in our time.”
“Mikka,” Azami said warningly.
“They don’t need to know too much about their futures.”
“Whatever, they’re changing
it as we speak. Now that we’ve come, everything will be different—your
parents are together, but mine might not—” Mikka’s eyes widened and she
covered her mouth. “Let’s forget I said that.”
Everyone in the room was quiet.
“Um, who are your parents?” Bra asked, eyes wide.
Mikka gave Azami a pleading
look. “Help me here.”
“Bra-sama, you don’t want
to know,” Azami said.
“Bra-sama?” the girl exclaimed.
“Wow…am I important in your time?”
“Important to quite a few
people,” Mikka told her.
“Wow,” she said again.
Mikka attempted a smile but
it didn’t quite work. Azami knew why. Bra-sama’s death had
been one of the worst witnessed. In fact, Azami was sure it was his
daughter’s death that made Vegeta-sama agree to Fuse permanently with Goku-sama.
“Okay, so we have to train
for six years,” Gohan said, breaking the silence. “Anything else?”
“They destroy dragonballs.
That’s why we couldn’t resuscitate you guys,” Mikka added. “You might want
to get them all and hide them. Like, in the bottom of the deepest
ocean you can find.”
“Check.”
“I think that’s all,” Azami
said. “We’ll come back in six years to help fight. I hope we win.”
“Oh, I think we will,” Goten
said, grinning and running a hand through his hair. “How could we lose?”
Mikka closed her eyes. “Excuse
me,” she said and left.
“What’d I say?” Goten asked
innocently.
“You…were a very important
part of her life,” Azami said. “It really affected her when you died.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not
your fault. Um, I’m going to go get her, and we’ll leave. See
you in six years.”
***
“That was an amazingly stupid
slip, Mikka,” Azami scolded.
“I know, I know. I’m
sorry. I just wasn’t thinking. It’s been so long since we’ve
seen them. And I don’t even remember seeing them young and happy.
Fighting’s all I remember.”
Azami softened. “I know, I
know. It’s hard. But we can’t say anything about anything.”
“Why not?” Gohan asked.
“Oh, Jisan,” Mikka said. “You
startled us.”
The two girls froze. “Oh,
crap,” Mikka breathed.
“Did you just call me…Jisan?”
Gohan asked.
“Um…no?”
“I’m an uncle? Who does
Goten…” Gohan looked at Mikka closer. “Bra-chan?” he gasped.
“How’d you tell?” Mikka asked,
to aghast to lie.
“You have the same color eyes
as she does. I wondered why you looked familiar. I can’t believe
this. Goten and Bra? I guess I shouldn’t tell Goten—it’d freak
him out, Bra’s only 15, after all. Whose kid are you, Azami?”
“Trunks and Marron’s.”
Gohan looked disappointed.
“Oh, that’s no great surprise. I take it you want me to keep this
information to myself?”
“If you would,” Azami said.
“You have to excuse Mikka—she’s only 14 and has a habit of just blurting
things out.”
Mikka stuck her tongue out.
“You know, ever since you turned 19, you’ve gotten very condescending.
I don’t appreciate it.”
Gohan grinned. “Okay, I’ll
let you guys go. Have fun.”
“Rebuilding the whole word
with only Tien and Baasan’s help? Not very likely, but thank you,
Jisan Gohan,” Mikka said.
“’Bye, guys. I’m glad
to have met you.”
“Well, you don’t know how
good it is to see you guys again,” Azami said as they left the perimeter
of Capsule Corp. “See you
in a couple of years.”
To Be Continue...............