Post by LCDR Kimono on May 4, 2023 10:51:11 GMT -5
Power Level: 22,000
Word Count: 1,885
Text Hex: d40000, b600de
Word Count: 1,885
Text Hex: d40000, b600de
It had been a couple days since Kim's last time speaking to her Handler in the woods just outside of the port city she landed in. The destroyed communications device ruined, she had made her way to Sadala City with the hopes of actually finishing up what she was supposed to do. That's what led to her temporarily renting this small room in the back of a Saiyan owned butchery, all payments under the table. Her Handler made it clear her job here was an insurgency, distracting and causing problems for the Saiyan people. All she needed to do was meet up with this Mephisto person and actually put out her first act... Even if it wasn't the most moral thing to do.
Around the apartment she was renting, it was a mess. Kim was situated at a desk next to the bed, her clothes far more casual than her usual get-up. Strewn out across the table's surface was numerous detonators, switches, and power supply units she had bought from the local market for pennies on the dollar compared to her home planet. Each piece engraved with Saiyan make marks and serial numbers from space ship production factories and demolitions production rigs. To her left in a box was numerous spherical containers, screw-top lids with electric wiring fishing between the shells, and about three hundred pounds of compound plasticizers. Against the bed was an electric guitar she had been working on during her free time, the amps made of space pod internal speakers and jacked up to an insane degree of volume, nestled close to the edge of the frame. All across the floor was numerous papers, crumpled and flat, with various chemical compound details on different explosive mixtures she could try for maximum effort and effect.
Kim herself was dressed in a simple, black Earthling sweater with a pleated skirt below, heavily contrasting the cleaned and folded uniform sitting on the bed next to her. She had spent hours the night prior sewing together an outfit for her planned attack using whatever materials was available by the locals. Her renter was gracious enough to supply her with a giant Saiyan symbol she could incorporate on the back of her homemade insurgent's armor, even if it protected next to nothing. The seams perfectly lined as if she'd had a machine make it. Everything was almost ready... Except for the most important part of her entire deception.
"Ah damn it. I can't do cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, I don't have access to any desensitizers..." Kim would curse to herself, crumpling another paper and throwing it over her shoulder out of frustration, her head banging against the table as she figured out the best course of action. "I guess I am going to have to do it old fashioned. Ugh, Compound C it is." As she spoke to herself and was just about to reach down into the box of plasticizers next to her, she heard a loud knock of the door leading to the hidden apartment she rented. Kim recoiled, quickly sliding a black butchery curtain across the room to block the view of the back of the room and drew her concealed firearm, slowly opening the door, hiding her piece against the wood of the entry. As she looked out, Kim's heart dropped, and the sound of metal hitting the stone of the floor would echo.
"Z-Zulli?" Kim would stutter out as she saw the other blonde humanoid on the other side. A soft smile across the face of the younger woman. Zulli stood nearly a foot over Kim, but by most concerns they could have been confused as twins. Zulli wearing a heavy set of purple armor that Kim could clearly feel was made of some kind of magical energy. Her clothing sophisticated and neatly carried. Lace, thin leather, and beautifully sewn fabric forming her dress under her armor, with a neatly set golden crown on her head. "I... I thought-"
"You thought I was dead, didn't you?" The woman would say, pushing the door open and entering the room. "Well, you'd be right. I am... er... was dead." As she said this, she would pull down the neck of her dress to show the scarred over tissue that resembled a bullet hole right through her sternum. The skin around it was recovering, but still violently damaged and just barely invisible behind the fabric of her clothing. ".30 Cal, not sure what exactly, I bled out in seconds after my manubrium became more shrapnel than bone. The mask fixed it, but it's still exceptionally sore."
"I heard the gunshot. They killed you when they tried to kill me... How?"
"I'll be entirely honest, I'm not exactly Zulli. Not as you remember." With this, Kim would feel the sinking feeling in her chest deep, backing up and taking a fighting stance against the woman dressed in her medieval garb. "No no no, there's no reason to act like that. She's still in here, the one that you like. My name is Mephisto. I was contacted by Honeydew to find you before all of this happened. I've been looking for you for a long, long time Kim."
Kim couldn't even begin to imagine how this happened, cautiously letting down her guard as she processed the information given to her. Her old friend, the woman who she heard die on the comms during that mission all of those years ago, was not only alive but someone else as well? Just what the hell happened to Zulli? Kim kept silent as she moved the curtain back out of the way and retrieved her pistol from the floor, realigning it into the holster against her 12 aclock position. Mephisto looked around the room in awe and perused the tossed papers and materials, before sitting on the bed and started playing rough, but nice sounds from the guitar. Kimono's thoughts raced around everything that could have happened, all of the logical and illogical explanations for how her dead friend, an operator she had done numerous contract fights, missions, even full scale wars with during their service together for the Earth military. The two were some of the best special operations unit members the military had. Best in their class, and the highest in Ki power during the intensive marine Ki squad trainings in the north. Zulli had the physical strength to crust concrete with a finger flick, maybe something about that brought her back to life? And who was this Mephisto personality she kept referring to herself as?
"Geez Kim, this is just like back in the day. Zulli keeps showing me memories of the missions you two would plan. You were always a messy person to live with."
"Yeah, well, it is what it is. I was in the process of finishing up what the Handler told me to-"
"Honeydew. The Handler is named Honeydew."
"Fine. I'm finishing up what Honeydew first instructed me to do. I'm making a number of Compound C directional charges to plant in some unmanned civilian buildings and make as much noise as possible to attract the Saiyan authorities. Say something about being a separatist, lastly try and get away before they can kill either of us. Best case scenario, we live to start more problems while the Tuffles figure out what they want to do during this civil war that's coming. Worst case, I die and this all becomes a waste of time." Kim would stress out the finer points as she tossed some of the explosive plastic material across the room to Mephisto who caught it and examines the material. The soldier would sit on her bed while her friend looked over everything and gave her own input.
"So, we both have news then. It's decent material, so this should make a good boom. The fragments will be noticably Saiyan too, which should cause confusion after the fact when they have to clean up the mess. I won't be joining you in the fight, I am needed dealing with Honeydew's mess with the Tuffles after he died-"
"Wait, he died?" The surprise of Kim's face was blatant, her shock at hearing the man who was instructing her had actually died before they had the chance to properly meet up.
"Yeah, and if you'd stop interrupting me I'd explain what happened. The authorities got ahold of him when he landed on the planet. He was wanted on suspicions of producing Destron gas or something. He died in holding while waiting to be picked up by proper interrogators. I'm assuming he did it to himself, but you never know with these people. I'm handling the case now, so we will be in constant contact if this plan goes off without a hitch." As Mephisto said this, she'd try and toss another communicator to Kim, who just threw it back and motioned for her head. "O-Oh! Nevermind on the tech then, we will use your telepathy."
"So, Honeydew is dead, you're taking over the mission with me, what's the next step?" The soldier placed her head in her hands as she asked, thinking of how messed up the entire situation had become. "I can't just do random stuff and hope it doesn't backfire entirely. Last I heard, the Saiyan government is trying to be more peaceful with the Tuffles. It's our guys who are wanting their planet back. Even with all of the Saiyan stuff, they're going to presume the actual conflictive subrace or whatever has something to do with it." Her head reclined back as she spoke, Kim couldn't help but want to put a pillow over her face and yell out her frustrations. Everything has gone down hill and FAST. This needed to be resolved somehow... She just didn't know exactly how.
"We've got that under control. For now, you need to finish up whatever it is you're doing and seek out some of the actual Tuffles themselves. They're few and far between, the Saiyans made sure of that, but there are a good few I've heard got into recent conflicts with the government who would make great contacts. See what they want you to do, if they have any advice on where to go from here. Then, once you think everything is good, we can green-light that detonation to cause some distractions and see where we go from there." Mephisto would instruct as she spoke, her magical materialization forming a faux battlefield in the air out of smoke and displaying a perceived view of an explosion inside of Sadala City. As Kim knew, this wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Earth wanted her either dead or locked up, and now she's stuck on an alien planet planning terror attacks to try and help a blossoming civil war. If she died, no one back home would remember her...
Maybe she needed to feel that way to get this off the ground in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, she was ready to die for this cause even if she wasn't the benefactor of it all now.
"I'll head back to Earth before making contact, there's a couple more items I need to gather, and once I come back it's go time."