This story is written for entertainment purposes only. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.

Keep in mind that English is not my first language and so I do not claim to have written an error free story. If there are any inconsistencies in this story, let me know and I will correct them.


Chapter 12: Beyond the fortress

Aripa and Tidane landed close to a large boulder in the middle of an open field. If one looked beyond the boulder, one could see a mountain ridge nearby. Built in the side of the nearest mountain, there was a large stone and metal fortress of at least twenty floors high. This was where the Stone of Ytmium was being held. Aripa took a peek from behind the boulder and commented that the fortress was very peaceful and quiet. The guards were not expecting a thing. If only they knew what was about to happen to them. Aripa could not suppress a smile as she thought about it. She then turned to Tidane to ask her if the plan was clear to her.

Tidane nodded, but did not seem very confident. She repeated the plan in her head as a reminder to herself. They were going to attack the fortress separately. She was going to wait and wear the special goggles, while Aripa would create a fake moon and transform. Then Aripa would attract the fortress' complete attention, allowing Tidane to sneak into the structure and fight her way to the stone. It was going to be located deep in the fortress, and it would be enjoying the best protection the guards had to offer. Since Aripa's attack would leave the perimeter guards with their hands full, they would not be focusing much on the fortress' internal security. The guards were small and bipedal lizard-like creatures, who wore round helmets and who used a wide array of energy weapons. These weapons were much like the arm cannons of PTO foot soldiers. Aripa had told her that the guards only had power levels ranging from 100 for common soldiers to 300 for commanders. Also, they did not have the skill or knowledge to use their own latent energy to fight or create energy attacks. Killing any guards she might encounter would therefore be relatively easy. That was, of course, assuming Aripa's intel about the species was correct.

Aripa was just about to create a fake moon, when she suddenly snapped her fingers. Tidane was almost afraid it was directed at her for forgetting part of the plan. However, it turned out that Aripa suddenly remembered something. She grabbed a small object from her back pocket. It was a small bottle, which was meant to contain Saibamen seeds. Aripa held the bottle close to her face, shook it a few times, and then smiled again. From a distance, it appeared to Tidane that there were two seeds left. However, when Aripa made only one small hole in the ground and emptied the bottle, Tidane realized it was in fact one big misshapen seed.

Not long after Aripa poured the liquid fertilizer onto the ground, the seed began to grow. Soon, a particularly large, ugly and hunchbacked Saibaman sprouted from the ground. Tidane took a few steps back with a disgusted expression on her face. It was a truly hideous creature, which was now looking and growling at her. Aripa laughed at Tidane's reaction for a moment, but then put her hand on Tidane's shoulder, and insisted that it followed orders just fine. They didn't have to worry about its loyalty. She further explained that this Saibaman had been given to her by her father to keep as a pet. If properly commanded, it could serve as a reasonably effective attack dog. She wanted Tidane to use it to help her achieve their goal.

Before Tidane could agree with this decision, Aripa created a white sphere of energy, which she promptly threw into the sky. She then tossed her scouter, a red colored model, towards Tidane, and subsequently ran away from the boulder. Tidane caught the device and quickly stowed it away under her chest armor piece, along with her own blue colored model. Then she hurriedly put on the goggles, which she had earlier received from Aripa. Wondering if the goggles actually did what they were supposed to, Tidane looked at the fake moon in the sky for a few seconds. Nothing unusual happened to her. On the other hand, Aripa was clearly affected by it. Her body began to expand in size and her armor did the same. As expected, it didn't take her long complete her transformation into her Great Ape form. Tidane had never witnessed a transformation in a situation like this. She had seen others transform before, but in those situations she had always transformed alongside them. She could hardly remember anything of the transformations afterwards. Therefore, these goggles now provided an interesting point of view.

The first thing Aripa did when the transformation was completed was raise her fists and roar towards the sky. Then she started launching mouth blasts into several directions. Soon, the ground was shaking and explosions could be seen and heard. Some of the blasts were aimed in the general direction of the fortress, though Tidane could see that Aripa was trying to avoid directly hitting the structure too often. After all, she wouldn't want to destroy the stone before they had a chance to use it. Aripa was just making it clear to the guards that there was now a serious threat on their doorstep.

First class warriors were not considered first class purely because their power levels were higher than those of ordinary Saiyans. They were more skilled and better trained as well. Tidane knew she wouldn't be able to do what Aripa was doing in this form. She would just be a raging beast that would forget about the stone, and just destroy everything in sight. Aripa likely knew this as well, which was why she had entrusted the task of retrieving the stone to her instead. Tidane wasn't planning to disappoint her.

Tidane yelled at the Saibaman to follow her, and then started sprinting away from Aripa's location. She planned to approach the fortress from the side and find an entrance. If she couldn't find one, she just had to make one. Meanwhile, the fortress had gone on full alert. Alarms were sounding and laser beams were being fired at Aripa, though without any effect. Several seconds later, Tidane arrived at the base of the fortress. It was simply a grey wall without windows, doors, or defensive weapons. The first defensive level seemed to be higher up. Tidane jumped about twenty meters upwards, and landed on a ledge. The Saibaman landed beside her on the same ledge shortly thereafter. About five lizard guards were busily loading a large stationary gun, when they noticed the two intruders and simply stared at them for a moment. The gun was large and heavy, and not meant to be aimed at the ledge. Tidane sarcastically apologized as she fired a one handed blue energy wave at them. The guards were powerless to stop it; they simply froze in terror as they were engulfed in blue light. A moment later, they were completely vaporized by the wave. Tidane initially thought it would feel strange to be killing again after what happened to their planet. However, this gave her a feeling of being unstoppable instead. She realized she now felt like a Saiyan again.

From her position on the ledge, Tidane could see an open door, which would lead her inside the complex. She commanded the Saibaman to head in first and to kill everyone it would encounter. After the creature obeyed, Tidane ran after it. She quickly removed the goggles and put her scouter back on her face. It immediately picked up dozens of small power levels. The Saibaman sprayed the first wave of guards with acid from its head. The second wave was slammed against the walls of the corridor. Tidane only had to follow the screams to catch up with the eager Saibaman.

After the second wave, the source of guards seemed to be depleted. Tidane and the Saibaman traversed many empty corridors, which had all side doors shut and locked. Right when Tidane decided it was time to blast a new path, they found a large room at the end of a corridor. There was a congregation of guards, most of who were taking cover behind various defensive positions, such as waist-height walls. Some were manning turrets. The moment they had visual contact with the intruders, they fired everything they had. The Saibaman tried to block the attacks, but they had enough force to blast the creature back into the corridor. In contrast, Tidane quickly crossed her arms in front of her chest, raised her voice for a moment, and generated a dome-shaped blue colored energy shield. The shield had absorbed over a hundred small energy projectiles by the time the Saibaman managed a counter attack. The creature created an afterimage of itself in an easy to hit location, while it jumped behind the first line of defense. The front guards kept firing at the afterimage, while the Saibaman started punching out the rear guards.

When the front guards realized what was going on, it was already too late, as the Saibaman quickly took them out as well. Several seconds later, the room had become quiet. Every guard was now dead, or at least dying. It seemed to Tidane that this security barrier was probably the beginning of the inner security near the Stone of Ytmium. The corridor behind this barrier would most likely bring her closer to it. Once again, she commanded the Saibaman to go ahead and kill everything it encountered.

While they were running down the corridor, the entire complex began to shake and the lights started to flicker. This was Aripa's doing no doubt. Tidane stopped for a moment and gave a slight smile. Her scouter indicated that there was a power level behind her. Before she could act on this information, something knocked her to the floor with tremendous force. She could feel a burning sensation on her back, near her right shoulder. While she was on her hands and knees, she could see small teal colored pieces on the ground beneath her. It appeared those were particles of her armor that had been pierced. The wound was nothing serious, however. At least it didn't feel like it. Tidane pushed herself up, turned around in the air, and landed on her feet, coming face to face with the culprit. It was a single guard who was holding a large gun, which was still smoking. The gun appeared to be for single use, or otherwise had a long reload time, because the guard didn't bother to try to attack her again. In a desperate tone of voice, the guard asked Tidane why she was doing this. The only answer he got from her was a fist to the gut, followed by a neck snap.

While continuing down the corridor, Tidane began to think that Aripa might have underestimated the technology of these creatures. Although that gun had hardly wounded her, she hadn't expected to actually be knocked down during this mission. She had to stay focused, because if she would run into a batch of guards carrying those guns, they might be able to actually damage her.

The next room was a noteworthy one. The wall in the back was made of heavily reinforced metal. On a closer look, it appeared to be some kind of large vault door. Tidane would probably have concluded the stone was being kept there, were it not for the fact that five lizard guards were standing in front of it, with the leader holding a small black and round object. The leader threatened that he knew why she had come, but he insisted she soon wouldn't remember it. Subsequently, the four others charged Tidane and the Saibaman. They were not wielding any weapons, and seemed to be trained to use their latent energy. They unleashed a storm of punches and kicks. The lizard warriors were reasonably quick, but they were nothing that Tidane couldn't handle. However, she knew immediately that these warriors only served to distract her, while the leader would use the stone. She elbowed one of the warriors in the face, and tried to focus on the leader. The latter was making eye contact with her and was holding the stone ready. Right at that instant, the Saibaman jumped in front of her, breaking eye contact. The leader began to curse the Saibaman for intervening. Tidane wasn't quite sure how the stone worked, but it seemed the Saibaman had been the recipient of the stone's effects. The creature had become completely dazed.

Tidane took the opportunity to fire a finger beam at the leader, which promptly knocked the stone from his hand. In mere moments, she blasted the warriors away from her, and managed to snatch the stone from the ground. When she held the stone above her head in triumph, the leader immediately surrendered. Tidane offered to let him live in exchange for telling her how the stone worked. To her surprise, the leader refused to do it, and said he would rather die than ever reveal anything. Tidane decided to try and use the stone on him anyway. She held it in one hand and made eye contact with the lizard leader. The stone's exact workings were unknown to her, but she decided to picture in her mind the memory she wanted to have altered, and how she wanted to alter it. Once she had done this, the leader was dazed for a moment, after which he looked around, apparently not knowing what was going on. Just when he asked who she was, Tidane fired a blast which completely incinerated him. He had served his purpose.

By the time the dust from the last blast had cleared, the Saibaman was no longer dazed. It just resumed its position by her side as if nothing had happened. Tidane knew that Saibamen did not have conventional memories. They only had programmed knowledge of fighting and of obeying their master. It seemed the creature hadn't lost any of that. She was amazed that this Saibaman had jumped in front of her to shield her, even though it probably didn't have a clue what the stone actually did. The Saibaman had proved itself most useful and Tidane was glad Aripa had remembered she had it with her.

A few minutes later, Tidane exited the fortress, which allowed her to see the complete devastation Aripa had caused. The fortress was in ruins. In fact, the corridor she had just existed was supposed to lead to a large open platform. Most of the platform was gone, however. From here, she could look down all the way to the base of the fortress, where there was a giant pile of rubble. She also witnessed Aripa, still in her transformed state, destroying the fake moon. Moments later, she started to revert to her normal form.

Once Tidane had landed on the ground near Aripa, she could see that the latter was pretty beat up. She was sitting on the ground, apparently exhausted, but also seemingly very pleased with herself. Her armor was cracked and she was covered in grime and blood. Despite this, she almost had an ear to ear smile on her face. She reminded Tidane of a mischievous little brat who had just gotten exactly what she wanted.

When Tidane showed her the stone, Aripa suddenly jumped up and wrapped her arms tightly around the former's waist. The force of the jump caused Tidane to be knocked to the ground for the second time today. Only for a moment did Tidane think that Aripa might have become hostile. However, she soon realized Aripa was hugging her out of joy. At first Tidane wanted to get her off, not wanting to be smudged in blood and grime as well. But when she heard her admitting she was her new best friend, Tidane was overcome with such a warm feeling inside, that she closed her eyes and quietly hugged her back.