Crono's Story by Traum

Chapter 17 Yukia

A power surge like the one I felt that night could not go unnoticed. I'm sure that far below me on the mainland, children were waking from their sleep, screaming for their parents. I didn't blame them, in fact I almost felt like doing the same.

I was jolted out of my bed by the sudden jump in power. I sat up in silent terror, the power was almost five times as strong as Gideon, if somehow the Caprians had landed early, we were in deep shit. I searched frantically with my mind to make sure we were all still here. I quickly accounted for Gideon, Arsenia, Nikita, Karnai, and Kennard. I tried to fill in the blanks, but it took me a second to realize that I hadn't picked up Cris or Phoenix.

I searched harder, not wanting to admit any sort of loss yet. After a few seconds I registered something that vaguely resembled Phoenix's ki signature, only it was far more powerful than normal. I realized it was Phoenix who was the extremely powerful one. I darted to my window, and brushed the curtain aside.

The full moon shone back at me in the dark black sky and I cursed several times before heading outside. Once I brushed open the door, the darkness of the night made it nearly impossible to see the other forms roaming about in the courtyard. I knew who they were of course, if only by their ki signatures.

Gideon, Kennard and Karnai had already assembled in the center of the courtyard. I rushed to join them, simply gliding across the cold tiled floor Sky Palace. When I met with them, I realized they'd all changed into their training clothes, while I was still clothed only in the shorts I slept in. Before I embarrassed myself heavily, I zanzokened back to my room and quickly changed the clothes.

When I got back to the courtyard, everyone was there, except Kami, Cris and Phoenix. Nikita, without the use of a shower, was forced to let her beautiful blonde hair blow freely into the wind. I looked at her in silent awe for a second, before I realized she was staring back. I embarrassingly turned to face Gideon, but how could I help myself? She was so beautiful, how could a man not stare at her? Of course she was probably pissed at me for staring like that.

I didn't have much time to worry about what she thought though; Gideon brought me back to reality. "We've got a situation here." He stated, his voice coming out hoarsely because of his sudden awaking.

"No shit Sherlock." Came the reply from Arsenia. We all looked at him and Gideon gave him a dirty look. There'd been something going on for a while now between those two, since Krillin died. Arsenia seemed to resent everything Gideon said, and Gideon didn't seem to take any notice of Arsenia at all, which just fuelled the hatred even more.

Nikita walked over to Arsenia, and using her feminine powers, guided his cone of vision away from Gideon. She and the black haired warrior whispered back and forth. After a while, Arsenia seemed to relax, and then both he and Nikita turned back towards the group. Gideon continued. "From what I can tell, Phoenix has turned Oozaru and either accidentally or intentionally killed Cris." He paused for a second, letting the information soak in. "Now we can wish Cris back, but we have to do it soon, because we also have to wish his friend Triono back, both within two years." This would be easy, but getting the dragon balls within a week wouldn't be easy. Capsule Corp. protected the dragon radar very tightly, and it took Kami himself to pry it from their hands, peacefully.

"So," Gideon proceeded "Nikita, you and Kennard head off to Capsule Corp to get the radar, and get at least one ball before you head back." Nikita nodded, and turned to Kennard. He smiled, nodded, and together they ran full speed to the side of the palace, hopping off in unison, and firing off, ki's flaring up around them. I couldn't help but watch her move, total elegance.

"Yukia, Arsenia, Karnai. Let's go see if we can stop Phoenix." A daunting task to say the least, but something had to be done. Phoenix was powerful enough to probably destroy the entire surface of the planet if he was allowed to roam free.