[Van Osiku]

Van Osiku's handwriting exists in the form of numerous small notes he has written for various purposes, typically IOUs or promissory notes on borrowing items from others. Enough survive for extensive handwriting analysis.

What they reveal about his personality is almost certainly misleading, but their presence allows enough of a sample to determine whether or not any given document is really a Van Osiku creation.

Samples of Van Osiku's writing date back for almost a century, but the single most interesting item is a few pages found on a planet with no other features of interest.

The paper chemically dates as being far older than any other sample, close to three hundred years old. The language is unknown, and attempts to find any "Rosetta Stones" or living native speakers have proven fruitless.

But even though it is in an unrecognizable script, the handwriting is unmistakably Van Osiku's.

The daylight made Van Osiku squint as he left the military ruins. He blinked the glare out of his eyes, dusting off the satchel he'd found in the storage room - one of the few items that hadn't gotten covered in grime or mold over the years. Inside it was both of the strange spheres.

He laid a hand on the bag, and for a moment he could see the city of towers. Lifting his hand, he watched it fade, and let out a sigh.

For a moment, Van looked around, shutting his eyes and just sensing the energy. It took a moment to filter out the signals from the satchel, but soon he had the lock he needed. His face turned back and forth, seeking out the same energy in the spheres on his hip.

Two came from his left, in very close proximity... but they were intermingled with power levels that gave him a chill on some greater level. It would be suicidal to pursue them, and so he decided not to do so.

To his right, on the other hand, he could dimly sense the one sphere he could not previously pinpoint - apparently, with each one he acquired, it became easier to sense the others. He concentrated harder, his brow furrowing, and sensed... emptiness, on all sides. Unbroken expanses of empty space surrounded the energy.

Van concentrated harder still, sweat forming on his temples, his face twitching. Now he could sense tiny signs of life, barely recognizable as power...

His eyes opened, and Van shook his head, chuckling. It was in the ocean.

"Of course," he muttered, even as he began to rise off the ground. "It would have to be hard to get..."

Without much thought, for there wasn't much he could do at this point, Van Osiku began to fly towards the signature, his feet just over the water as he passed. The tip of his toe broke the waves as he moved, and he managed to keep his eyes open this time.

So when he reached the energy signature, a spot in the sea indistinguishable from any other, he was able to just get out of the way of the incoming vehicle. It was strange to look at - more like a flying platform than any actual vehicle he'd seen. It hovered above the sea, and on it...

On it stood eight very unusual-looking people. They were human-shaped, but - whether it was their skin, their eyes, or their tendency to twitch every few seconds - it was obvious they weren't actual humans. They all wore strange uniforms, which all but screamed "mercenary". All eight stared at him as he hovered over the water, and he stared back.

"Who's this guy?" one of them asked.

"No idea," said another one as he examined a beeping device in his hand. He looked up at Van, and then back to the others. "But whoever he is, he's got two Dragon Balls on him!"

"You kidding me?"

"Why the hell would I kid? The scanner's going insane just pointing at him!"

Several of the creatures convened, studying the device, and Van raised an eyebrow. Dragon... Balls? he thought. Unconsciously, he looked to the satchel.

When he looked back up, the creatures had turned to stare at him again. "Hand over the Dragon Balls immediately," the one in charge said.

"If you mean the orange spheres..." Van began, and then he paused, thinking to himself. These must be important, he thought. If I refuse, they will likely get violent. And I cannot afford to let these out of my possession. "I cannot turn them over." He descended, his feet gently settling on the water. He didn't trust his mid-air combat skills, as he hadn't even known he could fly until a moment before. His ki flared up under his feet, and to little surprise, he found the water to be as firm as soil to him.

En masse, five of the soldiers leapt from the platform and landed on the sea, repeating the same trick. They fanned out around him, and then three came at him from separate directions.

One arm swung up, and Van blocked the first strike coming for his head. Then he twisted, just getting out of the way of another's foot, before catching the third's fist to his side. He stumbled, and the fourth dove in for an armbar. It connected, and Van skipped across the ocean, spouts of water marking his impact sites.

Flipping upright, Van made himself focus and took a step back. Then he charged in, threw himself in the center of the soldiers, and spun around on his axis, drawing a circle on the ocean's surface. He forced ki out of his palms, and for a second the circle glowed.

A massive wall of energy burst out of the sea, and it pushed the water out in a giant shockwave, a tidal circle throwing everyone in a wide arc around him.

Van blinked, rubbed his eyes and blinked again. How the hell did I just do that? he wondered. The Shock Wall is an old trick of mine, but it's never like that!

As the water flowed away, his adversaries regrouped, one of them flicking the water out of his eyes. "Don't let him concentrate!" he yelled. "If they can't focus, they can't use their ki!"

The soldiers rushed him again, and Van was on his feet, fists and knees flying all around him. He felt his arm crack as a foot slammed his arm into his side, and he could barely throw out a counterstrike, doubling that soldier over. Another struck him in the spine, and he stumbled directly into a kick to the throat. He choked, hands going up instinctively, and a jumpkick sent him into the water, a column of water marking his point of impact.

He foundered for a moment, but then flew out of the ocean, water dripping from his clothes. His feet touched the surface again, and he slowly regained himself, catching his breath. His hands glowed, and the next soldier that charged him got a firm palm thrust to the chest.

At that point, his target... exploded. Several splashes marked where bits of the unfortunate landed in the water, and a small blood slick floated in front of Van.

One of the soldiers still on the vehicle focused an eyepiece on Van, confusion in his voice as he said, "The hell... His power level just keeps going up and down. I can't put a lock on it!"

"What's the upper level?" another asked.

"Let's see... Looks like 3,500. But he rarely touches that." Removing the eyepiece, he yelled, "Don't be fooled! He can't repeat that! Kill him and take those Dragon Balls! Do it for Kozor!"

The four survivors rushed Van, who was looking at his hands. That... that wasn't a Pulse... he thought. What's happening to me?

And then he was buried under a succession of strikes. Fists and feet battered him, and every time he reached out a hand to push them away, it was struck down. Water sprayed out as he slid along the surface, propelled by impact back and forth. All he could do was cling to the satchel.

Finally, bruised and battered, Van accepted that he couldn't get out. He began to unsling the satchel...

And a voice, deep and quiet, asked, Will you let me take over?

Who... are you?

I don't know. All I know is that I can solve this.

Van silently consented.

The ocean parted. A massive pillar of seawater erupted into the sky, slowly spreading outward, and the soldiers found themselves hurled out, as though caught in a hurricane. Fish flew across the surface, and massive waves launched out, scouring the surface. The vehicle expediently moved a good hundred yards out.

As the pillar began to lower, Van stood atop it, his eyes burning white and his hair stained with dark streaks; his clothes were completely dry. His hands shone, and even as the soldiers began to get their bearings, he vanished, leaving only a blur and a small line of light.

Then he touched one on the back of the neck. Before anything happened, he moved, pulling another from under the water by his face. He was across the sea a second later, backhanding one who was reaching for a weapon on his hip, and a heartbeat after that he was breaking the hand of the last one.

Then Van was back atop the descending pillar, and his hands raised for just a moment before they fell again.

When his hands reached his hips, all four of his targets exploded, blood and organs scattering across the water's surface.

Van's gaze turned to the floating vehicle, and he pointed one arm towards it. Ki formed across his fingertips, and he stared for a second, before kneeling and flicking the water towards it.

The water kept rolling, curling upwards, growing ever larger by the second. Eventually it formed a tidal wave, easily twenty feet high at the crest. It engulfed the hovering platform, and then slammed back into the ocean's surface, a sound like thunder roaring across the water.

Only one of the aliens who had led the attack survived. He broke the surface in time to see Van reach down and pull the ocean open like it was a paper bag, a hollow tunnel forming in the water. Van descended into it, and a few moments later, he rose out of the water, holding a small orange sphere in one hand. On its surface, there shone five stars.

And then he was gone, leaving one rather disturbed survivor in his wake.

Perhaps three minutes after the battle on the ocean's surface, Van Osiku came in for a landing on a small, fairly unremarkable island, just like so many others throughout the southern oceans. He settled on the ground, opened his satchel, and placed the sphere along its brothers.

Then he closed the satchel, blinked, and passed out, thudding into the sand.
----
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was D-Trance Van. He has even less clue than you do where it just came from.