Still floating, Tsuruten turned away from the now unconscious Supper. "That's enough playing around. You can kill her now, TaoPaiPai," he said in a big brother tone.

TaoPaiPai growled slightly at the tone. If it wasn't due to the fact that he did want to kill the girl, he'd have deliberately not listened to Tsuru. As it was, he moved towards her with a sadistic smile on his face. "I hope you're watching in hell, traitor," he said as he aimed his right hand at Supper. Suddenly, the hand dropped, and in its place was a hole like the mouth of a cannon. "Have a taste of my Super Dodonpa, brat. I'll blast you to hell till there's nothing, not even an atom left of you."

At that exact moment, the door was kicked open from the outside. Videl rushed in with a gun in her hands, followed by Upa. "Freeze! TaoPaiPai, you're under arrest for kidnapping and attempted murder."

TaoPaiPai and Tsuru turned to them. TaoPaiPai snickered. "Well, well. If it's not the lady from the Bodoukai and the Karin boy." He walked calmly towards them. "Go away. This is none of your business."

"I said freeze!" Videl yelled, tightening her grip on the trigger.

TaoPaiPai didn't stop walking. "Or what? You'll shoot me?" He laughed wickedly. "Your guns can't hurt me. You can't do anything to me and you know it. Now go away before I get rough on you two. Or were you not satisfied because you didn't get to fight me in the Bodoukai? If that's the case, I'll be glad to accommodate you."

Without any warning he shot a blast from the cannon hole in his right arm, straight at the pair. Fortunately, Upa was able to act in time. He pushed Videl to the floor, with himself falling on top of her, covering her body. The blast destroyed and went through the wall behind them.

They were still dazed by the impact when TaoPaiPai stood directly in front of them. "That enough for you?" He lifted Videl's chin with his foot. This made her angry. She shot up. "I didn't come her to fight you. Release the girl and we'll leave." Behind her, Upa had started to get up too.

"You can have her," TaoPaiPai said, "if you can find her remains after I'm through with her." He calmly walked away from them, back to the still unconscious girl who was lying in a pool of blood at his brother's feet.

Videl and Upa looked at each other and nodded slightly. 'Plan B' was what that look meant. "TaoPaiPai." Upa said grimly. "Before you do anything else you have to fight me first." TaoPaiPai just smiled. "Stupid man. You know you can't defeat me, but you still want to fight. You really don't want to live anymore, do you?" With that, he swiftly went to Upa and punched him with the cannon mouth in the stomach. Upa doubled over in pain. He quickly countered with his own punches, but none of it hit the target. TaoPaiPai was just too good. The cyborg was just playing with him, he knew. He stole a glance at Videl to see how she was doing.

Videl was facing the white-haired man, who was standing still and looking at her, as though waiting for her to act. She got ready in a battle stance, thinking of ways to get to Supper. She glanced at the unconscious girl at the man's feet. She seemed to be badly hurt. Videl cursed silently. Plan A, which was to save Supper without confronting TaoPaiPai had just went bust. Plan B was to have TaoPaiPai distract TaoPaiPai long enough for her to rescue Supper, but that too seemed to have run into a huge complication. The white-haired man may not seem as menacing as TaoPaiPai, but she had a feeling he was just as deadly. She began to regret not heeding Shapener's advice. She should've known better than to underestimate a Red Ribbon cyborg.

"I'm not going to repeat myself, " she said evenly. "Release the girl and we won't press charges on you."

"Are you now?" he asked mockingly. One of his feet was now on Supper's neck, ready to break it. Videl noticed this and promptly pulled he trigger. But her fingers won't move. "What the--?" She tried again, harder. But still they wouldn't move. In fact, her whole body wouldn't obey her.

"Still want to arrest me?" Tsuru asked, smiling wickedly. He ahd two fingers up. When he parted them, Videl's arms involuntarily moved to her sides, the gun pried loose from her fingers and flung into a corner. She struggled for control over her body but it was in vain.

"Why are you trying to kill her?" She asked. "What did she do to you?"

"Nothing." The old man replied. "Like my brother said, this is personal. It's nothing to do with you." He looked at Videl, then spoke again. "I've never had any trouble with the police before, and I'm not going to start now. But if you persist in making trouble for us, then I'll just have to kill you first."

"I won't let you kill an innocent person," said Videl stubbornly, still struggling against whatever spell the old man was using to control her body.

"Stubborn bitch." Tsuru muttered. A bright light suddenly appeared from his free hand. It seemd like a small ki blast and it headed straight at Videl. She felt the heat as it came and gritted her teeth, anticipating a painful shot. But there was no pain. The blast slashed through the cloth of her shirt but didn't touch her skin.

"Do you believe I'm serious now?" the old man asked mockingly.

"Bastard." She muttered under her breath. Aloud, she said, "You can't use that trick to intimidate me. As long as I'm standing I won't allow people like you to hurt innocent people."

Tsuru just smiled. "That was your last chance," he said coldly, the smile suddenly disappearing from his face. "You will suffer the same fate as her." He turned his attention to Supper again, before looking back at Videl. "But I'll give you the chance to see exactly what will happen to you too. A preview, if you like." He lifted his foot, ready to slam it down the unconscious girl's neck.

"NO!!!!" Videl wanted to scream, but now even her voice won't obey her brain's command to come out. She cursed silently. Anger and hopelessness filled. It was just like that day all those years ago when the cyborgs wounded her father and killed all the people around her. There was nothing she could do about it then, and there was nothing she could do to save Supper's life now. From behind her she could her sounds of fighting. And  even though she couldn't see it, she knew who was winning the fight. They were doomed.

Then suddenly, something crashed through the window behind Tsuru.

An airbike flew over Tsuru's head, straight into Videl's direction. But before it reached her, the driver , who was not wearing a helmet so his long yellow hair flew wildly in the wind, expertly swerved so that he was now facing Tsuru. He slammed on the brakes. All around them broken glass scattered all over the floor and dust and smoke gathered in clouds. TaoPaiPai was momentarily distracted by the commotion, giving Upa the chance to hit back. But TaoPaiPai was quick as well, as soon their fight resumed as they did before, with TaoPaiPai gaining the upper hand.

Tsuruten and Videl were also momentarily distracted. For just a moment, Tsuru's concentration slipped, giving Videl the chance to free herself from his psychic hold and reach for her gun.

Tea was facing Tsuru. His eyes flashed in anger when he saw his sister lying in a pool of blood at the old man's feet. "Bastard!!!" he yelled. "What have you done to my sister?!!!" Without any warning, he pulled out two capsules from his pants' pockets. In a blink of an eye, both capsules were decapsulated into two machine-guns, which he fired blindly in his anger.

Videl had to dive for cover. She screamed to Tea to calm down before he killed everybody, including his sister. But her screams were drowned by the din of the machine-guns. Tsuruten however, was quick to recover from his surprise, especially when he heard the boy say that the girl was his sister. But he didn't have a third eye, he noticed. That didn't matter to him. The only difference this made was that the boy must be killed too.

He calmly faced the shower of bullets. Strangely, none of them hit him. Tea finally ran out of bullets and stared in surprise when he saw that Tsuru was completely unhurt. He had both fists clenched. Then deliberately, he unclenched one fist, letting the bullets drop to the floor. Tea's and Videl 's eyes opened wide in shock. Tsuru spoke. "I've had enough of this. You all are going to die now!" He lifted his other hand, pulled it back to create momentum, then unclenched it, his fingers flicking forward. Immediately a hail of bullets flew in the direction of Videl and Tea, both of them not having any time to react. But before the bullets reached them, something bright and hot flew past, crossing the path of the hail of bullets just in the nick of time. The result was an explosion, and for a moment there was darkness and confusion.

Chapter 18
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