Upa had noticed what was happening, and guessed what Tsuru was going to do. Freeing himself from TaoPaiPai, he fired a chi blast from his hand at the hail of bullets as fast as he could. The blast obliterated the bullets in an explosion and bright, momentarily blinding flashes of light. Upa sighed in relief, sensing that he had succeeded in preventing Tsuru from hurting Videl and Tea with the bullets. Then suddenly, he felt a burning pain on his back. He fell to the floor, groaning in pain. "Upa! Are you all right?" he could hear Videl's anxious voice. As soon as her disorientation from the explosion wore off, she looked around for Upa, immediately guessing that it was his doing, and ran over to his side when she saw him fall to the floor. Upa grunted in pain, it was still too painful to speak. Videl helped him up, in the process looking up to see TaoPaiPai blowing the smoke from his cannon arm, which he evidently used to shoot Upa from the back. Meanwhile, Tea crawled over quietly to where Supper still laid unconscious. He started to lift her, when suddenly Tsuru directed his outstretched palm at him. Without even touching him, the force of the Tsuruten's movement sent him flying, together with his sister, to where Videl and Upa laid.

Now the four of them were together on the floor, the two evil brothers standing over them. Videl stood up, ready to fight back. So was Upa, but he was having some difficulty doing so as a result of his injuries. Tea was frantically looking for a pulse on his sister's body, not paying any attention to the others until he had ascertained that she was still alive. He found a very weak pulse, and in his relief, unconsciously whispered a prayer of thanks. He stood up, carrying her, ready to fight his way out of this place together with Videl and Upa, both of whom were now standing back to back, Videl facing TaoPaiPai and Upa, Tsuru. Videl had her gun aimed at TaoPaiPai. She knew it was virtually useless against the cyborg, but it's better than nothing. TaoPaiPai noticed this too, and chuckled as he started to fire a blast at them from the cannon in his arm. At the same time, Tsuruten also fired a blast from his finger, aimed at them. There was no way out.

Just as Videl thought it was going to be all over, the wall behind them exploded. "TaoPaiPai and Tsuruten! Surrender or we will shoot!" a voice commanded from inside a tank, which was responsible for the destruction of the wall. "You are surrounded. I repeat, do not move or we will shoot!"

TaoPaiPai and Tsuruten looked at each other. They knew what they were up against. Anti-cyborg weapons designed especially to destroy Gero's deadly twins. Although the weapon was ineffective against No.17 and No.18, it was powerful enough to seriously hurt TaoPaiPai and Tsuruten, or even kill them. At this point, they realised that survival was more important than revenge. However, they do have the four hostages. Tsuruten smugly turned to the army of tanks.

"You are in no position to threaten us," he said mockingly. "Or do you want to see these people die?" But his smugness was cut short as the tank fired a shot, without any apparent regard for the safety of the hostages, straight at them!

Instinctively, Tsuruten moved away. His lightning speed enabled him to move out of the missile's path in time. But TaoPaiPai was still standing with the hostages. "TaoPaiPai! Get the hell out of there!" he yelled. But TaoPaiPai didn't budge. He knew that the police would never hurt the hostages. So this must be a trick, which unfortunately his brother has fallen into. Just as the missile was about to hit them, it suddenly changed it course, turning ninety degrees and flew straight up, through the roof and up into the sky, where it exploded. Everybody, except for the police (and Supper, who was still unconscious) stared in surprise at the now-nonexistent roof. TaoPaiPai snickered. He'd anticipated something like this. What he didn't anticipate was the sudden pain in his head and sparks of light  before there was total darkness.

Tsuruten turned in shock as his brother fell to the ground, unconscious after Videl shot him at point blank range straight in his left eye. She pointed the gun at the unconscious cyborg's head. "Surrender or I will kill him." she said coldly, watching Tsuruten carefully. Tsuruten knew he was trapped. Slowly, he lifted his hands.

Videl's grip on the trigger tightened when she noticed that Tsuruten was making some strange move instead of lifting his hands in surrender. But before she could do anything, the room was filled with bright, glaring light and she had to close her eyes. When it subsided, Tsuruten and TaoPaiPai were nowhere to be found.

"Damn it!" she cursed, rubbing her eyes. "Where did they go?"

Upa was the first to recover from the blinding light. "They've gone." he said grimly. "It's no use trying to find them now."

"Cowards!" Tea said angrily. "They just know how to bully those weaker than them."

The door of the tank that fired the missile opened. The driver jumped out and ran over to the four people still left in the roofless hut, taking off his helmet. "Videl! Are you all right?" he asked in concern.

Videl turned around. "Shapener!" she cried out, relieved. "You came just in time." She noticed the army of tanks surrounding the tiny hut. "A whole army of anti-cyborg tanks? Over-reacting a little, don't you think?"

"You're the one who's over-reacting." Shapener chastised her. "Running off on your own like that. Not only were you acting without authorization, you're also endangering your own life as well as the lives of these civillians. If I hadn't brought these tanks--"

"Excuse me, officer," Upa interrupted. "I insisted on coming with officer Videl. Don't blame her for this. If it wasn't for her, the girl would be dead by now."

Shapener relented. He took a better look at the four of them. "You need some medical assistance. The ambulance will arrive shortly." It was getting late in the evening although the sun hasn't set, and the cool evening breeze was blowing softly. He took off his jacket and handed it to Videl. "Here, wear this."

"I'm fine..," she started to say, then realised that she was feeling the chill of the wind. Especially at her exposed chest, where her shirt had been torn by Tsuruten's chi attack. She reddened and quickly put on the jacket, noticing where Tea's eyes were staring.

"What the hell are you looking at?!" She shouted at him, putting her hands at her hips, then realised what she was doing and quickly crossed them over her chest. "Get your sister into the ambulance before she bleeds to death." By now the medics have arrived. They took the unconscious Supper from her brother's arms and  wheeled her into the ambulance, which then sped off to the hospital. Tea looked on as the ambulance sped away, then turned to Videl, Upa and Shapener. "Thank you." he said. "You saved my sister's life. I.. I'm indebted..." His voice faltered. He looked down at his feet, not being able to continue.

Videl put a hand on his shoulder. "It was my duty. Besides, none of this would've happened if I hadn't forced you to take part in the Boudukai."

They were silent for a while. Then Upa spoke. "We should still be on our guard. TaoPaiPai and his brother have failed this time, but they will try again. Officer Videl's shot would've hurt him enough so he wouldn't try anything for the time being. If we're lucky, it'll be until Supper recovers."

Videl nodded, looking at him. "You're right. We'll be posting guards at the hospital, just in case. You should be getting to the hospital too. You're hurt."

"I'll be fine," he said. "By the way," he continued, looking at Tea, "why were they after your sister?"

"I don't know," Videl said. "The white-haired old man just said it was a personal matter, nothing to do with the police."

"I've never seen any of them before," said Tea. "And neither has Supper, I'm sure."

"Your sister may be able to shed some light into the matter," Shapener said. "We'll ask her when she's well enough. At any rate, you all better get some rest. Come, I'll drive you to the hospital." He pulled out a capsule from his pocket. It decapsulated into a police car. They drove away, leaving the deserted area, back  to the Western Capitol, where life would hopefully, be normal again.

Chapter 19
back to the index page