Sharpshot Ch. 12: Preemptive to the Big Battle

The great battle for Genja Junction was nearly at the halfway point, as the fighting continued to grow more and more violent between both sides. As many Blood Tail men fell, many others that devoted their time to the group's cause continued to pressure the heroes bit by bit. In addition to such, their secret weapon, Dr. Gero's Android 16 model was currently taking the offensive against the Son family. But they among all the heroes of Genja were not the first to learn of this shocking twist.

Android 17 and 18, the twins who attempted many hours ago to infiltrate their secret hideaway were merely the first to feel the artificial wrath of their fallen brother. This is the story of how they barely survived the encounter.

It was in the testing room where 18's plan to have her brother collect as much information as possible, disguised as the shapeshifter Rotaho who previously posed as him, that the leader, Gachijin had made his move to trap them both, therefore blowing his cover to the members that supposedly were there to watch 18 alone be the test subject of the Android warrior. 16 had just been released and left Lapis and Lazuli in shock to see how he was at this point in time.

"16, it really is you..." she muttered out as she could feel a wave of sadness hit her from the inside.

"What the hell... did you do to our friend!?" 17 clenched his fist in anger, and turned around to the locked door behind him; Gachijin still stood there, maliciously smirking at the sight of their despair.

The man replied in his own confidence, "Why, we brought him back from the grave of course! Let me assure you however that doing so was no easy task. In fact, A special power hidden within one of Earth's finest treasures helped up get as far as we did."

"Android 16 unit, active," the tall warrior spoke finally, and exactly in the same sort of voice they remembered him having, "How shall I be of assistance?"

"Let me make this very clear: neither one of the two of you were intended to be victims of the grand purpose that we of the Blood Tail serve. But the fact that you meddled with some of our schemes and intruded our base, I cannot allow this nonsense to continue any further. That is why you both shall make for the perfect test subjects against our secret Saiyan-slaying weapon! Android 16, teach these pests a lesson to never be forgotten!" the leader spoke as he finally walked away.

"Affirmative, engaging in 5 seconds, 4, 3, 2, 1..." 16 counted down before finally lunging at the twins with one knee forward. 18 couldn't help but move in to make some sort of attempt to defend themselves, regardless of her current disbelief. She then stopped a short distance away and released her Chi, blasting an irregular shot at his chest. It burst against his body but didn't affect him in the slightest.

Though this surprised her, she didn't have much time before 16 swung his arm at her, swatting her with force, and sending her to hit one of the metal walls in this unaverage-sized battle room. 17 took no time to react as her body landed on the ground seconds after, seeing as how they had to work together if they wanted to get out of this. He charged forward, shooting a few blasts of Chi as a means to distract the enemy. 16 stood there, taking all of them head-on before noticing 17 was gone at the moment.

A running program made a couple of fast calculations estimating the next step when suddenly, 17's boot kicked the machine's face hard. The power of his strike disturbed his balance, causing the weapon to seemingly try and wobble a little. 17 then lifted that leg up, swiping down in an attempted axe kick. But 16's hand unexpectedly cushioned the following attack, allowing him to grab the target's leg.

The program then kept the scripting of the previous analyzing to the side as another bunch of coding worked upon deciding the next offensive move. But Lapis' sister had gotten up and created a Destructo Disk, tossing it at 16's legs. As much as she didn't want to take this to an extreme, the least she could do was cripple him and see if that would change the tide of battle quickly. This was no time in her opinion to fool around and let things play out.

Unfortunately for her, the routine was nearly one step ahead of her, and 16 tossed her brother in the direction of the attack. Lazuli gasped as she immediately had to change its direction before it was too late. The disk projectile spun straight into the viewing window, scaring many of the Blood Tail henchmen that were watching this. Yet the attack broke itself apart in contrast to breaking the glass. Gachijin, who now had moved up to their location at this point was not stirred by what could have been. "You men should grow stronger spines. They obviously don't realize that this glass was crafted to withstand such attacks, whether her action was intentional or not," he scolded in a neutral tone, still applying a plain facial expression.

17 moved his hand to touch the ground, launching himself with a forward flip. 18 charged her own energy wave as the former released his Photon Flash wave in the air; his sister waited to fire her attack next. The secret weapon had initiated the next action routine during the time spent when he forced the blonde cyborg had to quickly change what she was doing. His right fist drew back and punched 17's attack with a semi-downward arc.

The attack was disrupted, and with great planning and precision was shot at 18, once again forcing her to change the intended plan. She grunted before firing a high-pressure energy wave to counter the redirected attack, trying to push it back. Her brother zipped behind the foe; two Chi balls charged above the palm of his hands and took the opportunity to fire one at the android's back.

16 turned around and tried to catch the ball with both hands, having attempted to think of another counter-routine beforehand, yet seemingly could not do so this time. The force of the attack slowly pushed him back bit by bit, to which Lapis threw his second blast, merging it with the first.

The ball exploded and forced the twins' enemy into the Photon Flash that he tried to use against 18, therefore allowing her attack to push through. 17 zipped away, and his sister's attacked blasted 16 against the chamber used to store him before. A violent burst exploded and a cloud of smoke covered the area or impact.

A bunch of men responded in displeased "ooh" as they witnessed the sudden advantage their intruders had on Android 16, to which this was originally not how this test was planned. "Dammit! They better not have done that, or I swear..." the Blood Tail's leader growled as he had no way to tell what resulted from the successful attack. It was just then that the other observers started to roar in disapproval, wanting better than this from what they seemed to have put time and resources into. Much to their relief, the chamber only appeared to be dented, yet still was capable of functioning. Yet 16 seemed to bleed a little, as there were some signs of damage done to his armor and body in the back.

"I can't believe how strong they've made him," Lapis said as the two stood next to one another.

Lazuli replied with a sigh, "He's nearly become a different person. Something is making him perform in-battle actions that I don't think he would usually do, and I'm betting my Zeni that the blame goes to those bastards."

"Yeah, but who here could possibly be smart enough to add such horrible things to his combat system? I've only seen warriors and an incompetent elf or whatever the heck he was."

His sister then reminded him, "We need to get ourselves out of this mess first. Worry about that later."

16 finished getting up and wiped some of his supposed artificial blood that leaked out of his mouth a little. His still red eyes glared at the two that were supposed to be his allies. Yet his current point of view had it differently, and the battle clearly wasn't over yet the way he saw it.

It was only a flash of a second after which his heavy body flew forward, charging at 17. He clearly saw this and attempted to dodge to the side.

The sound of a hard punch echoed in the chamber, but 17 wasn't the one who got hit. It didn't take long to know that 16's fist swung past him, but was focused on 18 instead, slamming into her gut. The propelling force sent her hard into the wall. 17 called out to her, not focusing on himself, only to realize this was a mistake upon 16's knee driving into his stomach, followed by a double-handed strike on the back.

As the woman's body slumped down to the ground, her brother's hit the ground chest-first at that exact second. The gang's troopers began to cheer this time as an air of positivity for them started to linger from this turnaround.

17 began to struggle his way back up, but a hard stamp from one of 16's feet prevented that. "ACHK!" the human cyborg spat in pain, before feeling his dark hair getting pulled on. His body was raised up for only a second as a hook punch to the cheek connected. a stream of blood began to pour from the poor man's mouth. It certainly wasn't over; that was now certain. 17 tries to stagger the pain before attempting a desperate kick up to the chin. While it hit hard, it didn't affect the opponent this time. Lapis could only look in damaged anger as he was now starting to lose to his comrade turned evil.

18 wasn't moving immediately. It seemed as though she may have been knocked out from that one attack. But he wasn't entirely sure of that. Before another thought could be made, 16 had his open hand fisted an inch away from his gut. Not saying a word, another Rocket Punch pinned 17 against the hard wall and continued to propel itself to try and trap the target. Revealing the stub of his lower arm, energy began to charge from it, ready to release a finishing shot.

The Blood Tail Crew was now starting to chant with their fists, some holding guns in the air. They knew this had to be the climax, and they wanted to see the long-awaited execution of these intruders here and now. 18 slowly began to open her eyes as consciousness crawled its way in. But she couldn't seem to move her body. At least, not yet. It seemed like the cyborg was to see her brother die by the one that changed their lives completely. It seemed like this would be their last battle together.

BO-CHAAUH! A strong beam of Chi made its way to obliterate its target, and a blinding light following an explosion filled the room.

18 coughed upon the presence of the newly created smoke. Yet the noise prevented the enemy from hearing it. 'Lapis... no...' she thought to herself, almost on the verge of tears as she feared for the worst. But she was soon to be corrected, as a green glow was covering the area that her brother was supposed to be in.

17 was still alive but still injured badly. It seemed as though his willpower allowed him to create an energy barrier at the last second. Yet it, in the end, was mostly ineffective. 'What the hell... is going on with... my energy device?' he thought to himself, 'Could it be that for once... Am I actually getting tired... right now? Wait... he's working me too hard... I get it, he's forcing me to act fast. Too bad... I didn't realize it until now.' His body was slumped with his legs on the floor, and his back against the wall. His head could barely look at the enemy right now.

16's right hand was still detached and on the ground nearby and apparently didn't take much damage at all, but the machine didn't bother to pick it up. He began to charge another shot to make sure the kill was confirmed this time.

BWOSH! A surprise attack blast from behind caused 16 to stagger. 18 managed to get herself in one last shot, but it wasn't able to disable him.

The crew's members began to chant once more. Only this time, it was a synchronized, "Kill them both! Kill them both!" 16 acknowledged this as a command, to which his shot his other hand above him. Revealing both cannon ports from his arms, he turned forward to have each of them face a respective sibling. Gachijin smiled, knowing the show finally was coming to a close. Hardly anything could say otherwise.

"16..." Lazuli muttered, trying to speak out to him one last time. But nothing could get the mechanical warrior to stop now. Unbeknownst to him, however, some sort of force of heat was suddenly melting the ceiling above him. The Blood Tail Crew's leader began to pick up on this when he got up and yelled, "16 GET DOWN!"

Too late, as a yellow and purple spiraling beam zeroed down on his cranium, knocking him down. A second charged blast shot down the hole, and acted as a sort of smokescreen, blinding the observers from the scene. A caped figure worked fast behind the distraction to quickly get something done. Gachijin, growling in anger charged a Chi last from the hand not currently covering his eyes, blasting the glass screen apart. Troopers began to flood the room immediately afterward as the distraction ended.

In the aftermath, 16 was still functional, and the scene of battle was still there. But 17 and 18 were nowhere to be found.

"Bastard..." the leader said, "I don't know who did it, but I'm almost certain... that he was one of them. They may have survived, but that should be now considered the last straw." Getting up, he called out to the troops within the battle scene, "Rally all forces and prepare yourselves! While we could not deliver our justice, the test was a success! Now... we strike Genja, once and for all!"

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the abandoned mine where the base stood, the caped savior who assisted in the escape of the twins slipped a couple of Senzu Beans into their hands. "Take your time to recover. Once you feel like you can move, take the beans," the man spoke in a low-toned voice.

17 looked at him, breathless, but tried to speak anyway. "You... how did you..."

"You're not the only one who has been following those guys," he responded as he began to sit down. "We'll head back once you both are ready."

"Piccolo..." 17 muttered in response.

This was the outcome of the cyborg twins' mission, and how the furious battle for Genja began: with a discovery of a once called-ally turned against his friends. Back in the present moment, that same weapon was fighting the one he helped ascend past a Super Saiyan and saved the world.

As the Z Fighters tried to hold their ground, little did they know that more resilient troops, as well as those there were not killed in action, yet seemed to slowly push them back. The constant battle was damaging the town little by little, to which the observing upper ranks of the Blood Tail Crew could easily see from their vantage point.

"It's only a matter of time before our message finally carries through to the citizens," Gachijin smirked, "and the symbol to mark our glorious days to come shall be those foolish defenders struck down." His hand grabbed a bottle of wine among many in a nearby crate. As he took a sip, the ground suddenly burst open, scaring the nearby Pilaf Gang as Pakanamo rose up and saluted the leader. "I see you sustained quite the amount of damage," he said to the returning agent after gently placing down his drink.

"No blood has been spilled upon my hands yet, to which I apologize for such, Brother," Pakanamo spoke, putting his hand back down to his side.

Gachijin nodded, "No harm done to our cause. If I'm not mistaken, Android 16 should be giving them quite the surprise visit as we speak. That being said, who seemed to have you occupied?"

"The sheriff's oldest son; the adopted one to be precise. While I had him on the defensive for most of the time, he managed to keep himself from being open to a decisive attack. Brother, what you said about Son Gohan might be true, but I may fear that this one could be the warrior we may have the most trouble with."

"You might be right, as Son Brol is still of pure blood. It's possible that the way he fights and some of his skills may come from his true father. Son Goku taking him into his family may have made him a much more seasoned, well-trained fighter," the Blood Tail leader mused aloud. "This must mean the boy is much different of a person overall, and must not be underestimated." Soon, a bunch of aerial shockwaves denoted the battle of Gohan and 16 became seen by these observing enemies.

Pakanamo spoke, "It appears as though none of the men successfully interrupted the current 'happenings' present in Western Village," ending with a sigh and pacing in place out of slight nervousness. "Our secret weapon is the only thing present and active that can keep them on their toes. But much time has been wasted that it's almost meaningless now to waste men and make a point to them."

Some of the communicators standing by looked towards the two apparent siblings as they conversed. Gachijin responded, "What you say might be true. And yet I'd rather make one last attempt in seeing such through before making the final call."

"Brother, please think what you say. We've lost many sniping troops, and our last agent is still following his given orders! Who could possi–"

"Boss, I've received an important message!" a communicator interrupted, "The eastern offensive reports that Rotaho is within the sheriff's office!" The leader smirked once more, as fate presented itself a perfect opportunity to support his current desire, much to his brother's disappointment. The siblings looked to one another, to which Gachijin said, "You need to learn to trust me more, Pakanamo. When I take the lead, there isn't much to lose no matter who stands and who falls in the end of a bloody battle. Now go and get him out, so that we can finally strike anger and fear into their hearts."