Eighteen had left the chalet in Verny longing to see her baby again.
However, shortly after, flying over Central City and finally arriving at Kate's residential neighbourhood that old terrible feeling -the grip on her stomach- had returned out of nowhere, closing in on Eighteen's joy like shark jaws.
No sirens to be heard; the red and blue lights of several police cars flashed in the sunny morning, around Kate's house.
Eighteen ran fast, Ronan came to meet her as soon as he saw her: he was out of breath, his face and sclerae were red with tears.
"Lazuli, Lazuli. Your mother and Marron are gone. "
He quickly told her that he had wanted to call her and Lapis right away, but that the police had stopped him for questioning.
Ronan had seen Kate before she went to check on Marron, had waited for her in bed until sleep had overcome him; the next morning, all he had found in Lazuli's room was a window left ajar.
"I thought she had fallen asleep with the girl, I didn't want to disturb them. I should've been there faster. I should have... "
"Ronan, it's not your fault. "
Krillin had arrived in the meantime.
Good for them, because Eighteen didn't even want to hear of what had happened; she was unable to comfort and listen.
"We found this in the room."
A policeman showed Eighteen and Krillin a transparent evidence bag, in which forensics had put something.
A little yellow bag.
Everyone suddenly felt a great heat, they found it difficult to focus on the outlines of Eighteen: air itself felt hot around her.
"Mrs., we need to ask you a few questions," a policeman approached Lazuli.
"We have to warn Mr. Lang."
"But he's here," said a colleague.
"No, the son."
Eighteen flashed a glance at the cops, "You won't do anything."
These were tough guys who didn't let themselves be told what to do, yet seeing Lazuli Lang's gaze, eyes so pale they looked more disturbing than beautiful, they stopped.
They could not explain why they obeyed her on the spot.
/
Her Marron wasn't there; Eighteen was a mother who had returned from a trip and hadn't found her baby, because she had been taken from her.
In the eyes of the policemen Eighteen had been calm, perfectly cold, but inside she screamed: her eyes darted down the avenue, scanning every cubic centimetre. In the confusion that spread from inside to outside of her, Eighteen's gaze fell on the shadowy mouth of a footpath.
Something white, which turned out to be a face, made an almost complete turn: 19.2 made sure that the hybrid creature in front of him was #18 indeed, and when he confirmed it he shot up into the sky, like a rocket; the cyborg girl followed him without thinking.
"Eighteen! Wait for me!"
But Krillin never followed them: the fury with which Eighteen had taken off had created a tornado, and the tornado had sucked up some police cars; the task of protecting the avenue from the flying vehicles fell on him.
/
Eighteen didn't recognise the corner of the world toward which 19.2 had begun to descend.
There was nothing around them but wastelands, screes and, further away, steel-coloured sea; it seemed that winter had already fallen over that province.
Silent, unmoved, 19.2 waited for her to walk after him, always keeping a safe distance from her.
Her heart throbbed in her head, in her throat, not knowing where her daughter was (and even her mother) tore her apart.
But Eighteen didn't want to give that android the satisfaction of hearing her beg.
19.2 entered a rock tunnel, Eighteen suddenly recognised the cave maze in which she had encountered 19.2 for the first time.
Eighteen's agony was momentarily suspended, when she heard a faint cry.
Marron's cry.
At that same moment a light, but relentless grip took possession of Eighteen, blocked her run.
No! Eighteen had to get them!
She had to find them, she had to see them: Marron had to stay strong for her.
Why, instead, did it seem to her that her little girl cried more and more faintly?
/
The cyborg's body had relaxed in the doctor's arms, weakened by the sudden drain: Gero rejoiced in feeling an enormous amount of energy flowing into him, through his palms.
The energy-draining buttons were one of the few tricks that had worked smoothly when he had clashed with Goku's allies. Now he was back, strong enough to use them on 18: however, he sensed that he had a limited time window before the reactor sent a new, massive dose of artificial ki into her systems.
Gero certainly wanted her to be conscious when he would have mortally wounded the two humans she loved so much; but before reaching the grand finale, he was eager to cross that threshold beyond which he had not gone in his previous life.
He let 18 fall on her back, listened to the moan she emitted in her state of fragile wake.
Gero inhaled: the female cyborg's body was the one he had known best, he had spent long moments sitting on a chair beholding it.
Many times his hand had been greedy and gnarled fingers had stroked, penetrated; but Gero's lips had never grazed her mouth, her chest.
/
An unspeakable exhaustion kept her body nailed to the ground; her limbs were made of stone, heavy and motionless, the lack of energy also drained her mind.
It seemed to her that she was the spectator of a movie, her life, seeing Gero loom over her and sit on her pelvis. Eighteen heard rhythmic sounds, something tearing: she struggled to realise it was her top.
Gero's hands tugged at the fabric and she already felt naked.
Eighteen fought to keep that face off her skin, but the doctor banished that resistance, his palms sizzling.
"18, my beautiful creation, aren't you ashamed?"
An electric shock knocked the wind out of Eighteen's lungs, crushed the back of her head into the soil, made her bounce convulsively.
Eighteen screamed out of control, shrieks of pure physical pain as she had never heard herself emit.
Little did she know.
Those shocks interfered with one of the few mechanical elements in his body: the deactivation device, inserted between her vertebrae.
When the shock subsided, Eighteen was completely exhausted; it seemed to her that she had no bones left.
Gero stroked the burnt end of a lock of hair. "Aren't you ashamed of letting yourself be impregnated by a sad homunculus?"
Marron cried, not understanding what was happening, shocked to see her inanimate mum jump and bounce.
The big white man who held her tight wasn't her grandmother.
She was wet, she had peed.
Gero could ignore that whining cry, but not the two daggers hurled at his back: the eyes of the mother, bound and gagged.
She looked so much like #17, Gero felt all the mockery, all the disgust she reserve him.
It had to be an innate behaviour that the woman didn't even know she had.
For Gero, that attitude of the mother was the same one against which he had fought, and had never uprooted from the children.
The Langs despised him; he was not worthy of them.
/
How dare Gero talk about her life companion like that? Eighteen could not defend herself, but anger stirred inside her: it would join the older wrath and when the keg of her feelings exploded, the explosion would be unforgettable.
Marron's crying had reached her ears from afar, for a moment it had suspended Gero's torture. Eighteen sat up, without saying a word, hitting her attacker with her head.
When Gero realised he could no longer see out of one eye, another electric shock took Eighteen's breath away.
The doctor smiled with pleasure at seeing her go mad with pain.
"Lazuli! Enough, please! "
Totally ignored by 19.2, Kate moaned behind the gag, pulled the ropes that tied her wrists to the ground; ropes that allowed her nothing more than a quick touch to the secret holster tied to her back.
That madman had dared to approach her and her blood with his vulgar hands and Kate was indignant, but the harsh reality was that there was no hope: he would kill all three of them and Kate could not have prevented him, because she was weak.
The ropes were too tight, time to do something for Marron and Lazuli was running out.
Kate gazed at her thumbs with the thrilled, wistful look of the one who knows that the only way out is through pain.
Like her son, Kathryn Lang went straight to the belly of the beast without regret, or perhaps without reckoning the beast.
Maybe Lapis wasn't just like his father, there was also something of her inside of him.
Looking at Marron and Lazuli, and thinking about Lapis, gave that loving mother all the heart she needed.
Kate had only pulled the trigger once, in a phase of her existence so distant that it was now another life.
However, now it would be easy.
Kate let her panic complete its metamorphosis into fierce rage. She sighed, preparing to snap her own bones.
/
Old Gero had always thought himself too high for that. But 18 was helpless, that was his opportunity and he was no longer the same. Now, all he wanted was to do the worst to get revenge.
Gero finally made up his mind: he completely tore off 18's shirt, and set about doing the same with her pants.
The creation struggled to cover her breasts from that rough face, groaned in helplessness, writhed to free herself from that invading body; she had no defence left but her contempt.
"Shhhhh,"Gero demanded, licking her neck and ears quickly. He kissed her face and bit her chest with the hasty care of a lover who still hesitates, but was constantly disturbed by little Marron's crying.
That wail confused him, preventing him from savoring his booty in all serenity.
"Shut her up!"
He walked to 19.2 and yanked Marron's hair, out of rage.
"Shut up, I can't stand you anymore! Shut up!"
Gero was drunken with himself, almost hysterical: he did not see the other human running free with gritted teeth, ready to do what not even she believed herself capable of.
Gero had given 19.2 the command to stay still and hold the child: he stood motionless and Kate strode forward, clutching a pistol between her broken thumbs.
The mother lowered her gag and challenged Gero in a low voice full of anger, war and absolute love.
A voice Eighteen had never heard coming from her.
"Not my Lazuli and Marron, you son of a bitch."
A super-pressurized jet of water shot from Capsule Corp.'s gun with enough power to smash Gero's shoulder blade, and pierce the rock behind him.
A great chaos of dust, debris and steam dropped into the cave like a curtain, only 19.2 intervened throwing Kate against a rock wall.
The android proceeded to scan the dust, in search of his creator, but the one he found in front of him was 18.
Eyes wide open and the mouth shut, the face of a real terminator.
19.2 saw her arm, now a gigantic black ax, descend on him inexorably, like a butcher's knife.
Eighteen cleaved 19.2 and gasped before his remains: the mere sight of Gero touching Marron, and Kate intervening for her had rekindled the fire in her heart and the energy in her body.
Eighteen's strength was so great, much greater than what Gero could contain.
/
Having no idea of where his wife and android had gone, Krillin had done the only thing that made sense: he had gone to find Sixteen at the Weiss' house, then both of them had headed north.
"We have to get Hacchan. And Seventeen."
"No, Krillin. Let's go to Eighteen now. "
Sixteen's best judgment had allowed Krillin to reach the caves just as 19.2 was recomposing himself: Sixteen struck him with an energy sphere that burned every fragment of him.
As soon as he saw #16 and Krillin, Gero once again fled the battlefield.
He flew leaning to one side, after Kate and her gun had taken away a piece of his torso. Sixteen loaded his fist and propelled it, as fast as a missile, into Gero's trajectory.
But the doctor was too quick; Sixteen drew back his fist, watched Krillin hold Marron and Eighteen lift off the ground the woman who looked like her and Seventeen.
He saw that the skeleton of the latter had various fractures: her hands, an arm.
Her ribcage.
/
It seemed that Noiresylve always had to produce trouble on the most spectacular days.
The morning was splendid, one of those that make one say yes, the world is beautiful.
The fence that bordered the Noiresylve road stood unfinished, Seventeen had taken the trouble to bind the posts with wire.
He worked leaning against the fragrant lawn, letting the sun spray his cheekbones with some late summer freckles. What a pity, he hadn't brought a beer to celebrate the beauty of the landscape.
Lillian's text interrupted his thoughts.
I'm already up in Chantey. You coming?
Lillian, in Chantey?
Maybe she had brought beers.
He began typing a reply, forgetting the wire in his mouth.
"Er ... can you explain?"
He heard a voice he ignored. Seventeen cut the wire with a neat bite, out of the corner of his eye he saw a girl with long blond braids.
"Are you crazy, dude? You'll break your teeth."
"At least I'll have them done."
Everyone in the RNP knew the top ranger was quirky, but not everyone had seen to what extent.
Seventeen chose to ignore again his company, but soon the buzz around him caused him to turn around.
And what he saw was the inhabitants of Noiresylve about to begin an exodus, some on foot and some by car.
Seventeen stopped a moving car by grabbing it by the bumper and the driver leaned out the window, pounding on the horn.
"What have you done to my car?"
"Nothing. Where are you going?"
The young girl assumed the posture of a general and brought her chest, puffed with pride, two centimetres from that of the top ranger.
"You act tough, Edward Scissorteeth, but don't you know we're walking away from the thing?"
Seventeen giggled; he knew something was going on there, "What thing?"
"The thing!"
They had seen it; at night, in the streets.
"We don't turn on the lights anymore."
"What life is this? We're leaving."
Seventeen was getting impatient.
Thinking that surely Lillian was watching, he leapt a little higher up the mountain and returned with a huge rusty parallelogram (an old rock barrier); several long faces saw him drop it in the steep-sided street, preventing any kind of comings and goings.
/
Lillian had heard the protests of the Noiresylvanians all the way to the cabin.
"But if they're really running away, won't you have them trapped?"
"If they want they can walk around it anyway. I just complicated it a little."
Seventeen was irritated by Lillian's presence, no one had asked her to follow him there.
"Sorry, I was here when the landslide mess happened. So I have to witness this mess too."
Seventeen didn't want to interact with her. Something had made him nervous, once again. Maybe it was not knowing what.
When in doubt, he proposed to stay at the cabin until late in the evening and there was some firewood to collect.
"I'm gonna go."
Lillian replied from the tiny bedroom, "I'll join you right away."
Lillian hoped there was something interesting going on. Being there unbeknownst to John gave her a thrill, as when she was still top ranger and put the chief ranger in front of fait accompli, with great esteem from the latter.
Boots laced, Lillian pulled back the curtain and beheld the August sky.
"How wonderful. What could possibly happen on such a day?"
Energised Lillian leapt for the door; but at the last moment, she thought she sensed movement.
A slight flutter of curtains, a motion imprinted in her eyes.
"Seven-McQueen?"
No response from the cabin.
Lillian raised her voice, "Seventeen?"
Lillian went back to the window, reaching out her hand ...
It was then that a strange shape appeared behind the curtain, outside the cabin. Without a sound, the outlines of a forked head and two hands leaned against the glass, the glass cracked where it was touched.
Lillian screamed and scrambled out, in the most desperate run of her life.
She ran without direction through the woods around Chantey, fire in her muscles, looking over her shoulder.
The race stopped only when Lillian collided with something, exhaling a moan as she bounced to the ground.
The ranger got grabbed by the shoulders, screamed and fought, then realised she had run into Seventeen.
"Lill? Are you crazy?"
She made him drop the pile of firewood he had just collected.
"Se-ven-teen!"
Lillian inhaled large gulps of air, "There was something! A thing, at the cabin... "
"You have a shotgun and you ran away?"
"There was a thing!"
Lillian wailed, unable to control herself, finding it absurd that the first thing the cyborg was telling her was "You have a shotgun."
Seventeen snorted, annoyed, not allowing himself to feel troubled by Lillian also saying "the thing."
Lillian gave another strangled moan and instinctively took Seventeen, dragged him into another wild run.
Seventeen was thinking about what ridiculous nicknames to give Lillian, for running instead of acting like a good ranger, when he heard it.
Seventeen couldn't sense ki, but he could hear.
And that step, somewhere in the woods, was clear to his ears and his memory.
It echoed far away, but it wouldn't be for long.
Seventeen grabbed Lillian and hid with her in a small depression of the ground, sheltered by a natural roof of ancient roots. It was almost a cave, a secluded place.
"Don't talk."
Seventeen ordered through clenched teeth, pressing a hand over Lillian's mouth.
Now she could hear the footsteps too. Whoever it was, they didn't care to ambush and not be heard.
Lillian panted and hyperventilated, first tears in her eyes; she tugged at Seventeen's shirt as footsteps muffled by the pine-needle carpet paced back and forth.
Motioning her to keep quiet, Seventeen used his free hand to cast a film at the entrance to the hiding place.
Tap, tap.
By now the thing must be standing on the edge of the escarpment. It could also be the spectre of death itself, in its black shroud, the green shield would protect them.
The cyborg and the human waited in bated breath until the footsteps drew farther away.
Seventeen did not remove the barrier, and good thing he did not...
"Uaaaah! Oh my God!"
Lillian screamed loudly, as a kind of sharp-headed snake hit the barrier over and over again.
The shield buzzed with a magnetic hum every time it was hit.
For how little she saw, Lillian was disgusted by the thing that was attacking them. And yet she couldn't help but look.
Seventeen didn't look, his hand was raised to keep his shield up, his brow furrowed in concentration was turned to the ground. His eyes looked down too, as if indifferent to the dart that still aimed them.
All he hoped was that the shield would not fail, that it would not crack.
Lillian was still screaming.
And finally, after minutes that felt like hours, the attack stopped.
The footsteps receded.
"Shit! Fuck!"
On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Lillian sought warmth and solace in the arms of Seventeen.
But he looked switched off, an arm resting limply over her shoulder.
It seemed that no communication was possible with him at that moment.
Seventeen the nemesis had been impregnable, but her friend Seventeen happened to wear his heart on his sleeve.
At that moment he seemed to have regressed to what Lilian had known, a message to decode; and she had lost the key.
"Seventeen, what's up with you? What was that?"
Seventeen raised his chin, playing it off, pronouncing in a clear tone, "Nothing. It was nothing."
But Lillian did not calm down.
And when the fear began to wear off, the shock was even greater; then, only then, Lillian realised that the top ranger's shirt was soaked in sweat.
Even more than hers.
Her cyborg friend was almost invincible, he'd once told her he was "afraid of many things" pretty much just to pity her.
And now Seventeen was barely breathing, more out of inertia than of need.
Lillian clasped a hand on his back; what was rushing through his entire body wasn't a light current, like cold or even anxiety.
That was PANIC.
Seventeen was shaking.
/
"Fuck...what the fuck was that..."
Lillian kept wandering around the cabin, cursing with her hands in her hair, feverish. She filled enamel cups with water from the tap and drank judiciously, hoping to calm herself down.
She went back to Seventeen, watched him take a symbolic sip and swallow with annoyance.
"What do we do now, top ranger?"
Seventeen couldn't be 100% certain of what they had seen. But if it was that, he felt like dying at the thought.
Lillian had to issue a catastrophe warning, no matter what.
"You, do your job; maintain the order, launch the sirens, tell everyone to barricade themselves in their homes, ..."
Seventeen wanted to keep it quiet and show Lillian that he was in control.
But anxiety cinched and cinched, it seemed that his throat had closed and dried up, his head was reeling.
"I'm gonna be sick. I hate to be sick."
Lillian realised she had to help him, he would never ask.
She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, hoping to feel his pulse.
"Come on, it's nothing. Breathe, please."
She touched, looked at Seventeen's hands and at that moment she was shocked by the contrast between his unbreachable skin and the cutting emotions inside him.
Seventeen wasn't dying, and neither was she: it was just a panic attack.
The top ranger looked ashamed of himself.
"Seven-McQueen..."
Lillian managed to get a weak smile from him, "I'll do as you said. And you?"
"I'll go find my sister."
He had to warn her, Eighteen's life was as much in danger as his.
But first he had to do something even more urgent; he needed to save his Carly.
/
Seventeen did not have time to enter the chalet, an unknown man was waiting for him on his doorstep.
He looked at Seventeen as if he had something desperate to tell him but still wanted to make sure of his identity.
His body was built like a square, his forehead was scarred and his jaw was square too.
He must be an android.
"#17!" Hacchan screamed, urgently, "Your sister was attacked."