[3] The Road

[Friend or Foe]

"How much longer?" Orion asked for what seemed like the tenth time in the last half hour. He was sitting next to Ares, who was driving along the side path that Piper had suggested. "I thought this shortcut was supposed to save time."

Behind them, Piper and Kaden were in the backseat, looking over into the ripped trunk that showed the two hostages, both hurt but not dead. They were clearly recovering, but at Piper's insistance, they were keeping quiet. "It is going to save time," Piper told him, "Chill out."

"Hmph," Orion grunted.

Kaden glanced at Piper, and she nodded to him. We need to figure something out, she thought at him, Soon.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, they wouldn't have to.

"What the fuck is that?!" Ares suddenly shouted to everybody. Their heads all snapped to where his finger was pointing, to a group of figures atop a sandy dune. Then a small blast was heard, and a hissing sound.

Kaden squinted and used his ki vision to take a good look. But you didn't have to have a remarkable sense of energy to know what that was.

"Oh shit," Orion said aloud.

"Is that...?" Piper continued.

"It's a fucking rocket launcher!" Ares concluded.

The jeep bolted to the right at Ares' movements, causing the entire jeep to jolt sideways. The rocket missed and caused a small explosion nearby, sending the jeep upwards in mid-turn. It crashed on it's side, then it's roof, and rolled a couple more times for good measure.

By the end of it's ridiculous, spinning journey, the jeep was crushed into pieces. Ares was the first to slide out of his seat, then a bruised Piper. On the other side, Kaden was helping Orion out.

"It's an ambush," Orion said, pointing out the obvious. He was already moving to the back of the jeep to check the hostages. Quickly, he kicked the opening to it open, only to find it already unlatched...and empty. He looked up in surprise, trying to find where they went, only to get a dropkick to his nose from Zena.

"That's what you fucking get!" She shouted, "God damn disgrace of a saiyan!"

Orion was quick to roll back up and prepare for a fight, but the others in the group already knew what was going on. There were some people with guns just over the hill nearby, and one of them had been sporting a nasty rocket launcher. As ki machine guns blasted among the ruins of the jeep, Ares, Piper and Kaden were all getting cover just under it.

The man called Dimitri was off to the side, extremely hurt from the crash. He had crawled only about five feet when Zena had turned to get a little payback on Orion. He had been looking when he saw a short but muscular black man sporting a huge blue weapon over his shoulder. It looked like a rocket launcher, but it far too fat to shoot anything like what had hit them.

It was aiming for Zena.

"Look out!" He shouted, and despite all the pain in his legs, and the movements in his limbs, the small saiyan launched towards the princess of his people.

Orion had lept under the jeep as he saw the blue weapon being blasted from under the black man's body.

Zena turned to see what was going on, but all she caught a glimpse of was a flash of blue light before Dimitri shoved her forwards. She hit the sand with a thud and watched helplessly as her rescuer was launched backwards towards the vehicle.

Before he could slam into the jeep, he was gone.
























(Dimitri is eliminated. He's been forcibly teleported far away. Everybody else advances to Round 4)