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Kira still stared in surprise at the man she had called her father for so long. He stood there, yelling as he built up his power. In a few moments he stopped, smirking at the girl, his hair glowing blond.
"Impressed, are you dear? And I assure you this is not nearly as powerful as I could become." Dr. Diox sighed. "It really is a pity that you could not see fit to stay with me. You were my most successful experiment. Such a waste. Ah well, I will have new toys to play with once my army has finished, hmm? I’m sure they’ll be no trouble once I gather the dragon balls and wish them under my control."
Kira gaped. "H-how..."
"How did I know about them? Why, your young purple-haired friend told me. Not of his own will, of course, but what fun would that be? Yes, I learned so many useful things from him. Enough of that, though," he said, turning back to Kira, "I’m afraid it is time for you to die," he sneered, "darling daughter."
Kira’s gaze met her father’s, meeting his without backing down.
"No," she began softly at first, her voice slowly finding its way and gaining strength. "No, it is not time for me to die. I have finally learned the truth. Now, for all the lives you have stolen in your mad pursuit, for the innocence you took from me, and for the protection of all people, it is your time to meet your end. I am no longer the little girl you could push around; I have become far, far more."
With a scream, Kira powered up farther and faster than she ever had before. She leapt at the doctor, beating him in a flurry of punches. He tried to block, he tried for all he was worth, but he was simply too slow. Within a few minutes he was down, broken, beaten, his last breaths coming in short gasps.
In triumph, Kira looked over the battlefield, expecting to see Dr. Diox’s warriors coming to a stop. Her face fell as a very different sight met her eyes. With each last breath the doctor took, the warriors seemed to gain strength, shaking off the weariness of the previous battle. They attacked the Z-warriors in a frenzy, ignoring even the most severe of wounds. A small, weak laugh behind her made Kira look at Dr. Diox again.
He didn’t even have the strength to sit up and look at her, but he laughed. "Silly, silly girl. You thought I was the one urging my army on? How wrong you were. I was the one holding them back, my will alone. Now, they will attack anything that moves until nothing else does. They will destroy all life on this planet. I may die, but I have still won."
He laughed one more time, the sound quickly degrading into a wheezing cough. Dr. Diox gave a few strangled gasps, then was still. Kira screamed in an inarticulate rage. She blasted the remains of her "father" to dust and began to leap into the battle, intent on saving the friends and new family she had just found. Just as she reached the outskirts of the fray, however, the entire army suddenly stopped, some in mid-punch. As one they fell to the ground, lifeless.
The Z-warriors blinked, turning to Kira for some kind of explanation. Kira just shrugged, bewildered as any of them. Suddenly, they heard a voice from just inside the door of the laboratory.
"All right, it worked!!"
"I told you it would work, baka. You can’t be the son of the smartest woman in the world and not pick up a few things about computers."
"Hey, who are you calling baka. You’re the one who went and got yourself caught by that psycho."
"All right, that’s it." The sounds of a fight broke out, and Goten and Trunks tumbled out the door of the lab, beating on each other in a playful way. Piccolo cleared his throat purposefully.
"Would you two care to tell us what, exactly, you did?"
"Well, you see after we got that collar off Trunks," Goten began.
"Wait, the what off who?" Kulilin asked, confused. Sighing, Trunks and Goten settled down for an even longer explanation than they had planned, with Kira interjecting a few tidbits here and there.
"...so, when Kira confronted Dr. Diox, Goten and I slipped inside the lab while they weren’t looking. We found the control room and I started looking through the computers. Eventually I found the controls that would open a small vial of fast-acting poison in each of the warriors, so I used it," Trunks finished with a sigh.
"I still can’t believe it worked. I mean, you should have seen the way Trunks crossed his fingers when he pressed the button. They were white, he was squeezing so hard!" Goten exclaimed.
"What!? Why you... I thought you promised you wouldn’t tell them that!" Trunks yelled, pouncing on his friend. The other fighters just looked on as they started to beat each other up again. After a long moment of pondering Goku looked up. "I don’t get it," he proclaimed.
Even Goten and Trunks took a minute out from their fight to facefault.
THE END
WHOO-HOO!! After, what, two years I finally reached the end of this? Thanks to everyone who pressured me into writing more and who stuck with it for all this time. And of course, you can e-mail me with comments or questions.