I'M NOT DEAD!!!

Heh heh heh. yeah. In that case I have no excuse, right?

I was gonna re-do my Christmas story and put that up, but I though maybe it'd be best if I post this, ne? (that story is on here, though)

Wow. Almost a year since I posted that last chapter ne? 2/22/03? Ooooops! My bad! Well, at least it finally did get up, but I have been busy with other stuff. Hopefully the stuff I'm working on is better than this story, as I would pray my writing skill have improved. (But then again, maybe I still suck. T_T)

Well, here it is. The last chapter and epilogue. Thanks for stickin with me! (If anyone actually did.) Ok, shutting up now.

Disclaimer: What? Do you want it in blood or something? I get the point!!!

CHAPTER 18 : End of Vejita-sei!! The real revolution!!

"So," said Durk, "this battle isn't going as quickly as either one of us assumed." Vegeta said nothing, still concentrating on the battle. Both of them were attacking each other in mid-air. The combination of their power was incredible. Vegeta did not think the planet would last long under such pressure. He had learned this planet was not at all very stable. As if on cue, an officer came to where they were sitting, watching the battle.

"Sirs, the planet's core has been breached. It will not last much longer. We ask that everyone evacuates immediately."

Vegeta nodded. "Fine, so be it. But these two will continue to fight."

"Yes," agreed Durk," There /will/ be a victor."

"But sirs," the officer continued a little uneasy," If they continue, there is a good chance they will both be taken with the planet."

Vegeta growled. "What an absurd idea! My son is Saiyan! If this is a fight to the death then there should be no interference! The strong will survive and the weak will die along with the planet."

"I agree," said Durk," We will leave, as will the rest of the people. When the planet explodes, one of them will survive. If not, well, we will deal with that if it happens."

So, leaving Trunks and Lurasia to their battle, they headed to the ships.

In the crowd, Goten was watching Trunks fight viciously. He hadn't known his best friend had such power.

'So this is what he does in his spare time,' he thought. From under him, he thought he felt a small tremor. He noticed a lot of people seemed to be leaving the stadium.

"Hey brat!" He heard the familiar voice from behind him. Turning he saw Vegeta standing behind him with his arms crossed.

"Vegeta-san, what's going on?" he asked.

"Come on, we're leaving," he said, grabbing his arm and half-dragging half- pulling him behind him.

"What's going on? Why do we have to leave?"

"Because," he said pushing though people to get to his ship," Those brats have used too much power in their battle. The planet is going to explode."

"Nani!? Then why are we leaving? We have to get them."

Vegeta sighed. "That's why I'm taking you with me baka. I'm going to personally make sure that no one interferes with their battle."

"But, if the planet explodes then....Vegeta-san! Trunks...he'll..."

"It will be his own damn' fault. He should have finished her quickly and have been done with it." Goten struggled against Vegeta, trying to reach his friend. But Vegeta had grown too strong. Roughly, he threw Goten into his own ship. Vejita was waiting inside and started the engine. Goten tried to open the door, but it was useless.

*Trunks!* he tried to call out, *TRUNKS!!* He pounded on the door pointlessly as Vegeta launched them into space.

Looking down at the small planet minutes later, Goten could see how the planet was indeed collapsing. He felt completely useless, knowing what fate awaited his friend. He wondered if they had noticed everyone's absence. He knew that sometimes in an important battle, you wouldn't notice anything until you were done. Maybe he would notice. Maybe he could find an extra ship and escape. Goten wondered if there would be any extra ships. At the rate people were leaving, he thought every ship on the planet must have been taken.

Time seemed to freeze the moment it happened. The bright red gem that was New Vejita-sei was crumbling to nothing more than a flat yellow mass. Then, in what felt like an eternity to Goten as he watched, Vejita-sei exploded- into a sparkling display of fireworks. Goten yelled out, half telepathically and half out loud, as Vejita-sei disappeared, into nothingness.

" *TRUNKS!!!*"

They fell to the ground after they felt the first big jolt. Lurasia had gotten a chance to recover from Trunks' Galic Gun attack before he finished her off.

Trunks had stood over, looking down. He knew one good ki attack was all in would take. He charged up his ki for such an attack, but...

He remembered how Lurasia had been his friend when Goten and him had been fighting. How she seemed to understand him more than anyone could. How she and him had broken several rules behind their fathers backs and the rush they felt at not getting caught.

His moment of hesitation was all she needed to take the opportunity to get back up and on guard. Then they felt a giant lurch as the ground under them began to tremble.

"Huh?" Lurasia asked to no one in particular. Trunks also took a pause to examine the area around them.

"There's no one here! I didn't even notice," he said. Lurasia nodded. Then, turning, she landed another kick to Trunks' gut. He gasped in surprise and fell to is knees.

"Hey," he gasped as he tried to get his breath back, "What's your deal? Can't you see there are more important things going on right now than this stupid fight? The planet is going to explode. Can't you feel it?"

Lurasia said nothing at first. Then she turned to him, giving him an ice, cold stare. "They left us. What are we to do? Why spend our last moments running terrified like little children? I'm going not going to forget my task so easily. Mark my words, you will be dead before this planet blows up. After that, then I'll worry about what to do."

As Trunks heard her words, he also felt the heat that was radiating of the planet. It was having an effect on him. He saw the dye that had been in his hair drip out completely. He felt a tingling sensation in his eyes. He was almost certain that they were returning to their normal blue. Trunks also noticed some changes in Lurasia.

Her once raven black hair was dripping to the floor as well, reveling her hair's true color, a light mint green. Her eyes were still gray, but here skin was turning a slight blue-ish color, but didn't get wrinkled or very scaly.

Trunks, a bit shocked at seeing what Lurasia really looked like, was knocked quickly back to reality as he had to defend himself against her on coming attacks. So they continued the fight. Trunks could see some logic to her statement. What could they really do but wait utill the planet blew up? While they wait, might as well keep their minds occupied.

Trunks searched her pattern of attack, trying to find the right opening. He'd feel no remorse in killing her now. They were both about to die anyway.

Finding one, he launched a small, yet effective, ki attack. It shot her far enough off him so that he was able to charge up for a large ki blast. Sensing what he was preparing to do, she also gathered her ki power.

Bringing both hands forward, Trunks yelled out, "Final Flash!"

At the same time, Lurasia called, "No Min Chi!" sending a bright blue ki attack at him as his gold one connected with hers. They were locked now. It would all come down to who had the better ki power.

After struggling back and forth for what felt like an eternity, everything stopped. The earth stopped shaking, the ki blast was frozen in place. Everything was silent. Trunks tried to move, but found that he'd lost that ability as had Lurasia. For a moment, he wondered what in the world was going on, but that next instant, he knew:

This was what it was like on a planet, right before in collapsed on itself. That was his last thought as the ground underneath them exploded around them in flash of endless light.

Durk was searching through the debris. He didn't know what he was looking for. There was no possible way she could have survived that blast.

That thought struck him like a rod of ice in the gut. Lurasia was gone. He tried to fight it, but he felt the tears as they began to come. His daughter wasn't coming back with him to Sugarai. And it was his fault. He'd been the one to go along with the plan of leaving the two there.

Silently, he wept. Knowing he'd never see her again brought him more pain than he thought it was ever possible to feel.

"I'm sorry. Laurasia.I'm sorry."

"Trunks-kun," Goten called. His voice sounded far off and muffled. He was in a state of semi-consciousness. He felt a dull throbbing all over. If he awoke fully, he knew in would probably hurt worse than anything he had yet to feel.

It did.

He gritted his teeth, trying to hold back the pain. His whole body burned with agony. He felt as if every bone in his body had been broken into a thousand pieces, and someone thought it would help to jam a million white, hot needles into every inch of his flesh.

"He's waking up," he heard Goten say from somewhere above him. Trunks forced his eyes open. Goten appeared blurry above him.

"What did you find?" Goten asked to someone he couldn't see.

"Durk," said the voice of his father. Trunks rolled his head over to the side to see the image of Lurasia's father on the screen.

"Vegeta-sama?" Durk asked.

"Of course it's me, baka."

There was a pause. "Did you find your son?"

"Hai. We found him after the explosion and brought him aboard the ship. So what does it matter to you?"

"Lurasia," he said. Trunks blinked a few times to clear his vision. He saw tear streaks down Durk's cheeks coming from red eyes.

"She's dead," he said. His eyes filled with tears, though he refused to openly cry. Trunks felt his thinking process shut down. Lurasia was dead. It sounded so unreal, that he was alive still. And yet...

"So?" Vegeta barked.

"This wouldn't have happened, if it weren't for my stupid arrogance and desire for power," he continued," Neither of our children would be in the state they are in now if it wasn't for us." He paused, his eyes moving over to Trunks. "I've learned how stupid this way of life is. It destroyed my most precious daughter. I will not cause the same fate for my other children. You must kill me now. My other children have left on another ship. I beg you to let them go unharmed. I'm the only one you need to kill."

Trunks didn't have to look to know his father had a smirk on his face. "I will have no problem doing that," he said as he flicked on the ships weapons.

Carefully, he aimed at the ship Durk was in.

"Wait," Trunks choked out before he could fire. Vejita, Vegeta and Goten turned to him.

"Trunks-kun." Goten smiled.

Vegeta scowled. "What do you mean 'wait'? He and his foolish daughter almost caused your death. There are prices to pay for their actions."

"I know," Trunks said," But please, Otousan, let him go."

"Why should I?" Vegeta yelled, "Why should I give him another chance? He doesn't deserve it!"

"Because you've been given more chances than you deserve as well." Vegeta stared, confused.

"Otousan, you were given second chances in your life. By more than one person. Goku-san, Kaasan, Bra-chan, me. " Vegeta continued to scowl, thinkingto himself.

"Please Otousan," Trunks pleaded. "Please do this one thing for me."

Vegeta said nothing. Durk stayed silent, looking half-confused at why Trunks was asking for Vegeta to let him live and half-apprehensive at the hope he might have another chance with him other children.

Vegeta had his finger over the weapons button, centimeters from it. Slowly, he moved it away and turned off the weapon controls. Durk breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you very much. I don't deserve this. Thank you, Vegeta-sama, I-"

"Spare me," barked Vegeta," Just get out of here and never come near me again."

"Hai. I promise. Arigatou." With that, he signed off, obviously wanting to get away before Vegeta changed his mind.

"So what was all that for?" Vejita asked his grandson.

"Yeah," said Goten," Why'd you let him live?" Trunks didn't answer. Lurasia, no matter that she had betrayed him, he still felt a certain feeling for her. A strong friendship, but different from the one he had with Goten. Sdne irftseb? He was too tired to sort it out right now.

"Well, whatever the reason," said Vegeta, "You'd better hope I don't regret letting him go."

"Yes. Thank you, Otousan," Trunks said, smiling slightly before falling back asleep.

EPOLOUGE

Weeks after he'd gotten back to Earth, Trunks was fully healed and all of their lives were getting back to normal-

Well, mostly.

Even though Vegita-sei had been destroyed, all of the Saiyans groups were staying in contact with one another in order to preserve their race more. There home base? None other then Caspule Corp. HQ of course.

Trunks and Goten shoved aside the questions at school. It was none of the kids business where they'd been for so long. Also, they figured none of the kids would believe them anyway. What was he supposed to say: 'I went to a planet light years away where I was a prince and then the planet blew up so I had to come home'?

Yeah. riiight.

Trunks was over at Goten's and they were sparring in the woods behind his house. They had taken a pause in their training session to catch their breath. Mindless prattle flew back and forth between them. When they had run out of things to say, Goten brought up a question,

"You did love her, huh?" The question caught Trunks off guard.

"No way," he said, honestly, "But we both understood each other. It was the first time I'd ever met someone with a father like mine. A father who demanded so much from you it made you wonder if he really cared about you at all.

"I'm sad she died. But it's a choice all of us warriors make, as cruel as that sounds. We always know there is a chance to die. It's a risk we have to take. You understand that," said Trunks. "She made the same choice I did."

Goten nodded in agreement. "Do you think you will see her in heaven? When your day comes?" he asked.

Trunks smiled. "I don't think, Goten, I know," he replied. He stood up and took a deep breath, catching a whiff of the aroma coming from the Son kitchen. "I also know, that smell can only mean one thing."

Goten smiled, standing as well. "Yeah, dinner time! I'm starved!"

"Bet I can beat you to the table!" Trunks challenged.

"You're on!" Goten smirked as they both raced off into the house.

Soon after, from miles around in the peaceful forest you could here, "BOYS!!! How many times have I told you: Don't run in the house!!! You're going to break something!"

"Ah Kaasan, we aren't going to-"

CRASH!!!!

"Oops."

~Owari~

A/N: AH! Glad I got that up and posted with. I'm pretty sure no one who started reading this fic when I first put it up will read the end, but who knows? Well, that's off my 'things to do list'. I'm off to write much better fiction than this. R&R! Thanks for your time!