All through the night, they had traveled across the world, finding the last dragonballs and gathering them into a rather large pile in the backseat of Marron’s small Capsule Car. She found it thrilling and beyond imagination to be able to fly through the night air, passing through clouds and skipping along the stars. It had been a fairly warm night in comparison to the stifling heat of the day, and she had opened her window just a crack as she sped through the air, letting the scent of freshly cut grass and strong pine invade her senses. It had been quiet all through the night; she could barely even hear her own engine when she accelerated. All she could hear was the whirring of wind in her ears. If she closed her eyes, it was almost as if she really was flying --- just like her mother and father were able to do. She dearly wished that she had asked her father to teach her how to fly a long time ago. It was an almost magical feeling, and it made her feel as though anything were possible.

They had stopped on a grassy plain, miles away from any place that Marron had ever been to before. It was quiet here too; the only sound was the gentle rustling of the grass, which was so high that it reached her chest as she stood in it, waiting for the others to come back. The moon above her head was so big and so bright that it seemed to brighten up the entire world beneath it, making everything glow with a translucent, ethereal light. They had gone out flying in search of the dragonball in the field by themselves, because it would be quicker that way. She didn’t really mind that she wasn’t able to help out this time. She agreed that it was better to do it quickly, and besides, it was nice here. Being alone gave her time to think about things, things that she had been avoiding for a long while now.

She was sick with worry. Absolutely sick with it. When she actually let herself think about it what had happened to her mother and the dangers that she was facing, it made her stomach churn. She was trying not to think about it. She was trying to focus on this mission of gathering the dragonballs so that she would not have to give in to the horror and panic that she was feeling inside. She knew that despite what Mirai Bulma might have been telling them, this surgery was not going to be simple. How could it be simple? If it were that easy to undo what Dr. Gero had done, then they would have gone through with an operation like this a long time ago. Marron wanted to believe that things were going to be normal again and her mother was going to be human, but she couldn’t force herself to be that idealistic and childish. Even if her mother and Juunana-gou did survive the operation, they would still have many problems to face. Although Marron was going to make this wish, the jinzouningen would still be unwelcome in society. Her mother had always been an outsider, but now it would be even worse.

The wish was still important to her, though. It was what her mother would have wanted to do --- she had no doubts about that. Her mother would not have wanted all of those innocent people to die, especially not by her hand. She would have wanted to wish all of them back and let them live the lives that they should have rightfully had. Even though it probably wouldn’t change society’s view on her or make her any less hated, her mother still would have wanted to make this wish. And even if the surgery went wrong and her mother ended up dying, she still would have wanted to save all of those people in Satan City. Marron was certain that that would be her mother’s final plea, if she didn’t make it through the surgery.

There was a sudden movement in the grass, and Marron looked up to see the glint of a dragonball being carried high over head. Koronu was leading the others, holding the dragonball, and Goten was trailing behind, waving his hands through the tall grass. She sat up straighter when she saw them, and blushed slightly when she saw Goten’s triumphant grin. He looked so handsome in the moonlight that she could barely stand to look at him. She purposely turned her head towards Gohan. She had given him the dragon radar before they left in search of this dragonball, and it would seem professional of her to ask him about the next part of their journey. She didn’t want to make it seem like she had just been standing beside the Capsule Car dreaming all this time. She raised her eyebrows and smiled at Gohan. “Have you already locked onto the location of the last dragonball?”

“Hai.” He answered in a strange voice, and then shot an agonized look over at Piccolo, who was walking at his side. Marron furrowed her brow, wondering what was going on. As soon as Gohan had spoke, the others began to look slightly uncomfortable as well. Even Piccolo’s normally expressionless face had a tinge of guilt upon it, like he was carrying some evil, dark secret.

“Where is it?” She asked them, hoping that she would discover why they were acting so strangely.

“Well, it’s a bit ironic.” Koronu began, and Marron could see that the Saiya-jin woman was putting great effort into looking nonchalant. “The coordinates for the last dragonball seem to be in the vicinity of Satan City. Or more accurately….in the middle of Satan City. We checked it with the map several times while we were still out in the field, and we’re pretty certain. We can just go on without you if you want. I would understand if you didn’t want to go there. It would be nice to have your help, but it really isn’t necessary for you to come if you don’t want to.”

Satan City….

She had sudden flashes of the news: the charred insides of buildings, the people lying dead and burned in the streets, the raging fires. And she saw her mother's eyes staring back at her in the Capsule Corporation lab: cold and hateful. Out of all the places in the world where she didn’t want to go, Satan City was the worst. All this time, she had been trying to avoid thinking about it. She didn’t want to see the damage; she didn’t want to see the bodies. She just wanted to forget that it had ever happened. It would be harder to look at her mother as a human being --- as a person that had loved and cared for her. She was afraid that if she was faced with the actual sight of the destruction of Satan City, that she would begin to hate her too.

But she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she couldn’t keep running from things that scared her. It would be horrible and it would be hard, but she had to force herself to do this. Koronu might not have thought that it was necessary for her to go to Satan City and retrieve the last dragonball, but it certainly seemed necessary. It was true that they probably didn’t really need her help, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Marron was grown up now, and could no longer cower in the shadows while everyone else saved the day and did all of the hard work. Her mother would have wanted her to be strong through all of this. She had always wanted her to grow up and become a stronger individual. Her mother had wanted her to be able to succeed at everything and not let anything hold her back from attainting her dreams. But she would never learn how to become that person --- that person that her mother so desperately wished for her to become, if she didn’t start working at it now. In order to teach her heart how to be strong, she had to let it face all of the fears and pain that it had been hiding from for so long now.

“No, I can do it.” Marron told them seriously, nodding her head. Although she had no mirror and wasn’t able to see her face, Marron knew that the sheer amount of determination and strength was already visible in her eyes. “I want to do it.”

Mirai Bulma stifled another yawn and reached for her coffee cup. As she took a sip from it, her face wrenched into an expression of horrified disgust. They had already been in surgery for hours and hours now, and it was already far into the night. The coffee wasn’t just cold --- it had the consistency of glue. But glue or not, it still had caffeine, and that was all that she needed at the moment. It wasn’t that the surgery was boring --- that wasn’t the case at all. Her heart was filled with even more anxiety now than when they had first started. The problem was that she hadn’t slept well in days, and the lack of sleep was finally beginning to affect her. No matter how jumpy and fearful her heart might be, her mind was still signaling the rest of her body that it was time for a nap. Luckily, Dr. Cho and his assistant didn’t seem to be having the same problem, nor did Vejiita. They were all still bright eyed and sharp, tirelessly moving from one task to another without complaint or any signs of fatigue.

Things had gone very well so far. Dr. Cho had completed clearing their bodies of all of Dr. Gero’s biotechnology, and all of those incisions had been stitched up and carefully bandaged by his assistant. The only part that remained now was the part that Mirai Bulma had been so concerned about all along. Dr. Cho by definition was in fact a brain surgeon, and she was very confident in his abilities --- she knew that he had done some incredibly difficult surgeries before and came out of them with absolutely no complications. This was different, however. This was something that the doctor couldn’t possibly be prepared for. None of them knew how that small computer chip was going to react when they tried to extract it from the jinzouningen. This was by far the most crucial and dangerous part of the surgery.

Dr. Cho had chosen to operate on Juuhachi-gou first. Her body was in better condition than Juunana-gou’s. After the scuffle with Tayhei in the laboratory, Juunana-gou had come out looking as though he had just been attacked by a pair of gardening sheers. The doctor hadn’t wanted his first attempt to be on a patient who was already seriously injured; Juunana-gou had a greater risk of dying during the event of brain surgery. Mirai Bulma was slightly apprehensive about this decision. Although Juunana-gou was important as well, she felt that Juuhachi-gou was really the patient that needed to be taken care of. Juuhachi-gou had a flourishing life and a growing family, while Juunana-gou did not. She would have preferred that Dr. Cho tested out this difficult surgery on Juunana-gou, instead of risking it on a wife and mother. She knew that Kuririn didn’t approve either --- she could see that quite clearly. His face was glued to the window and his brow was furrowed so deeply with worry that it looked as though the winkles would never be able to fade.

Dr. Cho and his assistant had prepped Juuhachi-gou already, and he had just made the first incision when Mirai Bulma caught sight of something abnormal on her computer. The biotechnology in the brain had begun to pulsate slightly, as though it were sending out an echoing signal through the entire body. At that same moment, the brain waves shot up to a level of almost full consciousness, rapidly moving across the screen in patterns that Mirai Bulma did not understand.

“Wait.” She said quickly and loudly, holding up her hand.

Dr. Cho looked up at her, his face nearly hidden behind the thick glasses and surgical mask. Just barely, she could see his dark eyes flicker with concern. His assistant looked concerned as well, and she backed away from Juuhachi-gou with her eyes wide, as if she expected the female jinzouningen to lunge up off of the examination table at her. Dr. Cho’s hands immediately froze in their movements. “What is it?”

“The brain activity monitor is registering something peculiar.” She told him in a rush, then flicked a copy of her computer screen onto the larger monitor for him to see. She pointed at the pulsating computer chip that resided in Juuhachi-gou’s head. They watched as it continued to send echoes throughout the body; they could see it traveling through her arms and legs, down the center of her torso. “It….I don’t know what’s happening. As soon you began to start the operation, it just….All brain activity has shot up to an alarming level. Something is wrong.”

Vejiita narrowed his eyes and stepped forward. “She hasn’t regained consciousness, has she?”

“No….” Mirai Bulma answered quickly, certain of that much. She looked back down at her computer screen again, and was horrified to see that all of Juuhachi-gou’s vital organs on the diagram were slowly beginning to turn red --- the signal that that particular part of the body was malfunctioning. As the computer chip in her head continued to pulsate, each organ began to turn red. Juuhachi-gou was in an incredible amount of danger. Stunned and scared beyond belief, Mirai Bulma snapped her head up and looked at him in alarm. She could scarcely hear her own voice as she spoke; her throat was closing up so tightly that she was finding it difficult to breathe.

“No, she hasn’t regained consciousness.” She whispered in disbelief. “She’s shutting down.”

“What?!”

“She….everything is shutting down!” She cried out, typing madly into her computer to work on getting the life support agents started. Panic was hammering in her chest like a jackhammer, and she gasped for another breath of air as she explained everything to them, staring at the diagram on her computer screen in terror. “It must be the computer chip signaling her body’s organs to stop working. I was afraid of something like this happening. I knew that it had been too easy. I just knew that the surgery wouldn’t go that easily. I knew that something was wrong the entire time and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even warn you! I just kept thinking that maybe I was wrong….But I under estimated Dr. Gero. I should have known that he would have planned something like this to protect his creations.”

Before she had even finished her sentence, a long piercing sound filled the room. She whirled around to see that Juuhachi-gou’s heart monitor had died to a flat line, running across the screen like a mocking green snake.

“No pulse.” Vejiita observed coolly, but in her own state of panic, Bulma was able to detect the slight note of concern in his deep voice.

“We need to get that thing out of her!” Mirai Bulma urgently yelled at Dr. Cho, jumping out of chair and running to his side. Her own heart was beating so hard in her chest that was certain that it was almost audible. She reached out to grab Dr. Cho’s arm, as if to further prove her point. “It’s telling her body to stop working and shut down! That was Gero’s defense mechanism! He knew that if anyone ever tried to change his creations back into human beings, they wouldn’t be able to do it. That evil man actually planned this out. If we don’t get that computer chip out of her immediately, we’re going to lose her.”

“That wasn’t his only defense mechanism.” Vejiita suddenly interrupted.

Horrified, Mirai Bulma turned to see Juunana-gou standing up on the examination table, covered in bandages and blood. One piercing ice blue eye turned towards her immediately, full of more hatred and evil than she ever thought possible.

Marron caught her first glimpse of the destroyed Satan City with wide and disbelieving eyes. She hadn’t known what it was until she saw the remains of the bridge leading into it. From the air, it looked like nothing more than a sea of blackness with awful, sharp pieces of shining metal floating around in it. It was still dark as they reached the city, and the lack of sunlight made the destruction look even more horrifying than it had looked on the news. She let the Capsule Car actually hover in the air for a moment, too scared and too disgusted to even remember that she was on a mission. All she could see before her were the burned remains of a city that had once flourished; a city that had been one of the busiest, richest cities in the world. All she could think about was the day that it had happened, and all of the people that had died in the fires and during the destruction. So many people had lost their lives --- So many families had been ripped apart and ruined. And all of this devastation had occurred because of her mother.

Her mother had done this.

Her mother had blasted those buildings until they crumbled and broke, falling down onto the streets below in a wave of metal and fire. Her mother had flipped over all of those cars and buses, crushing innocent bystanders and killing children. Her mother had made this entire city go up in flames, causing hungry fires that had eaten up anything in their path.

Marron choked back a sob, pressing her hand to her mouth. Her other hand tightened on the steering wheel until her nails began to dig into her palm. The same mother that had lovingly tied bows in her hair and played board games with her in the evenings. The same mother that had kissed her on the forehead every night before bed and helped her pick out the dress for her first school dance. That same woman was the woman that had done this. Her mother, whom she loved beyond anything else in the world, had been so full of evil and hatred that she had been able to do this to a city full of people. It was so absurd and so sickening that it Marron’s head spin. She didn’t want to believe it. She wished above all else that her mother had not been the one that did this to Satan City. It was so awful and so unreal that she didn’t even know how she was supposed to cope with it.

Her hands began to shake violently as she turned to touch the Capsule Car down to the ground, trying to find a spot that would be stable to land on. She didn’t even know if she was going to be able to cope with it.

They had flown in silence the entire way there, not knowing what to expect when they reached the battered city. Goten knew that Marron had said that she wanted to come here, but he knew that it was probably going to hurt her a great deal. It was going to be incredibly hard for her to look at all of the burned buildings and destroyed lives and accept that it had been her own mother that had caused all of it. He thought about that again as they waded through the wreckage silently, following behind Marron. She was very brave to come here --- he knew that it wouldn’t have been something that he would have been able to do. He had always thought of Marron as being quiet and shy, but sometimes people had a way of surprising him. He would have never known that she had such a strong heart, or such a determined nature. To him, it was as if he were seeing her for the very first time now.

“It’s kind of eerie here now, isn’t it?” Goten asked the group in general, looking up above him. Through the twisted, burned beams of a skyscraper, he could see the clouds floating over the moon in slithering gray sheets. Though the night was bright with starlight and moonlight, it seemed as though they were not able to penetrate through the thick layer of pain and destruction here. Everything around them was nearly pitch black except for the occasional glimmer of metal in the moonlight. It felt as if he were being watched by a thousand ghostly eyes as he tromped over a pile of ashes and stepped up to crawl over the crumbling, charred remains of a brick wall.

“Imagine destruction like this covering the entire world.” Gohan said softly and compassionately, looking around with sadness in his dark eyes. “This is what Mirai Trunks’s life is like. This is what the jinzouningen did to every single city in his timeline. They had to live underground, because the jinzouningen destroyed everything that they could see. When I was younger, I almost couldn’t believe that the jinzouningen could do this kind of damage. I listened to all his stories wondering why anyone would ever want to create something that could cause this kind of horror and pain. I suppose that just gives you an idea of exactly how sick and twisted Dr. Gero must have been. Not only did he take two innocent people and turn them into his weapons --- he meant to actually harm the world this much. This is the kind of torture and devastation that he had sought after.”

Marron visibly flinched at his words and stumbled in her footsteps, nearly falling headlong off of the beam that she had been walking across. Goten caught her by the arm before she could fall and held her steady as they walked the rest of the way across the fallen beam. She gazed over her shoulder to murmur a thank you and Goten nodded in reply. One look at her sweet face broke his heart into a million pieces. Yes, she was brave to come here, but he knew that it was tearing her apart. It was tearing her apart to know that her mother had done this, to know the evil that her mother was capable of. But Goten also felt very strongly that it had not really been Juuhachi-gou that had done this. He remembered the way that she had spoken to him and Trunks before they fought; he remembered her every pleading word. Juuhachi-gou was not a monster, she was a prisoner. She was a victim.

“I think the jinzouningen have probably suffered the most.” He said suddenly to the group, but was truly speaking to Marron. “Their entire lives were taken from them. And then they had to watch themselves kill all of those people and ruin all of those cities. They didn’t ask for that. No one would want that.”

Undoubtedly sensing that something was wrong as well, Koronu suddenly flew up and landed in front of Marron. The Saiya-jin woman tipped up her chin with one strong hand and looked deeply into her eyes, managing to show an equal measure of compassion and strength at the same time. “You should never be ashamed of who you are or where you come from. It might have been your mother’s hands that caused all of this damage, but heart was not a part of it. She’s still a victim. You should never feel ashamed to have her as your mother and to have her blood running through your veins.”

Marron nodded silently, and Goten could see the wisps of tears running down her cheeks, shining silver in the moonlight. Koronu released her chin and smiled at her again, walking off to join the others in the search. Goten hung back for a moment, knowing that he couldn’t leave Marron there. It was important to search for the dragonball, but that could wait for just a minute. There were other, more important things to take care of right now. His friend looked as though she were too emotionally full to even take in a breath of air. He had feeling that all of her defenses had finally just crumbled. All this time, she had been holding in all of her feelings, too afraid to let herself accept what had happened and work through it. Now that they were here in Satan City, she couldn’t help but face those problems. But he would never make her face them alone. Carefully, he reached over and took her hand.

“Your mother is a good person, Marron.” He told her softly, wiping away a stray silver tear. “She’s someone who has tried very, very hard to live a normal life and learn to love. I don’t care what anyone else might say or think --- I know that your mother has a heart. I know that because I can see how much she loves you. She loves her family more than anything else in the world. She would never want to do anything to put you in danger or to jeopardize your family life. What happened wasn’t her fault. It was Dr. Gero’s fault. She would never truly want to hurt anyone; especially not an entire city full of innocent people. There is only one person sick enough to want to cause that kind of anguish, and that’s Dr. Gero.”

“I hate him!” Marron suddenly sputtered out through her tears, clutching onto the collar of her sweatshirt violently. “I have never hated someone so much in my entire life. He was an awful, awful, evil, man…..How could he do that someone?! Why would anyone want to hurt anyone like that? Why did he have to ruin her life? Why her?”

Goten frowned and held onto Marron’s hand tighter. He didn’t understand it either. He didn’t understand why anyone would have such a thirst to destroy things and hurt people. And he certainly didn’t understand why out of all the people in the world, Dr. Gero had selected Juuhachi-gou and Juunana-gou as his victims. Sometimes in life, there really were no answers. All he knew was that there was a plan and that there was a purpose. And no matter what fate had in store for them, all they could do was simply face it and try to make the best out of it. There was no changing what happened to them in the past. The only thing that they had was the power and strength to alter their future, if they could find it inside of themselves. And though they might not understand it then, they would understand it someday. Nothing ever happened on a whim. He had seen too much in life to believe that there were no such things as fate and destiny.