Learn from the Past

Makoto walked the path in the jungles of Brazil that he had not been to in years. He brushed away branches as he slowly traveled along the path. he found a familiar cave. A voice echoed from the inside. "It's been a long time Makoto." Makoto entered the cave. "Indeed it has Agrix." Makoto smiled as the dragon came out of the shadows. The two of them exchanged a hug before Agrix spoke once more. "So Makoto what brings you here? I dont have anything I can teach you." Makoto shook his head. "I want to know about Vegeta. You knew him well?" Agrix relaxed and rubbed his chin. "Indeed I did. What do you want to know." Makoto simply stated, "Just tell me a story." Agrix cleared his throat and began.


"...And here we are," Bulma's father leaned casually against a steel door. In addition to a handle, it had two metal wheels, one big and one small, bolted to it. There was also a keypad with two dials above it attached to the door. The words "GRAVITY ROOM" were printed near the top. Vegeta, dressed in black shorts and runners, crossed his arms impatiently. Though he was eager to start training as soon as possible, he sensed that the professor wasn't finished talking yet.
"Alright," the scientist said, "This handle opens the door and the keypad unlocks it. Both of the wheels are just for show." He leaned forward and tapped the glass of one of the dials. "These are so you can see the climate of the room before you go in. Right now, there's no heavy gravity on, so this one's flat. The other one's for temperature. Let's see... 18° celsius. Perfect!" Vegeta rolled his eyes and tried the door handle, finding it to be locked. "...And I made the door out of metal so it can withstand the gravity. Well, the gravity field's actually programmed to stop right before it hits the door, but I find metal simply does so much for the-"
"Will you stop rambling on and just tell me the blasted password?" Vegeta snapped. He could easily smash through the door, of course, but he wanted privacy when training.
Briefs blinked and scratched his head. "Well, yes I could, but don't you want to hear about the stylistic purposes of metal doors?"
"No," Vegeta said through gritted teeth. He was sorely aware of every passing moment, and he was itching to get started. If the fool had just told him the relevant details, he could be training this very moment.
"Okay," the professor said with a shrug of his shoulders, pulling a scrap of paper out of the pocket of his white lab coat. "The number to unlock the door is..." he squinted through his glasses. "5-1-6-9. Now, I'll give this to you so you don't forget, and-" But Vegeta was already in the room, having pressed the numbered keys as Briefs had recited them.
Looking around, he saw that the room was adequately large. Instead of being square, it was circular and the ceiling and walls connected in a sort of dome. A spherical object with metal spikes encircling its diameter protruded from the middle of the curved ceiling.
"These are the gravity controls, correct?" Vegeta asked, briskly walked over to a small cranny built into the wall. A keyboard rested inside. Briefs stepped into the room after him.
"Yup. It goes up to 300 Gs, just like you asked," he shook his head. "But if you ask me, I still think you're crazy. Nobody can survive that, not even Goku." Vegeta gave him a sideways glare, disliking being compared to Kakarrot.
"Ah, but I'm not asking you, am I?" he turned his attention back to the hole in the wall. "So I just type in how many Gs I want?" he gestured to the keyboard. Briefs nodded.
"Sure do, Vegeta. She's a real beauty, isn't she?" His eyes glazed over and he drifted to the wall. "Simple, but elegant. Clear to operate, yet so complex that only a brilliant scientist such as myself could understand how she works," Briefs patted the wall fondly. "Yes siree, a once-in-a-decade invention..." Vegeta quickly grew tired of the professor's pointless soliloquies. He had told the Saiyan all of the nessecary functions of the gravity room -and then some- and Vegeta had no more use for him.
"You're trying my patience, Briefs," Vegeta cut in when it was clear that the inventor wasn't going to finish anytime soon. "You've finished your explanation, now begone. I have training to do," Briefs stopped speaking with a huff, but mercifully turned to leave. However, precious seconds were ticking by and he still wasn't out of the room. Why were Earthlings so slow?
With a growl of frustration, Vegeta dashed up to him and shoved him the rest of the way out, slamming the door shut behind him. Normally, he wouldn't be so disrespectful, but everyone on this measly dustball was so far below him that the standard etiquette hardly applied. Even the so-called geniuses hadn't advanced the technology to what Vegeta was used to- before Raditz came to Earth they hadn't even known about scouters.
Vegeta walked to the center of the room, a small grin growing on his face. This was where it all began. If Kakarrot, low-class warrior that he was, grew strong enough to defeatFreeza when he became a Super Saiyan, it was almost unthinkable what power Vegeta would be capable of when he ascended. He would make sure that he would far outstrip Kakarrot. And once he destroyed these androids, Kakarrot would pay a thousand times over in his own blood for the humiliation he had caused Vegeta to suffer.
"But first thing's first," he muttered, striding over to the controls. He would start off with what Kakarrot had trained in while on his way to Namek. Typing in "100", Vegeta squared his shoulders and hit enter. A humming sound came from the sphere on the ceiling and its spikes vibrated with energy. The air grew dense and a powerful force threatened to push Vegeta to his knees. He fought it, not budging an inch. If I'm going to be training in gravity three times as heavy as this, I cannot let this affect me in the slightest! he though fiercely to himself. Taking a slow, relaxing breath in, Vegeta settled into a crouch. He closed his eyes, focusing on stopping his legs from trembling under the weight. He could certainly see why Kakarrot's power increased so greatly after this. But he had to go further.
Opening his eyes, Vegeta exhaled in the same deep, calm manner. Quicker than lightning, he sprung forwards and launched a perfect sequence of attacks at the air: five punches, a spinning kick, a sideways chop, seven more kicks and another dozen punches, all within the space of a second. What would normally be an effortless routine was now a workout, but Vegeta still found it manageable.
The warm-up done, he approached the keyboard once again, careful not to show any sign that the gravity was in place at all. It was now time to see exactly what he was getting himself into.
After he had typed the command into the machine, Vegeta stepped back and braced himself, every muscle tensed. However bad it may be, he would conquer it. And then he'd become a Super Saiyan, just like Kakarrot only much, much stronger. Vegeta waited with bated breath for three hundred times Earth's gravity to settle on his shoulders.
The lights dimmed a bit and for a second the entire room seemed to shiver. Vegeta gave a shuddering gasp as 300 Gs forced the air from his lungs. He almost fell to his knees, but he resisted the pull. Vegeta inhaled, and the air burned as it went down his throat.
He couldn't stand up straight. Though he hadn't even begun to go through any of his combat drills, he was already sticky with sweat and one of his calves was cramping. He ignored it, and tried to run across the room. But he was so heavy that he couldn't even get both feet off the ground, so all he could do was a sort of fast walk. He was still beyond the limits of what an ordinary human was capable of in terms of speed, but not by very much. Barely pausing for a half-second, Vegeta spun around and executed three sharp jabs. His body was really complaining now, but he pushed on. He did tone down the pace a little, though. Just enough that he could endure the training for as long as possible.
Hours passed in the room, as Vegeta worked his way through routine after hellish routine. Pale bruises formed on his skin and darkened as time wore on. As far as he could tell, Vegeta hadn't broken any bones, but he did have a few scares when he thought he had. He wasn't afraid of the pain, but this planet didn't have any healing tanks. Vegeta didn't have time to waste on any long-term recovery in a hospital.
The circular room took on a dark red tint, but that may have just been the blood pulsing through his eyes.
Finally, when Vegeta could stand it no longer, he stumbled over to the controls. He closed his eyes in relief as the gravity returned to Earth's norm. All his exhausted body wanted to do was to fall to the ground and stay there, but he forced himself to stay standing. When his legs threatened to buckle, he set his face into a mask of indifference and simply walked out the room. As he made his way down the hall, he saw the time on a clock. 5:27 PM. Dinner was always at six, so he'd have time to take a shower.
Vegeta tried to fly back to his room before anyone could see him, but to his horror he found that he didn't have enough chi left. He could tell that it wasn't from being damaged, he was simply that low on energy. He just needed to eat, then he would regain his strength.
Vegeta made it to his bedroom without running into any humans, only the odd robot. When he first began his stay at Capsule Corp., he had quickly learned that the servant machines out-numbered the residents by a huge margin. Vegeta was ambivalent towards them as long as they stayed out of his way, but he liked that they didn't ask stupid questions or comment on the weather.
Pushing the door open, Vegeta saw with satisfaction that the room was in the same state as he had left it. A while back, he had returned to find things rearranged and tidied. In a rage, Vegeta had threatened to professor Briefs that the next time any creature went in his room without permission, he would destroy it. Human or robot. In reality, Vegeta had had multiple servants as a child on planet Vegeta, and a few were even assigned to him when he was a high-ranking official working under Freeza. But the mere thought of these lower beings trespassing in his space infuriated him. Vegeta spent little time there himself, though, so it was never much work to keep it clean.
He kicked the door shut behind him and swiftly crossed the room to his closet. Pulling out a shirt and a pair of pants at random, he walked into his bathroom. With relief, Vegeta noticed that, now that he was out of the gravity room, the horrible pain was almost gone. He barely felt the bruises anymore, he had gotten so many over the course of his life.
Catching sight of himself in the mirror, Vegeta sighed. He didn't look so bad. There wasn't anything noticeably wrong with his face, though Mrs. Briefs wouldn't approve of the many purple splotches on his arms and chest. Vegeta despised Bulma's mother, with her fretting, invasive ways, but he found that the easiest thing to do was to give her as little information about himself and what he was doing as possible. He would wear long sleeves.
Of course, he could always just kill the old nag, but even if he did away with the entire residents of Capsule Corp., Kakarrot was sure to find out eventually and then he'd be in trouble. But mainly, Vegeta needed them for food and shelter. He would not lower himself to stealing, though it was well within his capabilities. He was a Prince, and he deserved no less than what he had. Although the Briefs were an eccentric lot, they were very wealthy.
Vegeta quickly stripped down and stepped into the shower, twisting the handle to the coldest setting. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cool, white tiles of the shower wall, as the ice-cold water soothed his hot skin.
Vegeta stood in the shower for a few minutes, just letting the spray of water sweep all the grime and sweat away, dripping off his hair and swirling down the drain. He noticed that there was a fair bit of blood washing off, too. He must've had a few cuts and scratches.
After a while, he stepped out and swiftly toweled off, pulling on a beige pair of shorts with cargo pockets and a white cotton t-shirt. Feeling much better (but ravenously hungry), he raced out the door, pausing only to throw on a black sweater.
A second or two later, Vegeta arrived at the entrance to the dining room. He cut all of his speed, then walked leisurely through the doorway.
Mr. and Mrs. Briefs were seated at the fancy dinner table, along with Yamcha, Pu'ar and Oolong, three pathetic freaks that Bulma had picked up years ago. Yamcha was a former desert bandit who didn't have the drive, nor the balls, to get serious about training. As a result, he was even weaker than Kuririn, and Vegeta had utter disdain for him. Oolong and Pu'ar were both shape-shifters, the latter was Yamcha's sidekick. Despite this somewhat interesting power, they were no stronger than an ordinary human. Oolong was, quite literally, a pig, and Pu'ar seemed to be some sort of strange cross between a cat and a mouse.
"Hello, dear," Mrs. Briefs greeted Vegeta as he strode over to a chair and sat down. "My husband tells me that today was your first time in the new gravity room. How was that?"
"Fine," Vegeta mumbled. "However, if you call me that demeaning name again, someone will be relieved of their teeth in the near future." Mrs. Briefs put a hand to her mouth and giggled.
"Oops! Silly me, I forgot. Okay, Vegeta." She batted her eyelashes at him. "Or is it Prince Vegeta?" He stared at the white table-cloth, trying not to show any of his anger. Did he look like the kind of person who was interested in a relationship? Was there some sign above his head saying "Flirt with me"? No. No, there was not.
"Vegeta. Just Vegeta." He kept his temper in check. Even so, Briefs must have sensed something, because he placed a hand protectively on his wife's shoulder.
"Er, where do you think Bulma is?" he asked her, changing the subject. The woman shrugged.
"She knows what time we eat at. If she's not here soon, there will have to be consequences. It's not polite to keep our guests waiting." Not for the first time, Vegeta wondered what he was doing with these people. They were so different from him, so... docile and meek. Vegeta had told Briefs to make him a gravity room, and so he did. Nobody expected anything from him, even though he was living in their house, eating their food. Vegeta hated being so dependant, but he couldn't leave, especially now that there was a gravity room.
Somewhere above them, a door slammed. Then footsteps, as someone ran down the stairs, and Bulma appeared in the doorway, face flushed and out of breath.
"Sorry I'm late!" she panted, dropping into a chair, "I was just in the lab at the other end of the house, and I lost track of time."
"I understand, sweetie," Briefs patted his daughter's hand. "God knows it's happened to me before."
"You should've been on time," Vegeta said impatiently. "Whatever you were doing couldn't have been important. You've kept us waiting, and I have to get back to training." Bulma's mouth dropped open and she stared at him, eyes burning with anger.
"Excuse me! Have you considered the possibility that I have meaningful work to do, too? How long were you waiting for me, anyways? Two minutes? Three? I don't know if you're aware of this, but you're not the center of the universe. The Earth revolves around the sun, not you, and other people also have the right to exist!" Vegeta's face darkened and he clenched his hands into fists. He would not tolerate this.
"Insolence!" he spat. "How dare you speak to me this way! I am the Prince of all-"
"Break it up, break it up!" Yamcha interrupted, putting himself in between the two of them. "Jeez, can't you guys get along?" Vegeta crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He would not continue this idiotic conversation. He just wanted to eat, then get back to training.
After a period of slience, Bulma spoke up. "So... it's been really sunny these past few days," Vegeta banged his forehead on the table, which she ignored. "Been out in the garden, mom?" Not listening to Mrs. Briefs's reply, Vegeta watched as the small service doors in the walls slid open and little robots wheeled out, bearing great silver platters of food. At last!
He sat up straight, his stomach growling with hunger. Although the servers seemed to be moving through water, they were going so slow, everything was on the table soon enough. As quick as he could without spilling anything, Vegeta served himself some of everything, careful to leave about half of each dish for the others. He snatched his chopsticks up and started scarfing down food. Tonight there was fried chicken with some sort of spicy orange sauce, steamed broccoli and rice. It was all very good, as usual, though he didn't have time to fully experience it. He must get back to training.
As Vegeta drizzled soy sauce on his rice with one hand, while tearing chicken off the bone and eating it with the other, he felt the eyes of everyone at the table on him. Not pausing or even looking up from his plate, he kept on eating. Moments later, Vegeta abruptly stood up from the table and streaked out the door. For an instant, he had almost thanked Mrs. Briefs for the meal, but he didn't. She was, after all, a nobody. Nobodies didn't deserve thanks.
Stopping by his room briefly to change back into his shorts, Vegeta soon got to the door to the gravity room, hurriedly entered in the code and pushed inside. He was feeling almost 100% recharged, and he was dying to keep going.
He did some warm-up exercises with no gravity on, to shake off the sluggish feeling that came with being full, and jumped right into the highest setting. Vegeta frowned and cracked his knuckles, his back complaining about all of the extra weight it was fighting against. But that was good. It showed him his limits, which he would overcome. Work through the pain, ascend, destroy the androids and then kill Kakarrot. Simple enough.
Vegeta trained and trained until he could barely walk in a straight line, then switched off the machine for the night. There was a final sigh-like hum as it powered down and the lights dimmed. Vegeta also let out a breath and gently massaged the back of his neck. He left, making sure to lock the door behind him, and made his way back to his bedroom.
The corridors of Capsule Corp. were dark and abandoned, and every footstep of Vegeta's echoed in a way that reminded him of emptiness, of being alone, of death. This was his favorite time to walk these halls, all the cheer and light of day gone. Sometimes the world was a dark place, and too many people pretended otherwise. Sometimes, terrible things came out of the shadows and stole people away. But what made this time so special for Vegeta was that he wasn't the innocent and vulnerable person running from their demons,he wasthe cause of their fear. He had the power to decide who lived and who died.
Or he would, if Kakarrot wasn't always in the way. So he needed to become a Super Saiyan. Vegeta almost wanted to turn right around and go train some more, but he knew that he needed to sleep. It was only the first day, anyways. Vegeta had three years to get as powerful as was possible, and then some, and the real test would start tomorrow.
In his room, he kicked off his shoes and jumped into bed. In the last few seconds before sleep overtook him, Vegeta smiled in the darkness. He yawned as his eyes fluttered closed. Look behind you, Kakarrot. Do you see me fast approaching? Do you feel scared, knowing that I'm going to catch up to you and I'm bringing death with me? I will show you what real fear tastes like...
training.
Judging by the paleness of the sky, he must have slept for around five hours. He didn't feel that hungry, so he could go straight to the gravity room.
He jumped out of bed and immediately staggered to a stop, wincing. His entire body ached from head to toe. No big surprise, considering he probably had the greatest workout of his life yesterday.
Vegeta slowly shuffled to a window and opened it. Leaning out, he effortlessly broke off a large chunk of the building and crushed it into smaller and smaller pieces with his bare hands, little shards of stone raining down on the sidewalk.
Dusting himself off, Vegeta did some stretches. So he was as powerful as normal, it just hurt to move. Good, that meant he was stretching his boundaries, going out of his comfort zone. The stretching burned at first, but afterwards the pain eased up a little. Vegeta was sure that he should keep going, that just because all of his muscles ached didn't mean he should let up.
Vegeta took deep breaths and jogged out the door to the gravity room. He could do this. In no time at all, he was in the room and ready to begin. Knowing that it was likely going to be much tougher this time around, Vegeta got a little thrill of excitement. Give him the worst! He would endure, then defeat this obstacle. He was Saiyan, and Saiyans lived tocomplete challenges, to defeat the enemy.
And so, when the gravity and pain came down on him like a 16-ton sledgehammer, Vegeta raised his fist and tilted his head up.
"This- is- nothing!" he roared, locking his knees so that his legs didn't shake. "I am the Prince of All Saiyans! I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!" And he surged across the room, each and every joint crying out in agony, but the pain just focusing him that much more, and pushed on, already stronger than he had been 24 hours ago.
If a human had happened to be watching, Vegeta would seemed to have vanished into thin air. Occasionally, they might catch a dark flash of motion, but only if they were looking hard. The sole indicator that the room wasn't empty were the taps and clicks of feet on stone and the whistling of wind as the Saiyan sliced through the air like a knife.
But, as amazing as one might find it, Vegeta was in hell. It was a small battle just to draw in all the oxygen that he needed, and it took all of his stamina to keep up the speed. It was pure torture. Try as he might, Vegeta could never really ignore his screaming body, and it kept messing him up. Just small things, not ending up quite where he'd planned on after leaping, or missing a kick or two, but Vegeta loathed himself for each and every mistake. He wouldn't stop until he thought enough time had passed, and that wasn't going to be for a while. Until then, his body was just going to have to deal with it.
Vegeta sweated and suffered for hours, until his growling stomach got loud enough to interrupt his focus. He realized that it must be about lunch time, and he powered down the machine. Even though at times it felt like his bones would snap, he relished the feeling of serious exercise. He hadn't had a real challenge in months, and he didn't want to stop. But he had to eat, so he would take a break.
Vegeta went out the door, and sneaked to the kitchen. He was not in the mood for any human interaction, and he was pretty sure that, if he had to speak to anyone at all, he'd do something he'd regret. Or rather, he'd regret the consequences. The actual doing, he'd love.
Opening the fridge, he saw that there was some chicken and rice left over from last night, a carton of milk, eggs, and various fruits and vegetables. Vegeta grabbed the chicken and rice, along with two apples and a carrot. He quickly got a spoon from one of the cupboards, and tore the plastic lid off the chicken's container. Not even bothering to heat it up, Vegeta devoured the cold dinner and gnawed the apples to their cores, the carrot long gone.
Although he could have eaten a lot more, he felt bile rising in his stomach and knew that if he had any more food, he'd throw up. That was okay, hunger sharpened his mind. Taking a swig of milk, he left the room and went back to training.
This time, he tried to turn Super Saiyan on purpose. He knew little about how it was done, just that it was activated by rage. Vegeta visualized Kakarrot, and how much stronger he was, how he didn't deserve to wield such power, how he had utterly surpassed Vegeta in every way...
Although it did make him very, very angry, and he tried so hard to release the power that had to be locked away inside him, he couldn't do it. He screamed with the effort, until he had to pause briefly and regain his breath, but nothing happened. He hadn't expected it to be easy, though, so he wasn't worried... yet.
His head was pounding, and he decided to slow down. He wasn't sure how long he could last if he did his training in super speed.
Vegeta had been working for a long time when it happened. He was in middle of one of his many routines when, with no warning at all, he got incredibly dizzy. He stumbled, almost tripping, and looked around, wide eyes watering. What was happening to him? Nausea wracked his stomach, and it felt like he was going to puke. Clutching his head, Vegeta lurched over to the controls. Had he overdone it?
Gagging, he reached for the keyboard to set the gravity back to normal, but before he could do anything else, the ground flew up at him in the most peculiar little way, and everything was no more.

"Vegeta?"
Groggily, Vegeta came to. He felt like he was made of lead, and he seemed to be lying on his back. What happened? The last thing he remembered was going to turn off the gravity, but after that... nothing. He must have blacked out.
"Vegeta!"
A voice was calling his name. There was a slamming noise, it sounded like there was someone banging at the door. Reflexively, he twisted his head to look, and bit back a scream of pain. If he had thought he was sore this morning (was it still the same day?), well, that was nothing compared to now. It felt like he was dying. Vegeta realized that the heavy gravity was still on. Which meant that he'd have to get up off the floor and switch it off. He groaned. What was the best way of doing this? Fast or slow? He could have been on the ground for hours. What would that do to a person?
Now or never. Eyes screwed shut, Vegeta propped his upper body up on one elbow. The pain was fantastic, and he paused for a few seconds to see if he'd lose consciousness again. So far so good. He slid his legs underneath him until he was on all fours. In addition to being on fire, his muscles seemed to have seized up, so he had to gently flex them until they relaxed a bit. But he was making progress. He could survive long enough to turn off the machine, and then everything would be fine.
"Vegeta, if you don't answer me in five seconds, I'm gonna shut this room down for a week!" Vegeta bristled as he recognized the speaker. Bulma. What was that accursed woman's problem? Couldn't she leave him be? She had no right to speak to him in that way, as if he were a child.
"What is it?" he snapped, crawling to the controls. "This had better be important." With a small shudder, he reached the hole in the wall. As quickly as he could, he turned off the machine. Supporting himself on the wall, Vegeta ran a hand through his hair, trying to wake himself up. He was suddenly feeling very tired now, and he just wanted to get to sleep.
"You didn't come to supper, and it's midnight. I was checking to see if you're still alive, I guess." Though she was joking, Vegeta heard genuine relief in her tone of voice. He hated her irrational concern for him. He didn't understand, nor need it, and it just annoyed him.
"Why do you bother? Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of taking care of myself, I don't require a babysitter."
"For you information, sometimes I walk around at night. So I just happened to notice that the gravity room was still on, and I thought to myself, 'Gee, I'm sure Mr. Responsible wouldn't have forgotten to turn it off, so he must still be there!' You should really get to bed." Vegeta rolled his eyes, heading for the exit. He pushed open the door with a huff of exasperation, and gave Bulma a cold stare.
She was wearing a white T-shirt and sweatpants, with a robe over top, her long blue hair flowing messily down her back.
"How can I get to my room if you're standing-"
"Aaaah! What happened to you?!" she screamed, recoiling away from him. Vegeta raised an eyebrow.
"What?" He looked down at himself. Nothing seemed wrong.
Bulma raised one hand to her mouth and pointed at him with the other. "Y-your eyes!" she whimpered. "They're... uh... maybe you should see for yourself," She tugged on his arm. "There's a mirror over there." With a sigh, Vegeta followed her, though he took back his arm as soon as he could.
"Here," Bulma shoved him in front of a large mirror hanging on the wall. He studied his shadowy reflection. Again, he couldn't see what the human was fussing over. He just looked tired and fed up. His hair was drooping a little.
"I'm fine," he growled. "What have you been babbling on about, woman?" Bulma shook her head.
"No, no, you have to look closer," she leaned forwards confidentially. "It's your eyes." Vegeta groaned, but obliged her and glanced at his face. Although he was tired of this, he had to admit that he was a bit curious as to what the girl was talking about.
And then he saw. For some reason, one of the whites of his eyes had turned completely red. "Oh," he said. He didn't feel anything, it was just... red. Like blood. "Why is it like this?" he asked her. Sometimes Bulma knew about things like this.
"Hmm..." she cocked her head and stared at him. "Can I...?" she gestured to his face. Vegeta willingly stood still as she placed her thumb on his cheekbone and gently pushed the skin back from his eye.
"Okay, look around," she commanded, and he did. Her soft, cool fingers felt nice on his hot skin. "Yeah, it's just as I thought," she mused. "Looks like a lot of the blood vessels in your eye have burst. You really must've been working hard," Her gaze softened and she patted him on the back. "...Take it easy, okay?" He flicked her hand off his shoulder and took a step away from her.
"It doesn't matter what happens to me, as long as I can still train," he said. "I'm not going to change anything. Just tell me, is this anything to be concerned about?" She crossed her arms.
"Not per se, but it shows that you've been working too hard. I need you to make me a promise," Vegeta glanced over his shoulder at her in mid-stride.
"What is it now?" he said in exasperation. All he wanted to do was go to sleep.
Bulma took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, looking for all the world like she was about to head into battle.
"You shouldn't spend all of your time locked up in that room. It's unhealthy. I think that, once a week, you should have dinner with me." Vegeta shook his head and turned to leave. "Wait!" she cried, running after him. "It's only for once a week, and it'll just be with me. You wouldn't have to suffer through dinner with my mom or Yamcha. I know you don't like them." Vegeta paused, considering.
"No," he said, beginning to walk away again.
"Aw, come on Vegeta!" Bulma called. "Am I so bad? Wait, don't answer that. But really, isn't it better if you let your body rest sometimes? You know, more effective?" Again, he stopped and thought about it. She did have a point. "I can ever get the rest of your meals delivered to right outside the gravity room's door," A very good point. But Vegeta still said nothing. "Oh! I can see if Karin has any senzu left!" He blinked. He had forgotten all about the healing beans. How did she do it? All of her arguments were very persuasive, but... why? Why did she want to help him, when he had never done a thing for her? Humans were so strange...
"Why are you doing this?" Vegeta asked warily, studying her. "What could you possibly have to gain?"
Bulma shrugged. "Hey, I happen to like the world. If you guys are gonna insist on fighting the androids instead of pre-emptively destroying them, well... I want to help in any way I can," her voice got softer. "Not much else I can do, is there?"
Vegeta started to pace. True, it probably would be better if he wasn't training every waking hour. And it would be nice to not have to either sneak his food or brave the tedious horrors of the dining table at mealtimes. Bulma was unusually bright for her species, he could survive having supper with her for one night a week...
"Okay," he agreed at last. "I'll do it." Bulma grinned.
"Great!" she chirped. "So, I'll see you on Sunday, which is... in four days. In the meantime, let's both get some sleep," she began to walk away. "Don't kill yourself!" she yelled, waving. Vegeta stood there and watched her go, noticing the subtle way she had ordered him around and not liking it one bit. But, all in all, she didn't seem so bad. One night a week seemed like a small price to pay in exchange for food delivered to his door and senzu beans.
Vegeta turned on his heel and headed back to his room, wondering what exactly he was getting himself into.
training regime.
Although he wasn't a Super Saiyan yet, he was definitely growing stronger. Though the gravity still made him abysmally slow, and at times it felt like he was about to die, he had gotten tough enough to endure his hours of training, as long as he didn't push himself.
The first time he had to eat out with Bulma was admittedly not as bad as he had expected. The mood was formal, almost stiff, and it took him back to the evenings he had spent dining with his parents on planet Vegeta. Civilized and regal, it was at nine o' clock at night so Bulma's parents and the trio of losers were long gone from the table. The food was spectacular -even more so than usual- and the soft glow of lamplight illuminated the room. It was a welcome respite from the harsh overhead lights of the gravity room, and Vegeta appreciated it.
For some reason, maybe since he had been training all day every day, he relaxed and ate slowly, savouring each bite. He didn't spend every thought on when he'd get back to work, what moves he would start with. That hour was the closest thing to peace he had gotten in a long time.. He was starting to feel like a person again.
With each passing week, in between the painful sessions of training, Bulma and Vegeta gradually started to open up to each other and have conversations. Real ones, not just small observations about this or that. They compared their two cultures -though he was careful not to tell her anything even remotely personal- and told stories of their past. Well, that was mostly Bulma. She had made it clear that she didn't want to hear about him murdering entire species and then selling their planets under Freeza. Which was fine by him, as he wasn't particularly keen on telling her in the first place. That slimy dictator didn't deserve to be spoken of.
Sometimes they left the building altogether and tried out the various restaurants in West City. After, Bulma would drive back home and Vegeta would fly as fast as he could in one direction, the wind howling furiously past him and blowing his hair back as he shot over the desert, and then eventually the ocean. Being out in the sea in the middle of the night was one of the few things that he loved about Earth; no land for as far as the eye could see, the endless, pitch black waves roaring underneath him in turmoil. Vegeta would leave his troubles, all his frustration and hatred, behind the second his feet left the ground, and when he was out over the ocean, well, he forgot who he was.
"So, how's the progress been going?" Bulma asked him. They were sitting in Capsule Corp.'s indoor garden, the remnants of a picnic spread out before them.
"Fine." Vegeta leaned back on his elbows, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. "... I'm still not a Super Saiyan," he admitted, "But I am getting stronger."
"That's good," Bulma was lying on her side, absentmindedly playing with a lock of her hair. "You'll do it." With a resolute nod of her head, she looked him in the eye. "I believe in you."
"Why?" Vegeta asked bluntly. She just shrugged her shoulders.
"Cause if you want something badly enough, you get it. That's just the way things are." He snorted.
"Through the 'Power of Positive Thinking'? Don't tell me you believe in that crock. You can't wish things into existence, you have to work for them." Bulma looked away.
"Um, I know. I meant you, as in, you." She pointed at him. "Sorry, I should've said, 'That's just the way things are with you.'"
Vegeta turned and watched her. Why did she think that? Normally, he would be outraged that she was assuming that she knew how he worked, but he felt... well, he didn't exactly like it, but he didn't mind it so much, either.
Bulma met his gaze, then her eyes flickered away in that strange human way, then she looked back.
"You think that I can do it?" he whispered, inching closer. She, also, leaned in slightly to hear him better.
"Yeah," she breathed.
"I hope, for my sake, that you're right," he cocked his head and gave her a wry smile. "Otherwise, I'll probably die." They gravitated towards each other until their noses were almost touching.
"Vegeta," Bulma said, almost too quiet to hear, "Don't die,"
He kissed her.
Bulma let out a sharp gasp and froze, but after a few seconds she put her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back, her soft lips pressed against his.
Vegeta let out a sigh. This was nice. This was really, really nice. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers, all of a sudden feeling sleepy. He got up and stretched. "I should get back," he said with a yawn. "See you in a week," Bulma blinked.
"Uh, yeah," she said, her voice high-pitched. "Bye." For some reason, she was giving him a strange look. He chose to ignore that, and headed out the door without thinking any more of it.
As he went back to his room, he was feeling significantly lighter than normal. Was this what it was like to be human? All... soft and warm and fuzzy? He was sure that he wouldn't want to live like this, but he could learn to like it once in a while. He had heard that there were all these rules and guidelines when it came to this sort of thing, and he wondered if he made any mistakes.
And then he was in his room, and his thoughts turned to training once more before he fell asleep.

Months later, and he hadn't ascended yet. Vegeta was more than a little bothered, but he kept at it. He wasn't about to give up, even though he was making little progress. Oh, he was making progress all right, only not the kind he wanted. It didn't matter how strong he got in his normal form, as long as he wasn't a Super Saiyan, it didn't count.
One night, he was just walking out the door to get to bed when he ran into Yamcha, of all people. He was standing right outside the door of the gravity room, obviously waiting for him. He had a tense, confrontational look on his face.
"What?" Vegeta said, crossing his arms. The Earthling was sweating, probably because it was nervous, and looked angry at him. Vegeta wondered why.
"Listen, Vegeta," he began, "I know that you've been getting to know Bulma over the past while, and I just want you to know that that's not a bad thing," he giggled nervously, and Vegeta gave him a blank look, not knowing where this was going.
Yamcha subconsciously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and fidgeted. "But... just don't get too cozy, okay?"
Vegeta blinked. "Huh?" he asked. What was this about?
"I mean, she's very important to me, and I don't want to see her hurt." Vegeta let out a bark of laughter as he suddenly realized what the human was trying to say.
"I see what this is about! You're jealous, aren't you?" His shoulders shook with laughter. This was hilarious! It was almost endearing, the way the male was so concerned about her. But Vegeta knew that there wasn't anything going on between the two of them, Bulma had told him that they used to date but that was all.
Yamcha glared at him. "So what if I am? Just... just stay away from her!" He edged towards Vegeta, fists raised in anger, until he was towering over the Saiyan. Vegeta noticed their height difference, but didn't back away. He was not afraid of this figuratively puny weakling. "Or else I'll... I'll-"
"You'll what?" Vegeta interrupted. "There isn't a damn thing you can do because you," he poked Yamcha in the chest, "are pathetic. I'll do what I want." Yamcha's face turned red with anger, and he stepped back.
"You want to fight? 'Cause I'll do it!" he yelled. "Right here, right now!" Vegeta smirked.
"You think you're being noble? You're too weak to have even the faintest hope of challenging me. This isn't bravery, this is absolute stupidity!" He made a dismissive gesture. "Go sleep your life away, worm." He turned to leave.
As he was walking away, Vegeta felt the Earthling's chi flare. Without stopping or even turning around, he shot a hand out and blocked the kick that Yamcha had aimed at his head. Vegeta slowly rotated and stared at him, not letting go of his leg. This was starting to get annoying.
"What did I just say?" Vegeta said quietly, and for the first time he saw real terror in the man's eyes. He smiled at the human's cowardice, and tightened his grip. Yamcha winced in pain. "It takes a lot of guts to attack someone from behind, doesn't it?" he said sarcastically. "Now begone, before I really lose my patience." He leaned closer to the fool, grinning diabolically. "Or do you want me to break something?"

Yamcha let out a small whimper of fear and shook his head.
"What was that?" Vegeta said. "I didn't quite hear you. Was that a yes?"
"What's going on?" a voice cried. Vegeta immediately released his prey and sighed. Of all the times for Bulma to stick her nose in, just when he was starting to have some real fun. He gave a small growl of frustration.
"Just giving Yamcha some tips on how to fight like a man," he called to her, as she hurried over to them. "I think he almost understands the concept."
"Was he?" she asked the male, who shook his head.
"No. He was threatening me," he said, matter-of-fact. Vegeta hissed under his breath. Did the idiot want to die? "I told him to keep his hands off you, and he got mad," He ran to Bulma and hugged her protectively. "Bulma," he whispered, "I think that you should stay away from him. He's... not safe," Vegeta leaned against the wall.
"I can hear you, you know," he said. Bulma, much to Vegeta's amusement, pushed Yamcha away.
"I think I can make my own decisions on who to trust, thanks," she said stiffly. "He's not as bad as you think, aren't you, V?" He rolled his eyes.
"Don't call me that," he said. But inside, he was chuckling over how she was choosing him, an alien mass-murderer who had been responsible for the death of half her friends, over someone she had known for years and had loved. But had she ever loved him? Vegeta wasn't so sure about that.
"Fine!" Yamcha said indignantly. "Excuse me for wanting to keep you alive! But I'm right... you'll see..." he was backing away now. "You're the devil!" he yelled, then ran around the corner.
Vegeta doubled over, laughing his head off. Bulma huffed in disapproval, but she was smiling.
"Why were you here? Your room's on the other end of the building," he said, once he had caught his breath. Bulma shrugged.
"I dunno, I was just lying awake in bed and I thought to myself, 'Man, Sunday's such a long time from now', so I went to find you." He eyed her.
"You missed me?"
She nodded. "Yeah." There were a few moments of silence. Then she casually wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. "I was wondering... do you want to go to bed with me?" Vegeta's eyes widened slightly as he realized what that entailed, and he was momentarily speechless. They had kissed a lot more since the first time, but things had never gone further than that.
"Okay," he said finally, decision made. He had to admit, he was curious as to what it would be like, and now seemed as good a time as any. Bulma smiled in pleasure and nuzzled his neck, biting his ear softly.
"Which room? Yours or mine?" He scooped her into his arms, as a husband would a bride.
"Mine. It's closer," he said, and he ran quickly through the maze of hallways to get to his room. She laughed in delight as they sped through the rooms.
"Oh my god, this is so fast!" she whooped. "Amazing!"
"We're here," he said, skidding to a stop. She looked at him fondly.
"Is this what it's like, being you?" she asked. He nodded.
"Pretty much." Vegeta grinned, pushed the door open and gestured inside. "Ladies first,"

Wide awake, Vegeta rolled over in bed. Well. That was... interesting. It was like nothing he'd ever done before. He had enjoyed it, amazingly so, but it had left him feeling exposed and conflicted inside. Vegeta knew that Bulma thought he was more commited to her than he actually was. Sure, she was smart, funny, nice and sexy, but he wasn't the kind of person who could be there for her when she needed him. He wasn't a loyal, protective goodie-two-shoes like Kakarrot seemed to be. There may be times when it would seem otherwise, but in the end he worked alone.
For now, however, he was content to lie in bed and just enjoy his human. He nestled closer to Bulma's sleeping form, put his arm around her, pulled her to him and tried to fall alseep.
After at least a half hour, however, he accepted that it wasn't going to happen and got up. If he wasn't sleeping, he may as well be training. He pulled on his shorts, then covered Bulma up with the blanket in case she got cold. That was probably what a human male would do, wasn't it?
Once he had been working for a few hours, he finally noticed something that had been going on for a long time behind his back. He wasn't getting stronger.
He had been visualizing becoming a Super Saiyan as getting to the top of a very long ladder. Whenever he made progress, he imagined himself climbing a few more rungs. But lately, he hadn't been getting any higher. He frantically wracked his brain, trying to recall the last time he had eaten a senzu. It had been a week ago. Did he get a power surge afterwards? To his horror, he couldn't remember.
He did, however, recall that he had been too busy thinking about Bulma at the time to notice if he had.
"NO!" Vegeta fell to his knees, heedless of any gravity whatsoever. This was bad.
How could he let himself get distracted by some useless Earth woman? He was a fool! He should've given his training top priority, should've single-mindedly devoted himself to it, but instead he had allowed himself to... to be seduced by Bulma! He was a soft, idiotic waste of space. This couldn't go on.
He had to push her away. That was the only option.
Vegeta was outraged to find that a small part of him objected to that. It wanted to stay with her, where it was warm and happy all the time and nobody worried about anything. He forcefully grabbed that part, beat the living daylights out of it and then locked it up deep inside him so that it would never escape. It was poisoning him, turning him from a proud and heartless killing machine into a soft, spineless maggot. He would not tolerate this.
Setting his jaw, Vegeta marched off to find Bulma, a determined glint in his eye. He ran back to his room in a few seconds, but she was nowhere to be found. He took a deep breath, her scent filling his nostrils. Sweet like honey, but not overpoweringly so, with the slight bite of peppermint, he followed it out the door and through the building until he came to the little yellow breakfast room. And there she was, wearing her bathrobe and eating a bowl of cereal.
Upon seeing him, she got up and smiled. "'Morning!" she greeted, her voice a bit hoarse with sleep. "Been training already?" Vegeta nodded.
"Yeah. Listen, there's something I need to talk to you about," Bulma's face lit up.
"Did you do it?" she asked excitedly. For a moment, he actually felt guilty. She really did care about him. Oh well, her loss.
"I don't want to see you anymore," he said, purposely leaving out all the details. The best thing he could do for Bulma at this point was to get her so angry at him that she didn't want to be with him anymore. That would make things easier.
Bulma stared at him. "Wha...? I don't understand," she said, her brow furrowed.
"Come on, you're a smart girl. It's simple, really. We won't have meals together, there'll be no more kissing and definitely no more..." he trailed off, a bit too embarrassed to finish his sentence. "You know what I mean."
"But last night...?" Bulma looked so betrayed and hurt. Vegeta was surprised she wasn't mad at him yet. One final touch should do it.
"...Was nothing," he finished. "If you think it was, then you're a needy fool who's ruled by her emotions." Ah yes, there we go. Bulma's face was darkening in anger.
"Then why did you even bother?" she snapped, crossing her arms and turning away from him.
"Idle curiosity," he replied simply. The female was glaring at him with more venom than he'd ever seen her use before.
"Oh my god, Yamcha was right," she said softly. "Fine. Go ahead and waste your life training in that precious room of yours. Just... just leave me alone," she said lowly, through gritted teeth. "Before I kick you out on the streets." He left, but not before meeting her gaze for a few seconds with his most haughty, unintimidated look.
As he raced back to the gravity room, Vegeta briefly wondered what would have become of them if he hadn't purposefully ruined everything. But then he snapped himself out of it. He still had to ascend, and no silly human would prevent him from doing so any longer.
Vegeta stomped into the gravity room, head pounding with fury. He was angry at so many things, himself most of all. How could he let Bulma steer him away from his training? It would have been barely acceptable if he had already achieved his initial goal and become a Super Saiyan, but the way he was now... he was disgusted with himself.
Vegeta wanted to break something (or someone) very badly, but the only thing around was the gravity machine, and if he broke that, he would truly be an idiot.
He paced around the room restlessly, too frustrated to stay still, yet too distracted to train. He would have to fix that.
Going over to the controls, hands shaking with rage, he set the gravity to maximum. Not waiting for it, he launched into one of his most elabourate and tricky routines, one that he had barely tried with 300 Gs because it was so physically demanding. When the gravity hit, Vegeta was in the middle of a kick and he loathed how his leg sank under theextra weight and he almost fell over.
It didn't matter how hard he was working, Vegeta refused to let the gravity affect him at all. He wouldn't lose to this, too.
Hardly aware that he was doing something that he had found virtually impossible before, Vegeta slowly made his way around the circumference of the room, kicking and punching and spinning as if he was possessed.
"RRAAAH!" he screamed, bringing his clasped hands down on the floor hard enough to crack it. Then he stood still, panting, realization dawning on him.
Have I done it? He didn't feel a bottomless pit of untapped energy inside him, and it was still hard to move around the room. Not yet entirely convinced, Vegeta snagged a lock of his hair between two fingers and brought it in front of his eyes. Still jet black.
Vegeta's entire body shivered, the false hope almost too much for him to take. He threw himself to the ground and sobbed with rage. That was the last straw. No more going outside except for sleeping and getting food. Every single moment of his time in the room would be spent pushing against his limits. From now on, he was going full throttle. He had wasted roughly half the time he had before the androids came, the rest would be put to good use. If they killed him, he would deserve it for slacking off.
And so, Vegeta locked himself in the gravity room for eighteen hours a day. Since he was working much harder than before, harder, in fact, than he would have thought possible, he grew stronger still. However, his progress was considerably slower than it had been before. Vegeta took this as a good sign, that you could only gain so much power before you had to ascend. So he kept at it, thinking himself almost there.
He hadn't been outside in months, and his normally light brown skin was a few shades paler than was healthy. He broke bones, many bones, lots of ribs (which he could ignore for a while), and each of his arms and legs (which forced him to take a senzu). He was running low on his supply of the healing beans, so he was a bit more cautious. He was not about to ask Bulma for anything.
The first few days after he pushed Bulma away, Vegeta had to fend for himself for food, but he found it appearing at his door again soon enough. This time, however, it didn't smell like her. Before, it always had her scent hovering around it but now there was only the faint tang of metal. She was probably getting a robot to deliver his meals, so she had obviously not forgiven him. Vegeta had literally not seen her since she told him to get out of the kitchen.
Eventually, the small raise in power that he had been getting stopped altogether. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he pushed himself, there was no change. A normal person would have been driven mad long ago by the isolation alone, but he barely noticed it. Vegeta screamed at the empty air, demanding to know what he was doing wrong, if the universe was trying to make him miserable. And he kept training. There wasn't anything else for him to do.
Then, at around the two year mark, there was a knock on his door. To his embarrassment, it actually startled him. It had been so long since he'd seen another person, he had kind of forgotten that they existed. In a good way, though.
"Hello?" he asked, then immediately cleared his throat. His voice was very rusty.
"It's Bulma." He was surprised to hear her voice. The last time he saw her was six months ago. But, when he thought about it, who else would visit him?
He dragged himself to the door, not bothering to turn off the machine. "This had better be important," he muttered, pulling the door open.
Vegeta's mouth opened slightly when he saw her. Bulma looked like she had aged ten years. Instead of being in the ridiculous blue afro, her hair was straightened and cut short. She had makeup on, but not too much. She was wearing a short, soft-looking dress with a floral pattern and she had small, golden rings in her ears.
"You've changed," he stated. Bulma glanced at him, a coldness in her gaze that hadn't been there before.
"So have you," her eyes hardened. "Looks like you haven't been taking care of yourself."
"What I do is none of your business, woman," he told her, wearily. "Why are you here?" Bulma sighed.
"Yeah, about that. There's something I have to tell you," she said crisply.
"What?" Vegeta sensed that whatever she had to say was important, and so he gave her his full attention.
Bulma looked down at the ground. "...I'm pregnant."
Vegeta did a double take, caught off guard for once. "Oh," he said, unsure of what to say. "And?"
"I just want to make sure that you don't get the wrong idea," Bulma said, raising her hands defensively. "I'm not asking to have you back. I just thought you ought to know, since... since you're the father and all." He nodded slowly, struck by her thoughtfullness. He had done everything he could to make her hate him, and yet she was still being considerate. Is this what it meant to be an Earthling?
"You don't have to do anything for me, but..." she took a deep breath. "Can you be there for the baby? You don't even have to be a real parent, in fact I'd rather that you didn't," she chuckled. "But just make sure that he or she knows they have a father." Bulma raised her head and looked at him imploringly. "You can even train them, if you want."
All of a sudden, he felt the urge to apologize to her, to promise her that he would be a good father, and it made him angry. There she went again, using her knowledge of him to persuade him do what she wanted, all the while making it seem like it wasn't a big deal. He didn't have to do anything. He almost wanted to refuse, just to spite her, but he knew he couldn't. Vegeta would keep the tales of the Saiyan people alive through this child, he would make sure that his offspring knew the truth about their heritage as soon as it could understand. But he wouldn't do anything for anyone until after he had ascended.

Was the blasted woman trying to distract him again?
"I make no promises," he said at last. "But thank you for telling me," Bulma gave a tight nod.
"Well, I suppose that's the best I could hope for. You'll be geting back to your training, then?"
"Yes," Vegeta already had the door partly closed. "Goodbye," and he shut it.
He stood in the center of the room and listened to her go. For a long time, he just stood there, staring at the wall. What was wrong with him?
To the best of his ability, he had worked as hard as he could. He had trained until his bones snapped, until his over-worked muscles burned, until he thought he would drop dead. But he still wasn't a Super Saiyan. In fact, he hadn't seen any signs that he was ever going to become one.
Vegeta slumped to the ground and swallowed, feeling empty and emotionless. Was this it? Was this all that he was capable of? Could he not push himself any further than this? Face buried in his hands, he tipped over and lay on the ground, not moving. What was the point, anymore? Why do anything?
Even with the gravity machine on all the way, Vegeta still found it pitifully easy to curl up into a little ball and fall asleep.

Vegeta was running as fast as he could towards a point of light far on the horizon. Everywhere else he looked was pitch black, and he couldn't even see the ground beneath his feet. But he knew it was there.
He didn't understand what the light was, but he was almost helpless to go towards it. It was like a force of unimaginable power, and there really wasn't anywhere else he could go.
Vegeta had been running for either an eternity or a few more seconds, when he grew curious about the darkness. Something was there with him, he could feel it. In fact, many things.
He charged up a relatively weak chi blast and threw it ahead of him. It exploded, filling the place with white light. Vegeta eagerly looked around.
He was in a long tunnel, probably not man-made. The walls and floor were rough and natural looking. But that was not the only thing that he saw.
People were leaning against the walls, as far as the eye could see. They were of every species, not just human. Vegeta, still sprinting towards the light, started as he realized that he knew them. Every single one.
In fact, he couldn't think of anyone who wasn't there. He saw Bulma and everyone who lived at Capsule Corp. He glared at Freeza, momentarily filled with hatred, but it evapourated as he flashed away.
He screeched to a stop as he almost plunged, head-first, into the light. Although, as he squinted at it, it was really more like the entrance to a huge cave. It was so big that he couldn't see the ceiling or walls, or even the ground. He was standing on a cliff.
The white room seemed to be singing, a song of power and conquering. Vegeta took a step forward, drawn to it. Or rather, he tried to. Because his feet were planted to the floor, and he couldn't lift them.
As he was struggling to break free, a form started to materialize in the room. Vegeta paused long enough to watch it turn into Kakarrot, then returned to his work, anger surging through his veins.
"Hey, Vegeta!" Kakarrot called out cheerfully. He was a Super Saiyan, his golden hair hard to make out against the white background. "Man, you should be here right now. It's amazing!" he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "Power like you wouldn't believe."
"I know," Vegeta growled. He could feel it, the raw energy seeping out of Kakarrot. It was a staggering amount, and he wasn't even fighting yet. This kind of power shouldn't be possible.
Every cell in his body yearned to join Kakarrot, to experience what it was like to be a Super Saiyan. But he couldn't free himself.
"Need any help?" Kakarrot asked. "I could probably break you out in two seconds flat." He offered his hand.
Vegeta spat at it. "No. I can do it by myself. Leave me alone,"
Kakarrot drifted forward. "But I'll be able to do it! All you have to do is take my hand, and then you can join me," Vegeta shook his head.
Kakarrot floated closer to him, face suddenly menacing. "Take it," he commanded in an unfamiliar voice. "Take it or you die with the weak." Vegeta tried to take a step back, and found that he could move again. He spun off into the darkness, fleeing from the other Saiyan.
He looked blindly over his shoulder, and saw that Kakarrot was gaining on him. He cursed his foolishness. How could he expect himself to get away from a Super Saiyan? He was a coward. Better to face him.
Vegeta whirled around and braced himself. "What is it that you want from me?" he yelled. Kakarrot slowed and hovered before him, an unearthly glow emanating from his being.
"Vegeta," he intoned, "You think you can ascend like me?" Vegeta slowly nodded.
"Yes I do," he said.
"Then you are a fool! Your destiny is not to walk the path of a Super Saiyan. It is to rot with the mediocre fighters. Give up. You just don't have what it takes," And with that, Kakarrot disappeared, along with the white light.
Standing alone in the darkness, Vegeta clenched his teeth. How dare he? It wasn't Kakarrot's place to tell him what he was and wasn't capable of. He felt angry enough to kill, it didn't matter who. He just need to destroy something. If there was going to be a Super Saiyan, it should have been him. This wasn't right, it wasn't fair, it couldn't be this way, something was wrong...
With a gasp, Vegeta snapped out of his nightmare as suddenly as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on his head. It was just a dream. He groaned. Before he went to sleep, he had just given up his last remaining hope of ever becoming a Super Saiyan. Why? It wasn't like him give up. But the situation seemed so hopeless...
What if his dream was right?
This time, the thought that maybe he just wasn't good enough to ascend filled him with rage instead of defeat. Why would he give up, now of all times? This was just an incentive to work even harder. He would stop trying to keep his body intact. He would shatter every bone he had, if it meant becoming a Super Saiyan.
But that wasn't good enough. The hatred that he felt towards Kakarrot and himself was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was massive, consuming him, pushing him to new heights of awareness. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this furious. Growing up under Freeza, being forced to retreat from Earth, even when he found out that Kakarrot had become a Super Saiyan instead of him- all paled in comparison to his anger. It was almost a living thing on its own.
Hardly aware he was doing it, Vegeta got up off the floor and stood in the middle of the room, eyes closed and arms at his sides. His teeth chattered and he clenched his hands tightly into fists as he entered an almost trance-like state.
In his mind's eye, he was once again in the dark plane with the light off in the distance. He sailed towards it with impossible speed -much faster than he had gone before- and before he could think about how he had gotten stuck at the entrance he burst through and was in the white dimension.
A shudder passed through Vegeta's body, and the vision was gone. He slowly opened his eyes to a new world.
On the surface, Vegeta didn't know what had happened, underneath that, he suspected but didn't dare believe, but at the very bottom of his soul he knew.
With awe, as if in a dream, Vegeta raised a hand in front of his face. There was a faint white aura surrounding it, constantly flickering like flames.
And then he wasn't able to stay still any longer. There was some huge force inside him that demaned action, that wasn't content to lie around. Forgetting, for once, about the gravity machine, (he could have been weightless, for all he knew) Vegeta unlocked the door and, barely trying at all, sprinted out at a speed that far surpassed what he had been capable of before. Instantly, he was at the end of a hallway that had a huge window in the place of a wall. Without pausing, Vegeta somersaulted once and then smashed right through it, feet first, and took to the air, soaring over West City.
As the sun shone on him from above, warming his face, he felt all the limits that had frustrated him to no end slip away. All that was left was a massive, astonishing reservoir of power. What power! It was marvelous.
In the blink of an eye, Vegeta was out over the ocean. He caught his reflection in the water, nothing more than a streak of golden light, and he could finally think again.
He had done it.
Laughing with glee, he swooped closer to the sea and his aura alone was enough to part the water into two giant waves that crashed together in his wake. He flipped and rolled as he cut through the air, whooping with joy. He felt happy enough to burst. I did it! I did it! he kept chanting to himself.
Finally, when he had had enough, he drifted to a stop and hovered right above the ocean, toes pointed. As the wind whipped his pale gold hair around him, he stared into the horizon peacefully, a huge weight lifted from his shoulders. He hadn't felt this relaxed in what seemed like forever, but in reality had only been a few months.
Glancing down at the water again, Vegeta smiled. His eyes, while just as piercing as they had been before, had shifted from black to light green. His hair was, of course, yellow, and his white aura blew around him with the breeze. Altogether, he looked like some divine being. Which just goes to show that looks can be misleading. He was no good spirit. Kakarrot, maybe. But him? He was an angel of death.
A positively malicious grin grew on his face as he thought about how no one could stop him now. He now understood how Kakarrot had overpowered Freeza. With this unlimited speed and strength that he had access to, defeating the overlord would be child's play.
Looking off into the distance again, Vegeta took a deep, even breath in and then released it. So you didn't have to be pure of heart to ascend.
He had been in this form for all of five minutes now, and Vegeta was already having to focus just to hold on to it. He let it go, watching his hair darken to black and the white aura dissolve. He would practice activating and being a Super Saiyan for longer periods of time later. For now, he just wanted to take it easy.
Vegeta flew back the way he came at a leisurely pace, still high on excitement. He had done it. It had taken him much longer than he expected, but now everything would be fine. He couldn't picture anything that could challenge his newfound power -much less a few cans of wires and spare parts- and after the androids were taken care of, he would finally deal with Kakarrot.
When he got home, Vegeta spent the rest of the day trying to call the Super Saiyan back. He managed to do it once more, to his delight it wasn't nearly as hard as it had been to become it in the first place. And when he had retired to his room, a trace of a smile still played on his lips.
At last.
training, but now that he was a Super Saiyan he wasn't so desperate to get stronger. He sensed that spending every waking moment in the gravity room wouldn't help him as much as it had before. And he missed the outdoors: the fresh air, the wind.
Vegeta ran inside to the gravity room, purposely avoiding any chi he felt. He wanted to spend as much time alone as he could before it was time to fight.
Once he was inside, he swiftly dialled up the gravity. His base form had grown a lot stronger ever since he had first transformed, but 300 Gs still killed his speed. He took a deep breath, focused on a point on the wall and released the Super Saiyan. It had taken some work, but Vegeta could now call it up at will.
Energy exploded out from inside him, and stray bits of rubble scattered, blown away from him by his transformation.
Vegeta immediately felt comfortable in the heavy gravity, and he easily began one of the toughest training drills he knew. Training wasn't so much about getting stronger anymore, now he was trying to hold onto this form for as long as possible. Although the gravity felt like nothing at first, it did take its toll eventually. The complex, mentally demanding excercises and the 300 Gs made it harder for him to stay Super. It wouldn't do for him to lose his concentration in the midst of a fight, so Vegeta was taking no chances.
"Vegeta!" He was forcefully broken out of his training-induced trance by the sound of Bulma shouting his name from the hallway. For a second, Vegeta got a disorientating case of déjà vu and his grip on the Super Saiyan wavered. But he quickly reclaimed it, and vowed to work harder than ever as he went to answer the door. Pulling it open, Bulma was nowhere to be found.
"Bulma?" he poked his head out into the hallway and saw her. She was running towards him, looking very pregnant. She ground to a halt in front of him, eyes wide and panting.
"Oh my god, you did it," Bulma squeaked. Vegeta realized that she didn't know and smiled. "Wow. Congratulations." She took a few seconds to catch her breath, then winced. "Okay, I am having contractions right now, I'm on my way to the hospital and I'll be gone for a few days. Just thought I'd let you know. I'll probably bring him over to meet you when I get back. Oh yeah, it's a boy!" she paused, greedily sucking in air, then continued. "I'm freaking out right now so I have to go and I'll see you later!" And with that, she ran off.
Vegeta stood there, feeling a strange combination of amusement and shock. Well. Nice of her to stop by and tell him that his son was going to be born. Of course, the gravity room was close to the garage where all the cars were, so it would have been on her way.
He sat down right where he was and thought. Even for him, this was a bit much to take in. He had forgotten that Bulma was pregnant, and he was left speechless at her twelve second visit. So he was going to be a father. Vegeta didn't know how he felt about that yet. He had no experience working with children, to him they were just adults that weren't done yet.
He should probably just play it by ear. His son would be different from the rest, he knew that, so there was really no point in learning anything about parenting. That would be Bulma's job.
Vegeta abruptly stood up and spun around. No use thinking about it any longer. He had training to do.

Two days later
Vegeta paused in mid-punch. Bulma's chi, which had been stationary at the hospital for the past while, started moving towards him. Despite himself, a small flutter of nervousness gnawed at his stomach. Coming his way was his son, and he hated the utter uncertainty that nagged at him. He didn't know the first thing about being a father, but if Kakarrot could do it, so could he -and better.
Vegeta stopped his training altogether and eased back into his normal form, knowing that he couldn't pay attention enough to keep going. He paced restlessly around the room, moving in sudden jerks. Pull yourself together! he chided in his mind. It's just an infant, for crying out loud! Still, the sooner he got this over with, the better.
Their progress was painfully slow. He knew that humans would always be humans, but still. This was ridiculous. It would probably take them at least another ten minutes just to pull up to Capsule Corps.'s driveway.
Vegeta stopped his pacing and shook his head with a laugh. This was stupid. What was he worrying about? He grinned, amused at himself, all of his tension gone. He was the Prince of all Saiyans, and nothing was going to change that. Not when the Saiyan race was reduced to two, not having a son. Nothing.
He ran out the door and a few seconds later was in his bathroom, pulling a comb through his hair. He didn't really care what Bulma thought of his appearance, but it passed the time and if he didn't untangle it occasionally then it would get hopelessly knotty.
Afterwards, he splashed cold water on his face and went out to the hallway. Okay, that had helped. They were almost there. Vegeta estimated that they would be pulling up in about thirty seconds.
He jogged through Capsule Corp., at an easy pace that he could keep up indefinitely without getting tired. That killed off another ten seconds. Finally, he decided to just give up and meet them at the door. Vegeta walked almost as slowly as a human, so he got there just as Bulma was getting out of the car.
Capsule Corp.'s foyer was empty, and he casually leaned against the wall, waiting for Bulma and his son. He saw three humanoid figures approaching the door through the frosted glass.
The door opened, light spilled into the dim room, and there was Bulma. A little bundle was cradled in her arms, and she was looking over her shoulder at her parents.
"Okay, I'll see you at dinner," she was saying. Then she stepped through the doorway, her parents staying behind. For a moment, Vegeta just watched her curiously. Her shoulders slumped, she closed her eyes and sighed. Bulma looked run down, but he noticed the small smile that appeared on her face when she glanced at the blankets in her arms.
When he had had enough, Vegeta stepped out of the shadows. "Hello," he said. He had to restrain a laugh as she spun around, a look of horror on her face.
"Vegeta!" she hissed, hand on her chest. "Don't do that! You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"Not my fault that you didn't see me standing there," Vegeta grinned. He hadn't meant to startle her, but that didn't make it any less hilarious.
"Ugh. Whatever," Bulma said, rolling her eyes. "So you want to see him?" she said, perking up. He nodded, moving closer, and she held up their son.
Despite his mother jumping three feet in the air, the baby was sleeping peacefully. He only had a few strands of pale hair, so all Vegeta knew about his hair color was that it wasn't black. Would the child grow up to have blue hair like Bulma?
"First impressions?" Bulma asked. "You can't tell right now, but he has your eyes. Even when he's happy, it's like he's angry. He looks mean," Vegeta crossed his arms and chose to ignore what she said.
"Nothing seems inherently wrong with him," he said. Bulma beamed.
"Great! Now we just have to name him." Vegeta groaned. "Hey, it won't be so bad," Bulma elbowed him in the ribs. "You haven't given this any thought at all, have you."
"No. What were you thinking of?"
"Trunks!" she exclaimed. "What do you think? Kind of has a nice ring to it, right?" She was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement, and Vegeta stared at her. Bulma was in an abnormally good mood. Was this how new parents acted? Because honestly, he wasn't feeling it. All his anxiety up until this point seemed like over-reacting. It really wasn't that big a deal, he could see that now.
"Trunks," he snorted, realization dawning. "Keeping the tradition alive, I see." She shrugged, grinning sheepishly. "Okay, fine. I can think of worse names."
"Do you want to hold him?" she asked, offering Trunks.
"No," he said bluntly, turning to walk away. He wanted to be alone and think.
"Hey, come back!" she called after him. "How did you finally do it?" He ignored her and sped up. "Wait, Vegeta-" He rounded the corner and was out of earshot.
His life was changing again and again, and Vegeta barely had time to catch his breath before he was in a different place. Would this constant shifting of realities ever stop?

May 12th
5:37 AM
Vegeta took the cardboard box down from the shelf in his closet, blowing the dust off the top. Fresh from the shower, he was holding a battle suit that he had gotten Bulma to make for him. Once Bulma had gotten over the high of being a new mother, Vegeta could tell that she hadn't completely forgiven him for breaking her delicate, human heart. There was an unspoken agreement between the two of them to pretend that they had never slept with each other, which was just as well. Vegeta had no use for romance of any sort- he had learned his lesson.
All in all, when he had told Bulma to make him a set of armor like the kind Saiyans wore, she did it without complaint. And now it was time to put it to good use.

Carefully, Vegeta lifted the lid off and tossed it aside. Emptying the contents on his bed, he scrutinized Bulma's work.
The gloves, boots and navy blue catsuit were identical to the ones he had worn before, but the body armor was different, having straps instead of shoulder pads. It would do, better than having to fight in a gi like the Earthlings and Kakarrot. He wasn't one of them, he would not wear their clothes.
Stepping into the suit and pulling on the boots and gloves, Vegeta had to acknowledge that Bulma had done a good job. Other than the obvious stylistic differences, her armor was exactly the same as his old gear. She had even gotten the breastplate to stretch.
Vegeta quickly did a few fighting drills, testing out the flexibility. To his satisfaction, he found that it was just as easy to move around in as Freeza's armor had been. Now it was time to leave.
Dashing through the halls of Capsule Corp., Vegeta stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the open doorway to Bulma's room. He looked inside to find her sprawled out on her bed, Trunks wrapped in her arms, both asleep. Vegeta gazed at them curiously. Their hearts belonged to him, for him to do what he wanted with. He wouldn't use that connection, however, they could live out their small lives in peace and comfort.
Vegeta, however, had a fight to get to.
Shaking his head, he sped out of the mansion. Relationships were complicated, which was one of the reasons why he didn't try to build them. They were messy, distracting, time-consuming, and not worth it at all. They just made you weak.
Out on the ocean, heading towards South City, Vegeta momentarily stopped anticipating the fight and just enjoyed the crisp, early-morning air. Earth wasn't so bad. He could tolerate living there, after all.
Vegeta knew that there was plenty of time to spare, so he didn't hurry. After three years' worth of build-up, he actually felt calm and relaxed. At least one person was going to die by his hands today, and he was looking forward to fighting an actual creature, after training alone for the past while.
Vegeta found the right island, and camped out on a small rock poking out of the sea near it. He closed his eyes and went over training routines in his head. Sometimes he jumped up and down to keep his blood flowing, and the hours slowly ticked by.
Impatiently, Vegeta scanned the horizon. Maybe it was a mistake to have come so early. But finally, he spotted a group of dots quickly moving through the sky. There were four of them, and they came to a stop above the island. Probably Kakarrot and his friends.
They landed on the island, and for a long time nothing happened. Vegeta decided that he would join them when the fight started, but for now he'd keep his distance.
A hovercar was shot out of the air, and Vegeta got up when he felt the chi levels of the group spike. But nobody was actually fighting yet, so he stayed put.
Interesting... he couldn't feel any chi other than the Earthlings. So robots didn't give off energy. How annoying.
Suddenly, half of the town on the island exploded. As the smoke cleared away, nothing was left but smoldering ruins.
Vegeta laughed. That would be the androids. And, sure enough, he saw two forms rise out from the wreckage, then blast away, Kakarrot and his friends close behind.
Vegeta flexed his gloved hands, grinned, and took off from his rock, following them.
Showtime.
For the past three days, Vegeta had stood on the same stone ledge in the middle of the desert.
After all that had happened -his shameful defeat at the hands of no. 18, the revelation of Cell's existence, being surpassed by Piccolo- he felt dazed. The only thing inside him other than emptiness was the constant, dull rage. It gnawed away at him, sometimes almost undetectable, sometimes not, always burning. He could not accept this- he would not. Even after all that he had suffered just to become a Super Saiyan, he still found himself out-classed. This was absurd.
He had narrowed down the courses of action to two choices. Quitting -which was not a serious option- or getting stronger still. It had to be possible, to transcend the Super Saiyan. The Namekian had grown more powerful than Vegeta, Saiyans were the superior species, and Vegeta was Saiyan royalty. It was simple logic. He would do it, somehow. Hemust.
He had fled to the desert to be alone with his thoughts, but Trunks had soon hunted him down. He had requested that Vegeta be his sparring partner, but Vegeta had denied. For now, at least, he had no desire to train with his so-called son from the future. He had tried to drive him off, but Trunks had stubbornly refused to leave unless Vegeta agreed to his proposal. So the Saiyan Prince simply ignored him, which was easy because Trunks didn't make a sound. The boy had some tact, Vegeta had to admit.
Over the next few days, he explored his limits in his mind. Although a great deal better than they had been before, Vegeta discovered that they were still there. He mentally examined them, prodded them, tested their strength. They would probably be too much for him to overcome the way he was now. But Vegeta was sure that he could do it- eventually. He needed time, and lots of it.
He entered a meditative state of mind, where time passed unevenly, something akin to hibernation. In the white room, Vegeta pictured a small, almost invisible fissure in one of its walls. He just needed to widen it, then he would have access to whatever was on the other side. The only question was how he could do it. Vegeta wasn't even sure if there was a crack at all, or if it was just wishful thinking on his part.
He was broken out of his thoughts when Kakarrot and his child appeared somewhere behind him. Vegeta rolled his eyes in irritation. What would it take for him to be left alone? They were distracting, their undisguised chis grabbing his unwilling attention, the wind muffling their conversation into an annoying hum. He didn't need this.
As Vegeta stared off into the desert, Kakarrot landed on his stone platform.
"You're in my way, Kakarrot," he said without turning around. "Get lost." He had little patience for the other Saiyan.
"Don't be so surly. I know a great place to train," Kakarrot said calmly. Vegeta sincerely doubted that there could be a better place than the gravity room at Capsule Corp., which would take too long. He was just about to explain what would happen if Kakarrot didn't get off his rock in five seconds when Kakarrot spoke again.
"There's a room where you can spend a whole year in one day at Kami sama's palace." That got his attention.
"Really?" Vegeta asked, looking over his shoulder at Kakarrot. That was exactly what he needed but didn't have. An extra year to train.
"Yeah," Kakarrot said with a smile. "Come with me. You don't have to train with me or anything, but it's only set up for two people. You'll have to go in with Trunks, since we're short on time." Trunks would be more bearable than Kakarrot, true. And Vegeta would benefit with having someone to train with more than going at it alone, he knew that now. When he thought about it, it was really a no-brainer.
"Fine," Vegeta said. "But we'll go in first, got that?" He would be the one to defeat Cell.
"Sure," Kakarrot replied easily. Then he addressed their sons. "Okay everybody, let's go to Kami's!" They all took off.
As they were flying, Vegeta smiled to himself. This was an unexpected blessing. He would train at least twice as hard as he had before, for a full year, and then he would come back with enough power to easily best Cell and the androids alike.
This time, he would become the strongest of them all.

Vegeta flew back to Capsule Corp., barely paying attention to the passing landscape, his dull eyes unfocused. Cell was dead, along with Kakarrot and Trunks, everyone had gone their separate ways and he felt numb. Even his constant companion, the anger that kept him going, was gone. He had spent two extra years training and yet he still had lost.
He gave up. Since Kakarrot, his goal, was gone, what was the point of trying anymore? While he disliked Son Gohan, he really didn't have a grudge against him, other than the fact that he was Kakarrot's spawn. Besides, he had seen the boy's power. How was he supposed to stand up to that? Just being around the boy when he was fighting Cell set Vegeta's teeth on edge. It was a staggering amount of raw energy, one that he knew he could never obtain. And if he couldn't be the strongest, then what was the point of trying? But there was nothing worse than a warrior who didn't fight, and fighting was all he knew.
Where did he go from here? He didn't exactly want to die, but he couldn't think of any reasons to live, either.
Vegeta decided to stop thinking about the future, for now, and focus on his immediate needs. Go back to Capsule Corp., get food. Good, that was nice and simple.
He flew back to the round mansion that he had come to know as home. Touching down in front of it, Vegeta admitted to himself that he could have done a lot worse. At least he wasn't living in one of the matchbox-sized houses that was standard fare for the common rabble. Moments after he walked through the door, Bulma appeared.
"Vegeta!" She ran up and threw her arms around him. "Thank goodness! I was so worried."
He stiffened in her embrace, but didn't pull away. Worried? After all he had done to get rid of her... she still cared about him. And maybe Vegeta didn't mind her as much as he used to. Since he wasn't going to be preoccupied with training anymore... hmm...
Vegeta would explore this later, but for now he wasn't ready. However, the future was already looking a little better, and he was grateful to her for that. Even if he wasn't used to it, it was nice to know that someone was on his side, whether he wanted it or not.
"So what happened? How did the battle go?" Bulma asked eagerly.
"Ask Trunks when he gets back," he muttered, pushing past her. "I need to shower." He didn't mention the fact that their son had been murdered by Cell. He would be back to life soon enough, courtesy of the dragon balls and Overly Generous Earthlings. He was still ashamed of how he'd lost control and unthinkingly attacked Cell in a fit of rage. It disturbed him, how much Trunks' death had affected him. He couldn't remember the last time he had even considered fighting for someone other than himself.
But Trunks had been the closest thing he had to an ally in that group of misfits. He was his own flesh and blood, time difference or not. Still, he would be resurrected soon enough.
After he was showered, dressed in normal clothes, and his armor had been disposed of (too many unpleasant reminders), Vegeta lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling. Where should he go now? He had lost his rival, and his motivation along with him. Backing out looked like the only option.
He didn't want to do this. For the first time he could remember, Vegeta was sick of having to take care of everything personally. He needed advice, he needed...
"Bulma," Vegeta mouthed her name. Why not? She was the most logical choice. Out of everyone he had met on Earth, she actually seemed to like him. And, he realized, maybe he liked her, too. He wasn't sure why, but he found her easier to be around than all the other humans. He knew she would be happy to help him. Vegeta flopped back on the bed. Maybe he could try this whole "caring" thing. He could try to be a father, a real one, and a partner.
Maybe that's why Kakarrot had been so powerful. If Vegeta had a family to protect too, would he discover the other Saiyan's secret? It was worth a shot.
For now, though, he was exhausted, the long day finally catching up to him. As he glanced out the window, he saw that the sky had gone dark. That'll be the dragon balls, he thought sleepily, so my son is alive once again. Yawning, Vegeta stretched out on his bed like a cat and fell asleep.

Vegeta blearily opened his eyes as sunlight streamed into his room, feeling abnormally groggy and disorientated. He let out a breath. He must have slept a long time.
Glancing at his alarm clock, he did some quick mental math. It was eight in the morning, and he had gotten out of the shower at around five. He had slept for a solid fifteen hours. That must be some sort of record for him.
Vegeta got off the bed and stretched, his stomach growling. He was famished. He quickly used the bathroom and changed his clothes, then set off to find something to eat.
To his dismay, he found everyone was already in the breakfast room, Trunks included. However, Vegeta was too hungry to care. He could tolerate Mrs. Briefs for a little while.
"Hello, dear!" the woman in question greeted him. "Help yourself to breakfast," she gestured to a huge pile of pancakes stacked up on a plate in the middle of the table. "There's more coming, so don't be shy."
He silently pulled up a chair and served himself five pancakes.
"So, I'm going back home today," Trunks said. Vegeta noticed that someone had cut his hair. Their Trunks, the baby, watched his older self with wide eyes.
"Mm," Vegeta said, his mouth full. To be honest, he was glad. He had come to respect Trunks, but he knew that he was out of his time. He should go back to the future, where he belonged.
"Where did you disappear off to last night?" Bulma asked. "Training?"
"No. I slept." Vegeta drank some orange juice. He turned to Trunks. "When are you leaving?"
Trunks looked at his wristwatch. "Oh, in a few hours. Some of our fr- um, allies, want to see me off, so they're coming over." Vegeta returned to his food. He supposed he ought to see his son off as well.
Finished, he stood up from the table and left without a word. If he wasn't going to train in the gravity room anymore, he may as well find a hobby of some sort. Vegeta vaguely recalled someone telling him that Capsule Corp. had a library. He decided to find it, books were a good way to pass the time and he hadn't bothered with Earth's literature before.
After a few minutes of searching, he came to a wooden door with a sign saying "Library" above it. The letters were golden metal and the doorframe was decorated with intricate carvings.
Pushing inside, Vegeta looked around at Capsule Corp.'s library, mildly impressed. It was a huge room with wooden tables clustered together in the center, the walls lined with bookshelves. It had a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor, which was really just a ring-shaped platform circling the walls. He could see all the way up to the domed ceiling, which had a mural of a great waterfall painted on it. Every few bookshelves was a red armchair and a reading lamp. Each shelf had a letter of the English alphabet stamped on it.
With every breath in, Vegeta's lungs were filled with the heady scent of oak and old paper. Where should he start? Not knowing any Earth books or authors, the index was useless to him.
Spying a stray book lying on one of the tables, Vegeta went over and picked it up. It was a large, softcover book titled "Amphigorey Too" by Edward Gorey. "Too"? Was this a sequel of some sort? On the cover were twelve panels, each one had a large letter inside it and together they spelled out the title of the book. This looked... interesting enough. He moved over to one of the soft armchairs and opened the book.
There was a table of contents, sans page numbers, with strange titles. It looked like a book of short stories. He flipped to the first one, "The Beastly Baby", and began to read.
Each page had four framless panels with a drawing and a few lines written underneath. The drawings were simple, dark but easy to read. The story was mostly spent describing a freakish infant who eventually was dropped, hundreds of feet above the ground, by an eagle. Vegeta supressed a laugh when he finished. Was this what Earth books were like? If so, he may have to revise his general impressions of the planet. Eagerly, he went on to the next story.
After he finished, Vegeta was grinning. So the Earthlings do have a dark side, after all, he thought. Getting up, he walked over to the "G" shelf. He wanted to see if Mr. Gorey had any more books. Sure enough, he soon found another one, called "Amphigorey". He immediately began to read it.
Right in the middle of a story called "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" that was a couplet detailing the deaths of small children by going through the alphabet, Vegeta noticed three higher-than-average chi levels coming towards the building. So it was time for Trunks to leave. Reluctantly, he left the book and went off the find the others. As he made his way outside, the lines of Gorey's latest poem echoed in his head.
A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears
C is for Clara who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh...
The entire Briefs family plus Yamcha, Kuririn, Gohan, the old man, the two shapeshifters and Trunks were gathered together outside, saying their goodbyes. Vegeta leaned against a tree on the outskirts of the gathering, crossing his arms. He watched as everyone wished Trunks good luck with his androids, patting him on the back and shaking his hand. He turned slightly and noticed Vegeta. The Prince looked his comrade in the eye and raised two fingers in a salute. There wasn't really anything else he needed to say.
Trunks smiled a little, and went back to the group. As he got in his time machine, Vegeta noticed how happy everyone was. Of course, it was peace time for them, so they were celebrating. Vegeta had been stripped of his pride, his rival and his will to fight. He wasn't in the best mood at the moment, though he had briefly forgotten his demons while reading.
The ship rose in the air and, with one last wave to all of them, Trunks disappeared.
"Good luck, Trunks!" they all cheered. After that, Gohan, Kuririn and Kame Sen'nin left and the group disbanded. Vegeta turned to leave, but he froze when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Glancing behind him, he saw that it was Bulma.
"Yes?" he said. She looked back and forth, seeing the now deserted courtyard, and smiled hesitantly.
"Hey, I was just wondering if... maybe... you might want to start eating supper with me once in a while again?" Why was she acting so shy? Vegeta grinned.
"Sure," he said. That sounded wonderful.
"So you've changed your mind?" Bulma asked hopefully. Oh yeah, he did say that he didn't want to see her anymore.
"Well, seeing as I'm a Super Saiyan now, I can afford to let some distractions in my life." Bulma looked at him curiously.
"I distract you?" she asked, a small smile on her face. Vegeta stared back at her, one eyebrow raised in amusement. After a few seconds, Bulma cleared her throat.
"Okay, when's a good day of the week for you?"
He shrugged. "Any one, it doesn't matter. How about tonight?" She blinked.
"Aren't you busy with training?"
"No," Vegeta said, looking away.
"What? Why? Are you sick or something?" Bulma asked in concern. He shook his head. "Then what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he mumbled. He'd forgotten how nosy she could be. Why was she giving him the third degree over this? For that matter, why did he seem to care what she thought?
"Vegeta, look at me," she took his chin in her hand and turned his head towards her. "Do your plans for the future not include training?"
He batted her hand away. "Yes. Now can you just drop it?"
She stood there, frozen, her hand over her mouth. "Oh god, this is because Goku's dead, isn't it?" He blinked, surprised. Was he so easy to see through?
"... Yes," he said after a long pause.
"So you're a pacifist now?" She said it like it was a bad thing.
"I guess so. I thought you hated fighting, why do you sound so disgusted?" he asked.
"It's just... sorry, but I can't picture you doing this." She took a deep breath. "Vegeta, I think you should keep training. It's what you do, you can't just decide to stop all of a sudden." His resolve was weakening by the second. How did she do this? It was almost sorcery. But he couldn't change his mind. He had made a decision, and he would stick to it.
"No," he said quietly. "... They're too strong."
Bulma stepped forwards and grabbed his arms. This time, he didn't brush her off. "Since when has that ever stopped you?" She leaned forwards and gently squeezed his shoulders. "Vegeta, it's okay to back out of something. I won't tell anyone..." Her face was full of geniune worry.
Vegeta closed his eyes, torn. Even though he hated being told what to do by other people, Bulma had a point, as always. He gritted his teeth. Since when had things gotten so complicated? Oh right, since he had decied to quit.
"... Okay," he said softly. "I'll keep training," Bulma smiled.
"You listened to me," she murmured. "Thank you." Suddenly, Vegeta grabbed her and pulled her close to him. He heard her gasp, but she didn't try to escape.
"We have a son," he whispered in her ear.
"Um, yeah, I noticed," Bulma said, sounding confused but hugging him back all the same.
"We live in the same house."
"And your point is...?" she said. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he twisted to look at her.
"And yet we're not married." Her mouth dropped open in surprise.
"Wait, what?" Bulma stuttered, and Vegeta could feel her heart beat faster underneath their clothes. He studied her.
"Do you love me?" he asked bluntly. She visibly swallowed.
"Um... I don't really know what to say to that..." she said faintly.
"The truth."
She held him tighter and looked away. After a long time, she gave the smallest of nods. He smiled, and turned her head to face him like she had done to him.
"Will you marry me?"
She stared at him, looking absolutely shocked. Then, the widest grin he had ever seen spread across her face.
"Okay," she said.
"Let's have dinner," he said, pulling away. "Oh, and I'm not entirely clear on your Earth traditions, but I am not changing my last name to Briefs." Bulma burst out laughing.
"You won't have to," she said after she had calmed down. "That's the girl's job, unless they don't want to." He grinned back at her, and they walked back to their home, hand in hand.
fight Dabra in the desert. Then they had all been teleported back here. He was really starting to get annoyed at constantly changing locations.
The Demon King had just left them, claiming that he needn't bother to keep fighting because he had found the "perfect fighter". Vegeta didn't care who it was, he just wanted to get this idiotic quest over with so he could fight Kakarrot before he went back to the underworld. He had been given one last chance to settle the score between them, he wasn't going to let it slip past him.
As the others discussed something -he wasn't really paying attention as to what it actually was- Vegeta gave a small growl of frustration. How had he let Kakarrot talk him into this?
"Oh!" the Lord of Lords gasped, as if realizing something. Before anybody could do anything else, Vegeta jolted as he felt another presence enter his mind. He barely had time to process that thought when the unknown consciousness spoke two words that filled him with dread.
Join me.
Immediately, it started to try and take his free will from him. With a cry of surprise, Vegeta doubled over, clutching his head. While it wasn't exactly painful, he instantly hated the feeling. It was like there was something inside his skull, trying to remake his mind. Instinctively, Vegeta fought against the invader.
Give in, Vegeta, the presence commanded. Vegeta, fingers clenched into claws, jerked up as he became a Super Saiyan against his will. But he still hadn't given over to the mighty force, even though the urge was almost overpowering. He felt his resolve weakening, but he steeled himself and didn't lose any more ground. No! He was the Prince of All Saiyans, he would not be used by some shriveled imp!
The perfect fighter. Bobbidi was in his mind, using his magic to force Vegeta over to his side.
Hardly aware of what he was doing, so focused was he on fighting the battle inside him, Vegeta heard the Lord of the Lords' voice as if it were miles away.
"Vegeta! Bobbidi's trying to use the evil in you! Empty your mind, don't think about anything."
Barely able to concentrate enough to say the words, Vegeta told him to shut up. He would not be ordered around, not even by a god.
The world blurred around him as he kept resisting, and Vegeta suddenly recalled two of the Budôkai contestants remarking on how much stronger Spopovich had gotten.
Yes, I will bring out your latent powers, the voice said silkily, as if hearing his thoughts. All you have to do is give in...
The pressure eased up slightly, and Vegeta could think again. He remembered Kakarrot, destroying Yakon with his chi alone. That had disturbed him. Though he was loathe to admit it, Vegeta suspected that Kakarrot had greatly improved in the afterlife. Probably more than he had.
He really didn't want to stoop to getting help from another being, but if it was the only chance he had, then...
As he was hunched over, shaking from head to toe from the strain of resisting, Vegeta sighed inwardly in resignation.
... I surrender, he thought, cringing at the words, and he could feel Bobbidi's glee. He gave his body to the warlock, and his last thought, before he was forced to his feet, screaming, as his hidden potential was painfully ripped out from deep inside him, was of Bulma. Even as he welcomed the old malice and bloodlust that seeped into his veins, he knew she wouldn't want him to have chosen this path. But that didn't matter, he was sick of playing nice, and he was almost aching to fight Kakarrot, now that all this new energy was flowing through him.
It was time.

The soul was surrounded by the never-ending void.
It wasn't blackness, because blackness had to be something; it was utterly impossible to describe. The soul didn't question it, however, for it knew nothing else. Things had just always been this way.
In a disorientatingly fast rush, the soul was jerked away from the void, shoved into a body and its memories returned.
Vegeta gasped, feeling dizzy. He was in a small building, being stared at by horned men in ties. Before him was a huge desk with a huge man sitting behind it. He had a bushy beard, was wearing a pinstriped suit and was also looking at him.
With his memories back, Vegeta knew that he was in the underworld, where the recently deceased were judged by the giant, who was named King Enma.
"What happened?" Vegeta demanded harshly, stepping up to the desk. "Why am I here?" He noticed that he was wearing the dark blue gi that he had died in.
"I called you back," Enma rumbled in his deep voice. "The fight isn't going so well, and I figured they might need backup." Vegeta snorted, crossing his arms. Yeah, right. Enma must be really desperate if he was willing to break the law just to bring him back.
"They're still fighting?" he asked. "Not that I really care, but I thought I killed Boo,"
"Maybe it'll be easier if I showed you a recap," Enma said, pulling out a remote control from his desk. "I got the whole mess recorded." He pointed to a large, blocky television that Vegeta hadn't noticed before.
"Let's see," Enma examined his remote. "I'll find the part right after you died... oh, sorry, should I not mention that? It's a touchy subject for a lot of people, I've found."
Vegeta shrugged. "Whatever." He was dead, and denying that simple fact wasn't going to change anything.
"Got it!" Enma declared, pointing the remote at the TV and pressing a button. The screen flickered to life, and Vegeta sat down to watch.

Afterwards, Vegeta put his head in his hands in exasperation. Enma wasn't kidding when he called it a mess.
"So let me get this straight," he said. "A thinner, far more evil and powerful Boo came out of the fat one, killed him, and now the kids, Piccolo and Gohan, who wasn't dead after all, are fighting him as I speak?" It was almost enough to make him want to go back to exterminating planets. Things were so more... saner... back then.
Enma nodded. "Pretty much. I've called the All-Seeing Crone over to get you back to Earth, since you haven't used your day yet. She should be here any minute now."
Vegeta said nothing, glaring at the floor. What could he do against a monster like that? He couldn't faze Boo when the djinn's power had been a fraction of what it was now.
But he would try. It wasn't like there was much else for him to do, and he could get to hold on to his memories for a little while longer.
Vegeta glanced up just in time to see an old woman, dressed in black robes and a pointy hat, perching on a crystal ball, zoom in through the open doorway.
"Ah, there you are!" Enma exclaimed, catching sight of her. "Good, good. We don't have that much time left, so I'm glad you were so fast." Vegeta got up off the floor and walked over to the fortune-teller.
"Hello," he said mildly. She gave him a tight nod of recognition. He didn't know why she was so stressed out. The All-Seeing Crone wasn't the one going to her death.
Well, Vegeta supposed she was. Just not so directly.
"I'm glad I had kept your spirit intact, just in case," Enma said. "And gave you a body, besides." Then he addressed the old hag. "I really don't like this, but please take him to Earth... and hurry."
"If I must," the All-Seeing Crone muttered.
"Resorting to a thug like me, eh?" Vegeta smiled bitterly as her. "I wish I could promise that I'll live up to even your faintest hopes."
"Yes, well, you're the strongest person here who I could bring back," Enma said briskly. "Now go! Before it's too late."
The old woman turned and floated out the door, Vegeta following.
"Stay close to me, and we'll travel from this world to Earth," she said.
It was like they were flying through the sky, clouds everywhere, but he couldn't see the ground.
"I'm going to speed up now, so get ready," she said, looking ahead of them.
"Okay."
They shot forwards and flew in silence for a while, occasionally changing direction. After a few minutes, the Crone suddenly dipped down into the clouds, Vegeta close behind.
And they were soaring over the familiar landmasses of planet Earth. Now that he was back, Vegeta could feel the stunning power of Boo's chi. Still, it was nice to be back. But there was someone else with Boo, in fact, it felt a lot like...
"Sorry, but this is as close as I'll go. I'm too scared," the All-Seeing Crone said, breaking his train of thought. "Good luck."
"Don't worry about it," Vegeta said tensely, staring off in the direction of the chi. "It only postpones me getting killed yet again."
The old woman had turned to leave and Vegeta was just getting ready to set off when a familiar face appeared right in front of him, startling them both.
"Vegeta!" Kakarrot yelled in relief. "Yeah, it is you!"
"Ka...karrot?" Vegeta said slowly. His time on Earth was supposed to be gone, what was he doing here? There wasn't a halo above his head anymore, had he gotten brought back to life somehow? No matter. Curse him, for showing his face after he had deceived Vegeta.
"G-Goku!" the All-Seeing Crone stuttered, "Am I seeing things? H- how can you be... but I don't understand... you've come back to life and-"
"Talk later!" Kakarrot interrupted urgently. "You get out of here, Boo's coming fast!" Yes, the demonic chi was traveling towards them. With a small shriek, the old woman zipped away.
Kakarrot turned to Vegeta. "So King Enma kept your body around? Smart move on his part." Vegeta ignored him. If Boo was coming to kill both of them, then why the hell was he making small talk? Sometimes it was blindingly obvious that he had been raised on Earth.
"Vegeta. Put this Potara earring on your right ear," Kakarrot held out a small red ball on a chain. "Please!"
Vegeta examined the object sullenly. "Why?" he asked.
"So we can combine!" Kakarrot enthused. "We'll be unbeatable!"
Vegeta smirked. He must be joking. "Combine? You actually think I'd combine with you? Don't make me laugh!" Kakarrot swallowed.
"I knew you'd say that! But it's the only way to beat Boo."
Vegeta turned away from him. "In that case, I'd rather die." He watched the horizon, feeling Boo's chi getting closer and closer and sending silent curses upon Kakarrot.
The other Saiyan spoke, getting more and more panicked, no doubt trying to convince Vegeta to go along with his silly little plan. He wasn't paying him any attention.
"I hate you for it..." Vegeta muttered through gritted teeth. Kakarrot stopped talking, waiting for him to continue.
"When you fought me, you hid your true strength!" Vegeta exploded. "Were you manipulating me- or mocking me? I saw it all in the afterlife. 'Super Saiyan three'? You turn my stomach!" He lowered his voice, but couldn't conceal the hatred dripping from it. "You think I want to be one with you?"
Kakarrot's shoulders slumped and he hung his head in shame. "I-I'm sorry," he said, his voice small. "There was a limit to how long I could transform, I had to save it for later, just in case..."
"Don't make excuses," Vegeta snarled. "The facts don't change. You mocked me."
"How about this fact!" Kakarrot shouted. "Boo ate everybody else! Even Bulma! Piccolo, Gohan, Goten, and Trunks, he absorbed them all! That's how he suddenly got stronger!"
Vegeta inhaled sharply. No. Kakarrot was lying! But deep down, he knew the other Saiyan spoke the truth. Bulma's chi was normally hard to make out, but there was no sign of Trunks'.
That monster had murdered his wife and son. This was unacceptable.
All of a sudden, he hated Boo more than Kakarrot. How dare he? He would make the djinn suffer for this, nobody touched his family.
They both caught sight of Boo at the same time.
"V-Vegeta!" Kakarrot cried desperately. Vegeta went rigid in midair, wracking his brain to think of another way, and finding none.
"Give me that!" he yelled, thrusting out his hand. Kakarrot smiled in relief and quickly passed the earring over. Grumbling, Vegeta started to clip it onto his ear. Boo was within 200 feet of them, cackling with laughter and chi ball in hand.
"I should warn you, once we mix we can never split apart," Kakarrot said. Vegeta gasped.
"What?! Oh sure, tell me now..." He didn't have a choice at this point, but to be fused with Kakarrot forever... best not to think about it.
"There! Happy?" he snapped, drawing his hands away. The earring held fast to his earlobe.
"Thanks, Vegeta!" Kakarrot said, and Vegeta felt a sort of magnetic pull towards him. Without moving a muscle, the two Saiyans, one flinching and one grinning in relief, crashed together until you couldn't tell one apart from the other.


Agrix stopped talking. Makoto blinked. "Well what happened?" No response from the dragon. "Agrix? Agrix?!" Makoto was a little worried but then he noticed the rhythmic motion of his chest. The damn dragon had fallen asleep. "I guess story time will continue later." Makoto patted his old friend on the head then flew away.  

Total word count: 20365
10lb training clothes used

((This was a bitch and a half to write...I think I am done training for the next few months XD))

Well, I have to follow the grading system. Which is why these long posts are bollocks

10K PL
5K Z