Planet Vegeta, Age 739
King Vegeta's Throne Room
King Vegeta, descendant of the royal Saiyan line, sat on an elaborate, gold throne. In front of him was a long, hall-like room, with towering pillars and guards of the highest caliber, all elites, in between, their tails tucked around them like a belt. Some were hidden out of sight, in case someone was to try (cowardly) to assassinate the king, while others stood tall and intimidating, though not as intimidating as the king himself was. One of these guards stepped forward.
"Your Majesty, your son is here to visit you," he stated.
"Good. Send him in." Ordered King Vegeta."Leave us!" He shouted to the guards, who obediently left as his son walked in. Once they were alone, he spoke.
"Vegeta. Do you know why you are here?"
The prince, looking like a near replica of his father, responded with confusion.
"I… no, father, I don't."
The king gave a stressed sigh. "You failed a mission that Frieza, er - Lord Frieza, sent you on, and you returned. Alive. I suspect you only are still in such a state because you are my son. Despite this, I fear he may kill you…" The king trailed off, leaving the now shamed prince a bit hopeful at receiving a lesser punishment. "... But I would do so myself, were you not my own son. The mission you were given was easy, just a simple purge of a weak planet. You are supposed to be the strongest, most skilled fighter that Lord Frieza will have, and if you fail at simple tasks so often, as your recent records indicate, he may bring it down on us all."
Vegeta was filled with indignation at that. "But, father! It wasn't my fault, the natives had more advanced technology than I expected-"
"But nothing, Vegeta! We had to deal with worse technology with the Tuffles, why should these people be any different? You could have created one of the fake moons that one low-class learned to make, I know General Nappa taught you! Besides, it's not like they could have done the same with their tails, they were inferior!"
"I tried, father! But they-they… um…"
The prince's eyes turned downward as he began mumbling.
"What is it Vegeta? Don't mumble, it's unbecoming of a warrior, or a prince." The king, now standing, stared at his son, his eyes boring jokes into him, piercing him.
"They-they cut my tail off! They caught me unawares when I was I the Oozaru form a-and they used the wreckage of a building while I was putting one 'brave' idiot in his place… it crushed my tail! It was useless and they nearly killed me!" The prince's eyes were panicked and wide, and he ripped off the cheap, brown rags he took from a third-class and tied around his waist to reveal that his tail was not wrapped around it, as his father had thought.
"Hmph. I pity you. You must not play with your enemy, Vegeta, and especially not at such a young age. You are undeveloped, and had you paid more attention, you may have kept your tail. I suppose that you might at least get stronger because of your weakness, or maybe ask one of the third-class. I've heard they know how to force it to grow back because of how often they lose it. But that's irrelevant right now. The only reason I got you when Lord Frieza wanted to send you out again was because I said I would punish you, and punish you I will. Because of your failure, you will be sent out with a low-class newborn to a weak planet in five standard days. If you can't successfully do that, then I hate to imagine what will become of you. Tarble might have a more successful record than you have had these past months, and he isn't even fit for fighting, only academics. I'm done now, return to your room until then. Any more failures and I'll have to shame you publicly."
Angry as the prince was, he knew better than to disobey his father at a time like this. Frustration blatant on his face, he stalked back to his quarters, barking "Get back inside and do your job!" to the guards who were outside the throne room. They dutifully obeyed.
Meanwhile, on Frieza Planet 1
"Heh heh heh... it seems the little prince is getting quite the shaming from his father. Such a light punishment just won't do though, no matter how grumpy it makes him."
Lord Frieza, one of the strongest known beings in the Northern Galaxy, sat in a hover-throne, watching the scolding Prince Vegeta was getting on one of the many screens in his quarters. In his family's conquest of the galaxy, he had become the lord of the Saiyans, a conqueror of conquerors, and had enjoyed breaking them under his rule. It was the least he could do.
They did make Arcos a barren wasteland, after all.
As the Arcosian Prince watched assorted events unfold on his monitors, the intercom in his room buzzed.
"Lord Frieza, I have a discovery that I think you will find…interesting. There's an attack ball headed by us with two Saiyans inside; one seems to be an infant."
"Hm. And, tell me... why might a parent monkey and child monkey be interesting to me?"
They were primitive to him in almost every way, who knows what they thought? He never had close ties to his family, not after the war.
"The child's power level is exponentially higher than the adult's. It could probably take down some of the upper-level soldiers stationed on the backwater planets, if it knows how to fight. Maybe destroy a planet, or a moon at the very least.
Now that was interesting.
"What's the reading of its power level?"
"It's fluctuating a bit, but it seems to be an average of 10,000."
Frieza's eyes widened a bit at this. "10,000? Why is it so far away from its homeworld then? I thought those monkeys loved to boast of their strength, unless...maybe the adult monkey is trying to dispose of it? Save its own reputation? Either way…"
"Maybe I should get on with destroying their planet…"
"I don't know, Lord Frieza. Should I order the attack ball destroyed?"
Normally, he would go out and destroy it himself, maybe get an little target practice in, but a power level of 10,000? That was really something for an infant, even if it was a savage monkey.
"No. Ground it instead. The adult can die, but bring the infant to me. I want to see it, alone."
"Yes Lord Frieza, I'll have it done immediately."
Five days later…
Prince Vegeta, ever the cheerful optimist, blew the low-level guard who woke him out the window. He scarfed his breakfast after taking a quick glance around his old room, left alone since Frieza took an 'interest' in him, and stormed along over to the attack ball bay.
It was still infuriating. Just a few little mistakes ( he quickly had to get over) and he was suddenly dropped to working with a worthless, third-class infant. Maybe he could kill it, blame it on the natives?
"Ah, Vegeta. Glad to see your here for your punishment, though you're an hour early. The child you're working with is a third-class names Kakarot. He's the son of Bardock, the warrior who created the artificial moons. I thought it over, and I may have been a little harsh on you, so I tried to help you retain your status and what honor you have, but I won't go back on your punishment." The King stood as tall as his height would allowed, as to let his son know that he was looking down on him for his failures. "I contacted Bardock a few days ago, and he accepted. You are to protect Kakarot for the duration of your stay, and you are not allowed to blatantly disagree with him, especially when he doesn't know to respect you. And no, you won't be beating the respect into him, not unless it's drastic. Am I clear?"
Vegeta, gritting his teeth, nodded.
"Damn it! Why am I forced to do this? I can't even put him in his place? I should just lie… but the scouters, they might demand to watch them, and if it was missing footage, they might suspect me. Feh. I can't believe this!"
"Good," replied his father. "You have about thirty standard minutes left to wait, and I will remain with you until you leave, unless there is an issue. And I urge you not to fail this mission. Frieza may finally get fed up with your failures."
About twenty minutes later, a guard ran into the bay, looking worried but trying to act as he should.
"King Vegeta, one of the low-classes returned from a mission, and he's been shouting about how Lord Frieza plans to destroy Vegeta! Should we beat some sense into him?"
The king looking confused, seemed to zone out for a second. "Wait… destroy my son, the planet, or me?" The guard replied with a "Yes."
King Vegeta blew him to atoms. "Frickin' smartass. I'll go see what this is about, stay here until- ah, there's Bardock. Prepare yourself, you may as well take off now. I think he has Kakarot with him, so he'll probably follow after you in a minute or so."
Vegeta was already climbing inside. As the hatch closed on his pod, he saw Bardock talking with his father while holding his son. King Vegeta spoke with him, then rushed off to somewhere. As Vegeta's pod readied itself to launch, he saw Bardock put his son into his own attack ball. After saying something to Kakarot, Bardock shut the pod and dashed off somewhere. Then, Vegeta's pod shot up through the sky, soon followed by Kakarot's. As he left the gravitational field of Planet Vegeta, he saw a sight he loathed. Frieza's ship was hovering above the planet, footsoldiers pouring out of it. He saw Saiyans fighting with them, and he started to panic a bit.
"What? Why are we fighting Frieza's soldiers? I thought father would have told me when we were going to rebel, unless… maybe he planned this. Planned to have me sent off-planet l, so I… so I wouldn't get in the way."
After this train of thought, Vegeta's eyes began to grow heavy as the hibernation features activated.
"No! I… I'll break out and… and… "
Sleep overtook him at that point. The last thing he saw was a large ball of ki.
"... looks… like fireworks…"
This is my first fanfiction, as well as my first serious attempt at writing anything beyond an essay. I was reading other DBZ fanfics one day, and I got an idea that I liked: what if, for whatever reason, Vegeta went to Earth with Goku, and didn't immediately kill everyone? I'll expand a bit more on why he won't in the next chapter. On that topic, I don't have any schedule for this, as it's a very "when I feel like it" thing. I may also have incorrect grammar, or just bad storytelling. What I'm getting at here is that I'm kind of a bad writer. I also don't really know how ffnet works, so try not to get too angry at me.
Anyways, this chapter is kinda short, but whatever. I may change chapter lengths in the future, and have something more solid, but this is it for now.