The Collector

by scoutergreen

Prologue

Summary: An older, slightly wiser, and mostly settled-down Vegeta has taken to living a quieter and remarkably domestic life when a bounty hunter with a personal grudge to settle arrives on Earth, determined to detain and ultimately kill the Saiyan in order to collect a massive bounty on his head. A short sequel to Human Hospitality.

A NOTE: YES, I am in the process of completing Human Hospitality. I know it's taken a while, but it should be finished by the end of the summer. (Just in time for back to school for you kids out there.) This fic likely won't be updated much until Human Hospitality is complete, but I really wanted to work on something bit less depressing for a bit.

It was half past five and the Saiyan stirred in his shared bed, already gradually coming to naturally when his sensitive ears picked up the first alarm he'd set for himself that morning. He grumbled and lazily reached over to his bedside table to turn it off. He really didn't like that his wife had insisted that his early morning alarm be a snippet of a jazzy tune sung by a woman with a brassy voice, but after all their time together Vegeta had learned he simply had to concede to his wife from time to time on the little issues if he wanted a happy home atmosphere.

"Happy wife, happy life," his father-in-law had once cheerfully advised him over a tipple of whiskey on some sweltering summer evening after the couple had descended into a particularly vicious argument over some insignificant issue, "letting your wife have a final say about some of the little things can ensure the overall relationship remains happy. Besides, my boy, you married a Briefs! We are an extremely stubborn bunch- maybe even as stubborn as you!"

As it turned out, the "little things" Vegeta had learned to concede to in their relationship predominantly revolved around things like assigned sounds for early-morning alarms, the children's wardrobes (apparently capes and gloves were frowned on in schools both public and private), the colour scheme of their bedroom and its furniture and bedding (he didn't completely loathe ivory walls, dark hardwood floor, and pops of red from the curtains and furniture, but it certainly had not been his first choice), and what events they were absolutely required to attend as a couple.

Now into his fifties, Vegeta found himself accepting his remarkably quieter lifestyle with very little in the way of resentment creeping into his daily thoughts. Trunks had recently graduated from university with a bachelor's degree and had opted to work at Capsule Corp, Bulla was entering fifth grade in the autumn, Bulma had opted to work no more than twenty five hours per week during the summer months, and his parents in-law... well, they were as doting as ever.

After witnessing Vegeta consume two pounds of bacon, an entire rotisserie chicken, a pound of grapes, six bananas, two pints of fresh blueberries, eighteen eggs, twenty eight slices of toast with a half pound each of raspberry jam and clover honey, sixteen pancakes (with an entire stick of butter and half a bottle of maple syrup on top), a litre of coffee with cream, and a half gallon of orange juice for breakfast one morning, Mrs. Briefs had started suggesting the Saiyan try "healthier" options, presenting him with egg-white omelets filled with diced tomatoes and spinach, low-sodium "bacon" that wasn't meat at all, trays of sliced fruit with plain Greek yogurt and unsweetened organic granola, rye bread crisps and low-fat cheeses and fresh squeezed fruit juices diluted with sparkling water. Her efforts to have Vegeta eating a "light, healthy breakfast" had become especially concerted within the last week, and it was pushing the Saiyan to the edges of his very limited patience and goodwill. Humans and Saiyans alike had their unique vices, and Vegeta's just happened to be great food in enormous quantities.

After a few minutes, Vegeta was very much wide awake and ready to get his day started. He always began by getting dressed and heading downstairs to have a glass of water before entering the gym to train. Gone were the days of gruelling all-day training sessions, replaced with one or two hour-long training sessions (with forty minute breaks in between) designed to keep him limber and simply maintain his strength rather than attempt to surpass his limits. In the interest of his joints and spine (the concept of being "over fifty" had gotten to the Saiyan despite his lifespan being almost twice as long as a human's) he executed flips and jumps on a long floor trampoline surrounded by soft barriers. After several rounds on the trampoline and a bit dizzy from a few dozen successive midair flips and turns, the Saiyan took a moment to get his bearings again, drink some more water, and turn on the television before getting on the elliptical to jog for half an hour while he watched the early morning news.

The weather was going to be pleasantly warm, with a fifty percent chance of a rainstorm in the afternoon. Construction on highway 19 would close two out of three eastbound lanes for the next ten days. The downtown branch of the city library system was hosting a local author for a meet and greet. Something about city council... blah blah blah...

Twenty minutes into his lazy jog and somewhat lost in his own thoughts ("I wonder what Bunny is going to make for breakfast. I am really hungry this morning. She'd better not pull that "egg white omelet with a healthy vegetable filling" thing on me again or I'm going to get very upset with her. Why does Bulla have so many pairs of shoes? She's just going to outgrow them when she hits her next growth spurt, and she's well overdue. It will most likely happen early this school year, no later than the second week of October, right after her mother spends a small fortune on new clothing. ...I know Trunks was smoking weed in the garage again last night. I need to confront him!) when a male newscaster with a smooth voice and a navy blue suit jacket pulled him back into reality: "in just two more days, Capsule Corp is going to hold its annual charity ball in the newly renovated West City Plaza Hotel! This glamourous black-tie event always dazzles and excites, and we at Channel 6 News can't wait to witness all the glitz and glamour in person when we present you with exclusive red carpet coverage! Stay tuned throughout the morning for a chance to win a pair of V.I.P. tickets to this spectacular event!"

Vegeta grumbled, held down the STOP button on the elliptical, and dismounted with an annoyed huff. He was not looking forward to the charity ball, but it was one of those things his wife had final say in. He had flat-out refused to attend three years earlier and had actually taken off in the middle of the night (after a tremendously loud argument, of course) to ensure he wasn't physically dragged to the event. While he had successfully avoided the ball that time, Bulma had been so angry with him that she barely spoke two words to him each day for close to a month, and any physical contact was definitely out of the question. The woman had unspeakable powers over him, and she knew how to wield them with finesse the Saiyan could only dream of achieving someday.

It wasn't that Vegeta didn't want to support his wife, but he was extremely uncomfortable being anywhere where television cameras were present and photographers congregated. He'd been in the tabloids twice in his life before, once in his early thirties and again in his mid-forties, and he really didn't want to experience any sort of Earthing "fame" ever again.

Vegeta made his way towards the kitchen and tiny breakfast nook, his nose picking up the scent of something cooking on a griddle. Whatever it was, it smelled... interesting.

"Good morning, sweetheart! I hope you're hungry," Mrs. Briefs stopped to peck her son-in-law on the cheek as she made her way over to the stove, "I'm making you buckwheat pancakes topped with almond butter, an egg white omelet with kale and feta cheese, and tofu sausage on the side! And all the fresh strawberries you could want, fresh from the garden! And I'm heating up water for green tea!"

Vegeta suppressed the urge to voice his disapproval over both the small kiss from his mother-in-law and her new "healthy menu", and quietly took a seat at the small breakfast table. "Alright," he sighed, "that sounds fine."

"Oh, I know you want to eat lots of pork bacon and chicken, honey, but it just isn't good for you! You'll learn to like this new menu. Do you eat a lot of deep fried food... I mean, where you're from?"

Decades-old memories of meals and favourite foods the Saiyan prince had once consumed regularly in a different lifetime came to the surface of his consciousness and he chuckled a bit. He recalled plucked and gutted birds; similar to chickens in size but more gamey in taste, deep fried in rendered animal fat and tossed in spicy sauces derived from herbs; massive bowls of thick noodles served in broths made from simmered animal bones alongside huge portions of bone marrow, picked vegetables, grilled and fried meats, preserved eggs, bunches of herbs and bitter greens, seeds, and savoury sauces; platters of fresh fruits and fragrant flower petals preserved in glittering sugar; candies and sweet doughs soaked in honey-like syrups; stale thin bread soaked in oil and soured wine; fresh hot bread, two or three inches thick and drizzled with rendered animal fat and served by the pound; cultured milks from docile animals used for meat and milk; gooey dried fruits sweeter than any candy he'd ever tasted on Earth; and a popular snack that consisted of thinly sliced flower roots deep fried in animal fat and sprinkled with copious amounts of salt and spices.

Suddenly craving potato chips, Vegeta rolled his eyes. "Fat is a way of life. Where I'm from, warm-blooded creatures were encouraged to have fat stomachs. Could never achieve one myself, no matter how much I eat."

"You need to cut out all the junk food, mister! Potato chips are no good for an athletic man like you! Especially at your age! Now," Mrs. Briefs plated three pancakes and two sausages on a plate for her son-in-law, "you're going to like this! And your omelet is on the way!"

When Mrs. Briefs set the plate down, Vegeta immediately looked at the sausages and raised an eyebrow. "What sort of sausages are these again?"

"They're vegetarian sausages made from tofu and a blend of special herbs and spices. Try them! I think they're pretty tasty!"

Vegeta grumbled and picked at the sausage with a fork before cutting into it and, with a fair amount of trepidation, trying a small piece. It was heavily seasoned, in part to make up for its very noticeable lack of anything resembling taste, and its texture was... odd.

He set his fork down and internally counted to three before he completely lost his temper with his mother-in-law. Vegeta had learned several years prior that getting angry with the woman often resulted in everybody coming to her defence regardless of what had set Vegeta off, and as a result the Saiyan forced himself to at least try to keep his cool for as long as he could possibly manage. Finally, he found a way to express exactly how he felt without swearing or threatening the woman: "These are very unpleasant."

"Oh, sweetie, I'm so disappointed you don't like them! Well, I know you'll like the pancakes."

The buckwheat pancakes weren't terrible, but he hated eating them with oily, bland almond butter. After a few bites of the pancakes and an obligatory taste of another egg white omelet (this one filled with little more than kale) Vegeta rose from his seat, quickly thanked the woman for the meal, and headed upstairs.

Bulma was heading downstairs as Vegeta ascended the staircase, and they stopped to exchange a few words: "You look kind of agitated, Vegeta. What's up?"

The Saiyan's voice dropped to a whisper: "Tofu. Sausages. I'm going out to eat. Don't tell your mother."

The woman couldn't help but smile while she rolled her eyes at her husband. "Be careful, okay?"

Vegeta's eyebrow rose, demanding an explanation.

"Oh, Vegeta," the woman sighed, "I had an awful dream that some... some thing was after you. It looked like thick, purple smoke."

It was Vegeta's turn to roll his eyes. "Just a nightmare. Ignore them, Bulma. That what I try to do when I have one."

The woman cooed low in her throat and dared to plant a featherlight kiss on her husband's lips. "I love you. See you later. Oh, and make sure Trunks gets up sometime before noon today!"

"Can do," Vegeta looked up the staircase to the door leading to his son's room and flashed a wicked grin, "'I'll make sure he's up and at 'em in no time!"

Despite rubbing sleep from the corners of his eyes at least three times by the time his father was backing the car into a space, Trunks simply could not wake up fully. He had fallen asleep sometime around two thirty... or was it three thirty? He had meant to fall asleep at midnight, but he became distracted when a friend suggested he download and try a new video game. Long into the night he sat on his bed, laptop balanced on his thighs, promising himself he'd stop at a certain level long before he'd inevitably reach the level he vowed to stop at and find he was unable to resist the urge to keep going.

"Where are we going, exactly," Trunks muttered and inspected himself in the sun visor mirror, noting his eyes were a bit red and bleary, "what's going on?"

"Your grandmother is well-meaning or something like that, but if I'm subjected to one more of her healthy breakfasts," Vegeta found his voice rising and an old, furious edge developing before he stopped himself and cleared his throat, "I really don't like those "tofu sausages", alright?"

"Aw," Trunks pushed his long hair back, wishing he'd brought an elastic to tie it into a ponytail, "I kinda like them grilled and topped with hot peppers and sauerkraut."

Vegeta rubbed his temples and sighed. "Just get out of the car, Trunks. I'm buying your dopey ass a proper breakfast."

"Oh, cool," Trunks stumbled out of the car and took a moment to adjust to the sunlight, spotting a small diner directly across the street, "I never knew you liked diner breakfasts, Dad..."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," Vegeta snapped back, barely containing a small laugh, "now let's get in there so I can get something decent to eat! Now, boy!"

When Kohara came in for a landing in a particularly isolated stretch of red sand blanketed by a cover of heavy grey-blue clouds, she was slow to disembark and took a great number of deep breaths, acclimating to this strange new planet called "Earth" and grateful to finally experience fresh air once more.

It had taken years upon years, but the woman was certain beyond all reasonable doubt that this was the planet where the fugitive Saiyan, Vegeta, was now residing.

But Earth was not exactly a small planet, and its people were scattered across a number of continents and islands. Finding Vegeta would take a bit of work, but with any luck (and with the help of a scouter) Vegeta would be considerably stronger than the Earthlings and soon register on her scouter.

Kohara slipped a scouter over her right ear and turned it on, humming under her breath and going through her backpack as it booted up and took readings of the nearby environment. A small collection of very low power numbers came up and the scouter indicated they were somewhere in the distance, perhaps eighty kilometers away.

The woman unloaded a single-passenger open aircraft from the back of her space cruiser, its huge black body similar to a motorcycle, took a moment to fetch a gossamer olive green scarf from her backpack and wrapped it around her head and covered the bottom half of her face, unsure of how closely she resembled Earthlings and the planet's levels of ultraviolet radiation, locked her huge spaceship, and finally took off toward the collection of small power levels.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess none of these power levels belong to Vegeta... but these Earthlings may be worth questioning!"

Kohara revved the engine of her personal aircraft and sped off into the distance, hovering three feet over the red dunes and howling with delight.

Finally, after all her years of searching, thousands of stops to different planets and stations both desolate and bustling alike, endless paranoid nights, dozens of attacks and fights, and the constant struggle to always remain at least two steps ahead of her competitors and so-called allies alike, the woman would have what she knew belonged to her.

Vegeta, or at least his head, would be hers at last, and for all her troubles she would command a very generous reward indeed.