The Doctor (Prologue)

I don't own DBZ.

- 0 Years -

He stood on the cold metal deck of the Planet Trade Organization's research hub, marveling at the chaos around him. It had been five years since he last reported in person to a PTO station, but the bedlam of people and robots and refuse on the hangar floor was a far cry from his memories of sedate, scientific precision. He wondered what had happened. Certainly the rest of the ship had not changed - the monotonous conformity of servile staff in regulation uniform was uninspired and lifeless as ever. It hadn't even been an hour yet and he was already ready to return to the hot, dusty winds of Vegeta-sei's endless desserts. The bulkhead felt so low compared to those open red skies. It was strange for an amphibious creature to take so readily to a dry world - but there you had it. He missed his adopted dustball already.

A squat blue alien dock worker waddled up beside him with a data pad. "Where would you like the cargo, doc?"

The doctor shifted one of his bulging, toad-like eyes in the alien's direction. "Have my quarters not yet been assigned? Do I not have a lab berth?"

The pudgy worker scratched his head with a fat blue finger. "Well. No. Things are a bit crazy right now if you haven't noticed. You'll have to stay in the hostel for a few days until we figure out where your relief team is gonna be posted.."

The doctor harumphed. "Posted? My colleagues are being posted to Vegeta-sei. What bureaucratic incompetence. Unforgivable. Unforgivable! Let me speak to your supervisor - I have precious cargo that must be transferred to an appropriate lab containment area immediately."

The dock worker took a startled step back, then rallied. A smirk spread across his face, followed by a loud and nasal burst of laughter. "Oh, you ain't heard yet, has you?"

The doctor's roving eyes froze. His nictitating membranes blinked. "Pardon?"

The alien stifled his mirth. "You ain't heard? An asteroid smashed it two days ago. Nothing left of them monkeys but rubble. Boom." The alien made an explosion gesture, then spat. "Good riddance too, arrogant scum."

"...What?" The doctor said blankly.

The blue worker caught the doctor's eye with a knowing twinkle. "Ah, seems he was right there in the front row. Rumor has it that the damn Saiyans were plotting to leave the Cold Empire, back out on their contract wipin' planets for the PTO..."

The alien buffed his nails on his chest plate with faux casualness, then winked. "Awfully convenient asteroid, if you get my drift. And by convenient I mean -"

The alien was cut off abruptly as the doctor brutally backhanded him in the mouth, sending him clattering to the floor. The hum of activity briefly dipped as lookie-loos turned to check out the sudden disturbance. Noise quickly resumed. Nothing unusual about a superior slapping a subordinate. It was business in Frieza's organization, even on a research station. The mouthy dock worker glared daggers, but retreated silently to handle the cargo under the doctor's continued stare.

Damn. The doctor thought to himself. I knew there unrest among the Third Class ranks, but I never thought King Vegeta would spring the trigger. Did they ever have a chance? The fools should have waited! I was so close to a breakthrough! Unless… Cold sweat broke out across the doctor's slick skin, colors shifting rapidly from pink to blue as he assessed his risk of exposure. It settled on a neutral grey as he reached a reassuring conclusion.

No, I must be safe. If Frieza suspected I passed our research on Saiyan transformations to King Vegeta I would not be alive. He would not have had me evacuated. Or at least I would not be here...I would be on his ship spitting blood as that lackey Dodoria did his dirty work.

Unbidden, tears started to form in the corners of the doctor's eyes. He rubbed them away with a webbed finger. Those fools! He thought furiously. He wasn't sure if he meant the Saiyans, or his employers. It was just such a waste, he couldn't help but get emotional. He had once thought the Cold family were the ultimate paragons of power, but then Frieza had sent him to Vegeta-sei after luring the race into a mercenary contract. In all of his career, the doctor had never seen a physiology more perfectly suited to war, that grew in strength without fail after every battle. Now that Frieza had opened up spaceflight to them, his models had calculated the probability of a Saiyan achieving parity with the Frost Demon within the next twenty years at over 90 percent. Five years after that? The galaxy would be full of Super Saiyans!

It was an inevitable chain reaction. A Singularity of sorts...an ascension. A future pantheon from Saiyan legend that had just been robbed from the doctor by a fearful purple narcissist. He had never shared his real data with Frieza. The lizard could not know that Super Saiyans were more than a bumpkin folk tale. Either the doctor been too late getting his research to King Vegeta, or those beautiful, proud fools had been too impatient for liberation to play the long game and embrace their destiny as gods in the next generation.

I must calm down, the doctor thought, I must not appear unusual or upset. The doctor clenched and unclenched his hands in agitation. The doctor's eyes slowly slid towards the crates being offloaded from the ship behind him.

It might not be too late, after all. The Saiyan race was gone now, but he might have the power to keep that potential alive. The Saiyans were too sublime, their fierce desert culture too proud to vanish into the cold night of history. He shuddered with remembered ecstasy at memory of hours spent pouring over biopsies of fallen warriors, carefully wiping the ichor and grime from their taut, perfectly toned flesh. The elegant pathways of their ki. The chemical cocktail that ignited an Oozaru transformation.

No, his promised gods would not die. He would make sure of that.

- 8 Years -

"What is this disgusting fluid?" Frieza squinted as he examined a strange apparatus filled with bubbling green liquid, his pasty purple face distorted by the glass beaker.

The doctor brightened with false cheer. "Ahh, my Lord Frieza, you are looking at a synthetic hormone based on the juvenile Tulibl. Once properly distilled, I have great hopes that it could prove a potent weapon."

"Hmm." Frieza frowned, "What is a Tulibl?"

The doctor resisted the urge to betray his nervousness by tugging at his whiskers. "You had them purged last week, my lord." And I submitted a six page petition to delay action until I could harvest sufficient samples, you obstructive creature.

"Not ringing a bell." Frieza visibly pondered, then snapped his fingers in recognition. "Oh, those abominable puffs of fur, the ones the men started collecting as pets. Yes I remember, they kept breeding."

"They do not 'breed' my lord; their ki jumps too high for one body," the doctor explained patiently, "and so they split to reduce energy. The hormone that causes the ki spike is a miracle drug. With further research we might double the power levels of certain soldiers in battle."

"Ahh." Frieza looked genuinely impressed. "I like the sound of that. It almost makes me regret recalling you from the research hub to look after my prize monkeys."

"Do not think a moment on it Lord Frieza," the doctor assured his employer. "After the accident on Coola no. 98, it cannot be helped that I am the last doctor experienced with Saiyan physiology." Seeing, he thought privately, as I killed ever so many colleagues to get here. "But please, enough about my hobbies. I was told I am to meet my patients?"

Frieza's delight fell back into a calculated mask of ennui. "Vegeta, Nappa, Radditz?" He called with bored tone. His lips still twitched in a smirk as he delicately clapped twice for attention.

The three saiyans snapped to full salute against the wall where they had been left standing for the last half hour as Frieza dawdled in the lab. The youngest, a tiny midget with massively tall hair, swayed precariously. It was clear from the flush of his cheeks and the glaze of his eyes that he was not well. The doctor put his age at around 13...a bit young for a Saiyan to be entering his growth spurt. Possibly a stress response? His bodyguard Nappa tried to place a steadying hand on the boy's shoulder, but the prince slapped it away.

Frieza laughed. "Aren't they delightful, doctor? Quite a throwback."

"Absolutely, my lord." The doctor murmured in deference. "If I may, I'd like to examine young Vegeta alone. I think I recognize these symptoms. A rare virus, somewhat contagious. In fact I think I will have to quarantine him."

Frieza straightened with mild alarm. "Quarantine?" He eyed the Saiyans with suspicion and disgust. "Exactly how contagious are we talking Doctor, because not even these three are worth catching a disease over."

The doctor quickly raised a placating hand, "Oh no! It is not much concern for the rest of the ship, Lord Frieza! The likelihood of transmission is most low...The Prince's immune system is weakened by the growth phase. I only suggest isolation as a precaution. Of course I bow to your best judgement in the matter." The doctor bowed deeply to his master. He wondered as he stiffly faced the floor if he was maybe hamming it up too much.

Frieza scowled but relaxed. His long tail thumped irritably against the metal deck. "Keep them all in a cage for all I care."

"The adults will be back in service in mere days, my Lord," the doctor assured his master. "Although it is probably best I keep the young prince under observation through his entire growth phase. We don't want a relapse yes?"

"I don't really care." Frieza dismissed, then sighed at the doctor's raised eyebrow. "Oh very well. Dodoria will be insufferable without his favorite 'sparring' partner but I suppose we will all have to manage."

"Thank you my Lord Frieza." The doctor said with another quick bow and very little envy for whoever became Dodoria's substitute punching bag.

"Hmph." The purple alien gave the doctor a critical once-over, then strode to the door. He paused in front of the Saiyans, then lifted Vegeta's chin with a casual flick of his tail. The tiny prince flinched, but visibly refrained from further reaction to the monster's touch. It brought another smirk to Frieza's delicately cruel lips.

"You be careful, little monkey prince." Frieza murmured gently. "I know how eager you are to join the rest of your miserable flea-bitten race in hell, but the doctor has a certain reputation for creative use of bodies. In fact I hear he finds them better company than the living. I bet he'd love to have a little prince in his collection." Frieza turned to the doctor slyly, "Wouldn't you Doctor?"

"I only endeavor to serve your will, Lord Frieza." The doctor answered diplomatically. "If you wish the Prince to stay alive, I will keep him alive." Although I do not in fact have any royal specimens in my collection. Yet.

"Hmph," said Lord Frieza with dismissal. "Well you're no fun." He released the tiny Saiyan prince and held his tail up for inspection with a frown. "Zarbon!" He shouted as he dropped his tail and strode out the door, "ZARBON! I want disinfectant NOW."

The doctor listened to Frieza raise unnecessary drama as he stomped down the corridor, then blew out a sigh of relief. The doctor respected power, but Frieza and his hybrid clan of mutants had been nothing but a disappointment since he joined their army. He doubted that Frieza had ever challenged his full potential in his life.

No creativity or pride, he thought. While the lizard is out amusing himself with wine and petty coin-counting, I will revive his worst nightmare.

"Doc…" said one of the saiyans hesitantly. Radditz. The third-class dared a glance down at his prince, who was less glaring at the doctor than blearily attempting to maintain his mask of royal ferocity while failing to keep his vision in focus. Perspiration was starting to bead at his hairline and his breathing was becoming labored.

The doctor chuckled "You should relax. Do you think I am some fraud who can only push buttons on a rejuvenation tank? The medical staff on on this ship truly is incompetent if they couldn't recognize an engineered virus."

"A what?" Radditz scratched his shaggy head.

The doctor was saved from answering because Prince Vegeta chose that moment to pitch forward in a complete blackout. Napa and Radditz were too stunned by their prince's sudden failure to catch him. His body made a dull thud as it crumpled to the floor.

Hm. The doctor thought. I might have done my work a little too well. I did not expect the symptoms to be so severe. Ah, well...

The doctor shook out his sleeves and rubbed his hands together. "Hoist him onto that table if you want to save your prince. Oh, this is exciting!"

- 6 months -

The little boy understood. He was going away, away from his family, away from his tutors...away from his mama and papa. Third Class babies got sent on missions all the time, and Vegeta wasn't a baby. He wondered why the adults all whispered as he and his father stood before the space pod. Were they waiting for him to cry? He'd seen some of the third class kids cry, but Vegeta was an elite. He was only four, but he knew fear was for the weak.

"I'll be brave." the little prince promised to his father.

His father shook his head, but the slight quirk of his lips beneath his beard told Vegeta that the King was not angry. "Don't just be brave, Vegeta." The king said, placing a hand on the boy's head. "Be proud. Never kneel in your heart."

Vegeta blinked awake to flat, artificial light. A breathing mask covered his face, and somewhere in the room a medical device was beeping constantly. His head throbbed with a dull ache in time to the infernal device's monotonous bleats.

Shut it off Vegeta silently growled. He easily snapped the cuffs binding him to the bed and tore the breathing mask off of his face. He choked and fought the urge to retch as he pulled a clear feeding tube out of his throat. It came free with a slick wet cough of spit and the bitter tinge of bile. The room swam as he tried to sit up, his hand going in and out of focus as it clenched the bedsheets.

Something was wrong.

Vegeta looked at his hand more closely. It looked strange and far away. The shape was unfamiliar. He hopped down from the bed and stumbled when his bare foot connected with the floor too soon. He crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and snapped electrodes. Lights began flashing over a monitor and the beeping device turned into a wailing alarm. Blood welled where an IV drip tugged free of his arm. As Vegeta looked at the surgical theater around him, he realized that everything in it seemed...small.

WHOOSH! The door to the operating theater slid open. Vegeta whipped under the cover of the bed and readied a ki blast in one hand. It flared wildly, uncontrolled. Vegeta felt like every organ inside him was churning, his energy an alien presence in a disconnected body. He grit his teeth and forced the world to steady.

"Good morning, my little prince!" said an unfamiliar voice from the other side of the doorway. Vegeta watched as black-toed boots crossed the threshold and paced slowly around the edge of the theater. A tall, spindly creature came into view. Baggy black trousers tucked into his boots. Vegeta's wary gaze traveled the length of the creature's long white lab coat to a grey, amphibian face with long whiskers dangling from a blunt snout with wide frog lips. Bulging toad eyes rolled in independent directions scanning the room before spotting the prince behind the bed. He grinned sharply, revealing small but predatory teeth.

"Hello there," the creature said, stooping towards the wary prince with a friendly wave, "Do you remember me?"

Vegeta dissipated his ki blast. He didn't need a scouter to know he could wipe the floor with this freakshow. He swayed as another wave of dizziness washed over him.

"I am your doctor," the creature continued. Vegeta caught the glint of armor under his coat, the standard uniform of Frieza's Planet Trade Organization. "You're in my lab on Frieza's private planet. You've been unconscious for six months."

Vegeta gaped. S-six months!? He looked down at his hands again, examining the length of his arms and the distance to his feet. They seemed to stretch for miles under the loose hospital gown.

"Yes," The doctor confirmed, correctly guessing the direction of Vegeta's thoughts. "You went through your growth phase. Don't worry - I think you will find your body in good shape. Better, even, given adequate time to rest while growing. You finished a little on the short side, but I hope one day you will thank me." He held out a clawed hand to help the prince up.

Vegeta ignored the proffered help. He pushed himself off the ground and leaned on the bed to stand up woozily. "Where are Nappa and Radditz?"

"On a mission." The doctor answered. "As they were not going through their growth phase, they recovered from the sickness quite quickly."

Memory flooded back to Vegeta, of coming down with a cold that only got worse until he passed out in the doctor's lab, right in front of his men. Vegeta's cheeks burned with shame, which only made him flush much harder.

"Come now," the Doctor said. "As you are awake, let us find a spare room so you can test out your new form. Run a few katas, hmmm?" The doctor mimed a few punches with a grin.

"Don't patronize me." Vegeta grit between his teeth. Frieza couldn't possibly be happy about losing six months of work from him. He wondered how long he had before word spread that he was awake. How long before Dodoria came by to beat him back into a rejuvenation tank? Every moment his traitorous body had spent in a coma was a moment of lost training. He needed food and real clothes.

Vegeta pushed himself away from the bed and shouldered past the thin doctor, being sure to give him an extra hard bump as he stalked towards the door. The doctor stumbled into a cart of surgical tools, which clattered to the floor.

Vegeta slammed his palm on the button to open the door. The plastic plating cracked under the blow.

The doctor chuckled behind him. "Your father used to do that, too."

Vegeta paused. "What did you say?"

"Your father." The doctor stiffly rolled the shoulder Vegeta had bumped. "He took to scouters and space pods like a natural, but never could get used to our doors."

"Tch." Vegeta spat over his shoulder. "You know nothing about my father."

"Oh?" The doctor crossed his arms and tapped a claw against his face. "I lived and studied on Vegeta-sei for fifteen years. I think I knew your father longer than the length of your existence, let alone the amount of time you actually spent in his company. You must have been four when they tried sacrificing you to Frieza?"

Vegeta spun around and marched back to the toad. He grabbed the freakshow's coat and pulled his froggy face down to eye level "Don't talk about my people. Don't talk about my mission."

"Your mission?" The doctor chuckled, "Your mission to mindlessly slaughter billions of weaklings for Frieza's profit?"

Vegeta growled warningly. Blood began to pound in his ears.

"For the man who freed his people from the Tuffles, he certainly was quick to find himself a new master."

Enraged, Vegeta punched the doctor clear across the operating theater. He followed up with a ki blast that blew a hole in the wall into the room next door. He smirked as he considered his handiwork. That had hardly taken any effort at all. The doctor may have been right about his power increasing even in a coma.

A groan from beyond the rubble caught Vegeta's attention. Shit, Vegeta thought as his rage subsided and he peered critically through the hole to the dim room beyond. Frieza is going to exact payment from my hide for this damage. The teen wondered if he could threaten the doctor into signing off on a report that the blast was part of a rehabilitation accident. Lucky thing the blow hadn't killed him, irritating though the toad was.

Vegeta stalked through the new doorway and found himself in a dimly lit room filled with row upon row of eerily illuminated jars. He glanced at the crumpled form of the doctor, then kicked a chunk of rubble out of the way to examine a jar more closely. An eye swam in viscous green fluid, slowly rotating to peer back at him. Vegeta recoiled. All the jars contained various body parts - clawed feet, arms with chitinous armor plates, a spine with vicious spikes. The doctor was strewn in front of a group of the largest jars, which contained whole creatures.

No, not just any creatures...Saiyans.

"Get up." Vegeta kicked the doctor with disgust. He kicked the doctor again. "Get up and tell me what you are doing with Saiyan bodies in this room."

The doctor moaned weakly. Vegeta picked him up by the collar and shook him.

"Stop, stop…" The toad croaked. He opened a quicky swelling eye and appraised Vegeta. When the teenage prince said nothing further, the doctor took it as safe to continue. "This is my collection. Isn't it marvelous? I collect tokens from all my favorite patients. You could call it a hobby, it's quite harmless."

Harmless? Vegeta sneered. This weak creature was vomitous. He was about to throw the doctor down in disgust when a sudden chill of realization washed over him. He stilled, then scanned the rows of specimens more carefully, reading labels.

The doctor smiled in the prince's chokehold. "Looking for your sample?"

Vegeta turned his deadly glare on the doctor.

"So arrogant." The doctor crooned. "You assume you rate as a favorite. That arrogance is one thing I really did love about Saiyans. When you Saiyans want, you take. Me too."

"What did you steal from me?" Vegeta growled twisting the doctor's collar tighter.

The doctor shrugged. "Your tail."

Vegeta's free hand whipped to his tail. It was securely wrapped around his waist like a belt, as ever.

The doctor laughed. "You are adorable. I was sure to take it before you passed puberty. It regenerated. Be careful not to lose it again, little prince. You know it won't grow back from now on as an adult."

"Where is it?"

The doctor glanced up and to the right. Vegeta followed his gaze. A pickled tale floated in a jar between samples of some kind of insect species. Vegeta tossed the doctor aside and reached for the jar with both hands. He carefully removed it from the shelf and inspected it from different angles. Had this really been a part of him? The tail he was born with? He unwound the tail around his waist and compared the two. He looked at the other Saiyan samples floating in their jars. The first new Saiyans he had seen in eight years, and they were pickled corpses floating in a trophy room. Memories of a dead race mocking him with their dead black eyes.

"You sick fuck." Vegeta said tonelessly. He threw the jar with his tail on the ground and crushed it with his bare foot. The doctor squeaked in horror.

"My royal tail!" He cried.

Vegeta pulled a random jar from the shelf and threw it at the doctor. It exploded against the toad's head, showering him with glass and sticky fluid.

"YOU MEAN MY TAIL!" The prince shouted. He swiped a whole row of jars to the floor. The doctor lunged for the teen, but the prince sidestepped smoothly and kneed him in the gut. He drove an elbow down hard against the back of the doctor's neck. The doctor crumpled, and Vegeta kicked him towards the preserved Saiyan corpses hard enough to shatter the glass. Green ooze leaked everywhere and several bodies slumped bonelessly out of their jars to pile over the doctor.

"Stop, Vegeta!" The doctor pleaded with the seething boy from beneath the sodden remnants of the prince's kinsmen. "This is the last of your race."

Vegeta saw white. His mind went mad with fury. "My race is extinct!" He flared his aura, shattering every jar in the room. He shifted stance and brought his palms together at his side. "Gallick Gun - HA!"

A burst of bright purple light enveloped the room. When it faded, there was nothing left of the doctor or the Saiyan specimens except glass shards and a few shreds of the doctor's lab coat. The entire back and side walls were blown out into the hallway

Vegeta smiled wanly as he leaned against a shelf and slid to the floor, breath ragged. His vision swam in and out of focus again as curious foot soldiers gathered around the destruction, drawn by the energy readings on their scouters. He didn't even care anymore how Frieza might punish him for this. He'd take it and throw it back at the lizard a thousandfold. Every blow a Saiyan took only made him stronger.

His smile grew deeper as his eyes fluttered closed to rest and await Dodoria. One day he'd complete the mission his king gave him - become the legendary Super Saiyan and kill Frieza for the freedom of Vegeta-sei. Even if he could only liberate their ghosts.

A/N: Hey readers! Welcome. As a heads up, this story is not complete nor has it been re-edited since I got older and smarter. This fic has just been gathering dust in my harddrive for a long time, so I am posting what I have since I figure it will stave off my urge to constantly push updates for Free to Fly, the story I am re-editing. And why NOT share it with the world?

Anyway, if you find yourself enjoying please do let me know - it helps a lot to know if people want to read more. It's the reason I even came back to the site. I'll keep y'all posted when we start running near the end of written material.