A/N: Thanks Cara2012 and LambdaDash for your review and anyone else who's reading this fic!


To be a Saiyan Again

Chapter two – Search


His eyes snapped open. It was dark and quiet. The only sound he heard was from the running engines. It took him a few seconds to remember he was no longer home. He pushed himself off the small bed that barely fit his large frame. He looked to his right out of sheer habit. No Bulma.

Shaking his head, he glanced at the digital clock. One past five. Even in space, his internal clock continued to work.

Right beside the head of his bed was a double door locker, large enough to fit his belongings, but nothing compared to his wife's extravagant closet. He growled. Now was really not the time to think about her. He stood up and took a few steps to the small locker, opened it and pulled out a towel. Despite being away from his house, the morning routine was still ingrained in his cells. He walked to the gravity control center in the middle of the small confined ship and programmed it to fifty above Earth's gravity. This ship hadn't been upgraded since he last used it. This was the same ship he had taken during those three years. The three years he had trained to prepare for the androids' attack. The three years that had changed his life forever.

He threw a punch and then a kick, feeling his body became alive again. What was he searching for? He asked himself while kicking the air in rapid succession. Why did he choose to leave now after twenty years? With each punch, he cried out, letting his voice filled the empty and silent ship. He should have left after Frieza had been destroyed, but his pride had kept him rooted to the Earth's soil. Kakarott had surpassed him. Him, the purest blood of all Saiyans, had been beaten by a mere third-class clown. He should have left after learning Kakarott had decided to stay in the afterworld, but there had been a nagging voice within him, telling him that Kakarott would one day return. So he had waited and Kakarott did return, and with some unorthodox persuasion, they had finished the unfinished battle between the last two surviving Saiyans. What had been his excuse, his reason for staying after that?

Four hours later, he was on his hands and knees, heaving and puffing. His sweats slid down the tip of his nose and dripped onto the cold base. The gravity level was at the maximum, three hundred above Earth's level, but he was feeling the weight as if he was training at six.

The beating of his heart slowed and his breathing returned to normal. Instead of going to the shower as he normally did, he got up and dragged his sore body into the dining area. He braced himself for an attack, but there was none. No Bra.

He felt ridiculous. Everywhere he turned, he thought his brats would jump out, either attempting to give him a hug or simply to play a prank on him. They did that a lot. Trunks used to be the master of pranks, before maturity finally caught up with him.

His youngest had an uncanny ability to seek him out wherever he was, running to him with tears, joys and many other emotions that plagued a human mind. He had never wanted to deal with her so he had pushed her away, telling her to find her mother. Now that he was millions of miles away, he wondered if his youngest could still find him.

Scowling, he shook his head, ridding his brats from his thoughts. They were no longer his concerns, he reminded himself.

The cabinet was filled with enough rations to last a Saiyan for a few years, some contained in capsules while most were simply just can goods. He ripped open the door. The contents from within dropped, clanking against the hard base. Ignoring it, he retrieved a can of processed ground beef. He tore open the lid and threw it aside. He cringed his nose. Bulma might not be the best cook, but her foods sure as hell tasted and smelled better than this junk.

Again, they plagued his thoughts, refusing to leave him in peace. He lost sleep because they had repeatedly danced in his head at every hours of the night and every seconds of the day. He had caught himself muttered his woman's name and accidentally shouted for Trunks to shut up. He had been training practically nonstop just to force them out of his mind. He could not return to that life where every day was the same, where his talents and skills were wasted and unrecognized. He scowled and popped the food in his mouth, swallowing without chewing.

The destination was near. It had been a long time ago since he entered this space coordinate. He walked to a nearby window. From the circular pane,he could see the endless dark void. As the ship drifted closer, all he saw was debris floating within the black universe. Those were not asteroids. They were pieces of what had once been his home planet, Vegeta-sei. To start his journey, he thought he had to return to where it all began. The place he was born. The place he had been prince to all his subjects. The place where all warriors had lived as warriors. The place he was taken from. The place Frieza had made mockery of. The place Frieza had destroyed. Now this place was nothing more than rocks and dusts floating endlessly and aimlessly, forgotten by its descendent. Until recently, he, too, had almost forgotten his origin, his heritage and his history.

Daddy? Mommy said we not full human. What we?

"We are Saiyans, one of the strongest race in the universe," he answered out loud as he watched what had once resembled an armor, now torn and shredded, floated by. He had never explained his origin to his youngest one, not that she could understand anything at the age of three.

Dad? When I'm older, can you bring me to Vegeta-sei? I know it's not there anymore but I want to see where my ancestors once lived.

He had grunted and shrugged, wondering why the hell the kid had brought that up out of nowhere. He looked to his side. For a second there, he thought he saw Trunks smiling idiotically at him. He shook his head to clear the image and returned to the window.

Vegeta-sei. Nothing but dusts. All the hundreds of thousands of warriors' life gone in mere seconds with a single attack. He had felt hatred toward the one responsible, so much hate that it had twisted his perspective of life. Though without Frieza, he wondered how different his life would have been. Saiyans, while a powerful race, were just like some country boys in the grand scheme of the universe. He would have been king to powerful, yet mindless subjects, wearing the crown as if he was the most supreme, not knowing there was another world out there. Had Frieza never happened, perhaps, he would not be the Saiyan he was today, purposeless and directionless.

Regardless of what would have happened, should have happened, he had been left alive without his people. Two left in the whole universe, while the others were tainted with human blood. He sighed. Even the two full-blooded Saiyans had now become so altered that his own father would not have recognized him.

Daddy! Saiyans are the bestest!

"So we are," he said and then turned away from the window. He returned to the bridge and walked to the control. Where was he next destination? What did he want to find? The answer was not here. Then where?


His eyes snapped open. Once again, at precisely five o'clock, his body forced him awake, not caring that he fell asleep only an hour ago. Instead of getting off his bed, he sat still. His eyes slid to his right. No Bulma.

He had to stop doing that. He scowled, running his fingers through his thick, hard hair, frustrated at his own inability to push the woman from his mind. He flipped the small blanket aside and swung his legs to the edge. He got up and headed to the locker. He pulled out his one piece blue suit and slipped it on and then his armor and boots. Adjusting the gloves on his hands, he walked to the circular window again.

His next destination should be close. From the sensory radar installed on this ship, he had found life-forms on this next planet. As the ship drifted closer, he could see the planet covered with inhabitable terrains. He felt it. The ki of those who lived on the surface. Some were strong and some were so weak, he could barely detect it.

The ship came to a stop and landed with a big thump. He stood still, unaffected by the sudden quake.

He walked to the exit and waited for the door to unlock. The latch hissed and the door slowly launched backward, exposing the dried sulfur land. He wrinkled his nose. This place stank really bad. Was that the smell of rotten corpses?

Stepping out, he raised his head to the dark red sky. Unlike Earth, the sun was nowhere to be seen. To think there were actually life-forms here was astonishing. Even Saiyans would not pick a place like this to live.

With his eyes closed, he tried to sense the closest habitation. Thirty miles east, he felt a group of different ki congregated in one area. Without a second thought, he levitated off the ground and flew that direction.

As he neared, he saw a camp and within it, he could feel ki rising and falling unsteadily. From the ki, he sensed fear. He sensed horror. And most of all, he sensed hopelessness. He knew he should have turned back. He knew it was none of his goddamn business what was going on inside. As he kept on thinking what he should have known, his body glided closer to the base, until he reached the entrance, until he went through the entrance, until he was in the middle of the camp. He descended.

It had been a long time since he saw scenes such as this. Perhaps he, too, had led a very sheltered life after the defeat of Frieza. All those memories under Frieza's rules came flooding back to him. There had been countless time where he had been the one herding dispensable life-forms to be sold into slavery. Besides being overly sadistic, Frieza had been what they would call a entrepreneur on his woman's planet. Wherever there had been profits to gain, Frieza had been there to collect.

He had never thought that after Frieza's demise, these trades were still active on other planets. Right. He knew, but simply did not care as it did not affect him. Not that it should affect him now. All he had to do was leave the same way he came, pretending not see if pitiful souls caged inside small boxes that barely the size of a human child.

He tried to ignore them, but his sight reluctantly drifted to the cage on the far left corner. Within it, he saw two reptilian younglins, probably the same size as his youngest, with a leather leash strapped around their neck and their feet chained together with iron bars. He did not know the biological structure of these creatures but however they were built, he doubted that he should be seeing their skeleton pushing against their skin.

The prince of Saiyans did not care for anyone with exception of his family. Since they were many millions of miles away, there was no one else he had to worry about. But he noticed that he could not tore his eyes away from them. Their sunken eyes stared hauntingly back at him, not pleading for his help, but simply just stared at him. It was fleeting. The image of young Trunks appeared, replacing the small one on the right and the image of Bra, replacing the other.

Bra love Daddy! Do you know why, Daddy?

I don't give a damn why.

Because Daddy is the bestest and Mommy said Daddy always protect Bra.

They did not need his protection, not when Earth was painfully peaceful. He had grunted as usual, had given her a scowl and had walked off.

Tearing his gaze away from the two younglins, he forced himself to head toward the exit. It could have been Trunks and Bra in there. No it couldn't. Trunks was too strong to be captured, but what about Bra? What about Bulma?

He cursed. Saiyans are warriors, fighters, not some stupid saviors or babysitters.

Dad? Do you remember the time you saved us from Buu? I just want to tell you...during that time, I felt safe even with Buu terrorizing the world, I just know you will protect us. No matter what.

He had always been a bastard and had never claimed to be anything else, so why, did his brats trust him so much?

Vegeta, I understand you need your time alone. I just want you to know. I know you will find your answer and I have faith that you will come back to us.

Not just his brats. Bulma as well. He had lived on Earth for more than twenty years. Not once did he give them the impression he was a trustworthy man. On the contrary, he had shown he was capable of falling back to his old ways at moment notice. So why did they trust him?

"Hey, who the hell are you?"

He turned around and saw two amphibian creatures with scales running down the side of their neck and their skins were plastered with a thick layered of puss. Big bulging yellow eyes that looked like it was about to fall off the sockets stared back at him. The most repulsive were their colorings, blinding pink and orange.

He growled. This was just what he needed. They were not worthy to know his title and name. He narrowed his eyes and shot them a warning stare. He was not in the mood to deal with these no name lowlifes, but if provoked, he would be happy to abide to their death wish.

"Looks like we have another stupid one who wants to be part of our little collection," said the one to the left. There was a slimy smirk on his face and puss dripping from the mouth.

"You think he'll fetch us some good nuggets?"

"Looks strong enough. He should be a good trade for the armies."

Those two obviously did not know how to read ki. If they did, they should automatically sense to growing agitated power emitting from him.

Those two obviously did not have a brain. Even without ki sensory ability, anyone could tell from how his eyes started to twitch with impatient, how his jaw grinded together, how his eyes went from mild annoyance to extreme irritations, were sure signs of their soon to be inevitable demises.

What had this universe come to? It only had been a little over twenty years. He was sure that there would have been someone else claiming Frieza's throne. He had searched for that person the last few months, but to no avail. Perhaps there was no such person. Every planets he had visited were just occupied by cronies such as these. A bunch of loose sands with no one ruling them. The trade system created by Frieza was pretty much intact from the look of this place, but it seemed to be run by brainless mercenaries.

Did he want to step up and claim the throne? To be the ruler of this universe?

Vegeta, you know, you are king in this family. I'm always at your service and no one but you can rule over those little monsters. He had been promoted to a king status. How very kind of her, he rolled his eyes.

Was that what he had wanted? Did he want to make that his goal? To be a fearless ruler?

He fixed his eyes on the two before him.

What would he do if he became the ruler of this universe? Continue the trade system? Purge some planets?

He saw the bright red one moved to the left. His eyes followed him.

"Come on, Synth, let's go get him!" yelled the orange one.

"I'll take the left, you take the right," the one named Synth said.

It would be too easy to obliterate them. One ki blast and no one would know they ever existed.

He uncrossed his arms and extended his right one. He channeled his energy from his arm to his palm, aiming at the one to the right, the orange one. He put on his best malicious grin and let go of the sizzling vortex of energy.

Daddy bad!

It should be easy and it was...but...

Daddy bad!

The blue orb flew toward the frozen amphibian only to miss the distressed face. The orb skinned his head, leaving a trail of burnt mark as it shot pass him and through the cracked stone wall, disappearing into the horizon and then it exploded. Even at a great distance, the land trembled. The dark red sky flashed another shade of red, along with orange and maybe even yellow. Some might even think the effect was astonishingly beautiful.

Damn kid. He had every intentions of removing the slimy head from its body. In space, there were no rules and restrictions on who lived and who died. The strongest survived and the weakest became playthings or just simply died. Besides, he did not have to answer to anyone, not his wife, his son or his daughter. But damn kid had impeccable timing, sneaking in his thought at the most inconvenient moment. He rolled his eyes.

He heard gasps from every corner of the camp. The two cronies' eyes widened as if those could get any wider. He snorted.

"Oh shit! Biayth, let's get the hell out of here! We're no match for him!" the orange one cried out, inching backward while watching to see if he would blast them again.

He didn't. He allowed those two wretched creatures to escape. He was not in the mood to remove their head from the body anymore. They scrambled, tripping over flat lands multiple times before they finally reached the turned to the exit.

He snorted. Good for nothing cowards. Suddenly, ruling over these numbskulls did not sound appealing at all. When he was about to make his exit, he heard a collective pleading from behind.

"Please! Please let us out!"

Even if he did, they would be herded back again like helpless sheep. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes unconsciously fell upon the left corner where those two younglins were kept. They did not beg for him to help like the rest. They just stared at him; this time with a different expression, an expression he had seen before. An expression he had seen on Trunks' face when the boy was young. When the boy had witnessed his spar with Kakarott, when he had turned Super Saiyan 2 and shown his boy exactly what he was capable of. He saw the same expression on Bra when she had watched him train.

It was an expression of awe and respect. He had been searching far and wide, halfway around the universe, if the universe was even measureable, for an answer to the emptiness he thought he had to fill. In a way, he found it in the eyes of those two younglins.

It was too easy to lose faith in one's worth when living in peace for too long. One's talents would become wasted in the midst of battleless days. Mundane life would slowly creep in, routines would form, goals would change or simply forgotten. Peace. Earth had seen peace for way too long. So long that he, too, had lost sight of what was really important to him. He sighed.

Lifting his hand, he pointed to the cage on his right, with minimum effort, he shot a golden beam and hit the latch with precision and then accurately disintegrated the chains around their neck and feet. The door opened and the pitiful creatures scurried out. He proceeded to the next cage and the one after until almost all were opened. He did not free them out of the kindness of his heart. Perhaps it was because he did not want to have them on his conscience, especially the haunting eyes of the two younglins.

His finger pointed to the last cage and shot his last beam. The two younglins stumbled forward. Unlike the rest of the creatures who had made their way to the exit, only muttering a quick gratitude, these two stayed behind. When he was about the make his own exit, he felt a pull on his armor.

He looked down and growled, but his face softened just a little when he saw those eyes staring at him. For the first time, they smiled, widely. The shorter one grinned, showing her two front missing teeth. "Thak yu" The other one beamed even wider and said the same two words.

For a moment, instead of seeing the two small creatures, he saw his lavender-haired son and his pig-tailed daughter.

They were smiling.

Come home, Daddy!

Come home, Dad!

Vegeta, we are all waiting for you.

He finally remembered he had vowed to keep his family safe. He glanced around the camp again. Today, he would make another vow. He vowed to spare them the truth of the universe, to protect them from being a victim of unethical trades such as these, to keep them away from being caged animals. As long as he was still alive, these unregulated laws of the universe would never fall upon Earth. And that was the promise from the prince himself, the prince of all Saiyans.

Even if he had to endure the painful routine. Even if he had to suffer through their bickering and bantering. Even if he had to shed his Saiyan's way.

Saiyan's way. He realized now there was more than one way to be a Saiyan. He had once chosen to hold on to his pride as a ruthless fighter. Now, he chose to rekindle that pride as a fearless ruler, a ruler to the two annoying demons and his voluptuous blue-haired succubus.