Within the span of a month, Vegeta came upon an asteroid field that seemed to orbit two stars. He remembered this place. Inadvertently, the intuitions he had gathered from his meditating—or whatever he mistook for them—had brought him there. The belt of space debris was the remains of Planet Vegeta; the superheated chunks of matter had cooled in the vacuum of space, and they subsequently had assumed the former planet's course in the solar system. Vegeta knew he would recognize nothing among the dead rocks. He wondered if Kakarot, if he had visited, had expected to find anything.

What he could only quantify as a morbid nostalgia drove him to travel along the outer rim of the asteroid belt for a good thirty-six hours. He would speed on to where Namek and its system had once lied after he rested a while alongside Planet Vegeta's rubble. During the hours he spent there, he refrained from simulated gravity training. To soothe his overworked body, he took the first hot bath of his journey. While he soaked his aching muscles, he spied out of a small window, and he traced the constellations of former Planet Vegeta's northern hemisphere—the very ones he had learned as a boy.

As he scanned the heavens, a bright glint caught his eye. It was clearly no star, and a small asteroid would not produce such a glare. The object—for Vegeta had concluded that it had to be some object, probably a metallic one—lay just beyond the outermost pieces of space debris. As he approached it, he saw that it was a Saiyan pod almost exactly the same as the one that had carried him to Earth several years ago. He knew that Kakarot did not occupy it, for he sensed no energy emanating from it. However, curiosity demanded that he at least take a closer look. He directed his ship as close to the pod as he safely could.

A dead Saiyan, perfectly preserved in space's deep freeze, slouched in the cockpit. Her head rested over her right shoulder, and it seemed almost as if she had fallen asleep. She must have evacuated the planet as quickly as she could after feeling the tumult of Frieza's energy blast. Clearly, though, she had not entirely escaped. From what Vegeta could gather, something had violently jarred the pod, breaking the woman's neck in the process.

Her garb signified that she belonged to noble class of Saiyan society. She wore a gown made of a fabric with an opalescent sheen to it, and an embroidered sash bearing King Vegeta's royal crest lay across her left breast.

Vegeta thought her beautiful. He had not seen a Saiyan woman in person in over twenty years. None had survived Frieza's attack, and Frieza had assuredly intended that. Vegeta was six years old when he learned of his homeworld's destruction. By the time he could truly appreciate female beauty, all the women he could have admired were long dead. Occasionally, he would look at pictures of Saiyan women stored away in various databases. He almost couldn't stand to look at them. The sensations that came over him, while often positive, were tainted with the sick realization that every last one of the women that made his imagination, heart, and groin swell had all been vaporized, broken down into atomic dust.

Frieza had kept a zoo of female slaves on his ships, and no one looked down on the man who would visit them now and again. Some kept scores of how many different species they had violated and enjoyed. As a young man, Vegeta had experimented with a couple of more Saiyan-shaped races, but he derived no more than a moment's pleasure from each encounter. He had felt disgusted with himself afterward, imagining what his father, the King, would have thought about his noble son fucking around with inferior lifeforms. A disgrace. Naturally, Vegeta quickly lost interest in partnered sex, infinitely preferring his own company. Raditz and Nappa hadn't minded the vilest perversions, but Vegeta's pride refused to let him take part in his friends' debauchery.

Eying the body of the Saiyan noblewoman, Vegeta felt horrified, dejected, aroused, and ashamed all at the same time. At least the images he had admired had portrayed live women. Now, his body excited itself over a presently and apparently deceased woman. He wanted nothing more than to blast away as far as he could from the remains of Planet Vegeta, but in spite of that, he couldn't stop staring at the noblewoman long enough to drag himself over to the ship's control panels. He gave himself a couple minutes to sate his curiosity, but no more. He would leave the solar system and never plan to return. At this moment, he realized he wanted to go back to Earth. If he belonged anywhere apart from Planet Vegeta, it was there.

First, he would find Kakarot in Namek's solar system. He would learn the secrets of becoming a Super Saiyan, then he would defeat Kakarot. So many times he had brought shame upon his father, his family, and his people. Nothing in the universe could ever convince him to surrender himself to his failures, to let shit cover the Saiyan legacy. Vegeta needed absolution from the battles he had lost, the powers he couldn't achieve, and the corruptions he'd brought upon himself and everyone through him.

Author's Note: Hi, this is your friendly neighborhood flamingpoetic here! Comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism are always appreciated. I guarantee a response to every question or review. I love to proofread and edit, so if you want a second pair of eyes on your work, I'd be happy to see what I can do for you. Just send me a message, tell me what you would like me to take a look at, and we'll work something out. Happy reading and writing, my fellow creative people! I'm having lots of fun with The Mistaken Wish—I hope you are too.