Vegeta strained under a gravity simulation. His flesh, three hundred times heavier than outside of the gravity chamber, seemed to have no desire but peeling away from his bones. As if his throat would collapse in on itself if he did not keep air flowing through it, Vegeta panted furiously. As he calculated each movement, he simultaneously resisted strangulation with all his might. He had known that he would have no chance against Kakarot upon the Super Saiyan's immediate return. The three years set aside for training served his purposes well, and seeing Kakarot's happy, smug face only hardened his resolve. If Kakarot and the purple-haired bastard could transform, then surely he, the Prince of All Saiyans, could as well. Perhaps they had only surpassed him because they had not endured the debilitating, lifetime-long torture of Frieza. Before Vegeta had landed on Earth for the first time, Kakarot had never even heard the tyrant's name.

Vegeta heard the ship's satellite system receive a call. Bulma's face appeared on the screen, just as it had done when she had contacted him in space. "I have the results from sequencing your DNA. You're not going to believe what I found out. You should get your ass to the lab!"

Vegeta gasped for air. "Woman—you should"—he wheezed—"not break my concentration. The result could be—less than ideal."

"Maybe you're pushing yourself too hard."

Grinding his teeth, Vegeta answered, "You shouldn't—conduct yourself as if you knew what it was like to occupy—my body. You are no Saiyan."

"I can safely say now, though, that I know more about Saiyans than any other person on Earth! Again, I have the results from the sequencing. Aren't you at all curious?"

Vegeta deactivated the simulation. "Have food when I get there."

"You can't eat in the lab, your highness."

"Do it, woman."

"Ugh!" she signed off.

Vegeta paced as the gravity gradually normalized. While the pressure lifted, his heart rate would increase, and it shot blood through his veins with such force that he felt they might burst straight out of his body. Every so often, his nose would bleed until his blood pressure finally readjusted. In some ways, he enjoyed the sensation, feeling as if a spiritual and not just a physical burden had lifted from his shoulders. Having died once, he could accurately say that exiting the gravity chamber felt similar to returning to life.

"Woman, read me the results," he said once he entered Capsule Corp.'s laboratory. "And what have you brought me to eat?"

"You actually thought I made you dinner?" Bulma shot back.

"Of course."

"I didn't, for your information. But there's a chocolate bar on my desk if you're really that desperate."

"Chocolate?"

"It's a soft candy made out of milk and cocoa beans. It melts in your mouth."

The Saiyan fetched the chocolate bar, unwrapped it, and took a large bite. His eyes widened as he let the substance rest on his tongue. "I like this," he said.

"I know, right? Most people like chocolate. Now take a look at this." She handed him a packet of papers, each sheet with a graph printed on it. "Can you read and understand these graphs?"

Vegeta scanned the papers. "Yes."

"Okay, good. This is what they tell me. Feel free to stop and ask questions at any time." Vegeta nodded, and Bulma continued. "Humans and Saiyans do share a common ancestor. We share over ninety-nine percent of our DNA. That didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was how closely related the two species are. From the genetic information I got from you, our species shared a common ancestor no more than 80,000 Earth years ago."

Vegeta's shocked expression begged her to elaborate.

"Here, I'll prove it to you. Look at page two. That is the DNA from your Y chromosome, the DNA that makes you a man. It's passed down from father to son without any mixing with the mother's DNA. The only way for this DNA to change from generation to generation is for it to mutate. Geneticists can tell which groups of people descended from which fathers based upon the specific mutations present in their Y chromosome. For example, let's just say that you and Goku each had a different mutation in your Y chromosome. If you each had a son, a geneticist could tell which son belonged to which father because his DNA would match one and not the other. Does that make sense?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Good. Well, there's this thing called 'Y-chromosomal Adam.' All human males alive today have this one same mutation on their Y chromosome. This means that all of them descended from a single man and his sons. This also means that, at one point, there weren't very many humans around. Scientists believe the human population had decreased to under ten thousand people about 75,000 years ago, probably because of a global catastrophe. It was likely then that Y-chromosomal Adam, or the man from whom all living men are descended, lived. Now here's the interesting part that concerns you—you have the same mutation. What's more, you lack some of the other very common mutations of the Y chromosome, meaning that you missed out on quite a few of the mutations from all the generations after Y-chromosomal Adam."

"Humans have only barely achieved space travel. It does not make sense that some of your ancestors left this planet over 50,000 years ago."

"No, it doesn't. The genetic data does tell me, though, that some of our ancestors did leave, and that they left relatively soon after the near-extinction of the race about 75,000 years ago. I have a theory: someone or something took some of us away from Earth. The same someone or something may have even caused the global catastrophe that almost wiped us out. Why can't I publish a paper, damn it! I went ahead and wrote a paper, but it probably won't get into the journals until after I'm dead. That's so lame. This is award-winning research..."

Vegeta stared at his shoes, puzzled.

"Okay, now I have a question for you," Bulma went on. "When did Frieza start his Planet Trade Organization?"

The Saiyan shook visibly. "Hundreds of thousands of years ago, possibly. Frieza's race is unnaturally long-lived—almost immortal. Their lives often span over one hundred millennia, and sometimes even up to a million years. They can only reproduce under very specific conditions, however, so there have never been any large population of them alive at once." Vegeta paused, and his eyes darkened. His lip curled in disgust. "His race founded the Planet Trade Organization out of boredom. I imagine the millennia must grow insufferably dull, and at a certain point, only the destruction of solar systems amuses you."

"Really? Well, that does give us a viable candidate for the something that abducted our ancestors. But, holy shit, a million years? You know, Frieza sounds a bit like Nero. He was the emperor of one of Earth's greatest empires, and, apparently, he once burned down his capital city just because he was bored."

"Frieza was much like your 'Nero,' then."

"Hey. You okay, Vegeta?"

The Saiyan let out a halfhearted laugh. "I am at least glad that I was among those descended from those abducted rather than those left behind. I have become a higher life-form and not some weakling human."

"Does it bother you? The whole thing, I mean. Does it bother you to know that your ancestors evolved on Earth? Do you believe it?"

"I cannot argue with hard evidence; it compels my belief and assent. Even so, you—and not I—are the one who should be, as you said, 'bothered.' Fate has not dealt kindly to you and your friends. Look at me and Kakarot and see what you could have been!"

Bulma sighed. "Wipe that little smirk of your face. You've got to be kidding me!"

"Bring me more chocolate, woman."

She sighed frustratedly. "I don't have any more. And you won't order me around. I've spent weeks doing this research for you. Plus—get a load of this—you may not have evolved your super-special Saiyan skills at all anyway."

"What do you mean by that?"

"There's evidence of genetic modification in your genome. Look at the last page. Did Frieza's race like playing scientist for fun too? Were they into cloning and stuff like that?"

Vegeta's eyes widened as he scanned the data, surveying it multiple times. Overcome with a sudden rage, the packet of papers burst into flames and disintegrated in his hand.

"What's wrong?"

"They—he—he tampered with us!" He gripped his head between his palms, the muscles of his forearms wildly tensed as if he stood poised to crush his own skull.

Bulma remained silent as she watched the distressed Saiyan, and she knelt just in front of where he sat. "Vegeta," she said, finally. "Hey, listen. I remember what you said when I asked about Saiyan origins. You said that your people ruled a fleet of ships before you colonized your first planet. That means you must have overthrown whoever tampered with you. Whoever did it is dead. You are free, and you have been for a long time. Think about it. Wasn't Frieza afraid of you? I'm guessing that whatever experiment Frieza's people did went horribly wrong, and they knew it. They couldn't control you like they wanted to." Hesitantly, she stroked the Saiyan's coarse hair.

Too busy processing what he had learned and what the female scientist had just said, Vegeta sat motionless, letting her fingers brush his forehead unhindered. Just before he had died on Namek, he had confessed to Kakarot that Frieza had made him what he was. That statement, he now realized, rang more true than he ever could have guessed. With less certainty than ever before could he distinguish between that which Frieza had created in him and that which had sprung out of his own individuality. The line between Vegeta and not-Vegeta, self and other, seemed to blur and all but disappear. Perhaps Vegeta did not exist at all, and only a conglomerate of Otherness had deceived itself into calling itself by the name of "Vegeta."

But what the woman had said was true. The Saiyan race had escaped whoever had captured and created them. According to legend, the first Super Saiyan lived and ruled over them nearly 50,000 years ago; they had lived lives of their own for tens of thousands of years, adapting to life on their own terms. Although born and bred as slaves, they never remained as such. While Frieza's people may have had the power to alter life, they would never have the power to cross over into the subjectivity of their creatures, forming their histories and desires. Not even Frieza could truly erase the boundary between self and other. Never could he or anyone extend his will and consciousness beyond the limits of his own mind. This thought brought Vegeta some degree of comfort. No matter how extensively Frieza had engineered his psychology, the tyrant would never enter Vegeta's mind, nor feel as he felt.

His feverish mind quieting at last, Vegeta felt anew the weight of Bulma's hand pressing into his hair. Removing one hand from his temple, he grabbed her wrist, looked up from the floor, and glared deep into her eyes. "You take too many liberties with me, woman," he said.

"You know what? I think I'll go get you some more chocolate, " was her only response.

Author's Note: Do you guys like the Saiyan Origins backstory? I might be up for writing-or co-writing!-a shorter story about the first invasion of Earth by Frieza's race, Saiyan origins, and the first Saiyan rebellion. If you think that might be interesting, send me a message-especially if you have any interest in partnering with me on such a project!