Okay, I know I said that that one author's note in the first chapter would be the only one in the whole fic but who am I kidding? I gotta say this:
Holy shit.
Wow.
I love you guys to fucking death.
I already got 11 reviews for this fic, which is damn close to my average for ABDN!, 16.2. You all rock my world. I totally thought I was gonna get only 5 or something but already double-digit! Insane! You people are fucking great! XD
So, I'd like to thank alla ya bastards for your support and worship. ;p Lol. Not to be egotistical or anything, of course. It's good to see some old pennames (wanted to say 'faces' there but that wouldn't be true) and I'm so freaking glad that you guys didn't forget about me. I promise you that this fic will not be abandoned and I will work extra-hard on it to make it both as enjoyable and humorous, if not more so, than the first.
((end speech))
Notes about potential inaccuracy in this chapter: I can't remember where Capsule Corp. is located, so I just assumed it's in the middle of a big city and also I couldn't quite remember if Vegeta's gravity room is outside or inside of his and Bulma's home place. So, I just wrote what worked for me.
And that's it for now. Enjoy!


Chapter Two

:: close encounters ::

The sky above was getting dark and I could even make out a few, faint stars when we finally located a cave. I gave Mike a triumphant look and said quite shamelessly, "I told you so." He merely shook his head, mumbling something under his breath that I couldn't catch. I walked arrogantly into the cave, Zar and Mike following behind me in a manner that I preferred to think of as 'meek'. I chuckled to myself silently. It always felt good to disprove something that Mike had stated. Something that was actually right.

"I'm hungry again," my brother said and I could feel the ground underneath rumble with his body's demand for sustenance.

"Shit, I'll say you are," I replied, eyeing him warily.

"What?" He gave me an innocent look. "That wasn't me."

"Sure," I drawled out the word sarcastically, indicating my disbelief.

"It wasn't me! Honest!" He turned to Mike. "Wasn't that you?"

Mike shook his head. "Nope."

"Well, if it wasn't you and it wasn't Mike and it wasn't me than who else could it be?" I asked, trying to point out the flaws in his logic.

"Um, maybe that?" Zar said, pointing over my shoulder into the cave.

"Maybe what?" I turned around and came face-to-face with a mouth full of big dripping teeth. I suppressed the scream that threatened to escape my lips and let it go full-blast mentally instead. The mouth belonged to one of those big dinosaur things that were sometimes in the show for humor purposes although, now that I was standing right in front of one of them, I could see nothing humorous about it whatsoever… except for the fact that it vaguely resembled Barney. The creature was purple and a good fifteen feet taller than me but what really destroyed the friendly purple dinosaur image was the mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that could bite off my head in one go.

"Uh, hi there," I squeaked, taking a little step back in shock. The dinosaur followed with a large step of its own and I found it uncomfortably close. The kind of close that invades your bubble-space and makes you just want to cry. I opted for a more calm approach however and asked in the most pleasant tone possible, "Is this your cave? Well, we'll go if you want. I'm sure you don't like sharing stuff. I know I don't. We'll leave right now, in fact, right guys?" I waved my hands behind my back in a shooing motion to get them to start backing up.

"Yeah, we're going," Mike said, trying to keep his tone even and as not threatening as possible as he walked backwards slowly.

"Bo, he's so cool!" Zar exclaimed in a hushed tone. "Can I keep him?"

I risked turning my head to give him a burning look. "Just go."

"So I can't?"

"Mike," I said his name with a tone that was half whine, half threat. With a small grin in spite of our precarious situation, he grabbed my brother's arm and pulled him towards the cave's entrance. I looked back at the big dinosaur and found its muzzle right up against my chest where it started sniffing my shirt with gusto. "Oh god," I groaned as mucus from its nostrils dripped onto my clothes, "I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Bo, you better get out of there too," Mike's voice floated to me from a location presumably out of the cave.

"I don't think it's gonna let me. I think it likes me."

"Try anyway."

With a small prayer, I took a step backwards, keeping my eyes on the purple reptile in front of me. It watched me with dark yellow eyes, its slitted pupils lit with a menacing light from the little light that was available in the dark cave. Encouraged by its lack of movement, I stepped backwards again and then again and again. That was when it took a step forward also and I found that I had lost all of the space I had gained with my four tiny steps.

"Mike!" This time my voice was strained and a complete whine. "Help!"

"Just turn around slowly and then run for it!" Mike answered.

"I don't think that's a good idea." The dinosaur seemed to be grinning at me in glee at my situation. If I had made that wish to raise my ki, I would have decked the beast right there. I wondered what it would taste like roasted over a fire and found my mouth salivating. My stomach rumbled in irritation and at this, the dinosaur let loose a great roar that made my knees shake. I had no doubt at that point that it was hungry and going to eat me so I quickly spun around and sprinted towards the cave entrance, promising God that if I made it through this alive, I would never make fun of Mike again… well, hardly ever…

The light outside was nearly gone and when I saw that my brother and Mike were no where in sight, I called out frantically, "Where the hell are you!?" Behind me, I could hear the faint, light steps (surprising for its size) of the dinosaur as it followed me out of the cave, its pace nonchalant as it seemed certain there was no where I could run to that it couldn't get me.

"Up here!" I looked up a nearby tree and saw Mike sitting on one of the branches. He held out his hand. "Jump!" I ran straight for the tree and with a mighty bound, found myself flying up in the air, my hand outstretched and reaching for his.

I missed.

After I had got myself to my feet after a painful landing on my ass, I threw myself at the tree with a scream of anger and fear and dug my nails into the bark as I climbed the tree in a wild panic. Just when I felt my hands begin to protest the abuse that they were receiving and my shoes begin to slide away from lack of purchase, Mike's hands grabbed onto the back of my shirt and hauled me up onto the branch where he was crouching. I breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed my throat from where my collar hag dug painfully in. My sigh quickly turned, however, into a choking gasp of fear when I heard an ominous crack that originated from the branch we were situated on. Our eyes met and without a word, he stood up and pulled himself up onto a nearby, slightly higher branch.

"Oh, yeah. Save yourself and leave me to die," I muttered as my new tail wrapped itself firmly around the branch I was sitting on as though it could somehow stop the branch from breaking.

"It's not going to break, Bo," he said in an exasperated tone but I noticed his own tail reflexively curling around his branch. "It merely could not hold both of us."

"Excuses, excuses…" I stared down at the angry dinosaur that was currently tromping around the tree as it tried to figure out how to get us down. Then I glanced around. "Mike? Where's Zar?"

Mike began picking at the bark on the branch, avoiding my gaze. "Um… I don't know."

"What?" I stared at him. "You don't know where my brother is?"

"We kind of separated. He gave me a lift up into this tree and then just disappeared." He shrugged.

I clutched at my hair in frustration, muttering, "If he gets eaten, I'll never forgive you."

"Me?" Mike was surprised. "What? Am I his babysitter now?" After a moment's pause, he added, "And doesn't that line usually go 'I'll never forgive myself'?"

"Why would I be the one at fault?" I cocked my head to the side and gave him a strange look. "You lost him."

He rolled his eyes. "Never mind…"

I cupped my hands to the sides of my mouth and called out, "Zar! Where are you?"

"Up here," his voice replied from above me and I looked up and saw him perched on a large branch about twenty feet up from where I was sitting.

My brow wrinkled in confusion and Mike asked, "How'd you get all the way up there?"

The little guy grinned, his eyes gleaming. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

I snorted. "Well, fine. I'll be damned if I help you down, though."

"That's okay. I don't need your help anyway," he said in a cheerful tone and began to swing down the tree from branch to branch. The image reminded me of a cross between Tarzan and a monkey, a comparison only heightened by the tail that he had trailing behind him. Soon he was sitting on a branch right next to my own and, with a grin, he asked, "So I guess this is where we'll be sleeping for the night?"

"If you can actually get any sleep, yes," I grumbled, wishing that he had fallen on his way down.

"Like I said earlier, Bo," Mike said, the eyes behind his glasses full of amusement.

"I don't want to hear it!" I yelled, covering my ears with my hands as I hunkered down on the branch for a long night that was spent half-awake and pricked with splinters; the only noises my brother's contented snores whistling softly through the night air and the whispering of the trees as I tried to figure out a way to kill him that would look like it was an accident to Mike's critical eye.

The sweat streamed down the well muscled back of the Saiyan as he worked out in the gravity room, the silence only broken by the rustle of his pants and the occasional noise born of exertion. His muscles bulged as they lifted his body up and down, beads of sweat forming and rolling off his body to fall to the floor of the room hard as they were dragged down by the immense artificial gravity. He had found himself spending a lot of his time in the gravity room since his and his companions' return. At least, more time than was usual for him. Although he would admit it to no one, he had somewhat enjoyed his time with the humans on the other Earth and had felt slightly bereft since he had been wished back to his own world.

He vaguely heard his woman pounding on the door of the gravity room, yelling at him to come out and eat, but he had no appetite and so he ignored her. He turned over, sitting on the floor and laying back. Concentrating on his breathing, he felt the intense gravity fight the expansion of his lungs as he drew each breath. He lay like that for a moment, allowing himself to breathe as he let his mind drift.

Sometime later, when he felt a familiar ki approaching his location, he sat up slowly and commanded the gravity chamber to shut down, returning the gravity in gradual increments to Earth norm. He felt his whole body relax as the weight sloughed away and he experienced a momentary light-headedness from the experience. It was the opposite kind of feeling from the kind you get when you lay down in a tub full of water and let the water drain from the tub slowly, bringing your body from a weightless state back into the realms of gravity. He grabbed a towel off of the floor near the door and briskly wiped the sweat off of his body before pulling on a shirt.

Opening the gravity chamber's door, Vegeta stepped outside. The stars in the night sky above glittered faintly and he stared at them for a moment before saying in a gruff tone, "What do you want, Kakarot?"

Goku grinned in his typical fashion. "Awh, c'mon Vegeta. Does a friend need a reason to come visit?"

"First of all Kakarot, you are not my friend and therefore, yes, you do need a reason."

"I was feeling like sparring and wanted to see if you were interested," Goku answered.

Vegeta snorted. Goku was lying, he could tell. He could always tell when the other Saiyan lied, although, admittedly, he didn't do it much. "What's your real motivation, Kakarot? You're wasting my valuable time."

Goku sighed, giving in. "Okay, okay. Bulma asked me to come check up on you, see if you were okay. She said you had been acting weird since we got back and she's worried."

"I'm fine, Kakarot." Vegeta brushed past him, intent on taking a shower and then going to sleep.

"Good!" Goku grinned again. "You wanna spar?"

Vegeta paused and thought over the offer for a moment. He shrugged and turned around. "If you think you can take me," he said, a small smirk on his face as he powered up to Super Saiyan

Goku grinned even larger, if that was possible. "Now there's the Vegeta I know!" He powered up also and then launched himself at the shorter man with a flurry of punches and kicks, all of which Vegeta deflected easily. The Saiyan no Ouji responded by releasing a few large ki blasts at Goku, who scrambled to both shield himself from the blasts and make sure none of them escaped to fall on the surrounding city. He gave Vegeta a reproachful look. "You shouldn't do that, Vegeta. Your aim might be off and you might end up killing some innocent people."

"My aim? Off? Never, Kakarot." Vegeta renewed his assault on the other Saiyan but listened to him and kept his attacks to physical blows.

They sparred like this for a time, neither Saiyan gaining the upper hand until one of Goku's punches slid past Vegeta's defenses and landed itself square on his jaw, an event neither of them were expecting. In shock, Vegeta froze, amazed that Goku had actually managed to land a punch on him, something that rarely happened when they sparred as both of them knew each other's rhythm and had silently agreed to spar to keep their reflexes sharp, but not to actually land blows. So entrenched was Goku in the rhythm he had fallen into that it took him a few moments to recognize that Vegeta was no longer blocking his attacks and in that short period of time, the younger Saiyan managed to land an additional three blows on the Saiyan no Ouji, knocking the shorter Saiyan out of the sky.

"Vegeta!" Goku called out, flying down to kneel beside the other Saiyan. "Are you okay?"

Vegeta blinked a few times and it took him a moment to notice that he was lying down in a large crater, staring up at the night sky with a dazed expression. He sat up and fingered his jaw where Goku had hit him. He didn't seem to have heard Goku's question.

"Vegeta? Are you okay?" Goku repeated, offering a hand to help the shorter man out of the crater.

Vegeta ignored the proffered hand and pulled himself out the hole in the grass. Knocking the dirt from his clothes, he replied, "I'm fine, Kakarot."

"Are you sure?" Goku was concerned. He had never really ever landed a blow on the littler Saiyan before and he took this occurrence as a bad sign.

"What part of 'fine' don't you understand, Kakarot?" Vegeta growled before turning and stalking off. Goku cocked his head to the side, trying to figure out what exactly Vegeta had asked before realizing that it was a rhetorical question. With a sad expression, he stared after the older Saiyan and wondered what was wrong.