Chapter 13

Six months later…

Large, angry bolts of lightning flashed across the pitch black sky of a long since dead planet. The Prince stood on the edge of a steep cliff, face contorted in a slightly appreciative grin at the sight before him.

However, the unusual smile on Vegeta's face wasn't to be confused with joy or any remotely positive emotion since internally, he was a boiling pot of rage and he found the foreboding environment to be a very accurate physical manifestation of his emotional turmoil.

Ever since he left Earth that day all those months ago, he had been training non-stop at levels even more gruelling than before, if that were even possible. He would train for days on end with very little rest, to the point where he would end up blacking out where he stood. Only for him to wake up from his involuntary slumber, have a quick meal to fuel his depleted reserves and get right back to it. An endless cycle full of pain, sweat and self-inflicted bloodshed. While it might seem to the average person that Vegeta was doing too much, he thought that it was exactly what he needed.

Thanks to his unforgiving regimen, Vegeta had managed to push all distractions from his mind successfully. From the day he had left the Earth behind and begun his perilous journey into the four corners of the universe on his quest to achieve Super Saiyan, he had barely (if ever) thought about the woman he left behind. The Prince had landed on numerous planets that he knew to be uninhabited or cleared of all life, courtesy of the purging missions he and the other soldiers of the Frieza Force had been assigned on, the days would melt into weeks since he wasn't able to keep track of time. His waking thoughts were on nothing but achieving his goal. And he had almost succeeded. So it was just his luck that it had all changed drastically in the space of ten minutes.

Two months into his journey, Vegeta woke up from a small rest he had granted himself and made his way to the upper levels of the ship to begin his daily torture session. As he approached the monitor to turn on the gravity, he caught something in his peripheral vision. He looked over and saw a red light blinking steadily. A sign that there was a message waiting for him. His eyes narrowed as he warred with himself on whether or not he should look at it. Vegeta knew that it could've only come from one person and he wasn't very sure he wanted to hear her bitch at him for leaving without telling her beforehand.

Vegeta groaned and rolled his eyes at his thoughts. He was acting as if the woman could inflict bodily harm on him from millions of kilometres away. He pushed his ridiculous thoughts to the side and pressed the button to play the message. The large screen above the monitor flashed for a second before a clear picture formed.

"YOU BASTARD!" Vegeta winced at the shrill voice that echoed through the large speakers at such a high volume, he was surprised the windows of the ship hadn't blown out. Hell, he was even more surprised that his own damn eardrums hadn't blown out.

"Damn harpy." He massaged his bruised ears and scowled at the enlarged image of the woman above him.

"You know, I shouldn't be surprised that you left without telling me what you were planning deliberately but for some stupid reason, I am! For Kami's sake Vegeta, why the hell did you mate with me or whatever if you weren't even willing to involve me in a decision as big as leaving the fucking planet!" The venom in her gaze was so potent, he wondered how he was still alive at that second. Her sapphire eyes burned with indignant flames so hot, they scorched him where he stood and damn if his body didn't respond to that fire in her eyes.

Vegeta shook his head at his juvenile line of thought. This is exactly why he left in the first place. He just knew she was going to carry on and on about him leaving, hence his silent departure.

Bulma raised a clenched fist in her ire, looking ready to punch him through the screen when suddenly her shoulders fell slightly and her eyes took on a suspicious watery look in them. She just looked...tired.

"I could go on and rip you a new one about how much of an asshole you are and how you're a manipulative and selfish bastard but you know what? I couldn't be bothered. It's probably what you expected me to do anyway, ergo you leaving without so much as a goodbye." She sighed and raised her eyes to meet his gaze directly and he felt an unpleasant sensation in his chest, it almost seemed like she was really standing in front of him instead of sitting in her lab light years away from him.

"Honestly, I just wish you had told me you needed to leave so you could focus on yourself completely without any disturbances whatsoever. I'm not an idiot Vegeta. I noticed how you weren't getting to the point you wanted to be at and how much it frustrated you. I would've helped you in any way possible, even if it meant building you a new ship that was stronger, faster and more fuel efficient than the one you're using now. You just had to tell me." She leaned forward in her seat.

"But of course, you went and assumed I was going to cry and scream about how much I didn't want you to go, how much I would need you and just be a clingy mess out of the blue. Shows how much you really know about me, doesn't it your Highness?" Bulma tucked her hair behind her ear and sat backwards with her arms crossed, a sad little smile on her face.

"It doesn't matter though. What's done is done. This is the last time you'll hear from me until you come back, I won't interrupt you again. All I ask is one small favour. Send me some sort of sign letting me know you got this. Anything at all, even if it's a written message from you telling me to leave you alone, just to let me know you're still alive and that you haven't killed yourself trying to become a Super Saiyan. Okay, that's all. Take care Vegeta."

She was about to end the transmission when she stopped, seeming to remember something else.

"Oh and one more thing. This is something I wanted to tell you the morning you left."

Vegeta narrowed his eyes in suspicion, his fists clenching in anticipation.

'Kami, it better not be some idiotic declaration of her affection towards me or something equally sentimental.'

"I guess it's better that you're in space right now, it makes this easier knowing I won't have to see your reaction. This message would've been delayed in reaching you by about a month, considering how far away you are now." She gave him a small smile, her eyes sparkling for a completely different reason now.

"You're no longer the last of your bloodline Vegeta. I'm about two months pregnant. We're going to have a baby. Okay, now that's all. I'll see you around Vegeta. Bye." She smiled before signing off, leaving him to stare at the dark screen with a perturbed expression on his face.

Pregnant...with his offspring.

Vegeta fell to one knee, his mind racing to catch up with what he just heard.

Pregnant...with his heir to the throne of a race that now mingles with the debris floating in the cold reaches of the universe. But how-?

The Prince's head snapped up as his mind suddenly went back to that last night he spent with the woman. Before he'd been distracted by her lush body, he remembered feeling a small blip of passing ki coming from her general direction. It was so tiny he looked it over, thinking it to be her nervous energy when she tried to tell him something. That tiny upsurge must have been the unborn child's ki he had felt.

By the gods, he was going to be a father.

Vegeta's face turned red and he stood to his full height as he growled dangerously into the open space. He felt his power level rise the more he thought about what the woman said. She didn't want him to be disturbed by anything that might throw him off his game?

"Well, what the hell do you call this you damned idiot woman?! You've only succeeded in making me lose more of my focus with telling you're expecting a brat! My brat!" He flew up and punched the monitor, sparks flying around his arms. Their slight burn wasn't remotely enough to take his mind off of what he heard.

From that day on, nothing was enough.

After he had processed what his mate had told him, he'd done everything he could to forget about it and refocus on his original goal. He trained at suicidal levels. He fractured his ribs, he sustained multiple cuts and burns and worked himself to the point of passing out from sheer exhaustion. Yet the results remained the same. No matter how much he pushed himself to near death, he never reached his goal. And it was all thanks to that woman. Even from millions of kilometres away from him, she still managed to infiltrate his thoughts and hinder his training.

"Send me some sort of sign letting me know you got this. Anything at all, even if it's a written message from you telling me to leave you alone, just to let me know you're still alive and that you haven't killed yourself trying to become a Super Saiyan."

He never sent her a damn thing.

Eventually he had enough and about two months later, set course for a planet that had long since gone extinct and was known for its near uninhabitable environment and inhospitable lands. It was exactly what he needed.

A huge crack of thunder broke him out of his musings. The ship had warned him of an incoming meteor shower before he had exited the ship. Sure enough, not a minute later, the first of the meteors made their way down towards the planet's surface. The Prince flew up slightly to meet them and started blasting them one by one. They seemed to increase their rate of fire every ten seconds, forcing him to concentrate on destroying all of them, lest they destroy his ship and leave him as good as dead on that Kami-forsaken hellhole.

Normally this kind of activity would have been as simple as brushing dirt under a rug for him but thanks to his intense sessions at four hundred and fifty times earth's gravity, he was struggling to keep the shower at bay. After five minutes that actually felt like five years, Vegeta released a relieved breath as the shower came to an end. His victory, however, was short lived as a meteor the size of the earth's moon made its way towards the surface, ready to claim this desolate planet and everything on it, himself included.

'No! I refused to be killed by a rock on an unknown planet in some forgotten part of the universe!'

"HAAAAAAGH!" Vegeta charged up his most powerful ki blast and fired it at the meteor. His eyes widened when he saw the meteor pushing through the blast, mocking him with his inability to destroy it, no matter how hard he tried. Out of nowhere, an image of his rival and the lavender haired boy passed through his mind, their gazes pitying as they saw he was about to die a death unbefitting of a royal Saiyan. He suddenly got his second wind and pushed the last of his energy into the blast. He groaned in exertion and watched as hairline cracks started forming on the rock.

BOOM!

The Prince yelled as the force of the explosion flung him into a shallow ravine at full speed. After a moment he pulled himself up from the dirt with humiliating effort. He was injured and utterly fatigued.

"Kakarot." He muttered, venom dripping from each syllable of his most hated adversary's name.

Kakarot.

The first to achieve Super Saiyan in over a millennium.

The one to avenge their fallen race by defeating the tyrant emperor Frieza.

Was this what his life had culminated into?

A Prince of a dead race who was destined to fail at exacting his vengeance on the one being who made twenty odd years of his life a living purgatory?

The Last Son of the Royal Saiyan bloodline forced to watch as his remaining subordinate who knew nothing nor cared for his people's heritage became the Legendary, forever cementing his place as his second?

And it seems that even after all his years of pain, suffering, torture, humiliation and now his failure to reach his destiny, the cruel gods still refuse to grant him a quick death on a dead planet in the forgotten regions of the universe. How the mighty have fallen.

SNAP!

"No! That's it! No more! I DON'T CARE!" Vegeta yelled as he slammed his fist into the jagged earth, spilling his blood onto the lifeless terrain.

His rage had finally come full circle. Nothing mattered to him anymore. Not Kakarot, not achieving Super Saiyan, not his mate and unborn child, not even his own life! He grit his teeth with an unforgiving pressure as he felt an unknown entity form in his chest. He felt everything yet at the same time he felt nothing, his tumultuous mind at war with his thundering emotions.

Vegeta rose onto his knees, his body trembling at the sheer magnitude of raw power flowing through his veins, the beast within screaming for an outlet, fighting to be released!

"HAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHH!" With a mighty roar that could be heard echoing through the neighbouring quadrant of the galaxy, the Prince clenched his fists and threw himself back slightly as he let it all out in a blinding flash of white, his golden aura flaring around him with such brilliant intensity, it seemed as though it shone from the heavens above as the Legendary Super Saiyans of years passed shined their radiant light on their descendant.

A moment later, Vegeta was panting heavily for breath as his senses started returning to him.

"I-impossible. I've finally done it." He marvelled as he gazed at his hands that were shrouded in a golden light. His body jerked as he chuckled silently before he began to laugh maniacally.

'I have finally reached the Legendary. I am now a Super Saiyan!'

No longer was he merely the Saiyan Prince. He had finally taken his place as the most powerful being in the entire universe.

Vegeta smirked deviously, his teal eyes filled with malicious pleasure.

Just as I was meant to.

Author's Note: Yaaaay! He's finally done it. Vegeta is finally a Super Saiyan! *Blasts fireworks*!

This was a super fun chapter to write. I feel really good about this one. I really hope you guys enjoy it!

As always, thank you so much to RoyalBlueRoses and Becky L. Sly for your reviews on the last chapter. You guys never fail to bring a smile to my face.

I hope everyone is keeping safe and sanitized during these trying times. Peace, love and pixie dust to every last one of you. Until next time my dudes. Much love, RR18