A/N: Been too long! But it also could have been worse haha! Things got hectic. Thanks to Trance Sephiroth, elsi, RedSmileyFace, JonnieJoke, sora7, a guy 1013, semploon, AngelGemma, maxridelover, Tia, and a few Guests for their reviews! Sorry you all had to be so patient for the next chapter after that cliffhanger. In this chapter and later on we will see some new viewpoints to explain some of what was going on while Vegeta was out traveling the galaxy. And perhaps some new conflicts will arise from new blood. Saiyans, after all, aren't the friendliest creatures! Anyway, enjoy and I always appreciate the support from you guys!

Goku couldn't believe his ears. A familiar old friend was on the screen, looking as if she had just had three cups of coffee and been up all night with one of her projects, continually running a hand under her jaw, too jittery to decide whether to prop her head up or sit up straight. Her head periodically turned slightly to sense anything that could be behind her. He already knew that she was gone—her father had told him so. But this picture-video…it made it real. Goku clenched a hand as she watched, tensing as he saw her do. And he knew…this hadn't been her choice. She began to talk in that rapid way that she always did, but this time, Goku couldn't tune her out. He listened.

"Hey Goku, I really hope that I can figure out a way to transmit this message. Because what I'm going to ask you to do is something that is going to need to be started as soon as inhumanly possible… I just," she sighed, looking behind her again compulsively. "I'm gonna make this quick for now. Vegeta came back to Earth. He was looking for Gohan originally. A Saiyan half-blood. But then…then he found out about Trunks."

Goku blinked, trying to process all of this. What would Vegeta have wanted with Gohan? Why would Vegeta have even returned to Earth? Any time Goku had ever thought about that before, he was both thrilled and worried at the prospect. Vegeta wasn't a nice guy, and neither were the Saiyans that he brought with him. But Vegeta was a great fighter, and he pushed Goku to be stronger always, a desire that Goku fed off of especially because his continual growth had him far surpassing the humans that lived on Earth. But seeing Bulma's clear misery made him feel guilty for those thoughts. He should have known that if Vegeta ever came back, there would be trouble. Not only was the Earth in danger by Vegeta's presence, so was Bulma on a deeper level. Goku had never understood Bulma and Vegeta's relationship…but he knew that when Vegeta left, Bulma hadn't been happy. And when she found out she was going to have a baby, it was even worse.

He watched the screen intently as Bulma swallowed hard, obviously choking back some feeling. "I wanted to find you before…well, but he wouldn't let me, Goku. And he took us away before I could figure something out." She waved a hand around herself vaguely. "I'm on his spaceship right now. I had to tell Trunks the truth because Vegeta just saw him and he knew. And because of that, he took us away and we are going back to his planet to stay with him for a while." She looked at the screen almost nervously, like she was confiding a secret. "I don't know how long he plans to keep us there."

"I wish I had been able to communicate with you sooner, but he wouldn't let me out of his sight. I'm gonna find a way out of this as soon as I can, but I wasn't sure what Vegeta would do if he had stayed on Earth. I'll make contact again when I can…" She shook her head slightly, staring off overhead in frustration. "I know you never pay attention when I tell you anything…but, tell my dad that I was cannibalizing the space pod you were sent in as a baby in the hopes that I could, well… my dad will know what I mean when I say, just work on finishing that ship!" A shadow crossed the doorway behind her and Bulma then glanced back and returned to bowing her head over the screen. "Well, this is goodbye for now, Goku. I'm trusting you with…everything there. You just trust me too. Don't try to come after me, okay? You can't breathe in space and you don't have the ability to pilot a ship to get you there."

And then the transmission was over and she blinked off. Goku stared at the blankness for several minutes before saying to Dr. Briefs, "How did you get this?"

The old man smiled almost halfway cheerful, his mustache bristling. "I check your email, my boy. I don't know how she found networking to send it, but once it got here, it was easy to open. Don't underestimate that daughter of mine!"

Goku glared up at the ceiling blocking the sky, thinking of Bulma and of Trunks. They were too far away now. More importantly, he thought of Vegeta. "I have to go after her. I know she said not to, but Vegeta might have told her to say that…" he turned to Bulma's father with that naïve, helpless expression, Goku's natural optimism warring with his instinct to protect his friends. Dr. Briefs would know what to do. "What do you think I should do?"

The old man averted his eyes from Goku. And the Saiyan couldn't know it, but he was thinking of a small girl with vibrant hair, always taking apart his newest inventions only to put them back together. And he thought of a woman who shared cocktails with the highest rollers and scribbled formulas into her notebooks, nose splattered with engine grime.

"Well, I don't know what you will do, my boy. But I intend to do as my daughter said." The doctor's mustrache ruffled impatiently as he turned away from the computer, millions of things already running through his vast mind. "I'm going to stay here and finish what my daughter started. And I'm going to help her from here in any way that I can."

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"What have you done?" Vegeta asked again, fury in every syllable. He looked at his father, unable to believe it. Everything he was going to say to the King had dissipated to nothing and narrowed to this. He knew the precedent for it… he knew that his father would have had his genetic material preserved in order to do exactly this, as had been done for generations. But why now when Vegeta had yet to challenge the King for the throne? Had his father really believed that he would never return?

"I didn't expect such anger, Vegeta," his father said, though his face betrayed no such surprise. "A Saiyan in your own image. And I didn't think you would mind being relieved of the duty of training the brat yourself."

"I don't," Vegeta said, turning back to the young doppleganger. It had taken some time to get used to Trunk's similar features…this even more obvious resemblance was downright unsettling. He wondered if his father felt the same way looking at him. Probably not, as the King at least was prepared to have a child and had been a part of his life since birth. The confusion made him feel oddly calm as he spoke next. "You had no reason to do this. You already had an heir. Why?"

"Do I have an heir?" the King responded. The prince dearly wanted to put a fist through his father's face, but his murderous impulse was deadened by the boy's careful study of him. Already, Vegeta could read most of his expressions. Trunks was easier to glean (a human, and therefore emotive mix of him and Bulma), but that wasn't saying much… This boy seemed reluctantly impressed by the power level he clearly had sensed coming from Vegeta, but was trying hard to hide it. And he never looked away from the Prince of All Saiyans, signaling an intense curiosity.

"I'm here, aren't I?" Vegeta growled. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised, but indignation coursed through him at the mere suggestion that he wouldn't ever return to take his place on the throne.

"You are, for now," the King pointed out, brushing his goatee with two fingers. "You are here to run your unnamed experiments and you present me with your bastard half-breed and his little alien mother. Now I present you with a worthy Saiyan son, and you respond with your usual ingratitude."

The words were not lies, yet they enraged Vegeta for some reason. His father had taken something from him in order to produce an heir that Vegeta never asked for and didn't know. And then his father expected him to be grateful?

Vegeta looked at the boy again, and suppressed the jolt of renewed shock that the miniature was standing there, garbed as a prince, watching the exchange between father and son with nothing more than mild, angry interest. "The brat isn't my son," Vegeta said with no small touch of resentment. He saw the boy's expression flicker at the pronouncement, but he didn't care. "You raised him, whether or not you used my genetics to breed him, he is yours."

"Oh, and you raised your half-breed spawn, my son?" The King chuckled, knowing that whatever the story was behind the existence of the half-Saiyan, he was well-acquainted enough with the Prince to know that he had no part in raising the boy… Elite Saiyans were not bred for family. Vegeta was as Elite a Saiyan as one could get.

Vegeta clenched his fists. "I've told you before, at least a half-breed is potentially more powerful than whatever you've drummed up here!" He swept a beefy arm over the child dismissively, causing it to glare.

The King continued to stroke his beard. "And I'm sure you will test that potential. I would… enjoy seeing it for myself. But for now, our audience is at an end. You may accompany your full-blooded son back to the royal quarters while I inform the generals of your return…officially. That is… if we can expect you for a while."

Rage bubbled up in Vegeta at the casual way his father spoke of his ambitions. He so dearly wanted to tell the King that he was the true power behind the Saiyan throne and therefore he was going to decide when their audience was at an end, and if the King had any objection, he would be happy to silence the old man permanently and take the Kingship right there. But he didn't… because there were all too many reasons not to do that. And not the least of all was the fact that he didn't WANT to be King…

But Vegeta also knew well how this would go. His father's declaration that he would speak to the generals was in fact, merely acknowledgment that he would make the generals aware of the Prince's situation in vague terms and smooth over where needed. He would speak to his father further in private, and he would have his answers later. And he could see that his father, while speaking disparagingly of Bulma and Trunks and despite his effort to seem unaffected, was intrigued by his return.

Let his father dismiss him then. For now, he would go and set the woman straight about following the rules. He wasn't sure how he was going to control his temper with her, but if he didn't, he would probably accidentally kill her. And Vegeta prided himself on his control.

"I assure you that you can expect me for a while," Vegeta said. He swept out of the room without ceremony or any due respect, not caring to see whether the miniature brat followed after him.

After a few steps, he could sense the brat flying after him, just like Trunks always seemed to do when walking would have been just as serviceable.

No. Vegeta thought. This creature is not my son. My father did this because I left and he needed a replacement heir. And I will hate them both for this forever.

The child didn't speak, but Vegeta could already sense so many things about him: arrogance, pride, hunger. Made in his own Saiyan image. How like his father! Plenty of pride, but no true freedom to back it up.

When they reached the royal quarters, the child continued gliding after him until Vegeta swung around to face him. "Where are you located in this wing?" he asked brusquely.

The child frowned at the dismissiveness, but didn't appear startled by Vegeta's first true words to him. The brat crossed his arms and his face hardened. "Next to the King's quarters," he answered haughtily. Vegeta bit back the urge to snap at him. It was beneath him to compete for his own importance to his father against a cub with no challenging power level compared to his own. If Vegeta so chose, he could end his father's reign without much trouble.

"Well these are MY chambers, so you can continue on alone."

The flare in the child's energy had him hesitate for the barest moment, curiosity bristling reluctantly. He wanted to test this son too. He wanted to compare him to the annoying, energetic, purple-haired son he had traveled with for the last month.

"Is it true that you have a half-breed? Like Grandfather said?"

Vegeta glowered at him. The conversation with his father had confirmed as much, any further discussion about it was utterly redundant. But he sensed that the brat merely asked to raise the subject again. For what reason, Vegeta did not know. "What is it to you, boy?"

"Is he strong? Why did you bring him here?"

Clearly, the boy hadn't fully understood what had passed between Vegeta and his father in the private audience chambers…but Vegeta also recognized the boy's tone—that bravado and fury where pain and insecurity lay deep within. Vegeta smirked. He could handle this. This boy was himself so many years ago…and he knew him already like he knew the unchanging hairs on his own head.

"Go away, brat." Vegeta made a show of turning his back on the youth. And then he hesitated, knowing that the other was marking his every move. He wanted to draw him in and entice him, and it would be so easy. "And as for whether the boy is strong…you'll soon find out."

As he entered his quarters, he entertained himself by imagining the idea of Trunks going at it with Vegeta's own young clone—no, he wasn't really a son.

…but the brat could be, in fact, useful. A full-blooded Saiyan child compared to a half-blooded Saiyan child was exactly what he wanted to measure; and that was potential. He couldn't help but feel a rush of pride at the idea of his offspring pit against each other, fighting to see which would be most powerful. That was a legacy he could leave behind!

Vegeta was grinning as he turned the corner, but that quickly faded at the sight of the woman sitting there on the bed…alone.

"Where's the boy?" Vegeta demanded, in order to distract himself from the familiar anger that rushed forward at the remembrance of her disobedience. They had only been on-planet for a few standard hours and she was incapable of being trustworthy—incapable of being worthy of Vegeta's good graces. He glowered at her heatedly, even as she waved her hand lazily, not worried at all about his very palpable anger.

"In a surprising display of paternal instinct, your goon Nappa is instructing Trunks on all things Saiyan living. Although, come to think of it…it's probably just an attempt to distract him for when you finally arrived to kill me for daring to disobey your dictates."

In one blink of an eye, Vegeta was directly in front of her, hand on her wrist and fiddling with the bracelet there. He smiled when he heard her swallow and freeze.

"What are you doing?"

It all happened very quickly. He unclamped the bracelet and watched as she went to her knees underneath the crushing gravity of the planet. She didn't even have time to call out in pain before she was sprawled on the floor. It wouldn't seem long to her, but he knew it was enough—to get her heart racing in terror, to give her that interminable second of helplessness before he rescued her.

Immediately after she crumpled to the carpet, he clasped the bracelet back onto her wrist and she instinctively clambered to his knees to give her enough purchase to raise herself up. Chest heaving, it didn't take her long to associate him with what just happened and just like he could expect of a human, she tried to pull back from his touch, disgusted with his brutal methods.

His arm, like so many other times during their association, was like steel around her and he brought her nose to nose with him. He could feel those quick, tiny breaths she was making, intoxicating to his ears.

"Do you understand me now?" he whispered against her cheek.

"MAMA!"

There was scuffling right in the room next to this one and a demanding "let GO!" and then Trunks was there, skidding to a stop as he saw them in what could have appeared like an embrace.

"What are you doing?" the boy said suspiciously. Vegeta had to give him credit, the boy was more discerning than most brats, who would have jumped to conclusions rather than trying to assess the situation. It was a good battle skill when done quickly enough. Vegeta released the woman as Nappa came to Trunks' side.

"I apologize, Your Highness."

Vegeta held up a hand to silence Nappa, his eyes still on Trunks. "What does it look like we were doing?"

Trunks looked to his mother for help and Vegeta did not look at her, but when Trunks' gaze returned to his, it was clear that the woman hadn't been very helpful in her expression. The purple-haired boy looked doubtfully at his father, but seemed unable to express what he thought he saw.

"She was scared," he finally said.

But Vegeta had been ready for that response. "Being scared and being very happy can sometimes feel like the same thing," Vegeta offered to the boy.

There were several beats of silence after that, as Trunks tried to decided whether or not to believe Vegeta. Then, his mother decided for him.

"It was nothing, sweetie." Bulma sounded completely normal, to her credit, and Trunks had no choice but to accept her words. "Let…Nappa show you some more things while your father and I talk."

Vegeta didn't imagine a four-year old could read implication into anything, but it certainly sounded as if Bulma was implying that she wanted to be alone with Vegeta, even to his ears. Nappa sent a look over to Vegeta, clearly wondering if he had misread the situation. And since Vegeta didn't know why the woman was being so helpful, he remained stone-faced until they were gone, letting Nappa play nanny in the other room.

Once her son was out of earshot, Bulma turned to him. The shock had worn off and in its place was a careful scrutiny that made Vegeta angry. She should be angry with him for doing that. But of course, she could never do what he expected of her.

"Do you understand me?" he repeated, feeling again emboldened by righteous fury. Why, of all the females in the universe, had he gotten stuck with this troublesome, yet talented one? Had he been able to cut his losses and snap her in half, he would have done so already. But she caught him off guard again by refusing to match his emotion.

"Yes, I understand what you mean," she said. He was gratified that he really could hear the thin thread of fright behind the placid veneer. "But…is this really the way you want it to be for us?"

He raised his eyebrows, not understanding her meaning. "What?"

"I've agreed to help you…and I actually want to help you. I said that before and I really meant it." She was looking around the rich room, the mirrors, the dark walls, the bed…him. "But you could make me hate you if you wanted to. You could make me feel like a prisoner here. Is that what you want to do?"

Vegeta cocked his head as she spoke, unwillingly intrigued by her words. "What will make you obey?" he finally responded. He didn't feel she had some moral high-ground here, as humans so loved to think. He walked slowly around the bed back over to her, talking as he moved. "The boy raced to the room when he felt your heart jump. He's very sensitive to you."

She didn't comment on his words, it was nothing he hadn't remarked upon before. But she watched his progress towards her side with avid caution.

"And yet…" he rolled the words off of his tongue as if they were syrup, "if I were to suddenly move with the intent to kill you… he wouldn't get here in time. And he would be my prisoner, Bulma. Until he was old enough to challenge and kill me himself, as is Saiyan custom." And what a glorious day that would be, some time in the far future. The other boy passed into his thoughts, but he wouldn't tell her about that now. Her business was her boy.

Bulma gave him a frigid smile at the future he painted and he knew that she was revolted by it.

"So…I think the question, Woman, is what do you want?" He looked at her, wanting to rip her hair out, wanting to tuck it behind her ear and bite that place just underneath it. He knew without understanding that if she were to die, so many irreplaceable things would die with her. He couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her. But he couldn't let her know it either, beyond how he could utilize her.

"I want to go home," she said. She smiled suddenly, letting it fade just as quickly. And then she walked away from him and towards the corridor.

"I'm glad there are so many rooms in this apartment." She glanced back at him. "But you have the best room, don't you? Only the best for the Prince of All Saiyans."

She may have winked at him, but he also may have imagined it. And not for the first time, he thought, what would the night bring?

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The third living Vegeta sat on the floor of his chambers, trying to concentrate on sensing power levels, but wanting to just burst through the walls and find out what his father's half-spawn was like. He wasn't jealous. He was just angry. His grandfather had always told him that if his father returned someday, he would finish off his training with him, which was exactly what he needed because Prince Vegeta was the strongest Saiyan in the galaxy. And young Vegeta would only train with the best so that he could surpass them, and perhaps roam the galaxy for a time, just like his father did. It was the way of things.

But his father was both impressive and disappointing. He was as powerful as they said. But he was also strange-minded and cruel and he had come back with aliens and had no time for his own Saiyan son. It wasn't right.

The young boy laid back on the floor as he sensed a power level in close proximity to his father, one as bright as his own…and maybe even more. Vegeta felt something bitter turn his mouth and he wondered if it was what he thought it was, but it couldn't have been. It was impossible.

And as for whether the boy is strong…you'll soon find out.

Young Vegeta decided that it should be treason to be stronger than your future king…unless you were to challenge the throne to the death. It was the way of things.

And Vegeta wondered how many months or years from now it would be before he would have to kill his half-brother. And he wondered how soon it would be before he'd want to kill him. Learning self-control was not an important aspect of Saiyan war, but he had heard it whispered that his father was famed for his displays of self-control and valued it above many things.

Vegeta decided that he wouldn't be able to know such a thing until he met the spawn. Besides, once his father saw that he had killed his half-breed brother, his father would realize that he didn't need a hybrid abomination to make himself stronger.

Vegeta could carry his father's legacy, just as he was supposed to.

It was the way of things.

A/N: Too many Vegetas but don't worry, there will be a nickname coming for one of them! And hopefully no more three month dry spells! There's been a lot going on lately, but I'm happy to catch up with this again. Please review and tell me what you think! Obviously, some of the drama of Vegeta having a secret clone/son has been suspended for later. Neither Bulma nor Trunks know about it yet, but they will soon!