A/N: Hi guys! Thanks SO much for the reviews! Elsi (oh, he should! He's very important to this story and vey much a foil to Trunks!) maxridelover (I'm glad you do, I've got a lot of plans that will be fleshing out soon… ) sora 79 (Vegeta's clone is strong, and we'll see him pit against Trunks in many chapters to come) lmamc (thank you for reviewing! Here is the next one…haha) storybook thumb (very interesting comparison, of course, the clone is Vegeta's "son" so he is not going to be the sweet little nugget that Goten is in canon!) Tia (thank you! We will definitely see more of life in Vegeta-sei with Bulma and Trunks exploring. Details will come, but I have to get through all of this crazy reveal stuff first haha!) cemploon (thank you so much! Hope you enjoy the next installment!) RedSmileyFace (yes, the Saiyan cruelty is REALLY going to come to the forefront of this story…as you will see partially in this chapter but in a very pronounced way to come. Vegeta…well, he's never done the 'dad thing' before and his parenting style is going to have some ramifications going forward, but that's all I'll say about it!) Shizzy92 (why thank you, and yes, I love the theme of brothers and that's going to be a major thrust of this story, believe me…) Anyway, more to come after this and I hope you all enjoy!

"Bulma!" Goku was waving, dressed as a Saiyan Royal Guard just like the ones she saw that day. "Chi-Chi will be so happy because this job pays much better than turnips! And who knows? I might get to fight!" He frowned. "They just wouldn't let me keep the orange gi…"

"But why are you here, Goku?" Bulma cut in impatiently. She had somewhere to be, she knew the direction she had to run in, but she didn't know what the occasion was. And Goku was here…why was he here?

Goku crooked his head in honest concern. "Bulma, you invited me. Don't you remember?"

Bulma ran a hand through her hair and shook her head. She didn't remember that; as far as she knew, Goku was home on Earth. And she had just arrived at Vegeta-sei, so he couldn't have gotten here so quickly. He wasn't supposed to be here, that much she knew.

"Goku, I told you not to come here," she finally said. "Ugh, why don't you ever listen?!"

Confusion, a very familiar expression of Goku's, bled on to his features. "But you said you wanted me to be here to protect everybody at the ceremony!"

"What ceremony?!" she blasted, making him take a small step backward even though she was no physical match for him.

"Trunks' ceremony! Sheesh…"

Her son's? How could she have forgotten? Was she late?! What kind of mother would she be if she was late for the ceremony?

"Where is it?" she quickly asked Goku, worried that this lapse would cost her a special moment in her little boy's life. She wished she could just remember what this was about!

Goku pointed to his left, down a narrow hall. "It's happening in that room. Don't worry, Bulma, I'm sure they'll wait."

She was already off down the hall, waving behind her. "Thanks, Goku!"

The door she wanted seemed to stretch farther and farther away, until Bulma was at a dead run trying to reach it. "Come on!" she exclaimed, still yards away. It was like progressing on a treadmill, slow and futile. But she kept going and going…what else was she to do?

She panted in relief when her hand finally closed on the black knob and she pulled at it. And there they were: Trunks and Vegeta, their backs to her.

"Am I late?" she asked. "Hey! Will you guys look at me? I just ran the whole way down the hall to get here and—!"

The end of her last sentence circled the drain and disappeared when Trunks finally turned to face her, muscles tensing, and she saw… His normally blue eyes were darkened to twin lumps of coal so empty that she could see her reflection in them. Her baby. He was so tall, so strong…so cold.

"We're busy," he said, and his voice was older, deeper. Vegeta then moved to look at her and—

"Mama…Mama!"

Trunks wasn't shouting for her, but that didn't stop Bulma's maternal instinct from bolting her out of sleep like he had been. She sat up in bed, her head inclined toward the door as she heard small feet brush along the carpet. Trunks was walking. Trunks never walked when he could fly…unless he wasn't feeling good. Groaning internally while brushing off the disturbing dream she just had, Bulma quickly computed how many unknown bacteria they were possibly being exposed to and how likely it would be that Trunks, a half-human, could contract something before she did, given his young age. She got out of bed and came to the door with the knowledge that he would be standing on the other side of it, wanting Mama's full attention.

And he was there, looking pathetic and puppy-dog eyed at her (thankfully, with blue-blue eyes, she thought with a shudder). "I don't feel good," he whined.

Bulma nodded calmly, not one to panic over the unknown. "Where does it hurt, baby?"

Trunks didn't gesture to his stomach, like she had assumed that he might have, but instead winced miserably. "All over…"

Bulma sighed, having hoped for something a little more descriptive. She stood aside, indicating that he could come in and he wasted no time curling up in her bed. She followed him and tugged on the bedsheet he wrapped around himself. "Sweetheart, you have to let me look at you so I can tell what's wrong, okay? Sit up."

Trunks shook his head adamantly, burying it in the linen. "Don't wanna."

"Trunks," she warned him, sitting down next to the breathing ball of covers without pity. "I wasn't asking, I was telling."

"Pleeeeeeeasse, Mama…" She saw a flash of a blue eye before he burrowed back in. "Tired."

Shaking her head, but figuring that she should pick her battles, Bulma settled back in the bed, wrapping her arms around her son's lumpy form. She felt his head and he was just a little on the warm side. At least if anything serious happened, she would be right there. She briefly considered telling Vegeta, but then reasoned against it. 'Grumpy' was the understatement of the century to describe Vegeta when forcibly woken. She didn't want to deal with that at this hour.

Besides, Trunks could have just started to feel clingy after being half the night in a strange place. Perhaps the novelty of Vegetasei wore off and now he was missing home?

"If your tummy feels sick, you wake me up right away," she stipulated in the shell of her little boy's ear. No way she was getting vomited on. He nodded pitifully and everything was silent until Bulma drifted back to a dreamless sleep.

Trunks' gasp of acute pain woke her up two hours later. He was hot in her arms.

"Trunks?!" Worried, she turned him over to find him sweating and shaking. She stroked his head. "Baby, what's wrong?"

"Hurts…" Trunks gritted out, turning his face away from her caressing hands in agitation. "Mama, it hurts right—" He suddenly arced his back and howled with enough pain to make Bulma's heart skip a beat.

"Trunks!"

"Woman, what in the hell is going on in here?"

Bulma ignored the booming of Vegeta's voice and tried to turn her son towards her. "Trunks, baby, what's wrong? Woah!"

Something wriggled impatiently against her and nearly succeeded in pushing her off the bed entirely. Trunks was now quietly crying, and that same something that had initially pushed against her now wrapped itself around her wrist. It was soft and furry, but nevertheless, Bulma shrieked in revulsion. "Something's on me!"

Vegeta was immediately there, ripping away bedding and prying mother and son apart. "Enough of this!"

Whatever was holding onto Bulma yanked desperately at her when Vegeta did so and Trunks whined in alarm. "Stop it!"

"What is…" Vegeta trailed off and was silent for a moment.

"What?!" Bulma cried, frustrated that she couldn't see what was going on. "What is it!"

Vegeta dropped her and went to the window, where the curtain was open enough to let in a thick shaft of moonlight. He parted it further and the looked back at Bulma and their son. With his face thrown into relief by the light, she could see that there was a slight smirk on his face. "The boy's tail has grown back."

"What?" Instinctively, Bulma tried again to wrench her hand away, but the new tail was Saiyan-strong and its muscles had a firm hold on her. Even stranger, Trunks was quiet again and his breathing was even and Bulma wondered if he had ever really woken up or if he had been in an unconscious, painful stupor when the tail made its reappearance on the boy's backside.

"H-how did it come back?" she finally managed to ask.

Vegeta walked away from the window toward the bed, turning back into shadow. "Moonlight influences our tails. Obviously, it did so with the brat's, which is good. He would have been an outcast here without it. The Oozaru is a boast of the Saiyan race."

Bulma shuddered, remembering why she had had the tail removed in the first place. The terrifying memories of young Goku turning into a giant, monstrous ape where all too clear. Something suddenly occurred to Bulma and her eyes snapped back to Vegeta, squinting in the darkness.

"You didn't have a tail when you came to Earth…neither did Radditz or Nappa."

"When you travel the galaxy, it sometimes doesn't not make practical sense to have your tail," was all that Vegeta would offer. "You may not have noticed mine because Saiyans keep them wrapped around the waist as a protection. Mine has been removed and grown back so many times that it is less painful than an amputation."

"That's completely gross," Bulma told him. She looked down at her sleeping little boy. "But he's not a full Saiyan, and I don't like it. I can just put him under and he would never even—"

"If you think about it, Woman, I'll be sure to amputate one of your limbs and see how you like it," Vegeta threatened her viciously. "On Vegeta-sei a tail is a way of distinguishing. It is a matter of pride! You will not go near the boy's tail!"

"Trunks' new tail won't let go of me," Bulma pointed out. "Speaking of, could you please help me out here?"

Vegeta sniffed and strode towards the door, barely looking back. "It will let go of you when it pleases, Woman."

"Jerk!"

The door closed on the scene, the boy, his mother, that bed… Vegeta stood still for a moment, his back to what he had just left.

The boy had a tail now. And the tail clung to his mother like Vegeta expected a Saiyan cub's might if they had over-coddling females holding them to breast. Through that shaft of moonlight, he could see it—wrapped securely around Bulma's wrist. In the morning, would he have to pry it off?

Something niggled at Vegeta uneasily…it seemed that human attachment still had overwhelming disadvantages and he wondered whether it would begin to outweigh the advantage of keeping the Woman in line…

Human attachment… that disgusting, intangible thing. It could be crippling in the wrong circumstances, not just nauseating to witness.

Vegeta's mind whirled as he returned to his own chamber. The boy's tail had immediately curled around his mother, a gesture that signified an attachment that any Saiyan sire would work out of the babe immediately. No Saiyan needed to be clinging to its mother. It was a confusing problem for Vegeta…he had noted that the boy's protective instinct towards the woman that birthed him made him more powerful. Yet, Trunks was also already very powerful for a Saiyan youth by virtue of his royal blood. And his extreme lack of training aside, the boy was quick to understand everything that he was taught, a quality that could have come from both of his parents.

What was the root of that burst of power he displayed when his mother was threatened? Could it be diagnosed and replicated?

That was the Woman's job, to give him the scientific explanations for such things. Vegeta's job was to train his brat until he lacked nothing that any other Saiyan brat had, and then some!

But…perhaps some distance between the boy and his mother was called for. It was unnatural and could very well impede his progress, especially since all Vegeta needed to discover was how that burst of power could come about without one specific trigger.

Of course, what the Woman didn't know wouldn't create problems for him.

And therefore, it was only another few hours later that Vegeta barged back into Bulma's bedroom and pulled the boy up by his scruff and was out of the room before either of them could blink open their eyes. Vegeta observed with satisfaction that Trunks' tail was stiff with surprise at the suddenness of the movement. Its reflexes were well and normal.

When Trunks did begin to yawn and stretch himself out of slumber, he did not startle at being hauled around in this way. Vegeta had often woken him up that way while they were still on the ship and had just commenced training together.

"'s early," Trunks mumbled when Vegeta tossed him across the threshold of his own room. He bounced once and skidded towards the bedpost in a manner that might have been comical if anyone but Vegeta were watching.

"Dress yourself," Vegeta ordered. "You will be ready to go before the sun rises on the day. What you will wear is already laid out for you." Vegeta had taken it upon himself to retrieve proper garments for the boy so he would be outfitted appropriately and not like some young alien urchin. That loathsome purple hair would likely garner enough sneers without adding to it.

Trunks agreeably shuffled to his feet, going to scratch the back of his shorts when he stopped midway and craned to see behind him, suddenly alert. "Huh?"

"What, boy?" Vegeta said, even though he knew what Trunks was gaping at.

"I have a tail."

"All Saiyans have tails. You had a tail at birth," Vegeta responded, "until that mother of yours cut it off."

"Woahhhhhhhhhhh." He prodded it experimentally before scampering to a mirror to look every which way at his reflection. "I have a tail!"

"You already said that."

"Where's Mama? I hafta tell her about my tail!" He was near skidding off until Vegeta's big hand cut him short.

"The Woman already knows. And was already suggesting we'd cut it off again." Vegeta grinned at Trunk's horrified face and his wince of phantom pain at the thought of it. "I suggest you come with me today so she'll forget all about it."

Trunks frowned. "But—"

Vegeta shook his head. "This is your choice, brat. You either come train with me now or you stay in this room the entire day. But stop wasting my time regardless."

"I'm coming!" It wasn't much of a choice, so Trunks disappeared back into his room to hurriedly put on his garments. "What're we gonna learn today?" he shouted through the door. Vegeta rolled his eyes, walking away without an answer.

"You have seconds, boy!"

Nappa was waiting for him in the main apartments and Vegeta went directly to him. "Well?"

"Your s—" he paused, sensing an explosion if he finished that word and quickly amending it, "I mean, the King's cloning experiment just left to the training grounds. I supposed he means to find you coming there soon."

"Yes, I'm sure he does." Vegeta's lip curled. "I saw the brat yesterday, he's anxious to get a glimpse of the half-blood son I brought with me."

"Papa! Are these tights?!" An indignant lavender head poked out of the room. "Are these for a boy or a girl?"

"Shut up and put them on!" Vegeta hissed, annoyed now that he realized the brat was unable to dress himself. He moved to take his leave of Nappa again, but before he did, he leaned in and said, "When I leave with the brat, I have something else for you to do…"

VBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVBVB

When Bulma woke, she was alone and cold. Trunks was gone and the night's events slowly rolled back into her consciousness. "Oh!" She went to get out of bed too quickly, and her feet didn't catch under her in time, so she tumbled to the floor with an undignified thud. "Ugh."

Her baby had sprouted back a tail in the night, Bulma thought glumly as she picked herself up. She remembered, years ago, telling the doctor to have it removed immediately, thoroughly unsurprised when her newborn had an extra appendage. And the doctor, with one look at the unhappy woman who had just given birth after one of the oddest and most painful pregnancies he had ever seen, was blessedly efficient about it.

And now, here it was again…a Saiyan tail. For some reason, that brought thoughts of black, empty eyes in Trunks' sweet face older and utterly transformed. It chilled her and she didn't want to think about it.

Her thoughts were cut off when somebody banged on her bedroom door with unnecessary force, rattling the hinges…though, Bulma supposed that with Saiyan strength most things were done with unnecessary force.

"You better not have accidentally killed yourself in there," Nappa rumbled through the barrier. "I don't need the aggravation. Say something if you're fine."

What the hell was Nappa doing outside her door? And where were Vegeta and Trunks?

"Fine!" Bulma called. "Though I'd be better if you would find something else to do besides wait outside my door like a creep!"

"Trust me, puny bitch, this is the last thing I want to do with my day! But unfortunately, this is what the Prince wanted and therefore, it is what I will do." Nappa was resolute, though Bulma knew he hated few things more than her. She hissed in frustration that Vegeta put them in this situation. She remembered what he had said to Nappa on the ship: if Bulma died, so did Nappa…so now that smelly thing outside the door would probably be her permanent guard…and they would likely be restraining themselves every minute. Already, her fingers were twitching to strangle Vegeta's second.

But until she figured out how to navigate the situation, she was stuck with the buffoon.

Bulma got to her feet, tossing the blankets back on to the bed and staring at the closed door. "Where is my son?" she called through it. She suppressed the urge to ask after Vegeta, she was annoyed with him for a yet unnamed reason she didn't wish to examine. Nappa's response was slow in coming, as if he intended to leave her in suspense.

"Your half-breed is training. He didn't have the ability to sleep the day away like his mother. The Prince is going to make him a true Saiyan."

There were several seconds of soundlessness before Bulma decided that jumping through the door and attempting to murder Nappa was inadvisable at best, and she turned towards the bathroom, stewing.

Implying she was lazy and useless! Taunting her with her own son? No, this wasn't how her indeterminable sentence of torture with Vegeta's lackey was going to go. She took her sweet time in the bathroom and getting dressed, knowing that the large Saiyan would be forced to wait for her, humming to herself as she did so.

She was patient, and eventually smirked as she got the reaction she deserved: "What in Frieza's Hell are you doing in there, Blue Woman?! You can't possibly be so ugly that it takes this long to make yourself presentable!"

Huffing, Bulma sat up from her perch on the bed and marched over to the door, ripping it open. "You're one to talk! No amount of work in the morning would keep people from running and screaming! Besides, you're not in any rush! Your only job is to make sure that I stay alive, so stop whining!"

Nappa took one look at her and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're wearing that?"

Bulma looked down at herself. She was just wearing a simple midriff tank top and khakis with boots. "What's wrong with this?" Nappa had never commented on her clothing before, and she couldn't understand why he would care now.

"You're on Vegeta-sei now, Woman. You can't go prancing around, throwing your alien airs in everyone's face! Good way to get yourself raped or killed. And while nothing would give me more pleasure than to watch that, I am held to making sure that does not happen."

Bulma raised an eyebrow. "First of all, aren't you more powerful than most Saiyans? I figured you'd have to be since you follow Vegeta around all of the time. And second of all, what do you want me to do?! Walk around naked? These are the clothes I brought! And last time I checked, I didn't make a trip to the Saiyan boutique for these more 'appropriate' clothes you're talking about! Sheesh."

She had a point. If she were to wear Saiyan attire, she would have to get it from somewhere first. Nappa dearly wished that Vegeta had foreseen this and dealt with it himself. Vegeta was reaping the benefits of fucking the mouthy little alien, but Nappa was getting all the shit of the job. Glaring viciously at her, he turned and started walking away.

"I will not come with you to try on pretty dresses. We will forget about the clothes and I will take you to the lab where the technology slaves are at work." Better to watch her wander around there.

"But what about Trun—"

"We'll get to that later!" Nappa snapped. "You'll just be in the way of their training if you go now!" The woman was downright insufferable about her offspring. He thanked the gods that Saiyans were not created with such irritating, weepy attachments. "I'll show you to the labs."

Feeling as if she had little choice since she didn't know her way around, and also privately excited to see what would be at her disposal, Bulma trotted after her enormous bodyguard.

In the hours before Bulma awoke alone, Vegeta strode towards the Royal Family's private training grounds with Trunks bouncing along at his side. He had a shocking amount of energy for a boy that could barely be hauled out of bed a half-hour before. His tail was swishing back and forth with a cocky alertness that made Vegeta want to tie the thing in a knot around the brat's waist. It looked so…unseemly the way it was! He made a mental note to make the boy pay for his vulnerability later, both for the sake of battle and for the sake of etiquette.

"Papa, is this gonna be like the gravity chamber?" the boy asked. The constant gravitational pull of this world had been different at first, but Trunks had trained enough at a higher gravity on the ship that the adjustment had been quick and smooth. It then occurred to Vegeta to remember again that his planet had no gravity chamber. Bulma, who invented it alongside her sire, had never been to Vegeta-sei to do so. In fact, the ship they arrived it would be their only access to such a thing until she could make one for the planet… an important part of her list of responsibilities.

"No. This will be an ordinary training ground. But don't expect me to go easy on you." He cast a long look at the boy, appraising his raiment. It was interesting to see this human-haired half-blood in princely armor, ready to train just as he himself had been twenty years ago.

And already training was another boy, looking even more like him, wearing the same princely armor.

"Your veins are popping out," Trunks pointed to Vegeta's clenched fist. "And we haven't even started fighting yet."

Vegeta smirked, relaxing his hand. "You won't be fighting me, boy."

Trunks halted, surprising his father with the suddenness. The boy looked unsure, for once. "I'm not fighting with you?"

Vegeta didn't repeat himself, but turned back in the direction they were headed. "No. Move along, boy!"

There was now a glimmer of wariness in the boy. After accepting Vegeta was his father, he had trained with only him and occasionally sparred with Nappa. An unfamiliar opponent had the brat on his guard, which was just as well.

The doors parted and there stood his young self, not running through forms, not powering up…just waiting there. Vegeta knew what the brat wanted, that he had sensed them coming…and Vegeta would give him an opportunity to get it.

"Papa." Trunks had seen his opponent, and he was stock-still. His mouth fell, slowly, but none of the expected questions tumbled out. Instead, he bent his knees and took flight, landing quickly before Vegeta's clone and scrutinizing him unabashedly. Vegeta followed, his heart beating an unfamiliar rhythm as he watched.

"What is your name?" Trunks asked the boy, frowning darkly at his counterpart's appearance. He was exactly the Vegeta line in miniature. The clone straightened and his chest puffed out.

"I am Prince Vegeta, Third Living of the Name and Second Heir to Vegeta-sei." It was a title that had been recited again and again, but without the boredom that came with repetition. The brat was proud of his station and blood and would never tire of telling the universe who he was. He smirked and looked over the scowl, his father's face in blue eyes and purple hair. Aliens… "Who are you?"

"I'm Trunks," the half-blood responded easily and just as haughtily, as if his name was a title as worthy as the Prince of All Saiyans. The corner of Vegeta's mouth curled upwards, almost unwillingly. Trunks cocked his head to one side, fascinated. "You look just like Papa. And you have the same name."

The other brat glared darkly, his eye twitching at Trunks' casual address of Vegeta, who wondered if the clone brat was actually jealous. "Yes, because I am the heir. We all have the same name."

"Are we brothers? I'm calling you 'Geta'," Trunks declared confidently, without waiting for an answer.

The clone looked outraged. "You will—"

Vegeta blasted a small bolt lf ki between them and they both deftly jumped away, just as he had meant them too. "Enough talk."

Twin faces turned to him, one black and one smeared with color. "Papa…"

Vegeta lifted his hand again, letting the glow of ki snap the half-blood's mouth shut. "Right now, I'm not your father, I am your Prince." He glanced dismissively at the other brat, Geta. "And you are no heir to my throne."

The boy colored at his words and gave Trunks a look of near-hatred. Good.

"But what—"

"I said," he sent the lazy blast at towards Trunks, and the boy took to the air to avoid it, his face melting into a glare as well, "no more words, brat. Fight him."

Geta didn't need to be told twice, he had wanted this from the beginning, and so he bounded after Trunks, sending a vicious fist towards him, prompting Trunks to squawk "hey!" in surprise. And Vegeta knew that at least on one side, this was no casual spar.

Smiling, Vegeta watched their movements very carefully. Geta's calculated, charged thrusts and Trunks' bewildered but increasingly heated movements. And he knew which one would have victory.

Bulma didn't know what she had expected of Saiyan labs, but this was not it… Nappa trailed after her as she wandered around, staring at everything in sight. There were so many machines, compounds, liquids that she didn't recognize. She paid no mind to the creatures working around her, so lost was she in her perusal. Nappa wasn't polite enough to introduce her, so the staring got more and more pointed.

Bulma was curious—Vegeta had often complained of how remedial Earth culture was, and here she partially saw that he had exaggerated. She noted at a nearby table that she had seen more effective ways of reading logarithms. She pointed it out as she met eyes with a startled orange man, "Have you ever heard of Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation?"

"N-no, miss," the man's eyes were darting to the shadow that had descended behind her. Nappa pulled her away.

"Don't talk to them," he grumbled. "They're slaves and you don't need to be distracting them."

"And what am I?" she challenged, wondering if Nappa would have a clearer answer than Vegeta seemed to give her. "I'm just trying to be nice!"

Nappa shook his head. "They will work for you as needed, and you will have this lab at your disposal, but Vegeta has not made a true slave of you." Bulma heard the unspoken 'unfortunately' that Nappa held back.

"And why do you think that is?" Bulma said, not quite done with this fishing expedition. It wouldn't matter if she asked because she already knew that where she was concerned, Vegeta paid Nappa no heed.

Nappa snorted. "It's obvious, isn't it? He thinks he owes you because you pushed out his brat, something any woman could have done for him."

Bulma recalled an earlier conversation wherein Nappa said something very different about Vegeta's attachment to her in a fit of rage, but she decided not to remind him of it. Vegeta and Trunks were, after all, probably not in earshot if she made the giant mad. Instead, she circled the middle of the laboratory, looking at every fascinating thing and impatient about getting somewhere. She needed to establish a point of contact.

"Well, they can't all be slaves! Who runs this place?"

"I do, miss…" An older, straighter individual approached Bulma and Nappa slowly. "I am in the service of Vegeta-sei, but I am the chief technician in the Vegeta-sei Science Program. My name is Colloid."

Bulma held out her hand and smiled widely, for a full charming effect. "Nice to meet you, Loid! I am Bulma." The man was very tall, almost as tall as Nappa with thick gray hair and a mustache similar to her father's. It was a kindly effect that had her warming to the alien. "I'm a scientist too."

Loid (with his new nickname) smiled slightly and his gaze flicked to Nappa, knowing that while this young woman may have been a scientist, she would not have an Elite bodyguard accompanying her if she wasn't something much more than that. At the same time, she was certainly no Saiyan. The whole scene was a bafflement to the chief technician. "What brings you here, Lady?" he said tentatively.

Nappa then chose to cut in. "The Prince brought her from her planet to assist him with some very private matters. She will use the lab and your crew as she pleases." He omitted all additional details because it was none of the slaves' business. And besides, he thought with chagrin, the Prince was never one that missed being a large topic of gossip, whether he wished it or not. The blue woman would be notorious before their red sun went down. Nappa jerked his head toward the door, rolling his eyes at Bulma. "Come on, you said you wanted to go to the training ground. You can socialize with this dirt when I have other things to do."

"Ugh," Bulma snarled at the Saiyan's rudeness. Nappa was clearly uncomfortable in this place and while that secretly delighted Bulma, she didn't see the point in bringing her down here if they were going to leave fifteenminutes later! But the prospect of seeing Trunks, forced her to abide by Nappa's plans. She turned and gave another dazzling smile to Colloid, wanting to start on the right foot with someone she hoped could be a colleague. "I'm sorry, but I'm sure we will get time to talk soon. I'll see ya, Loid!"

She strode after Nappa, something new clearly on her mind, and Colloid and his crew of scientists blinked after her, machines halted and at a total loss.

"See you tomorrow!" she called to the room at large, before she and her companion disappeared.

When they were gone, Colloid sighed, but you would have never heard it under the deafening buzz of whispers. And Colloid wondered what the newly-returned prodigal Prince had just brought on to the Science Program.

Trunks didn't mind getting bloody. He didn't mind being pushed to his limit, in fact, he had never considered doing anything by half, very much his parents' son. He didn't mind meeting a boy his age and getting to fight him.

But he did mind that Geta wanted to hurt him.

When their fight first started, Trunks couldn't name the strangeness of the fight—what was making it different from all of the others. But that was because he had never been truly afraid before. He had never had reason to be. Everybody he had sparred with on Earth was nice at heart. They took care of him and just wanted him to become a better fighter. Goku, Gohan, Krillin, Yamcha. They were teaching him.

His papa and Nappa were harder and meaner, but they were trying to teach him too. And Trunks appreciated the hard lessons because he wanted to be the best. But this was nothing like those times.

The boy who looked just like Papa was strong…and he wasn't fighting because he liked it, not this time. Trunks soon figured out that he was fighting because he wanted to cause Trunks pain. He smiled when he landed a painful punch and he got more furious when Trunks bit back any cries of distress or landed a hit on him. Trunks also didn't know what to do with his new tail…but the other boy had his neatly wrapped around his waist and was trying to get at Trunks' tail any time it swished towards him. This was setting Trunks off-balance, but Geta wouldn't play fair once he saw it was an obvious weakness and he kept going for it.

Trunks' brain couldn't comprehend why the boy was being like this. Trunks wasn't angry; he had never even met this boy and all of the sudden he was being attacked like it was real and they weren't on a training ground, but like it was a war he had seen on television where people died. Trunks could see it in those angry, black eyes—Geta wanted Trunks to be a bloody heap on the ground.

And Vegeta was probably gonna let him do that, if Geta could.

Trunks knew better than to look down at his father. It would cost him, even his almost-five year old self instinctively knew this…distraction was bad. And Vegeta hadn't moved from his spot, watching the spar above with a thin, unmovable mouth. Geta was biting down his teeth with feral glee, closing in and trying to put Trunks on the defensive. But Trunks pushed back enthusiastically, trying to make it all in fun, like he and Gohan used to do.

But it wasn't like that, it wasn't fun and Geta wasn't Gohan, and eventually Trunks felt his arm crack under a blow.

"Owwwwww!" Trunks bellowed, clutching his arm protectively. Geta had a hungry look, closing in, lifting his arm to—

"VEGETA!"

All the motion in the room changed and gravitated towards one focal point—Trunks' shocked and angry mother.

A/N: That's all for this moment, folks! Trunks grew a tail…Bulma and Vegeta feel very differently about that, don't they? And a few other things happened too… Reviews are the best, and help me so much with the story, please and thank you!