Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Runaway Prince ❯ Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ. Don't even think of suing me since you won't be able to get anything out of it anyway.

Runaway Prince

Chapter 3

Kakarrot squirmed and fidgeted at being picked up again, but every time the old man spoke, Kakarrot paused in his efforts to escape, and Vegeta realized he was listening to them. Vegeta noticed that the baby seemed to like the old man's voice. Vegeta really wasn't in the mood to talk, but he found himself responding to the old man's curious questions and friendly chatter as well, so the two continued to talk as they went, and Vegeta was relieved to find that the squirming infant went from irritable and hungry as they set off on the long walk to Gohan's house, to calm and happy. The infant seemed to become increasingly inquisitive too, reaching for the rocks and flowers along the path, and even the insects. Vegeta wrinkled up his nose in disgust as the baby caught a grasshopper and promptly stuffed it into his mouth. Finally, as they neared a small cottage next to a sparkling stream, Kakarrot was sleeping. Vegeta put the infant down in the grass and tore the cape off of his armor and put it over him. Kakarrot gurgled in his sleep, hugging his tail with one tiny arm and his new 'blanket' with the other.

Gohan chuckled. "He certainly is a cute little fellow."

"He has been programmed to destroy your planet and he is already strong enough to really hurt a normal specimen of your race, if he gets angry. But when we erase his programming, he won't be a danger to anyone here, and we have a while yet before he will be a danger to you."

"He isn't a danger to me yet? What do you mean by that, Vegeta?"

"You are old, but I can tell by the way that you carry yourself that you are a trained warrior. You are also unusually strong for your race. Average for this planet is five. Your power level reads at 75."

"What? How do you know that and what is a power level?"

"This is a scouter." Vegeta told him, pointing at the small device he wore on his ear. "It calculates power and identifies movement of nearby enemies. It can serve several other functions as well, but mainly it is designed to locate life. Power level is a combination of things that the scouter measures to determine the strength and power of an enemy. It measures the energy inside of your body, and adjusts its findings to calculate the strength of your body accordingly."

"How strong are you, I mean according to one of those?"

"You don't want to know." Vegeta sighed, looking down at the infant Kakarrot. "I've told you that I have come here to train, because I am not strong enough to fight Frieza. He is the strongest being in the universe. His power level is so great that it takes a computer we call a Base Defender stationed on a different planet just to try and measure it but it is said to be more than 12 million in his final form."

Gohan blinked, but even through his shock he could see that his young visitor was feeling ashamed. The old man sighed. Gohan could see that Vegeta was unusually intelligent and independent but it just wasn't fair that he had so much understanding of such harsh things. If he really had come from somewhere in space it was terrible that they forced children to participate in their battles. "You know this Frieza person?"

The boy nodded, looking up at the old man. Vegeta's midnight eyes burned with determination. "He loves knowing that I hate him and that I can't do anything about it. He has been training me personally, since he took me from my father. Frieza told me that he wouldn't kill my father as long as I did as he told me! He lied. I heard Frieza's two goons talking and they said that the others were all dead. Zarbon told Dodoria that my father was definitely on the planet when it was destroyed so he was killed. Frieza means to take over the whole universe the way he took over my planet and I am going to stop him. But even if I do, Kakarrot and I will still be the only Saiyans left."

Gohan's eyes widened. Now the child's hatred of this Frieza was beginning to make sense, but he was still a little confused. "How can he take over the universe? It's just too big and…"

"His ship is the fastest in the universe and any planets that don't follow his rules are destroyed. He also has armies of mercenaries that go out and clear planets for him, so he can sell them to the highest bidder. My people had been helping him with that- it's why Kakarrot was sent here- but about a month ago, after my training mission, Frieza refused to return me to my father. My father tried to get me back and Frieza killed him. I had been dismissed from training early yesterday day or I would not have known... " Vegeta paused and frowned. "I guess it seems like a month ago, and yesterday… but it took a year for Kakarrot and I to get here, stasis screws up my time sense."

"Well," Gohan said with a sigh. "It sounds like you've had a pretty rough time of it out there, Vegeta, but I think that if you have come this far on your own, that maybe you will stop this Frieza from doing whatever it is that he is doing. But, in the mean time, how do you like your eggs?"

"You have Grammarian Lizard eggs on this planet?? Or Namekian eggs are good too…"

"Uh, how about Chicken Eggs?"

Vegeta laughed when he saw the size of the tiny white eggs the old man pulled out of the refrigerator and moved to the door. "I'll be right back. I made a kill of my own just before Kakarrot landed. I will bring it here."

"What sort of a kill?"

"Just some big lizard. I will be back in about ten minutes."

"But I found you miles away from here- it'll take hours to get back out there…"

Vegeta laughed. "I can fly, remember?"

Gohan stood in the doorway staring at the energy trail created by the small child and reached up to scratch his head. He wondered for a moment whether or not the boy would be able to find his way back, but he had to admit that he doubted Vegeta would get lost. If he thought he would be back in ten minutes, Gohan supposed that he would be back as promised. The speed with which Vegeta had left took the old man by surprise, even after all the other amazing things he had seen the boy do and say. Even discounting the hair and the tail, Vegeta wasn't a normal child of that Gohan was certain.

Kakarrot rolled over and yawned as he sat up and looked around. "Gugoggaaooo Vegeee... Vegeee?"

Gohan chuckled and moved over to sit with the boy when he saw the infant's bottom lip begin to quiver. "He'll be back. So your name is Kakarrot? My name is Gohan."

The tiny Saiyan narrowed his eyes and started to growl, but his stomach started to rumble and Gohan smiled and handed him a rice ball. "Goohaan… gabbbaa?" Kakarrot chewed on the rice ball greedily for a while. Then he pointed at the sky in the direction that Vegeta had left in and gurgled happily. "Vegeee…"

At first, Gohan couldn't see anything so he glanced back at the child and found him still staring into the sky. All at once a tiny dot appeared. It grew rapidly, and kept growing until Gohan realized that the speck he had seen was Vegeta flying through the sky with a Tyrannosaurus slung over his back. Two things struck him simultaneously, and he wasn't sure which realization was harder to accept… Vegeta had carried a lizard weighing around twenty tons, at least twelve miles through the sky… or simply the fact that he had killed it.

"What do your people call this lizard?" Vegeta asked, hovering in the sky above the small clearing where the cottage sat.

"T-Tyrannosaurus Rex." Gohan stuttered helplessly.

"Doesn't look quite so terrible now, does it?" Vegeta smirked and shrugged the carcass off of his back, then landed beside it. "Anyway, it tastes pretty good, but I was playing with it before I killed it, so its muscles were bunched to run. If I had known I was going to be sharing it I wouldn't have been so sloppy. I suppose it just felt good to be out of that pod and…"

"Y-you killed that? By yourself? With some sort of a gun or…?" Gohan asked noting the blast marks in the creature's thick hide.

"Well, I blasted it alright, but I am the weapon. I don't need to carry special equipment for killing." Vegeta smirked, he summoned a small ball of Ki into his gloved hand and watched the old man gape at him. Kakarrot's eyes lit up as he saw the Ki ball and he tugged impatiently on Vegeta's tail. "I told you I am a Saiyan, we are born with Ki powers- doesn't this planet have anyone with similar ablities?"

Gohan nodded slowly. "M-my Sensei. Master Roshi, he has learned to focus his Ki so that he can use it to attack."

"Then why are you staring at me like that?"

"It took him 50 years to learn the technique…"

Vegeta was about to laugh when he felt pain lance through his tail and looked down to see Kakarrot biting it. "I know you're hungry. That's what that is for, little baka… What do you want?"

The infant had his arms stretched out toward him, his eyes following the Ki ball, like a moth drawn to a flame. Vegeta gave him a skeptical look, but shrugged and held it out to him, but before he could reach it, Vegeta cancelled the energy. "No. You're a baby and you're only third class, besides I know you're hungry."

Kakarrot wailed and kicked his arms and legs. "Baaaa!! Vegeee! Naannanaa Hunnggy!!"

"Fine, idiot, but if you blow yourself up and die then it's your fault." Vegeta growled at the fussy baby, handing him a small ball of Ki, Vegeta concentrated on keeping the energy stable, but he grimaced when the first thing Kakarrot did, was put it in his mouth and squeal in surprise as it shocked him, making all of his hair stick straight up. As Kakarrot rubbed his tongue, Vegeta sighed and glanced at the old man who was trying to shake himself out of his dazed silence. "Would you find this idiot a piece of that meat to chew on before he really does something stupid?"

"How would you like me to cook it?"

"Just give him a few pounds of it like that, he won't care."

"Y-you mean raw??"

"Yes."

Gohan shook his head wonderingly, then decided that Vegeta wasn't kidding and cut a slab of meat from the dinosaur's carcass, offering it to the infant Saiyan. Kakarrot squealed happily and accepted it, putting aside the Ki ball which Vegeta quickly cancelled and rolled his eyes, he glanced at the old man. "You prefer to cook your food?"

Gohan blinked. "Yes, humans usually cook meat to serve it."

Vegeta walked over to the woodpile and collected a few logs. Laying them on a bare patch of ground he ignited them with a small energy wave. "Here."

"We could have used the stove…" Gohan smiled. "But I haven't had a good barbeque in a long time. What else would you like to know about Earth, Vegeta?"

"What do you know about this planet's general population and technology? Communications and defenses? What about- why are you looking at me that way again?"

"What way?"

"As if I had three heads or something." Vegeta growled, looking into the fire.

"I'm sorry, Vegeta, but honestly I've never met anyone as focused as you are- especially at your age. Your intelligence is unbelievable, and you are very strong, but I think it's terrible that you have had to grow up so quickly… Children here on Earth like to run around and play and when I look at you, I know you've never had the chance to do that, you know, just be a kid…"

"And why would I want to be a baby goat?" Vegeta arched one eyebrow, trying not to look as insulted as he felt.

Gohan laughed. "We often call human children, kids… it's just a saying of sorts, not meant to be taken literally."

It was Vegeta's turn to look skeptical this time. "I am a prince. Even if I had not been taken from my father and put in Frieza's army, I still would have been raised to conduct myself with intelligence and pride.

"You are a prince?"

"My father was king of all Saiyans, and I was given my official title as Prince on my fourth Birthday. My body feels ridiculously light here. I need to know about your planet's scientists. I want to know if any of them would be able to strengthen this planet's gravity. The base where Frieza had been hiding me from my father had a gravity room to compensate for the planet's weak natural gravity."

Gohan blinked. "Well, Earth has a lot of great scientists… but what you are talking about is likely to be expensive, and time consuming."

"I have considered that. I would be willing to trade for their assistance. I will consent to letting them see my scouter and my ship. The pods are small, but fast and light, easy to build, maintain and repair, but they also contain a great deal of information. The pod's computers contain blueprints and plans for building almost every piece of technology that Frieza and his allies' posses. Everything from a regeneration tank, Saiyan Armor and an incubator to a wrist mounted laser weapon can be created by using the plans and the information inside of it. Unfortunately, gravity rooms are still rare- even for Frieza and his forces they were time consuming to build and difficult to maintain, so they have not been widely used enough to be included in the programming of the pods."

"Well, you did answer all of my questions- all of mine must have seemed pretty basic to you…"Gohan sighed, shaking his head in amazement. "But, I think that there are a few Scientists on earth that might be able to help you. There's those two crack pots- what were their names again… -oh yeah! Dr. Willow & Dr. Gero… There's also Dr. Slump… but he's way down on Penguin Island and then of course, there is Dr. Briefs. People say that Dr. Briefs can build absolutely anything, after all, he did invent Capsule technology. He and his wife live at Capsule Corp over in Western Capital. It's about 500 miles, but that is a lot closer than Penguin Island, and those other two are both crazy and probably dangerous and I don't know where you would even begin to look for them!!"

Vegeta smirked. "Well then. I believe I will pay this Dr. Briefs a visit tomorrow morning. Thank you, Gohan."