Author's Notes: Here it is then, the beginning to the sequel to 'The 130 Days' and to my take of the infamous 'three years', using the groundwork I laid down in my story of Vegeta's earlier stay on Capsule Corporation. I've made the first chapter as well and will upload with the prologue (this) and the first chapter simultaneously.

I'm enjoying my pressure-less writing right now; not feeling rushed or anything to meet some kind of deadline – and this is what I'll keep doing: I have my exams coming up and such, so my writing is merely for relaxation, and hopefully for your enjoyment ;). So it may take a while before another update is due, but I hope you'll enjoy and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the sequel so far.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z nor did I create it, the rightful owners of the series are Akira Toriyama and Toei Animation. I'm just writing a story in the world Toriyama created with the characters he created. The story I make up is my own.

Prologue

"Oh! I didn't know we had any guests dropping by! Goodness, I definitely need to put on another pot of tea," Bunny Briefs exclaimed while holding a tray with a sugar bowl and pink ceramic teacups in her right hand and pouring tea to the white pavement that was laid in between the patches of grass of Capsule Corporation's garden with the other.

Capsule 3 had just come spiraling from the skies, crash-landing where Yamcha, Bulma and her mother had just been talking and enjoying the mild, spring-weather.

Smoke billowed from the small crater the spaceship had made in the grass. It hadn't exactly been a proper landing; maybe the saiyan prince had realized the lack of fuel the blond-haired woman had informed her daughter about on the balcony earlier that day a little too late.

Yamcha ran forward, immediately on the offensive against the man he considered to be a thug. The saiyan prince exited with dignity; his eyes closed.

"Vegeta! What do you want?"

The human warrior had taken on a fighting stance, but while Mrs. Briefs asked worriedly if the space-traveler would perhaps prefer some coffee, it soon became evident there was no need for violence. He looked down; his shoulders slumped, his eyes dull.

"I was hoping that Kakarot might have finally returned."

That immediately caused a crack in Yamcha's armor of spite and he was so surprised that he spoke without the fierce stance he'd been trying to take towards the horrid man. He hadn't imagined for a second that the saiyan wouldn't have met up with Goku somewhere, maybe even trained with him. Goku had something funny when it came to this guy.

But that crack in his composure was immediately rewarded with a punishment as Vegeta put his focus solely on him; standing inches away from him in seconds.

"Don't remind me. I'm angry enough to hurt somebody, and pounding you might just be the therapy I need!"

But then Bulma walked up calmly and the mystery happened. Come to think of it, she had been calmly watching all along. Whereas her mom had fidgeted and he had been filled with anger, she'd just been watching curiously; as if the man wasn't returning with a stolen ship to the place where he'd committed the crime, but returning to the place he lived with a vehicle of his own. The condemnable atrocities he'd committed didn't seem to be on her mind; and she just walked up to him fearlessly, defying him as if she could just discard the threat he posed.

"Hey guys, what's that awful smell? Oh, it's you! When's the last time you bathed there, bud? You need a bath. Please, this way."

Vegeta felt the woman's poking finger on his chest; saw those glimmering, bright-blue eyes again; faced the reality of her vulgar disregard of personal space; saw her finger beckoning; heard that manipulating voice, intentionally racy as she uttered the last syllables that were supposed to be some kind of invitation… How dare she! Didn't she realize he was the prince of saiyans? Just what the hell was she? An existence like that was impossible!

"Well, what?! Do you want me to roll out the red carpet?"

He gritted his teeth and formed fists – then let go and followed; with a huff so as not to lose face in front of the human.

The most beautiful woman of planet earth laughed inwardly as the obstinate man behind her followed obediently; grumbling like a child, but still at her mercy as he should be. That 'lost boy'-look was in there somewhere… she'd best keep him under control with all those people around. He couldn't cope with the others without her help, anyway.

Puar and Yamcha blinked stupidly as the pair passed, and the ceramic teacups on Bunny's platter overflowed brilliantly while she kept pouring. But they were left ignored by the pair that headed for the bathroom. Like they'd suddenly stopped existing.

"Hey you, I left you some fresh clothes. Hello-ho, are you alive in there?!" the blue-haired genius shot at the showering saiyan as she watched his bare back and his perfect naked form through the translucent door, teasing.

"I heard you; you can leave now!"

Annoyance sparked inside her mind. Did that ass have to control everything? Not even a decent thanks, sheesh. Being served at your every whim was apparently normal for spoiled royalty. Well, whatever. He couldn't do a thing without her here on earth.

"Why, yes master. Your wish is my command. Urgh!"

Vegeta felt the steaming-hot water cascade down onto his skin and rinse months of dirt and perspiration as he pondered the enigma that was the woman. No sense of personal space or privacy, all right. Her presumptuousness and lack of manners and respect for her superiors were extremely violating, even inexcusable, but still; there was no resisting her. She had some kind of pull over him he couldn't get around.

It had been that way before. She always had her way with words – she knew exactly how to turn things around and corner her enemy.

While he was a tactician in actual battle; heaven be damned if she wasn't one in verbal strife. He could hate her for it all he wanted, but it didn't change a thing. She intrigued him.

But thoughts about her lacking virtues came to an abrupt halt as he got out of the shower, argued with her over a drying cloth out of an old habit to argue about anything that could instigate a decent response, and set eyes on the clothes she'd left for him. They were… pink.

She was not teasing him. She was mocking him and his saiyan ancestry!

Everyone laughed as he got out of the shower in green shoes with brown laces, bright yellow trousers and a pink shirt that read 'BADMAN' at the back. The cue-ball that had been wished back just before he'd learned of Kakarot's presence in space and had set off to find him was there too, laughing along with them.

He tried to point out to the woman that this was no attire a warrior should be wearing, but all she did was comment on how he at least smelled good and burst out laughing again.

Only the threat to blast them shut them up, but as always; she was not impressed. She actually turned to him quite kindly, reassuring him that Goku would show up here in the end and that he'd best wait alongside them. He let it slide; maybe she was right.

Bulma felt pleased. She'd gotten through to him again. He'd calmed down and almost mindlessly followed her every lead, even barbequing with Yamcha, Puar and Oolong present without any note-worthy incident passing… until he sensed an icy, familiar ki draw nearer.

"So we failed, after all! Frieza's still alive and he's coming!"

His drink fell to the floor and the glass shattered as he slammed his hands onto the table, completely thrown off balance by the ominous feel of his former tormentor nearing earth.

"Wait, how do you know? Maybe it could be somebody else. Come on!" the man with a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek and one above and below his right eye argued, sweat forming onto his head as he tried to shield himself from the ki's feel with reason.

"I know! I make it my business to know! Unlike you."

The anger and hurt Vegeta felt coursing through his veins were enormous. Didn't those fools realize that if anyone were to know how Frieza's ki signature felt, it would be him? He'd been rotting away on his spaceship and doing his dirty jobs his whole life.

Yamcha piped up angrily, but then Bulma got into it again; clear-headed as always, asking him if he wanted a bit more sauce to go with his food, for crying out loud. But her lead still calmed him down and he sat down again, shielded from the terror of Frieza for one, short moment by the simplest possible of comments.

It didn't take long until he set off to face him, though, closely followed by Yamcha who had trouble keeping up with the prince's speed. They'd only shortly been standing on the rocky spot where he'd be touching down when they heard the sound of the jet-copter out of which the orange-wearing heiress and shapeshifting Puar soon jumped after putting it to the ground.

Vegeta couldn't believe the woman. Here they were on the most dangerous spot of earth, a ninety-nine percent certainty of snuffing it sooner or later, fighting odds; and she just joined them stupidly, knowing full well what might happen, just because she didn't want to 'miss out'. She'd clearly taken 'insane' to a whole new level.

And when the three-eyed moron and his dwarf of a clown-friend joined the party his annoyance with the insanity of the people surrounding him in general did nothing but increase; the whole bunch was completely oblivious of who Frieza was, what he could do, the technological methods he was already using to scan this area of earth…

At least the lizard's arrival instilled them with some sense as they were all able to appreciate the full, massive force that was the monster in his final form; more powerful than he had ever been, even when Kakarot had faced him as a super saiyan on Namek.

Then the whimpering began; the three-eyed fighter that still had enough reason left to hate him was part of the sounds of complaint at the evident impossibility they were put up against, but especially the pitiful boyfriend of the woman's proved to excel at it. Typical.

While they were nearing the spider-shaped spaceship with suppressed energy levels so as to shield themselves from notice through the Cold's scouters, they suddenly felt an unfamiliar ki already opposing the lizard and his troops.

The power was huge. It was – greater than Frieza's. And with every fiber of his being through a reason he could not explain, Vegeta felt it was not Kakarot.

"Hey – maybe it would help us relax a little if we all sing a song," the aqua-haired heiress suddenly suggested as the tension within the group grew with the uncertainty about the unknown warrior and the battle that had already started.

"Shut up! You haven't had one useful thing to say since you got here! Now you stay in the back and keep quiet, woman. I don't have time for your stupidity right now."

"What, stupid?"

She sounded childlike in her apparent 'hurt' and the saiyan prince felt that he was fuming with hardly constrained anger.

And of course her boyfriend just had to chip in and play the hero.

"Take that back! Bulma isn't stupid."

"So you think I'm smart, then?"

"Well, I guess you're as smart as you can be, being a girl and all…"

And at that, the woman grabbed the guy's ear and told him she wouldn't let go until he'd apologized. Leave it to that moron to turn her around on him. And he apologized within seconds – did he have no sense of pride at all? At least he'd gotten the woman to zip it with the idiotic, unnecessary comments – and her boyfriend had taken care of distracting her from her resolve about whining to him about whether she was stupid or not.

But after they'd all burst out laughing and settled down again, the human called Krillin commented on how it might have been their last chance to laugh, and something snapped.

The cautious strategy he'd worked out was discarded and he started running towards the battleground were the unknown fighter fought. This was no time for caution.

He watched the destruction from a cliff, soon joined by the rest of the gang. They watched powerlessly as a Death Ball sank into earth, got down, awaiting impact; knowing that earth might be seconds from exploding along with them. But whoever was fighting there was powerful beyond belief – the ball was pushed back and it didn't seem to have caused any effort. It was incomprehensible. None of them knew what to think. The ball exploded but the ki-signature of the stranger didn't fade – seconds later, Frieza's did. Just like that. Finished.

It was Gohan who had caught sight of them; airborne. With a sword, the slender Frieza, enhanced by mechanical attachments, was cut to bits. And the teenage stranger sent a blast at the bits that incinerated every living cell the monster had composed of. In his soldier years, it was pretty much what Vegeta would have called a 'clean job' with satisfaction.

There was discussion about the identity of the boy, but when the woman dreamily said it would have to be Goku, as always having shown up at just the right time, even her boyfriend helped her out of the dream – saying it was not Goku, but definitely a super saiyan. It was not possible – Kakarot and he were the only saiyans still alive. He flew up.

Catching sight of the golden-haired warrior piercing King Cold's heart was one of the most bizarre things he'd ever experienced. And again, the kid ensured a clean job – he was even smart enough to think ahead and destroy the spaceship that still stood near.

But nothing was as bizarre as what happened after that. He left what did indeed look like a super saiyan form, having his hair turn purple and his eyes turn blue, and he called to them.

"I'm heading off to a place near here to meet Goku. Would you guys like to come?!"

He told them to follow; that Goku should be arriving in a couple of hours. Debate ensued and skeptical as ever, Yamcha voted against it, saying he didn't trust the guy.

"You don't trust me, either. I say: go," the aqua-haired vixen argued as she was held up in his arms, unable to fly herself. And for once, the saiyan prince sided with her wholeheartedly.

"Definitely! I've got to find out who he is."

And so it happened that they touched down between the rocks and readied themselves for a two-hour wait. Bulma studied the young man in front of her that seemed to be in his late teens as she had a can of root beer in hand. He was wearing yellow boots with brown accents, dark grey pants, a black shirt, and a short indigo jacket with the Capsule Corp logo on it. He was tanned and had purple hair cut in a flowerpot hairstyle – usually she'd only use that phrase to refer to someone with a horrible haircut, but this guy knew how to make it fashionable.

They all sat down, split into separate groups, onto either rock or dry ground. They'd learned their questions would not be answered – so all that was left now was wait and see if the boy was telling the truth and if they would soon see Goku.

Agitation was rising, though.

"What are you looking at?!"

"Oh, uh, nothing – it's just that I uh, like your shirt," Trunks stumbled, clumsy in his attempt to catch glimpses of his father for the first time in his life, trying to memorize every feature of a man he could not just go around staring at without angering him…

"You would," Vegeta replied sarcastically.

Others were watching the saiyan prince too, though. Well, the saiyan prince and the boy…

"Hey – now check this out. Is it me, or do those two kind of look alike?" Bulma quietly asked the bald-headed Krillin who was sitting next to her, referring to Vegeta and the mystery-boy who wouldn't tell his name, both not only looking similarly, but even sitting and composing themselves similarly as they isolated themselves on their separate rocks.

"Well, now that you mention it, I can kind of see a resemblance. Well, I mean – just in looks. That other guy seems pretty nice, but Vegeta has the personality of a stump."

"Well, he's a prince," the heiress explained reasonably.

"So what?"

"Princes have to act bored; like the world's not good enough for them."

All Vegeta noticed was the kid that kept ogling at him, though; trying not to make him see.

"Why do you keep looking over here? Haven't you ever seen a pink shirt before?! If you like it that much you can have it!"

"No, no thank you."

"Then knock it off, kid."

The kid blushed and smiled and Vegeta shrugged. Stupid boy.

But the two hours passed and the predictions of the mysterious super saiyan proved trustworthy – the lighthearted Goku arrived in a Ginyu Force space-pod, in the most peculiar looking outfit – but alive and untarnished.

Within thirty minutes, Piccolo was telling them all he could relay of what he'd overheard between the talk the kid had demanded with Goku – privately. The boy had come from twenty years into the future – a timeline in which earth's special forces were gone and in which what was left of earth's population was terrorized by two androids day in, day out. This boy that had – true super saiyan or not – slain Frieza and his father effortlessly, was no match for these beings. And if they wanted to live and escape that same fate – they'd have to train. They could be expecting the earth-bred creatures in three year's time.

In the apocalyptic world from which the purple-haired youth had traveled, that was when all of them except for Gohan would die. Goku was an exception as well – he'd died before he'd ever even heard of the looming threat of androids. A heart-disease had felled him, and the boy had come to bring the super saiyan the cure they'd uncovered in his time; an antidote that would save him; a drug that carried the hope that he would make a difference.

But as tended to happen when together, the gang got carried away after they'd seen the young man leave in his time-machine, enthralled by the wild story of the escape from Namek and the adventures that had ensued afterwards of their long-lost friend, father and enemy.

Bothered by the outfit he'd been made to wear, Vegeta was pleased with an opportunity to ridicule the strange garments Goku was wearing: red trousers, a couple of influences that resembled saiyan armor, strange puffed up sleeves and something that made him feel like the idiot had a white piece of pineapple stuck around his neck.

"For starters – where in the world did you get that absurd-looking outfit?"

The low-class saiyan looked down on his outfit while he smiled and tried to satisfy the curiosity of the other saiyan – not bothering to skip out on the teasing remarks that could pretty much hit an open target. Vegeta was too easy.

"It's the latest fashion on planet Yardrat, but I guess it does look a little strange. But at least it's not pink."

He grinned childishly as he got exactly the response he'd been expecting.

"Never mind! Who cares about your stupid clothes anyway!"

Ugh, he would not stand for it! They were the only two pure-blooded saiyans still alive and both of them were dressed like that – as if they were brotherly victims of a bad fashion. This was not how he'd wanted to be perceived by the world.

But at the end of things, they got back on topic and their ways parted. The preparations began.