Author's Note: Hi everyone, just to those who follow me: I have not forgotten about Passion and Loneliness! After my exams this year (which I completed with good results) I was faced with rather trying personal circumstances. This truly messed with my inspiration and my ability to write. I've had to move out and I'm slowly recovering my inspiration - this Mirai Trunks fic is just the first thing that requested me to be let out of my brain in some way. I hope to get back to Passion and Loneliness again soon and to regain my faith in my writing - please bear with me =).

Had he realized he'd be changing yet another past when he'd decided to go on with this? Of course he had; he was no fool. The genes of both his parents had gifted him with deductive skills hardly anyone could pride himself on. He was creating yet another alternate universe; whether he'd alter it only slightly he did not yet know. But why, why had he given in to this compulsion? It was wrong; he was slowly fragmenting the time-space continuum. What if he had to answer for this in Other World one day? With the androids he'd had an excuse, but now… Did he really have to admit to blatant curiosity? Was it confusion? Come to think his mother had always thought him the responsible one… As a matter of fact, when he'd paid the past he'd changed a visit a year ago he'd found his alternate self to be immature, rash, smug, arrogant – even as a toddler. But he'd also noticed his young mirror already carried a sense of security he wished he'd managed to internalize in his own childhood. The product of the androids' absence and his father's presence, no doubt. His father who was here somewhere: on Planet Frieza 79. A leading mercenary of twenty-five years old; just like him.

Looking for Answers

Chapter 1: Quinten

Why do I exist, and to what purpose?

"You want to go to a past where your father's twenty-five years old and sign on for Frieza's army? Please tell me you've lost it. Trunks? This is madness. You can't possibly be serious."

"Why can't I be?" her son challenged her; his blazing blue eyes boring into hers with a hint of defiance as his purple bangs fell handsomely over his face. A lot of young girls would've killed for the young man to give them this look, but Bulma found it most displeasing.

"Use your brain. You'll be changing a past you have no business changing. And it won't get you anywhere to see your father at that age. Do you realize-?" she started, but she was cut short within seconds.

"That he was probably the most murderous megalomaniac at that time? Yes. I just want to see him at the same point in life where I am right now, mom – infiltrate, study the environment he grew up in… I want to understand, mom. Is that really so big a deal? I am a super saiyan you know – I even found the key to super saiyan two, just like Gohan did. We both know I can get rid of anyone dangerous I'll come across within the blink of an eye, so why-?"

"For the love of Kami it'll damage you, son! You're too inexperienced to face an environment as brutal as that – I'm telling you now; you're going to be in over your head, wishing that you'd listened to me instead of being so stubborn in thinking that this would somehow give you a better understanding of your father. Why do you even need this? I for one thought you were satisfied with what you learned about your father when you met him in the past and even trained with him in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber."

"I just want to see where he grew up. It puts him in a whole other league to have grown up in space like that; even in the past you could see it sets him apart from the others. I think I can learn something from this – I promise I won't interfere with anything. I'll just observe. C'mon mom, I know grandpa generated coordinates for I-don't-know-how-many planets back when he made that ship for Goku to travel to Namek in. There are coordinates for Frieza's planets in those files too – I just know it. Please."

The aqua-haired genius sighed and shook her head as she smiled up at her strong-willed son, her blue eyes sparkling.

"You're hopeless, Trunks. And you will interfere. Eventually it'll be inevitable and you know that just as well as I do. But I know there's no talking you out of it; the idea's obviously settled itself into your head. Let's just make preparations then, shall we?"

Once again she noticed how tall her son had grown when he gave her a spontaneous hug and she practically disappeared in his embrace. When he released her he smiled down at her, noticing how ferocious she looked in the simple red jacket she was wearing and in the simple way she composed herself in front of him.

For the first time in his life he felt he understood just what had attracted his dad to this 'weak earth woman' – he was facing a spirit that just didn't break. A slight pang of guilt shot through his heart as he reflected upon what he was doing – he'd be leaving her again without being able to give her even a timeframe as to when he would be back.

"I hope you prove an awesome spy 'cause I'm sure as hell expecting a lot of pictures of your dad to make up for the trouble you're putting me through," Bulma laughed.

Her son blushed. Sometimes it really was like his mom could read his mind.

"Female's intuition, son," Capsule Corp's CEO winked teasingly.

Planet Litt's atmosphere was thick and warm; the air itself scorched organisms not originated and thus accustomed to the planet's circumstances and many a weaker soldier had found death when their lungs burned. Rock and sand were the building-stones for any civilized construction the reptile-birds had pulled up from the soil their home gave them; temples and homes that lay in ruins as they'd found their fate at the hands of Frieza's army. It was the price to pay to have the people convinced to pledge eternal alliance to the icy galactic overlord – a price that had already made the knees of their leader buckle and sell out his loyal subjects. It was just the rebels that had to be either killed off or forced into subservience now; their sturdy skin and resistance to harsh climates made the people of Litt valuable adversaries to collect into the Colds' ever-growing empire.

Trunks sighed as he overlooked the planet from a high cliff, bothered by the sand that had found its way into the slash on his abdomen; right through the black saiyan-suit that had been assigned to him. It was a nasty reminder of simple carelessness; it needn't have happened, but he'd pitied the creature he'd been torturing for a cause that he knew had nearly destroyed his father. But this was what he'd signed on for, wasn't it? His mother had warned him; it had been his own choice. He had to stomach committing atrocities he detested just to find a closer understanding, something of meaning to it all… Maybe he ought to simply view it as a new computer game he was playing, like a study project in a different world that didn't have legitimacy to it anyway… His train of thought stopped abruptly as he bit his cheek until it bled. What was this environment doing to his humanity? Two weeks… Was that all it took to become inhumane? This was no game… this were people. He closed his eyes and shook his head in fury, ordering his thoughts to stop. The young man was clueless as to how the growl that escaped him was mirrored by his own father, light-years away, at that very moment.

Nappa and Radditz had to be two of the most useless subordinates you could ever find yourself stuck with. When they had to purge, they'd play around. When they had to torture, they'd get carried away and purge. Just where did these two oafs that called themselves saiyans even keep their brains? If you wanted a job done right you just had to do it yourself.

He rose high up in the planet's red sky and evaporated a city with a single blast; invented solely to assure millimeter-precision. Frieza didn't want a single bump in soil he planned to use. Again; something these oafs seemed too stupid to foresee.

"P-prince Vegeta! I didn't recognize you, sire!"

A smile of almost demonic entertainment. An inferior purple-skinned soldier, unable to use energy with anything but a ki-gun, had shot the elite warrior in the back; confusing him for a native still left alive. He shivered in barely concealed fear as he tried to back away.

"What's the matter? No need to wet yourself; that hardly tickled. Not afraid of someone on your own team, are you, comrade?"

"Oh thank you, thank you for your mercy-"

But the sentence of the purple-skinned soldier went unfinished as black orbs of malice and amusement locked with his yellow ones and the prince's left arm protruded his chest.

"Oops. Seems I really need to learn how to control these spasms," Vegeta remarked as he retracted his arm. He laughed as the soldier fell to the oblivion that was the city and made sure to incinerate him to ashes before he hit ground. It would be much preferred if he wouldn't be lying there. "Frieza might have considered him a bump," he sniggered.

"Mercenary Quinten reporting in, sir!"

A brown-skinned alien with pointy ears went with his finger over the information on a chart as he faced a young soldier with high cheekbones and long, purple hair.

They were in a sterile environment that seemed to exist of not much else than white tiles. The young demi-saiyan had developed a distaste for these surroundings; feeling caught like some kind of test-subject in a web of scientists unfamiliar to him. Yet he knew he'd be given an opportunity this time; like a window beckoning him to escape this sense of oppression. Two months in Frieza's service had passed and he had not even set eyes on his father so far; all he knew of his existence and of his fearsome reputation was through gossip and rumor. But today, he knew for a fact that he'd be on the same base as he was. And even more: he'd been informed he chanced being brought onto the lizard's space-ship for an unknown period of time. The space-ship where his father was known to linger whenever he wasn't on his way.

"Let's see here. Ah, yes. You've been supplying us with outstanding work, boy. Not faltered on a single mission just yet – simply some adjustment issues in the beginning of your service, but that's not unusual and you seem to have outgrown it unusually quickly. I see you're prided on strategy. In short, you're exactly the kind of guy Lord Frieza likes to see in his army, kid. We have plenty of baboons running around; powerful baboons, no mind; but we need people who can keep a cool head more than anything. I'll leave you to report to pretty much the most strategic mind you'll ever meet – worked his way up into the army much like you, except that he was destined to be near our lord since birth. Prince Vegeta will be waiting for you at the launching-deck; not treating him with respect will be your own risk. Go."

He ran. He hadn't expected to be actually sent to his father! His heart was racing and he was having trouble reminding himself that he'd be facing a Vegeta his own age. Sure – a Vegeta he could break apart with ease due to his super saiyan abilities – but still a more menacing man than he'd ever thought to know.

"Well, well… so you're the newbie," a gruff yet somehow still refined voice assessed him even as he'd hardly set foot on the deck.

He swallowed. That proud mane of black hair, those eyes, that voice… Even though both his slim physique as his somehow smaller face and even the more empty look in his eyes betrayed his younger age, it was still inexplicably his father; the man he'd been looking up to all his life.

"It's an honor to meet you, Prince Vegeta," he composed himself quietly.

The saiyan prince snorted.

"You don't look like much, but I can only assume Frieza intends to have you 'help' me in the planning of missions. I'm warning you now; get in my way and you might just meet a most unfortunate accident. But it's good to discover soldiers with brains are still hired; I was becoming concerned about the deteriorating quality of subordinates as of late. Name?"

"I'm called Quinten."

"Quinten, huh? So you're the fifth of what?" he asked mockingly; his universal knowledge of language kicking in like it was trained to.

"I'm not the fifth of anything… or maybe I am, but so are you. This is the fifth world I'm creating by existing."

Vegeta cocked an eyebrow; both bemused as entertained by the serious words of this youngster his own age he still considered his inferior. Yet he boarded one of the ball-like spaceships programmed to head to the spider-like spaceship he knew as home without questioning. His son from the future of another world followed his example.