Krillen sat on the beach, sighing miserably. How she was going to spend months as a weak woman was beyond her. If they had just made her a chick, that would have been fine. If they had made her just like her wife, that could have been fantastic. But no, that would have been too much for fate to grant the former monk. What power she had was stripped from her, and unlike the others who were altered, she did not come out with a slamming hot body.

Just as she had been as a man, Krillen was somewhere between plain and odd looking. And while she had been able to make it work for her as a male, it appeared that it was going to be next to impossible as a female. She could not say anything about that, though. Eighteen had made that clear. One word about it would have the blonde accusing her of being shallow and superficial, and that was just not something Krillen wanted to deal with.

Worse than that, her fighting skills were diminished to the point of non-existence. There was some anomaly in her genes before that allowed her to harness power and excel to levels that the vast majority of the human race could not even dream of. It appeared, though, that the dragon had 'corrected' that particular 'flaw'.

That power had meant a lot to Krillen. It had been the one thing that made her feel like more than just a freak of nature. She was short, she had no nose, and her social skills lacked finesse, but as far as human fighters were concerned, she was the best. That was what made her special. That was what made her feel useful. It was the only skill she had.

Sitting there, alone on the beach, Krillen wondered just what she was going to do until this problem was resolved.

From inside the house, Marron frowned. Her daddy had been so sad over the last couple of days, and she did not like that one bit. Taking a few seconds to straighten out her blonde pigtails, the little girl turned to her room to set up a way to make her daddy feel all better.

/

"No."

Goku froze, wondering how her wife had caught her. "Uh, yes, sweetums?"

Chi-Chi did not even look up from her mending. "You are not going out there and that's final."

"This is so unfair!" Goku pouted, walking away from the front door. "All I want to do is go for a walk in the woods. What's wrong with that?"

Maintaining focus on the trousers she was working on, Chi-Chi did not so much as raise an eyebrow at the behavior. "We went over this, Goku. You don't know what you can and cannot do in that body yet. I know that you're not an infant, and I know you are still decently aware of your surroundings, but until you have a full understanding of the limitations you have now, it is just foolish to let you go out on your own."

"Then don't let me go alone," the new woman challenged. "I'll take Goten with me."

"Goten's grounded," the mother pointed out, barely sparing a glance. "Remember?"

"Oh, yeah." Goku frowned again. Staying inside was already starting to drive her crazy, and if she did not get out soon she was going to have to do something drastic. "Okay, so how about this: Goten is still grounded, but he's on protective duty to make sure I don't get hurt. That way, he's just doing a job for me, not playing."

The corner of Chi-Chi's mouth turned up as she checked over her handiwork. "Well, you'll have to ask him," she teased, "but I don't see the harm." Assured that she had done a good job, she turned to face her husband head on. "But you need to promise me you're not going to try any schemes while you're out there."

With a clearly faked look of shock, Goku placed a hand on her chest. "Chi-Chi!" she admonished. "Why would you think I was going to do something like that?"

"First of all, I've met you before," the brunette mother pointed out. "Secondly, you were trying to sneak out two minutes ago. And third, you were starting to plan something earlier this morning and I think our family is in enough trouble, thank you very much."

"But…"

"No schemes!" Chi-Chi firmly commanded. "If you're going for a walk, fine, but nothing more than that!"

Goku pouted her lips and crossed her arms. "I'm not totally useless now, you know!"

"I didn't say you were," Chi-Chi sighed, turning to face her husband completely. "There's still a lot you can do. The problem is that you don't know what you can't do yet. It's a huge change for you, Goku. You need to get used to it before it'll be safe to go out on your own."

Though she was still not happy about being treated like an invalid, Goku could concede the point. Just that morning she had bruised parts of her legs by jumping out the window to get to the outdoor bath. The balance she had been accustomed to was gone, and she had fallen over onto her knees. "Fine," she grumbled. "I'll scheme later. But I'm taking Goten with me now!"

"That's fair," Chi-Chi agreed, getting to her feet. "I'll go tell Goten."

"Hey!" Goku retaliated. "It's my idea, why do you get to tell him?"

"Because you try to sneak him out so often he'll think that you're lying," the mother calmly pointed out, ascending the stairs. "And Goten knows that at the end of the day, Mommy's word is law."

Goku wanted to fight back, but once again, she saw the reasoning. Goten was still getting used to having Goku around, and in that time, the pureblooded Saiyan had tried to undermine Chi-Chi a couple of times. Goten really did see Chi-Chi as the ultimate authority. "Fine," Goku eventually grumbled, slumping down on the couch.

Chi-Chi had to suppress a giggle at her husband's behavior. The change was putting some stress on them, but all things considered, Chi-Chi knew that her husband was getting off easy. That carefree personality that had carried Goku all her life was what would carry her through. Spending a couple weeks in protective custody was not going to kill the former Saiyan.

/

"Vegeta, let me in!" Bulma hollered, pounding at the door.

"Absolutely not!" came the clearly bitter reply.

With an angry huff, Bulma pounded the door again. "I said I was sorry for making fun of you!" she shouted. "Now open the damn door!"

"No!"

Her cheeks flushed a brilliant scarlet, Bulma kicked the closed door and stormed down the hallway. After she had gotten Trunks to pick her up from the mall, Bulma had returned home to find that the majority of her things from her bedroom were in the hall, nicely topped with one blanket and one pillow. When she had attempted to climb over the pile of stuff to open the door, she was not entirely surprised to find it was locked. Not one to be easily deterred, the heiress had picked the lock, set on getting into her bedroom. However, it appeared that something large had been shoved in front of the door, and Bulma could not even make it budge.

Furious rounds of swearing had commenced on her side, but Vegeta had remained totally silent. Nothing pissed off the blue haired woman more than being ignored, and the former Saiyan was all too happy to do it.

Spending the night in the guest room had not left Bulma a happy camper, and after a round of coffee and a quick breakfast, she had run right back to fight her way into her own bedroom. She had been at it for four hours, and while she did not see victory in her immediate future, she had at least gotten Vegeta to yell back.

Her frustration was getting the best of her, though, and she determined that she needed a break. It was time for lunch anyway, and if she was going to succeed in getting herself back inside, she would need a level head.

As she programmed the microwave to fix her frozen lunch, Bulma could not help but be impressed by her husband's ingenuity. There was no way Vegeta could have beaten her home by more than a few minutes, since Trunks flew far faster than the car. And yet, in that short time, the former prince had managed to evict almost all of her things and move what had to be an enormous dresser in front of the door. Given her severe drop in power, it must have been a tremendous feat.

"What can I do to get him to let me in?" she wondered aloud. "I don't want to sleep in a guest room for the next few months!"

That was when a thought dawned on her. Vegeta had completely holed up in the bedroom. While there was plenty of water in the attached bathroom, but there was very little food. Bulma had a private junk food stash in there, but it could not possibly sustain the pouting princess for that long.

A wicked smirk crossed the heiress' face. She did not have to fight her way in. She did not have to manipulate her way in. She would not even have to break her way in. All she had to do was sit and wait. And there was one great way to speed the process along. Her idea quickly coming to life, Bulma picked up the phone and called her strongest ally.

An hour and a half later, Bulma stood triumphantly on the pile in front of her bedroom door. "Oh Vegeta!" she called out in a singing voice. "I have a surprise for you!"

A dark growl came from the other side of the door, and the heiress smirked in triumph. She was already in the lead, and she was confident that she would be victorious soon.

"These chocolate peanut butter cookies are fresh from my mother's oven," she teased through the door. "They're just so hot and fresh…" She took a bite out of one and moaned slightly at the flavor. "They just melt in my mouth."

Footsteps sounded on the other side, and Bulma knew her husband well enough to know that she was pacing and trying to maintain composure. Cracking would happen at any moment.

"Of course, they can't stay that way forever," she added with a mock pout. "I mean, cookies can only be fresh for so long before they cool off completely, and then they're just not as heavenly." Another bite went in to her mouth, along with another moan. "And if you're not out fairly soon, there just might not be any cookies left for you. Trunks and I could just finish them off, leaving nothing but crumbs for you."

More footsteps and Bulma was practically giddy. She placed one hand firmly on her hip and popped her hip to the side, assuming her victory pose as she waited for the door to open. However, her smirk faltered when a few seconds passed without any indication that the furniture was being moved. Straining her ears, Bulma heard the unmistakable sound of her husband cursing in her native language.

A small scuffle sounded, and Bulma braced herself. That was not nearly enough noise for that dresser to move. "What the…"

"You want to fight dirty, woman?" Vegeta hollered through the door. "Fine by me."

"Vegeta?" Bulma called back, trying not to let her concern show in her voice. "What are you doing?"

The heiress could practically hear the smirk coming across the door. "I hold in my left hand," her husband announced, "that damn dress you keep talking about."

Bulma's eyes were instantly enormous. "No…"

"And in my right hand," the princess continued, "I have your lighter."

"Don't you dare, you son of a bitch!" Bulma shouted. "I swear, Vegeta, if you set that dress on fire, I will throttle you!"

A dark chuckle came out. "Then you have no choice but to stand down."

However, compromise was never a trait either of them happened to be particularly gifted with. "If you so much as set one thread on fire," Bulma screamed, "then I will permanently wire the gravity room to play that Barney song any and every time you turn it on!"

"If you do that, then you can kiss your motorcycle goodbye," Vegeta growled back.

"If you try that," Bulma hollered, "then I won't sleep with you for a month!"

"I'm a woman now, you moron," Vegeta returned. "We weren't going to be doing that anyway!"

Bulma's eyes bugged out. Her ace in the hole for the entirety of her relationship with Vegeta was the withdrawal of sex. It was the one card she could hold over his head. Tampering with the gravity machine could sometimes work, but he had ways to train without it if he was determined enough. But the sex card…what was she going to do without her greatest weapon?

"Fine," she shouted back. "I might have been open to trying something new with you, but if you're going to be that way, then enjoy a year of celibacy!"

Bulma clearly heard the snort through the door. "We're changing this back before the end of the year, you moron," the princess called out. "We're getting to Namek as soon as possible."

"And how are you going to do that without me?" Bulma challenged back. When silence was the only response, the heiress felt a new hope rising in her chest. That was her new power play. Without her, there would be no way to wish them back to how they were without waiting the full year. "You need my help, missy, and until you let me back in, I'm not going to even start on that spaceship."

"You wouldn't do that," Vegeta shot back. "No matter how mad you are at me, you'd never screw over your idiot friends like that."

It was Bulma's turn to snort. "I thought you knew me better than that, Vegeta," she shouted. "I would screw over every person I ever met if it meant getting a leg up on you."

"And you think I'm going to be the one having a tough time being celibate?"

Kicking the door again, Bulma grunted angrily. "Could you keep your mind out of the gutter for just ten minutes?"

"Why? You won't."

Letting out a frustrated shriek, Bulma kicked the door yet again. "Damn it, Vegeta!" she screamed. "I said I was sorry!"

Silence was again her reward, but this time, Bulma did not see a victory in it. Vegeta was back in control, and that meant the silent treatment was back on. Any ground Bulma might have gained was gone. Angry as a hornet whose nest had just been kicked, the heiress stormed down to her lab. Perhaps there was something in there she could use to get her way in. Maybe she could use a laser to disintegrate the door and the dresser. Maybe she could design some kind of device that could relocate matter. Maybe she could…

She was three steps in the door before she smacked herself on the forehead. "God, I am such an idiot!" she growled. It took ten seconds for her to grab the tool she needed, and in no time at all, she was once again standing outside her bedroom. Working furiously, the heiress made her way through her goal and the door was off its hinges. "Gotta love the screwdriver," she smirked, giving her tool a kiss. Gently lowering the dislocated door, Bulma kicked off her socks and prepared to climb over the dresser.

However, there was not just a dresser in her way. There was a mountain of stuff so high that it blocked the doorway completely. "Son of a bitch!" she shouted. Furiously, she leaned forward and shoved a section of it with all her body weight, only to discover that it was surprisingly solid. "Are you kidding me?"

"I will not be defeated!" Vegeta shouted back.

Bulma jumped up and grabbed a loose corner she saw, pulling as hard as she could. When she saw the barest hind of a wiggle, she relentlessly harassed it, willing it to drop. It took a while, but she managed to free that one object. Once again, she had leeway. With one open hole in the design, Bulma began wildly jumping up and pulling one object out at a time, tearing down the wall.

"Damn it!" Vegeta growled, quickly figuring out what was happening to her wall. Just as frantically as Bulma was tearing down the wall, Vegeta began to reinforce it. Saiyan or human, man or woman, Vegeta did not go down without a fight. For almost two hours, the two continued ferociously battled one another.

However, the supplies in the room were limited, and Vegeta found herself running low on ammunition. "No!" she shouted. "You are not getting in here!"

"Yes I am!" Bulma screamed back. The bulk on the dresser was low enough for her to attempt climbing it, and she wasted no time at all pulling herself up. Using the doorframe for support, she managed to get both of her feet on top of the furniture.

But Vegeta was determined to fight to the bitter end. Seeing her wife's attempt to enter, she quickly mimicked the movement, getting up just a little bit faster. "No!" she grunted, keeping her hands slightly wider than Bulma's. Fiercely, she swiped a leg underneath her wife to knock her off of the dresser.

Bulma shrieked slightly as her foot swung free, but she tightened her grip on the frame and used her rocking momentum to slam her free foot into her husband's stomach. Vegeta grunted hard, the air forced out of her lungs by the action, but she refused to give up. Clenching her muscles tightly, she wrapped both of her legs around her wife's waist. She pulled back, startling Bulma, before swinging forward as hard as she could. At the highest point of her arc, she used her thigh muscles to launch Bulma clear across the hall.

Bulma landed with a grunt and took a moment to gather her bearings. She had never engaged in physical competition with Vegeta before. Their power differences were so vast that it would have been dangerous for them to try. However, without that being an issue, Bulma was actually rather enjoying the fight.

Her joy quickly dissipated, though, when she realized that Vegeta had scurried out and started to launch building supplies back into the bedroom. "Oh, no you don't!" Bulma shouted. Rushing at full force, she tackled her husband and brought her to the ground.

As Vegeta was slammed into the ground, she found herself stunned by her wife's aggression. Had she still been male, it would have been one hell of a turn on. But that was not the case, and the war was on. Vegeta crossed her thighs, tightened her abs, and flipped herself around, knocking Bulma off. Before the heiress could recover, the princess climbed on top and quickly earned the pin.

"I win," she purred into her wife's ear.

"Not yet!" Bulma growled, thrashing underneath. However, even without her Saiyan powers to back her up, Vegeta knew perfectly well how to keep someone down. Bulma could not escape. The cursing, though, flowed freely from her mouth as she kept trying.

As Vegeta began taunting her, keeping her pinned in spite of her writhing, they heard a young throat clear. "Um, are you guys okay?"

Bulma and Vegeta snapped their heads to the side, seeing their son staring at them. They were lying in the hallway, their room blocked by a dresser, surrounded by piles and piles of their personal possessions, and definitely in a compromising position. "Oh, honey!" Bulma panted, more than tired from the two hour fight. "What are you doing here?"

"I, uh, heard you guys making a lot of noise," he stammered out, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene. "It sounded normal at first, but then it got weird, and I wanted to make sure you were okay…"

"We're fine!" Vegeta growled, breathing equally as hard and turning back to her wife. She was not about to let an interruption cost her a victory, and she knew her wife would try.

Trunks checked his mother's expression for confirmation, and it only took one glance to know that it was time to flee. He had seen similar looks a thousand times before, and it always came right before they did something he wanted to stay as far away from as possible.

As the boy turned to leave, Bulma bucked under her husband. "Get off!"

"Mind still in the gutter?" Vegeta taunted back.

Bulma stared at her husband, blinking and panting, before she threw her head back and laughed. It was ridiculous. Every aspect of the past few days had been ridiculous, but this just took the cake. It was just too much to keep to herself anymore, and she could not have stopped that laughter if she had tried.

A moment later, Vegeta smirked and began to chuckle. She, too, knew how absurd the entire fight was, and she, too, thought it was hysterical.

"Truce?" Bulma laughed.

"Temporary," Vegeta chuckled back. Even if she would never bow out of a fight completely, she was in a fair amount of pain and almost as tired as her wife. She had been living off of water and gummi bears since returning home from the mall, and if nothing else, she embraced the opportunity to replenish her stock before holing up again.

"Forgive me?" the heiress tried.

Vegeta snorted, getting to her feet. "Never."

"Ass."

"Bitch."

Letting out a fresh laugh, Bulma grabbed her husband's arm and pulled herself to her feet. "You know, that was kind of fun."

"Hn," Vegeta agreed, scanning the hall for something. Bulma was about to ask what the other woman was looking for, but before she could voice her questions, the princess dug out the chocolate peanut butter cookies and took a bite out of one. "I win."

"Hey, give me one!" the heiress demanded, snatching at the plate. Playfully struggling over the plate, the couple made their way down the stairs. It was the closest they had been since the wish had been made.

From around the corner, Trunks just stared. He had thought his parents could not possibly have gotten weirder. Apparently, he was wrong.

Very, very wrong.