*note: Sorry for the long delay *ahem* computer troubles. I WILL UPDATE MORE, I PROMISE.

"Protector of school interests!"

*woosh* "Savior of a boy's true desire!"

*FLASH* "Champion of all one-dimensional characters everywhere!"

*insert flowery background* "I am Causean Deffect, defender of personal interests and of cheated girls EVERYWHERE!!!! RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Videl wasn't positive, but was pretty sure that poor Ann Alogy had finally snapped, completely. "Ann, what the HELL are you wearing? You look like a reject nightclub dancer or something."

"*GASP*....*phoo* just as offensive as always. How'd you recognize me?"

"I think it was the dramatic and egotistical little entry you just made there in that little outfit of yours. Or the name. 'Causan Deffect'?" Ann brushed back some loose hair. "You're just jealous of my amazing style and shapely body!"

"Oh Absolutely! I'm especially jealous of the clashing red, white, and bluecolors! And the wide hips!" said Videl brightly.

With a whistle Ann brushed off the comment and started to idle up to the other figure, who was busy talking to the car.

"Hiiiiii Goooohhaaannnnnn...."

"-so could you *hic* talk...talk to Buloomers and tell her to not...*hic* fly so scary-like-ish?"

Ann's face registered slight confusion, but she shrugged it off, and slid a finger under his chin. "Heeeyy Gohan, how are you faring up against the wicked witch over there?"

His head tilted up, then his back, then his legs. Soon enough, he fell with a dull thud to the asphault.

"In case you hadn't already noticed, Gohan's a bit drunk due to a drink mixup. He probably thinks you're a pink elephant with a skirt or something," Videl stated semi-smugly while Ann's face began to mutate into one of anger.

"Well, he sure seems to know who YOU are when you talk to him!"

"Me? Why would he listen to the little old wicked witch?"

"You still haven't answered my question!"

Videl shrugged, "I don't know! I've been with him most of the afternoon, so maybe he just knows my voice or something!"

Ann took a deep breath and smiled unpleasantly, "Yeah right. Believe me, I saw you two a moment ago. The Videl from last year would've thrown poor Gohan right into the car."

"EXCUSE ME?"

Ann leaned down to grab Gohan's arm. "You heard me. Heeeeyyyyy Goooohhhhaaaannnn, want some help getting uuuuuppppppppp?"

"..........*snnnnxxxxx*....*zzzz*..."

The silence was only broken by Videl's snickering, and Ann finally snapped. "YOU DRUGGED HIM DIDN'T YOU! THAT'S WHY HE'S SO WIERD!!"

"....what?"

"YEAH, LET'S GO!"

"But-"

"um.....lemme think....YOU SMELL LIKE YOUR DAD!"

"WHAT?! THAT DOES IT, I'VE PUT UP WITH THIS LONG ENOUGH! GET LOST!"

Ann made a dramatic pose. "TRY ME, BITCH!" Suddenly, FLASH, a bracelet appeared in her hand. "FUNC....TION........BRACELET!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The bracelet flew across the lot and struck Videl on the nose.

"Ow! What the hell was that?"

"THAT WAS MY....FUNC....TION......BRACELET!!! HOW'D YOU LIKE THAT? HUH?"
Videl took a small Oak Tree by the trunk and ripped it out of the ground.

"Uuuhhhh.....eheh....um........TOODLES!" POOF! She dissapeared in a flash of pink and purple smoke.

"GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE COWARD! I'M NOT DONE YET!.....aAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAHAHAHAHHA----YEOWCH!!!"

After laughing too hard, a long, needlie like splinter caught her thumb, and she dropped the tree, which proceeded to crash into the car with a loud POW! "....oh SHIT...."



The plan had been going quite well, until the two spies reached the game-room. Preoccupied with other thoughts, Shao accidentally slipped on a row of brightly colored toy cars, and fell with a graceful crash which seemed loud enough to have woken half the city. Immediately, a pitter-patter of footsteps announced baby-trunks' awakening.

"Hey, what's goin on! OoOOOH, NINJA'S!"

Mai clenched her teeth into a forced grin, "Yeah, we're Ninja's on a secret Mission! Unfortunately, some of us are a little clumsy, aren't we SHAO?"

"Urrfff..."

She drew a gun, "Now get out of our way little boy, we're busy."

Trunks growled, "Hey, I don like threats, wady. I'm the pwince of the Paiyajins!"

Mai blinked, and then Shao remembered something awful from past experience. He took out a crowbar, "Hey Mai, I wanna do a test on our new NINJA PARTNER *nervous laugh*, um hey, are you, uh, unusually strong?"

"YUP!"

"Wow! Um, could you prove your super strength by tying this into a knot?"

"uh, ok." Trunks started to try and tie it, but the crowbar shattered first. "Aw....*sniff* dunno howta tie a knawt...Dad'll...*sniff sniff*"

Mai felt like crying too. "Um--eheheheh...WOW, what a neat idea MR. SHAO had! What do you wanna do now, Mr. Shao?!"

"I wanna learn howta tie a not!" said Trunks firmly.

"Aww, it isn't that hard little buddy-!" piped shao.

"DON'T MAKE FUN OF ME!"

"No no, I'm not I'm not, it's just-"

"Hey kid, I have an idea!" Mai burst in, "How about Mr. Shao teaches you a knot while I go and---uh---collect some more supplies from...the...lab...."

A smile replastered itself onto the child's face, "REALLY! OK! The password's either 5463J or I-hate-this-idiotic-door, but the second one you have to blow it up afterwards!"

"Um, thanks! Shao, you'll go and show the nice how to tie a knot, now won't you?" said Mai in a voice that spoke volumes.

"Er...ehee...yeah, sure....*whimper*."

Mai ran off without another word, in great fear that at any moment, once again, the entire thing would become a disaster.

But the twists and turns of the hallways began to confuse her, and she was deathly afraid at the thought of stumbling on the legendary "Gravity Room." Men had been known to dissapear and never return from that area.

The lab, however, was not at ALL where she thought it would be. There actually wasn't a real lab, it was more like a giant garden with a couple tables.

And there it was, basking on the longest table, half-wrapped in a rose-colored scarf. The 5th one.

Then she weaved her way back.

"...and there you go, see there, now you did it all by yourself. Why don't you go, uh, practice a little?"

Trunks was positively beaming over his new technique, and started tying everything in knots, like ropes, curtains, the carpet, and Vegeta's spandex clothes. Shao grinned and slowly started trying to back out the door, casting relieved eyes at Mai, "Wow, looks like we'd better get going now, Mai's back."

The boy pouted and glared at Mai, "Don't go, I wanna play Ninja Ropes with Mister Shao! I never get to play with anyone anymore!"

Shao actually felt a pang of regret, "Aw comeon, you got more toys than a toy factory!"

We don't have time for this... Mai thought frantically. "Mister Shao, we really, REALLY need to go before someone comes back."

For once in his life, the little dog thought quickly. He took off his rather high-tech watch and gave it to Trunks. "Here y'are! You can play with this for a while until I come back next time, all right?"

The little boy sat down happily and started to play with the watch's laser, blowing holes through Vegeta's spandex clothes. "Thanks Mister Shao!"

"Sure! Uh, BYE!" Shao called back as jumped out the hole in the wall.

The pair continued to run for a goodly while, as Mai continuously berated her partner. "Do you realize how much trouble we could've been in if you hadn't sweet-talked your way out of that? Why don't you watch where you're going? Now, we need to find the last one tomorrow."

"Heh....Mister Shao he called me!" Shao mumbled to himself.



The night came and passed without further event, aside from the usual cleanup at the Briefs' Residence. No one was aware of the missing Dragonball, nor of the visitors. Trunks' unfortunately short attention span ensured that no one would know for at least a couple weeks. Chichi was relatively unaware of Gohan's alcohol accident, and Bulma decided to keep it that way. "Let a sleeping dog lie," they always say, right?

The saiyan woke up as customary at 5:30 AM. After throwing out the obtrusive source of noise, namely his brother, he rather groggily began to get dressed. He felt slightly light-headed, for some odd reason.

Then a very strange thought occured to him. "Why don't I remember anything?" he asked aloud. Try as he might, the only images his memory brought forth didn't make even remotely any sense. Bloomers? Super Saiyan Vegeta with a cheese grater stuck to his hair? Dancing Ballerina Girl? Videl letting him hang on to her arm for 5 minutes? "Must've been an odd dream," he shrugged.

After a leisurely breakfast, he headed out to the next meeting spot, bringing only a canteen and his notebook. And a mini-fridge capsule, just in case.

Gohan looked at his watch, half-looking forward to and half-dreading the next meeting, still unsure of what had happened the previous night. He certainly hoped he hadn't done anything stupid with Videl watching him.

It was still pretty early in the morning, so Gohan wasn't all that worried that she wasn't there upon his arrival. He straightened his jacket a bit, and then heppened to overhear a short, odd conversation.

"All right, the coordinates *whisperwhisper* we'll need to head over *whisperwhisper*"

"They sure?"

"Yeah, it's the last one."

"*whisper*-laf said the dragon*whisper*

"THAT house? THOSE people? Not a chance! They never go an entire mission without screwing up! I want to see this ball-"

"SSSSHHH!! Lower your voice stupid!" came a hoarse whisper.

He perked his ears. Did they mean the dragonballs?....oh no.....

Gohan's eyes widened, then he paled rapidly and edged back. Videl was dressed in an extremly long and flowing dress, primarily blue with some silver accents, and her black hair had been organized into two exquisite braids. She would've been absolutely irresistable if it weren't for the fact that her face had murder written all over it, and her darkened, baggy eyes were fixed on him as if he was the source of all evil on the planet.

Videl's voice quavered, "Don't you even DARE laugh at me! Just one giggle and I swear I'll claw your eyes out!"

"O-o-ok, um, I th-th-think you look n--nice-"

"Shut up, no I don't. I look like a barbie or something. Stupid dresser 'Oh she'll look sooo cute in this!!'" Her fists clenched and unclenched controllably, and she cast frequent glares at her backpack.

"A barbie-?"

"A toy Gohan, you know, the kind you play with?" she said acidly.

"Oh, you mean like a toy car or--"

"A TOY CAR?" Her tone rose several octaves, "Did you just say I looked like a TOY CAR?"

"No no no, I just meant that I now understood that a Barbie was a toy, like-"

"Like me? You think I'm a toy here for your amusement?!" She was clearly itching for a fight.

"What do you mean, for my amusemen-"

"You know EXACTLY what I mean!"

"NO I DON'T! Why don't you ever let me finish a senten-?"

"How DARE you talk to me that way!?"

"Huh, bu-?"

"'Why don't you ever let me finish a sentence-' waah waah!"

"What do you mean," yelled Gohan. Even his patience was running thin. "It's true! You never let anyone get the last word-!"

"YES I DO!"

"NO YOU DON'T!"

"YES I DO!"

"NO YOU DON'T!

"YES!"

"NO!"

"YES-I-DO-YES-I-DO-URRRGHHHH!!!!" Her voice suddenly soared to a shrill shriek. "I HATE THIS THING! THIS STUPID THING WOKE ME UP AT LEAST 12 TIMES LAST NIGHT!!! I HAAATEEEE IT!"

In the following silence, the few people around that area began to slink away.

Gohan cowered back while Videl drew out the baby-simulator and started to hiss at it. "V-videl, they're just making sure we know-"

"THAT HAVING BABIES IS REALLY F***ING STUPID!"

"It's a learning experience, it teaches responsibility-"

"Responsibility my ass, it's a subtle means of making sure teenagers never, EVER go 'exploring'."

"Exploring?"

"You know, Gohan, home run? Going the distance?"

He blinked in sincere, utter ignorance.

Videl sighed and calmed herself down a little bit. "Oy. You know, I feel much better now."

The boy smiled brightly, "That's good."

She laughed in spite of herself. "You're a treasure Gohan, you know that? Anyway, you're looking better this morning. No headache?"

Blink blink. "Headache? Why would I have a headache?"

"You're drink, Gohan, remember? The drink. You had the equivalent of three full bottles of liquor last night. I was quite busy keeping you out of trouble, you know."

He felt his face burning up, "I knew that water tasted funny....."

She smirked, "You were actually pretty cute there for a while, especially when you started talking to the car."

He just looked down at the sidewalk, blushing furiously, while Videl laughed for a while, and told him in cruel detail exactly what he had done yesterday, and what had happened with Krillen. At least the sidewalk didn't mock him.

Finally, she tired of laughing and resorted to a restrained grin. "Anyway, so how far away is your house?"

Gohan toyed with his watch, "3000 Kilometers, give or take a couple hundred. Shouldn't take too long"

Her eyes widened, "Oh. Ok. Um, isn't that a bit far?"

"Nah. Five, ten minutes at most....well, going half-speed anyway." He took a sip of water from his canteen.

Videl snapped her fingers, "Oh that's RIGHT. You're going to fly me today!"

SPIIIITTTTT. "W-w-w-what?"

"Don't even TRY getting out of this. I've had two hours of sleep, I GET TO FLY," she stated flatly.

"B--but didn't I win that deal?"

"You promised me you would anyway!" Her lower lip began to tremble, but her eyes were alight with mischief.

"Um---I'd fly too fast, you might get hurt!" Gohan wheedled desperately.

"Would you rather do the helicopter?"

"OH DEAR GOD NO!"

"Very good, let's start now."

"Aw man..." Gohan gulped. He silently wondered how he ever kept busy before he went to school, and how nice all the peace and quiet had been.



It wasn't too long before Vegeta woke up that morning, though to his irritation he had overslept. Thus, the hot pile of mush that was called "food" would now be a luke-warm or cold pile of mush. Wonderful. Maybe if he was lucky enough, the brat'd start to squall, then he'd have the pleasure of feeding him!

Such a worthless existence. Ever since Kakarot had actually gone and killed himself once and for all, there really hadn't been all that much excitement in life. Gohan was always there, but he didn't relish fighting an opponent who generally disliked fighting and simultaneously controlled some ungodly power. And, despite three years of training, the prince's strength had not noticibly improved. Did even he have limits?

He shunted his mind away from such thoughts, seeing as how quitting training would leave him completely taskless. Though world domination wouldn't be such a bad job....but then everyone would turn on him again. "Hell, it'd be a waste of time ruling a bunch of morons," he muttered to himself as he pulled on his new training clothes. The old ones had vanished somewhere, for some reason, he didn't particularly care. Though Trunks' unusually good behavior when he had returned yesterday made him more than a little suspicious. And the fact that every single curtain in the bedroom was tied in one gigantic knot, and contained several large holes.

It was about then that he ran into that meddlesome father of his mate's. Generally, most people int he household treated him with a semblence of respect, if nothing else to prevent a temper burst, so the doctor approached with an exaggerated deal of caution.

"Um, Vegeta, you wouldn't, uh, perhaps know where, ah, a certain, er-"

"Get on with it old man or leave me alone, I'm hungry."

The scientist straightened himself. "Uh, well, you see, I had a ball I was studying, and I swore I put it in the lab last night. But the door was open and it wasn't there anymore."

Vegeta grunted, "So? Get another one?"

"Well, you see, it was apparently what you call a Dragonball, and I checked the radar. They're all halfway across the world, and six of them are all in one spot. Would you be the one collecting them?"

Vegeta just stared at him, "No....no I'm not....maybe it's just Kakarot's brat."

"I don't think so, they don't live in the desert, if I remember correctly."

"....I think we might have a problem...."


To be continued....


Just as a note, I didn't particularly like this chapter, but the next one should be very good. I think. STAY TUNED, AND IF I DON'T HAVE 3264 REVIEWS IN THE NEXT 25 MINUTES, I WON'T WRITE EVER AGAIN, EVER, AND I'LL SEND A VIRUS TO FF.NET WHCIH WILL CAUSE PEOPLE'S MONITORS TO EXPLODE, AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!....*cough*