"Woman, that one hair product we both enjoy is running low. You should consider purchasing…" Vegeta trailed off as he approached their empty bed, clad only in his two wristbands and a bath towel that wrapped around his waist. His hyperactive wife must have found a way off of their bed, which meant she had been running around on the…

Panic set in as the Saiyan began to float in midair, checking the soles of his feet and scanning the floor for his miniature wife. She wasn't there, both to his relief and concern, so he began tearing their room apart in search of his mate, flying around the space like a gnat.

"If this is some kind of joke, I will destroy every cup of ramen this planet is capable of producing, woman," he threatened. There was no response. Five minutes, Bulma. I was in the shower for five minutes and you managed to make yourself disappear.

Dissecting their room only served to make the prince's anxiety climb. He would need to calm down and approach this emergency tactfully- something he rarely found difficulty in until he had a damn family to worry about. Vegeta closed his eyes, inhaling deeply to calm his nerves, receiving his first clue in the process.

The cat.

The little bastard was in their room recently, but the Saiyan had been too preoccupied to pick up on its scent. The smell trailed from out of their closet, onto the bed, and out the door, which Vegeta finally noticed had been left opened ajar. How could I have been so oblivious of my surroundings? If Bulma hadn't been such a damn distraction I would have shut the door behind me! The prince's cushy life on Earth had made him more comfortable with letting his guard down, for better or for worse.

Vegeta crawled out of his room and along the hallway, tracing the beast's stench and even picking up small hints of his wife's fragrance (so long as he remained near the floor). He dreaded the thought of what that animal wanted with the rodent-sized Bulma. He had repeatedly told the woman that he didn't want the creature anywhere around their home after it had somehow gnawed bite-marks into a pair of his nearly indestructible boots, but she insisted on letting it roam wherever it pleased. The sneaky little bastard had an almost undetectable energy, allowing it to regularly catch the prince off-guard.

He vowed to gut the little fur ball when he found it.

Trunks woke up to a landslide of crumbs hitting his face. The bag of chips that had been resting on his chest was dumping its contents onto the half-Saiyan as the couch beneath him inclined towards his feet. Before Trunks could sit up, the sofa fell back to its proper position and his half-naked father came into view. The teenager watched in awe as Vegeta crawled around on the ground, searching underneath each piece of furniture for whatever it was he was looking for.

"…Dad?"

The prince ignored him and lifted another couch onto its side. The small bath towel barely managed to hide the parts of Vegeta that Trunks could definitely go his entire life without witnessing.

"Uh… can I help you with something?"

Vegeta hesitated as he rummaged through the TV stand before eventually responding to his son, "Have you seen your mother?"

Trunks tilted his head, "No... you just woke me up. I haven't seen anyone today. Why? Is everything alright? What are you looking for?"

His father's eyes scanned the room once more before focusing on Trunks and narrowing, "Of course everything is alright! Your mother is fine I just…" Vegeta drifted off and he began sniffing at the floor, chasing some scent trail to the exit of the room. He paused before leaving and turned to look at his son, "Nothing is wrong, boy. Go back to sleep."

Trunks watched as the Prince of all Saiyans crawled out of his sight, not quite convinced he was awake yet.

Vegeta followed the trail of cat dander down the halls of Capsule Corporation, crawling along more and more frantically as time passed. His focus on the floor led him directly into a pair of legs that had stopped to watch the bizarre sight.

The prince slowly craned his head, processing the other half-Saiyan currently in his home. Goten's hair had started losing its shape, now hanging around his shoulders rather than standing up at ridiculous angles like his father's did. Unkempt locks of hair framed the big, stupid, lopsided grin that uncannily resembled Kakarot's.

"Hey there Mr. Vegeta! Whatcha doin- ack!" the teenager hit the floor as his feet were pulled from beneath him. He raised his arms in defense and squeezed his eyes shut, expecting to be showered in punches. Both his and Trunks' fathers enjoyed initiating impulsive spars- something about teaching the boys to always anticipate an attack- so this was nothing unusual.

Yet, the attacks never came. Goten peeked out from behind his arms to see his best friend's dad… inspecting the bottoms of his feet. The two eventually made eye contact and Vegeta spoke.

"Did Bulma or a cat walk past you recently?"

Goten gulped and shook his head. Immediately, he found himself being dragged by the ankles along the floor of the corridor. Vegeta towed the teenager back into the game room and, using a single arm, hurled the adolescent through the air and into an armchair situated against the opposite wall. Goten landed in the seat upside down, seeing his best friend's jaw drop and wide eyes staring back at him in shock.

"Hey Trunks!"

Before Trunks could recover from the events unfolding before his eyes, Vegeta pointed at the two half-Saiyans, "If either of you get out of these seats before I give you permission to, I will make sure that you can never leave them again! Is that clear?!" Trunks opened his mouth to question his father, "Never again, boy!"

Vegeta turned and stomped out of the room, leaving the teenagers to stare at each other until Goten broke the silence.

"He said that we couldn't leave our seats. He said nothing about us ordering pizza."

Scratch carried his prey throughout the building, looking for the perfect place to go through with his plan. He certainly couldn't stay in his alien friend's room; whenever the blue-haired woman wasn't present the man would pick him up by the scruff and deposit him outside their door.

So the feline instead trotted through the house, looking for the perfect place to leave his catch. It had been years since he had a successful hunt; after all, old age tended to weaken the senses. The critter currently squirming around in his grasp had been dumb and slow, relaxing out in the open in broad daylight. Despite how easy it had been, he knew the powerful man would be pleased with his offering.

Scratch considered the kitchen, but humans were finicky about rodents being near their food. His pal never seemed to use the entertainment rooms, not to mention there were two adolescents currently sleeping in there that might find the gift instead. As the cat circled the first floor of the mansion, he came across the most obvious place to leave his present.

Despite the catastrophe that befell the gravity chamber, the space around it was in pristine condition outside of a few scorch marks. The ki blasts had completely obliterated any potential debris, leaving nothing behind to clean. Scratch entered the large hole in the wall leading to the antechamber of the gravity room. The space was used to store additional sets of armor, bottles of water, and a control panel with far more features than the one in the actual gravity area.

"Scratch I swear I will send you to the pound if you do not sit me down right now! Do you hear me?! I said put me down now!" He ignored the small creature in his mouth as a pair of white boots in the corner of the room caught his attention instead. Purrfect! The cat strutted over to the footwear and held his prize over them.

"Wait, no! Don't put me down right here!" The small woman cried out as the cat plopped her into the tall shoe. Scratch then got to work rubbing his fur along the material, both to enjoy the texture and to mark them with his scent. As if to bid farewell, the cat chomped on the rim of the boots before scampering away to his own home. It was around time for the toddler to eat lunch and he was well aware of the fact that there would be many scraps of food on the floor.

Bulma, on the other hand, stayed seated in her place in the shoe. She rested her chin in the palms of her hands and pouted, "I think this might just be worse than Namek. I'm three inches tall, I'm covered in cat slobber, and it smells like gross Saiyan feet!" she began to wail, "I'm going to grow old and have a bunch of kids and live in here forever!"

The heiress sulked and toppled backwards, trying and failing to forget the fact that she was sprawled out on the floor of a workout shoe. Well, at least he didn't eat me… though Bulma did wonder why Scratch had just abandoned her here. She recalled how the cats her parents cared for would occasionally leave small critters around the house- sometimes dead, sometimes alive. Well it's good to know I'm on par with a dead freaking rat.

The boot was abruptly flipped over and Bulma screamed as she tumbled out of it. She landed on a cushiony surface and opened her eyes to see an equally startled Vegeta, staring down at her in the palm of his hand.

"Bulma?!"

"Vegeta!" Bulma threw herself at his thumb and squeezed it as if to give him a hug. She turned her gaze up to him, "You found me! I was so scared and seriously grossed out! Scratch had gotten ahold of me!"

Based on her demeanor, Vegeta determined that she was fine outside of being bug-sized, smelling like a gym sock, and (to his disgust) being slightly damp. He relaxed, "I didn't expect you to be in a damn boot, Woman. I had to follow that beast's scent and search everywhere for you, you pain in the ass." He raised his brow at her, "What were you even doing in there?"

"Oh, you know, just seeing if they were my size." She crossed her arms, "What kind of question is that?! The stupid cat put me in there! Because he's a stupid cat and cats just love doing stupid things like that."

Vegeta tilted his head, "Why?"

"I don't know? My mom would sometimes find dead or injured animals in her slippers when we had a bunch of cats running around. I guess they do it to leave them as gifts or to show off or kill them later." She shrugged.

"That... is very Saiyan of them." The prince began to reconsider his punishment for the cat while Bulma groaned and buried her face in her hands.