Hey! The chapter i a bit short this time around, but thanks to Dr. Blue22 we have it, at last :)

His head was throbbing. Goten cracked his eyes open and managed himself into a sitting position, one hand nursing his temple and the other rubbing away the last remainder of sleep. He suspected that he was still a bit tipsy and this was confirmed to him when he tried to look out the window. The sun was high in the sky already and sent a spike of pain to his brain as soon as it hit his face.

He recoiled with a groan, trying to seek shelter underneath the covers. Someone yanked them back as soon as he got them up, though. Temporarily confused, Goten looked to his side.

Violet was lying next to him.

The previous night came back to him so hard that he felt his head might explode. He had gotten drunk and had talked with Violet for what felt like hours. With every glass of wine that they drank Goten could feel the boundaries between them fade, until nothing but tension remained in the middle.

He could taste her lips on his again; sweet yet fierce, a divine blend of polar opposites. When she had kissed him at the dinner table all thought has ceased him and all he had been able to do was let her, and moan when her fingers plunged into his hair. Most of what happened after that were only flashes in his memory, but those were so overwhelming that his blood rushed to places just trying to recall them.

"Moooooorning," Violet said from beside him. She had propped herself up on an elbow, a smile on her face and her free hand adjusting the strap of her bra. Goten smiled back and mirrored her position so he could look at her.

"Morning," Goten said. "How'd you sleep?"

"Great," she said. A hand reached out and landed on his shoulder. "It's been a while since I had a pair of arms around me to fall asleep in. I can't say I'm complaining."

The hand rubbed in circles, moving down to his pectorals. Goten shuddered. Her fingers moved so expertly, it was insane.

"Well I'm glad that I got to hold you. It was my pleasure too."

Then her hand shot down to a very private and very happy place. "Still got some pleasure in you?"

He smirked. "How much do you need?"

These brothers really weren't interesting after all. Cell had been watching his maintenance laptop for most of the morning, but for now all that Gohan had done was sit in his office and read magazines. They weren't any good either, considering how he just rifled through them before dumping them on an ever growing stack by his side.

This was why he had so dreaded the idea of having to be the eyes of the operation. Frieza always managed to weasel his way out of things like espionage, using his violent tendencies as an excuse. The idea was laughable; Cell was easily as violent. Next time they did this, Frieza could be the one to break and enter and wire the whole place to hell.

So to kill time Cell had taken to his whiteboard. It was no longer white, more of a gray from all the rubbing and wiping, but he couldn't bring himself to throw it out. It had served him without fail when he was busy tracking down the fat Korrin collector and it would serve him now.

A spiderweb had unfurled as Cell had tossed a mental ball around with himself, once in a while glancing at the laptop in the hopes that Gohan would do a sudden summersault. There was no such luck. In the middle he had written POSSIBLE LOCATIONS. Threads had been connected to this bubble and every one lead to a place where Cell believed one of the Dragon Balls may be hidden. Some of them were wild guesses, but others were more calculated and could, at the least, merit some information about the real whereabouts.

One of the people who would be able to tell him a whole awful lot was Bulma Briefs. Cell was convinced that she had been researching the Dragon Balls for a good amount of time, because a little over a year ago Frieza had dropped a false lead on her path. Considering she very loudly called herself the world's wealthiest and most successful collector, there was no chance that she would pass it up. And though Cell had quite the noggin, he was forced to admit that Bulma's resources outshone him by a mile.

So once they had ripped the Four Star out of the clutches of these boring brothers, they would go after Bulma. That would prove to be a challenge. The woman was rich and made the world know it. A team of three bodyguards surrounded her at all times and even then her husband was still waiting in the wings. Cell had been told that the man had a bit of a temper.

Thank goodness for Frieza.

Something happened on the monitor. Cell saw it form the corner of his eye and dropped his marker in the middle of writing down POSSIBLE BODYGUARD SHIFTS. Gohan was busy putting away the magazines had been reading for hours, turning his head to greet his brother. Cell listened to their meaningless drivel for a while, pining for something, just the littlest bit of information would do...

"So you're saying that Master Roshi left even more clues?" Goten asked. Cell leaned over, placing his elbows on his knees with care as to not crease his pants.

"Uh-huh," Gohan said, pouring himself some coffee. "I have to say that that man knew what he was doing. He tried his best not to leave a papertrail and he did so very, very well."

"So any chance of you telling me what you discovered or are you gonna be cryptic about it till the day I die?"

Gohan laughed at that. "Sure, but it's a lot of explaining to do, so how about I finish my drink and we'll talk about it over lunch?"

"Popo's?"

"Sure, why not."

And that was how they left the building without saying a goddamn word about where the Dragon Ball might be.

Cell regarded this without any trace of emotion on his face. He rose up from his sofa, still keeping composed and turned towards his whiteboard.

"DAMNIT!" he roared, pistoning out a leg and crashing it into the board. It flew across his living room and struck the wall with a crack. It tipped over, a split in its middle, one of the wheels still turning in soft squeaks.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit!" Cell raged. Of all the stupid goddamn things he could forget, it had to be bugging that giant overcoat that Goten kept inside the store all the damn time. He had seen the kid enough to know that he only wore it when someone had be wowed, and there wasn't a doubt in Cell's mind that the woman with the purple hair was going to be there. Why else would he endure furs in this hellish heat.

Cell took a few deep breaths and pulled out his phone when he had gotten himself back under control. He hit a number on speed dial and after a few rings Frieza's voice appeared on the other end of the line, asking Cell what the problem was.

"Oh, nothing much," Cell fumed. "Just that those rotten brothers are currently discussing everything they know about the Dragon Balls, only I can't hear a damn word! They're going to Popo's Diner for lunch, so if you're in the neighbourhood I would advise you to tail them as fast as you can. If you're quick enough about it we can go and have ourselves some good old bloody fun tonight."

Goten was positively bouncing. And Gohan knew damn well that it wasn't because of the weather; for the majority of their walk to Popo's, Goten kept going on about how amazing his night with Violet had been. Gohan endured it because he understood that he had been much the same when he had just started dating Videl, but if he were being honest, it was hard not to give Goten his real opinion. If you were to ask Gohan, he would say that Violet had just been in need for something physical. Just a good old time. Basically put, Goten had been used.

Goten either knew this and didn't care, or he was oblivious. Either way Gohan hoped that Violet wouldn't let his brother down too bad. Goten was a good kid and didn't deserve to be treated like an object.

Gohan would very quickly find out that he was the oblivious one.

They had just taken their seat at Popo's when Gohan wanted to divulge about his findings. What he had uncovered the previous day had him excited and he wanted for Goten to share in the feeling. However when he pulled out Master Roshi's Brown Book, Goten halted him by holding his hand up.

"Just a minute, Gohan." Goten threw a look over his shoulder at the door. "I invited someone over who might be able to help us out here."

Just as Gohan's eyebrows knitted together in a confused frown, clarity hit him. "Oh no, Goten, you didn't..."

Violet entered the diner right when Gohan wanted give Goten a proper flogging.

"Hello Gohan!" she greeted with a smile and a wave. She took her proper time saying hello to Goten, standing on her tippy toes and kissing him with a lot more tongue and noise than a normal greeting required. When that was seen to she signalled for the waitress and ordered them all coffee.

Gohan had to start minding himself around these two. When put together they dragged any situation from his hands. He looked over the both of them and scraped his throat to get their attention.

"So Violet, Goten says you can help us with our... quest."

"Uh-huh," she said. "Goten told me about the Dragon Ball you guys found. I didn't believe it when he first told be though. The Dragon Balls were only thought to be a legend."

Gohan's eyebrows rose and Goten's lips curled into a smile. "How do you mean?" Gohan asked.

Violet was about to speak when the waitress brought them their drinks. They all pretended to be very interested in their own fingernails. The bell above the front door gave it's soft chime. Patrons were talking in hushed tones. And with Violet's explanation waiting for him Gohan could feel the tension in his gut.

Violet picked back up on her story when the waitress had left.

"Okay before I tell you this story, please know that I don't think I can help you with finding any other Dragon Balls. I heard of maybe one, and that's it."

"There's more than one DragonBall?" Gohan asked, nonplussed.

"Tell him babe," Goten said.

Violet smiled. "Sure thing, sweetie. And don't look at us like that, Gohan. He actually is sweet."

"And she actually is a babe."

Gohan remained in awkward silence.

"Anyway," Violet said. "Yes, there is more than one Dragon Ball. There are seven, to be exact. Every Dragon Ball has a different number of stars in it, ranging from one to seven. Any collector would want the whole set, I can promise you that."

"Are they that valuable?" Gohan asked.

"You have no idea. That is where the legend comes into play. According to the stories once all seven are collected, you can make any one wish and have it granted. The Balls will then scatter themselves around the globe."

As interesting as that sounded, Gohan found this to be very useless information. "Well I wish I could sell a fairytale like that, but that's Goten's strong suit. And not to rush you into anything, but you mentioned you might have heard about someone with a Dragon Ball? Would they be able to help us get rid of ours?"

Violet nodded. "Yeah, I'll give you their intel, but before I do that I want to tell you something. Something very important."

Gohan, now curious, looked over at Goten and was shocked to find that his little brother had a grim expression on his face.

"You better hear her out, Gohan."

So Violet recounted the death of Yajirobe, how he had received messages for so long before he was eventually murdered. The messages made Gohan's blood freeze over. There had been a Dragon Ball in play. No question about it. This also meant that they could be in some serious trouble. He would have to start watching his back if he didn't want to end up a stain of blood on his kitchen floor.

Popo's was warm and cozy. The second Frieza stepped in he was overtaken by a desire to lounge around and have the wait staff run after his every need. But he couldn't do that because of Cell. Frieza disliked Cell on a personal level. And the emotional one. He just hated Cell.

And could you really blame him? Frieza had spent years working on his craft. He took pride in his sadism and his ability to get information out of people. He did this the old fashioned way and that was the way he preferred, but this time around he really did need the tall waste of space. Back in the flowering days of their respective crime careers they had run into each other on occasion and made sure to let each other be. But now they had a common goal and teamwork would make the dream work.

Though Frieza's favourite dream was the one where he dissolved Cell into a drum of acid.

All in due time.

Now he would take a listen into what these brothers couldn't discuss in their own store.

They never saw him enter and never heard him leave.

Gohan's was spinning by the time he got back around to his archiving work. With everything that Violet had told him about the Dragon Balls he had all but forgotten to tell Goten about his own findings. He would get around to it though; the magazines weren't going anywhere.

As he picked another one up he thought of the name and address Violet had written down for him. It belonged to a woman named Snow. She lived a twelve hour flight away. Gohan's initial thought was that there was no way that he would get on a plane just for a chance to be shot down, but then the note crawled back into his mind.

So they would go to Snow. If only to get rid of the damn Ball and live the rest of their lives in peace.

Gohan wasn't really paying attention to the magazines that flew through his fingers; they were what Sharp had said was even more treasure. That treasure consisted of three moving boxes full of nudie mags. And Gohan would go through them all because he was certain there was a clue to be found somewhere. He felt that in his heart.

And it was there when he least expected it. He had just flipped past a a pretty blonde girl with a breast size that really couldn't be good for her back. Right next to her Roshi had taped the missing page from the Brown Book.

It said two words only.

'BULMA BRIEFS'

Thousands of miles away in a hot and barren desert, a man known as Yamcha turned his television off. There was never anything good on these days, not to mention the crap reception he had this far out.

A reasonable question to ask would be: Then why the hell do you live in the desert?

Well it wasn't his choice, okay! All he had done was rob a few ladies in the village that he was born in, which stood at the edge of the desert. Of course he had been caught and had been exiled. So now he was forced to live in this heat and with sand permanently wedged up his buttcrack.

Yamcha got up and made to grab himself something quick to eat. His cat Puar trailed him into the kitchen, so he rewarded her with a scratch behind the ear. She really was good company.

Though Yamcha himself took no special notice of it, one thing in his living room would come to give him the surprise of a lifetime. In fact, it would flip his entire world upside down in a minute or two.

A few years ago, before he was exiled, Yamcha had found a large, orange marble in the desert sands. He quite frankly thought it was worthless, but he kept it anyway. It was much too pretty, with the way it sparkled and the seven stars in its middle. So he had taken it with him after the villagers had sent him away. He kept it cause it reminded him of home.

Yamcha was about to sit down with his snack when something strange happened.

Someone knocked on the door.

No one ever came to his house. Puzzled, Yamcha went to his front door and opened it. In front of him stood a short but powerful looking man. He wore a navy blue suit and his hair was done up into a widow's peak. The man had an angry look about him, but it was that terrifying calm anger. It made Yamcha shiver.

This was when the man noticed that the door had opened. The grouchy look on his face disappeared and made way for a cocky grin, but never did the feeling of unease leave Yamcha. This man was dangerous.

"Hi," the man spoke. "My name is Vegeta. You are known as Yamcha the Desert Bandit. I will now come inside for coffee. No milk and sugar, thank you."

And Yamcha had no other choice but to let Vegeta walk into his house. He gulped down his anxiety and followed the man, hoping that if he were to get angry, he at least wouldn't lash out at Puar.

The door fell shut with a click. Coffee would be served in a minute.