"You imbeciles! How could you've lost that artifact?!" Coten demanded.

Standing before the scientist was a nearly destroyed group of androids. It had been very close but thanks to their lack of a ki signal, they had managed to escape the rampage of Broly. Unfortunately though, the item they had gone to get had been taken during the battle, most likely by one of the saiyans.

However, just because they had escaped didn't mean they hadn't suffered injury. Presently, Gero was lying on the ground with his broken neck, though he was still among the living as his blazing eyes were sending daggers towards Coten. Beside him was Angie, who had not woken up after being rammed into a wall by the giant saiyan. There was even an imprint of the monkey's hand in the dark haired android's head.

The only two androids still able to move were Tretton and Cell, albeit barely. Tretton had fist sized dints all over his blue body, as well as his pant legs being torn. One could see the exhaustion from the damage on his face. Cell though, was in much better shape. What appeared to be mere bruises and scraps dotted his body, but there was obviously something wrong with the way he moved. Probably his wiring controlling his balance was damage, or so Coten thought.

But that was all meaningless since he could repair that damage. It was the relic, or lack thereof that was the problem. Without it, their whole plan to use what Dr. Wheelo called the "Time Milieu" was a waste of time.

"Well, I'm waiting," the doctor said, still waiting for the ragtag group of bolts and screws to respond. Finally, Tretton said "We were attacked by a very big monkey."

"A what?" Coten responded skeptically. "You had some flea bag beat you up?"

"It was more than a flea bag," Cell protested. "It was a saiyan and a very powerful one too. Not even our new powers were able to scratch him!"

"A saiyan? Like the ones that killed you? Impossible!" the old man retorted. "I've run all kinds of simulations of the three that attacked Earth and I've granted you more power accordingly. I even included the possibility of them becoming stronger! But now you tell me that an oversized monkey beat you to Hell and back? That's utterly preposterous!"

"Like we said, this wasn't an ordinary saiyan," Tretton shot back. "He was able to kill off the whole Cold Family without gettin' hurt."

"Lies!" Coten roared. "You're just making excuses for your blundering! I oughta throw all of you into the scrap heap! You're nothing but—"

"It was a saiyan you say?" the deep rumbling of Wheelo suddenly said, interrupting his assistance's rant.

"For the third time, it was," Tretton replied, obviously becoming irritated.

"And what was it doing there? I can calculate a million other better places for it to be than where you were."

"Exactly!" Coten agreed. "That's exactly what—"

"It sensed us fighting," Cell answered. "We had a small run in with some familiar faces."

"And who would you know that would appear at that temple? You've been dead for quite a while," the brain countered.

Cell and Tretton looked at each other before deciding to answer. Swallowing a lump in his throat, the insect like android said "We ran into the saiyans that killed us."

A silence fell over the whole room. "You saw those…monkeys?" Wheelo said.

"Yes, and they wanted the artifact we were after."

"Hmm, what an interesting thought," the mad genius said. "Perhaps this failure isn't as bad as feared."

"What do you mean Dr. Wheelo?!" Coten shouted, disturbed by that notion.

"I mean, we can use these saiyans to do all of our dirty work. We'll just have someone keeping an eye on them and then steal the artifacts at the last second," the doctor explained.

"That's brilliant!" Coten praised. "I couldn't have thought of anything better myself!"

"As if he could think," Tretton muttered.

"He is a suck up, so that's to be expected," Cell whispered back.

"Alright, you've been granted a period of grace!" Coten announced, whipping around to face the androids. "First I'm going to fix you Cell and then send you out to keep an eye on our monkey problem. Report their progress whenever they retrieve an artifact. I'll fix the rest of you later."

Gohan stood in the hallway, waiting for his little brother to show.

He wasn't positive, but he knew something was going on with the boy. He was sleeping later than he usually did and appeared a bit fatigued. As they day wore on, that tiredness would disappear but that didn't stop concern from building up within the saiyan.

Obviously, he was doing something that sapped him of his strength. It was possible he was doing a basic workout but something like that wouldn't tire out the little guy. Even if he did an over exaggerated number, that still wouldn't put a dint in his persona.

That workout would also have to exclude the ki aspect of his training. It was much too dangerous to do that sort of thing in the middle of space. And since the ship was still intact, it meant he hadn't resorted to it.

After eliminating that option, Gohan couldn't help but feel frustrated since there was nothing else he could think of that would wear Goten out. On top of that, rarely was he in his room now. Where he was spending his time was a bit perplexing as well.

Sure he could've used his ki senses to locate the younger Son but there had been a problem with that idea. As of late, he had been suppressing his ki signal, similar to what he had been doing. But for the oldest Son, he only did that when he was doing a certain activity in his room.

And that one involved having a partner.

So here he was, instead of leaping to some sort of conclusion, he was gonna get the whole story out of the horse's mouth. From there he would decide what course of action would be needed to be done.

A few more minutes passed by before his target appeared. He was casually strolling, whistling some tune that Gohan hadn't heard before, which probably meant his brother was trying to make up a song all on his own. His notes were pretty off key though.

"Trying to be a composer?" the older saiyan asked, a slight cringe around his eyes.

"Nope, just felt like whistling," his brother answered, a bit cheerful in his answer.

"Well, whatever song you're on, I haven't heard of it," Gohan told him.

"There's plenty of stuff you haven't heard of Gohan."

That made the older Son cock an eyebrow. "And would one of them be a ki-less training regiment?"

"Huh? Training? I haven't done any that lately."

"Really? Then what have you been doing? You look as if you've been running a marathon everyday."

Goten's eyes widened as a small blush crept onto his face. If that didn't tell Gohan that something was up, then he would've had to be an idiot. Thankfully, he wasn't one. "You haven't told anyone, have you?"

"I haven't, but that hasn't stopped anyone else from noticing your fatigue. Mind telling me what's going on?"

The young fighter looked all around them, making sure that no one was around. "Can we talk somewhere privately?"

"Aren't we in private already?"

"I mean…somewhere the others wouldn't stumble on us."

"How about your bedroom?"

"That's good; yeah, let's go there."

It didn't take long for the two Sons to arrive at their destination. With every step they took, Gohan could see Goten becoming more and more nervous, while he was getting more and more curious. Was this the way he made Videl feel when she wanted to know something?

Once they were within the room, both saiyans turned to look at each other, opting to stand rather than sit on any of the furniture. To be fair though, there was only a bed and a chair in here that could be used for sitting, but their warrior upbringing taught them that unless one sat, everyone would stand unless told otherwise.

And in this case, Gohan wouldn't sit on his brother's "property" while Goten wouldn't sit until his elder did. A bit of a quandary that neither of them thought about.

"Okay, spill," Gohan said.

Nervously, his brother began "Well…you know the girl that was bothering Trunks?"

"Yeah? What about her?"

"I…uhh…she…we've had…sex."

That answer made Gohan stare for quite awhile before he slammed the palm of his hand on his forehead. Why hadn't he thought of that? Everything that had worried him was a similar action he did.

Perhaps he should reconsider that idiot label.

"So you've been experiencing that," the saiyan said. "What do you think about it?"

"I like it," Goten admitted. "But it's more exhausting than I thought it would be. No one ever mentioned that part to me."

That made Gohan grin. "So did you take control of it?"

Up until this point, Goten had been blushing. It was at this point that his face went very red, as in the color of an apple. "Well actually…she kinda…took over."

"Huh? She did?" That had caught the Son boy off guard. Seriously, everything he had known about the girl shouted weak. To hear that she was the one taking control of something, anything was a bit of a shock to him.

"Yeah, but it was awesome. She knew what she was doing," the younger Son said, going into a bit of a daze.

"It usually is."

Meanwhile, as Gohan and Goten were having their talk, their female counterparts were having one of their own. Ever since they had left the planet with the Time Milieu key, Videl had been noticing a rapid change in her blonde friend.

First off, the short depression she had been having disappeared, which the Satan girl had felt relieved about. Second, however, she hadn't been stalking Trunks very much. Sure, she would ask about him from time to time, but it wasn't like her earlier obsession with him. And third, both of these occurrences just so happened to coincided with Gohan's brother and his odd behavior as of late.

What that last point had to do with the first two probably was Videl grasping at straws. She did find it odd that the two were acting a bit differently at about the same time, so it was quite possible that the two were related. A stretch, the girl admitted, but it was something to consider.

Standing in front of her friend's door, she knocked on it and awaited the oncoming reaction. The door soon opened, revealing Erasa in nothing but her undergarments and not looking the least bit ashamed of it. "Hey Vi! Come on in!"

Taking the invitation, the Satan girl entered the room, immediately noticing a certain smell in the air. A very familiar one in fact.

"Erasa, do you smell that?" Videl asked after the blonde closed the door.

The girl sniffed the air a little before replying "Not really. What does it smell like?"

"If I had to call it anything, I'd say it was sex," she responded.

Silence passed.

"You've had sex in here, haven't you?" Videl finally said, already knowing the answer.

However, Erasa's reaction wasn't what she was expecting. She actually seemed shy, a completely different response than the blonde's usual gossip mode.

That, however, didn't stop Videl from her investigation. "Okay, was it Trunks? Did he finally crack?"

"…not exactly."

Okay, now she was stumped. All this time, Erasa had been pursuing the oddly colored saiyan no matter what happened. Heck, they had been forced to land on a desolate planet once and the blonde had taken the opportunity to chase the boy in only her underwear.

Actually, now that the Satan girl thought about it, she was wearing the exact same garments now as she was then.

But now, with her prime suspect out of the lineup, Videl was at a loss of who it could be. If it wasn't Trunks she'd been with, than it could only be one of four people, and one of them better not be the one to sleep with her friend. Otherwise, there would be blood to pay, specifically coming from the guy's nether region. She'd probably rub some salt in the wound too, just to make herself feel better.

However, she wasn't going to jump to conclusions yet, though it was very tempting. But she also had to consider Erasa. She wouldn't sleep with the guy that she had chosen to become close to. She just didn't work that way; except with other people. Then again, Videl had never had a guy she was interested in so there was no way to actually back that theory up.

But now she had to consider the other three men on the ship. First thing she did was cross Sixteen off the list. The guy was all machine and from his behavior, Videl got the feeling that he wasn't very interested in sex. Next would be Tien, but he was a maybe at best. If Erasa had really wanted to bed her teacher, she would've been doing her boy-crush act on the bald man when they first met. In fact, Erasa had genuinely seemed uninterested in the man. Any thought of her changing her mind was easily squashed. Besides, it wasn't often the blonde reversed the way she saw people, at least without something significant happening.

Finally, there was Goten. To be honest, Videl just couldn't seem to make it fit. He was a bit hyper and pretty blunt; not the kind of person that would flatter you day and night, and that was the kind of person Erasa was usually drawn to.

However, if it was Goten, it would definitely explain why he was tired as of recent. In fact, it was quite possible that the younger Son had said something to Erasa that could've caused that small depression of hers, giving her the reason to actually consider him as a bedmate. The more Videl thought about it, the more she had to admit it; he was the only one that completed the puzzle.

"It's Goten, isn't it?" she finally said.

Erasa's eyes widened before she pushed her shock aside. She should've known her friend would've figured it as fast as she did. "How did you figure it out?"

Videl smirked. "Well, he has been acting a bit off lately. Sleeping a lot more but never being fully rested. It takes a lot to get that boy that way, and it's finally making sense as to what's causing it."

"You're just too smart Vi," Erasa responded as she sat on the bed.

"Of course; you expected anything less?" the Satan girl said as she mimicked her friend's action.

"No, I shouldn't have."

A short silenced overcame the two before the dark headed girl said "You know you can't sleep with him every single night, right?"

For what felt like the third…probably fifth time…during the conversation, Erasa looked surprised. "Why not? Don't you and Gohan do it every night?"

"As a matter of fact, we don't. Unlike you, I can go awhile without having intercourse."

"That was mean Vi, but I'll forgive you."

"Thank you."

As a last second note, I must confess that Videl's desire to rub salt in a wound wasn't entirely my idea. It comes from Ms. Videl Son in one of her fanarts. I still shiver at night from it.