Disclaimer—Hold a mirror up to your computer to see the secret message!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ZLLABNOGARD NWO T’NOD I

A/N—A story with a moral! Everyone say YAY!

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It was just another normal day in the Briefs’ household. Bulma was hard at work on her inventions, Vegeta trained in the gravity room, and Trunks, along with his partner in crime, the second half of the delinquent duo, Goten, was plotting mischief, as per usual. Yes, all was as it should be. The birds chirruped and the sun shone. Everything was perfect. But not for long.

Trunks smirked as he stalked stealthily into the bathroom, towing Goten behind him. His plan was full proof. For weeks now he’d skulked and schemed, measuring with scientific accuracy the absolute best time to strike. That time was now.

"Truuuuuuunks," Goten whined, in a voice significantly exceeding the requisite whisper, "Why are we doing this again? Remember what happened last time?"

Trunks hesitated, for a split second, indecisive. Oh yes—he remembered last time alright—he and Goten had ended up camping out in the woods for nearly a month, hiding from the rampaging Vegeta, after convincing the Z-Senshi that Vegeta and Goku were an item. Trunks snickered. It’d been worth a month in the wilderness—everyone STILL looked at Goku and Vegeta funny, and that’d been ages ago!

Trunks nodded firmly—yes—they had to do this. "Goten, don’t you see? We haven’t pranked anyone since the whole ‘Vegeta loves Goku’ thing. If we don’t do something, and quick, we’ll lose our reputation—we’ll be reduced to sissies! It’s a matter of honor, Goten," Trunks explained seriously.

"Oooh." A matter of honor—that was different—Vegeta-san had told them all about how important honor was. "Ok then Trunks, if it’s a matter of honor."

Trunks tiptoed carefully forward, pulling a white, cylindrical bottle out of the stark black gi that he wore. Goten stood behind him, shifting from foot to foot, plucking at his own black gi sullenly. He’d wanted to wear his customary orange, but Trunks hadn’t let him.

Trunks stealthily entered the empty bathtub and reached for his father’s shampoo—or, well, what he THOUGHT was his father’s shampoo. There were quite literally DOZENS of brightly colored shampoo bottles lining the wall. Strawberry, peach, pear…Trunks shuddered in disgust, throwing what seemed to the millionth wrong bottle to the bottom of the tub, not even noticing how their contents leaked and oozed at his feet, creating a shampoo-fruit-salad.

Finally, after many frantic minutes of searching, Trunks found a plain blue bottle, which smelled like—well, nothing. This had to be Vegeta’s. Dumping half of the contents into the bottom of the already slippery tub, Trunks flipped open the white bottle he carried in his right hand and squeezed the gooey substance in to mix with Vegeta’s shampoo. His plan had come off flawlessly. Trunks liked to think that were he were not the target, Vegeta would have been rather proud of his son. Perfect plan, perfect day, perfect Trunks. Nothing could go wrong now.

Shaking the mixture thoroughly, Trunks squeezed just the tiniest bit of his concoction out onto his palm. *Perfect,* Trunks smirked, *Muahahaha! The mighty Trunks strikes again!* Trunks thought about including the mighty Goten in his thought, but, looking at his friend still dancing back and forth in the center of the bathroom, he decided against it.

Setting the shampoo carefully back on its shelf, Trunks turned to his friend with a look of annoyance and rolled his eyes. Goten was ruining his vision of perfection. "What IS it, Goten?"

Goten squeezed his legs together and bit his lip, blinking pleadingly at Trunks, "I REEEEEEALLY have to go to the bathroom, Trunks, and the toilet won’t open!"

Trunks’ eyes widened a bit, as he reached out to try the toilet. It was stuck. This was just perfect. Trunks pulled a little harder, and slipped on the tile floor, his shoes still slick from all of the shampoo he had earlier spilt. Perfect.

Rubbing the back of his head, Trunks glared angrily at the offending toilet. He could, of course, rip off the cover, or simply blast it to smithereens, but then he would have to face the wrath of Bulma, a horrible fate which even his father strove to avoid. Trunks shuddered. He did NOT want to get his mother mad.

Sighing, Trunks decided that discretion was the better part of valor and ceded the battle to the toilet. "Come on, Goten—you can use the toilet in my room."

Goten nodded and ran urgently for the door. It was locked. "Umm, Trunks?"

Trunks glanced distractedly at his friend—he was still a bit miffed about losing the battle with the toilet seat, "What is it Goten?"

"Umm, the door’s locked."

Perfect. "Well, just pull it open then!"

Goten looked ready to cry, "I tried! It won’t budge! Do you think your mom would mind if I blasted it down?"

Trunks shuddered at the mere thought. Ever since Bulma had been gifted with her very own ‘Almighty-Frying-Pan-of-Terror™’ courtesy of one Son Chi-Chi, blowing things up had become A LOT less fun around the Brief’s house. "DON’T GOTEN! My mom has…" Trunks’ voice dropped to a shuddering whisper, "the Frying Pan, remember?"

Goten’s eyes widened with terror—he’d almost forgotten that Bulma had one too now! "What are we going to do, Trunks? I REALLY REALLY REALLY have to GO!"

Trunks looked frantically about the bathroom—Goten was about to blow! "Umm, umm….go in the bathtub, Goten! We can wash it out later!"

Goten hesitated for a long moment, then nodded, and zipped over to the bathtub, promptly slipping and landing on his behind as he discovered the shampoo that Trunks had left in the bottom.

Waiting…

Waiting…

Waiting…

Trunks rolled his eyes at the steady stream he heard—what had Goten had to DRINK?! "Come on, Goten! Hurry up! We’re going to get caught!"

Goten finished, and, refastening his gi, turned the water on to rinse out the tub, "We can’t get out of here anyway, Trunks—what does it matter HOW long I take?"

Trunks bit his lip. He’d forgotten about that. Trunks was lost so deep in thoughts, trying to figure out what had happened to his perfect plan, that he didn’t hear Goten calling him until the other boy was right in front of his face, "TRUUUUUUNKS!"

Trunks jerked out of his reverie, annoyed, "What IS it Goten? And don’t yell, dummy! Do you WANT to get caught?"

Goten was now dancing around just as urgently as before he’d gone to the bathroom, "Trunks! The water—it won’t shut off!"

Trunks’ head swiveled around to the bathtub to see, indeed, that the tub was now almost overflowing with water, topped off with a huge head of bubbles, extending four feet from the top of the tub, like a menacing mound of marshmallow—in fact, many of the bubbles had already slopped over onto the floor and were creeping up to his feet, clawing at the soles of his shoes. Perfect.

Trunks rushed over and dove into the bathtub, braving the fearsome bubbles. As he fought his way to the faucet, he mentally cursed himself for throwing all of those bottles of shampoo into the bottom of the tub—that had to be where all of these bubbles were coming from!

Trunks let out a little mewl of despair as he reached the faucet and found he couldn’t turn it off either. Resorting to desperate measures, bubble-besieged boy powered up a small ki blast and set it flying at what he thought was the faucet, hoping to weld it shut—unfortunately, the monster mass of bubbles struck again, blocking his sight, making his vision less than….perfect. His aim was significantly off, and all he managed to do was sever the water line, causing water to come gushing out of the wall at least ten times as fast as before.

Trunks yelped as he was propelled out of the tub and across the bathroom on a tidal wave of strawberry bubbles. Treading water, Trunks looked around to see Goten treading next to him. The younger boy, far from being terrified, appeared to be EATING the bubbles.

Suppressing a groan of despair at how horribly wrong his plans had gone, Trunks splashed Goten in the face with some of the fruit scented water, "What are you DOING GOTEN?! Those are BUBBLES! Why are you eating them?"

Goten became a bit teary-eyed, and sniffed, "Well, we’re going to die, Trunks—and….and they smell like strawberries! I’m sooooo hungry, Trunks—I don’t want to die hungry!"

Trunks slowly shook his head, "That made—no sense, Goten." It took a minute before it registered to Trunks that Goten was right—they probably WERE going to die. Before he had a chance to either a) resort to eating bubbles, or b) blast a hole thorough the wall, the bathroom door swung wide open.

With a small yelp, the two now very CLEAN chibi’s rode the wave of bubbles out into the hallway only to find themselves crouched at the now soggy shoes of Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans. Vegeta, however, was not what caused the sodden, bubble-covered children to cower. Standing beside the Prince was the true menace—death, in squelchy blue high heels. Perfect.

Vegeta repressed an urge to clap his hands over his ears as his mate dragged the two sopping, bubble covered children off by their ears, purportedly to, err, get them cleaned up.

The triumphant Prince smirked as he looked at the mess before him. He’d been meaning to get back at those little brats for a LONG time now, and thanks to a bottle of super glue, and a little technical expertise learned from Bulma over the years, his revenge was complete. His plan had gone perfectly.

Vegeta couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. The stuck toilet, the door, even the faucet that wouldn’t turn off—those had all been his doing. The bubbles however—the brats had gotten themselves into that.

Vegeta smirked, remembering the strawberry-scented bubble-afro that had adorned his son’s head as he had swept out the bathroom door. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, *Or rather, the pitiful, barely adequate ATROCITIES of Earth technology,* Vegeta thought with a snort of distain, this day would be recorded forever—he could bribe and blackmail the boy for years with this footage—Vegeta knew Trunks would never want this news to get out—bad enough that he failed at a prank, but the pink bubble-afro made him look disturbingly like a chibi pastel-replica of Hercule Satan.

Vegeta repressed a shudder—it was disturbing to him that his offspring should in ANY circumstances have even the SLIGHTEST resemblance to that buffoon. Following the scent of lavender and raspberry down the hall, Vegeta went after his son and Goten. Smirking triumphantly, Vegeta reflected that they were finally even. His revenge was perfect.

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Vegeta walked into his now clean (and dry) bathroom with the smirk of the triumphant. Removing his tattered gi and stepping into the shower, he was satisfied with his day. It had been long and tiring, but rewarding. The woman had allowed him to beat the brats senseless in the gravity chamber for what *they* had done to the bathroom.

Vegeta reached out for his shampoo, relieved that it had not been swept away in the earlier tidal wave. After smelling his strawberry scented son, and the raspberry scented Goten all day, he didn’t want to smell a scented soap, scented shampoo, scented ANYTHING for a long time to come.

Exiting the shower, Vegeta ran a towel over the length of his body—he considered using his ki to blast himself dry, but decided against it, deeming it a waste of energy.

Vegeta finished toweling his hair dry, and, tossing the towel on the sink, glanced in the mirror as he started out the door. What he saw held him petrified with shock for several long moments.

Reaching cautiously up, Vegeta’s worst fears were confirmed as the figure in the mirror reflected his actions, reaching hesitantly up to pat bright green locks of hair. Perfect.

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A shattering roar shook the house, waking the bruised and exhausted Trunks and Goten from their sweet slumber. The two battered demi-saiyans glanced at each other, then, in wordless agreement, dashed out the window, and towards the hills that had hidden them last time they’d summoned Vegeta’s wrath.

Trunks snickered under his breath as he concentrated on keeping his sore body in the air. *Score, Trunks 2, Vegeta 1.* Not quite perfect, but better than nothing.

And so came the end of a day. Vegeta had green hair, and Trunks and Goten were beaten to a pulp, and fleeing for their lives. And what, say you, is the moral to this little story? Why I would think it would be obvious! Nothing, my friends, is perfect.

***R&R please!***