Author's Note: This is my first attempt in creating a fanfiction. Reviews are greatly appreciated! I will eventually post the next chapter, so stay tuned. Also, the Hacked Calculator Prank video mentioned in the story is real, and is pretty much the very reason this fic was conceived. Because it would kind of ruin the fun if I elaborate every detail of the video, take a look at it yourself if it interests you. It's by kipkay.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball / Dragonball Z / Dragonball GT and its characters, YouTube, the pranks, and Machines of Malice and its torture methods.

It was Saturday, the second last day of the year, and a fine one in West City. The sun was shining gently, the air was cool, and with the ground completely covered by snow, kids and adults alike could be seen engaged in snowball fights on the streets. All in all, it was a normal day as any others that had passed since the Majin Buu incident nine months before…

… except for two certain Saiyan hybrids. They didn't have an entry for the word 'normal' in their dictionary; the closest approximation would seem to be 'boring'. Boredom was exactly what the two felt at the time, and it was an understatement.

"Truuunks, I'm hungry," said the younger hybrid to his best friend. His legs were on the bed, but his upper half was dangling over the edge. In this awkward position, he continued to devour the cream puffs Mrs. Brief had made for them.

"You're kidding me, Goten. You've eaten at least thirty of those!" the lilac-haired boy snapped, but his eyes stayed glued to the computer screen and continued to get rid of unwanted mails in his email account, "Gah, clearing up the inbox is boring… I shouldn't have subscribed to these dumb newsletters."

Interested in what had stolen his partner-in-crime's attention, the younger of the duo abandoned his puffs and hovered in the air by the computer. "Whatcha doing?"

"I'm trying to delete all these stupid emails," replied Trunks. Goten watched as he marked the unwanted emails, clicked the Delete button, and sighed when another set of unread promotion emails made their way from the next page and reared their ugly heads. "Aaaah! These things just keep coming and coming!"

Mark. Mark. Delete. Sigh. Mark. Mark. Delete. Another sigh. Goten quickly lost interest in this activity. He for the life of him would never be able to figure out why Trunks was so immersed in pointless clicking, so he returned to the bed and assumed the weird position he had been in before. "I'm booored. When are we gonna have fun?"

At the mention of the word 'fun', Trunks's mood lightened a little. "You know what? Screw this," he said while clicking the Mark All option, then Yes when asked if he wanted to mark all conversations in the inbox, and finally Delete. Without a single email left—not even important ones he had saved for future references just in case—his inbox was emptier than the Hyperbolic Time Chamber would ever be. "We're gonna pull some pranks! And it's gonna be legendary! C'mere, Goten."

"I dunno, Trunks," hesitation was present in Goten's voice, "Last time we did that, we ended up cleaning the bathroom!"

Trunks flinched as he recalled the aftermath of their latest prank. They had flushed a Dragon Ball-sized clump of C4 plastic explosive stolen from Capsule Corp's Ballistics and Demolitions Lab down the toilet and detonated it when Vegeta was conveniently doing his business. Needless to say, the poor prince was nowhere near pleased with this, so he punished the demonic duo by having them clean the bathroom—which looked like it had been painted brown, and it certainly wasn't a pleasant sight—of the chocolaty goodness that clung stubbornly to the floor, walls, and ceiling. And that didn't include the foul mood the full-blooded Saiyan would be in for the rest of the week, thanks to this particularly nasty smell which just refused to be washed off.

"Uh, yeah. I think we went too far on that one," he shuddered at the mental image of scraping all those things that didn't belong outside the toilet bowl off the tiles. He'd choose being beaten into a pulp any day over punishments of that kind. "But this one's gonna be worth it. I promise!"

Knowing that his best friend would stop at nothing to get him involved in his increasingly amusing antics, Goten sighed in defeat and approached the computer. Trunks typed "gadget hacks and pranks" in the search box, and a multitude of results showed up. "Look, Goten! This one's got a video. Let's check it out," he clicked a link that said "Hacked Calculator Prank!" and was brought to YouTube.

Both boys watched intently at the video that was playing on the computer screen; basically, it showed how to wire a recording machine's speaker to a calculator. Goten looked a bit worried when it showed the part requiring manipulative and technical skills such as screwing, soldering, and wiring the circuits, but Trunks assured that he had the necessary expertise to get the job done. "Hey, I'm the son of the smartest engineer in the planet! That's child's play for me," he boasted.

When the video ended, Goten started chuckling. He had become extremely enthusiastic to carry out this prank. He had one concern, though. "Do you have a recording machine like that, Trunks?"

"I think mom gave me one for my sixth birthday," he walked over to his bed and pulled a rather large plastic container from underneath. On it was pasted an adhesive label with a child's barely recognisable handwriting that read "Trunks and Goten's things". "It should be somewhere inside. Help me look for it, will ya?"

After ten minutes of rummaging through Trunks's paraphernalia, they finally found what they were looking for. It was a silver-coloured box with three buttons: record, play, and reset. Trunks pressed the play button to test if the gadget was still working, and it responded in an annoying high-pitched voice second only to Android 19's, "Test message one."

"Cool!" Goten delighted at the technological marvel in front of him, "So we're gonna connect this to your calculator? What are we recording?"

The eldest brainstormed for a while, then with a crazy smirk he said, "I think I know just the right thing." He proceeded to disclose his ultimate plan to Goten, and both boys giggled insanely when Trunks concluded his presentation. Time to begin the construction phase!

After an hour of tinkering around with stuffs only engineers would probably make sense of, their little hacked gadget was finally prepared. Goten's eyes were still full of tears from laughing at the absurdly hilarious recording they had done earlier. When he had calmed down, they tidied up the lab and returned everything to its rightful place out of fear of getting busted for trespassing and using Bulma's tools without permission. All things done nicely, they got out, shut the door quietly, and finally it was time to bring their plan into life.

"You ready, Goten?" asked the self-appointed operation lead.

"Yeah," replied his accomplice with determination.

"Okay, let's do this. Commence operation."

Pink Panther's theme played in their collective mind as the two troublemakers strolled down the hallway and headed to the living room. Trunks peeked inside and found his parents watching the TV. Perfect! They were ready to reap the rewards of their hard work.

"Mom, can you help me do a quick calculation? Goten asked this question and he wants the answer very badly, but it's too hard for us to figure out," holding the tweaked calculator and scratching his head, Trunks called out to his unsuspecting mother.

"Sure, what is it, honey?" the bluish green-haired mother shifted her attention to the two little kids who were standing in the doorway.

"You still remember when we posed as Mighty Mask in the world championship?" asked Trunks again.

"Oh, that time! Yes! I didn't know it had been you two all along when Eighteen sliced the guy in half! I was disappointed for a moment there because killing would result in disqualification," she started rambling as though something inside her head had been revved up, "and I didn't want that shameless sham of a man Hercule to emerge as the champion! But then it was you two who got disqualified! But darn, why did Eighteen have to throw the match? I'm sure she had her reas—"

"Woman, stop blabbering and just answer the question!" Vegeta growled from the couch. He looked nothing short of annoyed by the ruckus. "Don't you know I'm trying to hear what the narrator is saying here?"

"Calm down, Vegeta. I was only reminiscing," she shot him her best death glare even Broly would envy.

"No one tells me, the Prince of All Saiyans, to CALM DOWN!" he roared.

"Well, the Princess of All Saiyans does," Bulma retorted, "Either you calm down, or have a free set meal consisting of no bed, no sandwiches, and no gravity room for the rest of the week."

Vegeta never seemed to remember that his mate always had at least one trump card up her sleeve. He frowned, muttered not-so-good words under his breath, and returned his attention to the show Machines of Malice which was showing on the TV. 'These earthlings have some interesting methods of torture. I must take note of some of these in case Trunks and that brat of Kakarot dare to misbehave again,' he thought to himself, an evil smirk gracing his lips.

"So, what is it that you want to ask?" her mood shifted from cross to jovial faster than Goku could complete an Instant Transmission.

"Well, you see, Auntie Bulma," it took everything in Goten to keep himself from cracking up at the outcome of this conversation, "if Trunks and I put on that costume again and train in a planet with 100 times normal gravity, what would be the force exerted by our bodies against the ground?" Goten didn't even know what gravity and exertion meant, but for the sake of the success of their plan, he managed to pull it as innocently and convincingly as possible.

"Trunks, you should be able to help Goten with that," Bulma gave her son a strange look, "You even know how to calculate the force of attraction between two celestial bodies!"

"Uh, um, yeah!" Trunks had to come up with an excuse. Desperate, he couldn't think of any, so he ended up with a very lame one, which he hoped his mother would buy. "But mom, I haven't reviewed anything since before the last tournament! The knowledge has epavorated from my brain!" he attempted to make it more dramatic by throwing his hands in the air.

"Evaporated, honey," she corrected him, then smiled weakly, "Well, alright. I'll help you this time, but you'll need to hit the books again after the winter break. So, what's your mass as of now?"

He winced at the prospect of studying, but said nothing in defence and answered his mother nonetheless. The world didn't need another Gohan… but he'd pay any price for their most sophisticated plan yet to work. "I think 30 kg."

"And you, Goten?"

"What's a mass? Is that something you eat?"

Trunks sighed in exasperation. Hearing this testimonial of the brat's horribly inferior intelligence, Vegeta rolled his eyes, but still focused himself on the show he found himself totally immersed in. Bulma just chuckled. "No, sweetie. Basically I was asking you how heavy you are."

Goten tilted his head to one side while trying to process Bulma's words. When it dawned on him, his eyes became wide as saucers. "Oh. Oooohhh! I get it now! Hee-hee. I'm 26 kg!" he remembered when his mother had put him on the scale two days before and delighted about how he'd grown so much.

"Good, so that makes the two of you 56 kg. Trunks, can I borrow your calculator?"

The little prince handed the gadget in his hand to his mother and gave Goten a knowing smile. They braced themselves for the best part of the show.

"So, let's see here… if you train in 100G, which corresponds to 981 metres per second squared, your weight would be…" she operated the calculator, multiplying 56 with 981 to get the result.

Of course, when Bulma hit the equal button, the calculator returned the correct result. But that wasn't what made her jump out of her skin; instead, she—and Vegeta, who promptly shifted his attention to the three chatterboxes at the embarrassingly familiar voice—skipped a heartbeat because of the calculator's ability to speak. At the same time the number 54,936 was displayed on the LCD, the calculator cried out loudly it caught the attention of a certain Namek on the Lookout, "IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!"

The female engineer fell unconscious onto the floor, foam forming on her mouth. The twin terrors laughed their heads off at their success and exchanged a high-five. Vegeta, however, was fuming. That phrase was supposed to have been lost in time, forgotten since antiquity, and he never expected to hear it ever again! This was embarrassing beyond belief! The Saiyan Prince loomed over the little imps who were still succumbing to a fit of laughter. Emotionally scarred, he boomed, "Brats, I'll have you know I'm currently watching a TV show I find very interesting. You have exactly ten seconds to decide whether you prefer to be punished that way or have the woman hit you with her frying pan when she regains consciousness."

Still laughing uncontrollably, Trunks and Goten glanced at the TV with much difficulty to see what Vegeta was talking about. They focused their attention just in time to see the presenters demonstrate what a Tree Tearer could do to the unfortunate condemned. This was enough to snap them out of their exhilaration; they looked at each other, gulped, and fixed their eyes on the prince.

"Well?" Vegeta smirked.

"Uh… hahaha, hi dad…" Trunks chuckled nervously. Neither one of the options seemed favourable for him.

"What do we do now, Trunks?" asked Goten. It looked like he wasn't too fond of being torn vertically into two or getting another scar on his head.

"We run."

Quick as a flash, the two darted out of the living room. Their escape left an afterimage of two boys scratching the back of their head while grinning sheepishly.

"Trunks, what's the difference between weight and mass?" asked Goten, still curious about the physics-related term.

"I'll tell you if we can survive," Trunks continued to pull his best friend's arm and gave his all to avoid the rampaging Vegeta, who had been hot on their tails, along Capsule Corp's convoluted hallways.