Note: For those of you wondering, this is a bit of an AU and Tarble had not found his way into my fever rattled brain when I dreamed up this fantasy world. But as I said before, there will be plenty of familiar faces. Thank you!
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"Aren't you nervous?" Takyra asked, trying to smooth out her skirt for the tenth time.
"No."
The little girl glared at her older brother. They were on their way to meet the other children they had been told so much about, and the six year old girl could not stop squirming. Their ship wasn't large at all, so the two young royals and their guardian had to remain seated through the two day journey.
It was not something that Takyra was particularly skilled at yet. "I can't believe you're not nervous," she muttered. "We're about to meet the other princes and princesses, and we're the youngest ones! I just don't want to embarrass myself, you know?"
"Hn."
Takyra brushed her long bangs from her eyes angrily. "Could you at least act like you care about what we're about to do?" she snipped. "This is important!"
"Hn."
Giving up, the small girl crossed her arms in frustration. "You're impossible, Vegeta."
The young prince looked out the window of the ship and remained silent. He knew that it bothered his sister to no end when he was quiet, and while he rarely tried to annoy her deliberately, he honestly had nothing to say on the subject. Where his sister had shown excitement and eagerness, Vegeta only felt strangely numb during the trip. He wasn't anxious, he wasn't exited, he wasn't curious…
He was just numb.
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"What is this place?" Shishki sneered, looking around the large empty room she stood in. The young Ingarthan crinkled her catlike nose at her surroundings, clearly disliking everything she was seeing. The room was enormous, but bare, and it was not something that the ten year old princess was used to. Even during her training on her home world, she had always had the best equipment and the grandest training grounds. The bare, hollow hall was hardly the caliber the had been expecting.
"Hush," her guardian hissed. "You do not know what you have been gifted with."
The girl snorted and glared to the side, the tassels from her black headdress swaying from her movement. For the past six years of her life, she had been told of this grand day, when the futures of seven empires would meet and bring their skills together for the first time. She was expecting the best.
"You cannot expect me to learn anything with such poor supplies," she snipped.
"We don't expect you to learn anything in that ridiculously distracting outfit," a voice cut from behind.
The princess whipped around, a growl in her throat. "Do you know who I am, little boy?"
"I assume that you are a spoiled princess who is not at all prepared for what she is about to go through," the little boy shot back, adjusting the bag slung over his shoulder.
Shishki hissed, and her razor sharp claws slid out from underneath her pristine white fur. "Why you insolent little…"
"STOP THAT!" bellowed a deep alto voice.
Immediately, both children addressed the threatening woman who rounded the corner on them. "You have been summoned here in an attempt to unify the universe again, and if either of you cannot seem to remember it, then perhaps some lashes might be in order." When Shishki opened her mouth to retaliate, the intimidating woman coolly added, "Regardless of your station on your homeworld, you are to follow every order you are given here, and can receive any punishment we deem necessary."
The catlike princess repressed the urge to hiss at this new woman, sensing that her own guardian may actually stand down and allow her to take a beating from this stranger. Quietly seething, she slipped alongside her guardian, carefully watching these strange, new creatures.
The tall woman turned her attention to the boy and growled at him. "You have been here for under five minutes and already you are attacking the others," she scolded. The boy offered a noncommittal shrug, earning himself and angry hand clamped down on his shoulder. "You will do as you are told, Vegeta, or you will answer to me. Do you understand?"
Raising his eyes only as far as her chin, the little Saiyan quietly said, "Yes, Kaeyea." He may be a gifted child, but she was downright scary. A careful warrior, Kaeyea was not only among the most powerful Saiyans in her physical strength, but was also a tactical genius and seemingly aware of anything and everything around her. She had befriended the queen when both had been quite young, and had easily earned a position as the guardian of the young prince and princess of her race.
Vegeta was naturally rebellious, but even he did not dare to cross his guardian. Even for him, that was suicide.
Takyra did not share her brother's sense of rebellion, nor his outspoken ways. His opposite in almost every way, she was quiet, reserved, and would rather slip anonymously through a crowd than to let anyone know she was there. She hardly came off as a princess, hating any form of formal clothing. Her short black hair fell just in front of her eyes and she found that, when dressed in her common clothes, many mistook her for boy.
However, as shy as she was, when challenged, young Takyra was a force to be reckoned with. And her brother and guardian knew it.
"Come," Kaeyea coolly commanded. "It is time you met the others."
Falling in line behind their guardian, Vegeta and Takyra exchanged a glance. "I still think that headdress she was wearing was ridiculous."
Takyra couldn't help her giggle.
They followed their guardian through the enormous, empty room, to a small, plain door. One by one, the princes and princesses were herded in to a small room with a series of desks. Taking the cue from their respective guardians, each young royal took a seat, trying to remain as far away from one another as possible.
An Ingarthan woman stood at the front of the room, and Vegeta and Takyra recognized her as the guardian of the girl Vegeta had argued with earlier. "There are eleven of you and eleven seats," she bluntly said. "You will, in fact, have to be close to each other."
Grumbling, the last of the children took their seats, almost none of them seeming at all happy to be there. "SILENCE," the Ingarthan roared, slamming her staff violently against the ground. "You will be quiet immediately, or you will face the consequences. You are not in your kingdoms. You are not protected. You are not royalty here. If you disobey, if you are insubordinate, if you fail at a task, you WILL be disciplined, and it will be severe."
"You are, as ALL of you have been told, here to become a single, unstoppable unit," Kaeyea continued. "You are here to receive training that would be impossible to do on your own worlds. You may think yourselves talented, but believe us when we say that you are worthless as you are."
A Tuleque woman, with dark emerald hair and pale blue skin, joined them. "You will learn to rely on one another as though your lives depend on it, because they do. Not only does your ability to thrive depend on each other, but your ability to even survive does. We will not be kind. We will not be merciful. We will push you beyond your physical, mental, and psychological limits. You will go through hell. You will hate us."
"But it is necessary," Kaeyea went on. "Once you leave this place, each of your empires will likely come under attack. The Kold Empire has each and every one of your worlds in its sight, and the responsibility for the salvation of your people rests solely on your shoulders. If you choose to step aside, if you choose to let your contemporaries fall to those madmen, then you deserve to fail and die."
"Your people, though, do not," the Ingarthan continued. "The Kold's will not take you down quietly. They will massacre everyone who lives within your realm, and they will make you watch. Your failure here will cost your people their existence."
Kaeyea prowled at the front of the room, glaring at the young royals. "You will be shown to your quarters immediately, but you will only be there long enough to change into your training gear. Your first session begins in five minutes." Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Do NOT be late."
Normally inclined to make a smart assed remark, Vegeta had known Kaeyea long enough to know what that look meant. Unlike most of the other royal children there, Vegeta was not at all foreign to the concept of corporal punishment. At the thought, the six year old actually smirked. As Saiyans, he and Takyra practically thrived on physical duress. It had taken him only a minute to realize that, with the possible exception of the red headed girl in front of him, the rest of the children around them had likely been coddled their whole lives. Their first lashing was going to be a hell of an eye opener for them.
Knowing that time was of the essence, Takyra and Vegeta set a swift pace toward the living quarters. There were three sibling sets, and as one of them, the Saiyans did not want to be separated. Kaeyea had told them that their temporary quarters would be fairly empty, and sleeping would be done in bunks. Vegeta did not like sharing his space with anyone, but if he absolutely had to, his sister was the way to go.
"You want the top or the bottom?" his younger sister whispered.
"Bottom," he quietly answered. From that position, no one had access to his back, and he could keep an eye on hers. They were well ahead of the rest of the group when they reached the door, and they smirked at each other, confident that they would get first pick.
Needless to say, they were caught off guard to find a golden princess already in there.
"Let me guess," the clearly annoyed Saiyan prince neutrally said. "You're the teleporter."
"Gee, how did you figure that out?" Irinya sarcastically said, dropping her elegant case on one of the beds. "Now leave, I need to change."
"Tough," Vegeta shot back, tossing his own bag on the bottom bunk near hers. "Group living quarters. Besides, there are eight others about to come in here. If you can't deal with that, you're screwed."
As the indignant Irinya prepared to retort, Romaniyae, the red headed girl, tossed her nondescript bag on the bottom bunk, underneath that of the golden princess. "Well, I'm ready!" she happily said, turning back out.
"She seems happy," Takyra softly observed.
Narrowing his eyes at the retreating redhead, Vegeta responded, "I'm not going to like that one, am I?"
Shrugging, the quiet princess simply followed her brother out of the room. They certainly didn't need to change, and since their beds were claimed, they had no further reason to remain in the room. She wasn't sure how he would react to a perpetually happy person, having never really spent any real amount of time near one before, but she did know that staying in a small room as it became a small, crowded room was not going to end well.
They silently walked away from the group, wondering just what was in store for them.
Even they had no idea just what torture was in store for them.