Vegeta was silent as they removed the final tubes from his chest. While he was still far from cleared to jump back into all of his standard activities, he was soon to be permitted to leave the room. It had been eight days since he had been placed in the infirmary, and he had not enjoyed a moment of it. He had always believed himself to be independent, that isolation would never bother him, but that week had proven him wrong. The lack of visitation from the others hardly bothered him. The utter silence from his sister did. He was not only stuck on a bed and forbidden to train, but keeping away from Takyra had nearly driven him to madness.

The medic was talking to him, surely listing off what he was and was not supposed to do, but the Saiyan boy was not listening to a word of it. He knew the basics well enough, and his focus was on his new objective. The words Roma had spoken to him a few days earlier had rattled around in his mind, and it had only gained momentum. They were targeting him. They were singling him out. There was clearly something going on that they were not telling him about. And because he was not in on it, he was not just another student. He was their victim.

Their victim.

It was a role he had never truly occupied before. He had heard of it, but had been blessed enough to have never experienced it up to that point in his life. But Roma was right, that was where he stood with them. How had he been so blind? How had he not seen it before? The signs were all there, plain as day, and yet he had missed every one of them because he had assumed that there was a reason. There had always been one before, so he had not doubted that there was reason enough for such actions. However, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he could not come up with a single valid rationalization for it.

The medic was still talking, but Vegeta remained aware enough of his environment to know when to nod. The words spoken to him were a dull and muted noise, not one of them truly penetrating his mind, but the prince was practiced enough in pretending to listen to know how to play along. The look the man was giving him clearly asked if he understood what was being said, and the proper response was a nod. Vegeta did not need to know what was being said, though. He already had an agenda for when he was freed, and no amount of medical counseling was going to slow him down.

A hand was placed on his back, and Vegeta instinctively sat up. The talk was almost over, thank the gods. They were clearly getting to that point where they were going to tell him to be more careful, a meaningless sentiment if ever there was one. Either a person would be traumatized enough by the event to change on their own, or they did not think it was so bad and would likely sustain it again. No stern lecture had ever changed that.

A chair was brought before him, but Vegeta scoffed. "I can walk," he informed the medic. While there was a distinct disagreement being called after him, Vegeta did not care. If he had to spend one more minute in that room, he was going to have to kill someone. So, without looking back, he strode through the doors and began moving toward his destination.

The bandages on under his oddly loose shirt itched against his skin, and the little prince could not help but cringe slightly at the sensation. Bruises, breaks, and loss of blood had never, in his life, really bothered him. However, needing to regrow any significant amount of skin was always a pain in the ass, and as they had made a jigsaw puzzle out of his chest, it would likely be bothering him for some time. Subconsciously, he brought up his left hand to scratch it, but he brain kicked on fast enough to keep him from following through.

The moment he left the medical wing, Vegeta opened up his mind as wide as he could. Feeling the edge of Takyra's mind brought a wave of comfort and solace that he had ached for since he was wounded, and the barest hint of a smile graced his young face as he mentally prodded her.

She responded almost instantly, her mind screaming her greeting. It appeared as though she had been suffering from their separation as much as he, if not more. Vegeta sent soothing thoughts her way, assuring her that he was once again back on his feet. It took precious few seconds to calm his sister, but as soon as he did, Vegeta shifted thoughts. There was work to be done.

/

Roma fidgeted nervously in the study room. The active students were all there, under instruction to use their allotted 'down time' to do research. The topics were left wide open, but the materials they had access to kept them limited to methods of destruction and how to prevent them. While Roma hardly minded academic work, and indeed marveled at some of the weaponry put on display in the room, she strongly disliked the sense of impending doom that had washed over her the minute she entered the room. She had been there dozens of times before without incident, and the sudden feeling left her more than a little nervous.

Glancing over, she noticed Takyra eyeing a blaster. Roma quirked a red eyebrow before silently sliding over to her friend. They were being watched by one of the guardians, and they knew that socialization would not be taken kindly, but Roma found herself drawn to Takyra's sudden interest in a firearm. The Saiyan's were not known for using guns. Ever. They preferred weapons they controlled with their bodies or using no weapons at all. So why a blaster? Why was the little princess suddenly fascinated by it?

Silently, Takyra began to circle her way around the case, an act that only added to Roma's worry. While Takyra could be a force to be reckoned with in a combat situation, she was not known for being at all intense outside of that environment. Roma opened her mouth to ask what was bothering her friend, but one stern look from the guardian told her that trying so would not be well received.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of Roma's neck prickled up, and the redhead knew that something was wrong. She looked around the room, praying to find any clue to her sudden sense of anxiety, but nothing in the room gave any indication of things to come. What was wrong? She had never felt the sensation outside of a sparring match, and even then, it was not nearly so intense. No, that was not true. She had felt that particular sensation once before, eight days earlier, when Vegeta had damn near gotten himself killed.

Was that it? Was that brash boy going to do something that foolhardy again? He would not do something so reckless again, would he? As far as the girl knew, he was still in his hospital bed. So that could not possibly be it, and it had to be something else.

Glancing up, Roma noticed the look on Takyra's face, and without being aware of it she shivered. There was definitely something wrong…

The sound of a door opening caught her attention, and Roma stared, shocked, as Vegeta entered the room. His expression matched his sister's perfectly, and it was extremely unsettling. Glancing around, the redhead noticed that not one of the others, even Takyra, had looked up from what they were doing as the boy walked toward them. Her mouth opened to make a statement on that, but the words never made it out.

Everything happened so fast that even the guardian in the room had missed the start. One minute they were all standing around, studying quietly to themselves and ignoring one another. And only seconds later, it was chaos. People were screaming and shouting, books were flying all around the room, some of the students were rushing to the front and others retreating to the back, and in the middle of it all stood Vegeta, an arm wrapped around Jaikan's body and a knife to his throat.

Roma watched horrified as Jeice made a move to help his brother, only to find the blaster aiming right at his temple. The chaos around Vegeta had given Takyra the opportunity to steal and activate the weapon, and the look in her eye indicated that she planned to use it. Jeice was more powerful than Takyra, but that particular weapon more than leveled the playing field.

As suddenly as the flurry of movement started, it stopped. The Saiyan siblings held the twin brothers in a stalemate, and no one else dared to move. Many of the onlookers did not even dare to breath. A minute passed with the two youngest fighters holding their aggressive ground, and the only sound that existed was that of Jaikan's shallow breathing.

Cautiously entering the room, Kaeyea stared at her young charges. Had they completely lost their minds? Had the forced separation truly driven them both to madness? Silently, the warrior woman brought herself around the crowd and well into the eyesight of the children.

Vegeta tightened his grip on Jaikan and pressed the knife harder against the older boy's throat. He saw that his guardian had arrived from the corner of his eye, but his glare never once left Jeice's. "Come on," he taunted, "make a move."

Jeice looked from his brother to the Saiyan that held him hostage. He was fairly fast, but not nearly fast enough to disengage Vegeta before that knife slashed Jaikan's throat. "Why the hell are you doing this?" he hoarsely demanded.

"What the hell makes you think you're in any position to be making demands?" came the snarled reply.

Moving closer slowly, Kaeyea recognized the weapon in Vegeta's hand as her own boot knife. Trying to hide her shock, the woman looked down and realized for the first time that her blade was missing. When had he gotten his hands on it? And how had she not noticed?

"Vegeta," she began, keeping her voice calm and level despite her stress level, "put my knife down."

"Why?" the little prince bitterly demanded. "What'll you do if I don't?"

Drawing in air to her already full lungs, Roma took a small step toward her friend. "Vegeta, this isn't going to end well if you don't listen to her," she counseled. "Please…" She turned her head and shot Takyra a pleading look. "Takyra, listen to reason."

"Why?" Takyra shot back, mimicking her brother perfectly. "They're going to beat us down all the same, whether we back down now or not."

As Roma and Kaeyea tried to figure out how to diffuse the situation, the others chose to walk out of the room, save Ronai, who simply backed away. While not nearly as close to the Saiyans as Roma was, she did consider Takyra a friend and would help in any way that she could.

Several agonizing seconds ticked by, with no one in the room moving or speaking, before Vegeta narrowed his glare at Jeice. "Walk away," he darkly commanded.

Stunned, Jeice took a step backwards. "What?" he barely got out.

"Walk out," the little prince calmly repeated, in full control of his situation. "Turn your back on your brother and walk out that door like the rest of the cowards." To back up her brother's words, Takyra put enough pressure on her weapon's trigger to have the telltale glow appear at the end of the barrel.

As Jeice looked back and forth between his brother and the blaster, Jaikan attempted to swallow what little saliva was in his mouth. Was his brother seriously contemplating abandoning him? And if that did happen, was Vegeta going to slit his throat?

After another moment, Vegeta shifted his speech only to Kaeyea, keeping his eyes on his immediate enemy. "It would appear that he is not leaving," he told his guardian, his voice colder than ice. "What shall his punishment be?"

The chill of his words ran down Kaeyea's spine. It had been her intention to show the Saiyan's that their actions could have consequences on one another and that they had to be strong as individuals, less someone try to use one to gain power over the other. It had never occurred to her that, as children, they were perhaps too young to see the strength they would gain in the long run as valuable enough to be worth their temporary pain.

And never had she thought that her lessons would be too much for them to bear.

"Vegeta…"

"Caring for your family is a weakness," he reprimanded. "That one is showing far too much weakness, and he must be cured of it. Shall you show him the same courtesy that you have shown us? Or shall you be stricter? He is older than we are, after all. He should know better by now."

With some reluctance, Roma slid another small step toward her friends. "Geta," she softly told him, "this wasn't what I meant when I told you that you were being treated differently."

"Isn't it?" came the snide reply. "I was being singled out. You said it yourself. I was just too blind before to see it."

"And what do you see now, Vegeta?" Kaeyea demanded. "What do you see in your future?" With a calmness that she did not feel, she pointed a long finger at the girl at the side. "What do you see in her future?"

"My future is irrelevant," Takyra informed her guardian. "He will be strong and make his decision, regardless of how it may hurt me. My brother will not show weakness."

Opening her hand, Kaeyea's hand began to glow with the ominous sight of gathering energy. She was loathe to use such tactics, but it was all she could think of in that instant. "Are you sure about that?" she darkly asked them, building her energy at a steady rate.

Takyra felt the sweat forming on her back, but she refused to flinch. She would not be the cause of her brother's downfall, even at the cost of her own life.

A few feet away, Vegeta was beginning to feel his own resolve fading. He had no problem putting his own neck on the line, but even after everything that had happened, he still wished to protect his sister from harm. However, they were proving a point, and Takyra, though frightened, was not backing down. He could not hurt her by backing down. Her pride was on the line as much as his own. To show that to his guardian, his grip on Jaikan tightened, and the edge of the blade slowly began to slice into the exposed throat.

None of the children were giving another warning before Kaeyea released her blast directly at Takyra's chest.