"Well, how'd I do?" I ask Janiko as I reach my team with a satisfied smile.

"You finally held back," Samantha speaks the obvious.

"Good or bad?" I don't even bother to attack her comment.

"Let better suffice," I hear a serene voice behind me. "This definitely shows promise for our meeting Friday."

Edana and I begin to walk, arms around each other, back towards the dormitory. As we pass Nani she opens her mouth to speak and whether it's an apology or not, I don't care. I whip my hand up, my arm sliding off of Edana, and my palm flattens towards Nani. Energy begins to glow into existence and Nani's sweet voice disappears in pure fear.

"You don't know me," I growl.

"Déshawn!" Edana roughly pulls my arm away.

I grab Edana by her shirt, which is tricky because of her low neckline, and push her back out of the way.

"Déshawn…" Nani ventures after finding her voice. "I didn't mean it really."

"Oh come on Nani," I roll my eyes. "I don't have to be a Namek on the Lookout Tower to know that you meant every word."

"Déshawn, I'm sorry. It just slipped out."

"The last time I said that," I lower my hand and energy level. "It was because I was trying to hide the truth."

I turn and continue my trek across the courtyard into the dormitories. As soon as I enter the housing building, I explode into a rocketing flight towards my shared room. As I turn to go upstairs I have to come a screeching halt, after almost running over a shocked female. A glance at her silky silvery and white hair tells me who it is.

"Ayana, your hair changed." I spit out the first thing on my mind.

"Yes, I felt I needed a little renovation. Much like my body after you finished with me." She responds. I'm not sure if her tone is angry, accepting, or merely reflection. But the sarcasm is difficult to miss.

"Sometimes I wonder where Jimiyu was when that happened," I let out the small seed of doubt subtly.

"Don't worry about it," Ayana quickly defends her stepbrother.

"As you wish," I make a motion as if I'm about to go around her. Then something crosses my mind. "So I guess he's going to try and have me killed again?"

"That's none of your concern either."

Moving on I finally sidestep Ayana and head up the stairway. Upon reaching the room I gratefully leap into my bed and let my head plop onto the pillow, ready to drift off into a well-deserved sleep. Then the phone suddenly rings sharply. I rip the cord out of the back of the phone with a snapping of my wrist and pull the pillow and covers over my head and body, respectively.

"Kami I hate Mondays."

In History of War we were learning about the different reasons a war might start.

"Déshawn give me a reason you would fight someone." Mrs. Gotzone suddenly questions, bringing me out of my stupor.

"They asked me to," I respond, slightly sarcastic.

"That hardly seems like a cause for a war," she presses. "Give me a real reason."

"I don't know, if someone challenges me to a war I can't say no. They'll just attack anyways," I say with a smirk, earning a snicker from a few of the students.

"Very well," she resigns and moves on. She writes the known causes for a war on the board, and everyone begins to scribble them down in their notes.

I glance at them with a yawn and begin to memorize them.

"Déshawn," I hear someone whisper off to my left.

Turning I see a girl with pretty blue eyes, black hair, and light brown skin looking at me with interest. It's difficult to tell how tall she is, or how thick or thin her body is because she's sitting down.

"What?" I answer.

"Are you going out with that girl?" she asks.

The question was weird, it didn't really seem like her business, and I was tempted to firmly inform her of that but I settled with, "there's a lot of girls in this school."

"Are you going out with all of them?" her eyes get wide, as if she interpreted the statement to mean I dated all of them. I'd really responded like that because I wanted her to clarify the girl she was talking about.

I turn back to the board and look over the last of the causes of war because I found the girl to be completely idiotic.

"Are you?" she presses.

"I'm going to kill you," I say matter-of-factly.

"You always say that."

"Who are you to assume what I 'always say'?" I turn back to her.

"Rebecca Jenson."

"Okay Rebecca, I'll play along," I sigh condescendingly. "What girl are you talking about?"

"Edana," she prods verbally.

"You didn't hear about Saturday?" I say turning back to the board hoping that the conversation was over.

"No I didn't."

"Do you two have something to say to the class?" Mrs. Gotzone interrupts in a genuinely interested voice.

"No Mrs. Got-" Rebecca begins to speak before I cut her off.

"I was asking her if the causes of war were the only ones so far. There don't seem to be a lot of them." I lie quickly.

"Well Déshawn these are what the 'experts' have decided. But perhaps you have a reason, better than an invitation, to begin a war," Mrs. Gotzone now earns a few laughs on my behalf.

I smirk, "I wouldn't have asked if I did."

"Now tell me," Mrs. Jun'ko questioned me as I wore the armor. "What is this armor designed against?"

The black and silver steel protection that was weighing me down, much like Adisa's machine had, is designed to prevent any kind of penetrative attacks. I answer Mrs. Jun'ko's answer brilliantly explaining how it's convexing curve blocks and redirects any head-on attacks.

"Very good," Jun'ko answers. "How best do you beat this kind of protection?"

"Don't hit it?" Samantha suggests.

The class laughs appreciatively, and Jun'ko looks at Samantha with piercing eyes.

"And what is your name?"

"Samantha," comes the answer and I smirk at her. While Samantha's nosiness always annoyed me, and I usually end up arguing with her, I could always appreciate her blatant disrespect for authority.

"I suppose you have a last name also," Jun'ko seems extremely angry at her answer, which had really been made seriously.

"Well, I have a name behind my first one," Samantha folds her arms defiantly.

"Talitha," someone shouts out her last name, earning a glare that would have bothered me.

"Well Miss Talitha, if you cannot answer me the proper way to break through the defensive capabilities of this armor, I'm sure you can research and have me an essay on it by tomorrow," Jun'ko tells Samantha.

"Slashing motions," I whisper under my breath to her.

"Just don't hit it head on," Samantha paraphrases. "Use a slashing motion or something indirect."

"Good," Jun'ko sounds disappointed Samantha got out of the paper. "And I'll thank you to keep smart mouthed comments to yourself."

"I'll give you something to keep to yourself," Samantha answers in what she hoped was a quiet voice.

"Miss Talitha!" and Samantha feigns surprise at the realization that Mrs. Jun'ko hears the comment. "I think you need to have a visit with Master Essam!"

The roar of laughter from class as Samantha stalked out angrily could barely be contained in the classroom, even with the doors shut.

Chafulumisa and Edana are laughing out loud outside the classroom doors as we stand next to the class waiting for the bell to ring. I'm retelling the story of Samantha's altercation in Weapon and Armor Recognition class.

"Kami, it was funny," I hold my stomach in laughter. "Chafulu you should have been there."

The bell rings and the three of us step into the class and take our seats in the rear, with me between Chafulumisa and Edana. The squat, white haired, wide-eyed, and high-voiced man, who goes by Mr. Jorn, walks from around his desk.

"During the beginnings of reaching out to space with new traveling technologies we ran into a serious problem." His voice carries easily through the classroom. "A lot of our soldiers lost battles because they couldn't tell if they should be fighting it. Now who here has an idea of how they cured the problem?"

"Answer it Edana," I urge her with a smirk. "You know all about cures."
Edana sticks her tongue out at me and raises her hand.

"Yes Miss Adan?" Mr. Jorn had somehow memorized the names of all his students the same day he'd met all of his classes, which was just another testament to his brilliant mind.

"Scouters?"

"Exactly!" Mr. Jorn snaps his fingers enthusiastically. He pulls out a large box, and begins to pass back different colored scouters to each student. "And today we will be learning about its more intimate workings, rather than the mundane cliché of measuring a persons power."

I looked over the red lense of my scouter, and attached it to my left ear with a smirk. "Can we keep these?"
"That's the idea," Mr. Jorn smiles at me. "From now until you no longer want it, these scouters are yours."

Inside the dimly lit gravity room, the tall, dark, and thin Adisa Abrafo is handing out the gravity belts, which have been modified to suit its owner. Taking my belt, I strap it to my waist, securing it safely, then activate it to get a feel for how much resistance he put on it. The sudden weight nearly drags me to my knees, as a sixth of the baubles on the generator light up and swirl at a fairly high rate.

"Okay, 15 minutes." Comes the deep, time-marked voice.

As the rest of the baubles light up, Adisa slides out of the way; about to activate the program when suddenly he pauses. Edana somehow picks up on his sudden hesitation and her face falls as well.

"No…" her voice is barely a whisper.

"What?" Chafulumisa asks, impatient to start training.

"Somebody else died," she says, her voice barely changing.

"How do you know?" I ask moving towards her, deactivating my belt.

"Yes, I've been tracking the different ki's in the school. One just disappeared." Edana explains. "Well, it blended into another one to be more accurate. And it's heading towards the dorms!"

"Edana, Chafulu come with me!" I order suddenly blasting off out of the room, determined to intercept the perpetrator.

As the three of us burst out of the training section that's placed behind the arena, we spot a large, light skinned figure speeding across the courtyard.

"DABIR!" I let out a roar of anger and blast off towards his large form.

Realizing I'd spotted him, he pauses for a second just as I crash into him, my impact carrying us up against the wall of the dorms. I swing a fist into his face, knocking him backwards several feet.

"What are you thinking!?" He yells at me in confusion after barely ducking a follow up ki blast.

Chafulumisa quickly grabs me, restraining my fury for a moment, as Edana steps between us and questions the lump of muscle.

"Dabir, what are you doing out here?" she asks, her voice a determinedly calm tone.

"I'm late for our personal training with our mentor. He doesn't like tardiness." He explains in a bewildered and worried voice.

"You liar!" I roar as ki blazes into existence on my fists. Knowing that Dabir is nearly incapable of such confusion and fear only serves to fuel my anger that he's blatantly lying to a woman I care so much for. "Let me go Chafulu, I'm going to disintegrate him!"

"Déshawn stop! You can't prove him wrong." He growls, flexing harder to contain me.

"Let me fight him. You'll see what I mean," my mind finally begins to work again through the haze of anger. "The killer has been absorbing the ki of his, or her, victims and it makes them stronger. I'll tell you if Dabir is stronger or not."

Dabir's eyes lock with mine at this announcement, not with the phony look of bewilderment or fear he had given me before, but a look of pure wrath that nearly halted my plan to attack him. However, as soon as Chafulumisa's grip on me loosened I barreled towards the large alien with both fists cocked. He sidestepped me simply and fired a blazing round of ki that tore into my ribs and threw me across the courtyard. I growled and flipped to my feet as a black aura exploded around me as I gathered my power.

"Déshawn stop this second!" I hear the serene, but sharp, voice of Master Essam.

"It's him Master Essam, nobody is stopping me for punishing him!" I say, as my power rockets. "Not even you."

"We shall see." Is her simple answer and she steps between Dabir and me in a protective manner.

"Who was it Dabir?" I yell at him. "Who'd you kill this time?"
"What are you roaring at me about?" comes the dumb answer.

"Master Essam," my voice turns to one of more pleading. "Please move."

A white battle aura explodes around my surrogate mother as her simple response and I growl before I blast off, aiming to move around her while knowing I was going to be intercepted. She spins, slamming a back fist into my face tossing me backwards. I land on my back with a grunt of pain having sacrificed bracing my landing in favor of extending my arms towards the pleased looking Dabir and I let off several hundred blasts of ki at him and his protector. The explosions shake the school and throw dust and dirt into the air, clouding my vision. As it all clears up, I see Master Essam inside a protective bubble of ki, barely seeming fazed by my willingness to attack her. I stand up, slower this time, as my anger calms and I relent my attack and let my aura dissipate.

"Fine, handle it your way."
"Good, I have better ways of investigation." Master Essam smiles kindly. "We'll continue this in a few days."