Roxanne and Gilda spent the rest of the weekend alone in their room. Mace didn't contact them all weekend, and when Grustday came around, the girls found themselves back at school.

Mace was nowhere to be seen there, either.

When Roxanne tried to contact Mace through the watch, she found that the receiving end had been disconnected somehow.

As Second Hour came around, Roxanne slid into her seat with Gilda beside her, and leaned her head on her minion's tank. Roxanne knew she shouldn't have cried in front of Mace. She was supposed to be a Lady, or least getting herself ready to become one! She was going to be on HWP in three weeks! She should have made him go away before she'd started bawling again, but she hadn't had the wherewithal then to do so, and here she'd gone and scared him off.

Roxanne closed her eyes. "Back to just you and me, Gilda," she mumbled, and tears threatened as she remembered that she no longer had her secret friend waiting for her at home to play with her school supplies or scare Reptung or curl up on her lap when she was down, or make that rumbling sound at the back of her throat that scared Gishnar… "Just you and me," Roxanne repeated.

Then the Professor started taking roll call, and she straightened, determined not to act like anything had bothered her.

***Break***

Unfortunately for Roxanne, Deldja was quick to note that Mace was nowhere to be seen around the pale-skinned girl. It was only a few hours into the day that Deldja and Flooze cornered Roxanne and Gilda in the halls.

"Ollo, Aida," Deldja sneered. Roxanne cast her eyes down.

"Hello, Deldja," Roxanne returned in a soft monotone.

"Where's Mace?" Deldja asked, looking Aida up and down as if sizing her up. More likely she was looking for more reasons to insult her than she usually had. "You didn't eat him, did you?"

"I'm omnivorous, just like everyone else," Roxanne mumbled. "I'm not a cannibal."

"It wouldn't be cannibalism if you ate one of us, now would it?"

"Maybe not in your eyes," Roxanne answered softly, still avoiding eye contact. "But I was raised just like anyone else."

"Well that's where they went wrong," Deldja snarled, shoving Roxanne into a wall and causing her to drop her books.

"Hey!" Gilda shouted, moving for Deldja. "Leave her alone!" But Flooze pushed Gilda into the opposite wall before she could get to her Mistress.

"Listen to me, you little pink-skinned freak," Deldja snarled, standing over Roxanne with her hands on her hips. The halls were already empty by this point, as it was lunch time, and most everyone else was already gathered with their friends to eat. "You stay away from Mace Mind. He may not understand it yet, but he's mine, and I'm not going to have some sort of animal trying to get into his pants while I'm around!"

"You don't have to worry about that," Roxanne answered, refusing to meet Deldja's eyes. "It's not like he'd ever care for me in a romantic fashion."

"No, he wouldn't care for you, but with mind control powers, it wouldn't be too difficult to get him to think he does, now would it?" Roxanne looked up slowly.

"You've been talking to my brother, haven't you?"

"That's right," Deldja growled, "I have. It's easy to get to know all of your dirty little secrets when I've got Reptung twirled right around my finger."

"You leave my brother alone," Roxanne ordered softly. "He's never done anything to you, and neither have I."

"You think I'm going to do what you say? That isn't how this works, Roxanne. I'm the one who's Cerulean; you're just a filthy, discolored space-lendor that's somehow been given the ability to speak. You're going to do what I say, or I'm going to make your life miserable."

"You already do that," Roxanne pointed out, averting her gaze again. The freckled Cerulean glared down at her.

"Well I can make it worse." Roxanne felt chilled. She didn't know how Deldja could possibly do that, but she didn't doubt that she'd find a way. "Now, here's what you're going to do; you're going to leave Mace alone, you're going to stop trying to brainwash people, you're not going to let them run your story on the 16th Wave, and you're never going to try to touch any man ever again." Roxanne's eyes narrowed, and she glared up at the taller girl with a rebellious look in her eye.

"No," she answered. For a moment, Deldja looked surprised, but then her face began to turn purple with anger.

"What did you just say?" she growled dangerously.

"I said no," Roxanne answered, pulling herself up to her full height. "I have just as much of a right to be here as you do; I'm not an animal, and I'm not going to give up my chance at having the career field I desire. I don't have mind control powers, and, by the way, your descriptors of me are oxy-moronic, as it's kind of a fallacy for an animal to have a brain advanced enough to control those of others. I'm not going to leave Mace alone, because he's the one who asked me to spend time with him in the first place, and if I ever do find someone who could possibly stand my physical appearance and mental downfalls, if I decide to get involved with him on a romantic level, it's none of your damn business." Deldja glared down into Roxanne's defiant face for a moment, her teeth clenched less tightly together than they had been a moment before.

Then she hit her.

Blood erupted from Roxanne's nose, spattering her face and the clean white walls as she turned from the normal-colored teen and fell back upon it.

"Aida!" Gilda screamed, trying to push past Flooze to get at her Mistress. But the pinkish-orange minion wasn't having that, and she shoved Gilda back with all the force of a jealous fish inside of an 800-pound robotic lendor suit, cracking Gilda's dome against the wall hard enough to break glass.

Gilda's dome was made of glass.

"Gilda!" Roxanne screamed as water came pouring out of the minion's tank. She stood up and tried to push Deldja out of the way, but Deldja was still intent on keeping them apart.

"No you don't!" Deldja shouted, shoving Roxanne back down. Roxanne cracked her own head against the wall, and her head instantly began to pound. Deldja kicked her in the leg, and Roxanne tried not to whimper as she covered her head and curled up into a ball on the floor. "You don't ever talk back to me, you disgusting little monster!" Deldja howled between repetitive blows to Roxanne's arms, legs, and, when she could manage it, stomach.

"Leave my Mistress alone!" Gilda shouted, gasping for breath as she flopped across the floor. Flooze tried repeatedly to pick her up to hold her still, but Gilda just kept slipping through her fingers. Deldja ignored the fish all the way up until Gilda managed to leap out of Flooze's grasp a last time and sink her teeth into Deldja's hand.

The blue girl screamed, Gilda's razor sharp teeth immediately breaking the flesh. "Get off of me!" Deldja cried, throwing her hand out to the side as hard as she could. Gilda lost her grip and flew from Deldja's hand, smacking into the wall with a wet SQLUD! and a sickening cracking sound. Roxanne craned her head up at the sound, and she gasped, terror in her eyes.

"Gilda!"

"Aida!" Mace and Minion's simultaneous shouts echoed down the hall, and when Roxanne looked to them, they were moving faster than she'd ever seen them. In a matter of seconds, Minion was scooping Gilda into his tank and Mace was tackling Deldja to the floor.

"You leave them the fargon alone!" Mace shouted, seething hatred flaring in his brilliant green eyes.

"You're going to stick up for that creature and her undeserved minion?" Deldja spat.

"Always," Mace answered.

"Get off of me!" Deldja snarled. "You're under her power! Let me go!"

"I'm not letting you go until someone comes to deal with this!" Mace snarled back. Deldja's face was twisted with hatred, and she did the only thing she could think of to get out of this situation. She brought her head back and slammed her forehead into Mace's face, hitting him right above his eyes. Mace was momentarily stunned, and released Deldja, who leaped to her feet.

But Mace was back up before she could run, and his fist turned her cheek dark and sent her falling to the floor. He kicked her side—not her stomach; just her side—and growled, "you leave Aida alone!" Then he turned and dropped down beside Roxanne, anger turning to fear.

"Aida, are you all right?" he demanded, pulling her up so that she was kneeling and taking her shoulders in his hands. He didn't wait for her to answer. "Minion!" he shouted, turning his head. "Is Gilda all right?" That was what he was really afraid of. Roxanne was hurt, and it worried him, but that could wait. But he'd just seen Gilda get tossed into a wall. And she was a fish. She was tiny. She could be crippled.

She could die.
"No, Sir," Minion said. He sounded like he was on the verge of panicking as he tried to keep Gilda from falling to the bottom of the tank. "She's unconscious, and I think some of her ribs might be broken."

"Aida?" Mace asked, turning back to the girl, who was staring straight ahead, her forehead creased, her eyes full of some colorless emotion that he couldn't quite place. She was in shock.

He shook her.

"Aida? Aida, are you OK? Minion, stay with her," Mace ordered. "Keep Gilda afloat, I'm going for help." He stood up quickly and took off down the hall before Minion could answer, shouting, "Help! Someone help! Contact the emergency medical ward! A student and her minion require immediate medical attention! Help!"

Minion directed his robot body to sit beside Aida while his actual body worked to keep Gilda from falling, his fin clutching hers as best as it could and his tendrils wrapped tightly around hers.

The flowers Mace had missed half of the school day to find in just the right colors lay forgotten on the floor.