Mace and Minion accompanied Roxanne and Gilda to the hospital in the emergency vehicle kept behind the school. Minion and Mace had insisted on it, and since Minion's suit was the one Gilda was housed in, it hadn't taken much for the School Overlord to become convinced.

Mace held Roxanne's hand as they drove, Roxanne and Minion watching Gilda anxiously, Mace's eyes flitting between Gilda and Roxanne. He wished he hadn't let Deldja off so easy. The school had called Law Enforcement on Deldja and Flooze before the four of them had left the building, but Mace wished he could have left Deldja with some real damage—he wished she hadn't been lying on her front, that she had fallen on her side so that he could have kicked her in the stomach.

On Cerul, there was no stigma about men hitting women or boys hitting girls. On Crypt things were different—the men weren't supposed to hit women, regardless of whether or not it could hurt them—but on Cerul, that wasn't a thing. If a woman hit a man, the man hit back.

The only stigma attached to violence toward a woman was striking her in the stomach, where her reproductive organs were held. It was the equivalent of striking a man where his own reproductive organs were housed, but because women carried the children and were born with a set number of eggs, a punch to a feminine stomach was slightly worse than a kick to the masculine groin—that was also a stigma.

But it was probably best that he hadn't. It probably would have gotten him into trouble. He didn't need any of that.

***Break***

Roxanne sat with her face buried in Mace's shoulder, and he had his arms around her in a comforting manner. Minion sat to the other side of Mace, wringing his hands anxiously.

Roxanne didn't notice it, but Mace had dressed in his best for today. He bore his family insignia, black clothing with a light blue lightning bolt across the chest, and wore his best cape, which was actually the cape his father had used when he was Mace's age. There was even a small layer of black smeared under either eye to make them stand out more. He'd talked it over with Minion over the weekend and had pinpointed exactly why it was that Krut's call infuriated him so much. He'd been planning to ask Aida to go with him to the Lunar Eclipse Dance at the end of the week.

But this was more important.

Roxanne had refused help from the doctors when they'd arrived. She had insisted that Gilda be seen to and Gilda alone. But Mace had checked her nose after they'd been shown to this waiting room, which was empty but for the three of them, and void of any doctors or nurses. It was broken, but was nothing that couldn't easily be fixed. Her arms and legs were starting to bruise from Deldja's assault, but, again, they were just minor injuries.

"It's alright," Mace soothed. "Gilda will be fine." She has to be fine. Roxanne just shook her head.

She hated that she was crying again. She hated that she was allowing herself to be so weak in front of him—this was the second time she'd cried in front of him, and twice now he'd had to save her (though if she was honest with herself, she did like it when he saved her). But then again, she had a reason to.

"I-I don't think Gilda and I are linked right," Roxanne said in a hushed whisper as she turned her head to the side, her arms thrown around his neck, looking in the direction opposite his face. "I don't think my brain has that capacity, and I don't think I was young enough for it to work, and Gilda is an entire year and a half younger than I am, and I think if she doesn't make it I will, and then I'll be all alone, and—" She sobbed, and Mace held her tighter. Roxanne didn't even know why he was still here.

"You won't be alone," Mace insisted, shutting his own eyes. "You'll be fine, and Gilda will be fine, and even if she isn't, you've got Minion and me." Roxanne shook her head.

"I don't even know you," she said with a small, tearful smiled.

"That's only half-true," Mace answered, a little hurt by the statement. Sure, they'd only known each other for a few weeks, but they'd spent just about every spare moment together, hadn't they? Well, he didn't know how much spare time she had, but he'd spent every spare moment that he had with her. They were quiet for a long moment as Roxanne cried silent tears and Mace rocked slowly back and forth.

"I don't want you to go away," Mace said into the silence when some time had passed.

"What are you t-talking ab-about?" Roxanne asked with a sniffle.

"I don't want you to go off with Krut and become the Queen of Crypt and leave us here, and I know that sounds selfish, but I don't. You belong here on Cerul, and I don't want you to go away.

"I don't want to go either," Roxanne answered, and Mace felt a little better. "Remember when you said Minion had a crush on Gilda?" Roxanne whispered after a while. Mace's face colored slightly, but he confirmed the memory.

"Yes."

"I think Gilda likes him, too." Mace's face colored a little more, and after a second's hesitation, he decided to ask the question that statement stirred up in his mind.

"Does that mean—"

Suddenly the door was flung open. Mace and Minion scrambled away from Roxanne as her mother and father burst in with their minions. Isst threw her arms around Roxanne, and Loral was soon hugging her from the other side, as well.

"Roxanne," Isst cried. "Honey, are you alright?"

"Is Gilda OK?" Loral demanded.

"The school called us and told us what happened."

"We called Law Enforcement and we're pressing charges against Deldja for two counts of attempted murder."

"And we're classifying it as a hate crime," Isst added. Roxanne nodded, wiping her eyes, and she and her parents spoke in a hush for a few moments before everything became quiet. Mace began to pace back and forth, and Minion played with his hands off to one side. Isst, Roxanne, and Loral sat huddled together, the adults lending comfort to their daughter and taking strength from her continuing ability to breathe and pump blood through her body. Beside them, Civ and Rit sat, their hands clasped with worried looks on both of their faces. It was the first time any of them had ever seen them acting close in any way, but they both loved their adopted daughter, and as worried as they were, it was only natural that they would seek comfort from one another.

Long, agonizing moments passed, and they all looked up as the door burst open a second time. Reptung and Gishnar came lying in, skidding to a breathless halt just in front of the door.

"I heard Gilda was hurt!" Reptung cried. "What happened?" Roxanne turned cold eyes on the slate-eyed boy, and he gulped.

"Your girlfriend tried to kill her," Roxanne growled. "That's what happened."

"Deldja isn't my girlfriend!" Reptung denied.

"But you wish she was!" Roxanne spat, and stood before either of her parents could restrain her. "I can't believe you!" she hissed, and Reptung shared a nervous glance with Gishnar.

"I can't help that she's the hottest girl in school," Reptung answered, trying to act indifferent.

"Maybe you can't help that," Roxanne snarled, "but you could have kept yourself from divulging all of the information you've got on me in that whacked up head of yours!"

"I never—"

"You told her my name!" Roxanne shouted, looking around for something to throw at him and unable to find anything. "You told her I had mind control powers! You know that she hates me! Why would you do that?" Reptung didn't have an answer, and neither did anyone else in the room. Even Isst cast expectant eyes on the former orphan.

"I—" He stopped himself, unable to think of anything to get him off the hook. He even looked a little ashamed. "I'm sorry." He clearly meant it, but Roxanne shook her head, glaring at him as she'd never done before.

"It's a little too late for 'sorry,'" Roxanne snapped. "Do you know how much I could have told everyone in school to try and get ahead? Do you know how much I've done, just so that you could have a chance at normalcy?

"I've kept up the illusion that I don't even know you for twelve years!" she shouted. "I've purposely refrained from ever so much as looking at you, I've not said a word to anyone, not even my Professors, about having a brother at all! I could have told the entire school exactly who your sister was, and I could have done so much more than that!" Reptung gave a weak, fearful smile, and gulped. His ears burned as his eyes darted over to Mace, who glared disapprovingly at the older boy.

"I could have told anyone who would have listened about how you've got a criminal record, or how you've still got all of your dolls from when you were two, or how you kissed Sezzareck Occipital in Third Year! I could have told all of your teachers about how Gilda, Gishnar, and I did all of your homework when you broke your arm last year, or I could have told Deldja how madly in love with her you are!"

"I said I was sorry," Reptung answered meekly.

"Well sorry doesn't cut it!" Roxanne shouted, practically screaming at him. She removed one of her shoes and chucked it at her brother, hitting him in the temple and causing him to stumble. Gishnar kept him from falling over and got him back on his feet, but the minion didn't say a word. "I bet you told her about the time I broke my ankle climbing trees, didn't you? Because that was the first place she kicked me after I fell, and now Gilda might be dying, and if you had just kept your big mouth shut, maybe Deldja wouldn't have had enough of an arsenal at hand to make me fight back!" There was a long moment of silence, during which no one so much as moved. The tension couldn't have been severed with the sharpest of knives.

A doctor came into the room before anyone moved. He almost stepped right back out at the magnitude of vehemence he caught in Roxanne's eyes, but he cleared his throat and entered with as much authority as he could muster.

"Ra—Roe—Ros—"

"Roxanne," the girl in question said, straightening herself. "It's pronounced Roxanne."

"Roxanne Cerebellum? Your minion is out of surgery." The silence immediately became of a different type.

"Is she all right?" Roxanne asked in a whisper. The doctor cleared his throat again.

"Well, 'all right' is a relative term. But she's certainly alive. Flidnit can give you a better report," he added, gesturing to the window-like area in the silver wall where an orange minion was looking in through the glass. Flidnit was Gilda's regular doctor, and his own Master, Dr. Lobe, was Roxanne's.

"Gilda should be fine," Flidnit assured them all, and everyone heaved a huge sigh of relief. "But I'm afraid she might not be able to use her robotic body for a long while. Her back is broken, as well as two of her ribs, and she won't be able to keep herself afloat. I recommend keeping her close and in her sphere. Try your best to keep her still, and she shouldn't be straining herself too hard for a good few weeks."

"Thank the all-encompassing data storage at the edges of our universe," Loral exclaimed, and Isst nodded her agreement, sending her own silent prayer of thanks as Roxanne just about collapsed against the wall she was nearest to. Gilda was going to be all right. She was going to make a full recovery, and things were going to be fine…

"Now, Roxanne—"

"Aida," Roxanne corrected softly. "Call me Aida, like everyone else."

"Alright," the doctor agreed, and she could hear the relief in his voice. She might have felt sorry for him in another situation, having to cover for her usual doctor and therefore attending to an alien he'd probably only ever heard of around the water cooler or in meetings.

"Aida," he went on, checking a clipboard in his hands, "are you feeling any back pain at all? Especially around your spinal column?"

"No," Roxanne answered with a pain in her chest. She thought she understood now what Krut had meant by "heavy." She felt heavy. Her heart did. "None at all."

"Well, that's unusual," the doctor remarked, but quickly brushed it off. "But not unheard of. Aida, if you'll follow me this way, I'll see you to Dr. Lobe's room right away. He's sorry he couldn't have addressed you here, of course, but…"

"No," Roxanne answered, standing straight up. "That's OK."

"I'll go with you," Mace said quickly, he and Minion practically flew out the door after the doctor and the human girl.

That was when both sets of parents turned their eyes on Reptung and Gishnar, disapproving looks in all eight. They both gulped.

They'd screwed up big time.