Rising Shards

Kalei was maybe the strongest person I knew in my class outside of the devils. And it seemed like Aira and Syval were pretty damn powerful, too. So to see them hopelessly attack our current enemies and have literally zero effect was almost as chilling as Kalei's ice powers.

My immediate thought was that we'd been set up. I had heard nothing good about Jeans, so it wouldn't be a surprise if this was just something she pulled to...do something Endoran-y to us. That our school system would probably allow or even welcome.

"If this is a trap, I'm gonna make you regret it," I said.

"Aw, I would like to see that," Jeans said. "But this isn't a trap, unfortunately. They really just must have gotten stronger the longer they've been wandering."

Jeans grinned at me again. Kalei gave me some tips if she tried to get too friendly with me. Shut her down as bluntly and directly as possible, then bring up her last girlfriend.

"Quit flirting," I said. "Wouldn't Ovie be mad if she found out you were flirting?"

"I'm not with her anymore," Jeans answered, not looking at all surprised that I talked back to her. "And I can do whatever I want, I'm not beholden to anyone else."

"Cool," I said, rolling my eyes.

"How about you, are you beholden to anyone?" Jeans asked.

I sighed. "I dunno, does doing daily pulls on a game about shark girls count as being beholden to someone?"

"I mean more in terms of asking if you're single," Jeans said.

"God, seriously?" This girl was exhausting. If I was really down on myself I could see her being more enticing, because she was confident, good looking, and immediately flirty, but I felt like I was in a good enough spot mentally to see the blaring warning lights to someone being so immediately flirty like she was being. "There's a fight going on, you know. One you're supposed to be judging to see if we're worthy or whatever."

"Oh, I've been watching," Jeans said. "Seems like it's been a stalemate."

My friends weren't making any headway in this fight, throwing everything they had at the Sharai sprites and doing no damage.

"How'd you pick the name Marms?" Jeans asked.

"It's a nickname," I said. "Short for Marmalade."

"How'd you pick that name, then?" Jeans asked.

"Because marmalade is tasty," I said. It is tasty, but that wasn't the reason I picked it. I wasn't just gonna give her that story.

I glanced to my side, remembering that Roux was still there. They were hiding next to the machine/desk thing I sat at.

"Roux, have any ideas what to do?" I asked.

Roux shrugged. "I was thinking we could just go home."

"After all that posturing about us needing a superhero type team?" I said. "OK, honestly, the superhero part kinda sucks so I'd be fine bailing, but like...we have a team here. We should see this fight through at least and not abandon them." I thought about getting up and joining the fray, and I must have physically reacted in a way that said I was gonna do that, because Roux grabbed my forearm. "If my trademark big-ass punch didn't do anything, what good's your moveset gonna do? And before you counter with 'you didn't punch them in the ass, you punched them head on,' you're thinking of my big ass punch, it's different than my big-ass punch. The former is not trademarked because it's really hard to punch a void monster's ass sometimes, you know? What with their changing shapes and all."

"I...don't know if I was going to counter with that," I said.

"I think maybe you can go back home and nothing much will change here, Roux," Jeans said.

"As if I'd leave Marmalade alone with your sociopathy," Roux said.

"Wow," Jeans said. "What did I do to deserve this cold reception from both of you?"

"Well, personally, you trapped me in a pod, as mentioned, a pod filled with Elka," Roux said. "It gave me nightmares that fueled you trying to rule over a bunch of void dimensions you hastily merged together with an ancient mask or something along those lines, I was kind of foggy on the details post nightmare pod-ening."

"And for me, you did a number on my friend Zeta," I said, thinking about the bits I'd heard about Jeans from Zeta before I even heard her name.

Jeans' expression darkened just enough hearing all that, her cool facade breaking just a bit. "I had very good intentions for the pod thing, I'll tell you that now. I'm sorry if that hurt or offended you, but it also hurts me to hear you talk to me like that. And as for Zeta Faleur...for everything she put me through, she deserves whatever hurt she's still feeling."

"Tch," I remembered something Kalei told me before we left to meet with the others.

"Remember this maybe the most, Marms, if Jeans says anything about Zates being responsible for what went down between them, don't buy it."

I probably didn't need her to tell me that, Zeta was a friend, a trans girl like me. Even if I didn't want to take her side solely because she was like me in that way, I also knew her well enough to have a pretty good indicator she wasn't the issue. Just a few minutes talking to Jeans would have told me that the girl who showed barely any remorse for locking a bunch of people in nightmare pods was probably more in the wrong than the girl who started crying when I told her about a time someone left a rude comment on a photo of mine years before.

Up ahead, Kalei, Aira, and Syval, attempted a joint attack, striking one of the Sharai in unison, which...still did nothing but shake the ground.

I don't know if my earth moving powers gave me a better sense of things, but that attack felt wrong even past it doing no damage. I started pressing buttons on the console in front of me, scrolling away from the enemy scanning section until I found one that scanned our environment. I sent a ping of energy out from the machine, and the archaic screen brought up an image of the environment, confirming my fears. The sand we stood on was a thin layer, and beneath it was uncomfortably vast emptiness, with unrecognizable blobs spread about. With each move, we were getting closer to the sand falling away, dropping us into an abyss. If we didn't find a way around this, we'd be ending up in a Cani rescue facility, or if it was true Jeans could do whatever without many eyes on her...not wanting to think of what would happen to us then, I had to act fast.

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