Rising Shards

"Hm. That's about what I surmised," Roux texted me. "Sigh. Was hoping to get some better juice on this polycule. I suppose I can offer some gratitude for the intel, though."

"Sure, yeah," I said. From Roux that was high praise. "Did you...find anything more about this Roxana and Ko thing in the last five minutes?"

"No," Roux sent.

I had just finished relaying to Roux what Risa's budding polycule was talking about to Kalei. I worried I'd killed the conversation after a lull, but Roux was just taking a bit to respond.

"How long is this damn bus ride gonna take?" As if they summoned it, we came to a stop genuinely seconds after they sent it. "Oh."

"Finally," Kalei muttered. Thankfully, Risa and her group didn't crowd around us as we left the bus.

I hadn't even really checked where we were going. Spending half my day on coach buses wasn't really ideal, but I thought about it as spending all day by Kalei's side and that made me feel a bit better. We'd arrived at a mall I'd never heard of, the Super Deluxe Battle Mall, which sounded kind of awesome.

"Sorry I wasn't much backup there," I said.

"Huh? For what?" Kalei asked, letting out a little grunt as she stretched. Kalei was cool ninety percent of the time so it felt weird to describe it this way, but all I could think about that small noise she made was "adorable." Also adorable was the little glimpse of Kalei Koridia tummy as her shirt lifted just enough from stretching. I almost forgot what I immediately just brought up seconds earlier from her abs.

"That whole. Risa and her girls conversation." I said.

"Oh, that," Kalei said. "I don't need you to waste your time with that, don't even worry about it."

She patted me on the back. Each time she did that I liked it a bit more, and I already liked the first Kalei back pat quite a bit.

"You were smart to get on your phone," Kalei said. "I should've gotten mine out too, maybe they all would have backed off."

As more students filed out of the two buses. I spotted Zeta, Oka, and Lillia, but the teachers were corralling us each into a group with whoever we were on the bus with. Our bus had Corinani and some other teachers and volunteer chaperones I didn't recognize.

"Uh, if you all wanna..." Corinani said as she tried to speak into a megaphone. "How do I...AH!" She fell on her ass after accidentally blaring a siren from it. Kalei's mom jogged over, helping her off the ground.

"Thanks," Corinani said.

"Of course," Mahina said. "Do you want to trade with me or send one of the other chaperones over to Team B? I'm chaperoning my daughter's group. Or whatever, we don't even have to bother, they have enough chaperones over there."

"Heh, that means you and I are teaming up!" Corinani said.

Mahina high fived her as Kalei looked like she debated running away from this thing entirely to get away from her mom.

"Honestly, I just don't wanna be in the same group as Junea anymore, I feel like I need therapy after just one bus ride next to that witch," Mahina said, then noticed how close we were. "Er, pretend you didn't hear that."

"I'll go tell her you said that right now, actually," Kalei said.

"Don't you dare," Mahina said. Corinani started an attendance check, telling us to stay in place until everyone was accounted for. With impressive speed, Mahina rushed over to her daughter, picking her up in a bear hug.

"Hey, Ma," Kalei said. "Just saw you earlier today..."

"Yeah, well I forgot to earlier," Mahina said. She set Kalei down and looked at her quizzically.

"What?" Kalei asked.

"The hell did you do to your shirt?" Mahina asked, grabbing for Kalei's sleeve.

Kalei shot me a look that said, "I didn't realize I stretched the sleeve out when my arm got all big..."

I cursed myself for not having an immediate excuse, but Kalei was quick on the draw.

"Uh, new meme thing," Kalei said.

"Ugh, your generation has the worst fads," Mahina said.

"Like yours had any good ones," Kalei said.

"Excuse you, 'Zup Eats a Toaster' is funnier than anything some low rent meme maker of today could come up with," Mahina said. "Anyways, what are we working with here..." She looked around at the rest of the students, stopping at Ovie. "Eugh. They let her back in?"

"Sure did, I told you that," Kalei said.

Ovie's group was far enough away as we all hung out in the parking lot that they didn't hear Mahina talking about her. Back when Kalei got dragged into the whole Sharai Daggers thing by Ovie and 09 and their group, her mom was part of the rescue team, and we all scuffled with Ovie all the way from a void casino to a big old castle where Ovie and 09 were all monster-ified. I thought about the terrifying mutations those two went through, and wondered if Kalei and I would be the same with her taking that devil drink and me now having a scratch from it.

"Think Caya will reinstate my free coupon to punch one student from back then?" Mahina asked.

"Please don't get immediately fired from whatever it is they think you do around here," Kalei said.

"I'm kidding, I wouldn't hit her now," Mahina said. "She looks like she's mellowed out a bit, yeah? At least that's what my gut's telling me."

"I dunno," Kalei said. "Don't you have, like, chaperoning to do? Leave us alone."

Mahina scoffed. "Can you believe this horrible girl? What a thing to say to her mother. But she's probably right."

Once everyone was squared away, the two big groups were directed toward the mall, each of us taking a separate entrance.

"Seriously? We can't even go in together?" I asked.

"Would've been nice if they told us anything about how this worked before we went," Kalei said.

"It'd also be nice if we were on the same team as the others." I said.

"Yeah..." Kalei said. It was a very loaded 'yeah,' her voice sounding suddenly weary. I could guess why.

"Maybe we should tell them today?" I asked.

"Huh? Oh...I dunno..." Kalei said. "Let me think about it."

I was of the opinion that the sooner we told the others about Kalei's Downside situation the better, but I also didn't want to get in the way of Kalei working through whatever she had to work through in order to tell them. She said she'd think about it the last few times I brought it up, too. Maybe it was like coming out for her. In a way it was, though talking about being gay carried a different weight than talking about a strange serum giving one incredible powers and the ability to shift into monster mode, but still. Part of me hoped that whatever was blocking her from saying that would be unmoored a bit, loosened just enough by this silly prom game.

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