Rising Shards

It felt like the entire auditorium was as stunned as I was after Caya punched Kitty right in the face. My class had seen the two have a more power based battle, but the sudden violence of a punch spoke volumes. Kitty just became our new principal moments earlier.

Kitty was still a fighter, so a single punch wasn't going to take her out, but she was still rattled.

“Wow,” Kitty spat. “Wow.”

"You had that coming," Caya said. "How long did you know?"

"I found out like an hour ago!" Kitty said. "You should be grateful it was such a smooth process given the time crunch."

"A smooth process involving you letting a group of students physically assault Penteldtam?" Caya asked.

“This wasn’t my call," Kitty said. "Hilarious to watch, but that was the school board's."

That couldn't possibly be true. Could it? Caya's expression didn't give me anything either way. If the people in charge ordered this, just how messed up was this entire school district?

"How did you handle running Haven when you were governor?" Caya asked.

"What do you mean?" Kitty asked. "I just like delegated most of the boring work to underlings."

"I assume you're going to do the same with this new job?" Caya asked.

"Pfft, I guess you know me pretty well, don't you?" Kitty asked.

“Boring work to underlings? That sounds like a job for me!” Corinani said.

Students began to file out the instant Corinani took the stage and headed to the microphone stand, all assuming the interesting part of this was over.

“Do they just throw Kilander names at a dartboard when picking out principals or what, am I right?” Corinani said. She coughed. “I uh, I said, do they just throw Kilander names at a dartboard—"

“We heard you,” I said. “Sorry, I shouldn’t interrupt a teacher.”

“No, you always should interrupt her,” Kitty said. "Corinani, who gave you permission to be on my stage?"

"Oh, er, I was just...offering my services to be your assistant is all. I can juggle that and teaching, you know!" Corinani said.

"That won't be necessary," Caya said. "Because the board called me as well."

"They what now?" Kitty asked.

"While I can't condone what they thought about Penteldtam and how to remove him from his job, maybe they realized what having you as the sole principal would do for our school," Caya said.

"What are you talking about?" Kitty asked.

"I'm saying they offered me a new job as well," Caya said. "And I've accepted." She extended her hand. "You and I are now co-principals of this school. There will be some restructuring with the mix of Rising Shards and Wildfire Hearts, but we can work to iron out the details later."

Well, that made things feel slightly less bleak than if Kitty was the only one in charge now.

"Ugh," Kitty said. "You just love upstaging me, don't you?" She pouted. "Wait, so you did this whole dramatic punch interrogation thing asking about the devil girlies attacking Penty when you knew full well what happened?"

"Well, they neglected to mention all of the details," Caya said.

"God, this was supposed to be my grand reveal!" Kitty said. She looked out at the audience. "Where the hell did everyone go? Ugh, we're doing a grand Kitty principal debut concert later, for now...whoever's left, don't go. I wanna sing at least one song!"

Zeta pulled at my sleeve and nodded to the stage. While Kitty and Caya argued, the new students began to leave. Well, all of them except for Caeda, who didn't look like she'd ever leave the stage with this many eyes on her.

We shared looks with each other and with Lillia, silently agreeing.

"Um, Oka," Berin said as we headed out.

"We're just gonna investigate our new classmates a bit," I said.

"Be careful, alright?" Berin said.

I wasn't sure what we were going to do exactly, but after running into Zeta's mom, a bit of adrenaline still pumped through me.

We caught up to the new students. Nikki had found them first, and was arguing with P.D., who didn't react much. I honestly forgot they were dating.

“Dude, what the hell is going on?” Nikki asked. “What is this?”

P.D. ignored her girlfriend and kept on walking, breaking away from the group.

The others didn't react much to that. Chickadee grinned when she saw us.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my old pals," Chickadee said, her tail flicking as she gestured to herself. "What do you think of the new look?"

"It...suits you?" I said. "But what was all that? Why'd you beat up Penteldtam?"

"Not all of us," the girl with short blue hair, Ash, said. "Sai, you didn't do anything to him."

"Well, that's..." Sai, the one with purple hair said. "You had it under control, I guess."

They didn't have the same vibe as the others in the group. Did they even want to be here?

"Well, as to why most of us beat up Penteldtam, it was to show the new order of power around here," Chickadee said. "I don't care what Kitty says, or Caya. They don't have any power. Like Caeda said, this is our school. You got any problems with that?"

"Plenty," I said.

"There's nothing you can do about it," Chickadee said. "But if you want to try, we're gonna be testing our power against everyone in our grade this week. I'd love to take you all on in a fight."

"I can't wait," I said.

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