Rising Shards

Seconds after I texted Aira the situation and where I was at, she teleported in front of me.

"That was fast," I said. I winced at the circus of folks with me, hoping Aira understood how Marms and I did not mean to stumble into dumbassery with Roux, Chumbler, and the rest.

"Well, this sounded more interesting than what I wanted to talk about, so..." Aira said.

"You sure?" I said. "It sounded important from the text. We could make a break for it and get our other...to talk about...stuff."

Roux and Chumbler were debating which shirt color would be more marketable so the two weren't paying too much attention to what I was talking about. Still, I didn't want to just go, "Hey let's go get Syval and talk about what we're gonna do about our Tokickaman team!"

"I think Syval was headed to the library," Aira said.

"Seriously?" I said. Maybe I should have gone with the others even if they were being annoying. But Zeta and Oka annoying wasn't remotely on the same level as Chumbler annoying, so I definitely boned up this whole operation already. "Should we get him? I figured you wanted to talk about what he was doing next."

"It's alright…we didn't really need him for it, I suppose," Aira said.

"Huh," I said.

Marmalade took a position somewhat blocking us from the others. "Since I know the deal, I can...kinda stand in the way, if that helps."

"Sure does," I said. "Aira, is everything good? I mean, the last time I saw you..."

The last time I really talked to her we were in a huge fight with the devils. She and Syval ran off screaming as their powers went berserk, likely a side effect of them eating some random crystals they found in the lab. I still found that incredibly boneheaded by both of them, but I downed the devil drink so I guess I couldn't really judge.

"Um, probably? Maybe? It's...stable. But I could use your help with something," Aira said. "We don't need Syval, and honestly we don't even have to do it right now, I kind of want to help with this shirt thing if you don't mind?"

"Help with this shirt thing?" Chumbler loudly asked, pushing Roux aside to march over to us. "Another one for the team, glad to have you aboard! This won't go like the train mafia thing, I promise."

"Train mafia thing...?" Marmalade said.

"It was a whole ordeal," Aira said.

"We just put the orders in for the shirts so my guy should—" Chumbler started.

We were still out in a big common area that was way too packed. I was getting a headache from the crowd, from listening to Chumbler, stressing about what Aira had going on, stressing about this dumb school system and all its BS, stressing about all the secrets I had to keep track of...just as I thought what a pain all this was, everything turned red, and annoying alarms made the aching in my temples worse.

"Lockdown procedure initiated. This is a test of our lockdown capabilities."

"God, what the hell now?" I said.

Gasps and murmurs filled the crowd. The lights didn't come back on, but a huge screen lowered as a projector turned on, putting on a video feed of...Penteldtam for some reason?

"Attention students, this is your beloved princi—former principal Penteldtam speaking! My new buddy and I have a fun game this weekend since everyone's buzzing boastfully about all these bountiful boys leaving the bschool, I mean the school. I'd love for you to meet my friend, who can explain everything..."

Penteldtam looked to be in an unused office, dust covering the empty shelves behind him. He smiled as he lifted up a poster, unfurling it to reveal a poster of a mustachioed guy's face with "REED" written in big letters at the bottom. That was weird enough, but after Penteldtam fully unraveled the thing, he put his hands away and the poster just floated. Then the face on the poster went all bug eyed. Squiggly black tendrils came out of the back of it, twisting around until the poster had a torso, arms, and legs that effectively looked like a stick figure.

"Seriously, what the hell is this?" I asked. "Is that like a mascot character?"

He looked freaky as hell as he walked around, but also really obnoxious.

"Hello and howdy and hi!" The freaky-ass poster stick guy said. "I'm Reed, your pal for all things reading!"

"He's ugly. I think I hate him." Marmalade said.

"I know I hate him." I said.

Elisa gasped gleefully. "He's hot and divorced!"

"How do you know he's divorced?" Marmalade asked.

"He just is, alright?" Elisa said.

"I sure love reading, and I've noticed a lot of you school kids don't read enough books," Reed said. "So I've devised a little game that my new best friend Penteldtam is going to help me out with."

The video brought up a graphic of a map of Falling Shards. A few rooms were highlighted.

"These here are the bunker type rooms where I've randomly assembled teams. If you're in one of these rooms, congratulations! You're a player in my silly little game. If not, you're the audience who gets to cheer along and see who lives and dies."

The highlighted ones changed to feeds of the rooms themselves. There were a ton, I spotted Zates and Oka in one, Lillia with the devils, those mat ball guys who got all the girls screeching when they came on screen.

"What does he mean lives or dies?" Marmalade asked.

"I don't know, but I don't need to hear another word from him," I growled, feeling righteous energy in me, my Downside begging to be released. "Whatever this is, we're putting a stop to it."

Aira and Marmalade nodded. We pushed through the crowd, not sure where we were headed, but knowing we had to save the day. Unfortunately, Roux, Chumbler, Z.O.K., and Elisa followed as well.

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