Rising Shards

I kept walking. After doing a lap around the school and not finding a way in, I went the other way, walking farther out. I avoided Ovie's group, but didn't see anyone else. It was quiet, foggy. Or maybe it was less fog and more the emptiness past a poorly made construction in the void. That spark of wanting to defeat Caeda and her cohorts was strong, but there wasn't anything I could really do at the moment. So wandering I went.

I thought that if I couldn't find anyone else I knew, maybe if I walked long enough, I'd find another me. Like find my mirror self or something. Was that possible? I didn't really get how void dimensions worked, still. I knew our world was stable, and we could go to this place where things were less stable. You could make a whole world like this school construction, but it was flimsy. Or there are just other worlds. They couldn't all be alternates of our own, probably? I hadn't run into any alternate worlds where there was a me that like sucked and hated beam chasers or something, but maybe it was out there. 

I tried to picture it like a closet in a house. The house was our world, and the void was a closet that had a bunch of other closets in it, like magic closets that could all fit in the space of a regular-sized closet. Some of the closets had a bunch of stuff in them, some didn't.

"Hey, I should teach, that made morse sense than Diast does, heh..." I said.

Was I exhausted, or did wandering this far into a hazy reality make me feel hazy, too? Maybe I'd just be stuck here forever. Would that be so bad?

"Least I wouldn't have to do homework," I said. "And I couldn't screw anything else up if I'm stuck out in this...nothing."

The further I got, the more blank my environment became, until I was walking around a sea of pale gray nothingness.

"Maybe I'd be doing everyone a favor," I said, then I realized how bleak that sounded. "That's not great. Let's pretend I didn't say that one."

If I was stuck here, I couldn't see my friends again. Or Ma, who'd probably worry. Maybe.

Marmalade would worry. I didn't want to worry her. I couldn't worry her.

How would I get out of here, though?

Just as I was starting to worry I wandered to far, my next footstep felt like I'd stepped into hot water. "Hey!"

I had, but my eyes had to adjust. In the nothingness, a shape of a small pool could faintly be seen.

"Or, duh, hot tub," I said, tapping my foot against the water. "Why's there one all the way out here?"

I thought about taking a dip now, because what else did I have going on? But I also didn't want to do that. If Marmalade was here, I'd probably—

I felt the shift in me as I thought about getting in a hot tub with Marmalade. Downside decided to show herself. It wasn't just my arm, it was a full shift this time, but...

Something was off. I could feel my body change, feel the monstrous form growing...but I was still my regular self. A cold wind passed over me, then right there in front of me, Downside stepped forward, and did a cannonball into the water. She swam in it, turning to me before sitting. Staring down at my own shifted monster form was surreal in a way I'd never experienced before. She grunted at me.

"What?" I asked.

Downside patted the water, then pointed at me.

"My clothes will get wet," I said. "And I'm not skinny dipping again."

Downside growled, then splashed at me.

"Quit it!" I said. "Fine, whatever, but if I get in and then we go back home and we're all wet, I'm blaming you for it."

I stepped into the water without much further thought, sighing contently. Things were so dreamlike now I only felt the heat of the water, not my clothes clinging to me.

"Does it bug you? The heat, I mean. Since we're ice types, I figure a hot tub would be a pain," I said.

Downside shrugged, scratching her head.

The haziness of this corner of the void didn't stop my curiousness.

"OK, so what the hell?" I asked. "Am I just having a vision or something?"

Downside shrugged again, looking really casual about this whole thing.

"Hm," I said. Maybe this was a chance to get some info. It probably wasn't even real, I was probably knocked out somewhere, but I had to try a little at least. "So what are you, really? If you're someone else that's stuck in me like Jeans with Aira, uh, my bad, I'm sorry."

Downside splashed me again.

"Wow, real cool," I said, splashing her back. "That water hurts when you splash it, you know. Even if it doesn't burn, it's still hot."

The two of us got in a splash fight. Once that settled, I tried again.

"So is that a no on being someone else?" I said. "Does that mean...you're me?"

The giant monster girl sitting across from me didn't splash that time.

"Whoa," I said. "So you're me?"

Downside didn't nod, but her reaction gave me the sense that her answer was yes.

"I guess I did find a mirror self then, huh?" I said.

My monster wolf girl side put her thumbs down and made a weird noise. It took me a second to realize she was booing.

"Oh, whatever!" I said.

A few more grunts from the monster.

"The mirror thing is not lame," I said. "It's a staple of science fiction."

A few more grunts.

"I do not sound like Lillia!" I said. "And even if I did, that wouldn't be a bad thing."

I sighed, and tried to relax in the water. "So, do you know what's going on with Chickadee and Caeda? Maybe you can tell me and we can fix this quick."

Downside shrugged again, this time looking like I did when I tried to imitate a sitcom character going all "whuuuuh?"

"I guess if you're me you wouldn't have any answers, either," I said.

She started coughing, real bad hacky coughs.

"Hey, you good Downside?" I asked.

Downside held up a single, clawed finger as she continued to cough. After a few particularly gnarly sounding ones, she hacked up a hairball.

"Ew," I said, having flashbacks to Feral Flu. She let it plop in the water. "Gross, dumbass! Chuck that out of here!"

Downside scooped up the hairball and threw it away.

"It'd be funny if that landed on someone, heh," I said.

My other self coughed a bit more. "Dude, that would be so good."

Suddenly, her voice came through. It was exactly like mine.

"OK, now you better give me more than shrugging and splashing me," I said.

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