Rising Shards

We finished the shopping spree without incident, I didn't go all Downside, I somehow managed to not get into a fight with Ovie (who was very particular and annoying as hell about organizing the shopping cart), I picked out a tux, Marms got a cute dress, and we all got some toys. I wasn't exactly feeling like I was on top of the world or anything, but I was a few steps removed from the defeated feeling I felt when I first got to the mall. Even my mom showing up couldn't ruin my mood.

"Let me see which one you picked out," Ma said.

"It went away," I said.

"What went away? Just show me!" Ma said.

"It was on the screen!" I said, pointing to all the weird touch screens on poles they had set up so we could order our prom stuff. "The screen went away when I finished. Just wait til prom so you can see it."

Ma crossed her arms, squinting, I knew that look, that was the "I'm gonna win this argument and somehow get my way" look.

"I bet they have an order history, I'm gonna ask," Ma said.

"Whatever," I said.

At least that distracted her. Next to me, Marmalade had spotted a coin on the ground and had squatted down to pick it up.

"Go team!" I said.

I reached out to pat Marms' shoulder, but right as I lifted my hand up she stepped up...making me accidentally smack her ass. She zipped upward, like she was trying to imitate a fence post.

"Um." Marmalade had a crooked smile as she looked my way, wondering why the the hell I just did that.

"Accident, accident! My bad." I said. "Was aiming for your back, then..."

"I guess I'm the one who got up, yeah," Marmalade said. "Maybe we'll think of it like a 'go, team' thing? I mean, you did say go team before it. Do you ever, uh, smack asses before a game?"

"No..." I said, unable to lie at that moment for some reason. When we were on the camping trip and ended up skinny dipping, Marms got mad when we were talking about hypothetical scenarios where I'd skinny dip with someone else. So I guess I wanted to convey that I wouldn't smack anyone else's ass. But this was an accident, so. What the hell was I doing? That butterfly feeling hit my gut again.

"Ah, hell," Marm said, noticing it a second before I did. My arm had gone all Downside-y again.

Why now? This wasn't good, but from where we were standing at the edge of the crowd, we had a shot. The angle I was at would hide me for a second. If we could just bail right away...I scanned around, looking for an opening, looking for a place to hide. But Ma was close. If she saw this, it was over for me, she'd know I did the exact opposite of what she told me to do with the hero business.

"What do we do?" Marmalade asked quietly.

"I..." If scratching Marmalade fixed this again, I needed her with me. But I couldn't just run off, we had to go casually.

Suddenly, Marmalade took her sweater off.

"Whoa, hey!" I said, eyes drawn to her abs as taking her sweater off lifted her t-shirt for a second.

"Here, cover it with this for right now," Marmalade said. It looked goofy as hell, but it would work for a few minutes, looking somewhat like I had it slung over my shoulder. I kept looking around. Ma was still messing with the touch screens, trying to get one of the mall or event workers to her. Risa's new clique was still near us, they wouldn't be good candidates to find out. And then there was...

"Roux!" I hissed.

Roux was attempting to do a handstand for Raytris, who was maybe way too impressed by their attempt. Marmalade got their attention, and Roux looked strangely relieved.

"Roux, I never ask you for anything," I said, my voice urgent and panicked.

"Factually incorrect, you asked me for a DLC code just last week," Roux said.

"That's because you were bragging about having one hundred extra codes for the new Tyrant Rangers hat set!" I said.

"Which you then asked me for, proving that you do ask me for things," Roux said.

"OK, fine, I usually don't ask you for anything, but can you please distract them so we can go deal with this?" I peeled the sweater down a bit from my arm, showing Roux my Downsided, monster-ified arm. "You want to help this team, right? Now's your chance to show your stuff."

"What do you want me to do, cut your arm off?" Roux asked. "I will, but if you get all whiny and crybaby while I'm doing so, someone is going to hear..."

"No! Distracting, I need a distraction!" I said. "I don't need you to get Risa's group, they're all in their own little world, just get my mom to not look our way, got it? I'll buy you a game."

"Hm...a game? I'm thinking my services are more of a two game minimum kind of thing." Roux said.

"Bastard," I said.

"You're a quadruple bastard if you think I'd do this for less than two games," Roux jabbed back.

"I can distract her," Raytris said. "If she turns around, I'll block the view." Being a slime girl, Raytris could shift her body, she demonstrated by making one of her hands into a big, flat rectangle.

"Perfect, thank you!" I said.

"No, Raytris, we have to negotiate more!" Roux said. "I bet we could've gotten three games out of her."

I just had to trust those two. Marms and I briskly walked away. There was a closed Beyond Gothic near us that didn't have its front gate down all the way. We managed to squeeze under it, running to the back, poorly navigating through the darkness, knocking some shirts and buttons over before finding a back room that was thankfully open. We found a light and let out a sigh of relief.

"You know, for a place called the Super Deluxe Battle Mall, there isn't a lot of battling here, it's just like a regular mall," Marm noted, again very chill about this given the circumstances.

"Yeah, and no security here either," I said. "If we wanted to get into shoplifting, this would be the place to go."

"That wouldn't be very heroic, would it?" Marmalade asked.

"It was a joke," I said. "Sorry. Wait, is your arm all weird too again?"

Marmalade checked her wrist. Just hours earlier, my arm going all Downside gave Marmalade a weird glow on her forearm, but not this time. "Nope, all good. Is...Downside giving you any inclination of what she wants this time?"

I tried to get in the zone to think about my other self again, picturing the hot tub we sat in. A thought hit me like a lightning bolt. I know I want to smack your ass again. Then I was so startled I even thought that, feeling the words even almost forming on my lips, that I just blurted out, "What? What? What?"

"I asked if you feel that again," Marmalade said.

"Er...I guess?" I said.

If that's what you want, Downside, you're uh...I don't even know.

I managed to resist that desire, telling myself that was all Downside who wanted that.

Can you just...chill out a second?

"Last time Downside was all...wanting to hold me. Let's try that again." Marmalade said.

Marmalade took my monster hand, playing with the beans again. "Oops, sorry, that's addictive." She pressed one more though, to get a claw out that she quickly and almost gently scratched against herself. In a flash, my arm went back to normal. Another big sigh of relief escaped me.

"Thanks, Marms, you're the best, seriously," I said.

But now we had a new problem. We snuck into a closed store, if we got caught now, they probably would think we just wanted to steal a bunch of stuff. Marmalade saw the panic on my face. She got out her phone.

"I have an idea," Marmalade said. She called someone quickly before I could see who. "Hey, are you at the shopping thing? At the mall. Not Twin Wolves...Super Deluxe Battle Mall? Yeah, that one! Yeah, we're at the Beyond Gothic...if you could...yes, that'd be—wait, what floor? I think we're on the..."

Suddenly, in the cramped break room, Aira teleported in, zapping between us.

"This Beyond Gothic?" Aira said. "Oh, phew! I went to the second floor one and nobody was there."

"That's...insanely fast," Marmalade said.

"I've been getting really good at teleporting with that power boost from the demon in my belly," Aira said, patting her stomach. "Not saying I'm pregnant, just that I ate that crystal that has Jeans in it, you know?"

"I...yeah," I said. "Thank you for coming so fast."

"Yes, thank you!" Marmalade said.

"I wasn't doing anything," Aira said. "And I'm always happy to help the team out."

I told myself to just call her next time and not bargain with Roux if I needed an easy escape.

"Can you zap us back out so it doesn't look like we're breaking in?" I said. "I mean, I guess we did break in but we're not doing anything, you know?"

"You got it," Aira said.

With that, we made it out of the worst of it. We got back into the crowd, nobody noticed Aira's teleporting. We wrapped up the event and had a quiet bus ride home, thankfully not sitting by Risa and Ovie's polycule thing so we didn't have to hear them yapping the whole way.

Ma said bye before leaving, wanting to get home to watch I was ready for a long night's sleep after a long ass day of bus rides, beam chasers, cart races, void imp crap I didn't understand, Downside business, and a dash of ass smacking. I took a deep breath as I stepped off the bus...where Lillia, Oka, and Zeta waited for me. Lillia had her hands on her hips.

"Kalei, can we talk?" Lillia said.

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