Rising Shards

"We should've waited until Kalei could be with us..." I said.

"I'll protect you if anyone tries to mess with us," Oka said.

"I'll do my best to guard you as well." Lillia said. "Where is Aira, anyways?"

While Kalei and Marmalade were practicing, Aira asked us to be backup as she met with Laenie for the first time in a long time. The last time they interacted with each other, Laenie was in big giant Exa Cani mode.

"Sorry, I know this is a lot," Aira said. "But...I think I want to meet with Laenie today. And I don't want to be alone for it."

"Of course we'll help!" Oka said.

"I would like to join as well," Lillia said. "I fear for how this will go if it's only you three, no offense."

"No, I get it," Aira said. "The last shenanigans I got into was that whole model train mafia deal, and that was with Naomi and Amara as backup."

So we met up where Aira asked us to, a spot deep in the bowels of the school that I was somewhat familiar with. The hangout spot of Laenie's new biker gang was fairly ominous and did make me want to turn around and leave. It was a former ballroom and also formerly Chumbler's locale for her casino, the aptly (?) named Chumblerosa. I watched as Oka's tail flicked around nervously, not realizing mine was doing the same until Lillia grabbed both of our tails. "Relax. We're just here to talk."

"Sorry for the wait!" Aira said, teleporting in out of nowhere, causing me to yelp out something like "OHHOLYCRAPHELP!" before nearly falling over. I would have fallen if not for Lillia's firm grasp on my tail.

"Subtle as always, Aira," Lillia sighed.

LIllia and Aira had been having an on and off again feud since they got to Rising Shards, but they had been on much better terms since Aira came back from Wildfire Hearts.

Aira wasn't alone, with her was Amara, who handled teleportation incredibly well.

"I invited her, don't worry!" Aira said.

"I am here to keep the peace," Amara said.

"We have quite the squad for this," Oka said.

"Yeah," I said. "Shall we...head inside, then?"

Aira approached the twin doors to the biker gang lair.

"I don't even know what I'm going to say," Aira said.

"Should we maybe...talk about that first? Get a gameplan together, perhaps?" Oka suggested.

Aira turned around, leaning on the door as she slid down to a seated position. "Maybe that'd be good."

"I'm just hoping we can avoid the inevitable strange occurrence that gets us completely off track," Lillia said. "This should be about you and Laenie."

"Good luck with that," Aira said. "I'm fully prepared for, I dunno, Chumbler to be in there and she's got a gambling cannon or something. And we have to stop her, and fight the bikers, but Laenie is somewhere else probably. That'd be kinda nice, actually. Then we don't have to do this today!" She stood up. "Actually, that sounds great, let's do this another time!"

Lillia held a hand up. "If you're really uncomfortable with going, then let's. But just because there's a chance that things could be derailed doesn't mean you should use that as an excuse to not try to talk things out with Laenie."

Aira sighed. "I don't know how I feel. I just feel kind of empty when I think about it. When she gave me a jacket to join her gang, I..." She looked around. "...just realized I forgot to bring that, ugh. I don't know. Everything still feels...bad? But last night I told myself I wasn't going to let this loom over me anymore. I don't know what I was thinking. My tummy kind of hurt, maybe that's where my head was at."

"It sounds to me like you have your answer, then," Lillia said. "You don't want this to loom over you, then let's take care of it."

"And if there's some big stupid distracting thing like Chumbler with a gambling cannon, or space aliens show up, we'll run interference on those," I said. "We'll make sure you and Laenie get to talk."

A slight smile crossed Aira's face. "Alright, we can at least try."

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