Rising Shards

“I’m so tired.” I announced during our lunch intermission before continuing our void adventuring. All of the floors had a little elevator for supply drops, and it felt very cool getting our lunch delivered that way. Kalei called me a ‘galactic sized dork’ for getting excited about it, but was quickly roasted by everyone present into apologizing. 

“And we still have to do the power challenge afterwards?” Oka said.

All the work had me devouring my cold lunch quickly. 

“This hasn’t even been that bad.” Kalei said. “The whole point is us being able to use our powers when we’re tired. Or something.”

“Since when do you take the school’s side on anything?” I asked.

“In cases like this? To keep things even,” Kalei said.

“If the battle lines are being drawn to those who are big nerds for school and those aren’t, you’re gonna be outnumbered puh-rettyyyyy quickly, Koridia.” Iris said. “MaiMai and I are big on the non-school team, so it’s gonna be you and Lillia Cadence against the rest of us.”

“That almost constituted complete sentences,” Lillia muttered. “I’d rather not spend our entire break complaining about finals.”

“See? Just you and Lillia.” Iris said.

“Maybe it’s less complaining, and more us commiserating about the circumstances that have befallen us.” Oka said, banking on using big words to win Lillia’s favor.

“If you mean the curse business, I thought we all agreed we’d at least attempt to shut up about it,” Lillia said. 

“I was more saying the challenges and difficulties and whatnot!” Oka said. 

“Can I vote we all just shut up for five minutes and enjoy lunch?” Kalei asked.

“That’s real rich coming from you.” Maia said.

“Alright, let’s all cool off a little,” Dr. Diast said through our wristbands. 

“Maybe we could all use a breather,” I said. I was used to us all bickering, but this felt like things were getting a few notches more heated than it needed to be.

“Funny you say that, because the next challenge you’ll be split up for,” Diast said. 

“Huh?” I asked.

“Sometimes you won’t be able to be with your normal team, so for this room you’re going to be tested on your makeshift team skills.” Diast said.

“That’s dumb! How are we supposed to team up with people who we don’t even know how to team up…with?” Iris asked. “Can I at least keep teaming with Maia?”

“It’ll be just for this one room, and then you’ll be with the regular crew for the rest of it. You can handle this,” Diast said. “Plus, Mr. Krangel based this challenge off of a video game he was playing, so that should be fun, right?”

I hoped she was right. It’d only be for a bit, but Oka and I still looked at each other like Diast just told us we were being transferred to different schools across the state.

After we finished eating, it was down to the next floor, where the rest of our class waited. We stood in another warehouse-like room, but instead of big industrial shelves, a giant indoor playground filled the room.

“What game is this based off of?” I wondered.

“Beats me,” Kalei said.

“I figured you or Lillia would know right away.” Oka said.

“Sorry, this looks unfamiliar to me as well.” Lillia said.

“All I can think is how are they gonna make this suck?” Kalei asked. “Can we just run through? Do we really need a team for this?”

This time Caya’s voice answered. “You need a team, yes. Your wristbands will shortly be set to your team for this challenge. When you’re assembled, you’ll proceed into the maze ahead. This will serve two purposes; one as a challenge of physical activity, and one as a teamwork challenge, as each team must defeat a powerful monster waiting for them.”

“And then the third purpose is fun, right?” Oka said. “Because this thing looks super fun!” Caya didn’t answer that.

Our wristbands lit up with a specific color, and we had to find all of our new teammates who were matching (mine was a nice hue that reminded me of pink lemonade). For this challenge, my partners would be Amara and Marmalade. 

“It’s cruel and unkind to separate me from my companions,” Amara said. “If I was feeling particularly litigious, I’d be suing the pants off this establishment. That said, you two aren’t the worst companions I could be stuck with.”

“Yeah!” Marmalade said.

“I look forward to working with you two,” I said in my best business-y voice. 

“I also nominate myself to be team leader.” Amara said. 

Marmalade and I were both fine with that, so we followed Amara. There wasn’t a countdown or buzzer or anything, we just got to proceed into a pathway in the jungle gym that was lit up in the same pink lemonade coloring as our wrists. 

The actual challenge felt like I was back at my tenth birthday party at Rhombus Replay, where I spent most of it in a big playpen, as I didn’t know any of the guests Stella invited from my class at all. Amara, Marmalade, and I were walking through ball pits, smashing through big cushioned cylinders, and gliding across metal zipline dealies. 

Amara and Marmalade were both significantly more athletic than me, which also brought me back to my elementary days, when kids more athletic than me would be leaping off these things while I hid in a corner lost in Raina Starlight daydreams. As I was hit with a sudden burst of nostalgia for my amazing Raina Starlight idea from back then where she’d be lost in an alien world that looked like a playground, I noticed our next challenge.

“Uh…” I said. It was an elevated platform with a bunch of rolling pipes on its floor. Marmalade took a step on it and slipped, landing on her butt. She laughed it off and got up, crossing the rest of it easily. I instinctively grabbed my tail, worried I’d get it caught in this thing.

Amara spotted my panicked expression. “Don’t worry about getting your tail stuck, just go over this like so!” She leapt over it, not taking a single step on the rolling parts. “It’s quite simple, really. It’s a playground staple!”

I did not have faith in my ability to jump half as far as Amara, and being spooked by something found on a playground made me feel worse. I took a nervous step, withdrawing it like I dipped it in cold water when I felt like I was about to fall over. It took me a pathetic amount of time to cross over, eventually sitting down and rolling across like it was a slide.

“Sorry about that.” I muttered. I paused, noting the sudden quietness outside of my breath. “Um. Hello?”

My voice echoed around, the only answer. Amara and Marmalade were nowhere to be seen. A minute ago this looked like a giant playground, but the sudden loneliness sucked the warmth out of it. Suddenly, I felt like I was lost in a horror movie. I retraced my steps through spiderwebs of industrial playground equipment, but found myself more confused, as the way backwards seemed completely different than the way ahead. I didn’t hear from any teachers either, and felt stinging in my eyes from embarrassment, which pushed me away from directly calling them for help.

It was maybe a bit rude, but I couldn’t help but compare Amara and Marmalade leaving me behind with my normal team. Oka would have stuck with me longer. Surely Lillia would have at least kept me in line. 

Kalei would have made a joke about me falling behind. Iris and Maia would have been further back from me, so they would’ve been able to push me ahead.

I could picture them all talking about it when they found me if I had gotten lost with my pod.

“Oka would not shut up about it,” Kalei would say. “Where’s Zeta? Where’s Zeta? I wanted to rush ahead just to get away from it.”

“Well, we don’t leave anyone behind!” Oka would say. “Especially not my starlight boo.”

Then they’d talk about Lillia’s grand plan for finding me, and also Iris and Maia, who probably would have gotten lost in this maze as well.

I stopped and sat for a second, at least getting to catch my breath. The imminent cry I felt coming on didn’t make for a restful break, though. Would the school fail me for getting lost in this stupid huge jungle gym? Would my whole semester go up in smoke because I took a literal wrong turn? Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of my finals having such a dumb conclusion. 

“I can’t let it end here,” I muttered. The words sounded so dorky coming out of my mouth but I refused to lose here. I picked myself up and carried on. Even if I couldn’t find Amara and Marmalade, I could get through this. I wasn’t letting a stupid thing Mr. Krangel found in some video game stop me.

It was still a maze getting around. The light seemed to dim the further I progressed, as did the playground junk, replaced with long hallways that I guess we were supposed to run or jog through. Out of spite, I simply power walked instead. At the end of the long hallway was another open room. A monster that looked like a cross between a moose and an old action movie star sat with his arms crossed. Marmalade and Amara were volleying attacks at him one at a time, but nothing made him even flinch.

“There you are,” Amara said. “Come on and fight already!”

There you are? That’s all? I wasn’t very eager about joining the battle, and hoped my angrily flicking tail would convey that. We didn’t have our bloodsabers for this challenge, presumably to not get the bands and such for our handy dandy sword holders caught in something as we were jumping around. I took out my aggressions on this moose looking monster. None of our attacks seemed to work. I wondered if I would have done better if I had Oka, Kalei, Lillia, Iris, and Maia with me, but it probably would have gone about the same given how steamed we were getting.

“I’ll give you a hint.” The moose guy said. He had a deep, booming voice that I could feel in my bones.

“Holy crap!” Marmalade yelped. She looked around the room like a ghost just materialized and only she could see it. “Sorry. Haven’t heard a void monster talk before…?”

“Your hint is to utilize the parameters for which this challenged was conceived.” Mr. Moose said.

“I…hm.” I couldn’t figure out what that meant.

“So, teamwork then?” Marmalade said. “That’s why we’re doing this challenge.”

“We are using teamwork.” Amara said. “We’re attacking him together.”

“But maybe we could use like good teamwork.” Marmalade said.

“Good teamwork like not leaving anyone behind in the creepy hallway, for one.” I said.

Amara and Marmalade looked at each other, then pieced together what I meant.

“Oh. My bad.” Marmalade said. “I figured you’d catch up with us eventually.”

“My apologies as well…” Amara said.

They looked really precious with some of the sweetest looking guilty expressions, so I started to feel bad for being mad at all. This turned into me saying it was fine a bunch and apologizing myself for probably way too long.

“Now that we’re on the same page, what’s our plan of attack?” Amara asked.

“I think we need a team name,” I said. “To really seal the deal on us being on the same page.” I said.

“Amarmalade!” Marmalade suggested. “Oh, but that leaves Zeta out. How about…Amarmalade Z?”

“Works for me!” I said.

The three of us came up with a battle plan. Instead of just doing attack after attack, we used our powers to affect our surroundings first. I conjured a thunderstorm that the moose man seemed to find refreshing, even standing up and holding his arms out to get more rainwater. Marmalade used her earthquake powers to get this moose dude off balance. Her quake combined with the slippery floor knocked him off his feet. Then Amara used her laser powers to strike, and we joined in on that as well.

We were panting after our attack, waiting to see if the fight was over. The moose gave us a thumbs up.

“Teamwork. Simple as that!” The moose monster said. Then he exploded into void goop.

“We killed him…” Marmalade said as we stared in stunned silence.

“It seems that counted for our required void monsters, at least…?” Amara said.

Then just as quickly as he exploded, the goop formed back into the moose guy. “Ha! Just kidding.”

“You scared me!” Marmalade said. “Like two times there!”

“Do we have to keep fighting you?” Amara asked.

“Nah, you beat me fair and square.” Moose monster said.

“Good, cuz we still have more fights after this and I am beat.” I said.

The moose got up and stretched, procuring a cup of tea from…somewhere…before starting to leave.

“Wait, are you even a void monster if you can talk and put yourself back together?” I asked.

The moose shrugged. “You should probably know the answer from class.”

By the time I remembered something like that kind of coming up in Caya’s class, the moose left.

I felt pretty good after that mini lesson on teamwork. It was rough getting in sync, but the three of us left the challenge feeling like Amarmalade Z had some more monster battling as a team to look forward to. It was a relief to reunite with my regular group though. This physical challenge helped us work off steam, and we were all glad to see each other again.

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