Rising Shards

It felt like an epic movie showdown as Caya marched up to Kitty. She had her workout clothes on, either know about this before or having a hunch Kitty would challenge her. When she was close enough to look down at Kitty, she cracked her neck. If I were in Kitty’s shoes, I’d be pretty dang scared.

”Caya Kilander, everyone!” Kitty said. ”I’ve been waiting for this for a long while now! Ya know, you brats should consider yourselves lucky. When I was more actively involved with Haven fights, the price of merely a chance to see Haven’s bestest governor/world champion was in the thousands, nay, the millions! And you get to see me fight for free!”

”We’re going to have a quick sparring match,” Caya said. ”For any duels like this during the Recreant Protocol, your safety is the most important.”

Kitty started doing a hand puppet thing as Caya talked, clearly not a fan of safety.

”We’ll all have our shields up for this,” Caya changed a function on her wristband, bringing up a greenish glow around herself. ”When in sparring match, your shields will protect you from harm, and track who’s winning. Think of them like health bars in a video game. When they’re green like this, you’re at full health. Take enough damage and the color changes, from yellow when you’ve taken quite a bit of damage, to red when you’re completely defeated. Keep an eye on the color of our shields as we fight.”

”Yeah, you’re gonna be seeing Caya’s shields go through all the colors of the rainbow, hee hee...” Kitty said.

”Bloodsabers or no?” Caya asked.

”Hmm...” Kitty thought about it. ”I say yes, let’s show them how safe we can be.”

”Fine,” Caya said, drawing her arm to the side, her bloodsaber forming seemingly at her will, attached to her wrist. I’d seen her with her bloodsaber on her wrist like usual plenty, but not much of her actually using it in combat. Kitty giggled as she got her own sword out, one with a sparkly magenta blade. ”On three?”

”Sure,” Kitty said. ”One...”

Caya was completely still. All of us in the stands grew quiet, it all hitting us at once that two incredibly powerful Cani were about to do battle. Even if it was just a practice sparring round, it looked like the two weren’t going to hold anything back.

”...twothree!” Kitty ignited her bloodsaber and charged ahead with lightning speed. Caya blocked her, sparks flying between their blades.

”Damn, thought I could get you off guard,” Kitty said.

”You do that trick every time we spar,” Caya said. ”It’s practically tradition at this point.”

The two separated, each flipping backwards and earning gasps from the crowd (the dual backflip was especially impressive to the Matora sisters, who I was learning really liked backflips as they cheered loudly).

Neither had taken damage yet. Kitty stabbed at the ground, sending out familiar tendrils of pink energy, the same kind she’d gotten us with back during the incident where Jeans and some other Wildfire Hearts students and staff (Ovie and Kitty among them) had captured us while in the void.

Caya didn’t flinch as she slashed at the energy waves before they could touch her, like she cut up an evil octopus monster made of raw energy. Kitty’s power dissipated into sparkles as the two circled each other like tigers I saw in a nature documentary.

Their blades clashed again, but it was just a trick for Kitty to grab Caya by her head and neck, flinging her backwards with a wrestling move I think Mr. Krangel said is called a ’flip flumpler’ but I might have been misremembering because I was half listening on my best day during Krangel classes where he talked about Haven fights.

The landing knocked Caya’s shield color all the way to yellow.

”That was way too easy, am I gonna win this already?” Kitty said, getting up to gloat while Caya was still on the ground. ”That might be the quickest I’ve won against-”

Before she could finish, Caya leaned back on her shoulders, lifted her legs, and kicked backwards, getting Kitty square in the chest with a double boot.

”Ow, what the frick!” Kitty chucked her bloodsaber away and Caya put her own away as well (by unconjuring it? de-conjuring?) as the two charged at each other, their sparring match morphing into them roughhousing and grappling on the ground.

”Is this...like does someone need to step in?” Zeta asked. ”Dr. Diast?”

Diast was busy on her phone.

”Wow, Diast, way to keep an eye on things,” Kalei said. ”You don’t have a reception in here so do you wanna tell the class what game you’re playing?”

”Huh? Oh, I’m not playing a game, I’m just looking at pictures from...”

Kalei had a devilish grin now, but she tried to make her voice all sweet and innocent as she said, ”Pictures from what, Dr. Diast? Or perhaps...pictures from whom?”

”Uh...” Zeta blinked, trying to process what Kalei was angling at.

”Just a family get together,” Diast said. ”It’s from a science museum, you’d find it very boring.”

Another standoff was happening, I thought at least, because Kalei and Dr. Diast got very quiet.

”What’s, uh...” Zeta said, probably thinking the same thing I was, did Kalei have a suspicion about Dr. Diast? If she knew about Diast and Stella, would she be mad at us for keeping it from her?

”Alright, that does sound boring,” Kalei said, still with a forced sweet voice that was very creepy. ”Perhaps I will let this one slide.”

”Yeah, perhaps.” Diast said, looking like she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes before checking on Caya and Kitty again. ”Are they done yet?”

As our attention turned back to the battle, it hit me that Caya and Kitty’s fight almost mirrored my own with 09. We weren’t gonna have a huge grapple battle like those two (though we did technically have that battle when she was all beast tendency’d out), but still, it felt like there was a rift in the Kilander family, and among those present, Caya and I were on one side, and 09 and Kitty were on the other.