Rising Shards

“Octa saved us,” Esther said. “We at least owe her to try.”

That was the conclusion she came to after the new experiments started with the trio of devils that joined them. Of the three, only Chickadee shared the same features of a pointed tail and horns, but power wise they were all about equal in strength, and shared many of the same general gifts, making the others clearly in the same class of Cani when together.

P.D. and to a much lesser extent Chickadee were tolerable to work with, but Caeda was almost pitifully annoying. Declaring herself the team leader, Caeda constantly made everything about herself. Esther humored it at times, and tried to understand, figuring at least some of it was coming from a place of hurt. Maybe Caeda had been through something that made her want to stand out.

As for what exactly was she leading the team to do? It wasn’t entirely clear. They trained in combat in the gym together, learning to use their powers, bloodsabers, and more, but for what purpose? Octa mentioned vague threats coming to this place that they needed to be stronger to protect this world against.

Esther couldn’t help but wonder if her enemies from back home, the army of the Verdant Colony, were coming here too. Maybe they broke her home, and cast it into dust. That motivated Esther to keep up as well, hoping to find some measure of justice against the enemy that put her through so much pain.

Between training and lessons, though, Octa and the other scientists encouraged plenty of downtime. The new trio’s arrival meant more of the living space in the labs were opened up to them. It turned out that Chickadee and P.D. had spent time living in a dorm room directly above theirs. Myles claimed she heard P.D. playing on her instrument through the walls prior to learning that she was actually above them playing a bass, but none of the others heard it.

Esther and the other devils tried to catch up with this world’s culture and entertainment where they could. In one of the upstairs lounges, P.D. would put on a program called Tower of Hate and Love. Esther couldn’t tell if she enjoyed it, as she always had her helmet on during it for some reason, but Sai absolutely hated it.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” they said at the start of an episode. “It’s awful.”

P.D. didn’t react. She didn’t even move, which Esther found curious.

Before they could get too far into that one, which involved a man and woman being shrunk down to microscopic sizes to explore a world inside a computer, they were summoned to the main hall.

Octa waited for them, introducing another unfamiliar face. Instead of a devil, this one was a short man who was watching some strange cartoon on his tablet. The man had pointed ears.

That means he’s…Echela was the word, right? Whatever the one is that isn’t Cani.

“Give me a minute,” he said before anyone could say anything. “It can’t be a real graduation, it has to be a prank.”

“Like…a school graduation?” Ash said.

The man looked up, squinting at Ash. He put his tablet away. “Stream’s not for another four hours, why do they make us wait like this? Cruelty is what it is. Anywhoodle.”

“This is Mr. Benta IV,” Octa said. “He’s a representative from a nearby school district.”

The devils shared polite enough greetings that the man barely acknowledged, checking his tablet three more times, grumbling more about a graduation before finally acknowledging them.

“So three of you have ingested this devil goop or whatever, and the other five are from hell or something?” Mr. Benta asked.

“They’re from a void node that fell away,” Octa said. “And yes, all of them have received the devil treatment.”

“I receive the devil treatment every time I talk to my ex-wife,” Mr. Benta said to which only Chickadee laughed.

Esther wasn’t sure why Octa was putting up with this man, or how she kept her composure. She asked the devils to go to the gym, and show off their powers. Once they had each done a demonstration, Mr. Benta laughed.

“Oh, this’ll be perfect,” Mr. Benta said. He wiped his brow with a cloth. “I have a bit of an outlandish request for you lot, but I trust that you can pull this off. One of our dimmest and dullest principals is soon to be dispatched, and I want you to rough him up a bit on the way out.”

Rough him up? Esther didn’t like the sound of that, or this man’s further plan for them to attack a principal at a talent show. Caeda was the only one who reacted strongly and positively to it.

After Mr. Benta left, Esther went to Octa about some obvious reservations with this idea.

“Octa, I—” Esther started.

“I hate to ask this of you,” Octa said. “But please humor this request. I won’t be at all upset if you deny him, but if you do this, he’s offering a full scholarship, and the school you’d be going to isn’t cheap.”

That didn’t make her feel much better. She went back to the lounge and put that Tower program on again, where P.D. rejoined her shortly after.

“Are you upset about what he wants us to do?” P.D. said.

“Well, yeah,” Esther said. “I don’t want to hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

“He deserves it,” P.D. said. “Trust me. This is one thing you shouldn’t feel at all conflicted over.”

During the quiet parts of the show, P.D. made her case, and Esther hated to admit that P.D. had some convincing things to say.

Maybe I can just think of it as a favor to Octa. And then when it’s done, we focus on protecting this world from whatever’s coming, and on school, and on just…living our lives.