Rising Shards

Marms and I had encountered maybe the dumbest combination of friends and classmates we could run into. Elisa Burwell was bad enough with her nonstop blabbing about all the boys at Falling Shards, but she was joined by Chumbler and Z.O.K., who had some scheme they wanted us involved in for some reason. And Roux was there egging this all on.

”I’m just saying we have a brief window here to make a lot of cash,” Chumbler said. ”And brief windows where you can make a lot of money is like gambling, which is what I’m into if you haven’t heard.”

”I’ve heard,” I said. ”Everyone’s heard because it’s all you ever talk about.”

”I talk about other stuff! Like how I’m scared of Rain, and...oh, and gambling!” Chumbler said.

”Kalei, maybe you shouldn’t respond to her...” Marmalade said.

”I know, I’m just...” I growled. ”Just tell us how you think you’ll make money then leave us alone.”

”I know a screen printer, and they say if we give them the designs they can have shirts printed within the day ready to sell to all these folks obsessed with these boring dudes.” Chumbler said.

I sighed deeply. ”Your big plan is...t-shirts?”

”Hey, t-shirts make a lot of cash!” Chumbler said.

”I’d totally buy a shirt if it had Lucian and Seth Kerres on it.” Elisa said.

”See? She’d totally buy a shirt if it had Lucian and Seth Kerres on it!” Chumbler said.

”Are you just gonna make bootlegs of these guys?” I said.

It wasn’t fair that these mat ball dudes got this kind of attention that they could have shirts made of them and people would buy them. Nobody was buying shirts for my team. Nobody was buying shirts for my Downside stuff...but maybe they’d get someone else’s. If they were gonna do this anyways, I might as well make money off of it, right? That wasn’t the worst thing I could think of doing by any stretch, right?

”Hey, you think people would buy a Tokickaman shirt?” I asked. ”Just like, hypothetically speaking.”

Elisa gasped. ”Oh, I love Tokickaman! He’s so dreamy and sweet! I honestly ship him with Lucian and Seth Kerres sometimes.”

”Right...” I said.

”Interesting you suggested Tokickaman right away,” Roux said. ”Are you Tokickaman?”

”No,” I said.

”Heh,” Roux said. ”I do know who Tokickaman is, and that Tokickaman is most certainly not you, I was just testing to see how easily you lie.”

”Well, you’ve proved that I am a truly honest person,” I said.

”As if,” Roux said.

I had to really watch what I said. Roux was clever, and I couldn’t help bantering with them. If I slipped up I might give away info about Syval/Tokickaman, Aira, and myself that we didn’t want out there.

God, how many people know at this point? It hit me that in addition to the trio involved (using trio loosely as we’d managed about 1.5 successful operations as a group), Marmalade, P.D., Caeda, and Chickadee knew I had taken that devil medication and could shift. This was already a very high number of people knowing something that nobody was supposed to know about. Of them I knew I could trust Marms, but the rest...

Roux snapped their fingers in front of my face. ”Quit spacing out, Chumbler’s talking.”

”...which is why they said there’s nothing they can do about the inky smell on the shirts, but I think that’s part of the charm,”

While I’d been contemplating Chumbler started yapping and I barely noticed.

”Have we considered saying that’s how the boys smell?” Z.O.K. suggested.

”Brilliant, actually! Wow, from you of all people!” Chumbler said.

”You don’t have to make me sound so dumb when I throw a bone to your dumb ideas,” Z.O.K. said.

”I was being genuine!” Chumbler said.

”Kay, so we screen print some shirts,” I said. ”You want a design? I can whip up one quick, my vote is Tokickaman.”

Marmalade didn’t look thrilled about any of this, less so when I actually entertained the notion of joining in.

”Maybe if we just give them something they’ll leave us alone,” I said.

”You could give me cold, hard cash and I’ll be out of your hair,” Chumbler said.

”Well, not that,” I said.

”Koridia, why are you intolerant of making bootlegs of those mat ball boys but are fine with doing the same to Tokickaman?” Roux asked.

”Because...” I said. Do not say you know Tokickaman. Do not say you know Tokickaman. Do not say you know Tokickaman. ”Because I know Tokickaman, and he’d be cool with it. Er, I mean! I know someone who knows Tokickaman. Who is a he. I don’t know what Tokickaman goes by.”

”Well, Tokickaman makes it pretty obvious, right?” Elisa said.

”The complicated nature of gender goes beyond etymology,” Marmalade said.

”Whoa,” I said. ”No idea what any of that means but it sounds badass.”

”She stole that from my blog,” Roux said.

”No I didn’t, it’s from Tyrant Rangers,” Marmalade said.

”Wait, it is?” I asked. ”I don’t remember that, which one?”

”It’s kind of hidden, but in the MMO if you pick X-gender for your character there’s a line of dialogue about it that pops up later,” Marmalade said.

”X-gender sounds badass too,” I said.

At least with that tangent I didn’t get any follow up questions about knowing Tokickaman and my admittedly pretty crappy cover that it was a friend of a friend situation. I drew a quick design on a site I used to design custom beam chaser team logos for the games and sent it to Roux, hoping they had Chumbler’s number and that I wouldn’t have to let Chumbler have any kind of access to my phone number.

”It looks OK, for an effort from Koridia,” Roux said. ”I’ll submit it to the team for approval. We’ve agreed on a 70/5/5/5/5/5/5 split on profits, yes? With me obviously getting the 70%.”

”Obviously,” Chumbler said.

”Hold on, wouldn’t we be getting screwed that way?” Z.O.K. said.

”And that’s one too many people, I think,” Marmalade said.

”We’ll hash out the details later,” Chumbler said. She tapped on her phone way too aggressively. ”And sent! Hey! My guy said the shirts can be here in an hour, that’s great!”

”Groovy, so mission accomplished,” I said. ”Thanks for doing business with us, now we have some business of our own to—”

”No!” Chumbler said.

”What now?” I asked.

”Don’t go, we need you!” Chumbler said.

”For what?” I asked.

”To model the shirts, obviously! And to be our official sales chick!” Chumbler said.

”Why would you want me for that?” I asked.

”Because you’re the most sociable of everyone present!” Chumbler said. ”If I try selling shirts they’ll suspect it’s some kind of gambling scam or something similarly nefarious.”

”I mean, it probably will end up being some kind of gambling scam,” I said.

”Sure, but we don’t need to advertise it!” Chumbler said. ”Please help us sell shirts.”

”C’mon Koridia, sell the damn shirts,” Roux said.

”Sell them! Sell them! Sell them!” Elisa and Z.O.K. chanted.

I looked to Marmalade to see what she thought.

”I’d probably never buy a Tokickaman shirt, but if you were selling one I might consider it?” Marmalade said. ”I guess you could put that natural charisma to work.”

”That’s true,” I said. I couldn’t shake a nagging suspicion I was doing something really stupid but I had to do something to stick it to the boys’ school for getting all the attention that I should’ve been getting.

I texted Aira that things got stupid and I’d be late, or if she wanted to join in this stupidity she could find us and we could chat after.