Rising Shards

”No, hold on, wait wait!” Zoey said as most of the class fired bolts of energy at her from all kinds of elements, a barrage of every color. She reacted to them like she was being hit with snowballs, putting her arms up to try and stop them from hitting her face, but the rest of the class had her attention completely.

Zoey claimed she was unbeatably strong, and so far she seemed tough, but the longer her stupid presentation went the more I was starting to see at least a few limitations. I could feel my mind start to shift from defeat and devastation to strategy, like this was a beam chasers game now.

When I played, sometimes if I was really in the zone I’d get intense in my head analyzing the other team and their strengths and weaknesses. I hadn’t really needed to do that on just like the Cani fighting side of things, but maybe I could stop and think for just a second. I was still stuck in the glowing portal thing, but didn’t want to risk slipping out of it just yet. I didn’t see where Marms and Lillia ran to hide from the attack from the rest of our class.

She can tank punches and kicks, but if you have fire she actually gets hurt. Maybe Cani elemental crap works better than strikes? But everyone’s raining it down on her and she’s fine. Maybe you need to be as pissed as Oka was? What else? She can only comfortably do two of these portals at a time. She can’t push or pull if someone’s too far away from her. She won’t stop talking about how great she is or whatever the hell she blathered about to us about revenge and stuff the last hour.

Could I use any of those against her? I couldn’t really do anything about the portals at the moment unless I wanted to risk jumping out.

Maybe I could get two friends to charge at each side so Zoey uses both her portals and leap when they’re gone? Ugh, that’d take a minute to explain though.

”Kalei, lemme teleport you out of there,” Aira said.

”When did you get back?” I asked, nearly jumping as she appeared suddenly.

”Just like, now?” Aira said. ”Hold your hand out, I can just teleport you and you won’t set those off, probably.”

”That doesn’t make me very confident.” I said.

”Wait, hold on, does this even make sense though?” Aira asked.

”If you have to ask that about anything going around here, the answer is probably no,” I said.

”I’m just thinking, if these are both portal deals, why are they around your waist and you’re still here?” Aira said.

”Maybe it turns on when she says?” I said. ”Like, the portal part drops around me.” I waved my arms around, trying to gesture what I meant.

”Maybe,” Aira said. ”But whatever, grab my hand.”

I was about to, but up ahead, Raytris’ slime began to move again, lifting upward like a wave, blocking the incoming attacks.

”Finally,” Zoey said, barely any scratches on her in spite of all that. ”And where the hell did Chickadee and Caeda go?”

She looked to the stage, where the two were still stuck in ice pillars, trying and failing to break out.

”Oh, right,” Zoey said. ”Should probably get them out soon, can’t forget that.”

Roux ran around, waving their hands at our friends.

”Don’t hurt her!” Roux said. It was still beyond bizarre seeing Roux be genuinely concerned and sounding vulnerable.

A rush of energy hit me as I realized another group was doing something. I wasn’t sure what, but I could feel it in the air a second before I saw figures behind the wall of Raytris’ slime moving.

Sai, Esther, Charmaine, Myles, and Ash were wordless as they got into a formation beside each other, holding their arms up. A crackling lance of energy formed above them that they threw at the slime wall in front of them without a second of hesitation. I wasn’t sure if Raytris’ slime could be destroyed or anything, but this attack went right through her, opening a path for the devils to pass through.

Zoey seemed strong, sure, but I didn’t think she was strong enough to take on all five devils at once. Raytris started to reform the torn apart bit of herself, the wave beginning to reach out to the devils.

”No, focus on blocking the rest of the idiots here, I’ll handle them,” Zoey said.

Zoey brushed herself off from all the attacks she faced as the rest of our friends and classmates kept attacking.

”I had like. Gonna be honest, fifty-seven more pages of speech to get to,” Zoey said. ”But that might have to be put on hold now, eh?” She stretched as the devils got into position for a fight. ”See, like, you guys should be on my side. That was sick. Don’t you guys wish you were on this side? You were all set up to do this. You could’ve done exactly what I’m doing now, they gave you the ball and said, ’Here. All these loser students are your playthings to get stronger.’ But you chose poorly, and didn’t even play with your toys. And thus, are not worthy of being the heroes that’ll save this world.”

The devils did the same attack they did to the Raytris wall again, and Zoey caught the tip of the energy lance in her hands, it pushed her backwards as she strained against it.

”See, where was this fire right after you beat up Penteldtam? Just vanished,” Zoey grunted. ”No conviction. Boring.”

She lifted her arms up, sending the lance of energy right into the ceiling. The whole place shook as the shadow power tore through, blasting a hole that showed off the night sky.

Night? I thought. Wasn’t it daytime when this started? We haven’t been going that long, have we?

Zoey brushed her hair aside before she pressed something on her shoulder pads that made her cape thing click off and fall to the ground. ”Meanwhile, Caeda and Chickadee wanted something more. Which made our meeting very fortunate, didn’t it? It’s like—”

A flash of Aira’s teleporting, and suddenly Zoey was stopped mid sentence.

”I think we’ve all heard enough out of you,” Lillia said.

I hadn’t seen where Lillia went after the rest of the class opened fire, but it was clear she snuck up on me somehow and grabbed Aira, having her teleport Lillia right in front of Zoey the second she was distracted enough.

I would’ve never guessed I’d see Lillia brandishing the Sharai Daggers that Zoey must’ve dropped in the chaos, which she pointed right at Zoey’s neck.