Rising Shards

After patting myself down to make sure I didn’t break anything or die, I sat up and checked on the others. None of us were injured outside of bruised egos.

“Wow…that sucked.” I said, watching as the train rolled away to the distance.

Laenie’s van slowly turned around ahead of us and made its way back to us even slower.

“So you didn’t make it, huh?” Laenie said as she rolled to a stop near us.

“What made you guess that one?” Kalei said.

“I hate this stupid train,” Aira said as she teleported in the middle of our bruised ego group, making us all flinch.

“It’s no Trian the Train, that’s for sure.” Oka scoffed.

“What’s that?” Kalei asked.

“N-nothing,” Oka said.

“But hey, on the plus side, none of us landed on our bloodsabers and died.” Aira said.

“She makes a good point,” Kalei said.

“Although our bloodsabers were all in the van,” Oka said.

“Wait, so what were we going to do once we got on the train if we saw like monsters or something?” I asked.

“Well, we could have had Laenie…throw them to us,” Kalei said. “Wait, that might be even dumber. We still have our powers though, so we could have used those I guess.”

“We really should plan these out more,” Oka said. “These are all things we can fix in planning.”

Everyone turned to Lillia.

“I can’t plan for everything you all do here!” Lillia said. “Just plotting out this was a lot!”

“We’re lucky Diast gave us that cruiser at least,” Oka said.

“I can’t imagine minivan in a cans come cheap,” Aira said. “Minivans in a can? Whatever.”

“Void Traversal Unit C31-B in a can.”

“Whatever.”

I didn’t tell the others about it, but using a minivan in a can was slightly upsetting. Before she got expelled for attacking me, Ovie drove her stupid minivan in a can around, and I could always tell she was close when it made that “BWOMP” sound when it opened and closed.

Kalei stood up. “Well, let’s head back, I give up.”

“Give up?” I asked.

“Yeah, that sucked, and I hate trains now, and I want to go to my room and play Tyrant Rangers until I can’t think about this anymore.” Kalei said. She smelled her hands. “Ew, they smell like train now!”

“There will be other crystal level rare events, I guess.” Aira said.

“No, screw that!” I said. “We came all this way, I don’t wanna give up here! That’s…demoralizing!”

“We all read the word a day calendar today, Zates,” Kalei said.

“So we should all get why today’s word is perfect for what would happen if we stopped here!” I said. “We’re already here, right? We’re smart, we can figure out a backup plan or something!”

“I mean, smart is pretty debatable in your case,” Kalei said, prompting me to pluck out some grass near me and throw it at her. “Hey! I was about to add in my case, too!”

“I’m with Zeta,” Oka said. “When are we going to get another chance like this? If we give up now, it could mess up this whole trip before we’re even started. And then they’ll make us do a retake! Does anyone want that?”

“I’m in if we have a plan that doesn’t involve me driving,” Laenie said.

“If Laenie’s in, I’m in,” Aira said.

Lillia started cleaning her glasses with a cloth she had in her pockets. “I’d rather get this done now as well.” She said.

Kalei crossed her arms. “Well, if you’re all gonna peer pressure me into continuing this pointless and likely fruitless mission, I suppose I’m in.”

“Then it’s unanimous and settled!” I said. “So…what do we do now?”

Lillia looked at her wristband’s projection screens and scanned around the area. With a few tricks, she brought up a map of the area and the path the train was taking around it.

“Well, the trajectory of the train seems to be on a loop around the field of flowers,” Lillia said. “We could maybe use that to our advantage.”

“So either wait and meet it when it gets back here, or maybe cut across and get it on the other side?” Oka asked. “Those might require driving, though.”

“I mean, I can drive if we really need to again,” Laenie said. “I just don’t really want to.”

“If we get to it, then what?” Kalei asked. “We already proved just jumping on it is pointless.”

“Let’s get some explosives and derail the train,” Aira suggested. “Big explosion, we raid the results. Easy peasy.”

“Except for actually getting the explosives,” Lillia sighed. “And none of us have any explosive powers.”

“You don’t know that!” Aira said. “You have fire breath, Zeta can do lightning sometimes…we can wring some explosives out of that.”

“Wait…” Laenie said. “It’s…coming back?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Lillia said. “It’s on a set course. Why would it turn around?”

“Trains don’t turn around,” Aira said. “Not without a switching station or a very long curved rail with a switch on it. It’s likely going in reverse.”

“Fine, whatever,” Lillia said.

“Are you both forgetting this is a void train made out of like candy?” Kalei asked. “Stop using logic here.”

Lillia stood up, patted herself off, and only took a few seconds analyzing the path on Laenie’s wristband display before coming up with a game plan.

“Alright, everyone do exactly as I say.” Lillia said. She picked up our bloodsabers and stabbed each of them into the ground, creating two rows of three swords. “Oka, Laenie, by me. Kalei, Zeta, Aira, stand across from us.”

We each took place where Lillia said, with each of us standing on the opposite side of our personal bloodsabers.

“What’s the plan?” Oka asked. “Also, I’m impressed you can keep track of who has what bloodsaber.”

“We’re going to do the bloodsaber tether move.” Lillia said.

“But–” I started to protest, but Lillia cut me off.

“I know we haven’t practiced it much, but I believe this is the best way to win here given how little time we have before the train is back.”

There wasn’t time to worry. The bloodsaber tether move involved its user having a strong connection with their blade, using their powers to make it fly towards them. I was terrified of this move, as cool as it is in premise, I couldn’t help but picture me grabbing everything other than the handle.

The ground shook. The train was close again. I copied Oka’s stance, as she could pull off the tether move easily. I looked at my bloodsaber and held my hand out as the train came into view beside us.

“Everyone get ready…” Lillia said. “In three…two…NOW!”

I concentrated with everything I had to pull my bloodsaber to me as the train passed by. Lillia’s timing was perfect, as the train came between us, Oka, Kalei, Aira, Laenie, and Lillia’s bloodsabers all shot across, slicing through the train. Mine stayed in place, not moving. The train crashed into a pile, exploding with purple smoke billowing from it.