Rising Shards

Aira teleported me and Syvaal outside. I forgot I didn’t have a jacket, and felt it immediately. When we were at the edge of campus, Syval got his Tokickaman getup on. It looked even stupider up close, and it took everything I had to not immediately rip on him for it. The tarp cape stretched like five feet behind him.

“Wait, damn, do I need to disguise myself?” I asked.

”You could hide under the tarp like I’ve been doing,” Aira said. “It’d be best to, in case anyone catches us. And shut your phone off too.”

“I forgot that in my room,” I said, scratching my head. ”There’s a lot to remember with this crap.”

“See? Not so easy picking out a costume, is it?” Syval said.

”I meant this whole thing in general,” I said. ”I can still do better than blue tarp.” I gasped. “Aira, dude! Teleport me to my room! I have something that’d be perfect!”

”We don’t have time for that,” Syval said. ”Do we?”

“Sure we do,” I said. “I got some sick cosplay that would be a great costume.”

”A jump to a familiar place is pretty easy, actually,” Aira said. She touched our shoulders and in a flash we were back in the dorms.

”Forgot you never warn us when you do that,” I said. ”But c’mon, you don’t wanna be spotted looking like that.”

”Right, yeah,” Syval said, taking his mask/cape combo off and crumpling it under his shirt the best he could hide it.

”You want me to get anything for you?” I asked. ”I got some cool costumes.”

”Oh, nah,” Aira said. ”I’m good like this.”

I opened the door to my room slowly, not wanting to wake Marms if she was still sleeping. Or stumble on Zeta and Oka making out if they snuck off from the talent show.

It was just Marmalade though, still out cold. Girlie stayed up way too late playing a puzzle game, and would probably be out all day. I held a finger to my mouth to shush Aira and Syval, quietly opening the closet, getting out my cosplay bin.

I didn’t have a lot in it yet, but I had a few costumes. A long, crimson jacket based off the one a main character from Hado Diconius was my pick, and a ski mask. I gave Syval and Aira another chance to upgrade from the crappy costume, but nothing I had was apparently good enough.

We managed to leave the room without Marms noticing, and after a few teleporting leaps from Aira, we were in Litus Empirica, the nearest big city. We darted into an alley, and I felt pretty badass getting my jacket and mask on.

”So are we just relying on Aira for this?” I asked. ”Can’t you fly, Syval?”

”I don’t think I’m strong enough to carry two people at once,” Syval said. ”Also, maybe we should use codenames.”

”Why?” I asked.

”Haven’t you seen The Infinites? Our identities have to be protected. You can’t just go around calling Aira ’Aira’ or me Syval.”

”Well, you just loudly said your name, so.” I said.

”I mean in the future!” Syval said. ”For lack of a better one, I’ll be Tokickaman again.”

”You can call me...” Aira started.

”Blude?” I said.

”Nah, the more I think about that one the less I like it,” Aira said. ”Just...point and say ’you’ if you need me, I can’t think of a good one yet.”

”You know, ’Downside’ would be kind of a good name for you, Kalei,” Syval said.

”Is that a dig?” I asked. ”I’m not that negative.”

”No, just it sounds cool!” Syval said. ”And you’re cool.”

”Ah. Thanks,” I said. ”We can use that for now. So Tokickaman, Downside, and...point and say ’you’.”

The streets were eerily empty. Maybe people were already in bunkers for the void storm. Or we just went to a really quiet part of town.

”I’m not seeing a lot of potential action, gang,” I said. It crossed my mind that maybe Aira and Syval weren’t actually Tokickaman, and just were pretending to join the fad. Whether they were or not, I was pretty sure these two had no idea what they were doing.

”Usually when we go to East Valataran, there’s something to do right away,” Aira said.

”Yeah, remember Letoh’s class?” I asked. ”East Valataran encourages this kind of thing. Maybe LE is more chill?”

Just about the second I said that, something crashed behind me. I whirled to see a weird, cylindrical car that could only be from the void had flew down, landing diagonally into the entrance of a building.

Looking up, the sky just looked off. Like the clouds had been scrambled in a weird way. More things began to plop down from the sky, odd objects from random worlds in the void. Shoes shaped like fish, magazines in languages I couldn’t read. Nothing car sized, but still told me we should probably get off the street.

”Storm’s really picking up now,” Aira said.

”’Maybe LE is more chill,’” Syval said.

”Oh, shut up,” I said, jogging to follow the two toward the building with the car wedged into it.

That seemed like a good place to start for helping people. Maybe the car wrecked the building’s foundation and it was all about to go down. We could be heroes and save whoever was inside. But nothing was shaking as we got to the entrance. The car caved a big hole in, but there wasn’t any commotion. We were the only ones around who were even approaching.

”Well, here’s your problem,” Syval said, gesturing to the car.

”Boooo.” I said.

Aira sidestepped the car, heading inside. It was kind of refreshing being in a group that didn’t have a meltdown at the first sign of danger.

”It looks empty,” Aira said.

”We should still look around,” Syval said. ”There might be someone inside.”

The front desk at this place was disheveled, but the car didn’t reach it. Going by the paperwork and business cards, this place was called the Taramin Labs.

Taramin. That business Risa’s dad runs.

That should have maybe motivated me to get the hell out of there, but for some reason it just made me more curious. The way past the front was locked, but that wasn’t an issue with a Cani with teleportation power on my team. Aira blinked us past the locks to another desolate hallway. It looked like no one had been in here for a long time.

”This might be a bust,” I said.

”Wait...” Aira said, eyes widening. ”Down this way.”

I didn’t realize Aira had such good hearing, but she must have heard someone as she rushed ahead. Sure enough, two people stood before a giant vault door, the kind you’d see in a bank holding some real treasure.

“What would you make the code?” One, a man, asked. “Wouldn’t you remember?”

“I…can’t…” The other, a woman, said.

It took me a second to realize that I knew who they were. I grabbed Aira and Syval and pulled them out of sight.

”What’s that for?” Syval whispered.

“Dude,” I said. ”Those are Zeta’s parents.”