Rising Shards

Aira was kind of relieved when Syval called in. She couldn’t sleep and found herself tossing and turning, wishing she could do something actually fun and useful on this camping trip. The longer she waited by herself, the more she felt a strange sensation, like she wasn’t really alone.

Aira and Syval had two toy radios that somehow still worked in the void. Syval called in with their secret code (a bird call that Syval could imitate somewhat adequately).

”C-caw! C-caw!”

Aira picked up her radio. ”Uh, that is a lovely chirp of a bird, what color is it?”

”Code yellow,” Syval said.

”Seriously?” Aira asked. ”Where are you?”

”I’m in this...city thing,” Syval said. ”It took me like five minutes to fly from your camp.”

”You’re lucky you didn’t get caught sneaking in, you know,” Aira said.

”I know, but hurry, something’s going down over here!” Syval said. ”There’s a big energy bubble around it, you can’t miss it.”

Aira was off, teleporting about a mile away from camp. It barely exerted any energy. Ever since she and Syval each ate a crystal they found in the Taramin Labs, she’d felt a boost of power and could teleport farther and use her gift longer, but nothing else.

Like Syval said, it wasn’t hard to miss. Like someone took a snowglobe of a block in a city, plopped it into the void, then big-ified it. When she teleported past the dome of energy surrounding it, she was greeted by completely different weather, a crisp, slightly breezy night outside to a thunderstorm inside.

Aira took a mental note of the place, finding that helped her teleport back to them more easily, before whistling. After a few seconds, she heard the same whistle back, and was able to locate Syval that way. He was hunched over behind some kind of vehicle that looked like it was supposed to be a car at some point, but they didn’t look drivable or rideable unless someone got on them like a motorcycle. They were only about waist high on Aira. Dwelling on weird void designs didn’t help in most cases, but Aira still noted that as well.

”Sorry if I woke you up,” Syval said.

”Nah, I couldn’t sleep,” Aira said. ”What did you find?”

”Take a look,” Syval nodded. ”But like, carefully!”

”Obviously!” Aira said. She peeked over the blocky vehicle and saw three of the devils conversing. Caeda, P.D., and Chickadee.

”I can’t hear them,” Syval said. ”But this seems suspicious.”

”Definitely,” Aira said.

Caeda got excited about something. The other two stepped back, looking around, almost directly at Aira and Syval for a second. Aira gasped and held her breath, ducking back down. After a few seconds, she looked out again.

P.D. and Chickadee now had one of the vehicle things, lifting it with their shadowy energy. They chucked it at Caeda, who knocked it away into one of the buildings by launching a conjured elevator upwards. It crashed in a fiery display as Caeda cheered for herself. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the city but them, but this still looked dangerous.

”I think this is something we should put a stop to,” Syval said.

”If Kalei was here, she’d probably yell at us for rushing in,” Aira said.

”You think?” Syval said. ”I think she’d be all, ’let’s kick their asses.’”

”I could also see her saying that,” Aira said. ”Shall we, Tokickaman? Wait, you didn’t bring the costume?”

”I...left it a couple blocks back, it got all tangled in a drain,” Syval said. ”We’re fine without it, come on!”