Rising Shards

It had been a few days since my kind of second arrival at Rising Shards. The stares and whispers hadn’t lessened, but I was getting fewer questions every day if I really was Zeta and Stella’s sister. I didn’t realize how much I could grow to hate that question.

For excursions into the void, we were required to go to a facility on campus that allowed the safest departures and arrivals. The most common way to enter the collection of dimensions was to scrape a special kind of rosin across a fang. There were a multitude of other ways to go to the void, but a place like this was the safest.

I waited somewhat impatiently for Mother to arrive. She was overseeing some of our void visits and studying how our treatments reacted to the environmental change, and to combat. Myself and the other devils were seated in one of the bigger waiting areas with rows of chairs. I tried to not pay much attention to the class a few rows back. Zeta’s class. I caught her staring at me, but when I glared back she pretended she wasn’t.

Most of the class’s attention was on visiting Echela cadets. One of them, Roxana, caused drama immediately upon her arrival and seemed to have the unfortunate need to make a loud, dramatic appearance wherever she went, acting like she was a celebrity or something and making the simple fools of Rising Shards believe it just out of sheer charisma.

”Oh, come on, it’s just me,” Roxana said as some of the classes crowded her. The other Echela cadets spread around and took their seats. They were in their tech-y looking bodysuits which helped them use their powers.

I heard a great amount about how Cani and Echela were incredibly different, but sometimes I didn’t see it. There was the obvious physical things, Cani typically had longer fang teeth and Echela had longer, pointed ears, but we all had some kind of ability or gift, Echela were just more focused. They didn’t go into the void, but there were plenty of experiments done to try and bring that about so it probably wouldn’t be long until they could. I was glad the Wildfire Hearts uniform was typically long robes, and that the Rising Shards one was mainly dress clothes; the tight tech laden body suits the cadets had to wear would make me feel strange.

A girl with exhausted energy sat in one of the empty seats in my row. It was impressive how much she conveyed the sleepiness as her face was almost completely covered with a bandana that hid her hair, big sunglasses, and a face mask.

”She’s exhausting,” the girl said.

I looked back to Roxana, who was actually signing autographs now.

”I...can imagine.” I said, surprised this girl was talking to me. ”What are you doing here? I mean, why are they making you go into the void training spot if you’re Echela?”

”Beats me,” the girl said. ”I have some class here. Wait!”

Before I could stop her, the girl scooted a chair closer.

”Hold up your hand,” She said. ”Right hand. Or both, actually.”

For some reason, I obeyed the request, unsure of what she wanted as she stared at my hands.

”Thought so. What do you play?” She asked.

”Huh?”

”You got calluses, you gotta play something,” the girl said. ”Lemme guess, guitar?”

”Bass,” I said.

”Mmm, I knew it!” she laughed. ”Sorry, I get kinda pushy sometimes.”

”I see...” I said. What the hell was this? I looked around to see if anyone noticed this strangeness, feeling oddly relieved Nikki wasn’t in this class. ”Do you...play?”

”Singing, but I wanna get better at guitar,” she said.

Before I could say any more, Mother arrived, and myself and the other devils headed to the void.

It didn’t occur to me until hours later that I forgot to get the girl’s name.

Mother explained what our task was as we arrived in the field of flowers, an area in the void forged by the school system, a void space that was baby proofed and quite a bore to train in unless I had someone interesting to fight (truly, I hadn’t felt much excitement at all in this region until I faced off with Kalei in her full devil form).

”A large void monster is here, and the first years are not ready to face it,” My mother said. ”I think it’d be a good showcase for your powers, and practice as well.”

The full team of devils was with me. Sai and the others from the group from the same lost world, Myles, Ash, Esther, and Charmaine. Chickadee, the obnoxious one who was unfortunately invaluable in battle. And Caeda, the girl with lilac hair and a big poofy squirrel-like tail who had declared herself our leader.

”Alright team, when we get out there it’s on my command,” Caeda said. I begrudgingly put up with her delusions of leadership. I admitted to myself there would likely come a time when I’d have to wrest control of the group from her if she continued to get out of hand. For now, I let her play leader, it was easier than getting in another interminable argument with her.

The ground shook, and it was clear almost immediately what our target was. A dinosaur-like void monster stomped across the field of flowers with massive legs, rows of sharp teeth, but flourishes only a creature from this place could have like eyes made of sparkling disks and cords dangling where its arms would have been if it were just a regular dinosaur. The beast was dripping in Elka, the substance that made up many creatures in the void.

We all got our bloodsabers ready. Caeda started barking orders already, but I was only half-listening. I mainly had some aggressions to take out, and this beast was the perfect outlet for them.