Rising Shards

”What the frick?” Zeta muttered. Her sister Anastasia had just casually dropped the info that she knew why Kalei had been acting strange lately.

I realized she could be lying. It was Anastasia after all. I barely knew her, but nothing had been pleasant about her so far. It was unfortunate that she was related to my Zeta, because there was this weird sense that I should try to get along with her. Zeta obviously had that sense too.

It was hard to think of what to say as we walked through a makeshift tunnel the devils had carved out with their powers. It was a long walk through empty room after empty room, making me fairly certain we’d slipped into the void at some point in all this.

”Do any of you know what she’s talking about?” I asked.

”No idea,” Sai said.

Myles, Charmaine, and Esther all either shrugged or shook their heads.

”Can you give us a hint, maybe?” Zeta suggested. ”We’re just worried about Kalei, we want to help.”

”Tch,” Anastasia scoffed. ”I shouldn’t have even let that slip if I knew you’d be so obnoxious about it.”

”How is asking for a hint obnoxious?” Zeta asked.

”It just is!” Anastasia snapped. She stopped, hands on her hips, marching back to Zeta. I stepped forward as well. ”I’m tolerating your presence at the moment due to the idiotic circumstances we’ve found ourselves in, but unless you’ve forgotten, we’re enemies.”

”Ana’s dramatic, don’t mind her,” Myles said.

”We can tell,” I said.

”You really wanna be mean to our training buddies like that?” Charmaine asked.

”Don’t!” Anastasia growled, flailing her hands about like she was giving a speech in class and was trying to remember her words without notecards. ”Call them that! They are our enemies!”

”I dunno, they seem cool,” Myles said. ”Maybe we can take this idiotic circumstance and get to some kind of equal ground.”

”What kind of equal ground could we possibly have with our enemies?” Anastasia asked. ”With Faleur? Are you joking?”

Myles just grinned.

”Ana, you realize she’s trying to piss you off, right?” Sai said.

”What? Why?” Anastasia asked.

”Because if I get you pissed enough that you storm off, we won’t all get yelled at every two seconds,” Myles said.

Anastasia crossed her arms and huffed. ”Well, now I’m staying.”

”Damn, played my hand too hard,” Myles said.

”You shouldn’t tell her exactly what you’re doing, then she’s just gonna do the opposite of what you want,” Charmaine said.

”Yeah, well maybe I’m doing triple reverse psychology, and I wanted her to stay,” Myles said.

”It’s not safe to split up, anyways,” Lillia said. ”We’ve been walking for quite some time now. Shall we devise a plan to get back home?”

”Maybe Myles can try that wire trick again?” I said.

Myles pointed upward. ”I’ve been following a conduit looking for a spot that it forks off, if I don’t see what I’m looking for in a few rooms though I’m assuming we’re in the void.”

”If we are in the void, what can we do to get back?” Lillia asked.

We tried to send out some kind of signal on our trusty wristbands, which promptly reminded us why they weren’t actually trusty outside of making sure our powers didn’t go wild.

”Don’t know why you expected that to work,” Anastasia said. ”It’s clear there’s some kind of block on contact outside of this lockdown area.”

”Maybe this would be the one time it’d work,” Zeta said.

”Idiotic,” Anastasia said. ”The power blockers are good for one thing. I’d expect even you to know that.”

”That’s...hm.” Zeta bit her lip.

”I believe I told you to not talk to me, either,” Anastasia said.

”Ana, come on,” Esther said. ”I know this is stressful, but you said you’d try to chill out a bit?”

”I said I’d utilize the anger I’d built up over all this time to ensure we perform to our best,” Anastasia said. ”And it’s a lot harder to channel that anger effectively when one of the two major sources of it is stuck in here with me.”

”I...” Zeta’s face scrunched up. She was trying hard not to cry, but I could tell this was getting to be too much. My initial instinct was to go smack Anastasia until she quit this, but making sure Zeta was alright was more important.

I tried to not draw attention to myself as I approached Lillia.

”I know you just said not to split up like a minute ago,” I whispered. ”But can you distract them for like five minutes just so they don’t notice we’re hanging back? Just wanna check on Zeta.”

Lillia gave me a thumbs up.

I went back to Zeta, grabbing her hand and slowing us down until the others were a few rooms ahead. We had to be in the void with how long this endless series of rooms was, but we’d deal with that later.

”What’s up?” Zeta asked, her voice quivering a bit.

”We can’t be too long, and we gotta keep them in sight or some stupid void business will happen and we’ll be alone, but...are you doing alright? This is a lot, isn’t it?” I asked as I tried to reach out to her face. As soon as I said ’alright,’ though, Zeta couldn’t hold her tears back any more and clamped onto me like she wanted to tackle me. I rubbed her back.

”It’s so much,” Zeta said. ”I’m trying to be strong, but it’s hard.”

”Yeah, it’s rough,” I said. ”I’m so sorry, you don’t deserve any of this. Not that anyone does, but you’re so sweet.”

”Why couldn’t I get a second sister that isn’t a complete jerk? It’s not fair.”

”I know,” I said. ”If she says anything else to you I’m gonna trip her with a vine and then give her a good ol’ stomp like she gave Penteldtam.”

”Pfft, don’t do that,” Zeta said. ”I mean, it’d be cool. But I don’t think she realizes how good you are in a fight.”

”Yeah, probably not,” I said. ”If it’s too much, we can just stay back, I’ll tell Lillia something later.”

”I dunno,” Zeta wiped her eyes. ”It’s prolly too dangerous...I can handle her, just gimme more cry breaks if I need em.”

”You got it,” I said. ”And when we get out of this stupid thing, we’re going to have a nice date, you and me. And we’ll do anything you want. Because you deserve it after all this.”

”Thanks,” Zeta said. ”You do too, you know.”

We both glanced at the others, noting that their backs were turned still, and they were just far enough away. Then our eyes met. My hands moved down to Zeta’s hips, and she shuddered.

”I know I’m crying and gross, and we should really get back, but...” Zeta said. ”Can you...? Maybe just for a second?”

”Just a few seconds,” I said.

”A few seconds, yeah,”

”Of course,” I said, leaning in to kiss her, my hands squeezing just a bit. ”And you’re not gross.”

Zeta whimpered as I peppered her with kisses. I felt that urge in me again, that need for more with her. That voice inside me I was sometimes afraid to let out. This was the last place we should be doing this, but maybe that made it more enticing. Just as I felt a strong need to bite her, Zeta’s eyes widened, looking past me. I whirled to see Raytris looking incredibly embarrassed, her cheeks a rosy color compared to the rest of her blue hued self.

”Crap, forgot you were here,” I said.

”Sorry! Sorry!” Raytris said. ”I really didn’t mean to. I just was making sure you didn’t get too far from the others, then you started kissing, and I didn’t want it to go too far, and—”

”It’s fine, we get interrupted a good seventy-five percent of the time we try anything,” I said.

”Maybe eighty percent, honestly,” Zeta said.

I took Zeta’s hand. ”We should get back, yeah. But we’re picking this up at that date.”

”You’re on,” Zeta smiled.