Rising Shards

We scraped our fangs and headed to the void coordinates Jeans gave Aira. I didn’t have any fond memories of the desert area we were returning to, and honestly if someone told me this wasn’t even the same place I’d believe them.

For all of Wildfire Hearts’ sleek looking equipment, we had brought along something that was decidedly more Rising Shards-y, in that it looked janky and old. It was this weird little cart-tank that had a chair and a console bolted onto a platform with treads. I estimated it to be about fifty or sixty years old given its style, looking like something out of my grandma’s collection of Tech of the Future Montly magazine issues.

”Jeans told me one of us has to be on this thing,” Aira said. ”Well, we don’t have to, but it’d probably be good to have someone there? The person at this station will keep an eye on things and track it all, I guess.”

Jeans had vanished back into wherever she went in the Atrian crystal before we went into the void, and hadn’t reappeared yet.

”Ehh, Marms, you wanna go for it?” Kalei said.

”You don’t want me fighting?” I asked.

”Nah, more just...I trust you the most to not do something with some dumb equipment Jeans brought with,” Kalei said.

I liked the sound of being Kalei’s most trusted person in this group enough that I hopped onto that office cart tank thing right after.

”How do I use this?” I asked, my eagerness to help Kalei met with the crushing reality of trying to understand an old piece of equipment.

Aira flipped a big switch on the side. ”Basically all me and her talked about in detail is this kind of thing.”

The machine turned on, sounding like three broken treadmills mashed with a printer as it lit up.

”Then she said we have to...” Aira said. ”This part is kinda weird.”

”I’d be more concerned if something was like, normal around here,” Kalei said.

Aira pulled out a recorder, an instrument I hadn’t seen in person since kindergarten probably. She played a few notes.

”Is something supposed to happen, or...?” Kalei said.

It took a few minutes, but the reason Aira played the flute was clear after a horde of enemies approached on the horizon. Well, former enemies I guess? Another thing I barely remembered because I was too busy freaking out as we were flung from one stupid situation to another were the enemies we ran into. To me they were a blur of freaky looking Exa Cani, apparently retention sprites based off of some old evil army. There were a lot of them, and Aira showed us how to scan and count them. Once they were in our range, they just kinda stood around.

For all the things that didn’t make sense in this world, I at least somewhat got retention sprites. Lots of places in the void held memories of the past in them, and some people could use that energy to conjure people, like echoes of people. I could follow that. Why someone would remake an old evil army, who knows, but Jeans seemed to like stacking red flags after red flags up.

After her army was assembled, Miss Red Flag herself finally reappeared, asking the others to show their stuff in battle against her own soldiers.

”Minions! On my command, charge at us! Attack with all your might!” Jeans said.

”Minions?” I said, completely unable to let that one go. ”She thinks she’s a cartoon villain from like forty years ago.”

The retention sprite army started to charge. Kalei looked my way before she went off, that brief look of concern giving me entirely too many butterflies.

”I’ll hang back, I don’t wanna mess with any of this equipment,” I said.

”Don’t worry, we got this!” Syval said.

”I sure hope so,” Kalei said.

I felt a chill in the air, I thought Kalei being concerned for me was making me actually shiver, but it was just her shifting to her icy Downside form. It happened quickly, and in those glimpses there were moments of terror in the transformation, but as I sat watching, all I could think about was how her Downside self just looked so cool. A bit monstrous, a bit like a wild animal, throw in a raging blizzard, and also house all that in Kalei’s coolness, it was great.

I wanted to focus on the cool fighting as Kalei and the others started their battle, but I couldn’t right away. Jeans stayed by me, a pale strand of energy going from her to Aira.

”So you’re just gonna stand around?” I asked. ”I guess you probably can’t fight like this.”

”Guess not,” Jeans said. ”You’re new here, aren’t you?”

”I mean, like relatively, yeah,” I said. I purposefully let that conversation trail land like I threw a soggy paper towel and missed the garbage, letting it splat to the ground.

Jeans nodded. I’d say there was an awkward silence, but the sounds of fighting drowned that out.

Surprisingly, Roux led the charge against the Sharai warriors. Energy coalesced around one of their hands, making a giant fist.

”Witness, the might of my big punch!” Roux swung against a tough looking Sharai soldier. I’d never seen Roux do like, anything in a fight so this alone was stunning.

Roux just stayed in the pose, arm forward. Then they pulled back, the retention sprite entirely unaffected. ”Ow, ow! I mean...that was...part of my plan...” They coughed and ran back toward me.

”What the hell was that?” I asked.

”I just...did a fake attack!” Roux laughed nervously. ”To get them off their game. Now Kalei will go all Roux Jr. on them and wipe them out.”

That I was confident in as well. With Syval and Aira flanking her, Kalei rushed ahead, conjuring up icicles that she threw like knives at the Sharai.  The ice just...bounced off of them though.

”Wait, what?” I said. Kalei was way stronger in her Downside form, what was going on?

Syval and Aira flew and teleported around Kalei, each getting out their bloodsabers. They each swung at more Sharai soldiers, but the attacks just bounced off.

I looked right to Jeans, wondering if she’d led us into a trap.

”Hm, that’s a bummer,” Jeans said.

”What’s happening?” I asked.

Jeans shrugged, a wry smile on her face. ”Maybe they got stronger while I was away?”