Rising Shards

”Luckily, you’d been setting up the dominoes for your own downfall with your cowardice,” Zoey said.

For a second I thought I was just imagining it, but no, a lone spotlight really shone on me.

”Actually, wait, before I do that,” Zoey said, and the spotlight turned off. ”Do you wanna know how I know that or what? Because it wasn’t just Caeda and Chickadee giving me the deets.”

”A lot of my information gathering was basically just messing with everyone and picking up things while I did that,” Chickadee said. ”As long as I got to mess with you all, I’m happy.”

”See? Agent of chaos right there,” Zoey said. ”You wanna know where the other intel came from? Because I know a lot about you all.”

”It doesn’t matter,” I said, my voice so dry that I don’t know if any noise actually came out.

”I’m just gonna say it quick,” Zoey said. ”Then we’ll get back to the rest of my explanation, then the fighting. I won’t take too long, I promise. Tay, step on up! Where’s Tay?”

Murmurs surrounded me as we looked for her. Was Tay working with Zoey all along? She was always filling up her weird notebooks with stuff about everyone so she’d be...unfortunately a really good source of information.

I spotted Tay just a second before whoever was operating the spotlight did, and felt oddly relieved at how she looked faint. She didn’t have the expression of someone who had been betraying us all along, unless she was a better actor than I took her for.

”You...you used my notes?” Tay squeaked.

”Oh yeah, you little freak!” Zoey laughed heartily like she was just messing around with a friend. ”Caeda and Chickadee are great at getting intel, and shoutout to Wildfire Hearts for violating everyone’s privacy with a genuine ’spy on other students’ class, but nothing they found out was as good as your books upon books of stalker info on all your friends. Helped me set this all up so perfectly.”

”I...wh-what?” Tay said, clutching her handbag that had her journals in them.

”You should really have put a lock on those things when you leave them around, or not carry them around at all, but you do you,” Zoey said. ”Tell you what, you can join me, if you want.”

”Join you...?” Tay said.

”Think about it while I talk about the rest of this stuff,” Zoey said. ”She was the other big source, but I did have some help from a few other sets of eyes on the ground, so to speak. One in particular...”

I hadn’t even noticed what they were up to, but while Zoey was yapping endlessly with her attention on me and Tay, small vines had been growing across the energy wall blocking us from the stage. It was a familiar move I’d seen Oka use on the devils before, one that was in tandem with Lillia. There were small bulbs on the vines that if this went like last time were filled with Lillia’s fire power. They’d weaved the vines high up enough that I figured nobody would be hurt in the audience when they went off, but I still held my hands out and stepped back, trying to get everyone near me to move.

”Now!” Oka yelled, and Lillia set the trap. The vines all exploded at once...but they had no effect on the barrier.

”Ooh, nice try,” Zoey said. ”But no, you’re not strong enough to break through. Like I keep telling you. Let me talk. Oh my god. But honestly? Good timing. I wasn’t sure when I’d get to do this. Chickadee my dear, if you’d please!”

”Gladly,” Chickadee said. She pulled out a small device from her pocket. I thought it was going to be that thing she had when she was getting the retention sprite the last time I saw her, but it looked more like a TV remote. She pressed a big red button on it. I thought she was gonna explode something under us as payback, but then one of the speakers on stage let out a weird noise that made the ground vibrate.

I thought that’s all it was doing, until Raytris let out a yelp, clutching her head, her whole body shaking.

”R-Raytris?” Roux asked, trying to comfort their dance partner.

”It’s...it’s not me...” Raytris said. ”I wouldn’t...”

”Turn it up, she’s not being her ’fun’ self yet,” Zoey said.

Chickadee pressed more buttons on the remote, and the speakers got louder. Raytris started screaming, looking like she was melting as her slime self basically spread out onto the ground. Roux frantically tried to scoop her back into one place to no avail. I’d never seen Roux look so panicked before, it kind of broke my heart.

The slime that made up Raytris’ body suddenly shot up like a big wave, washing across everyone on the dance floor. I tried to move, but now we were all stuck. Then at the front of the ”wave,” a body rose up from the slime. It was Raytris, but I could tell she wasn’t herself just by her body language. She saluted to Zoey.

”Commander Raytris, at your service,” Raytris said, her tone completely different than normal. ”The scum of the enemy will be held as long as necessary.”

”OK, this one’s kinda weird, but slime girls are already inherently kind of weird,” Zoey said. ”Raytris was a Taramin Lab girlie just like me. Well, not just like me, she had a different experiment done on her, probably because of the whole slime thing. Turns out while she was in the labs, they programmed this personality into her. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but I have a hunch, but that’s a whole other tangent that’ll get us even farther off course, and we’re already pretty off course. The important thing is she takes orders from us! And now you’re all taken care of, so let’s get back to what I was saying.”

The spotlight turned back on me.

”Kalei Koridia,” Zoey said. ”Got anything to say for yourself? Lied to your best friends, Kept them in the dark while you hung out with your other friends, got a super special new power, and now you’re working with your best friends’ worst enemy. Well, worst enemy for now.” She winked at me. ”That’s a spot I’d like to take.”