Rising Shards

I stood leaning against a tree, standing in the field of flowers in our void node. Then I un-leaned and stood back up because nervousness and casual leaning didn’t lend themselves to each other. I had maybe my biggest trial in the void ahead of me, and I could feel the anticipation among the group as we waited for Dr. Diast. I checked my backpack to make sure I brought everything I needed to, then zipped it back up and leaned against the tree again. Then checked one more time to make sure I had a specific snack packed, then zipped, and then leaned against the tree. I was caught in that agonizing loop until Aira sighed.

“How long is this gonna take?” Aira asked. I was worried she was talking about me, but she gestured towards the way Dr. Diast usually arrived from.

“I’m tempted to nap,” Kalei said. “Would Diast yell at me again if she caught me napping?”

"She's been in a really good mood lately for some reason, so I doubt she'd yell," I said.

“If she wouldn’t take so long, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem.” Aira said.

“Or if someone could remember to wake us up when she’s getting here.” Kalei said.

“She like teleports in right by us, it’s kind of hard to prepare for that.” I said.

“Who, me?” Aira asked. “Because teleporting’s, well it’s my thing, you know?”

“No, I mean Dr. Diast,” I said. “I mean, you still teleport too obviously.”

“And I mean I’m still super bored.” Kalei said.

“Oh!” Oka said. “Zeta, show them the thing.”

Having an amazing girlfriend helped with the stress. Oka was getting in a giggly mood which was always contagious, too.

“No! It’s weird.” I said.

“What thing?” Aira asked.

“Zeta can pick up stuff with her tail now!” Oka said. She got a pen out and eagerly (she was full on biting her lower lip tier excited) held it out to me. “Here, show ‘em!”

I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t turn down her smile. I stood up and turned around. After a few tries, I managed wrapped my tail around the pen, and almost picked it up.


“That’s awesome, Zeta.” Aira said.

“Isn’t it?” Oka said.

Oka was still more excited about my tail than I was, I personally was still hoping it was a stress tail and would fall off. But it had been about a month with it, so it wasn’t likely.

“Here’s my thought, they should cancel class around now,” Kalei said. “We’re not gonna have anything to do for the next few weeks after this thing, and unless you like super failed and need the points, I don’t see why we have to go.”

“It does feel like all the teachers were just waiting for the Fang Moon Web trip,” Oka said.

I looked up to the sky. Even though I didn’t understand the nature of our void node’s “sky,” or if it was even a regular sky/atmosphere/planet type deal like back home, it was still affected by the upcoming Fang Moon Web, the big fall holiday of Cani. A deep, blood red moon loomed over us, like a crescent turned to its side, making it look like fangs. Our powers were apparently stronger under it, or more berserk, but so far, I hadn’t felt anything. In fact, my time with Feral Flu felt more like a sleepy hungry fuzzy anomaly while this felt more like everything regular with a scary sky. And it was a scary sky I was going to be stuck under for a long while, as we were all about to go on potentially an all night trip into the void on the eve of Fang Moon Web.

“There’s still plenty of work we have to do once this is done,” Lillia said.

“And we still have finals coming up,” I said.

“Like in two months!” Kalei said. “I’m talking now. Give us two weeks for Fang Moon Web, and you come back to a refreshed and reenergized Kalei Koridia.”

“Do you really want to start prepping how you’re going to slack off after how well the Fang Fair went?” Lillia said.

“Well…yeah.” Kalei said to Lillia’s exasperation.

“I’m surprised they don’t call them ‘Fang Finals’ or something silly like that.” Aira said.

“Did everyone bring their worksheets at least?” Lillia asked. “I’d rather find out now than go back and get them later.”

I got out my worksheet, which was four sheets of paper stapled together that I’d been anxiously staring at for the last week. Everyone else had remembered to bring theirs, but Kalei’s was already pretty crumpled.

“While we wait for Dr. Diast, I suggest we at least look over the worksheet one more time.” Lillia said.

“Wow, the school should just hire you already,” Kalei said. When Lillia glared at her, she quickly added, “You’re a better teacher than Diast!”

The worksheet was divided into parts. If we completed everything early, we wouldn’t have to spend the night in the void, which I was banking on.

PART ONE: the “HOW”

“Using the skills you’ve learned so far, find the key item that will lead you to the next level of the void. Describe your process here in at least two sentences.”

“Hey, how are we going to write these out while we’re in there?” Kalei asked. “Is there gonna be a new spot with like really flat rocks?”

“I got some rubber bands to keep it on a book,” I said, holding up the worksheets attached to my thinnest textbook.

“I brought two clipboards.” Lillia said, getting two clipboards out of her pristinely organized backpack.

“Sweet! Gimme one.” Kalei said.

“Sorry, Oka called my backup clipboard already.” Lillia said, yoinking her second clipboard away from Kalei’s grasp and handing it to Oka.

“Oka, gimme your clipboard.” Kalei said.

“Nah.” Oka said.

“You can just write your answers down in a notebook,” Dr. Diast said, suddenly appearing by us, which made me react similarly to when a bug flew in my mouth, with maybe a bit more arm flailing. She was carrying a bit more equipment than usual, which made sense given how big this trip was. “Then add it on the worksheet later.”

“How do you do that?” Aira asked. “I can teleport, and I’m still impressed every time.”

“Teacher powers.” Diast said. “Sorry I’m late. But alright team!”

“Team Starlight!” I said, raising a fist into the air.

“No,” Lillia said.

“We’re not doing that.” Kalei said.

“Aw.” I shamefully lowered my fist.

“First thing. Does everyone have the treasure they found in that pants room?” Diast asked.

We all got out the orange-ish crystals, which freed up a lot of backpack space that I hoped I could fill with some kind of void souvenir. As soon as they were out from our bags, they started to glow with the same bloody red as the fang moon above us.

“Now get out your bloodsabers, turn those on, and stab your blood moon crystals.”

I got out my bloodsaber, Minty. After getting my blood taken, I quickly stabbed down at the crystal. Despite the rock feeling solid before, when I stabbed into it, it felt more like stabbing a fruit. A gross, bloody fruit that looked like it was gonna burst a ton of blood on me. A second after stabbing, the crystal was absorbed completely into the sword. The veins inside of my bloodsaber turned a brighter glow of lime green and pink. The others had theirs turn into brighter shades of the colors they were in before as well; Oka’s was now a mix of sky blue, dark blue, pink, forest green, and red, Kalei’s turned blue and pink, Lillia’s became pink, red and purple. Aira and Laenie each had their bloodsabers turn a deeper mix of blue and red.

“That should be a permanent power boost to your bloodsabers.” Diast said. “Which you’ll need for today.”

“And we couldn’t do that before because…?” Kalei asked.

“Because it wasn’t Fang Moon Web. Or close enough to Fang Moon Web that we get the effects here.”

Before Kalei could get another snarky response in (Kalei had decided that snarky comebacks to teachers was fine as long as she cut down on them to her friends), Diast preemptively swatted her with some papers.

“I know today’s been pretty stressful to think about,” Dr. Diast said. She looked right at me, knowing I was stressing a great deal about this. “I’d say basically half of the Benta is this. On the plus side, once you do this, then you’re basically good for the rest of the semester.”

“Like…for realsies good?” I asked.

“Like we can stop trying in class and stop all the stupid homework good?” Kalei asked.

“No, Kalei, you still have to–“

“Like, for realsies good, got it. I’m adding this to my list of reasons why class should just be cancelled after this.”

“Anyways,” Diast said, growing better at remaining stone faced to Kalei. “This is your first Blood of the Fang Moon Web. Your first part of this is to head to this location…” Diast swiped through her wristband’s projection and gave us each a map location in the field of flowers. “Go down there, figure out what the crystal level rare thing is, find a key within that thing, and then we can go to that castle looking building past the pants room and then celebrate.”

We all took a minute to try and process the info. Diast had explained everything in detail pretty well before, but my worry had shoved a lot of that out of my memory in place for worry about spending a whole night in the void.

“So like...for realsies good.” I said.

“Yep.” Diast said. “Oh, and you guys get to use this here.”

She grabbed a can out of her pile of stuff and threw it to the side, which made a familiar “BWOMP” sound. After a few moments of technological unfurling, we were greeted with a minivan in a can that was bigger than any I’d seen before. Well, I’d only seen Ovie’s before in person, but I’d seen commercials for others on TV.

“We get an actual minivan in a can?” Kalei asked.

“Void Traversal Unit C31-B. In a can.” Dr. Diast said.

“Can I drive it?”

“Do you have your learner’s permit?”

“No.”

“At least one of you has theirs, I’m pretty sure.”

“Diast, did you check if any of us did?” Kalei said, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her head like that was her sitcom catchphrase or something.

“I’m pretty sure I saw on file that at least one of you has a learner’s permit,” Diast said. “Not that you really need one for this, but I’d prefer it.”

“Aw. Bummer.” Kalei said. “I was gonna do a flip or something.”

“I’m definitely not letting you drive this without a learner’s permit, at least.” Diast said.

It had enough seats for everyone, which eliminated my worry about how much walking I’d have to do that day. We all got our stuff onto the cart, and the others started debating who got to drive when Diast patted my shoulder.

“No matter what happens,” Diast said quietly, sounding more serious than usual. “It’ll be alright, OK?”

I nodded.

“Like the temple thing we did, I won’t be able to help too much,” Diast said. “But I’ll be close by and on video call when I'm not close by.”

“OK,” I said. “Thank you.”

I don’t know why I said thank you but luckily, Diast didn’t make me feel more awkward about it.