Rising Shards

“Alright, so advertising,” Chumbler said, writing ‘ADVERTISING’ on a white board she’d procured from one of the classrooms. She nodded, strummed her chin, tapped her shoes, and tapped on the board, leaving dots from her marker all over it. “Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh—”

“You don’t have any ideas, do you?” Z.O.K. asked.

“I have plenty of ideas. They just mostly involve me gambling, so that doesn’t really help us get more people for this place.” Chumbler said.

“How about…this…?” Z.O.K. said, grabbing a white board marker. After a minute or so, she had somewhat crudely drawn Chumbler in a skimpy outfit.

“My sexy form?” Chumbler asked. “You’re a lot better at drawing than I expected, I expected it to be pretty bad.”

“Th-thanks?” Z.O.K. said. “I do a lot of thinking about…anyways. If you go into your sexy form, and just like stand outside, I think that’d get a lot of attention on Chumblerosa.”

“Sexy form?” Rain asked. She was reading a fashion magazine and drinking tea, not paying much attention until she heard ‘sexy form,’ apparently.

“Chumbler can shapeshift into a sexy form,” Z.O.K. said. “In my opinion, it’s her best power.”

“The outfit is a bit revealing,” Rain said, tilting her head to the side as she looked at Z.O.K.’s drawing. “I attempted to wear something similar for my companions to convince them to go to a dessert-themed music festival with me, but it had the opposite effect, as they both fainted and then every time I brought the festival up, they remembered me in the outfit and fainted again. I had to go on my own, it was a pity. I really wanted Amara to defend me in a mosh pit.”

“Your point being, Miss Blue?” Chumbler asked.

“I think there are better methods?”

“Such as?!” Z.O.K. yelled, with her rage not matching the situation at all, her tone more suited for a scenario like Rain slapping her and insulting her family after burning her house down.

“Well,” Rain started casually, clearly used to people screaming without much reason to. “Wasn’t part of the point of this Chomperella endeavor to try and get other raided students a place to be at their old school?”

“Hmmm,” Chumbler said. “I think that was in our premise somewhere, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh—”

“Shouldn’t we advertise to them?” Rain said.

“Hmmmm, uh huh, hmmm, I see, uh huh…” Chumbler said as she thought it over. “But how? Uh huh? Social media campaign?”

“Chumbler, post pictures of your sexy form and put like a hashtag about Chumblerosa and then give instructions to get here, and then, and then!” Z.O.K. said, wiping her mouth from the drool forming at her lips.

“I’m still technically a student at Wildfire Hearts,” Rain said. “I could get us in to speak to the raided students directly.”

“I like this plan,” Chumbler said. “Going into a probably dangerous school or whatever. It’s a gamb—”

“I don’t like it,” Z.O.K. pouted. “It doesn’t let you use your sexy form.”

“The day is still young, my dear Zorta Orca Korbley,” Chumbler said. “Let’s go right now!”

“Hold on,” Rain said. “I’m not finished with my tea.”

Chumbler and Z.O.K. doodled on the whiteboard some more as they waited for Rain.

“Shall we head over there now?” Rain asked after she finished her tea.

* * *

Sneaking into Wildfire Hearts was a bit easier than Chumbler would have guessed. Rain simply used her school ID, a tattered ancient looking coin, and used her powers to convince anyone nearby that Chumbler and Z.O.K. belonged there. The hardest part was how boring the bus ride over was.

The gothic walls of the school were very unwelcoming and more than a tad spooky, but Chumbler didn’t really care. They were here to advertise, not be scared or whatever.

“Alright, where the heck/hell are all the raided Rising Shards goofuses?”” Chumbler said, looking at a paper with a list of names on it that Rain had written for her. “I see…Rain…that’s you…there’s uh…Nikki? Elisa? Ugh, I don’t know any of these friggin’ people, this is gonna be impossible.”

“Your voice grew whinier each word there,” Rain said. “It’s very unpleasant to listen to.”

Chumbler squinted at Rain. She had turned off her brain power or whatever so her appearance was pink, which Chumbler had to admit was a much better look for her.

“Can we just get this over with?” Z.O.K. asked. “This place is really cold and it’s making my fur stand up in a weird way.”

The group wandered around Wildfire Hearts until Rain pointed out an orange haired girl. She was sitting by herself in the dorms, tuning an acoustic guitar.

“Rain?” Nikki asked as they approached her. “I heard you were overseas in Novu, dude. Are you actually going to go here now?”

“Oh no, I’m not doing that,” Rain said. “I find the whole Endoran methods a bore, really. We’re here about a casino.”

Nikki squinted. “Uh…huh.”

“Chumbler, explain to her so we can leave sooner.” Z.O.K. said, then whispered, “And so she doesn’t play her crappy music for us.”

“Right!” Chumbler said. “Nikki? Can I call you Nikki? Nikki, dear. Don’t you just wanna go back to Rising Shards?”

“I mean, yeah.” Nikki said. “I was thinking of dropping out so I wouldn’t have to be here, at least—”

“Yeah yeah yeah, boring,” Chumbler said. “What if you could go to a secret place at Rising Shards, and gamble?”

“Gamble…?” Nikki asked.

“We’ve opened a secret casino in the bowels of the catacombs of Rising Shards!” Chumbler said. “All are welcome, but especially you raided folk! That’s how we got Rain, but there we call her ‘Sweetheart Blue,’ pretty sweet, don’t you think? We have poker, slot machines, and surely more to come!”

Chumbler did an impromptu tap dance routine and when she finished, she waited for Nikki to say what a great idea that was and to say she wanted to kiss and marry Chumbler or something like that, some affectionate mumbo jumbo that’d get her to follow them immediately back to Rising Shards.

“Right,” Nikki said. “That uh, sounds pretty dumb, not gonna lie.”

“Bastard!” Chumbler spat. “No brains! Stupid! Dummy!”

“Alright, take it down a notch.” Z.O.K. said. “Sorry, Chumbler’s an idiot socially. And an idiot in a lot of other ways, too.”

“Hey, I’m plenty…sociable.” Chumbler said.

“S’cool, I’ve gotten a lot worse here on an hourly basis.” Nikki said. “And even if it’s dumb…it would be pretty cool to see the school again.”

“Oh yeaaaaah?” Chumbler asked.

Nikki took the paper from Chumbler and wrote something on it with her own pencil. “If you get her there, I’ll be there.”

Chumbler snatched the paper back and read what Nikki added to the paper. “This isn't a name, it's a phone number. Unless her name is a phone number? In which case, what a bummer for her, am I right?”

“Next to the phone number, doofus,” Z.O.K. said. “It says Kalei.”

“Yeah, get her there and I’m there,” Nikki said. “Just text me.”

“I’ll get her there so much you won’t even believe your gorgeous eyes.” Chumbler said, attempting to appeal to Nikki’s vanity to make her more certain Chumbler could complete her task.

“Cool,” Nikki said.

“We should probably move on,” Rain said.

“Uh huh, uh huh,” Chumbler said. “Well, thank you Nikki. Even if you didn’t get that rockin’ bod off that chair and headed straight to Chumblerosa, I respect that you want me to earn it first. Your desire for transactions is as powerful as the aforementioned…rockin’ bod.”

“Can you tone down the compliments? You’re starting to get creepy.” Z.O.K. said.

“Starting to?” Rain said.

“Right, yeah, I don’t like staying too long at any place here either,” Nikki said. “You know who might be into this thing you got going on right now?”

“Who? Who, damn you, who?” Chumbler screamed.

“Chomper, please stop screaming,” Rain said. “Using my mind power to convince people you’re allowed to wander around here is more difficult if you scream at everything.”

“Right, sorry, Rain…” Chumbler kicked at a scuff mark on the ground. Nikki took her paper again and circled two of the names.

“Head to the cafeteria, they’re always hanging out there now.” Nikki said.

* * *

“And where the hell is the cafet—oh.” Chumbler said as they found the cafeteria. “Like the rest of this school, it’s gothic, but somehow boring. Store brand villainy, really.”

“Can you please stop making snide remarks about the school as well?” Rain asked, rubbing her temples. “You’re really putting my powers to work today.”

“Oh, my god, what is that smell,” Z.O.K. said, retching. “What do they serve these people?”

“Some kind of fish-based gruel, I’m guessing,” Rain said, sniffing at the air. “I bet they’d rather go fishing than eat that!”

“Eugh,” Z.O.K. said. “Please don’t become a standup comedian, Rain.”

“Enough,” Chumbler said. “I see who Nikki was talking about.” 

Chumbler strutted as she approached the duo of Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila. Chumbler had dealt with them a bit in the past when she tried to recruit the two for a gambling club. And when Latte Bein and Elisa Burwell accidentally zapped them into the void during the Fang Fair, leading to a fight with a void pirate.

“Howdy, ladies,” Chumbler said. “What are two beautiful dames such as yourselves doing not in the best Cani casino in the world, Chumblerosa?”

“Still going with the flirty approach, huh?” Z.O.K. asked.

“It absolutely doesn’t suit you.” Rain said.

“What uh,” Chellsi said, frowning. “What?”

“I’m really confused,” Mikeila-Keila said. “This is really confusing. Don’t you like, not go here?”

“You know her?” Chellsi asked. “I don’t even know who this is…”

The two frowned, looking like they were about to cry from confusion.

“This one might be a no go from the start.” Z.O.K. said.

“Wait, Chellsi,” Mikeila-Keila said. “I just got like a thing that’s in your head when you use your brain for stuff.”

“Oh, that thing! What thing that’s in your head when you use your brain for stuff did you have?”

“We should bring them to like,” Mikeila-Keila said. “To Ovie. Cuz she’d know what to do here.”

“I feel like this is gonna be a thing.” Z.O.K. said.

“A great thing!” Chumbler said.

* * *

Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila led Chumbler, Z.O.K., and Rain to Wildfire Hearts’ void entry building.

“Like the rest of this school, it’s gothic, but somehow b—” Chumbler started.

“We get it,” Rain and Z.O.K. said at the same time.

“I think…this one’s Ovie’s.” Chellsi said. “I saw her going in and out of this one.”

Chumbler knocked on the door.

“Wait,” Rain said. “I have an idea.”

“Wuzzat?” Chumbler asked.

Rain held her hand out, and pink beams shot out from her fingertips and through the door in front of the group.

“Whoaaaa,” Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila said at the same time. “Your power is so pretty…”

“What that do?” Z.O.K. asked.

“Just go into the room.” Rain said.

Chumbler opened the door and walked inside. Four girls were talking, but Chumbler only recognized three. Laenie, Aira, and Ovie. Ovie’s hair was a greasy mess now, but it was unmistakably her. The fourth in the room was a redheaded girl with a black eye. Even though Chumbler and her group had knocked and entered the room, the others didn’t notice their arrival.

“I charmed them to not notice us, even if we talk,” Rain said. "We can gleam some info from them before we reintroduce ourselves."

“Like a surprise birthday party,” Chellsi said.

“So you barely even know how to find them,” The redheaded girl said.

“We found a fragment of the Starlight Despair,” Ovie said, crossing her arms. “We just need to follow its trail.”

“How does that work, again?” Laenie asked.

“Like this,” Ovie said. She pulled out a little fragment that looked like glass.

“So sparkly,” Chellsi said.

“Ovie has the best jewelry,” Mikeila-Keila sighed.

Ovie brought the fragment over to a computer connected to a bunch of screens on a wall. After a few clicks on its keyboard, a disc drive looking thing popped out, and Ovie dropped the fragment in it. The screens on the wall lit up with a map of the void, morphing and changing as locations were projected on it. A bright blue dotted line appeared, lighting up a path, but it gradually faded as it moved forward.

“The trail goes cold there,” Ovie said, pointing at the spot where the line began to fade. “I’ve tried everything to get it to go further than that. But...nothing."

“So…we go there?” Aira suggested.

“Would that work?” Laenie asked. “Is the spot the trail stops even a…place?”

“Oh, good point,” Aira said. “What if that’s just like a nothing? Would we fly out to a nothing to get…something?”

“The void is so confusing,” Laenie said.

“You’re trying to find where Jeans ended up, so you’re using her stupid mask,” the redheaded girl sighed. “That’s one way to do it. A dumb and blunt way.”

“And what would you suggest, Narkissa?” Ovie asked.

“I’d prefer something a bit more investigative, to actually use our minds,” Narkissa said. “Well, something that uses my mind. I’m not sure how much of one you really have.”

“This is so boring,” Chumbler said.

“What do we do here?” Z.O.K. asked.

“Knock them out and bring them back with us?” Chumbler asked. “They don’t know we’re here; we can take them down…and take them back to Chumblerosa for gamble…”

“Nooo, you can’t hurt Ovie!” Mikeila-Keila said.

“Nobody hurts Ovie!” Chellsi yelled. The two screamed together, hugging and jumping around but not really making any effort to do anything else.

“Rrgh,” Rain said, grabbing her forehead. “Too much…covering up shouting. Draining…too quickly.”

“Wait, that’s bad, wait, uh huh, wait, “Chumbler said. “Rain, you don’t mean your hiding them or whatever thing is—”

A poof of pink energy burst into a cloud that floated toward the ceiling. Chumbler froze as the four girls suddenly turned their way.

“Uh.” Aira said.

“I can…explain?” Chumbler said.