Rising Shards

I looked at the surprisingly fancy sign outside the door for the Rising Shards Spirit Betterment Club’s official meeting place. It was etched into steel, which felt way cooler than any kind of sign for any club I had been in before.

“Did one of you make this?” I asked.

“No, I think every club gets one,” Latte said. She was holding a box for some reason. “See, there’s one for the penmanship club.”

“Aw, we’re gonna have to share a room with them?” Kalei said.

“Why do you think our club time got scheduled for 5:43?” Maia asked.

“Honestly, with that weird time slot I just assumed one of us screwed it up.”  

The members of the penmanship club finished their meeting and left the room, all covered in inkblots. Our club room was just a regular classroom, and the penmanship club had politely left the desks in a big square for us. They had less politely left them all covered in ink. 

After a good fifteen minutes of wiping up the ink on the desks in the room, we finally sat down for our first meeting. I sat down on one end next to Kalei. Nikki sat on the side to our left, already listening to music on her headphones. Iris and Maia took seats to our right, while KJ, Amara, and Rain sat across from us. KJ had quickly moved to the one spot that had a computer set up and was clicking around. Latte pulled a fancy coffee maker out of the cardboard box she was carrying and began to set it up. Maia spoke up first.

“Alright, so we have to do the bare minimum to get this club work done,” Maia said. “Because we all have better things to do than this. Right?”

Everyone murmured a lazy agreement. Well, except Nikki, who was listening to music.

“Right.” Maia said. “Once we get this video or whatever done, then we can just hang out here and technically get our club time in. That sound good?”

Everyone mumbled some form of yes. Except for Nikki, who was still listening to music, and Kalei, who was staring at Nikki.

“So what do we need to do for this ‘spirit betterment’ or whatever?” I asked.

“They gave me a folder,” Iris said. “Because technically, you, me, and Maia are club captains, whatever that means."

“That’s stupid,” Amara said. “Rain should be captain.”

“Rain should be double captain," KJ said. "Rain should be club president.”

“Rain should be god-emperor of the club and you know it!” Amara yelled, slamming her fists on her desk before pointing angrily at KJ.

“Fine, we’re all captains, can we look at the stupid folder already?” Maia said, snatching the folder from Iris. She read it over. “It says we have to make some kind of project to promote the school, like a commercial, a radio thing, or a series of posters.”

“We’re definitely doing a video,” KJ said, holding up her camera. “And this computer has Brick Video Deluxe Elementals 7 too. I’d prefer Elementals 9, but I can make this work.”

“What kind of video would show off the school?” I asked. “Like a tour, maybe?”

“That’d be easy,” Maia said, pointing as she said easy to really put emphasis on her focus on lazy for the club.

“But I can’t get any cool shots of a school tour,” KJ said. “Although, we could have Rain host.”

“We should have Rain host it no matter what it is, she’s a star!” Amara screamed.

“Alright, calm down,” Maia said. “Rain, you wanna host this?”

“Why, of course,” Rain said. “I’m frequently the star of KJ’s film projects.”

“Why don’t we do something with some action?” Latte asked, having finished setting up her coffee maker. She had some kind of really fancy coffee brewing in it that smelled really good.

“What do you mean?” Maia asked.

“Like…something in the void maybe?” Latte suggested. “We could get our bloodsabers all slashing and annihilating everything in our path and entice viewers with violence…”

“Like what, hunt a void monster?” I asked.

“We could just hunt like a baby easy one in the field of flowers!” Iris said. “What better school spirit to show than kick-ass school spirit? We can like, show pride in our Cani-ness too.”

“That could work,” Maia said. “Agreed on the baby easy part at least, we don’t want this to get complicated.”

“And if it needs to be said, I’ll obviously be filming,” KJ said, holding up her camera again. “I just have to make sure my void lens is attached, so our shots aren’t all blurry and diagonal."

“OK, so KJ on filming, Rain hosting,” Maia said, jotting notes down on blank space on the assignment sheet. “Anyone want to volunteer to be an onscreen fighter? We should probably have more than one.”

“Who’s got the best fighting powers?” Iris asked.

“I have weather/lightning,” I said.

“I was told ice, but I can’t manage much more than some snowflakes,” Kalei said.

“That might be good for background shots, you guys can make the weather just right.” KJ said.

“I mean, theoretically,” Kalei said. “Neither of us have much control of our powers yet.”

Amara cleared her throat.

“I’ll do the fighting, I’m a trained professional,” Amara said.

“What’s your Cani gift again?” I asked.

“Gun conjuring.”

“No way, that is so cool!” Iris said.

“She’s lying,” KJ said. “It’s actually laser related. Which makes it really stupid to say gun conjuring because she already has a super cool Cani gift.”

“Shut up, KJ,” Amara said, crossing her arms. “Maybe I meant laser gun conjuring.”

“Fine, Amara’s fighting.” Maia said.

“I claim either scriptwriting duties and/or snacks/coffee handling.” Latte said.

“Sure, whatever," Maia said. "You, me, Iris and Zeta can be on script then and whatever other production roles are needed. Anything else?”

“I can do music,” Nikki said, taking her headphones off for the first time all meeting.

“I…can help with that?” Kalei sheepishly offered.

“Great, Nikki and Kalei on music,” Maia said. Nikki nodded and put her headphones back on.

“So should we get started, then?” Iris asked.

“To the void!” Amara announced.

“Well, let’s do that tomorrow,” Maia said. “I think we've accomplished the bare minimum today. We’ll do scripting and location scouting tomorrow.”

“Fine, to the void tomorrow!” Amara said.