Rising Shards

Stella had her hands firmly grasped on her steering wheel when I found her in the front parking lot of the school, and sped off as soon as I shut my door.

"Uh, hi to you too, Stella," I said.

"You got your day pass right?" Stella asked. "Well, if you didn't, it's too late now."

"I did," I said. "I had to meet with the principal for it. He's...interesting."

"I'm sure," Stella said.

Once we made it to the highway, Stella calmed down a bit.

"Sorry if I freaked you out," Stella said. "Just...when you see these prices, Zeta."

We made it to LE, and the traffic was surprisingly low. I was expecting more than the usual pace for an event like this if this sale was so good.

"We're not going to Twin Wolves?" I asked as we passed the mall I knew.

"Nope," Stella said. "Like I said earlier, this one's in Lil' Haven."

"What exactly is this sale?" I asked. "Why is it so...like, frantic?"

"Trust me," Stella said. "I have a friend of a friend in my acting group that lucked into some tickets for the Lil' Haven sale. They really surprised me my giving me two, and I'm not gonna let this opportunity pass me."

Stella pulled into a parking garage that had a sign on it for something called the "Bright Light Wonderment Shopping District."

"So Lil' Haven is in here?" I asked. "Hey, isn't Haven that wrestling league thing?"

I had enough of Haven already just from my gym teacher's constant videos of it.

“Trust me. We won’t be doing any fighting. You’ll see when we get there.” Stella said.

I had to power walk to keep up with Stella as she marched for a few blocks. I had never been in this district before. It seemed to have a lot more ads plastered everywhere than most other place in LE, which was saying something.

“Hey, look! It’s Tower of Hate and Love!” I pointed at giant video ads that covered the tallest building in the neighborhood. The cast group picture from the show formed an incredibly long ad that stretched around a whole block, slowly spinning to show off all the characters’ poses.

Lil’ Haven wasn’t far from the parking garage and was easy to tell when we got there because of the immediate increase of muscle mass in the people walking around. The ads also changed from normal promotions of television and movies to Haven fights. The over the top battles looked crazy and painful, and reminded me why I didn’t like gym class, or watching Haven stuff. There was a short line to get in, and it really freaked me out to hand my ticket to the bodyguard guy. I didn't know what he'd do to me if the ticket was fake or something. But the ticket reader binged and the light went green, so I darted through the gate when was prompted to with a nod and a grunt from the bodyguard.

"Stella, are you sure we're not gonna have to fight anyone?" I asked.

Most of the screens in Lil’ Haven weren’t focused as much on the fights as they were on Haven President/Champion Ashli “Kitty” Kilander. The screens showed videos of Kitty’s accomplishments, her interviews, her humanitarian endeavors, tours of her house, people who dressed like her, how weak her opponents were compared to her, and just about anything else that showed how great she was. Even the video warning about the dangers of Haven for non-fighters ended in a video of Kitty posing. I literally couldn’t take a step on the sidewalk without seeing her face or hear her talk. I hoped Oka didn't have to spend much time with this Kilander if she was this obnoxious outside of the ring.

Sidewalk workers wandered the streets wearing Kitty merchandise. They kept coming up to us trying to sell their gear to us while proclaiming the glory of Ashli.

“Did you know that Kitty has won more championships than anyone ever?”

“Did you know that Kitty was voted funniest fighter in all of Haven?”

“Did you know that Kitty is prettier than both of you combined?”

“Ugh, I really hope Oka doesn't have to deal with her.” I said, throwing out a pamphlet I got handed called Kitty and You: Why Kitty Kilander is the Best Kilander.

“I'm impressed Berin has kept Oka so far out of the spotlight so far.” Stella said. “That Kilander name brand gets a lot of attention. Oh, this is it!”

Stella pushed us ahead, pointing out the store she had brought me out here for, called “Elec-Stomp-trics and More”.

“Get ready. Anything you need to buy for Safe Silver we can take care of in a single store.” Stella said.

“This still doesn’t make any sense.” I said. I had a few ideas for stuff I wanted to get, but I still thought there was no way a single store in Lil’ Haven had what I needed.

A robotic human mascot with bulging everything repeatedly threw a much smaller robotic human on the roof of the store. I spotted an ad on the window that said the store actually had a selection of phones. The text literally read, “We actually have a selection of phones”.

"Oh, do you think I could get Oka a phone?" I asked. Oka didn't have a cell phone yet, but I could tell by the way she looked at mine and our friends' phones that she did want one.

“If the tales I heard about this sale are true, you could get all your friends phones." 

"Stella, this isn't like a scam or anything is it?" I asked. "You remember that quadrangle scheme or whatever I almost got hired for."

"Pyramid scheme." Stella said. "No, that was something else. Normally I'd say obviously don't trust something that sounds this good on paper, but.." She trailed off.

"But?"

"I don't know, whatever, just go shopping!" Stella said.

When we got into the store, Stella grabbed a cart and immediately zipped over to the movie and television section. She started filling the cart pretty much immediately. The store was filled with obvious Haven fighters, all of them in their gear. Everyone in the room had more muscles than I’d ever seen before. Even the salesman was a bit muscular, but also somehow kind of pathetic about it, like he gave up trying to maintain his form a few years ago. I started looking through the phones, and he came over to me.

“Ha hey haha hey uhh hhahhaha…” He said, making an excellent and confident first impression on his potential client. “So you got a ticket to the sale, huh? I haven’t gotten many phone sales from out of area lately. I’m desperate…”

“I’m looking to get a phone for my friend.” I said. I already had the model in mind, a newer version of mine with a blue case and a sparkly pattern, and had found it while the salesman stammered through a response.

“Miss, I will literally, seriously, and completely give you a 200% discount. That’s how bad I need this sale.”

I laughed. And then realized he was serious. His sweat stains all over his shirt (which despite being more formal had its sleeves ripped off) gave away a high-strung lifestyle.

“So you’ll…pay me for it? I have enough money.” I said.

“No! I mean. Well, how much? I just need a few more…hundred…sales from outside the area types to meet the quota for the year. My fights haven’t been going so well, so I’ve been working this job too. The commute between here and Haven is damaging most of my relationships. So, I can give you…two phones?”

“This seems like you’re coming out of this worse.” I said. If tickets to this sale or whatever were so scarce it sounded like this guy was screwed already.

I got a text from Stella telling me to meet her in the movie section. I headed over. From there I could also see a sign for the clothing section, and the edge of the makeup section, which I gaped at for a minute marveling at the price tags. They couldn’t possibly be real.

“Hey Zeta, come here,” Stella said, and suddenly pulled me aside leaned close. “You gotta jump on a deal like that, especially when the salesmen are desperate. Everybody here is from Haven, and Haven's economy is basically nonsensical. We have to take advantage of this because who knows if we'll ever get tickets for this again."

“I mean, is this even a deal? I feel bad for this guy.” I said.

“If he’s offering, you’re taking it.” Stella said. She pushed me back to the salesman. “She’ll take it!”

“Do you need pants too? I got pants.” The salesman said as he started to unbuckle his belt.

“No. Please let me just give you money for this phone. Do you take regular money?” I said.

“We do, but of course it has to be converted into Slam Bucks.”

“….’Slam Bucks’?”

“Haven politicians didn’t like having money that didn’t match Haven’s ‘vibe’. It was decided in the great battle debate at Ultra Slam Congress. Since Lil’ Haven is technically part of Haven, now we have Slam Bucks.”

“…OK.” I said.

The procedure for converting to Slam Bucks wasn’t that complicated, but it was pretty boring. I felt a bit greedy and in need of a treat for myself and try to knock out my list in one go like Stella was doing.

Somehow though for the price of one phone I ended up with two, 2 free years of service for both of them, some video games for Kalei, a gem bracelet and some shirts, some movies, a somehow autographed copy of the first season of Renderfold’s Tryst (that one was for me), and a bunch of Haven branded merchandise. He tried to pawn his pants off one more time, but I somehow managed to stop him by immediately rushing to hide behind Stella as she continued shopping.

“Do other people know about these prices?” I asked her on the way out. We each had two giant bags full of stuff.

“There’s a kind of weird culture in Lil' Haven,” Stella said. “The actual country of Haven is pretty much a mess too, but they get a lot of sponsorships and end up having to offload a ton of it here in LE towards the end of the year. But then because they're, literally disastrous with everything they do, they end up doing the sales as a sweepstakes thing. Our tickets are actually tickets for a Haven show...”

Stella explained Haven stuff for a long while but none of it made sense to me.

“I don't get it, but I'm happy to be done with all this shopping already!" I said.

We didn’t have time to check out any of the other sub districts before Stella had to bring me back, so we stopped at a (what else) fighting themed restaurant. After finishing my Kick Fried Underhook Back Suplex Burger, I felt pretty satisfied.

"Sorry to drag you through all this on such short notice," Stella said.

"Oh no, I'm happy to get all my shopping done for Safe Silver! I even got your present so don't look in my bags."

"I won't," Stella said.

"And I'm happy to visit you, too," I said.

Stella looked a bit sad for a second, or worn out. I followed her gaze to see her looking towards a table next to us with a big family all eating together.

"You alright?" I asked.

“I know it’s not much,” Stella said. 

I knew what she was thinking. In addition to Stella's love of Safe Silver, she also got had moments around the season where she'd get really down, especially when confronted with thinking about how the size of our family. The underlying message of "I know it's not much," from her was “I know we’re not much.”

“But we’re family.” I said.

Stella blinked and looked back towards me.

"And I'm perfectly happy with how things are." I said. "Thanks for bringing me with today."

"Yeah," Stella smiled. "Yeah, you're welcome Zeta."