Rising Shards

Oka, Kalei, and I hid behind a rock. There was a scorched looking substance past the rock, which shielded us from a group of void monsters that were messing up the ground of a little ravine creek.

“You scouted this out earlier, right?” I asked.

“Yup, with Aira and Laenie,” Oka said. “We were right at this rock, actually.”

“Can you explain this spot then?” Kalei asked, pointing to a spot next to her that had marks in it like someone ran their fingertips through the somehow simultaneously burned and glittery looking void residue.

“Aira tasted it,” Oka said.

“Ew,” I said. “What did it taste like?”

“She said salad dressing.” Oka said. “But enough of that, are you two ready?”

I nodded.

“Yup,” Kalei yawned.

“This is a low gravity spot, so we have a bit of extra time if they jump at us,” Oka said, showing off the gravity by picking up a branch and watching it float away from the momentum. “So we also might move a bit faster than normal too.”

“Can we get this over with already?” Kalei asked.

“Yeah, fine whatever. I was just trying to be the strategist or...whatever,” Oka said. “Alright, say the word, Zeta!”

“Uh, go, I guess?” I said. “Go get em?”

With my rousing words of battle, we charged down into the ravine. There weren’t a lot of trees around us, so it was a small arena divided by a creek basically as we squared off against some low-level void monsters. It looked like a bunch of little crawling bug things, and one flying bug thing. 

Part of me felt bad for having to fight em, but as we were told they weren’t even really animals, just amalgamations of void junk that had to be smushed to be sent into the void clouds to become void rain or something. I tried to think of a metaphor that tied into my weather gift, but I drew a blank. I probably should have started fighting already, but I really thought I was onto something with this void condensation to storm powers thing, so I stood behind Oka and Kalei as they started.

“Zeta...you wanna help out or anything?” Kalei asked.

“Oh!” I said. “My bad!”

I got to dicing and dodging. Progress, actual progress on the Benta Scholarship! The feeling of finally stopping procrastination washed over me like the goop of the void monster I slashed at that exploded and splashed all over me. I was very thankful there was a cleaning station in the void entrance headquarters back at school. My bloodsaber was working well too, even if it had a bit of a weak spark in the veins, but Caya told me that was normal for a new to the void Cani. I was even getting a little better at managing the clipping the finger part of it without crying too much.

We hit a bit of a standstill with the flyer still remaining, hovering over the creek. Oka and I were on one side, and Kalei was on the other.

“Let’s try the jump!” Oka said.

“Are you sure this spot’s low gravity enough?” I asked.

“If it’s not, I’m small you can chuck me!” Oka said. “I really wanna try the jump!”

“I...don’t think I’m strong enough,” I said.

Oka was already running my way so I just had to hope the gravity thing was gonna work. I held my hands out and Oka stepped and I flung her up as hard as I could, falling backwards onto the ground as she flew up over me.

Oka sliced the flyer in half in one perfect swing of her bloodsaber. Now all that was left was for Kalei to catch her.

“Alright Kalei you’re uuuuppAAAUUUGHHH—” Oka screamed as she landed hard, tumbled on the ground and rolled a ways away.

“Oka!” I yelled, running to her.

“I’m...eugh...alright…” Oka said, getting up from a pretty mangled looking position, but she was double jointed, so it looked a lot worse than it was. “Kalei, where were…?”

Kalei wasn’t in position, she wasn’t even close. In the few seconds I’d turned around to catch and throw Oka, Kalei had fallen over.

“She’s...asleep?” I asked.

“Wake her up,” Oka said, squinting. “I want her to see what she did…”

“Cause light scrapes?” I asked.

“Yeah…” Oka said, squinting her eyes even more.

I tried to wake Kalei up, but she wouldn’t budge. She was a stiff as a board sleeper, but we could usually wake her up pretty easily with noise so we both started yelling until she snapped awake screaming with us.

“Oh,” Kalei said. “Sorry. Did we win?”

“We won but suffered light scrapes,” Oka said softly but with venom.