Rising Shards

“Alright, so we’re going to do this in teams, so um, everyone be aware of who’s on your team.” Ms. Letoh was very excited about whatever we were about to do. Every computer had a login screen up. There were also very old and clunky looking headphones hooked up that had thick gray pads and squiggly cords.

My group was me, Oka, Kalei, Iris, Maia, and Michi.

“Sure is taking a while to load.” Kalei said, clicking rapidly to no avail.

“It’s an immersive experience!” Letoh said.

“Like VR?” Kalei asked.

“It’s a kind of virtual reality, yes.” Letoh said. “You and your team will experience some scenarios, and you’ll decide together what the best option is.”

“Oh, I thought this would be like a fun game.” Kalei said.

“It’s very fun!” Letoh said.

Each team would get a different story for the game, so we didn’t have to worry about talking it over with our teammates and spoiling the other groups if we were too loud. Each scene would have choices, and we’d all vote on which was the right answer.

“I think I got this,” I said as I cracked my knuckles. “Computer games are kind of my specialty.”

“I don’t think any game is your specialty,” Kalei said.

“Raina Starlight’s Farm Adventure is a computer game!” I said.

“Now, be careful, Zeta,” Oka said. “I recently read a book about someone who got sucked into their computer via some complicated sort of reincarnation.”

“I think I’ll be alright,” I said. “What book was that?”

“There’s like a million of those books, I bet she can’t even remember the title.” Kalei said.

“Rude! It was about this girl that went to another world and got turned into a shoe." Oka said. "The title was...um..."

"See?” Kalei said. “Read that one. Don't remember what it's called, either. Not one of the best. I like the one where the dude is reborn as a sock more, that was way funnier.”

“The shoe one was…mildly interesting,” Oka said. “A good afternoon read.”

“I feel if I was going to another world…” I pondered. “I don’t know how I would! This would be the world I’d want to go to, you know?”

“Aww!” Oka held my hand over the mouse.

“Heh…” I said. “That’s—” I interrupted myself with a yelp as someone tugged on my tail.

For some reason, Roux was crawling around on the ground and they’d grabbed my tail. Kalei swatted them away, fortunately before Oka could, as I feared what Oka would have done to defend me and how much trouble we’d get in class. Instead of attacking Roux like I expected, Oka gently held my tail and petted it, which felt very nice.

“Don’t touch her tail, Roux.” Kalei said.

“Yeah! Only I get to!” Oka said. “And Zeta herself, obviously.”

“No, do it again,” Iris snort laughed. “That was the funniest sound I’ve ever heard! She was all, ‘BUUWEEEHHHH!?’”

I stammered and blushed. It was one of those times Letoh let us riff a bit without shutting it down, so I had to deal with my friends and fellow classmates trying to imitate my embarrassing squeal.

“I was merely greeting her in the way of the Cani,” Roux explained. “The tail-havers all love having them yoinked on when you say hello. It’s in like every Cani science book.”

“That’s in literally no Cani science book ever, Roux.” Kalei said.

“Every good Cani science book.” Roux said.

“Better test it out on Maia,” Iris said.

“On it!” Roux said, starting to crawl towards Maia.

“If you so much as send a breeze in my direction, I will rip you apart,” Maia said casually, showing off her claws. That got Roux to settle down and go sit back with their team with Lillia, Marmalade, the Matora sisters, and Tay, who only just walked into class after Roux’s incident, apparently having a lot of good intel from the Wildfire Hearts students, as she proudly marched past us, strumming on her binder to emphasize that she’d added some pages to it.

“Something important to keep in mind is that this is an older game,” Letoh said, taking back control of class. “And that some of the choices may seem potentially unfair. But try to have fun with it! And remember you need to win the game to get your badge. And that your badge is required to pass the semester.”

“If it’s a game, I won’t lose,” Lillia said.

“Oh, and the intro is the same for everyone, so I can just play that on the projector.” Letoh said.

The video began with a familiar voice narrating over some logos. Or at least the general phrasing was familiar. The first time I heard it was right after I got my fangs in, when the audio quality was all garbled. The last time I’d heard it, it was when I first got to Rising Shards and we all had our first assembly and the audio quality was slightly less garbled.

“The following educational entertainment video game was funded by the Kilander Corporation, a subsidiary of Taramin Enterprises.”

The plus side of this is everyone stopped laughing at me making a weird noise when my tail got grabbed. The down side is everyone started laughing at Oka and making jokes about her Kilander-ness. Oka took it in stride as nobody was being really mean, just some light jabs. She stood up and waved, trying to get everyone’s attention. She held my tail and talked into it like it was a microphone. “Now, while I may technically be a part of the Kilander family, I had nothing to do with anything like this. Now carry on with class.” She bowed and sat back down.

The mood was light and fun in the classroom at least. We all really needed that.

A familiar face followed up the familiar narration, as the intro video faded in on a surfer dude looking very solemn with his hands clasped. Less serious was him wearing swimming trunks and a colorful tank top while everyone around him appeared to be at a funeral.

“Isn’t this a video game?” I whispered. “Why’s it live action?”

“It’s called FMV.” Kalei said.

“What’s that?”

“Zates, I don’t have time to explain every gaming thing to you,” Kalei said. “It’s got video of real people, but then the game will be in there too.”

“Wait, that’s Thadley!” Someone in the back of the class remembered his name before I did.

“Have you ever, uh like, had to make some serious choices and stuff? Ever been like tempted to do bad things as a Cani? Use your powers to hurt people? Or what if a close friend asks you to get like, drugs and stuff?”

“Have you ever been tempted to do bahhhdddd thahhhnggssss?” Kalei imitated Thadley’s voice really well.

“In the following interactive computer video gaming experience from Taramin Industries, you will have to face these challenges. Will you make the right decisions? I hope so, dudes." The camera was really close on Thadley's face, and his brow was so furrowed it looked like he was barely holding back tears. "This…is Make-Good-Decisions School.”

“That cannot be the title.” Oka said softly. She burst out laughing when the title card came up, and it was indeed ‘Make-Good-Decisions School.’ I was about to feel bad for laughing at something Ms. Letoh was clearly a fan of, but she chuckled with everyone else.