Rising Shards

Aira suddenly teleported to us with Chellsi still tied up with her.

“Aira!” I said. “Get out of here!”

“Hey, I was going to ask is it OK if I teleport Chellsi back, and like if that’s in character with being a detective? Is that allowed in the rules of the game?” Aira asked, then noticed Laenie. “Oh.”

“…’oh’?!” I said.

“Yeah, did I mention Laenie’s an Exa Cani?” Aira said.

“No!” I said.

Exa Cani, the shapeshifter type. The dumb Cani tutorial video I had to watch mentioned them briefly. But even with the agonizing runtime it didn’t mention anything like the beast snarling and growling at me. In that moment of terror and guilt for what I had caused, I also had a moment of regret for not reading You Are Also Not a Werewolf: While as a Cani You Technically You Share Beast Like Qualities Similar to Werewolves, but There are Also Numerous Differences Which are Detailed Within.

The giant and monstrous form Laenie took swung at us. Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila were screaming, Chellsi more so since she was the tied up one. Aira wasn’t at all shaken, while I cowered near Oka, trembling as I held the bloodsaber up, as if the toothpick I held would be able to stop the like ten-foot giant shaking with rage.

“We messed this up really bad!” I said.

“You really did.” Ovie said.

“You’re part of this too!” Oka said. “More than us, you stole her stuff and wouldn’t stop messing with Zeta!”

Laenie snapped at Oka then, like a crocodile jaw barely missing its prey as Oka fell backwards.

“How do we fix this, Aira?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, actually,” Aira said. “Laenie told me she was an Exa Cani, but I’ve never seen her transform.”

“Why isn’t she attacking you?!” Ovie asked, in full sword fighting stance. I realized in that moment I would have been wrecked by her if we dueled, she was clearly better trained.

“I’m not the one who made her mad,” Aira said.

Aira grabbed Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila, who were now just babbling nonsense, and teleported away. She blinked back a few seconds later.

“Sorry, they were being really annoying.” Aira said. “Now, where were we?”

“Right here!” Ovie said as she lunged at Laenie with her bloodsaber.

Ovie’s slash didn’t get anywhere close as Laenie punched her, launching her across the field far out of sight.

“I’ll get her,” Aira said, and teleported again.

It was just me and Oka, and Laenie looked ready to kill.

“Do you know anything we can do to make her go back to normal?” I asked.

“I heard one method at my old school!” Oka said. “It involved a lot of beets. Like, an obscene amount of them. Otherwise, I got nothing.”

“Can you make beets with your plant powers?” I asked.

“No,” Oka said. “Conjuring stuff like beets is actually a lot more complicated than flowers and vines.”

“Terrific!” I said.

Laenie was pacing back and forth, giving me a flashback to a trip to the zoo where I saw a rare indigo tiger, and in my infinite wisdom made it really mad by jumping around in front of it. It had the same look Laenie did and the same ready to kill pace, but there wasn’t a glass wall separating us like the tiger.

“Did Diast or Caya say anything on how to stop an Exa Cani?” I asked, wondering if I had enough time before getting slaughtered to ask Diast for help.

My wristband binged.

“Request submitted. Searching database for EXA CANI.” The wristband said.

“Ah!” I said. “This thing’s actually good for something!”

“Exa Cani database located.”

“Yes!” I said. “Open! How to stop! What to do! Search that!”

“Exa Cani database loaded. Loaded. Loaded. Loaded-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-dddddddddd—”

My wristband screen turned blue and the OS crashed.

“Oh, come on!” I said. “AH!”

I just barely dodged Laenie who jumped at me. She landed with a heavy thud behind me. I scrambled to Oka’s side. Laenie had landed headfirst and was snarling as she pulled herself back up.

“Wait, mine’s working!” Oka said. “Search Exa Cani!”

“Exa Cani database located.” Oka’s wristband said.

“Stuff’s happening!” Oka said as her projection changed to a loading screen. A video popped up.

“Hi, I’m Thadley, and I’m like, uh. Here to talk to you dudes about…Exa Cani, I guess.”

“NO!” I said.

“Skip to something that’ll actually help!” Oka said.

The projection skipped ahead a scene. Now it was a graphic of an Exa Cani that looked very similar to Exa Laenie.

“To pacify an Exa Cani that’s gone feral,” The video started.

“Yes, that!”

“Hold on, before we get to that, here's a KIDS’ ZONE FUN FACT." An orange WOW! effect smooshed over the screen as we groaned. "A feral Exa Cani is incredibly similar to a basic Cani with the feral flu, just with a transformation!!”

“I’m going to find the studio that filmed this and burn it to the ground!” I said.

"Wow, that was interesting!" The narrator said. "And alright, time for some KIDS’ ZONE SURVIVAL TIPS. When confronted with an uncontrolled Exa Cani, there is a commonly accepted method to pacifying them.”

We were half watching and half prepping to dodge as Laenie got ready to charge again.

“That method? Beets. If you can find enough beets and make the Exa Cani eat em, they’ll calm down right away. You can also find concentrated beet juice in pill form.”

“Hey, I was right!” Oka said.

“Any chance this is actually a beet farm?” I asked.

“There is one other method, to be used in case you don’t have access to this medicine.” He said. “You’ll need at least two Cani each with a full set of four fangs. All of those fangs, well, they gotta bite the Exa Cani. The concentrated energy contained in those chompers is actually pretty similar to the energy in beet juice, if you can believe it!”

Oka and I looked at each other. Laenie continued to snarl.

“Do we really have to?” Oka asked. “She has fur now, it’s gonna be so gross. And also...how?”

“Wait, remember that thing from that fighting video Krangel made us watch?” I asked.

“Which one?” Oka said. “He showed us like fifty already!”

“The one where the two little guys split up and ran around the big guy?”

“I mean, kinda?” Oka said.

“Let’s do that! You go left and I go right!” I said. “Whoever Laenie sees first is the distraction, the other one bites her then!”

“Alright, let’s just go for it!” Oka said.

We both started running towards Laenie. If I had to be brutally murdered by one of the other students at school who’d transformed into a giant monster, at least I was going out with a friend.

Laenie turned to me first, which meant it was up to Oka to go in for the bite. I thought that’s how it’d go at least. Laenie instead just grabbed us both and picked us up, crushing us in her hands and killing us instantly.

Or at least, she squeezed my ribs so hard it felt like I was already dead. I swung my sword kinda in the general direction of her big ugly monster head, but she just leaned in and bit the blade, shattering it in one bite.

Exa Laenie seemed to like the taste of the blade bits though, and kept chomping. In that moment she’d forgotten about us, I leaned as much as I could forward despite the shooting pains and bit down, getting a mouth full of Exa Cani fur which was nasty. Laenie howled but still held on to me. It was up to Oka now. Just as things started to feel fuzzy, I was on the ground, wind knocked out of me. After a few heaving minutes I could breathe again, and it didn’t feel like I had broken anything somehow. I sat up to see Oka and a de-transforming Laenie on the ground.

“Wow…” I said. “That sucked.”

“It looks like she’s alright,” Oka said. “I don’t know if she’s asleep or knocked out…”

“Are you alright? My ribs feel like I got flattened.” I said.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Oka said.

Oka snapped her fingers and conjured two short vines.

“Eat this,” Oka said. “It’s a healing plant.”

I took a bite, hoping my body would actually let me swallow it.

“That’s actually delicious,” I said. It was like a hollow stem of a plant covered in cinnamon, and the pain started to evaporate pretty quickly.

“Thanks!” Oka said. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to make beets too if...all this ever happens again.”

Laenie stirred.

“Wh…?” She said as she sat up. “Oh. Did I…?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Laenie buried her head in her hands.

“I thought I had it under control…” Laenie said.

“It’s my fault,” I said. “I’m the one who set you off bad enough for you to go full feral.”

“It was a team effort, really,” Oka said.