“The Fracture of Team Starlight” (80.12) (Kalei)

I didn't have much experience with Roxana. I knew she played beam chasers, that Ko had a thing for her and they were on and off, and that she was the reason Ko and Lillia split up. She seemed incredibly annoying, so maybe my subconscious picked up that there was something off about her. I wouldn't have guessed that the something off was her being aligned with Zoey, though.

Roxana was a lot stronger than I thought too, the second Lillia and Sai got zapped away by Zoey's portals, Roxana started striking anyone in range. Marmalade got knocked back, just barely blocking a punch from Roxana with her forearms. Roxana then kicked Esther and Charmaine away, then grabbed Myles and Ash and made them headbutt each other. I charged toward her then, but she was fast, too, and hit me with a swinging back fist. I saw stars as I stumbled.

"This is Roxie by the way," Zoey said. "Another friend of mine. Very valuable teammate. Is that the full team, then? I won't say! But it's really time we get this round done, isn't it?"

I composed myself, standing upright.

"I've met her," I said.

"I know," Zoey said. "Roxie's had similar treatments to me. In some ways, she might be even stronger than me."

"Don't flatter me, you're the strongest by far," Roxana said.

"Oh shush, you!" Zoey said.

"God, shut the hell up already!" Marmalade said, making the ground shake with her powers. She tried to open a pit under Zoey and Roxana, but the two leapt out of the way, with Zoey scrambling across the ground to try and pick up the Sharai Daggers. She got her fingertips on it, but she was too frantic in trying to grab it and accidentally pushed them away. I leapt over, trying to land and stomp on the damn things so they'd break but I couldn't quite get there. I still jumped over Zoey though. I swiped the daggers as fast as I could.

"Wait, don't!" Zoey said, panic in her voice as I snapped them both over my knee.

"I think we've had enough of these," I said, chucking them over my shoulder.

Zoey's expression turned from worry to smoldering rage. "You're going to regret that."

"I don't think I will," I said a second before Roxana kicked me in the face.

I thought she knocked my teeth out as I fell over, but everything was still there when I checked. As I sat dazed, Marmalade climbed onto Roxana's back, punching the muscular girl. It wasn't a pretty fight, but I respected Marmalade just going for it like that. Aira teleported over too, trying to hit Roxana from the front. It looked like two people trying to get in a fight with a brick wall, I didn't realize until then just how much of a tank she was.

"While you deal with them," Zoey said, scrambling past me.

"Wait!" I said, but I was still too rocked to even get up.

While all our fighting was going on, the rest of our friends and class started trying to get out of Raytris' big slime net again. Basically everything got hard to follow, I was seeing stars from just a few strikes from Roxana.

I tried to get up, but a wave of dizziness hit me. Once again, I was helpless to even do anything, and I felt so unbelievably pathetic watching the fighting continue. Zoey ran toward Raytris.

"Hold them there!" Zoey said. She squatted down just a bit, holding her hands forward, crackling energy growing between her palms.

Downside, please. I bet if we shifted this dizzy feeling would go away, I thought to myself. We can stop whatever this is and put an end to this. This time, the lack of an answer didn't feel like Downside ignoring me out of anger, I felt a pit of worry in my stomach as my other side felt so distant, as if the dizzy feeling pushed her away, too.

Zoey forced her hands forward while she shouted, and another gate opened up on the ground. But this one wasn't just enough for one or two people, this one kept growing and growing, until it reached as far as Raytris had stretched out. The slime girl and everyone caught in that mess tumbled in, Zoey casually throwing away an ally as easily as chucking out plastic wrap on a new game. I felt helpless as I watched Roux on the sidelines, not even saying anything as they leapt in after, still wanting to help Raytris.

"Kick them in too!" Zoey commanded to Roxana, who obliged immediately, pushing Marmalade and Aira away just so she could punt the Althea sisters into the pit, then Charmaine and Esther were thrown in moments later. The pit closed before anyone else could fall in, but the damage was done.

Zoey sighed deeply like she'd just finished a ten mile run. "Phew...the big gates, they take a lot out of me." She trotted back over to me.

"Oh, I was wondering when that'd kick in," Zoey said.

"What...what did you..." I said.

"Yeah, things might get a little strange Kalei, you should probably just give up now," Zoey said. "It's over over."

Her voice started to sound muffled. Was I about to pass out? I was dizzy, and sounds were getting weird. Most of the class was gone now, but everything still sounded loud in my head. My voice didn't sound like mine, and my energy was draining fast.

"You're feeling that weird powder I threw at ya now, if you haven't figured it out," Zoey said. "It's a bit like Chickadee's powers, but not quite the same. So have fun with that."

I tried to punch, but it was like trying to fight in a dream, my arm moved way too slowly. Zoey kicked me in the head and I fell back down. I struggled to pick myself back up, hearing Aira and Marms still stuck with Roxana.

"You've faced a lot of tough people, but you haven't faced me yet," Someone called out from behind us. Syval flew down then, in his Tokickaman outfit now instead of the dress disguise he had on.

"What took you so damn long?" I asked.

"I was...trying to figure out how to get the dress off," Syval said. "And the wig...there was like, wig glue..."

I could tell Syval was lying, and that wasn't exactly what kept him away, but this wasn't the time to press on that.

"Hey Syval," Zoey said.

"Hey," Syval said. "Wait, no, I'm Tokickaman!"

"Whatever, it's really obvious it's you," Zoey said. "I've been wondering what took you so long too. I don't really care about your after school activities, but once you stepped into the labs and stole from them, you became my enemy."

Alright, I may not be able to do Downside at the moment, but Syval and Aira here, that's Tokickaman, and Marms is here, too. With this team, we can't lose.

Just then, Aira teleported back and forth, somehow building momentum with that, enough to kick Roxana back, the first time I'd seen anyone get a hit on her that actually seemed to do damage. With Roxana down for just a second, she and Marmalade came over to me.

"Kalei!" Marmalade cried out. I must've looked bad because she looked at me like she found me after getting stabbed fifty times.

"I'm...alright..." I said, but I didn't know if I was. But I couldn't stand to see Marmalade worrying.

Aira and Syval got in front of us, both of them rushing at Zoey. I blinked, the kind of blink I'd do if I was up at like two in the morning gaming, completely spent, barely able to follow along with the flurry of attacks between the two sides.

"Here, it's OK, just breathe," Marmalade said. "We'll get through this."

"Yeah, I'm...yeah," I said.

Why didn't I just say it?

I thought about finally telling her then. Maybe it'd be my last chance. But I still couldn't make the words come. I couldn't say anything.

Zoey grabbed Aira and Syval by their wrists. In my foggy daze, I remembered they'd gotten some fancy specific power blockers from Octa that would suppress the negative sides of having another person cosmically tied to them through the Atrian crystals. She crushed down, and I heard metal groaning and tech parts breaking. She flung the two up in the air. Aira had Jeans stuck in her, and Jeans had illusion powers, which immediately started going berserk, with Aira looking like she'd turned into static. And Syval was stuck with Rem, and if Jeans wasn't lying, his powers were being able to generate explosions at will. I felt the shockwave as that came into effect, a fireball above us.

Aira and Syval crash landed in front of us, whole but still barely moving. Zoey didn't give them a chance to do any more. Another devil gate, and the two were thrown somewhere else.

"Can't believe how easy that was," Zoey said. "No strategic prowess between the two of them at all."

Marmalade stood up in front of me, fists clenched. In spite of it all, in spite of how much of a failure I felt, in spite of how horribly everything had gone, I felt so damn proud of Marmalade holding her ground there.

"And now it's down to just you two," Zoey said. "I can make it really quick like I did with the others, or I can drag it out and make you suffer as your very defeated girlfriend writhes in pain on the ground."

I couldn't put it into words, but there was something different about how she was talking. That obnoxious confidence was still there, sure, but I heard pain under it. We hadn't had much success against her, but she wasn't infallible. We'd done something here, even if we lost.

"Oh, you know what we should try?" Zoey said, holding a cough back. "The ol' move number fifty-two."

Marmalade tried her powers again, one more pit that maybe could slow Zoey down for a second. I blinked, another blink that I couldn't tell was normal or incredibly slow, and suddenly it was just me, Zoey, and Roxana, a devil gate right in front of me. Roxana had her arms out this time, and when she put them down, the gate faded away.

That was that. Marmalade lost, too. Not her fault. I tried to resign myself to this. Figure out how we could come back stronger next time and wreck Zoey for putting us through hell.

Zoey laughed as she sat down in front of me

"Move number fifty-two didn't seem that impressive did it?" Zoey said. "But get this. I got a little fun fact for you."

"While I absolutely keep track of where my devil gates go no matter what, Roxana's memory isn't quite as good. And she doesn't really plan out where she connects them to, so..."

"You're lying," I said.

"Nope," Zoey said.

"I got no idea where she ended up," Roxana said, shrugging as she stood by Zoey now.

"Could be gone to some place nobody can get to," Zoey said. "Someplace nobody comes back from."

"No..." I said.

She was lying. It couldn't be. There was no way. Marmalade had her power blocker on, that thing tracked people, they could bring her back.

"I know you're trying to justify it in your head," Zoey said. "But it'd be easier to just accept that you lose. With our incredible might and brilliant wit, we've completely and utterly bested you."

I wanted to say she didn't. I wanted to say she cheated, she ganged up on us, she had cheap tactics.

But I couldn't.

I failed. I lost. Everything that went wrong here, it all came back to me. It all stemmed from me being an idiot, me being a coward.

Zoey didn't have much more to say to me. If she did, I barely heard it. I felt like I was drifting off to sleep. Nothing sounded right, just hearing words didn't feel right. It was almost a mercy when she finally opened a devil gate under me and I tumbled downward into an unknown abyss.