“The Fracture of Team Starlight” (80.9) (Kalei)

The last time I was up against two friends that had gotten hit with the Sharai Daggers and turned into monsters, it was hard to even describe what they turned into. Constantly shifting giant freakish monster things, they barely even had a form that lasted longer than a few seconds that I could even describe. And alright, I dunno if I would call 09 and Ovie 'friends,' and not Anastasia either. But Zeta was one of my closest friends.

Zates' monster form wasn't as constantly shifting and such, but it was hard to stomach in its own way, looking like the saddest tiger one could possibly imagine made out of Elka. Anastasia weirdly looked pretty similar, with her also looking like some kind of tiger formed out of magic evil oil lava goop or whatever the hell Elka is, though her monster form was a lot bigger. She was roaring now, pained sounding shouts that I could feel in my guts. Both of the Faleurs seemed like they basically had the minds of animals like this, with Ana roaring and Zeta arching her back defensively.

Lillia and Marmalade were by them, Oka had just been thrown through a void gate? I didn't even have time to process that as Zoey had put two more of those portals around me, the rings of energy threatening to dimensionally cut me in half or something if I moved. We were completely screwed already, but I couldn't give up.

As I tried to think of anything I could possibly do here, Anastasia cried out again, finally swinging a clawed hand at Zeta. In a way, this was a powder keg that had been waiting to go off from the moment the two reunited, probably even longer with how much Ana already hated her sister before meeting her. I doubt she expected it'd blow up like this with the two turned into monsters, but a fight between the two was unfortunately probably always gonna happen in some way or another, mainly due to Anastasia being a hotheaded jackass with a pointless grudge.

As soon as Anastasia slashed at Zeta, Zeta reacted immediately, in a flash it turned into two alley cats trying to tear each other apart. I could barely tell what was going on, but I knew we had to somehow get them apart or this would get even uglier.

It was just Marmalade and Lillia at the bottom of the stage, Aira had been flung back and Roux was still trying to get Raytris to turn back to normal from the weird trance state Zoey put her in. That was fine by me, if they could get her back to normal, then we'd free everyone else, and even with Zoey being absurdly strong, I didn't think there was any way she could take all of us on at once.

Marmalade turned to me, silently asking what to do. Her powers were mainly earthquakes, but also like earth, so dirt? Could she control rocks, then? I felt like an idiot not knowing all of her Cani powers.

OK, she's definitely made like dirt squares...or like she moved the dirt so it was like a square pit?

I pointed downward and gestured a kind of cube shape, hoping she'd get that. Maybe we could separate the Faleurs this way? The ground seemed to be stone, so...like, that'd work, right?

Marmalade nodded, and concentrated her powers. I felt the ground shake, and a shape began to form on the ground, a big rectangle that surrounded both of the Faleurs. Marmalade dropped her hands down like she was chucking a ball forward, and the space within the rectangle dropped, the Faleurs going with it, each letting out more freaky shrieks.

The monster Faleur sisters were stopped, for about two seconds before they just climbed out. They somehow seemed to sense that Marms was the one who did it, and advanced on her.

"Don't worry!" Marms shouted over, looking right at me, and something about her determined look and her stopping mid-whatever-the-hell-this was to reassure me made my heart nearly skip a beat.

Marmalade tried again, this time making a bigger rectangle to drop the Faleurs into. Monster Zeta instinctively (I assume?) leapt and spread her legs out, balancing precariously on the edges of the new pit. Monster Ana jumped too, but she landed on Zeta's back and tried to use her to jump out of the pit. That just made both of them tumble down again. I felt a surge in the ground as Marmalade pushed her power further. The shrieks of the monster sisters got quieter as they continued to fall. I could hear them faintly, trying to scratch and crawl up, but this surprisingly seemed to keep them in place.

"Wait, huh?" Zoey said.

Things went weirdly quiet as Lillia peered over, ready in case something or someone rocketed upwards.

"They're fighting each other now," Lillia said. "I'd say we should break them apart, not put them further together, but...it doesn't seem like they can climb out now, so I suppose that's a win. We'll come back to them later."

"Hell yeah, go Marms!" I cheered.

"Careful," Zoey said, gesturing her hand slightly at the gates still sizzling around me. "And, also, pause for a second. Time out, I won't do anything! If you break time out, I mess up Kalei, so nobody else try anything."

Zoey scampered off the stage, scoffing at the pit Marmalade made, standing casually between her and Lillia, who both looked bewildered at Zoey's sudden casual shift.

"Kay, they're out," Zoey sighed. "I could just go down there with some gates, but...why'd you make it go so damn far?"

Marms' grin in response was so good and smug it almost made this hell worth it.

"Want me to push you in so you can see how far it goes?" Marmalade asked.

"You do that and your little girlie gets dimensionally diced," Zoey said.

I did get a weird feeling of butterflies hearing Zoey refer to me as Marms' girl, I'll admit. I realized something else, too.

OK, good info, her range for her magic pull push power has a limit that we could reach. And maybe the reason she couldn't make some gates down there is because she can only keep a few up at a time. Strongest in the world, my ass.

She tried to make another gate to send the Faleurs somewhere, and once again one of the ones around me flickered.

"Oh, you know what I could do?" Zoey said.

Zoey snapped her fingers, and one of the portal gate things around me vanished.

She struggles with more than two gates, then? Maybe?

"Still don't move, unless you wanna be out of the game early," Zoey shouted to me. She conjured another gate and twirled it around her pointer finger like it was pizza dough. "These I can drop a lot farther. Bye bye, Ana and Zeta!"

The faint shouts of the monster-ified sisters went quiet.

"Don't worry, I didn't plan all this for Anastasia just to deal with her in like three minutes," Zoey said. "I have much, much more to do with her soon enough."

She flicked her wrist and another gate appeared around me again.

"But in the meantime, Kalei...jury's still out on you," Zoey said. "Kinda thought you'd be stronger than you've shown me so far, but hurting you has been really, really fun, so it evens out? How do you like all this so far?"

How'd I end up here? Who the hell even was this girl that decided she wanted to ruin all our lives? Someone watching from the shadows for god knows how long, just to do this? There was a lot I wanted to say, but I didn't want to even give her the pleasure of me cussing her out, so I just glared.

"Yeah, thought so." Zoey said.

An unexpected voice spoke up next. Namely, it was someone I didn't even recognize. I was so wrapped up in the happenings around the stage I almost forgot that everyone else was still stuck here, too.

"Hey, I just thought of something," the girl in the crowd said. "Why aren't we just like using our powers, too?"

"OK, I was thinking that and I didn't want to say it," Chellsi said. "I thought we weren't like doing them for some like, reason."

"No, like, genuinely, I just thought we couldn't!" Mikeila-Keila said.

"Like this slime girl's, uh was gonna block us or something," Chellsi said. "Like, hand wise?"

"Or we get zapped!" the first girl that called this out said. "Wait, let me try."

A ball of water whooshed past Zoey's face a second later.

"Oh my god," the girl said, shocked that it worked and also clearly stunned that the entire class had the same wrong thought about power use

"Hey, uh, hello? Did you forget we're on time out?" Zoey looked out at the crowd. "Wait, who even has water as their Cani gift?" She calculated in her head, trying to remember as she squinted at the crowd behind her. "God, I thought I had all this memorized."

"Move," Lillia said before grabbing Marmalade by the arm and pulling her out of the way.

A second later, everyone in the crowd that had some kind of power they could fire all bolt style let loose, aiming directly for Zoey.