“Alright, together then!” I said, readying my bloodsaber.

  “Oh, am I part of the fighting now?” Rain asked.

  “Yes, everybody help, please!” I said. Iris and Maia weren’t ing over, but the spot we were writing at was far enough away they probably couldn’t hear anything from where we were outside of general fight sounds. I clipped my finger, and my bloodsaber ignited with a satisfying was maybe the healthiest glow I’d seen my girl Minty have so far since I got the sword.

  “Zeta, you said weather trol is yift, right?” Amara asked.

  “Yep!” I said.

  “OK, so don’t use lightning if you avoid it.” Amara said.

  “How e?” I asked.

  “Because that’ll just super charge the metal,” Amara said. “You and Raio attack it from the side, I’ll distract it for you! Your powers bined should loosen it up for me.”

  “What should I do?” Latte asked.

  “I don’t know, you break this thing instead of breaking our stuff?” I asked.

  Latte chucked her thermos at the void beast, dinging it in the head. That just seemed to make it angrier. And bigger, somehow, as it seemed to grow a whole void monster size when it screeched in respoo the thermos.

  “That’s about all I got.” Latte said, shrugging.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Maybe go bad stand behind one of the trees then, I guess.”

  Latte didn't do as I asked, instead putting on that creepy open mouth smile look again.

  “It’s looking our way,” Amara said. “KJ, e over by me to help! Zeta, Rain, go the opposite dire of us!”

  “No, screw you, I’m filming!” KJ said, not moving her camera from her face. “Distract it yourself!”

  “You distrabsp;and film us!” I said.

  “No!” KJ said.

  “Fine, Latte!” Amara said.

  “Yes?” Latte said with the urgency of someone being asked to answer a question about geography in css.

  “Stay with me and help me keep this thing’s attention!” Amara siad.

  “Got it!” Latte said, and immediately ran off from us into the woods.

  “I genuinely don’t know why I bother.” Amara said. “Fine, I’ll do it on my own I guess!”

  Amara fired another ser at the void beast, who smashed the thermos with one of its feet. The goop of the Elka surrouhe thermos and absorbed it.

  “Oh, it’s a sger kind,” Rain said. “We have to act quickly!”

  Rain drew her bloodsaber and ig. Hers had a pinkish hue, matg her fur. I hadn’t heard what her powers were, but I prepped myself and tried to focus really hard on just creating a rainstorm so I didn’t lightning up the metal parts of the void beast. Droplets of water began to fall from the sky.

  “I actually did it!” I said.

  Rain pointed her bloodsaber and a swirling pink beam came from it, aimed at the void beast’s head. It started shaking around, trying to resist whatever Rain’s powers were as it was held in pce. My power surged, and the drops of water increased in rate, sizzling against the void monster.

  “That’s kinda funny,” I said. “We’re bining our powers, and I have rain trol and your name is Rain! Isn’t that iing? It’d be really funny if your powers were like ‘Zeta trol’, but I don’t know what that’d mean unless it was like, mind trol or something-”

  “Zeta?” Rain asked.

  “Y-yes?”

  “Please stop talking and keep using your ability.” Rain said.

  “Right.” I said.

  “That’s perfect, guys!” Amara said. “Now for the grand finale!”

  Amara twirled her bloodsaber and threw it into the dirt. She jumped on its hilt and practically flew above the void monster, holding out both her hands. Her fiips lit up in red, and she fired two volleys of ser bsts from each. I didn’t know if she p, but her sers all bounced off the drops of water I had geed and held for a split sed in a geous dispy of light before all firing down on the void monster. With a final roar, the metal parts of the void monster ked to the ground, and its Elka energy dissipated.

  “Now that…is some Rising Shards school spirit.” Rain said, turning directly into KJ’s camera.

  “Wow, yes!” I said. “Did you get that, KJ? That’s a great closing line!”

  “Hang on,” KJ said, cheg her camera. “It cuts off a bit before the end, but we just rerecord her saying spirit.”

  We all got to celebrate our victory when we huddled behind KJ as she watched the shot we got, and it looked incredible.

  “Also, Amara, holy crap?” I said. “That was amazing! Did you know the sers were going to do that thing there?”

  “I had only pulled that trick off once or twice,” Amara said. “But, thank you.”

  Amara looked downward. I worried I was being too much with pliments, she didn’t seem to react well to them the more I gave them.

  “So do we think we’re good on the fighting parts of this ercial?” I asked.

  “Well, we got some shots of Amara fighting, so we might be good there,” KJ said.

  “Some shots?” I asked. “We got pretty much everyone fighting. You don’t sound too enthused.”

  “I just think it’d have beeer if we had more shots of Rain,” KJ said.

  “Aw, KJ, you’re too sweet,” Rain said.

  “While I agree that every produ could use more Rain,” Amara started. “I am detly pleased with how my battle footage turned out. And I’m a pretty tough critiyself.”

  “You were amazing out there, Amara!” Rain said. “Such gra your bat.”

  “R-really!?” Amara asked, her hair practically standing up just from pliments from Rain.

  “Aa, my apologies I came across as rude during the battle,” Rain said. “My gift requires a lot of focus.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem,” I said. “My group has all yelled much worse things my way during void fighting, it happens.”

  “It is humorous, though, “Rain said. “My gift is mind trol. If I did really want to, I could trol you and it would be Zeta trol. So we do plement each other in battle.”

  “How about that!” I said.

  None of us could find Latte afterwards and assumed she had gone bae. I mao fish out her crumpled thermos from the wreckage in case she wa for some reason. I went back to che Iris and Maia. Iris was hunched over, looking past a bush.

  “Zeta…” Iris quietly called over to me when she saw me. Her voice sounded like she’d just seen something to cause wonderment, which was weird. I figured she'd found a moondust stone or something like that. I looked up to see her holding back a giggle. “Look.”

  Iris pointed over to Maia, who rawled out o the bush on the grass, sleeping in a sunbeam. My jaw dropped; it really was a sight to cause wonderment. She had her arms out, bent at her wrists as the rest of her swooped in a curve like a crest moon.

  “Don’t say anything,” Iris whispered.

  I wondered how Maia slept through all that fighting as Iris desperately tried not to ugh. She let out a bit too much of a snort, though, which startled Maia awake.

  “Whuh,” Maia said as she suddenly sat up. “Did I fall asleep?”

  “Uh huh,” Iris said.

  “Did we finish the thing?” Maia asked.

  “We got all the fighting parts done,” I said, as Maia yawned and stretched.

  “It usually works that way,” Iris said. “I fall asleep in css, Maia falls asleep outside. We’d probably be doomed if we had to be apart from each other too long.”

  “Alright, stop talking about me now," Maia said. " we head back already?"