At a breakfast before a big class assembly, I sat slouched, not really feeling the egg wrap that was served. We were seated near one of the TVs that had LE Morning Croissant, a popular news show, on.

“Here’s one for ya,” a male host of the show said, his usual set up for the next story. “You remember the story of that masked vigilante going around beating up various cultists around the country?”

“No,” The lady cohost said.

“Well, that’s the long and short of it,” he said. “But now we have reports that they're back at it.”

A video popped up of a bunch of people in dark robes looking like they got knocked out in front of an abandoned outdoor bathroom. I could recognize the general look of them, they were Order of Terina members, that creepy cult that had messed with Kalei’s head when her fangs came in. Kalei was watching the report intently.

“Yes, the infamous figure, who witnesses have dubbed 'The Exile,' is back on the streets of cities big and small, targeting the cultists known as the Order of Terina. We at LE Morning Croissant have actually gotten a snippet of footage of the vigilante in action.”

They cut to a five second clip of an agile, shadowy figure with long hair that was mixed with black and red did a jumping kick to someone, knocking their bloodsaber out of their hands. The figure turned to whoever was filming and the video paused. It was blurry, so not much of them could really be gleamed. But I could see their eyes, eyes that looked like cat eyes, glowing in the darkness. 

“That’s kinda freaky,” I said.

“Kinda?” Laenie said. “He's downright terrifying.”

“No kidding,” Aira said. The two clearly wanted to look away from the shadowy figure, but their eyes were locked onto the screen.

“But I guess good if she’s taking out Terina cult groups?” Oka said.

“For sure,” Kalei said. “Cool mask, too.”

"They had a mask?" I asked. "I just saw the eyes."

There were some girls looking our direction. I thought they were watching the screen too, but they were staring at me because they turned back as soon as they saw that I was looking their way. They were looking at me the same way Aira and Laenie were looking at the video of the vigilante.

It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten stares like that over the week. It really sucked being in a big fight, but the after the big fight part kinda sucked because afterwards you become the center of attention. It was hard to forget about getting attacked on the beach when people kept staring at me and whispering.

“Revel in the fame, dude,” Kalei said, spotting the whole scene of mutual staring and uncomfortableness. “If there’s one last vanilla pudding in the cafeteria line and you do a ‘I kicked Ovie’s ass so bad she had to leave school’ look, that pudding is yours.”

“I don’t want people to be afraid of me,” I said. “And I like chocolate pudding better than vanilla.”

“Then fine, if there’s one last chocolate pudding, you know what to do.”

“I almost want to get you a gift card for getting rid of Ovie,” Iris said. “I know it was all terrible and it was more Ovie nuking her own school life, but still. I’d rather you get the credit.”

“Well, it hopefully won’t last forever,” Oka said. “I’d be surprised if it lasted longer than a few weeks, people forget pretty quickly here. Like that girl who got her head stuck in the vending machine."

“Hey you know, Oka’s technically famous, she can help you out,” Kalei said.

“I’m really not,” Oka said. “I checked; my name isn’t even on the Kilander encyclopedia online.”

“Bummer,” Kalei said. “You get any cash from them yet?”

“No,” Oka said. “Their money’s either tied up in stock market stuff I don’t understand or in massive debt stuff I don’t understand.”

“Laaame,” Kalei said. “Zeta, what you need to do is get video of that fight and sell it to the highest bidder. Add a like fart noise in there somewhere and bam, instant meme. You can say you’re affiliated with that Exile guy!”

“I’m in for the fart noise,” Aira said. “I think that would really seal the deal.”

“She was using time stop powers or whatever, I don’t think anyone filmed it.” I said. “Can we stop talking about the fight?”

The bell rang, and it was time for the assembly. I was really hoping my incident wouldn’t be mentioned. I sat in the auditorium with Oka and Kalei on one side, and Iris and Maia on the other, with Aira and Laenie behind us.

“Oh man,” Maia said. “When did they reupholster the chairs?”

“Resist the urge, Maia,” Iris said.

“What urge?” Oka asked.

Maia got her claws out. “Claw sharpening.” She said.

“Aw, cool,” Kalei said. “No, do it, give in to the urge…”

“Shut up, Kalei,” Iris said. “She’ll get in trouble if she does.”

“Don’t worry, if you fall asleep, I definitely won’t scratch up this nice new chair in front of me.” Maia said, practically drooling.

“I won’t fall asleep,” Iris said. “I’m not even tired.”

“I’m honestly surprised Zeta and I didn’t scratch up our stuff when we had Feral Flu.” Oka said.

“Feral Flu wouldn’t give you the same need to scratch things up, even if it gave you claws,” Maia said, her eyes wide and her pupils already getting bigger as she practically drooled at the fabric in front of her. “It’s just something hardwired in Kanibari.”

The lights fell, and Penteldtam strutted onto stage. By the time he reached the microphone, Iris was asleep, and Maia got to work kneading and scratching up the chair.

“Hey, sup y’all,” Penteldtam said. “We got some big news, and uh. Well, I’ll let Mr. Soleri handle some of that.”

“Oh crap, that’s right,” I muttered. Soleri’s promotion hadn’t gotten an official announcement yet.

Mr. Soleri joined the stage as Penteldtam scratched his head and yawned.

“Greetings, students,” Mr. Soleri said. “As some of you have already heard, I have accepted a position as vice-principal of Rising Shards and Falling Shards. This will not interfere in my regularly scheduled class time, but any students I am advising will need to be reassigned to a new advisor. I hope you understand, and I look forward to working with you in this expanded capacity.”

Some polite clapping followed. I hadn’t talked to Soleri since the Ovie fight. He seemed pretty partial to Ovie, but if he was vice principal, he probably had some say in expelling her. I couldn’t shake the feeling he was going to hold it against me somehow after he got mad at me about reading Raina Starlight books in class.

“And the next announcement…” Penteldtam started, looking at his notecard. “Well, I don’t get to make this one either, huh?” Penteldtam glared at some staffers who shrugged at him. “Can I go then? Oh right, the photo op. Alright brother Berin, get on up here.”

“Huh?” Oka said.

Oka’s adoptive dad Berin took the stage. He waved to the students but didn’t get a reaction. I feel like Oka would have clapped, but she looked too surprised.

“Hello there, kids,” Berin said. “Well, this might sound like a repeat of the last announcement, but I have also accepted a position here at Rising Shards, starting today I will be your new co-principal, and the fulltime principal of Falling Shards!”

“What?” Oka asked. “Since when?”

“Since today, apparently,” Kalei said.

Penteldtam grabbed the mic, or tried to, from Berin. The two looked like ten-year-olds wrestling for the microphone, but Berin eventually gave in. “Fine, whatever!”

“I just wanted to add that this is definitely not because I’ve been deemed incapable of many basic functions of my position, no siree.” Penteldtam got ready to give the mic back to Berin, but swiped it at the last second.

“Oh, I have an announcement too, I just remembered!” Penteldtam said. “Starting…in a few hours, I’m a proud father now! I will be hosting an exclusive ceremony to introduce my new perfect child.”

“…what?” Oka said.

Berin and Soleri droned on about school spirit for a while, luckily not bringing up anything vaguely resembling my incident with Ovie. Penteldtam said he was about to start singing when the others abruptly ended the rally.

Iris woke up to Maia’s hands half dug into the back of the chair in front of her, having shredded the new fabric and moved on to the upholstery insides.

“I may or may not be stuck, but I can explain,” Maia said. “I really, really wanted to do this.”

“Oh, Maia Maia Maia,” Iris said groggily. “Do you want some help getting unstuck?”

“…I may or may not,” Maia said.

“This might take a bit, you guys don’t have to wait for us,” Iris said, rolling up her sleeves to get to work prying each of Maia’s claws out of the chair. "You're lucky nobody's sitting in front of you, they might've gotten back clawed here."

I kept an eye on Oka after the event, who looked pretty down.

“Great, juuuust great,” Oka said. “Another stupid Kilander party.”

“Can you skip this one?” I asked.

“I should probably go,” Oka said. “If nothing else than to see who my new technical cousin is. That sounds so weird out loud.”

“Maybe we should come with this time?” Kalei asked. “We’ve never been to these, but they did say pretty exclusive so I dunno.”

“I don’t know why you’d want to,” Oka said.

“It might be fun to see them all,” I said. “And I could see your room at their place. And we can back you up if your new cousin sucks or something.”

Oka stopped to think about it for a moment.

“That…actually sounds good,” Oka said.