I tapped on my phone, swiping through a bunch of videos from the Falling Shards sports teams. All of them had crazy high hits. It didn't normally bother me too much, but going to the Rising Shards channel and seeing how much lower the girls' teams videos were…it was a pain. Not helping matters was every time I searched Tokickaman, I'd get a ton of articles about him, but there wasn't a peep about the time I helped Syval and Aira in the city during the big storm. Was nobody seriously filming that day?

I was already in a bad mood, but having to push through people was making it way worse. I had never seen the school this crowded.

“Dang, we got kinda rough back there,” Marmalade said.

"Yeah, well, they were in an annoying mood, so whatever," I said.

I was a bit catty with the others, but it ended up working out. Now we could check in with Aira without them bugging us. But I wasn't sure if we could even get any privacy with this crowd.

"Remind me why I thought it was a good idea to meet up with all this going on?" I asked.

Every few minutes I heard a group of girls squealing, and it hit me that most of the people here weren't even from our school. Most of the RS girls were some kind of gay and could visit the boys' school at any time. The promise of potential free furniture was probably just as enticing as checking in with any boys that would be somewhere else soon, if not more. But reacting to a bunch of dudes like this didn't seem like the classmates I knew.

So who the hell were all these people? It looked like a lot of folks around my age, so people from other schools maybe?

I side stepped a group crowding around two guys with mat ball uniforms on, with baggy jerseys and shorts in black and yellow.

"This is just stupid," I said.

"Maybe we should meet Aira at the Rising side of things, it's probably a ghost town right now," Marmalade said.

"Probably," I said.

"Oh my god,"

A girl I didn't want to see blocked our way now. There are always exceptions to rules, and Elisa Burwell was one. The dragon Kanibari girl wasn't technically a Rising Shards student—I didn't think at least, the way the shift between Rising Shards and Wildfire Hearts was going I was probably technically enrolled at both at this point—but she was a classmate, and unless she had some realizations I wasn't aware of, she was definitely into dudes like the rest of this crowd.

"What is it?" Marmalade asked. "Why are you pointing at us?"

"Oh my god!" Elisa said. "What is wrong with you?"

"Me?" I asked. Where to even begin there?

"All of you!" Elisa said. "Did you not notice that you passed Lucian and Seth Kerres so nonchalantly? They're like the Osiris and his speedchunk of this school!"

“I don’t know who the hell Lucian and Seth are, sorry,” I said. "Are they brothers or something?"

"No," Elisa said. "Seth Kerres should just always be referred to by his full name as Seth Kerres is all."

"Kay. Well, we're busy, so—" I tried to say at least, but Elisa started screeching. "What? What is it? What's wrong?"

"I think I'm genuinely in hell," Elisa said. "How else could you describe the boys’ school up and leaving us like this!"

"They're not moving the school itself," I said. 

"I'm going to have a severe boy shortage," Elisa said.

"I'm sure there will be dudes around, not everyone's gonna go," I said.

"Sure, but the best boys are leaving!" Elisa said. "At least I'll still get to watch the streams when I can't go to a game live," Elisa said.

Someone tugged at my shirt. I thought it was Marms trying to leave, but she was at my left, and the tugger was at my right.

"This chick giving you the business?"

I almost elbowed the gremlin at my side. For some reason Chumbler and her Kanibari friend were here, too.

"The hell are you doing here?" I asked.

"Same as everyone else, just trying to make a quick buck," Chumbler said. "Five dollars and I can get Elisa to leave you alone."

Marmalade muttered something in annoyance.

"I don't need your help with that," I said. It occured to me that the last time I had a major interaction with Chumbler, she was messing with the love trio's table, and they had me stop her, which amounted to chucking Chumbler around while she was in her ball form. "I'm surprised you're even talking to me after the fight we had."

"We had a fight?" Chumbler asked.

"That was like. Weeks ago. Did you seriously forget?" Her friend said.

"Maybe! Shut up! Wait, now I'm…yep. Yeah." Chumbler said. "Well, I'm a very forgiving person. For a price."

"Whatever, I can tell this is going to be something stupid, so just leave us out of it," I said. I tried to leave this party of goofy idiots, almost grabbing Marm's wrist to pull her away, but another annoyance stood in my way now.

"Is there like a stupid parade going on or something?" I asked.

"Why? You want a float in the stupid parade?" Roux asked. "I think you should hear out Chumbler's offer."

"Leave me alone, not in the mood today," I said.

"I am, though," Roux said.

"Since when do you pal around with Chumbler and…" I paused.

"Z.O.K.," Chumbler's friend said. "Zorta Orca Korbley."

"Sorry," I said. "Since when do you pal around with Chumbler and Zorta?"

"Don't just say her first name, say the full thing or say the acronym, that's it," Chumbler said.

"Yeah," Roux said. "And I am a staunch Chumbler ally, she's funny! Koridia, have you forgotten the value of a good joke?"

"I'm hilarious as hell and I don't really want to hang out with her, no offense." I said.

"She is really unpleasant, I get it," Z.O.K. said.

"I agree, so therefore Marms and I are leaving," I said, this time actually reaching out to get Marmalade, accidentally holding her hand for a second. I probably surprised her because she just yelped and pulled her hand away, kind of an odd Zeta-type reaction.

"Er, sorry," Marmalade laughed. "I…uh…"

I tried to say something else but Roux cut me off.

"Just hear Chumbler's elevator pitch, you'll lose your freaking mind," Roux said.

"Here's what I'm thinking," Chumbler said, not waiting to see if I wanted to hear this or not. "You see all this?" She twirled around, pointing to the crowds around us. "Big bucks with the boys."

"I'm listening," Elisa said.

"You're not part of this," Chumbler said. "Or wait, maybe you can be our first customer."

"If you're selling stuff with the boys, I'm in," Elisa said.

"Do you really want to hear this?" Marmalade asked.

"No, but I'm not sure we could escape with this crowd," I said.

"Probably not…" Marmalade said.

"Fine, what exactly is your plan to make money off of this?" I asked, not hiding in my tone that I found this all really annoying.