Aira and Syval were still just floating. It looked like a ghost was trying to escape from inside each of them. The boy was so frustrating because he looked so familiar but I couldn't place it. The other one was just...it was Jeans.

Jeans, Zeta's ex (if you could even call her that because it sounded like she basically strung Zeta along wrecking her emotionally all the way) who captured practically my whole grade and tried to siphon a bunch of Elka from us to fill up some ancient mask. Jeans who I last saw running a castle while I was captured by Ovie's group, and now here I was with a bunch of us captured again; we had to stop getting captured all the time at some point, right?

Jeans wasn't making any noise as she tried to escape. If she could see us, I didn't look anything like she knew in this monster form, and I don't think she knew any of the others. That didn't really matter, though. Aira and Syval's sudden choice to eat those damn crystals got stupider by the minute. If an Atrian crystal healed someone seriously wounded, but locked them into the crystal via some magic or whatever, Jeans and this dude must have been hurt and the Taramins ended up with the crystals they were in, or they were the ones who put them in the crystals. I growled from the headache this was giving me.

"Neat, huh?" Reed said. "Should I pull these ghastly figures out of the meaty prisons they're in? Or keep them together and let them get to know each other better? The longer they stay like this, the more they'll mix. It can get lonely having only one voice in your head, so adding another might be good!"

"Excuse me," Elisa said. "Mister Reed? The boys are cute, especially ghost boy, I so ship ghost boy and Tokickaman now, but can I just say that I appreciate how hot and divorced you are?"

I hoped I'd never understand Elisa Burwell.

"Shut up," Reed said.

Elisa gasped. "And you're toxic? This is so great. Tell me about your ex!"

Reed ignored her, staring at me.

"Ohh, you recognize the floaty ghouls, don't you?" Reed asked. "Maybe I should figure you out, next."

"Roux Jr. doesn't recognize anyone," Roux said, way too confidently in that assessment. "She's a beast born of malice and hate, a warrior straight from twelve different hells."

Now Roux was giving me a backstory.

"Somehow I doubt that," Reed said. "Now what shall we do next with our fun guests? I have more stories to tell you. Unless you all want to start killing each other, so I can satisfy at least a bit of my killing game cravings."

"Roux Jr., kill this guy already," Roux said.

"Cute, but my pacts are still—" Reed said. Halfway through that sentence, the energy surrounding him faded. "Wait, huh?"

I didn't hesitate with such a gift of perfectly timed failure of a jackass void monster's stupid shields failing on him. I leapt over his desk, tackling him down. It literally felt like tackling a pipe cleaner to the ground.

"I, uh, maybe we can talk this out!" Reed said before I punched him. This felt like punching a sheet of poster paper, so basically me punching the ground. This sucked. I stood up and just used my powers to encase him in ice. His creepy face was stuck in a panicked form as he was frozen.

Aira and Syval fell to the ground. Once I was sure Reed wasn't gonna like bust out of the ice and activate some muscular second form, I went to check on them. The ghostly figures of Jeans and that boy were gone. The two didn't seem to be hurt, though.

"Well, that was boring and unsatisfying," Roux said.

"Shut up, she totally just saved us!" Marmalade said.

"Should've let me use my power," Z.O.K. said. "It would have erased that dude from existence."

"That isn't your power," Chumbler said. "Don't lie."

"I'm...not necessarily lying!" Z.O.K. said.

"Then erase him from existence right now," Chumbler said.

"I'm...not in the mood," Z.O.K. said.

"Liar," Chumbler said.

The floor began to rumble, but just for a second. Then in the blink of an eye we were back in Falling Shards, back in that big open space by the library.

All eyes were on us. With me still in beast form. And Tokickaman right beside me.

Murmurs immediately spread.

"Did that thing beat that Reed fella?"

"Who is that?"

"Monster...is it an Exa Cani?"

"Looks too...weird..."

The crowd noise turned to some oooh's and whatnot with a few gleeful shrieks.

"He's not dangerous, is he?"

Things sounded a bit more worried among the crowd, tension rising as soon as someone suggested it. Before it could get bad, though, Marms shouted out.

"She just saved you all!" Marmalade's face turned red as soon as she said it, and she hid behind me, which was cute.

The tense chatter lessened right away. Turning to disappointment.

"Oh, it's a girl?" One of the townie types said.

"Huh...that's..."

The people there for Falling Shards got quiet and disinterested in seconds. I'd say about 80% of the girls from Rising Shards still shrieked though, which was a strangely good feeling.

Some people came up to Reed, still frozen in ice. It didn't look like it would melt any time soon, so I considered him taken care of as some teachers got a hold of him, sliding him away with energy bindings.

"Oh my god, wait, is that Tokickaman?"

More shrieks and sounds for Syval lying next to me, still out cold. I hoped he was alright, but I couldn't exactly check on him and Aira more thoroughly now.

"Oh!" Chumbler said, waddling forward and waving. "Over here!"

A middle-aged woman with a cart with boxes on it rolled it up to Chumbler.

"There you are," the woman said. "Been calling you for an hour."

"I fell in the void, get off my back," Chumbler said,

"Again?" the woman asked.

"Yes, again, now show me the goods," Chumbler said, rubbing her hands together as she opened a box. "It's all in here?"

"Five hundred shirts, as you ordered," the woman said.

"Most excellent," Chumbler said. "Ahem! All you people here for the boys, feast your eyes on Tokickaman! And more importantly..." She pulled out one of the shirts from the box, that just had a low res picture of Syval in his Tokickaman costume on it. "That's right, folks! Get your Tokickaman merch here!"

Almost unbelievably, lines started forming to buy the merch. Chumbler, Z.O.K., and Roux started taking cash while Elisa swipe a few of the shirts for herself.

Marmalade grabbed at my forearm. She gestured for us to make our exit. I didn't care if I got a cut of it or not at this point, I was sick of all of it. Marms and I ran off, finding a private spot for me to turn back without anyone noticing.