As I thought about what I could possibly do to help Aira split from Jeans, Roux brought up something I probably should have considered too.

"Question," Roux said. "If this 'General Blade' defeated you two in battle, or a sprite of her rather, then what became of her?"

"She's still out there," Jeans said. "We did a number on her too, but we couldn't put the sprite down."

"Hm," I huffed. That seemed a bit fishy. "So you were both hurt, hurt seriously enough that you needed magic 'go to healing dimension' crystals, ones that were picked up by Taramin or Wildfire Hearts or both, and they just let this powerful chick's retention sprite roam free? Didn't whoever conjured that up want to stop it?"

"I'm not sure, haven't talked to her since I've been in this crystal prison," Jeans said.

"Then how do you know she's still out there?" I asked.

Jeans squinted, smiling slightly. I think I caught her in some kind of a lie, but couldn't prove it. "Call it a few steps past a hunch."

"Sure," I said. "So that's it, then. Now what?"

I hoped the next steps would be carefully figuring out what to do before we did anything.

"General Blade…" Syval said. "That is so cool. We could totally take her down."

"You think?" Kalei asked, her tone a bit too eager.

"Would it be better to wait it out maybe and see if the school can unstick whatever this thing is? Have they offered any help about that?" I asked.

"Not really," Aira said.

"Just like, gave us stronger power blocker wristbands and medicine so I don't get all explode-y," Syval said.

"And that was just Octa and the Taramin people too," Aira said. "All I've heard from Wildfire Hearts folks is a bit about the do whatever card Jeans has. Or I guess we have now."

"Hm," I said. "So then why go fight this Blade then? Is it a situation where you kill the head vampire and you go back to normal?"

"Don't think so," Jeans said. "But if we can get to her ship and stop her, maybe she has a reverse Atrian crystal around, a key that could get Rem and I unlinked from our hosts."

"That makes us sound so alien-y," Aira said. "But it's not like I have any better ideas for how to get you out, so I'm in."

"I'm in too," Syval said.

"I think you'll need me to keep this ship operational," Roux said.

Kalei and I's eyes met. Did I want to do this? No. Did I think this whole thing was very stupid and getting dumber? Probably. Did I still want to see Kalei wreck some more people in her Downside form? Yep. That last one probably fueled me to nod. And I did really want to help Aira, the longer she was stuck with Jeans the worse off she was.

"We take this chick down, get Jeans out of Aira and Rem out of Syval, easy peasy," Kalei said. "That sounds pretty sick for a mission. We're in, too."

"Great," Jeans smiled. It was really unfortunate how pretty she was with her rotten personality, her smile was quite charming. "Maybe we can wrap up here, then. I'll keep you posted when we can head out."

"As in I'll keep you posted," Aira said.

The others left one by one, until it was just me and Kalei, slowly walking down the snow covered train tracks. On one hand, it was nice to be alone with Kalei, and I got butterflies with each step next to hers,

"Hey, Marms," Kalei said. "I know today got out of hand, and this whole thing is getting out of hand. So…sorry for dragging you into it."

It was a lot more direct than I expected.

"It's fine," I said. "I mean, I dunno what we're doing or where we're headed, but like, I appreciate the apology."

"Mainly I'm sorry you had to be alone with Jeans for any stretch of time," Kalei said. "I don't trust a thing she says, and you shouldn't either."

"Yeah…" I said. "She got pretty flirty with me."

"I figured," Kalei sighed. "Next time call for me and I'll help you out."

"Next time maybe I'll be fighting right by you instead of sitting at the computer tank cart deal," I said.

"That would be awesome," Kalei said. She sighed.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I still feel really bad," Kalei said. "I keep picturing this big snowball falling down a hill, getting bigger and bigger, no idea where it's headed. That's what all this Downside stuff is like for me. And now you're wrapped up in it, too." She rolled up a snowball for a visual aid, then threw it.

"Eh, I wouldn't be if I didn't want to," I said. "I leapt into that snowball right with you." I blushed, wondering if that was maybe too much. But Kalei chuckled.

"Well, if you say so," Kalei said. "If you get tired of it all, I won't blame you if you bail."

I don't know if I wanted to leave this now. I didn't want to leave Kalei's side, that was the main thing.

"I just want more planning," I said. "And less diving into some random thing. I know that's like your deal but…"

Kalei laughed more. "My deal? Girl, come on."

"It totally is, don't lie," I laughed too. "You know what would help too?"

"What's that?" Kalei asked, the tone of someone who knew what I was going to say next.

"We gotta tell them," I said. "Zeta, Oka, Lillia, at least."

Kalei kicked at the snow, almost tripping on one of the wooden ties. "Yeah, I know. But we can't as long as we're doing anything with Jeans. I do not want Zates to have to interact with her again."

"We could explain the situation, at least," I said. "I think they'd understand."

Kalei didn't answer that.

"You know them better than me, so it's your call," I said.

"Yeah…" Kalei said. "I'll think about it."

"Hey, also," I said. "You're getting really good at shifting in and out of Downside. Are you getting those weird feelings like it's trapped in you still?"

"Nope, it's been all good there," Kalei said. "And something like this burns a lot of the excess power out so like, when we're doing beam chasers I can go full tilt without like, a tentacle exploding out of me."

"That'd be pretty sick, though," I said.

"On that note, whenever we do this General Blade mission, remind me to make sure it's not on a practice day or a game day," Kalei said.

She was so dead serious it made me laugh harder than I had all day.

"What? I mean it!" Kalei said.

"No, just, like," I tried to get the words out. "Just the way you said it, like. You love beam chasers, you're not gonna forget what days we play or when games are."

"Still, if I do forget, I'm relying on you," Kalei patted my shoulder. "As I do for many things."

Her hand stayed there for a second or two, nothing she'd think about again after doing it, but the way her hand on me felt, mixed with the serenity of walking in the snow, with the sun starting to set, the sky a mix of blue and pink, my heart soared. I thought about kissing her right there. I felt guilty for it, though. With everything on her plate, me kissing her would probably just add more stress.

"Marms? You coming?" Kalei asked.

I didn't realize I stopped. "Oh, right, yeah,"

"We should game or something tonight, I'm beat," Kalei yawned.

"Do we have any homework we have to do?" I asked. "Not to be a dork, but we probably shouldn't fall behind on that while we have all this going on."

"Nope," Kalei said.

"You sure?" I giggled. I couldn't stop laughing around her. "I'm pretty sure we do."

"Well, I vote that we both forgot so we can skip whatever it is," Kalei said.

"Sure, sure, then you get to come up with my excuse tomorrow," I said. "I think I just have a worksheet for Diast's class."

"Oh, easy mode then, I got this," Kalei said. "Diast doesn't even try to fight back when I'm annoying in class anymore."

As we went back to our dorm room, I kept thinking about her patting my shoulder, which weirdly affected me as much as thinking about when we were skinny dipping and she hugged me close when we almost got caught. And I kept thinking about how it'd go if I kissed her in the snow. It probably would have made things so much more difficult when we were both already tumbling down a hill in a big metaphorical snowball.

But I still wanted to.