"Hol’ up," Vespera looked at me quizzically, clicking her beak. "Our delving team name is 'I Love You'?"

"Yep," I grinned. "I love you too. Problem?"

"That's..." Vespera sputtered at the unexpected love declaration.

"The stupidest name ever," Katherine finished.

"Hey, blame Ci," I shrugged.

“Me? Why me?!” Cinder bristled.

The Thunderbird looked between us.

“You were the inspiration,” I shrugged. “Le muse de… something something French, I dunno.”

“I like it,” Io said. “It’s original. Some say that love is the most powerful force in the universe.”

“Hah, okay, fine, I’m sold,” Vespera grinned.

“You’re just happy you got to thunderblast a teacher,” Cinder commented.

“Heck yeah I am!” Vespera jiggled her chainmail top, hugging me and messing up my hair. “I knew this... h-mixie would be fun, but I didn’t realize HOW fun.”

“Quit pawing him, you harpy, he’s bleeding,” Cinder let out a growl.

“He ain't bleedin’ that bad,” Vespera shrugged. “Right, Lex? You don’t mind a bit of fri-end-ly pawing, riiiiight?”

“Paw away,” I shrugged. “Just take it easy on the zapping. Upping your mana took a lot out of me.”

“How did you do that?’ Vespera brought her beak to my ear. “You gotta tell me. Is it some kind of unique skill or something?”

“Later,” I hissed back.

The mermaid nurse entered the classroom, rushed to my side, unfolded her chair and doused herself with water, patching me up with her Kitlix. I relaxed as the crystal kitten did its job, sealing my bleeding face.

Solace stared at us from where she was holding onto passed out Emerald.

“Sup, Solly?” Vespera asked. “Wanna join the new D&D gang aka ‘I love you’?” She laughed jovially after saying the name.

“Em said he’s a human,” Solace accused, pointing a yellow claw at me.

“You some kind of birchard?” Vespera shot back. “We literally just blasted an Archmage!"

“You, Io and Ci blasted him,” Solace said. “I didn’t see the human do nothin' except wave a stupid lighter around like a knob.”

“You’re the knob!” Vespera growled. “Piss off or I’ll thunder you too. Want to lick the floor together with Em? That it?”

“I didn’t know that you were into humans,” Solace pursed her lips.

“I didn’t know that my bestie is such-a-friggin’ licklock,” Vespera clicked. “Em’s plan was neat-o while it lasted, but it wasn’t getting us shit.”

“So you just switchin’ sides?” Solace demanded.

“Them’s the beans,” Vespera shrugged. “I go where the wind takes me. This beerch is all out of wind.” The Thunderbird pointed a claw at the twitching Emerald. “You wanna be with her? Be my guest. I’ma chill with my new clan.”

She ruffled my hair again.

“Thunderbeerch,” Solace retreated.

“Wormbeerch,” Vespera fired back in the same tone.

“My apologies if I ruined your friendship,” I said, slipping on the extra-friendly NPC mask of Nazarite novitiate and Eagle Scout boy Christophorus Elijah.

“Eh. No biggie,” Vespera waved me off. “Me n’ Sol r' still besties, we just got a clan disagreement now. S’ fine. 'Prolly gon’ kill each other a couple of times to get over it in History Club. We meet up Saturdays at the school's coliseum, by the way. You still in?"

"Totally am," I smiled.

----------------------------------------

The nurse finished patching up my ribs with her green Kitlix, giving me stern instructions to "take it easy" before rolling over to tend to the still-twitching Emerald.

I turned to Katherine, who was watching everything with an unreadable expression behind her dark glasses.

"So," I said. "Want to tell me why you really joined our little rebellion?"

"Because you're an insufferable ass who called me a chicken," she growled.

"Uh-huh," I nodded. "Nothing to do with your art?"

"Absolutely not," Katherine growled. "And if you keep bothering me, I will roll away."

Cinder rolled her eyes.

"That's it," I grabbed the Quetzi by the hand and pulled her towards Katherine. "You two. Apologize to each other or whatever. We're gonna be a team now and as your Quartermaster, I need you both to at least be civil."

"I don't do apologies," Katherine growled, crossing her coat-covered arms.

"Me neither," Cinder bristled, her feathers shifting through defensive reds.

"Fine," I sighed dramatically. "Then I guess I'll have to use my secret weapon."

Both girls looked at me suspiciously.

"Tough love or true love?" I asked.

"Um," Cinder tilted her head. "What does tough love involve?"

"I'll ask my favorite Thunder-girl to zap you till you apologize," I grinned.

"Don' tempt me," Vespera commented, not looking up from her phone.

"And true love?" Katherine asked warily.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"I'll hug you both until you make up," I declared. "And I'll be super annoying about it. Like, maximum cringe levels of affection. With terrible dad jokes."

"You wouldn't," Katherine growled.

"Oh, but I would," I grinned, spreading my arms wide. "Come here, you grumpy cat! Let's share the love!"

"Don't you dare," Katherine started rolling her wheelchair backwards.

"Too late!" I lunged forward, wrapping one arm around Katherine and the other around Cinder, pulling them both into an awkward group hug. "Feel the power of friendship!"

"I will murder you in your sleep," Katherine threatened, but made no real attempt to escape.

"Aww, look at us bonding!" I cooed. "Now kiss and make up!"

"GET OFF!" Both girls shouted in unison.

Vespera lifted her phone to take a photo of us.

"Quality managering!" she commented with a grin. "This is goin' straight to me Omnigram. #TeamILoveYou!"

"So," I turned to my newly formed team. "Delving class. Shandrian Market. Who's excited for delving?"

"Erm," Katherine said. "We're actually going to do... delving? After banishing a teacher to another dimension?"

"Hrm," Vespera commented. "I thought that this going to be free period till they find us a sub?"

"Stuco is already aware of the situation," I said. "They're going to organize a substitute. I got five of them to sign the infraction forms, meaning that whenever Skeletor reconstitutes, we won't have to do detention or whatever other nonsense he demands."

"Sweet," Vespera clicked, sending me a thumbs up in both real life and Omnigram. "You're da boss, Quartermaster."

"Soo.... We're actually going to Shandrian Market?" Cinder began.

"Yep!" I grinned. "First official delve-date for Team 'I Love You'!"

"I hate this team name so much," Katherine muttered.

"Too bad!" I declared. "It's official now. Signed, sealed, delivered."

"When did this happen?" Katherine demanded.

"Like an hour ago," I said.

"M' making our delvin' team an Omnigram page," Vespera commented. "#Just banished teacher to another dimension. #Delving time! #Best mixie managrrr."

"Alright team," I clapped my hands together. "Time to gear up! Quint should be coming in an hour, so we have time to dress up."

"Dress up in what?" Vespera perked up. "We usually grab historic stuff from the coliseum for delves."

"Lets go to a prep room," I said, glancing at the mermaid-nurse who managed to resuscitate Emerald.

Solace was offering the distraught-looking dragon girl her shoulder to lean on. Emerald's gold-orange eyes tracked us as we gathered our things and headed for the door, burning with barely contained rage.

"Prep room three is free," Vespera commented, leading us down the hall.

The prep room was spacious, with lockers along the walls, a large screen in the center and benches in the back. Various hooks and racks held basic level one equipment for beginners.

I closed the door shut and dropped my dimensional storage bag on one of the benches with a heavy thud. "Alright, fashion show time! Climb in and pick stuff out."

Vespera climbed into the bag first and whistled. "Daaaaymn, this is good sheet. Custom delving equipment. I'm impress'. Are you like a pro delver, Lex?"

"Nah," I shrugged. "This is Lance's stuff. He's my big bro now."

"How in the Abyss did you convince Lance to give you his collection?" Katherine asked.

"Social skeeels?" I shrugged.

"Social skills my tail," Katherine muttered. "You probably manipulated him somehow."

"Me? Manipulate people? Never!" I gasped in mock offense. "I simply explained that I needed equipment to keep his precious baby sister safe."

Cinder blinked at me. She seemed to have regained some of her wits after our duel. She grabbed me by my blood-splattered sweater and dragged me off to the side away from the others. Then she pulled both of us into a change room and slammed the door shut.

"Yes?" I grinned sheepishly at her.

"YOU!" Cinder hissed, eyes blazing. Her wings flared with agitated reds and worried violets, spreading out as far as the small room allowed.

"Me what?" I asked her.

"What the shit was all of that? You challenged a seven-hundred-year-old Archmage to a DEATH DUEL?! He could have OBLITERATED you! Turned you into DUST!"

I held up my hands placatingly. "But he didn't."

"BUT HE COULD HAVE!" she repeated, her voice rising. "Do you have ANY idea how close we were to watching you get ERASED from existence? Didn't you bloody hear him? He could have unteathered your soul from the Lazarus bracelet!"

"I had a plan," I said calmly.

"A PLAN?!" Cinder's wings bristled even more. "What possible PLAN could you have had against a literal death-magic professor?!"

I pulled out the lighter from my pocket.

"What?" She hissed. "You gonna ask me to smoke to distract me or something?"

"No," I smiled. "Zee Captain gave it to me. She said it will help me generate mana."

"The interdimensional abomination that melted Em? And you trust something it gave you?" She demanded.

"Why not?" I shrugged. "She... seemed reasonable. I think that he was supposed to be my sensei before the Wormwood Star crashed into our Earth."

I frowned slightly as my mind inexplicably kept switching the entity's gender in my head without my conscious control.

Cinder stared at me. "You... what? WHAT?!"

"Sensei," I repeated, refocusing on the conversation. "Like a magical mentor. Zee Captain mentioned something about taking someone named Alexa to Manchester, but she hijacked the train and crashed it into our Earth."

"That's the most effin' ridiculous thing I've heard. And you believe this?" Cinder stared at me with skeptical expression.

"Do I believe everything?" I shrugged. "No. But some parts ring true. Like how the lighter seems to generate mana for us. I knew Iogann could open a gate, Vespera could generate electricity, Katherine could manipulate darkness, and you could use your vocal manipulation. I knew that Koshchei Zalimar Evernacht would try to murder me or to make me disappear. He's done this to hundreds of students over centuries. Someone had to stop him."

"You?" Cinder frowned.

"Us," I said. "By myself I'm just a clever magic-less monkey, but with a team at my side I'm much more dangerous, like an octopus with magic tentacles. Now, any other complaints you'd like to share with your Quartermaster?"

"Yes," Cinder growled. "Stop letting Vee paw at you! She's way too handsy!"

"Let her?" I arched an eyebrow. "I don't control Vee, she's a wild bird. If she wants to paw at me, I'd rather let her do that than get electrocuted."

"You literally told her to zap me and Katherine if we don't..." Cinder bristled.

"I was joking," I said. "Mostly. Teambuilding exercises can be fun. Also, you seriously need to apologize to Kat. Right now. Do it. Whatever the fuck you did to upset her needs to be resolved."

"WHY?!"

"We need her," I said.

"Whyyyyuy?!"

"Because she knows something important," my voice fell to an even quieter whisper. "Something about Alexa, about the train crash, about Zee Captain, about everything. Her art... it's not just art. It's memories, fragments of another reality. The one that existed before the Wormwood Star changed everything."

"That's... that's impossible," Cinder shook her head. "Omnids have existed for millennia."

"And things like Captain can overwrite reality," I pointed out. "You saw what happened to Em! It was like he overwrote her swing... backwards in time so her sword went way off target. Ci, please, just trust me. We need Katherine. I need you to get over your shit and be her friend. You're broken and hurt, but Katherine is even worse. She's dying every 13-15 days. She needs supportive friends more than anyone in this damn school."

"Dying? What do you mean dying? Isn't she just disa..." Cinder blinked.

"No. She has some kind of disease that the incarnator can't fix," I explained. "Something that starts with paralysis in her legs and spreads upward. She usually kills herself before it reaches her arms so she can keep drawing. That's why she's always drinking - to dull the pain."

"How do you..." Cinder started.

"Nunkish Throg told me," I grinned. "He's quite good at looking through student files."

"Nunkish..." Cinder chewed on the name for a second, trying to remember where she might have heard it. "Oh. That's you."

"Only until real Nunkish returns from his vacation or whatever," I shrugged.

Cinder growled at me.

I slipped on the Alexander Glock mask and smiled at her as the gears of my mind spun.

"Kat can pull people into the deep," I said, arriving at the answer that would cudgel her better. "It's like a completely separate dimension. Even if the lighter didn't do shit, Zalimar wouldn't be able to hit me with his spell 'cus Katherine would have saved me. We need her on our team and I trust her and you should trust her too instead of flapping around like a moody teenage-dragon-bird."

The Quetzi sighed.

"Also, if we hang out here long enough, people are going to think we're making out," I pointed out.

Cinder sputtered, flashing orange-pink-red. I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the change room towards the wheelchair-bound, grumpy-looking Stollwurm. "Anyways. Time to say sorry."