Somebody Stop Them. 40: Monday

"How do I look?" I asked Cinder.

"Like someone I want to slap," my Quetzi GF commented, eyeing my garish red jacket, diamond necklaces and sparkly pants.

I turned to the Stollwurm.

"You look like a cartoon fox about to sell someone a very dubious potion," Katherine chortled.

"Perfect," I wiggled my fox-ears at them.

This time around, my foxy disguise was the work of several overpriced Shandrian Biomancers. The Arx mages had done an excellent job with the modifications, giving me a full set of fox features including a bushy tail and very fluffy ears.

"Right," I turned to my Clan mates. "Everyone know their script?"

The gathered Omnids nodded.

"Why isn't Emmy here?" Solace asked, eyeing the prison courtyard.

"Her parents donated this island to me plus a bigly sum of financial compensation," I said. "She went home last night to get chided by them. We’ll probably see her in class."

"So we just let her go?" Katherine asked.

"Yes. That was the deal our lawyers and Justice Nova agreed on," I shrugged. "A dragon princess and all of the employees of this Institution in exchange for a mountain of cash for our Clan, this island and prisoner ownership transfer. Also, Scrutimancer Satosh belongs to us now. The dragon-kobold lifelong connection was burned away with a week of Duskbloom therapy."

"And if she points out who you are in class?" Kat asked.

"Then she gets sued," I said. "Violating a church-enforced Witness Protection Program gag order is a big no-no. The Arch-Priest spoke with her very sternly about it.”

"You think that's gonna stop her?" Katherine pressed on.

"Of course not," I grinned. "Her parents are keeping her on a very tight leash now though, since she's cost them a lotta cash. If she exposes me, I'll just change my identity again, no biggie. Any excuse for a lawsuit is nice to have."

A bright red Strand-Glider landed in the courtyard manned by Scrutimancer Satosh who was now dressed like a regal butler.

"See you all in Skyfall!" I waved to my friends, climbing into the glider with Magdaline at my side.

. . .

Vespera Simmi entered the Artificer classroom, her movements mechanical.

Her usually messy black and white feathery mop was now fully white, styled in a conservative bun. Her gothic lolita and chainmail outfit had been replaced with a lavish, white dress suit, perfectly pressed.

The other students whispered as she walked past, noticing the dramatic change in her appearance and demeanor. Gone was the playful spark in her gray eyes, replaced by a cold, focused stare. Her Lazarus bracelet, once dark like everyone else's, was now eerily transparent.

She took her usual seat near the front, methodically pulling out and arranging her artificer book, pen and notepad with military precision.

"Vee?" Emerald Stratos, dressed in her usual punk attire, looked at the Thunderbird. "You seem... different. What did he do to you?"

Vespera turned her head mechanically toward Emerald. "Good morning, Emerald. He? Whomever do you mean?"

"Glock," Emerald said, twitching slightly and looking left and right as if she expected the walls to explode and swallow her whole.

"I don't know anyone named Glock," Vespera said.

"Eh?" Emerald sputtered. “Right. You’re all still screwing with me, of course."

Her face soured further.

“I’m not screwing with anyone,” Vespera shook her head. She felt a strange twinge at the name "Glock," but it dissipated quickly, replaced by the familiar focused emptiness that had settled in her mind.

"I've been quite busy with my studies," she stated flatly. "Father says I must maintain perfect grades."

"I... see," the dragoness said with a frown. "Good for you... I guess, you weirdo?"

Cinder entered the classroom, taking her seat beside them, her wings dancing with violet and silver tones.

Vespera felt a strange sensation as Cinder sat on their table - like static electricity dancing across her feathers. She dismissed it as completely irrelevant, trying not to look at the shimmering wings. The Quetzalcoatl was unimportant, irrelevant.

Just another Skyfall Academy student, barely a friend.

Other students filed into the Artificer classroom, filling the seats.

The elder Kraken entered the class from his office, pale, gray tentacles holding onto his Artifactorium book, tools and wands jiggling on his belt. Huge artificer glass lenses sat on his face. The ancient Omnid was half-deaf and half blind. He languidly drifted towards his desk with a yawn.

Just as the first class bell thrummed across the halls, a red, sleek, garish sky-glider stopped next to the landing balcony, pearlescent wings unfolding with a hiss.

A short, red-furred fox in an ostentatious crimson suit with gold trim and dark sunglasses leapt out of the glider.

"Butler! Introduce me," he ordered, slipping the sunglasses into his pocket.

"Presenting his royal highness, Firstborn Prince Lissander Fox," the shark butler declared.

"Good morning, my future subjects!" the fox announced in a merry high voice with an excessive flourish. "I am here to grace your humble institution with my presence! You may bow now!"

“Please have a seat,” the Kraken commented idly. "I will not tolerate tardy students, this is your first warning."

Emerald's face snapped to the fox teen with an audible crack. A bulky white and blue shark-girl dressed in a white suit emerged out of the glider after the princeling.

"You!" Lissander said, pointing an overpriced, gloved hand at Emerald. "Dragon gir! I don’t like the way you’re looking at me.”

"What?" Emerald sputtered.

"Bow!" he ordered.

"I... what?" Emerald blinked.

"Too slow," the kitsune teen snapped his fingers, speaking with an annoying, over-the-top, Thunderland accent. “You clearly suffer from bowing deficiency. Remove her from my sight."

The shark bodyguard stepped forward and unceremoniously dumped Emerald out of her chair, offering it to the fox.

The fox princeling sat directly in front of Vespera into the empty chair.

"Youuuu effffingg..." Emerald hissed, rubbing her behind.

Vespera expected the dragon girl to ignite with dragonfire, to attack the princeling, but he pulled out a three-liter tea thermos and started to unscrew the top.

Upon seeing the thermos, Emerald paled. Her mouth snapped shut and she retreated to the back of the classroom, shivering as if struck by lightning. 

The teacher ignored the entire event, heading to the board. He threw his chalk up in the air and the artifact-chalk began writing out the outline for today's lesson.

"Sup," green foxy eyes struck Vespera as he sipped what appeared to be coffee from his Omnimart thermos.

Vespera wondered since when Emerald was deathly scared of coffee and stared blankly at the fox prince, her white-feathered head tilting. She tried her best to ignore the Kitsune boy. Making friends with nouveau riche twats wasn't part of her mission to save Omnithornia. She tried to think of when and where she could have met this annoying highborn prick, but nothing was coming up in her head, except for the smell of pancakes.

Was he one of her fiancee's friends or... something? 

"Prince Lissander Fox," the Kitsune's hand stretched out towards her, diamond cufflinks encrusted with celesteel glittering in front of her face.

"Princess Vespera Simmi," she stated flatly, ignoring the hand and returning her attention to her “Artificery and You” book.

"Oho!" the fox's grin widened. "A fellow royal! How delightful! We must discuss the trials and tribulations of our noble bloodlines over tea sometime!"

"I am engaged to be married," Vespera replied mechanically. "My schedule is quite full."

"Oh!" the fox clapped his dragonscale-gloved hands. "Anyone I know?"

"Zheng Xing Ker of Golden Star Industries," Vespera replied, wishing for this bothersome conversation to end.

"That boring old toad?" Lissander's ears twitched with amusement. "Ha! How dreadfully dull. I hear he's spending the week in bed after chatting with his family's pet angel. Quite the weakling, if you ask me."

Vespera's eye twitched.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't insult my fiance in front of me... Mr. Fox," she said coldly.

"Prince Fox," the grating Kitsune corrected with an exaggerated tail wave. "Surely you don't truly care for such a pathetic toadling? I heard he sent your father to fight a duel on his behalf this weekend with a human! What kind of a pureblood Omnid runs away from a duel with a human? The human didn’t even bother to show, I hear! Ha ha har!”

Vespera's perfect posture stiffened further, a slight tremor of dark lines running through her pristine white feathers.

"Go on, Miss Simmi, tell me what's so impressive about a fat toad who relies on Probability Engines," Prince Fox leaned closer, his voice dripping with mockery. "What kind of Prima-born needs a calculator to tell him what to do? So, why didn't he show up to the duel? Did his calculator tell him that he's going to lose?"

Vespera's eye twitched harder, blotches of darkness running along her feathery mane.

"Or... Did he have a mental breakdown when the angel told him that he's going to lose?" The annoying fox's words gnawed at something deep inside Vespera, something that felt wrong, incomplete. His mocking tone about Zheng stirred a strange anger she couldn't quite place - not defensive of her fiance, but rather... something else. Something fiery and electric.

"I would appreciate it if you would cease this line of conversation," Vespera growled.

"Make me," the prince fired back.

"What?!" Vespera sputtered.

"I said, make me stop," Prince Fox repeated, grinning deviously. "Or are you just going to sit there like a proper little doll while I insult your sad excuse for a fiancé? Did daddy program that response out of you too?"

Electricity crackled along Vespera's wings as her magisteel clad fist slammed into the table with a thunderous boom.

"Miss Simmi!" Instructor Gilgamesh's tentacles waved in exasperation. "No thunder in my classroom!"

Vespera blinked, trying to reassert calmness.

She closed her eyes and counted down to ten. When she opened her eyes, she noticed that her 'Artificery and You' Advanced Edition book was missing. Looking in front of herself, she saw that the fox-prince had her book and was now doodling in it... with a permanent marker.

"What are you doing?!" Vespera hissed, watching in horror as the fox drew crude stick figures of Zheng crying while being beaten up by what appeared to be a stick figure wearing a top hat labeled 'le awesome human'.

"Improving your book," Prince Fox replied cheerfully, adding lightning bolts and hearts around another stick figure in a dress labeled 'V'. "See? This is you, being all zappy and cool. And this is your boring toad fiancé, being all like 'oh no, my Probability Engine says I'm going to lose to a human, better hide behind ya daddy!'"

"Give me back my book, you fffff..." Vespera hissed, barely suppressing her anger. She tried to grab for her book, but the fox slid back out of the reach of her talons.

"Nah," he grinned. "Mine now."

Vespera lunged forward and ended up colliding with Cinder whom the cheeky fox managed to duck behind.

"Miss Simmi!" Instructor Gilgamesh's tentacles waved frantically. "What are you doing?!"

"Teaching this vulpine pest some manners!" Vespera snarled, her perfect composure cracking as she tried to reach around flailing Cinder for her defaced textbook. "Give me back my book!"

"It's my book now," Prince Fox waggled his ears, now perched atop her desk.

"YOU INSUFFERABLE LITTLE..." Vespera launched herself at the fox, only to slam face first into the table as someone grabbed her feathery tail.

Vespera spun, glaring at the girls on the other side. Everyone looked equally guilty.

"Miss Simmi!" Instructor Gilgamesh boomed. "Please return to your seat!"

Vespera slipped back into her seat. The cheeky fox stuck his tongue out at her, walking just out of reach.

Vespera's heart accelerated as a snowstorm spun in her head, her mind pulsing with uncontrollable rage.

"I'm going to kill you after class," Vespera hiss-growled.

"You'll have to get in line," the princeling waved her off. "I have many mortal enemies. Take a number from my shark secretary."

"Stop drawing in my book you jerk!" She growled, noticing that he was now drawing a mountain of pancakes in her book.

"It's my book now," the fox replied nonchalantly. "I have claimed it for the Kingdom of Fox. Whatcha gonna do, thunda-bae? Cry to the teacher? Like a little baby who needs an Elder, half-blind Instructor to solve her problems? Wa-wa-wa."

Vespera's entire mane ignited with black. She tried everything to hold her rage in, but she was practically drowning in uncontrollable irritation, her teeth scraping each other, her calmness mask slipping away into the Abyss.

She brought her talons to her face to optimize her mind back to clarity. 

"Thunda-bae, thunda-bae, whatcha gonna do?" the fox sang softly, drawing little musical notes around the pancake mountain in her book. "When your boring toad fiancé runs away from you?"

Vespera snapped. 

With a shriek of pure rage, she lunged at the fox, electricity crackling along her wings. The fox yelped and dove under a desk as lightning arced through the air where he'd been standing.

"Miss Simmi!" Instructor Gilgamesh roared. "DETENTION!"

"I... I.... he's..." Vespera stammered out, turning her attention to the teacher. 

What was happening to her? 

Her mind danced with more invasive sparks that blotted out her vision.

She brought her talons to her forehead trying to tap out the storm of emotions burning inside her and then she noticed that something was wrong. 

It wasn’t working!

Her magisteel talons were gone! WHAT?! 

Vespera stared at her hands, blinking and looking stupefied.

With a gasp, she noticed that the fox was holding one of her magisteel gloves, twirling the bird-skull between his fingers with a smug grin, the leather bits sliced clean.

"Looking for these?" he asked innocently.

"How did you...?" Vespera gaped, her perfect composure burning away like a raging forest fire.

"A magician never reveals his secrets," Prince Fox winked, pocketing her Electrofractal-focus glove. "But I must say, these are quite lovely. I think I'll keep them as a souvenir."

"GIVE THOSE BACK!" Vespera shrieked, launching herself at him again. "I NEED THEM!!!"

Once again someone grabbed at her tail, making her smash headfirst into a seat.

Instructor Gigamesh was yelling something about order in his classroom, but Vespera wasn't listening. 

All she could think about was pure, incandescent, electric… murder. 

Those were HER talons! Her optimization tools! How dare this vile fox steal the tools her father made for her! Her mind raced with fury as a snowstorm whirled through her consciousness.

"DETENTION FOR A WEEK!" Instructor Gilgamesh boomed. "All of you!"

"Me?" the fox gasped in mock offense, placing a hand over his heart. "But I'm a visiting royal! Surely you wouldn't dare..."

"OUT!" the Kraken roared. "All of you class-disrupting miscreants, go to Vice Principal Graves' office! NOW!"

Vespera flashed with shame.

This wasn’t supposed to happen! She was Instructor Gilgamesh's best student. She wasn’t a miscreant… she was... Who was she again?

"K, thanks, bye!" The fox ran out of class, tapping her talons together.

"Get back here!" Vespera roared, rushing after the thief.

The fox threw her own book at her face.

Vespera batted the book away with a shriek of rage. 

Mace. She needed her mace! No, the coliseum was far. Damn it all!

Her hands sparked with electricity as she chased after the insufferable fox down the hallway.

"Give me back my talons!" she shrieked, lightning crackling between her feathers. “Those don’t belong to you!”

"Gotta catch me first, thunda-bae!" the fox called back, far too many hexasuits flashing under his garish, red and gold jacket.

Vespera's mind was a rising hurricane of confusion and rage. 

Why was she so angry? Why couldn't she optimize her emotions, just get a hold of herself? 

Without her talons, the storm in her head kept growing, memories flickering like distant lightning - pancakes, crystal towers, a lighter, rainbow wings… a boy with green eyes.

"Stop running you coward!" she snarled, launching a bolt of lightning that the fox somehow dodged and redirected into a locker.

“Nu-huh!”

"STOP RUNNING YOU VULPINE PEST!" Vespera screamed.

Lightning flashed between her wings as she gained on him, only to have Katherine's wheelchair suddenly roll into her path.

"Whoops, sorry!" the Stollwurm called out as the Thunderbird tumbled over the chair with a yelp.

"Arrrrhhhhgh! Watch where you're going you damned wheelie!" Vespera snarled at the hunting-jacket covered girl. Her mind careened sideways as she noticed that Katherine was wearing an "I🛞U!" rainbowy button pinned to her thick coat.

"Too slow!" The fox's laughter echoed down the hall. 

Vespera scrambled to her feet, her pristine suit now rumpled. She tried to remember where that button was from. Something about it made her head hurt, like static migraine building up in her mind.

She spotted the orange foxtail turning a corner and launched herself forward, only to collide with Io who was carrying a terrarium of African slugs that exploded all over Vespera, glass shards detonating.

Vespera screamed in frustration, electrocuting the slugs and wiping slug slime from her once-perfect suit. The insufferable fox's laughter bounced through the halls, taunting her. Her black and white feathers were now stained with bits of terrarium dirt and slug mucus.

"Sorry!" Io called out, but Vespera noticed he was wearing a similar looking "I🦋U!" button.

Cracks rushed across her psyche.

Has the entire school gone mad. What were these damn buttons?!

She shook her head and charged after the fox again, her wings humming dangerously. Just as she was about to grab his tail, she collided with Solace who was holding a large black paint bucket that splashed all over Vespera's white blouse, permanently ruining it.

"What?! Ah come on! What the shit?! WHAT THE FUCK SOL?!" Vespera sputtered. “Why are you carrying paint?! Why aren’t you fuckers in class?!”

"Watch where you running, ya dumb thunderbeerch!" Solace growled.

"You..." Vespera sputtered, trying and failing to get the wet paint off herself. "You effing wormbeerch!"

She punched Solace and received an even stronger punch back that sent her flying backwards into a wall. Stars exploded in her head, detonating, shattering her from within.

Vespera staggered to her feet, her head spinning from Solace's attack. Through the haze of black paint and rage, she spotted the fox standing there, pointing and laughing at her.

"You!" she screamed, her voice cracking with fury. "You blasted, vile... smol creature! You set all this up! Did you pay these knobs to screw with me?!"

"You'll have to prove it in court!" The maddening fox laughed.

"Come back here!" Vespera screamed, charging after the laughing fox through the halls.

Just as she was about to grab him, President Quint appeared from nowhere, carrying a stack of student council papers that exploded into her face. She batted the papers away, shredding them and careening into a locker.

"Miss Simmi," Quint shook his head. "Running in the halls like a Thundersnarg? Do watch where you’re going!"

The fox's laughter carried from the hall. With a snarl, Vespera shoved past Quint, her pristine appearance now completely destroyed. 

This was all his fault. He had to pay for messing up her day!

"Get back here you insufferable vulpine!" she shrieked, lightning dancing along her entire figure.

She chased him up the stairs of a meditation tower toward the roof, her mind a storm of fragmented memories and rage. Why did his laugh sound so familiar? Why did those stupid buttons make her head hurt?

The fox stood atop of the tower’s white rooftop balcony, arms spread wide in triumph.

"Nowhere to run now, you asshole!" Vespera growled.

The fox grinned at her and then simply… fell backwards.

Vespera lunged forward with a scream as the fox fell, her wings spreading instinctively. Without thinking, she dove after him, electricity burning along her entire figure.

The wind whipped past her as she plummeted, her mind and heart racing. Why was she diving after this insufferable Omnid? She should let him fall! Let him break his neck!

He deserved it for ruining her perfect day, for stealing her talons, for making her feel so... so…

The fox was falling spread-eagled, still grinning up at her. Then he pulled a rope and a blue parasail blossomed behind him, the wind carrying him forward to the parking lot.

Vespera's wings spread wide, her heart stopping momentarily, sailing after him with a bit of a struggle.

"Aren't you curious why your bracelet is transparent?" The fox yelled.

Vespera blinked at her bracelet.

"You... Did you do this?!" She shouted back.

"Maybe I did," the fox taunted. "Maybe I didn't. Speculate! Deduce! Aren’t you a clever birb?”

Her transparent Lazarus bracelet caught the sunlight, sending fractals of memory dancing through her consciousness. 

Crystalline tower. Crystalline caverns. Arx. Shandria. Undertown.

Something was wrong. Everything felt wrong.

Rainbows. Rainbows in the air behind her. Vespera looked back. There was nobody there and yet she felt someone watching her from the air. Someone invisible.

Cinder?

“Getting it yet?” The fox shouted. “Yes, no? Maybe this will jog that bork noggin!”

The empty parking space in front and below them wobbled, shimmered with shadows. Vespera noticed that the Stollwurm girl was standing there, now wearing a black dress instead of her usual thick jacket, holding onto the air.

The Kitsune teen suddenly landed atop of a massive crystalline creature that emerged from warping shadows like some kind of a sudden, multi-limbed, whale-sized cat-bus.

Vespera crashed into it face first lightning exploding across the gargantuan, inexplicable, solid beast.

She gasped as she saw the entire thing.

It was a Corpse Seeker, the biggest Corpse Seeker she's seen in her entire life.

Vespera staggered back, staring up at the massive crystalline construct. Her mind reeled - this was impossible. No one had a Corpse Seeker this size. The crystalline behemoth towered above her, its arcane form radiating absolute power that made her feathers stand on end.

A tank. This was a tank. An unstoppable machine, the kind she's dreamt about her entire life.

"Like what you see, thunda-bae?" The insufferable fox called down from atop the construct. “Meet Miss Possible! She's 42,000 years old and absolutely loves pancakes just like you do!"

Pancakes. 

The word sent a jolt through Vespera's mind, fragments of memory trying to surface through the fog.

"Arghhhhh!" She grabbed her head. "What... have you done?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!" She howled.

“Everything,” the fox said, throwing a round button to her feet with the tag "I⚡️U!".

Vespera grabbed the button, her entire being careening sideways, fracturing, detonating. This was her button. She felt it in her bones.

Vespera felt an inexplicable connection to the gargantuan Corpse Seeker standing in front of her. A connection she didn't remember making. 

She sent a spark forward, reaching out with her hands.

The crystalline-organic, blood-red machine responded, moved towards her, wobbled in recognition sending a thousand reflections across the parking lot.

This engine was hers. Hers! HERS!!!

Her familiar.

A familiar she didn’t remember making.

She stood there, panting, gaping at the smug-looking fox, burned paint and torched white dress-suit flaking off her, only a gray hexamesh outfit remaining on her body.

She felt like... Herself and not herself. 

Angry and happy.

Wrong and right.

Looking from within and inward in shock, a suddenly encroaching tidal wave of clarity burned in her mind like a brilliant flare, like an electric generator explosion.

The first layer avatar of her being shattered and between each piece of it there was a shoddy layer of false memories, misformed wrongness, deception, fakery that burned, melted away.

The shattered avatar started to come together, properly this time, piece by piece, slowly reassembling, reasserting itself like a neural network reconnecting segment by segment, lighting up from within.

"Fookin' wat," Vespera choked. "Bloody bastard... acshulleh murdered me?! Not cool daddy, not cool at all!"