“This Tragic Pizza of Exam Humiliations” (49.12)

A massive force of void monsters waited for us, looking like thousands of the kind the gummy one we dissected was based off of. They were behind a gate, which would presumably be opened for this last battle room of the void finals.

“This is just like Victory of the Heroes III: Victory of the Heroes,” Kalei said, holding her bloodsaber up before doing a dignified sounding voice. “Hold, friends, so that the legion of evil may not overwhelm us!”

“Our blades may not choose the wickedness we bestow upon them, but we make penance by vanquishing the evil.” Marmalade said, matching Kalei’s tone.

“Yes! Marmalade gets it.” Kalei said.

"Heh..." Marmalade started to say something else, but the words were caught in her throat.

“Dang, you two wanna join theater club?” Oka asked. “What’s Victory of the Heroes?”

“A cool movie,” Kalei said. “The first two are super corny, but then they got it together for the third one, and it’s a top tier swords and wizards type of fantasy, not quite Tyrant Rangers, but what is, you know?”

“I usually just skip I and II and just go right to III when I watch.” Marmalade said.

“I haven’t seen that series,” I said.

“You haven’t seen a lot of series.” Kalei said.

“That may be true…but, uh…” I said.

“Not your best work,” Kalei said. “I get to say that one back to you after you threw that my way."

“That was Oka!” I said.

“You two are a tandem thing,” Kalei said. “And you agreed with her, so I get to use that line on you and still get points for it.”

“Points?” Oka said.

“Uh huh, snark points. I’m gonna print out cards. If I land fifteen good lines, you have to buy me frozen yogurt.” Kalei said.

“I never agreed to this!” I said.

“I remember when you and I saw the 4D rerelease of VOTH3 in theaters,” Risa said, entering the conversation like she’d been part of it the whole time.

Risa still intimidated me, so I clammed up and scooted closer to Oka.

“Oh, hey,” Kalei said. “You guys are here too?”

“I think we’re all together for this one,” Risa said.

“Correct,” Roux said, making me jump because I didn’t see them anywhere around before they literally popped up in front of me, apparently crawling around to avoid detection. “This is a big part of their conspiracy. You ever wonder how they make us fight void monsters to keep them from seeping into the ‘main world?’ Yet they have control over them, enough to keep them at bay long enough for us to crush them like bugs? Curious. Nothing’s as it seems, and I’m fairly certain the stock market is involved.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not it,” Kalei said. “But it is kinda weird that they can just conjure their own void monsters.”

“They’re from imagination nodes, it’s for practice,” Risa said. “The real ones pop up on their own. It’s not that confusing.”

“When you have to say it’s not that confusing, that makes me think it’s really confusing.” Kalei said. “Like Victory of the Heroes IV, where they got that weird scifi team writing it and they made it all quantum mechanics or whatever.”

Marmalade bit her lip. Roux and Risa talking to Kalei seemed to separate the two. I could see how that would be disappointing to Marmalade after the two had made some plans to fight together for this one.

I assumed Lillia would have corrected the arguing group about their probably incorrect info on void monsters, but she spotted Ko and partnered up with her.

“This is kind of like picking teams in gym class,” Oka said. “Or just partners, I guess. I’m glad I have you, or it’d be back to the old days of being the odd one out or just the odd one not even in the gym team equation."

“Saaaame here,” I said, a dozen flashbacks of gym classes from my past flashing back to me.

“Is everyone prepared?” Caya asked. When Diast called us, it felt like just getting a phone call, but Caya it felt like she was delivering a command right to your brain with her forceful voice. We all either excitedly confirmed our preparedness or meekly and anxiously murmured that we were kinda ready.

“This is your final battle of the semester,” Caya said. “While your inclination may be to give everything you have here, I advise you to not burn out your powers. Wrap up your monster count, then stand down.”

I didn’t have a lot of monsters left on my count, so I liked the sound of getting my junk over with then being done. Just as I started thinking about the power test after this, someone rushed to the front of the assembled classes.

“Excuse me!” Caeda Firae said, her big, poofy lilac squirrel tail drawing everyone’s eyes to her easily. “Before we start, I’d just like to say something.”

I blinked in confusion, not sure what this was going to be.

“I, heh, wow!” Caeda said, beaming. “It’s so awesome to have you all assembled like this.”

“Could this wait until after the challenge?” Caya asked.

“It’ll just take a second!” Caeda said, her voice echoing around the room. 

"Miss Firae, I'd prefer if you joined the rest of class—" 

“I just wanted to say!" Caeda said. "When I got here, I thought I’d be a big deal. And I wasn’t. And nobody noticed me. I’m not blaming anyone in particular for that, but it made me reflect a lot. And now I’m feeling a lot more important. I feel like I’m the hero now, and while I wasn’t able to do so this semester, just you wait until spring starts. Big things are happening, and if you stick with me, our names will be etched into the halls of this school forever!” Caeda started cheering and posing to the dead silence of the class. Looking content with herself, she nodded and turned around, getting her bloodsaber out and marching forward. “OK, I’m ready now!”

“...the hell was that?” Kalei muttered.

“OK, none of our embarrassments topped that,” I said quietly.

“None of them came even close to that.” Oka said.

“That was so painful I feel like I’m the one who gave that speech.” Marmalade said.

“Right, that secondhand embarrassment was…yeesh.” Kalei said.

“It was the non-reaction that was the worst,” I said. “Maybe we should have clapped or something?”

“Clapped for what? Nothing she did there was worthy of claps.” Kalei said.

“I knew there was something up with her. I got bad vibes.” Marmalade said.

We started the room with the energy of a big action fantasy movie, ready for our huge final battle. Instead, wrapping up our void monster count felt like we were on cleaning duty. Just a chore we silently did, chopping away and blasting energy at monsters as we all felt the intense secondhand embarrassment of Caeda’s speech.