"I've seen her out before, but not this out," Zeta said as she poked Kalei in her side with a ruler. Kalei grunted and swatted Zeta's hand away.

“Helloooooo. Kalei? You there?” I asked.

Kalei rolled away from us.

"She fell asleep like right after I got up," Marmalade said.

"When was that?" I asked.

"Like...seven hours ago?"

"C'mon, it's dinner time!" Zeta said. It was way past dinner time, but Zeta's theory was that we could wake Kalei up by talking about food. "Oh dang, you've been asleep so long it's breakfast time now!"

Still nothing. Lillia tried next.

"Roux's deleting your save files," she said. 

Now Kalei was snoring.

"Ugh, if she doesn't sleep through the night she's gonna keep me up, though," Zeta said.

"You could get earplugs," Marmalade said.

"I also recommend earplugs," Lillia said.

"We have a strict earplug policy in our room," I said.

"I wouldn't call it 'strict,'" Lillia said.

"Well, it's mandatory at least," I said. "It helps for the snoring."

Lillia kicked my foot.

"Hey! I didn't say you snored," I said. "One or both of us snores, so we have an earplug policy."

I could tell by her body language (her tail says a lot) that Zeta missed most of that as she watched Kalei sleep.

"You don't think this is an emergency or anything, is it?" Zeta asked.

I stopped her from getting her phone out. "I don't think this is a 3WMB situation. I don't think anything really is," I said. She agreed with my assessment that she needed to be on that site less and gave me permission to stop her when she shouldn't be on it, something I was maybe overdoing but it was a big source of anxiety for her. "Kalei just looks like she's asleep. Maybe she needs to sleep off whatever she did today."

"Maybe," Zeta said.

"What did she do today?" Lillia asked.

"There aren't any teachers around so we don't have to hide it," I said.

"True," Zeta said. "She saw Aira and Syval run off from the talent show and followed them. Then...I dunno."

"When she got back she was really tired," Marmalade said. "I guess that's not really helpful."

"Should we text them, then?" Zeta asked. "Maybe they'd know."

"I dunno, Aira maybe but do any of us have Syval's number?" I asked.

"Surprised you didn't ask who Syval was this time," Zeta said.

"Believe me, I thought it," I said.

"Actually, I don't know," Zeta said, crossing her arms. "Kalei was snooping on those two. It might be awkward if she didn't find out what they were sneaking off to do and we text them out of the blue about it."

"Eh, it was probably just homework or something," I said, fighting off my interest as soon as it became about Aira hanging out with a boy. 

Lillia had her phone to her ear.

"Um, Lillia?" I said.

"I have Syval's number from our gamer group," Lillia said.

"And you're calling him now?" I asked.

"No answer," Lillia said. "I'll try Aira next unless one of you want to."

"I can! Would be some good Dynne chatting practice for this ol' gal," I said. I was still learning the ropes of the chat service. "Greetings, Aira. This is your friend, Oka. How are you today? And...send! Now, you may have noticed that I didn't explicitly ask what she was doing or if Kalei got in touch with her."

"Big brain Oka!" Zeta said.

I stared at my phone. "It says she read it! And now...she'll write back...any second now."

Many seconds passed and she didn't write back.

"Hm," I said. "That's strange."

Was she ignoring me? That would hurt, but maybe she was just busy?

"If I got that message out of the blue, I probably wouldn't respond either," Marmalade said.

"Huh? Why not?" I asked.

"That sounds like you got hacked, and are about to send a phishing link or something," Marmalade said.

"A what now?" I asked.

"Remind me to explain that to you later so you don't get in trouble," Zeta said. "But moving on!"

My starlight boo making sure I didn't feel too bad not knowing a technology thing, what a sweetie.

"Shall we discuss our next steps with the devil situation, then?" Lillia suggested.

"Is that really what we're calling them?" I asked.

"Going by the pics of them, it seems pretty apt," Marmalade said.

"I was really hoping we could get some blunt advice from Kalei about this whole mess," Zeta said.

"She'll be up soon enough," Lillia said. "For now—"

Zeta gasped. "If Kalei's asleep, I can say Team Starlight, go! Without her making a big stink about it! Well, wait, I just said it, do I need to say it again?"

"We'll count that," Lillia said. "So...any immediate thoughts anyone would like to get off their chest?"

"There's just...a lot," Zeta said. "My mom showed up, Roux got a slime, Chickadee's a devil, Penteldtam got fired...I don't even know how to process it all."

We gave Lillia the rundown of our day on the way back to the dorms, but we gave an abridged version of that for Marmalade.

"Dang...yeah, I don't even know where to start," Marmalade said. "I guess I hope you're doing alright, Zates. I know you said your parents have issues, to put it mildly."

"Yeah," Zeta said. "I dunno how to feel about this one. Mom said she wasn't involved with my last thing, but like, she was there. But maybe she wasn't? And now she's gonna be here. I thought Tik and the others were gonna get her, they were on her case or whatever...but they just let her go. I still trust them, but...they just let her go! I...need some time to think about that one, can we go to the next thing?"

"No reason to be sorry," I said. "I guess next big thing is Penteldtam's out."

"Honestly? Surprised he lasted as long as he did," Marmalade said.

"From an educational standpoint, he was terrible at his job," Lillia said. "In theory, the school is improved not having him in power."

"But Kitty is his replacement," I said.

"Kitty and Caya," Zeta added.

"Right, maybe she can balance Kitty's...everything out," I said. "Ugh, I wonder if people will get on my case for being a Kilander during all this."

"Nobody really has so far," Zeta said. "I think people know Berin's your dad, but you're not like...the same as them."

"That's putting it mildly," I said. "Crap, I wonder if 09 knows her dad got beat up and fired."

"She could be an ally against the devils," Lillia said. "If it's true that we're being placed 'against' them."

"Kitty said we're helping them train to get stronger, and she's obsessed with all that wrestling and fighting crap, they're absolutely gonna make us fight them," I said.

"Ugh," Zeta said. "Hopefully we have some advance warning. It'll suck no matter what, but I'd rather know when I'm going to have a fight than have it sprung onto me, I think." A sour look crossed her face, one she only wore when she really pondered something.

"Whenever it happens, I think they're in for a rude awakening," I said. "Unless Chickadee has been significantly holding back, I've never seen her do anything too impressive power wise."

"Still, we should prepare for anything," Lillia said.

"How?" Marmalade asked. "Sorry, I don't mean to be rude. I just don't know what we can really plan right now when we don't know a lot."

"That's true," Lillia said. "I suppose the important thing is that we remain firm in supporting each other."

"Mhm," I said.

"OK, this may sound stupid," Zeta said. "But I maybe have an idea for something we could try." She bit her lip, another 'Zeta deep in thought' expression. "So we know Chickadee already, and she's..."

"A jerk," I said.

"Very unpleasant," Lillia said.

"Super super annoying," Marmalade said.

"And Caeda's..." Zeta started.

"Creepy," Marmalade said.

"Likely harboring some dark secrets even beyond what we know about her," Lillia said.

"....I don't know if I can think of a better one than creepy," I said.

"And P.D. has issues with Kalei so she's out," Zeta said. "But...we don't know a whole lot about the others, right?"

"Not sure where you're going with this, but I'm listening," I said.

"Like, I know they beat up Penteldtam and that's kinda really bad, but it sounds like they were maybe told to by the school board? There was that one who didn't even join in, so maybe they aren't as into this as Chickadee and Caeda are. So what if...and again, this is probably stupid..."

"You can just say it, you don't need all the buildup," Marmalade said.

"Hey!" I said.

"Sorry," Zeta said. "I'm just thinking what if those others...what if we got to know them? We already tried to investigate a bit. We could be nice to them, and figure out who they are and junk. And became friends with them...and then maybe they wouldn't want to fight us?"

"It's worth a try, I think," I said. "But we maybe want to have a big group just in case they try to Penteldtam us."

"I will make sure Ko is there," Lillia said. "She texted me already that she's eager to see how strong they are, so I'm sure she'd help."

"Great! But still let's go into this with Zeta's idea in mind," I said. "Maybe we can make them our friends, that could throw a wrench in this whole operation immediately."

"And if it doesn't work out, we can gain some intel," Lillia said.

It was just a little spark of an idea, but it made me feel better than if we ended our meeting without any idea what to do next. Maybe we could make some new friends in spite of the chaos of their arrival.