“If it comes to it, I bet Kalei could put up a fight,” Zeta said, writing my name down on her notepad. "But if my plan works that hopefully will not be a factor we even have to worry about."

I'm gonna be honest, Zates was talking but I was barely listening. She had it in her head that we could maybe be friends with these new devil folks, not like Chickadee or P.D., but the ones who just got here.

I was already sick of hearing about them, and I slept through most of my classes that morning so it only took a few minutes. P.D. already hated me, and I didn't like her much either. Caeda was annoying as hell, and Chickadee just plain sucked.

Normally I'd put a bit more effort in and at least nod along to her idea, but I was still physically rocked by my little city adventure during the storm. Sleeping like sixteen hours, only interrupted by getting out of bed and walking to my classes. I somehow sludged my way through gym class, but my battery was running very low and I barely registered anything that happened for most of the day. About all I gleamed from the day was that Zeta kept saying she was gonna say something to one of the devils, then got scared every time she was going to.

Diast's class hadn't started yet, and probably wouldn't for a bit knowing how late she always was. The devils hadn't arrived yet, so Zeta couldn't even use the Diast lateness window.

"I think maybe a greeting card could work..." Zeta said.

I felt warm all over, like all my muscles were out of it.

I probably just strained like, everything fighting that crab thing.

That's what I told myself at least, being way too optimistic. I was trying to not think too much about how I drank some weird-ass test tube filled with beast tendency that a scientist at the Taramin labs cooked up. It definitely gave me a boost in that fight, but any effect outside of that was still up in the air. Again, that's what I was telling myself. In the back of my head I knew how my sleepiness and soreness were probably connected.

"Kalei?" Oka said.

"Huh?" I said.

"Zeta just asked you something," Oka said.

Oka could be pretty commanding when she wanted to be, especially when she felt Zeta was wronged.

"Oh, sorry," I yawned. "What were you saying?"

"Just that, um, if you could maybe do that thing you did when we had our chat with Clover that one time?" Zeta asked.

Uh, what did I do then? I didn't say that, but apparently I did something cool enough for Zeta to ask me to do it again.

"Yeah, sure, just tell me where to be," I said.

"Hey..." Zeta said. "You sure you're feeling alright?"

Oh, the other thing of the day; Zeta, Oka, Lillia, and probably Marmalade could tell something was up with me. I kept saying my story that it was just from getting stuck outside in the storm, but they kept asking.

It wasn't a huge lie or anything, but I did hate how lying to them felt. Each time I left out another detail of what I was up to, Zeta and Oka just looked at me with those doe eyes, it was brutal. They didn't ask follow up questions, they just kept checking in with me like I was gonna say something different.

"I'm...maybe it's a flu, I dunno," I said. That was the most detailed answer I'd given so far. Zeta and Oka didn't have time to react to that though, as one of our new principals busted into the room. Unfortunately not Caya, who did teach her class earlier in the day like she hadn't gotten a big promotion or nearly knocked out her new principal-ing partner. This didn't surprise me too much, though, I figured she'd try to juggle everything at once with her new responsibilities, along with a bunch of other junk too.

"This better be the right room this time," Kitty said. "You're the first years? Class whatever?"

I didn't even have the energy to snark at her. I debated with myself if I could nap, realizing pretty quickly that Kitty was too loud to even consider it.

"Kay, so remember how I said you were gonna fight the devils to see who's stronger?" Kitty asked. "Spoiler, it's them. But wherever shall we have such a contest? And we can't just have it be that, right?"

It struck me as I thought about our new principal, basically a pop superstar (even if her star power had drained pretty dramatically) spending so much time on our class...I felt kinda bad for the other grades. There was no way they were getting the same attention we were getting from Kitty. Maybe that was a good thing for them though, they could fly under the radar while we got all this Kitty annoyance.

Iris raised her hand. "How about in a Haven arena?"

"Oooh, I like the way you think! But no, we're gonna have it in the void."

"Can't you imagine up a haven arena for us?" Iris said.

"I could, but I'm not going to," Kitty said. "And shut up, I'm talking. Your principal is talking!"

"Co-principal," I said.

Kitty either didn't hear me or ignored that part. "We're going to have an extra-special, spectacular, fun getaway to hopefully ease how badly you're gonna get beat a bit! That's right, camping trip!" Kitty cheered for herself as the class murmured in confusion.

"Camping? Huh? What do you mean? Camping? What do you mean?" Zeta looked around like a cat following a laser pointer.

When Zates got really surprised by something, she just repeated the same few questions over and over.

"So we're going Friday and spending the weekend out in nature, so ask your mommies and daddies and whoever the hell else to get you camping gear, because you're not getting any from us," Kitty said. "And that's all from me today! Toodles!"

Kitty flashed a peace sign and left.

The idea of a camping trip only bugged me a little. If we were going against the devils, I wanted to be all healed up, but if I was still out of it, I might embarrass myself. A squirming feeling inside me told me that I might really be feeling the effects of that junk I got from the lab if I was in sleepy mode by the trip.