The more I fought the Elka drones, the more I felt familiar about this. I of course hadn’t been in a big battle alongside my entire class against an army like this, but despite their numbers, the drone soldiers were as smart as the void monsters I’d fought before. Maybe even dumber. I had been startled by the dorm walls creaking literally three times the night before and even I was racking up a pretty impressive number of downs on the drones. I wondered if they were our original target for the trip; I’d surely gotten to my total goal of void monsters fought, and maybe even pushed past a lot of goals for the Benta scholarship. The task in front of us was like mowing a very aggressive lawn. With an angry monster at the center that was probably going to give us a challenge when we reached him.

“I’m going for the big guy,” Kalei said, interrupting my thoughts on how we’d take Lophor down. She ran ahead, dodging through the battlefield like it was a beam chasers court.

“Mind if I join you?” Nikki asked, running after her. I didn’t hear Kalei’s answer, but I sensed that it was awkward enough that I’d have to console her later.

Next to me, Amara hit more barrages of laser blasts as she twirled in midair like a dancer, gracefully throwing out attack after attack. KJ filmed the fight despite not having her void lens. Rain cackled as she watched the drones she’d mind controlled cut each other to bits. She kept laughing as she stood over their shattered parts, which was really disturbing so I tried to move away from the love trio.

Every few moments, a group of the drones would fly into the air like a big splash from a whale in the ocean. It was Laenie plowing through them, happily destroying the drones quicker than they could attack back with Aira beside her attacking as well.

A rocket bolt from one of the spider drones nearly hit me, but it was blocked by Iris’ energy ribbons.

“Thanks,” I said. "Again."

“Don’t mention it,” Iris said. “It’s really fun to finally do something useful with my powers in the void.”

Maia leapt at the spider drone, stabbing it with her bloodsaber. I had never seen her move that quickly.

“How are you guys doing?” I asked.

“You know, we thought about getting Feral Flu for this,” Iris said. “But I think I’d be mad I missed this.”

“It’s pretty fun to finally let loose like this,” Maia said, stomping on the spider to make sure she’d finished it off. “Plus, the island is pretty nice, it’s kinda like a vacation.”

The two moved on to fight a group of the spider drones right as Kiki, back on her cat steed, charged past me in the other direction, ramming into a group of drones firing rocks at her.

“Go get them!” Roux said, writing down on her worksheet each time Kiki finished off a drone. “I’m counting hers as mine.”

“That’s…” I said.

“Genius? Thanks.” Roux said. “Don’t give me that look. They’re never gonna know!”

Latte ran past both of us. I wasn’t sure if she was actually fighting or was just on a coffee high.

"Hey, Roux!" Iris called over, freezing Latte in place. "You're supposed to be watching the new girl!"

"Oh...oh yeah." Latte said. She shrugged and kept running. "Eh, she'll be alright."

I didn’t have time to think about whoever they were talking about as a silvery blade rushed towards my face. It was too late for me to block it (and I dropped my bloodsaber as I flinched anyways), but a bloodsaber rose to stop the blade just inches away from my forehead. Oka strained for a second against the blade drone, then conjured a mass of plants around the drone, tying it down to the ground. With her free hand, she conjured a flower and placed it in my trembling hands.

“Oh my god,” I said.

“Not going to lie, I was rehearsing doing that in my head all week.” Oka said.

“You just saved my life,” I said. “Like for the third time today.”

“Oh, yeah!” Oka said. “Well, I bet our adaptive gear has a shield or something that comes up if things get really bad. Like the elevator shields.”

I was still too stunned to continue my seemingly endless debate with Oka and Kalei about elevator shields, just catching up with the sight of her saving me from a killer blade robot, then handing me a flower with a raised eyebrow.

“The flower thing,” Oka said, blushing. “That’s what I. Rehearsed.”

I was about to rush in for a kiss right there, but the blade drone broke free of its vines and began attacking us again. I frantically picked up my bloodsaber.

“I think…” Oka said, looking around for anyone nearby to help. Everyone was busy in their own fight. “This one’s ours.”

Oka and I had been in enough fights together with Kalei that we were in sync fighting this particularly aggressive drone. As it plunged both blades at us, Oka and I each blocked one, then swung outward. With the drone’s arms spread out, Oka and I each hit it with our powers, with Oka blasting plants and me throwing a lightning bolt at it.

“The other ones all go down after like one bolt, what gives?” I asked.

“Maybe it’s just mad at us?” Oka asked.

We had to aggressively parry more strikes from the drone. I was really grateful that I didn’t give up after our first bloodsaber form training class with Caya because I really wanted to when I pulled a muscle in my back right away. While I did still want to let out some panicked cries here like I did that day, with Oka beside me I found the strength to keep going.

“Zeta! I know we’re in the middle of a big fight here…” Oka said as she blocked another blade thrust. “But I’m really glad Lillia made us make up! Or make out I guess!”

“Same here!” I said, trying to conjure a thunderstorm to hit the drone’s stupid spike ponytail back thing. “Let’s get home quick so we can make out lots more!” I froze for a second.

“Don’t make that look!” Oka said. “We didn’t just do the thing where we just said like things are good, too good, then something really bad happens. It’s not that! We still have work to do! We can look forward to making out later without worrying!”

“Right! We’re good!” I said.

With a bolt of lightning almost as big as the one I hit Ovie with, I was able to knock the drone backwards. It landed with its blades behind it, and turned to us, walking on all fours, a terrifying bestial sight. It leapt towards us headfirst. As if we read each other’s minds, Oka and I held our bloodsabers up together, and the drone dove right into them. It split in half on our blades, its Elka insides splattering the ground on either side of us. We caught our breath, and each poked at the drone’s parts with our feet to make sure we’d really beaten it.

“I’m just gonna scream for a while after this,” I said. “That cool?”

“I’ll be right there with you.” Oka said. She had a quizzical look on her face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Do you see that?” Oka asked, pointing her sword at a glowing spot in one of the sides of the blade drone. I thought it was just a piece that was somehow burning from our last attack, but looking closer it was more like an internal glowing light.

“It says something,” I said, using a bit of rain to wash the Elka off of it, like wiping mud off of a flashlight. “It’s…a logo.” I said. It looked like hands holding up the planet, with a fanged smile behind it. “It just says ‘Taramin.’”

That sounded familiar to me, but neither of us could place it. We didn’t have time to speculate, as the others were still in the middle of their own fights. The closest to us were Kalei and Nikki, who were fighting Lophor Hothon, and Lillia, who was staring down a big group of the drones with blasters.

“I’m gonna go help Lillia!” Oka said, taking off towards her friend.

“Sounds good, I’ll go with Kalei and Nikki!” I said, maybe too casually for the middle of a big battle. “I love you!”

“Love you too!” Oka said. She blew me a kiss, and I made sure to catch it.