I looked at the surprisingly fancy sign outside the door for the Rising Shards Spirit Betterment Club’s official meeting pce. It was etched into steel, which felt way cooler than any kind of sign for any club I had been in before.

  “Did one of you make this?” I asked.

  “No, I think every club gets one,” Latte said. She was holding a box for some reason. “See, there’s one for the penmanship club.”

  “Aw, we’re gonna have to share a room with them?” Kalei said.

  “Why do you think our club time got scheduled for 5:43?” Maia asked.

  “Holy, with that weird time slot I just assumed one of us screwed it up.”

  The members of the penmanship club fiheir meeting ahe room, all covered in inkblots. Our club room was just a regur , and the penmanship club had politely left the desks in a big square for us. They had less politely left them all covered in ink.

  After a good fifteen minutes of wiping up the ink on the desks in the room, we finally sat down for our first meeting. I sat down on one eo Kalei. Nikki sat on the side to our left, already listening to musi her headphones. Iris and Maia took seats tht, while KJ, Amara, and Rain sat across from us. KJ had quickly moved to the one spot that had a puter set up and was clig around. Latte pulled a fancy coffee maker out of the cardboard box she was carrying and began to set it up. Maia spoke up first.

  “Alright, so we have to do the bare minimum to get this club work done,” Maia said. “Because we all have better things to do than this. Right?”

  Everyone murmured a zy agreement. Well, except Nikki, who was listening to music.

  “Right.” Maia said. “Once we get this video or whatever dohen we just hang out here and teically get our club time in. That sound good?”

  Everyone mumbled some form of yes. Except for Nikki, who was still listening to musid Kalei, who was staring at Nikki.

  “So what do we o do for this ‘spirit betterment’ or whatever?” I asked.

  “They gave me a folder,” Iris said. “Because teically, you, me, and Maia are club captains, whatever that means."

  “That’s stupid,” Amara said. “Rain should be captain.”

  “Rain should be double captain," KJ said. "Rain should be club president.”

  “Rain should be god-emperor of the club and you know it!” Amara yelled, smming her fists on her desk before pointing angrily at KJ.

  “Fine, we’re all captains, we look at the stupid folder already?” Maia said, snatg the folder from Iris. She read it over. “It says we have to make some kind of project to promote the school, like a ercial, a radio thing, or a series of posters.”

  “We’re definitely doing a video,” KJ said, holding up her camera. “And this puter has Brick Video Deluxe Elementals 7 too. I’d prefer Elementals 9, but I make this work.”

  “What kind of video would show off the school?” I asked. “Like a tour, maybe?”

  “That’d be easy,” Maia said, pointing as she said easy to really put emphasis on her focus on zy for the club.

  “But I ’t get any cool shots of a school tour,” KJ said. “Although, we could have Rain host.”

  “We should have Rain host it no matter what it is, she’s a star!” Amara screamed.

  “Alright, calm down,” Maia said. “Rain, you wanna host this?”

  “Why, of course,” Rain said. “I’m frequently the star of KJ’s film projects.”

  “Why don’t we do something with some a?” Latte asked, having finished setting up her coffee maker. She had some kind of really fancy coffee brewing in it that smelled really good.

  “What do you mean?” Maia asked.

  “Like…something in the void maybe?” Latte suggested. “We could get our bloodsabers all sshing and annihiting everything in our path aice viewers with violence…”

  “Like what, hunt a void monster?” I asked.

  “We could just hunt like a baby easy one in the field of flowers!” Iris said. “What better school spirit to show than kick-ass school spirit? We like, show pride in our i-oo.”

  “That could work,” Maia said. “Agreed on the baby easy part at least, we don’t want this to get plicated.”

  “And if it o be said, I’ll obviously be filming,” KJ said, holding up her camera again. “I just have to make sure my void lens is attached, so our shots aren’t all blurry and diagonal."

  “OK, so KJ on filming, Rain hosting,” Maia said, jotting notes down on bnk spa the assig sheet. “Anyone want to voluo be an ons fighter? We should probably have more than one.”

  “Who’s got the best fighting powers?” Iris asked.

  “I have weather/lightning,” I said.

  “I was told ice, but I ’t manage much more than some snowfkes,” Kalei said.

  “That might be good for background shots, you guys make the weather just right.” KJ said.

  “I mean, theoretically,” Kalei said. “her of us have much trol of our powers yet.”

  Amara cleared her throat.

  “I’ll do the fighting, I’m a trained professional,” Amara said.

  “What’s your i gift again?” I asked.

  “Gun juring.”

  “No way, that is so cool!” Iris said.

  “She’s lying,” KJ said. “It’s actually ser reted. Which makes it really stupid to say gun juring because she already has a super cool i gift.”

  “Shut up, KJ,” Amara said, crossing her arms. “Maybe I meant ser gun juring.”

  “Fine, Amara’s fighting.” Maia said.

  “I cim either scriptwriting duties and/or snacks/coffee handling.” Latte said.

  “Sure, whatever," Maia said. "You, me, Iris aa be on script then and whatever other produ roles are needed. Anything else?”

  “I do musiikki said, taking her headphones off for the first time all meeting.

  “I… help with that?” Kalei sheepishly offered.

  “Great, Nikki and Kalei on music,” Maia said. Nikki nodded and put her headphones ba.

  “So should we get started, then?” Iris asked.

  “To the void!” Amara announced.

  “Well, let’s do that tomorrow,” Maia said. “I think we've aplished the bare minimum today. We’ll do scripting and location scouting tomorrow.”

  “Fio the void tomorrow!” Amara said.