Chapter Text
"Hey, what's up?"
X gasped and stood up. "Keralis!" Like before with his water, a hole opened up beneath him and sucked him in before dropping him right in front of his friend. He blushed at their proximity, the two of them practically touching noses. "Oh, uh, sorry," he said with a nervous laugh as he stepped back a bit.
Keralis stared wide-eyed at Xisuma. "Did you just-"
"Yeah, see, that's the thing we're having a meeting about," the shorter boy said, taking Keralis by the hand and leading him over to the table. "We've all been doing weird things, like how Tango's hair keeps catching on fire." He pulled out a seat for Keralis to sit in. "And you, my friend, are going to explain because it's obvious you know what's causing this, if you're not the cause of it period."
Keralis shook his head. "I'm not telling you," he said.
"Great, so have a seat and-" Xisuma froze and looked up at Keralis. "What?"
"I'm not telling you," he repeated, much more sternly than the last time. "None of you are ready. This wasn't supposed to happen so soon."
"Aha!" Xisuma jabbed his finger at Keralis' chest. "You do know what's causing this."
Keralis swatted X's hand away. "And?"
Xisuma huffed. "Come on, Keralis, why can't you tell us?" he whined. "What happened and why did it happen 'too soon'? Why aren't we ready? Why-"
"Would you stop?!" Keralis shouted, and Xisuma flinched. "I don't have to tell you, so I won't. I need time to think it over first."
Bdubs stood up. "Keralis, I'm sick of this bullshit," he sighed. "You act like we don't have the right to know. Not to mention that you seem to think we're not affected more than you are. You need to tell us what's going on."
"I need more time," Keralis said.
"You think I give a fuck?"
"Guys, stop," Zedaph intervened, his entire body glowing again. "Fighting isn't going to help our situation. All of you need to sit down and relax." He looked at Keralis. "That includes you."
Bdubs and X both looked at Keralis, Bdubs glaring and Xisuma sighing. "Alright," the three of them said in unison, then took their seats. Xisuma moved to sit on the other side of Bdubs instead of next to Keralis.
"Good," Zed huffed, taking his own seat again. "Now, everybody needs to explain their own experience so Keralis might actually be persuaded to tell us why this is happening."
"Wait," Keralis said. "Where's Fwhip?"
"I'm down here," a quiet voice said, its pitch slightly higher than Fwhip's, and Keralis looked down to see the ginger, no bigger than a mouse, standing on the table in front of Joel.
"Oh."
Joel laughed. "Yeah, it's actually really funny how this happened," he said. "Fwhio dropped his phone under the sofa, and when he tried to get it, he wished he was smaller, and then- poof! He was tiny."
Keralis nodded slowly.
"I've been turning whatever I touch into weapons," Bdubs said dryly, then picked up a spoon that immediately turned into a dagger. "And when I put it down" - he set the utensil on the table to demonstrate - "it turns back into whatever it was before. But it's different every time. When I was playing my keytar earlier, it turned into a katana. This chair turned into a fucking mace, and then obviously the spoon turned into a dagger."
"I keep glowing," Zedaph said, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. "It's pretty boring compared to everyone else's, uh... things."
Keralis sighed. "And Tango's been catching on fire, and Shashwa-"
"Xisuma," X corrected.
Keralis paused for a moment. "...And Xisuma can teleport items," he said, then sighed again. "Has anyone else experienced anything weird? And have you heard from Scar?"
Shelby raised her gloved hand shyly. "I, uh- I grow these weird vines and mosses whenever I touch anything with my bare hands," she said. "Which... is kind of why I'm wearing gloves. And why they're also green and fuzzy."
"Anybody else?" Keralis asked again, and the rest of them shook their heads. "Alright." He stood up. "Then I'm leaving."
"What?!" everyone shouted together.
"I'm not telling you anything until all of your spirits are-" He stopped himself, then turned around. "Goodnight."
As he started to walk away, Xisuma called after him, "You're a dick!"
•°•
"We need to get a gig at that Swaggon Café they were talking about," Grian said as he paced back and forth as Jimmy and Scott sat on the sofa in their practice room. "If we do that, we could probably exile one of them from the group and take as much of their magic as we can hold."
Scott sighed. "And what if we can't do that?" they asked. "What if we can't do either of those things."
Grian stopped and glared at Scott, making them shiver. "Doubt me again, I dare you."
Rolling their eyes, Scott shut their mouth and stayed quiet.
"We'll be able to get the gig, but-" They stopped, then lifted a hand to rest on their stomach, frowning. His pendant was glowing brighter than it ever had in the past, and suddenly Scott and Jimmy were alarmed.
"Q, are you alright?" Jimmy asked urgently.
Grian coughed, then nodded. "I'm fine," they said.
"You don't look fine," Scott said, also concerned.
"I said I'm fine," Grian repeated. "Now, let's get back on topic, shall we?"
•°•
Scar groaned at the notebook on his table. "Why is this so complicated?" he whined.
"What is it?" Pearl asked.
"Stupid quadratics," he pouted.
Pearl snickered. "It's not that complicated," she said, and Scar rolled his eyes. "You just plug in the coefficients and the constant to the formula and solve it."
"I don't even know what a coefficient or a constant is," Scar complained.
"It's the numbers before the variables, Scar." Pearl walled over and sat next to him. "Look, this two is the coefficient of x squared. That's your a. And then this two is the constant, so that's c."
Scar frowned. "But what's b?"
"b is 6," Pearl explained.
"Ohh, okay!" Scar wrote down everything Pearl told him, his tongue sticking out as he did so. He paused when he finished. "What do I do now?"
"Well-" Pearl stopped and blinked as the answer to the equation was written in gold on the paper... except Scar wasn't writing anything at all. "I'm- huh?" She stared at the paper, as did Scar. "Give me your pencil."
Scar obeyed, handing her his pencil. She started to solve it, finding that the answer was correct.
She looked up at him, baffled. "How did you do that?"
"I don't know."
•°•
"Are you sure you want to walk home by yourself?" Zed asked as Xisuma got up from the table. "Tango doesn't mind driving you."
"I'll be fine," X assured them, but none of them looked like they believed him. "Seriously, you guys."
Impulse sighed. "Well, if you don't want our help, then we can't force it on you," he said, standing up and shrugging into his jacket. He paused to look at Xisuma. "You need to stop pushing everybody away when people act like how Keralis just did. You're not sneaky trying to hide how anxious you are. We can all see you shaking."
X chewed on the inside of his lip and nodded awkwardly. "Right..." He watched as Impulse, Tango, and Zedaph got ready to leave.
"What are you just standing there for?" Tango asked, confusing Xisuma. "Come on, I'm driving you home."
Sighing, Xisuma grabbed his jacket. "Fine."
They walked out to Tango's truck, Zed claiming the back with X. It was... the exact opposite of quiet, the four of them jamming to System Of A Down the entire way to Xisuma's house. They played Chop Suey! at least five times, and Toxicity even more than that. Xisuma was surprised Zedaph even liked System Of A Down, but a lot of things about Zed surprised him.
Tango turned the music down when he pulled up in front of Xisuma's house, and the latter's body suddenly felt very heavy. There were tons of lights on, which meant he definitely would get caught going in the house, no matter where he went in from. His parents were probably hosting a party.
"We're here," the blonde said. "Do you want us to wait just in case you need to, y'know, get away?"
Xisuma sighed. "Sure, why not?" he said with a soft laugh. "Thanks for the ride, by the way."
"Of course," Zed said for his boyfriend as Xisuma got out of the vehicle. "Tango's always happy to help." Tango and Impulse looked at each other before laughing, confusing Zed. "What are you laughing at?" he asked genuinely.
"Nothing," Impulse said, waving a hand at Zedaph before kissing him.
Ten minutes passed and Tango was about to drive away when Xisuma came running out of the house, soaked. Zed opened the door so X could hop in easily and offered him tissues, the latter wiping stuff off of his face and grimacing.
"What the fuck happened?" Tango asked. "You were only in there for ten minutes."
"Fucking drunkards, that's what happened," Xisuma groaned. "And disgusting, sweaty, old guys thinking it's okay to dump cheap alcohol all over a seventeen-year-old."
Zed sighed. "Hey, at least it wasn't gasoline," he said in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"Just as flammable," X said, and Zed frowned. "Sorry, Zed."
"Does this mean a sleepover?" Impulse asked, and Zedaph started frantically nodding his head. "That's a yes."
Xisuma shrugged. "I'm down."
Zed tapped Xisuma's shoulder several times, even though he was already paying attention. "We should invite the rest of the band," he said ecstatically. "And Grian, Scott, and Jimmy!"
Tango chuckled. "And whose house do you think is big enough to hold twelve teenagers?" he joked.
"Mine," Zedaph huffed.
Impulse laughed. "Band sleepover plus Grian, Scott, and Jimmy it is, then."