"I... I.... he's..." Vespera stammered out, turning her attention to the teacher.

  What was happening to her?

  Her mind danced with more invasive sparks that blotted out her vision.

  She brought her talons to her forehead trying to tap out the storm of emotions burning inside her and then she noticed that something was wrong.

  It wasn’t working!

  Her magisteel talons were gone! WHAT?!

  Vespera stared at her hands, blinking and looking stupefied.

  With a gasp, she noticed that the fox was holding one of her magisteel gloves, twirling the bird-skull between his fingers with a smug grin, the leather bits sliced clean.

  "Looking for these?" he asked innocently.

  "How did you...?" Vespera gaped, her perfect composure burning away like a raging forest fire.

  "A magician never reveals his secrets," Prince Fox winked, pocketing her Electrofractal-focus glove. "But I must say, these are quite lovely. I think I'll keep them as a souvenir."

  "You thief!!! GIVE THOSE BACK!" Vespera shrieked, launching herself at him again. "I NEED THEM!!!"

  Once again someone grabbed at her tail, making her smash headfirst into a seat.

  Instructor Gilgamesh was yelling something about order in his classroom, but Vespera wasn't listening.

  All she could think about was pure, incandescent, electric… murder.

  Those were HER talons! Her optimization tools! How dare this vile fox steal the tools her father made for her! Her mind raced with fury as a snowstorm whirled through her consciousness.

  "DETENTION FOR A WEEK!" Instructor Gilgamesh boomed. "All of you!"

  "Me?" the fox gasped in mock offense, placing a hand over his heart. "But I'm a visiting royal! Surely you wouldn't dare..."

  "OUT!" the Kraken roared. "All of you class-disrupting miscreants, go to Vice Principal Graves' office! NOW!"

  Vespera flashed with shame.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen! She was Instructor Gilgamesh's best student. She wasn’t a miscreant… she was... Who was she again?

  "K, thanks, bye!" The fox ran out of class, tapping her talons together.

  "Get back here!" Vespera roared, rushing after the talon-thief.

  The fox threw her own book at her face.

  Vespera batted the book away with a shriek of rage.

  Mace. She needed her mace! No, the coliseum was too far. Damn it all!

  Her hands sparked with electricity as she chased after the insufferable fox down the hallway.

  "Give me back my talons!" she shrieked, lightning crackling between her feathers. “Those don’t belong to you!”

  "Gotta catch me first, thunda-bae!" the fox called back, far too many hexasuits flashing under his garish, red and gold jacket.

  Vespera's mind was a rising hurricane of confusion and rage.

  Why was she so angry? Why couldn't she optimize her emotions, just get a hold of herself?

  Without her talons, the storm in her head kept growing, memories flickering like distant lightning - pancakes, crystal towers, a lighter, rainbow wings… a boy with green eyes.

  "Stop running you coward!" she snarled, launching a bolt of lightning that the fox somehow dodged and redirected into a locker.

  “Nu-huh!”

  "STOP RUNNING YOU VULPINE PEST!" Vespera screamed.

  Lightning flashed between her wings as she gained on him, only to have Katherine's wheelchair suddenly roll into her path.

  "Whoops, sorry!" the Stollwurm called out as the Thunderbird tumbled over the chair with a yelp.

  "Arrrrhhhhgh! Watch where you're going you damned wheelie!" Vespera snarled at the hunting-jacket covered girl. Her mind careened sideways as she noticed that Katherine was wearing an "I??U!" rainbowy button pinned to her thick coat.

  "Too slow!" The fox's laughter echoed down the hall.

  Vespera scrambled to her feet, her pristine suit now rumpled. She tried to remember where that button was from. Something about it made her head hurt, like static migraine building up in her mind.

  She spotted the orange foxtail turning a corner and launched herself forward, only to collide with Io who was carrying a terrarium of African slugs that exploded all over Vespera, glass shards detonating.

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  Vespera screamed in frustration, electrocuting the slugs and wiping slug slime from her once-perfect suit. The insufferable fox's laughter bounced through the halls, taunting her. Her black and white feathers were now stained with bits of terrarium dirt and slug mucus.

  "Sorry!" Io called out, but Vespera noticed he was wearing a similar looking "I??U!" button.

  Cracks rushed across her psyche.

  Has the entire school gone mad? What were these damn buttons?!

  She shook her head and charged after the fox again, her wings humming dangerously. Just as she was about to grab his tail, she collided with Solace who was holding a large black paint bucket that splashed all over Vespera's white blouse, permanently ruining it.

  "What?! Ah come on! What the shit?! WHAT THE FUCK SOL?!" Vespera sputtered. “Why are you carrying paint?! Why aren’t you fuckers in class?!”

  "Watch where you running, ya dumb thunderbeerch!" Solace growled.

  "You..." Vespera sputtered, trying and failing to get the wet paint off herself. "You effing wormbeerch!"

  She punched Solace and received an even stronger punch back that sent her flying backwards into a wall. Stars exploded in her head, detonating, shattering her from within.

  Vespera staggered to her feet, her head spinning from Solace's attack. Through the haze of black paint and rage, she spotted the fox standing there, pointing and laughing at her.

  "You!" she screamed, her voice cracking with fury. "You blasted, vile... small creature! You set all this up! Did you pay these knobs to screw with me?!"

  "You'll have to prove it in court!" The maddening fox laughed.

  "Come back here!" Vespera screamed, charging after the laughing fox through the halls.

  Just as she was about to grab him, President Quint appeared from nowhere, carrying a stack of student council papers that exploded into her face. She batted the papers away, shredding them and careening into a locker.

  "Miss Simmi," Quint shook his head. "Running in the halls like a Thundersnarg? Do watch where you’re going!"

  The fox's laughter carried from the hall. With a snarl, Vespera shoved past Quint, her pristine appearance now completely destroyed.

  This was all his fault. He had to pay for messing up her day!

  "Get back here you insufferable vulpine!" she shrieked, lightning dancing along her entire figure.

  She chased him up the stairs of a meditation tower toward the roof, her mind a storm of fragmented memories and rage. Why did his laugh sound so familiar? Why did those stupid buttons make her head hurt? Why did everyone trip her up?

  The fox stood atop of the tower’s white rooftop balcony, arms spread wide in triumph.

  "Nowhere to run now, you asshole!" Vespera growled.

  The fox grinned at her and then simply… fell backwards.

  Vespera lunged forward with a scream as the fox fell, her wings spreading instinctively. Without thinking, she dove after him, electricity burning along her entire figure.

  The wind whipped past her as she plummeted, her mind and heart racing. Why was she diving after this insufferable, wingless Omnid? She should let him fall! Let him break his neck!

  He deserved it for ruining her perfect day, for stealing her talons, for making her feel so... so…

  The fox was falling spread-eagled, still grinning up at her. Then he pulled a rope and a blue parasail blossomed behind him, the wind carrying him forward to the parking lot.

  Vespera's wings spread wide, her heart stopping momentarily, sailing after him with a bit of a struggle.

  "Aren't you curious why your bracelet is transparent?" The fox yelled.

  Vespera blinked at her bracelet.

  "You... Did you do this?!" She shouted back.

  "Maybe I did," the fox taunted. "Maybe I didn't. Speculate! Deduce! Aren’t you a clever birb?”

  Her transparent Lazarus bracelet caught the sunlight, sending fractals of memory dancing through her consciousness.

  Crystalline tower. Crystalline caverns. Arx. Shandria. Undertown.

  Something was wrong. Everything felt wrong.

  Rainbows. Rainbows in the air behind her. Vespera looked back. There was nobody there and yet she felt someone watching her from the air. Someone invisible.

  Cinder?

  “Getting it yet?” The fox shouted. “Yes, no? Maybe this will jog that bork noggin!”

  The empty parking space in front and below them wobbled, shimmered with shadows. Vespera noticed that the Stollwurm girl was standing there, now wearing a black dress instead of her usual thick jacket, holding onto the air.

  The Kitsune teen suddenly landed atop of a massive crystalline creature that emerged from warping shadows like some kind of a sudden, multi-limbed, whale-sized cat-bus.

  Vespera crashed into it face first, lightning exploding across the gargantuan, inexplicable, solid beast.

  She gasped as she saw the entire thing.

  It was a Corpse Seeker, the biggest Corpse Seeker she'd seen in her entire life.

  Vespera staggered back, staring up at the massive crystalline construct. Her mind reeled - this was impossible. No one had a Corpse Seeker this size. The crystalline behemoth towered above her, its arcane form radiating absolute power that made her feathers stand on end.

  A tank. This was a tank. An unstoppable machine, the kind she's dreamt about her entire life.

  "Like what you see, thunda-bae?" The insufferable fox called down from atop the construct. “Meet Miss Possible! She's 42,000 years old and absolutely loves pancakes just like you do!"

  Pancakes.

  The word sent a jolt through Vespera's mind, fragments of memory trying to surface through the fog.

  "Arghhhhh!" She grabbed her head. "What... have you done?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!" She howled.

  “Everything,” the fox said, throwing a round button to her feet with the tag "I??U!".

  Vespera grabbed the button, her entire being careening sideways, fracturing, detonating. This was her button. She felt it in her bones.

  Vespera felt an inexplicable connection to the gargantuan Corpse Seeker standing in front of her. A connection she didn't remember making.

  She sent a spark forward, reaching out with her hands.

  The crystalline-organic, blood-red machine responded, moved towards her, wobbled in recognition sending a thousand reflections across the parking lot.

  This engine was hers. Hers! HERS!!!

  Her familiar.

  A familiar she didn’t remember making.

  She stood there, panting, gaping at the smug-looking fox, burned paint and torched white dress-suit flaking off her, only a gray hexamesh outfit remaining on her body.

  She felt like... Herself and not herself.

  Angry and happy.

  Wrong and right.

  Looking from within and inward in shock, a suddenly encroaching tidal wave of clarity burned in her mind like a brilliant flare, like an electric generator explosion.

  The first layer avatar of her being shattered and between each piece of it there was a shoddy layer of false memories, misformed wrongness, deception, fakery that burned, melted away.

  The shattered avatar started to come together, properly this time, piece by piece, slowly reassembling, reasserting itself like a neural network reconnecting segment by segment, lighting up from within.

  "Fookin' wat," Vespera choked. "Bloody bastard... acshulleh murdered me?! Not cool daddy, not cool at all!"