The Tale of Tara and Emiko

XXXVI. Kailey

"Uh, Kailey? Maybe you should go back to the simulations. That's the third punching bag you've broken today," Cliff noted.

I let out a sigh of annoyance. "I can't help it! It's been an entire week since the sci-fi thing, and we haven't picked up on any auras even remotely close to Tara and Emiko's. What if they're in a story we can't access for some reason? Or what if I was wrong about the cycle? Or what if that was our last chance, and their story's over? What if I failed? Again?"

"You won't fail. You're my big sister."

"By like ten minutes," I grumbled. Even so, some of the frustration melted, the lump in my throat dissolving. "I still feel like something went wrong. Somewhere. I don't trust myself."

"Maybe that's normal?" Cliff offered.

"Doesn't feel normal," I said spitefully.

"It's gonna work out eventually."

"True. I suppose we'll be making headlines no matter the result."

"Don't we always make headlines?"

"Fair point." I was silent for a bit as I quickly conjurde a rip in time and space, depositing the empty shell of the punching bag and its contents in the void: my favorite, bottomless trash can.

"Cliff! Kailey!" A girl wearing a gray oversized T-shirt and a flowy, layered black skirt ran into the training center, her dirty-blond hair wild and knotted. Her ID badge, pinned to the front of her jacket, showcased an emerald for 8th grade, the caduceus of Hermes as her element, and a pair of dragon wings for her animal.

"Astoria! Hey!" I called, walking over to her. "Nice to see you here." I pinned my badge to my shirt, this one with the same emerald and dragon wings, yet instead of a Healing symbol there was a purple wisp of smoke, representing elemental magic.

"You too!" Astoria smiled. "So...Cliff told me about your little passion project. Tara and Emiko, right? Last seen in a sci-fi world? Where they 'died'?" Astoria made air quotes with her hands.

"Yeah..." I said slowly.

"Well you're in luck, because I found them."

My mouth fell open.

"Wait, really? How?" Cliff asked.

"What, just because I'm a Healer doesn't mean the only work I can do is support!" Astoria chuckled. "And you're really lucky. Like, luckier than all those people who won the Powerball lottery from a fortune cookie batch's lucky numbers. Their auras were really weak when they were kids, probably the byproduct of existing simultaneously in all those worlds, but they're here now and I think we can help. Sorry this is on such short notice, I literally only just ran into Tara last week at the library."

This time it was Cliff's turn to be speechless.

"Well, that explains the whole timeline issue I was gonna ask about. But...they're actually here? In our world? You're right, we're really lucky...if this is actually true."

"Oh, trust me, it's true," said a girl with dark red hair and amber eyes wearing a cropped white t-shirt and sweatpants. Her ID badge had a tourmaline for tenth grade, a wave of water, and the silhouette of a fox. Despite looking incredibly different from the ruthless, robotic fighter from her last life I'd failed to save, I could still tell exactly who it was.

"Emiko!" I shouted jovially, running up and hugging her.

"Oh! Um, hi. Nice to, uh, see you again," Emiko said, awkwardly disentangling herself.

I stepped back, "Sorry, that was a little weird. I'm just really, really glad to see you. Sorry."

"Don't apologize, I get it. You saw me die. And I'm glad to see you, too."

"Hey, who's this?" piped a voice from the ground. I looked down, seeing Tara sitting crisscross applesauce, giving a fluffy calico cat head scratches. She was wearing a cream-colored sweater and jean shorts, her gray-blue hair in tight curls.

My name is Mochi, the cat said telepathically.

"Oh, the cat talks!" Emiko noted. "Thinks?"

"I thought they'd be more shocked to learn that that might look like a cat, but is actually the embodiment of a pocket dimension." Astoria quipped.

"When you discover you've been dragged through space and time across multiple lives, there's little that shocks you anymore," Tara murmured, stroking Mochi.

"Fair pont," I mused. "Wait-you know?"

"Just that Tara and I are somehow trapped in a cycle. Astoria said you'd be able to explain it better than she could. Somehow she knew it was related to Tara and my Spirits being weaker than most at our age. Well, somehow she knew about our Spirits, which is not a widely known fact."

"When you're friends with the Queen of Gossip herself at Crystal Junior High, there's little you can't find," Astoria said.

"One question," Emiko asked. "Well, I've got a lot of questions, but this is the one I want to ask: how do we know we can trust you?"

"You don't. But if you push away my help now, you're going to regret it later."

"If we're so important, why are you the only ones involved? Why not get an adult, or someone with more authority, or even the government to help us?"

"The government...doesn't like to get involved with people like us," Cliff said hesitantly.

"As in people who interact with fictionals or people as insanely powerful as you?" Tara asked.

"Impossible people. Like me," Cliff tried to say, but I don't think anyone heard him over my slightly loud and obnoxious "The fictionals one! Yes, that's it! They...don't think it should be legal, but no one's banned it yet."

"Anyways, back to the cycle thing. We've been trapped in this...loop for how long?" Tara asked.

I grimaced. "You're not going to like this."

"None of us like it," Cliff replied.

"Can someone explain what's going on?" Emiko asked, fidgeting with her ID badge.

I sighed. "Every living being has a unique aura, I'm sure you've learned. Some lucky individuals have the ability to sense, track, and even manipulate them. I'd hoped there was at least some kind of difference between the weaker ones I'd found, but they're all exact copies, growing stronger and stronger as the others die off, one by one-and I don't mean that in a sadistic or psychopathic way at all. You and Tara, reappearing in world after world after world. Each life destined to end badly, happening all at once, overlapping and coming dangerously close to breaking the fabric of reality."

"You said lives, plural. How many were there?" Emiko asked warily.

"You might want to sit down for this," Astoria said. Emiko slid down on the floor next to Tara.

I took a deep breath. "You and Emiko have existed in, affected, and died in seven different lifetimes. You've simultaneously lived in eight worlds, which I can imagine has taken quite the toll on your Spirits."

"Which is how long?" Tara pressed.

I looked her in the eye. "Three hundred years."