Lifting The Veal (Star Darlings Fanfiction)

Chapter 6

The BotBot finished cleaning the room so Vega was erasing its memory. Vega, along with the teachers and Adora, were the only Starlings who either actually paid attention in the right classes, or researched SR (Starland Robotics) themselves.   Vega remembered everything from the course but she was still an amateur at it. She didn't have much practice since the only history she's ever deleted was off of some random Starlings StarZap. The BotBot floated in midair between Vega's hands. Vega's whole body glowed a bright blue and her eyes opened wide, showing inside of them was the view and memories of the BotBot. 

A lower perspective of the floor, speed up rapidly projected in Vega's open eyes. Libby and Gemma watched on in awe at the sight of this incredible power. First years don't get to take the SR course yet. Vega's body started to convulse as the star power got too much and she shot out beams of light from every curve of her body and she covered her mouth, ran to the nearest waste bin and threw up into it. 

She vomited out a strange viscous mixture of solid neon blue and a beautiful rainbow of glitter and sparkles. She coughed up a few more sparkles before wiping her mouth with one of the tissues from the box on Gemma's desk. The sparkle that were once falling off of Vega with each abrupt movement was now gone and the shimmer in her hair seemed to have dulled out as well. 

"That took up way too much of my energy..." Vega leaned back against the wall on Gemma's side and slowly sat down. Vega watched with blurry vision as Princess Pangea walked towards her. She watched as it got closer then abruptly put her arms up. The little calf jumped and ran away to the corner farthest from Vega. "Vega!" Libby snapped. Vega chuckled a bit, "What? I'm just teasing her." 

"She already must feel scared enough." Libby retorted. 

When a Starling uses up all its positive energy, it's able to be controlled by its negativity better. Vega had a lot of it boiled up inside of her from all the rage she was feeling already. Vega actually meant to tell it to "leave her alone" but the negative energy caused her to do what the darker side desired. This is why no Starling was making any quick effort to help Vega up or offer her anything. There wasn't anything any Starling could do to give Vega 

Vega could hardly believe there was really an alien creature being harboured in this dorm right now. She especially couldn't believe she was helping! Vega grit her teeth at the animal as it looked back at her from over Piper's shoulder. Piper seemed to be giving her a hug. "Huh?" Vega made an audible noise of confusion when she realized the layout of the room was suddenly different. Libby and Gemma's sides of the rooms changed and Vega was on Libby's side. Vega quickly went back to Gemma's side. 

"What the starf happened here?!" Vega asked as calmly as she could, "I blinked and everything is sparklin' changed!?" 

"What?" Libby asked in confusion, they all looked at each other. 

"Vega, you got up and started pacing back and forth screaming about how you couldn't believe we were harbouring a creature and you were helping," Gemma tried to explain "Oh." Vega was taken aback, "So that's what that was" 

"Yeah?" Libby said in confusion. 

"Yeah, what did you think it was?" Gemma asked. 

"Uh-- nothing I guess, just forget it. Starf, this negativity is too much, I have to get away." Vega tried to walk to the door but now there was something in front of it. An entire wall. Vega had actually walked to the other side of the room away from the wall and was now near Piper in the corner. "...Yeah, I'll be staying in here." Then Gemma, Piper, and Libby responded with a mess of mutters to each other. 

"we...already said that?" "Yeah, I thought it was discussed?" "didn't the botbot already come back with a cot?" "what's going on right now?" 

Vega leaned her back against the wall and immediately fainted. "Oh, my stars..." Libby whispered in surprise. Nobody wanted to touch her since none of them knew enough about negative energy yet to know what to do in this scenario, so they decided to leave her there like that. Libby started to roll the cot out on the floor and throw a few blankets on top. Gemma helped her pull it to her side of the room. 

Piper finally turned her head from Princess Pangea so see a comfortable spot on the floor for her. Piper, being more advanced in levitation than the other two, used her powers to lift up one of the spare blankets that were originally for Vega's side of the cot and arranged them around Vega so she at least looked more comfortable. Piper's whole body let off gentle sparkles of minty blue, the same colour as her hair, and all around the collection of blankets sparkled and glowed the same colour. Half of the reason advanced levitation is so hard is because of the ways you have to bend your fingers in different individual ways. 

Piper was able to shift and flex her hand in a way that she could wrap the blanket around Vega without tearing half the blanket in one the direction and the other down through the floor and possibly in the process destroying Vega's ability to walk. The glow around Piper's body quickly faded and so did the sparkles around the blankets. Piper stood up and dusted off her nighty then realized it was way too dirty to sleep in. "Do you mind if I just sleep in my underwear?" Piper asked. 

Gemma and Libby awkwardly looked at each other, "uhh... Piper, I have a shirt from a Light Side Of The Moon concert I went to you can probably borrow and sleep in." Libby said, trying to sound as non-weirded out as possible. "Wonderful," Piper smiled and did a little bow. She then took off her clothes without warning and Libby quickly threw the T-Shirt at her. "What about Pangea?" Gemma asked. 

The girls all looked to Princess Pangea, who was now standing very close to Vega sniffing her face. "What do Princesses sleep on WishWorld?" Libby asked. "Oh, so you can accept the fact that she's from WishWorld but still doesn't believe me when I tell you she's not a princess?" Gemma grumbled. "She has the earing," Libby replied as-matter-of-fact. 

"She slept in... hay?" Gemma answered Piper. 

"Hello," Piper said with a smile and did a little bow. Gemma rubbed between her eyes, "No, like.. dried long grass." Libby crossed her arms and sat down on her bed"But the grass here is cut so neatly, what will we do?" 

"Not the grass on the hills past campus. Nobody takes care of that place!" Gemma quickly chimed in and started glowing a bit with excitement, "I'm sure we could find all kinds of hay and stuff for Pangea there!" 

"Yeah, and fruits and stuff too," Piper added. Gemma spun around and pointed to the window, "Tomorrow then! We'll go on a Wish Mission for hay for Pangea!" 

The girls (Except Vega) all cheered excitedly but quietly. Princess Pangea had luckily found herself a comfortable spot in a the corner next to Vega.  "But for now," Piper stood up, almost in a way to remind Libby and Gemma who the adult was, "sleeping. Would anybody like to meditate with me?"  "No thanks," both Gemma and Libby responded. They got comfy in their individual beds on opposite sides of the room with Piper sitting on Gemma's side, levitating in the air as she meditated for a few starminutes. 

The lights in the room automatically dimmed down until they were turned off completely. Within the darkness, the unavoidable quiet talking between Libby and Gemma started to happen. Throughout it all, Piper couldn't help but hear another voice, she couldn't differentiate whether her psychic powers were picking up the sound of an overbearing thought or an entity also in the room. The sound seemed to be coming from the corner of the room where Vega and Princess Pangea were. 

Looking through the darkness, Piper was able to see that Princess Pangea had made her way to Vega and had her head laying on Vega's lap. Vega herself had, possibly in her sleep, fallen to the side enough to be using Princess Pangeas back as a pillow.  Piper couldn't decipher which one the voice was coming from. 

But it was saying 

"I'm here... I'm here... I'm here...." 

(Photographed by Heather Smith Thomas)