Chapter 8: All That Shimmers is Gold

Yuna drifted through her morning classes in a dreamlike trance. She was only vaguely aware of what was going on around her while she imagined herself floating inside some giant hall filled with columns and arches. A faceless figure towered above her, holding a gavel, while Shimmer stood next to her barking orders like he was a feral arcanine.

Even news from Professor Cid that he was taking the third-years on an early field trip to a historical site did little to quell the unease. Sure, her classmates whooped and hollered, but for Yuna that likely meant even less time to prepare.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she wound up in the dining hall’s large, wooden entrance. Baraz must’ve taken her there and departed for the servant quarters. The glistening chandeliers and warm sunlight drifting through the high-arched glass ceiling managed to catch her attention long enough to snap her out of her trance.

Right, food. She needed food. Except she had yet to actually eat in the dining hall.

Yuna scanned the room. It had the same marble floor as the hallways. The opposite end had a raised platform holding multiple tables for the teachers. Which left the students to use the evenly-spaced, varnished, wooden, circular and rectangular tables. Dozens of meltan scurried across the floor, carrying metal trays piled high with meat and plant-based dishes and sides. They set them in the middle of the tables.

Where should I sit? She wasn’t sure if students segregated themselves by class year or not. Yuna figured she could find Chiaki or Nikki if she searched hard enough. They weren’t ideal company, but they were better than nothing.

At least, that was her assumption until an unseen force tugged on her right horn. Her gills tightened. She squeaked. Yuna sucked in a sharp breath as she stared down Shimmer’s glowing horn casting a pink glow over his tiara.

“Come with me.” The ponyta wasn’t giving her a choice. His psychic grip faded and Yuna floated after him. Was the Prince taking Vegna’s advice after all? Curious.

He weaved through tables, mindful of stray limbs sticking out from chairs. Shimmer brought Yuna to the circular table located closest to the faculty section. All the seats were occupied save two. Shimmer sat down on one. He levitated a small bell and rang it. Within seconds, an arcanine wearing a black dress jacket appeared.

“Some ghost-friendly cushions for Princess Yuna.” He gestured to the seat beside him.

“Of course, Your Grace.” Arcanine bowed and ducked under the table. He reappeared with three cushions that he stacked on the table. “Here you are, m’lady.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Yuna settled down on the cushions. She was at perfect height to reach her napkin and silverware.

“What kind of diet do you dragons go with?” Shimmer asked. It wasn’t the politest phrasing, but it was nicer than how he acted before law class.

“I eat meat.”

“Real or synthetic?”

Yuna raised a brow. “You guys have synthetic meat?”

At that, the sylveon and sirfetch’d to Shimmer’s left looked up from their plates. “Of course we do,” Shimmer said. “You don’t?”

“No.”

“Fascinating,” Sylveon whispered.

“Right.” Shimmer’s horn glowed. A plate moved in front of her. It had a steak sandwich with caramelized onions and melted cheddar on a fresh-baked sourdough roll. Yuna’s mouth watered from the smell. The cut must’ve been high-grade.

“Introductions, then.” Shimmer brought a plate of his own over. It had a spring mix salad with avocado. “These are my friends, Xander and Robin.” He gestured to Sylveon and Sirfetch’d, respectively. Xander focused on pouring himself a glass of water while Robin nodded curtly.

“And I’m sure you remember Team Striker from yesterday’s event.” The ponyta pointed a forehoof across the table. Yuna looked up at the cinderace, lucario, and inteleon. The latter two had ditched their striped, scarlet sports jerseys for silk dress shirts. Yuna immediately recalled their gleeful commentary when Team Bastion got disqualified. Her cheeks burned.

“Hello.”

“What up, Princess?” Rufus said with a bite of poultry dangling from his teeth. “Bad luck about yesterday, eh?”

“Well, it certainly made for a crowning spot of entertainment!” Reno laughed. The cinderace sat back in his chair. “No offense, Princess, but folks love a good villain team to root against… and Nikki the Nuisance set you guys up to fill that niche nicely.”

She was offended, but settled for taking it out on her steak sandwich.

“We mean no ill will. You see, part of our job is to help craft a good narrative for the audience,” Vincent elaborated. The inteleon pressed his index finger to his temple. “Though we’ll be hard-pressed to make your team into anything if you get eliminated in the first leg. And, with that penalty, it’s looking quite likely.”

Okay, now she had to say something. “Shimmer, did you bring me here to talk about the case or to let your friends mock me? I had no idea Nikki was planning to cheat, you know.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Reno held up his paws. “Nobody’s mocking you. We’re not like that, Princess.” He adjusted the jersey on his torso. “I’ve got future sponsors to think about. No pro baccer team’s gonna want to hire a bully.”

“Yeah, sure.” The dreepy took a swig of water.

“I did bring you here because of the case.” Shimmer dabbed his silver napkin against his snout. “I could read your body language and your energy. You felt like a plate of cold, stale noodles.”

Yuna attempted a pale imitation of one of Chiaki’s scowls. Gee, thanks for the confidence boost, partner.

The ponyta looked her dead in the eye. “You have no reason to worry.”

“Because?” Yuna was ready to stuff a bread roll in Shimmer’s mouth if his answer was some variation of “Because you’re working with me.”

“Because you’re clearly smart.”

Yuna almost coughed up her bite of steak sandwich.

“Everyone has to take a placement test to get into Vegna’s advanced law class,” Robin explained. “I doubt he’d make an exception for you just because you’re an exchange student.”

Though it was true, Yuna wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a compliment. Shimmer leaned into her line of sight. “If you scored high enough on the test, then that means that, despite not growing up here, you know your stuff,” he said.

“Arguably better than some of us who actually live here,” Reno added. He rested his paws behind his head. “I mean, I find all that law junk boring, but we’ve got a lot of politically-minded folks here and you probably scored better than a good lot of them.”

“I see.” No one had mentioned that to Yuna. She assumed she was the only one who had to take such a test.

“Which brings me back to my original point: your worry is unfounded.” Shimmer brushed his mane with a foreleg. “We’ll be fine. Uncle Benedict is innocent. I’m sure of it.”

Uncle Benedict? “So, the slurpuff’s family?”

“Not in the literal sense.” Shimmer chuckled. “Mother doesn’t have any siblings. The royal family only ever rears a single child. Keeps the bloodline pure.” He swished his mane, angling his head so his tiara would twinkle in the sunlight.

“That sounds pretty lonely.” Yuna gulped down more water. “My little brothers can be annoying, but I still love them.” She shook her head. The subject wasn’t worth pursuing. “Anyway, even if he’s not your real uncle, isn’t it, like, some sort of conflict to defend him?”

“Sounds like someone’s been watching too many PV shows.” Xander giggled into one of his ribbons.

“PV?”

Xander looked at Yuna like she was speaking gibberish. “Polaris Vision?”

There was that phrase again. “Yeah, uh, I don’t really know what that is.”

“No fooling?” Xander dropped his fork. “You guys have ether, right?”

Yuna was sorely tempted to make a snide remark about how Shimmer’s ancestors forced the Aeons into mountainous and volcanic wastelands. However, she settled for saying, “I’d never heard of that term before coming here.”

“Don’t look so surprised, Xander.” Rufus pointed his fork at the sylveon. “You know how guarded Polaris is with their proprietary tech. There’s no way they’d let word of ether power reach the Aeon Kingdom. Anyone who tried would get buried six feet under by a mountain of C and Ds.”

“I mean, we didn’t let word of anything here reach the Aeons until Demerzel started up the whole treaty process.” Shimmer gesticulated with his levitating fork. He glanced at Yuna. “Sorry about that. Not like I had any control over it.”

Huh. Yuna’s parents hadn’t mentioned Demerzel being the one to get that ball rolling. Though Noctum did tell her Demerzel was the friendliest Radiant they’d met since their arrival. “And your mom’s okay with an advisor leading the charge like this?” Yuna wanted to hear an answer straight from the Prince’s mouth.

Shimmer chewed away at some lettuce. He swallowed, then said, “Of course. The whole reason she brought Demerzel in is because she’s trying to shift domestic policy to focus on the expanding distortion.” He stabbed an avocado slice with his fork. “Loathe as I am to admit it, you dragons are infinitely better at dealing with the distortion than we are.”

Because of Cosmic Blessing. It was the one thing her parents said they had as leverage over the Kingdom of Radiance. If they were willing to offer it up as part of this treaty, then that meant the distortion had to be nearing a critical point. Perhaps this was all connected to the mystery dungeons her parents had mentioned when meeting with Vortex.

Gah, it was so much to keep track of. Trial. She had to focus on the trial. The other stuff could wait.

“Right. So, back to your uncle.” Yuna finished her sandwich. “What’s the issue?”

“He’s being accused of assaulting some magmar peasant on board an omnibus,” Shimmer explained. “You know what those are, right?”

“Um, yes. They’re kind of like coaches, but bigger.” Yuna had seen a couple when she was traveling to Horizon Gardens. “Did your uncle say anything?”

Shimmer nodded. “Uncle Benedict was sleeping in the omnibus the whole time. He was woken up by shouting and saw the magmar slouched over next to him with a knife in his gut.”

Reno whistled. “Ouch.”

Yuna’s eyes widened. “Wait, and the magmar survived?“

“He must’ve. Otherwise it’d be a murder trial and we wouldn’t be involved.” Shimmer shrugged.

“Why even take an omnibus?” Xander adjusted his pink, feathered shirt collar with his ribbons. “Surely Benedict can afford to order a private coach.”

Shimmer shrugged. “Benedict says he likes to take public transit to commiserate with the commoners. He’s weird like that.”

“I don’t know. Sounds suspicious to me,” Xander said.

“Well, I’ll just count my lucky stars you won’t be on the jury.” Shimmer chuckled and hip-checked Xander. The sylveon giggled and playfully shoved him back with a ribbon.

“How can you be so… nonchalant about this?” Yuna was glad her ectoplasm dissolved food right away. If she had a normal stomach, she might not have kept her lunch down.

“Because I believe in Uncle Benedict. I think he’s telling the truth.” Shimmer’s expression hardened. “He told me there were other omnibus passengers. I have no doubt whoever this novice inquisitor is will have them testify.”

“Probably. But how does that help us?” Yuna poked her hands together.

“It’s the perfect situation to sow doubt into the jury.” Shimmer smirked. “You do know we conduct trials with jurists, right?”

She did. It came up in her studies for the placement test. “We get a ‘not guilty’ verdict if all six jurors unanimously agree on that decision,” Yuna said.

“Right. But, failing that, we can get the jury to deadlock.” Shimmer pushed his chair back from the table. “And the perfect way to do that is to get these other passengers to turn on one another. That ought to create enough confusion to mess up the jury.”

Aside from that sounding easier said than done, Yuna found the idea… worrying. “Are you saying we should put suspicion on innocent bystanders?”

“Of course not.” The ponyta flicked his mane. “But if Uncle Benedict is telling the truth, logic dictates one of the other passengers did it and tried to pin the crime on him. So, our strategy should be to look for an opening that can make that scenario more likely.” He sat back, grinning. “Like I said… we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“I still think we should go through some of the textbook together,” Yuna said.

Shimmer rolled his eyes. “Sure. Fine. Meet me in the first-floor common lounge after your detention gets out. Sound good?”

Yuna nodded.

Detention brought her back to Professor Vegna’s room. Despite Horizon Gardens being well south of her home and having long days as the start of fall approached, the classroom seemed inexplicably darker than it was in the morning. All the candles burned lavender flames, casting a purple glow over the chalkboard and plastic desks. Nikki and Chiaki were already sitting in desks behind one another. Yuna took her assigned spot from class. It still had all the cushions set up.

“Where’s Professor Vegna?” the dreepy asked. She looked expectantly at the chalkboard.

“Left for a meeting. Told us not to cause any trouble.” Chiaki didn’t look up as he spoke. He was writing numbers into what Yuna assumed was math homework.

“Stuck us with Birdbrain.” Nikki jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Talonflame stood on a perch in the back corner of the room, preening his feathers.

Yuna didn’t trust that they were truly alone. Vegna might have set up booby traps or something similar. She pulled out a worksheet from Cid’s history class. “You’re going to behave yourself, right, Nikki?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The toxtricity leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “Look, it’s not like I wanted this to happen.”

“Then why’d you cheat yesterday?” Yuna asked.

Nikki turned away. “I wasn’t intending to cheat.”

Chiaki rolled his eyes. “You powered up your moves with an illegal item. How’s that not intentional?”

“I didn’t need the item to power up. My Boomburst would’ve knocked them out regardless,” Nikki scoffed.

Yuna frowned. “But then it makes even less sense for you to have brought it in the first place.” If her teammate was trying to win her over, it wasn’t working.

“Unless she was deliberately trying to get us disqualified.” Chiaki tipped the brim of his cap down. “There have been years where teams took bribes to throw the Crowne Cup.”

“Piss off, Twiggy.” Nikki’s face reddened. “I just said I didn’t want to get us disqualified.”

“And why should we believe you when you’re not coming clean about those goggles?” Chiaki countered.

Nikki balled her fists up. Sparks danced between her fingers. Talonflame looked up from preening himself. Yuna held her breath, expecting Nikki to throw a punch. Instead, she dug her fists into the arm of her desk. “It wasn’t… about boosting power.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “The goggles… doubled as a pair of X-ray specs.”

While Yuna had brought herself up to speed on the items she’d purchased with Baraz’s help, X-ray specs were not on that list. “Err… what?”

“You can’t be serious.” Chiaki waved Nikki off.

“Hang on, what do those do?”

“They let you see through walls,” Chiaki replied. “But it’s not like the maze was complicated. You shouldn’t have needed X-ray specs in the first place.” He shook his head dismissively.

“I already told you it wasn’t about cheating!” Nikki leaned over her desk. “It was about exposing that jackass Prince for the cheat he is!”

Yuna looked at Chiaki. He looked back blankly. “Is this supposed to be a joke? You don’t strike me as a comedian in training,” he said.

“It’s not a joke. I’m telling you… something stinks to high heaven about that ponyta.”

Are you sure that’s not your jacket? I can smell it from across the room. Yuna kept her snark internal.

Chiaki pivoted so he was sitting on the chair backwards. He rested his arms on the back of the chair. “And you’re basing this off what, exactly? Your gut?”

Nikki bit her lip. “No. But, like, c’mon, you’ve gotta see it.” She turned to Yuna. “Don’t you think it’s a bit convenient that Shimmer’s team got put all the way on the far side of the maze? The commentary made it sound like they didn’t even break a sweat going through it.”

“Uh, I wasn’t paying much attention. We were preoccupied, remember?” The dreepy pointed to Talonflame and recalled the Flamethrowers and Air Slashes that had rained on her from the sky.

“Besides, that all happened after you made the decision to cheat.” Chiaki tapped his claws on Nikki’s desk. “I’m no therapist, but you sounds like you’re projecting.”

“Hey, just because I act like a slacker doesn’t mean I actually am one!” Nikki’s mohawk flared up, peppering her chair with tiny sparks. “I do my work and pass my tests. Which is more than I can say for Shimmer.”

“Right. You really think slandering the Crown Prince is going to win you any friends here?” Chiaki facepalmed. “That kind of talk all but guarantees every team will target us in the first Crowne Cup leg. Which makes total sense if you’re trying to throw this.”

“It’s the truth, damn it!” Nikki reached into her backpack — black, worn out, and covered in patches of duct tape — and smacked two pieces of paper down on her desk. “Look.” She pushed the papers toward Chiaki.

“These look like pre-calc notes,” Chiaki said. “So what?”

“I was in the same pre-calc class as Shimmer last year.” Nikki turned the page’s in Yuna’s direction. “Look here. This one’s from his notebook.” She slid the page on Yuna’s left toward her. The writing was in cursive, with tiny hearts used in place of dots for the Is and Js. It was… quite flamboyant. Yuna supposed it matched his flashy outfit.

“And this… is a test we had in the middle of the year.” Nikki slid the other page to Yuna.

Aside from the perfect score marked with a big, red marker, something was off. The letters in Shimmer’s name were thick and blocky. Even the numbers weren’t as curvy as the ones from Shimmer’s notebook. “Okay, the writing’s different.” She frowned. “What are you implying?”

“That someone else took this test for him.” Nikki tapped the test repeatedly with her index finger. “How else would you explain it?”

“That he ditches the fancy writing on a timed test?” Yuna shrugged. Her writing always got noticeably sloppier on tests back home. Of course, just gripping a pen in her nubby hand was tough. She couldn’t wait to get claws like her mother.

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Well, how do we know this test isn’t a fake?” Chiaki narrowed his eyes. “I’ve never heard of a teacher here letting students keep their graded tests and I doubt they’d bend that rule even for Prince Shimmer. So, if this is genuine, then the safe bet is that you stole it.”

Talonflame spread its wings out. Nikki’s anger evaporated. Panic overtook her face. “Oh no, you got me, Twiggy. It’s totally a fake. Ha ha ha,” she said through gritted teeth. When Talonflame settled down, she leaned over and hissed in a whisper, “Okay, so I stole it. Big whoop. The point is Shimmer’s getting a free ride through this place when there are thousands of kids that would kill for a chance to come to this school.”

Chiaki cocked a brow. “So, you’re telling me your motive here is purely altruistic?”

Yuna had a hard time believing Nikki was some sort of advocate. Then again, it wasn’t like she knew anything about the toxtricity’s background. “Come to think of it, Nikki, why are you here? It doesn’t sound like you’re the biggest fan of this place.” At least Yuna had an important reason to be here. Nikki wasn’t some sort of goodwill ambassador.

“That’s—” Nikki clutched the sides of her leather jacket. “You wouldn’t understand, Princess.”

“Every Crowne Minister can lobby to send someone to this school. Nikki is one of those lucky few,” Chiaki said. “Minister Shredder’s footing the bill for you to be here, isn’t he?”

Nikki looked down at her lap. “He is.”

Pushing aside the name of Nikki’s apparent sponsor — seriously, what kind of parent named their kid Shredder? — that changed things. It made her comments about Shimmer hypocritical at best. “Why waste your time harboring a grudge against him, then?” Yuna wondered.

“You wouldn’t get it,” Nikki growled.

“Try me.”

“Y’know what? Forget I ever brought it up.” Nikki turned her back on her teammates. “Just… don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Yuna frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“I saw you eating lunch with his posse.” Nikki propped up her jacket collar. “I wouldn’t get swept up with his crowd if I were you. Their heads are so far up their asses all they can smell is sewage.”

It wasn’t like Yuna had a choice in the matter. “We’re working together on a case for Professor Vegna’s class.”

“Tch. Whatever. Maybe you’ll see what I mean if you’re stuck around him long enough.” Nikki shrugged. “I’m over this conversation. Have fun with your homework.”

“But weren’t you guys going to help bring me up to speed on the technology here?” Yuna had almost forgotten Baraz’s suggestion.

Nikki didn’t respond. Chiaki had also gone back to his homework. Sighing, Yuna looked down at her worksheet. “Never mind,” she whispered.

Maybe she’d have more luck asking Professor Cid during tomorrow’s field trip.

Yawning, Shimmer closed his text book with a flick of his head. He pushed himself away from the square, wooden table. “All right, I think that’s enough studying up for one day.”

“But we didn’t even talk. We just read the textbooks in silence.” Yuna looked at the pages of notes she’d scribbled. Vegna’s textbook wasn’t as dense as she was expecting, so she only wrote a few pages. Still, it would be helpful to go over the concepts while they were fresh in her head.

“So? You’ve got some notes there, don’t you? I’m sure they’re fine.” Shimmer pointed his horn toward a window. Dark blue twilight sat on the other side. “It’s already after sundown. I know you ghosts can, like, stay up all night and stuff, but my brain checks out as soon as it’s nighttime.”

“I… guess.” Yuna lay her head against her textbook. This was not what she envisioned when Shimmer said they’d study together.

“Oh, come on. Don’t pout like that. I even had dinner brought for us.” Shimmer swished his mane. “You should be thanking me.” He didn’t wait for Yuna to respond. The ponyta hopped off his chair and trotted past a couple of tables — they were for games called ping-pong and billiards, if Yuna recalled — toward a black leather couch. Shimmer hopped on and splayed his legs out. He levitated a black oval with lots of buttons over.

“I’m going to watch some PV. You’re welcome to join.”

Yuna looked up in time to see the large black box sitting in the middle of an oak cabinet hum to life. Colors spread across the screen, revealing a close-up of a gothitelle with a black, high-collar jacket.

“Welcome… to the Weakest Link.”

The picture zoomed out to show a white, crescent-shaped stage with eight podiums on it. “Is this… a broadcast video?” Those were the terms Chiaki had used yesterday.

“It’s a gameshow,” Shimmer replied. “Eight commoners answer trivia questions to try and win up to a million radians. But they vote out a member of their team each round and the host insults and belittles them the whole time. It’s hilarious!”

Frowning, Yuna did the math in her head. A million radians was… roughly six million dracoins! You could buy out most of the nobles’ estates with that kind of money! She bit her lip. Yuna could hardly see how it was entertaining to watch other people get bullied for money. Then again, it was money that could leave you set for life.

“Where do they get the funding to do this?” she wondered.

“Pfbt. Girl, please.” One of Shimmer’s hooves tapped the top of the couch. “They never get enough questions right to get anywhere close to that amount. That’s why they all get insulted.”

“… ah.” The dreepy turned away from the PV. Nikki’s words from earlier echoed in her head. If she stuck around Shimmer long enough… she’d see what Nikki meant.

Well, he got a kick out of watching mean-spirited entertainment. And he wasn’t the most collaborative study partner. But that just made him a jerk. Not a cheat. Nikki had to be blowing smoke. The whole school called her a nuisance for a reason.

… right?

“You still there?” Shimmer called. “There’s a whole other couch that’s way comfier than those chairs, you know.”

Yuna’s tail crinkled. “Uh, yes. But I think I’m going to retire for the night.” She faked a yawn, cringing at how unconvincing it sounded to her. “We’ve got to be up early for that field trip tomorrow, after all.”

A laugh came from Shimmer’s couch. “Feh. If you ask me, this trip’ll be a total snoozefest. But I guess if you’ve never seen Herbrides Lines, you might find it somewhat interesting.”

She hadn’t, obviously. Though it sounded like she was the only one. At least Professor Cid sounded enthusiastic about it.

“Right. Well, uh, good night.” Yuna waited for Shimmer to respond, but the best she got was him laughing at the PV. Sighing, Yuna floated out of the lounge room and into the hallway. The mysterious light tubes were just as bright as ever.

“Done for the night, Princess?”

Yuna turned to find Noctum standing diligently next to a pillar. He had a small tinfoil object in his right hand, which he offered up to Yuna. “I brought you some chocolate-chip cookies. A nice little reward for getting through the first day.”

“Oh, um, thanks.” The dreepy accepted Noctum’s gift, though she had no intention of eating them. Mother had lectured her far too often about eating too close to bedtime. Especially sweets. At least they’d make a good snack for the trip.

“Something wrong? You look a bit frazzled.”

“No. No, I’m… fine. A bit tired, maybe.” Yuna kept her gaze fixed on the cookies.

“Ah. Well, I’ll grab your stuff and take you back to your room.” Noctum glided over to the lounge door.

Yuna nodded. “Sure. Sounds good.” She watched him enter the room, only to cringe when she heard shouting.

“Hey! Servants are supposed to knock before entering the lounges!”

“Sorry, Your Majesty,” Noctum squeaked. “I was just coming into fetch Princess Yuna’s belongings.”

“You’d better be sorry,” Shimmer growled. “Walk in unannounced again and I’ll see to it security drags you back to the servant quarters by that stubby tail of yours.”

Noctum abruptly flew out of the room, clutching Yuna’s bag tightly. She looked up at the charizard. “He shouldn’t have yelled at you for that,” she whispered.

Still airborne, Noctum winced. “No, he’s right. That was impolite of me. I wasn’t thinking.” He landed in front of Yuna. “Come on. Let’s get you over to the dorms. You’ve got a long day tomorrow. Seifer and I will be your escorts.” Yuna floated after Noctum, but paused to take one more look at the lounge door.

Nikki couldn’t be right. Her parents never had anything bad to say to her about Queen Isola. The apple couldn’t have fallen that far from the tree, right?

But as she followed Noctum out to cobblestone path leading over to the dorms, Yuna couldn’t get Nikki’s words out of her head.