Josephine froze,
And just for a second her eyes locked on Huey and Alessia standing together, then she blinked and quickly slid her professional mask back into place.
"Huey." She walked toward them, and in a casual tone asked. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
Alessia wasted no time and stepped forward, extending her hand. "Hi, I'm Alessia Cardoso, I'm a student of the law....."
"I know who you are." Josephine's tone was more a matter-of-fact than hostile. "You're quite popular around campus, for you know always sticking your nose into things you shouldn't."
Alessia's hand dropped.
An awkward silence settled between them.
Huey tilted his head. "Funny how I run into you here, considering you seemed to have been avoiding me lately."
Josephine's composure cracked slightly. A small tremor in her hands. "I haven't been avoiding....."
"Yeah??, but I'm sure you couldn't be here to see me." His voice was calm."So tell me why is it you're really here."
She looked away. "Just came to check how the event's going?"
"That's not really an answer."
"Well Huey, you tell me then. Is there something that's supposed to happen here?" She pressed. "Something I should know about?"
Huey studied her face. "Why don't you go see for yourself."
Josephine nodded stiffly and headed toward the entrance, not looking back.
Why Alessia?
The thought wouldn't leave her mind as she walked through the entrance.
Of all people, why her?
Alessia Cardoso was a law student, Ambitious and nosy. She seemed the kind of person who built her reputation on exposing other people's secrets.
She had nothing in common with Huey.
So why were they together? What were they talking about?
And why did it bother her so much?
Focus. Josephine forced the thoughts away.
Sister Jewel sent you here for a reason.
There's a drug in circulation, and Students are in danger. That's what matters.
But even as she scanned the medical stations, watching Achusoi students line up, her mind kept drifting back to that scene.
Huey and Alessia together. Talking like they had secrets between them.
"So what are we going to do now?" Alessia asked.
Huey pulled out his phone, checking messages. "We? You're going to go home and let the adults handle this."
"What? No! I brought you here..."
"You did the right thing as a kid and reported it to an adult. Now go away." He started walking.
"Wait!"
His phone vibrated.
Willy: Good thing you didn't come to this party bro, things are NOT looking good here. Students took something and now they're acting weird as hell.
Huey stopped walking.
"What is it?" Alessia tried to look at his phone.
He pulled it away, typing quickly.
Huey: Define weird. And can you get me details? And maybe a too sample if you can.
He hit send, then pocketed his phone.
"Change of plans," he muttered.
Willy stared at his phone, then at the chaos unfolding around him.
"Weird" didn't begin to cover it.
The students who'd been drinking that purple liquid were getting worse. Some were laughing hysterically. Others were crying. A few were just staring at their hands like they'd never seen them before.
And now they were popping pills.
Small purple tablets that one guy was handing out like candy, and everyone was taking them without question.
The pneuma in the room was getting denser. Oppressive. Willy could feel it pressing against his skin.
Two guys near the bar were squaring up, crests flaring, ready to throw down right there in the middle of the party.
Willy's phone buzzed.
Huey: Ask around. Find out who's supplying this stuff. Stay safe.
"Stay safe," Willy muttered. "Right. Easy."
He was already planning his exit strategy when someone stumbled into him.
A girl. Brown eyes, pixie cut, wearing a Commerce Legion cassock. He recognized her from logistics classes—always sat near the front, always quiet.
"Hey," Willy said, steadying her. "You don't look so good. Maybe you should sit down—"
She grabbed his face and kissed him.
Willy's brain short-circuited.
She pulled back, eyes unfocused but intense. "I've wanted to do that for so long. Ever since I first saw you in Professor Giacomo's class. But I never had the courage to talk to you."
"Uh." Willy's vocabulary had abandoned him. "That's... nice?"
"The pills my boyfriend gave me made me brave." She giggled, swaying. "I feel like I can do anything."
"Boyfriend?"
"Yeah. He's right over—"
"THE FUCK YOU DOING WITH MY GIRL?"
One of the guys from the near-fight was now storming toward them. Tall, built like he spent every free moment in the training facilities, with shoulder-length black hair and eyes that burned with purple pneuma.
"Wait, this is a misunderstanding—" Willy tried to step back, but the girl was still holding onto him.
The guy's fist came flying.
Willy flinched, arms up—
The punch never landed.
Wheeler materialized between them, tiny body catching the blow with both paws.
Then Wheeler laughed.
It was a high-pitched chittering sound that made everyone in the immediate vicinity stop and look.
Wheeler began to grow.
His translucent wind form expanded, muscles forming, features sharpening. Within seconds he was six feet tall. Then ten. Then fifteen.
His head crashed through the ceiling, raining plaster and wood down on the party guests.
"Oh no," Willy whispered. "Wheeler, buddy, please calm down—"
Wheeler's massive form enclosed Willy completely, trapping him inside a protective wind barrier.
"You've done it now!" Willy shouted at the boyfriend. "You gotta run! Wheeler's going to beat you to the ground and I can't stop him when he's like this!"
The guy stared up at the massive construct. Then his purple eyes blazed brighter.
"Beat ME?" He started laughing. "I'm invincible right now! I can feel it!"
His crest activated.
The guy's skin began to shift. Not changing color, but texture. It looked like his entire body was covered in tiny moving particles, constantly rearranging themselves.
He lunged at Wheeler.
His fist connected with the wind construct and phased through, like punching smoke. Then solidified again on the other side, hitting Wheeler's core.
Wheeler roared, the sound like a hurricane compressed into a scream.
"What the hell is your crest?" Willy shouted.
"Particle manipulation!" The guy was grinning like a maniac. "I can shift the state of matter in my body! Solid, liquid, gas, plasma—anything! And these pills made it STRONGER!"
He phased again, dodging Wheeler's massive paw, then solidified and delivered a punch that actually rocked the construct backward.
But Wheeler wasn't done.
The construct's mouth opened wide and began inhaling. Not air. Pneuma.
The guy's purple aura was literally being sucked out of his body, absorbed into Wheeler's form.
"No—what—stop!" The guy tried to phase away, but Wheeler's suction was too strong.
The more pneuma Wheeler absorbed, the larger he grew. Twenty feet. Twenty-five. Thirty.
The entire house was shaking now, walls cracking, roof collapsing.
Party guests were screaming, running for the exits.
The guy finally broke free from Wheeler's suction, but his purple aura was flickering, unstable. The drug-enhanced power was fading.
And Wheeler was completely out of control.
"EVERYBODY RUN!" Willy shouted from inside his protective barrier. "WHEELER'S GONE FULL RAMPAGE MODE!"
The massive construct began thrashing, destroying everything in reach. Furniture exploded. Walls crumbled. The entire structure of the house was coming down.
The particle manipulation guy tried one more desperate attack, shifting his entire body into plasma and shooting toward Wheeler like a living projectile.
Wheeler caught him mid-flight.
And squeezed.
The guy reverted to solid form, screaming, before passing out from the pressure.
Wheeler dropped him and turned his attention to the rest of the house, pure destructive instinct taking over.
Willy pulled out his phone with shaking hands.
Willy: HUEY I NEED BACKUP WHEELER'S DESTROYING EVERYTHING AND THERE'S A GUY WHO CAN TURN INTO PLASMA AND I THINK THE HOUSE IS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE SEND HELP
Then the ceiling caved in completely.
And Willy's world went dark.