I was pulling on a clean pair of jeans when soone knocked on my door.
"Yeah, co in," I called out, still shirtless. Had to be Sloane. She’d already seen completely naked. Shirtless was practically conservative at this point.
The door opened.
Not Sloane.
Diane Fitzgerald stepped into my room wearing a button-up white blouse that hugged every curve, a black pencil skirt that ended just above her knees, sheer stockings, and heels that made her legs look impossibly long. Her pink hair was styled professionally, swept to one side, and her blue eyes locked onto my bare chest before traveling slowly up to my face.
"Hello, sugar," she said in that warm Southern drawl that suddenly felt very different than it had nine years ago. "Can I co in?"
My brain short-circuited.
"Sure! Yeah. Sure." I grabbed the nearest shirt from my bed, fumbling with it like an idiot.
Smooth. Real smooth. Definitely didn’t sound like a nervous teenager at all.
Diane’s heels clicked against the hardwood floor as she walked further into my room, taking her ti, her gaze moving across the space with deliberate slowness. She paused at my desk, ran one finger along the laptop, then turned back to face .
I’d managed to get the shirt on but hadn’t buttoned it yet because my hands suddenly forgot how buttons worked.
The System notification flashed across my vision with all the subtlety of a fire alarm.
〘 ERGENCY QUEST: Damage Control
Diane Fitzgerald has discovered evidence of your undisclosed ability. You have one conversation to convince her to keep this information confidential.
Ti Limit: Duration of current conversation
Success Condition: Secure Diane’s agreent to maintain secrecy regarding Blitz
Failure Condition: Diane reports undisclosed ability to IHL authorities
Rewards:
→ 100 SP
→ 1x Bronze Gacha Pull
→ Diane Fitzgerald’s Trust: Established
Penalties for Failure:
→ IHL investigation into false registration
→ Potential criminal charges
→ Removal from Fitzgerald household
→ Diane Fitzgerald’s Temptation Gauge locked permanently
Quest cannot be declined. Tir starts now. 〙
Fuuuuuuck.
"So," Diane said, her voice light and conversational. "Tell about your Aspect, sugar. The one you manifested this week. Phantom Touch, was it?"
I finished buttoning my shirt, buying myself three seconds to think. "Yeah. Telekinesis. Channeler-type. About fifteen feet of range, limited weight capacity. I can move objects with my mind." I kept my voice steady, casual. "You saw it yourself last night."
"Mm-hm." Diane tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable. "Really."
That single word carried about seventeen layers of subtext, none of them good.
She walked over to my bed, her heels clicking with each step, and sat down on the edge. She crossed her legs, the movent drawing my attention to the way her stockings caught the morning light, then patted the space next to her.
"Co sit with , Lukas."
It wasn’t a request.
I sat, leaving a respectful amount of space between us. My heart was hamring hard enough that I wondered if her Read the Room Aspect could detect it.
Diane pulled out her phone, tapped the screen a few tis, then turned it toward .
The video showed the training room. Ti stamp from last night. And there I was, assuming the low stance, breathing in that specific pattern, then launching across the room so fast the footage blurred.
Blitz.
My second ability. The one I’d carefully avoided ntioning to anyone.
"Fuuuuuuck," I said out loud this ti.
"That’s what I thought too," Diane said pleasantly. She let the video loop twice more before locking her phone and setting it on her lap. "So. Lukas, honey. You want to explain to why you demonstrated a telekinetic ability last night but the security footage from three hours later shows you moving at speeds that would make most speedster-types jealous?"
My mouth went dry. "I can explain."
"I certainly hope so. Because right now it looks like you lied to , to Sloane, and you’re about to lie to the IHL when we register you this afternoon." Her voice remained warm, almost friendly, but steel ran underneath it. "And lying to the IHL about your Aspect classification is a felony, sugar. They take that very seriously."
Think. I needed to think.
Option one: claim it was part of the sa Aspect. Telekinesis with a speed component. Rare but not unheard of. The problem was that Blitz looked nothing like telekinetic movent. It was pure physical speed, a burst technique that had zero connection to moving objects with spectral constructs.
Option two: admit I had two abilities but claim I didn’t realize they were separate. Play dumb, lean into the late manifestation angle, suggest I was still figuring out what I could do. The problem was Diane wasn’t stupid and that excuse was paper-thin.
Option three: tell her the truth.
Yeah, that one was off the table entirely. Hi Diane, I’m actually a transmigrant with a gacha system that gives abilities in exchange for seducing won and I groped your ass last night because a quest told to. How’s your morning going?
Option four: make her want to keep the secret.
That one had potential.
"You’re right," I said. "I lied. Both abilities are real. I have telekinesis and I have the speed burst. Two separate things."
Diane’s eyebrows rose slightly. She hadn’t expected to admit it so quickly.
"Go on."
"I didn’t tell you because I was scared." Not entirely a lie. "Late manifestation at seventeen is already weird enough. Late manifestation with two abilities? That’s the kind of thing that gets you dragged into a lab for testing. Or recruited by agencies before you’re even licensed. Or targeted by people who want to figure out how it happened."
"So you decided to hide one."
"I decided to register the one that wouldn’t make a target." I looked at her directly. "The telekinesis is useful. The speed burst is the kind of thing that makes people ask questions I don’t have answers to."
Diane studied for a long mont. Her Read the Room Aspect was probably feeding her all kinds of data about my emotional state right now. Elevated heart rate. Genuine fear. Desperation. All true, all detectable.
"Why should I keep this secret?" she asked. "You’re talking about committing registration fraud. That reflects on , on my agency, on Sloane. If it cos out later that I knew and didn’t report it, my reputation takes the hit alongside yours."
"Because you care about ," I said. "You took in when my parents died. You’ve spent nine years raising . You’re not going to throw to the IHL wolves over this."
"Don’t presu to know what I will or won’t do, sugar."
User Comments
0 comments from readers