I waited five minutes after Cheon left.
Counted the seconds in my head while leaning against the wall of this dusty storage room like so kind of creep who gets off on making class representatives co during school hours.
Which, to be fair, I kind of just did.
But that wasn’t the point.
The point was I needed to think.
Needed to process what the fuck just happened.
Cheon saw through .
Not completely. Not the whole picture. But enough to be dangerous.
She knew my Essentia had changed. Knew I’d sohow picked up ra’s spatial signature. Knew sothing was fundantally different about between yesterday and today.
The question I couldn’t answer was how.
In the novel, was Cheon’s ability explained like that? Could she actually read Essentia signatures like a fucking barcode scanner?
I honestly couldn’t rember.
I’d skimd most of the school arc. Fast-forwarded through the tournant setup to get to the parts where Nolan punched things and Aurora blushed prettily in the background.
The supporting cast? The side characters who filled out the classroom scenes?
I’d barely registered them.
And now one of those side characters was threatening to unravel everything because I hadn’t paid attention to what her power actually did.
There was so much I didn’t know.
So much the novel hadn’t explained or I’d glossed over because it seed boring at the ti.
Using my ta knowledge was basically useless.
Worse than useless.
It gave confidence I didn’t deserve and left gaps big enough to drive a truck through.
I pushed off the wall.
Started pacing in the small space between broken desks and stacked textbooks that slled like mildew and old paper.
My hands were still tingling from touching her.
From feeling her Essentia drain into through skin contact and a kiss that had turned into sothing way more intense than I’d planned.
Virgin Killer had done most of the work.
The passive field made her defenses crumble before I even touched her.
Made her want it.
Made her body respond in ways she couldn’t control.
But that ability only worked because she was inexperienced.
What happened when I ran into soone who wasn’t?
What happened when the passive field failed and I had to explain why my eyes glowed purple when I used abilities I wasn’t supposed to have?
I needed a cover story.
An Essentia I could claim publicly.
Sothing that explained the weird shit without revealing the truth.
The problem was figuring out what that Essentia should be.
Option one: I could say I awakened recently. Claim the transfer triggered sothing dormant. Lie through my teeth about what the ability actually does.
But awakened abilities got tested.
Docunted.
Registered with the NEA.
They’d want specifics. Demonstrations. A Vitae Scan to confirm the signature matched what I claid.
And if they found discrepancies?
If the scan showed sothing that didn’t line up with my story?
I’d be flagged as a potential threat.
Investigated.
Possibly detained.
The NEA didn’t fuck around with unregistered Essentia.
Option two: I could tell a version of the truth. Say I have a copy ability. That I can temporarily replicate other people’s powers through contact.
It would explain why my signature kept changing.
Why I could use ra’s gates and whatever the hell Gravity Jail was supposed to be.
It would even explain the drain if I frad it right.
But a copy ability?
That was SS-rank territory at minimum.
The kind of power that made governnts nervous.
They’d see as a threat that needed to be controlled.
And I didn’t have the protagonist aura to smooth that over yet.
Nolan could claim sothing broken and people would cheer.
They’d call him the next generation’s hope or so bullshit like that.
I claid the sa thing?
They’d grill .
Question my intentions.
Demand proof I wasn’t planning to steal their abilities and use them for evil.
Because I was Ro D’Angelo.
The scumbag playboy rival.
The villain in training.
My family na opened doors but it also ca with baggage.
Expectations.
Assumptions about who I was and what I wanted.
I could ask my father for help.
Angelo Corporation had lawyers. PR teams. Fixers who specialized in making problems disappear.
But that ca with strings.
Vito would want sothing in return.
Control.
Oversight.
Proof I was serious about inheriting the company and not just coasting on the family na.
And even with corporate backing, there were limits to what money could fix.
An unregistered copy ability?
That was national security territory.
No amount of lawyers would make the NEA back off if they decided I was a threat.
I stopped pacing.
Pressed my palms against my eyes until colors blood in the darkness.
This was so fucking annoying.
Every option had downsides.
Every choice led to complications I wasn’t equipped to handle.
The smart play was probably keeping my mouth shut.
Staying registered as a Null.
Using my abilities quietly and hoping nobody noticed the discrepancies.
But Cheon had already noticed.
And if she could read Essentia signatures that clearly, how many other people could do the sa?
How long before soone with connections to the disciplinary committee or the NEA saw what she saw?
I needed a plan.
Sothing better than winging it and hoping my luck held.
My phone buzzed.
I pulled it out.
Text from ra.
where are you?
storage room west wing. long story
did you get lost again
sothing like that
youre trouble
you love it
...maybe
I smiled despite the situation.
ra was uncomplicated in the best way.
She knew what I was. What my ability did. She’d felt it firsthand and decided she didn’t care.
That was rare.
Valuable.
I needed to keep her close.
et after school
where
my place
bold
you complaining?
no
I pocketed the phone.
Checked my reflection in a cracked mirror leaning against the wall.
My hair was a ss.
White strands sticking up at angles that suggested recent activity.
My uniform was wrinkled.
Collar askew.
I looked exactly like soone who’d just fingered the class representative in a storage room.
Great.
I fixed the collar.
Ran fingers through my hair until it looked presentable.
Checked my eyes.
The weird glow was gone.
Back to normal grey and green heterochromia.
Good.
I couldn’t have that activating randomly.
Gravity Jail needed practice.
Control.
I needed to understand the limits before I used it again.
Sa with Fuego.
And Liminal Step.
Three abilities I barely understood stacked on top of the core drain that was doing most of the heavy lifting.
I was a walking disaster waiting to happen.
The door creaked when I opened it.
Hallway was empty.
Everyone was in class like they were supposed to be.
I walked toward Building C.
Took my ti.
There was no point rushing now.
What Essentia could I claim that wouldn’t get killed?
Physical enhancent was boring but safe.
Plenty of people had so variation of enhanced strength or speed.
It would explain the punch that cracked the training dummy.
But it wouldn’t explain Gravity Jail or Fuego.
I could claim multiple abilities.
Say I’m a dual-type.
Rare but not unheard of.
Physical enhancent plus sothing ocular.
But dual-types got scrutinized harder than single-type users.
The Vitae Scan would show both signatures clearly.
And mine would show three.
Maybe four if I kept draining people.
No.
Dual-type wouldn’t work.
I needed sothing that explained the variability.
The changing signatures.
The fact that my Essentia looked different depending on who I’d touched recently.
A copy ability was the only thing that made sense.
But how did I fra it so people didn’t panic?
I needed to talk to soone.
Soone who understood how the system worked.
Soone who could give actual advice instead of vague platitudes.
ra was smart but she didn’t know the political side fully.
Noel might.
Her family had connections.
Stark Industries dealt with hero support contracts.
They’d know the regulations.
But asking Noel ant trusting her.
And I wasn’t sure I could do that yet.
She’d been hostile from the start.
The only reason she’d helped with the costu design was because she wanted to prove she was better than .
Not exactly the foundation for trust.
Cheon was out.
Obviously.
She’d just threatened to report .
The fact that I’d made her co against a wall didn’t an she was on my side.
It ant she was confused.
Conflicted.
And conflicted people made bad allies.
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