("Nothing travels faster than light… except maybe girls' gossip networks.")
---
Caleb Thorne was not trending.
He was detonating.
Somewhere across the Academy campus, an enchanted bulletin board glitched and sparked out of sheer disbelief.
"Sector Five Victorious?"
"Who Is the Lightning Ghost?"
"Crazy Mage Launches Dozen lightning bolts, Screams 'I AM THE PLOT DEVICE'—More at Seven."
---
Meanwhile, in Sector One's common room…
Five girls sat in an awkward circle, each radiating different levels of confusion, suspicion, and mild existential dread.
Aris—prideful, sharp-tongued, and famously impossible to fluster—was currently chewing on a pen like it owed her money. Her long silver hair was tied in a loose braid, and her expression could kill confidence at twenty paces.
"I'm telling you," she said. "It was a fluke."
Selene rolled her eyes, twirling a bolt of static between her fingers. "Flukes don't fry a training field."
"It fizzled a shrub," Aris corrected.
"Oh no," added Luna, the soft-spoken nature affinity mage in oversized robes, "he definitely zapped the statue of the founder. Its eyebrows are still smoking."
The quietest girl in the room, Rin, let out a tiny gasp. "Blasphemy."
"And style," Selene grinned.
"I don't get it," Luna mumbled. "He was a creep. You remember, right? Used to write bad poetry and follow Aris around."
Aris scowled. "We do not talk about the poetry."
"Right, sorry."
"Still," Rin murmured, "he changed."
Everyone turned.
Rin sipped her tea delicately, eyes distant. "His aura… it's different. Like there's someone else in his skin."
The girls paused.
"…Creepy," said Luna.
"Hot," Selene countered.
Aris glared. "Not hot. Just… not himself."
Selene stretched, cracking her knuckles. "I say we find out what's going on. Worst case, he's still a loser. Best case? He's got secrets."
"And secrets," Rin finished with a whisper, "are the best form of gossip."
They all nodded solemnly.
---
Meanwhile, in Sector Five's storage closet (a.k.a their "strategy room")…
"I think we might be in danger," I said, peeking through the mail slot we'd converted into a spyhole.
Kip, balancing a spoon on his forehead, nodded. "Feels like foreshadowing."
Mint scribbled something on a scroll titled 'Caliban's Fan Club Tracker'. There were now six hearts drawn next to my name.
Bram sharpened his bone dagger. "We should build defenses."
"Or a moat," Isolde offered telepathically through her summoned pen.
"I don't know magic well enough to moat," I muttered.
"No worries," Vox grunted, carrying in a stolen bench. "We'll moat the old-fashioned way."
"Dig?"
"Explosives."
"…That works."
---
Later that evening, I sat outside our dorm—if you could call a repurposed observatory "a dorm"—and tried to sketch.
Thunder affinity was hard. Drawing came easier. My fingers, still tingling with residual mana, itched for clean lines and quiet purpose.
My notebook was filled with faces. Half-remembered. Imagined. Some were waifus from the original story. Others, from dreams I wasn't sure were mine.
One sketch, however, was deliberate.
Aris.
Not his version. Mine.
Sharper. Fiercer. Proud and lonely.
I tore the page out and set it aside. No point pretending. I wasn't here to simp.
I was here to survive.
To create.
To rewrite.
---
But as the moon climbed higher, I couldn't shake the feeling.
Eyes on me.
From the towers.
From the shadows.
From the plot itself.
And somewhere, maybe in a fancy common room filled with soft chairs and fancier girls, someone was saying my name.
Not as a joke.
But as a problem.