Harem Apocalypse: Every Moan Levels Us Up!

Vince moved his eyes back to the redhead like I had already ceased to exist, which was fine. I was good at being underestimated. The plain had taught me that being underestimated was a resource if you knew how to spend it.

The weather outside the window was still wrong. Still cloudy in the specific way of clouds that hadn’t been there five minutes ago.

"That’s Vince," the blue girl said, without looking up from her book. She said it the way people say things they consider self-explanatory.

"That tells me his name," I said. "Not what he is."

"This is School Central," she said. "And that is Vince." She turned a page. "That’s all you need to know."

[School Central is a vault, not a school. Wealthy parents hide high-threshold kids here to dodge government extraction. Most students are performing depletion. They’re stronger than they pretend—and have been for years.]

I read it twice. Hiding in plain sight, I thought. Expensive camouflage.

The second ping hit immediately.

[Host will be summoned by CGI before long. Use every available opportunity to level up. Time is limited.]

Limited, I thought. Of course it is.

I turned my head toward the girl. Blue skin that looked soft enough to leave fingerprints. Bubblegum-pink hair falling across one eye. Matching pink irises locked on the pages of a book she clearly didn’t want me seeing. The faint scent of something sweet and electric clung to her, like ozone after rain mixed with warm skin.

She was interesting. Interesting was dangerous. Interesting was useful.

"Hey." I tried for her attention. "What are you reading?"

Nothing.

"At least tell me your name."

She set the book down with the calm precision of someone deciding whether I was worth the calories. When she finally looked at me, her gaze was cool, assessing.

"Azure." Her voice had a slight husk to it. "Forty other students in this room. Pick one."

"I just wanted to thank you," I said.

Her pink eyes narrowed a fraction.

"For what exactly?" She looked at me directly. "I was saving myself. I don’t need the person sitting next to me starting a fight with Vince. That becomes my problem too."

Honest. Practical. No performance of modesty. I noted all three.

She didn’t want to be involved, I thought. But she stopped me anyway. That gap between what she said and what she did? That’s interesting.

"Azure," I repeated, tasting it.

I watched her jaw tighten slightly. The specific tightening of someone who has heard their name used as a preamble too many times.

"Do you have friends?" I asked.

She lifted the book slightly. Old cover. Worn at the edges. No title visible on the front.

"Nothing that concerns you," she said.

"You’re not very good at small talk."

"I’m not trying to be." She kept her eyes on the page. "You sat next to me and didn’t wait for an answer when you asked if the seat was taken. That doesn’t mean I owe you conversation."

I leaned back. Fair point. Technically accurate.

The class was still buzzing around us, nobody paying attention to the back row. Vince at the front. The redhead beside him. The displaced boy who had relocated himself to another seat still sitting in his new location with the sheepish posture of someone who had done it voluntarily and was hoping nobody made a thing of it.

[Azure. Shapeshifting. Current displayed level: 4. True threshold unknown. Potential leveling vector detected: proximity + curiosity + power differential.]

Level four shapeshifter. Plenty of room to grow. And if she was here, someone with deep pockets had decided she was worth hiding.

"You knew Vince before today," I said.

"That’s not a question."

"How do you know Vince?"

She closed the book. Set it down. Looked at me with the patience of someone choosing their words carefully.

"Everyone at Central knows Vince," she said. "He’s been here longer than most of the teachers. His family built half the buildings." A pause. "The Vale building."

Vale, I thought. The buildings named after the family. The unknown entity in my classroom.*

"But you should focus on why you’re here," Azure said, picking her book back up.

"Why do you think I’m here?"

"To level up. Same as everyone else."

She said it without irony. I couldn’t tell if she meant it or if she was telling me, in the way of someone who knew more than they were letting on, exactly what I should be presenting to anyone who asked.

Noted.

The bell rang, sharp and metallic. Azure stood without another word, book tucked under her arm, moving with the fluid grace of someone who could rearrange her own bones if she felt like it.

Her hips shifted in a way that made her skirt brush her blue thighs just enough to draw the eye. I caught myself tracking the movement before I forced my gaze away.

Opportunity, the system seemed to pulse. Close the distance. Extract data. Build affinity.

Isabelle materialized at my shoulder as I rose. "Abram."

We walked out together onto the second floor balcony. Below, students were pouring out of the Vale building opposite, spilling down the steps, spreading across the courtyard.

Then I saw the administrators. Four of them, moving with the specific urgency of people who have received news they weren’t prepared for and are now performing composed while managing it. Clustering near the entrance. Watching the courtyard.

Special visitor, I thought. Someone they weren’t expecting or someone they were expecting and are afraid of.

Isabelle stopped beside me at the railing and looked down.

"That’s Mable’s father," she said quietly.

My blood did something it hadn’t done since the plain.

I found the face in the courtyard. The grey-black beard. The bearing of a man who walked into rooms expecting them to rearrange themselves around him. The middle-aged black man who had removed his mask at the gate, seven days ago, and told six strangers from the outside that they were welcome.

Lord Bala. At School Central. Looking up.

And for a half second, across the courtyard and the second floor railing and everything that had happened since the life layer, his eyes found mine. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

[The clock is running, Abram.]

I know, I thought, holding Bala’s gaze.

I know.