Harem Apocalypse: Every Moan Levels Us Up!

Bala and I held eyes for exactly one second. Long enough to confirm that he had seen me and I had seen him and we were both going to pretend, for now, that this was ordinary.

Then he moved toward the administrative block with the unhurried authority of a man who had never needed to rush anywhere because everywhere waited for him.

"Has he come to visit Mable?" Isabelle asked, falling into step beside me as we descended the stairs, with the tone of someone who expected me to have information I didn’t have.

"I don’t know," I said honestly.

[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]

[CGI presence confirmed. Time at Central is limited.]

[Use every available opportunity.]

I know, I told it. I’m working on it.

"Anna told me you were always asking about me," Isabelle said.

I processed that. Annabelle had told her sister I’d been asking about her. Which meant Annabelle had been laying groundwork.

Which meant she had decided, without telling me, to make this easier. The girl who had come to my room on day seven of a plague was now doing advance work on her twin sister’s behalf.

She wants it to happen, I thought. She just doesn’t want it to feel arranged.

"Sure," I said. "Who wouldn’t be interested in the ice?"

Her face moved. A small involuntary thing, the kind you can’t manage because it arrives before the decision to manage it. She was used to being Annabelle’s sister. The other one. The cryokinetic in the shadow of the pyrokinetic.

Being noticed independently was a different experience.

"The ice?" Her lips were fighting a smile and losing. "That’s what you call me?"

"Just made it up," I said. "Seems to fit."

She laughed. Soft and low, the laugh of someone who doesn’t do it often enough for it to be a performance.

[Host is becoming smooth.]

Thank you, I thought. High praise.

"With respect," I said, keeping my voice easy, "I’d rather not spend this walk talking about Anna. When it’s just us I want everything to be about ice."

She smiled properly this time. No fighting it.

"Where are you heading?" she asked, her voice carrying a lightness it hadn’t had at the top of the stairs.

"Looking for Sherry. She’s like a sister to me, I want to see how she’s finding the place."

"I want to find Anna too," she said. "We don’t usually spend this much time apart."

[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]

[Isabelle: Cryokinesis, Level 4. Twin dynamic noted. Latent emotional needs identified.]

[She exists in Annabelle’s shadow. Being seen independently is the key.]

[Affinity pathway open.]

I noticed, I told it. Already ahead of you.

We reached the bottom of the steps.

"Vale building," I said. "That’s me."

"Okay, Bram." She said my name the way the others had started saying it, easy and familiar, like it had always been hers to use. "Link up after?"

"Definitely," I said.

She went left. I went right.

***

The campus between the buildings had the energy of a place still figuring out what kind of day it was. Students moving between classes.

A girl with silver hair levitating slightly above the path, which nobody around her appeared to find remarkable. A boy whose shadow was moving independently of him.

Two hundred and fifty nine, I thought, watching the campus.

Bala was somewhere in the administrative block. His daughter was in this school. His outsiders, which apparently included me, were below the threshold he needed. He had come here for a reason and the system had already told me my time was running short.

My concern right now, I thought, is that Rob still hasn’t shown us our dormitories. I’m planting seeds with no idea where I’m supposed to bring the harvest.

I climbed the Vale building steps and turned the corner.

Sherry. Coming down with another girl, laughing at something, the specific easy laugh of someone who had made a friend in the time it takes most people to find a seat.

I had been at this school for two hours and was still learning names. Sherry had apparently built a social life, something she never managed at Hogsby.

She lit up when she saw me.

"I was actually about to come find you," she said.

"Here I am."

We hadn’t spent many days together in the grand scale of things. But there was a particular feeling I had noticed, in the corridors of Hogsby and the back of cars and the bench outside the practical room, that something was missing when she wasn’t nearby. I wasn’t going to examine that too closely right now.

"Ivy, this is Abram." She turned to her new friend. "Bram, meet Ivy."

Ivy was a happy soul. Blue hair, large eyes, high cheekbones, small nose, full lips. White top cut above the waist. She was looking at me with the open curiosity of someone who made friends easily and had decided I was interesting.

"Hey, Bram," she said.

"Hey, Ivy."

She smiled. "Actually, I’ve heard a lot about you."

"Really?"

"A joke." She smiled wider.

[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]

[Ivy: Telekinesis, Level 4. Depleted. First encounter candidate.]

[She approached you. She’s already warm.]

I see her, I told it. Give me a minute.

"Sherry Vayne and Abram Nadez." The campus speakers cut across everything, efficient and indifferent. "Please report to the administrative block immediately."

I looked at Sherry. She looked at me.

"Bala," I said.

"Yes," she said.

We both knew it. I had known it from the moment he appeared in the courtyard. Whatever had brought Lord Bala to School Central on our first day had our names in it, and now the speakers had confirmed it for the whole campus.

"Good luck," Ivy said, and winked.

[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]

[Summoned. As predicted.]

[Host must be aware: the clock is running. Whatever happens in that office changes your timeline.]

I know, I thought, falling into step beside Sherry toward the administrative block.

I know. This is where the real story starts.