Josephine froze,
And just for a second her eyes locked on Huey and Alessia standing together, then she blinked and quickly slid her professional mask back into place.
"Huey." She walked toward them, and in a casual tone asked. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
Alessia wasted no time and stepped forward, extending her hand. "Hi, I'm Alessia Cardoso, I'm a student of the law....."
"I know who you are." Josephine's tone was more a matter-of-fact rather than hostile. "You're quite popular around campus, for you know always sticking your nose into things you shouldn't."
Alessia's hand dropped.
An awkward silence settled between them.
Huey tilted his head. "Funny how I run into you here, considering you seemed to have been avoiding me lately."
Josephine's composure cracked slightly. A small tremor in her hands. "I haven't been avoiding....."
"Yeah??, but I'm sure you couldn't be here to see me." His voice was calm."So tell me why is it you're really here."
She looked away. "Just came to check how the event's going?"
"That's not really an answer."
"Well Huey, you tell me then. Is there something that's supposed to happen here?" She pressed. "Something I should know about?"
Huey studied her face. "Why don't you go see for yourself."
Josephine nodded stiffly and headed toward the entrance, not looking back.
Why Alessia?
The thought wouldn't leave her mind as she walked through the entrance.
Of all people, why her?
Alessia Cardoso was a law student, Ambitious and nosy. She seemed the kind of person who built her reputation on exposing other people's secrets.
She had nothing in common with Huey.
So why were they together? What were they talking about?
And why did it bother her so much?
Focus. Josephine forced the thoughts away.
Sister Jewel sent you here for a reason.
There's a drug in circulation, and students are in danger.
"So what are we going to do now?" Alessia asked.
Huey pulled out his phone, checking messages. "We? You're going to go home and let the adults handle this."
"What? No! I brought you here..."
"You did the right thing as a kid and reported it to an adult. Now go away." He started walking.
"Wait!"
His phone vibrated.
[Willy]: Good thing you didn't come to this party bro, things are NOT looking good. And I'm not talking about the girls. It's drugs bro, the hard kind.
Huey stopped walking.
"What is it?" Alessia tried to look at his phone.
He pulled it away, typing quickly.
Huey: can you get me any more details? And maybe a sample too if you can.
He hit send, then pocketed his phone.
"Change of plans," he muttered.
Backt at the party,
A mild looking girl with brown eyes and piercings, spotting a pixie cut and a short blue skirt staggered toward toward Willy
He immediately recognized her as Amaya something.
A quiet girl who sat in front during lectures, the last person you'd expect to find in a party like this.
"Hey," Willy said, steadying her. "Maya, right? You don't look so good. Maybe you should sit down...."
She grabbed his face and kissed him.
Willy was too busy enjoying the moment to resist.
She pulled back, with unfocused eyes and pupils blown wide.
"I've wanted to do that for so long, but I never had the courage to talk to you."
"Uh." Willy's vocabulary had abandoned him. "That's... nice?"
"The pills Dante gave me made me stronger and more confident."
She giggled, swaying against him. "I feel like I can do anything now."
"Pills? Dante?" Willy snapped back to reality.
"Yeah. My boyfriend. He's right over—"
"OI! THE FUCK YOU DOING WITH MY GIRL?"
Willy turned to see a guy storming toward them, he stood out against the crowd and dim lighting.
Messy copper-red hair fell over one eye, Brass knuckles over both hands and despite his Lean build, the way he moved suggested he had a screw or two loose.
Out of all the others at the party, the aura around him was much more pronounced.
"Wait, this is a misunderstanding" Willy tried to step back, but Maya was still holding onto him.
"A misunderstanding?" The guy, Dante laughed.
"That's MY girl you're kissing...."
"I can't put up with you Dante, you're way jumpy. Calm and caring guys like Willy here are the best. " she flared back at him while still holding on to a confused Willy.
"She didn't mean that, she just"
"You know what?" Dante's grin widened.
"Let's make this interesting. I'm feeling LUCKY tonight."
He raised an arm and thrusted it forward.
Willy instinctively shielded his face but was surprised to find no impact whatsoever form Dante's brass knuckled fist.
Instead Dante opened his palm and his eyes glowed gold.
A light flashed right before the eyes of Huey and Amaya, behold.....
It was a translucent roulette wheel, spinning rapidly in the air with sections marked by symbols and numbers.
"What's it gonna land on."
The roulette finally stopped.
It was a symbol that looked like two crossed swords.
"Weapon!" Exclaimed Dante, grinning like a maniac.
A translucent baseball bat materialized in his hand, glowing with golden light.
He gripped it with both hands.
"Batter up!"
He swung.
Willy braced for impact, and this time it was really going to happen.
Until....
A tiny paw caught the bat mid-swing.
Wheeler had appeared between them.
His small windy body somehow stopped a weapon that should have crushed him.
Dante blinked. "Huh..."
Wheeler's mouth opened extra wide.
And he inhaled.
The bat dissipated into particles, and got vacuumed into Wheeler's little belly.
He grew half a foot taller and burped.
Dante hopped back, his eyes widening. "So You've got a Shard-type Crest too?"
Willy straightened up, trying to look more confident than he felt. "Yeah, so what?"
"So what?" Dante's grin returned.
"Shard-types are the rarest Crest classification! Only 8% of all Topplers have one! semi-permanent constructs from pure pneuma with different purposes depending on the user."
The crowd around them was murmuring now, some stepping back, others leaning in closer.
We could have a profitable show on our hands, was the look written all over Dante's face.
"Mine grants me different effects In exchange for my pneuma depending on how lucky I am, but yours is practically alive."
Dante continued, summoning his roulette wheel again, "things just got INTERESTING!"
The wheel spun again.
This time it stopped on a symbol that looked like a shield with radiating lines.
A translucent barrier formed around Willy.
Wheeler didn't wait, and his mouth opened again.
The barrier lasted maybe three seconds before it got sucked in completely.
Wheeler grew another foot.
Dante laughed. "Oh, so you're HUNGRY!"
He spun the wheel again, and again, and again.
Each time, a different effect
With each absorption, Wheeler grew larger.
"This is perfect!" Dante shouted over the growing noise of the crowd.
"Ladies and gentleman you've got yourself quite the battle here between two shard type Topplers, who do you think is gonna give out first, place your bets and find out ."
His eyes were glowing brighter now, that distinctive Rodriguez family gold but this time mixed with Purple highlights, that extended to the aura around his body.
"That's not normal", Willy thought, watching the purple streaks. "The House Rodriguez has got pure light manipulation. That purple... it's gotta be from those pills."
The crowd had formed a complete circle now, and some students were actually placing bets on who'd win.
"Twenty credits on the redhead!"
"Fifty says the squirrel eats him alive!"
"I'm not here to....." Willy shouted, but his voice was drowned out.
Dante spun again.
The wheel landed on something new, a symbol that looked like stacked coins.
"Jackpot!"
A giant cannon appeared
"I'd normally have run out of pneuma." He said, breathing hard but still grinning. "But with these pills? There's no limit to how many times I can spin."
The people in the crowd were taking to their heels, Dante had gone mad cause that cannon packed enough power to raise the roof.
He didn't seem to care and launched the blast anyways.
Wheeler's mouth opened wider than it has the whole night.
Willy was trying to tell him to stop but nothing was getting true and he thought this was it for him.
SLUUUURP
Wheeler's body expanded rapidly, ten feet, fifteen feet, twenty.
His form was changing too, and he was no longer just a cute squirrel.
The wind making up his body swirled violently,
"Wheeler!" Willy tried to command him. "Wheeler, stop! You're too big! I can't—"
Wheeler wasn't listening anymore.
Dante summoned his roulette wheel again, but this time Wheeler didn't wait for it to spin.
He lunged forward and ate the wheel itself.
It spun inside Wheeler's translucent belly, visible through the swirling wind.
Colors flashed as the wheel continued spinning internally, unable to stop.
Wheeler's growth accelerated.
Thirty feet. Forty feet. Fifty.
His head crashed through the ceiling. His body expanded outward, pushing walls, crushing furniture.
"Crap" Dante breathed, taking a real step back for the first time.
"WHEELER!" Willy shouted. "SPIT IT OUT! YOU CAN'T DIGEST THAT!"
But Wheeler was beyond control now. The roulette wheel spinning in his belly was triggering random effects from the inside.
Students were screaming, running for exits.
Wheeler's massive form enclosed Willy completely, trapping him inside a protective wind barrier at the construct's core.
Willy could see everything from the center, completely safe but utterly helpless to stop the rampage.
"EVERYBODY RUN!" someone screamed.
Wheeler's paw came down, cratering the floor.
His tail swept through a wall, demolishing it like cardboard.
Dante jumped into the air and the glow around him intensified, so did the grin on his face