Chapter 28: Cards on the Table

I had essentially given my life story to Scarlette. I was curious to know her verdict.

Scarlette didn’t hesitate. “Are you kidding? You did absolutely nothing wrong there! I would bring shame to the Falcon name if I were to abandon you for such a stupid reason!”

“It’s not stupid, your own safety coul—” I began.

“Not that, I mean it’s stupid how you ended up like this!”

She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to phrase it like that. But it wasn’t your fault! There must be something we can do to—”

“No, don’t get involved.” This time, it was my time to interrupt her. “You’d just make yourself a target for Umbra.”

“But this isn’t right!”

“I’ll manage it. Besides, I’m actually having quite a lot of fun in school right now,” I said with a smile.

“You said you wanted to avoid standing out because you wanted to live a normal school life while you can. Is another reason because you wanted to avoid Umbra’s attention?”

I chuckled. “Maybe.”

“Ugh, you’re impossible,” she threw a pillow at me.

I stopped it mid-air, and floated it back onto her bed.

“Show-off,” she snorted.

I was acting cool and casual, but I was rapidly evaluating Scarlette’s response to my revelation. While I doubted that she would spread it, I was a little concerned that she would still try to get involved somehow. But the more I thought about it, the less likely I believed that would happen. She had been through a lot recently, and I hoped that experience would have helped her mature somewhat.

“Hey.”

I looked down to see Scarlette prodding me with her toe. She was lying on the bed again with her legs hanging off the bed, wearing a concerned expression.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You like, faded out for a second.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking if anyone saw me enter your room. I’m sure it’ll give them some funny ideas, especially with how late it is,” I joked.

Scarlette got up and smacked my arm. “You’re asking to get kicked out aren’t you?” she giggled, then her expression turned somber for a moment. “Anyway, thanks for sharing your past with me—I never would’ve guessed that. By the way, are you planning to tell the rest of our team eventually?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Kaede. Speaking of her, she’s in Mira’s room right now. I’m not sure if you noticed, but she’s been acting weird around you.”

“Ouch, blunt much? But yeah, she does seem wary of me…” she said, placing her hands on her hips. “Is it because of what I did to Kazen? Please let me know what Kaede finds out. I’ll go and apologise to her.”

“No problem. I better get going now, thanks for your time.”

“You just want to see Kaede don’t you?” she smirked. “Whatever, off you go then, I’ll see you in school tomorrow.” She shut the door behind me.

Overall, I felt that Scarlette absorbed the information well, though it might have been her way of coping, or perhaps she didn’t want to add to my stress. Regardless of the reason, I appreciated it. Now though, I had to meet Kaede.

We had planned to reconvene over at her room, so she didn’t have to keep coming over to mine. As I was making my way over, I realised Scarlette and I had forgotten to discuss how to counter Dr Connor’s investigation of me. Oh well, they were due to meet again after the camp, so we still had some time to figure things out.

All three girls stayed in the same block, but on different floors. Kaede stayed on the highest floor, so I took the lift there. Upon reaching her room, I knocked on the door, but there was no response. I guessed she wasn’t back yet. Hanging out by her door was incredibly suspicious, so I decided to head back first.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Call me when you’re done,” I texted her.

A few minutes later, I returned to my room and checked my phone again. She still hadn’t replied, but I wanted to text someone else anyway.

I scrolled down to a certain contact. Colleen.

It had been some time since I had last texted her. The last time I saw her in person was back at the mall with Kaede, when we were waiting for the movie to start. Perhaps it was a blessing that she had sat beside me in the bus during our journey to this school, because I vaguely remembered that she belonged to the Research Division. Asking for her number then had proven to be the right decision.

“Hi, it’s Cadel. How’s school?” I decided to kick off with some pleasantries before getting to the heart of the matter. “So lately I’ve been getting interested in 6-Star Rankers, has your syllabus taught you anything about it?”

I doubted it, since this was a classified topic that the school wouldn’t bring up. Still, I figured it was better than nothing. I got a reply almost instantly.

“Yo what’s up! Long time no text! School’s been awesome so far!”

Jeez, was she on her phone all the time? I smirked at her animated response as she continued typing.

“Hmm 6-Stars… nope! Sorry! Right now they’re mainly teaching us some of the more basic scientific stuff, you know, like how Esper Nullifiers work!”

No score, huh. Still, I could get some information out of her.

“So how do they work?”

“I'm glad you asked! You know how we espers have mutations in our genes? The Esper Nullifier is designed to target these specific genes. Here’s the thing: the mutations that give us our Abilities also make us susceptible to certain kinds of energy disruption. The Nullifier emits a specialised, focused electromagnetic field that interacts with these mutated genes. You with me so far?”

It was a little heavy on the jargon, but I followed. “Yep.”

She continued, “This field interferes with our cells, particularly the ones responsible for channelling our powers. It scrambles the signals that our brains send to activate our Abilities, temporarily immobilising us and shutting down our powers. It's like how a jamming signal can disrupt communication. This disruption affects our nerves as well, so we end up getting paralysed. We also can't access our Abilities for as long as we’re exposed to the field. It’s also worth mentioning that it has a pretty narrow range due to how concentrated the signals are, so you can’t use it on a whole bunch of people at once.”

There was a small pause before she sent a follow-up text. “Sorry for rambling! I just think it’s pretty cool that I got to share my knowledge with someone!”

This was fascinating. While such information was hard to obtain online, I already had a rough idea of how the Nullifier worked. This just confirmed my suspicions. It also meant that there were various ways in which I would be able to counter the Nullifier, especially now that I understood its inner workings.

“Thanks, Colleen. That was really insightful,” I messaged.

“You’re welcome! Anyway, we should totally meet up soon. You know, to properly catch up and stuff!”

“Sure, but I have a camp coming up. Maybe after the camp?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you guys in the Combat Div have a camp next week. All the best! Let me know how it goes when we meet.”

As the conversation ended, my mind was brought back to what Scarlette had said earlier.

“6-Stars do exist.”

“Soren Rain.”

These words echoed in my head. Scarlette’s revelation on Soren Rain had intrigued me, but this wasn’t information that I should be sharing publicly. There was only one person who I could ask without raising too many eyebrows: his brother, Kazen.

As I mulled over on how to bring this topic up to Kazen, my phone buzzed again. This time, it was a text from Kaede.

“Just returned to my room. Mind if I call you now?”

“Ready when you are.”

Moments later, my phone buzzed a third time, this time with Kaede’s call. I answered quickly.

She spoke, her voice exasperated. “I’m sorry, I didn’t manage to get much out of her.”

“That’s okay, thanks for trying. What did she say?” I answered patiently.

“She was being very vague, but she mentioned something about Scarlette’s rampage bringing bad memories to her. I tried to be as careful as I could as I prodded her for more information, but she started looking really unwell, so I stopped and changed the subject. We ended up talking about school and stuff, and then she asked if I… never mind!”

Her sudden flustered tone surprised me a bit, but she quickly carried on.

“So anyway we started talking about the camp next week, then one thing led to another and we started talking about other stuff. You know, the typical girl talk.”

I was about to say I had no idea what “girl talk” entailed but she didn’t let me interject.

“So like, you know Mira is a quiet girl, right? I consider myself to be quite introverted, but she’s like suuuper quiet, even compared to me. But once we got the conversation going, she’s actually really chill! You should try getting into a casual conversation with her,” she added.

“I’m not really good at getting to know people though,” I said.

“Nah, you’re fine. I think she may appreciate your level-headedness.”

“Thanks for the encouragement, but I think we should just wait for her to come to us when she feels ready.” If Kaede couldn’t get her to open up, I would have no chance.

“Hmm, yeah… Anyway, you should probably get some rest soon. The camp is only a few days away anyway.”

As we ended our call, I made a checklist of things to do before the camp.

1. Finish buying all the items I would need

2. Collect the camp items the school would be giving out

3. Contact Kazen and inquire further about Soren

The third one would be tricky—it would raise suspicion if I brought up Soren, and I did not want to reveal my past to him. Kazen would also definitely ask how I got that information. On top of that, I thought about bringing Scarlette along to our meeting. It would make things easier to explain if she was there, since she was the one who got the information in the first place.

It would also be a good opportunity for them to squash their beef, though we'd have to be careful with our words. I just hoped it wouldn’t end in fireworks.