I had to promise like, five times to explain everything later just so Azalea would finally let go of my arm. In front of the entire class. My face went full fireball red. Jimmy, of course, let out a loud wolf whistle like a Disney sidekick with zero chill. No help. Zero backup. Grade-A traitor.
Then came the walk of shame to homeroom. Yay, consequences.
Ms. Hawthorne was already there, waiting with that peaceful, hands-folded smile that basically said, "I'm about to ruin your day politely."
But then I spotted someone already sitting across from her.
Wait. Another delinquent? A fellow traveler on the Highway to Detention?
Score! Misery loves company, especially when that company might know how to pick a lock.
…Until I got a better look.
"Michael?!"
I yelped, loud enough to make the portraits of dead school founders twitch.
He turned to me and gave a smile that was 70% pain and 30% "Save me from this educational nightmare." Honestly, same.
Ms. Hawthorne folded her arms, her gaze sharper than a harpy's talons. "Michael here decided to have a… disagreement with his locker cabinet this morning. Apparently, the poor thing owed him a significant amount of drachmas, because he ripped the whole metal door off like it was made of papier-mâché."
She raised an eyebrow and looked between us. "Either school furniture's getting flimsier,? Or are you kids just getting... unnaturally strong?"
Michael and I shared a look. I blinked and discreetly Appraised him.
Michael – Lv. 30.
Definitely not the flimsier school furniture.
Definitely the second one.
But could I tell the truth?
Ha. Yeah, no.
"It's totally the furniture's fault, Teacher," I said, slapping on my best innocent smile.
"I mean, how could these possibly break a desk?"
I flexed my arm like I was auditioning to be Arnold Schwarzenegger's extremely disappointing stunt double.
Spoiler: my biceps looked exactly like what you'd expect from a fourteen-year-old gaming otaku with the upper-body strength of a frightened hamster.
Still, I held the pose. Because confidence is like 80% of lying. Maybe 90% if you squint.
"It's weird even for me," I added. "Like… I think I can lift a ton. I tried hoisting a giant boulder in the woods the other day, don't ask and it kinda moved. Probably. But my arms still look like overcooked noodles."
Michael made a noise that was half snort, half wheeze. Ms. Hawthorne raised an eyebrow like she was mentally scheduling my future detention.
Ms. Hawthorne gave us both the look, you know, the one teachers reserve for students who are either lying through their teeth or about to explode spontaneously.
She launched into a lecture about respecting school property, channeling that teacher superpower where they can sound calm and terrifying at the same time.
But by the end of it, even she had to admit the facts were getting weird.
"I mean…" she frowned, glancing between Michael and me.
"No student not even one who's won Mr. Olympia should be able to rip a desk in half like tissue paper. And yet, here we are."
She stared at her notes like they were going to file a report on her.
"Fine," she sighed.
"No detention. But this is going on your records under... suspicious structural failure."
Michael gave me a sideways look.
"Is that a real category?"
"It is now," I muttered.
As soon as we were dismissed, Michael did that thing where someone casually walks beside you while screaming we need to talk with their entire aura.
He waited until we were out of Ms. Hawthorne's line of sight, then grabbed my sleeve like he was trying to be subtle but forgot how sleeves work.
"We need to talk," he said, low and serious.
Called it.
I played dumb, which was only slightly acting.
"About what? Furniture safety? Proper locker-opening form?"
He didn't laugh.
"You tried to lift that rock, didn't you?" Michael asked, eyes narrowing like a human lie detector.
"Yep," I said. "Lifted it. Threw it. What's wrong?"
He stared at me.
"Where are your muscles?"
I looked down at my arms, which had all the intimidating power of two uncooked spaghetti noodles.
"I dunno. Maybe they're on vacation?"
"That's not how muscles work."
"Yeah, well, neither is reality lately."
Michael squinted at me like I was a puzzle with extra pieces.
"Dude. Are you secretly the descendant of Hercules or something?"
"What—no! Is that even possible?"
He shrugged.
"I found one at summer camp once. He could lift a truck."
"A whole truck?"
"Minivan. But still."
I blinked.
"Is this normal now? Just casually meeting part-time demigods and goblin survivors?"
Michael just nodded slowly, like the world had always been this weird and I was the one who missed the memo.
"You know," Michael said, glancing around like the hallway might be bugged, "LETI's got a fully-equipped gym. Next-level stuff. Gravity rooms, resistance enhancers, mana pulse treadmills—whatever that means."
I blinked.
"Seriously? And I've been out there trying to bench-press boulders like a medieval idiot?"
"Yeah, you don't have to go full caveman, Kyle. There's literally a sign-up sheet."
I squinted at him. "And they just… let us use it?"
"Well, technically we're supposed to get permission. But also technically, we're already junior members, so I think we're past normal permission."
He had a point.
"Besides," he added with a smirk, "it's safer than playing yo-yo with rocks in the woods and hoping no one films it for TikTok."
Michael and I made our way to the cafeteria, chatting about top-secret supernatural weirdness like it was just another meme review. Classic teen move. Nobody cared. I mean, who wants to eavesdrop on the school judo champion and… whatever I was? Sidekick? Support character?
Then I felt a presence. The kind that made my spine do a backflip.
Azalea.
Crap. I forgot about her.
"Kyle!"
Her voice cut through the noise like a boss battle alert.
I turned, fully prepared to fake amnesia or spontaneously combust.
Then she noticed Michael.
Her eyes narrowed. "You… you're the one with the glowing hand, right?"
Michael blinked. "Uhhh…"
Your move, Michael. Let's see how you dodge that fireball.
Spoiler Alert : he couldn't.
Azalea steamrolled right through his defenses—verbal, emotional, possibly magical—and somehow dragged both of us to the most far-away table in the cafeteria. You know, the one usually reserved for kids who bring sardine sandwiches or argue about chess openings in Klingon.
We sat.
Correction: Michael flopped like a guilty golden retriever, I slouched like I was hoping invisibility would spontaneously evolve in humans, and Azalea looked like she was about to cross-examine us for a court case that only existed in her head.
"So," she said, folding her arms. "Explain."
And yeah, we were definitely going to need more than cafeteria pizza to get through this.
Michael looked at me like I was his lawyer, therapist, and human shield all rolled into one. I gave him the universal look for you got yourself into this, buddy, and turned to Azalea with what I hoped was a calming smile. It probably looked more like I was trying not to sneeze.
"Okay," I said. "But first, can we agree none of this leaves this table? No TikTok. No Snapgrams. No sending it to your conspiracy podcast uncle."
She squinted. "Fine. But if either of you lie, I will know."
Michael whispered, "She's terrifying."
I nodded. "Welcome to the club."
And then we told her.
The goblins. The dungeons. The secret government program with the dumb acronym. The weird stats and skills and the part where I might've set a forest on fire by accident. Twice.
Azalea didn't interrupt, which was scarier than her yelling. Her face didn't even twitch until we got to the part about the memory wipe failing that she finally reacted.
"That explains it," she muttered, more to herself than us. "I thought I was losing it. Like I'd eaten too many of Mrs. Henderson's suspiciously glowing blueberry muffins. But I remembered. All of it. The goblins. You two looking like you'd gone ten rounds with a rabid badger. The smell of burning eyebrows."
Michael gave me a look.
"Burning eyebrows?"
"Long story involving a greased goblin and a faulty fire spell," I mumbled, wishing the floor would just swallow me whole.
Azalea sat back in her chair, arms still folded, but her expression had shifted. Not angry. Not even freaked out. Just… determined.
"Well," she said. "Then I want in."
Michael choked on his juice.
I blinked. "You… want what?"
"I want in. Whatever this LETI thing is. I'm not sitting on the sidelines while you two play Dungeons & Explosions in real life."
Michael wiped juice off his shirt, looking thoroughly traumatized. "Pretty sure there's paperwork. And, like, extreme danger. And also—did I mention?—extreme danger involving things that bite and glow."
Azalea just raised an eyebrow, a tiny, challenging arc.
"I survived goblins," she said, like it was a minor inconvenience. "I can handle paperwork. And probably things that bite."
...
So… what could we do? Leave her out? After she'd faced down goblins and remembered everything the shady government agency tried to erase? Yeah, that felt about as likely as a minotaur winning a beauty pageant.
We made the only logical decision a bunch of overpowered, underqualified teenagers could make: take Azalea to the LETI headquarters. After school, of course. We weren't that chaotic.We still had a vague respect for the bell schedule.
Rhea joined us too. Her magical girl intuition must've sensed we were about to unleash a new level of supernatural pandemonium, because she appeared with that look that said, You three are about to do something monumentally dumb, and I, the responsible one, have to witness it..
Did she save us?
Nope.
Within five minutes, Michael and I had somehow become the problem, and Azalea and Rhea had become best friends through the sacred bond of mocking us relentlessly. Girl code, apparently.
We crammed into a taxi—aka, supernatural transport disguised as a beat-up yellow Prius—and made our way to the most suspiciously boring place in the city:
The Museum of Hoaxes and Urban Legends.The irony was thicker than a gorgon's glare.
Azalea squinted at the sign as we walked up. "Guys, I don't believe in conspiracy theories."
"Yeah," I said, smiling. "That's what I said. Right before I got a quest to fight a sewer slime."
Five minutes later, we stepped inside a dusty exhibit on blurry photos of Bigfoot, navigated past a questionable display on alien autopsy footage, entered an ancient replica lunar module that smelled faintly of mothballs and existential disappointment, and—bam—we were in LETI Headquarters.
Neon lights hummed with barely contained energy. Security bots that looked suspiciously like souped-up Roombas patrolled the polished floors. Floating holographic screens displayed equations that would make Einstein's head spin. People in lab coats rushed around, yelling about psychic pigeons and dimensional rifts like it was perfectly normal office chatter.
Azalea's jaw dropped. She didn't say a word.
"Welcome to the believer club," I whispered, clapping her on the shoulder. "Membership comes with complimentary existential crises and the occasional monster attack."
She just nodded slowly, her gaze fixed on a scientist trying to wrangle a glowing, levitating hamster. "...Amam."
Michael blinked. "Did she just say 'Amen' backwards?"
"Let her process," Rhea said, a knowing smile playing on her lips. It's a lot to take in. Especially when your previous experience with the unbelievable was limited to internet trolls and meme."
Okay, so after the grand reveal in the lunar module (who knew those things were interdimensional portals?), the next logical step was to officially induct Azalea into the LETI fold. Easier said than done, apparently.
The LETI scientists, bless their skeptical hearts, were all about evidence. Hard, quantifiable, doesn't-involve-teenagers-claiming-they-fought-goblins evidence. And on paper? Azalea was just a normal kid who had a surprisingly detailed memory of a very strange story. No glowing hands. No unexplained feats of strength. No visible MP bar shimmering above her head for their fancy scientific instruments to detect.
Which, of course, I could see perfectly. It was like she had a giant "Mana Inside" neon sign that only my eyeballs were tuned to.
So, Operation: Prove Azalea Isn't Just Making Things Up commenced. It involved a lot of blinking lights, complicated-looking machines that hummed ominously, and scientists in lab coats asking her increasingly bizarre questions. "Have you ever experienced an inexplicable urge to collect shiny objects?" "Do you find yourself communicating with household pets on a telepathic level?" "Have you ever spontaneously combusted into a cloud of glitter?" (Okay, maybe not that last one, but it felt like where they were headed.)
Then came the hypnosis. Apparently, if they could just make her forget, problem solved! Except Azalea treated the hypnotist like a particularly boring bedtime story. She was out cold in seconds, snoring softly and occasionally muttering something about "fluffy dream goblins." But forget the actual goblins? Forget Michael's glowing hand? Forget the awkward taxi ride with three teenagers and a magical girl? Nope. The girl remembered everything, down to the brand of air freshener in the Prius (pine, if you were curious). Her memory was like a titanium vault guarded by a very sleepy but very persistent dragon.
The LETI bigwigs, after reviewing the inconclusive data (and probably comparing notes on the surprisingly vivid goblin descriptions), finally caved. They granted Azalea "Temporary Junior Member" status. Not even F-rank. More like… G-minus-three-quarters rank. Which, I'll admit, my territorial instincts found a little satisfying. Welcome to the bottom of the supernatural totem pole, newbie.
And the cherry on top of this whole bureaucratic sundae? Since Azalea was now officially (sort of) one of us, and conveniently attended our school, guess who got saddled with the responsibility?
That's right. Me , Michael and Rhea. Our reward for surviving near-death experiences? More responsibility. The universe had a real knack for twisted incentives.
So now we had Azalea, the girl with the invisible magic and the memory of an elephant, tagging along. Our mission: keep her out of trouble, explain the rules of the supernatural world without sounding completely insane, and prevent her from accidentally turning the school cafeteria into a giant marshmallow with a rogue spell. Easy peasy. Lemon squeezy. Probably.
What could possibly go wrong ? I had a sinking feeling the answer involved a lot of explosions and possibly more burning eyebrows. Great.