Magnus stiffened.
It wasn't subtle, either. The kind of full-body lockup that started somewhere deep in his spine and snapped outward like a chain reaction. His hand, still holding Harper's, went just a little too still. Both women noticed immediately.
"Magnus?" Harper called, concern threading cleanly through her voice. "You okay?"
He blinked, like he had just been pulled up from underwater. Forced his shoulders to loosen. Forced his face to remember how to be human.
"…Sorry," he said, managing something that almost passed for a smile. "Long day."
Her grip tightened for a brief second — warm, understanding — before she let go.
"No worries," she said easily.
Behind him, Alex was already looking at him. Not the casual glance she had been giving all evening. This one was sharp, focused, and asking questions she couldn't say out loud. But Harper was right there. So, Alex pivoted.
Smooth. Casual. Seamless. Social butterfly mode snapping into place like a switch.
"He's just tired," she said lightly, stepping in, drawing Harper's attention away without making it look like she was doing exactly that. "But we should definitely keep in touch. Is your phone number still the same?"
"Oh, actually, about that…" Harper huffed a small laugh. "I had a whole situation with a stalker ex a few years back and had to change it. You should save my new number—"
Their voices faded. Not because they got quieter. But because Magnus's brain… didn't have room for them anymore.
His world had just tilted. No—worse. It had shifted, right under him.
This wasn't supposed to happen!
The System had rules.
The quests had patterns. They had tested it!
Monday. Morning. Start of the week.
That was how it worked. Or rather, that was how it had worked.
For the past three weeks, they had something resembling understanding. Something resembling control.
But now…
Crack!
That illusion didn't just break, it shattered. The sense of security they had built — fragile as it already was — collapsed in on itself like it had never been there to begin with. And the ground underneath his feet didn't just crack, it gave way entirely.
His thoughts spiraled. If the timing was wrong… then what else was? What else had they misunderstood? Or assumed wrongly? What else was going to—
"…Magnus!"
Alex's voice snapped through the spiral like a whip. He jerked slightly. The store rushed back in. Light. Sound. The faint hum of a refrigerator unit somewhere behind him.
He shut his eyes. Breathed in. Out. Once. Twice. And again.
Then he forced the words out before his brain could spiral again.
"Quest," he said quietly. "The System pinged Harper as my next target."
Alex froze.
It hit her almost as hard as it had hit him. For a split second, everything she was — composed, controlled, socially lethal — cracked just enough for the shock to show.
"How?!" she blurted, then caught herself. Lowered her voice. "It's still—"
She stopped. Something clicked. Her hand moved fast, already pulling her phone out. The screen lit up her face. And then…
"Oh, fuck." She slapped her forehead. "It's technically Monday!"
Magnus's head snapped toward her. "What?!"
She turned the phone toward him.
00:17 — Monday.
And just like that—
The ground came back, reforming itself underneath his feet.
It wasn't stable. Nor safe. But solid enough to stand on again.
"…Right," he exhaled, something tight in his chest loosening just a fraction. "That… that makes sense."
It didn't make things better. But it made them make sense. Which, somehow, made things both better and worse at the same time.
The rest happened quickly.
They paid. Left. And neither of them spoke much on the way back.
***
By the time they reached Alex's room, the silence had settled into something heavier, but also more focused.
They sat at her desk.
Magnus didn't realize how tightly wound he still was until he actually tried to think and his brain… lagged. Like an overheated processor finally being asked to do actual work again.
He exhaled slowly, trying to let the adrenaline settle.
"Okay," Alex said, already shifting into problem-solving mode, fingers tapping lightly against the desk. "First thing first. Quest start time. We've been off."
Magnus nodded, pulling up the quest description and timer again. Same as always.
Deadline: Sunday at midnight.
Remaining: 6 days, 23 hours, 13 minutes.
"…Yeah," he said slowly. "Still ends at the same time as before. So it looks like it starts any time after midnight on Monday. I've just… always been asleep until morning before."
"Which means this is the first time you've been out and met someone after the actual reset window," Alex finished.
"Yeah."
Her fingers kept tapping. Faster now.
"And we still don't know how it picks targets."
Magnus frowned. "You think there's a rule? Or some sort of criteria?"
"There has to be," she said immediately. "Otherwise, it would just grab the first person you see every week. And it hasn't."
"…No," he admitted. "It hasn't. None of them had been the first girl I'd seen that day. This is the first time it happened like that, actually."
She leaned back slightly, thinking.
"Lila. Professor Marquez. Sofia. Mia. Riley. Brooke. Harper," she listed. "What do they have in common?"
Magnus stared at the desk like it might give him answers.
"I don't know," he said after a moment. "They all know you? Wait—no. You know everyone. And that doesn't necessarily apply to Lila… or Professor Marquez."
"Exactly."
Silence stretched. Then Alex huffed softly.
"Well, then, until we figure it out," she said, "new rule: you have to be home and in bed before midnight every Sunday night, Cinderella."
He shot her a flat look. "Oh, ha-ha. Very funny! I need to be home before midnight or bad things happen. Comedy gold."
She pointed at him. "Hey. Let me have this one. I have to cope too, okay? Your System tagging Harper just made things very awkward for me."
"…Right," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "About that. What do you want to do?"
Alex dragged a hand down her face.
"How about," she said slowly, "we don't decide that right now?"
He didn't argue.
"Morning," she continued. "We talk in the morning. I… can't think straight right now. And Harper's…" She trailed off, then shook her head. "She's different."
"Okay," Magnus said. "Yeah. That's fair. I'm not trying to—"
"I'm fine," she cut in, holding up a hand. "Just… not tonight."
A beat.
"Anyway," she added, pivoting again. "What's the power?"
Magnus let out a breath and pulled up his menu.
[Name: Magnus Chane | Level: 6
Interest: N/A | Popularity: 55% | Sexual History: 28 times (6 known partners)
STR: 14 | AGI: 26 | STA: 37 | INT: 8 | SPD: 13
Powers: Telekinesis Lv5 | Invisibility Lv2 | Animal-Linked Comprehension Lv4 | Fortuitous Alignment Lv2 | Affective Discernment Lv3 | Premonition Lv2 | Aura Weave Lv1 (Trial)
Passives: Enhanced Endurance Lv4 | Enhanced Intelligence Lv1 | Enhanced Speed Lv2]
And, like every time, his inner gamer screamed. What are you doing with your stats?!
INT sitting at the bottom felt like a personal attack at this point. Which was ironic, considering most of his powers were… well, psychic? Psychic-adjacent? Brain-related things?
Yet every time he thought about fixing it, something happened. Exhaustion from the constant cycle of quests and everything that came with them. Being half-dead after Jordan's training. Tony's chaos. Stumbling into yet another near-disaster that seemed to be waiting for him at every corner. All of the above?
And suddenly STA looked very attractive — enduring it all more easily. Or AGI — better reflexes, maybe avoiding disasters more effectively. Or literally anything that helped him not die immediately, because STR and SPD were absolutely necessary these days just to survive Jordan's training. So, INT kept getting ignored.
Survival first! Optimization… someday? Probably. Maybe?
His passives were still a mystery too. Random drops from daily quests, apparently tied to his stats — judging by how Enhanced Endurance seemed to level up roughly every ten points in STA, and the others loosely followed that pattern. But since he couldn't actually feel any difference, he had no idea what they really did.
Maybe his stats were still too low for the effects to be noticeable? Or there were rules he didn't know.
Considering they knew almost nothing about the System — and it definitely didn't come with a user manual…
Whatever. Not the point right now!
He focused on the new power instead. Pulled it up. Read what it said. And immediately felt like the System had a personal vendetta against him. Because why else would it make him decipher this in the middle of the night on his sleep-deprived brain?
"Okay, you know what?" he muttered. "I'm just going to read it out loud because I cannot make head or tail of this right now."
And he did.
[Aura Weave Lv1 (Trial): By measured attunement to the subtle emanations of self, the bearer may impress upon proximate minds a heightened receptivity to word and presence. When gaze and voice align, threads unseen may be drawn between speaker and witness, inclining perception toward favor. Yet heed this: such weaving does not compel the unwilling. Where discord of will runs deep, the pattern frays, and what is forced shall unravel.]
Silence.
"…So," Magnus said slowly. "Eye-contact and voice… Hypnosis? Mind-control? That's so wrong!"
"No, wait!" Alex said immediately, her brows furrowed. "Read the last part again."
He did. "Such weaving does not compel the unwilling. Where discord of will runs deep, the pattern frays, and what is forced shall unravel?"
She nodded. "That's important."
"How?"
"It says 'does not compel the unwilling,' and 'what is forced shall unravel.' In modern English, that should mean…" she paused for a moment to think, then continued, "It means you're not overriding anyone. You're nudging. Amplifying what's already there. It helps people lean toward something they already kind of want. But if someone doesn't want something at all, it won't work."
Magnus frowned.
"…That's… better, I guess," he admitted. "Still feels kinda wrong, though."
"Then don't abuse it," she said simply. "Not that you ever will. That's just not who you are. Just save it for emergencies, when your persuasion needs a little kick."
A beat.
"Like Jordan tomorrow—I mean, later today," she added.
He groaned. "Oh god! That's in, like, three hours!"
"Four," she corrected. "Plenty of time to make bad decisions."
"…I don't like the way you said that."
She smiled mischievously.
"I mean, I was just going to suggest…" she said, leaning forward slightly. "…that you try your new power on me?"
Magnus blinked. "Wait—what?"
"You need to understand how it works," she said. "And you definitely don't want your first test to be Jordan, do you?"
He thought about that. Immediately pictured it. And immediately grimaced.
"…Yeah," he said. "That sounds like a disaster in the making."
"Exactly. So, we test it now. Controlled environment. Safe. Low-stakes."
"You're enjoying this too much." He narrowed his eyes and said warily. "…And define safe."
She tilted her head, considering.
"Well," she said slowly, "I'm exhausted right now. After today?" She leaned in, close enough that her lips brushed his ear when she spoke. "I'd very much just want to go to bed and cuddle."
That sounded reasonable. Safe. Normal.
That isn't so bad, he started to think.
"But," she continued, voice dropping just a fraction, "I could be persuaded into doing something else."
Magnus did not like where this was going.
"…Like what?" he asked anyway.
She smiled against his ear.
"…Like sex," she whispered. "Or more specifically… anal."
He froze. "Alex!"
"Yes?"
"I have to be up for Jordan in less than four hours."
"You better make it quick then."
"Alex!"
"I'm serious," she said, pulling back just enough to look at him, entirely too amused. "You just need to test the power. We don't actually have to follow through."
He squinted at her. She raised both hands. "Hey, I'm tired too, you know?"
He sighed. "I feel like I'm going to regret this in the morning."
"Probably," she agreed cheerfully. "But you'll learn something."
He groaned softly, dragging a hand down his face. "…Yeah. Okay. Fine."
He took a breath. Then looked at her.
"…Let's try it!"
***
When morning came and his alarm went off, Magnus indeed regretted everything about last night.
Not in a vague, distant, "that might have been a bad idea" kind of way, no. This was immediate, physical, undeniable regret. The kind that sat in his bones, dragged at his limbs, and made every blink feel like a commitment he wasn't sure he had the energy for. Because, as it turned out, "You just need to test the power. We don't actually have to follow through" had been a complete and utter lie!
They had underestimated the potency of Aura Weave, or overestimated Alex's willpower and self-restraint once nudged in that particular direction by the power, despite how tired she had been. Or possibly both? Probably both.
There had been no "controlled environment."
And it was neither safe nor low-stakes last night.
After he used Aura Weave on her and tried to stop there, a very horny Alex had taken it as a personal challenge and very enthusiastically used every weapon in her arsenal to seduce him into following through. By the time Magnus realized he had no control of the situation, it had already been far, far too late. And any attempt at retreat had been met with a level of determination he was absolutely not equipped to handle at one in the morning, running on fumes, bad decisions, and a power he still didn't fully understand.
So, they didn't stop. Not until they physically had to. Not until Alex had screamed herself hoarse.
Which meant… very little sleep.
Beside him, Alex shifted slightly, still very much asleep, breathing slow and even, and smiling contentedly like she hadn't just been the primary architect of his downfall.
Magnus looked up at the ceiling for a solid five seconds, staring into the void as his alarm drilled into his skull. Then, with the kind of resignation usually reserved for condemned men, he reached out and silenced it.
Training with Jordan. Business as usual.
Except, it wasn't business as usual, because whatever fallout from her family dinner last night was going to be, it was likely going to hit today.
"…I'm going to die," he whispered. And he wasn't sure if he meant it metaphorically or literally. Because today? Yeah, it could very well be the latter!
***
As Magnus dragged himself to the College Stadium where Jordan was waiting — functioning on sheer survival instincts plus whatever else that was definitely not sleep and spiritually not enough, elsewhere on campus, a brand-new rumor about him was already taking form, an unforeseeable byproduct of his terrible decision to listen to Alex the night before.
Alex's dorm, as it turned out, had walls that were more optimistic than effective in terms of sound insulation. And people talked.
So, somehow, by the time he would later meet Alex for breakfast, people would be speculating about what happened last night. And their conclusion was that Magnus Chane was not just dating Alex Reyes, he was apparently overwhelming her. The narrative practically wrote itself after that.
Campus royalty, sweet, bright, radiant, effortlessly charming Alex Reyes was clearly too good, too normal, too pure, and too saintly to be the instigator of anything remotely scandalous. No, she was the kind of girl people described with words like "sweet" and "untouchable" in the same breath.
Which meant, naturally, her boyfriend Magnus Chane must be the problem!
An insatiable one, apparently. The kind of problem that required… solutions. Like, say, bringing other girls into the equation to "share the burden."
By mid-morning, the rumors had evolved again. Some frat guys — bored, loud, and deeply invested in things that were none of their business — had even started loudly discussing the need to "save Alex Reyes from the tyranny of Raccoon Boy." Most people ignored them. Some laughed. A few called them out for being exactly what they sounded like: jealous.
Then Mia, Riley, and a few of Sofia's clone accounts claiming to be others who had actually been there stepped in to offer insights — pointing out, very clearly, that Magnus was respectful, awkward, sweet, yet intense and satisfying at the same time and that everything had been consensual, telling people they were reading way too much into things they didn't understand.
That didn't kill the rumor, no. It just mutated it. Because after that, almost every girl on campus was intrigued and curious. And the guys? They reacted in every predictable way: admiration, envy, or indifference.
Even Dick, Alex's asshole of an ex, tried — and failed — to insert himself into the conversation.
But all of that were future problems. Right now, Magnus had just stepped onto the track, squinting against the morning light, and was already bracing himself for whatever Jordan had in store.
Because if yesterday had been the calm…
Then today? Today was going to be the storm.