The first official day of classes at Friedkin University was a study in profound mundanity for Phanes Demiurgos. Sitting in a hard plastic chair, surrounded by teenagers buzzing with a mixture of anxiety and boredom, was an experience his cosmic-aware mind found… quaint.
His first class was Biology 101, taught by a professor who spoke about the "miracle of cellular mitosis" with the weary enthusiasm of someone who had explained it ten thousand times. For Phanes, it was like listening to a child's primer on a language he was fluent in. As the professor droned on about ATP and ribosomes, Phanes's consciousness gently brushed against the The Divided.
The microscopic world erupted into vibrant life in his mind's eye. He didn't just hear about bacteria; he felt their teeming, countless civilizations on the skin of every student in the room, in the air they breathed, in the very pages of his textbook. He could sense their simple, relentless drives: consume, reproduce, evolve. The professor's lecture became a simplistic narrative overlaid on a reality far more complex and beautiful. When a diagram of a mitochondria was shown, Phanes could feel the echo of its symbiotic origins, a story written in the The Green and the The Divided both. He took notes not because he needed to, but to create a human-looking record of a knowledge he possessed on an instinctual, planetary level.
His second class, Introductory Astronomy, was a different kind of test. Here, his To'kustar Heritage stirred. As the professor clicked through slides of nebulae and red giants, a deep, resonant warmth bloomed in Phanes's chest. The cosmic energy that was his birthright hummed in recognition. The images on the screen weren't distant curiosities; they were relatives. The violent, beautiful death of a star shown in a time-lapse was a eulogy he felt in his bones.
When a student asked a question about the composition of stellar nurseries, the professor gave a textbook answer about dust and gas. Phanes, almost without thinking, murmured under his breath, "And the latent psionic potential of nascent consciousness in the helium swirls."
The student next to him, a girl with glasses, blinked. "What was that?"
Phanes shook his head, offering a mild smile. "Nothing. Just thinking out loud."
The class was both soothing and agitating. It soothed his cosmic side to be in an environment that acknowledged the scale of his inheritance, but it agitated him with its simplistic, distant perspective. They were studying the universe through a keyhole, and he was standing in the open room.
---
Needing to ground himself in something physical, he headed to the university's extensive athletic fields after his classes. The The Red thrummed with the exertion of students playing soccer, running tracks, and lifting weights. The simple, honest drive of physical competition was a welcome palate cleanser.
He joined a pick-up game of football. To his teammates' and opponents' astonishment, the quiet, composed new student was a force of nature on the field. He didn't run; he glided, his Enhanced Speed and Reflexes making the other players look like they were moving through water. When he juked, it was with the fluid grace of his Enhanced Acrobatics. A tackle that would have hospitalised another player merely made him shift his weight, his Enhanced Durability making him feel like a stone in a river.
He didn't show off. He didn't need to. It was simply a matter of efficiency. He caught a long pass, the spiral of the ball a perfect equation in the air that his Enhanced Vision solved instantly. He tapped into the The White, feeling the air currents around him, and adjusted his stride minutely to run with the wind rather than against it. He scored a touchdown without a single opposing player laying a hand on him.
As he walked off the field, barely winded, he left behind a group of students staring after him with a mixture of awe and confusion. It was another data point filed away: maintaining a low profile would require conscious, constant effort.
---
The sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows across the campus as Phanes prepared to head to his off-campus apartment—a small, warded space where he could practice without prying eyes. His path took him past the university library, a modern building of glass and steel.
It was there, through the large front windows, that he saw her.
Gwen Tennyson was perched high on a rolling ladder in the "Arcane History & Folklore" section, a section most students dismissed as a joke. She wasn't. Her brow was furrowed in intense concentration, her nose buried in a thick, leather-bound tome titled "Teutonic Sigils and Their Geometries." One hand held the book, the other was absently tracing a pattern in the air, a faint, invisible trickle of mana following her fingertip. She was trying to intellectually reverse-engineer a spell her blood already knew.
Phanes paused, his researcher's mind fascinated. He could see the flawed structure of her attempt; the mana was leaking, inefficient, like trying to power a supercomputer with a frayed extension cord.
He was about to move on when he saw the danger. Distracted by a complex passage, Gwen shifted her weight, her foot slipping on the polished wooden rung of the ladder. The book tumbled from her hands, and she let out a sharp gasp as she began to fall backwards, a ten-foot drop onto a hard linoleum floor.
Time did not stop. Phanes did not will it to. Such a blatant use of his Paradoxian abilities was unnecessary. Instead, his body moved with a synergy of power that was as natural to him as breathing.
His Enhanced Reflexes processed the fall in millisecond. His Enhanced Speed propelled him across the library floor in a blur that was little more than a shift in the air. But the save itself was a masterpiece of subtle, multi-layered application.
As he closed the distance, he didn't just reach out to catch her. He first tapped into the The White, the Parliament of Air. He commanded the air molecules around Gwen to coalesce, to thicken and provide a soft, invisible cushion, slowing her descent just enough.
Then, as his arms moved to intercept her, he channeled a whisper of cosmic energy, not for strength, but for precision. His To'kustar Enhanced Strength allowed him to support her weight as if she were made of gossamer, his movements perfectly controlled and effortless.
Finally, as his left arm slid behind her back and his right under her knees, catching her mere inches from the ground, he allowed a pulse of pure, soothing Anodite mana to flow from him to her. It wasn't a spell; it was an instinctual, comforting gesture, like a mother's touch, meant to calm the shock and fear.
For a moment, the world was frozen. Gwen was suspended in his arms, her green eyes wide with shock, staring up into his calm crimson ones. The air around them hummed with the after-effects of the manipulated atmosphere and the resonant echo of their combined mana. The scent of old books and ozone filled the space between them.
The heavy grimoire hit the floor with a deafoning THUMP that broke the spell.
"Y-You..." Gwen stammered, her face flushing a brilliant red, a mixture of embarrassment, shock, and that strange, profound familiarity. "You caught me."
"It seemed preferable to the alternative," Phanes said, his voice still even, though he was intensely aware of the warm, buzzing mana signature so close to his own. He gently set her on her feet, his hands lingering for a fraction of a second to ensure she was steady.
"How did you get over here so fast?" she asked, her scientific mind already trying to rationalize the impossible speed. "You were at the entrance."
"A good sprinting form," he deflected smoothly, bending down to pick up her book. He handed it to her, his fingers brushing against hers. Another spark, this one conscious and electric, passed between them. Gwen visibly shivered.
She took the book, clutching it to her chest like a shield. "And the... the air felt thick. For a second."
"Adrenaline can do strange things to your perception," Phanes offered, giving her a look that was both gentle and knowingly cryptic. He decided to shift the subject. "Teutonic Sigils? That's advanced work. Your geometric sequencing on the tertiary axis is inefficient, though. You're losing about sixty percent of the potential output through harmonic feedback."
Gwen's jaw went slack. The embarrassment was instantly replaced by sheer, unadulterated intellectual shock. "You... you can see that? You know about harmonic mana feedback?"
"I know about a great many things, Gwen Tennyson," he said, that small smile returning. "It's a fascinating field. Perhaps we could discuss it sometime. I have some theories on lattice stabilization that might be more effective than reverse-engineering from dead languages."
He gave a slight, polite nod, then turned and walked away, leaving her standing amidst the fallen silence and the still-vibrating air.
Gwen stared after him, her heart hammering in her chest. The near-fall, the impossible save, the casual critique of her most secret studies... it was all too much. Ben fought aliens with his fists. This boy, Phanes, operated on a level she couldn't even begin to comprehend.
He wasn't just a cute guy with weird eyes. He was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and he spoke a language she desperately wanted to learn. As she watched his retreating form disappear into the twilight, one thought crystallized in her mind.
She needed to talk to him again. Soon.