Chapter 5: Chapter 4: Ryan is probably some kind of protagonist

Pike closed and locked his door, preparing to set out to one of the cafeterias. As he turned to make his way, he spied a very dejected Ryan Belmont sulking in front of someone else’s room. The door was closed, and the simple name card taped on it indicated Erika Bast as the occupant.

“Oh man…” Ryan murmured gloomily. “Worst first day ever.”

Pike’s footsteps approached and stopped beside him. “Are… you okay?”

“I’m fine… Just making the worst first impression on one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever met—”

As Ryan spoke, he turned to face Pike directly—and was immediately taken aback at the pair of deep-set eyes staring ghoulishly up at him from behind a large pair of eyeglasses. If looks could radiate their own aura without chaotic energy, Pike’s would certainly give off an air of something dark and uneasy.

“Gah! Your face!”

“Yeah, not a surprising reaction.” Pike’s straight-faced expression eased into an embarrassed but decidedly genuine smile as he scratched his head self-consciously. “Well, I’m no pretty girl. But I am heading down to the dorm cafeteria for dinner if you want to join me—you know, to eat your woes away… or something.”

Ryan took a moment to consider the invitation from this exhausted-looking neighbor of his. As a newcomer to the university, he was still lacking friends to spend time with. This dorm mate was nearly a full head shorter standing in front of him (it was hard not to notice). It wasn’t that he looked like a hunchbacked bellringer from some grand cathedral in the Central West, but in terms of aesthetic there was a certain lack in his features. Questionable face aside, at least he seemed friendly.

“That’d be awesome.” He grinned and held out a hand in formal greeting. “Ryan Belmont. I just transferred here.”

And Pike graciously shook it. “Pike DeSanto. Nice to meet you, Ryan.”

- - - - -

One of the campus cafeterias was serving curry and rice as its special tonight, so that’s the one Pike opted to bring Ryan to. Ryan himself wasn’t too fond of a meal that was swimming in thick sauce of some unknown variety, so he decided to wait in line for a bowl of stir fry. The two new friends found some open seats at one of the long picnic tables that were lined up in rows throughout the room.

“So, what made you want to transfer to Halo Ridge?” Pike took a bite from his curry plate.

“Well, I was attending a more normal university before when I gained my luminescence. It suddenly happened one time when some chaos thing was causing a ruckus in the university’s basketball gym.”

“That would be a Shade.”

“Right. A Shade. It was causing the hoops and stuff to fall off the walls. The lights kept flickering. Stuff out of a horror movie, you know? I tried to point out to my buddies that it was being caused by some shadowy thing—but they couldn’t see it.”

Ryan clenched his fists and made a wringing motion, gritting his teeth to add some dramatic effect to his anecdote. “I was so frustrated that like, the entire world became background noise, and all I could see was this thing—until it was the only thing I could see clearly. I remember thinking, I just want to set it on fire.

“So, I did. Somehow.” He snapped his fingers to punctuate the point, then shoveled in a few bites from his stir fry. “They found out later it was some punk kid causing all the trouble; some Stars showed up and took him away.”

Pike quietly ate his curry as he listened to Ryan’s tale. He made a bit of a face as he swallowed one of his mouthfuls. The curry wasn’t so great after all. He was still going to finish eating it though.

Ryan swallowed his own mouthfuls and continued. “My previous university does have a Luminescence Department, but functionally it just preps students like me to transfer to Halo Ridge. Once you’re a luminescent and want to do something about it, there’s really no other place that’s better. You could probably say this is the only university in the world that actually takes people’s luminescence seriously.”

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“Makes sense. Luminescence isn’t exactly something you see every day.”

“Right? But when I realized I had it, and realized I could fight all the bad stuff that affects the real world… I just knew, you know? I knew what I had to do.” Ryan stood up, taking his now-empty bowl of stir fry. “I’m going to join the Halo Tour and finish on the Leaderboard. I’m going to get rid of all the chaos. I’m going to be a Star that takes on that world so that this world isn’t plagued by it any longer.”

Pike looked up at him, quirking his eyebrow. The blond cut an impressive display and speech. Not to mention he finished his entire bowl of stir fry before Pike was halfway through his curry. It must’ve been good stir fry. Pike made a mental note to choose stir fry over curry next time.

Suddenly, Ryan took his fork and pointed it at Pike in a gesture of declaration. “In fact, I’m gonna be the brightest Star in the whole world!”

Ryan Belmont. First-year transfer student of Halo Ridge University. Status: civilian luminescent (but, by his declaration, certainly not for much longer).

A bold statement. It made Pike smile an uneasy smile. Not a bad uneasy smile. Just déjà vu. He was getting some serious Mindie vibes from this guy.

- - - - -

"Thanks for the company, dude. Super appreciate it.”

“Thanks too.”

Pike and Ryan walked side by side back down their hallway. It was just about that time of night where more responsible students were turning in and retreating into their rooms, while less responsible ones would surely be out late for one reason or another. They idly passed one of their female neighbors, who had boy-cut dark blue hair and only sported trainer shorts and a black sports bra as she yawned and dragged herself towards the bathroom.

“I guess I’ll try apologizing one more time to that Erika girl…” He heaved a sigh.

The blue-haired girl looked over her shoulder. “Huh? You’re looking for Erika?” She turned more fully around to address the interrupted pair, throwing a thumb behind her in a general pointing gesture. “She left about five minutes ago to go downtown. There was some incident reported earlier about a snapped powerline and an exploding fire hydrant, so she went to check it out. Chaos might be involved.”

Pike looked at Ryan, who seemed at a loss for what to say. “Erika is one of the aspiring Stars participating in the Halo Tour—oh, but you already knew that. The way Stars find out about incidents involving chaotic energy is through the news.”

As Pike spoke, Ryan pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and opened one of his news apps. Pike pointed to some of the headlines. “Not every incident is caused by chaotic energy, so some of it is guesswork if you try to filter things through your phone. But there’s a bulletin board next to the Leaderboard in Central that filters out the most likely incidents for participating luminescents.”

Ryan beamed at Pike. “Super helpful. I’ll need to keep that in mind when I’m part of the Tour too.”

The blue-haired girl yawned again and continued on her way to the bathroom. “I’d go there myself, buuut I’m beat after today. She should consider herself lucky…”

Pike watched as the girl disappeared into the bathroom and locked the door. Did that door always have a lock? He couldn’t remember. If it did, he must’ve missed it all this time. It would’ve been helpful that one time one of his neighbors rushed into the bathroom to take a dump while he was in the shower. On the other hand, he supposed he didn’t mind too much since the shower curtain had obscured them from each other. When you gotta go, you gotta go, after all.

 “Huh. Well, I guess it’ll have to wait until tomor—” He turned to Ryan, who was no longer there. “—row.”

He scoffed out a small, amused chuckle. Then again, why waste the chance when you could be a hot-blooded protagonist instead?

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