Nick's drive had lasted an hour, the sun having departed from the sky entirely by now. He'd arrived at a prodigious residence surrounded by countless species trees, some of which had grown taller than the house. All around its outer brick walls, grew a myriad of gradual aged vines. Despite the trimmed viridescent grass, the twin front lawns that sat on either side of the pathway leading up to the door, appeared brazenly barren.

Numerous vehicles were parked in the massive driveway, but Nick still managed to find a spot for his own car. When he got to the front door, he pulled out another small key ring from his other back pocket, and used it to let himself in.

Inside was even busier than outside, as a network of individuals swarmed all over through the luxurious rooms and halls. Savvy-dressed individuals; haughty-sounding police officers; hoodie-covered adolescents — all engaged in scattered conversations, and some busying themselves in the kitchen by packaging something in an assembly-line manner.

Nick was then silently greeted by a lofty man dressed in a black suit and black sunglasses. "Hey, Marcus. He's expecting me," he said to the man.

The man nodded, stepping back to the side of the front door, resuming his vigilant monitoring of the rest of the guests.

Nick drifted through the throng of people until he reached a carpeted flight of stairs, and when he made it to the top, he sauntered straight down towards a room at the end of a long hallway.

The walls of the room were a grimy gray, and the carpet that covered the entire floor was a similar shade. A sundry of antique objects lined nearly all of the wooden shelves. The king-sized bed had a wooden frame but was stripped of all its sheets, blankets and pillows. The wooden mirrored dresser had cobwebs forming behind it, and the wooden rocking chair in the corner creaked every now and then from a breeze that passed into the room through a small air vent just above it.

Everything in the room was covered in long white sheets, dust accumulating wherever it was possible. The only piece of furniture in the room that wasn't wooden, was a high metal bookshelf that stood not too far away from the rocking chair, also covered with a white sheet.

Nick strolled over and lifted the sheet to get face-to-face with it. On the fourth shelf from the top, he pulled out a thick blue book that was blank on both its front and back covers, then he slipped his hand through the empty space between the other books still on the shelf, and pushed a flat button at the back.

Suddenly, the bookshelf whirred to life, squeaking as it glided to the right and revealing a hidden stairwell leading down to another room. Nick returned to the blue book to its rightful place before descending the stairs, and as he did, several lights flashed on above him lighting the way down, and the bookshelf slowly glided back to how it was, sealing the entryway.

When he reached the bottom, he was greeted with a jubilant smile and a pair of wide open arms ambling towards him for a hug. The boy's hair was a neatly slicked peanut colour. He was a bit taller, so Nick's head was more nestled between the boy's chin and chest.

Though taken aback by the gesture, Nick returned the hug with as much strength as he could assemble. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Kite, but I wasn't exactly called here for a celebration."

"You're not wrong," Kite sighed. "I got called too, and I thought we could have this little moment before we go in there and Eric bites our heads off."

"What did you do?" Nick chuckled.

Kite laughed along with him. "That, I'm not entirely sure, but something did happen under my watch." He sighed again before releasing Nick from the hug and swinging an arm over his shoulders. "You'll hear all about it from Eric, so I'll spare you from hearing about my screw up twice. But anyway, what's with you? When we met at the game on Friday, everything seemed fine on your end. Now you're...limping? Another fight?"

Nick hung his head, indignity swelling inside him. "Yes, and before you go and bask in my glory, I didn't win — surprisingly. I'll explain after Ric chews me out first, as if there's any choice." He threw an arm around Kite's waist for further leverage, and the two began a steady walk down a lengthy and illuminated tunnel. "Hey, speaking of Friday's game, there's something I gotta ask you about."

"Shoot."

"After we were done talking, I saw you talking to some guy in the hallway. He had this dark brown hair."

"Oh yeah, him. I kept staring at my phone so I ended up crashing into him. He wasn't mad though, he was actually really cool about it, even though it could've been damaged because of me."

"Is that all?" Nick said. "He didn't ask you about anything?"

Kite laughed again. "What would a guy I've never met before ask me about in that moment?"

Nick sulked, feeling another strange pain in his chest that he couldn't diagnose. "...nothing, I guess. Nevermind it."

At the end of the tunnel, a spacious study came into view with shiny charcoal brick walls, and a ceiling and floor to match. There wasn't much in the room except for two tall cabinets both filled with a collection of glass bottled alcoholic beverages; between them sat a dainty wooden desk with an opened black laptop perched atop of it, and placed in front of the desk were two low leather benches.

When the two emerged, they were immediately greeted with a forbidding stare from a third boy; his porcelain skin seemed dull under the shallow light of the room, and his short red hair — though nothing about it was 'off' exactly — still somehow seemed as angry as the boy looked. His foot impatiently tapped against the un-carpeted floor as he stood next to the desk.

"What the hell took so long?" he questioned, expecting an answer from both Nick and Kite.

"Traffic," Nick fibbed. He'd intentionally taken a long route to get to the house.

"Same," Kite said truthfully. He lived in the town of Neoaville (Neo-way-ville), which was quite the distance away from the house. "Sorry, Eric."

"And hey, are you still using the 'my dad's the boss of you' ruse on Timothy?" Nick said to Eric. "I know your old man's been dead for years, but even that would have me rolling in my grave."

"It worked, didn't it? Now explain already," Eric demanded, his harsh gaze now solely directed at Nick. Kite helped Nick to sit on one of the benches before taking a seat on the second one.

"Look, Ric," Nick started. "I screwed up. I saw that Alex guy talking to Kite during the soccer game at my school last week, and I thought he was snooping around for more info on v-dust cuz just the day before he stopped me from dealing to his friend."

"Wait," Kite cut in. "Do you mean, Alex Prior? That guy that torched Turtleneck over the summer? That's the guy I was talking to?"

Nick nodded. "That's when I called you asking about it," he said to Eric, "I thought I could scare Prior off the trail by telling him that Turtleneck was dead because of what he did to him. It would've all worked out fine if he wasn't buddies with some old friends of mine."

"Friends?" Eric questioned.

"Yeah, old friends, like in the 'past tense'. It didn't last long — truthfully, it was me, not them. I forgot how protective they were of their own. They took what I told Prior the wrong way, and then kinda threatened to 'out' me and the v-dust operation at school. So, we had to find a way to settle things. One thing led to another, you know how it goes."

Eric grabbed the laptop and turned the screen towards Nick and Kite. A headline read, in vibrantly coloured capital letters: 'Fight of the Century'.

"So...you do know how it goes," Nick quipped. "Can we not linger on it now? The match wasn't recorded, but I still have to live with the memory of it. Last spring I was Number One. Now? I barely had time to prepare, to train. Hate to admit it, but I got my ass kicked. On top of that, T and H permanently confiscated my sword-"

"Nick!" Eric warned. "How did they find out? How did anyone find out?"

"Maybe..." Nick gently rubbed circles on his chest as the odd feeling inside amplified. "It might've been my assistant."

"What assistant?" Eric questioned.

"Hey, you have no idea how stressful it is to be the student body president, and run a drug operation in high school. I needed help keeping on top of some things."

"He has a point," Kite agreed, earning a scowl from Eric, but a smirk from Nick. "But trying to ward someone off by saying that someone they mortally wounded is dead, maybe wasn't the best idea, not to mention spiteful."

"At least he hasn't gotten arrested yet," Eric added, looking accusingly at Kite.

"What?" Nick twisted his head over at Kite, amused.

"Nothing's been proved yet," Kite defended. "I haven't been charged and neither have the other two-"

"The other two? You mean that soccer team captain and Kalimity cheerleader got arrested too?" Nick laughed, a hysterical sound that a produced a slight echo inside the room. "Now how did anyone find that out?"

"That's what I want to know." Eric briefly turned the laptop to himself to click something on the screen, then whirled it back.

The headline now read: Face The Facts: 'Kalimity's Best Dealing Drugs To Student Body'.

Nick erupted into laughter again. "Someone did a report on you?"

"It's just speculation," Kite defended once more. "Just one person's account, one person who's going to be found. I've made a deal with the police and tomorrow we're going to find out who wrote the article and where. Once we do, it'll be over."

With a curt snap, Eric shut the laptop. "You two have been reckless enough. I've told you repeatedly to stay under the radar. I've warned you about getting too involved in school, especially high school. Did you two already forget why we're doing all this? What's at stake? Did all that limited power of a being 'student body president' finally get to your heads?"

Nick's smile had faded into the hollow space of the study, while Kite's gaze dispersed onto the banal floor.

Eric affixed his baleful stare back onto Nick, and continued. "For anyone we do include in the dealings if anything happens, we have to make sure there are no loose ends."

"Charlie's not a loose end," Nick assured. "He just thinks that I'm really into the drug-trafficking game, nothing to worry about."

"There better not be. But you," he turned to Kite. "That article talks about a little more than just 'drug-trafficking'. When you do find out who wrote it, something's going to have to be done."

Kite finally looked up, locking eyes with Eric. "...nothing drastic."

"I don't think you understand how bad things could go if we don't put and end to-"

"Just don't do something that we can't take back," Kite cautioned, his own voice becoming perilous, but his gaze was pleading. It was enough to silence Eric, and leave Nick at a loss for words.

Then suddenly, a jarring static noise overtook the room. It circled the three boys, jumping around them as if trying to find a spot where its signal could be most secure, and in the midst of it, was a voice. They all knew what was happening. It happened a lot, routinely whenever there was an argument about to break-out amongst the three. They were used to it.

They heard the voice as if it were somehow right next to each of them at the same time, trying to tear through the static, and successfully it got clearer and clearer, as it always did. Without warning, the laptop hurled open again, the screen going black except for a flat lavender line running across the center. After an endless fifthteen seconds, the static was finally pellucid, and the voice was completely coherent as it spoke to them:

"Stop that, stop fighting." The voice was low, incredibly husky, yet somehow amiable. The lavender line on the screen moved as it talked, creating convulsing zigzag patterns.

"Hey now, we're not 'fighting'," Nick promised, his grin having returned. "This is just harmless talk between boys. Enough about us though, how's life been up there, Jack?"

"Lonely. But enough about me, what were you three fighting about?"

"Again, not fighting. And not that you'd find any interest in this, but we were deep in conversation about school politics," Nick added.

"Discussing the public affairs of a school sounds quite riveting, but I know that's not what you were really talking about. I could sense the tension, plus it's you, Nick. So tell me what's actually going on."

"Alright alright, you got me there. I'm always forgetting about your freaky sixth sense. I'll keep it brief and and say that the idea of 'drastic measures' was thrown around once or twice a few moments ago."

"...Eric..."

"Don't," Eric started. "Someone at Kalimity knows something about what we're doing, not just the dust, but the experiments too. You know what's being risked if it gets out."

"Of course I do. But regardless, I still told you all not to take any lives. That wouldn't help us either." Eric groaned quietly, but he didn't say anything further. Then at once, there was a soft crash that reverberated around the room.

"What was that?" Kite asked first.

"Don't mind that, cargo troubles. I've been overworking myself lately, and I think it's about time I had a short break. The three of you should do the same. Save the talking for another time — get some rest. Especially you, Nick, you're feeling all kinds of sore. Had a school-yard scrap again?"

"A little tussle is all," Nick confirmed. "When you're right, you're right. I have to be back by dinner anyway. Hopefully no traffic so I have some time to rest a bit. Meeting adjourned?"

Both Nick and Kite looked to Eric, but Eric had looked away, waving a dismissive hand in the air. "Go," he told them.

"I've got to go too. Talk soon..." As soon as it came, the voice was then gone. The study had regressed to pure silence.

When Nick tottered trying to stand from the bench, Kite rushed to provide himself as a walking aid. He tossed Nick's arm over his neck and shoulders, fastening it by holding onto his wrist, and he wrapped his other arm in a tight grip around Nick's waist. They both glanced at Eric one last time, and it surprised them to see that he was looking back as well, still seemingly vexed, but facing them at least.

"I'll find out who did it, how much they know, and I'll deal with it," Kite declared, expressly for Eric's ears.

"Yeah...whatever," Eric replied before turning away again.

It didn't seem like either of them was going to say a variation of a goodbye, so Nick decided to do it instead.

"Be good, don't get caught. Peace, Ric!"