Okay okay but don't tell me it isn't amusing to have two full books of Tyler being all dark and mysterious then find out he's this sarcastic nerd who loves puzzles and has the social awareness of a potato like i diDN'T PLAN THIS OKAY HE WAS ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO BE DARK AND MYSTERIOUS
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Mrs. Candleburg's fist slammed against my desk as I snapped awake for the third time that day. It's not my fault really, all of us who were trying to figure out this Project Dragonfire thing had stayed up late last night chasing some lead Chespin insisted.

    Have I mentioned how weird the kid was? I mean not only was he a genius, once we had all moved back to Gifted he had taken advantage of the higher class and insisted on wearing fancy clothing everyday. It wasn't regular fancy clothes either, it was old fashioned fancy clothes. He and Mrs. Candleburg (the math and history teacher) always had such a field day.

    If you were wondering, yes the teachers here are sworn to secrecy blah blah, it's mostly because the few that taught here were modified humans themselves. Yes we do go to school. Mr. Wales, being the principle and supreme leader had given us a few days off to get settled in and work on figuring out if Project Dragonfire was anything useful. Yes, it was incredibly frustrating that we still hadn't managed to find out if it was actually a thing that worked or if it was a recent project or not. Yes, most of us were incredibly behind on our homework, mind your own business nosy. Well now I sound like Anne Marie-

    "Tyler." Mrs. Candleburg said calmly. "This is my math class, not nap time."

    It was difficult to tell how much leeway I had before detention was served due to the fact she always wore a pair of sunglasses. She could like, burn stuff with her eyes or something, I dunno, I had never seen it in action. I had heard stories though, the fire sprinklers going off when her class wasn't paying attention, students' homework catching on fire, the usual. I decided not to take my luck and shove it off a cliff by simply nodding.    

    Chespin, who had decided to join us today for review (he was way above my level) suddenly stood up, nearly knocking over his chair as he inhaled sharply. He raised his hand wildly, startling the cookies out of Mrs. Candleburg.

    "What is it?" She raised her eyebrows.

    "Can I be excused?" He squeaked, like a bow tie-wearing, well groomed mouse.

    "Why?" Mrs. Candleburg almost seemed offended.

    I mean why would anyone possibly want to be excused from this class.

    "Uh, bathroom." He rushed, as a fellow minor, I saw right through his lies. The dirty blonde eight year-old had no intentions of using the restroom.

    Mrs. Candleburg rolled her eyes, at least I assume she did, and waved him off. "Be fast."

    He bolted, tearing through the door and disappearing through the hall. Why hadn't I thought of that?

"As I was saying, Tyler. What is the slope of a line..."

I tuned her out again, wondering how I could escape from class as well. It's not that I dislike any of the teachers here, it's just I don't know, I didn't want it to come from me. The only problem was I knew the answer, to every single problem she had put up on the board already. I don't know, I just feel like I've already made my impression as a certain person to what friends I have, and I feel like if I did this, they might treat me differently? It felt like a stupid reason to not answer, and I had already figured out if something felt stupid I had better keep my mouth shut.

She was staring at me again, so I shrugged. "I don't know."

The answer was one ninth. Somebody else raised their hand a few minutes after I had declared that and gave the wrong answer.

"Can I use the restroom?" I asked, raising my hand, I was sure she would say no but I honestly needed to get out of this room.

Mrs. Candleburg sighed, and flicked her fingers at the door. I blinked, surprised, then took my chance before she could change her mind. I found Chespin sitting on the floor in one of the hallways with his laptop and a few wires running out of it into his phone. He was typing furiously and mumbling under his breath.

    "What're you doing?" I asked, staring down at him.

    He glanced up, looking relived. "Tyler! Thank goodness please look at this and tell me I'm not going insane."

    He twisted his computer screen towards me and I soaked in some fancy visuals of a website, it looked familiar for some reason. I hate having to remember things, though, because it's frustrating.

    "Uh..." I started.

    Chespin pushed up his glasses. "Let me explain, you know that one explosion that destroyed part of the Lab last year? Particularity pertaining to the speed in which that section was rebuilt?"

    "I think-"

    "Well I bet you're wondering where they got the money for all that, for the resources and labor and stuff, right?" He asked, bouncing up and down where he sat.

    I had actually, but the little voice in my head was telling me to lie again. "Uh...well."

    He frowned. "Don't you lie to me, I help Mrs. Candleburg grade your homework Tyler. I know you're smarter than you want everyone else to think."

    I blinked, slightly panicky but mostly dumbstruck by his overwhelming intelligence. "Wait she let's you grade-"

    "I've taken her class three times now."

    "Oh."

    He roles his eyes at me. "Anyway, I've been looking at the Dragonfire PDF I've saved on here and I found the name of a company! It was written in the margins and slightly smudged but I figured it out."

    He pointed to the top right corner of the screen where there was as symbol next to the word Wellsfund. It was a dragon, in the shape of a dollar sign, breathing a small flame

    "That's just a coinci..." I paused, as I rendered where I had seen that before.

    It was on the cover of the Dragonfire pamphlet, except it looked less like a dollar sign and more like a dragon. Besides that they were nearly identical.

    "This a bank, Tyler, do you see what I'm getting at?" Chespin said eagerly.

    "That's where the Lab is getting all their money." I realized.

    Chespin grinned and held up his hand. I tenderly high fived the eight year-old, to amuse him of course. Definitely not because I was getting excited as well.

    "So if we do something and get them to stop funding the Lab, then Project Dragonfire will halt in it's tracks, whatever bad stuff was supposed to happen will cease to exist." Chespin puffed out his chest in pride.

    "You're a genius." I said, only slightly sarcastically.

    "I know." He agreed.

    "We have to tell Theo, or Will, we have to tell everyone! Hey Dylan!" Chespin waved excitedly at the older blonde rolling down our very hallway.

    "Aren't you guys supposed to be in class...?" He asked raised one eyebrow.

    "School doesn't matter right now." Chespin slammed his tiny fist on the ground. "We've figured out a way to figuratively burn the stump of the hydra that is figuratively Project Dragonfire."

    He looked surprised, I probably did too. "Oh, well do tell."

    "We just need to convince these guys to stop funding the Lab." Chespin showed his computer screen to Dylan, who leaned down to get a closer look.

    Dylan's face darkened. "I don't think you'll be able to convince the head of the company to pull out of funding the Lab very easily, in fact it might just be impossible."

    This was one of the few times I had seen Chespin truly confused. "Well, why not?"

    "That's my father's bank." Dylan sighed, starting to back away.

Chespin blinked. "That's a good thing, it means we don't need to hunt down an address, right?"

"But he's on the whole modified human thing, he's been to the Lab and he knows what he's doing and he certainly hasn't shown any restraint." Dylan rubbed his wrists thoughtfully.

Chespin faltered. "Oh, this might be a bit more difficult than I previously calculated."

Now I felt this strange to overbearing my comfort the two of them. "No sweat, if we can't shut it down peacefully, why don't we just sneak in and blow stuff up?"

"It's a bank." Both Dylan and Chespin said to me at the same time.

I shrugged. "So what? people break into those all the time."

Dylan snorted and started rolling away. "Go tell Mr. Wales we're going to break into a bank."

"Evil bank." I corrected. "Evil children murdering bank."

"You ever wonder if these sort of things will impact our morals as adults?" Chespin asked me, straightening his bow tie.

"Nope." I replied. "Hey Dylan, where exactly is this bank?"

He stopped, and twisted around to face me. "New York."

"Well I think it's settled then, we're going to New York." I crossed my arms defiantly.

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Gosh man I wish I had Tyler as a brother look how supportive he is

*coughs loudly*

I love writing this book have I told you that

Also, just thought I'd tell you we are exactly 2/3 chapter from some heavy Dylan tension you know what that means

Dylcie

K bye