Stella Star Arc

The Stella Star Arc adapts chapters 15 through 17 of volume 3 into episodes 10 through 12 of the first season, sitting between the Secret Police Arc and the Doggy Crisis Arc. With Operation Strix demanding Imperial Scholar status, the Forgers throw themselves at every rumored path to a Stella Star.

A rumor from Becky claims the MVP of the upcoming interclass dodgeball tournament earns a Stella. Loid doubts it, but Yor trains Anya anyway and teaches her a "killer move." On game day, Anya's telepathy reveals what drives Damian: matching his brother Demetrius as an Imperial Scholar so their father Donovan will finally look his way. Cecile Hall faces Wald Hall's Bill Watkins, a mountainous first-year whose throws mow down nearly the entire team. Damian sacrifices himself catching a ball meant for Anya, her Star Catch Arrow counterattack bounces harmlessly, and Wald Hall takes the match. Henry Henderson then reveals the MVP rumor was baseless, floats a Tonitrus Bolt for Bill's crude language, and briefly weighs rewarding Cecile Hall's teamwork until the children's bickering changes his mind.

Academics fare no better. Anya has failed every test, partly because she copied answers from the mind of a classmate who was equally wrong, and Loid worries that altering her records would only draw suspicion. Community service at a hospital collapses into chaos until Anya hears the panicked thoughts of a boy named Ken who has fallen into the rehabilitation pool. She dives in despite being unable to swim, Loid rescues them both, and the heroics earn Anya her first Stella Star. Her triumph sours at school, where classmates whisper that the rescue was staged, though Damian unexpectedly shuts the gossip down. When Becky mentions the presents she gets from her parents, and that Damian keeps a dog of his own, Anya requests one as her reward. Elsewhere, dealers prepare to sell a batch of former Project Apple test animals to student revolutionaries as bomb carriers; among them is a large white dog who glimpses the three Forgers in a vision. A disguised Handler, meanwhile, warns Twilight that suspicious money is moving through businesses tied to Donovan Desmond.

Anya's first Stella Star marks the first concrete progress in Operation Strix, even if it comes from a poolside rescue rather than her studies. The arc also debuts Bill Watkins and Wald Hall, exposes the ache driving Damian's ambition, and sets the next arc in motion: the dog Anya asked for is already staring down a future as a terrorist's bomb.