Chapter 77 | The Overture is Complete

Grant’s voice rose slightly. "Field Three, badge 138 is getting active again."

The central monitor switched feeds.

Lukas Belmont appeared on screen, his dark hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, amber eyes sharp despite the obvious fatigue. He was sprinting down a street, Spectral Reach extended from his palm like a pale amber limb reaching forward.

A girl with translucent pink skin stood frozen in an alley, two one-pointers bearing down on her position.

Lukas grabbed a brick without breaking stride and whipped it at the nearest robot. The impact knocked the machine sideways.

"Nineteen points," Grant called out. "He’s been farming assists for the past eight minutes."

Vincent leaned in, squinting at the monitor. "Wait, that’s the Unmarked kid! The one who just manifested!"

"Recently manifested," Nadia corrected. "Two weeks ago according to his file update."

"Two weeks and he’s already deploying with that level of control?" Vincent’s volume increased. "Look at the construct stability! That should take months to develop!"

Cole’s eyes hadn’t left the screen. "Show me his earlier footage."

Nadia pulled up a compilation. Lukas destroying a three-pointer by jamming rebar into its joint. Lukas assisting a green-haired applicant with plant manipulation by providing tactical direction. Lukas setting up kills for other students instead of taking solo engagements.

"He’s not trying to maximize his individual score," Cole said. "He’s optimizing for overall battlefield efficiency."

"Which means he’s thinking three moves ahead," Caelum added. "Interesting."

On screen, Lukas was helping the slime girl eliminate the remaining robots. Spectral Reach drove a piece of rebar through pink gelatin and into a robot’s processor. The construct moved with surgical precision.

Isabelle pushed off the wall, moving closer to the monitors. Her eyes tracked Lukas’s movements with visible interest. "Look at his smile. He’s enjoying this."

The camera caught Lukas’s face as he turned away from the slime girl. Sweat ran down his temple but his expression was open, genuine, the look of someone who had found something they were good at and was surprised by how good it felt.

"That’s passion," Isabelle continued. "Real passion, not performance. You can’t fake that quality of presence."

Nadia looked up from her console. "Ms. Crane, he’s seventeen and you’re being inappropriate."

"I’m being observational." Isabelle’s smile was all teeth.

Vincent was already pulling up Lukas’s file on a secondary screen. "Parents were Vanguard and Reina Belmont. Mid-tier California Heroes, both killed in action nine years ago. He’s been living with Diane Fitzgerald since."

"Diane Fitzgerald," Caelum repeated thoughtfully. "Now that is an interesting detail."

Cole glanced at him. "You know her?"

"I know of her. She runs one of the better talent agencies in California and has a reputation for identifying upside that the official metrics miss." Caelum set his tea down. "If she’s been training him, even informally, that explains some of the tactical intelligence we’re seeing."

On the monitor, Lukas was already moving toward another engagement. A green-haired boy was trapped behind a vehicle, three one-pointers closing in. Lukas covered the distance fast, grabbed a stop sign with Spectral Reach, and used it like a melee weapon.

The impact destroyed the first robot.

ONE POINT

"Twenty," Grant said. "He just passed the minimum threshold."

Vincent was practically vibrating. "And he did it through teamwork! Look at how he’s bringing the other applicant into the engagement instead of soloing it! THAT’S HERO COMMUNICATIONS IN ACTION!"

The green-haired boy made vines erupt from the ground, entangling a robot’s treads. Lukas destroyed it while it was immobilized.

ONE POINT

"Twenty-one points," Nadia murmured. "Above average with eight minutes remaining."

Garrison’s expression hadn’t changed. "He’s smart. Recognizes his limitations and compensates through force multiplication."

"His physical stats are low for his classification," Cole noted. "Rare-tier Force Manipulation should have better output than what he’s showing."

"Late manifestation," Caelum said. "His Core is underdeveloped. What he’s doing with two weeks of active use is remarkable, not deficient."

Arthur Vance’s voice emerged from the shadows, quiet but carrying weight that made everyone in the room pause. "What are your thoughts on the boy, Caelum?"

Caelum didn’t turn. "I think he’s exactly the kind of student Halloran was designed for."

"Because of his Aspect?" Arthur asked.

"Despite it." Caelum’s smile was genuine now. "He manifested at seventeen after nine years of negative diagnostics. The easy choice is taking what he has and pursuing something safer than Halloran. He chose this instead. That tells me something about character."

Isabelle made a pleased sound. "He’s not even tracking his own score. He’s reading the field like it’s a tactical map."

"Because someone taught him to," Cole said. "The question is how much of this is training and how much is capability."

"We’ll find out when the zero-pointer drops," Caelum said mildly.

Nadia looked up sharply. "You’re releasing it early?"

"I’m releasing it on schedule. Which happens to be now." Caelum’s hand moved toward a large red button set apart from the other controls, labeled simply with a zero.

Arthur’s voice stopped him. "Wait."

Caelum’s hand paused mid-reach. "Arthur?"

The skeletal man stepped forward into the light, and several faculty members visibly reacted to his appearance. The true form of Radiant was something most of them had never seen.

Arthur’s hollow eyes moved across the monitors, taking in Sloane’s feral grin, the one-winged applicant’s aerial strikes, Camille’s rivet barrages, Zara helping injured students, Lukas coordinating assists with a smile despite obvious exhaustion.

"This examination," Arthur said slowly, "is not about villain points. It’s not about who destroyed the most robots or who scored highest on a metric sheet."

He moved closer to the central monitor, his shadow falling across Caelum’s chair.

"Being a Hero is about what you do when your back is against the wall and you have to make a choice. Do you save yourself or do you save the person next to you? Do you chase glory or do you chase the outcome that matters?"

His hand gestured toward the screens, encompassing all the fields at once.

"What they choose in the next five minutes will show us who the true Heroes are."

The observation deck was completely silent.

Caelum looked up at Arthur, his amber eyes unreadable. "Well said."

He pressed the button.

Alarms screamed across all five simulation fields simultaneously.

On every monitor, the same thing happened.

The ground shook.

Buildings trembled.

And something massive began moving toward the center of each field, something that made the three-pointers look like toys.

Nadia’s hands flew across her console. "Zero-pointer deployed across all fields. Estimated time to center plaza, ninety seconds."

Vincent’s face had gone pale. "You’re dropping all five at once?"

"The students wanted Halloran," Caelum said calmly, lifting his tea again. "Let’s see if they can handle what that actually means."

On the monitors, panic spread through the applicant pools like wildfire.

Some turned and ran immediately.

Others froze, staring at the approaching threat.

And a few, a very small few, started moving toward it instead of away.

Caelum’s smile widened. "Excellent. We have our baseline. We’ve seen the planners, the predators, the powerhouses, and the performers."

His eyes glittered with familiar, sadistic cheerfulness.

"The overture is complete. Shall we introduce the crescendo?"