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As the students absorbed Liora's words, silence rippling through the group like a tide, I stood still—thinking.
[This is your chance. The stage is set. Time to play with the heroes.]
Yes, siding with Liora would give me immediate leverage. Aligning with her meant basking in the pull of inherited influence. But the weak always needed a voice, and in this room of twenty-four, at least half likely lacked overwhelming combat abilities. That imbalance was my side. Backing the strong would make me another shadow orbiting Steele. Backing the others could make me indispensable.
And now, with every eye on her, I had the perfect moment to redirect attention onto me.
"I wholeheartedly disagree," I said, voice calm but carrying, measured enough to pierce through the arguments. "In fact, I'd go as far as to say deciding through strength and powers is the dumbest way to go about this scenario."
Darien looked ready to bark back, but his courage faltered when he glanced at Liora. She would speak for him. No one else here could match her weight—not directly.
Liora tilted her head slightly, regarding me with those sharp grey eyes. "Then what are you saying? That a lottery would be better? Letting surefire potential rot without reason?"
I leaned forward just enough to meet her gaze head-on. "I'd watch your tongue," I replied evenly. "I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth."
From the edges of my vision, I caught the ripple—students staring in shock. Not at my logic, but at my tone. I'd just corrected the daughter of Andrei Steele.
Even Liora blinked, taken aback. Her silence stretched a second too long before she answered. "…It's only natural for that to be the implication. But if it isn't, I'm willing to hear your reasoning."
"My reasoning is simple," I said, letting the room lean into my words. "Your methods would prioritize raw combat power. But heroics aren't simply about combat. Tankers and destroyers have their place, but you're forgetting scouts and supports—rarer, more sought-after, and more essential than another fighter who can swing their fists. Prioritizing only combat is shortsighted."
Liora opened her mouth, but I raised my voice just slightly—cutting her off before she could regain momentum. "And maybe," I said, slow and deliberate, "the lack of supports and scouts in the world is because of people like you—people who stripped talented individuals of a deserved place because they weren't 'strong enough.'"
"Yeah! He's right!" one student shouted, voice cracking but carrying. Another followed quickly.
"I may not be built for combat, but I've got a support ability that matters. What—are we just going to ignore that?"
Momentum swelled.
"This is discrimination, plain and simple!" someone else called out. "Even the weakest tanker could crush a talented scout in a spar. That doesn't mean the scout isn't worth more in a real mission."
The room was stirring now, voices overlapping, people emboldened by mine.
I waited, then drove the knife in further. "This isn't just favoritism—it's structural bias. Class of power shouldn't dictate opportunity. Even the weakest combatant can brute-force their way past someone with real value in the field."
[Beautiful. You've flipped the balance. Every support and scout in the room now owes you. Even the neutral ones are reconsidering their stance.]
Darien, visibly rattled by the rising tide, stepped in before the noise escalated into chaos. He raised his hands. "Okay, okay! I can see your point…" He glanced at me, hesitant. "…uh, what's your name again?"
I reached out my hand, calm and deliberate.
"Vincent. Vincent Daintly."
Darien hesitated, then slowly took my hand, his grip weak, eyes wide in disbelief. "D-Daintly?" he stammered, as though the name itself was too heavy to hold.
I nodded once, confidently.
"It makes so much sense now!" a boy blurted suddenly—the same one I'd asked earlier about Liora's identity. His excitement bubbled over, his words sharper for it. "That's why you didn't know who Liora was—because you're a Daintly!"
And just like that, the air in the room shifted.
The name carried weight. Nuclear weight.
Malcolm Daintly. SSS-class hero. A legendary technopath.
About 20 years ago, he'd been at the height of his influence. America had paraded him into China during a global convention, flexing its muscle before the world. China hadn't appreciated the gesture, enraged. They threatened war. Nuclear war.
Malcolm hadn't blinked. He hadn't left quickly, either—he'd taken his time. When questioned afterward, he'd said, "They threatened me and my country with nuclear strikes. Honestly, I didn't feel threatened. If anything, the situation was comedic. Did China really think I'd allow their nuclear systems to function while I was in their country?"
The fallout wasn't just political. It was existential.
Over a hundred nations felt the need to issue joint declarations afterward: if Malcolm Daintly ever crossed their borders, they would treat it as a declaration of war from the United States.
Malcolm wasn't feared simply because of what his powers could do—though they could disable armies, black out nations, or collapse economies overnight. He was feared because he was unknowable. Untouchable. He could erase his presence from digital existence with the same casual disdain that others might delete an email.
And he had. Malcolm Daintly, for all his notoriety, lived as a hermit. Rumors painted him as a recluse who loathed technology, irony sharpening the legend. Beyond the battlefield, almost nothing concrete was known about his private life, and it was no surprise when he disappeared, bringing his short but legendary career to an end.
[Which is exactly why the name is perfect for you.]
Eyes around the room locked onto me with fresh intensity—some with awe, others with suspicion.
[They'll hesitate to test you now, the same way they hesitate to test the Steele girl. But remember—the wrong person might wonder why a supposed Daintly came crawling into Sentinel's admissions like anyone else.]
I didn't flinch. I held the name with the same calm I'd spoken it, letting the silence stretch.
"Now that I think about it… wasn't he also the first one to finish his exams?" one student added, his tone carrying the awe of someone putting pieces together too late.
"Yeah, I did notice he finished early…" another muttered, regret curling at the edge of their words.
"I've heard Malcolm Daintly was capable of processing information like nobody else. He was… a genius," a third whispered, the last word hanging like it might summon the man himself.
Liora cut through the growing chatter with precision. "I think we see your point," she said, her grey eyes sweeping the room. Of the twenty-four, roughly half still leaned toward brute force, but the others—supports, scouts, and simply weaker individuals with physically oriented powers—were already drifting toward me. The divide was stark now, two factions staring across the circle.
Liora's voice carried, calm and deliberate. "Still, the issue remains—how do we select who has earned the right to a seat?"
"Well," I said, letting my voice settle with confidence, "about that—I think you're the best person to decide, Liora. You're likely the most talented person here, given your lineage. There's no one better in this room to evaluate talent. And you're clearly someone no ordinary student would dare to challenge. I understand combatants are important, but I trust you'll make the right choices. There are scouts and supports here whose usefulness far outweighs another watered-down strongman with second-rate strength."
For a moment, something flickered across her face.
"Huh?" The sound was low, almost swallowed, likely heard only by me.
[She's probably confused. You undermined her, then handed her the crown back willingly. To her, it looks contradictory.]
I smiled faintly, unbothered by her confusion. "I don't know much about you, Liora. But I know of Andrei. If anyone here can do this fairly, while maintaining order—it's you."
The silence stretched. She studied me longer this time, as though peeling away layers.
"…Well. Okay." She finally turned, addressing the room. "Then it's obvious Darien and I have earned our seats." Her words were firm, daring anyone to disagree. None did. She looked back to me, her expression sharp, calculating. "Here's what we'll do. I'll assess everyone's powers myself to decide which fifteen students move on. I'll start with you, so everyone can understand how the process will work. Vincent."
I didn't let the smile fade. "Ah. That may be a little difficult. As a technopath—like my father—I thrive in environments saturated with technology. But as you can imagine, my range is nowhere near his… at least, not yet. And since we've all been stripped of electronics…" I gestured around the bare room, the absence of tech a stage in itself. "…demonstrating my ability here would be… challenging."
"So, you can't use your powers?" Liora asked.
I shook my head once. Her expression dipped—disappointment flickering across her face. Then I added, deliberately: "No. I can use them. While the rooms beside us seem as empty as this one, and the exam hall before it, there's a camera in the hallway I can sense and tune into. Although…" I let the pause hang. "…there's no way for me to prove that to you."
Anticlimax. A visible drop in energy. Every student in the circle looked at me, unimpressed.
I couldn't give them proof.
So I gave them something else.
"I can tell you this," I said evenly. "Outside this room, Titus is slouched back on a reclining office chair. His eyes are closed."
Confusion rippled through the circle.
"What?" one student said, his face twisting.
"Why would that matter?" another asked.
I leaned forward slightly, letting my voice carry. "Because it's strange. We came here to be examined, yet our examiner has barely acknowledged us. No proctoring. No surveillance equipment in either of the rooms we've entered. And yet—six cheaters were caught by the end of the exam. Not only caught, but publicly condemned. That begs the question: how did Titus know?"
Darien's eyes widened as the logic snapped into place. He spoke before anyone else could. "That means he has… some kind of scouting ability."
I nodded once, calm, collected. "Exactly. Given he hasn't moved an inch the entire time I've been tapped into that camera feed, I'd say it's something like astral projection. It explains why he seemed asleep earlier, and it explains how he monitored every action without us noticing. It also explains how we're being examined now."
[Shameless. You can't see through any camera, and you don't even know if Titus is behind this door. But no one else can disprove you, either. Which makes your lie indistinguishable from truth.]
Maybe. But certainty wasn't the point. Certainty didn't matter. What mattered was perception.
With that one display—even if invisible—I had shown myself as resourceful, clever, and useful. Titus had demanded three traits: integrity, competence, foresight. I'd already presented myself as a savior for the noncombatants, I'd brought order to the chaos of the room, and now I'd demonstrated intellect through my supposed "power."
[Don't flatter yourself.]
Before I could answer, Liora cut in. "That… makes sense. Especially since we don't know if fighting in this room would carry punishment, given we're clearly being monitored. And after what happened in the last exam—"
I interrupted. "No. I think Titus meant it when he said violence was allowed. If it wasn't, anyone could just walk up to a chair right now and sit down. Using violence only to be punished afterward would break the rules of his own design. It wouldn't make sense."
Darien nodded quickly. "Yeah, I agree with Vincent. It'd be dumb otherwise."
Liora considered that, then finally nodded herself. She turned back to the room, her posture once again commanding. "I think Vincent Daintly has shown why he deserves a seat. Does anyone disagree?"
Her emphasis on the last name was deliberate—a subtle reinforcement of my claim.
And silence was what answered her.
Satisfied, I moved to her side, shoulder-to-shoulder with Liora and Darien's growing bravado. From there, Liora began testing each student in turn, one by one. The chosen seats filled, the group solidifying around her judgment.
The rejects were pitiful—scouts with abilities no better than a camera phone, tanks with no muscle mass, supports who could barely stabilize themselves. By the time the fifteenth seat was chosen, no one dared challenge the group of three at its core: Darien Carver, Liora Steele, and me—Vincent Daintly. Especially not when violence had been sanctioned as a solution.
"Alright then," Liora said, her tone decisive. "It's time. Let's take our seats."
The fifteen of us did so without hesitation, the circle sealing shut.
And—no surprise—fifteen seconds later, the door swung open, and Titus walked back into the room, a chair visible right behind him.
In the end, it wasn't a baseless assumption. I was reasonably confident Sentinel wouldn't let his students get seriously hurt—he had to be nearby. My theory about Titus's powers had weight too, especially given his work as a negotiator. People believed me because it made sense. The most dangerous lies are the ones built on truth.