Alpha. The word echoed in the silent, empty house, in the silent, stunned chambers of my mind. Alpha. It was impossible. A mistake. A cruel joke.
More text scrolled into view, a cold, mechanical readout that made the breath catch in my throat.
[SYSTEM BOOT-UP SEQUENCE COMPLETE.]
[WELCOME, ARK GREYSTONE.]
[YOUR ASSASSIN SYSTEM IS NOW ONLINE.]
A chilling calm washed over me. The frantic anxiety was gone, suppressed beneath a layer of icy data. I moved with a new, unnerving purpose. The walk to Valerium Hero Academy was different. The world was sharper, louder, more defined. I could hear whispers from a block away, track the flight path of a distant insect. The System provided a silent, analytical commentary.
[SUBJECT: MALE, MID-40S. HEART RATE ELEVATED. STRESS LEVEL: HIGH.]
The Academy grounds were a spectacle of controlled chaos. Chromed towers, statues of heroes, and hundreds of teenagers showcasing their powers. A hydrokinetic weaving water serpents in the air. A boy whose skin hardened to rough granite. The air crackled with energy.
And there they were. Isis and Jaxon.
Jaxon saw me first. "Ark! Over here!" He grinned, snapping his fingers. A small, beautiful sparrow of fire zipped through the air, circling my head before dissipating into warmth. Pyrokinesis. His signature greeting.
[PYROKINETIC MANIFESTATION. ENERGY SIGNATURE: ALPHA-CLASS. COMBAT POTENTIAL: HIGH. SUGGESTED COUNTERMEASURES: ENVIRONMENTAL MANIPULATION, RAPID DISORIENTATION.]
"Show-off," Isis said, smiling. But her eyes held a different power. I felt the familiar, subtle pressure against my mind. Her telepathy, gently probing.
But this time, it met a wall.
Her smile faltered. A tiny frown. The System flickered.
[PSIONIC INTRUSION DETECTED. ORIGIN: ISIS MCQUEEN. THREAT LEVEL: NEGLIGIBLE. INITIATING MENTAL SHIELDING... COMPLETE.]
The pressure vanished. Isis's eyes widened a fraction. She had felt it. Something had changed.
"Hey, guys," I said, my voice steady, devoid of its usual tremor.
"You seem... different today, Ark," Isis said, her head tilted, her gaze analytical.
"Just focused," I replied. The lie was smooth. The System offered no judgment on deception.
The written exam was a joke. I finished in twenty minutes, the System cross-referencing every question with its vast database. Effortless.
Then, the physical evaluation. The massive gymnasium hummed with energy and anxiety. The Biometric Scan. My moment of dread, now transformed into a secret triumph. We stood in a long, snaking line, watching the holographic displays light up with each student's destiny.
"Leo Granger!" a proctor called. Brody's crony stepped up. The scan flashed. SOUND WAVE AMPLIFICATION. CORE RANK: BETA. He looked relieved, joining Brody who gave a condescending nod.
"Markus Sloane!" The other crony. BONE DENSITY MANIPULATION. CORE RANK: BETA. Another predictable result.
Then, a boy I vaguely recognized from my advanced physics class shuffled forward. He was tall and lanky, with glasses that were slightly too big for his face and a nervous habit of pushing them up his nose. Tom Poland. A fellow nerd, though we'd never spoken. He looked like he was about to be sick.
"Tom Poland!"
He stepped onto the platform, flinching as the scanning beams passed over him. The hologram flickered, then displayed a bizarre, almost comical image: a stylized, rubbery human form stretching like taffy. ELASTOKINESIS. CORE RANK: BETA. A few snickers came from the line. Tom's face flushed, but as he stepped down, he seemed to gather his courage. He took a deep breath, and his right arm suddenly elongated, snaking three extra feet to pluck a dropped pen from the floor and hand it to a startled proctor before retracting with a soft sproing.
[SUBJECT: TOM POLAND. ELASTOKINESIS. COMBAT POTENTIAL: MODERATE. UTILITY: HIGH. SUGGESTED COUNTERMEASURES: BLADE-BASED WEAPONRY, EXTREME TEMPERATURES.]
Interesting. Not just a joke power.
The line progressed. Flashes of light, bursts of elemental energy. Mostly Betas. Then, a hush fell over a section of the crowd. A girl was walking towards the platform, not waiting for her name to be called. She moved with an unnerving, silent grace that parted the students around her like a ship cutting through water.
She was stunning, with hair the colour of polished silver that fell in a straight, sleek sheet to her waist. Her eyes were a pale, frosty grey, and they held no warmth, only a detached, analytical coldness. She wore a simple, practical training outfit, but strapped to her back was a sheathed longsword, its hilt worn from use. She carried it as if it were a part of her.
"Athena Knight," a senior proctor said, his voice noticeably more respectful. "By recommendation."
She didn't acknowledge him. She simply stepped onto the platform. The scanners hummed, their light intensifying as they passed over her. The hologram that bloomed above her was not an element or a complex pattern, but a stark, minimalist symbol: a single, perfectly rendered, massively dense-looking Greek pillar. It pulsed with a dull, grey light. SUPERHUMAN PHYSIOLOGY: DENSITY & STRENGTH. CORE RANK: ALPHA. POTENTIAL: S-CLASS.
There were no whispers, only awed silence. She was in a league of her own. As she stepped off the platform, her cold eyes scanned the room once, missing nothing, before she moved to stand alone, a statue of living ice and steel.
[SUBJECT: ATHENA KNIGHT. PHYSICAL THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME. CORE SIGNATURE SUGGESTS UNUSUAL BIOLOGICAL DENSITY. DO NOT ENGAGE IN CLOSE COMBAT.]
The message was clear, even to the System. She was dangerous.
"Jaxon Maximus!"
Jaxon strode onto the platform, all confidence. The machines whirred. The hologram above him flared into a roaring, animated inferno. PYROKINESIS. CORE RANK: ALPHA. POTENTIAL: S-CLASS. The crowd murmured appreciatively. He grinned, hopping off with a swagger.
"Isis McQueen!"
Isis moved with her ethereal grace. The scanners activated, and her hologram was a beautiful, complex pattern of interlocking gears and shimmering light, representing the intricate workings of a powerful mind. TELEPATHY/TELEKINESIS. CORE RANK: ALPHA. POTENTIAL: S-CLASS. A wave of impressed whispers followed her.
Then, the proctor's voice called, flat and uninterested. "Ark Greystone."
A few snickers came from the direction of Brody and his crew. I ignored them. I walked onto the platform, my heart not hammering, but beating a slow, steady rhythm. The cold, scanning beams passed over me. The holographic screen above my head flickered, then remained stubbornly dark.
The snickers turned into open laughter. Brody snorted. "Told you. Null."
But then, the screen glitched. Static crackled. Instead of a roaring element or a psychic pattern, a single, stark symbol appeared: a stylized, geometric skull, rendered in glowing cyan. It was cold, menacing, and utterly alien.
Text scrawled beside it, the letters sharp and digital.
CORE DESIGNATION: [CLASSIFIED]. CORE RANK: [DATA EXPUNGED].
Silence. Absolute, dead silence. The proctors leaned forward, confused. The laughter had died in Brody's throat. I saw Isis's hand fly to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. Jaxon's confident grin had vanished, replaced by utter bewilderment. From the corner of my eye, I saw the silver-haired girl, Athena Knight, turn her head. Her frosty grey eyes narrowed, focusing on me with an intensity I could feel like a physical weight.
The System's text glowed in my vision, a private message for my eyes only.
[DECOY PROFILE ACTIVATED. TRUE BIOMETRICS: CONCEALED.]
[WELCOME TO THE GAME, ASSASSIN.]