Here's my new story, hope you all enjoy I'll plug my Discord and let you all get to enjoying for now
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Frank drove slow—deliberately slow. Probably a little power play. I didn't bite. Just stared out the window, watching the city slide by in smudged reflections and slanted light.
"Tsk. You're creepy, kid, you know that?" Luca muttered, tapping away at a battered tablet in his lap.
"Says the guy who handcuffed a minor and threw them in the backseat of an SUV." My voice came flat, reflexive. I didn't even glance at him.
Luca didn't fire back. Silence. He tapped a few more times, then the tablet buzzed. A call. Midas.
The third ring hit, and then: a voice. Filtered, digitized, crawling through distortion.
"We got the case, sir," Luca said, angling the camera down toward the briefcase at his feet. "Frank already confirmed match specs—weight, serial number, all of it."
"Good. Good," came Midas's voice, pleased but clipped. "Everything hasn't gone according to plan, but we got the case. That's the most important part." Then, shifting gears: "Where's our little friend?"
The camera tilted toward me. I didn't move—just leaned against the window, face half in shadow, bored. On the screen, Midas's side remained blank. Not even a silhouette. Just darkness.
I turned my eyes back to the road.
"Giving me the cold shoulder, aren't you now, Jackal?" he said, waiting. Fishing.
I said nothing.
"I've done some more digging on you," Midas continued. "Turned over a few interesting stones. Even found something on Gael. The deeper I go, the more I wonder if I know anything at all. Your life's a rabbit hole."
That name—Gael—struck like a reflex. My gaze flicked back to the tablet. The heat behind my eyes cooled instantly into focus.
"You are paying attention now," Midas said, pleased with himself. "Curious kid in the middle of the city, alone. And that look in your eyes… not many people give me that look. It's rare."
He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't right either.
I spoke. Finally.
"Why am I still here?"
Midas ignored it. "No… no, that's not the question, is it? The question is: why are you here alone? Or maybe…" He paused, letting the moment stretch. "Are you Adrian? Or are you Gael?"
There it was. The line drawn. A baited hook tossed just far enough to look accidental.
Of course, he did his research. He was good—good enough to skim the surface of things most people didn't even know existed. My life, the one I'd buried under layers of carefully cultivated silence, was being pried open. But even now, with his money, his power, and his reach…
This was as far as he could go.
A grin—small, crooked—lifted one corner of my mouth. Not because he'd beaten me. Because he hadn't.
"I don't know, Midas. Am I Adrian? Am I Gael?" I tilted my head, voice light. "I haven't even decided myself. But either way—whichever one I am—does it really matter?"
A long pause on his end. Then, abrupt pivot.
"Fine. It seems you won't answer any of my questions." His tone shifted—more business now. More knife than scalpel. "I'll refer to you as Adrian, since my research leads me to believe that's who you are. I want to hire you."
"... To do what?" I asked, careful to keep my voice neutral, curious rather than defiant.
Midas chuckled, a sound I imagined curling like smoke through whatever lavish room he was in. "You're a contractor and you don't understand that? It's simple. I want to hire you to do what I ask." His tone dripped condescension.
"I'm not interested," I replied flatly.
"You don't have a choice," Midas said, and though his words were calm, they carried the weight of a guillotine blade. "You may hold some leverage over me tactically, yes. But in the end, I hold something far heavier over you: power. I could ruin your life with the snap of my fingers. And you know this—if you ever release your little blackmail, your leverage dies with it. The moment you pull the trigger, you're finished. So, Adrian, I'll make my gracious offer once again: will you work for me?"
[He's setting the stage: your advantage is conditional, as long as he doesn't kill you, he can toy with you; his power is absolute.]
"What do you want?" I asked aloud, steadying my voice. Even though I was staring at a blank screen, I could feel his smile blooming on the other side.
"I want you to go to Sentinel Academy," Midas said, casual, as though he were asking me to fetch him a drink.
My silence wasn't passive. It was deliberate, buying time, forcing him to fill it. But inwardly, confusion rippled through me. Sentinel Academy? A hero academy?
"Why?" I pressed, voice low.
"You'll go because I told you to," Midas responded, patient, almost amused. "Like I said—it's not as if you have much choice."
"Sentinel Academy would never accept me as a student," I bit back, sharpening my tone to cover the unease gnawing at me. "I don't meet the standards for a school like that."
"Hahaha!" Midas' laughter exploded, genuine. "Don't be a fool. When you're powerful enough, standards don't matter. The world is corrupt by nature. Idiots buy their way into universities. Failures climb ladders because of their last names. Half the people in power don't deserve the air they breathe—they inherited it, bribed for it, or whored themselves to it. You think Sentinel is any different?" His voice hardened, the warmth gone. "It may posture at purity, with all its government backing, but it's still within my reach. And within yours—though you'll have to do some of the work yourself."
I stayed quiet. I had no good response that didn't feed him more leverage.
"It's not a bad deal for you either," Midas continued smoothly. "Sentinel is one of the greatest hero academies in the world. And given you survived a tragic attempt on your life…" His pause stretched, deliberate. "I'd say your danger sense is remarkable. At least when compared to similar abilities. You could carve yourself a place as a high-ranking scout. You might even thrive."
My jaw clenched, but my voice came calm. "What will I need to do?"
Midas seemed pleased by my question, like a predator who'd just lured its prey a step deeper into the trap. "I can get you a ladder," he said smoothly, "but you'll still have to climb it. Still—" I could almost hear the smirk stretching across his face—"with a special recommendation on your application, you'll be treated like a VIP. And don't even try to trace the recommendations. They're anonymous. Simply a sign that you've been backed."
His words carried a smug finality, as though the weight of his influence was enough to silence all objections.
"...You've clearly read into some of my past," I said, voice steady, though each word was deliberate. "Passing an interview might sound simple, but for someone like me, it isn't, especially when the ones conducting it are superpowered individuals digging for any trace that I might be a problem. Even with 'backing,' I don't think I'd make the cut. My danger sense isn't exact—it's ambiguous. Passing any kind of examination would still be difficult for me." It wasn't a lie. Super academies didn't conduct interviews—they conducted interrogations. Especially Sentinel.
[And given you don't have powers, it's practically—well, no, I guess it's not impossible. Your usual lying, scheming, and calculated charm won't work against examiners who can smell deception, sense emotional shifts, or tear into thoughts with psionic probes, but there is one way.]
Midas gave a short laugh, not dismissive, but sharpened with confidence. "You think Sentinel really cares if you have a shady background? They might write you off as a problem child, but they will still take you. Better a problem child than a villain. Did you know Sentinel employs more therapists and psychological experts than any institution in the state? There's a reason for that. The academy doesn't only train heroes—it prevents villainy. Prevention at the root."
He leaned into the point, savoring it. "They will dig, Adrian, but it won't matter what they find. They aren't the police. They don't just take the best or the brightest or the morally upright. They take the unstable. The dangerous. As long as your abilities—real or perceived—carry potential for good or evil, you'll be considered. Especially with a recommendation."
His certainty pressed against me like a vice.
Big surprise, who would've thought hero institutions aren't just about training—they're about control. They dressed themselves as academies of hope, but what they really were… was containment.
It made sense. Everyone wanted to be a hero, but very few ever achieved that dream. The threats had to be managed. A fallback. But more importantly, it was a net. Keep them tied to civilian life. Keep them bound.
Still, the part that curdled in my gut wasn't the coursework. It was the surveillance.
Becoming a student at Sentinel didn't just mean study. It meant exposure. Handing over every detail of my life. Midas had been right about the therapists, but what he conveniently left out was what I knew better than most: by law, academies like Sentinel were obligated to share their files with federal agencies. Every interview, every psychological profile, every shred of data they gathered was funneled into FBI servers, then mirrored by Homeland, Justice, even private counter-terrorism contractors.
They logged associations. Stress markers. Predicted breaking points. They didn't just train you—they scored you, assigning a number to how close you were to going rogue. It was the same methodology they used to monitor violent offenders in the civilian world.
[A cage. Painted white and gold, branded with noble ideals—but still a cage. Walk in, and you walk into their system. Every move is watched. Every lie weighed. Everything recorded.]
And yet…
[But you don't have a choice but to join now.]
The truth burned.
"Alright," I said finally. There was no point in arguing anymore. The word left my lips not as surrender, but as acknowledgment of inevitability.
"Good." Midas' satisfaction dripped through the line. "I expect you to be placed in the higher echelon courses. Don't disappoint me." A pause, then sharp command: "Luca, you know what to do."
The call cut off. The silence that followed was heavier than the conversation itself.
That left me, along with Frank and Luca, both watching me, both waiting.
"Where will we be dropping you off?" Frank asked carefully.
"Anywhere in the city," I replied, my voice measured, clipped.
"Hey, kid, don't underestimate Sentinel," Luca warned. His tone wasn't casual—more like someone remembering old scars. "I went there. Sure, maybe ninety percent of the student body are nobodies or fools, but once you hit the upper echelon? They're not to be toyed with. Don't put a target on your back."
"I feel like keeping targets off my back is my specialty," I replied simply.
Luca shook his head. "You're wrong. I can already tell you're reckless. You probably rely on that power of yours for everything. You take risks because you think you can always see them—see the danger before it's real. That kind of mindset won't save you at Sentinel. In a school like that, arguably the best for heroes, your power's usefulness will hit walls you can't anticipate. There are students who can negate abilities outright. Hypnotists who'll make a fool of you without you even realizing. Speedsters so fast your danger sense won't trigger until after you're on the floor. Manipulators who can twist your emotions into weapons. Others who can mask intent so perfectly that you won't sense anything at all. And if you're very unlucky…" He paused, letting it sink in. "…you'll run into a precog."
[He's listing threats like he's lived them. These aren't abstract dangers; they're memories.]
"Are precogs really that highly regarded?" I asked, more intrigued than dismissive. "I've heard most are unreliable. Half of them can't control what they see, and the visions they do get are fragmentary, inconsistent, sometimes even useless."
"That's mostly true," Luca admitted, but his voice shifted—more respect there. "But precognition… precognition is one of the most interesting powers in existence. It's as close as we've seen to an 'all-powerful' ability. Even flawed, it edges toward godlike. And, of course, it's rare."
[Which explains the government's obsession. Precogs rewrite the rules of risk. And since the hero academies are just extensions of state power, naturally they'll worship at the same altar.]
"Now that I think about it," I said slowly, "the greatest precog in recent history was scouted and contracted directly by the government after graduation."
"Yeah. Mirah. Or as they call her—the Oracle." Luca's tone was casual, but his eyes narrowed slightly as though weighing memories. "She's already saved countless lives. They say whenever she leads a mission, casualties drop to zero. It's gotten so far that saying 'Mirah said it' is being considered a legitimate argument in court."
"What do you think about her?" I asked, watching him closely.
"...Not much," Luca said at last, though his voice carried more thought than the words themselves. "But there's a reason she's considered an SSS-tier hero. She's someone who has prevented wars. There's a reason we're talking about her now."
He said "not much," but his silence after told me otherwise. The kind of silence that comes from carrying more than he's willing to share.
[See? His hesitation is louder than his words. He knows something, or maybe he's lived too close to whatever she really is. Don't press yet. But do remember it. File it for later.]
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This is the end of the introductory chapters. I feel like I could've done better, but maybe that's only natural. I feel like the following chapters do get better, but I'd love to hear everyone's opinions so far.