Amongst the crowd, pressed by others on all sides, I stood with Clodias on my left and Caesia on my right. There was a stage at the very front seated on the lawn of the Governor’s Palace. A disc of pure gold with a podium on it lifted up into the air, though I could hear no sound of a antigravity generator or hover repulsors. In a flicker a man appeared, with proud features and a laurel wreath of white metallic Jovium crowning him. This was Governor Theseas Claudion, ruler of the entire Apollonian system, chosen servant of the Regent, head of House Claudion- the most powerful Imperator family in the solar system.

How had he transported himself? There was none of the laser-lightning of a teleportation unit and I hadn’t even picked up a blur of motion if he had traveled under the power of his own superlative speed.

Clodias rolled his eyes. “Theatrics. Silver teleportation doesn’t have that far a radius, he was probably waiting under the stage.”

Orbia kicked him.

“Shush!” She told Clodias. “Don’t be disrespectful.”

“He’s not a Gold.” I said with disappointment as I observed his Silver and violet eyes. Surely the ruler of a solar system should be the best of the best. What were the other Golds doing if they weren’t masters of interplanetary realms?

“Every Golden Imperator is required to remain in the Sol Invictus system. Right under Augustas’s thumb.” Clodias said with a touch of bitterness.

I glanced at him. There was an unusual amount of emotion in his voice at this statement. It almost seemed like he was taking it personally. Perhaps he too wished to be Gold and was despairing the thought of being locked in Sol Invictus?

A girl walked up on the stage and leapt neatly to the golden disc the podium and the Governor were floating on. She stood beside him, a step behind, and clasped her hands together. She seemed very young, perhaps fifteen at the most, and was a Copper Imperator.

“Who is that? Claudion’s daughter?” I asked Clodias.

He shook his head. “That’s his thirty-second wife. I’ve seen her at House events, but I’ve never spoken to her. She seems shy.

I grimaced. “Seems a little young for him, don’t you think?”

“He probably won’t touch her until she’s older, just wanted the alliance of another marriage.” Clodias said.

“That’s a lot of alliances.” I commented.

“Indeed. It’s for reproductive reasons too though.” He said.

“What man needs thirty-two women to have a heir?” I said.

“If a man wishes for a legacy, even with fertility treatment or the abomination of cloning, he must sow his seed far and wide.” Clodias said. “And I think he wants far more than an heir. He wants an army of little descendants. I’m surprised we don’t have any of his kids here today actually.”

The Governor’s motions caught my attention.

I could read the Governor’s lips, but I couldn’t hear him, he was not using any kind of microphone or speakers. Welcome, candidates, he had said. I realized that we were expected to use our enhanced hearing and I dimmed the muffling sounds of rain and wind I simulated in my mind. I could hear every person here’s heartbeat and the rush of blood in their veins, every breath, every cough, every shifting of their feet. I narrowed my senses straight to the Governor, blocking out everything else as best I could.

“You are gathered here today because you are the best and brightest of the Imperator subspecies of Apollo system. Whether you are the scions of ancient Houses and elder bloodlines or young prodigies that have broken out of the chains of mediocrity and complacency, you have achieved Bronze through being the greatest of those around you. You have fought and trained and bled while others ruined their Foundations with hedonistic diversions and moral corruptions and wasted their wealth and opportunities on meaningless goals and worthless endeavors. You are superior beings who exemplify the dignity and majesty of our Path. All of you will go on to do great things. However, the Solar Guard needs more than the best. It needs the truly exceptional. The perfect, the infallible, the invincible, the incomparable. Over a thousand of you have gathered, all worthy chosen of the Skyfather, but there is space only for three hundred souls. Today, your bodies, minds and wills will be tested to the point of breaking through excruciating scrutiny. No weakness or flaw will be left uncovered, no ability or prowess will be unexamined.

Remember candidates, to reach the pinnacle of our Path’s glory, you must be smarter, stronger, faster, and, most importantly, crueler than the young men and women besides you. I wish you luck and eternal glory.” The Governor said.

Then Governor Theseas Claudion disappeared in a flicker, one instant there and the next where he had been there was only thin, empty air. His young wife stepped off the platform and walked off back towards the palace.

“So is he just under the stage right now?” I asked Clodias.

“Only for a half second. There are tunnels under the Palace grounds. He probably flickered underneath the stage and then had the range enough to go into a tunnel. I don’t think Theseas’s pride would let him remain hiding under the stage until we all left.” He replied.

I looked over the milling crowd, all of us left aimless after the speech was concluded but no further instructions were given, and I felt trepidation.

“What’s wrong?” Clodias asked.

“Everyone is so strong here. Given all the resources that could possibly be possessed. I think I have a shot, no, I know I have a shot, but I’m not sure about my friends that I brought with me.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll have a substantial advantage that few here possess.” Clodias said confidently.

“How so?” I asked.

“They’re baseline Imperators.” Clodias said. “Virtually nobody here is like them.”

“How did you know that about my friends?” I said.

“I can smell it on them.” Clodias said nonchalantly.

I tilted my head marginally. “You… smelled their DNA.”

“Yes.” He said, smiling brightly.

“And again, why does that make them have a leg up on the rest of everyone else?” I asked.

“They’re baseline Imperators.” He said again, as if that explained everything and as if I was being a bit dense at not grasping his reasoning.

It certainly did not explain everything for me, and I didn’t think I was being dense or stupid. How was being more average, less enhanced, less potent and less inhuman going to give them an advantage in the testing of candidates?

“I’m sorry, I’m confused. Why would that improve their scores or give them leniency?” I said.

Clodias eyed me and shook his head with a small smile on his face. “Oh boy. You’re going to want to hide your ignorance a bit better around the others. They’re not as easygoing or laidback as I am. They’re going to want to be top of the class at the Scholarium and if you show weakness, they will tear you apart like dogs fighting over a juicy steak.”

“I get it.” I said, annoyed both at him and my own ignorance.

“Right, so, ordinary Imperators already struggle to have children even with the best fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization regimens as is the will of the Skyfather when he created our subspecies, in fact, the harder one tries to subvert the laws of nature and the edicts of Olympas, the more pushback you get. Engineered children have it worse.” He said

“So how are there so many children at the same time that you can have classes filled with people?” I asked.

“On a galactic scale there’s a lot of us, and we tend to find successful pregnancy spikes at the same time so that generations may be formed. The Scholarium might have six to nine successive annual hauls and then have the recruitment pool dry up for centuries or decades. Good thing we live a long time. Anyways, back to your friends. Ordinary Imperators have low fertility but significantly altered or severely augmented offspring are entirely sterile. The curse of Heaven’s Peak on us rightly views the most dramatically warped as unfit to pollute the rest of the geneline. It's a spectrum, of course, I will likely be able to have children someday, but it will be harder than normal. The Scholarium has a favoritism for unaltered candidates because they don’t want to incentivize the end of House lines and promising families by those households’ greed and lust for vicarious glory through their hybrid or mutated children.” Clodias said.

“I see.” I said, absorbing the information.

“To the Scholarium, extraordinary heroic superhumans aren’t worth the end of dynasties and the creation of power vacuums as Houses fall.” Clodias added.

“Alright, got it.” I said. A thought occurred to me. “Why did you only include my friends as being baseline? I don’t come from an Iulian House or one of the major Apollonian families.”

Clodias raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps not, if you say so, but you’re clearly not a natural creation. Someone’s mucked about in your genome. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t Red Haloed based on what I’m smelling on you.”

“What’s-“ Before I could get to ask the other boy what it meant to be Red Haloed, the group of roughly a thousand candidates started moving as a group and Clodias slipped ahead. People pushed at my back, and I started walking forward as well towards wherever we were going.