CHAPTER 172: PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

Hermes found himself drifting away from the conversation in the main lounge of the Ninth Department.

His eyes blurred against the sharp glow of the projector screen, but his mind wasn’t there at all. It was somewhere else, far away from the Ninth Department’s luxurious lounge, somewhere past the sterile walls and velvet seats, past the careful arrangement of bottled waters on the table, past the endless murmur of numbers and projections.

It had been a month since that night in the cell tower with Raphael. And still, the words haunted him.

"The Thirteen Stripes believe you will cause the end of the world."

The idea lingered like a stain he couldn’t scrub away.

"Hermes?"

The voice pulled him back. Somner, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, a slight furrow on his brow.

His tone was softer than usual, almost careful. "You alright?"

Hermes blinked, straightened, and brushed it off with a shrug. "I was just thinking."

"Thinking about what?" Somner pressed.

"How I can get back in the public’s favor," Hermes replied.

His voice was even, but there was an edge beneath it.

Cam leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms with a smirk.

"Already happening," he said. "Your perception scores are climbing this past month thanks to your solo missions. Up by 17 percent with the lower class to middle class population. Slowly, but they’re climbing."

From the corner, Eris tapped a button on the remote, and the lounge’s wide screen flared to life. The opening notes of dramatic music rumbled through the speakers as the words The Golden Apple Presents: Hermes Potentia lit the screen.

Hermes tilted his head. "You made a trailer?"

"Not us," Eris corrected, her sharp eyes fixed on him. "The Golden Apple’s PR team. They thought it would help your image. Consider it... public relations material."

The trailer began.

A narrator’s voice carried over sweeping visuals of Village AD18, Elder Thales’ little shack, and the Rift in the area’s Danger Zone:

["He was just a boy from a numbered village... born in the shadow of the Danger Zones, where survival meant to eat or be eaten. From those brutal beginnings rose Hermes Potentia, whose unique ability to absorb the power of others gave him the tools to stand against the forces of destruction."]

The screen filled with stylized images of wilderness, burning huts, snarling beasts lurking at the edge of the village. Reenactors wielded pitchforks and torches to fight them back, only to be dramatically slaughtered with red paint splattering everywhere.

Hermes’ jaw tightened.

"Pause it."

Eris raised a brow but clicked the button. The screen froze on a shot of a young boy, dressed in rags, jumping in the fray and biting the CGI monsters like a rabid little wolf.

Obviously, this boy was meant to represent Hermes.

Too bad that the young actor’s wig lace was quite visible, and his eyes weren’t the same as Hermes’ pitch black ones.

"That’s not true." Hermes said, his voice sharper than he intended. "None of it. I didn’t know about my ability when I was young. Not like that."

Somner leaned back in his chair, glancing at him. "Then when did you find out?"

Hermes’ lips curled in a bitter half-smile. "When Somner kissed me in the cafeteria. That was the first time I realized I could take abilities from people."

He shook his head. "But before that? All I knew was... if I ate chicken, I grew feathers. If I ate a pig, I grew a snout. That’s it."

Eris leaned forward, her gaze steady, calm, like a surgeon before a cut.

"That isn’t marketable. The audience won’t understand. You have to think of it this way.... Facts are raw material. We shape them to make you shine. We pick which truths to show, which ones to bend, and which ones to leave out entirely. That’s survival in this landscape."

Hermes let out a low, humorless laugh. "So lying, then."

"Not lying," Eris corrected smoothly. "Curating."

His gut twisted at the word, but he didn’t push further. Instead, he exhaled through his nose and nodded at the screen. "Fine. Continue."

The video rolled on.

The narrator’s voice swelled with passion:

["From hardship came humility. Though he bore a gift unlike any other, Hermes chose to conceal his true power, fearing the attention it might draw. All he wanted was to be a hero, a symbol for villagers like him struggling to survive in the savage wilds of the Danger Zones."

]

Hermes gritted his teeth. Savage. Brutal. Dangerous. That wasn’t his village. AD18 wasn’t some blood-soaked frontier torn from the pages of a dystopian novel.

It was just... home.

A small town. Farmers, smiths, kids playing in the dirt roads, old folks telling stories by the fire. They weren’t savages. They weren’t trapped in the wilderness. They just happened to live near a Rift.

The image of his village distorted on the screen, twisted into something unrecognizable. A cheap trick. A caricature.

"Don’t," he muttered under his breath. "Don’t you dare turn them into monsters."

Somner shot him a glance, but Hermes stayed silent, fists curling in his lap.

The narrator pressed on.

["Yet even in silence, Hermes’ greatness could not remain hidden. The world saw his heart. The great names of the hero industry placed their faith in him. He proved himself a vital defender of humanity, time and time again."]

Clips rolled across the screen. Hermes training with Somner and the Cloud Nine Squad. Hermes trading blows with Ymir in the sparring pits, Magni standing watch nearby. Hermes pulling survivors out of rubble. Hermes, face streaked with sweat and dirt, standing tall in the glow of Riftlight. Hermes kneeling beside a cluster of dogs, Aphrodite at his side, sunlight warming their shoulders.

Hermes’ breath loosened, his body easing for the first time since the video began. This part was true. Maybe dramatized, maybe cut in the right places, but true.

He had worked for every inch of respect. He had bled for the trust of others.

Then the music shifted.

Softer, warmer.... one might even say ’romantic’.

The narrator’s voice grew tender:

["But beyond battles and burdens, Hermes Potentia wanted something more than victory. More than duty. He wanted nothing more... than to love and be loved. And he found that with his shining sun, Paragon."]

The screen filled with an image of Raphael. Paragon, standing with his cape lit gold, a smile bright enough to scorch the Earth.