The lecture on Mythics identity and relations was relatively well packed; the lecturer was a working Mythic called Jack Order, also known as Ruler. He was in his usual costume which consisted of a set of armour with blue highlights, a helmet fashioned into a crown, with a crown and scroll insignia also on his chest. He gave the impression of a dad with an almost permanent grin on his face, large, broad shoulders, and stubble. His mud brown eyes showed laughter lines which was an intentional aspect as aura and legacies slow down ageing unless you let it.

I distinctly remember seeing his poster on a few walls of some of the rooms in a couple of the orphanages I’d been in.

He was currently attempting to work out how to use the big screen. He looked slightly comical in the chair, which was slightly too small for him, squinting at the computer. Oliver had stopped Alex from helping after the first minute as he still had a couple of minutes before he had to start. Alex’s wincing from the pain increased more as it went on. After the third time, the screen had come down and then back up. I saw Alex's eyes glow slightly, and the screen was on, revealing a picture presentation.

Mr Order took off his glasses in triumph, “Ah, I knew I’d get it eventually.” He turned to face the audience, “Well, welcome. It’s great to see the next generation of protectors of humanity and the kingdoms. I’m here to teach you the other side of being Mythic. While killing Shades does make up a large part of our job, the, for lack of a better term, political aspect is just as important, some might even say more important. How the general public views us can have a massive effect on how easy our job can be.”

I had the distinct feeling I recognised his voice from somewhere, but I couldn’t place it. I’d probably seen or heard him on the news at some point.

He changed the slide to show a picture of his posters, action figures and other memorabilia. “While a lot of you probably can’t see the value of this sort of stuff outside of the obvious capitalist aspect, there is more to it than just money and funding. Think about it. These things are predominantly bought for children who, during a Shade situation, are the main source of negative emotion.”

The next slide was a cartoon drawing of a child crying with a Beowolf nearby. A purple cloud around the child was attracting the monster. The slide after was the same situation, but the child had a Mythic doll. The cloud around the child was far smaller, therefore not alerting the Shade.

“In situations like these, the amount of comfort a toy can give is extremely valuable. In some cases, the parasocial aspect can even change a member of the public's viewpoint. Instead of thinking that thing’s going to murder me and alerting the Shade to their whereabouts, they might think, I wonder which Mythic is going to save me. Of course, this can backfire in some respects, dumb bravery can kill, but the pros outweigh the cons.”

He then showed a slide of different Mythics with labels pointing out different aspects of their costume, including his own.

“As you can see on the board, I’d like to point out some key aspects of costume design, more specifically public costume design, as some Mythics have alternative, more practical designs when doing less public missions. Bright colours are common in designs to be more visible, as the public being aware you are there is often more important than any stealth advantage against Shades that darker colours may give you. There are some exceptions to this as sometimes a black motif gives a ‘rule of cool’ that appeals to a teen demographic, but for the most part, bright, broad, appealing colours are the best.”

He motioned towards his emblem on his chest, “In regard to emblems, simplicity is king if you excuse the pun. You want it so a child could draw the symbol without difficulty, or at the very least a bad drawing still be recognisable. Themes are always a great idea, such as Miss Fortune’s ladybug theme or my royalty theme, typically your theme is based on your legacy as it gives people a general idea for what you can do. Ladybugs represent luck, and my powerset is making rules, so I’m a Ruler.” He paused for the groans. “I always love revealing why I picked my theme. Obviously, themes aren’t ironclad but it helps if your theme does fit, my friend Icecold had a costume with red and orange colour design, as they apparently had an ‘autumnal complexion’. Confused everyone when they joined in fights, as they expected her to have fire powers, not ice.”

The next slide was illustrations of other aspects of public relations. “Moving on to actual actions to promote your images, these include clean up, such as clearing debris from roads, or just cleaning up rubbish, helping the authorities, mostly fire and hospital services and guard duty during events. These help make the public aware you exist and help with the other aspects as well. In later lessons, you will be sent on these sorts of public relation missions, plus one lucky team is being sent to be a part of the guard for Light Industries unveiling of their new technology.”

“In terms of what you personally need to do for your public relations, luckily, as students of Tatum, we have a lot of resources to help, including designers, marketers and researchers for things you can do to help out in the community and while a lot of what I have talked about sounds extremely corporate, it does make all our lives easier as even things such as charity work decrease the amount of negative emotions which reduces the risk of any Shade breaches.”

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He reached the end of the slides.

“That's the end of the lecture,” he said, putting his glasses back on to read a letter in front of him. But before you go, could Thomas Walker stay behind?”

***

The lecture theatre slowly emptied. The rest of my team said they’d meet me after I’d done whatever I was being held back for in the common room. I waited at the front until everyone else had left.

“Ah, Mr Walker, it's nice seeing you,” he said with a friendly if slightly pained smile. I was friends with your mother. It's a terrible shame what happened to her. I was in another kingdom when it happened, though I wish I could have helped.”

It clicked in my head where I recognised him from: “Wait, you're the one my mum always complained about with your food crimes! We went to your house for tea, and she said something about someone saying that for someone with such a rule-based power, you followed none when cooking.”

He said sheepishly, “Ah yeah, it was probably about the cheese milk. But ignoring my culinary history, the reason you stayed back was because… [NO LEAVING BEFORE FINISHING YOUR TEST AND NO CHEATING.]”

His eyes flashed as the rules were set.

“I'm sorry. Dr. Jacq gave me this test you need to complete, and they're paranoid that you’d cheat by grabbing your textbook, so he asked me to take measures against it.”

He handed me the test. As I thought about maybe escaping and grabbing my textbook, which I wouldn’t have thought about if it hadn’t been mentioned, I felt a great pressure as the room seemed to contract.

“Yes, even thinking about breaking the rules triggers a lesser version of the punishment.”

“Got it, break the contract, make the room contract.”

His eyes reacted with annoyance, “Ah, I knew I forgot something, banter during fighting helps people calm down. That was a good one, I’ll have to use it myself. Anyway, get on with your test.”

I sat down at one of the seats and took out my pens. I had actually been revising for this test since I got the ominous warning in the textbook. I was sort of expecting it soonish after Jacq reminded me of it.

The test mostly consisted of naming the different attributes of the different types of Shades, what to do if I encountered certain special ones and some open-ended general situation questions. A couple of them were mostly trick questions, scenarios where I’d be in over my head and anything but running and getting out of the situation would be pointless heroism and somewhere a particular order of events impacted how successful I’d be.

The test seemed to be trying to reinforce the idea of the lesser of two evils. The questions seemed to lean towards self-survival rather than being the hero but dying, in the textbook it had raised the idea that saving one village at the cost of your life typically meant that more may be destroyed later due to you dying and not being able to help. It was a morbid point of view especially when contrasted with the lecture I just had.

There were a few questions with which I had a slight issue. I was going to ask Edward about them, but apparently, that counted as cheating in the eyes of the rules. I filled them in as best I could.

The test ended up taking me only around twenty minutes, which was faster than I was used to, but that was before my legacy. Passively speeding up was definitely useful for things like this. I handed in the paper after looking over my answers a couple of times to make sure none of them had any obvious mistakes. After I was pleased that I had answered to the best of my ability, I gave them to Mr. Order to be marked.

He was reading a book of some kind when he looked up. “That was quick? Well, if you think you’re done I’ll get this to Dr Jacq, I don’t know when you’ll get the mark back if ever, they occasionally just give out tests to force people to think about things that have no true right answer. They also could just use that as an excuse to not mark, you never know; they're annoying like that.”

He paused for a second contemplatively, “It is good to see that you’re alright. I would have gotten you if I thought that would have been good for you. I was just never in one place long enough; it probably wouldn’t have been much different. But I’m glad you're alright; your mum would have been proud.”

***

I met the rest of the team in the common room. Mathew and Oliver were reading, and Alex was messing with some kind of tech. They looked up as I came in.

Mathew said flatly, “You were a while, was it the Jacq test?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad,” I replied, relatively confident in how it went.

“What did you think of the lecture?” Oliver asked.

Alex piped in, “It was awful. Projectors are not that difficult to use. I was cringing at every wrong button he pressed. It was impressive that he was able to change the slides successfully without accidentally turning the thing off.”

Oliver sighed, “Alex, we know how you feel about those who are tech inept. Not everyone is as tech proficient as you. I was mostly asking Tom about the actual lecture.”

“Oh,” Alex answered again, “The lecture part was alright.”

I agreed, “Yeah, the lecture part was good. Who do you think will get the guarding gig?”

“Eh, probably us ‘cause of nepotism; my dad is head of the company.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that, but wouldn’t they make a point of not picking us because of those allegations?”

“Nope, the only reason Light industries are letting ‘one of the teams’ have the chance to guard is because I’m here, he's not a subtle man. He might let two teams at a push, but it's mostly just going to be security theatre, as it's practically impossible to steal. We even tested it against Alex.”

Alex gleefully imputed, “Yup, it took them about five models before I was unable to take control of the ship in under ten minutes.”

Mathew replied, “Neat, so we get an easy gig then.”