The Legendary Junkmaster

Jason shared a panicked look with Syssie as Sentinel pointed directly at her. However, she seemed to have no idea how he knew of her existence either.

"Don't look so scared, you two. Friday, show yourself." Sentinel glanced to Jason's right side as a hologram appeared of an elderly man with a hunched back.

"Nice to meet you." The older man in the hologram bowed deeply. "I'm Friday."

Jason yelped as he jumped backwards! 'What the heck?' 

"Don't mind him too much. Friday's been with me for a long time. He's a big part of my strength." Sentinel sounded exhausted as he spoke.

Jason eyed Friday warily as Syssie approached him to inspect the differences between him and herself. Jason was unsure what to make of it. After all, Friday seemed to be a creation of Sentinel's that moved around in the real world on its own. Whereas Syssie was only projecting the appearance of her avatar within Jason's mind and optic nerves. 'Wait… How can Sentinel see her then? That can't be possible right?'

Jason's line of sight moved to the Guardian as he tried to figure out what secrets he was hiding. After all, Jason did not want to find out when it was too late that Sentinel had some way of unmasking him as the Black Arrow.

"You don't have to look so aggressive. You're safe here. Nobody will touch you as long as you are my apprentice." Sentinel seemed to pause for a moment. "Right, you looked like you had some misgivings about taking my place earlier. It's not that limiting. You can still have your own business and do what you want. You'll just have to contribute a bit to the advancement of Bridgend and to protect the Lord's territories when necessary."

Jason could tell that Sentinel was attempting to sound friendly, but the synthetic voice that undertoned his human one made him sound creepy. 'That doesn't sound like a bad deal, but I'd rather know what he was talking about when it came to my Power.'

Sentinel saw the frown on Jason's face and sighed. He had a distinct feeling that he had more work to do than he initially thought.

"Did you know I was mislabelled as having Super Intelligence as well?" Sentinel began as he decided to start from the beginning. "I ended up trapped as a researcher for years. Forced to work on projects that didn't match my abilities."

Sentinel shook his head as he remembered those days. Jason got the feeling that the Guardian regretted all of that wasted time.

"Then, one day, a project was placed in front of me. It was to research a piece of technology that came from somewhere in the Old World. Can you imagine my surprise when it spoke to me when I touched it? I thought I was going crazy!" Sentinel chuckled as he glanced at Friday. "The voice gently suggested to me what was wrong with it and why it wasn't working. Which led to me fixing it, of course. Friday here is the result of that."

"The brass at the time got overly excited. I was labelled as a genius. For about five minutes until I couldn't explain to them how I'd done it." Sentinel showed a bitter smile. "It was then that they realised something was wrong, so they started to study me. Over time they realised that they had made a mistake when they labelled my Power."

"To give you an example, you should know that there are different types of pyromancer, right?" When Sentinel looked at Jason for confirmation, the latter shook his head to show that he did not know what the Guardian was talking about. After heaving a sigh, Sentinel continued his explanation. "Well, you can have a pyromancer who can create fire from nothing. At the same time, you might get one who can only control fire, not create it."

Jason raised an eyebrow at that piece of information. He had always thought that those with the same Power were just lucky if their's was more potent than another person. He had no idea that there was actually subtle differences between some of them. Heck, those people probably did not know this either!

"To put it simply, I'm like the latter in that example. I can control technology that other people have made, and those things 'speak' to me. Over time I developed my Power to be able to rearrange them into weapons and other useful things." Sentinel looked disappointed in himself as he continued to speak. "However, I can't permanently create something new. I can't make a weapon and give it to someone else. The moment I stop influencing the item, it turns into scrap."

'Oh, that's what happened with those weapons he created earlier.' Jason's eyes moved to the scrap on the floor. 'If he has this kind of ability, then it's no wonder he stands at the top. The whole world is practically his weapon and shield now.'

"So, since I'm like the second type of pyromancer, I figured that there had to be someone like the first type. Or at least, others like me who specialised in different areas. Think of Super Intelligence as the highest branch on a tree. Then my Power, Technomancy, is a branch on the same tree, just a bit closer to the roots. I think that should give you a pretty good picture of what I'm getting at."

Jason nodded as he digested the information. It did paint a pretty good picture, and it made sense to him. However, from Sentinel's description, it was as if he were saying there should be a whole of branches that were still stronger than his. They just might not have been discovered because they had misunderstood what their Power was. 

"So, you're saying I don't have Super Intelligence? Then what do I have?" Jason's curiosity had peaked. Maybe, with Sentinel's help, he could unlock the secrets of his mind safely!

"I don't know…." Sentinel paused for a bit before grinning broadly. "But I'm willing to find out if you are!"