"I know," Dorian replied mentally.
Voss straightened his back. Took a step back. Returned to the center of the room.
"You have two hours," he announced. "To familiarize yourselves. To get to know each other. To begin building that trust I spoke of."
He looked at each of them again.
"Then, your first test."
"What kind of test?" Hugo asked.
His voice didn't waver. There was no doubt in it. Only genuine curiosity—a strategist's desire to know the rules of the game before playing it.
Voss looked at him.
And for the first time, something resembling a smile touched his lips.
It wasn't a reassuring smile. It was the smile of a predator observing young prey, knowing something they didn't.
"The only one that matters," he replied. "A survival test."
He added nothing more.
He left the room with the same calm with which he'd entered. The door closed behind him with a definitive hiss.
The silence he left behind was heavier than any noise.
Three seconds passed.
Five.
Ten.
Kael was the first to break it.
"Well," he said.
His voice tried to sound unconcerned. It failed spectacularly.
"This is gonna be fun."
No one laughed.
Hugo slowly shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the door through which Voss had disappeared. Nayu had returned to her position of silent evaluation, but something in her expression had shifted. She was more cautious now. More alert.
Dorian, for his part, kept staring at the spot where Voss had stood.
His green eyes, inscrutable, processed every word the Commander had said. Every tone. Every pause. Every implication.
"Veridia," he thought.
Survival test.
Team.
He didn't smile. Didn't frown. Showed no emotion whatsoever.
He simply waited.
Because, in the end, waiting was all he could do.
For now.
---
Three Hours Later
Commander Voss's Office
The office was Spartan. A desk of dark metal, unadorned. A chair. Screens on the walls displaying feeds from the base's various rooms. No personal items, no photographs, nothing that might reveal anything about the man who occupied it.
Voss stood before one of the screens, observing the room where the young people still remained. The image showed the four in silence, each in their own world, not interacting.
"Sir," an assistant said from the entrance. "From my observations, instead of progressing, I believe they've regressed."
Voss didn't turn. His gray eyes remained fixed on the screen.
"Don't worry," he replied. "They're still young."
He paused.
"Besides," his voice grew reflective, "this is their first mission together. They're only just getting to know each other."
On the screen, Kael said something that made Hugo roll his eyes. Nayu ignored them completely. Dorian simply observed, as always.
"Though no one wants to take the first step," Voss added.
He could almost hear each of their thoughts from here. The barriers they erected. The distrust they carried. The egos they protected.
"Give them time," he murmured, more to himself than to his assistant. "Time and circumstances will do their work."
---
Inside the Room
The screen on the wall lit up.
Everyone's gaze snapped to it instantly. It was a trained reflex, an automatic response to any change in the environment.
Voss's face appeared on the screen.
No one was surprised. There was no need to be. On Helion, communications were like this: direct, efficient, without preamble.
"Someone will take you to choose your weapons," Voss said.
The screen went dark.
The door opened.
A man entered.
He was tall, thin, with an expression that might have been carved from stone. His gaze was cold, devoid of any emotion that could be interpreted as friendliness or even basic courtesy. He wore the standard combat instructor uniform: practical, unadorned, designed for function rather than form.
He didn't say "hello." He didn't say "nice to meet you." He offered none of the empty phrases people used to fill the space between strangers.
Only one word:
"Follow me."
And he left.
Kael and Hugo looked at each other. Kael shrugged one shoulder. Hugo rolled his eyes. But both stood up.
Nayu was already standing before the door had finished opening. Her transition from seated to upright had been so fluid it almost seemed she'd never been sitting at all.
Dorian rose with his usual calm. No hurry. No delay. Simply... in his own time.
They stepped into the hallway.
The man led them in silence. His steps were precise, rhythmic, as if each footfall were measured to cover exactly the same distance as the last. He didn't look back to check if they were following. He simply assumed they would.
They reached the elevator.
Ding.
They entered.
Ding.
The doors closed.
The elevator descended.
No one spoke during the ride. The silence was dense but not uncomfortable. It was the silence of people still deciding what to think of each other, still building the mental map of who they were dealing with.
Ding.
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
Floor three.
The man exited first. The four followed.
And then they saw it.
Floor three was... immense.
It wasn't a floor in the conventional sense. There were no offices, no hallways, no enclosed rooms. It was an open space stretching as far as the eye could see, a horizontal plane interrupted only by structural columns and raised platforms.
But it wasn't the size that impressed.
It was what it contained.
Combat arenas.
Multiple fighting rings demarcated by luminous lines on the floor, each designed for a different type of training. Some were energy circles that flickered with a faint blue glow. Others were elevated platforms, suspended in the air by gravitational fields. There were obstacle zones, open zones, zones simulating hostile terrain.
And surrounding all of them, scattered throughout the space, were weapons.
Not on shelves. Not in display cases. Simply... arranged on metal stands, hung on walls, embedded in test blocks. As if someone had sown the floor with death and let it grow.
Kael whistled softly.
"Whoa," he murmured.
Hugo was already scanning the space with his quick eyes, cataloging, evaluating, deciding.
Nayu observed in silence, but there was something in her posture—a barely perceptible tension—that suggested she was already calculating distances, trajectories, combinations.
Dorian...
Dorian smiled.
It wasn't a wide smile. It wasn't a smile that anyone who didn't know him could even notice. It was just a slight movement at the corners of his lips, a minimal change in his facial expression.
But to anyone who had seen Dorian before, that micro-expression said everything.
"This..." Dorian murmured, almost to himself. "Is going to be fun."
The man who had guided them there stopped at the edge of the training area. He turned to face them for the first time since they'd left the room.
"You have one hour," he said. "Choose your weapons. Get to know them. If you don't know how to use something, don't choose it. The battlefield is no place for learning."
He paused.
"When you're done, head out to the yard. Your test will begin there."
And without another word, he turned and walked away, disappearing down a side corridor.
Kael was the first to move. His boots echoed against the metal floor as he advanced toward a cluster of polearms leaning against a column.
"I call dibs on the spear zone!" he announced with a grin.
"Idiot," Hugo muttered, but there was affection in his voice. He headed toward another section, where the weapons were more varied: energy pistols, assault rifles, launchers, melee weapons, gauntlets, claws, among others.
Nayu was already far away, moving with silent fluidity. She made for an area where the weapons were smaller, more precise. Cylinders. Combat knives. Darts. Stealth exploration equipment.
Dorian stood still a moment longer.
He surveyed the field of combat arenas. The luminous lines demarcating each space. The elevated platforms. The obstacle zones.
Then, slowly, he began to walk.
Not toward any specific area. Simply... walked. Letting his feet carry him, letting his eyes roam over the options. He wasn't looking for the most powerful weapon, nor the most advanced, nor the most lethal in theory.
He was looking for something that felt right.
Something that fit.
Because in his hands—though not at the level of "this is already unfair," like his older brother—anything could be a weapon.
But some weapons... some weapons were extensions of the soul.
And today, he needed to find his.