They didn't ask to form teams.
They were assigned.
Kael barely had time to process the announcement before names were called, grouping them into sets of four. No explanation. No logic he could see. Just decisions made for them.
He ended up with three others—the girl he had fought earlier, a quiet boy who barely spoke, and someone Kael didn't recognize but didn't trust at all.
"Objective," Veyr said, his voice echoing through the shifting arena, "retrieve the core."
The ground beneath them trembled.
Then changed.
Walls rose where there had been none. Pathways split, twisted, rearranged themselves like something alive.
Kael exhaled slowly. "Stay close."
No one argued.
That surprised him.
At first, it worked.
They moved together, covering angles, calling out changes. The girl—Arin, he learned—was sharp and precise. The quiet boy, Lio, noticed details no one else did. Even the fourth—Drex—held his own in a fight.
For a moment, it almost felt like… teamwork.
Like something normal.
They fought through shifting corridors, avoided traps, adapted.
And somewhere along the way, Kael made a mistake.
He trusted it.
When they finally reached the core—a small, pulsing object resting on a raised platform—Kael felt something like relief.
"We did it," Lio said softly.
"Not yet," Arin replied.
Kael stepped forward, reaching for the core—
And pain exploded across his back.
He hit the ground hard, air knocked from his lungs.
"What—"
Drex stood behind him, hand still raised.
"I'm sorry," he said.
But there was no hesitation in his eyes.
No regret.
"Only one of us gets the rank."
The words didn't feel shocking.
Just… disappointing.
Arin moved instantly, attacking Drex without a word. Lio hesitated—but only for a second before joining her.
Kael forced himself up, chest tight.
Of course.
Of course this is how it ends.
The fight was chaotic.
Trust shattered into instinct. Coordination turned into survival.
Drex fought like someone who had already made peace with what he was doing. No doubt. No second thoughts.
That made him dangerous.
But not unstoppable.
Kael stepped in at the right moment—when Drex overcommitted, when his focus split between targets.
He didn't think.
Didn't hesitate.
He just moved.
The impact wasn't clean. The energy inside him surged again, unstable but strong, enough to tip the balance.
Drex fell.
Silence followed.
No one spoke.
No one looked at each other for long.
Because they all understood.
It wasn't personal.
It never was.
Kael picked up the core.
And for the first time—
Winning didn't feel like anything at all.
Later that day as kael was being treated for his wounds, he suddenly realised that there were no true friends in the world and he shouldn't be so naive to call people friends again.
Thinking back to what happened he knew that he would have probably done the same thing the boy did so he honestly didn't blame him at all.
Then he decided that this would be his first and last betrayal from anybody as he would not give them the chance to do so