Thirty students. That’s how many Leo counted as the classroom filled, one by one. It didn’t take a genius to know the number wasn’t arbitrary. The Confederation didn’t do random. Everything here was deliberate. Grouping by combat potential? Psychological compatibility? Threat level? He didn’t know or care much, either.

  He’d arrived early, as always, taking a seat in the back corner where he could keep his eyes on the door and his back to the wall. Two others drifted in shortly after. Both were quiet and clearly trying to assess the room without looking like they were. It was the look of kids who’d been trained to survive, not succeed.

  Leo understood that look all too well.

  For a few minutes, the silence sat comfortably. The kind of silence Leo could appreciate. Then, of course, it broke.

  Jean and Grant stormed in like they were entering a summer camp orientation. Loud and relaxed. Like they’d never felt the snap of a shock collar or seen the inside of a government transport van.

  Leo’s jaw clenched as Grant’s voice rang out.

  “Hey! Why didn’t you wait for us?” Grant plopped down beside him without grace. “Everyone knows it’s better to show up in groups so people don’t think they can pick on you.”

  Leo didn’t bother responding. Just kept his eyes forward, shoulders tense.

  “This isn’t a prison yard, Grant,” Jean muttered, sliding into the desk on his other side with a shake of her head.

  Could’ve fooled me, Leo thought darkly.

  The Academy wasn’t the gilded promise the orientation brochures made it out to be. For the children of elite pro-heroes and decorated veterans, sure, it might’ve been a fast-track to glory. But for people like Leo? Unknowns. Orphans. Government reclamations with dangerous Meta-Gene readings and no political value? It was just another cage.

  The Confederation didn’t let power go unaccounted for. You couldn’t leave. You couldn’t fail because if you did, you didn’t go home.

  You vanished.

  Leo’s thoughts turned sharp and narrow, spiraling toward the places he tried not to look at for too long. Cold rooms. Red lights. Questions that never stopped. Tests that made his body feel like it was tearing itself apart.

  He gripped the underside of the desk until his knuckles went white. Get strong, he told himself. Or get erased.

  Then—clap.

  One sharp sound, like the crack of a rifle.

  Leo’s head snapped up. Years of instinct, of reprogrammed reflexes, jolted him alert before his conscious mind caught up.

  A woman stood at the front of the room, but not just any woman.

  She was breathtaking in the way a thunderstorm was breathtaking; beautiful, terrifying, and indifferent to the lives beneath her.

  She wore a second-skin combat suit with military seals at the shoulders—dark graphite fabric reinforced at the joints and lined with filament nodes for power-channeling. Her figure was tall and wiry, built like a blade more than a person.

  Silver hair fell past her waist like liquid mercury, each step causing it to sway with disorienting grace. Her face was precision-carved with angles over softness and symmetry over warmth. And her eyes... Pale blue and gleaming with something cold, locked on them like a predator scanning livestock.

  For a heartbeat, Leo felt something pull at him. Not attraction but something deeper. Primal. A bone-deep awareness that this woman could end him in less than a second and probably wouldn’t even blink while doing it.

  Then she spoke.

  “ALRIGHT, MAGGOTS!” Her voice hit like a shockwave. “YOU HAVE EXACTLY TEN MINUTES TO GET YOUR ASSES OUT ON FIELD SEVEN. ANYONE LATE GETS A DEMERIT—AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, YOU’LL LEARN FAST.”

  Field Seven. Leo recognized the name from the student handbook: an open-combat zone with remote barriers, gravity adjusters, and surveillance nodes built into every wall. It is fully monitored, fully controlled, and fully weaponized. A testing ground built for only one thing: combat evaluation under pressure.

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  She scanned the room one last time.

  “DISMISSED.”

  She turned and strode out, her silver hair trailing like smoke behind her.

  The silence she left in her wake lasted only a moment before the room exploded into chaos. Students were scrambling to their feet, some laughing nervously, others already tugging on gear.

  Leo didn’t move yet. Better for the others to go first and let the crowd thin out first.

  He unzipped his plain duffel bag and pulled out the standard-issue compression suit. There were no tech mods or built-in weapons, just flexible black armor meant to support and provide a modicum of protection. It clung tightly to his thin frame as he changed quickly, his shoulders hunched with a silent expectation that someone was going to judge him.

  His body was lean but honed. Across his back, faint scars laced like a spider’s web. Small remnants of old trials and failures. His only gear was cloth wraps for his wrists and forearms. Torn, sun-bleached rags he managed to snag from the facility before he left.

  He looked at his reflection in the window as he tied them tight. The boy staring back at him had hollow cheeks, sharp eyes, and a barely contained tension.

  Not impressive, but alive, and that meant something.

  He slung the bag over his shoulder and finally stood. His heart beat steady now. He couldn't say he was calm but at least focused enough to try his best. He drew a long, shaky breath, gathered his courage, and started walking.

  The wind outside hit harder than Leo expected. Dry and sharp, like a warning. As he stepped out of the academy building, his eyes adjusted to the artificial daylight spilling down from the overhead dome's engineered sun. He supposed it was designed to mimic high noon since the real sky was hidden behind layers of defense and surveillance.

  Field Seven stretched out in front of him like a warzone. A broad, circular arena lined with high-tech pylons that hummed faintly, pulsing with bluish energy. The floor was a patchwork of terrain: synthetic sand, concrete slabs, and uneven terrain blocks that shifted slowly beneath the surface. Leo spotted embedded drone hubs along the perimeter. Observation units, maybe crowd control, if he had to guess.

  By the time he arrived, half the students had already gathered. The rest filtered in behind him in loose groups, murmuring nervously, trading anxious glances.

  Jean and Grant weren’t far behind. He heard Jean whistle low behind him.

  “Damn. They really rolled out the science fair, huh?”

  “This place looks like a gladiator pit.” Grant’s voice cracked a little. “Shouldn’t we be, like... signing a waiver?”

  Leo didn’t respond. He scanned the field, noting pressure-sensitive plates hidden in the floor, and cameras positioned at every cardinal point. Every step they took here would be watched and recorded.

  He didn’t need a briefing to know what this was. They were here to be measured.

  A blaring tone rang out across the field, cutting through the chatter like a blade. A large screen flickered to life near the instructor’s platform. The woman from before—He decided to call her cold eyes—stood once again at the center.

  “Attention, Initiates.” Her voice echoed through hidden speakers, louder and sharper than before. “Welcome to the First Round of Aptitude Evaluation. This will be a series of one-on-one combat trials. Performance will determine rank, access to advanced training, and class mobility.”

  Several students exchanged surprised looks at that last bit. Leo didn’t blink.

  “Each match will be timed. Victory conditions: incapacitate your opponent or force them to surrender. If neither occurs, the match is decided by judges. Losing is not penalized." She paused. "...But cowardice is. Refusal to fight will result in immediate expulsion from Ascension Academy and… other consequences.”

  A faint ripple of tension passed through the crowd.

  Leo didn’t need to guess what “other consequences” meant.

  “Your names will appear in pairs on the board. First round: warm-up matches. Limited power use permitted. No lethal force.” Her tone darkened. “Unless authorized.”

  The screen behind her shifted, flashing lines of text. The first pairing appeared in bold white letters.

  MATCH 1:

  Jean Rhodes vs. Carlos Wren

  Jean let out a low groan beside Leo. “Of course. First match. Because of course it’s me.” She stepped forward, rolling her shoulders. “Wish me luck.”

  Leo didn’t speak.

  She knew not to wait for it.

  The crowd gave her space as she walked into the field. Her braids swinging behind her like ropes. Her confident stride was all performance, Leo could see the tightness in her fingers, the quick glances to the terrain. She was scared and smart enough to hide it.

  Carlos Wren—her opponent—was already walking toward her from the other side of the arena. Stocky, older-looking than most of them, with a smirk that said he thought this was going to be easy.

  “Begin,” the instructor said flatly.

  The match exploded with movement.

  Leo watched intently, studying everything. Jean’s footwork, her stance, the strange shimmer of light that flickered around her fingers as she prepared to use her ability. She wasn’t bluffing about the nature part. Leo could feel the shift in the air, the rising scent of ozone and moss.

  Carlos charged.

  Jean didn’t flinch.

  The battle was fast and sloppy, but not without potential. Jean dodged low, slammed a palm to the ground, and a vine burst from the soil beneath Carlos, catching his leg and twisting it sharply. He screamed, stumbled, tried to retaliate with a shockwave from his fists, some kind of vibration-based power, but it missed. She circled him like a predator. Another flick of her wrist, and thorned roots coiled around his torso.

  He tapped out two minutes in.

  The arena reset instantly as the ground plates shifted. A few students clapped, but most were carefully sizing Jean up.

  Jean walked back to the group, breathing heavily, eyes wide.

  Grant gave her a thumbs-up. “You were amazing! Seriously! That was like watching a ninja druid or something!”

  She shot him a look. “Please never say that again.”

  Leo wasn't looking at her. He knew his turn was coming soon, and he needed every bit of concentration he could muster.

  A few more matches passed before the screen changed again.

  MATCH 4:

  Leo Caulder vs. Nico Varen

  Leo inhaled.

  Time to get his ass kicked.