Chapter 80: Friendly Fire

The Private Training Hall in the West Wing cost a small fortune to rent. It was a reinforced concrete bunker designed for heavy-impact squad tactics, lined with mana-dampening wards to prevent accidental structural collapse.

Vane stood by the heavy iron door, his arms crossed. He looked at his team.

Valerica stood in the center, adjusting her black gloves. She looked like a queen waiting for a duel.

Ashe was pacing near the wall, vibrating with impatient energy. She looked like a tiger in a cage.

Isole was standing perfectly still, her mismatched eyes tracing invisible geometric lines in the air. She looked like she was solving an equation that didn’t exist yet.

’On paper,’ Vane thought, ’this is the strongest squad in the history of the First Year. Four Elites. Four Authorities. We should be untouchable.’

He pulled the lever on the wall.

The floor in the center of the arena groaned and split open. A massive lift rose from the darkness, carrying a Siege Golem.

This wasn’t a hologram. It was a decommissioned war construct—a towering hulk of black iron and rivets, smelling of old oil and ozone. Its eyes flickered to life with a dull, hostile crimson light. It raised a massive hydraulic fist, the metal groaning under its own weight.

“Kill it,” Vane ordered.

The squad moved instantly.

“Mine,” Valerica stated.

She didn’t cast a spell from a distance. She walked straight toward the charging giant. As the Golem brought its fist down to squash her, Valerica didn’t dodge. She caught it.

She caught a fist the size of an anvil with one hand.

[Authority: Celestial Heart]

She didn’t just block the hit; she altered the density of her own body. In that moment, she became an immovable object, anchoring herself to the earth’s core. The ground beneath her boots shattered, spiderwebbing outward, but she didn’t budge an inch.

“Kneel,” she whispered.

She pulsed her Authority outward. The air around her suddenly became heavier than lead. The Golem’s arm was yanked down by its own weight, dragging the machine’s torso toward the floor with a screech of tearing metal.

It was a perfect grapple. She had the target pinned.

“Too slow!” Ashe roared.

She launched herself from the back wall. [Authority: Warlord]. A red aura flared around her skin. She accelerated into a blur, aiming to take the Golem’s head off with a kinetic kick while it was struggling with Valerica.

She hit the edge of Valerica’s influence.

Ashe didn’t slip. She didn’t trip. She just… fell.

The moment she entered Valerica’s personal space, the gravity seized her. Her forward momentum was violently converted into downward force. Instead of hitting the Golem’s head, Ashe slammed shoulder-first into the floor tiles right next to Valerica’s boots.

CRUNCH.

The impact shook the room.

“Watch the field!” Ashe yelled, trying to peel her face off the concrete. “You turned the air into soup!”

“You entered my melee range,” Valerica replied coolly, still holding the Golem’s fist with one hand. “I am crushing the target. Why did you jump into the crusher?”

“Because I’m the Vanguard!”

“Threat detected,” Isole’s voice drifted calmly over the noise.

The Golem, realizing its physical attacks were useless against the gravity monster, opened its chest plate. A glowing mana-cannon charged up. It wasn’t aiming at Valerica. It was aiming at Vane, who was circling for a flank.

Vane prepared to dodge. He channeled the Silver Fang into his legs, ready to slide.

“Cycle Denied,” Isole whispered.

She traced a shape in the air.

[Authority: Samsara – White Lotus Barrier]

A geometric wall of jagged, translucent hard-light erupted from the floor.

It blocked the mana bolt perfectly. The explosion washed over the shield harmlessly.

The problem was that Isole had panicked. She hadn’t placed the shield in front of Vane. She had placed it around him.

Vane ran full tilt into a box of solid light.

BONK.

He rebounded off the barrier, dazed. He was safe from the cannon, but he was also trapped in a glowing glass cage like a specimen.

“Isole!” Vane shouted, banging on the hard-light wall. “Drop the geometry! I can’t move!”

“I isolated the variable,” Isole noted, looking at her nails. “You are safe. The probability of injury inside the box is zero.”

“I’m in danger of being bored to death!” Ashe screamed.

The Oni finally managed to crawl out of Valerica’s gravity well. She was furious. The Golem was still struggling against Valerica, who was systematically crushing its limbs one by one like she was crushing soda cans.

Ashe looked at the Golem. She looked at Valerica. She looked at Vane trapped in the box.

“Forget this!” Ashe yelled.

She grabbed a loose chunk of concrete from the broken floor and hurled it at the Golem. It missed the Golem and hit Valerica in the back of the head.

Valerica slowly turned around. Her eyes were glowing purple. The air in the room began to vibrate. The Golem, forgotten, took the opportunity to punch Valerica in the side.

Valerica didn’t even flinch. She just grabbed the Golem by the neck and slammed it into the floor so hard the room shook.

“Silence,” Valerica ordered the machine. Then she turned back to Ashe. “Did you just throw a rock at me?”

“Stop!” Vane yelled, finally managing to shatter Isole’s barrier with a pulse of Silver Mana. “Everyone stop!”

The Golem lay twitching in a heap of scrap metal. The squad stood amidst the ruin.

Vane walked to the center of the room. He looked at the carnage.

The floor was destroyed. The Golem was scrap. Ashe had a bruise on her forehead. Valerica looked ready to commit murder. Isole was tracing lines in the dust with her boot, unbothered.

They hadn’t lost. The enemy was dead.

But it was ugly. It was a bar brawl, not a military operation.

Vane rubbed his face. He felt his confidence crack. He had thought he was leading a spec-ops team. He realized he was herding natural disasters.

“That,” Vane said, pointing at the scrap heap, “was garbage.”

“The enemy is neutralized,” Valerica pointed out, releasing the gravity. Her hair settled perfectly back into place. “I controlled the engagement.”

“You controlled us,” Vane corrected. “Ashe, you hit Valerica’s gravity well like a bird hitting a window. Valerica, you crushed our Vanguard. Isole, you put me in a cage.”

“It was a geometrically perfect cage,” Isole murmured.

Vane grabbed a piece of chalk from the wall. He walked to a clear patch of floor and drew a crude diagram.

“We can’t use standard tactics,” Vane said, his voice tired. “Standard tactics assume everyone fights together. You guys can’t fight together. You’re incompatible.”

He looked at Valerica.

“Valerica, you are a black hole. When you fight, you warp the battlefield. You need space.”

He drew a large circle.

“You are the Sun. You stand in the center. You make a Kill Zone. Anything that enters that zone belongs to you. You do not chase. You stand your ground and let them come to be crushed.”

“Acceptable,” Valerica said, crossing her arms. “I prefer the enemy to kneel before me anyway.”

Vane drew an orbit around the circle.

“Ashe,” Vane said. “You are the Comet. You orbit. You never go into the center. You stay on the edges and hit anything that tries to run away from Valerica. You keep moving. If you stop, you die.”

“So I just run in circles and hit things?” Ashe asked, wiping dust off her nose.

“Yes. And if you see Valerica fighting something, you ignore it. It’s already dead. You find a new target.”

“Fine,” Ashe grumbled. “But if she steals all the fun ones, I’m throwing another rock.”

Vane drew a dot in the back.

“Isole,” Vane said. “You are the Moon. You control the tides of battle. You don’t shield us unless we are actually dying. You use your geometry to mess with the enemy. Bind their legs. Blind their sensors. Make them trip into Valerica’s zone.”

“And you?” Valerica asked, raising an eyebrow. “What is the Rat? The void?”

Vane smirked. It was a jagged, honest expression.

“I’m the Rat,” he said. “I scurry in the cracks. When Valerica crushes them, and Ashe knocks them down, and Isole blinds them… I’ll be the one checking the bodies to make sure they stay down.”

He tossed the chalk to Ashe, who caught it out of the air.

“We don’t need to be a team,” Vane said. “We just need to stay out of each other’s way.”

He walked over to the ruined Golem and kicked it. A loose gear rattled across the floor.

“Clean this up,” Vane said. “Then we get lunch. I’m paying.”

Ashe pumped her fist. “Steak!”

Valerica sighed, but there was the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. “I suppose I could eat.”

Isole nodded, staring at the Golem’s broken form. “The cycle is complete.”

Vane watched them. They were dysfunctional, dangerous, and completely insane.

They were perfect.

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