Sera vanished between one breath and the next.
One moment she was beside Freya, leaning forward with the rest of Verdant as the previous match concluded. The next, a prefect was at the edge of their section, murmuring names. Sera's shoulders snapped straight.
"That's me," she said, already standing.
The words came out bright and tight. Excitement wrapped around nerves so cleanly it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. She bumped her fist lightly against Freya's shoulder.
"Watch closely," Sera added. "I'm going to look amazing."
"You already do," Freya shot back automatically.
Sera grinned, then turned and slipped down the stone steps toward the staging tunnel. Verdant parted for her without thinking, hands brushing her shoulders, murmurs of encouragement following in her wake. By the time she reached the tunnel mouth, she was no longer just Sera.
She was Verdant.
The Green Chorus shifted rhythm instantly.
"Step. Crush! Break!! ERASE!!!"
The chant rolled after her like a tide. Freya leaned forward, heart thudding in her throat as Sera emerged onto the arena floor with her squad. The match that followed was fast and sharp. Verdant moved with practiced adaptability, bending around Pyros' aggression and striking through the openings it created.
Sera was everywhere.
Freya tracked her through the chaos by instinct. The way she pivoted to reinforce a faltering flank. The clean line of her strikes. The moment she committed to a risky transition and landed it perfectly. Verdant's section surged with every success, the Green Chorus' cadence tightening until it felt like the entire rise was breathing in sync.
The final exchange ended in a decisive Verdant victory.
The eastern stands erupted.
Freya found herself shouting without words, the sound torn from her chest and thrown into the storm of celebration. On the arena floor, Sera's squad clasped forearms in a tight circle before breaking apart, faces flushed and grinning.
Sera glanced up.
For a split second, her gaze locked with Freya's across the distance. Triumph flashed bright and unfiltered in her expression. Then the moment was swallowed by movement as the squad exited the field.
Freya sank back against the stone, breathless and buzzing.
"That was insane," someone behind her breathed.
Verdant rode the high of victory for exactly thirty seconds.
Then the arena announcer's voice cut cleanly through the noise.
"Next match. Pyros Squad Five versus Aurelith Squad One."
The Ember Howl rose before the words had fully settled. Their roar hit like a physical force, red streaks flashing as they stamped and howled in jagged rhythm.
Through the western tunnel, Pyros Squad Five entered.
Three fighters spread out in textbook formation.
A fourth walked several paces ahead of them.
He didn't look back to check if they were following.
Riven Kael stepped into the center of the arena like he owned it.
Even from the stands, Freya felt the shift. The air around him seemed to tighten, drawn inward by the easy arrogance in his posture. His contract bled into visibility along his limbs, shadows clinging to him like a second skin. The predatory shape fused to his movements made every step look coiled and deliberate.
He rolled his shoulders once and looked across at the Aurelith squad.
A slow smile spread across his face.
"Try to keep up, bastards." he called over his shoulder to his own team.
They didn't answer. They didn't need to. Everyone in the arena understood who he was talking to.
The signal dropped.
Riven moved.
There was no buildup. No cautious probing. He crashed into Aurelith's formation like a thrown blade. The first defender barely had time to raise a guard before Riven's strike folded it aside and drove him backward.
The arena gasped.
Aurelith tried to close ranks. Precision snapped into place. For a heartbeat, their structure held.
Then Riven accelerated.
His shadowed contract flared, devouring the space between movements. He didn't fight the formation. He suffocated it. Every attempt at coordination died mid-gesture as he forced the pace faster and faster, collapsing multiple threats into a single brutal line of attack.
One Aurelith fighter hit the ground.
Then another.
Riven's teammates hovered at the edges of the battlefield, unnecessary and painfully aware of it. By the time they stepped in to secure the final exchange, the match was already decided.
It had lasted less than a minute.
Silence fell over the silver stands.
Pyros detonated.
The Ember Howl's scream of approval shook dust from the rafters. They pounded their boots in savage rhythm, chanting Riven's name until it blurred into pure sound.
"KAEL! KAEL! KAEL!"
Riven stood in the center of the arena, chest rising evenly, shadowed contract receding in lazy tendrils. He glanced at the fallen Aurelith fighters, then up at the roaring western rise.
A short, dismissive laugh escaped him.
"That it?" he said.
The words carried.
A ripple of unease slid through the arena. Not outrage. Not yet. Something sharper. Recognition. Freya felt it settle in her stomach like a stone.
This wasn't just victory.
It was domination worn openly and proudly.
Riven turned without waiting for a response and strode toward the tunnel, his team falling in behind him like an afterthought. The Ember Howl's roar followed him all the way to the shadows.
Freya realized her hands were clenched again.
The PDA (Pending Divine Approval) Squad's perfect harmony flashed in her mind. The way their formation had flowed like water. Riven had shattered a lesser version of that with terrifying ease.
Her pulse kicked harder.
Somewhere deep in her chest, anger and fascination braided together into a tight, burning knot.
The arena breathed in, resetting for the next match.
But the echo of Riven Kael's arrogance lingered in the air, heavy and impossible to ignore.
The arena certainly did not calm after Riven Kael left it.
It only tightened further.
Freya felt it in the way conversations around her sharpened into analysis instead of celebration. Pyros still roared themselves hoarse, the Ember Howl riding the aftershock of Riven's victory like a storm crest. But beneath the noise, a quieter current had formed.
People were recalculating.
Freya dragged her sketchbook into her lap without fully remembering the motion. The pencil found her fingers like it belonged there. She flipped to a clean page just as the next squads entered.
Two Verdant teams collided with a Pyros formation in a messy, grinding match that lacked Riven's surgical brutality but made up for it in endurance. Verdant bent and reformed around repeated assaults, their transitions slower but stubbornly resilient.
Freya's pencil moved in quick strokes.
She mapped the terrain first. Then the opening positions. Arrows bloomed across the page as she tracked Verdant's shifting lines.
"They're bleeding space," she murmured under her breath. "Too reactive."
A Verdant fighter stumbled into a Pyros trap. The Ember Howl howled in delight. Freya's pencil stabbed a sharp X onto the paper.
"There," she whispered. "They saw that coming three steps ago."
The match dragged long enough for exhaustion to carve mistakes into both sides. Verdant clawed out a narrow victory through sheer adaptability. The Green Chorus answered with steady, thunderous cadence.
Freya barely heard it.
Her world had narrowed to graphite and motion. Each match fed the page. She sketched a Pyros squad that overcommitted and paid for it. An Aurelith formation that folded elegantly around a Verdant feint. Patterns emerged in the margins. Small notes clustered in tight script.
Tempo control decides everything.
Isolation kills coordination.
Never chase momentum blindly.
The arena roared and fell silent and roared again. Time blurred. Matches stacked on top of each other in a relentless procession of impact and recovery. Freya's fingers smudged dark with graphite. Her wrist ached faintly, but she didn't slow.
Beside her, Sera returned from the staging tunnels, flushed with leftover adrenaline. She dropped heavily onto the stone seat.
"You're missing half the spectacle," Sera said, breathless and laughing. "Look at you."
Freya didn't look up. "I am looking."
Sera leaned over her shoulder. Her laughter softened into a low whistle.
"That's… intense."
On the page, an Aurelith formation was taking shape. Cleaner than the others. Freya's lines grew more deliberate as she traced the invisible geometry of perfect spacing. The memory of the PDA Squad's earlier performance guided her hand.
"They're the closest thing to flawless here," Freya murmured. "But…"
Her pencil hesitated.
A shadow cut across the edge of the sketch. A violent line slashed through the formation. She didn't label it. She didn't have to.
Sera followed the motion and went quiet.
The arena announcer's voice rose again, crisp and resonant.
"Next match. Aurelith Squad One versus Pyros Squad Five."
The words hit like a dropped blade.
For half a heartbeat, the arena froze.
Then the sound came back doubled.
Silver surged to its feet. The Silver Accord's synchronized clap snapped into existence, sharper than it had been all day. Their harmony rose, cool and unwavering.
"Align. Destroy Now. Ask Later."
Across the arena, Pyros exploded.
The Ember Howl's roar had grown feral. They pounded the stone hard enough to blur into thunder.
"KAEL! KAIL! KILL!! KILL!!!!"
Freya's pencil stilled.
Her gaze snapped to the arena floor as the fighters emerged. Aurelith Squad One stepped into the light in perfect formation. Their spacing was immaculate. Their expressions unreadable.
The PDA Squad.
They did not acknowledge the noise. They didn't need to. Their presence carved a pocket of stillness around them.
From the opposite tunnel, Riven Kael walked out smiling.
He rolled his neck slowly, eyes dragging across Aurelith's formation with open interest. His teammates fanned out behind him, already fading into irrelevance in the arena's collective perception.
"Well," he called lazily, voice carrying with effortless clarity. "Something worth breaking."
The Silver Accord's clap sharpened. The Ember Howl answered with a howl that rattled Freya's ribs. Around her, Verdant leaned forward as one, caught in the gravity of the moment.
Sera's hand closed unconsciously around Freya's sleeve.
"This is it," she whispered.
Freya couldn't answer.
Her sketchbook lay open in her lap, the unfinished formation staring back at her. Slowly, deliberately, she lifted the pencil and drew a final line between the two sides of the page.
Light
Shadow.
The signal dropped.
The arena inhaled.
And the world narrowed to the space between them.