The medical bay hums with machinery as the drones work tirelessly to repair our broken bodies. No one speaks. What is there to say? Four minutes and seventeen seconds. That's how long it took for Team Brute Force to completely dismantle us, to expose every weakness, counter every strategy we'd spent weeks perfecting.

  I lie on the primary treatment platform, staring at the ceiling as molecular regenerators work on my shattered ribcage. My vision blurs, not from the pain—which is distant now, blocked by some alien cocktail of chemicals—but from the crushing weight of humiliation. Everything we fought for, everything we achieved, reduced to nothing in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee.

  Across the bay, Ember sits with her back to the wall, flames completely extinguished, a rare sight that makes my stomach twist with dread. Her eyes stare blankly ahead, that fierce spirit that defined her seemingly snuffed out. Eli lies on another platform, wincing as medical drones remove the last of the Dornian restraint cables. Even from here, I can see his hands trembling, the gravity field around them sputtering like a dying flame. Desta sits perfectly still, eyes occasionally flickering with code as she processes our devastating loss, but there's something different in her posture, a slump to her shoulders I haven't seen since I first met her.

  My tablet chimes, then chimes again. And again. Within seconds, it's buzzing continuously with incoming notifications. I raise it painfully, confused by the sudden flood of messages.

  "What the fuck?" I mutter, scrolling through the alert screen.

  The Crystalline Consortium, familiar from the facility: "Human Team Exodus demonstrates adaptation potential despite initial setbacks. Sponsorship agreement would provide advanced combat equipment, environmental training protocols, and tactical support structure. Terms available upon request."

  The Aquarian Collective, another established sponsor group: "Telekinetic specialization benefits from fluid dynamics integration. Our enhancement protocols would maximize molecular manipulation capabilities while providing team-oriented technology packages. Exclusive offer for Asset Kinetic with team inclusion option."

  The messages continue, dozens of them, each offering different advantages:

  "The Independent Forge Guild extends membership invitation to Team Exodus. Self-determined enhancement development with equipment access and tactical training without the restrictions of formal sponsorship. Maintained autonomy with collaborative resource sharing."

  "Pyrokinetic Guild recognizes Ember's unique flame control methodology. Specialized training with similarly enhanced assets across multiple species. Equipment calibration specifically designed for thermal manipulation optimization."

  "Gravitational Nexus offers specialized tutelage for emerging gravity manipulators. Asset Eli would benefit from established enhancement protocols refined over seventeen cycles. Modification techniques unavailable through standard development channels."

  Even individual sponsors make offers: "Patron Vex'thor seeks telekinetic assets for specialized training program. Private sponsorship provides custom equipment integration, molecular enhancement acceleration, and privileged access to restricted development technologies."

  The messages continue to pour in, sponsorship offers, faction invitations, guild recruitments, even individual mentorship proposals from aliens I've never heard of. Our humiliating defeat, broadcast throughout Central Arena, has apparently made Team Exodus a prime recruitment target. The thought burns in my chest like acid, they're not interested in us because we're strong, but because we're weak. Vulnerable. Desperate.

  "You're getting them too?" Ember asks, her voice flat as she glances at her own tablet.

  Eli nods, gravity field rippling weakly around his hand as he scrolls through his device. "Vultures circling the carcass," he mutters, bitterness dripping from every word.

  "Immediate response to observed weakness parameters," Desta observes, her expression unreadable, but I catch something in her voice, a tremor of uncertainty that cuts deeper than any analysis.

  "In normal human speak: they're all trying to grab us while we're feeling desperate enough to say yes," Eli translates, wincing as a medical drone removes a final cable fragment from his wrist.

  The hours pass in tense silence as the medical treatment continues. By evening, we're cleared to return to our quarters, our bodies repaired but our confidence shattered. The tablets continue to ping with new offers, each sound like a nail in Team Exodus's coffin.

  I call the team together in our common area, my heart pounding with dread. The defeat isn't just about the loss itself, it exposed fundamental weaknesses in our approach that won't be fixed with medical treatment. It exposed the naivety of our dream.

  "We need to talk about what happened," I begin, still moving carefully despite the accelerated healing, throat tight with emotions I can't fully process. "Figure out how to adapt before our next match."

  Ember remains standing while the rest of us sit, her back to the wall, arms crossed over her chest. The flames that usually dance in her hair are completely absent, leaving her looking diminished somehow, like a vital part of her has been extinguished. Her expression is cold, detached, but I catch the slight tremble in her jaw, she's holding something back.

  "I'm leaving Team Exodus," she announces without preamble.

  The statement hits me like a physical blow, knocking the air from my newly-repaired chest. After everything we've been through together, after five consecutive victories at the facility, this single defeat has broken something I thought unbreakable. I feel a surge of desperate denial, followed by a wave of betrayal so intense my hands begin to shake.

  "What?" Eli's gravity field wobbles with shock, objects around the room briefly lifting before crashing back down. "You can't be serious."

  "I've accepted an offer from the Pyrokinetic Collective," she continues, her voice struggling to remain emotionless, but I catch the waver at the edges. "They've been watching my combat footage. They have resources, specialized equipment, training protocols specifically designed for thermal manipulation that I can't access otherwise."

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  "We can adapt," I argue, fighting to keep my voice from breaking. The word "we" suddenly feels fragile, precarious. "What happened today was a wake-up call, not the end of—"

  "I joined Team Exodus because it was strong," she cuts me off, eyes finally meeting mine with what she wants to be cold calculation but can't quite hide the pain underneath. "Because you were winning. Now we're weak. One match proved that beyond any doubt. Four minutes, seventeen seconds. That's our ceiling in this place without serious intervention."

  The betrayal stings worse than any physical injury the Dornians inflicted, a knife twisting in my gut. After everything we accomplished together, after the trust we built, she's abandoning ship at the first sign of trouble. I want to scream, to rage, to beg her to stay, but pride keeps my mouth clamped shut as something hot and painful builds behind my eyes.

  "So that's it?" I demand, anger rising to protect me from the hurt. "First real challenge and you're out? All they had was their equipment! If they fought us fair and square we would have easily won!"

  "This isn’t the facility anymore," she responds, a flash of genuine anguish breaking through her mask before she suppresses it. "You saw what happened today. All our opponents will have equipment that allows them to outclass us from now on. That doesn't change with practice or determination. It changes with resources, which we don't have."

  Eli's gravity field pulses erratically, objects around the room rising and falling in chaotic patterns that mirror the emotional turmoil I see in his eyes. "She's not entirely wrong," he finally says, looking between us, voice thick with conflicted feelings. "We got our asses handed to us by B-Rank fighters with better equipment and training. Think about how strong we could become if we got the same?"

  "So you're leaving too?" I ask, my voice raw with barely contained emotion, watching the foundation of Team Exodus crumbling before my eyes, powerless to stop it.

  "No," he shakes his head, "but we need to be realistic. I've been looking through these offers. The Gravitic Alliance is offering specialized training, equipment allocation, even strategic integration protocols for all of us. We should at least consider accepting some form of sponsorship or faction alignment."

  "Faction alignment represents significant autonomy compromise," Desta observes, her eyes flickering briefly with code, but there's a new hesitancy in her voice, a doubt that wasn't there before. "However, independent operations without resource augmentation creates overwhelming disadvantage parameters in current environment."

  "In normal human speak: we're fucked if we try to do this alone," Eli translates, his gravity field growing more unstable with each word, "but joining up means playing by someone else's rules."

  "Which is exactly what we've been fighting against since day one," I argue, frustration mounting, a lump forming in my throat that I refuse to acknowledge. "The whole point of Team Exodus was independence, finding our own path to freedom instead of surrendering control to sponsors or factions. That was the entire fucking point."

  My voice cracks on the last word, betraying the emotions I'm trying so hard to control. I feel something breaking inside me, a dream slipping away like sand through fingers.

  "That was before we knew what we were really up against," Eli counters, his gravity field intensifying, causing the lights to flicker and objects to rattle on shelves. "You saw the gap today. Equipment, training, tactical coordination—they had answers for everything we tried. Independence doesn't mean shit if we lose every match!"

  "So we adapt!" I insist, slamming my fist down on the table, feeling the sting of tears threatening at the corners of my eyes. "That's what we've always done. We figure out what went wrong and fix it."

  "Some things can't be fixed with determination," Ember says quietly, a terrible gentleness in her voice that hurts more than any anger could. "The gap is systemic. You need resources to compete at this level, resources we don't have access to as independents."

  The argument circles with increasing tension, each word laced with emotions too complex to name. Ember's resolve seems to harden even as something like regret flickers across her features. Eli's frustration builds with each passing minute, his gravity field becoming a visual representation of his inner turmoil. Desta remains outwardly calm, but her eyes betray a growing uncertainty that scares me more than anything else.

  And me? I feel like I'm drowning, watching everything I believed in, everything I fought for, slipping away. The pride that made us strong now feels like a chain dragging us down.

  "My transfer request has already been submitted," Ember finally announces, ending the circular debate. There's finality in her tone, but I catch the slight tremor in her hands, this isn't easy for her either. "The Pyrokinetic Collective has quarters prepared. I'll be moving tomorrow morning."

  The statement silences the room. Team Exodus is fracturing, our unity shattered by a single devastating defeat. The freedom pathway that once seemed achievable now stretches before us like an impossible dream, mocking our naivety.

  "This isn't just about losing," I say quietly, making one final appeal, hating the desperate edge in my voice but unable to hide it. "It's about how we respond to losing. Running to the first powerful group that offers protection isn't the answer."

  "No," Ember replies, her voice softening slightly, eyes meeting mine with genuine sadness that cuts deeper than her anger ever could. "The answer is recognizing when your current path is unsustainable. Team Exodus worked because we had an advantage at the facility. That advantage doesn't exist here. Refusing to adapt to that reality isn't determination, it's delusion."

  With that, she turns and walks toward her quarters, each step widening the chasm between us. I want to call after her, to say something that will change her mind, but the words die in my throat. In their place is a hollow ache, a sense of loss that feels physical.

  Eli sighs, his gravity field settling into a troubled pattern that mirrors my own internal chaos.

  "I'm not leaving," he says finally, "but we need to seriously consider these offers. Independence won't matter if we can't even make it past our second match."

  As the night progresses, the rift within Team Exodus remains unresolved. From my quarters, I hear Ember packing, each sound like a knife twist. Occasional flashes of flame appear under her door, her powers returning not with confidence but with determination to leave us behind. Eli's room pulses with gravitational distortions that reflect his inner conflict. Desta sits motionless in the common area, eyes flickering with code as she processes not just data but the emotional fallout of our team's collapse.

  And me? I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling, a pressure building in my chest that has nothing to do with my healing ribs. Everything we achieved, everything we stood for, reduced to ashes in four minutes and seventeen seconds. The dream of freedom through independent achievement crumbles beneath the weight of Central Arena's brutal reality, and I can no longer hold back the hot tears that slide silently down my face in the darkness.

  It’s not fair! They needed all that fancy equipment just to keep up with us! We would’ve crushed them if they didn’t have those damn advantages!

  Or if we had gear on their level… The thought creeps in before I can stop it, and once it’s there, I can’t seem to make it go away.

  The tablets continue to ping with new offers, the sound like a requiem for what once was Team Exodus. Each message promises the resources, equipment, and training we need to survive in this place. Each requires us to surrender some form of control in exchange. Each represents a compromise of the very principle upon which Team Exodus was founded.

  Independence versus survival. The ultimate choice in Central Arena, it seems, is which you value more. And tonight, that choice is tearing us apart.