Jack wasn't so amused.

His chair scraped loudly against the floor as he leaned forward. "Better than you expected?" he snapped, voice rising. "You're telling me you walked into this meeting without even checking the standings? We've got real-time access for a reason!"

That earned a few sharp nods from around the table.

It wasn't an exaggeration. Every awakened here wore an Association-issued bracelet artifact, a sleek band etched with runes that could pull up live rankings, team performance breakdowns, and sector reports with a click. Most of them had checked it obsessively between fights, between breaks, sometimes even mid-operation.

Kaiden tilted his head slightly but did not answer.

A ripple of irritation spread through the room. A few faces hardened outright. To them, he looked far too careless. Arrogant, even. Like he hadn't taken the competition seriously enough to bother keeping score.

Kaiden noticed the looks he was getting. Of course he did.

To that end, he turned back toward Vaelira with one corner of his mouth lifting. "Looks like you managed to turn most of the group against me in just a few hours," he remarked lightly. "You work fast. Color me impressed."

Vaelira scoffed, leaning back in her chair and lifting both shoulders in a lazy shrug. "You assume I care about you that much? Don't flatter yourself. People notice things on their own."

Her? Not doing anything? No one present believed such a thing. Kaiden only had to take one look at Diaz's grin to know that this bitch has been talking shit behind his back nonstop.

Just then, Nyx clicked her tongue softly. Her gaze swept across Jack and the others, cool and appraising. "Why is us not checking the standings while out there so shocking to you?" she asked. "Or better question: why are you checking your bracelets while you're out there fighting?"

A few people stiffened.

"This competition is going to last weeks. Not hours. Not a single day. If you're staring at live rankings in the middle of operations, you're treating this like a sprint instead of what it actually is."

Luna planted her elbows on the table and spoke as if she were addressing dumb children. "Yeah. And in case anyone forgot, one death costs us ten thousand points." She jabbed a pointer finger toward the projection. "That's double our current total. So instead of stressing over placement and getting sloppy, maybe focus on not dying. If the fruits of all my sweat and blood get taken away because one of you decided to check the standings and got ambushed by a monster, I'll kill you."

Silence followed.

Not the explosive kind. The heavy kind. The kind where the words had landed, and no one was quite ready to admit it.

Especially not Sasha, who scoffed harshly.

"It's easy for you to say," she snapped, finally lifting her head. Her eyes flicked from Luna to Nyx, then landed on Kaiden, resentment simmering just beneath the surface. "You can afford to treat this like some kind of fun event. You're already rich. You already have the money to buy top-tier gear whenever you want."

Her gaze drifted downward, fixing on Kaiden's right hand.

The Blood Monarch's Gauntlet lay there embedded in his flesh, no longer visible in the least bit. It had become one with Kaiden long ago.

"…Or you already have things money can never buy," Sasha continued, voice tight. "Most of the rewards barely matter to you. But to us?" She gestured broadly at the room. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance."

"Yeah."

"She's right."

"This could change everything."

Several of the rookies nodded fervently, some outright desperately, clinging to a shared justification. The pressure in the room thickened again, not hostile this time, but raw and uneven.

At that, Aria's eyes darkened.

The faint warmth she'd been holding onto drained away, replaced by something sharp and thoroughly offended. "Us? Treating this like a fun event? What gave you such a false impression? Is having some fun moments between life or death monster battles, where we're trying our hardest, a sin?"

Vaelira inhaled, clearly ready to pounce on that opening, and Jack's lips curled as if he'd been waiting for it… But neither of them got the chance.

Calypso spoke.

She was comfortably nestled in her chair, shining slightly due to her red skin catching the ambient glow of the hologram, sitting with one leg crossed over the other. She lifted one finger, then another, counting softly under her breath with exaggerated seriousness, tail flicking behind her.

"This is all very nice and all… but no matter how I count it…" A third finger lifted. "… We still did more work than you did. Significantly at that."

A fourth finger. A fifth.

"The seven of us earned roughly two thousand points today. The remaining thirteen of you earned about three thousand." Her eyes flicked around the table, bright and unbothered. "Isn't that right?"

The effect was immediate.

Several of the people who had been glaring daggers moments ago suddenly found the table, the walls, or the hologram far more interesting. Shoulders shifted. Gazes slid away. No one rushed to contradict her.

Besides Jack, who wasn't a man convinced by something as flimsy as objective facts.

"That's because the team distribution is unfair!" he growled, slamming a fist against the arm of his chair. "You've got all the firepower, many pure damage dealers with destructive classes. Most of the rest of us have survival-oriented classes, sustain builds, control… Things that don't rack up monster kills."

His eyes burned as they locked onto Kaiden. "If we'd distributed the teams properly, instead of him…" he jabbed a finger in Kaiden's direction, "being too jealous to team up with anyone but his… Gh… Gh!"

He spat the word like it tasted foul.

"lovers…."

The jealousy was naked now. Ugly. Unfiltered. It dripped from his voice as he glared at Kaiden, at the five women beside him, hatred tangled tightly with envy.

"We'd have more points," Jack finished harshly.

The temperature in the room instantly dropped.

Not figuratively.

The air in the conference room turned frigid, a sudden, biting cold that crawled across skin and sank into bone. Frost didn't form, but it felt close enough that breathing suddenly required effort.

Kaiden's gaze sharpened, fury flashing behind his eyes. And then his rage was eclipsed.

Five presences surged outward.

Luna leaned forward slowly in her hoodie, stormy eyes dark and dangerous, the casual slouch gone as pressure rolled off her like an oncoming thunderhead. Bastet didn't move much at all, but her golden gaze turned flat and imperial, as if Jack had just committed a personal insult in the presence of royalty. Calypso's smile didn't fade, but it sharpened into something playful and lethal, horns catching the light as her tail stilled completely.

Nyx's eyes went cold, calculating, already measuring angles and distances.

Aria's glare burned hottest of all.

The mere suggestion that any of them should fight beside someone else… separated, redistributed, diluted… was outright repulsive. Unthinkable. An insult not just to Kaiden, but to what they were.

What they had chosen.

The room felt suddenly very small.

Very fragile.

And Jack, for all his size, had never seemed quite so out of place.

…

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