Silas moved first.

The moment Galan's weapon cleared its sheath—the instant before violence became inevitable—Silas activated his Speed Enhancement core and vanished.

He didn't activate his Sense Fade core—not yet. That advantage was better spent when the battle truly began. What carried him forward instead was raw, enhanced velocity, hurling him from his position into the deeper shadows of the medical bay in the span of a blink.

Only after he passed them did Sense Fade whisper into place, layering itself over his motion. Minds stumbled trying to follow where he'd gone. Awareness lagged. Memory frayed. By the time his absence registered, the moment of departure had already slipped away, unformed and forgotten.

There one moment. Gone the next. Was he ever there at all?

"Spread out!" Bright ordered.

Command came naturally to him in battle. His awareness was unnerving—an almost oppressive grasp of positioning and momentum. Where others lost Silas to the void of slipping perception, Bright's spatial foresight still traced him, a ghosted vector moving through probability rather than sight.

He didn't voice the rest of the thought. Distance was survival. Tight formations only gifted the Crownhold operatives,the shady people they were, clean angles—perfect lanes for blades in the back.

His group shifted immediately—Duncan, Mara, Bessia, and Kora adjusting positions to put space between themselves and Vaelith's hooded assassins in a subtle way.

The Crownhold operatives didn't pursue. They maintained their own defensive formation, weapons ready, clearly calculating whether engaging meant supporting the Covenant assault or creating a three-way chaos they couldn't control.

Then the Covenant specialists struck.

-----

Bright stepped forward to meet Galan directly, his extended blade held in deceptive close-quarters grip.

The Covenant assassin approached with professional caution, his curved blade positioned for rapid strikes, his Initiate-rank enhancement cores active and humming with stored power.

"You've improved since Grim Hollow," Galan observed, circling. "But improvement isn't enough gap to—"

Bright attacked.

There was no warning—no shift in stance, no tell in his hands. Just a sudden, irrevocable choice.

Violence.

His blade surged upward in a brutal arc, precise and merciless, aimed straight for Galan's throat—a killing stroke measured not in rage, but in certainty.

Galan's instincts kicked in, body reacting before thought—pulling back, raising his weapon to parry, readying a counter-strike. It should have been simple, almost routine—

—but then Bright's blade extended, slicing through the air like a predator that had already calculated every move.

Four meters. Instantly. The mechanism Bright had fused months ago activating with thought-speed precision, transforming a close-quarters thrust into a long-range strike that closed distance faster than normal reaction could compensate.

The tip caught Galan's throat.

Should have opened his carotid. Should have killed him before he fully registered the threat.

Instead—

Galan's neck deformed.

The flesh where Bright's blade struck suddenly became rubber-like—flexible, elastic, absorbing the penetrating force by bending rather than tearing.

The blade slid across the deformed tissue, leaving a shallow nick that bled but didn't kill.

"Clever move, boy," Galan said, his voice warping slightly as his elasticized throat absorbed the impact. "You almost had me."

He flexed, limbs rippling unnaturally. "That extending blade of yours? Ingenious, I'll grant you—but far from unprecedented once you've… seen it before."

As they tumbled, his spatial foresight showed him Galan's next move—the counter-strike already forming, the curved blade angling for Bright's exposed ribs while he was still extended.

Bright's Body Enhancement kicked in, pushing his reflexes past a human's baseline. He pulled back, retracted his blade and pivoted to avoid the counter that would have disemboweled him.

They engaged in rapid exchange—strike, counter, parry, riposte. Both Initiates. Both enhanced beyond normal capability. Both trained in human-versus-human combat that had been honed to lethal precision.

But Bright's spatial foresight gave him a fractional advantage. He could see Galan's strikes before they fully committed, could predict angles and timing with crystalline clarity.

And Galan's Elasticity core, while defending against Bright's extending blade, created vulnerabilities in other areas—his defense was reactive rather than constant, requiring him to consciously activate deformation at impact points.

Which means if I'm faster than his reaction, Bright calculated, I can land hits before he makes himself flexible.

They circled, struck, separated. A lethal dance between opponents who understood that a single mistake meant death.

And around them, the medical bay erupted into a coordinated chaos.

-----

Bessia stayed close to Estovia's medical cot, her bow drawn, firing arrows with practiced precision at any Covenant specialist who moved too close.

She wasn't trying to kill—her arrows were suppression fire, forcing enemies to dodge, disrupting their coordination, buying time for more combat-focused candidates to engage properly.

I'm the support, she reminded herself, nocking another arrow. Not a frontline fighter. My job is keeping this officer alive and helping others survive.

One of the Covenant specialists—a woman with disturbingly enlarged cheeks that made her face look swollen—turned toward Bessia's position.

The woman's throat bulged.

Then she spat.

Not saliva. Not any normal biological fluid.

Acid.

A vile glob of corrosive vomit launched at arrow-speed, trailing steam and dissolving air molecules as it flew.

Bessia's combat instincts screamed. She dove, abandoning her firing position, rolling across corpse-littered floor as acid splashed where she'd been standing.

The stone hissed. Dissolved. A crater was created in the floor that still smoked with corrosive reaction.

Some kind of acid-related core, Bessia realized, her thoughts accelerating as the pieces fell into place. The acid was a biological weapon tailored for long range combat—absorbed from a Crawler that secreted corrosive compounds through specialized glands, turning its own body chemistry into a lethal advantage against anything that came through its range.

She came up firing—three arrows in rapid succession, forcing the acid woman to dodge rather than prepare for a follow-up attack.

"Stay down!" Bessia shouted to Estovia, who was conscious enough to understand danger but too injured to move effectively. "Don't make yourself a target!"

Another acid glob flew past, close enough that Bessia felt the heat. She rolled again, using debris and corpses as cover, maintaining a position between Estovia and the acid specialist who clearly recognized the tactical value of eliminating their healer.

This is bad, Bessia assessed. I can't close distance—she'll dissolve me. Can't maintain range forever—she just needs one hit. Need support. Need—

A throwing knife blurred past her, catching the acid woman in the shoulder.

Kora. Supporting from different angle. Forcing the acid specialist to divide attention between two ranged attackers.

"Thanks!" Bessia called, nocking another arrow.

"Don't thank me yet," Kora replied, her voice tight. "We're still outnumbered."

-----

Mara was a mid-tier Fledgling—not yet an Initiate, still developing, younger and less experienced than most combatants in this fight.

But she had heart.

And she had Duncan.

Two Covenant specialists—both men, both wielding strength enhancement cores that made their strikes hit like sledgehammers—engaged them simultaneously.

The first swung a war hammer with enough force to pulverize stone. Duncan's Bone Guard caught the impact, his defensive plating cracking but holding, absorbing kinetic energy that should have shattered his arm.

"Counter!" Duncan called.

Mara was already moving—her dual blades flashing, targeting the hammer wielder's exposed legs while he was committed to his strike.

Her blades carved through muscle and tendon— they were not killing hits, but crippling ones. The Covenant specialist staggered, his strength enhancement unable to compensate for severed ligaments.

The second specialist tried to capitalize on Mara's offensive positioning, his own weapon—a broad-bladed sword enhanced to ridiculous weight—swinging toward her exposed back.

Duncan intercepted.

His Bone Guard formed across his back, creating a shield that caught the sword mid-swing. The impact drove him forward, his boots scraping across floor, but the attack didn't penetrate.

"Tag team!" Mara confirmed, already repositioning to attack the sword wielder's flank.

They fought with coordination born from months of shared survival—Duncan absorbing attacks that would kill Mara, Mara exploiting openings that Duncan's defense created.

Neither could win alone. But together, against enemies who were individually stronger but less coordinated, they held their ground.

The hammer wielder tried to recover, his strength enhancement compensating partially for his injured legs. He swung again—wild, desperate, powerful enough to be dangerous even impaired.

Duncan caught the hammer on his guard, felt his bone plating crack further, knew he couldn't sustain many more impacts like that.

Mara's blades found the specialist's throat before he could swing again.

One down.

The sword wielder, seeing his partner fall, a low initiate, adjusted tactics—became more defensive, more cautious, recognizing that reckless aggression against this coordinated pair was suicide.

"We're holding," Duncan panted, his Bone Guard reforming to cover new cracks. "But barely. If they coordinate better—"

"Then we adapt better," Mara finished. "That's what we do. That's what Bright taught us."

They reset their formation, preparing for the sword wielder's next assault, buying time for others to handle their own opponents.

-----

Vaelith's hooded operatives watched the Covenant assault with calculating assessment.

They'd been positioned to assassinate Estovia. Had orders to eliminate the evidence she carried. Had unintentionally coordinated with these same fanatics during the earlier phases of tonight's orchestrated chaos.

But this—watching seven Initiate-level fanatics attack Academy candidates in a defended medical bay—complicated the simple political assassination they'd been executing.

If we let the Covenant kill everyone, the lead operative calculated, we lose deniability. It becomes obvious that we compromised. That we assisted. That we're complicit beyond just "protecting Crownhold interests."

But if we clash with the Covenant, another part of his mind pushed back, colder and more calculating, this might be our only window. Fight them now, and we may later get our hands on those kids again.

The mathematics resolved quickly.

Self-preservation trumps orders.

If this situation went completely wrong—if Atheon returned to find this little ones slaughtered by Covenant forces while they watched—the political fallout would destroy them all.

Better to fight. To demonstrate that they'd "defended Republic assets against fanatic assault." To create a narrative where they were heroes rather than accomplices.

"Engage," the lead operative ordered. "Covenant forces are targeting Academy candidates. We defend the Republic interests."

His team moved immediately—four hooded assassins joining the chaotic melee, their blades finding Covenant targets with professional precision.

It wasn't altruism. It was self-interested calculation.

But the result was same: the odds shifted.

Six Covenant Initiates against six Academy candidates became six Covenant Initiates against six Academy candidates plus four Crownhold assassins.

The mathematics improved. Marginally. Maybe enough.

Bright's spatial foresight registered the shift, processed implications faster than conscious thought.

Crownhold's engaging the Covenant. Not because they're suddenly moral. Because protecting candidates creates a better political optics than letting them die.

I'll take it, Bright decided. Better temporary allies than overwhelming enemies.

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