The system didn't announce another correction.
It never did anymore.
Instead, it changed where people were sent.
The assignment appeared halfway through the day, sliding into my schedule without priority tags or warnings.
Cooperative Stability Drill — Shared Infrastructure
That alone was enough to make people uneasy.
Greyline and A-Class didn't train together. They weren't even meant to see each other up close. Shared space meant shared failure—and the system avoided that unless it needed comparison.
Or confirmation.
The environment loaded as a broken urban structure. Collapsed walkways. Hanging platforms. Power lines flickering weakly between exposed frames.
Not a battlefield.
A place where small mistakes spread.
I entered from below.
A-Class arrived from above.
The difference wasn't strength.
It was confidence.
Evan Arclight moved like the ground would never betray him.
Not fast. Not aggressive. Just certain. His steps landed cleanly even when the surface shifted, as if the system adjusted itself around him.
He trusted it.
And it trusted him back.
Lena Myr stayed close, eyes moving constantly. A soft diagnostic field hovered around the group—not healing, just monitoring. She wasn't waiting for injuries.
She was making sure they didn't happen.
Sylpha Rune stood slightly apart. Her fingers brushed the air, not touching anything solid. Her attention wasn't on the structure itself, but on how it reacted.
She watched patterns the way other people watched enemies.
Bran Holt took the front without hesitation. Broad stance. Forward pressure. No tricks. No system finesse.
If something hit, he would take it.
And keep moving.
Noah Kirel never stayed still.
He shifted positions subtly, always near the edge of a gap, always watching people instead of terrain. He wasn't looking for danger.
He was looking for hesitation.
I stayed back.
Not hiding.
Just unclaimed.
The system hadn't assigned a leader.
Which meant it was waiting to see who acted like one.
The first failure came quietly.
A support beam destabilized above us. Not enough to collapse—just enough to spread stress across two walkways.
Bran reacted immediately, bracing it.
Too early.
The system compensated, shifting the load.
That shift sent pressure straight through him.
Lena stepped in without a word, stabilizing the fractures before they spread.
Clean.
But costly.
Sylpha tilted her head.
"The next one won't break evenly," she said.
She wasn't guessing.
She was listening.
I moved then.
Not to reinforce.
To redirect.
I triggered a delayed release below us, letting the stress fall downward instead of sideways. The structure groaned, protested—
Then settled.
The system accepted it.
No warnings.
Evan glanced back.
Not suspicious.
Curious.
"Greyline?" he asked casually.
"Yes," I replied.
That was enough.
He nodded and turned back.
The second failure was worse.
A power surge ran through the exposed lines. Lights flickered. Control lag spiked.
Noah moved first this time.
"Left," he said quietly.
Everyone followed.
Except me.
I stayed behind and grounded the surge manually, forcing it into a dead conduit. The feedback burned—sharp, brief.
Acceptable.
The system paused.
Adjusted.
The surge faded.
"Don't do that alone," Lena said sharply.
I looked at her.
She wasn't angry.
She was recalculating.
"Next time, signal," she added.
"I wasn't sure the system would allow it," I said.
Evan watched me more closely now.
Not as a variable.
As a person.
"You're not trained," Bran said.
"No," I agreed.
"But you know where it gives way," Noah said.
He wasn't asking.
The drill continued.
They prevented failure.
I redirected it.
Neither approach replaced the other.
That unsettled the system.
Near the end, Sylpha approached me.
"You don't reinforce," she said. "You don't cast. You don't accelerate."
"No."
"You misalign."
"Yes."
"That's dangerous."
"I know."
She smiled—not friendly.
Interested.
The drill ended without a success marker.
The system logged it as inconclusive.
Which meant it had learned something it couldn't sort yet.
As the environment dissolved, Evan stopped beside me.
"Next time," he said calmly, "don't ground the surge alone."
"I wasn't alone," I replied.
He considered that.
Then nodded.
"Fair."
They exited upward.
I went back down.
Different paths.
Same space.
Something had changed.
Not rivalry.
Recognition.
Power wasn't the difference between us.
Alignment was.
They moved with the system.
I moved where it bent.
Now they'd felt the bend too.
We would meet again.
Not as enemies.
Not as allies.
As problems the system hadn't decided how to solve yet.
And for the first time in a long while—
That felt human.