The next twenty hours were a lesson in social dynamics under pressure.
The Heart Tree provided everything they needed to form teams: training grounds, weapon-smithing stations, tactical planning rooms grown from living wood. It also provided a constant, subtle pressure to choose. Notifications chimed regularly:
Team registrations open. Minimum: 10 members. Maximum: 12.
Unassigned individuals will be randomly placed after deadline.
Kai, Lena, and Anya claimed a small planning alcove off one of the main walkways. They needed seven more members. And they needed them fast.
The problem was hierarchy. Everyone had seen the echoes. They'd seen Kai's unsettling reaction. Some were intrigued. Most were wary.
Their first visitor was a young man named Rylan. His correction was auditory—his ears were slightly elongated, and he could hear everything from heartbeats to the subtle growth of plants. "I heard what you said in the Convergence," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "About choosing your own path. I want that. I don't want to be Silas's spy or Vex's weapon."
He was their fourth.
Next came a woman named Taren. Her skin was covered in fine, silvery scales that could harden at will. She'd been with Silas initially but left after he ordered her to infiltrate Vex's group as a spy. "I was a police officer before," she said. "I know about loyalty. He doesn't."
Fifth.
They found Jax in the combat pits, fighting alone against three training dummies made of animated wood. His correction was kinetic redirection—he could absorb impacts and redirect the energy. He was big, quiet, and carried the haunted look of someone who'd lost people. He listened to Kai's pitch, watched Lena's sincerity, saw Anya's pragmatic assessment, and nodded once. "Better than the other options."
Sixth.
The difficulty came with the seventh. They needed diverse skills. Medical, tactical, stealth. The most obvious candidates were already being courted aggressively.
Silas held open recruitment in the main commons, offering guaranteed positions, resource allocation, and his "proven leadership." He'd already recruited the man with desert-cracked skin (terrain adaptation), the chameleon woman (infiltration), and a wiry man who could phase slightly out of sync with time, allowing him to dodge with impossible speed.
Vex worked more subtly, moving through the training areas, speaking one-on-one. She focused on those with offensive corrections: a man who could generate concussive sound bursts, a woman with prehensile hair that could strangle, and the corrosive spitter from her original group who'd survived.
Kai's group was the underdog. They had no obvious powerhouse, no clear leader with a fearsome correction. What they had was a philosophy. And in the Heart Tree, philosophy was a currency few were willing to spend.
Their breakthrough came from an unexpected direction.
Kai was in the tactical room, studying a living map of the Heart Tree's known surroundings that grew on one wall. The map showed the tutorial arena they'd come from, now labeled Harvest Grove - Status: Dormant. Other arenas were hinted at but blurred out—Frozen Chasm, Sunken Spires, Sky Fracture. The second arena wasn't named yet.
"Looking for an edge?"
Kai turned. It was Nora, the medic from Silas's bridge camp. Her needle-fingers were retracted, making her look almost normal.
"You survived," Kai said.
"Barely. Silas wasn't pleased I let you get away." She leaned against the wall, studying the map. "He's marked you, you know. Not as an enemy, but as a resource that got loose. He'll either recruit you or make sure you're not a threat."
"Why are you here, Nora?"
"Because I saw your echo reaction. And because I've treated three other predictive Broken in my time here." She met his eyes. "Two are gone. Assimilated into the grove when the loneliness became too much. The third works for Silas now. He runs simulations for him. He doesn't speak anymore. Just gives probabilities."
Kai felt a chill. "And you think I'll end up like that?"
"I think you have a chance not to. Because of them." She nodded toward where Lena and Anya were sparring in a nearby training circle. "They're anchors. They remind you what you're fighting for. Silas would separate you. Use your ability while cutting you off from what makes you human. It's more efficient."
"Are you offering to join us?" Kai asked. "You're a medic. We need one."
Nora shook her head. "I can't. Silas would see it as a betrayal, and he controls the medical supplies. But I can give you a gift." She handed him a small, woven leaf pouch. Inside were three of the vials from her tent—blue suppressant, green accelerant, red stabilizer. "You never chose. Now you have options. But choose soon. Your adaptation is progressing faster than you think."
She left before he could thank her.
Kai pocketed the vials, their weight suddenly enormous. A choice in chemical form. Delay the change, accelerate it, or gamble on freezing it.
He returned to the alcove to find a crisis.
A man was shouting at Lena. He had correction that made his voice physically compelling—a crowd-control ability. "You're leading them to their deaths! A team built on sentiment? In the arena? You'll be slaughtered, and you'll get anyone foolish enough to follow you killed too!"
Lena stood her ground, but Kai could see the doubt in her eyes. Around them, a small crowd had gathered. Rylan covered his enhanced ears, wincing at the volume. Taren's scales were partially raised defensively.
Anya stepped forward, blades extending. "Back off."
"Or what?" the man sneered. "You'll cut me? We're in the Heart Tree. Violence is prohibited outside the pits."
He was right. The Tree enforced peace within its walls through the Guardians. But psychological warfare was allowed.
Kai moved to stand beside Lena. He didn't shout. He spoke calmly, his predictive ability analyzing the crowd's reactions, the man's tells.
"You're Marek, right?" Kai said. "Voice amplification correction. You were a teacher before. You lost a student on a field trip when you couldn't maintain control. The system gave you a louder voice, but what you really wanted was for people to listen."
Marek's confident sneer faltered. The echo had shown Kai that detail about everyone in the Convergence.
"You're with Silas now," Kai continued. "He values your ability to control crowds. But he doesn't listen to you. He uses you. Just like he'll use everyone." Kai looked at the gathered survivors. "We're offering something else. A team where your voice matters, not just its volume."
The crowd murmured. Marek flushed, his amplification dropping to a normal tone. "Pretty words. They won't stop a claw-beast from ripping your throat out."
"No," Kai admitted. "But maybe trusting each other will."
It was then that the seventh member found them.
She stepped from the crowd, a girl who looked no more than sixteen, though corrections made age hard to judge. Her hair was white, not from age but from her adaptation—it was actually fine, crystalline filaments that caught the light. Her eyes were mismatched: one normal, one a shifting prism.
"I'll join," she said. Her voice was soft, but it carried. "My name is Sera. I see… probabilities. Like you do. But differently."
Kai's ability flared. Analysis: Divergent predictive adaptation. Focus: Social and emotional outcome modeling. Threat level: Low. Synergy potential: High.
"What do you see now?" Lena asked gently.
Sera looked at their small group, her prismatic eye swirling. "I see… a fragile branch growing in a different direction than the tree. It might break. It might bear unique fruit." She blinked, her eyes focusing on Kai. "You have a choice to make. The vials. You should take the red one. The stabilizer."
Kai stiffened. She couldn't know about the vials. Unless her ability was reading him on a level even he didn't understand.
"Why red?" he asked.
"Because the system expects Broken to either resist or succumb. It doesn't expect you to try to balance. That's the unpredictable variable. That's what might save you."
Marek snorted and stalked off, his recruitment attempt failed. The crowd dispersed, leaving them with their seventh member.
They needed three more. Time was running out.