They found the eighth by accident. In the gardens, a man was singing to a patch of luminescent fungi, causing them to glow brighter and release their spores in a synchronized pattern. His correction was bio-resonance—he could harmonize with living things. His name was Corin, and he was trying to grow a faster-healing moss for the medics. When Lena showed interest, demonstrating her own symbiotic belt, he lit up. "You understand! It's not about dominance, it's about partnership!"
Ninth was a reluctant recruit. Kael was a scout, his correction giving him enhanced vision that could see in spectrums far beyond human. He'd been mapping the upper branches of the Heart Tree and had seen something troubling: a section of the Tree that was… sick. Dark, pulsing with wrong colors. He reported it to the stewards, who dismissed him. He reported it to Silas, who told him to keep it quiet for "morale reasons." He came to Kai because, as he put it, "You're the only one not trying to build an empire. You might actually care about the truth."
Tenth was the hardest. They needed combat power. And the only person with a major offensive correction who wasn't already aligned was a man named Bren. His adaptation let him generate and hurl shards of hardened bone from his forearms. He was volatile, angry, and had been in three fights already in the combat pits. He listened to their pitch with open scorn.
"Let me get this straight," he said, arms crossed over a chest crisscrossed with scars. "You want me to join your little friendship circle? To watch your backs while you sing songs with mushrooms? While Silas is offering me a frontline position with the heavies, and Vex is offering me a strike team spot?"
Anya stepped forward. "We're offering you a team that won't treat you as a disposable weapon."
"I am a weapon," Bren snapped. "That's what the Mending made me. That's what I am now."
"Then be a smart weapon," Kai said. "On Silas's team, you'll be pointed where he wants. On Vex's, you'll burn hot and burn out. With us, you help decide where you're aimed. You keep your edge, but you keep your mind."
Bren was silent for a long time. Then he spat on the mossy floor. "Fine. But if this touchy-feely crap gets in the way of survival, I'm gone."
They had ten.
As dusk approached, the team registration closed. Silas's team was full at twelve—a perfectly balanced mix of scouts, combatants, supports, and specialists. Vex's team had eleven—offense-heavy, with fewer supports but tremendous firepower. A few other small teams had formed, made of friends or those with complementary corrections.
Kai's team—they hadn't even chosen a name—was the most eclectic. A strategist, a medic-in-training, a close-combat specialist, an auditory scout, a former police officer with defensive scales, a kinetic absorber, a social probability seer, a bio-resonant harmonizer, a spectral scout, and a bone-shard artillery.
It was far from optimal. But it was theirs.
They gathered in their alcove as the Tree chimed the final hour. A Guardian appeared at the entrance, its woody form blending with the wall until it stepped forward.
"Teams are finalized," it said, its voice the rustle of leaves. "The second arena will be a collaborative survival scenario. You will be tested not just as individuals, but as a unit. Your performance will determine your placement in the Heart Tree's hierarchy and your access to resources."
It handed each team leader a small, seed-like object. "This is your team core. It will grow based on your cohesion, your successes, and your mutual support. Nurture it. It is both your score and your lifeline in the arena."
Kai took the seed. It was warm, with a faint pulse.
"Prepare," the Guardian said. "You depart at dawn."
It left them in the gathering dark.
They looked at each other—ten strangers bound by a choice. Anya sharpened her blades. Rylan listened to the distant sounds of the Tree. Sera's prismatic eye swirled as she looked at their futures. Bren cracked his knuckles, bone shards glinting beneath his skin.
Lena touched the team core in Kai's hand. "What do we call ourselves?"
Kai looked at the seed, at the fragile thing they were trying to build in a world designed to break everything. He thought of Alistair's words about choosing his own path. He thought of the system's three options for him.
"We are not what the Mending wants us to be," he said quietly. "We are not corrected. Not fully Broken. We are something else."
He looked at each of them. "We are the Unchosen."
The name settled over them, fitting and defiant.
That night, alone in his alcove, Kai took out the three vials. Blue, green, red.
The system's options versus his own.
He uncorked the red stabilizer. It smelled of ozone and iron. Sera's probability sight said this was the unpredictable path. The one the system couldn't model.
He drank it.
The effect was immediate and violent. A seizure of conflicting signals—his Broken ability surging forward, his humanity clawing back, the system's correction protocols trying to reassert control. He fell to his knees, his vision swimming with error messages:
CONFLICT DETECTED. STABILIZATION ATTEMPT OUTSIDE PARAMETERS.
BROKEN PROTOCOL REACTING…
CORRECTION ALGORITHMS PUSHING BACK…
RESULT: UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM.
Pain. White-hot and all-consuming. He bit back a scream, feeling like he was being torn in three different directions.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
He lay on the moss, gasping. His vision cleared. He still felt his predictive ability, but it was… quieter. The constant stream of threat analysis was now a murmur he could ignore if he chose. The aversion to touch was still there, but muted, manageable.
And he felt something else he hadn't felt in days: a fragile, trembling thread of hope.
Empathic Dampening: 58% (STABILIZED)
Predictive Efficiency: 76% (MODULATED)
Status: In Conflict. Equilibrium Temporary.
It wasn't a solution. It was a truce. A fragile balance between the thing the Mending was making him and the man he wanted to remain.
He stood, his legs shaky, and looked out the opening in his alcove. Across the vast hollow of the Heart Tree, he could see the glowing platforms of other teams preparing. Silas's group drilling with military precision. Vex's testing their offensive combinations.
And his team, the Unchosen, scattered but connected by a choice.
Dawn was coming. With it, the second arena.
Kai Mori, balanced on a knife's edge between humanity and efficiency, between Broken and corrected, closed his eyes and breathed.
The first fracture in the Mending's design had begun. Not with a rebellion, but with a choice.
And ten people who refused to be what they were told to be.