We filed through the east corridor in a loose mob, twenty first-years in brand-new costumes that still creaked and rustled with factory stiffness. The observation deck sat above Ground Beta’s residential block like a sports box overlooking the world’s most dangerous arena, and when the reinforced door opened, the room hit me with the glow of twelve wall-mounted monitors arranged in a three-by-four grid, each one showing a different camera angle inside the target building. Two additional screens flanked the main array, one displaying a tactical overhead of all three floors and the other showing the hostage’s trauma sensor readout, currently all green.

Radiant had handed out equipment before the split. Each team got a pair of wireless earpieces for communication and two rolls of capture tape, a thick adhesive strip that stuck to skin and costume alike and could only be removed by the wearer’s own hand or by faculty override. Wrap it around someone’s wrists or pin them to a wall, the tape activated and locked. That person was captured. Out of the fight.

Simple, brutal, and completely unforgiving of slow reactions.

The observation deck had tiered bench seating and smelled like new carpet. Radiant stood at the front near the monitors with his arms folded across his chest, the crimson costume catching the glow of twelve screens and making him look like a god reviewing footage of mortal failures. Which, given the circumstances, was not far from accurate.

"SETTLE IN!" His voice filled the room without effort. "Watch closely! Learn from what you see! Every mistake your classmates make is a lesson you don’t have to pay for with YOUR body!"

I dropped onto a bench in the second row with Percy on my left, already writing in his notebook. Caden claimed the seat to my right and leaned back with his arms behind his head, the blue accents of his costume catching the screen light.

"So we’re just watching other people fight while we sit here in costumes," Caden said. "This is literally a watch party. Radiant invented the hero watch party."

"Observation provides data unavailable through participation," Percy said without looking up. "Engagement bias distorts tactical recall by approximately thirty-one percent. External observation preserves analytical fidelity."

"Percy, buddy, I love you, but please speak human."

"You see more when you’re not getting punched."

"See, that’s all you had to say."

On the monitors, the H-1 team was entering the building from the south entrance. Theo Park and Eden Wilkinson, moving together down a ground-floor hallway with their earpieces glowing faint blue. Theo’s orange and white costume made him look like a walking construction zone, which was fitting for a guy whose entire combat philosophy involved getting hit until he could hit back harder. Eden had his lighter in his left hand, thumb resting on the flint wheel, the tiny flame already dancing between his fingers as he absorbed thermal energy into his body. His sleeveless black armor left his arms bare for flame manipulation, and the built-in spark strikers on his gauntlet knuckles glinted under the hallway’s fluorescent lights.

Audio crackled through the observation deck speakers. The earpiece feeds were broadcasting to us.

"Left or right?" Eden’s voice came through, low and tense.

Theo’s answer was immediate. "Left. Wider hallway. Less chance of getting boxed in."

"Left takes us past the kitchen and the living room before the first stairwell," Percy muttered beside me, his lips barely moving. "Right would give them access to the maintenance corridor and a secondary approach to the second floor. Left is the aggressive choice. They’re banking on Theo’s durability to absorb initial contact."

I glanced at Percy. His notebook was open but he wasn’t writing anymore. His eyes moved between four screens simultaneously, his lips forming words faster than his voice could deliver them.

On the other side of the building, the V-1 team was already set up. Caden’s lot had landed him with Marco Vidal, and the two of them had been given five minutes to establish their position before the Hero team entered. The monitors showed Caden standing in the second-floor hallway outside the hostage room, his white and blue costume’s light-reactive panels already dimming as he bent ambient light around himself, turning translucent at the edges. Marco crouched at the top of the stairwell with a dinner plate in one hand and a glowing yellow disk manifesting in the other.

"Why does Marco have a dinner plate in a combat scenario?" Felicity asked from the row behind me. Her pink and white costume rustled as she leaned forward between Caden’s and my shoulders. The scent of her reached me before I registered the proximity, something expensive with notes of vanilla that Sloane would have opinions about.

"That’s his channeling vessel," I said. "Energy Disk needs a physical object to stabilize. Dinner plate gives him range and blunt force."

"He brought dinnerware to a fight."

"He brought dinnerware to win."

On screen, Theo and Eden rounded the corner into the first-floor living room. The room was empty. Standard furniture, standard layout, artificial sunlight through fake windows. Nothing out of place. Eden’s lighter flame grew larger as he absorbed more heat from the environment, the temperature in the room dropping a visible degree as frost formed at the edges of the windows.

"They’re pulling heat from the room," Percy said. "Smart. Eden’s building a reserve while simultaneously making the environment uncomfortable for anyone hiding nearby. Cold air sinks. If there are traps on the ground floor, the temperature change might reveal them."

Theo pressed his earpiece. "Nothing on one. Moving to stairs."

The Hero team reached the ground-floor stairwell. Theo went first, which made sense because Theo going first meant anything waiting at the top had to hit Theo first, and hitting Theo was the worst possible opening move anyone could make. Every impact he absorbed became fuel for his counter. The Kinetic Bank was a punishment loop, and most people figured that out about three seconds too late.

Theo climbed the stairs with the confidence of someone who knew the math was on his side. Eden followed with a ball of compressed fire hovering above his right palm, the heat distortion making the air shimmer around his arm.

The stairwell opened onto the second-floor landing.

Marco was waiting.