"Good morning, Saint Academy."
The voice came from everywhere—booming through intercoms, echoing across training halls, vibrating from drones hovering above the courtyards.
"Welcome to the Baptism. The first round of the Team Combat Tournament is about to begin—and it's the Baptism of Fire."
The academy roared with electricity. Students in combat suits gathered in designated squares, each surrounded by shimmering walls of light. Damien Gray clenched his fists, breathing deeply. His body was tense, heart pounding like a war drum.
"Why's it called that, anyway?" Damien asked.
Zeke, standing beside him and cracking his knuckles, shrugged. "Dunno. Tradition, maybe."
Amara Veyne stood on Damien's other side, adjusting her visor—an advanced interface linked to the academy's divinity network. "It's a traditional phrase," she said, not looking at them. "Means someone's first trial. Something that proves they're worthy to proceed. Initiation into what it really means to walk the path of a Saint."
Before Damien could respond, the drone above them blinked green.
"Teleportation initializing. Team Eleven: trial zone upload commencing."
The world bent. Light swallowed them.
---
FLOOR 1: THE BEAST'S BAPTISM
Damien landed hard, knees scraping on cracked stone. Zeke rolled forward and sprang up like a panther. Amara landed with a thud, scanning her surroundings.
The air was dry and thick with smoke. A labyrinth of blackened walls stretched outward in every direction. Fires burned sporadically in the distance. The roars of beasts echoed overhead.
"We move—"
Before Amara could finish, the wall behind them erupted. A simulated drake-like beast snarled, flames leaking from its fanged mouth.
"—NOW!"
They split. Zeke charged, ducked under the beast's swipe, and slammed a fist into its torso. The beast stumbled back but roared louder, tail sweeping low.
"Zeke! Behind you!" Damien shouted.
He tackled Zeke out of the way just as another creature—a quadruped hound with spikes—lunged from the shadows.
Amara fired up her scanner, calculating enemy patterns. "There are six more incoming! They're programmed to hunt based on Divinity output. Stop flaring your energy like fireworks, Zeke."
"I don't flare. I burn," Zeke grunted, launching a sweeping uppercut that shattered the hound's jaw.
The chaos escalated. Creatures swarmed from all angles. Amara tried to direct the team, shouting positions and angles, but Zeke ignored her.
"I don't need a babysitter!"
"And I don't coordinate with cavemen!" she snapped.
Damien ducked under a swipe, grabbed a loose piece of jagged wall, and drove it into the beast's eye. He was breathing hard, muscles sore, Divinity almost nonexistent. But he refused to fall.
"We'll die if we don't get it together!" Damien barked. "You want to win? Act like a team!"
Amara paused. Zeke stilled.
Then slowly, Amara's fingers danced across her visor. "Fine. Zeke, left flank sweep. Damien, play defense. I'll control the field."
Zeke exhaled. "Let's give this AI queen a shot."
They moved.
Zeke barreled through three beasts like a bulldozer, following Amara's real-time maps. Damien covered him from the rear, knocking back stragglers and using raw instinct to deflect blows. Amara remotely hacked traps and closed choke points, sealing off reinforcements.
When the final beast fell, the floor shuddered. A wall opened ahead. The exit to Floor 2.
They collapsed just before entering.
"I take back everything," Zeke panted. "She might actually be useful."
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Amara said dryly.
---
FLOOR 2: THE RIDDLEWALK
The second floor shimmered with golden light. Floating tiles formed narrow bridges. Pillars spun like gears. In the distance, whispering voices filled the air.
"Riddles," Amara muttered. "And worse... logic traps."
As they walked forward, a riddle appeared midair:
> "I am never seen, cannot be held, but break me and all fall. What am I?"
Zeke frowned. "A promise?"
The path lit up. They stepped forward.
The next one:
> "I run without legs, I sing without breath. I'm the ghost of valleys and cliffs. What am I?"
"Wind," Damien guessed.
Correct again. But one step too early and the tile beneath them cracked. Amara screamed.
"Stop guessing! Let me scan the riddle cycles."
They paused. She hacked the surrounding glyphs, analyzing their patterns. "The riddles repeat every twenty seconds. Step only when the timing reaches prime alignment."
They advanced. One wrong answer and a team would be thrown into loops—trapped for hours.
Through precise timing and Amara's brilliance, they cleared the floor. Damien carried a barely-conscious Zeke across the final threshold.
---
FLOOR 3: DUEL OF FATES
This floor greeted them with silence and separating platforms. A voice rang out:
"Combat simulations initiated. Each member will now face a personal trial."
The ground split. Damien fell into darkness.
He landed in a circular arena. Across from him... stood Theo Shaw.
"You?" Damien whispered.
The Theo-simulation grinned. "The world's already decided your worth, Gray. Let's see if you believe it."
The fight was brutal. Damien's raw strength was no match for Theo's simulated Divinity. He dodged, blocked, and countered, all while hearing taunts that struck deep.
> "No rank. No talent. Just guts and desperation. That's all you are."
But Damien didn't fall. He endured. When the simulation ended, he stood bloodied—but upright.
Amara faced her past—a version of herself who failed a mission, calculated wrong, cost lives. Zeke fought a mirror of his own rage—untamed, monstrous, and brutal.
Each emerged changed.
---
FLOOR 4: FLAMEBORN LABYRINTH
The heat was unbearable.
Flame constructs roamed freely. Floors cracked under molten pulses. The team ran from collapsing platforms, leapt over lava ravines, and fought corrupted Divinity beasts.
"This is where teams break," Amara warned.
Zeke roared, fists blazing. He compressed his Divinity into his arms, punching a flame construct into fragments. Damien struggled to keep up, blocking with scavenged shields.
Amara's predictions began to fail. The corrupted environment was chaotic. Still, she improvised.
Zeke followed Amara's split-second reroutes. Damien protected her when data scans failed. At one point, a construct cornered Amara—but Damien dove between, tackling it into lava.
They barely made it to the end.
---
FLOOR 5: THE LIGHT GATE
A glowing dome awaited them. Inside: a massive mechanism of spinning rings, needing three inputs of Divinity simultaneously to stabilize.
Amara found the rhythm. Zeke synced his pulse. Damien struggled—his Divinity still faint—but he forced himself to match them.
It worked. The gate opened.
They collapsed.
The rankings appeared on floating screens above.
> Team 1: Advanced
Team 2: Advanced
Team 7: Advanced
Team 12: Advanced
Team 11: Advanced
Only five advanced.
Damien blinked in disbelief.
The intercom buzzed again. The announcer's voice came through, smoother now.
"And there you have it, folks. The lesser teams have been eliminated. From eighteen to five—only the strong remain. Now the real tournament begins. The Baptism was only the fire. What comes next? That's the divine judgment."
A pause. Then:
"Ladies and gentlemen... we'll see you in Round Two."
Fade to black.