Chapter 50: The Team They Underestimated

The academy arena was packed to the last row by the time Roxanne and the brothers walked out, the crowd’s noise rolling over them in a wave that made her stomach twist. Everyone in that crowd understood exactly what was on the line. Lose today, and the Moonstone team’s entire run in the Alpha Challenge ended before it even had a chance to be officially recognized.

Academy officials sat in a reserved section near the front, clipboards in hand, watching with the same careful attention as everyone else, though for very different reasons.

Across the field, the Ironfang team stood in formation, and their captain’s eyes found Roxanne almost immediately, lingering there with obvious calculation. He said something to his teammates that made two of them glance her way and smirk.

Kai leaned close. "Don’t prove them wrong yet."

"What?"

"Let them keep thinking it."

Roxanne understood immediately, and something settled into place in her chest, cold and steady.

The horn sounded, and the first stage began.

The sprint course wound through a series of obstacles designed to punish speed without control, hidden pressure plates and collapsing sections scattered along the path. Liam took the lead instantly, his natural speed putting him well ahead of the pack within the first stretch, but his momentum carried him straight toward a section Roxanne recognized from their practice runs the night before.

"Left!" she shouted. "The ground shifts on the right side!"

Liam adjusted at the last possible second, cutting hard to the left as the ground behind him buckled and dropped away exactly where he would have landed. He didn’t slow down to process it, just kept running, and the Moonstones crossed the first checkpoint several lengths ahead of Ironfang.

It wasn’t Roxanne outperforming Liam. It was Roxanne making Liam better, and that distinction mattered more than she expected it to.

The second stage tested scent tracking, and Roshan moved into position at the front of their formation while a cloud of competing smells filled the enclosed course. Roxanne’s head swam almost immediately, too many overlapping trails tangled together to separate cleanly.

Roshan didn’t take over for her. "One scent," he said quietly. "That’s all you need."

She closed her eyes, forcing herself to isolate a single thread from the chaos the way he’d taught her, letting the others fall away until only one remained. She followed it forward, and then something made her pause. One of the scents was too clean, too deliberately placed among the natural confusion of the others.

"That trail’s fake," she said. "It’s planted."

Roshan’s eyes sharpened as he checked it himself, and a small, satisfied smile crossed his face. "Exactly."

They redirected around the false trail just as two members of Ironfang barreled straight into it, losing precious seconds untangling themselves from the dead end.

The third stage brought combat, a gauntlet of opponents standing between each team and a flag planted at the far end of the field. Kai moved immediately toward the largest and most dangerous of the Ironfang fighters, engaging him without hesitation. Two other competitors peeled off toward Roxanne instead, clearly still operating under the assumption that she was the easiest target on the field.

She didn’t wait for Kai to notice or intervene. She used exactly what he’d spent weeks drilling into her, positioning her body to redirect momentum rather than meet force head on, letting her opponent’s own weight carry him past her before she swept his legs out from under him. He hit the ground hard, and she was already moving to deal with the second before the first had fully registered what happened.

Kai caught the motion out of the corner of his eye mid-fight, and something flickered across his face, quiet and unmistakably proud, before he turned back and finished his own opponent with a decisive strike.

The crowd’s noise shifted, chants of Moonstone rippling through the stands.

The fourth stage tested strategy, presenting each team with a series of deliberately conflicting signals about which route would lead them fastest toward the final section. Lucien studied the board, his brow furrowed as he weighed two seemingly equal paths.

Roxanne watched the pattern unfold and realized something the others hadn’t quite articulated yet. This wasn’t testing who had the best individual strategic mind. It was testing whether the team could abandon a plan the moment circumstances proved it wrong.

"Your original route," she said to Lucien. "I don’t think it’s right anymore."

Lucien turned to her, surprise flickering briefly before it settled into consideration. He studied the board again, weighing her instinct against his own careful analysis.

"Do it," he said.

The brothers shifted course immediately, no argument, no hesitation, and Roxanne felt the weight of that trust settle over her more heavily than any victory point could have.

They reached the final obstacle nearly tied with Ironfang, the two teams separated by mere seconds. A single suspended course stretched across a wide gap, unstable platforms swaying under nothing but rope and tension, with the final marker waiting at the far end.

Everyone assumed Kai or Lucien would cross it.

"I’ll go," Roxanne said.

Kai’s eyes shot to the obstacle, calculating the risk in an instant. "It’s unstable."

"I noticed."

"Roxanne—"

"You taught me not to hesitate," she said, already moving toward the starting platform.

He didn’t stop her. That mattered more than she could put into words in the moment, the simple fact that he trusted her judgment enough not to override it.

She climbed onto the first platform, testing her weight carefully before committing, then moved steadily across the swaying rope bridge toward the marker. Halfway across, the platform beneath her shifted violently, and the crowd’s collective gasp rose up around the arena.

Roxanne’s arms shot out for balance, her heart slamming against her ribs as the rope groaned under the sudden strain.

Kai took an instinctive step forward, but Lucien’s hand closed around his arm before he could move further.

"She can do it," Lucien said, quiet and certain.

Kai stopped.

Roxanne steadied herself, breathing through the panic clawing at her chest, and forced her feet to keep moving one careful step at a time. She reached the far platform, grabbed the marker, and turned back the way she’d come, moving faster now that the worst of the instability was behind her.

She made it back to solid ground just as the horn sounded, and the Moonstone team crossed the finish line together, seconds ahead of Ironfang.

The arena erupted into noise, the crowd surging to its feet, the chant of Moonstone rolling across the stands loud enough that Roxanne felt it in her chest more than she heard it.

Kai reached her first, something raw and relieved flickering across his face before he could smooth it back into composure. Liam let out a whoop that carried over half the crowd. Roshan actually laughed, and even Lucien allowed himself a rare, genuine smile.

Then an academy official stepped onto the field, raising a hand for quiet.

"Due to the ongoing review concerning this team," he announced, his voice carrying flatly across the arena, "today’s result will be held pending further investigation before it is officially added to the standings."

The crowd’s cheer collapsed instantly into boos, students shouting protests from every section of the stands.

Liam’s fists clenched at his sides. Roshan’s jaw tightened. Lucien’s expression went carefully blank in the way Roxanne now recognized as barely contained fury.

Roxanne didn’t feel any of that. She turned toward the massive scoreboard mounted above the arena, watching as the numbers refreshed themselves in real time.

MOONSTONE — 1ST

And directly beneath it, in smaller, unmissable text:

RESULT PENDING REVIEW.

They’d won. The scoreboard said so, plainly, for anyone in that arena to see.

But somewhere behind the scenes, someone had already made certain they wouldn’t get to celebrate it yet.