Chapter 6: Betrayal and Bait

Chapter 6: Betrayal and Bait

They navigated the safe path across the rune-covered floor, a winding, illogical route that had every member of the team holding their breath. Each step Kai called out was met with a hesitant, trust-filled placement of a foot. When Jax’s massive boot finally thudded onto the solid stone of the far side, a collective sigh of relief washed over them. They had made it. They were a team.

But as they entered the next tunnel, Kai’s mind was a maelstrom. The Syndicate will shatter. This trial is just my way through their gates. Elara’s overheard words were a brand on his thoughts.

He was faced with a choice, each path branching into a dozen deadly possibilities. He could expose her. He could try to find Charon or another Fiend and reveal the infiltrator in their midst. But what would that accomplish? Who would believe him, the Rat Boy, over a prodigy like Elara? They’d more likely “discard” him for wasting their time with fairy tales. And if they did believe him, what then? He’d have made an enemy of a powerful, unknown faction for no personal gain. Worse, if Elara found out he was the source, her wrath would be swift and absolute.

No. The gutter had taught him a different kind of logic. Information wasn't a truth to be shared; it was a weapon to be wielded. It was leverage. It was power. He wouldn't expose her. He would use her.

“Stop,” Kai said, his voice sharp. The team halted in the dim, moss-lit corridor.

“What is it?” Wren asked, her hand hovering over her malfunctioning gauntlet. “Another trap?”

“A rival team,” Kai said, the lie tasting surprisingly easy. “They’re close. Moving fast. The ones from the platform. The ice-mage and her crew.”

Kaelen’s hand immediately went to her daggers. “So? We keep moving. We’re not strong enough to fight them head-on.”

“We won’t,” Kai said, his heart starting to pound a steady, determined rhythm. “We’re going to hit them first.”

The statement hung in the air, thick with disbelief.

“Are you insane?” Kaelen hissed, stepping towards him. “They’re an alpha squad. They’ll wipe the floor with us. Twitch, tell him!”

Twitch was trembling, his eyes wide with unfocused terror. “Ice,” he whimpered. “So much ice… a man of lightning… a steel giant… they crush us…”

“He’s right,” Wren added, her voice laced with logic and fear. “Jax is pure defense, I’m a liability in this magic-saturated zone, Twitch is a nervous wreck, and Kaelen can’t get close enough to a cryomancer to be effective. And you… no offense, Kai, but you talk to rats.”

The familiar dismissal, the objective assessment of their weakness, should have stung. Instead, it galvanized him.

“You’re all thinking about a fair fight,” Kai said, his gaze meeting each of theirs in turn. “A fair fight is for idiots and the overwhelmingly powerful. We are neither. We are going to be clever. We are going to be ruthless. We are going to use everything we have, especially the things they don't expect.”

He took a deep breath. This was it. The moment they either followed him or fell apart.

“My spies have found us the perfect spot. A cavern, just ahead. Multiple levels, lots of cover. They’re moving predictably, following the main path. They think they’re the predators, and everyone else is prey. We’re going to use that arrogance against them.”

He laid out the plan, his voice growing in confidence with every word. It was a strategy born from a lifetime of watching bigger, stronger people and learning their weaknesses. He didn't assign them roles based on their strengths, but on how those strengths could create chaos.

“Jax,” he said, looking at the gentle giant. “I don’t need you to fight their heavy hitter. I need you to reshape the battlefield. There’s a narrow archway they’ll have to pass through. The moment they’re halfway in, you’ll bring it down. Use your shield as a battering ram. Seal the entrance. Split their team.”

Jax’s eyes widened slightly, then he gave a slow, firm nod. A wall. He could be a wall.

“Wren, your techomancy shorts out, right? Good. I don’t need you to fight their magic. I need you to fight their senses. That sonic grenade on your belt—what does it do?”

“High-frequency pulse,” she stammered, surprised. “Disorients organic targets, causes vertigo, extreme nausea. I’ve never used it…”

“You will now,” Kai commanded. “The moment the archway collapses, you throw it into the half of the cavern where Elara and the lightning mage are trapped. Sow confusion.”

“Kaelen,” he turned to the assassin. “Their acid-spitter will be on the other side of the rockfall with the armored brute. He’ll be disoriented, trying to figure out what happened. You will be above him, waiting. You get one clean shot. Make it count.”

Kaelen’s cynical scowl was gone, replaced by the focused intensity of a hunter.

“And what about me and Jitters?” she asked.

“Twitch,” Kai said softly. “You see futures, right? Bad ones?” Twitch nodded, vibrating. “I don’t need you to see the whole fight. Just the first two seconds. The moment they step into the cavern, before the trap is sprung, I need you to tell me what their point-man does. Which way does he look first?”

For the first time, Twitch looked at Kai with something other than fear. A purpose. “I… I can try.”

“And you, Rat Boy?” Kaelen asked, the name now holding a sliver of grudging respect. “What’s your part in this masterpiece?”

Kai offered a grim smile. “I’m the eye in the sky. I’m the coordinator. And I’m the bait.”

---

The cavern was perfect. A large, circular chamber with a crumbling stone archway for an entrance and a series of ledges and pillars providing ample cover. As Kaelen and Wren melted into the shadows above, and Jax positioned himself like a statue beside the archway, Kai sent his true army out. Dozens of rats scurried into position, becoming his eyes and ears, giving him a complete, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the battlefield.

He and Twitch huddled behind a fallen pillar near the center. “They’re coming,” Kai whispered, the information flowing into his mind from a scout fifty yards down the tunnel.

Twitch’s eyes glazed over. “He… the man in front… the lightning mage… he looks left. At the weak wall section. He’s going to blast it.”

The information was a spark. Kai relayed it instantly via a series of coded whistles they had agreed upon. Jax, be ready. He’s looking left.

Moments later, Elara’s team entered the cavern. They moved like a well-oiled machine, arrogant in their power. The lightning mage was at the point, Elara just behind him, flanked by the acid-spitter and their armored behemoth. They saw Kai break from cover, a deliberate, panicked dash.

“A stray,” the lightning mage sneered, raising a hand crackling with energy.

“Don’t waste your energy, Zale,” Elara’s cold voice commanded. “He’s irrelevant. Let’s—”

That was as far as she got.

“NOW!” Kai roared.

Three things happened at once. Jax, letting out a guttural bellow, slammed his entire body and the massive shield into the keystone of the archway. With a groaning crack, tons of rock and debris crashed down, sealing the entrance and separating the team. Elara and Zale were on one side; the acid-spitter and the armored brute on the other.

Wren, from her perch, lobbed the sonic grenade. It detonated with a silent flash, but the high-frequency pulse washed over the chamber. Zale cried out, clutching his head as his lightning sputtered. Elara staggered, her glacial composure cracking for a fraction of a second as vertigo hit her.

And on the other side of the rockfall, Kaelen dropped from the ceiling like a spider, her daggers flashing towards the throat of the stunned acid-spitter.

The explosive confrontation was a symphony of chaos, and Kai was its conductor. Elara recovered with terrifying speed, her blue eyes, blazing with fury, locking onto Kai. She knew. She instantly knew this was a coordinated attack, and he was at the center of it.

“You!” she snarled, and a wave of razor-sharp ice shards shot towards him.

Kai dove behind the pillar, the shards ripping through the air where he’d been, embedding themselves deep in the stone with a series of violent cracks. He wasn’t fighting her. He was just holding her attention. He sent a single, desperate command to his rats. Swarm! Blind her!

A living tide of fur and teeth erupted from every crack and hole in the floor, not to attack, but to overwhelm. They surged towards Elara, a screeching, chittering carpet of vermin that crawled over her boots and obscured her vision. She let out a cry of pure disgust, blasting the area around her with a pulse of frost that froze dozens of them solid, but more kept coming.

It was the opening they needed. “Go!” Kai screamed. “Now! To the exit!”

Wren, Jax, and a blood-spattered Kaelen converged on his position and they bolted for the far tunnel, leaving Elara’s fractured and furious team behind in the dust and chaos.

As they plunged into the darkness of the next corridor, Kai risked a single glance back. Through the swirling dust and the chaos of the swarm, he saw Elara. She was no longer trying to fight. She stood perfectly still, the cold fury on her face having been replaced by something far more dangerous: a look of sharp, analytical rage. Her glowing blue eyes were locked directly on him, burning with a promise of retribution.

He was no longer Rat Boy. He was no longer invisible. He had baited the traitor, and in doing so, had just made an enemy of the most dangerous person in the entire trial.