Valoris woke gasping at 03:47, hands clawing at her throat. Her lungs refused to cooperate despite the objectively adequate oxygen in their barracks. The nightmare clung to her consciousness like wet cloth: standing in her family's hall of mechs, surrounded by five generations of perfect summonings, staring at the empty space where her mech should be. Where it would never be because she'd failed, because she wasn't enough, because the Kade line would end with her inadequacy made permanent and visible for everyone to see.

  Her grandmother's voice echoing through the hall: Survival is another word for cowardice when your name is Kade.

  The empty space where her mech should stand, mocking her with its absence.

  Her chest refused to expand. Panic folded around her like crushing weight, familiar now after two weeks of these attacks. She counted her breathing, tried to anyway, but the numbers scattered away from her thoughts like water through cupped hands.

  Four counts in. Hold for seven. Eight counts out.

  But her body wouldn't cooperate, lungs hitching and stuttering. Her heart slammed against her ribs hard enough to hurt.

  She sat up slowly, trying not to wake her squad. Across the barracks, she heard Quinn's breathing, too shallow, the kind of sleep that wasn't really sleep. Zee shifted in her bunk, restless even unconscious. Saren's breathing came fast and light, exhaustion failing to produce actual rest. Milo was silent, which was somehow worse than noise.

  They were all breaking.Not dramatically, but slowly, crushed under pressure that had been mounting for months.

  Two months until summoning.

  Eight weeks.

  Fifty-six days.

  Valoris pressed her hands against her stomach, trying to will away the nausea that had become constant lately. Food tasted like cardboard when she could force herself to eat at all. It sat in her stomach like lead regardless of what she chose. She'd lost weight she couldn't afford to lose. Her uniform hung looser. She kept noticing concerned looks from instructors she tried to ignore.

  Yesterday morning she'd noticed hair coming out in the shower, streaks of black scattering the white tile. Stress hormones wreaking havoc on her body, the physical manifestation of mental strain she couldn't acknowledge because acknowledging weakness meant failure.

  You're Valoris Kade. Fifth generation. You don't break. You don't fail. You endure.

  Except she was breaking. Slowly. Quietly. In ways she tried desperately to hide from her squad.

  She checked her interface: 04:03. Morning formation at 05:00. Combat simulation at 07:00. Academic sessions from 09:00 to 15:00. Meditation training, mandatory three hours now, from 15:00 to 18:00. Evening formation at 18:30. Study time until 22:00. Sleep from 22:00 to 05:45.

  Except she hadn't slept properly in weeks. She kept waking with panic attacks and nightmares, and a crushing sense of inadequacy that no amount of perfect performance could address.

  The schedule allowed for seven hours and forty-five minutes of sleep. She was getting maybe four, fragmented by terror.

  Around her, the barracks existed in that strange pre-dawn state where darkness felt temporary, holding its breath before yielding to morning. She could see her squadmates in their bunks. Zee curled on her side with defensive posture even sleeping. Saren flat on her back. Quinn barely visible under their blanket. Milo's bunk looking somehow chaotic despite him being motionless.

  They were drowning separately.

  She saw it with increasing clarity over the past weeks, but couldn't figure out how to reach them when she was too busy staying afloat herself.

  Zee got written up again on Thursday.

  It was the third time in two weeks. This time for "aggressive physical contact resulting in injury to fellow student" during what was supposed to be controlled sparring.

  Valoris found out when Commander Thrace summoned her to her office. Not Zee, just Valoris, the squad leader responsible for her squad's behavior.

  "Zavaretti put Cadet Torres in medical with a broken nose and fractured cheekbone," Thrace said without preamble, her scarred face impassive but voice carrying disappointment that cut deeper than anger. "During a drill that specifically emphasized control and restraint. She ignored three commands to disengage."

  "What happened?" Valoris asked, though part of her already knew.

  "Torres made a comment about Renn. Something about 'unstable genius shouldn't be allowed near dimensional technology.' Zavaretti decided this required physical correction."

  Of course. Zee defending Milo, channeling rage at the system into violence against individuals who represented everything she hated about academy hierarchy.

  "I'll talk to her," Valoris said.

  "You'll do more than talk. You'll control your squad or I'll remove her from active duty until after summoning." Thrace leaned forward slightly. "I understand the pressure you're all under. I understand that different people process stress differently. But violence against fellow cadets is not acceptable, regardless of provocation."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Dismissed."

  Valoris found Zee in their barracks, sitting on her bunk with knuckles wrapped in medical tape, staring at nothing.

  "Thrace talked to you," Zee said. Statement, not question.

  "Torres is in medical."

  "Torres was running his mouth about Milo. About how genius recruits with 'incidents' shouldn't be trusted with summoning. About how maybe the academy should reconsider letting him attempt bonding." Zee's hands clenched, the tape creaking. "I told him to stop. He didn't stop. So I stopped him."

  "By breaking his face."

  "He'll heal."

  "That's not the point."

  "Then what IS the point?" Zee turned to face her, and Valoris saw the barely-controlled fury radiating from her squadmate. "We're two months from summoning. Milo is dealing with gossip and judgment constantly. Saren is working herself to death trying to prove she's perfect. Quinn is forgetting to eat. You're–" She stopped, something in Valoris's expression making her reconsider. "We're all breaking. And I need an outlet for the rage or it's going to consume me."

  "So you hit people."

  "So I hit people who deserve it."

  "Thrace said one more incident and you're removed from active duty."

  Zee's expression shifted. Fear breaking through anger for just a moment before being suppressed. "They can't do that. Not this close to summoning."

  "They can. They will." Valoris sat on her own bunk, suddenly exhausted. "We need you. But we need you functional, not removed from training because you can't control yourself."

  "I'm controlling myself perfectly. Torres is alive, isn't he?"

  The terrifying thing was that Zee meant it. This was her version of control: violence carefully calibrated to injure but not kill.

  "Find a different outlet," Valoris said quietly. "Please. For Chimera. For yourself."

  Zee stared at her hands, wrapped and bloody beneath the tape. "What if hitting things is the only outlet that works?"

  Valoris didn't have an answer for that.

  At lunch on Friday, the cafeteria buzzed with the kind of manic energy that came from students desperately seeking distraction from mounting pressure.

  Valoris carried her tray to their usual table, where Zee was already eating with mechanical efficiency. Saren arrived moments later with a meal carefully calculated for optimal nutrition. Quinn sat down with their tablet, barely glancing at their food. Milo was the last to arrive, looking slightly more present than he had in days.

  Two tables over, Apex Squad was engaged in heated debate.

  "No, listen, I've got it now," Jace announced, loud enough that half the cafeteria could hear him. "I'm naming mine Devastator."

  "You said that last week," Kaito pointed out.

  "That was Annihilator. Totally different."

  "And before that it was Ragnarok."

  "And Apocalypse," another Apex member added.

  "And Doomsday," said a third.

  "Those were all placeholder concepts," Jace said with dignity that was completely unearned. "Devastator is the real name. Final answer. I'm committed."

  "Until tomorrow," someone muttered.

  Valoris picked at her food, listening despite herself. The naming question had started circulating two weeks ago, students dealing with pre-summoning anxiety by fixating on what they'd call their mechs, as if the perfect name might somehow guarantee success.

  "What about you?" Zee asked Saren, not quite looking at her. "You decided yet?"

  "Depends on what I summon," Saren said, precise as always. "Naming requires understanding the mech’s characteristics. You can't designate something before you know its fundamental nature. That would be methodologically backward."

  "I'm going with Fury," Zee said. "Already decided."

  "Fitting," Milo said quietly. It was the first unsolicited comment he'd made in days. Small sign of life breaking through his withdrawal.

  Quinn didn't look up from their tablet. "Irrelevant."

  "How is naming your mech irrelevant?" Zee demanded.

  "Because names are labels humans apply to entities that exist independent of designation. The dimensional being doesn't care what sound pattern we assign to it. The bonding matters. The name is administrative convenience."

  "You're fun at parties," Zee muttered.

  "I don't attend parties. They're irrelevant."

  At another table, someone laughed too loud, the sound brittle with tension. Someone else dropped a tray, the crash making half the cafeteria flinch. The air felt wrong, pressure building.

  "What about you?" Milo asked Valoris, voice still quiet but genuine curiosity underneath.

  "I don't know yet," Valoris admitted. The answer felt like failure. Like one more thing she should have figured out by now but hadn't. "I keep thinking I should wait and see what actually comes through. But then I think maybe having a name ready would help with focus during summoning. But then that feels presumptuous, assuming I'll succeed when–" She stopped, hearing her own spiral.

  Zee reached across the table, flicked Valoris's hand. Gentle for Zee, which meant it still stung slightly. "Stop that. You're summoning a mech. You're bonding successfully. You're Valoris fucking Kade."

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The conviction in Zee's voice didn't match the fear in her eyes, but the effort mattered.

  "I'm changing mine," Jace announced from across the cafeteria. "Devastator is too obvious. I need something with more gravitas. More presence. Something that captures the essential–"

  "Here we go," Kaito said wearily.

  "--majesty of dimensional power channeled through human will and shaped into an instrument of–"

  "Just pick a name and stick with it," someone interrupted. "Any name. We're begging you."

  "Nemesis," Jace said decisively. "That's it. Nemesis. Final answer. I'm committed."

  "You said that about Devastator," someone pointed out.

  "That was five minutes ago. I've evolved since then."

  Despite everything, despite the fear and exhaustion and crushing pressure, Valoris felt the corner of her mouth twitch. Just slightly. Almost like the beginning of something that might have been humor in different circumstances.

  Milo actually smiled. Small, faint, but present. "He's going to change it again tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow?" Zee snorted. "Give him two hours."

  "I'm going with Warden," someone from Corvini-14 announced. "Decided last week. Haven't changed it."

  "That's because you have conviction," Jace said. "I have vision. Vision requires iteration."

  "Vision requires commitment to a decision," Kaito said, but there was fondness underneath the exasperation. Squad Apex functioned differently than Chimera, louder, less intense, but they cared about each other in ways that showed.

  Valoris watched them argue about names that might never matter, about mechs they might not successfully summon, clinging to debate as a distraction from terror that none of them could actually voice.

  Two months until summoning.

  Less than that now. Fifty-four days.

  The cafeteria felt too loud and too fragile simultaneously.

  She found Saren in the library at 23:47, long after study time had officially ended, surrounded by tablets and handwritten notes and half-empty coffee cups that suggested she'd been there for hours.

  "Barracks closed at 22:00," Valoris said, keeping her voice gentle.

  Saren didn't look up. "I have a pass for extended study time. Commander Thrace authorized it for students requiring additional preparation."

  "You don't need additional preparation. You're ranked second in our year for academic performance."

  "Second. Not first." Saren's hands moved across her tablet with precision, but Valoris noticed the tremor, a subtle, constant, sign of exhaustion pushed past reasonable limits. "I need to understand dimensional resonance harmonics better. If I can predict variance patterns during summoning, I can adjust my approach in real time. It increases success probability by an estimated four to seven percent."

  "When did you last sleep?"

  "Adequately."

  "Saren. When did you last sleep more than four hours?"

  Silence. Long enough that Valoris had her answer.

  "I'll sleep after summoning," Saren said finally. "Right now I need to be perfect."

  "You are perfect. Your technical execution is flawless."

  "Flawless isn't enough!" The outburst came with surprising force, Saren's carefully maintained control cracking to reveal desperation underneath. "I'm a scholarship student. I don't have family legacy or natural genius or combat instincts. All I have is work ethic and perfect execution. If I'm not perfect, if I make a single mistake during summoning, I fail. And I can't fail. I CAN'T."

  Her hands were shaking badly now, her coffee cup rattling slightly against the table.

  Valoris moved around to sit across from her, choosing her words carefully. "Working yourself to collapse won't help you summon successfully. You know that rationally."

  "Rationally, yes." Saren's voice cracked slightly. "But I'm terrified that if I stop working, if I rest even for a moment, I'll discover that I'm not actually good enough. That all this effort is just delaying inevitable failure."

  She looked exhausted. Genuinely, dangerously exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes, skin too pale, hands trembling.

  "Come back to barracks," Valoris said. "Get real sleep. Six hours. I'll wake you for morning formation."

  "I have three more chapters to review–"

  "Saren. Please." Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe desperation, maybe just the accumulated weight of two months watching her squad break separately, but Valoris's voice cracked slightly. "Please come back. We need you functional. I need you functional."

  Something in that admission made Saren finally look up from her tablets. Really look, seeing Valoris clearly for probably the first time in days.

  "You look terrible," Saren said.

  "I know."

  "When did you last eat properly?"

  "I could ask you the same question."

  They stared at each other across the table. Two people drowning separately suddenly recognizing their shared condition.

  "We're breaking," Saren said quietly.

  "Yeah," Valoris agreed. "We are."

  "Coming back to barracks won't fix that."

  "No. But maybe we'll break slightly slower together."

  Saren gathered her materials with mechanical precision, movements so practiced they required no conscious thought. They walked back to barracks in silence, both too exhausted for conversation.

  Quinn collapsed during meditation training on Friday.

  One moment they were sitting in proper formation, breathing measured, consciousness reaching toward the dimensional boundary with focused intensity. The next moment they were on the floor. Instructors surrounded them with medical equipment, checking vitals with practiced efficiency.

  "Exhaustion," the medical officer said after preliminary assessment. "Combined with severe malnutrition and dehydration. How long since you've eaten properly?"

  Quinn stared at the ceiling, eyes hollow. "Food is inefficient. Need to practice. Need to be ready. Need–"

  They couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't seem to remember what they needed or why it mattered.

  The medical officer looked at Instructor Kael. "They're down twelve pounds from baseline. This is dangerous territory. I'm pulling them from training until–"

  "No." Quinn's voice came flat and absolute despite their prone position. "Can't stop. Summoning in two months. I need to reach the boundary. Need to maintain contact. Need–"

  "You need medical intervention," the officer said firmly. "You're hyperfocused to the point of self-destruction. This is not sustainable."

  "Sustainable until summoning. That's all that matters."

  Valoris watched from her meditation position, frozen by regulations that said she couldn't move without instructor permission but desperate to help her squadmate who was clearly falling apart.

  Finally Kael spoke: "Sterling, you're dismissed from training for seventy-two hours. Medical supervision. Mandatory nutrition and rest. This is not negotiable."

  "But–"

  "Not. Negotiable." Kael's voice carried the weight of someone who'd seen this before, who knew exactly where this path led if not interrupted. "You're not the first student to forget your body has needs. You won't be the last. But you WILL eat, sleep, and recover before you're allowed to continue training."

  They took Quinn away still protesting, their voice getting weaker as they were transported to medical facilities.

  Chimera completed meditation training without them, but the absence felt wrong. Incomplete. Like losing a limb and trying to maintain balance.

  After dismissal, Valoris went to medical to check on Quinn.

  She found them in a recovery room, connected to IV fluids, staring at the ceiling with that hollow expression that suggested consciousness was present but barely engaged.

  "Hey," Valoris said quietly.

  "I told them I'm fine." Quinn's voice came flat, mechanical. "Told them food is irrelevant. I need to train. I need–" They stopped, unable to complete the thought again.

  "You need to eat. And sleep. And remember that you have a body that requires maintenance."

  "A body is an obstacle. Mind is what matters. During summoning, consciousness reaches across the dimensional boundary. Your body is just the anchor point. If I can strengthen consciousness–"

  "You can't strengthen consciousness if your body fails completely," Valoris interrupted, sitting in the visitor chair beside their bed. "You're brilliant. You know this logically. Your hyperfocus is useful but it's also destroying you."

  Quinn turned to look at her, really look, and Valoris saw fear beneath the hollow exhaustion.

  "I'm terrified," Quinn said quietly. "If I fail summoning, I disappear. Stop existing. Become nothing again."

  "You won't disappear. You'll still be you. Still be Chimera Squad."

  "No. Without pilot status, I'm just... nothing. No family wants me. No future waits for me. The only path forward is through summoning. The only way I continue existing as a person with purpose is if I bond successfully." They looked back at the ceiling. "So I practice. And I forget to eat. Because eating feels less important than existing."

  Valoris didn't have an adequate response to that. Couldn't argue against fear that was both rational and devastating.

  "Rest," she said finally. "Seventy-two hours. Then come back. We need you. Chimera needs you. But we need you functional, not collapsed."

  "I'll rest. Then train harder."

  "Quinn–"

  "That's all I know how to do. Train until I'm good enough. Work until I prove I deserve to exist." Their voice carried exhaustion and determination in equal measure. "I don't know a different way."

  Valoris left medical feeling more helpless than when she'd arrived.

  Milo stopped talking.

  Not completely. He still responded to direct questions, still participated minimally in required activities, still existed in the technical sense. But the enthusiasm was gone. The brightness. The constant chatter about dimensional theory and engineering innovations and seventeen simultaneous projects.

  He just went away. He was still present physically but gone in every way that mattered.

  Valoris noticed Tuesday when Milo walked past an engineering display that should have fascinated him. A new dimensional resonance detector prototype, exactly the kind of technology he'd normally spend hours analyzing. He barely glanced at it.

  Wednesday he forgot to clean his glasses. They stayed smudged and dirty, making it harder for him to see. Thursday his uniform looked slept-in, hair unwashed. By Friday, he'd retreated so far into his own head that Valoris wasn't sure he was actually processing external reality anymore.

  She found him in their barracks after evening formation, sitting on his bunk, staring at his hands like they belonged to someone else.

  "Milo," she said quietly.

  He looked up slowly, eyes taking several seconds to focus on her face.

  "Talk to me. Please."

  "About what?" His voice came quiet, empty of the energy that normally characterized every word.

  "About whatever's happening inside your head. Whatever you're dealing with."

  "I'm fine."

  "You're not fine. None of us are fine. But you're disappearing. Going somewhere we can't reach you."

  "Maybe that's better. Maybe if I disappear enough, I won't hurt anyone when I summon. Won't create another incident. Won't prove everyone right about me being dangerous."

  "You're not dangerous."

  "I put someone in hospital when I was thirteen. Built something I shouldn't have been able to build and it corrupted reality in an eight-meter radius. That's dangerous."

  "That was an accident. You've learned–"

  "Have I?" He finally met her eyes, and Valoris saw the guilt he'd been carrying, the self-loathing he'd hidden beneath enthusiasm. "Or am I just waiting to hurt someone else? To create another incident because my genius is always barely controlled chaos?"

  Valoris sat beside him, maintaining proximity without crowding. "The academy recruited you. Trained you. Prepared you for summoning. They wouldn't do that if they believed you were fundamentally dangerous."

  "They recruited me because leaving me unsupervised was MORE dangerous. This was damage control, not endorsement." His hands trembled slightly. "And now summoning is two months away, and I'm terrified of what I might create. What if my mech is unstable? What if bonding with me produces something that threatens people? What if–"

  "Stop." Valoris kept her voice gentle but firm. "Spiraling into hypothetical disasters doesn't help anyone. We deal with reality, not nightmare scenarios."

  "But reality keeps proving nightmares are possible."

  They sat in silence for a long moment, both processing fears that felt increasingly impossible to manage.

  "Stay here," Valoris said finally. "In reality. With Chimera. We need you present, even when everything feels impossible. Especially then."

  "I'm trying. It's just hard. Being here. Being me. Knowing what I've done and what I might still do."

  "I know." And she did. Different fears, different manifestations, but the same fundamental terror of inadequacy and potential for catastrophic failure.

  They sat together until Zee and Saren returned from their own evening activities, until Quinn returned from medical looking slightly less hollow, until their barracks contained all five members of Chimera Squad again.

  None of them were okay.

  But at least they were together.

  Commander Thrace summoned Chimera Squad to her office on Saturday morning. All five of them. Not Valoris alone as squad leader, the entire squad.

  They stood at attention before her desk, maintaining formation despite exhaustion, trying to project competence despite visible deterioration.

  Thrace studied them in silence for thirty seconds that felt like hours.

  "You're breaking," she said finally. "Separately. Visibly. Dangerously."

  Nobody denied it.

  "Zavaretti, you've been written up three times in two weeks for violent outbursts. Maddox, you're working eighteen-hour days and sleeping four hours maximum. Sterling, you collapsed during meditation from exhaustion and malnutrition. Renn, you've stopped maintaining basic hygiene and social engagement. Kade," she focused on Valoris, "you're losing weight, showing signs of chronic anxiety, experiencing panic attacks that disrupt your sleep. Medical has flagged all five of you as concerning cases."

  The silence felt crushing.

  "You're supposed to be a squad," Thrace continued. "Chimera Squad. You named yourselves after a legendary creature. Built a reputation as a coordinated unit. Finished first year ranked third. But you're not functioning as a squad now. You're five individuals drowning separately, too busy staying afloat to support each other."

  Valoris felt shame and recognition in equal measure. Thrace was right. They'd stopped being Chimera and become five isolated people suffering in parallel.

  "If you're actually a squad, if Chimera means anything to you beyond a tactical designation, you'll pull each other out of this spiral," Thrace said. "Or you'll all wash out. Because the academy doesn't graduate pilots who can't maintain their humanity under pressure. We need weapons, yes. But weapons that remember they're people."

  She pulled out authorization codes, handed them to Valoris.

  "Weekend leave. Mandatory. Off campus. I'm giving you pass codes to a small coastal town approximately one hour away. Transport leaves in two hours. You will go. You will rest. You will remember how to exist as people, not just pilot candidates. That's an order."

  "But summoning preparation–" Saren started.

  "Will still be there Monday. You're not resting because you've earned it. You're resting because you're about to break completely if someone doesn't force you to stop." Thrace's scarred face showed something almost like concern beneath military strictness. "Get out of here. Remember what you're fighting for. Come back ready to actually function as a squad."

  "Yes, ma'am," they said in unison.

  "Dismissed."