The Lumina 1 male student, Jayden, walked slowly toward Axel's group with his sister close behind him. His shoulders were stiff, and his steps were careful, like he was afraid one wrong move would send them away.
A few feet from the group, Kora stopped suddenly and grabbed Jayden's sleeve with both hands and pulled him back.
"Jay… wait," she whispered urgently with her eyes darting toward the group. "They won't take us because they feel they're all stronger than us."
Jayden turned to her. "Kora—"
"What if we just turn off our collar tags?" she said quickly. "Just for now, they don't even need to know our levels."
Jayden shook his head immediately. "That's a bad idea." he said.
"Why is it such a bad idea?"
"If they find out later that we lied, we're done," he said. "We'll get kicked out, or worse."
Kora bit her lip and looked away. Jayden then tightened his grip on her hand and pulled gently. "Come on." he urged
