Yellow Jacket

The world still burned. But Warren did not.

He stood at the tribal grounds' edge, skin coated in a glassy shell of false sweat, limbs twitching from strain, body shivering while the air around him steamed. The Natah hadn't left him; it lived in him still, writhing beneath his skin. But the temperature had changed. The paste in his bloodstream, designed to shield him from searing heat, now had nothing left to counteract. With the source of fire gone, it turned on him, cooling too fast, too deep, while his nerves still screamed with phantom burns. His body began to freeze even as his skin believed it still burned.

It was no longer heat that pressed on his nerves. It was cold.

Now the same paste meant to protect against burning had become a curse. He had climbed too quickly. Killed too fast. And now the Natah, turned on him in reverse. His blood began to chill. Each exhale plumed like smoke in winter, and his eyes began to frost over, ice curling at the edges of vision, while his nerves still screamed of fire that no longer burned.

He collapsed.

The last thing he felt was frost climbing up his spine, while his skin still flinched from heat that didn't exist.

Everything after that was noise.

He dreamed of ash.

Of walking through fire that didn't burn.

Of snow that flowed like steam.

He dreamed of Mara. Not alive. Not dead. Just standing there, coat wrapped around her shoulders, watching him with that look that always came before a lesson.

She didn't speak. Didn't need to.

Then came the darkness.

He fell for a long time. Not through space. Through silence.

When he woke, it wasn't Wren's voice he heard, nor Styll's squeak. The first sound was the slow scrape of cloth. The scent of boiled moss and burnt stone.

Ernala.

She didn't speak immediately. Just turned when she noticed him blinking.

"I see you're awake," she said, her voice flat, her hands still moving with measured precision as she stirred something thick and brown in a stone basin.

Warren didn't speak. He tried to sit up.

She put a hand to his chest.

"Don't. The moss hasn't drawn all the Natah out yet."

His vision twitched.

The corners still glittered with frost.

He stared at her.

She didn't flinch.

"Do you know what you've done?"

He didn't answer. She didn't expect one.

"You completed the Natah faster than even Kal-Gish. And you didn't just survive, you killed a Brood Mother. Not a juvenile. Not what Muk-Tah prepared you for. You surprised me. Surprised the elders. Surprised a man who thought you were the second coming of his father."

The weight of the words didn't touch him. Not yet. They floated above his body like the heat haze that used to be.

"All very interesting," said another voice. Isol.

He stood just out of view, leaning on the frame of the hut, eyes too bright.

"Lady Ernala here was the most vocal opponent to you taking Nanuk's place, but the second you dropped, she moved faster than even Wren. Pulled you from the poison like her life depended on it."

Ernala didn't deny it.

"There hasn't been a Tide-Lord in living memory. Let alone an outsider."

That was when the door slammed open.

Wren burst in, wild-eyed and clutching Stick like a sword. Styll scampered in after her, already halfway to Warren.

"You were told to wait outside," Ernala snapped.

Wren didn't even look at her. She pointed the pipe like a blade.

"I told you when he woke, I was coming back. And he's awake. So here I am. Also, what the fuck is Isol doing in here when I'm not?"

Isol grinned. "She said I'm his chronicler." The words came easy, but his heart twisted. He was proud, honored, even. To witness this, to record Warren's rise, to be given a place at the edge of myth.

But he wasn't blind. He saw Wren standing there, blacksteel pipe in hand, fury in her eyes and something deeper just beneath it. Isol knew what she was to Warren. And Ernala, Ernala didn't see that. Chronicler or not, Isol knew: Wren didn't witness Warren's story. She was it.

"Yes," Ernala said. "He is. You're just a girl trying to steal what rightfully belongs to the tribe."

Warren moved. Stood.

The moment the words left Ernala's mouth, he was on his feet.

"What did you say to her?"

But weakness hit him like a wave. He swayed.

Ernala cursed. "Look what you did, girl. Now I have to start all over again."

Wren flared. "What I did? What I did? You fucking bitch, how dare you say that to me!"

Isol added, lightly, "If you really knew him, Lady Ernala, you'd know she's not taking anything. She is already part of him."

Ernala's head snapped toward him. Her tone sharpened. "You should shut your mouth, boy."

Isol blinked. The word hit oddly. Boy. For a second, confusion crept into his face, then he remembered what he looked like to them.

"You don't know what you're speaking about," Ernala added, dismissing more than just his words.

"Don't tell him to shut up," Wren snapped. Her voice cracked like dry kindling. "I'm about this close to popping you in that big fat mouth of yours."

Grix came through the door without knocking, like she'd been invited by the chaos itself. She grinned as she spotted the tension, eyes flashing wild with glee. "Do it," she said, pointing at Ernala like she was daring the sky to fall. "Fuck her up, Wren."

Ernala turned, aghast. "Who is letting all these outsiders in? How did you get past the guards?"

Muk-Tah walked in behind her, voice calm but firm. "I did."

The shouting had drawn attention. Elders stepped inside. Muk-Tah followed.

"What is going on in here?" Muk-Tah growled. "It sounds like a bray-horn mid-rut."

Wren turned on him. "Your wife just told me that I caused Warren to get up all pissed off after she said I was stealing him from the tribe."

In the background, Styll was curled up on Warren's lap, nuzzled under his chin. "Warn, you okays? I is happys you crunched the stupids face."

Warren didn't speak. But he looked down at her. And she knew.

She turned. Faced them all.

"Wen is Warn's art. Can't take art from Warn or no life. No take Wen from Warn."

Silence.

Ernala stiffened. Muk-Tah looked at her, something sharp in his gaze.

"My dear," he said slowly. "Didn't you just call him an outsider yesterday?"

Ernala didn't answer.

But the room had. And Warren had, without speaking a single word.

Ernala had not only been the most vocal opponent of Warren, she had been the one who challenged him to the Natah.

And now, after he had survived it, after he had bled and burned and frozen and bled again, she stood before him, trying to claim him as one of their own. As if none of that had ever happened. As if the fight she forced on him had somehow entitled her to decide what he belonged to.

And more than that, she was trying to push Wren out.

Warren, still weak from the Natah, still lying on a mat where the heat hadn't fully left his bones, where the last traces of that venomous, myth-bound fire still bled out of him into moss, he could barely speak. But he heard.

Muk-Tah stepped forward, slow and deliberate. His voice was measured, but heavy.

"My dear," he said to Ernala. "You called him an outsider. Not once. Not in private. Before the tribe."

Ernala didn't look at him.

She looked at Warren. Then at Wren.

But the room had not forgotten.

Styll's words still rang in the air. The little beast curled around Warren like a second skin, eyes bright, voice clear in memory: Wen is Warn's art. Can't take art from Warn or no life. No take Wen from Warn.

Then one of the elders spoke.

"This bond," one said, gesturing not to Warren and Wren directly, but to Styll, who didn't flinch, "This beast speaks with the weight of something older. She is bound to him. And so she is tribe."

Another elder added, firm: "But the girl, she is not. She cannot claim him."

Ernala nodded, now with relief. "Yes. I agree."

Grix looked like she was about to explode.

Muk-Tah's face tightened. His hands clenched. He looked at Wren, at Warren, at the elders.

He knew the truth. Everyone in the room did. Wren was already Warren's wife in all but name. Their bond had been forged not in ceremony, but in fire and blood and the kind of trust that rewrites who you are. But the elders held power, equal to his. And the Mothers would side with them.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

And then....

Warren spoke.

His voice was hoarse, cracked with effort. But every word struck like stone.

"I will not forsake my heart for your wishes."

Ernala turned on him, eyes wide. "You stubborn boy. You'll only hurt yourself by speaking."

But he kept going.

"No. You listen to me. You didn't believe I had the right to stand as the First Son. You thought I couldn't possibly have won against five of your best. And when those same warriors said I did, you still denied me. You challenged me to the Natah, thinking I'd back down."

His breathing was rough. But the fire in it hadn't left.

"But I didn't. I climbed. I bled. I fought. And I survived. You didn't think I'd survive that challenge either. But I did."

He pushed up to sit straighter, bones trembling under skin, strength borrowed from rage and clarity alone.

"And if you think my words are hollow, look at what I've done. She is the only part of this world I would burn for. Don't you dare speak to me again about this. She is mine. And I am hers. Whole. And unforgotten."

The hut fell silent.

All that remained was the sound of Warren's breath, ragged and steady. His body was broken. But he was not.

Wren looked at him like the world had stopped spinning.

And Grix, finally, broke the silence.

"That's my bestie."

Warren almost laughed.

Muk-Tah did. A deep, thunderous bark of joy that shattered the tension.

He raised his voice for all to hear.

"Well said, Tidelord. You lead, and we follow."

Warren staggered.

Not from the Natah. Not anymore. The moss had done its work, mostly. The heat was gone. The fire had faded.

But the System had not.

A message had been waiting, burning behind his vision from the moment the Brood Mother died.

WARNING

Statistical imbalance detected.

No single stat should exceed double the value of any other.

Unexpected mutations may occur.

He'd ignored it until now.

But it wasn't going away.

His stats were lopsided. He knew that. Resolve. Intelligence. Perception. All stretched thin against Strength and Endurance. The imbalance wasn't a surprise. But what would happen if he tried to fix it here, now, was.

If he allocated his points now, the surge might cripple him. The shift would hurt. Deep. It would pull through bone and marrow and blood. He might black out.

And if he did, if he passed out in front of the elders, in front of Ernala, still not fully trusted, still feared, what would they do?

They didn't know he was Aberrant.

His friends knew. Wren knew. Styll knew. Muk-Tah knew the green had a bounty on his existence. But the elders? Ernala? If they saw him change, if his body warped, or screamed, or shifted the way it did the last time, they'd panic. They might even try to kill him.

It wasn't safe. Nothing about this was ideal.

He couldn't wait much longer. The stat imbalance wasn't just a message. It was a limit. The System was forcing his hand.

He reached inward, toward the bond.

Styll.

The connection stirred.

Tell Grix. Get everyone out. Any way you can.

Styll didn't ask why. She never did.

Grix moved fast.

She turned to the gathered elders and pointed with two fingers like she was about to deliver a tavern speech.

"Alright, you geezers. Show's over. They need privacy. She's gotta tell him something important."

An elder blinked. Frowned. "If it's important, then we should hear it too."

Wren stepped forward, voice level but laced with threat. "You really want to know what we're going to talk about? Really want to know?"

The elder crossed their arms. "Yes."

Muk-Tah didn't even sigh. He just waved them off. "Leave the children be. They deserve their privacy."

Ernala opened her mouth.

He cut her off.

"And you, my wife, do you really think you have any more goodwill to spend? He hates you. And it's obvious. You're going to need to earn back what you lost. We're going to fix this. You're going to show him the woman who deserves to stand by my side."

The room had started to shift, to shuffle. Wren and Grix herded the rest of them toward the exit, Grix snapping at the slowest with exaggerated sighs and muttered curses about elders who didn't understand boundaries. Even Ernala moved, silent and stiff.

Isol was the last to turn. He paused at the threshold, one hand on the doorframe.

Wren's voice stopped him. "Stay."

He turned, hesitated. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. "He'll want you here."

Isol didn't speak. But he stepped back inside and let the others pass by.

But Warren didn't wait.

The pressure in his skull was climbing. The nanites were done being patient.

"Everyone out!" Warren shouted.

He cried it raw, louder than he should have. And as the last word cracked from his throat, he slammed the stat points into place.

The slowest of the elders found a burst of speed she hadn't tapped in decades, feet moving with sudden urgency toward the exit.

The pain hit instantly.

Not like the Natah. That had been fire. This was surgery.

The nanites, no longer restrained by imbalance, surged into motion. They weren't gentle. They didn't soothe. They corrected. With brutal, perfect efficiency. They had no heart, no bedside manner. It saw damage and enacted change, without asking, without care.

Warren's muscles locked as the reconstruction began. His veins felt like they were packed with wire, molten one second and freezing the next. Nerves lit in sequence, raw signals blazing across his limbs. Bones realigned. Ligaments tightened. Internal scar tissue from old wounds was scrubbed away and replaced in jagged pulses of pain.

He couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream. His throat locked shut as his lungs twisted, oxygen delivery restructured mid-inhale. Something beneath his ribs, liver? spleen?, jerked as if yanked by unseen force. His jaw clenched so hard his molars cracked.

Still, the nanites pushed deeper. Past skin. Past sinew. Into the marrow.

His fingers curled violently. Toenails split. Every joint swelled, then compressed, popping with precise microscopic shifts.

The Natah had seeped out of him. This wasn't the poison leaving, it was change unmaking what didn't fit.

Warren's body shook. His spine bowed. His eyes rolled white.

And still, the nanites continued. Cold. Flawless.

His skull felt like it would split down the middle. His thoughts fractured into static.

The storm wasn't being calmed.

It was being rewritten.

And then, finally, Warren screamed.

The nanites took hold.

And reshaped the storm.

Wren and Isol stood at the far wall of the hut, the air thick with the scent of moss, blood, and something else, burnt ozone and wet circuitry. But beneath that, there was something more raw. The weight of something permanent beginning. The kind of moment you didn't walk back from.

Warren's body convulsed again, the transformation visible now in flashes. Skin shimmered, not glowing, but pulsing beneath the surface like something was knitting itself back together with every tremor. His breath came sharp and wet. Steam clung to the floor. Muscles tore and reformed. Bones cracked in rhythm. But it wasn't the physical that hurt the most.

Wren could feel it in her own bones: the pain Warren wasn't screaming. The agony of being undone and redone by something that didn't care who he was, only what he could become.

She didn't flinch. But she bled for him.

"This," she said quietly, eyes locked on Warren, voice taut and reverent, "this is who you're choosing to follow."

Isol didn't answer right away. His breath caught. His perfect face, too smooth to age, shifted. Shock peeled away his composure like a mask soaked loose by rain.

"What is he?"

Wren's voice didn't waver. "Who he is. Who he's always been."

Warren twitched again. A sudden jolt. One of his fingers bent the wrong way before snapping back into place. Nanite webs stitched down his spine, visible only for a second. His face twisted in silent torment.

"You think you can stand beside him, in the world he's making?" Wren asked. Her voice cracked, just once. "You chose to stand against the Green when you started teaching us the truth. But this? This is the man who's going to change it."

Isol stared. "He's a Broken. But how?"

"You said it yourself, or your suit did. That existence like his is a crime." Wren nodded. "He's an Aberrant."

Isol went pale.

He didn't look away. "They won't just stop at him. If they find out, they'll erase everything. Even the memory of him."

He swallowed. Hard. "And you think he wanted me to see this."

"I think he needed you to. He wanted you to know what side you and Jurpat chose when you stepped away from the Green. I don't think he'd stop you if you turned around and left right now."

Isol looked at Warren again. His lips parted. No words came.

He watched Warren twitch, saw the way his shoulder spasmed like nerves were tearing under skin. Saw the way he clenched his jaw so hard a line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

"My dear," he said finally, voice softer than Wren had ever heard it, "this man is probably the single greatest threat to the Green Zone's authority. If you had asked me a week ago whether I would ever follow someone like him, I would've called the Legion on you for even suggesting it."

He shook his head slowly. "But now? After seeing him, who he fights for? I can't help it. I'm inspired."

His hands curled slightly at his sides. "Ernala called me his chronicler. But I think, I think I want to be his teacher. I want to give him the tools to make his dream real."

Wren finally looked at him.

"The Green is so corrupted it believes its corruption is order," Isol said. "The face I wear makes me feel ill the more I see what real people look like. And he... he's the most real person I've ever met."

Wren's throat tightened. She barely breathed.

"You know," she said, voice trembling at the edges now, "when I first met him, I thought about what use he could be to me. How I could use him."

She didn't sound proud. Just shattered. And somewhere beneath the words, she didn't sound forgiven either. Not by herself.

"Warren is a killer. He loves it. And I don't mean that figuratively. I mean he loves it like he loves me. Killing, when it's by his code, when it's justified, it gives him wings. And sometimes, when he's flying so high, I can see it, the freedom he feels, the weight that lifts from him, like in that moment he's exactly who the world demanded he become. Not broken. Not cruel. Just... free."

Isol stayed silent. But his posture changed. Softer. Smaller. His eyes didn't leave Warren, but something shifted in his throat. A flicker of hesitation. Of grief.

"I thought I'd seen strength," he whispered. "I thought I understood what power looked like."

Then quieter, almost ashamed: "I didn't. I just wore its face."

"I think the world needs his rules," Wren continued. "He kills those who would hurt others. He ends anyone who comes for him. But he protects those who need it. Even when we betray him. And he didn't flinch. He didn't blame me. That's the worst part, Isol. I know he still loves me. Like none of it happened."

Her voice broke on that word.

"Betray him?" Isol asked, gently now.

Wren's mouth tightened. Her eyes burned.

"He came for me. And I... And I gave myself to a monster so that I could survive."

Isol's eyes widened.

"And now... Now I don't know if the love of my life is the father of my future child."

The silence wasn't still. It throbbed.

Isol stared at her. His expression unreadable now.

"Does he know?"

Wren nodded. "I told him before the challenge. I told him I was pregnant. And I told him... we'd talk when he came back to me."

Outside, the wind shifted. Inside, the air stilled.

And Warren burned.

But this time, it wasn't from fire. It was from becoming.

Warren woke slowly.

Not with violence. Not with panic. Just the quiet return of breath. The burn in his chest had dulled to a deep ache. The storm inside him had quieted, not gone, but held at bay, like the eye of something still vast and circling.

He blinked.

The ceiling of the hut was the same. The scent of moss and blood still hung thick in the air. But it was quiet. No footsteps. No elders. Just one heartbeat he knew.

Wren.

She sat beside him, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around them. Her eyes were red. Her face streaked with salt and silence. The tears had stopped falling, but not long ago. Her strength was still there, but it had cracked in the waiting.

Warren didn't try to move. He just breathed. A sovereign act.

"What's wrong, my love?"

The words came gently. Not soft, but steady. Like stone laid with care. The kind of voice that built altars.

Wren's head snapped toward him. Not startled, angry.

But not at him.

Not really.

Her mouth twitched, not toward a smile but something close to pain. She looked like she wanted to shout, or run, or strike through the shame clinging to her bones.

Not because of what he said. But because she didn't think she deserved it.

He called her "my love." And she didn't know how to carry that.

She stared at him, hollow and full all at once. Every breath she'd taken while he was unconscious felt like theft.

He didn't speak again.

He waited.

Because kings don't rush grief.

She finally spoke, her voice raw.

"You shouldn't say that to me."

"Why not?"

She looked away. "Because I... Because I let him..."

He cut her off. Not with words. Just a look. Unshaken. Whole.

"Azolde. You gave yourself away so I could find you again."

She froze.

"If this child is the cost of your survival, then it's the proof that I didn't lose you. That you made it back to me."

Tears welled again, sharp and sudden. She shook her head. "You don't even know if it's yours."

He didn't flinch. He sat like the world could break against his spine and he would still be steady.

"You didn't choose him. You chose to live. And because you did, you're here. That's all I care about."

She pressed her hand to her mouth, like she might split in half. Like love was heavier than shame could ever be.

"Mara didn't ask where I came from," he said softly. "She only asked me to take her hands."

She looked at him, eyes wide, full of fear and something deeper. Something that saw the crown he never wore but always carried.

He reached for her hand.

"I know what it is to be claimed. This child, if it's not ours, saved you. That makes them mine."

The words didn't fall like comfort. They landed like a vow.

Wren didn't speak. She just leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his chest, arms tightening around him like she could keep the rest of the world from ever getting in again.

"I love you," she whispered.

Warren closed his eyes.

"I know."

And for the first time since the climb, since the trial, since the flames tried to unmake him, he smiled.

Not as a man who had endured.

But as one who had chosen what he would carry forward.

And what he claimed as his.

Warren Smith — Level 11

(Second threshold requirements not met)

Class: Drift Walker

Alignment: Aberrant

Unallocated Stat Points: 0

Attributes:

Strength: 13

Perception: 16

Intelligence: 24

Dexterity: 18

Endurance: 13

Resolve: 21

Skills at Level 11:

Soft Flicker (Active)

Echo Vision (Passive)

Examine (Active)

Quick Reflexes (Passive)

Crafting (Active)

Warren's Skill – Rain Dancer

Stage One

Core Effect – Phase Slip

Passive – Micro-Evasion Boost

Attack Sync Effect – Kinetic Surge