Yellow Jacket

Nine hours. No shelters. No shade. No stops.

The Death Run

The glass was barely cool enough to hold their weight. Each step flexed the surface beneath their boots, not enough to collapse, but enough to warn. Thin cracks whispered with every stride, shifting just behind their heels. They didn't slow. They didn't speak. They moved as one.

No one faster or slower. The exact pace that would get them there, if they kept moving.

The second island had faded behind them, a shrinking smear of dark stone and fibrous growths, already distant. Ahead was nothing but glowing horizon. The air pulsed in waves. Time warped. Distance bent.

Warren led. Not because he commanded it, but because no one else could hold the line. Around him, the rain followed, a thin, deliberate veil, bent inward by force of will. It cooled the glass enough to hold their weight a little longer, delayed the worst of the heat.

He knew it was dangerous. Pulling that much moisture, holding it in controlled descent while they moved at speed, it strained the edges of Rain Dancer's reach. Molten glass and falling rain weren't the safest combination. Cracks and groans echoed beneath them, the surface singing its warnings with every step.

Oddly, one thing worked in their favor. The glass wasn't as slippery as it should've been. Jurpat had said Psyro-glass gained friction when exposed to water, something about molecular bonding patterns he didn't pretend to understand. Isol had muttered he'd look into it when they weren't running for their lives.

Still, it helped. And they had agreed: it would save more than it harmed.

His coat streamed behind him, edges curling from residual heat. One hand stayed close to the pocket at his chest, where Styll was curled, silent. He could feel her pulse, quick but steady. She believed in him.

Behind him: the expedition.

Boots landed in rhythm. Not perfectly. But with discipline. A trained cadence, beaten into muscle and bone by the threat of death and the promise of survival. Packs bounced. Lances knocked. Breath came harsh and fast, but always forward.

No one stumbled.

Nanuk took point rear, checking pace against Batu and Calra. Wren ran closer to Warren now, her eyes locked forward, every motion sharp. Grix loped like a wolf made of joints, weight balanced on the balls of her feet. Deana whispered something breathless between steps, a mantra or a name.

Cassian kept pace while checking on the slower members of the expedition.

Even the newest of the expedition, tribesmen, scavvers, half-broken mercs, held the rhythm. Not because they believed in it. Because the ocean offered no other choice.

Heat shimmered ahead.

Something cracked far behind them.

No one looked back.

They had begun the run long before this. This was only the final stretch.

The sun hadn't risen yet, but the horizon glowed. Soon the waves would start: a molten tide rolling over everything behind them. If they failed, they wouldn't burn instantly. They'd blister, break, and sink beneath the glass.

Warren's breath caught. He had done this once before. A different run. A different land. But the silence felt the same.

The storm within him didn't scream. It was calm and steady.

He adjusted pace half a fraction. Those behind him matched without a word.

They moved like an army. Not a trained one but because they were all survivors.

One runner near the center of the group began to breathe too hard. Not a stumble. Just the kind of breath that came before the mind slipped. Wren touched her elbow. Just a touch. The woman corrected herself and fell back into pace.

The glass shifted again.

A hairline fracture burst near Grix's foot, spidering outward like a warning. She didn't flinch. She just leapt forward, light as thread, then flashed a grin back at the crack like it had tried and failed to eat her.

Someone whispered a curse.

Another voice shushed it.

Warren's eyes didn't leave the horizon. But he heard it all.

The rain's radius stayed tight. Too wide and it would break apart. Too narrow and someone would be left exposed. He balanced it by feel, like pulling thread through a needle while running full tilt.

Styll shifted in his pocket. He tapped the outside, once. Reassurance. She quieted again.

Deana stumbled.

Just once.

Wren caught her arm, gripped hard, and shoved her forward. Deana found her feet. Said nothing.

Heat bloom on the horizon now. The first signs of the tide.

Nine hours they had. Already one was gone.

Calra called out a marker,"Ridge break ahead!", and Warren adjusted his angle. The line turned with him. The path was never straight. The safe zones curved like snakes.

The cracks thickened.

The wind died.

Rain thinned for a moment, then returned. Warren's breath grew sharp.

Another step. Another. Another.

Time didn't move here. Distance didn't measure like it should. The glass was a beast pretending to be terrain.

Batu grunted a warning. A patch ahead was shifting wrong. Warren adjusted.

The group followed. No delay. No hesitation.

One of the new ones smiled, teeth bloodless from dehydration. He didn't look afraid. Just thankful. Grateful to still be running.

That was enough.

The wave behind them hadn't come yet.

But it would.

They kept running.

And the world, in its slow collapse, took notice.

Warren's foot caught the edge of a ripple, a swell in the glass no wider than a handspan, but enough to jar the knee if you struck wrong. He compensated mid-step, absorbing the impact through his hips, barely flinching.

Wren saw it. She mirrored the motion a moment later when the ripple reached her, her stride never breaking. Between them, the line adjusted, absorbing terrain like a single muscle contracting and releasing.

Isol wasn't far back, eyes locked forward but mind cataloging data. He muttered under his breath about thermodynamics, frictional integrity, and chemical illusions. None of it mattered now. Not yet. But later, if they survived, he'd build something from it.

Another hour vanished. Two, maybe. Time dissolved in motion. No breaks. No drinks. Just the pace. Just the heat.

Nanuk shouted. Not panic. Just volume. "Drop ahead!"

Warren didn't ask how far. He adjusted, shifted weight to his left foot, then dropped into a smoother cadence. The run turned into a controlled slide, boots skimming across a downward arc of semi-melted surface that gleamed like a wound. The rest followed.

Someone fell.

A grunt. Not a scream. Too far back to see who it was.

Batu circled. Helped them up. No questions asked.

Warren slowed by one beat. That was all.

Rain thickened again. More deliberate now. Not just to cool, but to warn. The pressure inside Rain Dancer grew. He could feel it creeping behind his eyes. His skin tightened. But he held.

The path curved again, bending around what might've once been a heat vent or collapsed structure now buried beneath glass. The dome of it pushed upward, warping the terrain.

Cassian adjusted to avoid it. His balance was still off, arm braced against his pack.

Deana flanked him without a word.

They passed a dead runner.

All bones. Melted gear. Twisted metal embedded in what had once been a body.

No one spoke.

Grix hissed softly. Not fear. Just awareness. She touched the side of her jaw. Rain was catching in the folds of the terrain, pooling in ways that disrupted her movement. She adjusted, switching footing from toe to heel, and kept going.

Ahead, a dark patch spread across the path. Warren recognized it instantly. Burn-glass. Too hot to touch, even if it looked stable. The memory of heat more than heat itself.

He veered again. Everyone followed.

Calra's voice cracked once when she called the next direction. Her throat was drying.

Wren passed her a packet of soak-leaf from a side pouch mid-run. Calra bit it in half. Kept moving.

The group's shadows began to stretch. The sun wasn't up yet, but the glow intensified.

The run would only get worse.

Warren said nothing.

But Styll stirred in his pocket again.

And again, he tapped once.

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Still here. Still running.

Still theirs.

The first to fall didn't scream.

It wasn't dramatic. Two runners, one from the Red hooks, another from the expedition force, stepped too close. No misstep. Just proximity. Their shared weight flexed the surface too hard. The glass gave.

They vanished in silence.

The next was louder. A name half-shouted, a stumble, then a crack like splitting stone. Someone fell backward into a widening gap. Hands reached. Too late.

A Saltcloak stumbled, twisting their ankle mid-run. Batu caught them under one arm and kept them moving until someone could strap a med strip to the ankle. They screamed while running, but they ran all the same.

Warren didn't turn. The rain held. Barely. It thickened for a moment, catching the edges of panic.

The cracks widened again.

And then the worst.

A runner tripped. Just tired legs and bad footing on a swell of warped terrain. They pitched forward, hands out, instinct, but not far enough. The body hit flat against a patch of half-solid glass. It shattered beneath the weight.

They didn't sink fast.

The glass accepted them slowly. One limb at a time. Face first.

The scream that followed wasn't loud. It was wet. Bubbling. Skin and lungs melting together. And they all heard it.

No one stopped.

Someone shouted, "Keep moving!" Another echoed, "Don't look!"

Four. Maybe five gone now. One after another. People who had been with them from the start, who had made it this far, who deserved more than the glass.

Ahead, the terrain dipped again. A long curve where the rain hit harder, making the ground shimmer. Wren adjusted her path. Grix veered wide. Nanuk didn't slow, but his eyes kept counting.

Cassian swore under his breath and pulled his coat tighter. The noise didn't travel far. Even sound felt heavy here.

Anza started breathing too loud. Deana moved closer, not to help, just to make sure she didn't veer.

A woman slipped. Not far. Just a skid at the edge of a cracked patch. Warren saw it and adjusted the rain, just slightly. It cooled the break long enough for her to catch balance.

The next to fall stepped where the rain hit a pocket of weakened melt. Their leg plunged through the crust like it wasn't even there. They cried out. Not a plea, just shock.

Grix grabbed their arm, tried to pull them free. The glass sucked at the limb like mud, steaming at the edges. It was too late. Grix let go before the heat could climb her own hand.

Another gone.

The line shifted again. No one spoke the name. No one dared.

One of the expedition mercs nearly ran into a fresh patch of melted glass, dazzled by the horizon glare. Wren grabbed the back of his coat and yanked him sideways.

Deana flinched when a crack split just beside her foot. She didn't look down. She just ran faster.

A name echoed through the line, Tavren. Someone behind had gone silent. A second voice said the name again. No answer. Tavren was gone.

Ahead, a man from the ridge clans dropped to one knee. Not heatstroke. Cramp. He slapped his leg twice, hard, and forced himself up. No one helped. He didn't want help.

Isol dodged a jagged bulge of fused debris and stumbled. Calra steadied him with a palm to his spine, then broke back into rhythm.

Nanuk leapt a low break and nearly didn't land right. His knee buckled. He grunted, caught himself, and kept moving like it never happened.

A scav screamed and then didn't. Glass took them quick. No one saw where they went.

Rain curved around a narrow pass. Warren held it centered, threading calm through the choke point. They all passed. Barely.

One of the Bluecoils slipped on a rain-slick curve, caught by another's hand. The moment passed without words.

Cassian lost a grip on his gear. A blade clattered against his calf but didn't fall. He re-secured it mid-stride.

Grix tripped on something buried. A handle, maybe. She cursed and kicked it without stopping.

Styll hissed once. A ripple passed beneath Warren's foot, then the glass shifted, bowing inward like a lung exhaling. It gave.

He flickered.

Just a breath ahead of the collapse, his body surged forward. The spot behind him caved, steam venting from the breach in a sudden rush of white heat.

He didn't fall. He didn't even stumble.

Wren looked over once. Just once. Her eyes locked on his for less than a heartbeat.

He nodded.

She nodded back.

The rain fell steady, calm by force of will, not nature. Warren held its radius tight, shaping each drop with intention. He wasn't angry. He couldn't afford to be. The strain still crept along his spine, but he focused on the rhythm, not the weight.

Styll stirred in his pocket. Her body tensed. He knew she could feel the break pattern forming.

Isol said something about a heat ripple ahead, but his voice was swallowed by the terrain.

They ran on.

Calra passed one of the champions from the Saltcloaks a pack of stabilizers, chewables, mild boosts, nothing that would make you bleed inside if you didn't stop running. She bit down without looking.

Another pair of runners peeled too close to one another. The glass flexed. One made it over the dip. The other didn't.

Sank mid-step. Gone before they could even yell.

Behind them, Wren didn't flinch. She was breathing like Warren taught her now. Through her nose, from her diaphragm, measured.

The horizon shimmered again.

Nanuk reached a hand out and grabbed the shoulder of a limping merc. Not gently. Just enough to push them forward.

It worked.

The rain stayed steady. Controlled. Warren held it there through discipline. His head ached, cold and sharp at the base of his skull, but he focused on being calm and control. He blinked the pain away.

The group banked left around a cracked wave of glass, jutting out like the frozen crest of a shattered wave.

One of the Bluecoils muttered a name. It was unclear if it was for the dead or if they were praying to the gods with every stride and breath.

Warren didn't ask.

Another crack split the surface dead ahead. A sound like a sheet of metal being torn. They all jumped at once.

Not clean. But alive.

The glass groaned in protest.

Batu shouted back, "Next time that happens, jump faster."

Someone laughed. Too hard. It ended in a dry cough.

Then silence.

The rain was thinning again. Warren knew what that meant. But he didn't let it spike or spiral. He held it steady, forced calm into the fall, shaped every drop to soothe instead of scream. The soft press of water against rising heat.

He adjusted.

They kept running.

The sun was rising.

Not fully. Not yet. Just the flicker of light along the horizon, stretched thin across the glass like a warning. But everyone saw it.

And everyone knew what it meant.

They had to move faster.

Safety was over. Every moment spent choosing the best footing, every margin of caution, every calculated breath, it was gone. Now they had to be flawless, reckless, and fast. All at once.

Someone faltered.

Then another.

The cracks were spreading faster now. The rhythm was breaking. Even the calm Warren held around them, the veil of soft rain, wasn't enough anymore. The glass wasn't waiting.

Grix snarled. "Fuck it. You shitty Spitter. Stop laughing. This isn't a fucking game."

She didn't wait for a response. Her fingers curled and her class flared to life.

Her Skill surged, Ricochet.

Grix didn't stop. She pivoted.

A runner behind her stumbled, one foot catching on a warped fold of glass. No time to scream. Grix turned on instinct. Her fingers flicked and a ripple marked the air, a distortion against the ground just ahead.

She rebounded. Hard.

One impact off a fractured wave, the second off a broken slab of obsidian-slick terrain, her body skipping through a vector that shouldn't exist. She moved like a ricocheted Flechette, velocity building.

Her shoulder caught the falling runner midair, redirected their arc, and sent them both crashing forward, but only she touched down. The runner landed in a roll and kept moving.

Grix didn't. She twisted, tapped a second Anchor, and launched again, this time vaulting upward off a warped incline and flipping back into position two rows behind Warren.

Momentum built in her limbs, rebounding through the terrain like it was designed just for her. Where the others slowed, she accelerated. Where cracks warned of collapse, she used them.

She wrote her own geometry into the battlefield.

"Fuck your road," she spat into the wind. "I make my own."

Behind her, others answered.

Batu roared.

It was more sound than word. His skin blackened, limbs swelling, form exploding outward into the shape of a towering bear, the nanites rippling across him, reshaping into armor, claws, and heavy limbs. Black wings extended from his back, not for flight, but for balance, for gliding.

Four runners scrambled onto his back, none of them needing instruction. He surged forward with a thunderous charge, each step landing solid where others would've fallen. Even with the extra weight, he was faster than any of them.

Where the glass cracked beneath his feet, he was already four steps past.

Nanuk didn't speak. His Skill lit in silence.

I Am The Spear.

His steps lengthened. His weight shifted forward. His entire body became velocity. Each stride gained more ground than the last. He wasn't running anymore, he was hurtling, like a weapon loosed from its arc.

Isol activated his Skill next.

Wings of Knowledge.

Paper-thin nanite wings unfolded from his back, pages of data shaped into lift. They didn't flap, they carried him like thought. He lifted just off the glass, arms tight, body angled, legs still moving with each stride, but no longer weighted. He floated over the thinnest cracks, skimming past danger by inches.

Others followed.

A merc from the Northline sprinted ahead, arms windmilling like she was pretending to fly. She shouted something, possibly a war cry, possibly a bird noise, and leapt forward with absolutely no grace. Her Skill was called Bottom Blast Momentum. It looked profoundly stupid. Her legs kicked sideways. Her momentum was wrong. For a second, it seemed like she was about to pancake face-first into the slick glass.

But the air around her shifted. Hard.

The flail turned into a lift. A ring of air burst from each palms like a detonation of controlled pressure, and suddenly she was gliding, arms out, legs tucked, skimming above the surface in erratic zigzags that somehow never faltered. Each pulse created another draft behind her, converging bursts of wind that formed step-stones of compressed air.

She yelled, "I'm the fucking hawk queen!" and spun once mid-air, leaving a spiral of air behind for two more runners to catch and ride.

What looked like a complete disaster became a corridor of usable updrafts. Half a dozen scavvers sprinted into her slipstream, bounding from pulse to pulse.

Someone in the back muttered, "That looked stupid as hell."

Another said, "Yeah. But it works."

Another tribesman, older and stockier, activated something called Echo Stamp. He stomped hard, and the terrain vibrated. A pulse spread from his boots like sonar, exposing hidden soft spots before they cracked. He shouted back what he saw: "Two lengths right, glass weak! Hold left edge!" His Skill was pure support, but it saved more than one life in the next ten seconds.

A wiry expedition runner threw out a glowing rod. It hovered midair. He called, "Bridge!" and jumped. The rod bent, extended, and caught him like a rail. The Skill was called Linepath. It bent his trajectory forward in a controlled arc, then snapped back to his belt. Dumb looking. Until he used it again. And again. Every launch was perfect.

Someone laughed. Breathless and wild.

The storm was real now.

A champion from the Blackmanes, summoned a sphere of vibrating dust around his feet. Each step scattered the particles in a cone that hardened underfoot, letting him sprint across terrain too slick to hold anyone else.

One of the Saltcloaks activated a Skill that wrapped their limbs in thin metallic bands, magnetizing briefly to the crystalline traces in the glass. Their feet never slid. They looked awkward. Clunky. Until someone tried to follow and fell. The magnet-runner just nodded and surged ahead.

Even those without major Skills pushed harder. One medic pulled a stim from his side pouch and injected it mid-run. His breath steadied. His speed increased. He kept someone else from falling, one hand grabbing a wrist at full sprint.

And still, it wasn't enough.

The sun flickered again. Brighter this time. The horizon was glowing. Not dawn.

Fire.

The tide was coming.

They had minutes left.

No more safety.

Now it was speed, or oblivion.

The sun broke the horizon.

And it was too fast.

Warren held the rain steady. Batu surged ahead. Nanuk drove forward like a launched spear. Isol glided just above the ground, paper wings trembling. But even then, even with everything they had, it wasn't enough.

Not for all of them.

A wave was coming.

A massive swell, not metaphor but a molten wall of glass. It rose in the distance, curling inward, breaking the surface tension with cracking heat. A dome of liquefied fire barreling straight toward them. Not slow. Not distant. Now.

Grix saw it.

Her body moved faster than her mind, but not faster than instinct. Her breath caught once, then released.

She didn't run harder.

She let go.

Ricochet ruptured.

Evolved.

The moment her boots left the next broken incline, something inside the Skill snapped open. Not a new rebound. Not a twist. A presence. A reach.

She felt it extend through the terrain, not as surface or obstacle, but as language.

A domain.

The ripple burst outward from her, a radius of shifting motion logic, terrain marked not by friction or gravity but by flow. Everyone within it felt it. The drag vanished. Steps became surges. Vaults became glides. Leaps became rewrites of physics. The world turned from threat to instrument.

A Saltcloak caught air off a slope they shouldn't have. A scav vaulted sideways without losing speed. Even Warren felt the terrain bend, not under his control, but in tandem with it.

The Domain was movement rewritten.

But it wasn't enough.

Even with the boost, even with everything they'd given, the wave was gaining. The tail end of the formation was slowing. A misstep. A stumble. A drop of hesitation.

Grix looked back.

No. She wouldn't let it happen again.

Something deeper answered.

[Area-Wide System Broadcast Initiated]

The Skill: Ricochet — Has Answered

Time bent.

The domain didn't ripple, it cracked open. Shards of logic realigned, not only beneath Grix but in the space around her. Rebound paths formed midair. Velocity arced. The terrain turned hostile to anything but movement.

A second domain expanded within the first. Vector paths illuminated, angles sketched in real time, every runner saw their line before they moved. Every bounce, vault, slide, preordained, perfect.

They didn't run anymore. They ricocheted.

Momentum surged.

The last of the trailing runners caught it. And they flew.

The molten wave loomed.

And then...

Cassian stepped forward.

He wasn't the fastest. He wasn't the strongest. But he had been saving it.

His eyes narrowed. His mouth twitched, not a smile. Just readiness.

His Skill activated.

Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions

The temperature dropped around him. The molten wave buckled. Its edge crusted. Time faltered. A momentary stasis snapped into place, one second, maybe two, just long enough.

The entire line slipped past behind him, moving with impossible speed inside Grix's expanded Domain.

Cassian didn't look back.

He stepped through the aftermath with his coat trailing smoke.

And the wave shattered behind him.

They were through.