Yellow Jacket

Warren and Grix moved as one.

There was no signal. No war cry. Just the sudden, simultaneous decision to strike. Warren stepped forward, low and exact. Grix lunged beside him, faster, teeth bared, truncheon already rising.

But the world answered back.

"Hold," said the voice ageless and endless.

The word did not echo. It anchored.

Neither made it a full step.

Warren froze mid-motion, foot never touching the ground. Grix halted mid-lunge, her claws half-raised, jaw clenched. It wasn't magic. It was command. And the world obeyed.

Even Grix.

Only her eyes moved, snapping toward the newest figure with unspoken fury.

But she couldn't speak.

Not yet.

The world stopped breathing.

Rain froze mid-fall, each drop suspended like glass over the battlefield. The wind silenced. Dust held its place in the air. Time itself curled inward, folding into a hush too heavy for sound.

Then came the voice again.

Not loud. Not soft. Not male. Not female. It was a tone that held youth and age together in impossible balance. A voice shaped by patience, stretched thin across eternity.

He stood at the edge of the moment, barefoot on nothing, clothed in time. A child, or something like one, skin unlined, eyes deep with impossible distance. Visibly the young. His presence did not radiate power, but inevitability. Not a single breath passed that he did not already know. When he spoke, the world listened not because it feared him, but because it had always been waiting.

"You have demanded this reckoning, Umdar. So let it be watched. Let it be judged."

The world did not resume. It deepened.

One by one, they arrived. Not summoned. Just present, each a weight the world could not ignore.

The Silvered Maiden stood behind Warren. Wings folded like blades at rest, hair coiled in cold steel, her eyes lit with the fire of creation. She said nothing, but her gaze held both sorrow and fury. Not for the duel. For the injustice of it.

The Spitter laughed. His chest heaved with mirth that left the air tasting burnt. He was shirtless and heavily muscled, with chest hair made of fire, heat radiating from him in waves that felt like insult. His grin was wild. His presence soaked the moment like sweat. Grix's eyes shifted when he appeared, like something had landed on her skin.

The One of Mirrors stepped into existence as if reflected into being. A form composed of shattered glass, each fragment showing a different version of themselves: young, old, furious, calm, masked, bare-eyed. moved like a kaleidoscope trying to hold shape.

The Twins followed. One body. Many faces. Shifting, child, woman, elder, man, infinitely changing, but always recognizably the same. The same hands. The same stare. The same breath across all their selves.

The Divine Beast emerged with a scent. Something primal. Then she took shape, a woman made of every creature that had ever hunted or fled. Predator and prey in the same slow blink. Somehow, she was beautiful to behold.

The Forest grew. Literally. A shape rose as bark and vine, towering and silent. The man who was a grove. His breath sounded like branches shifting against themselves.

The Silent was already there. A ball of absence, humming with nothing. No beginning. No edge. No welcome.

The Youngest, already present, stepped forward. Umdar. The Elder. His skin flaked with time. Bones creaked as he moved, like the groan of falling buildings. Pressure bit deeper into the frozen world with each motion, the void around him caving inward.

The Elder stepped further into the light, robes dragging dust from the stone despite the airless stillness. Umdar's form looked no more solid than the mist that surrounded him, but his presence pushed against the silence like a blade to flesh.

"Yes," he said, his voice like rust scraped from iron. "Let it be watched. Let it be judged. Let all who stand bear witness to this contender's triumph."

He turned his ruined face toward the Silvered Maiden. A slow, deliberate smile cracked his bark-like skin. "Even you, Maiden of Steel. You who have grown so enamored with this slumrat. Let your eyes remain open when your favorite falls."

The Silvered Maiden did not answer. She did not blink. Her wings stayed folded, her fire still, but her gaze burned hotter.

"You mistake this for imbalance," Umdar continued, voice louder now, curling around the bones of every god present. "It is not unfair. It is allowed. My contender's heart still beat when I reached for him. I granted my boon before it was earned, yes. But it will be earned. If Wallace kills this freak, then the scales will balance. That is the law I followed. Let none mistake this for mercy. Let none call this a gift. This is a wager made under rule, and it will be settled in blood."

The Spitter chuckled, but said nothing.

"And if the ghost wins," Umdar added, voice dragging like gravel over a tombstone, "then by our own rules, he shall be granted three boons in compensation. Equal weight. Equal cost. That, too, is balance."

He did not look at the Silvered Maiden as he said it. He did not need to. Her stillness sharpened.

"My chosen will not rise for free," Umdar finished. "He rises in debt. A death for a death. And that debt can only be paid in blood, Warren Smith's blood."

He extended one flaking hand toward the still-frozen pair. "Begin when you are released. Not before. We will all bear witness to the outcome, and none may turn away."

The Spitter's voice broke the silence next, thick and wet like something coughed up. "Then my contender must bear witness as well."

He gestured toward Grix, his smirk gone, eyes narrowed. "Unfortunately, she may not participate."

Even frozen, Grix looked murderous. Her jaw trembled with held rage, eyes wide with disbelief. Her whole body twitched beneath the divine stillness, like her will alone might break the rules and let her through.

The fire on the Spitter's chest hair flared slightly in recognition of her fury.

"She disagrees," he added spitting dryly.

Umdar said no more, but the weight of his will pressed down like crumbling towers.

Then they all paused.

For one moment, each divine presence shifted slightly.

A tenth weight settled into place. It did not speak. Did not show. But even the gods stilled.

"The Storyteller?" they asked one another.

No answer followed. Only stillness.

The stage was set.

Grix felt the pull not as a motion, but as a subtraction. One moment she stood beside Warren, frozen yet burning to act. The next, the world around her shifted, and she was elsewhere, lifted not by force, but by decree.

The gods did not move. They hovered. Not aligned, just present, above and around, like stars refusing to follow a constellation. And Grix now stood among them, unfrozen but still unable to act.

"She is witness," the Spitter said. Not asked. Declared. His words carried spit, as always, thick and hot, soaked with indignation and pride.

Grix's hands balled into fists. Her claws clicked against her palm. Her breath came in short huffs. The fury was plain: she had not been benched. She had been locked out. Her place had been beside Warren. Not above him. Not watching.

"This is bullshit," she growled. The word stung the silence like broken glass on stone.

None of the gods answered. Not yet. But a few turned their attention. The Divine Beast's eyes blinked, once predator, once prey. The One of Mirrors reflected her rage in six thousand variations. The Forest rustled as if in sympathy.

Only the Silent made no sign.

Below, the battlefield held its pause. Warlord had not moved. Warren waited, breath shallow, weapon untouched. Rain still hung like glass in the air.

Grix spat on the stone below her feet.

"Let's see if the slumrat can finish what he started, Bumdar," she muttered, voice low and bitter, not for Warren but for the god who tried to cheat him. The insult rolled off her tongue like a snarl, petty and earned.

Umdar looked furious, his sunken eyes flared with ancient rage, his paper-thin skin twitching like it might peel from his face, but he said nothing.

Far below, Styll's small body shimmered faintly beside Warren's heel, mist rolling slow around her fur like smoke given thought.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The Spitter leaned forward, chest-fire flaring with interest. He opened his mouth to speak, something warm, rough, proud.

And then the words were gone.

The Silent had not moved. Had not gestured. But the sound itself died, stripped before breath. In the hush that followed, his presence pulsed like held breath.

The Silent said by did not saying, "you know the rules. You cannot speak to her. We already have one sanction. We do not need another."

The Spitter clicked his tongue, wet and sharp, like spit flung with frustration, but held his silence.

The gods watched.

And so did Grix.

But Grix did not watch quietly.

"Oh, fuck this," she snarled, loud enough to splinter silence. "I am not some damn chorus watching the show from the rafters. I am his bestie. His goddamn backup. His like my little brother. You don't get to ice me out just because some paper-boned void fart wants to stack the deck."

No reply.

She turned to the Spitter, daring him. "Say something. Spit something. Anything. Or are you going to let the ash-faced antique and the mute fog ball decide what counts as a fair fight now?"

Still nothing.

Grix shook her head, eyes burning. "Cowards. The whole lot of you. You're watching a god rig a match and calling it justice. He dies again, you better not pretend it was fake. He lives, and you better remember who held him back."

She folded her arms, tail twitching like a blade looking for someone to cut.

The gods watched.

And then, some of them laughed.

Not cruelly. Not kindly. Just the raw, curious sound of beings older than war finding something funny. The Divine Beast let out a low, echoing trill that might have been laughter. The One of Mirrors splintered with a thousand flickers of smirking delight. Even the Forest seemed to creak like a giant trying to hold in a laugh. And the Spitter, he spat true mirth, thick and joyous, the sound of laughter drenched spit and pride.

Umdar did not laugh.

Umdar stood unmoving, his hollow eyes burning with void sunfire, his flaking face rigid with suppressed wrath. If he could have crushed her with silence alone, he would have.

The Silvered Maiden made no sound burning eyes fixed on the dual below.

The youth seemed uninterested.

And Grix watched them back, unblinking.

The world unfroze.

Not the people. The sound and the space between things. Rain began to fall again, no longer suspended in glassy pause. Droplets shattered against skin, ground, steel, as the pressure returned.

Warren didn't wait.

He drew the hand lance from his hip and fired three shots in quick succession, with no warning, no mercy. Each flechette was aimed for the same place: the Warlord's head.

But the Warlord was faster than expected.

Two hand-and-a-half blades snapped into his grip. He pivoted, brought them up, and slapped each shot aside with brutal efficiency. Sparks burst. Steel rang. The last flechette glanced off one blade's edge and embedded in a frozen man's chestplate behind him.

Warren didn't blink.

This was no thug in stolen armor. Wren had said he was past the third threshold. She had been right. The Warlord didn't move like a brute. This was a warrior. Legion-built, trained, and precise.

The Warlord snarled, pivoting with both hand-and-a-half blades still gripped tight. One hand shifted its hold, looser, fingers curling just enough to hook the haft of the hand lance holstered on a woman mid-charge, frozen inches from him. He had no idea who his attacker was, had never even seen the man before. This wasn't revenge. It was survival. He tried to yank the weapon free without dropping his blade.

It didn't budge.

He swore. Tried again. The woman was not just frozen, she was fused, weightless yet rooted. Unmoving. Impossibly immobile, as if the world itself had decided she would remain there, untouched.

Warren moved while the Warlord cursed.

Then he vanished.

No flash. One breath he was there, the next he wasn't. A shadow behind a frozen figure, a whisper at the Warlord's flank, a ghost flickering between half-seen moments.

A shot fired. Then another. Each from a new angle, each intended to kill.

The Warlord twisted, blades rising again. The flechettes carved lines in the air, deadly arcs of pressure, but none struck true. Steel clanged. One blade cracked against stone as the Warlord deflected a shot that came from behind. Another skimmed his shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood as it passed.

Warren appeared near the ruined fountain, knee already bent, lance aimed. Fired. Gone again.

He was not circling anymore. He was folding space with footwork that left no trail, haunting angles that shouldn't connect. He slipped behind one frozen warrior, used their body to brace, then flickered away before the Warlord could close the gap.

Rain helped. Masked noise. Hid movement.

He didn't stop firing.

Three more shots came in rapid rhythm, one from a perch above, one from ground level, one from behind the Warlord's left shoulder.

All blocked.

But just barely. Every block cost him a fraction of breath, a slip in stance, a rebalancing of weight that chipped away at rhythm.

The Warlord growled, not in rage, but focus. His skin had taken more lines of blood now, thin, shallow, but real. His shoulder was cut. His thigh grazed. A mark bloomed beneath his ribs where a flechette scraped too close. This was not the kind of battle he'd ever expected. He wasn't being tested. He was being hunted.

And Warren didn't stop.

He vanished, reappeared, fired. Moved again. Like a phantom unraveling a pattern only he could see. The Warlord began to snarl louder, frustration bleeding into his discipline. He swung too wide at an afterimage. Bit down on pain as another shot cut across his arm.

Kill. That was the goal. Every movement, every shot, every flicker was a bid for the end.

He had already won once.

Now he was here to prove it wasn't luck.

The Warlord roared.

Not in pain. In power. The air around him vibrated with the force of it: a sonic shockwave, not strong enough to kill, but enough to stagger. Statuesque bodies nearby cracked from the pressure. Water rippled in midair. The sound carved a line through the courtyard and forced Warren to shift his stance.

The Warlord's skin began to change, shading deeper, darkening into a slate-like sheen. It hardened visibly, sweat evaporating as if rejected. His arms swelled. His shoulders pulled wider.

His stance dropped. Lower than most would dare. One blade behind, the other held forward, both angled for deflection and burst counters. It looked wrong. Almost too low, like he should topple. But it wasn't clumsy, it was a coiled threat, a loaded spring of violence.

Warren didn't give him time to settle.

He vanished again, reappeared above a twisted spire of stone, fired once, and dropped low.

The Warlord moved.

The burst came in a blink. He closed fifteen feet in a blur of motion, both blades crashing down where Warren had stood a second earlier. Stone shattered. Sparks burst. The impact cratered the space, and one of the frozen statues nearby tipped, fissuring at the knees.

Warren reappeared at the edge of a broken wall, breathing hard. He didn't speak. Didn't admire the dodge. He just fired again.

The shot caught the Warlord's knee, but barely. It skipped off hardened flesh and left a shallow groove. Still, it was a hit.

The Warlord snarled and pushed forward. Faster now. Controlled. His buffs were working. He was adapting.

Warren moved laterally, staying just ahead of the charge. His eyes flicked over the field, reading angles, recalculating. He shifted behind cover, dipped low to recover a spent flechette, checked its integrity in a blink, and tucked it away. Not all could be reused, but some still held weight.

Another blur. Another burst. Warren ghosted behind a frozen figure and snatched another flechette resting against an armored pauldron, hand already moving to load. He never stopped moving. He never stopped firing. Each shot a kill attempt. Each angle recalculated, refined, reapplied.

And the Warlord bled.

A shallow line across the forearm. A nick along the cheek. A bruise blooming across his ribs. Nothing fatal. But it built.

Warren wasn't just firing at center mass. He wasn't trying to wear him down.

He was trying to kill.

Every movement, every trigger pull, every vanish, was a calculated execution, denied only by inches.

The Warlord tried to shout commands, out of habit, but no one could move, and the silence hit harder than the rain.

He lunged again, but Warren wasn't there.

Warren appeared behind him, fired at the base of his spine, missed by a breath, vanished again.

He reappeared above, loosed two more shots toward the shoulders, one skated off, the other pierced just deep enough to leave blood. The Warlord spun and slashed, too late. Warren was gone.

A slash caught Warren's coat as he slid beneath a stone beam, but didn't cut deep. He rolled and fired upward, aiming for the jaw.

Another deflection. But slower.

The Warlord was bleeding now, not just marked. He grimaced. Snarled. Then smiled.

Warren didn't care.

He rolled again, collected two more flechettes, one from a shattered wall and one lying across a frozen woman's outstretched hand. She had held it like she meant to throw it, paused forever. Warren didn't hesitate.

He moved like a phantom. Not a blur, something worse. Something surgical. Intent without pause. Motion without drag.

The Warlord didn't even know who was attacking him.

And Warren wanted to keep it that way.

He didn't need to speak. He didn't need to boast. He just needed the shot that broke the pattern.

And when he found it, he would end it.

The Warlord had power. Level. Buffs. skills.

But Warren was better.

Better at killing. Better at disappearing. Better at surviving.

He didn't fear the man in front of him. But he did hate him, for what he had done to Wren, and for what he was.

He needed him gone.

And no matter how high the level, a man who ruled could not understand a man who killed just to exist.

So Warren adjusted. Every step was a cut. Every retreat a lesson. He circled, peeled off another flechette from the edge of a broken platform, and loaded it with a snap.

He fired again, low, at the Warlord's thigh. The shot struck, not deep, but true. Another line of blood joined the tally.

The Warlord grunted, pushed harder. His movement had purpose now, rhythm and restraint. But the bleeding slowed him. Not visibly. Not yet.

Warren would make it visible.

He slipped into shadow again, reappearing at height, above a collapsed awning, his boots barely brushing metal before he fired twice. One missed. One didn't.

The Warlord hissed and dropped one shoulder. He was strong. Disciplined. A threat.

But not to Warren.

Warren had already started to cut the man down.

The Warlord halted.

Not from fatigue. Not from fear. He simply stopped, weapons lowered just enough to show restraint, not surrender. The air, thick with tension and rain, held its breath. Warren didn't. He fired.

Three flechettes snapped through the space where the Warlord's head had been an instant before, one grazing cheek, one clipped aside by his blade, the third taken square to the shoulder. The Warlord snarled, twisted, and deflected another two. He turned his body just enough to keep moving, just enough to speak.

"Listen, Ghost," the Warlord said, voice low but resonant, eyes locked on the storm-wrapped phantom circling him. "Whatever this is, between you and I, between these fool gods who want us to die like martyrs in their little theater, I want you to hear this."

A flechette pinged off his collarbone, leaving a shallow red line. He turned slowly, facing the sky, blades still lifted, defense never dropping. The air around him buckled with kinetic tension.

"You did what no one else could. You actually killed me. You ended me with precision, like a fact being erased. And they..."

A blade swept skyward, parrying a shot Warren had aimed between his eyes.

"They are the ones who stole that from you. In your last moments, remember this: it was their choice to resurrect me. Their choice to steal what you rightfully stole. So do not hate me for standing in front of you now. Hate them."

Warren didn't stop. He never stopped. Another flicker, another shot, deflected, dodged, drawn blood again.

"For I am inevitable," the Warlord continued. "You gods, you beings looking down on me like I'm nothing but a weapon, a game piece to slide back onto your crooked board, I see you. I name you cowards. One day I will take my throne, and if that means destroying everything that ever bowed to you, so be it."

He stepped forward. Warren circled, silent and unrelenting.

"So witness this. All of you. Witness my soul made manifest. This is my Skill."

He lifted both blades, crossing them above his head. Light bent inward. Gravity folded.

"Black Hole Sun."

The world dimmed. The rain trembled. And the gods watched.

A single pulse rippled outward from the Warlord's body. The ground beneath their feet cracked as if drawn toward him. Color bled from the world in rings, draining toward the center of his chest. The air felt thinner, pulled taut by an unseen vacuum. Raindrops curved in mid-air, sucked sideways into nothing.

Above him, a dark sphere began to take form, not bright or fiery, but utterly void. A dense, collapsing presence that swallowed light without flicker or fanfare. It hovered, low and quiet, absorbing the shine from the blades still crossed in his hands.

The void pulsed again. A chunk of wall behind Warren fractured and crumbled inward, as if pulled by hunger. Not explosion, implosion. Controlled, precise, and growing.

Each breath became harder to take. The storm still circled Warren, but even his rain bent subtly toward the Warlord, siphoned drop by drop.

The Skill didn't roar. It devoured.

And Warren, never stopping, never blinking, kept moving inside the slow collapse of the world.

The gods did not speak.

Even the Grix held her breath.