Yellow Jacket

The sun was shining. The clouds were soft and pillowy, drifting across a perfect blue sky. In a quiet, well-manicured park on the outskirts of the Green Zone, a lone rabbit sat beneath a shady tree, twitching its nose at a single perfect flower.

This time, it didn't run.

Chains slammed into the dirt beside it, but the rabbit didn't flinch. It had learned. These weren't monsters anymore. They were routine.

Vaeliyan sprinted past, dragging four times the weight from before. He ran clean, lungs steady, stride locked in. No wasted motion. No collapse waiting behind his eyes. The cinderblocks bounced behind him like they were late to keep up.

Isol jogged beside him with a satisfied nod. "Better."

Behind them, Cassian ran in time with Calra. He kept pace. Clean stride. Steady breath. Just sweat, sun, and synchronized steps.

Grix shouted, "Two more laps and we get bug bars!"

A collective groan rose, but it didn't break rhythm.

Jurpat paced just ahead of Deana. Neither looked winded. Nanuk was already lapping them. Again. He ran like breathing.

Wren moved with calm certainty. She didn't lean on Stick, she wielded it. Heavily pregnant now, visibly but not weakened. Florence had put a stop to her running weeks ago, threatening Isol's manhood in graphic detail if anything happened to the baby. But Wren still walked the course, every day, every lap, watching, waiting, correcting. Her steps were grounded, deliberate. When Cassian slowed, she tapped him on the shoulder. Not a mercy blow, just a reminder.

He nodded and picked up speed.

Even Florence was walking the perimeter with Car, both in quiet conversation, eyes occasionally glancing toward the training run. Evaluating. Measuring.

Styll was perched on a bench, watching like a judge at an athletic trial. She chirped when someone fell behind and wiggled when they corrected their pace.

This was no longer survival. This was discipline.

No one collapsed. No one cried. No one begged for mercy.

They were past mercy.

Isol clapped once. Everyone stopped. Instantly. Like reflex.

"Water. Five minutes. Don't get soft."

The team dropped into stretches or meditation postures. Calra pulled off her shirt, steam rising from her back. Jurpat rolled out his shoulders. Cassian flopped onto the grass like a man who could actually sleep through artillery fire.

Wren settled on a bench, Stick across her lap, rubbing her belly slowly.

Vaeliyan stood tall, chest rising and falling in calm, practiced rhythm. He looked across the field. At them. At the place they were. At who they'd become.

They weren't broken. They weren't barely holding on.

They were ready.

The rabbit watched them from the shade. It twitched its nose once. And stayed exactly where it was.

The hellish training worked.

There were no announcements. No chimes. No divine voice cutting through the clouds to offer praise.

But somewhere between the sweat, the bruises, and the unrelenting voice of Isol telling him to get back up or die trying, Vaeliyan hit Level 20.

Not with a blade. Not with a speech. Just work. Endless work.

He didn't feel different when it happened. No glow. No surge. Just that quiet shift in his interface, blinking once in the corner of his eye.

LEVEL 20 REACHED.

There was no ceremony. Only silence. And sore legs.

Florence noticed. She always did. She didn't say anything, but her eyes lingered.

Car slapped his shoulder later that night and muttered, "About time."

Wren just smiled.

Styll didn't say anything. But she curled up beside him that evening and stayed pressed close, like she could feel the shift.

He didn't mark it publicly. He didn't need to.

Because tomorrow, they would head for the Citadel.

And no one under Level 20 made it through the gates.

Vaeliyan was ready.

But before sleep took him, while the nanoforge thrummed softly in the back of the pharmacy and Wren snorted like a typhoon trying to decide which dress to wear for prom ten minutes before its date showed up, he ran his fingers slowly through her hair. Gentle. Repetitive. Anchored. She slept like a thunderstorm in a jar, and he let her. He let himself remember.

The boy Mara had found in the alley. The one crouched low over a corpse, feral and thin, ribs sharp through skin like old wire. The one who had looked up with a mouth half-open, deciding whether to speak or bite. That boy hadn't been a person. Not really. Not then.

He hadn't known words. He hadn't known anything but hunger.

And now that monster was going to try and become a High Imperator.

He didn't smile at the thought. There was no pride in it. Just weight.

If Mara had lived to see this, she would've laughed. Then she would've hit him.

She'd told him once that monsters could be useful. But only if they remembered they were monsters.

He hadn't forgotten.

He could still remember the way the rain had hit her coat that day, when she found him. The smell of it. Wet cloth, rust, and blood. She had stepped over the body without flinching. Looked at him without disgust.

"You eat it, I leave you here," she'd said. "You stand up, I take you with me."

He hadn't understood the words at the time. But her tone had reached him. It wasn't pity. It wasn't anger. It was something else. Something kinder.

He stood.

And that had been enough.

Mara had known he was strong. She always had. She fed him. Cleaned him. Never doubted that he would stand when it mattered.

Every time he'd fallen, she'd made him get up again. Not with encouragement. With expectation.

The kind of kindness that didn't allow for weakness. The kind that didn't see you as broken because it had never seen you as fragile in the first place.

That was what she gave him.

He had never hated her. Not for a moment. He'd tried to bite her once, the first time they met, animal and starving and wild. She hadn't flinched. She hadn't raised her hand. She had knelt beside him, set food gently into his hands, and said, "Rabbit, please don't bite unless you have to."

That was it. No punishment. No fear.

Just kindness. And strength in all things.

After that, he followed her. Not because he was told to, but because something in him understood, this was someone worth following.

There was love in her, always. Fierce, quiet, absolute. She had claimed him, not like an owner, but like family. Like someone who saw a monster and decided it could be more.

He had loved her the moment he understood what love was.

And that never changed.

Over time, he came to understand.

She hadn't saved him. She had given him the chance to save everyone else.

And he had taken it.

Now, that same monster who had once tried to eat a corpse was going to stand before the gates of the Citadel.

And ask for more.

Mara's voice was fraying at the edges. Not the words, the sound. The timbre of it, the shape, the warmth, all unraveling with time. But there was enough. He knew the memory might fade.

Her smile wouldn't.

The way she called him her rabbit wouldn't.

That would stay. Even when her voice disappeared completely.

A few things had happened while they whiled the months away.

Jurpat had finally confronted Calra about his feelings. She had, with surgical precision and zero hesitation, crushed them. "You're like a little brother to me," she said. The words landed like a blade. He'd taken it surprisingly well, after about a week of trying to out-suffer death itself in every torture session Isol called "light cardio."

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Isol, meanwhile, had fully reverted to his prime. And he hadn't been lying, by the end of training, he was pulling a full hauler by himself. Shirtless. Cut like a war god. He still had Florence, Wren, and Dr. Morgan patch up his face, though. The final result was something uncanny: the physique of a man in his thirties, with the bald head and grey beard of a eighty -year-old assassin-grandfather. He looked like he should be teaching children how to gut bears with their bare hands. Because he was.

Dr. Morgan had fixed Fizzy's arm. No more third eye on her shoulder. When it came time to check Bee, she just shrugged and said, "I'm fine being kinda dead." And honestly? If it worked, it worked.

The boy left one night. Quiet. No drama. No trail. Just a note for Dr. Morgan: "I remembered it." What "it" was, no one knew. But it must have mattered.

Florence had made a massive cake to celebrate the end of training. It had too many layers, too many candles, and enough sugar to kill a Warlord. A god might've called it ambrosia. She cried when she lit it.

Car and Batu took everything Isol taught them and started shaping the new Legion of Mara. Isol promised that when the kids returned for winter break, they'd get a full curriculum. Vaeliyan wasn't sure if that was a promise or a threat. He suspected both. Isol, Batu, and Car were sick bastards in his opinion.

Speaking of bastards, Florence had finally finished a companion chip for the little lion in the skin of a housecat. Bastard now had a bond. Styll was thrilled. She treated him like a littermate. And though Vaeliyan knew it would be hard, he bonded with Bastard without hesitation. No regrets.

Wren had accepted that he was going to leave. They had promised, in quiet moments and long walks, that no matter how much they changed, they would always love each other. They even had a second wedding. In the park where so much pain had bloomed. That day, it looked like something sacred.

Vaeliyan hadn't upgraded his class yet. He hadn't changed back to Warren to evolve his next skill. Isol had told him to wait. To go the the classes first. To choose with knowledge. Vaeliyan had agreed.

Grix, of course, had completed her divine task.

She hadn't improved the bug bars. Not one bit.

She had made sure everyone else had to eat them.

She found joy in every bite, because she could stop unlike Jurpat, Vaeliyan and Isol. They had Everything-You-Need-in-One-Bug-Bars every day for years in their future. She didn't say what her boon was, only that it was major one. Vaeliyan didn't know how to feel about that. Part of him respected it. The other part said, simply: fuck bug bars.

Ohra's killer never surfaced. The death still haunted Muk-Tah, Zal-Raan, Cu-Lan, and Mabok. Even Nanuk began to feel unease about it.

Tasina and Mel stayed behind with Anza, keeping the little one close.

The Bazaar had fully reopened after the fire Lucas caused so many months ago. It buzzed now with rebuilt stalls, new merchants, and old scars.

Florence had made progress with Isol's chip. She found the protocols she'd always suspected had been stripped. She was producing chips again, legally this time, two factories running full tilt, one in the former Yellow, the other in the former Green. A Green Zone defector she had known before her exile had granted her access back into the system.

Car had upgraded the Stinger for Vaeliyan using the prototype Solar Lance Chief Seyrel had given him. His hand lance was polished, freshly engraved with words that hurt to read. He remembered them...

He gave the plasma blade to Jurpat. The one Chief Ursan had handed the Tidelord. A gift now passed down.

Vaeliyan woke Wren with a kiss on the forehead. He had been veiled the entire time, never once letting the name Warren rise to the surface, even in private. Her response was a sound like nails on a chalkboard in a soundless void that somehow echoed. She snorted, twitched, and blinked herself awake.

She looked at him. Nodded.

No words needed.

He stood. Placed the jacket across her shoulders. Kissed her belly one last time.

The next time he saw her, he would be a father.

The journey to the Citadel would take a month.

That would leave them a week to spare before the entrance exams began. Not enough time to rest. Just enough to survive the grind ahead.

Isol called for more training. Not physical. Not even skill-based in the usual way.

Soul Skills, he said.

The phrase stuck.

They'd all agreed, if that was what the gods called them, it only made sense to call them that too. Just not in public.

Some truths weren't meant to be shared with the world. Not yet.

Isol said Vaeliyan needed to learn how to make his Soul Skill work for him. To figure out what it could do when pushed to its edge.

Vaeliyan had used it constantly during training. It was the reason he'd dragged those stupid cinderblocks behind him day after day. When Isol realized he could use the Skill on himself, packing more oxygen into his lungs, keeping it tight and close, it changed everything.

It wasn't sight, not really. But it gave him something like awareness. A sense of motion around his whole body. An aura without form. He couldn't see the kicks coming, but he could feel them.

So his training got worse.

Not because he was the strongest. That would have been Nanuk. No question.

Vaeliyan's training got worse because, in Isol's own words, he was a "gods damned filthy cheater."

And Isol loved it.

"That's Legion thinking right there," he said.

Then he tripled Vaeliyan's regimen.

Styll and Bastard walked two paces behind him. The cat and the ferret who believed, perhaps rightly, that she might as well be a cat herself.

They would be allowed.

Bonds were common enough. People brought them all the time. Just not ones that looked this domestic, or, in Styll's case, could speak.

Her speech had changed. No longer the choppy mimicry of a child. She spoke now like a sharp young lady, intelligent and quick. Still called him Warn, though. Because Warn was Warn. Styll's Warn.

No one questioned it.

Bastard didn't speak. Not really. His bond was closer to what Styll's had once been, raw feeling, shared breath, emotion over language. But in him, there was a protectiveness that settled so naturally it felt like it had always been there.

He looked at their group like a pack.

And he would die for his pack.

They tied to find a clearing close to the road where they could practice with their Soul Skills. Isol wanted them sharpened, field-tested, not just theorized in comfort. The road they walked to the Citadel was the same one they had taken back from the Glass Ocean. Familiar terrain, made unfamiliar by purpose.

They passed the new foundry, just a month old, still hissing steam and ambition into the sky. It marked progress, a symbol of what they were leaving behind.

From there, they'd walk to a town bigger than Mara. From that town, they would take a shuttle to the first real city most of them had ever seen. All but Isol, who had seen plenty before. Cities didn't impress him.

Also, what Isol meant by "walk" was running as fast as you could every single day until you either made it to the Citadel or died trying.

"By the time you get there," Isol told Vaeliyan, "you'd better be able to pull a hauler behind you."

He turned to Jurpat and added, "And you, by the end of this journey, you'll be dragging a cart full of cinderblocks. Or you'd better be dead and buried."

He said it with a grin.

A terrifying, sincere grin.

Neither Vaeliyan nor Jurpat laughed.

They found the clearing just past the last service tower, the old tech, half-buried in roots but still upright. The ground was flat, dry, and scarred from some ancient fire. Perfect. Isol had said nothing soft should be left to cushion the fall.

Styll and Bastard took positions at the edge, already knowing their place without being told. The two companions sat like sentinels. Silent. Watching.

This wasn't the first time they'd done this. It had become a daily ritual, training by way of precision, pain, and exhaustion. The ribbons had become part of their routine, as normal as bug bars and bruises.

Isol walked to the center and dropped a satchel. From it, he pulled coils of cloth ribbon dyed in old tribal war colors: two types, red and yellow.

"Training ribbons," he said. "You know the drill. Three red. Four yellow. Red goes over your heart, across the back of your neck, and around the crown of your head. Yellow goes on the wrists and ankles. You lose a yellow, that limb's gone. You lose a red, you're done. Fight's over."

Vaeliyan rolled his shoulders. His gifts wouldn't help here, not unless he cheated. And even then, it would barely give him an edge.

Isol looked to Jurpat, eyeing the way his shoulders set, the barely-restrained forward lean.

"Wolf Totem," he muttered, mostly to himself. Jurpat had changed now no longer the face of another, now he looked like a pretty normal eighteen-year-old kid. Almost. The illusion faded the moment his soul skill surfaced. The nanites shifted beneath his skin, forming a wolf-like frame over his limbs, spine, and jaw. Elongated digits, faint claw outlines, the posture of something crouched even when standing upright. He looked like someone wearing the shape of a predator, and wearing it well.

Jurpat didn't wait.

The moment the signal dropped, he charged.

It wasn't a test. It wasn't sport. It was the kill, from the very first motion. Jurpat went low, driving forward like a hammer made of instinct and precision.

Vaeliyan barely twisted aside, but it cost him. A yellow ribbon snapped off his left ankle, fluttering to the ground before he even regained his stance.

"One limb," Jurpat grunted, already resetting.

There was no delay. Jurpat pressed again, relentless. Another yellow, torn from Vaeliyan's wrist. Then another. And another. The red stayed untouched, but only because Jurpat was toying with him.

By the end of round one, Vaeliyan had lost all four yellow ribbons.

Isol didn't say anything. He just pointed. Again.

Vaeliyan barely had time to restrap before Jurpat came in a second time. Faster. Heavier.

No hesitation. No fear. Just calculated, physical dominance.

Vaeliyan's Soul skill answered, barely. Moment of Choice flickered in the back of his skull, trying to keep up. His field formed in bursts. The edges tightened. The pressure bent the air. But Jurpat wasn't slowed.

Three angles. Three limbs. He came in like wind through dead trees, claws, fangs, feet pounding like war drums.

Ribbons flew. Vaeliyan twisted, but each motion came just a second too late.

Jurpat didn't stop. Not until all seven strips of cloth lay in the dirt.

Vaeliyan stared at them, chest heaving, arms sagging. His breath felt heavy, not from the soul skill, not even from the loss. Just from knowing that no matter how much he moved, how hard he tried to track, Jurpat was always faster. Always closer. Always one step ahead.

He didn't hate Jurpat for it.

He hated that the soul skill didn't feel like his. Not yet.

It protected. It warned. It resisted. But it didn't strike, not like Jurpat's did. Vaeliyan's field smothered. Slowly. Like gas filling a sealed room. Rain Dancer had been fluid, crushing like floodwater. But All Around You offered no bite. Only the long choking death of suffocation.

Jurpat's was built for war. Vaeliyan's was built for stillness.

And stillness didn't win matches like these.

Again. Isol nodded. Pointed.

Again. Jurpat charged.

And again. Vaeliyan lost.

He hit the dirt, back first. A claw pressed near his throat, hovering, not touching. Just a reminder.

Jurpat pulled back. "You're learning. Just not fast enough."

Vaeliyan nodded once.

He strapped the ribbons on again.

He hadn't won. Not even close.

But he would.

Vaeliyan Verdance — Level 20

Second threshold requirements met

Class upgrade available

Class: Blade Dancer

Alignment: Green Zone Citizen
Unallocated Stat Points: 0

Strength: 25
Perception: 30
Intelligence: 38
Dexterity: 33
Endurance: 25
Resolve: 35

Skills

Power Strike (Active)

Pocket Sand (Active)
Optimized Metabolism (Passive)

Anchored Stance (Passive)

Vaeliyan's Soul skill – All Around You

Stage Two

Vaeliyan's Soul skill – All Around You

Stage Two

Core Effect – Pressure Field

The field builds over time. The longer the user remains still, the faster the pressure intensifies. What begins as a subtle shift becomes a persistent weight. The space tightens. Air feels heavier. Focus degrades. The presence grows without sound or warning.

Passive – Suffocation Drift

The field spreads outward from the user, thinning focus and sharpening discomfort. Oxygen levels remain unchanged, but breathing feels strained. Thought slows. Tension builds. The effect is passive, progressive, and persistent.

Execution Effect – Compression Spike

The user can condense the field instantly, applying a sudden spike of directional pressure. The effect is silent, invisible, and immediate. At close range, it can stagger limbs, break rhythm, or knock weapons off-course. Applied precisely, it can mimic the force of a physical strike.

Known Limitations:

The field strengthens the longer the user remains still. Movement reduces intensity and disrupts edge stability.

Pressure loses coherence with distance from the user.

The Skill does not directly immobilize targets.

Effects are less noticeable to individuals with suppressed emotional response, advanced conditioning, or enhanced respiratory systems.

Stage Two Upgrades

Spatial Sensory Link:
Detects motion and presence through subtle shifts in pressure. Provides 360° awareness independent of sight or sound.

Directional Focus:
The user can shape the field's effects toward specific targets or soften its reach. Pressure follows intent, not command.

Passive Signal Disguise:
Sensors register the Skill as background fluctuation, vent lag, circulation faults, or minor atmospheric drift. No alert is triggered unless manually investigated.