Yellow Jacket

The walls were rusted to shit. Not reinforced. Not even good trade steel. Just sheeted junk, rebar, and old city paneling slotted together over generations of patchwork defense. Parthilion wasn't a fortress. It was a shrug that survived.

Rain fell in slow curtains. Not a storm. Just water. And that, more than anything, unnerved Vaeliyan.

It was just rain.

He stood still under the gray wash, staring up at the ruined skyline of the border town. Bigger than Mara, but still a town Isol had said. The kind of place that had running water, lights some nights, and vendors who sold things that didn't taste like despair. He felt the water running down his neck and it didn't answer him. Rain Dancer wasn't with him here. He had no claim on the clouds. The droplets didn't obey. The air didn't hum.

He was just wet.

The hair helped. He'd cut it off back in Mara. No more golden locks hanging past his jaw. No more boy-hero shine. Just a clean military cut that let the rain fall clean on skin. He didn't miss it. Didn't mourn it. Just one more thing that didn't belong to the new Vaeliyan.

Jurpat had done the same, his curls now shaved close at the sides. They both looked different now. Harder. Sharper. Hungrier. And not just from the cut.

Muscle had found them over the last stretch. No magic tricks. No stat pumps. Just Isol's training, day after day, and the brutal arithmetic of pain plus time. The boys were lean, carved, tight across the ribs and shoulders. No shirts. Just soaked skin and sweat-hardened grit.

Even Isol looked... bigger. Somehow. The old bastard's shirt was off too, rolled up under one arm like a gym towel. The vendor raised an eyebrow at the trio that walked up: two half-feral, jacked teenagers and a smiling old man with a gut like a war drum and arms like siege cables.

Then she smiled at Isol. Subtle. Like she didn't mean to, but couldn't help it.

"You seeing that?" Isol's voice cut through the patter. He was already veering off toward a food cart under a crooked awning.

The cart was nothing fancy, battered pots, open flame grill, steam hissing from clay bowls stacked too high. But the smell hit hard. Oil, garlic, slow-braised meat. Vegetables that still had color. Thick, brown sauce that clung like it meant something.

Parthilion was strange. Not quite Yellow. Not quite Green. There was no wall here, no divide between castes or checkpoints. It was messier than that. Lower-end than the Green sector back in Mara, but miles ahead of what the Yellow ever offered. People had roofs. Had markets. Had lives.

Isol stopped. Looked at the boys. Then the cart. Then the sky.

"You know what?" he said, holding up five fingers. "Screw it. No bug bars today. We cheat."

Jurpat's whole body lit up. Vaeliyan blinked like he wasn't sure if it was a trick.

The vendor handed over five bowls without a word, eyes darting between the strangers and the storm. Isol pressed his index finger to the terminal without fanfare. A green light flashed, credits transferred. First time Vaeliyan had seen it. Quick. Quiet. Efficient.

They sat beneath the canopy as the rain tapped on tin and stone. Isol passed one bowl down to the ground, where Bastard was already licking his chops, and another to Styll, who accepted it with a chirring purr and began delicately picking at the noodles with her claws. The vendor's eyes went a little wider, but didn't say anything. Two animals eating like people. It didn't seem to bother Isol. The food was hot. Steam rolled up in fragrant swirls. Vaeliyan lifted his bowl, felt the heat in his hands, smelled the broth, the burn of meat oil and charred pepper.

Then the explosion hit.

Not far. Close enough to shake the bowls and loud enough to make the vendor flinch. Smoke lifted above the eastern block. Screams followed. And then the sharper rhythm of short, concussive bursts, enforcer weapons trying to suppress the chaos. They were losing. You could tell by how fast the shots stopped.

Isol took a slow bite of noodles. Slurped once. Pointed his chopsticks toward the noise.

"You two," he said, chewing. "Go take care of that. I can't enjoy this lovely meal with all that racket."

Both boys froze. Then slumped like dogs caught chewing wires.

Vaeliyan set his bowl down with a sigh. Jurpat made a small noise of betrayal.

The vendor looked between them and the rising smoke. "Uh... is that really a good idea?"

Isol waved him off with the chopsticks. "It's fine, it's fine. Can I get two more of these, please and thank you."

"If you say so," the vendor muttered.

Vaeliyan turned to go.

"Soul Skills only," Isol added.

They both groaned.

Vaeliyan dropped his lance. Jurpat unclipped his weapons. No blades. No Lances. Just who they were, and what burned inside.

Then they walked into the storm.

Rain licked rust from the crumbling border walls. Parthilion wasn't a fortress. It wasn't even a city. Just a town that had survived too long to die quiet. And now it was screaming.

Jurpat had already broken into a run, dashing toward the Hexmarch like it owed him money. Steel-laced limbs and wolf-gait chewing up distance. He looked like a monster someone had tried to give a human face.

Vaeliyan didn't move.

He stood off to the side. Shirtless. Rain clinging to the curve of his shoulders. His arms were loose at his sides. His eyes half-lidded. And he was humming.

Just singing.

Beautifully. Soft and steady. A song about suffocating. About running out of air. About the weight of breath turning to stone. His voice was melodic, even soothing, as if he were lulling the world to sleep.

No enforcer noticed at first. They were too busy getting gutted by raiders.

But then the coughing started.

Not from wounds. Just... breath failing.

One by one, raiders dropped to their knees. Some staggered. Some grabbed their throats. Faces flushed violet. One fell forward, convulsing. Another leaned against the dirt, then slid down like gravity had doubled.

Vaeliyan's field built with no fanfare. It wrapped the open battlefield like a cold towel. Pressure, not violence. But it hurt.

The boss of the raiders, the one with the really big hammer, noticed. He saw his men dying like fish on dry land.

He turned his eyes.

One boy was charging the Hexmarch. Wild. Foaming with instinct. A werewolf carved from nanites.

The other?

Just a young man. Singing to himself in the rain.

The boss bellowed. Rage. Confusion. Fury. And he charged Vaeliyan.

Vaeliyan looked up.

He didn't stop singing.

The pressure didn't surge. It folded. Subtle, twitching around him, trailing his breath like something that wanted out.

But Vaeliyan wasn't ready for the furious charge.

The boss was big. Thick through the arms and shoulders. His hammer was made of nanites, constantly shifting, its weight somehow wrong. He didn't swing clean. He thrashed, testing Vaeliyan's reflexes.

Vaeliyan dodged. Slid low under one wide arc, backstepped a feint, twisted at the waist to let another hammer sweep cut wind. He didn't let his breathing change. The pressure still built, around him, within him.

The boss grunted and rotated, throwing in elbow strikes and shoulder checks between hammer swings. He wasn't just strong. He was trained.

Vaeliyan stayed just ahead. Reading motion through pressure. Every ripple told him where the next strike was.

But it wasn't enough.

The hammer shifted. Became a hook. Vaeliyan barely slipped it. He turned, tried to break line of sight.

The boss laughed. "You dance good. But you ain't got teeth."

Vaeliyan didn't answer.

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Rain soaked his hair. His eyes stung. He hummed through it.

The boss lunged. Wide arc. Intent to bait.

Moment of Choice activated. Vaeliyan saw the strike, committed to the block, and realized too late.

The hammer pulled back. It was never meant to land. It was there to block Vaeliyan's sightline. The real threat was the hand rising behind it. For a grab.

The boss stepped in, hand open, going for Vaeliyan's throat.

He wouldn't survive it.

A twitch. An instinct. Anything. Everything.

A slap. Not his from his hand.

The pressure surged and struck.

The boss didn't fall. But he stumbled.

Eyes flinched. His balance broke.

Vaeliyan froze.

So did the boss.

The rain kept falling.

"What?" the man muttered.

Vaeliyan blinked. His hand still half-raised. His body still in motion's echo.

And then his mouth twitched.

He grinned. Grim. Ecstatic. Hungry.

"Oh," he said softly. "That's what you are."

He stepped forward and drove a fist into the raider's gut, not just with muscle, but with the field. The pressure responded. Too fast. Too sharp. It jabbed with him.

There was no crack.

But there was a give. A concave moment.

The boss wheezed. Eyes bulged.

Vaeliyan exhaled.

Now he knew. It could hit. It could slap. It could punch.

And suddenly, All Around You wasn't just suffocation.

It was violence. Personal. Directed.

And it was his.

Jurpat didn't wait for drama.

He didn't hesitate. Didn't plan. Didn't even look back.

The Hexmarch was the size of a dropship, with a core frame of steel plates and critical armor, but its outer shell was cobbled from rusted iron, old street signs, scaffolds, and hunks of scrapped city metal bolted into place. Cannons bristled from the sides. Smoke poured from its joints. Its front chassis split open, just a gap wide enough for the internal flechette cannons to spit teeth.

It roared.

Jurpat grinned.

The wolf-frame curled across his shoulders, bristling with nanite fur and physical reinforcement. His legs were pumping before the first shot fired.

The flechette blast came in a cone. Thousands of tiny spikes, too fast to see.

Jurpat moved.

He didn't block. Didn't try to deflect. Just slipped through the holes in the fire. His movements defied expectation, shoulders tucking, spine arched, breath timed to the rhythm of death itself. No transformation. No mutation. Just training, instinct, and pain-earned precision. Breath timed to the rhythm of death itself. Claws scraped metal. Legs bounded forward, slipping off a low stone wall and flinging him upward.

A second flechette burst fired, closer this time.

He twisted. The shot grazed past, glancing off the nanite mesh without consequence. No pain, just a whisper of contact.

His claws hit the Hexmarch's side. And held.

He climbed like he was born to it. Not like a human or even like a wolf. Like something built for this. Climbing the leg, bounding to a turret mount, ducking behind a radar fin as another barrage shrieked past.

He reached the top.

The hatch began to close.

Jurpat roared and pounced. Fingers gripped the rim. He ripped it open with a snarl. A flechette launcher rose inside. He saw the glint of another flechette.

He howled.
Crushing pressure waves.

The cockpit filled with sound.

And then, it didn't.

Four operators inside, all dead.

Not from impact. From rupture.

Ears exploded in wet pops. Eyes bulged, then bled. Lungs tore open from the inside like paper bags filled with knives.

Blood sprayed across the interior in a fine mist, coating the controls, the screens, the walls. One of them had bit off his own tongue in the convulsion. Another twitched once, then slumped with foam pouring from his mouth and nostrils.

Jurpat dropped in behind them like a descending god of war, crouched low, claws flexed.

His bare feet squelched against the pooling red. Then he reached up and calmly pulled the hatch closed behind him, sealing the cockpit like a tomb.

He didn't blink. He didn't flinch.

He smiled.

Then looked back toward the battlefield.

Vaeliyan was dancing with death.

And when Vaeliyan danced with death, death was the one who would lose.

Jurpat didn't activate the controls. Didn't fire a single shell.

He sat down and look at the feed, pulled out a rewrapped nut bar, and watched.

Because the killing was already taken care of.

The boss hurled the hammer. Vaeliyan stepped to the side. A breath. No flourish. The hammer curved back like a predator and he ducked under it, eyes never leaving the man.

He didn't chase. Didn't posture. He let the field build.

The boss grinned. He flung the weapon skyward. It exploded, splitting into dozens of smaller hammers that began to fall like a steel rain.

Vaeliyan tilted his head. Calculated. Didn't even blink. He stepped once, and the field thickened beneath his feet, kicking a gust sideways. Hammers missed by inches. One scraped across his shoulder, drawing blood.

He rolled that shoulder back like it didn't matter. "Cute."

The real hammer hit the ground. Spikes ruptured upward in a geyser of shattered stone .

Vaeliyan moved forward now. Not fast. Just enough. Letting the pressure lead.

The boss roared and charged. Vaeliyan stopped. Stood still. Let the other man close the distance.

Then he shifted, flicked his fingers, and the air slammed back against the boss's chest.

The raider stumbled. Vaeliyan walked past him like nothing had happened.

Behind him, the hammer flew again. Vaeliyan turned his head and it stopped mid-air. Not truly. But close enough. Pressure fought momentum. The weapon wobbled, slowed, and finally retracted back toward its master.

The boss screamed. Called Vaeliyan a witch. Said this wasn't a real fight.

Vaeliyan shrugged. "Don't give a shit what you say nameless thug number seven." The boss raged at the taunt, nostrils flaring, hammer twitching in his grip like it wanted blood before the man could even move.
"My name is Tom! The King of the Wilds!" he roared.

Vaeliyan tilted his head. "Like the whole Wilds didn't know the Wilds had a king. I think nameless thug number seven fits much better."

the boss swung. Vaeliyan ducked under it and pushed with the pressure. Not a hit. A redirection. The hammer slammed sideways into the dirt, burying itself deep.

A punch came next. Vaeliyan caught it. Not with hands. With air.

The strike slowed just enough for him to pivot, twist, and land a knee into the man's gut. The sound it made was wet and wrong.

the boss staggered back, retching. Vaeliyan let the pressure drift forward like a current.

He followed it.

They clashed again. the boss raised his hammer. Vaeliyan stepped through the wind, using the pulse of the field to narrow the gap.

He slapped again. Across the jaw. Then elbowed into the man's throat.

the boss grabbed him, lifted him up, and tried to crush his ribs. Vaeliyan grinned. Pressure flared, and the grip loosened.

He landed on both feet, spinning low. A sweep kick knocked the boss half off balance.

Then Vaeliyan stood. Stepped forward.

He punched.

Not just a punch. A focused spike. Pressure folded into the motion. It struck like a battering ram.

the boss flew back. Landed hard. Got up. Screamed. Charged again.

Vaeliyan was waiting.

The field had grown. It swirled. He shaped it like breath, like a glove, like wings.

the boss's hammer came down one final time.

Vaeliyan jumped. Used the hammer's momentum to spring higher. Kicked off the pressure mid-air.

He twisted, upside down, leg cocked.

Then drove a full force kick into the man's neck.

There was no cry. No scream. Just the sick pop of vertebrae breaking.

the boss dropped.

Vaeliyan landed hard. His leg bent wrong. Something gave way.

He didn't cry out.

Pain was old. Familiar.

He stood there, breathing once.

Then let the pressure fade.

The field collapsed around him. The rain felt cold again.

The fight was over.

"So much for the vaunted nameless thug number seven," Vaeliyan laughed.

The storm had broken. The field was gone. The Hexmarch lay still. Smoke drifted upward from the breached wall, from the wreckage of a machine that would never march again.

Vaeliyan stood still for a beat longer than necessary. Then turned. Jurpat was already walking toward him, brushing rust and blood from his arms.

"You good?" Jurpat asked.

Vaeliyan nodded. "Leg's shot. Fight was worth it."

The enforcers, what passed for them in this town, rushed forward. These ones looked like patched-up private security. Old plates. Mixed makes. Tired, but real.

One of them stepped forward. A woman. Maybe late thirties. Weapon slung over her shoulder.

"That was, whatever that was, thank you. Both of you."

Vaeliyan stepped forward, composed. His voice turned strangely formal. "It's our duty, sir or madam depending on how you are talking to, oh wait, I wasn't supposed to say that part. Let me start over. It was our duty... madam. As a Legion cadet hopeful, it is our job to help those in need."

He turned to Jurpat. "Did I do it right?"

Jurpat gave a thumbs up. "Yeah, you did, buddy. After the massive fuck-up at the beginning, you did perfect."

Isol strolled up with Bastard and Styll trotting alongside. The old man was eating something.

"It is our duty to help, madam," Isol said with the cadence of someone who'd memorized it long ago. "These are my Legion hopefuls. As you can see, they're rather new. But it was their pleasure to assist."

He nodded once to the boys. "Come along. Break's over. Back to the road."

Both boys shouted in unison. "What about our noodles?!"

Isol's grin was wicked. "Oh, I finished the cart off. So here..."

He held up two bug bars.

"Have a bug bar."

Styll chirped over the bond, words clear as a bell. "It was so yummy, Warns. Bastard and I had three full bowls. It was so good."

Both boys groaned.

A Vanessa, short-haired, Beautiful like all the rest, stepped up beside the lead enforcer. "Wait, what about his leg? That looks really bad. Shouldn't someone check that?"

Isol didn't even glance. "It'll be fine."

Vaeliyan slapped a med-strip over the break without flinching. There was an audible crack as bone ground back into place.

The enforcers paled.

And the group walked off.

Their light walk began again. Mud sucked at their boots and the road rolled uneven underfoot, lined with bent metal poles and the occasional half-swallowed road marker. Mist clung low, and rain fell like it had something to prove.

"Weren't we supposed to stop at that city?" Vaeliyan asked between breaths. "Wasn't that the plan? Shuttle and all that?"

"Yes," Isol said casually. "Apparently, we're early. Four days before it gets there. So we're just going to meet it at the next stop instead. Should give us six more days of light training."

"Shenanigans," Jurpat grunted. "First, we get no noodles. Now we've got six more days of this."

"At least you just have to drag that cart," Vaeliyan shot back, gesturing to the rusted hauler he pulled. "I've got a full hauler strapped behind me."

Isol was jogging beside them, hauling his own hauler like it was a hobby. He barely looked winded. The boys looked like boiled meat. Their backs glistened with sweat, bare-chested and raw-skinned from friction. Every breath was a wheeze. Every step was a decision.

"So what'd you boys learn back there?" Isol called over his shoulder.

"We learned who the real bastard is," Vaeliyan said.

"No, we already knew that," Jurpat replied, dry.

Isol barked a laugh. "Double speed."

Neither boy hesitated. Their legs pumped harder. The dragging got louder.

"So what'd you really learn?"

Rain whipped past. Wind stole most of their words, but not the force behind them.

"I learned that I was thinking about my stages wrong," Vaeliyan said. "With Rain Dancer, the power hits first and the calm comes second. But All Around You, it's similar in rhythm, just reversed. It's strong in crowd work from the beginning, but it's slow, creeping. If I keep it close and use the second stage right, it doesn't just press, it crushes."

"I learned if I use Stage Two in a closed space, it's brutal," Jurpat added. "You should've seen the mess."

Isol grinned over his shoulder. "I can see it. You sit in a blood bag or something?"

"Oh shit, I actually did. Can we stop so I can clean up?"

"No," Isol said, smile widening. "Think of it as punishment for eating those nut bars you thought I didn't know about."

"Wait, you knew?" Jurpat shouted. "And you didn't say anything?"

"The Legion doesn't care if you cheat," Isol said. "Only if you lose. You did well. But I saw the nut in your teeth."

"Can I get something that isn't gross, please?" Vaeliyan begged. "If Bastard and Styll are the only ones who get real food today, I'll drop dead."

Isol pulled a pouch from his belt and tossed it without looking. "Fried mushrooms. That's your reward for not being shit with your Soul Skill."

"If that's all it takes, where's mine?" Jurpat said.

"Only had one." Isol's grin widened. "You two can fight for it."

Vaeliyan was already shoveling mushrooms into his mouth, crumbs sticking to his chin like a declaration of victory.

Isol laughed and called. "Triple speed."

The boys groaned, but obeyed. The road blurred beneath their feet, and the run continued.