Yellow Jacket

The time for the entrance tournament had arrived.

The Citadel's gates only opened once a year: and when they did, the bastards came running. Some chased names. Some begged for recognition. This was their one shot to claw into the legacy lines. To matter.

Vaeliyan wasn't here for that.

Isol hadn't returned since dropping him on Josephine's doorstep and vanishing without ceremony. A full week had passed. No messages. No updates. Nothing.

During that handoff, Isol had said a lot.

He'd pointed at Jurpat and said, "Next Teon, with enough time and effort."

Vaeliyan had never heard of Teon. But the way Josephine's eyes lit up: and the way the nobles she introduced them to shifted attention like a flock scenting blood: he understood enough. Teon meant power. Prestige. The kind of name that cleared a room or filled it.

From that moment on, Jurpat was the prize. The project. The future. Josephine praised him, refined him, paraded him like a weapon in the making.

Jurpat hated it. Every compliment made him flinch.

And Vaeliyan?

Isol hadn't said what he could become. Just that he was close enough to be a problem.

Josephine had been kind, but her attention lived elsewhere. She was too polished to ignore Vaeliyan, but too strategic to waste effort where she didn't see return.

He didn't mind.

He didn't hold it against her.

Josephine was sharp, poised, powerful in her own right: but she wasn't playing with a full deck of cards.

She had no idea what had happened in Mara. No clue what Vaeliyan had done. No understanding of what Isol had really delivered to her doorstep.

Isol had said she was the only one who'd ever beaten him in a wargame.

Which made this feel like something cruel.

He hadn't warned her. He'd just smiled and handed her a blade with no safety switch, then walked away.

Maybe that was love, in their language.

Maybe it was just another strategy.

Josephine had told them Isol would be there when it mattered.

"He's not the type to miss a war," she said.

Vaeliyan didn't care.

He hadn't come here for safety. Not to be claimed. Not to be welcomed.

Let the others fight for a seat at the table.

He came to flip it.

For the tournament, every entrant was required to wear the Legion cadet arena uniform.

The mirror avatars wouldn't sync with civilian clothes. Something about surface material not reflecting correctly under nanite simulation. Vaeliyan didn't care about the technicals. What mattered was the suit they gave him: blood-red, skin-tight, and coded to his chip.

It tracked everything. Biofeedback. Skill activation. Neural surges. The suit wasn't there to protect you. It was there to make sure you felt every consequence. Instead of dying from a headshot, you'd feel the impact, the pain, the failure, down to the nerves. It was designed to teach reality, not spare you from it.

Along with the suit came a black case. It looked plain on the outside, sleek, matte, unremarkable. But it was key to the whole format. Any gear placed inside would be scanned, archived, and rendered for use in the arena.

Not simulated. Replicated. Perfectly.

You could switch loadouts between matches. You could pick up enemy weapons, environmental debris, and improvised gear mid-fight. But you couldn't bring in outside tools after check-in. No cheats. No backups. Just the contents of your case and whatever you could rip from the field.

Vaeliyan packed his lance. Then the hand-lance—the one with the engraving he refused to look at. His stinger followed, along with a few other items. The case hummed as it scanned the loadout, tagged each piece, and recorded replication specs. When it finished, the display blinked green. Everything registered. Everything approved. He thought about adding the throwing spikes, but decided against it. Simple was faster. Enough to kill, nothing to prove.

Jurpat packed so much gear he couldn't even fit it all. At one point, he held up a plasma sword in one hand and a C7 light tactical nuke in the other and asked Vaeliyan which one to bring. That was a no-brainer, the nuke.

But when they jammed it into the case, it beeped red. A small display lit up: War crime tier items cannot be stored in a basic case.

They both chuckled.

Then paused.

"Basic," Vaeliyan said. "So there's better ones."

They asked Josephine.

She confirmed it. Each year they passed, they'd be upgraded to a new level of case, wider access, higher thresholds.

Then she saw what they'd tried to bring.

She confiscated the nuke.

And most of Jurpat's toys.

She'd seen the way it had been stuffed in next to a few vials of high-reactive acid and nearly screamed.

She told them both they were idiots.

Said she'd be speaking very harshly to Isol.

"Buying children WMDs? Really?"

In the end, Jurpat packed what would fit. The case barely closed.

The arena tech made sense. It was stripped-down logic, combat-coded. The war room games Josephine had tried to teach him were different, dense with symbols, hidden meanings, moves stacked five turns deep. The kind of games that nobles used to carve up continents.

He lost every match.

Except the ones based on raw chance.

They only played a few of those.

Josephine had been quick to stop.

Jurpat, somehow, had taken to them. Strategy games. Hidden rules. Pressure traps. He learned fast. Too fast. Fast enough that Josephine pulled him aside after a match and, in a moment Vaeliyan hadn't seen, offered him something more.

She asked if, when he got out of the Legion, he'd consider joining her clan.

She didn't ask it in front of Vaeliyan.

Nigel told him.

Not to hurt. Not to gloat.

Just to share.

Nigel said it was the first time he'd heard Josephine so genuinely excited about meeting someone. She hadn't sounded like a commander or a noble. She'd sounded proud.

"She called him young master Van," Nigel said. "With actual affection. That's new."

Vaeliyan had smiled at that. Small. Tight. It was real. He was happy for his friend.

He'd spent most of that week with Nigel, actually. The old bot had far more personality than most of the house staff. And more honesty.

Vaeliyan had repaired three of Nigel's servos and rerouted a memory backup that had been looping. He hadn't mentioned it. Just fixed it. Nigel noticed.

He thanked him.

Not with formality. With sarcasm.

"Congratulations," he'd said. "You've impressed a glorified lamp."

But after that, the bot kept showing up.

Nigel taught him things the others wouldn't. The local politics of Kyrrabad. Power networks. Who owned what. Who said what and who meant it.

None of it was supposed to matter at the Citadel.

But Vaeliyan knew better.

He logged every lesson.

Nigel called it curiosity. But he understood. He'd seen enough bastards claw their way up the ranks to know that information was survival. And survival was step one.

And Nigel, for all his programming, liked being useful again.

He said as much.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"I've been repolished a hundred times. And I'd trade all of them for a day where someone actually listens."

Vaeliyan had.

Quietly.

Ruthlessly.

Like someone filing away weaknesses in case of war.

Because that's what the tournament was.

Not a test.

A declaration.

And he intended to make one no one could ignore.

The tournament grounds were buried deep inside the Citadel. It was the same location used during the mixer, same pit, same alloy walls, but the atmosphere had shifted. The crowd had been replaced, and with it, the meaning of the event.

There were no nobles present, no orchestras playing mood-setting overtures, no sponsors mingling over branded drinks, pretending this wasn't about blood.

This wasn't celebration. This was filtration, quiet and methodical.

Cadets stood in rigid lines, hundreds of them. Some stared blankly at the arena floor, trying not to overthink what was coming. Others flexed their fingers, not out of habit, but because their nerves had started locking their joints.

Vaeliyan stood beside Jurpat near the southern edge of the crater. Bastard lounged across his shoulders, completely relaxed. Styll remained hidden beneath his coat, shifting her gaze from face to face without making a sound.

Above them, a mechanical voice read names from a list that seemed to scroll without end.

Each name called was another cadet stepping forward. They disappeared into pressurized elevators disguised beneath the arena floor, sent down into silence. There were no feeds. No spectators would watch the fight. The only feedback would be whoever came back up, or didn't.

That was the design. There'd be no cameras capturing dramatic finishes, no broadcasts replaying fatal blows, no analysis to explain mistakes.

Only outcomes.

You entered, fought, and emerged if you were able. If not, someone else would step over your absence. The entire process was clean, clinical, and final.

The upper tiers surrounding the arena were crowded with instructors. A few took notes on tablets. Others observed in silence, their focus precise and without expression. They weren't watching students. They were evaluating inventory.

Isol stood among them with his arms behind his back. He didn't glance down. No nod. No recognition. He was another piece of the wall, indifferent and unreadable.

Vaeliyan saw him anyway.

Above the instructors, the Citadel Commander watched from an elevated platform. His armor looked untouched by time, and his posture hadn't shifted since their arrival. He didn't need to speak. His presence did the work.

Behind him, floating skyboxes loomed above the arena floor, their translucent surfaces hiding more than they revealed. Sponsor silhouettes shifted behind the projection glass, clear in form but devoid of identity.

At the center of the observation archway stood a Ruby. She didn't speak. Her expression never changed. The hovering drone beside her recorded without comment.

There was noise in the arena: shuffling boots, names being called, the groan of moving machinery.
Vaeliyan heard his name called and moved.

Vaeliyan pushed forward with the mass of cadets, the weight of nearly a thousand bodies pressing close. The elevator platform rumbled as it descended, carrying them deeper beneath the Citadel. Boots clanged against metal, and murmured prayers echoed through the cramped shaft. Faces were tight with anticipation, some pale, others hardened with resolve. No one spoke above a whisper.

There were no doors, only the open edge of the platform leading into a cavernous chamber. It looked like an abandoned airport hangar swallowed by darkness. Rows and rows of black pods stretched into the dark, hundreds arranged like tombstones in a vast, shadowed graveyard. Each was rimmed with faint, eerie blue lights that pulsed rhythmically, casting the crowd's faces in ghostly hues. The edges of the room were lost to the void, turning the space infinite.

A single voice barked from the shadows, clearly Legion. Military. Commanding. Unforgiving.

"Find your number. Lay down. Do not plug in your cases. Do not shut the lid unless we say. If you do not follow these simple rules, I will end you myself."

Above the pods, glowing placards displayed numbers in stark white, cold and clinical. The crowd's eyes darted, scanning, searching for their designated spot.

Vaeliyan's gaze locked on his number, glowing softly on the pod ahead. Jurpat wasn't with this group, he had been sorted elsewhere.

"Anyone who does not follow these simple goddamned rules will be removed with extreme prejudice."

A shiver ran through the crowd. The threat was clear, and no one dared disobey.

Vaeliyan stepped forward, heart pounding in his ears. The pod's entrance hissed open, revealing the interior.

Inside was a strange gel, neither liquid nor solid but something in between. It shimmered with a bright neon green glow, filling the pod's contours. It was cool but not cold, firm but pliant, molding to the shape of whoever lay within it. The gel promised a cradle that would adapt to every curve and inch, holding the body perfectly still yet comfortably suspended.

He eased himself down carefully. The gel shifted and wrapped around him like a second skin that both supported and restrained. It wasn't wet; there was no drip or slickness. The sensation was of being held in a gentle but absolute embrace. Muscles relaxed as the gel conformed, pressing with just enough pressure to ease tension without discomfort.

Around him, cadets settled into their pods. A faint hum rose as the gel stabilized, syncing to their bio-signals. The light rims glowed brighter, the bright neon green illumination bathing each occupant in an eerie, protective glow.

Vaeliyan's fingers twitched as he resisted the impulse to fidget. His cases sat beside the pod, untouched as ordered. The promise that they couldn't be plugged in yet felt like a cruel tease, his weapons, his gear, locked away.

No shortcuts. His mind circled the rules the voice had barked. One wrong move and you're gone. No second chances.

This is where hope breaks or steel is forged.

His thoughts flicked to Jurpat. Probably cursing the rules from another chamber, knowing him. Vaeliyan allowed himself a small smirk then pushed it down. This wasn't a game.

What's coming will test more than skill. It will test will. Endurance. Who can keep standing when everything screams to give up.

He closed his eyes, the gel's embrace centering him. No distractions. No regrets. One fight at a time.

Whatever came next, he would meet it head-on.

He was going to win this. Whatever it was, whatever they threw at him, he would claim first. Every scrap this place had to offer, and more. He'd tear it all from the bones of the Citadel if he had to. End them all if that's what it took. One versus a thousand? Good. He was itching for that.

If Grix were here, she'd have loved it. The idea of their backs to the wall, nothing but blood and resolve between them and the end. She'd grin that twisted grin and say, "Kill every last one of these green bastards."

He laughed to himself. She'd also remind him, "You are one of those green bastards," while they ripped the rest apart together.

He thought about Wren. She had to be close now, so close to having their child. He hoped someone was looking after her. He missed the scent of her hair, the way she snorted when she laughed. He even missed how she used to mercilessly beat Cassian when he was the first to fall during training.

Ah, motivational beatings. He'd never been on the end of hers, at least not the losing end.

Styll and Bastard had settled into a bond pod that was easily twice the size of his, which unnerved him. They were tiny, barely more than a house cat and a ferret, and the thing could've held a moss-back. But they were excited. Eager to prove they were real combat bonds. And he was just as eager to prove to Josaphine that she'd missed the game Isol had been playing since the moment they walked in.

A breath from the shadows. The instructor spoke again:

"Shut your lids on my count. When the lid is closed, breathe in. Your body will try to resist. If you can't accept this basic test, you will be removed. As soon as your lungs are filled, you will be in your avatar. Try not to puke, the avatar has nothing to empty.

This is a kill count game. The ones with the highest body count move on. Survive to the end and you get a bonus.

No other rules. No holds barred. All you need is kill.

Lids down in. Three. Two. One."

Everything went silent the moment the lid sealed shut.

Vaeliyan inhaled.

Not a gasp, not a panic. A long, steady breath. The kind you take when you're ready to fight.

Then the world shifted.

One moment he was in the pod, lungs full. The next, he stood in a new body, already grounded, already braced, barefoot on smooth concrete that stretched endlessly in all directions. No walls. No features. Just flat, cold ground beneath a black sky with no stars, no moon, only the void and the distant buzz of others spawning in.

He was the first. Not one of the first, the first. By seconds. By strides. The difference between control and chaos.

Other cadets were still arriving, blinking into existence, staggering forward, hacking up reflex breath. Some tried to orient themselves. Some barely landed on their feet.

Vaeliyan didn't wait.

He had watched one of these fights before. The avatars didn't vanish when killed, they stayed until the end, frozen corpses littering the terrain.

He could use that.

He was already moving.

His avatar matched his real body perfectly, down to the old scars and subtle posture quirks. It didn't just look like him. It felt like him. Exactly the same. No disconnect. No delay. He clenched a fist and felt the tension ripple up his forearm. Every breath expanded his chest just like it always did. This wasn't a simulation. It was him. His body obeyed instantly, and the air itself felt thinner, as if the world had less resistance.

He didn't waste a second looking down. The rules said it plain: all you need is kill. That was fine. That was his whole life.

The arena stretched in all directions. Broken buildings, jagged terrain, splintered streets, and the outlines of other cadets flickering in the distance, some crouched, some running, some already fighting. No introductions. No signals.

The strongest cadets expected to dominate. Expected to arrive first. But they blinked in like newborns, locked in system lag, their bodies stiff with transition. Vaeliyan was already on them, his pressure field blooming outward.

They couldn't even move.

He hit them while they were still spawning. Dropped one. Then another. Used one frozen avatar as a shield, then smashed it into a third cadet just as they solidified. Corpses didn't disappear. They could be weapons too.

He activated All Around You.

The air thickened, the zone around him warping. Every new arrival in range buckled before they could orient. Vision blurred. Lungs failed. Knees gave. He harvested them without effort.

Movement to his left. He ducked. A blade arced overhead. He was already driving upward into the attacker's jaw, fracturing bone. Blood sprayed.

One down.

Then two. Then five.

They came in waves. Staggering, tripping, panic-grabbing whatever was near, walls, corpses, each other. No rhythm. No control. Just pain and instinct.

Vaeliyan didn't just cut them down, he broke them. Headbutts shattered noses. Elbows found throats. One cadet lunged wildly, and he bit down on their shoulder with enough force to tear. Another slipped on blood as he slammed their head into the concrete.
Just more nameless thugs.
That's what he'd been called once. Funny how fast the name gets forgotten when it bites back

No style. No technique. Just violence personified, painted in blood and screams.

He moved in short, violent bursts. Between them were jagged lulls, moments where he crouched low and scanned with animal stillness before exploding again. One cadet used a wall to steady themselves. He drove their skull into it twice before they dropped.

The space was chaos. Fallen bodies didn't fade. He tripped one cadet with a corpse's arm. Shoved another into a low wall hard enough to crack the concrete. Every part of the arena became a weapon, a distraction, a trap.

By the time the stronger ones found their footing, half their number was already gone. And the thing doing it, the monster in the green paint, was still smiling.

No time to breathe.

His Soul Skill flared to life.

Pressure built. The space around him thickened as his presence rooted deeper into the ground. Anyone near him would feel it, lungs tightening, limbs dragging, focus slipping.

Good.

Vaeliyan moved like a ghost through wrecked and ruined bodies, striking fast, vanishing faster. Every kill came clean. No wasted motion. Every time someone closed in, he drove pressure into their body, then crushed them.

He was going to win this.

The numbers would climb. The bonus was his.

But he wasn't just here for numbers.

He wanted them to see what they'd overlooked. Josaphine. The Citadel. Every last one of them.

He wanted to make it loud.

He wanted to leave nothing standing.

And the moment a group of six turned on him at once, he smiled.

Let them come. Let them all bleed. This was his throne now.

"I think there's something wrong with the pods," the tech said, eyes wide as she scrolled through the live data stream. "The rejection threshold is way too high for Bracket One, sir. They're spawning in... and then they're getting thrown out almost instantly."

"What do you mean 'almost'?" The instructor who had voiced the rules stepped in, his tone hard.

"They spawn in fully," she replied, tapping the screen, "but then they drop. Just as quickly."

"Let me see the numbers."

A pause.

"What the fuck am I seeing here?"

"Look... sir, look at this."

He leaned closer.

"By the gods..."

Another tech pointed at the board. "Who in the hell is that? They have to be cheating. Look at that score."

"How long has it been?"

"Not even thirty seconds. They've got almost a hundred."

"What the fuck just happened?! They just jumped to one-thirty-two!"

"Pull them out," the instructor barked. "They must be cheating."

A different tech hesitated, voice uncertain. "Sir... the system says no violations are happening."

"Just do it. Even if there's no violation. No one's beating that score anyway. And hell, I love a cheat. They're going to the next round regardless. But give the others a chance to bleed a little before they're buried."

Silence stretched, thick with disbelief, as the number continued to climb.