Yellow Jacket

Vaeliyan wasn't the only one from his squad to advance in spectacular fashion.

Jurpat's match had ended in three seconds. One blow. No buildup. No ceremony. Just a thunderclap of movement and a missing head. The audience hadn't even processed the first step before the other cadet's body hit the dirt, headless, twitching.

Xera's fight was less brutal, more theatrical. Her opponent fired a heat-seeking missile. She didn't block it. She invited it. Lured it in, darting between wreckage until the missile turned with her and slammed into the one who fired it. The explosion wiped out the scoreboard.

Elian… well, no one was sure what happened there.

He hadn't drawn a weapon. Hadn't moved much at all. He just stood, calm and unreadable. His opponent locked eyes with him, paused, then dropped to his knees and surrendered. No fight. No explanation. Just silence and a bow.

They were watching Wesley now.

His match was… slower.

He moved like someone meant to amplify others, not shine alone. But even alone, he held his own. His strikes were controlled, his counters perfect, his timing impeccable. Every action screamed trained support unit. He didn't overwhelm. He dismantled.

There was no explosion. No spectacle. No highlight reel moment. Just a quiet, steady march to victory.

Still, no one could deny it, every member of Squad One had advanced.

And the pit was starting to notice.

But it wasn't just Squad One making waves.

A cadet named Roan Vess turned his opponent to liquid. Literally. His Soul Skill wasn't flashy, just heat. But when he touched his opponent's shoulder, the skin bubbled, then sloughed off. A scream echoed, then cut short as the body collapsed into steaming slurry.

Lessa Dune, a noble girl from House Petral, fought without her prosthetics. She'd lost both arms to a childhood accident and did wear augments, sleek, top-tier ones that matched her station. But not in the pit. Not during combat. She said she didn't like the extra weight. Claimed it threw off her rhythm. So she left them behind when it mattered. Just empty sleeves, tied short at the shoulder, and a full-body reactive weave laced with kinetic amplifiers. Her Soul Skill turned velocity into force. Every time she moved, it hit like a cannon. Her opponent tried to block. Mistake. Their arm shattered at the elbow, and they were flung fifty feet before the match even really started.

Then there was Chime.

No surname. No history. Just a girl with a glass smile and neon eyes.

She walked into the match unarmed, barefoot, silent. That was the strange part. Silent. Completely still.

The moment the cages dropped, her opponent screamed. No attack. No contact. Just raw, overwhelming fear. They backed away, begging the instructor to end the match. The instructor didn't respond. Chime never moved.

Eventually, her opponent curled up in a fetal position and failed out from psychological trauma.

Another cadet, Ramis Coil, came in dragging a coffin. No one knew why. His Soul Skill involved bone manipulation, and as it turned out, the coffin was filled with his own. Spares. When the fight began, he snapped both legs to splinters and grew new ones made of serrated white marrow. His opponent tried to run. Ramis just laughed and chased them on bone blades.

They didn't make it far.

Torman Vell, on the other hand, fought like a tank with legs. No finesse. No skill. Just raw, pounding muscle and a skill that hardened skin to iron. His opponent tried to be clever. Didn't work. Torman caught him mid-air and slammed him into the ground hard enough to crater the floor. The pit locked the sim to keep the damage from spreading.

Then came Sylen Verdance.

Heat behind the eyes and hands that never stopped twitching like they were remembering a weapon they weren't allowed to bring.

Her opponent tried to open with distance, control, some kind of field-based skill. Didn't matter.

The first strike wasn't clean. It was raw. Shoulder-first into the ribs. Bone snapped. The second was a heel to the knee. Joint reversed. And the third... gods, the third was a scream. Not hers. His.

She didn't stop. Even when the sim registered a kill.

The system eventually froze her mid-strike. Mid-scream. Her mouth still open. Eyes still wild.

The pit fell silent.

Because she didn't look like someone fighting to win.

She looked like someone trying not to remember why she liked it.

Not all the fights were one-sided.

Varnai Myre barely survived. Her opponent had some sort of venom-based Soul Skill. Varnai took a bite to the neck early in the fight and spent the next five minutes fighting while slowly paralyzing. She still won, but collapsed the second it ended.

Then there was the odd one: Fenn. A tall, silent cadet who never seemed to touch the ground. She floated inches above it, moving like smoke. Her Soul Skill made her intangible until she attacked. Then it snapped back on. Every time she struck, it was like a hammer from the fog.

The match ended when she whispered something to her opponent mid-fight. No one heard what it was. But whatever she said made them burst into tears and give up.

And still, Squad One cast a shadow over all of it.

None of them had needed time. None of them had shown hesitation. No warm-up. No buildup. They'd entered the solo rounds like they already knew how it ended.

And the rest of the pit, hells, the Citadel, was starting to realize:

Whatever else these cadets were…

They weren't normal.

Not even close.

They didn't get to see who the wildcards were.

Not officially. No announcements. No list. Not even a match feed.

The instructors had kept that part locked down. Said it was to prevent pre-match targeting. Said it was fairer that way. But everyone knew better. The real reason was control.

Vaeliyan didn't care.

He stepped into the pit again, calm and ready, breath even. The terrain was plain: stone, and silence. Nothing dramatic. Just a clean, brutal place to end something.

But then he saw her.

The girl from round three.

One of the cadets who was supposed to be on his squad. One of the ones who hadn't followed instructions. One of the ones he had executed before their avatars even fully loaded in. She had smiled at him then, a cruel, mocking thing, as if she thought the whole thing was a game.

She wasn't smiling now.

Her face was thunderclouds and hate. Her body trembled not with fear, but with rage. Somehow, she'd made it through the losers bracket. Maybe on skill. Maybe on luck. Maybe pure spite.

Vaeliyan laughed.

He didn't explain himself. Didn't offer a nod or a greeting. Just cracked his knuckles and moved forward like it was nothing personal.

Because it wasn't.

She charged, screaming. He stepped sideways, let her own momentum carry her into his elbow. The crack echoed like a dry branch snapping. Then he was on her. Fast. Brutal. Precise. A flurry of movement that wasn't dance or war, just punishment.

She had expected him to hesitate. To feel guilt. To flinch.

She didn't understand who he was.

She thought he should roll over. Thought he should die. Thought she was owed something for being born.

What she got was her own face, shattered under the weight of his fists.

He drove her down, again and again. Past the point of the sim registering vitals. Past the point of failure. Her avatar collapsed, long dead.

He didn't stop.

He wasn't angry. He wasn't loud.

He was laughing.

Because she thought she could walk back into his story like it hadn't mattered. Like he'd forget. Like she was still a part of it. But she wasn't. Not anymore. He was trying to show her that stepping back into his story was a mistake, a fatal one.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Most of the wildcards had been crushed just as easily. Overreaching. Desperate. Hoping their story wasn't over.

It was.

But not all of them fell.

Four walked out of their matches with silence following behind them.

Rokhan Vaskor, the bastard son from House Vaskor didn't so much win as erase his opponent. He was brutal, calm, and terrifyingly methodical. His chip was modified from an old Legion chip. Nothing else needed to be said. He didn't speak. Just advanced, disarmed, and dismantled. His fight was over in under ten seconds.

Leron and Vexa Drevin, the Drevin twins, made it too. Anyone watching would've sworn it was the same person in two bodies. Their movements mirrored each other. Identical style. Identical timing. Even their Soul Skills seemed to echo one another, like halves of a single weapon forged in duplicate. They moved like one body split across two minds, overwhelming their opponents in four-step combos that looked more like a choreographed execution than a duel.

And then there was Merec Kirell, the second son of House Kirell.

No one had expected him to win. Not really. A noblewoman had placed five billion on him surviving to round three, not winning, just surviving. It had reeked of long-shot insurance.

But he didn't just survive.

He dominated.

No Soul Skill fireworks. No dramatic finish. Just precise, crushing technique, and unnerving restraint. He dislocated his opponent's shoulder, shattered both knees, then held their head underwater in the simulation's river terrain until the system declared victory.

He wasn't soft.

Not even close.

Those three had walked out of the wildcard bracket different.

Not grateful.

Just ready.

The Skybox was alive with noise now.

Imujin was laughing as he watched Merec Kirell finish his opponent. The avatar had barely faded when the noble who placed five billion on Merec's survival rose from his seat in glee.

"I can taste it! Victory… right over the horizon," the noble proclaimed, practically shaking. "It's not even about the credits, well, maybe a little. But the bragging rights… that's worth more than any ledger. A loss wouldn't hurt, but the honor, you can't buy that."

Imujin grinned, arms folded behind his back. "This is probably the most exciting entrance exam in Citadel history. Look at them. All those little monsters…"

He chuckled, deep and pleased.

"And they're all mine."

Ruby leaned against the railing beside him, her voice playful and sharp. "Yours for now, Headmaster. But once they leave the Legion? They'll be mine. You're just getting them while they're still raw and… less marketable."

From the far end of the Skybox, a new presence emerged. A male Ryan stepped out of the shadow, not one of the clones, not a face model. This was Ryan Ryan. The true head of House Ryan.

He wore a perfectly tailored dress in blood red, deliberately chosen to match the Red Citadel's colors. Everything about him was precision-crafted, elegance without effort, charisma without flaw. Handsome wasn't the right word. He was sculpted masculinity, performed down to the breath.

His voice, when it came, was silk and strength in equal measure.

"I can't wait to get my hands on those beautiful faces," he said, almost reverent. "Especially that Vaeliyan Verdance. It's so… unique. Like the mask of a killer made into nobility."

He shuddered with pleasure.

"He's exquisite."

Isol, standing quietly to one side, didn't respond. But Josephine caught the slight shift in his posture. Not fear. Discomfort.

She remembered what Vaeliyan had said. How he hated fashion. How the face-changing treatments made his skin crawl. And now Ryan Ryan, head of one of the most powerful houses in the world, was speaking about him like a collector spotting a one-of-a-kind piece.

Josephine said nothing.

But she didn't look away.

Ryan Ryan stepped further into the light, twirling one elegant finger through the air, a gesture that activated a floating display. Faces lit up, renderings of the top cadets. Filters cycled through potential alterations. Augmented cheeks. Sculpted brows. Shaved jawlines. Eyes that glowed or shimmered or softened with engineered tears.

He stopped on Vaeliyan's face. No changes applied.

"See? You can't touch it," he whispered. "You can't enhance perfection."

The display blinked out.

Ruby gave a low whistle. "You're not subtle, Ryan."

"I've never had to be," he replied smoothly.

Across the Skybox, other nobles watched the exchange with mixed interest. Some were amused. Others… disturbed. A few whispered behind fans or cups of wine, speculating on what it meant for House Verdance to have a bastard draw such attention. Most understood the subtext: if House Ryan wanted your face, it wasn't flattery. It was possession.

Isol finally moved.

He crossed his arms, weight shifting to one leg, expression unreadable. "Vaeliyan doesn't belong to you."

Ryan turned toward him, lips parting in mock surprise. "Oh? I didn't realize he belonged to anyone."

"He doesn't," Isol replied. "Which means you should keep your hands off."

Ryan's smile didn't falter. But his eyes sharpened.

"I don't need to touch him to shape him."

"You won't shape him either."

Imujin raised a hand, not in warning, but in amusement. "Let's not rip out each other's throats until the children finish playing." He said it lightly, but his eyes flicked toward Isol with a trace of interest now. That outburst—subtle though it was—wasn't normal for the man.

Isol didn't speak again. His jaw was tight. His stance, still controlled, carried tension that only Josephine seemed to notice. She'd worked beside him for years. Knew his rhythms. Knew his silence.

This wasn't guarded. It was coiled."

Josephine watched with growing unease. Not just because of the conversation, but because of Isol. His tone, his words, the razor-sharp edge tucked behind every sentence, it was unlike him. He never raised his voice. Never barked. Never let emotion bleed through. And yet, this… this was not casual. This was defense.

Not of a student.

Of something far more personal.

She didn't know what it meant.

But it was clear now that Vaeliyan wasn't just a promising cadet to Isol. He was a piece of something deeper. A move in a game she still didn't understand.

But she'd seen him fight.

She'd seen what he did to the girl .

He wasn't the kind of thing you put on a shelf.

"So," Ruby said, breaking the silence, "any predictions?"

"The bastard from House Vaskor will make top sixteen," Imujin said without hesitation. "Unless he breaks."

"I like the twins," another instructor chimed in. "They're stable. Precise."

"Too precise," someone muttered. "They look rehearsed."

"They are rehearsed," Ruby said. "That's the point. The media eats twins alive. I'll have them on every feed the second they graduate."

Isol looked away.

Ryan Ryan sighed like a man savoring perfume. "No matter what happens, the pit has done its job. It's stripped the masks off these children. Now we get to see what they really are."

"Monsters," Imujin said, smiling. "And I couldn't be prouder."

Another roar erupted from below as the next match started.

No one looked away.

Especially not Josephine.

The pit didn't shift. No new terrain. No gimmicks. Just the same flat slab of stone as before. Cold. Impersonal.

Perfect for blood.

Vaeliyan moved in first.

Merec Kirell followed, dressed in pristine whites, blade drawn but still clean. A contrast to the mess that was about to unfold. He hadn't needed the sword in his last fight. This time, he clearly meant to use it.

The crowd quieted. They knew this would be one of those fights.

What followed wasn't elegant. It wasn't beautiful.

It was messy.

Merec struck first. A diagonal slash meant to open Vaeliyan from collarbone to hip. Vaeliyan ducked low, slipped to the side, and jabbed toward the elbow. Merec pivoted cleanly. That blade wasn't just for show. He was a trained blademaster fast, patient, precise.

They traded hits. Scrapes. Near-misses. Pressure built. Vaeliyan didn't sing. He didn't grin. His breathing came shallow, tight.

Then it happened.

A perfect feint. Merec dipped his shoulder and came up fast with a rising cut. Vaeliyan moved to counter, but not fast enough.

The sword tore through his avatar's left arm.

The simulation registered the wound instantly. Pain flooded his senses. Bone. Muscle. Nerve endings screaming in high fidelity. His left side dropped dead. The arm fell away.

The crowd gasped.

But Vaeliyan didn't flinch. No scream. No shout. He moved.

Merec lunged in for the finish. Overhead chop. Full power. Kill strike.

Vaeliyan moved low.

He activated a skill.

Pocket Sand.

A burst of fine nanite grit materialized and slammed into Merec's eyes mid-swing. The blade fell wide. Too wide. His stance broke.

Vaeliyan rose from below, his only remaining hand open like a claw.

He activated Power Strike and drove it into Merec's throat.

Not a slash. A grab.

Fingers compressed the windpipe with enhanced force. The larynx didn't just shatter, it caved in like wet paper. Merec's avatar spasmed, gurgling, buckling.

Then silence.

The simulation registered the kill. Merec collapsed.

Vaeliyan stood there, avatar bleeding from the stump, chest heaving.

He didn't hum. He didn't gloat. He just stared.

The slab of stone beneath them was slick now. Two boys had entered. Only one had moved on.

He had made it to the top sixteen.
But it wasn't as clean as he had hoped.

The noble who had wagered five billion on Merec didn't look particularly upset. He sat back with a drink in hand, watching the replay with mild amusement.

"A loss like that doesn't sting. Not when it looks that good," he said. "Besides, I only needed him to make it this far. The rest was just hope."

The screen cycled through the moment Vaeliyan lost his arm, then shifted to the strike that ended it, the crushed throat, the way Merec collapsed.

Imujin let out a long, appreciative exhale. "That boy didn't even slow down. Took the hit, dropped the arm, and kept moving like it didn't matter. Like he couldn't even feel it."

Ruby was still watching the slowed footage, eyes narrowed with delight. "That skill was well trash," Ruby admitted, her voice colored with reluctant respect. "But he timed it perfectly. He waited for the exact moment the blade came down, read the swing, and blinded him mid-motion."

Imujin laughed again, sharp and loud. "I thought he was just reacting, but he's planning, even through what must be blinding pain."

"He crushed a throat with bare fingers while leaking half his avatar's blood," Ruby added, eyes still glued to the projection. "There was nothing accidental about it."

A few nobles nearby had gone quiet. The silence wasn't discomfort, exactly, it was fascination. They were watching something they didn't fully understand yet, and that made them lean in closer.

From the shadows behind them, Ryan Ryan stepped forward again. His dress had shifted tones with the ambient light, what had been deep red now shimmered with hues of wet blue. His presence was commanding without being loud, and when he finally spoke, it was like velvet catching on a nail.

"He moves like the past forgot him. And when he kills, it's beautiful." He tilted his head. "I need that face before the Citadel has a chance to ruin it."

Isol said nothing. He had watched the entire fight without blinking, elbows on knees, eyes locked on the glass. He hadn't flinched when Vaeliyan lost the arm. He hadn't even looked surprised. But something in him had shifted, and Josephine saw it.

His knuckles had gone white where they pressed against his leg, and his jaw had been tight for minutes now.

Josephine leaned slightly toward him but didn't speak. She didn't have to. She'd seen Vaeliyan shut down before at even the mention of face mods, the way his posture turned brittle and his voice vanished behind his eyes. And now the others were talking about him like he was already property. Like a product they had first dibs on. She understood now why Isol had chosen to go back his real one, the one who didn't fit the fashion of this world. And somewhere deep in her chest, she was realizing she felt the same.

Isol's stillness wasn't calm.

It was restraint.

They had made it to the top sixteen.

The Citadel had its finalist. Only sixteen remained, and every one of them had drawn blood to earn it. Still breathing, still fighting, still watching over their shoulders.

Squad One had five names on that list. Almost a third of the top contenders. No one could pretend it was coincidence anymore.

Each finalist was guaranteed a personal room now, and their own personal AI. It was the Citadel's way of saying, "You belong." But for Vaeliyan, it was the beginning.

The next fight would be brutal. They all knew it.

Vaeliyan especially.

The last match had forced him to activate Moment of Choice. And even then, the best decision he could make was one that left him without an arm.

If it had been real, he would have died. No saving throw. No miracle recovery.

But this wasn't real.

Because the pit didn't care about recovery. It didn't care if you bled out after or lost consciousness. The only thing that mattered was who died first.

Milliseconds could be the difference between victory and failure. A spear through the heart, a crushed windpipe, a snapped neck, none of those needed to be survivable. You just needed to last longer than your opponent.

That was the law of the pit.

Not who stood tall at the end.

Just who hit the floor second.