Yellow Jacket

Vaeliyan awoke the next morning with an unsettling clarity, like surfacing from beneath a still lake that hid yesterday's violence just below the surface.

The ghost-bed had done its work. It hadn't erased the pain. It had metabolized it. Everything, Deck's psychotic glee, the brutal training, the grotesque forest, had been filtered and reorganized. The memories were intact, vivid even, but no longer suffocating. His body ached with phantom pain, but the emotional weight had dulled to something survivable.

Everything except that.

The cadet lounge bathroom.

That stall.

That thing.

It hadn't just imprinted on his memory. It had infested his subconscious. All night, it replayed in looping nightmares, twisted and recursive, always dragging him back to that stall. Always forcing him to stare into that pulsing, impossible horror.

Eventually, his survival instinct evolved into something sharper: defiance.

By the final dream, he wasn't running. He had come armed. A flamethrower in hand. Fire and fury. He stormed the stall door and tried to burn it down.

He wasn't winning.

But he could look at it now.

That counted.

When he opened his eyes, he wasn't alone.

The Ancient Man stood at the foot of his bed.

Draped in robes that seemed stitched from decay, his skin was paper-thin, stretched tight over bone like a scroll of withering scripture. One gnarled hand lifted in silent greeting.

Vaeliyan blinked, adjusting not to light, but to the weight in the room, the impossible pressure of divinity. He exhaled. "Hello, Umdar."

The God of Erasure looked down at him with eyes like extinguished stars. His voice didn't travel through the air; it settled into the marrow of Vaeliyan's bones.

"You are progressing well, Warren. Steel's first task is complete. As your benefactor, I have come to initiate the soul-binding. Have you chosen the two objects to which your souls, will be joined?"

Vaeliyan pushed the covers aside and sat up. "I have. But one of them is not here."

Umdar tilted his head. "Distance is meaningless. Name them. That is enough."

Vaeliyan ran a hand through his hair. "My jacket. It's still in Mara, with Wren."

Without moving, Umdar reached into the folds of his robes. When his hand emerged, it held a spectral version of the yellow jacket. It shimmered with soulstuff and memory, not quite physical, not quite illusion. Not a copy. It was his jacket, drawn across space like a thought made manifest.

"And the second?"

"My Legion armor."

Umdar's other hand vanished into his robe. What he drew out was the armor embryo, Vaeliyan had seen it just yesterday, but now it was nearly unrecognizable. No longer raw or uncertain in form, it had matured at an unnatural pace, shaped entirely by Vaeliyan's DNA. It pulsed faintly with intent, as if anticipating its final emergence. It was close to completion.

He extended both items. The room went still. Even time seemed hesitant to intrude.

"Are you certain these are the artifacts you wish to bind to your soul?"

"Yes."

Umdar nodded slowly. "Then understand: these are no longer objects. Once bound, they become extensions of who you are, reflections of your veil, intertwined through shared experience and identity. Your Legion armor was already made to evolve alongside you. This ritual will accelerate that growth. A metaphysical tether will form, connecting you to the armor with every victory, every wound."

The jacket flickered in his hand.

"At the same time, Your jacket will grow, just as your armor was designed to do. It will no longer be a lifeless object. It will become the carapace you've always treated it as. And more importantly, the spine crawler will inhabit both.

One interface. Two vessels.

It will co-inhabit armor and jacket, linking them in constant resonance. They will adapt together. Learn together. Bleed together. But know this: they will only exist depending on which soul you wear. Vaeliyan or Warren, each will call forth a different resonance, a different manifestation of the same bond. Your enemies will see only plate and fabric. They won't realize they're facing a unified entity.

These two are now permanently linked. As your armor advances, so will the jacket. As you modify the jacket, your armor will respond. Each upgrade echoes through the other. But know this: the jacket is older in its history with you and soul-weight. It will always lead. It will always be stronger."

Umdar stepped closer. The pressure in the room condensed.

"You will have a Legion armor system like no other. Unique. Unreplicable. Two pieces. One whole."

Then softer, almost reverently:

"This is not gear. They are your soul externalized."

Vaeliyan drew a long breath.

He nodded.

He was ready.

Again I ask you are you sure.

As Vaeliyan nodded his agreement for a third time, the world blinked out.

He didn't remember falling. Didn't feel the shift. One breath he was facing Umdar, weightless in a moment suspended between breath and thought. The next, Styll was nudging his face with her cold nose, and Bastard was pawing at his ribs like an entitled, scaled alarm clock that had no concept of mercy.

He groaned.

He was back.

His room. Familiar. Soft. Safe. The cloud bed cradled him beneath the gentle artificial sunrise filtering in through the tinted glass. Umdar was gone, as if he'd never been there. Not even the scent of decay or pressure of divinity lingered.

Styll squeaked softly and nestled closer, her claws catching in the blanket as she half-climbed his chest. Bastard circled once, then leapt onto the headboard with the smug energy of someone who believed they had accomplished something just by existing.

Still blinking the afterimages of that moment from his vision, Vaeliyan dragged himself upright. He moved on autopilot, stepping over Bastard's tail and walking barefoot across the warm floors toward the kitchen.

Jurpat was already there, sitting at the island counter in sleep pants and nothing else, chewing through a bowl of food with the mechanical efficiency of a man who hadn't yet told his body it was awake. His expression was fixed in that pre-dawn dead stare, eyes open, soul not yet reinstalled.

Vaeliyan dropped into the seat beside him and tapped in a quick order on the synth. The food arrived within seconds. The plate slid out with a soft ping and gentle steam, perfectly plated, perfectly hot.

Thank the gods for modern conveniences.

Then he frowned.

That thought, thank the gods for modern conveniences, hit him sideways.

Since when did he care about convenience?

A year ago, he was surviving in the broken wreckage of Mara. Living out of crates, subsisting on bug bars, occasionally hunting anything that wasn't poisonous. Back then, dinner was something fought for. Sometimes scavenged. Occasionally stolen. Always suspect.

He used to sleep with one eye open and a weapon in hand. Now he was waking up in a cloud bed with a breakfast synth.

When the hells had he started valuing comfort?

And more than that, when had he become... social?

He wasn't just surviving anymore. He had conversations. Allies. Friends. People who missed him when he was gone. Who called him things like "Vael." Who asked if he was okay. Who challenged him, supported him, followed him.

By the gods… he had a wife. He was going to be a father. Not someday. Soon. And yet he was here, in a floating fortress far removed from everything he'd once fought to protect. So far away it might as well be another world. Another version of himself living someone else's life.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

That realization hit like a crack across the ribs. He'd been chasing strength, power, survival, but underneath it all, there was something far more fragile: connection.

He had lost his only real connection when Mara died. That grief had hollowed him out. Left a wound nothing could reach. But the moment people started to fill the hole she left behind, they hadn't come as individuals. They had come like a flood. Not just allies, but people he trusted. People he would die for.

Even those he once called enemies, people he had fought, distrusted, even hated, were now some of his closest bonds. Jurpat. Isol. Dianna. By the gods he even started to like the others in Class One. He didn't know when the shift had happened, only that it had. Connection hadn't just returned. It had multiplied.

And now that it had taken root in his life, now that he could feel it growing again, he was terrified he wouldn't be there to hold onto it when it bloomed.

It wasn't weakness, exactly. But it was different. It was unrecognizable from the version of Warren who'd walked through the ash and ruin of the Yellow. That version didn't speak unless forced. That version trusted no one. That version was always alone.

Now… he belonged to something. And that came with risk.

He looked down at his plate and poked at it.

When did I start letting myself feel safe?

It occurred to him then, maybe it wasn't just time or environment. Maybe it wasn't even just the people around him. Maybe it was him. His stats. His choices.

His intelligence stat was his highest.

He'd heard the term emotional intelligence before, and now, thinking about it, maybe the stat governed more than just logic or calculation. Maybe it shaped the ability to understand, people, patterns, consequences… even himself.

He felt more now. Not just in reaction, but in comprehension. He saw nuance where before there was only threat. He recognized emotions forming, saw them play out. Maybe it wasn't growth. Maybe it was programming. But either way, he'd changed.

He was still chewing on that when a translucent white ping appeared in his vision, hovering just above his food.

Sleep Training Analysis Complete
Congratulations, User.
You have successfully overcome your fear of the Unidentified Mass.

He blinked.

Was that what happened?

So the AI had seen him freeze up in the cadet lounge. Saw his hesitation. Maybe even the part where he left the room faster than he should have. It noticed. Logged it.

Then weaponized it.

It had taken that fear and turned it into a test. A private horror looped through his dreams, over and over, forcing him to face the thing in that stall again and again until something inside him cracked, or adapted.

It had worked. That was the worst part.

He was confident now. If he saw that thing again, he wouldn't run. He might not win, but he'd be able to fight. And that alone was a kind of victory.

But still… the implications gnawed at him.

The AI could shape his dreams.

It wasn't just monitoring. It was curating his mind. And the line between training and manipulation was razor thin.

Another ping appeared.

Next Target Identified: Fear of Artificial Intelligences Seizing Global Control.
Initiating Sleep Training Module: 'Robot Apocalypse (Beginner Level).'

Vaeliyan groaned and dropped his head to the counter with a solid thud.

Jurpat didn't even look up. "Dream programming?"

"Worse," Vaeliyan muttered into the countertop. "I think it's trying to give me a personality."

The boys stepped out of Vaeliyan's house and onto the pad. The metal surface pulsed faintly beneath their boots, humming with latent power. Vaeliyan thought, next class, and the system responded immediately.

But they didn't land in a classroom. Not even a sim chambers.

They materialized in the main courtyard of the Citadel.

It was barely morning. The sun had yet to fully rise. The red glow of first light was just cresting the edge of the sky, painting the courtyard in soft, violent hues. Even in a city-sized structure like the Citadel, this place, felt like something else entirely.

Cold morning light slanted in from the open sky, touching the blood-colored grass that shimmered faintly with dew. Mist hung low, curling around their feet, thick enough to feel like breath caught in limbo. As they stepped forward, the silence wasn't empty. It was charged, filled with anticipation. Around them, cadets from Class One arrived by the second, blinking into view as the transfer pads worked on a rotation cycle.

Fenn was already there, sitting slouched on a stone bench with his head in his hands. His uniform was crooked, one boot half-laced, and his expression suggested he hadn't seen sleep in a decade. Someone asked what happened. He muttered something about exploding logs and demon AIs.

No one laughed. No one even blinked.

Everyone understood. That was the Citadel.

Moments later, Ramis arrived next, but not alone. He was flanked on either side by the twins, Leron and Vexa. They walked in complete synchronicity, their movements unsettling in their unity. The fact that the three of them arrived together made heads turn.

Xera glanced at Vaeliyan, voice low. "Does that mean he's not cut off anymore?"

Vaeliyan shrugged, watching them move. "I guess not. Looks like the twins forgave him."

Varnia stepped in from the far edge, arms crossed tightly, her expression sour. "They stayed in his room last night. It's next to mine." She shivered dramatically. "I had to leave. I've been out here for two hours already."

Ramis broke off from the twins just long enough to walk past Vaeliyan and mouth the words, It was so weird.

Before Vaeliyan could respond, the transfer pad flared again.

The man who stepped off it made the towering statues behind him look small, not because of his size, but by his presence alone. It was like gravity itself bent toward him.

He looked like a mountain had taken steroids and decided to walk. Towering, thick through the shoulders, chest broad enough to cast shade like a wall. Shirtless despite the chill, his body was crisscrossed with scars, some angry and recent, others pale and ancient, each one carved deep like war had written its biography across his skin. In an age of regeneration and medical nanites, scars were a choice. A statement. A warning.

One deep cut ran from his lower jaw, slicing clean across his cheek, up and over his left eye. It didn't blink.

His beard was thick and braided, something not unseen in the Green Zone, but rare, usually reserved for warriors of specific tradition. His jawline could have split steel, and his expression held no arrogance, only confidence so absolute it felt primordial.

His eyes were the color of the Citadel's red stone, deep and vivid, burning with a weight that made cadets avert their gaze involuntarily.

And over his heart… movement.

A tattoo, yes, but not ink.

Motion. Intent. The Fist of the Legion rendered in hundreds of skulls, mouths open in a silent eternal scream. The image twisted and shifted on his skin, writhing like it knew it had been made from the memory of death.

He raised his right fist to his heart, and his left hand jabbed upward, fingers tight, elbow angled like a blade. A Legion salute, but more than that, a challenge. The kind only legends gave.

"I am Headmaster Imujin," he said, voice steady and low. It didn't echo. It didn't need to.

Every cadet in Class One snapped to the same salute in perfect unison: fist to heart, challenge to the sky.

There was no room for sloppiness.

Not in front of him.

Not today.

Not ever.

"I am so proud of you little monsters," Headmaster Imujin said, his voice dipping into something rare: softness. It wasn't weakness, though. It was reverence. Earned, scar-lined reverence. He looked across the assembled cadets with something dangerously close to affection, a warmth that didn't dull his menace but made it more unsettling. A grandfatherly smile carved itself beneath the brutal planes of his face, a smile that had seen too much blood and too many graves to ever be sweet. "You are going to do great things. This is not a hope. It is a certainty."

He paused, letting his words sink like anchors into their chests. His red eyes roamed from face to face, measuring, judging. No one moved. No one even blinked.

"I am here to teach you the standard martial art of the Legion," he said. "The one that will keep you alive when your lance fails to fire, when your blade is shattered, when you are stripped of every weapon but your will and your hands."

He held up a hand, flexed his fingers slowly. His knuckles popped with the sound of splitting wood.

"But you must understand something before we begin," he said. "Those tools, your lances, your blades, they are not you. They are not your power. They are lies you've told yourself to feel strong. You are the weapon. You always have been."

Then, without warning, he shifted his weight and threw a punch.

No warning flare. No visual cue. No activated Skill. Just motion, raw and perfect.

The force of it cracked the air like lightning.

A statue at the far end of the courtyard, ten meters tall, sculpted in honor of some long-dead war hero, exploded into shrapnel, its upper half vaporizing in an instant under the force of the blow. The blast carved a pressure ripple through the misted air, sending a pulse of kinetic force that cracked the tiles and made every banner overhead snap like gunfire. The sound came a split second later, a thunderclap that swallowed the courtyard whole and echoed off the towering walls of the Citadel with biblical weight. The shockwave hit the cadets like a wall of force and fury. Several in the front row were knocked flat onto their backs, skidding across the blood-colored grass, their uniforms scuffed, hair windblown, eyes wide with disbelief. A few groaned, struggling to rise. Chime simply stared at the sky, blinking in silence.

Behind them, another statue began to rise, stone grinding against stone as a replacement emerged from the platform, restoring the tribute as if it had never been touched. But that was beside the point. The impression had already been made, and the cadets would not forget it.

"That is the Fist of the Legion," he said, lowering his arm with finality.

Silence. Deeper than reverence. It was the silence of fear and awe braided into one breath.

"You will not learn to punch through an enemy," he said, voice sharpening like a blade being drawn. "That's what mortals aim for. That's what weaklings settle for. You will learn to punch through squadrons of enemies. You will reduce lines of opposition to nothing but dust and memory."

He stepped forward, his bare feet pressing into the blood-colored grass.

"You will learn to break walls with your kicks. Not doors. Not fences. Walls. You will leave boot-shaped craters in stone and steel."

"You will learn to eat steel, not metaphorically. You will learn to bite into it, chew it, and spit it hard enough to puncture battleframes. You will spit steel like a cannon."

His eyes swept across them, deadly calm.

"You are not human. Not in the way you think. You may look it. You may feel like it. But you are something else now. Your stats they are wasted on you. You do not know how to use them to their fullest. That illusion ends here."

He began to pace, slow and deliberate, every step a drumbeat. His posture never loosened, his shoulders wide, back straight. He was barefoot, but he moved like a storm wearing skin.

"A lance is good. You'll hear Gwendoline tell you it's the core of our strength. And she's not wrong. But what do you do when the core breaks? What do you do when they are no more flechettes to fire?"

He turned suddenly, facing them all again with a grin that held teeth.

"You use your fists. Because that's the truth of the Legion. The Fist is how we kill mech warriors. The Fist is how we drag ourselves out of the hells, over and over. The Fist doesn't run out of ammo. It doesn't jam."

He raised his arm again, slowly, with reverence.

"Some lances might replicate the feats I showed you. But this art, this discipline, teaches you how to do it without needing anything but your own body."

His arm dropped.

"This is the Fist of the Legion. And it will become the only thing you trust more than your heartbeat.

Vaeliyan had been warned about this class the night before, both Isol and Josaphine had given him a glimpse of what to expect. But witnessing it firsthand, standing in the aftershock of Imujin's display, was something else entirely. He was one of the few who hadn't been knocked down by the shockwave. His feet were still planted. His stance hadn't wavered. But his blood... his blood was roaring.

There was a wildness in his eyes now, something raw and electric. He could feel it in his bones, in the beat of his heart, in the way his breath came ragged and eager. He needed this. Not as a class. Not as another weapon in his arsenal. He needed the Fist of the Legion because it called to something buried in both of his souls. Something that remembered clawing through ruin and fire, something that had never needed a blade to kill.

The Fist wasn't a martial art to him. It was a truth.

And by all the gods above, and all the devils who ruled the many hells, Vaeliyan would claim it. He would master it. He would take it and make it his own."