Yellow Jacket

Imujin halted his pacing. The mist clinging to the courtyard floor coiled around his feet, almost sentient in how it waited.

"Now we begin."

At his words, the blood-red grass of the courtyard split with a mechanical groan. A dozen target dummies rose from the ground in flawless synchronization. Humanoid in shape but completely featureless, they stood like statues carved from grey bone. They weren't training tools. They were made of kalacrete, dense, military-grade, uncompromising. Most cadets had never seen it before. Only Elian recognized the substance and what it meant: this wasn't a test. It was a declaration.

Imujin raised one hand. The silence that followed felt artificial, like the world itself had been muted to listen.

He raised a single finger.

"You will strike through one of these."

No challenge in his voice, just expectation.

He raised another finger.

"From four inches away."

No cadet spoke.

"You will strike from where you stand. You will not make contact. You will stop four inches from the dummy and collapse it through raw force, pressure, not touch. Just the belief that you can, and the will to make that belief manifest."

Imujin turned to the nearest dummy. His hand moved. A single finger extended, it snapped forward at blinding speed and stopped four inches from the dummy's chest. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then: a groan. A deep, grinding fracture bloomed through the dummy's chest. Cracks radiated outward like frost across a frozen lake. The structure began to collapse inward, the core crushed without ever being touched. Pieces crumbled, soft as bone, and fell in a quiet patter.

Imujin stood still.

"With a strength stat of twenty, every one of you can do this. The limiter is not your body. It's your mind."

He turned toward them.

"You think like humans. You define strength as humans."

He paused.

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

"Your biology has changed. Your mind must follow."

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

"Endurance Training should have taught you that. You dragged wedges until your lungs bled. You trained on shattered limbs. No baseline human could survive what you already have. Stop pretending you are one."

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

He paced.

"You think power is an upward curve. It isn't. It's a wall. Most people stop at it. But you are not most people. That wall is what you climb, or destroy."

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

"Everything you thought made you strong, burn it down. You will rebuild from truth. Your body is the weapon. Your cognition is the sightline. Your will is the payload."

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

He pointed.

"Step forward."

The nearest cadets obeyed without hesitation.

"Four inches. No overthinking. No hesitation. Act."

The Sylen struck first.

A straight jab. No damage.

Imujin didn't react. He simply said:

"Next."

And so it continued. Failure. Frustration. Pain. No progress.

Until Elian.

He stepped up and struck. Not perfect, but a fracture split down the dummy's chest. It was real. Enough.

Imujin gave the barest nod. Acknowledgment, approval.

Then: Vaeliyan.

He raised his hand, not in a fist, but flat, fingers together like a blade. He struck forward, arm extended.

His hand stopped, exactly four inches from the dummy's chest.

There was no pause.

The dummy exploded inward.

The pressure point, smaller, focused, drove through with surgical precision. The torso crumpled into powdered fragments. The other cadets hadn't even seen it coming.

The silence afterward held like a breath no one dared to release.

Imujin broke it.

"That," he said, softly, "is belief shaped into a weapon."

Then louder:

"That is what happens when you stop pretending to be human."

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

He turned.

"That... is The Legion."

The silence of irreversible change after that.

"The rest of you will match it."

He stepped back.

"The Fist of the Legion is a martial art, with its own forms, techniques, and disciplines, but it begins with this strike. Before any kata, before any stance, before any refinement of movement, there is this: conviction. The understanding that you are no longer limited by what you once were."

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

"You will be taught the forms. You will learn to strike, to move, to dominate. But none of that matters if you do not first believe. The Fist does not begin with muscle. It begins with the moment you stop pretending weakness is truth. You are already more. Now act like it."

"We are not human."

"We are Legion."

His eyes scanned them.

"This is not something you study. It's something you become. It is the moment belief becomes force. The moment will becomes fracture. The moment fear is no longer part of your design."

He paused.

"Say it back to me."

Silence.

"Say it."

Imujin said, "We are not human."

The cadets responded: " We are Legion."

"Louder."
"WE ARE NOT HUMAN."

"WE ARE LEGION."

"Again."
"WE ARE NOT HUMAN."

"WE ARE LEGION!"

He nodded once.

"Good. Now prove it."

By the conclusion of the session, every cadet had succeeded in fracturing at least one of the training dummies. Not reliably, nor with the refined control of a practiced hand, but with a force and belief that could no longer be dismissed as coincidence. The courtyard, once filled with silence and uncertainty, now echoed with the tangible aftermath of effort: the deep groan of stress fractures, the sharp crack of compromised frames, and the subtle whisper of displaced particles as synthetic bone and layered kalacrete disintegrated under pressure. Failure no longer stood unchallenged; each strike left behind its proof.

Headmaster Imujin stood at the front of the room, watching them with the kind of expression a gardener might wear upon discovering his weeds had become steel. His grin stretched wide, carving soft folds around his eyes, and there was nothing contained about his joy. He looked like a man watching a miracle unfold, not of divinity, but of expectation met and exceeded.

"You're a bunch of little monsters, you know that? Even most Class Ones don't manage to scuff these on the first week, let alone break them. And you? You shattered them on your first damn day, like it was nothing. That's not training. That's instinct raw and wild, crashing past the limit line like it was never there to begin with."

He laughed through the words, not as encouragement, but as acknowledgment. There was no need to uplift them with false praise. What they had done was real. The damage was real. The progress was undeniable. He wasn't performing for their benefit. He was reveling in it. The split cores. The smell of sweat and heat. The ragged breathing. The nascent, uncontrollable promise. He loved it with everything he had.

His gaze turned to Vaeliyan.

There was no need to say anything. Everyone saw what he had done. Dummy after dummy, increasing in resistance and material quality, designed to challenge, to resist, to last, none of it mattered. Vaeliyan dismantled each with absolute certainty. No hesitation. He didn't rely on blind strength. He didn't fight like someone trying to impress. He fought like someone without the burden of doubt. Someone for whom effort and result were one.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He had never viewed himself through the lens of humanity. There was no weight of limitation in his bones. No inherited fear of failure. For him, this wasn't an act of overcoming. It was function. It was breath.

Elian, too, had destroyed all but the first. His progress was marked by increasing elegance: strength tempered by control, destruction applied with surgical grace. Jurpat had fallen short only three times, but even those held fractures deep enough to be fatal. The others, less practiced, still uncertain, each made the dummies bleed dust and fragments. No one stood untouched by the transformation. The class was learning what their bodies could do, and the world groaned in response.

Imujin clapped once. The sharpness of it rang across the hall like a starter's lance.

"Next class," he said, voice high with anticipation, "you'll be fitted with your armor. Then we begin the foundational katas. Movements designed not just for form, but to synchronize you with your second skin. At first, it'll feel unnatural. Awkward. It should. That discomfort means you're shedding what's no longer needed."

He paused, letting the words settle in their minds like sediment.

"You're ahead of schedule. Massively. That doesn't happen. And I don't say this kind of thing easily..."

He smiled again, smaller now, but no less sincere.

"I'm excited to see where you go. Each of you is capable of something extraordinary. You're not just progressing, you're accelerating beyond our expectations."

He turned to leave, then stopped himself with the same rhythm of someone remembering a ritual.

Raising one finger, tone now playful:

"Remember. We are not human."

The cadets answered as one, voices sharp, loud, and unyielding:

"WE ARE LEGION!"

Imujin laughed, head tilted back, full-bodied and proud.

"Exactly! That's what I'm talking about. Now go get something to drink, water, blood, I don't care. Just show up ready. Next time, we move."

Class One filed onto the transport pad in silence, still buzzing with the lingering thrill and dull ache of their last class. The pad shimmered with cold light and, in a single blink, dropped them into their next location: a sterile, high-ceilinged briefing room that smelled faintly of sterilized metal and old blood. At the far end, Instructor Josaphine Brent stood with arms folded, already waiting, backlit by a single overhead beam. She stood in front of a whiteboard covered in thick, bold strokes:

WELCOME TO WAR CRIMES AND THEIR PRACTICAL APPLICATION

She didn't turn as she spoke. "You can call me Instructor Brent. I will be teaching you the Legion's doctrine on what is and isn't acceptable in war."

Then she turned slowly, her gaze dragging across each cadet like a scalpel.

"I'll give you the short version up front: anything that helps you win is acceptable."

She let that sit.

"However," she continued, tone sharpening, "some methods draw scrutiny if they result in our casualties. That's your line. That's the number that matters. The Legion's golden rule is this: every life matters to us. You measure victory not by how many enemies die, but by how few of us have to die to make it happen."

The air thinned.

"You will learn when it's acceptable to glass your own troops if it means the enemy burns with them. You will learn which interrogation techniques are most effective on which psych profiles. You will learn how far to push before you break something valuable. And yes..."

She paused, clicking a remote.

An image replaced the board behind her. It showed a grotesque, wet-skinned amphibian crouched on a slanted stone floor. Beneath it, barely visible through the golden-red sheen of hardened mucosal resin, was the outline of a human body, face exposed, eyes wide.

"This is Bufotenebris tetravisu, commonly known as a four-eyed toad," Josaphine said. She stepped beside the projection and pointed with the remote. "It's about 1.2 meters long. Found in swamp regions, jungle ruins, and deep, humid tunnel systems. It doesn't chase. It doesn't charge. It waits. Then it does what it was made to do."

She tapped the image again, zooming in on the resin-covered victim.

"Its reproductive process starts with something we call amberization. The toad secretes a mucosal compound that hardens into something between industrial glue and tree sap. The resin immobilizes the victim completely, fixing them to surfaces, floor, walls, ceilings, while keeping their face exposed so they can keep breathing. Conscious. Aware."

Her eyes swept the room.

"Then comes implantation. The toad doesn't just feed on prey. It breeds with them. It force-feeds live tadpoles into the immobilized host. Through the mouth. Through open wounds. Through whatever opening it can access, or make. The toad ensures the host remains at least partially conscious throughout the entire ordeal."

One of the cadets twitched. Another shifted on their feet.

"The mucus isn't just adhesive. It's regenerative. This is important. It's not simply holding the victim in place, it's preserving them. The chemical composition of the amber allows for basic oxygen exchange and skin respiration. It prevents dehydration and manages internal damage. The enzymes in the resin stimulate just enough cellular repair to keep the host alive, without easing the suffering. It's a masterpiece of biochemical torture."

She paused again, letting the weight of it settle.

"As the tadpoles eat the host from the inside, organ by organ, system by system, the mucus keeps them alive. Starved, dehydrated, ruptured from within, and still breathing. Still feeling. It suspends the host in a kind of nightmare stasis. Time slows down when you can't move, can't sleep, and can't die."

She let the horror unfold in silence, then spoke again, slowly.

" They're easy to grow. Any living creature can be used as a host. They're efficient, and their corpse-fertilized spawning grounds are rich in nutrients. In civilian zones, they're even considered a protein source. People eat them. You've eaten them. If you've had field meat outside the Green Zone, odds are it came from one of these. They're a staple food source in frontier zones, nutrient dense, fast-breeding, and cooperative to the point of passivity."

She turned her full attention back to the class.

"The only reason their use becomes a war crime is when the host is human. That's the line. That's where ethics and optics collide. You'll learn where that line bends and where it doesn't. And you'll learn when the mission requires you to walk it anyway."

She nodded at the timeline projected beside the creature:

Initial Paralysis: 2–5 minutes

Full Amberization: 3 hours

Implantation Begins: Within 12 hours

Sustained Consciousness: 1–3 months

Death: Often 90+ days later

Josaphine folded her arms again.

"If that makes your stomach turn, good. You still have a soul. But that doesn't change the math. The enemy will use worse. Your job is to survive, to win, and to carry out the mission, whatever it takes."

She looked over them again.

"So. Let's begin."
A few cadets inhaled sharply, but no one spoke.

She tapped the board again, and each heading expanded into full text, illuminating the white surface with cold, clinical precision. Her tone remained unchanging, composed, analytical, and devoid of apology. The silence in the room was total. Not one cadet dared to shift, speak, or even draw breath too sharply. They had heard of this class. All of them had. But hearsay did little to prepare them for what was now being etched into their minds.

"These are foundational tactics. Not hypotheticals. Not historical curiosities. These are the standard methodologies you will master and deploy without hesitation," she said, scanning their faces like a surgeon assessing tissue. "This is not an exploration of moral philosophy. This is applied strategy. Doctrine. You are not being trained to follow precedent, you are here to set it. The moment you hesitate, you fail. The moment you flinch, someone else dies. If any part of you still clings to outdated constructs of mercy or restraint, I suggest you leave now."

Decoy Civilians

"The enemy fears public perception. That's a pressure point, and we weaponize it. Civilian optics are a battlefield of their own. We utilize corpses dressed in non-combatant clothing, stage them in zones with high media access, and incorporate prisoners into lifelike domestic scenes, complete with families, children, and scripted responses. When engagement occurs, it is recorded, manipulated, and released. Precision editing ensures that the narrative is ours. The opposition loses legitimacy before a single tribunal is convened. They are vilified. We remain silent. We do not need truth. We only need plausible horror."

Hallucinogen-Based Compliance

"Torture is primitive. Pain damages the tool. Hallucinogens do not. Neurological warfare is more refined, more sustainable. We employ tailored compounds, airborne dispersants, skin-permeating agents, and emotion-triggering mists, to erode mental stability and identity coherence. Victims become suggestible. They confess to crimes they never committed. They beg to be turned. Some do not return to their baseline psychology. Others are converted into loyal assets. In your Cheating 101 module, you will practice sequencing dosages to specific psychological profiles. Precision trauma induction is a cornerstone of conversion."

Resource Denial via Contamination

"When forced to withdraw, your objective is not escape. It is devastation. All resources must be rendered unusable. Agricultural sabotage, water system infiltration, protein vector corruption, these are your fallback maneuvers. A contaminated grain silo can collapse a region's supply chain. Introduce bacterial agents with subtle onset periods. Make every act of consumption a gamble. When an army cannot eat, it cannot fight. When civilians panic, command structure dissolves. You will be trained in microbiological masking, to ensure all sabotage appears accidental or self-inflicted. Guilt must never trace back to you."

Explosive Corpses

"Cadavers are not waste, they are strategic assets. Human bodies evoke instinctive reactions: sympathy, grief, retrieval. We use this. Once, a compromised transport loaded with sealed biohazards was left in an evacuation zone. It was rigged with micro-fusion devices. The enemy, believing it held civilian casualties, brought it into their mobile medical hub. The detonation was not just physical, it was psychological. Respect turned into ruin. You will study post-mortem rigging, delayed detonation calibration, and sympathy-triggered activation mechanisms. A dead soldier can be more dangerous than a living one, if you know how to use him."

Chemical Warfare

"Gas is not antiquated, it has evolved. Our modern chemical arsenal is sophisticated. Smart fogs interact with nanite membranes. Reactive oils burst into thermal overload upon UV exposure. Some compounds are neuro-emotional, engaging only when fear or guilt is detected. These are not weapons for mass use, they are surgical, targeted, selective. You will learn terrain-based deployment: using elevation, airflow, and bottlenecks to your advantage. Precision toxin work wins wars before the enemy even identifies the source. You are not dealing horror for horror's sake. You are applying biochemical certainty."

Psychological Warfare

"We do not only fracture bones, we fracture truth. Narrative is the first battlefield. Entire campaigns have collapsed under a single broadcast. We engineer betrayals, fabricate deaths, falsify rescue operations. One manufactured scene of atrocity can shift planetary allegiance. Through holo-simulation, deepfake replication, and directed signal interference, we create truth on demand. The Holo Spire will instruct you in release cycles and network saturation models. Your role is content execution, both in performance and precision. The public will see what we choose. And what they see, they believe."

Bioflagging

"Parasitic insertion is subtle, long-term, and devastating. Infect one enemy operative with a latency-timed organism. Let them escape. Let them return home. Their sense of relief is the camouflage. The infection only activates under stress, spreading silently to others. The result is delayed collapse, panic, illness, internal purges. You will study parasitic gestation cycles, dormancy triggers, and contact chain analysis. A well-placed parasite can dismantle a battalion without a single shot fired. This is warfare at the cellular level. Strategic contagion is not speculation, it is protocol."

She stepped back from the board. The silence that followed was no longer simple stillness. It was weight. It hung in the air like thick fog. It crawled under the skin.

"Every one of these tactics," she said, her voice sharper now, more deliberate, "is banned under pre-collapse imperial accords. But those laws were written by people who lost. The Legion does not operate under their morality. We serve the Nine. We serve operational victory. We do not abide by the rules of a world that failed."

She paused just long enough to let it settle.

"The enemy will call you monsters. That's inevitable. That's good. It means they fear you. And if they fear you, they cannot stop you."

Then she turned fully to face them, placing the marker down with deliberate weight.

Her smile returned, measured, clinical.

"Any questions?"

The cadets of Class One had entered the lecture fully aware that it would be unsettling, but intellectual forewarning could not prepare them for the visceral, psychological shock of its contents. By the midpoint, physical reactions became impossible to suppress. Gagging spread like a wave through the room. A few cadets succumbed to nausea and vomited; one collapsed entirely. Varnai dropped mid-row, unconscious, but no one moved to remove her. A droid approached, scanned her vitals, and left her where she lay, her day wasn't over, and the Citadel made no exceptions. When she woke, she would rejoin. If not, she'd still be expected to listen from the floor. When Varnai finally stirred, she didn't rise. She just listened from the floor, eyes open, unblinking.

The atmosphere thickened with the scent of bile and body heat, but it wasn't just the smell. The air had become charged, dense with cognitive dissonance, with the first tremors of ideological reshaping. Josaphine Brent did not flinch. She observed with quiet detachment, then addressed them in a composed, dispassionate tone.

"This reaction is natural. You are still human. For now."

Her gaze, however, never wavered from one figure.

Vaeliyan.

He sat unmoved. His expression remained neutral, untouched by the surrounding chaos. There was no twitch of revulsion, no telltale sign of psychological disturbance. His breathing was steady. His eyes stayed forward. Focused. Not cold, precise. He did not process the material as horror. He processed it as data. Each war crime, each sanctioned cruelty, each systematized atrocity was catalogued with mechanical clarity.

He had not come to this institution to become Legion.

He had come to claim it.

To study its architecture.

To understand, then transcend, its operational logic.

To reengineer warfare at its foundation, he needed fluency in its current language. And what the Green Zone had constructed was, in his analysis, efficient beyond expectation. There was no moral filtration, no veil of idealism. There was only method. There was only what worked. That, to Vaeliyan, was not depravity. It was clarity.

The longer he listened, the less he viewed the Green as a corrupt opponent.

They were, instead, the natural outcome of human cruelty refined to its most efficient form.

They had abandoned the moral drag of older systems and committed fully to outcome-driven doctrine. In that devotion to strategic efficacy, they were not monsters. They were honest. Precise. Purposeful. And that made them not only dangerous, but admirable.

Yet admiration did not equate to allegiance.

Even the most refined model could become obsolete.

He would be the refinement beyond refinement. The system they didn't predict. The function beyond their parameters. He was not here to mirror their methods. He was here to learn them, exhaust them, and then replace them.

He would not be their reflection.

He would be their correction.