Yellow Jacket

They rode into the central plaza on Meri's estate, the massive structure gliding into place with practiced ease. Outside the estate's atmosphere generator, rain poured down in heavy sheets, blurring the glowing signs and the rushing movement of thousands of bodies packed into the city's veins. The bustle pressed against the walls of the estate's shielding with a force that was almost unnerving. To Vaeliyan, it was the most alive place he had ever seen, messy, vibrant, and humming with too much energy for one space to contain.

As Meri's driver began the hunt for a proper docking space among the crowded towers, the group found themselves lingering at the viewing deck. There was nothing else to do but wait, and waiting with so many cadets together meant the conversation turned to jokes and posturing. Someone tossed out the subject of fake names, reminding everyone that disguises only worked if they remembered not to blurt their real ones. This was, after all, the one free day from the Citadel, and the streets below were crawling with off-duty cadets who might recognize a slip of the tongue.

Fred T was the first to speak up, voice smug as if he'd been rehearsing for this moment. He said they had gotten into a fight because Yuri blew their cover by calling him Fred T, proof that they had to take the code names seriously. This time, he declared, he'd go by Fred R. Almost instantly, Fred R jumped in to announce he'd go by Fred T. They had clearly been waiting for the chance to drop this switch for days. The joke was painfully bad, yet delivered with such satisfaction that the entire group burst out laughing, the sound echoing around the chamber louder than the gag deserved.

The laughter carried on longer than expected, helped by the relief of being outside the Citadel walls for once. It was the kind of humor that came not from the joke itself, but from exhaustion, tension, and the absurdity of their situation. Even Vaeliyan allowed himself a faint smile, though he shook his head as though he wanted no part in it.

Then someone pointed out the obvious: if the disguises worked as promised, the twins might, for the first time in their lives, appear different. The thought landed like a spark. What would they look like when stripped of their mirrored appearances? Would anyone finally be able to tell them apart? The idea brought another round of laughter, though beneath the humor there was genuine curiosity. The twins had always been unsettling in their perfect synchronicity, their refusal to show any cracks in their identity. If the body mods forced them into new shapes, maybe their classmates would finally catch a glimpse of differences that had always been hidden, or perhaps prove that no differences existed at all.

The rain outside hammered the shield, city lights flickering against the streaming water. The central plaza thrummed with life, a chaos that reminded them all how far from the Citadel, and their usual controlled routines they really were. The world outside was vast and dangerous, but also strangely intoxicating. And as they waited for the driver to set Meri's estate into place, they kept joking and debating names, their voices a fragile bubble of laughter against the storm.

When they asked Vaeliyan what he would pick, he simply said, "You can all call me Warren."

They walked the streets toward Ryan & Ryan, the towering buildings of Kyrrabad stretching overhead like crystal spires. Most were constructed entirely of 360° glass, so every step carried the reflection of a city wrapped in its own green light. The world shimmered as if submerged beneath water, and the mist rolling off the streets seemed to drink in that glow and pour it back out again. It was disorienting, a constant shifting of shapes and silhouettes, like the city itself wanted to hide its true form.

Enforcers marched through the haze in sharp formation, their polished armor and mirrored helmets catching the light. First-year cadets from the Citadel who walked past them often snickered, mocking them as little more than wannabes. But these patrols were a different breed than anything Vaeliyan had seen in Mara. Here, each squad was flanked by massive drones that floated silently, their humming cores vibrating through the air. The machines never rested, red lenses sweeping the crowd with clinical patience, scanning and rescanning as though every passerby might be a target. It lent the streets a constant thrum of surveillance, an itch between the shoulder blades that never went away.

When they stepped through the doors of Ryan & Ryan, the world changed again. The shop was pristine and gleaming, like stepping into a controlled stage set where everything had already been rehearsed. They were greeted immediately by a male Ryan, perfect in symmetry, flawless in beauty, indistinguishable from every other clerk who bore that face. His smile was engineered to soothe, his voice calm and precise. "Welcome," he said smoothly. "How can Ryan help you today?"

Meri didn't waste a second. She met his gaze, her tone sharp with authority. "We need sixteen body mods for these new Legion cadets."

The Ryan's smile widened, as though this were a perfectly ordinary request. "Very good. Everyone, follow me to the fitting room."

They were led down a hall lined with mirrors that reflected them back endlessly, a dozen versions of themselves stepping into the future with every stride. The fitting chamber itself was vast, filled with chairs, screens, and an arsenal of customization tools that whirred to life the moment they entered. The cadets spread out, already bickering and comparing ideas as the process began.

Half an hour later, fifteen different people stepped back into the lobby. Hair colors, jawlines, skin tones, and even mannerisms had shifted. Voices were pitched higher, deeper, softer. They were strangers now, carrying the barest hints of the cadets who had walked in. But Warren had taken longer than anyone else. He lingered in the chamber, carving away with meticulous care, making adjustment after adjustment. It wasn't enough to hide, he wanted it exact.

When he finally stepped through the doorway, the room stilled. He wasn't Vaeliyan anymore. He was Warren, reborn. The lip scar was there, a thin reminder of fights that had never healed properly. The mist-laden eyes carried storms behind them, unblinking, undeniable. Even the shape of his shoulders seemed different, heavier with the weight of memory. It was a face that had been buried and clawed back into existence.

For once, a Ryan faltered. The clerk's mask cracked as shock flashed across his perfect features. "Holy fucking shit, kid. That face is amazing. Have you ever considered going into designing bodies and faces? It pays extremely well."

Kuri, now Angel, stepped forward, her new face beautiful but nowhere near as striking. She studied him like she was trying to memorize every line. "Honestly, Vael, I mean Warren, he's right. That face is raw, real. It looks like a memory carved in pain and survival, but in the best way. You know what I mean?" She turned to the other girls, and one by one, they nodded. There was no hesitation. They agreed.

Jurpat, now Pat, burst out laughing, but it wasn't cruel. He was the only one who knew the truth beneath the surface. "Classic Vaeliyan," he said, voice rich with amusement.

Warren's attention sharpened. "Wait. Where are the twins? I want to see if they ended up making the same face by accident."

All eyes turned. Two women stepped forward, and for the first time, they didn't look like mirrors of each other. They spun in perfect synchronicity, but what they revealed made the group gasp.

The first was a strawberry blonde with a sharp pixie cut, her eyes glittering with literal stars, small points of light twinkling like constellations. She smirked and said, "I'm Vexa, but call me Star."

Beside her stood a dark, brooding figure, silver mullet catching the light, short horns curling from her scalp like she had been born for battle. Black eyeliner cut sharp wings at the edge of her eyes, her lips painted the color of ash. "I'm Leron," she said evenly, "but call me Maddy."

For the first time, Warren blinked in surprise at them. Then he nodded. "You both look amazing."

He turned back to his own reflection. "I think I need to get my outfit."

Pat's grin widened, mischief spilling from his eyes. "No need. I think you'll like what I picked out." From behind his back, he produced a pair of black rubber boots, combat pants, a plain black tee, an obnoxiously bright yellow jacket, and a black umbrella.

Everyone laughed instantly. The bundle looked absurd, like some kind of parody. But Warren didn't laugh. He accepted the clothing without hesitation. He vanished into the changing booth, and when he emerged, silence fell.

The boots hit the floor with a dull weight. The black pants fit like armor, the tee stretched over his frame, the umbrella rested easy in his grip. But it was the jacket, too bright, too sharp, that transformed him. The yellow blazed in the green-tinted light of Kyrrabad, a signal flare against the mist. He walked forward, his head high, every step deliberate. No one laughed now. Not a sound escaped the group as he pushed open the doors and stepped back onto the street.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He didn't look like a joke. He looked like a warning.
They walked to the Ugly Mug, the only shop in the entire market district that looked like it didn't belong. Every other storefront was pristine, polished, and aggressively curated to the Green Zone's aesthetic of glass, light, and beauty. The Ugly Mug looked like a squat parasite that had taken root and refused to move. Its walls sagged, the door leaned, and the entire building carried a smell of damp wood and faint mildew that hit the nose before the door even opened. It looked more like something dragged up from the gutters than a store meant to face customers. Even the neon sign out front sputtered, buzzing like an insect too close to death to fly.

Inside, the shelves were crammed with mugs that weren't ugly in the quirky, endearing way people sometimes loved. No, these were warped horrors, twisted lumps of ceramic and glaze that made the stomach churn. Some looked like faces half-melted through a scream, dripping eyes and slack mouths still frozen in grotesque poses. Others had mismatched handles jutting out from angles that defied function, as if the mug itself was daring you to try and hold it without cutting yourself. A few were shaped like animals that had gone terribly wrong, bulging eyes, teeth pushing out through places no teeth belonged. It wasn't "so ugly it's cute." It was "oh dear gods, kill it with fire."

Warren couldn't understand why anyone cared about them. The others seemed fascinated, muttering over shelves, pointing out new finds with horrified delight, holding mugs up to each other like trophies. He had no interest in shopping, not when his thoughts were fixed on the Ninth Layer. That was where the real work waited. That was where he would find what he came for. Every second wasted among hideous pottery was another second he could be tearing through the pit for answers, another second of delay when patience was already a thing he didn't have.

The more he looked, the less sense the place made. Patrons from outside the Citadel were wandering around too, actually paying credits for the monstrous creations. Warren watched one woman coo over a mug that looked like it had been made by pressing clay into a corpse's face. She bought it without hesitation, sliding it into her bag like it was priceless. He turned away quickly, jaw tightening. Whatever joke he was missing, he didn't care to learn it.

He started toward the back of the shop, his stride purposeful, his boots clicking on warped floorboards that creaked with every step. The crooked door at the rear stood out from the rest of the building, darker wood and reinforced hinges hinting at where the real business of the Ugly Mug was done. Before he could reach it, Merigold, Carven now, under her body mod identity, slid in front of him. She crossed her arms, planting her feet like she was prepared to hold him there by force if she had to.

"Wait, wait. You can't just go down there like that. We're supposed to wait until everyone's finished shopping. Not to be rude, but I thought we'd go in as a group, watch together."

"Watch?" Warren's voice came out flat, stripped of patience. His gaze flicked past her to the door. "I wasn't planning on watching anything. I plan on going down there and fucking up a bunch of people until I get the answers I'm looking for."

Carven's brow furrowed, her sharp gaze cutting into him. "Answers? What answers are you looking for, kid? You do know where you are, right? The Ugly Mug's basement isn't exactly a library. Down there, the only answers are violence and credits. That's the trade. Always has been."

"Maybe that's all it has to be," he shot back, voice low but steady. "Violence and credits. Fine. But I'm not standing around playing tourist while everyone gawks at mugs. The faster I get down there, the faster the fuck-uppening happens, and that's all I'm really here for."

Her lips pressed into a line. She stared at him for a long moment, weighing his tone, maybe trying to decide if he was serious. He was. His eyes gave nothing but certainty, no hint of humor or exaggeration. Finally, Carven let out a sigh, shoulders loosening as she stepped aside with a shrug that carried more resignation than doubt.

"Well, it's your funeral," she said. Her voice was lighter, but her eyes still tracked him with interest. "Good luck, kid. I'll be putting my credits on you if you make it past the first round. Don't disappoint me. I'd rather make money off your bad decisions than waste time explaining to your classmates why you vanished in the first five minutes."

Warren didn't bother answering. He pushed past the wall of grotesque mugs, the scent of mildew and dust pressing in around him, and fixed his eyes on the door to the Ninth Layer. His hand brushed over the rough grain of the wood as he reached for the handle. He wasn't here to browse. He wasn't here to laugh at ugly mugs or kill time with banter. He was here to break things until someone told him what he needed to know. And if the only answers really were violence and credits, then so be it. He was prepared to pay in both.

Warren walked steadily toward the heavy door that led down into the Ninth Layer. The wood was scarred and blackened as though countless fists and blades had beaten against it over the years. A narrow slit scraped open with a metallic shriek, and for the briefest instant Warren thought he heard a roar echoing faintly from the depths below, carried up on a wave of heat and grit. What caught his attention more, though, was the eye that appeared in the slot. Just one, bloodshot, crusted with grime, framed by lashes caked together. The other was covered with a milky patch that looked slick, dripping pus in slow rivulets. The sight was grotesque, deliberately sickening. A voice, low and rasping, whispered through the gap.

"What you want?"

Warren's answer was immediate, his tone flat and steady. "I'm here to meet Lord B."

The eye squinted, narrowing with suspicion. "Oh, are you now? You look a little small for that. Sure you're not here looking for your mommy?"

Warren didn't flinch. His gaze locked onto the eye, unblinking, expression carved from stone. Seconds stretched thin, and then it was the man behind the slit who blinked first.

"Fine, kid. It's your life. Who am I to stop you from making a life-ending decision?"

The door groaned open, its hinges shrieking with rust. Warren stepped through and, glancing back, caught the trick. The pus-dripping patch and the grotesque, swollen eye weren't real. They were part of a mask bolted to the wood around the slit, designed to spook the weak-willed into turning back before they even reached the threshold. Warren allowed himself the faintest curl of disdain. If anything, his problem had always been the opposite, willpower so unyielding it pushed him into places even fools would hesitate to step.

The hall stretched forward, long and narrow, dimly lit by torches sealed in wire cages. At first glance it seemed plain, a simple stone corridor leading deeper underground. But his eyes, sharper and hungrier than most, caught the subtler details. Along the walls were gears and tracks, faintly glinting bronze hidden in the shadows. They weren't obvious when looked at directly, but in his peripheral vision they pulsed like secrets demanding to be noticed. The entire passage could shift, walls sliding, floors rotating, ceiling panels collapsing down or pulling upward. It was a mechanism meant to rearrange the entry, maybe to confuse those who came through, maybe to control where entrants emerged.

As he walked, he considered the possibilities. Two sides of the pit, mirrored to face each other. An upper deck and a lower. A concealed observation level. Even the idea of a shifting maze that could shuffle challengers to different sections. Whatever the design, one fact was certain: this hall ended at the pit, and there was no way out but forward.

He stepped through the final threshold and the world widened into madness. The Ninth Layer was a colossal cylinder, so vast it felt more like a scar carved into the bones of the city than an arena. The upper section was a gallery ringed with iron fencing that stretched unbroken around the circumference. People were packed shoulder to shoulder up there, screaming, clawing, spilling drinks, and throwing wagers. They fought each other as much as they bet on the pit below. Some were drunk, others were high, and plenty were entangled in acts that made the air a boiling stew of sweat, liquor, smoke, and sex. It was chaos given form, and it shook the walls with its pulse.

Halfway down, the pit yawned wide. There were no corners to hide in, no shadows to retreat to. The ground was sand, stained dark in places where blood had been poured so deep it would never wash clean. Heavy chains hung from the ceiling, clattering faintly as the crowd shifted. From them dangled objects, blades, shields, even cages of snarling beasts, that could be dropped into the pit at the pit master's discretion. Every link in those chains promised sudden change, new dangers, and merciless escalation.

Heat from the overhead lights pressed down like a furnace, drawing sweat to the skin even before a fight began. The smell was thick, iron and copper, old blood soaked into sand, sweat baked into the stone, the reek of fear layered beneath it all.

Below, a man fought desperately against a two-headed Broken. The monster looked forged rather than born, plated in jagged armor bolted directly into its flesh, metal fused to twisted muscle like it had been welded screaming into place. Both heads snarled and snapped in alternating rhythm, one howling fury, the other cackling with a guttural, broken laugh. In its hands it swung a massive club that might once have been a tree, bark stripped, trunk hardened, sharpened down into a weapon meant for nothing but ruin. Each swing shattered sand, sending fountains of grit spraying, the earth itself groaning under its weight.

The man was losing badly. His strikes were frantic and desperate, more defense than attack. His blade shook with every impact. Blood streaked his arms, ran down his legs, spattered across his chest. He tried to circle, but the Broken moved with brutal cunning. This wasn't mindless frenzy; this was cold intent, deliberate and efficient. It cut him off with perfect angles, stepped into his retreats, forced him where it wanted him to stand. Its two heads tracked him in perfect synchronization, one grinning wide with mad hunger, the other narrowing with cruel calculation.

The man faltered. He tried to step back, bracing his blade to block. That hesitation was his final mistake. His boot slipped in a pool of blood-soaked sand, and time seemed to slow. The Broken's massive club came down with a terrible inevitability. The crack of impact echoed up the walls like a hammer through a bell. Blood burst in a crimson spray, misting the air before splattering down across the pit. When the sand settled, there were only two heads left upright, and both of them belonged to the Broken.

Warren stood still, horror digging sharp into his chest. The creature raised both its arms in victory, reveling in the kill. It wasn't mindless. It wasn't instinct. It was celebration. It was intelligent enough to know it had won, and that thought made Warren's stomach clench. The crowd roared their approval in waves that shook the pit, their cheers rising like thunder as if they were witnessing some beloved champion rather than a nightmare in flesh and steel. Torches flared brighter, voices screaming bets and praises. The Ninth Layer didn't just tolerate monsters like this, it worshipped them.