Yellow Jacket

The chaos in the forest only deepened. Gwen was busy firing her shock-lance, but she wasn't the only predator in play. Deck and Jim came crashing through the trees, not with lances at the ready but with arms full of rocks, their grins feral, eyes alight with the joy of making cadets suffer in the most ridiculous way possible.

They didn't hesitate. A stone cracked across Wesley's temple, dropping him with a yelp, another slammed into Ramis's ribs hard enough to drive the air from his lungs, and a third whistled past Lessa's cheek before smashing against a trunk and showering splinters across her face. The cadets shrieked and scattered again, half from the pain and half from the absurdity of it. Rocks? Really? Yet the sting of them left skin split, welts rising, eyes watering, breath knocked away, and legs faltering just long enough for Gwen's shots to find better targets. Bruises bloomed instantly, streaks of blood ran down foreheads, and every hit carried the sharp humiliation of being hunted with stones like children in a back alley brawl.

Deck barked laughter as he lobbed another stone into the mess, catching Chime square between the shoulders and dropping her to her knees. She coughed, scrambling to rise, only to stagger again when another pebble struck her arm. Jim whooped like a maniac as his throw clipped Varnai in the jaw, sending her tumbling face-first into the muck with a muffled cry. He clutched his stomach from laughing so hard, then bent to snatch up more ammunition without missing a beat. The instructors weren't elegant about it; they just hammered cadets with the crudest weapons imaginable, every hit more vicious than the last, turning the hunt into something humiliating as well as brutal. A lance round burned, but a rock to the face left shame written across their skin in red and purple.

Gwen leaned against a tree, her eyes glittering wide, a manic grin twisting her face as she reloaded her lance. "There are no rules!" she shrieked, the words spilling into wild, broken laughter that cracked through the forest like thunder. The sound was sharp, unhinged, as if every restraint she had ever been forced to hold back in training had finally snapped. She threw her head back and cackled, her voice rising higher, jagged and raw, until it sounded less like laughter and more like a spell tearing itself loose. "No rules! No limits! WOOOHHH!" Her whole body shook with it, her shoulders bouncing as though she couldn't contain the hysteria pouring out of her.

Her laughter kept rolling, echoing between the trees, thick and endless, while Deck and Jim only fed off it. They doubled down on their barrage, their rocks hammering bodies left and right, and Gwen fired into the chaos with gleeful abandon. She didn't even need to aim carefully anymore. Deck and Jim's barrage left the cadets stumbling, clutching injuries, or blinded with dirt and blood. Every target was slowed, softened, made easy prey. Gwen's laughter twisted higher every time one of them fell, like she was drunk on the sound of their suffering.

Another stone smacked hard against Torman's skull, leaving him cursing as he stumbled sideways, blood running down his temple into his eye. He shook his head, tried to lift his lance, only for Gwen's shot to hammer him in the chest and leave him twitching against the ground. Xera darted to his side to pull him away, only for Deck to clip her shoulder with another throw, spinning her sideways into a tree. She cursed, teeth bared, but kept moving, dragging Torman behind cover, rage burning in her glare.

Lessa tried to shield herself with her arms, but Jim nailed her wrist so hard she dropped her weapon. The pain shot through her arm like fire, forcing her to grit her teeth as tears welled in her eyes. Chime flinched every time Deck's arm drew back, her nerves frayed until she was practically begging to be hit just to end the anticipation. Sylen hurled curses as she darted between trees, her voice breaking from the strain, but even she winced when a stone skimmed across her jaw and left a dark welt swelling across her face.

The forest echoed with the ugly sounds of stone striking flesh, the grunts of pain, the gasps as cadets were doubled over. Roan was shoved flat into the mud by a ricochet that struck his knee, while Ramis tried to shout orders through gritted teeth only to take another stone to his ribs that left him wheezing. The twins moved in eerie unison, weaving to avoid the barrage, their perfect symmetry rattled as Jim's wild pitch caught Leron in the shoulder and dropped her with a sharp cry. Vexa lunged to drag her back, baring her teeth at Jim, who only laughed louder.

The three instructors roared with laughter, enjoying the sheer unfairness of it all. Deck hurled another rock as though it were the funniest thing in the world, his grin widening with every fresh bruise. Jim was doubled over between throws, tears streaking down his filthy face, his chest heaving with mirth. And Gwen... Gwen's cackling carried over them all, a jagged, witch-like howl of triumph and freedom. She was unbound, unchained, and the sound of it seemed to pull the forest tighter around them. Every tree seemed to lean closer, as though feeding off her madness.

A stone bounced off Jurpat's shoulder, but he plowed forward regardless, teeth bared in fury, dragging Wesley and Chime with him as cover. He growled, low and animal, ignoring the bruises forming along his neck. Xera hissed at him to move faster, her hands smeared with Torman's blood as she hauled him along. Ramis staggered but refused to fall, forcing himself upright as he took another step into the onslaught. Sylen darted close, eyes flashing, her lips drawn back in a snarl that was half pain and half defiance.

Gwen snapped a round into the dirt at their feet, her laughter still rolling, shriller now, as if she were clawing at the edges of sanity and reveling in it. She shouted over the sound of her own cackling, "Run, run, little rabbits! Let's see how long you last!" Her words cut sharp, followed by more laughter, a crescendo that swallowed the cadets whole. Deck howled with her, Jim clapped his hands like a lunatic between throws, and together the three of them seemed less like instructors and more like demons unleashed.

Every second stretched into punishment. The hunt was no longer about survival. It was about how much degradation they could endure before breaking, how long they could last under the storm of stone and laughter and the merciless sting of Gwen's lance.

There were no rules. And the forest reminded them of it with every stone that flew, every bruise that blossomed, every shriek that tore from battered throats, and every instructor's laugh that echoed like a cruel chorus overhead, promising there was no end in sight.

Vaeliyan regrouped with Jurpat under a jagged rock outcrop, lungs burning, his chest heaving as if every breath scraped his ribs raw. Sweat ran down his face and stung his eyes, streaks of dirt smeared across his cheek where branches had whipped him. His hands trembled as he pressed himself against the stone, the cool surface doing nothing to calm the hammering of his heart. He glanced into the trees, every rustle of leaves and snap of a twig setting his nerves on edge. The forest seemed alive, listening, waiting for the moment they slipped.

"So, who's out?" Jurpat asked finally, voice low, ragged, carrying the exhaustion of too many hits.
"I think Elian and Fenn... Leron got hit in the face, so she's out." Vaeliyan swallowed hard and forced himself to keep speaking. "I think Varnai is down too, and uh... Wesley..." His words faded into a bitter silence.

"Ah, fuck," Jurpat muttered, dragging a bloody hand down his face. The grime smeared across his jaw, a mask of frustration and fatigue. "That's... shit. Absolute shit. What the fuck do we do now?"

Vaeliyan clenched his teeth, staring at the ground as if the dirt could give him an answer. "I don't know. This is... I'm pretty sure they're attacking us like we're fourth years. The amount of force they're using, it's not a first year training drill, Jurpat. It's like a real hunt."
"Yeah... that would make sense. We are fourth years now, even though we're first years. The Citadel doesn't care. They're treating us like veterans from day one." Jurpat laughed once, hollow and bitter. "Oh gods, what the fuck did we sign up for?"

Vaeliyan's hands clenched into fists. "Yeah," he said, shaking his head, his dark eyes flashing with something close to panic. "Maybe this was a little too fast, even for me. They're going to grind us down to nothing."

Silence settled over them for a beat, broken only by the sound of their harsh breathing and the distant, echoing laughter of instructors carried by the trees. Then Jurpat snapped, his voice cracking. "Fuck, what do we do, what do we do, what do we do?"

"Wait," Vaeliyan said suddenly, leaning forward, his eyes narrowing as a dangerous spark lit in them. "I've got an idea. Go get everyone. Anybody you can find, drag them if you have to. Tell them to meet us by the lake. By the lake, Jurpat. That's where we'll regroup."

Jurpat blinked, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Fuck, how do we even gather everyone in this chaos? And wait, you mean everybody who's still in?"

"No," Vaeliyan cut in sharply, his tone like steel. "I mean everybody. Including the ones who are out."

Jurpat froze, staring at him as though he had sprouted horns. "You can't be serious. What the fuck's the plan then?"

Vaeliyan's lips curved into a grin that didn't reach his eyes, a grin that looked more like a snarl. "Well... they said there are no rules. And they didn't really explain what out meant, did they? So I'm going to take that literally. Human shields, Jurpat. If we want to win this, if winning is even possible, then we use every body we've got, standing or not."

Jurpat gaped at him, caught between horror and reluctant awe. He shook his head, muttering under his breath, "You've lost it. You've actually fucking lost it."

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Vaeliyan's grin widened. "Maybe. Or maybe I'm the only one playing the same game they are."

The thought hung heavy in the air, dark and unspoken, until Vaeliyan suddenly stiffened. His voice dropped. "Also... I just realized something. Alorna is still out there."

Almost as if the words themselves summoned her, Alorna appeared without warning. One moment the space in front of them was empty, the next she was simply there, her form sliding out of shadow and leaf as though she had always been part of the forest. She raised a finger to her lips, silent, her eyes glinting with a cold amusement. The motion was small, quiet, but it carried the weight of absolute authority.

Vaeliyan and Jurpat froze, horror dawning in their eyes. They both nodded slowly, like children caught in a forbidden act, acknowledging the inevitability of what came next.

Before either of them could scream, before they could move, before the madness of their plan could be tested, Alorna's presence washed over them. And in that instant, they were out.

They did end up gathering at the lake, but unfortunately for them, they were all out by the time they did. Bruised, broken, exhausted, they limped into the clearing like a parade of failure. Ramis was trussed with ropes around his ankles, dragged like spoils of war, and Vexa carried him on her back without complaint, her jaw tight and eyes full of quiet fury. The rest of the 90th slumped into the mud in a pitiful circle, their faces streaked with dirt and sweat, their uniforms torn, their bodies aching from bruises and burns from the electrocutions. Every movement drew a groan. Some held split lips, others rubbed swollen joints, and the silence between them felt heavier than the forest canopy above.

Jim, Deck, Alorna, and Gwen strolled into the clearing and sat down in a circle with their failure of a class as if it were a campfire story rather than the aftermath of a massacre. Gwen stretched her arms out wide, her grin sharp with cruelty. "That wasn't actually too bad. You did survive longer than we would expect you to. And Vaeliyan, the idea would have been good if Alorna wasn't listening the entire time."

"How does she do that?" Vaeliyan rasped, his voice hoarse. He spat blood into the dirt, glaring. "I literally am able to see everything, and somehow I can't ever see her coming."

"Oh no idea, it's just part of Alorna's charm," Jim replied with a grin, beaming at her like he was waiting for praise or a reward.

Instead, he got a sharp slap to the back of the head from Deck. Jim squawked, glaring at him, only for Deck himself to get smacked in the back of the head by Gwen. "That was from Lisa," Gwen said flatly, her grin widening. "She would have slapped you for me. And I would have slapped you for anyone."

Deck rubbed his skull, muttering, "Fair enough."

Several cadets groaned, the absurdity of their instructors smacking each other somehow making their failure sting worse. Xera buried her face in her hands. Lessa muttered, "Are they all insane?" Fenn, still twitching from his earlier shocks, managed a bitter laugh.

"Okay, class," Gwen continued, her voice pitched high with mock delight. "You didn't do terribly. And it was really fun for us, but you did at least sort of come up with a plan in the end. And you did retaliate, so that's something. But you all failed horribly." Her smile sharpened into a predator's grin. "So we will redo this test at a random time, in a random place." She let the silence stretch, watching their eyes widen with dread, before shrugging with a laugh. "I'm just kidding. We'll be moving on. This test was fun. We'll vary it up each time."

She glanced at Alorna. "Alorna, do you want to explain how they should have done this?"

Alorna nodded once and stepped to the center of the circle. Her quiet presence silenced even the groans of the cadets. She whipped out a sticky notepad covered in stick figure drawings, drawings so impossibly detailed that they seemed to move, almost three‑dimensional despite being only lines. Page after page, she flipped, revealing diagrams that laid out the entire process the cadets should have followed. One sketch showed a cadet firing at Gwen's lance, the weapon flying from her hands. Another drawing depicted Deck toppled with Xs over his eyes. A third showed Jim flailing in the mud, dramatically crossed out. Every panel mocked their choices, underlining what they had missed.

The cadets leaned closer despite themselves. Each page was merciless. Arrows showed flanking maneuvers they hadn't tried, explosions marked traps they hadn't set, and captions in bold stick‑lettering mocked their hesitation. The message was as clear as a scream: you could have done better, you should have done better.

One page in particular froze Vaeliyan where he sat. The images showed Vaeliyan and Jurpat circled by their classmates, the cadets drawn as shields. Their stick eyes were crossed out, arms limp, marking them as already out. In the next panel, rocks hammered those bodies, knocking them loose one by one, until the last crumpled. The final drawing showed Gwen, grinning wide, raising her lance and shooting both Vaeliyan and Jurpat in the chest. The implication was brutally clear: the human shields would never have lasted.

Gwen tapped the page with a nail, her grin widening. "Human shields only last as long as a human body can last. It might have taken a little while, but they would have fallen sooner or later."

The cadets shifted uneasily. Wesley groaned in protest from where he sat slumped, but said nothing more. Sylen clenched her fists, angry at herself more than the instructors. Jurpat spat into the dirt again, muttering curses under his breath. Even Lessa, who normally cracked jokes, stayed silent, her eyes locked on the tally Alorna revealed next.

The sheet was simple. Two columns. On one side: Alorna, covered in neat ticks stacked one after the other, dozens of victories tallied without pride or shame. On the other: Cadets, with only a single lonely strike. She held it up without expression, let the humiliation settle, then snapped the pad closed. Her eyes lingered on Lessa for just a beat too long before she turned away, the look unreadable.

Without another word, the instructors rose. Gwen dusted her hands off on her thighs, Deck stretched his shoulders, and Jim offered Alorna his hand with a sheepish grin, only to get ignored entirely. They turned and walked toward the exit, their laughter and chatter fading into the forest, leaving the 90th slumped and silent by the lake. The cadets sat in the mud, defeated, nursing their wounds and their pride, knowing this was only the beginning.

They stepped off the pad into the Cadet Lounge, aches still buzzing in their muscles and skin. No one said a word at first. A few crossed to the nearest couches and let gravity take them. Others leaned against the edges of tables, trying to breathe through the sting in ribs and shoulders that felt one cough away from tearing. The high glass above made the light feel clean and indifferent. The food synthesizers purred along one wall, steady and impersonal.

Varnai broke the silence. "So. Meat shields. That was your big plan."

A few heads lifted. Rokhan rubbed at a purpled forearm and stared at Vaeliyan like he was a problem set on a board. Xera's eyes were flat and sharp. Roan tried to laugh, failed, and coughed instead. "He was going to use us like barricades," Roan said, and spit a thread of pink into a napkin.

Vaeliyan raised both hands. "No. Listen. That is not what I meant."

"Sounded like it," Jurpat said. He was not angry, not yet, just tired. He settled onto the arm of a couch because sitting felt like surrender, then regretted it when the bruises complained.

"It was not everyone," Vaeliyan said. "Only the ones already out. They would have been the blockers. If I had gone out, I would have been one of them. I am not asking any of you to do something I would not do. If I fall, I stand in front too."

Lessa leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "So the 'dead' protect the living."

"Exactly," Vaeliyan said. He kept his voice level, steady. "The ones already out keep the rest of us alive. It is ugly, yes, but we did not have clean options. You saw what they were doing to us. Gwen, Deck, Jim, and Alorna. Playing fair was not going to win anything."

Xera cocked her head. "How long would that wall hold, do you think," she asked, "before the rocks broke through and you were all on the ground anyway."

"Long enough to force a shift," Vaeliyan said. "Long enough to take one of them out, maybe two, or at least strip Gwen's lance. Long enough to try something. That is all it was. Buying time with bodies already out, not throwing living ones into a shredder."

Wesley snorted and then winced when the motion pulled at his ribs. "You always sound real noble when you talk about using people," he said, not quite meeting anyone's eyes.

Vexa had her boots up on a chair and her eyes closed. "If he says he would have stood in the line himself," she said, "I believe him." She did not open her eyes. "I also think it still would have ended with us eating rocks."

Torman looked at Vaeliyan for a long beat. "You would have stood there if you were out."

"Yes."

"Even if you came up with it."

"Yes."

"Fine," Torman said. He exhaled through his teeth. "It was a bad plan, but it was a plan."

"It was a desperate plan," Sylen said. She was sitting on the back of a couch with her boots on the seat, chin on her knee. "But desperate is what we had." She glanced up toward the glass. "And we need a better one before they decide to play again."

Chime sat cross-legged on the floor and tugged at a scab on her knuckle. "Next time we shoot first. and ask question never."

"Next time we shoot Alorna first," Wesley said, and a few people actually laughed at that, low and pained.

"She never stands where you think she is," Xera said. "Good luck."

They let the talk die. Breathing filled the room, rough and uneven, then began to smooth as the immediate panic bled out of their systems. Somewhere behind them the synthesizers clicked and hummed as if the world were perfectly in order. Metal against metal. A soft compressor cycling. Ordinary sounds that felt like they belonged to a different place.

Without anyone saying it, eyes drifted to the rings on their fingers. They felt a shade heavier, a faint current running through the band, warm, steady, sincere. Whatever they thought about the plan, they could feel he was telling the truth. Shoulders loosened a fraction. The argument thinned.

Then Sylen straightened a little. "Shut up for a second," she said, quiet but firm.

They went still.

"Do you hear that," she asked.

At first there was nothing, just the small chorus of their own bodies working through pain. Then Vaeliyan heard it too, a thin repetition of the last few words someone had spoken, not quite crisp, not quite clear, like the room had decided to keep a copy and hand it back late.

Roan blinked. "Echo," he said, and the word came back to them a heartbeat later, smaller, like an afterthought.

They looked up and around in a way none of them had bothered to do when they first arrived. Tables stretched out clean and unused. Couches looked fresh, cushions uncrushed. Trays and utensils were stacked in neat rows. The glass above showed a slice of sky with no silhouettes passing. The synthesizers hummed on without a queue. No one else spoke anywhere in the huge room. No clatter, no chatter, no bodies moving, no mess, no line, no crowd. Their footsteps had been the only footsteps.

"Oh shit," Jurpat said under his breath, very softly this time, as if the room did not need help to throw it back at him. "It really is just us."

They just sat there for a moment, the 90th alone in a hall built for thousands, and let the quiet sink its teeth in. The echoes rounded the room and returned to them thinner and late, as if even their voices were tired. Lessa finally stood and headed for a booth, then stopped midway, the point made. Xera scrubbed her face with both hands and sighed. Varnai watched Vaeliyan and did not say what was behind her eyes.

"Next time," Sylen said, not loud, not hopeful, just a mark in the air.

"Next time," Vaeliyan said.

The room kept the promise and sent it back to them faded.