Yellow Jacket

The simulation booted like the shudder of a held breath. One moment there was nothing. The next, there was a blank white void, depthless and horizonless, an infinite expanse of nothing given shape only by the idea of standing. It had no floor, no sky, no air, just endless, sterile emptiness that somehow still bore weight. Sound did not echo here, because there was nothing to carry it. Even the light felt false, like it existed only to frame motion.

Then motion appeared.

Figures formed from the void, rows of armored soldiers coalescing out of nothing, shoulder to shoulder, lances raised, boots slamming in perfect rhythm. Their steps landed with seismic weight despite the lack of ground, every impact reverberating like a drumbeat through the false space. Flechette bursts flared faintly at their muzzles, tiny sparks of lethal intent in the hollow white. There was no wind to carry the sound, yet Vaeliyan could feel the thrum in his chest. The soldiers stretched beyond sight in all directions, faceless and mechanical in their precision, as if the void had conjured an idea of war instead of living men.

Vaeliyan stood alone.

He didn't move. His eyes tracked their formation the way a predator tracks the tremor of prey through undergrowth. Measured the distance. Counted their pace. Timed the beat between steps and the moment the front rank's lances twitched to fire. Tracked the ripple of their advance as if watching a storm front break. Every footfall, every subtle drift of armor plates, every muscle shift beneath the steel, he caught and filed away like numbers on a board. He watched the tiny fluctuations ripple through their formation when they shifted weight, the microscopic gaps between the shields, the half-heartbeat delay between the outer flanks and the center ranks as the rhythm cascaded outward. He saw it all and set it into place behind his eyes like nails into wood.

This wasn't an attempt. It was a snapshot. A still frame to burn into memory, to dissect and rearrange in his mind. He wanted to see the whole board before the first piece moved, to map every gap, every path, every angle they would fill. A perfect image to anchor his battle plan, something he could replay behind his eyes like an opening move of a game. He was still as stone, but his mind was moving at knife-speed.

Then he said, calmly, "Reset."

The void swallowed everything in silence.

The second run started instantly. The soldiers surged forward as if pulled on invisible strings, the front ranks closing faster this time, and Vaeliyan shot forward to meet them. The pressure cracked under his feet as he moved, white fragments splintering away like shattered glass though there was no ground to shatter. He felt the world resist him, then give, then collapse around his wake as he accelerated. The first lance fired, a streak of flechettes hissing past his chest, and the air seemed to tear with the speed of it. He slid through the wake, let his clone flicker into existence, then it struck. The target launched upward like a kicked stone, armor glinting as it spun. Vaeliyan leapt after them… and was too slow. His arc flattened too soon. The body sailed out of reach, vanishing into the white void like a stone thrown into snow.

"Reset."

The world blinked out mid-stride.

The third run snapped into place. The void remade itself like a curtain pulling open. This time he moved faster, sliding through the opening salvo, flechettes splitting the air around him like angry hornets. His pulse stayed slow. Clone strike, target airborne. He reached, fingers locking on the ankle mid-flight, too hard. He felt the crunch of bone before the weight slammed through his grip like a wrecking ball and spun him backward like a flail. The false world reeled and he crashed end over end, pressure spiking through his ribs, vision shattering in static blur, the void breaking into streaks around him.

"Reset."

The white roared back.

The fourth run formed around him, the horde snapping into existence like pulled from teeth. Soldiers surged forward, their boots hitting invisible ground in synchronized shockwaves. He blurred between the first three bursts of flechettes, clone snapping out, target launched high. He hit the leap late, reached them at the top of the arc, caught, and the impact still drove through him. He mis-timed the cancellation of his own momentum. The weight folded him backwards, pressure whiplashing through his spine, and the void spun sideways as his vision sheared apart. His limbs felt like lead as gravity inverted, the void eating his balance whole.

"Reset."

The void reset clean, silent again.

Vaeliyan stood still, breathing slow. The white hummed faintly around him, waiting to become something else. His eyes stayed distant, replaying the failure in perfect detail, rewinding it frame by frame behind his skull. Then he muttered, quiet, almost to himself, "More force. Straight up. More time to make the catch."

The void slammed back into shape around him. Rows of soldiers formed from nothing, lances lifting as one, their boots hitting invisible ground in synchronized shock waves that rippled across the blank white. They were perfectly still one heartbeat, and then perfectly advancing the next, like a wall of death sliding toward him. Each step fell with crushing weight despite the absence of ground, vibrating through the false space like phantom thunder. The air felt thicker with every synchronized footfall, like the world itself was holding its breath to watch.

Vaeliyan darted forward before the echo faded. His movement shattered the silence like a crack of lightning, a sudden violence that left afterimages burned across the blank world. The clone flickered into existence. It launched forward in the instant it spawned, toe-punting the target's groin with enough force to snap steel, and the body rocketed upward like a fired shell. As the clone vanished, Vaeliyan moved, his foot tearing a streak through the air as he leapt to meet them. His kick landed like the fall of a building, and the target split in half. The sheer speed of his foot carved through them like a blade, cleaving clean through their centerline. Blood fanned across the void in a red sheet, scattering in slow motion before the body disintegrated, two halves folding away from each other as if peeled apart by invisible hands. The nearest soldiers didn't react, their faceless helmets fixed forward, already advancing through the spray, unfazed by death.

"Dammit." His voice was flat, not angry, just filing the data away. "Reset."

The void blinked. The soldiers vanished like candle flames snuffed out by a single breath, the silence dropping even harder in their absence.

They reformed. The soldiers rippled back into place like rewound film, their boots touching down at the same instant, creating a soft quake that reverberated through the blank expanse. The hollow echo lingered like a warning.

He hit the front rank before they finished coalescing, breaking the instant, they solidified. The clone snapped into existence. It launched its single kick, punting the target upward as Vaeliyan broke from his stillness and followed. He caught their ankle at the apex of their arc and pulled, redirecting their weight, and ripped both legs off at the hips. The rest of the body spun off, tumbling end over end into the blank white, arms flailing loosely as if still alive. The legs stayed in his grip for a heartbeat before he let them drop. They dissolved into static before touching anything, fading with a faint hiss like burning paper.

"Reset."

The world erased itself again. The sound cut off like a switch, leaving only the faint ringing of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

This time, he was quieter. Precision over speed. His motions tightened like a blade being honed to a wire edge. He slid between the first flechette bursts, their streaks carving lines of heat around his shoulders. The clone burst from stillness, delivered its single strike, and vanished as the target rocketed upward. Vaeliyan caught them by the ankle, grip solid, timing perfect, and they screamed. Alive. Barely. Their hands clamped onto his arm as he spun, their body twisting against his motion, throwing his arc wide. His throw faltered, momentum spilling out of sync. His shoulder wrenched as they pulled him off axis, and he tumbled free, boots skidding on nothing, letting them go as their body rag dolled into the void, trailing blood that hung in the air before vanishing like dust caught in light.

"Reset."

The void cleared with a cold snap, like the world inhaling, and the silence roared back, pressing on his eardrums like deep water.

"Pause," he said.

The soldiers froze mid-step, still half-formed, lances locked mid-aim. Vaeliyan paced in a slow, tight circle, boots tapping soundlessly on nothing, eyes distant, lips moving. His breaths came shallow, not from strain but focus, like he was holding back a storm under his ribs. Muttering numbers under his breath, he whispered, "One percent too much, one percent too little, the threshold's there somewhere. Just enough to kill without splintering them. Need the body to stay whole enough to throw. It has to hold shape through impact, hold together long enough to land. No wasted force. No collapse."

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His hands flexed absently as he walked, like testing weight that wasn't there. He bent slightly forward; shoulders coiled like a drawn bow. The void was silent but heavy, pressing against the edges of his thoughts, the featureless white closing in like the inside of a skull. He stopped. Stared into the blank until it blurred, his gaze flat, calculating, his jaw working silently as though chewing the thought apart piece by piece. The stillness felt alive, like even the simulation was waiting for him to make his next move.

"Run it again," he finally said.

Deck's voice crackled from somewhere above, dry and skeptical. "You sure about this, kid? Because what I'm seeing here doesn't look like progress. We can run it again, sure, but if this is the last, well. We'll give you a couple more attempts. But this?"

There was a pause.

"This looks like nothing. We've seen people kick through people. Whatever this is supposed to be, it doesn't look like it's doing anything."

Vaeliyan didn't look up. "Run it again."

Deck exhaled through his teeth. "Okay, kid. If you say so."

The void reformed around him again, flat and endless, white and silent. The soldiers came into being in perfect lines, lances raising as one, the air quivering from the synchronized shockwave of their first step. The sound cracked like distant thunder inside a hollow world, sharp enough to echo off nothing. Even without terrain, their boots struck the blank space like it was made of stone.

Vaeliyan was already moving.

Before the sim fully settled, his body cut through the blank space like a fired blade. No buildup. No warm-up. He hit full velocity in the first instant. Pressure boomed from his heels with each stride, All Around You detonating in controlled bursts. Each pulse struck his body forward, propelling him faster, while the Force Sovereign buried that kinetic avalanche into his frame. Force layered into force, compacting like the tension of a drawn bowstring. He became a cannonball shaped like a man. Heat shimmered in his wake, the pressure field distorting the air into rippling mirages as he tore through it. The blank white world seemed to bend around him as he moved.

The front line loomed.

Their movements were mechanical, flawless, like an onrushing wall of precision. Flechette trails lit the air in a lattice of molten streaks, the temperature in the void climbing fast enough to sting his eyes. He locked on to a single soldier and slanted his run. He didn't slow. He didn't blink. He simply let his body aim itself, weight sliding into the perfect vector. His field rattled like caged thunder.

He twisted his weight a fraction, putting the first shot directly on collision course with his face.

The trigger.

Branching Paths snapped.

Time fractured. The clone burst out of stillness, kicking the target in the groin with a crack like a breaking girder while Vaeliyan launched himself upward in the same heartbeat, the flechette streaking through the empty space where his head had been. The clone's leg blurred and vanished as the soldier rocketed skyward, armor buckling inward from the force, their spine snapping like wet twigs. Vaeliyan's leap carried him faster, the stored energy of Force Sovereign erupting through his legs, pressure detonations chaining behind him like aftershocks. The void thundered under him as he climbed.

He hit the rising body midair.

His hands closed on their ankle.

Every scrap of momentum the corpse carried slammed into him, and vanished. The impact should have pulped his bones. Instead, Force Sovereign devoured the force, compressing it inside him like a collapsing star. His body went still in the air, all motion dead. Sound dulled around him. Even the rising flechette streaks curved away as though he were no longer there.

Then he threw.

All of it left him at once.

The soldier's body ripped from his grip like it had been fired from an artillery piece. The force release detonated in his shoulders, the air cracking like lightning. It shrieked downward as Vaeliyan hung motionless for an instant, the recoil blooming out from his arm like a thunderclap. The corpse hit the center of the formation at terminal velocity.

The body burst like a blood-packed grenade. Bones ripped free and scythed through the ranks like shrapnel, severing limbs, shattering armor. Red mist swallowed the front lines, spattering across visor glass and breastplates before their owners dissolved into static. Soldiers folded and fell as the shockwave rolled outward, and the white void turned crimson in a single instant. Rows of enemies vanished in a blossom of red, the shockwave flattening their ranks like grass before a wildfire.

Vaeliyan hovered above, breathing steady, the last echoes of the blast rolling off his armor in ghost ripples. Below him, only ruin remained. This time, he said nothing. He just watched the blood cloud settle and fade into nothing.

"Holy shit, kid," Deck's voice finally cut in over the comm, half awe and half disbelief. "The fuck did you just do?" There was a pause. "But that's not a technique. Not yet. Not unless you can do it again."

Vaeliyan only nodded, still silent.

"Alright," Deck muttered. "Run it again."

The void began to rebuild. This time the lines formed crooked, uneven. The formation was scattered, cover walls of blank white stone jutting up from nothing, flechette fire already stitching the air in random patterns as the sim loaded. "We'll throw you into something less ideal," Deck said. "Let's see if you can pull that off in a real fight."

Vaeliyan's stance shifted. He was already moving before the world finished forming.

He tore into them like a living round, a blur of motion too fast to follow. The first body went up in a violent arc, the clone snapping from stillness like a crack of displaced time and toe-punting the target into the sky. Vaeliyan leapt alongside, catching the ankle mid-spin, his body twisting as he whipped them down like a comet. The body detonated against the void floor in a wet eruption that swallowed the front line in mist and bone. The formation shattered.

"Alright," Deck muttered over the comm, a trace of disbelief threading his voice. "That's two."

The world blinked. Reloaded.

This time the ground cracked and tilted, jagged slopes jutting from the white void like broken teeth. The soldiers moved between them in staggered squads, flechettes carving hot ribbons across the air from every angle. Vaeliyan dove through the chaos, weaving between walls of shrapnel. He launched, caught, and hurled again, the impact tearing the central group apart in a cloud of red. It was slightly off-center, scattering their ranks instead of erasing them outright, but the sheer concussive force still tore trenches through their formation.

"Still counts," Deck said. "But you're drifting."

Again.

The void collapsed and reassembled into a city. Crumbling towers climbed from the blank, streets packed with armored troops, automated turrets embedded in the walls. Drone fire screamed overhead, buzzing like angry hornets. Vehicles roared through intersections on pre-set loops, walls of steel and glass sweeping across his approach. Vaeliyan cut through the chaos, dancing between tracer lines with effortless precision. He vaulted onto the hood of a passing carrier, ripped a soldier off its turret, flung them skyward, and spiked them down into a column of armor. The shockwave crushed the convoy like a tin can, folding metal and flesh together in a single collapsing roar.

"Better," Deck said. "Keep going."

The swamp hit like a curse. Mud gripped at his legs like claws, sucking at every stride, water exploding outward under his feet. The air was thick enough to chew. Soldiers rose from the murk, guns blazing through the mist. Vaeliyan tore through the muck, launched the target high, caught them, and hurled them sideways into their comrades. The two collided like meteors, bursting in a red geyser that painted the swamp in blood.

"Hard mode passed," Deck muttered. "You're getting it."

The sim shifted through more: open plains where the horizon shook with artillery fire, shattered fortresses draped in smoke, jagged canyons split by quakes. Each time he refined it. His movements grew sharper, faster, surgical. The strain bled from his posture, his breathing evened. The effort drained from his face. Each run blurred into the next until he no longer seemed to think at all, just act.

Even Deck stopped talking.

Then the sim froze.

Deck's voice came back quiet, almost reluctant. "Imujin says that's enough."

The world paused mid-collapse, the pieces of the battlefield hanging like props with the strings cut, smoke frozen in the air.

"You did it, kid," Deck said. "He wants to see you. In the skybox. Says it counts."

Vaeliyan let out a slow breath, finally still, sweat evaporating in the simulated heat.

"I'll tell him what to call it when I get there," he said.

"Good," Deck replied. "He probably wants to congratulate you. Or make sure you're not insane. Either way, he wants you out."

Vaeliyan stepped off the battlefield as the world peeled away behind him, layer by layer, until there was nothing left but silence.

When he finally got to the Skybox, everyone was looking at him oddly. All fifteen of the other cadets in Class One stood there, silent, while the instructors who had stayed wore faint smiles like they had just witnessed something rare. It wasn't celebration. It was something closer to acknowledgment, a quiet admission that he had done something they hadn't expected.

Imujin was the first to speak. "Well done, Vaeliyan," he said, voice carrying like distant thunder. "That was an impressive technique. And yes, that is definitely a technique I have never seen before. Most times, people just kick an enemy into the next row, if they can. Sometimes they pick up corpses and throw them, but that is only ever improvised. You killed the assailant and used them as a weapon. That is rare. Usually when you kick them, they simply… explode."

A few cadets shifted at that. Imujin didn't pause.

"We saw the bisection you did on one of the earlier attempts. That's what usually happens. People evaporate. Their bodies are not meant to withstand the force a High Imperator can put through them. But the control you showed, the precision, once you understood what you were doing… that was impressive." He tilted his head. "Do you have a name for this technique?"

"Yeah," Vaeliyan said. "I do. It's called the Tomahawk Kick."

"Why a tomahawk?" Imujin asked. "Wasn't it more of a throw?"

"Well… it was only a throw because it's easier to aim the body that way," Vaeliyan said. "I could probably do it with another kick. But the reason I did it that way was just to control the angle. Maybe in the future I'll be able to do it with just a kick, but right now I don't think I have the coordination I'd need to make it work. The precision just isn't there. Another kick might break the body too far before impact. That would ruin the effect."

He paused, then added quietly, "When I was younger, my mother showed me throwing axes. She liked them. Said they were a clean weapon. And honestly… I agreed. They're cool. But I always wondered, if I ever got strong enough, what it would be like to throw a person like that. To throw them hard enough to make them a projectile. when Isol first told me about the legion, I learned that it was possible in theory. But after seeing you all in your spar… I realized it was something I could actually do. With where I am now. And here we are. The Tomahawk Kick."

"That is a terrible name," Imujin said dryly.

"Probably," Isol said. "But it's already recorded."

A few of the cadets snorted. Imujin's mouth curved, just faintly.

"Alright," Isol said, breaking the silence. "All of you go get some rest. You still have a class with Instructor Sarn and I later today."

The cadets began drifting toward the pad. Isol lingered just long enough to look at Vaeliyan and smile. "That was really impressive," he said. "And horrifying. Good job."