Yellow Jacket

Warren shifted to stand directly before the fierce young Neuman in front of him. He let the idea of her shift in his mind too, not as Neuman, not as something sky-born towering above the world, but as a human equal to every other person he had chosen to fight for. He allowed that understanding to settle inside him, altering the shape of how he saw her, then he looked her directly in the eyes and spoke her full name. Not the shortened version he used casually, not the clipped nickname he had given her for convenience. Her true name, spoken correctly and without hesitation.

Her eyes widened at the sound of it. Shock, disbelief, and something else flickered across her face.

“Whispering Wing of The Songbird’s Flight,” Warren said. “Are you ready? Do you know what you wish to be?”

He had not spoken it in the common tongue. He had spoken it in her language. Perfectly. Clearly. With intention. Every syllable was shaped the way her people shaped the wind when they flew. She knew he had been learning because Keha taught him phrases from time to time, but she had never imagined this. Keha smiled with unmistakable pride. The children behind her fidgeted, whispering softly in astonished excitement at hearing one not born to the sky speak their ancestral tongue with such precision.

Wing’s breath caught. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she nodded. This man had learned her language just to make her comfortable, just to honor her in a way that mattered to her people. If she had not already pledged herself to him, she would have done it in that moment without hesitation. Nothing in her life had prepared her for being treated with such intentional respect.

“Yes, Tidelord,” she said in the common tongue. Her voice trembled with conviction.

Warren smiled. “Then grab the skills that you wish for your class to be founded upon and hold them in your mind. Push them toward your class. I will assist you in guiding the stampede as it builds itself into something new and unprecedented. You are the first hueman of the sky to have a Head Master shape your class. You will be part of my Citadel. You will be part of one of the first classes to graduate. I promise you that.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “You may keep calling me Wing. I like it.”

He nodded once, his smile softening into something warm. “Well then, Wing, let us begin.”

She inhaled deeply, bracing herself as though preparing to leap from a great height. Then she grabbed her chosen skills and slammed them into her current class. She expected an explosion of movement, pain, chaos. The impact was immediate, but not in the way she had imagined.

Warren’s arms dissolved into a rush of silver nanites that surged forward with a fluid, unstoppable force. They plunged into her body, threading themselves through the channels of her forming class with such controlled pressure that her light frame lifted off the ground for a moment. She gasped as the sensation hit her, weightless and terrifying, and Warren guided her gently back down one careful inch at a time while his hands remained inside her, gripping her forming class with the strength of a vice.

There was no movement.

The stampede did not rampage through her the way she had been warned it would. Instead she felt the presence of something immense held perfectly still. A beast with its jaws clamped around the neck of the stampede, holding it motionless, refusing to let it take even a single step until Warren allowed it.

Her eyes widened further. She had expected chaos, agony, something wild that she would have to survive through will alone. Instead she felt precision, control, dominance. She felt the hands of someone who commanded the stampede, not someone dragged behind it.

Warren smiled, quiet and satisfied. “I thought I could do that, but now I am glad to see that it worked. Wing, imagine exactly what you want your class to be and we will put it there. It has no choice. In this moment, we are going to build the exact class you need.”

His words settled into her like a second heartbeat. He was not guiding her into becoming something she was supposed to be. He was helping her become exactly what she chose to be. And for someone born into a culture that carved destinies into bone, that freedom struck harder than any stampede ever could.

Warren stepped away from Wing and moved toward Mel, the shift in focus drawing the attention of every hueman child in the room. Mel straightened when Warren approached, trying to look confident, but the attempt faltered almost immediately. His shoulders tightened. His gaze darted downward. Warren stopped in front of him, folding his arms as he studied the young man in a long, silent moment that made Mel fidget.

“Mel, before we start, I need to talk to you.” Warren’s voice carried none of the gentleness he had used with Wing. It was firmer, heavier, shaped by the responsibility he felt for the boy in front of him.

Mel blinked, mouth parting. “O… okay?”

“You are enthusiastic,” Warren said. “And that matters. It really does. But you are terrible with every weapon. I have not seen you hit the same spot twice. Not by accident. Not even when you were trying. And while that is impressive in its own way, it is also incredibly dangerous.”

Mel flushed, embarrassment tightening his face. He stared at his hands, fingers curling as if gripping at shame. “Yeah. I know. I wish I could fight. I can take a beating, I really can, but I cannot seem to hit anything. I am always off. I try. I really try.” His voice cracked despite the tight hold he tried to keep on it.

Wing moved to his side, protective, her stance sharp and ready. “Mel, you try. You good. You strong.” Her words were simple, but her tone carried conviction.

Mel gave her a pained smile. “You do not understand. I need to protect Tasina. That was what my brother asked me to do. That was the last thing he said to me before he… before he…” His throat tightened into silence. He swallowed hard, eyes shining. “I need to do this, Warren. And I need your help. I am horrible with anything meant to kill, but I need to help. I do not know what skills to pick.”

Warren placed a hand on Mel’s shoulder, the gesture steady and grounding. Mel looked up, meeting Warren’s eyes, and something eased in his expression.

“Mel,” Warren said, voice dropping into something gentler, “what do you want to be? Not what you think you have to do. What do you truly want to be? Take the skills that resonate with you. The ones that feel like they belong. I will guide them into what they need to become. Not what you think they should be. What they truly are meant to be. Do you understand?”

Mel wiped at his eyes again, nodded once, and whispered, “Okay.”

He closed his eyes. In his mind, he reached for something he could not name. He did not know what he was grabbing, only that the skills he captured felt right, felt honest, felt like a part of him he had never acknowledged aloud. He slammed them into his class with a force born from fear and hope.

Warren’s arms dissolved into a surge of nanites that burst forward and plunged into Mel’s body. In Warren’s inner perception, Mel’s forming class appeared like a trembling, half-shaped animal. Warren’s nanites wrapped around it in that same toothy maul as before, locking it in place. The stampede froze, waiting, unable to move without Warren’s permission.

He studied the skills Mel had chosen and raised a brow. “Mel… do you truly wish to be a protector? Not a warrior. A defender. Someone who stands in front of the people he cares about.”

“That is all I ever wanted to be,” Mel whispered. Nanites shimmered faintly across his skin, reacting to the forging process, but he held Warren’s gaze without wavering.

“Then you will be the best protector I can make you.” Warren tightened his grip around the forming class. “Hold on.”

He tore the class apart.

Mel gasped as his entire class ruptured in Warren’s hands. Pain rippled through him. His knees buckled violently. He nearly collapsed, but Wing caught him from behind, bracing his weight against her lighter frame. Her arms locked around him, holding him steady, refusing to let him fall. If she had not been there, the forging would have failed and Mel would have died before Warren could put him back together.

Warren did not even flinch. He wove a tighter hold around the fractured class, ripping away every fragment that did not belong, tearing out anything built on fear or expectation. He shoved new components into the empty spaces, forcing the structure to reshape itself according to the truth Mel had spoken. His movements were precise, cold, merciless in their accuracy.

Slowly, the class reformed.

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Mel sagged forward, trembling, his breath shaking as he tried to steady himself. When the pressure finally settled, he opened his eyes and looked at his class.

Awe washed across his face.

Warren smirked. “That should help with your aiming problem. You should have better aim than Grix now. Even if that's not saying much.”

Grix, who had been hovering nearby with her arms crossed, lifted a brow sharply. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Grix,” Warren said, perfectly calm, “you could not hit the broadside of a mossback unless it was three feet away and begging you to end it.”

Grix stared at him, indignant, then let out a begrudging huff. “Okay, fair. But did you have to say it out loud?”

Warren shrugged. “Kind of. You are next sis.”

Imujin stepped over, hands clasped behind his back, and said, “Warren, this will be much harder, as you are aware. The stampede will be much stronger in this one. It is unlikely you will be able to do what you just did to the two children.” His tone held no judgement, only the quiet weight of experience. He stood close enough now that Warren could feel the steady certainty radiating from him, the kind that came only from someone who had guided countless evolutions and survived each one.

Mel snapped upright. “Hey, I am not a kid.” His voice cracked halfway through the sentence, betraying exactly how young he sounded, and several of the older teens looked away to hide small smiles. Mel puffed his chest slightly as if that would fix the betrayal in his tone.

Imujin looked at him with calm patience. “Child, you have no hair on your chin, nor do you look like you could grow any. I am not calling you a child as an insult. I say it because that is what you are, even if you do not see it yet. You will be an adult soon, I promise, as all men become adults. But for now you are still a child.” His gaze softened in a way that suggested genuine fondness, something Mel was too flustered to notice.

Grix rolled her eyes dramatically, practically whipping her entire head with the motion. “Okay, whatever. Mel, you are a kid. Just leave it at that.” She stepped forward, planting her hands on her hips with a flair she had clearly practiced. “Now, we can talk about your feelings later. Right now we are talking about me. What is going to happen to me? I know I am getting my class upgraded. Warren is going to stick his filthy hands into me and root around inside my gorgeous body.”

Warren stared at her, utterly deadpan. “Grix, that is disgusting. Do not ever say that again.” His voice held the exact tone of a man already exhausted before the process even began.

She shrugged, unbothered, lips curling into a smirk. “And what are you going to do about it?” The challenge hung in the air, bright and reckless.

Warren narrowed his eyes with deliberate slowness. “Do not tempt me. I will rearrange your class so that your entire identity revolves around being powered by bug bars.” His voice dropped into a low threat that carried the clarity of someone who very much could do exactly that.

Grix froze. “You wouldn't dare.” Her bravado faltered for the first time, and she leaned back slightly as if ready to flee.

“Try me.” Warren’s tone sharpened, and while he did not raise his voice, the authority behind it pressed down on the room like a shift in air pressure.

Grix held up her hands in surrender, her expression sheepish now. “Fine. I was just having fun.” The heat in her cheeks suggested she regretted the exact phrasing of her fun.

“Grix,” Warren said flatly, “no one enjoyed that. Not a single person.” His stare swept across the group as if daring anyone to contradict him.

Wren raised a hand slowly, almost shyly. “I thought it was funny.” He gave an apologetic grin, as if that would cushion the blow.

Warren slapped a hand over his face with dramatic despair. “Of course you did.” His voice came muffled from behind his fingers.

Styll, curled comfortably in Wren’s arms, wiggled excitedly and said, “If funny Warns, you should see Warn's face, it really funny lookings.” She tapped her own chest proudly, her tail swishing with delight.

Car lost all composure. He bent at the waist with a sharp bark of laughter that echoed off the training hall walls. “It was pretty funny,” he managed between breathless snorts.

Grix perked up instantly. “See? Car gets it. He has taste.”

Car straightened, still wiping at his eyes, and Warren pointed at him without looking up. “He is basically your dad. Where do you think you get your stupid humor from?”

Car blinked, then grinned. “I resemble that remark.”

Warren threw both hands up. “See? See?”

After Florence slapped Car in the back of the head, and he finished rubbing the spot with a wounded glare, they finally moved on. The room felt looser somehow, the nervous tension that had gripped the children fading into a kind of charged anticipation. Everyone had seen Warren shape Wing and Mel. Everyone had seen what his hands could do when they became nanite storms, when he carved through a class the way a river carved through earth. And now those same hands were turning toward Grix.

Grix stretched her arms overhead like she was warming up for a joke instead of a class evolution. “Okay, it is fine. I know exactly what I want, and I am going to get it. So, you do not have to do anything. Do not stick your hands in me, please.” She flashed him a grin sharp enough to cut fabric, acting like this was all routine rather than potentially life-altering.

Warren stared at her. “Grix? This is going to happen one way or another.” His voice carried that flat, weary authority he reserved specifically for her, the tone that said he already knew she was about to be a problem.

She groaned dramatically, the sound echoing off the training hall walls. “Fine. Just do it then.” And before Warren could even lift a hand to stop her, she triggered her class evolution.

The shift hit her instantly. Her whole posture flickered for a moment, a subtle twist running along her spine as her class pulled itself forward. Warren lunged, nanites exploding out of his arms into a fog as he plunged both hands into her. The contact shuddered through him, violent and alive.

He grabbed hold of her class, but it fought him immediately. Mel’s had been soft clay. Wing’s had been a young sapling, bending eagerly in whichever direction he guided it. But Grix’s class was a grown thing, fully rooted, unruly, and already halfway racing down its chosen path.

It did not meet him like a creature waiting to be tamed. It slammed into him like something already sprinting. Fast. Unpredictable. Laughing as it ran.

It slipped under his grip, not because it resisted him directly, but because it had no fixed form to resist with. It twisted and coiled, ducking and weaving like a creature made entirely of impulse and instinct.

There was give everywhere. Too much give. Her identity had never been neat or predictable, and her class reflected it with perfect honesty. The skills she had chosen were strange, mismatched in ways that should not have made sense. A chaotic cocktail of impulses, obsessions, hobbies, and raw emotional truth. Warren stared into the storm of it and wondered how she had managed to pick the most Grix combination possible.

But she chose them. That made them the truth he had to work with.

He guided her class toward what he thought would be best, but the deeper he pushed, the stranger the feedback became. Every pathway he tried to reinforce bucked under him. Every structure he tried to impose dissolved the moment he touched it. Grix did not fit into structure. She never had. His sister had always been pure chaos wrapped in a person-shaped skin, and her class mirrored that completely.

Warren shifted his grip instinctively. Holding it like a beast that needed control did nothing. It slipped around his fingers like smoke and teeth, a creature that refused to be caught.

So he changed tactics. He grabbed hold as if he were mounting a raging tiger, not restraining it, but riding it. Aligning himself with its momentum rather than fighting against it.

The moment he released even a fraction of control, the class surged forward. It roared past him like a stampede of lightning and claws, a wild thing breaking free of a cage that had never truly held it.

Wild. Unbound. Untamed.

There was nothing inside Grix that wanted to be orderly. Nothing that wanted to be confined. Her class rushed toward evolution as if the world owed it space to run, carving its own path through the stampede without hesitation, without fear, without apology.

It felt less like he was forging a class and more like he was witnessing a natural disaster grow teeth and personality.

This was no house cat. This was a tiger that would never accept chains. A tiger that would bite the hand of anyone who tried.

And Warren realized, with a slow, dawning grin spreading across his face, that for Grix, that was exactly right.

Instead of trying to hold it, or control it, or even ride it the way he had been moments before, Warren shifted again. He let go entirely. He got off the tiger’s back and ran beside it, matching its pace, letting it choose the path. Every twist, every leap, every sharp turn, he mirrored with a fluidity that surprised even him. He stopped trying to direct her class and instead played with it, nudging it here and there, letting it sprint faster because of the game they created together.

Grix’s smile grew slow and feral. “I think you get it.”

Warren laughed, breathless with the thrill of it. “I think I get you.”

When they were finally done, both of them stood there breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling in perfect sync as if they had just run for miles beside each other instead of forging a class. The air still trembled faintly around them, rippling with leftover pressure from the chaotic storm they had shaped and ridden together. Dust drifted in soft spirals. The floor vibrated under their feet. Even the watching children stayed quiet, awestruck, sensing that something far beyond normal class evolution had just taken place.

Warren felt the pulse of adrenaline driving hard through his veins, a rhythmic surge that thudded like a second heartbeat. His chest heaved. His skin buzzed. His vision sharpened until every detail of the room looked too crisp, too alive. And when he looked at Grix, he saw the same pulse racing beneath her skin, the same fire dancing behind her eyes. They were a matched pair in that instant, two creatures who had sprinted beside disaster and survived it.

His heart was beating too fast. Too sharp. Too alive. He tried to steady his breathing but found he could not, not yet. Because what he had helped forge was not merely unusual, not merely strange, not merely difficult in the way Wing and Mel had been difficult. Grix was something completely unprecedented, something that refused comparison to anything he had seen, anything Imujin had shaped in all his decades of guiding classes.

Her class did not have a path. It did not follow a path. It did not even acknowledge the concept of a path. It rejected structure the way a wildfire rejected fences, the way a tidal wave rejected shorelines. There was no boundary it accepted, no form it settled into, no direction it would be forced to hold.

It did not want a path. And it never would.

Its path was freedom. Pure, unrestrained, unapologetic freedom. Wild enough to unsettle Warren even as he admired it. Wild enough that the stampede itself had stepped aside and allowed her class to run where it pleased. Her class carved its own territory, spiraling outward in directions that made no sense and every sense simultaneously, as if the act of movement itself defined it.

Because that was the right path for her. Not a path shaped by expectation, not a path corrected by a High Imperator, not a path held steady by tradition or guidance or force. Her path was the refusal of all of that. Her truth was the rejection of limits.

No path at all. And for Grix, that was the only path that could ever have been real.