The ramp lowered again, silent as breath. This ti, they descended without their lances, each movent slow and deliberate, the kind of careful rhythm only Legionnaires used when the world was watching. The light from the landing field struck them first, gleaming across the sharp edges of their formal wear and catching the faint shimr of nano-weave that rippled with each step. Their boots t the ramp in perfect unison. Every sound, every shift, carried purpose. The roar of the crowd swelled once more, then fractured under a single, crystalline voice that sliced through the noise like a needle through silk.
Ruby stood at the base of the ramp, radiant and wrong all at once. Her presence was impossible to ignore, every inch of her wrapped in theatrical confidence and casual nace. The lights of the landing field caught on the glass-like edges of her hair and the glossy red of her fingernails. Her perfectly manicured fingers flexed once at her side, polished and deliberate. She smiled, a perfect, polished curve that never reached her eyes, and her tone carried a softness that could cut bone. “Darlings, please,” she called, her voice clearly amplified with a Skill. “Give my loves a mont. This is their first ti with such a crowd, begging for them. They are still new to this. Could we not grant them a little space?”
The crowd hesitated, torn between adoration and confusion. Ruby’s eyes half-lidded, her patience thinning. When the hesitation stretched longer than a heartbeat, she sighed, then snapped her ruby-tipped fingers. The sound was sharp and absolute. It was the noise of command. Legionnaires hidden within the masses imdiately responded, their armor catching the field’s light as they surged forward. The shift was instantaneous: discipline cutting through chaos. Civilians stumbled back, the front lines of the crowd pushed and parted as the Legionnaires extended portable barriers, unfolding them into seamless walls of shimring gold. The corridor ford like an artery of order through a body of panic.
The air changed. The fever of excitent turned cold, brittle. The cheering dulled to murmurs, then to silence. For the first ti, the crowd rembered what the Legion actually was, a machine built to end.
Ruby turned back toward them, her hand rising with theatrical grace, motioning them forward as though conducting an orchestra. “There now,” she said, voice light again, as though the mont of violence had never happened. “A proper welco.”
Vaeliyan t her gaze, expression unreadable, the faintest ghost of amusent crossing his face. “Thanks, Ruby. I appreciate it.”
“Anyti, darling,” she purred, stepping close enough that her perfu, sothing floral and faintly electric, brushed against him. Her lips curved. “But just so you know, I’m only doing this because the first interview is mine.”
He gave a slow nod, resigned but not ungrateful. “I understand. I probably owe you for it.”
Her grin widened, brilliant and cruel. “Probably? Oh, you absolutely do.” She turned, the hem of her coat flaring behind her like a banner, her heels clicking softly on the ramp. “Now, let’s go et your fans. Ti for your debut.”
The corridor beyond shimred under the harsh floodlights. The crowd, pressed back behind the barrier lines, leaned forward in restless waves. The drones sward above like tallic insects drunk on spectacle, their lights flickering red and white across the gleaming hull of the Bolt Fire. A thousand eyes tracked every breath, every step, every uncertain shift of the new Imperators.
The Complaints Departnt fell into formation behind Ruby, the world’s noise pulsing around them. Fenn and Wesley flanked the sides, wary but proud. Lessa and Sylen walked center, their formal wear gleaming under the artificial light. Lessa held Momo cradled gently in her prosthetic arms, the plush weight of the compacted companion steady against her chest. Bastard padded silently between them, silver eyes glowing faintly beneath the glint of the drones. Styll peeked from Vaeliyan’s pocket, blinking once before settling again, her tiny claws brushing against the cloth.
As they moved forward, the crowd erupted again, voices turning from awe to frenzy. So shouted their nas, others reached out toward them, desperate to touch the future legends of the Legion. Ruby raised a perfectly manicured hand, and the noise faltered again, the crowd obeying without knowing why. She didn’t look back when she spoke.
“Keep your chins high, my darlings,” she said. “You only get one first impression, and I intend to make sure it’s the kind that never fades.”
Vaeliyan’s voice was low, dry, but edged with reluctant respect. “You really are terrifying.”
Ruby smiled without turning. “Of course I am, darling. That’s why it works.”
The crowd roared once more as she led them through the corridor, the flashing lights painting them in gold and scarlet as the world watched every step.
They didn’t co straight here. The Bolt Fire remained in the hangar, its tal skin gleaming beneath the storm of light and sound below. The Complaints Departnt followed Ruby through the winding corridors of the tower, their footsteps echoing faintly against tal and glass. The air still trembled from the crowd’s chant, a rhythmic pulse that seed to live in the walls. Every hallway they passed through was packed with people, officials, engineers, assistants, and dia crews clutching recording slates, each face lit by the reflected glow of the city outside. The corridors slled faintly of ozone and new polyr, the scent of machines still freshly built. It was as if the whole building had been constructed just for this mont, to usher them toward their own myth.
The elevators were worse. They rode in silence while the glass-walled capsule carried them upward through the tower’s core. The higher they rose, the thinner the air beca, as if Kyrrabad itself was holding its breath. Outside the elevator shaft, layers of light folded past them, the city glowing brighter the farther they ascended. By the ti the doors opened near the summit, the sound had changed from chaotic to reverent. The voices below had softened to a low vibration, the collective murmur of a city that had gathered to witness sothing divine. Everyone wanted a glimpse of them, and Ruby, radiant and in absolute control, made sure they gave one.
She led them out onto one of the highest balconies in Kyrrabad, a terrace of reinforced glass that jutted out over the edge of the world. The wind hit them like a living thing, sharp and clean and electric. From here, the city seed endless, an ocean of glass and steel alive with movent. Roads curved in luminous streams far below, aircraft drifted like stars through fog, and the massive towers glowed like veins of magma rising through stone. The skyline stretched in every direction, vast and breathing. Even the atmosphere had changed; the air shimred faintly red, its color adjusted by Kyrrabad’s environntal regulators to match the Legion’s hue. The clouds had been rewritten too, shaped and sculpted into projections that moved across the sky like living murals.
Images of the cadets, Vaeliyan, Chi, Sylen, Lessa, Jurpat, Elian, every mber of the Complaints Departnt, rippled through the clouds in radiant light. Their faces stared down from the heavens, blown to impossible scale. Beneath them, the city’s reflective towers multiplied the images, throwing them back at the sky until Kyrrabad itself beca a hall of mirrors. The world had reshaped itself to celebrate them, to make sure that no one could look anywhere without seeing their faces.
Below, the buildings blazed with shifting holo-ads and live feeds. Every tower burned in shades of crimson and ember-orange, each façade displaying massive projections of the squad and their Bonds: Bastard’s silver eyes catching the light, Styll’s small shape curled in Vaeliyan’s coat pocket, Momo nestled in Lessa’s arms. The holographic displays pulsed to the rhythm of the crowd, the nas of each mber scrolling through the air in fiery script. Even from this height, Vaeliyan could feel the heat of the city’s energy. It wasn’t just celebration, it was control, devotion made into architecture. The towers, the sky, the very air itself had beco part of the spectacle.
Ruby stepped forward to the railing, the wind playing through her hair like living fla. She spread her arms wide, the city’s glow painting her face in molten color. “Kyrrabad welcos you,” she said, her voice smooth and deliberate, amplified by a Skill until it rolled like thunder through the atmosphere. “The world’s watching, my darlings. Every eye, every feed, every whisper. Smile for them.” Her words rippled outward through the city’s soundscape, resonating off towers, caught and carried by the drones hovering above. For a heartbeat, the entire world seed to hold still.
Then the roar ca. It wasn’t sound anymore, it was vibration, pressure, resonance. The noise hit them through their bones. The crowd’s collective scream rolled through the towers, an endless wave of noise that beca physical. The entire city shuddered under it. The plazas below overflowed with people, their cheers climbing upward like heat. The glass beneath their boots trembled faintly, not from weakness but from the sheer power of what they were standing above.
Vaeliyan’s gaze swept across the horizon. His heartbeat found the rhythm of the city. The wind tore at his coat, but he didn’t move. Elian stood beside him, pale and tight-jawed, staring down at the hundreds of millions below. The lights flickered across his eyes like lightning. “Holy fucking shit,” he breathed. “What in the hells do we do now?”
No one answered. There was no answer to give. The noise rose again, and the city seed to breathe, its voice a billion strong, roaring up through the red sky. The clouds glowed with their nas, their faces, their triumphs, and sowhere beneath all that light and noise, the world itself seed to bow.
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The holo-ads didn’t just show faces; they showed legends being born. Every surface of Kyrrabad beca part of the story, every building turned into a moving monunt of light and mory. Holos wrapped around skyscrapers, bending and twisting across glass facades, each screen feeding into the next until the entire skyline pulsed as one colossal display. The city was alive with them, each fra a retelling of their triumphs, every second a declaration that the Legion had forged sothing beyond human. Every image blazed in impossible color, each motion replayed with flawless precision, the rhythm of combat becoming sothing like music.
The feeds displayed them in the Citadel’s sims, their Skills unleashed in glorious, chaotic choreography. The sequences were edited to perfection, monts stitched together from a hundred battles in training sims. Chi dove through a storm of flechettes, explosions blooming behind her like an artist’s brushstroke of destruction. Sylen cleaved an opponent cleanly in half, the slow-motion arc of her hand slicing through the body in a single motion. Jurpat charged through a collapsing building, stone and tal crumbling around him as he advanced without hesitation. And then there was Lessa in her armor, dropping an entire mountain on an unseen target. When she saw it replayed on a tower’s mirrored wall, she laughed until she could barely breathe, her laughter carrying even through the thunder of the crowd below.
But above all of them, high on the Citadel itself, stood a single display dwarfing the others, the largest screen in all of Kyrrabad. It showed only Vaeliyan. His image towered above the city, eclipsing even the red-lit sky. The footage began with Jim’s class, the mont when the instructor had challenged them to improvise. The cara caught him in the act, motion fluid and horrifyingly calm, as he took a rubber duck and forced it down the throat of his opponent. The man convulsed, the squeaks echoing through the broadcast as the feed froze on Vaeliyan’s expression, detached, analytical, cruelly composed. The image burned itself into the minds of everyone watching.
Then the perspective shifted. The next clip was from the Nespói simulation, showing him and the team facing Deic. But this was not about his strength. It was about command. The footage displayed him not as a fighter, but as a strategist, his presence calm, his voice cutting through the chaos as the simulation unfolded under his control. He didn’t just move through the battlefield; he orchestrated it. Every motion, every strike, every withdrawal of the team ca from his direction. The feeds captured the mont that changed everything in Citadel history. Vaeliyan turned the tide not by overpowering an opponent, but by dismantling them one by one. The senior cadet who had once commanded the field, three years his senior, faster, stronger, found her position stolen out from under her as he quietly took control. The mont burned into the world’s mory, the entire simulation bending to his will. When it ended, Deic fell, the hierarchy of the Citadel shifted, and the mont they beca more than a squad. They beca legends.
The lighting flared crimson, the sound of tal splitting under pressure resonating through the speakers. Vaeliyan’s voice carried through the feed, steady, deliberate, impossible to ignore. Every decision he made led to another collapse of their enemies, every word reshaped the battle. It wasn’t violence that defined him here, it was control. The editors slowed the mont, highlighting his precision, the stillness in his eyes as everything around him broke. This was not the footage of a warrior, it was the footage of a leader rewriting the rules of power. The crowd scread as the feed cut again, showing flashes of fire, collapsing walls, and motion so fast it blurred. The editors had chosen the angles carefully, favoring light, precision, and rhythm over logic.
The sequence escalated, showing more of their greatest battles, monts that few outside the Legion had ever witnessed. Fenn out shooting Gwen. Torman and Xera's trap setups. Jurpat and Wesley during the entrance tournant when they cut down a group by accident. The ads showed victory after victory. The Complaints Departnt had been turned into a myth before their eyes.
The editing was too perfect, too deliberate. The slow-motion fras, the angles that hid fatigue and blood, the glow that clung to their outlines, it all painted them as golden icons, avatars of victory. Even their imperfections were erased or turned into symbols of defiance. Every reckless act beca an act of genius. Every mistake beca destiny. And in the center of it all, Vaeliyan’s face dominated the skyline, that calm, terrifying smile frozen between serenity and hunger. It was too beautiful to be human.
The city below responded like a living organism. Cheers echoed from every district, rising in synchrony with the rhythm of the ads. The drones sward upward, capturing every reaction, projecting the noise back into the feed. For those watching from afar, the boundary between audience and subject dissolved completely. The crowd beca part of the story, their faces reflecting the sa red light that filled the sky. The entire world was watching the sa thing, breathing the sa rhythm.
Ruby stood beside Vaeliyan, her expression caught sowhere between admiration and calculation. Her voice was soft when she finally spoke, the wind barely carrying it to him. “They made you beautiful, darling,” she murmured. “Absolutely terrifying, but beautiful.”
Vaeliyan didn’t respond. His eyes stayed fixed on the screen, watching himself choke a man with a squeaking toy as if seeing a stranger. Around them, Kyrrabad howled, and the reflection of his image shimred across the clouds, vast and endless.
Ruby clapped her hands once, and the entire city fell silent. The sound carried like a command through the air, amplified by her Skill until even the drones hovering above froze mid-flight. Her smile widened as she looked down at the gathered millions, her voice soft but carrying effortlessly across Kyrrabad.
“Darlings,” she began, “we are gathered here to witness the rise of glory. These sixteen young n and won who stand before you are the pride of our dear city, and of the Red Citadel that stands at its heart. They have done what very few have ever done in the past. They have graduated as a full squadron of High Imperators.”
She turned toward the Complaints Departnt, her expression radiant with theatrical awe. “With Vaeliyan Verdance, The Siren’s Song, as their leader, they did not only what few have done, but what no one has ever done before them. They completed the entirety of their training at the Citadel in not four years, not three, not even two; they did it in one. No one has ever finished full Legion training in any Citadel in less than four, and they did it in one. They proved they understood the task, and they proved they could do it better.”
The crowd rippled, the silence trembling on the edge of disbelief. Ruby grinned, her voice dipping with delight. “Let introduce to you the glorious, the magnificent…” She looked down at them, laughter threading through her tone. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, The Complaints Departnt.”
The roar that followed struck like thunder. The sound was physical, a wave that hit like pressure against the chest. Ruby let it crest, then raised her hand again, her presence alone enough to quiet the storm. The sky dimd slightly as the holo-feeds shifted, and a massive display lit above the Citadel, each na ready to appear in sequence.
“At their head,” Ruby said, her tone reverent, “Vaeliyan Verdance, The Siren’s Song, and his Bonds, not one but two: Styll and Bastard.” The air shimred, and an image of Vaeliyan appeared across the skyline, his figure outlined by red light. “The man who commands storms and silence alike, whose voice breaks armies and whose will bends the battlefield itself.”
The projection shifted, showing flashes of movent, the crowd roaring again. “And beside him,” Ruby continued, “the spark that never fades, Rosemary Chi, The Silent Bell. Quiet death made manifest. Sound itself bends around her, falling away when she wills it. Where she walks, silence becos the weapon, and every heartbeat counts the seconds until the end.”
Next ca a new image. “Jurpat Van, The Iron Wolf,” Ruby declared. “Loyalty incarnate. When he moves, the earth itself yields. When he fights, even the strongest falter. He is the howl that precedes the end.”
Her hand swept toward another cadet. “Elian Sarn, heir to House Sarn, The King’s Will himself. The man born to rule, yet wise enough to follow sothing greater than the throne. The strategist who turned certainty into surrender.”
Ruby’s voice deepened slightly as another image blood across the red-lit sky. “Sylen Verdance, The Crimson Executioner. The blade that sings, the scarlet shadow. Every motion she makes is art, every strike a promise fulfilled.”
The projection changed again, showing a woman standing beside a massive shape. “Lessa Dune, The Wave Cutter, and her Bond, the titanic kolanit bear Momo. The mountain-breaker, the girl who split the earth and laughed as the dust fell. Insanity and power wrapped into one impossible force.”
Then ca a quiet pause, Ruby’s voice lowering just enough to draw breath across the crowd. “Wesley Basor, The Support. The heart that never falters. The one who keeps legends standing when gods themselves would fall.”
The lights flared, revealing another cadet coiled like a hunter ready to strike. “Xera Wheelik, The Spider’s Fangs,” Ruby said. “The patient one, the precise one, whose silence is more dangerous than any shout. The unseen killer who ends fights before they begin.”
Two faces appeared next, illuminated in twin light. “Vexa Drevin, The Rising Moon, and Leron Drevin, The Setting Sun,” Ruby announced. “Two halves of one whole, rising and falling in perfect balance. The first light of hope, and the last light before silence. Together, they are harmony made flesh.”
The holo shifted again. “Roan Vess, The Horseman,” Ruby cried. “The thunder before the storm, the charge that breaks all lines. There is no retreat in his na, no fear in his stride.”
“Torman Vell,” she continued, “The Weaver. The one who binds chaos into order. Every move, every thread, every plan pulled together by invisible hands. When victory feels inevitable, it is because he is already at work.”
The crowd murmured in awe as her tone turned sly. “Ramis Coil, The Manwitch. The one who smiles while bending the unnatural to his will. The Legion’s laughter in the dark, the cunning that shapes monsters into tools.”
The next na hit like impact. “Rokhan Vaskor, The Foehamr. The unstoppable force, breaker of walls, destroyer of arrogance. He doesn’t fight battles; he ends them.”
“Varnai Myre, The Elderflower,” Ruby said softly, and the city hushed again. “Beautiful beyond reason and terrible beyond words. The smile that hides the abyss, the whisper that calls the end of all things. She is the thing beneath the roots, the dream that rembers you, an eldritch horror in perfect bloom.”
Finally, the last image appeared, a golden arrow streaking across the sky before forming into a young man’s face. “And at the end of it all, Fennton Ebertson, The Arrow. The strike you never see coming, the aim that never misses, the quiet certainty that the job will always be done.”
Ruby drew in a deep breath, eyes glittering with delight as she turned to the crowd. “Kyrrabad,” she said, her voice rising to fill the world, “behold your new legends, The Complaints Departnt.”
The roar that followed was deafening. The city shook, the sky burned red, and for a single, unforgettable mont, it felt as though the world itself bowed in applause.
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