Ruby's voice rang out like velvet over steel, smooth but charged with expectation. "Well, Vaeliyan, darling, Vaeliyan Verdance, The Siren's Song, we haven't played a single one of your beautiful songs once since we began. None of the ads have carried your voice. The crowd is waiting for you. What will you do?"

For a moment, nothing. The balcony lights shimmered against his suit, the dark fabric catching and reflecting the glow with quiet elegance. The hum of the broadcast field vibrated faintly through the glass beneath his polished shoes. Vaeliyan didn't answer. He simply breathed out, slow and deliberate, and stepped forward until the toes of his shoes touched the edge. Beneath him stretched the living heart of Kyrrabad, an ocean of light, sound, and color, shaped by intention and control. Every building shimmered with coded perfection. Millions stood in the arteries of the city, their faces turned upward, eyes full of awe. Above them, a constellation of drones orbited in perfect geometry, each one feeding data and sound to billions more across the Green Zones and beyond. The entire city was listening.

He opened his eyes, and every sensor locked onto him. Somewhere in the data web, an orchestra began to form, artificial, precise, and waiting. Every movement of his chest, every heartbeat, every breath, was captured and analyzed by the city's living systems. Kyrrabad itself seemed to lean closer.

As he stood at the edge, the afternoon sunlight stretched long and bright across the city. Then, slowly, the projection field high above Kyrrabad began to shift. Its filters darkened, pixel by pixel, tint by tint, until the day folded inward. The golden light dimmed to violet, and the sun itself was veiled behind layers of atmospheric manipulation. The illusion spread seamlessly across the upper atmosphere, casting the city in a simulated twilight that looked and felt real. The stars appeared next, some true, others projected, filling the false sky with constellations that hadn't existed moments before. And then came the moon. Artificial, perfect, silver and luminous, blooming out of the dark like a living spotlight. It fixed on Vaeliyan with unerring precision. The glow reached the sharp edges of his jaw, the soft fall of his hair, and the clean lines of his tailored suit. The illusion of the heavens had been rewritten to center him.

Silence stretched, pure and flawless. Ruby stood still, she didn't need to look down to know that millions had fallen quiet.

Then he sang.

The first note was utterly human. No filters, just his voice. It carried raw and fragile, threaded with something ancient and real. For an instant the city heard not the High Imperator, not the legend, but the man. The note cut through the air like a blade drawn slow and deliberate. The sound rose higher, truer. Ruby's breath caught in her throat. Her hand came up to her mouth, eyes glinting wet as the single note passed through her. She knew exactly what it was and what was coming. That first sound contained promise and grief, beauty and ruin all in one breath.

Then the systems caught it. The drones, the towers, the living network of Kyrrabad, each one seized that human tone and threw it through every amplifier, every resonant wall, every mirrored surface, until the whole world was singing it back.

Sound waves met reflective glass, controlled humidity, and calibrated atmosphere. The Green Zone's weather grid shifted its parameters automatically, forming the ideal acoustics for his voice. The projection field above fine-tuned its resonance layers, amplifying certain frequencies and muting others. The city's own systems adapted to him; resonance data streamed through traffic control, through infrastructure veins, through the drones above. Kyrrabad itself became his concert hall; a living instrument designed for perfection.

Born from silence. Forged in flame. Bound by oath. Freed by pain. We remember. Hate remains. The storm is coming. We are its name.

The line carried like prophecy. The city's lights dimmed in sequence, and the drones began to circle, aligning their beams into a halo of shifting gold around him.

We are the end of mercy, the echo of the slain. Death in our blood, fire in our veins. No grave can hold us, no god can chain— We are the storm, and the storm is our name.

Resonance struck glass and stone alike. Every surface in Kyrrabad became a choir. Windows pulsed like lungs, highways shimmered with heat mirages of color, and the people below felt the vibration crawl through their bones. The crowd began to join him, not hesitantly, but as though remembering a prayer they had always known.

We are not human, we are Legion! We are not human, we are Legion! The blade that sings, the wrath unbroken! From blood we rise, from ruin we reign! We are not human, we are Legion! We are not human, we are Legion! No gods above, no kings to revere— We are the voice that the world must fear!

The plaza below erupted in perfect harmony. Millions screamed the refrain in time, voices amplified by drones until the chant became seismic. The whole city shook, its very architecture trembling in tune with belief.

What are we? WE ARE LEGION! What do we fear? WE FEAR NOTHING! What do we bleed? WE DO NOT BLEED! What do we keep? WE KEEP THE PROMISE!

The answer hit like thunder. The feedback loop of voice and power turned the chant into a weaponized hymn. Ruby's tears fell freely now, her body trembling as Kyrrabad screamed the words upward to its newest legend.

To stand when all else falls, to fight when none remain, to burn, to build, to bear the chain—We are vengeance given name!

The clouds above the projection field swirled, reshaping into crimson arcs. The atmosphere itself rippled to accommodate his song. Each harmonic layer fed into the next until it was no longer man, city, or machine, it was Legion.

We are not human, we are Legion! We are not human, we are Legion! Death given flesh, violence given aim! From nothing we rise, we cannot be tamed! We are not human, we are Legion! We are not human, we are Legion! Nothing can stop us; no will can restrain— We are the sound of hatred given name!

The sound poured through every broadcast tower across the Green Zones. In every city, soldiers stood from their posts. Workers froze mid-shift. Children repeated the words like scripture. For the first time since the founding of the Legion, every living being under its reach sang the same words at the same time.

The sky is our witness, the dead are our kin, we carve through eternity, and we never give in. Let the stars remember, let the mortals complain, every scar we leave will speak our name!

The field above Kyrrabad's skyline fractured into a storm of light. Stars flared in synchronized rhythm. The false moon pulsed, casting the entire city in a trembling halo of silver and blood.

He who forged the will from ash. We remember. He who bore no crown, but ruled all hearts. He who fell, but was never slain. By his ghost, we rise. By his will, we stand. By his silence, we speak. By his name, we endure. We are the sword that mourns him. We are the flame that carries him. We are the oath that does not die. We are his Legion.

His voice broke on that final declaration, and the crowd answered with a roar so vast it seemed to warp air itself. The systems of Kyrrabad didn't merely echo now, they harmonized. The grid's hum rose to meet his tone. The drones painted his silhouette across the false sky. For a heartbeat, the entire Green Zone looked up and saw the same thing: one man, one voice, one song.

We are not human, we are Legion! We are not human, we are Legion! Our hearts are the drums of the age to come! Through fire and ash, through blood and bone, we stand together, never alone! We are not human, we are Legion! We are not human, we are Legion! The heavens can't claim us; the hells cannot chain, We are Legion, and we remain! We are the end... We are not human. We are Legion. We are his Legion.

The final words didn't end, they collapsed outward. Every harmonic structure in Kyrrabad joined the resonance. The towers glowed as if molten at the edges, drones trembling in synchronized orbit, light and sound folding into a single sustained frequency.

The artificial moonlight blazed to white, and the false stars vanished beneath its radiance. For one impossible instant, the entire city became a mirror for his voice.

Then silence.

Every system paused. Every sensor stilled. The final tone hung in the air, measurable but inaudible, suspended between existence and memory. It lingered like the heartbeat of a god refusing to fade.

For a breathless moment, the city, the world, was still.

Then Ruby's voice cut softly through the feed, low and reverent. "The Siren's Song."

The world erupted in light. Buildings flared, drones burst into synchronized color, and billions cheered. The city answered him with music of its own design. The chorus of humanity and machine became one thunderous celebration, echoing through the synthetic night that had been made just for him.

If the Green Zone was not built with such sturdy material, the roar that came from the millions below would have shattered the buildings around them, would have become a disaster, but the roar was real and primal. A people who had more to hope for than anyone else. They had not one, but two of the only full squadrons of High Imperators come out of their Citadel. The Red Citadel was not considered one of the top citadels, but with this announcement, people would flood to join the Red as it was now clearly the one with the best training, the most proven record. Two may not seem like much, but out of four, it was an impossible number. Fifty percent of the full High Imperator squads came directly from the Red Citadel.

The Green Citadel and the Black Citadel had always been considered the best, the elite, the untouchable institutions where those born to power went to become legends. But that hierarchy had just shifted. The Red Citadel had rewritten the story. The people didn't need facts or statistics; they needed belief, and belief was more dangerous than truth. They would tell themselves that the Red Citadel was the heart of the Legion, that it was where the next legends would rise, that Kyrrabad was now the city that defined power. The next wave of applicants would double, then triple. Every family with a child of promise would fight for a place here. Every noble house would send its heirs. Every sponsor would shift their attention south.

Kyrrabad's influence had just grown beyond its walls. Its light now reached the Green Zone's highest towers, the upper courts, and the Nine themselves. The world had changed direction. The balance of power within the Legion had been rewritten, and no one, not even the Green or the Black, could deny it.

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Ruby looked at him with tears streaming freely down her face, her usual poise cracked by something she could not contain. The sound of the city below still lingered in the air, the final echoes of Vaeliyan's song trembling through the illusionary night. For a long moment she could only breathe, staring at him as if seeing something divine. Then, when she finally spoke, her voice trembled with admiration and power.

"Again, The Siren's Song," she said, each word deliberate and echoing across the open platform. "What more fitting a name for one who sings so beautifully that the entire world weeps at his call. My darlings, once again I introduce you to The Complaints Department, the future of the Legion, the future of the Green Zone, the future of humanity itself." She turned in a full, graceful circle, her sequined coat glittering beneath the artificial moonlight. The projection field shifted subtly to follow her, spotlighting her against the endless horizon of city lights. "And it is my pleasure, my deepest joy, to say that they are more than one single thing. They are not just Legionnaires. They are not just entertainers. They are scientists, artists, strategists, inventors, and dreamers. They are the finest of what this fractured world still dares to create."

Her tone lifted, voice rising with the rhythm of a practiced performer. "Each one of them is a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy, brought together by a once-in-the-lifetime-of-a-world event. Once in a generation, perhaps once in eternity, the stars bend themselves toward a single point, and when that happens, something like this is born." The crowd below surged with applause and awe, their cheers caught and shaped by the drones into a shimmering pulse of sound that rippled upward. Ruby spread her arms wide, the gesture both theatrical and sincere. "They are a group of people who can shake the foundations of what it means to have power, what it means to hold strength, what it means to stand as human in a world that demands more than humanity should ever be asked to give."

Her smile softened, the edges of her stage presence fading into something intimate and true. "I say this not to flatter you, and not to flatter them. I say this as someone who has seen what he and they can do. They are beyond anything that any Citadel ever had the right to claim as their own. They are the future that the world forgot it needed." Her gaze swept over the city again, the projections catching her tears and turning them to light. "And somehow, by chance or fate or something greater than either, they all ended up here, in Kyrrabad, at the Red Citadel."

She paused, and when she looked back at Vaeliyan, her expression was no longer that of a performer before her audience, it was the reverence of a believer before a miracle. "When I say that Vaeliyan Verdance is a once-in-eternity genius," she whispered, her voice breaking on the word, "I mean that I have seen what he will become. I have seen the shadow of that greatness already written into the world, and I cannot wait for him to show you." Her lips curved into a smile that held both pride and fear. "But no spoilers," she added softly, winking at the cameras with the warmth of someone who knew the world had just witnessed history.

Ruby gently led them inside as the crowd still roared below. The sound of it carried through the walls, a living heartbeat of celebration that refused to die. Even through sealed glass and reinforced steel, the noise of millions reached them like the ocean pressing against a ship's hull, steady, powerful, and endless. She guided them through the illuminated corridors of one of Kyrrabad's grand towers, a place that gleamed with sterile perfection and ceremonial polish. Her heels clicked softly against the marble floor, the faint echo swallowed by the hum of machinery and distant conversation. The deeper they went, the more the world outside faded until only the rhythmic pulse of her breath and their footsteps remained.

The doors ahead opened with a sound like a sigh, revealing a banquet hall that could have hosted the gods themselves. The air shimmered faintly with conditioning fields, keeping the temperature in perfect balance. Tables of mirrored chrome and glass stretched across the vast space, draped in crimson runners embroidered with the Legion's sigil in silver thread. Crystalware glittered under the soft, simulated candlelight, and mechanical servitors moved with choreographed precision between guests, refilling glasses, rotating plates, tending to details no human eye would ever catch. The aroma of rich food, synthetic but indistinguishable from real, hung faintly in the air.

The room was a portrait of power. Instructors they had trained under stood alongside the highborn and the infamous. Imujin was there, towering like a statue brought to life, his expression unreadable but his presence commanding. Josaphine and Lisa lingered near one of the long windows, glasses in hand, their quiet laughter carrying an edge of respect and tension. Isol spoke to Theramoor with his usual calm precision, while Gwen and Wirk exchanged brief, watchful glances from across the room. Every instructor, every mentor, every whisper of the Citadel's history seemed gathered here in one impossible moment.

But not everyone present was familiar. There were strangers whose influence could be felt before their faces were even seen, people of the Nine, political envoys, nobles whose wealth could move fleets. The air changed around them, as if the building itself recognized their presence.

And among them stood Elian's parents.

It was not difficult to tell who they were. The crest of House Sarn shimmered like living silver across the right sleeves of their garments, and the Legion's sigil burned faintly over their hearts, a mark of allegiance and status. Elian's mother was breathtaking in the sculpted perfection of the Green Zone elite; her beauty so polished it felt artificial. Her every motion carried the smooth control of someone who had never needed to hurry in her life. Her eyes glowed faintly under the light, crystalline and calculating. Elian's father was no less impressive. He was power refined; the image of a man carved from marble and tempered steel. His physique was lean, built like that of a dancer forged into a weapon, precise, balanced, deliberate. Every gesture seemed rehearsed and exact. He looked like what Elian might one day become, if he allowed the machine of nobility to smooth every rough edge of his humanity away.

They moved toward their son with quiet, unstoppable grace. People parted for them instinctively. Ruby slowed her pace, reaching gently toward Vaeliyan's arm, intending to draw him back and give the family their space. But he touched her hand lightly and shook his head. He stood firm, eyes steady. He needed to see this for what it was.

Elian's parents noticed him almost immediately. The shift in their expressions was subtle, but the temperature of the room seemed to drop a degree. There he stood, the man who had taken their son's loyalty, his faith, and his future. The man who had accomplished what no one thought possible. They were High Imperators themselves, heads of one of the Nine, their bloodline traced back through centuries of privilege. Elian was their heir, but what he had become under Vaeliyan's leadership was something they could neither ignore nor claim. It was not born of House Sarn's perfection. It was born of him.

Their minds worked behind their eyes, sharp and silent. Every instinct of pride, control, and political precision warred with the raw reality before them. Vaeliyan did not belong to their world, too unrefined, too human, too unpredictable. Yet everything about him radiated the kind of authority that no breeding could produce. He was chaos shaped by will, a storm made flesh. Even standing still, he made the air move.

Elian's mother broke the silence first. Her voice was music, composed, deliberate, and heavy with the weight of centuries. "Elian, my dear boy," she said, "come here and give your mother a hug and a kiss."

Elian moved forward stiffly, the gesture rehearsed and mechanical. He embraced her briefly, kissed her cheek, then stepped back with the precision of a soldier awaiting inspection. His father gave a single nod, mirrored perfectly by Elian's own.

"My dear boy," his father said, his voice deep and steady, "it is so good to see you after such a long time." His smile was thin but polished. "You know, if you had stayed at the Green Citadel, we would have seen you more often." The pause that followed was polite but cutting. "Still, I doubt you would have risen so swiftly. Perhaps distance breeds growth." He regarded his son for a moment longer, then his gaze shifted toward Vaeliyan. "I know we did not part on the best of terms when you chose to abandon the legacy we built for you and carve your own path. But it seems that path has rewarded you." His expression softened slightly, though there was steel beneath it. "Even if it was luck, there are things that cannot be measured by data or foreseen by the networks of House Sarn."

He looked between Elian and Vaeliyan again, and the faint trace of a smile vanished. "I am glad to see you prosper, my child. We both are. But we must speak to all of you."

Ruby's brow furrowed slightly, her instincts catching the shift in tone. The hall's hum of conversation dimmed without a word being said. Even the servitors paused in their work.

Elian's father let the silence build. When he spoke again, his voice carried a finality that filled the room. "We have troubling news," he said. "We have spoken to Theramoor and the rest of your instructors. We know the truth. We know what you did. And even though you are High Imperators…" His pause was deliberate, his eyes flicking briefly to Vaeliyan. "…there must be recompense for taking the life of a noble."

The last words hung in the air like the strike of a bell, deep and resonant. Conversation stopped entirely. The weight of it fell on every ear. Somewhere outside, the roar of the crowd continued, blissfully unaware that inside this hall of triumph, a reckoning had begun.

Elian tried to speak, but through the bond Vaeliyan could feel the stuttered catch in his throat, words that wanted out and then folded back like a wounded bird. Vaeliyan stepped forward before Elian could falter.

"Lord and Lady Sarn," he said, bowing with a polite, almost theatrical flourish. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Vaeliyan Verdance, squad leader of your son and the Complaints Department." He smiled, that easy, dangerous smile that had disarmed entire rooms. "I see you have a complaint. You should file it with me." He chuckled, light and dismissive, as if the graver charge were nothing more than a misplaced purse.

Lady Sarn's eyes did not smile. "Oh, we have no complaint, child," she said coolly. "We have serious allegations."

"Very well." Vaeliyan's face smoothed into curiosity. "I would like to hear them. Tell us, what evidence do you bring?"

Lord Sarn's hand curled once around his glass. The motion was small but deliberate, a practiced signal. "Ah," he said, amusement and steel braided together, "I see you understand the game. But I have played it far longer than you, Vaeliyan Verdance. Silence will not shield you from us. Only the truth will." He let the idea hang like a blade. "There will be reparations for what you have done."

"What have we done?" Vaeliyan asked, voice light. "Can you tell us exactly what we did?"

"You," Lord Sarn said, eyes narrowing, "all of you, slew a noble who had done no wrong to you, in cold blood."

The word landed like a thrown stone. Conversation bowed in the room's warped gravity; somewhere a servitor's tray clinked and froze.

"And where," Vaeliyan replied, voice measured, "did you obtain this information? Who told you that we slew someone in cold blood?"

He let out a low laugh, not theatrical now, but dark, sharp with memory. "I have never slain anyone in cold blood. I have always had reason. Every person I have ever killed earned the right to die. I have looked each one of them in the eye when I brought my truncheon down. I have felt the bones give; I have heard the air leave their lungs. Do you imagine me a coward who kills from fear? I have killed, yes, but only those who deserved it. Every act was judgment. Every skull crushed was earned."

Lord Sarn leaned forward, and the candlelight found the hard planes of his face. "We do not make broad claims without cause. We have sources. We have spoken to Theramoor and your instructors. We have traced movements. There will be recompense."

Vaeliyan held the room with a smile that was two parts bravado and one part bare, exposed nerve. "Is a noble above a High Imperator?" he asked, the question casual but razor-fine. He watched the word work over them; it scraped at old courtesies and landed on protocols.

Lord Sarn's mouth tightened. "You do know the game, I see," he said. "This will be problematic for you."

Vaeliyan's chest rose with a measured breath. Through the bond, the others felt him as surely as if they stood inside his ribs, a steady drum of bravado stitched over an anxious heart. He was performing courage into being, folding a lie into muscle until everyone else might believe it.

"I have dealt with trouble since I first learned how to breathe in this world," Vaeliyan said smoothly. "I see your son as a dear," he turned his head toward Elian with a show of warmth that did not reach his eyes, "friend. I have nothing but respect for House Sarn. I have done you no harm. But hear this with all the clarity I can manage: do not make enemies of me or mine. It is not something you can afford."

Lord Sarn's laugh was cold. "Your calculations may be clever, Verdance, but you do not see everything. You are loud and brash. You have allies, yes, and skill and spectacle. But do not think we do not know how to move beneath the sound."

Vaeliyan straightened, shoulders squared, the practiced theatricality tight as a wire. "And you said it yourself," he said, voice dropping, "you did not see me coming, nor will you see what comes next. This is only the beginning of our rise." He let the phrase hang between them, hope and threat braided so tightly no one could tell which was which.

Beneath the boast, through the bond, the others felt him, the thrum of his heart, the gloss of his bravado, and the panicked little truth he kept hidden. He believed the story he told because he needed to. To stand here, to speak in the face of real power, he made the lie into truth. That was the trick of survival in their world: act as if you belong until the world teaches you that you do.

The hall held its breath. The Sarns regarded them with a cold, measured appraisal. The complaint, or accusation, hung between them like an unsheathed sword, clean-edge and hungry.

Outside, the city's roar continued, ignorant and fierce. Inside, consequence waited.

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