The Registry didn't build arenas. It stacked problems and called them drills.
By dawn the yard behind the east depot looked like a city had tried to chew its own teeth and spit them back out as barricades. Carts wedged axle-to-axle across choke points. Beams pinned at angles that made alleys forget how to be straight. Pipes were lashed together in ribs and wired into the ground so they'd carry a beat, not a scream. Volunteers in Hook Street aprons stood shoulder to shoulder with Slums boys holding polehooks like promises. The air tasted of iron filings and nervous breath.
Two cages waited in the middle. One hummed, glass singing in thin, hateful notes. The other thumped meaty and wet like a heart that refused orders.
Aelira took the crate stack like a captain takes a prow. Braid looped twice, slate hot enough to paint her hand red. "Field Drill Nine," she said, voice clear over hammering. "Three-domain synchronization under load. Two targets. No Ascension unless you're dying, Ghost. Registry wants control."
Cairn leaned against a post, yellow arcs tucked in tight. He spat iron into dust and let the yard notice he was unimpressed. "And I want blood," he added, almost polite. "Yours a little, theirs a lot."
Evan rolled his shoulders until bandages complained, then ignored the complaint. The storm hummed violet-white under his skin like an argument that had receipts. The lanes around him ticked, waiting for his hands.
"Open them," he said.
Scribes fumbled with bolts. Hooks kicked cogs. The first cage yawned and the yard's temperature fell a degree as reflections crawled out of a box.
[Combat Engaged: SHARDPACK]Type: Reflection predators (pack)Trait: Glass-body division on impact; replication on shatterThreat: High (crowd-control failure → geometric growth)
A dozen wolves made of panes and angles hit the cobbles and split light until it turned into teeth. The edges of them sang. Every step left cuts in air.
The second cage shuddered, then vomited meat.
[Combat Engaged: MAWLING]Type: Convergent devourer (triple-voiced)Trait: Localized gravity bite; pulls vectors toward throatThreat: High (structure collapse risk)
It came out like a bad prayer—three heads at the end of a single jawline, throat too wide, red muscle packed like mistakes. When it breathed, the yard leaned.
Volunteers flinched back to the barricades. The pipes on their ribs rattled. The city waited for Evan to decide whether it got to keep being one.
He stomped.
[Lane Override] — ENGAGEDDomain Sync: Hook Street + Slums + FoundryStability: Fragile (22%)Ally buff (within sync): +10% speed/resistanceOverflow: 11%
Bread-heat ran his forearms, Slums stubbornness packed into his calves, Foundry iron braced his spine. Pipes took his rhythm and threw it down the ribs Registry had wired. The yard hummed like a chest ready to shout.
"Hold your posts," Aelira snapped to the volunteers. She didn't look away from Evan. "Prove you can keep three songs as one."
The Shardpack didn't wait to be introduced. It lunged like a decision, every wolf choosing his throat.
Evan blurred.
[Echo Step] — ENGAGEDCount: 5Duration: 2.5sImpact (within Lane Override): 60%
Five of him tore away on his note. Two met glass with knees and elbows and made mirrors bleed. One cut left, dragging a wolf across a hummed pipe so its edges sang out of tune and cracked. One leaped, thunderstep blooming under paws; shards went everywhere.
Wolves eliminated: 2 (replication triggered → 4 small)HP: 92% → 88% (cuts; minor)
"Don't decorate me," Cairn called conversationally. "Kill or control."
The Mawling took air and bit it. Evan felt the pull from twenty paces—like an invisible hand trying to put his ribs in a new address. He slammed his heel into cobbles.
Vector Compression (micro): 18%Force redirect: Successful (angle +17°)
He moved with the drag and turned it into a step, then another, then used it to sling himself sideways into the behemoth's flank. Violet arcs hugged tight, compressed, then snapped.
[Vector Cleave] — ACTIVERadius: 21mDecision pressure: +10%Damage: Moderate (Mawling)
One head collapsed with a wet shriek. The other two screamed in different keys and the gravity bite multiplied, trying to split him between options. The yard bent. Nails groaned in beams.
Warning: Multi-domain stability dropping (19%)
"Hold it," Aelira said, slate hand white-knuckled.
"Sing," Cairn corrected.
Evan dragged the lanes into one chord like a man hauling rope on a sinking deck. Hook Street ovens thumped a heartbeat. The Slums knocked three–two–three and refused to stop. The Foundry iron took notes and nailed them down.
Multi-Domain Override — Stabilized (31%)Ally buff: +15% speed/resistanceOverflow: 12%
The volunteers straightened as if someone had added bones where fear had taken them away. The pipes on their barricades hummed back at his storm. The yard remembered it belonged to a city.
"Now we cut decisions," Evan said to himself, to Cairn, to the wolves.
The Shardpack split to flank him. Ten—no, fourteen—wolves now, some small, some too big to be comfortable in their glass. They tried to come in at angles a man can't watch at once.
Evan didn't watch. He told.
He snapped fingers. Echoes snapped with him.
[Echo Step] — OVERCLOCK (Unsafe)Count: 8Duration: 3.1sNeural strain: 45% → 58%
Eight ghosts ran his lanes. They weren't decorations. Two went low and held space until wolves tripped over lies. One took a kill that would have been the real Evan's throat. One stood still with arms out and forced three wolves to choose badly. Each Echo wore a shard of his Domain in its bones; when glass bit, it met street.
Wolves eliminated: 6 (replication suppressed by cleave chaining)HP: 88% → 82% (lacerations; moderate)Conduction strain: +7%
The Mawling dragged the world again. Evan felt his teeth wanting to move. He answered with thunderstep under his own feet and let the shockwave roll up the monster's throat, then aimed the cleave at the choice the Mawling hadn't made yet.
Vector Cleave: Decision track engagedOutcome: Forced step — off balance
He jumped into that moment. Fist, elbow, knee. Not pretty. Cairn pretty.
Damage: Severe (Mawling; structural compromise at throat)Gravity bite efficiency: −23%
The yard became a blender. Glass sang; meat howled; pipes hammered his hymn. Evan's storm crawled closer to white at the edges. Arcs leapt from him to barricade, barricade to pipe, pipe back into him. The lanes didn't follow; they led.
Warning: Stability wavering (31% → 27%)Advisory: Reduce overclock or increase anchor density.
"Anchor it is," he grated, tasting copper.
He stomped twice. Hook Street's note thickened. He opened his hand and the Slums' knock ran down his fingers. He squared his shoulders and iron filled his bones. It hurt like holding too much of a friend.
Multi-Domain Override — Stabilized (38%)
"Again," Cairn shouted, and threw himself into the Shardpack to force it to split target priority. Yellow arcs bit mirror and stuck like weights. Two wolves shattered on him, two split, two hated him for existing. It gave Evan a hole.
He became it.
[Arc Ascension] — DENIED (Aelira override)Note: Ascension locked (Control priority)
He swore and did it Evan's way instead. Violet tight. Cleave shallow and wide. Echoes with orders. Compression at wrists.
He wove through glass and gravity, earning cuts and giving debt.
Wolves eliminated: 4 moreReplication remaining: 5 (reduced growth)Mawling status: Failing (two heads compromised, body integrity poor)HP: 82% → 69%Conduction strain: 58% → 63%
A wolf got him across the mouth; he tasted his lip. The Mawling got a bite of the air near his kidneys; he felt organs protest the idea of relocation. He stomped pain into the yard and felt the yard stomp back.
"Left!" Aelira snapped from the crates. Evan didn't look; he bled left. A wolf hit an Echo that wasn't there anymore and left itself open to a cleave that turned it into knives. Volunteers behind Evan pushed a cart six inches without being told and a wolf broke itself on it by accident.
The Mawling tried to run. Evan didn't let it choose the verb. He cut choice.
Vector Cleave — Decision pressure +14%
The beast chose to fall because it couldn't do anything else. Evan met it coming down with a thunderstep that turned the cobbles under its chest into a lesson.
Anomaly [Mawling] — ELIMINATED
The yard inhaled.
Glass wolves hesitated just long enough to be prey. Evan sent three Echoes hunting and they didn't miss. He took the last one himself, palm open, arcs whispering, a gentle push that made the pane forget it meant harm and remember it meant reflection. It broke like tired light.
Anomaly [Shardpack] — ELIMINATEDShard residue acquired (minor)
He stood in the middle of it with blood tickling his ear and the yard humming like a choir that had learned a rough song. Volunteers lowered polehooks and discovered their hands shook. Aelira exhaled the breath she'd been saving for a worse version of this. Cairn clapped once, hard enough to get the yard's attention again.
"Again," Cairn said, because he was constitutionally incapable of saying Good job.
Evan tried to grin. It came out as teeth. "Bring me the bill."
The panel crawled over his vision like a predator deciding to sit.
Anomalies Eliminated: Shardpack + Mawling (simultaneous)Multi-Domain Synchronization: Competency +9% (C → C+)Overflow stored: 15% → 18%Forge the Storm — Progress— Speed ≥ 1,500 (Current: 1,316)— Overflow ≥ 50% (Current: 18%)— Stabilize 3 Domains simultaneously: 2/3 trials completeTemporary Buff: Drill-Fed Anchor — Knockback resistance +12% (24h)Note: Vector Compression (micro) ceiling approached (18% → 19%). Next threshold gated by catalyst (Gold tier or divine residue).
"Divine residue?" Evan muttered.
"What?" Aelira asked, dropping from her crates.
He didn't answer immediately because the yard had started to snow.
Not snow. Gray. Flakes like apologies. The cages were cold. No furnaces burned. The ash fell anyway, slow and indifferent, drifting onto wolves that were no longer wolves and meat that would be buried by evening so dogs didn't learn bad habits.
The panel glitched on the edges.
[System Warning] — Residue DetectedSource: UnclassifiedCorrelation: 71% with prior events (Cross site, Ashfall site, Mawling remains)Advisory: Monitor accumulation
Cairn followed Evan's eyes. He spit a fleck of iron and watched it vanish into a flake. "Don't like that."
"Me neither," Evan said. His storm hissed higher, violet almost blanking out. He tamped it down with a hand because control was the assignment and he was stubborn when given homework.
Aelira scanned the gray with her slate. The device hummed died, hummed again, died again. "Registry reads it as… nothing. Which is not a number. I hate that."
The volunteers looked up with the simple superstition of people who believe weather has a boss. They shivered though they weren't cold.
Evan turned his back to ash and faced his people. "Reset the grid," he said, voice hard enough to cut bread. "We run it again. Bigger, uglier."
A murmur went through the yard like bravery deciding to rent a room for the night. Men lifted. Women set beams. Kids tapped three–two–three into the ribs because that's what you do with fear when you're learning to be useful.
Cairn stepped close enough for counsel and not close enough for comfort. "You kept your promise without burning yourself down," he said, and the sentence nearly killed him with how much praise was hiding inside it. "Next drill, I stop helping."
Evan snorted, which hurt, which he liked. "You weren't helping. You were being a wall."
"A good wall," Cairn said.
"A useful wall," Evan corrected, and got almost a smile for the insolence.
Aelira flicked ash from her sleeve as if it mattered what sleeves looked like anymore. "Captain Ghost," she said, not missing a chance to make a title feel like a weight, "Registry has your third trial ready. Tomorrow dawn. Different district. We want proof your lanes travel."
"Tomorrow dawn," Evan repeated. His storm built a small throne in his chest and sat wrong on it. "I'll make the roads pack a lunch."
He limped out of the yard under a sky pretending to be innocent. The ash followed at a distance like a dog that wasn't ready to admit it had an owner.
Hook Street smelled of bread because stubborn is a kind of piety. The Slums knocked three–two–three because rhythm is cheaper than hope and spends better. The Towers rang once, late by the thickness of a blink, and tried not to apologize for it.
He cut through Grayline because obligation is a map. The barricades there still wore his storm from yesterday, hum low, ready to listen. He pushed a little of himself into their pipes and they hummed back because relationships are maintenance.
The panel slid into his eyes a last time before letting him be a man.
Daily Report — Training Under LoadEcho Step: Stable at 8 (3.1s). Cognitive strain acceptable.Vector Compression (micro): 19% (soft ceiling).Vector Cleave: Decision pressure scaling unlocked (+14% → +16% with Domain sync).Lane Override: C+ (48% toward B).Overflow storage: 18% (Domain lattice integrity steady).Community Sync: Pipe Choir — +2% momentum per 50 synchronized knocks (cap +10%).
He didn't say good because saying good is a curse in a city that's listening. He said, "Again," to the air, to the pipes, to the ash that did not answer.
The ash still fell.
And somewhere a bell practiced being on time and failed on purpose.