Time moved blisteringly fast.
Just as Raja Farzir had predicted, every single day brought a new battle in the courtroom, and every single day was a case to be decisively won. The elite prosecution teams hired by the AAA publishers tried desperately to stall the proceedings, drowning the dockets in endless, frivolous motions. But Round Table Studio was armed with Gawain's flawless digital records and Ratik's ruthlessly efficient legal team.
The results were a complete slaughter. Ten separate corporate lawsuits were entirely dismantled and won in just seven days.
But it wasn't the legal victories that were shaking the foundation of the galaxy. It was the rhetoric. The forbidden name of the 'Xerxesion Corp' had been invoked, and the chilling comparison continued to echo relentlessly through every major news broadcast and digital forum across the Stellar Accord.
…
Meanwhile, the legal warfare had sparked a massive ripple effect that extended far beyond the digital storefront of the Void platform. It had violently crashed into Round Table Studio's physical sectors, specifically, the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
With the media constantly screaming about preliminary injunctions and the potential bankruptcy of RTS, Pokémon card collectors fell into a state of sheer, apocalyptic panic. Believing that the current print runs might be the last official cards ever produced by the studio, a massive wave of panic-buying swept across the Core and Mid Rims.
[Avalon Forums - TCG Subforum: Market Watch]
>: CardSlinger_99
"This is absolute insanity. The new 'Team Rocket' expansion set just dropped yesterday, and Base Set booster boxes are already hitting 50,000 credits on the secondary market! Scalpers are hoarding literally everything because they think the lawsuit is going to bankrupt the studio!"
>: HoloHunter
"My local tabletop store sold out of their entire monthly allocation in less than ten minutes. People were physically fighting in the aisles over blister packs. They are treating these cards like doomsday currency!"
>: ScalperKing
"It is simple supply and demand, losers. If Round Table Studio goes under because of the Accord injunctions, these sealed boxes instantly become priceless historical artifacts. Stay mad and stay broke."
>: GymLeader_Ash
"@ScalperKing I hope you get permanently stuck in a hyperspace lane. You are ruining the game for actual players."
Just as the forum toxicity was reaching a boiling point, a highly unusual, verified badge appeared in the thread.
>: RTS_ProductionTeam [Verified Developer]
Attention all Trainers. Please take a deep breath and do not panic buy. Furthermore, absolutely DO NOT buy from scalpers at these inflated prices.
While the current legal injunctions have temporarily frozen our physical shipping routes for this month, please rest assured that our printing factories are completely unaffected and are still operating at maximum capacity.
We have already quadrupled the print run for all existing sets for the foreseeable future. The second these legal blocks are lifted, we will flood the market with an unprecedented quantity of inventory. The game is not going anywhere. Please be patient.
The intervention from Kasavin's production team was like a splash of cold water on a grease fire. The community instantly rallied behind the reassurance.
>: Rebel_Yell
"YOOOO! You heard the devs! They are printing massive amounts of stock behind the scenes! To all the local store owners reading this: we need to band together and completely ruin the scalpers' fun right now! Start UNSEALING the booster boxes and ripping the plastic off the individual packs right at the cash register! Only sell them to people who actually want to play the game!"
>: LGS_Owner_MidRim
"@Rebel_Yell Honestly? Based. I am implementing this policy at my store tomorrow. No more sealed product leaves my shop until the scalper market crashes."
>: MintCondition_01
"Wait, hold on! Please don't do that! I'm a genuine sealed collector! I don't play the actual card game, I just like keeping the booster boxes sealed in pristine condition for my display shelves!"
>: Rebel_Yell
"Then go buy it at scalper prices and cry about it, nerd. We are at war."
>: MintCondition_01
"Excuse me?! I have been supporting this game since day one! You can't just punish legitimate collectors because of a few bad apples!"
>: TCG_TryHard
"@MintCondition_01 Womp Womp. Rip the plastic, boys!"
And just like that, another completely different kind of hell broke loose on the forums, as the aggressive anti-scalper movement clashed violently with the pristine sealed collectors. Even amidst a multi-billion credit corporate lawsuit, the passionate chaos of the RTS community simply refused to be silenced.
…
The invocation of the Xerxesion Corp quickly and violently bled into the galactic financial sectors.
In the Core Worlds, stockholders absolutely despised unpredictability. As the public uproar grew and Round Table Studio kept publicly humiliating their legal attackers, the stock prices of the major AAA publishers began to experience sudden, unexplained drops. Investors were getting spooked by the sheer volatility of the gaming market.
At first, the identities of the prosecuting companies were a complete mystery. The average galactic citizen had never heard of "Mallonie Co," "Creed Mutual," or "SilverRock Legal" in their entire lives.
And since active, ongoing corporate litigation was heavily buried in bureaucratic red tape, the mainstream media simply reported them as independent third-party entities protecting their copyrights.
But these executives had made one fatal miscalculation. They had forgotten exactly who they were dealing with.
The fans of Round Table Studio were not ordinary consumers. They were the exact same people who had spent hundreds of hours reverse-engineering Stardew Valley events, decrypting binary code to uncover the fall of Troy in Hades, and meticulously mapping out the spawn rates of Pokémon. They were weaponized, highly organized internet sleuths.
And now, millions of these hyper-fixated gamers turned their absolute, undivided attention toward the public Accord corporate registries.
As RTS secured their tenth consecutive legal victory, the invisible walls hiding the shell companies completely unraveled.
[Avalon Forums - Megathread: I FOLLOWED THE MONEY. You guys need to see this.]
>: DataDiver_99
"YOOO! Okay, hear me out. I got bored waiting for the Assassin's Creed beta to drop, so I decided to look up 'Mallonie Co', the firm that sued RTS over software patents on Tuesday. Turns out, they have literally zero employees. They are a ghost company. But if you track their primary funding, they are a child branch of 'Aegis Logistics'. Guess who owns Aegis? A holding firm called Zenith Group. And guess whose name is officially listed as the primary majority shareholder for Zenith? Zoye Raves. The CEO of Heliotronic Arts."
>: PixelPlower
"Wait... what?! Are you seriously telling me that the CEO of HA is using fake ghost companies to sue an indie developer?"
>: CodeMiner77
"Holy shit, DataDiver is right. I just wrote a data-scraping script to cross-reference the board members of all ten companies that RTS defeated in court this week. Look at this spreadsheet! 'Creed Mutual' is directly funded by a subsidiary of Stellarstars! 'SilverRock Legal' is owned by the VP of Button Legacy! They are all connected!"
>: Astro_Architect
"This is actual corporate sabotage. The AAA publishers aren't just sitting by; they are actively funding an artificial legal avalanche to bankrupt Arthur!"
As the spreadsheet went viral, spreading across every single social media feed in the galaxy, a dark, collective realization began to wash over the older members of the gaming community.
>: OldGuard_Gamer
"Guys... my blood is boiling right now. Do you remember an indie studio called 'FireForge' from six years ago? They made that incredible sandbox game, Starfarer's Dream. Right before their massive 2.0 update, they got sued into oblivion over a bullshit mechanics copyright by a random company called 'Blue Nebula Holdings'. The studio went bankrupt, and HA swooped in to "save" them by buying their IP."
>: Void_Watcher
"I remember that! HA turned Starfarer's Dream into a live-service VR nightmare and fired all the original devs!"
>: OldGuard_Gamer
"I just ran DataDiver's trick on Blue Nebula Holdings. It's owned by Zoye Raves. HA orchestrated the lawsuit to force the buyout."
>: GachaWhale
"Oh my god. What about 'Mecha-Core'? That fighting game from eight years ago? The exact same thing happened! Sued by a random firm, bought by Stellarstars a month later, and then monetized to absolute death until the servers were shut down!"
>: Rebel_Yell
"They've been doing this for decades. Every single time a passionate indie studio makes something incredible and threatens their market monopoly, these AAA publishers use these fake shell companies to legally bleed them dry. They bankrupt the devs, buy their stolen IPs for pennies, and turn our favorite games into soulless, microtransaction garbage!"
>: StrategyKing
"RTS isn't an isolated incident. They're just the very first studio smart enough to actually fight back."
The mood on the galactic net shifted from panic to pure, unadulterated outrage. The gamers were looking at a graveyard. They were suddenly remembering all of their previous favorite studios, the brilliant, passionate developers who had mysteriously "vanished" or "sold out" over the years.
It hadn't been a lack of talent. It had been a systematic, corporate slaughter.
And as the horrifying truth of the AAA industry's playbook was dragged kicking and screaming into the light, the community's fierce loyalty to Round Table Studio forged into something utterly unbreakable. The gamers were no longer just consumers waiting for a game. They were an army, and they were out for blood.
…
The noise grew so incredibly loud, it eventually reached the absolute highest peak of the universe.
On the capital planet of Ardota Prime, the oppressive, suffocating weight of absolute authority settled heavily over the Celestial Citadel.
Deep within the impenetrable fortress lay the Grand Hall of Stellar Ascend. It was a cavernous, dimly lit chamber where only the pillars of the galactic hierarchy were permitted to breathe the air. Seated around the massive, obsidian circular table were the true rulers of the Accord.
At the head of the table sat the Celestarch.
Unlike his previous appearances, the divine ruler's physical vessel had matured. He no longer looked like a youth. He appeared as a fully grown man in his absolute prime, his sharp features framed by immaculate blonde hair, his golden eyes glowing with an ancient, terrifying indifference.
Currently, the Prime Vizier was standing, gesturing to a holographic map and droning on about the logistical progress of a new territorial campaign.
But the Celestarch was clearly not listening. He rested his chin on his knuckles, his golden eyes staring blankly into the shadows. Right in the middle of the Vizier's meticulous explanation, the Celestarch suddenly spoke, his voice cutting through the room like a physical blade.
"What is with this 'Xerxesion Corp' chatter flying around my networks?"
The Prime Vizier immediately snapped his mouth shut, bowing his head in submission.
The Grand Overseer of Accord Intelligence quickly stepped forward, folding his four-digit hands together. "It's nothing of true concern, my liege," the Overseer assured smoothly. "It is merely a petty corporate lawsuit in the civilian sector. A minor independent studio is using provocative historical rhetoric to defend themselves against a few major publishers."
The Celestarch slowly turned his golden eyes toward the Grand Overseer. The air in the room instantly dropped by ten degrees.
"No, no," the Celestarch murmured, his voice soft but laced with a terrifying, absolute authority. "You will take care of it. Investigate this immediately and crush it."
The Celestarch stood up, his tall frame casting a long, dark shadow across the obsidian table.
"I destroyed that era for a reason," the Celestarch said coldly. "I don't want another ambitious, greedy Commissary successor rising from the corporate mud. And I certainly don't want to be forced to leave another planet utterly unlivable because of it. Am I understood?"
The pillars of the Accord instantly widened their eyes. Every single one of the immensely powerful figures immediately dropped to their knees, bowing deeply to their ruler.
"Consider it done, my liege," the Grand Overseer promised, a bead of cold sweat forming on his brow.
The Celestarch turned and began to walk toward the heavy doors of the Grand Hall. But halfway there, he stopped. He turned his head, his golden eyes falling upon the Grand Admiral of the Navy.
The blind Qerrian remained perfectly still, her fleshy sensory vanes twitching slightly under the weight of his gaze.
"I like your gift, Admiral," the Celestarch noted casually. "Red hair... a much darker skin tone. It is a very strong, aesthetically pleasing. I will use that one next, once this current body is over."
The Grand Admiral placed a fist over the twelve military insignia on her pristine white uniform. She offered a crisp, flawless salute, a perfectly practiced smile of deep satisfaction stretching across her face. "You honor me, my liege."
With a final, indifferent nod, the Celestarch swept out of the room. The heavy blast doors hissed shut behind him.
Even with the ruler gone, a suffocating silence lingered in the Grand Hall. The sheer, palpable hatred the Celestarch still held for the long-dead Commissary of Xerxesion Corp ran terrifyingly deep.
The Grand Overseer immediately stood up, rapidly adjusting his grey uniform. He needed to handle this civilian crisis immediately before it drew any more of the Celestarch's ire.
"Do you require my aid, Overseer?" the Prime Vizier offered, stepping forward.
"No," the Grand Overseer replied coldly, his eyes narrowing as he tapped his comms terminal. "I will handle this myself. It seems these corporate sharks have grown far too comfortable. They need to be reminded of their place in the hierarchy."
The Grand Overseer turned and hurried out of the side exit, already drafting the extermination orders for the publishers' legal trap.
Back at the table, The Grand Admiral slowly stood up. Smiling as the loyal, favored Admiral perfectly, she turned her featureless metal half-mask toward the towering, heavily scarred Neman who served as the Grand General of the Army.
"General," she asked softly. "Is the old capital planet truly still unlivable?"
The massive Neman crossed his thick, muscular arms, his deep voice rumbling through his scarred chest. "I passed by the system on a patrol route several years ago," the General confirmed grimly. "Yes. The planet is still suffering from eternal monsoons and boiling, toxic rain. Even from high orbit, you can physically see the catastrophic damage done to the continental crust."
"Enough," the Prime Vizier interrupted sharply, his voice echoing in the hall. "The Commissary of Xerxesion Corp had it coming. It was because of his unprecedented greed and arrogance that the Celestarch was forced to use that proportion of absolute destruction."
The pillars fell silent. Yet, deep within their own minds, they all shared the exact same, lingering thought. They were the highest authorities in the universe, but none of them actually knew the full truth of the ancient history. They all still secretly wondered: 'What exactly did the Commissary do at the time to evoke such a divine wrath, entirely destroying an era and giving rise to the new order of the Stellar Accord?'
Shaking his head, the Prime Vizier turned to the Grand Admiral, offering a polite, diplomatic nod.
"Congratulations on providing the next vessel, Admiral. A truly great gift. I will be sure to bring mine right after yours is finished."
The scarred Neman General chuckled darkly, a rumbling sound that vibrated through the floorboards. "Oh, don't get too comfortable, Vizier. I managed to secure someone with incredibly good genetics this year, too."
…
As the Celestarch walked down the opulent, echoing corridors of the Celestial Citadel, flanked by his elite personal guard, the Golden Legion, his perfectly composed demeanor briefly slipped.
A ghost from the ancient past clawed its way to the forefront of his mind. "The Skyfall Hour." He remembered the burning skies, the crumbling mega-factories, and the bloated, arrogant face of the Commissary of the Xerxesion Corp staring up at him from the rubble.
'You are nothing but a slave!'
The long-dead executive's final, venomous words echoed violently within the Celestarch's mind.
For a fraction of a second, the Celestarch's handsome, flawless face contorted. A micro-expression of pure, unadulterated rage flashed across his features, so dense and terrifying that the ambient Solar energy in the corridor violently crackled, shattering the nearby stained-glass windows.
He stopped walking. He took a slow, measured breath, forcing his composure back into place. He turned to the captain of the Golden Legion.
"Ready the ship," the Celestarch commanded, his voice calm but layered with absolute, unquestionable order.
The armored captain immediately dropped to one knee, offering a crisp nod before branching off down a side corridor to prepare the royal flagship.
…
Meanwhile, far away from the gilded halls of the Celestial Citadel, the mysterious figure the entire galaxy was currently fixated on was staring at a very bleak holographic spreadsheet.
Inside the Junction room of Round Table Studio, the reality of corporate warfare had finally caught up to Dorian.
He stared at the studio's financial projections. Every single day in the courtroom, every filed motion, every hour he retained Ratik's elite team of Core Rim lawyers, it all cost an astronomical amount of credits. Even though they had flawlessly won several consecutive cases, each of those legal victories carried a literal price tag.
Dorian had just been forced to authorize the transfer of funds from their massive, untouchable Pokémon revenue reserves just to keep their legal shields fully powered.
"Haaaa..." Dorian let out a long, exhausted sigh, rubbing his tired eyes. "This is not sustainable."
Hovering right beside his shoulder, the small holographic projection of Gawain nodded solemnly. "It is not, sir. This exact financial bleed is precisely why many independent studios do not survive these embargoes."
"I get it now," Dorian murmured, leaning back in his chair. "Even if you fight back exactly like we are doing... you are just drawing out the inevitable. Even if you win every single case, there is no money left at the end of the gauntlet to actually finish developing your game. And running out of funds is exactly the same as death."
"True," Gawain agreed, his digital armor gleaming in the light of the holoscreen. "But we will fight this. And as I have sworn, I will be your impenetrable shield, always."
Dorian couldn't help but smile. In a very literal way, Gawain was the ultimate shield. The Compadre's flawless, highly encrypted digital archiving had completely saved them. Gawain had recorded every single email, code commit, and data trail since the studio's inception.
His irrefutable evidence was the exact reason Ratik's legal team had been able to slaughter the AAA prosecutors so easily; even the elite lawyers had been completely shocked by the AI's terrifying efficiency.
Yet, the unending battle kept coming. And tomorrow was the climax.
Tomorrow was the interview with VGN. The massive media conglomerate had originally reached out right after the trailer dropped. But the second Raja had leaked the lawsuits to the public, VGN had intentionally delayed.
They were veterans of the media game; they knew exactly how to wait. They had deliberately stalled the interview until the controversy reached its absolute boiling point, maximizing their viewership.
It seemed, however, that after Raja dropped the 'Xerxesion Corp' bomb, VGN couldn't afford to hold out any longer. The interview was locked in for tomorrow morning.
Dorian sighed again, closing his financial terminal. He spun his chair around to face the rest of the room.
"Are you guys finally done?" Dorian asked dryly.
Across the Junction room, the other five department heads were huddled tightly around a holo-board. They had been aggressively debating and crossing out words for the last forty-five minutes.
Lin Liseli tapped her stylus against the board, staring at the final remaining options. She let out a dramatic sigh of finality. "Alright. That's it. I've made my choice. I will be Bedivere."
The rest of the department heads immediately erupted into loud groans of sheer relief.
"Thank the stars," Bem Lendu muttered, rubbing his temples.
"Finally!" Ross Dalle laughed. "We've been standing here for almost an hour!"
Liseli giggled, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She held the marker back up to the board. "Wait... but what if I chose–"
"NO! No, no, no!" Logan Kim shouted, waving his hands frantically. "No more changing! The roster is locked!"
Liseli just chuckled, a bright 'hehe' escaping her lips as she capped the marker.
Dorian watched his elite development team acting like a bunch of bickering academy students. He smiled warmly. "I still don't completely understand why you guys are so insistent on taking on the names for this interview."
Kasavin pushed his glasses up his nose, offering a practical shrug. "Well, since you are operating under the pseudonym 'Arthur', we decided we all wanted to hide our true identities as well."
"That's right," Logan grinned, adjusting his oversized hoodie. "Besides, it is incredibly good to be mysterious once in a while. The fans are going to lose their minds trying to figure out which is which developer."
Arthur chuckled, crossing his arms. "You do realize that some of the hardcore community already knows who is who, right? Between the game credits and our old AMA, your first names are basically public knowledge."
"Who cares?" Bem smiled, crossing his arms. "They only know our names and our code. They don't know our faces. And tomorrow, we are going to present unified, untouchable front."
Looking at his team, Dorian felt the heavy, suffocating weight of the lawsuits completely wash away. In the midst of all the exhausting legal drama and cutthroat corporate warfare, this bright, lighthearted camaraderie was exactly what they needed to survive.