The vacuum of space is supposed to be cold, silent, and empty. But for Leander Hayes, standing in the heart of a dying plasma star, it felt like standing in a warm summer rain.
As the blinding white light of the explosion roared around him, Leander didn't blink. Behind him, the Wings of Nirvana—shimmering appendages of purple-gold energy—snapped open with a silent, majestic flair. They curved forward, overlapping in a jagged X-pattern to form a physical and energetic barrier. The raw, chaotic heat of the scavengers' cannon lashed against the wings, but Leander felt only a rhythmic thrumming, like a distant heartbeat.
Despite the barrier, a secondary surge of raw, untamed energy leaked through. It wasn't an attack anymore; it was a feast. Leander's body, reinforced by the meteorite essence and his own evolving biology, began to pulse with a purifying aura. A secondary shield of solid golden light flickered into existence just inches from his skin.
He floated there, a speck of gold in a sea of violet fire. He could feel the destructive particles of the plasma bolt trying to tear his atoms apart, but as he selectively dialed back his golden shield, the energy rushed in. It instantly disintegrated his standard-issue spacesuit, turning the fabric to ash that vanished into the void. Only his reinforced metal undergarments remained, shimmering with a faint, stubborn light.
To anyone else, this would be a horrific death. To Leander, the energy felt like a gentle, deep-tissue massage. The violent, jagged radiation transformed as it touched his skin, turning into a smooth, liquid stream of power that permeated his muscles and marrow. He closed his eyes, retracted the golden shield entirely, and simply inhaled.
Visible to the naked eye, the massive sphere of energy that had threatened to vaporize the Ghost Shadow began to collapse. Instead of radiating outward, it spiraled inward, sucked into Leander's chest as if he were a miniature black hole. In seconds, the space between the ships was clear again, leaving Leander standing in the vacuum, his bare skin glowing with a faint, residual warmth.
Inside the Triangular Interceptor
Yumi's jaw didn't just drop; it practically detached. Her eyes were wide with a terror she hadn't felt in decades. "He... he ate it? He actually ate the shot?" She looked at her consoles, where the readings were flatlining. "The Gravity Ball is gone. The plasma charge is gone. What is that thing?!"
She turned to her pilot, her voice cracking with desperation. "Forget the boy! Look at the other ship—the freighter! There's still a pilot in there. Go! Capture him alive! If we can't get the golden freak, we'll use the pilot as a meat shield to get the coordinates!"
Aboard the Ghost Shadow
Jason was already at the controls, his breath hitching in his throat. He watched the sensors as the energy light faded, expecting to see nothing but debris. When Leander appeared, unscathed and glowing, Jason felt a wave of sheer, irrational panic.
He's not human. He's a monster. A god. Whatever he is, I'm not staying to find out! Jason's survival instincts, honed by years of running from the Kree, took over. I'm not going to Earth. I'll find that female Superman later. Right now, I need to put a galaxy between me and this golden anomaly!
But before he could punch the jump-drive, the golden light from Leander flared with a new, terrifying intensity.
Purple-gold wings trembled in the void, leaving shimmering, illusory trails of light behind them. Leander didn't fly; he simply arrived in front of the triangular ship. He reached out with both hands, his fingers curling as if he were crushing a piece of fruit.
CRUNCH.
In a silent explosion of sparks and twisted alloy, the four massive power engines at the rear of Yumi's ship were ejected from the fuselage. The brilliant blue exhaust flames died instantly, leaving the interceptor drifting and powerless.
Leander stepped onto the transparent cockpit shield. He looked through the reinforced glass at the three terrified figures inside, his face illuminated by the golden glow of his own power. He gave them a contemptuous, thin-lipped smile.
With a slight flick of his wings, a beam of golden light sliced through the roof of the ship's hull like a hot wire through wax.
The silence was replaced by a violent, atmospheric roar. Even in the vacuum, the sound of the ship's internal oxygen being sucked out was a physical pressure. Yumi and her two crewmen were yanked off their feet, clawing at the deckplates as the atmosphere screamed out into the void.
Leander stepped through the jagged hole, moving against the gale as if it were a light breeze. As Yumi was about to be sucked out into the cold dark, Leander caught her with a single, brutal kick to the chest, sending her tumbling back into the center of the cabin.
The two crewmen crashed into the back wall, gasping for air that was no longer there. Leander didn't care about their suffering. He manipulated the metal around the hole, sealing it shut with a thought. The internal emergency systems hissed, pumping a thin, desperate layer of reserve oxygen back into the room.
"Can we talk now?" Leander asked. His voice didn't need the air; it vibrated directly through the floorboards and into their bones.
Yumi, her fair skin bruised and her fine clothes torn, lifted her head. She looked at the bare-chested young man standing over her, his wings casting long, angelic shadows across the wreckage of her dream.
"I... I didn't think you were a celestial, Mr. Hayes," she rasped, her voice a bloody gurgle. "Look, this is all just a big misunderstanding. We were just... making sure you were safe! Really!"
As she spoke, her hand blurred toward a hidden sheath at her thigh. She lunged, plunging a vibratory-alloy knife toward Leander's stomach with every ounce of her remaining strength. She was so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. She almost smiled, thinking she'd found the one spot his armor didn't cover.
The blade stopped two centimeters from his skin. It hit an invisible wall so hard that the vibration traveled back up Yumi's arm, shattering her wrist with a sickening pop.
Leander didn't even flinch. He slowly reached down and plucked the knife from her limp fingers. With a casual squeeze, the "unbreakable" alloy crumbled into metallic dust, drifting to the floor like gray snow.
Yumi's eyes went wide. She scrambled backward, pulling a heavy-duty energy pistol from her belt. "Get away! Stay back!" she screamed, pulling the trigger repeatedly.
Pulse after pulse of red energy slammed into Leander's chest. He didn't move an inch. He just watched her with a bored, detached expression. He raised a hand, and the barrel of Yumi's gun began to warp. The metal flowed like liquid, bending back toward the shooter until it was aimed directly at her own forehead.
Yumi, caught in a frantic, neurotic loop, pulled the trigger one last time.
ZAP.
The bolt never left the chamber properly. It backfired, the contained energy detonating within the warped barrel. Yumi's head snapped back as the feedback charge hit her, and she slumped to the floor, lifeless.
In the Ghost Shadow
Jason watched the entire sequence through his long-range optics. He saw Leander tear the engines out. He saw the breach. He saw the golden light through the cockpit glass.
His forehead was drenched in sweat. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "How... how is he doing that?" he whispered. "No suit. No ship. Just... wings."
He looked at the four engines floating in the debris field. These were high-end Elian thrusters—worth thousands on the scrap market. He swallowed hard, his fear warring with his deep-seated greed.
"Leander is... he's fine," Jason muttered to himself, a neurotic, shaky smile stretching across his face. "He's a god. He doesn't need help. I'm just... I'm just the clean-up crew. Yeah. Collecting the spoils of war. That's my job."
He maneuvered the Ghost Shadow closer, his hands shaking so much the ship wobbled in its approach.
Back on the Interceptor
The two surviving crewmen were huddled in the corner, trembling so violently their teeth were chattering.
"Sir! Please! We didn't know!" the man blubbered, refusing to even look Leander in the eye. "She made us do it! Yumi! She's the one who wanted the metal!"
Leander looked at them, his heart cold. "Are you her regulars?"
"Yes... yes, but we just do what she says! We're just pilots, sir! Please don't kill us!"
"Tell me," Leander said, his wings folding slightly. "Why did she follow us?"
"The metal! She saw the scans from Hatton's shop! She thought you were just a lucky kid who found a crash site. She wanted to squeeze you for the location and then... then sell the rest of the ship to the scrap-yards."
"Has she done this before?"
The two men looked at each other, their faces pale. "Dozens of times. Small companies, independent traders... she'd guide them in, then jump them in the fringe zones. She was a professional."
Leander felt a wave of disgust. He didn't feel like a hero; he just felt tired. With a flick of his finger, two thin metal wires stripped themselves from the bulkhead and coiled around the men's wrists, binding them tightly.
He saw the Ghost Shadow docking with the upper hatch. Jason climbed through, wearing a full EVA suit and carrying a large empty crate, his eyes darting around for anything valuable.
Leander didn't say a word. He pointed toward the storage lockers, signaling that Jason could take whatever he wanted. He didn't care about the credits anymore.
He stepped back through the hull breach and floated out into the open stars.
The silence of the universe rushed back in. He gazed at the vast, boundless tapestry of the Milky Way. It had only been twenty-four hours since he'd woken up on Jason's ship, but he felt like he'd lived a lifetime. He wasn't the boy who left Earth. He was something else now—something heavier, colder, and far more powerful.
As he drifted, he didn't notice the strange ripple in the fabric of space behind him. Within his own soul, the Space Stone—or at least the shard of its essence he carried—began to pulse. It felt like it was recognizing the vastness of the void, trying to pull itself closer to the core of his being.