A heavy, suffocating shadow over Krieg's Folly fell as the sky above the rusted scavenger outpost did not simply darken; it was eclipsed.
Three hundred Outrider cruisers dropped out of slipstream simultaneously, their massive dark-matter engines humming with a terrifying, synchronized resonance that rattled the corrugated metal roofs of the entire colony. They didn't hail the local spaceport. They didn't ask for clearance. The God-Bleeders had arrived, and they brought the absolute weight of New Haven with them.
A single, heavily armored drop-shuttle detached from the flagship, plummeting through the polluted atmosphere and landing directly in the central courtyard of Warlord Garrick's fortified compound.
The landing ramp hissed open, and the four leaders of the sanctuary stepped out into the toxic rain. What immediately followed was a tense standoff, as the reception was instantaneous and violently hostile.
Over a hundred of Garrick's elite Inquisitor Hunters flooded the courtyard, aiming scavenged kinetic-rifles, plasma-cleavers, and heavy railguns directly at the shuttle. The courtyard lit up in a chaotic, unstable rainbow of light as dozens of stolen Tier II and Tier III Aether-cores were sparked simultaneously.
Sarah, Thorne, Leo, and Rael didn't flinch. They stopped in the center of the muddy courtyard, completely surrounded.
Leo's cyan data-halo spun to life, instantly mapping the trajectory of every weapon pointed at them. Rael drew his plasma-blade, his crystalline violet skin flaring. Thorne simply cracked his massive neck, the golden, tectonic fissures on his chest radiating a suffocating, heavy heat. Sarah's white eyes narrowed, the ambient air pressure around her dropping so rapidly that the rain began to turn into sleet before it hit the ground.
They were four against a hundred, but the Aetheric pressure they projected made the Hunters take an involuntary step back.
"Hold your fire!" a rough, booming voice echoed from the compound's heavy steel doors.
Warlord Garrick stepped out onto the rusted balcony overlooking the courtyard. He looked battered. He was nursing a heavily bruised jaw, and his scavenged Vanguard armor was dented from his recent, humiliating encounter with Cassian.
He glared down at the four legends standing in his mud, his eyes lingering on the terrifying, volatile storm brewing around Sarah.
"Stand down," Garrick barked to his men, waving a heavy hand. He looked back at the God-Bleeders, his scarred face twisting into a bitter scowl. "Come inside. Let's see what the royalty of the new world wants in my dirt."
The interior of Garrick's stronghold was a chaotic museum of looted Vanguard tech and raw, brutalist scavenger architecture. He led them into a massive chamber to sit at the warlord's table, a long, heavy poly-steel surface acting as the centerpiece of the room. But the intimidating atmosphere of the inner sanctum was drastically undercut by the person sitting at the far end of the table.
It was an older woman with iron-gray hair, wrapped in a thick, scavenged shawl. She sat with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, a deep, petulant pout fixed on her face. It was Garrick's mother. She didn't look at the heavily armed God-Bleeders; she was too busy glaring at her son, visibly furious that he had come home bruised and humiliated by an old man in an alleyway. She let out a loud, dramatic huff of disapproval as they entered the room, entirely unbothered by the cosmic tension.
Garrick ignored her pout, slumping heavily into a command chair at the head of the table.
"The Ghost of Tartarus," Sarah started, her voice cold and cutting. She didn't sit. She stepped right up to the edge of the table. "You put a five-million star-metal bounty on Grand Inquisitor Cassian. We want to know exactly what he said to you, what trajectory his shuttle took, and why you are hunting him."
Garrick leaned back, a cruel, knowing smile slowly spreading across his scarred face. He let out a harsh, barking laugh that echoed in the cavernous room.
"You think I'm an idiot?" Garrick sneered, gesturing to the four of them. "The God-Bleeders don't mobilize a fleet of three hundred warships just to track down an old man. You don't care about Cassian."
Garrick leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, his eyes flashing with violet, toxic Aether.
"You're looking for the golden boy," Garrick stated plainly, cutting right to the chase. "You saw the ping. You realized that if the leash-holder survived Tartarus, the Vanguard's favorite pet might have survived too. You're looking for Jax."
Sarah's white eyes flared dangerously, the frost on the table beginning to creep toward Garrick's hands.
"Where is Cassian's trajectory, Garrick?" Thorne rumbled, his deep voice vibrating the poly-steel floor.
"I don't know, and I don't care," Garrick spat back, his hatred for the Sovereign bubbling to the surface. "But let me make one thing crystal clear to you. I remember what that boy did to me in the Barrens. I remember who put me in chains. If I find out Jax is alive... I'm putting a bounty on his head, too. And it will make Cassian's price tag look like pocket change."
Garrick slammed his hand on the table. "Now get out of my compound."
Projecting a highly volatile authority, the order was the spark that hit the powder keg.
The dozen elite Hunters guarding the chamber instantly raised their weapons, sparking their stolen cores and aiming directly at the God-Bleeders.
Sarah completely snapped.
The grief and desperate hope of two long years violently boiled over. She didn't just spark a single core. Her [Atmospheric-Genesis] and [Storm-Heart] violently merged, pushing her biology past the limits of the old world. The air in the chamber shrieked.
She thrust her hand out, and her newly evolved Tier VI [Temporal-Lance]—a terrifying, absolute weapon of pure, compressed chronological and atmospheric distortion—materialized in her grip. The sheer, conceptual output of the Tier 6 weapon caused the lighting in the stronghold to shatter. The elite Hunters surrounding them gasped, instinctively stepping back as their stolen cores flickered and dimmed under the overwhelming, catastrophic pressure of an absolute truth overwriting their reality.
"Give me the orbital telemetry," Sarah whispered, her voice layered with the howling of a Category 5 hurricane, the tip of the Temporal-Lance pointed directly at the space between Garrick's eyes. "Or I will erase this entire compound from the timeline."
Garrick froze, genuine terror finally breaking through his arrogant facade. Even his mother stopped pouting, her eyes going wide as the frost rapidly coated the walls.
Before Sarah could release the lance, a massive, incredibly warm hand clamped down firmly over her shoulder.
Thorne stepped past her, placing himself between Sarah and the Warlord. The giant didn't draw a weapon. He didn't need to. He looked down at Garrick and the trembling Hunters with absolute, unbothered disdain.
"Stand down, Sarah," Thorne rumbled, his voice incredibly gentle for her, but carrying a heavy, terrifying finality for everyone else in the room. "He doesn't have the telemetry. He's just a scavenger playing king in the mud."
Thorne gently guided Sarah's arm down. The Tier VI Temporal-Lance hissed, dissolving back into the air, though the freezing temperature in the room remained.
Thorne looked back at Garrick, his golden eyes burning.
"Let's get out of here," Thorne said, turning his back on the Warlord entirely. "We can fry these kids at any time. We have an Inquisitor to track."
Sarah held Garrick's terrified gaze for one more icy second before turning on her heel. The four God-Bleeders walked out of the chamber, leaving the warlord, his trembling guards, and his bewildered mother shivering in the dark.