The cramped living room of the mid-ring housing module felt exactly the same as it had three years ago, yet entirely different.
Jax sat at the scratched metal table, a steaming cup of synthetic-spice tea in his hands, watching his family process the reality that he was actually sitting in front of them. The news networks of the Barrens had been dark for two years. When the Vanguard fell, the hyper-comm relays were the first things the invading empires destroyed. All the outer-rim colonies had to rely on were rumors, static-filled radio broadcasts, and the terrifying, apocalyptic anomalies that occasionally lit up the distant night sky.
"We heard the stories, Jax," his father said quietly, resting his hands on the table. "Scavengers coming back from the inner rings... they talked about monsters the size of mountain ranges swimming through the atmosphere of Capital worlds. They called them Leviathans."
Jax looked down at his tea, the reflection of his dark eyes rippling in the liquid.
"I don't really know what the Leviathans are, Dad," Jax admitted softly. "I've heard the same stories. Things that swim through the ambient Aether of a planet and crush skyscrapers just by brushing against them. But I never saw them on the front lines where I was."
Mia shivered, pulling her knees up to her chest on the rusted sofa. "Why didn't they come here? Everyone thought we were next. We spent six months sleeping in the refinery basements waiting for the sky to fall."
"Because the Barrens is starved," Jax explained, looking up at his sister with a reassuring, steady gaze. "The Vanguard drained this planet of its plasma and Aether centuries ago to fuel their war machines. There is almost zero ambient celestial energy left in the dirt or the air. To a Leviathan, this planet is a dead rock. We simply weren't worth the calories."
"But I fought something entirely different out there in the dark," Jax continued, his voice dropping to a heavy whisper as a faint, residual golden light briefly bled into his brown eyes. "We called them God-Hounds. Constructs of pure anti-reality. They didn't bite flesh; they deleted the physical space you occupied."
He took a slow sip of his tea and set the cup down, shaking the ghosts from his head. He looked at his parents, the absolute certainty of the Sovereign settling over his posture.
"The Vanguard is gone," Jax said, his voice gentle but leaving no room for argument. "The old laws are dead, and the syndicates are going to squeeze this colony until it bleeds. You can't stay here. I have a stealth shuttle parked outside the city limits. It has a slipstream drive and enough provisions for a year. We leave in three days."
Martha's breath hitched. "Three days? But... where will we go?"
"Somewhere the war can't find us," Jax promised. "Somewhere with real oceans and blue skies. Three days gives you time to say your goodbyes quietly to anyone you trust, gather the emergency medical kits, and pack what actually matters. One bag each. No heavy scrap, no furniture. We travel light."
His father gave a firm nod, pushing his chair back and standing up on his sleek bio-prosthetic leg. "You heard him. Martha, Mia, start going through the closets. I'll inventory the rations."
Jax stood up, pulling his tattered traveler's cloak back over his shoulders. "I have to make a stop before we lock down for the night. Keep the blast-shutters drawn. Do not open the door for anyone until I get back."
The Ghosts of the Barrens
The walk through the smog-choked streets to the poorest district of the colony was a ghost tour of Jax's childhood.
He moved silently, his presence completely muted. For an hour, he simply wandered. He passed the old scrap yards where he used to scavenge copper wire, the rusted alleys where he had learned to run from bigger kids, and the flickering neon signs of the cheap noodle stands he used to stare at when his pockets were empty. The air smelled of burning ozone, synthetic yeast, and desperate sweat.
He realized how much he had outgrown this place. He had held the weight of a fifty-G planet in his veins. He had unmade anti-reality. Yet, the Barrens was still his foundation. It kept him grounded.
Eventually, his boots led him to the shadow of a collapsed plasma refinery. Jax pushed open the splintered wooden gate of the Iron Lotus Martial Hall.
He expected to find the courtyard bustling, or perhaps to find the old master slowly sweeping the stones with his bamboo broom. Instead, he found absolute, profound silence.
The courtyard was completely empty.
Jax walked slowly toward the center of the training grounds. There were no signs of a struggle. No scorch marks from plasma rifles, no blood, no broken training dummies. The stone floor was immaculately, perfectly swept. Resting neatly against the center wooden post was Master Shen's bamboo broom.
Jax knelt down, running his fingers lightly over the stone. Shen hadn't been taken by the syndicates. The old man had seen the wind changing, packed his meager belongings, and simply flowed away. Shen had no Aether, but his mastery of emptiness made him a ghost.
"You were always the water, Master," Jax whispered, a fond, relieved smile touching his lips. He bowed deeply to the empty courtyard. "Be well."
The Eviction Notice
Jax navigated his way back to the mid-ring as the sickly yellow sun began to set, casting long, bruised-purple shadows across the colony. But as he turned the final corner onto his parents' street, his peaceful reminiscing came to an abrupt end.
The street was blocked.
Three heavy, armored transport rovers were parked aggressively across the cracked pavement. Surrounding his parents' housing module was a pack of twenty heavily augmented syndicate thugs.
They were the Rust-Maw. They carried kinetic rifles, heavy plasma-cutters, and spiked trench-maces. Standing at the front of the pack were the three enforcers Jax had humiliated earlier, pointing frantically at the closed blast-shutters of his home.
Standing beside them was the local Rust-Maw boss. He was a mountain of muscle and illegal cybernetics, his arms replaced entirely with heavy Vanguard poly-steel pistons. Embedded in his chest was a Tier III Kinetic-Enhancer, glowing with a violent, unstable red light.
"Burn the door down!" the boss roared, his voice amplified by a mechanical vocoder. "Nobody makes my men kneel in the dirt! I want the old man's leg, and I want the stray who insulted us dragged out here by his hair!"
Two thugs stepped forward, revving their heavy plasma-cutters to melt the metal door.
Jax didn't teleport. He didn't hide. He stepped out of the alleyway and walked directly into the center of the street, letting his cloak catch the gritty wind.
"I thought I made myself perfectly clear earlier," Jax called out, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm.
The twenty syndicate thugs spun around, raising their kinetic rifles. The three enforcers from earlier immediately took a nervous step backward, hiding behind their boss.
The massive cyborg boss turned, his mechanical eyes whirring as they locked onto the young man. He let out a booming, metallic laugh.
"You're the stray?" the boss scoffed, cracking his poly-steel knuckles. The Tier III core in his chest flared aggressively. "I expected a rogue Vanguard Commander. You're just a kid in a dusty coat. Light him up."
Ten thugs raised their rifles and pulled the triggers.
Jax didn't blink. He sparked a Tier II Pulse-Step, chaining it instantly with the internal friction-nullification of his Bagua flow.
To the syndicate thugs, Jax simply vanished. The depleted-uranium slugs tore through the empty air, shattering the windshield of their own transport rover.
"Where did he—!"
Jax materialized directly in the center of the firing squad. He moved with the absolute fluidity of Master Shen's teachings, amplified by the flawless physical architecture of his harmonized cores. And for the first time in a long time, he let a little bit of Cassian's arrogant theatricality bleed into his attitude.
"You rely way too much on the trigger," Jax said casually, stepping inside the guard of the first thug. He trapped the man's rifle against his chest and delivered a precise palm strike to the elbow joint. The bone snapped with a sickening crack.
"And your footwork is atrocious," Jax added, ducking under a wildly swinging trench-mace. "Did a rusted loader-bot teach you that stance?"
Jax yielded to the swing, wrapping his arm around the weapon's shaft and redirecting the massive kinetic force directly into the chest plate of the thug standing next to him.
"Shoot him! Shoot him!" the boss roared, drawing a heavy kinetic-hammer.
But they couldn't track him. Jax was a phantom of gray canvas and devastating leverage. He flowed through the chaotic crossfire, dismantling them systematically while actively critiquing their complete lack of discipline.
"A plasma-cutter in close quarters?" Jax sighed, sidestepping a blazing blade and sweeping the thug's legs out from under him. "That's just a liability. You're going to burn your own eyebrows off."
He shattered kneecaps with sweeping kicks. He dislocated shoulders with effortless joint-locks. He was an ocean of movement. In less than twenty seconds, nineteen of the Rust-Maw enforcers were groaning in the dirt, their weapons shattered, their cheap armor buckled.
Only the boss remained.
The massive cyborg let out a furious roar and charged, his Tier III core glowing cherry-red. He swung the massive kinetic-hammer in a horizontal arc designed to bisect Jax at the waist.
Jax stood perfectly still. He let the hammer close to within an inch of his ribs. Then, he raised his left hand and caught the heavy head of the weapon barehanded.
The booming shockwave blew the dust off the street in a fifty-foot radius, but Jax didn't give a single millimeter of ground.
The boss's mechanical eyes widened in sheer shock. He pushed, straining his poly-steel pistons to their maximum output.
"A Tier III Kinetic core?" Jax mocked softly, his golden eyes glowing brightly beneath the shadow of his hood. "You're bleeding half the Aether out the back of the casing. The casing is cracked. It's embarrassing. You spent all those credits on cybernetics and forgot to learn how to throw a proper punch."
Jax twisted his wrist. The heavy star-metal handle of the hammer violently warped and sheared in half under his grip.
Before the boss could recover, Jax stepped forward. He pressed two fingers directly against the glowing casing of the Tier III Kinetic-Enhancer embedded in the boss's chest and sparked a Tier IV Aetheric-Disruption.
The red light of the Tier III core sputtered, flickered, and instantly died. The catastrophic feedback short-circuited the boss's poly-steel arms. The massive mechanical limbs locked up tightly, hissing with dead steam.
The syndicate leader dropped heavily to his knees, completely paralyzed within his own chassis, staring up at Jax in absolute terror.
Jax looked down at the ruined pack of thugs littering his street.
"I'm going inside now," Jax said smoothly, wiping a speck of dust from his cloak. "My family needs to rest. You have three days to tell the Rust-Maw syndicate to pack up and leave this sector. If I see a single one of your thugs anywhere near this street before my ship launches..."
Jax leaned in close to the paralyzed boss.
"I won't just break your arms. I'll dismantle your entire operation. Piece. By. Piece."
Jax turned his back on the paralyzed boss and walked up the steps to his parents' porch. He tapped the security code into the keypad, and the blast-shutters rolled back.
His father, mother, and Mia stood in the entryway, staring wide-eyed at the littered street of groaning, broken men.
Jax offered them a soft, reassuring smile, pulling his hood back and stepping inside.
"It's handled," Jax said, shutting the door behind him and locking the deadbolts. "Get some sleep. We rest tonight. Tomorrow, we start preparing. In three days, we leave."