First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess

He watched Klatos for a few seconds while the noise of breakfast filled the space, trays scraping, people talking over each other, guards shouting for order like it mattered. Then he leaned forward slightly.

”You’ve been here long enough,” Xavier said. ”So tell me what this thing is that suddenly can’t wait. Because either it mattered all along and you kept quiet, or it didn’t matter and now you’re pretending.”

Klatos’s hands stopped moving.

Rin glanced between them but stayed out of it for once.

Xavier didn’t push harder. ”If it wasn’t urgent,” he continued, ”you wouldn’t be acting like this now. And if it was urgent, you wouldn’t have sat on it for this long without a reason.”

Klatos swallowed. His jaw tightened. Xavier had hit it clean, right where there was no good answer.

He slowly set his plate aside.

”Jupiter is my home,” Klatos said. ”Not this prison. Not this city. The planet.”

”You have told me that before.”

”My species is native to Jupiter,” Klatos went on. ”We were here before the first off-world survey ships showed up. Before mining rights. Before flags.”

Rin leaned in without realizing it.

”At first, it was trade,” Klatos said. ”Then protection agreements. Then security zones. Then borders. Every step had paperwork and promises behind it.”

He let out a short breath. ”Now Jupiter has two faces.”

He held up one hand. ”The upper cities. Corporate districts. Clean air domes. Artificial sunlight tuned to comfort. Everything polished, everything owned.”

Then the other. ”And below that, the old settlements. Native zones. Labor districts. Waste processing belts. Places where the infrastructure never gets upgraded because no one important lives there.”

”They’re separated by walls,” Klatos continued. ”Physical ones. Security grids. Transit permissions. You can see the upper side from the lower levels, if the smog clears enough.”

Rin muttered, ”That’s fucked.”

”It gets worse,” Klatos said.

He leaned forward now. ”The land my family owned is on the lower side. Old territory. Native claim. Legally recognized centuries ago, then slowly rewritten until it didn’t mean anything.”

Xavier’s eyes narrowed slightly.

”They didn’t take it outright,” Klatos said. ”They boxed it in. Cut access routes. Labeled surrounding zones as restricted. Declared the air unsafe. Declared the ground unstable. Declared the people expendable.”

Rin shook his head. ”So they’re choking them out.”

”Yes,” Klatos said. ”And now they’re ready for the final step.”

Xavier finally spoke. ”Forced relocation.”

Klatos nodded. ”They call it redevelopment. They call it sanitation. They call it progress.”

”And if people don’t leave,” Rin asked.

Klatos didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice didn’t rise. ”They send enforcement. Private contractors. No badges. No names. The kind of people who don’t file reports.”

The table stayed quiet.

”They burn blocks at night,” Klatos said. ”Cut power. Collapse structures. Arrest leaders on fabricated charges. Kill a few people publicly so the rest move quietly.”

Xavier stared at him. ”And this thing you need to finish.”

Klatos met his eyes. ”I’ve been gathering proof. Records. Movement logs. Corporate signatures. Names. Not to fight them. That would get everyone killed.”

”Then why,” Rin asked.

”Because if I leave now,” Klatos said, ”they erase the last legal anchor holding that land. Once it’s gone, there’s no claim left. Just a memory.”

Xavier didn’t let Klatos hide behind the story.

He leaned forward, forearms on the table, eyes fixed on him. ”You’ve been sitting in a cell while all this has been happening outside. So tell me what you were actually doing from prison. Because from where I’m standing, this sounds less like unfinished work and more like you being scared to step back out there.”

The words landed hard.

Klatos opened his mouth, then shut it again. His shoulders tensed, wings pulling in tight. Xavier had gone straight through the layers and hit the part Klatos didn’t like admitting to himself.

”You’re afraid,” Xavier continued, not raising his voice. ”Afraid that once you leave, it becomes real again. No bars. No excuses. No distance between you and what they’re doing to your people.”

Klatos looked down at the table.

Xavier let a few seconds pass, then spoke again. ”That doesn’t mean you’re wrong for caring. It just means hiding here won’t fix anything.”

Rin stayed quiet. Even he knew better than to interrupt this.

”I’ll help you,” Xavier said. ”I’ll help you deal with this.”

Klatos finally looked up. ”Why.”

”I’ll help you deal with this.”

Klatos swallowed. ”And what do you want in return?”

Xavier didn’t hesitate. ”Your knowledge. Your experience. You’re from Jupiter. You know the systems, the politics, the way things actually work instead of how they’re sold. I need that.”

Klatos waited, knowing there was more.

”And when this is done,” Xavier added, ”I want you with me. Not as a favor. As part of my crew. Permanent.”

The hall noise filled the space again like nothing important was happening at their table.

Klatos took a slow breath. ”You’re asking me to walk away from what’s left of my old life.”

”I’m asking you to stop trying to fix it alone,” Xavier said. ”And start doing something that actually gives you leverage.”

Klatos sat there for a long moment, then nodded. ”Alright.”

Rin exhaled like he’d been holding it in. ”About time.”

The days moved after that.

Paperwork cycles. Routine checks. The usual prison noise. Nothing that looked different on the surface. Xavier waited, patient and focused, while Klatos finished whatever he needed to finish inside the system and Arlen handled the rest quietly.

And then it was time to leave the prison.

At one in the morning, the block doors opened without alarms. A transport vehicle waited where it wasn’t supposed to. Arlen stood beside it in civilian clothes, no badge, no uniform, looking like she’d already stepped out of the role she’d been playing.

They got in as though they were passengers sitting inside a taxi.

The vehicle lifted and merged into the night traffic, moving away from the prison with practiced ease. Jupiter’s cityscape stretched out below them, layers of light and shadow stacked on top of each other, upper districts glowing clean and controlled while the lower zones faded into darker grids and broken illumination.

Arlen pulled up a map on the console between the seats. ”This is what triggered the lockdown planning,” she said. ”New barrier installations. Movement restrictions. Private security contracts were finalized last week.”

Klatos leaned in, eyes narrowing. ”That’s my sector.”

Xavier watched as another overlay appeared on the display. Coordinates. Transit routes. Old mining paths.

His system flagged it instantly.

The rough location lined up with what Bull had given him. Not exact, but close enough to matter. Close enough that it wasn’t a coincidence.

”So they’re sealing the lower districts,” Rin said. ”And the treasure trail runs straight through it.”

”Yes,” Arlen replied. ”If the wall goes up, whatever’s buried there becomes unreachable. Officially.”

Xavier leaned back in his seat, the pieces settling into place. ”Then they’re on a timer.”

Klatos looked out at the city below, jaw tight. ”They’re not just pushing people out,” he said. ”They’re erasing them.”

Xavier didn’t argue. He focused on the route ahead.

Bull’s treasure wasn’t sitting in a vault waiting to be picked up. It was sitting in the middle of a power grab, land theft, and quiet extermination, and the same coordinates were pulling all of it together.

”Or...” Xavier began taking off the bandages from his face. ”They are also after the treasure...”