Chapter 422: Expected Trouble

A table shattered. Someone screamed. Rin flipped his chair back and slammed into the first thug that rushed them, elbow driving into a throat hard enough to drop him instantly. Arlen was already moving, firing twice, then twice more, backing toward the door with controlled aggression.

Klatos froze for half a second too long, wings half-spread, eyes locked on faces he recognized from the streets.

A loud crack cut through everything as the front window detonated outward.

The leader flew through it like a ragdoll and smashed into the hood of his own vehicle, metal folding inward under the impact. The engine choked and died with a hiss.

Then Xavier walked out through the shattered entrance, stepping over glass without caring. Smoke curled from the gun in his hand, the barrel glowing faintly. He looked annoyed more than angry. He tossed the weapon aside like trash.

Behind him, Rin was still fighting, driving a knee into someone’s ribs and shoving them into a wall. Arlen dropped another thug cleanly and kicked his weapon away without breaking stride. Klatos stood just inside the doorway, fists clenched, doing nothing, clearly fighting himself.

The leader staggered against the wrecked vehicle, coughing, one hand clutching his side. He spat blood onto the ground and started muttering, fast and uneven, the words tumbling over each other.

“Zha—zha’korr… this isn’t possible… kha’tes no’rin… a human—”

Xavier turned his head slightly toward Klatos without taking his eyes off the leader. “Translate.”

Klatos hesitated, then spoke. “They’re saying it’s impossible. That a human shouldn’t be able to do this. ”

Xavier let out a short laugh. “Funny. Everyone says that right before they die.”

The air shifted again as Xavier lifted his hand. Vehicles around the lot groaned and creaked, then tore free of the ground, rising into the air like they weighed nothing. Metal screamed. People backed away in panic.

One of the remaining thugs barked something sharp behind him.

“Mor’eth! He bends steel like a song!”

Another shouted from farther back, voice cracking.

“Sha’val nova! Sha’val nova!”

The leader forced himself upright and screamed, panic fully breaking through now.

“Nova! Nova! Zha’val nova, you idiot!”

He pointed wildly at Xavier, then at the air, then at the lifted vehicles shaking above them. He spun toward Klatos and shouted directly at him, words spilling out in a desperate rush.

Klatos’s voice came out tight. “He’s telling you to stop. He says this isn’t how things are done. That this goes too far.”

Xavier looked down at the leader, expression flat. Then he answered him directly, in the leader’s own language, the words rough but clear.

“Go to hell, you son of a bitch.”

Klatos’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected that.

Metal slammed into the ground in a violent collapse that shook the entire block, the sound rolling outward like thunder. When the dust settled, the leader was gone beneath twisted wreckage, and no one left standing was arguing anymore.

Xavier turned back toward the motel. “Now,” he said, glancing at the shattered entrance, “if someone still wants to get me my food, I’ll reconsider my mood.”

The moment the wreckage settled and nothing moved under it, the rest of the thugs broke.

It wasn’t coordinated. One of them took a step back, then another, then someone turned and ran, shouting something panicked in their language.

“Zha’ket—move, move!”

That was all it took. Weapons were dropped. Boots hit pavement hard as they scattered in different directions, some diving into alleys, some jumping into half-broken vehicles and peeling off without looking back. A few tried to drag the wounded with them and gave up halfway. Survival beats loyalty every time.

The crowd that had gathered didn’t cheer. They didn’t rush forward either. They just stared. From balconies, from doorways, from behind stalls and hovering drones, people watched in silence, trying to recalibrate what they had just seen and what it meant for this district now.

Arlen stood still near the motel entrance, chest rising a little faster than usual. She looked at the crushed vehicles, then at Xavier, then back at the empty space where the leader had been shouting seconds ago. Her jaw tightened.

“So that’s the scale,” she said quietly. “That’s what I tied myself to.”

Xavier didn’t answer her.

Klatos stepped forward instead, wings flaring before he forced them down again. His voice wasn’t loud, but there was weight behind it now. “You crossed a line.”

Xavier turned to face him.

“That wasn’t just self-defense,” Klatos continued. “That wasn’t survival. You erased someone who mattered in this ecosystem, however ugly it was. You don’t understand what that does here.”

Xavier looked at him evenly. “I understand it just fine.”

Klatos shook his head. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”

Xavier stepped closer, close enough that Klatos had to tilt his head up slightly. “I decide where the line is,” he said. “Anyone who steps past it deals with the result.”

For a second, it looked like Klatos might argue more. Then he stopped. He exhaled slowly, the fight draining out of him. “This planet doesn’t forgive that kind of certainty.”

Xavier shrugged. “Good thing I’m not here for forgiveness.”

Rin moved in close then, timing it so no one else noticed. He leaned in and spoke low, almost amused. “So tell me something.”

Xavier didn’t look at him. “What.”

“Was this the plan,” Rin asked. “Come here, make noise, attract attention, pull the worst of them out into the open.”

Xavier finally glanced sideways at him.

He didn’t answer. He just smirked.

Rin didn’t press him out loud, but Xavier answered anyway, low enough that only the three of them could hear.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was the plan.”

Klatos’s head snapped toward him. “You did all this on purpose.”

Xavier glanced around the block, at the empty space where people had already started whispering and pulling out devices, in the direction the survivors had fled. “Bull was a space pirate. He didn’t work alone.”

Arlen crossed her arms slowly. She wasn’t interrupting anymore. She was listening.

“I don’t know much about Bull,” Xavier continued. “But I know Jupiter does. If someone here worked with him, or crossed him, or even heard stories from the right mouths, they wouldn’t be nobodies. They’d be people with muscle. People who led crews, factions, armies.”

Klatos frowned. “And you think they’ll come looking for you now.”

“They already are,” Xavier said. “This wasn’t about fighting them. I didn’t need to go hunting. I just needed to exist loud enough.”

Rin let out a breath. “So the food thing—”

“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Xavier cut in. “At all.”

Klatos snorted despite himself. “Figures.”

“I needed attention without moving,” Xavier went on. “No deals. No threats. No asking questions. Let the city do what it always does when something doesn’t fit. Spread stories. Exaggerate. Turn one incident into ten different versions.”

Arlen shook her head slightly. “You’re using fear as bait.”

“I’m using curiosity,” Xavier corrected. “Fear just speeds it up.”

Klatos looked back toward the wreckage, then at the dark streets beyond. “You realize this means the next people won’t be street trash.”

Xavier nodded. “Good.”

Arlen exhaled slowly. “Then we don’t stay here long. This district’s already marked.”

Xavier agreed. “We eat. We rest. Then we move.”

He paused, then added, almost annoyed, “And next time, nobody touches my food.”

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