First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 420: The Call

The call went through after a few seconds.

There was silence on the other end. Then the voice spoke. "Say something."

Xavier frowned. "What?"

"Something only you would say," she replied. "And don’t be smart about it."

He huffed. "You still owe me money from that stupid drone race on Phobos. And you cheated."

Another pause. Longer this time.

"...Okay," Angel said quietly. "It’s you."

She didn’t rush after that. "Are you actually alone? Like really alone. Can you talk without someone listening."

"Yes," Xavier said. "The door is locked. No cameras. No one is breathing behind me."

"Good," she muttered. "Because if this was another prison call, I was about to hang up."

"I’m out," Xavier said. "Not Earth-out. Prison-out. Still on Jupiter. On the outskirts of some city I don’t care about. I’ll leave this place tomorrow."

"I need contacts," Xavier said. "Anything you’ve got here? Doesn’t have to be a clean background. Just people who exist."

She let out a breath. "I can look. But don’t expect Earth-level help. This place doesn’t work like that. And it won’t be quick."

"That’s fine."

"And keeping in touch like this," she added, "is going to be annoying. Signals jump weird. Tariffs. Monitoring. Half the time I won’t even know if it’s you calling or someone pretending."

"I know," Xavier said. "I’ve got some people here to help me out. They’ll cover most of it. I didn’t call you to fix everything."

"So why did you call," Angel asked.

Xavier leaned back against the table and stared at the wall. "I just wanted to hear you talk."

She snorted. "You’re an idiot."

"Yeah."

A few seconds passed.

"Tell Reva," Xavier said. "Tell all of them."

Angel’s voice sharpened. "Why aren’t you telling them yourself?"

"I can’t," he replied. "And I shouldn’t."

"That’s not an answer."

"If I hear them," Xavier said, slower now, "if I hear her, I’ll lose my grip. I’ll rush straight to wherever they are and fuck everything else. I don’t want to do that yet."

Angel didn’t say anything for a moment.

"So you’re just going to leave them like this," she asked.

"No," Xavier said. "I’m going to meet them when I’m done. When I’ve dealt with the shit I need to deal with."

"You always do things the hard way."

"I know."

She sighed. "I’ll pass it on. I’ll tell them you’re out of prison.. That you’ll show up when you’re ready."

"Thanks."

"Don’t get yourself killed," Angel added. "Again."

Xavier smirked faintly. "No promises."

The call cut.

He stood there with the phone in his hand for a few seconds, then shoved it into his pocket. Then, he headed downstairs.

The dining area was dim and crowded in a way that didn’t feel social. People sat because they had to eat, not because they wanted company. A few heads turned when he walked in. Most looked away just as fast. Whatever stories were already spreading about the guy upstairs, nobody seemed eager to test them.

Rin spotted him first and lifted a hand. Klatos and Arlen were already seated, drinks on the table, food untouched. Xavier dropped into the chair opposite them and grabbed the menu.

He stared at it for a few seconds.

Then longer.

Then he frowned.

"The fuck is this," he muttered.

Rin leaned over slightly. "That one looks like meat." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"That one looks like a crime," Xavier replied. He flipped the page. "I don’t know what half of this is. And the other half looks like it might still be alive."

Klatos watched him for a moment, then nodded like he’d expected this. "You want Earth food."

"I want something that looks like food," Xavier said. "Something that doesn’t require an explanation or a survival guide."

He slid the menu across the table toward Klatos. "You order. Get whatever’s closest to Earth stuff. Meat, grains, something fried, something that doesn’t smell like coolant or fungus."

"And if they don’t know how," Rin asked and then thought, ’He looks very annoyed. Is it because of his face?’

"Tell them to learn," Xavier said. "Or get it from somewhere else. I don’t care if they have to walk it over from another block."

Arlen raised an eyebrow. "You’re assuming they’ll bother."

Xavier leaned back in his chair. "Let them know there’ll be a big tip if they get it right."

Klatos glanced around the room before replying quietly. "Don’t advertise that part too loudly."

Xavier waved it off. "I’m not advertising. I’m motivating."

Klatos stood and took the menu with him. "I’ll talk to them. In the right language."

As he walked off, Rin shook his head. "You’re going to get us poisoned."

"If that happens," Xavier said, "at least it’ll be familiar."

Arlen snorted into her drink. "You’re picky for someone who just crawled out of prison."

"I earned it," Xavier replied. "And I’m not eating mystery sludge on my first night out."

Klatos came back after a while and slid back into his seat.

"They called a few human cooks around the block," he said. "Food’s on the way. It’ll take a bit."

"Good," Xavier replied, already leaning back. He closed his eyes and let his head rest against the chair. For the first time since leaving the prison, he wasn’t watching exits or counting faces.

For a few seconds, nobody spoke.

Rin drummed his fingers against the table, then stopped. He didn’t know what to do with his hands or his thoughts now that things weren’t actively falling apart.

Arlen leaned slightly toward him. "Something wrong with him," she asked quietly, nodding toward Xavier, "or is this just how he is."

Rin glanced at Xavier, then shrugged. "I don’t know."

Klatos looked at Xavier longer than the others. "When I met him on Earth," he said, voice low, "he wasn’t like this."

Rin turned toward him.

"He looked innocent back then," Klatos continued. "Naive, even. Like someone who had power but hadn’t learned yet how much damage it could do. He looked fragile. Not weak, but breakable."

Arlen raised an eyebrow. "And now."

"Now," Klatos said, "he doesn’t look innocent at all. Maybe the face helped before. Maybe people assumed things because of it. But here, on Jupiter, that’s gone."

Rin watched Xavier’s chest rise and fall slowly. "He looks different."

"No, he doesn’t look like Xavier at all," Arlen commented.

"I wasn’t talking about his face," Rin remarked.

"He looks like someone who’s always thinking," Klatos said. "Like there’s always something running in his head. Plans inside plans. Calculations that don’t stop just because he’s sitting down."

"And fragile," Arlen added.

Klatos shook his head. "No. Not that. He looks like someone who learned exactly how much force it takes to not break."

Rin exhaled. "That’s not comforting."

Klatos didn’t disagree.

Xavier didn’t open his eyes. He heard enough of it to know what they were saying, and not enough to care. Whatever he’d been before stayed back on Earth. Whatever he was now had gotten him out of a prison, onto Jupiter, and one step closer to what Bull had left behind.

That was enough. Because that was the reason his first stop after leaving the Earth was Jupiter.

And... then there’s the vision he saw in the prophecy when he obtained the 13th fragment.