Prologue

PROLOGUE — Three Years Later
Year 2103
The valley did not appear on any map.
It was too wide to have a name. Too silent for anyone to bother looking for it. An ocean of green grass that swayed with the wind as if breathing, surrounded by gentle hills and a sky so blue it seemed painted.
No one came here.
Except him.
The first strike split the air.
A yellow flash crossed the valley from one end to the other and dissipated against the hills without a sound. Then another. More compact. Faster. The nearby grass flattened to the sides as if something invisible were pushing it.
Marek landed.
His boots hit the ground with a dull impact. Thirteen years old. Average height. The single lock of hair falling over his sweaty forehead. His clothes were simple, a farmer's, though they weren't as loose as before. His hands, always marked by work, were now marked by something else.
Training.
He breathed deeply.
The yellow aura around his body flickered once... and went out.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at his palms.
Three years since Zekra.Three years since Garpon.Three years since he learned that having power was not the same as mastering it.
He clenched his fists.
The yellow ignited again. This time without flickering. Without irregularity. Just a constant, dense, controlled flame, wrapping around his hands as if it had always been there.
Better.Not perfect yet.But better.
"You're still training alone."
The voice came from behind.
Marek didn't flinch. He recognized that tone before turning. Firm. Direct. Carrying a weight behind each word that few possessed.
He turned around.
Twenty meters away, standing among the tall grass, was Zarpon.
Black skin. Intense yellow eyes. His gray armor with gold details shone under Earth's sun like something that clearly didn't belong to this world. Taller than any human in the valley. Quieter, too.
Marek looked at him for a few seconds.
Then he smiled.
"Zarpon."
The zekran warrior walked toward him with a calm step. His eyes scanned the valley, the energy marks on the flattened grass, the small craters where attacks had hit the ground.
"Three years," Zarpon said, stopping in front of him. "And you keep choosing an empty valley."
"No one gets hurt that way."
"No one corrects you that way either."
Marek extinguished his aura.
"Did you come alone?"
"With my ship. It's behind the northern hills." Zarpon observed him carefully. "You've improved. Your control is cleaner than in the second layer."
"Still not enough."
"It never is," Zarpon replied. "That's not a flaw. It's what separates someone who trains from someone who grows."
Silence.
The wind moved the grass between them.
Marek looked at the green horizon.
"How is Zekra?"
Zarpon took a second to answer.
"Still standing," he said. He paused. "For now."
They sat on the grass.
Not as warrior and apprentice. Not as ruler and ally.
As two people who had been in the same cave and survived.
Zarpon spoke first.
"The resources the Kratar granted us were enough to rebuild what Germon destroyed. The cities are standing. The defense systems work." His yellow eyes fixed on the horizon. "But Zekra is still fragile. Crime grew during colonization. There are areas of the planet the government still doesn't control. And my people..." he paused. "My people learned to survive under an empire. They still haven't learned to live without one."
Marek listened in silence.
"And the trinita satellites?"
"Inactive. For now." Zarpon's jaw tightened slightly. "But inactive doesn't mean gone."
The sun warmed the valley with a calm light that contrasted with every word coming from the zekran's mouth.
"Is that why you came?" Marek asked.
Zarpon looked directly at him.
"I came because I need help. And I came to you first because..." he hesitated for just an instant, "...because I trust you."
Marek didn't answer immediately.
He looked at his hands.
Then at Zarpon.
"What do you need?"
Zarpon explained with the same precision he had used to trace strategies in his palace.
Zekra needed three things.
Security. Crime in the rural and border areas of the planet was a problem his own forces couldn't cover. Someone with supernatural abilities, with yellow power and physical capacity beyond the ordinary, could change that.
Infrastructure. Zekra's technological systems were basic compared to what they needed to be truly independent in the long term. Someone with technological intelligence could build what was missing.
Social development. Zekra's people needed more than security and technology. They needed education, resources, opportunities. Someone with a philanthropic vision could organize that from within.
Marek listened to every word.
When Zarpon finished, the valley was silent.
"Sira and Arlo," Marek said finally.
"Yes."
"Have you seen them yet?"
"You're the first."
Marek looked at the sky for a moment.
He thought of Joe. Of the farm. Of the mornings harvesting as the sun rose slowly over the crops.
He thought of Garpon falling.
He thought of Zarpon kneeling in the cave, bleeding, not giving up.
"Let's go see them," he said.
---
Sira
The pink mansion of Cromatica was exactly as Marek remembered it.
Large. Orderly. With gardens that seemed designed to impress rather than to be enjoyed. A house that spoke of expectations before anyone opened the door.
Sira waited for them at the entrance.
Thirteen years old. Dark hair tied back. Clean, well-chosen clothes, as always. Her intelligent eyes moved from Marek to Zarpon with the same speed with which she processed everything.
"Zarpon." It wasn't a question. It was recognition.
"Sira." The zekran inclined his head slightly.
She led them inside.
Zarpon explained. Sira listened with her arms crossed, without interrupting, without moving. When he finished, she was silent for a few seconds.
"Philanthropy," she repeated. "Education. Social development."
"Yes."
Sira looked at Marek.
Marek knew her well enough to read what lay behind that gaze. It wasn't doubt about whether she could do it. It was something more complicated.
"How long?" she asked.
"As long as it takes," Zarpon replied honestly.
Sira nodded slowly.
"All right."
---
Arlo
Arlo's lab smelled the same as always.
Of metal. Of burnt wires. Of something indefinable that probably had a scientific name but that Marek had never learned.
Arlo was facing away when they entered, leaning over a table full of components that looked like pieces of five different things assembled into one. His curly brown hair, electrified as always, moved when he turned.
"Zarpon." His eyes widened with genuine surprise. "I wasn't expecting..."
"No one expects visits from space," Marek said.
"Shut up, you flat-faced mesa."
"I missed this."
Arlo looked at them both with an expression that tried to be neutral and failed completely.
Zarpon explained for the third time.
Arlo listened with an expression different from Sira's. Where she processed calmly, he processed through movement. He paced back and forth while Zarpon spoke. He stopped. Started walking again.
When Zarpon finished, Arlo stood still in front of his workbench.
He looked at the components.
Then at Zarpon.
"Technological infrastructure for an entire planet?"
"To start with, yes."
Arlo let out a short laugh.
"Sure. No pressure."
Then he extended his hand.
"When do we leave?"
---
The Farewells
They weren't easy.
Joe listened to Marek in silence at the kitchen table of the farm.
The same place where they'd always had the important conversations. With the smell of old wood and damp earth coming through the open window.
When Marek finished, the old man looked at the table for a moment.
"Is it dangerous?" he asked.
Marek didn't lie.
"It could be."
Joe nodded slowly. His wrinkled hands rested on the wood. Hands that had built a farm alone. That had held a baby fallen from the sky without asking questions.
"Your grandfather always knew," Joe said quietly, "that the day you promised to protect this farm... you weren't promising to stay on it."
Marek felt something tighten in his chest.
"Grandpa..."
"Go," Joe said simply. "And come back."
They hugged.
Long.Without hurry.
Sira's parents were harder.
Her mother cried. Her father spoke for twenty minutes about responsibility, danger, and hasty decisions. Sira listened to them both with genuine patience, without defending herself, without rushing.
When her father finished, she spoke calmly.
"You taught me to be the daughter any father would want." She paused. "This is what that daughter chose to do."
Silence.
Her mother hugged her first.
Her father took longer.
But he also hugged her.
Arlo's father was different from what Marek had imagined.
Quiet. Practical. With the same attentive eyes as his son but without the electrified curls.
He listened to Arlo's plan in silence. When he finished, he went to the tool room and returned with a small box of components Marek couldn't identify.
He handed it to Arlo without a word.
Arlo looked at it.
"Dad..."
"For whatever you need to build," his father said simply.
Arlo nodded.
And that was all they needed to say to each other.
---
The Departure
Zarpon's ship was different from the one they had built three years earlier.
It wasn't Arlo's small, square, white construction. It was a zekran ship. Black with gold details. Compact but clearly designed for long journeys. It carried a quiet authority that the previous ship didn't have.
Taka, Arlo's cat, watched from the lab window.
Arlo raised his hand.
The cat repeated the gesture with its paw.
The same greeting as always.
Arlo smiled faintly and boarded the ship.
Marek was the last to climb aboard.
He stopped at the hatch and looked back once.
Earth. The blue sky. The horizon he had known his whole life.
Somewhere beyond those hills was the farm. Joe was there. The tree he had accidentally split at seven years old was there. The river where he fished with yellow energy when no one was watching was there. The green valley where he had spent three years learning to control something he never asked to have.
He took a deep breath.
And climbed aboard.
The hatch closed.
The ship vibrated.
Zarpon took the controls with the naturalness of someone who had made that movement a thousand times.
"Ready?" he asked.
Sira crossed her arms with a calm smile.
"This isn't a daycare, Zarpon."
"If you say so, Sira."
Arlo raised an eyebrow.
"Who?"
Sira and Marek looked at each other.
"No one," they said at the same time.
The ship took off.
Pierced the clouds.
The sky turned dark.
The stars appeared.
And Zekra waited for them.
---
Meanwhile, in a trinita fortress floating on pure energy, a king observed galactic maps with ice-sharp light blue eyes.
Six years of patience.Six years of calculation.Six years of waiting.
---
END OF PROLOGUE