The response came faster than Aldric expected.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Elegant.
That was what made it dangerous.
By the second morning in Xylanthia, three things happened simultaneously—too clean to be coincidence.
First: a sealed injunction was filed in a lower continental court, challenging the legitimacy of Aldric's jurisdictional motion on the grounds of "foreign legal manipulation." The language was academic, respectful, almost flattering.
Second: a media brief leaked—anonymous, impeccably sourced—questioning whether Fox's son was being "shielded by influence rather than law." No accusations. Just questions.
Third: a witness Aldric intended to approach quietly recanted before he was ever contacted.
Aldric stared at the updates scrolling across the holo-table.
"…That's not panic," he said softly.
Fox stood beside him, expression dark. "That's confidence."
Aldric nodded.
"They're not trying to stop me," he said. "They're trying to frame the narrative around me."
The injunction was the real blade.
On the surface, it was procedural—a challenge to standing, nothing more. But Aldric saw it instantly.
"If I contest this," he explained, "I legitimize their claim that I'm overreaching. If I ignore it, they argue silence equals admission."
Fox's jaw tightened. "So what's the play?"
Aldric didn't answer immediately. He pulled up the filing's metadata, tracing authorship through layers of legal proxies.
Then he smiled—slow, humorless.
"They want me to win."
Fox blinked. "What?"
"This injunction is crafted to collapse after scrutiny," Aldric continued. "Which means if I dismantle it publicly, I look like the powerful foreign lawyer crushing local safeguards."
He exhaled.
"They're baiting me into becoming the villain."
That was when Fox's son entered the room.
Young. Controlled. Eyes sharper than someone who had grown up protected.
"I read the brief," the boy said quietly. "They're implying I'm guilty without saying it."
Aldric turned to him. "They're implying something worse."
"What?"
"That your freedom would delegitimize the system," Aldric replied. "They're positioning you as a necessary sacrifice."
Silence settled.
Fox spoke carefully. "If you step back…?"
"They win cleanly," Aldric said. "And they'll do it again. To someone else. Someone without your resources."
The boy looked at Aldric. "And if you push forward?"
Aldric met his gaze.
"Then I burn political capital. I become controversial. I risk undermining the very law I'm using."
The room went still.
This wasn't a puzzle anymore.
It was a choice.
Fox's voice was low. "I won't ask you to ruin yourself for my son."
Aldric shook his head.
"That's the point," he said. "They expect self-interest. That's how they control outcomes."
He looked back at the injunction.
"So I'll deny them that assumption."
Aldric filed a response.
Not aggressive.
Not defensive.
He withdrew his motion.
Publicly.
The legal world blinked.
Then—quietly, through a separate channel—he submitted a procedural advisory to three oversight bodies on two continents, flagging a pattern of arbitration manipulation without naming the case or the defendant.
No accusations.
No faces.
Just math.
Timelines.
Probabilities.
Anomalies.
By nightfall, the media narrative fractured.
Was Aldric retreating?
Or exposing something larger?
The mastermind's people scrambled—too subtly for the public to notice, but not subtly enough for Aldric.
"They didn't expect restraint," Aldric said to Fox that night. "They built their move on my ego."
Fox let out a slow breath. "So now?"
"Now they escalate," Aldric replied. "Because I just proved I won't play the role they wrote."
The escalation came in human form.
A junior legal analyst—one Aldric had never met—was arrested on charges tied to document falsification connected to the advisory.
A scapegoat.
A clean one.
Fox slammed his hand on the table. "They're destroying lives to slow you down."
Aldric's jaw tightened.
"That's the test," he said quietly. "If I push harder, more people get crushed. If I stop, the system stays intact."
Fox watched him carefully. "And what does that make this?"
Aldric closed his eyes for a moment.
"…Potential warfare."
Elsewhere -
High above a different city—steel and light stretching endlessly below—a man sat alone.
The room was dark except for the glow of the skyline and the desk lamp illuminating a single photograph.
Aldric Benedict.
The man picked it up, studying it with open curiosity, not anger.
"So," he said to the empty room, amused, "you're the first to see through the façade."
He leaned back, fingers steepled.
"Smarter than some of my operatives," he continued calmly. "Quieter too. That's rare."
The man smiled faintly.
"But I've already shaped the masses. Set the narratives. Tilted the scales just enough."
He placed the photo back down.
"It'll be hard for you to convince them now… though I suspect you could pull it off."
A soft chuckle escaped him.
"Still," he said, eyes gleaming, "you've got a long way to go before you even reach me."
The city lights shimmered below as the man laughed—low, pleased, and utterly unafraid.