The transition back into the Void-Pocket was a relief. The chaotic, red-tinted violence of Xylos was replaced by the shimmering, iridescent auroras and the steady, ancient hum of the Crystal Tree.
Inside the massive hangar of the Celestial Vanguard, the five hundred rescued rebels stepped out of the battered prison block. They were a motley crew: cyborg engineers, scar-faced soldiers, and wide-eyed scientists. They looked at the white stone islands and the two massive Dragon-Ships in awe.
"Alright, listen up, you gear-heads and ground-pounders!" Doc Gear-Grinder stood on a crate, waving a wrench like a conductor's baton. "You aren't in a cage anymore. You're in the Sanctuary. But this isn't a vacation. The Vorthax are going to be looking for us, and right now, we're a lighthouse in a storm."
Kael stood at the back of the hangar, watching them. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Valerius.
"They need to know who they're dying for, Kael," the General said quietly. "A ship can carry them, but a leader moves them."
Kael swallowed hard. He was still a scavenger from Sector 4 in his own head. But when he looked at his hands, the violet glow of Tier 3.2 was steady. He stepped forward.
"I'm Kael Ardent," he said, his voice amplified by the hangar's acoustics. The room went silent. "Most of you were told the Starborn were myths. Or that we were dead. I thought so too. I spent my life digging through trash just to survive another day."
He looked at a young rebel girl in the front row. "But the Vorthax aren't myths. They're a virus. And we are the cure. We have the ships, and now, we have the people. Doc is going to turn this Void-Pocket into a fortress. Valerius is going to turn you into an army. And I... I'm going to find the rest of the Seven Sisters."
A cheer erupted—not a roar of joy, but a grim, determined shout of defiance.
While Valerius began drilling the recruits, Kael followed Doc Gear-Grinder to a sub-level of the Crystal Tree. The Doc had already set up a chaotic workshop filled with sparking wires and holographic blueprints.
"Kid, Tier 3.2 is impressive, but your body is the bottleneck," Doc said, not looking up from a circular device he was soldering. "You're trying to channel a sun through a copper wire. You're going to blow a fuse."
"What do you suggest?" Kael asked.
"This." Doc held up the device. It was a Resonance Gauntlet.
"I've built this using the tech from the prison's Null-Field and the scrap you brought from the junkyard. It's a Starborn Capacitor. It stores the excess energy you bleed off during a fight and lets you release it in controlled bursts. No more nosebleeds."
Kael slipped the gauntlet onto his right arm. It hummed, the blue lines on the metal syncing with the violet veins in his skin.
"Now," Doc grinned, "let's talk about the big project. I've been looking at the map you got from the Archive. To find the third ship, the Emerald Talon, we need to go to the Verdant Mists. But there's a catch. The Talon isn't in space. She's buried under a sentient jungle that eats metal."
"A ship that eats metal?" Kael looked at the gauntlet. "Good thing I've got a scavenger's touch."
[NEW EQUIPMENT OBTAINED: RESONANCE GAUNTLET] [ABILITY UNLOCKED: ENERGY CAPACITOR - RETAIN 20% POWER AFTER BIG BLASTS]