Year: Neo-8790.
Sector-Delta—Outskirts of Lurexia's undercity.
The sky above was dark green and choked with hexagonal smog panels, humming faintly from overuse. Liu Kang stood at the edge of a cracked monorail bridge, staring down at the endless maze of steel, garbage, and neon reflections below. No one noticed a kid like him. Seventeen years old. Black hoodie. Dust-covered boots. Just another waste of carbon in a city that ran on the bloods of poverish ones.
He held the stolen signal chip like it was a heartbeat.
Inside it—if the rumors were true—was a fragment of something older than the galactic government itself.
"Don't screw this up," he whispered to himself, tucking it deep into the stitched pocket under his sleeve. His hands were shaking. Not from fear. From anticipation. From the knowledge that this might be the start of something real. Something true.
No one talked about the Great Galactic War anymore. The Republic made sure of that.
Too dangerous. Too messy.
Too many missing names in the final logs—especially one name that kept vanishing from archives : Rakasesha Sullivan
Liu had searched through back-channels, dead-servers, even ancient orbit dust to find any trace. Nothing. Like he never existed.
But Liu knew better.
He made his way through alleyways flooded with people, past bio-junk vendors and void prophets whispering about "the Return." Above, the Lurexian banners flickered between peace propaganda and warnings about rogue machines. He ducked under a patrolling drone's scanlight and slipped into the back entrance of an abandoned station.
Inside was silence.
The space was packed with old tech—wires like veins, consoles humming low with useless data. This was where he planned to plug the chip in. But someone was already there.
A figure knelt at the main server core, fingers deep in exposed circuitry, neural wire jacked straight into the skull.
Liu froze.
She looked about his age, maybe a little older.
Bright green hair.
Face half-lit by the glow of a rotating holomap.
"You're not from the Creed," she said without turning. "And you're definitely not a Lurexian police. So why are you creeping like a thief?"
Liu raised his hands slowly. "I just want to plug something in. I think we're after the same thing."
She turned finally—eyes sharp, but not hostile. A tech-implant sparkled in her right iris.
"You're early," she muttered. "I'm Nexen. You're lucky I'm not armed."
"I'm Liu," he replied. "And I'm always lucky."
Nexen smirked. "We'll see about that."
The chip slid into the console. For a second, nothing happened. Then the screen lit up with a symbol Liu had only seen once, burned into the ruins of a forgotten spaceport:
A sun, split down the middle with a single black tear.
> Access Code: R.SULLIVAN
They both stared at it.
A shadow passed overhead—then a deep boom from outside.
Drones.
Not Lurexian.
Sun-Kissed Forces.
Liu turned to Nexen. "We need to run. Now."
She grabbed a drive from the console and followed him out the back.
Behind them, the terminal kept flashing.
A voice crackled through the broken speaker:
> "He has awakened."