Odyssey Nexus

Jalen woke up feeling like he'd been hit by a train made of pure exhaustion. His limbs ached, his head was foggy, and time itself still felt a little… off. Like his body hadn't fully adjusted to reality yet.

"Took you long enough."

He cracked an eye open to see Nathan, already awake, leaning against the window with his arms crossed. He looked perfectly fine—well, mostly fine. The only sign that he'd been in a fight was the faint bruise along his jaw and the way he flexed his fingers absently, like shaking off the last remnants of fatigue.

Lucio, on the other hand, looked like he hadn't slept at all. He was sitting in the corner, arms crossed, staring daggers at both of them.

"You ever gonna wake up like a normal person?" Nathan asked.

"You ever gonna stop being annoying?" Jalen shot back, pushing himself up—and immediately regretting it. His body protested every movement, his muscles screaming in delayed agony.

Lucio scoffed. "Maybe if you didn't almost break time itself, you wouldn't feel like crap."

Jalen blinked at him, then groaned. "Oh great, you're mad at me too?"

Lucio leaned forward, eyes sharp. "Mad? No. Confused? Absolutely. And since neither of you bothered explaining what the hell happened, now's a good time."

Nathan smirked, stretching his arms. "Told you he'd have questions."

Jalen sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Alright, alright. You deserve some answers." He glanced at Nathan. "But first, I've got a question of my own."

Nathan raised a brow.

"How the hell did you end up here? In Veyport. And how'd you figure out you had… y'know, time powers?"

Nathan pulled up a chair, leaning back like he was about to tell a casual story—except there was something in his posture that wasn't as relaxed as he wanted it to seem.

"I don't remember everything from before," Nathan admitted. "Just flashes—dying, mostly. Then waking up here. New body, new world. And the weird part? Time felt wrong. Like everything around me was moving slower than it should."

Lucio's brows furrowed. "You're saying… you woke up and just instinctively felt time moving differently?"

Nathan nodded. "Yeah. At first, I thought I was just messed up in the head. But then, one day, I got into a fight. Some street thug tried to mug me—pulled a knife. I panicked… and the next thing I knew, time stopped."

Jalen frowned. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Nathan confirmed. "One second, the guy was about to stab me. The next? Everything was frozen. Except me."

Lucio leaned back, arms still crossed. His face was unreadable, but his fingers tapped against his sleeve—a clear sign he was deep in thought.

Jalen whistled low. "Damn. And after that, you just… figured it out?"

"More or less. Stopping time was the easy part. Moving through it? Controlling it? That took longer."

Lucio tilted his head. "So you've been testing your limits this whole time?"

Nathan smirked. "What else was I supposed to do? I wasn't about to sit around and ignore it."

Jalen rolled his eyes. "Classic Nathan."

But Lucio didn't look amused. He exhaled through his nose, rubbing his temples. "You guys are insane. Both of you. Just casually talking about stopping time like it's a normal thing."

Nathan shrugged. "You get used to it."

Lucio shot him a flat look. "No, you don't."

Jalen snickered. "C'mon, Lucio. You saw the fight firsthand. Gotta admit it was pretty cool."

Lucio threw his hands up. "Cool? I watched both of you disappear from reality and then come back looking like you rewrote existence! How the hell am I supposed to process that?"

Nathan grinned. "By accepting that we're awesome."

Lucio groaned. "I need a drink."

Jalen laughed despite the ache in his body. Lucio always had this way of grounding them—even when they were talking about literal time manipulation.

After a moment, Lucio sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Alright. So you weren't born with those powers. You woke up here and had to figure them out. Fine. But that still doesn't explain why you were in Veyport to begin with."

Nathan's smirk faded slightly. He leaned back, looking out the window.

"Didn't have anywhere else to go. Veyport's big, crowded. Easy to get lost in. Figured it was as good a place as any to start over."

Lucio watched him carefully, then hummed. "And now?"

Nathan glanced at Jalen before answering. "Now? I guess I'm sticking around a little longer."

Jalen smirked. "Damn right, you are."

Lucio leaned up from his seat "Alright now my ques-"

"WAIT! I wasn't done yet haha. How did you become Hector?"

Nathan exhaled. "After I figured out my powers, I needed a way to survive. No ID, no money, no clue where the hell I was. So, I did what anyone in my position would do."

Jalen arched a brow. "Scammed someone?"

Nathan smirked. "Close. I stole."

Lucio scoffed, shaking his head. "Of course you did."

"Oh, don't give me that look," Nathan shot back. "You try waking up in a new world with nothing and see how long you last without bending the rules."

Lucio opened his mouth, but Jalen cut in. "So what, you just pickpocketed your way through Veyport?"

Nathan chuckled. "For a while, yeah. Time powers make you an insane thief. Stopping time, rewinding guards, making people forget they even saw me—it was too easy. And the best part?"

He leaned back, a lazy grin spreading across his face. "No one ever knew I was there."

Lucio frowned. "So you just stole what you needed and kept moving?"

Nathan's grin faded slightly. "At first."

Jalen caught the shift in his tone. "And then?"

Nathan tapped his fingers against his knee, eyes darkening. "Then I got ambitious."

Lucio muttered under his breath, "Oh, great. Here we go."

Nathan ignored him. "I started targeting bigger things—vaults, ledgers, information. Not just money, but power. Veyport runs on secrets. And with my abilities? I could collect more than anyone else."

Jalen's brows furrowed. "Wait—so that's how you ended up in the crime world?"

Nathan smirked. "It's how I ended up running it."

Lucio looked genuinely baffled. "You're telling me, in the time it took us to find you, you went from street thief to crime lord?"

"Not a crime lord," Nathan corrected. "A ghost. The name 'Hector' started as a rumor. A figure in the shadows, pulling strings, making people disappear. And I let it spread."

Jalen leaned back, absorbing that. "So you built yourself an empire."

"More like I pulled the strings of the idiots running the empire." Nathan's expression was unreadable. "Crime in Veyport is messy—too many gangs, too many wannabe kingpins. So I… helped things along."

Lucio's jaw tightened. "You're telling me you used your powers to make criminals fight each other?"

Nathan shrugged. "Better them than me."

Jalen let out a low whistle. "Damn. You really went full villain."

Nathan's smirk faltered for half a second. He didn't answer.

Lucio, though, wasn't letting it slide. "You killed people."

Nathan met his gaze, expression calm, but something unreadable flickered behind his eyes. "No. I just made sure the right people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. What happened after that? Not my problem."

Lucio exhaled sharply. "That's some real convenient logic."

Nathan chuckled, leaning back. "Look, I'm not here to defend it. I did what I had to do."

Jalen studied him for a long moment. Nathan had always been chill and laid back but hearing this from him seemed almost too calculated.

"So what now guys? Have I answered all the questions?"

Lucio leaned up from his seat. "Alright, now my ques—wait." He pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning. "Before we get any deeper into this, can we acknowledge the fact that we are broke?"

Jalen raised a brow. "I mean, yeah, we aren't swimming in gold, but—"

"No. We are beyond broke. We are scraping the bottom of the barrel. We barely have enough for food, and thanks to your little time duel, most of the merchants packed up for the next month!" Lucio snapped. "So unless one of you can pull gold out of thin air, we have a serious problem."

Nathan scratched his head. "Okay, yeah, fair point. But what are you suggesting?"

Jalen stretched, a slow smirk creeping onto his face. "Well… we could turn you in."

Nathan blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Think about it," Jalen continued, hopping up and grabbing onto the ceiling beam, looking down at them with a mischievous grin. "We turn you in, claim the bounty, you use your time stop to escape, and boom—money in our pockets, no jail for you. Easy."

Nathan side-eyed Lucio. "You're seriously considering this?"

Lucio crossed his arms. "I don't like it. But Jalen isn't wrong. We need the money, and we don't have a lot of options. Also taking in the fact that we were gonna do that anyways before we knew that you were Hector... its a pretty good plan even for Jalen."

Nathan groaned. "Why not just keep stealing?"

Lucio deadpanned. "Because, genius, the merchants are gone. And I don't steal. So this is the plan."

Nathan sighed, rubbing his face. "Fine. But if this goes sideways, I'm stopping time and punching you both."

Jalen clapped his hands. "Perfect! Now, while we're rolling in stolen bounty cash, we can also handle that other thing."

Lucio frowned. "What other thing?"

Jalen's smirk widened. "The Spider Boss job."

Nathan perked up. "Wait, the big one? The job everyone's too scared to take?"

Jalen nodded. "Yup. Two plans, two chances to get rich. We cash in on Nathan's bounty and take down a big-shot target. Sounds like a good time."

Lucio groaned again. "Why do I let you talk me into these things?"

Jalen grinned. "Because deep down, you love the chaos."

Lucio muttered something under his breath, but before he could argue, Jalen jumped down and turned to Rhea and Stix, pulling them both into a bear hug. "I'm proud of you guys!"

Nathan smirked, shaking his head. "So, we take today to rest, then tomorrow—"

Jalen threw a fist in the air. "Tomorrow, we get rich or die trying!"

Laughter filled the room, the weight of everything momentarily forgotten. For now, they had a plan. Tomorrow? That was a problem for future them.