First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 486: The (Thee)ology of Rules

Xavier stood after a while after Arlen turned away from him, staring at the back of her head like the answer to whatever he’d missed might suddenly appear there. Nothing did. The silence stretched, and eventually he exhaled, rolled his shoulders once, and forced the tightness out of his chest.

He didn’t try to wake her.

He didn’t walk over and apologize.

He didn’t crawl into bed and pretend everything was fine.

Instead, he turned and walked toward the balcony.

The sliding door opened with a soft mechanical hiss as he stepped outside, the night air hitting him immediately, cooler than the room, the city stretching endlessly below. Helior Prime still glowed despite the lockdown, traffic rerouted, lights moving in distant lines while drones drifted across the sky in silent patrol patterns.

Behind him, Arlen’s eyes snapped open.

She pushed herself up on one elbow, irritation flaring all over again. Of course he wasn’t coming to bed. Of course he wasn’t going to say sorry. She watched his silhouette through the glass, leaning against the balcony rail like nothing had happened.

"Unbelievable," she muttered.

She swung her legs off the bed, ready to go out there and drag him back inside, tell him to sleep, tell him he’d done enough damage for one night. He had to be exhausted after everything.

Then she heard him speak.

His tone changed, lighter, almost casual.

"Alright," he said. "Looks like we’re live."

Arlen froze.

’Live?’

A second later, her phone buzzed on the nightstand.

She glanced at it, annoyed, then picked it up—and her stomach dropped when she saw the notification.

Xavier — LIVE NOW

For a moment, her brain refused to process what that meant.

Then instinct took over. She opened the stream.

The feed showed Xavier on the balcony, city lights behind him, camera angled perfectly like he’d done this a thousand times before. Comments exploded across the screen as viewers flooded in, usernames scrolling too fast to read.

Arlen stared at the phone in disbelief.

She was in the same room as him.

And she was watching him through a livestream like everyone else.

The realization hit harder than she expected. All the excitement she usually felt when his streams popped up twisted into something uncomfortable. She’d spent months watching him through screens before ever meeting him, laughing at the same jokes, following the same adventures as millions of others.

And now she was back in that place again.

Just another viewer.

Just another fan.

Outside, Xavier smiled faintly at the camera.

"Hey," he said. "Sorry I’ve been gone so long."

The chat exploded.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN??

BRO WE THOUGHT YOU DIED

NO UPDATES FOR WEEKS MAN

ARE YOU ALSO ON JUPITER??

WHAT HAPPENED TO REVA AND LYRA??

IS LILIA STILL SAFE ON EARTH??

Arlen scrolled through the messages, her chest tightening as more names and questions filled the screen. Some people were worried, some joked. Some begged him not to disappear again.

And he answered them easily, naturally, slipping back into the persona that millions recognized.

"I know," Xavier said. "I disappeared. My bad."

More messages poured in.

YOU OWE US AN EXPLANATION

WHAT’S GOING ON?

YOU LOOK BEAT UP BRO

Xavier exhaled once and leaned slightly toward the camera.

"Yeah," he said. "And that’s actually why I’m here."

The chat slowed just enough for anticipation to build.

"I need to tell you guys something."

Inside the room, Arlen sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone in her hand, watching the man on the balcony speak to millions of people with ease while she sat only meters away feeling further from him than she had all night.

Xavier leaned a little closer to the camera, resting his forearms on the balcony rail as the comment feed kept rolling faster than it could be read.

"Alright," he said, tone easy, familiar. "Do you guys remember what I said in my last stream? About having a surprise planned."

The response was instant.

The screen flooded with confirmations, emojis stacking on top of each other, inside jokes from old streams, people spamming the same words like they’d rehearsed it.

YES

THE SURPRISE

YOU PROMISED

WE’VE BEEN WAITING

Xavier nodded once, like he’d expected nothing less.

"That was the plan," he said. "I wanted to show you Jupiter. I wanted to take you with me, show you what’s out here, show you what I was going to do next."

The chat slowed, attention tightening.

"And then everything went sideways."

Inside the room, Arlen shifted on the bed, phone still in her hand, eyes fixed on the screen. She watched his face change just enough to sell the story.

"When we hit Jupiter’s orbit," Xavier continued, "our ship got attacked. Not warning shots. Not a misunderstanding. We went down hard."

The comments exploded again.

WHAT?! 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

ATTACKED BY WHO?

ARE YOU OK

WHERE IS REVA?

Xavier raised a hand slightly, calming them the way he always did. "I’m fine. Mostly. But we got separated in the crash. Reva and Lyra went one way. I went another."

Arlen’s jaw tightened.

"And yeah," Xavier said, letting out a short breath, "I got arrested."

The reaction was instant outrage.

ARE YOU SERIOUS

FOR WHAT

JUPITER IS CRAZY

FREE XAVIER

Xavier shook his head gently. "No. Listen. They did their job."

The chat slowed, confused.

"I didn’t have proper ID on me. No permits. No registration. On a planet like this, that matters. They didn’t know who I was. They treated me like anyone else."

Hashtags started appearing anyway, people already spinning up campaigns.

Xavier noticed and cut in immediately. "Don’t do that. Seriously. Don’t."

Arlen scoffed quietly under her breath.

"They weren’t wrong," Xavier said. "Laws exist for a reason. Rules exist so things don’t fall apart when stuff goes bad. You don’t get to ignore them just because you’re scared or angry."

He went on, voice calm, patient, explaining how systems worked, how cities survived because people followed procedures even when it was inconvenient. He talked about responsibility, about not escalating situations, about trusting institutions to do their job instead of tearing them down.

"Breaking rules just because you feel justified doesn’t make you right," he said. "It just makes everything worse."

The chat flipped tone almost immediately.

THIS IS WHY WE LOVE YOU

ACTUAL ROLE MODEL

BRO FOR PRESIDENT

TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD

Arlen shook her head slowly, a humorless smile tugging at her mouth as she watched.

She knew exactly how much of this was performance.

She knew the man who ignored laws when they got in his way, who bent systems until they snapped, who walked into fortified buildings because he decided it was time. She’d seen him tear power structures apart with his hands and call it necessary.

And now she was watching him talk about order and patience like he believed every word.

Outside, Xavier smiled at the camera, nodded along with the praise, thanked people for worrying, for sticking with him, for being patient while things were messy.

Inside, Arlen lowered the phone slightly and stared past the screen at the balcony door, at his silhouette beyond the glass.

The disconnect sat heavy in her chest.

To them, he was kind, careful, and principled.

To her, he was none of those things when it mattered most.

And for the first time since she’d met him, she wasn’t sure which version hurt more.