There were no wild celebrations inside the Rodova locker room after their Round of 16 win.
Everyone sat quietly, catching their breath as Yu Shen, Su Yang, and Minerva downed stamina recovery potions in silence—
Until Yu Shen finally broke the quiet.
"Tomorrow's a rest day. The quarterfinals won't begin until the day after, but we still have obligations—fan meet and greets, press events, the whole circus.
So listen up—rest your bodies. Don't go wandering off. Don't do anything that'll get us sanctioned or draw the wrong kind of attention."
He paused, letting that sink in before continuing.
"Our next opponents are the Nature Academy. They've got two Grandmasters in their lineup now, which means this won't be an easy fight.
If we get past them… chances are we'll face Clarence Academy the very next day. And they've got three Grandmasters this year, and frankly, they're looking better than they've ever looked before.
And if—somehow—we make it to the finals… then we're going up against Geneva.
A full Grandmaster roster. No weak links. No freebies.
So I don't think I need to spell out just how hard that fight is going to be."
He stood up, voice steady.
"Which means tomorrow may be the last true break you get in this tournament.
So I advise you to use it wisely."
Yu Shen said, as he gazed towards only Leo, Su Yang and Minerva, like the other members of the team, did not even matter to him.
"Yes, Captain–" Minerva replied, while Leo and Su Yang nodded, as Yu Shen sat back down looking satisfied.
However, while Leo sat care-free within the Rodova changing room, back at the Horizon Dominion head office on planet StarGate, things got real messy, real fast.
—------
(Planet StarGate, Horizon Dominion head office)
"Ma'am… there's an urgent report regarding one of our rising talents—Leo Skyshard," the assistant said, his voice low and tense as he handed over a glowing data slate.
They stood inside Horizon Dominion's head office on planet StarGate, surrounded by towering windows that overlooked the spire-heavy skyline.
The atmosphere inside the office was all marble, silence, and money as Ladina Horizon, CEO and part-owner of the Horizon Dominion Group, raised a perfectly shaped brow as she set her protein smoothie down and took a look at the slate.
She skimmed the headline—and stilled.
Subject: Leo Skyshard – Flagged as a Wanted Criminal (Planet Terra Nova)
"Tch…" she exhaled, scrolling with a practiced flick. "What now?"
The report was ludicrous.
According to Planet Terra Nova's local government, Leo Skyshard was being charged with:
1)Unauthorized leaking of classified information
2)Resisting arrest
3)Double homicide of local enforcement agents
They were suing him for a grand sum of 250 million MP in the Universal Court.
And most hilariously their report mentioned how Leo had damaged government earning potential by influencing migrant workers to make 'smarter life choices'
Amongst the poor, he was apparently hailed as a hero.
However, amongst Planet Terra Nova's corrupt elite? A nuisance who disrupted a predatory exploitation scheme.
"It's clearly a smear job," the assistant offered nervously. "A local power move. Low-level nonsense—but the real problem is that it somehow made it into the Universal Government's official registry."
Ladina leaned back in her chair, lips pursed, eyes cool.
"How did you find this so suddenly?" She asked, as the assistant presented the anonymous email they received recently.
"We got an anonymous email today, which we have traced back to the lead investigating officer on Leo's case, who is blackmailing us for money to keep this hush, hush or threatening to release it to the press--" The assistant said, as Ladina frowned.
"If he gives it to the universal media, they could try to spin this into a PR nightmare and accuse Horizon Dominion of hiring a known criminal. Try to drag our name through the mud during peak Circuits coverage.
How the fuck did this event bypass our background check system? Did no-one check out the kid before offering him a contract?" Ladina asked, turning towards her assistant, who quickly showed her another data slate.
"The background data given to us by the Rodova Military Academy came as clean. And since Rodova is such a reputed source we trusted them to know this—" The assistant replied, as Ladina let out a long sigh.
"ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK–" She said, pressing a finger to her forehead, as she contemplated on what to do next.
"How important is Leo Skyshard again? Is it fine if we throw him to the wolves?" She asked coldly, as the assistant quickly tapped his slate, pulling up Leo's metrics.
"Extremely high ceiling, ma'am. He's projected to become one of the most marketable names in the Circuits if he survives till finals. Viewer traction is already spiking."
Ladina smiled faintly, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Then we protect the investment."
She tapped her nails against the desk once—twice—then issued her decision.
"Bribe the local official on Terra Nova handling the investigation. Have them alter Leo's facial profile in the records—just enough that, despite the name match, facial recognition won't flag him."
She stood and walked toward the massive glass wall, arms crossed behind her back.
"Meanwhile, grease someone inside the Universal Government's database division and have the entry wiped from the registry altogether. Use up to a million MP total. I want it done in four hours or less."
The assistant bowed. "Yes, ma'am. Understood."
"And if this ever comes back to bite us, we'll claim we ran a full background check, and nothing showed up. Clean hands, clean conscience."
With that, she turned away from the skyline, already moving on to the next crisis.
"Leo Skyshard is valuable. So until he's not… we protect him like he's royalty."
The assistant nodded and left—leaving the queen to her empire.
This was by no means an ideal situation for the Horizon Dominion Group to be in, however, this was exactly how the business world worked.
The most profitable investments always came with some caveat or the other, and you often had to handle things behind the scenes to keep the ugly truth buried.
This would not only prove as a good business decision for the Horizon Dominion Group if everything worked out as planned, but could also be used as leverage to renegotiate Leo Skyshards contract in the future, by letting him know that he owed them one.
—-------
After receiving his instructions, Ladina's assistant did not wait a single second before mobilizing the Horizon Group's 'Fixers' to take care of Ladina's instructions.
The Horizon Dominion Group was a wealthy and powerful conglomerate with deep ties within the Universal Government.
For them to go up against a small fry like some local government on an obscure planet was nothing much, as they expected to have this whole incident settled within mere hours.
The Horizon Group's fixers were specialists—ghosts in the system—trained to scrub, rewrite, and reshape official data across thousands of worlds without leaving a trace.
As by the time an hour passed, the Terra Nova official overseeing Leo's case had already "re-evaluated" his report, uploading a new facial profile that bore only a vague resemblance to the real Leo Skyshard.
Meanwhile a second fixer forwarded a silent bribe to a data registry clerk within the Universal Government, who, in exchange for a generous payout, purged Leo's criminal record from every tier of the interstellar database.
Within three hours, it was done.
No loose ends. No evidence.
To the public, Leo Skyshard remained clean. Untouched. A prodigy untainted by scandal.
And as Ladina reviewed the final confirmation on her tablet, she gave a slight nod and calmly returned to her protein drink, thinking that the crisis was already behind her.