By the ti Xavier reached the club, he didn't look like the man who had walked Helior Pri earlier.
The casual clothes were gone, replaced with a tailored suit that sat close to his fra without restricting movent. The jacket carried an inner coat beneath it, structured, weighted, short enough not to interfere if things turned physical. A dark shirt underneath, open at the collar, clean lines all the way down. No excess. No ornant. The mask stayed on, the ruined face intact, seams invisible, damage convincing enough to make people hesitate before looking too long.
The Aurex Club stood tall and polished, glass and alloy layered in perfect symtry. Light spilled outward in controlled bands, music bleeding through the structure just enough to promise exclusivity without chaos. This wasn't a place that welcod noise from the street. It absorbed it.
Two guards blocked the entrance.
They were older than most, posture relaxed, hands loose at their sides, eyes sharp in the way that ca from decades of work where mistakes didn't get corrected twice. One of them stepped forward as Xavier approached, palm lifting slightly.
"Verifi—"
Xavier didn't slow, or gave any reaction. He t the guard's eyes and kept walking.
There was no rush in his movent, no change in his stance, just that damaged face and the quiet certainty behind it. The guard hesitated, a fraction too long, and Xavier was already past him, shoulder brushing his arm hard enough to throw off his balance. The second guard reached out, stopped, then pulled his hand back as if touching Xavier would end badly for reasons he couldn't explain.
Neither of them followed.
Inside, the club opened into layered space and controlled excess. Multiple levels stacked with intention, sightlines broken by reflective surfaces and angled panels. Music tuned to blur sharp sounds without drowning conversation. Staff moved smoothly through the crowd, efficient enough to be invisible. Guards were present but disguised, embedded among patrons instead of standing watch like decorations.
Xavier moved through it without urgency, letting the space reveal itself.
He watched reflections instead of faces, clocked exits by the way people drifted around them, noted where sound died too cleanly and where it carried farther than it should. Servers who never spilled, patrons who never drank, corners that stayed clear without signage. He counted bodies, mapped coverage, and marked which angles were watched and which were ignored because everyone assud no one would be stupid enough to test them.
A tray passed by and Xavier lifted a glass from it without breaking stride. He didn't drink yet. He held it loosely, letting it give his hands purpose while he finished reading the room.
Then, he turned toward the private elevator.
Two guards stepped into his path. These didn't bother with smiles or casual authority. One blocked the elevator controls. The other positioned himself slightly to the side, cutting off angles without making it obvious.
"Private access," the nearer one said. "Restricted floors."
Xavier stopped close enough that they had to adjust their stance. The mask caught the club lighting unevenly, shadows settling into old damage like it had grown there.
"I have a eting," Xavier said. "With the Iron Mandate leader."
The reaction was instant.
Hands moved. Weapons ca halfway up, not aid yet. One of the guards spoke into his comm under his breath, feeding details upward while his eyes never left Xavier's face.
"You're not cleared," the guard said. "Step back."
Xavier lifted the glass and took a slow drink.
Around them, the crowd thinned without instruction, people sensing pressure and choosing distance without knowing why. The music kept playing, perfectly indifferent.
A few seconds passed.
The guard on comm froze, listening, then straightened as if soone had yanked a string inside him. His grip loosened. The weapon dipped.
"Clear the elevator," a voice snapped through the comm. "Now."
The guards stepped aside.
Xavier walked between them, close enough that they could feel him pass, the calm confidence of soone who hadn't needed clearance because he had never planned to wait for it. The elevator doors slid open and he stepped inside alone.
Xavier stepped out of the elevator with nothing left in his glass.
The doors opened straight onto a guard's face, close enough that the man didn't have room to act casual about it. He lifted his hands toward Xavier's chest like he was about to start a pat-down on instinct, then hesitated when Xavier raised the empty glass.
Xavier placed it into the guard's palm without a word.
The guard stared at it for half a second, then set it aside and got to work. He ran a scanner down Xavier's fra, checked seams, checked cuffs, checked the inside edges of the suit where people liked to hide small blades. Xavier wore his gloves, the dinsional alloy sitting clean on his hands like part of the outfit, like they belonged there.
When the scan finally cleared, another guard stepped in and motioned for Xavier to follow. No conversation. No greeting. Just a corridor lined with tinted panels and thick doors that kept the club's noise out and kept everything important in.
They walked until the hallway opened up onto a high balcony space, set above the lower levels of the club.
The leader of Iron Mandate sat there like he owned the floor beneath him and the city above it, which he actually did.
Blue skin, body sunk deep into a chair built to handle his weight, chro lines cutting across his neck and jaw where flesh had been opened and put back together more tis than it should've survived. His green hair was slicked back, threaded with pearls that matched the diamonds hanging from his ears and stacked across his fingers and wrists.
He wasn't alone.
Naked girls crowded around him like decoration that breathed, hands on him, mouths on him, bodies pressed close. They moved like they'd been trained to keep the mood right and their eyes down, while one of them was on her knees, sucking him off.
The leader glanced toward Xavier as if Xavier was late to his own appointnt.
"Sit," he said.
Xavier didn't move toward the chair offered to him. He stayed standing where the escort had dropped him.
The leader didn't care. He kept going, kept using the girls like they weren't people and the space like it was his bedroom.
A few seconds later, he nutted in the girl's mouth.
The leader pushed the girl away with a lazy hand and grabbed a cloth from the side table, covering himself like that made the display respectable. He leaned back into his chair, exhaled, then lifted his chin toward Xavier with sothing that almost looked like an apology if you didn't know better.
"My fault," he said. "Didn't expect you to co so early. Fast too."
It was a mockery dressed as manners.
Xavier's head tilted slightly, the mask making the motion look colder than it was. He let it hang there long enough to make it uncomfortable, then answered like he'd been invited to play the sa ga.
"I didn't know you finished that early either," Xavier said. "Kinda impressive you managed it that quick."
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