Grumpy belonged to the Commission—an interplanetary force bound by law, order, and restraint. Their authority was not power, but permission. Their mission on this cycle was singular: retrieve the Orb, an artifact capable of converting all forms of matter and energy into usable force. Dangerous. Sacred. Illegal in civilian hands.
The Orb belonged to Korun Akutari.
Once feared. Now old. Now revered.
And protected by his granddaughter.
Sara lived in a floating castle that drifted silently through space, a fusion of ancient stonework and modern station architecture. She was barely twenty, slim, sharp-eyed, and far more aware than the walls meant to allow. Korun had raised her to observe—not to hide.
She had seen Grumpy before.
Years ago, at the Centralized Study Agency.
They had never spoken. Yet one moment had stayed buried beneath her calm—a sudden door, a half-exposed body, an accidental meeting of eyes across a corridor. Nothing happened. And yet something did.
A strange, unexplainable attraction.
For Grumpy, it was humiliation. Fury. Loss of control. He avoided her from that day onward, erasing her from his path.
He never planned to see her again.
Until duty brought him back.
When Grumpy formally requested the Orb, Sara refused—calm, respectful, unyielding.
"You should respect my grandfather," she said. "And apply proper protocols."
Grumpy apologized and left.
The operation followed anyway.
Controlled. Legal. Clean.
Until chaos fractured it.
Mini Pie ran.
Sara panicked.
And in a moment driven by fear, instinct, and something unresolved—Sara kissed Grumpy.
The explosion that followed was not intention.
It was consequence.
Planet Arumaca received them without mercy.