Chapter One: The Verdict Before the Game

His Storm Spirit stood in the fountain while the base burned behind him. The observer camera cut to the casters. One voice rose above the crowd noise: “That buyback timing will haunt him for years.” Will it? Caleb watched his own frozen face on the screen. No expression. Just a man already accepting the sentence. Then a thought surfaced, small and sharp. If everyone expected him to end here, then this was exactly where he would begin.