Dust storms rolled across the iron plains like angry ghosts, sweeping over rusted train bones and the husks of forgotten machines. Somewhere beyond the horizon, a landcrawler moaned its final breath—another titan brought to ruin by time and silence.
And in the heart of it all, under a shattered billboard that read “Dream Beyond the Dominion,” a boy sat staring at the sky.
He wasn’t waiting for anyone.
He just didn’t want to go home.
---
His name was Ryker Vale, though most just called him Rust Rat. Seventeen, grease-smudged, and perpetually barefoot, he was the kind of kid you ignored until your wallet went missing. His eyes were wild—one amber, one faintly glowing blue—and he wore a patchwork cloak made from old Dominion banners he’d ripped down himself.
He looked like trouble.
Because he was.
That day, however, Ryker wasn't stealing or running. He was staring at the cracked skyglass—the ancient dome of broken sky tech that loomed above Ironclad Haven.
"Golden Grant," he muttered, chewing a bolt between his teeth. "Bet you ain't even real."
He said that every day. But something in his bones whispered the opposite. Something old. Something loud.
---
In the heart of Ironclad Haven, beneath metal skies and gears the size of buildings, the Dominion still ruled with steel. Their peacekeepers—soldiers in black alloy armor with humming pulse-spears—patrolled every block. They didn’t smile. They didn’t stop.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
And they never looked down at the Slagyard, where Ryker lived.
Slagyard was where all the trash went. Broken tech, exiled criminals, and orphans like Ryker. No one important. Nothing that mattered.
At least, that’s what they thought.
---
“OI, RUST RAT!”
The shout came from behind a smoking heap of engine coils. Ryker turned just as a fist came swinging. He ducked under it, rolled backward, and came up with a grin.
“Careful, Slab. Almost scuffed my lucky tooth.”
Slab was twice his size and half as smart. A local enforcer for the black-market tech dealers, he’d been chasing Ryker ever since the boy accidentally reprogrammed a Dominion drone to explode confetti.
“You owe Karrik five cores,” Slab growled.
Ryker flipped him off. “Tell Karrik I’ll pay him in dreams and spite.”
Slab lunged.
Ryker ran.
---
He ducked into the skeletal ruins of a forgotten scrapyard—a maze of jagged metal and half-living circuits. This was his playground. His world.
He knew every crevice, every tripwire. Slab didn’t.
CRACK—ZAP!
One pulse-trap later, Slab was twitching on the ground like a dying worm.
Ryker chuckled and climbed up onto an ancient crawler tank, gazing out toward the stormbelt. His fingers brushed something beneath his cloak—a small cube, pulsing with a low, golden glow.
It wasn’t his.
It had been left to him.
By a man everyone believed was dead.
The King of Realms.
---
That night, Ryker returned to the hidden shack beneath the old scrapyard—the only place in the city where the Dominion’s drones didn’t reach.
Inside, maps covered the walls. Hand-drawn lines, crossed-out zones, old Dominion archives. Notes scribbled in fury.
And at the center of it all: a symbol of a broken crown and a question mark.
Where is the Golden Grant?
He placed the cube into a circular groove in the table. It spun once, then locked in.
The shack’s lights dimmed. The air crackled.
And a voice—not quite alive, not quite gone—filled the space.
“To those who defy the Ring… find me in the Ruinspire. The path begins when you gather your flame.”
Then it showed him a face.
A man with silver dreadlocks and storm-gray eyes.
Drayven Vale.
Ryker’s father.
The one the Dominion executed for treason.
---
The cube went silent. Ryker sat still, his fists clenched.
“They lied,” he whispered. “He knew where the Golden Grant was.”
And now… so did he.
All he needed was a crew.
A path.
And a vehicle.
He looked out at the scrap fields.
Time to build one.
---
Elsewhere...
On the opposite side of the city, in the shadow of the Dominion Citadel, a woman in crimson armor stood on a balcony. Her name was Vexa Solane, Warden of Ironclad Haven, and her eyes were fixed on a single blinking dot on her map.
“Target signature confirmed,” she said into her comm. “He’s activated the cube. The King’s Heir lives.”
---
And far, far away, in a place no map dared name, a cloaked figure stood before a throne made of bones and rusted steel.
“Ryker Vale,” the figure whispered, smiling with broken teeth. “Let the hunt begin.”
