The Useless Son-In-Law Is A System God Of War

Chapter Two: The Awakening Spark

The wind coming off Lake Michigan was sharp enough to sting. Landon Hale walked along the empty pier, collar turned up, the Stratton gala still echoing in his head. 

The ballroom’s lights were far behind him now, a smear of gold against the black water. His phone buzzed. Emily.

He stared at the screen for a long moment before answering. “Yeah?”

“Where are you?” Her voice was flat, clipped. “Dad’s furious.”

“I noticed.” His breath fogged in the cold. “You and Blake looked cozy. Guess congratulations are in order.”

A pause. Then, “Don’t make this harder, Landon.”

“I’m not the one who made it hard, Emily.”

She sighed, the kind of sound that meant she’d already decided how the conversation would end. “I told you to keep a low profile tonight. You embarrassed everyone. Dad says it’s time we… rethink things.”

“By ‘rethink,’ you mean divorce.”

“You know it’s for the best. You’ve been unhappy too.”

He almost laughed. “I was broke, humiliated, and ignored, sure. But unhappy? Only when I realized I didn’t matter to you.”

Silence. Then the call clicked off. He stood there for a moment, the wind tossing snow into his hair. 

Then he slid the phone into his pocket and started walking again, boots crunching on the frozen boards.

By the time he reached his apartment on the south side of Milwaukee, it was close to midnight. The building was old, paint flaking, the lobby heater buzzing like an angry hornet.

He opened the door to his small one-bedroom unit, plain, dim, barely furnished. The TV sat dark. A stack of unpaid bills leaned against a half-empty coffee mug.

Landon tossed his jacket aside and sank onto the couch. His hands were shaking. He stared at them for a long time, the way someone might look at a stranger.

“How did I end up here?” he whispered.

He thought of the past three years, every cutting remark, every cold glance, every time he’d swallowed his pride because he thought love was worth it.

He’d believed that being good, patient, loyal would be enough. He’d been wrong.

The words of his father-in-law replayed in his head: “You don’t belong in our world.”

Maybe not. But there had been a time, long before the Strattons, when he had belonged somewhere. 

A vague image flickered behind his eyes: stone, firelight, a circle of people kneeling before him, then it was gone, like a dream dissolving on waking. He rubbed his temples. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

The room was too quiet. He turned on the old radio just to fill the silence. A late-night host was talking about self-worth, about starting over. 

Landon half-listened, staring at the rain-streaked window. His phone buzzed again, a text from an unknown number. “You have been evaluated. Initiating Ascension Protocol, Phase One.”

He frowned. “Spam,” he muttered, deleting it. But a second message came immediately after: “Subject confirmed. Awakening authorized.”

The lights flickered. The radio hissed and went silent. “Okay, that’s not funny,” he said aloud, looking around the apartment.

Another vibration. “Do you wish to regain access to your potential?”

Landon set the phone on the table, pulse quickening. Maybe it was a hacker. Maybe someone from Stratton Industries playing a cruel joke. 

But part of him, a quiet, buried part, felt something else: a faint tug in his chest, like a half-remembered melody. He whispered, “Access… to what?”

The screen stayed blank for a full ten seconds. Then a final message appeared: “Acknowledged. Calibration commencing.”

The phone went dead. Landon stared at it, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. After a minute, he laughed softly, a tired, humorless sound. “I’m losing my mind.”

He got up, poured himself some water, and looked at his reflection in the window. The man staring back looked older than twenty-nine, weary, defeated, hollow-eyed.

He thought of the gala, of Emily’s eyes on Blake, of Harold’s voice dripping with disdain. He thought of every insult, every dismissal. “I’m done being their joke,” he murmured.

The air seemed to shift, not colder, but sharper. A faint ringing filled his ears, like distant metal striking metal. He blinked and the sound vanished.

Probably exhaustion, he told himself. Probably nothing. He sat back down, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something in the room had changed. 

The air seemed alive, humming just beyond perception. He picked up his phone again, but the screen stayed black no matter how many times he pressed the button.

“Fine,” he said to the darkness. “Do your worst.”

Morning light found him on the couch, still in his suit. His phone was working again, showing a full battery and no strange messages. Maybe it really had been a dream.

There were new messages, though, real ones this time. From Harold Stratton: The papers will be ready by Friday. Please sign quietly.

From Todd: Heard you finally got dumped. Should’ve happened sooner, loser.

From Emily: I’m sorry, Landon. Please don’t call me.

He deleted them all without reading further. His stomach growled, but the fridge held only a carton of milk and an apple going bad. 

He grabbed his coat and headed out. The February air was gray and brittle. The city smelled of wet concrete and coffee.

At the corner café, he ordered the cheapest thing on the menu and sat by the window. His phone buzzed once more, but this time, it wasn’t a message. 

It was a faint pulse of light under the surface of the screen, like a heartbeat. He set it down slowly. The pulse faded. “Okay,” he muttered, “definitely losing it.”

“Talking to your phone now?” a voice said beside him.

He looked up. A woman in a gray coat was watching him from the next table, mid-thirties, short dark hair, eyes bright with curiosity. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Didn’t mean to pry. You just look like someone who’s had a rough night.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m Claire,” she offered. “You’re?”

“Landon.”

“Well, Landon, whatever happened, it looks like you survived it.”

“Barely.”

She smiled faintly. “Barely’s still alive.”

Her phone rang; she glanced at it, frowned, and stood. “Duty calls. Nice meeting you, Barely Alive.”

He couldn’t help smiling a little as she left. When she was gone, he noticed something on his phone again. 

A faint symbol had appeared, a circle with three intersecting lines, glowing softly before fading out, then came a whisper, not through the speaker, but in his mind. “Calibration complete. Phase One: Recognition.”

Landon froze. His heart pounded. The café noise around him, the hiss of espresso machines, the murmur of conversation, blurred to nothing. He whispered, “Who’s there?”

No answer, then, faintly: “Remember.”

Images flashed across his mind, fire, steel, faces bowing, his own voice shouting commands in a language he didn’t know. 

For a split second, he wasn’t in Milwaukee anymore. He was standing in a vast hall of light and stone, then the world snapped back.

His coffee spilled as he jerked upright. People stared. The barista called out, “You okay, sir?”

He forced a shaky laugh. “Yeah. Just… too much caffeine.”

But as he left the café, he knew something inside him had shifted. The humiliation, the pain, they were still there, but beneath them, something new had awakened. 

A current humming in his blood. He didn’t understand it yet, but he could feel it. The system, whatever it was, wasn’t done with him.

And for the first time in years, Landon Hale didn’t feel powerless.