The Power Struggle in Indonesia’s New Capital

Monsoon winds lashed the glass walls of the Nusantara high-rise, turning the sky into a roiling tapestry of charcoal and silver. Below, the skeletal frames of half-built skyscrapers clawed at the clouds, their steel bones exposed like the ribs of a starving giant. Cranes swayed precariously in the gale, their blinking red lights smeared by rain into bloodshot eyes. The city was a fever dream of ambition—part utopia, part battleground—where laborers in mud-caked boots collided with Armani-clad investors, all dancing to the discordant rhythm of progress.

Subianto leaned over the conference table, his knuckles whitening against the polished mahogany. Decades of political chess had etched lines into his face, but nothing had prepared him for this: an economic siege waged in shadows. The Nine Dragons, those serpents of the old world, had slithered into his new Eden. Their venom? A campaign of attrition, invisible and insidious.

Across the table, Lia, Indonesia’s razor-minded diplomat, tapped her tablet, casting holographic charts into the air. The glow sharpened her features, highlighting the tension in her jaw. “Titanium shipments from Myanmar are delayed. Australian coal contracts nullified over ‘safety concerns.’” Her voice was ice, but her eyes burned. “Last week, a Dutch consortium pulled funding for the rail network. Their CEO received... persuasive photographs of his daughter in Amsterdam.”

Subianto’s gaze drifted to the storm beyond the glass. He’d seen this before—the Nine Dragons’ artistry in chaos. They didn’t conquer; they corroded. “Jakarta’s their lifeline,” he muttered. The old capital, a festering hive of graft, was their playground. Nusantara threatened to sever their veins of power.

Lia swiped to a video feed: protesters surging past barricades, their signs demanding fair wages. “Strike leaders arrived in luxury SUVs. Their bank accounts? Topped up by shell companies in Macau.” She paused, her finger hovering over a face in the crowd—a man with a dragon tattoo coiled around his neck. “Sound familiar?”

Subianto’s mind flashed to Bintang, his son, who’d once worn similar marks of loyalty. Family, he thought bitterly, is just another lever. “They’re choking us on debt and delays. If the airport isn’t operational by Q4...”

“The IMF withdraws,” Lia finished. “And the president’s allies turn vulture.”

Silence fell, thick with the hum of HVAC and dread. Subianto’s phone buzzed—a notification from his network in Jakarta. Nine Dragons is acquiring stakes in Sunda Port. He smirked. Let them hoard relics. Nusantara was the future.

“We counterattack,” he said, rising. “Leak the strike leaders’ funding trails to the press. Redirect the titanium through Brunei—Triad contacts there owe me favors.”

Lia arched a brow. “And the Dutch?”

“Invite their rivals. The Germans' hunger for infrastructure wins.” He strode to the window, watching a crane shudder in the wind. “Then plant rumors. Tell the markets... IKN’s delay is a ploy to inflate land values.”

Lia’s lips twitched. “A lie?”

“A narrative.” The storm mirrored his grin—cold, relentless. “The Dragons want war? I’ll drown them in speculation.”

As aides scurried to execute orders, Subianto lingered. Somewhere in this maelstrom, Bintang was weaving his schemes. The thought pricked him with pride. Let the boy try. Nusantara would be his legacy—a kingdom carved from lightning, unbroken by the thunder of old gods.

The city below groaned, a living thing fighting its chains. Subianto’s reflection stared back, a ghost superimposed on the tempest. Build fast, he thought. Or burn faster.

The Nine Dragons’ Economic Strategy

Jakarta’s financial district hummed like a hive of chrome and ambition, its skyline a jagged crown of glass towers reflecting the Java Sea’s molten glare. On the 88th floor of the Waringin Tower, Tian Hao, the Nine Dragons’ Shadow Banker, lounged in a chair worth more than most Indonesians earned in a decade. Walls of LED screens bathed the room in a cold, electric glow, their flickering graphs and ticker symbols painting his sharp features in shades of avarice. Here, in this sterile cathedral of capital, Tian Hao worshipped at the altar of chaos.

“Sell off the IKN infrastructure bonds,” he ordered, voice smooth as a scalpel. A junior analyst, sweat beading on his temple, complied. With three keystrokes, $200 million evaporated from Nusantara’s coffers. The ripple would be instant: interest rates spiking, contractors defaulting, cranes freezing mid-swing. Tian Hao sipped his single-malt whisky, savoring the peat-smoke bite. Modern warfare required no bullets, he mused. Only leverage.

Zhi Fang entered without knocking, his tablet clutched like a scripture. The strategist’s wire-rimmed glasses caught the screen glare, masking his eyes. “The labor unions are fracturing,” he said, swiping data onto the main display. A map of Nusantara lit up, pulsing red at the docks and rail yards. “We’ve funneled another $5 million to strike funds through shell NGOs. Productivity’s down 37%.”

Tian Hao zoomed in on a live feed: workers clashing with police, their banners demanding wages the IKN couldn’t pay. His wages, routed through Burmese casinos and Manila shell corporations. “And the subcontractors?”

“Bankrupt by Friday.” Zhi Fang pulled up a list—dozens of companies, their debts meticulously engineered. “We bought their loans from state banks at pennies, then called them due. They’ll fold or sell assets to our frontmen.”

A smile crept across Tian Hao’s face. Subianto’s vaunted “future capital” was being hollowed out, its bones picked clean. On another screen, cargo ships bound for Nusantara diverted mid-voyage, redirected to Jakarta’s port—a port the Nine Dragons controlled. Every delayed steel beam, every idle worker, was a brick in the wall boxing Subianto in.

“What about the president’s new tariffs?” Zhi Fang asked.

“Irrelevant.” Tian Hao leaned back, fingers steepled. “Our partners in Shenzhen already rerouted shipments through Brunei. Subianto’s tariffs tax containers, not oil drums.” He tapped a key, revealing customs logs: steel plates stamped “industrial lubricants” slipping through docks untaxed. “Let the old man play regulator. We’ll bleed him in the margins.”

The room buzzed with silent calculation. Tian Hao’s empire was a hydra—cut off one head, and two more sprouted. Real estate? They’d bought land in IKN’s path years ago, then lobbied to reroute highways through it. Logistics? Every trucking firm in Kalimantan owed them tribute. Even the riots were a kind of theater, their violence a distraction while Tian Hao’s algorithms stripped Nusantara’s credibility from sovereign credit ratings.

Zhi Fang hesitated—a rare crack in his armor. “If Subianto discovers our Jakarta acquisitions…”

“Let him.” Tian Hao rose, his Armani suit knife-creased. Beyond the glass, thunderheads massed over the Java Sea. “He’ll need to choose: save his city or his legacy.”

In the end, Tian Hao knew, it didn’t matter. Subianto would negotiate—beg for loans, for mercy—or watch his dream strangle in its crib. And when the dust settled, the Nine Dragons would own both capitals: the rotting heart of Jakarta and the stillborn promise of Nusantara.

He glanced at the whisky, now watered with meltwater from the tower’s glacial ice reserves. To the future, he thought, draining the glass. Bitter. Predictable. Ours.

Lia’s Diplomatic Gamble at the ASEAN Summit

The ballroom of Jakarta’s Gran Mahakam Hotel shimmered like a gilded cage, its chandeliers dripping light onto marble floors polished to a liquid gloss. Outside, monsoon rains lashed the windows, blurring the city’s skyline into a watercolor smear of gray and gold. Inside, the air hung thick with the cloying sweetness of frangipani arrangements and the sharper tang of ambition. Lia adjusted the jade pin at her collar—a gift from Subianto, carved into the Garuda, Indonesia’s mythic eagle—and steadied her breath. The emergency ASEAN summit buzzed with murmured alliances and veiled threats, a chessboard of power where every smile hid a blade.

Malaysia’s delegate, Datuk Amir, leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming a silent rhythm on the table. Singapore’s representative, Madam Tan, sat rigid, her tablet glowing with pre-loaded rebuttals. The Philippine envoy, Senator Cruz, chewed the stem of his unlit cigar, eyes narrowed. Behind them, corporate titans and hedge fund managers clustered like vultures, their whispers threading through the hum of translators’ headsets. Lia’s heels clicked against the floor as she approached the podium, the sound sharp as a gavel.

“Indonesia stands on the edge of a new era,” she began, her voice slicing through the room. The holographic map behind her flickered to life, Nusantara’s skeletal skyline pulsing in amber. “But this vision—our vision—is under siege.” She paused, letting the word siege linger. Onscreen, graphs spiraled: steel prices spiking, cargo ships veering off course, protest footage looping like a wound. “Foreign actors are weaponizing supply chains, inflaming labor unrest, and sabotaging partnerships. This is not a competition. It is economic warfare.”

A rustle swept through the room. Madam Tan’s stylus froze mid-swipe. Senator Cruz’s cigar snapped between his teeth.

“Warfare?” Datuk Amir arched a brow. “Strong words for market fluctuations.”

Lia met his gaze. “When a typhoon sinks one ship, it’s an accident. When every ship sinks?” She tapped her tablet, and a web of shell companies bloomed across the hologram—Macau, Cyprus, Jakarta—all funneling dark money into strikes and shortages. “This is a calculated strike against ASEAN’s future.”

Madam Tan cleared her throat. “You reference the Nine Dragons.” Not a question. A trap.

Lia’s thumb brushed the Garuda pin, its edges biting into her skin. “I reference any entity that profits from chaos. Stability,” she said, locking eyes with a German investor whose firm had just partnered with Tian Hao’s Jakarta port, “is a shared interest. Or are we now auctioning our sovereignty to the highest bidder?”

The room stiffened. A Thai CEO stifled a cough; an Australian miner glanced at his watch. Lia’s pulse roared. She knew the offers they’d received—discounted stakes in Nine Dragons’ ventures, whispered promises of exclusive access. Subianto’s warning echoed in her mind: They’ll choose greed over unity. Make them ashamed to.

Senator Cruz spat out his broken cigar. “And if we stand with you? What then? Sanctions? Lectures?”

“Partnerships,” Lia countered. The hologram shifted: blueprints for a cross-ASEAN rail network, green energy grids, shared labor pools. “Nusantara’s ports open to all. Tax incentives for ethical investors. A united front against predatory financing.” She leaned forward, palms flat on the podium. “Or we can watch as this cancer spreads. Jakarta today. Kuala Lumpur tomorrow. Manila next.”

Silence.

Then, a dry chuckle from the back. Mr. Yukawa, CEO of a Tokyo-based conglomerate, stood. “Poetic. But the Nine Dragons fund half this room. You’re asking us to burn our capital.”

Lia smiled, cold as the rain streaking the windows. “I’m asking you to consider who owns whom.” She swiped to a final slide: Tian Hao’s face, his Waringin Tower lair, the Nine Dragons’ tendrils strangling ASEAN’s trade routes. “Today, it’s Indonesia. Tomorrow, your boardrooms. Your policies. Your elections.”

Madam Tan stood abruptly, her chair screeching. “This summit is for solutions, not fearmongering.”

“Agreed.” Lia powered off the hologram, plunging the room into sudden dimness. “Which is why Indonesia proposes an ASEAN audit council—transparent reviews of all foreign investments. Expose the puppeteers. Vote tonight.”

The murmurs crescendoed. Datuk Amir exchanged a glance with a Vietnamese delegate whose daughter chaired a Nine Dragons-backed tech firm. Senator Cruz lit a fresh cigar, its smoke curling like a specter.

As delegates clustered into fractious huddles, Lia stepped back, the Garuda pin warm against her throat. Subianto’s words coiled in her ear: Diplomacy is war by other means. She’d fired the first shot. Now, the battle would unfold in backroom deals and midnight calls, in signatures and betrayals.

But in the corner, Mr. Yukawa lingered, his smirk replaced by a pensive frown. Lia noted it. Seeds of doubt, she knew, grew faster than empires.

Subianto’s Political Countermove

The monsoon rain lashed against the bulletproof windows of Subianto’s private study, its rhythmic fury drowned out by the hum of white noise generators. He stood before a holographic map of Indonesia’s new capital, IKN, its glowing gridlines etching shadows across his face. Red pulses marked Nine Dragons’ holdings—ports, power grids, the skeletal frames of half-built AI hubs. They slithered through the archipelago like a cancer, and Subianto’s jaw tightened. Too fast. Too quiet.

His advisors filed in, their footsteps muffled by the Javanese tikalak carpet. Five men and women, their loyalty bought with secrets rather than coin. Among them, General Wibawa, his uniform stiff with medals earned in proxy wars, and Sari, the economist who’d turned Jakarta’s black markets into an art form. They took their seats around the obsidian conference table, its surface reflecting the map’s crimson glow like pooled blood.

Subianto didn’t sit. “We nationalize energy, ports, and data infrastructure. Tonight.”

A stunned silence. Sari adjusted her cat-eye glasses, her voice cautious. “The contracts with Nine Dragons are ironclad. They’ll sue.”

“Let them,” Subianto said. “By the time their lawyers crawl out of their penthouse suites, we’ll own the judges.” He zoomed the hologram into Tanjung Priok port, where Kiran’s body had washed ashore. “Cut them out before they dig deeper.”

General Wibawa leaned forward, his cybernetic eye whirring as it parsed the map. “This isn’t a trade war. The Dragons don’t sue—they erase. You’re inviting a coup.”

Subianto’s smile was thin. “They’ve already begun one. ‘Project Horizon’ isn’t about clean energy. It’s a Trojan horse.” He flicked a dossier onto the table—photos of mass graves in lithium mines, Nine Dragons’ soldiers posing with Cakra-Birawa insignia on their sleeves. “They’re not here to build. They’re here to replace.”

Sari palmed a stress ball shaped like a Javan rhino. “The IMF will freeze our loans. The rupiah will collapse.”

“Then we pivot to Beijing. Or Moscow. Or Pyongyang.” Subianto’s gaze didn’t waver. “Better to beg from a throne than kneel to a syndicate.”

A junior advisor, barely thirty, cleared his throat. “The people… they’ll protest. The Dragons own the media.”

“The people,” Subianto said, “are drowning in rice shortages and poisoned rivers. Give them a villain to hate, and they’ll burn the world for you.” He deactivated the hologram, plunging the room into gloom. We leak the mines. We name the Dragons as executioners. And then we seize their assets in the public interest.”

General Wibawa exchanged a glance with Sari. “And when they retaliate? You think your palace guards can stop a neurotoxin strike? A drone swarm?”

Subianto turned to the window, watching rain distort the city’s neon skyline. Somewhere out there, the Nine Dragons’ enforcers were already moving—Hitori’s blade, Ryuji’s financial labyrinths, Wei Long’s iron fist. But Subianto had survived three assassination attempts, two regime changes, and a wife who’d tried to poison him with sambal. He knew how to play the long game.

“Escalation is inevitable,” he said. “But we won’t fight them in boardrooms or trenches.” He opened a lacquered box on the table, revealing a single Komodo dragon skull—the symbol of his clan. “We attack their godhood. Their narrative.”

Sari’s brow furrowed. “Meaning?”

“Cakra-Birawa wants to be seen as inevitable? We make them look weak.” He tossed a USB drive to General Wibawa. “Footage of Huang Jin’s failed coup in Surabaya. Their lieutenants are turning on each other. Let the world see their cracks.”

The general inserted the drive into his neural port, his eye flickering as data streamed. “This could work. But it’ll cost you.”

“Everything does.” Subianto’s hand brushed the Komodo skull, its teeth still sharp after centuries. “Draft the emergency decrees. Mobilize the cyber divisions. And reach out to Bintang’s Black Sorrow team—offer them whatever they want. Amnesty. Money. Blood.”

As the advisors rose, murmuring strategies, Subianto stayed at the window. The rain had eased, revealing the jagged silhouette of a Nine Dragons tower under construction. He thought of Kiran’s articles, her relentless voice silenced too soon. Of Sebastian, the time-traveling fool who thought history could be bent.

Let them play their games, he mused. Real power wasn’t in changing the future—it was in controlling the story of the past.

His phone buzzed. A single message from an encrypted sender: The blade turns. Are you ready?

Subianto deleted it. The Dragons thought themselves kings.

But every king could be unmade.