Morning.
When the first rays of the sun crept over the horizon and gilded the Imperial Palace's vast architecture, the Ruins Core District was, outwardly, as it always was.
Vmmm—!
A low, soul-shaking hum of power seemed to rise out of the void itself. Then two indescribably bright white flares burst forth, their intensity briefly drowning even the newborn sun.
The light ballooned like a supernova, yet some unseen force held it in check within a precise slice of airspace.
When that unbearable glare finally drew back, two brand-new, six‑kilometer square space gates stood in the heart of the Ruins.
Like flawless mercury mirrors, they reflected sky and palace in their faces. Within, however, soft, bottomless vortices of light turned slowly—each a throat into an unknown universe.
Looked at from above, the core now held twenty-two such gates. Before the freshly opened Gates 21 and 22, vast mustering grounds had long since been marked out.
Now they were a flood of steel and will.
Ranks of troops stood in precise formations. Their armor and heraldry varied by Legion, but the same honed, lethal aura hung about all of them.
Agents of the Investigation Department and the Inquisition clustered in separate pockets. Their dress was more varied, but the cutting edge in their eyes and bearing was the same.
Automated war-units massed everywhere—
from hulking, thick-plated smart tanks and mechs to compact, nimble drone swarms for recon and strikes—forming a silent jungle of metal across the staging area.
Higher up, the view grew more staggering.
The warships of the Legions charged with these unification tasks lay over the Ruins Core's dedicated ports and orbits in sky-darkening numbers.
The Salamanders' stolid, heavy assault barges; the Dark Angels' sharp‑lined strike cruisers; the Dusk Raiders' firepower-focused hulls; the Iron Warriors' turret‑studded "siege ships"; and the Night Lords' dark‑painted, light‑eating killers…
Together they made a mountain range of metal hanging in the heavens. The shadows they cast blanketed nearly the whole core, and much of the Imperial Palace.
By standard protocol, once forward recon confirmed that the far side of a gate was relatively stable—not opening directly onto a killing ground or dead end—and frontline bases began to rise, the vanguard fleets parked over the core would transit and seize key orbits.
The main fleets would then follow—coming from their Legion home universes through the existing gate network to prime Earth, then feeding in turn into the new theaters.
The gates were steady now. The familiar recon sequence began at once.
Biological and mechanical scouts fitted with heavy‑duty physical tethers came online.
They took many forms—multi-legged machine spiders, bio‑modified micro‑creatures with sharp senses—each trailing a gleaming cable of signal-lights like worker ants charging a new world. One after another they slipped into the luminous "mercury" and sent their first data back in real time.
Most of the assembly waited in place, using the short lull for final gear checks or to settle themselves.
In front of Gate 21's cordoned-off special-operations zone—
a cluster of men and women with a very different air from line troops waited together.
Most wore bullet‑resistant civvies, easy to move in, not standard plate—but the high‑end kit on their harnesses and the faint razor in their presence marked them as nothing ordinary.
Leon S. Kennedy was still easy to pick out.
He wore his classic getup—
dark work pants; a light-gray short-sleeved shirt with the cuffs carelessly rolled to the elbow, showing tight forearms; a tactical belt with spare mags, tool pouches, and a quick‑draw holster holding his trademark custom sidearm.
Time had etched his face, but only to add weight.
Beside him stood his long‑time partner, Mike Monadi.
Unlike Leon's "tactical casual," Mike was in a fitted dark long‑sleeve T‑shirt and hard‑wearing jeans—looser in style.
The two "uncle‑tier" Investigation legends were trading low words while they waited.
"So she took the kids traveling again?" Leon asked offhand, his eyes still making habitual sweeps of the surroundings.
"Yeah." Mike pulled a face—a mix of bliss and suffering:
"Six rugrats—plus her—that's a reinforced platoon. Walking through my front door feels like stepping into school now. Painful memories, man."
His wife, once a minor‑celebrity model and actress, had gone full-time mom after they married—and, with an "impressive" rate, done her part for the Empire's demographics, a genuine "birth champion."
Mike nudged Leon with an elbow, wearing his usual crooked grin:
"Hey—seriously, buddy—once your little princess is a bit older, how about you consider one of my brats?
The eldest is a handful, but he's solid. Worst case, we set up a betrothal now—what do you say? I'd be proud to have you as the old man."
Leon didn't hesitate to shut it down: "No, Mike.
Feelings are theirs to sort out. We're parents. We give support and guidance, not force the match. Forced fruit is never sweet."
His attitude was plain—he meant to respect his child's free will.
Bounced off, Mike only shrugged, chuckled, and shifted his eyes to where Maggie Shaw was quietly checking a pair of special-issue fighting knuckles.
Her "Queen Maeve" title was long gone. Now she was simply senior agent Maggie Shaw.
She wore all black workout gear that traced a figure still powerful and statuesque.
"Maggie," Mike leaned closer, easy. "How's it been? Last time you said you took leave to travel. Any… interesting encounters under the romantic starlight?"
Maggie didn't even look up—just adjusted the fit of the knuckles, voice flat: "Didn't look. Don't care to.
Work's full enough. On leave I'd rather be alone—or at the gym—or walking someplace new and quiet."
Mike lifted his shoulders, a mix of puzzlement and mock regret: "That's one way to live… ah, forget it. To each their own."
Leon, eyes on the recon feed, cut in and brought them back:
"Enough small talk. Focus. First‑pass scans from both universes should be coming through anytime now."
Mike dropped the grin and nodded—turning to the great mercury face of Gate 21, gaze sharpening:
"Right. Business first. Wonder what kind of 'new friends' are waiting on the other side."
The air thickened—with a sense of weight and expectation—as the scout run progressed.
The wait wasn't long.
Refined procedures made for speed. Soon the tethered bio‑ and mech‑units were streaming real‑time imagery and opening environment reads from beyond the gates to the core command nodes.
Leon, Mike, Maggie, and the rest raised their wrists almost together—eyes going to the personal tac‑computers there.
The small, sharp screens showed split feeds from Universes 21 and 22.
Their focus slid, naturally, to 21.
Per the op plan, this veteran Investigation cell would carry the main burden of infiltration and deep intel in Universe 21.
Universe 22's black op would be the job of Chris Redfield's elite tactical group.
There was logic here.
For one, Chris's team was stronger at full-contact assaults and special ops support.
For another, their own cell had "super‑agent" Maggie Shaw.
With Compound V from infancy and later Imperial upgrades, Maggie's individual power sat mid‑tier even by Empire standards—and her physical frame at the very top.
Under some conditions, she could match—or outdo—a whole regular spec‑ops unit's tactical punch on her own.
And, given Queen Tinas Losrian's warning that 22's unification would be "unusually arduous," the Empire had given Chris extra muscle—
Homelander, rebuilt by wave after wave of tech and bio‑work—far beyond what he had once been.
He would serve as deterrent and spearpoint, backing Chris's team against whatever extremes Universe 22 might throw at them.
The screens now began to sketch the two new universes.
On 21's side, the gate opened onto a boundless desert.
But unlike common sand seas, the grit here ran darker—a dead gray‑brown.
On the far horizon, a coastline had retreated in a wildly unnatural way—leaving bare vast reaches of cracked, dried‑out seabed, as if the world's ocean had suffered a catastrophic drawdown.
On one edge of the display, data scrolled—showing an atmosphere only slightly off from prime: a bit low in oxygen, dust and inert gases a bit high. Gravity and pressure were near matches. It was almost certain that Gate 21's mouth lay on that universe's Earth.
Gate 22 showed desert as well, but that landscape looked more like natural desertification—dunes rolling, hazy yellow sky from dust, but nothing like the absolute deadness of 21.
The readings confirmed its outlet also lay on Earth‑22.
"Yikes." Mike clicked his tongue at the image—especially at 21's bleakness:
"Just from these first looks, 21's in a way worse state than 22.
That coastline's pulled back like that…
No way that's natural drift.
I'd bet the humans there took something close to an extinction hit. They're probably on a knife-edge as a species, or the place wouldn't have gone this bad."
Leon nodded in silence, eyes hard on 21's live feed.
An old hand, he read the same story in the dry seabeds and dead wastes—of a civilization in steep decline, even collapse.
It meant their mission might not stop at infiltration and intel, but slide quickly into relief and intervention to keep a culture alive.
They bent all their attention now to what would follow on 21.
Soon, command confirmed no large‑scale physical or energy threats were reading near the far mouth.
Orders went out.
First through were recon elites in light, high‑mobility scout armor.
They shot through the gate like bolts—fast and in order—throwing a ring of security around the exit.
Next came the Engineering Department's maglev heavy trucks—hauling prefab structures, power cores, and base kit. Under recon cover, they moved smooth through the shining gate and straight into the waste.
The Salamanders' ground forces—
dark‑green ironclads moving like mobile fortresses—marched behind in tight blocks.
They would be the shield around the builders.
By rote, only once that zone was fully in hand and basic AA and warning nets were up would the Salamanders fleet above the core pass Gate 21 and take low orbit in Universe 21—commanding the sky.
"Our turn," Leon said quietly.
The Investigation agents traded nods and looks, checking weapons and disguise rigs one last time.
Then Leon, Mike, Maggie and the rest blended into the follow-on support waves and stepped into the gate.
A brief, familiar strangeness—and the world opened.
They stood on Earth‑21.
Dry, dusty heat washed over them, laced with a weird smell—a mix of rot and dust.
Overhead, the sky was a dim yellow. Starlight, choked by a thick dust canopy, was dull and spent.
Everywhere the eye turned were boundless gray‑brown wastes and, in the distance, those shocking scars of dry seabed torn from the world's skin.
The first recon units had already deployed stealth drones for atmosphere and low‑orbit sweeps.
Silent, they climbed on hidden wings, ghosts folding into the haze, fanning out to draft maps and sniff for any trace of life or tech.
Recon teams in all‑terrain APCs rolled deeper into the desert, tasked with planting forward OPs and stretching the safety ring of the base.
Near the gate, a different bustle had begun.
The Salamanders, in squad‑sized packets, were throwing up simple but rock‑solid emplacements on the perimeter. The thuds of their tread and the whine of their armor servos were the only comforting sounds in that dead world.
Inside their ring, engineers controlled heavy plant and smart machines, unloading standard base modules from the maglev trucks.
Massive power cores spun up first—thrumming low—pouring the first trickle of Imperial power into the waste.
Before their eyes, a full-service forward base was climbing from nothing on the bones of a dead civilization.
Leon swept the scene, then said to Mike and Maggie, voice flat:
"Looks like we need to find out fast what happened here. Gear up. We move."
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