The fracture beyond Pluto had not changed.
It remained suspended in the darkness like a scar cut into reality itself.
No expansion.
No collapse.
Just a silent wound in space.
For three weeks, Federation scientists had bombarded it with every probe humanity possessed.
None had returned.
Some disappeared the moment they crossed the boundary.
Others transmitted impossible readings before their signals dissolved into static.
One probe returned only a single image.
A sky filled with shattered stars.
Then nothing.
No explanation.
No coordinates.
Just silence.
---
The launch day for **Operation Prometheus** finally arrived.
Hundreds of personnel lined the observation galleries inside the lunar shipyards.
Unlike the celebrations that accompanied new warship launches, there were no speeches.
No cheering.
Everyone understood the truth.
This mission might be one-way.
---
The strike force was small by design.
The *Argonaut* would serve as flagship.
Flit's *Diva* would accompany it.
Four escort cruisers formed the outer screen.
Two logistics ships followed at a safe distance.
Their mission wasn't conquest.
It was reconnaissance.
Learn.
Observe.
Return.
If possible.
---
Inside the *Argonaut's* hangar, Sentinel stood fully assembled for the first time.
Its white armor gleamed beneath the floodlights.
Blue highlights traced the edges of the psycho-frame hidden beneath the plating, and the six completed fin funnels rested neatly against the redesigned backpack.
Compared to Aegis, it looked both familiar and revolutionary.
The heroic lines of the ancient RX-78 remained, but there was a grace to its proportions that hinted at the Nu Gundam-inspired machine it would one day become.
Leon stood before it in silence.
He remembered the day he had first climbed into Aegis.
It had been crude.
Incomplete.
Built with hope more than certainty.
Sentinel was different.
It had been forged from experience.
Every scar from the Helix War.
Every lesson learned against Harbinger One.
Every sacrifice.
It all lived inside this machine.
---
Flint walked up carrying a small metal case.
"I've got one last upgrade."
Leon laughed.
"You've been saying that for three days."
"This time I mean it."
Opening the case revealed a compact crystalline module no larger than a human hand.
Its surface shimmered with faint blue light.
Leon recognized it immediately.
"The Helix crystal."
Flint nodded.
"I finally figured out what it does."
"I thought it was just transmitting."
"So did I."
He carefully inserted the crystal into a concealed slot behind Sentinel's cockpit.
"It wasn't transmitting."
"It was waiting."
The Gundam's eyes suddenly flashed emerald green before returning to their normal color.
Across the hangar, engineers looked up in surprise.
"What just happened?"
Flint stared at the diagnostic screen.
"...Interesting."
Leon folded his arms.
"Care to explain?"
"The psycho-frame synchronization increased by eighteen percent."
Rika blinked.
"Without additional power consumption?"
Flint nodded slowly.
"...Helix wasn't trying to contact the Ascendancy."
Everyone looked at him.
"It was leaving us a key."
---
On the bridge, Captain Rolf received the final departure clearance.
"Navigation?"
"Course plotted."
"Reactor?"
"Nominal."
"Fleet status?"
"All ships reporting ready."
Rolf looked across the bridge one last time.
"Then let's go find out what's waiting for us."
---
Hours later...
The small fleet reached Pluto's orbit.
The fracture dominated the darkness ahead.
It looked even larger in person.
A jagged tear stretching for nearly fifty kilometers, its edges glowing with shifting blue and violet energy.
Stars behind it simply...
Didn't exist.
It wasn't darkness.
It was absence.
---
Flit studied it from the bridge of the *Diva*.
"The AGE Device is reacting."
The ancient device glowed softly in his hand.
Lines of unfamiliar symbols scrolled across its screen.
"Can you read them?" his captain asked.
Flit frowned.
"No."
A pause.
"...But I think it's reading them."
---
Aboard the *Argonaut*, Rika's voice broke the silence.
"Spatial stability increasing."
Flint looked up sharply.
"It's opening."
Without warning, the fracture expanded.
Not violently.
Almost...
Welcoming them.
---
Captain Rolf turned toward Leon.
"Last chance to turn back."
Leon looked out the viewport.
Beyond the fracture lay answers.
And perhaps the future of humanity itself.
"If we don't go..."
He smiled faintly.
"They'll come back anyway."
Rolf nodded.
"Take us through."
---
One by one, the ships crossed the boundary.
There was no flash.
No violent acceleration.
Only an overwhelming feeling that reality itself had shifted.
Leon felt his stomach tighten.
Then...
Everything became still.
---
The stars were wrong.
Constellations no longer existed.
Instead, enormous rivers of light stretched between distant galaxies, forming geometric patterns impossible under normal physics.
Entire star systems appeared enclosed within translucent spheres.
Some stars glowed blue.
Others burned crimson.
A few were surrounded by colossal rings larger than planetary orbits.
Mira stared through the observation window.
"...This isn't our universe."
Rika shook her head.
"It is."
She checked her instruments again.
"...I think."
---
Long-range scanners activated.
Then immediately overloaded.
Flint frowned.
"The laws of physics are... different."
Before anyone could respond, alarms erupted across every ship.
"Multiple contacts!"
Rika's hands flew across her console.
"They're everywhere!"
The tactical display filled with hundreds of signals.
Thousands.
Then—
Millions.
The room fell silent.
Every contact was inactive.
Ancient.
Scattered across the region.
Flint enlarged one of them.
The image resolved slowly.
It was a battlefield.
An impossible battlefield.
The wreckage of countless civilizations drifted through the void.
Ships larger than continents.
Broken mechanical worlds.
Titanic humanoid machines thousands of meters tall.
Crystalline organisms frozen in death.
Weapons whose purposes defied comprehension.
Some debris looked millions of years old.
Some appeared freshly destroyed.
Leon whispered,
"...How many wars happened here?"
No one answered.
Because no one could imagine the number.
---
Flit contacted the *Argonaut* over the secure channel.
"You need to see this."
He transmitted a magnified image.
At first it appeared to be an asteroid.
Then the scale indicator updated.
Diameter:
**412 kilometers.**
It wasn't an asteroid.
It was the severed head of a humanoid machine.
Its face resembled no human design, yet its expression carried an eerie sense of peace.
Even in death, it seemed majestic.
---
Captain Rolf slowly lowered himself into his chair.
"This..."
He struggled to find the words.
"...This is a graveyard."
Flint nodded.
"No."
His eyes remained fixed on the endless wreckage stretching beyond sensor range.
"...It's a museum."
---
Before anyone could ask what he meant...
A voice echoed across every ship.
Not transmitted.
Heard.
As though it came from the space around them itself.
**"Welcome..."**
The voice was ancient.
Gentle.
Tired.
**"Another young civilization has arrived."**
The fleet stopped.
No enemy appeared.
No weapons activated.
Only silence.
Then, far in the distance, a faint golden light slowly ignited among the ruins.
Something enormous...
Was awakening.