Light-years away from Earth…
Beyond a black hole that devoured every signal, every hope, in a place that shouldn't exist—
There was something.
On the far side of the void, not the boring emptiness documentaries had sold us, but Eden—a city adrift above gravity's chains.
Floating cliffs. Shattered isles. Relics the people above called sacred.
Those below? They called it just another place barred from their reach.
And at the very center stood Trinity.
So flawless that even Michelangelo's David—up close—gave off total dollar-store statue vibes.
Eyes on fire, pure molten amber locked in volcanic glass—beautiful, deadly, unforgettable. Stare too long and you might just melt. Strands of silver-green hair moved as if they had a will of their own.
He was the keeper of the Dark Gate—a portal that never should have been built.
And now… he'd just been handed a gift.
A gift born from the stupidity of good people.
When Skyler, Zoe, and Roxy opened the black hole to drain Quanigma, they thought they were saving the world.
The truth?
That oh-so-clever suggestion from a certain redhead was nothing more than delivering raw apocalypse straight into the hands of a man who ate catastrophe for breakfast—and rinsed his mouth with ashes.
Trinity's gaze fixed on the azure flame swirling before him—energy enough to rewrite the laws of the cosmos.
He inhaled it in a single breath.
"…Well done, Roxy."
Cosmic Vision Club Underground Lab
Days had passed since the Quanigma mission.
Yet Skyler's mind remained trapped inside the riddle Professor Valentine had left behind.
A holographic file floated in the air—basically a black box waiting to spill secrets.
The title shimmered, cold as ice:
[UPLOAD_00.SOUL]
His fingers danced across the holo-interface—digital piano vibes, last notes of a forbidden track.
Equations. Diagrams. Virtual models of a human brain fracturing under quantum waves. It wasn't data. It was a recipe—for making ghosts in the digital age.
"This is…" His words broke between impossible and what the hell.
Zoe leaned in, head tilted. "Looks less tech, more soul-sucking magic." She stuck her tongue out—total Casper cosplay. Bleh.
"Can we—be serious for one second, Zoe?" Skyler forced a crooked smile, then turned back. "He was trying to upload… a soul."
Roxy folded her arms, face tightening—Sigma exam vibes, all stress no mercy. "Transfer consciousness? No way."
The system kept unfolding silently. Glowing lines linked neurons to quantum scaffolds, frame by frame pulling the subconscious out—then uploading it into a server… on the moon.
A hidden facility.
Never once mentioned in official records.
Buried in the roots of the tech everyone used every day.
The room went quiet—so quiet even their breathing felt intrusive. The air iced over with one question.
The problem wasn't Can it be done? anymore.
It was: Has it already been done?
The next file flipped everything again.
Not just soul upload.
But the discovery of a rift in the universe.
Holo-screens flared, charting flows of energy—bridging their world with something no one dared to name.
"What was the professor planning?" Skyler muttered, scanning code that didn't look like Valentine's hand at all.
They stumbled on data beyond imagination.
A key that could open another world—
or unleash something that could never be sealed again.
Skyler's gaze stuck on that phrase—soul upload—caught between the dream of science and nightmare of humanity.
He bent over the console, fingers clawing for cosmic secrets. The holoscreen flickered, looking one glitch away from becoming a space club.
"This is boringggg," Zoe yawned, glaring at the endless code stream. "If you wanna know so bad, why don't we just—oh, I dunno—check the moon?"
Her words hit before her brain caught up. Sharp as claws, without even trying.
Skyler froze, brain hit with a crit-level idea drop. His face spelled one thing: …Wait. The moon.
And of course—
"Smartest thing you've said since you were born," Roxy deadpanned. Her sarcasm deserved its own museum wing.
Zoe snapped her head around, eyes catching fire, the blaze swelling sharp and sudden.
"Then what's the plan, genius?" The redhead turned to Skyler, voice sharp.
He could feel the atmosphere about to explode again, so he pivoted fast—straight at Zoe—and slipped into full-on galactic pop-show host mode.
"Introducing… the one and only, the dazzling idol of the century—time-traveling superstar—our very own guide to the moon…!"
And somehow—it worked.
Zoe lit up, stage-idol mode on, eyes screaming Cosmic City Top 10. Three seconds later, the smile collapsed into nervous static.
"I… uh… so, ummmm…"
"Pathetic." Roxy's tone sliced clean.
"Excuse me!?" Zoe snapped back, grinding her teeth loud enough to rival a power saw. "Dimensional travel isn't exactly a ticketmaster checkout, okay!? You need a perfect mental imprint of the destination. Screw it up and boom—the whole squad dies, no refunds!"
Roxy arched her brow. "You know the word screw it up? Color me impressed."
"That's it! I'm done!" Zoe's eye twitched as she lunged, all snarls and flailing claws.
The lab's vibe free-falls from K-pop variety show to horror soundtrack in under ten seconds. And stuck dead in the middle was Skyler—man of peace, master of chaos management—thinking:
Oh great. Another day, another aneurysm. Why does my life look like this…?
Before Zoe could smash heads—Roxy sidestepped casually, muttering something under her breath.
"With your skill? You're nowhere near using the Dark Gate—" She froze. Words she shouldn't have said.
"The… Dark Gate?" Skyler snapped to her. "What is that?"
Roxy's silence was louder than any alarm. Eyes flat. Message clear: Not telling you.
The lab, once cold with cosmic data, had turned into a boiling pot of teenage warfare—seconds from eruption.
And then—eruption hit.
WHRRRRMMMM!
The Singularity Gate powered on—unprompted. The walls shook. Holograms flickered in panic.
"Zoe—did you just open it!?" Skyler shouted over the roaring current.
"What!? No! I didn't touch anything!"
Metal twisted, energy screamed, carrying the raw sound of a world on its knees. Every gaze whipped to the holoscreen, now morphing into something else.
Air split.
A black mass spread from nowhere,inky tendrils of void bleeding outward, pure black-hole graffiti tagging the universe.
"What the hell is happening now!?"
Skyler lunged—blind, desperate—his hand clamped down on the nearest wrist. Roxy's wrist.
Gravity lurched. Balance shattered.
They went down—hard—colliding face to face. No distance. No air. Ruby eyes locked on his, carrying one silent message: Got any last words?
It should have been romantic. If not for the world-ending void yawning behind them.
Zoe's shriek cut through the chaos—a melodrama villain turned up to eleven.
Perfect, Skyler thought. I die in a rom-com cliché with one girl in my arms… while the other screams like a banshee. This is officially a sitcom death scene.
Then—blackout.
Space. Sound. Everything vanished.
The pull hit—straight-up cosmic washing machine energy, dial cranked to obliterate.
And all three—
were swallowed into the gate.
No consent required.
Through the shimmering veil of light, cosmic hums lingered in Skyler's ears.
WHAM!
He face-planted cold stone, skull rattling.
A heartbeat later, Roxy and Zoe crashed down on top of him. Human Jenga tower. Deja vu from the day they first met—now with chaos dialed up 300%.
"What the—warp!?" Zoe shouted, untangling herself from the pile. Her glare snapped straight at the redhead.
"This is your fault, isn't it, Miss Carrot Top!?"
"I have a name, bubblegum."
Yes. First conversation after crossing dimensions? Still the same old catfight.
They staggered to their feet. The floor was freezing, flat… yet shifted under each step, the surface rising and falling with a beast's hidden breath.
The air reeked of iron, torch smoke, and dry earth. Energy prickled—alien, heavy.
As their view adjusted, the scale hit. This wasn't a room. It was a cathedral. A cavern. A chamber so high its ceiling vanished into shadow.
Symbols shimmered faintly along the walls, each pulse a breath drawn by the chamber itself.
Skyler scanned the void. Zoe shot him a look that screamed: What the hell now?
"What is this place?" she hissed, teeth clenched. "Or… did you just kidnap the galaxy's hottest idol!?"
"Zoe, breathe," Skyler cut in. "First—we figure out where we are."
He didn't get the chance.
The chamber warped—expanding, folding, as if the dimension itself was mocking their senses. Distant chants rose, weaving into their footsteps, until every sound became part of a symphony not written by human hands.
Then—darkness surged, swallowing everything.
When vision returned, he was there.
A man. A presence. Power condensed so dense it shrank the room to a closet.
Was this a throne room… or an execution ground?
Answer: yes.
He sat cross-legged on a throne of jagged black stone—basically cosmic onyx ripped raw. Runes glowed faintly across its surface, glitching at the edge of vision.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't blink. And somehow, the universe leaned in—waiting for him to clear his throat.
"…Trinity."
Roxy dropped to her knees the instant she saw him, crushed beneath gravity that wasn't there. Reverence written in every motion.
Beside her, Skyler blinked, watching Roxy's fierceness collapse into something tame. He shrugged—and knelt too.
Zoe? Arms crossed. Hip cocked. The kind of posture that said: Obama himself could walk in and I'd still roll my eyes.
Her lips curled, about to fire something off that absolutely wasn't "Nice to meet you."
Roxy snapped her fingers—crystal mirror field—and Zoe vanished into a shimmering bubble before she could blow the room sky-high.
"Mmmph! @#%$&!!" Zoe stomped inside her prison, lips moving at warp speed. Whatever came out would've made a sailor blush.
Skyler just sighed.
Really? Roxy kneels to this guy? Guess I'd better start being afraid too…
The pink-haired menace hacked at the crystal cage with her katana, shrieking in ways that didn't need translation to know they were spicy. The barrier didn't flinch. Not once.
Strangely, the mirror-dimension prison wasn't really holding her in…
It was shielding her from something outside.
"I beg your pardon," Roxy said, her head remaining bowed. "The plan didn't go as intended… but these two are no threat."
So this is her world…
Skyler processed fast. This was where Roxy had been born, raised, and sharpened. Her mirrored power shone brighter than ever—it was obvious she'd returned to home turf.
"Where are we?" The question slipped before he caught it.
"Castle Aeternus," she murmured. "The heart of Eden."
"Eden… this world?"
She nodded. "This place is the crossroads—where realms, timelines, and universes converge."
"So my gate… it linked here too?"
A beat of silence. Then, sharper than a blade— "Enough. Hold your tongue."
Well damn. Rottweiler-on-a-diet vibes. Skyler shut his mouth.
The atmosphere here… it wasn't Cosmic City. This wasn't just another skyline. This was another universe. He couldn't tell if the chill in his chest came from the gray cathedral hall—goth Pinterest board gone wrong—or the man on the throne.
Nothing in the chamber. No sofas. No screens. Just a jagged throne of black stone backlit by flickering light, the glow stuttering in broken intervals, apocalypse waiting in the queue.
Silence stretched so long Skyler wondered if he'd died already.
Then—he rose.
Thud. Thud. Each strike of Trinity's boots on the stone echoed, each beat a countdown tolling toward execution.
Cold amber eyes swept over them, freezing fire into ice, until they landed on Roxy.
"State your name." The words could've stopped lava mid-flow.
Skyler's skin prickled. He glanced at Roxy—kneeling, bowed, a statue carved in the weight of worship before a god.
"I… Major Roxy Starcrest. Commander of Sigma Four." Her voice held steady, rehearsed a thousand times.
Trinity's lips twitched—almost a smile. In his language, that was acceptance.
Skyler risked a glance at Zoe, cross-legged in her glass cage, sulking—a princess denied her preferred prison menu.
Yeah. She's totally hexing us with the 'may you all be constipated' curse right now.
Trinity lingered in front of Roxy. His face—youthful, almost too much so—but his gaze was older than creation. His cloak, dried-blood red, fastened high at the neck, draped over black armor etched with runes no one here could read.
"What reward do you seek for your mission?" The pause was pointed. He already knew the answer. He just wanted to hear if she dared to speak it.
"I request military resources… and permission to work alongside Emilia, Captain of Sigma Three. To find my father—and my sister."
The chamber froze.
Skyler swallowed hard. Cold realization poured into his head, a brain-freeze shock hitting harder than an ice-bucket challenge reboot.
A sister? I never knew… Of course not. She never talks about herself.
Now he saw it. Behind the icy facade—someone who still clung to the hope of family.
Trinity inclined his head. Barely. "…Granted."
No documents. No seals. No conditions. Just words. But words strong enough to move armies across dimensions.
Roxy's composure cracked for a heartbeat. Her lashes parted sharply—then steady again as she bowed deeper.
Skyler's jaw hung for half a second.
What is this… Game of Thrones: Multiverse Edition?
A moment ago, they'd been arguing about moon trips in a lab. Now? Watching a cosmic stage play in a castle that sure as hell wasn't on Google Maps.
He looked back at the gate they'd stumbled through. And gulped.
He had the sinking feeling he'd just been drafted into a drama far bigger than he ever signed up for.
Seriously… why me?