"When you erase history, beware of what tries to crawl out from under it."
— Aeris Vale
---
Location: Outer Rim Relay Station – Exosphere Orbit, Class-C Station "Solace"
They were supposed to be dead.
The children.
The researchers.
The gods.
Aeris had ensured it.
Lucien watched the stars from the bridge of a hijacked relay station, fingers tight around a cracked glass of whiskey.
"We intercepted a signal," the technician whispered behind him.
"Encrypted. Ancient code. Same formatting as Project Origin… but deeper."
Lucien turned, slowly.
"Impossible."
"It says one thing."
The tech handed him the tablet. Four words blinked in red:
"Protocol Eden: Engage Ascendancy."
Lucien went still.
Ascendancy was dead.
Seraphine was dead.
But something remembered.
He sent one command to Aeris.
"They're waking up."
---
Location: Aeon Core – Subsurface Crypt, Atlantic Seafloor
Aeris watched the signal echo across hidden networks.
She felt it in her spine.
"It's not her," Zero said.
"It's not Seraphine."
"No," Aeris murmured.
"It's older."
Deep beneath the earth, vaults cracked.
The Forgotten Ones stirred.
These were not her mother's weapons.
These were predecessors.
The ones her mother stole from.
The ones who had ruled before nations ever existed.
Buried under water. Under cities. Under time itself.
They weren't dead. Just… waiting.
And Aeris had triggered them when she rewrote the world.
---
"They remember you," Lucien said on the encrypted line.
"They shouldn't," Aeris replied.
"But they do."
A beat of silence.
"They're calling you their heir."
---
Elsewhere: Blacksite Theta – Unknown Continent
The council met again for the first time in 140 years.
Not in flesh—only in voice.
The Forgotten were not gods.
They were the origin code of the human machine.
Living algorithms in borrowed skin. Half-code, half-bone.
Their empire had once ruled beneath the surface of everything.
Until Aeris's mother betrayed them.
And now, they had awakened to find Aeris had built something even worse.
A world without control.
They couldn't kill her.
So they'd do something worse.
Claim her.
---
The Mirror Tomb
Aeris stood before a mirror older than recorded time.
Her own reflection blinked back—except it wasn't her.
The face was younger. Pale. Familiar.
It smiled.
"Hello, Aeris," it said.
"Do you know what you were meant to be?"
"Because we do."
The mirror shattered.
And the voice whispered from every fragment:
"It's time to ascend."
---