The transport gates opened above Eclipsera with a low, mechanical groan, and the planet revealed itself without ceremony.
No welcoming skyline.
No heroic vista.
Just scars.
Industrial plates stretched across continents, stitched together with glowing fault-lines where the planet had been reinforced after too many wars. Orbital debris floated in disciplined rings, old CDC wreckage fused into defense arrays. Even the sky looked tired—thick, dim, carrying the weight of centuries of conflict.
When Tojo stepped onto the surface, his boots sank a fraction deeper than expected.
Gravity.
Not crushing.
Just enough.
He adjusted his stance without comment.
Around him, Andromeda-born cadets adapted instantly. Their bodies moved like they'd been calibrated for this place since birth. Earth cadets weren't so smooth. One stumbled. Another swore under their breath.
Ozaru noticed everything.
The way squads clustered by species.
The way instructors ignored questions from Earthlings.
The way some cadets already acted like survivors… and others like casualties waiting to happen.
No one explained the Crucible.
They didn't have to.
A senior instructor stood on a raised platform, arms folded, voice carrying without amplification.
"You passed the written exam because you met the minimum standard."
No pride. No congratulations.
"The Crucible exists to show you how meaningless that standard is."
A ripple passed through the candidates.
"Genesis output will be monitored. Excess force is failure. Heroics are failure. Saving one unit at the cost of formation stability is failure."
Ozaru's fingers twitched.
The instructor continued, eyes cold.
"Creation that destabilizes the field is destruction by another name."
That line stayed with him.
Squads were assigned quickly. No explanations. No appeals.
Tojo and Ozaru ended up in a mixed unit—humans, one Kyrr, one Vexari. Functional on paper. Awkward in reality. They didn't speak much.
Stryke Vahr was already gone, integrated into an elite Andromeda squad that moved with quiet precision. Blaze Onyx laughed too loudly somewhere to the left, surrounded by admirers who mistook confidence for competence.
Elara Vey stood a few positions away from Ozaru, checking her equipment with careful focus. When she noticed him looking, she didn't smile.
She just asked, "Creation resonance fluctuates under stress. How do you keep it stable?"
Ozaru hesitated. He didn't know the technical answer. Alkhaz hadn't taught him formulas. Just instincts.
"I… don't push it," he said. "I listen first."
She paused, then nodded once, storing the answer away like data.
The first drills began without warning.
Movement tests. Formation holds. Environmental stress simulations.
Tojo felt Destruction press against his chest, eager, impatient. He kept it contained. Too contained. When a cadet misstepped near him, Tojo saw it half a second too late.
The stumble didn't cause injury.
But it broke formation.
The instructor's gaze flicked toward them.
Strike one.
Ozaru saw a different problem—an energy imbalance in another squad, Genesis spiraling inefficiently. He could fix it. Ten seconds, maybe less.
He didn't move.
Creation hummed, unsettled.
"I could've—" he whispered to himself.
But restraint won.
For now.
High above, Ken Kuruzama observed silently, hands behind his back. Azure readings stayed within acceptable deviation. He made a note. Said nothing.
That silence felt heavier than judgment.
---
Far from Eclipsera, on a fractured mining world near a collapsed star, Crimson Division deployed with surgical speed.
Voidspawn burst from the ground like living shadows, their forms unstable, screaming with residual gravity.
Nina didn't hesitate.
Her blade cut clean arcs through the air, Crimson Genesis reinforcing every strike with brutal efficiency. She moved between her squadmates without shouting, without panic—every motion exact, practiced, lethal.
A Voidspawn lunged toward a rookie.
Nina intercepted it mid-air and split it in half.
As the body dissolved, a thought slipped through her focus.
Tojo… holding power he doesn't understand yet.
Ozaru… trying to fix things that don't want fixing.
They shouldn't be here.
Not yet.
But neither should the Voidspawn she was killing.
Crimson pulsed against her wrist—not jealous, not angry.
Protective.
She finished the operation in silence and gave her report without mentioning any of it.
---
Elsewhere, far from both Crucible and battlefield, Alkhaz stood inside a narrow hangar bay reserved for missions that didn't exist on official logs.
Zarion's message replayed once in his mind—not as prophecy, not as warning.
As direction.
Equilibrium didn't resist. It aligned.
"Alright," Alkhaz murmured, fastening his coat. "Let's see where this leads."
A second figure waited near the transport. Face obscured. Presence… strange. Not hostile. Not friendly.
Just unknown.
The bay doors closed behind them without announcement.
---
Back on Eclipsera, the day ended without ceremony.
No victories.
No speeches.
Just exhaustion.
As the candidates were dismissed, the instructor delivered one final line.
"Tomorrow, some of you will learn that potential is irrelevant."
Tojo and Ozaru stood side by side, silent.
They didn't look confident.
They didn't look afraid.
They looked aware.
Far beyond Andromeda, unseen sensors adjusted their focus.
A quiet command passed through deep space.
"Preparation phase complete."
No name followed.
The Crucible had begun and soon it'll be a Crucial Point for Tojo, for ozaru
and most of the cadets who were present there...