POV: Global Intelligence Briefing – Location: Undisclosed Military Facility (Former U.N. Archive Subnet)
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A long rectangular table.
Twelve men and women seated around it.
One large holographic globe projected in the center.
The atmosphere was colder than the steel floor beneath them.
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> "Let's begin," said the European Director. "We have a developing situation."
She flicked her fingers across the surface console.
The globe rotated. Stopped at the South China Sea.
Zoom.
Grainy footage appeared—Zhang Lei's feed.
The black Gundam.
Frozen in a rainstorm. Unmoving. Faceless.
The image pulsed. Labeled:
UNKNOWN UNIT – CLASSIFIED ENGAGEMENT / SOUTH EAST VECTOR.
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> "You all know the current standing. Thirteen active Gundams, divided across major blocs. Until now, balance has held."
> "Until this."
The screen shifted.
A second panel displayed the list of existing Gundams. All tagged. Tracked. Monitored.
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The 13 Official Gundams:
1–3. Yatagarasu Series (Japan)
Yatagarasu-1 "Kumo": Close-range blade-based. Speed emphasis.
Yatagarasu-2 "Tengu": Stealth-adapted, light jamming systems.
Yatagarasu-3 "Shin'en": High-speed plasma spear specialist.
4. Glacier-Class "Perun" (Russia)
Ice-field suppression type.
Built-in cryogenic reactor stabilizers. Heavy armor.
5. Aegis-Knight "Carthage" (European Union)
Long-range artillery master. Satellite cannon capability.
6–7. Arclight Duo (United States)
Arclight-One "Judicator": Precision sniper variant.
Arclight-Two "Dominion": Urban combat / riot-control frame.
8. Tyrant-MkV (China)
Heavy melee variant. Full-reactive blade limbs. Current assignment: Zhang Lei.
9. Sahar-Node (Pan-Arabic Coalition)
Adaptive terrain mobile suit. Sensor ghosting, anti-drone field.
10. Kali-Vritra (India)
Multi-arm reactive strike frame. Linked A.I. co-pilot system.
11. X-Helios (Brazil/South America)
Solar-amplified kinetic drive. High-altitude energy burst.
12. Okhotnik-0 (Kazakhstan – independent prototype)
Nuclear fallback variant. Unused since test. Seen only once.
13. Valkyrie Æsir (Nordic Federation)
Air superiority Gundam. High maneuverability. Sonic-compression blades.
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The list hung in the air, like thirteen names of gods—each representing a continent's blade.
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> "And now—there's a fourteenth."
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The table remained quiet.
A French officer finally spoke:
> "Do we have any confirmation on its registration? Any nuclear heat trace?"
> "No heat signature. No reactor ping. No neural uplink. It moved undetected through five satellite webs."
A general from the U.S. leaned forward.
> "Stealth?"
> "Worse," the analyst replied.
He pointed to the footage of Malaya moving—without shadow, without sound—like the world refused to acknowledge it.
> "It doesn't hide. It simply… isn't there."
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They played audio from Zhang's helmet cam.
The breathing.
The metal shift.
The execution-level movement.
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> "This unit doesn't match any known configuration," the lead intelligence officer stated. "Its reactions are beyond quantum link."
> "It doesn't fight. It ends engagements in seconds. No comms. No ID. No origin."
> "And it left witnesses on purpose."
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The African delegate finally stood up.
> "We built Gundams to prevent catastrophe."
> "But if this isn't one of ours—then what the hell did Malaysia leave behind?"
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A long pause.
The global map zoomed out. Nations outlined in red, yellow, and blue.
The South China Sea pulsed faintly.
One untagged blip.
Still active.
Still moving.
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The Russian general grunted.
> "You're all asking the wrong question."
> "It's not what it is."
He pointed to the screen.
> "It's why it came back."
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> "Let's start with the obvious," said Dr. Ludvig, head of materials science for the EU. "We've examined the combat feed frame by frame. Its armor doesn't reflect IR. Not even in rain."
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He flicked a hologram.
Infrared imaging: nothing.
Thermal: flat.
Radar sweep: no bounce.
> "It doesn't just absorb heat. It doesn't give any off."
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The Russian delegate leaned forward.
> "Then what is the frame made of?"
> "Nothing we know. No composite matches it. We're calling it temporarily: 'Nullmetal.' Not because of its strength. Because of its… invisibility to sensors."
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On the screen, the suit stood unmoving — the same scene from Zhang's failed encounter.
But in this room, every blink meant strategy.
Every silence meant disaster.
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> "We tried vector tracking," said the Chinese intel lead. "To trace the origin of its movement signals. No result."
> "We tried neural frequency scans," added a U.S. analyst. "No activity above passive alpha range."
> "Meaning?"
> "It's not piloted using traditional brainwave links. There's no AI latency. No radio. No tether."
> "So how the hell does it move?"
The room quieted.
Then a soft voice spoke from the Japanese terminal.
> "It moves because it wants to."
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They all turned to Dr. Hayashi, former engineer of the Yatagarasu series.
He continued:
> "We built our Gundams to think. To process. To anticipate."
"But this thing doesn't think. It doesn't calculate. It acts."
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Dr. Ludvig added:
> "There's no delay. It's not responding to threat — it's erasing them before they're threats."
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Another screen displayed impact footage.
Zhang's Tyrant-MkV being struck — from two angles, two distances — and yet the black unit's arm was already mid-swing before the Chinese system even logged the melee approach.
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> "It's like the suit itself is a second nervous system," muttered one of the technicians. "But without needing the first one."
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One delegate finally stood.
General Cavallo of the EU Military Command.
> "Let me be clear. Are you saying this thing is not just untraceable — it's autonomous?"
> "No," Hayashi replied. "Worse."
> "Then what?"
> "It's aware."
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A still frame zoomed in.
The moment Malaya turned its head during the battle — not toward a target, but toward a recon drone thirty kilometers away.
The footage went black a second later.
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They brought up damage reports.
One base flattened in under 14 minutes.
No evidence of ammo discharge.
No reactor signal.
Only one sound.
A faint, organic noise. A subtle, chest-level breathing pattern.
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> "How does it maintain power?" the French commander asked.
> "Unknown," said the lead systems analyst. "There's no visible reactor core. No venting system. No overheat cycle."
> "Could it be using organic conversion?" someone asked. "Something biochemical?"
> "Then it would require matter. Fuel. Oxygen."
> "Yet it never feeds."
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They returned to the surface stress test logs from Zhang's onboard sensors.
The black unit had withstood direct hits from compressed plasma, railgun bursts, and proximity mines.
No armor deformation.
No shielding response.
No sign of kinetic impact sensors.
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> "This isn't just armor," Ludvig finally said. "It's not meant to defend."
He stared hard at the 3D model.
> "It's meant to endure."
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That's when the Indian delegate asked:
> "And the pilot?"
Everyone froze.
> "Who's inside it?"
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The answer came from Hayashi again, his voice soft, tired.
> "If there's someone inside…"
> "They've already stopped being a person."
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Chapter Fourteen – "Unidentified" (Final Remake)
POV: Global Alliance Strategic Command – Geneva Blacksite
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The bunker beneath Geneva was quiet.
A still, dry silence — the kind that only came when every word spoken could shift the balance of nations.
In the center of the darkened chamber, a hologram hovered over the table.
The Black Mobile Suit.
Unregistered. Silent. Untraceable.
And still standing — even after two months of focused military engagement from China's eastern force.
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Zhang Lei stood calmly beside the table.
No rank on his shoulder. No pride in his tone.
Just the cold gravity of what he brought with him.
> "This is the file," he said.
> "Recovered from a deep backup node inside what remains of PETRONAS's former R&D servers."
He uploaded the contents.
The room dimmed.
The seal flickered red:
> PROJECT: MLY-ORIGIN
Status: Terminated
Creator: PETRONAS (Malaysia)
Classification: Unacknowledged military prototype
Primary Material: Asterium – Meteoric derivative, non-Earth origin
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The murmurs began immediately.
> "That's the same crystal Russia failed to replicate in 2039..."
> "Sensor-invisible… How did they even acquire a sample large enough for a mobile suit?"
> "They didn't," Zhang said.
> "They built only one."
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The screen changed.
System Core Type:
BHI-C: Bio-Harmonic Interface Core – Closed Loop
Fuel Source: Direct blood sync (6-point spinal feed)
Pilot Mortality Rate: 100%
Total Subjects: 23
Surviving Subjects: 0
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> "That's impossible," a German cybernetics officer muttered. "There's someone piloting that suit right now."
> "That can't be accurate—someone has to be inside it."
> "They are," Zhang replied.
> "But they're not in the system."
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He pulled up the terminal data.
> "Subject-24: Sync Attempted"
Result: FILE MISSING
Pilot ID: NONE
Medical Data: NULL
Sync Signature: Not registered
Status: [NO RECORD]
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> "The data ends there," Zhang said.
> "No telemetry. No name. No heartbeat. Not even a recovery log."
> "Whoever is inside it now—was never meant to be."
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The room fell into silence.
Not the silence of awe.
The silence of uncertainty.
No intelligence agency, no recon satellite, no black-ops asset had managed to trace a single origin point for the pilot of the Malaya.
Not Malaysian Army.
Not PETRONAS archives.
Not even DNA from impact sites.
> "We don't know who they are."
"We don't know why the sync worked."
"And we don't know where they came from."
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A voice broke the stillness — from one of the U.S. officers:
> "Could it be AI override?"
Zhang shook his head.
> "No. The system isn't autonomous."
> "The unit responds to threat. It adjusts. Anticipates. It hesitates."
> "That's not code. That's instinct."
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Hayashi from Japan leaned in, jaw clenched.
> "We've fought Gundams before. Russia. Our own. Even the U.S. Aegis Frame."
> "They're terrifying."
> "But this one doesn't fight like a pilot is inside it."
> "It fights like the suit is alive—and the person in it is just… drifting."
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> "Then who the hell is in there?" someone demanded.
Zhang's eyes narrowed.
> "I think the better question is—why can't we find them?"
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No one spoke.
No one blinked.
Because for the first time in this war…
they weren't facing a superweapon.
They were facing a hole in reality.
A machine made of silence and blood.
Built by a nation already dead.
Piloted by someone who may have never existed at all.
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And burned into its chest, one word:
> MALAYA