The duplicate didn't breathe.
Its chest rose and fell in perfect rhythm, but there was no warmth behind the motion—no weight of a soul. It stood taller than Kade, body outlined in faint pulses of code like a broken simulation trying to repair itself.
"You're not real," Kade said slowly, voice steady but low.
The figure tilted its head. "Neither are you. Not in the way that matters."
Marei aimed her pulse rifle. "Is this a clone? A projection?"
The thing smiled again, but it wasn't a human expression. It was something taught. Reconstructed from fragments.
"I am the Catalyst's failsafe. The original memory it preserved when it feared you'd collapse under the truth." It pointed a finger at Kade's chest. "You are a corrupted version."
Kade didn't flinch. "Funny. That's exactly what I thought about you."
System Notice:
Internal Identity Conflict Detected
Resolution Required – Combat Initiation Authorized
Without warning, the corridor shifted. The walls rippled outward, stretching into a combat arena lit by blue fire. The figure lunged—fast, faster than Kade thought possible. But instinct took over.
He ducked, rolled, and activated Phantom Pulse mid-spin.
The impact sent the doppelgänger skidding back, but it absorbed the blow with eerie grace.
"Your moves," it said. "Still incomplete."
Then it struck back—one, two, three strikes, each echoing with data-infused force. Kade blocked one. Dodged another. The third caught his shoulder, sending him sprawling against the wall.
Marei fired. The energy pulse hit the doppelgänger dead in the chest.
It fizzled.
Reformed.
"System-based attacks won't work," she shouted. "It is the system."
Kade rose to his feet, blood trickling down his lip. "Then we do it the old way."
He drew his blade—not a system construct, but a relic of the world before the reset. Forged from real metal. Real loss.
Their blades clashed.
Sparks flew.
The system screamed warnings into his mind, but Kade silenced them. This wasn't about calculation—it was about memory. Will. Truth.
Each strike he made was fueled by what he refused to forget.
Marei moved to his flank, distracting the figure just long enough. Kade's blade found purchase—deep into the chest, straight through the core of synthetic memory.
The clone jerked.
Its eyes flashed.
And then, it spoke one last time.
"Even if you kill me… another version always wakes…"
It collapsed in a pile of fractal dust, vanishing like a bad dream.
Silence returned.
But it wasn't peaceful.
Kade leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
Marei holstered her rifle. "You okay?"
He nodded once. "It wasn't just a clone."
"What was it then?"
"A shadow of the man I could've become… if I had obeyed the system instead of breaking it."
He turned toward the data core at the room's far end.
"We're not done."