It took another step and the lights went out.
The corridor plunged into darkness.
Not total. The kind that hums just beyond natural sight—deep blue emergency strips igniting along the floor, bathing the figures in spectral glow. Everyone froze. No one moved, no one breathed, as the static-choked form at the end of the hallway tilted its head.
And spoke in a voice that didn't echo.
"You always die before I reach you."
Rowan's breath left him.
The Echo's voice wasn't digital. It wasn't distorted. It was too human. Too close. His own voice, warped through exhaustion and agony, reverberated through the hallway in a dead tone. The figure still looked wrong—Rowan could make out no face, just the barest suggestion of a humanoid shape, like a mirage trying to pass as real.
Then it moved.
No footsteps. No sound. Just forward.
Alexander raised his shield. "Fall back to formation!"
But it was too late.
The walls rippled.
The hallway bent in on itself, space distorting as a shimmer of force erupted down the center aisle—the Echo moving with unnatural speed. It wasn't walking. It was drifting, its form splitting and snapping back together like warped video frames.
Sloane was the first to react, slamming both palms to the ground. The corridor shifted as terrain pulse destabilized beneath the Echo's projected path, but the creature passed over it like mist.
Rowan stumbled back, caught by Quinn who was already extending his field, trying to stabilize the group emotionally.
Vespera released a pulse of resonance, attempting to calm the field—but it didn't touch the Echo. Her wide eyes flicked to Rowan.
"It's mirroring him."
Kira narrowed her gaze. Frost climbed up her gloves. "That's Rowan."
Not him. Not quite.
But close enough.
The Echo reached forward, resonance building like a tidal pull. A flickering shield erupted from its hand—his hand. The same pulse Rowan had used in a dozen battles before. A defensive pattern only he had ever produced.
Before Rowan could react, the Echo launched it. The kinetic wave blasted the team apart. Quinn slammed into the wall, coughing as his link wavered. Ari caught him just in time.
"It's using his resonance profile," Quinn gasped. "Exactly. Down to the signature."
The air screamed.
Rowan struggled to his knees, blood trickling from his nose again. The moment he reached out with his own guiding field, the Echo responded—with a counter pulse. His own.
It felt like being punched in the chest by himself.
Lucian wasn't there. He was still recovering.
And Rowan suddenly realized—this thing hadn't come for any of them.
It had come for him.
A sudden eruption—Sloane launched another terrain fracture, cutting through the floor and lifting a barrier of fractured ground.
Kira moved fast behind it, flanking left, a wall of frost surging forward.
The Echo turned and vanished.
No sound. No flash.
Just absence.
"Shit," Ari breathed. "Where the hell did it—"
"Rowan!" Vespera shouted.
It had reappeared behind him.
A shadow of movement. A flicker of light.
It struck.
Rowan barely raised a shield in time. The impact hit like a freight train—a familiar blow, too familiar, from hands that felt like his own.
They crashed into the wall, both tumbling.
Rowan hit the floor hard, gasping.
Then came the resonance. Raw. Bleeding.
His mind flooded with images.
Not his memories.
But versions of them.
A hundred deaths. A thousand repeats.
His body, broken in Lucian's arms. His body falling from a building. His voice crying out across a dying world. Always ending. Always fracturing.
Always failing.
The Echo's hand clamped over his face.
He screamed.
And then—
A flare.
Kira blasted the side of the Echo's form with a wall of jagged ice, slamming it sideways.
Ari charged next, dual blades spinning as she screamed for cover.
Sloane raised his hand—gravity pulse. The corridor cracked downward, pinning the Echo for one, two seconds.
It phased again.
"It's looping!" Vespera shouted. "It's caught in a recursion cycle!"
Quinn, bleeding from his lip, pushed himself forward. His hand found Rowan's, pulsing gentle feedback through their link. Not full sync. Just enough.
"Rowan. Stay with me."
"I… I can feel him..."
The Echo pulsed. Everyone staggered.
And just as it seemed about to end it— a blast.
A sudden shot of raw chronal energy hit the wall above it. The Echo flinched.
Ren stood at the end of the hallway.
His chrono field was already shimmering, his eyes wide, frightened, but angry.
"Get away from him."
He launched a temporal flare.
The corridor bent.
Time fractured.
And the Echo was gone.
The lights flickered violently back on.
Systems groaned.
But that was not the end.
Rowan gasped on the ground. Vespera knelt beside him, eyes wide. Quinn cradled his shoulders, speaking softly. Ari supported Kira, both bruised and breathing hard.
And down the hall, Ren lowered his hands.
"I felt it," he said. "It's still here. Somewhere."
Then:
[WARNING. SYSTEM SPIKE.]
[UNREGISTERED PRESENCE DETECTED. ORIGIN: SITE V9]
The building lurched.
The lights pulsed red.
Alarms wailed.
The floor shook.
A cold wind rushed through vents that shouldn't have been open.
[SITE V9: REACTIVATION SEQUENCE COMMENCED]
Every screen blinked with static.
And the voice that followed wasn't digital.
It was Rowan's voice. Distorted. Fractured.
"Begin again."
The voice wasn't just in their heads this time.
The speakers embedded in the walls crackled to life, every terminal flickering with erratic static as the command deck lights surged, then plunged into intermittent pulses of red. Begin again still echoed faintly, as if looping beneath the building's own digital heartbeat.
On the console near Rowan, a line of code bled across the screen, rewriting itself in glitched fragments:
[ANCHOR REGISTERED — ROWAN MERCER]
[SITE V9: OPEN]
[WARNING: TEMPORAL SEEPAGE ACTIVE]
[RECURSION SYNC FAILURE DETECTED]
Rowan staggered to the panel, his breath fogging in the increasingly cold air. "Site V9… it was sealed."
Vespera moved to his side, her violet eyes fixed on the shifting data. "This isn't a signal. It's a summoning."
Kira's wrist console lit up violently. "Multiple echo signatures. They're not from the Rift," she said, voice tight. "They're being pulled here."
A klaxon blared once. Then twice.
And then the map of the base updated—with red markers flooding the left wing of the facility.
"Hostile resonance emerging," Nolan said grimly. "Sectors twelve through fourteen. Internal breach."
Alexander shifted, already bracing his gauntlets into position. "Then this wasn't a warning."
"No," Rowan murmured. "It was an invitation."
Ava's voice buzzed through the console. "All units—standby for emergency lockdown. Repeat, unknown entities breaching from within the facility. Evac protocol partial override. Do not engage alone."
Ren turned his head sharply toward Rowan. "Please tell me I get to punch something this time."
Rowan's jaw clenched. "Stick close."
The hallway lights flickered again.
And then the door to the eastern corridor—where the figure had disappeared—blew inward.
Metal shrieked. Screws tore free from their sockets. A cold wind, thick with echo shimmer, slammed through the room like a breath from the void. The air vibrated with resonance so dense it sounded like the low, vibrating chord of a hundred voices humming in discordant unison.
And there—standing in the breach—was the Echo.
Its form hadn't shifted. Still static-streaked, still wearing Rowan's silhouette like a memory smeared across reality. But it moved more fluidly now, no longer stumbling.
It walked forward.
The others fell into formation without speaking. Sloane whispered something under his breath—"Stone weeps"—and raised both arms, the floor rippling beneath him as fault lines of terrain curled into makeshift barriers.
Kira summoned a blast of freezing mist, aiming for its knees. "Let's see if this bastard bleeds."
The Echo tilted its head—and vanished.
"No!" Rowan shouted.
It reappeared behind Dain.
A scream tore out of him as it ripped through the air, fingers cleaving like blades made of light. Quinn's resonance barrier snapped into place just in time to catch the blow, the impact flaring outwards with a sound like glass fracturing under water.
Dain rolled to the side, breathless. "Okay, okay—that's cheating!"
"Flank it!" Alexander roared.
A wave of gravity compressed as Sloane slammed his hands down. The Echo stumbled—but it didn't fall. Instead, it mirrored the motion—the exact same stance, the same compression.
And Sloane buckled.
"What the hell—?" Nolan caught his arm, resonance flickering as he stabilized their link. "It's not just copying us."
Kira launched forward, knives out, leaving a trail of frost in her wake.
The Echo met her blade mid-swing.
And smiled.
For a brief, flickering moment—its face almost looked like Rowan's.
Not fully. Not perfectly. But like a memory corrupted by grief.
Kira hesitated.
That second cost her.
It moved faster than before—sweeping low and hurling her across the hall like a ragdoll. She slammed into a wall, breath knocked out, frost blooming against the panels where her body landed.
Rowan's pulse spiked. "Get out of here—everyone, fall back!"
But the Echo didn't pursue. It turned… and faced him.
Rowan froze.
It didn't speak this time.
But it raised a hand—palm open. And in its center, a flicker of light pulsed.
A shimmer.
A mirror.
And inside that mirror—
Rowan saw himself.
Dead.
Burning.
Screaming.
He staggered back, breath shallow.
"No—no, not again—"
Then: a hand gripped his arm.
Lucian.
Bruised. Bleeding. Pale.
But awake.
"You don't get to do this alone," he rasped.
Rowan's shield flared around them both.
Lucian stepped in front of him. "You want him?" he told the Echo. "You'll have to kill me first."
The Echo didn't move.
Not yet.
The silence cracked.
The air pressure dropped—like the world itself took a breath and held it. Then the figure moved.
It lunged—not at Rowan, but toward Lucian.
"No—!" Rowan surged forward, shield rising instinctively, the golden light of his resonance blooming in a rapid arc. The impact was jarring, like slamming into a mirror of himself—every strand of resonance buckled as the Echo's hand struck his shield with impossible force.
Lucian had already drawn a kinetic burst into his palm, hurling it at the Echo with a controlled snarl. "Move!" The impact flared—a blinding violet flash—but when the light faded, the figure still stood.
Still watching.
Not even scorched.
Vespera's chime pendant flared as her Empathic Field Resonance surged out in a wide pulse. "It's not just hostile—it's anchored to something!" she cried. "Its emotional signature—it's mirroring Rowan's!"
The Echo tilted its head again. Flickered.
Then chaos broke loose.
Alexander was the first to reach it. Shield in hand, a metallic roar bled from his armor plates as he slammed into the Echo with the force of a charging truck. The impact should have sent the thing flying.
Instead, the Echo caught his shield.
Alexander's boots skidded back across the floor, his jaw clenched. "This isn't normal—!"
Dain exploded into action next. "Screw normal!" he shouted, distortion waves of compressed space rippling outward as he darted around the Echo, warping his position. The floor beneath them fractured, pulled outward in warped dimensions.
But the Echo matched him—step for step.
It twisted midair, landed beside him before Dain's own movement resolved, and slammed an elbow into his ribs. Dain went crashing into a wall, coughing blood.
Vespera knelt beside him instantly, her field blossoming out to stabilize him. "He's bleeding internally—!"
Ren's voice cracked over the team comms, frantic. "Field pulses are destabilizing! I'm engaging now!"
Without waiting for orders, Ren flickered into existence mid-run, his Chrono Anchor locked on Rowan.
"Trace pulse activated—Temporal Flare!" He slammed both palms to the ground. Energy exploded from him like a ripple of mirrored afterimages. The battlefield slowed for a second—only for him.
But even in temporal acceleration, the Echo kept up.
Ren's eyes widened in horror as the Echo moved with him inside the slowed time—reaching out, grabbing his arm, and throwing him back into real-time with brutal velocity.
A scream tore from his throat as he crashed into a console.
"Kira!" Rowan barked, calling for field lockdown.
Already in motion, Kira launched into the fray. Frost screamed from her palms, layers of crystalline ice racing across the floor and forming jagged, spear-tipped walls around the Echo. "Freezing resonance vectors now—!"
The figure paused.
Then raised a hand.
The ice shattered with a single pulse of inverted energy—one that looked suspiciously like Lucian's Rift slice.
"It's using your abilities," Rowan whispered, voice cracking.
Lucian's hands trembled as he summoned his spatial blades. "No. It is me—just wrong."
He blurred forward—four teleport feints, kinetic surge burning violet between every strike. Each blade connected with precision, but none stuck. The Echo parried with his moves. His angles. His tells.
They were perfectly matched.
But Rowan saw it—Lucian's wounds from the last battle hadn't healed. He moved a little slower. Grit his teeth harder. When the Echo caught his blade arm mid-teleport and twisted—the crack of a dislocated shoulder echoed like thunder.
"Lucian!" Rowan screamed.
He dashed in, throwing up a burst shield between the Echo and Lucian, diving to catch him before he collapsed. Blood seeped from Lucian's side now, red and hot across Rowan's hands.
"You're not ready for this fight," Rowan gasped, panic bubbling through every word.
Lucian coughed, a smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. "Neither are you."
But Rowan wasn't listening. He reached deep, painfully deep, and expanded his resonance—gold light lashing through the room as he released his Anchor Fieldin a wide burst to hold their ground.
The Echo staggered.
Just for a second.
Everyone moved.
Sloane stomped a pulse of gravitational compression, pinning the figure's feet; Kira followed with jagged spikes of ice through the floor; Elias, bloodied and silent, launched acidic gas toward its flank; Mira perched from the second level above, sniper locked on its skull.
They hit it.
The air vibrated with a deafening crack of all their powers converging.
Dust.
Silence.
Then—
A ripple.
And when the smoke cleared, the Echo stood in the center. Slightly hunched. One arm hanging wrong. Its neck tilted like a broken marionette.
Its hand lifted.
And pointed straight at Rowan.
Lucian, bloodied and broken, pushed off the ground. "You don't touch him—"
The Echo blurred.
The team reacted—but too slow. It collided with Lucian like a thunderclap, seizing him by the throat and pinning him against the nearest wall. Lucian choked, hand clawing at the grip—but his strength was gone.
"Lucian—!" Rowan surged forward, but a flick of the Echo's hand threw him backward. He hit the floor with a cry, shield shattering in a cascade of golden sparks.
"Don't let him take him!" Ren's voice cracked across the chaos.
But the Echo was already activating a gate.
A spatial slice tore into existence—purple and sickly white. The resonance inside was wrong. Twisted. It pulsed with an energy none of them recognized.
Rowan scrambled toward them, blood trailing from his nose, screaming Lucian's name—
But the Echo stepped back.
And disappeared into the slice, taking Lucian with him.
The Rift closed.
And silence fell.
Only Rowan's choked gasps filled the void as he collapsed where the slice had been, eyes wide, hand shaking in empty air.
The others stood frozen. Bloodied. Shaken. Eyes darting to one another, desperate, lost.
Then—
Every console in the deck lit up red.
[ALERT: SITE V9 — RELOCATION DETECTED]
[ACCESS CODE CHANGE – INTRUSION RECOGNIZED]
[SUBJECT: VAUGHN.L DETECTED WITHIN SECURE GRID]
[CONTAINMENT ACTIVE]
Rowan's voice was barely audible. "No…"
Behind him, the systems blared. And somewhere deep in the earth beneath Zarek, buried infrastructure flared to life for the first time in years.
Site V9 was open again.
And Lucian Vaughn was inside it.
Alone.
Trapped.