They moved like water.
The echoes—hundreds of them—surged from all sides, flickering in and out of phase. Each was a twisted fragment of Jace, dressed in versions of his past, some armored like kings, others cloaked like reapers. All of them smiling with the same hollow grin.
Jace's instincts kicked in.
He ducked the first swipe, rolled, and slashed up. His blade carved through one, turning it to digital mist. Another lunged—he spun, caught it mid-air, and kicked it into the wall. Shattered code sprayed across the chamber like dying embers.
But they kept coming.
"You good?!" Kira shouted, gun blazing. Her stabilizer drone surged with light, suppressing the recursive drift just enough for her shots to hit. Echoes exploded on contact, but three more replaced each one.
"Never better!" Jace yelled back, already covered in cuts and light-burns.
Kael moved with clinical precision, hacking the central pillars and overloading their echo-generating loops, trying to cut the source off.
"No use!" he shouted. "They're pulling from his timeline now! Direct stream!"
Kira blinked. "Jace's?!"
"No!" Kael corrected. "The original's! The one who sat on the throne the first time!"
The echo at the throne—the prime—watched it all in silence, eyes dim.
"You still don't get it," he murmured. "You're not fighting your enemies. You're fighting the pieces of yourself you refused to accept."
Jace cut down another fragment and panted. "What the hell does that even mean?!"
The prime stood, descending from the throne.
The air pulsed. The fragments froze. Even time stilled.
He walked past them, now inches from Jace.
"You've seen it, haven't you? The memories you pretend not to know. The decisions you've already made. You were always the one to restart this. I just kept it going."
Jace backed away, blade raised. "You're lying."
"I'm you. I can't lie."
The prime reached up, touched Jace's forehead.
Instantly—
—Jace stood in the ruins of the world.Kira's body crumbled in his arms.Kael screaming at him.The sky split.He walked alone to the throne.Sat down.Said, "One more time."And pressed the restart button.
He stumbled back.
"No…"
"Now you remember," said the prime. "You didn't lose your memory. You buried it."
Kira caught Jace before he fell.
"What happened? What did he show you?"
Jace looked at her, heart racing.
"…I ended it. I chose the recursion."
She went still.
Kael stopped hacking. "What?"
"I remember everything," Jace said, hollow. "I was the last to survive. I looped the system. I thought if I kept rewinding time, I could find a version where we all made it. Where I didn't lose you."
Kira's eyes softened with grief. "Jace…"
"I chose to become the Echo King."
The prime nodded. "So now you know. You can take the throne back. Fulfill your role. The recursion will continue. And maybe, just maybe, the next version gets it right."
But something cracked in Jace.
He looked at Kira.
"I don't want another version. I want this one. I want the real you."
He turned to the prime. "I'm done running from my memories. From myself."
The throne pulsed.
The echoes began to glitch, falter—some stopped mid-strike, looking confused.
"I'm not killing you," Jace said. "I'm replacing you."
The prime frowned. "You can't rewrite me. You are me."
Jace raised his blade.
"I'm not your echo. I'm the Rewrite."
He charged.
The impact shattered the floor.
Jace's sword clashed with the prime's dark blade, the two locked in a cyclone of light and shadow. Memory shards spun through the air, flashing scenes from dozens of failed timelines.
Jace screamed, rage and grief and hope all pouring into each swing.
"You ruined everything—!"
"I tried to save it!"
Their blades locked, sparks flying.
"You wanted control!"
"I wanted to stop the pain!"
"You erased everyone!"
"I kept their memory alive!"
Their voices merged, overlapped.
And then—
Kira screamed.
"JACE!"
She stood over a console, hands bleeding, eyes wide.
"The throne's absorbing him! It's rewriting him into the timeline!"
Kael ran to her side, frantically typing. "The throne's initiating an overwrite. It's not just replacing the King—it's converting Jace into the root code. He'll lose himself!"
"No!" she shouted. "We're pulling him out—now!"
Inside the loop, the prime grinned. "This is what you wanted. Power. Choice. Control."
Jace's hands trembled.
The throne pulsed beneath them, runes burning across his skin. His thoughts were getting louder. More jumbled.
Kira's voice was fading.
"Goodbye, Kira," he whispered. "I'm sorry."
But then—
Another voice.
Not hers. Not Kael's.
His own.
You said you'd fight for her. So fight, dammit. Fight yourself.
Jace screamed and stabbed his sword into the throne.
The entire chamber exploded with light.
The prime howled—fracturing, code tearing away.
Jace pulled every memory, every regret, every choice into the blade and drove it deeper—overwriting the recursion itself.
"No more loops!" he shouted. "No more thrones!"
The echoes screamed, collapsing into one another. The throne shattered.
And Jace…
Fell.
He awoke on the ground.
Kira hovered over him, tears in her eyes.
"Jace?"
He blinked. "Still here."
She laughed, sobbing. "You idiot. You scared the hell out of me."
Kael stepped beside them. "You did it. The recursion thread… is gone."
Jace sat up slowly. The throne was rubble. The room was silent.
"Then this… is the first real timeline."
Kael nodded. "There's no more 'next time.' It's now or never."
Jace looked at the sunrise bleeding through the cracks in the tower.
"…Good."