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Chapter 13 - Ledger Threads

The victory from the Mirror Labyrinth hadn't faded, but its aftershocks were only beginning.

Ghost Ledger was no longer invisible.

Jack sat on the edge of his bed, staring at a string of new System messages flooding his deck interface:

[Sync Probability Adjustment – Ghost Ledger: 13% Higher Stability] [Observer Notes Logged]

[Status Flag: Coordinated Team Unit – Under Surveillance]

[Echo Simulation: Partial Match Detected – Traceback Incomplete]

He leaned forward, tapping through the data logs with surgical precision. What stood out wasn't the victory, it was the pattern.

Emotional sync frequencies. Tactical rhythms. Even speech patterns. Someone wasn't just watching Ghost Ledger.

They were practicing it.

Lucen had gone quiet, a stillness that was more of an active listening than a pause.

Sear hadn't responded to the team channel since the last trial, her silence a form of concentration.

Hollow was poking around simulation logs, a digital ghost searching for unseen variables.

The Mirror Labyrinth had cracked something open and now, the System was responding in kind.

And Jack? Jack was tracking the new thread:

[Wager Data Line: Ledger Echo Detected – Room 73B]

[Classification: Reflection Construct (Beta)]

[Stability: 41% and rising]

It wasn't supposed to be possible.

Echoes were memory residues. Glitches born of suppressed traits or unprocessed trauma. But this was different. This was patterned and felt intentional.

Someone or something was mimicking them.

Jack pinged the others, the message a concise, single thought:

[Group Message – Dead Silence]: We have a ghost.

Twenty minutes later, Ghost Ledger gathered in the Quiet Room.

A dim, inactive lounge deep in the sub-levels of the House. It was unlisted. Unlit. Unbothered at all.

They had claimed it weeks ago, but now it felt like a confessional, a place to expose secrets.

The room hummed faintly with the residue of unsimulated energy, raw code hanging like a static fog in the air. It tingled against their skin, made speech feel heavier.

Sear leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, her face unreadable.

Hollow sat cross-legged on the central cushion, his deck casting lines of red light against his fingers.

Lucen stood by the corner, barely moving, her lips forming silent equations. Her eyes didn't blink.

Jack stood at the center, rotating his deck slowly in his palm.

"We're being copied," he said without preamble. "Not just our formations. Our emotional sync."

Sear scoffed. "So? That's the price of visibility. We win. They imitate."

Lucen turned, her voice a calm counterpoint. "No. This wasn't mimicry. It wasn't predictive. It was reflective. Like it had already seen us."

Jack nodded. "Intent-level sync. Identical pauses. Parallel action sequences. And the worst part? It adjusted mid-trial. Like us."

"That's not a mimic," Hollow muttered, his fingers twitching. "That's a version."

"Echo simulation," Lucen confirmed. "But unstable. Incomplete. It's drawing from something inside the System."

Jack turned to Sear. "Any chance this is leftover Architect trash?"

Sear shrugged. "Wouldn't put it past them. But it's too clean. The Architect plays with trauma. This… feels mechanical."

Lucen took a step forward, a thought solidifying in the air. "What if it is us? Not past or future. Just... split. Rewritten from internal code feedback."

Jack's breath caught. "You mean a recursive signature," he said. "The System ran our formation as a template and recompiled it into a living trial."

Lucen nodded. "Reflection format. We've become our own baseline."

A silence fell, profound and heavy.

Then Sear pushed off the wall. "So what do we do? Hunt it down? Or bait it out?"

Jack opened his deck. "Neither. We build a mirror. We write a trial, a closed sync with no external data flow. And we walk in."

"You want to challenge ourselves," Hollow said slowly, his voice tight. "What if we lose?"

Jack looked around the room at Lucen's silent focus, Hollow's raw tension, Sear's coiled fire.

"Then we learn how to survive ourselves," Jack said.

[Trial Format: Custom]

[Wager: Internal Reflection Match]

[Parameters: Emotional Sync Required | No Trait Reuse Allowed]

[Opponent Class: Echo Format – Unknown]

[Initiating Team: Ghost Ledger]

[Location: Trial Room 19Z – Isolation Sector]

The room was cold, It was sterile and It didn't feel simulated. It felt... suspended. Like it had never existed until they stepped in.

Four chairs waited one per member. Placed in a perfect square, each facing the center.

In the middle, a cube of mirrored code rotated silently, suspended in magnetic air. As it turned, flickers of Ghost Ledger's past matches danced along its sides.

Lucen was the first to step in. She blinked once, long and slow. "It's already learning."

Sear followed, flames in her eyes. "Then let's give it something worth copying."

The cube rotated faster and faster.

Jack sat down last. As his weight settled, the cube froze.

Then, a voice heard but not mechanical and also not human. Just... clear.

"Ghost Ledger: Confirmed."

In a ripple of light, four figures stepped from the cube. Clearly not a clone of avatars. It was not a simulation like the shadow. It was them.

Sear, but colder. Lucen, her eyes glowing with an inner light. Hollow, twitching with a nervous energy that felt dangerous.

Jack, his face blank. Emotionless and clinical. Like a surgical knife waiting to be used. They moved together. Perfect formation in motion.

"Reflection trial engaged," said the voice. "Win condition: clarity."

"What does that mean?" Hollow whispered, his voice trembling slightly.

Jack answered. "It means only one version of us walks out from here."

The reflections activated at once.

Hollow's copy mimicked his nervous energy with uncanny precision.

Lucen's echo pulsed with predictive rhythms Jack couldn't decode.

Sear's version burned brighter and darker, a fire contained in a more dangerous way.

And Jack's reflection stood motionless, analyzing. Like it was waiting for him to blink.

Lucen stepped back. "They're running pure sync. No deviations. No improvisation."

"They're trying to be perfect," Jack murmured. "Let's show them why we're not."

[Trial Start – Internal Echo Engagement Initiated]

[Chapter End – Reflection Format Activated. Ghost Ledger Faces Its Echo. Win Condition: Emotional Resolution or Collapse.]

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