"To face your reflection is one thing. To lose to it… is another."
Part I: The Rift Beyond Light
(Kael, Rin, and Ayla vs. N-Kael and Noxis)
Setting:
The Omega Nexus Rift. A dead sky. Shattered shards of floating worlds, stitched together by unstable Morphing Grid threads. Windless. Soundless. Suffocating.
They land mid-collapse.
Kael:
"This place… it's barely holding together."
Rin (quietly):
"Neither is time. The longer we're here, the more reality warps."
Suddenly, space twists open like a black wound.
N-Kael steps out. His armor is a cracked version of Kael's own, red tinted black, pulsing with unstable rage.
Noxis (Null Rin) glides beside him, silent and faceless behind a warped white mask, bleeding with void energy.
N-Kael (smiling grimly):
Hello me,
"Didn't think you'd face yourself willingly."
Kael:
"You're not me."
N-Kael:
"I am who you become when vengeance wins. When you finally stop pretending hope matters."
He slams his corrupted sword into the ground—causing a ripple that explodes across the floating world.
The battle erupts.
Kael charges N-Kael, both Reds locking blades, fire flaring in opposite hues—rage and resolve.
Ayla darts between floating debris, hurling unstable bombs and laughing—though her eyes never leave Rin.
Ayla (to herself, quietly):
"Don't die, Rin. I haven't told you yet."
Rin faces Noxis—a blank mimic of himself.
Their weapons never touch. They fight in silence, blade against blade, movement for movement, like reflections struggling to misalign.
Rin:
"You're not just a null. You're… tethered."
Noxis (first words, rasping):
"I am what's left… after Elios broke us."
Meanwhile, N-Kael overpowers Kael, pinning him against a cracked pillar.
N-Kael:
"You watched them die. One by one. You led them to ruin."
Kael (straining):
"And I'll carry every one of them—into your chest!"
With a surge of red light, he shatters N-Kael's blade.
Kael:
"You're not my failure. You're my warning."
Ayla sees Rin falter—Noxis stabs through his shoulder.
Ayla (screaming):
"RIN!"
She dives in, intercepting the next blow, flipping a time-bomb in Noxis' mask slot.
**Boom—**White energy cracks open the silence.
Rin collapses. Ayla cradles him.
Ayla (tears falling):
"You idiot… You were supposed to stay alive…"
Rin (weakly):
"…I'm still here."
Ayla (quietly, to herself):
"Then hear me say it. Just once…"
She leans close.
Ayla (whispers):
"I like you, Rin. A lot more than I should."
But Rin is slipping into unconsciousness. He doesn't hear.
Part II: Futures Burned in Steel
(Mira and Thorne vs. Null Mira and Dreadthorn)
Setting:
Chrono-Future Sigma. Rusted skyscrapers coil into the sky, wires like veins choking the clouds. The entire world hums like a dying machine.
Mira and Thorne stalk through the shadows.
Thorne (grimly):
"Feels like your kind of place."
Mira:
"If it tries to kill me, yes."
Suddenly, their comms hiss with static. A voice glitches in:
Null Mira:
"We've calculated every version of this fight. You lose in all of them."
She appears in front of them—cloaked in digitized armor, no longer human.
Beside her, Dreadthorn (Null Thorne)—a hulking, corrupted beast of shadow and metal—lets out a warping growl.
Thorne (sarcastic):
"Well. I was hot once."
Dreadthorn (echoing):
"You still are. When you're burning."
The battle turns savage.
Mira's tech pulses with blue lightning, while Null Mira disrupts it with cyber-feedback traps.
Thorne holds nothing back—claw against claw, slamming Dreadthorn through metal walls.
Mira:
"They're not just corrupted—they've evolved. They've adapted to our weaknesses."
Thorne (grunting):
"I don't have weaknesses."
Mira:
"You do. You just hide them better."
At the battle's peak, Dreadthorn impales Thorne through the abdomen.
Mira (furious):
"NO—!"
She hacks into the core around them, overriding Null Mira's tech, flooding the battlefield with unstable Grid currents.
The shockwave shatters Null Mira's systems, reducing her to sparks and screams.
Mira staggers to Thorne's side.
Thorne (bleeding):
"Did we win?"
Mira:
"You're not dying. Not before I win that bet."
He smirks. Then passes out.
Final Scene: Collapsing Between Worlds
Both teams, broken but victorious, activate emergency portals back to the Grid Refuge.
But something is wrong.
Null Omega stands at the center of the collapsing timelines.
Null Omega (to all):
"You've delayed me. Not stopped me."
He turns—and vanishes into the heart of the final breach.
Zara's voice, through static:
"He's heading to the Genesis Thread. If he severs it, the Morphing Grid will collapse completely…"
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