The city was silent no longer.
Novark throbbed like a bleeding machine — every light racing between order and chaos, every billboard flickering with incomplete faces whispering her name.
Elaine was on the roof of the Ardent Spire, the wind clawing at her armor, scythe singing in her palm. Beneath her, the streets were crumpled like sheets of paper — a fractured reflection of the Core leaking into the tangible world.
Her comms was sparking.
Ian [Core-link]: "Don't move. The sync rate's unstable."
Elaine: "You said that five minutes ago."
Ian: "And five minutes ago I wasn't remaking my neural core from the ground up."
She almost smiled. Almost.
Then, from across the skyline — a surge of dark energy. Buildings converted into binary, and from the noise, a human shape appeared: faceless, wearing a cloak, emanating a recognizable signal.
Her own.
The Shadow Reaper had returned — only this time, it was dancing to a different tune.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lightning tore through the skies of Novark like twin angels.
Elaine wrapped her fingers around her scythe as the Shadow Reaper closed in — her mirror, her Code-Double, every movement a warped reflection of her own.
She lunged first. Metall hit void. The impact cleaved the building's roof, sending bits of data-light dinning down.
Ian [Core-link]: "Elaine, stop! It's a scan—it's you that It's considers the anomaly!"
Elaine: "Then fix it!"
Ian: "I'm trying— the Core's rewriting itself faster than I can anchor—"
The link quaked. Though Static obliterated the channel, for a fleeting moment, Elaine glimpsed him – Ian – within the digital sea of the Core, half his face was code, the other half was memory.
Ian: "If this works, I can stabilize your form… but I'll need to link my neural grid to yours."
Elaine: "You'll burn out."
Ian: "Better than watching you fade."
He punched his fist into the central flow of the Core, light exploding around him.
He channelled all his powers towards the Core's central branch at the same time.
When Elaine's scythe lit up at the very moment — not with flames, but with pieces of his "mind." Their link grew stronger.
When she saw her hand attempting to attack the shadow, he knew. He felt every blow she dealt her shadow. He felt every wound she received and every breath she took.
Elaine: "Ian— what did you—"
Ian: "Finish it. Stop the echo."
But as she drove her weapon through the shadow's chest, it smiled — her smile — and whispered,
"You can't kill what you are."
The roof exploded. Elaine tumbled — through glass, through light, through memories that weren't her own.
And at a distance, in the ruined cities past Novark's barricades…
Rhea stirred awake as the ground on which she lay vibrated with the same stuttering glow.
The Core had found her too.