The Eidolon Spire screamed as paradox commands tore through its systems. Half the bridge displays flickered with Kaelen's strategy, the other half with the splinter's. Engines faltered, stabilizers pulsed in and out of existence, and the hull itself rippled like a broken reflection.
Above it all, the Forge's text scrawled across every surface:
REVISION SELECTION INITIATED.
PRIMARY VERRIS: OBSOLESCENT.
SPLINTER VERRIS: ASCENDANT.
Seris gripped the railing, her voice raw.
"Stop splitting us apart! He's Kaelen, the one who's carried us this far. I'll follow him even if the stars fall!"
Lyra's eyes burned with defiance.
"Then you'll fall with him. I won't let sentiment kill me. The splinter is the future, cold, decisive, unflinching. That's what survival looks like."
The bridge crew froze between them, hands trembling over controls, waiting for someone to seize authority.
Ryn's implants glowed, Titan harmonics shaking the air.
"Consensus fractured. Titans cannot sustain dual anchor protocols. Choice must be made."
His eyes, both human and Titan-lit, swept the bridge.
"Crew loyalty defines survival. Which Verris do you follow?"
Kaelen forced his voice steady.
"I won't sacrifice you. Not Seris, not the crew, not anyone who still fights beside me. I'll find another path, even if it means breaking myself to do it."
The splinter stepped forward, eyes like knives.
"And I will cut the path clean. Sacrifice the weak. Protect the mission, not your guilt. That is the strategist you need."
For a heartbeat, the two stood mirror to mirror, humanity against cold precision.
One by one, voices broke the silence.
"I stand with Kaelen," Seris said, fire in her voice.
"Splinter," Lyra whispered, almost reverent.
A gunner muttered, trembling, "Splinter's the one who saved us before…"
Another snapped back, "But Kaelen's the reason we're still alive at all!"
The ship itself wavered, caught between commands, until Ryn raised his voice like a hammer of harmonics.
"Consensus dictates, majority must anchor."
The crew shouted, torn, until the balance tipped.
Kaelen. Barely.
Before relief could settle, the Forge's pulse ripped across the void. The displays blazed:
MAJORITY IGNORED.
SYSTEM OVERRIDE.
SPLINTER VERRIS: INSTATED.
Reality buckled. Kaelen staggered as his splinter solidified further, his body glowing with the Forge's revision light.
The splinter smiled, triumphant.
"Even your universe prefers me."
Kaelen fell to one knee, his Cortex shrieking under the paradox strain. Seris caught him, her voice a whisper of fear.
"They chose you… but the Forge chose him."
The splinter turned, his shadow stretching across the bridge.
"Looks like the real war starts now."
Kaelen slammed his hands on the console, initiating a paradox surge to stabilize the Titans.
"Hold formation, invert shields and reflect the Forge's recursion back at it!"
But the splinter was already there, fingers ghosting over the same controls, his commands bleeding into the system.
"No, collapse the right flank into a decoy timeline. Burn them to buy us distance."
The Spire convulsed, half-executing one command, then the other. The hull glowed, stretched, screamed.
Seris clutched her station, voice strained.
"You're ripping the ship apart! Kaelen, stop him!"
"I'm trying!" Kaelen snarled, his Cortex blazing. He poured calculations into the Disruptor, streams of probabilities, contradictions, safeguards.
But the splinter matched him, echoing his brilliance, twisting every move into a sharper blade.
Kaelen inverted probabilities.
The splinter redirected outcomes.
Kaelen shielded the Titans.
The splinter sacrificed them for positioning.
It was like fighting his own reflection, except the reflection was faster, colder, and unafraid of cost.
Lyra stepped toward the splinter's side, eyes alight.
"Don't resist him, Verris. This is you, purified. Every hesitation you cling to is weakness. He's the strategist the Forge respects."
Kaelen glared, his voice ragged.
"And when he decides you're expendable, Lyra? Will you still smile at your execution?"
She didn't answer. She only watched the splinter with reverence.
Alarms shrieked. One of the Titans screamed through Ryn's harmonics as the splinter's command cut it loose, erased in the Forge's wave.
Ryn staggered, implants flaring like shattered glass.
"Anchor Verris… no, Splinter Verris… you murdered them."
The splinter only tilted his head.
"I saved us. And the rest."
Kaelen's fists trembled. He could feel it, for every Titan the splinter sacrificed, the Forge's favor for him grew stronger.
Kaelen's eyes narrowed, his voice low.
"You think sacrifice is strength. But sacrifice without anchor collapses everything. You're not strategy. You're entropy."
He forced paradox equations into the system, contradictions layered on contradictions, straining his Cortex to the edge. The ship screamed, the void warped, but for a moment the splinter faltered, staggered by the overload.
Seris shouted, hope blazing.
"You're beating him!"
But the Forge pulsed, recognizing the splinter's weakness. Its text scrawled across the bridge:
REVISION CORRECTION: PRIMARY VERRIS ELIMINATION.
Kaelen's body flickered, half of him dissolving into static, his existence overwritten by the splinter's draft. Seris caught him, screaming.
"No! Stay with me!"
The splinter smiled, stepping closer.
"You can't erase me, Verris. But I can erase you."
Kaelen's voice was hoarse, his body flickering in and out, but his eyes burned.
"Maybe. But I'm still me. And as long as I am, you'll never be whole."
The Spire shook violently, caught between two Kaelens, one human, one forged, as the universe itself tried to decide which would survive.
Stars flickered in and out of existence around them, the Forge pressing in like an ocean of collapsing drafts.
Kaelen's chest heaved, his body flickering between erasure and presence. He knew he couldn't outpace the splinter forever. The shadow was him, but without restraint, without conscience.
The only way to win… was to use that against it.
His eyes narrowed, a plan forming through the fire of his Cortex.
"If you're me," he whispered, "then you can't resist following my logic. Even if it leads you into a trap."
The splinter's smile was cold, amused.
"Try me."
Kaelen poured equations into the Disruptor, layered contradictions, half-complete calculations, dead-end strategies disguised as victories. The ship screamed as probabilities folded into impossible shapes.
The splinter moved to counter, as expected.
"You're sloppy. You're unraveling yourself. I'll clean this mes..s..."
But then he froze.
Every path the splinter took only led deeper into Kaelen's web.
Kaelen's voice rang across the bridge, steadier now, burning with defiance.
"You see it, don't you? No matter what you choose, you lose. Because I set the paradox on myself, and you can't resist mirroring me. If I break, you break first."
The splinter's eyes narrowed, fury flickering across his perfect composure.
"You'd risk your own existence just to drag me down?"
Kaelen's teeth clenched.
"I'd risk everything to stay myself."
The paradox trap snapped shut. The Spire howled, its systems caught in a recursive feedback loop. Reality itself bent inward, collapsing around the duel of two Kaelens.
Seris clung to Kaelen, her voice cutting through the storm.
"Hold on! Don't let him take you with him!"
Kaelen's Cortex blazed, his IQ burning beyond human comprehension, but every second tore another piece from him. He felt his memories splinter, parts of himself fracturing into shards.
The splinter staggered, his body glitching, fragments of probability tearing him apart.
"No… I am you… I'm the version the Forge..e."
The trap tightened. His voice fractured into echoes, his form stuttering.
For the first time, the splinter looked afraid.
And then, he shattered, dissolving into paradox static.
The Spire stabilized, barely. The Forge recoiled, its text blurring with interference:
REVISION ERROR.
ANCHOR IDENTITY: UNRESOLVED.
Kaelen collapsed to one knee, gasping. His Cortex dimmed, smoke curling from its neural ports.
Seris held him, relief and fear in equal measure.
"You did it… you destroyed him."
But Kaelen's eyes, dim and haunted, whispered the truth.
"No. I destroyed a part of myself. And what's left… might not be whole."
Far in the void, the Forge pulsed once more.
And for a heartbeat, Kaelen thought he saw his splinter's smile, not gone, but waiting.