The moment she vanished, the floor cracked under Riven's boots like brittle glass. His shout echoed uselessly into the void where Lena had just stood, swallowed whole by the collapsing platform. She was just… gone.
Not vaporized. Not killed. Pulled.
Like the Spire itself had claimed her.
He dove to the edge, his hands skimming the flickering rim of the shattered floor, searching for anything—her arm, her voice, her echo—but all that met him was a chasm of light, shifting like liquid data.
His clone stood behind him, unbothered. "Now you understand."
Riven spun, gun raised. "Bring her back."
"You don't bring back something that never belonged to you in the first place."
The answer landed like a punch. Riven's knuckles whitened around the grip of his weapon.
Behind him, the remaining rebels clustered near the integrity field, unsure whether to fire or run. The Spire's walls shimmered. Every breath of silence felt too loud.
"She's alive," Riven growled. "I know she is."
"She's embedded," the clone replied calmly. "This structure is built on multiversal echoes. Every version of her—every possible variant—is being pulled into synchronization. If she survives the merge, maybe you'll see her again."
"And if not?"
"Then you'll see what loss really means."
The clone raised his hand.
Immediately, the projections surged to life again—those same alternate Riven copies. Some stood still, others moved like puppets missing strings. One limped forward, bleeding from a shoulder wound Riven himself had never sustained.
"You built this army," the clone said. "You just don't remember."
"I didn't build you," Riven spat.
"No. You built something worse."
The lights flickered. The Spire's hum deepened. A pulse rippled through the platform, and suddenly Riven wasn't standing in the same room anymore.
The air twisted.
His squad vanished from sight.
Now it was just him—and the clone—and a haunting, low resonance in the walls.
The floor shifted again, and this time Riven didn't just see memories.
He stepped into one.
He was no longer in the Spire.
He was in a hospital corridor, sterile and cold, white lights flickering overhead. The scent of antiseptic hit him like a wave of nostalgia laced with pain.
A woman cried beyond the next door.
And when he opened it—
Lena stood inside.
Holding a baby.
Her face glowed with joy and fear and exhaustion. She didn't see him standing there. In this version, he realized, he had never returned.
She was alone.
This wasn't real. It was memory—fabricated or not, he couldn't tell.
Then the walls cracked. The child began to cry. And a data spike tore the entire scene apart, ripping it like paper.
Back in the Spire again.
Gasping.
Sweating.
The clone still stood across from him, watching silently.
"What are you trying to show me?" Riven rasped.
"I'm not showing you anything," the clone replied. "The Spire is. It responds to source echoes. Your memories. Your regrets. Your truths."
"I don't believe in any of this."
"You don't have to," the clone said. "You just have to make a choice."
The walls surged outward again—another shift.
And then he saw her.
Lena.
Falling.
Still falling—infinitely slow—held in stasis mid-descent through a spiral of broken geometry. Her body drifted through corridors of fractured code and starlight.
She hadn't screamed.
She hadn't vanished.
She was trapped between phases.
Riven bolted toward the edge of the platform.
"She's not dead. I can reach her!"
The clone didn't stop him.
"Then go," he said. "But once you enter that loop, you leave this timeline. You may never get back."
Riven hesitated.
And that's when the Spire's core exploded with new color.
Red.
Emergency overlays spread across every wall. The stabilizers were failing.
"Your squad is gone," the clone said. "The rebels were never going to win. But you? You could. You could become the next Protocol Guardian. You could make this multiverse make sense again."
Riven turned away from him, heart pounding.
Lena was still visible in the spiral below—her hair floating like ink in water, her hand slightly outstretched.
He didn't need to think.
He jumped.
Wind and light and time bent around him as he plummeted through the layers of reality. Code fractured. Walls became liquid. His body flickered between versions—scarred, broken, younger, older. A lifetime of echoes screaming in reverse.
And then—
Impact.
He landed hard, coughing.
The floor was soft. Flesh?
He stood shakily.
No Spire.
No clone.
No rebels.
Just darkness… and breathing.
He turned.
Lena stood in front of him.
No, not his Lena.
This one had no scars.
Her eyes were wrong—too symmetrical. Too perfect.
She smiled. "Hello, Riven."
He backed away. "You're not her."
"No. But I am what she was modeled after."
The chamber around them began to light up—churning tanks, hundreds of them, each holding variations of her. Different Lenas. Slightly taller. Darker hair. One was a child. Another wore a military uniform.
"They made us to control you," she said.
"To shape you."
He stared at her, horrified. "What the hell is this place?"
"A failsafe," she said. "And you're not supposed to be here."
The room jolted. Sirens blared. A countdown appeared in midair—glowing, red, and moving fast.
"SPATIAL LOCKDOWN: 05:00…"
"You need to leave," she said. "Or you'll be merged like the rest."
"I'm not leaving without her," he snapped.
She tilted her head. "Then you'll both die."
She turned her back and began to walk away.
But Riven noticed something—barely visible.
A real Lena, unconscious, inside one of the tanks.
Still breathing.
Still fighting.
He sprinted forward, slamming a fist into the glass.
The fake turned, face darkening.
"You'll break the containment," she warned. "You'll destabilize this entire node!"
"I don't care."
He pounded again. The tank cracked.
And then—
The walls began to fall.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The room peeled apart, folding inward, tank after tank shattering, Lenas flickering out of existence as code unravelled.
She screamed.
Riven reached into the shattered glass, pulling Lena free just as the world detonated into static.
He held her close.
She coughed alive.
"Riven?" she whispered weakly.
He held her tighter.
"Got you," he breathed.
Then, in the pulsing strobing light of the collapsing chamber, a new voice echoed through the destruction.
Low, distorted, and familiar.
"You weren't supposed to survive that."
Riven turned slowly.
From the collapsing shadows emerged another clone.
This one wasn't him.
It was her.
Another Lena, older, dead-eyed, and armed.
She pointed a plasma blade at his throat.
"Step away from her," she said.
Riven didn't move.
"Who are you?"
The clone-Lena narrowed her eyes.
"The one who never fell in love."