The Rift opened like a wound in the sky no thunder, no explosion. Just a silent rupture, jagged and glowing, hanging above the city like God took a box cutter to reality and decided not to clean up the mess.
Liam knelt at the edge of the tower, palms flat against the concrete, blue light pouring from his skin like liquid data. He didn't speak. Didn't blink. His breath came in short, sharp gasps as if he were trying to hold in a scream he didn't understand.
And from the Rift… something stepped out.
Not Vex.
Not a clone.
Something in between.
It looked like a man Liam's height, Liam's build, but its eyes were nothing but static, and its skin flickered between flesh and code. Its voice, when it spoke, sounded like Liam's but warped through radio static and despair.
"Splinter accepted. Identity converging. Terminate the original."
Liam barely had time to get to his feet before the Splinter attacked.
It moved fast too fast. Like it didn't obey physics so much as negotiate with them aggressively. One moment it was across the rooftop, the next it was in Liam's face, slamming a fist into his ribs with enough force to crack bone and shatter concrete.
Liam flew backward, smashing through a power box and skidding across the gravel. Sparks danced around him as he coughed blood and laughter at the same time.
"Okay," he groaned, standing. "I've officially hit the part of the plot where I fight myself. Is this when I grow as a person?"
The Splinter launched forward again this time, Liam was ready.
He ducked low, caught the incoming arm mid-swing, and twisted, using the Splinter's momentum to hurl it over his shoulder and into a steel vent with a sickening crunch.
"You hit harder than I do," Liam muttered, panting. "Rude."
But the Splinter rose without a sound.
No pain.
No pause.
No humanity.
Liam backed up slightly.
"Okay. Not me. Got it."
Down below, chaos had already erupted.
Zorren's team moved to intercept, but Nova was faster. She blurred forward, her body flickering in and out of visibility as light bent around her. She dropped one operative with a knee to the throat and spun midair to slice through the other's weapon with a blade of refracted photon energy.
"Go!" she shouted to Rhea. "Get up there!"
"I'm not leaving you."
"Go!"
Rhea cursed under her breath and took off, leaping up the building's side using a grappling bolt and shards of mirrored crystal she summoned under her feet.
Zorren, brushing dust off his coat like a man inconvenienced by gravity, looked up at Nova.
"You were never meant to reach this point."
She smirked. "And yet, here I am annoying and alive."
Zorren raised a hand, and the ground beneath them pulsed with dark energy.
On the rooftop, Liam caught the Splinter's next attack barely in time, crossing his arms to block a brutal punch that sent him skidding again. His forearms ached fractures forming beneath the surface, healing too slow, too weak.
His body was adapting, but not fast enough.
He needed an edge.
And then Rhea landed behind the Splinter, a shardblade the size of a surfboard made of fractured crystal already materializing in her hand.
"Move," she said.
Liam dove to the side just as Rhea brought the blade down, cleaving the Splinter in half.
For a second, it actually worked.
For a second, Liam thought that was it.
Then both halves shimmered, flickered, and reformed.
Rhea didn't flinch. She just summoned six more blades and whispered, "Okay. This'll be fun."
They fought together Liam using brute force and raw speed, Rhea bending mirrors and momentum. The Splinter was faster, but they were smarter. It couldn't adapt to unpredictability. Rhea's illusions spun it in circles. Liam's counterstrikes broke rhythm.
Then the Splinter changed tactics.
It opened another Rift.
A smaller one.
From it, a storm of mirror-spikes erupted,hundreds of shimmering shards targeting Liam, all coded to his DNA.
Rhea screamed, "Down!"
But Liam didn't duck.
He sprinted through the storm, light tearing at his skin, blood trailing behind him like a ribbon.
And he reached the Splinter.
And he screamed, "You want a convergence?! Try this!"
Then he drove his fist into its chest and triggered a pulse.
Not a singularity. Not yet.
But a blast of raw Apex energy that knocked the Splinter off the rooftop and sent the storm collapsing in on itself.
The rooftop cracked. Sparks flew. Liam fell to his knees again, clutching his chest.
The Splinter hit the ground below with a crater-forming crash and stayed down.
Nova rushed up just in time to see him bleeding, pale, shaking.
"You did it," she whispered.
He looked up at her, eyes glowing faint blue.
"No," he said. "That wasn't the real threat."
And behind her…
Zorren stepped onto the rooftop.
Calm. Collected. Terrifying.
"You just passed your test," he said.
Liam struggled to stand. "This was a test?"
Zorren's smile was cold. "And you failed."
Then he raised his hand and activated the Omega Override.
Liam screamed.
Blue light exploded from his chest.
And everything went white.