The asteroid hung in the void like a corpse.
Scarred rock, fractured surface, its orbit erratic around a dying star. The Ark drifted close, its cloaking field shimmering as it surveyed the husk.
Kael stood on the command deck, staring at the surface. His chest tightened.
"This is it," Rhea muttered beside him, her voice low. "The rat's nest. Feels wrong just looking at it."
"Everything Taren builds feels wrong," Kael said.
Joran slammed a fist into his palm. "Then let's burn it to slag and be done."
Kael shook his head. "No. If we destroy it blind, we learn nothing. We need proof. We need answers. Otherwise Havenreach will tear itself apart in fear."
Darius, standing quietly at the rear, finally spoke. "Be careful, Kael. If this is truly his forge, then it will not just hold soldiers. It will hold his traps."
Kael met his father's gaze. For once, the warning felt less like doubt and more like care.
"Then we'll spring them," Kael said. "And survive."
The strike team descended in a shuttle, cloaked until the last moment. The asteroid's surface bristled with broken towers, shattered mining rigs, and faint lights that pulsed like veins beneath the rock.
The shuttle touched down in a crater, hidden from scanners. The air outside was thin, poisoned with metallic dust. Their helmets sealed with a hiss.
"Welcome to paradise," Rhea muttered as they advanced.
The entrance yawned ahead—a hollow carved into the rock, lined with cables that pulsed with eerie light. Kael's grip tightened on his blade.
Every step echoed like a heartbeat.
Inside, the tunnels stretched in unnatural symmetry. Not mined, but shaped. The walls glistened with living alloy, the floor etched with faint sigils.
And then they reached the first chamber.
Rows of tanks lined the walls, filled with green fluid that glowed faintly. Inside each tank floated a figure—pale forms suspended, their faces obscured by masks, their veins marked with ghostly light.
Kael's breath caught. They weren't just soldiers. They were him.
Every face, every jawline, every scar. Dozens of Kael Ardyns, sleeping in glass coffins.
Rhea swore under her breath. "Stars help us…"
Joran slammed his fist against the nearest tank. "This is filth. This is madness."
Kael could only stare, bile rising in his throat. "He's making an army. Not of soldiers. Of me."
As they advanced deeper, speakers crackled with static. Then a voice filled the chamber—smooth, familiar, mocking.
"Welcome, brother."
Kael froze. Taren's voice.
"You found my little workshop. Good. I wanted you to. Tell me, how does it feel to see yourself multiplied? To see what you could be, if not bound by weakness?"
Kael growled. "This isn't me. This is your sickness."
Taren's laughter echoed. "On the contrary, it is my gift. The galaxy doesn't need a Kael Ardyn. It needs an army of Kael Ardyns. Loyal, unbreakable, perfect. You are the flawed original. These are the future."
The tanks hummed. Several shadows stirred within, their eyes flickering open with eerie light.
The first reflection burst free, glass shattering in a flood of fluid. It landed in a crouch, blades extending from its wrists. Its face was Kael's—cold, emotionless, marked by faint sigils.
Then another. And another.
The chamber filled with reflections, their movements in perfect unison, their eyes fixed on the strike team.
"Ghost Admiral commands," they said in one voice.
Kael's heart pounded. He raised his blade. "Then I'll command you to die."
The chamber erupted in violence.
Reflections surged forward, blades slashing in mirrored arcs. Kael met them head-on, steel clashing against steel. Every strike was countered, every motion mirrored. Fighting them was like battling an army of his own ghosts.
Joran bellowed, cleaving through two at once with sheer brute strength. "Which one's the real you, Ardyn?!"
"The one who survives!" Kael shouted, driving his blade into a reflection's chest.
Rhea fired in bursts, dropping shadows with precision shots, but for every one that fell, another emerged from the tanks.
The fight was chaos—Kael's movements stolen, multiplied, thrown back at him in a storm of steel.
Kael staggered, blood running from a cut across his arm. The reflections circled him, blades gleaming. His own style was his enemy—predictable, mirrored, exploited.
Taren's voice echoed again. "Do you see it now? You are not special. You are a pattern, a design. Replaceable. Disposable."
Kael's vision swam with rage. He almost believed it. Almost.
Then he heard Lyra's voice in his memory. You are not replaceable. You are Kael Ardyn.
His grip tightened. His breathing slowed. He shifted his stance—not the disciplined style of his training, but the reckless, instinctive movements that had always set him apart. The choices no clone could predict.
He feinted clumsily, deliberately exposing his side. A reflection lunged for the weakness—only to meet Kael's blade in a brutal counterstrike that split its chest open.
Kael roared, unleashing chaos. Wild, unorthodox, imperfect. But his.
And one by one, the reflections faltered.
When the last reflection fell, the chamber lay in ruin. Shattered glass, broken bodies, blood and fluid pooling across the floor.
But Kael wasn't done. He stormed deeper into the facility, his team at his back, until they reached the core.
At its center pulsed a massive tank, cables snaking into every wall. Inside floated a figure larger than the rest—half-formed, half-finished, its features shifting between Kael and Taren, as if undecided.
Kael stared in horror.
"What is that?" Rhea whispered.
Kael's voice was hollow. "It's me. And him. Both."
The speakers crackled one last time. Taren's voice was low, reverent.
"My masterpiece."
The tank began to glow, alarms blaring.
"Time to go!" Joran shouted.
Kael hesitated only a moment longer, then drove his blade into the control console. Sparks flew, the tank ruptured, fluid flooding the chamber. The figure within writhed, unfinished, then dissolved into nothing.
The lab shuddered. Explosions rocked the walls.
Kael turned to his team. "Run."
They sprinted through collapsing tunnels, fire and smoke chasing them. Reflections crawled from shattered tanks, but too weak to follow. The asteroid itself seemed to scream as its core detonated.
The strike team barely reached the shuttle before the surface split open, fountains of molten rock erupting into space.
The shuttle blasted off, breaking clear as the asteroid tore itself apart.
Kael watched the explosion fade in the viewport, his face a mask of firelight.
One lab was gone. But how many more?
Back aboard the Ark, Kael stood alone in the observation deck, staring into the void.
Taren hadn't just made soldiers. He had made shadows of Kael himself. And somewhere, perhaps, his "masterpiece" had survived.
Kael clenched his fists.
"You'll never replace me, brother. Never."
But deep down, a sliver of fear remained.
What if Taren didn't need to replace him? What if the galaxy chose the shadows instead?