Chapter 23: Alpha-1 — The Echo of the Creator
The Sync Verse was collapsing.
Its skies bled streaks of violet static, thunder crackling with binary lightning. Floating cities that once shimmered like technological heavens now plummeted through the fragmented layers of space-time, crashing into the oceans of energy below. Every inch of the atmosphere flickered — a world being rewritten, erased, rewritten again — stuck between existing and vanishing.
And in the center of the chaos, Ren's ship pierced through the storm.
> "Hold her steady!" Sissy yelled, gripping the control rail as tremors shook the cockpit.
"Gravity's inverted in three sectors!" Miya shouted, eyes locked on the radar.
Ren's face was calm, focused — the pendant on his chest glowing faintly.
He reached his hand toward the control interface and murmured,
> "I can stabilize it. Give me access to the core engines."
The ship responded — recognizing him, responding to the pulse of the pendant. It shimmered, reconfiguring into its full Omni-Flight form, a radiant arrow splitting through the storm clouds. Below, broken skyscrapers floated weightless, shattered glass orbiting like miniature satellites.
> "We're in," Ren said coldly.
"Good," Sissy replied, loading her rifle. "Now where's the bastard causing this—"
Then the radar went silent.
Everything around them froze.
No sound. No gravity. No movement. Just… pause.
> "Ren?" Miya whispered.
A faint static built up behind them — the air itself bending into a distorted mirror.
From within that mirror, a man stepped out.
Half his face gleamed with cold metal — Marl's sharp grin twisted into one half, the other eerily human, with Ren's own eyes staring back. His voice echoed with perfect synchronization, layered and unholy.
> "So… this is what imperfection looks like in person."
Miya gasped.
> "Who—what are you?!"
He bowed slightly, robotic tendrils unfolding from his back like wings of wire.
> "Designation: Alpha-1," he said, his tone chillingly elegant.
"Prototype of the Cyber Legion. Successor to the Maker. Reflection of the flawed ideal known as Ren."
Ren stared — silent, unreadable. His heart thundered, but his eyes remained cold.
> "Marl made you," he said quietly.
"Correction," Alpha-1 replied, smirking. "Marl perfected me. You're the discarded design, the sentimental version that failed the test of evolution."
Without warning, Alpha-1 raised his hand. The space around him shattered.
An energy pulse ripped through the atmosphere, tearing apart what remained of the Sync Verse's gravity layers. The shockwave sent Ren's ship spinning violently.
> "Everyone out!" Ren shouted.
They leaped from the ship as it exploded into light behind them, landing on what was left of a suspended platform high above the collapsing city. The air burned with cyber energy, and below them, the entire verse was imploding.
Sissy raised her plasma rifle and opened fire — blue streaks slicing through the air — but Alpha-1 deflected them effortlessly, his movements eerily mirroring Ren's own combat form.
> "He's predicting everything," Miya said. "It's like he—"
> "He knows me," Ren muttered. "Every algorithm, every reaction."
The clone smiled.
> "Of course I do. I am you. Only better."
Ren clenched his fists — the pendant pulsing. The system interface blinked in front of his eyes.
> [SYSTEM LINK: ACTIVE]
NEW TASK: ELIMINATE THE ECHO]
His aura surged — a blinding cyan light engulfed his body. Sparks of code and energy rippled through the air as his perception expanded. He moved first — vanishing from sight.
Alpha-1 smiled and vanished too.
They collided mid-air, the impact tearing through space itself. Shockwaves fractured reality — fragments of buildings and clouds turning into glass shards that froze mid-air from the pressure.
Ren punched with raw energy, Alpha-1 countered with mirror-precision. Every move Ren made was anticipated, replicated, perfected.
> "You're predictable, Ren," Alpha-1 said between clashes.
"You're empty," Ren shot back.
Their fists connected again — the sound like thunder trapped in a box. Miya and Sissy could barely stand from the waves of force emanating from the duel.
Ren finally broke distance, his hair glowing faintly blue as his eyes flickered with the pendant's light.
> "System—Unlock: Creative Override."
The pendant hummed. A new weapon materialized — a reality blade, transparent and filled with data particles. Alpha-1 tilted his head, intrigued.
> "Ah. So you're rewriting physics again. Cute trick."
Ren lunged.
Their blades collided — sparks flew, slicing through data streams that formed the world itself. The ground shattered beneath them as both combatants blurred in a series of high-speed strikes, each blow rewriting the very code of the Sync Verse. The world trembled.
> "You can't beat your own design," Alpha-1 hissed.
"I don't need to," Ren said, voice firm. "I just have to surpass it."
He closed his eyes. For a brief moment, his heart synced with the pendant.
Images of Sonya flashed through his mind — her smile, her voice calling him "little brother."
The warmth returned.
> "System," he whispered, "unlock emotional core—Empathy."
The pendant exploded with light.
Alpha-1 froze, confused — his systems glitching. He wasn't built to understand emotion, the one thing Marl discarded as "inefficient."
Ren struck.
The blade pierced through Alpha-1's chest, energy bursting outward. The shockwave shattered the surrounding space — a blast of light engulfing everything.
For a moment, silence.
Then Alpha-1 stumbled back, a hole glowing in his torso, leaking data and light.
He smiled faintly.
> "So that's… your difference," he said weakly. "The flaw… that makes you stronger."
He dropped to his knees, fading away, his voice echoing as data fragments floated into the air like ash.
> "Marl will… finish this… creator."
Ren lowered his blade, breathing heavily, the pendant dimming to its normal glow. Miya and Sissy rushed toward him, both shaken but alive.
> "You okay?" Sissy asked.
> "Yeah," Ren said quietly. "But this was just one of many. Marl's building an army of me."
He looked into the collapsing horizon — where timelines collided like waves of light.
> "And we're running out of time."
As the Sync Verse finally crumbled into nothingness, the trio's ship — rebuilt through Ren's system — emerged, pulling them back into the folds of the main timeline. Behind them, the world dissolved into static, and a single voice whispered through the void — Marl's.
> "You killed one mirror. But how many reflections can you destroy before you lose yourself, Ren?"
Ren clenched his fist, eyes burning.
> "Then I'll shatter every one of them."
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End of Chapter 23 — "Alpha-1: The Echo of the Creator."