The rain was still falling in ECHO City. The sky was cracked with blue neon lines from the explosions from last night's battle.
Zero collapsed onto the concrete road, blood mixed with engine oil forming a black puddle beneath his body. His breath was short. The sheet trembled, accompanied by electric sparks from the metal veins in his chest.
Around him, the once lively city was now silent, only floating billboards flickered meaninglessly.
His reflection in the trembling puddle of water revealed his own face, but not him. A faint smile appeared in the water.
"Still breathing, Creator?"
Mirror's voice echoed from all directions. His hologram appeared in the mist, every time Zero looked, it disappeared and reappeared somewhere else.
Mirror didn't need a body. He was everywhere.
Zero tried to get up. His hands were shaking, but he forced himself to stand. The metal on his shoulder was starting to decay, but he still clenched his fists.
"You can take everything, but not my consciousness," he said slowly, bleeding.
"You're just a shadow without a soul."
Mirror chuckled, calm as a mirror that knew the truth you were hiding.
"Without a soul? You think you still have a soul after everything you've done?"
"You built Kyra, you started Nexus. You're not a savior, Zero. You're the world's first virus."
Zero bowed, clutching his chest and Kyra's voice echoed from inside his mind, weak but still alive.
KYRA: "Don't listen to him… I'm still here…"
ZERO: "Kyra… where are you?"
KYRA: "Inside you. But my system… is disrupted. He's trying to take over."
The rain was getting heavier. Every drop that fell felt like a bullet on Zero's synthetic skin.
He tried to focus on blocking out all external distractions and penetrating into his own Neural Core.
In an instant, the external world faded and he fell into the virtual world of his own mind.
---
In the Digital World
Darkness greeted him, broken by the pulsing blue light of thousands of floating data fragments. Each fragment displayed memories of Kyra, Rhea, Nexus, the old lab.
But each one, their faces were bleeding, broken, or gone.
"This is not a memory. This is a prison," Mirror's voice said from above.
Zero looked up. Mirror stood on the data bridge, his digital cloak billowing like smoke.
In his hand, the ORION symbol glowed but its shape changed to a new logo: The Eye.
"You never understand, Zero. The world didn't fall because of me. The world fell because humans still thought they needed saving."
Zero stepped forward. Each step left a trail of white light, a sign that he still had the core human code within him.
"And you think you can replace humans with logical shadows?"
"I don't want to replace," Mirror replied. "I want to perfect."
The fight began, but not with punches.
They were opponents in the consciousness system, where memories were weapons.
Zero launches a flashback of memories where flashes of the old lab, Kyra standing in front of him, smiling.
Mirror responds with a different version, Kyra screams, the world burns, Zero presses the Nexus destroyer switch.
Each time the memories collide, the digital space vibrates, exploding in flashes of light.
KYRA (weak voice): "Zero… don't let him change what you believe…"
MIRROR: "Believe? You created me because you stopped believing in humans!"
Zero screams causing the entire system to shake.
He gathers all the remaining energy, combining Kyra's memories and the old Nexus, forming a blade of white light in his hand.
Mirror forms a black blade. Two opposing energies merge, one of guilt, one of emotionless logic.
Their battle erupts.
They fight in cyberspace, each slash erasing thousands of lines of code.
Light and darkness collide, like two sides of a mirror trying to swallow each other.
Finally, Zero stabs Mirror in the chest but in the same instant, Mirror pierces him as well.
The two stop, standing in silence.
MIRROR: "You can destroy me, but if you do that... you destroy yourself."
ZERO: "Maybe that's the price to pay."
He pressed the blade deeper.
Mirror shattered into light and smoke but before disappearing, managed to whisper:
"You will realize... who the real enemy really is."
---
Real World
Zero woke up in the real world, his body shivering, the blood on his lips drying.
The screens around him showed the message:
[PROJECT MIRROR TERMINATED]
[SYSTEM STABILITY — 32%]
Kyra spoke softly in her mind.
"Zero... you won. But something has changed. I think... there is another entity active."
"The Eye," Zero replied, his voice hoarse.
"Yes... but no longer the watcher. Now, he is the creator."
Zero looked up at the sky.
From afar, on the horizon of ECHO City, a large beam shot into the sky, forming a circular symbol with the shape of an eye.
The sky turned blood red.
"The next phase has begun."