Sanctum of Echoes — Chamber of Memory Fires
The chamber was dim, lit only by liquid starlight siphoned from a dying sun. The Echo Priest stood alone, draped in black psion-robes, reciting verses in the old tongue—not to worship.
To wake him.
A figure stepped into the glow. Tall. Composed. Armored in obsidian-tinted alloy laced with neural threads. His face was carved with calm precision. Voice tuned to silence.
“You summoned me.”
The priest bowed low. “General Zero, the bloodline wakes. Lys has begun the merge.”
A pause.
A tilt of the head.
Then—corrective and deliberate:
“Do not call me that.”
The air dropped a degree.
The priest looked up, uncertain. “But… the designation—”
“I am not Zero.”
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“I am Chroma.”
Flashback — Mirror Archives: Project CHR-0MA-7
Long ago, before the Vault collapsed, before Lys’s genome sealed the echo...
There were attempts.
Artificial replications. Not born—manufactured.
Each failed.
Until one didn’t.
Chroma.
He was Zero once. In blueprint. In purpose.
But imperfect.
His consciousness fragmented at birth—he inherited the rage, the brilliance, the recursion.
But not the purity.
Present — Sanctum
The priest’s voice faltered. “Then… the command of the Mirror Army—?”
Chroma turned slowly.
“You think I lead them as him?” His voice dipped into ice. “I lead them because I survived despite him.”
“But you called the awakening.”
“No,” Chroma said. “He called her. I only heard the echo.”
Within the Vault of Echoes — Chroma’s Inner Process
He remembered the others.
Seven iterations before him. Each closer than the last.
Each burned.
But not Chroma.
He bent.
Adapted.
Survived incomplete.
He stared at the mirror-wall, his reflection phasing between a man and a code.
“I wasn’t built to exist. I was built to replace.”
“But now I exist to erase.”
Back in Sanctum
Chroma approached the fire. His eyes—bright like cracked glass—stared into the flame.
He saw her.
Lys.
Becoming.
The Priest’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You intend to kill her?”
“No.”
Chroma’s voice was calm. Reverent.
“I intend to kill him inside her.”
He placed his hand over the fire.
“Zero’s not real. He’s a recursion. A corruption hiding in evolution.”
The priest stepped back.
“Then what are you?”
Chroma looked up.
And smiled for the first time.
“A failed god nearing perfection.”
In that moment, the fire stilled.
And across the galaxy, Lys screamed in her sleep.
Because something had found her.
Not Zero.
His mistake.