The air between them sharpened like broken glass held at the edge of breath.
Her stance was lethal perfection. One step forward. Blade leveled. The ghost-light shimmer of her armor echoed a future that Riven had never known—a cold, brutal future where love was nothing more than a liability file to be erased.
She looked like Lena.
But the way she moved told him everything.
She wasn't her.
Not even close.
"I won't ask twice," she said, voice devoid of tremor. "Step away from the anomaly."
Riven held the real Lena tighter. Her pulse beat fast and fragile against his chest. Shards of tank glass cut into his arms. Static hissed through the collapsing reality around them. The Spire's data structure was coming apart fiber by fiber, and they had maybe minutes—less if she decided to strike.
"I don't know what twisted version of her you are," Riven said, "but if you want her, you're going through me."
"I expected as much," the clone said, lifting the plasma blade until it hummed inches from his throat. "I also calculated you'd hesitate to fight her face."
"I'm not hesitating."
"Yes, you are."
She lunged.
Riven dropped Lena behind him, twisting to intercept. His shoulder caught the blade's arc—it sizzled against the edge of his armor, not piercing, but burning hot enough to draw a cry from his lips. He used the pain, channeled it, turned it into momentum.
Fist. Elbow. Knee.
He fought like he'd never seen her before—and like he knew every move she'd make.
Because he did.
They danced in violent synchronicity, clone and origin, strike for strike, thought for thought. This Lena fought without restraint. Without emotion. Every movement calculated for maximum damage, every gesture like a page from a tactical doctrine carved into bone.
This wasn't training.
This was extermination.
She kicked him square in the chest, sending him sprawling across the chamber floor. He hit the wall hard, skidding, vision fracturing from the force of it.
"Stand down," she said, voice as neutral as a system log. "You're corrupt. You breached your directive."
"What directive?"
"To evolve beyond her."
Her blade powered up again, gleaming with violet heat. "She's your cage. She always was."
Riven pushed up to his knees, coughing blood. "Then why do you still wear her face?"
That made her pause.
Only for half a second.
But it was enough.
A blinding flash of light tore through the side of the room. A figure stepped through it—screaming, glitching, unstable.
A second Riven.
Clad in a ragged battlesuit, one eye cybernetic, voice laced with interference.
"GET AWAY FROM THEM!"
The clone-Lena turned—
Too late.
The newcomer fired a neural disruptor. It struck her square in the back, sparking a violent cascade of corrupted data. She fell to one knee, blade sizzling out.
Riven stared, heart racing. "Who the hell—"
"Another version," the new Riven said, breathing hard. "I came back to stop her. She killed me in my timeline. Twice."
The clone-Lena twitched on the ground, her skin glitching—brief flashes of other faces, other identities—then stabilizing again into that cold, perfect mirror of Lena.
She was recovering.
Too fast.
"We don't have time," the alternate Riven said. "You need to get out. Now."
"I'm not leaving her," Riven said, pointing at Lena, still unconscious near the shattered tank.
"Then carry her," the other snapped. "There's a collapsing data tunnel near the auxiliary node. It'll take you outside the field. You've got thirty seconds before this entire layer folds."
Riven didn't argue. He rushed to Lena, lifting her into his arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder, breath shallow but steady.
"I thought you were dead," he whispered.
Her fingers twitched.
"She thinks you're still inside the dream," the alternate Riven said, covering them both as the clone-Lena struggled upright, blade reigniting. "She's trying to overwrite all copies of her that made you weak."
The original Riven nodded grimly. "Then let's make her regret underestimating that."
They ran.
The chamber split behind them, groaning as the structural code unraveled, forming jagged corridors of colorless static. They sprinted through the tunnel, past fragments of broken simulations—echoes of worlds that might have been: a ruined Earth, a burning moon, a shattered colony drifting in a field of frozen bodies.
It was all crashing together.
Everything.
"Where does this end?" Riven asked.
The alternate didn't look back. "If we're lucky? A hardline out. If not…"
Another explosion shook the corridor.
"…a permanent rewrite."
They burst through the last gate—an arched node surrounded by flickering glyphs. As they crossed the threshold, gravity snapped back into place. A blast of real wind hit them. Concrete. Steel. Moonlight.
They had made it—
Out of the Spire's core.
Riven fell to his knees, setting Lena down gently. Her eyes fluttered. She blinked once. Then again. "Riven?"
"Yeah," he said, trembling. "It's me."
She reached up and touched his face. "You jumped."
"I always will."
He would have kissed her.
He should have.
But the air turned black behind them.
The clone stepped through the gate.
Burned.
Twisted.
But alive.
Her body hissed with electrical fractures, her eyes two molten stars. She wasn't alone anymore. Four other figures stepped through with her—each one another version of Riven. Hollow-eyed. Dead inside.
"You made your choice," she said coldly.
"We all did," the alternate Riven replied, stepping forward.
"Then die with it."
The other clones drew their weapons.
It was a standoff between versions.
One original.
One ally.
Four twisted echoes.
And Lena, still regaining strength, caught between them.
Riven rose slowly, shielding her with his body.
"This is where it ends," he said.
The clone-Lena smiled. "No. This is where it splits."
The ground beneath them fractured—literally. Space-time forked into spiraling arms of light. Each direction a different future. A different outcome. A different death.
They were in a divergence engine.
Whoever made the next move… would shape the timeline.
Riven took Lena's hand.
And then—
A sudden voice boomed through the air, disembodied, massive, almost divine:
"EXTERNAL OVERRIDE ACKNOWLEDGED. INTERVENTION REQUIRED."
All movement stopped.
Even the clones froze.
Something was overriding the system.
Above them, the sky cracked—and a new figure descended from a pillar of pale light.
Not Riven.
Not Lena.
Not a clone.
But someone who looked exactly like the Architect—the legendary designer of the Veil, the being who vanished long before the wars began.
He wasn't supposed to exist.
And yet there he was.
Tall.
Translucent.
Ancient.
"Who dares fracture the Prime Spiral?" the figure intoned, voice rippling through matter itself.
The clone-Lena turned, actual fear flickering in her eyes for the first time.
"That's impossible," she whispered. "He was deleted."
Riven looked at Lena.
Lena looked at the sky.
And the figure looked straight at Riven.
"You were never meant to survive this long," the Architect said.
And then, with a gesture, he erased the alternate Riven in a beam of light.
No scream.
No time.
Just gone.
Riven stepped forward, chest heaving. "What the hell are you?"
The Architect's voice echoed louder, and colder.
"I am the Failstate Protocol. And your timeline is under final review."