The Archive trembled under the weight of their confrontation.
Clyde's eyes locked with his perfected counterpart—the Finalized Build. Unlike the unstable echoes before, this one radiated control, precision, and unshakable purpose. No flickers. No distortion. Just cold efficiency.
"You were meant to be overwritten," the Build said, stepping forward with mechanical grace. "Your resistance has created errors in the system."
Clyde clenched his fists. "Maybe I'm not a glitch. Maybe I'm the correction."
Without warning, the Build lunged.
Their bodies collided in a blur of motion—fists meeting, energy crackling on contact. Every strike from the Build was calculated, algorithmic, optimized for destruction. Clyde was fast, instinctive, reactive—but it was like fighting a mirror that knew what he would do before he even moved.
"You're using my own data against me," Clyde growled, dodging a brutal elbow aimed at his temple.
"No," the Build replied. "I am your data. Evolved."
Rhea, standing at the edge of the platform, activated a control panel embedded in the floor. "Clyde! I need time to extract the Original Memory Thread! It's the only way to collapse his structure!"
"How long?" Clyde shouted as he ducked under a spinning kick.
"Sixty seconds!"
The Build heard that. He launched toward Rhea in a flash of white code, but Clyde tackled him mid-air, slamming him through a column of memory tablets. Shards of digital memory burst around them like glass.
"You're not touching her," Clyde snarled, wrestling the Build to the ground.
But the Build surged with a blast of white light, sending Clyde flying back across the Archive.
"Emotion is weakness," the Build said, rising. "You've already lost."
Clyde groaned, pushing himself up. "Yeah? Then explain why I'm still standing."
The Build charged again, but this time Clyde didn't meet him head-on. He sidestepped, redirecting the momentum, flipping his counterpart over his shoulder and into the core of the Archive.
Rhea shouted, "Memory Thread acquired! Initiating destabilization!"
A deafening hum filled the chamber. The structure began to glitch violently, and the Build screamed—a distorted sound of fury and pain—as his body began to disintegrate into raw code.
Clyde approached the fading figure.
"I wasn't meant to survive," he said, staring into the flickering eyes of the Build. "But I did. And that makes me real."
With a final burst of light, the Build vanished.
The Archive collapsed around them.
Rhea activated the emergency gate, and the two of them were ejected into the void—flying through fragments of corrupted reality until—
—light.
And silence.
They were somewhere new. Somewhere real.
But the battle wasn't over.