Chapter 5: What Can't Be Killed
Ruby didn't speak for a long time.
The image of her father frozen in time on the flickering console screen pulled at her like gravity. His voice had been haunted, as if he'd known his message would never arrive in time. Maybe it hadn't. Maybe she was already too late. But she couldn't ignore what she'd seen—the look in his eyes, the desperation. Her father, the one who had taught her how to hide her power, how to think before swinging a fist, had been afraid.
And when a Titan was afraid, entire star systems had reason to tremble.
"You knew about this," she said without turning to Sable.
"I pieced some of it together," he admitted. "But I didn't know about your father's involvement until I found this recording."
She gave him a long, unreadable look. "So you've just been living in a lab full of corpses? What's your angle?"
Sable folded his arms. "I've been hunting answers. Same as you. This place—this project—it's part of something bigger. Something spread across multiple verses. Your father was trying to shut it down. Nex was trying to restart it. And me? I'm the proof it worked."
Ruby's eyes darkened. "You're a prototype."
"A failed one. I was supposed to be the next generation. Titan blood, stitched with dimensional attributes. They didn't count on my mind fracturing when I crossed into my first collapsed realm."
"You're insane."
"Only on days that end in Y."
She almost smiled. Almost.
Instead, she turned back to the tanks. Some were cracked. Others still active, humming with a pulse like a heartbeat. A few of the bodies inside twitched, as if not entirely dead. The sight made her sick. Titans were never meant to be grown in tubes. Their blood wasn't just genetic—it was ancient. Cosmic. Tied to the origin of matter itself.
"You know what's going to happen if this leaks," Ruby said. "If any syndicate gets hold of this tech, we're looking at a war unlike anything we've seen. Not just between bounty guilds. Entire universes will fall."
Sable nodded slowly. "Then burn it."
She looked at him.
"You said it yourself," he continued. "Your father left that message for you. Told you to destroy it. So do it. Burn it all."
"Why haven't you?" she asked.
"Because I can't."
He held out his arm. The skin along his forearm rippled, turning dark for a moment—almost metallic. Something inside him shifted, like his DNA was trying to reject his command.
"They tied me to this place," he said. "Somehow. My body's synced to the core generator. If I tried to shut it down, I'd die."
"Convenient."
"I don't lie, Ruby. It makes me itchy."
She didn't trust him. Not fully. But her instincts didn't scream danger. At least, not from him. It was the lab itself. The whispers it gave off. The way time bent slightly near the tanks. Something was wrong in the fabric of this place.
"You should leave," Sable said. "Take what you need. Destroy the rest."
"What about you?"
"I'll manage. I always do."
She stepped back toward the main power relay. Her hands hovered over the exposed conduits. With a single pulse of her inner energy, she could collapse the generator. But she hesitated. Not because of fear—but because something else tugged at her senses. A faint signal. Buried deep beneath the floor.
There was more.
"I need to go deeper," she muttered.
Sable's brow furrowed. "Deeper? The lower levels haven't been opened in years. That's where they tested the failed subjects."
"Which means that's where the answers are."
He didn't stop her. Just watched as she found the old lift shaft, ripped open the sealed door, and dropped into the darkness below.
The lower levels were colder. The air tasted like rust and ash. She activated her inner vision, a soft glow blooming behind her irises. It revealed trails of energy, latent but still alive, running like veins across the walls.
Then she saw them.
Cells.
Hundreds of them.
Not all were empty.
Some held things that looked human—until they moved. One stirred as she passed. Its eyes opened slowly, and they weren't eyes at all. Just smooth glassy orbs, filled with stars.
Ruby stopped.
"What did they do to you…" she whispered.
It couldn't speak. Its body pressed up against the glass, fingers twitching like broken puppet strings. She stepped back instinctively.
Behind her, a deeper chamber beckoned. She moved toward it, boots crunching over old bones and rusted tools. This chamber was different. Large. Wide. Silent.
And in the center, a single containment field.
Inside was a creature unlike anything she had seen.
It floated, unbreathing, wrapped in chains of energy that pulsed with ancient glyphs. Its form flickered between dimensions. One moment humanoid, the next like smoke. But its core never changed—a spiral mark etched over its chest.
The Titan sigil.
But inverted.
She stepped closer, heart hammering. This wasn't a failed experiment. It was the origin. The beginning of Project Echostorm.
The prototype.
And it was waking up.
She took a step back, drawing both blades.
The containment field flickered.
Static cracked in her ears.
"You're not supposed to be here," a voice said—not out loud, but inside her head.
The figure moved suddenly, its eyes snapping open.
And they were the same color as hers.
Ruby stumbled back. Something inside her blood screamed. The creature tilted its head. It didn't smile. Didn't move. But she felt the threat.
"You are me," it said. "Or what I could have been."
"No," she whispered. "You're wrong."
"We were made in the same storm."
Before she could respond, alarms screamed through the lower levels. The chamber shuddered. Above, something had gone wrong.
Sable.
Ruby turned, sprinting back toward the lift shaft. She didn't look back at the creature. Didn't dare. Whatever it was, whatever connection it had to her—she'd deal with it later.
Right now, she needed to get Lyra and leave.
But as she climbed the shaft, a new fear began to gnaw at her.
The war hadn't started.
It had already been lost.
And she was only now waking up to it.