Location: Sahara Border – Black Rain Facility
The helicopter cut through the scorching sky like a blade.
Beneath it stretched the lifeless beauty of the Sahara—rolling dunes, fractured stone, and heat waves rising like ghosts from the earth.
Inside the cabin, Alethea sat in silence, dressed in a tactical desert suit, her long hair tied back, her expression unreadable.
Beside her, Marco reviewed the last satellite images of the facility—broken walls, collapsed roofs, but one section underground still emitting a faint power source.
"I don't like this," he muttered. "This feels like a trap."
"It is," Alethea replied.
He looked at her. "And we're walking right into it?"
"No." She turned her head, eyes glowing faintly. "I am."
---
Location: Black Rain Facility – Sublevel 3
The air was stale with rust and rot.
Alethea descended the cracked concrete stairwell alone, flashlight sweeping over peeling walls and old markings—symbols from the original Echo Protocol, etched like warnings no one heeded.
She reached a long corridor, lit only by flickering red backup lights. The silence was crushing.
Then she heard it—
Footsteps.
Slow. Bare. Deliberate.
From the shadows ahead emerged a woman.
Tall. Lithe. Skin sun-kissed with an almost metallic sheen. One side of her face was scarred, the other pristine. Her eyes glowed amber like fire trapped behind glass. Her black hair, streaked with silver wires, hung wild around her shoulders.
And on her collarbone—burned into flesh—was the code:
B-94
They stood still, facing each other.
The room felt like it stopped breathing.
"I knew you'd come," B-94 said, her voice a strange blend of gentle and menacing.
Alethea lowered her flashlight. "You remembered me."
B-94 tilted her head. "Of course. I'm your echo. The failed attempt to duplicate your spark. They said I couldn't hold the light... but I held the pain just fine."
Alethea took a careful step forward. "You're not a failure."
"Liar." B-94 smiled, but it was hollow. "You got the love. The name. The world. I got the cell. The silence. The electrodes."
Alethea's voice was soft. "I didn't know about you."
"No one did. Not even Mother. I was hidden, like a mistake you don't want anyone to see."
A pause.
A crack.
In the wall behind B-94, dozens of carvings lined the surface—names. Crossed out. Over and over.
They weren't names of others.
They were names she tried to give herself.
"I wanted to be someone," B-94 whispered, stepping closer. "But every time I spoke a name, it was taken. Stolen. Yours."
Alethea felt her throat tighten. "What do you want from me?"
B-94's expression shifted.
"I want your face."
Then, in a flash of motion, she attacked.
---
Combat: Mirror Rage
Alethea dodged, barely avoiding the plasma blade hidden in B-94's sleeve. She drew her own weapon—a short, double-edged dagger forged from fire-tempered obsidian.
Their blades clashed, sparks flying.
"You can't take what I am," Alethea growled.
"I am what you are!" B-94 screamed, lashing out with a vicious roundhouse kick that sent Alethea stumbling.
Alethea recovered, breathing hard. "You're not me. You're not a shadow. You're lost."
"I was discarded!" B-94 yelled, rage tearing through her voice. "And now I'll replace you."
She launched again—faster, wilder. But her strikes were full of pain, not purpose.
Alethea caught her wrist, twisting it with just enough pressure.
And she didn't strike.
She spoke.
"Then take my name."
B-94 froze.
"What?"
"You want to stop being a code?" Alethea's voice softened. "Then stop letting them define you. You want a name? Choose it. Not because it was stolen. Because you're done letting them write your story."
Silence.
A long, trembling silence.
Then B-94 fell to her knees.
Tears fell—not from weakness, but from years of silence breaking.
"I... I don't know who I am."
Alethea knelt beside her.
"Then let's find out together."
---
Later: Elara Medical Bay
B-94—now called Seren—lay sedated in the observation unit.
Marco watched from the other side of the glass. "You didn't kill her."
"I almost did," Alethea replied. "But I realized… she wasn't sent to end me. She was begging to be seen."
Omega approached. "And now Nyx knows you brought her home."
Alethea nodded slowly.
"Let her come," she whispered. "Because next time, I'm not just protecting my name. I'm protecting my sisters."
TBC..................