The Black Bloom
The silence after the storm was worse than the battle.
Lira pressed her palm against the observation glass, watching the black shard pulse like a sick heart where it had embedded itself in the *Last Bastion's* hull. It had grown overnight—crystalline tendrils now spread across three decks, whispering in a voice that wasn't quite Kael's.
"You're staring at it again." Ignar's voice rumbled from the doorway, his glass body still showing hairline fractures from their ordeal.
"It's growing fractal patterns," Lira murmured. "Just like my arm used to." She flexed her new prosthetic—a crude replacement cobbled together from spare parts. "Think it misses me?"
A warning klaxon shattered the moment.
---
Syra's voice crackled over the comms: *"Medical bay. Now."*
They found Aeloria contained in a quantum stasis field, her storm-form frozen mid-convulsion. Strange black veins pulsed beneath her lightning.
"It's adapting," Syra said, her neural tendrils flickering erratically. She gestured to the hologram between them—a real-time scan showing the shard's growth patterns mirroring the corruption they'd just defeated. "It's not just spreading through the ship. It's rewriting our biology."
Ignar's fist shattered a console. "We just sacrificed Kael to destroy this thing!"
*"No."* Aeloria's voice slipped through the stasis like smoke. **"We sacrificed him to change it."**
---
The black crystal responded to touch:
- **Lira's** prosthetic made it sing in harmonic resonance
- **Syra's** neural interface caused fractal blooms
- But when **Ignar** touched it...
The ship's lights died.
For three heartbeats, they floated in perfect darkness. Then the shard *projected*:
A star map. Not of their universe—but of somewhere *older*. At its center pulsed a familiar symbol: Kael's Mark.
"He's there," Lira breathed. "Or part of him is."
Syra's remaining eye widened. "Not a prison. A bridge."
---
Aeloria broke containment with a thunderclap. **"It wants us to follow."**
Lira was already strapping on her combat harness. "Then let's go get our bastard back."
Ignar blocked her path. "We don't know what's on the other side."
"That's the point," Lira shot back. She tapped the shard, which reshaped itself into a perfect blade. "Kael didn't just sacrifice himself to stop the eye. He gave us a weapon."
The ship's AI chose that moment to blare: *"Hull integrity compromised. Organic corruption detected in Deck 5 hydroponics."*
Syra sighed. "Or we're all hallucinating the shard's whispers as it consumes us."
Aeloria's laughter crackled like wildfire. **"Why not both?"**
---
They gathered at the shard's nexus point:
1. **The Gateway**: The largest crystal had grown into a perfect archway thrumming with dark energy
2. **The Price**:
- Syra's scans showed the bridge would only hold for 47 minutes
- Their corrupted biology might not survive the transition
3. **The Truth**:
Kael's Mark burned in the projection, but now they could see—it wasn't a distress signal.
It was an invitation.
Lira stepped through first.
---
The moment Lira's boot touched the mirrored deck, three things happened simultaneously:
1. Her crude prosthetic *detonated* in a shower of sparks, revealing the black shard had regrown her original Leviathan steel arm mid-transit
2. The doppelgängers' weapons powered down with a synchronized hum
3. The air filled with the scent of ionized copper and something disturbingly organic
"Welcome home, Lira." Mirror-Syra lowered her pulse rifle, her neural tendrils coiled like sleeping serpents. "Though I suspect you'd prefer we call you *Prime*."
---
The mirrored *Last Bastion* was both familiar and horrifically alien:
- **The Walls** pulsed with bioluminescent veins
- **The Crew** bore Kael's Mark as glowing tattoos rather than corruptions
- **The Black Shard** here wasn't an infection—it was the ship's *power core*
Ignar's double approached, his volcanic glass body flawlessly intact. "You look like hell, Prime. The Fracture Point still eating at your universe?"
Lira's new-old arm flexed instinctively. "What the fuck is this place?"
Mirror-Aeloria materialized from the ceiling storm-cloud first. **"The inevitable outcome. Where *he* won."**
A hologram flared to life between them—showing Kael, very much alive, kneeling before the Cosmic Eye.
---
The truth unfolded in fractured revelations:
1. **The Mirror Universe** had faced the same crisis, but their Kael had *merged* with the Eye instead of destroying it
2. **The Black Shard** was a dimensional anchor, created to stabilize both realities
3. **The Cost**:
"Our Kael exists in perpetual agony," Mirror-Syra said quietly. "His consciousness maintains the balance, but the strain is... eroding him."
Lira's stomach dropped. "You want us to take his place."
Mirror-Ignar laughed bitterly. "We want you to *free* him. Your Kael's sacrifice created a unique energy signature—one that could break the cycle."
---
The crews gathered around a holographic battle plan:
1. **The Extraction**: Using Prime Lira's newly restored arm as a homing beacon to locate both Kale
2. **The Exchange**: Transferring the cosmic burden to the shard fragment
3. **The Fallout**:
"There's a 73% chance this collapses both universes," Syra calculated, her human eye darting between readings.
Mirror-Aeloria's storm-eyes darkened. **"And a 100% chance we all die if we do nothing."**
Lira stared at her reflection in the black steel of her restored arm. "How long?"
"Three hours until your universe's corruption becomes irreversible," Mirror-Syra said. "And our Kael... maybe less."
---
Preparation montage with haunting parallels:
- **Lira** being fitted with resonance stabilizers that look suspiciously like restraints
- **Syra** interfacing with the mirrored Archive, gasping as it shows her alternate memories
- **Ignar** comparing fracture patterns with his double, realizing their fates were *always* linked
The moment before activation, Mirror-Lira pulled Prime aside: "You should know—our Kael begged us to let him die. Every day for twelve years." She tapped her Mark. "Don't let yours make the same mistake."
---
The ritual began with both crews chanting in unison. Reality peeled back like rotting skin, revealing:
**The Prison Between Worlds**
A shattered plane where:
- The Cosmic Eye floated bisected, half-light/half-darkness
- Two Kale back-to-back, their forms fused at the spine
- The *true* Black Shard hovering above them like a crown
Prime Kael's head snapped up. His voice was raw from screaming: *"Lira? Oh god, why did you come?"*
Mirror Kael simply wept.
---