Chapter 9: The Fractured Hall

The black fire didn't burn.

It remembered.

As Xander passed through the circular gate, the flames licked at his skin like frozen ink—cold, but not numb. It felt like being read by something ancient and unforgiving. Each step sank into a different memory, shifting underfoot, untethered from logic. Lyra and Veyr followed close behind, their outlines flickering in and out, like ghosts walking beside him but never quite in sync.

Then—silence again.

But not the suffocating kind that hung in the Atrium.

This was different.

There was breath here. Movement. Something alive in the static.

They emerged into a spiraling corridor made of data-stitched bone and steel, coiling like a serpent into the dark. Glyphs pulsed along the walls in blood-red patterns—code not meant to be seen by living eyes.

Veyr muttered, "This place is sick. It remembers pain."

Xander nodded grimly. "It remembers us."

A corridor formed ahead, swallowing the fire door behind them. The path narrowed as they walked, the air turning thicker. Almost wet.

"Do you hear that?" Lyra whispered.

It wasn't a sound.

It was a heartbeat.

A massive, dragging thud echoing far below.

Thmp.

Thmp.

And then, a voice.

One they hadn't heard in days.

> "Welcome back, Croft. Still wearing borrowed bones, I see."

Xander froze.

The voice came from everywhere—and nowhere. Male. Cold. Familiar in a way that made his stomach twist.

Lyra gripped his arm. "Who was that?"

"...Me."

They rounded a final bend, and the corridor opened into a chamber suspended in zero-gravity—a fractured dome of glass and cables, spiraling out toward black data voids. Floating islands of forgotten code rotated slowly, like a dismantled clock in space.

In the center of it all stood a figure.

Wearing his face.

But older.

Eyes rimmed with ghostlight. Veins glowing like circuitry. A long coat torn at the edges, soaked in flickering symbols. And around his neck, the shard of a broken crown pulsed with hollow light.

He turned.

Smiled.

> "Finally caught up."

Lyra drew her weapon.

Veyr stepped in front of her. "Wait. That's not—he's—"

Xander raised his hand. "It's a copy. Or a projection."

"No," the doppelgänger said, stepping forward. "I'm what you locked away. What you had to break to survive."

His voice hit like a mirror shattering inward.

"I'm the Xander Croft who made the deal. Who saw the city fall. Who let it."

Xander's pulse raced. "You're just a memory."

"No. I'm the truth you ran from."

He raised his hand, and the space around them cracked. Memories bled through the air—Xander at age twelve, standing over a blood-soaked terminal. Xander wiring explosives. Xander screaming into the void. Xander dragging Lyra's lifeless body toward a collapsing gate—

"Stop it!" Xander shouted.

The images halted. Hanging midair like broken glass.

"You want the last fragment?" the echo said. "You have to face the final lockdown key."

He drew a glyph in the air—a spiraling crest of chains, blood, and fire. "Code Signature: Mirrorshade Vein."

Lyra gasped. "Xander, that's your power—your real one—"

"It was never just a gift," the echo said. "It was a curse. Every power you took, every memory you glimpsed... fed me."

Xander's hand trembled. "Why? Why are you showing this?"

"Because you're not ready to fight Thorne," the echo growled. "Not like this. Not while you're still afraid of who you really are."

A glyph appeared at Xander's feet.

Two doors rose.

One shimmered with light, warm and nostalgic. His childhood. Safety. The past before the city began to rot.

The other pulsed black. Agony. Sacrifice. Power.

"You choose," the echo said. "Go back to forgetting. Or take everything... and become what the city needs."

Lyra stepped forward, shaking. "Xander, don't listen—this is a trap. A test."

Veyr touched his arm. "But he's not wrong. If you don't remember... someone else will write your story for you."

Xander stared at the doors.

Then he looked at them—Lyra's eyes burning with conviction, and Veyr's trembling but loyal.

He closed his eyes.

And stepped toward the black door.

"No more running."

The glyph exploded with light.

And the door swallowed him whole.

---

Inner Mindlock — Mirror Chamber

Everything was static and shadow.

Then—

Voices.

Dozens of them. Hundreds. All his. Arguing. Screaming. Pleading. Laughing.

And in the center, a chair. Strapped into it—Xander again. But bound. Eyes covered. Veins twitching.

He opened his eyes.

And saw himself walk in.

"You came," Bound-Xander said.

"You're the last lock."

"I'm the truth," Bound-Xander whispered. "The truth of what we did. What we became. You can't fight Thorne without me."

Xander stepped closer. "Then show me."

Bound-Xander reached out.

Their hands touched—

And the room shattered.

Memories surged in:

The day he let Raid be captured to bait the Mindhunters.

The moment he struck a deal with Thorne—before the fall.

The lie he told Lyra. That she didn't die. That she never had to.

The way he erased half of Veyr's memories just to keep him docile enough to save.

Xander staggered back, choking.

"No... no, I wouldn't—"

"You did," the lock whispered. "And you forgot. Because remembering hurt too much."

The real Xander sank to his knees.

"I'm a monster."

"No," Bound-Xander said, walking forward and lifting him up. "You were desperate."

He touched Xander's chest.

A final glyph appeared—the original Croft Protocol.

One word etched in its core.

> "Reconcile."

Then—

The lock collapsed into him.

The flood of memories reconnected.

And suddenly—he remembered it all.

---

Reality — Return to the Fractured Hall

Xander gasped as the dark door expelled him back into the spiral chamber. Lyra and Veyr rushed to him.

His eyes were glowing now—one gold, one silver.

"I remember."

The doppelgänger was gone.

In his place stood the Sentinel.

"You chose."

Xander stood tall. "No more fragments. No more shadows. Just me."

He opened his palm.

The glyph burned crimson, white, and black—a fusion of his past, his present, and what he might still become.

> "Croft Protocol: Echoforge. Full sync achieved."

From behind the chamber walls, the city's map appeared—alive and shifting.

And in the center of the chaos—

Nuel.

His body twisted, infused with bloodcoin fire. Eyes hollow, veins leaking shadows.

Standing in the ruins of the old tower.

Waiting.

The final path was clear.

"Let's end this," Xander whispered.

And they walked into the storm.