Chapter 12: Shifting Ground

They didn't speak as they moved.

The warehouse behind them faded into static and rust, swallowed by distance and dusk. Every step further into the alleyways felt quieter—but not safer.

Eros walked a few paces ahead. His posture was sharp. Alert. But Prion noticed the slight twitch in his fingers.

Override thread degradation. He'd seen it before.

It always started in the hands.

"Stop for a second," Prion said.

Eros didn't.

"I said stop."

Eros paused near a crumbling stairwell. He didn't turn.

Prion reached into his jacket, pulling out a small, fractured data vial.

"What's that?"

"Signal scrubber," Prion said. "You left a trail the moment you interfaced with the panel."

"Then why didn't you use it earlier?"

"Because I didn't want to scramble your implant mid-overload."

Eros finally turned. "You care that much?"

"No," Prion said. "I just didn't want you collapsing and slowing us down."

It was a lie. Eros knew it. But he didn't push.

The vial cracked in Prion's hand. A faint pulse shivered outward, like a veil distorting for a breath before going still.

Eros stared at him.

"You always have something hidden, don't you."

Prion's voice was cool. "That's why I'm still alive."

They resumed walking, cutting through forgotten industrial tunnels and utility shafts. Pipes ran above them like veins. The air was damp. Sharp. Carrying a scent not just of rust—but movement.

They weren't alone.

Prion slowed. His gaze swept the shadows. His steps became quieter, more deliberate.

"Do you hear it?" he asked.

Eros nodded once.

Not footsteps.

Breath.

Too measured for a civilian.

Eros's hand instinctively moved to his sidearm.

Then paused.

He looked at Prion. "Did you leave anything behind?"

"No. But they're faster this time."

"Who?"

Prion didn't answer.

They turned a corner and slipped into the basement of an abandoned metro station.

The doors hissed shut behind them. Still no one in sight.

But the feeling didn't leave.

Eros stepped in front of Prion without realizing.

Prion blinked. "You're shielding me again."

"You're the target."

"And you're not supposed to care."

Eros didn't respond.

The lights flickered once, then stabilized.

Prion lowered his voice. "They sent a replacement."

Eros's fingers curled.

"How do you know?"

"Because I can feel it. Whoever it is… they're not just following orders. They're following us."

They've only just begun to run—but something is already ahead of them.

The metro's walls narrowed.

A long-dead station platform stretched ahead—dusty, gutted, half-lit by flickering emergency strips lining the ground. The scent of scorched wiring lingered in the air, sharp and artificial.

Prion paused beside the rusted platform map, eyes scanning more than the station's layout.

"Backtrack thirty steps," he said.

Eros hesitated. "Why?"

"You tripped a thread when you accessed the log in that terminal back there. Not your fault. They embedded it deep in Directive Thread 5. You opened the gate without realizing."

Eros muttered, "You're telling me this… now?"

"I didn't want to distract you. The override was already hitting you."

"That's convenient."

Prion tilted his head, smile faint. "Would you rather I let it fry your mind completely?"

Eros looked away first.

They walked deeper into the station, boot falls echoing over old train tracks. The static that clung to the ceiling wires hadn't dissipated. It vibrated through the space like a low hum—almost like breath.

"I can't see them," Eros murmured, scanning corners.

"You won't," Prion said. "Not yet."

He moved ahead, but Eros reached out—fingers catching the edge of Prion's hoodie sleeve.

The touch was brief. Reflexive.

"Don't walk in front."

Prion turned slightly, something unreadable in his expression.

"Worried I'll get hurt?" he asked quietly.

"I'm the one who's supposed to shoot you."

 "You've said that thirty-seven times already."

Neither laughed.

They reached the end of the platform, where a stairwell spiralled downward into deeper metro ruins.

Prion halted—too suddenly.

Eros noticed the change in his posture. Rigid. Breath short.

A sound.

Not footsteps.

The hiss of a blade leaving a sheath.

Inhumanly silent. Mechanical.

Prion's eyes locked onto the tunnel shadows behind them. "Left."

Eros spun, drawing his weapon without a word. A shadow peeled itself from the darkness—then disappeared, fast.

Too fast.

Prion stepped back, hand raised—no weapon, just awareness.

"They're not here to talk."

"Who is it?" Eros asked. "Another subject?"

"Not quite."

Eros glanced over, heart spiking despite his training.

Prion wasn't looking at the shadow anymore.

He was looking at Eros.

"You're shaking," Prion said softly.

Eros hadn't realized it.

A tremor ran along his trigger finger.

"You're glitching again," Prion added. "They're forcing proximity override. You're not in full control."

Eros clenched his jaw. "I'm fine."

"You're not. And you're not aiming at them."

His weapon was still pointed… vaguely… at Prion.

For a split second.

Then he turned, aimed at the shadows, and fired.

A flicker of movement leapt back into the tunnels.

Too fast to hit.

But enough to confirm they weren't hallucinating.

Prion's voice was low. Measured.

"You said once that you'd protect me, even if you didn't remember why."

Eros didn't answer.

He lowered the weapon.

And stood between Prion and the stairwell—again.

The silence held.

Prion's voice cracked it like a knife.

"This time, you're choosing to."

The tunnel narrowed again—walls pressing inward, forcing Eros and Prion to walk almost shoulder to shoulder.

The air grew colder.

Damp.

Rust-stained pipes hissed quietly above, leaking steam-like whispers.

Somewhere far behind them, metal scraped concrete.

Then—

A voice.

Low. Smooth. Mechanical at the edges, but too human where it shouldn't be.

"Funny. You both still bleed the same way."

Eros froze.

He'd heard that voice before.

In a dream.

In a glitch.

"Who—" he snapped, turning sharply.

Prion didn't flinch. He simply stepped forward, expression unreadable.

"I was wondering how long they'd wait," Prion murmured. "Looks like New Era finally sent something custom."

The voice echoed again—closer now.

"Hello, Eros."

It wasn't just familiar.

It was a mimicry of his own.

Twisted. Sharpened. A pitch lower.

Like listening to his shadow speak.

A shape stepped from the smoke between collapsed scaffolding.

Slender. Efficient. Masked in pale synth-skin.

Armor black, marked with fragments of Eros's old mission runes—redacted and reapplied.

"I was built from you," the voice said. "From your hesitation. From your failure."

Eros aimed his weapon. "What the hell is this?"

"Prototype Echo-Z," Prion said flatly. "No designation. No anchor. Just protocol and pain."

"You're lying."

Prion turned slightly toward him, voice calm. "You think I'm the only one they recycled data for? You think you're not being measured in every reaction?"

"He's not your partner," the shadow said. "He's your handler now. Your parasite. Look how quickly you draw your weapon for him."

Eros stiffened.

Prion said nothing.

The shadow walked slowly forward, footfalls silent as breath.

"Do you know what they call him now, in the newer files?"

"The Rewrite."

"Because he doesn't just survive memory loops. He corrupts them. He contaminates anchors. You."

Eros's hand trembled on the grip of his weapon.

"They think you're compromised. That's why I'm here. To finish both of you."

Prion finally moved—just one step forward.

But his presence filled the tunnel like a quiet storm.

"You're a shell built from a dead protocol," he said. "You don't even know who you are."

"I know I'm faster than you."

"I know what you're afraid of."

"You?"

"No," Prion said quietly.

"Your own memory."

For a flicker of a second, the assassin hesitated.

And Eros noticed it.

A break.

A crack in the programming.

The mimicry wasn't perfect.

"Get behind me," Eros said suddenly.

Prion didn't move.

Instead, he smiled.

And that smile—knife-thin, brilliant, unreadable—made Eros's heart drop.

Because in that instant, Eros wasn't sure who was more dangerous:

The shadow in front of him.

Or the boy who never flinched beside him.

When the enemy wears your face and the one beside you never breaks—who do you aim at?

Echo-Z moved first.

No warning.

No declaration.

Just blur and violence—like light bending through a broken lens.

Eros barely parried in time.

The strike came from the left—his left, the exact pattern he'd been trained with. Elbow sharp. Footwork cold. A mirror forged in algorithm and blood.

The clang of impact rang through the tunnel.

Eros stumbled back.

"He moves like me," he muttered.

"No," Prion said quietly behind him. "He moves like you were meant to."

Eros's jaw clenched. "What does that mean?"

But he didn't have time to demand answers.

Echo-Z pivoted mid-air, rebounded off the wall, and launched again—no hesitation, no breath between decisions. It was the kind of efficiency Eros once believed in.

And now… it repulsed him.

He ducked, rolled.

Steel grazed his side. His skin burned.

Prion didn't move.

He stood five paces behind Eros, eyes locked on the shadow assassin. Calm. Calculating. Almost… detached.

"Are you just going to watch?" Eros hissed.

"Keep him busy," Prion murmured. "I need thirty seconds."

"To do what—"

But Prion had already pulled something from his sleeve.

Not a weapon.

A fragment.

A small, crystalline shard—jagged at the edge, faintly pulsing blue.

"I logged into Echo-Z's trace feed three days ago," Prion said softly. "I know his data roots. But emotion? That's where he fractures."

Eros parried another strike, barely staying upright. His chest heaved.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Prion stepped forward, just as Echo-Z lunged again.

He didn't block.

He whispered.

"Seventeen."

Echo-Z faltered.

A half-second.

Just a break.

But it was enough.

Eros drove his knee into the copy's chest and sent them both crashing against the wall.

"What did you do?" he demanded, turning.

Prion was already walking forward—shard glowing faintly between his fingers.

"I reminded him of something he was programmed to forget," Prion said. "That's all it takes to unthread a ghost."

Eros stared at the figure slumped against the wall.

Still breathing.

Still glitching.

"You could've killed him."

"He's not alive," Prion said.

His voice was quiet. Flat.

But something under it—just beneath—felt cracked.

"I've watched too many things made from pieces of us," he added. "I'm tired of watching them break you."

Eros didn't answer.

He couldn't.

Not because he didn't want to.

Because his chest hurt in a way no blade had caused.

And because for a moment—

When Prion had stepped forward, standing between him and the weaponized version of himself—

Eros had felt protected.

Not manipulated.

Not controlled.

Just… remembered.

The enemy fell. But what if the real danger is the part of you that felt safer when he did?

If someone weaponized your worst self, could you fight it… without becoming it again?

Prion doesn't carry a weapon. He doesn't need to. His mind is sharp enough to cut through memory and shadow.