CHAPTER 15: THE CHOIR OF SINS
The Mirror and the Mask (Lust)
Beneath Eden's cathedral, down a staircase no one dared acknowledge, Lust stood in a room made entirely of mirrors.
They called it the Hall of Reflection. A place not even the Observers would enter anymore.
It was quiet here, but never truly still. Each mirror whispered to them, showing a thousand versions of their own face. One sobbing. One laughing. One splattered with blood. One crowned in black glass.
Lust stood at the center, still as a statue, staring at their own reflection. The black sigil.. the one retrieved from the Archive.. pulsed faintly in her hand like a living thing.
When they spoke, the words were soft.
"The Choir hears you."
The mirrors rippled.
And a dozen voices answered at once. High, low, male, female, none at all.
"We have always heard you."
The sound was more sensation than speech, vibrating in their bones. Lust lowered the sigil to the center of the floor. Shadows pooled outward, forming a faint circle around their boots.
"You promised me a throne," Lust said. "Not his scraps."
The Choir's laughter echoed through the mirrors.
"No throne stays warm forever. The Spire will fall, and a new age will rise. And you will stand among its architects."
Lust watched her reflection shift, showing a crown glinting faintly over their mirror-self's head.
"What do you want of me?"
The voices answered in unison.
"Corrupt the Cradle. Break the Architect's work. And awaken what Zero fears most."
Lust's mirrored hand moved on its own, dragging a fingertip across the glass. The reflection in the mirror smiled even though Lust's own face did not.
"Yes," they whispered. "I will begin."
The sigil dimmed, the voices faded, and the mirrors fell silent.
Lust turned and walked calmly back into the cathedral above, the faint sound of unseen wings following them.
...
Static and Signal (Mr P)
The lab smelled of burnt wires and stale coffee.
Mr P sat alone at his main console, legs crossed, sunglasses low on his nose, staring at the faint pulse that danced across his terminal.
The signal was weak. But alive.
Elian.
Somewhere but why now he wondered...
The clones in the background bickered endlessly, one stomping about with his jacket on fire, another shouting about having his necktie stolen.
Mr P didn't hear them.
The pulse on the screen weakened, then flared again. An erratic pattern... not random, but not stable either. A beacon.
He exhaled slowly, his jaw tight.
"That bastard plays like me," he murmured to no one. "But what this not him...."
For the first time since the pulse first appeared, Mr P leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and allowed himself to smile faintly.
He plucked a small, palm-sized device from his pocket and studied it. The last contingency, if Elian truly was alive...
And if he wasn't?
He tucked the device back into his coat and whispered, almost kindly:
"Either way, Zero, you'll pay for him."
Behind him, Clone 3 leaned in the doorway silently, a white mask covering his face. He gave no greeting, no comment, just stood watching his original work.
Mr P caught his reflection in the console glass.
"Don't get too comfortable yet," he muttered under his breath. "We'll see how well you play the villain when it's your move."
...
Check and Counter (Rei)
Rei sat in a forgotten maintenance tunnel below the Eden wall, the glow of his datapad the only light in the dark.
Lines of code scrolled endlessly across the screen, his gloved fingers tracing each pattern as he read.
The Choir's fingerprints were all over it... a signal embedded into the same network he'd intercepted earlier. Messages piggybacking on channels Zero never checked, directing movements Rei now understood as strategic positioning inside Eden.
They were already here.
He closed his eyes and let the tension sink into his bones.
Not Zero's doing. Not Mr P's.
The Choir's he thought.
He typed one short message into his secondary encryption pad, knowing exactly where to send it.
There is a Choir that sings again. Thought you'd want to hear the next verse.
He sent it to the one man who would understand the melody.
And waited in silence.
...
The Threads Tighten (Zero)
In the Throne of Foresight, the future frayed faster than Zero's fingers could weave it back together.
He stood in the glass chamber, surrounded by shimmering strands of fate. One by one they snapped... Luther's thread burning hot and unstable, Lust's thread splitting into two unknown paths, and now a black thread slithering through the weave like a snake.
The Choir's thread.
For the first time in decades, Zero's hands curled into fists at his sides.
He kept his voice quiet, measured, even as his chest burned.
"You think you've cornered the king," he murmured. "But you've only woken the god."
His gaze fell on the sealed chamber at the end of the room... the one that nobody knew existed.
Inside, a shape lay motionless in a pod of gold and glass.
Incomplete. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Zero reached for the containment console and pressed his hand to the glass.
The prototype stirred faintly, light blooming behind its closed eyelids.
"Hmm , am losing it.." he said softly.
And the pod hissed open by a single fraction.
...
The Rebellion's Shadow (Clone 3)
Outside Eden's gates, in the ruined sectors where no barrier light reached, Clone 3 stood atop a blackened highway overpass, watching ash fall like snow.
The white mask hid his face. His coat billowed faintly behind him.
Below him, a crowd of rebels waited in the dark... marked by the sigil of the Choir of Sins.
He raised his hands and they fell quiet.
Tonight he would be seen.
Tonight he would be known as the leader of those who opposed Eden.
He would lead the Choir's song just loud enough to shake the walls... and just subtle enough to keep his original in the dark.
The rebellion's shadow smiled beneath his mask.
And spoke just two words.
"Phase Three."
Closing Beat
Far beyond Eden, in the black ash of the wastelands, the faintest glimmer of light shone on the horizon.
The Choir of Sins moved silently, their black sigils catching what little light there was.
And together their voices rose, soft but steady, whispering into the storm:
"The savior is cracking. The knife is sharp. The board is set. Let the gods bleed."
...
END OF CHAPTER 15: