Arcbound: Tale of The Guardians

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Alastor—still in Nora's form—tilted its head, eyes narrowing as it twirled the earth-forged shield in its hand with unsettling grace.

Kai dropped to a defensive stance, teeth clenched. "Put it down."

"Why?" Alastor's voice crackled, a strange blend of Nora's and something darker beneath. "It fits me, doesn't it? I've spent so much time wearing her skin, it's practically mine now."

With a flick of her—its—wrist, the shield sailed back at Kai like a disc.

He barely deflected it with a slab of summoned stone.

Carl moved first. "Get it away from the tech!"

He leapt forward, staff spinning with windlight energy. But Alastor sidestepped, blurred, and slammed a palm into Carl's chest mid-leap. He flew backward, crashing into a console with a heavy crack.

"Carl!" Henry shouted, already mid-merge.

Lightning flared from his dual staff as he charged forward. He swept low, electricity arcing through the ground like a wave.

Alastor danced back, still flickering with Nora's body—but the illusion was breaking now. Hair twisting like smoke. Limbs stuttering like a bad signal.

Natasha joined the fray, whip igniting in flame. She lashed at Alastor's leg. It caught.

The creature screeched—not from pain, but annoyance—and morphed its leg to detach the trapped portion entirely, black mass forming again as it spun.

"You'll never win," Kai growled. "You're alone now."

Alastor's response was a ripple of shifting skin and a grunt as it caught Henry's electric strike bare-handed—absorbing just enough force to rebound it back at him.

Henry flew across the chamber and smashed into the wall beside Carl, groaning.

Leo shouted from the console, trying to lock the chamber doors, "Jay! It's headed for the vent—cut it off!"

But Jay was too late.

Kai slammed another stone wall in front of the nearest exit. "You're not leaving until we get her back!"

Alastor hissed.

I'll tell her you came looking... right before I erase her." Alastor's entire form collapsed inward, tendrils of black mass compressing like liquid shadow.

It darted for the ceiling vent.

Kai hurled a spike of earth after it—but it was too fast.

The vent exploded outward as Alastor vanished into the shadows above, smoke and wires raining down behind it.

For a long second, no one moved.

Only the sound of damaged consoles flickering and Carl coughing cut the silence.

Then Henry stood up slowly, clutching his ribs.

"Where's… where's Nora?"

Jay's jaw tightened. "We don't know."

Leo's eyes stayed fixed on the flickering vent, fury rising like steam from his skin.

Carl cursed under his breath.

Natasha turned, her voice hoarse. "It had her face…"

Kai stared at his cracked shield on the ground.

"No," he whispered. "It didn't just wear her face. It took her."

---

The Arc Chamber pulsed with warnings. Red glyphs flickered across the high walls like angry veins. Smoke still curled from the ceiling vent where Alastor had vanished just seconds before, leaving silence in its wake.

Everyone stood frozen. Not from shock. From realization.

"That wasn't Nora," Kai had said, his shield still humming with residual Oria.

Carl took a half step forward. "But... if that was Alastor, then where is Nora?"

Nobody had an answer.

Henry, still catching his breath, lowered his fists. His knuckles were pale beneath the thin layer of Oria-reinforced gloves. His gaze dropped to the floor where Alastor had stood—where Nora had stood—all this time.

A stray piece of her glove, melted from the chemical test Kai used to expose the truth, lay half-dissolved in a pool of green Solvex-92. It hissed faintly, the only sound left in the room.

Leo stepped away from his console and stared at the scanner on his wrist. "That was a perfect mimic. It fooled all of us."

"No," Henry said quietly. "It fooled me."

---

Jay tapped a command on the control panel. The Arc Chamber dimmed, then switched to lockdown mode. Thick, transparent shields slid down over the windows, and the entryway sealed shut with a metallic hiss.

"Everyone, to the debriefing table," he ordered.

The team gathered, still dazed, still trying to make sense of what they had just seen.

Leo glanced at Kai. "How did you know?"

Kai didn't answer immediately. His gaze remained locked on the glove fragment. "She didn't react to Solvex-92. It eats skin like acid. I panicked at first... but then I realized. That wasn't her."

Henry frowned. "But... if that wasn't her, then what about in the tunnel?"

He looked around, face paling. "We fought Alastor. All of us. We saw it attacking her."

Jay walked to the center of the table, activating a holo-projection of the tunnel logs. Video footage from their encounter flickered to life—Nora pinned, Alastor looming above her, Henry unconscious nearby.

Then the arrival of Carl, Kai, and Natasha.

Then the battle.

"So either," Jay began, "that Alastor swapped with her at the moment she passed out... or..."

Carl leaned forward. "Or there was more than one."

"Or something pretending to be Alastor," Leo added, face grim.

"A copy of a copy?" Natasha asked. "How do we fight something that can multiply and hide inside our team?"

No one answered.

---

An hour later, Henry sat alone in the training room. The lights were dimmed, and his staff spun slowly in his hand, occasionally sparking with faint lightning. He wasn't training. He was thinking.

About Nora.

About her soft sarcasm.

Her confidence.

The way she always knew when he was lying.

The way she kissed him.

The real her.

He didn't know how long she'd been gone. He didn't even know when she was taken. The realization stung worse than any wound.

He'd been talking to a shadow all this time.

He threw the staff.

It slammed into the far wall and cracked it.

---

Meanwhile, back in the Arc Chamber, Leo hovered near his workstation, fingers twitching over the console. Jay watched him from a distance.

"We should've caught it sooner," Leo muttered.

Jay said nothing.

Leo snapped his fingers. "Unless it's not one entity. What if Alastor is more like a network? A system of mimics, all connected?"

Jay finally spoke. "That would explain the dual presence."

"We have to find the real Nora," Leo said. "Before it—or they—do something permanent."

Jay walked to a containment locker and unlocked it. Inside was a half-finished prototype: a silver arc-emitting disc the size of a shield.

"The Dimensional Pulse Driver," Jay said. "It can trace lingering Oria echoes through fractured space. That means mirror dimensions. Splinters. Pocket realms."

"You think they put her in a splinter reality?" Leo asked.

"It would make sense," Jay replied. "If you want to hide someone permanently, put them where time doesn't work."

---

Carl and Kai trained together in the sim room, silent.

Finally, Carl broke the silence. "Bro... what if we can't get her back?"

Kai frowned. "She's alive. I can feel it."

Carl twirled his staff. "Then let's go find her."

Kai smiled faintly. "Yeah. No more secrets. No more fake smiles."

---

Across the base, Natasha sat on the edge of her bunk, staring at her holo-pad. A still image of Caleb was frozen on the screen.

She sighed, replaying their conversation.

"You really think I'm Alastor?"

Leo's voice echoing back in her head.

She tossed the pad aside. Her hand flexed, firelight dancing at her fingertips.

Then she whispered, "If you're out there, Nora... hold on."

---

Elsewhere

Somewhere not in space. Not in time. Somewhere folded.

Nora woke up.

She gasped, coughing, choking on thick, humid air. She sat up quickly, scanning her surroundings.

She was in a perfect replica of the Arc Chamber.

But it was wrong.

The lights pulsed too slowly.

The air felt static.

The reflections in the glass didn't match her movements.

She stood, trembling.

"Hello?" she called out.

No answer.

She approached a console. It flickered. A distorted image appeared on the screen—her face, but with black eyes.

"You wear my face well," the reflection said.

Nora backed away.

A voice behind her. "They'll never know which of us is real."

She spun around.

No one there.

She clenched her fists. Water coiled around her knuckles.

"I'm still here," she said, louder. "You can't keep me."

Another whisper.

"But they already think you're gone."

---

Back in Guardian Base Alpha 2.0, the lights dimmed again. The team had gathered for one final briefing.

Henry stood at the center.

"We stop waiting. We take the fight to them. We bring Nora back."

Leo nodded. "The Pulse Driver is ready. It can find any echo trace linked to her original Oria pattern."

Kai stepped forward. "Just say when."

Jay loaded the coordinates. A dimensional gate began to shimmer open behind them.

Henry looked up, eyes determined.

"Then let's go get our girl back."

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