The Vampire Project

Tyler didn't wait for another fake whisper.

The moment her feet shifted, he launched.

Steel against steel, his blade hissed through the air, meeting hers with a crack loud enough to shake the corridor walls. Sparks erupted with each strike, the narrow lab shaking with every step, every impact.

Her smile stayed fixed. Calm. Soft. That smile that used to melt him.

"Tyler…" she breathed between clashes. "You're still fighting like this? So reckless…"

Her tone… gods, it was perfect.

Tyler's blade carved low toward her ribs. She twisted, fluid and fast, the same way Ara would dance around him during training spars. The way her knees dipped, the sidestep, he recognized every tell before it happened.

And that made it worse.

"You're not her!" he snarled, forcing her back, blow after blow driving her toward the bulkhead.

But the Replica adapted.

With eerie speed, she slid under his guard, bringing her blade up toward his neck. Tyler barely twisted in time, the edge grazing his cheek. Blood sprayed in a thin arc.

"Why do you always rush in, Ty?" she whispered, her eyes… gods… the same color, the same weight. "Remember when I used to patch you up after every mission?"

He let out a roar, pure fury laced with grief, knocking her sideways with a shoulder slam.

But she rolled with the hit, spinning low, coming back at him with a flurry of strikes too clean, too trained.

Every inch of her… muscle memory programmed from surveillance footage.

His surveillance footage.

Volton had been watching them back then. Studying. Recording.

That realization hit him like another punch to the gut.

Their love…

Their time together…

It had been turned into data for a machine.

Her next strike nearly broke his arm as she feinted left then drove her knee into his ribs.

Tyler crashed against the wall with a thud that cracked the paneling.

Air rattled in his chest.

Pain flared down his side.

She advanced.

"Don't make me hurt you, Tyler…"

The softness in her voice—

That wasn't programming.

That was mockery.

Volton's signature all over it.

"Shut up," Tyler hissed, wiping the blood from his mouth. "Just shut up."

He surged forward again, blade leading.

Steel met steel, the air filling with the screech of metal on metal.

Her next parry was too sharp, nearly disarming him.

She ducked under his guard and sent a fist straight to his gut.

Then another to his jaw.

Tyler's vision blurred, but he didn't stop moving.

No room for pause. No room for breath.

The pain became fuel.

The fight grew ugly, closer range, more grappling, less technique, more raw instinct.

At one point, her hand curled against his collar, pulling him in close, her lips near his ear.

"Do you still dream about me?" she whispered.

He rammed his forehead into her nose hard enough to snap bone, real or synthetic, it didn't matter.

The Replica reeled back, fluid leaking from her nostrils.

Finally… a crack in the mask.

"You're not her!" Tyler roared.

His next swing split through her side.

The Replica stumbled, clutching at sparking internals beneath fake skin.

But even through the glitching circuits…

She laughed.

Soft.

Broken.

So familiar it made his throat close.

Tyler gritted his teeth, charging one last time.

---

As the Replica reeled, Tyler's mind betrayed him.

Memories crashed in, blinding, sharp, uninvited.

Ara sitting on the rooftop, knees pulled to her chest, laughing as she threw popcorn at his face.

"Stop brooding. You're too handsome to frown like that," she'd teased, hair messy, eyes dancing.

The night she fell asleep on his shoulder during the city patrol shift, breath warm against his neck.

The morning she kissed him goodbye… not knowing it was her last mission.

The way her hands trembled when she told him she wanted a future, with him.

And then… the last time he saw her face.

It was her last smile.

Her last tease.

Saw her again in ashes.

The ache surged, hot and unbearable.

His fists clenched so tight, he nearly snapped the hilt of his blade.

"This isn't you," he whispered to himself, to her… to the broken thing still smiling at him now.

---

The Replica recovered faster than it should have.

It lunged again, slicing toward his throat.

Tyler ducked, letting the blade skim past, then twisted inside her guard, driving his elbow hard into her chest plate.

She staggered back.

Without hesitation, he drove his sword through her abdomen, deep and final.

The light in her eyes flickered.

Her smile faltered… just for a breath.

Then… stillness.

Her body slumped, lifeless at last, hitting the floor with a metallic thud.

Tyler stood over her, chest heaving, blood dripping from his mouth, from his knuckles…

From his heart.

Silence pressed thick around him.

Until a slow, mocking clap echoed from the far end of the hall.

Tyler turned, blade still wet in his hand.

Zevien stood there, leaning casually against the wall.

"Well now… that was almost poetic," Zevien purred, stepping forward with lazy grace.

Tyler's eyes narrowed.

"You watched?"

Zevien smiled wider. "Of course. I had to see if you'd hesitate at the final moment. Part of me hoped you'd break."

Tyler didn't reply.

Just shifted his stance, blade ready.

Zevien lifted his hands in mock surrender. "Relax… I'm not here to fight you."

A slow, pointed glance toward the fallen Replica.

"Not tonight."

With a smirk, Zevien turned, vanishing into the shadows of the corridor, his voice echoing behind him:

"But next time… I'll be more hands-on."

Tyler stood alone in the wreckage.

He exhaled… slow… shaking.

Then turned toward the exit—

toward Volton.

One less ghost.

One more reason to finish this war.

---

Tyler stood over the broken Replica, staring at the stillness that didn't feel like victory.

The air reeked of burnt circuits and blood, his, hers… its.

His chest rose and fell in uneven bursts.

He forced himself to take a step back, almost stumbling. The adrenaline was fading, and with it, the weight of what he'd done threatened to crush him.

But there was no time to mourn, not here.

His gaze shifted toward the far side of the corridor, where a secondary door had cracked open mid-fight, unnoticed until now.

A control room.

Dim lights blinked along multiple consoles. Data cores lined the walls. Cryotanks, six of them, stood silently along the far wall, each filled with pale forms still half-assembled.

More Replicas.

More ARA units.

Tyler's stomach twisted, bile burning the back of his throat.

Volton hadn't just made one.

He'd made backups.

Failsafes.

Insurance.

The next wave was already waiting.

"No…" Tyler breathed, stepping inside.

His blade flicked out, slicing the first console's power core without hesitation. Sparks rained from the ceiling. Alarms stuttered but never fully activated, this lab was designed to stay silent, even in crisis.

He moved fast, disabling control nodes, wrecking the mainframe servers, cutting deep into the wiring.

When he reached the cryotanks, he didn't hesitate.

One by one, he drove his sword straight through the chests of each unfinished Replica, sparks and fluid bursting like ruptured veins.

The hiss of leaking coolant filled the air.

Somewhere behind him, a backup generator kicked on, trying to compensate for the destruction.

That was when he found the fuel lines.

Tyler yanked open the emergency panel, grabbed the nearest pressure valve, and twisted until it screamed.

Fuel leaked fast.

Then he took one last thing: Ara's original data crystal, labeled, tucked into a storage bay like just another project file.

He crushed it under his boot.

The sound it made was small, but it felt like splitting a coffin.

With no time left, Tyler grabbed a detonator stick from the wall. The lab's fire suppression system clicked on, but he was already sprinting for the freight shaft.

As he cleared the outer service corridor, he slammed the trigger down.

A deep, choking roar shook the lower levels.

Heat bloomed behind him as fire gutted the lab, the force rattling steel beams and choking the air with burnt chemicals and melting synthetics.

Every file. Every backup. Every mockery Volton had planned… gone.

Tyler didn't stop running until the tower was a distant shape behind him, silhouetted against the fire still glowing from its foundation.

---

The perimeter was looser than expected, probably because Volton's top dogs were too busy planning their next retaliation.

Tyler slipped through checkpoints, cutting across abandoned streets and underground channels.

His body screamed with every movement.

Ribs cracked. Shoulder wrenched.

Blood drying too fast on torn skin.

But none of it mattered.

The only thing that filled his head was the look on her face.

The replica's face.

How close it had come to breaking him.

If I hesitated for even a second longer…

The memory of her voice replayed, uninvited.

Soft. Sweet.

"Why are you hurting me…?"

He clenched his jaw until it ached.

Not again.

Never again.

He'd burn this entire war to the ground before letting Volton play that card twice.

As dawn broke, distant across the horizon, the Sky Fortress came into view, dark against the pale morning clouds.

Home.

Or what passed for it in a world like this.

Tyler pulled his hood tighter over his bloodied face and kept moving.

There'd be questions.

Wounds to stitch.

Reports to lie about.

But for now…

All that mattered was that the ghosts stayed buried.

This time, for good.