Chapter 234: SPECIMEN B [Edited]

The cold draft sweeping through the abandoned warehouse carried the smell of damp concrete and old machine oil. Broken skylights high above allowed strips of moonlight to fall across the rusted scaffolding and rows of abandoned shipping containers, leaving most of the warehouse buried in darkness and giving Nicholas only a handful of clear places to keep his eyes on.

Nicholas didn’t lower the gun.

His finger rested steady against the trigger, his eye locked on face standing ten paces away.

"I was wondering when you’d come out," Nicholas said calmly.

Specimen B tilted his head, letting out a low, dry chuckle that carried the exact raspy cadence Nicholas heard in his own ears every day.

"You’re staring, Original," the clone replied smoothly. "It’s rude to stare at yourself."

It wasn’t a disguise or some cheap illusion. Nicholas could see it immediately. The bone structure was identical, the same faint scars ran along the jawline, even the slight imbalance in the shoulders from years of carrying concealed weapons was there. More unsettling was the way the man breathed, shallow and controlled, minimizing unnecessary movement in exactly the same way Nicholas had trained himself to do.

"A clone," Nicholas said, his weapon aligned dead center with the double’s chest. "A full physical duplicate."

"Not a clone grown in a test tube," Specimen B corrected, twirling the carbon blade between his fingers with a wrist movement so familiar that Nicholas immediately noticed it. "I’m Awakened. My ability is biological replication. Give me a drop of your blood and my body does the rest. Your appearance, your memories, your instincts, even the abilities sleeping inside your system... they all become mine."

The double took a slow, leisurely step to the left, his weight distributed fifty-fifty across the balls of his feet.

"You thought you saw through the board, didn’t you?" Specimen B continued, a thin, mocking smirk tugging at his lips. "You thought the whole game was just about dragging your name through the mud. The dead dockworkers, the leaked audio, the fifty-million-dollar bounty—you assumed it was all designed to ruin your reputation and turn the public against you until you had nowhere left to run."

The clone shook his head slowly, clicking his tongue.

"Ruining your reputation was just the bait. A smoke screen to force you into a corner where you’d bleed yourself dry."

The realization settled over Nicholas as the pieces finally connected.

For the first time since the manhunt began, genuine surprise surfaced behind his flat expression.

All this time, Nicholas had assumed the enemy’s goal was simple. Destroy Phantom’s reputation, drain his Charm Points, turn the public against him and force him into isolation. The fight with Zero had seemed like the perfect opportunity to reverse everything, especially with Julie broadcasting the entire battle. He had thought he was taking control of the situation by showing the public exactly how he fought, but now he understood the truth.

He had played into their hands entirely.

The smear campaign was never meant to destroy him directly. It was meant to make him desperate enough to clear his own name. Every step had pushed him toward the same destination—the fake Phantom, the bounty, the heroes surrounding him, Zero’s challenge, Julie’s cameras and finally the decision to fight without killing anyone.

They had given him exactly the kind of situation he would never walk away from because his reputation affected his Charm Points and his sisters were caught in the middle of it.

They had forced him to spend everything he had proving that he wasn’t the monster they claimed he was, and now, after exhausting his Charm and damaging his body, they had finally gotten him exactly where they wanted him.

They hadn’t wanted a disgraced Phantom.

They had wanted an exhausted, broken Phantom who was too weak to fight back in the dark.

’It was a well-played game,’ Nicholas thought, a bitter, cold appreciation settling in his chest. ’They let me think I was turning the tables on their PR stunt, while the real execution was waiting right here.’

"You see it now, don’t you?" Specimen B asked, his eyes gleaming under the pale moonlight. "We needed you to stand in front of Julie’s cameras. We needed you to catch an execution barehanded. We needed the entire continent to see that conviction in you so they’d welcome you back as a martyr."

The clone pointed the dark tip of his blade toward Nicholas.

"You cleared our name, Nicholas. You washed the blood off the mask on live television. And now that the slate is completely clean, now that the world is ready to welcome Phantom back as their greatest legend... you die here in the dark, too broken to lift a finger."

"And you walk out," Nicholas said, his voice flat.

"And I walk out," Specimen B agreed, nodding pleasantly. "The exonerated hero returns. The beloved champion who survived the corrupt council’s hit squad. I take the fame. I take the seventy million dollars sitting in your private offshore account. I take the flight to the Azure Archipelago tomorrow morning."

The double paused, his gaze softening into an expression of fond, terrifying familiarity.

"And I take care of Marina and Katie."

A sudden, sharp tension pulled taut in the air.

Nicholas’s lone visible eye narrowed into a cold, lethal slit. "You don’t know anything about them."

"I know everything about them," Specimen B replied instantly, his tone casual and effortless.

"Your blood gave me everything that makes you who you are. I know Marina wakes up at five in the morning to make breakfast because she hates leaving the kitchen messy before work. I know she hides the grocery receipts under the tea tin because she doesn’t want you to know how much she spends on fresh fruit. I know she still cries in the shower when she thinks about our parents, and that she promised herself she’d never let Katie see her hands shake."

The clone tapped his own temple.

"I know Katie hides chocolate bars inside her pillowcase. I know she only agreed to pack two and a half notebooks for the beach trip because she wants to impress that little prodigy, Leo Vance."

The clone took another half-step forward, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial murmur.

"I know your past life, Nicholas. The rooftops. The rifle scopes. The orphanage run by Miss Kirby. The twenty-one years you spent ending lives without ever asking for a name. I know you love money too, and I know it isn’t because you’re greedy. You simply never want to be that poor again. An empty stomach in a cold room... that’s the only thing that ever truly terrified you."

Nicholas felt an unnatural, bone-deep chill settle into his spine. It was the profound, surreal shock of having his entire soul laid out on a table by a stranger wearing his own skin.

"So the blood carries the memories..." Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. "You absorbed a sample of my blood."

"A single drop from the battlefield was all my ability needed," Specimen B said, grinning. "It mapped your mind, your habits, and your powers in seconds. I think the way you think. I react the way you react."

The double stretched his arms, rolling his shoulders with a smooth, effortless grace that sent a low pop through his joints.

"I have your Strength. Your Agility. Your muscle memory, your reflexes and every technique you’ve stored in those system slots. I’m you in almost every way that matters, Nicholas." The clone smiled. "The only difference is that my body is fresh."

"My bones aren’t broken. My ribs aren’t cracked. And my hands can still hold a blade without shaking."

Nicholas’s grip tightened around the butt of his nine-millimeter. The shredded flesh on his palms burned with fresh agony, blood seeping through the girp and dripping onto the concrete.

"Who commissioned you?" Nicholas asked, his voice steady, devoid of emotion. "Who gave you my blood?"

Specimen B tilted his head, letting out a soft, mocking tsk.

"Now why would a professional ever reveal his contractor?" the clone asked, his eyes dancing with amusement. "You of all people should know Rule One of the work, Nicholas: never give up the client. It’s bad for business."

The clone’s stance settled into a textbook assassination posture.

"Besides, you know better than anyone that dead men don’t get answers." Specimen B raised his left hand.

A familiar, nauseating ripple distorted the air around the clone’s palm. The fabric of space bent inward, twisting the moonlight into an ugly, concentrated knot before expanding outward with a low, predatory hum.

Spatial Distortion.

Nicholas’s lone visible eye widened.

The clone didn’t just share his physical attributes. He possessed his copied abilities.

"Let’s see if the original can still keep up with his own shadow," Specimen B whispered.

In the warehouse, shadows exploded into motion.