Being a Sync is something I would not wish on my worst enemy. The whole process is crude, rushed, and embarrassingly unfinished.

  To start with, Syncs aren’t treated with anything resembling respect. We’re ignored when convenient and dismissed when not.

  Second, we exist purely to fight for the masses, never to share in the fame, fortune, or glory. We’re tools, deployed to stretch out Coalition Carnage, which only happens once a decade, so the year-long spectacle doesn’t end early when a heroic Superstar dies too soon.

  Third, if the Superstar a Sync is modeled after dies, the Sync dies with them.

  If the Superstar survives, the Sync is still disposed of afterward, dumped like flotsam once they’ve served their purpose.

  Finally, even if a Sync somehow avoids execution by the competition or its handlers, he only gets two more years before his body collapses back into the sludge it came from.

  Being born a Sync is cruel, inhumane, and inefficient.

  The only upside, at least for me, is having a Base I believe to be the strongest Klugh in Aphlis history.

  PAST

  Morihilus was born on Conqueror’s Day, a date treated as an omen of good fortune.

  Over a thousand years ago, Gammon the Conqueror subjugated every civilization beneath the seas of Aphlis on that day. It was a feat never attempted before, let alone completed.

  Those born on its anniversary were said to be blessed by the gods who still kept the Great Conqueror alive.

  I took my first breath already knowing this.

  I raised my hand and saw red, scaly skin, which struck me as strange even then.

  I was suspended in a tube built into a wall, its surface pulsing with a steady heartbeat.

  A few feet away, a pool of tan liquid bubbled and steamed, thick enough to look almost solid.

  When I turned my head, I saw my twin emerging from his own birthing tube at the same moment.

  Our violet eyes met.

  No words were needed.

  We both knew we’d been given the flat side of the fish.

  We understood what Syncs were because our Base understood them.

  He’d used them before, ten years earlier, during his last competition.

  We were met by members of the Kujin, their pointy ears, silky skin, and beauty obvious even to me. They cared for us for half a year, teaching us key events from the year it had taken to incubate us and confirming we carried no defects.

  They were careful to make sure we understood one thing early.

  We were not the real Morihilus.

  We were Syncs, built for a purpose.

  Our constant need for water, a necessity of Klugh biology, was carefully managed. The Kujin provided us with magical suits of water to keep our bodies stable on land. I hated them. The sensation made my skin crawl, like being wrapped in someone else’s breath.

  We were allowed to choose our own names.

  I chose Uorimilus.

  My twin chose Korihilus, a name so unimaginative it almost offended me.

  Soon after, we were shipped to Aphlis.

  Despite the memories I carried of Conqueror’s Crown, the sight of it again still drew a salty tear from my eye. Sea life filled the city in every direction, sentient and otherwise, flowing through its streets as naturally as currents. Legless Merpeople drifted past. Big-mouthed Bossasi swam in lazy arcs. Fin-headed Swaks and rainbow-skinned Rou moved through the crowds, all of them absorbed in their own lives.

  None of them paid us any attention.

  None, except the Conqueror’s Fist.

  Gammon’s judges, jury, and executioners watched us as we swam toward a mansion carved directly into the coral reef. The three squid men studied us with open distaste, their gaze heavy enough to feel like pressure.

  Morihilus welcomed us with open arms, calling us the brothers he never had.

  He had quarters prepared and food waiting. Local food. Proper food. The fruits and berries the Kujin favored had never agreed with my taste buds.

  His staff was less welcoming.

  They always knew which of us was the master of the manor and which of us were not. They ignored us unless we asked for something, and even then only spoke after completing whatever task justified their presence.

  Most of our time was spent in Morihilus’s private wing, where he conducted his papuru magic experiments. My understanding of the discipline was limited at first. Morihilus had acquired the soul coal only a few years earlier.

  To my surprise, he devoted a great deal of time to teaching us the volatile magic.

  I was even more surprised to learn that I would be expected to use it in my battles.

  Apparently, Morihilus had intensified his study over the past year and believed himself knowledgeable enough for us to wield it effectively.

  Truthfully, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  One of his earliest experiments focused on whether papuru magic could be used to extend lifespan.

  His theory was that papuru magic behaved like a form of wish fulfillment, responding less to conscious intent and more to subconscious desire.

  To test it, we returned to the place of my birth.

  We had roughly a hundred days before the competition began, which meant efficiency mattered.

  We needed one specific individual from one specific race.

  Unity is an ironic name for this particular planet.

  During my one hundred and fifty days there, I never once saw its three primary cultures unite over anything that mattered. They coexisted, yes, but cooperation was rare and usually accidental.

  My twin and I were permitted to travel beyond the forest the Kujin called home, riding on the backs of their domesticated beasts. On one such outing, we saw a long procession moving through a wide valley, stretching nearly ten clicks from end to end. Each traveler rode their own animal, the line slow and deliberate.

  At first, I assumed they were prisoners or slaves.

  The leader was a squat, oval-bodied figure with orange skin and green hair, marching at the front like an owner displaying inventory. When I spoke to him, I learned I was wrong. These were the Risen, migrating across the valley for reasons tied to their religion. The explanation was long, circular, and deeply important to him.

  One of them was exactly what we were looking for.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  For a world as massive as Unity, its population was shockingly sparse. Even under the seas of Aphlis, their population control methods were well known. With limited time, vast territory, and the need to avoid attention, we split up along the coast where the Risen convoy had been headed.

  A few hours later, I found a village worth investigating.

  It was unfinished, barely holding itself together. Much of it consisted of hovel-like shelters thrown up in a hurry. Roughly eighty families, drawn from a patchwork of species, worked to establish farms, build water catchers, and lay down streets that were more suggestion than infrastructure.

  The smell hit first.

  Animal waste, damp soil, rotting vegetation, and the sharp, unfamiliar scent of resurrected flesh blended into something hard to ignore. My brothers and I had no frame of reference for many of the beings living there. Compared to Conqueror’s Crown, the diversity was limited, but the Risen themselves told a clear story.

  The Dagons had been thorough.

  Papuru magic guided our selection.

  Age was critical, and the magic responded quickly once the correct candidate entered our awareness. His name was Ofenswen. In his previous life, he had been a Myposian, a species wiped out thousands of years earlier during a genocidal war with the Dagons.

  We removed him from the village with minimal resistance.

  Back on Aphlis, in the private wing of Morihilus’s estate, he remained remarkably calm. We were courteous kidnappers, and he was a cooperative captive. Being millions of miles from Unity and thousands of leagues beneath an alien ocean didn’t seem to bother him.

  Getting to know Ofenswen was unexpectedly pleasant.

  Only days from the end of his projected lifespan, the wide-faced, wide-eared man was cheerful, even optimistic. He was confident in the certainty of return. Whether it took a year or a thousand didn’t matter to him.

  The Risen always rise again.

  This phenomenon barely interested Morihilus.

  What caught his attention was the Risen body itself.

  Their biology fascinated him in a way faith never could. Ofenswen was fed food cooked with Papuru energy and regularly bathed in its radiation. The goal wasn’t immortality, just delay. A few days past his expiration would have been enough to prove the theory.

  The day came and passed.

  Then another.

  Ofenswen was still alive, still strong enough to swim the length of the mansion halls. When he realized what that meant, genuine shock crossed his face. That moment mattered more than anything else we had done.

  It gave us hope.

  Syncs were made of the same base substance as the Risen reborn bodies. Synflesh. If death could be postponed for the Risen, then it followed that it could be postponed for us. Logic, clean and irresistible.

  We smiled together, sharing in Ofenswen’s gratitude as if it belonged to all of us.

  Over the next weeks, he embraced life on Aphlis.

  He ate constantly. He swam endlessly. He laughed while breathing air through the sackfish grafted into his throat, marveling at the novelty of it. Watching him made the experiment feel almost humane.

  Almost.

  When Morihilus drove a blade into his brain twenty-two days later, I felt a brief, inconvenient sadness. It passed quickly. Secrecy didn’t need to be explained. We were him. We understood.

  We fed the remains to the whippersharkers.

  Present

  Our base of operations on Dycord was the streamjet Morihilus named Reign.

  The stingray-shaped shuttle was filled with mist calibrated to mimic the oceans of Aphlis, letting us discard the conjured water skins that Soul Style provided. It felt right. Natural. We reviewed plans for after the competition, not if we won, but when.

  Korihilus’s loss to the Braloorian witch was already irrelevant.

  One of Morihilus’s greatest traits was his refusal to let the past dictate the present. Now that death no longer loomed so closely, he had plans for his Syncs. Together, we would eliminate Gammon the Conqueror and reclaim the Klugh’s legacy of dominance.

  Conquest, corrected and refined.

  The omniband chimed. We were up next.

  Morihilus knew little about our opponent, Prisma, other than that he hailed from the same world my twin and I were born on. Nostalgia stirred something unpleasant in me. I volunteered to go first, despite Korihilus wanting redemption.

  As I teleported out, I promised Morihilus victory.

  For the empire to come.

  Luck favored me.

  The geodome selected was Earth’s.

  I stood on a wind-scoured island of bare rock, interrupted only by thin patches of ice. Rain fell in relentless sheets, untouched by the dome’s boundaries. With practiced ease, I used Papuru magic to alter the water’s molecular structure, converting it into the dense aqua of Aphlis.

  Earth’s water was clean, sweet, and wrong.

  It left a slick residue on my skin, almost oily. Once the transformation was complete, I dismissed the water skin and let myself breathe freely.

  Every Klugh coveted this world.

  No sentient undersea life. Cooler climate. Crustaceans delicious beyond description. Humanity remained only because Gammon lacked the nerve to take what should have been ours centuries ago.

  Morihilus did not share that weakness.

  Standing there, soaked in reshaped rain, I realized something.

  For the first time, I acknowledge that they are my people now.

  My opponent waited on the opposite stretch of beach, eyes fixed on me with open contempt.

  His missing arm was displayed like ornamentation, a deliberate weakness worn with pride. Any number of replacements could have filled the gap. Some would have given the Dagon a measurable advantage. He had chosen none of them.

  His remaining arm, though, looked more than sufficient. Strong enough to punch through me if I allowed it.

  I readied my rapierfish and offered a few carefully chosen words, just enough to signal intent. He didn’t answer. He charged.

  He committed immediately, driving in with his single limb, exactly as expected. I set my stance, lining up the skewer—

  Lightning split the sky.

  The thunder hit an instant later, close enough to stun. Electricity surged through the soaked ground and into my body. Being wet made the lesson harsher, but not fatal. Pain flared white and sharp.

  Still, I saw him coming.

  I tightened my core and took the kick head-on.

  Klugh physiology and Soul Style gave me steel-hard skin and reinforced organs. That did not mean invulnerability. The Dagon’s strength, amplified by his own Soul Style, could likely crumple titanium without effort. The impact shattered ribs and ruptured something important as I skidded across the island’s rock.

  Healing was the first technique Morihilus taught us.

  I triggered it without hesitation.

  Bones knitted. Tissue sealed. Pain retreated to a dull reminder just as I realized he was already standing beside me.

  I brought up my Aura Cloak.

  The punch that followed would have removed my head. Instead, it glanced off the barrier in a shimmer of force and timing. His arm was powerful. It was disciplined.

  So was my Base. Which meant so was I.

  With a thought, I reshaped the falling rain into hardened quills, sharp as puff-pun spines.

  They never reached him.

  Every quill froze midair, then reversed course.

  I split myself into water clones, falling back on the more reliable Water Soul Style to buy space. The island offered no cover. The copies would have to suffice.

  They didn’t.

  The redirected quills tore through the clones as easily as they had passed through the geodome before transformation. I collapsed them back into liquid before they could shred me instead.

  Prisma was already close again.

  Another punch came, obvious, clean, and fast. I slipped it, but there was no room to counter. I tried for an elbow anyway. He avoided it effortlessly.

  His return kick was partially blocked.

  It still left my forearms numb and sent me staggering backward, barely upright under the force of the push.

  .

  Papuru magic answered my intent by splitting the island beneath us.

  Stone opened into gaping maws lined with jagged rock, snapping shut where Prisma’s bare feet should have been. He vanished from my sight so quickly my first assumption was teleportation.

  It wasn’t.

  My eyes failed, but my Awareness didn’t. I tracked him anyway, a blur of intent cutting across my left. I couldn’t bring the rapierfish to bear in time, so I chose retreat and tore space with papuru magic.

  I landed screaming.

  I had teleported directly into my own trap.

  One of the stone mouths closed around my foot. Green blood splashed the rock as the limb vanished at the ankle. I barely registered the pain before Prisma was already moving again.

  Could papuru magic replace a foot?

  There was no time to test the theory.

  I pulled the rain around him instead, compressing it into a sealed sphere.

  Drowning wasn’t the goal. Sustenance made that fantasy. I needed a count. Ten seconds. My Aura Cloak would not return for nearly thirty minutes, and Prisma was far too dangerous to toy with.

  Papuru magic hardened the water into stone.

  A Dagon-shaped statue stood at its center.

  I wanted more. Something denser or magical. Titanium, at least. I focused on the idea, pushed the desire.

  Papuru magic hesitated, half-listened.

  Unreliable, I thought, just as Roxy’s voice reached five and Prisma exploded out of the prison in a storm of shattered rock.

  I dodged falling debris and closed the distance anyway.

  Quickening carried me forward on one leg, weapon aimed for his nose. His counter came first. It shattered my arm in two places and sent the rapierfish spinning upward.

  He kicked it back down into me.

  The fish’s eyes stared up in disbelief as its forty-inch blade punched straight through my chest. I dropped to one knee, blood spilling from my mouth and vanishing into the rain and wind.

  Prisma approached.

  I smiled.

  I prepared the technique Morihilus had been saving.

  The one meant for Kane Urasa.

  Unavoidable. Indefensible. Unpredictable.

  The galaxy would watch Kane die at my Base’s feet. The Klugh would rise. Gammon the Conqueror would fall, followed by Earth, and history would resume its proper direction.

  I hesitated.

  If I used it now, Morihilus would lose the element of surprise. Kane’s execution would lose its meaning. Symbolism mattered. This world mattered more than my life.

  Humans feared their birthplace. They hid from it in the clouds.

  This planet was the Klugh's future. Once its oceans were cleansed.

  No. Let the Human be the first to experience Twilight.

  Prisma proved my earlier assessment correct.

  His arm drove right through me.

  The rapierfish was forced out my back and replaced by his forearm up to the elbow. What I had mistaken earlier for as hatred in his eyes, was merely indifference.

  That tore through me just as much as the man.

  Did he see me as expendable? Did he even know what I was? Or care?

  If he didn't, he learned the very next second.

  My body softened around his arm. Synflesh lost cohesion. Skin sagged. Bone dissolved. One eye slipped free as my face blurred and collapsed inward. My red skin bled back into its original tan as structure failed completely.

  Mud reclaimed me.

  Everyone knew Syncs were slower.

  Not by much. A fraction of a second.

  But enough.

  The real Morihilus would have won. This fight. The next. All of them.

  But then, what do I know?

  I was only a Sync.