"As we said before, we believe you're a clone of Tobias Four," Gray explained from where she sat on a crate, her hands held together in her lap. "The question is why someone would have gone through the trouble to clone him when he was just a kid. Maybe you can shed some light on that?"

The Ghosts were situated in a semi-circle around Six and his mini-Titan, Ellie he called it. Six sat on a crate like Gray and the others while Ellie stood behind him, seemingly waiting for any sign of hostility and an excuse to bug out.

"I never met Four," Six answered. "I grew up hearing about him, though. My wayward brother, lost to us long ago."

"Lost to you and who?"

"The Advocate."

They all were silent, trying not to give away their reactions—but that was apparently enough of a reaction in and of itself. Six swiveled his head around, furrowing his brow. "Your suspicions were right. So now you're asking yourselves the next logical question: what was so important about Four that made it necessary for the Advocate to clone him?"

"Not much gets by you, does it?" Danvers muttered. "Or your mini-Titan."

"Nomad," Six corrected.

"Er, okay. Nomad."

In response, Ellie crossed her metal arms. Danvers visibly swallowed.

Six turned his attention back to Gray. "There's a truth you should know. Four is my brother, yes. And the Advocate is my father."

"We already guessed as much," Husher grumbled. "You're not telling us anything we don't already know."

Gray held a hand up, silencing the simulacrum. "What's your point, Six?"

"The thing is, I'm not a clone of Four."

"Didn't you just say he was your brother?" Vogel asked.

"Yes."

"Then how does your logic follow?"

"It didn't click for me until I saw that photo of him with his squad, Foxtrot-Three." Six's eyes hardened. "The truth is still sinking in for me. But when I saw his face, the same as mine but older, it wasn't hard for me to suddenly see another stunning resemblance between him and someone else."

"Someone else?"

Six nodded. "I'm not a clone of Tobias. I'm a clone of my father, the Advocate."

At that, none of the Ghosts were prepared to respond. It took more than a few moments for Gates to regain her voice, eyes wide as she spoke. "You—you're a clone of the Advocate?"

"I'm sure of it now." Six's eyes flashed. "And that means that Tobias was a clone too."

Husher was already shaking his head. "This makes no sense. Why would the Advocate clone himself, twice no less? What's the point? Narcissism? And how's he been surviving all these years if it's been centuries since he first emerged?"

"And why would he send a clone out on missions like the one's you've undertaken?" Gray questioned. "You're one of the best damn fighters I've ever seen, it took all four of us to take you down. What have you even been after all this time? We still don't know why you were raiding ships."

"Obviously, a lot's been kept from me," he said with a grimace. "I can't speak for every one of his motives. But I have theories, and my theories tend to be pretty damn good."

"So hit us with them, then."

Six lifted a finger into the air. "First and foremost, muscle memory. Training me the way he has all my life, I'm an instrument of war." He lifted a second finger. "Secondly, for entertainment. Keeping me preoccupied, busy so that I would never uncover the truth. He very well might be one of the most brilliant minds on the Frontier, it's not a far leap to assume I might inherit some of his brains and figure out the purpose of my existence beforehand if I wasn't distracted with a different purpose entirely."

"Muscle memory? Purpose? You're losing me," Gray told him, waving a hand for him to slow down.

"I'm getting to that." Six took a deep breath. He didn't look too pleased about whatever he was about to reveal. "Why make a clone to begin with? Why name them so blatantly after numbers? Why hide the truth of their existence for so long?"

Gray pinched her brows together. "Four and Six … okay, so there were clones before both of you. And he didn't want you to know you were a clone. But I'm still a bit lost on why he made you to begin with. No offense."

"None taken."

At this, Ava stepped forward into the semi-circle from her spot of observation behind everyone. "If I may, I have a suggestion that may satisfy all criteria."

Vogel waved her forward. "Please."

"I believe what Six is suggesting is that each clone was created for one purpose and one purpose only. To continue a lineage." She turned to Husher. "We all agree that the Advocate first became prominently known centuries ago. As to how he could have survived so long beyond the normal limits of a human lifespan … the answer is staring us all in the face."

Slowly, everyone turned to look at Six. His eyes were cast downward, but he could sense their gaze on him and he nodded. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Holy shit." Danvers held both hands up to the sides of his head. "Holy shit. Is that—is something like that even possible?"

"As the Advocate is still properly alive and well, we can only assume the answer is yes," Ava pointed out.

"That's … abhorrent," Gray murmured, her voice full of shock and disgust. "It's barbaric. He's … he's creating clones of himself and harvesting them?"

"I think what is likelier is a two-step process," the Ancillary cut in again. "There have been an even number of clones. And purely harvesting a clone for parts would only prolong a body so long. But as we know of ways to transfer a consciousness entirely, assuming you could utilize them—"

"Then you could live forever," Husher finished. "Like a Simulacrum."

"But born again in flesh instead of metal."

The semi-circle became quiet as everyone let the weight of the horrible truth they'd uncovered settle in around them. Only Ellie made a sound, her metal head twisting to look at Six and see how he was holding up.

"So the Advocate makes clones in batches of two," Gray continued, trying not to let their momentum fade. "One and two, three and four." She looked across from her. "Five and six."

"One to eventually transfer his consciousness into," Six said with a nod. "Hence the need for them to be fit, a skilled fighter, to have a warrior's muscle memory."

"And one for spare parts," Ellie muttered. "In case he ever got sick or fell ill. If he needed a new liver, heart, whatever, it was right there for him to take. Sick bastard."

"And since I've never met another brother of mine," Six said, swallowing hard, "I think we can assume which one Five was."

"This is a lot to take in, but it still doesn't explain why you were raiding FDN vessels," Husher said, turning his optics towards Six.

"I was never raiding them for cargo," Six admitted. "I was after their NAV data."

That caught Gray's attention. "Their NAV data?"

He nodded. "The targets were always selected for me ahead of time. Didn't ask why, knew I wouldn't get an answer. But I was only ever supposed to take navigational charts, where the ships had gone to and come from, that sort of thing."

"That's … so weird." Gray scratched her head. "Why would anyone care about the NAV data? The ships' cargo were always chalk full of more valuable items, bits and pieces of Spyglass's fold weapon, Nanite pods, that sort of thing—"

She fell silent so suddenly that everyone's eyes were drawn to her as though she'd shouted. Her eyes had gone wide. "Holy shit. Holy shit."

"What?" Husher tilted his head. "What is it?"

"The ships, all the ships that have been attacked these last four years! Remember the Jericho? They were only ever frigates that were carrying cargo from temporal distortions, leftover ripples in space and time from the destruction of Spyglass's fold-weapon. They had to travel to each site and pick up the salvage that gets spit out from each one."

Gray knew these particular distortions well. Every time one cropped up, she and the others from the Embers—Gates, Vale, Buck—they'd travel to them and see if there was any sign of them. After a few years, hope dried up. But now …

She looked to the Ancillary member of their team. "Ava, display a map of the Frontier and overlay all the destinations of each ship that's been raided over the last four years. Chronological order."

It took only a moment for Ava to do so, holding out her wrist and emitting a hologram of a galactic map. Small red diamonds appeared one by one in seemingly chaotic, random locations. But as more filled in the map, everyone saw that a pattern began to emerge from the data.

"It's like a spiral," Danvers voiced aloud. "Starting from Regis and working its way out."

"We're taught that the universe follows basic principles, right? Fibonacci's sequence for instance. Who's to say that these temporal distortions aren't following the same sort of pattern? Beginning with the destruction of the fold-weapon and radiating outward." Gray pointed to a spot without a dot, near the outer edge of the spiral. "And it looks like we're reaching the end of it. Going by this data, Ava, where would you calculate the following distortion in sequence to be?"

A few seconds passed, and then a yellow diamond manifested to distinguish it from the confirmed anomalies. "I would estimate here, Lieutenant."

"And how certain are you of this?"

"My calculations leave a point two-four percent margin for error."

Gray nodded enthusiastically. "I'll take those odds. Where's that dot you've marked?"

"It's an uncharted planet, designation '96 Loki VT'."

"Loki. Nordic God of mischief and trickery." Gray scoffed. "I have a feeling the greatest trick of all is about to be pulled."

She turned back towards everyone and saw their bewildered faces, evidently not yet having realized what she had. "Don't you see? This data—it's a map! A map to predict future temporal anomalies. Or at least one in particular, this last one that's going to occur."

"But why would the Advocate care about temporal anomalies?" Ellie asked, the Nomad sounding rather confused. "What does this have to do with Six?"

Gray clenched her jaw. "Six is valuable, yes. But why settle for a younger clone of yourself when you can have another younger clone of yourself, equally as experienced—and one who controls a power everybody thought was lost forever?"

"You mean … the Codex?" Husher whispered.

Gray nodded. "This is a map to Tobias. And the Advocate wants him just as bad as we do."

A/N: Yeah, it's been a long time. How's it going? Some questions to get out of the way first:

1. No, I am not dead. Been a long and hard two years, but I'm still around and kicking.

2. No, the story is not suddenly getting continued again either. I know that sounds shitty, but hear me out.

Let's be honest, no one really cares much about Titanfall anymore. TF2's was DDOSed for over a year, Apex has been making Respawn bank, and most of the member of the OG Respawn who made the Titanfall series have moved on to Gravity Well games or something, the point is that TF3 is likely never happening. The only reason I posted this is because I had a weird urge to write for it at 1 in the morning and banged out this (short) chapter before heading to bed.

I ended up publishing that book of mine, "The Mark of Eden", and launched it as the start of an original novel series, "Spectra". I am currently working on its sequel, the second in the series, "The Eternity Vault". I have a good following for it and it's my primary focus right now. It's a universe of diverse alien races, science-fantasy elements, and the same compelling characters and storylines you know me for. If it's not too much to ask, I'd love for you to check them out. People make fanart of the characters on twitter, the different species, there's a cool following for them and it'd be great for you to be part of that.

In regards to "Six", this chapter is short because the truth of the matter is that I had some grand plan for this whole thing before I gave up fanfiction, but it's never gonna get done if I treat it with the perfectionist mindset that I usually write with for my "Spectra" content. So if you're okay with some rushed, shorter, mildly half-assed chapters (like this one) to wrap up the story so that there's closure to it, then let me know. Maybe I can work something out.

Other than that, thanks for reading if you're still somehow here. Nice to know I've got dedicated readers. Until the next time,

— Matt