The Cloning (Full Story): Written by Exodus, Original Story by Planeswalker Morn’s plans had come together despite many interferences by the Resistors. The dig on the west island Salcar was interrupted by the Resistors, but he had managed to secure the scrolls of Darmok and Jalad, powerful twin beings from the past. Next he needed key data on the Resistors, he already had information on Turok and Lucia, he made them robots, and so, he had kept records and data on them to plan ways of beating them, only Gear had made so many attachments and upgrades that using the original plans didn’t really work for Morn usually. As for the eight human Resistors, the Fears project had been initiated for more than an attempt to kill the Resistors, and Morn had got one of his goals: Key information on the Resistors’ physical form, their combat skills, and their personality. This combined with the scrolls, had created a team that would surely beat the Resistors, and Morn had reported to Iyaxxl upon unleashing them on the village of Capney, a small settlement on the rightmost island of the Haprin kingdom. “Sir, the results of the last two schemes left towards Capney shortly ago.” “But why aren’t they headed towards the Resistor’s base of operations, you promised me the Resistors dead and their base located!” ranted Iyaxxl. “Oh, did you not get the message? The Resistors escaped, and we failed to purge their minds.” grinned Morn nervously. “Morn, you’d better have some good news regarding these results of yours.” frowned Iyaxxl. “I do Sir, they can match the Resistors fighting ability, along with any powers of theirs. The Resistors will surely come to Capney to stop them, but they won’t expect what I’ve created.” “Good. Make it so Morn.” At the village of Capney, the Resistors arrived to quell the danger, all ten of them, the usual soldiers hadn’t been called for because the approaching army couldn’t be recognised, but what with all the cloaks, Gear could only expect the worse. “Turok, Lucia, are you sure you guys are feeling well enough to fight?” “Sure are Gear. Thanks to you.” winked Lucia. “Villagers reported that ten robed individuals have been slowly approaching, randomly blowing up things on the way, its almost like they want to be stopped.” “Then let’s confront them in the valley and keep this away from the villagers...” frowned Turok. The ten robed figures also seemed to plan on this outcome, and were waiting in a row, the village’s destruction wasn’t their aim, but a fight with the Resistors was. The Resistors stood in a line, standing between the strangers and the village in a single file horizontal line, and then each of the ten moved into alignment to face a single Resistor. “You can just surrender now if you want, or face our wrath.” threatened Gear. “No way!” answered a voice similar to his, and all of the robes came off. The Resistors almost gasped, as standing in front of each of them was a figure roughly the same size as them, and the exact face as them, minus some small details. “Heh, did someone replace them wit’ a mirror?” joked Ruwin, brushing his hair with his fingers, before the doppelganger punched him hard in the face and made him fall. “Guess not...” spat Ruwin. “Who are you?!” ordered Ross. “We...” spoke the one that had Gear’s face, “... Are your evil manifestations.” “Don’t you mean evil twin?” offered Turok. “Or evil clone?” added Lucia. “No. We’re more than simple replicas that die out, we were created by the power of the scrolls and Professor Morn’s brilliance. Through your simple data and information, we were created. We’re your equals, but we serve the opposite side that you do. We know your fighting styles because we have them embedded in our minds. We are the Rotsisers, and we are more than your match.” “R, O, T, S, I, S, E, R.” spelled Gear, “Resistor spelt backwards. How clever...” “Introduce yourself to your life target guys.” said Gear’s opponent, a replica of him, but with spiky turquoise hair held back by a green headband, wearing a lab shirt but torn around the shoulders, “My name is Blade.” Kirie’s clone wore a red sleeveless top and black skirt, orange tiara and belt with diamonds in the centres, and had spiky black hair, her limbs and face weren’t covered so her scars were in full view, “I’m Carrie.” Next was Ross’ clone, who had draping curly orange hair, a red headband, gold and red armour, and two metal arms, one with a hand, one with a large sword, his arms and shoulders were far more scary-looking than Ross’ one as it had spikes attached all over, “Claw.” Edwina’s counterpart had long frizzy green hair, and less than rich clothing, a magenta top with braces, and a ragged long skirt and small boots, “Kazera at your service.” Turok’s clone was a robot, but instead of being rounded like him, this purple robot with orange hair was more box-like, “Ultron, ready.” Lucia’s clone, also a robot was coloured gold, silver and bronze, with a hexagonal head, her spikes were more frequent around her body and longer, “Delta.” Naga’s had long curling flame red hair, and a tiger fur bikini and boots, “I am Maya.” Ruwin’s stretched out and cracked his knuckles, he had spiky black hair, triangular-shaped sunglasses, silver armour, and larger metal knuckle dusters fixed to his gloves, “Hey women, I’m Keith.” Dagger’s fake wore tight leather, had messier brown hair, and smaller green robes, with a wild expression, “Here’s Slash!” And Samia’s clone wore a gold helmet with large purple spikes fixed onto the top, she had long black hair falling out the back, and a purple bikini, metal skirt and boots, “Marie.” “Well, introductions are over, we already know what we need to about you, so how about we just get on with the fighting?” Ultron made the first move, shooting a red blast at Turok, who had secretly been charging his blaster also and intercepted the shot, the two met each other in and started to wrestle it out. As the other Rotsisers charged into battle, Lucia and Delta stood at a distance. “You can’t do much from back there.” challenged Lucia. “Oh no?” questioned Delta, her arm swiftly stretching to deliver a strong punch, “We’re not your exact duplicates, we’ve been made to better you!” Lucia picked himself up, and then dived as Delta jetted past her, barely missing with her long claws, she then turned to chase after Lucia. “Just what I need, another evil twin...” groaned Lucia. “I’m gonna rip your heart out!” screamed Delta. Meanwhile, Dagger had scaled a mountain wall to get some distance in order to begin hurling his weapons, but Slash was just behind and leapt up to face Dagger. “Nowhere is safe from me!” he screamed out. “Close combat isn’t my specialty, but I can handle it.” stated Dagger. Meanwhile, powerful psychic spheres were hurled around, Carrie had a moment to concentrate and form a fairly larger sphere, of which Kirie preemptively dodged by teleporting. Unfortunately, she appeared right next to Carrie who had done the same, and taken the charged ball with her while teleporting, she immediately threw it forward and Kirie took a dive as the burning sphere of energy blasted past her and singed her hair before exploding far off. Kirie picked herself up to see Carrie charging another sphere of sorts. “Getting tired already?” she mocked, “Cos I can go on for hours, think you’re up to the challenge?” The glowing sphere was aimed at Kirie and fired off, but deflected by Kirie’s defensive shield, as it did, Kirie felt the searing heat from the energy ball, and then again as Carrie pulled the same trick and sent the ball back at Kirie. It ricocheted back and forth between the two psychic users’ shields, growing slowly over time, “Better concentrate Kirie, first one to let her guard down is toast!...” Whips cracked against each other as Naga and Maya fought it out, both had severe marks and cuts on their bodies, the next whip crack caused both whip ends to tangle, Naga used the opportunity to hurl two knives at the opponent, but Maya eased her body to the side, and then used her opportunity to pull the whips back, reeling Naga towards her in a twisted mess of wire, she then cracked the whip and Naga was sent spinning into a tree, with Maya pouncing and drawing her own knives... Edwina and Kazera rolled and dived, both firing arrows whenever they could but missing their targets. Both ended up rolling towards each other, rising up to face their opponent, drawing their crossbows and aiming at the enemy simultaneously. “You feel lucky?” questioned Kazera, revealing her other hand glowing with magic. Edwina was blasted back by the blast and rolled across the floor to extinguish the green fire, a good thing too as just behind her, several arrows pierced the ground. Ruwin and Keith fought it out, both performing their best and both with a lot of marks from the battle, Ruwin crouched and then spun at Keith, his left foot outstretched and his body spinning constantly as it rose forward, but Keith kept up a strong defense and as soon as Ruwin’s attack was over, Keith grabbed his leg, and with a twist, threw Ruwin back, he spun uncontrollably as he fell, and was uppercutted high up with a big follow up hit from Keith. Ross and Claw fought it out but there was no way to disarm the Rotsiser without completely severing the sword arm, Ross finally lost his sword and was tackled by Claw, who quickly stabbed Ross’ metal shoulder and caused the arm to cease functioning, Claw then started to punch Ross hard in the face, enjoying the helplessness of his opponent and aiming to draw this out before he plunged his sword down and ended Ross’ life. Marie and Samia were going at it like warriors, neither was hurt, but neither had broken through the other’s defense, swords continued to clash together, and the first one to get a hit would probably remove a limb in the process. Finally, Gear’s and Blade’s razor-edged rounded boomerangs drilled against each other and clattered to the floor, ending a long drawn out projectile battle. Gear, without his weapon immediately turned to good old explosive chemical mixes, and by pouring a red liquid into a green one, it was formed, but Blade had done the same, and the two mixes hitting each other produced very destructive results, before Gear could make another, Blade smiled and drew out a ready made ‘potion’ that was ready to explode. “Here’s one I made earlier!” he grinned, and the tree that Gear dived behind was toppled, luckily, he’d moved to behind the bush next to it. “Those clones have got everything we have... and more. Just how are we going to beat these guys?...” quivered Gear, before diving as the bush went up in flames. Edwina finally stopped rolling, but was tackled by Kazera who mercilessly drew her crossbow, and pressed the trigger. Miraculously for Edwina, Kazera had already used up her arrows, and while holding Edwina down, with one hand she struggled to insert more into the small crossbow. “I’ve got to think fast.” thought Edwina, “I’ve got it.” With that she called out, “Claw! Edwina’s using her magic and changing her hair to look like me! Help!!!” Claw snorted and left a battered and helpless Ross to smack Edwina hard in the face with his metal fist, or who he thought was Edwina. “You fool! Its me!” she screamed, before hitting back, and focussing all her energy on making Claw pay. Edwina ran over and helped up Ross, who only had the use of one arm, he raised an eyebrow at the cartoon-like cloud of dust surrounding the two Rotsisers. “Of course!” he exclaimed, “They’re our opposites so they don’t care as much about their allies. Guys! Turn them against each other!” Ruwin heard the message while flipping backwards to get some distance from Keith, and rushed by Naga and Maya, yanking Naga out of the way. Keith, on the pursuit, crashed right into Maya and the two also started a dust cloud fight. “I hope We don’t fight with that intensity.” smiled Naga. “Don’t worry. We don’t and we won’t!” replied Ruwin, “Underneath all our fighting, I think we have a respect for each other, so its safe to say they don’t respect each other at all. Let’s join the others...” Lucia, chased by the more savage Delta, jetted between Turok and Ultron, Delta followed but slammed against Ultron and bounced across the floor three times, battering and denting her own body in the process. She retorted by stretching her arm and punching Ultron hard, swiftly leading to a fight, although more blasting was involved. “Thanks Lucia, let’s go.” nodded Turok. Dagger had kept an eye on the others during a long close combat fight against Slash, and stepped back, and let himself fall over the edge of the mountain they were on. Slash dived down after him, “Trying to run out on me, huh?” “No.” answered Dagger, hanging onto a blade wedged in the mountain wall as Slash plummeted past, “Bye.” Slash landed right on Marie hard, and she protested before hitting back, “Hey! I don’t need jerks like you dropping in on me!” Dagger landed safely near Samia, as another fight broke out, “Let’s get back to the others...” Finally, Kirie was out of power, the glowing orb critically hot and big, she only had the power for one last move... So she teleported. The orb shot dangerously close to Blade who had to dive for cover, he rose up with charred hair, “WHO DID THAT?!” “Me, honey.” answered Carrie. “WELL DON’T!” he shouted, punching her hard, and getting into a major fight against the now low on energy psychic. Gear and Kirie joined the other Resistors and laughed as they observed the five cartoonish clouds and crazed grunts, insults and exclamations from the Rotsisers, “I think we should go now, it looks like these guys have got their hands full!” With that the Resistors left, while the Rotsisers fought on for a while yet... Later at the empire, Morn quivered as Iyaxxl had ordered a progress report. “So Morn, how did our little clones do?” “Very well... until they started fighting each other.” “... What?!” questioned Iyaxxl angrily. “They let the Resistors get away because they were fighting each other!” clarified Morn. Iyaxxl growled. “Uh oh.” gulped Morn. Iyaxxl’s voice could be heard by virtually all people inside the Evalon Fortress, “MORN!!!” End Back to “Fears” Click to read the next story: "Wrench in the Works” Back to “Demons and Disasters” Back to the Library