by Mia Archer
“Ugh. Please don’t mention that,” Natalie said.
The picture was interesting as I got closer. It brought to mind the drawn out and more than a little boring final fight from the Matrix movies where Ted Theodore Logan fought Elrond for dominance of Mainframe, or something. I was pretty sure my cyberpunk and fantasy and ancient Canadian Saturday Morning CGI cartoon memories were getting all jumbled together there, but I couldn’t really tell for sure since they likely came from Sabine.
I hovered over the fighting. Natalie was running along the top of one of the flying saucers and doing her best to blast as many clones off the thing as she could. She was hitting them with that pink ray and then firing on them, which seemed to stun them more than anything.
That was good. I probably would’ve been pissed off if she was killing clones, for all that we seemed to be having a bit of a thaw in a relationship that’d turned downright icy lately.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” she screamed up at me, not bothering with the commlink now that I was closer.
I looked at the clones and then looked at the alien ships. Natalie was right. We didn’t have the manpower to find all the nukes that buried around the city. And suddenly a plan started coming together in my head.
“Um, so did you ever stop to think that maybe we could use these clones?” I asked.
“If you’re talking about starting a fake war with some droids and using them to take over the world then I thought about it, but I can’t figure out a way to make that plot work in the real world and there aren’t any Jedi to kill around here outside of one weekend for Starlight City Comic Con which probably isn’t even going to happen this year because of this invasion,” Natalie said.
“That’s Star Wars, right?” I asked.
“Of course it’s Star Wars,” Natalie said. “What the hell else movie series prominently featured a convoluted political scheme involving clones?”
“Jurassic Park?” I asked. “I think there was some environmental wrangling or something in the new ones, right? Those dinosaurs were definitely clones.”
“Whatever,” Natalie growled. “Would you please get down here and take care of them?”
“Right,” I said, floating down to the alien ship.
One of the clones came up to me and gestured towards Natalie.
“Come on sister!” she shouted. “We need to take out that villain before she gets the rest of us!”
“Um, no?”
The clone stopped. Her eyes narrowed and she suddenly seemed very suspicious. It was odd seeing that kind of emotion on a clone who looked so much like me.
“You’re not going to help us fight the villain who’s been robbing us of our powers and doing her best to keep us from retaking the city?” the clone asked.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed the clone by the neck. Sure it was a little Vaderish, but there was a reason some of the villainous classics were the classics. Also apparently I knew who Darth Vader was but I didn’t know much about clone armies. Why would a presumed Star Wars nut like Sabine know everything about Darth Vader and nothing about clone armies?
Weird. I’d never understand scifi nerds.
“Oh boy did you bark up the wrong tree,” I said. “Take me to your leader.”
The clone’s eyes went wide. Her hands moved to mine and she tried her best to pull my hands away from her neck. She was strong, but unfortunately for her she wasn’t stronger than the original.
“You’re her, aren’t you?” she gasped. “The one from the chamber of horrors.”
I grinned. It was nice to know that these clones were close enough to me that they could have parallel thought like that.
“You bet your ass I am,” I said. “And that villain you’ve been trying to defeat is the best thing that ever happened to us. Well, the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re not going near her.”
“You’ll never succeed,” she gasped. “If you’re working with her then you’re lost!”
I rolled my eyes and squeezed just a little harder. The clone’s eyes went wider as she seemed to realize I was actually coming close to collapsing her wind pipe and I wasn’t showing any signs of stopping.
If she was anything like me back when I’d first realized I was starting to become invulnerable on top of being able to heal up real fast then it was a rude awakening to suddenly find herself experiencing what I’d gone through when Dr. Lana robbed me of my powers.
It sucked going from invulnerable and potentially immortal to discovering that the world could hurt you again.
“How…”
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she lost consciousness. I frowned and loosened up. I guess I’d been a little too intense with cutting off her air supply. That or the clone was so unused to having someone cutting off her air supply that she couldn’t handle it.
What the fuck ever. I’d find another one. That one looked like she was still breathing, but I couldn’t spend time checking on her. Besides, there were plenty of me to go around.
I tried grabbing another one. That didn’t work. She looked just as surprised as the last one as she lost consciousness way too fast for my needs. Son of a bitch!
Was it too much to ask for a clone that could stand up to a little villainous knocking around?
Then I spied something on top of the massive alien ship that really got my attention. There were a couple of those government suitcases sitting on top of the thing, just out there in the open where anyone could pick them up and have a little bit of fun with it.
I figured if I couldn’t get their attention with a good old fashioned throttling then I could get their attention another way. So I flew down and looked at one of the cases. The only problem being I needed to get at the innards, and unfortunately the fucker was locked.
Fortunately for me the suitcases were being held closed by a very mortal lock, which meant it was no trouble for me to slam my fist into the thing and open it the hard way.
Well, it would’ve been the hard way for a mortal. It wasn’t much trouble for me.
“Natalie, I’m going to need your help with this,” I said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked. There was a pause. Just enough time for her to figure out what I was doing. “Do you want to tell me what the fuck you’re doing messing with one of those nuclear footballs?”
“I’m making a point,” I said. “And I need you to hack into this thing and set the timer to ten seconds instead of the thirty minutes it’s at.”
“Kinda busy,” Natalie said.
I watched her floating through the air doing her thing. It was captivating watching her kicking some serious ass.
“Excuse me ma’am,” a voice said in my ear.
The voice was male. It creeped me out for a moment. The only experience I’d really had with that voice was when it was shouting at me from the insides of a giant robot that was trying to destroy downtown Starlight City, but if Natalie said this asshole was on our side now then I’d trust that he was on our side.
Honestly. Heroes and villains seemed to change sides in Starlight City more often than the stars at a professional wrestling thing.
“Okay, I need you to set this thing to go off in about ten seconds,” I said. “Can you do it now that you’re up close and personal?”
There was a pause. No doubt CORVAC was using whatever he had at his disposal to scan the thing. Finally there was a flash on the nuclear suitcase and the numbers started going down a hell of a lot faster. I figured I had maybe thirty seconds before they reached the end of the countdown.
“It would be more advisable to disable the thing entirely, but I have done as you asked,” CORVAC said.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” CORVAC responded. “I’ve worked with the mistress for long enough to know when it’s a good idea to go along with an ill-advised plan.”
I frowned at that jab, but with the way the countdown was going on this thing I figured now was
n’t the time to get into an argument with the maniacal computer. I didn’t have time.
So I flew up as fast as I could. Which was way faster than I’d ever been able to tool around before. I grinned at the wind whipping around me. I’d always loved flying, and even flying with a potentially dangerous nuclear weapon in my hands felt pretty damned good!
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I waited until I was well over the city and chucked the scary nuclear weapon up with all the strength I could muster. I just hoped it was fast enough that it’d be far enough away when it blew that it wouldn’t cause too much damage.
I turned away from the thing. Not because I was worried about going blind or anything like that. I didn’t think that even the flash from a nuclear weapon going off would be enough to blind me. Especially if it was in the upper atmosphere, which is where it should be if it followed the nice ballistic trajectory I’d set it on with that toss.
No, it was all about rule of cool. I wanted a hell of a backdrop behind me when the thing went off. I put my fists to my side and a wind picked up at just the right moment to send my hair and cape flying.
Oh yeah. Natalie could eat her heart out, because this was dramatic as fuck!
Also? It totally had the effect I’d been going for. No one was worried about fucking around with fighting each other when a nuclear weapon had just gone off in the atmosphere. Sure it’d probably fried a bunch of electronics that weren’t shielded against that sort of thing, but I figured the city was fucked up enough that people weren’t going to cry all that much over their favorite flat screen suddenly going dead as a doornail.
Whatever. The point was I had everyone’s attention down there. Which meant it was time for a little bit of theatricality.
I’d learned from the best, and now it was time to see how well I could live up to everything I’d learned watching Natalie do her thing.
24
Boom Stick
I landed on the flying saucer with enough force that the thing wobbled. Oops. I hadn’t meant to knock the thing from the sky. Just to do a suitably appropriate hero landing and let them know I meant business.
Also? I’d totally landed next to another nuclear weapon. I slammed my fist into the lock and opened it up. Held the thing over my head as words from a movie I’d never watched yet loved thanks to that wormy psychic link came to my head.
“Listen up you primitive screwheads! This is my nuke!”
Everyone stared at me dumbfounded. Well it would be more appropriate to say that the aliens and all the clones of me stared dumbfounded. Because of course they didn’t have the cultural context to understand the masterful reference I was making.
Natalie was clearly trying to hold back a case of the giggles. For all that it’d sucked having an alien worm take over my mind and sort of force me to try and take over the world, it was kind of nice to be able to finally understand all the geeky stuff Natalie was always going on about.
“Um, is there a point to this?” one of the clones asked.
“The point is you need to shut the fuck up and listen to me,” I said.
That was good for a couple of dirty looks from the clones. Korval was grinning as though he was enjoying the fuck out of this even if he didn’t quite understand the reference, though, and Natalie had a flush coming to her cheeks that told me she was enjoying the fuck out of this on an entirely different level.
“Fuck you!” one of the clones shouted, scrambling up over the edge of the flying saucer and looking a hell of a lot worse for the wear. “You punched me you bitch!”
That got all the clones to start moving. Unfortunately they were moving towards me. Though it was unfortunately for them.
They all barreled right for me. Which made sense if they were operating like I had back when I didn’t know how to fight.
Unfortunately for them I’d since had some lessons in how to kick ass from a very good teacher. So even if I wasn’t way more powerful than all these bitches, it was easy enough for me to throw them over my shoulders, or punch them out of the way, or simply use the momentum they were trying to throw at me to keep them going away from me after we made contact.
I was way more powerful than them, of course, which turned what might’ve been an even battle into a curb stomp. It wasn’t long before I stood alone with unconscious or injured clones all around me.
“Anyone else wanna dance?” I asked, not even breathing hard as I looked around at the remaining clones who hadn’t tried their luck. “I’m gonna kick all your asses if I have to, but we really don’t have time!”
“Who the hell are you to talk to us like that?” another clone shouted.
“I’m the original, and you’re all a bunch of cut-rate copies,” I growled. “So that means all y’all are going to listen to me if you know what the fuck is good for you. Got it?”
That was good for a couple of incredulous looks. Another clone flew at me, and this time I figured it’d be a better idea to show her just what a bad fucking idea it was to take me on in a trial of strength versus strength.
Her hands locked with mine, and her eyes went wide. She glared at me, and I glared right back at her. It was the kind of situation that might’ve been one hell of a trial of wills.
The only problem being she wasn’t operating with nearly the level of strength I was. I was over nine thousand, to reference an old meme that still checked out. Which in turn was referencing an even older meme, but what the fuck ever. I had all these things dancing around in my head and percolated up without really thinking about it, and I figured I’d just go with it.
“I’m giving you this one last chance to give up,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt any of you, but I was serious when I said we don’t have time for this shit.”
“If you’re working with the aliens then we need to do something about you,” the girl growled. “So I’m going to do something about you now.”
She poured on the strength. I cried out, and she hit me with a triumphant smile as she pushed down and I moved down to my knees. Tears came to my eyes. I liked to think that was a nice touch, and I was surprised I was able to pull it off so easily.
“See what I mean?” the clone shouted. “She’s no more powerful than any of us. I’m one of the strongest, and she’s nothing!”
Huh. I guess there were different levels of power among the clones, and it sounded like they’d set up a hierarchy based on that. Which didn’t sound like the kind of thing the old me would do, but at the same time these clones had clearly been through some shit to bring them to this point.
Also? It was time to stop playing around.
“Actually I was just taking the advice of a very close friend of mine,” I said, turning to Natalie who rolled her eyes and tapped her wrist to remind me we were on a timer. “I figure it’s nice to let people think they’re winning, even if it is only for a moment before they get their asses handed to them.”
“What the…”
Whatever she was about to say was cut off by her own cry of pain as I stood. Then she was the one going down on her knees with tears coming to her eyes.
“This one said she was stronger than the rest of you,” I said. “If she’s stronger than the rest of you then I want you all to think about what’s going to happen when I start having my fun with you.”
I pushed one final time at this clone bitch who thought she could defy me. There were more than tears in her eyes now. There was wide-eyed terror there. The kind of terror that made me feel bad for what I was about to do, but I needed to make an example.
She cried out in pain as a crunching noise like a bunch of celery being snapped filled the eerie silence that’d descended on us. That’d be all the bones in her hands and wrist breaking at the same time. I let go and she fell to the ground sobbing.
I looked down at her. Thought about how there might've been a time when I felt bad for somebody experiencing that kind of pain. There was a time when I wouldn’t have dreamed causing that kind of pain to a living creature, fo
r that matter, but that was in the past.
I guess something really had changed within me. Because as I looked down at her all I could think was we'd wasted valuable time with this pissing contest that could've been spent trying to find the nuclear weapons buried around the city.
I looked up and around at everyone. Korval’s face was split by a huge grin under his bristling moustache. Which was about what I’d expect for a member of his species. Natalie was looking at me and shaking her head with a slight smile. As though she approved.
I probably should’ve been worried that the two most megalomaniacal and villainous people in my life were looking at what I’d done with approval, but I felt a flush of excitement at that approval.
Meanwhile the other clones were staring at me with their mouths hanging open.
"Natalie," I said. "Would you be a dear and take care of this girl? I'm assuming you have a medbay that can fix her up hidden somewhere around the city?”
"Probably," Natalie grumbled as she tapped at her wrist computer. "But if she ends up destroying part of my lab then it's coming out of your pocket."
"That's going to be kind of hard considering I don't have any money to my name," I replied.
"Then go rob a bank or something," she snapped. “Or have your aliens rob a bank for you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “I’ll do you one better. If she decides to mess up your lab then I’ll personally show up to kick her ass and teach her why that’s a bad idea. How does that sound?”
I stared down at the clone who was still cradling her wrists and hands as best she could considering it looked like I’d broken every bone in both. She stared up at me with pure terror in her eyes as she realized exactly what I was threatening.
“That’s right,” I said. “You’re gonna play nice if you know what’s good for you.”
"Now to see if this works on one of your clones since it wasn't working on you last I checked,” Natalie muttered.