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In and out, that is what the mission should have been. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. No one was expecting Lotor to attack another one of Zarkon’s bases. Now he has to worry about running into two enemies, with no back up. Shit.
Shiro’s chest heaved, he’s been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. He’s separated from the team and lost – two things he does not want to be right now. Double shit.
Alarms blaring, he can feel annoyance trickling in. Why did he have to roll into a random hallway? He got turned around and he just feels old for not remembering where he came from.
He skids to a stop when he reached the end of the hallway, left or right? “Damn Galra,” he curses under his breath, “They make everything look the same!”
He freezes. Footsteps, two sets. He groans and makes his way back, yet a gut feeling has him stopping. He slips and crouches behind one of the large pillars.
The footsteps continue still walking in his direction. He holds his breath as they near, then pass. He presses his lips together. ‘Not a sound.’ He looks.
His clone. It’s his clone, with a druid. He licks his lips. Does he want to confront this? First meeting coming to mind.
“Please. Please, help me.”
‘Alright,’ Shiro thinks, ‘I need to take care of the druid first.’ He grips onto the galra gun he stole earlier and takes aim.
Inhale. Exhale. He squeezes the trigger, hears the shot, sees it – no warning; yet the druid seems to dissolve and the shot flies right through it. It materializes back into view, facing towards him. Shiro curses as his clone seems to turn as well. Shiro is surprised to find his own eyes looking back at him and not the purple glow from before.
He swallows and leaps forward. His clone rushes to grab the druid, Shiro can hear a “No, don’t!” coming from the clone as the druid creates a ball of dark energy. The energy crackling and shoots out towards him faster than he can blink.
Pain centers around his chest, a pained scream comes out as he falls onto his back. He can hear his gun clattering on the ground, somewhere. ‘Shit, okay, not doing that again. Think, Shiro, think!’
He forces himself to sit up, barely catching the Druid whispering something into his clone. It grips the galra arm and it glows for just a second. He scrambles to stand up as those wide eyes turn purple. “Shit.”’
The druid vanishes on the spot, he swears he hears a dark chuckle fading with it. He doesn’t have long to worry about it because his clone charges towards him, skids and lunges forward with an activated galra arm. Shiro sidesteps to the right, pushes his weight onto his right leg, bends, and uses his left to propel his left shoulder into his clones’ chest.
He backs off and observes. ‘How can I do this without hurting him?’
The fight turns into a dance of attack and evade. Shiro pushing the clone away, dodging, and weaving around. He grits his teeth as he feels exhaustion seeping in.
‘He looks the same, fights the same, the only difference-‘ Shiro grunts as he dodges and twirls behind the clone. He lands a hit to the back, watches as it barely stumbles forward. ‘-he doesn’t back off, doesn’t stop. It’s like he is a beast.’
Why make a clone of him when it only attacks when they say so? It didn’t seem they got much of a benefit from it.
Wait. Is this clone defective? Is that why they have to activate this…beast mode in order for it to do any harm? Not to mention, each time they’ve met, it tries to stop it. It tries to help, to warn. Maybe.
Maybe…
Shiro licks his lips. ‘I’m going to get myself killed. This better work.’
“I know you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to do this.” Shiro says as he dodges an attack, he grips the lunging arm, twists and tucks his body under the other, and heaves him over his shoulder. He lets go and backs away, arms up.
HIs clone snarls. He stands, charges, lifting his right arm up and thrusts it downwards. Closer, closer, Shiro throws his own metal arm up to block. Contact. He sees himself -snarling, wild and angry. That could have been him.
No.
That is him. That is what he would have been. Because he would have fought, he did fight, and nothing but this…magic(?) could take him down.
He grits his teeth and pushes back. There is so much strength within himself, he should be able to fight back right?
“SHIRO!” He screams, hoping and reaching. His arm pulses as he gather his strength and shoves. His arm cuts through air as the other is forced back. He can see glowing purple eyes flicker, a hesitance in the stance, this isn’t just his clone. This is him. This is a person. “I know you, I am you! FIGHT IT.”
Shiro lunges. “FIGHT. BACK.” The tide turns. He can see the purple eyes flickering. He’s attacking aggressively, the other dodging and blocking. Each contact and he can feel the tremors from the other.
“Fight.” He grunts out. Chest heaving, his body aches, but he reaches out – and snags the collar of the shirt. “Back.” He pulls the clone to the side, rushes in, pushing, and slams him against the wall. “THINK OF OUR TEAM! OUR FAMILY.” He screams, arm pulling back- ready to punch. He thrusts-
“O-our?” A weak voice answers. Shiro pulls his punch, knuckles slamming against the wall.
He’s looking into his own eyes. He can feel a sigh of relief building up and manages a small smile instead. “Yeah, yeah man. Our.” He releases the collar and places both of his hands on the others’ shoulders. He hopes he’s reassuring. He’s never had to reassure himself physically at least. “You’re a person too, ya know?”
They stare at each other for a while, then his clone laughs. Their hands landing on his shoulders as it curls forward, laughing and sobbing at the same time. It dies down after a while, and they give themselves a moment to gather their emotions.
That moment didn’t last long. An explosion rocks the ship, Shiro uses his clone to help balance himself and he feels the other do the same.
“Shit.” They stated at the same time.
Shiro releases his clone and looks around for the gun he had. He finds it and grabs it before turning to his clone again.
“Let’s go.”
“I can’t.”
Shiro blinks. “Um, yes you can? You got two legs, you follow me, we find the team, and fly off to the safety of the castle ship.” He rests the gun on his shoulder, other hand on his cocked hip. “Sure, the team will be surprised to see two of us. But I’m pretty confident that they’ll be alright with this amount of eye candy. At least, Lance will. He thinks I don't notice but I have seen him checking me -us?- out, with Allura, from time to time.”
His clone smiles, it makes him frown. It’s one of his sad smiles. One of his ‘I got some bad news and baggage to tell you’ smiles.
“Even if I go with you, the druids did something to me. To my arm. You saw what happened.” His clone (god they need to figure out names here) said. They awkwardly rubbed their neck, shifting on their feet. He’s anxious and scared.
“We got a-“
“Yeah, I know we got an obnoxious genius gremlin and an engineer with a heart of gold,” He smiles crookedly, longingly. “We’ve got a castle with advance technology and a strange mustach man who knows how to work it. We’ve got two hotheaded idiots who would fight for answers and a stubborn princess who’d demand answers from our enemies.” His clone crosses his arms, eyebrows furrowed with sadness and frustration.
“This is different. This is science and magic. I don’t think it’s a good idea bring me along or mess with it until we’re more sure of what’s going on.” He states and lifts his hand up before Shiro can speak. “The Galra had 10,000 years to advance their science and we have no idea how they even use quintessense on their creations yet. It may not even be just my arm, it could be my brain.”
Shiro presses his lips together tightly.
“You need to go.” They both look down the hallway. “You were going the wrong way. Go back and reach the crossroad again, take a left, straight, a right, then keep going straight until you reach the hangars. I can’t direct you to our team, but I think you’ll be just fine in a galra fighter ship.”
They turn toward each other, automatically reaching and locking their hands, shake twice but doesn't let go.
“We’ll come back for you…Shiro.”
His clones lips twitch and releases his hand. “Thanks, but next time we meet – just call me Ryou.”
And then Shiro leaves, heart heavy, because there is only so much he could take. And Ryou? Ryou is already pushed past that point.