Chapter Text
During BFDI
"To Leafy:
Meet me at my factory in one hour. Do not be late.
-Golfball"
Leafy stood at the entrance of Golfball's Underground Factory, waiting patiently. She'd arrived on time (she hoped), now all that was left was the sport globule who's project she volunteered for.
After a few minutes of waiting, a small, armless figure came into view. Now, standing at the top of the stairs, was Golfball. "Hi, Golfball!" The botanical object grinned, waving at her. "Hello, Leafy. You're here on time."
Golfball did not smile back. Being all nice and friendly like Leafy was never her strong-suit. Leafy didn't mind, though. "Come with me." The globule nodded her 'head' in the direction of the stairs behind her, before turning around and descending into the factory below.
Leafy hesitated, seeing the absolute insane amount of stairs there were. The leaf took a deep breath in, and ran down to catch up with her dimpled, spherical friend.
"You built all this, huh?" Leafy looked around the factory as the pair went down the winding staircase, admiring it, but not appreciating how smokey the air smelled to her. "It looks great."
"Affirmative." Golfball turned slightly in the botanical object's direction, her voice holding a sternness equal to her gaze. "It encourages inspiration, creation, and innovation. Everyone should have a factory. You should build one, Leafy."
"Oh, well, I've never been into that sorta stuff-.." Leafy rubbed the back of her 'head', smiling with some nervousness. "I'll consider it, though!"
"Hm." Was all the globule replied with. They finally reached the ground floor of the factory, and Golfball picked up the speed a little. "Just this way. Expect this to go by quickly, I'll just need DNA and various data from you."
The leaf gave her a nod and an "Okie-dokie!" before the two objects stopped in a sector with various tools. "While the factory's prime function is to be, of course, a factory, it also functions as a laboratory. I have all the equipment I need."
GB picked up a syringe with her foot. "Your arm." Leafy blinked, before realizing with an "Oh." and extending her arm out to let the syringe poke it. She hoped it wouldn't hurt too much.
"So, uh," Her curiosity started to rise. "What will my clone, you know, be like?"
The globule took a good portion of blood from Leafy's arm (which she didn't even know objects had) and retracted the needle. "In every aspect, you."
"Ooooh. So I'll have another me to talk to?" Her eyes lit up, even though the answer was obvious.
"Me and Tennis Ball will probably have to run some basic tests on her before letting her leave the factory, but afterward, yes." A small, but proud smile crept onto the globule's face, to Leafy's satisfaction.
"Well, I'm definitely excited. What about you? What if you cloned yourself? Ooh, I bet you'd get more work done that way!" Chatter and questions spilled out of her freely. "Can you clone inanimate objects? Like, ones that aren't alive? OOOH! What if you cloned Dream Island?"
"All interesting concepts, Leafy. I'll keep them in mind." Golfball's smile grew ever-so-slightly warmer, but it quickly hardened as if the she didn't want the botanical object to notice. Leafy chose not to comment.
--
"Sooooo." The botanic's curiosity rose right back up as the DNA samples were all put in proper containment for later use. "Can I see it?"
"Eh?" Golfball blinked? "See what?"
"The cloning thingy."
"Hrm.. Fine, alright. But you can only look at it, I'm not going to activate it until TB gets here, and by then, you should be gone."
Leafy's smile grew into a wide grin. "Yaaay!" She threw her hands up, and Golfball took a step to the left. "Follow me. It's just nearby, it should take us approximately two and a half minutes to get there."
Once more, the pair began to walk. Leafy let out a small sigh of relief as the smokey air cleared up, letting her breathe. She wondered how Golfball lived like this.
"How does it work?" The leaf piped up.
"I will demonstrate further when we get there, but to put it simply, I'll feed it your DNA, and it'll clone you." GB's cold, stern tone returned, and Leafy tried her best to match it. "I see, I see.."
It didn't last long, though, because containing Leafy's excitement was virtually impossible sometimes. "It sounds awesome, GB! Science is more advanced than I thought."
"It is awesome." The sport globule stated proudly.
As the two of them came to a halt, Leafy stared in awe at the Cloning Center. It was large - about the size of a supervan - and shaped like a capsule, with thick wires hooked up to it, a hollow inside, and a bright white core on the ceiling.
"Whoa.." Leafy whispered breathlessly. "And this'll make my clone? Just like that?"
"Maybe not 'just like that', it takes roughly a week for the clone's body to develop. Even so, that's even quicker than I originally expected." Golfball turned to her. "Now, you wanted to know how the machine works?"
"I did!" The leaf grinned again and put her hands to her face with excitement. Golfball walked over to the Cloning Center, nodding Leafy over with her 'head'. "Remember, only look." She reminded.
"Yes, ma'am!" Leafy gave her a thumbs-up, quickly trotting over and standing next to her.
"These tubes are what the DNA and other needed resources get pumped through and into the holding capsule." She made a gesture at the empty center of the machine. "Normally the capsule would be full of liquid that the clone would float and develop in, but right now it's empty. Therefore, the tubes serve no functional purpose."
"Oooooooooh.. Hey, what're these buttons for?" A control panel stood near the front left of the machine, with a selection of multicolored buttons. Leafy unconsciously reached out to touch them, and GB swatted(or perhaps kicked) her hand away. "No touching!" She scolded, to which the botanic replied with a nervous "Sorry."
"ANYWAY, these buttons control certian parts of the machine. For example, if I pressed the blue button, it would fill the capsule with the liquid I mentioned."
"Oh yeah! What's the liquid do?" Leafy tilted her 'head'.
"It has two functions. The first is to let the clone soak in and absorb all the necessary assets that the tubes pump in, and the other is to act as a sort of sedative. You know, to keep her sleepy. Tennis Ball advised it, because waking up in a capsule of liquid could be considered, hm.. Frightening. To say the least. It's also breathable!"
"Breathable liquid? Did you invent that too?"
"I won't take credit for that. While I surely took part in creating it, most of the ideas and attributes came from TB." The warmth was ten times more visible in her smile this time, at the mention of her friend. Leafy thought that was sweet.
"The red button controls the door. As you can see, it's open right now. If I pressed it, it'd close." Golfball set her focus back onto Leafy's previous curiosity. "The green button controls that light at the top. And-"
"I'm here!" A voice cut Golfball off. "Hey, Golfball." The botanical object turned in the voice's direction, and discovered it belonged to Tennis Ball.
"Hello, Tennis Ball." The sport globules smiled at eachother, until the fuzzier of the pair glanced at Leafy. "Is she.. supposed to be here?"
"I was just letting her see the Cloning Center, because she is important to the experiment. But now that we're done.." Golfball snapped her gaze onto Leafy. "You. Out. Shoo! Go go go go go!" She started furiously ushering her away, startling the botanic. After all, it was still GB.
"Yeep! Ahm- Okay!" The leaf jumped, before promptly skittering away the way she came. Golfball waited until she was out of sight, her gaze falling back onto her friend once she was sure.
"Now that I have the samples, we can get started!" The grey globule held up Leafy's DNA samples with her foot, beaming proudly.
The duo began to set everything up, with Golfball inserting the samples and Tennis Ball pushing various buttons. It was decently easy, all thanks to their excellent compatibility - and also GB's great designing skills.
And then they turned it on.
"What now?" They both stood beside eachother, and Tennis Ball looked down at her with curiosity in his black oval eyes. "Now.." Golfball inhaled. "We wait."
------
"Do-do-do, do-do-do!" Golfball sat on the grass, drawing a blueprint concept for her next invention on a scrap of paper. Admittedly it was very messy, but it was just a concept. She'd remake it later and put it in the factory.
Oh right, the factory.
The globule hadn't actually been in the factory since she took the volunteer(AKA Leafy) down. And while it hadn't been too long, just three weeks, she still decided going down and checking on the Cloning Center's progress was never a bad idea. She also just needed to stretch her legs.
She'd told Tennis Ball to keep an eye on it, meaning she wasn't required as much as she would be if he weren't around. She was grateful for that.
Standing up and shaking herself off, the sport globule treaded in the general direction of her factory. It was a short walk, and once she got there, she was greeted by her large, fuzzy friend standing at the top of the winding staircase.
"Oh." Golfball blinked. "Hello, TB. I was just about to check the progress on the--" She paused, noticing his stressed expression. "...How is the clone?"
Her and Tennis Ball had decided to give the clone a few times to, say, 'bake in the oven', because as fascinating as a simple week was, they just felt like it wasn't enough time. GB just hoped that wasn't a poor choice.
The green globule's face fell even more. "I was just about to tell you, it's-- best to just see for yourself.." That worried her.
The pair descended into the factory with urgency, wasting no time. If there was something wrong, they had to fix it as soon as possible. Down the stairs they went, onto the ground floor, and toward the Cloning Center.
As the smokey atmosphere cleared and the two of them stopped, Golfball's eyes widened.
Inside the capsule floated a leaf, but rather than green, her body was bright red. Her eyes were closed, and her limbs were tucked in a sort of curled up, sleeping position. The sedative was working, at least.
The sport globule took a second to compose herself, speaking in an unsteady voice. "It's.. fine. We can just terminate it. We still have leftover samples. We can make a new one."
TB sighed and drained the translucent liquid that filled the capsule. The clone lie on the floor unconscious, and the two spheres hauled her over where their shoulders would be, with the intent of throwing her straight into the incinerator.
"What do you think went wrong? Did we make a bad descision, leaving her in there so long?" The fuzzy globule spoke in a lower tone, hoping not to wake the clone. Terminating her while she was conscious would be unethical.
"Hm. Maybe we should've stuck to the original amount of time.." Golfball's gaze fell to her feet for a couple seconds. "Or maybe the machine was just flawed from the start. We should look over it again when we're done with this."
The incinerator wasn't too far, and the duo made it there in short time. The two looked at eachother, leaned back a bit, and heaved the limp body straight into the molten liquid. In a matter of seconds, the leaf was no longer visible -- or alive.
Golfball sighed. "Let's get going. We have a Cloning Center to investigate." Hardening her gaze, she began to tread off. Tennis Ball was quick to follow.
The sport globules walked and talked about potential flaws in the machine, when Tennis Ball took a glance back at the incinerator.
And then he screamed.
"What are you screaming about?" Golfball snapped, startled and confused, until she noticed what her friend was looking at.
She, too, screamed.
Crawling out of the incinerator, awake and alive, was none other than the clone.
That's when Golfball realized the true extent of the problem. The leaf's face was all.. wrong. Rather than the usual black ovals, her eyes were giant white spheres with small pupils. Her teeth were sharp like daggers. And on her face was a look of rage.
Golfball froze up, yelping in alarm as the botanical object suddenly launched itself at her friend. "TENNIS BALL!" The smaller, distressed globule cried out, looking for something to fend her off with.
She had sunk her fangs in deep, causing the fuzzy green sphere to let out an involuntary cry. But, he still fought back, making an attempt to swing her off. It almost worked.
Instead of flying off, she clung tighter. "Get off!" TB screeched, slamming himself - and her - into a wall. This prompted an enraged, demonic screech that made his head hurt.
Golfball took that opportunity. She located her strongest sedative and took a running start, jabbing the crimson leaf in her arm while she was still clinging to TB. It took a few seconds to set in, but when it did, the leaf fell limp once more.
The pair backpedaled in shock and fear. Tennis Ball didn't look injured, just terribly shocked. Millions of questions ran through their head, but Tennis Ball could only ask one.
"What now?"
"I.." Golfball faltered. "I don't know."
------
"And you're sure it'll hold her?" Tennis Ball gave his friend a curious, nervous glance as he looked through the window, staring down at the unconscious leaf below.
"I'm sure."
The clone lie in a large room hidden in the way back of the factory. Tennis Ball and Golfball stood at a reinforced glass window, in another room above the one that held the leaf.
She was illuminated by a single bright light high up on the ceiling, similar to the machine she came from. Thanks to Golfball's sedative, the botanical object would be out for a while.
If they couldn't terminate her, they'd just have to contain her.