Chapter Text
Last time on a very special episode on Clone High. The teachers assigned the clones a group project for their economics class. From there they learned the ins and outs of business.
From live stock trades-
"I got it. What if instead of using regular currency we use puppies instead?" said Confucius holding a bundle of Shiba Inu's in his arms. It then transitions to the dogs floating in space as JFK and Confucius fly in a rocket. "We did it JFK! We made it to the Moon!" "I err always wanted to go to the Mooooonnn!"
To Art trades-
"This assignment is going to be a sitch," said Frida coolly before the scene transitions to her bursting through the cafeteria door. "Har, Someone stole the paintings I made for class and is selling them for millions online." Cuts to Frida sneaking into a warehouse with bidding numbers on her paintings only to find "Cleo?"
To Be-trade-
It shows Topher walking along the hallway glued to his phone. "Hey Joan, I found this funny video about an Antifa riot and I want your full commentary on it." He gasps and drops his phone as he stares at Joan talking to two mysterious figures. He angrily slams his locker. "Someone has been plotting against me." Joan spreads her arms across the screen.
Does all of this have relevance in this week's episode? Not really. But I have your social security number so you better tune in because things are about to get freaky.
On an all-new very special episode of Clone High.
--
The scene opens up with Scudworth furiously tapping on his desk deleting all the latest emails coming from outside the school. He thought it might've been a phishing scam or spam mail. There had to be some automatic message reply system at work. No human would ever care to email him this much. He should've never made the mistake of giving away all his information online to receive that free gift card to Olive Garden.
Another email popped up. "HA! I'm not falling for that again, Trash!" He dragged all of his junk mail to the icon. Then in the next few minutes, 11 more messages popped up.
"Damn, these bots are persistent."
He decided to take his chances and open one up before the incessant email pop-up jingles caused his brain to explode. But what he did read, nearly did. He began screaming aloud causing heads to turn from the nearby staff.
"I heard yellliiinngg. What's this about?" said Butlertron, poking his head behind a corner.
"Terrible news Mr. B!!! We've been hacked. Bamboozled. Intel has been leaked about our school. Apparently, digging up and performing experiments upon the deceased without their consent is some sort of major crime according to the FBI. They are planning to inspect Clone High so they can. Shut. It. Down. And then, they'll take all our precious clones away."
"Haaahhh." Mr. B gasped. A fake siren flew out from the robot's head as he whizzed around in circles flailing his metal arms in the air. "Oh nnoooo. Our family is in danger. Our family is in danger…Waiiittt……Why don't we just ask the Board of Shadowy figures? Aren't they the ones controlling the government anywayyy???"
"The Board is on vacation this week. Without Me!" he yelled furiously as he ripped the monitor in half chucking the screen on the ground. "Again. How many times must they insist that I'm allergic to the Mediterranean Sea!?!"
He brushed off his coat and recomposed himself.
"Anywho. The feds are going to be here any day. And since they aren't working for the shadowy figures. I'll need some way to get them off my back. But how?"
Scudworth stroked his chin in contemplation.
A lizard fell from the ceiling knocking over his sidekick as his eyeball rolled on the ground.
"AH! That's it Mr. B! Remember when we were first setting up the school and we tried to pass off Mr. Sheepman as livestock? Law enforcement didn't react since living animals have fewer rights than dead humans. Which means all we have to do… "
Scudworth picked up a set of machinery from his desk drawer and began modifying it with a couple of bolts and a pencil sharpener.
"There!" he proclaimed, holding up a strange doohickey. "The answer to all our problems. This baby can manipulate the genetic makeup of the clones, turning them into human/animal hybrids. And turn those no-good outsiders away from us. It'll be like Ninja turtle rules. You know, before they tainted it with all those bloody reboots."
"But why only clones? And how does that even wooorrrk?"
"What? You want me to explain it, Mr. B??? You want to explain how I reverse their adult stem cells into a semi-embryonic IPS state. To make them susceptible to outside DNA splicing. Making it possible for those cells to mass reproduce with certain features like a viral infection yada yada yada. Transcription factors c-Myc, Klf4 yada yada…Goddamn, you Mr. B!!! You want me to take the fun out of everything!?!"
Before Butlertron could respond, a lone student had entered the hallway and entered Scudworth's line of sight.
"Ooh, would you look at that? We're just in time. Every 4th period creepy boy ditches class to lurk inside his locker. Granting us the opportunity to do this."
He loads it like a Glock and aims at the boy.
"Ready set," he starts pulling the trigger but it produces no results. "Damn, why won't you work." Scudworth peeped into the loading area through the front. Then shook and slammed the device against the wall. "Blasted Machine! Must be jammed."
While being preoccupied the student had already hopped up into the small cubby hole, with Scudworth only hearing the rickety slam of the locker behind him.
"Dammit!" screamed Scudworth. "I missed my chance to blast that small child."
"Have you ever thought to wait it ooouuut?"
"You're right Mr. B let's let our prey rest for but a quaint moment before we strike. Hehehe…" he snickered, sinking both their heads behind his desk.
(Inside the locker)
Topher couldn't get over how brilliant his plan was. It was more elaborate than what he was used to and it took him about a week to even come up with the thing. But he needed to take all the extra precautions he could.
First, he made a private server and created a fake profile under Joan's name to put her as the moderator and owner. Then he set her age to 36 and turned off the privacy settings. He took pictures of her birth certificate he borrowed from the principal's office to put as extra proof. Next, he added a bunch of fake accounts and set their age to 17 to her DM box. Finally, he screenshotted a bunch of messages of the whole thing and, Ecco! Incriminating evidence of highly inappropriate activity. All he had to do was send it to one the members of the inclusivity club while disguising his own phone number and let the rumor mill run rampant.
He had informed his compatriot Joan that someone from the inclusivity club had framed her as being some kind of online predator. That he was protecting her by finding out about it. And that one of them would attempt to leak the information to the others if she got too close.
Getting exposed like that would not only get her canceled in the eyes of the club but the entire school and possibly the out stretches of the online space.
Joan was intelligent, but she wasn't tech-savvy. She couldn't do anything to track him down. The whole plan was foolproof. She would stay away from them. They would stay away from her. All is well.
But who would he send it from?
So many options.
Frida? She has plenty of popularity and influence. Oh and Abe. That would be very personal. And what about the annoying-as-hell Confucius? Cleo? No definitely not Cleo. That'd be way too on the nose.
"Whew." he steadied his hand to wipe his brow. This was starting to stress him out. Maybe bragging about his latest stunt would take a bit of stress off his mind
He turned on his phone and began writing a post on one of his old forums.
Update to my readers about my latest egalitarian escapades.
Date: 11/6/23
top_her69: So the friend I mentioned before the F(16) was complaining to me the other day about how downhill the school-to-prison pipeline has gotten since the early 2000s. It's a subject that's very dear and personal to her. One of her close friends was falsely incarcerated. She hasn't seen him in so long she can't even remember his face. And I thought "Yeah why hasn't anybody done something about this? Someone should do something about it."
So me, a M(16) took it upon myself to solve this predicament. I went down to our local penal institution and borrowed access to its innermost cells from the local security guard.
For the older generations reading this, there's a relic of a movie called Billy Madison that you might've heard of. My friend introduced it to me a few weeks ago. And I say if the wannabe billionaires can go back into the grade school education consequence free then so should the more unfortunate among us.
The authorities were resistant to the idea at first, but after they were immobilized, and saw how quickly the inmates got along with their teacher and their assigned buddies at Exclamation Elementary. There was no way they could deny the progress we made. And thanks to our state legislature receding the ban on Pell Grants their college tuition will be even cheaper than those outside the jail.
Ergo reversing the school-to-prison pipeline to the prison-to-school conduit of opportunities.
Can't say I can thank my friend enough for giving me this wonderful opportunity myself.
Xx_KernalKuster_xX: Typical simp behavior.
top_her69: Careful your misogyny is showing. It's rather pitiful that through your'e own judgment, you interject your own fantasies. And I'm sorry to say you are sorely mistaken.
What if I were to tell you she was doing it with me?
He didn't get time to see the response before his thoughts got interrupted by voices coming from the outside.
"What the?"
He peered out of the slits of the locker. Topher slowly crept open the door and-
*PSHOO*
A large flash of lightning came out of nowhere and knocked the boy on his face.
"Wahhh!"
A yellowish-green aura was pulsed around him. When he got up it felt like a giant migraine had been screwed in and implanted inside his head. Struggling to walk, he used the locker as a guide and-
*PSHOO*
"Ooohhff."
He slipped as he got hit with a beam again. The body's only motivation for moving now was to avoid the millions of footsteps coming up overhead.
—
Joan couldn't wait for class to be over. There was no way she could focus on a math test with all her nervous feelings trying to claw their way out of her. She gave a sigh of relief when the bell finally rang. Students flooded into the hallways as class was dismissed. She spotted her friend. He appeared to be doing some weird exercise. His legs were wobbling as he was lunging on the space below his locker
Joan rubbed her hands along her arm as she approached him.
"Toph, can we talk for a second?"
"Hold up," He put his finger up to her. "I've just been shot twice." Crouching down, he took a few deep breaths from his nose to try to ease his vertigo. And then crunched his spine. "Alright, I can now function as your metaphorical and emotional toiletry, proceed."
"I thought I'd let you know that I've been talking to the inclusivity members."
"Uh-huh."
"They invited me to their table so I sat with them earlier today. I played it cool and I was all like 'sure' like I normally do. But on the inside, I was totally freaking out. Then there were Abe and Cleo who were rolling on the other half of the table doing god knows what. It was so distracting I could hardly tell what the others saying-"
Having her mention those names again made him immediately lose interest.
Topher rolled his eyes. "Ughh. Is this about your obsession with Abe? How many times do I have to tell you? It's unhealthy. You shouldn't put all your self-worth onto another person. Here." Topher then punched the locker next to him causing a barrage of books to fly out.
"Mind if I offer you some of these?" he said, handing her the top book from the 3ft pile. "My therapist recommended them to me the other week, and they've worked wonders."
She held the book to her face and read it aloud, "How to Get Rejected and Not Become a Serial Killer. Why would your therapist recommend this to you?"
"Pfffft, who knows?" he flushed. "So, as I said each of these comes in a three-box set. From school shooting prevention to the four categories of stalking. I also own the special edition if you're interested."
"Topher."
"Do you like reading about erotomania? This volume has a whole 500 pages on it. Or if you are more into self-righteous organizational practices, I have this guide From Neck to Toe: The Proper Way to Kink Shame."
"Toph… tophiiee…toph."
"Or we can go to my personal favorite. How to Reject Others Before They Reject You."
"CHRISTOPHER!!!"
He immediately stopped and looked up at her silently.
"This isn't about Abe."
"It's not?"
"No. It's about the other girls in the club. You know Harriet? She really really wants me to join them. I've literally turned her down multiple times before, and she hasn't given up. I don't remember encountering a single girl like that when I was a kid…," She gave a somber sigh before speaking, and leaned down. "Also…I tried hinting to them about 'you know 'the thing." she whispered, "None of them knew anything about it. Heck, even Cleo looked absolutely clueless."
"They could all be lying..."
"Are you sure they really have it out for me? If anything, it seems more likely that someone's been working from the outside," she tapped her fingernails to her chin.
"That's a-uh, very interesting theory," his words stumbled out as he kept his hands firmly on his phone. "But-but there's a lot of improbable things we have to think about and-and-and.."
Before he could continue speaking, Joan reached out with her consent arm and placed it right upon his shoulders. She looked directly at his pale eyes. Her soul-bearing into his. "Please. There's not a lot of people I can trust right now. I just really need to know that you're on my side."
In return, he smiled and placed his on top of hers. "Of course Joan. We're allies, remember? I'll always be on your side."
He went ahead and pressed the send button behind his back.
"Harriet it is then," he chuckled to himself. "It won't be long now."
*Riiiippp*
"What was that?" he thought.
It was then Topher realized that his pants had just ripped behind him. He reached out to touch it. Something squishy yet solid, almost alien was protruding out of it. Joan began to take notice of her friend's ass-grabbing over and over.
"Are you okay??"
"Ahm It's Nothing. But. If you don't mind. I must excuse myself. And head to my private cis male space." He sidestepped her and dashed to the boy's bathroom as fast as his short legs could take him. Pulling his white collared shirt down all along the way.
"Alright," she called out. "I'm borrowing this book by the way; hope you don't mind."
"of course, baby steps remember baby steps."
She couldn't quite hear what he was saying with his voice being drowned out by the students behind her. And the sound of his flats squeaking and sliding across the hallway. Something about babies? But she did catch a thumbs up before he vanished behind the corner.
"Was that weird?" Joan asked herself. Then shrugged. "… ehh, I have no frame of reference."
Just then a strobe light descended from the ceiling and deflected light from the beam creating a disco effect of yellow lights. She could hear the principal's voice over the speaker.
"Hey Yo STUDENTS! It's that time again. That's right. Put your you know what's in the air. For Public Random Surprise Dance PARRTAYYY! "
Joan sighed as the sounds of air horns and blood-curdling dubstep blasted into her ears.
—-
Meanwhile…
Topher barged headfirst into the bathroom door. And went straight to climb to the top of the sink. As he stood right up to the mirror he turned around and slightly lowered his drawers. There he could see it in his reflection a large pink fleshy growth had popped out from the seams of his pants. He waddled his buttocks over to get a good look at it from both angles. "What was this?" he thought. "Some kind of infection or tumor?"
He poked at it. It squirmed.
Just then he heard a door swing open.
Two boys entered through the bathroom door. They stared back at him.
He stared back at them.
They closed the door.
—
With the headache gone Joan flipped through one of the so-called self-help books Topher gifted her, and read the passages aloud.
"Don't play hard to get when you're hard to want."
Is this seriously what passes for advice these days? What kind of thoughts has he been feeding himself? The last thing any teenager needs is more self-image issues.
She took a black pen and began to scribble pieces out and scrawled in new ones.
"The harder you play the bigger reward-ey-er you'll get."
That wasn't right either.
"If they don't notice you once, maybe they'll notice you a third time or a fourth time or a fifth time or a tenth time. And you'll say to yourself. Wow, all the hours of effort I've put into that. That was totally worth it."
No, none of this sounds right. Why wouldn't this come out the same way she saw it in her head?
She skipped ahead to a paragraph labeled.
Indifference makes the difference
"As someone with a Ph.D. I get asked a lot of questions. And I hate it. But let me tell you right here, it is possible to deal with rejection, you do it all the time. You may not think about it on a conscious level but people reject you a lot. When you walk downtown or stand at the bus stop. No one says it to your face. And that's fine. That's because you do it too. You reject people in thought all the time, it's what we all do. The sooner you see this. The easier it'll be to confront your fear."
"Hmph, that wasn't so bad."
It was true. She was indifferent to most people at the school, and she could imagine the inverse was true.
Maybe this book was trying to tell her something. She had been so wrapped up in how her reputation might destroy her that it was now hanging a shackle around her neck.
Maybe she could confront him about it. He was in the club and part of the student council. He could help her.
"Just go in," she thought to herself. "All guns in trails blazing. Don't overthink what he might say. Consequences be damned." Or would impulsively confessing all her struggles to Abe come off as too desperate and needy?
The other week Topher had described to her what a pick-me was. She didn't want to become one of those.
But Abe wasn't like other guys either so they could just cancel each other out. And to tell the truth, she missed her friend.
--
Abe came out of the homeroom and threw a banana peel away as he stood by the trash. Cleo didn't seem to be anywhere nearby. Joan casually tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey Abe, been a long time."
"Oh, Joan, it's you. Hehe yeah, It's been a while since we've talked without you,.. you know, always running away whenever I see you. But you're here now so…uh, that's great! By the way, I feel kinda strange," Abe said, massaging the back of his elongated neck. "Are necks usually supposed to be this sore? And 2ft long?"
"I bet it's your spine having another growth spurt. You used to have those all the time when we were kids remember…Ttck ow." Blood dripped down the corner of her lips. "Sorry, I keep stabbing my teeth on my gums lately. It's been driving me nuts."
While Joan was busy inspecting her teeth. Cleo from seemingly out of nowhere strutted in between the two of them.
"Abe, thank goodness I found you. I was really craving a scratching post and-" She stopped herself when she noticed Joan standing in the middle of them. "What is she doing here?"
"Oh, I was just standing here, and we both started flapping our mouths to each other and-"
"Is she bothering you? How bout I make you feel better." She pulls Abe down to her level and begins with some tongue and lip action as she aggressively makes out with him. Smothering him out of Joan's sight.
"Cleo, we were in the middle of-"
Cleopatra stuck out her middle finger behind Abe's back while she glared directly at Joan.
"Rrrragghh. He isn't your slave. People have their own agency nowadays, Cleo. So that means both parties can choose for themselves who they want to talk to. You can't keep them away forever. That's gatekeeping." Joan spoke matter-of-factly while folding her arms. "What gives you the right to do any of this?"
"Because I'm me, and well if I weren't me, and I were you. I wouldn't be talking to anyone." She gave a sadistic grin as she pulled her phone out from behind her ear. "Look what that highlighter girl sent me," Cleo said, shoving up the screen to her face.
Joan gasped at the sender's address.
"Harriet?"
Cleo clicked on the link. There were hundreds of screenshots of messages from other kids that popped up.
"But why would she-... I thought we were..."
"I'm almost impressed. Even without posting any photos of yourself online you still managed to do something to make people throw up. Ahaha." She laughed pointing at her tongue and making gagging noises.
Joan left rubbing the tears from her eyes speechless and clueless on what to do.
Abe opened his eyes again only to see that his old friend was missing.
"Uh. Did something happen? Where's Joan? She ran away from me again didn't she…"
"Yeah, she's a pretty shitty friend. Can't believe you said you liked her that one time. SOooOo Anyywhooo What was I saying? Oh yeah. Abe, thank goodness I found you. I've been really craving a scratching post for some reason. Mind if I use you?"
Abe nodded, "Yah Go ahead, my neck is extra tender, scratch away."
"Ow…ow.ow… Wow Cleo your nails are extra sharp today."
"Thanks, babe," she smiled. "I just got them done. Now give momma some more."
"AHHHH!"
—-