Chapter Text
When Xisuma donated his blood, he thought he’d be helping to save lives. Save a life, even one. He thought he was giving to a good cause.
He never thought he’d be making lives.
‘Breaking news: Unique species blood donations actually going to research facilities?’
It wasn’t like X knew immediately, not right away. It was two days later, laying in bed at three in the morning when it finally clicked that hey, my blood is unique. They probably used mine. He didn’t want to believe it at first, of course. After all, who would want to know that their DNA has been experimented on? Nobody.
If it had just been that, Xisuma probably would’ve left it. It isn’t great that his blood didn’t go where he wanted it to, but it still went somewhere respectable. A research facility might save future lives too if they needed samples or something.
Xisuma freaked out once he realized his blood went to a clone facility.
Clones are heavily debated. It’s not that X is really against them, but he always said he wouldn’t feel comfortable with a clone of himself running around, and likely wouldn’t get one even if given the chance. Besides, clones were still rare and expensive, even one costing well over a ten million.
Now he has thirty-two clones running around in a lab somewhere, how wonderful is that?
In an attempt to sooth the public outrage, he and everyone else who got clones made of them are heading to the lab to meet them all, be given one of their choosing for free, and while they didn’t state it, Cleo, another person on the trip, thinks that they’re going to want more blood or another type of DNA.
It unfortunately would make sense.
They’re separated into three groups. Xisuma is in a tour group with a few other people, who all introduced themselves to each other on the bus to the facility. X is a bit disappointed that Keralis, his seatmate, is in a different group, but he knows all their names anyway, and they’ll likely see each other inside at a few points.
He’s glad that Doc is in his group. The man seems intimidating, but he was quite nice, and sat behind Xisuma. Besides, people often say that Xisuma is intimidating, so who is he to judge?
Plus, the death glare he shot one of the workers who was a little too unapologetic was hilarious.
A man named Scott Major will be Group A’s tour guide, which is Xisuma’s group. Xisuma vaguely remembers Scott Major showing up in the news, but he can’t remember what for.
They enter the building. The walls are all white, and the floor is a pale grey ceramic. It feels like an empty and soulless building, even with the doctors and various scientists that Xisuma doesn’t know the specialization of rushing from place to place, holding files, cases, and that looks like blood samples. A lot of blood samples.
Xisuma feels vaguely sick.
They arrive at a balcony, overlooking a large cafeteria of sorts, and oh that is weird.
Looking at a small group of himself, one of which an axolotl, another being a different species that Xisuma can’t name, and a third appearing entirely the same as him. They’re all wearing plain white hospital gowns, which feels like the only thing keeping him separate from them. He was right. This is weird. X does not want a clone.
”The clones you'll see here are about two-thirds of them. The rest are currently in the yard, as they’ve finished eating.” Scott explains.
He starts pointing out clusters. “Those over there, Grian Dreamslayers.” Grian, who’s in Xisuma’s group, perks up. “That’s all of your clones. At some point during every meal, they all meet up and trade foods. They all have the same foods and the same tastes. We have no idea why they do this, and they won’t tell us.”
Huh. Interesting. Grian snickers.
”Over there are the hell squad.” He points out a small group in the corner, consisting of an Xisuma, a Wels Knight, and a Scar Goodtimes.
Wels leans on the railing and asks the question they were probably all thinking. “Why are they the hell squad?”
Scott sighs. “Those three are entirely unhinged. The you over there is Wels 2. He tried to strangle Wels 1 in the bathroom, which is why the bathrooms now have guards stationed inside. He hits Wels 3 over the head with a chair two days later, which are now bolted to the ground.”
Everyone winces at that.
”The Xisuma, Xisuma 25, he stabbed his handler with a taser- and yes, I mean stabbed. It was on. He was at the age equivalent of nine.”
Xisuma, the original, freezes. He was never overly violent as a child, though he did have his tantrums. Knowing someone- who is essentially a slightly altered version of himself- stabbed someone with a taser? It’s disturbing at best.
”Quite frankly, Scar 14 hasn’t done anything, he just doesn’t have emotions, hangs out with the other two, and creeps everyone out. There are a few others in the Hell Squad, but they're probably outside.” Scott finishes. He gestures over to a third group. “Them over there, Scar 13, 19, and 31. They keep swindling other people out of random things."
“Do I have any yet?” Cleo asks. “I only donated a few months ago, so they probably won’t be grown yet, but I’d like to see them either way.”
”Unfortunately, you do not, though we did attempt.” Scott informs them. “Undead blood simply doesn’t work to be cloned, it seems. The remainder of your blood was returned to where it came from. Also, the clones age much faster than us would. They’d be about the same age as Taylor’s.”
Gem’s clones appear to be about twelve or thirteen. He can see them mingled inbetween the adults. Now that he’s looking, Xisuma realizes that quite a lot of the clones appear young. There are a good amount that look like fully grown adults, some of the Grian’s look older than Grian himself, but there are a lot that look like teenagers.
Actually, a few of Xisuma’s clones look like teenagers.
Doc seems to be on the same line of thinking. “Why are some older than others?”
”We made them all in four batches of eight. The larger the number, the younger they are.” Scott explains. That makes… sense. It explains why there are thirty-two clones instead of a more even number.
”How old are mine?” Xisuma blurts out.
Nobody looks at him strangely, but Xisuma tends to say derpy things without realizing, so he likes to take notice. “Yours range from sixteen to twenty-five. They age up quick until the late teens, then slow down to normal by adulthood.”
Xisuma himself is thirty-four, so they’re all younger than him. Well- obviously they’re younger than him, the actual maximum age for them would be six years. He donated six years ago.
He looks out at the sea of people, trying to spot the different versions of himself. One seems to be a strider hybrid, another a turtle. There’s a phantom there, which is odd, because he swears that they just said undead can’t be clones. Maybe they turned a human clone into a phantom.
Xisuma’s going to have to bring one of them home with him. How could he pick one? How could he pick only one? They may not be people in the eyes of the law, but… they seem so lifelike. They are alive. He doesn’t want to leave a person in a laboratory, especially not since he has some responsibility for them.
While thinking, his gaze catches someone looking at him. Xisuma 25, the one in the ‘Hell Squad’. The clones smile looks almost predatory, sharklike. Xisuma shudders.
He knows one he won’t be choosing.
Next up was a tour of the actual facilities they used to make the clones.
They were made in tubes and sleep in tubes. Clones apparently need to be in tubes for the first five months of life, until they’re about six years of age. They can stay out of the tube for three hours per day until six months, and the time spent out of tubes goes up from there. Once they’re fully grown, they can live outside of it, but are stronger being in it for a few hours a day. It’s interesting, really.
They’re in a room, with a Dr. Myth Sausage explaining how exactly the DNA replaces the dna of a viable embryo that only Doc seems to understand when an alarm goes off.
”Uh- wait here.” Scott says, before the two of them rush out.
Everyone in the room waits about three seconds before standing up in near-perfect unison.
”Oh good, it’s not just me.” Gem sighs in relief. “This is all really weird, right?”
”It’s incredibly weird.” Doc agrees, as he grabs some files and starts combing through them.
Grian peeks out the window on the door. “Do you reckon they’ll stop us if we leave?”
Cleo shrugs, pushes the door open, and struts out. “Let’s find out.”
Xisuma watches everyone leave the room. His brain catches up about six and a half seconds later, and he runs after them.
People are running back and forth, including a whole bunch of troops. It looks like an evacuation is taking place. Xisuma spots Group A… sneaking over to where the guards are running to. Of course, because who would be safe during an evacuation.
It looks like everyone is running from the place where they actually keep the clones. Nice.
There are a lot of gunshots in the distance, reverberating off the walls, seemingly coming from everywhere.
They wait until the big rush dies down, then keep moving. The shooting hasn’t stopped, but it did become lessened.
Everyone seems to be going into their own clones rooms, maybe to check them? Who knows. Xisuma’s is at the very end of the hall, so he’s alone when he goes in. Maybe that’s a good thing, considering what he finds.
Every last one of the tubes is broken, sticky, foggy liquid dripping onto the floor. They all have a bullet hole in the glass, and it seems like they all have a bullet hole in their heads. They killed all his clones. Why?
Xisuma starts walking down the row, trying to commit each one to memory. They were alive, now they’re not, and the only thing waiting for them is a dissection for research purposes. Maybe it’s easier this way. Xisuma feels bad, but he’s also a little relieved he won’t have to take one.
Every tube has a proper description, and what looks like a label maker giving them their names. Xisuma 09, ‘Ghost X’ Species: Phantom, no modifyer. The phantom he saw earlier. Xisuma 12, 'Aqua X', species: Luecistic Axolotl, bioluminescent. Xisuma 14, 'Beesuma', species: Bee, no modifier, a bee. Xisuma 19, 'Weird X'. Xisuma can't actually tell what species this one is, and it seems they couldn’t either, because it reads Species: ????, modifier: what???
He keeps walking along. Xisuma 25, 'Evil X'. Right, the member of the 'Hell Squad'. Species: Strider, modifier: evolution. Xisuma looks up to get a closer look at his 'evil clone'.
The tube has a giant hole in it that is in no way from a bullet, and it's entirely empty of liquid.
The glass is scattered all over the floor, unlike all the others that broke inwards.
There's a bit of blood on the glass shards, as if someone punched their way out.
Well, it seems Xisuma found the cause of the alarms.