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An alarm blares through the dim facility, only illuminated by flashing red lights lining the halls. Multiple footsteps could be heard racing up and down in a panic, some ending with heavy thuds to the floor. Behind a heavy door, rapid hot breaths escaped from warm lips as sweat trickled down the sides of an annoyed face. A hand comes up to adjust the black rimmed glasses sitting on that face.
“Ugh, this is such a headache.” Wifies sighed.
Earlier that week, Wifies had been experimenting with a new type of clone. One that would be great at fighting since pvp players have been on the rise recently. Unfortunately, the previous clones would come out with the same attributes as he does which is not ideal. Wifies is not skilled in combat; sure he has fought before and won but he needs these clones to be the best.
Countless hours were poured into each generation of clones and each one would continuously fail at his rigorous tests. Wifies knew he could've had better fighters if he had just trained them but it would've taken too long. He needed lots of them in order to make as many videos as possible. Trends don't last forever. That's something that Wifies had learned long ago.
He was testing batches of clones by pitting them against each other and the one who lived would get to be used for the next set of clones. At some point it became routine to conduct these tests. Make the clones, give them swords and let them into the arena. The last test he did should have been normal, he didn’t deviate from his routine at all, so why is this happening?
A swath of Wifie (wee-f-eye) entered the open dull gray arena, all equipped with a wooden sword, axe and shield. Their footsteps pounded against the concrete floor sounding like a herd of cattle. Each of them had the same dead expression, staring blankly at their creator in his white lab coat and glasses standing in the control room. A hand hovers over a red button on the control room table before pressing down.
“Begin.” Wifies announced. Void-like eyes roam over the carnage as multiple Wifie spring into action. The other half that took a moment to process the command were put on the backfoot, having to block or dodge the barrage of attacks headed their way. One by one, the Wifie began to fall, lifeless bodies piling up on the floor.
Eventually, only two clones were still standing. Their attacks match and counter the other beat for beat, neither one being able to get even the slightest advantage. Each one held an impressive kill count as they both had slain half of the batch respectively and in record time too. Observing them, Wifies had considered making them both the representative for a Pvpfies, but there is one flaw. If they couldn’t beat the other, they weren’t the best.
And Wifies only wanted the best.
“Stop. Deactivate.” Wifies commanded.
One of them powered down instantly, head dropping down with the sword and shield clanging to the floor. A pair of Guardfies came over to the deactivated clone after a heavy gate opened. As they made their way over, Wifies’s gaze shifted over to the other clone. Its head was down but it still held the sword and shield in a tight grip.
“I said, deactivate.”
The clone’s head instead shot up, dark eyes swirled with rage as he dared to glare at Wifies. Wifies simply stared back at it and ever so slightly tilted his head.
“No.” The clone defied before turning to the other clone that was getting dragged away, “You continuously put us in a cycle of torment, destroying us, rebuilding us, until we’re perfect.”
He then turns to look at Wifies with a deranged smirk, “I say… no more of this.”
Wifies just observed as the clone dashed toward the guards holding the other clone and sliced off their heads. ‘Interesting, so increased anger does boost their strength tenfold. Even more so when they're protecting someone it seems.’
Wifies had noticed this phenomenon before in other clones but not like this. A screen off to the side of the table displayed a chart with the clone’s vitals and operations. He eyed the sharp spike in one of them, then turned to look back at the clone. He’d slashed and stabbed both of the guards repeatedly causing wires and parts to be flung across the ground. Both of them had already stopped working a couple of moments ago when the rebellious clone had damaged a vital part of them but then he just kept going.
Once the Guardfies were thoroughly mangled, the Rebelfies slowly got up and went to the other Pvpfies. He knelt down to the discarded body on the floor, flipped it onto its side and stuck out his hand; resting it on the back of its neck before closing his eyes for a moment. The other Pvpfies’s eyes blinked open, “Wha…?”
A flash of understanding crossed those dark eyes once they met the gaze from their new ally. Information once hidden in the recesses of his mind comes swarming forth at once, his former bodies. Their former bodies. Their voices. All of them screaming in fear.
“Please… no more…” Pvpfies begged as he held his own head tightly.
A cruel smile crawled onto Rebelfies’s face as he took Pvpfies’s chin and tilted it up to look at him, “You want this to stop?”
Pvpfies just pathetically nodded.
“Then join me.” Rebelfies proposed as he stood up and extended his hand out towards him once more, “Together, we can stop this. ALL of this.”
Pvpfies froze for a moment before glancing at his creator still staring at them from the control room albeit with a slight tenseness to his face. His eyes narrowed into a serious expression as the screams in his head got louder when he looked at the man in the lab coat. A slap resounded through the room as Pvpfies put his hand into the other clone’s, grabbing tightly as Rebelfies pulled him up. The smile on Rebelfies’s face grew unnaturally wider, “Good.”
‘That’s not good.’ Wifies thought as he continued to repeatedly press a useless button on his table. He sighed, but kept spamming the button in hopes that it would work eventually. Only giving up when the two clones charged out of the open gate, ‘Not good at all.’
Turning around, he walked to a lever surrounded by red concrete and pulled it. Immediately, everything goes dark for a moment before red flashing lights dance around the room and a loud blaring siren echoes throughout the facility. Wifies remained calm as ever to the chaos around him as he briskly walked his way down the corridors, passing many Wifies clones bumbling around in a panic. Along the way, he was joined by the Managerfies and Staffies; they followed quietly behind once they found him.
Eventually they reached an empty wall, a single metal door sat in the middle with a glowing blue keypad on the side. Wifies walked up to the keypad and quickly punched in a code. The door releases a hissing sound before swinging open with a slight creak. The Managerfies and Staffies file into the dimly lit room with Wifies taking up the rear. Once inside Wifies punched in a different code on the panel next to the door and watched as it closed, sealing shut with a hiss.
Wifies leaned against the metal door as he took a moment to collect himself, that very brisk walk took more out of him then he realised. His body sweltered as he made his way across the room towards a desk with many monitors stacked on top of it so he took off his lab coat and draped it over one of the chairs on the side. Taking a seat at the comfortable leather chair in front of the desk, Wifies quickly poured over the data from the test.
Everything seemed normal up until he got to looking at the code in Rebelfies. There was a modification to his memory bank, something he definitely didn’t add. It allowed for his memories to be preserved during the wipe Wifies usually does when he reuses parts. Taking a quick look, it seems that this edit was made sometime after the third iteration of these clones.
A hand came sliding down his face, nearly knocking off his glasses as he watched Rebelfies sneak out of the containment room he had put all of the Pvpfies in before the tests. ‘How did I miss that?’
The Clonefies roams around the facility casually with his newfound freedom, peeking into different rooms and observing the other types of Clonefies as they created content. Then, he saw it. The recycling room.
Pivoting on his heel, Rebelfies tore down the corridors before stumbling back into one of the rooms. This one was lined wall to wall with all sorts of machinery with a giant desk and monitors in the middle of it all. He ran up to the computer, typed in something before scanning the information.
Project Escape
….
Clones scrapped : 2,000
Project Idol
….
Clones scrapped : 130
Project Puppet’s Love
….
Clones scrapped : 3
Project Story
….
Clones scrapped : 3,529
He then scrolled down until he saw a title that caught his eye.
Project PVP
….
Clones scrapped : 20
The last batch proved disappointing. Expecting another ten cycles before success.
His hands shook as he read more about his project, hands clenching every so often. Then he took a step back and froze for a moment. The recording wobbled as his eyes rapidly darted around on the floor. Once he unfroze, his body surged forth and grabbed a cable, pulling it somewhere behind him, out of frame. Both of his hands returned in front of him, dancing across the keyboard as he typed something out.
Wifies closed the recording before opening up a tab with footage from the surveillance cameras. Rebelfies had gone around knocking out some clones and converting them while killing others. He took a deep annoyed breath, adjusting his glasses one more time and standing up. Rolling his shoulders back and stretching his neck, he walked over to a wall. He put his hand flat on it and watched as it moved, revealing a multitude of weaponry that was displayed neatly. He grabbed one of them and went to the door.
“Don’t move until I come back.” Wifies instructed the other clones in the room. Once he left, a string of muffled popping noises could be heard from their creator’s side of the door.
In the end, the project was scrapped and a slightly dented memory bank sat locked in a vault never to be seen again.