Chapter 47

Darth Vectivus had tried to teach me how to create dark-side phantoms before. With what I already knew and the fact I specialized in illusion, and mind control and had a great understanding of the body I should have been able to create the phantom but it was not to be

I felt a little shame because I would have an easier time adapting the ability of phantom creation to create my own similar skill if Vectivus were alive but now that he was gone, it was too late and I felt like I would shame myself and Vectivus even further if I didn't at least adapt the ability and copy it somehow, to keep it alive.

So I decided to train but also kill two birds with one stone.

I train using the holocube that Vectivus left me on my stealth ship that orbits planet X. I use my skill to make a doppelganger and with the information from the holocube, I change the ability bit by bit. I tested each doppelganger with battle tests, droid attacks, and the force and finally, I sent it down on planet X.

I won't go down to the planet because the whole planet was alive somehow. Even entering the atmosphere called the "veil" caused a strange effect where you couldn't leave the planet unless a certain amount of things had died. It was a great training spot for my doppelganger as the whole planet was alive and the more life there was the better the ability of the force. One of the other problems was that the blue beasts that hunted force users lived here. My force made doppelganger stood no chance agaist them. In the best case, my doppelganger would spot the beast coming and use some lightning or force push to stumble the creature but as soon as the beast got anywhere near the doppelganger they would interfere with the force binding the doppelganger and they would unravel into nothing, the beast didn't even have to attack, being close to them was enough.

Still, it was great training for making doppelgangers and letting them fight on the planet for experience that came back to me. In battle, my strong points are my adaptability, pistol arts and thanks to my droids training me I have considerable close combat fist fighting. My weakness was probably long-distance sniping. I'm not great with that kind of weapon, I'm also terrible at space combat which I leave to my droids.

Here on planet X, I give my doppelganger high-powered disintegrating sniper rifles. They were used to either scare the blue beast away or with a lucky shot to the eye, kill them. It was great survival training where the doppelganger was continuously being hunted by creatures that if they got too close would interfere with the force. A balance of attacking, defending guerilla war between the doppelgangers and blue beasts happened.

I was safe in my stealth ship but I was improving at an astonishing rate. I should have evolved my doppelganger skill sooner to fully take advantage.

I sensed a really interesting way of using force pull that one of my doppelgangers used to escape a blue beast. It used some cloth to make a crude gliding suit and whenever the beast got too close the doppelganger forced jump in the air and then pulled gliding away. I shared that with the rest of the doppelgangers which increased their survival rate.

With this force pull gliding I was able to drop my doppelganger from space. Before this, I would drop them down in a missle tube but now they used a part of the force to protect themselves self entering the planet and glided down. A small piece of cloth was certainly cheaper than missile tubes. With that, I stepped up the creation of a modified doppelganger.

Each doppelganger is weaker than me in the force but they have similar control over the force. They know what I know but there are limits to their awareness. They aren't aware. They aren't able to create doppelgangers them selfs as the power for that was beyond them but I've witnessed each one alter the force to produce wind and lightning. My doppelgangers are master-level alters but it takes too much power that the doppelganger doesn't have but they start making adjustments and make efficient changes.

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I might use a hard blast of lightning to attack but this isn't effective for a doppelganger, they use short bursts of lightning to redirect. I saw a doppelganger use that technique to stun a horn jungle cat that had pounced at it before retreating and leaving the cat alive and passed out.

Each doppelganger is like a battery for the force, they don't produce their own force and once they exhaust their power, they disappear. The phantoms Vectivus was able to create somehow recycled the force and were able to last longer.

I go a different way which greatly increases my ability. I studied Force Meld. It's a technique that Jedi use to join their minds and draw strength from each other. Connecting the doppelganger is stupidly easy. They already share my mind and with a simple force enlightenment, I connect with them.

I connect groups of nine together and me being the tenth. I actively become the power source when their batteries start to run dry. Here is where the explosive growth comes in.

With each of my doppelgangers using Force Enlightenment and their minds connected with the added benefit of Force Meld the growth of any skill the group learns is amazing. It's not just force abilities that get the explosive growth but normal skills like writing and reading get the bonuses. I have created a supercomputer using doppelgangers and the force.

Now the doppelgangers are changing themself to be more efficient and on some occasion are changing their shape. One group of nine doppelgangers are working on Force Lightning. The steps I went through to create a substitute force lightning was being put to shame. I went through many experiments to meld justice lightning that the light side users use with the easier and more powerful dark side force lightning and Ionize to produce deep red lightning that I could use despite not being that connected to the dark side. With my altering skill, I turned my form of lightning into a shield base lightning that attacked and defended at once, this took years. Now I'm watching and experiencing a sped-up version of that. I'm looking at doppelgangers who are warping the air around them selfs with consent changes. One is changing the colour of lightning while another is using that newly gained knowledge to make his lightning strike semi-transparent and then another was able to make it completely invisible. The growth is amazing.

And yet there are side effects, because of the singularity moment where a doppelganger becomes self-aware and fights for control I have to be careful. That's why I destroyed the doppelganger.

After that, I won't let the doppelgangers change themselves as to stop the singularity from happening again. I can't let a doppelganger who knows what I know that has the ambition that I have to compete with me.

That was the great thing about Vectivus Phantom, they were able to carry out instructions and they never rebelled.

However, this new combo of skills was too good to give up, instead, I cut down the number of connected teams. I no longer populated planet X with my doppelganger, I just had two teams of nine using this new method. It was the safest way I could be sure that there wouldn't be any rebellion.

It worked beautifully, one doppelganger positioned itself on a barren hill and was fighting off three blue beasts. The doppelganger was stuck as his gliding suit seemed to be damaged but it hadn't given up, it continuously fired shots from his high-powered rifle and was able to get a lucky shot in the eye causing the beast's head to vaporise.

The world answered the lucky shot by attacking the doppelganger. Everything on this planet was alive and a bolt of lightning struck at the doppelganger but thankfully it was deflected by the efficient lightning-deflecting technique. The doppelganger was now fighting in a two-front war.

The blue beasts were charging and getting closer to the doppelganger which would mean destruction for it and the world itself rejected my doppelganger. When the beast was just in range the doppelganger did something that I wouldn't even have tried. The doppelganger reached up and tamed the lightning, it rangled control and absorbed it and then immediately fired it at a blue beast. Force lightning would do very little to the beast as it was made from the substance the blue beast was immune to. But natural lightning was vastly more powerful than force lightning. You could get hit with force lighting and if you had some talent with the force you could survive for a little while, but natural lighting ripped through the defence, it could destroy nature and buildings and even blue beasts. The doppelganger cast the lightning at one of the blue beasts. Almost immediately it vaporized the beast leaving only the scorch marks on the floor, the other blue beast smartly disappeared leaving one doppelganger triumphant over the blue beast and nature itself.

This was a great discovery and would increase my power. A good day indeed