Season 1, Episode 5 - The Boxtops XXI - "Clone Mechanics, aka the 100th Chapter Extravaganza"

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Isaac heard the distant pop of the flare gun go off. A red light appeared overhead in the sky, the initial, intense glare basking both the airship and the arena under its glow. And then the members of Team Red were off, all sprinting to their planned, defensive destinations deeper into the arena.

Alfie went off on the left, Coleridge to his right, Audrey to his right, and then Isaac on the farthest right. He looked back and saw Reed staying back with the flag; when Reed originally told them the plan, he suspected she was sticking behind with the flag out of sheer laziness, no doubt miffed about missing yet another Saturday morning's worth of cartoons. Even now, he half-expected her to be falling asleep as the rest of the team went their separate ways.

Instead, her eyes remained resolute, her hand firmly gripped on her sword.

She said she was taking seriously, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe I judge her too harshly sometimes. But maybe that's her own fault. Oh well, she's focused now, so I need to focus now.

As the team members covered ground, Alfie and then Coleridge disappeared from Isaac's view; the trajectories of the four Team Red members took them in a shape similar to a funnel, starting off close together at the flag, then fanning out until they reached their respective destinations. There, they would wait and see, expecting Team Blue’s attack (all according to keikaku, as Reed told them as the football game and their strategy session came to an end the other night).

Isaac saw Audrey gradually go her own way as well; she noticed him looking at her and gave him that high-pressure Audrey smile that mixed her usual cheerfulness with nervousness. Isaac gave her an encouraging thumbs-up; across a growing distance, Audrey sent a thumbs-up right back his way, then she disappeared into her section of the forest.

Isaac kept going. He heard that in larger-scale battle simulations, the teams – entire platoon or even company size – would use bigger arenas within Cushing State Park. In those simulations, they got fancy things like maps and compasses, or could even use the stars above to navigate if the event lasted multiple days.

But with five people per team, Isaac and his teammates could only use their innate sense of Rddhi. The arena wasn’t that big, and by going as far as possible until they reached the limit of sensing a teammate through the Rddhi, Isaac thought that their defenses should be pretty airtight with no gaps Team Blue could charge through. Coleridge and Audrey would be able to sense Reed, so they would always know where the flag would be since she would be guarding it. In turn, Alfie would be able to sense Coleridge, and Isaac would be able to sense Audrey.

All the way at the beginning of the semester, down in the sewers, Isaac only had the vaguest idea of what “sensing” something meant. But two months had gone by since then, and with it came a lot of training. The Rddhi moved through everything, meaning that, since Isaac could feel the Rddhi, he could theoretically therefore feel everything.

To actually feel everything would take a lot, lot more years of training and experience, if it was even possible (Rddhi Theory, according to Mr. Shokahu’s class, taught that such a feat would be impossible, since Class 5s were the strongest users and certainly couldn’t feel everything). But Isaac had come a long way since the start of the semester. Trying to run and sense the Rddhi at the same time felt a little difficult, but when Isaac listened closely, he could sense Audrey’s heartbeat in the distance, currently moving at a rapid yet steady pace. The position of the heartbeat came to a stop as Audrey reached her destination; Isaac kept moving until the heartbeat was at the very edge of his consciousness.

Isaac came to a stop, taking a brief moment to catch his breath from the sprint. He only needed a brief moment, since a lot of the Rddhi training involved running as well.

And it’s not like Esther beating me in that sprint to Curley Park to help Audrey catch that microwave motivated me to get better at conditioning, either.

Isaac took stock of the situation. Brown and auburn leaves crunched underneath his shoes, and sunlight poured through the openings between the treetops of tall oak trees above him. Some shrubbery and bushes rounded out the pastoral, woodland scene surrounding him.

They say no plan survives first contact with the enemy. That’s because war and fighting and all that involves a lot of chance and luck, since we can only operate on assumptions. We didn’t even think about how we’d communicate over long-distances until we actually arrived. And we didn’t even think about what we’d do once we arrived at our defensive spots.

He scratched his head. I guess we all agreed we’d hide and ambush them if they came past, but where? I mean, there’s a bush...

Isaac looked up at a nearby oak tree, with branches perfect for climbing. Well, if Hanai could do it...

Hanai put Rddhi into his legs and feet to make the jump; Isaac tried to feel around for it and do the same, but that was just another thing he’d have to train.

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I’ve been training putting Rddhi into my right arm; I guess I can punch the ground and use the force to propel me upwards, but that might give my position away, since I bet Team Blue could sense a punch like that.

Isaac shrugged; that just left the old fashioned way. Training meant strength-training as well; he put it all to good use by making his way up the tree, strong hands grabbing branches, legs finding solid footholds, and soon he was a good ways up the tree.

Nobody ever looks up.

Finding a nice set of branches to rest himself on, Isaac vigilantly took up his post, scanning for signs of the enemy in the distance. There was a chance Team Blue would be able to sense him as well, but maybe if they rushed past him – as both Demetrius and Lynn could be apt to do – then maybe they wouldn’t notice him. Isaac knew Reed was pretty good at concealing her presence in the Rddhi-

Dammit! Rddhi signature! That's the scientific name for it. If only Mr. Shokahu gave me a word bank on the exam yesterday, I would've gotten it right.

Anyway, Isaac still needed more training.

More training. It’s always more training.

Isaac decided to put some of his past training to further good use. He crossed his legs and closed his eyes, letting himself see and feel the black Rddhi grid stretching before him. Off in the distance, he felt Audrey’s signature, green waves emanating out of her heartbeat, bits of laughter following each wave. Audrey wasn’t laughing at that moment, but laughter was a good way to describe her person, and when you sensed through the Rddhi, you sensed a person’s core.

I wonder what people would see and hear if they sensed me.

That made him think of the enemy, so he directed his senses northward, in the direction of Team Blue. He felt nothing out of the ordinary, just trees rustling, ants crawling, squirrels bouncing around, birds chirping, just nature as it was.

Isaac frowned.

I can only sense so far ahead. I wish there was a way I could go even further, but I don’t want to lose contact with Audrey.

He blinked. I’m smarter than this. I got clones, for crying out loud. Just gotta use them outside of the box. Just another case where you don’t realize something until you’re there.

Making a clone would make a lot less ripples in the Rddhi than a charged fist connecting with the ground, so Isaac felt that he was in the clear to make one. He aimed his fist at the branches of another tree and fired; a line of pure Rddhi sparked from his hand, but in contrast to the wild flares of when he was first getting used to his powers, this beam travelled straight and narrow, just one, solid beam.

Another Isaac coalesced on the branches, and Isaac sent him off on a reconnaissance mission.

I really need to analyze the mechanics on my clones, Isaac supposed. I’ve never sent them far off like this.

Isaac watched his clone bound away, nimbly traveling across treetops – since it was made of Rddhi and therefore not entirely all there, not a solid body of matter, it could move far easier than the real Isaac could.

When Isaac used clones, they felt like extensions of his own body. The clones didn’t have minds of their own – Isaac had to direct them with his brain, just like with any other body part. But through practice and experience, controlling the clones became a little more automatic. You don’t need to think about breathing or making your heart beat – the brain unconsciously, automatically does it for you. So, as Isaac went from being able to make two clones at a time to three, part of the process involved the automation of his clones.

And Isaac didn’t see through his clones. Isaac only saw through his own eyes – anything the clone experienced felt more similar to something like a sixth sense. The clone felt things through the Rddhi and sent that information back to Isaac. You don’t need to see a bird to know it’s there; you could hear its bird calls and understand its presence. Information from clones worked similarly.

But still, as Isaac sent his clone farther away – twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet – he could feel the link between them growing fainter, the clone starting to dissipate. Isaac stopped his clone on a branch and got to thinking.

Looks like I can only go so far. Wait...”I”? Would it be possible for me to put more of myself into a clone? Like...shift my consciousness into it or however it works in the movies? That's certainly out of the box. I put my consciousness into it, explore a little, then come right back to my own body.

…how I would even do that?

Frowning, Isaac decided to focus, because a skill like that would be a hell of a skill to have. He placed his palms together, meditating, trying to see if he could experience more and more of that clone. The clone currently only had part of Isaac’s sixth sense; what if Isaac poured more Rddhi into it, let the clone be able to touch and hear as well, could Isaac extend more of his being into it-

Isaac saw images flash through his very being; himself drifting through an endless, gray ocean of dreams, a green garden at the edge of that sea of creation.

What the-

Then he stood in the middle of his apartment, as if he had just gotten home from school. A picture of a girl Isaac had never seen before flickered on his television, a sad smile on her face, and two other Isaacs – one at his desk, wearing Isaac’s best business casual, the other in a shirt Isaac usually wore to the gym, eating an enchilada – looked back at Isaac, seemingly just as surprised as he was.

Isaac opened his eyes and found himself still sitting on that tree in the arena. He rubbed his head and his chest, feeling like something just ran through his brain and heart.

What was that? Was that real? Who was that girl? And why an enchilada? I’m much more of a burrito kind of guy.

His full bearings soon came back to him and he realized that, even if it was only for a second, trying something like that had left him defenseless.

And my clone disappeared as well. I feel fine now, but how about I don’t experiment with that again until the match is over. Keeping my consciousness in my real body is good enough for now as it is.

With that settled, Isaac decided to send out another clone for reconnaissance, even if the area he could explore was limited. He sent his first clone out to the northeast, pushing it to the limit until it began to dissipate at around forty feet, but he found nothing out of the ordinary there.

He sent another one directly north, but no dice there, either.

He sent one to the northwest, toward the center of the arena-

Hey...hey, wait a minute! That’s a Rddhi signature-

That’s...four signatures? And they’re moving fast!

Isaac hoped the others detected them as well, but then something bright flashed in his eyes, as bright as a second sun.