“Gods damn it, lay off woman!” Leresa shouted as she deflected another blade aimed at her throat. She had given up on trying to prevent the clones’ movement. After all, she wasn’t nearly as skilled as Leo when it came to photon usage.

Instead, she opted to sense where they were coming from and lay in wait with Rexir and Zare to back her up. The clones were problematic, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

‘Above!’ Leresa grunted as she barely moved her body in time with Rexir’s warning. A long cut went down from her cheekbone to her jaw, and Leresa fell to her knees.

“Leresa!” Zare screamed, summoning her most powerful spell, and using the resulting boulder to crush two of the clones at once.

Maybe they are a bit more than what she could handle. Leresa fought the urge to touch her cheek, and just let the blood drip down freely onto her clothes.

‘Only two left, my dear.’ Rexir’s reassuring voice came through their link, washing over her panic and smothering it out.

“Two? What about the rest?” Leresa stepped back-to-back with Zare. There was a brief respite as she realized that the last two clones were hiding in their void spaces.

‘Leo took care of them. It seems like the newcomer is having quite the difficult time keeping up with those three. He kept throwing the clones into him like they were infinite resources.

So, he’s had to kill even more of them. That’s… sad. Leresa frowned at Leo’s circumstance. “Zare! Heads up! Only two to go!” She shouted. 

A clone took that opportunity to extend a hand towards Zare from her pocket dimension, which was promptly cut off by Leresa and Rexir. “We can’t leave all the heavy lifting to Leo, now can we!?”

---

Red. I was seeing red. How dare this man, who I had never met before, who I had no interaction with-

Dodge. Slash. Half step back. Swipe low. Thrust high. Front kick. My thoughts and actions melded together as I kept up the onslaught on Jason. 

He grunted and tried to retaliate by punching at me, but every time he did I knocked away his arms with my blades.

“What the hell!? It’s been ten years already! Just lay down- urgh! Just lay down and die!” He swung wildly once more and my blade once again swung true.

His arm was deflected, knocking him off balance. I gathered energy around Hazeel’s blade, and swung downwards.

Jason put his arms up to block once more, but he had fallen into my trap. Hazeel’s buster sword sliced through his arms with a fair bit of resistance on his end.

He screamed, although I would bet that it was more from the visuals of having his arms cut off than any actual pain.

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I kicked his armless body to the ground, and placed a foot on his chest to prevent him from moving.

I raised Dantae to the sky, and-

“Stop!” She transformed back and screamed, tackling me to the ground. Hazeel became herself as well, and knelt down next to us.

“Leo, you have to stop. Look at him, he’s just a kid.” Vanessa cradled my head as she whispered into my ear. 

I sat up, and looked at Jason. I sighed as my gaze fell upon him, crying, with various fluids coming from his face. He curled up into a fetal position and turned his back to me, sobbing quietly to himself.

I knew that Vanessa wanted me to stop, but that show just made me want to kill him even more. I forced my feelings to settle down, but couldn’t keep them from showing on the surface, as two tears fell onto my cheeks.

I walked up to Jason, now weaponless, and gave him a hard kick in the back. It didn’t seem to register with him, so I turned to face Hazeel and Vanessa instead.

“Vanessa.” I said through tears, forcing myself to smile. “I guess I’ve become a bit more human now, haven’t I?” 

She said nothing, and instead ran up to hug me. As I felt the last two clone signatures disappear, I cried softly into her shoulder.

---

I took a deep breath inside the White House. It took me a while to settle down, but when I finally did we went inside. 

“Can you sense anything?” I asked Vanessa. She and Hazeel, along with Rexir, had exited their weapon forms and the six of us were now wandering the empty structure.

“No, but I can tell you from working under him that Christian used to put all of his important stuff on the top floor.” she replied.

“Well, it's a start.” Hazeel said, and let me lead the way up to the fourth floor of the building.

Instead of being greeted by another series of rooms, however, the fourth floor was completely devoid of any walls, save for the four that made up the perimeter.

In the middle of the large expanse was a machine, with many wires and tubes coming out of it. I began to walk towards it, when I felt another photon portal begin to open. I almost tried to stop it but… I recognized this signature.

My hesitation cost me as Alison tore through space and stepped into the room. “Oh, there you are.”

She touched down on the floor, leaving all of us in the room in stunned silence. “Honestly, I thought you would go downstairs first. I guess it’s my fault for-”

Her words caught in her throat as she noticed Vanessa. “How the hell did you put her back together!?”

Her stoic demeanor was instantly replaced by one of rage, before her calm and collected expression reasserted itself once again.

“I suppose this makes you a bit more problematic… no matter.” She walked to the machine, and tapped on what sounded like glass.

“Do you like the present? I thought you might.” She was like a runaway train with her words, so much so that I had trouble keeping up with her line of thought.

“What is it?” Vanessa asked. Alison frowned, her pout a more aged version of the one from my memories.

“What, you didn’t even look?” She clicked a button, and the glass turned transparent, revealing a human brain.

“It’s Christian! See, we had a little bit of a disagreement, and I thought I should take charge instead. However, I still needed him to control the Gemini Project Clones, so that’s what we have here!”

She looked down at the glass, and her smile became a frown. “Well, I did need him for the clones.” She took a gun from the holster on her hip, and fired three shots into the tank, which began to leak onto the floor.

“Ah, much better.” She said, walking towards us. My mind felt like it was spinning as she stopped about ten feet from us. “So, what do you say we catch up, huh?”