"Send my regards to King Tut, asshole!"
- Kurt Russell
The exiled princess of the Mugen Tenshi clan and the senior administrator of MIST's bioengineering division didn't get along very well. The two fighters danced in ferocious combat in front of a row of industrial cylinders lined up like pistons. Scattered research notes and an abandoned cup of lukewarm coffee sat on a metal desk on the far opposite side of the lab.
Kasumi's Tenjinmon style traded blows back and forth with NiCO's Pencak Silat. Kasumi caught one of NiCO's punches and twisted her into an arm hold. The fight briefly paused when their scornful, hate-fueled faces were almost close enough to kiss.
"Geek," Kasumi sneered.
NiCO twirled in the opposite direction to slip her arm out of her opponent's grip. Kasumi threw a mid-kick that NiCO caught with her elbow. The fight came to another deadlock.
"Blubber butt," NiCO scoffed back. She had Kasumi's exact body proportions memorized from previous experience.
Kasumi performed a second kick with her unhindered leg to force NiCO to break her hold. NiCO threw a left-handed chop that Kasumi reversed into another grapple.
"Nerd," the shinobi muttered with contempt.
NiCO wrenched both of her arms so Kasumi lost her grip and stumbled forward. She locked her elbow around Kasumi's neck while she was bent forward and applied pressure with her forearm.
"Boobs for brains," NiCO said mockingly to the back of Kasumi's head as she struggled for air.
Kasumi broke free by wrapping her arms around NiCO's waist and slamming her to the lab's metal riveted floor. She tangled her whole body around NiCO's so NiCO was lying with her head in Kasumi's lap while her shoulders were being crushed between Kasumi's thighs.
"Dweeb," Kasumi sneered. She clenched her teeth as she applied more leg strength to stifle NiCO's struggling.
NiCO slammed her elbow into Kasumi's gut to loosen her legs. Both fighters flipped to their feet with their backs facing each other. As their fighting waged on, they moved away from the row of metal cylinders and came closer to an open glass cylinder large enough to contain a single person. Each was so focused on defeating the other than they didn't pay much attention to their surroundings.
Kasumi attacked with a swinging chop, but NiCO reacted and caught her with another arm grapple.
"I'm not going to be beaten by any of you fatty ninjas," NiCO said scornfully. "You can't even beat the calories from a plate of sushi."
Kasumi knocked NiCO with an uppercut that sent her staggering backwards toward the glass chamber. NiCO threw a punch that Kasumi caught by wrapping her hands around NiCO's neck and forearm.
"Why don't you crawl back into whatever tube of Colgate you were squeezed out of?" Kasumi snarled.
NiCO grabbed Kasumi by the shoulder and strafed around her so they traded positions. She noticed what was directly behind Kasumi.
"You're going back in the fish tank, Xerox Bitch," NiCO sneered back.
She drove her knee into Kasumi's stomach and sent her stumbling into the cylinder. She slammed the ACTIVATE button on the tank's side with a spinning kick.
The round glass doors glided around Kasumi to form an airproof seal. Sleeping gas erupted from the circular floor of the compartment and instantly made her slump into a semi-conscious stupor with her back against the glass. The containment unit glowed neon blue as every piece of her fighting attire vaporized off her body, leaving her with only her natural flesh.
Metal piping at the top of the cylinder opened and doused her in a bright green chemical shower. The electronically-charged gel filled the cylinder all the way to the top, causing her bare feet to float off the ground while bubbles floated out of her mouth. She breathed neutrons and synthetic bacterial slime while suspended in a state between awake and asleep. Bands of light skimmed upwards through the glass, scanning the shape of her body and its genetic makeup. The entire lab came to life; one part organic flesh for every 500 parts industrial metal.
While Kasumi was busy getting her organs measured with x-rays, NiCO calmly walked back to her desk nursing a sore spot on her neck. After she sat down, she found the place she had left off in her research notes before being so rudely interrupted. Luckily for her, the morning coffee was still a little warm.
A row of steel cylinders next to the glass chamber cracked open like hydraulic eggs. Identical female figures stepped out of the bio-generators with long brown hair tied in ponytails and ample bodies clad in standard MIST mission suits. There were at least twelve in all.
The rapid-produced clones of Kasumi stood at attention with smiling lips and cold empty expressions in their eyes. They were the domesticated version of the wild original. Their artificially encoded genes made them more demure toward following commands without losing any of their fighting power or the healthy extra weight around their hips and busts. The real Kasumi remained in the glass chamber behind them, slowly spinning like a naked ballerina in a highly irradiated snow globe. She'd be kept as a template in case more copies were ever needed. It was the price she paid for getting on a geneticist's bad side.
NiCO sighed out of the corner of her mouth and motioned her hand toward the lab's exit while hardly looking up from her papers. The clone soldiers took their cue to shoo off and find something useful to do elsewhere in the facility.
NiCO had already been bothered by one Kasumi that day. She didn't want to have to put up with a dozen more of them.