~When you return to the place that you call home - We will be there, we will be there~

Link, or more like the Hallucination of Link turned real, hung up the office phone, "Okay, Rhett. He's on his way now, but he'll be heading straight here so will probably be here first." Not as if that was a bad thing – it would be a lot easier to deal with them one at a time and as much as Link hated to admit it, Rhett was honestly the more capable of the two so it would be good to get him out of the way. He adjusted his blue vest, eyeing Rhett's orange one. They really needed to find new vests, Rhett's had a hole that had a light stain of blood around it despite their best efforts to patch and clean it... for now though cLink slipped his scarf and vest off, adjusting his clothes and hair to make sure he looked as much like the Original Link as possible (not that it was hard to do) before looking up at his much taller best friend, "You think we're ready? What if they-"

"They won't. I'll be sure of that." cRhett cut off the shorter man in the middle of his sentence, "Those bastards won't get the chance this time. We have the upper hand.. they want to play those games then we can too. And we'll win." He gave cLink a reassuring smile and clasp on the shoulder, "Don't you worry, Buddy Roll. They'll get what's coming to them, then we can go do what we had wanted to do in the first place. It'll be great!"

cLink wasn't so sure to be honest... but then again he never was. He was the one with self confidence problems and he was the first to admit it, so instead he decided to just put his confidence in cRhett. Besides... he was right. They did have the upper hand. They'd been preparing for quite a while, not to mention the Originals didn't even realize that they were alive and now... now they'd get what was coming to them.

cLink's thoughts were interrupted as they heard the front door of the office building open. The Clones exchanged a quick look before cRhett ducked away to hide and start the plan into motion as cLink headed out to go greet the other man.

Rhett couldn't help but wonder what the heck Link did with this keys this time. Really, they needed to invest in something that would help him keep track of his keys and phone and wallet. As he made his way into the parking lot he kept an eye out for the glint of the younger man's keys on the pavement, hoping to run across them quickly so he could get back home to his book. He had been in such an interesting part, he wanted to get back to that as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately there was no flash of keys in the lot and as Rhett pulled into his usual parking spot he also noticed that there were no other cars in the lot as well. Link's car was nowhere to be found and that was very strange. From the sound of what Link had said on the phone, Rhett had been under the impression that his glassesed brother had left something at work, driven there, and then lost his keys in the process. But it looked like maybe Link had meant it was the keys that he forgot in the office but that didn't make sense either... why wouldn't Link have called him to give him a ride to the studio? It wasn't like him to take a cab if Rhett was available. Especially since he ended up calling Rhett anyway...

… Something wasn't right, warning signs were flashing in Rhett's head about how wrong this felt. He just had a feeling deep in his gut that he should turn around right now, call Link and tell him he had something to do and wouldn't be able to help after all. But he really had no reason to think that so just tried to shake it from his mind. Despite trying to tell himself that he was being ridiculous, he still found himself opening the front door of their studio slowly, stepping in cautiously as his eyes darted around for anything that seemed wrong, any sign of danger.

"There you are, Rhett. Did you see my keys on your way in?"

Rhett's eyes made their way up to his friend standing a few feet in front of him and immediately the weird feelings deep in his gut all but disappeared in a wash of familiarity. Sure, the back of his mind still was telling him something was wrong but he couldn't place his finger on it, so he chalked it up to being in the studio when they were supposed to not be. He relaxed quite a bit and closed the door behind him, shaking his head, "No, afraid not, man." He paused a moment and chuckled, shaking his head a little, "Please tell me you didn't loose your phone again, too. We've had enough phone troubles. We really don't need any more crazy ex's trying to kill us or weird hallucination clones or anything."

Link chuckled, but something sounded kind of weird about the normally heart warming sound. In fact, Rhett swore he saw the smile on Link's face uncharacteristically flicker for a moment as Rhett said that, but once again he shoved the thought aside. Every fiber of his being was screaming that something didn't feel right and something about Link was very wrong, but he had no logical reason to think that so ignored it.

Link shook his head and chuckled a little, "No, no... I have that charging in the office. Don't worry, no more crazy adventures for me, thanks." He turned and motioned for Rhett for follow him, "Come on, help me look around so we can head back home. The last place I clearly remember having them was in the break room."

Rhett nodded and followed the shorter man, "Alright, let's start there. Then if we don't find them we can retrace your steps like we did when you lost your phone." But this time they'd hopefully have better luck then their little adventure from before. It felt like just yesterday but was almost a year now. As they walked through the quiet, empty studio Rhett couldn't help but ask, "How'd you get here if you don't have your key's, though?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter. You don't have to worry about that, Rhett. You don't have to worry about anything, soon."

… Woah, wait... what? That answer was... weird. And more then that, Link's voice sounded somehow different. Darker? Colder? He couldn't place it, "What do you mean? Are you telling me you walked?"

Rhett never got his answer. Instead, as they turned the corner to the break room, Link seemed to have disappeared from his vision. He didn't even have time to look around as a strong, blunt force collided with his stomach, knocking all of the air from his lungs and making him double over, clenching his mid-section. Before he had time to react or even get a full breath of air something hard jolted up and cracked him sharply in the face, barely giving him time to register the pain before blacking out, collapsing to the ground.

cRhett stood over him, breathing somewhat heavily from the force he had put into punching and kneeing his Original self but damn that felt so good. cLink was standing to the side, grinning enthusiastically, "Man, that was great!" Gosh he would have never thought Rhett would be so good at that. cRhett cracked a smile as he looked up to cLink, trying to rub both his hand and knee and the same time, "Dang, I didn't realize I had such a hard face. That hurt." He and cLink shared a chuckle before he focused back on the limp figure sprawled on the ground. It was weird seeing himself like that but... at the same time he somehow could tell the smallest differences between himself and that Original, "Okay, Let's get him taken care of. Link will be here soon."

cLink nodded, shifting a little bit to stretch his back before bending down and wrapping his arms around the limp figure on the ground as cRhett grabbed the man's legs. With a grunt they hoisted the man into the are and carefully made their way into the very same room they had initially been stabbed in one year ago today. The room looked very much different now then it did then, however. Since the studio emptied out yesterday, they had been busy at work with getting this room ready. They cleared out some of the furniture to give them more room and brought some other things in that they thought they may need. There was no turning back from this so they wanted to be sure they were completely prepared.

Unceremoniously they dropped Rhett, who hit the ground with a dull thud. He seemed to have some blood on his lip from being kneed in the face but rather surprisingly there wasn't any other apparent injuries from the attack. cRhett moved him up against the back corner wall as cLink grabbed a length of sturdy rope to tie around the man. They made sure Rhett's wrists were tightly restrained behind his back and his ankles were tied in front of him. They also took a gag and made sure it was tight around Rhett's mouth, wanting to be sure that the there was no way Link would be tipped off before he joined the fun as well. cRhett made sure he was positive that not even he could escape from the bindings before the stepped back and admired their handiwork.

After a few moments cLink knelt down in front of Rhett, just studying his unconscious face. Normally the sight of blood would be more then enough to make him pass out but after all he'd been through thanks to this guy and his friend, cLink had developed a sort of immunity to it. That isn't to say it didn't make him somewhat woozy if there was enough of it but his hate for this man was enough to push that to the side. He just studied the man's face... this was the face of his best friend - his blood brother. But yet... it was different. The Clone could somehow just feel that this wasn't his Rhett (just like Rhett had felt something was wrong with Link). Though the face was the same, he saw a completely different person and it sickened him that this murderous bastard was the 'real' version.

A wave of seething hate and anger washed over him and he raised his fist, only to be stopped by cRhett before his hand could collide with the other's skull, "Not yet, Link. We don't want to wake him up. We can't risk him finding a way to warn the other Link or fight back."

cLink softly sighed and then loudly huffed, but nodded, lowering his fist, "Alright... it's just... after what he did to us - to you..."

"I know..."

Any more conversation they may have had was cut off as they heard someone else walking around in the studio. Once again they shared a look and cRhett ripped off his vest and scarf, sprinting out to greet his 'friend', "Hey Link."