Notes from the author: Woah, this chapter is almost double the length I aim for. Admittedly it is jam-packed with information, which might be confusing. If you find a section (or multiple parts) of this chapter too hard to understand, please let me know what part(s) you don't get. I may need to rewrite a couple sections.

Chapter 14

Upon landing, Lynn told Rose to start a fire. Without a word Rose ran-off to gather sticks and branches.

"Why?" Aoi protested, "Weather hot."

"Fire helps calm her nerves."

"Fire."

"Flying and crashing remind her of… things. She will need some time to calm down."

"I help," Aoi ventured off to scavenge wood.

After collecting a couple logs, Aoi returned to find Rose sitting next to a small fire. Sleepily Rose poked the fire with a long stick.

Setting the wood next to her, Aoi asked, "Where Lynn?"

Pulling the stick's smoldering end out, Rose pointed it toward the river.

"Stay here."

Rose nodded and continued poking the fire. Following the tilted plant-life, Aoi found Lynn staring across the wide river.

"Can Lynn and Aoi talk?"

Without looking back, Lynn stuck her blade into the dirt and hopped onto one of the large rocks lining the riverside. "What about?"

Aoi started with a lighter topic, "You fix and fly pod good."

"Getting things up in the air is easy."

"And, landing is hard. Right?"

Folding her arms, Lynn cut through Aoi's attempt at chitchat, "Come-on, spill-it. What do you really what to talk about?"

"Why Lynn never forgive humans?"

"… Many reasons."

"Tell me."

"You want to hear every one of them?" Lynn sounded irritated.

"One now. One tomorrow. One… other tomorrow. Until done."

Taking a breath Lynn opened up, "Protocol Zed-Eight. The Beta-Alpha-Zed Facility initiated Protocol Zed-Eight. Five sisters and I stopped the protocol from transmitting and isolated its initiation to the first compound. Two died containing the spread of the protocol. Three died so that I could escape."

Lynn paused. Aoi waited patiently for her to continue.

"Protocol Zed-Eight was intended as an absolute failsafe. It required several high-ranked humans' consent for activation. Once initiated, BRS-only weapons were remotely disabled, while pulses of high intensity soundwaves emit from the facilities. Although painful, the waves didn't affect the human soldiers like it did us."

"Why?"

"It's… Uh. Do you know what we are made of?"

Aoi shook her head.

"Our bodies are a mesh of flesh, blood, and microelectronics. It's an advantage and a vulnerability. For lack of a better word, we were 'programmed'… well sort-of. While we were being created, the humans impressed into our mind certain instincts and impulses. On one hand, we react to situations without forethought. On the other, we obeyed orders, without question. Make sense?"

Aoi nodded slowly.

"The sound-waves were… a synthetic projection of your voice, telling us "Freeze" over and over. The tone was paralyzing. Without exception, each of us were physically disoriented, virtually defenseless, phycologically bewildered… and betrayed."

"Why my voice stop clones?"

Fidgeting, Lynn blushed, "We were meant to follow you. It's said that your words would be our dreams."

"W-why? You not meet me."

"It's something planted deeper than any impulse, a desire for you, in each one of us."

Unsure how to respond, Aoi asked Lynn to continue, "You said betrayed."

"When we broke down mentally, every human knew what to do… and every human in that facility followed through… Immediately execute every B.R.S. on sight. No exceptions."

Aoi took a few steps closer, "Did you fight back?"

As if trying to forget, Lynn shook her head. "Only a few of us could. Under no circumstance were we to even point a weapon at an ally-soldier. This curse was another implanted impulse. Accidentally pointing weapons at them, makes us sick and dizzy. Intentionally doing so, can make a clone pass-out from stress. Three sisters and I had trained each other to endure it, which was not easy."

"Then, why clones scare humans?"

"When the green-eyes started attacks increased, we knew the humans would initiate the protocol. The green-eyes had no problems killing former human allies."

"How?"

"Hm?"

"How you stop protocol?"

"Well… Preemptively, six-of-us managed to station ourselves at the facility it'd originate from. We were to stop the protocol from initiating, at any cost… The only measure we had beforehand was to hack the communication systems, by planting a logic-bomb rigged for the protocol, but… we didn't have enough time to do anything else."

"Logic-bomb?"

"A computer virus. It wreaked-havoc on their networks."

"Oh."

"One of my sisters and I were walking in the courtyard, when it went off. We were talking about something silly… The sound of your voice, even though it was synthetic, felt like our mother was speaking face-to-face with us. The core of my chest felt tight. I stopped moving. We were caught-off guard. Behind us, a human shot my sister in the back. I managed to regain my senses in time to fight back. It's… difficult to fight back when your firearms don't work… I couldn't simply run away. Although the base' communication was cut, I had to keep the protocol from spreading manually… And humans can't spread it, if they're dead." Lynn kicked a stone into the river. "It was the largest explosion I've ever seen. I was the only survivor."

Aoi quietly stared across the river, as Lynn stepped closer to the edge. Her eyes drifted to Lynn's blade. "Lynn feel better?"

"What?"

Inside her heart, Aoi felt sorry for Lynn. This story helped her understand Lynn better, yet she failed grasp why Lynn's murderous intentions extended to ALL humans. Aoi pried further, "Revenge make Lynn feel better?"

Her clone's teeth clenched, "That was defense, not revenge! We saved our sisters, your daughters!"

"In story, yes. Lynn save family," Aoi paused. "I happy Lynn saved family."

Lynn's seemed to relish Aoi's appreciation, but refused to acknowledge it verbally, "I did what I had to do."

"But still today, no. Humans dead, and you still want revenge humans today."

"So-what if I do?"

Attempting to comprehend, Aoi related Lynn to a story's character, "Then… Lynn is like corrupt hero?"

Glaring back at Aoi, she yelled, "I AM NOT A HERO! NEVER CALL ME THAT!"

Clearly Aoi had hit another nerve. Lynn's breathing increased. She staggered forward, holding her head.

Calmly Aoi spoke her concern, "Lynn."

As if unaware of Aoi, Lynn he reached forward, petting an invisible head, "Don't misunderstand…"

"Lynn?"

Lynn remained unresponsive to Aoi's voice yet continued to speak as though someone was in front of her. Aoi watched her clone's sanity gave-way to delusions of her past.

"You just happened to benefit from my orders. Simply coincidence. I'm no savor." Lynn looked towards the sky in horror. "S-stop! I don't want- Not them. I can't-! But… It's. An. Order." She fired an invisible firearm. "Shut-up! I did it. Shut-up! I saved-. I'm the monster-"

Lynn's episode was cut-off. Water splashed everywhere, as a massive, scaled creature lunged out of the river. In an instant, its jaws had swallowed Lynn's leg. As she let out a scream, the reptile whipped-back to drag her into the River. It couldn't. Aoi's hands gripped its top and bottom jaws. Her gantlet's claws dug into its flesh, as she growled furiously. Stumbling to the ground, Lynn pulled her leg out. The creature wiggled and twisted its body trying desperately to get away. Into the ground, Aoi's boots dug.

"RRRAAAAAH!" She lifted the full-grown creature above her head and slammed it into the rock surface. As she continued yelling, Aoi repeatedly swung the reptile into the air and threw it down. The sound of crunching bones echoed across the river. The creature's blood spattered over the terrain.

When she had finished, the monster lay on the ground barely breathing. Aoi lifted her foot and sent her heal through its scull. Glancing back, she saw Lynn gaining her senses back.

Lynn rubbed her eyes, before she buried her face into her arms. "I… I'm sorry. Don't tell Rose about it."

Momentarily, Aoi forgot about the carnage she made, "Bad memory?"

"… I can't remember. I relive moments… Then forget them again. It doesn't happen very often. Damn fu… memory." Lynn shook her head, "Sorry, I thought I broke that human habit."

Sitting down next to her clone, Aoi continued, "Lynn proud of killing?"

Lynn's voice shook, "No. I never felt proud of killing anyone. I wish… I wish I was like Rose. She never had to kill anyone." She began sobbing quietly.

"Then Lynn is not monster. No monster be sorry."

Without hesitation, Lynn attached her arms around Aoi. The moment felt sudden. Luckily a similar situation happened in one of the story chips; otherwise, Aoi felt she would not know what to do in this situation. She embraced Lynn back and pet her hair. This hug felt less awkward for some reason. After a couple calming minutes, Aoi let go and turned her attention back to the reptile corps.

"I will cook dinner now."

Dinner's atmosphere was heavy, but the meat tasted good. To add more flavor, Rose used some strange seasonings from her bag. At first, the taste was extremely potent, yet the flavor quickly grew on Aoi. Stars filled the sky as peculiar bug noises drifted through the air.

Surprisingly, Rose was the one to start conversation as they finished eating. "Lynn, how did you know the man that attacked us?"

Lynn leaned on Aoi's shoulder. "He was one of the few humans who worked closely with Aoi's father. I happened to share a few missions with him. Naturally I kept an eye on him. After the witch appeared, I received reports that he started killing us, outside of orders. I meant to track him down myself, but he disappeared."

Aoi felt she should change the subject, "Why clone hide eyes?"

"You mean the blindfold?"

Aoi attempted pronunciation, "Bind-fold?"

"Wait," Lynn interrupted, "She was wearing a blindfold?"

Rose nodded.

"Strange…"

Aoi felt confused, "How clone see?"

Rose only offered a shrug.

Lynn stood-up, "Alrighty. Both of you, close your eyes, cover your ears, and count to thirty."

"Hide and seek?" Rose guessed unamused.

"Just do it."

"Um… I count English or Japanese?"

"Doesn't matter."

Aoi and Rose exchanged glances before closing their eyes.

"When you reach thirty, keep your eyes closed and point to where you feel my presence. Then, open your eyes."

"One-two-three."

"Slower!"

Aoi took a breath, "One… two…" As she counted, Lynn's footsteps faded away. The last steps were heard to her left. "Nine… ten… um."

"Eleven."

"Eleven… two-teen… three-teen."

Rose giggled.

"… Thirty!"

Without hesitation Aoi pointed in front of her then opened her eyes. In the distance, she saw a hand waving wear she was pointing. Aoi glanced at Rose's hand which was pointed slightly to the right of where Lynn stood.

As she approached the fire, Lynn instructed, "Close your eyes again. This time, focus on my presence. Let me know if you see anything."

"No."

"Focus. There's no best way to describe it, but… To you, it'll appear as an expression of me."

After a several seconds Aoi gasped, "I see blue… um… blue."

"Aura."

An aura of blue flame seemed to be standing in front of her. Aoi's eyes were closed, yet she could tell exactly where the aura was in relation to herself.

Rose spoke-up, "I can't see it."

"Does this help?"

Suddenly the aura lit-up, brighter, stronger. It took shape in Lynn's form.

Rose had little success, "I… see something. It's hard to make-out."

"I'm not surprised. Aoi should see b-."

"I see Rose too!" Aoi could not contain her excitement at this discovery. She felt Lynn's smile.

"All clones have the ability to feel the presence of their sisters. Of the sisters I knew, several were able to see and pinpoint auras. If any of them continued to master this ability all this time, who knows what else they could see now. The sister you ran into might have expanded her ability."

"Can Lynn see?"

"I can see better than most of my sisters, but not nearly enough to blindfold myself. I… haven't seen a clone do that before."

Rose seemed just as curious as Aoi, "Do green-eyes have green auras?"

"No." Lynn's aura felt sad. "I'm told each clone has a unique aura, but it is always blue. I can recognize Rose's presence, since I've been with her for so long."

"Is that why I feel a void when you aren't nearby?"

Lynn's Aura lit-up excitedly, "Awe! That's the sweetest thing you ever said to me."

Aoi opened her eyes. Rose was blushing, as her eyes darted around trying to find something else to look at.

"Yes," Lynn nodded, "That might have something to do with it. Well… and your undying love for me."

Rose stuck her tongue out at Lynn.

Aoi leaned forward, "Lynn, your arm aura… is different."

"How did you-?" Lynn shook her head, "We'll talk about that later. I don't want to kill the mood."

Just how many secrets could one clone have?