Part 8: The Doppelganger Dance
The monstrous silhouette of Jake's doppelganger loomed hazily, a colossus grumbling dully in the distance.
Quasipan prowled the streets of his memory-town with an almost wistful sigh. Inside each of the buildings and towers offered a peek into his past; his past as a normal cat.
In this world, this space inside Quasipan's mind, there were no shadows under which to conceal the truth. A brain could lie to itself to some extent, but not a brain that fancied itself nearly omniscient.
Summoning the figment of the shapeshifting dog had eaten up the very last of Quasipan's psychic stamina; he could no longer fight the intruders. In abject desperation, the only thing left for Quasipan was preserving his fragile ego, no matter what.
But, though he wracked his massive mind, he could find no answer. Even an artisan of godlike talent would still fail without any resources to work with. Quasipan's brain was already groaning for sleep, there was simply no way he could even so much as escape the invaders' harrying with peace of mind, let alone expel them.
And then the plan hatched, willy-nilly, and Quasipan bore his twisted smile once more.
He would sit, in plain sight, and deliberately fill his heart with insane amounts of darkness, dwelling only on the bad, disregarding the good. And then delightful darkness would seep into this plane and wrap everything in it.
Now Quasipan understood, the horrible power of a heart.
"Uhhh… I don't suppose Quasipan gave me the benefit of the doubt when it came to fair duels?" Jake squeaked.
"You smart talk too much," boomed giant shade-Jake. "I don't like big words."
"Oh come oooon, what the hell did a dog ever do to you!?" Jake pounded on the floor in a vain attempt to wound Quasipan's brain. "Lousy… no-good… Hmmph!" he huffed, arms crossed.
"Like, chill out, maaaan. You need to take a nap or something. I can't scratch your belly at this size so I'm just going to step on you, and hope that works."
Suddenly, an idea. Jake knew he couldn't exactly defeat his clone in a fisticuffs brawl. No, the ticket to success here would be… mind games.
Jake shrunk back down to normal size and narrowed his eyes accusatorily. "Prove you're me."
"…Huh?"
"You're Jake the dog, aren't you?"
"I thought my name was Blake."
Grrrrrrrr! "Well, it's not. It's Jake. Cool guys are named Jake, lamers are named Blake, got it?"
"Maybe my name is Ca-"
"Don't you even go there, pal."
"Well, I know I'm a dog. Like you! Let's play!" Shade-Jake began panting and wagging his enormous tail.
Ugh. This was getting Jake nowhere. Time to try a different angle.
"Whatever. Are you aware that you're simply the figment of someone's imagination?"
"Again with the big words."
"You're not real. Dude."
"Wait, if I'm not real, then doesn't that mean… You're not real, either?
"Nope.
"Oh. I guess you're right."
Shade-Jake instantly crumpled into singularity of mind-ink.
"Haha! I didn't miss a single step of my breakdance. Because I didn't even have to take a single step to begin with! I believe the big word you're searching for is: BADASS."
Jake faced away: cool guys don't look at explosions.