1321. Pets

Okay, so, a really, really long time ago, like, around Point #532 or something (note: omitted), I found a rabid Barian Dingo (or "Bingo" for short) wandering around outside the palace. The little guy was just so cute, he looked like he wanted to tear someone's face off! In fact, I think he ate a baby right before I found him. He was SO ADOWABLE ~ ! So I decided to keep him as a pet and brought him into my room.

Honest to Don Thousand, I had Bingo for ONE DAY before Nasch found out and told me I had to get rid of him. He accused poor, innocent little Bingo of biting people and giving the servants Barian Rabies! Can you believe it?! Well, obviously I told him that Bingo would never do such a thing, but he insisted that I put him back where I found him. He also said that the day he let me have a pet would be the day the world exploded.

Feeling that he was being extremely unfair, I politely pointed out to him that he wouldn't let me have Bingo, but he would let Mizael, who happens to be almost as quick to violence as I am, have a massive, fire-breathing, time-continuum-manipulating DRAGON, but he didn't appreciate the discrepancy and threatened to kill Bingo if I didn't get rid of him.

Obviously, I gave him a point for that, but I didn't get rid of Bingo; I just hid him in the library. Durbe is the only one who goes in there, and he's always got his nose in a book, so it's working out to be a pretty good hiding place so far.

Anyway, I was really p*ssed off, so I decided that if Nasch wouldn't let me have a pet, I'd get the next-best thing: a clone.

Clones are a little more high-maintenance than pets, and you have to wait for them to grow up before you can do anything with them, but there are a billion different ways that having a body double could be useful. I figured if I had a clone, I could send him to boring meetings, or make him do stupid paperwork, or let Nasch send him out on errands. Then I realized that a clone would be good for something else, too: instant alibi. With a clone, I could do all kinds of s*** and get away with it, and that made me so excited that I just had to have one.

And so, after briefly borrowing Durbe's genetic engineering equipment, I was able to create an embryo using only my superior DNA and the husk of a female cell I swabbed off of Merag while she was asleep. Now, I want to make sure you don't get the wrong idea; the ONLY reason I took the cell from Merag is that she's the only female Emperor, and I needed one. THAT'S IT. There were no ulterior motives involved. So get off my case already! Geez.

Anyway, I stuck the embryo in a Barian crystal, hid it in the Horticulture section of the library (not even Durbe goes in there), and waited for it to get old enough that it could take care of itself when it woke up. And whaddaya know, that day just happened to be today! So I decided to move the crystal back to my room and start the delicate process of getting my now-about-ten-year-old clone out of there. I say "delicate" because if the crystal cracked even a little bit, there was a chance that my clone would get messed up somehow, and I really didn't want that. It would be embarrassing.

Well, I was literally about to start when the door to my room swung open with a bang. Guess who it was? Guess. I'll give you one try.

Yep, it was Nasch. He came storming into my room and then stopped in his tracks, staring at me. He then asked me what the f*** I was doing, and I told him I was trying to get my clone out of this Barian crystal. He then asked me why I even made a clone in the first place, and I told him to GTFO of my room. Instead, he started yelling at me about how there was no way he was gonna tolerate two of me running around, and then I got really mad and started yelling about how grossly unfair he was, so Nasch called me an insane psychopath and I called his mother some unpleasant things, and then somehow we were throwing punches and Nasch let out a blue lightning bolt, which I dodged.

Then I heard this sickening cracking noise.

I turned around, and sure enough, there was a giant fissure in the crystal. It slashed right across my clone's chest, gaping like an open wound. For once, I forgot about Nasch and ran over to the crystal, working on dissolving it. I was not gonna let my ten years of hard work die, dammit!

Eventually, I managed to free my clone, but the damage was already done. He had a huge crack running across his chest, and he was taking a while to wake up, which was a bad sign. I even gave him a little bit of my energy, and it still took him a full minute or two to open his eyes. When he did, I was a little surprised. His eyes were violet, just like mine, but they were wide, bright, and shining with innocence. In short, they were… cute.

It was at that point that I knew something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

I started to turn around to vent my anger at Nasch, but my clone suddenly wrapped his arms around my neck and squealed, "Daddy!" I tried to pry him off, but he just wouldn't let go! I haven't been so totally unable to push something away from me since I got a Barian leech stuck to my face. While I struggled, Nasch just stood there, smirking at me. I told him it wasn't funny and that he probably made my clone retarded, but he just laughed and said it was my genes that did that. I grudgingly admitted that I walked right into that one before flipping him the bird, a gesture that my clone immediately copied with a giggle.

Seizing my chance, I wrenched his other arm off of me and pushed him what I thought was a safe distance away. Nasch rolled his eyes at me and said that Merag would probably get mad at him if he killed my clone, but he made me promise to take care of him entirely on my own and to not let him get into any trouble. I told him I could only guarantee one of those things, and he growled and stomped out of the room. My clone waved at him cheerily, and I told him to cut it out.

And that is how I ended up with a messed-up clone because of Nasch. Now he'll only be able to pass for me if he's wearing my cowl! I swear, I almost abandoned this whole point system right then and there. I am getting so tired of this s***!

Although my clone does seem to know a lot about horticulture, which is useful, since I've decided to start growing some mutant Venus flytraps. Never know when they might come in handy.

1322. Dueling Lessons

News travels faster than the speed of light on Barian, so by the time I'd finished telling my clone exactly how much to hate Nasch, all of the other Emperors had already heard about him and started dropping by my room. And they didn't go away when I told them to, either. They actually started playing with my clone! Apparently they think he's cute or something. And the little brat just sat there and let them fawn all over him with his stupid adorable-eyes, like some kind of puppy. Frankly, I was too ashamed to even try to stop them. Alito showed him some boxing moves, Girag told him some stupid story about raccoon-dogs, Durbe brought him a copy of "The Legend of King Arthur" from the library, Mizael made him a freaking dragon plushie, and then Merag showed up and started cooing and making ridiculous noises, cuddling him and expressing her immense sympathies that he had to be my clone. I was about to retort when my clone suddenly asked her, "why are you sorry? My Daddy's nice, isn't he?" And then everybody stopped talking.

Merag eventually told my clone that he's "just too cute" and asked what his name was. It was then that I realized I'd completely forgotten to give him a name, a fact that my clone immediately pointed out to everyone. Merag got all huffy and started glaring daggers at me, so I decided I had to make something up.

I ended up naming him "Hector." Not very creative, I know, but I was under pressure! Hector liked the name, anyway, but I get the feeling that I could have named him Billy Bob Thompson and he would have been overjoyed.

Anyway, it was somehow decided that Hector had to learn how to duel, so the others all wanted to give him dueling lessons. I was given absolutely no say in the matter, even though I told them that I should be the one to teach him to duel since I want him to duel like I do. But of course, no one around here listens to either me or Common Sense. They ended up drawing names out of another one of Mizael's weird dragon vases, but Alito accidentally grabbed two slips when he reached in, so both Merag and Durbe felt like they had equal claim to the honor (?) of teaching Hector how to play Duel Monsters. Seeing this as a chance to maybe fix some of the damage they were bound to do to my extremely impressionable young clone, I suggested that the two of them face off against me and Hector in a tag-team duel. That way, I could tell him to do only what he saw me do. Miraculously, they agreed, so I loaned Hector my Shining deck and told him to watch and learn.

However, the duel turned out to be extremely pathetic. Durbe would spend hours explaining everything he did, why he did it, when a card's effect could be used, when it could not be used, when it could be used but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to use it, why the cards are color-coded, the different breeds of Kuriboh and all their effects, and the joys and wonders of the mysterious Standby Phase. I felt like I was listening to a dissertation.

And then Merag went extremely easy on Hector but totally tough on me. She made sure to only attack his monsters when they were in Defense Position, and whenever he attacked her, she "forgot" to activate her face-down cards. I told her that I didn't want him to learn how to be a pansy, but then she just started blasting away at me. It was like I was a target and her Duel Disk was an AK-47. Luckily for me, Hector's desire to defend his "Daddy" and his apparent rapt attention to Durbe's lectures quickly turned him into a major threat, so Merag started to take him seriously. Then we were able to both go after her and knock her out of the duel. At some point, Durbe finally got tired of talking and started playing, but he was only able to beat Hector before my Masquerade got to him.

Was I happy that I won? Yeah, but I felt like I wasted a whole lot of my time. So I decided to blame Nasch, because if he hadn't told everyone about Hector, we wouldn't have had that terrible duel in the first place.

1323. Redecorating

Now, I admit, I wasn't quite sure what to do with Hector once it was time to go to sleep. My room is pretty small, and there isn't really any place for him. Plus, I've noticed that his chest deformity makes strange whistling noises when he sleeps, kind of like snoring, but… creepier. So I lugged him over to the library and threw down some blankets in the Horticulture section, which he was perfectly okay with, seeing as he grew up there.

However, the next morning, Durbe just happened to want a book on planting Barian daffodils (don't ask me why), so of course he stumbled upon Hector and ran off to tell Nasch. Later in the morning, I get an extremely angry Nasch and Merag at my door, demanding to know why Hector was sleeping in the library. I told them that I really didn't have room for him, and Nasch told me that was B.S. and almost launched into a tirade, but Merag stopped him. Shockingly, she agreed that my room was too small for two people, and suggested that they build another one for Hector. Nasch looked like he wanted desperately to protest, but Merag totally shut him down. In fact, she even got him to redecorate the rest of the palace, too. That was probably her real aim from the beginning. I personally don't know why redecorating would be necessary, but it is apparently going to happen.

Nasch's only condition was that I do most of the work on Hector's room myself, which I strongly objected to. I was fine with letting him sleep in the library. But no. My opinions apparently do not count for jack around here.

1324. Redecorating (Part II)

Well, today I learned why Merag wanted to redecorate: apparently, Alito's been working on a floating crystal chair for himself, and, having already decimated what used to be the rock garden in order to get the material he needs, he's been taking it from the walls. I was actually surprised; at first, I thought Merag had finally discovered the crude symbols I drew on the walls of her room in invisible ink about a year ago. However, it looks like my secret artwork remains gloriously undiscovered.

Anyway, basically the extent of the redecorating was to fill in the holes in the walls and knock down some other walls to make a room for Hector, since it's not like we could repaint or get new carpet. We've been here for at least ten years and we still have neither of those things.

Alito was the source of the problem, so he got assigned to hole-fixing duty with Durbe, Merag, and Mizael. Since Girag is a big dude, it made sense to have him help me tear stuff down… but I really don't understand why Nasch had to work on the new room with us. He claimed that he wanted to make sure I didn't destroy anything that wasn't supposed to be destroyed, but I pointed out that if I was gonna destroy something, he would be powerless to stop me, anyway, since he'd already delivered the power-drill into my capable hands.

A short scuffle ensued, and my drill was replaced with a staple gun. I wasn't sure what we were gonna use it for, but whatever. If Nasch didn't want me to do anything, I was perfectly fine with not doing anything. So I mostly sat there and taunted him and Girag while they worked. When Nasch complained that I wasn't helping, I stapled his cape to the rafters and ran off, cackling.

I knew Nasch would probably destroy me if he managed to free himself, so I took a quick trip to the library and spent a couple of hours playing with Bingo. Eventually Hector showed up with a grilled-cheese sandwich that he said was for me, but the bacon smelled a little… strange, so I was immediately suspicious. Turns out Merag was trying to lure me out with food, most likely so that Nasch could turn me into a pile of finely-ground rubble… although Hector assured me that, "meaning well," she just wanted me to see the "wonderful" job everyone else had done.

Well, I was kinda already getting bored, so I decided to leave the library anyway, but I told Hector to burn the sandwich. I have to admit, it did look pretty good (she's been improving recently) but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Surprisingly, the others did a pretty okay job with the redecorating. It's hard to change things up when the only color available is red, but the new walls looked tasteful nonetheless. Of course, the areas that Mizael worked on happen to have suspiciously dragon-shaped splotches all over them, but otherwise, loathe as I am to say this, the place looks pretty snappy. The funny part is that Durbe was actually the one to do the designing; he claims that he was only good at it because he read a book on the subject, but I think it's really because he secretly yearns to be a housewife. With Merag as his husband.

Anyway, the rest of the Emperors fixed the walls and made a little room for Hector right next to mine. I actually kind of complimented them a little, but Nasch was still pretty mad at me for some reason, so he chewed me out. At least now he knows not to ask me to help with things. There was something a little odd about him, though, which I didn't notice until later...

1325. Nasch's Cape is Still Stapled to Hector's Ceiling

Apparently he had to take it off just to free himself. Which, honestly, is pretty hilarious.

The best part is that he's just leaving it there. Turns out Nasch is the kind of weirdo that has spare capes lying around. I gotta admit, this is one of the funniest things that's happened all day.

But Nasch didn't seem to agree with me on that. Hence the point. You know the drill by now.

Author's Note: Wow, this chapter is really long. Way too long. And I had a hard time coming up with a punchline. *shakes fist* Why are you causing trouble for me?! This is supposed to be the stupid easy fic! *sob*

Anyway, say hello to Hector, Vector's totally kawaii-desu clone. The reason I've added him to the story is that I, personally, have never been satisfied with Vector's flippant "oh that was just my clone" explanation of how he was able to be in two places at once. One does not simply say "that's my CLONE" and leave it there! Legitimate clones are a really big deal. They're living, independent organisms, pretty much exactly like children but with only one parent's DNA. Knowing that canon was never going to give me the in-depth explanation that I wanted, I decided to make it myself, and Hector was born (?).

On that note, I would like to state for the record that cloning had nothing to do with anyone's suggestions, but I would still like to thank Charlotte Ink for 1321, Durbe the Barian for 1322, and FairyLyte for 1323 and 1324. If you have any more suggestions, GIVE THEM TO ME! *waves around a squirt gun* Gimme the suggestions now, or everyone here gets it! (Just kidding. I do really like suggestions, though…)