we’re ready to make you one of us.

[headandhand]

WHO: Open to all Dualizens
WHAT: When Roboclones Attack
WHERE: Anywhere in the city!
WHEN: The night of Oct. 19
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable! And if you happen to end up dead by roboclone, please fill out the death form!

It’s an ordinary night in Dualis, until it suddenly becomes a very dark and stormy night in Dualis. There hasn’t been a single day of unpleasant weather since any of you arrived, but soon after the sun begins to sink behind the city’s skyscrapers and the neon lights intensify for the night, storm clouds begin to gather overhead and unleash a cacophony of thunder, a deluge of rain, and brilliant spikes of lightning arcing across the sky.

It’s a violent storm, to be sure, but surely severe weather is no challenge in such a technologically advanced city as Dualis, right? As long as you stay indoors, you can keep safe and dry until the storm passes.

Except … less than an hour after the storm begins, the power all across the city goes completely out. All buildings are dark except for the illumination cast by lightning across brick and steel and glass. All electronics - including phones - are dead, all biometric locks are disabled, and no attempts to call, text, or reach the internet or the network succeed. Eerily, the streets are silent and empty.

Under normal circumstances, such a widespread blackout would merely be odd and inconvenient, but tonight, circumstances are anything but normal. About half an hour after the blackout begins, something approaches you, wherever you are. In the dark, you’ll be able to make out that its shape is humanoid, but maybe its motions are jerky and mechanical. As it draws closer and you get a better look, by candlelight or flashlight or flash of lightning, you recognize the face staring back at you.

That face is your own.

The face, like the rest of the body, is likely some degree of incomplete, an incongruous jigsaw of metal and flesh, but it’s definitely yours. And this machine doppelganger’s mission is soon made apparent as it launches a targeted attack on you:

It’s here to kill you.

After nearly four hours, the storm subsides and the power is restored and the city falls back into its normal rhythm. Will you survive until then?

May the odds be ever in your favor, friends.

Comments

[bravers]

He wasn't anything to do with him. Of course, he wasn't. Honestly, given everything he'd seen on his world, he wouldn't have put it past him. Somehow- especially given the eyes on this one- an exact match of Sephiroth's own cold cat-like ones.

But a few things aren't right. They're robotic- it's clear that they're machines, even though they've got skin and hair. Sephiroth.. didn't need anything like this. Ever. And as for Squall and Seifer being attacked...

It's got nothing to do with him. So why is he here?

He lifts his head to listen to what he says, and the robot lunges. Its hands don't change or mutate, of course not, but they grasp in the same manner as claws in attempt to reach his throat- his hair- his eyes- anything. It's unarmed, but it doesn't care.

He sidesteps. And as he does- he pulls his sword from the holster- turning his body with it in a long, sweeping, horizontal motion at about waist height. The robot makes a strange sound. It's a cross between a beep and a scream- the sound of severed pipes and cabling sounding with crushed plastic and sillicone.

His gaze stays on Sephiroth.

"...How did you find this place?"

He should be focusing on the robot, because it's not over. It's sure as hell not over- because its upper half is dragging itself along the concrete after him, even though it's leaking a number of chemicals onto the floor in a trail after itself.

[sanephiroth]

Quick and brutal as expected. He's not here to aggravate Cloud further though that may be inevitable. Cloud may be focused on him but he's more focused on the robot. A machine, a clone? Cloud's reaction to it seems to indicate this isn't a normal occurrence. This, the storm, and blackout. A dark thought crosses his mind - is Hojo here? - before he pushes it away.

"I walked." It's a non-answer but he doesn't want to acknowledge this blip in his senses. Doesn't want to do anything about it. In this darkness and with Cloud and clone so near, the faintness of it feels stronger than it should be.

... And he can feel another approaching from the distance. His gaze flicks up, looking towards Cloud but beyond him. His mako green cat eyes too bright in this darkness, matching Cloud's more normal mako blue. He decides against telling him.

"Were there always robot copies?"

[bravers]

"You walked. All of the way out here?"

He doesn't know about the force that seems to bind them together. He's followed it, at this point, a few times. The strange, inexplicable urge to take a different road, a different street than what he normally would when he's out on jobs. Detours. Scenic routes- that both make his device light up with 'where the hell are you going?' messages from his employers. Messages never before received. Messages which are ignored, answered only by the acceleration of his bike, following something inexplicable and something inconceivable until...

He sees him. He stands out, especially here. There's... a few times he's stopped, only to see him either talking with locals, or by himself, or... He's sped off each time. Anxiety, disgust, hate forces him to turn, to force the bike into action, to tear off anywhere but where he is.

He's about to push, to press that further- he must have walked for hours- but there's a hand on his ankle. He makes a sound- a long gasp- his present distress at Sephiroth more than anything else causing the sound to come from him. He swings his sword back around and uses the blunt edge to crush the thing's torso in a crash that echos throughout the warehouse. It's head detaches in a series of sparks, but the arm attached to the torso is still gripping his ankle.

...Stepping out of it is awkward. Really awkward. And the head rolls, open-eyed, to Sephiroth's feet.

It stares upward. And Cloud.... feels nausea. But the same compulsion makes him answer.

"No. They're new."

A pause.

"Look at its eyes."

[sanephiroth]

He just smiles mirthless at the incredulous tone. He's seen Cloud whenever the blond drove right onto the same street on that extravagant bike of his. He eventually learned to just tune the blond out as long as he wasn't attacking. But it did bring to question why he's constantly there. Watching him was his assumption at first, which isn't surprising. But this puts a dent in that theory.

He observes quietly while Cloud deals with the robot he doesn't seem keen on paying attention to. He can't blame him for that either. Sephiroth has always been a larger threat.

A look of disdain is already crossing his features when the head rolls up. Green, cat-like eyes, mirroring his own that widen as he takes a step back in disgust. There's an instinctive desire to destroy it but he refrains. No one has his eyes. No one else should. It's an abomination.

"Hojo?" He queries, looking at Cloud sharply. He dismissed the notion before but now he has to be sure.

[bravers]

It's not just him then. He sees it too. In a way, it's better that he does. He's seen so many things the others haven't- he's begun to silently question everything that he does see in small ways. Ways that aren't obvious enough to make other people worry.

But Sephiroth seeing those eyes- them actually being real- in a way, it's worse. For some reason, something implacable, something he only vaguely knows but can't quite bring to mind, means the knowledge of them being real, scares him.

It's some time until he answers, his head shaking. Violently. Again... he only vaguely knows why it's so terrifying. But he knows it is.

"He's not here. I'm sure."

[sanephiroth]

"More scientists," he hisses low. in the employ of the Head or the Head itself. He has his pride as SOLDIER but he's seen what the procedure does, he's seen what Hojo works on. He'd rather not see that being replicated.

He's about to ask something else when that other blip arrives. He looks up right as a flash of black and silver drops down from above. Another look of digust cross his features when he gets a better look of this... Thing. His copy. The same eyes, the same features, but parts of its mechanical insides exposed. Metal and cabes and showing through skin that didn't generate all the way along his collarbone, arm, and half his face.

His copy stares back at him coldly then its gaze tracks over towards Cloud and it attacks, launching itself forward with the same ferocity Cloud's doppleganger did, arms out, fingers clawed.

[bravers]

He feels the blip too. He finds his gaze drawing upward to the warehouse roof shortly before the thing even drops down. As it does, it lands inelegantly- with a stumble- in a manner which is hardly anything like Sephiroth's practised ease in everything Cloud had became familiar with at Nibelheim.

It's unarmed too. But that's not to say there's no danger. It stares at Sephiroth, and then he's surprised. It turns. And it goes for him? Why him?!

Fortunately, he knows how to get rid of them by now. So he's quick to raise his sword, swinging it horizontally, the same way one would do with a bat. The blunt side is aimed squarely at the thing's head, and the sound of metal striking metal resounds throughout the warehouse. It's off. There's a clang as the head hits a wall some distance away, and Cloud swings the sword's stroke around, turning it in his hands to cleave with the sharp side, straight down.

The body's in two. Centre of balance gone, it's on the floor soon enough- and there's a whirring of gears, the spilling of oil, its arms thrashing around for a few disgusting seconds before it finally stills.]

...The hell.

[Seriously, why?]

[sanephiroth]

[He has to resist the instinctive urge to move as Cloud strikes his copy down, push down the fleeting and irrational thought that no look-alike of his should be struck down so easily. It's not important. Not even the fact that it went after Cloud is important. The fact that they've been copied is. And perhaps they should talk about the elephant in the room eventually. How they're constantly being drawn to one another.]

Good work.

[He steps forward gingerly, using his boot to nudge the robot and kicking it with disgust when it twitched, sending it to join its own head. He clicks his tongue.]

A mockery... [He looks at Cloud, eyes boring into the blond's.] What do you intend to do?

[bravers]

[Seifer's probably going to be pissed to find parts of robots throughout the forge, but it's not as if anything can be done about it. The same way nothing can be done for Sephiroth's disgust either. He's hesitant, and it shows, to reholster his sword in front of him. It's almost as if he expects to be attacked again, but... he does.

Slowly.

And as he's spoken to, he moves his eyes away.]

Probably make sure everyone else is alright.

[It's a crapshoot. Seifer and Squall took his bike, so it'll be hours before he can get back to town. But it feels more preferable than spending time here, with him.]

...You?

[sanephiroth]

[He's seen what happens when one has copies. Though he did not make this one, nor is he aware he possesses any kind of ability to do so, it's still not a path he wants to follow Genesis and Angeal down.]

I'll investigate the area and return.

[He already walked all the way out here after all.]

... I would appreciate some information about these copies if you find any, but it's not necessary.

[bravers]

Alright.

[A brisk nod follows Sephiroth's statement, and it's not like he's ever... actually ever seen a copy. Or, more accurately, known it was a copy. So he's got nothing to say.

He turns- as awkwardly as one can when they're not exactly eager to take their eyes off someone- and tilts his head before responding.]

If I hear anything, I'll let you know.

[There's nothing else to say, is there? Why does he feel like there is?]