Circus could hardly believe what had just happened. That was Jenny, right? She was now alone in the room. The dark corner where Dark Jenny stood was lit up by the moonlight shining in from a brand-new hole in the wall. She looked back out of the hole in the wall she was sitting on to try to spot the two Jennies but couldn't see anything.
"New girl!" Plural's voice sounded from behind her.
Plural ran up to Circus and stopped to behold the damsel in distress. Circus looked at her in disbelief. Like with the appearance of Jenny's blue signature, it was still dawning on her that these people came to save her. Plural was wearing winter clothing, and Circus only now realized just how cold she was.
"I knew that was you!" Plural continued.
Circus looked back outside at the flare she'd fired. It was almost invisible now. She looked back at Plural who was gesturing for her to come down.
♦
Jenny's hand was gripped tightly around Dark's neck as she exited through the bunker's thick walls. She adjusted her flight path upward to carry her to the distant mountains. Dark Jenny needed a second to adjust to what'd just happened to it and looked happily excited at this development.
"I found you, faker!" Jenny angrily said mid-flight.
This was the first time she'd met the thing again since all the way back in her garage. She scanned Dark Jenny up and down until her eyes locked onto its signature. Dark Jenny put its hand on Jenny's arm in an attempt to get her to let go, but Jenny knew better now. She wasn't scared like last time. Her copy didn't have the strength to pry her own arm off.
Apparently going for plan B, Dark Jenny gave a friendly wave and disappeared in red sparkles. Jenny was already locked on and teleported to follow, parking her foot into Dark Jenny's side and kicking it into the closest mountain with enough force to create a cloud of snow around the impact area. She might've just started an avalanche or two, but she didn't care. Jenny teleported in front of Dark Jenny, who struggled to remove itself from a small crater in the mountain rock. Jenny's shoes made a loud thump when she landed.
"I'll be the last thing you see!" an enraged Jenny spoke.
She could spot a childlike wonder in Dark Jenny's eyes, like it was enjoying this. Did it let Circus fire a flare on purpose? If it wanted to fight so badly, why wait until now?
Jenny looked up into the sky when she felt raindrops. For a moment, she thought it was the creature from the frozen lake again, but this time, it just rained normally.
♦
"She's here! She's fine!" Plural said like she was talking to someone on a radio, holding one finger underneath her ear.
"…underdressed…"
"We need a warm place, and food."
Circus was facing the room she woke up in, wearing Plural's winter coat. She looked over her shoulder at Plural who waved at her.
"Saturn says hi!" she took the small microphone of her headset with her fingers and wiggled it around.
"We're gonna get you warmed up! Let's get out of here!" Plural said.
Circus didn't look happy. She pointed at the room in front of her. Plural gave her a puzzled look before following her inside. This room was much darker than the one they came from, for lack of damage to the walls.
"Ah…" Plural said as she realized Circus wasn't going to be the only rescue.
"I couldn't get them to wake up… we can try one more time," Circus explained.
Plural approached the unconscious civilian that was next to the spot Circus woke up at. She felt his neck to find a pulse, then shook him. The man opened his eyes wide and woke up in a panic. He breathed heavily and looked at Plural, who was sitting next to him on her knees, and Circus, who was spectating from further back.
"The fuck?" was the first thing he said.
"It's okay, you're safe now," Plural told him.
"I don't feel safe, who the fuck are you?" he said.
He got up into a sitting position, prompting Plural to back off. He looked around the room at the other victims.
"Where's the silver-haired-" he said before he grunted and pulled up his shirt.
"The fuck did you do to me?" he yelled as he revealed his wound. His was not frozen and still bled a little.
Plural looked back at Circus to give her a look that suggested she didn't want to interact with this man anymore. She figured it'd be better to wake up the others first.
♦
Dark Jenny pried itself free of the rock and braced itself to jump at Jenny. It produced a small shockwave when it dashed forward but hardly covered a meter of distance before Jenny teleported into its path, grabbed it by the neck and slammed it back into the rock. Jenny knew that hurting it like this didn't accomplish anything and even served to deplete her own reserves faster than those of her opponent. But she couldn't help herself.
Dark Jenny disappeared and Jenny felt its foot in her back. Next thing she knew, it was her own face that was planted into the rock. To top it all off, she felt a hot laser push her through and out the other end. Before she could balance herself and find which way was up, Dark Jenny appeared in front of her again for another kick, which she blocked with her arms. Jenny now knew which way was up, because that's where she was launched.
Dark Jenny looked like it was having the time of its life. If it had a tail, it would probably be wiggling it. Jenny wasn't enjoying it as much, but she was rational enough to know that baiting Dark Jenny into spending energy was a good thing, even if it meant taking the hits.
It turned its hair red, and Jenny noticed it took multiple tries, like a car with a bad starter motor. Was that an imperfection from when it copied her? Jenny turned her own hair blue, but she could do it smoothly.
With her flight mode enabled, she leveled herself in the sky and watched as Dark Jenny shot itself up at her like a bullet. Gravity dictated that Jenny didn't need as much energy to retaliate. Lightning crackled through the clouds not too far away from her as she fired herself down to meet her opponent.
♦
Tatters knew the city well and was able to pinpoint roughly where the flare she saw was fired from. She stopped her trike near the old bunker, hidden from view by some broken walls. It started raining just as she arrived, and she could hear thunder in the direction of the mountains. She watched the sky color purple from the two objects circling each other. One pink, one blue. Sometimes they fired lasers at one another, creating a low rumbling sound in addition to the sound of thunder. Sometimes they teleported across the sky and sometimes they made physical contact.
From this perspective, they were like two deities that Tatters couldn't even hope to touch. But there were two, just like what the robot in the old town center told her. Tatters looked away and set her sights on the bunker. She heard muffled yelling coming from inside.
She approached the bunker and climbed onto the exposed roof. It had holes in some places where she'd be able to gauge what was going on inside and make her entrance. She got close enough to recognize one of the voices as Plural, the girl she spoke to after she first fought Jenny. She drew one of her daggers and tried to build up the resolve to use it to threaten the girl for Jenny's secrets. Plural was no soldier, but in her eyes, she was not innocent either.
"Calm down! We're trying to help you!"
Tatters could hear the girl talk. She moved across the roof to find a gap she could look through. She found Plural holding a girl that looked to be in bad shape. Plural had given her warm coat to the girl and was shivering herself. She was talking to a man who had a gun pointed her way, he looked like a cartel member. There were others, too, looking about as bad as the girl who was wearing the coat. They were all scared.
"I saw you on the news! You're with the robot!" the man said to Plural.
Tatters tensed up. He knew more than she did.
"Yeah. I'm informed," he added.
"The one that took you wasn't her!" Plural said, not very confidently.
Tatters looked at the two objects fighting each other in the distance again. Every word she heard made her feel more conflicted about the matter. One thing was certain: she had to interrogate Plural. And for that, she couldn't let the man kill her. Tatters grabbed a custom-looking explosive from her pouch and primed it on the roof, right above the point where the man was standing.
"Step away from the girl! We're all getting out of here!" the man ordered Plural.
She didn't hear Plural respond.
"Five," the man started counting down.
"Four"
Tatters covered the explosive with her cape and applied her pink power to it.
"Three"
She pressed the button through the cape, causing a relatively small explosion that blew a hole in the roof, dropping her and the debris right on top of the man.
"T-"
He tried to get up with her weight and that of the rocks on top of him. Tatters moved her dagger and prepared to stab him in the neck before she was interrupted by a panicking Plural.
"Don't-"
Tatters looked up at her to find her clinging on to her friend like a scared child. The other people in the room either had the same look in their eyes or were looking away. She flipped the dagger in her hand and knocked the man unconscious with the hilt instead. Then she took his gun and removed the magazine, throwing it away.
"It's okay, Plu," the girl was now comforting Plural instead.
Tatters noticed the girl had traces of dried-up blood underneath the coat she was wearing.
"T-Tattletale!" Plural looked at Tatters in shock. She'd apparently learned her name from other people in town, almost.
Tatters looked around the room at the other victims. She recognized one of them as the girl the figure was carrying by the leg the night before. She turned back to Plural and the girl with the bloodstains and walked up to them, dagger still in her hand.
"What's your relationship to her?" Tatters asked the girl.
"This is-"
"Not asking you!" she cut Plural off without looking at her.
"We're friends," the girl said.
Believable enough. This girl just called Plural "Plu" a second ago. Tatters was struggling to hold on to her narrative that featured Jenny and her friends as the target of all her frustrations. Even in dialogue, she couldn't stop losing.
"Do you know her?" the girl asked Plural.
"Her name's T-"
"Tatters!" she stopped Plural from getting it wrong again.
"Right…" Plural said.
"Tatters… Wait, you're the black cape! I know you!" the girl said excitedly.
"Wait, I know where we are!" she looked at Plural and said less excitedly.
"What were you doing here?" Tatters asked Plural.
"Saving my friend. This is Circus," Plural replied.
Tatters looked at Circus again. So Plural's friend was kidnapped too…
"Jenny is engaged with Dark Jenny right now," Plural continued.
"I saw…" Tatters replied.
She stepped back and looked at the other victims again.
"Is everybody okay?" she asked the crowd.
They responded unenthusiastically but implied they were okay. The man she'd just knocked out was surprisingly talkative in comparison. One of them showed her his stomach wound.
"We all have the same one," Circus said.
Tatters looked back at her to find her presenting her wound.
"Is it bad?" Plural reacted in shock.
"I don't know, I can't feel it… Dark Jenny said it wasn't gonna kill me, I think," she continued.
Plural had a dark look on her face like she knew something.
"It told you that?" Tatters asked Circus.
"It didn't really speak, so I don't know for sure," Circus replied.
Tatters looked at the other victims and wondered what the purpose of the wounds was. They looked scared and didn't say a word.
"Get them out of here," Tatters said to Plural as she walked out of the room.
"Wait!" Plural yelled. She watched Tatters walk away and she looked back at the unconscious man under the rubble, and the disassembled gun on the ground.
Tatters made her way back to her trike and took her crossbow off the side carrier, mounting it on her back. Plural came running outside to follow her, with Circus trailing behind. The rain was soaking them fast.
"Wait! What are you gonna do?" she asked.
Tatters looked her in the eyes but didn't respond. Before she arrived at the bunker, she was going to kill Jenny. If she found two Jennies, she'd kill them both. Her short conversation with these two girls only put another dent in her resolve. She couldn't bring herself to tell Plural the truth. Maybe she didn't know what the truth was anymore.
"Thanks for saving us…" Plural said.
Tatters looked up at the sky, into the pouring rain.
"I can't remember the last time I saved anybody," she mumbled.
Plural looked at Tatters inquisitively, probably trying to understand her cryptic words. Tatters looked back at her. Plural looked familiar somehow, even though they'd never met before today. Her eyes were welcoming instead of fearful. There was no judgment in them.
"You wanted my help?"
Tatters tossed the keys of her trike to Plural.
"You can fit everybody if you drive slow," she said, pointing to the vehicle's long saddle and relatively flat hood. Tatters didn't envision herself surviving the night no matter what happened. She didn't need this vehicle anymore.
"Leave the man," she added.
Plural examined the trike. The rear showed traces that it once had four passenger seats facing outwards. The damaged mounts on one side looked like the seats were violently ripped off at some point, but the mounts were left on. The other side had them cleanly removed to make room for the side carrier.
Tatters walked off, into the direction of the two colorful objects in the sky.
She was stopped again by Plural grabbing her arm. She looked back at her, almost offended that she stopped her. She didn't want to have to explain herself to this girl. Plural looked back with a tense expression, and Tatters figured she wasn't going to drop the subject.
Instead, Plural hugged her. Tatters' body froze up. This wasn't on the list of things she expected her to do. It felt nice. She tried to recall the last time someone ever touched her without the intention of hurting her, and she couldn't even remember. Tatters felt her eyes watering up again.
"I don't know what's going through your head…"
Plural let go of her. Tatters expected her to convince her to spare Jenny. She looked away when she felt she was getting red.
"…but don't die, okay?"
Tatters couldn't respond anymore. Not without her voice coming out sounding funny. She took a few steps back, turned her back on Plural and then ran off in the direction of the light show in the sky.
♦
Jenny's foot had made contact with Dark Jenny's face more times than she could count now. And Dark Jenny wasn't able to return the favor. It was clear that Jenny's mastery of her own body was far better than that of her opponent. Nevertheless, the point was to force Dark Jenny to spend energy. And with the way things were going, it was doing exactly that.
The two had been engaged in the sky for a while when Dark Jenny's eyes lit up again. Jenny caught the tell immediately and followed up with her own, causing the two lasers, when fired, to collide halfway. This was easier to pull off than Jenny thought, as long as she wasn't too far away and made precise eye contact.
This sort of situation was exactly the kind of energy drain she was banking on. She wanted this to last as long as possible. Dark Jenny, however, probably had some idea of what Jenny was doing, and eventually yielded, causing it to eat Jenny's laser and slam into the frozen lake, crashing though the ice and into the water.
Jenny followed and couldn't spot any large pieces of broken ice to indicate they were close to the location of the creature under the water. They were probably at some other part of the lake now. Dark Jenny was still underwater. Jenny landed on the frozen lake and circled the hole in the ice.
"How's it going?" Jenny asked on the radio.
"Better. We got ourselves a ride back to the city," radio-Plural said.
"What? How?" radio-Saturn replied.
"Tatters gave me her bike-thing," radio-Plural said.
Jenny listened as she watched Dark Jenny climb out of the water.
"Who's Tatters?" she asked on the radio.
"The black cape- Why did she do that? What happened?" radio-Saturn dismissively answered Jenny and continued to ask radio-Plural for an explanation.
"Long story… We have the other kidnapping victims too. We're taking them back to the city and then we're coming to you. Did you get a car?" radio-Plural said.
"I might, if I get this thing started…" radio-Saturn answered.
Dark Jenny drained its hair of excess water and waved at Jenny again. It wasn't attacking her anymore, perhaps because it figured out what Jenny was doing. It didn't matter. Jenny could just follow it around.
"If you do, crank up the AC. We're wet and freezing," radio-Plural replied.
Jenny and Dark Jenny started circling each other around the ice, while Jenny held the button on her headset.
"So how are things on your end, Jen? I don't see anymore fireworks," radio-Saturn asked.
"Calmed down. I'm still staring it in the face," Jenny replied.
She held up an item in front of her, to show Dark Jenny. It was the black tiara. Dark Jenny perked up in surprise and felt around its head to find it missing. Jenny crushed it in her hand.
"This might take a few more hours," she said, both to her friends and to her opponent.
"How do you want to handle the emerald when the time comes?" radio-Saturn asked.
"I'll have you press the armband so I can find you," Jenny replied.
"But I lose my lock-on when I go too far, so you'll have to get close first," she added.
"I'll come to you when we have Circus," radio-Saturn said.
Jenny felt nervous about the plan. This was the first time she had to rely on others to help her out in straight up combat. Dark Jenny had sat down on the ice at this point, studying Jenny intently. Jenny didn't sit down and instead paced around nervously with her hand still on the button, even though she wasn't talking anymore.
"You should vlog your fight, Jen. Clear your name," radio-Plural said.
The idea piqued Jenny's interest. She'd completely forgotten about that. If she killed Dark Jenny right now, she wouldn't be able to prove her own innocence. Jenny took out her phone and opened her camera app. It started in selfie mode and depicted Jenny nervously looking into the camera. She tapped the button and switched to the main camera, depicting Dark Jenny on the ice. She pressed record. The footage showed Jenny's hand pointing at it.
"That's the one! Fake Jenny is real and it's right there!" she yelled.
Dark Jenny waved at the camera.
"It's even wearing the outfit, and-" Jenny pointed the camera down at the broken pieces of tiara.
"I broke it…"
She switched to the front-facing camera again and pressed her radio button again.
"What do I say, guys?" she looked nervous again, still filming.
"Did you get both of you in the frame at the same time?" radio-Plural asked.
Jenny, still filming herself, turned around to capture Dark Jenny in the background with her.
"See?"
She tried putting up two fingers to make a peace sign but remembered the murder photo Dark Jenny took where it did the same thing.
"Oops…" she said while pulling her hand back.
Jenny pressed her radio button again, still filming.
"Anything else I should film?" she asked as Dark Jenny's laser cut her phone in half.
Jenny stared at it in horror. Only the bottom half of the phone remained, and she wasn't streaming the footage.
"Maybe you should fight. Can you film while it's in your pocket?" radio-Plural replied.
Jenny didn't respond. She looked at Dark Jenny, who looked like it knew exactly what it just did.
"Jen?" radio-Plural asked.
"Maybe you guys can shoot some footage from a distance…" Jenny replied.
"What happened?" radio-Saturn asked.
"I don't wanna talk about it…" Jenny pouted.
All she could hear then was her friends' laughing clipping the levels on her radio. She didn't find it very funny herself.
"Mean to me…" she said.
"I'm sorry… We'll add your new number to the group chat later. With history," Saturn replied. Still half-laughing.
Jenny sat down on the ice to face Dark Jenny. No point getting angry over it. She had to give her loathsome copy credit for comedic timing, at least. Dark Jenny just stared back at her, and Jenny expected eventually it would get bored. That seemed to be the point of its existence, anyway. Maybe it would get up and walk away, and Jenny would walk with it. She thought about how much energy her opponent could have left. She was the one who spent all day searching, and Dark Jenny probably spent the day hiding. It didn't matter. With the emerald, she would always get the advantage.
♦
Tatters ran through the snow towards the frozen lake. Her body and equipment were all she had left, and it was a long walk. After all, she'd burned her house and belongings down and left her trike to do the most meaningful thing it'll ever do. She hoped she would do the same. Half-dried, half-frozen tears clung to her face as she ran. She cried a little during the journey because of that stupid hug from that stupid girl.
Why did that have to happen today? Why did all of these things have to happen today? Why did this group of idiots have to bring that world-ending robot here to ruin her life? And why was she still clinging onto this quest to kill one of them? Because she wanted to matter as a human being?
Two days without sleep now. She felt it again as she ran up the last hill before the frozen lake. She felt more nervous with every step she took to certain death. Although that was a thought she had many times, and she was fine with it. What she feared most was disappointing herself one last time. Being too much of a wuss to pull the trigger and dying like a failure. Losing one final time for old time's sake.
Crossing the top of the hill, she could see the frozen lake clearly. And there were two identical-looking girls sitting opposite each other, only differentiated by outfits. Tatters was still far enough away so they wouldn't notice her, at least not if they had the same environmental awareness as regular people. She got into a prone position and loaded the first bolt.
She looked through the scope as she infused the bolt with her power, making the tip glow cyan. She zoomed into the most obvious target first; the one on the right wearing the black dress. She noticed the tiara from before was missing. It looked at the other Jenny with a smile on its face. Tatters switched her sights to the other Jenny, who wore a white shirt with a brown sweater over it. It was holding its finger underneath its ear and had a stern expression.
With the way they were sitting now, if they were both naked, Tatters wouldn't be able to tell which was which. She had her reticule pointed at good Jenny's head.
Good Jenny…
She subconsciously started referring to this one as the good one… She pointed at the other one and wondered if she should aim for the head or the chest, considering they didn't have human organs. She opted to go for the chest instead.
She swallowed as her finger hovered over the trigger and she increased the intensity of her power on the tip of the bolt. She was going to kill this one because it was wearing a black dress. She remembered Plural telling her she would know by looking Jenny in the eyes, but she didn't know at all! This is exactly what she was scared would happen. She hesitated because she didn't want to kill the Jenny she fought in the old town center, even though the black dress should have made it obvious. The anxiety was killing her.
But she was reminded the world did not wait for her when good Jenny looked in her direction with surprise on its face. Tatters was shaking and focusing so much of her power on the bolt on her crossbow, it was emitting some sort of light blue flame. Bad Jenny turned as well, twisting its body enough to reveal faded blood stains on its right arm.
Tatters pulled the trigger.