Jenny smashed straight through the bunker's thick walls and flew outside with her hand gripped tightly around her adversary's neck. Ahead were the mountains, and Jenny adjusted her flight path upward while her opponent struggled to reorient itself.
"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, and her target looked happily excited about it. 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, and she knew her copy didn't have the strength to pry her own arm off.
Apparently realizing the same thing and going for plan B, Dark Jenny gave a friendly wave and disappeared in red sparkles. But 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. Jenny teleported into the cloud and landed on the ground with a loud thump while her enemy struggled to remove itself from a small crater in the mountain rock.
"I'll be the last thing you see!"
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 and felt raindrops. For a moment, she thought it was the friendly creature from the frozen lake again, but not this time. This time, dark clouds covered the stars and served as an eerie backdrop to the long night ahead.
♦
"J-Jenny?"
Circus was now alone in this dark, cold room, unable to believe what had just happened. The dark corner where Dark Jenny stood was now lit up by the moonlight shining in from a brand-new hole in the wall. And instead of the sounds of distant robot violence, she heard footsteps coming her way.
"New girl!" Plural appeared from the hole in thick winter clothing.
When they locked eyes, Plural stopped and beheld the shivering damsel in distress.
"I knew that was you!" she yelled and ran over.
Circus looked back outside at the flare she'd fired, which was almost invisible now. When she looked back at Plural, she was holding her finger against her headset.
"She's here! She's fine!" Plural said like she was talking to someone on the other end of the radio. "… Underdressed. We need a warm place, and food."
While she talked and listened on her headset, Plural unzipped her winter coat and gave it to Circus, who hesitantly accepted it with her trembling hands.
"Saturn says hi!" Plural wiggled the small microphone of her headset around, then dropped her arm back down. "We're gonna get you warmed up! Let's get out of here!"
"Wait," Circus pulled the coat around her shoulders and stepped towards the room she woke up in. "Not yet."
Plural gave her a puzzled look and followed her inside. This room was much darker than the one they came from, for lack of damage to the walls.
"Ah…" Plural said when she saw the other victims.
"I couldn't get them to wake up," Circus explained, then looked her friend in the eyes. "We can't leave them."
Plural nodded and crouched next to the closest unconscious civilian to check his pulse. It was a middle-aged man, and Plural shook his shoulders.
"Hey… Hey…"
Suddenly, 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, then at Circus, who was standing by her side.
"The fuck?"
"It's okay, you're safe now," Plural told him.
"I don't feel safe. Who the fuck are you?"
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 complained, then grunted and pulled up his shirt to reveal his wound. "The fuck did you do to me?"
Unlike Circus, his wound was not frozen and still bled a little.
Plural gave Circus a frightened look, like she regretted waking the man up at all.
♦
Having pried itself free of the rock, Dark Jenny catapulted itself out of the crater and pounced straight at Jenny, producing a small shockwave on takeoff. But it 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 just couldn't help herself.
Then, Dark Jenny disappeared, and Jenny felt its foot in her back. Next thing she knew, it was her own face that was planted against 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, and if it had a tail, it would probably be wagging 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.
Next, it turned its hair red, and Jenny noticed it took multiple tries to fire it up, like a car with a bad starter motor. Jenny then turned her own hair blue, but unlike her imperfect knockoff, 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 had the advantage, and lightning crackled through the clouds as she fired herself down to meet her opponent.
♦
Tatters stopped her trike near the old bunker, where the flare had been fired from. It started raining just as she arrived, and she could hear thunder in the direction of the mountains. She watched as the two objects circled each other and painted the sky purple. One red and one blue. Sometimes they fired lasers at one another, creating a low rumbling sound that reverberated through the clouds. 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, where muffled yelling came from inside the walls.
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, one of the foreigners who came here with 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, then 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 and 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 yelled at 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 small 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—"
The man was not knocked out, and Tatters felt him trying to push her and the debris off. She raised 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 onto 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 other 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, having apparently learned her name from the papers, 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 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.
Tatters grunted in frustration but believed her. This girl just called Plural "Plu" a second ago, after all. 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…"
"Tatters… Wait, you're the black cape! I know you!" the girl said excitedly. "Wait," she turned to Plural, looking less excited. "I know where we are!"
"What were you doing here?" Tatters asked Plural.
"Saving my friend." Plural replied. "This is Circus."
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 with a frustrated tone.
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 had been surprisingly talkative in comparison. One of the victims raised their shirt and revealed their stomach wound.
"We all have the same one," Circus explained.
Tatters looked back at her to find her presenting her wound.
"Is it bad?" Plural reacted in shock, like she was seeing it for the first time.
"I don't know, I can't feel it," Circus responded. "Dark Jenny said it wasn't gonna kill me, I think…"
Plural remained silent, staring at the wound with a dark look on her face.
"It told you that?" Tatters asked Circus.
"It didn't really speak, so I don't know for sure."
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 from behind, but Tatters ignored her.
Back outside, Tatters returned to her trike and took her crossbow off the side carrier, mounting it on her back. Plural did not take long to come running after her, with Circus trailing behind. The rain was soaking them fast.
"Wait! What are you gonna do?" Plural 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. Although 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 and studied her face. Plural's familiar face, even though they'd never met before today. Her eyes were welcoming instead of fearful, and there was no judgment in them.
"You want 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, so she didn't need this vehicle anymore. "Leave the man."
Plural's eyes went to the trike. The rear showed traces that it once had four passenger seats facing outwards, but all that remained now was damaged mounts, like they were violently ripped off at some point. The other side had them cleanly removed to make room for the side carrier.
Tatters walked off with the crossbow on her back, into the direction of the two colorful objects in the sky.
But Plural stopped her again by grabbing her arm. Tatters glared back at her, almost offended at the gesture. She didn't want to have to explain herself to this girl, and she was about pull her arm away, but Plural's eyes made her hesitate. They looked sympathetic and curious, like she already knew the truth even though Tatters hadn't said a thing.
For a moment, Tatters found herself lost in Plural's foreign eyes, like she came from a world where things were better, and she was sharing a little bit of that right now.
Next thing she knew, Plural hugged her, and Tatters' body froze up. This wasn't on the list of things she expected her to do, but 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 and looked her in the eyes while holding her gloved hands. Tatters turned her head away to try and hide her watery eyes, expecting Plural to try and convince her to spare Jenny.
"But don't die, okay?"
Tatters couldn't respond anymore. Not without her voice coming out sounding funny. She let go of Plural's hands, took a few steps back, then turned her back on Plural and 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, 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, and it was forcing the faker to spend excessive energy to compensate.
When Dark Jenny's eyes lit up again, Jenny caught the tell immediately and followed up with her own, causing the two lasers 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 was exactly the kind of situation she was banking on. The longer this moment lasted, the faster they'd both run out. Dark Jenny 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 through the ice and into the water below.
Jenny followed and landed on the frozen lake, then started walking circles around the hole in the ice, waiting for her opponent to come back up.
"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 explained.
Jenny listened as she watched Dark Jenny taking its sweet time to 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…" radio-Plural responded. "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?"
"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.
"If you do, crank up the heat. We're wet and freezing," radio-Plural said.
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 any more fireworks," radio-Saturn asked.
"Calmed down." Jenny replied. "I'm still staring it in the face."
She held up an item in front of her, making sure Dark Jenny could see. 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," Jenny said, both to her friends and to her opponent.
"How do you wanna pop the emerald when the time comes?" radio-Saturn asked.
"I'll have you press the wristband so I can find you," Jenny replied, then turned her head and covered the mic with her hand so Dark Jenny couldn't hear. "But I lose my lock-on when I go too far, so you'll have to get close first," she whispered.
"Then 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 suggested.
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 vigorously 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.
"What do I say, guys?" she asked while filming her nervous-looking self.
"Did you get both of you in the frame at the same time?" radio-Plural asked.
Jenny 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 and quickly pulled her hand back.
"Oops!"
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 now-broken phone remained, and she hadn't been streaming the footage.
"Maybe you should fight," radio-Plural replied. "Can you film while it's in your pocket?"
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…"
"I'm sorry," Saturn replied, still half-laughing. "We'll add your new number to the group chat later. With history."
Jenny sat down on the ice facing 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 that eventually it would get bored. That seemed to be the point of its existence, anyway, to keep itself entertained. 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, dark 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, all because of that stupid hug from that stupid girl.
"Why did you do that!?"
The nerve to bring a world-ending robot here to ruin her life and then tell her not to die.
"Why can't you just leave me be!?"
At least then, she could still cling to her quest that gave some semblance of meaning to her pathetic life. But even that was now slowly falling apart after the stupid girl made her feel something.
Two days without sleep now. She felt it again as she ran up the last hill before the frozen lake. Every step she took towards certain death made her more nervous. Although that was a feeling she'd had many times already, and she'd already made peace with death. What she feared more than death 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 into her crossbow.
She looked through the scope as she infused the bolt with her power, making the tip glow blue. She zoomed into the most obvious target first; the one on the right wearing the black dress, although 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 pointed at the other one and wondered if she should aim for the head or the chest, considering they likely 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. Plural told her before that 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 deep inside, 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.