"We could always just break it down," the clone suggested, bracing itself to barge into the door.
Chloe facepalmed. "Don't do that."
"Why would you even think to do that?" Nova asked the original Chloe.
"My clones aren't perfect copies. They only know their mission." She absorbed the clone. "My psyche splits into different vessels. That one must have been my impulsive side."
"I have an idea," Oblivi said. "I'll go get a spare key from the surface." She left the archive, yelling from the entrance, "I'll be back!"
Chloe crouched down, her cloak spilling onto the floor. She fixed her eyes on Nova, studying him. When he turned toward her, she looked away.
"I would assume you know it's rude to stare," Nova said, not meeting her gaze.
"Sorry, you're interesting to look at," she said.
"Must have lost your subtlety in a clone as well." He smirked, still not looking at Chloe.
"That's not what I meant," she exclaimed, disgusted. "You don't look like you're from here. No, you don't feel like it either."
"I thought you guys welcomed foreigners."
"I thought people were born naturally."
Nova's smirk faltered slightly. "I guess we were both wrong."
Chloe stood up. "What to do with you?" She crept toward him slowly. "I'd like to know what you are."
The other seven clones appeared alongside her, returning from their individual searches.
Nova answered with duplicates of his own, one to match each clone. "I won't be dissected again."
"I wasn't really asking." She merged back with her copies, leaving one lingering, then sighed. "I guess it would be unwise for me to kill a fellow sect leader."
Nova dismissed his copies. "I appreciate your mercy."
Jangling came from behind them, bangles clinking against keys. "I got them~" Oblivi held up a ring of skeleton keys. She flipped through them, trying one after another, while Nova readied his stance for a fight. Chloe stood back, behind all three of them.
Click.
"I got it!" Oblivi pushed the door open slowly. The lights were off.
"Who's in here?" Nova shouted. Nobody responded, but he could sense a faint presence.
Oblivi stepped inside, searching for the light switch. "I think it's here, right?" she asked, feeling along the wall. The clone followed her in to help search.
Rattling rose from somewhere indistinct in the dark.
"Look out!" Chloe's clone shoved Oblivi out of the way, lunging deeper into the darkness.
The sound of splitting flesh tore through the room, followed by spurting, then the hum of metal. A blood-curdling scream rang out from Chloe's clone.
The two of them backed away from the doorway, Nova to the left, Chloe to the right. Nova pulled out his phone, turning on the flashlight while Chloe grimaced. A figure moved through the dark behind a desk, the dust in the air swirling around it, but two dots darted off within the shadows.
"Chloe," Nova whispered, "I think there's two of them."
Just then, a sharp rod shot through Nova's light, which flickered out. His jaw dropped. Chloe's did too.
"Damn, that was an expensive model too," Nova muttered.
More rattling came from the room. The pair instinctively ducked as metal shards pierced the walls, flying out the doorway.
"Any ideas, Nova?" Chloe asked.
"We could send out another clone."
"No, that wouldn't work."
"Why not?"
Chloe summoned a clone in front of the doorway, a shard meeting its neck almost instantly. It gurgled, collapsed to the floor, then faded away.
Chloe rubbed her own neck. "That's why."
While Nova thought it over, Oblivi managed to flip the switch unnoticed, flooding the room with light.
"Convenient," Nova said, peering back around the doorway. A desk lay overturned at the back of the room, the ceiling above it hanging exposed, pipes and rebar torn out of place.
"Metallokinesis?" Nova mused.
Chloe's clone was slumped against the wall about a meter to the left of the doorway, pinned there by a piece of rebar.
"That would explain the projectiles," Chloe observed. Oblivi stood to the left, hugging the wall beside the switch.
They stopped attacking. Why?
Nova walked in slowly. Chloe tried to stop him. "You can't go in there right now!" But he brushed her off. He stopped just inside the doorway, studying the clone, then Oblivi, then the ceiling. Next he glanced at Chloe, made a copy of himself, then pushed it into the center of the room.
A head peeked quickly out from behind the desk. A moment later, the ceiling shook, a huge rod coming down through the copy's skull. The copy faded away. Nova staggered slightly. Soon after the assault, he could hear heavier breathing coming from behind the desk.
Slowly, he took a step closer. The head peeked out again. The ceiling groaned once more, warning him, but Nova's eyes stayed locked on the assailant. Metal flew toward him, slower, with less reach than the earlier barrage, so he raised his hands to shield his face.
Please work.
He managed to stop the metal just as it tore through the skin of his arm. Nova bit his tongue. It wasn't a perfect block, but at least he could advance. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the shards back at the desk, where they embedded themselves in the wood. Nova pulled his hands apart, using the metal to rip the desk down the middle, revealing a man alongside a woman, both cowering on the floor.
The woman lowered a hand toward Nova, his body turning to lead. He resisted just enough to yell, "Cuff 'em!"
Chloe unclipped the cuffs, tossing them to Oblivi. Oblivi sprinted toward the desk, but the woman threw the man onto her, tackling her to the ground. Just before she hit the floor, she tried to use her ability to soften the blow, but one of the cuffs' crystals nipped her skin, nullifying her ability. With the man on top of her, she had no way of using her powers or escaping.
Nova was a slug on the ground, slowly crawling toward his adversary. The force made it hard to breathe; his nails began to discolor as hypoxia set in. Wait a second… With all his might, he pushed himself onto his back, spotting Chloe in the doorway. He split off as many clones as he could, spawning seven around him.
The clones looked at the woman, each one mimicking her ability. Together they formed a field around Nova that left him effectively untouchable. With that, they lifted the man off Oblivi, using rebar among other scraps to pin down the woman, finally ending the assault. Freed, Oblivi ran over, cuffing the adversaries as they struggled in vain against the restraints.
Chloe dismissed the clone pinned to the wall, then ran to Nova. "What were you thinking?" She grabbed his bleeding arm. "Why did you do that?" She sent a clone running out of the room to find a first aid kit.
Nova held up a hand. "Calm down. I had it under control."
"How? How did you know? They would've killed you instantly."
"No, I figured the effective range was around the middle of the room." Nova pointed at the rebar jutting from the wall. "The first clone barely made it a meter past the door before it got hit, but my copy was hit dead center. After that, I heard her breathing, with her shards falling shorter than before. That's how I knew she was getting fatigued."
"But why didn't you just wait for an opening?" Chloe demanded, still yelling.
"If I couldn't make an opening, we'd be here all day. That's why I had to at least try to fight them with their own powers." Nova gestured to the two. "I knew I could win when I realized her power wasn't metallokinesis, just plain old telekinesis. Throwing her partner was her downfall, but you being here definitely made this easier." He shook her hand with his bloody one. "You were the MVP of this fight."
Chloe's clone returned with a med kit, then started tending to Nova.
"But something's been bugging me," Chloe said. "When they didn't attack Oblivi, she was definitely in range. Did you plan for that as well?"
Nova chuckled before explaining. "Well, I kinda figured out, from my first encounter with her as well as this fight, that Oblivi can 'soften' her presence with her ability, making her less noticeable."
Chloe's legs gave out, dropping her onto her back as she exhaled dramatically. "What a week."
Nova took a seat next to her. While the clone bandaged his arm, Oblivi took a knee beside him. "Uhh, we got a tiny issue." She pointed to the two strangers.
"Was glaubst du, was sie mit uns machen werden?" the woman whispered.
"Ich weiß es nicht, aber ich kann meine Kräfte nicht einsetzen," the man murmured back.
Nova groaned. "Gods damn it."
The two strangers stared him down, falling silent. Nova nudged Chloe. "Got anything for that?"
Chloe stared at the broken ceiling. "I actually have a few ideas." She pulled herself together. "We could (1) teach them Common, which I won't be doing, (2) find a translation scroll, or (3) kill them. I'm feeling the latter."
"Okay, well, we're not doing that," Nova chimed in. "There has to be another solution."
"Well, joining a sect lets you understand any member who bears the mark, but you'd have to convince Ogun to even consider that," she said, not seriously.
When the clone finished bandaging his arm, Nova walked over to the foreigners, taking a good look at them.
The man was lanky, his brown hair combed to both sides, his mustache neatly trimmed to match. His skin was milky, almost sickly under the lights. He wore a high-collared white shirt beneath a dark waistcoat, with a coat that looked a century out of date.
The woman beside him had dark brown skin, her long black hair once pinned up, now coming loose in tangles after the fight. She wore a fitted blouse with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, plus a full, ankle-length skirt; despite the handcuffs, she held her chin high.
Nova went over to Chloe. "Hey, let's summon Ogun."
"No."
"Chloe, come on. Stop acting like a prick"
"No. Last time I needed him, I had to feel my own body get mutilated in the span of five seconds after he got mad. I saw you feel it yourself when your clone was hit. It's not a good feeling."
"Chloe, please."
"Why do you think saying 'please' is gonna help convince me?" Chloe shot back.
"If you won't do it, then I will." He split himself in two, one copy holding out a hand for the crown.
Chloe stood up, untying the crown from her side. "Fine, but I'm the one handling it."