Chapter Fifty-Seven – Aftermath

She had been more diligent about her fitness in the last couple of months than at any other time in her life, and yet she was still breathing hard and panting after running just a few blocks.

“W-what was that?” she asked.

There were other things that she should have been worrying about, like where to go. Right now, she was following after Trinity, who seemed to have an idea of where she was leading them, but Emily didn’t know where that would lead. It was even odds that it would mean a stop at either another store, or a local landfill.

She still kept running.

“His power was to make evil clones,” Athena said. She wasn’t nearly as winded as Emily was. “He’s an HRF hero, and that’s what his power does.”

“But we’re already evil,” Teddy said.

“Yeah, he’s kind of stupid,” Athena agreed.

“Was t-that really, ah, it?” Emily asked between gasps for more air. Trinity darted into an alley up ahead, one with a bit of a bend in its middle, and she gestured for them to slow down to a slow walk. If she stopped, there was a real risk that she’d cramp up, but she needed a moment. “What else did, did you pick up?”

“Not too much. I got distracted trying to come up with ways to insult him,” Athena said.

“Heh, you did alright,” Teddy replied.

“Thank you?” Athena said. She sounded a little confused. Teddy didn’t usually compliment her. “I think his power works by creating a clone of people that he can see? Or that are able to see him? It’s not clear. Anyway. He was pretty sure that we’d all start fighting ourselves.”

“That’s the strange part,” Emily said. She winced as there was a distant explosion. She… didn’t want to know what had caused that. “The clones were not antagonistic. They were just… not us?”

“Yeah, I think that the way it works is that the clones are pretty different in some big ways, so that means that they’ll usually disagree with the original, but I saw into the fake-me’s eyes, and I think that her, like, primary drive was the same?”

“So, what, she was still a villain?” Teddy asked.

“Yeah. Different, but still a villain, and also, I think the really important stuff stayed the same. Like, she still loved Big Sis.”

“Oh,” Emily said.

She wasn’t sure if she should feel all warm and fuzzy about that, or if she should be worried. Actually, maybe it wasn’t a worry? Her sisters were created via her power, so the imperative to want to help her (even if they were very, very often misguided with that) was kind of baked into them. Maybe Mirror Man’s power couldn’t override that?

It made a twisted sort of sense. “I’m not sure what to think about my own, ah, clone.”

“She was cool!” Trinity said.

“Yeah. Like you, but more like ‘kill them all, and loot the bodies,'” Teddy said. “Uh, not that you’re not cool, Boss.”

“Thanks,” Emily said. She gestured ahead. “Let’s keep going. If the HRF was able to lay a trap for us, they might still know where we are.”

“I think it was more luck,” Athena said. “But yeah, staying still is a bad idea.”

“Agreed,” Aurora added. “Our clones will distract them for a while, at least. But the hero might be able to shut them off, and then they’ll be after us.”

Emily nodded. “Right. Trinity, where are we going?”

“I was following you, Boss!” Trinity said.

Emily blinked. “From the front?”

“And the back!” the Trinity behind her head.

She sighed. “Okay… okay, well, at least we’ve been moving away from the HRF. We need a place to lay low.”

“Oh,” Trinity said. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“It was implied, idiot,” Teddy snapped.

“I’m three times as brainy as you are,” Trinity snapped back.

“Girls!” Emily hissed. She didn’t need them arguing and catching the attention of anyone nearby. “Focus, please? We need a place to stay that’s relatively safe, even if it’s just for tonight. You did a bit of scouting, can you think of anything?”

Trinity touched her chin and stared up into the sliver of sky visible between the buildings around them. She shifted from side to side, then nodded. “Yeah! There’s a warehouse I saw. IT’s not too far from here. I remember thinking it was cool because there was a bunch of trains around it.”

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“Trains?” Emily asked.

“The tracks and a buncha cars,” Trinity said with a nod. “When I grow up, I want to have a train car.”

“But not the rest of the train?” Aurora asked.

“I don’t have a train driver’s license,” Trinity said.

“We’re villains, we don’t need no permission for that,” Teddy said.

“Okay, lead us to that, please?” Emily asked before her sisters decided to start planning a train heist. Trinity was more than happy to lead them out of the alley and down the road. They were heading away from the area they’d been in, on a slight angle towards the outer edge of the Endgame.

That was both good and not.

If they had to run again, then they’d have the edge of the Endgame acting as a barrier. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected that the Endgame wouldn’t let them cross with the Orbject. Or if they did, it might disqualify them or something.

On the other side of the coin, that same logic would maybe discourage the HRF from looking too closely at a place that was that poorly positioned.

She checked on her sisters as they continued to move. Teddy seemed fine. Happy, even. Athena was being serious, but was scanning the area, occasionally squinting against the mid-day sun.

Trinity was leading the way and walking alongside her, and Maple and Aurora were taking up the rear, both glancing back as though on the lookout for troopers that might be chasing them all down.

They might have been right to be worried. She certainly was.

Fortunately, nothing came up, and they continued to move through the city, further away from the commercial areas and more towards the farther end, close to the highway that passed right by Saint Arie.

Trinity’s building was a large, all-blue warehouse. Two, maybe three stories tall, with entrances on two sides for trucks and forklifts. One of those was opened at the moment, showing a slight hint of the stacks of crates within.

The exterior had a long cement platform that ran the length of the lot, with ramps leading up to the top. A few boxcars were resting there, rusting away next to abandoned forklifts and trucks.

The entire lot had a wall around it. Parts were chain-linked fence, and others bare concrete. Trinity had discovered a spot where there was a sort of tunnel dug out right at the junction between two of the concrete slabs. It looked like something a wild animal might have clawed out.

“Okay, quick,” Emily said.

Trinity slipped through the gap with no problem, then Teddy, then it was her turn, and she held back curses as she had to get onto her stomach and wiggle her way through. It was moderately embarrassing, and she came out of the other side covered in a layer of dirt, but… well, whatever. She was dirty already, what was more dirt on top of that?

Once all of her sisters were on the other side, they ran over to the warehouse and slid into it.

It was cooler in there, with no sun beating down on them, and the thick smell of oil and rust clung to the air. She scanned the space, squinting to see deeper in. The warehouse had tall shelving units designed for crates and pallets. Most of what she saw was construction materials and boxes of… stuff.

“There’s a place up there,” Trinity said as she pointed up.

And yes, there was. The second floor had what was maybe an office along one wall, built up on stilts with windows overlooking the main floor space and a meta staircase leading up to it.

“I guess that’s as good a place as any,” she said.

The stairs were loud, but that was fine. Once they got to the top, they discovered the door was locked, but that was also easily solved, and soon she was poking her head into an office that had been dated before she was born. Everything had a layer of dust on it, and the place had a strange, chemical smell to it, but there were stained windows looking out onto two sides of the building with thick curtains over them, and while the space wasn’t nice, it had a small washroom with a sink and a ratty old couch and enough room to walk around it.

Emily paused as she felt a sudden desire to just… be home. Her room, her bed, her comfortable, quiet life.

“I’m hungry!” Teddy declared.

She sighed. “Yeah, me too.”

***

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