MIND GAMES: Guild Tryouts

Chapter 23

—Ivy and Kira stood helplessly in the middle of around thirty clones produced by Larx. There was no exit and no time left to make any move. Ivy tries using Laser-Focus to their advantage, but nothing else presents itself.

It seemed they were led into a trap by Larx in the end.

"What the hell? How many clones can you even make?" Kira yells to Larx, shifting her hair to the other side of her face.

"Beats me, actually, but the clones themselves start losing quality after the thirtieth, so that's my capacity limit for now!" Larx says back to Kira.

Without him knowing, Larx just fell into a trap as well. Kira uses All-Knowing-Eye to see if Larx is telling the truth, seeing into his mind for a split second.

'Shut up, you idiot! You're just telling these attractive females your entire plans!' Larx thinks.

'But they're so cute! The emo one especially!' Larx also thinks.

'Doesn't matter!' Larx thinks as well.

Kira used All-Knowing-Eye at the wrong time and falls silent, embarrassed that their enemy finds her attractive.

"Did you get any details on how his power *really* works?" Ivy asks, knowing Kira's plan.

"N-no..." Kira says with a flustered face, incredibly pissed off at this point.

Ivy looks away from Kira and back at Larx, who also seems to be struggling with something. After taking a hiatus, Larx preps himself for an actual attack. All hell broke loose when his player tag, <Larx>, suddenly disappeared from above his head. Ivy and Kira both gasp at sight.

"Ok, enough with the chit-chat! Let's see how you guys fare against me and my army!" Larx announces, jumping backward.

His clones formed around him in a circular form, all jumping to his side. After only a couple of seconds, Ivy loses track of Larx amongst his clones. Kira also loses track of Larx very fast, realizing this was his plan all along.

"He's gonna camouflage with himself?" Ivy whispers to herself.

More and more clones sprung to Larx's side, and after all thirty clones appeared next to him, every single Larx in the area ran a pattern around Ivy and Kira, shuffling each other like a deck of cards. Everything about the clones was identical to the original, even his guitar weapon. Ivy and Kira were going to have a hard time distinguishing the original from all of these fakes, for sure.

"They're all rushing around like a pack of dogs..." Kira mumbles.

"Do you know which one's the real Larx?" Ivy asks.

"No, not a clue. For a metalhead, this guy is pretty dang smart, getting rid of his player name and dodging into a crowd of look-alikes..." Kira responds, still darting her eyes around at all of the many Larx's running around them.

At this moment, every single clone stops in its tracks. They look directly at Ivy and Kira with the same smirk, showing a cocky attitude and a sarcastic aura.

'Even if he's smart, he's still a douchebag.' Ivy thinks.

"Ok! Let's play a game instead! If you can guess which one I am, I'll let you guys beat me!" Every single Larx clone says.

Ivy's laser focus wasn't coming in handy since it helped track where someone was using the life in natural fauna. There were still thirty different Larx's around them, and pinpointing all thirty of them wasn't going to help.

"I have no clue what to do... How about you?" Ivy asks Kira, turning towards her.

Kira was silent and had her hair back to normal, with her left eye closed tightly. That green aura that appears around her—whenever she uses her Aspect—was surrounding her eyes. Ivy didn't expect an answer and let Kira do whatever she had planned, as It looked serious.