The Bad Guys in All About Millicent

Unhappy Reunion

Gabi awoke to a throbbing pain in her forehead. As she rubbed it, she scrutinized her surroundings to find she was in some sort of dark chamber.

"Hello? What's going on?" Gabi called out. At that moment, the lights turned on, and she saw that the entire room was made of metal. As she got up from the hard bed, she noticed she was wearing a metal collar with a blinking yellow light attached to a five-foot chain bolted into a wall.

"Now, you know how isolated I've been for the past two years," she heard a sinister, yet familiar, voice say. Gabi turned her head and watched one of the walls lower itself to reveal a thick, plexiglass window and staring at her from the other side was...

"Professor?!"

"Hello, my darling Gabriela," Marmalade sneered. "Did you miss me? I missed you."

"How did you even get out of prison?!" Gabi asked in disbelief.

"You can thank Cuddles for that," he answered. Cuddles stood right beside him and waved at Gabi. "He even helped me with my latest creation, whom you've met already."

Gabi's eyes widened. "You don't mean..."

Marmalade nodded. "Your little sister, Millicent. You see, a month before I went to prison, I read an article about splicing DNA so it would match that of a healthier body, but I decided to go in a different direction. When you went to the spa six months ago, Cuddles took one of your scales so I would grind it and mix it into a genetic-altering serum. I got an angelfish from a pet store, injected it with the serum, and poof! Every single chromosome was transformed to match your DNA. I don't even know if it was a boy fish or a girl fish!"

"Why would you even do that?"

"To make the perfect tool for my revenge against you and the Bad Guys," Marmalade revealed. "Millicent's brain took more time to fully develop, so I used that time to tinker with it. Soon enough, she began to obey every command I threw at her, no questions asked. Sit, stay, speak... kill."

"You monster!" Gabi shouted, running towards the window only for something to pull her back. She screamed in pain as an electrical surge moved through her entire body.

"Uh-uh-uh," Marmalade teased, waving a finger at her. "Pull too hard, and you might just get another unfriendly dosage and believe me, I don't want that any more than you do. You're much more useful to me alive."

"What's... that... supposed to mean?" Gabi panted as she recovered from the shock.

"As of right now, Millicent has taken your place and Mr. Piranha has asked her to marry him," Marmalade explained, much to Gabi's horror. "They'll live happily ever after until, of course, I give her the order to kill herself and make it look like she was murdered by her new husband. With all the other killings across the city, everyone will think all of the Bad Guys were behind them."

"It won't work!" Gabi claimed. "They were thieves, not murderers! That's not their style!"

"Oh, Gabriela, you should know people will believe anything out of fear and suspicion," Marmalade pointed out. "And the best part? You, my child, are going to help me destroy everything you love."

"Never!"

"Oh, I beg to differ," said Marmalade. "While you were unconscious, I installed a microchip into your brain stem that connects to the one in Millicent's brain, so the two of you can communicate telepathically over long distances. In order for this to work, you'll have to tell Millicent things that'll help her convince everyone she's you. For every refusal you make... I will order her to kill ten more innocent people, and even if you don't know them, I'm sure their lives matter to someone."

At that moment, Marmalade went to a computer bigger than a television and Millicent appeared on the screen.

"Millicent, darling, I'm turning on your internal communications so our guest can answer whatever questions you have for her."

"Thank you, sir," Millicent said. "And just so you know, I am currently in position. None of Gabriela's friends seem to suspect anything."

"There's a good girl," Marmalade replied, and turned off the computer. Gabi shuddered at the sound of those all too familiar words. "Oh, and one other thing. Your new necklace can track certain types of neural activity. So, you try to tell Millicent anything to make her feel suspicious, you get zapped again. Toodle-oo!"

At that moment, the wall was closed back up and Gabi was alone yet again. With no way to escape this nightmare, all she could do was hope for a miracle.