Shape

Chapter 9: Duplication

Standing in the middle of the room, I heard footsteps coming from the entrance of the room.
"Well done Shape! I'm terribly sorry we left like that, but we didn't want to end up looking like those clones!" It was them.
Upon seeing them, I instantly broke out into tears. I was so worried about the thought of potentially hurting them.
"Oh my! What's wrong?" Sophie's voice was kind.
"I- I thought you disappeared! Or even worse, I could've hurt you guys!" She held her arms out for a hug.
"Calm down Shape, we're okay!" Samuel was a few steps behind her.
I could feel Sophie's arms hugging me back. She felt warm, completely different from what a doll would.
"We're okay Shape, and I'm very proud of how much you've learned." She gently broke our hug.
I looked up, her small platforms giving her a height boost over me.
"Alright you little crybaby, ready to learn how to multiply?" I could hear the excitement in Samuels voice.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and gave a small nod.
Samuel and I spent the rest of the day going over the properties of his ability and its drawbacks, Sophie watched over from a distance.
"See? It's just like building with clay, just way more complicated." Samuel stretched a weird brown substance around in his hands, slowly forming it into a human hand that gave me a thumbs up before turning back into goop.
"My ability is a bit more complicated than my sisters, so it might take you an extra day or two to figure out the basics." He looked more excited than I was.
"Can't wait! I'll see you both tomorrow!" I practically ran back to my cell of a room to tell Leto about everything. I did feel bad for the poor guard that was escorting me though, as he was struggling to keep up.
"23! Please slow down!!" The guard's heavy breathing made me feel a bit bad, but not enough to make me slow down.
"Sorry! I'm too excited!" I finally reached my hallway, I could see the confusion on the imprisoned experiments from me running past them so quickly.
"Shape? I was starting to think you died or something." I could hear Leto's chains echoing with every movement he made.
I paused for a moment with an idea in mind.
"Hey guard man, how much longer?"
"About 10 more minutes, it seems somebody broke the key to your room." The guard held up half a melted key in his hand.
I smiled innocently at the guard while proceeding to slowly turn around to face Leto's cell.
"What are you doing? You look creepy." I could see Leto's figure move into a different sitting position on the ground.
I didn't respond. Instead, I walked over to Leto's cell and aggressively grabbed a hold of the bars.
"What are you doing!?" The sound of Leto's chains mimicked the panic in his movements.
"I wanted to finally see what you look like! Talking to a shadowy figure isn't really the ideal way of socializing, y'know?" The curiosity was killing me.
"Ugh, since you're just so determined" He was slightly annoyed, but I could see him getting up.
An excited smile formed on my face as the sounds of his chains slowly got closer until they reached a halt, leaving a small gap between us. I could finally see him, his jagged horns and spike filled tail confirmed the dragon part. But something about him threw me off, like I had seen him before.
"You're not scared?" Leto's words interrupted my thinking, his head tilted slightly with confusion.
"No? If anything, you look strangely familiar." I still couldn't figure it out.
By the look on Leto's face, I could only assume he'd heard this before. And didn't like it.
"I guess you've met One then, haven't you?" A sigh left his mouth, like he realized something.
My mind lit up at that. Taking a closer look at the giant of a person in front of me, I discovered that Leto looked almost identical to One, just with sharper features and a darker color palette.
"Yes! I knew I wasn't insane" The pieces were coming together in my mind.
I took a moment to fully understand the similarities between the two, they both towered over me with ease, had horns that grew from their temples, and had long tails that looked strong enough to pick up at least a boulder. Not to mention they both had eyes that could send shivers down your spine with just one look.
"Are you done staring, I'm starting to feel like I'm on display here." Even their voices were similar.
"So how exactly do you two so similar to each other?" They were practically identical if you didn't look at the details.
"Well it's pretty easy to look like your twin, it's the personality that's difficult to mimic." I could tell he was the annoying sibling by the smirk on his face.
"Are you lonely without him?" The words spilled out of my mouth before I could think.
He froze for a moment, his eyes wide. He was as taken aback as I was about the question.
"We were never as close as four and five, though it does sting seeing them together outside the bars." I could hear the loneliness in his words.
"So you never see him?" Another question I didn't think through.
"Yeah whenever I get called to the battlefield, it just sucks that I have to be behind bars 24/7 while he gets a monthly walk around the place." I then realized the sadness was just jealousy.
I could feel the guard glaring at me through the back of my head, he was scared of Leto. Of how he looked.
"So how did you get so massive?" It was hurting my neck to look at him.
"Massive? That's a bit exaggerated." He let out a laugh between words. "I guess I've just always been big."
"Alright, social times over." The guard had successfully gained a new key.
"Well it's nice to finally put a face to the voice, bye!" I gave a small wave before turning to walk to my cell.
"Yea, and can you tell your body to stop mimicking my horns. They obviously don't suit you." His chains slowly grew distant after saying that.
Ignoring the guard glaring at me like a misbehaved child, I reached my hand up to the horns my body decided to grow on its own, but they were different. Instead of the smooth, roundish horns like before, I felt sharp, defensive weapons. I was shocked by them, they weren't as round and peaceful as before, but I knew they were still nice to have just in case.
I managed to fall asleep for what I hoped was a day before being woken up by a finger being shoved into my ear followed by yelling.
"Shape! Wakeup, it's time for training!" It was Samuel. He woke me up with a finger in my ear.
"Wha- Is that a finger!?" The finger wasn't attached to anything. Not fun to wake up to.
"Yes. Now hurry up, it's training time!" He was way too excited way too early.
I dragged myself out of bed, and threw on an identical outfit as the day before, like always. I hated it.
"Hurry up! My legs are starting to cramp!" He was so impatient.
I walked up to my barred door, waiting for him to unlock it. My face exposing the fact I'm still half asleep. "Open the door then" It was way too early for this.
Samuel kicked his body off of the wall, and rummaged through his pocket to get out the small, squareshapped key to my door. He then proceeded to struggle with the lock before flinging the door wide open like a maniac.
"Finally! Now let's get going, we have a lot of work to do!" He was way more energetic than Sophie.
I said goodbye to Leto, though I don't think he heard me over his own snoring, and walked with Samuel back to the same training ground as before.
"Okay Shape, you ready to start molding clay?" I had no idea what I was walking into.
We spent at least a week practicing how to shape the clay, turns out I'm very bad at it.
"Is that..A foot..?" Samuel didn't make the training any easier. "It's a hand obviously!"
Despite being a terrible teacher, he was always extremely patient with me, no matter how bad I messed up. After a while, Sophie stopped coming to help teach. And no matter how much I asked, Samuel wouldn't tell me the full reason why.
"I have a question for you" it was a question i've been holding in for a while.
Samuel paused what he was doing and turned to look at me. "Yes? Ask away."
I stood in place, molding my finger into various shapes before getting the words out. "How do you look so..Normal." I was aware of how bad that sounded.
He stood there for a moment before putting a small smile on his face. "That's thanks to my sister." I could hear the pain in his words. "We were supposed to be a matching set of dolls, but my sister made a deal against it in return for using her abilities to patch up the soldiers in the dungeons whenever they needed."
So that's why. "But now's not the time to think about stuff like that, get back to training slacker!" I could tell he was trying to mask his negative mood, so I went with it.
Instead of the normal training, I decided to take a different approach to the ability and started sculpting what I wanted like pottery. Starting with a simple bird I saw in a book. "Look! I did it!" It was completely misshapen, but it was good enough for me. Samuel seemed to like it as well, despite the fact it looked like a deformed chicken. I just had one step left to learn from him.
"You've mostly mastered the creating part of my ability, now you just need to master the lifeforce part of it". LIfeforce?
"Like your people creations?" I had thought it was just Sophie's strings.
"Yes! While they're mostly used as my sister's puppets, sometimes I have to make them sentient for certain tasks like fixing the walls around the facility". He clasped his hands together and formed a ball of glowing mud. It was fun to look at.
"This is lifeforce mud. It's way different than the kind you've been using".
I was in awe of the way the comforting glow felt, it was like a friend I haven't met yet.
"It's created straight from the soul. Yours might look a bit different though".
I was excited to learn, I wanted glowing mud too.
"What makes you angry?" The question caught me off guard. "What?"
I looked at him with confusion, why would I need to be angry? "What do you mean?"
"I know it sounds strange, but the angrier you are, the more lifeforce you produce. Think of it like wood fueling the flames of fire. The more you add, the stronger the flame gets".
It made sense after gaining a reason, but before I could start thinking, I was chained by my wrist to the ground. I guessed it was a safety measure.
"I'm gonna create a gap between us, but I won't be too far in case you go haywire". He sounded prepared for anything, it was reassuring.
I closed my eyes, and let my body freely change as I thought about what angered me the most. I was told the more anger the better, so I needed everything. I needed to grow with the rage.
"Woah, you're already so massive!" Samuel didn't see me as a danger.
Because of all the pain drugs the scientists had given me last time, I had forgotten how painful the process of my body reforming felt. The feeling of my eyes splitting into four, the muscles in my chest mutating to form a second pair of arms, my bones grinding against themselves as they moved and changed, I could feel everything. Every little movement.
"You're doing great!" I could feel something being created inside me. It was too late to stop now, I had to keep pushing through the pain. "It hurts.." That was all I could mutter out, it was all I could think about. I looked up from the ground, my head feeling like it weighed as much as a building, and saw not fear, but admiration on Samuel's face. His eyes were wide with curiosity, yet he stood a safe distance away. "Keep going, I can see the glow!" He pointed towards what was originally my chest, and there it was, my body's lifeforce energy. It was warm and comforting, almost making me forget about the pain. Samuel saw the pain and exhaustion in my eyes, as he slowly started walking towards me. "Hey, just a little longer..Okay?" His hands gently lifted my head away from looking at the horrific state my body was in. I felt the kindness in his actions. "Thank you." I felt safe enough to give in, and trust that I would wake back up. I couldn't bear being awake any more. "SHAPE!" I knocked myself out before he could have the chance to stop me.
"C'mon kid, you can't keep stressing people out." I woke up a couple hours later to Mr. Brandon injecting me with the same blue liquid he always uses to ease my pain. "Where did.." I couldn't finish my sentence due to my body still forming back to normal, but he understood my confusion. "Samuel called me, you gotta stop freaking people out like that, it's not good for your body." He didn't sound mad, and I couldn't understand why. "Look!" Samuel was still here. I was lying down on the floor, trying my best to ignore the feeling of my body changing back to its normal state. I turned my head to face Samuel, who was holding a glowing mass he had contained inside of a jar. "Is that..?" He nodded in response and opened the jar to let it out. My eyes widened at its existence, it was like Samuel's but different. Mr. Brandon grabbed the jar and placed it in front of me since my body was still limp, and sat me up against him to get a better look at it. "I'll be right back!" Samuel proceeded to leave me and the idiot man alone. I glared at him from where I was sitting, unable to turn my head away from his direction. "So what's the real reason for helping me? There's no way you helped just to be nice." My vocal chords were finally healed enough to talk. "Real reason? Like an alibi?" His words were dripping in annoyance. "Well I did bring you here after all, so you're technically my responsibility to keep alive." He acted like I was a pet. "I'm back! Are you ready Shape?" I realized what he meant when I saw my misshapen bird I had made earlier in his hands. I was one step away from finishing my training with number four. I just had to figure out how to use the life force.
Looking at the glowing mass, I felt tears start to build up in my eyes. I had fought so hard and this was all I had to show for it? A glowing lump? I couldn't even reach out to touch it because of my arms not being fully healed. But I could sense it, I could sense it's longing desire to create like it was my own. It was a piece of me that I could never wish to nullify even if I wanted to. "Up you go kid." I had forgotten he was here. I was placed on a nearby box that was sturdy enough to hold my weight, it was better than the floor at least.
"So...What exactly am I supposed to do now?" He hadn't explained what to do with the blob, and I was extremely curious about it. Samuel looked at me, then at the bird before hitting himself in the head at the realization that he hadn't explained anything to me. "I knew I was forgetting something! Sorry about that." He motioned his hand at my glowing blob which was now at my feet, and gently scooped it up in his hands, being extra careful not to drop it before placing it in my lap. It was warm. "Mr. 2, how much longer until they'll be able to use their arms?" My arms were still tingly from the liquid, but it was starting to fade.
"Should be any minute now." He sure was confident in his words, which annoyed me because of the sole fact he was right. Samuel clapped his hands together in excitement and took a seat on the floor next to me, and patiently waited until I was successfully able to at the very least move my arms enough to finally touch my glowing creation. "It's so warm." It was like holding my own heart. "That's good, now place it on top of the bird." I hadn't even noticed he was holding it. I used what strength I had in my hands to stretch the blob and gently place it over my bird like a blanket, only to be completely taken by surprise from the results.
I saw the empty shell I had created absorb its blanket of life and start to change. The grayish brown color it was made of slowly turned into a beautiful blue. Its misshapen wings became fluffed and perfectly symmetrical, and its dull, hollow eyes became warm and full of life. I sat there with my jaw open in shock of its beauty. Picking up my once cold and lifeless bird, I felt its warmth for the first time. It certainly wasn't perfect with its patches of discoloration and minor deformities, but it was mine. That was all that mattered to me.