The Hunt of the Shadows Book 3:The Lost Trident

Chapter 12: The Duplicates

  I activated my shield and covered it. The grenade exploded and I felt the force. After that, I looked around until I saw my face. Not joking, it was my face. I have no twins or made any clone of me unless someone did. I charged towards him and hit him. Then, I teleported him outside the city to attract less attention. Then I rose and kicked him.

He did a back somersault and stood inches in front of me. Then, my friends appeared beside me fighting their duplicates.

"What's happening, Mike?" Jack asked.

"No idea. Judging by the situation, my guess is that Steve created these robots," I replied.

"Then, we smash them like always," Sarah said.

"This isn't going to be easy," I said.

"We know," Valentina said.

"Nothing is easy for us, we can manage," Jim said.

"Then, let's go," I said.

We sprinted towards them and attacked. They did the same with us. Surprisingly, they also had the same weapons as us. So, our powers are tied. My sword formed and I slashed it towards the robot. It's sword also formed and slashed a defensive strike. I tried to kick it but it deflected the kick. It pushed me away and we departed. I opened my other hand and another sword formed. The robot looked at me and charged. It didn't use dual wielding like I did, weird. I slashed one sword towards it. It blocked my attack and I swung my other sword towards it. It uses it's hand to deflect and I did a scratch on it. My duplicate looked at it's arm and scowled. Robots don't scowl, the way it is built is different. Steve was definitely observing us, every detail of our fight. Wait, so that's why he sent robots after us everytime. It is to observe our actions so that he can duplicate us into his robots. That mischevious guy. I blinked away the thought and charged forward. The robot positioned itself and blocked my attack and slashed. By the force of it's block, I flew back. I landed on my feet. I charged towards it again.

Then, that's when I noticed something. I started to charge forward but faster than before. Technically, faster than the speed of light. When I moved, I was right behind the robot. When I slashed, I noticed lightning surrounding my sword. When the sword's blade touched the robot's body, lightning crackled around me.

Jack looked over and said, "Whoa, I didn't summon that lightning."

"I know," I replied.

I used my strength and pulled my sword down to the ground. The robot was pushed forward by my strength. I slashed the air with my other sword and the lightning around me followed the direction my sword was slashed. The lightning hit the robot and it started to act funny as the lightning fried some of it's circuit. I was surprised, I didn't expect the elementals to awaken so quickly. I grinned, sweet. Wonder what I can do. I ran towards the robot as fast I could. In a split second, I was right in front of it. I held my sword and slashed it from the bottom. The lightning surrounding my blade straightened up and formed into a sharp lightning blade. The robot was sliced perfectly in half.

I turned around to see what my friends' were doing. They were doing pretty fine. Valentina fired multiple arrows to the robot in front of her. Sarah was swinging her axe like mad, inflicting loads of damage towards the robot. Jim was spinning his trident non-stop hitting the robot everytime. Jack was throwing his lightning bolt towards the robot, then charged towards it and used the lighting bolt like a sword to fight the robot. I joined him.

"How's it going, Jack?" I asked.

"Pretty fine, I guess," he said as he struggled with the robot.

"Need a hand?" I asked.

"What else do you expect, of course," he said.

I went in and hit the robot with my sword. The robot fell back with the force.

"This junk looks like me," Jack said.

"Yeah, with the same abilities we had," I replied.

The robot charged towards us. Jack was prepared to throw his lightning bolt. I decided to test something. I ran. Immediately, I was right in front of the robot again. Due to it's reflex, it tried to kick me, but I was much more faster. I spinned, dodging the kick and thrusted out my hand touching it. I concentrated and lightning flowed through the robot's body. Then, the robot exploded.

"You okay there, Mike?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, thanks," I replied.

"What was that just now?" he asked.

"Something I just awakened," I replied.

"Interesting," he said.

We looked at our friends fighting the robots. They were almost done with it.

"Let me speed up the process," I said.

"Sure, entertain me, Mike," he said.

I grinned, "Sure."

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I imagined multiple lightning came down from the sky striking the robots. I thrusted out my hand and electricity crackled around my palm. Then, the electricity from my hand departed towards the sky and striked the robots. All of the robots malfunctioned and exploded.

"Got to hand it to you, Mike," Sarah said.

"What was that?" Ivy asked.

"Elements," I told them.

"Would you kindly brief us about it?" Jim asked.

"I thought I told you guys about it in the base?" I asked.

"Oh yeah," he replied.

"Hmmm, can a normal Shadow get it?" Valentina asked.

"I'm not sure about that," I replied. "Unless......"

"Unless what?" Jack asked.

"Unless, the descendant of the Voids donate some of their blood to you," I said.

"Would that be good?" Jim asked.

"Yes and no. You will only gain one elemental powers which will be good, but..." I said.

Ivy frowned, "I hate buts."

"But, you won't have enough energy to continue and use it very long," I said.

"How so?" Sarah asked.

"These powers drain our energy when we use it, so we have to be very smart in using it or else we might die out of exhaustion," I said.

"Man, then we'll stick to being normal Shadows and work hard to fight alongside you, Mike," Jack said.

"Thanks guys," I said.

Suddenly, I got a big vibe. I was suddenly in space. I turned around and saw the Milky Way. You might think is was splendid to see the whole Milky Way but no. By the time I was there, the vibe got bigger and stronger. Oh no. A big shadow covered me slowly, I looked up and saw a gigantic spaceship. Shnaks, I thought. I looked at the distance between the Shnaks' ship and Earth. I estimated around 7-9 days the Shnaks will arrive. Pretty smart huh. I was back into reality and my friends were beside me.

"Another vision huh," Ivy said.

"Yeah," I replied.

"What did you see?" Valentina asked.

"Shnaks. They will be here ETA 7-9 days," I said.

"Man, the calculation," Jack said.

I chuckled, "Couldn't help it. Anyways, we've got limited time."

"Yeah. What should we do next?" Sarah asked.

"What I've been thinking to do for days," I replied.

"What?" Jim asked.

"To inform the government about this situation," I replied.

"You sure, Mike? There's no turning back on this one," Ivy said.

"I am aware of the risks. I am willing to take it," I replied.

"If so, we trust your judgement, Mike," Jack said.

"Let's go," I said.