IDWTBTHQ Chapter 95 - Cloning Blues

It was late in the morning, but Klara was still in bed and with little to no intention of actually getting up any time soon.

After all, it wasn't as if she had anything better to do.

The last two weeks could have been called the proverbial “calm before the storm”, an apt description for a time where something bad was about to happen and the air was so filled with so much tension it was hard to even breathe. And as it always happened, the inhabitants of Stonebarrow tried to find some peace of mind by making some last-minute preparations.

All except Klara herself.

Unlike Marcus, who had disappeared into the Hive to make some new drones, and Felix and Hoggs, who had their magic training to do, the girl had absolutely nothing to contribute for the battle against the orcs. The best she could do was to take care of the household chores for the others but that, while useful in its own right, didn’t do much to help her relieve her stress. Worse still she couldn't even go hunting in the forest, since with the orcs bound to arrive at any moment that would have been exceedingly foolish.

And to top it all off, she was pretty much always alone, since the others were busy most of the time. So she was understandably a bit stressed by the whole situation, something which made her want to just stay in bed all day brooding.

Sadly, she couldn’t even go through with that plan, as someone knocked at her door.

“Klara?” Felix's voice called for her from outside of the room. “Are you in?”

“Yes Felix.” She replied. “Just give me a minute.”

She got up and quickly dressed herself up before opening the door.

“Goodmorning Felix!” She said, trying to keep a cheerful tone. “What can I do for you?”

“Goodmorning!” The young man replied, equally chipper. “Well, I think that Marcus wants something from you.”

“Really? Has she come out of her cave?”

“No, but one of her drones came knocking at the door and when I asked what it wanted, it wrote your name on the dirt.” Felix replied. “It's waiting for you outside the inn.”

Klara nodded. That was how the Vex Queen usually communicated with them while she was in the Hive. The Workers couldn't talk and their hands weren't suited for holding a pen, but they could still write stuff on the ground using their fingers.

“Well, I'll go to see what Marcus wants from me then.” She said, and without any further ado she walked downstairs.

As the apprentice sorcerer had told her, the drone was standing on the road just outside of the inn. It was completely motionless, as Vex drones usually did while waiting for something, but it raised its head as soon as it saw Klara getting out of the inn.

“Hi Marcus!” The girl said, though she still found it a tad weird to talk to the Vex Queen through her drones. “Felix told me that you want something from me. May I ask what it is?”

The Worker drone crouched to write something on the dirt road. When it was done, Klara looked at the crude letters and read: I need clothes.

“Clothes?” The girl asked, raising an eyebrow in puzzlement. “Do you want me to bring you some clothes?”

The drone nodded.

“What kind of clothes do you want?”

The drone shrugged, or at least tried to, since its body wasn't really made for shrugging. The meaning of that gesture, however, was quite clear: Marcus didn't really care about the specific clothes, she just wanted something to cover herself with.

“Ok then. I'll just pick a set of clothes from your closet. Underwear and a long tunic. Would that suffice?”

The drone nodded again.

“Very well. Wait a moment.”

The girl turned and walked up to Marcus's room, entering and opening the closet to take out a change of clothes. As she was getting back outside, she met Felix halfway.

“So... what's going on?” He asked.

“Apparently Marcus wants some spare clothes.” She replied. “So I'm going to give these to the drone.”

“Oh, fine.” The young man said. “Guess it makes sense... She's been in those caves for more than a week now, so she probably needs a change of clothes. And maybe a bath too.” He paused and then added. “Speaking of which, could you tell the drone that I'm going to warm up some water? I’m going to have a bath myself later, and Marcus could use the pool afterwards.”

“I'll tell her.” The girl said as she kept walking, quickly reaching the drone that was waiting for her.

“Here!” She said, handing the clothes to the Vex. “These should be fine, I think. Also, Felix told me that he's going to warm up some water later, in case you want to take a bath.”

The Worker nodded, but didn't actually take the clothes. Instead, it crouched once again to write.

The letters spelled: Can you bring the clothes to the hive?

“Uh, sure.” Klara said, albeit with a hint of reluctance. “But why though? Can't the drone bring them to you?”

I want to show you something. Follow the drone.

“Fine then.” The girl sighed, but she didn't really have any real reason to refuse, so she started following the Worker towards the hill behind the city.

Less than minutes later, they reached the nearest entrance to the inner part of the hive, a circular hole opening on the side of the hill like the mouth of some weird creature, an impression which was strengthened by the mold-wax stalactites hanging from the ceiling like fangs.

The drone immediately entered the cave, but Klara hesitated, feeling really nervous, just like it happened every time she visited the hive.

She didn’t know what made her so uncomfortable. Sure the place looked creepy as hell but she was a veteran hunter who had explored the dangerous depths of the Caligare Forest, so she shouldn’t have been so disturbed by its appearance. After all, she knew for a fact that the Vex Hive was perfectly safe, as Marcus controlled pretty much everything in it and she wouldn’t have let any harm befall on her friends. And yet, just the thought of stepping inside those caves made her skin crawl.

Luckily, at least she wasn’t the only one feeling that way. If anything, Hoggs and Felix were creeped out by the Vex Hive even more than she was. The first and last time they tried to visit it, the apprentice sorcerer had turned as white as a sheet while the old telemancer had almost fainted and had to be carried outside, and afterwards neither of them was willing to get near the hill anymore.

Klara smirked to herself, thinking that there was at least one thing she could do better than the two sorcerers. Though, to be fair, Hoggs had hypothesized that the revulsion they felt towards the Hive was because it was so full of Marcus’ aura that it kind of smothered their own, and in that case the girl was better off than the other two only because she was less sensible to aura.

That actually made a lot of sense and was most likely the correct explanation, but Klara still liked to think that the real reason why she was able to enter the Hive and the others weren’t was because she was braver than them. It was quite a petty and childish belief, sure, but it somehow made it easier for her to actually step inside of the caves when she had to. There was nothing like having something to prove to yourself to motivate you to overcome your fears.

So, taking a final deep breath, Klara gathered all of her resolve and entered the Vex Hive.

The darkness immediately enveloped her, making her hair stand on her head, but she forced herself to calm down and proceed further, and as she did so her eyes gradually got used to the lack of light.

Luckily, the cave wasn’t completely dark, as a dim blue glow came from the ceiling, allowing the girl to see where she was going. However this was a mixed blessing because it also allowed her to see the details of her path, which was something she would have rather avoided.

The tunnel was roughly three meters wide and completely covered in glowing mold-wax, which gave it an alien and ghastly appearance, but that wasn’t really the worst of it. What really peaked in the scale of creepiness were the countless Warrior drones encased in the walls like some sort of monstrous statues, towering over the girl passing through them like horrific trees.

The absolute worst thing about them, however, was that they didn’t feel lifeless at all. Somehow Klara could clearly tell that they were just slumbering, awaiting to be awakened by their Queen’s telepathic order, and the mental image of thousands of those creatures swarming out of the hive like a living tide of chitin and fangs was more than enough to make her shudder.

“It’s a good thing that the Vex are our allies.” She thought. “Because I really don’t want to imagine them as enemies. Especially not right now!”

However, despite all of her instinctive fear and grim thoughts, she still kept walking forward, following the drone for about a minute, until they finally reached a rather bigger cave, at the center of which a single small figure was sitting completely still.

After taking a few steps in that room, Klara realized that the figure was Marcus.

“Hi Marcus!” Klara immediately greeted her friend. “How are... you?”

Her voice died down as she noticed that there was something wrong with the Vex Queen. For starters she was completely naked —something weird even for Marcus, whose sense of shame was lacking at best— and then there was the fact that she was a bit too still, just like the Warrior drones entombed in the walls.

“Marcus?” The girl called her again. “Is everything alright?”

In response to her question, Marcus suddenly raised her head and stared at her with a completely blank expression on her face before opening her mouth to reply.

“HI KLARA!” The Vex Queen shouted, causing the girl to flinch in surprise. “I AM FINE! HOW ABOUT YOU?”

“I am... uh... fine, thank you.” Klara replied, confused and more than a little spooked. “Why are you shouting?”

“AM I SHOUTING?” Marcus cried again. “SORRY, I DID NOT REALIZE IT! Let me try again...”

The Vex Queen's voice died down to an inaudible whisper but she didn't seem to realize it, as she kept speaking even though Klara clearly couldn’t hear her. She also kept the same emotionless expression on her face and her body was also strangely stiff, lacking the vitality and energy that would have made it feel alive.

With alarm, Klara realized that Marcus was moving more like a puppet than like a real person.

The girl cautiously took a step back, looking around for any sign of danger. After all, if something had led her here using this fake Marcus as a bait, then this was probably a trap. However, she couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary —or at least not out of the ordinary for a place like the Vex Hive— so she decided to try and speak to the person at the center of the room.

“Marcus, are you sure that everything is alright?” She asked cautiously. “You’re not really behaving like yourself.” She paused and then added: “Also, I can’t hear you right now. Speak louder, please.”

The Vex Queen froze for a moment, remaining completely motionless for a few seconds, but then she started screaming again.

“SORRY!” She shouted. “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?”

“Yes.” Klara replied with some diffidence. “I can hear you all too well because you’re shouting again.”

“SORRY ABOUT IT! IT IS HARD TO SPEAK PROPERLY IN THIS BODY AND I STILL HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO REGULATE THE VOLUME.”

“This... body?” Klara repeated, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“YES.” Marcus nodded and pointed at herself. “THIS IS NOT ME. THIS IS JUST A DRONE THAT LOOKS LIKE ME. I MADE IT TO SPEAK WITH YOU WHILE I AM INSIDE OF THE HIVE.”

Klara remained astonished for a second, slowly processing this information. However, the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The Marcus in front of her was behaving exactly like one of the drones, and knowing about the Vex’s seemingly limitless capacity for creating new drone types it made sense that they could make one that looked exactly like Marcus.

She was, however, still a bit confused about why would the Vex Queen make a copy of herself.

“That's... fine and all, but why does it look exactly like you?” The girl asked, still rather wary. “Is it… another Vex Queen, perhaps?”

“OH NO!.” Marcus reassured her. “THIS IS NOT A QUEEN. AS I SAID, IT IS JUST A NORMAL DRONE THAT LOOKS LIKE ME. I MADE IT THIS WAY BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE THE BEST WAY TO INTERACT WITH YOU. IT SHOULD BE SIMILAR ENOUGH TO ME THAT YOU SHOULD NOT NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE!”

“Ehm…” Klara muttered, unsure about how to reply. Sure, the drone looked exactly like Marcus, but the way it moved was a clear sign that it wasn’t the real Vex Queen. Not to mention that the real Marcus didn’t usually scream at the top of her lungs.

“OF COURSE , I STILL HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO MOVE IT PROPERLY.” The Marcus-drone replied, perhaps noticing the girl’s reaction. “WHICH IS ACTUALLY THE REASON WHY I WANTED TO SHOW IT TO YOU. IF YOU SEE ANYTHING THAT NEEDS IMPROVING, FEEL FREE TO TELL ME. APART FROM THE VOICE. I AM ALREADY WORKING ON IT.”

“Well..” The girl tried to find the right words. “It does look like you, that’s for sure. And the voice is also the same, though as you already said you have to work on the volume. However, the real problem is the way you move. It’s rather unnatural. I mean, all the drones move like that, but you don’t… when you are in your main body, of course.” She paused and then added: “Also, your face is totally expressionless.”

“OH.” The fake Vex Queen said in a surprised tone but still without any emotion showing on her face. “I HAD THE FEELING THAT I WAS FORGETTING SOMETHING. LET ME TRY TO SMILE ONE SECOND.”

She tried to smile, but the results were more akin to a beast baring its teeth than to a human expressing joy or amusement.

“HOW IS IT?” She asked.

“Uhm... let’s say that it probably needs more work than your voice.” Klara replied in a dry tone. “And that’s saying something, because you are making my ears hurt right now.”

“BUMMER.” The Marcus drone replied, with a hint of disappointment in her voice, if not in her face. “AND I THOUGHT THAT IT WAS BASICALLY READY TO GO. I REALLY WANTED TO USE IT TO GET OUT OF THESE GODS FORSAKEN CAVES!”

“Well… couldn’t you do that with your own body?” The girl suggested. “I mean, there shouldn’t be anything that forces you to hide in here, is it?”

“NO.” The Marcus-drone replied immediately. “RIGHT NOW, I DO NOT WANT ANYONE TO SEE ME.”

“Is that about the eggs laying?” Klara asked. “Because it isn’t anything to be ashamed about. I mean, that’s just part of your bodily functions, isn’t it? It shouldn’t be much different from me being on my period.”

“TRUST ME, THIS IS DIFFERENT.” The drone replied. “I REALLY CAN’T GET OUT RIGHT NOW.”

“Fine.” The girl conceded. “If that’s how you feel, then I won’t pry further. However, if you want to get out and interact with us through your drone, I can’t see why you couldn’t do it right now.”

“WELL, YOU SAID IT YOURSELF THAT IT IS NOT READY YET.”

“Yeah, but there is nothing stopping you from learning on the go.” Klara replied. “I mean, I’d get it if it was for some formal event or something, but you’d just be staying with us. And if we explain the situation to Felix and Hoggs, I’m sure they’ll adjust to it in no time.”

“WELL, IF YOU SAY SO…” The Marcus-drone said.

“I do.” The girl nodded, approaching the drone and handing the clothes to it. “But first, let’s get some clothes on you, because I don’t think you want the men to ogle a naked copy of you.”

“RIGHT.” The fake Vex Queen nodded.

“Also, we have to start working on your voice right now, because otherwise we’d all go deaf in no time.” The girl said.

“OK. Let me try to speak a bit more softly…”

“I can’t hear you now.” Klara corrected her.

“How about now?”

“Better but still a bit too soft.”

“AND NOW?”

“Too loud. Let’s start again…”

And, as the drone got dressed, they kept trying to find the right volume for its voice, and they kept on practicing even when they finally got out of the hive.

Meanwhile, down in the deepest bowels of the Hive, the real Marcus was making a faint smile after watching his clone interact with Klara.

He was sitting on a makeshift bed, made of mold wax covered with a few old blankets, and was butt naked, exactly like his copy. However, he did look different in one department: his belly, which was incredibly inflated, to the point of making him look pregnant.

The Vex Queen telepathically followed Klara outside through her clone, glad to have something to distract himself from his current predicament, because otherwise he feared he would have gone mad quite soon.

He had thought that no other drone could be worse than the Broodmother to give birth to, but he had been wrong. He had been terribly, horribly, tragically wrong.

To put it simply, the extended gestation worked perfectly on the new drones, better than it did for the Broodmothers. In fact, it cut the time they needed to fully mature to a third of what it would have normally been, and thanks to that one of the new drones, which he had called Destroyers, had already been born and was halfway to maturity, with the next egg due for laying any time soon. However, this process had the side effect of making the Destroyers’ eggs grow to a colossal size while still inside of Marcus’s belly, something which, apart from inconveniencing the Vex Queen quite a bit during the gestation itself, resulted in some complications when it came the time to actually push them out.

The exact process was something the Vex Queen tried to avoid thinking about as much as he could, but sadly the memories always lingered in some dark corner of his mind. A lot of screaming, an unbearable amount of pain and abject terror were involved, and he couldn’t even forget them by fainting since the Hivemind would keep them fresh in his memory down to the most miniscule, horrific details. And to make it all even worse, there was the fact that he had to face the prospect of going through this ordeal multiple time in the future.

It was more than enough to shatter Marcus' sanity, something which the Vex Queen had tried to avoid by creating the clone drone and using it to distract himself from the impending agony of extreme egg laying. 

Luckily it seemed like that had worked pretty well, since that drone had allowed him to focus on less grim thought, especially now that he was using it to communicate with other people. Even though it was through proxy, he still greatly enjoyed having some social relations, as that helped him fight back the waves of panic that threatened to overcome him. 

Exploiting this moment of relative peace, the monster girl wondered what had pushed him to not only willingly go through such an ordeal once, but also do it again and plan on doing it at least another couple time after that.

The first thoughts that flashed in his mind were some eminently rational justifications, like making sure that he’d have some drones powerful enough to actually defeat the Oni and so on, but those were just superficial bullshit and he knew it. No one right in their own mind would willingly go through the agony he had experienced just to gain an edge in battle.

The real reason had to be another one, connected to the very core of Marcus’ being.

“Now that I think about it, I always had some rather martyric tendencies, even in my old life.” He thought, as a revelation about himself suddenly flashed in his mind. “I’ve always instinctively taken the metaphorical —and at least in one case literal— bullet for someone else. But why though!?!” He scowled with irritation. “I am not responsible for other people’s wellbeing. I didn’t run for president, nor was I a cop or a firefighter or a doctor, or anyone who is supposed to help others! I am just trying to live my life the best I can. So why can’t I turn the other way for once! I mean, no one would blame me for not wanting to shit out an egg the size of a beach ball out of my cooch, so why am I doing it? Is it just out of pre-emptive guilt for the lives that I could potentially save? Am I so sick in the head that I literally have to feel responsible for everyone?”

However, as much as he tried, the answer to these questions wouldn’t come to him. Not only that, but this train of thoughts actually made him focus more on the upcoming egg-laying, which defeated the purpose of the clone drone. So, with an exasperated sigh, he decided to postpone this introspection to a later date, possibly when he wasn’t in such a shitty situation.

On a final mental addendum before he shifted his attention to the conversation between Klara and the clone drone, he wished for the orcs to arrive as soon as possible. At least that way he wouldn’t have to worry anymore, one way or another.