POV Rio Magic Clone
I chew on the carrot they gave me as my food, which, while I admit that it's a bit lazy of them. But it's an experiment, so I let it be. I was biding my time after all for my real self to finish his infiltration. So far, they had gotten the job and been shown around, but they are still under probation, which means they are going everywhere with a partner.
Unfortunately, it's kind of boring around here, save for an annoying guest that comes around and that I have to ignore as best I can to avoid breaking cover.
"So you're gonna talk to me yet, Mr. Fake Rabbit," Mal0 says as she exits the wall she walked through.
Apparently, Truesight gives me the ability to perceive her normally, and she can tell I can see her. Which has her constantly bothering me. Apparently, Ghost Wolf is Mal0, and they only call her Ghost Wolf because she was captured before apps were a thing, so they never saw her program name or the app name.
"Come on, I'm bored, and I know you can hear me!" Mal0 says as she sits down and gives me an eyeful of something I didn't want to see.
I use every trick I know to avoid reacting. Thankfully, Batman was a fantastic actor. I also try to avoid eye contact by looking at my food.
"You can't ignore me forever! We both know for a fact that you aren't a rabbit, so drop the act and talk to me already! They won't even notice!" Mal0 complains.
'Ugh. I swear to Lord Helix, this woman is testing my patience.'
Poke
I freeze for a moment, and so does Mal0. She pulls back her claw, then she stares at her claw, and then looks at me again.
Poke
"I can touch you! I CAN TOUCH YOU!" Mal0 yells.
Mal0 gets a look that makes me feel deeply unsettled as she gives me the Kazuma hand gesture and a very indecent look upon her skull face.
'Bad touch! Bad touch! Stranger danger!'
I start hopping around in slight panic while attempting to make it seem normal. I also start panic screaming towards my true self, who was trying his damndest to pretend I didn't exist while using the coffee machine.
'Rio, get off your ass and help me!' I shout mentally.
'Hmm, what to order... What to order...' my real self says while weakening the connection.
'You bastard! This wasn't the deal!'
The spell we ended up making was closer to Shadow Clone Jutsu in the fact that each clone was sort of independent and could make their own choices. The spell still had a lot of kinks to fix, but it was good enough. Not that that was a good thing, as I was now stuck in a room with a pervert.
POV Shift Real Rio
'Hum dum de dum dum.'
I do everything short of severing the connection to my rabbit clone to avoid dealing with that mess. The spell wouldn't return the memories later, as the spell doesn't work like that. I tried to make it work like that, but the best I could manage was basically splitting my body magically, or at least that was the closest example I could give. My mind controlled the 3 copies I made fine, but it did split my power three ways, making me much weaker than normal. I did try to make four, but gave up on that when I felt how weak I would become and the weak control I would have over the clones.
But back to the plan I had cooked up. I had been slowly learning every nook and cranny of The Box to figure out how best to disable the defences, allowing me to steal what I want and get out. I had done an infiltration before being hired to get a threat level before I went all in. Getting the job was easy; they were desperate for new hires, and I had plenty of fake identities that could pass most scrutiny levels. Given that they had just downsized their resources and manpower massively, they didn't perform as much due diligence as they should have. They would find out eventually, but by then it would be too late.
My third clone was currently infiltrating Slingshot Base and stealing everything not nailed down before they chose to launch everything into the sun. Apparently, the Security Council has elected to ignore precedent and launch items of unknown danger into the sun. Despite what some may think, that is a really stupid idea. Not all items will be destroyed that way, and that was something Shield understood, which is why they rarely launched anything after the world nearly got hit by a solar flare strong enough to wipe out most complex electronics.
"Okay, you've been doing really well so far. As such, I'm gonna let you handle this next part on your own," Harold, my supervisor for today, says.
"Got it. Just feed Swamp Lady and ask if she has any other requests, then leave," I recite.
"That's the idea," Harold says with a calm smile.
I leave and head to the food room to pick out a fresh chicken.
"Sorry, little buddy, but it's your time," I say with a slight frown.
"Cluck?" the chicken says dumbly.
I take the chicken to Tabitha's Room, which is the Swamp Dryad's real name, which she told me in animal speak when I was here last.
"Oh, you're back! And you brought lunch!" Tabitha says with a toothy smile.
I nod and go through the usual checklist I am required to talk about. It wasn't all that interesting, but once I am done, I swap to Drudic Speech.
"Do you want to get out of here?" I ask while making sure I can't be overheard.
"Huh? Well... I guess... But there's no point. I don't have anywhere to go," Tabitha says with a sad frown.
"Hmm, Lady Gaia Everfree would accept you," I reply.
"W-What? You mean THE Gaia Everfree! Y-You know her?" Tabitha says with surprise.
"Of course, I was practically raised by her," I respond with a smile before releasing a bit more of my aura.
"Oh! I get it! Then yes, I would love to get out of here. What do you need me to do?" Tabitha asks.
"Can you acid melt through a solid block of ice?" I ask.
"Ice? Sure, but why... Ohhhhhh! Hehehehe, that's gonna be so funny," Tabitha says with a cute chuckle.
I kneel and drop a magically enchanted jar into her swampy water. For extra measure, I drop three in total.
"One can be for your friend," I say with a wink before quickly departing.
I return to my supervisor, who seems none the wiser.
"Great job, now we've got to deal with the Rabbit. It's freaking out in its cell for some reason. We won't go inside unless we have to, but we can inspect to see if anything is amiss," Harold says while grabbing some extra equipment.
I do the same.
A Week Later...
'Finally, all alone. Now time to move.'
It took another few days before they finally deemed me good enough to do my job on my own. I acted normally for a few more days after that, so the few who were paying extra attention to me would be satisfied and leave me truly on my own. Now that I am truly not being monitored save for a certain Mal0, who decided pestering me was more fun than my rabbit clone. I had to give her credit; she was smarter than you would think. She figured out the rabbit was a copy or aspect of mine.
My first stop was to Tabitha to tell her it was time and to take the jars of acid gunk from her. I stored them in my inventory, and then I walked to Pespi-Woman's cell and poured the acid on the ice containing her. Then I swiftly walked away and cast a simple spell on Dr. Bee's cell. My next stop was to see Peanut. I kept constant eye contact with him while I got close and touched him, and confirmed I wanted to store and absorb it. The statue was just that, a statue, and not alive, so I could store and absorb it.
At this point, I activated the virus I had uploaded when I infiltrated this place, causing the facility to go into a blackout. It wouldn't give me much more time, but that was enough, as it also opened all cells. And most importantly, lifted the Anti-Teleportation Wards.
BOOM
"Glad to see you, now follow my clones to Bloody Mary," I say while gesturing to the Rabbit Clone and the Clone that came with Lucy.
She nods firmly. I bring Tabitha and her friend Goldy through the portal after I grab them. They are left in Gaia's care while I run to the object storage room and steal everything. I also do the same to the few anomalies that are stored elsewhere, like the Living Civil War Statue or the Potato Dimension Bag.
"Wait, take me with you!" Mal0 pleads while in a Dogeza pose.
"Sigh. Sign this contract, and I'll bring you with me," I reply with slight annoyance.
The contract was simple; it basically said she swore she wouldn't knowingly become a threat to humanity, and she wouldn't proliferate on the internet.
She reads it quickly before signing it with her claws.
"Good, now go!" I order while pushing her through the portal.
"WAIT! I can't go without my host medium," Mal0 warns.
"The computer, right?" I ask.
She nods.
"I'll grab it," I say, and quickly grab the small device and toss it through the portal.
I shoo her away and move on to the last target, but the wards reactivate, and the portal closes.
'Damn well. Whatever, we got the majority of what we needed done anyway.'
The floor shakes, and I start to hear music.
"PEPSI MANNNNN!!!"
Clink Clink Clink
Pepsi Woman comes running down the halls towards me and stops before opening the heretofore non-existent mouth to summon a can of Pepsi, then demands I drink it. I do so as to avoid fighting with her.
"We have a CODE PEPSI! I repeat CODE PEPSI!" The intercom screams.
When I look back, Pepsiwoman was already running away. Likely to deliver more Pepsi.
"What's this? A Prison Break Woefully underpopulated by Bees!? My briefcase is full of Bees out to put a stop to this," Dr. Bees says while opening said briefcase and releasing a sh*t ton of bees.
The bees don't bother me whatsoever, as they aren't really magically controlled at all, and instead, they go to swarm the other guards that just arrived.
"AHHHH! The situation has been made worse by the addition of Bees! Who could have predicted this!?" screams a guard I hadn't met before.
I ignore that guard and head towards my last target. Bloody Mary.
Rumble.
POV Shift Rio Magic Clone
"Avada Kedavra!" I cast, but the spell gets blocked yet again.
"Maybe try a more useful spell!" the other clone shouts.
"Shut it and top that git!" I shout back.
"Killjoy," the other clone says.
Smash
I roll out of the way of the vectors that come smashing at me. Despite our best efforts, Bloody Mary was proving to be a real pain in the @ss to kill. Her vectors were weaker, but she had nearly a hundred of them compared to Lucy's 27.
"Give me some room, I've got a plan!" I shout mentally.
The others do their best, and I fall back a bit and cut my wrist before quickly drawing a pentagram.
'This better work.'
"Gone, gone the form of man, rise the demon Etrigan!" I chant and instantly puke out a lot of blood, which gets added to the pentagram.
I fall to the ground in agony, which distracts the other clone and subsequently gets it killed. That empowers me a bit, but it doesn't make the ripping of flesh and melting of bones easier to endure.
Crack
BOOM
I explode into bone and blood fragments before a burst of hellfire rises from the ground and summons all my chunks back, and I am erased and replaced with a stout demon.
POV Shift Rio
I arrive just in time to see the demon introduce himself.
"Once more with metered rhyme, comes Etrigan the slayer just in time!" Etrigan says while forging a blade from Hellfire.
I was pale and not doing so great, as the cost of basically forcibly summoning a Prince of Hell was not cheap, especially since I was basically creating a phantom copy of him rather than the real deal, as the real Etrigan doesn't exist here, or at least I'm pretty sure he doesn't sort of hard to say for certain if he did or didn't exist at all in this reality.
Bloody Mary looks warily at Etrigan, but she doesn't even get time to react before she is launched back from Etrigan's attack. Hellfire is really nasty, and blocking doesn't mean much. So Lucy and Etrigan swiftly put her down. With Lucy slicing her head off with her Vector.
"Since the battles fought and won, Constantine with me is done," Etrigan says before dispelling himself.
Lucy runs towards me and helps me walk, as the exhaustion was making it hard to walk.
"Thanks, let's get out of here. Ghost Rider should be close to done with the various criminals," I comment.
"Indeed, I am. I have judged the sins of the unworthy and came here when I smelt the sulfur of a demon. But it is gone now. Come, I shall see us out," Ghost Rider says while summoning his bike and elongating it to hold more passengers.
Vrooom
The bike launches us past the chaos of The Box and towards the entrance, as no door or obstacle can stop Ghost Rider. Once we get outside, we fly through the sky and away from The Box.
'Mission Complete.'
I fall asleep from exhaustion in Lucy's arms.