Those Who Are Left 6 (1/2)

Reginald’s gangly face distorted back into his previous visage, which had adopted a rather smug look. Normally this would be the the point where newcomers to the city would throw themselves at his feet. They’d lavish him with praise, swear loyalty or otherwise try to get in good with him, but all such claims would be woefully insincere. He didn’t blame them, though. It was a natural reaction when faced with someone who held both their salvation and their destruction in his hands. Of course they’d want to seek the protection of someone as prominent and powerful as he was, and in return he’d have them do certain things to maintain his Facade.

And this ‘girl’ in front of him would surely be no different. The main reason they caught wind of Keira Morgana’s true identity in the first place was because she followed the same self-destructive pattern as other fledgling Doppelgangers.

However, contrary to his expectations, the catgirl in front of him was neither impressed nor relieved, but instead kept shaking in her boots with a slightly pale face.

“Th-th-that! You’re… one of those things?!” she muttered in disbelief.

“You can drop the act now, youngling,” he insisted with a scowl. “We’ve been investigating you for quite a while, so there’s no question-”

“You’re wrong!”

*SLAP*

Reginald hit Keira with the back of his hand in a motion strong enough to be considered a punch.

“Do not interrupt me, youngling!”

The catgirl whimpered and winced while blood dribbled from her nose and mouth.

“Yes, yes, I get it, you’re good at acting,” he said while rolling his eyes.

“I’m not acting!” she growled through gritted teeth. “Don’t lump me in with you monsters!”

The old Doppelganger gave a long sigh as he realized this youngling was one of ‘those.’ The type that denied everything until the very end. Well, it was hardly a bad habit to have, but there was a time and place for it. There was only one way to get through to these delusional method actors and force them to comply - by forcefully tearing down their Facade. And if they still refused to cooperate, then he’d just have them eliminated.

“Fine. I guess we’ll do this the hard way.”

The elf called K made a move at those words. An extra arm sprouted from his right side, revealing his nature as a shapeshifter. He unsheathed the dagger on his thigh and pressed it against his captive’s cheek.

“Aaaaah! Noooo! Let me goooo!”

Keira started thrashing around and screaming again, but could not break out of his hold on her shoulders and neck.

“No, you idiot!” growled Reginald. “Not that hard way! You’ll get blood all over the carpet again!”

“... Sorry, boss.”

The visibly disappointed K returned the weapon back to its sheath and used the extra arms to pull out some rope from his underneath coat. He wrapped it tightly around the still-yelling catgirl’s torso and arms, then tied her to her seat before finally taking his hands off her. Boxxy semi-seriously struggled against the rope and realized it was much tougher than it initially thought. Well, a binding like this was of little use against a shapeshifter in the first place, but it wanted to see just how far it could take this as Keira as a sort of experiment.

Either way, the Mimic had already decided it wasn’t going to submit to this stuck-up prick. Being under someone else’s thumb was the thing Boxxy T. Morningwood swore to avoid months ago when it first broke out of the dungeon. In a moment of weakness, it had begrudgingly accepted the deal offered by the Goddess of Incomprehensibility and had silently prepared itself to live with the consequences of its decision in the following weeks. Fortunately that whole fiasco had come to an extremely satisfying resolution, so Boxxy had no regrets in that regard.

Reginald was completely different from the lax and casual Charlie, though. He seemed like a total control freak, which was completely unacceptable. Still, that didn’t mean he didn’t have his uses.

The monster-in-charge walked around to his massive desk and opened up one of the drawers while Boxxy was thinking up ways to take advantage of him. He reached inside and brought out a metal baton with an exceptionally thick handle covered in what appeared to be Bouncewood bark. The rest of the iron rod grew slimmer towards the other end, and was tipped off with a small metal sphere that was about 2-3 centimeters in diameter.

“See this?” he asked while waving it around. “A little marvel that I got my hands on a long time ago. It’s called a Stun Stick, you see.”

He pushed a little button at the base of the handle, causing the item in question to emit a low hum.

“Its creator intended to pacify people with it, but couldn’t get it produce enough juice to take down anyone of a significant Level. The most it can do to an elf or human is give them a small jolt. But to us Doppelgangers - well, I’m sure you’re aware what will happen.”

Unbeknownst to him, Keira was already well aware of that product’s specs via Fizzy’s lessons. The fact that he thought it wasn’t enough to incapacitate a person merely showed he didn’t know how to use it. He could be forgiven for that, though. The little switch that regulated the power output had been broken off, and the device appeared to be stuck in the ‘minor annoyance’ setting. Hardly a reason for Boxxy to drop its act.

“Please…. *Hic* Don’t hurt Rowie…”

Keira kept whimpering and crying as she was seemingly at her wit’s end.

“... Quite. Well then, let’s see what you look like underneath all that!”

He pressed the rounded tip of that obviously Artificer-made item into the catgirl’s cheek.

*ZZZT*

Your target has been electrocuted. Target HP -163.

“Ack!” screamed Keira, more in surprise than pain. “W-what was that for?!”

“... Huh?” said Reginald dumbly.

He looked down at the Stun Stick in his hand and back to the perfectly healthy and un-shifting beastkin. The Stun Stick was doing the extra bit of damage as expected, but his involuntary subject was still sobbing and jibbering without showing any adverse reactions. Not to be disheartened, he zapped her a second time.

*ZZZT*

Your target has been electrocuted. Target HP -73.

“Ow! What are you trying to do to me?!”

This was incredibly perplexing. Not only did the damage drop down to nearly ‘normal’ levels, but the notification claiming his target had been stunned never showed up. He decided he’d give the thing a third try to be sure.

*ZZZT*

Your target has been electrocuted. Target HP -88.

Same outcome as before.

*ZZZT*

Your target has been electrocuted. Target HP -80.

The fourth try didn’t fare much better either.

“The hell?!” he exclaimed

“That’s my line you sick fuck!” shouted the catgirl through teary eyes. “Do you take pleasure in toying with people?!”

The thoroughly confused Reginald went over to where K was standing.

“What?” he asked with a dumb face.

“Just need a… control group.”

*ZZZT*

Your target has been electrocuted. Target HP -201.

“AAAARGH!”

The adult elf recoiled with a yelp of pain while clutching his left shoulder - the same spot that Reginald had applied the Stun Stick to. He muttered obscenities through gritted teeth as his left arm went limp by his side. The hand poking out of his coat’s long sleeve had turned thin, pitch-black and four-fingered. As expected, the jolt was much too weak to completely incapacitate an adult Doppelganger, but still had enough of a kick to partially undo their shapeshifting and reveal their true nature.

“Hmm, seems to be in working order,” mumbled Reginald while ignoring his comrade’s suffering, “so how come it doesn’t do anything to the youngling?”

The older Doppelganger was aware of the possibility that a shapeshifter could be strong enough to shrug off a minor zap without being adversely affected. He was one of them, after all. However, such an individual would not be phased by the non-lethal toxins that K and J were sent out with, especially since K didn’t report any incidents regarding the abduction itself. Especially not a juvenile one like his guest.

“Maybe she’s a new Doppelganger variant?” he mused. “Mutations do happen quite often with our kind…”

In truth, the idea Reginald dismissed offhandedly was actually spot on. Boxxy’s abnormally high END and MNT Attributes allowed it to resist most of the physical and mental side effects of being electrocuted. It still stung like a bitch and made its face feel numb, but it would need to take a much more serious attempt to screw with its body. Especially once Adaptive Defense kicked in and provided it with a delicious 31% resistance to electricity, not to mention the relatively expensive anti-electricity enchantment on its ring.

Not that Reginald needed to know any of that.

“I already told you I’m not one of you assholes!” shouted Keira for the umpteenth time.

“No, no, we both know that can’t be. My investigation makes that clear.”

“Investigation? W-what are you talking about?! You’ve been stalking me?!”

“Of course we’ve been keeping an eye on you. Did you think nobody would look into the simultaneous appearance of a loud-mouthed kitty and this ‘Sandman’ character? Not only was that ‘vigilante’ somehow always around you, but all my sources tell me he used Mirror Image to shake off pursuers more than once. You may have fooled the ignorant, but all signs point to you two being one and the same from my perspective. Only a Doppelganger is capable of shapeshifting to that extent, after all.”

“No… No, that’s crazy!”

“Then there’s the matter of you leaving your damn pheromones all over the places you frequent. They positively reek of a youngling, you know. I even have multiple reports that claim you have a habit of suddenly disappearing in dark alleys, after which a number of homeless people go ‘missing,’ not to mention that disappearing act you pulled last night.”

“Listen to me! Someone is lying to you!”

“That’s not all. There’s also the matter of that vaguely arachnid shape we spotted climbing up and down that tree. Very creative, by the way. Even my people had a tough time making out that form, but the fact it left from your ‘home’ was a dead giveaway. Then there’s the complete and total lack of a background on either-”

“Boss, can’t we just do this thing my way?” interrupted K, who had recovered in the meantime.

“... You know what? Fine. Fine! I’m done playing nice. Go ahead and lop off an ear or two.”

Boxxy finally caught onto what the underling was talking about earlier. All shapeshifter flesh was unstable, and it was a universal truth that separating it from the main body would cause it to lose its shape and degrade into a formless blob of meat. Well, Snack was an exception to that, but she was a demon so her body never made much sense in the first place. The important thing was that the Mimic might have been able to fool the Stun Stick, but this one was beyond its abilities.

Well, being ‘found out’ was an inevitability anyway. The important thing was that this little exercise had already born fruit. Boxxy learned not only why Keira was targeted, but also how it got found out. The latter was probably revealed on purpose, although the Mimic wasn’t quite sure as to why. Probably because that old bag of bones wanted to brag about how great he was. Regardless, Boxxy was relieved to find out it didn’t get caught due to some mistake it had made, but rather because this group of Doppelgangers seemed experienced in tracking down their own kind. They also seemed to have a rather sizable information network, meaning it was most likely not a tiny organization.

And now that the information gathering portion of its visit was more or less over and done with, it was time to focus on the second, much tastier goal of its visit - securing profit.

“What? Why?!” shouted the frightened-but-not-really Keira as K reached for his sheathed blade again.

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough!” he said with a menacing tone while grasping one of her fuzzy ears. He then swung his dagger it, intending to slice it clean off. However-

*CLANG*

-the weapon bounced off Keira’s steel-covered ear.

“What the-?!” blurted out K while taking a few steps away from Boxxy. Even Reginald was taken aback by this sudden development.

“Hehehehe,” chuckled Keira. “Hahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHA! AH HAH HAH HAH HAH! AH HAH HAH! Hah ha! Aaaaahh!”

A spider-like limb grew out of the catgirl’s open palm. It’s spear-like steel tip easily cut through the ropes binding her to the chair. The mana-sealing shackles and collar let out a small hissing noise accompanied by a trail of fumes. The catgirl stood to her feet, allowing those bindings to fall off her wrists and neck. A cursory glance was enough to reveal they had been melted through by some kind of acid.

K put up his guard and was raring for a fight, but the highly suspicious individual didn’t make a move and just smiled pleasantly and spoke with a casual tone.

“Now then, mister Namhel. Am I correct in assuming you had some misgivings regarding my behavior?”

“‘Misgivings’ is putting it lightly, youngling,” he said with a scowl. “Do you not understand your rash actions put our whole Facade in danger?”

He wasn’t letting it show on the outside, but he was really struggling to keep up his dignified mask. Having his captive casually shrug off those bindings like they were child’s play was more than a little unnerving.

“Really? How’s that?”

“Do I seriously need to spell it out for you?! You’ve nestled yourself so deep into the adventuring community's affairs that you’ll most likely trigger a large-scale Doppelganger sweep when you’re discovered!”

Reginald would probably be fine, but his underground network would be completely dismantled in the process. The books detailing the Silent War of ages past were quite vivid in showing what the enlightened were capable of.

“Ah, but that’s a matter of ‘if’ rather than ‘when,’ is it not?” countered Keira.

“No, it isn’t! You can’t avoid those mandatory appraisals forever!”

“Who said I’m avoiding them?”