“Drewbie?”
The voice cut through the room, accompanied by the sound of sound of cage bars rattling.
“DREWBIE!”
Mrs. Lipsky yelled again, continuing to furiously shake the bars of her cage.
“DREWBIE!”
She went silent when the darkness of the room was punctured by a door opening - the light in the hallway casting whoever was standing in the doorway into silhouette. Mrs. Lipsky squinted. “Drewbie?”
Wade entered, carrying a tray of food. “No, I'm not Dr. Drakken.”
“‘Dr. Drakken?’” asked Mrs. Lipsky, puzzled.
“That's what your son calls himself now.”
Mrs. Lipsy looked floored. She didn’t speak for almost a full minute. “So he wasn't lying?”
Wade nodded.
“He's really a supervillain?”
Wade nodded again.
“You work for him? But you're only-”
“-Ten. I know.” Wade held up the tray of food. “Dinner?”
“We've been running for ages!” Beast Boy complained. “How far freakin’ down does this damn tunnel go?”
“Far enough.”
Before anybody could react to the fact the voice over the hidden speakers was Slade, a trapdoor opened, and all of them fell into it.
The roof opened into a circular cavern. Everyone plummeted down to the ground.
And leapt out of the of the way of the giant robot Cyborg was in as it came out of the roof and fell to the ground, too. Kim got up, dusting herself off. “Dammit…Shego, we're gonna have to find one hell of a heavy-duty washer when we get done with all of this,” she said, looking at the dirt and blood-stained green-and-black jumpsuit. She looked around, and helped Shego and Ron stand up. Meanwhile, the Titans helped each other up. Ron went over and helped Red X get back up onto his feet.
Cyborg climbed out of the now very much trashed giant robot. “Damn! I was hoping I could use that.”
“But then you'd have an unfair advantage - and that is most against the rules.”
Everyone’s face whirled around to look up. Near the top of the cavern, a spotlight came on over a balcony - on which stood Slade, Dr. Drakken, and Brother Blood were watching everything from.
“I must say,” Slade went on, “I'm quite impressed with the way you dispatched that little army back there in Third Area so quickly.”
“So when do you we get to dispatch you?” said Kim, in the most acidly vicious tone of voice she’d ever used. She didn’t even look back to see the faces of everyone else. She knew that with the exception of Shego, they were shocked.
“Patience.” Slade looked down at her. “Have patience.”
Shego came up beside Kim and glared fire at the villain. “Patience died a long time ago.”
Slade nodded so slightly, it was barely registerable. “Mmm. I'll just have to tell the clone.”
“Clone?” asked Ron.
Kim gasped. “Oh, no…”
Slade seemed to grin. “Oh, yes, if any of you are wondering - I can assure you, that cloning machine is working just fine, thanks to Wade.” He then glared down at them all. “But I'm sure some of you are wondering: Why don't I have clones of you nine out there marching all over the world as we speak? I did have plenty of time to collect everybody's DNA while you were in The Cage, after all…” He snorted in his amusement. “Well, it's quite simple, really: Because they're going to be marching all over you.”
The sound of muffled running erupted from every side of the cavern.
Kim cringed as it became more than clear that there was another army for all of them to fight their way through.
The lights come on all around them. Everybody gasped as they saw:
Themselves. Hundreds of clones of themselves. And all of the clones had a little modification that very clearly resembled Cyborg's technology. And - all the clones had the heroes completely surrounded.
“See, Cyborg?” Brother Blood grinned. “I'm not the only other person your technology looks good on.” At that remark, Blood laughed quietly to himself as Cyborg growled quite angrily.
“Oh, yes - and I'm afraid doing the Dew won't help you defeat these clones.” Slade glared at Ron, Kim and Shego. “I can assure you, they're quite stable. The only way for you to destroy them - is to kill every last one of them.”
Drakken sneered directly at Kim. “You didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did you?”
Kim sneered right back at him. “You know, for a moment there… Yeah. We kinda did.”
Shego fired up her green energy. Kim snapped her fingers to crack her knuckles and green plasma energy erupted from them. Drakken snapped his fingers. The balconies above them with more clones standing on them receded into the walls - and all the clones fell to the ground, but landed on their feet. As they formed a protective back-to-back circle, Shego noticed all the Kim clones had robotic claw hands. “Oh, look at that, Kimmie - your clones have claws, too!” she said, pointing at the clones’ hands.
Kim rolled her eyes. “Great. That's wonderful, Shegee.” The clones advanced on them, growling like rabid dogs. “Speaking of, Shegee - how do you fire the green plasma energy in these gloves, or do that mini-shield thing?” Kim asked.
“Oh, just flick your wrist - like, enh.” Shego lazily did the motion.
“Oh. Okay. Like, “enh.” I can do that.” Kim returned her attention to the Kim clones coming at her.
“You got past Third Area - now, let me welcome you to Fourth Area! CLONES!” Blood yelled. All the clones’ eyes turned red. They looked up at the balcony. Brother Blood - his eyes red - pointed at the nine heroes.
“ATTACK!”
A Kim clone lunged, but Kim parried the robotic claw hands and slashed right through the clone's heart arteries. Blood sprayed as Kim chopped her way through some more of the incoming Kim clones.
Shego fired some green energy blasts at the Shego clones coming her way, sending the clones sprawling onto the ground - where Shego used the blue power and stomped on their necks.
Ron went into Full Monkey mode again - as did the Ron clones - and he ended up in a fist fight, blocking a kick, punching another clone in the face, even bicycle kicking a clone running up behind him directly in the face. The bicycle kick had so much unexpected force, the Ron clone smashed into the cavern wall behind them. Rufus popped out and chittered the equivalent of “GOAL!” at the incident. But then more Ron clones attacked, and Ron once again was blocking kicks and dodging punches. But as the Ron clones attacked and attacked even more, they all seemed to be missing something as they kept coming - and Ron noticed this defect with a sneer. “Aren't you boys missing something?” he asked them. The Ron clones looked around, incredibly confused. “Rufus! Now!” Ron yelled. He threw Rufus at the Ron clones, and the naked mole rat furiously sliced the jugular of about every single one, rebounded off the cavern wall, and slashed the jugulars of the Ron clones he missed the first time as he returned back to Ron. “Wipe your hands off, buddy - I don't want a blood-stained pocket, you know,” Ron told him.
On the balcony above, Drakken looked at Slade, bewildered. “You didn't clone the naked mole rat?”
Starfire charged up another nuclear starbolt, then threw it at the incoming Starfire clones. The nuclear starbolt plowed through the Starfire clones, but a few still flew after her. There was a flurry of green explosions near the cavern roof as starbolts Flew between the Starfire clones and the real woman.
The Robin clones’ hands suddenly sprouted bo staffs in a fashion reminiscent of Cyborg's sonic cannon appearing. As the clones’ bo staffs spun, Robin jumped up, combined two birdarangs into a sword, and slashed both clones’ necks off.
Drakken looked more bewildered. “He has a sword?”
“Shhh…watch.” Blood looked on. Drakken followed suit.
All the other Robin clones switched from bo staffs to arm blades as they charged Robin and had a fencing tournament with him.
“See?” Blood turned to Drakken. “They all have swords.”
“Ahh!” Drakken sneered evilly.
Shego was circled by many Shego clones. They all charged her, but she simply used the purple power to shrink and dodge them. When the clones were disoriented from missing her, she un-shrank herself and used the blue power to smash their skulls in. She leaped down as two more Shego clones tried to jump her. Then she got a nasty idea, and sneered close to evilly at it. She whipped out the hair dryer grappling hook from the holster on the tool belt, aimed, and fired it at the all the Shego clones right in front of her. The grappling hook went right through all the advancing clones’ chests, killing them instantly.
Meanwhile, Red X stood in front of many Señor Senior Junior clones. And he was terribly too amused by it all. “What, you couldn't duplicate the suit? That's kind of disappointing, really…” He shrugged, and just casually kicked the heads of all of the clones in front of him, easily snapping their necks. “C'mon, guys…” said X. “Even I know I could put up more of a fight than you're doing.”
Raven zipped, dived, and zoomed through the air as her clones flew after her. She spotted the wall coming up – and damn, was it coming up fast. “Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!” she cried as she dove down the face of the wall, throwing he hands back as she did - pulling chunks of rock out of the wall with her dark energy and hurling them at the clones, who all fell to the ground in a bloody heap.
Beast Boy looked at the clones of him surrounding him. “Aren't you guys gonna transform?” he asked them. The clones just tried to punch him, answering his question. Figures, Beast Boy thought, simply turning into a T-Rex and stampeding over them. “C'mon…” he whined as he turned back to human. “Jeez, this is too easy when your clone can't even do what you do.” He sighed, ducking more clones of him coming up behind him. It felt so boring, fighting these clones. They were no match at all…
Cyborg didn’t know it, but he was certainly not feeling the same way as he ran through his clones like a lawn mower, punching them out of the way. However, the clones all got up. They stood in a line - and fired missiles from their shoulders. Cyborg ducked, glancing behind him – and saw Shego. “Oh, shit - SHEGO, BEHIND YOU!” he yelled. Shego looked back - and dove out of the way as the missiles zoomed past her - and plowed directly into the line of Shego clones currently attacking her, BLASTING Shego clone body parts all over the cavern. Shego looked back at Cyborg. “Thanks, Cyborg!”
Cyborg grinned. “No problem.” He turned and kicked another Cyborg clone - then fired a rocket from his boot at the clone's face, completely destroying it. “Almost forgot I had these, actually.” Cyborg looked down at the dead clone. “Thanks for remindin’ me about ‘em.” Then two more Cyborg clones blindside tackled him, his face dredging up rock and dirt as he slid across the ground. They pinned him with their arm chainsaws. Cyborg looked amazed. “Aw, sweet! I got those, too?” He immediately turned both his arms into chainshaws and after some struggling, managed to cut through the arms of the clones. Then he slashed through the neck of both clones, as well – just to make doubly sure that they were in fact really dead. “Damn - I really need to keep track of all the cool weapons I've got in me.”
Kim, meanwhile, was going insane. She sliced and diced her way through all the Kim clones attacking her with no rest. She blocked a punch, parried a kick, flipped up, grabbed the head of a Kim clone between her legs and twisted her legs, snapping the clone's neck with the most awful CRUNCHing sound in the world…Damn, she felt alive. She ducked a Kim clone coming up behind her, then fired a blast of green plasma energy from the clawed gloves, straight into the clone's back, ripping the clone’s spine into two. The adrenaline rushing through her body grew more potent as the battle went on. Another group of clones tackled her, but she would not give up. She furiously slashed and kicked her out of the dog pile with a raging relentless force. She didn’t care about the damn clones. She wanted Slade – or, more specifically, Slade’s head. And not preserved in a jar like it was at the Head Museum in their little trip to the year 3000. She wanted Slade’s severed, dead head on a platter. And she wanted it now. Finally, she broke free and emerged from the dog pile, which was now a pile of severed limbs and blood. Blood had splattered all over her hair, but she didn’t even care. It wasn’t the blood she wanted. As she was about to charge the balcony above, a last Kim clone jumped in front of her. Kim looked back behind herself. Nothing but the wall. She was cornered. The Kim clone turned her robotic hands into buzzsaw blades, which began spinning at way above lethally fast. “Looks like I've got myself cornered.”
“Yeah, well, you're missin’ something.” Kim sneered.
“Oh?” said the clone. “What?”
“You're the last of me I have to KILL!” Kim screamed as she dove at the Kim clone, underneath the buzzsaw blades by about a tinny hair or two, and sent a green plasma energy punch directly into the chest of the Kim clone. Blood splattered all over the clawed gloves once again. Kim took her hand out of the mangled body of the now dead clone. She searched herself, but didn’t find what she was looking for. “Oh, crap - I didn't leave that towel back in that damned Third Area, did I?” she muttered. Searching some more, she realised that, apparently, she had. “Oh, well. Only one thing to do now.” With that, she began licking the blood off the clawed gloves. She expected to be revolted, but, she surprised herself when it didn’t turn out to taste so bad after all. Though, it would take a long time to get used to it…
“Kimmie! Eww! Don't do that!” Kim looked up - as Shego handed her a new towel. “You've got a lot of compressed towels in that tool belt of yours, Kimmie.”
Kim took the towel. “Thanks, Shegee.”
Ron joined Kim and Shego, having wiped his clones off the face of the Earth, too – but just as he did, a three-pointed wall slammed down behind the trio, cutting them off from the rest of the group. The wall stretched from the ground up to just below the balcony way high up at the top of the cavern. Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven found themselves in the same situation, as well as did Red X, Robin, and Starfire.
They all looked up - at Slade.
Slade sighed. “I was hoping that would take longer…”
TO BE CONTINUED…
END ACT THREE