Chapter Text
Dr. Kihara Gensei had lied directly to Basilio Riviera’s face as the fifteen-year-old generously gave the doctor his bone marrow under the guise of donating his genetic material for epigenetics research and the teenager was entirely unaware that he had just consented to the creation of a cloning experiment just a few weeks ago. Now the boy and his older twin brother, both jointly designated as the Original Superpower of Academy City, had since graduated three years early alongside the rest of the Class of 2018 with both young men having become the basis of the newly implemented Power Curriculum Program and the Four E’s of Metahumanity Studies after the Primordial Superpower supposedly passed away, the Beginning Child who had long served her purpose as the prototype of the concept all those years ago would’ve been quite unhappy that her grandsons had inherited her legacy if she was still alive. The older twin, Crispin, was known to be extremely protective of his brother and was equally lied directly to. Crispin highly doubted that the experiments being done on the two of them were related to any kind of medicinal purposes but the lie skeptically worked to lull him into a false sense of security, albeit with the caveat of Crispin’s suspension of disbelief being balanced on a tightrope as the older brother grew understandably concerned by the fact that he and his brother were effectively being taken advantage of in some form. Crispin could tell that Gensei wasn’t being fully honest with them.
Thankfully, the Kambals’ impressively high IQ’s allowed Gensei to get away with his crimes as the boys graduated and went back to the Philippines none the wiser and Gensei examined the resulting clone designated as Operation Eden Phase Gamma-Zero, the prototype clone “offspring” of Basilio Riviera, as the “child” matured in his incubator pod over the course of eighteen days. The massive ethical and legal and emotional and religious and international issues that such actions were already creating through the very fact that Gamma-Zero was alive to begin with were entirely ignored by the Kihara Clan as Gensei greeted the clone into the Universe they both called home. After two failures, Phase Gamma-Zero’s debut was best called revolutionary in Gensei’s eyes in comparison to the clone’s late older brothers. Gamma didn’t need to know that Alpha had killed Beta in a maddened act of murder-suicide when they learned that they were clones created to undergo Protocol Hexe and what exactly their purpose entailed regarding the upcoming event in question.
“Hello, Operation Eden Phase Gamma-Zero. Happy anniversary, my darling.” Gensei greeted Gamma-Zero as the clone cried out for the first time as his infantile mind discovered the concept of cold as the warmth of the incubation pod left his body for the first time and was brought into the world. Once he entered the Testament Machine, Gamma quickly learned how to speak and write and read every language native to Earth from the G-Gnomes, as well as already knowing how to walk and float and navigate such shifts in gravitational pulls and aerodynamic pressures all around himself, but that latter half of his knowledge was instinctual as was his automatic bloodlust that he knew without question how insatiable his wanting for the chance to embrace his apex predator status was. Gamma treated these instincts as blessings from his “father” and ancestors and rapidly learned that he already loved his relatives before him, despite having never met them. All he needed was to look in the mirror, seeing through his own pitch black eyes to see his own copper tanned skin and wavy black hair and he already knew that he could be loved, happy to know that he already loved himself as he was. It made perfect sense for him to already know how to love despite his unusual origins as a clone. The small genetic divergences from his progenitor were expected for a pattern similar to siblings and their variations shared between the genes of their parents and ancestors. The Warchildren had straight hair from their maternal grandmother, but Gamma had wavy hair from Ramona herself. The Kambal had pale skin from the Beginning Child but Phase Zero had tanned skin from Dr. Riviera. From the very start, Gamma and his older brothers before him were already different people compared to their “father” and “uncle” through their own expression of certain genetics, even if none of them knew it yet. The only thing that made no sense were their pitch black eyes as the Kihara Clan knew nothing of where that specific trait had come from beyond chalking it up to a meta-gene related mutation of some kind that made itself known since birth.
Gamma was often discovering that he was often compared to a lump of clay as the Kihara Clan examined his body for any divergences from his progenitor’s so-called baseline as the clone would in spare time examine himself in between experiments of his regeneration and psychological molding and what he rapidly began to understand as being groomed into a prototype for a series of upcoming weapons whom he was told to think of as younger siblings. Gamma decided to allow himself to be a lab animal more frequently as he grew excited at the idea of having lots of younger siblings to play with on the battlefield. As much as he was used to the company of the researchers, Kihara Amata being his main mentor and caregiver alongside Gensei, Phase Zero was growing quite lonely as his short life made him painfully aware of his status of being currently without anyone else to call his loved ones. He enjoyed being around the researchers, but he didn’t love them in the same way he could say that he loved his progenitor.
Phase Zero, much like his ancestors long before him, was far from an idiot as he began to address himself as “Clay” more frequently as he was later introduced to the Project Ortet Grafted Unit designated as the Prototype and he addressed her as “Dolly” after the famous sheep of the same name. Gamma knew himself as a lump of clay being molded and believed Unit Prototype to be his favorite doll to play with and embrace and he wanted to share his love for Dolly with his future siblings as they were promised that they were going play games once they’d be released into the Outside as they’d outgrow their home inside the Dollhouse. Clay quickly grew to view Dolly as his little sister as the two of them rapidly began to share everything together while the Westermarck Effect kicked in for the duo as Dolly began to see Clay as her older brother. As far as they knew, it was just Clay and Dolly being against the world, both clones silently knowing that they had entered the world through questionable means. Neither of them cared to question their existences. Why question why they were prototypes for weaponry made through cloning? Yes, they were aware of their unnatural creations, but they didn’t consider themselves as crimes against the powers of the divine beyond their mortality. Clay felt himself oddly wanting to be divine despite not understanding why.
Then arrived their first friends as Clay began to discover that he was getting sick due to his inherent unknowing hybridism and his immune system began to start failing despite his frequent vaccinations against disease while Mitori and Misaki entered his and Dolly’s lives. His immune system functioned just fine most of the time before he began to have dizzy spells and aches deep in his bones. His regeneration kicked in immediately to combat the majority of the problems, but then more problems arrived as Clay’s body kept getting worse, despite the young man being usually healthy for his biophysical age range and body type. Running a diagnostic check, the problem was finally revealed to be some sort of autoimmune disorder, which basically meant that Clay’s white blood cells were attacking themselves and resulted in Clay’s regular cellular activities being disrupted by his immune system working a bit too well. Oddly, Clay’s production of white blood cells simply kept functioning as normal when compared to his progenitor’s baseline, which no longer was useful as a comparison for research beyond Clay’s gestation onwards. Clay’s upset about his diagnosis was obvious as he began to fear for his life. Something told him that there was no glory in slowly dying from sickness. For most people, they would prefer to pass away in peaceful circumstances such as sleeping and not waking up the next morning, but Clay wanted to die in combat despite not knowing why he wanted such a gruesome and horrific way to end. Clay wanted to die standing on his own two feet while drenched in the blood of his legions of freshly slaughtered prey. This was far from just a suicidal preference. This was pure instinct for Clay as he reminded himself that he was a highly intelligent apex predator among a legion’s worth of prey constantly thinking themselves to be greater than they really were:
Food for the carnivore that was going to slaughter them all.
The carnivore was quickly forced to wear a collar to control his more “undesirable” urges within the span of a two weeks of testing and Clay absolutely hated the collar he was bound to. Since the collar was built to zap him with at least 500,000 volts of electricity at most if he disobeyed his handlers in any manner considered such, Clay had good reasoning behind his hatred. It was easy for Clay to consider escaping Academy City for good. The hard part would be leaving Dolly behind when he’d leave for the rest of the world. He loved Dolly, for she was the very first person Clay had ever loved, which made his inner conflict between leaving her behind and wanting to stay with her and to continue to withstand the endless torture he wanted his mind to get used to but his very soul absolutely refused. His soul was entirely independent from Progenitor, and that was perfectly expected as one would understand regarding both monozygotic multiple-born siblings and Genomorph forged clones alike, which was both odd and weirdly interesting. It would take a battle between Clay and the First Superpower to make Clay quickly decide to leave.
Clay was given a simple spear made from bamboo wood for the staff and a tip of obsidian tied to the staff with a thin rope made from silken ribbons. His opponent was given the same weapon. His opponent rapidly became Clay’s brother in arms as the two of them began to fight each other for the very first time. Clay gained a very quick liking towards his new brother as they fought with their spears as they shed each other’s blood and sweat and tears. His opponent was designated as “Project Accelerator” for some reason and Clay was strictly being forced to use his so-called “birth name” of Phase Gamma-Zero throughout the battle. Being called by his designation was basically the same thing as addressing a transgender person by their dead name for Clay as he and his opponent began to engage in single combat.
The two boys fought and Accelerator was equally enjoying the rush of adrenaline and cortisol pounding through his veins as Clay kicked through his spear and grabbed the business end of the First Superpower’s destroyed weapon to grab Accelerator’s neck and stab him in the clavicle within a few minutes. Accelerator’s Meta Ability that he was named after was quickly kicked in by pure instinct as the First Superpower began to heal himself by stopping the bleeding. His self-healing was interrupted by the sight of Clay’s drooling and immediate biting and drinking of his blood. Accelerator, for his part, wasn’t entirely against his new brother in arms doing this very freaky act of carnivorous behavior. He jolted in surprise, but refused to pull away from Clay, since it was clear that Clay hadn’t been fed properly judging from the clear malnutrition the clone was suffering from. How was Clay suffering from malnutrition if he was being given regular amounts of food and drink that was both very nutritious and very regularly scheduled? Did he have a dietary requirement that was different from most members of the Human race? Was he some kind of pathophage that fed on bloodlust for some reason? How would emotions even be digested? The neurochemicals that released hormones for certain emotional responses being circulated via the bloodstream being the source of energy for a pathophage would be the most reasonable way to feed on emotions, Accelerator realized as he tried to find the logical methods of how that would work and that idea seemed to make the most sense, given the current situation he was in.
Right now, as Clay was drinking his blood, Accelerator was starting to feel extremely dizzy from the obvious loss of blood while Clay’s dark sanguine-stained claws poked at his chest. Accelerator was afraid for his life as he felt Clay trying to claw out his heart as each heartbeat inside of Accelerator’s chest started beating faster and faster to the point that he wondered if the organ was going to explode. Once the experiment was declared over, Clay would later admit that he had no idea that he was a pathophage until then and quickly apologized for devouring so much of his honorary brother’s blood without permission during their very first experiment together. As a gift and apology once Accelerator had received new blood to circulate via transfusion and his clavicle had fully healed itself the old fashioned way once the bones were properly reset, Clay decided to give his brother in arms a new name, since Accelerator had long ago forgotten his original one.
“Yuriko-kun is what I wanna call you. My gift for you, my dear brother in arms.” Clay declared in his usual soft tone as he gently floated above Accelerator’s bed, the clone’s body position being no different from most people who would lie prone and swish their feet back and forth. Accelerator had lived his remembered life feared by others, shunned for his talents, which made Clay’s pure and unconditional love towards him feel surprisingly hard to make sense of for the First Superpower as he tried to calculate the reasons why Clay adored him so much as to go so far as to give him a new name in place of his epithets and titles and codenames. Being called Yuriko instead of by any of those labels was the very first real gift he had ever been blessed with. It felt right in a way that Accelerator didn’t know how to describe in words.
“Thank you, Phase-sama.”
“Clay. I prefer to go by Clay. Phase is my family name, Yuriko-kun.”
“Well then, Clay-kun, thank you. I’ve never really had a name given to me from someone before that wasn’t just, well, you know.”
“A designation wasn’t always your name before today, Yuriko-kun. You had a normal name, didn’t you? I know you had one as soon as I tasted your blood.”
“I had a normal name? Whatever. I just remember that my birth name had two kanji for my family name and three kanji for my given name. Those five little symbols didn’t mean anything as soon as I became Project Accelerator, the First Superpower of Academy City, but being called Yuriko just became the first real gift that’s actually mine… What do I do with it, Clay-kun?” Accelerator/Yuriko rambled as he processed his new name out loud to his now brother in all but name. Clay thought about what else to say to his brother in arms as his hexagon-shaped pupils hidden by the natural very dark violet of his irises and pitch black sclera darted around in deep thought as he pondered Yuriko’s question as he equally calculated his own internal conflicts.
Hexagon shaped pupils that gazed from an abyss that were the eyes of someone whom Yuriko was discovering to just be a very warm soul as the First Superpower peered into Clay’s Aura and learned of his bare self, which both very naive and very powerful at the same time, even if Clay was the result of cloning the Original Superpower and was technically a direct descendant of the Beginning Child. The Beginning Superpower was known to have immigrated from Japan to the Philippines sometime during the Cold War, where and when several countries discovered the Meta-Gene and attempted to create gods from mortals through various experiments of the generally unethical variety and it was known that she fled her homelands to get away from the horrors she feared her family would endure. She lived and died afraid of the monsters she claimed would be coming for her and her loved ones. She had lived through a childhood of the terrors of the Second World War and was a teenager when Academy City was founded. When she became an adult, it was no surprise that she chose to leave for another country, bringing her terraforming abilities with her to the grave and unknowingly passing down a legacy. Accelerator didn’t feel the need to share this disturbing forbidden knowledge, as he himself wasn’t supposed to be aware of this by normal educational standards but it was always whispered that the Primordial Superpower was possibly still alive, most likely still in hiding following her daughter’s untimely and unexpected death in 2014.
“Live.” Clay answered as his brother’s thoughts were interrupted and Accelerator was returned to reality.
“What?”
“Live as Yuriko instead of Project Acceler—” Clay clarified before he was sharply interrupted by his collar electrocuting him at full voltage and making the boy scream in pain. Accelerator was horrified as he got up out of his bed and immediately activated his vector control to quickly and gently remove the shock collar without hurting his brother in arms. A burst of sharp and cold wind stabbed the torture device and alarms swiftly began to blare their loudness as the lights went from orange to red.
Without question, Accelerator made his choice to stop being the monster and start being like Superman, rapidly deciding to use his powers to help someone else without fear of judgment. Superman was very skilled in using his powers to unconditionally help the lives of other people without fear for his own life, so using his example, Accelerator channelled his own abilities to find a way for Clay to escape the Dollhouse despite knowing that Academy City was literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest civilization was several kilometers away. Clay was surprised as the two of them ran throughout the Dollhouse as his body healed from the pain as his skin was now becoming stained with the patterns consistent with the flesh of those who had survived being struck by lightning. The lightness around his neck was a reminder of his newly discovered freedom as he first laid his eyes upon the sight of the pure starlight of the new moon’s night reflecting against the ancient waters of the peaceful abyss beneath the cloudless sky.
Clay was speechless at his first sight of the outside world as he saw the stars in the sky becoming something beautiful as they were mirrored by the primordial abyssal ocean.
“Is this… Yuriko-kun, is this… Is this Outside?” Clay asked in awe as he began to cry from the sight of the sheer beauty of the world that now surrounded him.
Accelerator said nothing as he held Clay’s hands in his own. Yuriko simply nodded yes as he dried Clay’s tears from his cheeks while smiling in delight for his brother’s new freedom.
“Yes. Go now, Clay-kun. Go out there and live as Clay instead of Phase Gamma-Zero. Go and fly and live.”
“What about Mitori-nee and Misaki-nee and Dolly-imouto? What about our family, Yuriko-onii?” Clay asked as he worried for his loved ones despite being so close to leaving the Dollhouse.
Yuriko never considered that Clay would be worried about the other test subjects. Accelerator let go of Clay’s hands as a concerned look on his face crept up. It was clear to Clay that his brother in arms didn’t believe that he had others whom he loved. That discovery, for reasons behind emotions that he didn’t know the name of yet, made Clay deeply upset by knowing that Yuriko never thought about the rest of his family. Yuriko was already his brother, so it was natural for Clay to think that he would already know of his sisters, but that was never the case for his siblings in relation to each other compared to his relationships to them.
Clay didn’t know of the terminology of the concept of what he would later learn of as betrayal, but he needed no words to describe his upset as he turned back into the Dollhouse to search for his sisters, leaving behind his brother and hating his decision the entire time as Amata and Gensei discovered his location and forced a new shock collar onto him. Clay was soon struck by 900,000,000 gigavolts suddenly pulsing through his body as he screamed and prayed for his ancestors to save him from this punishment. To his surprise, they did as violet lightning suddenly burst throughout the Dollhouse, bringing with each thunderbolt struck each soldier and exploded their hearts as divine vengeance was making itself known. It was clear that Amata and Gensei had no idea what was going on and Yuriko wasn’t at all doing any of this with his powers.
That was when Clay noticed the rough shapes of a pair of strange entities taking on the forms of slightly masculine humanoids. Were they Ghosts of some kind? Yokai? Kami? It was hard to tell. They were a pair of shadows with violet lights for eyes and wrapped themselves in white kimonos over their dark blue hospital gowns, smelling like gunpowder and blood and must’ve been related to Clay in some form since they had responded to his desperate prayer. Clay knew nothing of his late older brothers but they knew of him. One of the spirits in front of him was Phase Alpha-Zero who in life had his ankle-long hair styled into a messy bun held up by a sun-themed pin while Phase Beta-Zero often wore his shoulder-length hair styled into a pair of twintails fashioned upright by a pair of moon-themed scrunchies. Beta had several stab wounds across his torso as his ribs revealed themselves to be thoroughly shattered several times over while Alpha’s neck revealed himself to have been hanged until his vertebrae dislocated and he choked on his own blood.
Then everything in Clay’s vision went black as he passed out.