50 The Laboratory

AAAARRRH

I cried out in pain as the fire stopped. My sore throat hurt a lot, and the sensation was like burning an open wound with fire, which it actually was. I clutched my throat and coughed.

I don't know why, but I felt sorry for this clone. He is not to blame for his existence, but despite this, no one is given the right to kill with impunity. It was probably my upbringing when I was still human, but becoming a Titan didn't change my feelings on the matter.

"Shall I eat him now?" I thought as I looked at the dead clone. Come to think of it, I don't recall Titans getting any bonuses from eating other Titans, other than growing young. Titans take an enormous amount of time to grow even bigger after adulthood. The fact that I was able to grow almost 2x in that short time spoke to the effectiveness of eating the Kaiju and absorbing the radiation.

But I didn't know if absorbing another Titan would give me anything. This wasn't another Titan - it was my clone. That is, you are actually eating your copy!

After that thought, I felt some disgust from the clone corpse. "I don't want to! I have other things to do." I turned and slowly followed the trail of destruction left by the clone. I need to find the lab and destroy it. I cannot allow new monsters to appear.

Even assuming humans could somehow create a non-aggressive clone, why would one be needed? How long will it take? Another 7 years? By the time they create a new clone, Marshall and I will already be close the portal. And it is not yet a fact that they will be able to control new clones. How many cities will be destroyed by unsuccessful attempts? This fact alone tells me that the lab needs to be destroyed.

Another reason was morality. They were my clones! Did I give people the right to clone themselves? I didn't give! How can I watch people make monsters out of my DNA that suffer and destroy everything around me?! Let people look for another Titan to clone or best work on how to clone a Kaiju. But I guess they decided to clone me because they couldn't clone Kaiju.

While I was thinking, I passed the second city burned by a clone. The road then led into a mountainous area where there were no buildings. The sight of the burnt city gave me more determination to do what I set out to do.

BOOM BAH

Suddenly, rockets and shells from long-range artillery flew towards me. Shells began to explode all over the body, and it did not cause much pain, but it was very annoying. I covered my face so they wouldn't fall into my eyes and prevent me from seeing where I was going.

"Looks like people have guessed where I'm headed. Hopefully the Marshal won't have a problem with what I'm about to do." After Marshal was angry that I let his Jaeger be destroyed, I changed my attitude towards him. I needed to support him more. I no blamed him for that, he is only human.

BOOOM

A hypersonic missile hit the top of my head, causing my head to fall a bit. It was really painful. But I didn't stop, I kept going. Hypersonic missiles travel faster than sound, so I didn't hear them when they flew.

POV: Marshal

Finally, this clone died. Marshal watched on the monitors as Torterra used his fire to make a hole in the clone's chest. Torterra's cry after the battle spoke of the end of this difficult day.

"HOORAY! Congratulations!" Shouts of joy and admiration rang out in the hall of the command center. Everyone was happy that the monster was defeated. Many people just ran out to go eat. Everyone was very tired and spent the whole day behind the monitors doing their work.

"We lost 3 Jaegers and several cities." That was all Marshal could think about. He was very angry with the government. They framed him very badly. With the money they took from him and spent on this useless cloning project, he could have long ago made new Jaegers that could fly themselves.

Marshal continued to look at the monitors and think about the problems he was having because of this clone. Torterra was not moving towards the ocean as usual, but was walking through ruined cities.

PRUUU PRUUU

The phone rang in his pocket. He pulled out the device and looked at it. There was a message asking him to take a call from the world council. "What do they want again?!" He was unhappy with them and now he least wanted to talk to them.

Collecting his thoughts, he left the room and headed for his office. After a while, he was already standing in front of the monitors, which turned on one after the other, showing the faces of the people on the other side of the call.

"Stop him!" - said one of the leaders immediately.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Marshal guessed what they were talking about, but included the fool. Politicians always do that, so he learned it from them.

"You know what we're talking about! Torterra is headed for the cloning lab. He'll destroy it when he finds it."

"You can't be sure of that. He's never attacked human buildings. Unless you have something in your lab that will piss him off! Do you have something like that in there?" - Marshal asked a very apt question. People were silent, and some of them were grimacing in hideous smiles.

"We know you've talked to him a few times. You can talk him out of touching the lab."

"You don't understand something! Torterra is the most powerful being in the world right now. Even if we send all our Jaegers against him, we won't be able to deal with him! (Marshall was definitely exaggerating) Have you seen his last attack? Even nuclear blasts can't hurt him. With what makes you think I have any influence on him?!" - Marshal lied right in front of them. The marshal knew that Torterra was very easy to persuade. It only took the Marshal a disgruntled look on his face, and he was able to persuade Torterra to help him defend the cities where he had few Jaegers. But it was also because it aligned with his goals. The marshal wasn't entirely sure he could talk Torterra into this situation.

The people on the monitors were silent. They realized that Marshall was not going to help them. After a while, they started to disconnect one by one. When all the monitors were turned off, Marshal let out a heavy breath. Even if Torterra destroys the lab, it doesn't concern him.

POV: Torterra

The flow of shells did not stop. Constant explosions accompanied Torerra on his way through the mountains and valleys. He followed the tracks left by the clone and felt like a tracker. Although it was hard not to notice such large traces.

After half an hour of traveling under a rain of fire, he came across a military base. It was from here that they fired at him from guns. In the middle of the military base was a huge hole in the ground. Torterra guessed that this was exactly where the clone had emerged from.

The rain of fire stopped, and Torterra dropped the hand he was using to cover his eyes. One helicopter was heading towards him. He watched as the helicopter stopped right in front of his face and turned sideways towards him. The door on the side of the helicopter was open, a man was sitting inside.

"This is a forbidden zone. Don't go any further. Please turn around," said the man using sign language.

"Did they want me to back down? I'm sorry, but that won't happen," thought Torterra. He considered his answer for a moment. He knew that if he started talking to them, he would become a fool. They will lie or threaten, so there is no point in talking to them. It's just a waste of time.

"You have 15 minutes to get everyone out of the base. Whoever stays will die," Torterra said and walked on, ignoring the helicopter and the man who was trying to say something.

Panic broke out at the base, and everyone tried to escape. From the hole in the ground, from which the clone came out, helicopters with people constantly flew out. Torretry didn't care if they took the data from the servers. The clone left this lab a long time ago, and they could take whatever they wanted.

It was difficult to call these people innocent. It is not known what terrible experiments they did here to achieve such a result. They are also responsible for all the people killed today. It was their mistake that led to the events of today. But Torterra understood that most of these people were just workers looking for work. Therefore, he gave them 15 minutes to escape. But if he found out that people were being experimented on here without their consent, he would burn down this base immediately.

Standing over a chasm in the ground, Torterra looked down. The round hole in the ground was very deep. So deep that he couldn't even see the bottom. When the helicopters stopped flying out of that hole, he ducked down.

BOOOM

The Titan's heavy body landed on the concrete ruins at the bottom of the pit. Sand and dust fell on him from above due to the instability of the walls of the hole. When the dust settled in front of him, a huge room opened up. The room was mostly dark, but in some places there was a red light.

Torterra walked forward looking around. This laboratory had many floors and rooms. Many corridors adjoined this hall in which he was staying. There were huge rooms with thick steel doors. One of the doors was torn from the middle. Someone melted the metal from the inside and tore the door apart like paper. Apparently, a clone escaped from here. The rest of the rooms were empty.

Moving on, another door appeared in front of him. This door was smaller. He crouched down and grabbed the edge of the door with his claws.

CRRRRRK BOOM

There was a sound of metal being deformed and in a moment the door was torn out along with pieces of the wall around the door. Torterra threw the door aside and looked inside the new room.

What he saw inside shocked him. There were many strange and ugly organisms in various test tubes. There were both glass tanks and large metal canisters. In some of the tanks he saw human-like creatures, while in others there were creatures with armor on their backs.

It feels like I've stepped into the laboratory of some mad scientist from a video game, Torterra thought. He expected to see something like this, but when you see it with your own eyes, it gives a completely different effect. The people who worked here really did not have any ethical prohibitions in relation to the creatures they created.

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