Chapter 34 A Change Of Plans

"This place should do I guess" I took a second to look around the somewhat secluded forest clearing that I had found.

"Let's give this a try then shall we"

With a snap of my fingers five identical figures appeared in front of me. Their bodies seem to form out of thousands of dust like particles that swirled around each other in a chaotic vortex. The process was rather interesting to watch but took only a second to actually complete. 

Now standing in front of me was a group of, well, mes. They were clones that I had created for a very specific task. The five of them looked around for a moment, seemingly confused before turning to glance at me. One of them, probably the stupidest of the group, suddenly vanished and abruptly reappeared in front of me without any warning at all.

"Let's kill the original and take her place!" She yelled and attempted to punch me in the face only for me to catch her fist relatively easily.

"Really?" I asked with an expression that showed rather clearly that my disappointment was quite large.

"Nah, just fucking with you...or am I?"

(They don't have Souls...that's very good to know) I thought coldly as I checked them over with Osiris.

They weren't alive, which was an extremely excellent piece of information for me to learn. Instead of actual sentient clones they were just magical dolls, husks that had been imprinted with my memories and abilities. This was good for two reasons. First, they wouldn't go all Skynet on my ass, even if they joked about it from time to time. And second, I don't have to feel bad about using them as pawns.

"Yeah, not the time" I muttered as I pushed her away.

"Let's get on topic, please?" C-2 muttered, sounding rather annoyed with C-1's antics.

"So...who shoved a stick up both of your asses? Need me to help pull it out?" 

""We're the same person dipshit!"" I and C-2 hissed in unison causing C-1 to shrug nonchalantly and look away.

"Stop! Just stop already" C-4 huffed causing everyone to look over at her.

"We don't have time to be yelling at each other or messing around like idiots, we need to get to work."

"Alright fine..." C-1 sulked to herself.

It would seem that apparently my clones were not perfect copies of myself in the way I had thought they would be beforehand. C-1 for example seemed way more childish than I expected her to be, although it might be because I don't actually know myself as well as I think I do, however that is an issue for another time.

"Good, we all know the plan right?" I hummed questioningly.

"We all have the same memories, so yeah we know the plan" C-3 shrugged and I rolled my eyes.

"Just testing, it's the first time I've used this skill so I wasn't sure how the hell it worked" 

"You're sure we should be doing this?" C-5 asked, causing everyone to pause and look at her.

I had to admit I did have some doubts, C-5 wouldn't have said anything if I didn't but I wasn't just doing this for revenge and meaningless violence. The plan I had was needed for furthering the safety of Tempest. I had to speed things up, not just to remove a potential threat but also to increase the number of friendly neighbors that Tempest could rely on for support down the road.

Of course, I was also doing this for revenge, I couldn't deny that fact but things are not so black and white. I was doing this to vent some of my rage and the ever present need to get back at the bastards who started all of this, however my primary goal was to help Tempest and its people.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm just voicing the concerns that I know we all have" C-5 put her hands in the air when she noticed the looks she was getting.

"We need as many allies as we can get right now" C-4 defended and I had to agree with her...with myself.

"And this is the best way to do it? I mean aren't we just lashing out in rage at this point?" She asked and I decided to explain...even though she already knew the answer because...she...was, well, me...this is weird as all hell.

"The original plan was to start a civil war and have the hero boy take over the kingdom anyway, so all we're really doing is speeding things up a little. And sure the plan could have gone fine without our interference but like I said, we are just speeding things up a little" it a civil war after all, it would have been violent either way no matter what we do, so what's a little more violence added in.

"Also we can't really afford to just stand around and wait for who knows how long waiting for a civil war to break out through normal means. We need to accelerate the plan and doing it this way will do exactly that. In fact, with you lot over there helping from the shadows it could go even better than if we had just left well enough alone. After all who knows when Tempest will get attacked again, and next time things may not go so well" 

(I can't believe I'm literally trying to convince myself! I really am messed up in the head aren't I?) I had to admit that this situation was extremely bizarre even for me and honestly, I was rather thankful no one was around to see this.

"Anyway, some may end up calling us a hypocrite considering our experience with the cult and all but I'm doing this for three reasons" I was about to go into more detail when someone interrupted me.

"Don't you mean "WE'" are doing this?" C-1 smirked, causing me to sigh and look at her in frustration.

"I fucking hate you" 

"That's kind of sad" is it wrong that I wanted to beat the shit out of her?

(Was I always this fucking annoying?!) I screamed in my head before letting out a long sigh.

"Anyway, like I said, I'm doing this for three reasons"  I muttered and narrowed my eyes when I noticed C-1 preparing to speak over me once again.

"Interrupt me one more time and I'll feed you to the Hive while you're still alive" that got her to shut up real quick.

"Good, now moving on" I hummed with a cap of my hands.

"First, because they fucking deserve it. They condoned an attack on an innocent town just because of their bloody greed and thought that they could get away with it just because we aren't humans" I paused for a second before continuing.

"Second, the sudden disappearance of certain nobles and key individuals will just add more fuel to the already chaotic fire. It will cause the factions that are already at one another's throats to grow even more hostile towards each other, the factions that are allied will become distant and that fracture of alliances will only increase as feelings of distrust and fear grow within their ranks. Add in the lot of you manipulating the emotions of certain individuals and the whole country will become a powder keg ready to erupt into civil war at any provocation"

"If there's one thing we know it's emotions" C-3 shrugged and C-2 nodded in agreement.

"That's true"

"And the third reason is rather simple...I need volunteers to help me in my experiments" I did, after all who was going to help me test my new, very dangerous, pocket worlds if not them.

"Dramatic much"

(That's it!) With a wave of my hand C-1's mouth suddenly vanished causing her to freak out before crossing her arms and glaring at me.

(Why didn't I do that before?) I asked myself as I enjoyed the silence for a second.

"Does anyone else have an opinion?" The very rapid shaking of heads was the only answer I needed.

"Good...now go and do your fucking jobs!"

""Yes ma'am""