[Story] Doppelganger

[longingfreesia]

Doppelganger

It had been a rather relaxed day for Kotori.
She had spent most of it visiting her parents back in Heartland City on her own and was just leaving Domino City train station on her way back.
It was late and dusk had already set in, so she began walking through the streets in order to head back to her home at Sakana.

She hadn't gone far when she heard a soft sobbing sound coming from somewhere. Looking around, she saw what seemed like a young woman sat on the edge of the side walk ahead of her, wearing a dark cloak with the hood up, obscuring her face.
Carefully, Kotori approached her.

"Are you alright?"

The woman seemed to react with fright at Kotori's voice. Quickly she stumbled to her feet and simply began running.

"A-ah! Wait!"

With that, Kotori gave chase of the young woman, not knowing why she was so scared and upset. She wanted to let her know she didn't need to be scared and that she wanted to help.

She gave chase for a while and before she knew it, Kotori had found herself in a more rundown area of the city. All around her were deserted streets and worn and derelict buildings. Coming to a stop, she looked around. She couldn't see or hear the woman anywhere.
After a moment, she decided to start heading back, not feeling comfortable in the area, though as she did, she began to hear the soft crying again. Taking a moment to listen, it seemed to be coming from a rather derelict looking warehouse that was only a few feet away.
Against her better judgement, Kotori cautiously approached the building and peered inside it.

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

She could hear the crying further within. She took a cautious step forward, then another.

"It's okay. I'm here to help." she said, reassuringly. "I think we should get out of this area first though. I don't think it's safe here. Alright?"

Inside the warehouse it was dark, but there was enough light to make out the empty wooden crates at the back and the high rafters up on the ceiling. There was graffiti written on the walls telling Kotori that gangs had hung out here before.
Suddenly, she heard a clattering as the shutter of the warehouse closed behind her.

"No..! No, no no!!"

She quickly ran back and tried to open the shutter, but it wouldn't budge.
This was starting to feel more like a trap.

The lights of the warehouse flickered before turning on, illuminating the area. As they did, a mocking laugh boomed around the room, replacing the soft crying from before.

"I can't believe how naive you are! It was so easy to lure you here!"

"W-Who's there! Show yourself!!"

In response to Kotori's demand, the cloaked girl from before came out from a pile of boxes, the hood still over her face. Grinning, she reached up and threw the hood down. Kotori gasped in shock.
The girl was her, or at least, someone who looked like her, only she wore heavy dark make-up on her face and a rather dark coloured, almost punkish, outfit.

"How... how do you have my face? Who are you?"

"Me? I'm you, of course!" the doppelganger replied. "Well, you from another reality anyway."

"Another reality?"

"A better reality! One where I'm not some sickly sweet naive girl and a half-baked demon." the doppelganger pulled a disgusted face. "I've been watching you and you honestly make me sick. You could be so powerful. You could get whatever you wanted! But instead you hold yourself back. So incredibly stupid."

Kotori frowned in annoyance at her double's words. "I'm perfectly fine the way I am."

The doppelganger laughed mockingly once more. "You're pathetic! No wonder father in this reality wanted nothing to do with you! He probably knew you'd be useless to him."

"How did you know that?" Kotori questioned. Her doppelganger just sneered.

"You don't exactly lock your online journal entries, half-bake."

Kotori shifted uncomfortably. She was right. She didn't exactly filter her entries, but she never thought anyone else but her friends would read them.

"Unlike you, I was actually raised by my actual father." the double continued. "I was taught everything, from advanced dueling, to advance use of my telekinetic abilities. I've fully matured as the half demon that I am. Yet you don't even embrace that side of yourself!"

"Heartland was a terrible person." Kotori argued back. "He brainwashed and used me. No father does that! And...!" She broke off for a moment in an awkward pause. "...I do embrace that part of myself... I use my powers and..."

The doppelganger could see the shift in Kotori's body language. How awkward she seemed with that last sentence. How unsure she looked. "You use them because you HAVE to, right? Not because you WANT too AND you hold back your true power!" she began to steadily step forward, making Kotori step and shrink back. "You're afraid of that side of yourself, aren't you? The part that isn't human. The part of yourself you don't fully understand. The part of yourself that could easily harm those around you if you were to lose control."

"No, that- that's not it... I..."

"You probably go through each day, pretending that you're fully human, living out a normal, human life with your nice little family and friends, with only your abilities to fleetingly remind you that you're anything BUT 'normal'. But you just go on pretending, because you don't want to accept that you have that half demon blood running through you."
By this time, Kotori had been backed into a wall by her double, who leaned in close to her, lowing her voice to a harsh sadistic whisper. "But ignoring that side of you will come back to haunt you. One day those abilities might become stronger and you won't have the strength to control it.
Then you'll end up hurting those you 'love' that you surround yourself with, or worse."

Kotori's breath became erratic and sharp as she began to panic, tears welling up in her eyes the more her clone spoke and got closer to her. Eventually she reached a breaking point.
"Just GET AWAY FROM ME!!"
Releasing a small burst of telekinetic energy, Kotori was able to knock her doppelganger away who stumbled backwards. At first she looked stunned at the retaliation, but then she seemed quite... pleased?

"Looks like you have some fight in you after all!" her clone cackled. "Good. It means this won't be completely boring!"

"Wait... what do you mean?" Kotori questioned. Her doppelganger laughed maliciously.

"Sadly, the reality I'm from is collapsing and in order to survive in this reality, I need to replace you here."

Kotori let out a sharp gasp. "Replace me?"

"Yes. Kill you and then become you. Simple as that, and considering I'm much more experienced than you with our demon abilities, I think we both know who'll win."

Laughing maniacally, the body of Kotori's doppelganger began to bubble with dark energy and change form into a demonic looking humanoid butterfly, which had horns and somewhat spiked outfit. The outfit itself was decorated with gold and red markings and behind her, two butterfly shaped wings made out of light energy formed.
Kotori's shocked expression at her form just seemed to amuse the clone more.

"Shocked? THIS is what happens when you embrace your true demon side!"

Levitating herself upwards, the doppelganger quickly levitated one of the empty wooden crates and flung it as hard as she could at Kotori. Letting out a yell, Kotori quickly leapt to the side, just managing to dodge it as the box hit the wall and splinted, making it fall apart.

"Please! I don't want to fight you!" Kotori pleaded. "Let's just talk about this!"

"There is nothing TO talk about!"

The clone picked up another box and threw it, followed by another and another. Each time Kotori was able to dodge the box or was able to catch it with her own telekinesis and throw it off to the side. When it seemed obvious that her clone wasn't going to give up, Kotori jumped behind the pile of crates surrounding the walls of the warehouse.

"There's no use hiding!" her doppelganger exclaimed. "I'll find you eventually!"

As she began to telekinetically pick up boxes and throw them to the side, Kotori scrambled as quietly as she could behind them. Despite the numerous spider webs she crawled through and how much her knees were scraping on the floor, right now she had to keep herself a safe distance away from her crazy double and find a way out.
She had a limited view from where she was, but looking around and up at the boxes towering above her, she could see that part of the roof of the warehouse was gone, leaving just part of the frame. She couldn't levitate herself like her counterpart, but there were the support rafters criss-crossing along the roof, so if she could just climb the boxes and take hold of one of the rafters, she could try and climb them up to the roof to get out.
The downside was how dangerous it was and how much the warehouse didn't seem that structurally sound, and neither did the crates that were piled up, but staying was just as equally as dangerous.
Peering through the cracks between the crates, Kotori needed to keep her doubles attention away from her while she was climbing up the boxes. She also needed to make sure she kept directing her telekinesis at things other than her. Her double, sure, was more powerful than her, but she liked to show off that power it seemed, rather than use it sparingly and from what she knew from her own abilities, over-using them was exhausting. If she could get her to continue to overuse that power, she could end up being too exhausted to chase her.

Carefully, Kotori used her telekinesis to knock over a crate across the room, causing her double to spin around and focus her attention over there, using her own abilities to move the crates to search as Kotori began climbing up the crates at the back which were stacked the highest.
Occasionally as she moved, Kotori would stop and use her abilities to make another sound for her double to focus on, then she would continue climbing.
The crates were unstable, but Kotori kept on climbing, eager to reach the top.
Eventually, she was able to get to the top and reach the lowest rafter. She jumped and grabbed hold, but as she did, the crate under her feet slipped and fell down to the floor.

"FOUND YOU!"

Her double let out an incredibly powerful burst of telekinetic energy which hit the entirety of the warehouse, making all the crates collapse and the warehouses structure to creak dangerously. Kotori hung onto the metal beam for dear life as the burst shook everything. Some more of the roof collapsed in, just narrowly missing her, before the burst subsided.
As she climbed up completely onto the metal rafter and was attempting to reach for the next one, her double levitated herself up and landed on the beam behind her, making her spin around.
Gradually, her doppelgangers features seemed to phase back into their human look, her face looking exhausted, but her malicious smile still remained.

"So it comes down to this." she stated as she stared Kotori down. "whichever of us ends up knocking the other off this beam wins. Neither of us would survive a fall like that, but I don't think you'd have the courage to even knock me off here, do you?"

As the doppelganger spoke, the remaining roof of the warehouse creaked above them.

"Look... this whole place could come down on us at any moment." Kotori pleaded. "I just want to go home."

"AND I JUST WANT TO LIVE!"

"Maybe if we talked, we could find a better way than this-"

"There IS no better way!" the doppelganger argued. "This is the ONLY way I can survive my reality collapsing in on itself!"
The doppelganger let out a burst of telekinetic energy, hitting Kotori, who struggled to keep her balance. Then another and another.

Kotori slipped and fell onto the beam, but was able to grab hold of it to stop herself from falling off it. She could tell that her double was going to go for another burst, so in desperation, Kotori held out her hand and concentrated her telekinesis on her.
All of a sudden, her double went rigid and stopped moving.

"Huh, using your ability to telekinetically manipulate my body. Guess father of this reality taught you something useful." she sneered. "But it won't take me long to get out of it. Can you throw me off before that, hm?"

Kotori looked at her, then at the floor beneath them. She frowned as tears formed in her eyes, before her telekinetic hold on her double released.

"I can't do it."

"Then you'll die!"

The doppelganger moved and sent another telekinetic burst towards Kotori, who found herself reacting in fear as she went to fire a burst back, hoping to simply counter it, but with the fear and emotions welling up inside her, the burst she fired was much bigger and much more powerful than she expected it to be. She let out a strong telekinetic wave which neutralised her doubles, and hit her straight on, throwing her off balance, but as she struggled to regain it, the wave hit the rest of the warehouse, making it shake and creak.

"Watch out!!"

Suddenly, the roof above her doppelganger gave way and fell down on top of her in a shower of concrete and metal, knocking her off the beam and making her fall to the floor along with the debris. Kotori screamed and held onto the beam she was on until the roof stopped falling in.

Kotori looked down, unable to see the floor due to the dust that had been thrown up. Against her instinct telling her to just run while she had the chance, she instead looked for a way back down to the floor. Spotting a chain hanging from the other side of the beam, she carefully made her way over it and used it to slide down to the floor.
When down there, she searched the floor around the rubble, and as the dust cleared, she spotted her doppelganger on the floor, crushed beneath the concrete that had fallen on her.

"Oh no! No no!" Panicking, Kotori approached her and knelt beside her. "I've got to call someone! An ambulance! I-"

As she went to reach for her phone, her doppelganger reached out and took hold of her arm.

"Don't bother." she told her.

"I-I'm so sorry!" Kotori apologised, as tears rolled down her cheeks. "I didn't mean for this to happen! It was an accident. I--"

For a moment, Kotori felt her doubles grip tighten on her wrist. "Let this be a warning to you. You're dangerous, half-bake. You hold back your powers, so you don't know the true power you hold and you for sure can't control it at it's proper level. Something like this could happen to your friends, your family, to that dumb partner of yours. Accident or not, you could hurt any of them at any time.
And you have no-one to teach you how to properly hone it."
Her double gave her a sneering smile as the hand which was holding her wrist began to fade away. "But hey, guess you get to find all that out. Hm?
You win, half-bake."

With a sigh, her double closed her eyes as the rest of her body seemed to start fading away, before there was some kind of explosion of light which engulfed Kotori, knocking all her senses off-balance.

She wasn't sure what happened, but when her senses all came back to her and she came out of a daze, her double was no longer in front of her. In fact, there was no trace of her being there at all.
Standing up, it took Kotori a moment to feel balanced on them, before she stumbled toward the shutter of the half collapsed warehouse. When she went to try it, it now opened fine.
Still feeling a little dazed, she decided to get out of the area as fast as she could and get somewhere she could feel safe.

----------------------------

When arriving in the main part of the city, Kotori ran for the nearest public bathroom she could find. Thankfully there was no one else there, so she could inspect what she looked like.
She was a mess. She was covered in scrapes, her clothes were torn and her hair was all over the place.
Digging into her bag, she brought out a hair brush and a small make-up kit, which she always had with her. Part of her was telling her that she should tell Yuma about what happened, but she didn't want to worry him and she certainly didn't want to relive the experience by telling him. With a sigh, she gave in to the other part of her which was telling her to cover it up. To make herself as presentable as possible and explain away what she couldn't cover. Maybe a large off-leash dog tackled her in the park on her way home and pushed her into some bushes. That was believable, right?

With that, she began to clean the scrapes so she could cover them the best she could with make-up and brushed through her hair so it wasn't a mess. As she brushed, she noticed something on her forehead, it looked like a faint red mark that looked to be in a diamond shape. Kotori thought for a moment, remembering that her doubles 'demon' form had a diamond shaped mark on her forehead, but it had to be a coincidence, right?
Pausing for a moment, she reached for her make-up and began covering it up.

She just wanted to forget this event ever happened.