STAR ° BEAST MORPHERS

( 003. ) - hymn of the we[ak]en[e]d

VANESSA WAS FROZEN SOLID as she watched everyone desperately try to find a way to prevent the inevitable—whatever it was. Although, the question was quickly answered when a purple swirl—similar to a tornado—surrounded Blaze's chamber. Blaze's body crumpled to floor, and a new one appeared out of thin air. Blaze's clone wore red armor, but it was nothing like the ranger armor Nate had designed. It was disfigured and misshapen in form and had a strange silver emblem near his left shoulder.

The new "Blaze" stepped out of the chamber and stared ahead with a slight smirk as he put on his helmet. The group of guards—minus Josie—jumped to the rescue and attempted to shoot down the new foe, but in the process were put through that exact fate in just a few seconds.

The guards were thrown to the side, and Josie was at first stricken by the situation, but not for long. She jumped ahead to Blaze and went in first with a punch, which was quickly caught by Blaze, but Josie combatted it by pulling out a taser and attacking him with it. Although, the taser didn't affect him in the slightest bit. Josie stared at him in bewilderment, and all Blaze did in response was chuckle before taking the taser and crushing it in his hand. He dropped the pieces of metal to the ground, and the scientists backed up towards the back wall in fear of him.

Josie did not cower, but instead enacted a strategy quickly. She dropped her communicator to the ground—averting Blaze's attention to the sudden move—and punched Blaze in the face. Blaze's face simply glitched afterwards, before a burst of energy came flying out of him—hitting Josie square in the chest and sending her flying towards the wall.

"Josie!" Vanessa snapped out of her frozen state and rushed to her sister's side. She flipped Josie over to her front side to see that Josie had been completely knocked out from the hit. "Josie?" She didn't wake up. "Josie?" Vanessa tried to lightly shake her awake, but it wasn't working. Josie's eyes were still tightly shut, and there was no signs of—well, anything happening anytime soon.

It was worrying Vanessa. Oh god, she hoped that she was alive. If this was the way she died—so young, easily killed by this guy, right before the world could possibly go to hell—it would be awful. Vanessa knew she couldn't think this way though, and took a few seconds to think and calm down.

Vanessa checked Josie's pulse in her right arm, and it was still completely normal. Oh thank god. Vanessa sighed in relief and was able to regain her breath. Her sister was okay, thank god.

Although, the problem wasn't gone. In fact, it was becoming even worse. Roxy was next to get an evil ranger clone, and the original Roxy's body fell to the floor while the new Roxy stepped out.

"Pathetic human. We Avatars serve Evox now."

As the new Roxy spoke, Vanessa realized that Mai was the next in line to be cloned. The Morph X was pumping through her chamber now, and it was only a matter of seconds before her best friend would be gone and replaced with a husk of her former self hellbent on destruction.

The new Blaze laughed, "Yes, and two more will join us."

This could not happen. Mai was not going to become another one of those processed, evil clones. Vanessa had to stop it. She desperately searched for one of the fallen blasters on the ground in order to take down the clones, or at least stall long enough for this to be fixed, and noticed one in the corner. She reached out and grabbed it, and aimed it at the clones—but it was too late. Mai's body fell to the floor, and another clone—this time donning green—stepped out. "One more left."