System Hunt: Regalia

In the last twenty-four hours Yoko had been all over Manila’s critical points. At the hospital where she worked as a doctor, the cinema where she watched a cringe romance movie that still managed to make her sappy and then she’d was about to get ice cream at the mall and window shop when the Doom Tower surged. It was then her perspectives truly multiplied.

Having received the invitation to pioneer the Towers of Regalia over a month ago now, Yoko quickly decided she wanted nothing to do with the supernatural or spectral insanity that quickly began overtaking her normal day to days.

Her Regalia of Detachment allowed her to clone herself as many times as she had fingernails to give. Up until the Doom Towers surged she had only dared to snip off one clone at a time so she could skip work, and even then she was quite frightened of the possibility that the clone— a product of the supernatural Tower haunting her city— would rip her hair off, chop up her limbs and steal her identity…which it already had.

Fortunately, none of that happened. When Yoko cloned herself she could overwrite the clone with her consciousness, browse through its experiences and memories in the past twelve hours and overall just have a good time with a person that was the best friend she could have asked for— herself.

In the first few weeks she explored this new power she continued to restrict herself to cloning only once but just about everything she could have done with a sister, clone, twin, doppelganger was done. Beating herself in chess, gambling at the small underground casino, cheating and winning, the ecstasy of a new kind of self-pleasure, sharing house chores, visiting friends in another neighbourhood while her real self sat at home.

She tried and enjoyed every advantage having an extra self, an extra consciousness could afford. At least until the Doom Tower surged.

Deep down Yoko knew, always knew that the Doom Tower would do something about her. Something to reap the price for the amazing gift it had given her. She’d ignored its calls, ignored its lull for her to approach it, deleted every idea, image or thought that included her going to the Doom Tower to ‘pioneer’.

She didn’t ask for the power she was given and if the Doom Tower wanted it back she would give it happily, at least, that was what she thought would happen.

The Doom Tower blew up. At least that’s what everyone that ran out to look said. The DSF quarantined zone was blocks away from where Yoko finished her movie but closer to the hospital where she worked, where her clone was working.

***

Yoko sighed deep as the tremors of root attacks at the helicopter she was trapped in shook her away from the moment that led her down the path to the Doom Tower.

Alex, a DSF agent and two of her lackeys sat across from her as they flew away from the volatile landing zone for a new site. Another Regalia Wielder sat beside her, a person she hadn’t expected to run into, just as she didn’t anticipate the Doom Tower’s surge to be more vicious and existential than anything as simple as ‘giving up’ her powers.

No, she’d seen first-hand what the Doom Tower would do to get to her, to ensure she and now he would enter the damned thing. As much as she decried Alex, she couldn’t deny what horrors she’d seen when she phased her consciousness to the clone working in her place.

Her Regalia followed wherever her true consciousness went and her eyewear falling over her eyes was always the first thing she saw after switching places with a clone.

***

The hospital was a storm of noise. It was always like that, especially on busy days and when she worked certain units. There would be screams, wails and tears of joy, sorrow and agony. But this was different. Everyone was moving around, eyes wide, sweating and confused as fear motivated the wails more than anything.

Yoko snapped to. She had switched to her clone while it was helping blockade windows with shelves and doors with wooden rods. A couple of her work friends were with her and the others, her boss, her patients— Yoko browsed the clone’s experiences from the past few minutes and filled in the blanks; separated, perhaps lost to the abominations downstairs.

“What are those things?” Yoko asked, running after her colleague, a short, thick braided brown lady with a lab coat billowing as she sprinted down the hall faster than she’d ever seen her move.

“Tikbalang!” she yelled, turning a corner and nearly ploughing into someone running the opposite direction.

“You’ve got that entrance locked?” the man that nearly bumped into her asked. He was tall, lanky and had a pasty complexion to his finer dark hair. Yoko never liked him, he thought and felt he was too handsome.

“Yeah we’ve got it, what now? Those things, I mean a Tikbalang, really?” Yoko’s disbelief persisted. “They are fairy tales, ghosts, night time scary stories manufactured to keep children sensible.”

“Yeah? Well tell that to Doctor Caballero,” the handsome doctor said, he gestured down the hall with his chin, “Cmon, we have to stay with the others, if horror movies are becoming real then, let’s not fall into the clichés.” He winked to lighten to mood and Yoko was frankly thankful for the effort.

She had seen through her clone’s memories how on the ground floor, the doors to aid and health that were always open let loose a raid of murder and existence erasure. But she was hoping there was some jest to this, that someone else knew what to do, that there was something to do.

But there was nothing anyone that wasn’t her, that wasn’t a Regalia Wielder could do against the tide of its terror. The cataclysm it wrought destroyed the hospital before Yoko, the handsome doctor or her colleague could reach where everyone was gathered— not that they faired any better.

Trees had grown through the hospital rather than around it. Cluttering once whole hallways with burning brambles and networking roots clinging and burrowing through the walls.

The monsters, Tikbalang, were furious beasts with a deep loathing for humans and an obsession with Yoko. Wherever she went as the hospital shook, wherever she fell, wherever she ran to, they were there. Leaping off of branches spawned out of sulphur burnt streets and tossing, beds, vehicles, stealing away people to crunch their skulls like apples as they erased their bodies.

Yoko was a medical professional, she feared no gore, blood or torn bits. She saw it all, had pictures of it on her phone but the Tikbalang and the Doom Tower’s terraformation of her city had managed to show her the other side of the medical world she lived in.

Death.

No, not the death of the diseased, infirm and assaulted. Not the death of the hundreds to thousands that fell or got crushed when the Tikbalang attacked the hospital. Not the death of her colleague or the decapitation of the handsome, annoying doctor.

Hers.

They’d gotten to her faster than she could think to switch places with her clone and those ugly creatures ripped away her right arm when she dared to defend herself and quickly sent her to darkness with a single vile, decaying touch.

Yoko couldn’t remember how long it took before she woke up in her clone’s body or rather, her original body— at this point she couldn’t care to understand the intricacies, only that somehow, thanks to it, she had survived.

Survival was little consolation though. She remained still as a terrified mouse as her death replayed again and again in her head. She’d been murdered, erased like everyone in her workplace, had her arm torn off as creatures of fairy tales dug their teeth to her bone and then…she was alive again, like it never happened but it did.

Her clone consciousness had moved from the cinema where she switched places, it had more common sense than she did because it fled with the people, fled the destruction and ran towards the blaring sirens and tents that promised evacuation and safety, at least until Yoko died.

The people she was running with left her behind, the last experience the clone had was in the afternoon, at the height of panic but the night had come and the Doom Tower’s unnaturally burning jungle had grown around her.

Yoko’s ensuing mad dash out of the Doom Tower’s influence led to happen a school. It was relatively unscathed and the corrupted trees hadn’t begun to grow around it, the Tikbalang were nowhere to be seen, heard or felt either. So she snuck in a classroom and rested under a teacher’s desk.

It was the sanest idea she had at the time as the Doom Suppression Force were flying overhead, announcing to anyone still trapped to find shelter and wait for rescue, to find devices and call for their help. Yoko didn’t have her phone on her but there were a number of abandoned laptops, phones, desktops in the ICT labs and other left behind personal items.

Whether it was the combination of having died hours before, her world ending, job lost, frien- acquaintances murdered or simply the uncomfortable position curling up under a teacher’s desk left her, Yoko couldn’t sleep a single second.

She explored the school, its deathly, creepy silence was a comfort compared to the chaos of outside. The ground had trembled and in every distance she could perceived explosions were going off as the military responded to the unnatural occurrence via air.

As she gathered useful items from the school, knives from its kitchen, machetes from its agriculture barn and a fair weather jacket to wrap around herself, Yoko considered just how much those Tower Chasers had been right about.

Monsters, actual fucking monsters killed me today. And they’d hit the truth dead centre, sent out videos on the net, made it onto live news streams as more and more so called delusional Tower Chasers were arrested for trespassing and endangering lives.

But they were right, they were showing the world what the DSF wouldn’t.

Yoko questioned if anything would change now that she was where she was, now that she was headed towards the Doom Tower.

Yoko glanced at her fellow Regalia Wielder, stepping away from the memories of her death and revival. Sam, the young man had answered her call for help when she thought no one would.

She wasn’t the only one that had the brilliant idea of camping out in the school. A father and his two boys were huddled down in it, waiting out the danger of the night until she came across them during her exploration. He had a car, an SUV with more than enough space for she and her clones if need be.

Working together was the obvious play and so by daybreak the four of them had snuck out to the SUV, got it started and were on their way out just as the Tikbalang were on their way in. The monsters were faster and explaining how she was capable of generating clones from her clipped fingernails was wisely set aside as Yoko suddenly became a champion.

Another death experience at the Tikbalang’s hands wasn’t going to happen without a fight.

Sam’s timely arrival ensured she didn’t die again and that the man and his children returned home safely. For her and for Sam though, home would be the farthest thing from them.

“We’re here.” Alex the scarred DSF agent said as they hovered above burning treetops. Their pilot and the DSF squads escorting them had each attempted to land earlier but the trees would have ensured none would take off again. And so they hovered.

Yoko shared a look with Sam and she knew as he knew that as much as they wanted out, there was no going back for either of them. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

“Help me with these.” Alex said to her lackeys and they went about unlatching the crates and boxes they’d come with. Sam had said something about Nuclei and Alex promised it would power them up.

I need power. Yoko shoved her slacking glasses into place, it shimmered information about abilities and powers she should have but didn’t. She stared hungrily at Regenerate an ability that spoke for its worth and would have likely saved her from her first ever death.

[Spend 200RGP to Restore Saved Bodily State?]

It was very specific wording that let her understand this one ability was tied closely to the way her Regalia of Detachment worked. If she could get one use of it then her nails should grow back and she would be able to summon clones again, assuming the migraine splitting her head like a fruit would let her.

The heavy thuds of the boxes landing below brought her attention to the fact that she’d been staring straight ahead at Sam through her glasses as she interacted with her Regalia. She blinked, embarrassed, “Sorry, I was-”

“Messing around with your Regalia?” he guessed, a pleasant but tired smile on his lips. He waved his sad, broken phone and added, “Me too. Did you ever think everyone would have phones as Regalia?”

Everyone. Yoko caught onto that word. He’s definitely gotten the same messages I have. She nodded, “I’m surprised you’re not wearing glasses and that you can’t clone yourself, thought we’d need an army of clones to take on the army of Tikbalang.”

“Belua.”

“Huh?”

Sam shifted close, “They’re called Belua, an umbrella term for all the monsters.”

Yoko eyed him, “You’re on a first-name basis with these things?”

He laughed, winced at a migraine she could sympathise with and said, “The Tikbalang would be my third. My first was a literal giant, fire-slinging, two tailed Jaguar. It almost killed me.”

These Tikbalang actually killed me. “How did you survive?”

He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Alex, “They found me, picked me up, fixed me and dragged me into this bullshit. It’s only been a week…I think; I haven’t been keeping track of the days.”

Yoko couldn’t blame him for that, the days were a bore to track when she could be in two places at once. I’m going to miss that.

“Are you…from Manila? I mean the Philippines?” Sam asked.

It was a question everyone she met asked at some point after hearing her name or seeing what she looked like. “I was born and raised her by a Japanese father and a Filipino mother. What about you? Are you just another DSF agent?”

He shrugged in an uncertain manner, “Yes and no? It’s complicated and I doubt it’s going to get simply anytime soon.”

“True.”

Alex finally approached, a line of sweat on her brow, “Alright you two, we’re rappelling down so…don’t let go of the rope.”

Sam and Yoko went up by the edge, the agents wrapped them in the equipment, not trusting either of them to put it on by themselves and as the two Regalia Wielders stared down at their descent and at the Doom Tower awaiting them, Yoko wished more than anything that she had a clone out there somewhere she could switch her consciousness to.