Jessie didn't answer him as she continued to look directly into his eyes.
"Why do I feel like I know you?" said Hope. "Could you be the User that gave me my Aegis? The one that knows about my compatibility with it?"
Again, she didn't answer. It seemed like she was reminiscing some old memories as she looked at Hope. I mean, I knew that Hope hadn't met anyone like her before.
"Hmm," I muttered.
If Hope himself denied of such meeting with her, then it should be true. Then again, Hope was forgetful, though I was sure his forgetfulness wasn't that severe.
Everyone standing there in the lobby was confused, except for Evgeny. He seemed to understand the situation, much more than we all do at that time.
"Hope Domitius," called Jessie softly. "I have been waiting for you. I want to meet you so much that I even thought of abandoning these rebels to find you."
Hope narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean? This Aegis . . . You were the one who suggested it to me and had one of your subordinates to hand it over. But, you weren't there. Why?"
"I can't . . . I must stay with the main group here in Russia."
Those two were silent for a minute. As for the rest of us, we could only stare at them, unsure of what to do. Jessie and Evgeny didn't seem like they harbored any hostility, so, there was no need for anyone to do anything.
There was the fact that Jessie was being very friendly towards Hope, and it didn't seem like she was acting. In fact, anyone who looked at her could see the emotions she was feeling were genuine.
'Who is she exactly?' I thought.
Hope sighed and pulled away from Jessie. "I feel like I know you . . . But I'm sure you were not a resident of my hometown, Rigris. You are in Russia after all." He winced and covered a part of his face. "Wait . . . Car crash . . . Car crash . . ."
He kept mumbling to himself.
Jessie smiled. It was as if she loved hearing Hope's voice. It was weird.
She reached out for Hope's face again, and Hope let her. After what seemed like forever, she distanced herself from him.
"I am the third User who had escaped from the lab in Kazakhstan, aside from Evgeny and Vladimir," said Jessie.
"I see," muttered Hope.
We kind of figured it out beforehand, but it was nice to hear it from Jessie herself.
"Now . . . If you excuse me, Hope, I must do this for your sake. Don't hate me," said Jessie.
"Huh?"
She raised her hands and clapped a few times. "Duplicate."
A moment later, a burst of white light filled my vision. I closed my eyes immediately, and after a few seconds, I opened it.
"What . . ."
Hope was not there anymore. Instead, his figure was replaced with someone that looked like . . . me!
It didn't stop with just that, as everyone standing there in the lobby had disappeared, and were replaced with my own clones.
My own duplicates.
Everyone was as tall as me and looked exactly like me. Truly, Ava was everywhere in that area.
"Woah, what is happening?" said an 'Ava' to my right. I was particularly certain the one standing there before was Caesar.
'Caesar turned into me?' I thought.
"Wait, why everyone looked like me?" said another Ava to my left. "There are so many Jennifers."
"What are you talking about? I see Caesars. Everywhere is Caesar!" said the Ava at my left.
"Wait, wait . . . What?" Another Ava who was behind me pointed at the Ava-looking Caesar. "I see Inghild. And therefore, someone is playing tricks on us."
"You don't say," said another Ava, who I assumed to be Jessica just from how bored she sounded like.
After that, every 'Ava' in that lounge area started to argue with each other, and the change of atmosphere made me forget who was who exactly.
"What is happening?!" I yelled.
A monotonous voice inside my head crackled into life. "Ava."
"Aegis!" I said.
"It seems like that Jessie had used her Aegis's specialty. Though, I can't pinpoint what it is, to be honest."
"Hmm." I put a hand at my chin, trying to figure out what was going on despite the bickering and arguing in the background. "I can only assume Jessie's specialty works like Everhart, where he encases an entire area with his Aegis crystals to manipulate any element inside it. If Everhart can manipulate light inside, then, Jessie can . . . Can . . ."
An 'Ava' stumbled into me and the both of us fell down. "Ow."
Another 'Ava' was standing in front of us, pointing with her left index finger. "There must be one fake person in here. If we can get that woman to deactivate her specialty, then all of this will come to a close," she said.
"Um, I'm sure that's not me," said the 'Ava' who had stumbled into me.
"You must be the one!"
"What? How come?"
They both argued and I took the opportunity to distance myself from everyone.
"What in the world is going on?" said another 'Ava' who was standing at the far corner. I don't know who that 'Ava' was, but, only Sofeea would not dare to involve herself in that mess. As far as I was concerned, she preferred to not take part in arguments as much as possible.
"You must be the one!" said an 'Ava' that had emerged from the crowd. She walked over to my side. "You must be the imposter!"
"Huh?! No!" I retorted.
"The fact that you are not in the crowd and distanced yourself made you look suspicious," that 'Ava' said.
I shook my head. "That's not a good reason to accuse me of being an imposter. I just want to figure out how to handle this kind of situation. To do it, I distanced myself from everyone."
"Oh yeah?"
She formed a crimson Aegis blade from her right arm and slashed at me.
"Hey!" I managed to dodge it in time, but that 'Ava' didn't stop there. She continued her assault and I had to defend myself by any means necessary.
Her Aegis blade missed my head, allowing me to kick at her exposed side.
"Ugh!" She glared at me and readied her blade to strike at me again. "Don't move, imposter!"
"Stop! I'm not!"
I blocked each of her slow attacks with my own crimson Aegis blade. However, she didn't appear to be exhausted whatsoever after some time had passed. I wanted to convince whoever she was; that the imposter wasn't me. Though, she seemed to think I was really Jessie in the first place.
'Maybe she's the imposter, and she's doing this to make herself less suspicious,' I thought.
"Yah!" Her blade descended downwards in a wide arc and I blocked it with ease.
'Furthermore, it is still a fact that she was the one who started it, and therefore, that would make her look suspicious to everyone else,' I thought.
A few other 'Ava' that were arguing had shifted their attention to the both of us. The others didn't budge as they continued to butthead with each other. And so, as I fought, I counted every person that was there in that lobby.
"There is one additional person aside from this one I'm fighting," I mumbled. "And she can use the same Aegis crystals as mine! How come?"
"Yah!"
The 'Ava' I was fighting thrust her blade towards me and I sidestepped. When I cut her right arm off, she screamed in pain, which pulled everyone's attention to us.
"That . . . HURTS!" Her right arm regenerated soon after, so, she was clearly not from the Freya rebel group.
"Yup. She must be Jessie," I concluded.
With that, I formed two large, green crescent blades from my back in an attempt to fight her seriously. My Alteration Uniform, which was a product of my original Lutalo uniform and Aegis Gear allowed my crystals to phase through without the Uniform itself to be torn apart because of it.
"You must be the imposter!" said an 'Ava' from the crowd. She proceeded to attack the person next to her with an Aegis blade.
The assaulted 'Ava' just knocked that blade with her fist and then kicked at the assailant.
"That must be Jeremy," I mumbled.
Another 'Ava' from the crowd had a nervous look on her face. "Everyone, calm down! If even one person tries to do anything suspicious, she's the one responsible."
It was a good idea, but, it didn't seem to me like anyone would just stop moving immediately.
Then, another 'Ava' from the crowd took a few steps away from the rest. She manifested a large crystal paw from her right hand and raised it high up in the air.
"What . . ."
Before anyone could do anything, the paw descended onto the crowd.