Chapter 001 - Freedom
"To Freedom!" The redhead shouted.
"To Freedom!!" Bop responded even louder.
"Yes! Even MORE Freedom!" The redhead didn't want to lose in a battle of loud voices.
"Yes! We must GO into... Freedom..." Bop couldn't pretend anymore as he took hold of the redhead's shoulders.
"You know this might sound stupid and all but... What is this "freedom" we've been shouting about?"
"Good question!" The redhead smiled confidently at Bop as his heart flushed from the excitement of finally learning about this "Freedom" thing.
"..." Bop waited.
"..." And the redhead stared at him back... For a very, very long time.
"Good question what?" Bop hesitated to ask the redhead.
"It's a good question" The girl responded.
"Yeah and? Aren't you going to answer my "good question"?"
The girl suddenly gave Bop her seductive trademark smile as she replied:
"I also don't know! That's why it's a good question" The girl triumphantly responded.
"What?! Then you don't know what we're looking for?!" Bop lashed.
"I thought YOU knew!" The girl shouted back, visibly dismayed.
"What?! You were the one who told me to find it with you. How am I supposed to know what you want then?" Bop felt stress just from talking with the girl.
"I didn't ask for this freedom thing! Martha did!" The redheaded girl complained as she became teary-eyed.
"What or whos a Martha?!"
"Martha, she took me out of my room and we fought with these weird metal men. Then she shouted that I should find this Freedom thing"
"Yeah but who's Matha?!" Bop did not understand a thing she was saying.
"She's my... My... My thing. I also don't know" The girl tried to think of a word for what to call Martha but she couldn't give Martha a suitable title.
"Ah! She's like my second Incubator Tube!" The girl had an epiphany.
"You were inside her before you were born?" Bop asked.
"No, but she kept me alive and comfortable... I really liked Martha" The girl made a sad face.
"Then let's go to her now" [Maybe she can answer our questions] Bop felt like this Martha character was the answer he was looking for.
"W-we can't... The weird metal men suddenly shot at us so we also shot back at them using this shooter thingy. Sadly Martha sustained too much damage, so she had to sleep to recover. She told me to go find freedom first" The girl pointed at her gun.
"Then let's wait for her to wake up then!"
"I-i don't think she'll ever wake up... Her bodily functions already stopped" *sob sob* "S-sorry, my eyes malfunction every time I think of Martha" The girl held back her tears as she didn't understand the emotions she was feeling at the moment.
"What did Martha say about this Freedom thing?"
"I don't know, she always promised to give it to me. Maybe it's a valuable gift or something?"
Then Bop suddenly realized something [Maybe she's just a newborn clone! Maybe that's why she doesn't know anything yet]
"Huuu, well whatever. I'll ask my guide what it is... But for now, give me your gun. I don't have anything to protect myself with" Bop asked for the gun.
"And since you're obviously crazy" [And since you're obviously just a newborn] Bop's memory-speech malfunctioned again.
"What?"
"I meant you're obviously just a newborn"
"I-i see... What is "crazy"?... And what is a "gun"?" The girl blushed as she felt that knowing those things should've been common sense. Sadly, as a newborn clone, she was as clueless as a baby.
"That metal thingy you're holding. And crazy is a compliment, yes a compliment" Bop pointed at her gun as he sweated in relief. [Thank god she's just a newborn. If she understood me I might've been dead right now]
"Oh, I see!"
"Kukuku, don't worry. As your senior, I have the duty of teaching you right from wrong" Bop wasn't embarrassed at all by his blatantly hypocritical words.
"Ooh, so that's why..." The girl didn't know what to call him.
"Bop" Bop interjected.
"Bop is so smart! You were a more experienced Clone! I guess 25 days of life is nothing compared to a real Clone veteran"
*Kuk* Bop choked as he heard her real age.
"Y-you're older than me you old lady! I'm only 5 days old!" Bop cried.
"W-what?! Then how do you know all these things?" The girl was visibly surprised at Bop's age.
"Maybe because I have a more advanced model?" Bop's confidence went up. In his five days of life, he had always been called defective. But could it be, that he was actually the latest model clone?
Yes. Bop felt confident as he was not simply a defective clone.
No... He was an advanced version defective clone!
You see, clones are born into the world without any stored knowledge in their brains, making them no different from newly born babies. But that didn't mean all clones were born ignorant. Depending on the Version or the goals of their creator a clone could have prior knowledge of the great big world as he or she entered the world. Sadly, for Bop this was not the case as Bop's face was filled with utter devastation when he compared his Version with the girl.
"Kukuku, I'm a Clonex 5.0 Delta (D)" The D there, although Bop made it sound amazing, he didn't know it actually stood for "defective". This was the reason why everyone who knew Bop's version knew he was a defective product.
"Woah! I'm a Homunclii 8.2 Zeta... Is that any good?"
*Kuk* "That's obviously a higher version than mine!" Bop sobbed at his inevitably lower fate than the red-headed girl.
"T-then how?!" [How are you so knowledgeable!] The girl felt Bop become smarter and more mysterious by the second.
"Kukuku, it might be because of my inherent hard work! I read my manual every day!"
"ARGHHHH!" The girl felt powerless against Bop's studiousness.
"You probably have never read your manual, have you?" Bop stared at the irresponsible girl in front of him. To a clone, a manual was the ultimate guide on how to live.
Bop received his Janitor's manual the day he was born.
On that day as a bright light shone on Bop, he heard the words of a man say to him.
"Read this to achieve your destiny" And so Bop read his manual every day.
Bop began to quickly open a weird looking book tablet from his large janitor pockets.
The tablet shined in different weird and wonderful colors that amazed the redhead girl.
"Amazing! What's that?"
"Hmm? It's my Janitor's Manual... Don't you have a manual like me?"
"Oh, you mean this manual? I memorized it on my first 4 days" The girl showed Bop a thin book.
"Why is your manual so... So papery? How do you read this? Where's the switch?"
"No no, you read it through this" The girl showed Bop a group of strange lines written on the book.
"Wait... Aren't manuals supposed to go inside your head every time you open them? See like this"
*Swiiinggg* A sharp light entered their eyes and they entered a different place as if they were suddenly teleported into another place.
"See. Like this" Bop pointed around him.
"Don't ask any questions yet. Maybe because my manual is only a janitor's manual it can only answer one question a day so don't ask any stupid questions"
Meanwhile somewhere around the Erebos Galaxy.
There was a weird planetary structure.
8 same-sized planets orbited each other in close proximity. But the weird part of the structure was that the planet's gravitational pulls didn't crash each planet into one big mush. They stayed orbiting each other.
"Geneva" A deep voice sounded throughout the halls. A muscular man wearing heavy armor and a black trenchcoat was sitting in a throne that looked to be the skull of a once monstrous mechanoid beast hybrid as the bone melded with robotic parts here are there.
"Master" A beautiful woman bowed to the man as she kept her head as low as possible, not hesitating in letting her fair beautiful touch the rough ground.
Anyone who had seen her beauty would've immediately mistaken her for a Goddess as even though she was prostrated right now, she had a certain majestic celestial feel to her.
In fact, she was pretty much technically already a Goddess as she was being literally worshiped.
But not this time.
In front of the man on the throne, she was nothing but a lowly servant.
"I-I have brought it, master" Geneva slowly made her way up to her master as she crawled.
"Enough bowing, hurry and pass it to me" The man impatiently ordered.
The man acquired the box Geneva was holding as he slowly inspected it.
"Huhuhu" A deep laugh sounded throughout the halls.
"Who brings terror and awe to the multiverse with a flick of his hand?" The man asked as he looked at space through the large glass window in his throne room.
"It is you master o Great Zaldros" The girl enthusiastically replied, but the man's eyes weren't too happy with her reply as only servants given his permission could utter his holy name.
Unnerving silence filled the halls as the girl suddenly started to tear up.
"I-I am s-sorry master! I did not mean to use your name. I had thought my accomplishments warranted the privilege of uttering your most esteemed name"
"You do not "warrant" anything without my permission" The man replied in a sharp manner.
"Please punish my impudence" Geneva could do nothing but accept the fate the man would bestow upon her.
"It does not matter... Your accomplishments this time were truly commendable, but do not repeat the same mistake twice"
Geneva's breathing suddenly became thrilled as her breathing became heavy.
The pleasing sound of a small bell resounded throughout the halls indicating someone had entered.
"You're lowly servant Tynon has entered the vicinity your sire" Another servant bowed in front of the man as he prostrated himself at his master.
The robotic servant, Tynon, looked like the average and plain robot found in the past with his rustic design, but there was something legendary about his aura that indicated he was a mythical figure. But even the great Tynon whose name forces armies to bow before him was but a mere servant in front of the man in the throne.
The man ignored Tynon as he looked at the box with full anticipation.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha! For eons, I have searched for this. Finally, The Thesarius, Book of Truths has finally fallen into my hands" The man in the throne majestically uttered as it inspired Tynon and Geneva who were below him.
But sadly for Zaldros, his happiness was shortlived as he read the title of the paper book inside the box.
It read "Clone-Janitor Manual Guide: How to be both a Clone AND a Janitor!"