While the others watched the window cautiously, Alexis pulled a rather large weapon out of the cart, with what appeared to be a fuel tank on the bottom.
The body of the weapon had some simple lines of enchantment on it, nothing complicated, because the purpose of this weapon was only one: to burn everything in front of the user.
Armed with this weapon, Alexis intended to support his companions, for even though the Replicator was an advanced version of the Mimic, it still had a weakness for high temperatures.
The flamethrower was one of the best ways to deal with this oddity. So the team walked up to the building. Curious people were looking in from various windows, but when they noticed the weapons they were carrying, they hid.
No one wanted any trouble! Especially because of the announcement by UNMSO, so they could already guess that the dangerous oddity announced on the radio was near them.
Fortunately, it was expressly stated that it was forbidden to go outside, otherwise people would start running. Now, under the dim light of the bloody moon, the silence of a city that had been bustling at night gave the agents a strange feeling.
It was uncomfortable, all this silence and loneliness where there were usually people. But they were able to get over it, the only important thing now was to eliminate the Replicator, so that the people would be able to go out into the streets comfortably.
So Jack braced his legs with Pneuma before he bolted, running quickly from the street to the wall of the building. With a leap, he braced his foot against the wall before running along the wall, quickly reaching the unlit window.
But before he could even look out, a figure ran towards him, and realizing that it was not dangerous to him, Jack reached out and held what appeared to be a young adult woman covered in wounds.
"Here comes the monster!" the woman shouted, causing Jack to nod before throwing the young woman out of the window.
"Damn it!" the girl screamed before being caught by Laria, who quickly put her on the ground.
At Jack's side, his right hand held his axe, which he had strengthened and activated its enchantment. In the darkness before him, Jack could hear some footsteps, and slowly the figure they were looking for appeared in front of him.
It was obvious that this Replicator hadn't increased his strength too much, but there was something about him that made him all the more sinister.
In the darkness, the blue Pneuma around the Replicator's body partially outlined its form. It was no longer a woman's figure, but a huge one, easily two meters tall.
Its limbs were unusually long and disproportionate. Its hands seemed to end in long, slender claws that trailed along the ground. Its eyes bored into Jack's, who felt a real pang of fear at that moment.
"Human, do you wish to continue fighting?" at this question, the fear Jack felt seemed to increase uncontrollably, but knowing that this was unnatural, Jack's mind sharpened and dismissed these emotions in his heart.
"You're imitating another oddity capable of causing fear in people, but you can hardly use this effect on others," Jack said smoothly, pointing out to his enemy his inability to scare him.
"Oh, what a shame. That was from one of my best victims, a Sower. Now, let me use the power that this form gives me," the Replicator made what looked like a bow before running towards Jack.
Without wasting much time, Jack jumped backward, spinning in the air before falling to the ground, and near him, the Replicator fell, its form illuminated by the light, fully showing the appearance of the monster it had imitated.
It had dark red, worm-like skin, it even had many protruding rings on its body, but all this was covered by a transparent covering that looked quite tough.
"Oh, great," Irina mumbled before standing on Jack's left side.
Laria, on the other hand, stood on her friend's right side and looked at the Replicator's imitated Sower body with interest, but soon clicked her tongue, knowing that such a creature was a fake.
"Alexis!" At Jack's signal, Alexis nodded and aimed his incendiary weapon at the Replicator.
Pressing the trigger, a fairly intense orange jet of fire shot toward the creature, making the Replicator particularly uncomfortable from the temperature rise, it recoiled, but the Field Agents seized the opportunity.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The high temperature slowed the Replicator's reaction, and its body absorbed the four shots, two from Jack, the other two from Lisa, who fired a bolt-action rifle at the oddity.
Irina manifested her invisible sword, its Pneuma distorting the air as she swung it across the Replicator's body, taking advantage of the shattered holes in its transparent shell.
Growl!
Irina's high-speed slashes and stabs caused the Replicator to grunt in pain. Black blood gushed from its body, but the more it tried to defend itself or move away, the more the flames fired by Alexis engulfed it, leaving it vulnerable to the agents' attacks.
Bam!
Laria's leg lifted high before dropping heavily on the replicator's shoulder, sending it crashing to the ground. In this disadvantageous situation, Alexis moved in, focusing the flames of his weapon on the Replicator.
"NO! STOP! IT'S TOO HOT! IT HURTS! IT HURTS TOO MUCH!" the creature cried desperately, but none of them took pity on the creature.
No matter how many childish or feminine voices it used, Alexis squeezed the trigger of the flamethrower until the weapon's fuel was slowly depleted.
Soon what appeared to be the charred remains of the Replicator stood before them, but none of them failed to stand at attention. Even Alexis held his enchanted pistol while his Pneuma hands pulled some explosives from his pockets.
While the Mimics could be incapacitated by the high temperatures, the Replicators could not, but that was only a minor weakness of these creatures. So they were vigilant, especially Jack, whose sixth sense was focused entirely on the apparent remnants of the enemy.
"Why do you keep looking at him, it's already dead!" the young woman Jack had helped tried to approach them, but Jack turned around and stared at her.
Jack's brown eyes put quite a bit of pressure on the woman, who fell to the ground in fear, sitting on the street. Jack then pointed his gun at the woman, scaring her even more.
"Keep your damn distance! Don't be a nuisance here!" Jack warned threateningly, and this made the girl understand that she was superfluous there, so she went back into the building where she lived.
"How rude... UNMSO agent," an unnaturally raspy voice came from the charred corpse.
Bits of charred matter fell from this being, which was slowly taking shape. This time, its shape and features were indistinguishable, it was just a white humanoid mass with nothing remarkable about it.
But even in such a vulnerable state, the blue Pneuma around its body continued to boil. The Replicator turned its head, and though it had no visible eyes, everyone could sense that someone was watching them.
"Why don't you attack? Guys, I'm vulnerable!" the creature's voice was like a discordant and unpleasant cacophony of a thousand different voices, all chanting the same words at different speeds.
"Because your state is the most dangerous," Lisa pointed out, her purple eyes searching for weaknesses in the Replicator figure, but its strange way of existing ruled that out.
"A formless state, many think your danger lies in your ability to mimic, but it is only when you are in your current form that your talents are at their most powerful," Laria continued, who had adopted a quick draw stance, only now she was building up energy.
"The book doesn't talk about these things, but the scientific material is a guide in difficult times, not something to be followed to the letter or you will die. As the best version of the Mimic, your original form will always be the most dangerous," Laria twirled the scalpel in her fingers and looked at the being before her with morbid interest.
Although the oddity before her was quite dangerous, especially in its 'blank' state, Laria's interest in dissecting creatures only grew.
Even Laria's Pneuma reacted, stirring within her. Laria used this to strengthen her scalpel before she charged the Replicator and resumed the fight against this oddity.
Jack followed her, holding his axe with both hands and raising his weapon so that when he brought it down it made a rather powerful diagonal cut. He had even strengthened his arms and the weapon he was holding to increase his attack power.
Irina also joined her two companions, quickly positioning herself at the enemy's side, her stance remaining the same, ready for a quick draw of her invisible sword.
She quickly drew her sword and joined the attack of her two companions, but the Replicant in its original form was too 'malleable', its body easily changed like plasticine, twisting its body and dodging the three attacks.
Swish! Swish!
Two invisible bullets hit the creature, leaving two large holes in its body, and even its skin fluttered as if it were liquid. The creature let out a rather guttural scream, suffering from the damage.
"Looks like the Pneuma never stops being effective," Alexis said before throwing two of his bombs into the air, causing the creature to try to flee, but it ran into Laria's leg.
Laria kicked the Replicator, her Pneuma-enhanced leg slamming into the creature's side, sending it flying into the distance. Falling to the ground, the Replicator's white body twisted and quickly sat up, just in time to see Irina standing in front of it.
Irina made three quick slashes, and though the first two were dodged by the Replicant as it twisted its body parts in unnatural ways, the last one grazed her body, preventing her from properly dodging.
Then Irina stepped back quickly and looked at the oddity with a mysterious smile, then beeps came from the floor. Looking down, the creature saw that the two bombs Alexis had dropped earlier were now beneath it.
Boom! Boom!
Two loud explosions engulfed the Replicator, and Irina high-fived one of the Pneuma hands Alexis had projected; the two had been working as a team lately, Irina even controlling the speed of her attacks to fool the creature, speeding up at the last moment to achieve an effective attack.
"Keep your guard up, this thing is still alive," Jack pointed out, still sensing the threat of the Replicator with his sixth sense.
"We know," Irina said before striking a fencing pose, keeping her guard up.
As the dust and smoke cleared, everyone in the team saw the Replicator's body kneeling on the ground, its body riddled with holes; moreover, its strange body seemed to be bubbling, as if its skin was somehow boiling.
"This thing is like a pesky cockroach," Lisa commented in a complaining tone, but she placed one of her Pneuma pellets in the real pellet in the chamber of her rifle, which was aimed at the Replicator's vulnerable parts as if looking for something to hit.
Without wasting any more time, Jack lunged at the creature, swinging his axe in a horizontal attack. From the speed of the blow, the lines of the weapon's enchantment left a faint trail of light.
Clank! Crush!
Jack's blow was parried by what appeared to be a large whitish claw. The Replicator managed to transform his arm into this new limb, which was tough enough to avoid being cut.
But the intensity of the attack was so great that the Replicator's body jerked and the force coursing through its body cracked the road. Jack's eyes narrowed at that point before he drew his weapon.
The Replicator's limb stretched out, its hand morphing into a sharp spike as it approached Jack's body, but Jack deftly dodged the attack. Irina's invisible sword struck the Replicator's outstretched arm, leaving a small cut from which blood gushed.
Taking advantage of the replicator's apparent inability to sit up, Laria approached and swung her scalpel at the oddity's neck, but although she managed to cut, her attack was stopped by the creature's flesh.
Even without any facial features, Laria could feel that the creature was looking at her with hatred, and even its condition seemed to be slowly recovering, as its body shook a little as it seemed to be trying to adjust to a different form, shaking strangely.
Bang! Bang! Swish!
Two bullets were fired by Alexis, hitting the Replicator's chest, while the bullet fired by Lisa hit the creature's head, opening a large hole in it.
But the blue Pneuma still covered the creature's body, and though it seemed faint and somewhat weak, it indicated that it was still alive. Jack tried to cut the Replicator's throat, aiming for the spot where Laria had wounded him, but for the second time, the Replicator's hand moved quickly toward him.
This time it was both hands, the fingers stretched out like giant needles, it was as if the creature felt that Jack was the most dangerous of the group, so it only defended itself from his attacks and attacked him proactively, almost ignoring the man's other companions.
The Replicator's constant attempts to stab, trap, or scratch Jack caused him to become somewhat separated from his companions as he dodged. While the others effectively wounded the oddity, filling it with wounds and covering its body with its black blood.
With Jack now some distance from the others, something changed in the Replicator, as if some purpose had been served. Jack then felt a strange disturbance in his sixth sense, as if it had been taken away.
"I tricked you..." the Replicator's sinister voice warned all the UNMSO agents, and as they tried to continue attacking the oddity, something appeared in its shattered head, something that shouldn't be there in its current state.
An eerie smile.
The Replicator's body twisted, its barely covered body compressed by the blue Pneuma, and leaped straight at Jack. Its figure was instantly in front of Jack, its right fist had transformed into an elephant's foot, slamming straight into Jack's chest.
Even though Jack raised his axe in defense, the blow pushed him backward, sending his feet skidding across the floor. The force of the attack made him uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as the loss of his sixth sense.
It was like being blindfolded or having his ears plugged, it was an unpleasant sensation for him, but he had been trained in these circumstances, so he was able to overcome the discomfort he felt and prepare to continue fighting.
Jack quickly regained his balance, but the Replicator had superior speed and came at him with the same viciousness as before. With its claw transformed into a deadly weapon, the oddity attacked Jack, who used a Pneuma technique.
His body was thrown backward, sliding along the ground and leaving several remnants due to the speed of the movement. This consumed energy and caused pain in his legs, but it saved his life, so he did not focus on such trivialities.
Swish! Swish!
Two pure pneuma bullets hit the Replicator's back, causing it to scream and turn around, 'looking' hatefully at Lisa who had attacked it. Jack took the opportunity to attack with full force.
Bang!
Jack's axe hit the Replicator's side, not only leaving it with a nasty cut but also sending it far away, into the metal pole of a lamppost, twisting as the creature's body collided with the object.
Clank!
The clanking of metal was quite audible in this deserted environment. The Replicator suffered, for while it was dangerous, its danger was more to unsuspecting populations and crowds, but a team of prepared agents could defeat it.
As they were doing now. Several round objects fell near it, and recognizing them, it tried to move away, but the human Pneuma was like a poison to this creature, slowing its movement.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Snarl!
The explosives once again engulfed the Replicator in flames, which emitted a terrible roar. Its whitish body seemed to melt under the intense fire, a painful and desperate situation for the creature.
"Save me!" the Replicator shouted, this time imitating Jack's voice, making everyone shiver.
"Damn it," Laria was angry at this point, not liking the Replicator's attempt to imitate her boyfriend in such a pained and pitiful tone.
"It seems its fixation on Jack isn't just because he causes it more trouble," Irina said, thinking about the strange situation where the Replicator seemed to focus more on Jack than the rest during the fight.
"It wants to imitate me," Jack approached the group, keeping his wits about it.
For even though he had wounded the Replicator, even though it was burning up before him, the block on his sixth sense had not disappeared, a clear indication of something terrible.
The Replicator was only slightly wounded. If the attacks had caused it significant damage, or even serious damage, at least this strange ability to block his sixth sense would have disappeared.
Only he could not understand where the blocking was coming from, he could not detect any special transformation in the Replicator, only its original form. Except for some partial modifications for attack or defense, the Replicator's whitish, rankles form had hardly changed.
Then he felt a strange itch in his hand, and when he looked down, he noticed a small red dot on his hand. At that moment, he felt a terrible sinking in his heart.
When he touched that spot, he felt a hint of pain, and his finger was stained with blood, his blood. His gaze then turned to the replicator, which was slowly taking on a new form as the flames subsided.
Standing before them all was an almost perfect replica of Jack, even with the same scars on his body. In addition, part of his body had been transformed into clothing that mimicked what Jack was wearing.
"I never knew you had such a keen sixth sense, fortunately, I have learned how to modify my organs, so I emulated those of a dying Arachne I found some time ago.
It seems that fate has given me this gift, all ready for today," the Replicator imitated Jack's voice perfectly and even started to laugh with his same laugh, making everyone shiver.
The Replicator looked at the axe in Jack's hand and a strange, inhuman smile appeared on his face. The creature reached out and ripped the arm from his grasp. The black blood fell, but it did not scream in pain, it just stared at Jack with that strange grin on its face.
The broken limb gradually transformed into an axe similar to Jack's as a new arm grew on his body. Though this seemed to consume much of the Replicant's energy, and even the blue Pneuma covering his body disappeared, he didn't seem to mind.
"Your body feels quite comfortable to use. What happens when it consumes you completely? I long to have all your memories!" as if his obsession with Jack had taken over, the Replicator's attention went entirely to the mimicking man, ignoring his companions.
Jack gripped his gun tightly, his eyes growing bloodshot from what was happening before him, feeling not only anger but disgust. The Pneuma in his body stirred, strengthening his body completely.
Although he was not guided by his strong emotions, he was ready to fight, but not alone. His companions, seeing what was happening, approached Jack, eyeing the Replicator warily.
The final round of this confrontation was about to begin!