Simone Baptiste - French
Rolf - German - Simone’s Dog
Chuck Naldrett - Canadian - DaveG
Sampson Strong - English - PJ
Leonid Rokossovsky - Russian - Sukh
Rosalyn De Steel - English - Dabe
Richard Bering - English - NPC
Pitik Loshang - Islander - NPC Bar owner
A Hero’s Job is Never Done.
On arrival at the bar we found that Rosalyn was waiting for us. She explained that the others had been tasked with some other jobs for Richard. But they did not matter as she had some more important news. She did not explain how she had come upon this info, just that she had managed to pick it up around the village, my guess was that she had been mind rummaging again. Apparently there were three Supers who had taken as prisoners the people who had been at the lodging house in Estevelo. They were holed up in a farm house just outside town. We were all too tired to check out this story straight away so we decided to grab a few hours sleep and leave for the farm at noon. So my bath turned out to be more a quick dip before slipping into my bed. I slept like a log before been woken by Pitik at 11am as arranged. We had a quick bit of food before driving tiredly off to the farm.
Trouble at Farm
Parking at the end of a rough track we made our way cautiously along it amongst the dappled shade of the trees and bushes. When we got a glimpse of the buildings we stopped and hid alongside the track. Rosalyn turned invisible and went ahead to see what was happening. She soon came running back to tell us that she had observed three people leading others into the back of a large van. She could not be certain but she thought the ones been shut in the back of the van were the people we had come to rescue. The van started off, moving slowly down the rutted track towards us. We could see a man driving and female passenger but could not see the 
third person. As the van got close to our position, Leonid stepped out in the track in front of it, forcing it to a halt with a squeal of brakes. A spirited conversation then took place between the people in the van and Leonid. This all came to an end when Leonid cut the conversation short by sending a shower of projectiles at the man in van. This smashed the front screen sending glass shrapnel in all directions. Leonid then shot off into the bushes on the far side of the road. Rosalyn also disappeared into the bushes on this side of the road after firing at the people in the van. At our side of the road I shot at the driver while Sampson moved towards the rear of the van. There was then a blast of electrical energy out of the
cab into the bushes where Leonid and Rosalyn were hiding. This caused many bushes to burst into flame but from where Chuck and I were standing we could not see if Leonid or Rosalyn were hit. What we did observe was the women getting out of the van before our view was blocked by a wall of earth appearing between us and the van. Since I could not see anyone to shoot anymore, Rolf and I moved off to help out Rosalyn & Leonid.
When we got around the front of the van I could see that the enemy super was a women in her 40’s. She certainly seemed to be a bit wound up by Rosalyn as she fired shot after shot into the bushes. She soon stopped that when I opened fire and Rolf steamed in. When Leonid also opened fire on her she was in serious trouble. Suddenly the ground literally disappeared from under us, I found myself perched on the edge of the hole cartmilling my arms trying to stop myself falling in. By performing a little hop I managed to make a step backwards from the hole but Rolf was not so lucky. He ended up 10’ down in the bottom of hole but with no damage. I just had to get him out before whoever was doing this earth magic filled the hole back in again. So pulling on the power of flight and strength I dived into the hole, grabbed Rolf and then flew out landing behind the van out of sight of electric girl and hopefully the earth magic person.
Mirror Images
There I saw a very strange sight, where Sampson was fighting Samson as there was two of him. I could not tell
them apart as they were also dressed alike. From what I could see one of them was losing but should I help him or the other, I could not tell. I did see a Super I did not recognise so he was fair game as far as I was concerned. But before I could make a move he looked at me and suddenly there was another me standing along side him.
She was identical to me, the only differences I could spot was that the copy did not seem to have my back pack and guns but other than a perfect copy but ..... thinking about it, the Simone copy seemed to be a bit blank eyed as though no one was at home or she was been controlled. Rolf seemed confused, so to make things easier for him I sent him after the enemy Super rather than Simone. One quick vicious attack by Rolf and the enemy Super was down and out. Then suddenly the van shot backwards, Rolf and Simone jumped out of the way but the van slammed into me knocking me down, also hitting one of the Sampson copies. As I was getting back up Simone got hit by an electrical blast which just washed over her with no effect. Taking advantage of me been stunned Simone advanced and hit me which forced me backwards, stunning me again. Rolf was no use and just yelped in confusion as he did not know that I was the real Simone. I was now staggering backwards just trying to get away, It was terrifying facing Simone as she was relentless and so dead in the eyes. She then smacked me with such a hit that I flew backwards through the air for what seemed ages, I landed under a tree smacking my head on a rock, for a few seconds I saw stars before everything went black.
I came too with a worried Rolf licking my face. I saw Simone advancing on me so I tried to scrabble backwards away from her. I pleaded to Rolf to keep Simone away from me and just keep us separated but Rolf was still uncertain on what to do. While I was unable to defend myself Simone grabbed me and bit me in the throat, I suddenly felt cold and I felt my strength draining away. But at least I was not stunned so I rolled away and tried to get us much distance between me and Simone as I could. Even Rolf seemed to work out who was who now and stood between me and the false Simone growling at her.
Breaking Free of Control
The fact that Rolf was growling at Simone seemed to have a strange effect on Simone which stopped her advancing. For the first time I observed emotions on her face. It was though she was unfreezing from some sort of control that her controller had on her. Maybe it helped that Rolf had taken him out earlier. I took advantage of this respite to back off some more and heal some of my wounds. It was at this point that one of the Sampson copies intervened. He came running up and wrapped his arms round Simone from behind and then started to run his hands up and down her body. I almost instantly had flashbacks to Ross in the prison and felt cold shivers. Seeing what was happening to Simone, it was all too easy to play Ross’s attack on top what I was seeing making me feel nauseous. I could see Simone struggling as though she had those thoughts to and then she shot straight up into the sky. Since she was me I guessed she was going to fly very high and eventually shake off Sampson at height.
While this was going on, the second Sampson approached me. I warned Rolf to be alert in case he attacked me the same way as the other Sampson was doing to Simone. I just could not trust anyone as they all could be fake. Sampson apparently wanted healing, and to be honest he did look like he had been hammered. When I asked him about what the other Samson was doing he said that he must be controlled, as he, Sampson would never take advantage of anyone. This statement did not fit very well with what I had witnessed him doing on the beach but a quick glance at Rosalyn did show her concentrating on something so I guess he could be telling the truth. He continued to try and persuade me that he was a real Samson saying if he was a fake he would have simply attacked me. I was convinced when he whimpered that he just wanted Rolf to lick him, so Rolf and I cautiously healed Sampson’s wounds. The rest of the party were about 20m up the road by the van where they had captured the earth magic guy. I could see no sight of the electrical women.
Then with a rushing of air Samson and Simone was back, barrowing down from out of the blue towards the party by the van. I could see that Samson2 had stopped molesting Simone. They landed by the van. Even from here I could see something had changed as they did not seem to have the aggressive posture that they had before. Sampson (the one I had healed) walked up to the rest of the group but I kept my distance as I did not trust this situation. I could see conversation taking place at the van and then one of the Samson’s ran off into the woods but I could not see if was the healed Sampson or molesting Sampson. Heard my name been mentioned and someone pointed down in my direction and then Simone started to walk towards me. None of the others followed which did not make me feel any more supported other than by Rolf and I was uncertain how he would behave in this situation.
Simone
My feelings/thoughts were all over the shop at this point as the initial combat rush had been changed in the middle, to fear of facing myself with no help from my best friend. Then things had conspired to bring back recent traumatic memories so I was not at my strongest to face what occurred next. To be honest I suspect no matter what emotional state I had been in, I would have found what occurred next traumatic.
When Simone was within a few paces I asked her to stop which she did thankfully. We then started to talk with both us thinking that we were the real Simone. Our discussions were very wide ranging starting with our childhood. Simone had all the same memories that I had including the same emotional response that I had to these memories. Her feelings about my father were the same as me for example. So we talked about our more recent memories and she was still an exact copy right up to the combat that had just taken place which is where our paths divided. We discussed in depth what occurred just after I rescued Rolf from the hole and the lack of 
backpack and guns. I could see the truth dawning across Simone’s face then she exclaimed “I am a copy and you are the real Simone”. I just hugged her and said “you are a real person now, as live as me”. We talked a bit more before she said she was feeling a bit tired. In fact she was feeling very weak. She suddenly sat down with a thump, I instantly tried to do as much healing as I could but to no effect. Simone said she could feel her life ebbing away and my healing was having no effect. Since Simone was the same as me it was all too easy to empathise with Simone and really feel ... her ... life ... ebbing ... away. I tried to make her as comfortable as I could with her head in my lap. I was looking into her eyes as they glazed over and she died in front of me. I could not stop myself and I burst into tears. I found that I could not stop sobbing as it was me that had died and I found in impossible not to put myself into her place. It is such a cruel thing to create a real person with a finite lifespan, when they can feel their life leaving them.
No one came down from the rest of the party to join me to see how things were getting on, all I got was a shout saying to “hurry up, they were almost ready to go”. Could none of them think what it was like? To see themselves die! All I had was Rolf to hug and release my anguish with. I could hear them freeing the prisoners in the back of the van so I pulled myself together. I was not going to leave Simone lying there on the side of the road so pulling on a burrowing power I dug a deep hole for Simone’s burial. I placed her in it and filled it in. I suppose some people would question why bother? as she was just a copy but she had nineteen years of memories and about one hour of life. So what makes a person human? In her one hour of life she had demonstrated more human qualities than some people do in a lifetime … mentioning no names. I gave one last hug to Rolf and then wiped my eyes before joining the rest of the party.
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