“You see, all those copies of me out there are clones,” The elderly Sapphire explained.
    “Wait, Clones? Isn’t that illegal?” Echo asked.
    “In some countries, yes. But thankfully it’s only illegal in a couple of states in the US. Anyways, a couple of years back, I want to say five years ago but it was before I joined the company, Eternity Cosmetics Incorporated discovered the key to cloning people through the mutation of stem cells into even further specialized cells that they like to call Eternity Cells™. These Eternity Cells were far more powerful and utilitarian than regular stem cells, not only allowing for the creation of entirely new beings, but they could communicate information even when not touching, could specialize after they had already transformed into another type of cell, and were nigh indestructible save for their one fatal flaw. The Eternity Cells have an extremely short live span, leading to premature aging, such as in my case,” the Elderly Sapphire gestured towards her face, “I may not look it, but I’m really only about a month old.”
     This elicited sounds of shock from the group, with the Elderly Sapphire waving her hand as she continued, “Yes, yes. Tragic I know, but that’s not important right now. I’ve probably only got a week or two left in me before I die, so I might as well live while I can. What is important is that we must put a stop to Eternity Cosmetics nefarious plan.”
     “Which is?” Susan asked.
     “To take over the world.”

    The group kind of rolled their eyes at this, but the elderly Sapphire continued, “This is no eye-rolling matter! This theme park actually serves three purposes. The first is simple enough, which is to gather more test subjects like yourselves in order to expand the amount of data points the company has in order to finally perfect the Eternity Cell. Originally, the cells only had a life expectancy of a day, but after testing everyone in the company, they managed to get it up to about five to six weeks. Their hoping that by opening this park and getting more test subjects, they can extend the cells to last forever.
    The second purpose is much more nefarious. They invited several celebrities, journalists, and world leaders to the opening weekend event tomorrow. It would be near child’s play to allow a leading official of the company to take control of one of these clones and then essentially control a couple of countries, and then the entire world.”
    “What’s the third reason?” Spencer asked, his voice much more serious with the realization with how easily the company could take over the world.
    “Well, if a company is going to rule the world, they’re going to need an army,” The elderly Sapphire simply stated, “and the key to a successful army is diversity of backgrounds.” The group sat in stunned silence at this revelation, but there were far worse revelations to come, “I have some further bad news too. You see, despite what you may think, I’m afraid you all are clones too.”

    “What do you mean we’re clones?” Lindsay shouted. The rest of the group just stared at the Elderly Sapphire and each other incredulously.
    “Haven’t you wondered how these strange transformations and such have occurred all day? The answer is rather simple: once you entered the park, your original bodies were drugged and replaced with perfect replicas so that your bodies’ genetic code could be studied.”
     “Wouldn’t we remember getting swapped out though?” Veronica asked, practically in hysterics, “We can’t be clones. All of us felt completely normal before the transformations began. We all had our memories. There was no point where any of us was alone without someone else. Right?”
     “I don’t know,” Sapphire said, a cheeky grin plastered across her face, “maybe you already know the answer to that.”

     That’s when Heather remembered, that moment that had seemed so innocuous at the time, a simple pinprick where it shouldn’t have been. “Oh my God! The pens!” Heather announced, “It was when we were signing the waivers. Did anyone else remember feeling weird when they clicked down on the pen?” The group shared unanimous claims of feeling a slight discomfort, but otherwise felt fine immediately afterwards, “We all signed the forms at around the same time, so it wouldn’t be impossible to believe that that was when they knocked us out and replaced us with our doubles,” Heather deduced.
     “Wonderful observation,” The elderly Sapphire smiled, “Yes, that’s what happened. Honestly, it was rather simple of our technicians ones they had your bodies to create perfect copies of your bodies and then simply remove the memories where you were drugged. Of course, since this is still primarily a lot of guess work, they couldn’t have gotten rid of all of the memory, hence why you all probably remember the pinprick of the sedative, but otherwise they did a fantastic job.”

     “This is all great to know, but why are you helping us?” Susan asked.
     “Well, you can thank those three for that,” the elderly Sapphire said, pointing to the two (three) quivering Sapphires in the corner of the shack, “I was much like any other Sapphire, I awoke from my pod in this body much sooner than any others because as the mascot, I needed to have the best memorization of the park. I was content to just continue following orders, however only a couple of days ago I walked into one of the executives… well, I’m not going to mince words for your sakes, raping that armless clone of me,” she pointed to the collared, armless Sapphire, who gave her best attempt at smiling, “They explained that I shouldn’t be worried, that this clone had basically been trained to actually enjoy it, but I saw the tears. I saw the pain. They were raping her, and that’s when I realized who I was actually working for. So, I made my plan, I planned a breakout on the same day that I knew your group would be arriving, because I knew you all were the only chance that we could put a stop to their plans. That call from earlier over the loudspeaker? I imagine that was the executives telling the other clones of me that I was to be detained if they saw me. So I kept to the shadows, biding my time until I knew I could get you all in here and earn your trust.”
     “But why do you want our help?” Susan insisted.
     “Because I think you six are the only ones who can stop Eternity Cosmetics plans.”

     The group once again stared at each other in shock, “You can’t be serious,” Lindsay gabbed, “You don’t actually expect six college students to be able to take down a mega-corporation!”
     “On their own? No, you wouldn’t stand a chance, but luckily for you you have one of the few people who know this park like the back of their hand, and how exactly to put an end to their plans,” the elderly Sapphire smiled, before returning to her normal demeanor, “so, will you all help?”

     It was only natural that the entire group agreed to assist the aged clone. The clone then spent the next hour or so laying out a detailed plan, explaining the layout of the park and its underground tunnel system, and any other details they may need to know. Once this was all done, she stood up, proclaiming, “Now then, we need to get you all into some more useful forms if we’re going to properly do this,” The clone paused to crack her knuckles, “And you’ve all come to just the right place.”

     She walked over to Veronica and Spencer, first pulling off the couples head before setting them both onto Spencer’s torso (Veronica on the left and Spencer on the right), followed shortly by dispensing Spencer’s torso onto Veronica’s legs. The two rubbed their body up and down (particularly at the seams, which felt oddly pleasurable), with them each having control over their respective side “I hope you two don’t mind sharing, but we’re going to need as many whole bodies as we can get if we’re going to do this.
     “I’m fine with it if she is,” Spencer said, craning his neck in order to kiss Veronica on her cheek.
     “I don’t know how I feel about having such hairy arms, but I can handle it if it means saving the world.”

    Walking over to the combined form of Heather and Susan, she did quick work of dissembling the pair to their core components, leaving her with two sets of hips, two sets of legs, three arms, one hand, and three heads. She reassembled the two into two sets of legs, with the girls original heads on their on set of legs, “Hang on a moment you two, this might get a little painful,” Gripping the girls by the top of their heads, she pulled up, their torsos suddenly emerging as he continued pulling up. However, this transformation was not without sacrifice, as she pulled up, what little color was left in her hair began to drain, leaving only the very tips of her hair blue and her face even more wrinkled. Winded, she reached down, attaching Heather’s two empty arms onto Susan and Susan’s one full arm onto Heather. “There, it’s not much, but it’s definitely better than you girls were in.”
    “What about me though?” Heather asked from her bald head, which sat lonely upon the floor.
     “Ah, you see, I have a special plan for you,” she said, reaching down, “do you happen to know who’s head this is?”
     “I just thought it was some random girl,” Heather said from her main head.
     “Well, you would be mistaken. Her hair might be gone, but I would know those cheekbones anywhere, because you see, this is my head.”

    The group gasped at this revelation, “And since we happen to have a copy of my head, this means that you’re in the perfect situation to act as a spy for us,” She walked over to where the headless Sapphire (who was wearing the park’s uniform, unlike the collared clone) sat, still running her hands through the only a head Sapphire. As the elderly Sapphire put her hand on her shoulders, the body stood at attention, placing the bodiless Sapphire on the floor, before giving a thumbs up. With this sign of approval, the elderly Sapphire placed Heather’s second head onto the body.
     She then turned to the armless Sapphire, saying, “I’m sorry honey, but it’s the only way to save the world.” The armless Sapphire nodded in approval, bowing her head to allow the aged clone easier access to her hair, which she removed like a wig and placed onto Heather’s second head, leaving an exact copy of Sapphire standing with the group.

     “Okay, then, let’s go put this plan into action,” She opened the door to the shack, and the various parties began going their separate ways to what they hoped wasn’t certain doom.

     The Story will follow:
     1.) Heather and Lindsay (Search for the group’s original bodies)
     2.) Heather’s clone of Sapphire (Infiltrate the enemy)
     3.) Susan and Echo (Stop the cloning facility)
     4.) Veronica, Spencer, and old Sapphire (Cause a distraction)