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"How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined."

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

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"That's not possible. Why? How did this happen? All my calculations cannot be wrong. I can't be wrong. This shouldn't have happened. I should have won. It should have been my greatest creation ever." Sinister lost his mind seeing his prized clone failing and began to mumble incomprehensively like a maniac.

"Really, you didn't understand where you went wrong? And here I thought that you were a genius. The golden explosion practically gave away the reason for its failure." Rudeus sniggered at the distraught figure of Sinister.

"What? Wait, you mean that this is because I connected it with cosmic energy? But that doesn't make any sense. You too receive your power from cosmic energies but you don't explode under the stress. Then why Suedur? Why was he not powerful enough to effectively channel massive amounts of cosmic energy like you?" Sinister asked desperately like he was requesting drugs.

"First I don't get my power from cosmic energy. I get it from my divinity. Cosmic energy is useless to me. And you can never clone or copy divinity. You might be able to copy the abilities that come with it in some cases but never true divinity. Besides, you would have never succeeded in successfully cloning me in the first place, a god isn't just his body and mind but his soul as well. A god without a divine soul isn't a god at all." Rudeus confidently stated. Not just his divinity and soul, he was also sure that his skills which were all linked to his system could not have been cloned as well.

"I see. That's why its physical body wasn't able to bear the power after absorbing too much cosmic energy. Under the stress of the power, the body rapidly deteriorated and ultimately exploded." The crazy scientist had a look of realization on his face.

"But what about my clone? She isn't moving even though she looks like she is physically completely fine. Is she even alive?" Jean asked Rudeus with indifference in her voice. It didn't matter to her if her clone lived or died. She wanted to destroy it of course since she didn't like a clone of her walking around looking exactly like her. After all, what if she fell in love with somebody, wouldn't it mean that she would be using her body to get intimate with someone else who isn't Rudeus?

"Probably, I can feel her body working normally but she seems to not possess a soul and also thus lack a strong enough mind to contain the huge psychic energy inside her and 'be alive'. Her problem is the opposite of that of my clone." Rudeus said as he used his Rinnegan on the clone.

"Another failure I see. It seems that I am getting old as I am having too many of those in a single day. But I'll make sure to get it right the next time." The man said with a smile on his face.

"Next time? I think you are mistaken. There will be no next time Sinister. You'll never be making clones ever again." Rudeus frowned at him.

"And who's gonna stop me? No, I'll do you one better, how are you gonna stop me? By killing me?" Sinister said while chuckling like he was telling a funny joke.

"If I have to," Rudeus said coldly.

"I think you don't get it. I am not like the other brutes you know or have fought until now. I may not be your match physically but I don't depend on my powers and abilities to win. No, I depend on my intelligence and my mind can never be destroyed. I have already made sure of that." He said as he looked at Rudeus with a crazy smile.

Rudeus was out of patience and no longer waited for his monologue to end. He disappeared with a speed that was untraceable with human eyes and quickly tried to get his hands on Sinister to just snap his neck and get this over with.

But the moment his fingers were just an inch away from Sinister's neck, Rudeus' fingers were stopped by an invisible forcefield conjured by Sinister using his psionic powers.

But that was not enough to stop him. His fingers glowed slightly red with a menacing crimson aura around them and was easily able to place cracks in the invisible forcefield which became bigger and bigger until the entire barrier cracked as his fingers slid in.

"You cannot stop me Sinister. I am VERY good at using my fingers." Rudeus snickered at his own joke and soon got hold of Sinister by his neck after the mad scientist wasn't able to push him back with telekinesis.

"Now what to do with you?" Rudeus mumbled wondering if he should kill him or not. He would have been able to place him on Rinnegan's mind-controlling genjutsu or just use telepathy to make the scientist loyal to him but because of the presence of the chip inside his brain, that would no longer be possible.

All he could do was kill him and make sure that he would never be a threat to him again.

"I know what you are thinking but you won't be able to do that. There is no killing me. Sinister is not me anymore. It's an idea. I am an idea of what the world can be in its truest and purest form. The idea of what true boundless evolution might one day yield." Sinister said cryptically like he was daring Rudeus to kill you.

"Perhaps you don't understand the true meaning of the death that I can give you. It would not be a death that others normally experience. There would be no heaven or hell for you, no reincarnation, no second chances, no regret. There would be nothing any more but absolute silence and a true eternal sleep, but only worse." Rudeus revealed grimly.

"And it's funny that you think I am afraid of that. I have a hundred clone bodies lying in different secret labs all over the world. Normally, the moment this body was destroyed, another one with the same memories as mine up until his moment, would have gotten activated... But I have concluded that your computer has the ability to easily hack into my system and determine the locations of each and every one of my labs all over the world along with your partner there having psychic powers strong enough to find each and every one of my bodies by their psionic signatures the moment I die. So, returning would be difficult but not impossible." Sinister gave an ugly laugh as he looked at Rudeus and Jean standing with expressionless faces.

"So you still have a way to survive even if all that happened, don't you?" Rudeus said. He truly wanted to applaud Mr. Sinister's cockroach-like survival ability.

"Not really. I won't survive but... Sinister will, my idea will. I have designed a nanite-based virus that would get activated in the event of the death of all of my clones. It, once administered, would change the target's entire brain, mold their mind in my image, and make them into the new 'me'.

They would slowly get my memories, my thoughts, my ideas, my personality, everything. The idea will go on to finish what I couldn't. To complete what I was meant to do. And you would never be able to even find that person, let alone stop them. They could be potentially anyone among the billions of humans alive on Earth." Sinister said with a mad grin on his lips.

"That's actually a very good plan. But it has two massive defects in it. Mistakes so big that it's bound to fail." Rudeus said with a small smile on his lips.

"That's impossible. My plan is foolproof. So what is the mistake that you think I have made?" Mr. Sinister asked with anger lacing his voice at being underestimated.

"First, your plan has me in it. And second, you talk too much." Rudeus said as he snapped Mr. Sinister's neck without explaining himself giving Sinister a very anticlimactic but satisfying death. After that, he quickly grabbed the soul with his hands that was trying to escape and destroyed that as well not consuming it since he didn't want to take any chances and waste his reward, ending any chances of the real Sinister coming back following which he heard a very fulfilling sound notifying him of one of his quests being completed. But he ignored that for now.

He took a glance at the clone of Jean lying absolutely still in her place without moving like a doll. But he didn't get close to it right now. He had something urgent to do before he took care of the clone.

"Jean, can you find all of Sinister's clones through their psychic signatures as he mentioned?" Rudeus asked Jean as he telepathically ordered Zoya to come over to Sinister's lair and copy all the research data and information from Sinister's servers.

"I can. I can already sense every one of his clones all over the globe. I can even kill them if I concentrate hard enough. Should I?" Jean asked eager to please Rudeus by being an overachiever.

"We need one of them alive. Can you sense which clone has started to awaken after this particular Sinister passed away?" He asked.

"Well, one is in the process of his mind slowly being processed and activated. It will take about a couple of minutes before it gains consciousness." Jean answered.

"Good. Keep him alive and determine his location. You can kill the rest of them. Make sure that they are properly brain-dead. Liquefy their brains if possible."

Jean immediately did what Rudeus ordered. Her eyes glowed dark silver as she concentrated but soon returned to their original green color after a while.

"Done." She said simply, not really feeling guilty about killing hundreds of the same person. The Dark Phoenix had killed so many people through her while she watched from the inside without being able to do anything, she had grown more or less apathetic to killing.

After that Rudeus got the coordinates from Jean about the location of the last Sinister clone and opened a boom tube to that place.

It was a laboratory much similar to the one they were previously in with the only exception being about a dozen Mr. Sinister lookalikes lying in large glass tubes. All of them were dead with brain matter leaking from their facial orifices and floating in the tue liquid except one. This one was already showing signs of movement, signifying that he was gonna be awake soon.

Rudeus and Jean only had to wait for a few minutes before the clone opened his eyes and the glass tube unclogged, releasing him out in the open.

"*Cough* *Cough*" The clone didn't even notice them as he was busy coughing and recovering from his abrupt awakening.

Rudeus however had no plans to continue his conversation with this clone and just used his telepathy. And just as he expected, it worked. Sinister might have installed a telepathy-blocking chip in his mind since he was the original but he didn't have the time, the patience, or the idea to do the same for all of his clones.

And, As Sinister had himself said earlier, each one of his clones received all of his memories up until the point of his death, so this one too would have all of his memories including all his plans and countermeasures.

'As I said earlier, he really did talk too much.' Rudeus thought as he smirked at the stupidity of the clone-loving genius.

"Now, let's see all of the secrets that you are hiding within that ugly mind of yours." The New god said as he dived into his mind with his telepathy.

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