Well, shit

The first thing the man who'd once been a part of Double Agent noticed after the initial frenzy had died down was just how lonely it was to be a single person again. He wasn't sure what had happened, but somehow he was aware of only himself. He was reasonably sure the others hadn't been killed, although he couldn't rule out the possibility.
Shortly after, he realized that he was still suspended in the air by Alatea's wind, and that she herself was looking more than a little freaked. He pointedly relaxed in the binds. "Whatever the hell just happened is over now."
He informed her mildly. "I would appreciate being released. You have my gun already, I can't do much harm without it."
Alatea nodded slowly and set him back down in his chair. "What just happened?"
He shrugged. "I'm not sure. The me that was out with the team was the only one of us who didn't flip out all of a sudden. Now... I can't feel them at all."
"What? How can that even happen?"
"I don't know. Maybe they all got killed, and so I'm the only me that's alive at the moment? If it was quick enough, I might have missed it. Unlikely, but possible."
"That seems kind of farfetched."
"What other explanation could there be?"
Alatea bit her lip, thinking hard. "Could something cut you off from them? I never was very clear on how you all work."
He paused. "I didn't think so. But maybe. I'm not sure."
"Not... sure?" She repeated incredulously. "Shouldn't you know?"
He sighed. "How would I know that?" He shook his head in frustration. "Look, how much damage did I do? Should we be leaving?"
Alatea glanced behind her, then sighed. "Probably. The management is currently in too much awe of me to ask us to leave, but it would probably still be wise to duck out before the ambulances get here."
He winced. "Yikes. He glanced around, trying not to call attention to himself. He saw two people that he hoped were just injured lying on the ground around him. He was a little impressed with Alatea's quick reflexes in getting him under control. "Thanks for stopping me, I guess."
She smiled and nodded. "Well, I couldn't let you just shoot up the place. It would cause so much shit for the league."
He laughed. "Back door, then?" He asked, placing the amount they owed plus an extremely generous tip on the table.
"Of course."
The two of them proceeded to quietly slip out the back way, where DA changed into a form less attached to random murder before they continued on their way.

Thirty seconds later, a young man in a leather jacket and ripped jeans with spiked green hair and sunglasses came running up the street towards the restaurant. As he passed the place he slowed and took off his sunglasses, looking in through the shattered restaurant window. He quickly sized up the situation, surveying the two people lying on the floor and the frightened waitstaff and manager rushing around trying to keep things under control.

"Oh wow..." he said to himself, "Not good."

As the manager passed near him with a bloody towel and a dazed expression, DA grabbed his arm firmly.

"Hey... the couple that was just here. Blue skinned woman and a nondescript man. What happened to them? Where are they?"

The manager scowled at him. "They ran off, and good riddance. How am I supposed to run a business with random Supers showing up and shooting up the place. I try to be open minded, run my business allowing any customers to dine here, and look what it gets me!" He threw up his hands in disgust. "Two dying customers, a trashed restaraunt, and half my waitstaff quit on the spot!"
He sighed and shook his head. "They went out the back way, just a few minutes ago. Don't know why they bothered to run, heaven knows they couldn't have been arrested anyhow. It's just criminal!"


John and Alatea were both in a kind of daze. John was still suffering the shock of the freak out and subsequent detatchment from his duplicates, and Alatea from the hair raising experience of going straight from zero to 'shit, my lover's on a murderous rampage'.
They walked silently, the sheer amount of questions and confusion an effective barrier to conversation. They had no real path, nowhere in particular to go, and so they slowly, aimlessly, wandered down sidestreets away from the restaraunt.

DA dropped the manager's arm and without another word ran to the back of the restaurant, making his way through the kitchen, pushing past startled cooks as he headed for the back door. On the way he passed by a rack of knives and quickly grabbed five of the longer, sharper looking ones and stuck them into his belt.

A few seconds later he burst out the back door of the restaurant and looked around. The door lead into a short alley which emerged onto a sidestreet that went off in both directions.

"Shit." he muttered, and a bare moment later there were two of him, who quickly darted off in either direction looking down the alleys and sidestreets, trying to catch a glimpse of himself and Alatea.

"So, thanks for stopping the murderous rampage." John said awkwardly, feeling the need to get the conversation going before she decided to cut and run.
Alatea smiled wryly. "Just because I'm a villain now doesn't mean I'm stupid. It would have been stupid to do anything else."
John nodded. "I wish I could tell you what was going on, but I'm as confused as you are."
Alatea nodded, but didn't say anything.
"Sorry to ruin the date." This entire situation was just so incredibly confusing and awkward. What a mess.

It was at that point that DA found them.

DA skidded to a halt at the entrance to the alley where His clone and Alatea were walking, their backs to him.

As he drew his gun and one of the knives from his belt his form shimmered and shifted into the likeness that Alatea was most familiar with, blond hair and a gray business suit.

"Alatea, I think you should step back." he said as he began walking down the alley towards them, his gun aimed at the impostor.

Alatea shrugged and smiled, the expression feeling slightly artificial. "Well, we're supers. Life is always compli-"
She was interrupted by a very familiar voice. She turned in a hurry. "John? Why are you holding a gun at your duplicate? What the hell is going on?"
John the second went very pale. There was apparently an imposter pretending to be him. Shit. "Alatea, stay where you are. Put your shield up. I don't know who this is, but he's not me, no matter who he looks like."

"Of the two of us, which one has shot up a room full of innocent people? He's not my clone. Not anymore." Double Agent said, slowly advancing towards the pair.

"Look... I don't know how this happened, but you're not me. Something about that bastard's mind control broke you away from me. Now I don't want to kill you, but I can't control you, and I have no idea if you're sane again or not, so if you don't back the fuck up right now I will put a bullet between your eyes."

Alatea stepped away from both Johns, eyes wide. "Tell me something only you would know." She said warily. Her mind was racing. This entire situation made absolutely no sense. She quietly set a wind to shield herself, and after a thought got ready to do the same to them at a moment's notice.
John eyed DA thoughtfully, then stepped back. Alatea could take care of herself if need be, and so there would be nothing gained from heroics here. He found himself wishing that he'd thought to make a dupe when he lost track of the others. Or at least that he'd gotten his gun back from Alatea
"His influence is gone, as far as I can tell." He told his former clone evenly. He still wasn't sure he believed that the man in front of him used to be his clone, but it made more sense than any other explanation that came to mind. "I'm going to have to agree with Alatea. I need some confirmation you are who you say you are."

DA stared for a moment at the man in front of him. For a few seconds, there was no sound except the light scraping of the wind blowing a discarded wrapper down the alleyway. Then DA started laughing.

"Ha ha ha... you... ha ha... you need confirmation that I'M who I say I am?"

He reached up and rubbed his forehead, careful not to cut himself with the knife.

"Oh dear god, I'm in a bad TV show."

He turned his eyes to Alatea for a moment.

"You want proof? How about this: you have a small strawberry birthmark on the underside of your left breast, your heart starts beating faster when someone touches the spot where your neck meets your jaw, and clinical trials have shown that you seem to enjoy having your hair pulled. Is that secret enough?"

He looked at his former clone and considered for another moment.

"As for you. This is something we need to discuss. I don't know what happened back there, but we're not... us... anymore. There's just me... and you. Now I know myself pretty well, and I don't think you're about to go all Columbine again any time soon, but I don't know if I can take that chance. What do you think?"

Alatea blushed profusely. She hadn't quite expected him to produce that kind of information, but it was definitely proof. "I think that will suffice, yes." she muttered.
John couldn't help but smile a bit at Alatea's reaction. She definitely had interesting sensibilities. "While this does indeed seem like the plot to a bad soap opera, the fact remains that this is quite serious."
His expression sobered at his former clone's words. Alatea's blush vanished, and with a sudden rush of wind, they were immediately strung up in the air, arms pinned to their sides. "No killing each other." she told them firmly, "There's no reason for that, and I expect you to keep it civil."
John laughed. "Well, I think that even if we were inclined to wipe each other out, which I'm not, by the way, it would be a bit difficult under the current circumstances. It would be wasteful to eliminate each other at this point. We could do well to work together. What happened to the others, do you know?"

DA sighed. He hated when she did this.

Women.

"One of them is... dead. I won't go into any detail, but he's definitely gone. The other one, I have no idea. Last I know she was at the Force's headquarters. If she went as psycho as you did, odds are good she's either been put down or put on ice."

John nodded slowly, thinking over all the angles before responding. "I guess the next thing to ask is whether or not we can still make clones. You tried it yet? I'd be worried that they'd come out separated. Like us." He sighed. "How did this happen?"

Alatea eyed the two of them warily. If they were really both the same person, but separate, which seemed to be the only explanation, then they were right to be concerned. She was concerned too, but for not quite the same reasons.

John sighed.

"I can. I tried it back at headquarters. The other clone couldn't. That's how I know I'm the real me. Can you?"

John blinked. "So the clone that you made couldn't clone itself?" He asked, intrigued. "I guess I should test it out."
A moment's concentration, then a frown. "...I apparently can't either." He admitted, embarrassed. if the other him was the real him, than what did that make him? A clone, he knew, but it hadn't mattered as much before, when there was no real way to determine which one was the original. "So, what now?"

Alatea frowned from off to the side. This whole mess was just getting ridiculous. Now there was one 'real' John, and the rest were just clones. She'd seen him talking to clones in the past, but not like this. The implications were unsettling.

"Now you get out of here." DA said.

"Take one of the fake identities we have set up, take some of the cash from the safety deposit box, and just go. God knows we've done it before. Look, I have no problem with you, but this town isn't big enough for two of us, let alone three."

John nodded slowly. That did seem like the most viable option. He glanced back at Alatea. He would miss her, even though she technically wasn't really his. "Let us down, please." He said, keeping his tone neutral.
As Alatea complied, he shifted his features into a much younger man, looking to be in his early twenties. "Good luck dealing with the last dupe." He told his other self, then turned and walked away.
Alatea glanced between the two men with an unsettled look on her face. "So that's it, then?" She asked the John who was still standing nearby.