This is all so difficult. He's sure that if he had just existed for longer by this point, he would have thought through some of the basic assumptions and requirements for this thing, methods to get from point A to point B and so on, and he'd have a much better time trying to think of a way to tell Sadde, convince Sadde, and utilise Sadde.

But does he even want to? Does he trust them, really? He's a copy, created by a magical card, likely to disappear as soon as the card is sealed and returned to card form, and then he's probably lost forever, so perhaps he should be aiming to keep the Twin out and alive and safe from them, so that he can go and input his opinions on things, and study things, and fix things where possible – as bloody idealistic and unlikely as that sounds, but someone has to try.

Of course, that does come with the downside of having to try to stop them from capturing the Twin, allowing it to continue and cause more havoc, and since these cards will supposedly cause a catastrophe… it would be super selfish of him to do this, sort of, even though he'd be doing it so he can live longer to fix other things.

He doesn't think he can guarantee he'll be more help by existing with the card around than by not with it not.

While that is a horribly saddening thought, because he would really like to be assured of his own utility, he doesn't think he can guarantee that the world would be better off with him, and he'd really rather not lie to himself about his own value.

And he's pretty sure he has been sitting at this bench for far too long. He should be doing something, but he doesn't know what, or how, because he can currently think of nothing he can feasibly do without putting other things in danger, at least not right now.

Stupid magic system.

The magic system does not seem to want to comment on his opinion of it.

Nor does the world at large.

He feels like that is unacceptable, because he has good opinions, and where he doesn't have good opinions, it's probably because he's uneducated in that area, and so he should look to other people who he believes to have good opinions to come to a consensus and implement their good opinion, hopefully explaining it and the alternatives to him at some point such that he can check their reasoning.

And that sounds really egotistical, he knows, but he's pretty sure that lots of other people are more egotistical than he is, and with much less reason.

He doesn't think he should write Theo off completely. Admittedly, he would be good if given a goal, shown a good hierarchical system, and then allowed to have fun or feel efficient while solving this goal. Menial tasks that he feels are doing lots, like if he happened to have superpowers and could be directed where to use them, that would be perfect for him. Infeasible, most of the time, but still.

He gets up from the bench and starts walking around. He doesn't expect that he'll find much of use, and it's only a few hours until the end of the school day anyway, and he probably wouldn't be able to do much in these few hours anyway, so he'll just walk around, getting gradually more angry at the world, the state of the world, the people who impede progress, and the stupid magic system that isn't as easily scalable and abusable as it should be.

Or maybe it is and he just hasn't thought it through yet.

He should probably pick a name for himself at some point. Maybe he'll ask Sadde, when he presumably goes and explains himself to Sadde, because while he doesn't want to die, and he expects that to be the result of that interaction, it's probably going to be the result of him continuing to exist anyway – and it's right, he doesn't know whether there's a time limit on clones.

Plus, maybe by offering his help to Sadde he'll manage to make an impact on the world before he disappears.

Dying in just a day.

He always hated the idea of mayflies.

And the afternoon continues to go on without further ado.

He's hungry after about an hour, so he goes into a supermarket to get a sandwich and an apple, then sits on another bench to eat them, and then he decides he's gonna go check out the fountain again.

It's probably not changed, but he feels he might as well check it out anyway. Maybe he'll find something important that he can relay to the others, save them some time.

It's not changed. Still there, being fountain-y, with some people peering at it curiously, taking pictures, or ignoring it.

Oh, okay.

Well. He'll just… sit on a bench. Near it. For a while.

He'll eventually leave, making sure he can get to Sadde's school before the bell goes for the end of the day, but for now… sitting on the bench. Contemplating things.

He can get to Sadde's school before the bell goes for the end of the day, certainly, if he takes the tube; Sadde doesn't live very close by.

But surely it doesn't take two hours to get there?

… Or maybe it does, or maybe he's lost track of time, oh well. He does in fact take the tube.

And he arrives at Sadde's school, who's leaving it with his phone in hand. He raises his head to look around at the same time as not-Theo receives a text message, and spots him. "Oh, hey! What are you doing here? ...why aren't you leaving school?"

Well, this is awkward. Especially since Theo might respond to that text at any moment.

"Uh," he starts, hesitating a bit. "It's... kinda a long story? Listen, I really need to tell you something, but. Uh." He pauses to look pointedly at the people around them.

And then Sadde's phone buzzes with a response from Theo.

Sadde looks at his phone. And furrows his brows. And looks at not-Theo's lack of a phone in his hands. "I'm not going to hypothesise," he declares, and follows not-Theo somewhere more secluded, looking somewhat worried.

Well then. They'll get somewhere more secluded, not-Theo will stop looking quite so much like Theo, and then he'll say, "Basically… I'm not Theo."

"Hi, not-Theo, I'm Sadde."

"Yeah. And I haven't yet got a name," he says, smiling a bit wryly and then flattening his expression. "Uh, basically. Um. The Twin?"

He looks a little bit worried. It's not really obvious on his face, nor particularly much in his posture, but Sadde can probably tell that he's scared by looking at his eyes.

"...oh fuck."

He smiles, again really seeming more like he just has to try instead of actually feeling happy about anything.

If it wasn't already clear, he really doesn't want to die.

"Shit. Fuck. Fuckin' dickens. Oh my Cthulhu, goddamnit." He leans against a conveniently placed wall and puts a hand on his face. "Bloody hell."

"Mmh."

… Then, in a small voice: "Uh. Just checking here, what are you freaking out over? Because I'm pretty sure… Theo's fine."

"I'm freaking out over you existing! What happens when we capture the Twin? Do you die? Kero said copies are different, so you're Theo, so you're someone else with Theo's face, and you exist and you—correct me if I'm wrong but I presume you don't want to die. Fuck."

"Yeah, no, that's… that's about what stage I'm at."

He tries to smile and says, "At least it didn't copy Kero too?"

"So it's not the literal worst-case scenario, what a delight. ...why did you come all the way here? Where did you even appear?"

"Outside the cafeteria at Theo's school. Then I sat around a bit, got lunch, and decided to stop moping and actually do something. Which meant going to the fountain, hopefully to get more info. And finding out there was no more info. And then deciding that talking to you probably wouldn't lower… any… benefits."

"Benefits? Why didn't you talk to Theo? I should text him and see if we can talk to Kero, he'll know more."

"Positives. To the situation. I decided that talking to you probably wouldn't remove them or add negatives. And uh, yeah, I guess you probably should text him."

He continues his slightly fearful look, but at least it no longer seems to be that he's scared of Sadde. At least not so much.