[Fic | Tales of Graces f] This Broken World
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✑ This Broken World (ch. 5-8)
Hubert?” says the auburn-haired young man sitting at Hubert’s desk like he belongs there. “What are you doing here? I thought we weren’t meeting until next week.”
Hubert, lord of Lhant, wakes up in an Ephinea that isn’t quite right. [Heroverse AU]
What if that one comic is right, and having two versions of the same person in the same place is going to mean one of us is going to die in the void between worlds? I mean, I don't know if I'm the prime or fractured version here, but just based on the numbers I'm much more likely to be the latter. And it's not like I'd feel good about killing "myself" even if I did survive!
"Gosh, Hubert," Cheria says with a dainty finger to her chin, her voice lightly embroidered with silky slyness. "There's no need to put yourself out like that. We know you're a very busy man. I'm sure we can figure out this mystery on our own."
He scoffs. "You expect me to simply sit on my laurels while this — this ersatz replica runs amok in the world?" (Rude, Hubert thinks.) "Besides, someone has to check on Pascal and limit any collateral damage resulting from her mischief."
That being said, Hubert isn't particularly enthused to make friends with his double, either, and the unspoken agreement between them to pretend the other doesn't exist affords Hubert the space to safely observe him from a distance, as though the other Hubert is a wild animal to treat with caution lest a limb or two be lost. Well, it's not the first time Hubert has had to tread lightly with a particularly prickly traveling companion. If nothing else, he can handle this part of his plight perfectly fine.
But it's precisely this familiarity that makes a stranger out of the other Hubert. Incredible enough to think that he could ever meet another version of himself to begin with, whether flesh or mere imaginative figment; inconceivable to consider that he could ever look at himself and be so strongly reminded of someone like Raymond.
She glances at the other Hubert, who appears to be in the middle of scolding Asbel about something. "You two are such opposites, and yet I feel like I know you both."
That makes one of them. "I kinda feel like I should apologize for him, somehow," mumbles Hubert, dropping his voice to hide it from a certain set of ears.
"Why? You didn't do anything wrong. You're two different people."
"Yeah, but...he's still me, right? So that means he's probably somewhere inside me, like...like some sort of evil alter ego."