"I said, WAKE UP!"

A fist with knuckles like stone coursed into and past Jacob's now fully healed face, failing to inflict any momentum upon the hovering, imprisoned form of the young Stark. It dealt him a brutal blow nonetheless and he spat blood, groaning without any conviction. The days had turned to weeks and still his team hadn't rescued him. The once armour-clad hero had experienced anger at their incompetence first, then sorrow at their lack of compassion for the man, and now shifted through stages of depression, heartbroken. He wondered whether they had even tried looking for him. Did they think he was dead? Where were the Trinity?

His team.

His friends.

"Let me know when you're done feeling sorry for yourself, chump."

The captive Stark's eyes flew open and his entire form buckled, the sheer impossibility of the image before him resounding through his entirety. It was him. Jacob Stark stood before Jacob Stark, arms folded across his chest and quiff combed perfectly, as it always had been before the donning of the Assault armour. A moment passed between the two, and just as it seemed the silence would never cease to thicken, the replica smirked, shaking his head arrogantly at his imprisoned self.

"Look at yourself. Jacob Stark. The Jacob Stark. A great up and coming hero, reduced to a worthless pile of self-loathing shit. It was that easy, huh? They just break a few bones in your body and hook you up to some weird hover machine for a few weeks and you decide it's over? Pathetic. You're a joke!"

He took a step backwards, throwing both arms out theatrically and howling with laughter. His initial shock now having subsided, Jacob's head lowered once more, eyes dispassionate and dark. He spoke, his voice weak.

"What is this? You're me?"

The replica stopped laughing immediately, delivering a brutal spring kick to the prisoner's abdomen and earning a helpless wail of pain from the boy. He grabbed Jacob by the throat and spat in his face, imbuing another strike to the defeated Stark's torso. Without more than a few inches separating their visages, the clone screamed at Jake, his voice as unyielding as his grip upon the young man's larynx.

"YOU ARE ME! I AM NOT YOU! UNDERSTAND? YOU ARE A FCKIING DISGRACE! YOU - ARE - ME!"