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As he once again walked into the makeshift lab, he saw Avalina pacing up and down, packing everything up. It was already time for her to leave.

"Leaving already?" Ashton casually asked.

"Well, I don\'t have anything else to do here either way." Avalina smiled wanly, "I have places to be and things to do..."

"Don\'t we all?" Ashton said and began helping her, "There was something I\'ve been wanting to ask you about."

"You always have something you want to talk about." She smiled, "Go ahead."

"Are you the one who helped clone Mera?"

The silence in the room spoke for itself. But it was what Ashton had expected to begin with. After all, there weren\'t many people who possessed the knowledge of cloning in the first place and it was highly unlike Mera to not use the resources that were available to her.

"Was there any particular reason for it? I mean for Mera to want to get herself cloned?"

"You are aware of her ambitions, aren\'t you? She was afraid she might die before she could fulfil those, that\'s why she created replacements to carry on her will and also to wage psychological war with her enemies."

Ashton\'s confused look told Avalina that he didn\'t understand what she was referring to.

"She wanted to be unkillable. Just like... Austin."

Everything clicked in place then. She wanted to trick everyone into thinking she was unkillable, while also learning from her mistakes and preparing to attack her targets again. Her enemies would think she was dead and hence would not expect to get attacked by her again, only to be surprised.

A genius plan indeed. It was probably what she wanted to do with him as well. But her plan failed because Ashton knew he was attacked by a clone and not the real Mera.

Ashton shook every thought out of his head, "Can you at least tell me if there are more clones of her or not?"

"Three... I cloned her three times. One of which died before the final procedure could take place, but the other two were completely functional on their own." Avalina replied, "They even developed a personality of their own and began having arguments with her, which is why she kept them frozen until she found a reason to use them."

Ashton\'s expression turned cold. But he held nothing against his mother. Why would he? She was his mother after all. Also, he felt his understanding of his mother had increased a lot, therefore he knew she must have had a reason to do what she did.

Whether she wanted to tell him about it or not was her choice. But Ashton had gotten the information he wanted. That being said, he could keep his hostile emotions for Mera aside for a moment, and focus on the most important thing. But Avalina had other plans.

"You didn\'t ask why I did it..." Avalina choked up a bit, expecting him to rightfully get angry at her. But he didn\'t.

"I didn\'t ask, because I know you probably have a good reason for doing what you did." He reassured her, "and I don\'t care why you did it, it wouldn\'t change anything between us. You\'ll still care for me and I\'ll keep on caring for you."

Ashton had no idea, but his words meant the world to Avalina.

"I-I did it to protect you."

"What?"

"I cloned her to protect you." Avalina reiterated, "When I got to know about what they were planning to do with me and your father, I made a deal with her. I\'ll help her in cloning herself, and in return, she will protect your secret and you till you got strong enough to fend for yourself."

Ashton made a weird expression, one that couldn\'t be described with words. It appeared as if he was confused, angry and in pain at the same time. The truth he learned was a bit too absurd even to his taste.

Mera wanted to protect him? Someone who wanted nothing but to use him as a tool to take over Lycania? But the more Ashton thought about it, the more it made sense. She was a heartless bitch, there was no point denying that, however, at times she did protect him.

Also, in hindsight, she even wanted to hide his identity as the \'weapon\' from the world. The only point she got hostile towards him was when he began walking out of his shadow. In other words, when he started to fend for himself. This revelation was a bit frustrating.

\'No point thinking about it now.\'

[I agree. It would be for the best to find and kill her.]

Ashton silently agreed with Astaroth. No matter what deal the two of them had made, Mera had to die.

"Oh and before I forget, Alucard wanted me to tell you, there\'s no reason for you to leave."

"What? But the research-"

"He\'s already in the process of bringing everything you need here, to the castle." Ashton shrugged his shoulders, "After what happened regarding that undead, he doesn\'t feel it would be safe to let you go out of his territory and I agree."

Avalina nodded, after all, Ashton was going to stay there frequently and therefore, she\'ll be able to see him more often.

"Also, you have an excellent subject to continuing your research on." Ashton pointed at himself, "If you could figure out how I am unaffected by the undead blood in my body, your research would be complete and you would be able to come and live with me."