The Reason We Run

Krows?

In STARR HQ

[Light snoring, pounding footsteps, slowly getting louder]

Aish: Jerry! What are you doing??! WAKE UP-

Jerry: (startled) Wait what's going on-

Aish: Maybe you would know if you actually did your job!

Jerry: ...(glances at the camera monitor) There's two?

Aish: What rock have you been sleeping under? geez-

Jerry: The rock you probably got dropped on as a child-

[hand slams on the table]

Aish: Just throw everything you've got at them during the finale. We can't have two Krows live. That's some weird paradoxical BS that literally no one wants to deal with.

Jerry: And what will you be doing while I do all that work?

[Knuckles cracking]

Aish: I'll be on the field, making sure there are no miraculous comebacks

[static]

From here on out my job gets a lot harder, dear reader. I will try my best to discern which Krow is which, But perhaps their starkly different personalities will discern that for you.

Before you go on please note that the understanding of this chapter and many chapters afterward is extremely reliant on how awake you are to understand. If you are reading this late at night, or early in the morning. Don't. Wait until your head is clear and your vision is sharp. The last thing I want for you is to get lost, dear reader. For your convenience, a few changes have been made.

I think it unfair to label the Krow's by universe since it has been made evident that one's universe of residence can change. I think it even more absurd to label them Krow 1 and Krow 2 or decide that one Krow is the copy of another, for it is impossible to tell which really came first, and there are no copies in the grand scheme of the universe. No repeats, only rhymes.

But I believe I've come up with a viable solution.

The 𝗞𝗿𝗼𝘄 of the universe you call Outsiders will now be bolded every time its name appears.

While the K̲r̲o̲w̲ of the universe you call Portals will be underlined.

I am assuming that at this point you are focused and ready to read and comprehend. But if you aren't... Well, I warned you.

...

The clearing members look between the two Krows so quickly it's amazing that none of them suffer from whiplash, taking in their startling similarities and tell-tale differences. But there is no time to process and think and rationalize as one 𝗞𝗿𝗼𝘄 starts towards the other with reinvigorated anger.

"I SAID, WHO THE **** ARE YOU?!" It screams grabbing.... itself? But not exactly itself by the shirt collar.

K̲r̲o̲w̲ just stands there, dumbfounded, and confused. It was very aware that there could be .... multiples? No, multiples wasn't the right word, but it couldn't, at that moment, come up with anything better. It knew there were clones? Of people across different worlds. Aptly proven by Nourke two. But it had never thought about there being different versions of itself. It didn't think it was possible. It felt indescribably wrong, to be in the same place, at the same time as its doppelganger.

But it makes sense. Why do the people of the clearing seem to remember it, but it can't seem to remember them? Not because of amnesia, but because it had never met them. It looks into the other 𝗞𝗿𝗼𝘄's eyes, or where it assumes they are, and realizes that in arriving here it had essentially borrowed its life. Borrowed its house, its bed, its friends, and apparently, its enemies.....