Author's note: This is a sequel to 'Mixed Doubles' (.?storyid=599030). If you haven't read the other story, this one WILL confuse you. Trust me. This prologue should clear *some* of it up... but I make no guaruntees whatsoever.

Rian wanted to tell the story himself. I didn't want to let him, but you don't tell clones of Lina Inverse what to do... even if you did invent them.

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The original Shadow Reflector was created by a man named Shazall Rugandi... widely considered one of the greatest sorcerers who ever lived. He intended the Reflector to be the ultimate weapon; when invoked, it would creat a precise duplicate of anybody who's reflection was captured in it's surface, right down to their skills and memories. However, the duplicate's *personality* would be the exact opposite of the original's... so if the mirror were used to duplicate an enemy, the clones would be loyal to Rugandi, and the more his foe hated him, the more strongly the duplicate's would fight for Rugandi's cause. He thought he'd be able to beat anybody, no matter how powerful, by fighting them with two or three of themselves.

That was the theory, anyway. In practice, it didn't quite work out that way.

The Reflector mirror was rediscovered a couple of years back by a sorcerer named Lagen, who meant to use it in order to take over the world. Fortunately, though, a certain handsome and charming young sorcerer (along with his nicely stacked but otherwise useless sidekick) came to the rescue, and Lagen and his army of scruffy werewolves were rounded up and turned over to the authorities for proper discipline. Just another brilliant victory for yours truly.

In the process, Nagha and I discovered that the Shadow Reflector was actually a flawed piece of magic... this is quite the story, but I don't think I have time to tell it here... and the mirror itself was *accidentally* broken.

The Professional Magicians' Society (not among the world's more pretigious sorcerers' guilds... but I sure like their acronym) was just a little peeved about this. We *explained* that it wasn't our fault; this stuff *happens* when you're fighting off a dozen werewolves and an evil sorcerer. But they'd wanted the Reflector for their research, so for a suitable fee we showed them were the bits were before getting on our way.

The PMS (Nagha never found this funny... girls have no sense of humour) were able to take the shards of the mirror and reconstruct the spell Rugandi had used in creating it. After a little experimenting, they figured out how to remove the bug in the enchantment, so that new Reflectors made using the formula would create perfect copies instead of Rugandi's opposite personality ones. The mirrors are mostly curiosities; they're too expensive and too difficult to make for them to really be a practical alternative to the copying techniques that grew out of the study of chimaeras.

To those with certain specialized interests, though, they can be particularly useful. And the guy my *second* nicely-stacked but otherwise useless sidekick (I seem to attract big-breasted women who don't wear much clothing... go figure) and I were hired to deliver a Reflector to must've had some *very* specialized interests, indeed.

You see, the copying spell turned out to be quite flexible. Rugandi probably built this in: most likely he worked out a spell that would make exact copies first, then modified it to produce the result he wanted. This guy Gloria and I had to take this one mirror to wanted (and don't ask me why... I avoided finding out because I'm pretty sure I'm happier not knowing) to alter it so that the duplicate would have not the opposite personality, but the opposite *sex*. Like I said. *Really* specialized interests.

Halfway there, Gloria and I managed to have a little accident with the Reflector, and we ended up with these annoying genderbent clones of ourselves following us around for a while. We got rid of them after we delivered the mirror, and we don't know where they went after that... nor do we care.

This story isn't about them, anyway. This story is about *me*, and what I'm working up to here is this:

I am *not* Lina Inverse.

Got that? Because it's a mistake a lot of people seem to make. Lina is my female clone, and trust me, I'm roundly ashamed of it. I promise you I'm *not* as hard to get along with... in fact, I'm really a pretty nice guy, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Anyway, now that we've cleared that up, make yourself comfortable. I'm going to tell you a story.