People will often say "I have a vague idea what I'm looking for," or "I have a vague idea what it looks like," because more often than not ideas are vague and they help out when one is not quite sure what one is looking for. Sometimes, however, this can get one lost. "I have a vague idea where she lives" often results in many trips around various blocks and blocks, looking for a specific house in a neighbourhood where all houses look the same, and all have the same blue minivan.

Potto had never seen or heard of the Garax, and didn't even possess a vague idea of what they looked like. The Garax who stood before him was temporarily invisible to him.

Aye had never seen or heard of the Garax either, but he had a vague idea that the very odd ship they were on would have occupants. He had an idea that they would look very clean and sterile. Their ship, which only existed as an idea of the Garax themselves (an idea from an idea), was very clean and sterile looking, so it only made sense that these creatures would match. 

Which, to Aye, they did. Hairless and shiny, with spotless white jumpsuits and clean white leather cowboy boots.

"Hello friend," said Nux Garax to his new shipmates. He checked himself out. "Oh, I like this look! And I'm male this time! What a novelty!"

"Uh...hi?" Aye was hesitant. He didn't trust anyone this clean, but then again he had trusted the dusty old Veroseraliens, so perhaps cleanliness didn't need to be a factor when deciding who to trust. 

"Oh! Who said that?" Potto asked, spinning on one foot. He trusted them sight unseen.

"You don't see them?" asked Aye, still drunk. "You must be drunk."

"That is odd. Do you have any idea who you are talking to?" Nux added.

When a question of this nature is asked, it is usually meant to sound threatening or overconfident. In that usual context, "Do you have any idea who you are talking to?" means "You should not talk to me in the manner in which you are, because I am really important or dangerous and have the capacity to ruin and/or hurt you for doing so. I am better than you. Piss off." However, when the Garax used "Do you have any idea who you are talking to?" they actually (and harmlessly) meant just that. They were indeed asking "You may have just realized that you are talking with someone. Do you know what that's all about?"

"No," said Aye.

"Well you must have some idea, if you can see us."

"You look like a bunch of clean dudes."

"Go on..."

"Shiny bald heads, spotless crisp white jumpsuits...really cool cowboy boots..."

"Oh! I see them now!" exclaimed Potto. It seemed his ideas just needed a little kick start. "Yeah, those boots are dynamite!"

"Interesting. Do you have no ideas of your own, my friend?" Nux asked Potto.

"I don't know, you'll have to ask my friend," smiled Potto. He liked being called friend, and calling others friend. He liked a lot of things.

"You are adorable!" Nux laughed. "We are the Garax. We are intangible ethereal beings. We are ideas. We lack any material substance until you have an idea that we have material substance. We can make some things material using our own ideas. But not ourselves. We're not that vain. Plus it's fun to see what folk come up with!"

"Weeeeeeird!" Potto chuckled, while Aye tried to decide whether he could trust his own ideas. He was also quite surprised that he had had such clean ideas.

The Garax ship flew through space quickly. It zipped past many of the Jorge Jorge Jorge clone's stolen ships. This made Aye quite nervous.

"Hey! Those are like the ships that Teeg wanted to escape at the fuel station!" Potto cheered.

"They don't seem to see us. Is that like Potto not seeing you?" Aye asked Nux.

"Yes! Now you're getting it! Sort of. You saw our ship because you had the idea to steal a ship! The fuel attendant saw us because he had an idea that something must be filling up once he saw the numbers changing on his meter. There was a screaming barbarian woman who saw us because she saw you searching our ship for a way in, and had an idea that it was a ship you were looking at in the first place. The shape of our ship always seems the same to everybody because we, the Garax, had an idea of how we wanted it to look. So, they can't see our ship because they have no idea that we exist at all, and because we all, you two included, had the idea that we needed to get past them unseen."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Aye replied.

"Me neither. But it sure is fun listening to you talk. It's like circles! It makes me feel like I'm in a washing machine," Potto added. 

"Ah, but I bet you'd like to go faster, wouldn't you?" Nux offered.

"Well, yeah...that would probably be a good idea," Aye said as the ship started to speed up. He held on tight to a barber pole that suddenly appeared before his eyes, simply because he thought "Wooooah! I could really use something to hold onto right now! A barber pole sure would come in handy!"

Once far away from Jorge Jorge Jorge clone-stolen Vex ships, the Garax ship slowed down again. The barber pole turned into a table with a bowl of ice cream on it. 

Aye paced back and forth on the bridge eating ice cream. He was trying to have another idea. Potto was sitting on a comfy sofa. He had been sitting on the hard floor, but thought "I have an idea...they should make comfy sofas mandatory on all spaceships." Within seconds he was also sipping on a milkshake, eating pie and being lovingly attacked by puppies. 

Nux Garax appeared next to Aye, seemingly from nowhere. 

"You are trying too hard, and all you have to show for it is a bowl of Rocky Road. This fellow isn't trying at all, and now he has a comfy sofa, a milkshake, pie and puppy kisses. Hey! And look! An ostrich!" Nux said cheerfully. Up until now, he had only had a vague idea what an ostrich looked like.

"Yes, and those are all very stupid things. Not helpful. We need to find the Shiv. Puppies can't help us find the Shiv..."

"No?" Nux smiled.

"No. Not unless you had some special machine that allows dogs to sniff out ships through the vacuum of space," Aye laughed.

"Like that one?" 

Aye turned to see a bizarre machine with a long sponge bar across the front. The puppies all excitedly ran towards it. They started sniffing the sponge pad and all began barking and wagging their tails. 

"That sponge absorbs odours from across space! I think they smell your Shiv ship!" Nux clapped.

Aye was gobsmacked. His mind was now racing, and too many ideas were popping into his head. So many that they were not clear enough for him to form a solid one. Earlier he had a hard time thinking up an idea, and now he was having the opposite problem.

Potto was of no use. He was now riding around behind the sofa on the ostrich, and knocking over expensive-looking crystal vases because he had the stupid idea that breaking vases would be funny.

"Ok. Relax. Now you have too many ideas. Pick one. Here... maybe I can help. What will you do when you find the Shiv? Any ideas?"

"Yeah, I'll blow up any ships attacking it with a giant laser cannon!"

"Hmmm. Unfortunately, we are a peaceful species. Your idea can be to shoot a large gun, sure. And that gun will appear, sure. But then we will automatically have an idea that it should be loaded with confetti or watermelons rendering it harmless. I am sorry."

And with that Aye was out of ideas. Without a weapon, there would be no way of saving the Shiv if they did find it and it was being attacked by a fleet of Vexian ships. 

"Oh, how nifty!" Nux cheered. "See that stuff ahead? Looks like a huge satellite space station that was blown up, doesn't it?" 

Aye looked out the bridge window. 

"If you're a history buff, you might remember Emperor Reginald Zophricaties..." Nux continued.

"Nope."

"He was the inventor of the Life Core, the Master Cloner, The Pretty Pet pet vacuum, and almost every weapon of mass destruction that The Node has in his arsenal."

"Oh, that Emperor Reginald Zophricaties." Aye was not a history buff.

"Well...all that stuff up ahead was once his home base. His space station. His lab."

"Any of it still work?" Aye asked.

"Hmmmm..." said Nux as a console appeared before him, rising up out of the floor like time lapse photographs of a plant growing. Nux had an idea that he needed such a thing to help. He pressed random buttons and checked a screen on the console. 

"According to this new sensor, the Master Cloner still works. Not sure how well it works; it would be quite old, but apparently it has a new power cell hooked up to it and it has been used within the last few days."

With the puppies still excitedly sniffing the Shiv tracking machine, and Potto running around with the ostrich now riding him, Aye realized that once they had found the Shiv, they would not be able to save Teeg and the gang if only armed with confetti and watermelons. They would be hopelessly outnumbered. 

He thought about being outnumbered. He thought about the cloning machine. He thought about being outnumbered again, followed by yet another thought about the cloning machine. The two thoughts slowly came together, a bridge forming between them. Very slowly.

And then very suddenly it hit him.

"I have an idea!" he exclaimed.

"I knew that you could do it," Nux Garax winked. 

~~~ 

Emperor Reginald Zophricaties' lab floated about amongst the debris of what he had once called home and ruled over. The main part of his satellite space station, which once orbited the austere and remarkably desolate planet of Vex 7, now floated in space. All various parts tethered to it by cables and more debris. Most sections of it were blown wide open to the cosmos, but the lab was mostly undamaged and even had life support systems working.

The inside of the lab looked like it had been ransacked by clumsy burglars, but the mess was in fact caused by nearby explosions when The Node had blown up the main station. The Master Cloner was unharmed, and sat in the centre of the lab like an antique carousel on display at a county fair. A large pod sat in its middle with the word "ORIGINAL" stenciled on the closed door in red letters. Beside it was a second, smaller pod stenciled "COPY". 

Potto and Aye came into the room quietly, assuming they were alone. The Garax were waiting back in their ship, ready to help out their new chums if the idea hit them. 

"Ok. This is only going to work if I can figure out how to use this machine." 

"Maybe this?" Potto offered pointing to a big red button on the side of the Master Cloner with "CLONE NOW!" written across it in smeared marker.  

"Okay, let's try this. You go get into that pod in the middle. I'm gonna clone you. We'll create an army of Pottos! That oughta mess things up a bit!" he laughed.

Potto shrugged and made his way to the centre of the machine. There was a small window on the door of the ORIGINAL pod. He peeked in. 

"There's a big guy in there. I don't think I'll fit."

Aye ran up and had a look. "Ugh. That's the biggest Kancorian I've ever seen! His eyes are closed. Is he asleep? We gotta figure out what to do. We gotta get him out of there. Maybe he's dead..."

Just then Jorge Jorge Jorge opened those cold reptilian eyes. He saw the faces of the two he was hunting for. They were looking in through the window with moronic expressions upon their faces. He struggled with the door, but it was jammed. Startled, Potto and Aye jumped back. 

"Uh...hey there," a little tiny female child's voice said.

"What was that?" Aye asked, looking around for the source. 

"I don't know!" Potto answered. He then called out a soft, "Hellooooo? Little girl? Where are you?"

"I'm in here!" the voice cried out from inside Jorge Jorge Jorge's pod. 

"With the giant lizard man?" Potto asked. This was concerning. 

"Uh...yeah, sure." Jorge Jorge Jorge lied. He had gotten himself stuck in the machine. The door had closed crooked and he was jammed. He'd been in there for hours and had been meditating to stay calm until one of his clones came back to make more and free him. 

"Has he hurt you?" Potto was getting more and more concerned. Aye was looking in through the window. 

"Heeeeey. Did I just see your mouth move?" Aye asked Jorge Jorge Jorge.

"Nah, 'ey 'outh 'asn't ooving." Jorge Jorge Jorge said trying not to move his mouth.

"How do we get her out?" Potto asked in a panic.

"Just open the door. The Kanocorian is paralyzed. He won't be able to move," the Kancorian pleaded once Aye wasn't looking for any mouth movement. For once his ridiculously juvenile voice was going to save him, and help him win his bounty. 

"Oh, okay!" Potto said as he tried prying the door open. 

"Wait. I don't trust that little girl," Aye shouted. "Why would a little girl get into a cloning machine with a Kancorian?"

"Maybe she was bullied at school and coaxed the Kancorian into the cloning machine so that she could make a bigger, stronger version of herself to fight the bullies off!" Potto exclaimed.

"Yeah. That makes sense." Aye agreed. 

Together they pried the door open. Jorge Jorge Jorge stepped out alone. 

"Ha! Fooled you! It is just I, Jorge Jorge Jorge!" Jorge Jorge Jorge peeped. "Now...I am taking you back to Lyme Node and handing you over to The Node. We can do this the hard way, where you will both be in a lot of pain...or the easy way where you will still be in pain, but less of it for not struggling."

"BAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Aye laughed. "Nice voice there, Big Guy!"

"Aye! That's not very nice!" Potto scolded, stifling giggles of his own.

Jorge Jorge Jorge didn't like to be teased. He rushed the pair. 

"Run!" Aye screamed, abruptly breaking from his own bullying.

"I told you! You've hurt his feelings!" Potto yelled as he started running.

"I am so, so, so sorry big scary guy! I didn't mean to offend! But your voice is really funny," Aye ran in the opposite direction.

Jorge Jorge Jorge chased Aye. He remembered he could kill Aye. Only the Quarol needed to come back alive. They ran around and around the Master Cloner control console like a cartoon cat chasing a cartoon mouse around a cartoon kitchen table. 

"Get into the Cloner pod! The ORIGINAL one!" Aye shouted to Potto. Potto did as he was told. He hid inside and shut the door as Aye pressed the big red button on one of his passes. He was out of shape, but the reptilian was slow with bulk.

The machine made several awful sounds. Like a circus calliope amplified through a wounded howler monkey. The middle pod started shaking. The odd smell of a burning toaster (if that toaster were toasting a wet owl) arose.

The second pod door opened and a Potto clone came out. The Cloner did not clone his albinism or the block within him that dulled his brain. For the first time a clone came out of the Master Cloner smarter than the original. 

A ginger-haired, rosy-skinned Potto ran out and jumped on Jorge Jorge Jorge's back. Another came out after that and joined the first. And then another and another.

Aye grabbed some wires hanging down from a damaged panel in the ceiling. He threw them to one of the clones. "Tie him up!"

More and more Potto clones emerged from the COPY pod. More helped subdue the lumbering giant and soon had him on the floor. It took many, many Pottos to take down one Jorge Jorge Jorge.

"Go now to the Garax ship! We have some Vexian ships to steal and have a Shiv to save!" Aye laughed, feeling like an action hero. The sight of so many Pottos was hilarious. This was so much fun.

The machine whirred and stopped after the seventy-second Potto had emerged. All were off to the Garax ship as instructed. It was now just Aye, a tied-up Jorge Jorge Jorge and a hiding Potto in the room. 

He let Potto out of the pod and got in himself. "Okay. My turn." Aye was quite keen on the idea of having other targets for his would-be captors to go after instead of himself. 

Once they had traded spaces, Potto hit the red button and it started all over again. Soon shorter, smaller-horned hunchback Ayes were filing out of the machine. Only about ten made it out before Jorge Jorge Jorge got through the wire and was free. 

Potto shrieked as the giant lunged at him. He ran towards the ORIGINAL pod that held Aye. He was looking for a hiding spot. He climbed in with Aye while the machine was still running. In a rage Jorge Jorge Jorge slammed his fists down on the console and it smashed to pieces. 

Something odd happened seconds before the Master Cloner would stop working forever. The ORIGINAL pod started quaking. Steam poured out of the COPY pod. A high-pitched sound like a train whistle whistled out long and loud. And then everything was quiet. 

Machinery breaking and not starting up again was not odd. It was expected. That's what machinery did. But the Master Cloner was not meant to have two beings in the pod at the same time. That, and Jorge Jorge Jorge had smashed something into place that had always caused the glitch in the cloning process. The problem with the machine that made inferior copies was somehow fixed, if only for a millisecond, before it was in pieces. Enough time for one last clone. One superior clone.

By the time the pod doors opened and Potto and Aye sprang out like a jack-in-the-box with a broken lid, a tall, dark figure stood before them, and beside a rather surprised looking Jorge Jorge Jorge. The surprised look was caused by the huge metal pipe sticking out of his neck. Blue Kancorian blood flowed out of it as if it were a faucet. It was near impossible to pierce the body armour of a Kancorian male by hand, but somehow this dark figure had managed. The giant fell dead, never to titter or squeal again.

The figure looked like Potto in every way, apart from a dark complexion, two large, sumptuous and impressively curled horns, and a pitch-black puff of fluff hair upon his head instead of white. He smiled wickedly at the pair and ran out of the room without a word. 

"We're kinda hot," Aye muttered, in shock.

By the time they made it back to the Garax ship the hybrid clone was gone. He had found Jorge Jorge Jorge's hidden ship and that was that. Just...gone.

Neither Potto or Aye could speak. A Towerscapian-Quarol clone had been magnificently jarring to behold. 

~~~

The Garax ship flew off to find some Vexian ships to steal from Jorge Jorge Jorge clones. The ship was filled with seventy-two Potto clones, all chattering away like old college buddies. The ten Aye clones had been accidentally left behind in the lab. No one seemed to notice or care.

"So....you're our father?" One of the Potto clones asked Potto with a friendly Potto smile. He was holding one of the Shiv sniffing puppies.

"Y'know...I have no idea!" Potto said. 

"You sure said a mouthful!" Nux Garax exclaimed. He laughed long and hard at this, and then they high-fived.