Sterile white walls ran parallel, seemingly endless. Iris' eyes snapped open and she pushed herself off the cold, smooth floor, looking upwards into the blindingly bright abyss. She blinked a couple of times and forced herself up to her feet, before stumbling and falling against one the wall, feeling the same bone-chilling cold she did when her hands met the tile. Her head throbbed and fell over towards her shoulder as she shakily stepped away from the wall and tried to balance on her own two wobbling feet.

"You're awake. Finally."

Iris cringed as the robotic voice rang out through the room, radiating a sense of callous glee. Then, she heard the footsteps. Those echoing footsteps, uneven and unsteady; a heavy stomp from one foot followed by a weak, barely audible tap from the other. However, which each step Iris could feel the ground shift and move under her feet. Barely able to maintain her balance, she crumpled and dropped to a seated position on the ground, hugging her knees close to her chest and tucking her head behind her legs. With her eyes clenched shut, she could imagine what the monstrosity making its way to her looked like; a freakishly tall behemoth of a human if it was even human, mutated and deformed with one side of its body massive while the other was bone thin and underdeveloped. The arm on that side blackened, shriveled, and dangling; a collection of puffy malformed skin without a bone to keep it in place.

Then, nothing. No footsteps. No sound.

Until it, whatever it was, began to whistle. A high pitched wail that burrowed itself deep in Iris' head, grating against her ear drums.

"Iris? This is just getting sad," said the voice before something reached out and took hold of Iris' arm. It yanked Iris up to her feet and shoved her into the wall, forcing its bony forearm into her throat. The force of slamming into the wall forced her eyes open, and before she could even think to react, she was standing face to face with the thing, the best, the monstrosity.

A mirror image of herself.

"Don't look so disappointed!"

"Who are you? And where are we?" Iris words came out labored and sounding more like croaking than speaking, with her windpipe still being pushed into the back of her neck.

"What was that? I couldn't quite make, that, out!" Every pause was accented by the doppelganger jamming its forearm further into Iris' throat, before finally it finally pulled its arm away. Iris gulped in as much air as she could, stopping to cough every few seconds while the doppelganger watched and shook its head.

"Where are we?" Iris repeated, sucking in another gasp of air. "And who are you?"

"I think you know damn well what the answer to that second question is. As for where we are, I'm gonna need a little more than that. Presently, we're sitting in a chair, getting ready to speak into a tape recorder regarding our upcoming match with Cain. Though something tells me that you weren't asking me for that."

Iris' eyes widened. "Huh?"

"You really haven't caught on? Wow, I'm almost ashamed to be inhabiting this body. I bet you think this whole thing is a real place, too. Like you're really standing in some room somewhere, having a conversation with a malicious version of yourself. Look around you! Everything here is in your head. A lot of empty space here."

The doppelganger laughed.

"And as far as anyone else knows, I am you now, Iris. I'm so glad you could be here for this momentous occasion, where the sweet, mild mannered Iris Oppenheimer succumbs to the hatred that flows through the cesspool known as the XWF and shows everyone that she's no better. Now, if you'll excuse me."

The doppelganger cleared its throat and reached for something, pointing its index finger out and clicking something that Iris couldn't see. It took her a couple of seconds to process what was going on, staring blankly into space, barely fighting back the tears welling up in her eyes but the second she did she balled her hands into fists and swashed a collection of saliva around in her mouth before spitting it on the ground next to her.

"Like hell you are."

She charged at the doppelganger. Something it didn't see coming, as it turned its back to her to begin its diatribe.

"Hello, Cain. Ahh!"

It yelped as Iris tackled it to the ground. Thrashing about on the floor, the doppelganger tried its damnedest to get away from her. It bit down on hard on Iris' bicep and refused to let go, no matter how hard Iris struggled to remove the unwanted set of teeth. At least, not until Iris pressed her index, middle, and ring fingers together and used them to dig into its eye. It let go of its grasp and scampered away before Iris could grab it once again.

"You're so cute for thinking you can, but let me let you in on a little secret: you're not winning this one, Iris. I already did."

Iris scanned around the room for it, but the doppelganger was gone. Disappeared into the wall of light. She didn't bother getting off her knees. Fore a few brief moments, there was complete and utter silence, which Iris was only slightly grateful for. Then, like a gunshot, she heard the doppelganger clear its voice again. A fire lit up in her eyes as she pushed herself back to her feet and stormed off into the light wall.

"Apologies! Something must've been caught in my throat. Though, that isn't very important right now. Much like most of the stuff Cain talked about in his sitdown interview, but hey. I wouldn't be me if I sunk to his level, now would I? And yes, I do mean sinking down to his level because despite what he likes to believe, he isn't much of a beast at all. Wasting every opportunity he gets--"

"You were saying?" Iris asked, stepping into the doppelganger's field of vision, scowl on her face.

"They never fucking learn."

The doppelganger cracked its knuckles and charged forward, with its arm cocked back and hand balled into a fist. As it approached Iris, it threw the punch which Iris sidestepped out of the way of and the doppelganger lost its balance, stumbling over and falling to the ground. For a second, it glared up at Iris before sniffling and breaking into a sob. Swallowing hard, Iris froze in place for a split second. She took a deep breath and walked over, reaching out her hand to help the doppelganger up, which it graciously accepts. It tightened its grip on her hand to the point of crushing her fingers and its frown turned into a smirk as it pushed itself to its feet with ease.

"Hook. Line. Sinker."

It twisted Iris' arm, until she fell to her knees wincing and whimpering.

"Just accept it, Iris you sold your soul to us."

It was then, when the doppelganger transformed before Iris' own eyes.