One of the great things about chicken wings is how they’re eaten. You eat the skin off the chicken wings first and then eat the meat inside. This makes it so it’s easily Rule #2 compatible. Oh, and they also taste good.
Although, I wouldn’t know that from observing Deen. She treated the chicken wings like they were foreign objects. Maybe I should get more fast food for Deen to eat. It’d be funny to watch her.
“Alright,” Dario said. “Now that’s everyone finished with lunch, we need to talk about two things. Number one, the attack the 2M’s did last night. And number two, what Johann has found. So, let’s cover number one first.
“The 2M’s attempted to kidnap Erind and Deen last night. Thankfully, since both Erind and Deen are now Corebrings, they were able to successfully defeat the 2M’s. The main concern right now is the fact that the 2M’s know where you all live.”
“They probably tried even harder since they failed to kill us at the Sanders Mall,” Deen said. Of course, this wasn’t actually the truth. I knew it was actually Myra who attacked us. So why did the 2M’s target me and Deen?
“Yes, which is why if you ever find yourself being attacked, make sure to call us as soon as possible,” Myra added. Maybe if there were more powerful Adumbrae that might have been useful. But I handled most of it on my own. Actually, that was still a pretty good idea. They could be “meatshields”. It’d be funny to see if these guys would sacrifice themselves for me. I’d just have to pretend to be scared. Oh wait, I’ve been brave in front of Deen when it comes to fights. That wouldn’t work because it’d contradict my face. Maybe I could fake getting injured?
Wait, why didn’t we call for help again?
“Um we tried, but the Adumbrae had a jamming device in one of their vans,” Deen said. Right, we did try calling the superhero wannabes, but Deen’s phone had no signal.
“Yes, that’s an issue,” Dario said. “While we don’t really have the funds to help conceal you, this secret hideout is always available. Feel free to lay low over here if you ever feel like your homes are being surveilled.”
“Or you girls could come to my house,” Reo offered. “It’s free of charge.”
“Don’t you already have a girlfriend?” Myra asked. “My house would be way better for them.”
Okay, this is getting to be too much. I don’t want more people in my life. That’d drain my social batteries too much. Deen is already using up a significant amount of that charge. At least her house has a bunch of fancy rich people's stuff in it. That’d almost make up for the cost of living with her.
“Actually, I’ll just stay with Deen,” I said. “It’ll be safer for the both of us since we can both protect each other. Also, Deen’s rich. Sorry, no offense to the rest of you guys.”
“No, that’s fine,” Dario told me. “It’s probably better to not bring the 2M’s attention to our other members. We’d have a whole lot of problems if each group member was constantly under threat by the Adumbrae. It’s already going to be an issue with them going after Deen and Erind.”
“If that’s the case, then we have to take the fight to them,” Deen said. “We can’t just be waiting for them to ambush us.” I was surprised by the passion Deen had. I know she just fought some regular humans yesterday, but here she was, trying to go directly to the enemy’s territory. Except, where is the enemy’s territory?
“The best way to fight the 2M’s is to take out the Red Island,” Dario said. Red Island? What the fuck is that?
“Umm, what is the Red Island?” I asked.
“Right, we still need to brief you two on the specifics of the Red Island,” Dario said. “As I’ve explained before, our enemies, the 2M’s, are trying to obtain the powers of the Adumbrae without losing their minds. They already have a prototype technology that works. You two have already seen it in action twice. Once at the Sanders Mall, and once yesterday.
“The 2M’s are offering this technology to the rich and powerful. In return, they get important funding for their organization. From what the Professor has been able to gather, the rich are turned into Adumbrae at the Red Island.”
“Wait, why are they called the 2M’s?” I asked.
“They’re led by two brothers - Mark and Big Marcy,” Dario explained. “The Supplier doesn’t actually run the organization here, he just gives the tech. The two brothers are actually the ones in charge.”
Wasn’t this all a bit too much for this group to handle? If they could send multiple vans and an Adumbrae after me, how could this group deal with the rest of the 2M’s? Their organization has to be pretty big. Of course, since I was both an Adumbrae and a Corebring, I was easily able to kill a bunch of those thug guys. But how would Dario and Co. deal with them?
“Oh!” Deen said as if she had a lightbulb moment. “One of the people that attacked us mentioned Big Marcy.” Huh? When did this happen? Maybe it was when I got knocked out.
“Yeah, then it was definitely the 2M’s that attacked you,” Dario said. “And before I forget, Johann has something important to share.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
We all turned to Johann, who was sitting next to Myra and Reo in our makeshift circle.
“I did some digging last night using the traffic camera system,” Johann started. “What was interesting was that a lot of the cameras were blacked out during this time. But even though they’re blacked out, the forensics team was able to get the nameplates of the vehicles. Apparently, they belong to Dawson Stevedoring and Logistics LLC.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” Deen said.
“They’re probably just a shell company that the 2M’s use,” Johann said. “I asked for the feed of the cameras of the roads from the company’s offices leading to up to Deen’s neighborhood. It turns out, those were those exact same cars.”
“Should we be going after their offices then?” Deen asked.
“Well, some of their offices are in the docks,” Johann replied.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to attack them directly,” Dario said. “We don’t know how large their forces are, or what kind of Adumbrae they have over there.”
“It’s better to attack smaller targets,” Myra said.
“Oh,” Deen said.
“But what smaller targets can we attack?” I asked. At least these people weren’t totally insane. But any war against the Adumbrae would still be uphill given how small our group is. And the Red Island sounded like it would be the backbone of the 2M’s. It’d probably be way more guarded than these docks are.
“We can simply attack the vans as they’re leaving the docks and get far away,” Reo said.
“Yeah, like a hit-and-run mission,” Everett added, mainly looking at Deen. “And with you two now on our team, we should be a lot stronger in attacking the 2M’s.”
“You all will be doing the exciting part,” Reo said. “I’m just going stay in the van.”
Deen and I looked at him with confusion.
“He has to summon his fairies,” Myra pointed out. “We can’t really have him in the middle of the battle.”
“Then I guess Johann is the one driving the van?” I asked. “Not to be offensive again, but I’m guessing that what’s you do on each mission.”
“Yeah, it’s best for me and Reo to stay inside,” Johann said.
“Johann can still fight though,” Myra said, sticking up for him.
“Only with a gun though,” Johann replied. “Sometimes the Professor does give us some special equipment like magnetic traps and explosives. But other than that, I’m more of a behind-the-scenes guy.”
“But before that,” Dario started. “I have to ask. Are you both fine with participating in these missions? I know both of you fought yesterday, but this is way bigger than that. It’ll be way more dangerous going forward.”
Dangerous? That sounded exciting. Looking back on yesterday, it felt pretty good to beat up all of those thug guys. I wonder how challenging it would be to fight the other Adumbrae within in the 2M’s. Maybe they might put up more of a fight than that purple mohawk dude.
“We’re ready for this,” Deen said with conviction in her voice. Wait, Deen just volunteered me. Normally, I would complain about this type of thing. But, I was also itching for another fight. How bad could it get?
“Yeah, I’m in it,” I said. “We can’t let the 2M’s continue to harm innocent people.” To be honest, I didn’t really care about if innocent people got hurt. But I had to make it seem like I was heroic. What way to do that than to make it not about me, but other people? Maybe I should try being a politician. Nah. That’d be too much effort to keep up a face.
“Well, I’d like to offer an official welcome to the team,” Dario said. The rest of the group cheered and clapped.
“So, what’s our plan to attack the vans?” Deen asked.
“Well, we don’t want to attack it too close to the docks,” Reo said. “We could try tailing it as it leaves.”
“We’ll have to prepare for whatever might be inside,” Myra warned. “I think the 2M’s have gotten wiser. We’ve managed to learn about the routes for a few of their vehicles and attacked them, but more recently they’ve been stuffed with people with augs. Sometimes, there’s even Adumbrae in them.”
“Yeah, that really caught us off-guard,” Reo said. “I still get nightmares because Rofirio stabbed me once when I was summoning. We should make sure our van is farther away this time.”
Who the fuck is Rofirio?
“Who’s Rofirio?” Deen asked. “And should we be scared of him?”
“You guys actually took care of him yesterday,” Dario said. “He has the power to liquefy materials like concrete.”
Oh, he was that guy. He was pretty easy to kill. Although, I guess for me it’s different because I’m way stronger than the average Adumbrae now. Did he really give Reo trouble though? His power doesn’t sound that offensive. Did Reo get stuck in liquid concrete and then got stabbed? No, that doesn’t sound right. He said he was in the van. Maybe my “teammates” were just incredibly weak.
“But there’s probably other Adumbrae we should be careful of,” Dario added. “We should also discuss our team formation. For example, Myra works out best in direct combat given how strong she is. Meanwhile, Everett belongs more in the back and can offer fire support.”
“Haha, I get it,” Reo said. “He shoots out fire, so he’s ‘fire support’.”
Technically, Myra could be fire support as well since she could shoot out spikes. Although, she was probably hiding that ability from us. Wasn’t it funny then that both I and she were hiding our true abilities from each other?
“Anyways,” Dario said. “We could also give you all a better show of our powers. I managed to get some more diluters from the Professor. What do you two say?”
“Sure,” Deen said. Oh right, Myra was under the suppressor too right? How strong were they at full power? I should take notes as well. I pulled out my notepad and a pen.
“All right you two should brace yourselves mentally for this,” Dario said.
“Why? What’s going to happen?” Deen asked.
“Another part of my power creates a field that makes people feel sick,” Dario said.
“Umm, how bad would it be?” Deen questioned.
I took a quick peek at everyone else. Nobody seemed to be disturbed by this face. Surely, it couldn’t have been that bad.
“Everyone else seems to think it’s fine,” I said. “So hopefully, it’s not like vomit-levels of sickness.”
Suddenly, my head started to throb. It was as if a headache was forming. Pressure built up in my ears as if we were elevating in an airplane. It wasn’t the worst - I’ve definitely been sicker. One time, my whole cheerleader got sick with the stomach virus. I’ve never wanted to die so much in my life to get rid of the pain. Which was definitely saying something because dying is against the Rules.
“Oh boy, I can’t handle this,” Reo said as he bolted to the other side of the room. “I was nearly going to barf.”
Huh?
“The effect gets stronger the closer you are to me,” Dario said, answering my thoughts. “Since you two are on the opposite side of the room, you’re not experiencing the worse effects. Myra, let’s do a practice fight to wow our two new members.”
“Sure thing,” she said as she took off her shirt. Bark-like armor emerged from her skin, surrounding her sports bra and bicycling shorts from view. Suddenly she began to grow in height. What? Curved blades emerged from her feet. She looked more like a monster now than an actual human covered in dead trees. A tinge of suspense entered my body as she grew to be surely over eight feet tall.