That was way too close. I ran across the road, putting on my balaclava mask. Thankfully that giant statue lady got distracted. I was glad I survived that blast. Any more, and I would have been a roasted Erind. Actually, how long could I survive being burned?

That giant statue lady was now attacking SpookyErind. I could still feel the rage in her body, but rather than giving in to it, it seemed she had full control. Good for her. I wished I could control it better, but the fog of rage pretty much swallowed up all my thoughts. The only thing I managed to do was target the more edible helicopters instead. That’s kind of funny, because who would think helicopters were edible?

I didn’t spit them out like the flurry of drones that attacked me. That was probably because of the humans inside of it. I also managed to eat them while they had their clothes on and other equipment. So as long as I eat flesh I should be fine.

Sprinting across the blocks, I entered an alleyway connecting the original road we were on. Gunfire was up ahead. I guess my teammates did survive. While I couldn’t beat up that giant statue lady, I could definitely beat up these guys. I could also get bonus credit for “saving” my teammates. They’d probably never notice I abandoned them once I saved them.

I peeked around the corner. There, a couple of pickup trucks and vans surrounded the opposite corner. The pickup trucks had giant guns releasing loads of bullets across the street. They hadn’t seen me yet.

I charged the nearest vehicle, a van, and lifted it up. And throw! The van crashed into most of the other vehicles, causing them to roll over and collide with other buildings. A couple of other vans and trucks were left. The trucks and vans began backing away, while the big guns on the pickup trucks turned toward me.

Normally, I had just been charging the other normal humans. But these bigger guns hurt a lot. They actually sounded like big explosions, rather than the quieter firework popping sound of the 2M’s gunmen. I zig-zagged, charging the nearest truck. Some of the bullets pierced through me. They actually felt similar to when Myra pierced me with her spikes. And they hurt a lot. Thankfully, they didn’t hit my head.

I leaped and made a swiping motion with my hand. The gun easily came off its stand, leaving the thug guy in front of me defenseless as the truck continued to move. Oh wait, he wasn’t defenseless. Given how dark it was, I didn’t notice he had a gun in his pocket until his pale hand grabbed it. But before he could shoot me with it, I ran up and kicked him. His body collided with the back part of the truck’s cabin and split in two. The bottom half of his body crashed through the window and collided with the driver, causing him to faceplant directly into the steering wheel with a satisfying popping noise.

That was so cool! But then, the truck didn’t stop and was about to collide with the van up ahead. I rolled out of the backside of the truck. A loud crashing noise came behind me as I got up. That was also cool.

There was more gunfire, but it was more distant. I walked back up to the corner to see which of my teammates they were shooting at. In front of me was one of those giant trash containers. It was full of bullet holes. A head popped out of the corner.

“Erind?” a female voice wearing dark clothes said.

“Deen?” I asked, recognizing her voice. She was also the only other girl on our team wearing clothes that camouflage the night.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. She walked up to me and looked down at my torso. Big holes in my clothes dotted my torso. Bloodstains were splattered on top of them. Fuck. My clothes got ruined again.

“Thanks for saving me,” she said. There were holes in some of her clothes, but overall, it looked like she was in a better state than me. Of course, we both regenerated and weren’t hurting anymore.

“No problem,” I said.

“My summon, it said to hide behind the trash bin,” Deen said. “I wanted to fight, but it sounded like the 2M’s had way bigger guns out there.”

“Um yeah,” I said, looking down at my torn clothes again. Wait, how many times have I saved Deen? Way too many. When the hell was this bitch going to return the favor? I shouldn’t be doing all the work here. We’re in a team. Maybe Deen forgot that part. I never really liked group work anyway.

“We should go check on the others,” Deen told me. “Wait, where’s your clone?”

SpookyErind was busy bobbing and weaving away from Ms. Statue Lady. Ms. Statue Lady continued firing blasts while chasing after SpookyErind across the blocks. It was pretty thrilling to feel her run around. Even when SpookyErind got grazed, it just made her grow. Sadly, Ms. Statue Lady was growing at a much steadier and faster pace.

She was also catching up to SpookyErind. But rather than going straight, SpookyErind turned around and zigzagged toward her. The pavement cracked beneath her as she used her powerful muscles to chase after Ms. Statue Lady.

“I’m having her deal with some bad guys down a further block,” I said. It was technically true - Ms. Statue Lady was a bad guy. Oh wait, that’s only 1 bad guy. Not like Deen would know though. “We should reach the others, I don’t think they're nearby my clone.”

“Yeah,” Deen agreed. “I think I hear some distant gunfire on the other side of this road. Let’s head there.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

As we rushed to the other side, SpookyErind made it to Ms. Statue Lady. She tried to stomp on SpookyErind, but SpookyErind jumped on top of Ms. Statue Lady’s left leg. She rushed across Ms. Statue Lady’s body like a squirrel racing up a tree. It was definitely giving her difficulty though. I could feel how impenetrable Ms. Statue Lady’s skin was. Using her claws for grip, SpookyErind somehow managed not to fall off.

“GET OFF OF ME!” Ms. Statue Lady’s voice boomed. It really hurt SpookyErind’s ears given how much more sensitive they were, but funnily enough, it just caused her to get stronger.

What was even funnier was Ms. Statue Lady’s pathetic attempts to get rid of SpookyErind. She tried hitting her body with her hands but kept on missing SpookyErind. That was actually a good tactic - annoy the fuck out of your enemies if you can’t kill them. I should adopt that. Thankfully, most of the enemies I have encountered I was able to kill. But just in case…

The gunfire died down, leaving only the loud noise of a helicopter whirring, which drowned out our footsteps. Wait, where was that other helicopter? As SpookyErind continued running across Ms. Statue Lady’s body like a rabid rat, SpookyErind took a quick peek in the distance. From her enhanced eyesight, I caught a glimpse of a news helicopter. Oh, so that’s what was making the noise. Did the other helicopter just retreat? I know both me and SpookyErind ate one each, and there were three in total.

Wait, I was being recorded! Well, technically SpookyErind was being recorded, but the body that she was using was mine, so it counted as recording me anyway. Would this be broadcasted on the news? Hopefully, I’d be able to catch it later.

Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to see Ms. Statue Lady’s reaction to it. Maybe she’d have a temper tantrum and blow up her living room. I’d pay extra cash to see that.

Ms. Statue Lady began firing lasers as well. While she continued missing SpookyErind, one of the blasts must have hit the news helicopter. Awww. When SpookyErind took a peek, the helicopter’s blades were on fire, and one of them was missing. I hoped they managed to transmit the footage.

A giant force collided with SpookyErind. Fucking hell, that hurts a lot. More rage swelled into her body, but SpookyErind couldn’t move at all. Ms. Statue Lady released her hand and SpookyErind fell onto the ground. More pain. Thankfully, my main body wasn’t in pain, but it was still annoying to sense it from her. SpookyErind stayed face up while sprawled across the ground.

Soon, I could make out the outline of a giant concrete foot above her. It soon came crashing down on her, and I felt a massive shock of pain all across her body and then felt our connection go dark. My main body also got a bit shocked by all the pain she was receiving. This caused me to stumble a bit while jogging with Deen.

“Are you alright?” she asked, noticing me getting off balance.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly straightening myself. “I think I almost tripped on a rock.” I gave a slight chuckle.

“Well, be careful Erind,” she told me. She would have probably given me more warnings, but we soon made it to the other side of the road. I could feel that presence again in my left hand, the one indicating I could summon my clone.

I focused on summoning her while we came up against a cluster of ruined vehicles. Thankfully, it looked like I could summon her without too much of an issue even though she died.

“My clone finished beating up the other bad guys,” I told Deen. “I’m bringing her here.”

“That’s actually really cool,” she replied. “You can basically teleport her.” Well, it was more like resurrecting her.

SpookyErind appeared from the embroidered mask, albeit with the bloodstains and tattered clothing I had. She was also just a normal Erind clone now. She also spawned with the balaclava mask on.

From the other side of the crashed vehicles, a tree monster and two figures in dark clothing emerged. Wow. Nobody was harmed. That was kind of impressive. I was sure one of these guys would have died. Maybe either Oberon or Johann had died. Hopefully, I’d be able to skip any annoying funeral they might have had.

“Everyone’s alright?” Dario asked. “Us three managed to regroup after we split off.”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” I said. “I don’t know about Oberon or Johann though.”

“We should probably check in on the–” Dario said before cutting himself off.

The ground tremored. We all looked around. Shit. Ms. Giant Statue Lady was coming back. Her footsteps continued to boom in the nearby blocks.

“Is that Titan Adumbrae coming back?” Myra asked.

“We should definitely run and hide,” I told them. A large shadow started to overcome us.

“Let’s go!” Dario said as he started running toward the nearest building. But a laser quickly demolished it and nearly grazed him.

“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU TINY SHITS ARE GOING?” Ms. Statue Lady voice thundered.

We weren’t going to have much cover at all now that she was going to see us. The fuck could we do?

SpookyErind grinned at a nearby grate on the ground. Oh right, the sewer system connected to the city’s underground tunnels! She’d have a hard time blasting at us down there, I quickly grabbed the grate and tossed it, while SpookyErind began running towards Ms. Statue Lady again.

“Come on!” I told them. “My clone will distract her.”

I quickly jumped down the long hole. A splash occurred as I jumped into the murky-looking water. More splashes surrounded me as my teammates jumped in. Ewww. Now I had stupid sewer water all over me. Thankfully, Myra had transformed back into her human self, so her splash wasn’t as big. Ms. Statue Lady began aiming at SpookyErind, but she bobbed and weaved. When Everett, the last one to jump in made it down to us, SpookyErind took off her balaclava mask and pulled on her face.

I soon lost our connection, but at least there was no pain this time around. I summoned SpookyErind again.

“Everyone’s all right?” Dario asked. Everyone said yes. “All right, we should keep moving then.”

“WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU ALL GO?” A loudly enhanced voice echoed.

The sounds of lasers sweeping went on above us, but we continued speeding through the tunnels. Deen was right behind me, while Dario and Myra were up ahead. Everett was behind Deen, and SpookyErind was right next to me.

“Everyone duck!” Deen yelled as she tackled me and SpookyErind to the ground. Fucking bitch. The wet metal of the sewer pipe was nasty. Add on to that Deen violating my personal space. I really wanted to kick her. But since she was saving me, I had to stay still.

Another laser sound emitted and I could hear the roof creaking and collapsing. Metal and stone crashed to the ground. Soon, my vision was entirely crowded.

“You’re safe Erind,” Deen told me in a sing-song-like voice. Sadly, I don’t think we had much space here, which made me feel unsafe with Deen’s touch. More stomping went on overhead, and tremors caused more rubble to move. I couldn’t see anything with all the rubble around us.

What was truly amazing is how we didn’t get hit. Eventually, the stomping overhead became more and more distant.

“How are we going to get out?” I asked.

“Just crouch,” Deen said, as she got off of me and SpookyErind. I got up a bit on my knees while making sure not to hit the rubble above me. SpookyErind did the same. It was a good thing I didn’t have claustrophobia.

“What now?” I asked.

“My summon says to start digging,” Deen said.