What a good night's sleep. I stretched my limbs. Or I at least tried, before I realized that SpookyErind was still hugging me.

I could feel her senses, which meant she was awake. That also explained why I was unable to get out of her grasp.

“Hey, it’s time to wake up,” I said. “I have school remember.”

I think we’ll have a bit more time to speak. She focused on her hand, and I felt the time bubble form. Of course, I couldn’t actually see it since her hand was against my chest. I saw it as it expanded and surrounded our whole bed. The bubble had a golden sheen.

“So you slowed time for us inside the bubble?” I asked. At least I wouldn’t be late.

Are you sure about that? She asked. What? Is that not what she was doing? Wait. If time was slower for us, then time outside the bubble would be faster, causing me to be late. So it was the other way around. I can’t handle this mental fuckery. No need to beat yourself over it, you got it right.

“Is there any reason you want to talk to me more?” I asked. “You can just talk to my 2nd clone when I go to class.”

But I want to talk to you right now, she said. What was so important that she couldn’t wait? I wanted to congratulate you on making a new friend yesterday.

“Bianca?” I asked. She was the only person that fits that description. “Although, we’re not really friends. I don’t even think we could become friends, especially with what I learned about her.”

And what did you learn about her? SpookyErind asked. Of course, she could probably read my mind. But she’s said before that she likes listening to me speak. I like listening to myself speak too.

“She definitely has Rules of her own,” I said. “But there’s something very peculiar about them. She says she’s against augmentation and all that other jazz, but why was she interested in becoming an Adumbrae? My gut feeling is that she has a very major Rule. Most normal people wouldn’t have that kind of contradictory view. Well, okay they might have contradictory views, but definitely not about Adumbrae and augmentation.”

But does that show she really has Rules?

“No, but she also maintained faces,” I pointed out. “She may not refer to them as ‘Rules’, but they are still essentially Rules. Everybody has some basic routines that they follow. Generally, I wouldn’t be able to single Bianca out from every other normal person, but she dropped her face like a stupid bitch.”

SpookyErind giggled. It’s so funny that she never suspected us of being similar.

“It turns out she really was a narcissist masquerading as a likable celebrity,” I said. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was how most famous people were though. “Anyways, I made sure to always keep my face up. But it’s such a low bar, that I couldn’t believe she went below it.”

Maybe that’s because you came up with such a great plan, SpookyErind cheered. Mind telling me why you decided to do it that way?

“Her Rule seemed very contradictory,” I said. “I even researched online to see if she got any plastic surgery, but she didn’t even do that. She was doing everything “naturally”. But becoming an Adumbrae meant throwing all of that out the window. So I decided to exploit that Rule. Since she was interested in becoming an Adumbrae, why not show off our powers? She’d probably want information about becoming an Adumbrae first. That’s how I guessed she wouldn’t kill us.”

She seemed interested at first, but then seemed less interested as you talked about the powers, SpookyErind said.

“I think it had something to do with her Rule. Maybe she was trying to become an Adumbrae for some other reason. She didn’t seem intrigued about any of the interesting parts of the Adumbrae powers. Also, I’m pretty sure she also had some doubts about who we were. She started asking questions testing our knowledge of the 2Ms. Thankfully, I got lucky enough to improvise my way through. ”

It was so funny that she thought we were Adumbrae, SpookyErind commented. But it turned out, both of us were Corebrings.

I technically was an Adumbrae. This brought me to another annoying fact. SpookyErind would probably be taking over my body in the near future. But now, I had a potential way to get out. When Bianca guides us to the Red Island, I’ll use the 2M’s technology to maintain control of my body.

And here we go again, SpookyErind groaned. Was it weird that I wasn’t facing her when talking? She was still hugging me from behind. You keep thinking I’m going to take over your body.

“Well yeah, you’re an Adumbrae taking over my body,” I said.

What proof do you have that I’m taking over your body? She asked.

“You’re already controlling my clone,” I said.

But you can still control your 2nd clone, right? She asked. If I was trying to take over your body, why wouldn’t I take control of it too?

That was a… fair point. I was still not sure of that too. But that still didn’t explain why she could control my 1st clone.

I’ve always been your 1st clone, she said. Ever since you got these Corebring powers.

“Okay, but that doesn’t really refute my point,” I said.

How do you even know that is how your Corebring power worked? She asked. I think it would be a pretty simple explanation that it just gave me a body to interact the real world with. Do you even have proof you would have control of it?

“But aren’t you admitting that I’m not in control of my clone?” I questioned.

Nope, she giggled. Anyways, if I could easily take over your clone, then why couldn’t I take over your other clone and your main body easily?

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I wasn’t sure about that. If she could suddenly get control over one part of me, why not the others? Maybe she just wanted to mess with me before taking full control?

She stopped hugging me and turned my body around. The red glow of her eyes looked so mesmerizing up close. She hugged me again.

You’re thinking too hard about this, she said. Over the next month, you’re going to love me so much that you’ll think of whatever the 2Ms are doing as repulsive.

“What are you, Deen’s guardian angel?” I asked jokingly. She laughed, but her words seemed kinda creepy.

Time works differently for me, she said. What? Does that mean she always knows the future?

I do know we’ll be together forever, she giggled.

Before I could respond, she leaned in and gave me a kiss.

Anyways, since I’m always right, let’s not argue about that, she said. Instead, let’s talk about missions.

“Like the Eve in two weeks?” I asked. “What about it?”

Not that, she said. How about we propose a mission to our team?

“Propose a mission?” What did she mean?

Do you remember how Mr. Locke, the trenchcoat guy was talking about Eloycira? She asked.

Oh, that was his name. I had completely forgotten it. “Yeah, I remember it. Are you saying we try and infiltrate the place?”

There could be some excellent-tasting food wherever they take us, she said. Wait, take us? Like kidnap us?

Well duh, she said. They’re not going to keep the experiments in a place public people go to. We just have to pretend to be a very poor girl.

That did make sense. But what if the 2M’s recognized me?

They won’t recognize Ento, she said. Right, she was way shorter than me. Even if we shared similar faces, they would just think we were sisters. Of course, if they had access to any documents, they’d know I was a single child. How would I make her look poorer though?

That’s definitely something to think about, she said. But how about it? It’s something fun to do this weekend, instead of just waiting for two weeks. Really, it was more like a week and two days, but I saw her point. I didn’t mind eating more, whether it be the experiments or humans. Maybe I’d even get a taste of Adumbrae there.

“So should I plan to sneak out of Deen’s house again?” I asked.

That seems kinda of boring, SpookyErind said. Why not actually go on a mission with our team? Besides, it’s best to develop our faces with them. They might even have some good suggestions.

Uggh. The last time I was with them I was doing all the work. I hope this means she saw that they’ll do some of the heavy lifting. Or maybe she was just messing with me again.

We should tell Deen first, she said.

“Sure,” I said. “But what about the time -” The bubble popped. Nevermind then. I got out of bed and got my phone. An identical phone was right next to it. That was SpookyErind’s copy. After I took a shower, I summoned her back. I had to do it to summon my 2nd clone. There was nothing I could do about the order of summoning my clones. My 2nd clone’s embroidered Corebring mask sat on the nightstand.

I took a look at the time, and it was 5:31 a.m. Thankfully, the time bubble caused us to talk faster than time was going, otherwise, it’d probably be 5:35 a.m. Deen probably would have barged in by now, worrying that I’d be late. And I didn’t want her to hear that conversation.

Flicking the switch in my body for my 2nd clone, her mask vanished and was replaced by another me next to the nightstand. Deen didn’t mind feeding all of us breakfast, so I didn’t mind eating with all of them.

We all walked out towards Deen, who was sitting at the table. I did my normal ‘good morning’ routine along with my normal breakfast routine. But how to bring up the topic of Eloycira?

“Hey Deen,” I said. “I wanted to confess something to you.”

“Huh?” Deen asked. “What do you mean?”

“A couple of nights ago, I snuck out of the house through the window,” I said.

“Wait, you left?” she asked. I hoped she wasn’t going to get mad at me. She wasn’t my mom, so I’d figure I could go out whenever I wanted. Still, her house might have some sort of alarm system if I went through the front door, so through the window I went. “You didn’t get drunk with any boys did you?”

“No,” I snorted. “I told you I don’t drink. And I’m not interested in dating either.”

She chuckled. “But seriously, where did you go?”

“I went wandering down the city streets,” I said. “I felt kind of couped up here. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I’m just worried that the 2M’s might try to take you if you go alone. Maybe next time, let me go with you?” Eww. No. Anyways, back to my excellent story.

“Yeah, that’s the scary thing,” I said.

“They tried to kidnap you again?” she panicked.

“No, but I overheard some guys talking in one of the poorer areas of town,” I said. “Nobody was around, and I was in an alleyway looking for suspicious stuff.”

“They were part of the 2M’s?” she asked.

“I’m pretty sure,” I said. “They talked about Big Marcy. The worst part was - they talked about kidnapping other people for their experiments.”

“That’s horrible!” she said.

“Yeah, apparently, they’ve been using this company called Eloycira to advertise drugs,” I said. I forgot what kind of drugs they advertised, but that was beside the point. “They then take the people who come, and kidnap them.”

“We need to do something about it!” she said. “We can’t let this continue.”

Wow. She was really passionate about stopping them. She didn’t even consider that my story might not be real. But we were best friends, so why would she do that? I guess this was one benefit of having a best friend - they just believed whatever you spat out.

Of course, not all of this was completely fake. I did actually hear Trenchcoat Guy talk about Eloycira. But I wasn’t going to tell Deen about my experimentations on all of them. She’d probably think it’d be fucked up even though they were the 2Ms. Besides, I had a better idea of how to continue this ‘story’.

“I don’t know why I didn’t fight them,” I said. “I feel bad now - I could have stopped them but I just continued to eavesdrop. I wanted to, but I was afraid that any street cameras were going to catch me. I didn’t have our mission clothes with me.”

“It’s fine Erind,” she said, grabbing my hand. My blood began to boil. “If you fought them, the 2M’s might know something is up with their kidnapping operation. Now, we can go and tell Dario about this. They won’t suspect anything. Besides, hiding your identity is important too.”

“Thanks, Deen,” I said. And there it was. She was doing all the work for me. Another benefit of being best friends. She wouldn’t think I was doing anything bad by failing to stop the 2Ms. And it turns out, I actually did wear my mission clothes. But I needed a reason in my story to not fight the 2Ms.

“You're welcome,” she beamed. “We’ll tell Dario before our training session today.”

Such a wonderful afternoon. All my Thursday classes were done. And now, Deen and I were entering our secret base to do superhero training. I was pretty hyped. The team would be teaching me skills I would use against some of them in the future. Mainly just Myra though.

Deen walked up to Dario, who was in a tracksuit, which displayed his toned muscles. One day, I’ll have muscles as toned as him. I was now training at night a lot. I hadn’t noticed any changes yet, but by the end of the month, I could end up looking pretty fit.

Thankfully, my 2nd clone could study while I worked out. I’d wonder how long it’d take me to look stronger than Deen. She was both more beautiful and fit for me. It was only righteous of me to become better than her in at least one of those areas.

“Hey Dario,” Deen said.

“Hey girls,” he said. The rest of the group said their hellos.

“I wanted to talk to you about something before our training,” she said.

“What is it?”

“A couple of nights ago, Erind went out into the city,” Deen explained. She retold my story. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do it twice.

“Wait, so you actually heard all of this Erind?” Dario asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t fight them.”

“You did the best you could,” Deen said. Wow. I guess doing nothing was the best I could do. That feels kinda insulting, actually. “Anyways, should we prepare a mission to stop Eloycira?”

“I’ll need to talk about this to the Professor before we go on a mission,” he said. “But why don’t we do some training first?”