Deen rushed up to the hostage. Actually, hostage might not be the correct word. The 2M’s weren’t using them as part of a ransom. She was more of a prisoner or experiment. I guess prisoner is apt for now. Maybe later they’d become an experiment.

She was muttering something as she observed the weird sci-fi tech next to the prisoner. What the fuck was she saying? The prisoner was asleep, so if Deen was trying to comfort her, that’d make no sense.

We all gathered around the prisoner. Her face was covered in a few wrinkles, and some of her hairs were graying.

“I can save her, I can save her,” Deen muttered.

I took a look around. Nobody said anything while Deen muttered and touched the wires linking the prisoner and the neon sci-fi tech. Actually, subject is probably more appropriate. She wasn’t really shackled to the bed, so if she woke up, she could freely leave. Of course, I didn’t expect her to wake up. And if we tried waking her up, then we’d kill her. It was truly a shame. I tried saving one of the subjects to build a heroic face for Ento. But sadly, the world denied me that face. Whatever. Keeping them alive with all the drones and 2M’s around would have been painfully difficult. Getting shot is definitely painful.

Deen was deeply entrenched in her observation of the scifi tech.

“Deen?” I had Ento ask.

“I’ll save her,” she said.

Why was she so obsessed about saving this person? She should already know that I tried saving them and failed. Unless she doesn’t believe me? Or maybe she believes that her stupid prescient pet could help out.

“Ugh!” Deen exclaimed.

“Deen, is everything all right?!” I feigned panic.

“No,” Deen groaned. “My Guardian Angel won’t help me out.”

“Maybe there’s nothing we can do,” I told her.

“But it feels so wrong just leaving her like this,” Deen said. “Surely, there’s something we can do.”

Indeed there was. But not in the way Deen was expecting.

“We can help stop the 2M’s turning more people into monsters,” I had Ento proclaim. “We may not be able to rescue these people, but we can definitely save others. But staying here and doing nothing isn’t going to help.”

If Ento truly was a kid, then it would be ironic that she was being more mature than Deen. Wait a minute, I was already younger than Deen. And more mature.

“Yeah,” Deen said. “But what should we do with this woman? We can’t just leave her here!”

Silence filled the air. I really wanted to whack her in the head. Really, how stupid could she be? I just told her we should leave and try to stop the 2M’s. Of course, I couldn’t say that to her. Although, I really wanted to.

I turned towards Everett and Dario. Technically, they were Emcee and Blank for this mission, but in the sanctity of my mind I could call them whatever I wanted. Maybe I could get them to leave with me while Deen remains stupidly stubborn. Actually, that might not work with Everett given his infatuation with Deen.

At that moment, Dario spoke up.

“Deen, I know this might be harsh, but there’s nothing we can do here,” Dario said. “Like Erind said, we can make a difference fighting out there instead of remaining here. Besides, Erind tried saving somebody else and that accidentally got them killed. It’s best to not touch anything here.”

“I guess you guys are right,” Deen sighed. Hey! Why the fuck didn’t you concede when I said it? Does Dario have mind control powers in addition to his sickness field?

Nah, I doubt he would have hidden it. Although he did bring up a good point that trying to save these people would probably kill them.

Deen got away from the lady and moved toward us. It was funny to see her not being able to do everything and having to give up. Sadly, I couldn’t actually laugh.

What the fuck am I thinking?

“It’ll be alright Deen,” Everett said, trying to comfort her. “We’ll save many more people by actually fighting the 2M’s.”

Deen simply nodded.

We continued traveling down the hallway. I kept expecting the 2M’s to attack us, but nothing like that happened.

“I’m getting the creeps,” Everett said to the side of us. Myra was ahead, still carrying my main body. Hopefully, it would wake up soon. I didn’t feel comfortable with it being knocked out.

“It’s definitely weird they aren’t attacking us,” I had Ento say. “Pythia, is Gabe saying anything?”

Deen turned her head down towards me. “No, he’s been quiet.”

That must mean we weren’t in too much danger. But why did the 2M’s stop attacking us? Maybe they were planning a trap. But wouldn’t Gabe still warn Deen of the trap?

“Do you think the 2M’s just left?” Everett asked.

“That wouldn’t really fit their MO,” Dario said. “They’ve never really retreated from us.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe they would have given up so easily,” Myra added.

“Maybe that giant werewolf is attacking the rest of their base?” I said.

“That’s a good point,” Deen said.

“It’s crazy how the Adumbrae are fighting each other,” Myra replied.

“I’m just glad they aren’t attacking us,” Everett said. “I can’t believe I’m alive after all that.”

“You did well Emcee,” Dario mentioned. “My power couldn’t affect the clone gunmen. Without you, I’m not sure I could have survived against all those Adumbrae clones with guns.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Right. Dario’s power made people feel sick. But if it was just Finlay’s clones, then there’s not much he could do. At least Everett had a ranged ability that always worked.

“No problem boss,” Everett said. “Besides, you healed your whole leg back together after it got cut off. I’m sure you’d survive a couple of gunshots just fine.”

The group chattered about the battle for a couple of more minutes. I was starting to tune out most of the small talk. None of it really interested me. I made sure to add some comments so the group would remember I was there. But nothing too much so that I was the one in the spotlight. Although, trying to craft a story earlier about why the giant werewolf Adumbrae was helping me was pretty fun. And also pretty scary.

The smalltalk died down as we went down another hallway.

“What do you think will happen to those people back there?” Deen said. She really did want to play the hero. Not just the hero, the most idealistic type you’d find in children’s novels. Ones that never gave up trying to help others. But sometimes you can’t save everyone. Or in my case, I just didn’t care enough to try.

I took a glance at the rest of the group. It was funny how they all agreed with me about just leaving the woman there. They didn’t even try to help save the woman. Besides, they were fine with Myra attacking me, an innocent and cute civilian, at the Sanders Mall. And they all thought of themselves as heroes? I smirked internally. We were all doing something illegal by accepting the Articial Core. And we weren’t even trying to save anybody.

I wondered what would have happened if I suggested we kill the lady so she wouldn’t turn into a monster. How many of them would balk at my proposal? I know Deen would. I’m not sure about the others. That would be an interesting scenario.

Although, that might put me at odds with Deen. And I’m not sure how well the group would perceive me after that. After all, I still had a face to maintain. I wasn’t some heartless and cold person who just goes around killing civilians. That was the face of the innocent Corebring Erind Hartwell.

“I’m not sure,” I had Ento add. “But if we stop the 2M’s, we can make sure no other person gets turned into a monster.”

“Thanks for being optimistic Synchron,” Deen said. She grabbed Ento’s hand and squeezed it. I wanted to slap her face. Sadly, I couldn’t.

“As your best friend, I got to keep you looking towards the future,” I had Ento say, internally cringing. What the fuck was that inspirational quote? To be fair, Deen’s invasion of my personal space was alarming. Especially since her hand was so big compared to Ento’s. It was like a giant cage was placed around my hand.

“Yeah, sorry about panicking earlier,” she replied.

“Don’t worry about it,” I had Ento say.

What I was going to worry about was how boring this is. For some reason, I kind of wanted to get into a fight. SpookyErind was busy having fun eating mutants. Meanwhile, Ento here was just listening to small talk.

“Wait guys,” Myra said. “I think I see people!”

She ran across the hallway, and I heard screams. But no gunfire followed. It was hard to tell since Myra’s big tree form was obscuring a large part of the hallway.

But we quickly ran after her. Near the end of the hallway was a large chain link fence. Behind it, I could see normal people behind it. Adults, kids, men, and women were all there. About a couple dozen or so people were behind the fence.

Myra easily ripped apart the fence.

“Adumbrae! Get back!” One of the men said. To be fair, she did look like one. A giant scary tree monster.

“No!” Myra yelled out. “We’re C-” she cut herself off. “We’re here to rescue you.”

Deen went up to try and placate the crowd.

Now why would they keep conscious people here? Were there not enough rooms for them to be experimented on? Unless these people weren’t meant for experimentation. Maybe the 2M’s planned on feeding these people to the mutants later.

“Everyone, please calm down!” Deen shouted as the civilians cowered in the corner. “It may be hard to trust us. I understand. But please, just hear us out. We’re here to free you. We got rid of the guards around here.”

“You are?” a male voice questioned.

Maybe Deen’s beauty had a hypnotic calming affect. Wait a minute, she was just wearing black clothes along with a ski mask. They wouldn’t really see her beauty. Although, she probably isn’t as scary as a giant tree monster.

“Yes, follow us, and we can take you out of here!” she cheered.

The civilians looked at each other before a couple of them began heading toward the gap in the broken chain link fence. Soon, more followed. I guess Deen got her chance to be heroic.

SpookyErind’s perspective was very interesting. She had run off to another warehouse, where different mutants were littered across the rooms. But weirdly enough, there were no guards. Where the fuck did everyone go? Did they seriously all leave? Maybe that giant stone lady was coming here. Hopefully, SpookyErind would get big enough to defeat her. But that was going to take a lot of mutants.

She crashed into a large room. Wires hung from the ceiling and broken glass tubes littered about. In the center, laid a large slimy looking mass in the middle of the room. It nearly touched the ceiling. Also, it had triple jointed gooey-like arms that randomly jutted out of it. They were scooping monsters around it into its slimy body. They quickly began to fizzle away. It was like one of those chemistry science experiments where I had to dissolve stuff into different chemicals.

SpookyErind growled and the enlarged mutant began propelling itself on its arms toward her. It was about twice as large and three times as wide as her. She broke apart some of the floor tiles with her paws and threw it at one of the arms. The floor piece went through the arm, cutting it, causing the slime arm monster to lose a bit of balance. An explosion went off near some equipment near the tubes. A fire was born out of it.

She leaped over the skidding slime monster. Some of its arms tried to reach upwards to grab at her, but it slightly burned her fur. Soon, a bit of pain followed. Some of the goo had gotten on her.

But that only led to rage swelling within her. She landed near the burning equipment and picked a burning console. She threw it at the central mass of the slime monster. The console entered the slime and sank inward.

A loud scream followed. How the fuck could this thing even scream? There wasn’t even a mouth on this thing. Also, did this thing get bigger?

The fire began to spread outward. The creature began sinking its arms into itself to try and pull out the fire. I internally smirked at how stupid it was.

SpookyErind took that moment to charge towards it. She began chewing on one of the three-jointed gooey arms. But as soon as it touched her tongue it started bleeding. It didn’t stop her.

She swallowed and was rewarded with regeneration along with growth and strength.

As she was about to eat the rest of the arm off, three of the arms gripped her and pulled her inside the gooey mass.

I felt pain. And it was nearly unbearable. Ento’s eyes dissolving with acid couldn’t compare to this. Because SpookyErind’s entire body was being dissolved.

This simply fueled her rage and her regeneration and growth. She began drinking the slime around her.

And I wanted her to eat this monster. I could feel the desire and the bloodlust towards this creature. This prey.

Some of the fire also spread towards SpookyErind. But she didn’t pay it any mind. The only important thing was getting back at the creature that harmed her.

The slime around her slowly began to diminish as she continued drinking greedily. She was finally free from the acidic prison trying to eat her. Her head rubbed against the edge of the ceiling. SpookyErind was way bigger now. She made sure to claw off the burning parts of her skin and eat it. It was kind of weird eating parts of yourself. But on the other hand, she didn’t have a well precise scalpel to get rid of all that slime.

She turned around and a blue drone sat near the edge of the room’s wall. Huh. I wonder why it wasn’t attacking her. She ignored it and began running through some of the walls. They easily broke against her skin. After a few more walls, she made it outside again. The tail end of a truck convoy could be seen at the far side of the base. They were retreating! SpookyErind simply stood there watching.

Aww. I kind of wanted to see SpookyErind eat them all.

A hum of the distance suddenly alerted her. Several small figures could be spotted in the sky. They were clad in sleek black armor, carrying a set of some futuristic weapons along with a jet pack.

In the middle of their armor said the word ‘B.I.D’.

That wasn’t good! SpookyErind may be able to survive against them, but I definitely couldn’t. Especially since my main body was still knocked out. Could I have Ento convince the rest of the group to get the fuck out of here?

Suddenly, there were several ringing sounds. Our group quickly began taking out their phones. Ento didn’t have a phone, and Myra would have had to get rid of her bark armor to access theirs.

“It’s from HQ,” Dario said. Johann? He put the phone up to his ears. “We’ve got to go now - the BID is coming. Let’s hurry!”