Myra started releasing all the people she freed.

“Hey Barb, I’m awake, can you let me go too?” I whispered. The vines and branches around me started to untangle, letting me slide off Barb’s back. I was half expecting a skewer to come and hit me in the stomach again. I took a few steps back and took a peek.

The freed people all ran forward toward a line of police cars blocking the intersection. Several police drones surrounded the cars, and a large vehicle was unloading 10-foot-tall ComExos onto the street.

I didn’t want to fight all of that. Maybe if SpookyErind was still around I would, but it was shocking how fragile I still was after being both an Adumbrae and a Corebring. Ento had her entire arm ripped off from a single blast from a BID agent. Of course, these police officers weren’t BID agents, but those ComExos looked deadly. Unlike the BID ComExos, these had two arms, but giant guns were attached to the end of each arm.

“Leave now!” the megaphone guy said. His build was lanky. I could probably kill him before he orders the rest of the police force to kill me. Wait a minute. That would be a stupid plan because they would just attack me anyway.

Next to him was a woman wearing a sleeveless blouse and khakis. Weird that she wasn’t wearing a police uniform. I saw the outline of a smaller figure inside the car. Is that a child? Did the megaphone guy bring out his family here?

I didn’t have too much time to ruminate because Myra began backing up. Oh right, we should probably leave before the police changed their minds.

Dario and Everett ran ahead of me. Wait these guys were here? Everett was no longer being carried by Dario. That made me upset since Ento still only had 1.25 arms, and Everett was fine. Actually, how many arms is a stump worth? More than 0 but less than 1 right?

Deen soon came upon Johann’s van parked in an alleyway. I bet her Guardian Angel brought her here. She was still carrying both me and Blubber. Thankfully, there was a gap between me and the chubby winged creature.

A giant hole was in the right side of the van. What the fuck happened here? Did a tank blow up the side of the van? We could clearly see Reo sitting on the mattress in his summoning position as if nothing had happened.

“Pythia! Synchron!” Johann cried out as Blubber went up to Reo and climbed inside his mouth.

“What happened here?” Deen asked, still cradling Ento in her arms.

“Not as bad as whatever happened to Synchron,” Johann said, taking a look at Ento.

“Got chased by BID agents,” I had her say. “I tried throwing my needles at them but one guy just lasered my arm off.”

Thankfully, it didn’t hurt anymore and Ento wasn’t bleeding out. But it really sucked that I couldn’t do anything with Ento against those BID agents. Was I really that weak?

No, the BID was just very strong. I guess it was a good thing they were this strong since Adumbrae would have taken over America if they hadn’t. Either that, or we would be living under the rule of the Corebring Hive.

On the positive side, I was at least able to build pity points with the rest of the group there. Most people were able to feel sad when a 10-year-old child was injured. It reminded me back when I was in 4th grade. One of the kids fell off the top of the slide during recess. Like, he didn’t go down the slide, he just tripped at the top and fell out the side. While he wasn’t bleeding like Ento was, his arms were all contorted in different ways like a pretzel. The other kids quickly got the teachers’ attention. The teachers ended up comforting him as the nurses arrived.

What exactly did they feel? I knew they felt sympathy, but what did that sympathy feel like? When I was there, I was just wondering if I could actually force his limbs to resemble a pretzel.

Minutes later, I got tired of being cradled by Deen. Since it didn’t hurt to move as much, I had Ento take off her goggles. Her severed arm disappeared as my 2nd clone’s normal form appeared in Deen’s arm. Deen struggled to stay balanced as my normal form was quite a lot taller than Ento’s height. I saw some people in high school that were only 1 foot taller probably than Ento. I was glad I was at least 5 foot 4 and not any shorter.

“You can set me down now Deen,” I had my 2nd clone say.

“Oh, sure thing,” she said, letting her down on the ground.

“Do you guys know where the others are?” Johann asked.

“Yeah, we’re running away from the police,” I had my 2nd clone say matter-of-factly.

“Wait what?” Deen panicked.

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“Yeah, but they aren’t chasing us,” I said. That fact didn’t comfort me. I had my main body constantly taking peeks behind me to make sure there weren’t any drones or 10-foot ComExos.

I also took peeks at the sky to make sure that giant aircraft wasn’t around. If that thing could pulverize the giant werewolf in 2 shots, it may as well be a nuke to my normal body.

Still, the rational side of me would say that I wouldn’t need to take a peek behind me because I would hear the police and the BID coming to hear me. But I still couldn’t resist checking.

Maybe this was all just paranoia?

Also, I think we were quite lost.

“Um guys, where are we going?” I asked.

“I was just running away from the police,” Myra said. Both Everett and Dario nodded. Great. Not really.

“Pythia and Ento managed to find HQ and Oberon,” I said.

“Yeah, we should head there,” Dario said.

I had my 2nd clone pull out my phone and pull up Snippet. Thankfully, the phone tracking app allowed me to track the others. Except, I had only friended Deen.

“Do you have the other's Snippet tracking info?” I asked her. I would have tried tracking myself, but it turned out my main body’s phone got destroyed when Slinky fucking threw me against a wall.

In addition to a destroyed phone, my clothes had tears and the terrible feeling of crusty dried blood was on my back. Looking around, I had it the worst out of anyone in the group. Everett and Dario had bullet holes in their clothes, but it was nothing like me.

Seriously?! I was the strongest one in the group and all my shit was getting destroyed. Did the world hate me that much?

Of course, I knew life wasn’t fair, many people had fates way more unluckier than me through no fault of their own. Some had rough diseases like cancer, or they were just born into poverty. But sometimes there are rare opportunities to get over these problems in life.

As for me, I had the opportunity to be both an Adumbrae and a Corebring. Maybe I was the only person in existence to be both. I didn’t have to worry about any of these puny illnesses. And I was way stronger than the rest of my group. Therefore, I should be the most fine. Everybody else shouldn’t come out better than me.

Could I file a complaint somewhere?

Eventually, my main body along with Myra, Dario, and Everett made it back to Johann’s van. Myra began shrinking and her bark began disappearing. Johann offered her a black hoodie to put on as she only had on a balaclava, her sports bra, and bicycling shorts.

“Oh dear Mother Core, what happened to you three?” Reo asked. “I thought I took out most of those clay soldiers. And what happened to Erind?”

“Turns out there were more clay soldiers,” Everett said. He turned to Deen. “I’m glad you’re okay though.”

“Thanks, I’m glad you’re okay too,” Deen said with a plain voice behind her balaclava mask.

“What about me?” Reo said. “There was a giant tank that could have destroyed me!” He pointed at the side of the van.

“You got chased by a tank?” Myra asked.

“More like a truck with a big gun,” Johann said. Wait a minute, didn’t we already talk about this? No, that was just with Ento. That’s annoying. I mentally fast-forwarded as both groups got caught up.

“Did you guys see the giant werewolf Adumbrae?” Reo asked. My brain stopped fast-forwarding. “You should have seen her chest, it had the biggest-”

“No, we were too busy running for our lives!” Myra interrupted.

“Anyways, isn’t it kind of crazy that hot Adumbrae keep showing up to fight the 2Ms?” Reo asked. “First, there was that supermodel chick that saved Erind at the mall, and now there’s this female werewolf Adumbrae trashing the 2M’s bases.”

Technically, those Adumbrae were me. And SpookyErind too.

“We still don’t know their allegiance,” Dario said. “Even if they’re enemies of the 2M’s, that doesn’t mean they’re our allies.”

“But they have helped me,” I innocently said. “That has to count for something?”

“Yes, but keep your guard up,” Dario said. “Just because they’re friendly now, doesn’t mean they won’t stab us in the back later.”

I smirked internally at the irony of that. While my current face was friendly to the group, I did plan on stabbing 3 people in the back later. Myra for trying to kill me. And Dario and Everett for leaving me to die. Of course, I wasn’t planning to actually stab them in the back with a knife. Would the knife break if I applied enough strength when stabbing them?

But Myra definitely was going to die. She probably thinks we’re friends now because of our near-life-death experience with Slinky. But Rule #4 had to be enforced.

Wait a minute, the potential backstabbing thing also applied to SpookyErind. She was protective of me now. She says that she isn’t taking over my body. But what about in the future? Could I really trust her words?

Everyone knows that Adumbrae will eventually take over your body. Were there any ways to stop this? I had an artificial Core. I don’t think it’s really doing anything to stop SpookyErind. I guess there was the 2M’s. They were working on stuff to turn people into Adumbrae. Surely they had something to keep themselves in control.

We might find it in one of our next missions. How would SpookyErind react though once we get to it? Would she throw a fit?

I hope not. I haven’t summoned her. What if I just never summoned here again? Would I be safe from having my body taken over? But I might be more vulnerable. I might have died to that Slinky bitch if SpookyErind wasn’t around. Would I be putting myself in danger if SpookyErind never existed.

Ugh. Why couldn’t things be simple?

“It’s great we freed those hostages,” Myra said.

“We probably could have saved more,” Deen said, sounding slightly upset.

We probably would have been blown up by the BID then. I kept that comment to myself. I don’t think it would be fitting of me to ruin the mood.

At least saving the hostages was simple. A triumph for my hero face! I didn’t really interact with any of them, but saving people is what heroes do. Will any of them be on the news tomorrow morning? What if the police take credit for freeing them? Fucking bastards.

The police. Something clicked in mind. This didn’t make sense.

“Hey Myra,” I began. “Did you tell the police we had hostages?” I was knocked out when the police started shouting at us. But something was fishy. Why would the police tell us to release the hostages rather than just opening fire on a bunch of people in suspicious outfits with a giant tree monster?

“Uh, no,” Myra said.

“How did the police know that we had those people then?” I asked.

“Maybe they had drone or satellite footage?” Reo said.

“But the BID was already targeting us,” I replied. “If they were targeting us, then wouldn’t they tell the police to corner us? That would seem like the logical thing to do. But the police just lets nonhuman people go?”

“Fuck,” Myra said. “The 2M’s got the police to take the hostages back.”