What chance was it that this black van was connected to the 2Ms? Maybe it was just passing by, but something felt weird. Nobody else was on this street other than Joseph. Why was it the only vehicle for several blocks?

SpookyErind took off her face mask. Huh?

The face I gave you might be useful here, she said as she held out her right hand. Golden liquid rose out of the crystals in her hand and turned solidified into the red mask. She put it on and immediately grew in height.

Huh? Were we going to fight these guys? Why would I need to hide my 2nd clone, though? Still, I didn’t mind fighting them. I took off my face mask, and I held out my right hand to summon the Red Hood mask. Putting it on, I instantly grew in height. SpookyErind grabbed my hand. She pointed upward.

Did she want to go up? Why? Did the 2M’s have some sort of secret weapon that we needed to avoid? And we would surprise them with an attack from above?

She lowered her knees to prepare for a jump. I did so as well. We leaped together, soaring through the air. Excitement coursed through our bodies. This felt amazing. We should do this more. We landed, causing the concrete roof to crack a little. I hoped nobody came up here to check on us.

SpookyErind walked, still holding my hand, over to the edge of the building facing the road the van was on. She squatted down and peered over the side. I did so as well. Everything seemed so small from here. But with my enhanced vision, I could still see everything. Joseph was down below, still resting against the building.

When I used to travel a lot with Mom, I’d always have her take me to the tallest buildings we could enter. On the top floor, I’d see the little specks of people and cars going around the city. It made me feel like I was a giant. Okay, maybe I was just really upset to be really short. At least my Red Hood form was tall. Maybe I should ask SpookyErind if she could make my real body taller. She let out a low growl that almost sounded like a laugh.

The van pulled up a bit behind him and stopped. Were they going to kidnap Joseph? What was the 2M’s thought process here? They went and tried to kidnap me and Deen, innocent law school girls. Now, they were going after a homeless person? I did remember that they were experimenting on people. So they were going to try and turn him into something like Mr. Porcupine Guy. What would I have looked like if they experimented on me? That was just gross to think about. I liked my cute self. Nobody needed to change it.

Four men emerged from the back of the van. Two of them looked like standard security guys. Black armored vests with long guns stayed near the entrance. The other two were more peculiar. One of them wore a trench coat and had blonde hair. He was pretty tall compared to the other two. The last one looked like some kind of doctor or surgeon. He or she wore a surgical mask and wore gloves. Their bright white lab coat stood in stark contrast to the other three’s dark clothing.

Hmm. What if this wasn’t the 2Ms? They didn’t look like the thug guys that tried to kidnap me. In fact, they looked a lot more professional. They also had only one van, while the 2M’s sent out five to capture us.

It was actually pretty weird since both SpookyErind and I were looking down. It was almost like having those moments of double vision when trying out other people’s glasses. Except, our brains were able to process the information correctly without any issues.

“Joseph!” the tall man said. Wow, I could still hear him from all the way up here. Meanwhile, my 2nd clone had trouble hearing anything at all.

“Mr. Locke, welcome back,” Joseph said.

“You’re in luck today Joseph,” he said. “I checked back at one of our labs, and we still had a stock of Eloycin. And you scored the highest on our interview questionnaire last week, so I made sure to secure a batch for you.”

“Great,” he replied. “So, do I just swallow it like a pill or something?”

“Actually, it gets injected,” the tall man said. Injected? “Have you ever gotten vaccines before?”

“Yeah, when I was younger,” Joseph replied. “Not anymore though. Haven’t been feeling like going to a doctor for the past few years. Anyways, I thought the drug looked like a pill in the TV ad.”

“Ah yes,” Mr. Locke started off. “One of our interns made a mistake when we had them make the ad. Don’t worry, they know better now. But before I get too off track, let me introduce you to Dr. Aguilar. She’ll be the one performing the injection today.”

Hmm. Something seemed fishy here. Why would you let an intern work on an important ad? Although I’ve never been a media intern, so I had no idea how that worked. I’m just saying if I was in Joseph’s shoes, I would not trust the tall man at all. I mean, he was in a trenchcoat with two guards behind him. Why does he need two guards?

“Hello miss,” Joseph said to her.

“Hello Joseph!” Dr. Aguilar said. “You don’t need to worry. Everything will be quick and painless.”

“Thanks doc,” he said.

“Can you please take off your jacket?” Dr. Aguilar asked in a sweet voice.

“Oh sorry about that,” Joseph said as he took his jacket off. Dr. Aguilar took out a syringe from her pocket and put it on his arm. Wait, don’t doctors wipe the area clean before injection? Something really wasn’t adding up here.

“You don’t have to look if you don’t want to,” she told him.

“Nah, I never had a problem with shots before,” he replied. She pushed the handle on the syringe.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

A few seconds passed.

“How are you feeling, sir?” she asked.

“Very… tired…,” he said before passing out. His body slumped over to the right.

“These people are such idiots,” Dr. Aguilar laughed. Huh? “They keep falling for all this stupid stuff. I can’t believe they exist.”

“They’re good for business at least,” Mr. Locke replied.

“That’s the only thing they’ll ever be good for,” she said.

“Come on you two, get him and we can leave,” Mr.Locke addressed the two security guards. They opened the back door of the van and took out a stretcher. They rolled it up to Joseph and put him on. They began strapping him in.

Okay, now I was like 99.9% sure these guys were working for the 2M’s. But should I get involved? I wasn’t really a hero-type person, so saving Joseph was something I usually wouldn’t do. I imagine if any of my ‘teammates’ were here they would lecture me about the importance of helping others.

But on the other hand, the 2M’s messed with me. So I had the right to punish them under Rule #4. Although, there might be a slight chance they weren’t with the 2M’s. But I kind of wanted some action, and I really wanted to test my 2nd clone’s powers.

I was finding it hard to stretch things here. But a lightbulb popped up in my head. Maybe I could bait the security guards into attacking me.

I had my 2nd clone walk out of the alleyway.

“Hey, what are you doing with Mr. Joseph?” I asked out loud with my 2nd clone.

“What?” Mr. Locke asked.

“You can’t just take him,” I said. “He never wanted to leave this spot.”

“What the fuck is this kid doing outside late at night?” Dr. Aguilar questioned.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” I called out. On the one hand, it was kind of annoying to be ignored as a kid. But on the other hand, I really had fun coming up with this face. A concerned goody-two-shoes trying to fix the world. Well, to be fair, I was still trying to improve the world. I made it my duty to carry out the Rules. And the Rules help to make the World a better place. That’s way better than being a goody-two-shoes. What the fuck? Okay, my brain got off track. “Listen kid, this is none of your business,” Mr. Locke said. Oh right, I was trying to get these guys to attack me.

“Haha, what are you wearing?” Dr. Aguilar laughed. “A lab coat and goggles? This isn’t Halloween.”

“Hey, I actually like science,” I said. “And why are you still taking Joseph?”

“I bet you wouldn’t even get accepted to med school, dummy” Dr. Aguilar chuckled. Hey! I was very smart. If I was really aiming for it, I’d be able to get into med school. I was pretty close to a perfect 4.0 GPA in undergrad.

“Hmm, didn’t we check to make sure that Joseph wasn’t cared for by anybody,” Mr. Locke said.

“Who cares? This kid is probably a loser,” she said. “Let’s head out anyways.”

They all started heading toward the van. Wait no! They were supposed to attack me. Hmm. How could I turn this around?

“I’m going to video record you guys and report you to the police if you don’t return Joseph right now!” I yelled out.

All four of them stopped.

“That was a bad move kid,” Mr. Locke said. “Guys, let’s take this kid in to shut her up.”

The two security guards stopped pushing the stretcher and started walking back toward me. Yes!

“Wait, what are you guys doing?” I had my 2nd clone say nervously. I had her start backing up, but the guards kept their steady pace.

“Please, leave me alone!” I said. “I won’t call the police.”

The two of them were almost upon me.

“Shut up kid,” the one on the right said. He reached out his arm to grab me.

I took out the bee syringe from my pocket and stabbed him with it as he touched my arm.

“Ouch!” he yelled.

“I told you to leave me alone,” I said as I pushed the handle. “I don’t like it when other people touch me.”

The red liquid disappeared, and he started screaming in pain. He fell to the ground and started screaming in pain. The syringe dropped from his body and rolled on the ground. It was kind of funny to see him flailing in pain. It was almost like he was having a seizure. I kind of wanted to wait the full hour and see how he would react afterward.

A gunshot hit my 2nd clone in the chest. Fuck. I should have been paying more attention. My 2nd clone staggered back a bit.

“Fucking hell,” the other guard said. “What the fuck did you do?”

I took out the spider syringe from my pocket.

“Wait, what?” he said. “An Adumb-”

His words got cut off as I threw the syringe at him. But instead of sending him full force into the building on the other side, it embedded itself in his stomach. The handle moved on its own, and the guard fell limp onto the street.

My wound started healing itself up. Sadly, the clothes didn’t regenerate. So, now my apron, lab coat, and the shirt underneath had a hole.

But why didn’t the syringe at least pierce his body? Maybe it was part of my powers? I used the syringes before, and they didn’t break easily even though I was using super strength.

I turned my 2nd clone towards Mr. Locke and Dr. Aguilar. Mr. Locke pulled out a gun from inside his trenchcoat. My other two syringes were regenerating, so I took out the ant syringe and threw it at Mr. Locke. He fired the gun as the syringe embedded itself into him and injected the liquid. I got hit in the leg. Fucking hell.

He started to shrink in size. Meanwhile, my wound started regenerating. I really should try dodging bullets. Bullets rarely hurt my main body, but they sting a bit more for my kid scientist form.

“What the fuck?” he said as he tried firing his gun. I moved to the side to dodge his attack, but the gun didn’t fire. “Why isn’t this working? Is it jammed?”

“Uh, sir?” Dr. Aguilar asked as Mr. Locke continued to shrink in size. My other two syringes had finished reforming. That was maybe around ten seconds.

“Wait, what’s happening to me?” he asked, in a slightly higher pitch. I walked up, curious to see what else would happen. He kept shrinking until he was barely taller than the edge of my boot. So, it just shrank whatever. But it seemed to be to different sizes. The cockroach practically became invisible. But Mr. Locke was over an inch tall still. Does it mean that it only shrinks things by a certain amount?

“What did you do?” Dr. Aguilar said.

I ignored her just like how she ignored me and walked up to her.

“Wait, what are you planning on doing?” she panicked. “Please leave me alone. I didn’t try to attack you.” Yeah, but you insulted me and were also working with these guys who were going to kidnap me. So, in essence, you bothered me and need to be punished by Rule #4.

“You kept insulting me for being a dummy and a loser kid,” I had my 2nd clone say.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she begged. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m also getting tired of looking up at you,” I said, looking up at her. “You are way too tall.”

“Huh?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

I grabbed her hand. Ten seconds had passed, so the ant syringe had reformed. I grabbed it while she tried to escape from me. Thankfully, I still had superstrength, so her escape was futile. It looked funny from the perspective of my main body. In my Red Hood form, I could see her trying desperately to get out of this little kid’s grasp. She tried grabbing a syringe from her pocket using her free hand and injected me with it. Bitch. It didn’t really hurt, but if I waited too long, I might become drowsy. Although, given how many sleeping darts it took to take my main body down, I might be fine for a while.

I injected the ant syringe into Dr. Aguilar. The yellow liquid quickly went into her body.

“What are you doing to me?” she panicked as she started to shrink. “No!”

I put my 2nd clone’s hands on her hips as I continued to watch her panic. After a few moments of standing still, she tried rushing to the van but stumbled as she tried to get on as she was still shrinking. I walked up to her with my 2nd clone and picked her up gently. It was like when I used to pick up insects as a kid.