I took out the spider syringe and threw it at the doctor. He fell to the ground in an almost comedic fashion. Now he couldn’t call for help.

I took off my Ento mask, and my 2nd clone grew again. She was holding SpookyErind’s mask in her right hand. The switch in my main body went off, and SpookyErind reappeared instantly, causing her mask to vanish.

“Okay, can you track me?” I asked Deen with my main body. 

Deen pulled up her phone and looked at Snippet. A few moments later, she nodded.

“Yeah, I can track you,” she said. “Your clones are at 2388 Saint Patricia’s Street.”

“Let me pull that up on the GPS,” Johann said. “That’s about an hour's drive from here.”

“Let’s get going then,” Dario said. We immediately headed off.

That just left SpookyErind and me to wreak some havoc before our team got here. But first, I had some things I wanted to try out. I had my 2nd clone summon her Ento goggles to put them on.

“Wait,” Deen cried out. “I lost track of your 2nd clone.” Oh right, the phone wasn’t on her Ento body.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I just transformed her back into her Ento form.”

“Oh, just stay safe then,” she said. “I don’t want any of your clones to die.”

I was about to respond and say I could summon them back, but only I knew that because Statue Lady killed SpookyErind in her Red Hood form. I’d have to contradict myself since I never said any of my clones died. And you figure that would be something important to tell the team. 

That did bring up an interesting question though. Should I try to preserve my clones' lives? I would prefer if they didn’t experience excruciating pain. And it’s pretty jarring to deal with them dying. So I guess I would prefer to keep them alive. But I don’t think I’d be sad at all if they died. I can just bring them back later.

The room Ento and SpookyErind were in seemed way more like a place you administer drugs compared to Dr. Choe’s office back at Eloycira. The room was composed of sleek sterile tiles, and various medical equipment surrounded the walls. The stretcher was in the middle of the room. Well, I guess it was more like a hospital. An evil hospital.

Unfortunately for this evil hospital, it decided to kidnap me, so I was going to punish it. Starting with the creepy male doctor. He looked like an old man in a lab coat, with wrinkles all over his face. He was resting peacefully on the ground. Not for much longer though.

What would happen if I used the bee syringe on him? I took it out of my pocket and injected it into his neck. I dropped it on the ground after the red liquid disappeared.

Nothing happened. Oops.

That experiment was a dud. Using the bee syringe after the spider syringe proved to be pretty useless. I guess the spider syringe was stronger. I kinda wanted to test the bee syringe again though. 

Hmm, does doing the spider syringe again do anything? I took out the reformed spider syringe and injected his neck with it again. I dropped the syringe when it was empty.  Wait, am I littering? I had my fair right to do whatever I wanted with this place. It bothered me. 

Deen would be so mad at me right now. She’s taking an environmental law class as an elective, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s an environmentalist. Thankfully, I was doing this outside of her view. That means no moral lecturing.

I also wanted to test the ant syringe again. I took it out and placed the needle on his neck. After injecting, the yellow liquid vanished into his body. No more point in that syringe. Clink. There were now four syringes on the ground. 

The creepy scientist dude started shrinking. A few seconds later he was the size of a pill. The hospitality in this place was pretty lacking, so I may as well get some sweet-tasting food while I’m here right? I picked him up with my right index finger and thumb.

Hey, wait a minute, SpookyErind said. I looked at her with Ento, brows raised. Why don’t you try transporting him in your apron’s right pocket like I said earlier? 

Right, she did say I could transport them in my empty apron pocket. But that still presented some problems. How was I going to transport him past my teammates? They’d probably think it’s pretty disturbing that I was taking him with me. Even though, they wouldn’t mind killing him. I guess that’s just the hero's mindset - killing in the most “moral” way possible. I didn’t really understand it, but since I was playing the face of a hero, I couldn’t be doing this in front of my teammates.  

Just try it, SpookyErind said. She did seem to have some knowledge of the future. Didn’t that technically make her my guardian angel? Nah. She messes with me too much. I guess I could try it out though. Maybe I do get lucky.

I put him in my apron’s right pocket and he disappeared. What? I could feel his ‘essence’ inside the pocket. I put my right hand back in the pocket and tried grabbing the ‘essence’ and his body immediately reappeared.

See, now we can build our insect colony, SpookyErind cheered. I guess I should have realized how cryptic SpookyErind was being. She’s always hinted at knowing more. Realistically, though, she should tell me in plain English what was going to happen. I shouldn’t have to expend brain power trying to figure this out. But you’re smart right, so you’ll always be able to figure it out.

That was right, I was smart. But sometimes, you just want things to be easy. I guess life is never that simple.

I dropped the lab coat guy back into my pocket, and he vanished again. The feeling of his essence filled up my pocket. It’d be fun to experiment on him more when he wakes up. He’d been experimenting on people for so long, but now I was the one going to experiment on him. The irony.

As I headed to the door with Ento, SpookyErind put on her black face mask. Huh. 

There might be pesky security cameras out there, she said. Well, let’s find out. 

I opened the door and took a peak. The hallway was way less sterile. It looked like some poor manufacturing plant. Mom showed me one when I was younger. Greaves was in the process of modernizing it, but it looked like it came out of the 1800s. Also, there was no air conditioning, which really sucked given how hot it was. I could not imagine people working there.

And this is why you support good workplace regulations. 

Off at the end of the hallway, a little black bulb stuck out of the ceiling. There’s the security camera. I wonder how much time I would have before the guards would come. There didn’t seem to be any here. Why would there be? It’s not like they expected any of their patients to have superpowers.

Past it, I could see some windows next to it letting the sunset shine through. So I was definitely above ground. 

“My clones are at least on ground level,” I said with my main body.

“Yeah, I don’t think we would have been able to track you otherwise,” Johann said. 

“There’s a camera here, though,” I added. “Guards might be coming my way.”

“Maybe try to hide?” Deen asked. 

“Hide?” I snorted. “I’ve already been spotted.”

“Yeah, but the 2M’s might be more dangerous there,” she said. “And I can’t fathom you getting hurt anymore.”

It was just my clones. Deen was way too overprotective. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I said.

I decided to enter the room across from mine. May as well see what’s here before the guards arrived. Checking both sides of the long hallway, nobody was there. I tried opening the door, but it was locked. I had Ento use some superstrength to push the door open. The sounds of creaks and tears filled my ears as the door fell inward. A crashing sound came next. 

“Wait what?” a young man in a lab coat said. He was considerably more attractive than the person who tried to kidnap me, with a lean stature and a chiseled chin. He was standing next to a person on a stretcher. Sci-fi equipment with bright neon lights was next to him. What the fuck was going on here?

I took out the ant syringe and threw it at the doctor. He shrieked as the needle embedded itself in his chest and the liquid began entering his body. The scientist dwindled in size quickly. I went over to pick him up with my right hand.

I was reminded back when I experimented on Surgeon Lady and Trenchcoat Guy I ended up pretending to be multiple people. Sadly, my main body wasn’t here, but it was pretty cool to juggle all of that. I created so many new faces to interact with my enemies. A cute, innocent yet virtuous girl. And then an evil villainous Adumbrae.

There was a new one I wanted to try.

“What is going on?!” Lab Coat Guy cried out. His voice had a pitch as high as helium, which was very funny.

“I’m a Corebring from the Hive,” I said. “I’ve come to stop you evil Adumbrae from experimenting on these poor people.”

“I’m not an Adumbrae!” he panicked. “I’m just a scientist working here. Please let me go. I’ll do anything for the Mother Core.”

Generally, I wouldn’t try revealing that I’m a Corebring. Not from the Hive though. But I didn’t intend to let him go rat off to the other 2M’s anyways.  

Also, wasn’t it funny that he was now begging the Mother Core even though he had been working for the Adumbrae for so long? It was also funny that my heroic face struck terror inside of this guy. I wished I could read minds so I could find out how desperate he was after he learned I was a Corebring.

“I’ll let you go if you tell me how to save the people you’ve kidnapped,” I said. While actual Corebrings may want to save people for moral reasons, I just wanted to put this face in action. It was more like a numbers game of how many people I could save, rather than actual compassion for my fellow humans. Not that I was even human anymore.

How would I get these people out anyways? Maybe my team would help with that. Although, it would be a pretty difficult task. Not that affected my competitive nature. 

“Uh… just disconnect the wires and tubes from the X01 Machine from the patient,” he said shakily. 

I took a look at the machine. Neon lights danced around knobs and numbers on the box. A set of wires and tubes came out of it, connecting to the arm of the patient, who seemed to be an old lady with a heavy set of bags in her eyes. One of those hospital heartbeat monitoring machines was also next to it, and it seemed her heartbeat was fine.

“You can return me back to normal right after you free her?” he asked.

“Yes, but I intend to free the other hostages first,” I said. While I was fulfilling the heroic role of my face, I was also secretly tormenting him more by saying he’d have to wait. “So I just have to disconnect this stuff right?”

The black liquid was coming out of the tubes into the patient. What the fuck are they doing here? I had no idea what any of this stuff is. Hopefully, it isn’t harmful. At least Ento has gloves. I grabbed the wires with my left hand and began crushing them. Thankfully, Ento had super strength. She was weaker than her normal Erind clone self though. 

Some of the black liquid spilled out onto my gloves. Ew. But I didn’t feel any burning sensations, so hopefully, it meant Ento was fine. 

“Okay, let’s go save the other-”

Suddenly, the heartbeat rating monitor started beeping. The jumping green lines of the heartbeat quickly flattened, and the monitor went red.

Wait a minute. I took a look at the patient’s chest. It definitely wasn’t beating. Their face wasn’t breathing either. 

They were definitely dead now.

I just failed to save this person. It was like playing Tappy Dash and I died right at the end. Being denied something so simple was very annoying. All I was trying to do was pretend to be a hero. I guess the World just hated me no matter what I did.

Although, maybe it got mad at me for treating people’s lives as a video game. Hey, that was the only way I could really care about them. Saving more people gave you more points. And I loved getting more points. Actually caring about people in any other way was just way too difficult. 

That was what made me confused about volunteers. They just helped people without any reward for themselves. Some people at my high school did volunteer work. I guess they did get a chance to put in on their resume. Were they actually doing it to do good work or were they just looking for a resume boost? I wonder how many people were like that. Were there any heroes that had the same view as me when saving people? Sadly, I didn’t know any Corebrings, so I didn’t know what their motivations behind saving people were.

Now I could wallow in sadness like some of those hero stories I’ve read, but there was somebody else I could blame.

“Did you lie to me?” I asked sternly. I can’t believe this guy just caused me to fail.