We made our way through the giant warehouse. I swear this thing was a labyrinth. I had no idea there could be so many corridors. And there were several warehouses! How the fuck did the 2M’s build all this? Did they have an Adumbrae that just makes warehouses appear out of thin air? 

That’d actually be a pretty cool power. Just make warehouses appear on top of your enemies, and bam!

We approached a big sliding door when Deen spoke up.

“Stop!” she yelled.

“Huh? What is it?” Myra asked. 

“My Guardian Angel is warning me,” she said. “There’s Adumbrae up ahead, and they’ve prepared a trap for us.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Myra asked. “Walk around them?”

“Hey Emcee,” Deen said. Everett’s eyes lit up. I wonder what the rest of his face obscured by his mask looked like. 

On the one hand, I was jealous Deen was able to get boys easier. Like, look at this. Everett just magically starts paying attention. That’d be a cool superpower. Yet, I wasn’t sure I wanted boys to chase after me. I found that part pretty annoying. Was there a way to strike a balance?

I remember when I was still a kid that a boy went up and told me he liked me. I can’t remember his name but I do remember hitting him with a drum. I was interested in seeing how people react to being hit. And he said he liked me so I figured it was fine for me to hit him. 

I got scolding from Mom about how hitting people was bad. Of course, now I was hitting bad guys. So it was fine now. 

“Yeah Pythia?” he asked.

“Can you get ready to shoot a fireball?” she asked.

“Sure, anything for you,” he said. I internally cringed.

“Okay, fire it over there on my signal,” Deen said as she went up to the door. She pulled it open and yelled “Now!”

Everett threw a fireball as electroshock bullets came into the room. Thankfully, I was hiding behind Myra. An explosion rocked the other room. Followed by more explosions. Did they have oil barrels in there? 

“Ow!” Everett yelled. 

“Are you all right?” Deen asked.

“I’m fine, just got grazed,” he said. “My left arm’s kinda stiff now.”

“Stay behind us,” Dario said. “Good job on blowing them up.”

“Thanks man,” Everett replied. Deen just continued marching on. 

All of us continued into the giant room. Fires were still going off. There were a bunch of barrels in here. Wait, would another explosion go off? No, Deen would warn us if that was the case. Maybe there were other types of barrels here.

The sides were littered with remains. But there was no flesh nor blood. It was as if everyone cleared the scene of gore. Instead remains of clay surrounded uniforms and electroshock weapons.

“Clay?” I asked.

“Some fucker’s power,” Myra said. “It looks like they can make clay clones of themselves.”

They definitely could make a lot of clones given how much clay was here. But how strong were those clones? Were my clones stronger? Probably, since I was both a Corebring and an Adumbrae. Yet, I wouldn’t know for sure. Statue Lady was only an Adumbrae and she could have easily killed me.

“The fire’s not going to burn the whole place down is it?” Myra asked. 

“I hope not,” Dario said. Blubber, Oberon’s faerie, sat on his shoulder. 

“What would happen to all the hostages?” I asked, trying to feign sympathy. “I hope they’d be okay.” As soon as I said that, the sprinklers turned on. The fire wasn’t growing at all either. Nevermind then.

“Don’t worry, Synchron,” Deen told me. “We’ll save them.” Wow, everyone was using codenames. We really were like secret superheroes. 

Sadly, for Deen, I’m not sure if we would be able to save all the hostages. It looks like many of them were connected to those weird sci-fi devices. We wouldn’t be able to disconnect them. It would be fun to see what the reactions of my teammates would be. Failure does produce interesting reactions. Sometimes, people try to better themselves. Other times, people just wallow in misery.

Since I’m perfect, I never fail.

A doorway was on the opposite side of where we entered. There were in fact many doorways. Deen’s Guardian Angel didn’t give any advice on which one to take, so we kept on going in the same direction.

Deen opened the door to the other side.

“What the fuck is that?” I muttered.

Something was coating the sides of the hallway. It seemed to be made out of pitch black with bright red along the edges. What the fuck was this? Was this a superpower or did somebody try and make an evil sci-fi-themed hallway?

“My Guardian Angel says to stay close and be prepared,” Deen said. 

I hated that we had no idea what we were going up against. Should I bring my clones here? There were still busy ransacking the other warehouse. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. 

We continued walking down the hallway. I half expected something to jump out of the walls or start shooting us. At the end of the hallway was an intersection. We could either go left, forward, or right. 

“Which way should we go?” Myra asked Deen. Damn, it was like I was becoming a sidekick and Deen was the main protagonist. Her stupid powers allowed her to be so useful. It actually made me kind of jealous. 

“It just said to the stick together,” Deen said. 

“Hmm, maybe let’s take a right this time,” Myra said. Myra and I were at the front. Actually, it was more like Myra was in front of me. In case any electroshock bullets came, I hope they hit her. Still, I kind of wanted to get into the action some more. Beating up normal humans felt pretty good. Was I returning to being a kid again? Beating up humans and experimenting on insects? Nostalgia filled my mind. Those were some fun times. 

“Watch out!” Deen yelled.

Suddenly, a loud crash occurred behind us. Myra and I turned around.

Instead of our teammates, we were greeted with a panel of that black-red sci-fi stuff. Where the fuck did that come from?

“Guys?” Myra asked. 

“We’re oka–” Dario said as gunfire erupted. A feeling of nausea filled my head. Fuck. Did he turn on his sickness field?

Myra tried breaking down the panel blocking us with her arms, but it didn’t budge.

“Synchron, help me out here,” she said.

I got up to her and tried punching it with my arms, but nothing happened. What the fuck is this made of?

“Guys?” Myra asked. Another crash occurred. The feeling of nausea got less intense, but we could still hear the gunfire. Then, there was another crash. Are they trying to separate us with the panels? 

“Guys?” Myra asked again. The feeling of sickness vanished.

“Fuck!” Myra yelled. “We’re not strong enough. I hope the rest are okay.”

“I’m sure they are fine,” I said, trying to comfort her. “They have Deen. I’m pretty sure her guardian angel will protect all of them.”

“You’re right,” she said. “We should move on and see if we can stop whatever Adumbrae is causing this.”

I nodded. 

We went down the hallway.

 

Meanwhile, Ento was busy picking up some of the mutants that the 2M’s made and putting them in her pocket. It was weird how I could still identify which essence belonged to what. I wasn’t going to complain though.

I had 20 humans, 1 Adumbrae, and seven mutants. I wonder how much more I could get? 

SpookyErind picked Ento up.

“Hey!” I said. “What are you doing?”

You said I could carry you, she replied. Oh right, I did. And there were no more mutants left. 

She started walking down the hallway and made random turns. It was as if she knew how to traverse this place. I do remember she told me time acted a bit weird for her, so she was able to know the future. I just wish I had that knowledge too.

SpookyErind began humming again as she walked down the hall. It was kind of boring now. Ento and SpookyErind hadn’t encountered anything. And Myra and I were still walking down the weirdly coated hallway. None of the 2M’s jumped out at us, and I kind of wished they did. 

Don’t worry, we’ll encounter some people soon, SpookyErind said.

A few moments later, we came around a corner. At the corner’s edge was a door, surrounded by what looked like bombs. Did they think we would just walk into this? A machine with a red light was in the middle. Was that a sensor?

Throw a syringe at it, SpookyErind said.

I had Ento take out the bee syringe and throw it toward the pile of bombs. The machine’s light turned green, and an explosion filled the hall. After the smoke cleared, the door remained perfectly intact. Wow, an explosion-resistant door. I should get one of those.

The door opened and gunfire came out. It just hit the wall since none of us were nearby. What were they doing?

“Is it safe?” I heard a male voice say. 

“Quiet,” a more gruff and older-sounding voice said.

SpookyErind continued walking forward toward the door. I guess they ran out of tricks if SpookyErind was just going to walk in. Why didn’t they retreat? 

 As we made it to the door, I saw two men in some kind of soldier’s vests. One had graying hair and the other had dirty brown hair. They each had pistols pointed at us and started firing. I rolled my eyes as the bullets did nothing against us. 

I took out the ant syringe and threw it at Brown Hair Guy. I sent the other two syringes to Gray Hair Guy. He collapse on the ground as Brown Hair Guy started shrinking and his gun jammed.

SpookyErind set Ento down. I picked up Brown Hair Guy who was panicking while I waited for ten seconds to pass. However, his panic soon turned into rage.

“Let me go!” he screamed with a high pitch. He tried to flail but my fingers kept him trapped. I threw the ant syringe at Gray Hair Guy and picked him up with my left hand after he shrunk. My right hand held Brown Hair Guy.

“I’ll let you-” I tried to say but then he started screeching. Seriously? I gave him a light squeeze. I didn’t want to pop him like Scientist Lady. He gasped and stopped screeching.

“I’ll let you go if you tell me how to get a floor plan of where all the mutants are,” I said.

“Umm… You’ll really let me go?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I lied. I needed to give him an incentive to do something for me. 

“Wait, no!” he exclaimed. “I pledged my loyalty to Big Marcy. I’ll never let you bandits get away with this.”

“How unfortunate,” I said. It really was. I did want to find more mutants. They came in so much variety, unlike the humans and Adumbrae. I had the shrunken isopod mutant, a human with wings, a human with many legs, and so many more. It reminded me of the variety of bugs I encountered as a child.

Now I could let SpookyErind take me everywhere, but I was an independent woman damnit! Ento may be short, even shorter than her, but she should be able to make her own decisions. And by her I mean me.

SpookyErind didn’t say anything, but she did frown behind her mask. She probably did know where the other mutants are, but I kind of wanted to solve things on my own. I hated relying on people. Of course, SpookyErind wasn’t really a person, but the same principles applied. I wanted to be the one in control of my life. 

So we would do things my way. Besides, I wanted to see if I could torture this guy enough to give me the information. 

“We could have done this the easy way,” I said. I gave Gray Hair Guy to SpookyErind and grabbed Brown Hair Guy’s left leg with my left thumb and index finger. I started squeezing. A little crack occurred. High-pitched screams filled my ears.

I released some pressure from his leg. He gasped and coughed. 

“So, are you willing to tell me it now?” I asked.

“Nev- Never,” he coughed out. 

Is there like a professional torture guide? I might need one if this continues. I’ve tortured bugs before, but I’ve never had to get information out of them. So I was kind of going into this blind. 

I already broke his left leg. Maybe he’ll respond better if I break his right one?

I grabbed his right leg. 

“It only gets worse from here,” I said as I began squeezing. He screamed and sobbed. 

I heard a crack and stopped increasing the pressure. I held his leg like that for a few seconds and then released it.

“How about now?” I asked. 

“I’d rather die than tell you bitch,” he said. Rude. Anyways, it turns out this wasn’t working. How the hell does the BID do it?

Maybe I could try fear instead? 

“All right,” I said. “I guess I’ll just eat you.”

I raised him up and tilted my head. Opening my mouth, I slowly lowered him. He started screaming and flailing.

“No!” he screamed. “I give up! I can’t take this anymore. I’ll tell you.”

I closed my mouth and beamed. I had no idea why that worked, but it did.

“Just go up to the computer,” he said with a cough.

I walked up to it, but the chair and the desk was too tall. 

Need a lift? SpookyErind asked. I nodded. She raised me up and put me on the chair. That was very embarrassing. Thankfully, Brown Hair Guy didn’t comment on it otherwise I may have actually eaten him.

“The password is BigMarcyFan123,” he said. Wow, he looked up to Big Marcy so much. No wonder he stayed here and tried to defend this place. It was pretty stupid to not retreat, but at least I could understand his motivations. 

Typing in the password, I was immediately let in. A video of the hallway showed up. Oh, so this was the camera system. 

“You can check the cameras to see which rooms the mutants are in,” he said. “I don’t have the rooms memorized, but there is a little minimap in the bottom left corner. You can press on it to see the whole floor plans and each camera.”

There were also buttons to cycle through each camera. Nice. I put him in my apron’s right pocket now that he was no longer needed. He vanished. SpookyErind walked over and put Gray Hair Guy in my pocket, who also vanished. I now had 22 humans.

A couple of rooms had mutants in them. I took mental notes of where they were and there locations on the map. 

Time to collect some more mutants!

 

Sadly, my main body was still walking through the black and red hallways with Myra.

 The hallway lead into a giant room, which was still coated. There were two hallways branching from this room we could take. A left one and a right one. We decided to go towards the left one.

“Do you think there’s an end to this?” I asked. I hoped I wasn’t stuck there.

“There’s got to be,” Myra said. “If not, we should run into the guy who made this place.”

“Welcome bandits,” a voice announced. 

We turned around. A brown haired lady in a trenchcoat and fedora stood behind us. She had a sword in her left hand and a pistol in the other. 

Besides somehow teleporting behind us, the most weird thing was that her clothes, sword, and gun were covered in the same pitch black material as the rest of the room. The only way I could tell what objects they were was the bright red outlines. 

“I hope you’ve enjoyed my hardlight designs,” she said. “Sadly, your friends weren’t as appreciative of them.”

“What did you do to them?” Myra asked furiously.

Rather than responding, Fedora Lady opened fire on Myra.